Alonzo Fyfe

Recalling that when 'right' is used in the sense of 'containing an intrinsic prescriptivity', I agree with you. No such rights exist.

The sense of moral 'right' that I speak about translates this way: To say that people have a right to X means that if people generally had an aversion to that which will bring about not-X then there will be more fulfillment of desires generally.

This needs to be augmented with all sorts of definitions; a desire is a brain state that is represented as a propositional attitude. A desire that X is fulfilled if and only if X is true. No value exists other than that which relates states of affairs and desires. Etc. Etc. Etc.

You may shoot back and say, "That's your definition, it is not my definition."

But your objection is as relevant as saying against somebody who claims, "the sum of the interior angles of a triangle equals 180 degrees" that "this is your definition of a triangle, it is not my definition."

Whether a definition is yours or mine is irrelevant.

What matters is whether we are accurately portraying THE definition of 'right' (or 'triangle') -- that the definition properly predicts and explains the way native speakers of a language use the term. This is THE definition of the right (or, given that the term is ambiguous, it is THE relevant definition of a right.

For example, it is perfectly legitimate to say, 'in this discussion, when I talk about a 'mustang' I mean the horse, not the car." The fact that the alternative (car) definition still exists becomes immediately irrelevant to what the individual may want to say about the horse.

Accordingly, the fact that there are definitions of 'right' that concern 'opposite of left' or 'factually correct' or 'legal liberty' are all irrelevant to the act that this focus of concern is moral rights.

At which point, the issue of whether rights exist and how we can find out which ones we have gets reduced to the following pair of questions.

(1) Does the hypothesis that the term 'moral right to X' means, in common usage, 'a general aversion to bringing about not-X will generally increase overall desire fulfillment' accurately explains and predicts how native speakers use the phrase 'moral right to X'.

(2) Is it possible to determine whether the proposition, 'a general aversion to bringing about not-X will generally increase overall desire fulfillment' is true.

Where the answer to both (1) and (2) is 'yes', the existence of a moral right to X has been demonstrated.

I do not think that there is any difficulty at all demonstrating that an aversion to killing, enslavement, and stealing will increase overall desire fulfillment, thus showing that there is a moral right to life, liberty, and property.


Your objections are perfectly legitimate against the 'intrinsic prescriptivity' sense of right, and largely define the same reasons that I give for holding that 'rights' in the form of intrinsic prescriptivity do not exist.

However, the fact that there are problems with right in the intrinsic-prescriptivity sense does not imply that there are problems with all senses.

A 'right' is not the type of thing that can be contained within one entity (a person) but it describes a relationship between two or more things. When we come into this world we come into certain relationships, and one of these relationships is that we have a life and, a general aversion to taking lives such as ours will result in more overall desire fulfillment.

Even if I am killed (my right to life is not respected), it remains true that a general aversion to such killing would lead to overall desire fulfillment. It still remains true that a society in which people have an aversion to such killings people generally live more fulfilling lives than they do in societies that allow such killings. Thus, no specific killing is proof against a right to life (is proof against the general benefit of a general aversion to killing).


Yet, I have never used the argument that said "I call something X, therefore X exists." If I did, it would certainly be a mistake.

My argument is that, 'native speakers call entities with this property an X'. Then, holding up an X, I say, "Here is something with all of those properties."

A right to X exists where a general aversion to not-X results in more overall desire fulfillment. A general aversion to killing will result in more overall desire fulfillment. Therefore, a right to life exists.

It does NOT exist as an entity with prescriptive entity. To say that a right to life exists is to say NOTHING MORE THAN a general aversion to taking life will result in more overall desire fulfillment. Anybody who tries to go from this to asserting that rights (in the form of intrinsic prescriptivity) exists is making a mistake.


Such people are mistaken. They fall in the same category as people who hold that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle equals 360 degrees.

Desire fulfillment itself has a precise definition. For every desire that P, that desire is fulfilled where P is true.

For the vast majority of people, and a vast majority of their desires, a desire that P requires that the person be alive. Thus, killing the person thwarts more desires (makes P false) than it fulfills (makes P true). Because it is generally true, an aversion to not killing generally fulfills more desires than it thwarts. Those who believe otherwise are mistaken.

A similar argument can be made with respect to liberty (free people are generally better able to fulfill their own desires than those who are constrained), and the ownership of (some) property.

NOte: the extreme libertarian concept of property rights is not supported by this argument; but libertarians use the intrinsic-prescriptivity concept of rights which has the problems you announced. Nothing in this argument is to be taken to 'proove' that the extreme libertarian concept of intrinsic prescriptivity for property rights is correct; it is not correct.


It might, but it doesn't. All of the arguments raised above to the objection, "well, that is YOUR definition of right," applies here to "well, that is YOUR definition of better off."

It is the same objection that would, if valid, allow a person to protest the claim, "the sum of the interior angles of a triangle equals 180 degrees" to protest, "well, that is YOUR definition of a triangle," or allow the critic of the person who says "1 + 1 equals 2" to protest, "well, that is YOUR definition of equals." Or allow the critic of the person who says, "the earth is 8,000 miles in diameter" to protest, "well, that is YOUR definition of a mile."

