rights revisited

[LuckyR]

Well, yes and no.

In other words..."as usual...it depends". Right, Lucky ?



Regards

Dachshund

No, no. The infinite complexity and nuance of the Human existance can be reduced to bumpersticker polemics that apply in each and every situation.

[Burning ghost]

Fool -

In addition, Dachshund does not think that women have the same moral worth as men and, if he is being serious, should not be allowed to vote.

Do he views in one particular area make all his claims null and void?

Why shouldn’t he be allowed to vote? That is something I’d be interested to hear you try and justify.

Do I need to repeat myself? Both hereandnow and Sausage Dog say as far as I can see, that we’re all born with different attributes. If this is taken as a fact then surely moral capacity in individuals differs prior to environmental influence - each individuals innate moral capacity.

Although they agree on this principle they then both go off in completely different extreme direction to hammer home this same underlying point - whilst taking the occassional snipe at each other.

If either of thrm could tell me if their view differs from what I’ve outlined above in regard to moral capacity I’d love to hear from them and see how they’d dissolve such an idea as each individual having a unique and personal innate moral capacity as opposed to a universal capacity like everyone else - maybe the argument would be that the variability is too sloght to matter to which the counter argument could be that the means of measuring such a thing is, at best, rather vague.

[Steve3007]

Lucky: I think you'd be hard pressed to fit Dachshund's polemics on a bumper sticker that could be read without causing a road traffic accident, but, nevertheless, not a bad rejoinder.

[Steve3007]

Why shouldn’t he be allowed to vote?

You've misread the sentence that you quoted.

[Burning ghost]

Why shouldn’t he be allowed to vote?

You've misread the sentence that you quoted.

Yes, I see! Haha! The blame goes to the poor writing though first and foremeost

It did seem like an extraordinary statement to make in the context of the thread

[Fooloso4]

Burning ghost:

Why shouldn’t he be allowed to vote? That is something I’d be interested to hear you try and justify.

It is not that I think he should not be allowed to vote but that he thinks that women should not be allowed to vote. The topic was women’s suffrage.

Do I need to repeat myself? Both hereandnow and Sausage Dog say as far as I can see, that we’re all born with different attributes. If this is taken as a fact then surely moral capacity in individuals differs prior to environmental influence - each individuals innate moral capacity.

The issue is not moral capacity but moral worth. Dachshund ties worth to capacity. H&N thinks that moral worth is inherent in each of us. Dachshund objects to the equality of rights because he holds to a notion of privilege based on moral worth. H&N defends equal rights.

[Burning ghost]

Fool -

Well actually I think Sausage Dog means “moral worth” as “innate moral capacity” and I cannot argue against that, but I may not agree with it.

An example woudl be someone not deeming Sausage Dog as a moral person and therefore not really listening to him or taking him seriously. He is therefore not in the circle of privilege of those who think such things of him. If Sausage Dog understands that he is being held to the light as “immoral” then he is not being treated equally and if he was deemed “immoral” by the vast majority of people then he is in a position of reduced moral worth and judged by the masses to have a weak position - where really if he is in the face of the majority view, and displaying this openly with passion and attempts to presetn an argument, I would call it a higher moral calling not a lesser one. Any idiot can agree with popular (and usually “safe”) moral stances.

As for H&N definding equal rights? I’ve no idea. The language is too obscure for me. There seems to be the usual desinstruction of concepts in order to make argumentation fit the purpose. I’m not a massive fan of that unless it comes from two opposite directions - to be fair there is at least recoginition of the obvious argumentation against in the form of what is innate (which is where I see the agreement between these two.)

By fitting the purpose see here:

We are thrown into a world where the advantages and outrageous fortune are given to us without any basis in a justified right to what we get. Einstein did nothing to deserve his genius, the Hiltons did nothing to deserve being born into wealth, and so on. If there is no desert, there is no right, either.

On the one hand the genetic predisposition is innate and the circimstances of family and wealth are also innate. We don’t derserve the family nor the genes we’re born with. The term “derserve” is purposefully misplaced here in order to deconstruct the meaning of “right” and make it out to mean something it doesn’t mean in the given context.

