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I have to admit I'm quite confused as I start reading through these posts.
This is largely a reiteration of your argument against abortion... which is fine, and it's nice to get it together all in one place, but this is not the "model" I understood you were working on....Read the posts in there and you'll see what "model" meant in that context. It was, specifically, your model of "perfect" rights/morals -- and how that matches up with the real world. In your new posts you avoid presenting that model, again, and dig back into the right-to-life question in great depth... still based on that foundation: "It suffices simply that there are moral principles, that our ethical intuitions are some kind of instrument able to approximate those principles, and that disagreement amongst ethical intuitions does not indicate an alternate moral truth, but rather an error on the part of one or both of the disagreers."
The core of the model is that a right is an ethical obligation owed.
The existence of some set of rights is demonstrated by the rejection of contrary positions -- skepticism, relativism. This is standard procedure for existence proofs.
The interface between rights and the "real world" -- tenuous term, that -- is our set of moral intuitions.
The method of checking such rights against physical data is declared impossible because of the is-ought problem, although in principle I suppose a sophisticated EEG could tell the difference between true moral intuitions and dissemblance, which would be a partial help.
In the case of the right-to-life, a variety of different explanations for rights still point in the same direction; hence, it is presumed that a wide variety of different ethical theories should support a right to live.
I was asking for (and am left still asking for, I guess) an explanation of how an inherent rights model can actually *work*, in the real world. E.g., John raises the knife, and X happens in his mind. This model would be in enough depth to explain the evolution of concepts of rights, similarities & differences across cultures, and the feedback model... how we get closer to the "correct" answer.
Yes, you are still left asking those questions. It was my contention that I don't have to solve all of those problems first *before* utilizing the existence of inherent rights. The large model provides a specific (and theological) answer to some of your questions, although I still don't arrive at mathematical certainty. But providing my theological answer would distract from the main point: a broad variety of ethical theories contain the concept of rights within them, a concept which should reasonably lead to the support of a right to live.
So for example, the evolution of concepts of rights is explained differently by the three different example models given (evolutionary, neo-Kantian, and Christian) in the section "The Small Model Begins." The evolutionary model would explain the evolution of rights as a weeding out of the gene pool those who fail to acknowledge the rights of others. The neo-Kantian model explains the evolution of rights as the gradual working out of moral reason to a more consistent set of beliefs. The Christian model explains the evolution of rights as an interplay between sin and common grace.
But does answering that question change the outcome of the question we started with: does the fetus have a right to live? My contention is No. Even if all three of those explanations are incorrect, the direction in which rights are evolving is clear enough: humans have rights because they are humans.
I'm going to enter responses to this post in bits, as time permits; let me just address one thing quickly at the beginning. Yes, you are still left asking those questions. It was my contention that I don't have to solve all of those problems first *before* utilizing the existence of inherent rights.
I'm not asking for "solutions", or even for complete explanations. I'm only looking for an outline on par with the model I've been explaining to cover the idea of human rights.
Should I not be asking for this? Or is there a problem with this approach to understanding the world?
It's a reasonable thing to ask, and I'm sorry that I haven't supplied it. Those things are much more a part of the more specific large model. Perhaps sometime later I can revisit this issue and supply the missing details. I really can't take on that project before July, however -- I have student papers to keep on top of, AP Physics students to prepare for their exam, a paper to write for completion of a
Old programmers never die, they just hit account block limit.
Re: confusion (Score:3, Informative)
I was asking for (and am left still asking for, I guess) an explanation of how an inherent rights model can actually *work*, in the real world. E.g., John raises the knife, and X happens in his mind. This model would be in enough depth to explain the evolution of concepts of rights, similarities & differences across cultures, and the feedback model... how we get closer to the "correct" answer.
Yes, you are still left asking those questions. It was my contention that I don't have to solve all of those problems first *before* utilizing the existence of inherent rights. The large model provides a specific (and theological) answer to some of your questions, although I still don't arrive at mathematical certainty. But providing my theological answer would distract from the main point: a broad variety of ethical theories contain the concept of rights within them, a concept which should reasonably lead to the support of a right to live.
So for example, the evolution of concepts of rights is explained differently by the three different example models given (evolutionary, neo-Kantian, and Christian) in the section "The Small Model Begins." The evolutionary model would explain the evolution of rights as a weeding out of the gene pool those who fail to acknowledge the rights of others. The neo-Kantian model explains the evolution of rights as the gradual working out of moral reason to a more consistent set of beliefs. The Christian model explains the evolution of rights as an interplay between sin and common grace.
But does answering that question change the outcome of the question we started with: does the fetus have a right to live? My contention is No. Even if all three of those explanations are incorrect, the direction in which rights are evolving is clear enough: humans have rights because they are humans.
about foundations for assumptions (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, you are still left asking those questions. It was my contention that I don't have to solve all of those problems first *before* utilizing the existence of inherent rights.
I'm not asking for "solutions", or even for complete explanations. I'm only looking for an outline on par with the model I've been explaining to cover the idea of human rights.
You agreed with me earlier that ther
Re:about foundations for assumptions (Score:2)
It's a reasonable thing to ask, and I'm sorry that I haven't supplied it. Those things are much more a part of the more specific large model. Perhaps sometime later I can revisit this issue and supply the missing details. I really can't take on that project before July, however -- I have student papers to keep on top of, AP Physics students to prepare for their exam, a paper to write for completion of a