From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Jan 13 2003 - 19:12:10 MST
Samantha writes
> Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> > Example: I hope that people's verbal behavior will indeed
> > change from blithely throwing the word "rights" around, and
> > instead will either say that X approves (X may be a society)
> > or speak of "legal rights". But what I am after is completely
> > different than what you are after, I think. I want to change
> > their belief about what exists, and then have their verbal
> > behavior change as a consequence of that. You just want 'em
> > to drop the word and say "I think" instead of "I believe"
> > or something.
>
> Please clarify. Do I understand you correctly as saying that no
> such thing as "natural rights" based on the nature of sentient
> beings such as ourselves, exists?
That is correct.
Now, the phrase "natural rights" packs a lot of meanings, I'm
afraid, that I don't know much about. I once tried to get a
discussion going here about that, in which some of the
natural rights advocates would offer an explanation suitable
for a materialist.
But whereas I guess you see "natural rights" only a little
bit further down the ladder than "legal rights"---after
all, they're very concrete things really, the latter---
that we ought to consider "natural rights" as mythological
entities. I contend that any argument resting on "natural
rights" is probably muddled.
Lee
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