"Saying that you are depriving another man of his rights does not matter if there is no society to recognize that fact. The mere concepts of "what is and is not a man's rights" can only be debated in an society where those rights are recognized and already exist.Go back before that notion exists, back to pre-civilization. Only there can you find what is and is not a man's rights. Because once civilization gets involved and is formed, man has already agreed to give up some of his rights in order to facilitate that society."
Can anyone here make sense of that? They are basically saying that pre-civilization man has the right to murder, rape, and steal. And that "Only when man voluntarily agrees to give up some of his rights for the benefit of society as a whole, do we get civilization."
I think they are just being very liberal with the use of the word "right" where "capability" should probably apply but it's confusing as all get out. Philosophy isn't my strong suit. Any thoughts?
Mesopotamia was where 'civilization' firs arose for man. This guy should do some research on these people, the mesopotamians were the first people to murder rape and steal as a collective society
do we get free cheezeburger in socielism?
Rights are something we agree upon. It's just convention, supported by a law or not...
Wnat rights we have is defined by a culture of the society we live in. Tnat's perhaps all we can say...
Dimitri: Rights are something we agree upon. It's just convention, supported by a law or not... Wnat rights we have is defined by a culture of the society we live in. Tnat's perhaps all we can say...
Although this is a sensible view, and probably correct, some believe that rights are necessary conditions for human life in society (or atleast for human flourishing) and so are "objective".
"Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it." -Milton Friedman
"It is a mistake to think businessmen are more immoral than politicians." -John Maynard Keynes
"Different environments have different survival needs, and this results in diversity, for both species and rights" Self-evident rights: 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." I would like to say I have had some very heated debates on this subject. I stand firm on my belief that there is no such thing as "natural rights" or "inalienable rights" or even for the sake of this thread "socially supported rights" The last one should be the easiest to see the irony! Why is it so hard for people to understand that as an individual, the only ”rights” that you have ever had or ever will have, are those that you choose to defend and are willing to die doing so. Because if you are not willing to die to defend them, you eventually will compromise them away! If you are willing to defend them with your life, you will have them until you die! You can not be entitled to something someone else has to provide for you! Philosophers have argued about what rights we ought to have for thousands of years. What rights should be is hardly obvious.
"Different environments have different survival needs, and this results in diversity, for both species and rights"
Self-evident rights:
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."
I would like to say I have had some very heated debates on this subject. I stand firm on my belief that there is no such thing as "natural rights" or "inalienable rights" or even for the sake of this thread "socially supported rights" The last one should be the easiest to see the irony! Why is it so hard for people to understand that as an individual, the only ”rights” that you have ever had or ever will have, are those that you choose to defend and are willing to die doing so. Because if you are not willing to die to defend them, you eventually will compromise them away! If you are willing to defend them with your life, you will have them until you die! You can not be entitled to something someone else has to provide for you!
He would use that as an example of what he is saying. That whatever rules they might have had were actually "rights" that they gave up. In this case their right to murder, rape, and steal was not given up because that wasn't a requirement for their society.
Dimitri,
I think that is pretty much what he was getting at. But what this boils down to in the end is you have a right to do whatever you can do. If you can take someones life then by the act of doing so you are exercising that right. And that is where I have a problem with this. Society may determine what actions carry negative consequences, but I fail to see what bearing that has on our rights or lack of rights. Does a murderer have a right to murder someone if they don't get caught? Do they have that right outside of society but then it magically disappears by joining society?
Could it be said that Hitler had a right to slaughter millions simply because he had the power to do so?
My friend continues:
"Anybody who violates societies laws are basically not abdicating their rights that the rest of society has agreed to abdicate. In other words, society has agreed that another man's property is sacrosanct and you cannot take it from him. A criminal does not recognize that right and acts upon his right to take it from you. Outside of society however, their would be no recognition of the other's rights nor the fact that you did something that was wrong.I agree that every man is born with the same rights. The society in which that person lives is what guides that person as to which rights he can act upon, and which he can;t in order to live in that society. This is why we remove criminals (people who decided not to abdicate those rights to benifit society) from our society.But, you are saying that man is both born with rights and born with limitations upon those rights. In other words, man both has rights and has to recognize fellow man's rights because everyone is born equally. While, this is fundementally what brings our society together so we can live in harmony, I do not find it to be the case.With no boundry of societies to inform you what is right and what is wrong, you would not see murder as a violation of another man's rights. You would merely see it as an action that you wanted to do at the time with no recognition of right or wrong and no recognition of it being a violation.Of course this would be man before even tribal societies. But, fundementally, the point holds true. So, in the end, you give up your right to murder someone once you recognize and accept the fact that that person also has the right to life. Once that happens, you can live together as a society. Whether that society is a band of 20 people in the rain forrest or 10 million people in the NYC metro area.You cannot have society until you give up your right to act anyway you so choose because it would violate your fellow man's."
