NationStates Jolt Archive


Human Rights?

Jello Biafra
23-04-2008, 09:26
Here is an interesting view on human rights (from another thread) that sorta got buried in there. It would fit better in its own thread anyway:

Apart from a worry about the general trend in Western society to enshrine human rights as an unquestionable set of commandments (slight hyperbole, perhaps, but you get my drift), I’ve got four main areas of... suspicion, you could say:

Firstly, I’m not satisfied with the metaphysical account of human rights commonly given; namely, that they are somewhere beyond that of merely legal rights (a form of rights I am much more happy with), and that they ‘exist’ in some manner or are inherent in human beings. I recognise that different accounts exist, but many proponents of human rights slip off into rather vague language. This needs to be cleared up.

Secondly, and far more importantly, I worry that they’re not suitable to protect the freedoms they are supposed to. Admittedly, this could perhaps be more of a problem of enforcing a standard of human rights, rather than a problem of human rights themselves, but I’m not entirely convinced that they’re the best way to ensure a certain standard of living for all humans. You could say I’m worried about their practicality.

Thirdly, I’m torn between the two attractive ideas of (1) having certain actions that are simply taboo in any circumstances, and (2) the admirable quality of flexibility in real-life situations. I’m sympathetic to the Nozickean concept of patterned principles being a threat to liberty (while being aware both that Nozick is talking about patterned principles in relation to distributive justice, and the inherent paradox in having a patterned principle saying patterned principles are dodgy) along with the ‘axe murderer’ objections to Kant (see here (http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:rhKQsHQUHBYJ:www.david-lockwood.co.uk/philosophy//home/07_Kant’s_Liar_Thought_Experiment.pdf+kant+axe&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=uk&client=firefox-a)) , which I think can apply to the realm of human rights also.

Fourthly (and again, this might not be a problem of human rights themselves, but of their implementation), I am very wary of how widely and flippantly human rights are invoked in society. If we are to have human rights, then I think we need to have a good long look at what rights are needed. A huge amount of talk involving liberty descends into what I see as needless talk about (human) rights. I feel that there might be a better system available.

All the above comes with the proviso that I do recognise the usefulness of human rights in certain situations.

I'm not sure whether or not I agree. What say ye?
The Loyal Opposition
23-04-2008, 09:49
Firstly, I’m not satisfied with the metaphysical account of human rights commonly given; namely, that they are somewhere beyond that of merely legal rights (a form of rights I am much more happy with), and that they ‘exist’ in some manner or are inherent in human beings. I recognise that different accounts exist, but many proponents of human rights slip off into rather vague language. This needs to be cleared up.


Where a theist says "God" an atheist says "natural law?" I recall "First principles of the Universe" being a popular alternative not too long ago.

This is what annoys me the most. All variations on "I'm right cause the Noodly Appendage says so."

Also, I was expecting a fifth point that "human rights" is too narrow a concept, how "human rights" becomes an excuse for a scorched earth approach to development/environmental policy. Having "rights," homo sapiens sapiens is clearly superior to all other "mere animals." I suppose this fits into point four, where "human rights" come to justify anything and everything under the sun. "You're not the boss of me, I can do whatever I want (no matter how it ends up screwing myself and others in the medium to long term...)"

Points two and three require more explanation.
Soheran
23-04-2008, 11:12
Firstly, I’m not satisfied with the metaphysical account of human rights commonly given; namely, that they are somewhere beyond that of merely legal rights (a form of rights I am much more happy with), and that they ‘exist’ in some manner or are inherent in human beings. I recognise that different accounts exist, but many proponents of human rights slip off into rather vague language. This needs to be cleared up.

Isn't this really a (solvable) problem with objective ethics as such? Is there some relevant difference between human rights and other normative rules here?

Thirdly, I’m torn between the two attractive ideas of (1) having certain actions that are simply taboo in any circumstances, and (2) the admirable quality of flexibility in real-life situations. I’m sympathetic to the Nozickean concept of patterned principles being a threat to liberty (while being aware both that Nozick is talking about patterned principles in relation to distributive justice, and the inherent paradox in having a patterned principle saying patterned principles are dodgy)

Maybe I recall ASU wrong, but I don't see the relevance of Nozick's argument. Nozick advances the (really bad) argument that patterned-state distributions are wrong not because they follow some rule, but because they follow a particular kind of rule: a rule of distribution (greatest happiness principle, difference principle) that would not allow for consensual exchange.

along with the ‘axe murderer’ objections to Kant (see here),

We should be evaluating Kant's argument on its merits, not its consequences in hypotheticals. I'm actually not convinced that we can't universalize the maxim "To save an innocent life, I may lie." Ends-in-themselves reasoning, though, suggests the immorality of lying somewhat more compellingly... we may still (questionably) be able to get away with it on grounds of self-defense, but only on that basis (if at all), I think. Not because of the consequences, which, however severe, never stand as a good enough reason to mistreat someone.

Fourthly (and again, this might not be a problem of human rights themselves, but of their implementation), I am very wary of how widely and flippantly human rights are invoked in society. If we are to have human rights, then I think we need to have a good long look at what rights are needed.

Agreed.
Soheran
23-04-2008, 11:27
Having "rights," homo sapiens sapiens is clearly superior to all other "mere animals."

The "rights" concept has been extended to animals, and by necessity positive rights frameworks just don't work as well in that context. (How do you get wolves, or even chimpanzees, to participate in democratic politics?)
The Loyal Opposition
23-04-2008, 11:41
The "rights" concept has been extended to animals, and by necessity positive rights frameworks just don't work as well in that context. (How do you get wolves, or even chimpanzees, to participate in democratic politics?)

I recall our having this argument already, or at least a similar one, concerning the social contract.
Chumblywumbly
23-04-2008, 15:27
I can haz thread naow? :p

Cheers to Jello for plucking this from the midst of the Marxism-Leninism thread. I was a bit disappointed we couldn’t discuss it further.

Where a theist says “God” an atheist says “natural law?” I recall “First principles of the Universe” being a popular alternative not too long ago.

This is what annoys me the most. All variations on “I’m right cause the Noodly Appendage says so.”
Quite.

‘Natural law’, ‘natural rights’ and the like don’t sit easily with me.

Also, I was expecting a fifth point that “human rights” is too narrow a concept, how “human rights” becomes an excuse for a scorched earth approach to development/environmental policy. Having “rights,” homo sapiens sapiens is clearly superior to all other “mere animals.”
Yeah, that’s indeed another worry; we slip back into the Aristotelian/Christian notion that humans are ‘above’ everything else, that we can almost do no wrong because of certain inalienable rights we (somehow) possess.

I suppose this fits into point four, where “human rights” come to justify anything and everything under the sun. “You’re not the boss of me, I can do whatever I want (no matter how it ends up screwing myself and others in the medium to long term...)”
Again, yup. Those nations that have enshrined human rights have, I think it’s fair to say, become more and more atomistic in their view of society, partly I believe because the outlook is “if we protect my right to do x, y and z, everything will follow on from their”. Too much talk, in my opinion, about rights and not duties. Too much emphasis on individual rights, with little or no discussion on how those rights affect everybody else.

And sometimes rights just seem to be the wrong way to deal with a situation. Only last week, a fellow student in a Political Philosophy tutorial was going on about how it was their “right not to get burned to death in a fire”, and how this was the reason the fire service would/should come to save them from a burning building.

Remarkable.

Points two and three require more explanation.
Point two is just the notion that human rights, although usually helpful in the West, have little or no impact in other regions of the world, even those who acknowledge them legally; perhaps because human rights haven’t been transformed into the strange ‘holy’ status they have been in the West. At the same time, governments in the West can play around with human rights incredibly easily. Talking of inalienable human rights in one breath while stripping them off of citizens and (especially) non-citizens in the other.

I’d like to explore the possibility of another, more practical, solution to ensuring a decent state of liberty for all humans. I’m not necessarily saying there is one, but with such... quasi-religious veneration of rights going on at the moment, the stubborn mule in me comes out.

Point three is just the outcome of not having a fully realised philosophical system. I am attracted to two opposite positions; one being the idea that certain actions are never correct, ensuring we as a society can never infringe upon someone’s liberty in certain respects (obviously, human rights chime with this approach); and the other being the idea that we should be very wary of enshrining rules to such a degree that we are forced into undesireable consequences through being unable, or unwilling, to bend or break those rules.

I am in a quandary.

Isn’t this really a (solvable) problem with objective ethics as such? Is there some relevant difference between human rights and other normative rules here?
Sorry, my mind is all fuzzy from exams... could you expand your point here please?

Maybe I recall ASU wrong, but I don’t see the relevance of Nozick’s argument. Nozick advances the (really bad) argument that patterned-state distributions are wrong not because they follow some rule, but because they follow a particular kind of rule: a rule of distribution (greatest happiness principle, difference principle) that would not allow for consensual exchange.
Which is why I said ‘Nozickean concept’ rather than ‘Nozick’s argument’; though I could have been clearer. All I was meaning was that I believe a certain flexibility is desirable in whatever rules we lay down, and that a similar concept to Nozick’s–one of wariness, at the least, of ‘patterned principles’ when discussing liberty–is A Good Thing. I think it’s foolish to run headlong into undesirable consequences ‘just’ because certain rules forbid any other action.

We should be evaluating Kant’s argument on its merits, not its consequences in hypotheticals.
Why, necessarily?

I’m actually not convinced that we can’t universalize the maxim “To save an innocent life, I may lie.” Ends-in-themselves reasoning, though, suggests the immorality of lying somewhat more compellingly... we may still (questionably) be able to get away with it on grounds of self-defense, but only on that basis (if at all), I think. Not because of the consequences, which, however severe, never stand as a good enough reason to mistreat someone.
I’m not outright disagreeing with you, but I think it’s questionable to simply ignore the consequences of the universalised maxims we enshrine. The utilitarian in me gets all panicky when we start getting into terrible consequences because of certain maxims.

However, I do see the problem(s) in allowing those maxims to be breached because of consequences; how do we know what consequences will actually occur, how do we deliberate about the just situation to breach the maxims, etc.
Glorious Freedonia
23-04-2008, 20:03
Here is an interesting view on human rights (from another thread) that sorta got buried in there. It would fit better in its own thread anyway:



I'm not sure whether or not I agree. What say ye?

I like the idea of human rights existing beyond legal rights. I like this because countries that never sign UN declaration of human rights or similar treaties or whom revoked their agreement to those treaties may still have their bad guys punished for crimes against humanity. Also, I think it gives greater legitmacy to revolutionary forces in oppressed lands who seek to topple an oppressive regime with one that recognizes human rights.

Also, I think it makes human rights more powerful. If human rights exist beyond law, a government has no authority to restrict them even if they have a constitution that gives them the right to violate human rights. A state can either recognize the right or not, just as they can probably make a law that does not recognize gravity. The laws of gravity and the laws of human rights should exist whether anyone wants to deny them or not.
Llewdor
23-04-2008, 20:12
I like the idea of human rights existing beyond legal rights. I like this because countries that never sign UN declaration of human rights or similar treaties or whom revoked their agreement to those treaties may still have their bad guys punished for crimes against humanity.
This is exactly why I do not like the idea of human rights existing beyond legal rights.
Also, I think it gives greater legitmacy to revolutionary forces in oppressed lands who seek to topple an oppressive regime with one that recognizes human rights.
Victory grants them sufficient legitmacy.
Also, I think it makes human rights more powerful. If human rights exist beyond law, a government has no authority to restrict them even if they have a constitution that gives them the right to violate human rights. A state can either recognize the right or not, just as they can probably make a law that does not recognize gravity. The laws of gravity and the laws of human rights should exist whether anyone wants to deny them or not.
If they don't have any legal relevance, does it matter if they exist?

Human rights that exist beyond law are not more powerful; they are less powerful. They are less powerful because they lack the legitimacy of law. If human rights exist off on their own somewhere independent of anyone's preferences, what's to stop the childish objection of "Says who?" You've unintentionally rendered human rights foundationless, and thus robbed them of prescriptive force.
Soheran
23-04-2008, 20:20
Sorry, my mind is all fuzzy from exams... could you expand your point here please?

It's just that the metaphysical issues that might be raised by human rights are also raised by objective morality.

"Where do rights come from?" is not so different from "Where do obligations in general come from?"

I think it’s foolish to run headlong into undesirable consequences ‘just’ because certain rules forbid any other action.

Surely that depends on how we justify the rules?

Why, necessarily?

Because it's the fallacy of appealing to consequences. Do we dismiss, say, a mathematical proof because we don't like the results? No one ever said truth was pleasant.

This in itself does not invalidate consequentialism. Indeed, it applies equally well to consequentialist ethics--if the consequentialist arguments are solid, it matters not in the slightest if at times they necessitate unpleasant things like killing the innocent.

The point is simply this: if people want to challenge Kant, they should do so by challenging his arguments, not the implications of his conclusions.

I’m not outright disagreeing with you, but I think it’s questionable to simply ignore the consequences of the universalised maxims we enshrine.

Of course it is. Morally, we cannot ignore the consequences of universalized maxims: we are required to will them as universal law, and that means that we must accept their consequences to act upon them.

But recognizing people as ends-in-themselves means that sometimes we are absolutely bound to treat them in certain ways.

However, I do see the problem(s) in allowing those maxims to be breached because of consequences; how do we know what consequences will actually occur, how do we deliberate about the just situation to breach the maxims, etc.

Rule-utilitarianism accounts well for these sorts of problems. The real difficulty with consequentialism is that it turns everyone into mere means to ends: to quantify human value is to say that we are not worthy intrinsically, but only in reference to something else (say, happiness) whose quantities are comparable.
Neu Leonstein
23-04-2008, 22:58
When some human rights are violated, you notice because people either flee or die.

When others are violated, you can tell because they can no longer stay alive by their own actions, but are fed by whatever system is set up to stop starvation, and keep their bodies alive so it doesn't look quite as bad for whoever is in charge.

Human rights are just preconditions of choice necessary for human lives to work, that is for humans to do what humans do. If I'm locked in somewhere for example, I can't move around - but moving around is what humans do to find out whether life is better somewhere else. They need the option for reasons of survival.

So many things people say are human rights aren't. Some things they don't mention are. None of that changes because someone with a gun writes things on a piece of paper and calls it law. So of course human rights exist independently of law, community and government and none of these can in any way decide what human rights should be. They're not arrived at by debate, they follow on from the definition of a human being.
Tech-gnosis
23-04-2008, 23:44
What is the definition of human beings?
Andaluciae
23-04-2008, 23:54
What is the definition of human beings?

A simple genetic/ancestral/legal definition ought to suffice.
Soheran
23-04-2008, 23:56
A simple genetic/ancestral/legal definition ought to suffice.

I disagree. We should define "human" in the context of "human rights" on the basis of the morally relevant trait that separates human beings from other animals--say, the capacity for advanced future-oriented preferences, or sapient rationality.
The Loyal Opposition
24-04-2008, 00:07
I disagree. We should define "human" in the context of "human rights" on the basis of the morally relevant trait that separates human beings from other animals--say, the capacity for advanced future-oriented preferences, or sapient rationality.

The word "capacity" bothers me, as it is neither fully nor equally distributed among all individuals. Including humans without full or equal capacity would also create precedent for including all animals without full or equal capacity and we're back where we started.
Soheran
24-04-2008, 00:10
The word "capacity" bothers me, as it is neither fully nor equally distributed among all individuals.

What of it?

We treat people according to the traits they possess.
The Loyal Opposition
24-04-2008, 00:12
What of it?

We treat people according to the traits they possess.

What happens to a human being not possessing full "capacity" in terms of advanced future-oriented preferences or sapient rationality?
Tech-gnosis
24-04-2008, 00:18
A simple genetic/ancestral/legal definition ought to suffice.

A legal definition would be contrary to Neu's point. A genetic definition would get tricky once genetic engineering takes off. Similar with the ancestral definition.
The Loyal Opposition
24-04-2008, 00:22
A genetic definition would get tricky once genetic engineering takes off. Similar with the ancestral definition.

There's also our species' long history of excluding certain genetic and ancestral groups as "not human" (through legal definitions even).
Soheran
24-04-2008, 00:22
What happens to a human being not possessing full "capacity" in terms of advanced future-oriented preferences

We simply don't consider preferences they don't have. For instance, a being without any future-oriented preferences, that simply seeks to avoid suffering in the present, can be justly euthanized.

or sapient rationality?

The moral relevance here is not in "degree", but in its presence or lack. I don't know where to draw the line, exactly.
The Loyal Opposition
24-04-2008, 00:37
We simply don't consider preferences they don't have. For instance, a being without any future-oriented preferences, that simply seeks to avoid suffering in the present, can be justly euthanized.


But here we have a being that has a preference (isn't a desire to avoid future suffering a future-oriented preference?), so I'm not sure how it is an example of "not considering preference they don't have."

Presumably euthanasia is just in this case because the being has expressed preference and made a choice. What if such a preference cannot be clearly communicated, where choice is not immediately obvious? We cannot assume then that euthanasia is just. Neither can we assume that not-euthanasia is just. What do we do?


The moral relevance here is not in "degree", but in its presence or lack.

According to what standard? How do we know when rationality is present or lacking?
Soheran
24-04-2008, 00:46
But here we have a being that has a preference (isn't a desire to avoid future suffering a future-oriented preference?),

Yes, it is. But who said anything about avoiding future suffering? I'm talking about a being with a preference to avoid present suffering.

But this is still not really the sort of preferences that are relevant here. Think of a typical human being: he or she looks to the future to accomplish certain things, live a certain kind of life. There are certain things he or she wants from the rest of his or her life--and because of this, to non-consensually kill such a being, even painlessly, is a moral wrong. (There are also other reasons. But let's keep within the preference utilitarian framework for now.)

But a being who does not think in such terms about the future, who may have no clear concept of "time" at all, need not receive the same consideration--not because such a being is necessarily "inferior", but because it simply doesn't have the relevant kind of preferences. It is worthy of equal consideration, but in this respect there is nothing to consider.

Presumably euthanasia is just in this case because the being as expressed preference and made a choice.

Not at all. Euthanasia is just in this case because the preference the being has is to avoid suffering; it has no preference to live into the future, because it has no future-oriented preferences. Generally beings without any such preferences don't have the rationality to meaningfully consent.

According to what standard? How do we know when rationality is present or lacking?

Procedurally? By investigating it, of course--by using the available means we have to discover what we can. This is really an epistemological problem, not a moral one.

In the case of beings we have default reason to believe are rational--say, adult human beings in the biological sense--the burden of proof would definitely be on those seeking to contest it.
Grave_n_idle
24-04-2008, 00:57
Here is an interesting view on human rights (from another thread) that sorta got buried in there. It would fit better in its own thread anyway:

I'm not sure whether or not I agree. What say ye?

I say - I've been saying most of this for several years, now.

Human 'rights' are cute. They might even be useful. But the sooner we collectively realise they are an artifact with no intrinsic value of their own, the better.
Llewdor
24-04-2008, 01:02
I want to echo everything Soheran's saying, here. If you're going to assign rights to humans, you need to define what constitutes a human. And the characteristics you point to that designate human from non-human need to be morally relevant traits, otherwise you run the risk of asserting that people with pale skin are human while people with dark skin are not, because you've drawn an arbitrary line somewhere.
The Loyal Opposition
24-04-2008, 01:25
But who said anything about avoiding future suffering? I'm talking about a being with a preference to avoid present suffering.


I presume that when I wish to avoid present suffering, I also wish to avoid experiencing the same sort of suffering again in the future.


..not because such a being is necessarily "inferior", but because it simply doesn't have the relevant kind of preferences. It is worthy of equal consideration, but in this respect there is nothing to consider.


What is "equal consideration?" If this being is still "worthy of equal consideration," what is the point of making distinctions based on capacity for preferences?


Not at all. Euthanasia is just in this case because the preference the being has is to avoid suffering; it has no preference to live into the future, because it has no future-oriented preferences. Generally beings without any such preferences don't have the rationality to meaningfully consent.


