What Constitutes a "Right?"
- Thread starter Kevin_Kennedy
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JD_2B
Little Vixen
I'll say... because that's a fairly nonsensical definition of Morality. If I bust you upside your head, I've facilitated your cooperation. If as a government power, I tax activity which I want to discourage and subsidize activity which I want to encourage... I facilitate cooperation... If I'm a sweet little piece of ass, I lead you to believe that you're subject to get some of that ass, if you cooperate... I've facilitated your cooperation. If you're a black man whose moved into the wrong neighborhood, and I put a cross in your front yard and light it on fire... that is a method of facilitating your cooperation... If you're a terrorists which has been detained for the purposes of culling life saving information which you possess, and I strap your brown ass to my inverted bench, pour water over your covered face as I squeeze the air from your lungs... that is one way of facilitating your cooperation...
Now another word for facilitating cooperation is Coercion... the use of force to compel cooperation. And all that requires is power...
So I don't think that 'morality' really fits here... As morality is little more than the ethos which determines right from wrong... virtue from vice... Now anti-theism rejects theism as a CONCEPT... the rejection of such tends to rule out ethical judgments common to the ethos inherent in such...
Super... But Humanity is doomed... it's potential for the species to surive is zero. So what's that do to your purpose?
Whuh?
God? You mean this depends upon God existing?
Well that's nice and all, but given that our ancestors; as well as our progeny are doomed to come and go without notice... on a universal scale... and that such will bear absolutely no trace in tick of the universal clock, it's not much in the absence of God and eternal life.
I am not saying that I think God is dead, or even that I do not believe that there is some force (in fact many forces) greater than myself. If, at any point, the human race were to proclaim itself master of those forces it would surely be the final trumpet of the end times. The greatest feature of God is to inspire humility in the highest levels of our hierarchy, and hope in the lowest. The worst feature of God is His perpetual wars with other Gods and the horrible travesties His followers blindly commit in His name. I think there is a compromise some where in there.
'His perpetual wars with other Gods...' do whuh? What wars are those? People happen... that they routinely fail to recognize their responsibilities inherent in their human rights, doesn't fall to God's account.
And failing to recognize those responsibilities often aligns right up to the rejection of those responsibilities through the denial of the authority on which those rights rests and to whom one is held to account for their maintaining their responsibilities.
Perhaps you need to pick a side and get on it...
I love you!!! ;-) I mean, that was an AWESOME post. Awesome. Thank you!
-All of my love,forever and always, and a day longer- JD_2B (32, F, FL)
PubliusInfinitum
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The confusion of those who believe it is necessary to have religious faith in order to have morality is noted.
Religious belief is not necessary to have an internal moral code. But in general it is true that for atheists, this moral code is built on constantly shifting sands. And you can't deny that. That is because the nonreligious tend to include possible personal benefit in that determination and on what they FEEL. And what they feel today can be different from what they feel tomorrow. If the benefit equation changes, it changes their morality as well. In addition since they believe there are no consequences for changing their moral code to suit themselves instead of adhering to the one laid out by a higher authority, they are far more likely to constantly alter what they deem to be moral to suit themselves.
It is why the religious are far less likely to favor embryonic stem cell research. The notion that we can or should create, kill and then harvest cells from an immature human life, as if it were a CROP so that another but older human might benefit -is not only immoral but actually a form of cannibalism.
It is certainly true that our morality is based on shifting sands. It's true for every religious orientation. For example if the only child of any man were terminally ill and a doctor told him that using cells harvested from a miscarried fetus (that was essentially medical waste at that point) could save his child, what do you think he would do? This is a highly specialized and simplified example, but I don't think the man would be wrong to go forward with the procedure. In fact, I think God would be wrong for prohibiting it. Do you think that burial services should be held for undeveloped miscarriages? Should we have tiny coffins for dead fetuses whose sex is still indeterminate? I'm not saying we should be growing human babies in laboratories for the purpose of slaying them to scoop out the parts we want and throw away the rest, but how many miscarriages and stillborns could be used to save other lives rather than thrown out like garbage? It's kind of a moot point now, because I think scientists are finding other sources for stem cells, so it is mostly a political smoke screen nowadays.
Golly... what might be the distinction between a pre-born child which was not viable, resulting in it's biological process failing and being rejected by the Mother's system and the entering of the Mother's body and sucking a viable pre-born child out of the womb.. ripping it limb from limb?
Perhaps that's the same sorta idea as growing viable pre-born humans for the purposes of destroying it.
