The fetishization of "Freedom."

reply to post by Maslo

Yes it is. You seemed to imply that the idea of negative rights cannot be used to justify bad things (and conversely, that the idea of positive rights can only be used to justify bad things).

I made no such implication, you disingenuously inferred it. The disingenuousness lies in the fact that I stated there is nothing inherently wrong in civil rights ("positive rights"), but that once these legal rights are used to trample over unalienable rights there is something wrong in that. I certainly never even came close to implying that unalienable rights mean that people have the right to let others starve, this was your strawman.

Both can be used to justify good and evil alike.

Unalienable rights can never be used to justify evil! I have all ready stated that outside of defense, unalienable rights are those actions that cause no harm. If an action is causing no harm, how is this a justification for evil?

The idea of inalienable rights is indeed a social construct based on natural law moral theory (and morality is subjective). There is nothing in nature telling us that some abilities (thats what rights are subset of) should be inalienable (notice normative, not descriptive sentence - hence cannot be derived from nature, because of the is-ought (naturalistic) fallacy).

What are you saying? Are you saying that before "the idea of inalienable rights", created through social construct, existed that people did not have the right to life? Are you suggesting that before this so called "social construct" of the right to speech, that people did not have the right to speech? Is this your idea of a logical argument?

The newborn infant does not check with any constitution or attorney before wailing. That newborn infant understands inherently it has the right to wail. Under your argument, without any "social construct" in place to secure that infants right to wail, that infant would be an "outlaw". This is your idea of logic, isn't it?

Originally posted by blueorder
reply to post by ANOK

 

ahhh, but we haven't had "TRUE" capitalism

Ahhh but yes we do.

Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. A system whereby individuals, or groups, use their capital to make profit by hiring labour and taking the access production, surplus value after 'wages', as their profit and investing that profit to make more profit. That is it, there are no rules other than those imposed on them by the state.

Capitalism can be totalitarian, it all depends on the state. There is no guarantee of freedom for none-capitalists.
The myth is that we can all be capitalists, which is impossible.

Originally posted by blueorder
reply to post by ANOK

 

ahhh, but we haven't had "TRUE" capitalism

True communism not tried yet, true captialism not tried yet...what a bunch of slackers we homo sapiens are. We talk a good game but when it comes time to walk the walk... I guess we'll get around to it when the cheetohs and bluefin tuna run out.

So then, what exactly has man been up to for the last 150 or so years, anyways, while advocating all these ideologies we never get around to actually putting into practice? Killing each other in six and seven figures at a time, I guess. When we weren't busy poisoning every scrap of land and sky we touched, to say nothing of our own frankenfood-and-chemical-ravaged bodies,

Who needs ideological purity when you've got all that?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

I made no such implication, you disingenuously inferred it. I certainly never even came close to implying that unalienable rights mean that people have the right to let others starve, this was your strawman.

Under Lockian natural rights concept, they certainly have a right to it. Or are you saying that natural rights do not allow someone to keep his excess food (property), even when its urgently needed by someone other? Is there a qualifier "people have a right to property, unless urgently needed by other person"?
No.

Unalienable rights can never be used to justify evil!

See above. Letting someone starve when you have excess food is evil. "Unalienable" rights allow it. Hence can be used to justify evil.

I have all ready stated that outside of defense, unalienable rights are those actions that cause no harm. If an action is causing no harm, how is this a justification for evil?

Inaction can also cause harm. Thats what natural rights completely ignore. Natural rights indeed cannot be used to justify evil actions, but they can be used to justify evil inactions (omissions).
And the opposite is true - positive rights cannot be used to justify evil inactions, but can be used to justify evil actions.

Omission bias

What are you saying? Are you saying that before "the idea of inalienable rights", created through social construct, existed that people did not have the right to life? Are you suggesting that before this so called "social construct" of the right to speech, that people did not have the right to speech? Is this your idea of a logical argument?

