02-07-2004 17:57									#211
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Berzerker Aggie - A right is a moral claim to act... So, from where does this moral claim to act derive?

I don't think that people other than philosophers really need to worry about this. It so happens that there is virtual unanimity amongst people with regard to what is right and what is wrong. I know that sounds a strange thing to say, but it is true - we only notice the few things about which there is strong disagreement.

Moral beliefs are pretty much like other beliefs: the vast majority of beliefs are shared by everyone (it's what makes it possible for us to communicate - but that is another story). Again, the things about which we disagree attract more attention, but that does not change the fact that we fundamentally agree about most things.

quote: The state? Society?

Neither. If we want an explanation of why we have moral beliefs, that explanation is likely to be found in evolutionary psychology. It is quite easy to prove that total selfishness is not an evolutionary successful strategy. That's why some degree of altruism has been selected for.

But what you want is a justification of our moral beliefs, rather than an explanation of why we have them. But this project is radically misconceived - it is like asking whether one is justified in disliking pain - we just do dislike pain.

One reason people hope to construct a justification for a particular moral point of view is that they hope to come up with a purely non-moral justification of morality which can then be given to amoral people in order to make them moral. But I don't think that this will ever work. Psychopaths, for example, are people who just cannot understand the idea that the interests of others matter - no amount of argument is going to change that, just as no amount of argument is going to enable a colour blind man distinguish red and green properly. So it's kind of weird that people would feel in need of such justifications.

One popular strategy is to try to provide self-interested reasons for behaving morally. To some degree this works, but it doesn't work when we most need it to - that is, when someone is in a position to escape sanctions. If everyone acted this way, we would also face massive collective action problems and we would all be worse off (in just the same way that radical selfishness is not an evolutionary successful trait).

The only reasonable response to this is that we just do have moral beliefs. These are often inconsistent and new technologies often provide us with problems that the old rules can't deal with, but that's all we have. If there is a grand philosophical project here, it is that of trying to systematize our moral beliefs in terms of basic principles. The two chief candidates for this are deontological theories and consequentialist theories. Rights based theories are a kind of deontological theory.

But as I have argued endlessly on this forum, such theories raise ridiculous counterexamples and really only make sense from a religious point of view. Another reason that they don't help much is that they are relatively inflexible because they view morality as a system of rules. Even the Stoics, who invented the idea of natural law, balked at the idea of morality as a system of rules like a law code - their view was much more flexible. We can see why this view of morality doesn't work by looking at the courts - no matter how much you specify the law, there will always be difficult cases that require us to go beyond the prescriptions of the rules.

I don't see the serious debate as one between those who believe that morality can be justified and those who can't, but as regarding which theory captures our ordinary moral judgements in the most systematic and coherent fashion.

quote: Then you have to defend all the crimes committed by states and societies.

Why do I have to defend them? If I don't have an objective justification for any moral view then it strikes me that the question of defending them does not arise for the same reason that I don't have a reason for defending my own view.

quote: You can't, and that's when you rely on natural rights but you just call it something else. Even when Kucinich said the victims of the Nazis had no rights not granted by German society, he concluded they "ought" to have those rights. That is a recognition of natural rights even if he doesn't want to admit it since he acknowledged that rights should have a different source if society fails to create them...

It is not a recognition of natural rights. It may be a recognition of some objective principle of morality, but that doesn't have to be rights based. Both Plato and Aristotle believe that morality has an objective justification, but neither understands morality in terms of rights.

quote: Why invoke some deity that may or may not exist? Do you need the existence of a deity to believe in morality? If not, why can't morality be the basis for rights?

"Because a deity is required to show how goodness can be an objective feature of the world", is one answer. But that is not my objection to rights based theories. My objection is that, if you do not value an action (say, killing someone) by its consequences for human welfare, then you must value it simply as breaking a rule (i.e. breaking the "killing is wrong" rule is bad no matter what the consequences). But if human welfare is not what matters, then what's the reason for the rule? I can understand that killing harms a person, so that why it is wrong, but I can't understand why someone would care more about the breaking of the rule than its effect on the victim. I think the only way to understand the idea of rule breaking as fundamental is to hold that the consequences don't matter because God only cares about the purity of your soul and he sets the rules that particular way as a means of weeding out the good from the bad. That seems to me the only way to understand why someone might think that the actions of the perpetrator are what makes something bad, rather than the effects on the victim.

(virtue ethics is a more difficult case).

quote: Natural rights derive from morality - a right is a moral claim to act. "Rights" are an expression of this binding morality...

I need not disagree with you on this one, but I would say that "rights" are a particularly bad expression of this binding morality because they create numerous counterexamples.

quote: So, what happens when society or the state violates or ignores this objectively binding morality? Do you believe this morality doesn't exist if the state cannot or does not recognise it?

No. It is clear that morality such as it is, exists independently of the state. That is why conflating legality with morality is fallacious.

quote: If not, you're stuck explaining from where this morality derives without using a natural or inherent source, i.e., a morality that exists regardless of what any state says.

No I'm not. I can tell you where our moral sense derives from (evolution), I just can't provide an objective justification for it. It just so happens that things matter to people and that it is impossible to understand this from an objective point of view. Rather one has to be a person to understand this. Think of the example of pain - if an alien who had no sense of value or capacity to feel pain saw us and our pain behaviour, he would be genuinely puzzled as to what was going on. But unless you are a sociopath, being able to understand moral reasons is fundamental to being a person. The degree to which we take these reasons into account differs from person to person, but almost all of us recognize moral reasons and those who do not are not going to be persuaded by any means other than force (which is why we lock them up).

quote: And these few fundamental principles are the basis for rights.

