Is Democracy Compatible with Natural Rights?

[JBeukema]

From what authority is right and wrong behavior determined?

Morality is subjective (just look at abortion and capital punishment). Ethics arise from a combination of a common morality and self-interest. Laws arise from ethics. Moralty has its base in the moral instinct and is generally refined during one's life in accordance with one's programming (instillation of values by parents, peers, and society) and ideology.

you are rightly hitting on the effect, of cause and effect, and how it makes us feel, but not why.

The why is simple. The moral instinct is an evolutionary advantage, as a population that is less inclined to slaughter eachother wantonly is more likely to not only survive, but to work together and thrive.

From your premise that there is no God, who is to say that in some parallel universe, Murder and Rape, and Theft, are all virtues?

Some consider them to be so, it sometimes seems. They are generally shunned by society and are rightly recognized as enemies of those who desire a just and peaceable society.

By what authority is virtue deemed virtue, and vice deemed vice?

See above.

What is it instilled in us that makes it so, so much that it transcends Culture and Language?

See above.

Why are we designed the way we are,

'Designed'?

and who is responsible for our nature?

We are responsible for our own nature insomuch as we guide our own development as individuals and as a People.

What is justice, an imagined concept, or a rule that governs nature?

Justice is a concept of Man with which the rest of nature, on the whole, seems to care not.

Does God exist? Prove it.

You're the one insisting it exists, not me

Does time exist? Prove it.

Do Good and Evil exist? Prove it.

'Good' and 'Evil' exist insomuch as actions, conditions, and people exist that we define as good or evil.

 

[Madeline]

According to the concept of natural rights a person's rights are unremoveable from them hence the term inalienable rights but is democracy compatible with that? Consider that these rights belong to you and can't be removed from you then how is it possible that they can be voted on by everyone else? When everyone else decides you don't have those rights anymore and uses the democratic process to remove them from you then how can you say that those rights were inalienable to begin with?

I'll be ready to reply to your Op when you name even one "natural right".

Humanoids are under no warranty; we receive no guarantees from The Universe that I am aware of.

Expression is a natural right.

We may not receive warranties, but there is consequence. Who is to say what does or doesn't come next with authority? .... Do I hear a pin dropping? ... Thought so.

Expression a la what? Freedom of Speech? How is that a "natural" right --- many many many humans enjoy no such freedom.

Consequences? Like what? Drop a book and gravity will pull it to the ground?

"Natural" rights are a fun term a whole raft of different philosphers and politicians like to use, but unless the Op defines it with Frame of Reference, this is a convo about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

 

[NYcarbineer]

According to the concept of natural rights a person's rights are unremoveable from them hence the term inalienable rights but is democracy compatible with that? Consider that these rights belong to you and can't be removed from you then how is it possible that they can be voted on by everyone else? When everyone else decides you don't have those rights anymore and uses the democratic process to remove them from you then how can you say that those rights were inalienable to begin with?

There are no such things as inalienable rights, endowed by a Creator. The premise is unsupportable.

First you would have to prove there is a Creator, which can't be done. Second, you'd have to prove that the Creator whose existence can't even be proven has in fact, directly, by his own hand, designated certain rights to be inalienable, and informed us as to what those rights are. Obviously, no such divine edict has made itself available.

There is no more substantive support for a claim that we are supernaturally endowed with inalienable rights than there is for claims that the earth has been visited by aliens.

 

[JBeukema]

NY, it can be argued that there is, in fact, evidence of alien visitation.

 

[Madeline]

NY, it can be argued that there is, in fact, evidence of alien visitation.

And you are JUST the USMB-er who would argue that JB.

 

[JBeukema]

This message was not displayed because everyone who thinks race = species is retarded and the forum group 'retards' are on your ignore list

 

[Hum Dinger]

I have a way of defining good and evil:

In order to make primitive tribes (and modern soceities) more adaptable, nature gives us different personality types. On a very instinctual level people are very different from one another. People are born with strong instincts, but people also have a very strong capacity to learn and to change their behaviorial patterns - conflicts between instinct and what we learn form soceity often strongly contrast.

