We need to be careful here. Are physics books mediums of knowledge or are they signifiers, like magic cards, we can lay down for this or that argument. Again, I ask, what physics books are you thinking of? — csalisbury

Mediums of knowledge. And nothing in particular, just the general basics of physics, which I studied at G.C.S.E. level in secondary school, which I own a few books on, and which can be read about through various sources online

Not will. Newton attributed it to God. I don't know what modern physicists attribute it to. What do the physics books you've read say? — csalisbury

A force, like gravity. What I'm questioning is why anyone would give Schopenhauer with his Will or Newton with his God the time of day, instead of going by what the physics books say.

I mean you literally would find that in a physics book. That's a pretty standard idea in physics - the nonvariance of physical laws despite huge spatial distances. But maybe we're not reading the same books. Which 'physics books' are you referencing? — csalisbury

Not the description. It wouldn't attribute that to "Will", surely?

Will is whatever it is that makes things move. The explanation for a softball's movement is the same (fundamentally) as the explanation for the movement of galaxies. — frank

Yet I won't find that from any physics book. Why would you give old Schopenhauer more credence than modern physics?

That was a great read. Thank you. — NOS4A2

Aha! Now I know you must be lying. Caught you red handed.

What are you doing on the moon with that fuckwit? — Janus

Last minute replacement. I was supposed to be meeting Professor Brian Cox, but instead I got Chevy Chase. You can imagine my disappointment.

So, who has been ‘shortest serving PM in British Parliamentary history’? Any chance Bo Jo could assume that role? Google tells me George Canning, whose term lasted 119 days, so it’s there for the taking... — Wayfarer

They have quite a few similarities. Although, whereas Gove metaphorically knifed Boris in the back, Castlereagh literally shot Canning.

I'm not on the fence about whether people can lie. Just whether we can tell that a particular person is lying . . . not that it matters much to me that we can't tell, as I noted. — Terrapin Station

But there are some clear enough cases where we can tell. You're just setting the bar unreasonably high, as usual. And I don't think that it's intellectually honest of you to take the stance that you can't tell in at least some cases, like my example earlier. You know I'm not crazy enough to believe that.

Yes, I know, but I'm in south Norfolk, in 2017 the Tory's got approx 35,000 votes, Labour 15,000 and the two other candidates less than 1,000. Most of East Anglia is a Tory stronghold.

I am a poll clerk in a rural area and am used to the elderly farmers banging on about polish immigrants and their Tory credentials. — Punshhh

Well, if those numbers suggest that you'll be voting Labour, then you have my support. Where I'm from, we've been stuck with a Tory MP since 2010, and that seems like almost forever to me. I sympathise with the situation you're in.

The targeting of Polish immigrants is really horrible, and makes me sick. An innocent Polish man was brutally beaten to death in an unprovoked attack by a group of young thugs close to where I live around three years ago. It made the national news at the time.

Ah I see. But then again, you’re not looking at the whole experience. Say you get off after 1 hour. Then if I asked you: would you like to get on a roller coaster for 1 hour 1 minute, you would say no. Not worth starting and not worth continuing. The point is, you wouldn’t start something you don’t think is worth continuing for the whole duration. — khaled

I could actually, because I could change my mind part way through. But this was a digression anyway, wasn't it? It doesn't even seem to matter.

I’m really not. Ok all I’m claiming is that experiences worth starting are a subset of experiences worth continuing, do you agree? — khaled

Not a subset, no. But a prerequisite. Anyway, relevance?

So then, do you think not having children is a bad thing? Because you’d be “denying” someone enjoyment? If not then what’s the relevance of this fact? — khaled

It can be a bad thing, but not on that basis, since there'd be no one there to deny of anything. And the relevance of the fact that you can't enjoy anything if you aren't alive should be obvious. It's good to enjoy things (within reason, so I'm not talking about murdering babies, for example). Being alive is evidently a prerequisite to enjoy things, and enjoying things (within reason) is good. The logic is easy to follow.

Doesn't matter.
— S

How doesn’t it matter? And even if it didn’t can’t you just answer the question? You already answered it later here — khaled

Why would it matter whether or not I think that every experience worth living through is worth starting? We're not talking about that. That's not the topic. What bearing does it supposedly have on the discussion topic? No, whether you like it or not, I am going to remain firm in my refusal to answer any questions which I do not see as relevant, and instead question you in return about the supposed relevance. And especially if I think that you're trying to catch me out or something like that. Just cut the crap and be straight with me.

