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Eneasz comments on Positive Thinking - Less Wrong
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Of course it constitutes a position on human rights. Human rights are not passive things. They must be actively defended or they simply cease to exist. Tyrannies often begin not with the stripping of rights but simply with a lack of enforcement (Haebius Corpus? Don't worry, you still have that right - it says so right here on this paper.) until the memory of it fades away.
There are no rights but those we take. When someone expresses doubts that a particular group of humans should be allowed certain rights they are attacking the concept of universal human rights in its entirety. And anyone who is embarrassed into silence rather than at least saying "no, that's wrong" is implicit in the murder of human rights.
Some groups of humans are excluded from rights that other humans have, in every legal system. Examples would include minors, convicted criminals, and adults who have been found mentally incompetent. Going further, you have the right to own and dispose of your own property, and I do not share this right to your property. I don't subscribe to any conception of "universal human rights" that would suggest otherwise.
Those are, in my opinion, all examples of groups that don't have the power to enforce their rights. They lack the numbers to protect their rights, and lack the ability to draw powerful allies to their cause. Another example of "no rights but those we take."
Which is exactly why I wish to keep social pressure high for all humans to defend what I consider the most basic rights. Reminding people that rights must be actively defended, and condemning those who shrink away from doing so, is one tactic. I do this because I'm rather attached to the rights I have now, and would like to hold on to them. You do not?
I'm surprised at your reaction. Let me illustrate my examples: for "minors," think "five year olds." For "incompetents" think "people in comas." For criminals...well, just think about convicted criminals. You can't seriously be arguing that criminals should never be punished. There is no society on Earth that does not restrict the rights of minors, convicted criminals, and adults who have been found mentally incompetent.
I'm not arguing that (see replies to Davids). But I also note that I am not a minor, convicted criminal, or mentally incompetent and therefore expect I may be biased. I certainly don't trust everything I think, and I note that as long as I'm running on hostile hardware it can be in my best interest to follow certain rules proven to protect me against myself.
Of course you start with biases. We all do. But we seek to overcome these biases in order to become less wrong. So, I ask you, in light of the responses you have received, and as one aspiring rationalist to another: is it not true that some groups of humans must be excluded from rights that other humans have?
No. There may be good reasons for certain individuals to have their rights violated. Entire groups cannot be excluded from the rest of humanity.
I don't think it's sufficient to simply note "I may have these biases, and I should seek to overcome them". This may make one seem less biased without actually changing anything. The rest of the tribe applauds your self-awareness and wisdom, and then continues to preferentially hire white people. Actually overcoming a bias means doing the work of imposing rules we find inconvenient. Rules like "I will not take leadership for the good of the tribe, even when it's for the good of the tribe" or "I will not exclude groups of humans from certain rights, even when they should be excluded from those rights."
I buy that human rights might well be an example of how ends don't justify the means for humans. But what do you mean by 'groups'. Criminals could be considered to be (maybe even defined as?) 'individuals whose rights we're justified in violating'.
It's trivially true that you could identifiy a set of 'individuals whose rights we should violate'. They'd also have common qualities such as criminality, insanity etc. So what defines a 'group' for your purposes? Is the point simply that you can't take rights from a whole group based on a undeserving minority?
Maybe "violating" is the wrong word to use in this context. I would rather say that everyone has certain rights -- such as freedom from imprisonment -- conditioned on (for example) not violating other people's rights -- as in killing or assaulting them.
P.S. Also, societies deprive minors and the incompetent from some rights for their own protection. I don't think we want to live in a world in which a slick salesperson could commit a ten year old or an advanced Alzheimer's patient to an expensive fifty year contract.
And we also deprive everyday people of certain rights for their own protection: the right of free contract is limited. For instance, I can't sign a contract with a clause saying that if I break it the other party has the right to my unpaid labour in perputuity. Similarly, I can't sell my organs, at least in this country.
Yes, I specifically avoid identifying groups who's rights we can take away because once we do that it becomes very tempting, and very easy, to define anyone you dislike as belonging to such a group. One can quickly find themselves in Ray Comfort territory.
