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 Manchu wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Law doesn't care much about reality. When reality doesn't fit, we create legal fictions.

Yes but we keep in mind that they are indeed fictions.

Not so often. How often do you hear, on the abortion debate, that it's crazy to want to recognize a foetus as a person? When we gladly recognize a company, a church, or even God (in some legal systems) as persons? How often do we hear that women 'own' their bodies, when that's absolutely incorrect?

 Grey Templar wrote:
God says you should/should not do things. This forms the basis of your personal morality.

No, conscience is the basis of my personal morality. And I understand conscience in the following terms:

In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged.

From Gaudium Et Spes


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Not so often. How often do you hear, on the abortion debate, that it's crazy to want to recognize a foetus as a person? When we gladly recognize a company, a church, or even God (in some legal systems) as persons? How often do we hear that women 'own' their bodies, when that's absolutely incorrect?

Hmm, I think a better example of the confusion you're talking about is the personhood of corporations. Nonetheless, I think most people in positions of authority with regard to the law understand the difference between a legal fiction and reality.

 Manchu wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
God says you should/should not do things. This forms the basis of your personal morality.

No, conscience is the basis of my personal morality.

Do you see the problem with this?

Your conscience is not going to be the same as other peoples. And thats going to cause problems.


If person A thinks its ok to murder people for their stuff and Person B doesn't, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know whats going to happen.

The Christian view presupposes a certain anthropology -- that man has dignity by virtue of his very existence and that dignity necessitates rights. Unless I'm much mistaken, secular humanists adopt the same anthropology. But they cannot explain it.

Nor can the religious view, because no one can, not really:
"Why does man have rights?"
"Because god makes it so"
"Why is that god's call?"
"Because god is god"

Ultimately when it comes down making assertions about what is "Righteous" or not is going to stem from some arbitrary assumption, when you boil it down the core. That assumption could be anything from "God exists and calls all the shots" to "The color red is inherently evil", both statements are about equally testable. Righteousness is not some empirically observable quality of the universe like gravity or matter.

Certainly you can describe the various systems of morality that have arisen in terms of what likely caused them to arise (Culture, usefulness in creating a structured society, psychology, etc..), and simiarly how they're enforced and the purposes they serve. However that really doesn't translate into "Morality" in the way I think people usually use the term. That's always going to be created on a fundamentally arbitrary basis no matter if it's us, "god" or some other force doing the creating.

 Manchu wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
We have rights as human beings because the society in which we are inserted recognizes those rights.

No, those are called privileges not rights.

Nah, it's also Rights. The Enlightement alienated legitimacy in Law, just like in knowledge, from God.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
God says you should/should not do things. This forms the basis of your personal morality.

No, conscience is the basis of my personal morality.

Do you see the problem with this?

Your conscience is not going to be the same as other peoples. And thats going to cause problems.

I don't see it as an insoluble problem. Just as conscience is a process of dialogue, so too can I dialog with people who potentially disagree with me. One possible result of this dialogue is consensus. Among Catholics, for example, there is a consensus of teaching regarding the dignity of the human person. But this consensus is not limited only to Catholics. Indeed, it serves as one basis for the understanding of rights among Western thinkers.

Tyranny is not necessary for rights to either exist or be recognized.

 Manchu wrote:
Hmm, I think a better example of the confusion you're talking about is the personhood of corporations.

Corporations are correctly attributed personhood. Personhood means nothing more than 'mask', 'costume', and only refers to the capacity of a entity to be considered by law as something else than an object.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
We have rights as human beings because the society in which we are inserted recognizes those rights.

No, those are called privileges not rights.

Nah, it's also Rights. The Enlightement alienated legitimacy in Law, just like in knowledge, from God.

Again, you confuse a philosophical position with reality. Unless you consider human rights to be as transitory as, for example, property rights, this position is untenable.


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 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Hmm, I think a better example of the confusion you're talking about is the personhood of corporations.

Corporations are correctly attributed personhood. Personhood means nothing more than 'mask', 'costume', and only refers to the capacity of a entity to be considered by law as something else than an object.

Wow, and now three strikes. Personhood as a term of art in law is distinct from personhood otherwise. The fact of its existence as jargon does not make it less of a fiction.

 d-usa wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
. Compare Perot (you remember the guy who gave the Presidency to Clinton).

See, talk like that is just stupid.

Clinton became president because he earned the most votes out of the three.

OF THE THREE.

 Chongara wrote:

The Christian view presupposes a certain anthropology -- that man has dignity by virtue of his very existence and that dignity necessitates rights. Unless I'm much mistaken, secular humanists adopt the same anthropology. But they cannot explain it.

