On Government

[pat]

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

Oh, I agree history disagrees. Some people were considered more valuable than others, hence their actions on the lesser were of no consequence, or there was a cheapness to it.
The question is 1) just because it happened, was it right? 2) Was the value of the ‘victims’ truly less than the perpetrators? 3) Is there a choice to do otherwise?[/quote]

1. By the value system I have come to adopt, it was not “right”. But it happened. If I had grown in those times with those values, I may have had no qualms whatsoever about doing things that I would NEVER do now.
   [/quote]
   The fact that it happened, doesn’t make it right. That’s the point. People doing real bad shit to each other that at one time was accepted on the sociological whole didn’t make the action right. It means that people did bad things and other approved. Doesn’t mean at all that it was right.

2. Value is subjective and determined by strength in those times - “might made right”. Therefor, IN THAT CONTEXT, the value of the victims HAD to be less than the value of the perpetrator.

Put yourself in the position of the lesser. Whether I like you or not, whether I agree with you or not, I do not have the ‘right’ to harm you. Hence you have a right to not be harmed by me. Whether I am stronger, or have a crown on my head does not make me better, nor you or anyone.

[quote]
3) There is ALWAYS a choice.

And I’m gonna open up some fresh wounds here, but even the Founding Fathers owned slaves… We don’t need to revisit the topic, we’ve gone on and on about it in the other thread. Just sayin’… If THEY, the ENLIGHTENED framers of our Constitution, CHOSE TO OWN PEOPLE, how can one logically argue that we have ANY “innate, natural rights”? They were greater men than most of this sorry bunch could EVER hope to meet… And yet what they wrote and what they DID was in conflict. Because that’s how they were raised. Because there are no innate rights, we are a product of what we are TAUGHT.[/quote]

Not all the founding fathers had slaves. Adams did not, neither Samuel nor John, for instance. The northern contingent did not.
Washington didn’t want to discuss the issue though he did express some regret of it and did free his post mortem. Jefferson was a very conflicted figure on the matter, he knew it was wrong but did not see a way around it at the time.

He believed in a phasing out of slavery. He actually believed that they should all be sent back, but the country and economy could not sustain a new nation if slavery was to attempted to be abolished at that time. They couldn’t unite the country which had to happen or there would be no country.
Honestly, given the context at the time, I couldn’t say they were wrong. Without a nation, the whole shithouse would have burned down. It wasn’t the right time to fight the fight. The fight came in due time.

[angry_chicken]

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:
What I hear you saying [/quote]

No offense at all, but you don’t “hear” what I’m saying, not at all. [/quote]

None taken! But I’m listing example after example of how “rights” can’t possibly exist given the evolution of humans and their history and all you’ve come back with is, “it just is”…

[pat]

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Does the right exist, well yes it does. What is it, two people of equal ‘value’ have no right to harm each other.[/quote]

This is not the existence of a right, it is the absence of one. What is at issue is whether or not a natural right exists. If you say that it does, then you must evidence its existence.
[/quote]
Well that would be the ‘negative’ right. The right of a person to be unharmed by another

[quote]

[quote]
If no such right exists, then all of what people are capable of is just another thing. No better, no worse than anything else. Saving an orphan is as raping and killing a baby. No rights, then no wrongs. Utter chaos.[/quote]

Could be so, but this is an argumentum ad consequentium–i.e., illegitimate–if is intended to assail the “no natural rights” position.[/quote]
hmm, well is not the whole point of preserving the ‘do no harm’ with regards to another equal human a matter of consequence? If no consequence for an action exists then no harm is done. So the root of the ‘right’ or value is in the consequence.

The problem with these types of discussions is that they can only be exemplified by example, but cause the metaethical problems are undefinable. We have an understanding by example, but we have no explicit way to express.

So let’s put this another way, the way to understand this is to internalize.
If you have no natural right to life or freedom from harm, what’s to stop me from hurting you and what business is it of yours to complain if I do?
If you have no natural right, then for me to strike you, say with a bat, is of no greater consequence than a rock dropping on your head.
Is it right for me to strike you with a bat, should that action be unwarrented for any reason? And if not, then why not?[/quote]

That question goes down to the genetic level. We are “survival/replication machines” for our genes. Our physical bodies evolved to live long enough to fight and to fuck. If you hit me with a bat, then as ANY animal, I will react to defend myself so that I can continue to survive and replicate.