Which I think is a totally stupid claim. “Blindness is worth starting because blindness is worth living through for lots of people” do you agree with that claim? If not what makes it different from the one you just made? — khaled

Well I think that it's totally stupid how anti-natalists almost always try to manipulate language to their advantage and think that it will escape everyone's notice. You keep using the phrase "live through", which carries a negative connotation, as though it's a real challenge or a turmoil even. I said that, for lots of people, life is worth living, not that it's worth living through, like, say, one might say that chemotherapy is worth living through.

Life isn't like blindness. Once again, your comparison is inappropriate. Blindness isn't worth starting because, unlike life, it is totally negative, it is a defect, and anyone in their right mind would rather live without it if they had a choice. You're comparing life to a defect, which is ridiculous and artificially skews the set up to favour your own stance.

Their children’s lives haven’t though.... what do you mean?? Their lives have started and are worth living through, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are worth starting for other people. Other examples: if someone had their eyes gouged out their blindness has started and is worth living through, that doesn’t mean it is worth gouging other people’s eyes out — khaled

I've already been over this stupid and inappropriate analogy of yours. I'm not going to keep repeating myself.

Even if it was can you answer? — khaled

I have no intention of answering irrelevant questions.

Why are you treating two acts with the same intent and consequence differently? — khaled

Your question contains a false assumption. They don't have the same intent and consequence.

Ethical rights, not human rights. We are discussing a broader concept than human rights, specifically. And I don't need you to give me a rundown on the history because, firstly, I already know some of it, and secondly, it's not relevant in reply to what I said. You've entered an argumentive discussion, where we we've taken actual stances, in order to give a random history lesson. We were talking about what we believe to be the case, not what the history of philosophy on the topic is. Thanks, but we have access to resources for that and don't need you to chime in uninvited.

Yeah and it is ridiculous. You are mostly just "venting" on others.. spewing the bile, so to speak. Human rights started as a concept arguably from the Greeks, a little more fully in the Middle Ages, actually made into its proto-modern form in John Locke/Enlightenment political thinkers, and essentially goes from there. All of them have some sort of appeal to Natural Law..which is a kind of law that is assumed to be of an ethereal/cosmic/godly kind that is above any time and place. It is a historically-rooted concept that ironically formed in certain times and places. It is a human invention that goes along with Enlightenment notions of universality (think Kant's Categorical Imperative). Moral sense is not so sophisticated that all cultures think of this. The specific idea of human rights, is very much a culmination of Western ideals that came to its more-or-less modern form in the 1700s. — schopenhauer1

So, you claim that it's ridiculous, and then you respond by referencing way more ridiculous notions like natural law?

Okay. Excuse me for looking for a more realistic source to explain ethical rights. And thanks for the uninvited history lecture, I guess.

So what do we do about it...drum roll....nothing. Or at least nothing much. — T Clark

Just hang 'em, then.

It's not normally something I'd worry about.

I might go, "Wait--you believe what now?" And if they persist saying whatever it is that caused me to react like that, I'd just go "ohhhhkay."

No need to worry about whether they really believe it, really. — Terrapin Station

But the question is whether or not they're lying, and whether or not you can tell, not whether or not you're worried about it. Most of the time I'm not worried about climate change or cancer, but I'm not on the fence about whether or not they're real.

Your whole notion of rights is so handwaving and full of assertion, I don't know where to begin. You don't even present a foundation. You mask your lack of foundation in simply trying to denigrate everyone. — schopenhauer1

Do you feel better after that little vent? I clearly presented a foundation in moral sentiment. And those longer-term members who are familiar with my views should already know that. Haven't you been following the discussion?

In other words, there are some beliefs that you'd say that particular individuals couldn't actually hold.

I don't think that. Even if the person doesn't have a history of saying things that are crazy, they could believe something crazy now. — Terrapin Station

It would be an extremely remote possibility, so not something that I'd take seriously, because I'm reasonable like that. (As is Chevy Chase. He doesn't give serious consideration to the remote possibility that I believe that we're on the moon together, either. I know that because I just asked him).

You don't think that people can have some beliefs? — Terrapin Station

What? Wait, if this is some sort of subtle practical joke, given the title, then hats off to you.

Yes, I do think that people can have some beliefs. And I don't think that you'd entertain as a serious possibility that I'm crazy enough to really believe that I'm on the moon right now with Chevy Chase.

