I have to disagree with his point on human rights. Human rights are to be respected, and to argue that violating the rights of someone who would violate someone else's is somehow a justification to do so to people who have done no harm is effectively saying "If they can do it, I can too because it's okay if you do it for my reasons." If someone violates, or attempts to violate, one of your rights, you have just cause in defending yourself by violating theirs; rights are a two-way street, and those who do not respect the rights of others have no claim on asking theirs to be respected in return.

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'm sure what he's saying is that one can't defend one's rights without abrogating the rights of the offending party.

Let the memes slug it out and see which one takes a dominant role, what we consider reality is just a consensual illusion anyway. If the majority of people choose one "truth" over another that truth wins. It's the way it's been for thousands of years. Widely held ideas give way to other lesser known ideas. I mean has anyone heard of a person upholding the divine right of kings lately? A free thinking society only allows that propagation of memes to happen faster giving a fertile ground where ideas can be broadcast soon and as such die sooner to be replaced by other ideas. In that way "basic human rights" are going to shift on a scale over time and depending on how much danger the society faces they will either tend towards freedom or stability. In other words, rights that we take for granted may not always be the same as time passes, and may oscillate between two polar absolutes of "respect for ideas" and "orthodox traditionalism".

Ataraxzy wrote:

I'm sure what he's saying is that one can't defend one's rights without abrogating the rights of the offending party. The defense for someone assaulting your right to bodily integrity is to take away the other person's right to freedom of movement. That, and he makes a very convincing case that rights don't come from anywhere but the social and societal contract: i.e. without one of those, you have no rights that you cannot explicitly defend yourself for. That sounds great until you realize that your right to drink clean water (bodily integrity, remember?) is being assaulted by the horribly polluting papermill down the street.

Rights are inherent properties of the individual. I possess myself, my mind, my body, my conscience, my drives, my emotions, my beliefs, and so on. They are things that can only be defined in relation to me. To try and take them from me, to alter them without my consent, these are violations of my self. Respecting rights is a two-way street, and the moment you violate them, you've lost any claim to having yours respected. I admit, there are great complexities to the ways they are dealt with in societies, but a person's rights are innate, and to say that you have the right to commandeer them just because no-one will stop you is immoral in the worst kind of way. To say you have a right to someone's property without any cause save being a government is as egregious as to say you have a right to their conscience or body. To deal with the problem of the papermill is, of course, an issue. How to solve it depends on a given situation. I'm not averse to society or governments, mind you, and I do believe that a social contract is required for civilization to function, but my take on the term is a tad more literal than most.

Rhyx wrote:

Let the memes slug it out and see which one takes a dominant role, what we consider reality is just a consensual illusion anyway. If the majority of people choose one "truth" over another that truth wins.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLyJ2uH0WO8#t=48s]This just sounds familiar...[/url]

Rhyx wrote:

It's the way it's been for thousands of years. Widely held ideas give way to other lesser known ideas. I mean has anyone heard of a person upholding the divine right of kings lately? A free thinking society only allows that propagation of memes to happen faster giving a fertile ground where ideas can be broadcast soon and as such die sooner to be replaced by other ideas. In that way "basic human rights" are going to shift on a scale over time and depending on how much danger the society faces they will either tend towards freedom or stability. In other words, rights that we take for granted may not always be the same as time passes, and may oscillate between two polar absolutes of "respect for ideas" and "orthodox traditionalism".

Let the stronger memes survive is a factual look at reality but hardly one that I'd call an effective moral outlook.

Ramidel wrote:

So in other words, if I decide to ignore your rights and willingly give up any rights of my own that I can't defend, that's fine? If not, you should probably back off on the latter statement ("you've lost any claim to having yours respected") and come up with better reasoning than the Golden Rule.

What exactly are you saying/asking here? Rights are something that a person, and that person alone, is guaranteed complete moral control over by dint of them all being extensions of themselves. Willfully violating the rights of others constitutes a surrender of your own rights.

