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What is a "Right"???

Robert Prey said:
Neither. Natural rights are self evident and are not subject to debate.
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And who decides whose version of "self-evident and not subject to debate" is the true version of "self-evident and not subject to debate" natural rights? You?
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
No. It means that rights are often violated.
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No, it means they do not exist at all.

You have no natural right to property.

What you do have is a "right" negotiated by your ancestors with your fellow man and which has be codified into law. That right is subject to modification or even revocation if enough of the people want that to be the new compact. But at least through now, most Americans still believe that private property is a boon, as it absolutely is, but also agree that there are times that it gets in the way, and has to be rescinded - hence eminent domain.
 
DC said:
Rights are things society has agreed on has to be protected by society/government/law.
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I would replace "things" with "ideals". Ideals so powerful we create a system which regards them as objective truths for all intents and purposes.
 
Robert Prey said:
Neither. Natural rights are self evident and are not subject to debate.
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There is no more objective right than there is objective morality. We deem what is evident through our idealism and seek to establish these ideals and base our laws as if these rights were evident. But saying so doesn't make it true, which is all you seem to be concerned with.
 
Robert Prey said:
Neither. Natural rights are self evident and are not subject to debate.
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You're telling me that everyone will always agree on what "natural rights" are? That there will never be any debate (sort of like we're having here)? On what do you base this? Your say-so? That is completely insane.
 
Chaos said:
And who decides whose version of "self-evident and not subject to debate" is the true version of "self-evident and not subject to debate" natural rights?
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The King of course, it’s part of his divine right...
 
Robert Prey said:
Because an asserted right to infringe upon another's right negates the right.
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Meaningless. Your asserted right to property infringes on his asserted right of freedom, negating your right to property. His asserted right of freedom infringes upon your asserted right to property, negating his right of freedom.
 
KingMerv00 said:
Will someone who believes in natural rights please explain to me how they are different than legal rights. I do not what to hear "They cannot be taken away." because that is obviously untrue.
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The closest I can come to understanding something that makes any kind of sense, is that what they mean is that there is an inalienable part of human nature that thinks we ought have certain rights. They're basically equating "natural rights" with something more like moral universals, I think.*

And I don't buy that either. Humans tolerated human slavery for ages. As a moral convention, human "nature" has changed on that subject.

*Again, what they're saying literally (and what the Declaration of Independence literally says) simply doesn't line up with reality, and I don't think people who support the idea of inalienable natural rights are so deluded that they think no one has ever been jailed, etc. The Declaration makes no sense at all taken literally: we need to go to war to defend our inalienable rights which have been taken away? I think it's an appeal to some sort of universal moral convention (established as "self-evident" meaning taken axiomatically and not subject to any logical or rational analysis) to justify a violent revolution. Again, they're essentially saying that this violence (a wrong) is justified because King George's wrongs have offended some universal sensibility of justice.

It's a flimsy argument, depending on an unproven premise, but I don't think it's flat out delusion.

The problem here in this thread is that the OP is confusing at least 2 (and I think 3) different and incompatible definitions of the word "rights".
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
a) Ever try to take a bone from a dog? Property rights do exist in nature. While rights are often violated, defenders normally have a slight advantage over aggressors, for reasons Dawkins outlined smewhere: If aggressors normally had the advantage, a defender could gain the advantage by surrendering the defensive position.
b) Morality (all behavior, really) evolves.
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Animals have been killing each other for hundreds of millions of years. Sometimes it is for food, sometimes it is for territory, sometimes it is simply to assert dominance. Do we have a right to murder to establish those things?
 
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JoeTheJuggler said:
The closest I can come to understanding something that makes any kind of sense, is that what they mean is that there is an inalienable part of human nature that thinks we ought have certain rights. They're basically equating "natural rights" with something more like moral universals, I think.*

And I don't buy that either. Humans tolerated human slavery for ages. As a moral convention, human "nature" has changed on that subject.

