Real universal rights

[Impenitent]

What about the idea to avoid arbitrariness? If you don't grant rights to everything, you exclude some entities from getting rights, and that exclusion is likely arbitrary. Such arbitrary exclusion from the moral circle is discrimination.

So would a worm have the right not to be eaten by a blackbird, and what steps would we take to protect the worm's rights?

worms have the right to be impaled upon metal hooks, cast into the water, and be eaten by fish...

-Imp

[Rational ethicist]

I'm not imposing my values on other sentient beings, I'm leaving them alone to be what they are best suited to be.

But those sentient beings are killed (by predators), and when they are dead, they are not what they are best suited to be. So you are not leaving them what they are best suited to be when you leave them alone. The question is whether your preference to leave them alone is more important than those animal's preferences to be what they are best suited to be. If you say yes, then you are imposing your values or preferences on those other sentient beings.

[Harbal]

I'm not imposing my values on other sentient beings, I'm leaving them alone to be what they are best suited to be.

But those sentient beings are killed (by predators), and when they are dead, they are not what they are best suited to be. So you are not leaving them what they are best suited to be when you leave them alone. The question is whether your preference to leave them alone is more important than those animal's preferences to be what they are best suited to be. If you say yes, then you are imposing your values or preferences on those other sentient beings.

Okay, if you consider that to be rational, I suggest you run along and open up negotiations with Mother Nature.

[Rational ethicist]

Okay, if you consider that to be rational, I suggest you run along and open up negotiations with Mother Nature.

those negotiations, that is actually science and technology, right?

[Harbal]

Okay, if you consider that to be rational, I suggest you run along and open up negotiations with Mother Nature.

those negotiations, that is actually science and technology, right?

That depends on how much damage you want to do.

[Sculptor]

Hi, I have a very simple idea.
In traditional ethics, we start with for example a set of all important rights and then ask the question: which entities in the universe get all those rights? Then we see an expanding moral circle through history: from our family to our tribe to our fellow countrymen to all humans, and now expanding further to include some non-human animals. But this approach always ends up with an arbitrariness: why not expand the moral circle further, to all sentient beings, all living beings or all entities in the universe?

WHy not to rocks or the air with breath - surely they also have a right to free education?

I propose to follow the reverse direction: start with the assumption that everyone and everything counts morally and is fully included in the moral circle. Everything, from humans to plants to computers to rocks to planets to molecules, deserves equal rights, without arbitrary exclusions. Then the question becomes: which rights should we grant to everyone and everything?

Easy.
No rights at all, since you cannot give the right to life for a thing that is not living.

One such right could be the right to bodily autonomy, i.e. the right that your body should not be used as a means against your will for the ends of someone else.

But does a jar of arsenic have a body? Surely you would have to deny that right to so many thing, making it exceptional.

This right refers to 'body' and 'will', and hence is trivially satisfied for those entities (like rocks, plants, computers) who do not have a sense of their bodies and who do not have a subjective will.

You cannot prove such a quality. Can you say if a tapeworm has a will? Or a bacteria, or a mosquito?
Can you prove that YOU have a will, or do you just exhibit the appearance of a will ? Why would you want to validate a will anyway? What if the thing has a will to kill; how can you deny that right?

That right can only be violated if the entity is a sentient being. Whatever ways we use plants or computers, we do never use their bodies as a means against their will. But when we use sentient beings such as farm animals for food, we use their bodies against their will and hence we violate this right of farm animals. Hence, this moral theory results in veganism: we should abstain from eating animal products.
Question: which real universal rights would you propose? I.e. which rights should we grant to really everything in the universe?

None, on this basis.

[Sculptor]

I am disinclined to follow that path. I don't grant rights to everything in the universe. You have made no case for doing so.

What about the idea to avoid arbitrariness? If you don't grant rights to everything, you exclude some entities from getting rights, and that exclusion is likely arbitrary. Such arbitrary exclusion from the moral circle is discrimination.

Granting a right to everything is truly arbitrary.

[Advocate]

[quote="Rational ethicist" post_id=615553 time=1672051838 user_id=23251]
Hi, I have a very simple idea.
In traditional ethics, we start with for example a set of all important rights and then ask the question: which entities in the universe get all those rights? Then we see an expanding moral circle through history: from our family to our tribe to our fellow countrymen to all humans, and now expanding further to include some non-human animals. But this approach always ends up with an arbitrariness: why not expand the moral circle further, to all sentient beings, all living beings or all entities in the universe?
I propose to follow the reverse direction: start with the assumption that everyone and everything counts morally and is fully included in the moral circle. Everything, from humans to plants to computers to rocks to planets to molecules, deserves equal rights, without arbitrary exclusions. Then the question becomes: which rights should we grant to everyone and everything?
One such right could be the right to bodily autonomy, i.e. the right that your body should not be used as a means against your will for the ends of someone else. This right refers to 'body' and 'will', and hence is trivially satisfied for those entities (like rocks, plants, computers) who do not have a sense of their bodies and who do not have a subjective will. That right can only be violated if the entity is a sentient being. Whatever ways we use plants or computers, we do never use their bodies as a means against their will. But when we use sentient beings such as farm animals for food, we use their bodies against their will and hence we violate this right of farm animals. Hence, this moral theory results in veganism: we should abstain from eating animal products.
Question: which real universal rights would you propose? I.e. which rights should we grant to really everything in the universe?
[/quote]

The common thread of the expanding circle of ethics is to respect creature's cognitive capacity. For any creature with sentience, we should avoid causing them pain. For any creature with cognition, we should avoid interfering with their plans.

