Turning from 'rights' to 'duties': What hinders to think so?

[GE Morton]

I don't think these issues are all that tricky, if we could observe them without prejudice, desires, fears and such clouding our vision. It only becomes difficult when people use tortured logic to try to make their selfish desires into 'virtues'. If they didn't want something for themselves, then they would have little trouble seeing what really constitutes justice.

It is only because people want things for themselves that the concept of justice arose, and has any application.

If we were making rules to live by for an alien society, and we would never gain or 'suffer' due to the rules, then it would be easy.

Easy for us, perhaps, but unless those rules took into account the gains and suffering of those subject to them they would be dismissed by them as irrelevant.

[Leontiskos]

Against the grain of common wrong view to benefical and noble right view (as thesis here): What would/does one hinder to think right instead of in ways of rights? "What to give, instead of demand, at first place", what's to burden here to think in such way?

It is a matter of the difference between a mindset of responsibility and a mindset of entitlement; between <an 'ethical'-communal culture of responsibility and solidarity, and a 'moral' population of individualism and rights>.

[GE Morton]

Do you think that a person deserves anything in life at all, including the basics needs? Does being a human being, (or a sentient being) have any value and imply they deserve any respect at all? How is this worked out in terms of values, ethics, or should it be a complete war of the jungle of human egos? Some may argue that there is no such thing as natural human rights, but such a view would be connected to a particular view of human beings and their significance, or probably their insignificance.

I assume those are your words, though included in a quote box.

Your questions involve two mistakes, concerning the meanings of "deserves" and "value."

To deserve something X means that a person has done something to merit X, that he has earned it, produced it, or became entitled to it by virtue of some formal or informal agreement with whomever is bestowing it.

"Deserve (transitive verb):
"to be worthy of : MERIT

"(intransitive verb):
"to be worthy, fit, or suitable for some reward or requital"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deserve

No one "deserves" anything merely because they exist, or because they are human, or because they are "members of society." They ensue from some action on the part of the agent. Deserts, moreover, are not the same as entitlements. The former depends on merit, or some sort of quid pro quo; the latter does not. E.g., the Olympic sprinter who wins his event deserves the Gold Medal; the recipient of a gift or bequest is entitled to them, but did not (necessarily) deserve them.

And "value" is not a property of things, including human beings. It is a relation between a person --- a valuer --- and some thing, and is measured by observing what the valuer will give up to obtain or retain the valued thing. Thus values are subjective and relative to valuers; any given thing will have as many values as there are valuers who desire it and are prepared to give up something --- time, effort, some other good --- to acquire it.

You also seem to be unclear about what is a "natural human right." A "right" is entitlement to something a person desires (and thus has some value to him) and has acquired righteously, i.e., without inflicting losses or injuries on any other person. A natural right is a right to one's natural possessions, to the things you brought with you into the world, such as your life, your body, your various innate talents and abilities. They are distinguished from "common rights," i.e., one's rights to things acquired --- righteously --- after arriving in the world.

You might want to go back and re-formulate your questions with those meanings in mind.

[chewybrian]

I think it is worthwhile to consider how much we demand our 'rights', and how rarely we refer to the duties and responsibilities that come with those rights. TANSTAAFL.

Yikes, you assume duties and responsibilities come with rights, and in the same paragraph quote Heinlein?

No; rights entail no duties whatsoever. In a social setting you may have various duties, but they don't derive from your rights, are not entailed by them.

Huh? Rights and duties go together like peanut butter and jelly. I have a right to be waited on at the 7-11 before the man who got to the checkout after I did. It follows that I have a duty to let the man who got there before me have his turn before me. How would these things ever not go together? Don't they lose meaning if I only concern myself with one and not the other?

I don't think these issues are all that tricky, if we could observe them without prejudice, desires, fears and such clouding our vision. It only becomes difficult when people use tortured logic to try to make their selfish desires into 'virtues'. If they didn't want something for themselves, then they would have little trouble seeing what really constitutes justice.

It is only because people want things for themselves that the concept of justice arose, and has any application.

Desire does not lead to justice. It takes wisdom to see that the benefit of living in a just society is greater than the benefit of getting a temporary victory and having your desires fulfilled (unjustly) at the expense of someone else. Not many people really want justice. They want what they want, and they scream for justice when they think it will tilt toward them in a particular case. The people that really want justice are thinking and acting at a higher level.

If we were making rules to live by for an alien society, and we would never gain or 'suffer' due to the rules, then it would be easy.

Easy for us, perhaps, but unless those rules took into account the gains and suffering of those subject to them they would be dismissed by them as irrelevant.