It sounds to me like we are in danger of projecting our own preferences onto others here. Especially where the lack of preferences or ability to meaningfully consent are only temporary conditions. We end up falling back on innate definitions that "all" members of a class supposedly share; this is the "God"/"Natural Law"/"Noodly Apendange" problem all over again.

This is indeed an epistemological problem. Can we assume a being's preferences ("to avoid present suffering") if that being cannot communicate them, or even understand them itself?
AnarchyeL
24-04-2008, 01:26
Isn't this really a (solvable) problem with objective ethics as such? Is there some relevant difference between human rights and other normative rules here?I'll venture to answer in the affirmative: human rights involve the relations between states and state actors, on the one hand, and individuals on the other; ethics involve the relations between individuals and interpersonal associations among themselves.

This reading depends, of course, on the argument that the construction of the public entity entails the creation of something new which is not (at least not necessarily or obviously) subject to the same normative principles as relations between persons considered ethically. I find the notion compelling: the public power is, indeed, something new that entails a relationship between the person and the state much different than that between the person and any other individual or organization. A person acting in an official capacity may, indeed, engage in relations that would otherwise constitute a moral wrong.

To a democratically minded theorist, the state is at once more constrained and more free in its action. The notion of "rights" is one attempt to set limits on the behavior of the state; or, in an alternate conception, to enumerate the demands put upon it.

We should be evaluating Kant's argument on its merits, not its consequences in hypotheticals.Or at any rate, not its consequences in especially strawmannish hypotheticals. The linked-to rendition of the axe-murderer is off-base, in particular, in the "foaming at the mouth" characterization. Kant would admit much more easily to an exception when dealing with a person visibly out-of-sorts or irrational.

But to the question at hand, it is not really a fallacious appeal to consequences to judge a moral theory against strong moral intuitions. This is not necessarily to say the theory is wrong, but that it may involve significant "bullet-biting" against its consequences for practical action. Moral theory should help us to deal with the hard cases; ideally it should not make hard cases out of apparently easy ones. Hence the perpetual thorn-in-side relationship of the axe-murderer to Kantian thought. The solution (if there is one) is to convince one's opponent that, seen from a different light, the case is (at the very least) "hard."

In other words, it is completely OBVIOUS to most people that one should lie to the axe-murderer. It really is a problem for a practical theory that disagrees with this judgment. The theory succeeds, in part, to the extent that it makes a compelling case that the decision is (at least) not so obvious. Kant turns an easy case into a hard one: and it's still hard, even for him. If it weren't, we should indeed be most suspicious of his theory.
Soheran
24-04-2008, 01:31
I presume that when I wish to avoid present suffering, I also wish to avoid experiencing the same sort of suffering again in the future.

We won't make you suffer in the future, either.

What is "equal consideration?" If this being is still "worthy of equal consideration," what is the point of making distinctions based on capacity for preferences?

Precisely the same reason we might make a distinction between men and women when it comes to, say, health care concerning pregnancy.

Different beings have different preferences.

It sounds to me like we are in danger of projecting our own preferences onto others here. Especially where the lack of preferences or ability to meaningfully consent are only temporary conditions.

When they are temporary, it's best to withhold judgment.

We end up falling back on innate definitions that "all" members of a class supposedly share; this is the "God"/"Natural Law"/"Noodly Apendange" problem all over again.

No, it isn't. We might have good reasons to believe that members of a class share certain traits. We might examine animals for the physiological structures associated with feeling pain, for instance.

Can we assume a being's preferences ("to avoid present suffering") if that being cannot communicate them, or even understand them itself?

All we can do (ever) is make our best attempt to discover them.
The Loyal Opposition
24-04-2008, 01:43
All we can do (ever) is make our best attempt to discover them.


I don't think I trust most people to give it their best. Thus I instinctually reject notions of "degree" or "capacity," and prefer a stronger definition. Which, of course, exposes me to Chumblywumbly's first, third, and fourth problems, and I end up wanting to oppose things like euthanasia and abortion to degrees I recognize as absurd.

I'm getting a headache.
Soheran
24-04-2008, 02:08
I'll venture to answer in the affirmative: human rights involve the relations between states and state actors, on the one hand, and individuals on the other; ethics involve the relations between individuals and interpersonal associations among themselves.

We can certainly draw a distinction between human rights and other kinds of ethical obligations, but I'm not sure how we might make a "metaphysical" distinction between them.

If we can offer an account of what it is about human beings that makes others subject to moral duties in their respect in the first place, the difficulty of explaining how human rights might "'exist' in some manner" or be "inherent in human beings" is much less of one. It becomes a question of explaining how the particular moral duties we have towards others can/should be expressed through recognizing "rights"... but this is more a matter of applying moral principles in the political context than making an intricate philosophical argument about the metaphysical nature of human beings.

But to the question at hand, it is not really a fallacious appeal to consequences to judge a moral theory against strong moral intuitions. This is not necessarily to say the theory is wrong, but that it may involve significant "bullet-biting" against its consequences for practical action. Moral theory should help us to deal with the hard cases; ideally it should not make hard cases out of apparently easy ones.

But this distinction of "easy/hard" presupposes an existing (rough) moral framework--one that, at least in certain respects, might be quite wrong. Plenty of Christian fundamentalists might find it very hard to accept homosexuality or abortion as morally legitimate, but this hardly changes the moral conclusion regarding them.

Intuitions are influenced by many things, and a rational moral instinct is just one of them. To let them play arbiter is to diminish the critical role of moral reasoning. It can only be appropriate within the framework of subjective morality, where such a critical role has already been partially discarded.

The solution (if there is one) is to convince one's opponent that, seen from a different light, the case is (at the very least) "hard."

If the argument is itself convincing, this may not so difficult a challenge... and if, in the end, we are still left with moral intuitions that rebel against it, we may have good reason to carefully revisit the argument, but in and of themselves they do not give us a reason to reject it.

I usually find myself strongly tempted to support a rather stronger theory of civil disobedience than Kantian political theory lets me, but to discard its conclusions because I don't like them seems the height of irrationality.

Perhaps more importantly, to use intuitions in this way to test moral principles misdirects our efforts. Take the universalization formulation of the categorical imperative, to which has been ascribed all sorts of absurd implications. But if in fact such a formulation is a dictate of practical reason, the temptation to dismiss it because its implications appear to be ridiculous cannot be justifiably acted upon. We must instead figure out what it is about the formulation that justifies it, and examine its implications in that context... and in doing so we may find that its absurd implications don't actually follow, or that they are not absurd.

In the end, of course, we may have to "bite the bullet"... but this is inevitable in any area of human knowledge where we are concerned for truth.
Chumblywumbly
24-04-2008, 14:03
It’s just that the metaphysical issues that might be raised by human rights are also raised by objective morality.

“Where do rights come from?” is not so different from “Where do obligations in general come from?”
OK, I see what you you mean now.

Yeah, sure. They’re similarly queries.

Surely that depends on how we justify the rules?
Yup, but if those rules are, for example, meant to promote liberty and reduce suffering yet in certain circumstances will lead to loss of liberty and a great deal of suffering, we’ve got to take a good hard look at the validity of enforcing said rules.

Because it’s the fallacy of appealing to consequences.
No it’s not. It’d be a fallacy of appealing to consequences if I were claiming that Kant’s theory of the categorical imperative was necessarily false because of its consequences, but it’s perfectly reasonable to refrain from following a certain manner of moral conduct because of its undesireable consequences. I could feasible say (though I don’t hold this position) that Kant’s CI is a true theory, but that we should not follow it due to its consequences, just as I could say that a certain scientific theory is correct though we shouldn’t put it into practice because of its consequences.

This in itself does not invalidate consequentialism. Indeed, it applies equally well to consequentialist ethics—if the consequentialist arguments are solid, it matters not in the slightest if at times they necessitate unpleasant things like killing the innocent.
Unless I’m being particularly slow, or missing your point, is that not the complete opposite of what a consequentualist would argue? The consequences of of a moral argument — such as killing the innocent — are of utmost importance.

The point is simply this: if people want to challenge Kant, they should do so by challenging his arguments, not the implications of his conclusions.
Ahh, but I would maintain that an important part of challenging his arguments’ merit (not their truth value) is an examination of where they lead us to.

Rule-utilitarianism accounts well for these sorts of problems. The real difficulty with consequentialism is that it turns everyone into mere means to ends: to quantify human value is to say that we are not worthy intrinsically, but only in reference to something else (say, happiness) whose quantities are comparable.
Could the same not be said of human rights; that we are inly worth something in relation to our rights?
AnarchyeL
24-04-2008, 17:08
The "rights" concept has been extended to animals, and by necessity positive rights frameworks just don't work as well in that context. (How do you get wolves, or even chimpanzees, to participate in democratic politics?)Positive rights work perfectly well for animals. We simply posit them as having rights, or we posit a formulation of rights-bearing entities that includes animals. It doesn't have anything to do with democratic politics, unless you posit rights as only inhering in participants or potential participants. But why go there? That sounds much more like a latter-day Dworkinian naturalism.
AnarchyeL
24-04-2008, 18:07
I disagree. We should define "human" in the context of "human rights" on the basis of the morally relevant trait that separates human beings from other animals--say, the capacity for advanced future-oriented preferences, or sapient rationality.Hmm... I think I prefer something like Ernst Cassirer's formulation in terms of creatures with a symbolic capacity, in which we can include a great number of animals, mammals in particular.
AnarchyeL
24-04-2008, 18:08
The word "capacity" bothers me...Really? The word "advanced" bothered me so much more...
Hydesland
24-04-2008, 18:36
Isn't this really a (solvable) problem with objective ethics as such? Is there some relevant difference between human rights and other normative rules here?


You've mentioned that the problem with objective ethics is solvable, but I still haven't really seen you solve it, in what way is it solvable? I'm not sure if taking some sort of Kantian prescriptivist approach really solves it.
Hydesland
24-04-2008, 18:37
I say - I've been saying most of this for several years, now.

Human 'rights' are cute. They might even be useful. But the sooner we collectively realise they are an artifact with no intrinsic value of their own, the better.

Right, and how is this different for every other ethical concept? What would you replace it with?
AnarchyeL
24-04-2008, 18:38
But a being who does not think in such terms about the future, who may have no clear concept of "time" at all, need not receive the same consideration--not because such a being is necessarily "inferior", but because it simply doesn't have the relevant kind of preferences.Consider now anthropological evidence that many gatherer-hunters live in a "timeless" present--that, in fact, our seemingly intuitive notion of a succession of moments is a reification of time as it appears in the innate human experience.

Do humans (whole societies, for that matter) who experience "duration" or "rhythm" (both temporal experiences) but not "past," "present" or "future" occupy a lesser position as moral objects, then?
AnarchyeL
24-04-2008, 18:53
We can certainly draw a distinction between human rights and other kinds of ethical obligations, but I'm not sure how we might make a "metaphysical" distinction between them.Ethics are not metaphysical, they're practical. That goes double for politics. I think Kant mentions that in something like the second paragraph of the First Critique.

If we can offer an account of what it is about human beings that makes others subject to moral duties in their respect in the first place, the difficulty of explaining how human rights might "'exist' in some manner" or be "inherent in human beings" is much less of one.Perhaps (though I think it less obvious than you do), but it's still begging the question: why should human rights be "inherent" at all?

Look at it this way: if the act of political creation actually creates something new, then why should the same rules governing human interaction in the natural (free, independent) condition necessarily govern their relations to this new thing, the state or the polis? You may be able to make the argument, but you have to make the argument. My complaint was not so much with your position (though in the final analysis I think we are likely to disagree) but with the fact that you stated it so rhetorically.

In important ways, the natural rights thesis has always been a limitation on the assertion of rights: it tends toward Lockean, hands-off liberalism or libertarianism. It's always been the socialist-leaning thinkers who favor a positive rights thesis: as long as we're creating the polis, it would seem we're in a position to be creative about what it can and can't do, as well.

In the end, of course, we may have to "bite the bullet"... but this is inevitable in any area of human knowledge where we are concerned for truth.The point is to remember that it IS bullet-biting when it violates strong intuitions. But I do not think it is unreasonable to expect a sound moral theory to accord generally with our sense of justice: indeed, Derrida has it that this is the very basis for both the construction and the deconstruction of a legal/moral system. Justice is the undeconstructable ideal that makes deconstruction (criticism) possible.

The only way to avoid this realization is to insist that a moral system can be complete in itself, with no residue whatsoever. But then you're going to come up against deconstruction, Godel's theorem, and a host of other problems.

Once you realize completeness is impossible, you have to understand that the "residue" always points back to justice itself.
The blessed Chris
24-04-2008, 18:55
Meh. They're invariably invoked either by those with no other logical basis to an argument, or too weak to defend themselves by any other means from the law. In both cases, I can't say I'm overly sympathetic.
Llewdor
24-04-2008, 18:57
I say - I've been saying most of this for several years, now.

Human 'rights' are cute. They might even be useful. But the sooner we collectively realise they are an artifact with no intrinsic value of their own, the better.
Did GnI just say something with which I agree? Really?
Grave_n_idle
24-04-2008, 19:16
Did GnI just say something with which I agree? Really?

Statistically, it had to happen eventually.

Normal service will be resumed momentarily.
Soheran
24-04-2008, 21:37
Positive rights work perfectly well for animals. We simply posit them as having rights, or we posit a formulation of rights-bearing entities that includes animals.

In theory, yes. In practice, no--not when the people who are deciding as to what rights entities have are all human.

I don't remember exactly what my train of thought was with that post--I spent a moment just now wondering what on Earth I was talking about--but I think it was something like this: with human beings it makes sense to move away from absolute "results" conclusions about which particular rights we should have, because our worth and dignity can be respected within the framework of collective freedom. But with animals we simply don't have this option, because we cannot deliberate with them--they cannot participate in our politics.

This may not be a solvable problem. I was just pointing out that an idea of intrinsic rights can serve to undermine anthropocentrism as well as reinforce it.

Do humans (whole societies, for that matter) who experience "duration" or "rhythm" (both temporal experiences) but not "past," "present" or "future" occupy a lesser position as moral objects, then?

Who said anything about "lesser"? We grant equal consideration to all, we just consider their actual traits.

I'm not sure about this case. My intuitive response is to suggest that this sort of "lack" isn't what I'm talking about--what's relevant here is not so much an "objective" sense of time, a cosmic clock that we can divide into days and months and years, as is the capacity to conceive (and prefer about) a "future" in any sense.

In any case, there are other kinds of respect that don't fit neatly into a preference utilitarian framework... and they are certainly relevant here--recognizing the dignity of autonomous beings, for instance. (And it is not the case that human beings are the only ones who can make any sort of credible claim to rational personhood.)

Incidentally, even for non-rational, non-future oriented creatures I tend to think that we should probably be leaving them alone, as much as reasonably possible.

Perhaps (though I think it less obvious than you do), but it's still begging the question: why should human rights be "inherent" at all?

It's not begging the question, it's just not dealing with the question you're answering.

My point here is not that we should or should not adopt a human rights framework; it's that the particular kind of objection I read (apparently correctly) Chumblywumbly as making applies equally well to any account of moral duties at all.

The point is that once we have an account of the foundation of moral duties, we can deal with the specific case of human rights (rejecting or accepting) within that framework, not in the broader sense of asking what it is about human beings that makes treating them in certain ways wrong.

In important ways, the natural rights thesis has always been a limitation on the assertion of rights: it tends toward Lockean, hands-off liberalism or libertarianism. It's always been the socialist-leaning thinkers who favor a positive rights thesis: as long as we're creating the polis, it would seem we're in a position to be creative about what it can and can't do, as well.

You're preaching to the converted here, at least somewhat. You and Rousseau have convinced me of this point already. I would not at all argue that human rights and interpersonal normative rules are equivalent--if it were, the basic functions of governance (punishment most obviously) would be illegitimate.

Of course, we might still be able to defend certain human rights on a political basis: for instance, a prohibition on arbitrary arrest, on the basis that a society ruled by laws (whatever those laws happen to be) cannot be legitimately imprisoning people for extra-legal reasons.

The point is to remember that it IS bullet-biting when it violates strong intuitions. But I do not think it is unreasonable to expect a sound moral theory to accord generally with our sense of justice: indeed, Derrida has it that this is the very basis for both the construction and the deconstruction of a legal/moral system. Justice is the undeconstructable ideal that makes deconstruction (criticism) possible.

How, then, can we critique our "sense of justice" itself?
Soheran
24-04-2008, 22:24
Yup, but if those rules are, for example, meant to promote liberty and reduce suffering yet in certain circumstances will lead to loss of liberty and a great deal of suffering, we’ve got to take a good hard look at the validity of enforcing said rules.

Indeed. But if we justify them on some other basis--say, not because we value liberty as a sum but because we have good reason to respect every particular individual's liberty absolutely--then the mere fact that they have awful consequences doesn't change their validity.

I could feasible say (though I don’t hold this position) that Kant’s CI is a true theory, but that we should not follow it due to its consequences,

No, you couldn't. Kant's moral theory (like all moral theories) is a theory of "ought." To accept it as true is precisely to accept that we should follow it.

just as I could say that a certain scientific theory is correct though we shouldn’t put it into practice because of its consequences.

Science, unlike ethics, is not practical: it does not speak in terms of "ought". The mere fact that we know how to make and use a nuclear missile does not mean that we should actually do so. But if Kant's moral theory is true, it follows directly (for instance) that we should treat individuals as ends-in-themselves. It makes no sense to then go ahead and say we should not.

Unless I’m being particularly slow, or missing your point, is that not the complete opposite of what a consequentualist would argue? The consequences of of a moral argument — such as killing the innocent — are of utmost importance.

Different sense of "consequence."

The consequentialist is concerned for the causal consequences of actions: I tell a lie, the consequence is that I save a life. I am denying the relevance of the logical consequences of moral principles: I should never tell a lie, the consequence is that I should not lie even to save my friend from the axeman or the Jews from the Nazi.

Ahh, but I would maintain that an important part of challenging his arguments’ merit (not their truth value)

The two are one and the same, at least in that to accept them as true is to accept them as binding.

Could the same not be said of human rights; that we are inly worth something in relation to our rights?

Rights describe our worth; they do not found it.
Hydesland
24-04-2008, 22:50
No it’s not. It’d be a fallacy of appealing to consequences if I were claiming that Kant’s theory of the categorical imperative was necessarily false because of its consequences, but it’s perfectly reasonable to refrain from following a certain manner of moral conduct because of its undesireable consequences. I could feasible say (though I don’t hold this position) that Kant’s CI is a true theory, but that we should not follow it due to its consequences, just as I could say that a certain scientific theory is correct though we shouldn’t put it into practice because of its consequences.


That's an interesting way to look at it. You're saying that it is sometimes desirable to do something immoral, does this not run into difficulties? Would you stretch it as far as saying that in this situation you should do what you shouldn't do, which is an obvious contradiction.
Chumblywumbly
25-04-2008, 01:33
That’s an interesting way to look at it. You’re saying that it is sometimes desirable to do something immoral, does this not run into difficulties? Would you stretch it as far as saying that in this situation you should do what you shouldn’t do, which is an obvious contradiction.
No, I’m saying that if we are assessing the validity of a moral system, then the consequences of following such a system should be taken into account. So, for example, if Kant’s system of determining the correct moral action(s) forces us to act in a manner that we feel is wrong, we should at least re-examine the worthiness of said moral system.

In other words, if a moral system or code claims to show us the correct action yet suggest we act in a manner that seems to be wrong, something must be re-assessed. Either the action we perceive to be ‘wrong’ isn’t, we are incorrectly applying the rules or code of the system, or the system itself is flawed in some manner.
AnarchyeL
25-04-2008, 01:39
How, then, can we critique our "sense of justice" itself?We can't. It's the basis for critique. It's that thing in our heads (or hearts) that makes us WANT things to be right, to be good, to be just.

We can critique any particular conception of justice, perhaps even justice as concept. But justice itself always remains outside the conception or the concept. We can never quite grasp it in the first place, so how can we set it up for criticism? More to the point, when we DO critique the conception or concept, it's always from the position of the unattainable, undeconstructable ideal: we deconstruct the construct precisely to show what it has missed. And we do this even against the knowledge that it can never capture everything. We can never have a complete system, even for a moment, let alone a final system for all of time.

