What Human Rights?

[bennyboy]

Its kinda hard to talk about human rights with people who refuse to recognize that an unborn child is a human being. As I said earlier nominalism and conceptualism prevent their adherents from even having a concept of humanity on which to hang human rights.

A fetus is a human in the same way that a palette with paints mixed on it is a painting.  You can't sell a bunch of paints for a million dollars, and you can't sell a fetus as a human being.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Sorry to burst your bubble Rythym, but you cannot asisign a property to something without knowing what that something is. You must put the human in human rights otherwise you're just bloviating like you normally do.

[The Grand Nudger]

I accept that -you're- a human being in the absence of any necessary or sufficient condition -and I'm certainly not sure of whatever it is that you -actually- are......maybe I shouldn't - but I do.   I'm capable of discussing the human rights you do or don't have, and why, regardless.

You're barking up the wrong tree.  Go yelp at women outside an abortion clinic or something>?

[The Barefoot Bum]

Sorry to burst your bubble Rythym, but you cannot asisign a property to something without knowing what that something is. You must put the human in human rights otherwise you're just bloviating like you normally do.

It is, of course, still not universally accepted that rights are actually intrinsic properties of anything. It doesn't matter much (in this context) what is or is not a human if rights are not intrinsic properties.

If, as I argue, rights are social relationships, then the issue becomes what sorts of things the social relationships of rights encompass, directly or indirectly, how they encompass those things, how we socially construct those relationships, and who performs that social construction.

Furthermore, even if we're talking about intrinsic properties, we have to decide which is logically prior: does X have property Y by virtue of it being X, or is is something X by virtue of having property Y?

[Mudhammam]

Nestor, I'm really liking what you're saying here, and agree 100%

I have a question for you. You don't seem to believe in moral relativism. So where do you think the objective truth that "kicking babies is immoral," came from?

(This is not a loaded question, btw. Genuinely curious.)

One on the hand, I don't see how morality can be objective, or at least justified as such, unless we concede that certain abstract objects (in this case, "the Good") exist independent of human consideration. Which is why I completely understand the view that without God, "everything is permissible," with the caveat that God be defined as The Good itself, which to my mind doesn't entail the characteristics of a theistic god at all. 

On the other hand, I don't see how moral relativism is saying much of anything that really pertains to morality, if we consider morality to be conduct that truly is right or wrong, independent of opinion. Otherwise, the relativist seems to be saying two things, both incompatible with the traditional meaning of morality and with one another: "I don't like that you do that. So, I'm going to call that immoral (because it gives more weight to my disfavor)," and "What I declare immoral is not really true beyond my defining it to be true, and my definition, by definition, does not extend to you." All of that is to say, what's the difference between saying that what's true for me is not necessarily true for you, and, that truth in this context is not meaningful, i.e. has no epistemic content?

So, with that being said, I kind of feel like the preponderance of evidence from history and sociology suggests that humans do have a conception of "the Good," a standard of measurement by which we really do feel that (and necessarily speak as though) morality is objective and independent of opinion (slavery was and is wrong and not just because certain individuals --- including myself --- feel that way), yet I don't feel like this can escape the inevitability of being a subjective judgment that lacks validation through any objective, i.e., exists external to me, means. The best hope for establishing objective morality is to show the contradictions that follow from moral subjectivism, or/otherwise we might just have to bite the bullet and say that morality doesn't really exist... which is not something I, or I imagine anyone else, would want to say... but then again, too bad?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Truth is a funny word.  In some respects, even 'truth' can be subjective.

The 'truth' is that murder is immoral, but that is in our society today.  

There may be a society in which murder is not immoral and their 'truth' would be different than ours.

You're saying that the claim "murder is immoral" is a statement that is both true and false. In other words, the word truth as you're using it is meaningless

No, what he's saying is morality -- i.e., moral truths -- is both relative and subjective.

Is there such thing as an emotional truth?

Is there such thing as an æsthetic truth?

I think there are different kinds of truth. Some are universal (the inverse-square function of gravity, for instance) while others are private (I hate cauliflower).

[Thumpalumpacus]

The best hope for establishing objective morality is to show the contradictions that follow from moral subjectivism, or/otherwise we might just have to bite the bullet and say that morality doesn't really exist... which is not something I, or I imagine anyone else, would want to say... but then again, too bad?

And yet the contradictions inherent in the idea of objective morality are pretty steep as well. Hell, the fact that people are over what is right or wrong seems to me to indicate that a multipolar view of morality is probably more accurate.

[Mudhammam]

No, what he's saying is morality -- i.e., moral truths -- is both relative and subjective.

Is there such thing as an emotional truth?

Is there such thing as an æsthetic truth?

I think there are different kinds of truth. Some are universal (the inverse-square function of gravity, for instance) while others are private (I hate cauliflower).

What do you mean by emotional truth? If by aesthetic truth, you mean something like, "Jackson Pollock's 'Number 11, 1952' [1] is more beautiful than anything a child could do [2]," or, "Leonardo da Vinci's 'Virgin of the Rocks' [3] is more aesthetically pleasing than Andres Serrano's 'Piss Christ' [4]," and that these statements cannot be objectively true or false, I'm not so sure I agree. It seems objectively true that some art possesses the ability to move us - most people, or those with exquisite knowledge about art - by what we call beauty more than others.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_11,_1952_(painting)
[2]http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/b1/c4/b1c434b3a5ae19104b67b9e29bc055ce.jpg?itok=wzbFSAlZ
[3]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_of_the_Rocks
[4]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ

[Thumpalumpacus]

What do you mean by emotional truth?

I'm not sure, really. I've heard the term bandied before and wanted to know what you think of it. I think it's sometimes used as a code word for "belief" in order to avoid the obvious subjective implications of the latter, but at the same time, I do myself feel that some things are true, yet I'm unable to express them coherently.

If by aesthetic truth, you mean something like, "Jackson Pollock's 'Number 11, 1952' [1] is more beautiful than anything a child could do [2]," or, "Leonardo da Vinci's 'Virgin of the Rocks' [3] is more aesthetically pleasing than Andres Serrano's 'Piss Christ' [4]," and that these statements cannot be objectively true or false, I'm not so sure I agree. It seems objectively true that some art possesses the ability to move us - most people, or those with exquisite knowledge about art - by what we call beauty more than others.

I generally agree with this myself, and was again simply soliciting your opinion; although I think beauty is not the raison d'etre of art as much as conveying the artist's vision is the task of the artwork. That obviously isn't always beauty, at least in the colloquial sense of the word. Is there a philosophic sense I'm unaware of?

[Mudhammam]

I generally agree with this myself, and was again simply soliciting your opinion; although I think beauty is not the raison d'etre of art as much as conveying the artist's vision is the task of the artwork. That obviously isn't always beauty, at least in the colloquial sense of the word. Is there a philosophic sense I'm unaware of?

There undoubtedly has been much philosophical speculation, going back to Plato and probably Socrates, over how exactly one is to define and measure beauty... along with the Good... And the True! But I can't say it's an area of inquiry I'm too familiar with, or have spent much time in consideration. I'm sure a great deal of light will be shed when I get around to the Rennasance and Enlightenment thinkers though.