Rights?

John,

By "actively" I meant that she went out of way to dismiss it, didn’t just not talk about it. I am thinking of a statement of hers, (I can’t find it right now) which went something like: ‘If the world goes to hell, a pistol in your pocket will be of no use.’ The context was whether or not the 2nd amendment protected an important right. The substance of her statement was, ‘no.’ Not, ‘no, not to me, not in my neighborhood’ but just ‘no.’ She was putting emphasis on the importance of good ideas, only they will prevent the world from going to hell, etc. In the process she dismissed the importance of the right protected by the 2nd amendment.

I’ll keep trying to think where this was said or written.

Post 21

Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - 6:22pm

Jon:

Thanx. I do remember that she did 'comment' on it somewhere (Written? Lecture-Q&A?), but don't really remember the context as being 'dismissive.' Then again, maybe I'm (mis-?)remembering something different from what you do.

If you can find it, appreciate it.

LLAP
J:D

Post 22

Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - 6:35pm

While I continue looking for the quote of hers I am thinking of, let me say I am happy to drop the point that she dismissed the importance of the right to bear arms, because it is not central to my point.

My point is that Mike and George’s position leads to odd conclusions.

Mike wrote: “[…] they have no intrinsic RIGHTS until such time as they conceive of their rights and the necessity and willingness of action to preserve their rights.”

George wrote: “[…] only to the degree that a person recognizes and then acts upon them.”

Both Mike and George are making rights conditional upon action by the individual in furtherance and assertion of the relevant right.

I am testing that logic by grounding it in a specific individual and a particular right. Their position leads to the conclusion that Rand had no right to bear arms unless and until she bought one and bore it. I don’t have the freedom of religion because I have never been inside a church. I don’t have the right to remain silent because I have never plead the 5th, etc…

Post 23

Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - 8:49pm

What Jon said.

Ditto.

Especially....

I am testing that logic by grounding it in a specific individual and a particular right. Their position leads to the conclusion that Rand had no right to bear arms unless and until she bought one and bore it. I don’t have the freedom of religion because I have never been inside a church. I don’t have the right to remain silent because I have never plead the 5th, etc…

Post 24

Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - 9:02pm

John,

I found it, on this site: http://www.noblesoul.com/rl/essays/guns.html
Toward the bottom of the page, find the April 2003 update.

It was an interview with Raymond Newman, which I have on tape. I never would have remembered that this is where I heard her say it, so many thanks to the website!

Here is the exchange I recalled:

Raymond Newman: You have stated that the government ought to be the exclusive agent for the use of force under objective rules of law and justice --

Ayn Rand: That's right.

Newman: -- and yet at the same time today we see an alarming rise in violent crimes in this country and more and more people applying for gun permits and wanting to protect themselves. Do you see this as a dangerous trend, number one; and number two, do you favor any form of gun control laws?

Rand: I have given it no thought at all and, off-hand, I would say, no, the government shouldn't control guns except in very marginal forms. I don't think it's very important because I don't think it is in physical terms that the decisions and the fate of this country will be determined. If this country falls apart altogether, if the government collapses bankrupt, your having a handgun in your pocket isn't going to save your life. What you would need is ideas and other people who share those ideas and fighting towards a proper civilized government, not handguns for personal protection.

“I don't think it's very important…”

Post 25

Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - 10:17pm

Jon:

     As Neo/'Mr. Anderson' would say...(closes eyes; finger-tips to temple; opens eyes) "Whoa-a-ah!"

     There's a lot in your response that I must...think about...hence can't coherently respond back this moment. Yet, as MSK might say, "Dayammmm!" --- I have a few tapes of Newman's interviews and may have that one (don't ask me to search for it now; our house is in a shambles re 'finding' anything, for reasons pointless to go into here).

     Thanx again for your searching. Get back to ya on this...whole thing (including the subject of 'Rights' as viewed by some in a clearly non-O'ist context; no, I won't do a long lecture.)

LLAP
J:D

Post 26

Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 12:15am

George Cordero wrote,

The source of mans rights, are his conditions for existence; and the source of those conditions, is the Law of Identity. A right is a moral principle, and it is a principle that only has meaning in a social context. Eliminate that social context, and there is nothing for that moral principle to define. Rights are a relational concept; they describe the transition from taking action alone, to the morality or guiding principles that should govern those actions within a social structure of other people.

The conditions for existence are intrinsic, but the moral principle that would protect those conditions within a social context, exists only to the degree that a person recognizes and then acts upon them.

This is simply not true. Moral principles don't exist only to the degree that a person recognizes and then acts upon them. People can fail to act morally--can fail to do what they should--and often do. That's what an immoral action is: the failure to act on a moral principle. If moral principles existed only to the degree that people recognized and acted upon them, then there would be no immoral actions, because the failure to act on a moral principle would mean that it didn't exist to be acted upon.

