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sc94597 on 11 April 2014
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Mr Khan said:
sc94597 said:
Mr Khan said:
 

Right: freedom, like all things, is only good insofar as it is useful.

Yes, but it must have an ethitical basis so as to have  a meaning to use. If anything can be declared a right, then the concept of a "right" has no basis nor meaning. I can declare the right to kill somebody, if it means 1,000 people will have their "right" of housing and health-care fullfilled. Maybe, if I kill this person the government gets to tax the inheritance 100% and provide these people with housing and healthcare. Would I not be right to kill him? Does the rights of these 1000 people supercede his right to life? See how ridiculous it is to label anything to be a right? 

All rights are a human construct, the right of property included. We determine these rights through a collective discourse on what makes a just society, which is then enacted through democratic legislation. These rights can be based in a rank-order as well. I tend to reflect the Hierarchy of Needs, myself, which places the most basic needs as the most fundamental.

In a consequentialist slave-based mob rule society, this might be true. Not in a liberal society. Rights are reflections of human nature. The recognition of rights (not construction) are to prevent majority mob rule from performing unethical functions. If one has a right to life, then the democratic process (collective) cannot vote one to be killed. If Germany was a liberal society, which recognized natural rights, then the holocaust would have been more difficult to enact. If the Soviet Union recognized natural rights, then the millions of people sent to gulags would have been free. Both of these societies were the manifestation of your concept of "collective discourse" determining what is right. 

How are rights natural? One must only observe how people interact with one another without force or coercion, and one must assume that all human beings work to maximize their own happiness, in a natural setting. Property is a natural phenomenon, not only in human beings, but in animals. Property is the natural predispotion of humanity. If one takes property, one must do it by force or coercion. This means that one is dominated by another individual or group of individuals, and is consequently not free. If they are not free, their society is illiberal. 

One cannot have a liberal society without natural rights being the basis for the law. It is by definition illiberal, and this conversation is a perfect example of it.

However, even if we take a consequentualist perspective, the conclusion is the same. People are more happy when they are free. And the only way to freedom is the recognition of natural rights. The recognition of any "rights" superior to natural rights, ends with societies that are worse off. 

Consequently, notice that the countries with the most freedoms tend to be the happiest. 

 

 

 

Yes correlation =/= causation. But considering all other factors in addition to correlation, it seems reasonable to make the assumption that freedom leads to prosperity.