ARE WE ENDOWED WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS?

I have to start by expressing my initial reaction to your post, which is: I really cannot understand how you feel this information constitutes PROOF that our rights are inherent and derived by endowment from nature or a god.

I do not think the information given comes even close to doing that, but since you have presented it with a straight face, so to speak, I will at least attempt to share my concerns with it.

You say:

Quote:

Rights are justified claims to the protection of persons' important interests. Each right has two components: the rightholder's claim or interest, and the duty of others to forbear from interfering with that claim or interest.

I would argue that "rights" are much more than that -- and at the same time, much, much less than that.

Suppose you have a neighbor who has annoyed you -- and who appears to you to be dangerous -- a person whom you assume may one day do you harm. Using your definition of "right", you can assert a "claim" (I'll let you talk about whether it is justified or not) that in order to protect your "important interests" (your peace of mind) that person has to be removed as a potential threat -- and that you therefore have a "right" to shackle him or kill him.

Do you assert that you have that right?

Do you assert that your neighbor has an obligation to forbear from interfering with your claim in that instance?

Do you assert that society (the law) must forbear from interfering with your claim in that instance?

Supposing that the positions were reversed and your neighbor were in fear of you -- would you feel an obligatin to forbear from interfering with his claim that you are a threat to his important interests -- and he therefore has to kill you?

Frank Apisa wrote:

You say:

Quote:

Rights are justified claims to the protection of persons' important interests. Each right has two components: the rightholder's claim or interest, and the duty of others to forbear from interfering with that claim or interest.

I would argue that "rights" are much more than that -- and at the same time, much, much less than that.

Maybe you'd like to offer your own definition?

Frank Apisa wrote:

Suppose you have a neighbor who has annoyed you -- and who appears to you to be dangerous -- a person whom you assume may one day do you harm. Using your definition of "right", you can assert a "claim" (I'll let you talk about whether it is justified or not) that in order to protect your "important interests" (your peace of mind) that person has to be removed as a potential threat -- and that you therefore have a "right" to shackle him or kill him.

I will presume that this is all taking place in the state of nature, correct?

Frank Apisa wrote:

Do you assert that you have that right?

You need to be a little clearer. When you say "that right" do you mean my right to be free from annoyance or my right to respond by killing my tormenter?

Frank Apisa wrote:

Do you assert that your neighbor has an obligation to forbear from interfering with your claim in that instance?

Again, I don't want to risk answering the wrong question here. When you say "claim" are you referring to my claim to be free from annoyance or my claim that I may kill my tormenter without interference?

Frank Apisa wrote:

Do you assert that society (the law) must forbear from interfering with your claim in that instance?

Same question as previous.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Supposing that the positions were reversed and your neighbor were in fear of you -- would you feel an obligatin to forbear from interfering with his claim that you are a threat to his important interests -- and he therefore has to kill you?

This is very confusing. An obligation to forebear from interfering with his peace and quiet, or an obligation to respect his right to kill me? You'll have to make this clearer.

I'm not being intentionally difficult here, Frank, but we need to have some clarity in our terms before we can ever hope to discuss this in an intelligent manner.

Let me try to help you out here. If I have a right to "peace of mind," then everyone else has an obligation to refrain from interfering with that right. If I feel that somebody might be a threat (as in your first hypothetical), I can take whatever steps are justified to insure that my right is protected within the limits of my rights.

I cannot, however, punish someone (assuming this is in a state of nature and I have not ceded my right to punish to the state) for what they might do, since the person who is a potential threat has neither violated my right (or, more specifically, infringed upon my claim) nor violated his obligation to refrain from infringing on my rights.

There is, in other words, no right to engage in pre-emptive strikes to preserve rights. In the state of nature, I have a right to protect my rights from actual infringement and I have a right to punish those who have infringed those rights. I cannot, however, justifiably punish someone in advance on the assumption that an infringement will likely occur. Such a pre-emptive strike would, itself, be an infringement of that person's rights.

No, that's quite sufficient. In fact, your definition relieves me of any need to respond to the other points you raised in your post. You attempt to prove that rights are societal in nature. If "a right is anything granted by society," then rights are, by your definition, societal in nature. In other words, you assume that which you attempt to prove. This is a classic petitio principii, i.e. begging the question. Your position rests on a logical fallacy. It is, therefore, meaningless: there is no need to examine it further.

There was an agreement to wear clothes? I must have missed that.

[t is in the nature of a deductive proof. For example:
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

That's a deductive proof (in the form of a syllogism) of the fact that Socrates is mortal. Were you looking for something like an inductive proof of inherent rights? Because I don't think such a thing is possible without engaging in some sort of circular argument (I won't mention that it might be begging the question).

The societal arguments would only be the begging question fallacy if we depended only on our definition of rights being societal to assert that rights are societal.

