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> 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

> 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

> ...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.