Objectively, they did not. And objectively, they dont even now. Rights are based on a subjective moral theory, therefore are themselves subjective, because morality is subjective (prescriptive, not descriptive).
Morality (and rights) cannot be derived from nature (facts), because of naturalistic fallacy.
This is really Philosophy 101.

The newborn infant does not check with any constitution or attorney before wailing. That newborn infant understands inherently it has the right to wail. Under your argument, without any "social construct" in place to secure that infants right to wail, that infant would be an "outlaw". This is your idea of logic, isn't it?

Infants do not have objective right to wail, since rights are based on moral theories, which are by definition subjective. They have an ability to do so. You are confusing subjective rights with objective abilities.

Different philosophers have created different lists of rights they consider to be natural. Proponents of natural rights, in particular Hesselberg and Rothbard, have responded that reason can be applied to separate truly axiomatic rights from supposed rights, stating that any principle that requires itself to be disproved is an axiom. Critics have pointed to the lack of agreement between the proponents as evidence for the claim that the idea of natural rights is merely a political tool. For instance, Jonathan Wallace has asserted that there is no basis on which to claim that some rights are natural, and he argued that Hobbes' account of natural rights confuses right with ability (human beings have the ability to seek only their own good and follow their nature in the same way as animals, but this does not imply that they have a right to do so).[46] Wallace advocates a social contract, much like Hobbes and Locke, but does not base it on natural rights:
We are all at a table together, deciding which rules to adopt, free from any vague constraints, half-remembered myths, anonymous patriarchal texts and murky concepts of nature. If I propose something you do not like, tell me why it is not practical, or harms somebody, or is counter to some other useful rule; but don't tell me it offends the universe.
Other critics have argued that the attempt to derive rights from "natural law" or "human nature" is an example of the is-ought problem (naturalistic fallacy).

reply to post by Leftist


The irony being that without freedom, you would never be who you are today much less being allowed to or able to post on this thing called internet - that caters to our need of freedom which people worldwide cherish. Even in dictatorships!

As for the thread topic, I think this fetishisation of individual freedom is not bad. The past and present is littered with what I consider unjustifiable and pointless restrictions on freedom that have caused a lot of suffering. I think individual freedom should be the default state, and it should be breached only when there is a powerful reason to do so. So maybe there is a fetishisation, but I would argue it does not go far enough, if anything.

Originally posted by Maslo
As for the thread topic, I think this fetishisation of individual freedom is not bad. The past and present is littered with what I consider unjustifiable and pointless restrictions on freedom that have caused a lot of suffering.

The greatest suffering the world has known, IMHO, is a result of what somebody once called "man's inhumanity to man." The denying of the essential humanity of our fellow men, something we are all guilty of in ways big and small. And the realization that the highest calling is to help your fellow man above all else is one few things that leftism would agree on with basically all the world's major religons. As a religionist (although not a leftist) I can get behind this as the highest goal, in a general sort of way. It's not that it implies loss of freedom - it needn't if done right, at least not in a significant way - but rather it just strikes me as a loftier ideal to zero your ethical instruments with.

But there's a catch. A big one. The problem with all this is that we seem to be pretty much incapable of fulfilling the noble goal in our current state. Maybe we need a few thousand years more evolution before we are able to realize those fine ideals. In a twisted way I hate to say it, but mankind isn't really good enough for Marxism. Marxism posits a type of human that is more good than bad, and downplays the all-too-real darker qualities that seem to define mankind. I'm just not seeing it.