But rights don't capture them very well. If there are fundamental moral principles, these are good candidates:

1) Welfare is the primary good.

2) The welfare of other people matters just as much as my own.

quote: For starters, the Nazis took what did not belong to them. I understand commies have difficulty grasping that given their belief everything belongs to the state.

Or the people - it depends on which commies you are talking about. But I happen to think that property rights are not really primary moral rights. We may justify certain property rights by reference to welfare (i.e. people are better off if they have some form of control over things that is recognized by other persons), but it doesn't follow that these rights are absolute: for example, we may need to forcibly appropriate property in order to achieve other moral goals.

quote: But for those of us who do believe that ownership starts with the individual, their evil is easily quantified.

Ownership never started with the individual. Native societies like the New Zealand Maori would have found this notion of property rights alien to them - in fact they thought the whole idea of property was pretty weird. Tribal societies that do recognize property rights usually do so as communal rights (e.g. this mountain belongs to our community and that one to our neighbours).

I don't see why you think that a commitment to an objective theory of morality necessarily commits us to your peculiar version of it, and I don't see why an objective justification of morality is possible, since one has to be a person to understand what moral value is.

	02-07-2004 19:53									#212
	Tired of ads?

Jaguar -

quote: 1. No. This means that you´re putting words in his mouth. He didn´t say that supporting the government makes you a patriot.

He said if you believed the US was a terrorist state, you are unpatriotic. That means people who were alive within our lifetimes were unpatriotic for believing the US engaged in terrorism. That reduces patriotism to "love it or leave it" jingoism and requires the patriotic to believe a lie.

quote: He talked about one quality that makes you not be a patriot. There could easily be others: for example, if you support the mass-murdering of fellow citizens, you are also not a patriot.

Yup, and what happens when the state you support in the name of being patriotic supports terrorism? Hence my question...

quote: Also, he never discussed other countries.

I did, does it matter? No, patriotism has a definition that doesn't rely on which country we're talking about.

quote: I necessarily think his definition is good, but, as I have clearly demonstrated, you are using flawed logic.

Um...kay...

Imran -

quote: Um... because otherwise terrorism is every act of violence, and it isn't supposed to be. Have you ever heard of a 'terrorist group' which didn't have a political agenda?

Nope, but that doesn't mean the actual definition is limited only to achieving a political goal. The definition is broader...but not so broad as to include every act of violence.

quote: No, because the IRS doesn't use violence. It may threaten to put you in jail (which is not violence.. even if the police officers have to restrain you if you get rowdy), but they won't kill you or maim you.

They will if you don't comply. Most people feel terror when they learn the IRS is auditing them...

quote: And furthermore, if you want to look at definitions, both Merriam-Webster and American Heritage define terrorism as the UNLAWFUL use of force.

Not Webster's New Collegiate. Do you deny that Saddam terrorised the Iraqi people?

Aggie -

quote: It so happens that there is virtual unanimity amongst people with regard to what is right and what is wrong. I know that sounds a strange thing to say, but it is true - we only notice the few things about which there is strong disagreement. Moral beliefs are pretty much like other beliefs: the vast majority of beliefs are shared by everyone (it's what makes it possible for us to communicate - but that is another story). Again, the things about which we disagree attract more attention, but that does not change the fact that we fundamentally agree about most things.

And this shared view of morality is the basis for natural rights.

quote: Neither.

Then since morality is the basis for rights, neither the state nor society creates rights cuz neither created morality. They can recognise and respect rights, but they cannot create them... That's why we read in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution language that either overtly states or implies
pre-existing of rights.

quote: If we want an explanation of why we have moral beliefs, that explanation is likely to be found in evolutionary psychology.

The question is not why, but from where morality derives. I'm not talking about the human psyche, I'm talking about what you touched on - those few fundamental principles. What is the logical basis for morality? Then we will understand the basis for rights.

quote: But what you want is a justification of our moral beliefs, rather than an explanation of why we have them. But this project is radically misconceived - it is like asking whether one is justified in disliking pain - we just do dislike pain.

So, would you conclude morality is based on some shared sentiment? This is exactly what I've argued in the past. And given this origin of morality, rights also derive from this shared sentiment.

quote: But as I have argued endlessly on this forum, such theories raise ridiculous counterexamples and really only make sense from a religious point of view.

Then make that argument here and provide these counter-examples. I see no reason to invoke any deity to explain the origin of morality or the rights it creates...

quote: Another reason that they don't help much is that they are relatively inflexible because they view morality as a system of rules.

That's the nature of fundamental principles, they are inflexible. But you said morality depends on these principles... I agree...

quote: Why do I have to defend them? If I don't have an objective justification for any moral view then it strikes me that the question of defending them does not arise for the same reason that I don't have a reason for defending my own view.

If you believe rights are a social construct that depends on society or the state, then you have to defend societies and states that commit crimes against humanity. Why? Because according to you guys, the only rights we have are those granted by society or the state. Therefore, a society that does not grant us a right to be free from slavery has not taken anything from us should we be enslaved. But you certainly won't buy into that argument, so we're back to the problem with your position - rights cannot derive from society or the state, they derive from elsewhere - morality - a shared sentiment - a ~universal sentiment.

quote: It is not a recognition of natural rights. It may be a recognition of some objective principle of morality, but that doesn't have to be rights based. Both Plato and Aristotle believe that morality has an objective justification, but neither understands morality in terms of rights.

