Rights

[Stevil]

Wikipedia has a good article on the shape of space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_the_Universe

That describes the shape of our universe, not space.

OK.  I'm going to stop disagreeing with your metaphorical use of words like "rules" and "allowed" and just follow your argument and see where it leads.

Thank you, at least it give us room to progress in some kind of direction for now.

The default rules of space (the laws of physics) allow me to club you in the head and then, as you lie on the floor unconscious, the default rules of space allow me to cut off your limbs with a chainsaw.  Apparently that means I have the right to do those things.  Do I?  Why or why not?

Yes, the laws of physics give you the right to do that to me.

Out in the wild, in the jungles and in the ocean depths, is there anything my body and mind can accomplish that I don't have the right to do?

Yes anywhere, any time, any place as long as it is consitent with material reality.

I'll assume, until you tell me otherwise, that in the wild my rights are open-ended.  What I can, I may.  Might is right.

Here you are using a different definition of the word "right". In this sentence it is more along the lines of right and wrong. Previously we were using the word with regards to whether we are allowed to do something. If we exist in material reality and as long as the rules of material reality are not compromised then we are allowed to do what ever.

Yet presumably I don't have the right to complain if the government won't allow me to dismember you with a chainsaw.  How did I lose that right to complain?  What force or fact took it away from me?

You certainly have the right to complain. The government is infringing on your rights. You should expect the government to justify why they are infringing on your rights. The government cannot answer that it is not your right to perform these acts, they must explain their infringement.

All laws infringe our rights and ought to come with a strong justification. I am not of the opinion that our rights are beyond justified infringement.

[Pharaoh Cat]

The default rules of space (the laws of physics) allow me to club you in the head and then, as you lie on the floor unconscious, the default rules of space allow me to cut off your limbs with a chainsaw.  Apparently that means I have the right to do those things.  Do I?  Why or why not?

Yes, the laws of physics give you the right to do that to me.

I like it.  Logically consistent.  Good.

I'll assume, until you tell me otherwise, that in the wild my rights are open-ended.  What I can, I may.  Might is right.

Here you are using a different definition of the word "right". In this sentence it is more along the lines of right and wrong. Previously we were using the word with regards to whether we are allowed to do something. If we exist in material reality and as long as the rules of material reality are not compromised then we are allowed to do what ever.

Hmm.  OK.  I guess we're retaining our amoral universe, which I like, since a universe with no God has to be amoral at least until sapients emerge.  So when we speak of rights in your line of reasoning, we're speaking of permission, which, if it isn't a morality concept, must be a power concept.  I agree that amoral power can permit.  Interesting, Stevil.  You've been saying this all along, of course.  I had a blind spot.  Amoral power can permit!  Cool! 

Yet presumably I don't have the right to complain if the government won't allow me to dismember you with a chainsaw.  How did I lose that right to complain?  What force or fact took it away from me?

You certainly have the right to complain. The government is infringing on your rights.

Magnificent!  Truly.  Your logical consistency is really, really good.

You should expect the government to justify why they are infringing on your rights. The government cannot answer that it is not your right to perform these acts, they must explain their infringement.

Cool!

All laws infringe our rights and ought to come with a strong justification.

Cool!

I am not of the opinion that our rights are beyond justified infringement.

Neat.  Really, really good.

"Nature is governed by amoral power which permits whatever power can accomplish, so every living creature has the natural right to do whatever it can, and every law is an infringement, sometimes reasonable, never unquestionable."

Sig-worthy!

So what constitutes a justified (reasonable) infringement?

[Recusant]

Pharaoh Cat, in this discussion you have referred to the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights specifically. The founders of the US believed in inherent rights in the Lockean sense; they codified that belief in the 9th Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Given that you seem to hold the position that rights can only exist if they are bestowed by an authority (rule-maker), would you agree with Judge Bork that the 9th Amendment might as well be an ink blot when it comes to interpreting rights from a Constitutional perspective?

[Stevil]

"Nature is governed by amoral power which permits whatever power can accomplish, so every living creature has the natural right to do whatever it can, and every law is an infringement, sometimes reasonable, never unquestionable."

Sig-worthy!

I do love the way you have put this phrase together. I am not so talented with words, it has taken me a long time to get my ideas into a comprehensible enough format for you to understand them as I do.

