Natural Rights

[Agathon]

There seems to be some strange sort of opacity here. Some posters have claimed that the fact that people desire certain things means that they have a right to them or some sort of moral claim upon others.

The problem with this is that it involves a fallacy. You cannot infer from:

1) Everyone has a desire for freedom and well being.

to

2) Everyone ought to take other peoples’ desires for freedom and well being into account when determining their own actions.

The fallacy is moving from a statement of fact (an “is” statement) to a moral prescription (an “ought” statement). This is not a valid argument unless you include the conditional, “If everyone has a desire for freedom and well being, then they ought to take other peoples’ desires for freedom and well being into account when determining their own actions”.

But what reason do we have for thinking that conditional is true?

Moreover, the question of whether morality is objective or has any binding logical force on rational agents who refuse to accept moral reasons is completely separate from the question of whether these reasons are to be understood in the form of rights claims.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Azazel
Because GePap didn't clarify well enough that he's not a libertarian. I knew that he is not a libertarian, that's why that baffled ( and scared ) me.

Ah, but Azazel, that is my ability to argue all sides, even those I am totally opposed to personally, coming to fore.

[David Floyd]

Agathon,

Uhoh, we've already had this discussion, and as I recall I won the debate. Round 2, then?

Take the simple case where there is a stark decision between killing one person in order to save 100 others from being killed by someone else.

Killing one person does not "save" 100 others. Their life and/or death is not your responsibility, and is not under your control. Only the person who would ordinarily kill them can save them.

1) Allow that the killing of one person in this case is morally justifiable because 100 violations of the right to life are worse than only one.

But this ignores the point that moral behavior governs individual actions - morality is not a math problem. Murder is immoral in every case - it's wrong for you to murder one person, and it's wrong for someone else to murder 100.

2) Allow the 100 people to be killed since rights based theories prohibit each individual from performing certain actions no matter what the consequences. In other words, what matters is that I don't break the rule, what other people do is their own business.

No, what other people do is not "their business", if that action is mass murder. If someone kills 100 people, then they should obviously be punished. And if I kill 1 person, I should be punished, as well.

Libertarians don't like (1) since, among other things, when applied to property it justifies welfare and more generally it justifies the sacrifice of individuals for a common good (in this case that = the sum total of rights violations prevented by a lesser number of violations).

No, Libertarians don't like that option because it involves committing murder.

But disagreeing with (1) is stupid since you are effectively saying that 100 murders are better than one, as long as you don't do any of them.

No, by not choosing to commit murder, you aren't making a statement that 100 murders are OK. You are making the statement that murder is wrong, and because murder is wrong, you will NOT commit murder. If someone else commits murder, that is also wrong, but you aren't responsible for their actions.

That would be enough for most people to reject (1) as hopelessly evil. Nevertheless, Libertarians are nothing if not pig headed so more is required.

It's pigheaded and evil NOT to commit murder?

[/quote]This can be achieved by posing a simple question. What's makes violating the right to life bad?
Is it the effect on the victim or something about the person who does it?[/quote]

Murder is wrong because of what it does to the victim.

It's obvious that (1) chooses the former and (2) the latter (with the proviso that the offender is me - I don't have to care about others or I would be back to an aggregation view).

That's not correct at all.

So for (2) the effects on the victims are completely irrelevant, the only thing of moral import is that I don't break the rule.

Not at all. Moral behavior is something that you can control only as it relates to your own behavior. You can't prevent someone from committing murder, except by physically acting against that person. If you kill 1 person because he says that if you don't, he'll kill 100, you haven't prevented the murder of 100, you've simply murdered one person. Only HE can prevent himself from murdering 100 people, UNLESS you can take action against HIM.

This is so selfish that it can hardly be called "morality" - it basically asserts that my moral purity matters more than the suffering of others.

Again, not at all. Moral behavior NEVER causes suffering. Immoral behavior certainly does, but as long as you are behaving morally you are not contributing to immorality.

It's also senseless. What's the point of obeying the rule if it isn't to prevent suffering?

I still fail to see why commiting murder prevents anything. There are really two separate acts taking place - your murder of 1, and someone else's murder of 100. Neither of these actions have any bearing on each other, as only the two potential murderers (you and the other guy) can make the final decision about whether or not to commit murder. If you want to prevent suffering, then obviously you won't commit murder.

[David Floyd]

But what reason do we have for thinking that conditional is true?

So you're telling me you think it's false?

[Az]

Originally posted by GePap


Ah, but Azazel, that is my ability to argue all sides, even those I am totally opposed to personally, coming to fore.

I love doing it myself, sometimes.

