| | Oo, oo, oo ... I would like a couple shots at defining individual rights! My first attempt (adapted from James A. Donald's defense of Natural Law):
Individual Rights -- follow from an Evolutionary Stable Strategy (ESS) for the use of force: Conduct which violates Individual Rights is conduct such that, if a man were to use individual unorganized violence to prevent such conduct, or, in the absence of orderly society, use individual unorganized violence to punish such conduct, then such violence would not indicate that the person using such violence, (violence in accord with Individual Rights) is a danger to a reasonable man.
This definition is equivalent to the definition that comes from the game theory of iterated three or more player non zero sum games, applied to evolutionary theory.
The idea of Individual Rights, of actions being Rights-violating, has the emotional significance that it does have, because this ESS for the use of force is part of our nature.
To recap: It's a formerly-unwritten -- but altogether undeniable and unavoidable -- rule of life that life will do what it can to preserve itself. It's also a rule that life is what matters because values aren't intrinsic (all values are DERIVED from life -- instead of being primary things). Different creatures will be adapted differently for this all-encompassing life-sustainment axiom. Humans are so adapted as to encompass (ie. require) the principle of Individual Rights. It's what folks need to live. It's a Natural Need for creatures with human natures. This is true for everyone, always, and everywhere.
My first draft -- and it may have a couple kinks in it, but I'm counting on criticism (from SOLOists) to help me work these out! One example that comes to mind is the anchoring of the concept in the "use of force." Folks like Michael might then say: "See, rights REQUIRE society!" My first retort to this is that individuals -- e.g. Robinson Crusoe -- do use force (if only on their environment!).
Ed
|
|
