Projecting a little, aren’t we? I thought the life boat situation was already resolved by Klingon-Sharia Law.
Conza, please don’t interpret my sarcasm as a sign of disrespect or an intent to insult. Sarcasm is a perfectly valid vehicle for content delivery, but not everyone welcomes it or receives it the same way. Perhaps, I should be using it more selectively in the future. I do enjoy our discussions and I hope there will be many more to come.
Z.
Not at all. It’s crystal clear. “(1), (2), (3)” - Do you want to take a shot?
No, and it’s not even worth wasting time on. If you want to make a serious post i.e a refutation of what I have written, please do so.
How patronizing..
What discussions?
Hey Wilderness,
You’re right; I need to look at myself too, and I admit that my posts have been somewhat reactionary. I will try to focus more on bringing intellectual debate and try to look past the mud that has been slinging around. I do think it is inappropriate to resort to tactics such as “I guess you support rape and genocide” during an argument or discussion. Surely we can discuss things on an intellectual basis without resorting to that. Even if I am wrong in what I am saying, this just turns me off to hearing what the other person has to say. If someone doesn’t give a damn about me that’s fine, but good luck in spreading your views to other people if you resort to insults or insulting responses.
Also, even if you think the other 95% will get what they deserve, they are still there and can have a large impact on your life. Much better to hopefully open their minds up; also, what a person preaches is in part a large function of what they have been exposed to. I don’t think people should “get what they deserve” because they probably don’t deserve that, rather, I think they should get red pills. Learning never stops in life, or it shouldn’t.
The society has no legal / political ethical objection to it, and the society codifies the laws, comprises the politics, and enforces the de-facto rights, so isn’t that begging the question? That does not mean that I am fine with it. Were I king in “Ultimaland”, it would be illegal.
That is not my “response” to that situation. That is the reality of the situation. My response is that it is unjust, because the woman did not consent. However, we weren’t talking about justice, we were talking about rights.
Please keep the disgust to yourself, since it is misplaced. I was talking about whether objective natural rights are legitimate, not whether I have a legal or political objection to the holocaust. Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that that rights and responsibilities are derived from a consensual contract between the government and the people. In the case of the holocaust, the Jews did not consent to being exterminated, therefore, that consent and contract were broken. You don’t need a theory of objective natural rights in order to have a contract between the people and the law-enforcing parties.
Again, you don’t need a theory of objective natural rights to come up with law, to have agreements between different groups of people, or to have contracts or governance. If someone doesn’t agree with the “natural law” theory of rights, it doesn’t mean that they believe that rape is OK. [8-)]
Oh lord… do you have a legal / political ethical objection to that situation?!
I know you have a personal one, based on your personal morality - which is subjective.. this is completely irrelevant and not the point I am trying to get you to understand. Just say ‘no you don’t’ (which would be consistent with your previous statements) and that is all I am looking for. Alternatively, provide a legal / political ethical objection to that situation (contradict your previous statements).
Seriously…
Brackets and emphasis added:
So, instead of considering whether society is wrong and unjust - i.e give them the blame. In essence, you blame the victims. You say THEY MUST LEAVE “then to try and start a new system someplace elsewhere”.
Basically, you just dodged the question again. I know the political correctness is making it hard to swallow, but that’s what needs to be done if you are to maintain your position.
But did you not previously state that society determines rights, through its legal structures?
Ultima:
The problem with normative rights is that they try to tell you what you ought or ought not to do, but if I don’t care about your definition, then they mean nothing to me. These rights (and morality and ethics by extension) can only exist when viewed through the prism of a social context, by the legal structures and the de facto rights which you mention above.
That is exactly what happened in Germany 1933.
So you think it was “unjust, because the woman did not consent.” But she is a minority! The legal structures and defacto rights of the society state it is fine and legal. Why is it then “unjust”? You said because she did not consent.. great! But the minorities being persecuted did not consent, and yet you hold that they should leave and find a new system.
So why the change of position?
By the way, my pos. (HT: Krazy Kaju) Natural Law → Natural Rights → Natural Justice.
I previously asked you for your definition / conception of justice, but I didn’t get a response. Does your conception of justice, contain a theory of “rights” i.e defacto / legal ones you mentioned previously?