If you're not interfering with whatever the creature fundamentally cares about there can be no moral issue. Ethics is bounded on one side by the harm principle (no harm, no foul), and on the other by the natural right to do anything which is not harmful to another creature.

[Rational ethicist]

WHy not to rocks or the air with breath - surely they also have a right to free education?

sure, but no-one is blocking their right to education. I would reframe that right, however: the right to education according to one's capacity. Not sure if that right has to be free: that depends if there is enough funding possible.

No rights at all, since you cannot give the right to life for a thing that is not living.

what about the right not to be killed? It is possible not to kill a non-living entity. But I would rather go for the right not to be killed against one's will.

But does a jar of arsenic have a body? Surely you would have to deny that right to so many thing, making it exceptional.

as that jar does not have a sense of its own body, you can say that the body of that jar is not well-defined. In any case, you always respect that right of the jar, because you can never use the body of the jar against its will. So it is very easy to grant jars that right. No exceptions necessary.

You cannot prove such a quality. Can you say if a tapeworm has a will? Or a bacteria, or a mosquito?

we have uncertainty, because we do not know everything, but there is an objective answer to the question whether the tapeworm has a will: it is either yes or no. With science, we can learn more about sentience, about which entities have a will. It might be the case that many insects, perhaps mosquitos, have a will
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/pos ... ange-table
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 9121002197

Can you prove that YOU have a will, or do you just exhibit the appearance of a will ?

can you prove that you exist? No, but let's consider that as irrelevant: the fact that you may be a hallucination or a virtual avatar does not imply we should reject all rights. So don't place the bar of proof to high.

Why would you want to validate a will anyway?

because that is what you want, and what everyone who has a will wants. If you disagree, than I can simply say that I want a will to be validated or respected, and if you do not want that, you cannot object because you acknowledge that what you want should not be respected or validated. So I can ask you: is it against your will if I validate a will?

What if the thing has a will to kill; how can you deny that right?

If the thing has a right to kill, then I have a right to kill as well, and then I kill that thing and then that thing no longer has a will to kill. There you go: problem solved! So the right to kill is not a right that we will come up with when we are looking for rights that can be granted to everything.

[Rational ethicist]

Granting a right to everything is truly arbitrary.

Why is it arbitrary? More importantly, arbitrariness itself is not a problem, unwanted arbitrariness is the problem. https://stijnbruers.files.wordpress.com ... riness.pdf
Arbitrariness is unwanted if it cannot be consistently wanted by at least someone. But granting a right to everything is not unwanted in this sense, because no-one is excluded from getting a right.

[Harbal]

More importantly, arbitrariness itself is not a problem, unwanted arbitrariness is the problem.

What kind of mind could come up with this and think it justifies something?

[mickthinks]

I don’t consider the distinction between humans and non-humans to be arbitrary. I don’t recognise the problem you have set yourself to solve.

... So consider the set of all possible distinctions, containing the distinctions between humans and non-humans, between primates and non-primates, between mammals and non-mammals, between whites and non-whites, between males and non-males, between bald and non-bald individuals,... If you didn't follow a rule [to select the human/non-human distinction], your choice was arbitrary.

lol That is to substitute the act of making a distinction between distinctions for the act of making a distinction between kinds of being. I am concerned enough to consider arguments that some kinds of beings are being denied rights that should be accorded them. But kinds of distinctions? They are abstractions. They have no rights. There is no moral requirement to be even-handed in their treatment.

And no, my choice is not arbitrary. It is a matter of long-established and near universal agreement. If you want to challenge it on ethical grounds, feel free to make a case or cases against it, but "there are other options, and their mere possibility invalidates use of the human/non-human distinction" is uncompelling.

But what about that ancestor who lived 10 million years ago, the one that lived 100 million years ago? Clearly they can't all be humans? So where do you draw the line?

If I were in a situation in which an ancient ancestor of mine might have rights that they needed me to defend, this could be more of an issue. I cannot imagine how such a situation might arise. Can you?

[henry quirk]

which real universal rights would you propose?

The right to one's own life, liberty, and property.

which rights should we grant to really everything in the universe?

None. Only a person has a right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property.

A toaster, a lawn, a platypus, the bacon I'm munching on as I type: none these are or were persons.

[Walker]

which real universal rights would you propose?

The right to one's own life, liberty, and property.

which rights should we grant to really everything in the universe?

None. Only a person has a right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property.

A toaster, a lawn, a platypus, the bacon I'm munching on as I type: none these are or were persons.

That means that a person has dominion over all that is perceived by that person, with the exception of other persons. The climate is a big dominion but humans give it a go with rain dances and cloud seeding.

When one individual's dominion conflicts with another's, the two or more work out a system of resolution that ideally benefits all parties, which means everyone doesn't get everything.

[henry quirk]

which real universal rights would you propose?

The right to one's own life, liberty, and property.

which rights should we grant to really everything in the universe?

None. Only a person has a right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property.

A toaster, a lawn, a platypus, the bacon I'm munching on as I type: none these are or were persons.

That means that a person has dominion over all that is perceived by that person, with the exception of other persons.

I can't see how my having an inalienable right to my life, my liberty, my property, can be interpreted as my having dominion over all I perceive. The platypus, for example, is unclaimed. I can catch it, make it mine, yes. I have to work for it, though. Working' for it, intermingling my effort and intent with the unclaimed object is, I think, fundamental to property. Sometimes the effort is small, sometimes large, but you gotta pay it (TANFL).

What if someone gives you the platypus, Henry? Is it your property?

Sure. Joe can give me *his platypus (transfer ownership to me). Control over one's property is also fundamental to property. Joe's platypus is his to sell, to gift, to make into platypus stew.

*I'm assuming here it is his...that he worked for it, or that he bought it or was gifted it.