Human life sometimes demands positive obligations

[corpus_delicti]

@poppies

I think your “Orwellian” analysis is spot on. It’s helpful to see the connection between absolute categories and individual enslavement.

You’re welcome. Credit goes to ayrnieu because he got me thinking in terms of categories.

@poppies

Regarding your analysis of the traveler/bound individual analogy, I think if I’m reading you correctly you may have misunderstood. “Even if the traveler doesn’t want to” was referring to the traveler not wanting to untie the bound individual, not the bound individual not wanting to be untied. The bound individual’s desire was assumed to be a desire to be untied.

I’m sorry I misread you. I maintain all the points of my reply though.

@poppies

You correctly surmised how I define negative obligation. The phrase can basically be restated that it is imperative to do no harm.

Fair enough. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but in that case your negative obligation is really a misnomer. Now, I fully agree with your assessment that it is imperative to do no harm to others; that is exactly the point of the libertarian non aggression principle. The trouble is enforcement!

Let us imagine a world of three persons A, B and C and let us look at it from the point of view of person A. A does, indeed, have a positive right against everyone else, B and C, to not be harmed by them. Now, I’ve emphasized the ‘not’ because that is exactly what a negative right is, i.e. a positive right on everyone else not to interfere with your life. A problem arises, however, if we take ‘imperative’ to mean that no harm must ever be allowed to happen. If the non aggression principle is to be kept intact it would be impossible to claim that A had a positive right against B to be helped if C aggressed against A. Having said that I’m curious to know if that is actually what you think a negative obligation is? I.e. does B have a negative obligation to help protect A’s negative right against aggression from C?

• If yes then my question to you would be: What if B fails to meet his obligation? Will he be punished? And if so, by whom? Surely not A or C? If we add a fourth person, D, into our imaginary world to punish B, what happens if D fails his obligation… and so on ad infinitum

• If no then we agree in which case your negative obligation is just a negative right.

@poppies

Further, ostracism could only come into play if people found out about the occurrence, and I assumed, probably too implicitly, that this was a very isolated area and no one would ever be the wiser. Also, though the tier definitely bears guilt regarding tying the tie-ee, the traveler’s inaction would effectively abet the criminal by ensuring his criminal desires were fulfilled, i.e., the slow death of the tie-ee.

I concede your point about the traveler effectively abetting the criminal. Nevertheless you can scream ‘imperative’ all you want, but the traveler will be able to walk away as if nothing has happened. Why? Because as you have stated there are no witnesses. If there was a witness, however, and he would testify against the traveler, the traveler’s defence would be very simple: If the witness invokes some kind of obligation to help others he would effectively undermine his own case because he would be even more guilty of not helping the victim himself. The only way out for your example to lead anywhere would be to assume some kind of forensic evidence post mortem establishing the fact that the traveler could have saved the victim with little effort and, simultaneously, assuming this evidence fails to point to the actual murderer. But then it seems we would be back to the case of ostracism not being punishment enough.

Just to recap. Few would disagree about no harm to others being imperative. Negative rights are no magical force preventing aggression from others. It is “merely” a right after all. It is important, however, because it gives you the right to retaliate. What it does not give you is a right to have a third party come to your aid. If you had this right it would be an initiation of aggression against the third party whose negative rights are exactly as important as your own. The problem is and will always be enforcement of negative rights.

[poppies]

@corpus delicti

The problem is and will always be enforcement of negative rights.

I’m starting to see this problem. I’ve heard many say that rights are only worth the resources available to defend them.

[corpus_delicti]

@poppies

@corpus delicti

The problem is and will always be enforcement of negative rights.

I’m starting to see this problem. I’ve heard many say that rights are only worth the resources available to defend them.

Could you elaborate?

In any case that would be a critique you could direct at any other system of rights and not just natural rights. Various kinds of “entitlement-rights” within the territory of a given state are also only worth the ressources available to uphold or defend them within the territory. Even if we spoke of human life as a category against aggressive aliens, our rights wouldn’t be worth more than the ressources of all of humanity employed in their defence.

Additionally we must never forget that people will have a propensity to stand together against aggressors because they cannot know when they themselves become the next victim to the aggressors. Like-minded people will ensure each other. This is the prerequisite to insurence and PDAs. This even applies to like-minded states, e.g. NATO. You can always pool ressources in an effort to increase the ability to defend rights against aggression.