(Even though I really am on the moon right now with Chevy Chase, but that's not the point).

How would I know that you don't believe that you're on the moon right now with Chevy Chase? You could be crazy. — Terrapin Station

Seriously?

It's very difficult to tell if anyone is lying, really, because you need to know that what they believe to be the case at time Tx is different than what they're claiming to believe at time Tx. That requires knowing their mental content, contra their expression. Obviously that's not something we can really do. — Terrapin Station

It can be difficult. It can also be pretty obvious. If I told you that I'm on the moon right now with Chevy Chase, would you believe me? Would you think that I was mistaken? Would you withold judgment? You'd think that I was lying, wouldn't you?

I don't agree with it, really. Some rights are about that, obviously, and that may be rather common, but not all rights are about that (whether we're talking about legal rights or "broader" moral rights). — Terrapin Station

Well, close enough as a rough picture of how rights tend to work, and as a rough picture it's pretty obvious. But there are most probably deviants from the norm who would insist that they have rights that hardly anyone else would acknowledge, on the same sort of basis as others insist that they have rights, whether they're conscious of that basis or not, namely on the basis of their strong feelings. We both agree that there's no objective right or wrong here. There doesn't really, for all conceivable cases, "have to be a kind of social agreement to respect certain feelings that are more or less universal in the culture". That only really works as a conditional, like if one were to add, "if you want to fit in" or something.

Hang, draw, and quarter.

I'm guessing that's what you were referring to re the judges remarks? The judge said that Choudary's comments "encouraged" and "influenced." Are we to take the judge to be using "influence" in the sense of "cause" (but not "force," whatever "cause but not force" is supposed to be)? — Terrapin Station

Yes.

In what strange world does not censoring someone entail publishing their speech to a wider audience? — NOS4A2

Jesus Christ. I'm talking about a world that must seem very strange to you indeed. I'm talking about the strange world of combining logic with your own comments in this discussion. Let me try one last time to break it down as clearly and simply as possible, so that even a simpleton could understand it.

You are totally against censorship, yes? Yes.

The media publish things, yes? Yes.

The media, or at least notable media outlets, have a wide audience, yes? Yes.

So, if a notable media outlet (if it hasn't already slipped your mind, you'll recall that they have a wide audience) decided to publish a hate speech in full, then you would have no objection to that (given that you're totally against censorship), yes? Otherwise you would be contradicting yourself, yes?

Are you following?

Maybe you wouldn't be so confused if you hadn't either forgotten or wilfully disregarded the context of my comment. When I said that you'd rather have his speech published to a wide audience, that was as opposed to censoring it, and it was about a publication through the media (hence a wide audience).

It really isn't that complicated.

Consider that sometimes, the "my stuff" that is under discussion is such things as slaves. How would we respond to the Confederate slave-owner claiming his property rights? Does he have such rights? — petrichor

Oh, c'mon. I'd respond as you'd expect me to.

Academy Of Fine Ideas — Fine Doubter

Academy Of Daft Ideas
Academy Of Fuck Your Ideas
Academy Of High Arrears
Academy Of Great Big Ears
Academy Of Fine Wine
Academy Of Cheap Cider
Academy Of Alcoholics Anonymous
Academy Of It's A Forum, Not An Academy
Academy Potter And The Chamber Of [Mod edit]Boris Johnson's[/Mod edit]

It would seem that all our rights really amount to is a kind of social agreement to respect certain feelings that are more or less universal in the culture. I don't want you taking what I feel is my stuff. And you don't want me taking what you feel is your stuff. So let's agree not to take each other's stuff and let's make it a rule that one's stuff is not to be taken by someone else.

That about sum it up? Would anyone disagree with that? — petrichor

I wouldn't disagree, because it's obvious. Isn't philosophy just great? You get to spend ages enquiring into things that you already know, and then, remarkably, you finally reach a conclusion that you already knew to begin with.

Do you know what's even better than philosophy? Making sarcastic comments to people online. It's a favourite pastime of mine.

This isn't about the question of whether S has been proven wrong. I am interested in examining this concept of rights, since most seem to just assert their rights claims without even really knowing what they are saying. This is commonly what practitioners of philosophy do. We will examine things often assumed, just the sorts of things people usually take as so self-evident and universally known that it is silly to question them. The people who think it is silly to stop and interrogate our basic beliefs are not philosophical. — petrichor

If being philosophical means drawing no lines with regards to sensible enquiries, then I'm happy to be unphilosophical. But of course, it doesn't mean that at all. That's just how you're characterising it. You're trying in vein to commandeer the term, and you've done it a number of times now. Yours is a characterisation which I find not only naive, but counterproductive.

