Where Do Natural Rights Come From?

[Sinapus]

Well, if I ever become an Evil Overlord, manage to seize power in the world, I know which people I will definitely want my Legions of Terror to capture for torture and/or enslavement.

[Ramo]

Precisely. Why should I care if you live or die if morality is relative?

What do you mean by that? There's no magical being forcing you to think a certain way if that's what you mean...

Why would you consider it immoral for me to kill you?

That's how my moral system is defined. If you take away my liberties to such an extreme degree, you are immoral IMO.

Would you consider this moral behavior today?

By whom? By most people, probably not depending upon the specific example you have in mind.

God as a perfect moral being by nature cannot do what is wrong. God also puts a conscience into every human being.

Do you think Hitler had the same "conscience" as you do?

[Ben Kenobi]

That was the point I was trying to get across, that personal morality cannot compel respect for other people, let alone toleration.

As for Hitler's conscience, yes, I believe that he had the same conscience as you or I. Conscience will inform of proper behavior, but it cannot restrain. One can ignore one's conscience at a cost to moral reckoning.

This is why I believe we can hold people responsible for their actions. Moral relativism does not allow a person to be punished, simply because what he believes is on par with what everyone else believes.

[Imran Siddiqui]

That was the point I was trying to get across, that personal morality cannot compel respect for other people, let alone toleration.

Well of course! Personal morality doesn't do anything by itself.

Moral relativism does not allow a person to be punished, simply because what he believes is on par with what everyone else believes.

Um.. but it does. The societal morality decides who is bad and who is good. This differs depending on the societies and who is in charge in them.

[Berzerker]

GePap -

1. No creature wishes to die, but die they do.

Natural rights exist within the context of creation, no one has ever said a natural right to life requires immortality or an ability to defy the physical laws.

People do not "own" themselves: what created them was a combinations of the parent's gametes within the mother's uterus.

No, what created them was whatever created life in the first place. Your parents only perpetuated life, they did not create it. They did not create their genetic code, therefore all they did was combine the genetic code given them to pass along to you.

By this account, children are their parents property, since they are the direct result fo the labor, time, and effort of their parents, not only in the conception, but the creation: your body was built because your mother ingested proteins and fats and minerals that went towards your body. Obviously you don't think children are their parents property, but it also means your "self-evident" facts are anything but.

That's like claiming the excrement (and discharged breath) you produce from your bodily functions means you own all the life forms that feed from them.

Every society persecutes undesirables to one extent or another: by the very 'fact' that they are undesireable, they are 'worthy' of persecution, no?

Depends on why they are undesirable, but that doesn't change the fact the Nazis didn't try to hide all their evil.

Are we not correct to persecute child molestors? Why, just broaden your definition a little....

We were talking about the Nazis and their victims, not child molestors.

So just don't use it! No wait, the Bible, the supposed source of this rule, mentions slavery and generally approves of it....

Jesus didn't, and he offered the Golden Rule.

A moral system does not need equality to work. Lets say you design a system in which the highest value is bravery. Brave acts are seen as the most morally correct, cowardly acts as inherently imoral. Now, under such a system some who has done brave acts deserves respect and some coward deserves scorn. But what about those who have not had the chance? How can someone who has done nothing brave expect equal treatment as someone who has? There can be no reciprocity between the two sets, they are not equal. This is even more correct for the difference between the brave and the coward. Why would it be imoral for the brave to get cowards for slaves? The brave are 'better', are they not, and by being cowards, the 'slaves' have forfeited their rights. Hell, they SHOULD be slaves, should they not?

Whether or not cowards deserve slavery is another matter, the Golden Rule is violated by cowards, true? If the coward would want the brave to save them from attack but would not do the same for the brave, they aren't practicing the Golden Rule. The equality demanded by the Golden Rule is reciprocity...

[Berzerker]

Tinypeni!s -

Btw I see where this thread is going, only one standing after this mess is Berzerker the master of copy pasting and illogical statements.

You're welcome to support your claim. Or would doing so be illogical?

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Loin: I agreed to disagree with you. Though there was no truce with others .

Oh sure, I understand. And believe me, I tried not to join in this thead. But, hey, it just wouldn't be a good Natural Rights thread without me trying to theadjack it, eh?

The main question is WHO is to decide what is reasonable? Only the person that is listening. One person may believe the justification is reasonable, while someone else may believe it is totally unreasonable. So where do you draw the line? Who's reasonablness do you follow?

