Do murderers have a right to life?

Hi. I hope nobody will mind if I briefly address the original topic of this conversation: "Do murderers have a right to life?"

I consider myself to be a novice Objectivist, and I was actually referred to this thread in answer to some questions I asked in another thread. To be honest, I feel a bit presumptuous posting here to argue with men who have exhibited such broad knowledge of philosophy in general and Objectivism in particular. However, since my reasoned conclusions are different than all of those I've seen posted (and I have read the entire thread), then either you are all incorrect, or I am incorrect. I expect that I will be thoroughly schooled before this is over. Ironically, if I am correct, then you will all profit. If I am incorrect, then I will profit (assuming someone deigns to educate me concerning my errors). In how many fields of endeavor can that claim be made?

First, a quote:

"The Declaration of Independence stated that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Whether one believes that man is the product of a Creator or of nature, the issue of man’s origin does not alter the fact that he is an entity of a specific kind—a rational being—that he cannot function successfully under coercion, and that rights are a necessary condition of his particular mode of survival.

“The source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival." -Ayn Rand "Man's Rights"

Now, I won't base any conclusions on an appeal to authority, but I will count it as strong evidence that Ayn Rand can quote the fact that men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" and object to the term "Creator" without objecting to the term "unalienable."

Here is my reasoning. I felt it would be safe to assume a few common Objectivist premises since we are all Objectivists here:

Premise: All men have a Right to Live
Premise: All men have a Right to eat, because it is an UNAVOIDABLE condition of their nature that a failure to eat will result in death.

Now, consider a man who refuses to eat, even though he is surrounded by food. He has the right to eat. However, he isn't compelled to eat by anything other than his own nature. He has no choice about what his nature is. It is beyond his ability to change his nature. He does, however, have a choice about whether to live according to his nature, or in opposition to it. His capacity for making choices makes it possible for him to choose a path that will lead to his death. His choice is immoral, in the sense that it will lead to death, but it is still his choice. At no point has he lost his right to eat. He has simply chosen not to take advantage of it. When he dies, it will be because he chose not to live according to his nature, not because he lost his right to eat. Other people, watching him die, can not ethically (or morally) force him to eat. They must allow him to make his own choice, since to do otherwise would be to initiate force against him, and they have no right to do so. In effect, the bystanders are obligated to respect the man's decision to follow a path which will lead to his death.

Premise: A man is obligated to respect the right of every other man to live, because to do otherwise negates the right of any man, including himself, to live. Therefore, it is an UNAVOIDABLE condition of man's nature, that in order to survive, he must respect the right of other men to live, as well as respect all of the corollary rights that descend from the right to live.

A man who commits murder has placed himself in the same position as the man who refuses to eat. He has chosen to act in opposition to his nature. His action was immoral, not only because of the harm done to his victim, but ALSO because it was in opposition to his own nature, and any time a man chooses to act in opposition to his own nature, whether it be by refusing to eat or by refusing to respect the rights of others, he chooses a path that will lead to his death. Just as the man who refuses to eat doesn't loose his right to live, the man who commits murder doesn't loose HIS right to live. The murderer is still a human being, and therefore it is still within his nature that in order to survive he must choose to respect the rights of others. He simply chose not to live according to his nature, and therefore chose to die. The bystanders in this case must still respect his choice to live in opposition to his nature. However, his opposition takes a different form this time. He has chosen to ignore the inescapable fact of human nature that all men must respect the right of other men to live in order to live themselves.

When the man's neighbors (or government) kill him in retaliation for murder, they will simply be respecting his choice to operate in opposition to the natural fact that no man should kill another. His nature still hasn't changed, and since rights are simply a logical extension of our nature,his right to live hasn't changed. Rather, he has chosen to live in opposition to it, and other men are obliged to respect that choice. Furthermore, they are obliged to kill him since his continued existence threatens their lives. This too, is an inescapable fact of human nature. Choosing to leave a murderer alive is destructive to life in the same way that choosing not to eat is destructive to life. You do have the choice, but in order to preserve your own life you must eat and you must kill the murderer (or at least lock him up forever).