Yes we were. Then I stopped getting direct responses; (1), (2), (3). You ignored them, yet still contended them as refuted. So I moved onto the front foot and proceeded to take your position and apply it to a historical example, asking for your response.
Social contract theory… hah Finally it comes out. Well where to begin? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNj0VhK19QU
Even taking this as your position, it contradicts your previous statement. No-one consents to numerous de-facto and legal rights, devised from “societies” legal structures… yet you would hold that these people must leave the system if they cannot change it. Why must they leave?
Since social contract theory is completely bunk, do you have any other legal / political ethical objection?
If it’s not Natural Law, then it’s some other type of bunk law - i.e legal positivism. If you believe that “rights” are only defacto and legal, that come from the legal structures from that society, and that no normative &natural law / rights exists.. then again, I cannot see how you can possibly have a legal / political ethical objection to the holocaust.
Of course it doesn’t, but here you are again; confusing personal morality (subjective) and political ethics (objective).
Rothbard:
For we are not, in constructing a theory of liberty and property, i.e., a “political” ethic, concerned with all personal moral principles. We are not herewith concerned whether it is moral or immoral for someone to lie, to be a good person, [believe that rape is OK], to develop his faculties, or be kind or mean to his neighbors. We are concerned, in this sort of discussion, solely with such “political ethical” questions as the proper role of violence, the sphere of rights, or the definitions of criminality and aggression.
Under which legal / political system? Legal and political ethics are determined by groups of people who come together and agree on what should be the legal code and ethics, so what exactly is the point you’re trying to make?
That is your opinion and not an objective fact. I’m not convinced you understand my position, just as I may not completely understand yours. It’s easy to have disagreements on the internet, but if you wish to continue this discussion with me then there’s no need to stoop to insulting comments.
Nope, you assumed that was my assumption.
And the assumptions continue.
Of course we can consider whether society is wrong and unjust. However, the question is, “wrong and unjust” relative to who? In the case of the Jews, it was wrong and unjust relative to them and everyone else except the nazis. Because the society they lived under was actively persecuting them through violence, and they could not adequately defend themselves against violence, they suffered. This is not a value statement, this is a fact. Whether you believe in objective natural rights or not has no bearing on this. Your injection of my “blaming the victims” is misplaced and unfounded.
Could you please quote the specific relevant parts you’d like me to address? I am getting an error when I click on those links.
I’m not saying they must leave because the current system is just, in fact, the current system may be unjust in the viewpoint of those people, and perhaps even in the viewpoint of the majority of the people living under that system. I’m saying that they may have to leave if they cannot get justice within the current system. There is no value statement there; I am not saying anything about how I think things ought to be. That is simply the way it is. If we’re to talk about what ought to be, then my personal view is that I mainly subscribe to voluntaryism. When I mentioned “social contract”, I take it in the context of this voluntary consent. Possibly there are some other things in there that are “bunk”, but I am specifically referring to that.
Someone should not be forced to do something without their consent. This is because I value freedom and the freedom of personal choice. If someone doesn’t agree with the society and norms under which they live, they should always have the freedom to choose another system that is more compatible with their values and beliefs. They should never be locked into the current system and most certainly should not be oppressed or exterminated.
Then maybe I don’t beyond my personal objections to it. Does that make me a bad person? Actually after re-reading your quote by Rothbard, I think I could say that my legal / political objection is that of voluntaryism. Admittedly I still don’t understand the question. Normative rights are created based on agreement between different people on what those normative rights should be. My theory of rights is that they only exist when they can be enforced based on this agreement of what those normative rights should be. That is my theory of rights. That is not my theory of what I think is right or wrong. There are plenty of things being currently enforced that I think are bad, but that does not change the fact that they exist. Natural law and natural rights never did a single thing to stop the Holocaust from occuring, did it? History tends to bear out my interpretation of things. Again, that is not a value judgment and I’m not saying that I prefer this.