To simply avoid being swamped by the darkness we can't afford these graceful, soaring ideological construsts...too delicate and flimsy for the hellstorm we face. We have no real choice but to make do with what we have simply to get by, grabbing a piece of this ideology here and a slice of that one there as needed, and discarding them as we go. We don't have much margin for error anymore - if we make it by another 500 years it will be a minor miracle IMHO. I think we really are that close to the precipice. Simply put, no society that wants to function on a day-to-day level can afford the luxury of idealism. Maybe, there is a slim possiblity that a core of human survivors might make it to the fabled higher ground in the distant future and after all the doom ahead, which I am convinced will cull most of us if not all. But for now, life on planet earth is all about keeping your head down and doing time, just passing through with the least pain and damage to yourself and others that's possible. Its all we can handle at this stage, I'm convinced. Hopefully it will carry us through our current dark age. But to be starkly honest, man's track record just ain't all that encouraging.

reply to post by Maslo

Under Lockian natural rights concept, they certainly have a right to it. Or are you saying that natural rights do not allow someone to keep his excess food (property), even when its urgently needed by someone other? Is there a qualifier "people have a right to property, unless urgently needed by other person"? No.

First of all, your appeal to authority in order to frame natural rights as a "social construct" is yet another logical fallacy. Secondly, your histrionics, going straight to what silent thunder referred to as "inhumanity of man to man" is no more protected under your belief that laws are made by humans. Just as surely as unalienable rights can produce an ignorance to others, so too, and demonstrably so, can any tyranny. Indeed, the history of civilization is rife with dictatorships, monarchy's and despots who have done precisely what you hopelessly and haplessly attempt to ascribe to unalienable rights.

Any person has a right to piss all over themselves, it doesn't make it any wiser. Any person has a right to make a fool of themselves, this doesn't make it any wiser.

You are simply backpedaling now. You attempted to assign inhumanity to unalienable rights, willfully and pretentiously ignoring that the suppression of unalienable rights has a long history of inhumanity to man, watching others starve, watching others in need of care suffer. History is not rife with nations or states who have respected the unalienable rights of people that have also watched their fellow brothers and sisters suffer.

See above. Letting someone starve when you have excess food is evil. "Unalienable" rights allow it. Hence can be used to justify evil.

Your hypothetical is just that. You cannot point to one instance where someone arguing in the defense of unalienable rights as a universal law also claimed they had a right to watch someone starve in the face of their excess food. It is such an extreme and fantastical hypothetical as to be fairly called absurd! You are inventing a circumstance in order to dismiss universal unalienable rights, and laughably want to view yourself as just and good.

Inaction can also cause harm. Thats what natural rights completely ignore.

Natural rights do not ignore this, you are inventing this ignorance. Inaction can indeed cause harm and as such when an inaction causes harm it is not a right! You are hopelessly flailing your arms about attempting to distract from the fact that I have all ready argued that outside of defense, if it causes harm it is not a right.

And the opposite is true - positive rights cannot be used to justify evil inactions, but can be used to justify evil actions.

This is false. It is demonstrably so that positive "rights" are often used to justify evil actions. This is why the evil are so intent on doing away with a republic that places restraints on the abrogation and derogation of unalienable rights and replacing it with democracy, so that the voters can justify their evil through majority. When the positive "right" to healthcare is used to justify an insurance scheme through wealth redistribution, which has the effect of abrogating and derogating rights, this is evil, and justifications are made for it all the time.

Objectively, they did not. And objectively, they dont even now. Rights are based on a subjective moral theory, therefore are themselves subjective, because morality is subjective (prescriptive, not descriptive). Morality (and rights) cannot be derived from nature (facts), because of naturalistic fallacy. This is really Philosophy 101.

Are you seriously arguing that before some wise old man declared people had a right to life that people did not know this? Is this how it was for you? Were you mindlessly operating through life under the impression you had not right to it until you took Philosophy 101? Seriously?

Infants do not have objective right to wail, since rights are based on moral theories, which are by definition subjective. They have an ability to do so. You are confusing subjective rights with objective abilities.

No I am not confusing anything, you are reifying and desperately trying to appear erudite while you make these insane arguments. All humans are inherently subjective, but a child who wants or needs something can objectively come to the conclusion that crying will communicate a need. Once that child grows older that child then objectively understands that there are better ways to communicate their needs and will learn these communication skills. Their subjective nature does not preclude objective thought.

It is the height of arrogance to argue that people were too stupid to know their rights until someone told them they had them.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


It's a term that is bandied about by people who have no clue what they're talking about.

