Philosophy Now Forum

A_Seagull wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 4:57 am Rights don't need a rationale, they are empirical. People claim rights for those things that they want.

But they claim them in such a way as to claim they're owed them. And that's where the need for justification appears.

For example, you can claim a "right to free lunch" if you want. And empirically, all we can say is that you did, in fact, make the claim that such a right exists. But we have zero reason to believe we owe you lunch just because you decided to claim we did. You would need to be able to justify your claim.

So why do we owe you, say, "life," or "liberty," or "health care," or "free speech," or any of the rights a secular person claims? They need a secular rationale that shows we owe them.

Or we don't.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 7:01 am What is the OP heading?

Nothing to do with Puritans, per se. And the Puritans have nothing to do with John Locke or his rationale for rights. So I can't even imagine why you felt compelled to bring them up. You must have had some relevance in mind, no?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 1:15 pm

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 7:01 am What is the OP heading?

Nothing to do with Puritans, per se. And the Puritans have nothing to do with John Locke or his rationale for rights. So I can't even imagine why you felt compelled to bring them up. You must have had some relevance in mind, no?

The OP doesn't mention Locke. That was you. I wrote what I wrote because I felt like it

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 5:25 pm The OP doesn't mention Locke. That was you. I wrote what I wrote because I felt like it

Oh. So your invocation of "Puritans" was nothing to do with the topic in hand, and you're really not expecting anyone to pay attention to it?

I guess I can live with that. Sure.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 5:47 pm

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 5:25 pm The OP doesn't mention Locke. That was you. I wrote what I wrote because I felt like it

Oh. So your invocation of "Puritans" was nothing to do with the topic in hand, and you're really not expecting anyone to pay attention to it?

I guess I can live with that. Sure.

You've certainly paid it a lot of attention. Feel free to not engage with me.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 1:12 pm

A_Seagull wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 4:57 am Rights don't need a rationale, they are empirical. People claim rights for those things that they want.

But they claim them in such a way as to claim they're owed them. And that's where the need for justification appears.

For example, you can claim a "right to free lunch" if you want. And empirically, all we can say is that you did, in fact, make the claim that such a right exists. But we have zero reason to believe we owe you lunch just because you decided to claim we did. You would need to be able to justify your claim.

So why do we owe you, say, "life," or "liberty," or "health care," or "free speech," or any of the rights a secular person claims? They need a secular rationale that shows we owe them.

Or we don't.

Rights are a political entity. All they require is a simple majority.. or preferably a comprehensive one.

"...every person has the right to choose his own religion. But this right must be predicated on the basis that everyone has the right to his own private religion."

This seems to be the case: I, for example, have recently moved from an indifferent agnosticism to a slightly less indifferent deism. As I live in America: there's no formal religious test applied to me (or anyone). Bluntly: nobody give a fig what I do or don't believe or how my views have shifted.

#

"...in choosing a religion that is corporate, as with most religion today, in its powerful sects and churches, once any great part of the population chooses the same religious sect, its corporate power is unleashed. And before long all of a given society and country may be under its thrall."

Depends on the society: In America there are a great many kinds of religion practiced. Sometimes adherents of this one or that one attempt to 'legislate' their religion (just as areligious folks sometimes attempt to 'legislate' against religious practice). American government unevenly safeguards against such by way of the 1st Amendment. There are abuses and oversights, sure, but mostly the individual is free to practice a religion alone or corporately and prohibited from forcing others to do the same.

Now what happens in theocracies is another matter entirely...

A_Seagull wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 10:05 pm Rights are a political entity. All they require is a simple majority.. or preferably a comprehensive one.

If so, people in Soviet Russia had no right to free speech. Jews in Germany had no right to life. Slaves in pre-Civil-War America had no right to be free. And today, women in Islamic countries have no right to be equal with men under the law or to avoid forcible circumcision, and homosexuals have no right not to be tossed off buildings.

If the society decides who has rights, then there are no human rights -- only local, social privileges, as assigned by authorities or majorities. And all the crimes committed against humanity aren't "bad" if the majority or the "political entity" in a particular locale approved them.

Are you content to say that's how it is? Because that's the implication of your "simple majority" idea.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 1:50 am

A_Seagull wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 10:05 pm Rights are a political entity. All they require is a simple majority.. or preferably a comprehensive one.

