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> By correlating rules with success or failure of the societies, we can begin to tease out what the best set of rules are This is not how we decide what should
by jacobolus 5y ago
> By correlating rules with success or failure of the societies, we can begin to tease out what the best set of rules are
This is not how we decide what should be considered fundamental human rights. Plenty of rules work out fine (i.e. effectively maintain social order and persist for long stretches of time) for “society” while being disastrous for the disempowered living under them.
> best outcomes come from rules that guarantee a set of rights, best excemplified by the Declaration of Independence
This is entirely circular reasoning. You have pre-determined that outcomes similar to your personal experience should be considered “good”, and then are declaring your society to be best because it led to your experience as an outcome. But you have neither clearly articulated what you mean by “best outcomes”, nor considered the outcomes for the less fortunate in your society. The argument more or less boils down to “Life worked out for me personally, and if it didn’t work out for you in my society, tough luck. If it didn’t work out for you in a different society, well mine is better.”
For example, I might for the sake of argument point out that Cuba clearly provides dramatically better healthcare and education outcomes than America (an astounding accomplishment considering its limited resources), and therefore conclude that Cuban society must be better structured and do a better job guaranteeing basic rights than American society.
- WalterBright 5y ago> I might for the sake of argument point out that Cuba clearly provides dramatically better healthcare and education outcomes than America How many Cubans want to leave and come to America? How many Americans want to live in Cuba? Venezuela? N. Korea? Therein lies the answer to your argument. It's interesting you chose to compare health care and education. Public education in the US is a gigantic socialist system. So is health care. You're not comparing a socialist system with a market based system. You're comparing a socialist system with a socialist system - which says nothing about what market system could do. And lastly, who collects those astounding statistics on Cuba? The Soviet Union was famous for celebrating astounding statistics on food production, while the people starved. Why should we believe statistics collected by another communist, totalitarian outfit?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Talanes 5y ago> Therein lies the answer to your argument. Their argument wasn't the specifics of the hypothetical. You're actually supposed to believe that Cuba isn't unilaterally better than America for the example to work. You're in the middle of a discussion about Rights, why would you think this is suddenly a debate about Cuba?
- WalterBright 5y ago> why would you think this is suddenly a debate about Cuba? You should ask the person I replied to, as he brought up Cuba.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Talanes 5y agoAs a rhetorical example, not an invitation to debate the finer points of Cuban policy.
- barrkel 5y agoYou've missed the point: that your argument depends on ends - a metric - which you've arbitrarily selected.