The choice of a man to offend his own nature by not eating inescapably results in starvation and death. Other men are obliged to respect that choice and allow its consequences.

The choice of a man to offend his own nature by living as though men should not respect the rights of other men inescapably results in other men not respecting HIS rights, which leads to death. Other men are obliged to respect that choice and allow its consequences (to the murderer). Furthermore, they are obliged to prevent him from further acts of murder if they intend to act within THEIR own nature.

No choice a man can make changes his nature.

Our rights are a function of our nature.

Therefore, committing an act of murder does not change one's rights.

I apologize for poor formatting. Apparently this site does not like my Firefox, and all of the formatting options are only available in Explorer.

Post 61

Friday, September 30, 2011 - 11:39pm

P M H,

Please look into the distinction between negative rights and positive rights. Objectivists as far as I know always mean the negative right (to be left alone), not the positive right (to be provided).

Post 62

Friday, September 30, 2011 - 11:54pm

Mr. Gores said:
"Please look into the distinction between negative rights and positive rights. Objectivists as far as I know always mean the negative right (to be left alone), not the positive right (to be provided)."

Naturally. I don't think I've said that anyone was obligated to provide anything have I? I've said that people are obligated to respect the rights of others - ie not take those rights away. That is a negative right.

I have said that, morally, the men in society must kill the murderer, but I also made very clear that they could choose to live immorally in that regard. In my opinion, choosing not to kill (or at least imprison) the murderer is akin to choosing not to eat. It will damage / kill you since it is in opposition to the nature of your own requirements for survival.

If this doesn't cover it, could you please point out where I've invoked a positive Right?

Post 63

Saturday, October 1, 2011 - 8:23am

P,

Thanks for participating in/contributing to the discussion. There is only one thing that I see that is outright wrong with your post, and one thing that is merely problematic. What's outright wrong is this:

However, since my reasoned conclusions are different than all of those I've seen posted (and I have read the entire thread), ...

Though it may not have been self-evident/self-obvious, your reasoned conclusions are not different from mine. You are saying what I have been saying, that rights don't involve being able to get away with murder. Rights are not "get-out-of-punishment-free" cards.

And here is the part I felt is problematic:

The murderer is still a human being, and therefore it is still within his nature that in order to survive he must choose to respect the rights of others. He simply chose not to live according to his nature, and therefore chose to die. The bystanders in this case must still respect his choice to live in opposition to his nature.

As worded, it would mean that a bystander doesn't even have the right to prevent a murder-in-progress. I don't think that this is what you meant. I think it is just a semantic error -- discovered on taking your words literally. I'd be interested in your response to this criticism.

Ed

Post 64

Saturday, October 1, 2011 - 10:06am

Here's an analogy:

John Locke Car Insurance

Dan bought comprehensive car insurance from the John Locke Car Insurance Co. (JLCI). He bought the comprehensive plan because he wanted his insurance to cover injuries not just to himself, but also to others that he might get into an accident with.

Then, in a rage, Dan used his car as a weapon and ran down someone who had cut him off in traffic earlier. He killed this person by deliberately running them down after they had got out of their car in a parking lot. Witnesses testified and Dan was brought to jail. Part of Dan's sentencing included monetary restitution to the victim's family, so he petitioned his car insurance company (JLCI) to help foot the bill on that one. JLCI declined to pay for the murder he committed.

Dan was surprised, so he asked JLCI:
Does this mean you dropped my coverage -- even though I have been keeping current on my insurance premium payments?

JLCI responded:
No, we haven't dropped your coverage -- you can't lose your coverage by bad conduct. It's just that your coverage didn't include covering expenses for murders you may carry out.

Dan retorted:
So what you are saying is that I am still covered -- I am still insured -- but that I still have to pay for this debt out of my own pocket?

JLCI:
Yes, your coverage was never meant or designed to cover you from or against the potentially-harsh consequences of these kinds of actions.

