joefromchicago wrote:Cephus wrote:No, it isn't because if rights are simply granted by society and can be taken away by society, the ability to be removed is inherent.
I have no idea what this means. The ability of "what" to be removed? The rights? What do you mean "removed"? Does that equate to "violated"?
No, the right can be removed. If you commit a felony, your right to vote, along with your right to freedom can be revoked, perhaps permanently. If you kill someone, your right to life can be revoked. There isn't a single law that society, through its system of government and laws, can't take away from you.
Quote:Cephus wrote:If someone kills you and the right was granted by society, then society punishes the individual who violated your right. It doesn't bring you back from the dead, of course, but the criminal is supposed to pay for his crimes, as set out in the law.
I know of no natural rights theorist who argues that an inherent rights position depends upon
personal enforcement of rights. To take one example: Locke viewed rights as inherent, but people (through the social contract) transferred their right to
enforce their rights to the state. No one claims that the only entity capable of punishing wrongs is the entity that grants rights. You are arguing against a strawman,
Cephus.
Unfortunately, people like Locke simply declare inherent rights to exist, there is no way to objectively demonstrate it. Philosophical positions are simply statements of belief, not fact. Heck, Hitler believed that blue-eyed, blond-haired Aryans were the superior race, it doesn't make it so.
So far, neither you nor Locke nor anyone else has demonstrated that rights are anything more than societally granted, and in practice, that's all that matters.
Quote:Cephus wrote:The biggest problem with so-called inherent rights is they can't be demonstrated. They can't be proven. They can't be objectively supported. They can just be *STATED* over and over again. It's little more than "this is what I want to happen, therefore I simply declare it to be true".
A lot of people would disagree with you. Most natural rights theorists are quite convinced that they
have proven the existence of inherent rights. If you think they're wrong, it's your obligation to provide more than a blanket "you can't prove it."
Exactly how can it be proven? Sorry, but running around, waving your arms, screaming "I have rights! I have rights!" is pretty silly when society can just tell you to shut up and get in the back of the police car.
Most natural rights theorists are convinced in the same way that most theists are convinced that their deity exists. It's faith, not fact. Sorry, faith doesn't impress me.
Cephus wrote:So where is the logic involved in the declaration of inherent rights? If those inherent rights can simply be taken away by society, what point is there in arguing that they exist?
The whole point is that inherent rights
cannot be taken away by society -- at least not without some sort of legal process which itself is sanctioned by the inherent rights position. Or are you again equating "remove" and "violate"?[/quote]
But there aren't any rights that exist that *CAN'T* be taken away by society. Why is this so hard to comprehend? Besides, it's utterly silly to claim that inherent rights, those which cannot be removed under any circumstances because they simply exist, can be removed by a societal whim. That's like saying the irresistable force is utterly irresistable unless the immovable object says otherwise. You can't have it both ways. You can't have rights which are 'part of reality' and have them removed with great regularity by anyone walking down the street. The whole concept of natural rights is based on wishful thinking, not demonstrable fact.