As I have mentioned previously this is a difficult topic to articulate clearly and concisely, especially given the limitation of the English language (or just perhaps my own limited grasp of language). I feel Atheists are on the back foot with regards to arguing about rights and morality because we are so conditioned to think in terms of objective rights and that rights mean not only having permission but that of being an absolute right that should never be violated. Reality is much more complex, we shouldn't allow ourselves to get caught up in this black and white way of thinking.

So what constitutes a justified (reasonable) infringement?

Now that we have a common understanding, we have finally arrived at the interesting bit. Without a belief in objective morality, objective good, objective evil how do we use government to set the rules of our society?

We need to understand first the purpose of government. As a cohabitating society, we can't avoid interacting with each other and our common environment. Given that we are capable of doing anything that is physically possible, we can and often do infringe on each others' rights. We can act selfish and do things that benefit ourselves while disregarding others. For society to function we must come up with and enforce a set of common rules to enable a more functional potentially harmonious society. Without rules we could easily find ourselves in confrontation resulting in a dangerous, dysfunctional society.
So as a bear minimum we need rules to ensure a functional society. Rules against rape and murder for example can easily be thought of as a necessity for a functional society. Yes, these infringe on people's rights to perform these actions, but for a functional and safe society we need to infringe on these rights.

Should our government aim higher than simply a bear basics functional society?
How about rules to ensure a moral society? As an Atheist, I don't believe there is an objective standard of morality. Who would be the author? How would we know what these morals are? Can an immoral society be functional?
I don't believe that an Atheist can come up with an objective morality, certainly not one that everyone would agree with. If not everyone agrees with it then surely that means it is subjective. Even if everyone happens to agree with it, does that really mean that it is objective or have we all been conditioned based on societies many influences?
Even for Theists, should they really be enforcing their morals into law? If a Christian believes that god gave people free will and desires to use our choices and actions on earth in order to judge us in the afterlife then wouldn't enforcing morals on people be against god's plan, being contrary to free will and thus denying god's ability to judge us based on our choices? If we are to be judged, we need to be given enough rope to hang ourselves with.

Thus if we are only to aim for a functional society then the government must explain how each rule (law) is justified in this regard.
If for example they consider a rule to restrict our right to have gay sex? How could government justify this rights infringement? If a portion of the population engage in gay sex how does this prevent society from being functional?

I feel some principles would certainly help us in defining the rules of a functional society, but ultimately all rules must come with a justification which ties back to the goal of a functional society.
Some principles I can think of are:
- The golden rule (treat others as you would like to be treated)
- Don't discriminate (gender, age, skin colour, race, culture, belief, sexual orientation, physical disabilities etc)
Violation of the above principles can lead to oppression and conflict and hence a non functional society.

[Pharaoh Cat]

Pharaoh Cat, in this discussion you have referred to the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights specifically. The founders of the US believed in inherent rights in the Lockean sense; they codified that belief in the 9th Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Given that you seem to hold the position that rights can only exist if they are bestowed by an authority (rule-maker), would you agree with Judge Bork that the 9th Amendment might as well be an ink blot when it comes to interpreting rights from a Constitutional perspective?

I am now, as of this morning, a Stevilist!  And so I proudly declare that nature endows us with the right to do whatever we can!  So holy mackerel, and holy boson, that 9th Amendment packs quite a wallop!

[Pharaoh Cat]

We need to understand first the purpose of government. As a cohabitating society, we can't avoid interacting with each other and our common environment. Given that we are capable of doing anything that is physically possible, we can and often do infringe on each others' rights. We can act selfish and do things that benefit ourselves while disregarding others. For society to function we must come up with and enforce a set of common rules to enable a more functional potentially harmonious society. Without rules we could easily find ourselves in confrontation resulting in a dangerous, dysfunctional society.
So as a bear minimum we need rules to ensure a functional society.

I wonder if you would then support my proposed Materialist Amendment to the United States Constitution:
"Congress shall pass no law except it serve to protect the material well-being of the citizenry against a material threat from a material source."

I think you would.  Really, what other good reason for infringement could there ever be, other than protection of a citizen's material well-being?

