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.

Vagos · #7 10-23-2007, 08:43 PM

Well-written OP, and I look foward to the ACist vs ASist debate that is about to follow.

AlexM · #8 10-23-2007, 09:13 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Well-written OP, and I look foward to the ACist vs ASist debate that is about to follow.

[/ QUOTE ]

Meh, ACist vs ASist tends to be pointless and stupid. They're both right and they're both wrong. They both think that in anarchy their society would be "the one" to rise, but in the real world they would have to either split the world in two and avoid each other or one would have little subsections inside the other depending on how the population splits on the issue.

moorobot · #9 10-23-2007, 09:35 PM

What puzzles me about your post here is why you feel the desire you do to argue so intensely in favor of ACism or donate money to Ron Paul or engage in political activity at all. Given the "the evolution of society", "natural laws" and the fact that "social norms evolve to reduce costs" it follows that ACism will simply come into existence when and if and only if it contains the system of social norms that are best at minimizing costs at that particular time and place, and disappear just as "naturally" when it no longer does.

Copernicus · #10 10-23-2007, 09:38 PM

[ QUOTE ]
What puzzles me about your post here is why you feel the desire you do to argue so intensely in favor of ACism or donate money to Ron Paul or engage in political activity at all. Given the "the evolution of society", "natural laws" and the fact that "social norms evolve to reduce costs" it follows that ACism will simply come into existence when and if and only if it contains the system of social norms that are best at minimizing costs at that particular time and place, and disappear just as "naturally" when it no longer does.

[/ QUOTE ]

And the bold will never be, anywhere, anytime.