OwlBot 2000 posted:

How do you know that there aren't objective, universal rights and moral truths? Just because we can't observe them with our four senses doesn't mean they aren't real and we can't observe them with our moral sense. Humans have the ability to know moral truths

wateroverfire posted:

The corresponding obligation would be "Don't kill people", right? In a world without a negative right not to be killed presumably that obligation wouldn't exist?


I think it's not that defining "right" is hard. It's more that "right" has several meanings (go English!) and we have to pin down the context to avoid getting lost in semantics. One meaning of right is in the sense of "the right thing to do". Another is "a legal or moral entitlement". There are probably others.

Your examples are of legal entitlements people have for various reasons - a musician has copyright, a homeowner has a right to their home, your grandfather has a right to his social security check, etc. Those are legal claims to well defined things.

A "right" to health care, for instance, is a different beast. How much health care? Who is obligated to provide it? At whose expense? Everything about it is indeterminate. We might state as a matter of principle that everyone should have access to healthcare, and that would be a "right" in the sense of "the right thing to do". But that's very different from saying people have a specific legal or moral entitlement to healthcare in general.

It's the difference between Ernest Hemmingway writing poeticly about the human condition that we are all connected and violence against one diminishes us all and Ernest Hemmingway suggesting he should be held personally, legally responsible for civilian deaths during WWI.

wateroverfire posted:

"Don't do things you should reasonably expect will get somebody killed" seems like an obligation that would fall under a negative right not to be killed.

"things you reasonably expect will get somebody killed" probably doesn't encompass "being too rich" or "not giving your money away to more needy people" or etc, though.

What did you have in mind when mentioning negligence?

wateroverfire posted:

Why would the right not to be killed imply that?

I mean, I'm not saying it's not a good thing to do or that other obligations wouldn't carry a person in that direction, but I'm not seeing how someone's right not to have their life taken would get invoked unless, idk, your pool is actually in the middle of the street and camoflaged to look like solid pavement. Then it would imply an obligation not to do things you reasonably think are going to get someone killed.

wateroverfire posted:

wateroverfire posted:

Meh?

wateroverfire posted:

Someone dying by falling into a pool with no assistance whatsoever - eugenics.

I haven't fallen in a pool and died so idk I guess that makes me some kind of superman.

wateroverfire posted:

Meh, again? When I commented that you should probably secure your pool for other reasons but right to not be killed doesn't really enter into it Effectronica started talking about scattering poisoned caltrops on the sidewalk. At that point there didn't seem to be a reason to keep being serious.

wateroverfire posted:

There's a world of difference between intentionally spreading deadly hazards on the sidewalk, where people are expected to be walking and unaware of the danger of poisoned loving caltrops, and having a pool on your property, where people are not expected to be walking and further where they are expected to be aware of the big rear end pool.

wateroverfire posted:

Why are you spreading poisoned caltrops to begin with? Maybe work from there.

wateroverfire posted:

You're spreading poisoned caltrops - lethal weapons designed to kill the unwary - for no reason at all?

edit: Is that what you'd plan to tell the judge?

wateroverfire posted:

Can you lay that argument out, because it doesn't seem to follow.

Just by the definitions of the terms, there is a distinction between negative and positive rights right off the bat. Whether some rights imply other rights - and I don't see how you evaulate that on anything other than a case by case basis - doesn't impact whether there's a distinction.

wateroverfire posted:

What people can and can't get away with is a different sort of question from this one.

A right to, say, not have your speech curtailed implies that others have an obligation not to do that. A campaign of terrorism against dissidents would breach that obligation and curtail their speech. In what way do you have to appeal to an obligation to defend free speech to get to that result?

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Eh, *now* you're getting debatable I think. What about if a theoretical possible enforcement tool exists? Say, African American civil rights in the Jim crow era.

How about the right yo be free of warrantless surveillance right now?

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

When I say "X has the right to Y," though, I'm not just making a descriptive statement about the current system as it exists now. I'm also making a prescriptive, normative, affirmative statement about how the system should be. We may not currently be free from warrantless surveillance, but we have the right to be so free, we should be so free. Whether a "right" is currently enforceable isn't the issue; the issue is whether or not it should be enforceable. That's the real question that "rights" language addresses. To invoke the language of rights is not to describe, it is to advocate.

Dead Reckoning posted:

I asked if anyone was willing to address the question of the limits of personal obligation to the good of others, and your answer was that there was no reason to address that at all because it was situational. So what exactly are you trying to say then? If you think that morality shouldn't be based on adherence to a set of rules, what is your alternative?

Dead Reckoning posted:

I would rather suffer than victimize others, yes. Even if you want to argue that, were I desperate enough, I would do something I consider morally wrong, that wouldn't invalidate the moral code I subscribe to: it would just make me a hypocrite.

Dead Reckoning posted:

I don't consider defending myself against an attack victimizing someone.

Dead Reckoning posted:

Do you seriously not understand the distinction between killing someone who is actively trying to harm you and stealing from an uninvolved third party who has done nothing to you?

Dead Reckoning posted:

EDIT: I guess if you're in some sort of weird edge case where if you don't get those blueberries in the next ninety seconds there is a better than even chance you will die, I might reconsider my stance about stealing.

Dead Reckoning posted:

You've got the calculus wrong. The possibility that a person may die at some indeterminate future point is an acceptable risk in order to maintain a society in which people can live their lives generally free from robbery and burglary. Since we're doing hilarious hyperbole examples, let's say I'm sick, and without a blood transfusion I will likely die in the next six months. Unfortunately, I have an ultra rare blood type, and there is only one suitable match in the entire country. Donating blood carries negligible risk for him, but he refuses to donate on religious grounds. Am I justified at forcing him to let a stranger stick a needle in his arm at gunpoint and take his blood in order to save my own life, or does he have a right to bodily integrity?
I disagree. The principle isn't about the specific piece of property being taken, it's about the right of individuals to own property free from the threat of theft. Again, the victim is not obliged to determine the motives of their attackers, and even then "just stealing your livestock/car/etc." is a serious infringement of another person's rights and likely their livelihood. I would say that a shop owner would be entirely justified in using force to apprehend a thief if they discovered the crime in progress, and that the police would be justified in using force to apprehend the thief after the fact.
A day or two, in a week during which, on the days I did eat, I'd estimate I was subsisting on below 1200 calories. So yes, I'm aware that being hungry really loving sucks.

Because suffering can be alleviated at a future point, but death and maiming are permanent. You're also ignoring the imminent, deliberate and aggressive elements. If a person was using violence to inflict ongoing pain on another, I'd agree that the victim had the right to defend themselves.