Philosophy Now Forum

harbal: "Well, I supose I would still be angry if the property that was stoled belonged to someone else, but I happened to be borrowing it at the time of the theft."

Again: You'd be angry if someone took your property becuz it's your property?

AJ: "Does such really exist? Yes, I say, it exists as anything else exists, and it exists through its enormous effects."

As I say: this moral-metaphysical aspect of man is as real as fire.

harbal: "It doesn't matter how metaphysical you get, nature won't treat you any differently."

Yes, the bear who invades your camp site might eat your face. It's bioautomation. What it does is amoral. It isn't responsible. The man who invades your camp site, now he's a moral agent, a free will. He can choose. And if he chooses to eat your face he 'is'' responsble.

"Our perceived reality is a mental construct, and although much of what we perceive does have external referents of some kind, things like natural rights are not among them."

The world exists, exists independent of us, and is apprehended by us 'as it is' (*not in its entirety but 'as it is'). We **apprehend it directly, without the aid of, or intervention of, [insert hypothetical whatsis] and without constructing a model or representation of the world somewhere in our heads.

*If you take into account perspective (where the observer stands in relation to the observed); intervening, inconstant, possible, distortions (water instead of atmosphere, for example); and the inherent limits of the observer himself; then what is seen is 'as it is'.

**Direct realism, of course, is not just about sight. Hearing, taste, smell, touch: the entire interface of a person, as he's in the world, is the concern of the direct realist. That's why I define it as I do. Apprehension covers it all, the whole of a person's direct contact with the world.

So: the red apple on your table really is a red apple on the table. You aren't constructing it in your head.

As for natural rights: as these are part & parcel of personhood, you're never gonna find 'em in 'external referents'. You find 'em in men.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 7:53 pm harbal: "Well, I supose I would still be angry if the property that was stoled belonged to someone else, but I happened to be borrowing it at the time of the theft."

Again: You'd be angry if someone took your property becuz it's your property?

Okay, you are trying to manoeuvre me into acknowledging this, so as a special favour to you, I will.

Hey, there's no finaglin' goin' on.

You readily agreed you'd be angry if someone stole what you considered to be your property.

I asked you why you'd be angry, and you said 'because I would have been deprived of my possession when I wanted it to remain within my possession'.

I find that response opaque and asked for clarification, You'd be angry if someone took your property becuz it's your property?', cuz that sounds, to me, like what you're sayin'.

Just tryin' to get a straight answer. 'Yes, I'd be angry if someone took my property becuz it 'is' my property' or 'no, I'd be angry if someone took my property, becuz of [fill in the blank with your reason]'.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 9:05 pm Hey, there's no finaglin' goin' on.

You readily agreed you'd be angry if someone stole what you considered to be your property.

I asked you why you'd be angry, and you said 'because I would have been deprived of my possession when I wanted it to remain within my possession'.

I find that response opaque and asked for clarification, You'd be angry if someone took your property becuz it's your property?', cuz that sounds, to me, like what you're sayin'.

Just tryin' to get a straight answer. 'Yes, I'd be angry if someone took my property becuz it 'is' my property' or 'no, I'd be angry if someone took my property, becuz of [fill in the blank with your reason]'.

I think all of us would be angry if someone took something that we felt belonged to us without our first giving them our permission for them to take it. However, here is the U.S. Declaration of Independence giving the justification for separating from England in which it names very clearly 3 "unalienable rights" that the founders of our country obviously considered all [people] are endowed with by our creator:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Granted the words "among these" leaves the question open of what other "unalienable rights" we may have, but where in the fundamental principles of the United States does it say that having property is an unalienable right? Does it even say anywhere that a person has an unalienable right to "his [or her] own property"? Can you point out to me the passage where you are seeing this unalienable right to property?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 6:21 pm . It smacks of desperation.

It smacks of wonderfulness.

You completely and totally were trounced.

Take it like a man, for God’s sake!

