I asked him about rights realism because he was framing his discussion in terms of rights. — Terrapin Station
Since rights aren't exclusive to ethical realism, that makes no sense. — S
No, you're a loony, out there, outspoken, fringe view kind of guy. — S
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
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. 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
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
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
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
If you want to try to unbreak the egg though, feel free. I have no idea how to unmerge. — Baden
It seems to be a trend lately, by the way, that people will start a bunch of threads that are just slight variations on the same thing, sparked by a discussion in some other thread. — Terrapin Station
It seems to be a trend lately, by the way, that people will start a bunch of threads that are just slight variations on the same thing, sparked by a discussion in some other thread. — Terrapin Station
As for moral sentiment, is this saying basically that I feel I have a right, and therefore I do? Isn't this problematic? — petrichor
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
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
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
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
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
Something like property rights gives us the basic sort of right. No? — petrichor
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
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
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
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
Why? Because people disagree? People disagree regardless, and always will. — S
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. — S
Probably the only precise definition of right is in legal terms. Outside of legal terms, it's probably sufficient to ask what we should do. — Echarmion
We could perhaps say that rights are rooted in interests. I.e. I have an interest to keep some things at the exclusion of others, and therefore I'd like property rights. — Echarmion
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
It would seem that the claim that I have a right to X is often understood as being something like a claim that my doing X isn't illegal under the present government. I'm allowed to do X, in other words. But really, when people speak of their rights, they seem to be trying to express something more than that. And it seems they often want to change laws to make them more consistent with the rights they feel people have. So the rights would seem to be thought prior to legality. — petrichor
But to say that I have an interest in something or another seems different from saying that my interests ought not be obstructed. And the rights claim seems to be along the lines of the latter rather than the former.
A rapist could say that he has an interest in satisfying his sexual needs. But most wouldn't agree that he therefore has a right to satisfy them. — 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. — S
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
Some rights seem to be mostly a matter of legal convention. "You have a right to an attorney..." — petrichor
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
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
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
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
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