ican711nm wrote:Cephus wrote: But there aren't any rights that exist that *CAN'T* be taken away by society. Why is this so hard to comprehend?
It's hard to comprehend because it is false. Prove otherwise.
Um, you stated it, YOU prove it. I have no obligation to prove you wrong, you must demonstrate that you are right.
Quote:Intrinsic and inherent rights of living humans exist because we humans exist. They CANNOT be taken away unless one takes away ALL humans.
We're back to you simply stating a position as truth without any support again. That's fine, we all know you can't prove anything, your position is terminally flawed from the start.
The problem is, this isn't a rational position, it's faith. All you can do is claim there are rights. Why? Because you say so. God gave them to you? Prove there's a God. *crickets*
Quote:It is only the security of those rights that can be taken away. That is self-evident. Why is this so hard for you to comprehend?
So what you're saying is that you have rights, but everyone and their brother can violate them, ignore them, pretend they don't exist and do as they wish, is that it? Then functionally, you have no rights. Why is that so hard for you to comprehend? Since there is no functional, real-world application of these so-called inherent rights, how do we know they exist other than your say so?
joefromchicago wrote:I'm going to go over this one more time, very slowly, and then I'll have done with it. The notion that rights are inherent is not contradicted by the notion that people may be punished with the deprivation of their rights, or that people may be deprived of their rights by wrongdoers. As I mentioned before, "inherent" does not mean "inviolable." Never has -- and no one has ever taken that position (except for people like Cephus who desperately want to erect and then knock down this strawman).
The problem is that natural rights theorists argue from an unprovable position. They *BELIEVE*, based on philosophical or religious preconceptions, that somehow man is more than a smart ape running around on a small lump of rock in a very large universe.
The inherent flaw in the natural rights position is the unfounded assumption that mankind matters in the scheme of the universe, that somehow the entire universe exists simply to please humanity. That's ludicrous on the face of it. We simply evolved, we created societies, we created governments, we created laws and we created rights. You don't see cows arguing for inherent bovine right to life when we lead them off to slaughter. There simply is no functional application or demonstration of these inherent rights beyond the simple demand that they exist, so there.
The biggest problem is that there is no possible real world test for these so-called inherent rights. You can claim that an invisible, intangible gnome lives on your shoulder, but if there is no way to demonstrate that it's real, then for all intents and purposes, why should anyone think that it does? A claim which cannot be demonstrated, logically, objectively or functionally, is no different than no claim at all.
Frank Apisa wrote:You are saying that you cannot define GOD -- so you are going to define GOD as the universe (or OOU) -- and you are then saying that your GOD (OOU) has endowed us with intrinsic and inherent rights.
Can't have it both ways, Ican.
I'm not libel. ...
Yes, I can
Yes, it's LIBEL
Apparently it's foolish libel, but libel all the same.
Are you agnostic about whether you exist in OOU (i.e., Our Observable/inferable Universe)?
Are you agnostic about whether OOU exists?
Are you agnostic about whether humans evolved in OOU?
Are you agnostic about whether stuff in OOU granted our rights to us, either because we were endowed the grant or demanded the grant?
Or, are you revealing a paranoid reaction to the word "God", regardless of context?
I cannot believe you are agnostic about any of those things.
Cephus wrote: The biggest problem is that there is no possible real world test for these so-called inherent rights. You can claim that an invisible, intangible gnome lives on your shoulder, but if there is no way to demonstrate that it's real, then for all intents and purposes, why should anyone think that it does? A claim which cannot be demonstrated, logically, objectively or functionally, is no different than no claim at all.
So you are ambivalent whether or not the nazis and the communists committed evil when they murdered millions of human beings. Right
truth
While I am usually in agreement with Cephus, I cannot completely accept his statement that "A claim which cannot be demonstrated, logically, objectively or functionally, is no different than no claim at all." My problem with the statement is that ignores value claims, claims which need no demonstration; they are expressions of an individual's sense of value, perhaps ideals. My only problem with ideals is that they tend to become confused with facts--and I suspect Ican's opponents are accusing him of that. Ideals are powerful motivational forces; it's wonderful, in my judgement to live according to one's ideals (maybe even to die for them), but it's horrible to kill and oppress in their name. I'm not in the least ambivalent about condemning the atrocities of Nazism and Stalinist communism, Ican, but I know that I do so because they conflict with MY values, not those of the Cosmos. I believe the Cosmos is quite neutral about such matters on earth. It's beyond good and evil which is purely a human matter. This is, of course, a humanist perspective which is not without problems, But it's the least problematical in my judgement.