Did they even speak of rights? I don't know who was first, but the Framers and their ideological or philosphical benefactors did speak of rights. But rights are tied into morality - a right depends on moral authority - who has it and who does not...

quote: "Because a deity is required to show how goodness can be an objective feature of the world", is one answer.

Why can't we look at the world objectively to see this goodness?

quote: But that is not my objection to rights based theories. My objection is that, if you do not value an action (say, killing someone) by its consequences for human welfare, then you must value it simply as breaking a rule (i.e. breaking the "killing is wrong" rule is bad no matter what the consequences). But if human welfare is not what matters, then what's the reason for the rule? I can understand that killing harms a person, so that why it is wrong, but I can't understand why someone would care more about the breaking of the rule than its effect on the victim.

The rule is, justified rule that is, based on the fact killing harms the individual. How did you conclude rights are based on rules that have no attachment to morality? It's just the opposite...

quote: I think the only way to understand the idea of rule breaking as fundamental is to hold that the consequences don't matter because God only cares about the purity of your soul and he sets the rules that particular way as a means of weeding out the good from the bad. That seems to me the only way to understand why someone might think that the actions of the perpetrator are what makes something bad, rather than the effects on the victim.

It is the effect on the victim that matters...no deity is required...

quote: I need not disagree with you on this one, but I would say that "rights" are a particularly bad expression of this binding morality because they create numerous counterexamples.

Like what?

quote: No. It is clear that morality such as it is, exists independently of the state. That is why conflating legality with morality is fallacious.

But you guys believe rights are a grant from the state - a legality. I'm saying rights are based on morality, therefore they cannot be granted by the state since the state did not create morality.

quote: No I'm not. I can tell you where our moral sense derives from (evolution), I just can't provide an objective justification for it.

Justification is another matter, but I think you have already - shared sentiments. If we agree murder is immoral, then that is a shared sentiment. Even murderers know they wouldn't want to be murdered...

quote: But rights don't capture them very well. If there are fundamental moral principles, these are good candidates: 1) Welfare is the primary good. 2) The welfare of other people matters just as much as my own.

And rights are detached from personal welfare? Seems to me they are directly linked - a right to life, etc...

quote: Or the people - it depends on which commies you are talking about. But I happen to think that property rights are not really primary moral rights. We may justify certain property rights by reference to welfare (i.e. people are better off if they have some form of control over things that is recognized by other persons), but it doesn't follow that these rights are absolute: for example, we may need to forcibly appropriate property in order to achieve other moral goals.

And so the Nazis decided the "moral" goal of ethnic purity justified ethnic cleansing. You open a can of worms when you start down the path of deciding which rights can be ignored and when because some rights aren't "primary" moral rights... But I explained why it was wrong for the Nazis to do what they did, and all I needed was to identify the rightful owner.

quote: Ownership never started with the individual. Native societies like the New Zealand Maori would have found this notion of property rights alien to them - in fact they thought the whole idea of property was pretty weird. Tribal societies that do recognize property rights usually do so as communal rights (e.g. this mountain belongs to our community and that one to our neighbours).

Ownership doesn't preclude "public" property, it merely requires a recognition that some forms of property - starting with the most basic, oneself, belong to the individual. Tribal societies have always recognised the existence of communal and individual property. Who owns you? That rhetorical question is as old as man... If I, as a member of the tribe, made a weapon for killing game, that weapon belonged to me. I may let you borrow it but if the chief walked up and said it was now his, we'd all react the same way - with resentment. That is a shared sentiment...

quote: I don't see why you think that a commitment to an objective theory of morality necessarily commits us to your peculiar version of it, and I don't see why an objective justification of morality is possible, since one has to be a person to understand what moral value is.

And people we are But since when is a recognition of property a peculiar version of morality? Property IS the foundation of morality and the first piece of property anyone owns is themself followed by their labor or time... Third in line is what we presumably want for ourselves - happiness. And there we have the 3 principle natural rights found in the Declaration of Independence - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness... (property was originally the third but Jefferson substituted the pursuit of happiness, but property is found in the Constitution since he was not one of the authors of that document).

	02-07-2004 20:02									#213
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Your definition is foolish and makes everything terrorism. Terrorism is a very narrow thing.

You don't have to have to have the political goal of changing some govt policy and you don't have to use violence to terrorize someone systematically.

Your desire to narrow the definition of terrorism is politically motivated, because you love authority.

	02-07-2004 20:04									#214
	Tired of ads?

quote: You don't have to have to have the political goal of changing some govt policy and you don't have to use violence to terrorize someone systematically.

But you do in order for it to be called 'terrorism'.

quote: Your desire to narrow the definition of terrorism is politically motivated, because you love authority.

Your desire to broaden the definition of terrorism is politically motivated, because you want to pin the pejorative word on state actions which you dislike.

	02-07-2004 20:07									#215
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Your desire to broaden the definition of terrorism is politically motivated, because you want to pin the pejorative word on state actions which you dislike.

If I want to use the term to describe the use of systematic terror and I don't that would just be politically correct, and that's not me.

	02-07-2004 20:13									#216
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I would add this:

Terrorism is a subset of political violence-, or, as it seem rather obvious, violence conducted with a political aim. War falls within this category. Internal repression falls within this category. Obviously so does Genocide.

