defined: the infinite faces of absolute freedom.
Poetic but pretty meaningless. Absolute freedom in anarchy and includes my freedom to act in any matter. That means I am free to act in a manner that impedes your freedom)- indeed, 'absolute freedom' is absurdity.
defined within a social contract of a functioning society
Define: functioning society.
We all know what a functioning care is- it's a car that does what it's intended to do. But what if a society is founded to make its member s powerful and subdue and dominate those around them, as many empires in history were? Would not 'functioning' then mean 'successful in conquest and oppression'?
: those freedoms to the extent which they do not infringe on other's freedoms
Do not all freedoms ultimately infringe freedoms? My freedom to steal your property infringes upon your freedom to keep what is yours, but at the same time your 'freedom' to hoard and to posses (that is, a right to property) infringes upon my liberty- that is, denies a liberty I would otherwise have) to take of the world's bounty as I might need. Thus it always rests on a decision as to which is the 'greater good', the rights of the squatters to exist and enjoy enjoy the bounty of the world as they might do naturally or the social property rights of he who is said to own the land and have a monopoly on what it might provide through serendipity, his investment, or his labour (or some combination thereof).
And are not all freedoms social things? Therefore, if rights are freedoms, are not all rights social things?
, optionally: and to the extent they serve the order and function of society.
Again, you insist they are natural rights, but your definitions rest upon social recognition and preference for one liberty, ethic, or rule over another.
rights are concepts, thus they are abstract.
If they are concepts, does that not make them, by definition, man's conceptions- that is, not things of nature (natural rights) but of men (positive or social rights, esp. as they only have meaning in a context of human interaction)?
can one demonstrate the existence of good and evil?
Do they exist as absolutes, or are they conceptions of our own mind? If the latter, then surely science can test for and measure 'good' and 'evil'. If the latter, then they are 'natural' only in the most perverse twisting of words that relies on Man's existence as a part of the world to deem all he creates natural, rendering the entire lexicon of such discourse meaningless.
so far you've been right about the failure. nevertheless, democracy
helps to mitigate failure on the basis of my social volatility, by putting the constituents of government in the drivers seat
the co-pilots seat, at least.
Which has
what to do with the government (the product of social contract) having powers and authorities but not the rights accorded individual persons? I don't see how your response (?) has anything to do with what I said.
the distinction you've made about the rights of government in the constitution is semantic, isn't it?
Not at all, for if the government has the same rights as persons, absurdity follows. For instance, if Government is some entity or beast with the rights of man, does not its destruction violate its right to existence (that is, to life)? Hence, the concept of the consent of the governed and of the dissolution of the oppressive State and the creation of a new system if/when necessitated simply cannot coexist with any concept of the State as a 'being'; or entity that possesses the rights of men.
if i go to your philosophy bookshop, you can charge me for books and coffee, but if i don't pay, you can't justifiably lock me away in your own private dungeon. if you come to this country, however, sell a bunch of philosophy books and don't pay taxes from the sales, justifiably, the government could lock you away in their dungeon.
That is, the masses as a whole lock me away in their dungeon, as the machinations of the State are the rituals formed and bodies tasked to carry out the will of those who constitute the People who have formed or who maintain the State.
But such arguments as you pose are those of the anarchist and focus on the State as nothing more than a mob with a nice suit. As such, it is another, albeit related, discussion- and one into which to be sure to invite Dude, Agna, and KK (Kevin, not Kitten)
well, slaves aren't in the social contract extended to the rest of the population
oh, but they are. Do they not interact with their masters? Are their not rules and understandings, expressed and tacit, that govern their interactions? That is the social contract in its most basic form, and it exist wherever and whenever persons interact with one another. Thy are not extended to same rights as other persons, but even that inequality and injustice is par of the social contract(s) of which they are a part. again we have you conflating matters of is and ought and mistakenly view the SC as a single monolithic and idealized thing such as a Magna Carta or a Constitution, when such formalized, written, and massive (in terms of persons agreeing to the same terms) are the exception and not the rule.
I refer you to my current signature:
Social Contract is not an ideology. It's not a proposal. It's not a solution or a policy. It's a simple fact. It is an explanation of how humans interact and how their social systems, both formal and informal, take shape, from the underlying rules that govern their interaction to the emergence of government and laws to the rise and fall of States. Recognizing the manner in which people interact is not supporting any given system that might arise from such interactions any more than explaining how the laws of thermodynamics govern the manner in which heat spreads is advocating the lighting of a candle or a bonfire or a church or any other given flame.
-James T. Beukema
their contract is tyrannical
So you do admit they are participants in social contract?
i feel a social contract ought to support the natural rights of the constituents an i'd roughly defined above
And that's fine. But do not confuse the form you feel the social contract should take- how things ought to be- with what the social contract is- an explanation of what is.
quite irrelevant to the rights, themselves. you asked if these rights extended to intelligent beings, certain ethnic groups etc., and i maintain that these are components of a social contract,
I'm asking whether all beings or only some beings possess in whole or part the 'natural rights' you assert exist.
the rights remain the same irrespective to the contract.
The question is whether all beings or only some beings posses the same (natural) rights in your view, not whether society recognizes the same (positive or societal) rights as applying to all beings at all times.
certainly ants dont recognize rights as we do, but the social order which you recognize certainly has. juggle the pheromones in an ant colony, and the volatility mitigated by their evolved social order could result in the upheaval of their colony.
And juggling the pheromones has what to do with you demonstrating that ants recognize eachother as possessing the same natural rights you assert all humans (at least) possess? If anything, it suggests that their minds are simple, since they follow pheromones rather blindly like a poorly designed and programmed robots following a painted line off of a cliff, that it is highly dubious to claim they are even capable of pondering the question itself.
the common ethical sense within the human social paradigm? does this need to be answered? we sell lysol at stores.
the rights are independent from the contract.
I get the feeling you're avoiding the question. In your view, according to your ideology and in accordance with what premises you continue to lay out, since we (humans and bacteria) both exist together, does E.Coli have the same inherent (natural) rights as you do? Is it then wrong in your eyes to kill such a bacterium when it has not harmed you, merely because its existence is not to your liking, as you are violating its rights to life?
the force which transfers good will in the 'you scratch my back, i'll scratch yours' axiom is deeper and more mysterious as to its source than gravity or electromagnetism
Not really. It's called reciprocal altruism and its 'programming' into the minds of many species is oft referred to as the 'moral instinct'. Evolutionary Psychology deals with the study of this and other matters.
i-ˈnāl-yə-nə-bəl, -ˈnā-lē-ə-nə-\
I want more . I achieve more. 
l
y
-n
-b
-)
