Summations Only

Our laws ought to be a certain way because natural rights are unalienable. You have natural rights at birth. They are intrinsic to the human condition. Natural rights define how we ought to treat each other, and how a government should be constructed. Through reason and empathy. I am guessing that you don't want to be murdered, you don't want your stuff stolen, and you don't want to be put in prison for no good reason. Am I right? You are also capable of understanding that other humans have the same emotions. Therefore, it is wrong to do those things to them as well unless they threaten your life, liberty, and estate. This simple reasoning defines how we ought to treat each other. So you are indifferent to being murdered, stolen from, and imprisoned? Do you just pretend to care about these things? Every person has the same set of basic human rights.

I think a sense of fairness and empathy are both accurately described as universal human traits.The Golden Rule which I mentioned earlier is effectively a reasoned expression of these things and about as close to a "universal" basis for morality as I think you can get.The problem is that who fairness and empathy are applied to and exactly how they are applied in terms of "rights" is very much a social/cultural thing. It is far from "universal" in the inalienable timeless and culture independent sort of way you seem to mean when you talk about "natural rights".In what sense can I possess such rights if nobody knows what they are? And what makes "human rights" so inalienable? Do gorillas have inalienable rights too? Do intelligent aliens?I'm still sympathetic to the idea of constructing a set of rights that can be reasoned and implemented on a large scale based on broad consensus with that reasoning. I'd even be happy to call these "universal" rights.But the idea that humans specifically have some sort of special claim to rights that are independent of human society still seems like a rather arbitrary assertion on your part.

"unless they threaten your life, liberty, and estate", so no, not everyone.Too, you say they're there, but nobody can agree on exactly what they are. How's that work? Its not that I'm indifferent, I just don't see any basis on which to claim that I intrinsically ought to not have those things done to me. The only way I can see them actually existing is when they become legal rights.Otherwise, as I said, they're just make-believe.Every person has a different set of natural rights from every other person based on what they think you ought to have, so how can you say that everyone has a basic set of them?If I think that the Mona Lisa ought to be smiling a little more, does that exist as something? You say you can determine that there's an ought through reason and empathy:How do you determine if the Mona Lisa ought to be smiling more through reason and empathy?

More to the point....Reason might well cause some to think that the ongoing existence of the Mona Lisa is worth more than the life of a particular human (e.g a mass murdering paeodophile)If asked to choose between the destruction of the Mona Lisa or the killing of said individual I'm not sure that most would agree with Taq that the human has the inalienable right to life....In fact I'm not at all sure that ALL would choose the life of even an innocent human over something as culturally precious as the Mona Lisa.Whilst well meaning I don't think his assertions are very plausible.

So, my rights are superseded if they conflict with someone else's rights?Perhaps I have misunderstood what inalienable human rights are.
I thought that they couldn't be taken away.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.

You can be punished if your actions harm others. What is so hard to understand here? Apparently so. Self-defense is also one of those rights, your right to protect yourself from others. This is part of Locke's view of the social contract:

quote:

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John Locke's conception of the social contract differed from Hobbes' in several fundamental ways, retaining only the central notion that persons in a state of nature would willingly come together to form a state. Locke believed that individuals in a state of nature would be bound morally, by The Law of Nature, not to harm each other in their lives or possession, but without government to defend them against those seeking to injure or enslave them, people would have no security in their rights and would live in fear. Locke argued that individuals would agree to form a state that would provide a "neutral judge", acting to protect the lives, liberty, and property of those who lived within it. While Hobbes argued for near-absolute authority, Locke argued for inviolate freedom under law in his Second Treatise of Government. Locke argued that government's legitimacy comes from the citizens' delegation to the government of their right of self-defense (of "self-preservation"). The government thus acts as an impartial, objective agent of that self-defense, rather than each man acting as his own judge, jury, and executionerthe condition in the state of nature. In this view, government derives its "just powers from the consent [i.e, delegation] of the governed,".
Social contract - Wikipedia

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That is also the same for everyone. Why are people having such a hard time with this? It is very simple concept. Anyone who violates the human rights can face punishment. It is the same for everyone. Did you just shut your brain off?Really. You have no emotion whatsoever when it comes to someone taking your life. None whatsoever. Is that what you are telling me? If someone was standing over you with a knife you wouldn't raise a hand to protect yourself? You wouldn't feel one ounce of fear? Really? They have the same rights. What differs is whether or not their actions have harmed others.

Well, any punishment is a breach of my inalienable human rights.
But you seem to support people's inalienable human rights being removed.
Your statements have people's human rights added and removed at your whim, to suit your own needs.
"You have the right to liberty! But not if you do something that I don't like! Or that someone else doesn't like! Or that a government has deemed wrong!" But inalienable means that they can't be taken away.
So if you say that they can be taken away, then they are not inalienable human rights.They are simply subjective opinions that vary per person/country with no universal consistency or agreement.Your claims that we "ought to" have human rights is as worthless as claiming that god "ought to" exist.
Wishing for things does not make them magically exist.Human rights are no better than religious beliefs; founded on various traditions, habits and cultures with no actual basis in reality other than as a mental construct imagined by humans.
We are not "bound morally, by The Law of Nature" - we are disparate entities that have differing opinions on what people should be able to do.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.

The punishment involves alienating those humans being punished from the rights you are claiming are inalienable human rights.That is the problem.I'm bewildered as to how you cannot see the contradiction in this.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Because that's not unalienable... One punishment being loosing your "unalienable" right to liberty I said I'm not indifferent. What I don't see, is any basis on which to claim that I intrinsically ought to not have those things happen.The Law of the Jungle doesn't use those natural rights. Its only when we have societies that we can begin to pretend that there are natural rights. No, if every person has their own opinion on what rights are natural, i.e. the things people ought to have, then they will NOT be the same for everyone. If fact, there's practically an infinite number of different rights that every person thinks all the others ought to have, i.e. what natural rights exists and what don't.

A question that pops into my mind is whose rights are violated by you taking heroin? Or by you allowing your children to take heroin?To counter: Not if we were to legalize drugs.

I'd say "do unto others as they would like to be done by (correct phrasing?), unless it impedes on other persons who are unwilling to participate" Is a much better one. Perhaps I do not like to receive a spanking in an S&M session, to use an extreme example, but what if someone else does like it? Am I to deny them their right good spanking because I myself would not like to receive one?

I think "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you" includes letting others decide what they do or don't like being done to them.I know that I would object vociferously if my particular perverted desire to have my nipples clamped was denied me by those who don't share my fondness for nipple based pain-pleasures.I'd let them decide what they do or don't like and I demand the same from them.

Perhaps. Then again, I am drunk. But they don't like nipple crushing bricks of death, and they can't fathom anyone liking them either. Now what? In my case, They'd crush those nipples till they looked like bloody miniature cauliflowers. In your case they'd go: "No way! Nobody'd want that!" and walk away. Leaving your nipples pretty, and your sausage limp. By the way, which cream do you use to get rid of the irritated skin? On a more serious note. Yes, the golden rule does seem rather good, until you come upon complete morons (which the most of the human race are, in my opinion, but perhaps that is a different topic), and they can't imagine anyone not liking what they are liking.

Well as far as I am concerned doing unto others as I would have them do unto me includes letting them decide what they want done to them whether I can imagine wanting that particular thing done to me or not. Because that is what I would have them do unto me.I think you are over complicating things.... Frankly vaseline can cure (or at least respite) pain from practically any self desired activity I have ever yet tried.But that might tell you more about my lack of true adventure and personal limitations rather than anything about the all-conquering healing powers of vaseline.