Individual Rights - What are they and who has them.

In particular it would be good to address the issue of children's rights because of the amount of confusion in that area. This is is a continuation of the discussion that arose during the Post birth abortion, murder charge thread. Do children have rights? Are they the same kind of rights as an adults? When do they acquire them? What are the other issues governing what are moral actions regarding children?

Post 1

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 - 8:03pm

I'm curious whether the defense of these rights can be done without using the term "rights". I'm not always sure what people are meaning by it.

From the previous thread, let me repeat that if the concept of rights is identified clearly among adults living in a harmony of interests, then the case of children (especially newborns) is a borderline case in the conceptual sense. For instance, if rationality is one of the key elements of rights, then a newborn only has the potential.

Phrased without the term rights, we could say that it's in the interests of rational adults to recognize that they all have certain requirements for their life that make certain interactions harmful. Since adults can generally benefit from one another, they recognize that these negative interactions should be prevented. They can recognize that a class of these interactions are sometimes involuntary for one party, and they call that force. They recognize that to live harmoniously, those initiations of force need to be met with retaliatory force. We can further establish that force being applied to other people who we live with harmoniously and benefit from is also harmful to us. This is true even if we don't directly interact with them. So we can institute a system that protects everyone from this involuntary negative interaction since we all lose from it.

I think that's a reasonable defense of the concept of rights.

Now applying it to children, we see that the picture is a little different. First, we don't have the same kind of harmony that we have with adults. We don't gain from their actions (in the general sense...obviously some people like parents can gain from the specific child). I gain from adults producing wealth and trading and sharing ideas. Children don't provide those kinds of general values. We can benefit from productive traders that we never meet or interact with because of the nature of the benefits.

I think you can make the argument that they have the potential to make that kind of contribution. Since they will probably grow up to be productive members of society, you can make a similar case for them. In other words, we may not be benefiting immediately from a harmony of interests with them, but we will benefit later. In terms of rational self-interest, it makes sense to apply the basic idea of protection to children.

Of course, that assumes there is no conflict of interests between actual adults participating in a trading society and the baby. Two possible sources for that:
1.) Children are given "positive" rights, requiring someone to raise them at the point of a gun. (Why you'd ever want to have someone raising children at the point of a gun is beyond me.)
2.) Before the child is born, the mother's interests might diverge from the fetus.

That's my argument. I didn't cover every topic, but it seems a pretty good case for babies having individual rights. It also highlights the fact that the baby is a borderline case, but one that is still within the framework of individual rights.

But before commenting on my reply, I'd be interested to hear the justifications other people have come up with.

Post 2

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 - 8:09pm

A right is a moral/ethical sanction against interference with ones action.

That's it. Period. And, since action requires that we be alive - taking part in the processes necessary to continue and sustain our existence as such a living process - then our first and fundamental right is that of life. We can morally forbid another person from interfering with the processes of our life.

This is an invariant. It holds even in abnormal social situations such as lifeboats, although in those situations we may actually have a conflict of rights. I.e., you and I both have a right to live, but only one of us is going to make it. In that case, I can claim a right to kill you and you me, and we are both correct, and also both consistent with the nature of "rights."

In non-lifeboat, normal social situations, rights are not in conflict, and are, in fact, a guidepost to resolving conflict.

OK, there's a start... NEXT!

Post 3

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 6:30am

"At the banquet table of nature there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take, and you keep what you can hold. If you can't take anything, you won't get anything; and if you can't hold anything, you won't keep anything. And you can't take anything without organization." - A. Philip Randolph

By 'rights', do you mean things that you can posess even while the mob is burning you at the stake? ie, things that are yours, at least in principle if not practice?

Because in practice, both labor leader A. Philip Randolph as well as Marx before him are 'right.'   What rights we enjoy in practice are those that the local mob we find ourselves immersed in will consent to refrain from taking from us by force, including what we regard as the most fundamental of them.

What rights we posess in principle are moot, if we can yet be said to hold them as the mob burns us at the stake.   An individual is perfectly capable of protesting his posession of rights, right up until the moment the fire consumes him and his last breath is ashes.