Ramidel wrote:

In general, a statement of values like this is hard, if not impossible, to defend logically. For instance, I could respond that God, as quoted in the Bible, Qur'an or whatever doctrine I choose to espouse, commands that all mortals obey a certain set of rules, such as not having sex outside of marriage, or that women are the property of men, and that it is praiseworthy for men to impose this law on the unenlightened by any means necessary. Obviously, I can't defend my position with logic either, but it's at least as consistent as yours and there's no way to objectively set your value system over one of divine command (there are other bases for value judgements than liberalism or religion, of course; I just picked the latter because it's easy to raise as an objection). So a knowledge that not everyone else shares your values is undoubtedly useful in moral discussion, if only in determining what individuals you cannot hold a meaningful discussion with in the first place.

Any morality is hard to argue logically. All morality requires you to accept something at its core, most centrally that concepts such as right and wrong, good and evil, etc. are in any way meaningful. Rights are concepts, with no physical basis in reality, and no grand Right To Life beam will come down and revive those wrongfully slain. I can argue that they are an intrinsic part of any being but, at the end of the day, it's all conceptual arguing. I would argue that rights are an inherent property of any individual, but there is no "right to conscience" atom. All I can do is argue what makes the most logical sense to me, which is that an individual is defined as the possessor of these things and that no others inherently have any claim over them.

Axel the Chimeric wrote:

Rights are inherent properties of the individual. I possess myself, my mind, my body, my conscience, my drives, my emotions, my beliefs, and so on. They are things that can only be defined in relation to me. To try and take them from me, to alter them without my consent, these are violations of my self.

These are not your rights, rather, these are the things that your rights are created by the state and popular consesus to protect.

Axel the Chimeric wrote:

Let the stronger memes survive is a factual look at reality but hardly one that I'd call an effective moral outlook.

It's very low effort. Besides, the odds are that we are all controlled by these same memes, which we promote. This is the fitness of the memes. What else can you do, support weaker memes? (I don't think objectivism is a good idea, but I vote objectivist because it seems like such an underdog nowadays)

root wrote:

Did you notice the death threat to the author in the comments on the last page? Since political assassination of justices and members of congress started this morning in Arizona, I would be somewhat more inclined to take that seriously.

These days, there always seems to be one entity that thinks that they are a good idea.

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[EDIT2] By a spam generator. Seriously? How do you get death threats from spam AI? I think I've just witnessed the birth of an TITAN in a pneumatic vacuum cleaner who is interested in economics and politics. Or at least, I've now got the basis for the TITAN "Clippy".

Hee hee hee... Spam generators seem to be updated in concert with hot search terms, this time probably due to the attempted assassination last weekend. I often have to blacklist IP addresses from my site because posts' comment threads get strafed with junk posts after the latest Ubuntu or Fedora Core release hits the RSS feeds. (Edited for TMI, 20110111@1102 EST5EDT)

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Axel the Chimeric wrote: Rights are inherent properties of the individual. I possess myself, my mind, my body, my conscience, my drives, my emotions, my beliefs, and so on. They are things that can only be defined in relation to me. To try and take them from me, to alter them without my consent, these are violations of my self.

These are not your rights, rather, these are the things that your rights are created by the state and popular consesus to protect.

Actually, no. To quote: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Society, popular consensus and especially The State do not grant these rights, they merely recognize these rights. Newton didn't decree the law of gravity, he recognized (investigated, understood and quantified) it. The Pseudo-religious reference to "Creator" was about the only way such revolutionary idea could get through at those times. Who legislated the law of gravity? Likewise, it is my humble opinion that such basic human rights are a cornerstone of a just society that can "flourish", like Sam Harris expressed it. (ObRecommendation: Harris' speech on science and morality) A Society (or regime or person) who violates them thus gains a shade of illegitimacy. This doesn't mean that a single incident means much, "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." Funny how a bunch of long-dead white men have already thought so much about these things...

But doesn't that contradict what you said in the first paragraph?

If I murder you, you just by definition got alienated from your right to life. If I steal from you, you are alienated from your right to property. Reality itself alienates you from your rights. Rights are inalienable in a moral sense, in that you always have a moral claim to them, though you can choose not to exercise them. When you violate the rights of others, you effectively give up those rights in the same way you give up, for example, property rights to something when you accept a sales contract. To suggest that inalienable rights are somehow unable to be relinquished by choice is to state that the belief in rights makes all sales transactions impossible. To violate the rights of someone else is to willfully give up any moral claim on your own rights in the process.

