But like… Morals are relative. They’re frameworks built around core values, they’re not a property of the universe. They’re not self evident, they’re axioms we choose to value collectively
Rights are things that must always be fought for, and they can be both established and worn away. They’re a social construct
Rights are things that come before the law, they’re the boundaries of the law. But like the rule of law itself, they only exist through collective belief and action, otherwise they’re just words
I don’t think it needs to be dressed up more than that. Good things are good and bad things are bad, rights protect people from bad things from the state
You’ll never convince people who think good things are bad, because they don’t have good values. You shouldn’t engage with them on an equal level, because their values are inferior… At this point we just need to make it socially unacceptable to share their fucked up opinions
As much as philosophy, mathematics, logic.
Relative is the wrong word.
They’re unfalsifiable.
Nonetheless, committing yourself to a set of premises commits you to their logical consequences.
Consistency demands rejecting contradictions.
Do you think we should respect a moral system that accepts slavery as much as one that doesn’t?
If not, then you’re not a moral relativist, and that’s a relativist fallacy.
they only exist through collective belief and action
Not according to the philosophy & logic: a proposition is either true or false.
While practices can wear away, truth values of propositions don’t vary.
You’re confusing language sensitive to conditions, and the propositions they express.
A statement can express multiple propositions.
“The boy is playing football” expresses different propositions in UK & USA.
“I am hungry” expresses distinct propositions according to who says it & time of day.
Each of those distinct propositions has a unique & absolute truth value.
When the meaning of a statement changes, the truth value of a proposition isn’t changing: the proposition the statement refers to varies.
The truth value of “people have inalienable rights” doesn’t wear away as practices change: the proposition’s truth value remains the same regardless of changing practices.
A disagreement over moral propositions may indicate incompatible moral systems or a need for reflection & reexamination.
Do you think we should respect a moral system that accepts slavery as much as one that doesn’t? If not, then you’re not a moral relativist, and that’s a relativist fallacy.
No, they’re not equal. They’re relative. They’re a product of the context and environment.
I have a superior moral system than the one I had as a child. Not because my values have changed much, but because experience has helped me to understand others and I’ve been able to examine and refine my moral system through that
But they’re all based on values, which are not universal. I value minimisation of suffering, freedom, and quality of experience of life.
If I lived in a time where slavery was common, and I had the means, I think I’d probably have a few slaves.
Because the right to freedom doesn’t exist in that situation. I could minimize suffering and increase freedom by buying slaves and giving them autonomy - ideally I’d get informed consent beforehand too, but I’d give them agency in the course of their life in return for service. I’d use that service increase the number of slaves to maximize freedom for as many as I feel able to do so, in whatever form that takes
Rights are absolutely alienatible. I think everyone should have the right to food, shelter, and maximization of freedom
But we don’t have that. These right are alienated, people starve while food is wasted, people are homeless with empty houses everywhere.
Women only have the right to vote so long as they have the right to vote. Chatel slavery still exists, as punishment for a crime. Rights don’t exist if they don’t exist in practice - anything else is just a rhetorical device
You talk of rejecting contradictions, but there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism. Do you live on the streets and sustain yourself on trash? Is that an ethical obligation?
There’s no contractions in maximizing good things and minimizing bad things - we all live in a very fucked up world
Why in the world would you think relative and equal are the same thing??? These are separate qualities
Isaac Newton was a utter genius. Maybe the smartest person to eve live. His contributions to physics are insane, he basically created the entire field in a short period out of whole cloth
A random physics grad student would mog him at his peak. They would not be his equal, but they’d run circles around him
By claiming the repression of inalienable rights means they are conditional privileges, the author’s admitting their ignorance of moral philosophy & the purpose of the word inalienable in it.
Ideas such as inalienable/universal/inherent rights come from moral philosophy.
The premise is that they exist regardless of whether people choose to respect them: no one can revoke those rights, only violate them.
Violations are unjust.
They don’t imply a legal system can’t violate ethics.[1]
They’re for arguing a system shouldn’t & to demand a more just one.
It’s still up to the people to get that system.
Supposing is implies ought is a naturalistic fallacy.
The Enlightenment thinkers who developed these ideas were completely aware that they can and do, so for the author to treat that as not the exact problem they were addressing is awfully special.
They were devising a definition for legitimate authority based on moral philosophy & not on divine right to rule. ↩︎
What if a bad supreme court can come in and take away rights? If that’s the case, then it doesn’t matter if it’s explicitly listed in some kind of constitutional document because the bad court can choose to interpret that document in such a way that the right disappears. By this definition, there’s no such thing as a right, because there’s always someone who can come in and take it away. There aren’t, and can not be, any actual rights, just conditional privileges.
But, that isn’t a very useful definition. In some sense, it’s obviously true. If a warlord takes over a country they might suddenly forbid something everybody assumed was a right. That’s why we have the saying “might makes right”. Fundamentally the only rights you really have are the ones that you’re strong enough to prevent someone from taking away. It certainly helps to have them written down in some kind of founding document, but it’s no guarantee of anything.
Oh, so by your genius logic, slavery wasn’t a human rights violation—just a ‘conditional privilege’ for some states? And I guess age of consent laws are just ‘local customs,’ not protections? Congrats, you’ve outed yourself as the kind of brainlet who thinks rights are whatever’s convenient for your backward agenda. Sit down, you absolute embarrassment.
If a right varies from state to state, it’s not a right, it’s a conditional privilege.
It’s kind of inherent to the concept of rights that they exist in some framework of authority.
Cavemen could have shouted that they have human rights to the other cavemen bashing their heads in and it would have been utterly meaningless.