And what are those so-called “objective” ethics? Who gets to say that they are objective? Who decides what the proper sphere of violence should be? Who decides what the sphere of rights should be? Who determines what is criminal and what is not criminal? Who defines what aggression is? Even the libertarians can’t agree on these definitions, let alone the rest of the world.
undoubtedly. i never ventured otherwise. and some people are sacrified as heretics. I stand up for what I believe in and my effort is to be on the side of truth (which means not aggressing so we all in liberty may discover what that truth is) and secondly I’m either in the moment of history in which humanity is growing optimistic or pessimistic about such truth.
I know of no person of truth that would think otherwise.
yes
We all get what we all put into it. I work in the garden to have the garden be fruitful. Either the ground/minds are not acceptive to begin with or I did a terrible job in cultivating the garden. I am not forgetting that people make a choice and work on what they shape in their own individual life. If their choices involve evil or evil, like the lesser of two evils argument in voting a politican into government, surely there must be another way. Sometimes it may take generations and the seed was planted by ones great-great-granddaddy. I see my great, great grandfathers efforts working through me at times. I heard of his life’s stories. I heeded his call. I listen.
Well there is always the choice first. Red or blue.
Yes, I can respect that. Although we may or may not have influence, we still have a choice in the actions we take. Luck and other factors beyond your control still play a part, of course. I also see another way and I think that technology will play a big part in reducing the costs of sharing and transmitting information as well as enabling a more competitive and dynamic society through new ideas such as seasteading and charter cities. Unfortunately, technology can also be misused and I think one of the important challenges of the future will be ensuring that the dissemination, flow, and control of information become more free in the future rather than more centralized and controlled.
Any interesting stories you’d like to share? Just curious… (the U.S. for one has come a long way since that time and much of it not in a good way)
Technology improves society. It is a higher order good so technology can be the first to become expensive in a society that becomes short-sighted - doesn’t invest in such futures (higher order goods) that technology is.
He was a farmer from the middle mountains of central Italy. Lots of stories, but one in particular in which he was in World War One stationed in Northern Africa. Came back home and told others and passed down through the generations to never - ever go to war. War is terrible. My family has ever since tried to avoid going to war. My great grandfather pulled his sons out of Italy when Mussolini came to power and that’s when they came to the U.S. My grandfather was going to leave the country if my father was drafted into Vietnam. I still think of these events when I look at my son. I learned from the supposed war that was to end all wars (WW1).
Looks like we’re each going our separate ways then. Good riddance. While riding away though, ponder the possibility that Klingon-Sharia Law, in all its ridiculous splendor, is actually a more serious, reasonable, and, well, natural solution than your Natural Law.
Z.
Is it comedy hour?
Germany 1933. Yes, that is your position. And given what you have just said… with using the below as to clarify the statement
It follows that…
… That you have no legal / political ethical objection to the Holocaust.
No, the questions were posed and you consistently ignored them. Since it logically followed from your previous statements, I took that you held them. I asked for clarification, and you didn’t give any.
You have that option of providing and responding to them now, i.e what your theory of property rights is.
But no, the dodges continue.
Consent has nothing to do with a social contract or society. No, it’s not “possibly” it IS. “I am specifically referring to that” - Then here’s a tip; don’t quote Rousseau, it’s full of fail.
That’s for your conscience to decide. Are you able to say it? "I have no legal or political objections to the Holocaust ". That’s all I’m looking for, an open declaration / acceptance of what your position leads to.
Oh so you accept normative rights now? i.e natural law, philosophy of self ownership and non aggression axiom.
No, they are not.Social contract theory is completely and utterly bunk. We’ve addressed that. Well, actually you mostly dodged the issue of SocialCT.
• Normative rights: the claims that ought to be respected and protected.
• Legal rights: the claims that a given legal institution officially announces it will respect and protect.
• De facto rights: the claims that actually receive respect and protection in a given society.
You are misusing the word normative rights, and I don’t know why. We’ve been over this probably 5 times already.
How on earth do you reconcile that, with this?
Are you a sophist?
Wrong. I mean this is specifically addressed in this link I’ve quoted from probably 10 times already. http://libertariannation.org/a/f42l1.html#4.3
Natural Law can sometimes protect
So if natural rights don’t protect us, that’s no indictment of Natural Law theory. In fact, however — even though this is not their essential function — natural rights can and do sometimes provide people with de facto protection. In discussing the Holocaust, Rollins takes it as obvious that the Jews’ natural rights didn’t save any of them. But is this true? All over Nazi-occupied Europe, thousands of Jewish lives were saved by brave and committed people who were motivated by their recognition of the Jews’ rights to life and liberty — rights whose authority transcended the dictates of the Nazi state. In fulfilling their primary normative function of guiding the choices of the rescuers, the Jews’ natural rights thereby indirectly did what Rollins says natural rights cannot do — they saved the Jews’ lives.