All issues boil down to whom has the power to enforce their will. Morality itself is an artificial construct that is meaningless beyond anyone's will to enforce it. Morality is a non-entity beyond our own minds and to discuss it is merely to discuss what we believe is correct to do, but a person with syphilis thinking that they should go on living will do nothing to save them from the bacterium (barring the placebo effects that might cause). It takes the power of penicillin to deal with that. There is no need to point this out. We all realize this. Morality is still worth discussing, though, because it forms the framework for how we will, and should, do things. Without it, we would devolve into a race of psychopaths. @Ataraxzy: I disagree that rights are obligations. They are properties of the individual, that they have a moral claim to, not something held out of obligation. However, you are obligated to respect those of others if you want to maintain a claim on your own. If that's what you meant, I apologize for the confusion.

Your rights have no physical form but the thoughts in your head. You still have a moral claim to them, even if you can't defend them, but, in practice, that's really the only way you're going to be able to maintain them.

By meaningless, I do not mean in the sense that it has no value, just that it is a bit of a moot point when no-one is willing to acknowledge it. I can proclaim all I want about right/wrong, morality/immorality, but none of that will stop someone from violating my rights unless I can convince them to not do so (by word or by force). This doesn't invalidate the morality, though, any more than it would invalidate the concept of law.

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Let the stronger memes survive is a factual look at reality but hardly one that I'd call an effective moral outlook.

Nail on the head! The dominate meme of Maoist China was very unhealthy for tens of millions of its former citizens, but very popular! Plus, just because something can be catagorized as a meme does not mean that its potential good or harm rest only on how well it can compete with other memes. Communism held (and still does amongst some groups) a strong appeal vs. constitutionalism and the american experiment. For those who believe in individualism and the innate rights of man, the former is far greater than the meme of communism. Moral supierority does exist and can not be equated to the times and populartity of the meme de jure.

A criminal fleeing the law successfully doesn't invalidate the law or make their crime any less immoral, nor does it somehow restore their moral claim to any sort of rights; they just manage to maintain them. Losing that moral right doesn't prevent you from doing anything physically (beyond your own remorse and the actions of others), it just prevents you from having a moral claim to them, which is really the point. Rights, like laws, are a declaration of what should be respected as a person's innate quality and, just like laws, people disregard them all the time, but this does nothing to invalidate them. As for the context of rights, a person who violates your rights has no moral claim to their own. If someone steals from you and is fleeing, it's not immoral to kill them, though it's generally acknowledged that if they surrender themselves and offer reparations, the moral thing to do is offer them mercy. Their rights are restored by completing said reparations, as a sign that they will respect the rights of others from that point forth.

I suppose I should concede a point there; the extent of the violation does alter the extent of the appropriate response. Someone stealing a stapler from an office without the use of force does not warrant a violent response (barring the physical response necessary for, say, police or even the legitimate owner to retrieve it, if it is required by an unusually possessive thief). However, breaking into someone's home would constitute a threat to their life as much as their property, as would mugging them on the street, and fleeing would constitute a declaration of intent to do so again, making the use of violence entirely justified in stopping them. I disagree that there is a cascade of importance of rights; life, conscience, property, these are all equally important. However, the extent of the violation and threat to them does merit a different level of response. As for the shift in morality, I don't think the rights change, just the extent of a given violation. Something I have an infintie supply of hardly affects me if you take something, but that downgrades the extent of the violation, not the importance of the right. It's still theft, but a smaller theft; more like stealing a few dollars than a few hundred, no less stealing. If I don't die when you kill me, as paradoxical as that statement might seem now, it's not technically murder, but it is still an assault; an attempt on my right to life, liberty, and property. As for causing me agony if I can't feel pain, that's not a question of rights, is it? If I cannot feel pain, I by definition can't feel physical suffering. Also, as a final note, I argue that a right is a guaranteed moral right to something you possess without the interference of others. This is why I do not believe anything that someone else has to provide or that the universe must bend to do is a right. Hence, no-one has a right to not be offended, to medicine, to food, etc. These things are privileges. The term "right not to suffer" catches a little here, as I believe no-one has a right to deliberately inflict suffering in the sense of deliberate harrassment or assault, but you will experience suffering caused by others just by doing things that are entirely within their right to do. A good example would be them getting a job that you wanted; it causes you suffering but is by no means a violation of your rights.

