[saintPirelli]

> For example, I don't think my freedom of speech should trump Cloudflare's or Voxility's right to freedom of association.

Right, but those only produce a conflict in a very specific case and your right to free speech should be defended by your government/peers regardless of where you do the caching for your blog (or whatever).

I have a huge issue with this modern relativist approach, because it leads to the situation where - instead of acknowledging that there are in fact absolute rights - we constantly debate where _the line_ is.

I think the boldest example of why this is bad is the right to live. In my view, this is an absolute right. "But what if it's a mass murderer?" - "But what if they are terminally ill and are suffering?" - "But what if they are so heavily handicapped that... ?" Adding _ifs_ and _buts_ to a right that should be absolute leads down a very dark path, because _the line_ will be a constant subject of discussion.

I think we would do ourselves a favor to just outright declare some rights to be absolute (as we did before and seem to have forgotten).

[TeMPOraL]

Disagree. "Absolutely positively absolute rights" are taking decent heuristics and turning them into thought-terminating clichés.

Let's go with the "right to live". Consider questions such as:

- Who has that right? You, or your body? If you don't want to live, should you be forced to? What if you're suffering so badly it's debilitating, and this state won't improve until you eventually die? Is living in a state of endless torture better than not living?

- How do you trade lives for lives? Imagine you have a crazy shooter killing people left and right. There's no fast way to get to them except a drone strike, and each minute you hesitate, they kill another person. Do you pull the trigger and save innocent victims, or do you wait for the armoured police to arrive and safely incapacitate the shooter, honoring their right to live at the expense of many other people? What if it's you facing the shooter alone, and they intend to kill you? Will you shoot first, or give your life for their right to live?

- What if probabilities get involved? The shooter is cornered, and a police sniper has his head in their sights. You can either take the shooter down now, or have a team of officers incapacitate them. The latter has a X% of chance ending in a police officer dying. At X=100%, you're trading life for life. At what X do you decide to have the sniper take the shot? What if there's a risk of more than one police deaths involved? At what threshold in the probability density function is it worth to take that risk?

- What if money gets involved? The most complicated variant, an extension of trading lives with probabilities. You have me sitting in front of a button, pressing which will immediately wreck the economy of a small country. You can't get to me, but see my head through the scope of your sniper rifle. I'm about to press that button. Will you pull the trigger? And before you say, "obviously no!", keep in mind that wrecking the economy of a country is bound to result in many, many deaths.

"Absolute rights" are good as heuristics. But like all heuristics, they hit corner cases. These corner cases need to be thought about explicitly.

[naasking]

> "Absolutely positively absolute rights" are taking decent heuristics

You're assuming that moral propositions are heuristics or a utilitarian optimization problem, and not moral facts that are simply true or not true. This is still a contentious debate, and not the only possibilities either.

In this case, the answers to your questions depends entirely on what the moral facts are. For example, it may be morally impermissible to take a life under any circumstances, which answers many of your questions quite clearly.

[wpietri]

Unless you can build some sort of moral truth detector, "simply true or not true" is still a subjective proposition, because it's you believing that. So whatever you imagine the absolute truth to be is mostly irrelevant, in that you need to persuade other people with different viewpoints to behave the way you want. That leads you back pretty to utilitarian optimization problems.

I get that this doesn't have the thrilling clarity of some sort of moral fundamentalism. But that's my point. When two groups with different absolute moral beliefs conflict, our options are negotiation or murder. People like the El Paso killer clearly favor the latter. To me that's a sign that however much people hold absolute moral beliefs (and I hope it's relatively little), they should talk about it in utilitarian, relative terms.

[naasking]

> Unless you can build some sort of moral truth detector, "simply true or not true" is still a subjective proposition

See the Categorical Imperative, and also a Proof of the Objectivity of Morals: https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/3etl9b/a_proof_...

There are very good reasons why most philosophers are moral realists.

[wpietri]

I'll take your word for it that most human philosophers are moral realists. Even if true, I think that says more about human brains and the social structures that bless people as professional philosophers than it does about any deep nature of reality.

[tempodox]

An invaluable observation, since practically all lizard philosophers are relativistic existentialists.

[TeMPOraL]

May be. My point was more that those questions need to be answered one way or another; I understood GP as saying they're unnecessary and are just muddying the waters.

[dangerface]

> Who has that right? You, or your body?

You are your body, they are the same thing unless you can stop being in your body this is a moot point.

> If you don't want to live, should you be forced to?

Rights are freedoms in order to have the right to do something you must also have the right to not do it, or it's not a right.

> How do you trade lives for lives?

Well you don't thats the point. If you don't respect some one else's rights then there is no reason for them to respect yours.

> Do you pull the trigger and save innocent victims

The whole good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns is a myth according to FBI statistics.[1]

The point saintPirelli made is that people focus too much on hypotheticals (what if we can stop shooters by shooting them) rather than accepting the right and focusing on the reality(how do we prevent shooters from killing people), your argument demonstrates this.

[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fbi-report-active-shooters_b_...

[hutzlibu]

"If you don't respect some one else's rights then there is no reason for them to respect yours."