It's when we start having a bit too much "fun" with deconstruction and ignore the significance of residual ideals beyond what we can construct (or then deconstruct) that we wind up in the postmodern dead-end: nothing (including justice) means anything.
Andaluciae
25-04-2008, 01:54
Rights pertain to society, given that they are derived from the agreements made between and amongst human beings, and the groups in which they live.
Hrantdink
25-04-2008, 02:03
Human Rights is simply the religion of the "secular" West.
Xenophobialand
25-04-2008, 02:34
Perhaps (though I think it less obvious than you do), but it's still begging the question: why should human rights be "inherent" at all?

Look at it this way: if the act of political creation actually creates something new, then why should the same rules governing human interaction in the natural (free, independent) condition necessarily govern their relations to this new thing, the state or the polis? You may be able to make the argument, but you have to make the argument. My complaint was not so much with your position (though in the final analysis I think we are likely to disagree) but with the fact that you stated it so rhetorically.

In important ways, the natural rights thesis has always been a limitation on the assertion of rights: it tends toward Lockean, hands-off liberalism or libertarianism. It's always been the socialist-leaning thinkers who favor a positive rights thesis: as long as we're creating the polis, it would seem we're in a position to be creative about what it can and can't do, as well.


Erm, I'm not sure how useful a digression is, but you are seriously misconstruing early social-contract thought if you associate Locke or Hobbes with hands-off liberalism or libertarianism. If anything, most libertarians derive their deviant notion of natural rights from a combination of reading Jefferson's Declaration of Independence too unreflectively and not bothering to read the Montesquieu and Locke from which he was deriving the first section of the Declaration from.

If you look at the phrase "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are created by men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" (and don't nitpick about whether that's the precise quotation, please; I was going by memory and it does not impact the force of my argument), and you haven't actually read Locke (like most libertarians I've debated this point with), you might well get the impression that rights are inalienable in both a natural and a contractual state. But that isn't actually what Locke says.

Locke makes clear that the reason we believe these rights to be inalienable in a state of nature isn't metaphysical; it's simply the fact that we can reliably assume any sane rational person in such a state, when deprived of life, liberty, or property, will respond up to and including to the death to undo such deprivations. Hobbes is even more emphatic on this same argument. Further, while we retain theoretically such inalienable rights in the state of nature, the state of nature is not conducive to the practical retention of such rights. Locke is a bit more finessed in his language choice than Hobbes is, but both are quite aware of the fact that anarchy is not a good state for one to live in if one actually possesses the property or liberty necessary to preserve one's life, because one is always in danger of someone else taking it from them. As such, we reach common agreements to sacrifice some of our liberties in order to retain the greater part of it (Hobbes is much more strident in how much we should be willing to sacrifice than Locke is, which I think is partly a function of the era in which each were writing, and partly a function of Hobbes being far more anti-anarchist than Locke is). So yes, a government is fully able to tax, to imprison, and to draft in both Hobbes's and Locke's account of the social contract, even though taxation, imprisonment and drafting could deprive citizens of property, liberty, and life. What counts, however, as legitemate tax, imprisonment, and conditions for draft depend to a great extent on what the negotiated agreement between people is. If the government violates the social contract, and does so to the extent that people are more secure in their liberty in the state of nature than in the state, then they are fully entitled to revolt. It should be noted that last part is purely Lockean; Hobbes seems to have a monolithic conception of negotiation, in which we all always agree to live under a sovereign who caries a monopoly on the use of force and trust in him to use it aright; if the sovereign values not getting hit back when he trammels on rights all the time (which if he values his position, he should) then he will act as a benevolent despot and not misuse his monopoly.

So to whit, both Locke and Hobbes meet exactly the criterions you stated AnarchyeL: human rights are inherent because they are what we reasonably expect humans to pursue in order to survive and flourish, up to and including fighting to the death to retain them. Further, this sense of retention exists in its pure and uncorrupted form only in the state of nature; we attenuate these rights in a social contracted state because the guarantee of attenuated rights is often preferable to the possibility of absolute rights found in the state of nature. Nevertheless, these rights still explain when dissolution of the socially-contracted state is legitemate. The problem isn't that Locke and Hobbes give all these goofy (and I agree, they are goofy) libertarians the excuse to engage in anarchism-by-other-means; it's that Locke and Hobbes have been systematically misconstrued by libertarians hung up on some of Jefferson's more colorful phrasing.
AnarchyeL
25-04-2008, 03:15
Erm, I'm not sure how useful a digression is, but you are seriously misconstruing early social-contract thought if you associate Locke or Hobbes with hands-off liberalism or libertarianism.Actually, I think you're just imputing too much to my statement. I was not accusing Locke (even less so Hobbes) of being a modern libertarian. Rather I was referring broadly to the tendency of natural rights theorists to stop short at a negative ("hands-off") conception of rights that tends in abstraction toward libertarianism: a common thread, not a conceptual blanket.

If anything, most libertarians derive their deviant notion of natural rights from a combination of reading Jefferson's Declaration of Independence too unreflectively and not bothering to read the Montesquieu and Locke from which he was deriving the first section of the Declaration from.Agreed.

...you might well get the impression that rights are inalienable in both a natural and a contractual state. But that isn't actually what Locke says.Oh, the "inalienable" part is all Jefferson. Locke surely said no such thing: he was all for slavery, and this talk of "inalienable rights" has no place there. (Yes, Jefferson owned slaves, I know... a complex historical/biographical issue, but setting it aside his theoretical work and personal correspondence was explicitly abolitionist. Locke, on the other hand, was directly and happily invested in the African slave trade.)

Locke makes clear that the reason we believe these rights to be inalienable in a state of nature isn't metaphysical; it's simply the fact that we can reliably assume any sane rational person in such a state, when deprived of life, liberty, or property, will respond up to and including to the death to undo such deprivations.Now you're muddying the waters a bit and making Locke out to be a bit too much of a Hobbesian. Locke's ethical groundwork is rationalist, not psychological: Locke thought there was a "law of reason" (natural, God-given moral law) to govern the state of nature; the psychologism you describe is Hobbes's.

Hobbes is even more emphatic on this same argument.Well, it's his argument. Locke never makes it.

Further, while we retain theoretically such inalienable rights in the state of nature, the state of nature is not conducive to the practical retention of such rights.Sort of... again, you can't treat Locke and Hobbes too closely. Hobbes thought the state of nature inherently sucks because we'd have to defend ourselves constantly against the threat of violent death. Locke thought we'd all be pretty okay with each other until someone invents property... then we get, not Hobbes's "war of all upon all," but a class war in which the (irrational, to Locke) impoverished try viciously to steal what the propertied class had taken for itself. Hence, those with property set up government to defend themselves.

So yes, a government is fully able to tax, to imprison, and to draft in both Hobbes's and Locke's account of the social contract, even though taxation, imprisonment and drafting could deprive citizens of property, liberty, and life.Right. Not libertarian... and for so many other reasons as well. By the way, it is interesting to note that Hobbes opposed the death penalty and made a strong argument for conscription only in defensive war: when it comes to the government recruiting for an invasion, he argued that citizens should have the right to offer a substitute or pay a fee instead.

So to whit, both Locke and Hobbes meet exactly the criterions you stated AnarchyeL: human rights are inherent because they are what we reasonably expect humans to pursue in order to survive and flourish, up to and including fighting to the death to retain them.I'm not sure where you got that statement from me, since I'm generally one to argue the case for positive rather than natural rights.

The problem isn't that Locke and Hobbes give all these goofy (and I agree, they are goofy) libertarians the excuse to engage in anarchism-by-other-means; it's that Locke and Hobbes have been systematically misconstrued by libertarians hung up on some of Jefferson's more colorful phrasing.Again, agreed. I did not intend to imply that classic liberals and libertarians can be thrown haphazardly into the same theoretical basket, even if they fall off much the same species of conceptual tree. (Indeed, I argued precisely this point at some length when certain NSers attempted to found a "Classic Liberals" party that was, in its stated principles, essentially libertarian.)
Soheran
25-04-2008, 05:37
We can critique any particular conception of justice, perhaps even justice as concept. But justice itself always remains outside the conception or the concept.

It's not justice I'm asking about, it's the sense of justice.

We know that our intuitive conceptions of right and wrong can be bad ones--indeed, at times horrendously bad ones. They are based not only on whatever intuitive knowledge we have of justice, but also on a variety of cultural and biological factors that can bias us in one direction or another.

The task of moral theory is not only to resolve the "hard" cases that our intuitions don't present as obvious, but also to critically examine those intuitions themselves. There's nothing inconceivable, in this context, about having intuitively easy cases made hard.

Within the framework of our moral intuitions we may have an understanding of justice that, at least in some respects, a moral system cannot encompass. But when we must rely on that moral system itself to analyze the worthiness of our intuitions, I don't see how we can go about using them to critique that system.
Ryadn
25-04-2008, 06:17
Hmm. My spidy sense is tingling. I'm fairly sure I wrote a paper about this in college... I'll have to dig it up and remember what I said. :p
Nanatsu no Tsuki
25-04-2008, 06:22
I have a right to rightly say nothing of value to this thread.

I should go to bed.
-Dalaam-
25-04-2008, 06:23
It always annoys me how people simply state that there is no objective moral code, are no objective rights, that nothing is good and nothing means anything. As if the matter is not debatable at all, and as if those debating it are foolish to imagine such things exist. This is the Nihilism that Nietzsche warned us about, the idea that nothing matters, an idea that leads us directly nowhere, with no motivation to do or change everything, and gives us the justification to ignore injustice.

If you want to argue that objective moral values do not exist, then please actually argue it. Do not simply speak from the standpoint that they do not and any of us that think they do are simply naive.
AnarchyeL
25-04-2008, 08:42
It's not justice I'm asking about, it's the sense of justice.I know. And I'm explaining that what deconstruction does is mediate between constructed conceptions of justice and justice itself... which we feel but cannot define.

We know that our intuitive conceptions of right and wrong can be bad ones--indeed, at times horrendously bad ones.Yes, but as soon as they are conceptions they are no longer intuitions. The concept is thought, the intuition is given.

We need to use the notion of "intuition" consistently. You seem to mean, "the ideas I just have that I can't explain," which is a common-use definition. I'm sticking to a more rigorous philosophical definition of intuition as pre-conceptual.

They are based not only on whatever intuitive knowledge we have of justice, but also on a variety of cultural and biological factors that can bias us in one direction or another.Exactly. Deconstruction mediates between these two: we try to construct conceptions mapping to (horrible language, but let's go with it for now) our intuition of justice, but this is impossible. Deconstruction takes us back, tears apart the construction to reveal what it obscures. This is exactly what it means to criticize our biases, cultural and biological factors. But we cannot criticize them at all without a moral intuition.

The task of moral theory is not only to resolve the "hard" cases that our intuitions don't present as obvious, but also to critically examine those intuitions themselves.How? Critically examine "justice." Critically examine "right." Critically examine "good." There's nothing to criticize. Supply a definition (conception), and we can criticize this: does it really capture "good"? Does it really define "justice"? How would we know, except that we sense some "good" or "justice" that we're trying to define?

There's nothing inconceivable, in this context, about having intuitively easy cases made hard.Indeed not! Was I not the one who said that the whole significance of the axe-murderer is that Kant makes an easy case hard? But this is not through criticizing the intuition of justice itself: it is rather a criticism of the "intuition" (in the common-use sense) that justice is a sort of balance or scale such that saving innocent human lives outweighs the wrong of a small deceipt or omission. Of course, there is something important about our intuition of justice captured by the notion of balance, which is why it remains a hard case.

Within the framework of our moral intuitions we may have an understanding of justice that, at least in some respects, a moral system cannot encompass.The kind of intuition I mean (and perhaps this all comes down to a lack of precision in language) cannot produce a "framework" because it is inherently without construction. The whole point is that all our frameworks are constructions, and inadequate constructions at that. It is the frameworks that fall short of the ideal.

But when we must rely on that moral system itself to analyze the worthiness of our intuitions,How do you judge the worthiness of the intuition of justice? The worthiness of "good"? It is our intuition of such ideals that gives any sense to the word "worthiness" in the first place.

I don't see how we can go about using them to critique that system.But deconstruction doesn't "use" intuition/ideals to critique the system. How could it? Rather, deconstruction uses the system against itself, demonstrates the contradictions that serve to obscure that which is excluded. It criticizes by demonstrating what our constructions force us to forget, and in remembering we recall our basic intuition--not our "intuition" that man-on-man sex is yucky, but our deeper (non-particular) sense of right.

(Apologies to anyone who works in these theoretical circles, we're really butchering the language as we wander between several traditions at once... I'm trying to use what I can of shared meanings to get across the basic point without having to start from square one with a primer in deconstruction.)

:)
Neu Leonstein
25-04-2008, 09:16
Locke thought we'd all be pretty okay with each other until someone invents property... then we get, not Hobbes's "war of all upon all," but a class war in which the (irrational, to Locke) impoverished try viciously to steal what the propertied class had taken for itself. Hence, those with property set up government to defend themselves.
Not that what you're saying is wrong...but you're putting an interesting spin on it. Didn't Locke use the word "property" to include things like life and liberty? It's not just material goods that are to be protected, it's our own existence. So it's not the propertied class so much as the class that doesn't seek to violate the law of nature, as it were. The "impoverished" aren't necessarily poor people, they're the people who don't care that it's wrong to hurt, steal or deprive people of liberty because in a state of nature there is no objective judge who can tell them that it is (and make them listen).
Llewdor
25-04-2008, 21:06
We can't. It's the basis for critique. It's that thing in our heads (or hearts) that makes us WANT things to be right, to be good, to be just.
But our desires aren't foundationless, unless you're discussing personal preferences, but I'm not aware of anyone who finds personal preferences compelling or considers them prescriptive.
We can critique any particular conception of justice, perhaps even justice as concept. But justice itself always remains outside the conception or the concept. We can never quite grasp it in the first place, so how can we set it up for criticism?
So how can we possible base anything on it? how can justice be the basis for our legal system, for example, if we don't know what it is?
It's when we start having a bit too much "fun" with deconstruction and ignore the significance of residual ideals beyond what we can construct (or then deconstruct) that we wind up in the postmodern dead-end: nothing (including justice) means anything.
I've held for years that justice is a meaningless concept for exactly this reason. It's not because I'm having too much fun with deconstructionism, but that justice is always poorly defined.
I know. And I'm explaining that what deconstruction does is mediate between constructed conceptions of justice and justice itself... which we feel but cannot define.
Then why do we feel it? Feelings have identifiable causes.
We need to use the notion of "intuition" consistently. You seem to mean, "the ideas I just have that I can't explain," which is a common-use definition. I'm sticking to a more rigorous philosophical definition of intuition as pre-conceptual.
If that's what intuition is, then I'm forced to argue that there's no such thing as intuition. Such a thing as you've described can't exist.
Exactly. Deconstruction mediates between these two: we try to construct conceptions mapping to (horrible language, but let's go with it for now) our intuition of justice, but this is impossible. Deconstruction takes us back, tears apart the construction to reveal what it obscures. This is exactly what it means to criticize our biases, cultural and biological factors. But we cannot criticize them at all without a moral intuition.
Nor can we assemble them, according to you, without a moral intuition. You've created a circular system that presupposes the existence of moral intuition, but then defined intuition generally in a way that precludes its existence within a rational mind.
How? Critically examine "justice." Critically examine "right." Critically examine "good." There's nothing to criticize. Supply a definition (conception), and we can criticize this: does it really capture "good"? Does it really define "justice"? How would we know, except that we sense some "good" or "justice" that we're trying to define?
If that's all justice, rightness, and goodness are, why would anyone ever value them? We're not all just monkeys pressing the button to get some food - we're reasonable, introspective people who, hopefully, don't continue to hold many opinions if we don't have some idea why we hold them. But your descriptions of justice and the rest, here, preclude that sort of knowledge. You're saying that we hold these ideas of justice for no reason at all - we simply do - and we can never question them.

That's absurd. And that's how religion works.
AnarchyeL
26-04-2008, 06:48
Not that what you're saying is wrong...but you're putting an interesting spin on it. Didn't Locke use the word "property" to include things like life and liberty?He did: "property" included "life, liberty, and estate," as he usually wrote it out. What he winds up protecting, however, is "estate"... which most people today understand as "property."

The Second Treatise was a brilliant work... in equivocation. He knew it, too. Did I already mention in this thread that he refused to put his name on it? He was afraid that the author of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding should be ashamed to admit to the blatant fallacies of the political work.

He really was brilliant. The Treatises are not.
AnarchyeL
26-04-2008, 07:00
But our desires aren't foundationless, unless you're discussing personal preferences, but I'm not aware of anyone who finds personal preferences compelling or considers them prescriptive.Who said anything about desire?

So how can we possible base anything on it?Who said we should?

how can justice be the basis for our legal system, for example, if we don't know what it is?I never said it should be the basis for our legal system. I said it's what drives us to come up with legal systems in the first place.

Why do we have a legal system? What is it that legal systems drive at?

Then why do we feel it? Feelings have identifiable causes.Okay, then you tell me.

If that's what intuition is, then I'm forced to argue that there's no such thing as intuition. Such a thing as you've described can't exist.Pre-conceptual things? Why? Does an infant experience no sensory input because it has no thoughts? Does it not see light simply because it cannot conceive of objects?

Nor can we assemble them, according to you, without a moral intuition.It's not so much that we can't as that we wouldn't. Sure we could construct legal systems, but why bother? Or rather, why suppose that they should be held to some standard?

If that's all justice, rightness, and goodness are, why would anyone ever value them?What do you mean by "value"? That's the problem.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

We're not all just monkeys pressing the button to get some food - we're reasonable, introspective people who, hopefully, don't continue to hold many opinions if we don't have some idea why we hold them.Why not? Why do we suppose that we shouldn't hold opinions if we don't have some idea why we hold them?

But your descriptions of justice and the rest, here, preclude that sort of knowledge.On the contrary, they are the only grounding for that kind of knowledge.

You're saying that we hold these ideas of justice for no reason at all - we simply do - and we can never question them.Not at all. But you're already slipping into the "ideas" of justice, which I've already said are very much open to criticism.

As for justice itself, I never said we cling to it for no reason at all. I said that any reason(s) we can positively state are invariably incomplete and open to criticism.

What I am arguing for is a mode of criticism that can never be closed. Somehow you have managed to interpret me as suggesting that there is an idea that is beyond critique!!
Andaras
26-04-2008, 10:09
Human Rights is simply the religion of the "secular" West.
I agree, although I would elaborate by saying that the 'old' bourgeois still justifies 'human rights' and 'morality' on the grounds of theological abstraction and feudal-styled religion. The 'new' bourgeois uses abstraction also but instead of archaic dogmatism they tend to the 'religion' of secularism as you said and also the strange Enlightenment-styled 'god of reason' deism stuff.

Both however have an incorrect postulate as they place a man as an abstract with abstract rights which correspond to no social reality but the fantastic dreams of the bourgeois themselves. Ultimately such idealistic postulates reflect simply the economic interests of the bourgeois.
Chumblywumbly
26-04-2008, 12:56
If you look at the phrase “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal”... you might well get the impression that rights are inalienable in both a natural and a contractual state. But that isn’t actually what Locke says.
Arguably, that’s not what Jefferson is saying either. he may be acknowledging the ‘no-theory’ theory of rights. If folks bare with me, to illustrate my point I’d like to quote Arthur Danto:


“In the afterwash of 1968, I found myself a member of a group charged with working out the disciplinary procedures for acts against my university. It was an exemplary group from the perspective of representation so urgent at the time: administrators, students, men and women, whites and blacks. We all wondered, nevertheless, what right we had to do what was asked of us, and a good bit of time went into expressing our insecurities.

Finally, a man from the law school said, with the tired patience of someone required to explain what should be as plain as day, and in a tone of voice I can still hear: ”This is the way it is with rights. You want ‘em, so you say you got ‘em, and if nobody says you don’t then you do.“...