What the word terrorism connotes is a sense that the violence is illegitimate. Now, that means violence by itself is not inherently illegitimate- you can kill people as long as you kill them "lawfully"-the difference between an execution and a murder.

So what counts as terrorism boils down to what violence is deemed illegitimate. Lets take internal repression. Almost be definition this is not terrorism since the State has the right to set laws, and enforce them. If the law says you can;t badmouth glorious leader, and you get arreste dfor doing so, well- nasty, not illegitimate.

Obviously though different people will have different ideas about what is legitimate-which is why we get into debates like this-and why everyone tries to paint themselves as the aggrieved legitimate party and the other guy as the terrorist.

	02-07-2004 20:23									#217
	Tired of ads?

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Berzerker
Kucinich -

Nor was Spain, you said Spain blew up the Maine.[/q]

In order to show that the US wasn't responsible. I don't care whether or not it was Spain or an engine accident; it's irrelevent. Spain being a terrorist state is not the question.

quote: But that "ought" is a recognition of a moral claim - the moral claim or "right" to live. You just said they should have had a right to live inspite of what "society" said, therefore, this right to live derives from a source other than society. And you're wrong, they did have a right to live, that's why the Nazis are condemned - human rights violations on a massive scale. Remember, a right is a moral claim to act, the fact someone out there may murder you does not mean you never had a right to live, it only means the murderer violated your right to live.

I should have said "you can say they ought to have"; I'm sorry. I was not making a claim about what rights someone ought to have, I was demonstrating the difference between actually having a right and claiming that you ought to have that right.

	02-07-2004 20:25									#218
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Originally posted by David Floyd How?

By putting the Japanese in such a position that they would end the war! It is possible to predict someone else's response to your actions.

quote: So is that it? Are you, ultimately, arguing that it is OK to kill x number of people today in the hopes that your murders will prevent the deaths of a larger number of people in the future?

Uh, duh, yes. Especially if the X people are a subset of those who will die if you don't kill them.

	02-07-2004 20:26									#219
	Got spare money?

quote: Originally posted by Kidicious The US is responsible for spreading fear to get people to support a war. That is terrorism.

I take it back; even Andorra is a terrorist state, then. I mean, they have the fear of being put in jail in order for people to obey the law! What evil people!

	02-07-2004 20:29									#220
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by GePap What the word terrorism connotes is a sense that the violence is illegitimate.

Do you consider all state action legitimate? What if they break the the law or cultural guidlines?

	02-07-2004 20:32									#221
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: By putting the Japanese in such a position that they would end the war! It is possible to predict someone else's response to your actions.

But objectively speaking, the atomic bomb killed less people (at least immediately) than many of the firebombings did. The US had already put Japan in a position where any reasonable person or government would end the war many times over.

quote: Uh, duh, yes. Especially if the X people are a subset of those who will die if you don't kill them.

Who said anything about those you kill necessarily being a subset of those who will die in the future? Don't change the example - not that I believe that is moral either, because murder is never moral, but let's stick to the example.

	02-07-2004 20:33									#222
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by Kucinich I take it back; even Andorra is a terrorist state, then. I mean, they have the fear of being put in jail in order for people to obey the law! What evil people!

I don't see it black and white. I do believe that the govt has to maintain order, but they often cross into relying on the fear of their citizens rather than the expectation of them to obey and respect the law especially when they have been up to no good in the first place.

	02-07-2004 20:33									#223
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe Not quite the same. It would be the equivalent of training the hit man but not necessarily engaging the hit man to contract. Again I don't know the extent to which the US had operational control. So the illustration may be bad.

It's sometimes amusing to see the acrobatics that some people do in order to explain away the activities of this notorious institution.

	02-07-2004 20:35									#224
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Kidicious I don't see it black and white.

LIAR!

You see it as US = black, everyone else - US "lackeys" = white.

	02-07-2004 20:37									#225
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Considering the scare-tactics used by the media to justify the war in Iraq... and the constant daily terror warnings (my new favorite is that terrorists will use beer coolers in daring marine attacks ); America could be defined as a terrorist state. But only because it terrorizes its own public in order to sway opinion.

	02-07-2004 20:37									#226
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by MrFun It's sometimes amusing to see the acrobatics that some people do in order to explain away the activities of this notorious institution.

If the US did not have operational control, then we may as well similarly consider every martial arts school a terrorist organization as they simlarly train folk for God knows what nefarious activities.

	02-07-2004 20:37									#227
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Originally posted by Kucinich quote: Originally posted by Kidicious I don't see it black and white. LIAR! You see it as US = black, everyone else - US "lackeys" = white.

Actually I see very little, if any, white.

	02-07-2004 20:39									#228
	Get a bigger avatar today!

The problem with Anarchists.

	02-07-2004 20:39									#229
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe If the US did not have operational control, then we may as well similarly consider every martial arts school a terrorist organization as they simlarly train folk for God knows what nefarious activities.

The old 'we didn't have operational control' defense. That doesn't always work in law you know.

	02-07-2004 20:49									#230
	Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by Berzerker Aggie - And this shared view of morality is the basis for natural rights.

Not necessarily for three reasons. The fact that it is shared does not entail that it is natural. Most human beings share the belief that people have visited the Moon, but that is not a naturally occurring belief. Secondly, it is the basis for natural rights theories on some accounts, but not others. Thirdly, it is not just the basis of natural rights theories, but of other theories as well.

quote: Then since morality is the basis for rights, neither the state nor society creates rights cuz neither created morality. They can recognise and respect rights, but they cannot create them... That's why we read in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution language that either overtly states or implies pre-existing of rights.

