Political Theory

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Dimitri — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:27:38 GMT

Many things we are ready to forgive, or to close our eyes at in relation to Plato, Kant, Mill... because they are Plato, Kant and Mill... What is the just price for a loaf of bread? There is not such thing. It changes from country to country, it changes in time... but it is concrete at each concrete place and time. The same is with moral. Etc.

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Jon Irenicus — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:55:33 GMT

The point is that if this were mere casuistry, there would be nothing wrong with Plato's account. He was wrobg, yes, because he was inconsistent. Aristotle to a certain degree did realize slaves also possessed a commonality with their master in that they too were human, and that to this extent a sort of proto-justice would characterize slave-master relations.

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Dimitri — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 07:16:47 GMT

I am just saying that ethical theories just try to explain why what is - is just. Like Plato could explain why master should punish his slave... It is absurdity to say that something should be so. It is like saying that we all must wear rings in our noses... Justice is a market category, and is a qualification of the exchange: whether the exchange is executed in correspondence with the current market values (prices) of the things exchanged. Etc. We live in a world of total exchange. Any relation any intercourse of two people is an exchange of something: things, services... Even between friends, the members of the family... It encompasses everything! We must just logically continue to reason grounding on this fact and we will come to a consistent ethical theory.

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Jon Irenicus — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 06:44:37 GMT

Indeed. They are conventions. So what? Ethical theories proscribe what ought to be, i.e. what conventions ought to be in place, and they seek to justify (or show the error of) certain actions, which may simply be for instance a demonstration (descriptive in a sense) of why I am entitled to punish someone, as opposed to reasons for them to act in a certain way. Regarding persuasion, this isn't casuistry. If I fail to persuade someone of something that may speak more of their irrationality/blindness to the truth &c. than anything else. I do so love people who boldly proclaim that ethics is faulty, with what seems to be a variant of the argument for the impossibility of socialism applied to morality, albeit vacuous and content-free...

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Dimitri — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 06:38:20 GMT

You may feel shame if you go to a rockers' party in a business suit, or to a buisness meeting in a T-shirt. Is not it a convention? You address differently your parents, your children your friend or a stranger... And all of you know how to adress in each case! But these formes are different for different societies and change with time even for the same one.

You can not persuade the other members of the society that your rule is better than the existing one. Wnat is more, in a dispute with a representative of some other culture you will probably try to prove the advantage of the rules of the culture you belong to. Is it not just coincidence? you are taught to observe them and it is enough for you to feel their naturalness. So Aristotle and Plato did not feel the horror of slavery... They even tried to explain its normality...

It is a long story. I can not explain how I understand it in a few words.

Now we have three main schools of ethics. All the three are wrong in my opinion, absurd at times, but there is a convenient opinion of a scholar society - philosophical tradition - and it is almost impossible to overcome it even by rational argumentation! Tradition is what helps us very much in most of the cases we have to deal with in our day to day life, but is an awful obstacle in some cases very important for us and the humanity as a whole...

Re: Philosophy of Rights

wombatron — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 04:40:38 GMT

scineram:

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

Hence the normative-de facto distinction that I touched on earlier.

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Jon Irenicus — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 04:18:10 GMT

It is just a social convention.

Proof?

Rational argument can not prove you that the price of a picture of Van Gogh must be 50 000 000$! There is not siuch arguments which can prove it. Van Gogh himself could not...

Relevance?

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Dimitri — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 04:13:09 GMT

It is just a social convention. The problem which baffled and continues to baffle people who study it even now is why if a "superstition" it is so stable? Why we can not change it at our will?

I too have thought about it and came to my own answer. Which is quite clear for me... It has to do with the conditions of a total market we live in. I even wrought an article of about 10000 words. I just do not know how to place it so as to make it available for people interested in the subject. May be somebody can help me in that. I think it is a rather good solution to the problem.

Rational argument can not prove you that the price of a picture of Van Gogh must be 50 000 000$! There is not siuch arguments which can prove it. Van Gogh himself could not...

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Donny with an A — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 03:14:06 GMT

I'm not sure about the language of "surrendering" rights in this situation. I think this seems more like a case where it's not completely clear what kind of treatment that people are due, and where cultural norms might play a significant role in clarifying what different communities think about that question. As Hayek wrote in "The Results of Human Action But Not of Human Design:"

...the natural law concept against which modern jurisprudence reacted was the perverted rationalist conception which interpreted the law of nature as the deductive constructions of 'natural reason' rather than as the undesigned outcome of a process of growth in which the test of what is justice was not anybody's arbitrary will but compatibility with a whole system of inherited but partly inarticulated rules.

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Jon Irenicus — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:40:26 GMT

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

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Donny with an A — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:54:49 GMT

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.

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Jon Irenicus — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:16:32 GMT

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.

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Donny with an A — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:10:47 GMT

Perhaps this might be of some help?

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Dimitri — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:57:14 GMT

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?

Re: Philosophy of Rights

Jon Irenicus — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:15:48 GMT

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