If so, people in Soviet Russia had no right to free speech. Jews in Germany had no right to life. Slaves in pre-Civil-War America had no right to be free. And today, women in Islamic countries have no right to be equal with men under the law or to avoid forcible circumcision, and homosexuals have no right not to be tossed off buildings.

If the society decides who has rights, then there are no human rights -- only local, social privileges, as assigned by authorities or majorities. And all the crimes committed against humanity aren't "bad" if the majority or the "political entity" in a particular locale approved them.

Are you content to say that's how it is? Because that's the implication of your "simple majority" idea.

And do you think that some foundation of rights based upon something called 'freedom of conscience' would make one iota of difference to the freedom of people in Soviet Russia, slaves in USA etc ?

A_Seagull wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 4:35 am And do you think that some foundation of rights based upon something called 'freedom of conscience' would make one iota of difference to the freedom of people in Soviet Russia, slaves in USA etc ?

Locke thought it very much did. In fact, he said that those people's right of free conscience was unalienable. Those who suppressed it were acting against God, and thus were culpable; and in any case, what they were trying to do was foolish, since Judgment would be based on "the inward state of the heart," not merely on external actions.

But remove God, and remove the idea of the Great Judgment, and there is no longer any rationale for free conscience. It becomes insignificant, being only a wish.

Another person who thought it did was Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, famed author of The Gulag Archipelago. He was actually IN a Soviet camp. So I think he would have the credentials to speak.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 12:44 pm

A_Seagull wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 4:35 am And do you think that some foundation of rights based upon something called 'freedom of conscience' would make one iota of difference to the freedom of people in Soviet Russia, slaves in USA etc ?

Locke thought it very much did. In fact, he said that those people's right of free conscience was unalienable. Those who suppressed it were acting against God, and thus were culpable; and in any case, what they were trying to do was foolish, since Judgment would be based on "the inward state of the heart," not merely on external actions.

But remove God, and remove the idea of the Great Judgment, and there is no longer any rationale for free conscience. It becomes insignificant, being only a wish.

Another person who thought it did was Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, famed author of The Gulag Archipelago. He was actually IN a Soviet camp. So I think he would have the credentials to speak.

I was actually asking whether you thought .....

A_Seagull wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:05 pm I was actually asking whether you thought .....

Thought what?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 12:14 am

A_Seagull wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:05 pm I was actually asking whether you thought .....

Thought what?

And do you think that some foundation of rights based upon something called 'freedom of conscience' would make one iota of difference to the freedom of people in Soviet Russia, slaves in USA etc ?

A_Seagull wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 12:48 am And do you think that some foundation of rights based upon something called 'freedom of conscience' would make one iota of difference to the freedom of people in Soviet Russia, slaves in USA etc ?

I think that when you're locked up in a gulag or on a plantation, your freedom of conscience is about all you've got. I would think that makes it incredibly valuable.

However, if one didn't believe that conscience will be ultimately affirmed and honoured by God, then I can understand very well why one would imagine that conscience was of no importance at all. After all, it would then be reduced to an impotent private wish, and no more.

However, the story of the development of human rights doesn't stop there: Locke says that because you have freedom of conscience, you also have a right to life, liberty and property derived from that. So those would be the next three rights that logically follow...and Locke has an explanation of why they do.

But meanwhile, the secularist hasn't even gotten past square 1: "what would make freedom of conscience important at all?" So there are no more rights available, from that perspective, because there's no way to argue they're legitimate and necessary.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 12:56 am

A_Seagull wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 12:48 am And do you think that some foundation of rights based upon something called 'freedom of conscience' would make one iota of difference to the freedom of people in Soviet Russia, slaves in USA etc ?

I think that when you're locked up in a gulag or on a plantation, your freedom of conscience is about all you've got. I would think that makes it incredibly valuable.

However, if one didn't believe that conscience will be ultimately affirmed and honoured by God, then I can understand very well why one would imagine that conscience was of no importance at all. After all, it would then be reduced to an impotent private wish, and no more.

However, the story of the development of human rights doesn't stop there: Locke says that because you have freedom of conscience, you also have a right to life, liberty and property derived from that. So those would be the next three rights that logically follow...and Locke has an explanation of why they do.

But meanwhile, the secularist hasn't even gotten past square 1: "what would make freedom of conscience important at all?" So there are no more rights available, from that perspective, because there's no way to argue they're legitimate and necessary.

One does not need a treatise such as Locke's to know that one has an inherent freedom any more than one needs a treatise such as Descartes' to know that one is alive.