After all, lawmaking seems so often to be a contest between liberty (rights) on one hand and security (protection of our material well-being) on the other, the goal being a reasonable balance between the two.

[Stevil]

I wonder if you would then support my proposed Materialist Amendment to the United States Constitution:
"Congress shall pass no law except it serve to protect the material well-being of the citizenry against a material threat from a material source."

I need to think about that one, to try and understand what it means.

[Stevil]

I don't agree with everything that Donald says, but I do think that he makes a respectable case for the existence of natural rights.

From "Natural Law and Natural Rights" by James A Donald:

This is a fascinating read, Recusant, thanks for the link. It is taking me a while to get through it.
It seems like a complex topic and Donald is only presenting high level ideas with high level references to his proofs. To properly debate Natural Law would likely take an immense amount of research and effort.

The first thing that comes to my mind so far is that Natural Law (to me) seems to be a recognition of the behavioural culture of a species rather than a law.
Through my years of working within corporate businesses, I understand that introducing cultural change is an extremely difficult thing to do.

I will read on...

[Recusant]

The first thing that comes to my mind so far is that Natural Law (to me) seems to be a recognition of the behavioural culture of a species rather than a law.
Through my years of working within corporate businesses, I understand that introducing cultural change is an extremely difficult thing to do.

Yet the behavioral culture of almost all species is inherited; instinct. Though Homo sapiens sapiens has largely evolved beyond being constrained by instinct in the way that every other species is (keeping in mind that some other species exhibit the ability to transcend instinct to some extent), I think that there remains an element of instinct in the way that we interact with each other. Thus my earlier reference to what I see as the foundation of human morals. I think that in species that rely pretty much entirely on instinct, it's reasonable to call that instinct the "natural law" which governs their behavior. To the extent that we retain the instincts of a social species (and it may be greater than we generally realize) we also retain an aspect of natural law. I think that these instinctual elements in our make-up form the basis of natural rights. We are capable of ignoring our instinctive tendencies regarding morality and rights, but that doesn't mean they don't exist; I would say that they are not merely arbitrary decisions made on the basis of culture and whim, nor are they dependent upon any external authority. They are inherent in out nature.

[Stevil]

Yet the behavioral culture of almost all species is inherited; instinct. Though Homo sapiens sapiens has largely evolved beyond being constrained by instinct in the way that every other species is

We do seem to be less hardwired, which is probably why it takes us so long to reach independance from our caregivers, whereas some animals never meet their parents.

We are capable of ignoring our instinctive tendencies regarding morality and rights, but that doesn't mean they don't exist; I would say that they are not merely arbitrary decisions made on the basis of culture and whim, nor are they dependent upon any external authority. They are inherent in out nature.

If we start with ""Nature is governed by amoral power which permits whatever power can accomplish, so every living creature has the natural right to do whatever it can, and every law is an infringement, sometimes reasonable, never unquestionable." as PC so greatly worded it. Lets term this Physical Law.

Then for humans, we could attempt to add a layer of Natural Law on top of that.
If we deem law (rules) to be a restrictive, constraining element then it makes sense to consider Natural Law to be a subset of Physical Law.

If Natural Law describe the natural constraints of the human species, then would it be accurate to suggest that humans cannot possibly perform acts that fall outside of Natural Law? If this is the case then we would not need to create Legal Law to restrict human activities that are part of Physical Law but not part of Natural Law thus I would imagine that any Legal Law must be a subset of Natural Law by its nature. It would be entirely superfluous in describing legal law against actions that are not within Natural Law, just as it would be superfluous in describing legal law against actions that are not within Physical Law.

If this is true then does that make Natural Law irrelevant when considering the construction of Legal Law?
Can Legal Law force humans to perform acts outside of  human nature?
e.g. If the only path within Natural Law is path A and the Legal Law makes path A illegal, well we don't have the option to go with Path B which is part of Physical Law but outside of Natural Law. Path B might be a valid option for a different species, but for the human species it is impossible as it is against our nature.

Does this seem right?
If a human is capable of an action, can that action be deemed as outside of the human version of Natural Law?

[Pharaoh Cat]

To the extent that we retain the instincts of a social species (and it may be greater than we generally realize) we also retain an aspect of natural law. I think that these instinctual elements in our make-up form the basis of natural rights.