Dan:
Well, I was under the impression that coverage meant universally-absolute coverage, like a floating abstraction.

JLCI:
Well, that's a common mistake in reasoning. May I suggest perusing the archives of Rebirth of Reason?

Dan:
What's that?

JLCI:
Oh, it's this web-based discussion forum where folks go in order to discover life's answers. It's sort of like a modern-day, reason-backed version of an Oracle.

:-)

Ed

Post 65

Saturday, October 1, 2011 - 10:25am

I'd argue that rights are the wrong way to go about this problem.

Sometimes you can't use laws to deduce more laws. You need to go back and ask "what is in the long term self interest of a productive man?" to figure out how what a new law should be to handle a situation that existing laws do not handle.

So instead of starting with "Humans should have right to life", and trying to figure out how get around that Right when a person commits a crime, you should go back to the original question "what is in the long term self interest of a productive man?" and then realize that you should improve the right: "Innocent humans should have right to life".

Post 66

Sunday, October 2, 2011 - 2:17am

And here is the part I felt is problematic:

The murderer is still a human being, and therefore it is still within his nature that in order to survive he must choose to respect the rights of others. He simply chose not to live according to his nature, and therefore chose to die. The bystanders in this case must still respect his choice to live in opposition to his nature.
As worded, it would mean that a bystander doesn't even have the right to prevent a murder-in-progress. I don't think that this is what you meant. I think it is just a semantic error -- discovered on taking your words literally. I'd be interested in your response to this criticism.

Ed

You are, of course, absolutely correct. "Bystanders" was entirely the wrong word for me to use. I even knew it was incorrect when I put it in there, since I was looking for a word to describe people deciding how to react to the murderer long after the fact. I couldn't think of one immediately, so I threw in "bystander" since it followed the pattern I had created in the preceding paragraph about a man refusing to eat, and then continued writing before I could lose my train of thought. I simply forgot to go back and fix it later, as was my intent. Thank you for catching the error.

What's outright wrong is this:

However, since my reasoned conclusions are different than all of those I've seen posted (and I have read the entire thread), ...
Though it may not have been self-evident/self-obvious, your reasoned conclusions are not different from mine. You are saying what I have been saying, that rights don't involve being able to get away with murder. Rights are not "get-out-of-punishment-free" cards.

Yes, you are correct again. However, your correctness, again, rests on my own failure to communicate properly. We do come to the same ultimate conclusion, but, as far as I can tell, we arrive there by different means. I made several conclusions in the middle of my argument, which I then used as premises for my ultimate conclusion, which is the one that we agree on - A murderer has a Right to live.

It is a distinct possibility that your reasoning really was the same as mine, and I simply can't recognize it. Based on what I have read here, you and all of the other participants are far beyond my level of learning in all things philosophical, and there were times in my reading that I just wasn't sure what you were getting at.

So, you agree with my ultimate conclusion. Do you also agree with the reasoning that brought me to that conclusion? In particular this bit:

When the man's neighbors (or government) kill him in retaliation for murder, they will simply be respecting his choice to operate in opposition to the natural fact that no man should kill another. His nature still hasn't changed, and since rights are simply a logical extension of our nature,his right to live hasn't changed. Rather, he has chosen to live in opposition to it, and other men are obliged to respect that choice.

Please don't take "obliged to respect that choice" to imply that we should allow him to murder people.  We all know that the result of living as though men have no Right to life is that men kill each other. The murderer's demonstrated choice to live in that fashion can potentially affect him as well as new victims. We shouldn't allow him to violate the Rights of others, but we must allow him to attempt to live as though people have no Right to life if such is his choice.

A man's choice not to eat doesn't infringe on the Rights of anyone. We must allow him to attempt to live in a fashion that leads starvation to kill him if such is his choice.    To do otherwise would violate his Right to live (irony alert!)

