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> It is the task of governments to provide citizens with capabilities to flourish. > Nussbaum wants to establish the capabilities as rights to which citizens,

• nathan_compton 2y ago
  I'm frankly suspicious of the framing of human relations in terms of rights for a few reasons, the first and most important of which is that rights are imaginary things that never actually intercede in the world to make anything happen. Rights are always enforced/protected by human beings who also conceived of them. From this point of view believing in the God of Thunder is more reasonable than believing in "the right to bodily autonomy" because at least sometimes we actually hear thunder. But furthermore, the framing of rights seems pretty flimsy. Some people like to assert that rights are god given, but people can neither agree whether god exists nor what rights any particular god would "give" if so, and so for a political body that wishes to confine itself to that which is collectively plausible, the only justification for rights left is that they promote the common good. But if that is the case, then we ought to be open to any sort of thing which promotes the common good and the discussion of negative or positive rights seems at best a useful shorthand for certain perspectives. In practice rights are just whatever the masses can demand from the powerful and while it might be the case that imagining that they are god given or obvious in their nature is helpful from a like propagandist point of view, as a person who prefers to think clearly, I can't countenance the self delusion.
  • sprucevoid 2y ago
    Legal rights can be seen as especially strong claims, with implications and interactions to be further specified in laws and regulation. What alternative do you think would be more useful arrange human relations, if not literally appeals to the God of Thunder?
    • nathan_compton 2y ago
      I don't think we disagree. I object only to the delusion that there is something immutable, primary, or divine about the idea.
      • sprucevoid 2y ago
        agree
• maldusiecle 2y ago
  > For example, do all people have a right to health care? No, because, in the extreme, it leads to logical contradictions with other rights. (E.g. Doctors being forced to provide care at gunpoint.) In the same vein, people do not have a right to a fair trial--in the extreme, this would lead to a contradiction with other rights (e.g. judges being forced to practice law at gunpoint). > I have to laugh, even as a liberal myself. Probably not as much of one as you think.
  • rendang 2y ago
    > people do not have a right to a fair trial--in the extreme, this would lead to a contradiction with other rights (e.g. judges being forced to practice law at gunpoint) Could be avoided by restating it as "a right to be tried fairly or otherwise not tried". The right of the citizen to have crimes against him investigated and brought to justice, that's another matter.
  • munchler 2y ago
    Your example proves my point. If there are no judges, the government has to let you go free. They don’t force anyone to become a judge. A better example might be that your right to a jury trial conflicts with my right to freedom of movement, but the government explicitly resolves that contradiction by making it a crime to avoid jury duty.
    • maldusiecle 2y ago
      > Your example proves my point. If there are no judges, the government has to let you go free. That happens, you believe?
      • rssoconnor 2y ago
        > But the case was thrown out in August 2023 — not for a lack of evidence, but because the Crown took too long to bring it to trial under a set of strict timelines that have reshaped the way criminal cases are handled since a landmark 2016 ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/canada-jordan-ruling-justice-system-delays-1.7378300 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/canada-jorda...
• sprucevoid 2y ago
  > it leads to logical contradictions with other rights only if you assume that all rights are simple and absolute. But why think that? Rights as legal constructs come with various limitations and interactions, as specificed in laws and regulations. For example the notion of property rights is legally compatible with taxation in every democracy on earth. Nussbaum's project is concerned with the philosophical arguments for what underlying principles should guide the construction and specification of such legal rights.
• allturtles 2y ago
  > This is such a blatantly big-L Liberal political position, that I have to laugh, even as a liberal myself. Pretending this is philosophy rather than policy seems a bit silly. Opinions about the proper structure and role of government have been part of philosophy since at least Plato's "Republic."
  • munchler 2y ago
    Sure, but my point is that guaranteeing a right to health care or education makes little philosophical sense. It’s childish to say that a) these things are good, and b) we want the government to do good things, so therefore c) everyone has a right to get good things from the government.
    • MadcapJake 2y ago
      You're making it sound like a "right" is something you "get". Political philosophy typically defines a "right" as something that you have before the social contract and a good government provides assurances that your rights are supplied within their contract with the people. To address your ordered list, steps A and B are completely wrong, these things aren't "good" nor do we "want" them. They are innate qualities of humans and thus governments must respect and uphold them.
      • munchler 2y ago
        > You're making it sound like a "right" is something you "get". No, she is making it sound that way, not me. One of Nussbaum’s tenets is “It is the task of governments to provide citizens with capabilities to flourish.” She also wants to “establish the capabilities as rights to which citizens, in all nations, are entitled.” One of these capabilities/rights is “Bodily health (being able to have good health, including reproductive health, and adequate nourishment and shelter).” Some of the others are even more unrealistic, such as the right to a “normal human lifespan”. I don’t know how to interpret that other than as the right to get stuff from the government.