The Selfish Gene

If you want to make the argument that our “right to life/freedom from harm” is an expression of our genetic evolution, then I might buy it - but it is HARDLY a universally expressed option, because we ALL have a selfish interest to live. That “right” would be immediately superseded by the “strongest/smartest” player…[/quote]

But that is a psychological, not a philosophical analysis. We evolve by getting it right, not succuming to physiology. We have a choice to do the right thing unlike a hungry lion.

[countingbeans]

[quote]angry chicken wrote:
Therefore, given your privileged (judged against the standard of all humans in human history) upbringing, you “feel” that ALL people “should” have the same opportunity of peace and tranquility that YOU were fortunate enough to have been born into. [/quote]

If this were the case, I’d never have been in the situation you describe, as no one would have every fought to set it up for me, because based on your explanation here, the concept only comes out of my mouth because of an environment made by other men.

So… If it only comes from an environment made by men, and men, by and large dont’ make those types of environments, the egg would never have been laid to make my chicken.

Whether you feel that way because of religious conviction (my guess) or because of some liberal fantasy (not insulting you, just giving the logical alternative lol), that FEELING cannot be proven any more than the existence of GOD can be proven.

No idea what political affiliation, religious views or God’s existence has to do with rights.

FTR, I agree that it is VERY productive for societies to have laws that protect their citizens.

Yes, you brought up the umbrella before.

But I don’t kid myself by assuming it as a “right”.

So are you purposely implying I’m deluding myself, and anyone who disagrees with you is of lessor status?

Because you just included some of the brightest minds in the history of the world in that classification of those of us “kidding ourselves”.

It is in place because men before you and I fought and died for a GOVERNMENT that established those rights

Who apparently did all this because is sounded like a good time?

[angry_chicken]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

Oh, I agree history disagrees. Some people were considered more valuable than others, hence their actions on the lesser were of no consequence, or there was a cheapness to it.
The question is 1) just because it happened, was it right? 2) Was the value of the ‘victims’ truly less than the perpetrators? 3) Is there a choice to do otherwise?[/quote]

1. By the value system I have come to adopt, it was not “right”. But it happened. If I had grown in those times with those values, I may have had no qualms whatsoever about doing things that I would NEVER do now.
   [/quote]
   The fact that it happened, doesn’t make it right. That’s the point. People doing real bad shit to each other that at one time was accepted on the sociological whole didn’t make the action right. It means that people did bad things and other approved. Doesn’t mean at all that it was right.

2. Value is subjective and determined by strength in those times - “might made right”. Therefor, IN THAT CONTEXT, the value of the victims HAD to be less than the value of the perpetrator.

Put yourself in the position of the lesser. Whether I like you or not, whether I agree with you or not, I do not have the ‘right’ to harm you. Hence you have a right to not be harmed by me. Whether I am stronger, or have a crown on my head does not make me better, nor you or anyone.

[quote]
3) There is ALWAYS a choice.

And I’m gonna open up some fresh wounds here, but even the Founding Fathers owned slaves… We don’t need to revisit the topic, we’ve gone on and on about it in the other thread. Just sayin’… If THEY, the ENLIGHTENED framers of our Constitution, CHOSE TO OWN PEOPLE, how can one logically argue that we have ANY “innate, natural rights”? They were greater men than most of this sorry bunch could EVER hope to meet… And yet what they wrote and what they DID was in conflict. Because that’s how they were raised. Because there are no innate rights, we are a product of what we are TAUGHT.[/quote]
Not all the founding fathers had slaves. Adams did not, neither Samuel nor John, for instance. The northern contingent did not.
Washington didn’t want to discuss the issue though he did express some regret of it and did free his post mortem. Jefferson was a very conflicted figure on the matter, he knew it was wrong but did not see a way around it at the time. He believed in a phasing out of slavery. He actually believed that they should all be sent back, but the country and economy could not sustain a new nation if slavery was to attempted to be abolished at that time. They couldn’t unite the country which had to happen or there would be no country.
Honestly, given the context at the time, I couldn’t say they were wrong. Without a nation, the whole shithouse would have burned down. It wasn’t the right time to fight the fight. The fight came in due time.[/quote]

The WHOLE point I’m making is that this “right” has EVOLVED. And a Right is an absolute. The right to be free from harm is NOT an absolute, it is dependent upon a society that enforces it. Turn the electricity of to the United States for one week and SEE how many people respect those “innate rights”… There would be fucking cannibalism… With out a functioning tribute taking state to ENFORCE THE LAW, society would devolve into chaos.