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 9:42 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 6:21 pm . It smacks of desperation.

It smacks of wonderfulness.

I see.

Well...I have to say this is a stimulating conversation. I think I'll not bother much more.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 10:08 pm Well...I have to say this is a stimulating conversation. I think I'll not bother much more.

Immanuel, pages back I recommended just being silent.

The conversation ended with the various points I made that were incontrovertibly and inarguably correct.

Your childish insistence is a waste of your time.

Move on!

Gary, two bucks short, two feet behind, opined: "I think all of us would be angry if someone took something that we felt belonged to us without our first giving them our permission for them to take it."

Yep. Why?

"However, here is the U.S. Declaration of Independence..."

The conversation (such as it can be called such) is about the philosophy of natural rights, not the legalisms of the Declaration & Constitution, but okay...

T Jefferson, in an early draft of the Declaration explicitly used the phrase 'life, liberty, and property'. Under the 'guidance' of the Committee of Five, the wording was changed to 'life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness'.

Anyway, the Founders never intended Declaration or Constitution to be the 'source' of anything. Both were vehicles. The Declaration a bill of grievance; the Constitution a half-assed measure against future injury. The Declaration, a codification of the Crown's encroachments and injuries against the rights of colonists; the Constitution, a straightjacket on the federal government. Really, though, the the abandoning of the Articles in favor of the Constitution did the opposite. The Articles made for a virtually impotent overarching federal overseeing the nation while the real power remained within the 13 States. But, that's another story...

"Does it even say anywhere that a person has an unalienable right to "his [or her] own property"? Can you point out to me the passage where you are seeing this unalienable right to property?"

Do you believe, becuz it's not laid out explicitly in the Declaration, that you truly don't have a moral right to your property?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 11:29 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 10:08 pm Well...I have to say this is a stimulating conversation. I think I'll not bother much more.

Immanuel, pages back I recommended just being silent.

The conversation ended with the various points I made that were incontrovertibly and inarguably correct.

Your childish insistence is a waste of your time.

Move on!

Alexis Jacobi in one of the political philosophy threads wrote:CRT is deeply linked ideologically to Marxist praxis (activism, foment) which I definitely reject and it can thus been seen (labeled generally) as a tool of Marxist undermining.

My commitment is to a total and adamant opposition to it. Largely, I accept Lindsay’s analysis.

Is it "activism and foment" that you adamantly oppose?

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 11:53 pm The conversation (such as it can be called such) is about the philosophy of natural rights, not the legalisms of the Declaration & Constitution, but okay...

T Jefferson, in an early draft of the Declaration explicitly used the phrase 'life, liberty, and property'. Under the 'guidance' of the Committee of Five, the wording was changed to 'life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness'.

Why do you think that change was made? Was the early draft right and the final draft a mistake?

Here's my take on the documents:

The Declaration of Independence cites three "unalienable rights" (rights that MAY NOT be taken away from someone by anyone--but that the English were denying us to whatever degree). Those rights are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness--in that order. The first most fundamental right is to "life". It is the single most important thing to any living being, the one thing EVERY living being seeks to preserve AT THE VERY LEAST. It also ensures that the next two rights even matter or mean anything. We can have no rights, no liberty nor can we pursue happiness if we are not alive.

The second most fundamental right after that is "liberty". We can be alive and not have liberty but we cannot have liberty and not be alive.

The third most fundamental right after that is "the pursuit of happiness". We can have both life and liberty and be miserable in pursuing what we deem the way to happiness to be. But we must be both alive and have liberty in order to pursue happiness in the way that appears best.

These three rights seem to be pretty much indisputable to me. If one doesn't have those three rights, then one is dead, a slave, and/or condemned to accept without recourse whatever lot they draw in life.


