Rights - god given? inalienable? self-evident? natural? WRONG

lol... When the ad hominem's start, it's a sign someone has lost the argument.

 

Or we realize that arguing with a crazy man just drives us crazy. We can't lose an argument with someone who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Your definition of "natural rights" is one no other rational person on earth would agree with, but that's the definition you want to tilt at. Have at it, Don Quixote. As I recall, he declared victory after the windmill flung him to the ground and broke out half his teeth.

 

you are not as smart as you think... i'd say you are a bit of a fraud.

 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/#StaNat

Locke on state of nature: “want [lack] of a common judge, with authority, puts all persons in a state of nature” and again, “Men living according to reason, without a common superior on earth, to judge between them, is properly the state of nature.”

key point: - state of nature involves man living together, not alone. State of nature is man living together, using some logic to resolve disputes and live in peace.

"Locke, they claim, recognizes natural law obligations only in those situations where our own preservation is not in conflict, further emphasizing that our right to preserve ourselves trumps any duties we may have."

key point - i have right to kill you if i need to, in order to survive. I have no duty to respect your right to life if your right to life is in conflict with my right to life.

Locke also talks about situations when resources are scarce something you dismiss as a possibility.

If you will bring Locke into this, make sure you know what he believed in first.

 

In a total state of nature you can't do anything which impacts others by putting a burden on them! Again, a natural right is something you can exercise without putting a burden on someone else! You can determine what your natural rights are by determining what you can do with no one else around! Free speech - you can say what you want. Freedom of religion - you can worship as you wish. Keep and bear arms - no one around to stop you. Freedom from illegal searches - there is no one around to perform an illegal search.

With no one around you can't kill anyone and take their stuff - so that is *NOT* a natural right. With no one around you can't bully anyone into believing or acting as you want - so that is *not* a natural right.

You only have the right to kill someone if they are threatening you. If they have an apple and you are starving you have no natural right to kill them in order to take the apple. If there were no one around with an apple then you would have no one to kill - therefore it is not a natural right.

In a state of nature there would be no one around for you to place a burden on. When living in a society there is no right for you to burden others with your whims and wants. Your rights end at the nose of others.

Selling yourself for sex or you buying sex is not a natural right because you couldn't do so in a state of nature.

They are PROTECTING natural rights from intrusion by government. Do you not understand that this is what *all* of the original 10 amendments were - limitations on government?

Nope. Natural rights are those things you can exercise without placing a burden on someone else. A state of nature allows you to define exactly what you can do without placing a burden on anyone else.

Your worldview is skewed by not understanding the concept of federalism. The 10th Amendment says: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The Constitution delegated no power to the federal government to control slavery. Therefore, under the 10th Amendment, control of the slave trade was reserved to the States.

Everything you mention is a renewable resource. There are no limits on those resources. Resources don't have to be infinite to put the lie to your claim that you can kill people to obtain limited resources.

There is nothing in life that is zero sum.

Locke: "But I respond to the objector as follows - If the state of nature is intolerable because of the evils that are bound to follow from men’s being judges in their own cases, and government is to be the remedy for this, ·let us do a comparison·. On the one side there is the •state of nature; on the other there is •government where one man—and remember that absolute monarchs are only men!—commands a multitude, is free to be the judge in his own case, and can do what he likes to all his subjects, with no-one being allowed to question or control those who carry out his wishes, and everyone having to put up with whatever he does, whether he is led by reason, mistake or passion."

You want to claim the right of a monarch - free to be your own judge, to do as you like to others, with no one to question or control your actions.

Locke: "for truth and promise-keeping belongs to men •as men, not •as members of society—·i.e. as a matter of natural law, not positive law·."

Locke quotes Hooker who says: "The laws. . . .of nature bind men absolutely, just as men, even if they have no settled fellowship, no solemn agreement among themselves about what to do and what not to do. What naturally leads us to seek communion and fellowship with other people is the fact that on our own we haven’t the means to provide ourselves with an adequate store of things that we need for the kind of life our nature desires, a life fit for the dignity of man. It was to make up for those defects and imperfections of the solitary life that men first united themselves in politic societies."

Locke: "This makes it lawful for me to kill a thief who hasn’t done me any harm or declared any plan against my life, other than using force to get me in his power so as to take away my money or whatever else he wants. No matter what he claims he is up to, he is using force without right, to get me into his power; so I have no reason to think that he won’t, when he has me in his power, take everything else away from me as well as my liberty. So it is lawful for me to treat him as someone who has put himself into a state of war with me, i.e. to kill him if I can; for that is the risk he ran when he started a war in which he is the aggressor."