Jefferson did not say that it was self-evident that there were human rights and which they were: he said we hold this for self-evident. He chose the locution mainly, I think, because he was more certain we have them than he was of any argument alleged to entail them, or any premise from which their existence was to follow. This is the way it is with rights. We declare we have them, and see if they are recognized.”

(Arthur C. Danto, ‘Constructing an Epistemology of Human Rights: A Pseudo-problem?’, in E.F. Paul, J. Paul and F.D. Miller, Jr. (eds.), Human Rights, Oxford, Blackwell, 1984, p.30.)


I think this a rather sensible, and (to me at least) rather attractive, notion of the origin of rights: it recognises what one of my lecturers has called “a distinctive feature of the logical grammar of rights–that they are generally asserted as claims on others.”

The obvious objection is that the existence of rights is now at the whim of those who disagree with the rights posited; tyrants and other opponents simply have to raise one objection to block rights. But is this really a problem? I’d attest, with good reason, that the various human rights legislation (be it international or national) merely state politically correct positions that the majority of people in the Western world agree to.

We have human rights legislation against slavery because most people in the Western world, including legislators, feel slavery is incompatible with modern society; not because we have some strange metaphysical right, by our very existence of being a human, not to be a slave.

Thoughts? Comments? Shocked gasps of horror?
Soheran
26-04-2008, 14:16
Jefferson did not say that it was self-evident that there were human rights and which they were: he said we hold this for self-evident. He chose the locution mainly, I think, because he was more certain we have them than he was of any argument alleged to entail them, or any premise from which their existence was to follow. This is the way it is with rights. We declare we have them, and see if they are recognized.”

This is an interesting reading, but it doesn't make much sense.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident" may indeed indicate that Jefferson was more attached to the idea of rights than to particular arguments defending them, but the conclusion suggested simply does not follow. Jefferson was asserting rights against someone. He was not asking for rights to be recognized, because he knew they wouldn't be (at least on the terms he wanted). Rather, he was justifying his stance precisely on the basis that the British monarchy did not protect them.

This is generally the case when people assert rights that are deemed to be "natural" or "intrinsic" or "absolute": we demand them, we (usually, and within reasonable limits) consider ourselves justified in using force to protect them, we don't request them.

"Recognition" is the "ought" of human rights--what should ensue from them.

I think this a rather sensible, and (to me at least) rather attractive, notion of the origin of rights: it recognises what one of my lecturers has called “a distinctive feature of the logical grammar of rights–that they are generally asserted as claims on others.”

I would draw the exact opposite conclusion from this feature. You make a moral "rights" claim on others precisely because there is no recognition on their part.

Perhaps you seek recognition from others in a more general sense, from society as a whole... but this requires that you have some standing, some reason to give to them.

We have human rights legislation against slavery because most people in the Western world, including legislators, feel slavery is incompatible with modern society;

Not me. Slavery is not "incompatible" with modern society--indeed, it persists with some success within modern society--but it is wrong in modern society and any other.

not because we have some strange metaphysical right, by our very existence of being a human, not to be a slave.

So there is nothing wrong with slavery? Or is your point that its wrongness is not captured by "human rights" formulations?
AnarchyeL
26-04-2008, 15:40
Finally, a man from the law school said, with the tired patience of someone required to explain what should be as plain as day, and in a tone of voice I can still hear: ”This is the way it is with rights. You want ‘em, so you say you got ‘em, and if nobody says you don’t then you do.“...True enough, but this obscures the point: why does "nobody" say you don't? Is it merely a matter of contingent, intersubjective agreement, as you seem to suggest below: we all (most of us, at least) just happen to like the same sorts of rights and privileges, so we have at some point adopted these as part of the common political culture? Does it have something more to do with raw power and balances of power?

Does argument have no place in getting other people to agree to certain rights? Even assuming intersubjective agreement or a balance of power as a positive explanation of why certain rights (and not others) are realized or protected, how does one go about changing the situation to emphasize other rights? Is the progression of a theory of rights simply historical in the narrowest sense, or can we trace a history of ideas that exercise a force on the public mind at least partly in virtue of whether they are philosophically compelling.

When it comes to political theory, I'm empiricist and historicist enough to know that change doesn't happen without a movement: African Americans and women (for instance) won new rights in the United States because social movements demanded them and pressed a response from the culture and the state. But was it only a matter of political pressure? Or did it help that they made sound arguments for their case?

That's really the question we ask when we look for a foundation for rights: what makes this or that right compelling? I'm not convinced this can be reduced to nothing more than contingent intersubjective agreement or an artifact of power relations.

I think this a rather sensible, and (to me at least) rather attractive, notion of the origin of rights: it recognises what one of my lecturers has called “a distinctive feature of the logical grammar of rights–that they are generally asserted as claims on others.”Yes, but there are all kinds of claims asserted on others. What makes the sort of claims asserted as "rights" different from, say, claims asserted as "debt" or "loyalty" or "respect" or "courtesy"?
Chumblywumbly
26-04-2008, 19:24
This is an interesting reading, but it doesn’t make much sense.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident” may indeed indicate that Jefferson was more attached to the idea of rights than to particular arguments defending them, but the conclusion suggested simply does not follow. Jefferson was asserting rights against someone. He was not asking for rights to be recognized, because he knew they wouldn’t be (at least on the terms he wanted). Rather, he was justifying his stance precisely on the basis that the British monarchy did not protect them.

This is generally the case when people assert rights that are deemed to be “natural” or “intrinsic” or “absolute”: we demand them, we (usually, and within reasonable limits) consider ourselves justified in using force to protect them, we don’t request them.
I don’t see a problem with this; by using the term ‘requesting’, I don’t, and I imagine neither does Danto, preclude the notion that ‘requesting’ may have little to do with a nice polite request. I demand that my people have certain rights. You, as a coercive power disagree. I wage a war against you that costs you dearly, and thus you agree to my demands; agreeing not to prevent me further from using the rights I now have.

Perhaps you seek recognition from others in a more general sense, from society as a whole... but this requires that you have some standing, some reason to give to them.
And people do give all the various reasons for having human rights, be it from being created by Allah or by the very nature of being human.

Not me. Slavery is not “incompatible” with modern society—indeed, it persists with some success within modern society
See my answer to AnarchyeL below.

So there is nothing wrong with slavery? Or is your point that its wrongness is not captured by “human rights” formulations?
In a sense, the latter. I think it’s terrible that anyone should be enslaved, but I don’t think that human rights expresses that well, or that appealing to human rights can help us in all cases of enslavement. Or at least, it only would help once a vast majority of people, including some of those in positions of power, agree that these cases of enslavement are terrible.

But by that time, the case is moot.


True enough, but this obscures the point: why does “nobody” say you don’t? Is it merely a matter of contingent, intersubjective agreement, as you seem to suggest below: we all (most of us, at least) just happen to like the same sorts of rights and privileges, so we have at some point adopted these as part of the common political culture? Does it have something more to do with raw power and balances of power?
A bit of both. Obviously, for those rights that the majority of people believe in to be recognised, those in power must assent. At the same time, there’s a recognition by those power structures that some nod to the ‘will of the people’ is needed to detract from open revolt. Another example of the subtler ways of control powerful institutions have in our lives.

I truly believe we wouldn’t have the legal right to not be enslaved against our will if there was no social norm that condemned slavery. Now, some of us may well argue that the legislation (and social awareness) doesn’t go far enough, that there are more forms of slavery to tackle than simple that of putting people in chains and making them pick cotton, but these subtler forms of slavery are essential to the power structures in a way ‘classic’ slavery isn’t.

In a similar vein, there’s massive public awareness and a huge deal of public opinion supportive of the environmental movement. Powerful institutions, be they the state or corporations, recognise this emotional need in the populace, so give lip service to environmental causes. Thus we get political parties and corporations making a big effort to appear to be ‘green’; including parties such as the UK Conservatives or corporations such as Shell, that would traditionally oppose such measures. It keeps folks happy; stops the majority of them asking whether or not real, effective measures are being taken. Note, however, that this process isn’t, I believe, some sort of vast conspiracy, but simply the way the game is played.

Does argument have no place in getting other people to agree to certain rights? Even assuming intersubjective agreement or a balance of power as a positive explanation of why certain rights (and not others) are realized or protected, how does one go about changing the situation to emphasize other rights?
Argument certainly has its place. Indeed, that’s what we need to convince those who object to the rights that we attest to have.

When it comes to political theory, I’m empiricist and historicist enough to know that change doesn’t happen without a movement: African Americans and women (for instance) won new rights in the United States because social movements demanded them and pressed a response from the culture and the state. But was it only a matter of political pressure? Or did it help that they made sound arguments for their case?
Obviously, both were needed. But the fact that sound arguments are made only helped the movements in question, it didn’t start it. Folks didn't say to themselves one day, "By golly, I've just reasoned out I have as many rights as these white dudes/men/whatever" and then feel that they were being hard done by. Moreover, the arguments in favour of rights for black Americans and women mostly boil down to “You whites/males have rights, you claim, because you’re humans. We’re humans too. Therefore, we also have rights.” Perfectly reasonable argument too, but look what’s happening: black Americans and women attested they had rights, convinced people that they had rights, and found that they had rights.

It’s a lovely thing to say that we all have certain rights by the very fact of being human, but (1) we get into very shaky ground if we try and show how we do have these rights by nature of being human without invoking God or something similar, and (2) the rights mean shit all if they aren’t supported and legislated for.

Yes, but there are all kinds of claims asserted on others. What makes the sort of claims asserted as “rights” different from, say, claims asserted as “debt” or “loyalty” or “respect” or “courtesy”?
I’d argue that these are very similar cases; they're institutions that would mean very little without both being supported by those who abide by said institutions, and being backed up by some form of coercion; whether that coercion be threat of force from the state or another party, or social punishments such as shunning, noted disapproval, loss of privilege, etc.

I don’t think that lessens these institutions in any real way. In fact, I think it’s promising, for we can often challenge institutions and attempt to convince people that we should ignore the conventions of the institution, making it useless. Obviously, the big caveat remains that many institutions are backed up with legislation, threat of force, political or military power, etc., that make the job a tad more harder than merely convincing people.
Soheran
26-04-2008, 22:04
I don’t see a problem with this; by using the term ‘requesting’, I don’t, and I imagine neither does Danto, preclude the notion that ‘requesting’ may have little to do with a nice polite request. I demand that my people have certain rights. You, as a coercive power disagree. I wage a war against you that costs you dearly, and thus you agree to my demands; agreeing not to prevent me further from using the rights I now have.

But that's only half the point. It's the cart, but not the horse.

True, it may take war for your rights to actually be recognized--for you to actually have them, in the legal sense. But do you have reason for your war? Do you have justification?

Jefferson's whole point is to provide something of that justification for his cause, and to do so, he must appeal to right beyond recognition: he must say there is something wrong with the present circumstance, some "right" (in a broad sense) that is not being recognized but should be.

If any such assertion is arbitrary, at least before material reality is forcibly altered to accord with it, he might as well not have bothered.

And people do give all the various reasons for having human rights, be it from being created by Allah or by the very nature of being human.

But that means that as members of society, we (and everyone else) should be concerned with which reasons work, and which don't.

And therefore our discourse on rights must move beyond adherence to what is recognized to what should be recognized... which means we must be concerned with foundations more substantive than empirical contingency.

In a sense, the latter. I think it’s terrible that anyone should be enslaved, but I don’t think that human rights expresses that well, or that appealing to human rights can help us in all cases of enslavement.

Do you think human beings are completely unresponsive to moral argument?

Doesn't the widespread opposition to slavery in today's world, even in countries that have previously practiced it and from groups that have benefited from it, indicate otherwise?

Sure, the changes weren't independent of real material factors: there were economic changes, social changes, cultural changes that were involved. But even if such factors were preconditions for the abolition of slavery, it doesn't follow that they were the sole causes... and indeed, as an explanation they fail to explain the moral revulsion most people today have toward the idea.

I might put it this way: it's not that slavery, or support for slavery, is (materially) incompatible with "modern society", but rather that "modern society" offers us the space within which we can achieve material recognition of the moral truth of slavery's wrongness.

I truly believe we wouldn’t have the legal right to not be enslaved against our will if there was no social norm that condemned slavery.

You're probably right. But you haven't shown that this "social norm" has nothing to do with an understanding of human rights that amounts to more than "political correctness" or arbitrary cultural factors.

Now, some of us may well argue that the legislation (and social awareness) doesn’t go far enough, that there are more forms of slavery to tackle than simple that of putting people in chains and making them pick cotton, but these subtler forms of slavery are essential to the power structures in a way ‘classic’ slavery isn’t.

True. But concretely, what is our best response to this? Is it really to silence the discourse of "rights"? Doesn't that really undermine our capacity to change the situation--weaken our capacity to critique the system in a way that might make others listen without a gun being held to their head?

Argument certainly has its place. Indeed, that’s what we need to convince those who object to the rights that we attest to have.

If we are making arguments we are giving reasons, and that means we must look for a foundation for rights that doesn't just restate what is recognized, but provides a compelling basis for change.

Folks didn't say to themselves one day, "By golly, I've just reasoned out I have as many rights as these white dudes/men/whatever" and then feel that they were being hard done by.

True, but that doesn't mean that the rights argument had no place.

Wouldn't many people prove more willing to endure hardship if they were convinced of the rightness of their misery--or of the wrongness of the actions necessary to end it? Wouldn't many people, on the other hand, prove more willing to try to change things if they were convinced that their cause had real moral force behind it?

Perfectly reasonable argument too, but look what’s happening: black Americans and women attested they had rights, convinced people that they had rights, and found that they had rights.

And while both groups made their achievements only through disruption, through protest, through direct action, ultimately they accomplished what they did more or less peacefully (at least after the Civil War)... because they managed to convince people that they were right, people with no ulterior motive to take their side. What better argument could there be for the practical utility of arguments about human rights?

That doesn't always work, of course. Sometimes you have to use force, and on a greater scale than either of those groups. Sometimes you have to abandon the struggle entirely, because the things you rightfully should get aren't within the realm of possibility. But just because the idea of human rights is insufficient does not mean that it is useless.
Kamsaki-Myu
26-04-2008, 22:40
It's threads like these that really make me regret taking Computer Science as my major. Oh well, hopefully I'll make enough money to get to go back to college later.

We have human rights legislation against slavery because most people in the Western world, including legislators, feel slavery is incompatible with modern society; not because we have some strange metaphysical right, by our very existence of being a human, not to be a slave.
One of the difficulties I always find in discussions like this is that as a Hegelian, I don't find your suggested notions to be beyond synthesis. There are elements of truth to both the idea of an arbitrary contract of rights and the idea of inviolable rights of conscious entities, and ultimately the most complete framework of the roles of collective and individual takes both of of these into account.

I just want to speak in defense of Natural Rights for now. I don't know if I'm bringing anything new to the table, but humour me here. It must be acknowledged that agents do not direct the state of nature. Nature follows a set process of causality, and as such there is a limit to the actions that can be performed by anyone at any time. You can make changes to the world, but only by providing the causes whose effect you want to see realised. Natural rights are the implicit enshrinement of those aspects of the state of the agent that are protected from external force by this indirection. In other words, you have a right to have an arm attached to you for as long as nobody tries to remove it, or you have a right to say anything you like until somebody shuts you up.

This is a fundamentally weak system of "right", in the conventional understanding of the word. There is no sense of "ought" about it, save in as much as it ought to be the case that C follows B follows A. To use your example, it is not a violation of natural rights should a state of slavery exist. On the other hand, it does provide a verifiable bare minimum for the extent to which freedom can be said to be independent of social constructs; that is, even if they are not protected at all, certain rights remain. It also consequently provides a verifiable upper bound on agent freedom, since one cannot do that which would nullify such a right. Even if prospective slaves are not protected, nature grants them the entitlement to seek to prevent my enslavement of them. Even if I am prohibited from speaking openly by society, I can use my perfectly functioning vocal chords to shout like hell while they act to silence me.
Jello Biafra
26-04-2008, 23:41
Even if prospective slaves are not protected, nature grants them the entitlement to seek to prevent my enslavement of them. Even if I am prohibited from speaking openly by society, I can use my perfectly functioning vocal chords to shout like hell while they act to silence me.Sure, but doesn't this also mean you have the freedom to attempt to enslave someone, or to forcibly silence someone?
Kamsaki-Myu
27-04-2008, 01:00
Sure, but doesn't this also mean you have the freedom to attempt to enslave someone, or to forcibly silence someone?
In terms of natural law, you have the freedom to attempt, yes. There's nothing implicit within nature that means you have to be empathetic. Conversely, though, you can never be in such a situation where you can deny your opponent the possibility of trying to resist your force. This plays an influential part in more practical rights systems (and probably factored into some of Marxist thinking) in that since the freedom to dissent is something that lies in the hands of agents themselves rather than as part of the social contract, a given society must either acknowledge and accept dissent as a part of it's members' entitlements or be vulnerable to revolution when that dissent occurs anyway.
HotRodia
27-04-2008, 01:18
It's threads like these that really make me regret taking Computer Science as my major. Oh well, hopefully I'll make enough money to get to go back to college later.

Why? I got an English degree, but that never stopped me from reading and thinking enough to understand this discussion. Granted, I took a lot of philosophy courses too because I was planning on a minor in it.

By the way, this thread is thoroughly enjoyable.
Kamsaki-Myu
27-04-2008, 01:43
Why?
Oh, don't worry, I follow the thread just fine. Admittedly I'm missing some of the references since I'm not as well read as most, but that doesn't seriously detract from any of it. I just wish I'd spent time on it because I love this stuff, is all.
AnarchyeL
27-04-2008, 17:56
At the same time, there’s a recognition by those power structures that some nod to the ‘will of the people’ is needed to detract from open revolt.But there is simply no cause for this degree of cynicism. The extent to which political leaders take the will of the people seriously is an empirical question that varies by country, and we certainly find examples of healthy democratic political culture--healthy in the sense that leaders hold themselves accountable, politicians make (and take seriously) arguments rooted in democratic theory. Your assertion has all the attractions of so-called "realism" in legal theory (the notion, in short, that law is the whim of a judge), but all of its failings as well: when we actually take it upon ourselves to study judges (in at least some societies), we find that the vast majority of them are professionalized so as to put real stock in precedent, legal argumentation, and rules of law. They feel constrained by ideals, which thereby exert influence over their decisions.

I do not mean, of course, to argue for mechanical jurisprudence: as the opposite extreme, the theory is (at least) equally beset by difficulties. The point here is simply this: empirically, we find that judges do NOT, as a rule, decide first and look for precedent/argument later merely to support their bias. This is most obvious when judges admit to decisions they find distasteful: they would have liked to rule the other way... but that's not the law.

I truly believe we wouldn’t have the legal right to not be enslaved against our will if there was no social norm that condemned slavery.Likely not. But the question is not whether we would, but whether we should.

But the fact that sound arguments are made only helped the movements in question, it didn’t start it. Folks didn't say to themselves one day, "By golly, I've just reasoned out I have as many rights as these white dudes/men/whatever" and then feel that they were being hard done by.Actually... they did. Mary Wollstonecraft, well ahead of her time in recognizing the oppression of women, addressed her work primarily to men because she believed women would never see the injustice of their lot without the benefits of a formal education. Men, at least, could be held to account for the conclusions of their own philosophy: if you talk the talk, walk the walk and show that equality actually means something.

Later, 70's feminism developed directly out of the civil rights and student movements of the 60's: women identified as Marxists or anti-war activists and only gradually came to resent their treatment as second-class revolutionaries (phone-banking and typesetting rather than speech-making). Feminists had to develop a significant amount of theory just to get women (and men) to see what they were experiencing as unfair. That's the trick of ideology: it makes the status quo appear so "natural" that, until someone ventures to question it, people may not even recognize the boot that's stepping on them.
Glorious Freedonia
28-04-2008, 18:04
Human rights that exist beyond law are not more powerful; they are less powerful. They are less powerful because they lack the legitimacy of law. If human rights exist off on their own somewhere independent of anyone's preferences, what's to stop the childish objection of "Says who?" You've unintentionally rendered human rights foundationless, and thus robbed them of prescriptive force.

