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Topic:
Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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Obi-Wan McCartney
Registered:
Aug '99
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Date Posted:
5/30/07 12:38pm
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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what is the meaning of meaning?
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Jabbadabbado
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
5/30/07 1:09pm
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
- Date Edited:
5/30/07 1:24pm (4 edits total)
Edited By:
Jabbadabbado
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My response to you was only to point out that you are wrong that rights have to be enforceable to have meaning. That is false. All it takes for them to have meaning is that you have the will to exercise them, regardless of whether they are enforced or not. In the case of the Declaration, they asserted that they had the rights in an unalienable fashion, and they were willing to defend those rights to the death. Clearly, regardless of whether they succeeded or not, those rights had meaning to them.
I think you've misunderstood me. I haven't argued that rights have no meaning to the people/societies/governments that advocate them. Quite the contrary, I've argued exactly as you have early in this thread that an assertion of a right as a founding principle of the state is as good a method as any of giving that right meaning and certainly a lot easier than proving that man is endowed with inalienable rights.
As I wrote earlier, we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Abraham Lincoln for reinterpreting our nation as one "dedicated to the proposition" that all men are created equal and clarifying that our rights exist only to the extent that we fight to preserve them.
In any case, I wouldn't quibble over a difference in meaning between "enforcing a right" and "having the will to exercise" that right. Both those statements mean the same thing to me.
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Surfer_With_A_Badge
Registered:
May '07
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Date Posted:
5/30/07 1:34pm
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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Jabbadabbado posted:
People have certain fundmanetal rights, simply because they are human beings.
This is not an argument, merely a restatement of the proposition that the existence of fundamental rights is so self-evident it need not be proved.
If you want to know the starting points of rights, I'd say sentience. Whether that self-awareness comes from on high or is just a freak of nature is beside the point. We have them because we are self-aware and there is no need to debate those rights because they are self-evident.
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Jabbadabbado
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
5/30/07 1:56pm
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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I guess that explains the animal rights movement. Since we can't prove that a cow isn't self-aware, it must be endowed with the same rights, too. What a dilemma. On the one hand: my brother. On the other hand: delicious!
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Surfer_With_A_Badge
Registered:
May '07
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Date Posted:
5/30/07 2:05pm
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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Rights only apply to people because people are the only species capable of understanding those rights and communicating them. When a cow tells me she has a right to live and that her milk is her own and my taking it is theft, then I'll reconsider. In the meantime, it's burgers and cie cream for the lot of us.
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Jabbadabbado
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
5/30/07 2:18pm
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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I'm with you on the ice cream and burger part, but you lost me on the connection between sentient self-awareness and rights. All I'm getting is a series of that's the way it is, because that's the way it is, because that's the way it is.
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Surfer_With_A_Badge
Registered:
May '07
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Date Posted:
5/30/07 2:31pm
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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Why does an object in motion tend to stay in motion? Well, it just does according to my physics textbook, and nobody know exactly why. But it's an accepted law of science. Why do people have rights? If we can't say because of god or they just exist based on any form of sentience or any other internal factor, then we end up at the same conclusion. People have rights because they just do, philosophers be damned.
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Ender_Sai
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Feb '01
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Date Posted:
5/30/07 3:09pm
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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Fluke_Groundrunner posted:
Ender, what rights do YOU believe all people idealy should have if you were forced to be the decider?
Fluke, I'm saying rights are based on consensus. It's not for me to decide nor to suggest; it's for the governors and governed to agree upon mutual limits.
Kimball - the Declaration takes the stance that those rights exist in their natural form. You're right, or course - it doesn't argue for them. It presupposes they exist by claiming they're self-evident and assuming that this is the default position. If the Declaration didn't take the view natural rights exist it wouldn't say, "we hold that these truths are self-evident".
Similarly, in terms of the granting of rights, I'm not sure that anyone outside France and America subscribe to positive and natural rights in their jurisprudence. That's not to say majority opinion makes correct, but rather that there's a degree of fluidity to the concept of rights which I think isn't be recognised fully here. Yes - we're talking the Declaration of Independence but if you're talking about the question Philosopher asked - are men born equal and free, essentially - I think it has relevance.
Kimball, do you take the view that non-natural rights, granted without any natural or divine intervention, are somehow less "sacred" to the people of any given state?
E_S
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Fluke_Groundrunner
Registered:
Jun '01
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Date Posted:
8/20/07 12:10pm
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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I am currently listening to a lecture course about the period before, during, and after the American Revolution. Of course, the Declaration was discussed and I heard something interesting today.
As it turns out, Jefferson based part of what he wrote in the Declaration from Virginia's Constitution (based on natural law, yadda yadda), where George Mason stated the following:
That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity, namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
This lecturer claims that this is where Jeffereson got the idea include "the pursuit of happiness" part. However, some believe that Jefferson decided not to include specifically the right to "property" because, at the time, property also meant slaves and Jefferson didn't want people to make the argument that they had the right to own slaves as stated in the Declaration.
