3 ms·

>belief that government should provide things in a particular set of circumstances doesn't require viewing them as rights Except that for the government to pro

by eurleif 13y ago

>belief that government should provide things in a particular set of circumstances doesn't require viewing them as rights Except that for the government to provide things to people, it has to take them from other people, which conflicts with negative rights. You pretty much need to believe in positive rights to justify violating negative rights.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> Except that for the government to provide things to people, it has to take them from other people, which conflicts with negative rights. No, it doesn't. It may conflict with particular concepts of negative rights, but a general right not to be taxed, for example, was never a part of the liberal consensus. > You pretty much need to believe in positive rights to justify violating negative rights. You seem to think that "negative rights" means a single absolute overarching negative right that the government should do nothing whatsoever effecting you. And, you know, you are entitled to view that as the proper relationship of government to the individual, but absolutely wrong to characterize that as something that was once part of liberalism that is no longer.
- eurleif 13y ago
  I can imagine sets of negative rights which allow taxation and are logically coherent, but there are none which I can imagine anyone considering useful. Can you give an example of such a set?
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    A minimal example of a set of negative rights which allows taxation and is logically coherent is "No taxation without representation": It is set of negative rights (containing only one element), and contains no contradiction.
    - eurleif 13y ago
      But I asked for usefulness, not just logical coherency. By that I meant useful in the context of your claim, which was that someone could believe in the Great Society programs without believing in positive rights. Not all logically coherent sets of beliefs are ones an actual person would hold as their only beliefs in the category. For example, almost anyone will agree that it's bad to take a person's only food away. The (negative) right not to have one's property infringed on exists in the mind of any reasonable person, and they consider it to apply to that case, at least. Perhaps that right is overridden by something in some other cases, but what would you call the overriding something if not a positive right?

by eurleif 13y ago

dragonwriter 13y ago

> Except that for the government to provide things to people, it has to take them from other people, which conflicts with negative rights. No, it doesn't. It may conflict with particular concepts of negative rights, but a general right not to be taxed, for example, was never a part of the liberal consensus. > You pretty much need to believe in positive rights to justify violating negative rights. You seem to think that "negative rights" means a single absolute overarching negative right that the government should do nothing whatsoever effecting you. And, you know, you are entitled to view that as the proper relationship of government to the individual, but absolutely wrong to characterize that as something that was once part of liberalism that is no longer.

eurleif 13y ago
I can imagine sets of negative rights which allow taxation and are logically coherent, but there are none which I can imagine anyone considering useful. Can you give an example of such a set?
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  A minimal example of a set of negative rights which allows taxation and is logically coherent is "No taxation without representation": It is set of negative rights (containing only one element), and contains no contradiction.
  - eurleif 13y ago
    But I asked for usefulness, not just logical coherency. By that I meant useful in the context of your claim, which was that someone could believe in the Great Society programs without believing in positive rights. Not all logically coherent sets of beliefs are ones an actual person would hold as their only beliefs in the category. For example, almost anyone will agree that it's bad to take a person's only food away. The (negative) right not to have one's property infringed on exists in the mind of any reasonable person, and they consider it to apply to that case, at least. Perhaps that right is overridden by something in some other cases, but what would you call the overriding something if not a positive right?