Philosophy of Rights

Dimitri,

Thank you for your response. Please forgive me if my next statement wreaks of frustration I am going to bow out of this conversation after this post, because I am finding my definition of the word "right" and other peoples definitions do not match, so continuing further with a topic when the roots are planted in two different types of soil is beyond my scope of patience. For the sake of repetition, a "right" to me is not something that another human can grant to me (they lack the authority to do so) therefore it is not something another individual or group of any size can take from me! I have been granted many privileges and had many taken from me, but I have yet to this day ever had someone take or revoke my "right" to anything! The act of “murder” keeps being thrown up in here as an example of a right. I argue again, that the act of murder can be stifled, but the act of choosing to murder cannot, so if we want to discuss the act of choosing to murder as the "right" and not the act itself then I believe we would have a foundation to build a progressive thoughtful discussion. Until then …

No, I agree with you, there is no such right. I was trying to explain Hobbes's views.

Diamona,

You are right in that we must first compare our definitions, or what we mean... As you have perhaps seen already my definition of right is close to the rules, which the members of some society take upon themselves to observe... or which they have to observe if they are going to live in society at all. The rules that make possible fro people to live and interact with each other. The most trivial example of such rules is our language which we can not change without undegoing the risk of being not understood by our associate... You have the right to call a table - a chair or vice versa, but you must not expect that others will tolerate such action on your part or take trouble... And I can not associate the notion right with anything beside that... Though you have the right to look for your own concept...

Demitri, I feel the need to respond: I would argue that if a society would like to grant me equal privileges under the Law; then I would accept with ribbons and bells on! However any "State" or society that is so disingenuous to try and convince me they have the power to grant me a right that #1: they are not entitled to grant! #2: I am not entitled to have! I say that is a society and or State that no rational man/woman should ever accept! We have been buffaloed for over 200 years, we have been led to believe that we are entitled to “Rights” that simply do not exist!  Men have the power to grant privileges, they do not have the power to grant “rights”! Hence, why some are more privileged than others!

Thanks! I think mine and Demitri's posts got mixed in with yours!

I don't quite understand what is privilege? Is it a privilege for a parent to punish a child, or for a man to cross the street only on the green light. I think introducing privileges is just unjustified overcomplication. Society, the culture define what right a man has when he ocupies some place in it. And what are his obligations. That's all.

Dimitri:

I don't quite understand what is privilege? Is it a privilege for a parent to punish a child, or for a man to cross the street only on the green light. I think introducing privileges is just unjustified overcomplication. Society, the culture define what right a man has when he ocupies some place in it. And what are his obligations. That's all.

There *are* natural (or Godgiven) and absolute rights. Infact all these "rights" are just one and the same single right. The right to do whatever the hell you want as long as it does not infringe on the right of anybody else to do the same. Privilege is when you claim to have a fake-right to deny someone else this basic right and the society in turns falsely recognises this false-right of yours as a "legitimate" right. A slaveholder is thus privileged in relation to his slaves. A common kidnapper also denies his victims their rights in much the same way, but in his case this is not "legitimised" by his society thus he is not made privileged in status (albeit he is obviously privileged in practice). Therefore society can "define" privilege, but it can never define natural rights. However society can only define actual privleges, it can not make them legitimate and therefore "right". People getting killed as offerings in a society that practices human sacrafice are not without a right to life, it is simply their right is being unjustly and unnaturaly denied and violated by other people that have no right to do what they are doing. 

To claim there are no absolute rights is just plain stupid. That would mean a toddler does not have a right to life because he is incapable of defending that right. Moral relativism consistently mistakens capability to recognise and ability and willingness to defend your rights for right themselves.

Daimona:

Attorney General Ramsey Clark once defined inalienable rights this way: "A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you."

Which is a pretty good way of saying only negative rights are true rights and positive "rights" are bogus and better called privilege.

 

I don't know what rights you are talking of. If you are a Jew in concentration camp what rights you have? Or do you have a right to walk nude in the street or to drive on the red light? Who decides whether you have some right or no?