So, whatever they are, 'who has them' is defined as those who the mob, aka the forever biggest beast in the jungle, permits to have them.    We have never left the jungle, the rule of the jungle is still in full effect: the Biggest Beast rules, by force, and the Biggest Beast is and always has been and always will be the mob.   The American Experiment is based on wishes on paper, directed at the Beast. They are ultimately suggestions, not commandments, to the Beast, that Individuals posess individual rights, and that it is in the best interest of the Beast to mutually enforce those rights...unless, of course, it is for a really, really good cause.   As in, some group of pinheads have discovered 'the' answer to "Why are we here, and what are we supposed to be doing now as a result of that?" and think it would be a 'good cause' to impress that on all of us, via politics, in which case, individual rights are subservient to some true believerism religion, such as, Durkheims Social Scientology.

The means of maintaining the former mere suggestion had been, up to a point, universal education, and the means of implementing the latter exception has been via corruption of education as mere instruction.

regards,
Fred

Post 4

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 8:02am

The Trader Principle�s success at establishing rights for fellow adults is debatable. It�s failure when applied to children is total. Maybe I will find occasion to gainfully trade with a baby born today, but maybe I won�t�and even if I do, the benefit to my interests will in almost all cases be marginal.

My chances of seeing a gain in my interests are much greater if experimental drugs are tested on unwanted babies. So an appeal to my self-interest will lead me there every time.

Some variant of treating babies as ends-in-themselves is required.

Post 5

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 8:53am

I am thinking of writing an extended reply to this problem, identifying what rights a child has, but I have critical premise problems from the outset and I do not wish to provoke friction. So I will register where I have the problems, give my premises, and see what happens.

The basic premise problems are very nicely summed up by the following statement by Joe Rowlands from above:

From the previous thread, let me repeat that if the concept of rights is identified clearly among adults living in a harmony of interests, then the case of children (especially newborns) is a borderline case in the conceptual sense. For instance, if rationality is one of the key elements of rights, then a newborn only has the potential.

The first problem is that rights are not identified as stemming from an ethical base, but stemming instead from adults living in harmony of interests. This is similar but not identical. Ethics is a code to guide the actions of human beings for obtaining and/or keeping values. Rights, as give by Rand at least, is ethics applied to the social realm. Thus the concept of rights is essentially a code of values.

As simple induction, I do not find the social realm to be made up exclusively of adults, nor do I find that the definition of human being excludes the child stage, nor do I find that ethics (or volitional values) applies only to adults. So forming the concept of rights (and I mean that epistemologically) based on adults, even if that is only the primary focus and not a delimitation, is flawed at the outset. The concept of rights, just like the concept of ethics, pertains to human beings as a primary, not adult human beings. ("Human being" is the identification and "adult" is a measurement. See the identification/measurement discussion below.)

There is a concept of rights based on NIOF as a metaphysical given, but I do not see the NIOF principle as being more basic than the definition of what a human being is and what values are for human beings. On the contrary, the NIOF principle is derived from those premises. Thus if there is any conflict, the underlying principles take precedence. For instance, inverting NIOF with the law of identity (the definition of human being) leads to making a positive and negative rights dichotomy as if this were some kind of metaphysical principle, when in reality, it is merely a fancy way of saying social freedoms and social duties and mixing the word "rights" in the middle.

If rights is not a code to guide man's actions on a social level in obtaining and/or keeping values, then rights is not based on ethics. And if that is the case, we are stepping outside of reason. One cannot eliminate the concept of value from rights, nor can one eliminate the definition of human being.

The second problem I have is in identifying a newborn as not rational. Frankly, I consider this position as absurd at the root.

There are two intertwining cognitive methods that run in parallel during concept formation, but they are different. The first is identification (differentiation + integration). The second is measurement. The basis of concept formation is that something in reality is identified, but the measurements are omitted. This allows us to be able to measure all instances of what was identified.

A newborn is identified as a rational animal. So is an adult. This means that their rational faculties exist and can be measured. But when an infant's rational faculty is measured (in an ordinal or comparative basis in this case), it is not as developed as an adult's. Claiming that a newborn only has the potential for being rational is substituting the measurement for the identification. If the statement were "if an adult-level rationality is one of the key elements of rights, then a newborn only has the potential," this would be cognitively correct, albeit difficult to justify rights-wise. As it stands, the implication is that an infant has no rational faculty, merely a potential for one.

