The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

[Jerlerup]

Mtn Dew. I do not wish to force anyone. But to let a disabled person depend on charity is force too. You will force that person to depend on charity for his ocr her life. To NOT give someone right to speech is FORCE. To not give a person right to live (without the help of charity) is to deprive that person of freedom too.

It seems as if the negative rights of the disabled person only can be defended by positive rights!

/T

[Jerlerup]

nirgrahamUK

yes I wish for various things. As freedom of speech, and such. We all do so!

[nirgrahamUK]

it seems that you have been fooled by the equivocation in common language and have confused ‘force’ in political philosophy sometimes with ‘cause’ and sometimes with other things..

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/force

[Jerlerup]

In what way, nirgrahamUK?

To use force can be to say that someone should DO something specifik and should NOT do something, as I see it. To deprive of, or to not make sure that someone gets something is force too IF THE PERSON CANT GET IT AS A RIGHT in any other way..

[nirgrahamUK]

Just because force is used to make people do thing, or to make them not do things does not mean that whenever anything happens to anyone that is because of ‘force’.

If you want a big Mansion to live in, and I don’t give it to you, it should be clear that I did not ‘force’ anything…

[Southern]

To NOT give someone right to speech is FORCE. To not give a person right to live (without the help of charity) is to deprive that person of freedom too.

Your objection is not that someone has been deprived of thier rights… its that they have been deprived of their ability to excercise thier rights. But no human being has deprived or taken their rights or even thier ability to exercise those rights.

It would seem you are misplacing blame here. If someone is born dumb, deaf, and blind it is nature that has deprived you of the ability to exercise your rights. But in any case you have not been deprived of the right itself.

It seems as if the negative rights of the disabled person only can be defended by positive rights!

Defended from who?

[Jerlerup]

Southern. If I, with some human help, can get back my rights and humans withhold it, then I am deprived of my right by force.

If a group of persons are kept as slaves on an island, and they are declared free, but have no way to leave the island, are they REALLY free then?

That is what I am thinking about.

It is still so that charity is not the same as a right.

/T

[cporter]

@Jerlerup

If a group of persons are kept as slaves on an island, and they are declared free, but have no way to leave the island, are they REALLY free then?

In this scenario there are masters and slaves. Since the slaves are only there due to being forced by the masters, there is a presumed obligation on the part of the masters to also get the slaves off of the island, return them to their original lands, or whatever (at the option of the slaves of course - some may want to stay on the island).

However, this is not the scenario you have been arguing. What you have been saying is this:

If a group of persons were born on an island, and are free, but have no way to leave the island, are they REALLY free then?

If I punch you in the ear until you go deaf then no, I can’t stop punching you, declare you “free” from further abuse, and call it a day. I have created an obligation to make you whole again; being forced to pay for surgery, buy you a hearing aid, or something similar. But that is not what happened. Nobody caused most of the disabilities you are worried about and therefore nobody is responsible for making you whole.

It is not force if they do not.

[nirgrahamUK]

This article is not perfect, it features I think an unfortunate phrasing (‘anarchic’) but the force of the argument shines through:

George Reisman from Capitalism:

The concept of freedom when employed rationally,presupposes the existence of reality, and with it the laws
of nature, the necessity of choice among alternatives, and the fact that if one resorts to force, one must expect to be
met by force. Of particular importance is the fact that it presupposes the necessity of having the voluntary coop-
eration of everyone who is to aid in an activity—including the owners of any property that may be involved.

After taking for granted the presence of all this, the rational concept of freedom then focuses on the absence
of one particular thing: the initiation of physical force—in particular, by the government.