There are two fundamental components of everyone's personality, they are:

Note, with both components, there are some people that are extreme cases, but most are someplace in the middle - most probably a bell curve distribution.

First - how we relate to members of the opposite sex (which I won't go into other than to say that ~50% of each sex are dominant types and ~50% are submissive types).

Second - how we relate to members of our own sex. This is particularly important in regard to how men relate to other men, because the vast majority oo soceities are male dominated, and this factor determines the leadership of the society and the economic pecking order of the society.

On one extreme there is the 'warrior' type which I like to call the 'Gamma' type, on the other extreme is the 'wiseman' type, which I call the 'Omega' type.

The 'ideal Alpha' or trial cheiftain or President, is halfway between the gamma and omega types.

Gamma types are 'brute-force' types of guys. They may be very smart, but always look to brute-force for dealing with any problems. They do not have any inate sense of morality - they are extreme pragmatists. They are hyper-competitive and always want to seize leadership.

Omega types look for intellectual solutions. They are social organizers. They are very strong in abstract thinking and therefore have inate moral and philosophical understanding - but they are often times not pragmatic. They are non-competitive and must be promoted to leadership by the society.

When times are economically good, the soceity 'dumbs down' and supports gamma leaning leadership. When times are bad the society promotes Omega leadership.

Tribes that do not evolve are societies that are dominated by gamma types continually - military expansion or depopulation through war and internal policing are the methods for social stability.

The factor that broke mankind out of primitivism and changed the leadership of humanity from gamma led to omega led was the advent of monogamy. In primitive tribes (and modern day country clubs), males bond with males as hunters and females bond with famales to take care of the camp and the children). Monogamy caused the breakup of the tribal order into family structures - males more loyal to their wives identifiable offspring than to the tribe itself.

Athens, Judea and (early) Rome were male dominated, sexually repressed, monogamous societies. (Yes, in Rome adultary was punishable by death). This is the Roman, Greek & Judaic soceities merged and became the most evolutionary of all soceities -western civilization.

Given that men can be some varying degree of four types: Gamma/dominant, gamma/submissive, omega/dominant or omega/submissive. Monogamy caused the rise of the omega/submissives - due to the forced support of their dominant spouses since females have historically been entirely dependant on their husbands for economic and social status.

Behind every great man is a dominant bitch of a woman.

Note: I'm not going into the discussion of dominant/submission on USMB because it's a very sexual discussion and they'd probably kick me off the board.

Anyway - the very notion of 'Good' and 'evil' is based on the above. Social evolution is the product of leadership by the Omega types. Socieities evolve and de-evolve - like ancient China, which evolved to a point, then de evolve. It depends on whether the societies support gamma or omega leadership.

In western civilization the single most revered person of all time is an ultra extreme omega/submissive named Jesus.

 

[Intense]

From what authority is right and wrong behavior determined?

Morality is subjective (just look at abortion and capital punishment). Ethics arise from a combination of a common morality and self-interest. Laws arise from ethics. Moralty has its base in the moral instinct and is generally refined during one's life in accordance with one's programming (instillation of values by parents, peers, and society) and ideology.

you are rightly hitting on the effect, of cause and effect, and how it makes us feel, but not why.

The why is simple. The moral instinct is an evolutionary advantage, as a population that is less inclined to slaughter eachother wantonly is more likely to not only survive, but to work together and thrive.


Some consider them to be so, it sometimes seems. They are generally shunned by society and are rightly recognized as enemies of those who desire a just and peaceable society.


See above.

See above.

'Designed'?

We are responsible for our own nature insomuch as we guide our own development as individuals and as a People.

Justice is a concept of Man with which the rest of nature, on the whole, seems to care not.


You're the one insisting it exists, not me

Does time exist? Prove it.

Do Good and Evil exist? Prove it.

'Good' and 'Evil' exist insomuch as actions, conditions, and people exist that we define as good or evil.