An ideal, it seems to me, is an ideal. A claim is a claim. A fact is a fact. Are we talking about whether values are inherent?
ican711nm wrote:Frank Apisa wrote:You are saying that you cannot define GOD -- so you are going to define GOD as the universe (or OOU) -- and you are then saying that your GOD (OOU) has endowed us with intrinsic and inherent rights.
Can't have it both ways, Ican.
I'm not libel. ...
Yes, I can
Yes, it's LIBEL
Apparently it's foolish libel, but libel all the same.
Are you agnostic about whether you exist in OOU (i.e., Our Observable/inferable Universe)?
Are you agnostic about whether OOU exists?
Are you agnostic about whether humans evolved in OOU?
Are you agnostic about whether stuff in OOU granted our rights to us, either because we were endowed the grant or demanded the grant?
Or, are you revealing a paranoid reaction to the word "God", regardless of context?
I cannot believe you are agnostic about any of those things.
Well, Ican, that is the problem with "believing" things. You can be wrong. And in this case, you are.
And you are being a bit laughable when you say you are defining GOD as OOU -- and saying that OOU has "endowed" us with inherent and intrinsic rights -- then denying that you have a god endowing us with those rights.
You usually are a bit more logical.
Cephus wrote: I have no obligation to prove you wrong, you must demonstrate that you are right.
So you are another one of those folks who thinks their only obligation is to say the other guy is wrong, but otherwise offer little reason to believe that they themselves are right in saying the other guy is wrong.
You too then, cower behind the pervasive myth that one can't provide evidence that a negative is true.
Ok, I'll leave you with a few of my negatives about you.
You do not know how to be an honorable person.
You do not know what you are writing about.
You do not know how to logically reason from facts.
You do not know the difference between possessing a right and securing a right.
You do not know what a right is.
You do not know what a wrong is.
You don't know what evil is.
It is of course up to you to prove you do know these things; it's not up to me to prove you do not, since you claim "one can't prove a negative".
truth
Tartarin, I was referring to value claims, the kind of assertion that something is good/bad or better/worse than something else. I mean this not as claims about the objective relative value of things but of subjective evaluations between things. These can be claims which need no objective justification. Indeed, they can't be objectively justified, but that doesn't detract from their power. Pardon the non-sequitur, but, similarly, symbols are less substantial (more open to multiple interpretations) than signs, but they have more power. As an artist you appreciate that. The same applies to the power of values and ideals.
dlowan wrote:
Good grief, ... of course I do not believe that Hitler was justified!
I do not believe he was justified on ethical grounds - not legal grounds.
...
they violate international treaties we have signed - however, they are LEGAL - just immoral.
...
Why on earth do you, and others, seem to believe that denying that we have absolute, inherent, intrinsic rights means that I deny that, by the reasonable and profoundly supportable agreements by which humans form societies and become civilized, that we come to agree that society affords people rights which ought never to be alienated?
Morally, I would agrgue that such "rights" be extended - as they gradually are being - and that more and more countries recognize them.
What are your ethical grounds?
What do you mean "immoral"?
What do you mean "morally"?
Ican -- You assert many things about Cephus, without giving evidence. In a court of law, Cephus wouldn't even have to appear, much less "prove" he's/she's not guilty of these things. Doesn't work that way. First you have to present evidence -- before you'll even get a hearing. Each of your "accusations" should be followed by at least a sentence or two of "evidence" taken from what Cephus has written.
Cephus has a point -- you're the one making all the claims.
JL Nobody -- Having power doesn't mean something is right. Bush having power doesn't make his actions or beliefs right. Ican claiming inherent rights doesn't mean he has inherent rights.
"If self-awareness is the source of inherent rights, then many of the predecessors of H. sapiens and apes may well be included in the class. We keep apes in cages, use them in experiments and kill them for bush meat. But we keep people in cages too and kill them in wars, so it seems that "inherent" rights mean nothing in practice."
And in discussing my remarks about intelligence" being rights basis, Terry follows up with:
"If intelligence is the source of our rights, then babies and people who are severely retarded or have reduced brain function due to disease or injury have no inherent rights. Unwanted babies are still allowed to die of exposure/neglect in some cultures, and people without money may be denied medical treatment. So what makes you think that a right to life is inherent?"
And following Terry's remarks are Thomas's reiterating my earlier comments on the biological basis for the rights as a direct premise for them..
"As it happens, I think it makes perfect sense to say that we were "endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights" -- when you take the statement with the appropriate amount of poetic license! Our creator -- Darwinian evolution -- has selected our genes for (among other things) respecting our peers' natural rights. So there's a reasonably real sense in which we've been endowed with these rights millions of years before we could talk about them and write them down into laws."
