The Death Penalty is a Good Thing

[Jason]

No you don't.

Yes, I do.

No, you do not.

Yes, I do, and the law agrees. If you think I don't, try threatening my life and see what happens.

No. You do not. Since when does the law consistently correspond with moral rights? Legality doesn't enter into it.

I'm not sure why you'd end your response with such an absurd invitation. I can only assume you've plumbed the depths of your intellect and want your dad to shoot my dad.. or something.

[Seth]

No you don't.

Yes, I do.

No, you do not.

Yes, I do, and the law agrees. If you think I don't, try threatening my life and see what happens.

No. You do not. Since when does the law consistently correspond with moral rights? Legality doesn't enter into it.

I'm not sure why you'd end your response with such an absurd invitation. I can only assume you've plumbed the depths of your intellect and want your dad to shoot my dad.. or something.

So, it's a moral issue eh? What's immoral about killing someone who is trying to kill you, pray tell?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"Better a thousand innocent men die than one guilty man go free!"


Did I get that right?

[Jason]

So, it's a moral issue eh? What's immoral about killing someone who is trying to kill you, pray tell?

What's moral about it pray tell? It may be necessary, but how is it moral?

If you want to claim it as your right, then the onus is on you to prove it moral my logical friend.

[Blind groper]

Self defense as a right?

This goes back to another issue. What is a right?

My view is that rights are arbitrary privileges granted to various people by the ones who hold power. In Medieval England, the Lords would abduct any good looking young woman for long enough to rape her. Any attempt to prevent them was considered a crime, and the peasant who was so cheeky would be killed.

In the same way, if the Lords decided to mistreat a peasant and he fought back, he would be executed. Self defense was not a right back then.

We have rights only because they are granted to us by the powerful. Rights are not fixed in cement. They are arbitrary, and they vary both in time, and across geographic barriers. I have the right to a quiet whiskey in the privacy of my home, but not in Saudi Arabia.

Rights are granted, like the right of homosexuals to love as they choose. Or rights are removed, like the rights of the Lords to persecute their serfs. Anyone who regards rights like religious edicts - as of nature - has the wrong idea of rights.

So self defense is not really a sacred right. It is something we are permitted, or not permitted, according to the law of the land where and when we live.

[Jason]

'inalienable human rights'?

[Blind groper]

Pord

You are doubtless thinking of the American Declaration. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. All a load of codswallop.

Life in America is not a right. The government kills criminals, and goes to war rather too readily. The war in Iraq killed a million plus Iraqis. So much for the American government's reverence for life. Liberty is not really a right. America has a higher percentage of its population in prison than any other western nation, and it kept slavery legal for a long time after that declaration. The pursuit of happiness is something we all do regardless. Even cramped in a tiny cell, we can pursue happiness between our ears. That is not a right - just something that no-one can take from us.

[Jason]

No, I'm thinking of 'Natural Rights'. That which legal rights are based on. The American Declaration does reference natural rights to some degree, but it certainly does not instate them.

[Hermit]

Human rights are neither natural nor inalienable. They are not natural because they are formulated by humans and defined relative to the social / economic / ideological framework a particular society finds itself in, and they are definitely alienated in practice as well as on ideological grounds. I thought Blind groper made that crystal clear here.

[JimC]

Human rights are neither natural nor inalienable. They are not natural because they are formulated by humans and defined relative to the social / economic / ideological framework a particular society finds itself in, and they are definitely alienated in practice as well as on ideological grounds. I thought Blind groper made that crystal clear here.

I agree, but that doesn't make the whole issue a morass of relativism.

One useful guideline would simply be that rights which depend on an individual's position of power are both ethically suspect and likely to produce conflicted societies...

[Hermit]

Human rights are neither natural nor inalienable. They are not natural because they are formulated by humans and defined relative to the social / economic / ideological framework a particular society finds itself in, and they are definitely alienated in practice as well as on ideological grounds. I thought Blind groper made that crystal clear here.

I agree, but that doesn't make the whole issue a morass of relativism.

One useful guideline would simply be that rights which depend on an individual's position of power are both ethically suspect and likely to produce conflicted societies...

Which is also neither natural nor inalienable. I'd go with "socially determined" there too. As for "morass of relativism", have you considered converting to some faith that promises a glory of absolutism?

[Seth]

So, it's a moral issue eh? What's immoral about killing someone who is trying to kill you, pray tell?

What's moral about it pray tell? It may be necessary, but how is it moral?

If you want to claim it as your right, then the onus is on you to prove it moral my logical friend.

How is it immoral? My life is more important than that of someone who is trying to kill me, so it's moral for me to defend my life.

[Seth]

Self defense as a right?

This goes back to another issue. What is a right?

My view is that rights are arbitrary privileges granted to various people by the ones who hold power. In Medieval England, the Lords would abduct any good looking young woman for long enough to rape her. Any attempt to prevent them was considered a crime, and the peasant who was so cheeky would be killed.

In the same way, if the Lords decided to mistreat a peasant and he fought back, he would be executed. Self defense was not a right back then.

We have rights only because they are granted to us by the powerful. Rights are not fixed in cement. They are arbitrary, and they vary both in time, and across geographic barriers. I have the right to a quiet whiskey in the privacy of my home, but not in Saudi Arabia.

Rights are granted, like the right of homosexuals to love as they choose. Or rights are removed, like the rights of the Lords to persecute their serfs. Anyone who regards rights like religious edicts - as of nature - has the wrong idea of rights.

So self defense is not really a sacred right. It is something we are permitted, or not permitted, according to the law of the land where and when we live.

Rights are not granted, they are inherent, unalienable and part of our existence as living human beings, and the basic right to self defense may be tracked directly back to the biological imperatives of evolution and life itself.

[Seth]

Pord

You are doubtless thinking of the American Declaration. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. All a load of codswallop.

Life in America is not a right. The government kills criminals, and goes to war rather too readily. The war in Iraq killed a million plus Iraqis. So much for the American government's reverence for life. Liberty is not really a right. America has a higher percentage of its population in prison than any other western nation, and it kept slavery legal for a long time after that declaration. The pursuit of happiness is something we all do regardless. Even cramped in a tiny cell, we can pursue happiness between our ears. That is not a right - just something that no-one can take from us.

Rights are indeed inherent and inalienable. They exist not as a function of government grant, but as a function of our humanity. However, rights may be restricted and regulated as a part of living in a civilized society, and one's rights may be FORFEITED through bad behavior. Thus, the 35 year old serial mass murderer was born with inherent rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but forfeited some or all of those rights by infringing on the rights of others by killing them.

The concept that rights are granted by government is inherently evil because what is granted by government can be removed by government arbitrarily. The theory of natural rights holds that each individual enjoys a panoply of rights that may only be justly restricted or removed based on how the individual exercises those rights and the legitimate need to restrict the exercise of rights in order to balance one individual's rights with those of others so that people may live together in community.

[Seth]

Human rights are neither natural nor inalienable. They are not natural because they are formulated by humans and defined relative to the social / economic / ideological framework a particular society finds itself in, and they are definitely alienated in practice as well as on ideological grounds. I thought Blind groper made that crystal clear here.

Some natural rights may be traced directly back to the functions of life and evolution, and while it is true that many rights are philosophical constructs, their basis in nature is undeniable.