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The right to -not- exercise a right?

Do you have the right to NOT exercise a right?

  • Total voters
    38
Then you're a nihilist. Raping children is immoral.
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But in other societies, in other times, it was not considered "immoral".
It was considered perfectly okay.
The point is that morals are relative to the time and place.
 
1069 said:
But in other societies, in other times, it was not considered "immoral".
It was considered perfectly okay.
The point is that morals are relative to the time and place.
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Moral Relativity. Morals = Time/'Square' People


Get it, that's a joke.


We can try and define morality and society til we're blue in the face...Instead of what we're doing, which I can see is like trying to find Wonder Woman's plane at night, Let's apply default morality, or our own morality, to some examples of times that one would exercise, or not exercise, a right, regardless of where the right came from.


Like, seeing a car crash. What are you responsible for for reporting or doing?

Or if you see someone drowning.
 
Ethereal said:
How is morality entirely derived from society when ideas can only originate from individuals?
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Society is a collection of individuals. Don't tell me you didn't know that.

Then you're a nihilist.
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Hardly, and if I was, that doesn't mean squat.

Raping children is immoral.
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I entirely agree with you, I just disagree where that morality comes from. You think that morality comes from some outside source, apparently, I recognize that it comes from the people as a generally agreed-upon set of standards to which the members of society will be held. That doesn't stop individual people from disagreeing with the moral standards, as codified in law, that's why we have pedophiles and sex offenders.

I don't care what kind of convoluted nonsense you conjure up in an attempt to win a stupid internet argument but raping children is just immoral and there's no intellectual wiggle room.
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That's the problem, you don't care about the justification, you just care about stomping your feet and demanding you're right. You have no logical basis for your claims, you just want to be right without having to defend yourself.

Also, society has already subjectively determined the morality of natural rights.
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Prove natural rights exist at all. Back up your claim. Do something for crying out loud.

Show me factual evidence of a triangle's existence.
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It can be defined and represented. I can point to a triangle and explain why it is a triangle. Do that with natural rights.

Come on, stop running away from direct questions and ANSWER THEM!
 
Cephus said:
It can be defined and represented. I can point to a triangle and explain why it is a triangle. Do that with natural rights.
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Well...ok...

*points at head* These are my natural rights. Well, they're IN there. They are electrical signals stored in my brain and translated to English when necessary, then subsequently into words or thoughts about what I have the right to do, own, or am entitled to. There are scientific studies, videos, and graphs representing how this process works.

:lol:
 
teamosil said:
No, not neccesarily. For example, you have the right to bear arms, but you do not have a right to refuse to bear arms if you get drafted.
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Induction into the military via selective serivce has nothing to do with the right to keep and bear arms.

Or, you have the right to free speech, but you do not have a right to remain silent, for example, if you know that someone committed a murder.
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Sure you do -- there's nothing that requires you to report a murder, or any other crime. As was noted to me, misprision of a felony is not a crime any any state (unless that's changed recently), and for federal crimes, it requires actual concealment, not merely failure to report it.

You can be be forced to the witness stand, but you can only be forced to testfy if the testomony does not incriminate you.
 
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Cephus said:
I did point you to one such case, you just don't want to pay attention. If you want to go look at the text of the case, Google is your friend. I provided one source, there are many, many, many more.
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After a full weekend, I still don't see your citations of text from US federal or state laws. In this, you;re like a '77 Mustang -- All show and no go...

Now, cite the txt that grants the rights, or admit you cannot.
 
Cephus said:
No, I want evidence that this so-called moral concept is factually true.
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Likewise.
Otherwise, it's just a bunch of mindless, fanatical handwaving nonsense.
 
The proving natural rights things is a little ridiculous though. Because it's a product of intelligence and philosophy. You may as well ask to prove love. By defining the argument in a particular manner, one can try to subvert the whole of the discussion without entertaining in the least the arguments of the other side. Yet much of our advancement, even in the realm of science, has been pushed heavily by philosophy and abstract ideals are an important part of the human race. Without philosophy, we wouldn't have advanced as far, it was these thoughts and ideals which really took hold and pushed further exploration. With such real world results, no one can doubt the power of philosophy or merely dismiss without effort some of the more important ideals proposed by such.