A man's choice to attempt to live as though people have no Right to life affects him AND his victim. His victim's Rights can't be eliminated by the murderer's choice, though they can be violated.  Potential new victims can be protected. As for the other half of his choice, the half that only affects him, we MUST respect it, just like we would respect a man's choice to not eat. We MUST allow the murderer to attempt to live in a fashion that leads other men to kill him.

In what is perhaps the most twisted sounding bit of logic I've ever imagined, in order to not violate the murderer's Right to life, we must allow other men to kill him!

Post 67

Sunday, October 2, 2011 - 5:53pm

P,

You asked if I agree with the following:

When the man's neighbors (or government) kill him in retaliation for murder, they will simply be respecting his choice to operate in opposition to the natural fact that no man should kill another. His nature still hasn't changed, and since rights are simply a logical extension of our nature,his right to live hasn't changed. Rather, he has chosen to live in opposition to it, and other men are obliged to respect that choice.

And my answer is that I do. You also wrote:

We shouldn't allow him to violate the Rights of others, but we must allow him to attempt to live as though people have no Right to life if such is his choice.

Well, I wouldn't put it that exact way, because it makes it seem like we have the metaphysical power to actually make choices for others -- or to magically step into the chain of causation and prevent someone from choosing something.

I think that what you are getting at is that -- under systems such as totalitarianism (for instance) -- it might be possible to chain people down so much (with brain surgery, narcotic drugs, or even actual, physical chains!) as to make it impossible for them to have the power to take another's life. What the totalitarian dictator is saying to his subjects then, is that he isn't even going to allow them to attempt to live in certain ways, even if it would have been their choice to do so.

We MUST allow the murderer to attempt to live in a fashion that leads other men to kill him.

Agreed.

Ed

Post 68

Monday, October 3, 2011 - 12:32am

To P M H (Post 60):

You will find my full analysis of the subject at the subchapter „Murderers are not Humans“ of my book “Ayn Rand, I and the Universe” under http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Schieder/The_Logically_Resulting_Type_of_Society.shtml.

Should you want to receive a free e-mail copy of my book, which, since it was first published at “Rebirth of Reason”, I subjected to a few minor changes and refinements, please let me have your e-mail address at my personal mail address: Manfred.Schieder@gmx.at. Please make reference to this ”Comment,” since your full name is not revealed on the forum page, to enable my identifying your mail as not being a Spam mail.

Post 69

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 - 2:38am

I may have said this before, so apologies if I did.

A word can be assigned to any concept. "Rights" could be assigned to the concept of man's need to act upon his own best judgment, without interference by others. It could be assigned to anything at all. But there are consequences to the choices that are made.

If "Rights" are used to simply describe a person's needs, like saying a murder has full rights like everyone else because his needs haven't changed, then the concept is not a moral concept any longer. A moral concept connects certain facts with a moral standard. When most people talk about individual rights, it is implied that others shouldn't violate them. If you say "my rights have been violated", it is not a casual statement that certain factual conditions have been met. It is a moral objection! It is saying that someone has done something wrong!

To assign the word "rights" to facts disconnected from a moral standard removes the moral significance. You'd have to say "might rights were violated, and that was morally wrong!".

What can prevent you from acting on your own best judgment? Lots of things. If you want to drive to work and get there in time for a meeting, traffic could violate your "right". If you get attacked by a bear in the woods, it has violated your "rights". If you run out of gas, or can't afford to buy something you want, or any other obstacle, the conditions necessary for you to act on your own judgment are violated. Even if you want to limit these violation to other people's actions, you might still end up having to include cases of financial dependence, someone getting in line at the theater before you and getting the last tickets, or any number of other things.

Rights as a moral concept is in many ways more limited because it is a moral concept. It refers to what freedoms you should have by describing what other people shouldn't be allowed to do to you. Those moral conclusions are based on a moral standard as well as facts of reality. But because it combines them, in isn't stuck referring to any action someone takes that prevents you from acting on your best judgment. It limits the scope of the violation only to those actions where the other person has inappropriately acted.