As his approximation that these are known and articulated in recent human experience only by social factors, in particular the one I mentioned specifically, i.e. language.
Mixed in with these are the comments of JL Nobody's, who brings up again what I stated long ago about the use by the "endowed rights" by Deity side with his mention that:
"As I see Ican's situation, he has permitted himself to be drawn into a losing situation, trying to prove the intrinsic nature of rights. His proclamation is an essentially poetic one. It is from such poetic utterances that cultures have progressed--and regressed, of course."
When I stated that this side of the argument uses cultural artifacts of a poetic nature to assess rights:
"In this discussion the two paths that lead to asserting "human rights" are the religious and the non-religious.
"Icam espouses the first way, frankapisa, the second way.
"In the former argument, the use of lyrical and mythological imagery and social convention are the predicating factors to declare that "human rights" are inherent, albeit derived from a "higher power."
"In the latter argument, the first two items (which are based upon a higher power as defined by the imagery in the religiously based argument), are discarded, and what remains is a combination of social convention and that part of a human being, which is not entirely shaped by socialization and convention."
But what comes from all this is an admission that society uses a value system to assess rights.
If we look at the Biblical tradition, then only men, specifically Hebrew men had the prerequisite set of properties which had sufficient value in the culture to be seen as deserving of full rights. Women, non-Hebrews, and slaves did not.
In other cultures:
The antebellum American South, only white men, and neither women nor blacks had the "inherent" and necessary properties of value to be seen as worthy of full rights.
In Hitler's Third Reich, the true Aryan had full rights, but the Jew, gypsy, mentally retarded or handicapped did not.
For each of these, there was a series of properties found (or recognized, or acknowledged) in a particular sub set of entities, which were granted full rights that the other entities in the society did not have and resulted in restricted rights.
Looking at the entire membership of the society as a super set, the sub-sets of entities are each recognized as having a particular series of properties, but only those with a larger number or more valuable (to the society) series of properties had rights.
In the antebellum South:
White men had as a set of properties, (w,x,y,z)
White Women had as a set of properties (x,y,z)
And black men and women (y,z)
And today:
As Terry mentions, humans deny rights to other animals which are granted humans,
so the set of properties with
Humans, healthy, conscious, intelligent, adult (v,w,x,y,z)
Humans, young, infant, fetus, dumb, retarded, or incapable of self-reliance (w,x,y,z)
Apes (x,y,z)
Dogs (y,z)
Fish (z)
It's clear that as a society becomes more inclusive, derivative rights increase with decreasing the requirements for particular properties inherent in the sub sets to be of value.
Then the articulation by the society of rights depends on at least some identification of what is important to the culture and society.
Since the general, historical impetus is for identification of some fundamental commonalities amongst the properties of sub-sets of the super set of entities found in the system, what besides, sentience (or as I stated, its inherent potential) is fundamental to the sub-sets in human society?
If we look at the discussion this way, agreements can be made on fundamental premises from which the more superficial arguments that flow from societal tensions between the different entities can be debated more clearly.
I am looking here for someone to tell me not what it is upon which you disagree but that upon which you agree.
It's the only way to start a basis for negotiation.
truth
Tartarin, I'm sorry that my "non-sequitur" comment clouded the meaning of my statement. I guess "effectiveness" or "potency" would have been better than "power" with its connotation of political force.
ican711nm wrote:So you are ambivalent whether or not the nazis and the communists committed evil when they murdered millions of human beings. Right
I don't know, did the Crusades commit evil? Did God commit evil in the Old Testament? Evil is a value judgement, often determined after the fact by the victors in a particular conflict. Morality, like history, is often colored by the particular state in which you live.
Now if you're asking me if I, personally, think the Nazis did evil, yes I do. Do the Nazis think they did? I doubt it. Do you think Martin Luther was evil? He held the same views as the Nazis in most regards.
Re: truth
JLNobody wrote:While I am usually in agreement with Cephus, I cannot completely accept his statement that "A claim which cannot be demonstrated, logically, objectively or functionally, is no different than no claim at all." My problem with the statement is that ignores value claims, claims which need no demonstration; they are expressions of an individual's sense of value, perhaps ideals.
A value judgement is a personal determination of worth. It has little or no weight outside of the individual. Natural law is little more than a personal value judgement, but Ican is demanding that his value judgements are objectively true for everyone, not just himself.
There is a big difference between "I believe" and "What I believe is true". The first is a statement of faith. The second is a statement of fact and must be demonstrated. Again, a claim, such as Ican's, which cannot be demonstrated, logically, objectively or functionally, is no different than no claim at all. His claim about natural rights is no different than Chicken Little's claim that the sky is falling until he backs it up.
ican711nm wrote:Cephus wrote: I have no obligation to prove you wrong, you must demonstrate that you are right.