The state creates legal rights. For example, the right to profit from copyright is a legal right. Not even the Framers believed that ideas could be property in the same sense as land (and the courts have upheld the utilitarian understanding of copyright for over 200 years).

quote: The question is not why, but from where morality derives. I'm not talking about the human psyche, I'm talking about what you touched on - those few fundamental principles. What is the logical basis for morality? Then we will understand the basis for rights.

There is no logical basis for morality. There are biological bases and perhaps cultural bases, but it isn't a matter of pure logic. We already do have a reasonable understanding of the basis of morality via evolutionary psychology. But that's besides the point – merely showing how our moral beliefs came about is not the same as justifying them. We could say the same of children's beliefs in fairies – there is an explanation for why they believe in them, but that is not a justification of that belief.

quote: So, would you conclude morality is based on some shared sentiment? This is exactly what I've argued in the past. And given this origin of morality, rights also derive from this shared sentiment.

No. I would say that morality is based on common beliefs. I don't want to say any more than that because introducing things like sentiments complicates matters. It is enough to say that most people agree about morality.

However, it does not follow from this shared ground of belief that rights follow from it. Some conception of morality does follow from it, but it isn't clear that it is a rights based conception. Thus you need additional argument to prove the existence of natural rights, appealing to common sentiment or whatever is insufficient.

quote: Then make that argument here and provide these counter-examples. I see no reason to invoke any deity to explain the origin of morality or the rights it creates...

If moral properties are objective in the way that things like weight and height are then we should be able to detect them by scientific means, but we can't, so they aren't.

If what matters about violating the right to life is the breaking of the rule by the perpetrator and not the effect on the victim then it is hard to see why we should believe in the right. If we accept that the effect is what makes the violation wrong then we fall into welfarism and that opens the door to non-absolutist understandings of rights. And we can understand what is bad about negative effects on welfare because we are welfare subjects. On the other hand, if the effect is wrong only because someone has broken a rule, then we can't appeal to welfare and we have no explanation other than a dogmatic appeal to explain why violating a right is bad. Appealing to the idea of a God who only cares about the quality of your decisions rather than their effects is one way of bashing some sense into this view. The notion of rights is senseless unless one can give a non question begging account of what makes violating them wrong.

quote: That's the nature of fundamental principles, they are inflexible. But you said morality depends on these principles... I agree...

Not necessarily. Morality could be such that it cannot be captured by means of specific rules (the Stoic view), or it could be that the rules are too complex for creatures such as us to grasp. Moreover, even if morality does depend on absolute principles, it does not follow that these are rights as Libertarians understand them, or even rights at all. For example, the utilitarian principle could be the fundamental ground of morality.

quote: If you believe rights are a social construct that depends on society or the state, then you have to defend societies and states that commit crimes against humanity. Why? Because according to you guys, the only rights we have are those granted by society or the state.

What's this got to do with me. I've never claimed that.

quote: But you certainly won't buy into that argument, so we're back to the problem with your position - rights cannot derive from society or the state, they derive from elsewhere - morality - a shared sentiment - a ~universal sentiment.

That's not my position. I claim that morality derives from something like this, but I don't claim that rights do. My reasoning is that rights may be a way of understanding morality but they are not necessarily a cogent or coherent way of doing so.

quote: Did they even speak of rights? I don't know who was first, but the Framers and their ideological or philosphical benefactors did speak of rights. But rights are tied into morality - a right depends on moral authority - who has it and who does not...

Rights are a recent conceptual innovation. Human beings entertained moral thoughts for millenia before someone thought of talking about it in terms of rights. That should be sufficient to prove that morality does not mean talking about rights and that rights are only one way of expressing moral beliefs or sentiments.

quote: Why can't we look at the world objectively to see this goodness?

Because you can't. You can point to a chair and its colour, but you can't point to its goodness. You can describe an action's physical features, but its value is a matter of our evaluation of it. There would be no values if there were no people, because value is value to or for a thing.

quote: The rule is, justified rule that is, based on the fact killing harms the individual. How did you conclude rights are based on rules that have no attachment to morality? It's just the opposite...

Because rights based theorists resist the idea of justifiable homicide to prevent more killings. They believe that you should never kill no matter what anyone else is going to do. Thus, they care more about the breaking of the rule than its effects.

quote: It is the effect on the victim that matters...no deity is required...

If it is, then it is permissible to break the rule in order to prevent more violations of the rule by others. I said that something like a Christian account is required to make sense of deontological ethics if you do not value the action in terms of its consequences. But oif you have a consequentialist conception of rights, you are no longer a Libertarian because they believe in absolute rights and once consequences get into the picture, you have to start weighing them.

quote: Like what?

Your favourite: the inability of villagers to forcibly requisition arms from the unwilling smith to prevent themselves all being killed by brigands. Your usual response to this is to change the case or introduce irrelevant, empirical objections. The thought experiment on its own is sufficient to show that they are an unreliable guide because the same principles ask us to put up with more violations of rights than less. Empirical concerns (such as whether or not the smith would submit willingly) are irrelevant, since a moral principle is meant to operate over all empirical possibilities (as we say in the trade).

quote: But you guys believe rights are a grant from the state - a legality. I'm saying rights are based on morality, therefore they cannot be granted by the state since the state did not create morality.

