JavaRob's Journal: Embryonic Rights, part III

Picking up the thread again, as time permits. I just totally ran out of spare time for a while there.

Discussion background for the random visitor:
* Started in the "Start of Life Gene Discovered" article. Comments closed mid-discussion.
* Rescued when cagle_.25 hosted a continuation in his journal. Comments closed mid-discussion.

I'll insert full copies of the posts I'm responding to (as the anon user) so there's some kind of continuity. cagle_.25, if/when you have the time we can keep making our way through; when this one gets archived (if we're still going) I can pop up another journal entry.

I like this method of conversation -- we can take the time to mull over a new idea before replying; we can check back to what we argued earlier; we have the time to double-check some dimly-remembered stat, etc..

Cheers,
Rob

Re: Dred Scott decision

[JavaRob]

That is fairly consistent with my experiences growing up in the South. Those who held racist opinions rarely tried to argue that blacks were functionally different from whites (although slanders like "lazy" were occasionally mentioned). Rather, they would argue that blacks were "dirty" or "not like us", or even try to prove from the Bible somehow that blacks were the recipients of the mark of Cain or the curse on Ham, Noah's son.

Now, I mention all this because it's important to understand that Taney and tho

Re: Dred Scott decision

[cagle_.25]

because our moral judgment that Taney was wrong is based on shared concepts of fairness, awareness of suffering, ideas of equal protection, etc. that don't apply to a single cell, and that were not conceived and documented/legalized/etc. with a single cell in mind.

Not exactly. My judgment that Taney was wrong is based on the idea that blacks were human beings, and he failed to recognize their rights. "Equal protection" I can agree with; awareness of suffering or fairness are not part of the picture.

I sho

Re: Dred Scott decision

[JavaRob]

because our moral judgment that Taney was wrong is based on shared concepts of fairness, awareness of suffering, ideas of equal protection, etc. that don't apply to a single cell, and that were not conceived and documented/legalized/etc. with a single cell in mind.

Not exactly. My judgment that Taney was wrong is based on the idea that blacks were human beings, and he failed to recognize their rights. "Equal protection" I can agree with; awareness of suffering or fairness are not part of the picture.

I agree,

Re: Dred Scott decision

[cagle_.25]

I doubt you're suggesting that my viewpoints are swayed by these factors, though.

Definitely no. I have no reason to believe that you have an economic interest in these issues; you seem at every point to be arguing in good faith.

Re: physical attachment

[JavaRob]

This is true, but it's like any human relationship where another person is temporarily dependant on you. There are pretty much always other options -- she can give the baby to grandma, she can give it up for adoption, etc.. There's also the point that (we agree, though maybe for diff reasons) we grant the infant a right to live equal to hers.

But let's not pass too lightly over the point. She can indeed provide any of those alternative ways out, if such are available. But if not, then she's stuck. She cannot

Re:Points of clarification

[JavaRob]

My argument concerns the status of human rights, not the means of discovery. I'm simply arguing that human rights, if they exist, are inherent. No claims are made about how to discover those human rights; in fact, I actually agree with you that the best we can do as humans (barring divine revelation) is to seek consensus on those rights.

I understand, though I don't see any reason to assume that human rights must be inherent (more below on this). The end result may be somewhat similar -- in that people need

Re:Points of clarification

[cagle_.25]

I was wondering why I was finding myself so confused in reading your responses. Then I realized that I did it to myself by failing to do the philosophy basics: define terms, lay out the argument clearly. So here goes:

Person X is said to have a right R when others owe him R as an obligation.

A human right is then a right owed to X because X is a human being. Notice that this term leaves "human being" undefined, to be argued later.

My claim is this: if R is a human right, it must be inherent, rather than gra

Re:Points of clarification

[JavaRob]

I'll go through your comments in a second, but first to help you understand my POV -- the test I apply to philosophical constructions and assumptions is to compare them to reality, to what we can actually know or claim to know with any reasonable probability.