A feeling, especially if it is not shared by everyone, seems a poor justification for a universal claim and a restriction of behavior that you want to impose on everyone. — petrichor

But it's the only possible justification. What's the supposed alternative? There is only subjective morality, irrespective of what you think moral statements seem to imply. And if you think any differently, then you have a burden of proof.

You are welcome to cease reading and participating. — petrichor

Do you know how many discussions, and how much time I've spent, reading and participating against my own best interest? I only have so much self-control. I'm an impulsive hedonist at heart. I do what I want at the time.

Anyone else feel like this is spending too much time going over the basics... stuff we already know? I don't feel like I have been proven wrong over my initial criticism. So much for the Socratic approach...

Suppose we find an example of a historical culture in which men feel that their wives and children belong to them, and that therefore, they have a right to kill them if they see fit. Suppose this feeling is strong. Suppose the adult women even agree with it. Clearly, in our culture, most of us disagree with them. Who is right? How do we decide? — petrichor

We decide how we usually do, by consulting our respective conscience. I say it's wrong.

What if you claim to have right X, and you base it on a feeling that you alone have, this feeling being shared by nobody else at all? — petrichor

What of it? I already agreed with Hanover on basically the same point. In practical terms, obviously that would be a problem. Would it mean I'm wrong? No, not necessarily. Wrong relative to their feelings on the matter? Sure.

Some rights seem to be mostly a matter of legal convention. "You have a right to an attorney..." — petrichor

Right, ethical rights can coincide with legal rights. They're not mutually exclusive. And it's no coincidence that they often coincide like that.

The claim that people have a right to reproduce wouldn't seem to be an example of this though. If our government were to pass laws against having children without a license, people would argue against such laws and base their objection on their claim of rights. — petrichor

There's no such law disallowing it or requiring a licence. And?

Having right in a subjective sense simply amounts to an individual feeling strongly enough about a moral stance that he/she feels it should be inviolable in principle no matter what.

Different people can feel that way about different stances.

He wasn't asking there are individuals that feel that way about each side of antinatalism--obviously there are. — Terrapin Station

I think the answer's obvious either way. It's obvious that there are ethical rights in the subjective sense, and it's obvious that there's no basis for ethical rights in the objective sense. Rights stem from us, are a product of us, and are dependent on us. There's no objective means of acsertaining ethical rights: that's a delusion.

When a person claims that people have a right to X, they are making a universal claim. And they are saying that I should respect their right. But if the claim to the right is justified only by a feeling the person has, and different people have different such feelings, isn't there a conflict here between the universality of the rights claim and the non-universality of the moral sentiment it is supposedly justified by? — petrichor

No, why would there be? I suppose that you could say that there's a conflict more broadly, in that a consequence of the variation of feelings means that naturally people won't always agree over the matter, and might get into arguments about it. But that would have no bearing on anything, as far as I can discern.

This reply of yours seems to basically make the quite common error in ethics of thinking that universal morality implies uniformity in feelings or belief, when to me it quite clearly doesn't. It's a non sequitur.

He was framing it in terms of whether it's true or false, whether it's the case, that we have such and such right, where he clearly wasn't talking about what present laws are in a given locale. — Terrapin Station

If we have rights in an ethical and subjective sense, then why wouldn't it be true or the case that we have rights (in accordance with the aforementioned interpretation)? Your query or objection or whatever your point is still doesn't make sense to me.

And?

Er, I guess to an uber-conformist that's a bad thing?

Too bad everyone wasn't jumping off a bridge in your neighborhood. — Terrapin Station

An uber-conformist. :lol:

Only when it's sensible or obvious. I'm much less of a conformist when it's more of an open matter. Some matters are simply closed. Like, I wouldn't jump off a bridge, unless I was really suicidal, because that's dumb, even if everyone else was jumping off. You've got it backwards. Lot's of people agree on the sensible and obvious stuff, because they themselves are sensible and find those things obvious.

As for moral sentiment, is this saying basically that I feel I have a right, and therefore I do? Isn't this problematic? — petrichor

Why? Because people disagree? People disagree regardless, and always will.