Here the argument is stating that there are no rights so how can H&N be defending rights? Note there is little mention of what defines an “advantage” and it is easy to argue that given the differences in a person’s attributes from others there is a general concept “advantage” not a ubiquitous one.

And then this:

The assessment of rights as humans becomes altogether equal: we are equal in that there is no ethical basis for inequality, for the observed inequalities are distributed in an ethically arbitrary way.

I don’t know what this means. It is followed by this:

If you try to divest the concept of a right from its ethical mooring, all that remains is a rule that CALLS what you have a right, but this carries no weight, has no moral aspect, and as such, anything can be devised as a right, for right emerges out of pure say so, caprice, fiat.

First allow me to translate this into plainer language so we’re not fooled by the chicanery.

If we ignore the concept of right and say right has nothing to do with ethics what is left over is nothing more than a rule with no moral basis (like in a game of chess.) Yet if we view life as a set of games and none of us agree upon any rules of play then how are we to establish harmony in society? If you play chess with me and make illegal moves all the time I’ll not play anymore. In fact you’re very likely to find no one to play with very quickly. The “rules” of life are that we’re born where we are as we are. We don’t go around complaining about where lightning strikes and calling it unfair, demanding special treatment, or demand for the existence of lightning to be irradicated.

Obvious enough yet human behvaiour and practice an utter nonsense. And to remind you of the quote above:

If there is no desert, there is no right, either.

So we have to “deserve” something for it to be a “right”? Yet we are born in such a state (whatever that may be) and to imply - purposefully or not - that we don’t derserve this whilst also saying desert needs to be earnt is literally one of THE MOST disingenuous argument to be put across. Maybe H&N isn’t sayig this, or simply hasn’t followed the thought process through? I estly know.

Let me attempt to put this in a simplier scenario.

Aliens land and give us different gifts before flying away. Some people get no gifts. Do the people without gifts have the right to demand access to the gifts? Yes, they have the right to “demand” whatever they wish, but not the right to be taken seriously. That is an instance of playing with the meaning of the word “demand” to suit my purpose. Much like declaring that I am the tallest human on Earth is still a declaration it is factually void.

Rights are rights because of universal laws aim to give people a decent go without bias. Justice is the aim to give people a fair and unbiased hearing.

Desert comes through work (ideally!) If you want to be an artist you have to work hard. Even talented people actually have to work hard. Just because some have to work harder for equal results it doesn’t mean they deserve more. The results dictate the value, and the value the deserts. If could said that marketplace flooded with wannabes could be said to inhibit those capable of valuable work by flooding it with trite garbage.

Sausage Dog -

It would be nice if you could chime in and say how right/wrong I am by saying you and H&N agree in this tiny area, or at least confirm that I’ve hit or missed what you meant by “moral worth”.

[Steve3007]

BG,

Dachshund has already made his position completely clear on this matter. No need for any further clarification. As Fooloso4 says, Dachshund ties worth to capacity. The end result: proposed genocide.

---

Dignity = moral status
Moral status = moral worth
Moral worth = Ability to make moral decisions
Ability to make moral decisions = Intelligence

Therefore Dignity = Intelligence

Therefore the statement "All humans have equal dignity" = "All humans have equal intelligence".


The above is his clearly stated position. Here are examples of the relevant quotes establishing that position.

Here he is asserting that: Dignity = moral status

When it [the UNUDHR] says "equal in dignity and rights" this means that all human beings have an equal basic moral status,

Here he is asserting that: Dignity = Moral status = moral worth

My understanding of the notion of human dignity as it is used in the contemporary Human Rights discourse is that it refers to the fundamental moral status of human beings, that is, to their basic "worth" or "value".

