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richardhutnik on 15 August 2012
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badgenome said:
richardhutnik said:

Again, this goes back to the issue of an ethics system being rights based.  Whe dealing with an ethical system, there is either being ethical right or being ethically wrong (of course, there is also the undefined ethically).  If you base a system on rights, where do you tell that WBC is not in the right here, when they are in fully keeping with their said rights.  If you want to now argue that thereis more to an ethical system than rights, then you move out of a rights-based framework into something that brings other things in.  In doing this, you end up showing that a rights-based ethics system is flawed foundationally.

Do move beyond just rights, one can look to other systems of ethics based around other things besides rights:

http://voices.yahoo.com/an-overview-ethic-theories-systems-6450186.html?cat=7

Who decided that an ethics system based on rights is limited to taking only rights into consideration? Rights are simply the basis. In this case, the federal government is the worst party involved because it is engaged in violating the basic free speech rights of the Westboro Baptist Church, and this has the unfortunate effect of turning the WBC into some sort of First Amendment martyrs instead of just being the hate-filled bunch of cranks that they are. That doesn't mean that the Westboro Baptist Church aren't also wrong for celebrating the deaths of soldiers in front of their grieving families in a gratuitous attempt to hurt their feelings, even though they aren't violating their basic rights.

A rights-based ethics system frames arguments for right and wrong around how much rights are upheld.  The system has a much more absolutist view than that of the likes of Utilitarianism, and the measure of it is that rights don't get violated.  Other frameworks/systems have other measures, like one based on virtue and how close things correspond to ideal states of being and behavior.

So, you are judging the situation, if rights based on what here?  What right do you feel that the individuals have at the funeral which is superior to that of the WBC's right of free speech that WBC claims it has.