Just something interesting to ponder.
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SkyeLightrider
Registered:
Jan '03
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Date Posted:
8/27/07 3:45pm
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
- Date Edited:
8/27/07 3:46pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
SkyeLightrider
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Is it just me or did everyone forget that the Declaration of Independence has no legal connotation whatsoever? All the paper says is America wants to rebel against the current legal government.
If we really wanted to argue about legal rights, wouldn't the Constitution be a better place to look? Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't remember "life,liberty, and happiness" in the Constitution.
We the people, in order to form a more perfect union...
We the people... not God coming down and declaring (that was done earlier with the 10 commandments, if you believe in those) how American rights exist, it's us, the people, who declared what rights the government should have to control us and what rights we retain as part of our freedoms. As Ender does state, a right is a right only when it is enforceable.
If we wanted to go theological, I would say that the right to life comes from your existence (so long as you continue to work towards self-preservation), the right to liberty is sentience (free will and all that), and the right to happiness is self-determinism (which falls back to free will and self-preservation). As for enforceable rights, nope.
I think Ender the main problem is that people see rights as "well, it's my right, so there." I cannot agree to that. One's rights extend only so far as how they are individually willing to uphold such rights. The government helps by enacting laws that enforce or limit the tenets of free will and self-determinism based on community-agreed requirements for a stable society, as for unfailing rights?
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Ender_Sai
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Feb '01
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Date Posted:
8/27/07 5:55pm
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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Well I have made the point about "it's my right, dammit" - which is similar to your "so there!" idea - about gun control before, and I think it's enforced by the idea that rights are occurring in nature all the time, as we speak, reinforces that idea. There's no sacrifice, ergo there's no value. Etc etc.
E_S
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Jediflyer
Registered:
Dec '01
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Date Posted:
8/27/07 7:28pm
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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Is it just me or did everyone forget that the Declaration of Independence has no legal connotation whatsoever? All the paper says is America wants to rebel against the current legal government.
Actually, it was a legal document: it disolved the union between Britain and the colonies.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Now, it may not have any sort of legal effect in the new American government created by the constitution, but it certainly had legal effect vis a vis Britain and can arguably be seen as creating a sort of legal precedent in customary supra-national law.
[Well I have made the point about "it's my right, dammit" - which is similar to your "so there!" idea - about gun control before, and I think it's enforced by the idea that rights are occurring in nature all the time, as we speak, reinforces that idea. There's no sacrifice, ergo there's no value. Etc etc.
Ender, the entire social contract theory is the idea that prexisting rights need to be secured and sacrificed for.
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SkyeLightrider
Registered:
Jan '03
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Date Posted:
8/28/07 8:11am
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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Jediflyer posted:
Is it just me or did everyone forget that the Declaration of Independence has no legal connotation whatsoever? All the paper says is America wants to rebel against the current legal government.
Actually, it was a legal document: it disolved the union between Britain and the colonies.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Now, it may not have any sort of legal effect in the new American government created by the constitution, but it certainly had legal effect vis a vis Britain and can arguably be seen as creating a sort of legal precedent in customary supra-national law.
[Well I have made the point about "it's my right, dammit" - which is similar to your "so there!" idea - about gun control before, and I think it's enforced by the idea that rights are occurring in nature all the time, as we speak, reinforces that idea. There's no sacrifice, ergo there's no value. Etc etc.
Ender, the entire social contract theory is the idea that prexisting rights need to be secured and sacrificed for.
If the Declaration of Independence was legal at the time of writing (aka British rule), then why fight a war over it? The King would have said "yup, okay, it's legal" and let them free.
Besides the fact that my point was the Declaration of Independence is not U.S. law. U.S. law begins with the Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence.
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Kimball_Kinnison
Registered:
Oct '01
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Date Posted:
8/28/07 8:56am
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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SkyeLightrider posted:
If the Declaration of Independence was legal at the time of writing (aka British rule), then why fight a war over it? The King would have said "yup, okay, it's legal" and let them free.
Besides the fact that my point was the Declaration of Independence is not U.S. law. U.S. law begins with the Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence.
Actually, you are a bit wrong on that. The Declaration of Independence was a legal document that proclaimed that an illegal rebellion was in fact a legal one. It was upheld as valid by the Treaty of Paris that ended that rebellion.
Considering that laws passed under the Articles of Confederation were still held as valid under the Constitution (except where the Constitution conflicted with them), that would uphold the legal status of the Declaration of Independence. For an example of one such law that remained valid after the ratification of the Constitution, look at the Northwest Ordinance, passed in 1787 (two years before the Constitution).
Kimball Kinnison
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Obi-Wan McCartney
Registered:
Aug '99
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Date Posted:
8/28/07 10:25am
Subject:
RE: Declaration of Independence - Philosophical Issues
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Plus, old Abe Lincoln pointed out that the Declaration is U.S. law preceding the Constitution and cited it as justification for the civil war.
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