While legal "rights" vary from society to society, at the base all society is created by humans. Either humans are the same or society itself defines varying sub-species of human. If humans are all the same in the end, then there must be a common set of base rights which exist within all of us. Rejecting natural rights says that humans are a product of their individual habitation alone, that we can in fact be very different on the most basic of levels. It doesn't seem rational to me that humans are different depending on where we are from. Thoughts of that can very easily excuse things such as slavery. Instead, by examining the free nature of man it's easy to see that at heart, while legal "rights" can vary, there is a base which is inherent to us all. A man is entitled to his life, he is entitled to the sweat of his brow, he is entitled to decided for himself his actions and choices, in short; life, liberty, and property are a base by which all humans are entitled their right to. As for any concrete "proof", well prove any abstract in that context. Calling for "proof" is pointless, not because natural rights are not real but rather because of nature of what rights are and how we discover them.

Though it would be interesting for me to know if people who do not believe in natural rights believe in other abstracts or products of philosophy or even gods.
 
Ikari said:
The proving natural rights things is a little ridiculous though. Because it's a product of intelligence and philosophy. You may as well ask to prove love. By defining the argument in a particular manner, one can try to subvert the whole of the discussion without entertaining in the least the arguments of the other side. Yet much of our advancement, even in the realm of science, has been pushed heavily by philosophy and abstract ideals are an important part of the human race. Without philosophy, we wouldn't have advanced as far, it was these thoughts and ideals which really took hold and pushed further exploration. With such real world results, no one can doubt the power of philosophy or merely dismiss without effort some of the more important ideals proposed by such.

While legal "rights" vary from society to society, at the base all society is created by humans. Either humans are the same or society itself defines varying sub-species of human. If humans are all the same in the end, then there must be a common set of base rights which exist within all of us. Rejecting natural rights says that humans are a product of their individual habitation alone, that we can in fact be very different on the most basic of levels. It doesn't seem rational to me that humans are different depending on where we are from. Thoughts of that can very easily excuse things such as slavery. Instead, by examining the free nature of man it's easy to see that at heart, while legal "rights" can vary, there is a base which is inherent to us all. A man is entitled to his life, he is entitled to the sweat of his brow, he is entitled to decided for himself his actions and choices, in short; life, liberty, and property are a base by which all humans are entitled their right to. As for any concrete "proof", well prove any abstract in that context. Calling for "proof" is pointless, not because natural rights are not real but rather because of nature of what rights are and how we discover them.

Though it would be interesting for me to know if people who do not believe in natural rights believe in other abstracts or products of philosophy or even gods.
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One can prove the existence of atoms.

One can't prove the existence of "natural rights".

However, since I've already proven that 'rights' can be mutually contradictory, I have proven that 'rights' are not natural, but human sociological constructs.
 
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Scarecrow Akhbar said:
One can prove the existence of atoms.

One can't prove the existence of "natural rights".
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One cannot prove "love", one cannot prove gods; yet we accept these things as real. Concepts of science and engineering have their roots in philosophy. Just because there's no "rights meter" doesn't mean that we can't argue for the existence of natural rights or discover a basis on which they could exist.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
However, since I've already proven that 'rights' can be mutually contradictory, I have proven that 'rights' are not natural, but human sociological constructs.
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The understanding and acknowledgment of rights is a product of rational thought and intelligence. It is not replicated in nature outside of humans as no other animal has the intelligence and extelligence of humans.
 
Ikari said:
One cannot prove "love", one cannot prove gods; yet we accept these things as real.
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Love is an emotion, which are chemically created influences on the brain.

Gods don't exist.


Ikari said:
Concepts of science and engineering have their roots in philosophy.
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Only because at one time science was called "natural philosophy".

Really, and trust me on this, airplane wings generate lift solely because of their shape and the movement of air across their surfaces, and they care about neither Calvin nor Hobbes.

Ikari said:
Just because there's no "rights meter" doesn't mean that we can't argue for the existence of natural rights or discover a basis on which they could exist.
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Right.

We can't argue about the existence of natural rights because I've already proven they can't exist because it's possible to construct pairs of mutually exclusive rights.

Matter and anti-matter can exist only so long as they're kept apart, rights and anti-rights can't exist in the same person.

Ikari said:
The understanding and acknowledgment of rights is a product of rational thought and intelligence. It is not replicated in nature outside of humans as no other animal has the intelligence and extelligence of humans.
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Yes.

Humans can invent things that never before existed that aren't part of their natural evolutionary heritage.

Pacemakers, for one example.

Rights, for another.

"extelligence"

Why not "outelligence" or "uptelligence" or "insideouttelligence"?
 
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Scarecrow Akhbar said:
We can't argue about the existence of natural rights because I've already proven they can't exist because it's possible to construct pairs of mutually exclusive rights.
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What was the example that proved this?
 
