4 ms·

I am in principle willing to concede that, but I don't think it necessary. I am not willing to put the rights of the individual over the rights of the collectiv

by sethrin 14y ago

I am in principle willing to concede that, but I don't think it necessary. I am not willing to put the rights of the individual over the rights of the collective. Individuals do not reproduce -- we are not bacteria. There is a point where promoting individual rights is not useful where the species is concerned. The concepts of "fairness" and "equality", are both fundamental to good societies. They also can only be defined within the context of a society: fairness and equality for one individual (or a sociopath) is whatever the hell he likes. You don't need the argument for individual rights in order to decry slavery, though it helps. Where societies are not fair or equal, they are not good. When individuals are not beneficial to the society they are in, they are not good. There are other measures of morality, but none so fundamental.

smsm42 14y ago
Collective can not have rights different from the rights of people, since collective is nothing but people - it just word saying "many people". So you're saying "I'm not willing to put rights of individual over the rights of other individuals". OK, that sounds fine, but nobody is asking you to. >> There is a point where promoting individual rights is not useful where the species is concerned. Useful to whom? Species is just another word saying "a lot of people". I'm sure to some of these people suppressing right of some other people would be very beneficial. So what? >>> The concepts of "fairness" and "equality", are both fundamental to good societies. People understand very different things when they say "fairness" and "equality". Some people think it's "fair" that somebody can not work a day in his life and still get money, shelter, services, education and many other goods paid by somebody else who works 14 hours a day. Some think it's not. Some think it's not "fair" that some people have millions and live in luxury and some have trouble with paying for their basic needs - and others think it's completely "fair". Same with equality - equality of what? The only way people can be truly equal if they are identical clones living identical lives in identical circumstances. This can not happen. So equality needs to be qualified - what we want to be equal? The society can do nothing with these definition - these things mean different things for different people, and always will. Politicians use this to lure people into voting for them, but in their speeches they just mean "vote for me please". >>> When individuals are not beneficial to the society they are in, they are not good. Sorry, this is baloney. Individual has absolutely no obligation to be "beneficial" to other people. Treating people only as resources or sources of benefits for oneself is immoral and such treatment - if you're talking about sociopaths - is usually a sure sign of some pathology in emotional/moral sphere. It is not a fundamental measure of moral, it is a fundamental measure of immorality. This is what leads to societies where millions of people get murdered, because they were declared "not useful for society".
- sethrin 14y ago
  You're ignoring what I'm saying about biology. Imagine a scenario where an action benefits one person to the exclusion of all others: one man survives as King of the Universe, and the rest of humanity shuffles off this mortal coil more or less willingly. Can this situation be considered "good"? If not, why not? My argument is that ultimate good and evil are predicated on the survival of the species. If you can rate individual rights as being the ultimate good, then you are saying that the survival of the species is less good. If you do not think that individual rights are the ultimate good, then we are just arguing about a matter of degree, not primacy. Also, from there any topic that I can relate to being necessary to the collective survival is an automatic win, but don't let that worry you overly.
  - smsm42 14y ago
    I'm not sure what scenario you are talking about, but this does not matter as this scenario has nothing to do with reality. There's no such question on the agenda as choice between one man surviving or everybody dying. >>> My argument is that ultimate good and evil are predicated on the survival of the species. I couldn't care less about the species. Why should I? Who is this "species" I'm supposed to care and why its survival has any value to me? I care about real people, but caring about abstract "species" does not have any value for me. This approach not only weird but outright immoral - if followed logically, I should advocate exterminating or at least sterilizing genetically inferior individuals - such as ones possessing obviously debilitating genetic diseases, and advocate killing off people that do not contribute anything to the species and the survival of such. Of course no normal human being would accept that. Well, some societies tried that - like Nazis exterminating individuals that were considered inferior and detrimental to the Aryan species - but you know how it ended and how it played out before it did. I don't think you want that. >>> If you do not think that individual rights are the ultimate good, I think individual rights are the ONLY good. There are no any other rights but individual rights, everything else is just a metaphor ultimately reduced to individual rights or a fraud designed to trick certain people into giving up their rights to some other people in exchange for plausibly sounding lies (or, failing that, coerce them into the same). Only individuals are sentient, only individuals have feelings and reason, only individuals can communicate and interact on sentient level, only individuals can have rights. I could somehow accept the concept of animals having rights, maybe, since many of them are capable of purposeful behavior and it can be argued they possess some level of emotion and sentience, even if unlike that of a human. However, "collective rights" are either just a way of speaking (when you say "a football team went to Boston", it means members of the team went there, not some distinct "team" entity went there and the members stayed in New York) or invented and fraudulent concept.

