Well today in Philosophy Club Mr. B brought up that he talked to a Judge at the job fair about rights. Well like I said, I don't understand how we can give and take rights away from people. Like I said in class, if we could do that I could turn around and tell Mr. B that he can't be a teacher but then he could go to someone else and tell them the same thing and take their job. If this "System" of rights is true then all people should be equal : 0 Oh my gosh did I just say that out loud?But seriously, if you talked to a rich person or a powerful person and said that they would probably laugh in your face. On the other hand if you said it to a poor person they would completely support it. I'm interested in what other people think about that..
Alex
14 comments:
It's not the rights we as individuals give to eachother. You couldn't go up to someone and take their job. It's what people as society have given eachother the right do (without much regard to the other things on this planet). So try to think of it in that sense.
So that would only be rights within the confines of the societal system, mayhaps? Or is it meant to be more fundamental than that?....And what is meant exactly by "rights", just those inalienable ones we love so much?
I don't know, just wondering
Good questions Ian… Thanks for reminding us that there are some fundamentals to discuss before we jump to some of the bigger questions about having rights…
Another thing to consider: What does it mean to really ‘have’ something? Here are some examples/categories:
I have my hair (It’s grown from/on my body, so I consider it mine).
I have an idea (I thought it up / created it myself, it is contained within my mind so I consider it mine).
I have a memory (I am the only person who experiences my life in the first-person, so I consider it mine).
I have a breath (I don’t own it per say, but I am at least borrowing it, and while it is within my lungs, I have control over it, and therefore some amount of ownership, albeit brief).
I have a name (A man once tried to change his name to a number, and a court blocked his attempt… so it would seem that our names are not quite totally ours to have and change… even though they are ‘given’ to us.)
I have a body (Well I seem to have this pile of pasty flesh, which is always changing, repairing and replacing itself… is my body/part mine only as long as it is attached to my mind, or is it mine because…?)
I have a life (Do I own my own life? <--This is a great question that was posted on this blog by Josh H. earlier this year. Some corollaries to Josh’s question might include: Was my life given to me by my parents? By nature? By evolution? By a Creator/God? If someone/something has the right to give life, do they also have the right to take life?).
I have…
If we continue a discussion of ‘having’ rights, perhaps we should consider what they are, what their nature it (social, in-born, inalienable, etc), and where/who/what they may have come from…
Sorry for being so long-winded :(
That's something I couldn't begin to wrap my head around...
I mean, do you even own your mind? Can anyone really control everything that pops into their head.
Certainly your mind is not yours when it is being ravaged by alzheimers, or all other manner of psychoses.
I looked up the definition of "ownership", and unfortunatly I didn't find what I wanted to. I was hoping that there would be a mention of ownership implying control. But, if the holy semantics don't even say that, then I guess control isn't even necessary.
Maybe ownership is just having the greatest influence over whatever thing is being "owned". But how can you be ever certain of something like that when your concept of self can be tipped over the balance by the slightest breeze...
Oh man, it is not nearly late enough for me to go on like this...maybe if I can get back at around 2 am my thoughts will be a little clearer
....nope, still got nothing.
lol i like that at 2 13 am lmao well i agree with you that its hard to understand. but in reality what is control. well i dont know either, i was hoping one of you would know lol but it's so true that our actions can be changed due to the smallest thing. For example, some one insults you, just because of that one little thing your whole day may be changed. but does that person have the "Right" to ruin your day? i dont know, im just throwing ideas out there because im in english and really bored : )
It's like we're in Plato's cave...
We live under the assumption that we know what rights are, what OUR rights are, and where those rights come from, but once we start asking questions, we discover how little we really know/understand.
Maybe we can start with what might be the most foundational right: the right to live another moment, another day.
Do I have that right?
No, you don't.
You have the right to try though. As of now you have the right to try your damndest to get the air you need by breathing, the food you need, the happiness that keeps you going. It's the pursuit of happiness that we're promised...and it doesn't seem like we have the right to life, but at least the right to pursue, or continue it.
But that can be taken from us like anything else.
So if someone murders me, they have NOT violated my right to live?
How can you make that case?
Someone murdering you is right along all the other things trying to take your life, starvation, exposure..
You can try to defend yourself..that's your right to pursue your life.
But certainly in a world of survival of the fittest, or even that bastardized version us humans have created, you certainly are not guaranteed any right to live.