In sharpest contrast to the rational concept of freedom is the anarchic concept. The anarchic concept of freedom
evades and seeks to obliterate the fundamental and radical distinction that exists between two sorts of obstacles
to the achievement of a goal or desire: “obstacles” constituted by the ordinary facts of reality, including other
people’s voluntary choices, and obstacles constituted by the government’s threat to use physical force. For exam-
ple, by the nature of things, it is impossible for me to square circles, walk through walls, or be in two places at
the same time. It is also not possible for me, in the actual circumstances of my life, to win the Nobel prize in
chemistry or the Academy Award for best actor of the year, or to enter the automobile or steel business. There
are all kinds of such things I simply cannot do. And among the things I could do, there are many I choose not
to do, because I judge the consequences to myself to be highly undesirable. For example, I cannot arbitrarily
decide to walk off my job in the middle of winter to take a vacation in the sun, without the very strong likelihood
of being fired. I cannot drive down a city street at ninety miles an hour, nor can I strike or kill another, without
running the risk of paying the penalty for violating the law. And then, there are things that are possible for me
to do, and that I would very much like to do, but that would require the consent of other people, which consent
they are unwilling to give. In this category, are such things as having my views published in The New York
Times or having this book assigned in courses at leading “liberal” universities.

Absolutely none of these facts constitutes a violation of freedom, a denial of rights, or anything of the kind. In order
for a violation of freedom to exist, it is not sufficient merely that someone be unable to achieve what he desires.
What is necessary is that the specific thing stopping him be the initiation of physical force; in particular, the
government’s threat to use force against him in response to an action of his that does not represent the use of force.
The stock-in-trade of the anarchic concept of freedom, however, is to construe precisely such facts as a
violation of freedom and rights. On the basis of the anarchic concept of freedom, it is claimed that freedom
is violated any time there is anything that, for whatever reason, a person cannot do, from flying to the moon, to
being able to afford a house or a college education that is beyond his reach, to committing murder.

Ironically, the anarchic concept of freedom is implicitly accepted by conservatives and fascists, as well as
by anarchists and hippies. This is evident in the arguments they advance when they seek to establish the
principle that it is necessary and proper to violate freedom. For example, they argue that we do not allow a man
the “freedom” to murder his mother-in-law or to speed through red lights and thereby threaten the lives of others.
In propounding such arguments, the conservatives and fascists casually neglect the fact that such acts constitute the
initiation of force, and are so far from representing freedom that their prohibition is what actually constitutes freedom.
The anarchic concept of freedom, of course, is present in the assertions of Communists and socialists that their
freedom of speech is violated because they are threatened with arrest for attempting to disrupt the speech of an
invited speaker by shouting him down or by speaking at the same time. This assertion by the Communists and
socialists neglects the fact that their action constitutes the use of someone else’s property against his will namely,
the use of the meeting room against the will of the owner or lessee, who wants the invited speaker to speak, not the
disrupters. It is thus the action of the Communists and socialists which is a violation of freedom in this instance,
a genuine violation of the freedom of speech.

It follows from this discussion of the erroneous claims of the Communists and socialists that a prohibition on
arbitrarily shouting “fire” in a crowded theater should not be construed as any kind of limitation on the freedom of
speech. Arbitrarily shouting “fire” constitutes a violationof the property rights of the theater owner and of the other
ticketholders, whom it prevents from using their property as they wish. When one holds the context of the rational
concept of freedom, it becomes clear that it is no more aviolation of freedom of speech to prohibit such speech,
than it is to prohibit the speech of disruptive hecklers, or the speech of an uninvited guest who might choose to
deliver a harangue in one’s living room. Violations of freedom of speech occur only when the speaker has the
consent of the property owners involved and then is prohibited from speaking by means of the initiation of
physical force—in particular, by the government or by private individuals acting with the sanction of the gov-
ernment.

Because of the confusions that have been introduced into the concept of freedom, it is necessary to set matters
right in a number of important concrete instances. Thus, freedom of speech is violated not when an individual
does not receive an invitation to speak somewhere, but when he does receive it and is stopped by the government
(or by private individuals acting with the sanction of the government) from accepting the invitation or exercising
it. It is violated precisely by Communist and socialist disrupters whom the police refuse to remove. Ironically,
in the case of a live theatrical performance, it is violated precisely when someone arbitrarily shouts “fire.” Such a
person violates the freedom of speech of the actors on stage.