But failing to identify such groups, while permitting ourselves to take freedoms away from individuals (as you do here), isn't clearly an improvement.
If I trust myself to evaluate individuals justly before depriving them of freedoms, it's not clear to me why I don't trust myself to evaluate them justly before assigning them to groups.
Conversely, if I don't trust myself to deal justly with individuals I dislike, it's not clear to me why I trust myself to deprive them of freedoms.
It seems to me that this problem is hard enough to require better tools than the ones you seem to be attempting to solve it with.
Eek... Who writes this stuff? This is definitely the negative side of Christianity, although hopefully not an influential sect...
That's a disturbing page in several ways, but I don't see anything on it which implies actively violating anyone's rights, unless you interpret security from proselytism as a fundamental right.
You're saying some individuals should have their rights violated? What do you think a "right" is?
I find talk of rights is often very confused, with no one entirely sure what even they themselves mean by the term, much less the others in the conversation. It may be a good time to taboo the word.
The best explanation I've found for "right" that seems to apply in the real world is "an extremely strong aversion to punishing acts of X with violence", which is based off the Desirist model. What that means in practice is that to assert that people have a right to freedom of movement is to say that everyone should have a very strong aversion to punishing free movement with violence. Sometimes a person's right to free movement will be violated because "a very strong aversion" is not infinite for good reason. When there are enough counter-weighing reasons (the person is assaulting someone, or the person has committed a crime and taking away this freedom will prevent others from committing a similar crime in the future) then that person's right is violated. But the reasons must be strong reasons, and provably demonstrated, in order to out-weigh a very strong aversion.
And it remains the case that the right still exists. Everyone should still have a strong aversion to restricting the movements of others, even as we acknowledge that in this one case we have enough countervailing reasons to violate that right for this person.
I don't think this definition conforms with what most people mean by "rights." Assume an entirely nonviolent society. You try to vote. I throw your ballot away-- nonviolently. What right do you have? I sell you a boat or a car or a house. You pay me money. I take the money and laugh in your face. Nonviolently. What recourse do you have?
Consider the example of criminal law. X has murdered someone. If X (predictably) resists imprisonment, I would say, use violence to subdue X. Would you not? X is in the group of humans who are "convicted criminals." How does this conform with your original assertion that "When someone expresses doubts that a particular group of humans should be allowed certain rights they are attacking the concept of universal human rights in its entirety?"
This is not how the United Nations, for example, uses the term "universal human rights."
Question: are there other reasons, in your opinion, why the rights of these groups might be restricted? Or is it purely a matter of power?
To put this another way, and to pick a specific example for clarity: suppose on Tuesday, Sam and Pat are both free to walk around the city as they choose. Then on Wednesday, Sam and Pat are put in a cage (or whatever), preventing them from exercising this freedom. They attempt to prevent this, and attempt to enlist powerful allies to prevent it, and they fail.
From your perspective, is it correct to claim that their rights are being curtailed and I deserve condemnation if I fail to defend those rights... for example, if I have the key to that cage and don't use it to free them?
Or are there additional factors that need to be established to justify that claim?
There are many reasons why certain actions should be taken, such as putting someone in a cage. It may prevent others from doing whatever it was that prompted us to put that person in a cage. However it is still true that in general we are all better off if everyone possesses a love of freedom for all, even if in this individual case the consequences of locking someone up outweigh other considerations. Thus we should respect that their right to freedom exists even as we are violating it, and acknowledge that the world would be a better place if this wasn't necessary.
That's all in ideal-world-land though. In practice, it's just a matter of power. Right now there are war criminals giving book tours and talk-show circuits in the US who are free because they harnessed a great deal of power over their lives. And there are national heroes who are locked away in isolation because they made those people uncomfortable.
OK, thanks.
For the record, I think there are people in the real world whose freedoms are being restricted, not only because they lack the power to prevent it, but because a variety of other conditions apply that I endorse restricting people's freedoms for... much like what you say of ideal-world land.
To say that more succinctly, I think there are people in the real world whose freedoms are being justly restricted. I gather we disagree about this, which is fine... I'm content to leave it there.
