melissa@ATHENA.MIT.EDU.UUCP (08/01/86)
> My view of the main problem is that people > wrote the law as a way to control other people. I > don't want to be controlled. It is precisely because people don't want to be control- led that we must have laws. Our freedom is intimately tied to the conduct of others. If I, not wishing to be controlled, choose to shoot you dead for sport, then I have acted as freely as I can imagine. But what has happened to your freedom? Absolute freedom is a concept of little value in structuring the relationships among people. The law is the best approach to limiting ab- solute freedom only to the extent that the greatest number of people may enjoy the highest degree of freedom possible. Classic misconception here. There are two kinds of rights. There are negative rights, called liberties, and positive rights, sometimes called entitlements. John Gilmore (the >) is referring to negative rights. Dave Massey (indented) is referring to positive rights. Many of us believe that there is no such thing as positive rights, and that the sole purpose of government is to protect negative rights. My reason for believing this is that a right is something that everyone should be able to have. Everyone can have and exercise negative rights all at the same time without conflict (by definition of "negative right"). Positive rights necessarily involve violating someone else's positive right. The conflict tends to be resolved in a utilitarian way (person X NEEDS the money/food/whatever more than person Y). In determining what the highest degree of freedom is, you have to agree first on what actions constitute freedom. In fact, "freedom" is such an misused word, I suggest you avoid it entirely, and stick to discussing liberties and entitlements. Melissa Silvestre (melissa@athena.mit.edu)
colonel%buffalo.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA ("Col. G. L. Sicherman") (08/04/86)
In article <8608011755.AA08602@HECTOR>, melissa@ATHENA.MIT.EDU.UUCP writes: > It is precisely because people don't want to be control- > led that we must have laws. > Our freedom is intimately tied to the conduct of others. > If I, not wishing to be controlled, choose to shoot you dead > for sport, then I have acted as freely as I can imagine. > But what has happened to your freedom? ... > Classic misconception here. There are two kinds of rights. There are > negative rights, called liberties, and positive rights, sometimes called > entitlements. John Gilmore (the >) is referring to negative rights. > Dave Massey (indented) is referring to positive rights. Many of us believe > that there is no such thing as positive rights, and that the sole > purpose of government is to protect negative rights. > Everyone can have and exercise negative rights all at the same > time without conflict (by definition of "negative right"). The trouble with these absolute definitions is that no right is absolutely negative. Most legislative debates are about whether an activity hurts enough people to be worth regulating; i.e., how "positive" the activity is. For example, the right of a factory owner to pour smoke into the air was once regarded as a liberty, but is now regarded as an entitlement or a privilege, because the right to breathe clean air has come to be regarded as a "liberty" in your sense--though some people would call it an entitlement. The right to foul the air is a "negative" right, if the only criterion is that everybody can exercise it at the same time. But it's not the sort of right that I want to see protected!