I can't authorize the state killing guilty people either. The death penalty is just wrong.

>> ^budzos:

I can't authorize the state killing guilty people either. The death penalty is just wrong.


Well, I still see things as a social contract. If you violate someone else's right to be alive, then we can reneg your right to that same protection. But the legal system has been unable to guarantee a 100% success rate in the real guilt of convictions, and in that, I can't justify killing a person whom might be innocent. Bad enough they are rotting in jail, far worse that they are murdered.

But in a time of war, declared war, the government commands us to kill people, so I don't know that the flat objection of "the state can have NO role in killing people" would be a hard sell in an absolute sense. But surely, the killing of people who committed no crime warrants the death penalties non-use. Then again, I don't believe in "natural" rights at all, only agreed on rights. So in theory, I support that kind of penalty, in application, I am against them.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Maybe some day you'll become enlightened enough to realize that the conscious choice to end a human life is ALWAYS wrong. It doesn't achieve anything but the psychic/spiritual degradation of us all.

I have to take offense at the stupid canard/strawman in your second paragraph. In an ideal world, it would be impossible for governments to declare war (AKA ordering mass murder). But it's not an ideal world yet, so war is going to be around for a while longer. However, elimination of the death penalty does not require an ideal world at all. It simply requires a sane, humane, empathetic approach to the issue (see the dozens of countries around the world with no death penalty as an example).

>> ^budzos:

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Maybe some day you'll become enlightened enough to realize that the conscious choice to end a human life is ALWAYS wrong. It doesn't achieve anything but the psychic/spiritual degradation of us all.
I have to take offense at the stupid canard/strawman in your second paragraph. In an ideal world, it would be impossible for governments to declare war (AKA ordering mass murder). But it's not an ideal world yet, so war is going to be around for a while longer. However, elimination of the death penalty does not require an ideal world at all. It simply requires a sane, humane, empathetic approach to the issue (see the dozens of countries around the world with no death penalty as an example).


Always wrong though? Like if someone is trying to kill my daughter and I kill him in the struggle? I don't really have absolute moral authority to dictate right and wrong for you, but for myself, yes, death is something to be avoided whenever and wherever you can. Animal carnage, I despise. However, I do consider using death as a form of justice; a form of rational punishment. For instance, if I caused 400 damage to your property, I consider it a rational course of justice that 400 dollars of fine/reciprocity be extracted from the offender, and perhaps a little extra to discourage the activity. Likewise, it seems rational to expect that someone who takes a life, should in turn, have his life taken, it is a consistent course of reason. The one flaw being that, even after his life is taken, the life of the original party is not restored. That isn't our fault, though, just our inability as humans to ever achieve perfect justice. Like those in Enron, they stole far more then they could ever repay...no perfect justice could ever be done.

So I agree, animal barbarism as a justification for murder is pretty much always bad, or wrong as one might say morally. But I think you can support completely rational grounds for ending a life. Hell, I have considered suicide many times, which one can say is a form of self murder. That is where I find the argument for "ending a human life is always bad" breaks down. Likewise, my grandmother recently passed from emphysema. It was dreadfully painful watching her die. And in that, if she asked someone to help her die, I could not say it evil...the pain was so great. I am no utilitarian, but I don't think that dying is so bad or living so good. Living a life in prison being butt raped doesn't sound much better than just dying, I would rather die. To each his own, it sounds like you have stuff to live for and junk, so I can understand your zeal against death. I don't find humans entitled to anything, like life, I only value our rational agreements between each other. And those who choose not to play by the rule of rational existence, well, then they are playing by the rules of the jungle; and the jungle is a harsh mistress.