It certainly sounds like I'm saying a muderer has every right to muder away..but isn't that why it is not a crime to kill in self defence? Preservation of your life is your real right, not living itself.
Ian, you wrote: “But certainly in a world of survival of the fittest, or even that bastardized version us humans have created, you certainly are not guaranteed any right to live.”
I think you’re on to something there… as a mass culture, we’ve become a mob driven by self-serving competitive compulsions within an evolutionary mindset… the survival-of-the-fittest mindset has taught us that we are ‘free’ to take advantage of others… take, take, take, as much as we want, more than we need, and if the weak try to resist us, we can just say, “Damn you, your wimpy genetics, and your personal weaknesses… the STRONG are the RIGHT, and the strong are those who have the rights.”
Although your observations seem to accurately capture the state and tendencies of our mass culture, I don’t think they capture the truth of how we should behave. If your observations were not only accurate, but the true ideal, they would lead to the following absurd possibilities:
Bubba: Ian, I’m going to rape you.
Ian: No, I would not like that.
Bubba: I’m a 300lb, 7foot tall body builder.
Ian: I’m sorry, you’re not my type.
Bubba: That doesn’t matter… I’m stronger than you, so you’re going to have to like it, or learn to deal with it.
Ian: Have to like it… I don’t think… that’s possible.
Bubba: The strong determine the possible… so I’m going to have my way with you. Here, put on this pink bunny outfit.
Ian: Ahhhh!
Bubba: If it would make you feel better, you have the right to resist and struggle all you want… I won’t violate that right!
Ian: But you plan on violating every other part of me!
Bubba: Yup. But don’t feel bad, just think of how comforting your right to resist is… you should find all of the solace you need in that lonely right.
Ian: If you’re going to have your way with me, and obviously I couldn’t stop you if I wanted to, why should I resist at all?
Bubba: I don't know... but that’s up to you… come here bunny-man!
"bunny man!" <- truly one of the priceless endings to a philosophical writting.
Perhaps something like Nazi Germany is a little less drastic than bunny man. They declared that all of Germany not should but WOULD be anti-semitic under penalty of work camp. I find that the people in the work camps fit all these strange and absurd sircumstances that we talk about, but realistically would never find ourselves in. You had to WANT to live to reach liberation. The Nazi had stripped them of every right and familiar thing, but they still they had the right to want to live. They did everything they could to survive, thus creating a world of total tangable survival of the fittest. But the Nazi who were not struggling to survive decided everything. They didn't rule over the people in the work camps because they were more intelligent or stronger but because they had guns. So when Bubba comes up to you in a dark alley, you should tell him that he shouldn't have his way with you but if he insists that you will resist because he can't take away your will to live life the way you think is right and it doesn't include Bubba.
I agree, Nazi Germany is WAY less drastic than my fragile innocence!
Anonymous (hmmm, wonder who that could be) said that this right to try and nothing more is plausible, but just a product of "mass-culture". How so?
annie, you said that the will to live is the most fundamental right people have because it's the only one that can't be taken away, right? I wonder, though, what if (or when) some loses their will to live for whatever reason. If a prisoner looks around himself and sees all the pain and suffering, or feels the cold, calloused hands of bubba around their limp frame and decide that all hope is lost, is their right being taken away from them? Or are they just waiving that right?
It would seem that when someone forsakes their right to try to survive, they instead gain their right to die.
And that is something our "mass culture" really frowns upon, and has for thousands of years. They embrace people's right to life, but do so to the point that no one really has the right to die.
oh my!
I’m currently reading a fascinating book by a former prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp: Viktor E. Frankl. It’s called, “Man’s Search for Meaning” and was recommended to me by Ms. Trainor. Here’s an excerpt from pg75 that confirms what I understand Annie to be saying in her last post:
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.
Seen from this point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses [like watching your friends and family members be herded to their gas-chamber executions] may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. Dostoevski said once, "There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings." These words frequently came to mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this… freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.
Ian, I’m not sure that Frankl would agree with you that a right to live is equivalent to, or translates into… a right to die. Freedom to live might necessitate an equivalent freedom to die, because one can’t have freedoms unless they includes the freedom to choose. But what seems to be missing from the conversation is this: rights and freedoms each include some necessary measure of responsibility, and to me, a responsibility to live—and live well—doesn’t logically afford someone with an equal responsibility to die.
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