Sorry if this is too abstract.
Good answers yet missing the core or root of how we first recognize, then determine what is of value, the core the power behind. "See above" response is not qualified. Lets relate it to "Good and Evil", if good and evil are more than we realize or recognize, we acknowledge that we have no power over either, separate from conscience. If good and evil go far beyond what we claim, individually, and as a society, beyond comprehension, imagination, we may or may not recognize, adapt to, progress, advance, without understanding something bigger than ourselves. Did we invent these powers, or do we grow in recognition? Are we in control JB? Is reality what we make it, is it really that limited? Are we fooling ourselves? Are we looking at the full picture? Are we in control? I need only to turn on the news to answer that. Morality is not subjective in my view. Our concept of it is. Sometimes our concept is far from being in harmony and communion with it, to what ever varying degree. We will regress and progress according to our nature and gullibility. We have cause and effect to look to. Were we left with only evolution, we are without hope. We are here solely because of Divine Intervention.



I'm not insisting on anything in relation to you, only myself. For you I can hope. Latch onto Sincerity of Heart as best as you can. It may bring you through blindfolded, but it should bring you through.

 

[Foxfyre]

I repeat. The Founders saw unalienable or God-given rights as those that have always existed. Things like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those aren't human inventions. They've been around since the beginning of time. They have not been made available to everybody, however, as some people were strong enough to deny them to others.

The U.S. Constitution was to recognize these as rights that nobody would be able to take away from somebody else without consequence.

To me that is pretty simple.

 

[Hum Dinger]

I repeat. The Founders saw unalienable or God-given rights as those that have always existed. Things like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those aren't human inventions. They've been around since the beginning of time. They have not been made available to everybody, however, as some people were strong enough to deny them to others.

The U.S. Constitution was to recognize these as rights that nobody would be able to take away from somebody else without consequence.

To me that is pretty simple.

Not so simple:

The founders were all Christians, they also stated the unalienable rights were God given.

Then why didn't Jesus ever mention these unalienable rights? Why didn't the scriptures metion 'Life, liberty and the persuit of happiness'?

The pinciples laid out in the declaration of independance were the product of new and evolutionary thinking - they did not exist, even hypothetically, until the day that the declaration of Independance was written.

Morality is ever evolving as the human conscience evolves.

 

[Foxfyre]

I repeat. The Founders saw unalienable or God-given rights as those that have always existed. Things like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those aren't human inventions. They've been around since the beginning of time. They have not been made available to everybody, however, as some people were strong enough to deny them to others.

The U.S. Constitution was to recognize these as rights that nobody would be able to take away from somebody else without consequence.

To me that is pretty simple.

Not so simple:

The founders were all Christians, they also stated the unalienable rights were God given.

Then why didn't Jesus ever mention these unalienable rights? Why didn't the scriptures metion 'Life, liberty and the persuit of happiness'?

The pinciples laid out in the declaration of independance were the product of new and evolutionary thinking - they did not exist, even hypothetically, until the day that the declaration of Independance was written.

Morality is ever evolving as the human conscience evolves.

Would it make any difference if Jesus had specified life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable rights? (In a way he did but that's another discussion.)

Did planets and comets and stars not exist before somebody identified them as such and came up with a name to define them? Was splitting the atom impossible before somebody figured out how to do it? Did bacteria or viruses not exist before we invented devices that would allow us to understand them? Was everything nothingness before we had language to conceptualize it?

The Founders recognized life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in the broadest possible definitions for those things, as something that have always existed independent of human thought, recognition, language, or invention. To them that means that they are products of God.

But whether you do or do not believe in God or whether you believe they were given by space aliens or monsters from the depths of the Earth, or mutated out of some cosmic event, they exist just the same.

The Founders recognized that they exist, appreciated them as the means by which humankind could achieve its highest goals, and built a nation around the concept of defending them.

 

[Hum Dinger]

I repeat. The Founders saw unalienable or God-given rights as those that have always existed. Things like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those aren't human inventions. They've been around since the beginning of time. They have not been made available to everybody, however, as some people were strong enough to deny them to others.