*Again, what they're saying literally (and what the Declaration of Independence literally says) simply doesn't line up with reality, and I don't think people who support the idea of inalienable natural rights are so deluded that they think no one has ever been jailed, etc. The Declaration makes no sense at all taken literally: we need to go to war to defend our inalienable rights which have been taken away? I think it's an appeal to some sort of universal moral convention (established as "self-evident" meaning taken axiomatically and not subject to any logical or rational analysis) to justify a violent revolution. Again, they're essentially saying that this violence (a wrong) is justified because King George's wrongs have offended some universal sensibility of justice.

It's a flimsy argument, depending on an unproven premise, but I don't think it's flat out delusion.

The problem here in this thread is that the OP is confusing at least 2 (and I think 3) different and incompatible definitions of the word "rights".
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That sounds right but for some reason it never ends the conversation. It always seems the natural right supports want to claim something more than morality, they want to claim objective truth.
 
KingMerv00 said:
That sounds right but for some reason it never ends the conversation. It always seems the natural right supports want to claim something more than morality, they want to claim objective truth.
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Yep.

There's a reason why the Declaration of Independence needed to resort to Creator.

Still, my bigger beef isn't with them holding that position. (I know plenty of rationalists who think that there is such a thing as objective right and wrong, against my objections that it's purely human convention--much like language.)

It's with the language they use. It makes for ridiculously confused conversations.

In the OP, we have
  1. "inalienable natural rights" (which are nothing at all like legal rights),
  2. legal rights (reference to the Bill of Rights),
  3. and government entitlements (which establish a duty for the government rather than a limit on their authority)
all being confused.

Most of this thread has been spent trying to show a couple of people that there are no such thing as inalienable rights (meaning number 2). I'm pretty sure they know this.
 
BenBurch said:
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
BenBurch said:
Property rights do not seem to exist in the "state of nature" Beerina, so where do they arise?
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a) Ever try to take a bone from a dog? Property rights do exist in nature. While rights are often violated, defenders normally have a slight advantage over aggressors, for reasons Dawkins outlined smewhere: If aggressors normally had the advantage, a defender could gain the advantage by surrendering the defensive position. b) Morality (all behavior, really) evolves.
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Yeah, I have tried to take bones from dogs. The fact that I can do so successfully means that there exists no natural right to property.
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KingMerv00 said:
I assume you think there is a natural right to life. Predators have been hunting and killing prey for hundreds of millions of years. Do we have a right to murder?
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I did not use the term "natural right". The discussion concerned "property rights". I don't normally argue from "rights" even in political discussions. It seems more useful to take a utilitarian view and argue about consequences. None-the-less, the language of "rights" is written into law. Casual reinterpretation of long-understood "rights" by the courts undermines the confidence in laws that facilitates commerce . Consider the expropriation of the GM bondholders.
 
Robert Prey said:
Natural rights are self evident and are not subject to debate.
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If they're self evident then there ought to be no debate - everyone ought to agree about what they are.

But you say they can be 'forsaken' if you do something bad enough. So is that up for debate?
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
...I did not use the term "natural right". The discussion concerned "property rights". I don't normally argue from "rights" even in political discussions. It seems more useful to take a utilitarian view and argue about consequences. None-the-less, the language of "rights" is written into law. Casual reinterpretation of long-understood "rights" by the courts undermines the confidence in laws that facilitates commerce . Consider the expropriation of the GM bondholders.
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Ah, you show me an example for why property "rights" are not above the compelling interest of the State.

In this case there was a structured bankruptcy where a going concern was carved out of the wreck and the original company no longer exists except as a liquidation holding company.

The bonds weren't worth anything to begin with; All of GM had a capitalization smaller than ITW.

You'd rather those jobs went abroad?
 
BenBurch said:
Ah, you show me an example for why property "rights" are not above the compelling interest of the State1...
You'd rather those jobs went abroad?2
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1. The GM expropriation provides an example of the immediate interests of the Democratic Party and the UAW overriding the long-term interests ofthe citizens of the US. In this case, explicit "property rights" (the 4th Amendment
takings clause) did not protect bond holders or citizens generally. Similarly, laws against mugging do not protect honest people from other people willing to take by threats and violence what they did not earn.
2. I'd rather live under a legal regime of stable property rights, contract law, and unilateral free trade. Let manufacturing occur where ever investors decide to build factories
 
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