Sucks to be an incompetent burgler

[Cormac]

Nope - because a law requires a right to pre-exist as the subject of that law.

I wasn't saying that, I was saying the concept of rights in general can not exist before a codified legal system is adopted.

Yes. Yes they can, because they are the very reason that legal systems are devised in the first instance.

[Cormac]

Off the top of my drunken head, a legal system is about rights, limitations on rights, and responsibilities.

Actually, legal systems are about how to balance rights that are in competition, primarily.

At the root of any society is a set of principles by which people feel they want to live. They give it structure by forming a society to nurture and protect those principles and the people who wish to live by them.

[Cormac]

What the hell are you talking about? I was the one who made the point to YOU that communities coalesce for safety reasons. I also never said anything was "created", that's solely your balderdash, champ. YOU are the one that is arguing, without any cogent reasoning, that societies are about individual rights.

Are you going to address any of the questions or are you going to keep avoiding them? What's your reasoning for your assertion?

Why do you keep avoiding my questions, and responding with your ludicrous and wild-eyed nonsensical notions?

[Cormac]

Never said they were natural. I simply said we created them before we created society.

Without any reasoning to back it up.

with every bit as much reason as you offered...

[pErvinalia]

What the hell are you talking about? I was the one who made the point to YOU that communities coalesce for safety reasons. I also never said anything was "created", that's solely your balderdash, champ. YOU are the one that is arguing, without any cogent reasoning, that societies are about individual rights.

Are you going to address any of the questions or are you going to keep avoiding them? What's your reasoning for your assertion?

Why do you keep avoiding my questions, and responding with your ludicrous and wild-eyed nonsensical notions?

Are you ok over there? What questions are you talking about? You've made a baseless assertion and I've asked you to back it up a number of times now. Why won't you do that? Can you even back it up?

[pErvinalia]

Never said they were natural. I simply said we created them before we created society.

Without any reasoning to back it up.

with every bit as much reason as you offered...

Bullshit. I gave clear reasoning for why societies are structured around communities, not individuals. You haven't provided any reasoning at all. I've also provided counter reasoning to your baseless claim. Either you can back it up, or you can't. And it's become thoroughly apparent that you can't.

[Cormac]

What the hell are you talking about? I was the one who made the point to YOU that communities coalesce for safety reasons. I also never said anything was "created", that's solely your balderdash, champ. YOU are the one that is arguing, without any cogent reasoning, that societies are about individual rights.

Are you going to address any of the questions or are you going to keep avoiding them? What's your reasoning for your assertion?

Why do you keep avoiding my questions, and responding with your ludicrous and wild-eyed nonsensical notions?

Are you ok over there? What questions are you talking about? You've made a baseless assertion and I've asked you to back it up a number of times now. Why won't you do that? Can you even back it up?

Because my assertion is currently as baseless as yours.

I posted mine in response to yours.

So - you show me yours and I'll show you mine.

Mostly, I'm having a little fun. I am serious though, that rights are not created and not granted by society.

[pErvinalia]

Well if you are serious, then you shouldn't have any trouble backing your claim up. You can't actually do it, can you?

I've given reasoning, but you've ignored it, like you've repeatedly ignored my calls for you to provide your own reasoning. My initial comment was in rebuttal to Seth's "natural rights" claims. That's the context of my quote. If I'm wrong about my claim, then that doesn't validate Seth's claim that they are natural. You may be right, but we'd have no way of knowing, as so far all you've done is repeat a baseless claim over and over.

Rights are meaningless concepts without the means to have them protected and enforced. I can claim a right to free beer for the rest of my life. Woohoo for rights! Oh. Societies weren't "created" despite your repeated claim (and your repeated refusal to back that claim up). Societies are the natural state of existence for Homo sapiens, whether they are formal societies or were informal communities. To assert that societies were "created" is a nonsensical step, and defies the principles of parsimony in explanation. You've added a 'bit' to the natural history of H.sapiens, so you get to explain why you have added that bit. Because it fits your preconceived libertarian notions is not a valid reason. Can you actually give a valid reason?

[Svartalf]

. I am serious though, that rights are not created and not granted by society.