Here he is asserting that: Moral status = Moral worth = Ability to make moral decisions

It is very reasonable indeed to argue ( as I do ) that there are certain psychological traits, capacities, and abilities with which all human beings are naturally endowed that play a crucial role in determining their innate, unearned moral status ( i.e. worth) for example: (1) the capacity for rational cognition; (2) the capacity for autonomy ( i.e. moral freedom) which involves both the ability to set ends for oneself according to one's conception of what is good and the ability to regulate one's choice of ends and of actions to achieve one's ends by one's conception of what morality requires; (3) the capacity to do what is right, which in turn can be factored into two components (a) the ability to decide what is right and (b) the ability to dispose oneself to do what one thinks is right; (4) the capacity for a sense of justice, that is a capacity for a steady disposition to conform one's conduct to what one takes to be the basic norms of fairness together with some ability reasonably to identify these fairness norms; a capacity for a conception of the good and so on and so forth.

Here he is asserting that: Ability to make moral decisions = Intelligence

...the capacity one has to think rationally can be determined by various kinds of standardised psychological/neuropsychological tests that provide a quantitative measure of a person's level of global "Executive Functioning"; also, various standardised intelligence test instruments are now available that enable psychologists to provide a reasonably accurate quantitative measure how much "g-factor" ( "general intelligence"/"fluid intelligence" factor) a person possesses, or how high their IQ score (which also provides a measure of general intelligence) happens to be. The higher an individual's IQ or "g-factor" score or level of unified "Executing Functioning", the higher is that individual's innate capacity for rational cognition.

The bottom line is that if we consider a typical moral behaviour like, for instance, "promise keeping"; both an adult person with ADHD and/or an adult with Down Syndrome will find it more difficult to keep promises than an average healthy adult who does not have any diagnosed problems with their mental health.

And here is the extension of this idea to ideas of racial intellectual, and therefore (by the above arguments) moral, superiority:

Racial dark-skinned Arabs in the nations of the Middle East, likewise have average IQs substantially below that of the West's white Europid populations.

This is why Black sub-saharan and Australian aboriginal patriarchies, for instance, have never managed to cultivate the kind of sophisticated and refined culture that we see manifested, in particular, in the splendid and majestic artistic and intellectual achievements of Western civilization over the past 400 years.

And here is the conclusion from this proposed racial moral superiority. Genocide and ethnic cleansing of groups deemed to be less intelligent, therefore morally inferior therefore not worthy of the assignment of human rights:

As for your own primitive, spear-chucking, moko-faced, haka-dancing "culture", guess what ? it' stone - cold dead, bro'., that's what Stream-rollered flat by the objectively superior cultural values, morality, customs, institutions social manners and mores of modern white/European Western civilization. Game over. You should bear in mind at all times that you are very LUCKY to have be permitted to reside in this country [he is referring to the country of which they are indigenous inhabitants]; if a lot of people, (myself included), had their way you would not be.

It's all there in black and white. He doesn't need to explain it to us any more clearly.

---

As you and Fooloso4 have (in my opinion) rightly pointed out, HAN's opinion is not expressed as clearly and unequivocally.

[Fooloso4]

Burning ghost:

Well actually I think Sausage Dog means “moral worth” as “innate moral capacity” and I cannot argue against that, but I may not agree with it.

Yes, I think this is right and I have commented on it. That innate moral capacity, however, as he construes it following Burke, is not a matter of a level playing field. It is based on a notion of the privilege of birth, an aristocratic class based on the assumption that they have a greater innate moral capacity as evidenced by the fact that they are aristocrats. Calling it a “natural aristocracy” is deceptive since it is not based on actual capacity but presumed capacity instantiated by a class structure.

An example woudl be someone not deeming Sausage Dog as a moral person and therefore not really listening to him or taking him seriously.

Having moral standards is not sufficient. There are various and conflicting moral standards and all should be scrutinized.

As to really listening to him, there are several of us who addressed his claims in detail. The fact that we do not agree with him does not mean we are not listening.

Any idiot can agree with popular (and usually “safe”) moral stances.

And any idiot can disagree with popular moral stances. By the way: his stance is popular, it is, as he himself has identified it, the position of neoconservatives who follow Burke.

