OK. Name the rights we are talking about.
Please.
Well, I just told you that the streetcorners are filled with prophets who can find it with great certainty. Anyone can claim that they have found the Cosmic Right. Usually the loudest among us.
How about you? Do you know what is cosmically right?
I am happy to answer any question. You only have to ask.
You’ve just told me that I’m not even talking about the right rights, so I don’t know if I believe in your concept of rights or if I don’t. Can you tell me what you mean by the word ‘rights’?
Beats me. Depends on what you mean by real. It could certainly be a hallucination, couldn’t it?
We are talking about moral rights, ought statements. John Locke was talking about natural rights to be more precise.
Moral rights require a God to judge them.
So you believe in this God? Can you tell me which person here on earth speaks for Him and can tell us whether a thing is morally right or morally wrong?
I’ve been searching for the guy.
Heck, I’d be happy to find the guy who judges what’s a natural right and what isn’t. I have a question for them. It concerns Vikings and English churchmen.
Why? What’s the reasoning?
If not God, then who?
That is the question which seems to make you a bit uncomfortable.
1 Like
Sets of parameters set by communal convention. I still say they are contingent (because they bloody well are contingent. The conditions for rights must be maintained for the rights to perdure. As they, in fact, do. Change in circumstance will generally mean change in rights - we’ve seen this in my lifetime, although I fail to see any major changes, tbf). Best I can tell @Banno likes to police words he finds unhelpful. But that says nothing about hte arguments being made. I also his completed unneeded cultural dig was something we can perhaps read a lot from.
Rights are merely the counter to your responsibilities as a citizen. Basically, its an enforced “do unto others” using a best approximation across a population.
This runs into it’s own problem:
What the heck is a “natural right?” Where from does this derive? Literally nowhere. They don’t actually exist.
A right must be enforceable. Removing a government does not ensure a right’s enforcement. So there’ s a big problem with this take - which relies on rights being prior to authority. Something I don’t think can actually be coherently argued.
1 Like
Why do we need a “who”? Who judges that “The Earth is flat” is a false statement? Who judges that a particular mathematical statement is true?
Some statements are true or false. There is no judge needed for anything.
uncomfortable? Speak for yourself
Well just like the other guy, you might want to see what John Locke was talking about. That is not what rights are.
Right. The aliens saw it was true that the Earthlings needed to be exterminated.
The slavers saw it was true that other races should be enslaved.
Why is everyone saying true and false have to be judged??
Let’s all just go about observing what is true. What is the point of arguing about it when it can just be observed?
It’s tedious and unnecessary, all this moral pearl clutching.
Would it make you uncomfortable if I asked you to write us 200 words on exactly what rights are? I would sure like to read it and understand where you’re coming from.
It is tiring. Look at AmadeusD; he’s direct.
See? Didn’t need ten business days to be able to explain his position clearly; nobody even asked him.
What is complicated when I say that the question of whether those moral statements have truth-value is independent of the question of whether humans can assess (empirically or otherwise) the truth-value of those statements?
There are incorporeal ghosts in my attic. I can’t see or hear them. They don’t have a smell. It is impossible to discern them in any way.
But there are ghosts in my attic. Sometimes I look in the attic at them, in order to determine what is true. You know, whenever I have a big decision.
Some people ask me how I can tell what’s true just by looking into an apparently empty attic, but I think they just don’t understand. It is like they don’t believe in true and false or something.
But there are definitely ghosts in my attic. I call them my Cosmic Truth Squad. Life wouldn’t make sense without them.
Absolutely. I’m not arguing for the concept of Rights to be abandoned, I’m rather pointing out the need to ground the concept. And Rights require moral grounding imo, because that’s the relevant realm.
Once you’ve established what your moral foundation is (classical approaches being eg deontology, virtue ethics, categorical imperative - or whatever), then you can establish what Rights might be applicable within that moral framework.
Where-as picking a putative Right out of the blue without such a framework, such as land ownership, is difficult to justify or evaluate because it’s putting the cart before the horse.
So in your scenario we can evaluate how Locke justifies his Law of Property, as some kind of Natural Law that is imbued by God or somesuch.
And see if this moral grounding holds up in a situation where the newcomer family could suffer and starve as a result.
And if we were to say No the landowner doesn’t have the moral Right to withhold necessary resources from the new family, we’d need to offer a different moral grounding. You offer the principle of fairness in your scenario.
But ultimately there’s no objective test to say which moral grounding is ‘genuine’ imo. Because moral ‘Oughts’ can’t be derived in the same way as objective ‘Is’ facts.
So to frame the question as to which is a ‘‘genuine’’ Right - one based on Locke’s Natural Law or a Right based on the principle of Fairness - first you have to question what ‘‘genuine’’ means here. And I think you’ll struggle to justify it.
Are you going to share or argue for this claim? -
Are you sure?
How could a single person know EVERY thing?
I remain skeptical about your claim that a single prophet can know everything.
Only if and when someone asks me to.
You’re welcome to ask me these questions elsewhere.
This thread is trying to talk about (property) rights.
1 Like
Thanks Gertie.
You make some very interesting points about the variety of approaches people may take to the question.
I don’t entirely agree though that this prevents you answering the question. We ought to be able to discuss political philosophy without reducing it to ethics.
My question isn’t really whether Locke is right or wrong. The question is whether if we agree with Locke that we need to leave “enough, and as good” for others” that means that there is no ansolute right to property.
Many people think that property rights are permanent and exclusive.
How does one universal right show itself?