Similarly, because of the moral element, it makes sense to say that you have a right to act in whatever way you want, so long as it doesn't violate the rights of others. The limitation here is moral in nature. But if a murderer's rights are violated by putting him in prison or such, these limitations clearly don't exist. If he has a right to murder people, or has a right to be free from retaliatory force, then in what sense is his rights limited to not violating yours? If any limitation on his ability to act is a violation of rights, even ones that are normally considered appropriate (like he has to pay for his groceries before he takes them with him), the concept is seriously altered.

Note that in theory we can describe these concepts without reference to morality, but instead as conditional statements regarding life. But even here, saying that a murderer's rights are violated would alter the meaning as it would refer to conditions that are incompatible with life.

Saying that murderers have rights, and that you are violating those rights by locking them up but you do it anyway, rejects the moral nature of these concepts. A violation of rights is no longer a bad thing, or a good thing for that matter. It would have no moral implications at all. If you then analyzed it with a moral standard, you'd find that it would end up including both moral and immoral scenarios.

Post 70

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 - 11:13pm

I was thinking about another way to put this. If we think about the concept of rights in terms of consent, it might be clearer. The goal is to be able to make choices based on our best judgment. When we interact with others, this requires that the interactions have consent from all parties. If someone can force an interaction on you without your consent, they are making it impossible to act on your best judgment. An interaction that lacks consent is called force, and we normally distinguish between initiations of force and retaliatory force.

Now you could define rights as this sphere of control where others should be required to gain you consent before acting. I'm not sure you can do this without making rights into a moral concept, because you'd be suggesting what is "inappropriate" for others.

Even if you succeeded there, what would it mean for a murderer's rights to be violated by imprisoning him or other appropriate action? It seems that it would be defining rights in terms of freedom, regardless of moral appropriateness. If imprisoning a murderer is a 'violation of his rights', then any use of force is a violation of rights. But that means the distinction between initiation of force and retaliatory force would be swept aside. Any non-consensual interaction, no matter how morally appropriate, would be a "violation of rights".

As I've mentioned elsewhere, you could go down this road, and it would really end up being an argument over semantics. There could still be a debate over which meaning is more useful, and whether we'd really want to wipe out an important moral concept like individual rights to describe something that doesn't bother distinguishing between good and bad uses of force.

More importantly, a point that I have made repeatedly, and Bill has made in this thread, is that if you do try to define rights in a way that they are disconnected from morality with a murderer retaining his rights, you really are severing the concept from morality. If the idea isn't grounded in morality anymore, a violation of rights is no longer a bad thing and protecting rights is no longer a good thing. Rights, severed from the standard of life, would no longer be a morally worthwhile value. Violating a murderer's "rights" would not be a bad thing, not even a necessary evil. The term rights would not convey any moral quality at all. It would be like saying a knife is sharp. It's just a statement, without any moral overtones. In some situations it might be good. In some situations it might be bad. And since the concept wouldn't convey moral significance, it would act as a guide either. You couldn't say that you should protect rights or that you shouldn't protect them. Either would be true.

If you did try to retain the guidance value of rights, but without the moral content, it would lead to disastrous results. If you said that murderers have rights, and it would be a violation of those rights to use force against them, it would end with you either endangering your life and others, or doing the right thing but feeling guilty for committing a moral 'crime'.

Post 71

Thursday, October 13, 2011 - 4:40pm

Joe,

If you said that murderers have rights, and it would be a violation of those rights to use force against them, it would end with ...

I'm not sure if our positions on the matter are different at all. However, I would say that murderers have rights, but I would not say that it would be a violation of those rights to use force (i.e., to use punishment) against them.

Going back to your earlier grounding of rights in the harmony of interests among rational agents -- which you are now referring to as the freedom to choose and act on one's best judgement (which, in my opinion, is just as good of a way to put it) -- it's not part of a harmony of interests to refrain from punishing crime with force. That means that the force utilized for judicial punishment is outside of the sphere of rights (rights grounded in a harmony of interests). It means that someone's rights don't ever protect them from judicial punishment.

