Can You Define Natural Rights as a Meaningful Concept?

[Amanojack]

@Zavoi

The “ethical non-cognitivist” position holds that whatever obligations are, they are never something objective, and so the notion of an “objective obligation” is meaningless.

OK.

@Zavoi

And remember what the original motivation was behind adopting this position: to refute the argument for libertarian ethics.

Why does this matter? Regardless of the origin of an idea, it needn’t be anyone else’s motivation for adopting the position (in particular, it’s not my motivation or goal in taking this position).

@Zavoi

So when the non-cognitivist says, “‘Objective should’ does not correspond to any meaningful concept,” the libertarian can ask, “In what sense am I obligated to act in accordance with that belief, rather than in accordance with its negation?”

I don’t follow your intent here. The statement “‘Objective should’ does not correspond to any meaningful concept” is not itself a statement of obligation, so why ask in what sense one is obligated to act in accordance with it? Similarly if I said, “‘Pzqpqqt’ is meaningless,” what would it mean to be “obligated to act in accordance” with that statement (or its negation)?

@Zavoi

As you said, the non-cognitivist can mean this obligation to be a command (“Do X”) or a consequentialist statement contingent upon some other purpose (“You should do X if you want Y”).

What obligation? Not all propositional statements are statements of obligation.

@Zavoi

So, the non-cognitivist either admits the meaningfulness of at least one objective obligation (the obligation to act in accordance with ethical non-cognitivism), or they make their argument into something that can be disregarded by the libertarian.

Again, where’s the obligation for the non-cognitivist (which, by the way, is not precisely my meta-ethical position)?