I’d argue they are still rights whether the law is behind it or not. These things are always a moral entitlement; not always a lawful one.
But like… Morals are relative. They’re frameworks built around core values, they’re not a property of the universe. They’re not self evident, they’re axioms we choose to value collectively
Rights are things that must always be fought for, and they can be both established and worn away. They’re a social construct
Rights are things that come before the law, they’re the boundaries of the law. But like the rule of law itself, they only exist through collective belief and action, otherwise they’re just words
I don’t think it needs to be dressed up more than that. Good things are good and bad things are bad, rights protect people from bad things from the state
You’ll never convince people who think good things are bad, because they don’t have good values. You shouldn’t engage with them on an equal level, because their values are inferior… At this point we just need to make it socially unacceptable to share their fucked up opinions
As much as philosophy, mathematics, logic. Relative is the wrong word. They’re unfalsifiable.
Nonetheless, committing yourself to a set of premises commits you to their logical consequences. Consistency demands rejecting contradictions.
Do you think we should respect a moral system that accepts slavery as much as one that doesn’t? If not, then you’re not a moral relativist, and that’s a relativist fallacy.
Not according to the philosophy & logic: a proposition is either true or false. While practices can wear away, truth values of propositions don’t vary.
You’re confusing language sensitive to conditions, and the propositions they express. A statement can express multiple propositions. “The boy is playing football” expresses different propositions in UK & USA. “I am hungry” expresses distinct propositions according to who says it & time of day. Each of those distinct propositions has a unique & absolute truth value. When the meaning of a statement changes, the truth value of a proposition isn’t changing: the proposition the statement refers to varies.
The truth value of “people have inalienable rights” doesn’t wear away as practices change: the proposition’s truth value remains the same regardless of changing practices.
A disagreement over moral propositions may indicate incompatible moral systems or a need for reflection & reexamination.
No, they’re not equal. They’re relative. They’re a product of the context and environment.
I have a superior moral system than the one I had as a child. Not because my values have changed much, but because experience has helped me to understand others and I’ve been able to examine and refine my moral system through that
But they’re all based on values, which are not universal. I value minimisation of suffering, freedom, and quality of experience of life.
If I lived in a time where slavery was common, and I had the means, I think I’d probably have a few slaves.
Because the right to freedom doesn’t exist in that situation. I could minimize suffering and increase freedom by buying slaves and giving them autonomy - ideally I’d get informed consent beforehand too, but I’d give them agency in the course of their life in return for service. I’d use that service increase the number of slaves to maximize freedom for as many as I feel able to do so, in whatever form that takes
Rights are absolutely alienatible. I think everyone should have the right to food, shelter, and maximization of freedom
But we don’t have that. These right are alienated, people starve while food is wasted, people are homeless with empty houses everywhere.
Women only have the right to vote so long as they have the right to vote. Chatel slavery still exists, as punishment for a crime. Rights don’t exist if they don’t exist in practice - anything else is just a rhetorical device
You talk of rejecting contradictions, but there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism. Do you live on the streets and sustain yourself on trash? Is that an ethical obligation?
There’s no contractions in maximizing good things and minimizing bad things - we all live in a very fucked up world
Then you reject moral relativism.
Now you’re contradicting yourself.
Why in the world would you think relative and equal are the same thing??? These are separate qualities
Isaac Newton was a utter genius. Maybe the smartest person to eve live. His contributions to physics are insane, he basically created the entire field in a short period out of whole cloth
A random physics grad student would mog him at his peak. They would not be his equal, but they’d run circles around him
By that logic there is no rights. It ignores what a fight is supposed to be practically and legally
Needs alt text or link to source.
By claiming the repression of inalienable rights means they are conditional privileges, the author’s admitting their ignorance of moral philosophy & the purpose of the word inalienable in it.
Ideas such as inalienable/universal/inherent rights come from moral philosophy. The premise is that they exist regardless of whether people choose to respect them: no one can revoke those rights, only violate them. Violations are unjust.
They don’t imply a legal system can’t violate ethics.[1] They’re for arguing a system shouldn’t & to demand a more just one. It’s still up to the people to get that system.
Supposing is implies ought is a naturalistic fallacy.
The Enlightenment thinkers who developed these ideas were completely aware that they can and do, so for the author to treat that as not the exact problem they were addressing is awfully special. They were devising a definition for legitimate authority based on moral philosophy & not on divine right to rule. ↩︎
Didn’t know that George Carlin came back from the dead
What if a bad supreme court can come in and take away rights? If that’s the case, then it doesn’t matter if it’s explicitly listed in some kind of constitutional document because the bad court can choose to interpret that document in such a way that the right disappears. By this definition, there’s no such thing as a right, because there’s always someone who can come in and take it away. There aren’t, and can not be, any actual rights, just conditional privileges.
But, that isn’t a very useful definition. In some sense, it’s obviously true. If a warlord takes over a country they might suddenly forbid something everybody assumed was a right. That’s why we have the saying “might makes right”. Fundamentally the only rights you really have are the ones that you’re strong enough to prevent someone from taking away. It certainly helps to have them written down in some kind of founding document, but it’s no guarantee of anything.
Freedom is something you take. Whether for yourself or another, and it’s always from some fucking duechbag who wants slaves and not equals
Oh, so by your genius logic, slavery wasn’t a human rights violation—just a ‘conditional privilege’ for some states? And I guess age of consent laws are just ‘local customs,’ not protections? Congrats, you’ve outed yourself as the kind of brainlet who thinks rights are whatever’s convenient for your backward agenda. Sit down, you absolute embarrassment.
Are you ok? 👀