trc@houti.UUCP (T.CRAVER) (08/16/83)
Response to Kenneth Almquist: Thanks for a consistently clear and well thought-out note. I agree with your statement about the altruist's ultimate justification. I do mostly agree with the definitions you use, and that selfishness and altruism are opposites. I think they lack only in that they do not make explicit the fact that altruism/egoism (selfishness) are moral system. I think that in the quote you gave Benefit to one's self, constrained only by respect for the rights of others, *is* a sufficient basis for morality. I should have said "which includes respect..." rather than "constained only by ...". Yes I do think that respecting the rights of others is in one's (rational) self-interest. (Rational is a redundancy here - if something is in one's self interest, it is rational to do that thing.) Since you indicate that you would disagree with the idea that rights are in one's interest, I will present a couple of arguments in favor of that idea. The first is one that I think is so practical that one could use it to justify "under ordinary circumstances, rights are self-benefitting". Consider what a society of humans is like when those rights are absent. Would anyone *rationally* like to live under such conditions? If not, why not? I think that the answer is obvious - because it is in one's self-interest to live in a society of men and women that do observe each other's rights. Such a society cannot long exist unless each and every person in it understands that they need to observe the rights of others in order for their own rights to be respected. (This sounds like the "social contract" theory of rights, but it is not - I do not claim the rights are based on the contract - see below.) The second argument may be more controversial, but it is also more fundamental. I have claimed in several past notes that human rights are directly based upon the (unchanging) nature of human beings and from their relationship with the rest of reality. Thus, I claim that anyone who is human has rights. I cannot see any other means of deriving them that cannot be gotten around in some way. If one denies this latter, by acting against some one else's rights, one is either denying that that other is human, or that being human gives one rights. In the former, one is denying humanity to some other person (EG racism) that really does have all the fundamental characteristics of humanity. One is denying the nature of humans, and so the possibility of rights. In the latter, since one knows the other to be human, one is directly denying the existance of human rights. In either case, one is denying one's self any claim to rights. I see that as being clearly against one's self interest. (One could also be denying that oneself is human - which I suppose may happen in some criminals or the insane.) Since it will probably come up anyway, let me address the "social contract" idea of rights. I agree that there can be a "social contract" to respect rights - but I deny that such rights would not exist in any case. In the abscence of social agreement to respect rights, rights still exist, but because of irrationality in the society, are very likely to be violated. If such rights did not exist, then anyone that did not accept the social contract would not be bound *morally* to respect rights. The only thing the society could claim is that, because it is a bigger group, it has the physical strength to punish that individual. They could not claim that they were acting morally. (Establishing a contract does not imput morality to the actions contracted to - EG the hit man's contract.) And they would have no basis for protest when a still bigger group comes along and violates their "contracted" rights - after all, their rights only rested upon their being big enough to protect them. Tom Craver houti!trc
norm@ariel.UUCP (N.ANDREWS) (08/18/83)
Tom, the source of rights is not the fact of an organism's humanity or its intelligence. Rights are of value to a rational being, but they had to be invented. They are invented and adhered to only when the need for them is recognized and understood. They are principles of societal behavior, that is, of behavior between individuals in a society. As you point out, a society in which they are unrecognized would be a pretty poor society in which to live. What ARE inherent in human nature are the needs to use one's mind, to act freely on courses of action identified by one's mind, and to reap the rewards of one's thoughts and actions. Promoting proper concepts of rights will help to insure that these needs can be met. Rights are principles, inventions of the human mind that fill a very real need.
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (08/19/83)
Rights are principles, inventions of the human mind that fill a very real need. ==================== I doubt very much that rights are human inventions. They seem to be pervasive in animal societies, and to have evolved in order that those societies could survive. Our "rights" are not *human* rights; they are natural rights, and if we ignore them, we are likely not to survive as a society, and perhaps as a species. I find the whole argument between Tom Craver and his opponents to be insubstantial, because it revolves around logic and rationality as fundamental to the correctness of actions. Humans have very little capacity for either, but are the product of billions of years of experimentation on methods of survival, during which certain strategies have proved effective. Among those strategies are respect for the "rights" of others, capacity for feeling love and hate, feelings of hunger, etc. Tom's "rational" human would be an omniscient God, and almost omnipotent in its brainpower, not a real, evolved, human being. "Rational" behaviour in one's own self-interest requires knowledge not only of all circumstances that might affect the outcome of an action, but also of all the interactions among other people, animate and inanimate entities that participate. In other words, it requires a knowledge of all science past and future, as well as of all the boundary conditions that apply to the problems at hand. It seems totally irrational to claim that humans could even potentially behave "rationally". The best approach is to trust one's instincts in most respects, and use the little logical ability we have to the best of our ability so as to refine the use of those instincts. Martin Taylor