by sethrin 14y ago

smsm42 14y ago

Collective can not have rights different from the rights of people, since collective is nothing but people - it just word saying "many people". So you're saying "I'm not willing to put rights of individual over the rights of other individuals". OK, that sounds fine, but nobody is asking you to. >> There is a point where promoting individual rights is not useful where the species is concerned. Useful to whom? Species is just another word saying "a lot of people". I'm sure to some of these people suppressing right of some other people would be very beneficial. So what? >>> The concepts of "fairness" and "equality", are both fundamental to good societies. People understand very different things when they say "fairness" and "equality". Some people think it's "fair" that somebody can not work a day in his life and still get money, shelter, services, education and many other goods paid by somebody else who works 14 hours a day. Some think it's not. Some think it's not "fair" that some people have millions and live in luxury and some have trouble with paying for their basic needs - and others think it's completely "fair". Same with equality - equality of what? The only way people can be truly equal if they are identical clones living identical lives in identical circumstances. This can not happen. So equality needs to be qualified - what we want to be equal? The society can do nothing with these definition - these things mean different things for different people, and always will. Politicians use this to lure people into voting for them, but in their speeches they just mean "vote for me please". >>> When individuals are not beneficial to the society they are in, they are not good. Sorry, this is baloney. Individual has absolutely no obligation to be "beneficial" to other people. Treating people only as resources or sources of benefits for oneself is immoral and such treatment - if you're talking about sociopaths - is usually a sure sign of some pathology in emotional/moral sphere. It is not a fundamental measure of moral, it is a fundamental measure of immorality. This is what leads to societies where millions of people get murdered, because they were declared "not useful for society".

sethrin 14y ago
You're ignoring what I'm saying about biology. Imagine a scenario where an action benefits one person to the exclusion of all others: one man survives as King of the Universe, and the rest of humanity shuffles off this mortal coil more or less willingly. Can this situation be considered "good"? If not, why not? My argument is that ultimate good and evil are predicated on the survival of the species. If you can rate individual rights as being the ultimate good, then you are saying that the survival of the species is less good. If you do not think that individual rights are the ultimate good, then we are just arguing about a matter of degree, not primacy. Also, from there any topic that I can relate to being necessary to the collective survival is an automatic win, but don't let that worry you overly.
- smsm42 14y ago
  I'm not sure what scenario you are talking about, but this does not matter as this scenario has nothing to do with reality. There's no such question on the agenda as choice between one man surviving or everybody dying. >>> My argument is that ultimate good and evil are predicated on the survival of the species. I couldn't care less about the species. Why should I? Who is this "species" I'm supposed to care and why its survival has any value to me? I care about real people, but caring about abstract "species" does not have any value for me. This approach not only weird but outright immoral - if followed logically, I should advocate exterminating or at least sterilizing genetically inferior individuals - such as ones possessing obviously debilitating genetic diseases, and advocate killing off people that do not contribute anything to the species and the survival of such. Of course no normal human being would accept that. Well, some societies tried that - like Nazis exterminating individuals that were considered inferior and detrimental to the Aryan species - but you know how it ended and how it played out before it did. I don't think you want that. >>> If you do not think that individual rights are the ultimate good, I think individual rights are the ONLY good. There are no any other rights but individual rights, everything else is just a metaphor ultimately reduced to individual rights or a fraud designed to trick certain people into giving up their rights to some other people in exchange for plausibly sounding lies (or, failing that, coerce them into the same). Only individuals are sentient, only individuals have feelings and reason, only individuals can communicate and interact on sentient level, only individuals can have rights. I could somehow accept the concept of animals having rights, maybe, since many of them are capable of purposeful behavior and it can be argued they possess some level of emotion and sentience, even if unlike that of a human. However, "collective rights" are either just a way of speaking (when you say "a football team went to Boston", it means members of the team went there, not some distinct "team" entity went there and the members stayed in New York) or invented and fraudulent concept.