Do people have an inherent right to live?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Do people have an inherent right to live?

bobtheconqueror: May 10, 2005

TwoQuestions posted:

And if so, why? What policies and costs are justified to keep people alive (housed, fed, free from pollution)?

If not, what laws are justified? Do we , as another poster put it: "live in a barbaric anarchy where the strong do what they will and the weak do what they must"?

I've been grappling with this for years trying to justify why we take from some to provide for others, and aside from religious arguments I can't find a good reason why people have an inviolable right to live. What's it to you that someone else gets hurt?

There are no inherent rights, but most elements of modern survival are a result of social behavior. You were "kept alive" by your parents, who may very well have been financially or personally better off had they drowned you in a river. For some reason, be it personal happiness or perhaps the feeling of a social obligation, you were raised by someone, kept alive by someone long enough to eventually fend for yourself. You might claim here that people who are old enough to be adults but can't fend for themselves ought to be left behind by society, to die or forage or fight for survival. That is not only barbaric and cruel, but creates instability in society through crime. The impetus of survival in almost every human being will force those left behind to act. At that point, not only does a society weaken itself by having to devote resources to stopping them, but they've also made enemies out people who could have been friends. Made potentially useful people antagonistic.

Right there you have a societal incentive to maintain the life of a stranger who can't maintain their own. Social stability created by the personal stability of society's members.

For a more personal take, you might consider how you'd like society to react if you were put in a situation where you could no longer support yourself, either through accidental loss of ability (maybe a freak accident makes you a paraplegic), or perhaps the malice of others (perhaps the capital class steadily lowers or stagnates your wages out of greed such that your "productive value" eventually can't pay your rent or buy your food). Self-interest and that desire to survive dictates that a sane person would want society to keep them alive when they can't do so themselves, and since all human beings are vulnerable to disease, accident, and villainy, the only sure way to prevent yourself from being left behind is to make sure no one gets left behind.

Not sure how old you are OP, but you might look into some entry level political philosophy to get a hold on this.

# ? Mar 1, 2015 22:26

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wateroverfire: Jul 3, 2010

Heavy neutrino posted:

Positive rights can be turned into negative ones by the simple sleight of hand that I just made: welfare doesn't act on a positive right to necessities; it acts on a negative right whereby rich people can't absorb so much production that those at bottom are deprived of necessities.

Consider for instance a hypothetical right to live.

If it's phrased as a negative right it is, straight-forwardly, the right of a person to not have their life taken. To respect that right people don't have to do anything. They merely have the obligation to refrain from killing someone, which presumaby is not an undue burden, and a person's right not to be killed generally doesn't interfere with another person's right not to be killed.

If it's phrased as a positive right it's very different - it's the right to be kept alive. But to respect that right means what? Others have the obligation to keep the person alive? There are over 7 billion people on the planet - do they have an equal obligation to each person alive? Are they obligated to donate all their resources above subsistance level to terminal cancer patients who can't afford treatment? What if there are also burn victims who need funding? What if it's unclear that an act of support is actually going to keep someone alive - if for instance it might just make their lives a little more pleasant or permit them to hustle less to provide for themselves - are they violating someone's right to be kept alive if they decide to devote resources to bettering themselves and their family?

The positive right is a mess. Morally, and legally, it puts people and society in an impossible situation. It puts you personally in an impossible situation. Do you lead a non-subsistence existence? Why are YOU ignoring that underfunded homeless shelter? For that matter why are YOU ignoring the millions of people out of your sight who will legit die of starvation while you dine on Hot Pockets and Mountain Dew? If people have a positive right to life surely the obligation to support that doesn't fall only on the people you've decided are rich enough to have to bear it. That would really be some arbitrary poo poo.

Word play can't alleviate the problems with positive rights.

Heavy neutrino posted:

How do you make that distinction? Why is it not deprivation to arrogate to yourself more wealth than you need for a decent existence while others starve on the streets? Why is it not gross negligence? If you run someone over

That is the difference. If not for your negligent action upon that person, that person would not have died. You drove the car. You hit the person. You violated their right not to be deprived of life.

In the case of you being pretty well off and some unspecified person starving somewhere else, you had no relation to that person or interaction with that person, they weren't in your care, and they died of something unrelated to anything you did, just like the millions of other people whose deaths you had no hand in whatsoever.

# ? Mar 2, 2015 15:56

wateroverfire: Jul 3, 2010

Helsing posted:

If you want to argue for the rule of the strong then just come out and say it instead of trying to re-litigate these tired old arguments about positive vs. negative rights. If you have extra food but don't have any kind of positive obligation feed a starving person then I don't see how you can actually believe that they have any kind of meaningful obligation to not take food from you. I am 100% that if you were being denied food that you needed to live then you'd take whatever necessary steps to gain that food regardless of the negative or positive rights you had to violate, so as far as I can tell you're advocating a system of rights that you would not actually follow when push came to shove.

Dude it's like you're having a conversation with yourself. =/

# ? Mar 2, 2015 16:02

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

For this conversation you have to define "right," and that's .. . not easy.

The best definition I've seen is that a "Right to" is just a way of saying "we all agree that this is the right (thing) to (do)." Example: musicians have a "right to" copyright because they wrote the song. I have a "right to" own my house because I've paid money for it to other people who had a "right to" it and they paid money and so forth going right back to the original European immigrant who came over here, kicked out or killed all the native americans that smallpox hadn't already taken care of, and staked his claim. Your grandfather has a "right to" his Social Security check because he paid into the system for decades and that was the deal. Do lobbyists have the "right to" own our political system? . . .

So do we all agree that we should try to make sure, at minimum, that everyone in our society doesn't die of starvation or due to lack of basic necessities like shelter and clothing? Ok then. If so, then the "right (thing) to (do)" is to fund nationalized health care, i.e., people have a "right to" health care.

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