No. And there is no reason why we should.

quote: Justification is another matter, but I think you have already - shared sentiments. If we agree murder is immoral, then that is a shared sentiment. Even murderers know they wouldn't want to be murdered...

But we don't have to buy into a system of rights to understand this belief.

quote: And rights are detached from personal welfare? Seems to me they are directly linked - a right to life, etc...

If you say that, you make welfare the good and rights merely an efficient means of securing it. But this makes rights no more essential to morality than the law is, since well designed laws aim to improve the general welfare. In fact rights are better understood as legal fictions on this account.

quote: And so the Nazis decided the "moral" goal of ethnic purity justified ethnic cleansing. You open a can of worms when you start down the path of deciding which rights can be ignored and when because some rights aren't "primary" moral rights... But I explained why it was wrong for the Nazis to do what they did, and all I needed was to identify the rightful owner.

But that's a complete toilet of an explanation. One could point out all sorts of problems with ethnic cleansing, the most obvious being that it harms the victims, without appealing to a rights based conception of morality.

quote: Ownership doesn't preclude "public" property, it merely requires a recognition that some forms of property - starting with the most basic, oneself, belong to the individual. Tribal societies have always recognised the existence of communal and individual property.

No they haven't. The Maori didn't.

quote: Who owns you? That rhetorical question is as old as man... If I, as a member of the tribe, made a weapon for killing game, that weapon belonged to me.

No. This isn't true. Oftentimes weapons manufacturers regarded what they made as a contribution to the well being of the tribe rather than as their own property.

quote: I may let you borrow it but if the chief walked up and said it was now his, we'd all react the same way - with resentment. That is a shared sentiment...

That's culture, not nature. We live in a capitalist society with a capitalist culture. In many cultures, if the chief did that, it would be regarded as right and proper. One only has to look at potlaches to realize that attitudes towards property vary significantly among cultures, whereas attitudes to things like murder do not.

quote: And people we are But since when is a recognition of property a peculiar version of morality?

When it is not shared among the vast majority of human beings, as it is not.

quote: Property IS the foundation of morality and the first piece of property anyone owns is themself followed by their labor or time...

The idea of a person owning themselves is a bizarre idea. What you are talking about is a particular theoretical conception of morality, not a universally shared sentiment.

quote: Third in line is what we presumably want for ourselves - happiness.

Aristotle would put that first.

quote: And there we have the 3 principle natural rights found in the Declaration of Independence - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness... (property was originally the third but Jefferson substituted the pursuit of happiness, but property is found in the Constitution since he was not one of the authors of that document).

But this is a particular view of morality, not a universally shared belief or sentiment. You've spent ages typing away only to fail to realize that it is possible for someone to agree that morality is based on shared belief or sentiment and yet not agree to your peculiar conception of rights. That's so obvious that it goes without saying.

If you want this debate to go any further, just answer the last point, as that is all that matters.

	02-07-2004 20:55									#231
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: In order to show that the US wasn't responsible. I don't care whether or not it was Spain or an engine accident; it's irrelevent. Spain being a terrorist state is not the question.

Just correcting you, it looked like you hadn't read a history book since Hearst was publishing yellow journalism.

quote: I should have said "you can say they ought to have"; I'm sorry. I was not making a claim about what rights someone ought to have, I was demonstrating the difference between actually having a right and claiming that you ought to have that right.

But "ought" is a moral claim before it can ever become a legal claim. We all have a right to life regardless of whether or not we live in a society that rejects or respects a right to life. Why? Because a right to life means only that we have a moral claim to live. No state or society can "grant" us that right, they can only recognise and respect that right or violate it. The right itself comes from somewhere else - morality.

	02-07-2004 21:00									#232
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

quote: If what matters about violating the right to life is the breaking of the rule by the perpetrator and not the effect on the victim then it is hard to see why we should believe in the right. If we accept that the effect is what makes the violation wrong then we fall into welfarism and that opens the door to non-absolutist understandings of rights. And we can understand what is bad about negative effects on welfare because we are welfare subjects. On the other hand, if the effect is wrong only because someone has broken a rule, then we can't appeal to welfare and we have no explanation other than a dogmatic appeal to explain why violating a right is bad. Appealing to the idea of a God who only cares about the quality of your decisions rather than their effects is one way of bashing some sense into this view. The notion of rights is senseless unless one can give a non question begging account of what makes violating them wrong.

Though I'd disagree that a consequentialist view is inherently more justifiable than an absolutist one - there's still the question of "why is it wrong to hurt this person?"

	02-07-2004 21:01									#233
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

But our claim to live has to compete with the similar claims of others. Thus, if situations arise in which we have to decide between more or less deaths, it is permissible to kill people.

Of course Libertarians think it's OK if more people die than less, but that is why it is such a peculiar view and almost no one believes in it.

	02-07-2004 21:03									#234
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Berzerker Just correcting you, it looked like you hadn't read a history book since Hearst was publishing yellow journalism.

No; it's more like I responded with the first thing that came to mind, our seventh-grade history text

Not exactly a paragon of truth, y'know?

	02-07-2004 21:04									#235
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by Kidicious Do you consider all state action legitimate? What if they break the the law or cultural guidlines?

No, state actions are not inherently legitimate. That is why the term State Terror exists. For example, genocide is now explicitly illegitimate, period. One could term that terrorism- thought genocide is a much more potent term so why downgrade the terminology?

