Another source of light pollution

On Fri, 02 Feb 2018 09:31:25 +0100, Paul Schlyter
wrote:

So your rights are merely a concept in theoretical philosophy, with
no implementation in the real world?

There is no suggestion within moral philosophy that rights are merely
"theoretical". The question is one of what they are (the definition
problem) and where they come from (the origin problem).

On Fri, 02 Feb 2018 09:26:33 +0100, Paul Schlyter
wrote:

On Thu, 01 Feb 2018 11:13:43 -0700, Chris L Peterson
wrote:
Sure. But I would not call those "rights" (yes, I know the law
does).
I recognize them as legal obligations placed on people to protect
those unable to protect themselves. This could apply to animals, as

Can you give some examples of what you consider rights which have no
corresponding legal obligations? And if the law doesn't enforce those
rights, who will? God? A lynch mob near you? Anyone else - who?

You're understanding my comment wrong. All rights imply legal
obligations. But there are legal obligations that don't involve
rights.

On Fri, 02 Feb 2018 09:19:16 +0100, Paul Schlyter
wrote:

On Thu, 01 Feb 2018 07:31:32 -0700, Chris L Peterson
wrote:
Just calling them "rights" could imply that they also apply to
non-human such as animals.

I don't believe it makes sense to consider non-sentient entities as
having rights. You need to understand the concept of rights to have

However, you can get punished for torturing e.g. your dog. So some
non-sentinent but living entities do have some rights according to
law, even if those rights aren't human rights.

A law against cruelty to animals does not mean that animals have
rights.

Chris L Peterson wrote in
:

On Thu, 01 Feb 2018 14:39:33 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili
Kujisalimisha wrote:

I didn't say that they weren't rights in my opinion.

Yes. You did.

Not much I can do if your reading comprehension can't keep up
with a discussion of a non-trivial nature.

I know you are, but what am I?

--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

Paul Schlyter wrote in
:

On Thu, 01 Feb 2018 13:59:52 -0700, Chris L Peterson
wrote:
Which is to say, you choose to use words differently than
anyone else, and not admit it until called out on it.

I make it clear how I'm using words. This usage is not
different
from
anyone else. It's a perfectly common usage within moral
philosophy.

So your rights are merely a concept in theoretical philosophy,
with no implementation in the real world? And if those rights
are severely violated, some philosopher might make a note about
it in a notebook but apart from that nothing happens?

And out of the other side of his mouth, he acknowledges that rights
are created by laws.

Boy can't keep his bull**** straight from one post to the next.

--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

On Thu, 1 Feb 2018 19:05:03 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

You may have noticed that I was talking slightly with tongue in
cheek, to show that there was another side to the argument. Of
course argument by intimidation isn't valid.

AKA argumentum ad baculum.

However, while perhaps one could come up with some complicated
philosophical or evolutionary rationale for saying that the
Holocaust was, oh, suboptimal or something...

Indeed, that's an excellent way to approach the question.

to most people, the notion of moral absolutes, existing
irrevocably and independently of human wishes or fashions, is
easily understandable.

Sadly true. Because so many people are programmed into their beliefs
as children and never educated in the methods of actually thinking
critically. Critical thinking is not something that occurs naturally
in most people.

And while no empirical guide to exactly
what those rights are may exist, a whole bunch of them seem to be
sufficiently obvious to obtain consensus.

I'd say there are actually very few things that could be described as
nearly universal moral beliefs across all cultures. Very, very few.

On Thu, 1 Feb 2018 19:17:51 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

However, religion, by its very nature, posits the existence of
God, and so it will put forward moral absolutes even in the
absence of secular ethical philosophers who propose natural law
theory.

Not all religions do this, or at the least, they do it to very
different degrees.

Religion is - one of the forces in this world that discourage
people from lying, cheating, and stealing, and it is a force that
encourages people to make charitable contributions, and so on.

A coin with two sides. Religion is also one of the forces of the world
that enables people in lying, cheating, and stealing.

(A recent study on charitable giving found that when you remove giving
to churches themselves- which is hardly charitable- nonreligious
people give more.)

If non-religious thinking goes to the extreme that you advocate of
being different from religious thinking, then it has the problem
that it will fail to provide moral guidance in a form that is
understandable to ordinary people.

Actually, if we can teach ordinary people to avoid dogma, it isn't at
all hard for them to understand the basis of humanism. The idea is
quite natural for modern, western people. A good deal of the conflict
we see in our societies today (most especially in the U.S.) comes from
the dissonance created by a religion-based moral code that is
increasingly seen as wrong by more and more people.

That our innate sense of fairness and
justice reflects something as absolute as mathematics - may or may
not be true, but it seems the best way for us to understand it at
this time.

This innate sense, which I refer to as our moral engine, does appear
universal. It has an organic basis (in brain structure) and even
exists in some other animals to some degree. But do not confuse it
with moral strictures, which are entirely invented by people and their
societies. A sense of fairness and justice does not in the least
preclude moral systems that support slavery and genocide, for
instance.

Humanism is the only basis I know of for defining moral strictures
that seems actually able to produce the sort of world most
enlightened, modern people seem to wish for.

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 2:16:07 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:
If
your absolutes had been present then, there would have been no
holocaust, and no Armenian genocide either for that matter.

For a value of "present" that no one subscribes to.

The absolutes were present in the sense I mean before both
events; thinking people recognized the Armenian genocide as a
bad thing when it happened, and in the case of the Holocaust,
nearly the whole world condemned it along with the Axis
aggression.

Bad people do wrong things. That is dealt with by the police
using force against the bad people, as the very wrongness of
those things, unfortunately, does not cause the ground itself to
rise up and restrain them.

John Savard

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 1:31:28 AM UTC-7, Paul Schlyter wrote:
On Thu, 01 Feb 2018 13:59:52 -0700, Chris L Peterson
wrote:

Which is to say, you choose to use words differently than anyone
else, and not admit it until called out on it.

I make it clear how I'm using words. This usage is not different
from
anyone else. It's a perfectly common usage within moral philosophy.

So your rights are merely a concept in theoretical philosophy, with
no implementation in the real world? And if those rights are severely
violated, some philosopher might make a note about it in a notebook
but apart from that nothing happens?

Well, one of the things that happens is that when people use force
to enforce those rights, they can now do it with a clearer
conscience.

John Savard

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 9:28:25 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
Paul Schlyter wrote in
:

So your rights are merely a concept in theoretical philosophy,
with no implementation in the real world? And if those rights
are severely violated, some philosopher might make a note about
it in a notebook but apart from that nothing happens?

And out of the other side of his mouth, he acknowledges that rights
are created by laws.

Boy can't keep his bull**** straight from one post to the next.

No, rights are absolute and eternal and independent of human laws.

However, laws do create another thing called "legal rights". The
same word is used in their name, because there is a resemblance
between the two.

I have been perfectly and unwaveringly consistent, and quite clear
as well. If you have trouble making sense of it, it's your
problem, not mine.

John Savard