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> Unless you’re religious...“inalienable rights” are an illogical concept. That's an odd claim to make so casually. This is something people can and have argue

> Unless you’re religious...“inalienable rights” are an illogical concept. That's an odd claim to make so casually. This is something people can and have argued about for thousands of years, in both directions. One direction is: How can we have values in a world without god(s)? (See: Epicureanism, Kantian ethics, or any other system of secular morality). But the other, equally fair direction is: How can we have values in a world with god(s)? (See: The Euthyphro dilemma and broader problem of evil, the Epicurean paradox, or more recent historical and anthropological analyses of how religions and their institutions are formed and operate.) I suppose you can play bad-faith semantic games with "inalienable", "right", or "inherent" as words here, but the long and short of it is that this isn't a settled issue. There are good arguments not only that religion is not needed as a foundation for rights, but that religion has not (historically) and cannot (philosophically) provide this foundation.

rayiner 4y ago
I didn’t say “God” I said “religion.” “Secular” morality invariably reduces to a system of moral assertions that must be believed but cannot be empirically observed or proven true. To me, that’s just another way of saying “religion.” For example, what’s Kantian ethics? > It states that an action can only be moral if (i) it is motivated by a sense of duty and (ii) its maxim may be rationally willed a universal, objective law. If I autopsy a dead body, am I going to find any evidence of those things in there? Can you empirically prove the categorical imperative? Moreover, “secular morality” in practice is typically just the moral philosophy of the dominant religion with the supernatural elements removed. My dad isn’t a believer, but thinks choosing not to have children is immoral. Why? Maybe it’s because his parents were devout Muslims and having children is an important obligation in Islam. Similarly, it’s amusing to observe how many professed atheists really just believe in the Christian social gospel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Gospel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Gospel) without Jesus. I’m not saying that’s bad. But you have to understand how deeply intertwined even seemingly secular western thought is with Christianity, and doesn’t easily translate to other parts of the world.
- FreakLegion 4y ago
  > If I autopsy a dead body, am I going to find any evidence of those things in there? Sure, they're a few centimeters to the right of the evidence of consciousness, just below the evidence of the Pythagorean theorem. This sounds glib but isn't. What counts as 'evidence' and how much of it is needed for 'proof' are themselves hotly debated. Empiricism is no more a given than morality.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > Empiricism is no more a given than morality. And now you’re in woo land. Once you leave the land of empiricism you might as well be arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
    - FreakLegion 4y ago
      In woo land with my homies Poincaré, Gödel, etc. It's almost like the bedrock of knowledge is a deep philosophical question that every discipline strikes sooner or later, once they start digging. There really should be a word for it.

rayiner 4y ago

I didn’t say “God” I said “religion.” “Secular” morality invariably reduces to a system of moral assertions that must be believed but cannot be empirically observed or proven true. To me, that’s just another way of saying “religion.” For example, what’s Kantian ethics? > It states that an action can only be moral if (i) it is motivated by a sense of duty and (ii) its maxim may be rationally willed a universal, objective law. If I autopsy a dead body, am I going to find any evidence of those things in there? Can you empirically prove the categorical imperative? Moreover, “secular morality” in practice is typically just the moral philosophy of the dominant religion with the supernatural elements removed. My dad isn’t a believer, but thinks choosing not to have children is immoral. Why? Maybe it’s because his parents were devout Muslims and having children is an important obligation in Islam. Similarly, it’s amusing to observe how many professed atheists really just believe in the Christian social gospel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Gospel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Gospel) without Jesus. I’m not saying that’s bad. But you have to understand how deeply intertwined even seemingly secular western thought is with Christianity, and doesn’t easily translate to other parts of the world.

FreakLegion 4y ago
> If I autopsy a dead body, am I going to find any evidence of those things in there? Sure, they're a few centimeters to the right of the evidence of consciousness, just below the evidence of the Pythagorean theorem. This sounds glib but isn't. What counts as 'evidence' and how much of it is needed for 'proof' are themselves hotly debated. Empiricism is no more a given than morality.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > Empiricism is no more a given than morality. And now you’re in woo land. Once you leave the land of empiricism you might as well be arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
  - FreakLegion 4y ago
    In woo land with my homies Poincaré, Gödel, etc. It's almost like the bedrock of knowledge is a deep philosophical question that every discipline strikes sooner or later, once they start digging. There really should be a word for it.