From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Jan 24 2001 - 00:53:02 MST
denis bider wrote:
>
>
> So, whether you accept it or not, you _are_ a part of a 'living' organism.
> You are but a tiny cell in it. The organism takes care of you, and you make
> your own tiny contributions to the organism. Actually, you most probably
> actively participate in more than one such organism. As do I.
Nothing in your post was very persuasive that society is a 'living
organism' in the sense you seem to want to claim it is. Society is the
gestalt of individual beings freely working together in a matrix that
maximizes their ability to do so. It is not a super-being I am a mere
cell in.
>
> > Man has natural rights because he has evolved under the laws
> > of physics and biology to be the creature he/she is.
>
> This statement makes 0 sense to me. I see no logical structure to it. It
> sounds like "man has rights because he is". Have you ever even defined what
> the term 'rights' means?
>
Humans have natural rights because of the type of natural being they
are, because of their specific nature. This is where 'natural' in
'natural rights' comes from. 'Rights' in this context are those
conditions in the interactions among human beings required by human
beings, by their nature, for optimal functioning. Most such rights are
negative such as the non-initiation of physical force rather than
positive such as the supposed right some claim to goods provided by the
work of others.
- samantha
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