This kind of fuzziness in using terms (replacing identification with measurement) is what leads to the conclusion that the subject of rights is clearer for adults than for children. It is not.

A very clear and rational code to guide man's values on the social level (rights)�one that pertains to human beings as they exist (man qua man, to use the jargon)�is easy to establish if one defines one's terms and adheres to cognitive consistency in the concepts being used.

I even have other issues, like including children as "borderline" (distant from the core concept) and putting them in the same category as the mentally deficient, the ill, etc. This implies that these other states are either part of the fundamental definition of human beings, or the infant stage is not fundamental. This is an example of apples and oranges. To be clear, being mentally ill is not essential to being human. It is not universal to all cases. It is an exceptional and defective state. Being an infant is fundamental to being human. All adults were once infants.

I could go on with some other cases of premise trouble, but this is enough for now.

I don't know how any agreement on the issue of rights for children can be arrived at with such conflicts in the underlying premises. So I will merely state some of my own premises and leave it at that (unless these premises can be agreed upon or I become convinced otherwise):

1. The definition of a human being is "rational animal." A fetus is not, since despite being an animal, it does not yet have a functioning conceptual faculty. A lower animal is not because it does not have a conceptual faculty at all. An infant is a rational animal (a complete human being) because his conceptual faculty is functioning, meaning that an infant is rational from birth.

2. The infant stage of human life is a fundamental part of arriving at the adult stage, meaning it is impossible to eliminate it. Thus it is an essential part of the concept of what an adult human being is. Any attempt to discuss the values/conditions of an adult, but contradict or blank-out the fact that he was once an infant and that the values/conditions of that stage must be included in order to even arrive at adult-level values/conditions, is an example of the stolen concept fallacy. (Granted that this could apply to fetuses also, but we are discussing volitional and conceptual values and a fetus does not have volition or conception.)

3. Rights are moral principles to guide the actions of rational animals (human beings) on a social level to obtain and/or keep values. The concept of rights applies only to human beings and it deals only with volitional values. The end-in-itself as the ultimate value is the individual human being, and this applies ethically and rights-wise to infants from birth by definition ("rational animal").

4. As a corollary, legal protections for non-humans (like restrictions against excessive cruelty to animals, or measures of care for mentally impaired people) are not rights. Their source stems from another premise�the valuing of genus-related entities without the differentia. These values are not ends in themselves, but are secondary. They derive from the wishes of adult ends-in-themselves (adult human beings) who establish such restrictions and conditions on each other to preserve these secondary values. Infants are not included in this corollary since they have the differentia (they are rational), thus they have rights as ends-in-themselves, not just genus-related legal protections. (Whether there should be such legal protections and why is another issue. I am merely stating an identification for now.)

5. As morals become more complex and varied during the growth and development of an infant, so do rights. This is due to a more complex and varied cognitive development over time and the fact that the interaction between the infant with other people will become more complex and varied. Codes of conduct and codes of values become more advanced to the extent that they can in cognitive terms. Note that this is a measurement issue (complexity of code), not an identification issue (need for code).

6. NIOF derives from ethics. It is not a principle that replaces ethics. The concept of positive and negative rights is derived from NIOF, thus it is a secondary identification, not a primary one. The implication is that when NIOF conflicts with fundamental human values (especially reason), the values take precedence. This applies to rights by simple logical extension.

Michael

Post 6

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 2:51pm

Jon, I noticed you haven't made any suggestions. Do you not have an argument, or are you saving it?

As for you not liking my position (which I wouldn't call the trader principle, but I get the point), I don't see the problem. Ultimately if we're going to talk about why we should respect or recognize rights, it has to be grounded in our own self-interest. If we want to show why we are going to support rights in general (for instance, not violate the rights of strangers), we have to show that there is a general reason for it that even applies to strangers. The harmony of interests is one such motivation.

I know of another. It's the idea that if you try to violate the rights of someone else, they'll retaliate with force (or their friends or family will, etc.). That's a more powerful motivation, but it keeps wide open the idea of the prudent predator who allows you to go kill people or steal from them as long as you can get away with it. The harmony of interests gives you reason not to do that even in those cases.