But much of what people try to call terrorism isn't becuase to some extent states do have a large set of nasty actions they can legitimately carry out.

	02-07-2004 21:43									#236
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by GePap No, state actions are not inherently legitimate. That is why the term State Terror exists. For example, genocide is now explicitly illegitimate, period. One could term that terrorism- thought genocide is a much more potent term so why downgrade the terminology? But much of what people try to call terrorism isn't becuase to some extent states do have a large set of nasty actions they can legitimately carry out.

What is legitimate is really just a matter of political opinion then. We can more objectively say though, when a state is terrorizing to achieve it's goals.

	02-07-2004 22:25									#237
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Agathon -

quote: Not necessarily for three reasons. The fact that it is shared does not entail that it is natural.

Yes it does, of all the times you've heard something is or is not natural, what better qualifies that something we all agree upon?

quote: Most human beings share the belief that people have visited the Moon, but that is not a naturally occurring belief.

So? You're confusing nature's rights - rights we have because we exist - with a human accomplishment.

quote: Secondly, it is the basis for natural rights theories on some accounts, but not others.

Like what others?

quote: Thirdly, it is not just the basis of natural rights theories, but of other theories as well.

So? The latter precludes the former?

quote: The state creates legal rights.

And that leaves you to defend the crimes of states that didn't create legal rights, e.g., the Nazis.

quote: For example, the right to profit from copyright is a legal right. Not even the Framers believed that ideas could be property in the same sense as land (and the courts have upheld the utilitarian understanding of copyright for over 200 years).

Before we get into a discussion of what our rights are or should be, let's discuss whether or not they exist with or without a state.

quote: There is no logical basis for morality.

Sure there is, shared sentiments. If we all agree something is moral or immoral, then our shared sentiment makes it moral or immoral.

quote: There are biological bases and perhaps cultural bases, but it isn't a matter of pure logic.

And these bases aren't logical?

quote: We already do have a reasonable understanding of the basis of morality via evolutionary psychology. But that's besides the point – merely showing how our moral beliefs came about is not the same as justifying them. We could say the same of children's beliefs in fairies – there is an explanation for why they believe in them, but that is not a justification of that belief.

Why are you hung up on justification?

quote: No. I would say that morality is based on common beliefs.

Shared, common? You said shared before... Common can mean a belief held by the majority and that's another can of worms.

quote: I don't want to say any more than that because introducing things like sentiments complicates matters. It is enough to say that most people agree about morality.

I'd go further, ~universal sentiments. And this is very important cuz this is how we arrive at the few fundamental principles you mentioned earlier.

quote: However, it does not follow from this shared ground of belief that rights follow from it.

Why not? This is the basis for morality and morality is the basis for rights.

quote: Some conception of morality does follow from it, but it isn't clear that it is a rights based conception. Thus you need additional argument to prove the existence of natural rights, appealing to common sentiment or whatever is insufficient.

It is clear - a right is a moral claim, a legitimate claim of moral authority.

quote: If moral properties are objective in the way that things like weight and height are then we should be able to detect them by scientific means, but we can't, so they aren't.

We're talking about ideas. But we can observe if a sentiment is shared or not...

quote: If what matters about violating the right to life is the breaking of the rule by the perpetrator and not the effect on the victim then it is hard to see why we should believe in the right.

I already said what matters is the effect on the victim. If there is no victim, there should be no rule.

quote: If we accept that the effect is what makes the violation wrong then we fall into welfarism and that opens the door to non-absolutist understandings of rights.

Huh?

quote: And we can understand what is bad about negative effects on welfare because we are welfare subjects. On the other hand, if the effect is wrong only because someone has broken a rule, then we can't appeal to welfare and we have no explanation other than a dogmatic appeal to explain why violating a right is bad. Appealing to the idea of a God who only cares about the quality of your decisions rather than their effects is one way of bashing some sense into this view.

You're the one who keeps appealing to the idea of a God, not me.

quote: The notion of rights is senseless unless one can give a non question begging account of what makes violating them wrong.

By definition, it's wrong to violate a moral claim.

quote: Not necessarily. Morality could be such that it cannot be captured by means of specific rules (the Stoic view), or it could be that the rules are too complex for creatures such as us to grasp.

So you disagree with your own statement. You said there were a few fundamental principles upon which to base morality.

quote: Moreover, even if morality does depend on absolute principles, it does not follow that these are rights as Libertarians understand them, or even rights at all. For example, the utilitarian principle could be the fundamental ground of morality.

So let's discuss what these rights are after we agree that rights exist with or without a state.

quote: What's this got to do with me. I've never claimed that.

Okay, where do our rights come from? I'm sure you're in the "rights are a social construct" camp.

quote: That's not my position. I claim that morality derives from something like this, but I don't claim that rights do. My reasoning is that rights may be a way of understanding morality but they are not necessarily a cogent or coherent way of doing so.

So morality is a social construct but not rights? Just how do you define the word "rights"?

quote: Rights are a recent conceptual innovation. Human beings entertained moral thoughts for millenia before someone thought of talking about it in terms of rights. That should be sufficient to prove that morality does not mean talking about rights and that rights are only one way of expressing moral beliefs or sentiments.

That's a contradiction, morality does not mean talking about rights but rights are a way of expressing moral beliefs? Again, rights are moral claims - the two are linked.

quote: Because you can't. You can point to a chair and its colour, but you can't point to its goodness.

It's a chair, it's neither good nor bad.

quote: You can describe an action's physical features, but its value is a matter of our evaluation of it. There would be no values if there were no people, because value is value to or for a thing.

