RE: Why Anarcho-Capitalism Is a Canard and Its Implications for Atheism
January 18, 2017 at 10:38 pm
(January 18, 2017 at 10:33 pm)DarkerEnergy Wrote: We have legal rights precisely for the reason that we own ourselves and our property. If someone harms us or takes possession of our property, we have the right to pursue charges against that person, whether they be strangers or people we love. If someone steals from us we might make the choice to forgive them and not get the law involved, but that will be our choice in such a matter. If someone abuses us though and takes advantage of our love and goodwill, most of us have limits that can be crossed, where we would have them arrested/jailed for something unforgivable -- even if they are family or friends.
Yes, I believe you are correct: the concept of rights flows from the philosophical foundation of private property - that is, when I am in the "right," then I win and you must accede or else you shall have force applied to compel your acquiescence. However, "rights" fail as a model of conflict resolution, for the simple fact that while they assign winners and losers, they do not remove the source of conflict - the underlying threats issued to control behavior. Thus we find ourselves "adding epicycles" of "rights" due to the contradiction between reality and our model of it. There's always a new angle to try to gain ascendancy over others, and when enough people don't like it, we add yet another right, maybe, to rule it out.