I sincerely want to thank you for your post on “rules” for joining any given society. Your post has made clear to me once and for all what “right” I truly have! The only right I have as an individual is “The right to choose!” I can either choose to follow the “rules” of any given society or choose not to, and no person or rule will ever have the power to take my "choice" away from me! That is why the agreement that murder, rape etc is wrong…yet it still has never been eliminated from any society! Atlas1999> I do not see "rules" of society as a "right". I do however see the "choice" to belong or not to belong to any given society as a "right"
I sincerely want to thank you for your post on “rules” for joining any given society. Your post has made clear to me once and for all what “right” I truly have! The only right I have as an individual is “The right to choose!”
I can either choose to follow the “rules” of any given society or choose not to, and no person or rule will ever have the power to take my "choice" away from me! That is why the agreement that murder, rape etc is wrong…yet it still has never been eliminated from any society!
Atlas1999> I do not see "rules" of society as a "right". I do however see the "choice" to belong or not to belong to any given society as a "right"
A “right” is something we are entitled to, it cannot be revoked for any reason at any time. A “privilege” can be revoked for a plethora of reasons, in any number of circumstances. When you speak of someone choosing to follow the rules of society allowing them the “right” to belong to that society, I argue that is not a right, but a privilege that has been granted to them. ie…. If a man was entitled to belong to any society as long as he followed the rules of that society- there would be no innocent men/women jailed for crimes they have not committed. However, because of another persons “right” to choose to act in a nefarious manner, they have had that privilege revoked! (just one example)
A “right” is something we are entitled to, it cannot be revoked for any reason at any time.
A “privilege” can be revoked for a plethora of reasons, in any number of circumstances.
When you speak of someone choosing to follow the rules of society allowing them the “right” to belong to that society, I argue that is not a right, but a privilege that has been granted to them.
ie…. If a man was entitled to belong to any society as long as he followed the rules of that society- there would be no innocent men/women jailed for crimes they have not committed. However, because of another persons “right” to choose to act in a nefarious manner, they have had that privilege revoked! (just one example)
Thanks for the response Daimona. I think it has helped clear up some of the confusion that may just be coming from differing definitions of the same word.
Not that I am trying to drag the other guy into this but I did want to share his response when I asked him "Is the choice to belong or not belong to a society a right?"
It seems to me he is calling what are actually privileges, rights. Yet man in a state of nature outside of society has the right to do anything. It just seems very incoherent to me but I can't quite dissect the logical errors.
His response: Yes and no. You have the right to choose not to belong to this society. Many people move to area that are uncivilized. Look at al the whacko's in west texas who want to marry 14 year olds. They moved there to detach themselves from the larger society around them. So, yes you have the right to leave society. However, if you reside in an area with a dominant society, you belong to that society. Basically man has reached a point where he has become socialized. However, if you choose to not forego your rights to do what ever you feel (like rape, murder, steal), then society will remove you by the way of a prison cell.
Yes, I would say he has rights and privileges confused. That is not necessarily all his fault, over time our language has been perverted and distorted to unbelievable depths! Look at how the word “patriot” has taken on a whole new definition! ;) Good luck!
Yes, I would say he has rights and privileges confused. That is not necessarily all his fault, over time our language has been perverted and distorted to unbelievable depths! Look at how the word “patriot” has taken on a whole new definition! ;)
Good luck!
Rights are something we agree upon. It's just convention, supported by a law or not... Wnat rights we have is defined by a culture of the society we live in. Tnat's perhaps all we can say...
