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Post by Dragon Zachski on Dec 9, 2011 7:18:30 GMT -5
I think it's rather simple, actually.
The government has a duty to serve its citizens in an orderly and fair manner.
"Rights" are more or less the specific privileges that the government has to provide towards its citizens (all of them) as parts of its duty.
When you sign up with a provider, and it starts providing you with less benefits while charging you more money, then that provider is generally failing you. Much the same with government.
Sure, a right can be taken away... so can a life. That doesn't make either right or justified.
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Post by ltfred on Dec 9, 2011 7:52:53 GMT -5
"Rights" are more or less the specific privileges that the government has to provide towards its citizens (all of them) as parts of its duty. This is quite dangerous thinking (and I know you misspoke, just using it as a thing). In a society with an elected government, the worst violations of rights will be by the private sector, particular the corporate sector. It's these violations of rights (illegal firings, union-busting, denial of freedom of speech, sexual assault or racial discrimination, murder, theft, fraud...) that will be, by far, the most serious. If this is the case, then either way we both end up at the same point. Each person has an opinion as to what constitutes a "natural right" that cannot objectively be proven neither true nor false. Therefore, such rights are debated on and chosen by the people through the democratic process to be protected by the government. In practice, this is the only practial way. However, it does mean that you can condemn people for doing things they thought were right at the time. A majority believed slavery wrong, particularly in South Carolina. |
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Post by cestlefun17 on Dec 9, 2011 9:12:22 GMT -5
Because the social contract establishes an agreement between ourselves and our government and ourselves and our fellow man, we can include rights involving private entities (private entities being groups of "our fellow man.")
For example, the 13th Amendment prohibits not only the government from enslaving its citizens, but from people (whether they act singly or as corporations) enslaving other people.
Rights exist in two forms: constitutional rights and statutory rights. Most rights (pretty much all rights) regarding ethical business practices are statutory rights. They are not included in the constitution as rights that are due to us as an element of the social contract, but as rights that are due to us because we see it as preferred policy (such laws are enacted, however, in the manner as specified in the social contract).
Juspositivism separates the concept of what the law is (and its origins), from the morality of a law. Being a juspositivist allows you to condemn the morality of laws. I'm not saying that slavery was at one time moral; I'm merely saying that at one point the right to hold slaves existed, and the right to be free from slavery did not exist.
Whether or not slavery was moral at the time is a whole other debate on relative versus universal morality.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Dec 9, 2011 21:06:40 GMT -5
No it wasn't.
They are the same definition, just worded differently. If something is unbiased, it is perceptible by all observers.
No it fucking doesn't, it says, "This is a right if." That is not the same fucking thing as "using the word in the definition."
How you handle conflicts between rights is subjective.
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Post by cestlefun17 on Dec 10, 2011 8:00:09 GMT -5
This really isn't worth arguing as whether or not it's true (see the Declaration of Independence) doesn't make a difference here: we both disagree with it anyway.
No it isn't. You are confusing two different definitions of "objective." There is a definition of objective that means the opposite of biased, but there is also a definition of objective that means the opposite of subjective. Whether or not someone is biased (or "objective") is a subjective question, as opposed to 1+1 which is an objective question. I can believe that someone is an objective observer while someone else can believe she isn't. I still don't understand what bias has to do with rights.
Your definition of a "right" was "All things being equal, this item is a right unless it infringes on those of another." "Those" is merely a pronoun that stands in for "rights." So what you're essentially saying is "This item is a right unless it infringes on the rights of another." It still doesn't explain what a right is to begin with.
I was creating a paradox to show you the flaw of your definition: if both are rights, then at the same time they cannot be rights because they both "infringe on those of another." My right to not see naked people in public is infringed by your right to walk naked down the street, therefore your right to walk naked down the street can't be considered a right. But on the other hand, your right to walk naked down the street is infringed by my right to not see naked people in public, so therefore my right to not see naked people in public can't be considered a right.
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