The U.S. Constitution was to recognize these as rights that nobody would be able to take away from somebody else without consequence.

To me that is pretty simple.

Not so simple:

The founders were all Christians, they also stated the unalienable rights were God given.

Then why didn't Jesus ever mention these unalienable rights? Why didn't the scriptures metion 'Life, liberty and the persuit of happiness'?

The pinciples laid out in the declaration of independance were the product of new and evolutionary thinking - they did not exist, even hypothetically, until the day that the declaration of Independance was written.

Morality is ever evolving as the human conscience evolves.

Would it make any difference if Jesus had specified life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable rights? (In a way he did but that's another discussion.)

Did planets and comets and stars not exist before somebody identified them as such and came up with a name to define them? Was splitting the atom impossible before somebody figured out how to do it? Did bacteria or viruses not exist before we invented devices that would allow us to understand them? Was everything nothingness before we had language to conceptualize it?

The Founders recognized life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in the broadest possible definitions for those things, as something that have always existed independent of human thought, recognition, language, or invention. To them that means that they are products of God.

But whether you do or do not believe in God or whether you believe they were given by space aliens or monsters from the depths of the Earth, or mutated out of some cosmic event, they exist just the same.

The Founders recognized that they exist, appreciated them as the means by which humankind could achieve its highest goals, and built a nation around the concept of defending them.

It is hard to believe that if they truly existed, none of the great philosophers or prophets ever recognised them before.

There is a simple fact:

In nature, once you are born you have only one right:

The right to die.

All other concepts of morality are the product of human social evolution.

Morality itself of a product of abstract thought - it is not a product of nature.

Did unalienable rights exist at the time of the dinosaurs?

Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers were at the cutting edge of the evolution of philosophy - they took us all to a new level of human conscientiousness - they didn't just happen to stumble over something that was always there, but was just never noticed before.

 

[Foxfyre]

Not so simple:

The founders were all Christians, they also stated the unalienable rights were God given.

Then why didn't Jesus ever mention these unalienable rights? Why didn't the scriptures metion 'Life, liberty and the persuit of happiness'?

The pinciples laid out in the declaration of independance were the product of new and evolutionary thinking - they did not exist, even hypothetically, until the day that the declaration of Independance was written.

Morality is ever evolving as the human conscience evolves.

Would it make any difference if Jesus had specified life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable rights? (In a way he did but that's another discussion.)

Did planets and comets and stars not exist before somebody identified them as such and came up with a name to define them? Was splitting the atom impossible before somebody figured out how to do it? Did bacteria or viruses not exist before we invented devices that would allow us to understand them? Was everything nothingness before we had language to conceptualize it?

The Founders recognized life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in the broadest possible definitions for those things, as something that have always existed independent of human thought, recognition, language, or invention. To them that means that they are products of God.

But whether you do or do not believe in God or whether you believe they were given by space aliens or monsters from the depths of the Earth, or mutated out of some cosmic event, they exist just the same.

The Founders recognized that they exist, appreciated them as the means by which humankind could achieve its highest goals, and built a nation around the concept of defending them.

It is hard to believe that if they truly existed, none of the great philosophers or prophets ever recognised them before.

There is a simple fact:

In nature, once you are born you have only one right:

The right to die.

All other concepts of morality are the product of human social evolution.

Morality itself of a product of abstract thought - it is not a product of nature.

Did unalienable rights exist at the time of the dinosaurs?

Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers were at the cutting edge of the evolution of philosophy - they took us all to a new level of human conscientiousness - they didn't just happen to stumble over something that was always there, but was just never noticed before.

Well neither Thomas Jefferson nor any of the other Founding Fathers invented life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. And yes, these existed at the time of the dinosaurs.

 

[Hum Dinger]

Would it make any difference if Jesus had specified life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable rights? (In a way he did but that's another discussion.)

Did planets and comets and stars not exist before somebody identified them as such and came up with a name to define them? Was splitting the atom impossible before somebody figured out how to do it? Did bacteria or viruses not exist before we invented devices that would allow us to understand them? Was everything nothingness before we had language to conceptualize it?