That’s reality, not fantasy. Fantasy is that everyone would hold hands and we’d all get along and respect each others “rights”. Tell that to a parent who’s kid hasn’t eaten in three days.

[smh_23]

[quote]pat wrote:
This very discussion is metaphysical in nature, which thus disproves physicalism. Even if the ‘natural right’ is proven not to exist, the discussion of it does and hence disproves physicalism. The metaphysical expressed physically does not make it physical, only it’s expression. All the concepts, for and against are metaphysical, expressed physically. Why? It’s the only way we have to express them.
Physicalism is dead. Even most empiricists concede that laws and theory are not physical, they argue that it proceeds from the physical, but it’s not physical.[/quote]

This is not the case. Physicalism has not been disproved, and it is one of the dominant ontological paradigms in contemporary philosophy/science.

As for your theory about discussion of physicalism disproving physicalism: Talking about something that would disprove physicalism if it were the case does not disprove physicalism in itself. If everything supervenes on the physical, then so too does this conversation, and so too do the thoughts that are driving each of our posts. If physicalism were so easy to refute, it would not remain a topic of serious philosophical debate.

Edit: Notice that I am not saying the physicalism is true, because I don’t believe it is.

[smh_23]

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[Natural rights] came from the same place gravity did, how’s that?

[/quote]

I can drop my pen and evidence of gravity as the pen falls to the ground. The questions is this: What such kind of evidence exists for a natural right?

[countingbeans]

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:
Humans are NOT born with anything resembling morality.[/quote]

Oh…

Well I was talking about rights, not morality.

Either you are strong enough to defend you and yours, or you will get killed/beaten by those stronger than you.

You totally and absolutely contradict and destroy your entire argument right here.
[/quote]

Maybe it’s just been a long day, but I have NO idea what you are talking about when you say that. Seriously. How have I destroyed my own argument with two true statements…
[/quote]

It isn’t the statements, you only needed the one word:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:
defend[/quote]

Why does an animal or human defend from both others (your statement) or nature (eating, etc) their life?

Instinct?

Instinct is innate, so it can’t be that.

[smh_23]

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Why does an animal or human defend from both others (your statement) or nature (eating, etc) their life?

Instinct?

Instinct is innate, so it can’t be that. [/quote]

Huh?

Why can’t it be instinct?

[countingbeans]

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:
What I hear you saying [/quote]

No offense at all, but you don’t “hear” what I’m saying, not at all. [/quote]

None taken! But I’m listing example after example of how “rights” can’t possibly exist given the evolution of humans and their history and all you’ve come back with is, “it just is”…[/quote]

I’ve said quite a bit more than that.

But we’re talking past each other right now because we’re talking about two different things I think.

[countingbeans]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

Why can’t it be instinct?[/quote]

Because instinct proves the “right” you all have been arguing can’t be proven.

[smh_23]

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

Why can’t it be instinct?[/quote]

Because instinct proves the “right” you all have been arguing can’t be proven.

[/quote]

How so?

[countingbeans]

I’ve got a daughter to hang with. I’ll be back tomorrow probably, Tuesday at the latest.

[smh_23]

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I’ve got a daughter to hang with. I’ll be back tomorrow probably, Tuesday at the latest.

[/quote]

Priorities–always good.

[SexMachine]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[Natural rights] came from the same place gravity did, how’s that?

[/quote]

I can drop my pen and evidence of gravity as the pen falls to the ground. The questions is this: What such kind of evidence exists for a natural right?[/quote]

Maybe the pen didn’t have a right to levitate.

[angry_chicken]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Does the right exist, well yes it does. What is it, two people of equal ‘value’ have no right to harm each other.[/quote]

This is not the existence of a right, it is the absence of one. What is at issue is whether or not a natural right exists. If you say that it does, then you must evidence its existence.
[/quote]
Well that would be the ‘negative’ right. The right of a person to be unharmed by another

[quote]

[quote]
If no such right exists, then all of what people are capable of is just another thing. No better, no worse than anything else. Saving an orphan is as raping and killing a baby. No rights, then no wrongs. Utter chaos.[/quote]

Could be so, but this is an argumentum ad consequentium–i.e., illegitimate–if is intended to assail the “no natural rights” position.[/quote]
hmm, well is not the whole point of preserving the ‘do no harm’ with regards to another equal human a matter of consequence? If no consequence for an action exists then no harm is done. So the root of the ‘right’ or value is in the consequence.

