Got a PM about "Natural Rights"

Borodog · #1 10-23-2007, 07:48 PM

This is a quick (i.e. not incredibly detailed) PM that I sent in response to one I received asking my thoughts on "natural rights."

A) Natural laws exist, including natural laws that apply to human actions.

B) Systems evolve to reduce costs. This underlies both biological evolution and societal evolution.

C) "Property rights" are a system of social norms that develop, based upon natural law and man's desire and nature's tendency both to reduce costs by detering and resolving conflicts over scarce resources in the lowest cost manner.

D) Hence, while "rights" are not some objective observable truths, they arise out of objective observable truths. The closer the "right" is to the natural law and the costs that are being minimized, the more likely it is to be included in a package of social norms possessed by a society (if that makes any sense). E.g., I know of no society where people don't believe that they own their own bodies, but there have been many societies where people believe individuals could not own land. It's just that those societies did not flourish like the societies where people believed you could own land, because that social norm turns out to be very costly.

As far as fetuses and infants having "natural rights", they don't, in my opinion. In a society where everyone believes that infanticide is abhorent, they would likely say that infants have a "right to life." But in another society, say like (perhaps apocryphally) ancient Sparta, where everyone killed the weakest infants, they would not say that weak children have a "right to life." In a society like ours, there is perpetual argument.

It's all about the social norms, and the social norms evolve to reduce costs. And our society based on "extreme" individual property rights (at least until the last century or so) came to dominate the world because individual property rights are so incredibly good at minimizing costs.

Those are my thoughts, hope it helps.

wtfsvi · #2 10-23-2007, 07:53 PM

Ok this is very close also answer the OP I just made, critizising your "extreme individual property rights".

But now it appears to me you are only an ACist in stead of a real anarchist because "extreme individual property rights" are something you percieve to be a widely accepted norm. One: That is not true everywhere. and two: To the extent that is true, a real anarchist society and and ACist society would be the same.

Borodog · #3 10-23-2007, 07:55 PM

[ QUOTE ]
But now it appears to me you are only an ACist in stead of a real anarchist . . .

[/ QUOTE ]

Lol.

wtfsvi · #4 10-23-2007, 07:57 PM

I meant that to read "the only reason you are an ACist in stead of a real anarchist."

English is not my first language.

Borodog · #5 10-23-2007, 07:58 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I meant that to read "the only reason you are an ACist in stead of a real anarchist."

English is not my first language.

[/ QUOTE ]

I still lol. Do you see why?

wtfsvi · #6 10-23-2007, 07:59 PM

[ QUOTE ]

I still lol. Do you see why?

[/ QUOTE ] Probably because you feel you have the right to use force to make me respect private property rights as you feel they are.

edit: and you find it funny that I disagree.

AlexM · #7 10-23-2007, 08:15 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I still lol. Do you see why?

[/ QUOTE ] Probably because you feel you have the right to use force to make me respect private property rights as you feel they are.

edit: and you find it funny that I disagree.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, because he's a "real" anarchist. Also, you're the one that feels you have the right to use force to disrespect other people's property rights.

wtfsvi · #8 10-23-2007, 08:25 PM

[ QUOTE ]
No, because he's a "real" anarchist. Also, you're the one that feels you have the right to use force to disrespect other people's property rights.

[/ QUOTE ] Ok to counter this I need to put my statist mask on.

You're the one who feels you have the right to use force to disrespect other people's right to enough food, clean water, shelter, so on. You don't think they have this right? Well, some people feel they do. How is that any different from your feelings about property rights? lol let me guess, because you're right and they're wrong?

So you feel that people have private property rights and these can be enforced with the use of force if needed. If I (like most people do I imagine) think people have a right to this or that they need for a decent standard of living, and other people can be forced to provide it, well, I'll call myself a mongoloid-anarchist.

Hey, it's real anarchism!

Borodog · #9 10-23-2007, 08:29 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I still lol. Do you see why?

[/ QUOTE ] Probably because you feel you have the right to use force to make me respect private property rights as you feel they are.

edit: and you find it funny that I disagree.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you a pacifist? If not then so do you.

I LOL because you claim I'm not a "real" anarchist.

wtfsvi · #10 10-23-2007, 08:35 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Are you a pacifist? If not then so do you.

[/ QUOTE ] Yes I'm a pacifist. Except for in cases of self defence or defence of other people, and in cases of making people uphold deals they have made. Well, I don't know if that makes me a pacifist or not in your eyes.

[ QUOTE ]
I LOL because you claim I'm not a "real" anarchist.

[/ QUOTE ] I would have never guessed.