Natural rights - a self-refuting idea?

[Sphairon]

I’ll concede my negligence when it comes to definitions, sorry about that.

@nhaag

Freedom is the fact that no other human can possibly make a third human do something. The only entity that can make you do something is yourself. No none else. You always decide how to act. Whatever you do it is YOUR decision.

In that case, may I assert that every other form of mammal has the same rights as man does?

After all, free will is a theological concept and assuming free will would assume non-material elements in a purely material information processing structure. Foxes, gorillas and humans decide in virtually the same manner, they combine memories, hereditary information and external stimuli to find the best-fitting response to a situation. Human brains are much more potent than those of our mammal competitors, so of course, our decisions seem much more prudent and thoughtful than those of, say, a dog.

But dogs also decide on their own and therefore own themselves. Do dogs have rights?

Like the physical law, that you will inevitably fall down from a building and not up. Accepting those rights increase survival probability, denying them increases risk.

So it’s a utilitarian thing after all?

Have a great sunday

Same for you. [:)]

[corpus_delicti]

@Sphairon

However, rights are non-material goods. We do not “own” them, we merely have a claim to them.

I’m a bit confused. Why are “rigths non-material goods”? And how do you own a right? I would like to think that I have a right to own, not the other way around. It doesn’t make sense to own a right to own.

In any case, if we consider a might-is-right world we would find too many claims of ownership in relation to the total number of “objects” it would be possible to own, i.e. infinite claims of ownership and finite/scarce objects. This situation could only lead to violent conflicts since a bigger “fish” could always come along and claim rights of ownership in proportion to his might. We could say claims of ownership in relation to objects are inflated.

In a natural-right world we would find a one-to-one relation between claims of ownership and the total number of presently owned objects. This situation could easily lead to violent conflicts, but it would be possible at least to settle conflicts without violence. Why? Because any violator of a claim of ownership is trying to bring about a situation that is impossible, i.e. he is trying to inflate claims of ownership in relation to owned objects. Thus we see a potential to reach a general equilibrium in which the one-to-one relation is kept intact, and a potential to bring about the might-is-right world.

What you are asking is how this equilibrium is to come about? You are correct to point out that socialized provision of rights doesn’t really solve anything because it can only bring about, or worse keep us in the status quo of, the might-is-right world.

Now, if no person has any positive claims toward other persons how can claims of ownership be enforced against aggressors? GilesStratton mentioned the possibility to let another person, who can himself enforce a claim of onwership, homestead or buy another persons claim. Thus if big fish B robs small fish A for $100, A could sell his claim of ownership of $100 for $90 to big fish C. C would then be able to enforce his new claim of ownership against B and earn $10. The situation could also be, as you say, that no one wants to help A get the $100 back because the market price of enforcement is more than $100. Nevertheless our options are not yet exhausted. A could opt to pay more than $100, but let us say that $100 is all he has and will ever get. Well, perhaps other people, D, E and F, are in the same situation as A. Upon seeing how A has lost everything they might infer from this situation that they will be next and thus gang up with A and get his $100 from B together and for free.

The main point is that we do not need positive claims against others to enforce our rights of ownership. If poor people cannot pay the market price of enforcement they will surely gang up or be next. The probable outcome however would be that entrepeneurs would se a potential market in enforcement for poor people and would thus bring down the market price… at least A, D, E and F, if succesful against B, would have found a way to make money on enforcement.

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

@krazy kaju

Instead of taxation (extortion), you have the right to hire your own defense/police/court agency to protect you. Is this that hard to imagine?

@Sphairon

And thus, I lack a guarantee that my rights will be restored once they have been violated.

The only guarantee you have is that you will someday die. That’s it. Life doesn’t come with a warranty, although J.R. “Bob” Dobbs does offer a salvation-or-triple-your-money-back guarantee.

@Sphairon

If I find, for some reason, noone who is willing to restore my rights for me and I can’t do it by myself, I’m basically screwed. In that situation, rights have become unreliable entitlements instead of inherent and unalienable claims.

No they haven’t. You’re still confusing ability with rights.

@GilesStratton

You’re confusing rights with power.

@Sphairon

Not quite. I’m trying to demonstrate that rights are not inherent, but must be claimed by superior power.

No they don’t. You’re committing the nirvana fallacy.

[krazy_kaju]

@Sphairon

@krazy kaju

Instead of taxation (extortion), you have the right to hire your own defense/police/court agency to protect you. Is this that hard to imagine?