We have not done so once. And frankly I am sick of people learning a list of logical fallacies and applying them to their every opponent in an argument. There is actually a criteria for them and it's not a rhetorical tool. Joe is using it in the sense that he thinks it's a good tool in debate, not because he understands and correctly applies them.

Your argument is inherently circular. You've claimed that all men want to live. I've pointed out that you're wrong, not all men want to live. There are quite a few who, through direct or indirect action indicate that they don't want to live. That's where your argument falls apart. At best, you can claim that men who wish to live have a stake in living and thus want the right to life. People who are out to kill themselves or are otherwise self-destructive certainly don't demonstrate that desire. As it is irrational to say that because SOME men want the right to life, *ALL* men must, by definition, inherently have it, natural rights, at least using your model, must be discarded logically.

Rights are those freedoms of action and activity that are codified by governments or societies either by expressedly granting the freedoms or by placing restrictions on the government's right to legislate against a class of actions or activities.

Joe, I don't pretend that this is a finished definition -- but it might be a start.

The difficulty, as I see it, is that this definition recognizes that the "right" is not really a right until it is secured. And of course, that goes against the grain of the argument you have been presenting.

And perhaps that is at the nub of our disagreement. Your perspective sees rights as some idealized concept -- where my perspective sees rights as tangible items.

No! It is taking place in the state of New Jersey. :wink:

Neither. I mean the right "to protect your important interests."

Do you assert that your neighbor has an obligation to forbear from interfering with your claim in that instance?

Do you assert that society (the law) must forbear from interfering with your claim in that instance?

Supposing that the positions were reversed and your neighbor were in fear of you -- would you feel an obligatin to forbear from interfering with his claim that you are a threat to his important interests -- and he therefore has to kill you?

I never for a moment suspect that you are being intentionally difficult. I think we are embarked on one of those philosophical discussions that has no answer -- and we (at least I am) should enjoy the back and forth/give and take.

How is your right "to protect your important interests" -- limited? Who or what limits it?

I stayed away from the notion of punishment completely and intentionally. Nothing I said in my hypothetical went to the question of punishment. It was all directed toward your supposed right (per your definition of rights) to protect your important interests.

Is that interest a characteristic of that person's nature?
Or,
Is that interest a characteristic of that person's society?

If it be characteristic of that person's nature, is that interest intrinsic/inherent to that person, or is it intrinsic/inherent to that person's society?

If it be characteristic of that person's society is that interest intrinsic/inherent to society, or is it intrinsic/inherent to persons?

If that interest not be intrinsic/inherent to either the person or the person's society, then is it intrinsic/inherent to anything else?

If that interest is intrinsic/inherent to either the person or the person's society, then is it an intrinsic/inherent characteristic?

I participate in these kinds of message boards strictly for my own benefit: I find that engaging in intellectual discussions tends to hone my intellectual skills, focus my thoughts, and define my philosophic positions. I certainly don't do it for anyone else's benefit -- although if anyone gets something from my posts, well, so much the better.

It is clear, though, that not only am I not helping anyone else, I'm not even helping myself. Trying to engage in a discussion, grounded in deductive reasoning, with people who can't even grasp the simplest notions of logic, is tiresome and uninteresting. More importantly, I don't get anything out of it that could ever compensate me for the frustration I've experienced and the time I've wasted.

I owe Frank a response, and then I'll be done with this thread. I suppose the only thing left for me to do, then, is to issue the standard conclusion used by others here: "you're wrong, I'm right, you're a chicken, I win."

ican711nm wrote:

If that interest is intrinsic/inherent to either the person or the person's society, then is it an intrinsic/inherent characteristic?

I think so. In this we appear to have some common ground.

This may be where the two camps meet for a beer. I have no qualm with the attempt to portray the interest in certain rights (especially those related to survival) as inherent, intristic or what have you. I do believe that the rights only exist once those inherent desires (plus a few others thrown into the mix) are put to a quorum (determined entirely by power in the society) and codified or recognized as rights.

Will you cede that while this foundation is intristic the rights themseves are not? That they are a contructed manifestation of intristic elements of human nature?

Kewl, not much more to discuss then though. I haven't follwed your next step in regard to domestic US politics.

Kewl, not much more to discuss then though. I haven't follwed your next step in regard to domestic US politics.

Craven de Kere wrote:

Kewl, not much more to discuss then though. I haven't follwed your next step in regard to domestic US politics.

What follows is a status report of my forum: DOES OUR GOVERNMENT ... ?

Strangely, no one participating in this forum, thus far, has provided any argument whatsoever that refutes my argument that it is illegal for the federal government to transfer money from one group and give it to another.

Strangely, no one participating in this forum, thus far, has provided any argument whatsoever that refutes my argument that it is illegal for the federal government to tax individual dollars of income/revenue differently according to the circumstances in which they were received.

I think I'll collect my arguments into a contiguous set of sequential posts to make it easier to find all its parts.

Y'all are invited to scrutinize my arguments and come up with your own counter (or supplementary) arguments.