If you're going to promote freedom, promote freedom for ALL, not just the right-wingers that throw the term around.

Originally posted by The Sword
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

It's a term that is bandied about by people who have no clue what they're talking about.

If you're going to promote freedom, promote freedom for ALL, not just the right-wingers that throw the term around.

That is precisely what I am doing, and your ignorance is inexcusable you partisan hack! Are you so profoundly ignorant you have no idea what universal means? Are you truly that foolish? You're the one making partisan arguments, not I.

Deny Ignorance! Deny ignorance does not mean deny being ignorant.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

First of all, your appeal to authority in order to frame natural rights as a "social construct" is yet another logical fallacy.

I have used no appeal to authority. All moral theories are subjective social constructs, including your petty favourite one (and including my favourite one). I have enough intellectual honesty to admit that. You seem to not have it.

Secondly, your histrionics, going straight to what silent thunder referred to as "inhumanity of man to man" is no more protected under your belief that laws are made by humans. Just as surely as unalienable rights can produce an ignorance to others, so too, and demonstrably so, can any tyranny. Indeed, the history of civilization is rife with dictatorships, monarchy's and despots who have done precisely what you hopelessly and haplessly attempt to ascribe to unalienable rights.

Indeed, I admit it. I said from the beginning, both can be used to justify evil. Its you who wants to single out only positive rights as capable of justifying evil, and render negative rights as incapable to do so.

You are simply backpedaling now. You attempted to assign inhumanity to unalienable rights, willfully and pretentiously ignoring that the suppression of unalienable rights has a long history of inhumanity to man, watching others starve, watching others in need of care suffer. History is not rife with nations or states who have respected the unalienable rights of people that have also watched their fellow brothers and sisters suffer.

You are just flat out lying now, since I have explicitly pointed it out, not ignored it:

Natural rights indeed cannot be used to justify evil actions, but they can be used to justify evil inactions (omissions).
And the opposite is true - positive rights cannot be used to justify evil inactions, but can be used to justify evil actions.
You seemed to imply that the idea of negative rights cannot be used to justify bad things (and conversely, that the idea of positive rights can only be used to justify bad things).
Both can be used to justify good and evil alike.

Your hypothetical is just that. You cannot point to one instance where someone arguing in the defense of unalienable rights as a universal law also claimed they had a right to watch someone starve in the face of their excess food.

The formulation of natural rights indeed allows for this. There is a right to property, without any qualifiers. If the formulation was "persons have a right to property, unless its needed to save life or health of another person, then, and only then you could say they do not have a right to watch someone starve in the face of their excess food. This is simply not the case with natural rights.

It is such an extreme and fantastical hypothetical as to be fairly called absurd! You are inventing a circumstance in order to dismiss universal unalienable rights, and laughably want to view yourself as just and good.

Fantastical? Hypothetical? Absurd? You must be kidding..

Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That's one child every five seconds. On the other hand, we have more than enough food to feed every human on this planet many times, and more people are actually obese than there are hungry.

Letting someone starve when you have excess food is evil inaction. "Unalienable" rights allow it. Hence can be used to justify this evil. Evil that is very real and happens on a large scale daily. Nothing hypothetical or fantastical. Fantastical is maybe your idea of a world where everything would suddenly turn to rainbows once the state stops funding the evil welfare with taxpayer money.

Natural rights do not ignore this, you are inventing this ignorance. Inaction can indeed cause harm and as such when an inaction causes harm it is not a right!

So are you claiming that the correct formulation for the third natural right is "persons have a right to property, unless its needed to save life or health of another person"?
If not, then indeed it would allow for such harmful inaction.

This is false. It is demonstrably so that positive "rights" are often used to justify evil actions.

Perhaps you want to reread the paragraph, I spoke about inactions, not actions.

