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.
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”.
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.”
I don’t see how any of those apply. In the first two, there are no rights on the part of the transgressor. No society recognizes a person’s right to throw away official ballots or to cheat others of their money, so there is no prohibition on using violence to prevent that. Rights never come into the picture at all, so I think we’ve had some miscommunication along the way.
In the third case, we use violence to subdue X not because he belongs to a group, but because we have determined (hopefully in a fair trial) that he has murdered someone. We now have strong enough justification to outweigh our aversion to taking away his freedom. The statement “We should always have an aversion to taking away freedom, but in this case we have important reasons to do so, and here they are” is not anywhere in the same category as “I doubt group Y should have a right to freedom”
On the one hand, a small part of me would like to discuss this further. On the other, I think this is becoming less relevant to the original post. Also—and this is critical for me personally—I’ve got some stuff to do in the real world now. I note that we cannot agree to disagree. But I gotta go. Best wishes (and I mean that totally sincerely, without sarcasm).
I think some of the confusion here might come from the fact that freedom from violence is often cast as a right—in which case we either have to make some awkward exceptions, or to draw an initiation/reaction distinction. This doesn’t seem like an insurmountable hurdle, though; societies frequently do both.
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.”
I don’t see how any of those apply. In the first two, there are no rights on the part of the transgressor. No society recognizes a person’s right to throw away official ballots or to cheat others of their money, so there is no prohibition on using violence to prevent that. Rights never come into the picture at all, so I think we’ve had some miscommunication along the way.
In the third case, we use violence to subdue X not because he belongs to a group, but because we have determined (hopefully in a fair trial) that he has murdered someone. We now have strong enough justification to outweigh our aversion to taking away his freedom. The statement “We should always have an aversion to taking away freedom, but in this case we have important reasons to do so, and here they are” is not anywhere in the same category as “I doubt group Y should have a right to freedom”
On the one hand, a small part of me would like to discuss this further. On the other, I think this is becoming less relevant to the original post. Also—and this is critical for me personally—I’ve got some stuff to do in the real world now. I note that we cannot agree to disagree. But I gotta go. Best wishes (and I mean that totally sincerely, without sarcasm).
I think some of the confusion here might come from the fact that freedom from violence is often cast as a right—in which case we either have to make some awkward exceptions, or to draw an initiation/reaction distinction. This doesn’t seem like an insurmountable hurdle, though; societies frequently do both.