3 ms·
While I can't take away your belief in a human right to something, I can take that something (given sufficient capacity for force). Belief in n/h rights can exi
by psb217 13y ago
While I can't take away your belief in a human right to something, I can take that something (given sufficient capacity for force). Belief in n/h rights can exist independently of whether or not the rights exist, in the same way that belief in Odin can exist independently of Odin himself.
Though, through morally-guided action you can possibly cause the n/h rights which you believe in (but which don't exist) to be reified as legal rights. Now, given sufficient capacity for force, I may still subvert those rights, but through their codification they have nonetheless gained existence.
The second part of your second paragraph actually closely matches my stance. And, it's precisely the prevalence of (implicit) absolutists who continually frame arguments founded on the assumption that some n/h right or another exists that leads to my irritation when these terms are used (relatively) carelessly. Such arguments are fundamentally flawed and, yet, continue to dominate most discussions concerning politics and economics.
- foobarbazqux 13y agoMy claim is simply that much as force causes legal rights to exist, belief causes n/h rights to exist. Since you cannot take away my belief (except through brainwashing, but even then I can recover it), you cannot take away my n/h rights. Or, might makes legally right, belief makes morally right. It's interesting, because if you look back far enough you'll see I had the opposite argument with somebody else, where I was explaining that force was the only thing that caused legal rights to exist, and he was accusing me of immorality on that basis.