Now Rollins would no doubt respond that these Jews were saved not by natural rights but by their rescuers’ belief in natural rights. Well, suppose I’m walking along absent-mindedly and I’m about to step inadvertently into a pit of deadly scorpions, when Rollins suddenly shouts “watch out!” I hear his warning shout, and stop just in time. Now if I said that his warning shout had saved my life, would Rollins object that this is wrong, that it’s only my perception of a warning shout that saved my life? In such a case this would be an idle quibble, because although my salvation was caused by my perception of the warning shout, that perception of the warning shout was in turn caused by the warning shout itself; so either one can be credited as causally responsible for my escaping the scorpions.
But Rollins would presumably insist that the Holocaust rescuer case is different, because although the Jews’ salvation was caused by the rescuers’ belief in natural rights, the rescuers’ belief in natural rights was not caused by natural rights themselves. Here I must disagree, though; I don’t see why the rescuers’ belief in natural rights couldn’t be the result of their having correctly recognized and identified the fact of the Jews’ natural rights, just as my avoiding the scorpion pit was the result of my having correctly recognized and identified the fact of Rollins’ warning shout.
The only answer Rollins can give is that the rescuers can’t have recognized and identified the fact of natural rights because there is no such fact; but in that case Rollins’ argument for the uselessness of natural rights begs the question against his opponents by presupposing that natural rights don’t exist. (After all, it’s easy enough to prove something useless if you first presuppose that it doesn’t exist!)
Seriously, what is this… a Nascar event?
“One common, flip criticism by opponents of natural law is: who is to establish the alleged truths about man? The answer is not who but what: man’s reason. Man’s reason is objective, i.e., it can be employed by all men to yield truths about the world. To ask what is man’s nature is to invite the answer. Go thou and study and find out! It is as if one man were to assert that the nature of copper were open to rational investigation and a critic were to challenge him to “prove” this immediately by setting forth on the spot all the laws that have been discovered about copper.”
… and to antiticpate your further objection that which we have already covered / addressed…
“The fact of man’s reason does not mean that error is impossible. Even such “hard” sciences as physics and chemistry have had their errors and their fervent disputes.[23] No man is omniscient or infallible – a law, by the way, of man’s nature.”
Except it’s not.
As noted, you have to have many abilities or acts to homestead a thing–you have to think, create, innovate, judge, move, emborder, transform. Yeah, but you don’t own these things you do; you own the thing you homestead because by your actions you emborder it and therefore set up an objective indicator that you have now possessed it; as the first possessor, you have the best claim to it. This nowhere assumes you own your labor; this assumption is not needed. Labor-ownership is both unnecessary and insufficient. It’s unnecessary because you don’t need to “own” your labor to show that some thing you labored on is owned by you–you are the first user of the thing regardless of whether you own your labor. And it’s insufficient because there is no reason to assume that you are not just throwing your labor away, if you do own it–if you spit in the ocean you lose your spit, you don’t homestead the ocean. - Kinsella
Haha, must be. [:D] I’m certainly having a laugh.
Ok, my personal legal and political beliefs are in line with the idea of voluntaryism. Btw I’m not purposely trying to dodge anything, if you don’t accept my answers that’s another story. I’m also getting tired of the “Yes! Germany 1933 is your position!” No it’s not, and I don’t see the point in continuing a discussion with someone who says “Na ahhh!” as if you think you can read my mind and know exactly what I’m thinking in there. That’s a fallacy and nothing more than a BS way of antagonizing me.
So why is it when you make assumptions about me, it’s up to me to prove otherwise, but when you state your assertions as fact, it’s also up to me to prove otherwise? I guess for you, everything is always for the other guy to prove? You’ve also been purposely leaving out the parts from my post that disprove the point you’re trying to make about me.