On the one hand the genetic predisposition is innate and the circimstances of family and wealth are also innate.

The circumstances of family is not innate. An adopted child will benefit or suffer from the circumstances of the adoptive family.

The term “derserve” is purposefully misplaced here in order to deconstruct the meaning of “right” and make it out to mean something it doesn’t mean in the given context.

It is not purposefully misplaced. It speaks to the issue at hand. From Dachshund’s OP:

I absolutely do not subscribe to the view that such a thing as human dignity exists in the sense that it is a real, inviolable, non-fungible, absolute normative property possessed in the same measure by all human beings. In terms of their fundamental moral status, the idea that all people are inherently and unconditionally dignified in the sense that they are - each and every one - endowed with the same basic measure of worth or value, and are thereby unconditionally entitled to be accorded respect, is, as far as I am concerned, a ridiculous, radical , egalitarian ethical theory that is impossible to justify.

In a post on April 9th he says:

What Burke understands by the the term "order" is class, rank, gradation, hierarchy ( though he would probably not fully approve of my using the word "hierarchy").

Membership in an aristocracy is by accident of birth not natural capacity. The assumption, however, is that the aristocracy possess greater moral and intellectual capacities than do members of lower classes, thus greater moral worth and are deserving of privileges the lower classes are not.

Here the argument is stating that there are no rights …

H&N is not arguing that there are no rights but that rights should not be distributed in accord with accidents of birth or capacities.

The assessment of rights as humans becomes altogether equal: we are equal in that there is no ethical basis for inequality, for the observed inequalities are distributed in an ethically arbitrary way.

I don’t know what this means.

It means that giving someone more or less human rights has no ethical basis. Ethically we are entitled to equal human rights. He puts the onus on Dachshund to give an ethical defence of the claim that human rights should be unequal.

So we have to “deserve” something for it to be a “right”?

No, that is what he is denying, but Dachshund is affirming.

[Burning ghost]

You’re conflating his racism. Fool also makes attemps to steer toward sexism.

These are beside the point of what meaning there is to human rights, justification, law, morals and ethics.

Primarily the point of agreement between yourself and Sausage Dog (like it or not) is that you both claim no one is born equal and this necessarily extends to moral capacity. Twisting words to suit whatever agaenda each of you have beyond that is utterly irrelevant.

I imagine you both agree that if two people do a job and one does a better job then the one who does a better job will have, over all, greater “reward.” This is irrespective of the amount of work put in in any said instance. I’ve notice you’re happy enough tackle this problem when it comes to individual ability, yet in this situation I cannot fathom where you place each persons moral capacity and seem to be ignoring that humans may equal in this capacity like every other capacity.

As for race and IQ I’ve looked into that reasonably indepth. Sadly it’s a tough subject and people are too quick to shout “racist” rather than deal with awkward studies face on and look for discrepancies. We want equality, yet wanting it doesn’t make it so. Some aspects to culture are destructive. The world has been effectively led by the west and led toward greater freedom and wealth. As for the differences noted in ethnic groups there is still not a great deal to be said conclusively because the number of factors effecting IQ are numerous and to use a few threads of genetic research to claim low intelligence in one particular group, even if true, tells us nothing about an individual. Then there effect upon personality, sexual inclination and IQ from prenatal development - such research is quite open to the suggetion that even if a particular ethnic group was to show an over all lower IQ it doesn’t mean that this will remain so in all generations to come due to epigenetics (the stress levels of a mother have a knock-on effect over 2-3 generations and the likelihood of this spirialling would not seem that strange to imagine.)

And yes I read this and didn’t think anything ke what you think because I read the words.