Now, would that be the same as using cells from failed pre-born human fetuses... or growing cells which are NOT viable human fetuses? I can't see how it is.
And what is the distinction? What principles sustain such a judgment?
The immutable principle that where human life exists, that life is a function of divine endowment; sacred and rightfully entitled to its life...
Cells are not human life... they are sub-elements of human life and serve to sustain human life. You don't have a right to take the life of another in order to sustain your life, unless and until that other life is a direct danger to your life; where such a threat presents a clear and present danger to your life.
That is an affirmative judgment that taking a viable human life is dead, assed WRONG... except where that life represents an imminent threat to your own life. And that judgment rest purely upon the certainty that God provided that Life and with it the same right to pursue the fulfillment of that life that you were endowed with.
Take God, the endowment and by default, the right, out of it... and it's damn near impossible to stand upon that fundamental element of Western Morality.
So the question becomes: What substitute morality is being suggested?
And that's what the Anti-theist doesn't want to get into... and for all of the obvious reasons.
"Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance." --Thomas Jefferson: Legal Argument, 1770. FE 1:376
A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:209, Papers 1:134
"Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797. ME 9:422
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Declaration of Independence as originally written by Thomas Jefferson, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:315
It fairly clear what the meaning of "rights" are and what the original intent was by it's author's. That people are born with natural rights given to them that a Govt. cannot. even though a Govt. can at times take them away.
"they that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety'. Franklin!!
A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:209, Papers 1:134
"Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797. ME 9:422
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Declaration of Independence as originally written by Thomas Jefferson, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:315
It fairly clear what the meaning of "rights" are and what the original intent was by it's author's. That people are born with natural rights given to them that a Govt. cannot. even though a Govt. can at times take them away.
"they that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety'. Franklin!!
The confusion of those who believe it is necessary to have religious faith in order to have morality is noted.
Religious belief is not necessary to have an internal moral code. But in general it is true that for atheists, this moral code is built on constantly shifting sands. And you can't deny that. That is because the nonreligious tend to include possible personal benefit in that determination and on what they FEEL. And what they feel today can be different from what they feel tomorrow. If the benefit equation changes, it changes their morality as well. In addition since they believe there are no consequences for changing their moral code to suit themselves instead of adhering to the one laid out by a higher authority, they are far more likely to constantly alter what they deem to be moral to suit themselves.
It is why the religious are far less likely to favor abortion on demand -no morality challenge for them to realize that killing unwanted immature human beings because the existence of their life is inconvenient changes nothing and is merely the most lethal form of age discrimination. For the liberal, if they can't SEE that immature human, it makes it easier to deny its shared humanity and insist that the stage of maturity determines whether another human gets to keep his life or not. As proof of that is the fact that some liberals are already advocating the "right" of parents to have their already born but handicapped child killed. That shifting moral code now moving towards saying that only the "perfect" have a right to keep their life. Which is not much different from how the Nazis got started about who did and did not have a right to keep their life. And NO, Hitler was NOT a religious man but ridiculed the religious. He was born to Christian parents but that sure doesn't mean he was a Christian himself -because he wasn't. He believed in no higher authority than man. Preferably himself.
It is why the religious are far less likely to favor embryonic stem cell research. The notion that we can or should create, kill and then harvest cells from an immature human life, as if it were a CROP so that another but older human might benefit -is not only immoral but actually a form of cannibalism.
No constantly shifting morality challenge there for the religious as well. I would stand to benefit if my parents would kick the bucket since I stand to inherit all their money -assuming they don't "waste" it on themselves first. That potential benefit doesn't endow me with any special "right" to whack them any more than I have the right to whack an immature human life before they "waste" their life on themself instead of me.
I think that it is Called Moral Absolutism V.S. Moral Relativism. Lets not confuse specific application of Moral Absolutism with Moral Relativism again though please.
JD_2B
Little Vixen
I am an agnostic Christian who rarely attends church services because I kid you not- every person who has ever invited me to church I later found out had some MAJOR problem or episode in their own personal lives that they just needed a danged support group for. I believe that Love is a verb. I also believe that God is love. In a nutshell- God is just a verb. God could be a he, a she, or an evolutionary whatsit.. But to me, God ls Love. Love is a verb. Get it?
Examples of the support groups (churches) I have joined by invitation-
The first person I went to church with (after going as a toddler with my parents- my dad was a successful lawyer, and a happy drunk, go figure, lol) was my neighbor, who was a little girl who was routinely beaten and neglected by her drug addled parents.. she ended up a pregnant teenager, and went on to achieve great things, but she needed church because she needed a loving family. That was a conservative baptist church that provided bus transportation.
