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Well that's a disagreement between positive and negative rights: > A negative right is a right not to be subjected to an action of another person or group; neg

by bko 11y ago

Well that's a disagreement between positive and negative rights: > A negative right is a right not to be subjected to an action of another person or group; negative rights permit or oblige inaction. A positive right is a right to be subjected to an action or another person or group; positive rights permit or oblige action. You may believe in positive rights, like I have a right to food, shelter, etc. Others may believe in only negative rights, like I have the right to not provide you food, shelter etc. It's funny how so much of political debate can boil down to this fairly simple idea.

chongli 11y ago
It's funny how so much of political debate can boil down to this fairly simple idea. Not really, it's an irrelevant distinction. If you have the right deprive me of food, shelter, etc. then I have the right to kill you in order to take those things for myself.
- douche 11y ago
  Then I must have the right to kill and loot you after you get done killing and looting them. This is starting to sound like Fallout. Or maybe we should get onto welding spikes all over our vehicles and wearing hockey masks and assless chaps and go for a more Mad Max vibe.
  - chongli 11y ago
    Yes, it's called Hobbes' State of Nature[0]. Simply put, it's every person's natural right to do whatever is necessary to provide for themselves. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      And civilization is what happens when we decide to relinquish some parts of this right.
      - chongli 11y ago
        Yep. And civilization is not a natural thing. It must be preserved and maintained. The State of Nature is ever present, threatening and chipping away at society from within.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        It's easy to miss if you're born in a functioning civilization, because it feels that peace and order are the natural state - so maintaining civilization feels like unnecessary effort, and damaging it for your own benefit feels like a good deal.
- evanpw 11y ago
  "deprive of" is not a synonym for "not provide". It's completely consistent to say that you have an obligation not to actively hinder someone someone from obtaining food/shelter/etc., but no obligation to provide it to them. Stealing someone's lunch is generally considered worse than not giving them your lunch.
  - chongli 11y ago
    "deprive of" is not a synonym for "not provide" This distinction falls apart when you include the notion of privately owned land. If you are born into a world where all land is owned by someone else, what choice do you have but to either work for your food or steal it? What if nobody permits you to work for them?
    - evanpw 11y ago
      This is exactly the kind of problem that framing your ethical system in terms of "rights" tends to obscure (I'm more of a utilitarian). I think that you are morally justified in stealing to keep yourself from starving, and at the same time, every individual land owner (if they obtained their land by legitimate means) is morally justified in not hiring you to work for them. There doesn't need to be a moral winner and moral loser in every situation. I only support property "rights" because I think they lead to better overall welfare in the world-that-is. If in some future state of the world they turn out to be harmful on net, then I have no qualms with saying that we should scrap them.
      - chongli 11y ago
        It's not my ethical system. My original point is that the distinction between positive and negative rights is irrelevant. Throughout this whole discussion I've seen examples by different people which seem to bear that out.
        evanpw 11y ago
        I think "irrelevant" goes too far, but I concede that the border is fuzzier than I previously thought.
- bko 11y ago
  I respect your intensity, but if you were to come home one day finding your home has been broken into by a unfortunate soul demanding that you house and feed him, would you oblige? He may see you as depriving him of food and shelter by not opening your home. Would you be willing to bare this burden?
  - knieveltech 11y ago
    Would you? This is a ludicrous hypothetical in response to a very simple question: do you or do you not believe all people have a right to the basics of survival and some element of dignity?
    - codyb 11y ago
      I, personally, would like to think, given a nonthreatening human being being discovered in my home, that I would help said person. I was arrested once, way too fucked up, in someones car. They eventually lended me sandals because I had no shoes or socks. I am, of course, far more understanding of those in ridiculous situations, having been in many myself. I've calmed down a lot, but unless someone is threatening to kill me, I'll treat a person as someone who has had decades of experiences I have not had. One day, I hope we can all do that for eachother. We're all human beings. We're all animals. We all deserve to be able to eat, sleep, and have social contact.
      - knieveltech 11y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_abi...
  - chongli 11y ago
    Good analogy. You've framed it in a way that makes it sound like this person has infringed my rights. But what right of mine is he infringing, specifically? The right to own property and keep it secure when I am not around? That's a positive right, not a negative one.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> You may believe in positive rights, like I have a right to food, shelter, etc. Others may believe in only negative rights, like I have the right to not provide you food, shelter etc. It's funny how so much of political debate can boil down to this fairly simple idea. The distinction between positive rights and negative rights is a lot less clear than is often presented. Sure, the right to food, shelter, etc. is framed in the language of positive right, but the right to not be obstructed in the pursuit of food, shelter, etc., is a framed in the language of negative rights. Simply dividing things into positive and negative rights and saying that (as is one common argument) only "negative" rights are valid resolves nothing, even then there is considerable debate about which negative rights exist and, when they conflict, how you determine which has priority.
- specialist 11y ago
  Word. You remind me of some career advice I got as a kid: "All negatives can be stated as a positive."
TeMPOraL 11y ago
I think this separation doesn't work, and you could trivially transform positive/negative laws into their counterparts of opposite polarity. In a world of positive-rights-believers, you may believe in a right to food, but if everyone else believes in the right to keep their food (and property, in general), you're still out of luck. As usual, the interesting things happen at the boundary between various people's rights and wishes.

