“Liberals generally wish to preserve the concept of “rights” for such “human” rights as freedom of speech, while denying the concept to private property.[1] And yet, on the contrary the concept of “rights” only makes sense as property rights. For not only are there no human rights which are not also property rights, but the former rights lose their absoluteness and clarity and become fuzzy and vulnerable when property rights are not used as the standard.” - MNR
..!.
Also; What Libertarianism Is - Kinsella
"Consider the universal status of the ethic of liberty, and of the natural right of person and property that obtains under such an ethic.
For every person, at any time or place, can be covered by the basic rules:
• ownership of one’s own self,
• ownership of the previously unused resources which one has occupied and transformed; and
• ownership of all titles derived from that basic ownership -either through voluntary exchanges or voluntary gifts.
These rules -which we might call the “rules of natural ownership”- can clearly be applied, and such ownership defended, regardless of the time or place, and regardless of the economic attainments of the society. It is impossible for any other social system to qualify as universal natural law; for if there is any coercive rule by one person or group over another (and all rule partakes of such hegemony), then it is impossible to apply the same rule for all; only a rulerless, purely libertarian world can fulfill the qualifications of natural rights and natural law, or, more important, can fulfill the conditions of a universal ethic for all mankind." - Ethics of Liberty
In the most general sense, I would say that rights are useful interpersonal/social norms with respect to the legitimacy of claims that can be enforced or protected through physical violence. Rights are a subset of ethics that apply to the realm of politics, demarkating the sphere in which people may or may not legally act. Rights involves some sphere of autonomy within a social context in which an individual is both free from the imposition of others and free to self-direct their activities, in an ethical equilibruim in which each individual’s authority is necessarily limited as to not unduely extend over others.
When there is great disagreement on the definition of X, it doesn’t really make sense to ask, “What is X?” A word isn’t some entity floating out in hyperspace. It’s just a string of noises intended for communication, but it can’t serve that purpose until there is some semblance of agreement on the definition.
If two people don’t agree on the definition of word, it becomes no better than a string of meaningless sounds to the listener. In fact it’s worse, because the listener thinks the speaker definitely means X by it, when the speaker really means Y.
To cut past arguments about English diction and get at the underlying concept, simply ask, “What do you mean by X?”
What are rights? What do you mean by rights? (The only answers that can be rejected out of hand are incoherent or needlessly cumbersome ones.)
It may seem simple and needlessly roundabout, but clearly the rewording is necessary because there is great disagreement on the definition. To start off by treating the word as a Platonic form is a sure way to induce massive amounts of talking past each other. That’s what happens every time the issue of rights is raised here, and of course it’s even worse elsewhere.
It may also seem as if people do respect and acknowledge each other’s definitions, but even if that’s true at the start, there is this odd tendency as discussions wear on for people to subtly shift toward viewing words as if everyone who says them must be defining them the same way. It’s a basic cognitive bias that has to be constantly kept at bay in order to have a clear discussion.
(So far this is going fine, I think - just a friendly reminder)
Thanks AJ, good post. I believe understanding each others definition is very important, which is why I posted this thread.
It has been a very common practice recently for parties to dispute past one another intentionally remaining ignorant of the other parties definitions. As a result both parties end up attacking ghosts and never fully understand where their opponents positions lie.
I’m not sure I understand what this means, forgive me.
I don’t see much of what I mentioned happening yet, but I figured pointing this out couldn’t go wrong. These discussions devolve into semantics in nearly 100% of cases…even when the thread is about clarifying the semantics.
The reason rights discussions in particular end up derailing like that is because many conceptions of rights actually rely on the cognitive bias I mentioned. Intentionally or not, they let the word cover over an incoherent base concept*, which if carefully examined would crumble into nothing. As people begin to sense this, they develop a vested interest in the word being defined a certain “correct” way, and they subtly resist alternative definitions unless this is pointed out. I was hoping to preempt that this time.
*Similar to a certain poster’s usage of words like “information” and “data”
Well this is why I wanted to have a common ground for all parties to agree on. It seems awfully hard to revoke “A claim to action” since that encompass’s nearly all other forms complex rights.
In the case where people disagree, I would hope that semantical arguments get passed aside. Either you agree that a right is fundamentally a claim to action, or you do not.
Still I understand your point and appreciate your concern.
I do think this is more clarifying. Although this problem is like a hydra. People are clear as long as they talk about claims to action, but then someone starts talking about legitimate claims to action…and we have to define “legitimate.” Basically, normativity is the origin of the definitional blur, whether it manifests in writing as rights, legitimate/rogue, justified/unjustified, good/evil, moral/immoral, ethical/unethical, or sometimes even legal/illegal.