When the positive "right" to healthcare is used to justify an insurance scheme through wealth redistribution, which has the effect of abrogating and derogating rights, this is evil

No. Remember above "persons have a right to property, unless its needed to save life or health of another person".
Healthcare costs fall under this category.

reply to post by Maslo

I have used no appeal to authority. All moral theories are subjective social constructs, including your petty favourite one (and including my favourite one). I have enough intellectual honesty to admit that. You seem to not have it.

Uh-huh. Referencing Locke was not an appeal to authority. Referencing Wikipedia was not an appeal to authority. Denying ignorance does not mean living in denial.

You are the one attempting to impose morality on law, not I. You play hopeless games of semantics declaring inalienable a "buzzword" and then through reification exclaiming "Of course they can be alienated". Saying it is so is not proving it is so, and you have miserably failed to prove a damn thing.

Unalienable by definition means non-transferable.

It is not true that unalienable rights can be used to justify evil and all you have done - again - is reify and declare it is true because you say it is true. If it causes no harm - outside of defense - then it is done by right. If it causes no harm where is the evil in it?

Bolding words I have repudiated does not prove I am lying and I am not lying. The "positive" rights you praise, civil rights, can be and are used to justify evil. This is why the Sword allowed a knee to jerk and started in with that partisan nonsense, because I pointed to a direct evil of a "positive" right. Forcing people to purchase insurance scheme in the guise of a "positive" right is evil. It disparages the rights of those who do not care to participate in this insurance scheme and it causes harm through unjust fines.

Your ridiculous entrenchment in arguing natural rights come with the right to let people starve and then yammering on about "qualifiers" is a non-starter. It is a shameful attempt to frame tyranny as some sort of benign force that prevents the starving from starving, that prevents the sick from getting sicker, and prevents the homeless from living without a home, but with or without a government recognizing the unalienable rights of individuals, people starve, people get sick, and people live without homes. It is a moot point that you only brought up to attempt to make yourself appear as good and caring, but your continued insistence on showing disregard for the unalienable rights of people reveals your true character.

You know, all these threads lately promoting statism and the centralization of power, the subordination of the self to the state, as well as ideologies like communism and fascism, as well as the large numbers of people who support the threads make me think that maybe this zombie apocalypse craze has something to it.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

You are the one attempting to impose morality on law, not I.

Your laws come from morality, specifically "natural law" moral theory. Denying it wont change it.

You play hopeless games of semantics declaring inalienable a "buzzword" and then through reification exclaiming "Of course they can be alienated". Saying it is so is not proving it is so, and you have miserably failed to prove a damn thing.

You have given examples when the rights were alienated by governments, and yet you say they cannot be? Of course they can be alienated.

Unalienable by definition means non-transferable.

Buzzword by definition means buzzword.

It is not true that unalienable rights can be used to justify evil and all you have done - again - is reify and declare it is true because you say it is true. If it causes no harm - outside of defense - then it is done by right. If it causes no harm where is the evil in it?

Your formulation of natural rights (without the qualifier) absolutely CAN be used to justify harmful inaction. This is an undeniable fact. Under your formulation, you do not have a right to steal a property, even if its needed for saving a life. Hence harmful inaction.

You yourself prove this, when you say redistribution of wealth (stealing) to fund healthcare (saving lives) is wrong under natural law. Dont try to deny it now.

It is a shameful attempt to frame tyranny as some sort of benign force that prevents the starving from starving, that prevents the sick from getting sicker, and prevents the homeless from living without a home, but with or without a government recognizing the unalienable rights of individuals, people starve, people get sick, and people live without homes.

Government is a tool. It can be used to do evil, and it can be used to do good.
Using government to cause suffering is evil.
Using government to cause happiness is good.
Just like with any other tool.

If something tramples over "natural rights", but results in increase of happiness (decrease of suffering), it is good.
And if something respects "natural rights", but results in increase of suffering (decrease of happiness), it is evil.