The Constitution limits the federal government from those specific acts that would deny any citizen any of those three most fundamental and "unalienable" rights. It is a document (the Constitution) that tries to organize civil law in a manner that will enable every citizen to have those rights or ensure that those three rights of each citizen are not violated. Civil law (the Constitution) is something that people agree to through a 'social contract' and the installation of a government. However, the three "unalienable rights" are not up for humans, mortals, (or whatever you want to call us) to tamper with through the means of civil law. The three "unalienable" rights are "endowed" to us by God. And it is in God that we must trust in order for those rights to have universal significance. God didn't "endow" us with the Constitution. S/he endowed us with those three clear rights. The phrase "among others" in the DoI, indicates that the founders left open the possibility that those three fundamental rights might not be the only ones, but they were clearly the only ones they could readily come up with.

So lets look at those rights.

1. May a human being take life from me? No. Not without defying God and also making all other rights irrelevant and moot.

2. May a human being take away my liberty? No. Not without defying God and also making the pursuit of happiness virtually impossible (unless we believe a benevolent dictator will show us the right way to be "truly" happy.

3. May a human being take away my ability to pursue happiness? No. Not without defying God and possibly taking away my ability to find happiness.

4. How would someone take my right to the pursuit of happiness away? They would need to violate my right to liberty (unless I allowed them to pursue for me what they thought would bring me happiness). How would someone take away my right to liberty? They would ultimately have to violate my right to life (unless I allowed the right to liberty to be violated). We believe these three rights to be the foundations of free society.

Notice that the three unalienable rights are also things that anyone and everyone can pursue without necessarily interfering with anyone elses rights to those three things.

My right to life doesn't necessarily mean that I must violate the right to life of other citizens.

My right to liberty doesn't necessarily mean that I must violate the right to liberty of other citizens.

My right to the pursuit of happiness doesn't necessarily mean that I must violate the right of others to pursue happiness.

Here's why I think those who declared independence changed "property" to "pursuit of happiness".

Anyone and everyone can puruse happiness even if they don't own anything. A hobo or a homeless person can be happy if they find happiness in their way of life. The Greek Cynic Philosopher Diogenes of Sinope, Socrates, Epictetus (the Stoic/former Roman slave), the Buddha, the dalai lama, and many Christian mystics and monks, among others were able to find happiness in having almost no property. When Saint Teresa of Calcutta died, she had only a bowl and a few other basic items on her. Therefore it seems clear that "property" is not the only--perhaps not even the most significant thing to pursue in order to find happiness. So the early word "property" was replaced by a more universal phrase "the pursuit of happiness" because happiness can not be equated simply with having "property."

Does all that make sense to you?

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 2:55 am iam wasted his time with: "He's simply insisting [as always] that the manner in which he intuits the meaning of "life, liberty and property" transcends/surpasses all of the other historical, cultural and individual takes that are at odds with his own."

No, I'm simply insisting, as always, that the manner everyone intuits life, liberty, and property is exactly the same. As I say, even the murderer, the slaver, the rapist, the thief as each deprives others of life, liberty, and property, will never consent to bein' murdered, slaved, raped, or robbed.

All he can manage here is to reinforce my point. The fact that John doesn't want Jim to blow him away with a bazooka may or may stop him from blowing Jim away himself. All he needs is to convince himself intuitively that Jim deserves to be blown away. The fact that the global capitalist doesn't want another global capitalist to virtually enslave his kids in a sweatshop doesn't stop him from virtually enslaving other kids himself. The fact that a woman might not have wanted her mother to abort her may or may not stop her from aborting her own unwanted pregnancy.

It doesn't make the fact that in regard to moral conflagrations like abortion and gun control, those on both sides of the issue are able to pose arguments [intuitively or otherwise]...

https://abortion.procon.org/
https://gun-control.procon.org/

...that the other side's arguments don't make go away.

Same here with Christianity. There are Christians up and down the political spectrum here. Some [intuitively and otherwise] support abortion rights and strict gun control legislation, others [intuitively and otherwise] oppose them. And I suspect the same is true of Deists.

