12 ms·

I know you're making this argument in good faith, but whenever someone talks about balancing one person's rights against the needs of society, it is an excuse t

I know you're making this argument in good faith, but whenever someone talks about balancing one person's rights against the needs of society, it is an excuse to treat someone in a way they know is wrong, on some level, but they don't want to accept. Rights are a moral issue, and it sounds a lot better to say, "We need to balance individual rights against the needs of society," than to say, "I know we can't morally treat people this way, but we are going to anyway because they are in the way of our big goals."

marcosdumay 5y ago
That's not as absolute as you make it seem. At some point we decided it's correct to send murderers into a prison, and I doubt you think this is wrong. Yet, this is balancing individual rights against the needs of society. How much rights for how much need always matter. The real argument here is that a school's principal is not a legislative body, and his authority to make those choices is completely illicit.
- ameister14 5y ago
  >The real argument here is that a school's principal is not a legislative body, and his authority to make those choices is completely illicit. It isn't entirely if you're talking about minors. There's a duty that the State has in a paternalistic sense to care for children, and children have a more limited set of rights than adults. Where it gets interesting is this is intruding into private spaces where the parents are the ones with those rights, not the school. For adults in college, it's more like a corporate environment and they can decide themselves what tradeoffs they want. It's possible there is some overreach or discriminatory factor there.
MispelledToyota 5y ago
Rights are only a concept that exists within societies, so it seems like societies will either define rights broadly and then discuss tradeoffs, or they would need to define rights very narrowly so a tradeoff isn't conceivable. But then few things would be bona fide rights. If you define a right as inviolable, then privacy isn't a right by that definition unless you have some extreme individualist/anarchist worldview.
- ameister14 5y ago
  >Rights are only a concept that exists within societies I fundamentally disagree with this. Rights exist regardless of society, society merely limits them.
  - handrous 5y ago
    > I fundamentally disagree with this. Rights exist regardless of society, society merely limits them. I'm curious what "exist" means here and am very surprised at the "merely".
    - ameister14 5y ago
      >I'm curious what "exist" means here and am very surprised at the "merely". In a natural state you have all the rights - your rights are theoretically unlimited. Society is what limits them. Society cannot create or remove rights, but it can limit your ability to express or use them.
      - handrous 5y ago
        Ah. I found Locke's Second Treatise very unconvincing, so we probably disagree both on the soundness of the argument-from-nature and what constitutes a right—is a right "real" when merely conceived of, or must it be exercisable in practice, necessitating either highly effective personal power or highly effective power of a society on your behalf, to be, in any sense, real (moreover, what does it mean for a cave-dwelling loner in the state of nature to have freedom of speech, for example? Not much, I'd say—rights aren't even useful or sensible constructs absent society, from what I can tell, and within society they're basically just freedoms we've decided we like a whole lot and want to provide with a powerful label)
        ameister14 5y ago
        >is a right "real" when merely conceived of, or must it be exercisable in practice, necessitating either highly effective personal power or highly effective power of a society on your behalf, to be, in any sense, real Yes, it's real when conceived of, just like drugs are legal until there is a law against them. There are limits on exercising one's rights, but that doesn't mean the right itself goes away or as you put it, never existed in the first place. >moreover, what does it mean for a cave-dwelling loner in the state of nature to have freedom of speech, for example? Not much, I'd say So rights only exist where they are useful? How about if you don't exercise a particular right, do you still have it? >rights aren't even useful or sensible constructs absent society, from what I can tell, and within society they're basically just freedoms we've decided we like a whole lot and want to provide with a powerful label I think it's more that they are freedoms we have recognized exist rather than something society has created. While freedom of speech might not have been particularly useful without a society, you certainly had that freedom before society existed. It's not really possible for society to be the creator of freedom of speech if it existed prior to society. On the other end, if society collapses and you are again in a state of nature, you again have freedom of speech. So it's really just that society limited your ability to exercise that right, it didn't remove it entirely. For me part of the importance of inherent rights comes down to an understanding that given societal ability to decide for a person what rights they possess, they will, from time to time, decide that a person possesses no rights at all. If that is actually true, and all rights come from society, then there's no real moral way to rebel against that. Individuals need to have an ability to balance against society and if society is the source of all power as well as all moral standing, there is no possibility for the individual. If rights exist at all, they must by necessity be inherent to the person and not granted by society.
majormajor 5y ago
Is it "the right to cheat" you're concerned about, or "the right to take an exam without being watched" or something else? I'm not sure what right's we're worried about here in 'jimhefferon's post.