by bko 11y ago

chongli 11y ago

It's funny how so much of political debate can boil down to this fairly simple idea. Not really, it's an irrelevant distinction. If you have the right deprive me of food, shelter, etc. then I have the right to kill you in order to take those things for myself.

douche 11y ago
Then I must have the right to kill and loot you after you get done killing and looting them. This is starting to sound like Fallout. Or maybe we should get onto welding spikes all over our vehicles and wearing hockey masks and assless chaps and go for a more Mad Max vibe.
- chongli 11y ago
  Yes, it's called Hobbes' State of Nature[0]. Simply put, it's every person's natural right to do whatever is necessary to provide for themselves. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    And civilization is what happens when we decide to relinquish some parts of this right.
    - chongli 11y ago
      Yep. And civilization is not a natural thing. It must be preserved and maintained. The State of Nature is ever present, threatening and chipping away at society from within.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        It's easy to miss if you're born in a functioning civilization, because it feels that peace and order are the natural state - so maintaining civilization feels like unnecessary effort, and damaging it for your own benefit feels like a good deal.
evanpw 11y ago
"deprive of" is not a synonym for "not provide". It's completely consistent to say that you have an obligation not to actively hinder someone someone from obtaining food/shelter/etc., but no obligation to provide it to them. Stealing someone's lunch is generally considered worse than not giving them your lunch.
- chongli 11y ago
  "deprive of" is not a synonym for "not provide" This distinction falls apart when you include the notion of privately owned land. If you are born into a world where all land is owned by someone else, what choice do you have but to either work for your food or steal it? What if nobody permits you to work for them?
  - evanpw 11y ago
    This is exactly the kind of problem that framing your ethical system in terms of "rights" tends to obscure (I'm more of a utilitarian). I think that you are morally justified in stealing to keep yourself from starving, and at the same time, every individual land owner (if they obtained their land by legitimate means) is morally justified in not hiring you to work for them. There doesn't need to be a moral winner and moral loser in every situation. I only support property "rights" because I think they lead to better overall welfare in the world-that-is. If in some future state of the world they turn out to be harmful on net, then I have no qualms with saying that we should scrap them.
    - chongli 11y ago
      It's not my ethical system. My original point is that the distinction between positive and negative rights is irrelevant. Throughout this whole discussion I've seen examples by different people which seem to bear that out.
      - evanpw 11y ago
        I think "irrelevant" goes too far, but I concede that the border is fuzzier than I previously thought.
bko 11y ago
I respect your intensity, but if you were to come home one day finding your home has been broken into by a unfortunate soul demanding that you house and feed him, would you oblige? He may see you as depriving him of food and shelter by not opening your home. Would you be willing to bare this burden?
- knieveltech 11y ago
  Would you? This is a ludicrous hypothetical in response to a very simple question: do you or do you not believe all people have a right to the basics of survival and some element of dignity?
  - codyb 11y ago
    I, personally, would like to think, given a nonthreatening human being being discovered in my home, that I would help said person. I was arrested once, way too fucked up, in someones car. They eventually lended me sandals because I had no shoes or socks. I am, of course, far more understanding of those in ridiculous situations, having been in many myself. I've calmed down a lot, but unless someone is threatening to kill me, I'll treat a person as someone who has had decades of experiences I have not had. One day, I hope we can all do that for eachother. We're all human beings. We're all animals. We all deserve to be able to eat, sleep, and have social contact.
    - knieveltech 11y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_abi...
- chongli 11y ago
  Good analogy. You've framed it in a way that makes it sound like this person has infringed my rights. But what right of mine is he infringing, specifically? The right to own property and keep it secure when I am not around? That's a positive right, not a negative one.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> You may believe in positive rights, like I have a right to food, shelter, etc. Others may believe in only negative rights, like I have the right to not provide you food, shelter etc. It's funny how so much of political debate can boil down to this fairly simple idea. The distinction between positive rights and negative rights is a lot less clear than is often presented. Sure, the right to food, shelter, etc. is framed in the language of positive right, but the right to not be obstructed in the pursuit of food, shelter, etc., is a framed in the language of negative rights. Simply dividing things into positive and negative rights and saying that (as is one common argument) only "negative" rights are valid resolves nothing, even then there is considerable debate about which negative rights exist and, when they conflict, how you determine which has priority.

specialist 11y ago
Word. You remind me of some career advice I got as a kid: "All negatives can be stated as a positive."

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I think this separation doesn't work, and you could trivially transform positive/negative laws into their counterparts of opposite polarity. In a world of positive-rights-believers, you may believe in a right to food, but if everyone else believes in the right to keep their food (and property, in general), you're still out of luck. As usual, the interesting things happen at the boundary between various people's rights and wishes.