The idea of anything being "inherent" is a big claim to begin with -- how does that correlate with the physical world? If an idea is "inherent" -- if it exists somehow independant of people's varying conception of it -- doesn't that require some supern

Re:Points of clarification

[cagle_.25]

The idea of anything being "inherent" is a big claim to begin with -- how does that correlate with the physical world?

Well, it doesn't correlate, actually. Inherency is a metaphysical concept. All moral claims are metaphysical. Even empiricism itself is metaphysical. So is the validity of your reality test -- can you prove that our ethical principles should correlate to the physical world, using physical evidence? This is what scientists mean when they say "science can't tell us everything." We as p

"recognize a claim" vs. "grant a right"

[JavaRob]

More comments later on the rest of your post; first I want to point out the difference between "granting" vs. "recognizing a claim" to a right.

I agree, the language sounds similar; the important difference goes back to the point that we are all individuals acting (often similarly but) independantly.

If person A claims a right, person B may either recognize or refuse to recognize that right. Either way (here's the difference from your descriptions), this has no impact on whether person A "has" the right or n

Re:"recognize a claim" vs. "grant a right"

[cagle_.25]

If person A claims a right, person B may either recognize or refuse to recognize that right. Either way (here's the difference from your descriptions), this has no impact on whether person A "has" the right or not (that would assume inherency; else, "has" according to whom?). It also doesn't control whether person A may continue to claim that right, and whether other individuals claim and/or recognize the right claimed by others.

Agreed.

All of these options are implying that the "granting" actually *convey

Re:"recognize a claim" vs. "grant a right"

[JavaRob]

Language *is* a slippery beast. It's possible to make our definitions into parallels using strict definitions, but your original proof a few posts back was using the baggage of those words to conclude that the "granted" option was meaningless, and therefore false. Quoting that:

(3) If (A), then rights are either (C) granted by each society to its members, (D) granted by one society to all humans, or (E) granted by all people to all people (leaving out silly cases like "granted by societies to members of ot

Re:"recognize a claim" vs. "grant a right"

[cagle_.25]

You're implying here that without the king's agreement, the framers don't "have" the right. This construction implies inherency -- you're taking a right and imagining different situations where X person controls a global, inarguable definition.

I strongly disagree. In this branch of the argument, rights are not inherent and also have no independent existence. Therefore, if the framers claim the right, and the king refuses to recognize it (which is the only way a claimed right can be acted on), then they h

Re:"recognize a claim" vs. "grant a right"

[JavaRob]

if the framers claim the right, and the king refuses to recognize it (which is the only way a claimed right can be acted on), then they have no right, because

I'll just grab this snippet to focus on what I'm objecting to. ..."then" they have no right "because"? Meaning if the king had done something different, they *would* have the (inherent) right?

And why is the king's recognition the "only way a claimed right can be acted on"? You're changing the model so it doesn't reflect reality anymore. They can act

Results summary

[cagle_.25]

I'll just grab this snippet to focus on what I'm objecting to. ..."then" they have no right "because"? Meaning if the king had done something different, they *would* have the (inherent) right?

No, that doesn't logically follow. The statement "X has right R" implies inherency. The statement "X does not have right R" does not imply inherency, because there might be two reasons for it: either rights are inherent, but X fails to have R (not possible in this branch), or else rights aren't inherent, and there

Re:"recognize a claim" vs. "grant a right"

[cagle_.25]

{
If you present this statement with *no speaker* -- yes, it's kind of meaningless. With no speaker, it assumes R is inherent.

Exactly. In other words, when the speaker is oneself, the claim "I have the right R" assumes inherency. If rights are not inherent, then the statement is self-contradictory, hence incoherent. NOT false, incoherent. That's been my argument the entire time.

The statement "I have the right R" is, perhaps, inexact -- but what it really means is "I claim right R". People who are c