Human rights existing beyond law makes them more powerful because no government can take them away. It is like trying to make gravity illegal. The mere fact that they exist beyond law does not mean that a government cannot make a law recognizing the human right. It merely gives the human right greater power because even if a government "takes it away" by some legal action, the action is void. It also gives the rest of humanity the excuse to send in military forces to secure human rights for their oppressed, whereas we do not really have that power to intervene in areas that are not beyond the law such as the regulation of traffic safety.
Chumblywumbly
28-04-2008, 19:32
Jefferson’s whole point is to provide something of that justification for his cause, and to do so, he must appeal to right beyond recognition: he must say there is something wrong with the present circumstance, some “right” (in a broad sense) that is not being recognized but should be.

If any such assertion is arbitrary, at least before material reality is forcibly altered to accord with it, he might as well not have bothered.
Why not? Asserting human rights that are (as far as I can see) impossible to show beyond the level of convention, backing up those assertions with political and military power, then embedding these assertions into legislation–how is that useless if the assertions are arbitrary? They’re accepted and become a part of the fabric of the society.

And therefore our discourse on rights must move beyond adherence to what is recognized to what should be recognized... which means we must be concerned with foundations more substantive than empirical contingency.
Again, how so?

Do you think human beings are completely unresponsive to moral argument?
Of course not.

Sure, the changes weren’t independent of real material factors: there were economic changes, social changes, cultural changes that were involved. But even if such factors were preconditions for the abolition of slavery, it doesn’t follow that they were the sole causes... and indeed, as an explanation they fail to explain the moral revulsion most people today have toward the idea.
They don't? A culture that has as one of its taboos slavery, in which we are taught at an early age that slavery is a terrible feature of past societies (perhaps the most terrible feature); why wouldn't that be enough explanation.

Moreover, I fail to see how the revulsion of slavery is a conclusive argument in any way for human rights being somehow innate.

I might put it this way: it’s not that slavery, or support for slavery, is (materially) incompatible with “modern society”, but rather that “modern society” offers us the space within which we can achieve material recognition of the moral truth of slavery’s wrongness.
I don’t see how that can be shown to be the case, without first untangling the prejudices we have of living in the society we are analysing. Moreover, you’re slightly shifting the goalposts here, I believe, unless you want to also show how human rights and moral truths (if they exist) are directly analogous.

You’re probably right. But you haven’t shown that this “social norm” has nothing to do with an understanding of human rights that amounts to more than “political correctness” or arbitrary cultural factors.
I’m positing that human rights are nothing outside of accepted assertions of themselves, on occasion coupled with legislative statutes. I am convinced by the lack of any evidence or coherent argument otherwise. It’s up to the proponents of the opposing positions to show me how I am wrong.


True. But concretely, what is our best response to this? Is it really to silence the discourse of “rights”?
I don’t think I am silencing human rights discourse; I’m simply maintaining that we need to understand the ‘make-up’ of rights in a rational, coherent fashion. If that means admitting that there’s no good argument for why rights need be seen as inherent to humans in some strange sense, then so be it. We shouldn’t ignore this fact and run with the dodgy conception of rights because in some situations it may hold some leverage over tyrants; we’ll only ultimately damage our arguments, leaving human rights open to abuse. As is being done now in Western society, I believe.

If we are making arguments we are giving reasons, and that means we must look for a foundation for rights that doesn’t just restate what is recognized, but provides a compelling basis for change.
Once again, I don’t see how the ‘no-theory’ account has any problems with the above. Assertion-argumentation-recognition works in this respect.

What better argument could there be for the practical utility of arguments about human rights?

...just because the idea of human rights is insufficient does not mean that it is useless.
I’m certainly not arguing against the notion that arguments for human rights are practical, that they often achieve things; on the contrary. I just don’t see why this leads on to the assumption that human rights are anything more than complied-with assertions.


It’s threads like these that really make me regret taking Computer Science as my major.
See, that’s the beauty of philosophy: you can always dabble in it outside of the academic sphere.

Natural rights are the implicit enshrinement of those aspects of the state of the agent that are protected from external force by this indirection. In other words, you have a right to have an arm attached to you for as long as nobody tries to remove it, or you have a right to say anything you like until somebody shuts you up.
I wouldn’t characterise it as a ‘right’ to have an arm attached, but I see where you’re coming from. Would it be better not to talk about ‘ability’ here?

Even if prospective slaves are not protected, nature grants them the entitlement to seek to prevent my enslavement of them. Even if I am prohibited from speaking openly by society, I can use my perfectly functioning vocal chords to shout like hell while they act to silence me.
Once again, I’d talk about having the ability, even if it’s only potential ability, to not be enslaved; up to the point that rights are legislated for. However, I’m not familiar with Hegel. Is this his characterisation of Natural Rights?


The point here is simply this: empirically, we find that judges do NOT, as a rule, decide first and look for precedent/argument later merely to support their bias. This is most obvious when judges admit to decisions they find distasteful: they would have liked to rule the other way... but that’s not the law.
I fully agree that in certain, more democratic societies, this is the way of things; I wasn’t trying to argue against such a notion, which is why I also said: “this process isn’t, I believe, some sort of vast conspiracy, but simply the way the game is played”. Admittedly, I should have been much more explicit in my wording.

That’s the trick of ideology: it makes the status quo appear so “natural” that, until someone ventures to question it, people may not even recognize the boot that’s stepping on them.
All true enough, but the recognition of oppression comes long before, I’d argue a recognition of inequality in rights. I’d lessen my stance to say that there may well be times where a look at rights illuminates oppression, but my point is that the outrage is directed at the oppression, and outrage at an inequality/lack of rights is simply an expression of this. Lack of oppression is the end-goal, not an increase in rights.


Human rights existing beyond law makes them more powerful because no government can take them away. It is like trying to make gravity illegal.
I’d argue it’s not unless you can show that rights exist in a similar manner as gravity or other physical phenomena. And if you’re claiming that human rights are somehow part of the physical universe, you’ve got a lot of argumentation on your hands.
Soheran
28-04-2008, 20:32
Why not? Asserting human rights that are (as far as I can see) impossible to show beyond the level of convention, backing up those assertions with political and military power, then embedding these assertions into legislation–how is that useless if the assertions are arbitrary?

Why does he even bother with an argument? Why does he bother advancing rights? He's just going to war to get what he wants, isn't he? Arbitrariness doesn't admit of justification, yet Jefferson is out to justify.

Maybe he's just lying... but if he is, we can hardly conclude that from the phrasing of his allegedly dishonest words.

Again, how so?

Because if I want to know how I should vote on the legal protection of a given alleged right, I must consider what rights human beings should have regardless of which ones they conventionally already do.

Your analysis of rights is purely positive. It is flawed in those terms too (insofar as you suggest that our conventions regarding rights are purely arbitrary), but even more crucially it is flawed in that it fails in any meaningful way to be normative: it doesn't tell us how we should act, as citizens, when faced with political decisions involving rights.

They don't? A culture that has as one of its taboos slavery, in which we are taught at an early age that slavery is a terrible feature of past societies (perhaps the most terrible feature); why wouldn't that be enough explanation.

Because it's circular. Yes, culture is self-perpetuating. But why develop such a cultural taboo in the first place? Why develop such a cultural taboo against other very strong historical cultural tendencies--and sometimes against economic and political self-interest?

Moreover, I fail to see how the revulsion of slavery is a conclusive argument in any way for human rights being somehow innate.

Who said it was? I was responding to your suggestion that appealing to human rights can't help us deal with cases of enslavement.

Moreover, you’re slightly shifting the goalposts here, I believe, unless you want to also show how human rights and moral truths (if they exist) are directly analogous.

They're not, but your line of argument here, unless I'm misreading you, suggests relativism more generally.

I’m positing that human rights are nothing outside of accepted assertions of themselves, on occasion coupled with legislative statutes. I am convinced by the lack of any evidence or coherent argument otherwise.

The constant arguments people have about human rights, and the real effects such arguments have in the real world, aren't "evidence"?

People have been rationally convinced one way or another about human rights, and continue to be. Our positions about them need not be arbitrary.

Once again, I don’t see how the ‘no-theory’ account has any problems with the above. Assertion-argumentation-recognition works in this respect.

How can we have argumentation without theory? How can we defend or oppose enshrining certain alleged rights unless we have an account of how rights can be justified?

I’d argue it’s not unless you can show that rights exist in a similar manner as gravity or other physical phenomena.

But that's a straw man, because nobody claims that rights "exist" in the same sense gravity does.
AnarchyeL
28-04-2008, 22:10
Moreover, I fail to see how the revulsion of slavery is a conclusive argument in any way for human rights being somehow innate.It's not, of course... although your own argument that moral outrage necessarily precedes theorization tends in that direction. If "oppression" (as you have it, rather than a violation of rights) is "obvious," then it would seem you point to an innate notion of right and wrong.

Just having it tough does not lead to moral outrage. Sometimes, life sucks. People get outraged when they realize life sucks and it shouldn't. Ironically, I've been the one arguing that, empirically, people often need a theoretical perspective that points out to them that they are being treated unfairly--otherwise, "that's just the way it is." You, however, have argued that people become angry before they reach for a theoretical analysis--which tends toward an argument for some sort of innate moral framework.



I’m positing that human rights are nothing outside of accepted assertions of themselves, on occasion coupled with legislative statutes. I am convinced by the lack of any evidence or coherent argument otherwise.Ah, but any theory of rights (as opposed to privileges--let us not be confused) ultimately boils down to a similar burden-of-proof argument. Without getting into particulars (this right or that right), historically the notion of "rights" emerges not coincidentally with a conception of the rule of law and concepts of equal protection that largely derive from it--and this realization has allowed many theorists to bridge the gap between positive and natural theorizations on the issue of rights.

To live under the rule of law means, among other things, that the same law applies to everyone unless there is some good reason to say otherwise. Assertions of "rights" are, in most contexts, demands on the burden-of-proof: show me why African Americans should be treated differently than whites; show me why women should be treated differently than men.

The notion of "rights" comes down to this: "the lack of any evidence or coherent argument" (your words) that differences according to race, gender, nationality, religion, sexuality, etc... should make any legal difference in how we treat people. Arguments that those things make any real difference are all such shit that we say, "Well, even if it's not obvious exactly what rights people can claim by virtue of being human [I]whatever those are they are the same for everyone."

This is a positivist's answer, but it really is a foundation for a theory of rights within a positive conception of law precisely because such a conception intends to differentiate "legal" behavior rather sharply from "non-legal." Even Hobbes, not exactly known for his theory of rights, balks at punishments for offenses prohibited ex post facto: "law" simply isn't law when legislated after the fact. Hence the analysis of law itself (and NOT the analysis of "human nature" or "innate morals") gives us a foundation for legal rights.

"Human" rights are harder only insofar as international law is itself more difficult. Certainly we can recognize human rights within our own borders, however, according to formulations in the rule of law: whatever distinctions we make, it's those distinctions that need to be justified--not protections from them, which are inherent in the notion of law itself.

Hence, slavery is not a human right because it is innately "wrong," but because it is innately contra-legal. We could enslave everyone--which is simply incoherent--or we should be able to justify our enslavement of a particular class. Since arguments justifying, say, black slavery are shit... it fails the test. There's no way to make it law. We can make it a social practice, of course (we have!)... but it can never be legal, even if there are laws on the books that legitimize it. Those laws are void, because they are not laws at all. They are just directives emanating from people in power.

All true enough, but the recognition of oppression comes long before, I’d argue a recognition of inequality in rights.You're either playing semantics, or you simply don't see that I can't call it "oppression" unless I believe it's a violation of some right.

If master steps on me and that's the way things are supposed to be, I may be unhappy (lots of people are unhappy), but I'm not "oppressed." It's in recognizing that master has no right to step on me (whereas I do have a right not to be stepped upon) that I feel oppressed.

Lots of workers hate their jobs. It's the ones who think it shouldn't be this way who become communists. It's the theory, not the fact of hardship that makes it oppressive.

Lack of oppression is the end-goal, not an increase in rights.Pure semantics.
Chumblywumbly
29-04-2008, 17:27
It’s not, of course... although your own argument that moral outrage necessarily precedes theorization tends in that direction. If “oppression” (as you have it, rather than a violation of rights) is “obvious,” then it would seem you point to an innate notion of right and wrong.
Perhaps, or at least some notion that one is being hard done by; not necessarily innate beyond the fact that we are rational animals (that is, animals that use rationality, not that we are always rational).

You, however, have argued that people become angry before they reach for a theoretical analysis—which tends toward an argument for some sort of innate moral framework.
All I meant to indicate was that if two persons sit down and are given a massively unequal amount of sweeties compared to each other, the one with dramatically less sweeties doesn’t need an in-depth knowledge of the theories of property rights to recognise inequality. Obviously, inequality in society is often a lot more subtle and complicated than the above, but still, I’d think, recognition of abuse of rights isn’t the starting point for much outrage at societal inequality.

Without getting into particulars (this right or that right), historically the notion of “rights” emerges not coincidentally with a conception of the rule of law and concepts of equal protection that largely derive from it—and this realization has allowed many theorists to bridge the gap between positive and natural theorizations on the issue of rights.
I’d argue that it has allowed certain theorist to claim connection between ‘natural’ rights and codified human rights, but I have yet to see a decent argument for the former.

To live under the rule of law means, among other things, that the same law applies to everyone unless there is some good reason to say otherwise. Assertions of “rights” are, in most contexts, demands on the burden-of-proof: show me why African Americans should be treated differently than whites; show me why women should be treated differently than men.

...Arguments that those things make any real difference are all such shit that we say, “Well, even if it’s not obvious exactly what rights people can claim by virtue of being human whatever those are they are the same for everyone.”
Sure, I’d quite agree. Look, I’m certainly not maintaining that human rights are useless, or that those without rights cannot make claims against those who do, but I fail to see why we need fall back on natural rights.


There’s no way to make it [slavery] law. We can make it a social practice, of course (we have!)... but it can never be legal, even if there are laws on the books that legitimize it. Those laws are void, because they are not laws at all. They are just directives emanating from people in power.
The above is simply far too naive, which is why I’m much more sympathetic to legal positivism. We can argue about whether a law is legitimate or not, but maintaining that it isn’t a law unless it complies with some outside ethical code seems foolish. It is still very much a law, codified by an authority.

You’re either playing semantics, or you simply don’t see that I can’t call it “oppression” unless I believe it’s a violation of some right.

...Pure semantics.
Only if you define a large amount of rights is ‘a lack of oppression’, which is rather blinkered, I’d argue.

You can’t just conflate the two notions; we can feasibly think of a situation were there is a distinct lack of oppression yet where rights are non-existent, and similarly, a situation in which whole swathes of rights are present, yet where there is massive oppression.
Chumblywumbly
29-04-2008, 17:39
Arbitrariness doesn’t admit of justification, yet Jefferson is out to justify.
Where? Does he not simply “hold these truths to be self-evident”?

Your analysis of rights is purely positive. It is flawed in those terms too (insofar as you suggest that our conventions regarding rights are purely arbitrary), but even more crucially it is flawed in that it fails in any meaningful way to be normative: it doesn’t tell us how we should act, as citizens, when faced with political decisions involving rights.
Or turn that around: all talk about rights is flawed in that very respect. If rights talk isn’t normative, and thus can’t show us a way to act, that doesn’t necessitate that rights must exist and be used in a way which is normative; it is also possible that we might have to use something different to rights.

Yes, culture is self-perpetuating. But why develop such a cultural taboo in the first place? Why develop such a cultural taboo against other very strong historical cultural tendencies—and sometimes against economic and political self-interest?
Because culture has changed through protest and argumentation, aimed at making slavery exactly that cultural taboo.

The constant arguments people have about human rights, and the real effects such arguments have in the real world, aren’t “evidence”?
Not of innate, natural, human rights.

How can we have argumentation without theory?
We do have theory: Danto’s theory of Assertion-Argumentation-Recognition, also known (perhaps confusingly) as the ‘no-theory’ theory.

But that’s a straw man, because nobody claims that rights “exist” in the same sense gravity does.
Glorious Freedonia certainly seems to be about to take that route.
AnarchyeL
29-04-2008, 18:53
Perhaps, or at least some notion that one is being hard done by; not necessarily innate beyond the fact that we are rational animals (that is, animals that use rationality, not that we are always rational).But "hard done by" is a normative, potentially juridical claim that is not, so far as I can see, innate. You can claim that our sensations of "pleasure" and "displeasure" are innate, perhaps even "happiness" and "unhappiness" (though I think that's somewhat harder than it may appear). But to claim that we have an innate notion of being "hard done by" is to claim that we have an innate conception of justice, of right and wrong.

All I meant to indicate was that if two persons sit down and are given a massively unequal amount of sweeties compared to each other, the one with dramatically less sweeties doesn’t need an in-depth knowledge of the theories of property rights to recognise inequality.No, but only in the modern (rights-conscious) era has inequality so obviously screamed injustice. Historically, for many hundreds of years it was the peasants who defended the divine right of kings against the frustrated claims of lesser nobles and the emergent bourgeoisie. Just seeing that kings have the most stuff does not (if history is to be our guide) cause humanity to bluster and seethe. Outrage requires also the notion that they have no right to excessive wealth.

The average American, I'd say, may be envious of the wealth of the privileged elite... but how many are really outraged? How many witness injustice? Hell, how many median-income people do we know who vociferously defend capitalist inequality (including outright deprivation) on the notion that the system is, supposedly, "fair"?

Obviously, inequality in society is often a lot more subtle and complicated than the above, but still, I’d think, recognition of abuse of rights isn’t the starting point for much outrage at societal inequality.But this is an empirical, historical claim: we have to look to history. And the history of social movements says otherwise. The deprived masses must be educated in their own deprivation, they must develop class consciousness and come to assert a right to the things of which they are deprived. This is history, not theory.

Now, the theoretical nature of the rights asserted vary, as does the language employed--it's not always "rights," per se, and to the extent that this term connotes a particular liberal conception I find it highly suspicious (as I have said before). But in the broader sense we have tended to use in this thread--an assertion of right supplies a moral/political/legal justification for reform/revolution, as opposed to your notion that such assertions merely serve as window dressing to movements of political force--the history is perfectly clear: people do NOT merely "cover over" their political demands with sweet-sounding theory. Rather, the theory is what uncovers the right to make political demands!

I don't see how you can deny this without seriously revising history. Again: not theory, historical fact.

Look, I’m certainly not maintaining that human rights are useless, or that those without rights cannot make claims against those who do, but I fail to see why we need fall back on natural rights.And I quite agree. But you are conflating arguments for "natural" rights with any argument supplying a moral/political foundation to rights at all. The problem I have with your argument is that not all proffered foundations are "natural" in the sense you are attacking. You are attacking (correctly, I think) natural rights, then concluding that all assertions of right merely dress up exertions of political force. Non sequitur. Red herring.

The above is simply far too naive, which is why I’m much more sympathetic to legal positivism. We can argue about whether a law is legitimate or not, but maintaining that it isn’t a law unless it complies with some outside ethical code seems foolish. It is still very much a law, codified by an authority.I never denied that it was law in the positive sense any more than the extant social norms are "morals" in a positive sense. Nothing makes us automatically adopt coherent legislation or moral systems. The question is this: assuming that we do want to know what laws or morals would be legitimate--assuming we've decided to hold our legal and moral systems to account--what sorts of rules count as legitimate?

The argument here is that once we decide on the rule of law (and certainly not all positive legal systems have adhered to the rule of law), what sorts of rules does such a system permit? (The inevitable question, "why should we adopt the rule of law?" runs parallel, of course, to "why should we be moral?"... and it is, philosophically, just as pointless and nonsensical.)

Only if you define a large amount of rights is ‘a lack of oppression’, which is rather blinkered, I’d argue.No, rather that you admit that I cannot be "oppressed" if some principle of right is not violated. If I am treated worse than others because, say, I am a career criminal... it is not at all clear that I am "oppressed" because it is far from clear that my treatment is wrong.