Sure, and I can just respond some systems are more suited to man's nature (his rational animality, not some caveman strawman which is often counterposed to natural rights theorists) than others and thus some will fall short of being good. This is a point Aristotle makes in the Nichomachean Ethics. This guy is just repeating Hobbes's philosophical anthropology, which reflects reality about as well as pre-Copernican views on astronomy. Hobbes would want us to believe man is, by nature, an asocial, atomistic creature, that will injure his fellowman wherever it is opportune. Why should we believe this? Man needs his fellowman to flourish and do well and there is an innate, biological tendency towards sociality, something Aristotle recognized yet Hobbes utterly failed to grasp. Your friend has done nothing to demonstrate that man does not enjoy certain pre-social rights merely by virtue of being man. Aristotle, despite a belief in the virtue of slavery, recognized that even a slave can enjoy a friendship with his master insofar as he is human, and hinted at a sort of proto-justice that pervades all human relations. So much for a war of all, against all... I think it's time people threw Leviathan in the trashbin and began reading the Nichomachean Ethics and Aristotle's Politics again.
The chill that you feel is the herald of your doom! Irenicus' Diaries.
How, exactly, do we give up our rights by forming society?
"The relationship between libertarianism and conservatism is one of praxeological compatibility, sociological complementarity, and reciprocal reinforcement"
Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe
One can voluntarily assent to not exercise them, I guess, but the idea doesn't make sense to me otherwise. Keep in mind though when Hobbes says man has a right, he means he has a "natural" right to anything that is within his power, and so this is the kind of right he means we limit when entering into society.
Jon Irenicus: Rights are something we agree upon. It's just convention, supported by a law or not... Wnat rights we have is defined by a culture of the society we live in. Tnat's perhaps all we can say... Sure, and I can just respond some systems are more suited to man's nature (his rational animality, not some caveman strawman which is often counterposed to natural rights theorists) than others and thus some will fall short of being good. This is a point Aristotle makes in the Nichomachean Ethics. This guy is just repeating Hobbes's philosophical anthropology, which reflects reality about as well as pre-Copernican views on astronomy. Hobbes would want us to believe man is, by nature, an asocial, atomistic creature, that will injure his fellowman wherever it is opportune. Why should we believe this? Man needs his fellowman to flourish and do well and there is an innate, biological tendency towards sociality, something Aristotle recognized yet Hobbes utterly failed to grasp. Your friend has done nothing to demonstrate that man does not enjoy certain pre-social rights merely by virtue of being man. Aristotle, despite a belief in the virtue of slavery, recognized that even a slave can enjoy a friendship with his master insofar as he is human, and hinted at a sort of proto-justice that pervades all human relations. So much for a war of all, against all... I think it's time people threw Leviathan in the trashbin and began reading the Nichomachean Ethics and Aristotle's Politics again.
You said it better than I could.
http://aestheticbend.blogspot.com/
"One can voluntarily assent to not exercise them, I guess, but the idea doesn't make sense to me otherwise. Keep in mind though when Hobbes says man has a right, he means he has a "natural" right to anything that is within his power, and so this is the kind of right he means we limit when entering into society."
That is exactly what this guy is saying. I know nothing about Hobbes so this is pretty foreign to me. I'm not a philosophy guy. I've read Man's Rights by Rand but that is about the extent of my understanding on the topic. The concept of limited natural rights that extend only so far as the natural rights of another is easy for me to grasp. But when you say I have a right to murder you and you have a right to murder me and that only changes due to the imposition of some societal contract, it is hard for me to make any sense of that.
Is it very inaccurate to say that Mises was kind of rule utilitarian?
The problem with Hobbes, beyond his dubious view of human nature, is that his conclusions are complete non sequiturs. If one man is another man's wolf, then we don't gain by putting wolves in control of a government.
scineram: Is it very inaccurate to say that Mises was kind of rule utilitarian?
Long writes about this, I think.
Even volves living together make up a kind of society. With some rules and "rights". LIke: do not steal from each other, do not try to mate with the your fellow's "wife" etc. So there is not possibility of lving together without having and observing some rules. These rules make up our rightes. OUr rights are not simmetrical. We are not equal in our righs. Take for instance parents and children. Teachers and pupils... A custody and his guard. We even have a right to kill in self defence, in war... or (in some even contemporary societies) to kill kriminal - capital punishment. And having grown up in a concrete society we know about our rights in that concrete society. We are just taught... And we know about punischment which can follow inobservance of the rules.
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