|
|
#1
07-09-2006, 05:41 AM
|
|||
|
|||
Do Rights Exist?
[ QUOTE ]
Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is the least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost. The third 'right' - the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it. Robert A. Heinlein [/ QUOTE ] 
|
|
#2
07-09-2006, 06:24 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Do Rights Exist?
The argument from morality / consistency
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/molyneux7.html In application: The 'right' to healthcare? http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/molyneux9.html The 'right' to welfare? http://www.lewrockwell.com/molyneux/molyneux10.html
|
|
#3
07-09-2006, 10:50 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Do Rights Exist?
The only right that I exists, I think, is the right of self-ownership. It is from this that other rights (i.e., the right to own property) are derived, and it is this that excludes psuedo-"rights" (e.g., the "right" to healthcare) from being rights.
|
|
#4
07-09-2006, 11:20 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Do Rights Exist?
Morality and rights do not actually exist. It is all subjective, but some of it is so widely agreed upon that it becomes the accepted norm. Morality is relative from species to species. Most species have instincts which dictate their actions. We humans have reasoning instead, so sometimes we disagree on certain specifics, and thus, come across arbitrary instances of morality.
|
|
#7
07-09-2006, 01:34 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Do Rights Exist?
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. [/ QUOTE ] Rights being infringed does not mean there aren't rights in the first place. [/ QUOTE ] It is meaningless to talk of rights existing in the absence of acknowledgement or enforcement. Just as it is meaningless to talk of an object existing when it is unobservable, even in theory.
|
|
#8
07-09-2006, 03:21 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Do Rights Exist?
[ QUOTE ]
The only right that I exists, I think, is the right of self-ownership. It is from this that other rights (i.e., the right to own property) are derived, and it is this that excludes psuedo-"rights" (e.g., the "right" to healthcare) from being rights. [/ QUOTE ] We don't own ourselves. If you owned your body, you could sell it: 
|
|
#9
07-09-2006, 04:58 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Do Rights Exist?
[ QUOTE ]
We don't own ourselves. If you owned your body, you could sell it [/ QUOTE ] This is a confusion of the difference between rights that we are naturally endowed with and rights that the government recognizes. I think ethically, we do have the right to sell our bodies for sex, labor at whatever price we deem fit, etc. But the fact that a government may not recognize that we have such rights isn't really relevant to whether or not we have them.
|
|
#10
07-09-2006, 05:11 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: Do Rights Exist?
[ QUOTE ]
This is a confusion of the difference between rights that we are naturally endowed with and rights that the government recognizes. I think ethically, we do have the right to sell our bodies for sex, labor at whatever price we deem fit, etc. But the fact that a government may not recognize that we have such rights isn't really relevant to whether or not we have them. [/ QUOTE ]
|
 |
|
|
Linear Mode