Such an objection can only be used to assert that rights-claims have the same problem that math-claims and science claims also have. But, then, if the worst thing to be said against rights claims is that they are no more certain than claims in math and science, it is not much of an objection.

fundamental spawn

First, it is not possible for men to be created equal since men aren't created, they are merely born.

Second, equality would nullify evolution which is the engine of the direction of life and culture on this planet and, quite apparently, the universe. You cannot have equality and evolution at the same time.

bd-from-kg

Alonzo Fyfe:

But it seems perfectly obvious to me that (1) does not describe accurately what the term “moral right to X” means in common usage. To be sure, “common usage” is far from uniform, so we have to allow a certain amount of slack here, but it seems to me that very few people, when they say that one has a right not to be murdered, mean “a general aversion to murdering people will generally increase overall desire fulfillment”, or anything reasonably close to it. In fact, if this were even a fairly common usage, you wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time explaining to people like DRFseven that this is what you mean by it; they’d already be quite familiar with this meaning. What is commonly meant by saying that someone has a “right” to something is some form of what you call the “intrinsic prescriptivity' sense of “right”. Obviously you wouldn’t want to use this meaning because you think that “intrinsic prescriptivity” doesn’t exist (and I agree, of course). But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s the meaning most people have in mind when they talk about “moral rights”.

This gets back to an old discussion we had about whether moral language (as it is commonly used) is meaningful. My position, then and now, is that this can only be decided by examining the function of the language in question. If it has a legitimate function which is being served by common usage, the fact that the concepts most people have in mind when they use it are mistaken, or even logically incoherent, doesn’t mean that the language in question is truly meaningless. It just means that most people don’t really have a clear understanding of what it means.

Thus I think you’re asking the wrong question. The right question is: what would most people have in mind when they say that someone has a “right” to X if they were clear about the function of this kind of language and of the logical status of the concepts they have in mind when they use it? If the answer is that as soon as they realized that their current usage, taken literally, is nonsensical, they would simply stop using this terminology (as people stopped talking about phlogiston and the ether once they recognized that these terms do not correspond to anything in the real world), we can conclude that the language in question really is meaningless. But if the answer is that they would reinterpret it in a more logically coherent way, such that it continued to serve the same function as before, we should conclude that the language in question is meaningful, even if most of the people using it are confused or mistaken about the meaning.

As Thomas More said in Man for All Seasons, I trust I’ve made myself obscure.

StillDreaming

Hi Alonzo,
I am not sure if I understand you correctly, but:

One can conceive of a culture -or a world- in which people have a strong desire to kill adulterers, such that "a general aversion to not-killing-adulterers will generally increase [the culture's] overall desire fulfillment". In that culture there would exist a moral right to kill adulterers.

Is that an implication of what you are saying?


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...within the group of people for which the increased-desire-fulfillment criterion is met?

Alonzo Fyfe

bd-from-kg

but it seems perfectly obvious to me that (1) doe not describe accurately what the term 'moral right to X' means in common usage. . . . if this were even a fairly common usage, you wouldn't have to spend a lot of time explaining to people like DRFseven that this is what you mean by it.

Whether your evidence supports your conclusion depends on whether we are talking about an instance of knowing that or knowing how.

The standard example used to illustrate the difference is that of riding a bicycle. Many people who know how to ride a bycicle do not know that they balance by turning the front wheel. And it sometimes takes a great deal of explaining before they start to get the idea that this is what they do, even if they are very good bike riders.

Learning a language is like riding a bike. We do not learn to speak by learning that particular words have particular definitions Indeed, how could we learn the first definition, if this were the case? Instead, we learn how to use particular terms correctly over time and do so without giving any substantial thought to their meaning. Theories of meaning come about like theories about how, exactly, a person rides a bike -- through a process of hypothesis and observation. Any particular process may well be incorrect. The best hypothesis is that which best accounts for the observations made of people actually using the term under investigation.

It could require a great deal of explanation.

The best theory remains the one that best accounts for how people use the term, and can only be defeated by evidence of people using the term in ways that do not fit the theory. (So long as this evidence is not, actually, evidence of a different term -- such as evidence of people using the term 'mustang' to refer to a car as counter-evidence to a theory that 'mustang' refers to a horse.


What is commonly meant by saying that someone has a 'right' to something is some form of what you call 'intrinsic prescriptivity'.

Yes, there is that. It is open to debate as to whether 'intrinsic prescriptivity' is actually a part of the meaning of the term, or merely a theory of the meaning of the term. But I am not going to put a lot of weight on this.

Even if true, a couple of relevant facts remain -- which is that intrinsic prescriptivity does not exist, and it remains useful to look for the nearest error-free alternative to the error-filled method in use.

J.L. Mackie argued this point by drawing an analogy to the word 'atom' -- which originally meant 'without parts'. But the things we called atoms actually had parts. It remained a viable alternative for people living at the time to alter the meaning of the word 'atom' to its nearest error-free alternative.