Only utilitarian consequences determine the morality of something, not nature of the acts in themselves. Acts in themselves do not carry intrinsic moral value without reference to their consequences. Natural rights want to ascribe moral value to acts, and not consequences. Thats why they are inadequate.

reply to post by Maslo


Your disingenuousness has no end! You accuse me of making strawman arguments then insist on referring to natural rights as "Your laws". The law is not mine, I did not "make" it any more than any other human did. Morality has nothing to do with it, they are laws, nothing more, nothing less.

You deceitfully attempt to redefine words to suit your purposes, and declare I have given examples of when government have "alienated" rights, but I have steadfastly insisted that the definition of unalienable is non-transferable and I have certainly not given any examples of when government has transferred rights. Unalienable is not "unalienation". You are so disingenuous about it that you sarcastically refer to my insistence that unalienable means non-transferable that you stupidly declare "buzzword means buzzword", as if you've made some point with that.

Since you are to lazy or foolish to look up the definition for yourself, allow me to supply it for you.

Inalienable Definition:

: incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred

Were your argument true, that governments "make" rights, or grant them, then the word unalienable, or inalienable would be inappropriate, but instead of making that argument you foolishly attempt to redefine the word.

Government is indeed a tool, just like a hammer is a tool. Most use hammers to build, a few use hammers to bludgeon. Were this true of government there would not be so many like you insisting on using government to bludgeon people with.

Originally posted by Leftist
Is capital-eff "FREEDOM" the highest ideological value?

Many on ATS and elsewhere act like it is. The preservation of "liberty" or "freedom" is a seeming argument-stopper for many, and related concepts (personal freedom, civil liberties, being free of government meddling, and so forth) are frequently trotted out as sacred, shining goals, beyond any other.

With this thread I would like to make two points:

1) "Freedom" as an ideological value is usually very poorly defined in any given argument that pushes for it.

2) When it is defined, it is usually given excessive, almost mystical importance.

Now I can hear all the steam hissing out of libertarian ears as they read this...for "freedom" truly is the sacred cow of libertarianism. I do not argue that "we need no freedom." So save your strawmen. Individual freedom is an important value for almost every society. However, it is not the only value, or in many cases even the primary one. The is also the difference between "freedom from" and "freedom to." Freedom as usually conceived by libertarians and others on the right is usually "freedom to make this or that choice." However, less talked about, there is also "freedom from hunger, freedom from want, freedom from fear." These are usually not considered by those who enshrine "liberty" as a sacred value.

The truth of the matter is that personal (or corporate) liberty is only one facet of what defines a society. It is wrong to attach a mystical or inflated value to freedom at the expense of needs like social protection, cooperation, justice, defense against hostility, community, and the "freedom from" instability, hunger. poverty, want, exploitation, and so on. A society that pushes sketchily-defined "liberty" at the expense of these other goals is not a just or fully-functioning society.

edit on 5/30/2012 by Leftist because: (no reason given)

I will define freedom for you. Freedom is free will, self autonomy existing outside of the realms of government. I am unable to define happiness for you as what makes one happy varies on an individual basis.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

The law is not mine, I did not "make" it any more than any other human did.

Prescriptive laws (such as natural rights) cannot be derived from nature. So indeed humans made the concept of natural rights. We also know who it was:
en.wikipedia.org...

Morality has nothing to do with it, they are laws, nothing more, nothing less.

Laws must be derived from some moral system (system of values), since they are prescriptive (cannot be derived from nature, or facts alone). In the case of natural rights, it is a deontological moral system that says murder, theft and enslavement is always wrong.

Morality is the source of laws.

Were your argument true, that governments "make" rights, or grant them, then the word unalienable, or inalienable would be inappropriate

Well, since it indeed makes laws, such word is indeed inappropiate. They may be declared unalienable on paper, and by law, but in practice, they can be alienated, since the law that rights are unalienable is also only a law open to change with sufficient legislative power.

Were this true of government there would not be so many like you insisting on using government to bludgeon people with.