[Kidlicious]

Take the example of gun ownership. Say that you could successfully argue that gun ownership is a natural right, but that society has passed a law to make it illegal. So what if it is an individual's natural right to own a gun? As a society we have decided that individuals should not own guns. You could say that society is immoral, but who really gives a ****?

[David Floyd]

You could say that society is immoral, but who really gives a ****?

And eventually, when society also decides that ALL property should be banned, well, maybe THAT'S immoral too, but who cares, right?

[GePap]

Originally posted by David Floyd
So you're telling me you think it's false?

No, he is saying you can not prove the Ought simply by proving there is the is. He is saying you have to prove the ought independently, with another arguement.

[David Floyd]

I know, I'm just trying to call him out on actual beliefs

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by David Floyd
And eventually, when society also decides that ALL property should be banned, well, maybe THAT'S immoral too, but who cares, right?

Sure. Society has made a rational choice to benefit itself. Who cares about individuals natural rights if the individuals are better off?

[Japher]

I think the answer does lie in the subjectivity of morals.

Yet, rights indicate laws, and laws indicate a society. Thus, a the majorities morals will dictate the rights, natural or not. I still feel, however, that the idea of "natural rights" is something to be addressed on an individual basis, as these are based on personal desires.

Yet, if desires are removed from the equation the only natural "rights" some has are those abilities that they are born with... to attempt to breathe, to attempt to grow, and die... nothing more.

Even the US yields the right to persue such things, adding in success and happiness. Yet, only the right to persue, not to obtain.

[David Floyd]

Who cares about individuals natural rights if the individuals are better off?

So individuals are better off without any of their property? And what if a society decides that slavery is OK? It may be immoral, but who cares, right?

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Sure. Society has made a rational choice to benefit itself. Who cares about individuals natural rights if the individuals are better off?

The point is that if natural rights were to exist, then if every person were granted those rights, there couldn't be a better situation.

If natural rights are derived from human desires, then in order for you to be granted your natural rights you must possess all that you desire. If this were the case, then there couldn't be a better system for society.

A society that works to grant people their natural rights would be the best possible society.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Templar -

No trip is necessary, rights - moral claims - are expressions of universal desires.

Certainly a highly disputed position. Most Christians I know (left and right wing) would argue that moral claims are based on the will of God and desires, universal or otherwise, be damned! Thus your position must be defended as 'rights' and 'universal desires' are not definitionally connected.

Oh I see,

A right is nothing more than a moral claim of ownership, and universal desires help illustrate "ownership". If any act is moral, it is an act based on a universal desire since we all agree on the desire. The reason we run into problems discerning what is or is not moral is because the act is not based on a universal desire.

You're using an idiosyncratic definition of 'right' - ergo you are not talking about the same thing everyone else is.

Seriously though, if you pack property into the definition of right the you are not making an argument, you are merely explicating your idiosyncratic definition. The more usual definition of a 'right' is that a right to x trumps any countervailing claims on the part of others with respect to x.

For example, the right to free speach trumps any other interest in restraining you speach. So that even if Andrea Dworkin or Billy Graham think your speach is pornographic, and therefore morally wrong, your right to pornographic speach trumps even their moral claims. Thus a right can even give you the right to do something morally objectionable on the grounds that it would be more morally objectionable to interfere with your rights. Even rights like the right to health care (a less contentious right in other countries) can be expressed as your right to it trumps any reason (lack of money, spite, etc.) a provider might give to not provide healthcare.

Rights, then, are conceptually distinct from desires or ownership. Now you might seek to ground rights in universal desires or in ownership (certainly an ownership foundation is big among the libertarian set) but that means you must argue from rights to desire.

A universal desire to be happy doesn't equal a universal desire to play video games. However, you certainly have the right to play video games as long as you don't infringe upon the right of others to be left out of your pursuit of happiness.

If universal desire not to be murdered entails a right not to be murdered, then a universal desire not to be murdered entails a right not to be shot to death. One may reason from general to specific.

Now, if a universal desire to be happy entails a right to be happy, and if my happiness is dependent on having an Xbox, then I have a right to an X-box, even if I can't afford one.

I take it, Berz, that you don't mean to create entitlements to possessions through your argument. Noentheless your argument allows for it. So send me my free Xbox!

Whose life is it anyway? If your life is yours - a right - then your labor is yours as well. If you expend your labor building a home, you have a right to that home - an extension of your labor and life. If "society" - a group of people - take away your home, they've taken the labor you spent building the home and that means they've taken away part of your life. Now, does anyone want someone else taking away the house they've spent years acquiring? No, hence a universal desire to life, labor, and the property built with that labor...

