God given rights?

[woolfe9998]

The Constitution is legislation.

That's actually true, but what is your point?

 

[Moonbeam]

You're arguing for result rather than for truth. I can quibble with the result in that I think humans create their own moral imperatives and we've had uneven but reasonable success in applying and enforcing these imperatives over time. We consent to morality to some degree, in part because it's in our best interests.

But the real problem with your argument is that the crux is you just don't like the implications of human created morality. Well it doesn't matter if you like the implications. I'm pointing out that there is no evidence of morality created by a deity or springing from nature. Even if the implications of that are truly as terrible as you claim they are, it wouldn't change the truth of the matter.

Your argument is akin to saying that God exists otherwise we'd have nowhere to go when we die. Your desire for an afterlife isn't evidence of God any more than your desire for rights etched in stone means such things exist.

But rights aren't etched in stone. They are etched in love right in your genes. The universe as it's structured has produced loving human beings. Whether we reflect the nature of the universe or the universe reflects us, how could it possible matter. There is only love. There is no you or me. We do not consent to morality because it's in our best interest but because it's instinctual. The action happens and then you do the thinking, the considering how the hell it was that you run.

 

[woolfe9998]

But rights aren't etched in stone. They are etched in love right in your genes. The universe as it's structured has produced loving human beings. Whether we reflect the nature of the universe or the universe reflects us, how could it possible matter. There is only love. There is no you or me. We do not consent to morality because it's in our best interest but because it's instinctual. The action happens and then you do the thinking, the considering how the hell it was that you run.

Are you sure we never consent to it because it's in our best interests? That would mean that people who would otherwise be inclined to commit crimes do not refrain from doing so out of a fear of going to prison. There is also the Golden Rule which is nothing more than enlightened self-interest. If you treat other people like crap presumably you too will be treated like crap.

I don't think self-interest is the only reason for moral behavior. As I said before, I do think nature has imbued us with a capacity for love and empathy, but for reasons I have already stated, I view that as an emotional pre-cursor to the rights we've created. Love may make us want to respect rights, but it doesn't create the rights themselves. We had to do that with our sentience, in a social context.

 

[werepossum]

This is not logically consistent. If everyone is free to create their own morality (as is the case), it can most certainly be immoral for North Korea to imprison and murder its citizens. It may not be immoral to those who are doing it there, but it is immoral to us.

Or they could also determine that they gain more from the structure of society as it is than were they to embark on a rape and murder spree. All you are really describing is how the lower classes should want a revolution... which they can and frequently do. Interestingly enough, the rights desired by the revolting class are usually enshrined in a new constitution, etc. This further shows how rights are human determined, not some set of eternal natural principles.

But without natural rights, on what basis would we say North Korea is immoral? They starve and unjustly imprison their citizens - but if their citizens have no inherent right to life or liberty, so what? The most we can possibly say is "Well, I wouldn't do it."

This sounds like the old chestnut that Atheists can't be good people because they lack morals, when some of the nicest and most ethical people I know are Atheists.

The first thing is empathy. I do not want to be robbed, raped or murdered, so I discourage other people to rob rape and murder. It is in everyone's best interest that there are as few robberies and rapes as possible. Heck, it's in your best interest as well, no matter how good you are at robbing and raping, there's always someone out there (or a group of people) that are better at robbing and raping then you.

You mention how we can't judge the dictator of North Korea, why can't we judge him? He's a crazy man with nuclear weapons! If there's a crazy man with a gun then you try to limit the damage he can do, the same is true with North Korea.

I believe everyone should have the right to a good education and to succeed in life. North Koreans don't have the ability to do this due to being ruled by a psycho. We totally should condemn North Korea and encourage the people to have more freedom.


IMO, the lack of Natural rights is actually an improvement, it allows us to ratchet things up and add new rights. Take IP rights for example. IP rights are the very anti-thesis of Natural rights. As the myriad legal battles have shown us, they're not self-evident. They're not universal, the bible lacks a copyright but "Jesus Christ Superstar" has one. If you told a farmer 300 years ago that he couldn't tell a story he heard at the bar in another bar, he'd laugh at you. At the same time, due to how technology has progressed IP rights are now EXTREMELY important to mankind. We acknowledge that in today's world if everyone could just copy software without paying for it then developing new software would slow down. So the idea of IP rights is being created at this moment.

If we were forced to say the only real rights were natural rights, well IP isn't property and philosophers disagree on whether property is a natural right. By ignoring natural rights, we bypass that argument altogether and are allowed to ethically come up with IP rights.

In the future we'll come up with new rights that at the moment aren't important to us but will be in 100 years from now, perhaps DNA rights or something similar. Society should always be improving and locking ourselves down to 2 or 3 rights from a hundred years ago keeps us from creating the rights we need now.

