From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Mon Jan 13 2003 - 23:28:54 MST
Lee Corbin wrote:
> 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.
>
If you don't know much about them then it seems pretty pointless
and inflammatory to claim they are "mythological".
> 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 do not consider the simple fact that human beings have a
specific nature as mythological. Given a specific nature I find
it difficult to escape the corollary that that nature implies
certain requirements in settings with their fellow beings for
best functioning. Those ethical/social reguirements growing out
of the nature of human beings is what I refer to as natural
rights. They are no more "mythological" than human beings are.
I contend that any argument resting on "natural
> rights" is probably muddled.
>
I contend that any argument about human beings or any size
aggregation of human beings that doesn't ground itself in the
nature of such beings is hopelessly muddled and irrelevant from
the get-go.
If the only "real" rights are legal rights, the invention of
some society or other, then on what grounds would you object to
the inventions of some societies as opposed to the inventions of
others? On what grounds would you call a society "evil" re
its treatment of its citizens? How do you define what a "good"
society would be like and what "legal rights" it would promote?
- samantha
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