The problem with these types of discussions is that they can only be exemplified by example, but cause the metaethical problems are undefinable. We have an understanding by example, but we have no explicit way to express.

So let’s put this another way, the way to understand this is to internalize.
If you have no natural right to life or freedom from harm, what’s to stop me from hurting you and what business is it of yours to complain if I do?
If you have no natural right, then for me to strike you, say with a bat, is of no greater consequence than a rock dropping on your head.
Is it right for me to strike you with a bat, should that action be unwarrented for any reason? And if not, then why not?[/quote]

That question goes down to the genetic level. We are “survival/replication machines” for our genes. Our physical bodies evolved to live long enough to fight and to fuck. If you hit me with a bat, then as ANY animal, I will react to defend myself so that I can continue to survive and replicate.

The Selfish Gene

If you want to make the argument that our “right to life/freedom from harm” is an expression of our genetic evolution, then I might buy it - but it is HARDLY a universally expressed option, because we ALL have a selfish interest to live. That “right” would be immediately superseded by the “strongest/smartest” player…[/quote]

But that is a psychological, not a philosophical analysis. We evolve by getting it right, not succuming to physiology. We have a choice to do the right thing unlike a hungry lion. [/quote]

If we are hungry enough, we will do what we must - despite our convictions. At least MOST humans will. Sure, you have your one in ten thousand like Gandhi or whatever. But that is the exception and not the norm. At the end of the day, these principles have EVOLVED. Back in prehistoric times, we didn’t feel those feeling because we might hesitate before we threw the spear. Now, with the advent of agricultural societies and tribute taking states we are fortunate enough to have the luxury of forming “higher thoughts”. Those concepts were THOUGHT UP fairly recently. Not saying they are BAD, but I’m saying they didn’t ALWAYS apply to reality here on planet earth. A few billion years ago the sky wasn’t blue, either.

[smh_23]

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[Natural rights] came from the same place gravity did, how’s that?

[/quote]

I can drop my pen and evidence of gravity as the pen falls to the ground. The questions is this: What such kind of evidence exists for a natural right?[/quote]

Maybe the pen didn’t have a right to levitate.[/quote]

I would argue that that is absolutely true.

[angry_chicken]

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I’ve got a daughter to hang with. I’ll be back tomorrow probably, Tuesday at the latest.

[/quote]

And I was just gonna say I’m about to leave work! LOL Have fun with your daughter, Beans - Until next time!

[SexMachine]

@smh - I’m not sure if you are aware, but your rejection of natural rights places you in the “legal positivism” camp. Legal positivists argue that that the law should not concern itself with extrinsic values such as whether a particular law is “just” or “ethical,” but rather the law should only be concerned with the law. John Austin, regarded as the father of legal positivism insisted that:

1. The law is simply a command issued by a sovereign - king, parliament etc.

2. Such commands are backed by sanctions - or as a libertarian would say “a gun in the room.”

and

3. A sovereign is someone who must be obeyed but who does not themselves obey anyone.

Austin’s concept of legal positivism is vastly more authoritarian than even Hobbes who, whilst advocating absolute monarchy still believed that man should disobey lex humana(human law) when it conflicts with lex aeterna(divine law.)

As you know I do believe in natural law. I ascribe to Cicero’s maxim, lex injusta non est lex(an unjust law is not law.)

Just curious as to what you think about legal positivism?

[NickViar]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]NickViar wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Does the right exist, well yes it does. What is it, two people of equal ‘value’ have no right to harm each other.[/quote]

This is not the existence of a right, it is the absence of one. What is at issue is whether or not a natural right exists. If you say that it does, then you must evidence its existence.
[/quote]

I believe the absence of a right is what’s being discussed. I think I clarified my position a page or two ago, and I believe pat joined in after that point.[/quote]
Am I understanding your position correctly? I am not one to go back to far. 3-4 pages is my limit.
[/quote]

I just got home from work and am not sure that I’m following this discussion well, but I think you have it more or less correct.

I also admit that it’s impossible to argue that anything is right or wrong in smh’s hypothetical moral vacuum. I believe the question of how to deal with a psychopath, who does not recognize anything as right or wrong, has already been asked. I think I said that killing him would be the proper response. Neither following him nor allowing him to own you is proper, in my opinion.