So you are another one of those folks who thinks their only obligation is to say the other guy is wrong, but otherwise offer little reason to believe that they themselves are right in saying the other guy is wrong.
Actually, you are one of those poor folks who are utterly ignorant of proper debate form and requirements. I'm sure you can do a Google search and find a couple good sites on basic logic and suggest you do so, for at the moment, you're little more than a laughing stock.
The basic problem with your ludicrous claim is that it's not falsifiable. There is no way to prove it wrong because every time someone does, you simply move the goalposts.
Natural law exists. No evidence to support it does, however. The fact that it has no real world application is a problem. The fact that your so-called natural rights can be taken away is a problem. What you're really doing is saying "Joe has a $5 bill. Even if you take away his $5 bill, he still has it. Even if you change the definition so that it refers to something else, he still has his $5 bill. No matter what you do, he'll have that bill because it's inherently his."
Something tells me you need a bit of an education in rational thinking.
Quote:You too then, cower behind the pervasive myth that one can't provide evidence that a negative is true.
When you're talking about a universal negative, that's true. Prove that there are no unicorns. We'll wait.
*immature personal attacks deleted*
Well, I see you've learned what an ad hominem attack is. Keep going, you're well on your way to using each and every one of the classic logical fallacies, truly the mark of someone who has lost the debate before it's begun.
JL -- I thought about your reference to being an artist and though I'm not completely clear about your point, it seems to me that an artist, dealing with getting an idea onto canvas (to put it generally), thinks about myriad possible representations of that idea. If the artist's idea relates to something actual (that bowl on that table), his ability to see many things about the bowl on the table doesn't change the actuality of the bowl on the table.
There are many possibilities for "seeing" how we (humans) exist on what we call earth, what our relationship to it, to others, can be. One can be struck by the potency of a particular view of oneself but (unless one is very limited or quite mad) one knows that's only one view of oneself.
I have done a series of paintings in which one common small object is enlarged and made to dominate things which are normally much larger. I know two things (let's say): That the very literal, edible-looking bosc pear is not, in life, larger than the door it stands near; but that the bosc pear can have an impact on/ meaning for the viewer which (if for only a moment) is the equivalent of taking up all the space in the room.
My feeling about Ican is that he/she has fallen for the idea that he ACTUALLY takes up all the space in the room and now denies hotly that, in reality, the table and door are larger. And is now casting about for a logical defense of this view of self. But the logic has to be stated in a common language -- and that hasn't been achieved.
Tartarin wrote: In a court of law, Cephus wouldn't even have to appear, much less "prove" he's/she's not guilty of these things. Doesn't work that way. First you have to present evidence -- before you'll even get a hearing. Each of your "accusations" should be followed by at least a sentence or two of "evidence" taken from what Cephus has written.
Cephus has a point -- you're the one making all the claims.
I don't recall accusing Cephus of anything: no crime; no violation of contract; no damage done to others. So the <court of law> metaphor is irrelevant.
I claim only that he is as much responsible for providing reason to believe his claims as I am mine.
I claim that values preceed rights which preceed law. Values are not adjustable (abridgeable) according to polls or other voting techniques. They certainly are not determined by government, because government is the practice of values: no values, no government. The rights implied by values are not subject to some voting technique either. They are derived from values by logic.
Human values imply human rights, which then imply human techniques for securing those rights. Too many nitpick about the consequences of the phrase <inalienable rights>. For me, it means nothing more than the obvious: while I'm alive, no one but me can forfeit my rights: they are in effect intrinsic and inherent in the will of my being. Yes, technically that violates the current definition of "inalienable" (i.e., incapable of being surrendered or transferred), but until a more apt adjective is offered I'll stick with "inalienable".
Cephus wrote: Natural law exists. No evidence to support it does, however. The fact that it has no real world application is a problem. The fact that your so-called natural rights can be taken away is a problem.
Please define <natural law> and <natural rights>. I don't recall using these terms explicitly or implicitly.
Cephus wrote: What you're really doing is saying "Joe has a $5 bill. Even if you take away his $5 bill, he still has it. No matter what you do, he'll have that bill because it's inherently his.
Wrong again. What I am really saying is "Joe has a $5 bill. Even if Cephus takes away his $5 bill, Joe still has a right to it. While he doesn't still physically have it, he nonetheless has a right to it.
So he calls the cops, if Cephus takes his $5. The cops may or may not recover Joe's $5 from Cephus. If they do, then we can correctly observe:
Not only does Joe have a right to his $5, he has a lawful right to the cops securing it for him, and Joe thereby physically holds it. Wonderful!
