| | John (reply to post 48),
I didn't say rights were a matter of "opinion", my reference to the universe not having an opinion was meant to illustrate that the universe itself cannot be said to have values (it can't, it's not a conscious being, it has no thoughts) and rights are predicated on values (values that can only be formed through conscious thought), so it makes no sense at all to say rights are therefore "natural", because nature does not give rise to values which would give rise to rights. Rights cannot be natural existants, because they only exist for a particular value-determind goal, and only men can arrive at such values, so it is not natural at all, it is man-made. But I would argue back that the conscious thought of man is natural. This is tricky. If we choose to think because of free will -- and we do do that -- then, on one hand, conscious thought is "man-made" rather than metaphyiscal (i.e., natural). However, I think it's more correct to think of conscious thought as part of man's nature, and to think of man as part of nature, itself (making conscious thought natural, for man).
If I'm correct, then rights are natural (metaphysical), just like man is -- and they get discovered and known from the natural activity of philosophy.
It actually cheapens it to appeal to its origin from "nature". To say it is natural is just another excuse to put some religiosity to the origin of rights. How can nature have created rights? Okay, John, but I'm not trying to put religiosity in there (as you imply). And, more importantly, this kind of questioning is the same kind of questioning creationists use when they ask: Who created the universe? Who gets to decide what's moral? In these kinds of questions, the underlying premise is a Primacy of Consciousness -- where someone, someone pre-existing, with a goal had to decide (rather than someone with a mind figuring things out). It's the reasoning of a mystic: The sun goes across the sky? Well, that's because there's someone pulling it with a chariot., etc.
And I did not mean to suggest rights are a matter of opinion because to say that can suggest the concept of rights cannot be arrived at objectively, but rather each individual person studying the facts of reality would each arrive at a different conclusion even if their reasoning is sound and they all valued life. But that's not the case, if your reasoning is sound, and if you value life, you then must arrive at a concept of rights. Well, okay, but there is right opinion and wrong opinion -- watered-down, probabalistic measures of fact and falsehood. Right opinions are smart ones and wrong opinions aren't. Until something can be demonstrated to be a fact, it's an opinion. In the mind's approach to the truth, there will be a window of opinion to walk through (before you arrive at the final truth of a matter).
Folks who argue that rights are primarily conceptual or cognitive are stuck arguing against the idea that you know rights merely by recognizing (metaphysical) facts. Their line of reasoning only leads to the idea that rights are really, really, good opinions -- because that's as good as things get on that line of reasoning (unless you jettison it and acknowledge the issue to be a demonstrated fact).
All that said, I would be open to another way of looking at this if you have one to offer. I may have stumbled onto the final truth of this matter, but I am willing to collaborate with others in an effort to second-guess myself here.
Just by looking at nature cannot at all lead one to arrive at a concept of rights. It makes no sense, it requires a purpose for having such a concept, namely a value-determined goal, and nature has no values, only men. When I said "just by looking" (at nature), I didn't mean "just by looking" literally -- i.e., just by perceiving with your eyes and visually "seeing" the truth -- I meant just by analyzing nature.
There is no fact of nature that man must value a eudaimonic existence. On one level I agree with this, but I would claim that the level of this topic is another level -- where I would disagree with this. For instance, I'm sure you'd agree that there is a fact of nature that fish must value water. That fact of nature might be their specific form of breathing or locomotion or whatever; but it is a correct value for a fish to value water -- water is an objective value for all fish. As we get farther away from life-death needs or issues (like a fish out of water), it's like we get less degrees of "fact-hood" in arriving at objective values for every member of a species of life.
But we don't get less "fact-hood" -- it just gets less obvious. There are still 100% objective values for species like humans, but they are not as obvious as a fish's need of water. For instance, let me tell you about an animal experiment that psychologists performed.
They gave infant animals the choice to roam between 2 cages. In one cage was a fake mother (a stuffed animal, basically) which did not provide them milk. In the other cage was a steel version (no fur) of the same shape of a fake mother which did provide them milk (by a dispenser). In these experiments, animals brought up with just those fake mothers chose starvation and a furry (though fake) mother -- rather than a cold, metal mother that produced milk. The moral of this story is that even lower animals have higher needs (needs higher than basic nourishment).
Now bring this level up to the human, and there will be really, really, really high-level needs -- natural, metaphysical needs (e.g., the need for eudaimonia) which are the least obvious -- less obvious than the high-level needs demonstrated in animals -- but still are 100% objective (needs all humans share, in virtue of merely being a human). At some point, we get to the objective need of individual rights -- one of the least-obvious, metaphysical facts of the matter.
Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 4/16, 9:19am)
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