Originally Posted by
law dawg
Originally Posted by
essxjay
That is the nut of the discussion. The founding fathers would probably say something like "because Natural Law" dictates it.
This is the first principle.
Oh, hang on. I think I see where the communication breakdown in. Let's step back a sec.
I was deliberate in the use of upper case "Natural Law," to indicate an ethical theory. I did not mean law of nature or "law of the jungle" or anything like it.
So now I'm unclear about your use of first principle, given the rest of the discussion.
Originally Posted by law dawg
Says who? Human beings, that's who.
If you're dying in the desert, what are your rights? Right before the tiger eats you stop and tell it about your rights.
Tigers are irrelevant to our discussion since we're not talking about law of the jungle.
Originally Posted by law dawg
The simple fact is that NOTHING outside of another person will respect your "rights." NOTHING. This is a fact. It is not theory or wishing it were so or philosophy. It is the really real world.
Of course. Ethics only apply to humans. I never said or assumed otherwise.
Originally Posted by law dawg
So the only thing that will respect your rights is a person, and then only if they agree with your rights.
People disagree over all sorts of things but voluntarily respect the rights of others. Agreement is a sufficient condition to enjoy a right, but not a necessary one. Disagreement does not entail the denial of rights.
Originally Posted by law dawg
There has to be a consensus, in other words. Without it you have no right.
Nonsense. Go back to the slavery example. Blacks had an identical
moral right to be free of enslavement before the passage of the 13th Amendment as after. The consensus was about the practice of slavery as a moral matter, which was addressed in Section 1 of the amendment, while Section 2 declared Congress' power to enforce Section 1, "by appropriate legislation." The principle was recognized and declared prior to its enforcement.
We need to be clear whether we're talking about negative rights or positive ones.
Originally Posted by law dawg
Originally Posted by essxjay
Imprecise. We "discovered" what our natures are and grasped the concept. We didn't invent liberty.
This is the only area where human experience can be removed from the equation - if a superior being gives us these rights and we imperfectly implement their plan.
Which superior being are you referring to? Moreover, how do you know there's a superior being, and by what faculty do you evaluate the existence of such an entity and divine its intent? And what do you have left if you remove human experience from an equation?
Originally Posted by law dawg
Other than that it comes back to human beings sitting down and saying, "You know, maybe we should treat each other better. Women should vote. Black people should not be sold as chattel."
Because, ma'am, in most societies for 99% of human existence you wouldn't have had the "right" to disagree with a man like you are now, your protests to the contrary.
Humans have always possessed the right to disagree with one other. It's just that some humans think the power to infringe the rights of others have been conferred to them. They're mistaken.
And by now, you should be able to see back to the beginning of this thread why it's fallacious to think that gov't somehow grants or creates rights. Men can create laws, but not rights. The Founders didn't give us the right to pursue life, liberty and happiness because because it was never theirs to give away -- it already belonged to us. The Bill of Rights is primarily a code of ethics adopted by common law as recognition of the inviolable rights of the individual.
Originally Posted by law dawg
Originally Posted by essxjay
Freedom from rights violations is the positive action that I think you're probably talking about when you introduce the notion of "defense" to the discussion.
I'm saying its a dog eat dog world. As Hobbes put it, "nasty, brutal and short." THAT is the nature of the world. Only in the imagination of Man will you find any different.
Defense means that me and a group of like-minded people get together and say "We're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it anymore!" and stand up for ourselves. We don't let the stronger prey upon us. We stand tall together. And only our combined strength allows us to negotiate terms with strength. If we're weak we're prey. If we're strong then we can talk about "rights." Self-actualization is high on Maslow's list.
The Hobbesean passage from the State of Nature is a metaphorical journey, not a literal one. The State of Nature is tool of rhetoric. Some folks insist on interpreting him otherwise. ::shrug::
Originally Posted by law dawg
You can't have it both ways. Either [rights] exist because you conceptualize them or they exist independently of it. You've argued both sides in this post.
No, I haven't,
law_dawg. To wit ...
Originally Posted by law_dawg
Answer : its a man-made concept that exists nowhere in nature. Nowhere.
Originally Posted by essxjay
Incorrect. Liberty is a property of man, and exists independently of one's ability to conceptualize it.
We "discovered" what our natures are and grasped the concept. We didn't invent liberty.
Recap: I said that concepts are discovered. The notion of a right, such as liberty, is a discovery.
Originally Posted by law dawg
Me, it comes down to conceptualization first, then consensus, then implementation, then defending what you've created.
Its like the concept of property. It doesn't exist in nature. In nature its called territory. And you can only have it if you defend it against transgressors.
Territory is a concept, too, though. So, you've just contradicted yourself. If property doesn't exist in nature, how can territory exist?
Originally Posted by law dawg
Man is a pack animal. We form packs, usually with an alpha.
Man is different from all other animals.
Originally Posted by law dawg
In the whole history of man, how many democracies have their been? How many republics? Versus the alpha model? Dictator or king or queen or whatever? That's the nature of man, instinctively.
So which is it: Man as pack animal, or man as striver of democratic society? Last I checked, pack animals don't develop constitutions. Humans do.
Originally Posted by law dawg
Without people willing to get up and fight and defend these ideas they would not exist. The founders had to fight to make them.
So we
do have a prior idea of what value we're fighting for then? This is just as I've maintained throughout.
However, your next suggestion is that if we don't fight for an idea, it just goes away ... ceases to exist -- do I understand you correctly? But this makes absolutely no sense!
"Founders had to fight to make them." The founders had to fight to make rights exist? Oy! Do you mean fight for a positive recognition of rights under the law? You're losing me.
Originally Posted by law dawg
We humans have created a number of concepts,
No. We've been through this.