Moreover, according to Rand,

"Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival." (Emphasis added)

In other words, rights are requirements for man's proper survival. Those requirements exist whether they are recognized or not. Hence, rights exist whether they are recognized or not.

- Bill

Post 27

Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 8:42am

"Rights" are a recognition of the potential value of human beings. As such they are a social convention. An invention of more enlightened cultures. Any "value" is truly a value if we perform acts to obtain that value. If we exist in a state of freedom without ever having performed any act to obtain that freedom we exist is a state of privilege because of others who do act in the recognition that our freedom is a potential value to themselves. We don't have a "right" to that freedom if we are not willing to act in defense of it.

I believe that persons have value as potential thinking, reasoning, productive human beings or they ARE thinking, reasoning, productive human beings. But no one has intrinsic value. We can thank intellectual do nothings for the concept of unearned value and "rights" in humans, the consequence of is all sorts of "positive" rights and armies of bureaucrats ensuring that these "rights" are realized. And the most destructive consequence: people unmotivated from the actions they otherwise would take to gain real value as human beings.

Post 28

Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 9:47am

Mike,

By your reasoning, a mountain man in the wilds of Alaska who trades with no one and intends never to trade—is of no value to you, to me, to anyone. And since he has no intrinsic value, either—he can have no rights.

No doubt he will try to stop me when I go up there to kill him and take over his cabin, but by your logic, he would be wrong to try that, he has no right to try that. Because it is only I who have rights, as I am down here trading with people and thereby obtaining my rights per your “social convention” version of the concept. He is trading with no one, making himself a value to no one. I would be in the “right” to kill him and take his cabin, he would be “wrong” to try to stop me.

Post 29

Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 10:08am

In anticipation of the response that he will defend himself from me, and in that act his right to his life begins to form: What if he doesn’t? What if I kill him in his sleep? No act of defense—no right ever came into existence. What if he is a pacifist and asks me not to do it, but doesn’t *do* anything to stop me. Now does he indeed have no right to his life, and I was within my rights to kill him?

The way out of this conceptual mess is to acknowledge that the mountain man has the right to his life by virtue of having been born. He doesn’t have to prove himself a value to anyone. No social anything. Just his nature as a man.

Post 30

Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 11:40am

I think I understand the source of the confusion. Dean has fallen into it before and he did on this thread, as well as Mike and perhaps George.

In the Objectivist derivation of rights, the point is made that it is in the individual’s self-interest to respect the rights of others because this is required if one wishes to have one’s own rights respected. The further point is made that this is in the interests of the individual as this arrangement will maximize his own freedom of action and lead to his flourishing, as opposed to being at each other’s throats all the time to mutual suffering.

That is the *derivation* of the concept of rights. Once derived however, the *application* of the concept is universal: Rights apply to all men, not just the ones you expect to trade with, and not to degrees, either. That is, someone from who through trade you gain much—say, Bill Gates—does not have greater rights than your garbage collector.

Birds are classified as such by virtue of their feathers. It does not follow that if you strip half the feathers off a bird it becomes half a bird, nor that stripping off all its feathers makes it a non-bird. The criteria that classify or generate a principle will not necessarily make any sense if you try to go back and simplistically apply those criteria to individual cases. Rick Pasotto made this point very well in post 1:

“Individuals do not have rights because of their individual characteristics.

Humans have rights because they are rational animals.

Individuals have rights because they are human.”

To paraphrase what I wrote in post 15:
We are all doomed if we don’t get off our butts and do something about our rights, sitting around repeating, “I have my rights, my rights, my rights!” is not going to be enough.

If this was all Dean, Mike and George were saying—just that activism is required in order to ensure that our rights are respected, otherwise we’ll get walked all over, our rights will be violated—then of course we could all agree to that.

But they are saying more than that. They are asserting the notion of “social convention” as the origin of rights. This is a confusion that will lead to more. For example, the negative consequences Mike points to, such as the appearance of positive rights, is made possible by precisely this notion of rights as convention: If society chooses to “recognize” the right to decent housing, then such recognition gives rise to an actual right.

Jon

Post 31

Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 8:08pm

I'm saying "rights" are a social contract. Rights are impossible without the use of force to protect them. Pacifists exist in a state of privilege under the protection of those who would use force to protect their rights. As such, they are second class citizens who have no understanding of the concept of rights in the first place.

