Are all rights Inalienable?

This is a spin-off from the thread, "Owners obligations to others on their land." Are all rights inalienable?

I say: If we agree that I pay you $5 for you to remain silent, then you have waived the right to speak unless speech is the type of action that cannot for some reason be alienated.

Ryan disagreed: If you pay me not to speak, you're paying me for the service of not exercising my rights in a certain way. The right to free speech is still there, I've just bartered away its application for a period of time.

And now my reply: I'm paying you to "barter away" or give up or waive or alienate your right to speak for that period of time. (More of a reiteration than a rebuttal, I know.)

Jordan

Post 1

Sunday, February 8, 2009 - 8:58pm

If I couldn't sell my silence, then I didn't fully own it. If I didn't fully own my life, I couldn't choose to commit suicide if life became intolerable.

Inalienable has to mean it can't be taken be away from you against your will - not that you can't sell it. Criminals loose their own rights when they violate some one else's rights - that is a logical requirement of rights, and the criminal's choice results in the loss of the right, just like selling silence would. But it indicates that inalienable doesn't mean they can't be separated from the individual.

Rights have two 'parts': 1) the conditions of existence that human life requires. 2) The restatement of those conditions as moral rights.

My understanding of 'inalienable' refers to the fact that the rights arise out of the facts of human identity as opposed to being arbitrary, or gifts, or granted privileges. Those who see rights as the from a creator also hold they are inalienable, and for a similar reason - that they aren't a gift from some other men or a man-made institute. So, that which wasn't a gift, can't be taken back - it's inalienable.

Post 2

Sunday, February 8, 2009 - 10:18pm

In this thread, I would ask that we treat "inalienable" as meaning "give uppable," e.g., by selling or gifting or transferring or abandoning. There is much historic weight for treating the term as such going all the way back to its origins in Francis Hutcheson's, A System of Moral Philosophy (1755).

Jordan

Post 3

Sunday, February 8, 2009 - 11:59pm

We can only enter a voluntary exchange, that is moral, when what we give up was ours to give up. If someone attempts to sell a car they stole, they had no right in that car to transfer.

If no right could ever be given up, then no moral exchange could ever take place. If I attempt to forgo my right to take some action - as part of an exchange, but I can not give up that right, then there is no moral exchange. How do I sell some of my blood, which I claim to have by right, and that I claim includes the right to sell it, if my right to possess that blood can not be given up. There could never be a transfer of the right to an act of possession, disposal or use.
----------------

But I don't agree with your use of term "inalienable."

Rand says, " Inalienable means that which we may not take away, suspend, infringe, restrict or violate � not ever, not at any time, not for any purpose whatsoever."

Wikipedia talks about "inalienable" as meaning those which "...are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs or a particular society or polity."

Post 4

Monday, February 9, 2009 - 3:21am

I've already been pretty clear on my position with this, but I think Steve might be stating it a little more clearly than I did. I also take inalienable pretty literally. As in "not able to be alienated". So to my thinking there is no such thing as person - persons rights. I think where it gets murky is its common in our society to use the term "I waive my rights" with regard to miranda rights, but when its examined, it seems to me that you aren't waiving the underlying right, you're waiving the application of your rights in a specific circumstance.

Post 5

Monday, February 9, 2009 - 8:25am

do not confuse legal rights with moral rights - they not the same...

Post 6

Monday, February 9, 2009 - 2:17pm

Steve,

I take no issue with your response, except that I'd rather not quibble over the definition of inalienable, which is quickly becoming what this thread is dealing with. Here is a helpful website outlining some of the history behind "inalienability." I find the following excerpt particularly helpful:

. . .what Price called "that power of self-determination which all agents, as such, possess," was inalienable as long man remained man. Like the mind's quest for religious truth from which it was derived, self-determination was not a claim to ownership which might be both acquired and surrendered, but an inextricable aspect of the activity of being human�

The inalienable rights that I'm talking about cannot be acquired or let go; we are stuck with them until we kick off. And I'm talking about legal rights here, just so there's no confusion.

Ryan,

I'm not sure what this means:

So to my thinking there is no such thing as person - persons rights.

Person - persons rights? Also, I don't really understand what this means either:

. . .you're waiving the application of your rights in a specific circumstance.

Under Objectivism, a right is the freedom to action -- free from interference by others. How does one waive the application of their freedom without waiving their freedom? As I said, when I agree not to act, I give up my freedom to act, not just my "application" of it, whatever that means.

*

It might help to recall why I started this thread. I want to know what rights (AKA freedoms to actions with which others may not interefere) someone necessarily keeps upon entering another's land. A right necessarily kept is commonly referred to as an "inalienable right." I've explicated how I would like that term used.

Jordan

(Edited by Jordan on 2/09, 2:24pm)

Post 7

Monday, February 9, 2009 - 2:48pm

I can definitely tell you that a private land owner has the right to regulate the speech of persons occupying it.

In other words, while the government may not censor a person, a private land owner certainly can while that person occupies the property under threat of ejecting that person from the premises.

See my article "Houseguests from Hell" for such a true life story.

I was going to forego this thread but just had to mention that story. Imagine if owners of theatres, restaurants, churches, etc. had no power to eject disruptive guests. Even government has the right to eject disruptive persons in courtrooms and other places properly performing government functions. So the right to free speech can only be practiced on one's own property, not that of others. Elswhere, it becomes a "permission" and not a right.

Leonard Peikoff corroborates this view in his book on Objectivism.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 2/09, 2:50pm)

Post 8

Monday, February 9, 2009 - 2:50pm

Heh. So that's one alienable right nailed down and a bajillion more to go. :-)

Jordan

Post 9

Monday, February 9, 2009 - 3:01pm

Jordan,

How does one waive the application of their freedom without waiving their freedom? As I said, when I agree not to act, I give up my freedom to act, not just my "application" of it, whatever that means.

