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> then what is absurd about trying to negotiate the terms of that contract? Nothing, that's rather the point I'm making, rights are not inherent, they are soci

> then what is absurd about trying to negotiate the terms of that contract? Nothing, that's rather the point I'm making, rights are not inherent, they are social agreements and are thus always up for renegotiation. You are agreeing with me. That's not what the OP is doing, the OP is trying to claim something isn't a right because it doesn't fit his definition of the word, he's pulling a no true Scottsman on a thing saying it's not a right even though society agrees it is.

lliamander 9y ago
I mean no disrespect, but I don't agree with you. My claim is that the OP, by haggling about definitions, is trying to negotiate the meaning of the word. edit: and by that, I mean that it doesn't make sense to call the OP's argument absurd. I don't believe that the OP is pulling a No True Scottsman. A No True Scottsman is really all about shifting your definition of a category in unprincipled ways in response to counter-examples. The OP is simply saying that many things other people call rights should not be. I do think it's a fallacy to claim that, given the fluidity of language, there is therefore no meaningful concept that we might be trying to point to. I do think there is a meaningful concept that the OP is trying to bring clarity on by restricting the meaning and usage of the word rights. I think the way the word "rights" is used today unhelpfully equivocates between different concepts and thus impoverishes our ability to think clearly about legal and policy issues. Language may something that is negotiated, a social construct, but it is not arbitrary.
- gnaritas 9y ago
  > My claim is that the OP, by haggling about definitions, is trying to negotiate the meaning of the word. Oh, ok, yes he is and that's the problem, he's wrong. It's a stupid semantic debate where he's arguing over a word and everyone else is discussing what things we should guarantee everyone has. We call those things rights, whether the OP likes it or not, the issue at hand is what those rights should be, not what the word rights means.
  - lliamander 9y ago
    > ...he's arguing over a word and everyone else is discussing what things we should guarantee everyone has. And I would say that settling on a useful definition of the word is a great way to settle the question of actual policy. In this sense, the definition becomes a decision criteria.
    - gnaritas 9y ago
      And that's exactly what won't work; there isn't a single set of decision criteria that can replace consensus and reason. People aren't algorithms, you can't simplify their values and judgement into decision criteria. It doesn't work for morals and it doesn't work for law. The attempt to limit rights to categories like positive, negative, or natural is a pointless semantic debate that doesn't actually matter because law doesn't work that way, it works by consensus, which is messy and not always rational out of context of the history of the times they came to be. Quite simply, it's naive. Something is a right if enough people say it is, period. No other criteria matters, never has, and never will. You either understand this, or you don't and engage is pointless debates telling people they can't use a particular word because you're too dumb to realize they're discussing a concept that exists independently of the word "right" and your attempt to forbid them from using the word "right" to represent that concept isn't going to change the concept they're discussing. As soon as you say what rights ought to be, you've just excluded yourself from the discussion and started a semantic debate. There is no "ought", there is simply that which enough people agree to.

lliamander 9y ago

I mean no disrespect, but I don't agree with you. My claim is that the OP, by haggling about definitions, is trying to negotiate the meaning of the word. edit: and by that, I mean that it doesn't make sense to call the OP's argument absurd. I don't believe that the OP is pulling a No True Scottsman. A No True Scottsman is really all about shifting your definition of a category in unprincipled ways in response to counter-examples. The OP is simply saying that many things other people call rights should not be. I do think it's a fallacy to claim that, given the fluidity of language, there is therefore no meaningful concept that we might be trying to point to. I do think there is a meaningful concept that the OP is trying to bring clarity on by restricting the meaning and usage of the word rights. I think the way the word "rights" is used today unhelpfully equivocates between different concepts and thus impoverishes our ability to think clearly about legal and policy issues. Language may something that is negotiated, a social construct, but it is not arbitrary.

gnaritas 9y ago
> My claim is that the OP, by haggling about definitions, is trying to negotiate the meaning of the word. Oh, ok, yes he is and that's the problem, he's wrong. It's a stupid semantic debate where he's arguing over a word and everyone else is discussing what things we should guarantee everyone has. We call those things rights, whether the OP likes it or not, the issue at hand is what those rights should be, not what the word rights means.
- lliamander 9y ago
  > ...he's arguing over a word and everyone else is discussing what things we should guarantee everyone has. And I would say that settling on a useful definition of the word is a great way to settle the question of actual policy. In this sense, the definition becomes a decision criteria.
  - gnaritas 9y ago
    And that's exactly what won't work; there isn't a single set of decision criteria that can replace consensus and reason. People aren't algorithms, you can't simplify their values and judgement into decision criteria. It doesn't work for morals and it doesn't work for law. The attempt to limit rights to categories like positive, negative, or natural is a pointless semantic debate that doesn't actually matter because law doesn't work that way, it works by consensus, which is messy and not always rational out of context of the history of the times they came to be. Quite simply, it's naive. Something is a right if enough people say it is, period. No other criteria matters, never has, and never will. You either understand this, or you don't and engage is pointless debates telling people they can't use a particular word because you're too dumb to realize they're discussing a concept that exists independently of the word "right" and your attempt to forbid them from using the word "right" to represent that concept isn't going to change the concept they're discussing. As soon as you say what rights ought to be, you've just excluded yourself from the discussion and started a semantic debate. There is no "ought", there is simply that which enough people agree to.