Dachshund wrote:
It is very reasonable indeed to argue ( as I do ) that there are certain psychological traits, capacities, and abilities with which all human beings are naturally endowed that play a crucial role in determining their innate, unearned moral status ( i.e. worth) for example: (1) the capacity for rational cognition; (2) the capacity for autonomy ( i.e. moral freedom) which involves both the ability to set ends for oneself according to one's conception of what is good and the ability to regulate one's choice of ends and of actions to achieve one's ends by one's conception of what morality requires; (3) the capacity to do what is right, which in turn can be factored into two components (a) the ability to decide what is right and (b) the ability to dispose oneself to do what one thinks is right; (4) the capacity for a sense of justice, that is a capacity for a steady disposition to conform one's conduct to what one takes to be the basic norms of fairness together with some ability reasonably to identify these fairness norms; a capacity for a conception of the good and so on and so forth.

Then this:

Here he is asserting that: Ability to make moral decisions = Intelligence

No he didn’t? He is saying, or so it appears, that greater intelligence gives people a better ability to sort through data therefore make more informed moral choices - no brainer!

Whatever Sausage Dog says about intelligence trumping morals, or equating morals with IQ (which I see littel to no evidence of where you do see it as apparent and obvious.) Either way intelligence doesn’t make someone a “good” person and I’ve not seen Sausage Dog make that claim (maybe he has and maybe he doesn’t?) and see no eviedence of it above.

[Burning ghost]

Fool -

Want to have your argument both ways it appears:

The circumstances of family is not innate. An adopted child will benefit or suffer from the circumstances of the adoptive family.

So when you were born you were instantly ripped away from our family and put some other random family thus altering your genetic make-up? Actually, and the funny thing here, is the epigenetic factor. It is quite apparent that environment plays into the genetics. It is not a simple picture at all.

Biologically speaking there is only one race (the human race) and the poltical jargon has turned the scientific use of “race” into a term for identity politics.

Next:

Membership in an aristocracy is by accident of birth not natural capacity. The assumption, however, is that the aristocracy possess greater moral and intellectual capacities than do members of lower classes, thus greater moral worth and are deserving of privileges the lower classes are not.

Generally speaking it does follow that those on high do have a greater capacity for morality and intellect. If you don’t think so the you assume humanity is doomed to fail. I don’t think this. Of course though the difference is reasonably slight - note what I’ve said previously about prenatal development and how stress factors into the next few generations affecting neruological development.

It’s really hard to tell what is going on and how long certain things your mother did in pregnancy will effect you, your children and your children’s children. Given the fear of researching such things and the amount of politicizing around such research we’re not likely to be able to look at this problem until global society is more responsive to its cultural differences and less aggressively defensive.

If you want your child to succeed in life (in terms of health and wealth) and you have the choice between making them wealthy and with low IQ from birth or poor and with high IQ the evidence points to the better option being to pick high IQ as a determiner of future success. Of course some with high IQ will remain poor and some with low IQ’a will remain rich - the probabilty though favours the high IQ to better off in teh long run.

It means that giving someone more or less human rights has no ethical basis. Ethically we are entitled to equal human rights. He puts the onus on Dachshund to give an ethical defence of the claim that human rights should be unequal.

At face value this seems like a good idea. If we’re to ask if a qualified surgeon should operate on you or someone who fancies themselves to be a surgeon I am sure you’d be able to make a rational choice as to whom you’d prefer to perform the surgery quite easily. Now let us take someone with little to no moral capacity, let us say a psychopath or someone fond of torturing people and claim they have equal say in an argument. Is this different? Are murderers and rapists entitled to equal rights? It appear not because they tend to have their rights taken away from them. Is there no ethical basis to the law then? Should all people be allowed to roam free murder and all? Obviously not. So the claim above is faulty (in bold.)

I used to naively think, in my late teens, that we should just trust people. Now I understand that this is misleading and that trust should only be given bit by bit not wholesale. Trust, real deep trust, must be earnt. Rights are the same. They must be offered in small parcels, bit by bit, in order to encourage and earn mutual trust. From there real human relationships develop.

I’m not into black and white views (I was hoping H&N and Sausage Dog could at least find ONE area of grey where they were both - unwillingly - in a position of mutual agreement.) It would be a sign that humanity is not completely useless wouldn’t it not?