See my response above. As for IP rights, those are solidly based on Lockean philosophy of natural rights. You have rights to your intellectual property because you created it or traded some other work product for it. If there are no natural rights, then I have just as much right to your work product as do you. Without natural rights, morally there can be no IP rights, or property rights of any kind, for work can create no right without the agreement of Lockean philosophy.

You also seem to be under the misapprehension that having natural rights somehow limits society to just those rights. Natural rights are negative rights and are no more than a foundation, the bare minimum rights to be a free creature.

You're arguing for result rather than for truth. I can quibble with the result in that I think humans create their own moral imperatives and we've had uneven but reasonable success in applying and enforcing these imperatives over time. We consent to morality to some degree, in part because it's in our best interests.

But the real problem with your argument is that the crux is you just don't like the implications of human created morality. Well it doesn't matter if you like the implications. I'm pointing out that there is no evidence of morality created by a deity or springing from nature. Even if the implications of that are truly as terrible as you claim they are, it wouldn't change the truth of the matter.

Your argument is akin to saying that God exists otherwise we'd have nowhere to go when we die. Your desire for an afterlife isn't evidence of God any more than your desire for rights etched in stone means such things exist.

You are rejecting natural rights in hand with rejecting G-d, a conscious rejection of anything greater than yourself. But natural rights did not spring completely from religion. In the Age of Enlightenment, men such as Kant and Locke established the principle of natural rights through reason and logic, in parallel with (and perhaps just as often in opposition to) Christian religious philosophy. Even men who rejected any supernatural element understood that as living, thinking, free beings we have a right to remain free and alive.

 

[Retro Rob]

We both agree that government can (and should) take steps to protect our rights; only one of us can present a cogent reason why government MUST protect our rights. If there are no inherent human rights, then there can be no inherent reason to protect those rights. A government such as North Korea, a nation of starving virtual slaves utterly ruled by one man as administered by an especially draconian form of Communism, would be just as morally acceptable as our own democratic republic (or European democratic socialism if you prefer) because there are no inherent rights to be violated or respected. If morality is only what people think it is, then it cannot be immoral for him to force people to accept his version of morality. Slavery cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to liberty. Murder cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to life. Robbery cannot be immoral because no one has an inherent right to own property or to the fruit of his labor.

This is especially relevant because in every society, there are haves and have-nots. Even the lowest hunter-gatherer society has some that are less successful than others. If there are no G_d-given or natural rights, then those at the bottom SHOULD prey on their fellow man to improve their station in life. It's perfectly okay for them to rob, rape, even murder to make room for their own rise, because society's morality is just an arbitrary construct, a tool for the majority to maintain its position.

I was reading something on this about objective moral values -- one was arguing that if there is no God, then on what basis do we judge good or bad acts?

If there is no Universal Law-giver, than no one can truly be good or bad -- all is relative to those holding those values. So we can't judge, say, suicidal bombers for instance, as being "wrong" for blowing people up -- but we DO because we have these Universal values.

The funny thing about this subject is that "lack of evidence" is treated as "evidence" that we don't have a Law-Giver.

If true Darwinian evolution was truly at work, it would be really survival of the fittest in the way you describe it -- improvement at all and any cost.

 

[woolfe9998]

I was reading something on this about objective moral values -- one was arguing that if there is no God, then on what basis do we judge good or bad acts?

If there is no Universal Law-giver, than no one can truly be good or bad -- all is relative to those holding those values. So we can't judge, say, suicidal bombers for instance, as being "wrong" for blowing people up -- but we DO because we have these Universal values.

The funny thing about this subject is that "lack of evidence" is treated as "evidence" that we don't have a Law-Giver.

If true Darwinian evolution was truly at work, it would be really survival of the fittest in the way you describe it -- improvement at all and any cost.

Except it isn't. Darwinian evolution also conferred upon us two things: altruism (the desire to protect members of a group), and sentience, which confers upon us the capacity for moral choice.

This is just another version of the argument that you need religion to be moral. Yet I see no evidence of greater criminality or immorality among atheists, nor do I see evidence that crime increases as religiosity decreases in a society, or vice versa.

Lack of evidence of a "Law Giver" is just that, a lack of evidence. Nothing is proven without evidence. I don't understand why that is a controversial assertion to you.

Finally, I'd like to point out that your fallacy is parallel to Werepossum's. You argue for desired result. I don't agree that the consequences of there being no "Law Giver" are what you claim, but even if I did, it wouldn't alter the fact that there is no evidence of the "Law Giver." If you want to argue for a deity, you need to provide evidence of his existence, not reasons why people should desire him to exist. It's not the same thing.

 

[woolfe9998]

You are rejecting natural rights in hand with rejecting G-d, a conscious rejection of anything greater than yourself. But natural rights did not spring completely from religion. In the Age of Enlightenment, men such as Kant and Locke established the principle of natural rights through reason and logic, in parallel with (and perhaps just as often in opposition to) Christian religious philosophy. Even men who rejected any supernatural element understood that as living, thinking, free beings we have a right to remain free and alive.