You can’t just conflate the two notions; we can feasibly think of a situation were there is a distinct lack of oppression yet where rights are non-existent,Naturally. If rights were non-existent, there would be no such thing as oppression. If I have utterly no rights, nothing you do to me can be wrong.

and similarly, a situation in which whole swathes of rights are present, yet where there is massive oppression.Yes, of course. Assuming some of those rights are violated. If no principle of right is violated, in what sense can you say anyone is oppressed? Because they are treated "badly"? What does that mean?

I happen to think that our treatment of billions of chickens, trapped in cages and force-fed and far, far worse... is insanely oppressive. Most people don't. Because most people don't think chickens have a right to anything better.
Soheran
29-04-2008, 20:31
Where? Does he not simply “hold these truths to be self-evident”?

The declaration of independence, not the rights. He "hold[s] these truths to be self-evident", but "self-evident" is not the same as "arbitrary": he clearly thinks that they serve to justify the declaration, and that this justification is meaningful to others ("a decent respect for the opinions of mankind").

An arbitrary basis can never justify anything. "We declare independence because we feel like it" is a laughable argument. The fact that Jefferson uses rights as good reasons for the declaration is indication that he sees them as amounting to quite a bit more than arbitrary whim.

Or turn that around: all talk about rights is flawed in that very respect. If rights talk isn’t normative, and thus can’t show us a way to act, that doesn’t necessitate that rights must exist and be used in a way which is normative;

No, it doesn't, but it causes us to wonder why we argue about rights in normative terms all the time.

Is such discussion "meaningless"? "Arbitrary"? Really? If someone comes to you and says that racial minorities have no right to life, is there no argument you can offer to the contrary? At the least, can't you point to the kind of equality AnarchyeL has noted--that if we want to make a distinction, we must have a good reason?

it is also possible that we might have to use something different to rights.

Use what? What do non-rights moral theories have that spares them the problems you've noted? What stops us from labeling whichever duties the state has toward the people "rights"?

Because culture has changed through protest and argumentation, aimed at making slavery exactly that cultural taboo.

Again, cart, but not horse. I understand what social change means. I want to know why. What motivated the protesters? What was convincing about the argumentation?

Not of innate, natural, human rights.

You're defining the notion of "human rights" too narrowly, I think.

I ask whether there should be a universal human right not to be a slave. A rule-utilitarian says "yes", because a rule absolutely prohibiting slavery better maximizes aggregate utility than any of the alternatives. Where do we need mention "innate, natural, human rights"?

We do have theory: Danto’s theory of Assertion-Argumentation-Recognition, also known (perhaps confusingly) as the ‘no-theory’ theory.

Again, such a theory is positive, not normative. It offers no normative account of how to justify human rights. And that is why it is useless in analyzing the content of argumentation. Either it must admit that it has no bearing on such argumentation, in which case in this context it is useless (nobody doubts that what actually "counts" as rights are products of convention), or it must deny the meaningfulness of such argumentation, in which case it must deal with the evident effects of such argumentation on the real world.

Are we all deluded?

Glorious Freedonia certainly seems to be about to take that route.

His/her point, as far as I can tell, is not that human rights are "laws of nature" in the same sense gravity is, but that moral rules, like the laws of physics, don't change simply because the government doens't like them.
Neo Bretonnia
29-04-2008, 20:42
"endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..."

(From the Declaration of Independence)

That's the source of rights to most, the idea that God Himself has imbued His creations with certain rights as enumerated by that document (life, liberty and the persuit of happiness).

But not everybody accepts that source, even among non-atheists.

So if a deity is not the source of human rights then we have to face the fact that rights are simply what we, as a society, say they are, with no greater level of authority than that.

Which means that if a civilzation says that women have no rights, then they don't, and there's no objective measure by which to compare such a civilization to ours, in which women DO have rights. Theirs can't be quantitatively shown to be superior to ours.
Soheran
29-04-2008, 20:50
That's the source of rights to most, the idea that God Himself has imbued His creations with certain rights as enumerated by that document (life, liberty and the persuit of happiness).

That's a poor source. Why should God's decrees make a difference to me?

So if a deity is not the source of human rights then we have to face the fact that rights are simply what we, as a society, say they are, with no greater level of authority than that.

False dichotomy.

"God" is just one, very poor, moral justification for rights that extend beyond convention. There are plenty of others.
AnarchyeL
29-04-2008, 20:59
So if a deity is not the source of human rights then we have to face the fact that rights are simply what we, as a society, say they are, with no greater level of authority than that.Another red herring. No one here is claiming that his imaginary friend gives him rights. Eliminating one purported foundation for rights does not in itself eliminate the rest.

Which means that if a civilzation says that women have no rights, then they don't,No. There are alternatives to traditional natural rights theories. For instance, the constructionist argument I have, loosely, proposed: as soon as we agree to live according to a "law," an examination of the nature of law (NOT the nature of human beings) reveals a structure into which certain forms simply do not fit.

The right against ex post facto prosecution is a case so obvious that even Hobbes (not really a "rights" theorist) leaps to its defense. In fact, most if not all legal positivists, after getting past Austin's "threat of force" theory, have to agree: the formal definition of law entails a construction that distinguishes between "legal" and "non-legal" rules--including the distinction between legal uses of force and illegal uses of force, regardless of how successful any given usage may be. Hence, much as Kant derives a theory of morality from a purely formal construction, positivist theories of right derive rights from the formal construction of the law itself.

and there's no objective measure by which to compare such a civilization to ours, in which women DO have rights. Theirs can't be quantitatively shown to be superior to ours.Since when are "objective" and "quantitative" synonyms?
Meani
29-04-2008, 21:08
I can think of positive features But, I don't think property is the best way to phrase tht right, maybe a right to a means of transport, not inferring to any ride.
I think ambiguos language is more worrying on the other end of the spectrome people who interpret it frealy and violate within the right's themselves, as it's other wise known infidelity.
Neo Bretonnia
29-04-2008, 21:21
That's a poor source. Why should God's decrees make a difference to me?

Like I said:


But not everybody accepts that source, even among non-atheists.


And then I went on.


False dichotomy.

"God" is just one, very poor, moral justification for rights that extend beyond convention. There are plenty of others.

I addressed the weakness in the 'God' source.

So what's the alternative?

Another red herring. No one here is claiming that his imaginary friend gives him rights. Eliminating one purported foundation for rights does not in itself eliminate the rest.


What rest? All I'm saying is that a society either acknowledges a source higher than itself or it doesn't.


No. There are alternatives to traditional natural rights theories. For instance, the constructionist argument I have, loosely, proposed: as soon as we agree to live according to a "law," an examination of the nature of law (NOT the nature of human beings) reveals a structure into which certain forms simply do not fit.


For example?


The right against ex post facto prosecution is a case so obvious that even Hobbes (not really a "rights" theorist) leaps to its defense. In fact, most if not all legal positivists, after getting past Austin's "threat of force" theory, have to agree: the formal definition of law entails a construction that distinguishes between "legal" and "non-legal" rules--including the distinction between legal uses of force and illegal uses of force, regardless of how successful any given usage may be. Hence, much as Kant derives a theory of morality from a purely formal construction, positivist theories of right derive rights from the formal construction of the law itself.


How does that account for differences in acknowledged rights across societies, even similar ones?


Since when are "objective" and "quantitative" synonyms?

Who said they were?
Soheran
29-04-2008, 21:38
I addressed the weakness in the 'God' source.

No, you didn't. You noted that some people rejected it, which is a very different thing... and implied that such rejection left us in a relativist dead-end. Hardly a ringing endorsement.

So what's the alternative?

Any number of secular accounts.

We might locate universal rights in the character of "law" as such: for instance, rules of due process, and of equality absent some relevant distinction (insofar as we must come up with reasons for our laws.)

We might argue that certain rights are embedded in the nature of any just foundation of political authority: for instance, that since force is not a justification for anything, legitimate political authority must be in some sense founded on freedom.
AnarchyeL
29-04-2008, 21:57
All I'm saying is that a society either acknowledges a source higher than itself or it doesn't.And what I'm saying is that a society does not need to acknowledge an authority higher than itself in order to recognize a difference between what it can and cannot will as law.

The argument, again, coincides with Kant's moral argument: moral duties do not come from God, they do not descend upon us from some "higher power"--rather they can be derived from the very logic we require in order to make sense of the notion of deciding for ourselves.

The positivist (again, in a broad sense; narrow legal positivism fails on its own criteria) asks: what does it mean to legislate? More importantly, what does it mean to legislate--to make law--as opposed to making other kinds of rules?

At the most basic level, it is obvious that not all rules are laws: the rules established for my household are not laws; neither are the rules of my department. Of course, it's more complex than that. By the time we get to Hart's (last, best) defense of positivism, it's clear that we require secondary rules establishing the procedures and authorities required to produce primary rules (which we ordinary consider "law"), such that even many decrees of government agents are not, after all, laws as Austin thought.

Hart's argument, though it fails in the narrow sense (because, among other reasons, principles intrude on rules), can be extended to a broader conception of positivism if we allow that what matters is not the closed or exhaustive properties of the law--not the content--but rather the form. Much as Kant asks, "how is it that we think morally?" and derives from this formal rules as to what we can think morally, Rousseau's positivism (recall that he puts no specific limits on the content of the general will) derives from the question "how is it that we think legally?"

The argument depends, then, on the distinction between the rule of law and the "rule of men," as it has been called, perhaps the rule of "persons" or "agents." The rule of law entails derivatively what Hart took as his definition: that the law consists in formal (secondary) rules and substantive (primary) rules that apply for us as a society. Precisely because positivism rejects Austin's "threat of force" argument, we are left with a purely formal conception of law which, because it is formal, imposes limitation on itself.

The most basic and fundamental "right" to be derived from this formulation is equal protection--indeed, in a certain sense we can say this is the very basis for our "sense" of "injustice," of being treated unfairly by the law.

How does that account for differences in acknowledged rights across societies, even similar ones?History accounts for those differences. We're talking about the rights a society should acknowledge, not those it actually does.

Again, from my perspective the most basic and essential "right" is equal protection. Provided laws apply equally to everyone and do not discriminate unjustly against particular classes of people, a society can pass whatever laws it wants. This is the essential sense in which the theory is (broadly) positivist: there is no substantive limitation, only a formal one. Society does not respect a right to free speech? Fine, so long as there is not a class of speakers (the rulers, one imagines) and a class of non-speakers. Society does not respect a right to property? Fine, so long as there is not a class whose property is protected and a class whose property is not protected.

Society does not respect a right to basic individual autonomy--that is, a right against subjugation into slavery? Fine, so long as there is not a class of non-slaves and a class of slaves--aha! but here is the legal "incoherence" of slavery that I mentioned earlier. By definition a law of slavery defines unequal classes, which would seem to make it inherently unjust. Much as Kantian ethics derives certain substantive conclusions as absolute prohibitions, a positive theory of law resting on the rule of law (the formal nature of law itself) may, after all, present some objective, absolute prohibitions: these I term "human" rights.
Kamsaki-Myu
29-04-2008, 22:24
-Snip-
Silly positivists. :p

You can get around that problem so much easier by appreciating that "Should" is just a collective "Want", and that the "higher power" people refer to can just as easily be the emergent will of the agents for whom a "Should" is required.

Dialetics for the win! Oh yeah, baby!

(I'll respond to your post when I have more time than for a passing jab at the positivist, Chumbly!)
AnarchyeL
29-04-2008, 23:19
One of the difficulties I always find in discussions like this is that as a Hegelian, I don't find your suggested notions to be beyond synthesis. There are elements of truth to both the idea of an arbitrary contract of rights and the idea of inviolable rights of conscious entities, and ultimately the most complete framework of the roles of collective and individual takes both of of these into account.I was going to let this go, but since you raise the notion of dialectics again I suppose I shouldn't let the confusion slide.

While what you describe is, to be sure, a common conception of dialectics, it certainly is in no way Hegelian. (We owe some of the confusion to Fichte, who gives us the "thesis: antithesis: synthesis" language which Hegel rarely, if ever, used.)

For Hegel, dialectics does not deal in just any old contradictory ideas, and synthesis--"sublation" is a better translation of his word--does NOT preserve "elements of truth" in the contradiction. Nor would a Hegelian talk of contradictions being "beyond" synthesis or not, as if dialectics were a technique to be applied with varying degrees of success.

Rather for Hegel the idea gives rise necessarily to its negation in such a way that neither is capable of standing on its own--indeed, thinking on one simply passes into the other. In the Logic, for example, the concept of pure Being turns out to be indistinguishable from pure Nothingness; that is, when we try to think Being we discover that we are only thinking Nothing--but by the same token the attempt to conceive Nothing in abstraction only takes on thought-content by turning itself into Being (the thought thing, Nothing). The sublation or "overcoming" of this contradiction lies in the notion of Becoming which describes this very passage of Being into Nothingness and back again. But Becoming represents, then, an unfolding of the Idea such that consciousness recognizes Being and Nothing, not as having "elements of truth," but merely as stepping stones to a clearer understanding.

In other words, you have a right to have an arm attached to you for as long as nobody tries to remove it, or you have a right to say anything you like until somebody shuts you up.Okay, so we're back to Hobbes...

But then, he gets from here (everyone has a natural right to everything, so far as he can claim it) to the First Law of Nature... which is pretty neat. ;)
AnarchyeL
29-04-2008, 23:22
You can get around that problem so much easier by appreciating that "Should" is just a collective "Want",Is it? Question begged, question given.

Dialetics for the win! Oh yeah, baby!Not clear what you've dialected :p here, even on a shallow definition of the term. :confused:
Grave_n_idle
30-04-2008, 01:14
And what I'm saying is that a society does not need to acknowledge an authority higher than itself in order to recognize a difference between what it can and cannot will as law.

The argument, again, coincides with Kant's moral argument: moral duties do not come from God, they do not descend upon us from some "higher power"--rather they can be derived from the very logic we require in order to make sense of the notion of deciding for ourselves.

The positivist (again, in a broad sense; narrow legal positivism fails on its own criteria) asks: what does it mean to legislate? More importantly, what does it mean to legislate--to make law--as opposed to making other kinds of rules?

At the most basic level, it is obvious that not all rules are laws: the rules established for my household are not laws; neither are the rules of my department. Of course, it's more complex than that. By the time we get to Hart's (last, best) defense of positivism, it's clear that we require secondary rules establishing the procedures and authorities required to produce primary rules (which we ordinary consider "law"), such that even many decrees of government agents are not, after all, laws as Austin thought.

Hart's argument, though it fails in the narrow sense (because, among other reasons, principles intrude on rules), can be extended to a broader conception of positivism if we allow that what matters is not the closed or exhaustive properties of the law--not the content--but rather the form. Much as Kant asks, "how is it that we think morally?" and derives from this formal rules as to what we can think morally, Rousseau's positivism (recall that he puts no specific limits on the content of the general will) derives from the question "how is it that we think legally?"

The argument depends, then, on the distinction between the rule of law and the "rule of men," as it has been called, perhaps the rule of "persons" or "agents." The rule of law entails derivatively what Hart took as his definition: that the law consists in formal (secondary) rules and substantive (primary) rules that apply for us as a society. Precisely because positivism rejects Austin's "threat of force" argument, we are left with a purely formal conception of law which, because it is formal, imposes limitation on itself.

The most basic and fundamental "right" to be derived from this formulation is equal protection--indeed, in a certain sense we can say this is the very basis for our "sense" of "injustice," of being treated unfairly by the law.

History accounts for those differences. We're talking about the rights a society should acknowledge, not those it actually does.

Again, from my perspective the most basic and essential "right" is equal protection. Provided laws apply equally to everyone and do not discriminate unjustly against particular classes of people, a society can pass whatever laws it wants. This is the essential sense in which the theory is (broadly) positivist: there is no substantive limitation, only a formal one. Society does not respect a right to free speech? Fine, so long as there is not a class of speakers (the rulers, one imagines) and a class of non-speakers. Society does not respect a right to property? Fine, so long as there is not a class whose property is protected and a class whose property is not protected.

Society does not respect a right to basic individual autonomy--that is, a right against subjugation into slavery? Fine, so long as there is not a class of non-slaves and a class of slaves--aha! but here is the legal "incoherence" of slavery that I mentioned earlier. By definition a law of slavery defines unequal classes, which would seem to make it inherently unjust. Much as Kantian ethics derives certain substantive conclusions as absolute prohibitions, a positive theory of law resting on the rule of law (the formal nature of law itself) may, after all, present some objective, absolute prohibitions: these I term "human" rights.

I appreciate that you said it was only from 'your perspective'... but the whole concept of 'equal protection' seems like fantasy. Not just because it's historically unlikely, and improbable in any real-world execution... but also because... well, why should it happen?

I agree - it's a nice concept. It sounds like the very basis of equalitarianism, and I see no real reason to attack that ideal - but it can't just be invoked because it sounds nice.

You say unequal societies are 'inherently unjust'... but only according to that principle that you establish. If you define a just society as one in which you have two (or more) conflicted classes, then your slave culture becomes inherently just, no?

It's all very well to argue what societies should embrace as their principles, but the real question is why they should. Optimism isn't a winning argument.
AnarchyeL
30-04-2008, 02:18
I appreciate that you said it was only from 'your perspective'... but the whole concept of 'equal protection' seems like fantasy.What do you mean, "fantasy"? Interpretations vary, to be sure, but the ideal of equal protection I have in mind is little more robust than that enshrined in the 5th (as "due process") and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution. It's a very simple notion of non-discrimination in legal consideration.

Not just because it's historically unlikely, and improbable in any real-world execution...Again... what? Perhaps you took me to mean something more substantive than abstract equality under the law. But I meant no such thing (whatever my own ideals may be).

but also because... well, why should it happen?It's the only way to make sense of living in a legal society. If we have no concern for such a way of life (if, say, we're all right with the idea of submitting to the will of the strongest), then it follows that we'd have no interest in equal protection. But philosophy of law, like normative ethics, is rarely so concerned with motivation. The question is, assuming we want to know what sort of society we can reasonably justify, just what fits the bill?

To an absolute tyrant with no interest in justifications or notions of right, there can be no such argument. But we're not making it to him. We're making the argument for the benefit of people who think, "Just what sort of society should I support on the basis of right?" (As opposed, for instance, to what sort of society I might support on the basis of self-interest.)

You say unequal societies are 'inherently unjust'... but only according to that principle that you establish.Yes. So if you want to prove me wrong, you'll have to attack that principle on the basis of right--on the basis of what can be shown to be just or unjust within the context of a society that believes in "justice."

If you define a just society as one in which you have two (or more) conflicted classes, then your slave culture becomes inherently just, no?I can "define" anything I want, in that sense. The question is whether that definition is defensible against notions of right inherent in what it means to be a law-abiding society.

It's all very well to argue what societies should embrace as their principles, but the real question is why they should.Are you looking for a moral/legal answer, or a non-moral/non-legal motivation? If you're looking for a moral/legal answer, I've already provided it.

If you're looking for a non-moral motivation (i.e. "what's in it for me?"), that is none of my concern. If you're not concerned with questions of right, I can only say: right is right, whether you like it or not.

No one's asking you to like it.
Grave_n_idle
30-04-2008, 04:24
What do you mean, "fantasy"? Interpretations vary, to be sure, but the ideal of equal protection I have in mind is little more robust than that enshrined in the 5th (as "due process") and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution. It's a very simple notion of non-discrimination in legal consideration.


What you said was: "from my perspective the most basic and essential "right" is equal protection". That's nice... but it is from 'your perspective'. You then carry that forward as a justification for what 'should' (apparently) set the parameters for our social model. So - 'rights' to free speech, are based upon how they relate to your 'equal protection' premise. But the original premise isn't defended - it is supposed to be taken as a self-evidence fact. Apparently, because you like it.

Yes, it's a simple notion. Yes, various peoples have made various attempts to approximate it over recorded history, to various levels of 'success'.

But, you provide no basis - other than... well, optimism. WHY is that the basic premise?