Nor can the religious view

Sure they can. In your view, revelation is only as good as the word of the person who reports it -- which you judge poor. But the religious view is indeed distinct from "it is because I (speaking for God) say it is." Well, at least regarding Christians. That positivism is basically true of Islam and Mormonism.

 Grey Templar wrote:

That actually is the exact basis. Personal responsibility.

Its actually the exact opposite. You are advocating that all your sense of morality comes from a 3rd party, you aren't making any personal choice and by that definition are completely free from any responsibility regarding the morality that you choose to enforce: i.e.: "I can't be blamed for denying homosexuals the right to marry! Its all "Gods" choice, not mine!"

 Grey Templar wrote:

God says you should/should not do things. This forms the basis of your personal morality.

Wrong. The basis of my personal morality comes from the society that I'm inserted, my upbringing, my education and countless other factors and help form my personality. I don't blame "God" for any of my choices or prejudices, they are my own.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Its good because it forms a 3rd party baseline of what is moral.

I don't need a 3rd party baseline, I take responsibility for myself.

 Grey Templar wrote:

If everyone independently comes up with their own concepts of what is moral, then in the end you have chaos because one person may find it completely ok to go around killing people and taking their stuff, because its good for them. Who cares what other people think right?

That is the reason why you have laws. Your personal morality doesn't matter and you are indeed free to have whatever moral position you wan't, as long as you abide by those laws.

 Grey Templar wrote:

If God tells you what is good and bad, then everyone has the same standard to compare to.

There isn't a single shred of evidence that there is a "God" and I refuse to surrender my personal sense of morality to a book written 2.000 years ago that frankly advocates and supports some pretty immoral stuff!

 Manchu wrote:
Again, you confuse a philosophical position with reality. Unless you consider human rights to be as transitory as, for example, property rights, this position is untenable.

Well, their's such a thing as Philosophy of Law, and it's what brought me from Law School to the nether ends of the Philosophy Department. That was a long time ago, tho. But no, there is no confusion there. Just like in Philosophy the subject alienated knowledge and truth from God, the Person did the same. Rights have been positively given and taken ever since the 18th century. And yes, Rights are transitory, in the sense that the authority of the Sovereign is temporal. It's a perfectly tenable position. I'd refer to Constitutional Law by Lebrun, it's a fething bible to any canadian lawyer, but I'd doubt you have it available.

Wow, and now three strikes. Personhood as a term of art in law is distinct from personhood otherwise. The fact of its existence as jargon does not make it less of a fiction.

I don't get what your aiming at. Yes, legal terms have a way of becoming mundain terms. If someone complains about corporations being 'persons', he complains about a legal status. Thus it's the legal definition that counts. Yes it's a fiction. But it's a legal fiction, meaning that in a legal context, it becomes powerful. It gives Rights.

 Manchu wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
God says you should/should not do things. This forms the basis of your personal morality.

No, conscience is the basis of my personal morality.

Do you see the problem with this?

Your conscience is not going to be the same as other peoples. And thats going to cause problems.

I don't see it as an insoluble problem. Just as conscience is a process of dialogue, so too can I dialog with people who potentially disagree with me. One possible result of this dialogue is consensus. Among Catholics, for example, there is a consensus of teaching regarding the dignity of the human person. But this consensus is not limited only to Catholics. Indeed, it serves as one basis for the understanding of rights among Western thinkers.

Tyranny is not necessary for rights to either exist or be recognized.

Yes, but what if those who disagree with you just kill you out of hand? You can't tell them its wrong to do that, they'll just look at you like you're crazy and then do as they please.

Of course people can do the same thing if you say its wrong to murder and steal because God said so, but people are more likely to follow the word of God then the word of a man.


Religious Morality is far more stable as it has a 3rd party enforcing the rules. People can't just change it on a whim, which they can do if Morality is determined by a person's individual take on morality.

People are inherently evil, anyone who says otherwise is deluded, so anything he comes up with himself is going to be inherently selfish. Which I think anyone will agree is not good for everyone else.

Without a 3rd party to enforce the morality, morality becomes meaningless.


This 3rd party doesn't have to be God. It can be a government. Something with power that can enforce it.

A dictator is going to enforce his own morality on people. It may or may not be a good thing, thats entirely subjective, but the point is that it is a morality that is uniform accross all people that come under his rule. When you have uniformity, you have stability. If someone wrongs you, you have a standard to measure it to. You don't have "I think thats wrong", you have "You without a shadow of a doubt violated the law"

Doesn't the US constitution state all men are equal, then shouldn't everyone gets healthcare or no one gets it, not some get it and others don't

 Manchu wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
We have rights as human beings because the society in which we are inserted recognizes those rights.