Locke: " Rather, ·freedom is one of two things·. •Freedom of nature is being under no restraint except the law of nature. •Freedom of men under government is having a standing rule to live by, common to everyone in the society in question, and made by the legislative power that has been set up in it; a liberty to follow one’s own will in anything that isn’t forbidden by the rule, and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man."

Everything Locke wrote in his 2nd Treatise contradicts your assertions.

Give it up. You are arguing a failed position.[/quote][/quote]

 

Locke quoting Hooker: "What naturally leads us to seek communion and fellowship with other people is the fact that on our own we haven’t the means to provide ourselves with an adequate store of things that we need for the kind of life our nature desires, a life fit for the dignity of man. It was to make up for those defects and imperfections of the solitary life that men first united themselves in politic societies."

"Locke, they claim, recognizes natural law obligations only in those situations where our own preservation is not in conflict, further emphasizing that our right to preserve ourselves trumps any duties we may have."

Nope. Read Locke a little closer.

Locke: "The state of war is a state of enmity and destruction. So when someone declares by word or action—not in a sudden outburst of rage, but as a matter of calm settled design—that he intends to end another man’s life, he puts himself into a state of war against the other person; and he thereby exposes his life to the risk of falling to the power of the •other person or anyone that joins with •him in his defence and takes up his quarrel. For it is reasonable and just that I should have a right to destroy anything that threatens me with destruction, because the fundamental law of nature says that men are to be preserved as much as possible, and that when not everyone can be preserved the safety of the innocent is to be preferred. ·In line with this·, I may destroy a man who makes war on me or has revealed himself as an enemy to my life, for the same reason that I may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no rule except that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey—dangerous creatures that will certainly destroy me if I fall into their power."

You are claiming that you are no different than a "beast of prey" - a dangerous creature.

And Locke then goes on to say about "beasts of prey": "This makes it lawful for me to kill a thief who hasn’t done me any harm or declared any plan against my life, other than using force to get me in his power so as to take away my money or whatever else he wants. No matter what he claims he is up to, he is using force without right, to get me into his power; so I have no reason to think that he won’t, when he has me in his power, take everything else away from me as well as my liberty. So it is lawful for me to treat him as someone who has put himself into a state of war with me, i.e. to kill him if I can; for that is the risk he ran when he started a war in which he is the aggressor."

Really? What does he say? It's certainly not in Chapter 5 - Property.

You need to take heed of this yourself. Don't just read the Spark Notes!

 

Hobbes would disagree, Hobbes view is that human nature is dark, brutal and the only thing that matters is self-preservation, man would be in constant conflict. Now you can tell me you don't agree with Hobbes but who makes you authority? Natural rights are not facts and philosophers haven't all agreed on them. Secondly, Locke's view of duty to respect others' rights was conditional upon this duty not being in conflict with survival; when in conflict, man didn't have a duty to respect each other's rights. Some argue Locke was no different than Hobbes in that he leaves the door open to Hobbes' views under certain conditions.

As far as your claims of freedom of speech/religion, tell me why i can't walk around naked in public again? You haven't agreed that this is a natural right and i have brought it up many times. Using your logic, i can walk around naked and also jerk off when alone, in a state of nature. This is how you say we can determine natural rights right? then you claim the actions can't put a burden on someone else a second criteria. Well, walking around naked and jerking off in public is no more offensive than saying offensive things and telling someone that i will refuse them a service because of religion. Freedom of religion and speech can have the same effect on people than walking around naked or jerking off in public. The fact is that in a true state of nature (the one Locke talks about where men would live together through reason) no-one would be offended by seeing each other walking around naked or even seeing each other jerk off in public. The only reason these liberties have been taken away is due to a society that has religious beliefs that considers this immoral. In a true state of nature though, no-one would be abiding by any religion and these things would simply not put a burden on anyone. I win this one.

Hobbes would disagree and even Locke leaves the door open to this as Locke himself believed that when a duty to respect others' rights is in conflict with self-preservation, self-preservation takes precedent. This is why some argue Locke was closer to Hobbes than some think.

According to Locke state of nature does involved people living together but without an authority and without a political philosophy, just co-existing through law of reason. Do you even know Locke's beliefs that well?