It seems that you're confusing liberty (a moral freedom from initiated force or coercion) with license (an absolute, or noncontextual, freedom to act). It goes without saying that you're free to respond to this criticism.

:-)

Ed

Post 10

Monday, February 9, 2009 - 4:07pm

Hi Ed,

I was paraphrasing Rand, but here's the quote: "The concept of a �right� pertains only to action � specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men."

Your understanding of license is peculiar, but I'll leave that be.

Jordan

Post 11

Monday, February 9, 2009 - 11:09pm

Jordan, in post #8 you referred to Luke's post about people not having the right to say what they wanted on other people's property. But that isn't a diminishing or alienation of their right to speak, because they never had the right to speak on another's property - or to be on another's property. Those would be permissions. They have a right to do what they want, but only up to and not beyond the boundary of another person's rights. They have a right to make a voluntary agreement with another person for permission to speak on that person's property. The right to enter into voluntary agreements is a primary right.

Post 12

Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 1:23am

Jordan,
Steve and Luke pretty much covered the idea of what I was going for regarding waiving rights. The person - person's rights thing was a comment on "inalienable". I more eloquently put it as "There is no such thing as a person minus the person's rights".

Post 13

Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 9:08am

Jordan,

I meant to imply that when you waive the application of your freedom or agree not to act, then you are giving up the license to do it -- not the (moral) freedom to do it. Here's my take on the difference between liberty (moral freedom) and license:

License is simply the "concrete" freedom of action. It's the sense of "freedom" involved in this old saying:

A poor man is not free to dine at the Ritz.

The freedom alluded to above isn't a moral freedom -- it isn't "liberty" -- it's license. If, say, the poor man was free to dine at the Ritz -- then the Ritz is on the hook to pay for this man's meal. That's license. The extreme example is that we're not free to murder others at will. Another way to communicate the difference between liberty and license is to say that license is a freedom which isn't limited by the rights of others.

The upshot is that liberty, or moral freedom, isn't a complete and total freedom to act (without regard to context or to other's rights).

Ed

Post 14

Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 1:33pm

Steve,

So upon entering another's property, do all freedoms that are otherwise rights suddenly become permissions? With that view, it would seem that most rights are alienated upon entering another's property.

Ed,

Alas, I still don't get it. Perhaps I'm too accustomed to viewing "licenses" as *permissions* to be free to do certain things (e.g., drive, fly, play a song in public, use someone else's patent).

Jordan

Post 15

Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 6:13pm

How about this: You occupy another's property by permission (excluding contracts) and you retain all your rights. If, in the exercize of one of your rights, or, indeed, in behaviors that aren't related to rights, you cause your host's acceptance of you to alter, he ejects you. If he wishes to discuss how you must act to retain his hospitality, you are free to agree or not, just as usual.

added: I see this is substantially the same as Luke said, but his way of putting it said a property owner could "regulate" the speech of guests. If that regulation takes the form of stating his requirements, then I agree with that. As an example of what I mean, I'd say that though a host said he didn't want to hear any joking, if my isolated little group enjoyed some quiet humor, without disturbing others, I wouldn't consider our actions immoral. If he asked us to leave, I wouldn't consider his insistence wrong, either.
Just because he stated his standards doesn't mean they become moral obligations, even though I am occupying his property.

Mindy

(Edited by Mindy Newton on 2/10, 6:40pm)

Post 16

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 5:09am

Yes, Mindy articulated my view quite well, thank you.

Sanction!

I want to add that the relationship Mindy describes amounts to an "at will" relationship. This contrasts with a formal, written contractual relationship that carries more legal weight of enforcement. Landlord-tenant laws come to mind here.

Imagine a laissez-faire society where landlords can discriminate on the basis of various arbitrary standards like race, marital status, etc. The courts would probably still have an objective basis for upholding "peaceful enjoyment" standards as well as striking down "unconscionable" contracts. In other words, a contract presupposes a trade of value for value so when either party violates that presupposition then a problem arises. My familiarity with these laws only comes from some informal real estate courses, however.

Post 17

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 11:03am

Hi Mindy (and Luke):

You occupy another's property by permission (excluding contracts) and you retain all your rights.

Rights and permissions are mutually exclusive. Laws redresses loss of rights, but there is no similar redress for loss of permission. Permission is at the discretion of the permitter, who in this case is the landowner. Now, I can imagine plenty of unconscionable conditions for permission to be granted, but I don't see how Objectivism would justify outlawing those conditions.

And now to drag this back to the other thread. To me, the position that squares most with Objectivism (and I don't agree with it) is that all rights do indeed become permissions upon entering another's land. The owners should be within their lawful rights to set unabadedly the conditions for visitors entering the land, regardless of those conditions' moral worth or degree of craziness. The principle here is: entrant beware! The visitor has no authority to compromise automatically the conditions the landowner might set. All visitors -- friend or foe, child or adult, guest or trespassers -- are at the mercy of the owner. If you don't like it, stay away, and hope that owners whose land you are compelled to enter for one reason or another are moral, sensible, decent, and reasonable.

Jordan

Post 18

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 12:19pm

Jordan, have you bothered to consult the Objectivist attorneys I mentioned earlier?

You keep discussing this subject with non-lawyers while Ted dismisses our views as armchair lawyer jabber.

So does it really matter to you what non-lawyers think?

I think you would do us all a favor by talking to Objectivist attorneys to form your opinions.

Post 19

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 2:12pm