Beyond all that though, the practical notion that we are murdering innocent people is enough, to me, to call the whole ordeal off. I thank you for your response, and I didn't mean to offend with the war comparison. I was making the comparison that we do, indeed, live in an imperfect world where wars happen, so governments have the ability to counter act that. I thought that laterally compared to murder. though. Murder is in essence war against that person. A person at war with the state, in an imperfect world, can rationally be "terminated" by the war example. I don't mean to offend, and I am usually horrible in arguing such things in text, I should refrain from doing so ever again.

edited (like always, I am so bad at writing )

I had a relatively pragmatic view of the death penalty until I read The Idiot.

http://www.3waystolive.com/2008/06/dostoyevsky-on-capital-punishment.html

Also, no "natural rights"? That's really dangerous. I'd love to see some material rationalizing that.

Sigh.. fatuous rhetorical questions... do you REALLY need me to confirm that this type of thing is an exception and not morally wrong? Technically/semantically, there's no conscious decision there. Killing someone who's an immediate threat to your children is an instinctive reaction, not a deliberate moral choice.

If it helps you to wrap your head around the concept, I'll re-phrase: the conscious and deliberate PLANNING to take someone else's life is always wrong. This would include any kind of pre-meditated killing like the death penalty, or abortion*, but not euthanasia. Please don't hit me with another obvious exception like if a serial killer mails you a gun and his address and says you have to kill him within an hour or your family dies. Yes, you would be morally right to kill him.

I find your notion that government should be empowered to take people's lives as a form of "justice" to be utterly disgusting. I can really understand now why it's considered rude to bring up politics at the dinner table. (EDIT: I sound like a real ass here, reading this back. You're entitled to your opinon... )

* while abortion is morally wrong, people ought to have the right to do it. You can't legislate morality.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Always wrong though? Like if someone is trying to kill my daughter and I kill him in the struggle?

@Pantalones

Natural rights means they come from nature, meaning you have some deep insight into the "real" nature of nature. You might call them God given rights, but then that begs the question, how do you know what those are? The ones we call natural rights, are they really? Why isn't property? Why isn't it actually happiness, not pursuit of happiness? There is no evidence to support which ones are natural, and which ones we are just deciding arbitrarily. As such, the burden of proof is on people claiming rights are natural. If we look out into nature, it tells a tail of a very "inhuman" nature. Nature respects nothing; parents eat their children or murder the children of a genetic rival, rape, genocide, slavery, suffering of all kinds shapes and varieties, life is a tail of endless suffering inflicted on other life. The rule of nature is there fairness isn't real, only brutality and domination. So to say there is a "natural" right to live, freedom and fruit salad, you would need some justification for that. The founders used a justification; God did it. I can't hold to that justification, and even if I did, I couldn't hold to the justification is those 3 things and not some others. As such, if there are "natural rights", no one has a valid claim to what they are.

@budzos

I digress good sir, we are arguing semantics of our own personal morality, an intractable thing for me in text. I wish you well, and hope I didn't cause you much distress. I, too, often find myself frustrated by what I see as fatuous arguments, but the problem doesn't come from logical flaws, but my own inability to make clear the exceptions that are inherent in such complex issues, compounded by my own lack of command of the English language.

@GeeSussFreeK

Ah, so the argument is any natural right is only as legitimate as it's subjective and relative foundation, and therefore simply a misnomer for negotiated right. That's an interesting standard for "natural". That's an interesting concept. As a counter argument, I ask, can I negotiate my right (not capacity or ability) to learn? How about my right to negotiate?

Seriously, if there is an author I can read up on, I'd enjoy reading a more in depth exploration of this idea.

@Pantalones

The subject of rights is vast, and as old as the Greeks. The most relevant thinkers that directly tie to this line of questioning are Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. Hobbs rejected the idea of Natural rights and divine orders, where Locke embraced it. Like Hobbs, I reject the idea of Natural, Divine rights, yet still embrace the idea of a social contract replacing natural rights with rationally negotiated rights.

Your counter argument is at the heart of what Positive and Negative rights are: I personally believe that only negative rights can be enforced; your right not to have something happen, where as others suggests that only positive rights can be asserted; your right too something. Wiki has a good read on it here.