Locke on state of nature:
“want [lack] of a common judge, with authority, puts all persons in a state of nature” and again, “Men living according to reason, without a common superior on earth, to judge between them, is properly the state of nature.”

i disagree. In a state of nature i could trade goods with others for sex, stop alluding to state of nature as someone being by himself, this is illogical.

i know about the Bill of Rights, thank you but this doesn't refute the fact that some rights were actually specified. By listing rights to be protected, these rights to be protected, were defined?

Freedom of speech and religion can offend others, is this a burden? Some religious idiots refuse services to some because they don't agree with their life style. Freedom of speech can be offensive to others, i can go scream obscenities in the presence of children. Again, walking around naked should be a right if these are rights. In a state of nature, without religion, without a political philosophy, NO-ONE would be burdened by me walking around naked.

thank you for the civics lesson. Now, to the core question - Did the founding fathers make an effort to pass an amendment to abolish slavery before it was actually ratified much later (13th amendment)? Oh, because it would've never been ratified, i see.

 

sorry but it's clear that Locke considered state of nature as that state where man would co-exist together. Realize that without some form of co-existence, there would be no procreation. For the human race to survive a co-existence was mandatory. Because of this, no-one can define the state of nature as that when man is completely isolated from others, it HAS to take into consideration relationships. I will simply respond to you with Locke's definition of state of nature:

“want [lack] of a common judge, with authority, puts all persons in a state of nature” and again, “Men living according to reason, without a common superior on earth, to judge between them, is properly the state of nature.”

The fact is that Locke did claim that when self-preservation is in conflict with duty to others property, such duty did not have to be respected.

'There is a potentially serious loophole in Locke’s argument. In Chapter Two of the Second Treatise, he says that the individual only has a duty to respect others’ rights when “his own preservation comes not in competition.” If my life is threatened, I need not respect anyone else’s rights, I may do whatever is necessary to preserve myself. How extensive is this loophole? If the state of nature is as violent and desperate as Hobbes said it was, with everyone under continual threat of death, Locke’s duty to respect the rights of others would essentially vanish.'

http://www.nlnrac.org/earlymodern/locke

so preservation > duty to respect others rights

I will simply ask you a basic question. What is our most basic instinct? SURVIVE and PROCREATE. Wonder why sex feels so good? wonder why we feel pain? Simply put, our instincts are to survive.

Now if you and I are stranded in an Island and were given enough water so that only 1 could survive before a helicopter arrived, trust me, violence will take flight. Our survival instincts will take over, Hobbes had this right.

 

Pointing out a loophole in his flawed logic isn't exactly advancing your argument. Hell, I already told you he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Some good ideas, and some stupid ideas.

 

none of these guys had perfect logic, sometimes reading what they believed in gives you the sense they didn't believe in half of what they were stating. All this stuff is purely subjective and theoretical, based on some empirical evidence.

 

Philosophy is a tough subject, and the one rule of philo is that you have to work from universals. If X is true, then X is always true. Yes, it might be subjective or theoretical, but if you hold that X is true (e.g. we have property rights) then it is always true.

If you're starving and I have a sandwich, it's still my sandwich.

 

Dear @Mike12

In response to your question below, by natural laws, then if people abuse free speech to lie (as in fraud, slander, deception, misrepresentation) this imposes on the equal rights and security of others. If you abuse your rights and freedoms, you lose them when other people react, and seek to "redress grievances" and hold you to rebuke or correction for wrongs/damages/debts you incur.

In short, the laws "check themselves" if we apply the Golden Rule of Reciprocity. Whatever rights and beliefs you promote, be sure to "practice what you preach."

these natural laws of society and democratic process that govern humanity are consistent with both laws of science/psychology and with laws that religions teach as universal to all humanity by our nature.

==================================
RE:
"As far as the beliefs that rights are god given, bound by natural law, self-evident or inalienable:
Natural rights cannot be like the laws of nature, because nature enforces its laws absolutely. You cannot violate the law of gravity or the speed of light. However, tyrants and criminals have violated the rights of others for thousands of years....

Killing, lying, cheating, and stealing are also intrinsic to human nature. Should humans have the right to commit these acts as well?
===================

 

The problem is that i believe in evolution and i start with basic instincts. Our most basic instincts are to survive and procreate, i start here. I feel some ignore these very basic instincts when trying to set forth arguments of how humans would behave in a state of nature.

 

I would disagree by saying that our evolutionary instincts are to survive in order to procreate. Once you've passed on your genes, you can die. In fact, it would be beneficial to our species if you did because your genes are those of yesteryear. Let your sons and daughters procreate and stop taking up valuable resources with your old genes.