You missed my point. It is relatively easier to see what represents justice for all parties involved when you are not one of the parties, when you have no potential gain or loss from the outcome, now or in the future. It would be easier to fairly consider objections from the different sides of the alien debate. We would be less likely to prejudge their intentions or dismiss their concerns without any axe of our own to grind. We would not be apt to use tortured reasons to prop up our selfish desires, since our desires would not relate to the aliens' issues. That tortured reasoning easily gets mistaken for truth, and we lose our grip on objectivity.

[GE Morton]

Huh? Rights and duties go together like peanut butter and jelly. I have a right to be waited on at the 7-11 before the man who got to the checkout after I did. It follows that I have a duty to let the man who got there before me have his turn before me. How would these things ever not go together? Don't they lose meaning if I only concern myself with one and not the other?

Yes, rights impose duties on others (not to violate them). But Alfie's right to X doesn't entail any duties on Alfie. That duty doesn't "come with" his right to X, as Pattern-Chaser put it. Crusoe, alone on his island, will have rights, but no duties.

It is only because people want things for themselves that the concept of justice arose, and has any application.

Desire does not lead to justice. It takes wisdom to see that the benefit of living in a just society is greater than the benefit of getting a temporary victory and having your desires fulfilled (unjustly) at the expense of someone else.

Oh, I agree. But the "benefits of living in a just society" are themselves things desired. If you don't desire those benefits, you will have no use for society, and "justice" will have no application.

Justice consists in securing to each person (in a social setting) what he or she is due. The concept only arises because different people have different interests --- desires --- and in social settings those interests can conflict. Justice is a set of principles for resolving those conflicts, by determining what each person is due --- or more specifically, for deciding how to go about answering such questions. Some such principles are essential if the society is to remain viable.

You missed my point. It is relatively easier to see what represents justice for all parties involved when you are not one of the parties, when you have no potential gain or loss from the outcome, now or in the future.

Sure. That is the viewpoint judges strive to maintain, and which they admonish juries to adopt.

We would be less likely to prejudge their intentions or dismiss their concerns without any axe of our own to grind.

We will have some axe to grind by our very choice of the principles to apply.

[Gertie]

Chewy

Huh? Rights and duties go together like peanut butter and jelly. I have a right to be waited on at the 7-11 before the man who got to the checkout after I did. It follows that I have a duty to let the man who got there before me have his turn before me. How would these things ever not go together? Don't they lose meaning if I only concern myself with one and not the other?

Right, two sides of the same coin - Oughts impose duties on you and towards you.

[Sy Borg]

Rights and duties are concurrent. Without rights, people are effectively prey for the powerful. Without duties, people are parasites on the powerful. A successful ecosystem needs both and humans are far more similar to other species than most are willing to admit.

[GE Morton]

It is a matter of the difference between a mindset of responsibility and a mindset of entitlement; between <an 'ethical'-communal culture of responsibility and solidarity, and a 'moral' population of individualism and rights>.

I followed your link, read the article cited therein. I obviously missed that thread when it was launched. I'll have more to say about it there, but here I'll just disagree with Stawowski's distinction between "morals" and "ethics." As he admits is the case for most modern philosophers, I take those terms to be synonymous. What he is trying to do with that distinction is to portray tribal customs, culture, "ethos, or "folkways," as having normative significance comparable to, or on a par with, morality (as philosophers understand it). He then sets up a tension between them in modern societies.

But while modern societies are not tribes or communes and "solidarity" among their members is not possible, there is no tension or conflict between rights and responsibilities. People in modern societies have both, and what rights and responsibilities each person has is empirically determinable.

[Pattern-chaser]

I think it is worthwhile to consider how much we demand our 'rights', and how rarely we refer to the duties and responsibilities that come with those rights. TANSTAAFL.

Yikes, you assume duties and responsibilities come with rights, and in the same paragraph quote Heinlein?

No; rights entail no duties whatsoever. In a social setting you may have various duties, but they don't derive from your rights, are not entailed by them.

If I have a right to free speech, say, don't you have a duty to respect my right? And vice versa, of course; that's what the balance between rights and duties involves.

[GE Morton]

If I have a right to free speech, say, don't you have a duty to respect my right? And vice versa, of course; that's what the balance between rights and duties involves.

Yes, a right of yours imposes a duty on me, and a right of mine imposes a duty on you. But my duty doesn't "come with" MY right; it comes with your right.

Also, we're using "duty" loosely here. What rights impose are not duties, which are obligations to do something, but constraints --- obligations NOT to do something. Right don't impose any positive duties on anyone.

[stevie]

Against the grain of common wrong view to benefical and noble right view (as thesis here): What would/does one hinder to think right instead of in ways of rights? "What to give, instead of demand, at first place", what's to burden here to think in such way?

