Don’t care.
No, it doesn’t.
No, I haven’t. You only think such because you don’t know what the special pleading fallacy is.
He is talking about a utilitarian approach to the establishment of rights. That was is right and wrong is based on the utility that is received by the mass populace. I myself only moderately agree with utilitarianism. I think it can be blended well with deontological natural rights. Though I find myself more inclined to deonotology, one cannot deny that a social good does come from the institution of rights.
I do, but you’ve shifted the goalposts twice now, demonstrated hostility and refused to respond to another point of mine - usually a clear sign that a discussion is going absolutely nowhere. So I think I’m done discussing this with you.
No, I haven’t.
Nor that.
Now then, Giles: please don’t engage in such childish gyrations as you’re planning on. You know what I mean: the one where you whine and cry because I’m not rolling over and accepting your premises, so that means I’m just a meany-doo-doo-face. The one that you’re attempting right now. Don’t do it.
hostility really?
If he were to not be lying, he would be irrelevant to this discussion because he would obviously believe that rights exist.
No, he’s entirely relevant because he could believe that only he has rights. IOW: the special pleading fallacy I’m talking about.
I do not understand why such an individual is relevant to this discussion. In the quotation in the original post, Kinsella says that “any rights-skeptic contradicts himself whenever he denies that rights exist”. So I thought that we were talking about an individual who denies that rights exists, not an individual who denies only that rights of others do not exist.
i know these appear to be different cases, but they amount to the same thing.
Because when he so makes a claim that they shouldn’t be doing to him what he did, he’s implicitly accepting rights and stating that he has them. His statements show that he does believe them, even though he may actually not.
I basically just tried to explain that your argument against utilitism fails because it is circular because you implicitly assume that rights exist metaphysically whereas utilitists do not believe that rights exist metaphysically, they believe that rights are merely a manifestation of utilitistic considerations.
What do you mean by “exist metaphysically”?
In your original argument, you claimed that consequentialist arguments cannot derive ethical knowledge because “whether the existence of [rights] would be fortuitous for a happy society […] has no bearing on whether [such rights] actually exists”. In that argument, you implicitly assume that rights exist without the realm of consequences although your argument is itself an attempt to refute the argument that rights exist within the realm of consequences. Utilitists believe that rights are the manifestation of a certain consequentialistic process and your argument implicitly assumes that such consequentialistic considerations are not connected to the existence of rights.
I promise that I am not attempting to use obscure language. If I could present my thoughts more rigorously and more explicitly, I would.
If an individual were to desire to remain alive and were to be prepared to do whatever in order to remain alive, would that imply that he believes that he himself possesses rights?
I will ignore the blatant contradiction, A = not A, which appears in the above quotation because I believe that you meant that “[h]is statements show that he does believe” that rights exist although he may claim that does not believe that rights exist (which necessarily implies that the individual does not understand what the nature of rights are).
His statements would show it, yes.
There isn’t one that I committed.
If the actions of an individual were to demonstrate that that individual believes that rights exist, the individual must believe that rights exist. It is sensical to claim that some one could claim to believe X whereas he actually believes Y but it is nonsensical to claim that some one could demonstrate that he believes X whereas he actually believes Y.
In order to understand my point, you must understand the difference between references and referents. A referent is a real object whereas a reference is merely a unit of language which represents a real object. If I were to claim that I do not believe that rights exist but I then demonstrate that I do indeed believe that rights exist, I would merely show that I was incorrect when I said that I do not believe that rights exist, I would merely show that I connected the reference “rights” to the incorrect referent.
If your definition of rights is that broad, to coherently or even sanely doubt that rights exist would be impossible. Per your definition, if an individual desires any desire whatever, he immediately demonstrates that he believes that he possesses certain rights. Per your definition, if an individual acts whatsoever, he immediately demonstrates that he believes that he possesses certain rights.
Well, Laughing Man’s argumentum ad consequentiam is a bit different from what is usually called consequentialist ethics. A standard consequentialist might say something like, “X1 is right, because it causes Y1”. LM’s natural rights position is more like “X is right. X1 is an X. Therefore, X1 is right.”. This is a syllogistic argument. But then he seems to tack on an arbitrary argumentum ad consequentiam by saying, “besides, If that weren’t so, it would lead to Y2.”
It’s one thing to espouse certain actions as right because of their consequences and then call that an ethical system. It’s another thing to espouse certain actions as right by their very nature, call that an ethical system, and THEN make ethical judgments about that ethical system from outside of it using an entirely different standard.
One would think. But one must recall the words of the Red Queen.
It’s rather like doubting one’s existence.