What does that even mean, that I "have a right"? It isn't quite the same as saying that I am unconstrained, physically or otherwise. It isn't quite the same as saying that something is legal. — petrichor

No, it's neither of those things. It's not the former because that's simply not what it means, and it's not the latter because that's a different sense. We're talking about the ethical sense, not the legal sense.

What is it exactly? I honestly find it puzzling. I wonder if we know what we are talking about when we speak of rights. — petrichor

I don't see why it's so puzzling. It's just a specific way of conveying typical moral sentiments, such as that you ought to do this or that you ought not to do that. It's like rules. If I have the right to remain silent, then you can't force me to speak. If I have the right to an attorney, then you can't refuse me one. Even if you literally can, the idea is that you can't do so without doing something immoral.

It seems to me that it is primarily rooted in a feeling, maybe something like what a small child feels when screaming, "MINE!" Is it more than this? Is that feeling justified? Is it some kind of instinct? — petrichor

Yeah, that's it. A feeling. Perhaps instinctual in some cases.

It would seem that the sense that we have "a right to do as we please" is rooted ultimately in a sense of self-ownership. I'm mine. My body is mine. Not yours. We should be able to do with what is ours as we please. Nobody else's business. Something like that? — petrichor

Yeah, something like that. See? It's not so puzzling.

But if I look into that feeling in myself, I find that it's basically a sense of frustration at my will being obstructed. This then takes the form in my mind of the idea that my will ought not be obstructed. Is this leap justified? — petrichor

It's justified in a sense. I wouldn't say in an objective sense.

Something like property rights gives us the basic sort of right. No? — petrichor

Yeah, I suppose so, at least on a minimal level. So, for example, I wouldn't go as far as those further to the right of me on the political spectrum with regards to home ownership and private property.

It would seem that we are dealing with the basic idea of libertarianism, which is that the only justifiable role of the state is to protect liberty, and that my freedom ends where the other person's nose begins. Yes? — petrichor

No, not quite. I'm of the opposite stance in significant respects, in that I'm in favour of a big state in relation to important issues, like tax and various regulations, just not on a range of social matters which I consider to be none of the states business.

But isn't this basic sense of mineness itself open to question? And isn't that what entitlement is really reducible to? Basically a feeling of mineness? — petrichor

It's ultimately individualist, yes.

Interesting. Can you explain the "interpretation of rights consistent with that stance"? It would seem to me that claiming you have rights when you say you don't believe rights are real surely involves a contradiction. — petrichor

It's not that simple, and it's not as absurd as it sounds. I'm not so much saying that they're not real, as that they're not objective. They're as real as all the other subjective stuff.

There isn't a universal cross-cultural moral sentiment. — Hanover

I agree, but then there doesn't need to be. It doesn't have to be universal. There are enough of us where I'm from for it to be the norm.

Regardless, if you leave to the democracy what rights one should have, then you're not talking about rights in the inalienable sense, but you're just talking only about current public sentiment. The idea behind rights (as I see it at least) is that there are certain things every person should have regardless of the opinions of others. — Hanover

What do you mean, "regardless of the opinion of others"? I'm fine with rejecting the opinion of others, and with suggesting that they should adopt mine. I do that all the time. It's all opinion, basically. That's where rights can be traced to, though they can be traced even further back than that, as we have opinions on moral matters because of our moral sentiments. In any case, that's a much more defensible explanation than that they come from a Creator!

If I have the right to free speech, that means that no government can take it from me. I own it, even if all the population thinks I'm undeserving. It's the distinction between relative and absolute, and you can't have an absolute if it rests in something that is dependent upon the culture, the time, or the idiosyncrasies of the current population pool. — Hanover

I am fine with the part in your example about the government not being able to take it away from you in an ethical sense, and even if you hypothetically extend that to the rest of the world. But that by no means makes it absolute. It makes it minimally relative to you, or rather your moral sentiments behind the right. Moral absolutism is a nonsense. It's always necessarily relative to something or someone as a minimum requirement.

On the other hand, if the right is rooted in something immutable, then the universe must revolve around it, and not vice versa. — Hanover

That's a really big if. What would that be? And please don't say a Creator. Credible suggestions only.

But to your point, there is no proving God's existence, so if one cannot hold to such a belief, one cannot hold to a belief in rights. — Hanover

That's simply not true. At all. The vast majority of atheists believe in rights.

<----definitely not what I'd be doing, but I'm not a rah-rah conformist like you. :-p — Terrapin Station

No, you're a loony, out there, outspoken, fringe view kind of guy.