And thus, I lack a guarantee that my rights will be restored once they have been violated. If I find, for some reason, noone who is willing to restore my rights for me and I can’t do it by myself, I’m basically screwed. In that situation, rights have become unreliable entitlements instead of inherent and unalienable claims.

No they haven’t. In the very unlikely case that you are not able to somehow receive justice for having your rights violated, it simply means that you have not received justice. It doesn’t mean that rights don’t exist or merely that they’re “unreliable entitlements,” that is a non sequitur. What it does mean is that it might be difficult to enforce your nature given rights at all times. Again, you’re doing a non sequitur here.

[hayekianxyz]

@scineram

@nhaag

Freedom is an attribute of humans, like mass is an attribute of a rock.

False. Since time immemorial mankind has been living under the rule of monarchs, despots, tyrants, democratic governments.

@nhaag

Freedom is the fact that no other human can possibly make a third human do something.

Unlike, slavery?

I don’t think that’s particularly correct. Freedom is an attribute of humans, provided I have the power to do so, I can use my body to do whatever I like. The government can try and force me not to and can kill me I refuse to listen. But I am still, in a sense, free to do so. I just think you’re being pedantic here.

[scineram]

@GilesStratton

Freedom is an attribute of humans, provided I have the power to do so, I can use my body to do whatever I like. The government can try and force me not to and can kill me I refuse to listen. But I am still, in a sense, free to do so.

But any kind of living creatures can say that as well. And it bring rights into the picture nowhere.

[Zlatko]

I think you guys are arguing semantics.

Natural rights are those rights that are natural to the human condition.

The ability to not have your rights violated, is something different entirely.

Natural rights is not a self-refuting idea, because it doesn’t say that natural rights are universally enforceable, only that they are universally recognizable in humans.

[Jon_Irenicus]

However, even in the absence of a territorial monopoly of force with taxation powers, natural rights may not always be respected in the sense that I elaborated on above. Natural rights remain a postulate that is dependent on the understanding and support of your fellow men. You can try to explain to them the benefits of a property-based society or the ethical contradictions in their expropriation schemes, but at the end of the day it’s superior force that decides who owns what and not an normative system of rights, even if it’s perfectly consistent and the only just way to structure human society.

Are you expecting a magic spell that will somehow force people to obey its every edict? Why, exactly? The question is, whether a legal order is justifiable or not. If not, that is the end of it. There is no more to it than that.

[Jon_Irenicus]

False. Since time immemorial mankind has been living under the rule of monarchs, despots, tyrants, democratic governments.

Which is irrelevant, since man is free. If he decides to let others rule over him and does nothing to stop it, that is his own fault.

Unlike, slavery?

Please explain how slavery replaces the will of the slave.

[Jon_Irenicus]

But any kind of living creatures can say that as well. And it bring rights into the picture nowhere.

Ipse dixit. How about you provide a real argument for once, instead of these mystical proclamations from high?

[Sphairon]

Well, I think I see my fault in thinking now. I still have some objections, but these are not pertinent to the topic and probably semantics. Thanks all.

[Wayne_Harley]

Sphairon,

If society reaches the level at which governments have been abandoned due to their inherently violent nature, anyone who used coercion would be viewed by the majority of that society much as we now view a cold blooded murderer. You would, unless you were a really nasty individual, have the aid of nearly everyone to help you prevail against the aggressor.

If everyone went insane and decided to go back to communism you would then be without any recourse but to fight or flee but that would be because the society had devolved into a mindless mob, against which claims of rights are routinely ignored; in other words a society, unfortunately, much like the one in which we live.

[hayekianxyz]

@scineram

@GilesStratton

Freedom is an attribute of humans, provided I have the power to do so, I can use my body to do whatever I like. The government can try and force me not to and can kill me I refuse to listen. But I am still, in a sense, free to do so.

But any kind of living creatures can say that as well. And it bring rights into the picture nowhere.

That would require free will, which animals don’t have. And what do you mean it brings rights into the picture nowhere? If you’re going to be arguing for liberty on the grounds of natural rights, it doesn’t make sense to say that freedom isn’t in humans nature.

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

Cats certainly have free will, especially since they enslave their hoomans and get the hoomans to give them cheezburgers.

[nhaag]

@scineram

@nhaag

Freedom is an attribute of humans, like mass is an attribute of a rock.

False. Since time immemorial mankind has been living under the rule of monarchs, despots, tyrants, democratic governments.