No, those are called privileges not rights.

That sounds like a semantics question to me. Over here, the right to free healthcare is a right granted by our own Constitution.

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
Doesn't the US constitution state all men are equal, then shouldn't everyone gets healthcare or no one gets it, not some get it and others don't

All men are created equal. at any point in time after creation(conception) they may or may not be equal in various areas.

Everyone enters the world with nothing and we leave the world with nothing, what happens in between is completely variable.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Food, water, and shelter are rights. Healthcare is a luxury.

How does that make any sense?

How can something that mankind survived without for thousands and thousands of years be considered a right or even a necessity?

You mean like shelter? Freedom of speech? Freedom of assembly?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Everyone enters the world with nothing.

wow. this is precious.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
I don't get what your aiming at.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
We have rights as human beings because the society in which we are inserted recognizes those rights.

No, those are called privileges not rights.

That sounds like a semantics question to me. Over here, the right to free healthcare is a right granted by our own Constitution.

Might as well throw one rock at two birds. First, we're talking about human rights. So the question becomes, what is such a thing? I'd say we are talking about what kind of treatment is owed to individual humans by other humans by virtue of their humanity. I have human rights because I am a human not because I am granted them by other humans.

 Manchu wrote:
Might as well throw one rock at two birds. First, we're talking about human rights. So the question becomes, what is such a thing? I'd say we are talking about what kind of treatment is owed to individual humans by other humans by virtue of their humanity. I have human rights because I am a human not because I am granted them by other humans.

Ok, I might be missing something here, but you have rights only when you are granted those rights by those around you, otherwise you actually don't have them. Only when society recognizes those rights, be them what they may be, will individuals actually possess them.

No, there is a difference between having rights and other people recognizing them.

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
Doesn't the US constitution state all men are equal, then shouldn't everyone gets healthcare or no one gets it, not some get it and others don't

Nope to any of that.

 Manchu wrote:
No, there is a difference between having rights and other people recognizing them.

The difference being that in the first case your requesting Rights. In the second you obtain them. If you've asked the right people.

No. Having a right is not the same as that right being fulfilled. You do not obtain the right to food once you obtain food. We owe food to every other human being, even the ones who don't get fed.

At the risk of offending...

All men are created equally means that all have equal opportunity, not equal rewards. That's why Civil Rights in the Sixties were so important as the equality of opportunity wasn't being presented to all races in the U.S.

It doesn't guarantee equal shares of benefits, land, money, healthcare, etc. for everyone. That's communism. And we all know how well that worked. Ask the Pre-1989 Soviet Union.

 Manchu wrote:
No, there is a difference between having rights and other people recognizing them.

I'm not so sure.

If other people don't allow you to exercise a right that you have, then do you really have it?

Having something you can't use is, for all practical purposes, the same as not having it at all.


I'm 21, I have the ability to purchase and drink alcohol. I am not allowed to posess or drink alcohol in my campus apartment. When I'm in my apartment, its as if I don't have the ability to drink. If I violate this rule I can be charged exactly as if I was underage(so it goes on my record, I get fined, etc...)

Ignoring the fact I can go off campus to drink, I effectivly don't have the ability to drink or purchase alcohol. My "rights" are suspended, so its like I don't have them at all.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If other people don't allow you to exercise a right that you have, then do you really have it?

YES -- you do have it. That is the key. A right implies an obligation. The person who denies your rights is in violation of their own obligation. This is why it is immoral to deny rights. If you didn't have a right except inasmuch as the right was fulfilled then it would be okay to deny people rights.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
purchase and drink alcohol

This topic is not an example of human rights.

It was just an example. I am under no illusion that loco juice is a right.


Ok, yeah. You can have a right all you want. But its getting that right exercised that matters.

I believe I have the right to rule the world. Doesn't mean I'm going to get it.

Without the ability to exercise a right, the right is effectivly worthless.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Without the ability to exercise a right, the right is effectivly worthless.

No. Even when moral obligations are not fulfilled, they still exist. Not fulfilling them is a sign of immorality and illegitimacy. This is why human rights language is so powerful.

 Manchu wrote:
No. Having a right is not the same as that right being fulfilled. You do not obtain the right to food once you obtain food. We owe food to every other human being, even the ones who don't get fed.

That's correct. And yet you still don't have a Right to food outside of a legal system recognizing it. Positivism isn't exclusive in regards to humanism. You are the one confusing moral obligations with legal obligations. The 1st doesn't become the second unless there's an engagement on the part of the ruling body.