The freedom of the press is violated and censorship exists not when a newspaper refuses to publish a story or
a column that, for any reason, it regards as unworthy of publication, but when it is prepared to publish a piece and
is stopped from doing so by the government. Thus, if I want to print my views in The New York Times, but can
neither afford the advertising rates nor persuade the publisher to give me space, my freedom of the press is
not violated; I am not a victim of “censorship.” But suppose I do have the money to pay the advertising rates
or could persuade the publisher to print my views, and the government disallows it—that would be a violation
of the freedom of the press; that would be censorship. It is a violation of my freedom of the press if the govern-
ment stops me from mimeographing leaflets, if that is all I can afford to do to spread my ideas. Again, censorship
exists not when the sponsor of a television program refuses to pay for the broadcast of ideas he considers false
and vicious, but when he does approve of the ideas he is asked to sponsor and yet is stopped from sponsoring
them—for example, by an implicit threat of the govern ment not to renew the license of the television station, or
arbitrarily to deny him some permission he requires in some important aspect of his business.

In the same way, if I ask a woman to marry me, and she says no, my freedom is not violated. It is only violated
if she says yes, and the government then stops me from marrying her—say, by virtue of a law concerning mar-
riages among people of different races, religions, or blood types. Or, finally, if I want to travel somewhere,
but lack the ability to pay the cost of doing so, my freedom of travel is in no way violated. But suppose I do
have the ability to pay the cost, and want to pay it, but the government stops me—say, with a wall around my
city (as existed until recently in East Berlin), a passport restriction, or a price control on oil and oil products that
creates a shortage of gasoline and aviation fuel and thus stops me from driving and the airlines from flying—then
my freedom of travel is violated.

What is essential in all these cases is not the fact that there is something I cannot do for one reason or another,
but what it is, specifically, that stops me. Only if what stops me is the initiation of physical force—by the gov-
ernment in particular—is my freedom violated.

[Bohemian]

So being born with a natural disadvantage bestows the right to make other people slaves? By denying those born with natural disadvantages to steal property, time, and labor from others somehow makes disabled people slaves?

It would seem we disagree on the definition of slave.

Furthermore, it seems that our anxiety here is that your ability to use the violence of the state to steal from others for your own personal gain would be reduced in a libertarian society. I don’t think liberalism, or libertarianism are ideologies that represent you as your grievence here couldn’t be more opposed to the concepts.

[Epicurus_Ibn_Kalhoun]

See OP, if you were the other type of libertarian (from the other side of the aisle), we advocate voluntary communities with it written in the “contract” (you accept to be a member of the society) that assholes who want the disabled to fend for themselves are not welcome in our communities.

[liberty_student]

@Laotzu del Zinn

See OP, if you were the other type of libertarian (from the other side of the aisle), we advocate voluntary communities with it written in the “contract” (you accept to be a member of the society) that assholes who want the disabled to fend for themselves are not welcome in our communities.

Yeah, the disabled are going to hang out with a bunch of broke ass whiners who don’t understand economics. That will put hearing aids in their ears!

You’ll show those damn capitalists!

@OP, I am sorry you are deaf, and I would do what I can to help you, but you have no right to demand anything from me. Your “rights” cannot violate mine and still maintain the pretense that some things are rights, unless you want to claim you are a superior being and I should be subservient to you.

[Mtn_Dew]

"Mtn Dew. I do not wish to force anyone. But to let a disabled person depend on charity is force too. You will force that person to depend on charity for his ocr her life. To NOT give someone right to speech is FORCE. To not give a person right to live (without the help of charity) is to deprive that person of freedom too.

It seems as if the negative rights of the disabled person only can be defended by positive rights!"