No, I'm not rejecting "G-d" because I desire to reject things "greater than myself." I just don't see evidence of God. It has nothing to do with desire. TBH I'd really rather there be an afterlife, but that doesn't make me believe something unsupported by the evidence.

The rest of your argument is essentially an appeal to authority and/or popular opinion. I get that people like Kant and Locke believed these things. It doesn't make them true. I don't think you can reason your way to "natural rights" a priori anyway, any more than you can reason your way to God that way.

 

[werepossum]

I was reading something on this about objective moral values -- one was arguing that if there is no God, then on what basis do we judge good or bad acts?

If there is no Universal Law-giver, than no one can truly be good or bad -- all is relative to those holding those values. So we can't judge, say, suicidal bombers for instance, as being "wrong" for blowing people up -- but we DO because we have these Universal values.

The funny thing about this subject is that "lack of evidence" is treated as "evidence" that we don't have a Law-Giver.

If true Darwinian evolution was truly at work, it would be really survival of the fittest in the way you describe it -- improvement at all and any cost.

Well, most of us can still say that blowing up innocent people is wrong, but for how much longer? There's a long-running morality test given to select American graduating seniors which asks questions like "You should not steal because:" Historically, by far the most common answer was "Because it's wrong." In the 1990s, the most common answer became "Because you might get caught."

We're in a post-Enlightenment world now, where other people have value only where we choose to accord it. How much longer until survival of the fittest becomes the accepted norm?

 

[sandorski]

There certainly are "natural" rights and derived natural rights as well.

The one and only natural right conferred by "nature" is simply the right to exist. While others can take this from you, the fact you started with this right to exist by the fact you are born is what it is. The derivation of that right is the right to continued existence. True, others may try to take that right, but just because a right can be taken away doesn't make it any less a right. The right to exists, and thus the right to defend and continue your existence are the only real natural rights.

Everything else is an extension of that right to exist and continued existence.

This is a confused attempt to make it seem Objective. It isn't.

 

[kia75]

But without natural rights, on what basis would we say North Korea is immoral? They starve and unjustly imprison their citizens - but if their citizens have no inherent right to life or liberty, so what? The most we can possibly say is "Well, I wouldn't do it."

Can't we use reason and logic to condemn them? I've told you why I condemn North Korea, you may disagree with me but I and many others do.

The difference between my condemnation of North Korea and your condemnation is that you hide behind Locke, while I own my opinion. At the end of the day, both of us condemn North Korea.

See my response above. As for IP rights, those are solidly based on Lockean philosophy of natural rights. You have rights to your intellectual property because you created it or traded some other work product for it. If there are no natural rights, then I have just as much right to your work product as do you. Without natural rights, morally there can be no IP rights, or property rights of any kind, for work can create no right without the agreement of Lockean philosophy.

/sigh. Do you know what Property rights are? Do you know what IP rights are? Do you not see the contradiction between property rights and IP rights? If so then you have to acknowledge that IP rights spit in the face of property rights.

This cordless phone is mine, I can do whatever I want with it. I've purchased this phone from you or the store and I can do whatever I'd like with it.

This Iphone is mine, except for the OS which is apple's, and the music, which is Sony's, and the movies which are Disneys, and the books, which are Del ray, etc. etc. etc.

IP rights are an infringement of your property rights. They keep you from using your property the way you'd like to. If property rights are a natural right then IP rights are unjust. If, on the other hand, both are rights then we get to pick and choose which rights are appropriate for the age. Property rights served us well in a resource scarce world, but in a post scarcity world where I can copy a movie in 5 minutes IP rights are the better rights to enforce.

You also seem to be under the misapprehension that having natural rights somehow limits society to just those rights. Natural rights are negative rights and are no more than a foundation, the bare minimum rights to be a free creature.

So we can have more rights then natural rights? Then why do we need natural rights then? Why can't all rights be additional rights?

You are rejecting natural rights in hand with rejecting G-d, a conscious rejection of anything greater than yourself. But natural rights did not spring completely from religion. In the Age of Enlightenment, men such as Kant and Locke established the principle of natural rights through reason and logic, in parallel with (and perhaps just as often in opposition to) Christian religious philosophy. Even men who rejected any supernatural element understood that as living, thinking, free beings we have a right to remain free and alive.

But Kant and Locke disagreed! Locke says property rights are natural rights while Kant says by their very nature Property rights CAN'T be natural rights. Is the pursuit of happiness a natural right? Jefferson thought so. Is "life" a natural right? Apparently not if you're not a murder, rapist, committed treason, are the unborn,etc etc etc.

In this entire thread has anyone mentioned what the Natural Rights are?

Natural rights change the discussion from "is this wrong?" to "Did Kant, Jefferson, and other famous philosophers believe that this was wrong?"

I agree with you, everyone should have a right to be free and alive, and I'll even add that everyone should have the right to education. but that doesn't make those rights Natural rights.

