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Natural Rights/ Natural Law

Henrin said:
I already asked nicely a few times. The problem is that prison is a fundamental violation of human rights is akin to slavery. No one can defend the existence of prisons because to do so you would have to defend slavery and the complete removal of someones freedom.
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Of course you can defend the existence of prisons. What I find unusual is the idea that anyone thinks they can defend the existence of prisons whilst saying that they are a violation of others' rights.

I, and I suspect most others, would say that by commiting severe enough crimes, the criminal has relinquished their right to liberty, at least for a time. Imprisoning a criminal does not violate their rights; but the logical consequence of that is that those rights were not inalienable.
 
Henrin said:
Someone attacking you or someone else and you acting to defend your life or theirs is entirely different than throwing someone in a cage for the rest of their life and controlling their every action.
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Not really. Incarceration is about public safety.

"Controlling their every action" sounds like something from science-fiction. What's that about? Of course slavery is an unjust violation of natural rights.
 
Mithrae said:
Imprisoning a criminal does not violate their rights;
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Of course it does, justly so for the protection of society.

but the logical consequence of that is that those rights were not inalienable.
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I thought you already agreed inalienable rights can be violated, that's why they're not called inviolable.
 
ecofarm said:
Of course it does, justly so for the protection of society.


I thought you already agreed inalienable rights can be violated, that's why they're not called inviolable.
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Yes, criminals violate others' rights. Undoubtedly governments do too, at times: But very few people would agree with you that violation of rights is (or should be) a fundamental aspect of the justice system (of all things!) by design.
 
ecofarm said:
Not really. Incarceration is about public safety.

"Controlling their every action" sounds like something from science-fiction. What's that about? Of course slavery is an unjust violation of natural rights.
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So if slavery is an unjust violation of natural rights then removing someones freedom and commanding their life without their consent is an unjust violation of natural rights.
 
Mithrae said:
Yes, criminals violate others' rights. Undoubtedly governments do too, at times: But very few people would agree with you that violation of rights is (or should be) a fundamental aspect of the justice system (of all things!) by design.
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The justice system serves two purposes: safety (incarceration) and redemption (rehabilitation). The former involves violating a persons rights. A criminal's rights do not disappear and then reappear like a magician's game. They are justly violated for a time.
 
Henrin said:
So if slavery is an unjust violation of natural rights then removing someones freedom and commanding their life without their consent is an unjust violation of natural rights.
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Of course. What's your point?
 
Mithrae said:
I, and I suspect most others, would say that by commiting severe enough crimes, the criminal has relinquished their right to liberty, at least for a time. Imprisoning a criminal does not violate their rights; but the logical consequence of that is that those rights were not inalienable.
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I must say you know your socially accepted arguments well. The argument however is entirely subjective and based on absolutely nothing. There is no more basis for removing a mans complete liberty for murder than there is for robbery or any other crime.
 
ecofarm said:
Of course. What's your point?
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That prison is nothing more than slavery. Are you aware that you actually agreed with my position by agreeing with post #55?
 
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Henrin said:
That prison is nothing more than slavery.
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Prison doesn't control every action in a persons life. One is free to read and write, interact with others, etc.

I support voting rights in prison because it would give them something to hold on to (besides religion and gangs) for productive, reassimilating work when they get out. I find removing a fundamental right without purpose to be unjust and removing a convict or felon's right to vote serves no purpose.

Incarceration is a just violation of rights.
 
ecofarm said:
Prison doesn't control every action in a persons life. One is free to read and write, interact with others, etc.
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They can only read what they are allowed and they can only interact with others when and where they are permitted. Just because you don't just stick them in a dark room with no one around doesn't mean you're aren't controlling their every move.


Incarceration is a just violation of rights.
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Btw, self defense is a not a violation of natural rights.
 
Henrin said:
They can only read what they are allowed and they can only interact with others when and where they are permitted. Just because you don't just stick them in a dark room with no one around doesn't mean you're aren't controlling their every move.
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Prisoners' every move are not controlled. They are free to read and say what they want.