Jon says:

"it is in the individual’s self-interest to respect the rights of others"

More accurately stated like this:

"it is in the individual’s self-interest to respect the interests of others" and I agree. But what are these "interests"? Characteristic human interests include a rational productive life gaining and keeping values and trading value for value with other rational productive humans. Some "humans", however, are not rational and productive but exist as leeches or predators on other humans. What of their "interests"? Should we respect their "interests"? I'm sure you will agree that in the case of criminals "rights" are conditional. A "universal" definition of "rights" based on our DNA is unworkable. It has to be based on some sort of contract. Something for something. There are no unearned values.

Post 32

Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 8:59pm

So Ayn Rand had no right to bear arms because, “We don't have a "right" to that freedom if we are not willing to act in defense of it.”

And I can kill mountain man because, “Pacifists exist in a state of privilege under the protection of those who would use force to protect their rights. As such, they are second class citizens who have no understanding of the concept of rights in the first place.”

Mike, I’m almost speechless.

Recently, Clarence joked about having a gunfight in defense of a hypothetical property taken by eminent domain. You pleaded with him to use his head. Yet your position here is that unless he has that gunfight, he never deserved the property in the first place. “Rights are impossible without the use of force to protect them.”

I can’t think of anything else that might get through to you, so I’m done.

Post 33

Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 9:40pm

Jon,

You haven't read or understood anything I've said. Your examples prove it. Your lack of goodwill or interest in understanding another point of view than your own proves that it's a waste of time talking to you. You're done because you had nothing to say in the first place.

Post 34

Thursday, February 9, 2006 - 10:18pm

Jon and Mike, I hope you guys work things out (you're both great -- not merely, "good" -- guys).

That said, as an Objectivist who tends to err on the side of rationalism (hint: no one is perfectly straight and true and, at least I know which side of perfection that I typically err on), I have to say that I agree with Jon's arguments (as stated), more-so than I agree with Mike's. Mike said ...

=========================
I'm sure you will agree that in the case of criminals "rights" are conditional. A "universal" definition of "rights" based on our DNA is unworkable. It has to be based on some sort of contract. Something for something. There are no unearned values.
=========================

I'd like to introduce a (third?) perspective here. One that proceeds from the nature of man; and differentiates "rights" from the "exercise" of them. My conjecture is that criminals, by committing crimes, don't forfeit their rights -- but merely the temporal exercise of them. If, for instance, criminals forfeited their rights -- then jailers (who do have rights, while the criminals don't) could morally, in principle, make slaves out of detainees. But this is not the case. In a jail cell, there is a measure of freedom (though highly mitigated!). The prisoner can choose to take a nap, for instance. This is not true of (right-less) slaves, as they cannot choose how to spend even a minute of their day (as they're at the full-time beck-and-call of their "masters").

Criminals don't "gain" rights upon release from jail, they gain the exercise of the rights they were born with (born with because they are a type of creature that thrives a certain way -- and not other ways).

Ed

Post 35

Friday, February 10, 2006 - 7:03am

Thanks, Ed.

When accused of lacking goodwill and not reading or trying to understand, it is some consolation to hear from a credible third party that I have indeed been making sense, and even better arguments than my accusing, dodging-away-from-the-absurdities-his-position-leads-to discussant.

Jon

Post 36

Friday, February 10, 2006 - 8:21am

Right Jon,

Your "argument" consists of nothing but straw man "examples", begging the question, and appeals to your "audience" without directly replying to me or my argument. You indeed supplied the "crock of horseshit" I referred to earlier. I think there are problems with the concept of "rights". You are a perfect example of the incoherence version of the argument. Congratulations for swallowing it hook line and sinker. Is there a church you'd like to join now?

Post 37

Friday, February 10, 2006 - 8:44am

Mike,

I have given examples and analogies, I have explained my position in several different ways.

You have repeated the same thing over and over. Your big innovation was to switch from “social convention” to “social contract.” But you want to blame me.

A church? Now my position is religious? Crock indeed.

It is disappointing to see someone fail to take ownership and responsibility for changing or trying harder to defend their untenable positions. Especially after being shown in several ways by several posters that their position is a big loser.

Post 38

Friday, February 10, 2006 - 9:23am

Jon, you may have been using this as a sort of example, and I think you were, but what Rand said about bearing arms has also been discussed in some of her books. I think she was right in both areas, in that:

1) Just having that gun in the pocked won't help if society goes to hell - emphatically because someone will have more or bigger guns than you do as an individual, so a police state or anarchy are best avoided by means of the ideas underlying the society than by the gun, at which point it may be too late.

2) However, as force from the state is necessarily often reactive in nature, the individual has a right to be armed (ala 2nd amendment) so as to defend himself from imminent danger. That was then defined further as the right for personal protection, but not weapons of "mass destruction" such as artillery or machine guns. (though, how cool would it be to have your own house mortar?)

I don't think there is much disagreement here about either of these.

Post 39

Friday, February 10, 2006 - 9:43am