The next person who invited me was a girl I was in high school with, who turned out to be an ex hoebag who slept with half the boys at my school, and of course half of the boys at a few of the neighboring schools as well. She used to love preaching about fornication, lol.. That was a southern baptist church, and they also provided transportation.
I became a full fledged atheist for a while, and then some girls I went to girl scout camp with convinced me that God is real, yadda yadda.. However in hindsight, these same girls also were addled with their own variety of troubles.. one of them was so ugly that only old ladies in a church could love her, and another one was riddled with mental problems of all sorts..
Sooo.. back to atheism/ but opened my mind and chose to be only agnostic at least.
I spent my time in the Navy being agnostic, but was invited to church in boot camp by a girl who used to snort and deal coke. Another girl who I went with had apparent mental illness, and a long history of promiscuity. Church in boot camp is also very boring, but a good place to meet single guys, lol.. So I would drag my agnostic little self in there and flirt flirt flirt.. because its fun fun fun! Soon, I had enough girlfriends to go to church with that were not all screwed up and just wanted to meet and talk to a male, lol. So that was good.
After all that, the only times I went to church for a while were when I needed a support group myself, like when my mom died, and when I was having relationship problems with my ex husband. God was always a verb then- Love is an action. People in churches can be very supportive, and even if they are not perfect, I still made a lot of friends, who I have always cherished and appreciated.
Recently, I went to church with an ex prostitute- that was fun
and this chick who has a couple of felonies on her record for drugs and grand theft.. Pretty special! But you know what? All of this taught me one thing- God may not be a being or anything like that- but whatever God is- it is very much alive through faith and those wonderfully thinly veiled support systems that we so fondly refer to as "houses of worship" =) I don't knock religion, no matter how obtuse and misguided its believers are.
Diuretic
Permanently confused
The confusion of those who believe it is necessary to have religious faith in order to have morality is noted.
Religious belief is not necessary to have an internal moral code. But in general it is true that for atheists, this moral code is built on constantly shifting sands. And you can't deny that. That is because the nonreligious tend to include possible personal benefit in that determination and on what they FEEL. And what they feel today can be different from what they feel tomorrow. If the benefit equation changes, it changes their morality as well. In addition since they believe there are no consequences for changing their moral code to suit themselves instead of adhering to the one laid out by a higher authority, they are far more likely to constantly alter what they deem to be moral to suit themselves.
It is why the religious are far less likely to favor abortion on demand -no morality challenge for them to realize that killing unwanted immature human beings because the existence of their life is inconvenient changes nothing and is merely the most lethal form of age discrimination. For the liberal, if they can't SEE that immature human, it makes it easier to deny its shared humanity and insist that the stage of maturity determines whether another human gets to keep his life or not. As proof of that is the fact that some liberals are already advocating the "right" of parents to have their already born but handicapped child killed. That shifting moral code now moving towards saying that only the "perfect" have a right to keep their life. Which is not much different from how the Nazis got started about who did and did not have a right to keep their life. And NO, Hitler was NOT a religious man but ridiculed the religious. He was born to Christian parents but that sure doesn't mean he was a Christian himself -because he wasn't. He believed in no higher authority than man. Preferably himself.
It is why the religious are far less likely to favor embryonic stem cell research. The notion that we can or should create, kill and then harvest cells from an immature human life, as if it were a CROP so that another but older human might benefit -is not only immoral but actually a form of cannibalism.
No constantly shifting morality challenge there for the religious as well. I would stand to benefit if my parents would kick the bucket since I stand to inherit all their money -assuming they don't "waste" it on themselves first. That potential benefit doesn't endow me with any special "right" to whack them any more than I have the right to whack an immature human life before they "waste" their life on themself instead of me.
The "good" or "bad" of a situation depends on a judgement external to the individual. A consequentialist approach such as classic utilitarianism doesn't look at benefit to the individual.
The right to abortion in certain circumstances; the use of embryonic stem cells for medical research are specific issues that can be analysed using various approaches. A person who is guided only by absolutist religiously influenced views will follow the approach that dogma dictates. A person not imprisoned in religious absolutism has to think the issues through.
The confusion of those who believe it is necessary to have religious faith in order to have morality is noted.
Religious belief is not necessary to have an internal moral code. But in general it is true that for atheists, this moral code is built on constantly shifting sands. And you can't deny that. That is because the nonreligious tend to include possible personal benefit in that determination and on what they FEEL. And what they feel today can be different from what they feel tomorrow. If the benefit equation changes, it changes their morality as well. In addition since they believe there are no consequences for changing their moral code to suit themselves instead of adhering to the one laid out by a higher authority, they are far more likely to constantly alter what they deem to be moral to suit themselves.
