| | I need to read this whole thread again, it was an interesting exchange.
It seems like multiple definitions of the concept 'rights' were being argued around.
There is that concept of 'rights' -- moral rights, that for instance a Joan of Arc possessed even as the local tribe burned her at the stake. Held by the individual, but unenforced by the balance of the tribe. Possessed but not realized.
Then there is the concept of 'rights' that exist within a particular political context. (Politics: the art and science of getting what we want from each other, and political context: a local tribal power structure that enforces the local rule of law w.r.t. the allowable rules of getting what we want from each other.) In a particular political context, tribal members have an expectation that the balance of the tribe will rush in with the power of the local state to enforce violations of rights, sufficient to nominally enforce held rights as realized rights.
It seemed to me that Steve(correct me if I misinterpreted you)was referring to a concept of rights that exist beyond any concept of a particular political context, based on a particular foundation of morality. So, those rights exist in America, and also existed in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia and Pol Pot's Kampuchea, even if unequally realized.
In some political contexts, murderers do not have a political enforceable right to life (even as, at their executions, men of the cloth passively protest based on their unenforced morality and ineffectively claim otherwise.) In federalist America, that political right varies from state to state.
In other political contexts, even non-murderers have no right to life.
So is the question posed by this thread, "Do murderers have a right to life based on a universal morality outside of any particular political context?"
My first reaction to that form of the question is, to look for evidence of a universal foundation for morality. In fact, there is such evidence, called 'The Golden Rule.'
And my assessment in this instance is, a murderer, by definition, has declared what he accepts in terms of how he treats others, and so, on that basis, has abdicated his right to life.
There is no symmetry, however, between the initiation of violence and the response with Superior violence. That is to say, those who politically agree to execute murderers are not themselves murderers. They have declared, under the application of The Golden Rule, that if they ever initiate murder against another, they would have themselves executed as a consequence of their actions.
The avoidance of that consequence is trivial; do not initiate murder against another. The vast majority by far of folks who function under The Golden Rule have no difficulties at all avoiding those circumstances.
IN a particular political context. those that do not agree with capital punishment, should they commit murder, might believe that they posses the right to life even in the instance of their taking the life of another, but like Joan of Arc, they will possesses that right even as the balance of the tribe burns them at the stake.
Let me stipulate; if I ever murder another, my wish is for the balance of the tribe to fry my ass.
regards,
Fred
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