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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (20558)	6/21/2005 5:48:23 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

:-) I hope the weather is beautiful, and the mosquitos are sleeping- or inattentive... We're going to Opera in the Vineyard this Sunday with our neighbors and our kids, and I've been snarfing up picnic supplies in anticipation. I found some excellent plates at Pottery Barn- they're melamine, and they have an indent to hold your wine glass, and they were 50% off. Now, back to natural rights. I'm sorry I did not remember your previous statements; I agree with you that they are an expression of self interest, and that they are a function of common consent- but I'm not sure how rational they are, unless by rational you mean they generally serve a useful purpose, in which case we agree. I think self interest varies from society to society, and you could have two societies with very different conceptions of rights and what constitutes self interest. I think the concept of human rights, or natural rights, is almost totally dependent on the affluence of a society- they are (at least when you envisage generous ones), I think, a luxury item, like caviar, and crumpets. Where a society is in a struggle for survival, I'm not sure anyone will care much about rights. Now you could argue that chaos pushes men to the irrational side, but I tend to think humans operate very close to the irrational edge most of the time, and that all that separates civilization from anarchy is the thin blade of a stable food and water supply, adequate to meet the needs of a given population. But that's just the way I look at it.