You have all sorts of “rights” that you may or may not be able to actually use. You have a “right” to fall in love and spend the rest of your life with someone - but if you’re ugly and no one can get past that, do you have the “right” to force me to pay for your plastic surgery?

You have an incredibly skewed view of rights. I don’t think you need to call yourself a libertarian.

[Smiling_Dave]

unless you want to claim you are a superior being and I should be subservient to you.

Don’t tempt us, LS.

[thelion]

Leibniz had an article on this question. Read this article. (Its in French, but if you don’t know French, google translate I think will do pretty good job, since its easier language to translate from).

http://www.archive.org/details/mittheilungenau00mollgoog , pp. 41-70.

Leibniz said that Golden Rule, which is only rule of law, since it imposes no privledges on anyone, not only protects people from violence, but also requires people to give charity where it is not much difficulty or cost to person whose help is asked.

Leibniz was first to bring up this question from libertarian perspective (he denies any law not in accordance with Golden Rule, which pretty much is everything we have today).

But he clarified that this is not absolute law that can be will nilly extended to anything that people want other people to give them.

His examples are all of sort: I am standing with rope and you are in hole; help you get out of hole, because I would expect same.

Because it is violating golden rule to require anything that is inconvenient to people who are supposed to provide it. What or what is convenient can only be voluntary.

Leibniz is clearly defending only voluntary charity, since if government must force you, it is clearly inconvenient for you.

To extend Leibniz’s idea beyond what is voluntary and at discretion of person giving aid is to make what other posters here have already written (besides as several books do, misinterpreting Leibniz):

If B gives X to A voluntarily, and A expects B to give X to A, this is voluntary charity and in accordance with Golden Rule; it means, although A and B have different preferences, it is convenient for B to give this to A, according to B’s preferences, which determine foregone opportunity of giving up X, i.e., X’s cost.

If A and B have different preferences, what is cost to A and cost to B differ, then A cannot expect B to give X to A and force B to do this, simple because he would do same if B asked this of him. A’s cost (foregone opportunity) of doing this differs from B’s, so how can he claim that, by forcing B, “he not is doing to others what he wants others not to do to him”? A cannot.

If A were willing to give X to B if B was in A’s circumstances and A was in B’s, this does not imply “he not is doing to others what he wants others not to do to him” when he forces B to give up X to A, becuase preferences vary and costs vary, and A certainly cannot abide by “he not is doing to others what he wants others not to do to him” if A forces B to give to A what is more costly to B while A forces A to give to B what is less costly to A. Costs cannot be compared, so how can they be equal. Costs being unequal, A cannot claim reciprocity. He is willing to give less and receive more, but B is supposed to be giving more and recieving less.

If A and B exchange something, then even though they both gain, giving less for more, in this case, so Golden Rule is satisfied and consistency is satisfied.

[mikachusetts]

@Laotzu del Zinn

See OP, if you were the other type of libertarian (from the other side of the aisle), we advocate voluntary communities with it written in the “contract” (you accept to be a member of the society) that assholes who want the disabled to fend for themselves are not welcome in our communities.

Contractual communities that keep the unwanted out? When did left libs become Hoppeans?

@Liberty Student

Yeah, the disabled are going to hang out with a bunch of broke ass whiners who don’t understand economics. That will put hearing aids in their ears!

You’ll show those damn capitalists!

When will you understand that socialism will turn the oceans to lemonade, fly roasted pidgeons into our mouths, and create the right amount of hearing aids and wheelchairs.

[Southern]

Southern. If I, with some human help, can get back my rights and humans withhold it, then I am deprived of my right by force.

If a group of persons are kept as slaves on an island, and they are declared free, but have no way to leave the island, are they REALLY free then?

That is what I am thinking about.

It is still so that charity is not the same as a right.

Reread the words that you use. “if a group of persons are kept as slaves on an island”, those peoples rights have been violated by the slave master and have the right to be compensated.

A more realistic analogy would be: someone is born on an island where the technology to leave does not exist. The people of this island can see ships sail by everyday. The people on the ships can see the people on the island, but never stop.