Again, you jump the gun and make unfounded conclusions. Life and labor are separable. A community can guarantee my right to life yet fully determine my labor. Even in the US labor is regulated. I cannot, for instance, sell or produce illicit drugs. But OK, maybe you want to say the drug prohibition is immoral (as i would).

Again, imagine that x, a great sculptor, is given a chunk of gold which x uses to create a wonderful statue. Now suppose, unbeknownst to x, the gold was stolen from y - who claims ownership by right of labor in extracting and smelting the ore. Here's the question - who owns the statue. While y owns the gold - y cannot own the statue as y contributed no labor. Moreover, x's labor created the statute - but the statue depends on the gold which x has no entitlement to. So who owns the statue? As you can see, labor is an insufficient principle from which to determine the ownership of the products of labor.

You needed that spelled out? Thanks for identifying a flaw. Oh wait, I did spell that out in my opening post when I made a distinction between humans and animals...

Actually, what I need spelled out is the grounds on which you justify separating humans and other animals into distinct moral categories. I don't even detect an attempt on your part to employ fuzzy categories - i.e. plants and sea-sponges (things very much not like us) have no moral status, but chimps (being very much like us) have near equal status. Come on then, when I think universal I think everything. Why only people? How do you justify that distinction?

The "logic" used by racists is similiar to the logic used by those who say rights are given (or taken) by "society". Slavery usually occured when a majority - "society" - decided a minority shouldn't have rights.

Exactly my point. You are saying humans may take animals for food and labor as they see fit. How speciest of you!

I've spelled that out too. Rights involve human interaction, not interactions between humans and animals. And rights exist within the context of the natural world, i.e., animals eat other life forms to survive. And a right to live is not an immunity from disease or being eaten by animals. But good luck enslaving a cat, if anything, they enslave us.

Dude! You haven't spelled out jack ****! You've merely stated rights involve human interaction. I disagree, and most people who believe in any sort of animal rights disagree. People have been known to eat each other when things get desperate. Also, most animals won't eat their own kind unless they are desperate. Not that eating each other is relevant to rights - you are confusing is with ought here - the naturalistic fallacy.

Granted enslaving a cat is a futile effort, btu I'm sure they would not appreciate being forced to pull a sled if you hooked a bunch of cats up to one.

Come on, Berz! Setting up your own idiosyncratic defintions of terms and then making analytical arguments is boring. Use the same definitions as the rest of us and make an argument!

[Agathon]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Agathon,

Uhoh, we've already had this discussion, and as I recall I won the debate. Round 2, then?

You floundered around for a couple of hundred posts and the debate ended, mainly because I couldn't be bothered with it. It ended at precisely this issue.

Anyway, let's cut to the chase.

This can be achieved by posing a simple question. What's makes violating the right to life bad?
Is it the effect on the victim or something about the person who does it?

Murder is wrong because of what it does to the victim.

Then, if you say that it doesn't matter who does it. And it also loses you the argument since if what it does to the victim is what really matters then we should prevent that happening as much as possible - in other words we should lower the overall number of rights violations. Sometimes this may involve murdering people ourselves to prevent a greater evil.

If you say that the wrongfulness resides in what it does to the victim then the only way out for you is to hold that 1 murder is the moral equivalent of 100. And that is just stupid.

Not at all. Moral behavior is something that you can control only as it relates to your own behavior. You can't prevent someone from committing murder, except by physically acting against that person.

You can also in my scenario prevent them killing 100 people by killing one, if he gives you the choice. People give other people the power to decide all the time, there's nothing weird about it.

If you kill 1 person because he says that if you don't, he'll kill 100, you haven't prevented the murder of 100, you've simply murdered one person. Only HE can prevent himself from murdering 100 people, UNLESS you can take action against HIM.

Lies. In my case you can stop him doing it.

Again, not at all. Moral behavior NEVER causes suffering.

This is simply false. If you don't kill someone in my scenario 100 people suffer. Of course you didn't cause this, but you had the power to intervene. But if you really cared about the suffering and not your own feelings you would murder the one.

I still fail to see why commiting murder prevents anything. There are really two separate acts taking place - your murder of 1, and someone else's murder of 100. Neither of these actions have any bearing on each other, as only the two potential murderers (you and the other guy) can make the final decision about whether or not to commit murder.

You are changing the case. If he says that he will kill 100 and you have good reason to believe that he will carry out his threat (and we have good reasons for predicting other peoples' actions all the time) then if you really care about there being less overall evil in the world you will commit the one murder.

You can't get out of this by saying that the actions have no bearing on each other because in this case (and thousands of others where people force decisions on us by promising to do things) that claim is simply false.

The real question is, do you think 100 murders are worse than one? And if you believe that, it is wholly irrational to settle for more if you really believe that what's bad is what it does to the victim.