Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
-
- Posts: 174
- Joined: June 11th, 2014, 2:32 am
- Favorite Philosopher: Karl Popper
Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
- Grotto19
- Posts: 866
- Joined: July 26th, 2012, 2:11 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Epictetus
- Location: Niagara Falls, N.Y. USA
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
Freedom allows me to drive down the highway at 150 MPH if I want, rights (in this case of security and domestic tranquility) see to it that I no longer have that freedom. Freedom is the lack of legislation and rights are the very manifestation of them. Americans confuse this or in many cases try to reverse it. Btw I am American, I am just well aware that Americans are the most obsessive about their perceived “freedom”.
-
- Posts: 3119
- Joined: November 26th, 2011, 8:10 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Terry Pratchett
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
They are the same in that other people in the society [including their agents as constituted by government] agree that it's okay for you to be, have or do something that you are able to be, have or do, without needing to justify it, explain it or pay for it.
-
- Posts: 116
- Joined: March 22nd, 2014, 2:45 am
- Favorite Philosopher: Yogi Berra
- Location: Massachusetts, USA
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
Rights are specific protections, supports and/or facilitators of an individual's freedoms. An individual's freedoms are the absences of physical, mental, emotional, moral or spiritual suffering. An individual is completely free iff they are not enduring any of these sufferings.
Rights are also specific protections, supports and/or facilitators of certain of an individual's liberties. An individual's liberties are absences of constraints on their actions. Rights mostly protect an individual's or group's freedoms from other individuals' or groups' actions by constraining certain of their liberties.
Freedoms are primary, liberties are secondary, and rights mediate the relationship between the two. The use of all three of these terms more or less interchangeably, confuses their respective differences in meaning, usually to the detriment of an individual's freedom.
- Rederic
- Posts: 589
- Joined: May 30th, 2012, 8:26 am
- Favorite Philosopher: Bertrand Russell
- Location: South coast of England
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
It is at its worst when it deludes us into thinking we have all the answers for everybody else.
Archibald Macleish.
-
- Posts: 116
- Joined: March 22nd, 2014, 2:45 am
- Favorite Philosopher: Yogi Berra
- Location: Massachusetts, USA
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
Only your "right" (which doesn't really exist in the first place, in the context of whatever society) to do that thing, which is irresponsible to do, should be taken away.
BTW, what is your (and others on this forum) conception of "responsibility"? To me, responsibility is achieved when one acts, full-knowingly, in congruence with the system of ethics to which one's milieu (group, society, culture, nation, etc.) subscribes.
- Rederic
- Posts: 589
- Joined: May 30th, 2012, 8:26 am
- Favorite Philosopher: Bertrand Russell
- Location: South coast of England
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
I think that's what I said. You can learn to drive a car, take a test, buy a licence. You then have the right to buy a car & drive it on public roads. But if you're caught driving a car whilst drunk or driving irresponsibly in a dangerous manner, then you lose the right for a period of time.GaianDave51 wrote:Rederic,
Only your "right" (which doesn't really exist in the first place, in the context of whatever society) to do that thing, which is irresponsible to do, should be taken away.
BTW, what is your (and others on this forum) conception of "responsibility"? To me, responsibility is achieved when one acts, full-knowingly, in congruence with the system of ethics to which one's milieu (group, society, culture, nation, etc.) subscribes.
It is at its worst when it deludes us into thinking we have all the answers for everybody else.
Archibald Macleish.
-
- Posts: 5161
- Joined: December 21st, 2010, 1:25 am
- Favorite Philosopher: Eclectic -Various
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
Right in general comprised of
1. Natural Rights as a human being
2. Statutory Rights -since we live within a community we have no choice by to abide by them.
So all modern humans has to live within their respective Statutory Rights but collectively has the Natural and Moral Rights to change and co-create existing Statutory Rights.
So those who are subjugated under autocratic, dictatorial or sovereign rule still has that basic natural and moral right to uplift the existing statutory rights to more refined moral rights, e.g. more democratic based statutory rights.
When one say they have the freedom to do what they want, that is pseudo-freedom as that is overridden by the limits of the existing statutory rights. If one lives in the middle of a jungle or ocean out of the jurisdiction of any legal net, then one is still subject to one's natural and moral right.
-
- Posts: 225
- Joined: June 20th, 2011, 7:28 pm
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
Those definitions need to address the core of what freedom and rights are. This requires a good model. This model must contain both or all relevant dualisms. For example, if morality exist, then fairness and justice must also exist.
Freedom in context of rights, morals, fairness and justice would go to the tune of: freedom to act or not without violating morals, being unfair and concern of justice.
Rights are the legal endorsement of morals.
-
- Posts: 131
- Joined: August 22nd, 2012, 7:31 am
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
This sounds like a cop out but I think you are assuming too much in your particular reference. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence is a declaration of independence from an authority (Great Britain). Obviously it is a fundamentally insolent declaration of freedom from British government. So obviously it really only means the freedom of those declaring themselves to be free from their own perspective after the break out as it were.
It is a long standing obligation of Great Britain to recapture them and this is why, if Britain had aligned with Germany during WW2 the USA would be part of Canada today (as Roosveldt realised) and the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence defunct.
-
- Posts: 225
- Joined: June 20th, 2011, 7:28 pm
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
By building a better model/understanding, we could tweak the constitution to make is more resilient. By this I mean updated to handle our current dilute representation (to population density), judicial loop holes, and slow economic take over.
This being said, an adequate definition/model of freedom, rights, morals, fairness, justice, etc stands to be developed.
-
- Posts: 131
- Joined: August 22nd, 2012, 7:31 am
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
-
- Posts: 225
- Joined: June 20th, 2011, 7:28 pm
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
1) a constitution does aid in the stability of a culture. The proof is historical and empirical. Legal and judicial branches refer to a constitution to build and dispense laws. It is the gray areas in a constitution that allows legislative branches to morph a culture, hence why you are perceiving "toilet paper".Hoggy wrote:Ignore it; it is only a piece of toilet paper exhorting lunatics at large to subscribe to a communal pretence they have the right to life etc of released inmates by exploiting the difference between the two types of freedom.
2) It is obvious upon reading our Constitution, that morals were not written into it. How could our forefathers known that is was necessary? Now we know!
3) It is a proposal to write morals into our constitution. Morals as in emergent rules of behavior out a living system of social creatures. Not arbitrary Sunday school morals (which do have their basis in emergent morals). These constitutional recognized morals would stabilize a culture to stop 'exhorting lunatics'.
4) Please define the two types of freedom
-
- Posts: 131
- Joined: August 22nd, 2012, 7:31 am
Re: Is there a difference between rights and freedoms?
-- Updated November 10th, 2014, 12:25 pm to add the following --
You do not appear to appreciate the utter horror of the realisation that Americans survived the Redcoats and would inevitably pursue their own happiness in circumstances of intrammelled liberty at large in the world. We ripped Napoleon to shreds in grief with a ferocity you could only imagine because of his part in it.
2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023