The Glade 4.0

Yes, but 'life' is among those fundamental rights.

In the example, exploiting someone's desire to exercise the right to life, to exercise his own right to profit does not create a morally neutral situation.

Our laws MUST reflect the hierarchy of rights--that life is chief among them.


I understand that you find that all these 'fundamental rights' are equal, so you feel that its an acceptable response to the threat of loss of property to respond with loss of life.
This is the heart of the schism here. You value material possessions equally with human life. Some of us see a quite different equation.

Oh, I'm sure that you're ok with law being married to morality; as long as it's your morality, right?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

So that someone with a morality that "the meek are prey" won't interfere with those holding to "the meek shall inherit the earth".

Laws enforce "live and let live", which isn't a morality at all.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Can you link that article or email me it Khross? I think a friend of mind could use a reading of it.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

So, who wants to discuss moral realism?

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The right to life isn't the right to live at the expense of others - that would of course naturally violate not only others rights but others exact same right to life. Cannibalism wouldn't be a crime just something to do when you got hungry.

The right to life stops other moral actors (creatures who can determine morality and make decisions on their future actions with that moral information) from taking actions that will likely cause your life to be endangered.

It does not compel action - it compels inaction.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

There is no right to demand others to keep you alive. For example, if some stranger in Delaware demands I drive over to get them heart medicine, I can say no. I don't see how proximity would change this.

Your 'rights' aren't my obligations, though.

Also, "rights" are restrictions placed on governments and it's interactions with it's citizens, not between you and I. The government is obligated to recognize your right to free speech, a private organization isn't. That's why the KKK is allowed to stand on a street corner but can't stand in my yard and spew their crap.

I have no obligation to recognize your rights, I have laws imposed that keep me from stepping on your toes.

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In time, this too shall pass.

No. Morals exist because they form a framework for a sustainable society. The laws reflect that morality. In the past, social controls existed to enforce morality beyond laws-- In some societies they still do. Shunning, excommunication, honor codes, etc serve to enforce moral codes when there is no legal code to cover a situation.

In a society where such social controls no longer exist, we must increasingly turn to the law to the provide the same set of social controls.

The net effect is the same. The problem is that many people (yourselves included) want to keep laws separate, and as a last resort. That's all well and good, and a noble goal. BUT you must then provide another social control that will serve its function. A zero accountability or accountability only measured by one's ability to enforce it with violence, (such as you advocate Elmo), or with money (such as Khross advocates) is not sustainable, and is therefor not 'moral'

The fundamental right to life should never be conflated with a right to not die.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Truth. Something our health care system, or, more precisely, all the politicians and activists with hard-ons for "reforming" it, really needs to grok.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

That is your belief of why morals exist. Take a person raise them outside society and then introduce a way to violate their rights. They will protest and resist with any means necessary. No society needed.

You only say this because your view is that society should be forced to confirm to your morality so you've self justified the reasons that morals (yours) exist is to make a sustainable society (your opinion of what that would be).

Its just you rationalizing you getting to enforce all your morals on everyone else.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Although there is not a 'right' to not die, I think some tax dollars should be used to improve people's health and save them from sickness, especially since our economy cannot sustain everyone having a job. Making healthcare a bigger area of the economy also incentivizes advances in technology that help everybody.

Not at all. humans are social creatures. Our biology programs us to interact in a sustainable way. Anti-societal tendencies get evolved out of the gene-pool.

Actually, historically speaking becoming a serial rapist would put you more into the gene pool. Becoming a socially accepted priest removes you from the gene pool.

That assumes that such behaviors are biologically coded.

Also, Societal controls (Laws, Morality) serve where genetic evolution does not.

edit: typo

I hope you realize that humans and chimpanzees diverged a mere 4 - 5 million years ago, not a whole lot of time for all this genetic evolution you speak of in the grand scheme of things.

Our "biology"?

Bull. Our biology programs us to be selfish megalomaniacal turds. Our parents then teach us how not to **** our drawers and how to say "excuse me" after we belch.

Some parents do a better job than others.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Addressing your edit:



Did anyone say that the hypothetical man in the hypothetical story acted morally? Or, did someone (the person you responded to with the "right to life" argument as a matter of fact) say:

Looks like you are trying to create a straw man again, in the face of people's statements.

The existence of grocery stores does not create a morally neutral situation either?


Where does morality enter in?



Your understanding of what people think is erroneous.

If someone steals from me, they are taking something that it took part of my life to acquire, either through labor to make, or through paid employment to buy. That theft shows that they are willing to "take" my life, and that my rights mean nothing to them. By taking that part of my life that I have devoted to acquiring said goods, they have effectively made me their slave. I will not live in slavery, and will not allow my family to be enslaved; anyone who attempts to make me their slave will be stopped with extreme prejudice.


So, once again, whose morality are you going to espouse as being married to those laws?



You just stated that morals and laws are distinct. According to your statement above, social controls are used to enforce morality; without those social controls, the laws must fill in. Should the laws reflect the social controls that exist in other places? Should we adopt honor codes from the countries where it is acceptable (if not expected) to kill your daughter or wife for besmirching a man's honor?
How about a little closer to home? Should our laws reflect the social controls of the time of the Puritans' moral panic. Surely they attempted to uphold their societal values and interests using highly effective methods, should we codify those into law?
How about closer to our time? Should we enforce the morality of 1950's US in our laws? Or how about Current gang culture? They have societal values they place emphasis on...


Again, whose morality do you wish our laws to be married to?



Bull, if our "biology" programs us in any way, it programs us to act in the way most beneficial to ourselves and our offspring. Our biology does not enable us to look past the next feed or ****. Sustainability has nothing to do with biological imperatives.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Vindi in round 3 with a K.O.

Riov:

If life overrides all other rights of others then when my 91 year old father's medical bills outstrip my families ability to pay - would you mind enslaving yourself and earning potential to keeping him alive for another day? Week? Month? Place yourself in debt with promissory notes for my father to live another 3 months?

Oh wait I don't have to ask if you mind - by your own moral framework not only have you already consented to this but it doesn't matter if you did because his right to life trumps all other rights.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

There's no such thing as inherent rights, it’s a social ethic present only in developed countries. >=D

There are inherent rights of the variety found in the Constitution. Of course, the word 'rights' can mean other things too in common language, such as privileges or entitlements from the government.

Not what I meant... in most developing countries... some african/asian countries come to mind. Simply living is a privillage afforded only by those who could pay/willing to work. Won't even go into the right to free speech...

Just saying, the idea of rights as the developed country understands it, is but a developed country ethical concept. No such thing as inherent rights...

That's not true at all. Look here and you can see most of Africa follows common or civil law, which delineate rights. These laws originated from the countries that once colonized them, and so there are the same concepts. If cultural concepts are different, then those people are likely uneducated about their very own legal code that they live under. For the most part these rights are protected, although we only hear about the negative instances where they are not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Legal ... rldMap.png

If you need laws to determine rights, how are they inherent rights? If you need the first world countries who once colonized you to tell you what rights are, how is it not an ethical concept developed by those developed countries?