Sorry to seem to be taking the Jonno/rEv side, but are you sustaining that rights exist by nature and that they still exist in a society that overtly denies them (e.g., a society where you must have an authorisation to leave your home town, or where you may be detained without trial at the will of the Prince or his secret police)

[pErvinalia]

Yep, it's nonsensical. Rights are meaningless concepts without some authority declaring and providing the mechanism to defend them.

[MrJonno]

Jonno actually believes what he says. He is quite authoritarian. But in a sense, he is right. There are no rights that aren't granted to you by society. The problem for Jonno is that he doesn't believe in constitutions, despite the fact that they genuinely work.

I believe in order and society because without it most of humanity dies, I can't believe there are many people out there who don't take that view

That doesn't mean I believe in any order/society I support those that ensure everyone them has a minimum quality of life or if you prefer 'rights', but the minimum wage, a guarantee to food, healthcare and housing are every bit in fact more important than freedom of speech. I also believe that sometimes you have to obey the law even if you don't agree with it as law and order is vital to my survival and if people start pick and choosing we are all at risk. A good example is soft drugs I think they should be legal BUT if I or someone else breaks the law I accept that the government has been given the right by the people to punish me

When it comes to constitutions I'm ok with those that structure how government works, how laws are passed but those that start including philosophical absolutes simply do not work (ie in the US). If you can't have absolute freedom of speech which no country has then you should not have a constitution that says you do.

On the whole my views are basically moral relativism, no absolute good or evil, no absolute wrong or right, everything in life is a grey and we do our best to muddle along

[Seth]

In your opinion.

There's no natural rights. There's what society and/or the constitution grants. And yes, before you waste our time, I know your constitution grants that, but I'm talking wider than that. There simply aren't natural rights.

Society doesn't grant rights.

We create society and its structures to protect rights.

Humans can assert that they have rights, and call them "natural rights" if they wish. Such an assertion may be a valuable meme within the ecosystem of memes about society, as it pragmatically helps to stop the balance towards the collective tipping too far.

However, the existence of such rights remains a human construct (however valuable), not in the same league as the existence of giraffes in Africa...

I disagree. The concept of rights is found in nature, and it is based on natural law and evolved behavior. Wolves have a structure and hierarchy of laws for pack behavior which defines the "rights" that each member of the pack has, like who mates with whom and who eats first. Lions have the same.

Social structures and hierarchies of rights are not in the least bit exclusive to human beings. Even primates have social structures and hierarchies of rights.

This is why I define a "right" as I do, because it is an objective, observable natural phenomenon.

[Seth]

Yep, it's nonsensical. Rights are meaningless concepts without some authority declaring and providing the mechanism to defend them.

Wolf packs declare rights and defend them. Lion prides declare rights and defend them. Ant colonies define rights and defend them.

[Seth]

Could a mod please split the "rights" discussion off into a thread titled "Are there "natural" rights?"

Thanks.

[Seth]

In your opinion.

There's no natural rights. There's what society and/or the constitution grants. And yes, before you waste our time, I know your constitution grants that, but I'm talking wider than that. There simply aren't natural rights.

Society doesn't grant rights.

We create society and its structures to protect rights.

No we don't. We coalesce into societies for safety. Part of ensuring safety is agreeing on a set of pragmatic rights. Without society agreeing to enforce and defend individual rights, there would be no rights in any practical definition of the word.

Wrong. Rights pre-exist society by the simple functions of biology. Every living organism has certain innate drives created by evolutionary forces, and every living creature will exercise those drives (freedoms of action) in defense of its own survival against other organisms (that may be defended against intrusion by others) and against the forces of nature itself.

Organisms react to natural laws and they exercise natural rights as a fundamental component of individual survival.

Societies of organisms will create a hierarchy of rights and an adjudicatory mechanism of some kind to enhance group survival, but the fundamental natural rights of survival, which include the right to life, the right to self-defense, the right to property and the right to procreation are always at the top of any hierarchy of rights because without them the organism, and the society of organisms, cannot survive. Thus the rights precede the society because the rights are essential to INDIVIDUAL survival of the distinct organisms that comprise the collective.