What is a Person Entitled to in this life? What Rights do we have?
Posted by XenokRoy 12 years, 3 months ago to Philosophy
I have often thought about this question. As I think about I think there is really only two things that a person is entitled too.
1. Death
2. Free Choice
You always have both of these no matter where you are. The consequences for choice may be severe but you still have choice.
Beyond entitlements are rights. Rights are things that can be taken away that a government, or society, exists to protect. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are among the greatest rights that need protection. protection of property both intellectual and physical is the other I would add in.
What do you see as entitlements and rights? What others should be there, or am I even a bit to aggressive?
1. Death
2. Free Choice
You always have both of these no matter where you are. The consequences for choice may be severe but you still have choice.
Beyond entitlements are rights. Rights are things that can be taken away that a government, or society, exists to protect. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are among the greatest rights that need protection. protection of property both intellectual and physical is the other I would add in.
What do you see as entitlements and rights? What others should be there, or am I even a bit to aggressive?
"A 'right' is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context. There is only ONE fundamental right (all others are its consequences or corollaries): a man's right to his own life."
It's not just the right to live, it's the right to live in the best way you can think of, as freely as you can (without dependence or force or coercion).
It's not so much that government can take rights away; it's more that government can trample and violate rights that you have simply because you exist, because it is in your nature to think and work and shape your life.
Also, your life might be removed, but YOUR RIGHT TO YOUR LIFE cannot; it can be violated and attacked, like JPZ said above, but it cannot be taken from you. You have it because it comes from nature; human beings are the only animals that can choose not to live (i.e., to work against their self-interest), though not free of the consequences. If we are to live, then we are to use our natural faculty of reason to determine what is necessary to survive - and then, after that, what is necessary to be happy. The "right" course of action to obtain your happiness could be described as your true "rights".
"Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is 'right' for him to use his mind, it is 'right' to act on his own free judgment, it is 'right' to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being; nature forbids him the irrational." (Atlas Shrugged)
Kant is selling sacrifice as a moral value and selling happiness as unnecessary. Reasonable people, on the other hand, can objectively determine that happiness is your moral duty.
Those who are not happy are the least likely to act morally. The happy are the most likely to act morally.
There is an old Spanish proverb that states: Because I've harmed you I do not like you. When a person denies or disparages the rights of another, it is unlikely the transgressor will like the victim and it is equally unlikely that transgressor will be any happier for it.
You of course have imperial proof for this imaginary ridiculous premise. I would say the opposite could be proven true, that the moral are more likely to be happy, but there are plenty of immoral people who are plenty happy. Stating that being happy is an indicator of morality however, is a pile of hooey.
Oh, I'm sorry, I was reading the White House website again.
Actually no thats not right either, its a figurative billy club known as the law and the IRS.
The right to life can be removed, unless that is not a right a right can be taken away.
Property can be removed from you, but it is a right to have protection from the removal of your property you earned by any entity within society. We have this right infringed on daily by the removal of our income to others who chose not to work for theirs.
Pride I would say is more of an entitlement. You are entitled to your pride and it cannot be removed.
This may be a tomato tomato comparison, but based on the response I think we are not on the same page. I do respect your opinion so thanks for sharing.
I mean no disrespect to your opinion, but the notion that rights can be taken away facilitates your rights being trampled upon. The ever vigilant, jealously guarded and zealously protected rights will not necessarily prevent the trampling of them, but it will go further in protecting them than arguing they can be taken away. There is a reason the word unalienable is used to preface rights, and that reason is to make clear they cannot be transferred in anyway.
One last example, if you'll forgive my pedantry. If I steal your car this does not make it my property. That car is still your property and this claim to property is what distinguishes your right of ownership and my criminal action. It was your car I took away, not your right to own that car.
thanks
Stating otherwise was one of Rand's biggest failings. How can you expect to be considered a philosopher when you wrap your entire world view around a false premise?
You also appear to not understand the discussion of the government that occurred by our founders and their ancestors for a good 50 years. They very clearly worked for a government strong enough to hold a civilization together, but weak enough to allow for freedom for its people. That is why we got the continental congress first which was not strong enough and then the federal government which was, with most of the founders very concerned it grow to powerful and remove freedoms.
Freedom is not limited, but the way in which freedom was used had consequences.
Any other course of action assumes guilt before a crime is committed.
The fact is I or anyone else has the right to punch you in the face. That is freedom. We also have the responsibility to own up to and live with the consequences. Which if done for any reason except in retaliation of force (as rand tought) the conseqences that society applies for that crime to apply. If done in retaliation of force (self defense) they do not.
How about you?
"Any other course of action assumes guilt before a crime is committed. "
The ONLY purpose of govcernment is to protect us against those who attempting to do our nation harm, foreign or domestic. such as Randites who think their "freedom" allows them to trample on the basic rights of others. Using your logic, if we see a man with a gun acting in his best interests by shooting into a crowd of innocent people, it is our obligation as Americans to let him finish before raising a hand in objections. To do less would be to trample his "rights".
You're damned straight we act before a crime is commited, and hell no that doesn't limit the freedom of law abiding citizens one iota.
You actually DON'T have the "right" to punch another person in the face. That's how the law works. That's the only reason why we have laws, to present Randites and other criminals from bringing harm upon others in pursuit of their own selfish goals.
The reason we have self defense law is because I do have the right to punch you in the face, otherwise there would be no need for self defense laws. It would be absolute that you never can punch someone in the face.
The only purpose of government is to protect the rights of the individual. That does encompass the right you specify to protect us from harm foreign or domestic, but is not excluded to it.
No student of rands philosophy that understands it would ever attempt to trample on the basic rights of others. That would be exercising force against them, which can only be done in self defense when force is exercised against them. She is very clear on this point repeatedly, which leads me back to the fact that if you have read her, you have not understood her.
But you have the right to make the choice to initiate force; you do not have the right to avoid the consequences of initiating force. Those consequences could involve the use of force back upon you, criminal charges... but it is a choice a person can, and should be able to make. An evil choice agreed but that person choice still.
Any objectivist practicing what they profess as a code would not initiate force of any kind on another person. Anyone that would not respond with force when force was used on them would be equally failing to practice the code that objectivity is built upon. (hopefully I said that clearly)
The reason we have law against punching people in the face is because there are people like you who falsely believe it is your right. The purpose of these laws is to state unequivocally that it is not your right, and since you attacked and harmed an innocent person, you must be punished.
Now then, apply that fact to Randism, and you will soon understand why the lot of you needs to be punished for bring harm on others through your self-serving impulses, and insisting it is your right.
My bad.
If a company sells you the product it wants to sell, not the one you want, it's not harm.
Your notion that there is no coercion involved in the way many large corporation practice Capitalism is as quaint as your belief that someone working for minimum wage at McDonalds is not being coerced. It's all about control. As soon as you use your market position to control customers instead of serving them, you've stopped being a Capitalist.