Ok, will do 
As long as you got the point I was making there, then.
Of course I accept them. I never denied that we can. I simply said that there is no objective basis for their existence that makes them better or worse than any other system. You accept them because you think they lead to more liberty, or freedom, but there is nothing that objectively makes them better. That has been my whole point, and why you’ve consistently read more into my position than what I’ve said, I don’t know. Of course we can use them as guidelines when forming a legal code and a set of ethics.
But I see that you dodged my questions and responded to them with a quote instead of an actual answer. By the way, why do you keep re-pasting old quotes that I’ve already responded to while ignoring new material?
And why not?
How am I misusing them? Your definition is that “Normative rights: the claims that ought to be respected and protected.”. Who decides the ought? Groups of men do. Why is this a misuse?
Nope, I don’t see the conflict between the two blocks you quoted and I also don’t see the need to use insults. Normative rights are agreed to by men and they also only exist (as defacto rights) when enforced. Where is the conflict there?
And does it really make a difference? I can choose not to believe in gravity but it pulls me down just the same! If I don’t believe in natural rights then they don’t exist. By the way, who says that they believed in natural rights as you expound them? That is simply a case of making a model fit the events, and not a fact. Russia was the country that dealt one of the harshest blows to the nazi regime… do you think the Russians believed in natural rights? Do you know anything about WW2 or the history of the war or of Russia for that matter?
And why is it objective? How? Where is the proof? Who says that it is objective? Is it someone’s opinion that is objective? Has it been proven to be objective?
Which is why even if there did exist an objective set of natural rights, and even if man’s reason was objective, whatever we codified could only approach it and not meet it. However, you have yourself dodged the question of what makse that set of natural rights objective? Objective by what standard? Who measures its objectivity, and by which measurement?
Modern neuroscience has shown that human emotion is controlled by a set of brain structures called collectively the lymbic system, which is itself controlled (or regulated) by the more logic, future-projecting area of the brain: the frontal lobes. The sense of “self” has even been shown to originate predominately from a certain structure or region in the brain.
If the sense of “self” comes about by the physiological processes in the brain, how can one be said to own it in any true sense? What is owning what? Does the “self” come to own the physiological processes that bring it about as soon as it arises? This does not make sense on a fundamental level.
Still waiting for a reply, Conza…
Whatever happened to alimentarius?
The reason you haven’t got one is because you are still yet to respond to the 3 posts I’ve continued to point out & you’ve continued to ignore.
Ultima:
Could you please quote the specific relevant parts you’d like me to address? I am getting an error when I click on those links.
Go to it.
#1 and #2 are the same.
I will only respond to those parts of your post that are not false assertations of my position. In short, here are my responses:
#1, #2: “Who has the burden of proof”? There is nothing to respond to here, it is your opinion.
#3: “That is for de-facto rights, not normative rights. Again, completely missing the point. So you have no logical objections what so ever to the Patriot Act? Or anything “society” sets up? It’s ok to rob you, they say they have a “right” to your property… you have no problems with that? Absurd.”
I do have a problem with that. I don’t like being robbed.
So, time for you to address my latest post. If there’s something else you’d like me to address, please point it out specifically; I’m not sure how to reply to things like “you would accept genocide” or “i’m disgusted”. Either we can have a debate or we can’t. It’s up to you.
Thread is hilarious. The ________'s go after the Ancaps but Ancaps are more consistent than any of the subjective justice theorists becuase for natural rights/non-aggression principle it always boils down to the same question: Who initiated agression?
The ________'s throw out lifeboat situations demanding judgement without providing all of the facts. It’s absurd for these people to take for granted a natural right theorist is not fully aware of thier environmental facts.
Are there any contracts in play between any parties involved?
Does a contract have any provisions that stipulate pre-agreed conditions for liability or arbitration?
Who owns the life boat?
How did seven people get on the life boat?
Did anyone initiate aggression to secure a homestead on the lifeboat or we’re they invited?
Can rations be provisioned?
Will anyone agree to a water rotation?
Is any aggression initiated to eject anyone from the lifeboat?
Does anyone die?
Natural right theorists are consistent on self-ownership and non-aggression principles. I think some folks can’t handle the objective consistency reason is capable of delivering.