Again... what? Perhaps you took me to mean something more substantive than abstract equality under the law. But I meant no such thing (whatever my own ideals may be).


The point I was making is that - cute idea thought it is - a society that offers any true level of 'equal protection' has yet to be established. And, judging by historical examples, and the apparent motivations at work even in our modern 'civilisations'... it'll be a while before any real approximation occurs.


It's the only way to make sense of living in a legal society. If we have no concern for such a way of life (if, say, we're all right with the idea of submitting to the will of the strongest), then it follows that we'd have no interest in equal protection. But philosophy of law, like normative ethics, is rarely so concerned with motivation. The question is, assuming we want to know what sort of society we can reasonably justify, just what fits the bill?


That's the problem with societies... they don't much care for your academic cutenesses. A society isn't shopping for a reasonable justification. Every so often, a movement may arise that sails under a flag of a 'reasonable justification', but societies in general are ruled by a combination of apathy and inertia.

You make the assertion that "...It's the only way to make sense of living in a legal society...", but we both know that's utter rubbish. Not only because 'legal' societies don't have to be in any way 'just' or 'equal', but because it's patently (and historically) NOT the only way, at all.


To an absolute tyrant with no interest in justifications or notions of right, there can be no such argument. But we're not making it to him. We're making the argument for the benefit of people who think, "Just what sort of society should I support on the basis of right?" (As opposed, for instance, to what sort of society I might support on the basis of self-interest.)


You don't think the massed populace would be considering self-interest? And now you invoke 'right', which is just as unjustified and lacking in basis as your 'equal protection' clause.

Your societal model is self-justifying, and - failing that - it collapses.


Yes. So if you want to prove me wrong, you'll have to attack that principle on the basis of right--on the basis of what can be shown to be just or unjust within the context of a society that believes in "justice."


No - I don't have to 'prove you wrong'. I don't have to touch the subject of 'right', either. I don't have to discuss 'just' or 'unjust'. All I have to do is show that your theoretical basis is purely theoretical, and fails even as theory, if all examined earnestly.

You invoke a 'society that believes in justice', but you can't justify that society. Again, it's circular. Your definition of 'justice' tilts towards (one expects) a model that allows for 'equal protection'... but that's self-justifying... it is, because it is. Your 'right' and 'just' are divine principles, you're just neglecting to specify a creator.


I can "define" anything I want, in that sense. The question is whether that definition is defensible against notions of right inherent in what it means to be a law-abiding society.


And you somehow believe that that is the case? That 'law-abiding', 'right'... and your little model, are somehow intrinisically connected?

Therein lies the rub, my friend. Law doesn't automatically entail anything you or I might deem 'right', and neither of them necessarily entails 'equal protection'.


Are you looking for a moral/legal answer, or a non-moral/non-legal motivation? If you're looking for a moral/legal answer, I've already provided it.

If you're looking for a non-moral motivation (i.e. "what's in it for me?"), that is none of my concern. If you're not concerned with questions of right, I can only say: right is right, whether you like it or not.

No one's asking you to like it.

You've provided no such answer. You've speculated a start-point, and tried to support it by referring to your conjectures of what would be the realities under the assumption of that speculation.

A non-moral motivation might have been a better argument. Your 'moral' motivation is entirely based, it appears, on your suggestion that everyone would accept your fundamental premise of 'equal protection'.
AnarchyeL
30-04-2008, 04:51
What you said was: "from my perspective the most basic and essential "right" is equal protection". That's nice... but it is from 'your perspective'.Ah, then my language was merely imprecise: "my perspective" meant to entail the entire grounded normative argument I had presented over the last several posts, not merely a personal preference.

But the original premise isn't defended - it is supposed to be taken as a self-evidence fact. Apparently, because you like it.No. Read the last several posts. Equal protection is derived from the formal requirements of the rule of law.

A society isn't shopping for a reasonable justification.Yes, they are. I think you'll find far fewer societies in history that have survived very long on the "just because we say so" rule than have made it on the "we have a right to govern because" rule. Perhaps more importantly, movements for social change are even more needy of a justification that is compelling enough to garner popular support.

You make the assertion that "...It's the only way to make sense of living in a legal society...", but we both know that's utter rubbish.No. But we do both know that your rhetorical flourishes do nothing to advance your argument. ;)

Not only because 'legal' societies don't have to be in any way 'just' or 'equal', but because it's patently (and historically) NOT the only way, at all.*sigh* I've already been through this. Read the last several posts. In short: I'm advancing a notion of "legal" that takes as its starting point a purely formal analysis of what gives a rule (there are many kinds of rule) the characteristic of being legal. I offer no metaphysical conception of "right" or "justice," merely an account of what it is about law that makes it law (and not some other kind of rule).
Grave_n_idle
30-04-2008, 20:54
*sigh* I've already been through this. Read the last several posts. In short: I'm advancing a notion of "legal" that takes as its starting point a purely formal analysis of what gives a rule (there are many kinds of rule) the characteristic of being legal. I offer no metaphysical conception of "right" or "justice," merely an account of what it is about law that makes it law (and not some other kind of rule).

And this is the important bit. It basically boils down to "if we accept MY model of the parameters".

That's cute. As your thought experiment, it's admirable. But it has no application to reality.

Why? Because your assertions about rules and laws are evidently self-serving and circular. You assume those ideas to be accepted, because your idea only works if they are.
AnarchyeL
01-05-2008, 01:14
And this is the important bit. It basically boils down to "if we accept MY model of the parameters".Something like, "If we accept Grave_n_idle's interpretation of AnarchyeL's argument," it's wrong... eh?

You're not offering a critique, just blanket accusations. The rest of us would be happy to welcome you as an actual interlocutor in our debate, but in order to do that efficaciously we're going to need to see you address something specific.

Why? Because your assertions about rules and laws are evidently self-serving and circular.Perhaps you know some strange and novel usage of the word "evidently" with which I was previously unfamiliar, but there is nothing at all "evident" about your conclusion. I know it may seem daunting, but if you want to play with the grown-ups you're going to have to try making an argument now and then.
Grave_n_idle
01-05-2008, 17:21
Something like, "If we accept Grave_n_idle's interpretation of AnarchyeL's argument," it's wrong... eh?

You're not offering a critique, just blanket accusations. The rest of us would be happy to welcome you as an actual interlocutor in our debate, but in order to do that efficaciously we're going to need to see you address something specific.

Perhaps you know some strange and novel usage of the word "evidently" with which I was previously unfamiliar, but there is nothing at all "evident" about your conclusion. I know it may seem daunting, but if you want to play with the grown-ups you're going to have to try making an argument now and then.

What you are doing, is attempting to shift the burden.

You've made an assertion which is unsupported. Trying to pretend that my 'argument' is the problem here may be your escape, and allow you to feel like you 'won', but it's dishonest. Until you support your argument in real terms (rather than a circular, self-satisfying justification), all I have to do is express doubt.

You claim that "the most basic and essential "right" is equal protection". But your justification is your assertion that "It's the only way to make sense of living in a legal society".

I don't find your claim convincing. I don't think it's reflected in reality. You haven't managed to convincingly deal with either of those problems.
AnarchyeL
01-05-2008, 19:18
What you are doing, is attempting to shift the burden.Not at all. I would simply like to have a critique to which I may respond, rather than blanket attacks on my conclusions.

You've made an assertion which is unsupported.No, you just have not addressed any of the supporting statements. You have responded, several times, to the posts in which I had already reached a conclusion... but you have neglected to respond in any way to the posts in which I lay out my argument.

Until you support your argument in real terms (rather than a circular, self-satisfying justification), all I have to do is express doubt.You can "doubt" all you want, but if you want to convince anyone you are going to have to show how you think the argument is "circular" or "self-satisfying." It is not "evidently" so, just because you say so.

You claim that "the most basic and essential "right" is equal protection". But your justification is your assertion that "It's the only way to make sense of living in a legal society."Here is where you are being lazy: I did not "assert" that it is "the only way to make sense of living in a legal society." I drew that conclusion after several pages of analysis and debate. If you cannot be bothered to address the argument, please do not bother to assail the conclusion. It's boring.

I don't find your claim convincing. I don't think it's reflected in reality. You haven't managed to convincingly deal with either of those problems.Clearly, if "convincingly" entails that I convince you. Indeed, I might even be persuaded, after some analysis, that the argument is not so convincing after all. But if you want to derail its ability to convince, you need to set up your attack much earlier in its course. Your protest at the terminus is entirely meaningless.

I invite you: go back and tear apart the posts in which I make my argument. But if you insist on leveling blanket accusations without any actual analysis, I'm afraid this thread has ended its enjoyable, productive life.
Hotwife
01-05-2008, 19:28
A human being has no "natural rights" of any nature.

You might ask, "What about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"

Life? What "right" to life does a man have who is drowning in the middle of the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What "right" to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of "right"? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative, which man's right is "inalienable"? And is it "right"? As to liberty, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never inalienable. It must always be redeemed with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is the least likely to be cheap, and is never free of cost.

The third right - the pursuit of happiness? It is indeed inalienable, but it is not a right. It is simply a universal condition that tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings - I can pursue happiness as long as my brain lives - but neither God nor the saints, wise men nor drugs can ensure that I will catch it.

So many people here on this forum believe that there are universal human rights, and that these are free of charge - I say (along with Heinlein, whose rationale is above) that there is no such thing as a universal natural human right - all of our rights are bought and paid for by struggle - armed or otherwise - in which people lose their lives and their livelihoods in exchange for the freedoms and rights we all enjoy.

People who believe that they are entitled to these rights without struggle and constant vigilance are fools - dangerous fools.
Grave_n_idle
01-05-2008, 20:29
But if you want to derail its ability to convince, you need to set up your attack much earlier in its course.

No, I really don't.

The onus is on you, as the originator of the argument, to 'prove' it. That's pretty much the sum and substance.
AnarchyeL
01-05-2008, 20:52
The onus is on you, as the originator of the argument, to 'prove' it. That's pretty much the sum and substance.I'm not sure if you're really this dense, or if you're just being intentionally difficult.

I already offered my proof. Several pages of it. Now it's your turn.
Everywhar
01-05-2008, 20:53
‘Natural law’, ‘natural rights’ and the like don’t sit easily with me.

What about existential rights? We're human, therefore we have rights. If we were rocks without a will, then maybe we wouldn't.


Yeah, that’s indeed another worry; we slip back into the Aristotelian/Christian notion that humans are ‘above’ everything else, that we can almost do no wrong because of certain inalienable rights we (somehow) possess.

On the contrary. I am unembarrassed in asserting that humans have precedence over nonhumans in moral deliberation. That doesn't mean I don't believe the environment is worth protecting. (But I believe it's worth protecting because it's our home, and degrading it aggresses against the rights of other currently existing humans.)


Again, yup. Those nations that have enshrined human rights have, I think it’s fair to say, become more and more atomistic in their view of society, partly I believe because the outlook is “if we protect my right to do x, y and z, everything will follow on from their”. Too much talk, in my opinion, about rights and not duties. Too much emphasis on individual rights, with little or no discussion on how those rights affect everybody else.

Well, I think that is essentially right, but just because countries that push neoliberalism have a spectacularly shitty view of human rights doesn't mean that they are not worth keeping.

Take the "right to life." In a neoliberal state, that means that nobody has a right to take overt violent action to kill you. On a better view, it would also mean that people have a right to have food to eat and health care. This would in turn mean that nobody has the right to control massive amounts of property.



And sometimes rights just seem to be the wrong way to deal with a situation. Only last week, a fellow student in a Political Philosophy tutorial was going on about how it was their “right not to get burned to death in a fire”, and how this was the reason the fire service would/should come to save them from a burning building.

Remarkable.

People need to understand that rights must not come into conflict. When you "discover" rights that prevent people from expressing themselves freely, for example, then the problem is more with the abuse of rights talk than rights themselves.

For example, one of the frustrating things about US social conservatives is that they seem to believe in a "right not to be offended" by LGBT pride parades and such. Or, to take another example, an Anti-Meth campaign in my state had to remove a billboard saying "sex for 15 bucks isn't normal. But on meth, it is," because some right-wing Christians believed that they shouldn't have to explain it to their children. (Again, invoking a mystical right not to be made uncomfortable.)


Point two is just the notion that human rights, although usually helpful in the West, have little or no impact in other regions of the world, even those who acknowledge them legally; perhaps because human rights haven’t been transformed into the strange ‘holy’ status they have been in the West. At the same time, governments in the West can play around with human rights incredibly easily. Talking of inalienable human rights in one breath while stripping them off of citizens and (especially) non-citizens in the other.

Well, that's state power for you.


I’d like to explore the possibility of another, more practical, solution to ensuring a decent state of liberty for all humans. I’m not necessarily saying there is one, but with such... quasi-religious veneration of rights going on at the moment, the stubborn mule in me comes out.

What is the alternative, and why can't we hold rights to a quasi-religious status? What's wrong with saying we can't mistreat each other?


Point three is just the outcome of not having a fully realised philosophical system. I am attracted to two opposite positions; one being the idea that certain actions are never correct, ensuring we as a society can never infringe upon someone’s liberty in certain respects (obviously, human rights chime with this approach); and the other being the idea that we should be very wary of enshrining rules to such a degree that we are forced into undesireable consequences through being unable, or unwilling, to bend or break those rules.

I am in a quandary.

I would suggest that while your sentiments are very well-placed, there is a false dichotomy here between moral absolutism and moral relativism. Some things are always wrong in all circumstances, like rape (and don't give me any shit about being the last people on Earth. Face it, in that scenario, the humanity is over. Rape is not even justified on consequentialism in a cooked up hypothetical). Likewise, some things are always right, like feeding starving people.

I good alternative, and what I think you're trying to express, is moral universalism.
Glorious Freedonia
01-05-2008, 21:53
For one to believe in the concept of human rights existing everywhere at all times, one has to first accept the concept of an absolute truth. If somebody cannot accept the idea of an absolute truth, any discussion of human rights beyond mere fluctuations or pools and eddies is going to be impossible.

We have human rights and even if we cannot prove it, this is of no importance. The importance is that we believe it even if we cannot prove it to be the case. Evidence exists in limited measure. Man thrives when he is free and languishes when he is not. A free society has far less violence and upheaval than a non free or partially free one.

A free society tends to be wealthier too. This is further evidence that a free society is one that best halps man to thrive and thus is the natural order of things.
Knights of Liberty
01-05-2008, 21:56
A free society has far less violence and upheaval than a non free or partially free one.

Which is why the US has much lower crime rates than North Korea.


Oh, wait.
Neu Leonstein
01-05-2008, 23:18
Which is why the US has much lower crime rates than North Korea.
I don't know about crime (strictly speaking, black market trading would be a crime in the DPRK, but you can bet your ass a lot of people are relying on it for survival), but you'd have to say that violence is more pervasive and plays a bigger role in people's lives there than in the US.

Whether that is what he meant is another question, but ultimately violence and freedom sorta exclude each other as soon as you step over a certain point. The existence of an objective location for this point, or our ability to determine it, is the question at hand in this thread.
Everywhar
01-05-2008, 23:34
For one to believe in the concept of human rights existing everywhere at all times, one has to first accept the
concept of an absolute truth.

I see no problem with that. The whole point of human rights is to minimize human suffering.


We have human rights and even if we cannot prove it, this is of no importance. The importance is that we believe it even if we cannot prove it to be the case. Evidence exists in limited measure. Man thrives when he is free and languishes when he is not. A free society has far less violence and upheaval than a non free or partially free one.

I agree with you, although I am beginning to resent even having to prove to well-meaning people that human rights exist. I shouldn't have to prove it.

Why the hell should I have to, given that much of the world is starving because their governments take people's money and destroy their livelihoods so we (here in the West) can live a privileged existence?
Xenophobialand
01-05-2008, 23:47
A human being has no "natural rights" of any nature.

You might ask, "What about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"

Life? What "right" to life does a man have who is drowning in the middle of the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What "right" to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of "right"? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative, which man's right is "inalienable"? And is it "right"? As to liberty, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never inalienable. It must always be redeemed with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is the least likely to be cheap, and is never free of cost.

The third right - the pursuit of happiness? It is indeed inalienable, but it is not a right. It is simply a universal condition that tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings - I can pursue happiness as long as my brain lives - but neither God nor the saints, wise men nor drugs can ensure that I will catch it.

So many people here on this forum believe that there are universal human rights, and that these are free of charge - I say (along with Heinlein, whose rationale is above) that there is no such thing as a universal natural human right - all of our rights are bought and paid for by struggle - armed or otherwise - in which people lose their lives and their livelihoods in exchange for the freedoms and rights we all enjoy.

People who believe that they are entitled to these rights without struggle and constant vigilance are fools - dangerous fools.

That isn't just his rationale; it's a direct quotation from Starship Troopers. Not to be picky, just think the citation could have been a bit more forthright.
Soheran
02-05-2008, 00:18
On the contrary. I am unembarrassed in asserting that humans have precedence over nonhumans in moral deliberation.

How is that "on the contrary"? Isn't it perfectly in accordance with his point that notions of universal human rights--especially when they are unargued--tend to support human exceptionalism?

On a better view, it would also mean that people have a right to have food to eat and health care.

In the same sense that we have a right to not be murdered?

Our society has decided, in a wide variety of respects, that at some point the marginal cost of protecting life exceeds the marginal benefit; we don't expend all the resources we possibly could to save every possible life. Does this make us murderers?

People need to understand that rights must not come into conflict.

People need to understand that the sort of rights absolutism that makes such statements necessary is extremely dangerous to the sort of careful balancing sometimes needed for public policy.

When you "discover" rights that prevent people from expressing themselves freely, for example, then the problem is more with the abuse of rights talk than rights themselves.

Agreed. The problem is with those who think that the right to free speech is an absolute right that exists abstractly, independently of any conception of a tolerant, open-minded, or rational society that it is supposed to promote.

Such a conception ends up in absurdity: for instance, defending intolerance in the name of tolerance. Worse, it degrades free speech. By missing its justification, its concrete role, it turns it into a triviality, rather than an active, critical component in the struggle for a just and free society.

For example, one of the frustrating things about US social conservatives is that they seem to believe in a "right not to be offended" by LGBT pride parades and such.

Do they?

A more charitable interpretation might argue that they are more concerned with the broader cultural implications of such things: they want to live in a certain kind of society with a certain kind of culture, but LGBT pride parades (and ubiquitous pornography, and similar things) threaten their capacity to do so.

Is it really so obvious that such cultural matters should be left to individual rights, that societies should have no influence over what is and is not permitted? Culture, after all, is laden with externalities; because we all must live together, because we communicate and interact with each other, because we share public spaces with one another, our cultural lifestyles and events necessarily affect those of others.

Don't get me wrong. I'm no social conservative. But as long as they don't legislate inequality into law (as they seem quite eager to do), it's not at all obvious to me that their political agenda is on principle illegitimate. Any argument against it has to dispute the set of social values behind the policy (the kind of culture aimed for), not just the means used to pursue those social values.

(Indeed, such arguments, effectual or not, all too often miss the point of the liberation movements themselves. Same-sex intercourse is a victimless crime? Well, yes, it is, but such arguments tend to reinforce a degrading logic of "I don't care what they do in their bedrooms." But queer liberation is meaningless if it's confined to the bedroom, if it can't succeed at affecting, indeed, transforming, society on a wider level--and if it has such effects, we cannot non-disingenuously pretend it is a purely personal matter.)

What's wrong with saying we can't mistreat each other?

If it's unsupported? The same thing that's wrong with every other unsupported assertion. Why can't we?

Whether that is what he meant is another question, but ultimately violence and freedom sorta exclude each other as soon as you step over a certain point. The existence of an objective location for this point, or our ability to determine it, is the question at hand in this thread.

Are human rights really always about promoting freedom?

Don't they sometimes serve as constraints on what we can do to promote any end--including freedom?

I see no problem with that. The whole point of human rights is to minimize human suffering.

Similarly, is it really?

Didn't you mention earlier that we shouldn't rape people if doing so would minimize human suffering?
Neu Leonstein
02-05-2008, 00:38
Are human rights really always about promoting freedom?