I third reason could be the idea of having empathy for other people because we recognize their similarity with ourselves. That's a far weaker reason, and would probably apply to animals as well.

No matter what, the explanation has to show why strangers' rights should be respected by reference to your own self-interest.

If you want to reject that kind of requirement, there are plenty of answers that "work". Just try to define them all as "human beings" and assert without reason that they have rights and we have a moral obligation to respect them. That is, instead of showing why it's in our interests to respect rights, you could decide that the nature of morality is to provide us duties that we must follow. You could just state we have a moral duty to respect rights.

I'll just wait patiently for your own explanation.

Post 7

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 3:30pm

�I noticed you haven't made any suggestions.�

Did you notice my last sentence?

�Do you not have an argument, or are you saving it?�

I presented an argument that shows a major problem with attempting to establish rights in unwanted newborns based upon the hope of one day enhancing one�s interests through trade with such infants.

�I don't see the problem.�

Not surprising. You don�t seem to have read my post.

�Ultimately if we're going to talk about why we should respect or recognize rights, it has to be grounded in our own self-interest.�

If you say so. I don�t see how that can be done for infants.

�If we want to show why we are going to support rights in general (for instance, not violate the rights of strangers), we have to show that there is a general reason for it that even applies to strangers. The harmony of interests is one such motivation.�

Harmony is preserved under experimental drug testing of unwanted infants. Until it is proven that unwanted infants have rights, it can�t violate their non-existent ones. No adult�s rights are violated, and every adult�s interests are enhanced.

�if you try to violate the rights of someone else, they'll retaliate with force (or their friends or family will, etc.)�

Violate what rights? How are unwanted infants, or their non-existent friends, or the family that made the donation, going to retaliate? When they grow up? So we kill them while they�re still infants.

�No matter what, the explanation has to show why strangers' rights should be respected by reference to your own self-interest.�

I�m not convinced it CAN be shown that infant�s rights should be respected by reference to my own self-interest.

�I'll just wait patiently for your own explanation.�

Dean and I will just wait for you to persuade us.

Post 8

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 4:20pm

I regret and retract mentioning Dean. I will not attack him here. Rather, I wanted to make clear that I am being a Devil�s Advocate.

In the News thread that precipitated this thread, Joe asserted (post 89):

�You [Me, Jon L.] have a problem with Dean orienting everything towards Dean's life. But I don't have that problem at all. If he's serious about it, then it's just a matter of showing him why respecting of rights is in his own interests. In fact, I'd have a bigger problem with someone who tried to justify rights outside of the context of his own interests or life. As soon as people imagine that rights are a constraint on their life, and they'd benefit from bypassing them, I'd have little confidence in having my own rights respected.�

I am Devil�s-Advocating from orienting everything towards one's own life. I�m taking that orientation. Joe asserts that if you�re serious about it, Joe�ll persuade you that one should recognize and then respect rights for infants.

So far, I�m not persuaded. The Trader Principle-type argument shows that one can hope for gains in one�s interests through trade with an unwanted infant, someday, maybe.

But remember, I am orienting EVERYTHING toward my own life. Obviously, if medical testing on unwanted infants would forward me even bigger gains, and it would, then I have to prefer that�if it�s all about my own life. It�s not good enough to show that a teeny gain will come my way from deciding to recognize and respect rights in unwanted infants, not if it�s all about me, not if bigger gains can be found while remaining true to �it�s all about me.�

In this light, I have to disagree with the last half of Joe�s above quote, as it is reversed. It is precisely the exclusive focus upon one�s own interests that invites trampling of unwanted infants.

Post 9

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 4:21pm

Joe,

I'm still working my statement of rights. It might be a day or so. But I did want to jump in with a quick reply to a point you made in post #6, where you are listing reasons that could be given strangers as to why rights should be respected. You say,

"...define them all as "human beings" and assert without reason that they have rights and we have a moral obligation to respect them. That is, instead of showing why it's in our interests to respect rights, you could decide that the nature of morality is to provide us duties that we must follow. You could just state we have a moral duty to respect rights.