Thats why a terrorist/psychotic killer/.. can get shot.

And it is not a myth, that there are daily people trying to shoot other people on this world. And some of them get stopped by a bullet.

The problem is, that usually both sides claim to only react, but that is a different story.

When there is someone mass killing "innocents" and the fastest way to stop it, is a bullet, then what would you propose instead?

[dangerface]

>Thats why a terrorist/psychotic killer/.. can get shot.

Yes thats the argument I was making.

>When there is someone mass killing "innocents" and the fastest way to stop it, is a bullet, then what would you propose instead?

In my comment I propose preventative measures rather than reactionary measures. I do this because reactionary measures are a reaction and measured by the thing they are reacting too. Rights are not reactionary they are fundamental and you cant base a fundamental right on a reaction, thats the point.

[GrinningFool]

That answer avoids the question by suggesting it can be made irrelevant. But no matter how many preventative measures you put in place , there will still come situations when the fastest and safest way to save lives is by ending a life.

So again, what do you do? Respect the perpetrator's right to life and let him keep ending other lives? Or respect the victims' right to life and end the perpetrator's?

[TeMPOraL]

> You are your body, they are the same thing unless you can stop being in your body this is a moot point.

No, you're not. You're the runtime state of the software that's running in your brain. Your body is just a peripheral, and can very well work against your will. More importantly, your body doesn't think.

I phrased it this way because in the case when someone wants to die, but the society won't let them, it's technically not them that have the right to live but their body (and the body can't voice its opinion).

> Well you don't thats the point.

Real world sometimes doesn't give you that option. Situations happen in which a choice between who lives and who dies needs to be made.

> The point saintPirelli made is that people focus too much on hypotheticals (what if we can stop shooters by shooting them) rather than accepting the right and focusing on the reality(how do we prevent shooters from killing people), your argument demonstrates this.

If you keep avoiding a problem, you'll be unprepared when you're suddenly forced to confront it head-on.

[SuoDuanDao]

>You're the runtime state of the software that's running in your brain

That is not independent of the state of the underlying neural network, it seems no more reasonable to dissociate the two than it does to conflate them.

[TeMPOraL]

That's nitpicking, but I suppose I deserved it.

The point still stands: your mind and your body can be seen as separate things, and from this point of view you're your mind, not your body.

[dangerface]

> You're the runtime state of the software that's running in your brain.

Unless you can stop being in your body this is a moot point.

> If you keep avoiding a problem, you'll be unprepared when you're suddenly forced to confront it head-on.

I argued for preventative measures not reactionary measures.

You keep talking about reactionary things but rights are not reactionary thats the point you are missing.

[bumby]

My issue with this whole argument is that, in the U.S. there is also a right in the 2nd amendment. Either that right needs to be abolished or we're left in the push-pull dynamic of the rights-against-rights.

I personally dislike the idea of whittling away a Constitutional right through piecemeal laws rather than an amendment to the Constitution. It a disingenuous workaround, like a poll-tax/literacy test erodes a specific class' right to vote without actually changing their Constitutional right.

[15155]

The reason that a specific political bent in this country uses laws to curb the Second ("shall not be infringed", lol) is because any amendment altering or abolishing this right will never be ratified.

It's just much easier to sneak in legislation like the Hughes Amendment and hope a favorable Supreme Court and political climate allows it to stand.

[cestith]

If good guys with guns don't stop bad guys with guns then why do we keep arming our peace officers?

[dangerface]

Keeping the peace is about keeping the status quo not keeping the peace.

[cestith]

So, then, when the status quo is murdering minorities with impunity that's the entire reason for the police department to exist?

[saintPirelli]

We can talk about edge cases when we agree on the base principles. A principle isn't automatically invalid because it has hard-to-answer edge cases. This is faulty logic.

[TeMPOraL]

I think we agree on the basic principle, or at least we seem to be talking about the same principle.

My point is that any principle is going to hit edge cases when applied in real life, and so "instead of acknowledging that there are in fact absolute rights - we constantly debate where _the line_ is" is actually the right thing to do, because principles are not absolute rights, and edge cases in fact need to be solved.

[erichocean]

> edge cases in fact need to be solved

Most edge cases, in fact, can just be managed—they don't need to be solved.

With people, I would argue that not solving edge cases and just managing them when they arise should be the norm. People are messy, and our system should have enough slack in it to act humanely in the vast majority of cases. We really don't need hard and fast rules to cover everything, just "normal" things.

[TeMPOraL]

This is what I meant, but you phrased it much better. "Managed" is a better word.

[saintPirelli]

The principle needs to remain unchanged though. A principle can and should not be designed to cover it's own edge cases. It's in it's application where we can apply tolerance. Aristotle calls this principle Epikeia: "epikeia is a restrictive interpretation of positive law based on the benign will of the legislator who would not want to bind his subjects in certain circumstances"

Source: https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs...

[wybiral]

But the application of law should be explicitly defined in order to be applied equally by law enforcement and courts. If you define the law to be "all people have the right to live as decided by local law enforcement and courts" then by not having explicit definitions of legality you're introducing the potential for abuse. Or even confusion as to what is actually allowed (and thus litigation as to whether certain behavior was within the spirit of the enforced law).

