Subject:
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Re: Nature of rights? (was: Did animals have rights before we invented rights?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 4 Jul 2001 13:07:51 GMT
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Viewed:
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934 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Kirby Warden writes:
> > I have the ability to drink...the right to drink is mine, I have
> > given this right to myself.
>
> So you really do believe that ability == right. Why even use the word right
> instead of ability? Ability has no confusing connotations to other members of
> society, after all.
No. An ability determines the claim to a right. Back up a few decades for
a moment... it would be pure foolishness for me to claim the right of flight
as I do not have the ability to fly...now, return to the present... I still
do not have the physical ability to fly, however, technology has made it
possible for me to do so. Now I can claim the right to fly: because it is
actually possible, because I may want to, and also because there is no
opposing force to prohibit me.
Another example where ability determines the right...I am walking along a
sidewalk when I spy a crumpled wad of money and no one else is near. What,
in this instance, determines that I have the right to pick it up and keep
it? Me. I determine that I have the right to keep it. However, do I
actually have the ability to pick it up? If so, then, yes, I actually have
the right to keep it if I so choose. If not, then, why even bother to
consider the right to keep it. If I have not the ability to pick it up,
then the right to keep it is merely fantasy.
Going further with this example... Assuming that I have the ability to pick
up the money, what forces could shape the veiws of my right to it? MORAL:
my religious doctrine may determine if I have the right to keep it;
likewise, the nature of my society may also make this determination.
MYSELF: what if the person who lost this is retracing their footsteps
searching for it? What if someone else, who needs it more than I, is
following not far behind? What if it is plagued with a virus that the
previous owner passed on to it?...I might pose any number of reasons why I
may simply choose to relinquish my right to it.
> > If, this afternoon, I were to learn that the
> > governments of the world have banned together to prohibit the drinking of
> > Mountain Dew; Code Red, they would have successfully opressed my self-given
> > right. The societies of the world might even decide to uphold this new
> > prohibitve law, and pass it on to future generations, making it a poor moral
> > decision to drink this beverage.
>
> This I won't buy. I just zipped over to dictionary.com to show you how wrong
> you are and found...that...you're...not. :-( But, never fear, I still won't
> buy it! I need a word to describe being good that is not dependent on society.
> I need it to mean basically 'not hurting others.' That's what I think of
> morality, so that's how I'm using it.
Hmmmm....I think I might redefine the verb "steal" to mean, "finder's
keeper's"...:^)
> Regardless of whether or not one or more governments tell you that drinking
> that beverage has legal consequences, it isn't immoral to do so, merely
> dangerous. (Unless of course there were other factors, like it's being produce
> by slaves in Haiti or something.)
If my society determines my morals, then, yes, drinking that beverage is, in
fact, immoral. If my religious doctrine determines my morals, then yes, it
might actually be immoral to drink that beverage. If I decide my own
morals, than any number of reasons may arrise to determin the drinking of
that beverage is immoral.
> > The law of man can dictate a persons "rights". This we all know from
> > experience and/or observation.
>
> I think one of the points of this conversation is that we don't all _know_
> this. Some people believe that rights are derived from God, or an inherent
> part of being human. I happen to think that's clearly wrong, but others don't.
Regardless of religious doctrines that individuals may posess, or of
personal ideals, the law can, in fact, dictate rights...if individuals allow it.
> > To define what a "right" is, we need look no
> > further than our own desires and abilities. If I desire to kill my neighbor
> > for playing his music too loud, it is my right to do so according to my
> > ability to do so.
>
> Nah. Again, ability is one word and right is an other. I most like Dave
> Eaton's (well, Mill's) stance that a right is something that society ought (or
> will?) defend me in the possession of. I think the difference between 'ought'
> and 'will' is pretty significant too. But in either case, society doesn't feel
> that way about your ability to murder your loud neighbors. (Even if some of us
> sympathize.)
Here, it seems that you allow your society to determine your rights. My
point is that rights are up to individuals. Individuals can determine their
own rights, and/or allow other forces to do so for them. Abilities only
make rights a possibility, as I hope i've shown in my above examples.
> > I may still feel
> > it is my right to kick that neighbor in his head until he dies, however, I
>
> Is it the same for you to "feel" that something is your right and for it to
> actually be your right?
My individual freewill determines my rights, while my abilities determine if
those rights are, in fact, a reality.
> At root, it seems that we might be forgetting the word itself. It seems like
> it must be that a 'right' is something that it is right to do. Is it possible
> to have the 'right' to do something that would be wrong?
Here you have attempted to define the word "right" by using the very word in
its own definition...this is similiar to multiplying by "zero"...you get
nothing.
> Chris
Rights and morals are the product of free will.
We cannot use animals as examples since we cannot communicate with them.
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