It is why the religious are far less likely to favor abortion on demand -no morality challenge for them to realize that killing unwanted immature human beings because the existence of their life is inconvenient changes nothing and is merely the most lethal form of age discrimination. For the liberal, if they can't SEE that immature human, it makes it easier to deny its shared humanity and insist that the stage of maturity determines whether another human gets to keep his life or not. As proof of that is the fact that some liberals are already advocating the "right" of parents to have their already born but handicapped child killed. That shifting moral code now moving towards saying that only the "perfect" have a right to keep their life. Which is not much different from how the Nazis got started about who did and did not have a right to keep their life. And NO, Hitler was NOT a religious man but ridiculed the religious. He was born to Christian parents but that sure doesn't mean he was a Christian himself -because he wasn't. He believed in no higher authority than man. Preferably himself.
It is why the religious are far less likely to favor embryonic stem cell research. The notion that we can or should create, kill and then harvest cells from an immature human life, as if it were a CROP so that another but older human might benefit -is not only immoral but actually a form of cannibalism.
No constantly shifting morality challenge there for the religious as well. I would stand to benefit if my parents would kick the bucket since I stand to inherit all their money -assuming they don't "waste" it on themselves first. That potential benefit doesn't endow me with any special "right" to whack them any more than I have the right to whack an immature human life before they "waste" their life on themself instead of me.
The "good" or "bad" of a situation depends on a judgement external to the individual. A consequentialist approach such as classic utilitarianism doesn't look at benefit to the individual.
The right to abortion in certain circumstances; the use of embryonic stem cells for medical research are specific issues that can be analysed using various approaches. A person who is guided only by absolutist religiously influenced views will follow the approach that dogma dictates. A person not imprisoned in religious absolutism has to think the issues through.
Well JB unless you believe I'm Thomas Jefferson come back from the dead to make these assertions on here then you have directed your comment to the wrong person. These are not my assertions they happen to be the one's made the man that was one of the principle authors of the Declaration of Independence I just happen to agree with him. As for what it was debunked by, I could honestly care less. and will tell you why, because no matter what people claim a "right" is in the United States or some scholar from a University today, they all live in the nation created by the aformentioned document , any other opinion to the contrary is just that an opinion and has little or no merit.
Diuretic
Permanently confused
Anyone analysing the situation by applying some thought to it.
It fairly clear what the meaning of "rights" are and what the original intent was by it's author's. That people are born with natural rights given to them that a Govt. cannot. even though a Govt. can at times take them away.
That was my only part of the post JB and also at least in my mind cannot be misread as to being anything but an agreement to what Thomas Jefferson and Franklin had written. It is one of the reasons I put my statement after all of Jefferson's Quote's and as for Franklins it was to enforce the fact that a Govt. can take away those rights especially if people are willing to trade them.
Diuretic
Permanently confused
An individual who could then explain why they came to their conclusion. Someone else applying the same analysis would probably come up with the same conclusion that something was objectively "good" or "bad". My point was that something can be objectively "good" or "bad" without the issue of self-benefit coming into play.
JBeukema
Rookie
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through an internal process, thereby refuting you assertion that
\
-if they possessed the same information, values, and interests, perhaps.
Now you've done a 180- now you claim objective realms of 'goodness' and 'badness' into which an action might fall. You must now demonstrate the existence of such objective moral values and demonstrate how the 'goodness' or 'badness' of a thing might be determined through an objective means that will give the same result for all persons at all times, given equivalent circumstances are being viewed, regardless of participation or non-participation in the events on the part of the individual.
Tell me, are these two distinct dichotomous realms, or is is a gradient of values where the 'goodness' and 'badness' can be measured and compared to place different courses of actions relative to one another on a scale of morality?
I sense you're playing on the edge of utilitarianism with all its flaws
Diuretic
Permanently confused
You can take my remarks out of the context in which they were made and analyse them like a sample in a petri dish but they'll only be samples, severed from the situation in which they were made.
Objectively "good" or "bad" is simply a way of suggesting that an act can be evaluated outside of the individual actor. Just as in my own remarks though, context is important. Is killing a human being always bad? Depends on the context.
If you go back and read Fraz's post and my response it puts it in context. I'm not suggesting I've been able to counter Fraz on the points made, I'm simply suggesting that context be considered. I'm not an absolutist, I would think I am a relativist and I was arguing for relativism as against absolutism.
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