 

[Wardawg1001]

But without natural rights, on what basis would we say North Korea is immoral? They starve and unjustly imprison their citizens - but if their citizens have no inherent right to life or liberty, so what? The most we can possibly say is "Well, I wouldn't do it."

I don't follow you. Why can't we do anything about it without natural rights? I believe that it is wrong to starve and unjustly imprison people, and I do condemn those activities and have a desire to see them changed. Yet I don't believe in this concept of natural rights as you have described it. What am I missing here? Why do I need to believe that there is some kind of moral imperative that stems from outside of human society that grants people the right to life and liberty?

See my response above. As for IP rights, those are solidly based on Lockean philosophy of natural rights. You have rights to your intellectual property because you created it or traded some other work product for it. If there are no natural rights, then I have just as much right to your work product as do you. Without natural rights, morally there can be no IP rights, or property rights of any kind, for work can create no right without the agreement of Lockean philosophy.

This is really just a re-phrasing of the question above. I dont understand why there is a need for a natural right that grants people ownership of their work products. Can't human beings as intellectual life forms simply agree that this is the right way to do things? Do you think this is literally impossible or do you just think its unrealistic?

You also seem to be under the misapprehension that having natural rights somehow limits society to just those rights. Natural rights are negative rights and are no more than a foundation, the bare minimum rights to be a free creature.

This is where it becomes quite confusing. You seem to say above that certain rights (natural rights) must exist, outside the creation of human society, in order for there to be any semblance of morality. But here you acknowledge that we do indeed have the capacity to create and enforce other rights. If we can create and enforce the right that animals should not be treated cruelly (i.e. dog fights) (EDIT: this is a bad example as its just a law and not necessarily a 'right', but I have to go and don't have time to come up with a better one atm), why can't we create and enforce the right that all humans have the right to life and liberty? Why is one valid without the existence of a natural right but the other is not?

 

[fskimospy]

But without natural rights, on what basis would we say North Korea is immoral? They starve and unjustly imprison their citizens - but if their citizens have no inherent right to life or liberty, so what? The most we can possibly say is "Well, I wouldn't do it."

That's of course not even remotely close to the most we can possibly say. I'm confused by the fact that you think that morality only gains potence when it is magically poofed into existence, not when people actually work to make it happen. I find it to be quite the opposite.

Regardless, wolfe makes a really good point. This is only arguing why you believe natural rights would be a good thing to have. It in no way actually argues for the existence of natural rights, for which there is absolutely no evidence. In fact if anything, human history is a testament to how no such rights exist.

 

[cwjerome]

I was reading something on this about objective moral values -- one was arguing that if there is no God, then on what basis do we judge good or bad acts?

If there is no Universal Law-giver, than no one can truly be good or bad -- all is relative to those holding those values. So we can't judge, say, suicidal bombers for instance, as being "wrong" for blowing people up -- but we DO because we have these Universal values.

The funny thing about this subject is that "lack of evidence" is treated as "evidence" that we don't have a Law-Giver.

If true Darwinian evolution was truly at work, it would be really survival of the fittest in the way you describe it -- improvement at all and any cost.

You don't need a god to determine right from wrong or argue for natural rights.

 

[Retro Rob]

Except it isn't. Darwinian evolution also conferred upon us two things: altruism (the desire to protect members of a group), and sentience, which confers upon us the capacity for moral choice.

How do you explain the fact that people believe in a higher being, or posses spirituality? Or the fact that we enjoy life... functions NOT NECESSARY to survive? If its (natural selection) only concern is survival, then we have things not needed, and abilities that impeded this process (like agriculture, medicine, etc) which, by definition, can stifle our "evolution".

Secondly, I don't think we're improving. We just exited the bloodies century in recorded human history filled with barbarism. We're entering an age where the threat of nuclear holocaust is a real freaking threat, and it has people concerned about whether or not we should look to leaving the planet for this reason, and another reason (asteroid).

This is just another version of the argument that you need religion to be moral. Yet I see no evidence of greater criminality or immorality among atheists, nor do I see evidence that crime increases as religiosity decreases in a society, or vice versa

I will be the first to tell you -- you're wrong. I wasn't inferring that you need religion to be moral. I too know non-religious people who are outstanding persons.

Finally, I'd like to point out that your fallacy is parallel to Werepossum's. You argue for desired result. I don't agree that the consequences of there being no "Law Giver" are what you claim, but even if I did, it wouldn't alter the fact that there is no evidence of the "Law Giver." If you want to argue for a deity, you need to provide evidence of his existence, not reasons why people should desire him to exist. It's not the same thing.

I simply said that we get our values and objective moral values from somewhere. There is a basis on which we judge good and bad, and I will argue that the men who wrote the Bible didn't just pull "you most not steal" clear out of their arses, which has plenty value and meaning today.

There is no record or proof that our ancestors had any values -- we just know we do. So, where did they come from? How did they originate? From them? As far as we know, they had none.

