The Death Penalty is a Good Thing

[Hermit]

Oh Seth, you are so cute when you do your soapbox thing.

[Blind groper]

[

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.

This is as much an Act of Faith as the belief in virgin birth. Not supported by human history.

[Seth]

[

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.

This is as much an Act of Faith as the belief in virgin birth. Not supported by human history.

Wrong. It's supported by ALL of not just human but all biological history. It's the essential component of evolution without which no species would evolve.

[Woodbutcher]

There is no such thing as a RIGHT of self defense. It's simply an instinct necessary for survival, the flee or fight reaction. There is no inherent right.

[JimC]

There is no such thing as a RIGHT of self defense. It's simply an instinct necessary for survival, the flee or fight reaction. There is no inherent right.

I suppose, given the human reality of that instinct, what are the legal and social ramifications when that instinct is exercised?

[Seth]

There is no such thing as a RIGHT of self defense. It's simply an instinct necessary for survival, the flee or fight reaction. There is no inherent right.

Depends on how you define a "right." I define a right as a freedom of action that can be defended against encroachment by others. How do you define a right?

[Blind groper]

Seth

Your definition includes the 'right' of a bully to beat up on the innocent, as long as he/she can defend that 'right' to be an asshole.

I do not think that definition will win much sympathy.

[Seth]

Seth

Your definition includes the 'right' of a bully to beat up on the innocent, as long as he/she can defend that 'right' to be an asshole.

I do not think that definition will win much sympathy.

Well, I didn't say that all rights are not subject to reasonable regulation where they come in conflict with the equal, or superior rights of others, now did I?

You see, "rights" are only one part of the equation. In nature, rights are freedoms of action that can be defended against encroachment of others, usually through the use of force. One organism has a right to seek out, acquire and protect those resources necessary for survival, and may defend those actions against encroachment by other organisms. This is not just a philosophical notion, it's how nature actually works; the law of the jungle and the survival of the fittest. The only adjudication of the rights of more than one organism where they come into conflict is the use of naked force, with the strongest, or perhaps the most cunning, prevailing.

Civilization, however, is little more than the adjudication of the conflict of rights by means other than direct force or cunning.

Civilized organisms mediate disputes over the exercise of rights by placing them in some sort of hierarchy, where some rights are more important for the individual to be free to exercise than others, and where conflicts between the exercise of rights are determined by reference to this artificial hierarchy of rights, through the regulation of the exercise of rights by individuals in the interests of society.

In a civilization, the inherent, unalienable right of the bully to beat up on a weaker person that exists as a function of his nature and the nature of his victim, which in the past would be adjudicated by force or cunning, is adjudicated by the society in which the bully and his victim live, which may or may not choose to extend protections to the victim and inhibit the exercise of the bully's rights in the interests of social harmony.

So yes, the bully has the right to be a bully, but the victim has a superior right not to be victimized by the bully, and society may regulate the bully's conduct to achieve that balancing of rights.

[MrJonno]

Civilisation is just an artifical creation to improve the lot of its members, it has absolutely nothing to do with rights unless it wishes to define them.
There is nothing inherently good (or bad) about nature but on the whole its highly limiting to a human being which is why we have spent the entire of our history moving beyond it.

We don't live by the rules of nature we live by the rule of men which is a jolly good thing

[Blind groper]

In nature, rights are freedoms of action that can be defended against encroachment of others, usually through the use of force.

I think most people would disagree that those are 'rights.'

I see your phrase as being capabilities rather than rights. A rhino has the capability to resist an attack by a lion. Not a right.

[Svartalf]

'inalienable human rights'?

YOu know that, regardless of philosoperizing, there's no so called "human right" that has not been alienated de jure or de facto in one culture or the other... after all, even the right to life used to be subrogated to the clan, which would perceive a fine if one of its members got killed, and that's in old Germanic society... same with liberty (slavery as a social system, and I mean more medieval serfdom or the statute of Helotes than what took place in the Americas), etc etc... let's face it, "human rights" are a 1700s Western construct, and have any kind of juridical status only so long as the West is willing and able to force people to conform to such standards, and that's not an easy task given how many cases the EHRC gets, just from violations in EU countries.

[Svartalf]

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...

relativism (and when you are proceeding to set standards for others to follow, that's still a fairly tall hurdle to jump) aside, that's still a problem of legal status and willingness to enforce.

Who is right? the Federal US who say that pot is BAD and users are going to be prosecuted, or the states that allow the sick to use it for relief, or just gave up enforcing drug laws on it when tere are more harmful substances whose trade to suppress?

and I do love 930-1264 medieval Iceland, that had laws and courts, but no enforcement arm, so even if you won a lawsuit, you still had to make the loser pay, or make sure the banished left the island, or prevent the outlaw's kin and friends from rendering aid... basically, to get justice, you had to have access to a private army of kinsmen, or help from powerful friends.