[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]
Let’s say that I’m blind, deaf, and have no feeling in my entire body. Give me evidence of gravity’s existence that I will acknowledge.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Then what possible reason could you have for believing in their existence?[/quote]
My thoughts aren’t physical beings, but I believe they exist.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
@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:
The law is simply a command issued by a sovereign - king, parliament etc.
Such commands are backed by sanctions - or as a libertarian would say “a gun in the room.”
and
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?[/quote]
Good post. I considered getting into some of the formal philosophy yesterday, but decided instead to keep things simple by remaining focused on the one issue.
I should note here that I have been doing some devil’s advocacy in this thread. This is not to say that my arguments have been insincere, but some of the language and forcefulness have been exaggerated for polemical effect.
So, when I say that it is my position that “no natural law exists,” what I really mean to say is that “you, Nick/Beans/Pat, have overstated your case by claiming unequivocally that natural law exists, and, in order for me to accept your plain, certain claim as true, you must offer evidence.” In other words, my primary or underlying target here is unmerited certainty, not natural law philosophy.
But, on positivism: I find it fairly useless. Though I’m not necessarily an interpretivist, I would sooner subscribe to Dworkin’s view of things than to Hart’s. I read The Concept of Law when I was slightly too young, and I was baffled: How could somebody think like that after the Holocaust? I understand things a little better now, but I remain generally unimpressed. To take one of many examples of positivism’s foolishness, it is self-defeating–a philosophy of law that invalidates philosophy of law by elevating the institutional at the expense of the analytical. Another example of its foolishness: It does little to solve the problem of infinite regression in legal validity.
What is my true view of things, then? Well, like nearly every other question there is, it reduces to the question of God. It would take me a long time to faithfully represent my views of God/no-God and morality/amorality here. But I will say this: Whether in an objective or a subjective capacity, “good” does exist, and all forms of life affirm, on a constant basis, that some things are “good” and some things are not (even when they don’t agree on the particulars). In light of this, to devise a legal philosophy which denies a role to (or, in more recent incarnations, minimizes the role of) “the goodness of law”–this is the height of stupidity, even if notions of goodness are but evolutionary traits or processes.
Edited
[quote]NickViar wrote:
I also admit that it’s impossible to argue that anything is right or wrong in smh’s hypothetical moral vacuum.[/quote]
Well, much philosophy takes place in that kind of space. This doesn’t mean I don’t care about law in practice: Only that, right now, I’m discussing law in theory.
[quote]NickViar 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]
Let’s say that I’m blind, deaf, and have no feeling in my entire body. Give me evidence of gravity’s existence that I will acknowledge.[/quote]
I’m not sure I could. Can one even communicate with such a person? Keller needed her tactility, yes?
If what you’re getting at is that gravity would exist independent of your inability to discover/acknowledge it, you are correct. But this doesn’t have any bearing on my argument. I’m not pretending to know that natural rights do not exist–I’m saying that you cannot know that they do.
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
[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]
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. [/quote]
Sorry, I love early American History, it’s an easy side track for me.
Anyway, I would agree that we did ‘evolve’ morally. But we didn’t create the equality of man, we started to recognize it. We started to realize that those we considered lesser are actually the same. That’s a learned on a social level, because many already knew this fact, but society as a whole came to accept. But, the equality already existed, we just realized it.
Like a child who learns math, 2+2=4 already exists before a child discovers it.
[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]
Equality of man. Either we are equal or we are not.
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
[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.
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.[/quote]
Yes, also true. When it comes to mind over matter, given enough time, matter always wins. I know this from experience, and I am sure many do.
So let’s contain the conversation to exclude the outliers.
I think we can all agree that extreme circumstances call for extreme measures.
[quote]pat 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]
Equality of man. Either we are equal or we are not.[/quote]
What does “the equality of man” mean?
On what evidence do we affirm the equality of man?
If [2] is convincing, how and why does the equality of man necessarily entail the existence of a natural right?
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
[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]
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.
But math is an absolute while “MAN” is a work in progress… We EVOLVED from apes. So we were not ALWAYS equal or “better” or “moral” than animals. We used to BE animals… Math is a concept that (from what I understand) has very little room for interpretation unless you get all “higher level”. Mankind’s evolution has TONS of room for interpretation. And we evolved higher and higher levels of conscience along the way. It is impossible for this “truth” to have “always” existed. MANKIND has not “always” existed…
I believe, as Will Durant did, that the natural inequality of man has driven, directly or indirectly, all human history.
Perhaps you refer to some amorphous, metaphysical equality. But then what evidence have I of this?
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[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.[/quote]
I didn’t say people accepted is has been disproven, I run into empiricists all the time. And it’s the use of this bottom up methodology, that the ontological stems from the physical that keeps this myth from dying completely.