Don't they sometimes serve as constraints on what we can do to promote any end--including freedom?
The absence of violence and freedom are, beyond that point I was talking about, one and the same thing. Violence is interference, non-interference leaves you free to make decisions. In fact, it requires it of you if you want to achieve some goal.

Yes, there is a point at which this relationship reverses and interference in some way, shape or form actually increases freedom, but that's a balancing act. If I say you can't murder someone and interfere to stop you, I'm also stopping your interference into the life of the person you were going to kill. So even so we're still seeking to minimise interference and maximise freedom, even if that level is, unfortunately, not going to be zero.

I can't think of any claim of human right that isn't connected to freedom in some way. Even utterly idiotic ones, like a right to a job, are still argued for on the basis that the lack thereof would minimise the freedom of the person without a job through limiting their choices. Of course, the question of how not giving someone a job is interfering in their lives is left open, but people who argue for a right to paid employment don't delve that deep into it anyways.

I note of course that "non-interference = freedom" isn't a given either, but I stick to my guns on the issue of positive rights, namely that they're conflicting and therefore inconsistent. If I have a right to something, and you do too, but there is only one thing available, then someone's right must be violated, no matter whether a state, violence or any other form of imposition exists. And then you're left arguing whether something that cannot exist on earth can possibly be a human right.
Soheran
02-05-2008, 01:31
If I have a right to something, and you do too, but there is only one thing available, then someone's right must be violated, no matter whether a state, violence or any other form of imposition exists.

You assume the absoluteness of rights. But no positive right is absolute, and most negative rights aren't either.
Neu Leonstein
02-05-2008, 14:26
You assume the absoluteness of rights. But no positive right is absolute, and most negative rights aren't either.
I am. But perhaps that lies in the nature of the thing: if a right is a "human right", it is so by virtue of being connected to and derived from a person being human. That's how it gets its special meaning, and it has nothing to do with the circumstances we find ourselves in right now. The determining characteristics we're focusing on are absolute.
Everywhar
02-05-2008, 16:29
How is that "on the contrary"? Isn't it perfectly in accordance with his point that notions of universal human rights--especially when they are unargued--tend to support human exceptionalism?

It's "on the contrary" because I don't take human exceptionalism to be a bad thing. Rather than possibly strawmanning you, I'll just ask you what you think an alternative to human exceptionalism would be. (I can think of one, and it's spectacularly bad.)


In the same sense that we have a right to not be murdered?

Our society has decided, in a wide variety of respects, that at some point the marginal cost of protecting life exceeds the marginal benefit; we don't expend all the resources we possibly could to save every possible life. Does this make us murderers?

It means that we have a way to go in achieving justice in our world.


People need to understand that the sort of rights absolutism that makes such statements necessary is extremely dangerous to the sort of careful balancing sometimes needed for public policy.

Careful balancing in whose interests?


Agreed. The problem is with those who think that the right to free speech is an absolute right that exists abstractly, independently of any conception of a tolerant, open-minded, or rational society that it is supposed to promote.

No, that's not what I was saying. Discovering a right to silence speech for vague "decency" purposes is contradictory with the right of free expression. You can have one or the other but not both at the same time.

I hope this doesn't make me an evil rights absolutist.

And really, I would think a tolerant, open-minded, rational society would find it in its own interest to support free expression against the claims of certain individuals who are "offended" by "indecent" speech.


Such a conception ends up in absurdity: for instance, defending intolerance in the name of tolerance. Worse, it degrades free speech. By missing its justification, its concrete role, it turns it into a triviality, rather than an active, critical component in the struggle for a just and free society.

Am I correct in believing that you refer to its "concrete role" is to preserve the integrity of the political process by maximizing both the breadth and depth of political discussion? Surely, this is important, but I think the view that expression is justified by its political role is a narrow one.


Do they?

Well, let me just tell you a story. There was an article in my local newspaper about how the Anti-Meth campaign (forget what it's called) was to voluntarily pull its aggressive billboard ad "15 bucks" on complaints from Christian groups.

The "15 bucks" ad shows a strung out, teenage woman on the floor, with all her clothes on, and a big hand gripping her shoulder. The man is, of course, cropped out of the picture. You can tell exactly what the woman is thinking from her eyes: "oh no, this man is going to fuck me and degrade me in the worst way, but at least I'll (maybe) get 15 bucks to get another hit."

Graphic, yes. Aggressive, yes. On the other hand, I come from Montana, a place where meth use is a huge issue. The point of the campaign is not to convince teenagers not to use, because you can't convince people who just want to "try it once" or addicts (by definition). The point is to shock us as a community to get involved and intervene on the behalf of people losing their lives to the meth black hole. In any case, the campaign has been largely successful, as meth use is down by something like 60%.

My point is that when Christian groups were criticizing the ad, their spokesmen talked about really trivial complaints like "parents were having to explain it to their children." (This is the same line of argument used against LGBT pride parades, by the way.)

Before I go further, let me again reiterate that this was not censorship. The state did not order the "15 bucks" ad removed. It was voluntarily removed by the organization at the request of complaints by Christian groups.

Nevertheless, I worry that a desire to have "decency," not to be "offended," not to have your children "see that" will blind us to things we really need to see. I get angry when parents try to shelter their children, because though they do so with nothing but the best of intentions, they will fail, and it is not immediately obvious why people have a right not to be exposed to things they don't like. I get even angrier when people try to shelter society because we need to understand and be involved with social problems like meth use and homophobia, not blinded.


A more charitable interpretation might argue that they are more concerned with the broader cultural implications of such things: they want to live in a certain kind of society with a certain kind of culture, but LGBT pride parades (and ubiquitous pornography, and similar things) threaten their capacity to do so.

To be fair, as a queer, I find LGBT pride parades to be ridiculous. The time, money and energy spent on parades is better spent elsewhere. I think that ostentatious displays of sexuality in public for "shock value" is stupid and irrational, and to the extent they promote queer "visibility," they do so by trivializing sexuality.

This interpretation of yours may be charitable, but why is it that people have a legitimate claim to silence others so that they can live in a certain kind of society they want? Do social conservatives have a legitimate claim to have society be the way they want any more than others?


Is it really so obvious that such cultural matters should be left to individual rights, that societies should have no influence over what is and is not permitted? Culture, after all, is laden with externalities; because we all must live together, because we communicate and interact with each other, because we share public spaces with one another, our cultural lifestyles and events necessarily affect those of others.

The communitarian worry that you express is important, but I don't buy that it is the case that all or even most cultural lifestyles or events necessarily affect others. I feel that this is as mistaken as the individualist idea that hardly anything we do affects others. I tend to worry about approaches that lend themselves to "balancing" rights claims by privileging the collective. Balance means balance, not siding with "society."


Don't get me wrong. I'm no social conservative. But as long as they don't legislate inequality into law (as they seem quite eager to do), it's not at all obvious to me that their political agenda is on principle illegitimate. Any argument against it has to dispute the set of social values behind the policy (the kind of culture aimed for), not just the means used to pursue those social values.

I disagree. For Americans, I think we have a tradition of not only wanting the good, but wanting to get to it using legitimate means. That's part of why we have a political process with constitutional guarantees. We do not believe that the ends justify the means. (I recognize you are not saying that.) The means really are important.

Discussions about what kind of culture we want are very important, but what I'm disputing is that a certain interested group has a right to impose its cultural values on others regardless of constitutional guarantees. And when I say, certain interested group, I'm basically talking about socially conservative Christians. (For example, I have not seen a single secular advocate of "family values." Please feel free to point one out.) Note also that there are also socially liberal Christians, who share the conservative Christians worries about sexual objectification in society (which is a very real problem), but who believe that opposition to LGBT pride parades or legal recognition of same-sex relationships for example can hardly be compared to opposition to pornography and sexual immodesty (which they also oppose, rightly).

In other words, I would say that just because the social values behind certain policies may make sense, that still does not justify the policies themselves.


(Indeed, such arguments, effectual or not, all too often miss the point of the liberation movements themselves. Same-sex intercourse is a victimless crime? Well, yes, it is, but such arguments tend to reinforce a degrading logic of "I don't care what they do in their bedrooms." But queer liberation is meaningless if it's confined to the bedroom, if it can't succeed at affecting, indeed, transforming, society on a wider level--and if it has such effects, we cannot non-disingenuously pretend it is a purely personal matter.)

This point, the way I read it, goes a bit too far. I worry that the view expressed here is too totalizing. Queer issues are not all personal, but it is nontdisingenuous to say that some queer issues are personal. What we do in our bedrooms, for example, is definitely personal. Recognition of our relationships, violence against us, discrimination, and our stupid penchant for running around flaunting our lifestyle are definitely societal in scope.


If it's unsupported? The same thing that's wrong with every other unsupported assertion. Why can't we?

Claims that we have equal, intrinsic value from which we derive legitimate interests not to be mistreated are not unsupported. The fact that we may not like those accounts does not mean that we haven't offered arguments for them.



Similarly, is it really?

If the realization of human rights did not minimize human suffering, would we find human rights a particularly useful concept?



Didn't you mention earlier that we shouldn't rape people if doing so would minimize human suffering?
No, I think you misread me. I offered rape as an example of something which is always morally wrong thus supporting my claim that there are at least some universal moral truths.
Grave_n_idle
02-05-2008, 18:59
I'm not sure if you're really this dense, or if you're just being intentionally difficult.

I already offered my proof. Several pages of it. Now it's your turn.

The problem is, I expect debates that act like actual debate. As a consequence, NSG often disappoints.
Lacidar
02-05-2008, 19:33
Personally, I would profess that a true right can be neither given, nor taken away. Failing that test, it is hardly a right. Todays concept of rights, is more of a privilege which is granted, thus it can be revoked as easily as granted by the underlying principle of how you came to have this right. This is the fallacy of what most people consider to be rights. When you enumerate or grant rights, you acknowledge the authority to withdraw said rights, which contradicts the concept of rights in the first place.

Some will claim divinely granted rights, based solely upon the act of being. Foremost of these is Life. Does anyone or anything really have a right to life? Hardly, as it can be revoked from you by the whim of another, often of far less caliber and definitely holding less credentials than that of some concept of the divine. Liberty? Look around the world and through history to see how that one is going.
Soheran
02-05-2008, 23:52
I am. But perhaps that lies in the nature of the thing: if a right is a "human right", it is so by virtue of being connected to and derived from a person being human. That's how it gets its special meaning, and it has nothing to do with the circumstances we find ourselves in right now.

You're conflating things. Our intrinsic worth is inalienable and absolute. The rights we derive from this may nevertheless not be so.

It's "on the contrary" because I don't take human exceptionalism to be a bad thing. Rather than possibly strawmanning you, I'll just ask you what you think an alternative to human exceptionalism would be.

Consistently applying the same standards to human animals and to non-human animals. Just as we do (or should do) for humans of different "races", genders, and sexual orientations.

It means that we have a way to go in achieving justice in our world.

How far do you want to go with this? Should we all be slaves to the cause of protecting human life? Should we all be forced to work in medicine, or in public health broadly, and abandon our leisure time to do so? Should we all only be given enough resources to keep us alive, so the rest can be spent to protect every last life as much as possible?

I value other people's lives. But I don't believe that I, or society, is required to sacrifice everything to protect them. And I wouldn't ask others to do so for me if it were my life in danger.

Careful balancing in whose interests?

Ours. The interests of the public.

No, that's not what I was saying.

Of course it wasn't. I was being slightly facetious with my "agreed." Sorry I didn't make that clear. :)

Discovering a right to silence speech for vague "decency" purposes is contradictory with the right of free expression.

Depends on what the "right of free expression" constitutes, doesn't it? More precisely, it depends on how we justify it, which is the real determinant of its limits.

I say the right of free expression is political: it is bound up with democracy, with our capacity to freely choose the laws by which we are to abide. Our society is obliged to respect the right to free expression because to the extent we do not, we have failed to be democratic--we have in effect constrained the range of options we may freely choose by denying people the right to promote their political views.

But that means that freedom of expression applies mainly to political speech. Not to anything that could be reasonably classified as "expression" in the ordinary sense. And considerations of decency cannot on principle be excluded from politics--not when they are applied to non-political forms of expression, like pornography or sexuality in the media more broadly.

And really, I would think a tolerant, open-minded, rational society would find it in its own interest to support free expression against the claims of certain individuals who are "offended" by "indecent" speech.

I disagree. There's nothing objectively irrational about, say, being considered about public manifestations of sexuality. It's a value judgment, and a subjective one. And certainly it isn't close-minded, because there is no opinion being expressed to be close-minded to. As for "intolerant", it's not really much more intolerant than the alternative is. Both of them don't respect some people's preferences.

I wouldn't particularly want to live in a sexually conservative society. But I see nothing objectively wrong with a society deciding to live in such a manner. The public has that right.

(Such sexual conservatism, however, must be EQUAL--if gay people cannot be "indecent" in public, straight people cannot be allowed to be so either.)

Am I correct in believing that you refer to its "concrete role" is to preserve the integrity of the political process by maximizing both the breadth and depth of political discussion?

Exactly.

Surely, this is important, but I think the view that expression is justified by its political role is a narrow one.

And you're right. It is.

But recall that the right to free expression is a very strong one. Speech is a very powerful thing. It can harm, it can offend, it can cause all kinds of damage. Yet the right to free expression, even under my narrow interpretation, demands that we exclude a broad swath of speech from social regulation... even if it is harmful, even if it is offensive, even if it is damaging.

That kind of right needs a pretty substantive justification. And that's why it's narrow.

My point is that when Christian groups were criticizing the ad, their spokesmen talked about really trivial complaints like "parents were having to explain it to their children."

Is that so "trivial"? Isn't that just your value judgment? Perhaps some parents really don't want to have to deal with explaining such things to their children. Perhaps they don't want to live in a society with that kind of culture. Again, is that so obviously wrong?

There are, of course, really good reasons to support the ad--you've given them. But it comes down to a question of comparative value, and even if to you and me it's obvious which side weighs more, this is the kind of question that should be left to the values of the public as a whole--and not to value-blind considerations of "rights."

Nevertheless, I worry that a desire to have "decency," not to be "offended," not to have your children "see that" will blind us to things we really need to see.

Then make that argument. Go out and say so. But don't think that it automatically holds weight, that it obviously supersedes any other competing consideration.

it is not immediately obvious why people have a right not to be exposed to things they don't like.

Are any rights "immediately obvious"?

If you prefer, think of it this way: don't people have the right to control the kind of lives they lead, to choose the kind of society in which they live?

You may think it ridiculous that people can restrict other people's expression out of consideration of "decency", but is this judgment really so well-founded that any rational person has reason to accept it?

To be fair, as a queer, I find LGBT pride parades to be ridiculous. The time, money and energy spent on parades is better spent elsewhere. I think that ostentatious displays of sexuality in public for "shock value" is stupid and irrational, and to the extent they promote queer "visibility," they do so by trivializing sexuality.

I don't necessarily disagree, but let me make clear that I don't mean at all that public sexuality should be more restrained... I would probably support legalizing outright public sex.

It's just that I think that this opinion of mine is founded on particular social values, and that the social values that should hold weight in a free, democratic society are those of the public as a whole, not just mine. I might politically defend my radical sexual liberalism, but I would not argue that regulating public sexuality should be excluded on principle from democratic politics.

This interpretation of yours may be charitable, but why is it that people have a legitimate claim to silence others so that they can live in a certain kind of society they want?

Let me reverse the question: why is it that people have a legitimate claim to do things that shock and offend others so that they can follow their preferences?

I'm sure you can give an answer. My point is that it's not obvious which consideration is more important. Some people might judge individual freedom to be more important, others (their conception of) moral decency... but this, again, is a value judgment, and as such, in a democracy it should be up to the public.

Do social conservatives have a legitimate claim to have society be the way they want any more than others?

Absolutely not. We all have an equal right (within certain limits, mainly equality under law). They can defend and vote for their stances, and so can others.

My point is simply that they too have a right.

The communitarian worry that you express is important, but I don't buy that it is the case that all or even most cultural lifestyles or events necessarily affect others.

Virtually all of them do, to one degree or another.

True, some of them do so to a smaller degree than others... but how small is "small enough"? That's another question of value.

I tend to worry about approaches that lend themselves to "balancing" rights claims by privileging the collective. Balance means balance, not siding with "society."

You misunderstand. We shouldn't automatically regulate individual freedom in every case, or even in most cases. I'm just saying that regulating individual freedom in these kinds of cases is not something we can exclude on principle.

I disagree. For Americans, I think we have a tradition of not only wanting the good, but wanting to get to it using legitimate means. That's part of why we have a political process with constitutional guarantees. We do not believe that the ends justify the means. (I recognize you are not saying that.) The means really are important.

I very much agree. My point is not that the means are always legitimate, my point is that in this case the means are legitimate. They are perfectly in line with the limits of democratic governance, because they concern matters that are necessarily public--like culture.

Discussions about what kind of culture we want are very important, but what I'm disputing is that a certain interested group has a right to impose its cultural values on others regardless of constitutional guarantees.

Of course it doesn't. The public rules itself. Everyone has an equal right to participate in the democratic process, and everyone must be equal under the law--ideally, anyway.

As for "constitutional guarantees", those should be honored, too--but recall that we put them in place democratically in the first place.

Note also that there are also socially liberal Christians, who share the conservative Christians worries about sexual objectification in society (which is a very real problem), but who believe that opposition to LGBT pride parades or legal recognition of same-sex relationships for example can hardly be compared to opposition to pornography and sexual immodesty (which they also oppose, rightly).

And they're absolutely right. Opposition to same-sex marriage and to LGBT pride parades specifically is on principle unjustified. It differentiates between people on an arbitrary basis. It's disgusting, and morally decent people, whatever social values they endorse, should oppose such bigotry every step of the way.

In other words, I would say that just because the social values behind certain policies may make sense, that still does not justify the policies themselves.

But the social value behind opposition to same-sex marriage is homophobia, not sexual conservatism, and that "social value" is illegitimate because it violates equality.

Social values can only be legitimately applied when they apply equally to everyone. If you don't support marriage, go ahead and oppose it. But don't give us bullshit about letting straight people marry but not letting gay (and bisexual) people do so... unless you can provide a reasonable basis for the distinction, which obviously you can't because the distinction is based on irrational bigotry.

(The "you" there is general. I'm not referring to you specifically.)

Queer issues are not all personal, but it is nontdisingenuous to say that some queer issues are personal. What we do in our bedrooms, for example, is definitely personal.

Of course it is, and I believe I said so. But if we want to be free, we're going to have to go quite a bit further than that... and to be blunt about it, it reeks of servility to talk only about "privacy" when defending queer rights, as if we weren't entitled to equal freedom and dignity regardless of such considerations.

It always annoys me when people talk about not caring about what people do in their bedrooms as if such narrow tolerance were the critical question. It seems to me like that's only one short step from the old line "I don't have any problem with gay people as long as they don't shove homosexuality down my throat", or "don't flaunt themselves", or "don't act gay in public", and so forth.

Claims that we have equal, intrinsic value from which we derive legitimate interests not to be mistreated are not unsupported.

Indeed they aren't. The point is that we must actually offer arguments to support them.

If the realization of human rights did not minimize human suffering, would we find human rights a particularly useful concept?

Of course we would. Is every moral duty really founded on minimizing human suffering? Aren't there considerations of freedom, or of intrinsic dignity, that are important too?

Can I murder someone if doing so will minimize human suffering?

No, I think you misread me. I offered rape as an example of something which is always morally wrong thus supporting my claim that there are at least some universal moral truths.

"Rape is not even justified on consequentialism in a cooked up hypothetical."

I was going off that.
Jello Biafra
03-05-2008, 14:44
It always annoys me when people talk about not caring about what people do in their bedrooms as if such narrow tolerance were the critical question. It seems to me like that's only one short step from the old line "I don't have any problem with gay people as long as they don't shove homosexuality down my throat", or "don't flaunt themselves", or "don't act gay in public", and so forth."As long as they don't hit on me..."