@nhaag

Freedom is the fact that no other human can possibly make a third human do something.

Unlike, slavery?

Can you give me one example, where others can “MAKE” you act, that is have you do something without you doing it?

A Rock falls down unless it is hampered by something in its way. Does that mean mass is not an atribute of a rock, just because the forces holding it from falling down are there?

Slavery is a good example. Why does a slave work? Because he chooses to do so as it seems to him the best thing he can do, given the current environment. Every slave has do be coerced to have HIM decide to act. If a human being chooses not to be follow it can.

[nhaag]

@GilesStratton

@scineram

@GilesStratton

Freedom is an attribute of humans, provided I have the power to do so, I can use my body to do whatever I like. The government can try and force me not to and can kill me I refuse to listen. But I am still, in a sense, free to do so.

But any kind of living creatures can say that as well. And it bring rights into the picture nowhere.

That would require free will, which animals don’t have. And what do you mean it brings rights into the picture nowhere? If you’re going to be arguing for liberty on the grounds of natural rights, it doesn’t make sense to say that freedom isn’t in humans nature.

First, how do you know that animals have no free will? Second, if they had, what would that change in regard of human freedom and natural rights? Nothing, as human freedom and natural rights are about the relationship between humans, not animal. I have never heard of an animal becomming a king or “the government”.

I might suspect that animal have no reason, the way we have it, yet that is not equal to freedom.

[Solid_Choke]

@Knight_of_BAAWA

Cats certainly have free will, especially since they enslave their hoomans and get the hoomans to give them cheezburgers.

So I guess the only real question left is “should they pay us back all the cheezburgers they had or double the cheezburgers they had for putting us in a state of fear and uncertainty?”

[hayekianxyz]

@nhaag

First, how do you know that animals have no free will?

The burden of proof is on you, sorry.

@nhaag

Second, if they had, what would that change in regard of human freedom and natural rights? Nothing, as human freedom and natural rights are about the relationship between humans, not animal.

Yes, and yet the starting point for most systems of natural rights is that humans are capable of reason.

[Charles_Anthony]

@Jon Irenicus

Are you expecting a magic spell that will somehow force people to obey its every edict?

That does not sound like what he is asking at all. It sounds to me like he is asking for proof of inalienable natural rights – a proof for which no one has offered yet. Rather, they just postulate that they are justifiable – not that there is anything wrong with making such postulates.

There is nothing wrong with saying: “We believe in natural rights and violations of natural rights have no justification. Period.” It does not sound like the OP is disputing that position.

It is completely different to let on as if natural rights are objective truths. They are not. However, they can be certainly assumed to be true in the development of libertarian thought – just like mathematicians assume that a line is the shortest distance between two points. In essence, that is what libertarianism is: the modeling of advocating natural rights. The first step of believing natural rights can not come from any proof – it just arises from accepting convincing arguments.

@Jon Irenicus

Which is irrelevant, since man is free.

Gee! There is a convincing argument if I ever heard one! I am sure it would go far in a cannibalistic tribe.

[Jon_Irenicus]

That does not sound like what he is asking at all.

Actually, it is.

It sounds to me like he is asking for proof of inalienable natural rights – a proof for which no one has offered yet. Rather, they just postulate that they are justifiable – not that there is anything wrong with making such postulates.

No, that isn’t what he’s asking for. Even if one offered an irrefutable proof of libertarian ethical theory, it would not be sufficient to force them to abide by it. The rights still need to be enforced. His problem is that this is contingent on various human institutions.

There is nothing wrong with saying: “We believe in natural rights and violations of natural rights have no justification. Period.” It does not sound like the OP is disputing that position.

Then re-read it.

**

It is completely different to let on as if natural rights are objective truths. They are not.** However, they can be certainly assumed to be true in the development of libertarian thought – just like mathematicians assume that a line is the shortest distance between two points. In essence, that is what libertarianism is: the modeling of advocating natural rights. The first step of believing natural rights can not come from any proof – it just arises from accepting convincing arguments.

You have asserted this over and over and over. How about you prove that no such proof is possible? And please don’t try regurgitate the tired “axioms are assumptions”. It makes no difference to their truth modality. I’ve not seen you, or Scineram, or Len, offer any such proof, such as Moore’s supposed argument against non-intuitionist forms of morality (which failed.)

Gee! There is a convincing argument if I ever heard one! I am sure it would go far in a cannibalistic tribe.

Read. My. Lips. It. Is. Irrelevant.