The Founders recognized life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in the broadest possible definitions for those things, as something that have always existed independent of human thought, recognition, language, or invention. To them that means that they are products of God.

But whether you do or do not believe in God or whether you believe they were given by space aliens or monsters from the depths of the Earth, or mutated out of some cosmic event, they exist just the same.

The Founders recognized that they exist, appreciated them as the means by which humankind could achieve its highest goals, and built a nation around the concept of defending them.

It is hard to believe that if they truly existed, none of the great philosophers or prophets ever recognised them before.

There is a simple fact:

In nature, once you are born you have only one right:

The right to die.

All other concepts of morality are the product of human social evolution.

Morality itself of a product of abstract thought - it is not a product of nature.

Did unalienable rights exist at the time of the dinosaurs?

Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers were at the cutting edge of the evolution of philosophy - they took us all to a new level of human conscientiousness - they didn't just happen to stumble over something that was always there, but was just never noticed before.

Well neither Thomas Jefferson nor any of the other Founding Fathers invented life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. And yes, these existed at the time of the dinosaurs.

Excuse me Mr. tyrannesauris, but you can't eat me becuase I have an unalienable right to life so go eat a turnip instead!

You gotta be kidding!

Did you ever notice that in the Bible, the God of the Old Testament, seems to have a very different philosophy that the God of the new Testament?

How many people did Jesus kill? How many did Moses and the Isrealites kill?

Could it be that the Bible is just a history of the moral evolution of a people?

That the moral philosophy of the Bible changes drastically?

Or does God have a split personality? One day did He just decide that He had been wrong about everthing and change His attitude? Not very God-like.

 

[NYcarbineer]

[But whether you do or do not believe in God or whether you believe they were given by space aliens or monsters from the depths of the Earth, or mutated out of some cosmic event, they exist just the same.

The Founders recognized that they exist, appreciated them as the means by which humankind could achieve its highest goals, and built a nation around the concept of defending them.

That falsely assumes they exist.

 

[mattskramer]

Would it make any difference if Jesus had specified life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable rights? (In a way he did but that's another discussion.)

Did planets and comets and stars not exist before somebody identified them as such and came up with a name to define them? Was splitting the atom impossible before somebody figured out how to do it? Did bacteria or viruses not exist before we invented devices that would allow us to understand them? Was everything nothingness before we had language to conceptualize it?

The Founders recognized life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in the broadest possible definitions for those things, as something that have always existed independent of human thought, recognition, language, or invention. To them that means that they are products of God.

But whether you do or do not believe in God or whether you believe they were given by space aliens or monsters from the depths of the Earth, or mutated out of some cosmic event, they exist just the same.

The Founders recognized that they exist, appreciated them as the means by which humankind could achieve its highest goals, and built a nation around the concept of defending them.

It is hard to believe that if they truly existed, none of the great philosophers or prophets ever recognised them before.

There is a simple fact:

In nature, once you are born you have only one right:

The right to die.

All other concepts of morality are the product of human social evolution.

Morality itself of a product of abstract thought - it is not a product of nature.

Did unalienable rights exist at the time of the dinosaurs?

Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers were at the cutting edge of the evolution of philosophy - they took us all to a new level of human conscientiousness - they didn't just happen to stumble over something that was always there, but was just never noticed before.

Well neither Thomas Jefferson nor any of the other Founding Fathers invented life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. And yes, these existed at the time of the dinosaurs.

Death and slavery have a strong past too.

 

[Oddball]

So do strawmen.

 

[Foxfyre]

It is hard to believe that if they truly existed, none of the great philosophers or prophets ever recognised them before.

There is a simple fact:

In nature, once you are born you have only one right:

The right to die.

All other concepts of morality are the product of human social evolution.

Morality itself of a product of abstract thought - it is not a product of nature.

Did unalienable rights exist at the time of the dinosaurs?

Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers were at the cutting edge of the evolution of philosophy - they took us all to a new level of human conscientiousness - they didn't just happen to stumble over something that was always there, but was just never noticed before.

Well neither Thomas Jefferson nor any of the other Founding Fathers invented life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. And yes, these existed at the time of the dinosaurs.

Excuse me Mr. tyrannesauris, but you can't eat me becuase I have an unalienable right to life so go eat a turnip instead!

You gotta be kidding!

Did you ever notice that in the Bible, the God of the Old Testament, seems to have a very different philosophy that the God of the new Testament?

How many people did Jesus kill? How many did Moses and the Isrealites kill?

Could it be that the Bible is just a history of the moral evolution of a people?

That the moral philosophy of the Bible changes drastically?

Or does God have a split personality? One day did He just decide that He had been wrong about everthing and change His attitude? Not very God-like.

Yes I do believe that the writers of the Old Testament had a different understanding of God than did the writers of the New Testament. But that has zero impact on the Constitution as to unalienable rights.

Jesus didn't kill anybody so far as we know, but that doesn't have any bearing on the point here so I don't know why it should matter. However many that Moses or the Israelites killed is also irrelevent so I'm not going to look that up. I'm pretty sure that many billions of people have been killed since humans have been walking on this Earth, and not a single one of us is not going to die at some time or another. How that happens is irrelevent to the point also.

What difference does it make whether the Bible is a history of whatever or what its moral philosophy has been at any point as it relates to the topic of unalienable rights? The Founders didn't use the Bible to make their case. Nor have I.

I believe at some time I have read most if not all documents related to the Founders' discussions, debates, opinions, and deliberations related to the Constitution, and I don't recall that the attributes of God factored into those in any way. So we can get past that quite handily.

So if you like, you can remove Jesus, God, Moses, the Israelites, and the Bible from the equation entirely.

And you are still left with the reality that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness exist.

 

[mattskramer]

I repeat. The Founders saw unalienable or God-given rights as those that have always existed. Things like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those aren't human inventions. They've been around since the beginning of time. They have not been made available to everybody, however, as some people were strong enough to deny them to others.

So they say. That doesn't mean that the founders were correct. Didn't the founders think that women should be prohibited from voting? It seems like the fathers saw no problem with pushing the natives further west as land started to get crowded by European settlers.

The U.S. Constitution was to recognize these as rights that nobody would be able to take away from somebody else without consequence.

Didn't the Constitution at one time say that Blacks counted as less of a person when compared to Whites?

Would it make any difference if Jesus had specified life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable rights? (In a way he did but that's another discussion.)

This is an example of the fallacy of appealing to authority. I think that I can come up with some advice and instruction from the Bible that would make even devout Christians think twice about how sound the Bible is.

Did planets and comets and stars not exist before somebody identified them as such and came up with a name to define them? Was splitting the atom impossible before somebody figured out how to do it? Did bacteria or viruses not exist before we invented devices that would allow us to understand them? Was everything nothingness before we had language to conceptualize it?

There is a difference between concrete verifiable objects and abstract concepts. Some things that have been given names probably don't exist. Do you think that unicorns exist? Do 50000 foot-tall humans exist? Do magical leprechauns exist storing gold at the ends of rainbows?

The Founders recognized life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in the broadest possible definitions for those things, as something that have always existed independent of human thought, recognition, language, or invention. To them that means that they are products of God.

Yes, the founders had quite an imagination. They also condoned slavery, prohibited women from voting, and had no problem with manifest destiny as an excuse for pushing Indians out of the way. America was made great due to a variety of things. A few things were the fertile land practically taken from Indians and made fruitful from the blood sweat and tears of slaves.

Natural rights are as real as are unicorns and leprechauns and the tooth fairy and Santa Clause.

The Founders recognized that they exist, appreciated them as the means by which humankind could achieve its highest goals, and built a nation around the concept of defending them.

Human kind achieved high goals by various means too. Look at the things made by slave labor.

 

[mattskramer]

So do strawmen.

Okay. I made a weak point. It was that many things good-and-bad have a past.