Since I have empirically proven that welfare programs decrease poverty and increase quality of life, I want to use the government hammer to build. You have so far failed to make your case that welfare programs "bludgeon" people, instead of helping them.

reply to post by Maslo

Prescriptive laws (such as natural rights) cannot be derived from nature. So indeed humans made the concept of natural rights. We also know who it was:

Neither you, nor the Wikipedia article you linked have shown how it is natural rights cannot come from nature, it is just something you keep repeating over and over again hoping that at some point it will become true.

The right to life is irrefutably derived from nature. Life was not granted by any government and long before there were governments there was life. All living creatures, great and small, will defend their life, and the rose does not need a Congress of roses in order to derive the right to keep and bear thorns, the porcupine does not need any decree from a king in order to derive the right to keep and bear needles and the skunk does not need permission from the state in order to derive the right to spew its stink. These rights to self defense are self evident and using words such as "purportedly" as Wikipedia does, does not in any way diminish these rights to self defense, an action done to preserve these creatures right to life.

Pointing to some doctrine and declaring the doctrine the source of these rights is boneheadedly, mindlessly foolish. Life did not become a right only because some human thought it up. Further, declaring rights as "prescriptive" misunderstands the word. The right to life is not an imposition or enforcement any more than speech, press, or peaceably assembling is. Rights are not "prescriptive".

Since rights are not an imposition on anyone, requiring enforcement in order for that right to be enjoyed, your reification that "because they are prescriptive" is merely you yammering on about something in foolish ways.

Morality is not the source of laws. It can be and has been the source of legislation but not law. Morality is no more the source of life than it is the source of gravity. You are continually confusing legislation with law and offering up facile arguments as to why law is a human invention.

Rights can never be transferred as a grant to people, and you've miserably failed to prove your point, merely repeat yourself. I, on the other hand, have shown how the right to life is so universal that all creatures will defend that life when necessary. Speech is communication and all creatures, great and small, communicate. They do so universally as law works. The ant does not communicate because of some prescriptive morality, but does so to relay a communication. The dog does not communicate because of a prescriptive morality but does so because of right.

reply to post by Leftist


The actual freedom that is being trumpeted is the right for big business to do whatever it feels like to make a profit. No regulations for labour or environmental protection etc. It is shamefull that ordinary people who do not own megacorps fall for this dangerous nonsense! Then end up parotting it.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


What you speak about are abilities. Not rights. Facts, not oughts. Simple descriptions, not prescriptions. There is nothing in the fact that life is alive prescribing that we should not kill it.

What is the difference between your rights, and abilities?

Further, declaring rights as "prescriptive" misunderstands the word. The right to life is not an imposition or enforcement any more than speech, press, or peaceably assembling is. Rights are not "prescriptive".

Indeed they are. Otherwise there is no need for the new word, "ability" would suffice. Ability describes what you speak of - life can live, roses can keep and bear thorns, skunk can spew its stink. With no prescriptive obligations for anyone or anything.

The word "right" goes beyond that. It says something should not be interfered with (prescription).
I have a right to live means my life should not be terminated (as opposed to "I can live", which carries no prescription).

The ant does not communicate because of some prescriptive morality, but does so to relay a communication. The dog does not communicate because of a prescriptive morality but does so because of right.

No. Because its his ability.

The same applies to law. Law is necessarily prescriptive. It would be pointless to have a purely descriptive law, such as "gravitational acceleration is 9,81 m/s2". All laws are prescriptive, such as "You should not commit murder", "You should not steal". Prescriptions.

And prescriptions cannot be derived from nature alone (from descriptions), due to fact-value distinction (to attempt to do so is naturalistic fallacy). You cannot derive values from facts.

Morality is not the source of laws. It can be and has been the source of legislation but not law.

Legislation is the source of law (besides international treaties, and judicial decisions in some countries). And morality (some value systems) are the sources of legislation, treaties and decisions.

Rights can never be transferred as a grant to people, and you've miserably failed to prove your point, merely repeat yourself.

Since you have failed to prove that rights and law comes from nature, and not from people, my point still stands. People can modify the law that specifies rights any way they wish, with enough legislative power.