So we then start not from surviving but procreating. So how is it that you can ask for resources from the tribe/society in order to survive? You've lived your life by having children. You are no longer necessary at a genetic level, and in fact, are consuming resources that would better go towards your progeny.

Then we go towards which genes should survive. Those that cannot survive without others providing their resources? Let them die off, as they are inferior genes. If you can't figure out how to provide for your own survival, then you are inferior.

 

Fortunately, our government is not based on Hobbes's opinions or writings.

Basic instincts tell us nothing about how man should behave. Natural rights are, after all, a series of "shoulds". You have the right to free speech (you should respect others' right to speak their minds); you have the right to practice your religion (you should respect others' right to practice theirs without trying to kill them for it); you have the right to own property (you should respect others' property without trying to steal it or kill them for it). How chimpanzees behave in the wild tells us nothing about natural rights.

 

But our nation is not founded on the precepts of Hobbes. Hobbes also advocated for absolute monarchy over constitutional government.

Nor does Locke place survival over respect of others life. You have yet to produce a single quote of Locke to show this. I have given you several that are in contrast to this!

No one has to listen to what you say. Nor do they have to be involved in your religious exercise. They cannot avoid seeing you walking around naked or jerking off. You place a burden on them in the second case but not in the first. It's not even obvious that you understand the basis of morals. Morals are those beliefs and traditions that work to insure the survival of a society. When you join a society you either obey the moral code of the society or you become an outcast. You will get pushed into that solitary life in nature whether you like it or not.

Again, where does Locke advocate for this? I can't find a single quote to support your assertion about Locke. And apparently neither can you. Your argument is specious, it has no support.

I certainly know Locke quite well. Especially his 2nd Treatise on Government. It's not obvious that *you* know his beliefs that well!

And I gave you the quote Locke used from Hooker about the solitary life and its shortcomings. Yet you continue to refuse to take it into consideration. Willful ignorance is not a survival mechanism.

I give you again Locke's quote of Hooker: “the laws which have been hitherto mentioned”—i.e., the laws of Nature—“do bind men absolutely, even as they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement amongst themselves what to do or not to do; but for as much as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things needful for such a life as our Nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man, therefore to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us, as living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others; this was the cause of men uniting themselves as first in politic societies.”

The *original* state of nature is that of the solitary man.

What does trading for sex have to do with natural rights anyway? That has to do with natural rights. You are trying to conflate contractual interactions with natural rights.

You don't seem to know about the Bill of Rights at all. Your argument was that you need a list of specific rights. Now you are reduced to arguing about why certain rights were included specifically in the Bill of Rights while ignoring the 9th Amendment.

You are floundering, hoping to find something that you can stick on the wall.

You don't have to listen to anyone's speech. Nor do you have to participate in anyone's exercise of religion. So how can they be a burden?

So what does this have to do with natural rights?

You *can* do this if you want. But you *are* forcing a burden on those children if you make them listen to you! You keep falling back on the argument that your rights take precedence over the rights of others. It's the same worldview of every dictator that has ever lived!

Of course they would. You can plug your ears so you can't hear what someone has to say. But how do you plug your eyes? Blinding yourself so you don't have to see you naked *is* a burden, it restricts your ability to move.

Go read the minutes of the Constitutional Convention. Yes, they *did* discuss abolishing slavery. But at that time it was seen as a STATE ISSUE, not a federal issue and nothing came to fruition in the Constitutional Convention. You are trying to cast the Founding Fathers as being in favor of slavery. Many of them were not and it is likely a majority were not. I gave you three States that had already outlawed slavery at the time of the Constitutional Convention.

Again, willful ignorance is *NOT* a survival trait!

 

Again, you ignore the fact that Locke quoted Hooker as stating man is originally in a state of solitude.

Here is the full quote of Locke: "Every one as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he as much as he can to preserve the rest of mankind, and not unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty,
health, limb, or goods of another."

This absolutely does not say or imply what you are trying to make it out to be. It actually says that others rights *should* be respected -- unless they are actually threatening you!

That is most definitely *NOT* what Locke says. Again, it is not obvious that you have *ever* taken the time to actually read Locke.

You are trying to reduce mankind to less than the level of an animal. Even animals don't kill their own kind unless they are threatened.

Hobbes did not have this right. Even the Donner party didn't kill in order to eat. They only cannabilized the already dead.

 

Dealing with philosophy is the same as dealing with religious folks, they make up anything they want because they believe it true. In spite of facts.
And property rights only come from man making it lawful. Nothing natural about owning property. Taking it away from the nature it was intended to be.