I agree the justice system is an unjust violation of rights in two ways: voting and death. I'd be happy to discuss my position on those. I'm not interested in "incarceration = slavery"; that's a petty, false equivalence.

Btw, self defense is a not a violation of natural rights.
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If it results in death, it is a just violation of right to life.
 
ecofarm said:
The justice system serves two purposes: safety (incarceration) and redemption (rehabilitation). The former involves violating a persons rights. A criminal's rights do not disappear and then reappear like a magician's game. They are justly violated for a time.
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I'm merely pointing out that that's a fairly dubious way of looking at it, in my opinion and undoubtedly many others'.

So when one person says "This right is inalienable and doesn't depend on any particular law, culture or government nor can be removed by them," and another says "Bollocks," why should we believe the first fellow?


The concept of 'natural rights' was originally introduced in contrast to the supposed divine right of kings and so on, and when belief in a natural order of the universe relevant to humanity was all but universal. Neither of those conditions now apply; many people do not believe that humanity is relevant to the universe at all, and concepts of heirarchical rights against which individuals' rights must be contrasted are comparatively scarce.

So if we use it at all, seems to me the only reasonable modern use for a term like 'natural rights' is for those rights pertaining to characteristics of an hypothetical natural state (ie, without society). That means the rights to life and liberty - we could throw in subsets of liberty like pursuit of happiness and freedom of thought/beliefs/expression too, if we felt the urge - but not things like the right to trial by a jury of one's peers, right to bear arms and so on. The latter are rights which can exist only in and from society.
 
ecofarm said:
Prisoners' every move are not controlled. They are free to read and say what they want.
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Again, inmates are only allowed to read what the state allows them to. As for speech, they can not just say whatever they want. They will get punished if they say something that is not deemed as acceptable by the state.
 
Mithrae said:
So if we use it at all, seems to me the only reasonable modern use for a term like 'natural rights' is for those rights pertaining to characteristics of an hypothetical natural state (ie, without society).
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Incorrect. Rights can only be defined in social context. Individual context is not meaningful. We cannot define a social construct by an individual in isolation. No reducing context in sociological constructs.



Henrin said:
Again, inmates are only allowed to read what the state allows them to. As for speech, they can not just say whatever they want. They will get punished if they say something that is not deemed as acceptable by the state.
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Restrictions therein are reasonable.
 
ecofarm said:
Restrictions therein are reasonable.
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Why? Why is restricting what someone can read reasonable? Why is restricting what people are permitted to say reasonable?
 
Henrin said:
Why? Why is restricting what someone can read reasonable? Why is restricting what people are permitted to say reasonable?
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The reduction of violence (defense) in the prison system. We cannot say just anything on the outside either.
 
ecofarm said:
The reduction of violence (defense) in the prison system. We cannot say just anything on the outside either.
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Yes, my argument applies to both inside and outside of prison. Why is it justified no matter where the person might be to punish them for speech or to restrict what they can read? Saying that it could make people safer is hardly in line with natural rights.
 
Henrin said:
I already asked nicely a few times. The problem is that prison is a fundamental violation of human rights and is akin to slavery. No one can defend the existence of prisons because to do so you would have to defend slavery and the complete removal of someones freedom.

All you can really do is argue from a socially accepted position that you never thought would need to be defended. What happens when you actually need to defend it though? You can't.
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Your assertion that incarcerating criminals is "a fundamental violation of human rights and akin to slavery" is at odds with the Constitution of this country. The Due Process Clauses--both the one in the Fifth Amendment, which applies to the federal government, and the one in the Fourteenth Amendment, which applies to the states--specifically authorizes government to deprive persons of liberty. This includes imprisoning them. The condition is that government may not deprive a person of liberty without due process of law.