I will remain faithful to the Stevilian tenet that every creature has the natural right to do whatever it can.  But as for some natural law discernible in our animalian instincts/drives/emotions - I would have to think an instinct/drive/emotion can only be countered by another instinct/drive/emotion of greater felt urgency.  For example, on any given day, driven by a "defend my dignity" instinct/emotion to pound the heck out of some moron, I am simultaneously driven by a "submit to authority" instinct/emotion to walk away so as to keep the peace.  Whichever instinct/drive/emotion feels more urgent, wins, and I either pound or walk.  What my power of reason does is line up my options in my imagination so my instincts/drives/emotions can make an informed choice.

Personal morality is a self-imposed infringement on my natural right to do whatever I can, and as such, it is always questionable, and may sometimes be reasonable, sometimes not.  So far I've accepted two moral tenets as reasonable: (1) logical consistency; and (2) reciprocity, what I've called Newtonian Conduct, worded as, "For every action let there be an equal and opposite reaction."

I apparently have a "submit to personal morality" instinct/drive/emotion, tempered by a "question personal morality" instinct/drive/emotion, and countered by all the other instincts/drives/emotions vying for dominance in my psyche.  Felt urgency is the feedback my inner servomechanism uses to gauge what I should do next.  When at equilibrium I do nothing.  But I don't stay there long unless I'm sick or just very tired.

[Stevil]

So what constitutes a justified (reasonable) infringement?

I am still less than half way through the Natural Law document, but I think I am beginning to understand it.
I think that it can be used to help answer the questions of what is a justified infringement of our Physical Rights.
If I steal your car, you may feel the urge to get artistic with me using your chainsaw as a carving tool or punch me in the face and take your car back. An objective observer may feel that you are justified in punching me in the face, not so justified in the use of your chainsaw talents.

All of this happens, regardless of what the Legal Law states. These people have decided for themselves what "Natural" rights they think we are entitled to.
Violation of "natural" rights leads to unorganised violence.

To create Legal Law to create a functioning society a government must:
1. Not violate natural rights and thus give people an incentive to take up unorganised violence
2. Create Legal Law to protect natural rights and thus protect people from other people whom may violate their natural rights.

[Stevil]

To create Legal Law to create a functioning society a government must:
1. Not violate natural rights and thus give people an incentive to take up unorganised violence
2. Create Legal Law to protect natural rights and thus protect people from other people whom may violate their natural rights.

But, my major point is that I don't think government should go above and beyond (in relation to violating our physical rights).
Government should not create laws and thus restriction on human behaviour if that human behaviour does not result in the common situation where people will feel their natural human rights have been violated and thus resort to unorganised violence.
e.g. government should not make laws to restrict peoples' physical right to gay sex or gay marriage.
gay sex ought to be a natural human right as I would think that gay people ought to resort to unorganised violence if people try to stop them. As an objective observer I would support the gay people in this fight.

[Stevil]

I finally got through the natural rights article.
It was very interesting, had some great food for thought.
I disagreed with quite a bit of it though.
The author refers to morality and evil but there is no such thing.
He suggest that all of human kind are the same but forgets about cultural, habitual, learned influences on the way we live and how each of us take certain rights to be worthy of fighting for.
He mentions Physical Rights but then forgets about it and states that Natural law is the top level of rights.
He is correct to say that government is not the highest authority, that the people will override government when certain rights are compromised.
He mentions that Authoritarians and Unitarians want to redefine language to suit them but does not mention that theists have already bastardised our language. e.g. the term "rights" includes a morality aspect which is only appropriate to theists.

There is no magical Natural Rights, our rights are defined by Physical Rights, each individual then prioritises these rights and accepts that some of them must be compromised in order to create a functional society. Government cannot work for themselves and impose on the people. Government must be representative of society and work for them. Government must stay in touch with the people to understand their understanding and priorities on which rights matter most, government must provide law to protect us not to arbitrarily constrain us. Society wants freedom but within the confines of a safe and functional society.

[pytheas]

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory. as wiki states

when in rome act as a roman
do not bow but break
etc. whatever you fancy in any particular theatre play of lives

other than that
I understand human rights which link directly to basic human  needs and are expected in modern homo sapiens behaviours and social conduct. BIOLOGY 101