Go ahead, ask them to encompass their own understanding of life, liberty and property.

Then watch "arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian" dogmatists like henry simply dismiss any frame of mind that does not overlap entirely with their own.

And then the sociopaths among us. They do whatever they please to others if it enhances their own self-gratification. They focus instead on not getting caught. Fuck the Deist God. Fuck the Christian God. Fuck the philosophers like Kant with their pie in the sky deontological intellectual contraptions.

Just as many of these...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

...folks might argue in turn. Only to them, it's not just me but henry himself who gets them wrong.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 2:55 amEach and every one of the members of these traditions, ideologies, and philosophies, live as free wills with a natural, inalienable right to their own lives, liberties, and properties, no matter what each might say in service to his tradition, ideology, or philosophy. Even as some of these folks look to leash or corral or control others, not a one will knowingly consent to bein' leashed, corralled, or controlled.

Again, from my frame of mind, simply unbelievable. Yes, if all of these people lived apart on separate islands and everyone in each community felt exactly the same way about life, liberty and property in regard to abortion and guns then, sure, it's smooth sailing. But out in real world all of these people with all of these at times differing and conflicting assessments of them pertaining to moral conflagrations of note all crammed together into one community?

The objectivists like henry of course would insist it must be their own God-given intuitive understanding of them.

Thus...

...down through the ages and around the globe culturally there have been any number of very, very different moral, political, anthropological, religious, etc., assessments of what life, liberty and property meant within any particular community..

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 2:55 am As I say: over the long haul, any number of schemes have been devised to hoodwink folks out of what's theirs. It's actually quite clever, makin' a slave of a man while convincin' him you're solvin' his problems, or makin' his life easier, or that you have the skinny on what's goin' on (which you'll share...for a 'price').

Just more of the same "wiggle, wiggle, wiggle" from my perspective. If henry tried to impose his own understanding of them in regard to all of the many moral and political conflicts that continue to rend the human species, many of these folks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

...God or No God would insist that he is the one trying to hoodwink them. Allowing citizens to buy and sell weapons of mass destruction because if rational and virtuous men and women truly understood the meaning of life, liberty and property they would recognize that this is perfectly in sync with what the Deist God had in mind when He created human beings to be Rational.

As for those ridiculous Christians here who insist that come Judgment Day the Christian God will be the one who determines the most righteous meaning of life, liberty and property...?

Well, henry and his ilk can take that up with Satan.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 6:45 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 6:35 pm Just out of curiosity, can you note anyone who has watched all of them and, indeed, did come over to Jesus Christ? Anyone from this forum?

I didn't send them to everybody. Not everybody made the crazy claim you made, so not everybody needed them.

But I can tell you still haven't watched them. And unless I get surprised, I expect you won't. For your whole point from the start was not to have to show that there are no reasoned arguments for the existence of God, but to be able to declare it unilaterally and to go untested on that score.

A "condition" it is then.

After all, I have promised to watch them all. If you will agree, one by one, to discuss them with me. I watched the "meaning" video. I commented on it point by point. I noted that even the Church Lady herself admitted to the atheist that her defense of Christianity did not prove it was true.

I asked you respond to that and my other points. Nothing.

Instead, you prefer to stay up in the spiritual clouds with those like AJ.

Then I asked you to note another video for me to watch. The one that contained what in your view is construed to be the most persuasive "data".

Nothing again.




If wiggling ever becomes an Olympic event, you and henry and AJ are a shoo-in for the gold, the silver, and the bronze. I doubt if anyone else would even bother competing.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 11:29 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 10:08 pm Well...I have to say this is a stimulating conversation. I think I'll not bother much more.

Immanuel, pages back I recommended just being silent.

The conversation ended with the various points I made that were incontrovertibly and inarguably correct.

Your childish insistence is a waste of your time.

Move on!

Yeah, not bothering with that nonsense. Sorry.