This question has sparked debates across cultures and eras. Is personal freedom the cornerstone of a flourishing society, or does the well-being of the group take precedence? Share your thoughts on the balance between individual rights and collective responsibilities.
Which is more important, the front or the back of your hand?
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A collection is just the totality of individuals. The distinction is usually only put forward by “individualists” when they want to justify giving extra privileges to some individuals at the expense of the rest. If we advocate for public housing or health care, or public ownership of enterprises, things which give more power to the overwhelming majority of individuals, it is only in those kinds of situations that you see people bring up the “individual vs collective” distinction to argue against that.
The distinction really makes no logical sense to describe oneself as an “individualist” yet oppose what is best for the overwhelming majority of individuals. So-called “individualism” is always manifestly anti-individualist in general, but rather it is pro-specific individuals, like oligarchs and landlords, at the expense of everyone else. “You will own nothing and be happy.” If you disagree with that motto, then you will be called a “collectivist” for questioning the “individual rights” of the tiny few who own everything.
What kind of “personal freedom” does a man possess who owns nothing?
It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment. Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.
It makes perfect sense. The idea is that the individual has some level of autonomy, freedom, or rights that can’t be overridden for the mere “pleasure” of the group (or other individuals).
So when the group demands something from the individual, it’s not “pro-specific individual,” it’s pro-individual rights. They consider that the group demands aren’t part of the autonomy, freedom, or rights of the individuals of the group or the group itself.
I am obviously talking about relevant cases here; it could be that the demand is part of their rights. If the group demands that the individual does not kill them, for example. But in this kind of situation, it is a demand that each individual of the group could make separately, so there is nothing about the group itself that allows it to make these kinds of demands.
I guess collectivists would think that sometimes the individuals separately wouldn’t be allowed to make some demands, but if they form a group, they get special rights or something like that, but I am not sure.
Framing the issue as sacrificing “individual rights” for a group’s “pleasure” is quite vague. The way “pleasure” is being used seems designed to evoke an extreme scenario, such as a majority forcing a small number of people into something like a Colosseum style spectacle against their will.
But examples like that do not reflect the interests of most people. The vast majority would not want to live with the fear that they themselves could be the ones subjected to such treatment. In that sense, what are called “individual rights” here are better understood as collective protections, since everyone shares in the guarantee that they will not be mistreated.
Are you seriously, unironically going to argue that it would be better for you, as an individual, if the right of bodily autonomy was thrown out? Because that is effectively what you are arguing. If it is not better for you, then it is not better for your neighbor, it is not better for your neighbor’s neighbor. It is not better for anyone except a small handful of oligarchs who can be assured they would never be at the receiving end of it.
At the same time, these clearly collective protections do not imply that individuals should have the right to mistreat others. Nor do they justify the idea that some people ought to have vastly greater control over others’ lives or over society as a whole without merit or without meaningful input from the broader population.
It’s to evoke something you aren’t entitled to and I can try to clarify it.
You are entitled to not get killed (usually) because you have a right to life. You are not entitled to your neighbor’s money, for example. Demanding your neighbor’s money would be for your mere “pleasure”, but demanding to not get killed wouldn’t.
I admit it’s perhaps not the best word here.
Am I? Why do you think I am arguing that?
I don’t think individualists would disagree with that.
Well, then, you are arguing with something that doesn’t exist on planet earth. Nobody believes you have the right to just harm your neighbor or rob them of their money for your own mere pleasure.
Can you actually give an example of something which you think people are advocating for which you disagree with?
Well, take your public housing for example. Many individualists would probably believe different things, but the gist of it is that the individualist would agree that people being able to have a place to live is great. But they will object to forcefully taking money from the individual to fund this public housing.
If the money is theirs, then forcefully taking it is a violation of the individual’s right. The group is demanding the money for mere “pleasure” because the group isn’t entitled to the money.
Why don’t individuals have the right to other people’s money? How can you speak of morality without asking about others (as in, “do unto others…”).
Under what system is morality optional? They come to some as literal commandments.
If we acknowledge a right to individual property and a duty not to steal from our community, aren’t both getting consideration.
Because that’s what the concept of ownership means, at least as I understand it. “Owning” refers to the exclusive right to control something. So if A owns X, then A is the only one (morally) allowed to decide how X is used.
I don’t know why you think I am saying that morality is optional. I probably don’t understand what you mean by morality here.
I feel like by “duty not to steal from our community” you are referring to some duty that the individual has towards the community of giving some of their property. The individualist would give less consideration to that compared to the individual property right, in general.
I personally don’t think there is such a duty at all.
In order to determine which of these entities one ought to value, one could do a simple accounting or inventory. Affix a label upon every entity either word can refer to and determine the value according to any property of your choosing, like weight or number or gravitational pull. The differences will be infinite. But you won’t even need to do that because you’ll find that one label cannot be affixed to anything at all, has no properties, and has no referent beyond the label-writer’s skull.
The terms are empty, no doubt, but can still be used to further rather personal ends. For instance, St. Paul or someone tried to convince his followers that The Body of Christ was an actual body, with Christians its many appendages. They naturally made the most of it. At any rate, it’s a poor metaphysics in my opinin, the political version of the problem of universals.
When these terms are not used for simple ease of language and thinking, but purport to refer to flesh-and-blood human beings, they turn out to be just the noun-phrases some individuals use to justify certain beliefs and actions of their own devising. That’s why I find it impossible to invest collectivism’s principles with any moral value.
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Property does not give anyone a “right” to control anything other than other people. Anyone who owns a dog knows that he may or may not be able to control the dog, or the car (which might break down) or the house (whose roof might leak). Instead, properly defined, property allows one person to control other people visa vis the “property”. That’s all it does, and all it can do.
Irrelevant, right to control \neq ability to control.
Sure, it does that too if you want. If saying “you aren’t allowed to kill me” is controlling the other person, then yes you are also controlling other people with property just like any other right.
The difference is that everyone knows that the “right to life or liberty” imposes an obligation on other people. Property rights are sometimes misdefined as a relationship between an individual and an inanimate (or non-human) object.
“Rights” and “obligations” are flip sides of the same coin.
I am not sure why the obligation on other people would exclude the concept from referring to a relationship between individuals and objects too, and I don’t know who ignores the obligation side of things so rest assured there is no issue.
The proprietary “relationship” between a person and an inanimate object has no effect on the inanimate object whatsoever. So it’s not much of a “relationship”.
That looks like a silly definition of the word “relationship”, but whatever; I am not even the one using the word.
What ought to be has no effect on what is; that’s true for all of ethics.
When you advocate for “public” power, you’re advocating for state power, not “things which give more power to the overwhelming majority of individuals”.
Individualism pertains to all individuals, all people, none excluded, while you have already excluded the individuals you do not like. That’s the effectual difference between individualism and collectivism in a political context.
Money doesn’t matter. It is just a symbol. What matters is control over production, which is how wealth is actually created, through the production process. The issue is not people having money, the issue is unelected oligarchs who control society at the barrel of a gun.
You are trying to paint it as if we didn’t have an oligarchy, that’s equivalent to me coming up to your house and robbing you blind of your hard-earned cash. People would not need your hard-earned cash if socioeconomic power was better shared to begin with through a democratic system.
When you advocate for private power, you are advocating for state power, not “things which give more power to individuals.” Private enteprises are obviously part of the state. They are a legal designation by the state and protected by force by the state, and the state responds to the oligarchs of industry more than they do regular people. If the police side with you in a conflict then you are on the side of the state. Who do you think incorporates corporations?