Now, the harmony of interests is metaphysical and so it never goes away. It's not contingent on one's actions. If someone commits a murder, that doesn't destroy the harmony of interests among rational agents. It violates or runs against the harmony of interests, but that harmony remains just as intact as it was before the contingency of a committed murder. And, because the harmony is perpetually intact (or "inalienable"), so are our individual rights.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 10/13, 4:41pm)

Post 72

Thursday, October 13, 2011 - 7:14pm

Joe,

... if you do try to define rights in a way that they are disconnected from morality with a murderer retaining his rights ...

This is the key comment. Are you saying that if you hold that a murderer retains his rights, then you must also (by extension) define rights in a way that is disconnected from morality?

Ed

Post 73

Thursday, October 13, 2011 - 11:41pm

Ed,

In previous discussions, you seemed to be making the claim that it could be "good" or "fine" to kill a murderer, but that was because you defined rights in terms of "conditions of existence", it would technically be a violation of his rights. You had said that a person's actions do not change the nature of his rights. I think that's in the first post of this thread. Are you still maintaining that his rights are unchanged, but you are now saying that retaliatory force does not violate them?

This is a very confusing model you have, for a couple of reasons. First, you try to define rights as metaphysical, or as facts without moral judgment or qualification. But you then say that retaliatory force isn't a violation of them, because it is moral. So rights are morality independent, but violations of rights aren't? It's also confusing because you seem to extend the idea or rights beyond the more common view, suggesting a murderer still has all of his rights, but then try to avoid calling a violation of these "rights" by special-casing retaliatory force. It's not clear what advantage you think this method offers.

A more traditional view of rights views them as a moral concept. Rights only exist when they are morally appropriate. The murderer does not have a right to be free from imprisonment because it is not morally appropriate for him to. Retaliatory force doesn't violate rights because rights would never include a right to be free from the consequences of murdering someone. In this sense, the murderer changed his rights because he changed what actions were morally appropriate. There can't be a conflict between morally appropriate response and this version of individual rights. So when someone claims their rights are violated, it is always a bad thing. The fact that it is a moral position does not mean it has no metaphysical facts supporting it. It just means the meaning of the term is grounded in a particular moral theory. Consequently, it is forced to be consistent with that moral theory. You can't have rights that conflict with the moral standard, nor can you have violations of rights that are consistent with the moral standard. This doesn't mean it is arbitrary. It is still objective.

I don't see anything wrong with this traditional view. It's perfectly acceptable to have a moral term that shifts meaning based on moral context. When we talk about moral values, we recognize that certain goals or objects can be morally valuable in one circumstance, and not in a different circumstance. It doesn't make the term subjective. The objectivity comes from requiring the referents to comply with the moral standard.

That being said, I think it may also be fine to have a word that tries to describe the underlying facts without reference to the moral standard. In theory, we should be able to restate any moral claim as a set of facts by saying "improves your life", instead of saying "it is moral". Or you can exchange "it would benefit your life" instead of saying "you should do it". But the concepts would be essentially identical. One might label it as moral because it is consistent with a moral standard, while the other simply says that it is consistent with a particular standard. These are just different ways of describing the same concept. So if you wanted something that was "morality agnostic", you could simply say that it improves your ability to live or something.

Your approach doesn't do this, though. You seem to be referring to some other concept, that isn't always consistent with life as the standard. We might call them "consent-boundaries", and describe any use of force as a "consent-boundary violation". There would be no moral judgment involved in simply describing the fact one person violated the consent of another. That could be good. That could be bad. It just depends. Or maybe you have something else in mind.

The biggest concern with this approach is that if it isn't defined in a way that is always consistent with morality, it is useless as a moral guide. Saying that a murderer has rights is a morally empty statement, instead of a judgment that you should kill him, imprison him, etc. It's also not clear that the scope is the same. We wouldn't say that being stuck in traffic is a violation of your consent, in terms of individual rights, because there is no claim that your consent should be morally required. But if you use a concept that is disconnected from morality, you can't include a "should" in the definition or scope. You have to be willing to accept that the concept does not conform to a moral standard.