 

[cwjerome]

It in no way actually argues for the existence of natural rights, for which there is absolutely no evidence. In fact if anything, human history is a testament to how no such rights exist.

Natural Rights requires rationality and abstraction, two things the guy you mentioned, Hume, did not think were "real." Most people past the age of 5 and beyond the perceptual level of mental development are able to use and value abstractions.

We are moral creatures, we're born with it. We are born with it because we have to choose how we act and behave. Accepting this is a tacit recognition that we are born with an abstraction, that is this part of our very nature. That's the beginning. From there you can deduce the concept of natural rights as a condition of our particular moral nature.

 

[sandorski]

...




I will be the first to tell you -- you're wrong. I wasn't inferring that you need religion to be moral. I too know non-religious people who are outstanding persons.




I simply said that we get our values and objective moral values from somewhere. There is a basis on which we judge good and bad, and I will argue that the men who wrote the Bible didn't just pull "you most not steal" clear out of their arses, which has plenty value and meaning today.

There is no record or proof that our ancestors had any values -- we just know we do. So, where did they come from? How did they originate? From them? As far as we know, they had none.

1) There are no Objective Morals
2) The men who wrote the Bible had Laws passed down to them. Not from "God", but from previous Laws written by those who came before them. From Babylon, Egypt, and other civilizations.

 

[PowerEngineer]

How do you explain the fact that people believe in a higher being, or posses spirituality?

Perhaps a personal choice? How do you explain the fact that other people do not believe?

Or the fact that we enjoy life... functions NOT NECESSARY to survive?

What makes you so sure that enjoying life doesn't convey some survival benefit? It seems obvious to me that it helps stave off suicide. :sneaky:

If its (natural selection) only concern is survival, then we have things not needed, and abilities that impeded this process (like agriculture, medicine, etc) which, by definition, can stifle our "evolution".

Why do you think that natural selection wouldn't favor those who can enhance their chances of survival by developing agriculture and medicine? You might even want to consider the possibility that the survival benefits inherent in tribal associations were favored by natural selection and that this has led to today's societies and everything that goes into them, including language, culture, and religion.

Secondly, I don't think we're improving. We just exited the bloodies century in recorded human history filled with barbarism. We're entering an age where the threat of nuclear holocaust is a real freaking threat, and it has people concerned about whether or not we should look to leaving the planet for this reason, and another reason (asteroid).

Perhaps it was the "bloodiest" because the world population is so much larger than in previous centuries and because of the technologies now available to express our "barbarism", but it doesn't necessarily follow that people are more barbaric now.

You must not have lived through the 1950's or 1960's if you're under the impression that we're just now entering a time when the threat of a nuclear holocaust is "real". Back in those "good old days", the common wisdom was that it was only a matter of time before there'd be a full nuclear exchange involving thousands of warheads. It seems to me that we have an opportunity (despite North Korea's relatively puny efforts) to leave that time behind us.

I simply said that we get our values and objective moral values from somewhere. There is a basis on which we judge good and bad, and I will argue that the men who wrote the Bible didn't just pull "you most not steal" clear out of their arses, which has plenty value and meaning today.

Weighing the probabilities, I'd say that there's a much better chance that they did pull the commandments "out of their arses" than having them brought down by Moses on granite slabs carved by a supernatural being.

Perhaps if the old testament jews were the only group that had societal rules against stealing, murder, adultery, or coveting your neigbor's wife, then I might be more impressed. The fact is that this are common prohibitions for keeping the tribe together.

There is no record or proof that our ancestors had any values -- we just know we do. So, where did they come from? How did they originate? From them? As far as we know, they had none.

Which ancestors are you telling us had no values? My interpretation of the biblical accounts suggest that the Christian god started communicating rules for human behavior (not eating apples, making sacrifices to god, and not killing your brother) from the very beginning.

Frankly, I suspect that our "values" evolved as part of our adoption of tribal/societal schemes to enhance survival.

 

[werepossum]

Can't we use reason and logic to condemn them? I've told you why I condemn North Korea, you may disagree with me but I and many others do.

The difference between my condemnation of North Korea and your condemnation is that you hide behind Locke, while I own my opinion. At the end of the day, both of us condemn North Korea.

/sigh. Do you know what Property rights are? Do you know what IP rights are? Do you not see the contradiction between property rights and IP rights? If so then you have to acknowledge that IP rights spit in the face of property rights.

This cordless phone is mine, I can do whatever I want with it. I've purchased this phone from you or the store and I can do whatever I'd like with it.

This Iphone is mine, except for the OS which is apple's, and the music, which is Sony's, and the movies which are Disneys, and the books, which are Del ray, etc. etc. etc.

IP rights are an infringement of your property rights. They keep you from using your property the way you'd like to. If property rights are a natural right then IP rights are unjust. If, on the other hand, both are rights then we get to pick and choose which rights are appropriate for the age. Property rights served us well in a resource scarce world, but in a post scarcity world where I can copy a movie in 5 minutes IP rights are the better rights to enforce.