marcosdumay 5y ago

That's not as absolute as you make it seem. At some point we decided it's correct to send murderers into a prison, and I doubt you think this is wrong. Yet, this is balancing individual rights against the needs of society. How much rights for how much need always matter. The real argument here is that a school's principal is not a legislative body, and his authority to make those choices is completely illicit.

ameister14 5y ago
>The real argument here is that a school's principal is not a legislative body, and his authority to make those choices is completely illicit. It isn't entirely if you're talking about minors. There's a duty that the State has in a paternalistic sense to care for children, and children have a more limited set of rights than adults. Where it gets interesting is this is intruding into private spaces where the parents are the ones with those rights, not the school. For adults in college, it's more like a corporate environment and they can decide themselves what tradeoffs they want. It's possible there is some overreach or discriminatory factor there.

MispelledToyota 5y ago

Rights are only a concept that exists within societies, so it seems like societies will either define rights broadly and then discuss tradeoffs, or they would need to define rights very narrowly so a tradeoff isn't conceivable. But then few things would be bona fide rights. If you define a right as inviolable, then privacy isn't a right by that definition unless you have some extreme individualist/anarchist worldview.

ameister14 5y ago
>Rights are only a concept that exists within societies I fundamentally disagree with this. Rights exist regardless of society, society merely limits them.
- handrous 5y ago
  > I fundamentally disagree with this. Rights exist regardless of society, society merely limits them. I'm curious what "exist" means here and am very surprised at the "merely".
  - ameister14 5y ago
    >I'm curious what "exist" means here and am very surprised at the "merely". In a natural state you have all the rights - your rights are theoretically unlimited. Society is what limits them. Society cannot create or remove rights, but it can limit your ability to express or use them.
    - handrous 5y ago
      Ah. I found Locke's Second Treatise very unconvincing, so we probably disagree both on the soundness of the argument-from-nature and what constitutes a right—is a right "real" when merely conceived of, or must it be exercisable in practice, necessitating either highly effective personal power or highly effective power of a society on your behalf, to be, in any sense, real (moreover, what does it mean for a cave-dwelling loner in the state of nature to have freedom of speech, for example? Not much, I'd say—rights aren't even useful or sensible constructs absent society, from what I can tell, and within society they're basically just freedoms we've decided we like a whole lot and want to provide with a powerful label)
      - ameister14 5y ago
        >is a right "real" when merely conceived of, or must it be exercisable in practice, necessitating either highly effective personal power or highly effective power of a society on your behalf, to be, in any sense, real Yes, it's real when conceived of, just like drugs are legal until there is a law against them. There are limits on exercising one's rights, but that doesn't mean the right itself goes away or as you put it, never existed in the first place. >moreover, what does it mean for a cave-dwelling loner in the state of nature to have freedom of speech, for example? Not much, I'd say So rights only exist where they are useful? How about if you don't exercise a particular right, do you still have it? >rights aren't even useful or sensible constructs absent society, from what I can tell, and within society they're basically just freedoms we've decided we like a whole lot and want to provide with a powerful label I think it's more that they are freedoms we have recognized exist rather than something society has created. While freedom of speech might not have been particularly useful without a society, you certainly had that freedom before society existed. It's not really possible for society to be the creator of freedom of speech if it existed prior to society. On the other end, if society collapses and you are again in a state of nature, you again have freedom of speech. So it's really just that society limited your ability to exercise that right, it didn't remove it entirely. For me part of the importance of inherent rights comes down to an understanding that given societal ability to decide for a person what rights they possess, they will, from time to time, decide that a person possesses no rights at all. If that is actually true, and all rights come from society, then there's no real moral way to rebel against that. Individuals need to have an ability to balance against society and if society is the source of all power as well as all moral standing, there is no possibility for the individual. If rights exist at all, they must by necessity be inherent to the person and not granted by society.

majormajor 5y ago

Is it "the right to cheat" you're concerned about, or "the right to take an exam without being watched" or something else? I'm not sure what right's we're worried about here in 'jimhefferon's post.