Your expressions "wrong view" and "noble right view" hint at a buddhist perspective. So it seems that your post should be located in "Philosophy of Religion, Theism and Mythology".

[Samana Johann]

Against the grain of common wrong view to benefical and noble right view (as thesis here): What would/does one hinder to think right instead of in ways of rights? "What to give, instead of demand, at first place", what's to burden here to think in such way?

Your expressions "wrong view" and "noble right view" hint at a buddhist perspective. So it seems that your post should be located in "Philosophy of Religion, Theism and Mythology".

Not easy to think in terms of "what could I give at first place" but habitually turn to demanding, good householder. Maybe the root of the pattern lies within strong craving after control?

What would he be willing to give into something he feels seemingly disturbed? Nothing, right? Just counter with wrong view in the frame of one's freedom of choice:

There is the case where a certain person is covetous. He covets the belongings of others, thinking, 'O, that what belongs to others would be mine!' He bears ill will, corrupt in the resolves of his heart: 'May these beings be killed or cut apart or crushed or destroyed, or may they not exist at all!' He has wrong view, is warped in the way he sees things: 'There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no brahmans or contemplatives who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.'

[Leontiskos]

It is a matter of the difference between a mindset of responsibility and a mindset of entitlement; between <an 'ethical'-communal culture of responsibility and solidarity, and a 'moral' population of individualism and rights>.

I followed your link, read the article cited therein. I obviously missed that thread when it was launched. I'll have more to say about it there, but here I'll just disagree with Stawowski's distinction between "morals" and "ethics." As he admits is the case for most modern philosophers, I take those terms to be synonymous. What he is trying to do with that distinction is to portray tribal customs, culture, "ethos, or "folkways," as having normative significance comparable to, or on a par with, morality (as philosophers understand it). He then sets up a tension between them in modern societies.

I will be away for some time, but you are welcome to respond in that thread. Generally speaking a philosopher does not "disagree with a distinction," unless of course you think Hegel's distinction between the ethical and the moral is incoherent. Yet that seems highly unlikely. So what you say here seems like a quibble that misses the point.

But while modern societies are not tribes or communes and "solidarity" among their members is not possible, there is no tension or conflict between rights and responsibilities. People in modern societies have both, and what rights and responsibilities each person has is empirically determinable.

Again, this is not to the point. Stawrowski of course sees rights and responsibilities as being present in each conceptual political state. The OP is asking about what hinders a turn from entitlements to responsibilities and how such a thing might be accomplished. That both exist does not mean that they are indistinguishable or unable to come into conflict. If we use Stawrowski's models then the state of ethical minimum will be more concerned with individual rights and entitlements, whereas the homogenous state (along with the 'thicker' states which imitate it) will be more concerned with group responsibilities and solidarity.

It is a historical fact that these two approaches to political life are not fully compatible, and the first half of your first sentence is a sign that you realize this.

[GE Morton]

I will be away for some time, but you are welcome to respond in that thread. Generally speaking a philosopher does not "disagree with a distinction," unless of course you think Hegel's distinction between the ethical and the moral is incoherent. Yet that seems highly unlikely. So what you say here seems like a quibble that misses the point.

That depends upon which "Hegel's distinction" you mean. From what I can gather he changed his views on that matter a number of times:

"Perhaps the most well-known feature of Hegel's ethical thought is his distinction between “morality” (Moralität) and “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit). But is the distinction well understood? One common interpretation is the following: “Morality” for Hegel means Kant's moral philosophy; it represents what is reflective, critical, and individualistic in the moral life. Hegel identifies “ethical life” with ancient Greek society; it stands for an attitude of unthinking, pious devotion to the traditional laws and customs of one's people. Hegel is a partisan of ethical life and an opponent of morality. He favors social conformism and moral traditionalism, and is an opponent of individualism and critical moral thinking.

"There is some truth in each of the elements of this picture, but in every case that truth is seriously oversimplified. The picture as a whole (summed up in the last two sentences of the previous paragraph) is a hopeless distortion. The picture comes closest to describing Hegel's views during his Jena period (1801–1806). But Hegel's views about morality and ethical life underwent quite radical changes in the course of his philosophical development, and during the Jena period itself Hegel's conception of morality presents us with a moving target."

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ab ... 729AF1BAD4

But the distinction as I drew it, i.e., "What he is trying to do with that distinction is to portray tribal customs, culture, "ethos, or "folkways," as having normative significance comparable to, or on a par with, morality (as philosophers understand it)," seems to express it fairly well. He wishes (at that point) to use "ethics" for customs and folkways, and endow them with some normative significance.