 

If that is your belief, bolded, and you are old enough to have procreated and have not, why? You don't even fulfill your base belief. And if you are old enough and have procreated, why are you still living?

If this is also your base belief, whe don't humans do as the rest of animals do and procreate when the urge is happening? Why do we wear clothes if the base of humanity is to procreate? No other animal in nature does this.

Let me posit, we do so, because man became more civilized. And enacted morals and rights for man to live by. There by taking away natural rights and laws to live a more civilized lifestyle.

And none of your base belief has anything to do with property ownership.

 

Not 1 in your list are Natural. All are man made and without the use of gov't of some sorts, don't mean anything.
Those are all moral rights for mankind to live peacefully with each other.

 

Why does anyone care what locke or hobbs had to say. And what relevance does it have today?

 

Good point but these guys always bring these philosophers into the debate but when they do, i use them against them so they set traps for themselves.

Some of these arguments are amazing, like we are supposed to ignore basic instincts and take a list as rights men have made up (to which there is no universal agreement) and not question them, they are 'natural'. I find it amusing when some try to explain that state of nature is man alone, without other men around (lol).. as this makes their arguments easier but then they set traps for themselves. For instance theyr use two criteria to determine natural rights -

1. What man can do when ALONE, in state of nature
2. Things which don't put a burden on others

To which i respond with - okay so walking around naked is a natural right?

To which they respond - no, cause some would find it offensive

BUT.. using their logic, in a state of nature, without any religious or political beliefs no-one would find this offensive.. so their logic makes no sense. They are basically now changing the rules - no mike, not in state of nature, in today's society.

Then they claim they freedom of speech is a right, to which i respond someone can offend others with speech! But this is defended with the reasoning that people can choose to ignore the person, not hear. To which i ask, so people cant choose to ignore a person walking naked? So we have a different standard for sense of hearing vs seeing?

Its amusing.

 

Every time they give some list, it takes man to grant or enforce.
IMO, if man needs to be involved, then it is NO longer natural, but man made.

How the animal kingdom lives in and with nature, are Natural Laws.

 

Neither one of you understand Natural Law or Natural Rights at all. Natural Law has nothing to do with nature. Natural Law has nothing to do with animals. Natural Law has nothing to say about a man living alone, divorced from society. Natural Law is man-made, just as the notions of Truth, Beauty, Nobility, Courage, and Justice are man-made. That doesn't make it any less real, any less than Truth, Beauty, etc., are real. Right triangles don't occur in nature; they are man-made. Does that mean right triangles don't exist? Natural Law or Natural Rights are an attempt at explaining why we think (or feel for you lefties) that some things are inherently wrong, such as slavery or cannibalism or theft. Why does a slave rebel against his master if he's a slave? Because he thinks (or feels) it's inherently wrong for one man to own another man. He doesn't have to look to the law or the society or nature or philosophy to believe that it's wrong for him to be a slave, he simply believes it to be wrong. This is a Natural Right, the right to be free, to not be owned by another, to not be required to obey the dictates of another to whom one owes no allegiance, no ties of familial bond, etc. It doesn't exist in nature, it doesn't exist among animals, it doesn't exist separate from other people, but it DOES exist. Positive law can say nothing about why slavery is wrong, cannibalism is wrong, the Holocaust was wrong, or internment of US citizens of Japanese descent was wrong. Positive law cannot even grapple with the concept of "wrong". It can only define "legal" and "illegal".

 

And anything man made is subject to man and changes with mankind and societies.
There is nothing man made set in stone that can't be changed.

However, the others arguing Natural laws/rights, claim some other form of being granted some magical natural laws/rights. Belch maybe not, I don't think anyone knows where he stands.
Everytime he mentions natural, he mentions it must be consensual.
The problem with you thinking as you do, is not everyone will think slavery is inherently wrong. And for most of mankind, it wasn't inherently wrong.
As mankind evolved into a higher being, they realize some of the things they did were wrong. But it took generations and wars to change those mind sets. And if that has to occur, there is nothing inherent about it.
There was a time in the USA, wild wild west days, it was OK to hang people in the streets. Do you think that will fly today?

If you want to call some laws/rights natural, because at this point in time a majority of humans believe them to be moral, fine. That is NOT how I or how it should be defined. Because it is man's morals and man's rights creating them. And man must set up a system to grant and/or enforce.
So you confuse the issue by calling them natural, when you, yourself, claim man must have to make them.