So we can have more rights then natural rights? Then why do we need natural rights then? Why can't all rights be additional rights?

But Kant and Locke disagreed! Locke says property rights are natural rights while Kant says by their very nature Property rights CAN'T be natural rights. Is the pursuit of happiness a natural right? Jefferson thought so. Is "life" a natural right? Apparently not if you're not a murder, rapist, committed treason, are the unborn,etc etc etc.

In this entire thread has anyone mentioned what the Natural Rights are?

Natural rights change the discussion from "is this wrong?" to "Did Kant, Jefferson, and other famous philosophers believe that this was wrong?"

I agree with you, everyone should have a right to be free and alive, and I'll even add that everyone should have the right to education. but that doesn't make those rights Natural rights.

But if there are no natural rights, on what basis can you "use reason and logic" to condemn North Korea? It makes zero difference if or why you condemn them or how you come to that conclusion; if there is no absolute right or wrong, then by definition your condemnation is meaningless because there is literally no possibility of your reasoned, logical rejection of their vision of society being any better than their basis for accepting their vision of society. If there is no inherent basis for right and wrong, then all actions are inherently equal and nothing matters beyond whether or not we have the might to enforce our own preferences.

You obviously do not understand intellectual property rights at all, because they are not at all a contradiction to, but rather are an extension of, property rights. They flow from exactly the same logic, one's inherent right to one's own labor. Even though the two forms of property rights may be in conflict, that is true of any two property rights. That you own a baseball bat does not give you the right to strike my car with it; my right to my car is in conflict with your right to do as you wish with your baseball bat.

I believe you are also a little confused about the conflict between Locke and Kant. If memory serves, the conflict is not on whether ownership is possible, but specifically only about initial acquisition of real property.

 

[werepossum]

I don't follow you. Why can't we do anything about it without natural rights? I believe that it is wrong to starve and unjustly imprison people, and I do condemn those activities and have a desire to see them changed. Yet I don't believe in this concept of natural rights as you have described it. What am I missing here? Why do I need to believe that there is some kind of moral imperative that stems from outside of human society that grants people the right to life and liberty?

This is really just a re-phrasing of the question above. I dont understand why there is a need for a natural right that grants people ownership of their work products. Can't human beings as intellectual life forms simply agree that this is the right way to do things? Do you think this is literally impossible or do you just think its unrealistic?

This is where it becomes quite confusing. You seem to say above that certain rights (natural rights) must exist, outside the creation of human society, in order for there to be any semblance of morality. But here you acknowledge that we do indeed have the capacity to create and enforce other rights. If we can create and enforce the right that animals should not be treated cruelly (i.e. dog fights) (EDIT: this is a bad example as its just a law and not necessarily a 'right', but I have to go and don't have time to come up with a better one atm), why can't we create and enforce the right that all humans have the right to life and liberty? Why is one valid without the existence of a natural right but the other is not?

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying that without natural rights, we cannot change any situation. I am saying that without natural rights, we have no moral basis on which to do so. Toppling the North Korean government because they starve and enslave their people becomes no different from toppling the North Korean government because we don't like poofy hair or pudgy people, or for that matter nuking the entire nation into glowing slag because we just plain don't like yellow people. If there is no absolute good and evil, nothing larger than man's constructs, then any possible morality is simply preference backed by force of arms, and all possible moralities are morally equal to a dispassionate observer.

You say you believe that it is wrong to starve and unjustly imprison people. On what basis? If there are no natural rights to life and freedom, why would starving and unjustly imprisoning people be bad?

EDIT: For the other, certainly we can establish and enforce as many rights as we wish. But if they do not stem from an underlying system of natural rights, then those additional rights are simply arbitrary.

 

[woolfe9998]

How do you explain the fact that people believe in a higher being, or posses spirituality? Or the fact that we enjoy life... functions NOT NECESSARY to survive? If its (natural selection) only concern is survival, then we have things not needed, and abilities that impeded this process (like agriculture, medicine, etc) which, by definition, can stifle our "evolution".

This is a pretty easy one. Things which we acquire by mutation/natural selection as survival tools can have effects not pertaining to survival. They are epiphenomena. Nature does not consider this because nature doesn't "consider" anything. No one ever said that evolution had to be "efficient" in that all the survival tools it confers can only be used for survival.

We evolved intelligence as a survival tool, but the self-awareness and higher order thinking that comes with it has numerous complex implications. For example, make any being sentient and they will wonder where they came from. Why? Because they CAN wonder.

Secondly, I don't think we're improving. We just exited the bloodies century in recorded human history filled with barbarism. We're entering an age where the threat of nuclear holocaust is a real freaking threat, and it has people concerned about whether or not we should look to leaving the planet for this reason, and another reason (asteroid).