In a way, that is the approach that I'm going to take. Sort of. Except that I'll use reasons as to why they have rights. My argument to strangers would be more like, "Yes, you could violate another's rights, but you lose your rights when you do. That would raise lots of problems. Rights are the only way we can select the actions we need to take to reach our goals in a world filled with other people and the possibility of conflict. Understanding and respecting rights gives us the best chance to succeed and to keep others from acting against us. And our self-esteem and happiness, to a degree, depend upon our understanding and respecting rights."

Appeal to the self-interest of a stranger can include appealing to moral priniciple (properly explained) - it only requires that the moral principle be properly drawn from a rational egoist moral base.

Even a small child understands the admonishment to be fair.

But an argument to a stranger isn't the same as the answer to "what is the definition of rights?" And "what is the source of rights?" And "what gives rise to the need for rights?" And, "what are the properties of rights?" Those are what I'm working on now.

First identification, then persuasion.

Post 10

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 4:10pm

(Joe Rowlands wrote):
"Just try to define them all as 'human beings' and assert without reason that they have rights and we have a moral obligation to respect them. That is, instead of showing why it's in our interests to respect rights, you could decide that the nature of morality is to provide us duties that we must follow. You could just state we have a moral duty to respect rights."

Actually, making light of definitions (and not providing any definition for human being other than "self" and "strangers" or "others") is a very good way to move ethics away from objectivity and entirely into the subjective realm, masking the requirement for objective definitions by throwing out phrases like "without reason" (when reason is given) and "duty" (when none is proposed).

From there, it is an easy hop and a jump to conceive of rights as completely subjective�using the standard of an alienated self striving for gain or fearing retaliation from others qua individual cut off from species, instead of qua man (individual member of the human species).

It is true that such a person will be unable to distinguish between a cat and a newborn infant on the normative level (and most likely on the cognitive level, too). He didn't integrate the concept of what he is. For all practical purposes, he is aware of himself on a perceptual level only. He literally has no conceptual idea of who and what he is other than a "self" with urges, or "interests" to use the jargon.

This sounds an awful lot like an anti-conceptual premise and seems closer to Nietzsche than Rand.

Michael

Post 11

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 7:28pm

Sorry Jon, I did read your post. And I did see your last sentence. It was simply saying that you don't think there is a rational reason for people to respect the rights of newborns (or that those rights don't even exist), and therefore we need an irrational reason. You think we can't ground it in self-interest, so we need an ethics that will require us to sacrifice anyway.

So in effect, you're not angry with Dean because he's irrational, but because you think he's too rational?

I do want to make one point. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that these moral principle are going to have clear cut cases, and much more borderline cases. The caes on the border are always harder to make a case for, since the reasons behind the principle are further and further diluted.

If we looked for reasons that were in no way dependent on the context, we'd be upholding intrinsic values, which is just another word for moral duty. It looks to me that that is the sort of justification you're looking for. One that holds equally in all cases.

Steve, you just said you were going to take the approach of simply defining it as a moral duty, but then you went on to actually make a case that it is in our self-interest. I guess the emphasis was on "sort of". So far your statement is too vague, as I'm sure you intended. I've gotten only that you think the self-interest may reside in the consistency of upholding a moral principle, so even if there are borderline cases, it's still in a person's self-interest to abide by them. Is that a correct interpretation?

I'm all for appealing to the moral principle (properly explained), as you say. But as you say, the moral principle must be properly drawn from an egoistic moral base. I'd go further and say that the moral principle must be applicable within the given context as well.

MSK, you're speaking gibberish again. It's revolting to witness you trying to make sense. What a perversion of reason! For instance, definitions are not arguments. You need definitions to keep your ideas clear and communicate them well. But when you state your conclusion as part of the definition, you're playing word games. And that's all you've done.

I shouldn't have to point out that these same stupid semantic games are how anti-abortion activists try to justify their own views. We shouldn't kill human beings! What's the definition of a human being? That's not an argument. That's an attempt at equivocation.

But instead of recognizing that my criticism is about trying to "define" reality by arbitrary assertion, you jump to the idiotic view that I'm against definitions. Every time you speak, you inform the world that you're not worth listening to.

