"Shayne Wissler" <
[email protected]> writes:
> "Tim McNamara" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> "Shayne Wissler" <[email protected]> writes:
>>
>> > The mob can either respect or trample my rights. That doesn't
>> > mean it creates or owns them.
>>
>> Actually, the reverse is true. You have no rights except for what
>> the mob agrees to.
>
> You claim that my life is morally allowed only by permission from
> the collective. And you claim that it's ad hominem when I call you a
> collectivist? To declare that accusing you of holding the position
> you avow is an insult is a bit strange, even for a collectivist.
No, I speak in practical terms. You have apparently conflated natural
law with divine law. Rights are a human concept and are not found in
any other level of existence.
I think you have a right to free speech. You- I presume- think I have
a right to free speech. We might even defend each other's rights to
free speech. Yet this depends on the philosophy of free agency, and
that philosophy has never been proven correct in 2,500 years of
trying. We can see in this example that having rights (or not) is an
extension of fundamental assumptions- if, for example, we are not in
fact free agents and all of our behaviors are controlled by cause and
effect, we in turn have no rights because we have no choice. If we
are not free agents, then the concept of rights is nonsensical.
If we have free agency- my personal position is that we do- then
rights become a possibility. We then must discuss how rights arise:
are they bestowed by a Creator, are they the result of natural law,
are they a societal value agreed upon explicitly and implicitly?
Since plants, animals and the inanimate world do not appear to
perceive themselves as having rights, it does not appear that natural
law is the fundamental source of rights. Since Divine law varies from
religion to religion and from sect to sect within religions, it does
not appear that this is a reliable or consistent foundation for
determining what rights people have. We are, therefore, left with two
primary candidates for the source of rights: self-assertion of rights,
and societal bestowal of rights.
Self-assertion of rights is fraught with peril. A free agent can
derogate to himself any rights he wishes. "I have the right to take
whatever I want from whomever I want," for example, could be asserted
by an individual. Indeed, this is the fundamental assertion of
individuals who are described as sociopaths. A society of
individualists would have to accept the sociopath's assertion of this
right, although no doubt some other individualist would assert the
right to blow the brains out of the sociopath if he tried to act upon
the right he (the sociopath) asserted. It is easy to see that extreme
individualism leads rapidly to chaos and anarchy.
Social bestowal of rights also has strengths and weaknesses. The main
strength is the ability to develop a code of rights and obligations
that promotes cooperation, mutuality and co-existence. The main
problem with this is that relatively powerful subgroups or individual
can dominate and exploit relatively weak subgroups or individuals.
One thinks of kings, religious sects, gangs, etc. in this regard. The
inequities of personal power eventually have led to the development of
the idea of "rule of law," in which rights can be identified
descriptively and assigned to groups of people. The more equitable
this structure is, the more people can prosper because of equalization
of opportunity. Ideally, prosperity ultimately becomes based on
motivation and ability.
Hence, I think that indeed what rights one has are determined by
society and not by natural law, Divine law or self-declaration. The
first results in savagery, the second in theocracy and the third in
anarchy. Societal law is not guaranteed to produce positive results,
either, but it has a better chance of doing so. It does so by
balancing individual rights and needs with social purposes; when in
doubt, it is probably better to tend to err on the side of the
individual in order to preserve adaptability to changing situations.
Societal law depends on the values held by the individuals within the
society, and those values can influence society so that it grows and
adapts to new conditions and new opportunities- democracy is the
culmination of this.
As has been shown repeatedly throughout history, individual
advancement is typically faster than societal advancement. As a
result, individual advancement often challenges the values and beliefs
of the society which must then either adapt to the advancement or put
a stop to it. Hence we have an election where- remarkably- science is
actually a campaign issue, where the extension of complete civil
rights to all citizens is a campaign issue, where the equity of the
economy is a campaign issue, where the equity of health care is a
campaign issue, etc. The traditional issue of national security looms
as large or larger than ever, but many of the other traditional issues
are taking a back seat so far. Very interesting stuff.