yguy

How so?

yguy

How exactly does to conclusion follow from the premise? Murderers and pedophiles seem to have all those capabililities, but I would suggest that their right to life is debatable, to say the least.

Philosoft

Clutch and yguy,

I'm going to give both of you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that the potshots are exhausted. I don't care who started it, or who is going to end it, but it's going to stop. There is obviously an issue that you two need to hash out, but it's not going to be done here. Thank you.

~Philosoft, Philosophy moderator

Clutch

There is an issue here: namely, whether rights are socially determined.

I look forward to discussing the matter with anyone who engages it, and apologize for lowering the tone of the debate.

Keith Russell

Clutch: Keith, would you mind saying a bit more about your idea? It sounds interesting, but I'm not really following the distinction between intrinsic and concluded-about.

I use 'intrinsic' to mean something that part of something, something that is directly observable, rather than being a conclusion, an inference, or some other type of evaluation.

I don't view 'rights' as intrinsic to human beings. 'Rights' don't exist in the same way that hands do. 'Rights' don't even exist in the same way that consciousness does.

K

Keith Russell

I said, earlier:
In this sense, 'rights' as such don't exist in nature, but we realize that human beings should be treated in specific ways (which we term, 'rights') because human beings are independent, self-aware, volitional creatures, capable of reason.

to which yguy responded:
How exactly does to conclusion follow from the premise? Murderers and pedophiles seem to have all those capabililities, but I would suggest that their right to life is debatable, to say the least.

A person has to first have rights, before their rights may (by their own violation of another's rights) be seen as forfeit.

Keith.

Clutch

Keith, thanks.

From what you say, it still looks as if rights are (or could be) natural properties. Ie, a chair doesn't have mass in the same way it has legs; but I don't think you're meaning to say that we have rights in the same way we have mass.

I suppose what I was asking for is a sketch of what the reasoning and conclusions are, that delivers rights in the sense you intend. Part of cobrashock's point, it seemed to me, was that the Framers very explicitly did not display any such reasoning in their presentation of the rights they identified as fundamental.

yguy

If this is supposed to address my question, I fail to see how.

Keith Russell

yguy, you said that their 'right to life' is debatable.

Do you agree they had such a right, before they committed any crime?

Keith.

yguy

Yes.