Post 12

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 8:16pm

Joe,

My last sentence was: �Some variant of treating babies as ends-in-themselves is required.�

You wrote, �And I did see your last sentence. It was simply saying that you don't think there is a rational reason for people to respect the rights of newborns (or that those rights don't even exist), and therefore we need an irrational reason.�

You regard an appeal to treating individual human beings as ends-in-themselves as an irrational reason for people to respect the rights of newborns?

I haven�t said there is no rational reason for people to respect the rights of newborns. I�ve said I don�t see how rights for unwanted infants can be established while orienting everything towards one�s own self-interest. Your attempt at the latter has so far failed.

Post 13

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 8:37pm

Jon,

I don't have a problem with treating people as ends in themselves, per se. I think that's justified on the premise of rational self-interest. But your comment was put in the wider context of your dismissal of self-interest as a possible motivation. I interpret that to mean that they should be treated as intrinsic values, with their interests as your guiding principle.

Are you denying this? I really don't see this as a complex issue. Either you justify your actions in terms of your own interests, or you're justifying it in terms of something else. In this case, it's the interests of someone else.

Perhaps you can explain how doing something that is not in your own interests is rational? Since you've only given hints at your position, I can only go with what I see. So far, you're rejecting self-interest as the moral foundation of rights, and instead are offering some kind of intrinsic value substitution. I don't consider that rational.

In terms of arguing my point, I'll add more as more people contribute their own justifications. But in terms of persuasion, I doubt I can convince you. If you are looking for a justification that defies context, obviously nothing I can offer will meet that criteria.

Of course, if you came out and stated your position clearly, it might clarify quite a bit.

Post 14

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 8:46pm

�define them all as "human beings" and assert�that they have rights and we have a moral obligation to respect them.�

Something like that is what I could go for. The standard Objectivist derivation of rights works for me, along with universal application. Rights must be applied differently to children for certain metaphysical reasons, but they�re not in any essential way different from adults, to children, etc.

It is Joe�s insistence that individual rights must be derived separately for each stage and iteration of human existence.

I disagree with this and assert that it will be very hard to pull off for unwanted infants, while orienting everything towards one�s own self-interest. I�ll keep an open mind and watch for something better than �why, hell, you could trade with that baby some day!�

Post 15

Friday, April 13, 2007 - 6:53am

So far, I�m not persuaded. The Trader Principle-type argument shows that one can hope for gains in one�s interests through trade with an unwanted infant, someday, maybe.

Consider it as a form of investing..

Post 16

Friday, April 13, 2007 - 8:00am

And Robert, from the paragraph following what you quoted:

�It�s not good enough to show that a teeny gain will come my way from deciding to recognize and respect rights in unwanted infants, not if it�s all about me, not if bigger gains can be found while remaining true to �it�s all about me.�

Medical testing.

Consider it as high-yield investing.

Post 17

Friday, April 13, 2007 - 8:26am

Jon said: "The Trader Principle�s success at establishing rights for fellow adults is debatable. It�s failure when applied to children is total."

From where I come from, Trader Principle is very prominent between parents and children. Even in US, I've known many people with strong family ties. And there the trader principle is definitely at work.

PS. I am not sure whether you are talking about parents and their children, or just strangers with any children. Of course there's no "trader" relationship between a stranger and an unwanted child, unless the stranger adopts the child to establish such a relationship.

(Edited by Hong Zhang on 4/13, 11:50am)

Post 18

Friday, April 13, 2007 - 9:47am

Hong, Everyone,

You have to read the whole thread. You can�t pluck individual sentences and hope to understand what they intend. If you read my and Joe�s conversation, I think you will see how to answer your PS.

I am saying that the proper approach is to be found in using the standard Objectivist derivation of rights and applying it to all human beings. The specific WAY to apply rights will vary when applied to adults and infants and unwanted infants (and I believe Joe and I would agree completely on how they apply in the various cases.)

I am saying that Joe�s approach varies from the above, as he insists that the Objectivist derivation has a specific context: adults, and that we have to start all over again to establish rights in other contexts, we have to start from scratch for every stage and iteration of human existence.

I am saying that this approach will fail, for if we start all over again and try to derive rights for unwanted infants, for example, we see that using them for drug testing, organ transplantation, etc. enhances our interests more than hoping they will grow up one day and work a line at a General Motors plant.

Post 19

Friday, April 13, 2007 - 11:01am