        • 2y ago
• viccis 2y ago
  >Pretending this is philosophy rather than policy seems a bit silly. You are entirely correct. Nussbaum is a reactionary hack whose main goal is to pick and prod away at anyone with a moral stance because she has none. She is like Ayn Rand insofar as her philosophy is just a thin veneer to justify her misanthropic contempt for others that is always translated directly into political vitriol. That her work is approachable for the layperson seems to be the biggest compliment I see toward her in here, and I remind people that simplicity is not always superior, sometimes it actually is just the product of a simple mind.
  • yyyk 2y ago
    >Nussbaum is a reactionary hack Perhaps. It would be nice to see some explanation for that statement (as someone unfamiliar with her). It's not very effective right now, in a thread and article full with praise for her.
  • katabasis 2y ago
    Are you confusing Nussbaum with someone else? Her writing is way more straightforward than your typical fancy philosopher, and she is definitely a proponent of liberal/progressive views (I wouldn't call her a radical though). She's nothing like Ayn Rand. Someone already posted a link to her excellent 1999 New Republic essay (https://newrepublic.com/article/150687/professor-parody https://newrepublic.com/article/150687/professor-parody) where she criticizes Judith Butler – today this criticism seems more valid than ever and extremely prescient: > Indeed, Butler’s naively empty politics is especially dangerous for the very causes she holds dear. For every friend of Butler, eager to engage in subversive performances that proclaim the repressiveness of heterosexual gender norms, there are dozens who would like to engage in subversive performances that flout the norms of tax compliance, of non-discrimination, of decent treatment of one’s fellow students. To such people we should say, you cannot simply resist as you please, for there are norms of fairness, decency, and dignity that entail that this is bad behavior. But then we have to articulate those norms--and this Butler refuses to do. Your whole comment here is extremely uncharitable and it exhibits the very simple-mindedness that you criticize.
• jknoepfler 2y ago
  Having more than one right (i.e. "rights") entails contradictions between competing rights. That's how the real world works. Even if you view rights as "freedom from," the right to "freedom from harm" immediately conflicts with speech, gun ownership, and whatever else. If you don't think there's a right to freedom from harm that competes with those other rights, I don't know what to tell you. The real work of governance and legislation requires carefully negotiating trade-offs between competing priorities in an ever-changing world. Beyond that though, it is reasonable in our world for citizens of a state to view affordable access to a minimal standard of medical care as a bedrock right afforded to all citizens, and to build their state around this assumption. The same can be said of access to education, or legal representation or access to clean water and energy. It is then incumbant upon the legislating body to provide for those rights, which enter conflict the second there's a budget to consider. The fact that positive rights are "leftist" in some parts of the world reflects a degree of deep ideological incoherence and immaturity in those parts, more than anything, I think. Also I can't for the life of me understand why we'd craft policy in some kind of timeless vaccuum. We don't live in a timeless vaccuum. Some of us are fortunate enough to be born into states with stable, well-established educational, judicial, transportational, financial, medical (etc. etc.) infrastructure that is substantially owned and operated by the state or state-regulated monopolies. It's pretty natural to view fair and equitable access to these as baseline rights.
  • pdonis 2y ago
    > the right to "freedom from harm" immediately conflicts with speech, gun ownership You don't have a right to "freedom from harm" if that means not hearing any speech you don't like. You do have a right not to be shot, but "gun ownership" by itself does not conflict with that right. Being shot by someone who owns a gun does, but then the rights violation is the shooting, not the gun ownership. > If you don't think there's a right to freedom from harm that competes with those other rights, I don't know what to tell you. Your position, that all rights are inherently in conflict with each other, means nobody really has rights; what you call "rights" are really just at the mercy of the legislature: > The real work of governance and legislation requires carefully negotiating trade-offs between competing priorities in an ever-changing world. No, the real work of governance and legislation requires protecting the basic rights that everyone has to have to have a free, civil society, and stopping there. A government that has more power than that has too much power. Your position reminds me of the old saying: no one's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. > The fact that positive rights are "leftist" in some parts of the world reflects a degree of deep ideological incoherence and immaturity in those parts, more than anything, I think. It reflects a degree of deep ideological incoherence and immaturity on the part of leftists who advocate for such "positive rights", yes. That's a recipe for eternal conflict. Which is indeed what leftism of that variety leads to.
• mrgoldenbrown 2y ago
  "in the extreme" arguments are easy to abuse and not always helpful. In the extreme, the right to free speech results in libel, defamation, piracy, and yelling fire in a theatre to all be protected. But in practice, we limit "free speech" to a more practical subset of speech. In the same way, grownups talking in good faith can talk about a right to health care that is practical and not jump immediately to doctors at gunpoint.
• Telemakhos 2y ago
  I think you misunderstand Nussbaum's concept of capabilities. "Flourishing" includes things like the right to own private property, not free health care. Capabilities aren't positive rights in the socialist sense. In terms of health care, it means the ability to be healthy, which includes the ability to choose either junk food or snack food, and the ability to access doctors (but not necessarily the right to free treatment).
• keybored 2y ago
  I have to laugh at this political (theory) illiteracy.