Axel the Chimeric wrote:

I suppose I should concede a point there; the extent of the violation does alter the extent of the appropriate response. Someone stealing a stapler from an office without the use of force does not warrant a violent response (barring the physical response necessary for, say, police or even the legitimate owner to retrieve it, if it is required by an unusually possessive thief). However, breaking into someone's home would constitute a threat to their life as much as their property, as would mugging them on the street, and fleeing would constitute a declaration of intent to do so again, making the use of violence entirely justified in stopping them. I disagree that there is a cascade of importance of rights; life, conscience, property, these are all equally important. However, the extent of the violation and threat to them does merit a different level of response.

I wouldn't say it's all equally important. I will say that the core fundamental rights at some point overlap, and at that point they are of equal importance. For instance, my right to live coincides with my right to property (as my body is my property, and I cannot live without it... yet) as well as my right to conscience, as you mentioned it. However, the majority of major right violations are only major because they violate multiple rights. For instance, stealing a car from someone who makes their living with their car, to me, constitutes something more grievous than stealing a car from someone who mainly uses public transportation, and perhaps only uses the car when he goes on vacation. It affects the former far worse than it does the latter, and constitutes a violation of both life and property. This is how certain things becomes more valuable than others, external even to monetary value (even if the cars were of equal monetary value, the former crime would still be morally more serious than the latter). However, I disagree that use of force is justified at all times in said scenario. If one is being mugged, but one disables your attacker and he surrenders himself, I do not consider the person to have the right to lethally defend himself at that point... his life is no longer in any threat, so the justification via threat to one's life no longer applies. Furthermore, a fleeing suspect does not constitute the right to use lethal force either, unless their means of evasion constitutes a potential threat to the lives of people (such as driving madly through traffic in a getaway).

Axel the Chimeric wrote:

As for the shift in morality, I don't think the rights change, just the extent of a given violation. Something I have an infintie supply of hardly affects me if you take something, but that downgrades the extent of the violation, not the importance of the right. It's still theft, but a smaller theft; more like stealing a few dollars than a few hundred, no less stealing. If I don't die when you kill me, as paradoxical as that statement might seem now, it's not technically murder, but it is still an assault; an attempt on my right to life, liberty, and property. As for causing me agony if I can't feel pain, that's not a question of rights, is it? If I cannot feel pain, I by definition can't feel physical suffering.

It's not even really stealing a few dollars. Money is a finite resource. An infinite resource is not easily quantifiable in finite terms. To steal one of an infinite number of objects is about as morally grievous as stealing no objects at all (legally, it's another matter entirely... but law does not necessarily equate to morals).

Axel the Chimeric wrote:

Also, as a final note, I argue that a right is a guaranteed moral right to something you possess without the interference of others. This is why I do not believe anything that someone else has to provide or that the universe must bend to do is a right. Hence, no-one has a right to not be offended, to medicine, to food, etc. These things are privileges. The term "right not to suffer" catches a little here, as I believe no-one has a right to deliberately inflict suffering in the sense of deliberate harrassment or assault, but you will experience suffering caused by others just by doing things that are entirely within their right to do. A good example would be them getting a job that you wanted; it causes you suffering but is by no means a violation of your rights.

Then we get into more gray areas. If I'm out in the middle of the ocean on a boat I own with passengers, do I have the right to make them evacuate the boat because I own it? Even knowing full well that they will die this far out to sea? Their ability to use my boat is a privilege, and by your example I should have the equal right to remove that privilege at any time, even at the forfeiture of their life. So do I have the right to effectively murder them? As another example, let's say someone buys a property with a home, and lives on it. I notice that all the property surrounding their home is unowned, and purchase all of it. By preventing them from violating my rights to my property by trespassing, I prevent them from leaving their property to go get food and supplies. I also prevent others, through that same right, from bringing that person food and supplies. Eventually they die of dehydration/starvation/malnutrition/any number of other neglect-caused maladies. Did I violate a right? All I did was exercise my own rights, and in doing so, according to your system, did not violate any of his. Is this okay? Have we discovered a form of murder that is morally justified?