Basically, moral systems are just classification systems, no different in principle than any other kind of classification system (e.g. the metric system) -- essentially, moral systems have the job of classifying actions as being more or less "moral" based on the short-term and long-term harmfulness of said actions (here I'm using "short-term" harmfulness to refer to the immediate results of an action, and "long-term" harmfulness to refer to e.g. the possibility of the action's being repeated or magnified, but I wouldn't say that my argument rests on this distinction -- I simply make it for purposes of clarity). Moral system A is superior to moral system B if A does a better job of classifying behaviors into those that are harmful/not-harmful than does moral system B, e.g. if moral system B fails to account for the intent behind a harmful action while A accounts for intent then B will misclassify many actions (and those people who performed the actions) that A will properly classify. It behooves everybody to be able to classify actions based on the action's harmfulness, if for no other reason than because it is beneficial to one's prospects at survival -- an action is "improperly" classified if the action's classification fails to help (and possibly harms) the person performing the classification.

Long story short, the ultimate test of a moral system is whether or not it works.

Rationality is different to different societies. What it depends upon is what TRUTH the society (in the form of the people... or the rulers) decides is the proper truth. IMO, truth is just like morality, in that it is highly personal, and the truth that wins out in the end is that which the elite or the populace agrees with.

Rationality and truth are not as transient as all that. F'rinstance, you won't find a society/culture/whatever the world over that employs a system of logic in which A == ~A. There are some aspects of morality that are spatially/temporally/culturally/whatever variant (e.g. most morals relating to sexual norms), but the core of morality rests on cultural invariants (logical consistency and all that jazz).

Originally posted by Ramo
I think the main point I was getting to was, why is the Golden Rule objectively relevant, why do you need reciprocity in a moral system?

If a moral system isn't reciprocal then it is inconsistent (which violates good old logic, one of the cultural invariants that make up morality). If I classify action A as being immoral when somebody else performs it (since e.g. it causes malicious harm in some form or another), then it is inconsistent for me to classify action A differently for different people without a sound justification for doing so. As to what makes up a "sound justification," see my reply to Imran up above, to which I'll attach the addendum that another invariant that accompanies logic is the principle of causality, i.e. it is illogical to justify an effect (e.g. the granting of additional rights to me that others do not possess, or the removal of rights from others) with an unrelated cause (in this case, something that is unrelated to my moral worth or the moral worth of others).

Originally posted by Gepap
You don't have to treat the inferior as they have to treat you: they are inferior for some reason, and thus not deserving of reciprocity.

Quite right, we don't treat people as equals if we consider them to be our moral inferiors (e.g. we lock up murderers, although we would be pretty indignant of we were to be locked up by murderers). The biggest difference IMO between morality nowadays and morality in the past is that we're generally better at questioning the causality behind claims to moral superiority, if for no other reason than because past laziness in this matter has led to some pretty gross misclassification errors.

[Berzerker]

Ramo -

No, she created her eggs.

Yes, to a certain extent. Human bodies grow on their own, you know.

Not without a genetic code.

No one or nothing "created" the universe or life on the planet.

My position doesn't require such knowledge of who or what created life, yours does. So, how do you know what created the universe?

1. Why?

Ownership.

2. If someone did create me, would he have moral claim to my existence.

Perhaps.

1. Why?

Because that wich was given to you belongs to you, not me.

2. If natural processes created me, how could it "grant" me anything?

You have it, true? If these natural processes produced you with a chain around your ankle leading to your mother, then that would be evidence these natural processes granted your mother with you as property.

3. If a deity created me, why does it have moral authority to grant me anything? I believe I have moral rights to life and liberty without its consent.

You wouldn't exist without this deity.

1. Why?

I've already said why numerous times.

2. May or may not? What does that mean?

It means "may or may not".

Are you suggesting that if you created me, I "might" be your slave?

No, I might have the moral authority to own you.

2. Then why did you bring up creation in the first place?

I'm not the one who asked if I have the moral authority to own you if I create you.

Again, ownership is a legal concept.

What came first, government or the concept of ownership? If you and I were the only people on the planet and you built yourself a home, would you not consider it yours if I decided to kick you out and take it for myself?

What does creation have to do with moral rights to self-determination?

Because creation gave you self-determination, hence the moral right to self-determination.

If you created me, I certainly would not subjugate myself to you.

Are you subjugating yourself to the creator when you die of old age?

Yes, the propensity to survive is hard-wired. And?

Then it is illogical to argue natural selection produced the propensity to survive, and this hardwired propensity to survive, including self-defense, is evidence of ownership.