So people are incapable of discerning what is good as opposed to what is bad?

quote: Because rights based theorists resist the idea of justifiable homicide to prevent more killings. They believe that you should never kill no matter what anyone else is going to do. Thus, they care more about the breaking of the rule than its effects.

Ah, and assuming they're wrong, this proves something other than them being wrong? I've never heard anyone say killing a would-be murderer is not justified.

quote: If it is, then it is permissible to break the rule in order to prevent more violations of the rule by others.

If a prohibition on murder is the rule, then that does not prohibit killing a would be murderer in self-defense. The first rule doesn't necessitate a second...

quote: Your favourite: the inability of villagers to forcibly requisition arms from the unwilling smith to prevent themselves all being killed by brigands. Your usual response to this is to change the case or introduce irrelevant, empirical objections.

My response was to point out the obvious, the smithy would want to save himself and that would lead him to hand out the weapons.

quote: The thought experiment on its own is sufficient to show that they are an unreliable guide because the same principles ask us to put up with more violations of rights than less.

Only if we assume the smithy wants to die.

quote: Empirical concerns (such as whether or not the smith would submit willingly) are irrelevant, since a moral principle is meant to operate over all empirical possibilities (as we say in the trade).

And self-interest applies to the smithy as well as other members of his community. Your thought experiment is just that, it isn't a real world application.

quote: But we don't have to buy into a system of rights to understand this belief.

Why understand it, we're discussing where our rights come from. A system of rights is synonymous with a system of morality - the former is an expression of the latter.

quote: If you say that, you make welfare the good and rights merely an efficient means of securing it. But this makes rights no more essential to morality than the law is, since well designed laws aim to improve the general welfare. In fact rights are better understood as legal fictions on this account.

A right is a moral claim, that makes morality essential to rights. Laws are often detached from both...

quote: But that's a complete toilet of an explanation. One could point out all sorts of problems with ethnic cleansing, the most obvious being that it harms the victims, without appealing to a rights based conception of morality.

That was their explanation, of course it was a complete toilet of an explanation. But you've decided some rights are primary and others unworthy of consideration, so they did too. That's the problem with your argument about "primary" rights and other rights that can be sacrificed. It leaves those in power with a "moral" loophole...

quote: No they haven't. The Maori didn't.

Oh c'mon, you're just making stuff up. The friggin Maori found out a tribe lived on a distant island and they went and slaughtered them because they didn't want future competition.

quote: No. This isn't true. Oftentimes weapons manufacturers regarded what they made as a contribution to the well being of the tribe rather than as their own property.

In exchange for something they wanted from the tribe. But if the tribe kicked them out and they had the choice of whether or not to take their weapons, they would have taken their weapons. So much for "the good of the tribe"...

quote: That's culture, not nature. We live in a capitalist society with a capitalist culture. In many cultures, if the chief did that, it would be regarded as right and proper. One only has to look at potlaches to realize that attitudes towards property vary significantly among cultures, whereas attitudes to things like murder do not.

Again, people exchange what they have for what they want - bartering property doesn't help your argument that tribal societies didn't believe in property. I rely on human nature and you offer your ability to read the minds of tribal members who just saw the chief walk up and take their property - and they liked it.

quote: When it is not shared among the vast majority of human beings, as it is not.

And you think the vast majority of people who've lived rejected the notion of property? Tell that to the Indians who were constantly at war over land cuz Indians didn't believe in owning land. The Navajo were constantly stealing food from the Hopi and the Hopi didn't like it one bit, but according to you, the Hopi shouldn't have cared because they didn't believe in property.

quote: The idea of a person owning themselves is a bizarre idea.

It's amazingly natural, well, the amazing part is you think it's bizarre. Self-ownership is hard-wired into us and we can see it with acts of self-defense and survival.

quote: What you are talking about is a particular theoretical conception of morality, not a universally shared sentiment.

Have you discovered some shared desire to be enslaved?

quote: Aristotle would put that first.

Then let him explain how one can pursue happiness without first being alive and free. Jefferson at least had the sense to put life and liberty ahead of pursuing happiness, although liberty and pursuing happiness is kinda redundant.

quote: But this is a particular view of morality, not a universally shared belief or sentiment.

So people either want to be killed or enslaved?

quote: You've spent ages typing away only to fail to realize that it is possible for someone to agree that morality is based on shared belief or sentiment and yet not agree to your peculiar conception of rights. That's so obvious that it goes without saying.

Yes, I'm assuming people want to live and do so free as opposed to being killed or enslaved.

quote: Of course Libertarians think it's OK if more people die than less, but that is why it is such a peculiar view and almost no one believes in it.

I believe that? I'd love to see the quote to support that nonsense.

	02-07-2004 22:34									#238
	Get a bigger avatar today!

quote: No; it's more like I responded with the first thing that came to mind, our seventh-grade history text

Ouch! They need to update those books

	02-07-2004 22:37									#239
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Berzerker A right is a moral claim to act...

A right is not a moral claim to act. Rather, it's a legal grant of action or state by the government or society.

Consider the rights accorded to a corporation (a limited company) and you will see there's no moral basis for rights.

	02-07-2004 22:41									#240
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by Kidicious What is legitimate is really just a matter of political opinion then. We can more objectively say though, when a state is terrorizing to achieve it's goals.

No we can't, in the sense that "to terrorize" is not the same as carrying out terrorism.