To: Lane3 who wrote (4331 ) 2/2/2001 1:04:22 PM From: Solon Read Replies (1) | Respond to We have rights because of our contract with society rights and is speaking to something else. To suggest that rights is merely a contract or agreement amongst people is to strip the word of the meaning that it has acquired in argument. An agreement is simply an agreement. It carries no connotations of moral or principle or universal. Rights are not created by agreements; They are either acknowledged, or they are subverted. Rights are inherent in any rational contemplation of existence. They are not granted; They exist until they are violated by others.To say that one enjoys human rights is simply to assert that there are rational grounds for certain moral positions to be held regarding issues of existence. It does not mean that anyone actually practices these moral IDEAS ; Nor does it mean that they rest on absolute truth --only on a massive preponderance of the evidence. rights , but when they do not reflect the meaning of the word, then it is a misnomer.absolutely true . This myth that people cannot live on the basis of reason unless they are God--this fiction is gaining popularity out of all proportion to its limited value. Logic does not require an absolute underpinning. Logic is the recognition of relationships that have integrity--or notRights is meaningless in the case of a lone individual. As an individual one has existence, and there is nobody to interfere with it or to qualify it in any way . It is this state that logic leads us to conclude is a moral entitlement deriving from the facts of existence and the biological imperative . rights " to refer to the state of non interference. The right to survive and to pursue survival goals is self-evident--at least to a presumptive level. Calling this a right is simply the recognition that logic can identify truths, if not to an absolute level--at least to the level where the argument logically eliminates or expunges competing claims--which is all that is required. rights basically seeks to logically address and honor when others are brought into the picture. Each individual has the biological right to act in his/her self interest for survivalrights rhetoric that is tossed around by the public, is really about concessions, agreements, indulgences--and so forth. It is the practical exercise of power and control by groups of people in interrelationship. It is an example of might, and of agreement. It is not about epistemological or metaphysical concepts or arguments about rights .This is not a democratic issue. Democracy will generally choose rights on the basis of might --and they will have the might to make those rules. This is irrelevent to the discussion. Rights is a moral principle and thus has nothing to do with issues of might, or the whims and caprices of agreements. One has the state contemplated by rights, when one lives alone. When one lives with others his/her rights remain the same. Ideas and principles of logic exist in the mind. They are not dependent nor contingent upon the awareness or the actions of others.rights that are the game of most of society. They violate the integrity of ideas. Calling them moral principles does not make them so. rights , social rights , etc. If one wishes to examine rights at a level that does not involve the philosophical ideas of moral principles and universal application--that is fine with me. I have no problem whatsoever in understanding what you are saying. If you are simply referring to rights as the whims that may be indulged in by Solon and Karen by mutual agreement against X or Y or Z--I understand completely . One decade you're on top; The next you're on the bottom.rights as being moral principles that can reasonably be justified on an a priori basis. This does not require that deduction embody the whole of Truth; It only requires that it does a superior job than any other competing claims for the truth of the moral principles and the universality that relate to individual existence . The idea of rights--as whims (in agreement)--is not one that I am going to challenge directly, as it does not even pretend to a justification from logic or reason. All I have seen is the statement. The statement does not match the definition of rights, so it may answer some other question: It does not answer this one.Rights are moral principles grounded in logic. They only exist in the minds of conscious people. Rights are simply one of the many products of reason. To the extent that reason is absent or under-utilized--to that extent, rights will be unrecognized. When the moral principles of rights are applied to agreements and laws, we find their application is commensurate to how well they were understood in the realm of logic and ideas, just as the ideas of physics, mathematics, etc.--when properly understood by the logic that paints them--can build computers and put men on the moon.