You declare that those people on the island have a right to leave the island, this in someway entitles them to the the technology and ships of those who sail by everyday. Because without it those on the island who wish to leave are slaves, because they are unable to excise thier right to leave. The people on the ships are violating thier rights somehow by not giving them either the technology/boats to leave.

[Ultima]

Jerlerup,

Here are my own thoughts: nobody on this earth is born perfect and we are all wanting for one thing or another. In comparison with our highest values, we are all disabled to a certain degree. I would certainly live a better life in some senses if I was more attractive, more charismatic, more whatever. Perhaps my life would be better if I had been born into a different family too, who knows?

Our starting circumstances are all due to chance. However, your logic is the logic that a person born into this world has the right to take from others in order to help themselves. So, an ugly person would have the right to make a beautiful person pay for their surgery. A disabled person would have the right to force a healthly person to buy their wheelchair. A short person would have the right to force a tall person to pay for leg lengthening surgery.

You can’t say that you have the right to restitute your type of disability by enforcing a claim on others, but that other people don’t have the right to make the same claims. Do you see where that would lead? Everyone would have claims against everyone else and everyone would be making a slave out of everyone else. If you restrict your claims to a subset and say that only THESE disabilities are deserving of a right to restitution, then you are simly placing your own values above other people’s values.

The only way out of this in my opinion is to recognize that none of us has a claim on other people for our own situation because others did nothing to cause how the genetic and life lotteries played out for us. Likewise, it is not our own fault, either. Nobody ever said that it’s a disabled person’s fault that they’re disabled. You can blame the universe and random chance if you want, but there is no way to get restitution from the universe. To the extent that you can blame another person for your misfortune then you perhaps have a claim against them, but to the extent that you can only blame the universe or random chance you cannot fairly force someone else to pay for that misfortune.

Think about ithis: A ship is sinking and one person struggles onto a floating piece of plywood that can only hold one person. A struggling swimmer comes over and fights over the same piece of plywood, because he’s fighting for his life. If he doesn’t he will die. He manages to knock the first person off who subsequently drowns and dies. This is a situation in the limit, but if you subscribe to the logic that those in more dire circumstances have the right to extract claims from those in less dire circumstances,then you can also make the claim that the first guy deserved to die because the second guy was in a worse situation. The second guy certainly had the right to fight for his own life and nobody would expect him to commit suicide, but that doesn’t mean that the first guy deserved to pay the price for the second guy’s misfortune!

To me it just doesn’t make sense to say that one’s person misfortune is a claim on other people who had absolutely nothing to do with that person’s circumstances. I’m not a philosopher or a moral expert and I’m still fleshing things out in my head, and I think under some situations failure to act could certainly seem like aggression (the problem of a person dying of thirst in a desert and a passeryby absolutely refuses to help him is something that causes problems for me personally) and that I haven’t worked out, but I really don’t think you can extend this to normal everyday circumstances unless you want to run into the trap where everyone has a claim against everyone else.

[s_burgess]

@Gellerup

Mtn Dew. I do not wish to force anyone. But to let a disabled person depend on charity is force too. You will force that person to depend on charity for his or her life. To NOT give someone right to speech is FORCE. To not give a person right to live (without the help of charity) is to deprive that person of freedom too.

It seems as if the negative rights of the disabled person only can be defended by positive rights!

to force someone to do something requires me to act.if i dont act im not using force.free speech does not need action or law.but to deny free speech does i must for example threaten to shot you if you say something i dont like.ps way do you think depending on force to get a wheel chair is some how better more noble than depending than charity.

[Phaedros]

An interesting theme in this thread is dependence. The author says that without the government people in need will be dependent on charity. How is that different from being dependent on the government? The real solution is independence and that means finding a way t provide for your own needs, ultimately. Obvioiusly, there are some people that cannot accomplish this du to severe disabilities. There are, and always have been, people who want to help people as much as they can.