I posted a video awhile back that wasn't very highly regarded because the guy is a little arrogant to start off, but the video really starts to get awesome deeper in if you can get past some of the arrogance to start. http://videosift.com/video/Tom-Woods-Where-Do-Rights-Come-From

So much to learn, so little time. Myself, I am still tasked by @NetRunner to read John Stuart Mill's book, but I suspect my rejection of natural rights/utility won't bold to well for me there. Go forth fellow truth seeker and find all the truths that I missed

O ya, and always consult the wiki on natural rights and social contracts, that will point you in so many directions and give you such a complement of names as to be lost for years in completely conflicting ways to view the world!

There are no natural rights. They are societal.

We have natural inclinations to not kill people and other naturally evolved traits, but that's the limit of it. Rights are not naturally occurring, they are societal.

Most people seem to misunderstand what natural means.

A "right" implies that you need permission. There is no "right to learn", it is a biological construct. You learn, because your brain works that way. Our society does not infringe on that ability, but you are not granted a right - it just is. You may argue that by not forbidding it, we are indirectly setting up a right, but it's still misleading.

Your right to negotiate your rights is internal to the society - we have politicians elected to determine rights, judges to uphold them. Other societies might have had Chieftains determining right and wrong, and rights for the people.

From an outside perspective a given society's rights might be seen as barbaric, given our own society's standpoint. Examples: Prima Nocte or the death penalty.

The important thing is that rights are determined on a societal level, not an individual level. Morality, might be entirely different, but that's another discussion.
>> ^Pantalones:

@GeeSussFreeK
Ah, so the argument is any natural right is only as legitimate as it's subjective and relative foundation, and therefore simply a misnomer for negotiated right. That's an interesting standard for "natural". That's an interesting concept. As a counter argument, I ask, can I negotiate my right (not capacity or ability) to learn? How about my right to negotiate?
Seriously, if there is an author I can read up on, I'd enjoy reading a more in depth exploration of this idea.

If you need permission, then it's not a right at all, it's a privilege. And while learning may be innate, it's also an active exercise that can't be taken away or allowed by permission. Forming opinions, having beliefs, simply existing, the idea that these things are granted by society, even if you could take them away seems...unnatural.>> ^gwiz665:

A "right" implies that you need permission. There is no "right to learn", it is a biological construct. You learn, because your brain works that way.

Well, to expound on my view:

Naturally, you have the right to do anything. Anything that is possible is your "natural" right to do. Society limits those rights such that we can live together in reasonable harmony. Some rights are explicitly forbidden, like murder, while others are explicitly allowed (with limits often) like the right to life.

Anything society does not make laws against is within your rights to do, so yeah, in that sense you could say that you have a right to learn. Rights can be natural like this, but they are not inalienable like some people think them to be. The US constitution, for instance, is just a societal declaration about which rights it deems "natural" and inalienable.

I tend to lean towards "a right" being granted by something, but we're obviously debating semantics then.

>> ^Pantalones:

If you need permission, then it's not a right at all, it's a privilege. And while learning may be innate, it's also an active exercise that can't be taken away or allowed by permission. Forming opinions, having beliefs, simply existing, the idea that these things are granted by society, even if you could take them away seems...unnatural.>> ^gwiz665:
A "right" implies that you need permission. There is no "right to learn", it is a biological construct. You learn, because your brain works that way.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

So much to learn, so little time. Myself, I am still tasked by @NetRunner to read John Stuart Mill's book, but I suspect my rejection of natural rights/utility won't bold to well for me there.

The reason I've pushed you to read it is not really to try to convert you, so much as to help you achieve greater understanding of present-day liberal thought (by having you read a book that was first published in 1863, naturally).

Personally, I see it as the antithesis of "natural rights" philosophies. There's none of this crap where the whole thing starts out front loaded with preconceived notions of right and wrong asserted as natural/divine/objective moral absolutes.

All it really starts out with is the observation that the primary way we experience the world is though pain and pleasure...

It's also short (96 pages!), and free on Google books and Amazon Kindle...