More evidence that rights-based ethical systems have flawed foundations.

[richardhutnik]

Mnementh said:

richardhutnik said:

A problem with saying rights should be THE foundation of any good ethical system is that you have no basis for determing which things are rights, and which or not, and which rights have greater priority.  You can either then arbitrarily just pick them, or declare as Locke had they are given by God and inalienable.

The argument you cannot determine which things are rights can be pointed at every other foundation of society. You have no system to declare which rules are good rules for instance.

Naturally you pick some (and Lockes position of rigts given by god is nothing else as that he has picked some). And that's not that hard. Most of the world has agreed on human rights for more than 50 years now.

And if you think that is a weakness of rights, tell me which base of ethics isn't done by picking some things over overs? You always bring up Utilarism. But it is hard to determine the value of things. Usually it is picked. Along the lines of: a human life is worth more than a bread.

I would go with what Hayek wrote on the subject of tradition and morals developed in a society.  He argued such evolved over time, reaching conclusions individuals alone couldn't reach by pure intellect.  These arose as a bunch of proven rules of thumb, and actually likely not a system at all. Values and temperments in society also arose this way. 

I would say here that, in this, in a fully functioning society, the idea of rights came much later, starting with the likes of Locke.