In practice, that means a person charged with a crime has a right to fair treatment--notice, hearing, trial by jury, appeal, a habeas petition even if convicted and sentenced, and so on. No legal system in the world has ever treated people charged with crimes more fairly than this one. If imprisonment for crimes were really slavery, it would flat violate the Thirteenth Amendment. It does not. That amendment, though, does authorize involuntary servitude as punishment for persons duly convicted of a crime. That's the authority for chain gangs, which I would like to see my own state use.
 
ecofarm said:
Incorrect. Rights can only be defined in social context. Individual context is not meaningful. We cannot define a social construct by an individual in isolation.
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I agree with that (though others would not). If we leave it at that, the term 'natural rights' is meaningless, because all rights are socially constructed. But however they're arrived at - whether by social construct as you and I agree, or by some genuine natural or intrinsic 'rightness' as some others think - some rights do pertain to characteristics of a hypothetical natural state. We can have life without society; we can have liberty without society. Whether or not the rights exist without society, they obviously pertain to natural things.

I'd just as happily see the term not used at all; but since some folk do use it, those are the rights which it might validly apply to.
 
tacomancer said:
The only right we have is force. The rest is just prefernce
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More or less. IMO, the notion of such natural rights comes from man's desire to be superior to the rest of the animals. When we look at how things actually work, force is the only constant. The rest is ego stroking. Do we actually have the right to life? How do we measure that? By capacity to provide force. Without force, does that right actually exist? The natural world says no. Eco has argued that such rights do not mean they cannot be violated, but if a right can be violated, is it actually a right in itself? That talk IMO just is again, desire to be superior to the rest of the animals. We think we're better and we've assigned these "rights" that only humans have inherently even though they are not respected without force. Saying we have such rights does not mean we do. And ultimately that is the only argument those who think we do have. Ink on paper didn't stop the Germans (or the Centauri), nor does it grant you such rights inherently.
 
Mithrae said:
I agree with that (though others would not). If we leave it at that, the term 'natural rights' is meaningless, because all rights are socially constructed. But however they're arrived at - whether by social construct as you and I agree, or by some genuine natural or intrinsic 'rightness' as some others think - some rights do pertain to characteristics of a hypothetical natural state. We can have life without society; we can have liberty without society. Whether or not the rights exist without society, they obviously pertain to natural things.

I'd just as happily see the term not used at all; but since some folk do use it, those are the rights which it might validly apply to.
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Would you remove the right to life, defense, speech, etc if it meant your own? No. These rights are self evident and inalienable from mankind. They come from "nature/God/above/Valhalla/wtfever". They are not granted by human authority, a piece of paper or a regime's observance. These are rights that we know, as people, exist.


Henrin said:
Yes, my argument applies to both inside and outside of prison. Why is it justified no matter where the person might be to punish them for speech or to restrict what they can read? Saying that it could make people safer is hardly in line with natural rights.
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Defense, of course.
 
ecofarm said:
Defense, of course.
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What are you defending yourself from? Words and books? What are you defending yourself from? A possible outcome that you aren't sure will happen? What is it?
 
Henrin said:
What are you defending yourself from? Words and books? What are you defending yourself from? A possible outcome that you aren't sure will happen? What is it?
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What books are restricted in prison?
 
ecofarm said:
Would you remove the right to life, defense, speech, etc if it meant your own?
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I'm sure some people would - even in Western culture, and probably moreso in some others. My own brother often opines that the world would be a better place if it were more like the 'wild west' and idiots ran a very real risk of being shot. Whenever I see people leaving the toilets without washing their hands, I think he may have a point.

ecofarm said:
No. These rights are self evident and inalienable from mankind.
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Only if you restrict mankind to people like you. In many cultures, for most of human history, brutal capital punishments for offenses as minor as robbery or adultery were the norm, as were various forms of slavery, serfdom and rigid cultural norms often enshrined in law. Some cultures had ritualistic human sacrifice, sometimes so ingrained that people even volunteered in order to gain a better afterlife. There is nothing self-evident or inalienable about our modern cultures' particular views of human rights - not even to all modern eyes!
 
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