The propensity to eat is hard-wired. Does that mean I have a right to eat all I want?

Yup, as long as you grow your own food or freely exchange what you have for food produced by others (or receive charity).

That is correct. How does the statement you quoted imply I believe in morality by majority rule?

Your reference to "societal" morality.

Let's suppose there was a deity trying to compel me to act in a certain way. Are you saying that It has moral authority to do so? What kind of libertarian are you?

A libertarian who understands that freedom and rights exist within the confines of nature, and this "deity" already compels you to act in all sorts of ways, including that which awaits us all - death.

It is logically valid, and I do care about that. And there is no such thing as objective truth. Again, any assertion relies on making assumptions.

If it's logically vaild, then it's objectively true.

Why?

You need to ask this after claiming you arrived at your morality after a logical analysis?

Why?

Because all acts fall into one of those three categories. Can you think of a fourth?

Why not?

Because the act is immoral and saying otherwise cannot change that.

What if someone is borned mentally abnormal in this respect?

What if? You're changing what you said about societal conditioning to biology.

What's a special circumstance and what isn't?

A special circumstance in which a person who doesn't want to be murdered decides they want to be murdered. But removing the special circumstance changes their desire to be murdered back to a desire to live.

Isn't homosexuality a special circumstance? If so, why did you bring it up?

Geez, you said the propensity to procreate was universal and therefore translates into a right to commit rape. Homosexuals refute the argument that procreation is universal.

No, I believe that this apathetic person is apathetic about being murdered.

Lol.

Maybe he's on lots of drugs or something. Maybe he's insane. Take your pick, but I'm sure people like this have existed.

Those are special circumstances, but feel free to prove these people have existed.

No, I don't. Why are you avoiding my point?

Your point is an unsupported speculation, if you want to argue the universal propensity for survival is refuted by apathetic people who want to be murdered (or don't care if they're murdered), then you need to prove these people actually exist.

Why does the fact that there are people who aren't totally apathetic (this is something you are asserting) prove that the golden rule is a universal moral?

My God, I need to prove there are people who aren't totally apathetic? I'd think the burden of proving there are people who are totally apathetic is on you. And you're still changing what I said, I didn't say the Golden Rule was a universal moral in that everyone practices it, I said we all want to be treated a certain way, that is the universality I'm talking about. So, do you know of a totally apathetic person who wants to be murdered?

I never said that. But killing a suicidal person is indeed murder in this country. Sorry if you don't like, I don't either, but that's how it is.

Ramo, we are just repeating ourselves. I said no one wants to be murdered and you cited suicide as a refutation of my claim. That equates murder with suicide and you even tried to continue the equation by pointing to laws that don't even support your argument. People who try to commit suicide and fail are not charged with attempted murder and you know it. Now you're changing what you said, now you claim killing a suicidal person is murder. That isn't what you said before.

Yes

Of course you did, so why are you trying to change what you said?

but you keep on ignoring what I'm saying right after that. Again: " A nonconsentual killing is nonconsentual, I agree with that. But that's a definition (The fact that a logical assertion "A" implies "A", doesn't imply that "A" is true).

That was what you added after the fact. Why didn't you just say that instead of offering suicide as a rebuttal of my argument?

Of course. Natural selection is the algorithm through which these survival instincts have been hammered into our genetic code. Are you seriously disputing this?

How do you know natural selection came first and produced survival instincts when both are hardwired? Would that mean the very first creatures had no survival instincts? Again, natural selection is a theory about how environment favors certain traits leading to evolving species through mutation, not an explanation for how survival instincts arose. Feel free to quote those biologists you claim agree with you.

No, it's a statement of biology.

Your biology or mine?

But you need to justify this assertion.

I did.

You need to show why us having a propensity to survive implies that "life" is a natural right granted to us.

Because this propensity to survive reveals a built in - a genetic - a hardwired sense of ownership.

And why do you keep on bringing this silly stuff about creation?

Because creation is where our natural rights originate.

No, neither is the propensity to survive. I again cite those who are suicidal.

Those who are suicidal are in special situations, we don't see tiny children committing suicide because suicide involves special circumstances that can arise later in life. Remove the special circumstances and the desire to commit suicide disappears. I might be suffering from an extremely painful disease and considering suicide, that doesn't mean I don't want to live, only that I don't want to continue suffering.

The propensity to spread our genes is near universal, however.