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Goobieman said:
What was the exaple that proved this?
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The ones earlier in the thread where I demonstrated that a person can hold mutually contradictory "rights", which means therefore that they can't be "natural", but are instead man-made.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
If you could recite the text of the Ninth Amendment, you'd realize the silliness of your post.
So you'd better look it up.
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I am fully familiar with the text, which is exactly why I asked.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
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So, I ask again:
What part of the text GRANTS the rights mentioned therein?
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
The ones earlier in the thread where I demonstrated that a person can hold mutually contradictory "rights", which means therefore that they can't be "natural", but are instead man-made.
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Ok... and which "mutually contradictory 'rights'" were those?
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Love is an emotion, which are chemically created influences on the brain.

Gods don't exist.




Only because at one time science was called "natural philosophy".

Really, and trust me on this, airplane wings generate lift solely because of their shape and the movement of air across their surfaces, and they care about neither Calvin nor Hobbes.



Right.

We can't argue about the existence of natural rights because I've already proven they can't exist because it's possible to construct pairs of mutually exclusive rights.

Matter and anti-matter can exist only so long as they're kept apart, rights and anti-rights can't exist in the same person.



Yes.

Humans can invent things that never before existed that aren't part of their natural evolutionary heritage.

Pacemakers, for one example.

Rights, for another.

"extelligence"

Why not "outelligence" or "uptelligence" or "insideouttelligence"?
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You didn't prove anything. You intentionally mistake natural and lawful right to make a point. It's why I stopped talking to you earlier. Intellectually dishonest debate gets us nowhere and I don't engage in it.
 
Goobieman said:
I am fully familiar with the text, which is exactly why I asked.



So, I ask again:
What part of the text GRANTS the rights mentioned therein?
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Oh!


What you're asking is where in the Constitution, a document written by people obsessed with the silly notion that some Magic Sky Pixie created them and gave them rights, is it written that rights are GIVEN!!!!

Well, it ain't there.

Right's are the limits placed upon government by what the people will accept. They don't have to be listed in the Table of Contents as "Rights Defined Here" or "Here There be Rights" or "Ye Olde Liste of Rytes".

What's most important to note is that there ain't no "natural" rights, so they always vary from society to society.

In certain societies, captured enemies had the right to be stew. So much for their right to life. In other societies captured terrorists are given rights no sane society would give them.

In other societies, women could not own property. In others, women can own billion dollar corporations.

In other societies, women can't walk outside without wearing a cloak of concealment, in others they can go topless on the beach.

In some societies woman can murder babies who, according to natural rights theorists, have the right to life.

So, the whole BS about "natural rights" is wrong, even if John Locke says otherwise.

Welcome to the world of logic, not emotion.
 
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Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Oh!

What you're asking is where in the Constitution, a document written by people obsessed with the silly notion that some Magic Sky Pixie created them and gave them rights, is it written that rights are GIVEN!!!!

Well, it ain't there.
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Ok then....
How about the state Constitutions, federal law or state laws?
Can you cite where any of those grant us our rights?

Right's are the limits placed upon government by what the people will accept.
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Seems to me that by placing a limit on the government's abilitly to interfere with a right, the right is presumed to pre-exist the government.
That's not a 'grant' of a right, that's the existence of the right as a given.

Can you show where the rights are granted, or not?
 
Goobieman said:
Ok then....
How about the state Constitutions, federal law or state laws?
Can you cite where any of those grant us our rights?


Seems to me that by placing a limit on the government's abilitly to interfere with a right, the right is presumed to pre-exist the government.
That's not a 'grant' of a right, that's the existence of the right as a given.

Can you show where the rights are granted, or not?
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Hello?

The right is a limit.

Until the government existed, it couldn't have limits placed on it.

The limits to the government are POWERS that the people seek to control, because government is POWER, nothing else.

Start discussing POWER and FORCE and you'll start discussing what it is that the fiction of "rights" are controlling.

Get to the root causes, and try to base your world view on the rational universe, not the feel good emotionalism of religion.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Hello?
The right is a limit.
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:confused:
On whom?
Where is that limit specified?

Until the government existed, it couldn't have limits placed on it.
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So you then agree that the right existed -before- government was created, and that, rather than grant that rights, the creation of government did nothing but -restrict- that right, to whatever degree specified and/or allowed within the founding of that government.
 
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Goobieman said:
:confused:
On whom?
Where is that limit specified?
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Example:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."


Goobieman said:
So you then agree that the right existed -before- government was created,
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Want a match for when you're done building your strawman?
 
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