So, even if 'rights' refers to intrinsic prescriptivity, it is still reasonable to look for the nearest error-free alternative to this usage -- an understanding of 'rights' that captures most of its significance without making any type of reference of intrinsic value.

I am willing to defend this theory as 'the nearest error-free alternative to the effor-filled standard usage'.

Which seems consistent with your own statements to the effet of "If the answer is that as soon as they realized that their current usage, taken literally, is nonsensical . . . they would reinterpret it in a more logically coherent way, such that it continued to serve the same funtion as before, we should conclude that the language in question is meaningful, even if most of the people using it are confused or mistaken about the meaning."

With the caveat that it is permissible to make a minor variation that serves substantially (but not entirely) the same function -- as was done with the words 'atom' and 'malaria' -- I would have no objections to this description.

And without fully surrendering the original point that 'intrinsic prescriptivity', rather than being a part of the meaning of the term, is instead an opposing theory which, like the theory I propose, needs to be defended as the best explanation of the way people actually use the term.


StillDreaming

One can conceive of a culture - or a world- in which people have a strong desire to kill adulterers, such as a "general aversion to not-killing-adulterers will generally increase [the culture's] overall desire fulfillment". In that culture, there would exist a moral right to kill adulterers.

A desire to kill anything comes out as basically bad, merely on the grounds that killing thwarts a great many desires. This provides the initial hurdle.

Beyond that, it would take more than a different culture, or a different world, but a different species. Yet, in imagining such a species, I do not see any problem with the conclusion. Simply imagine a species for which adultery provides such a great pain and agony that death itself becomes a preferred alternative, not only for the being against whom adultery is performed, but those who hear about it. Furthermore, this agony is so strongly wired into their nature (by evolution) that it would be as impossible to be rid of as the human aversion to physical pain. (Because, where two desires come into conflict, it is the most easily changed that should give way to the more solidly fixed.)

As we imagine every increasing, widespread, and unavoidable agony caused by adultery then it is indeed possible to imagine a point at which capital punishment for adulterers may well be justified.

Yet, even here, I do not see how one would be justified in saying that a desire to kill adulterers is good. Instead, because killing thwarts desires, it would be the case that an aversion to killing remains good -- but that it may be overriden by larger concerns in certain types of situations. Where adultery may serve to inflict as much suffering on a population as weapons of mass descrution due to humans, then killing adulterers for such a species may well be just as justified as killing terrorists is on Earth.

StillDreaming

Hi Alonzo,

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Alonzo Fyfe

A desire to kill anything comes out as basically bad, merely on the grounds that killing thwarts a great many desires. This provides the initial hurdle.

I see it would be an initial hurdle, is that why you call it 'basically bad'? In the end, it depends only on the sum of all fulfilled desires minus all thwarted desires, right?

Also, if there is a fixed positive net sum for each individual that is not a victim, and a fixed negative net sum for each individual that is a victim, then a moral right to do X would cease to exist as soon as the percentage of victims gets above a certain break-even value, right?


Beyond that, it would take more than a different culture, or a different world, but a different species.

I was thinking that, since different people may have different desires, one could make groups of people with similar desires (a culture might be one example), such that a certain moral right does exist in one group but not in another.
Or is it required to take the desires of all human beings into account?


Yet, even here, I do not see how one would be justified in saying that a desire to kill adulterers is good.

If 'there exist a moral right to X' implies 'X is good', then it follows from the definition. (Unless 'X is good' is not a justification to desire X.)


Instead, because killing thwarts desires, it would be the case that an aversion to killing remains good.

...in certain cases. In other cases, not-killing thwarts more desires than it fulfills, and an aversion to not-killing would be good. It all depends on the actual desires and circumstances, I guess, so I fail to see how a general 'right to life' could be derived in the example.

As for the real world, your remark that my example would require a different species suggests that you also assume that the desires of human beings, and the circumstances, are never such that more desires are fulfilled than thwarted by killing. But then, it seems to me, it would be trivially true that a moral right to life exists, given your definition of 'moral right'.
The difficult parts would be to prove this assumption, and the validity of the definition, isn't it?

Alonzo Fyfe

StillDreaming:

I see it would be an initial hurdle, is that why you call it 'basically bad'? In the end, it depends only on the sum of all fulfilled desires minus all thwarted desires, right?

In a sense, perhaps, though I never really figured out how to sum desires.

In addition, the concept of a 'sum' is static -- all other desires are assumed to remain constant while the one the person is interested in gets summed.

The concept that has made the most sense to me is that of harmony. Desires are in harmony to the degree that they are mutually fulfillable, and in conflict to the degree that that the cannot be mutually fulfilled.

For example, as it turns out, my wife and I both like chicken. She likes white meat, while I think it is dry and tasteless. These desires are in harmony. We both get what we want. It is a very convenient arrangement.

[Note: the 'harmony' of desires is similar in many respect to 'coherence' among beliefs. It describes a logical relationship among the propositions that are the object of the psychological state.]

A desire to kill would have a hard time qualifying under the criterion of harmony -- as would a desire to rape or torture. An aversion to taking property without consent promotes harmony, a desire to lie for personal advantage would work against it. Charity comes out as good; slavery comes out as bad.