It sounds as though what you want is the The Constitution / Bill of Right. A basic set of simply worded principles that influence the definition of law, but aren't themselves "the law".

[Groxx]

You seem to be contradicting yourself, unless I'm misreading things.

There are absolute rights, and debating where the line falls is pointless. But when applying it to the real world, you need flexibility (i.e. debate where the line falls).

Anyway, isn't that basically what we already have, with free speech? It's legally protected in even extreme cases where it arguably causes more damage than value, but per event it tends to go through courts (or there is enough court precedence to make that wasted effort).

Court precedence applying flexibility to an absolute intent/right is the debating of the line. Isn't it?

[solohan]

I sympathize with this argument, but it has several problems: Rights and wrongs are inherently social constructs. The is no (currently) discovered moral potential in the laws of the universe, nor is there a well defined, clearly bounded, definition of life.

I would argue that relativism is in fact the fundamental construct, and that societies only arise in the unstable balances between extremes.

That's not to say that fundamental rights cannot be instrumental in strengthening society, but since they arise from within society, they will need to be updated as society inevitably changes in time.

[naasking]

> Rights and wrongs are inherently social constructs.

This is an assumption, and not on supported by debates in ethics. Once you start questioning everything, you'll see that some moral propositions appear to be unassailable, in that, no argument can simultaneously question the truth of the proposition without also descending into logical incoherency. The categorical imperative would be one such approach, although not the only one.

There are good reasons why most philosophers are moral realists.

[d0100]

> I would argue that relativism is in fact the fundamental construct

Then you pretty much agree with any practice that is currently-bad-but-wasn't-in-the-past? After all, it was relatively ok at the time, and can be again.

Minorities, women and children beware!

[Doxin]

> I think the boldest example of why this is bad is the right to live. In my view, this is an absolute right. "But what if it's a mass murderer?" - "But what if they are terminally ill and are suffering?" - "But what if they are so heavily handicapped that... ?" Adding _ifs_ and _buts_ to a right that should be absolute leads down a very dark path, because _the line_ will be a constant subject of discussion.

Could you clarify what exactly you're arguing here? This part is not entirely clear to me.

[saintPirelli]

I'm basically saying that the answer to the question of "Is murder wrong" should be a boolean value, not a float. Once it's a float, you open the door to all kinds of nasty thoughts arguing about where to draw the line.

Are handicapped people worthy of killing? What about long-term unemployed? What about the opressors - like rich people? Homosexuals? There have literally been people arguing and executing all of these appalling thoughts in the last century and I would argue beneath it all lies a deadly relativism that says "Of course there is a universal right to live, well, unless you are a ... of course."

[Doxin]

I feel like that depends entirely on how you define murder. If you define murder to exclude things like assisted suicide then, yes sure it's always bad. If you define it to include things like assisted suicide it stops being quite that black and white.

EDIT: I guess my point is that people have a right to live, not a duty to do so.

[michaelt]

In this context, would you oppose the idea of a country having a military?

[saintPirelli]

I'm not sure what you are getting at, in my country the main areas of operation for the military are helping flood victims and providing drinking water after natural disasters ... so no, those are good things.

If you are asking me, if I think there is such a thing as a "just war": I don't know. I have read Saint Augustine[0] on this topic and am not convinced. I have not personally reached a conclusion on this matter.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo#Just_war

[wpietri]

You don't need guns to hand out drinking water, so if that's what your conception of "military" is, maybe you need to look outside your country a bit.

[Daido_M]

...so why is the right to live an absolute right? What does it mean for a right to be absolute? (e.g. if someone kills other people to save himself, was he entitled to do so on the basis of his right to live?) Who gets to decide what rights are absolute and what rights aren't? Whose responsibility is it to enforce these absolute rights (and thereby to impose corresponding obligations on other people)?

The logic of "absolute" rights requires an over-simplification that doesn't reflect how rights work in practice.

[saintPirelli]

If I declare a right an "absolute" right I do not aim to answer any of the questions you posed, those are all good questions that need to be carefully considered, but none of them render the "over-simplified" right to live any less morally justified or desirable.

[rtkwe]

That 'consideration' is drawing a line though. Where when two 'absolute' rights come into conflict does the decision to break one way or another get made? Choosing one over the other draws a limitation around the one that's less important in this context.

We have all sorts of restrictions on the right of free speech. I can't libel someone, I can't make a product and say it's the product of another company, I can't open a random burger place and call it Wendy's. These are all restrictions on my speech and (as far as I've ever seen) even the most ardent free speech activist isn't saying abolish trademarks.

[jmull]

In your statement above you bemoan that without absolute rights we must "constantly debate where _the line_ is"

Here you concede "those are all good questions that need to be carefully considered".

...so we're right back to debating where the line is.

I'm not seeing a coherent argument here.

[saintPirelli]

I'm saying that knowing a right should be absolute and - for example - not knowing how to enforce this right for everyone, are not mutually exclusive.

[Natanael_L]

Declaring them absolute also don't solve these problems, because sometimes you can end up with conflicts between absolute rights, where you are not able to protect both rights at once.