You are lit seems are ooking for something 100% stable and certain...  There is no siuch things when we deal with a man...

Are you seriously reifying rights? Are you honestly equating their exercise with their possession? In that case I challenge you to point out a single natural rights theorist who argues you must be completely inviolate and always exercising a right to possess it. Regarding walking nude &c., that is what property rights determine, i.e. who has the right of control over a give resource, such as a road. Concentration camps would be, violations of rights...

Dimitri:

I don't know what rights you are talking of. If you are a Jew in concentration camp what rights you have? Or do you have a right to walk nude in the street or to drive on the red light? Who decides whether you have some right or no?

You are lit seems are ooking for something 100% stable and certain...  There is no siuch things when we deal with a man...

You are confusing rights in the normative sense (moral claims that ought to be respected) with rights in the de facto sense (the claims that actually are respected by society).  A Jew is a concentration camp still has his/her basic rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness; they still have normative rights.  However, these rights aren't being respected, which means that they don't have de facto rights.

Also, natural rights in the normative sense are 100% stable and certain; they are basic facts about human beings.

 

I sill do not know whether a man has a right to walk nude in the street? Or what is your right to live if you have a cancer or if you are a soldier in a war? Or whether a society has a right to kill a man if he is a criminal? In my opinion it is not a right way to solve the problem...  

No, in my opinion you do not know what natural rights philosophers are talking about. I already answered the question. No, there is no right to walk naked on someone else's property because they have control over how the resource is put to use. And what on earth does having cancer have to do with a right to live, when rights are relative to other humans and not natural occurences?

I would like to see ever more negative rights; stuff the government can't do to folks.

 

Maybe he thinks the natural rights philosophers are running in circles. Rights can be ignored and violated. Why should he care about them?

Who cares if they can be "violated"? Explain why I should care about this.

So if you are walking in the street? or just staying naked in the window of your house? If you have the right to walk nude in Polinesia why you don't have such a right in any Western country? And if rights are relative to other humans then humans have to decide what rights they may have... Now I think that a man may have the right to walk nude in any place he wants, you perhaps think differently. Who then must decide who of us is right. And should we vote?

Perhaps this might be of some help?

So if you are walking in the street?

Up to the owner.

or just staying naked in the window of your house?

Then you're free to, barring restrictive covenants.

If you have the right to walk nude in Polinesia why you don't have such a right in any Western country?

Who said you have the right to do so unqualifiedly? If you're violating the rights of others (i.e. in this case their property right), you don't.

And if rights are relative to other humans then humans have to decide what rights they may have...

This follows, how?

Now I think that a man may have the right to walk nude in any place he wants, you perhaps think differently. Who then must decide who of us is right. And should we vote?

Good. Then demonstrate it. If you can demonstrate by rational argument there is such a right, fine. If not, then too bad.

It seems to me that different communities could coherently come down on different sides of the public nudity debate.  In Social Philosophy, Joel Feinberg noted that offensive behavior has the power to "...create at best a kind of painful turmoil, and at worst that experience of exposure to oneself...which is called shame" (44).  And so far as causing this shame through actions that could be reasonably foreseen to cause it is recognized by a community as a kind of actionable harming, it would be conceivable that in some communities, there could be a sort of prohibition on public nudity.  In other communities, however, social norms might differ, and exposing oneself might not be seen as an action which might reasonably be expected to shock and offend others.  In such situations, there would be no reason to act against it.

I don't think this is one of those issues where rationalism makes sense.  Plausible libertarian conceptions of rights are built to draw focus to the kinds of reasons given to justify uses of coercive force.  Self-defense, for example, is an acceptable kind of reason.  Mere distaste seems like it would not be.  If some people view public nudity in much the same light as they do assault, then the offensiveness of the behavior might be a pretty solid reason for acting to stop individuals from being nude in public.  But if people see the effects of public nudity as merely irritating or tasteless, then they would find themselves unable to honestly provide a good justification for prohibiting it; unpleasantness is not an acceptable reason for using force.

Yeah, I brought up the possibility of different communities consisting of individuals surrendering the exercise of some of their rights earlier on.