Well, I think we are improving in many ways. Our technology is improving too. That is the reason we have more destructive weapons. However, nuclear weapons have not been used in anger since 1945. Do you honestly think that if WMD's had been discovered in the middle ages they would have gone 68 years without using them?

The problem with nukes if that we could in theory be 1000x more ethical than before, but it only takes one serious ethical lapse with these weapons and that's all she wrote. So it's scary all right, but not because we aren't better than before.

I will be the first to tell you -- you're wrong. I wasn't inferring that you need religion to be moral. I too know non-religious people who are outstanding persons.

Fair enough.

I simply said that we get our values and objective moral values from somewhere. There is a basis on which we judge good and bad, and I will argue that the men who wrote the Bible didn't just pull "you most not steal" clear out of their arses, which has plenty value and meaning today.

Our values derive from sentience and circumstance. Take the example of not murdering people. We have a genetic instinct for self-preservation. Layer sentience and self-awareness on top of that, and it means we don't generally want to die. It seems logical that a moral code would develop which precludes murder. Also seems logical that we'd create religion to pacify our fear of death, among other reasons.

Yet moral codes do vary quite a bit in their details, which suggests we aren't dealing with one supreme Law Giver. If he's giving the laws, then where are people adhering to different laws getting there's from? Any variation from your Law Giver's code proves that a moral code can exist without such a Law Giver.

 

[werepossum]

That's of course not even remotely close to the most we can possibly say. I'm confused by the fact that you think that morality only gains potence when it is magically poofed into existence, not when people actually work to make it happen. I find it to be quite the opposite.

Regardless, wolfe makes a really good point. This is only arguing why you believe natural rights would be a good thing to have. It in no way actually argues for the existence of natural rights, for which there is absolutely no evidence. In fact if anything, human history is a testament to how no such rights exist.

I'm saying that without natural rights, morality does not exist, period. If there is no natural right to life, then murder cannot be morally wrong, period, regardless of whether or not we prohibit it. If there is no natural right to liberty, then slavery cannot be morally wrong, period, regardless of whether or not we prohibit it. Depriving someone of life or liberty cannot be said to be wrong, merely against the whim of the majority or those in power. Without natural rights, morality cannot exist, any more than height can exist without a plane of reference. In both situations, any direction and magnitude we give must be arbitrary.

Throughout most of human history, natural rights were not recognized or even conceived of by most people. Slavery was not a moral problem because there was considered to be no natural right to be free. Murder was not a moral problem; although society still discouraged murder when convenient, a noble or just someone powerful enough to get away with it) faced no sanctions for killing someone. Mostly murder was handled by requiring a payment, a weregild, for the loss of that person's labor. The rise of organized religion and the humanist Age of Enlightenment took on this viewpoint, arguing that there are natural rights, that people have inherent value. You choose to dismantle the Age of Enlightenment, to argue that since these rights were not recognized (or worse, simply not well protected) they did not exist. But without natural rights, our imposed morality has no logical basis.

 

[werepossum]

SNIP
Our values derive from sentience and circumstance. Take the example of not murdering people. We have a genetic instinct for self-preservation. Layer sentience and self-awareness on top of that, and it means we don't generally want to die. It seems logical that a moral code would develop which precludes murder. Also seems logical that we'd create religion to pacify our fear of death, among other reasons.

Yet moral codes do vary quite a bit in their details, which suggests we aren't dealing with one supreme Law Giver. If he's giving the laws, then where are people adhering to different laws getting there's from? Any variation from your Law Giver's code proves that a moral code can exist without such a Law Giver.

But under your example, if morality is based on self-interest then murder should absolutely be moral as long as the murderer benefits and there is no real chance of being caught.

 

[Wardawg1001]

How do you explain the fact that people believe in a higher being, or posses spirituality? Or the fact that we enjoy life... functions NOT NECESSARY to survive? If its (natural selection) only concern is survival, then we have things not needed, and abilities that impeded this process (like agriculture, medicine, etc) which, by definition, can stifle our "evolution".

You would do well to spend a little time educating yourself on what natural selection really is. It is not 'survival of the fittest', at least not in the sense that that phrase is normally used (i.e. the strongest survive by killing or exploiting the weak). It is not 'improvement at any and all cost'. It does not systematically weed out any and all functions not necessary for survival. It is not a mechanism by which a species is refined continuously until it is perfect. It does not eliminate a species simply because it has unnecessary or even undesirable traits. Natural selection in fact does not DO anything, it does not have 'concerns', it is simply the definition of a process that occurs passively in nature.

Secondly, I don't think we're improving. We just exited the bloodies century in recorded human history filled with barbarism. We're entering an age where the threat of nuclear holocaust is a real freaking threat, and it has people concerned about whether or not we should look to leaving the planet for this reason, and another reason (asteroid).

That the state of humanity is not improving has nothing at all to do with evolution or natural selection. Maybe you weren't trying to imply this but I can't find what else the above statement was in reference to.