[Steve3007]

Burning ghost, you do have an odd way of talking that sometimes makes it difficult to work out what you're trying to say. To start off with, it's not clear who you're talking to. But later you quote me and appear to both agree and disagree with me.

Here he is asserting that: Ability to make moral decisions = Intelligence

And here is your response:

No he didn’t? He is saying, or so it appears, that greater intelligence gives people a better ability to sort through data therefore make more informed moral choices - no brainer!

The question mark on the end of "No he didn’t?" makes it difficult to tell if you're disagreeing with me or asking a question. If the former then it's an odd thing to say, because you go on to say "greater intelligence gives people a better ability to sort through data therefore make more informed moral choices". This means the same thing as "Ability to make moral decisions = Intelligence". So you appear to be agreeing with me as to what Daschund said.

As to the rest of your post (if it's addressed to me) I simply quoted what the guy said.

You’re conflating his racism.

Only you have called anyone a racist. I have not. I have simply elucidated an argument that someone has made by quoting them.

[Burning ghost]

Ah! My mistake again! i thought your post was H&N’s ... my excuse is I don’t have an excuse

Apologies to all!

[Burning ghost]

The ? Was meant as “How the hell did you interpret those words like that!?” I didn’t agree with you. If you look carefully I did not say one is the same as the other and neither did Sausage Dog. You said they were the same (no idea how you got that from his words.)

The racist remarks were evident. Surely you knwo what you posted? Don’t be coy

Note: double mistake! i thought your post was Fool’s not H&N ‘s! Haha! Maybe I should go to sleep.

G’nite my lovely little puppy dogs

[Hereandnow]

Steve3007
As you and Fooloso4 have (in my opinion) rightly pointed out, HAN's opinion is not expressed as clearly and unequivocally.

You're right about this, but it was somewhat intentional. In fact,the argument I make has a clear but arguable flaw: what I am calling pragmatic rights,taking the queen in the rook's path as an example, are, like all contingent rules (definitions, functions, meanings, whatever) are not a reduction to the final basis of justfication, for I characterize pragmatic rights as being ethically vacuous, and this is certainly not true because what has utility, what works is also analyzable through further inquiry. "Why is X a right?" is either immediately answered in term of obvious sacrifice, as with someone having the right to a paycheck because s/he worked hard for it, or it is a right that is, if you will, embedded in the system of rights that has, and this is the important part, its justification grounded in some aspect that is not possessed by the individual and her actions, but in the need for system operation. We say the government has a right to your parking meter dollars regardless of whether you can afford it, or whether your being able to afford it is fair, and the reason for this is that if the system were, in its present condition and the unique possibilites contained therein, to make things fair across the board for all, it would be far beyond possible. This is why Burke's argument against Paine and the charge of the "leveling" of social advantages down to the lowest common denominator (my words, not his) given the positing of natural rights has some validity. Such leveling is not possible. It would destroy society to try this (USSR? with the help of the US, granted)

This brings the matter to pragmatism: to make things work there must be compromise of natural rights. This is not saying at all that there are none. That simply is not true. It is saying this, though: those fat cats I love to hate are somewhat ethically grounded in their more than "fair" share. Why ethically? Because utility is not irrelevant in the determination of the distribution of rights, and this distribution's compromise away from equality makes for a better society, one more inclined to acknowledge human imperfection in conceiving of its own system. Yes: this is a utilitarian argument that looks to consequences for justification. Our system of unequal distribution of rights and privileges is a work in progress. But note that utility right (I'll call it) is not qualitatively distinct from a simple ethical right because, and this may be a stretch, but I don't think so, because int eh simple model of right-desert-sacrifice (and I think this term sacrifice is what genuine analysis of rights is really, essentially, about) the same question arises as to desert: why does you work give warrant to pay? Only one answer that i can see: it works!

The argument taht Dachshund's position leads to genocide CAN be so construed, but it really depends on how society leans toward the compassion, understanding, empathy, selflessness, and the like. Are we, which ever society this might be, ready for compassionate liberalism that realizes that the worst a person can do is cruelty?