Stawrowski of course sees rights and responsibilities as being present in each conceptual political state. The OP is asking about what hinders a turn from entitlements to responsibilities and how such a thing might be accomplished. That both exist does not mean that they are indistinguishable or unable to come into conflict. If we use Stawrowski's models then the state of ethical minimum will be more concerned with individual rights and entitlements, whereas the homogenous state (along with the 'thicker' states which imitate it) will be more concerned with group responsibilities and solidarity.

Yes, I understand the OP's question. I'm claiming that question is misconceived, and relies upon a false premise, namely, the "organic fallacy." Civilized societies are not homogeneous states, and never can be. Nor we we ever find "solidarity" in them. Finally, groups are not moral agents, and hence have no responsibilities to any individual, nor any individual to them. So there can be no "turn from entitlements to responsibilities," if the responsibilities are imagined to be to some group, and derived merely from one's membership in the group.

There are no a priori responsibilities (and I take a "responsibility" to be an obligation). Only individuals have obligations, and only to other individuals. Moreover, those obligations arise from some act of the agent --- they are not a priori. For example, if Alfie makes a promise or enters into some sort of contract with Bruno, then he creates an obligation upon himself to keep that promise, fulfill his duties per the contract. Or if Alfie brings a child into the world, he acquires an obligation to care for it. If he injures someone, some obligation to make restitution.

So there is no conflict between entitlements and responsibilities --- since there are no "responsibilities" as Stawrorski (and the early Hegel) conceive them.

[Leontiskos]

I will be away for some time, but you are welcome to respond in that thread. Generally speaking a philosopher does not "disagree with a distinction," unless of course you think Hegel's distinction between the ethical and the moral is incoherent. Yet that seems highly unlikely. So what you say here seems like a quibble that misses the point.

That depends upon which "Hegel's distinction" you mean.

The one that Stawrowski explicitly refers to, of course.

But the distinction as I drew it, i.e., "What he is trying to do with that distinction is to portray tribal customs, culture, "ethos, or "folkways," as having normative significance comparable to, or on a par with, morality (as philosophers understand it)," seems to express it fairly well. He wishes (at that point) to use "ethics" for customs and folkways, and endow them with some normative significance.

It seems likely that you did not read the article very carefully at all.

Stawrowski of course sees rights and responsibilities as being present in each conceptual political state. The OP is asking about what hinders a turn from entitlements to responsibilities and how such a thing might be accomplished. That both exist does not mean that they are indistinguishable or unable to come into conflict. If we use Stawrowski's models then the state of ethical minimum will be more concerned with individual rights and entitlements, whereas the homogenous state (along with the 'thicker' states which imitate it) will be more concerned with group responsibilities and solidarity.

Yes, I understand the OP's question. I'm claiming that question is misconceived, and relies upon a false premise, namely, the "organic fallacy." Civilized societies are not homogeneous states, and never can be.

You are mistaking a definition for a syllogism. Beyond that, you seem to be afflicted by more factual errors. Do you really believe that no societies throughout history have enjoyed ethical homogeneity?

...Nor we we ever find "solidarity" in them. Finally, groups are not moral agents, and hence have no responsibilities to any individual, nor any individual to them. So there can be no "turn from entitlements to responsibilities," if the responsibilities are imagined to be to some group, and derived merely from one's membership in the group.

There are no a priori responsibilities (and I take a "responsibility" to be an obligation). Only individuals have obligations, and only to other individuals. Moreover, those obligations arise from some act of the agent --- they are not a priori. For example, if Alfie makes a promise or enters into some sort of contract with Bruno, then he creates an obligation upon himself to keep that promise, fulfill his duties per the contract. Or if Alfie brings a child into the world, he acquires an obligation to care for it. If he injures someone, some obligation to make restitution.

So there is no conflict between entitlements and responsibilities --- since there are no "responsibilities" as Stawrorski (and the early Hegel) conceive them.

Of course we have responsibilities to groups. Taxes are a responsibility to the state and to the society. Military service, civic involvement, and voting are other examples. That the individual citizen has responsibilities to the commonwealth (and vice versa) is political philosophy 101.

But while modern societies are not tribes or communes and "solidarity" among their members is not possible, there is no tension or conflict between rights and responsibilities. People in modern societies have both, and what rights and responsibilities each person has is empirically determinable.

...It is also false to claim that your conception of rights is objective or empirical. Such a notion is based on your equivocation between two different senses of "right," which goes hand in hand with a fudging of the fact-value distinction. The criteria which you deem sufficient for establishing a right are indeed objective, but the value-right does not follow objectively from these criteria. Your general strategy is to point to empirical events, call them "rights," and hope that no one notices the equivocation between empirical-"right" and moral-right. Thus even your libertarian conception of rights is premised on "ethical" claims rather than purely "moral" or logical claims.

We covered this <here> (the final post of that conversation).