I simply said that we get our values and objective moral values from somewhere. There is a basis on which we judge good and bad, and I will argue that the men who wrote the Bible didn't just pull "you most not steal" clear out of their arses, which has plenty value and meaning today.

There is no record or proof that our ancestors had any values -- we just know we do. So, where did they come from? How did they originate? From them? As far as we know, they had none.

Humans, much like most other species, have a strong innate desire to continue living. Base emotions such as anger require no morality to be experienced (imagine a neanderthal stealing food from another neanderthal - the one who's food was stolen would understandably be angry, and absent any written/known set of moral values, could easily respond with deadly violence). At some point, it should become quite obvious to any group of moral-less (as in lacking a moral code) that such activity is not in the best interest of the group. People end up injured and/or dead and nothing was gained from it, and the group is now weaker as a whole. Continuous behavior of this nature could get them all killed eventually, even those who do not directly participate in it. And so they begin to discourage this behavior. As this is passed on as an unwritten (and eventually written) rule through the generations, it becomes ingrained in them, and eventually it is simply a known fact that you should not take someone elses food - not necessarily because it might get you killed, but because the group as a whole has decided you shouldn't do it.

This is obviously not based in scientific fact. Just my own little thought experiment. Theres several assumptions, and many factors I didn't include. But is it really so far fetched? Can you not see this as the natural evolution of behavior for a group of sentient and intelligent beings trying to survive in a harsh environment where you must put your life at risk constantly just to obtain the basic resources for survival?

Nobody can ever know if the above scenario is how it happened, written language was not around to document the emergence of moral values, and moral values can not be discovered from fossils or DNA evidence. But it is a plausible scenario that shows how moral values could be developed absent the previous existence of any, and a much more believable one than 'they are just there' or 'God did it'.

 

[Wardawg1001]

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying that without natural rights, we cannot change any situation. I am saying that without natural rights, we have no moral basis on which to do so. Toppling the North Korean government because they starve and enslave their people becomes no different from toppling the North Korean government because we don't like poofy hair or pudgy people, or for that matter nuking the entire nation into glowing slag because we just plain don't like yellow people. If there is no absolute good and evil, nothing larger than man's constructs, then any possible morality is simply preference backed by force of arms, and all possible moralities are morally equal to a dispassionate observer.

I wasn't trying to imply that your stance was that it is impossible to act on anything without natural rights, I was questioning your stance that I need to believe in natural rights to be able to hold a valid opinion on the morality of another persons actions.

Regardless, I understand your position a little better now, though I still disagree with it. I don't think there is a problem with morality being based on 'nothing larger than man's constructs'. In fact I don't think morality ever has or ever will exist in any other context. I believe basic moral values developed from a basic human desire to live. They evolved over time, they have evolved even very recently (slavery), and they will evolve in the future. I don't see the need to classify the right to life and liberty as a 'natural right' or give it any special designation at all, and frankly I still don't quite understand why you do. Maybe I don't understand your definition of 'natural right'.

You say you believe that it is wrong to starve and unjustly imprison people. On what basis? If there are no natural rights to life and freedom, why would starving and unjustly imprisoning people be bad?

Because I have been hungry before (not starving necessarily, at least not to the point that I was in any serious danger), and so I can feel empathy for the pain that those people are experiencing. That should honestly be enough, but I'll go further. As a rational and intelligent human being with a wealth of knowledge, I know that there is no benevolent motive for starving an entire population of people for decades. Thus I condemn those who are responsible. I don't need to believe in any sacred rights, I just need base human emotion, and maybe a little logic.

EDIT: For the other, certainly we can establish and enforce as many rights as we wish. But if they do not stem from an underlying system of natural rights, then those additional rights are simply arbitrary.

I disagree, but I think my above arguments are sufficient explanation as to why.

 

[Retro Rob]

This is obviously not based in scientific fact. Just my own little thought experiment. Theres several assumptions, and many factors I didn't include. But is it really so far fetched? Can you not see this as the natural evolution of behavior for a group of sentient and intelligent beings trying to survive in a harsh environment where you must put your life at risk constantly just to obtain the basic resources for survival?

Nobody can ever know if the above scenario is how it happened, written language was not around to document the emergence of moral values, and moral values can not be discovered from fossils or DNA evidence. But it is a plausible scenario that shows how moral values could be developed absent the previous existence of any, and a much more believable one than 'they are just there' or 'God did it'.

This is basically the whole point of my questions. Many say God didn't do it, but when asked even if our "ancestors" had any morals outside of "God", I can't get anything but guesswork and "assumptions". No written record simply means we can just "make stuff up based on our general assumptions" which you admittedly just did.. and what's always been done regarding them.

Obviously, there's no evidence our "ancestors" had any moral code, so I can safely assume they didn't. So as far as I am concerned, we didn't get our sense of morality and justice from them, nor am I saying God gave them to us either... just saying we're assuming evolution gave them to us, which sounds more credulous than reasonable.