From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Nov 19 2002 - 09:35:42 MST
Brett writes
> > Oh, just a couple of things pushed my buttons. Practically
> > any sentence that suggests there are "rights" beyond legal
> > ones makes me want to speak up and dissent.
>
> Good point.
>
> I've heard quite a bit about rights and responsibilities at times and that
> they are "two sides of the same coin", "reciprocal" or whatever. Until
> recently I didn't really have cause to dig too deeply into it. It became
> more of an issue for me with the stem cell debate. I was trying to sort out
> what was wrong (if anything) in the notion that an embryo as a "human life"
> had rights. Intuitively I place embryos somewhere between sperm and fetuses
> along a continuum of human life forms that are increasing "warranting" of
> moral recognition. I think many others do too. But in political debate
> intuition alone doesn't cut it, so I tried to come up with a way to answer
> the often only implied question "what is the moral worth of an embryo?".
Well, if you ever come up with anything that doesn't depend on
intuition, please let me know! Now I *do* have faith that my
own values are consistent enough that they can be "objectified"
and that (like you) embryos can be placed on a continuum between
sperm and fetuses, and also embryos qua embryos (forgetting their
potential) can be placed somewhere on a continuum between cockroaches
and dogs. This objectification would consist in showing quantitative
differences in complexity and processing ability.
> Or "what 'rights' should society afford with respect to say
> a healthy or sick adult" to whom we have a "duty" of care?
None, in my opinion. Individuals, families, clubs, and
churches can take care of their own, and no one is coerced.
Yeah, one of the most insidious facets of "rights" is that to
acknowledge a wide range of beings or classes of people as
having certain inalienable rights---that is, that it is simply
*unacceptable* for them to not enjoy those "rights---, is to
warrant the intercession by force of a powerful government to
guarantee those "rights". Thus it becomes a tool of those who
wish to regiment and regulate society.
> I wonder if you'd agree with the notion that in
> secular societies there are no rights except that
> which are underwritten by society's members to
> accept responsibility to uphold them.
Yes.
> Of course in large secular societies the means of underwriting
> or formalizing the agreement to protect each others right is
> the law. I would add it is not enough for society to want to
> uphold rights of its citizens it must have some realistic
> capacity to do so.
Absolutely correct. Yet how is that capacity to be determined?
Right away we enter into the intractability of calculating
societal eventualities. (In a recent thread on socialism, for
example, Anders and others discoursed on the incalculability
of social planning.)
Evolution supplies the answer. It is beyond human ability,
even with the aid of arbitrarily advanced AIs to foresee
the trajectories of societies which contain as elements
those very humans and AIs. But experiments can always be
done in exploring the landscape of possibilities. The U.S.
has a marvelous set-up in that in principle 50 experiments
can be carried on at the same time without too much
variation in culture.
> From this I'd extrapolate that whilst we may grant animals,
> fetuses, embryos certain rights, we can't realistically grant
> them the same rights as full social citizens
Yes. One of few the admirable qualities of the United
Nations is that its architects understood power. It was
designed so that the most powerful countries would be
able to veto actions it takes. This hardly sprang from
idealism, but, on the contrary, from a recognition of
practical necessity. Again, I return to the theme that
granting enormous rights to animals or trees is not in
accord with the realities of power, and such a program
really only serves to reallocate power to certain elites
or governments who can rule in the name of the voiceless
"masses" of animals, trees, or other classes of beings,
e.g., proletarians, that the elites in reality look down
upon.
> we can't realistically grant them the same rights as
> full social citizens because if we do what results
> is a situation where to honor those rights more needs
> to be drawn from the social reservoir of responsibility
> than the societies citizens were able to put in, and as a
> consequence, the honouring of some rights like treating
> spare IVF embryos, or animals as the equivalent to persons,
> undermines the social contract because society will not
> have the capacity to underwrite its promised rights
> to persons.
Quite so.
> This is what makes me uneasy about the notion of secular
> societies talking of god given rights. Secular societies
> cannot yet underwrite the size of the payments that are
> promised in god given rights.
Ah, but that is part of the plan.
> Secular societies don't have gods in their membership
> empowered to put up the resourcing for such rights. So
> perhaps what happens is that they, secular societies,
> try and fail and as a consequence are worse place to
> underwrite those rights that are human sized rights.
Well, that's what's always happened in the experiments
tried so far. Programs to entitle "the masses" with
vastly more rights than they've ever had before---or
as you would write, with more than can be sustained---
end up depriving everyone of power except those at the
very top, of course. Their urges to "remold" society
proceed apace.
> Increasingly I'm seeing questions of rights and
> morality not as where do we draw the line but
> around whom do we draw the circle. If we caste
> the circle too widely and try and bring animals
> into it, for instance, not just humans, then
> perhaps we have less resources to back the rights
> of people. Sort of how much should we spend
> protecting white rhinos sort of argument.
It stands to reason.
> One thing though, if we only acknowledge rights in
> law, then that would seem to beg the question 'Was
> the principle legislated not a moral "right" before
> it was given legal form?'
"Acknowledging" might be the wrong word. But I like
"conferring" even less. I do like the default condition
to be *maximum liberty*, and so don't like the idea of the
state "granting" rights, but you've pointed out a problem
with it "acknowledging" rights too.
> And, if so, don't moral rights exist?
That seems ontologically incorrect. No one can show
you a "right", even the most partisan enthusiast.
> I guess I'm saying I accept there can be no rights
> without responsibilities but that I'm not sure that
> to have rights you always have to have formal laws.
> Perhaps agreements are enough?
Yes, certainly agreements are enough. Just consider
for example very small societies. But I think it wise
to avoid talk of "rights" entirely.
Lee
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