Given all that, I'm really not sure what you think your approach offers.

Are you saying that if you hold that a murderer retains his rights, then you must also (by extension) define rights in a way that is disconnected from morality?

We have to be a little clear here. A murderer might retain some limited set of rights, such as the right against cruel and unusual punishment. So saying that he retains some rights is not disconnected from morality. But if you claim that his rights are completely unchanged as he goes from law-abiding citizen to murderer, then those "rights" are clearly disconnected from moral considerations. They are not describing what he his morally entitled to, but are describing something else that is disconnected from moral judgment.

Post 74

Friday, October 14, 2011 - 6:30am

Joe,

In previous discussions, you seemed to be making the claim that it could be "good" or "fine" to kill a murderer, but that was because you defined rights in terms of "conditions of existence", it would technically be a violation of his rights.

To be clear, I have adopted your earlier grounding of rights on the harmony of interests that exists between rational agents (or the freedom to act in one's own best interests). If that's where rights come from (from the harmony of interests), then that also delimits the scope of application of rights (to a scope that doesn't contradict the harmony of interests).

In this way, because judicial punishment doesn't contradict, but is instead entailed by, the notion of a harmony of interests -- it follows that it doesn't contradict rights (in the same way and for the same reason that if something doesn't hurt a tree, then it can be said -- without any empirical investigation -- that it also doesn't hurt a leaf growing from that tree).

It -- my theory of rights -- is an integrated whole.

First, you try to define rights as metaphysical, or as facts without moral judgment or qualification.

I'm not separating fact and value like that.

It's also confusing because you seem to extend the idea or rights beyond the more common view, suggesting a murderer still has all of his rights, but then try to avoid calling a violation of these "rights" by special-casing retaliatory force.

If rights are grounded in a harmony of interests, then retaliatory force is not a special case of rights-violation, it is a general case of rights-protection. Based on a harmony of interests, retaliatory force does more to protect rights than it supposedly does to violate them.

Your approach doesn't do this, though. You seem to be referring to some other concept, that isn't always consistent with life as the standard. We might call them "consent-boundaries", and describe any use of force as a "consent-boundary violation".

The harmony of interests is consistent with life as the standard.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 10/14, 1:19pm)

Post 75

Friday, October 14, 2011 - 11:05am

Ed,

Just to be clear, do you believe that a murderer has a right to life? If so, is it your position that even though he has a right to life, killing him doesn't violate it?

Post 76

Friday, October 14, 2011 - 11:25am

Bill,

... do you believe that a murderer has a right to life? If so, is it your position that even though he has a right to life, killing him doesn't violate it?

Murderers don't have the right to a "life of murder" -- or rather, a life free from the moral/legal consequences of a committed crime. Having the individual right to life (or to freedom) does not include having the operational* freedom of being able to avoid jail, retaliatory force, or even capital punishment -- that would be dropping the context of rights.

Ed

*Alternative words to operational might be circumstantial or existential. In a just society, certain circumstances justifiably restrict the free and unfettered exercise of certain rights. This is because rights are grounded in the morality of a harmony of interests, rather than being floating abstractions or supra-contextual absolutes (i.e., axioms).

Post 77

Saturday, October 15, 2011 - 8:18am

Ed,

I asked, "... do you believe that a murderer has a right to life?" You replied,
"Murderers don't have the right to a 'life of murder'."

Then they don't have a right to life. Why are you complicating this?

Post 78

Saturday, October 15, 2011 - 12:20pm

Bill,

I am not trying to make this more complicated (than it already is). Rights either protect you from justice (which is absurd) or they don't (which is what I am arguing). If, because of the harmony of interest, the scope of rights is limited to the initiation of force, then it's not a violation of rights to kill murderers.

Ed

Post 79

Saturday, October 15, 2011 - 2:10pm