The problem naturalists, physicalists, whatever we want to call them, have is they cannot separate object from mechanism. For instance, the mechanism in the brain creates a thought, but the mechanism isn’t the thought.
I think it’s dead in all but certain schools; it’s just a matter of time before everybody realizes it. It’s kept alive for another purpose, really, which I am sure you know what that is. There is a flat earth society after all and they actually make a decent argument. No I don’t believe it, but I was impressed with their creativity.
It’s bottom up methodology vs. top down. The bottom ups haven’t figured out how to tie mechanism to object and in the end that’s it’s fatal flaw.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[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.[/quote]
I didn’t say people accepted is has been disproven, I run into empiricists all the time. And it’s the use of this bottom up methodology, that the ontological stems from the physical that keeps this myth from dying completely.
The problem naturalists, physicalists, whatever we want to call them, have is they cannot separate object from mechanism. For instance, the mechanism in the brain creates a thought, but the mechanism isn’t the thought.
I think it’s dead in all but certain schools; it’s just a matter of time before everybody realizes it. It’s kept alive for another purpose, really, which I am sure you know what that is. There is a flat earth society after all and they actually make a decent argument. No I don’t believe it, but I was impressed with their creativity.
It’s bottom up methodology vs. top down. The bottom ups haven’t figured out how to tie mechanism to object and in the end that’s it’s fatal flaw.[/quote]
This is where you and I get into problems with each other. You say “physicalism is dead,” and refer to it as a myth. These are ridiculous claims, and I find myself wondering, again, if you have studied these things half as seriously as you’d need to in order to speak authoritatively on them.
Physicalism is not “dead in all but certain schools.” It is the operational premise of all scientific experiment–literally–and it remains the dominant ontological paradigm of the philosophy of science.
If you want to prove that physicalism is dead, you must prove the following claim: “Not everything supervenes on the physical.”
If you can, you are going to be famous. But you can’t.
Edit: I am going to simply say right now that I don’t want to discuss this with you if you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you don’t understand the concept of supervenience, for example, then you should not respond to this post.
[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]
But it did have the right not to get knocked down by another equal pen… If the pens are sentient and have freewill.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I’ve got a daughter to hang with. I’ll be back tomorrow probably, Tuesday at the latest.
[/quote]
Bring your gun.
You don’t have to kill physicalism.
Physicalists have the burden to prove that it is remotely alive.
And since physicalism is by definition a radical form of reductionism, they won’t be able to do that until they can reduce everything to physicality.
Even the very concept of physicality.
Good luck with that.
Physicalism is a quite common epistemology, but mainly amongst non-epistemologists. Maybe there is a reason for that fact.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]NickViar 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]
Let’s say that I’m blind, deaf, and have no feeling in my entire body. Give me evidence of gravity’s existence that I will acknowledge.[/quote]
I’m not sure I could. Can one even communicate with such a person? Keller needed her tactility, yes?
If what you’re getting at is that gravity would exist independent of your inability to discover/acknowledge it, you are correct. But this doesn’t have any bearing on my argument. I’m not pretending to know that natural rights do not exist–I’m saying that you cannot know that they do.[/quote]
The ability to communicate precludes the ability to share information. But whether somebody knows or does not have no basis on the existence of something.
[quote]kamui wrote:
You don’t have to kill physicalism.
Physicalists have the burden to prove that it is remotely alive.
And since physicalism is by definition a radical form of reductionism, they won’t be able to do that until they can reduce everything to physicality.
Even the very concept of physicality.
Good luck with that.
Physicalism is a quite common epistemology, but mainly amongst non-epistemologists. Maybe there is a reason for that fact.
[/quote]
No, the burden of proof is on he who affirms physicalism.
I am not affirming it, I am saying that Pat cannot deny it. He who says “not physicalism” assumes the burden of proof, just as he who says “not God” assumes the same.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pat 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]
Equality of man. Either we are equal or we are not.[/quote]
That’s a good question and I am not sure I have the answer per se. But to express it in a negative way, there lacks evidence that the value of one man is greater than another. Which I would call an intrinsic value.
[quote]
3. If [2] is convincing, how and why does the equality of man necessarily entail the existence of a natural right?[/quote]
The equality of man is what I would call the natural right. The equality of man means that the value of each individual is the same. That value being the same means that one has no right to harm the other.
On what basis could we say that man is unequal? What would make a man have a greater value than another? All else being equal (<-This is important for the sake of discussion) what would make one man’s right to not be harmed by another supercede the other mans desire to harm the other?
(hope that made sense)
[quote]
I am not affirming it, I am saying that Pat cannot deny it.[/quote]
What i am saying is :
Physicalism is a reductionnist attempt.
And, as long as it hasn’t succeeded, it’s a failed one.
And for this reason, it’s not viable as an epistemological position.
A purely theoretical possibility ? maybe.
But who cares ?
Being purely theoretical is a cheap way to be undeniable.