I certainly agree with you, though, that power is a critical factor, and that there are people in the real world who are being made to suffer unjustly, and that there are people in the real world who are unjustly benefiting.
I'm trying to understand your last few posts. Do you believe that human rights SHOULD BE universal, but in fact ARE only for those who take them? Or does 'universal' here mean something like 'with the inherent ability to claim and enforce them'? Because I'm not sure why it would be fundamental that criminals would be unable to enforce their rights?
Because of this, I'm not sure if you think we should defend rights for criminals, minors and/or the mentally incompetent as well as for homosexuals.
As a side point, you say that you encourage others to defend rights because you're attached to your own rights. Is this a case of valuing them in others because you do in yourself, or a matter of your own rights being safeguarded by a society that defends rights in general?
As I said to TheOtherDavid, there are sometimes reasons to take actions that violate others rights. There are more such reasons for violating the rights of minors/criminals/mentally incompetant than for homosexuals and so I'd put more energy into preventing the violation of rights against homosexuals. In fact I think there's so few reasons for violating the rights of homosexuals that I view it as an affront to civilization and to myself as a civilized human to do so.
Both.
OK: so rights are universal over all people, but they're not inalienable, in that you sometimes have good reason for violating them. I'm not sure whether that always reflects our approach, especially for minors: is it that we think they have rights such as voting, contract etc. but we violate this right due to some risk or danger? Or do we simply not hold that they have those rights?
On the sidepoint: fair enough. Presumably it's mostly valuing them in others, as if you want to defend your own rights than doing so by encouraging a general culture of defence of rights is very indirect and the net effect to you personally would presumably be much smaller than simpler accruing greater wealth/power/knowledge.
Hm... I've never fully thought out the situation with minors. This probably would have occurred to me earlier if I had children of my own.
I want to say that I'm not sure that very young children can be considered fully human in the same way as adults, but this raises several red flags, not the least of which is the problem of determining when a person counts as "human" or not. I think rather than dig myself into a hole that I'm not sure I even support, I'd rather default back to my previous position -
Minors have rights at the same point that anyone else has rights: once they have the power/allies to assert and defend those rights.
The position in general does deserve some more pondering.
I suppose that depends on whether the 'basic rights' include things like voting and contract, that you might consider distinctively rights of citizens.
To be honest, I never know how to take human rights language. Some people treat it as morally factual that people have certain rights, whether these are upheld and exercised or not. For me, 'rights' has to refer to a sort of social contract. We say that people have the 'right to life' because it makes certain decisions more difficult to take than if we just said you had to do what was best for your citizens in general.
It's very difficult to condemn a country for 'not pursuing policies that evidence suggests maximises the freedom and quality of life of its citizens'. Doing so involves all sorts of sub-arguments and complexities. Whereas saying 'they torture people' at least gives you a clear point of objection, even if the fact and justification are both subject to argument afterwards.
Kudos on the 'I've never fully thought the situation through', btw. Remarkably rare words on the net.
What about people who simply are silent, but not necessarily embarrassed?
I mean, there are lots of people in the world whose rights are being deprived, and I am silent about most of them most of the time. So is pretty much everyone I know. I don't know all of our emotional motivations, but our silence is demonstrable.
If that means we're all implicit in the murder of human rights and the spread of tyranny, I can accept that, but it's not clear that there's any grounds for singling out Swimmer's community for special treatment (which I understood to be the original context) on that basis.
I don't spend every minute decrying all the injustices of humanity, but if someone I know says in my presence that muslims are violent I at least let them know of my disapproval. Maybe that's a contributing factor to Swimmer's non-believing friends seeming grumpy and judgmental.
Actually I like it when people frankly correct other people's incorrect opinions. The negativity I'm talking about is more on the line of 'I hate this job, I'm so bored, my family is so stupid, I'm so sick of school' and also comments like 'That kid has the biggest head ever, I bet it makes her sink to the bottom of the pool' or 'seriously, why do fat people keep coming here and buying chips? They should just die.' This is the kind of negativity I see a LOT less of in Christian circles. Atheists may also be more likely to correct people's opinions, being more contrarian, but it's not something I've noticed personally.