Now you're backtracking, you said it was universal. So, what percentage of the population wants to procreate? %80? %90? %70? I don't know, but claiming it is near universal is an overstatement. Nevertheless, even if it was universal, why would that translate into a natural right to commit rape when the desire to rape is not universal? At most, it would translate into a natural right to have sex, not commit rape. Rights cannot conflict, so a natural right to have sex cannot violate other existing natural rights.

You keep on implying it.

WHERE?

You just did in this post with the "maybe, maybe not" comment.

Lol, did I say I created you? You asked me IF I had moral authority over you IF I created you. How you can use that to accuse me of trying to claim the moral authority to run your life is ridiculous. And what did I say about a deity granting you life having moral authority over your conduct? That deity may or may not have have that authority.

Why does a creator have moral authority to grant me life and liberty if he/it moral doesn't have authority to deny me it? Isn't that the whole point of a "grant?"

If I grant you the use of my car for a year and take the car back after the year is up, the grant has limitations. The "creator" granted us life for a period of time and takes it back when the time is up.

Yes. A mother doesn't create her child, so by the same logic, I didn't create that car (rather this mysterious "creator" did). Can you tell me why this analogy fails?

You built the car, you didn't create it. But why is that my view of creation?

Neither is survival.

Sure it is.

Why? If it were true, would it justify the moral claim they make to enslave me?

It might, but since they didn't your question is irrelevant.

But his natural right to not give me the apartment violates my natural right to the apartment. Why shouldn't he build another apartment?

You don't have a natural right to his apartment. Even if we assume the need for housing is universal, that would only mean you have the natural right to build your own home, not a right to the homes of others who have a right to those homes. The desire to steal the houses of others is not universal.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Berz -

So you believe the Nazis were moral? And who said there is one set of morals without looking at competing views? But once you've looked at these competing views, is it arrogant for you to choose the one you believe to be correct?

No. By my set of morals, I think what they did was abhorrant. However, they obviously considered what they did the right thing to do.
It is not arrogant to choose one over the other, but it is arrogant to dismiss the others simply because you don't believe in it.

[tinyp3nis]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Tinypeni!s -

You're welcome to support your claim. Or would doing so be illogical?

Here is the last man standing part illustrated. http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=73676
The last great marathon, atleast last I saw. Who is the last poster? And what does it prove? Nothing but if I had to bet...

[Ben Kenobi]

The societal morality decides who is bad and who is good. This differs depending on the societies and who is in charge in them.

Imran, so whatever a society believes is right for that society only?

That's cultural relativism. Suppose we have Nazi Germany and the people in power believe that the Jews should be exterminated. Does this make their action right simply because the people in power believe it to be?

[Berzerker]

LoA -

No. By my set of morals, I think what they did was abhorrant. However, they obviously considered what they did the right thing to do.
It is not arrogant to choose one over the other, but it is arrogant to dismiss the others simply because you don't believe in it.

You don't believe in Nazi morals, does that mean you don't dismiss them even though you don't believe in them? How do you dis-believe in a moral system without dismissing said system?

Tiny Pen!s - Citing one thread where I was the last to post is meaningless, do you look at every thread to see who posted last so you can insult them too or are you just being a hypocrite? You accused me of making illogical statements - where's your proof?

Obiwan -

That's cultural relativism. Suppose we have Nazi Germany and the people in power believe that the Jews should be exterminated. Does this make their action right simply because the people in power believe it to be?

Amazing how far some people will go to deny natural rights.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Berz - Simply by acknoledging that there is more then one type of morals. I may not believe in them, but I can still acknowledge that they exist and that they are no less moralistic then mine. Just because I refute them, dont mean that mine are better.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
Just because I refute them, dont mean that mine are better.

If yours are no better or worse, then why do you have the morals that you do, rather than a different set (e.g. the Nazis' morals, or the Buddha's morals)?

[tinyp3nis]

Tiny Pen!s - Citing one thread where I was the last to post is meaningless, do you look at every thread to see who posted last so you can insult them too or are you just being a hypocrite? You accused me of making illogical statements - where's your proof?

Yeah, that's what I do, I also stalk around forums and jump in the new threads and scream 1st!!!!11 But seriously I saw the thread and the earlier one. I would be amazed if you start arguing with someone who disagrees with you and then you won't get the last word. That was a very long "fight" you had in that thread and you were the last to say anything. You honestly believe that is meaningless? I got you all wrong? I'm sorry, I won't insult anymore maybe.
Btw how you prove a illogical person about his illogicalness (or whatever the word ) so that the person in question believes it? You don't, because he won't understand.
That's just my personal opinion don't get too upset about personal opinions of illogical hypocrites.