SFreeman89Vision

Yet another updated version of my presentation is here. No not yet, my presentation is not until January or possibly just before we break up for Christmas so I've got a while yet. I am on an economics and politics course myself, but my classmates come from a variety of courses. Most will be politics, PPE (politics, philosophy and economics), international relations, politics and philosophy or politics and history students. I know of two other economics and politics students in the class besides myself. Sure, I feel quite embarrassed for people who make presentations and then when it comes to questions or debate at the end they are completely unable to respond because they have simply paraphrased a book they read without really understanding, grasping it, or being aware of its critics. What would you reply to Rollins? I would say that Rollins misunderstands what a right is. Rights are moral principles, they are facts about human survival in a social context, they are what is necessary for man's proper existence. They have no tangible power, they do not enforce themselves, but that is not to say they are worthless or that they do not exist. Rights as moral principles are not supposed to shield individuals from other individuals (including those who make up the state), they merely inform us; they tell us, amongst other things, that a shield is needed. They are simply acknowledgements about the way the world is. The acknowledgement that one must break some eggs in order to make an omelet does not in itself produce broken eggs or an omelet, it does not prevent one from going without an omelet. I would say that in your example you are really talking about being consistent on something higher than the thing being insisted upon, or not. For example, it is not inconsistent for me to stuff my face with marzipan because I love its almond taste, but to refuse to taste cyanide even though it tastes of almonds. I'm being consistent on something higher than 'eating things that taste of almond', I'm being consistent on bettering and maintaining my own life. I believe that I have settled the problem I had with this slide, however. I have moved this further into the presentation rather than making it the first slide. Instead I start with axioms and their irrefutably, comprising the law of identity. I then say simply that contradictions are at odds with the law of identity so to be meaningful one must be consistent and not inconsistent. I clarify this though. Living by one's own effort does not mean living as a singular hunter-gatherer in the depths of some frozen forest. I didn't make the shirt I am wearing, but I none the less live by my own effort because my effort of working won me a wage that I traded for my shirt. When my friends give my gifts at Christmas I am still living on my own effort because it is my virtue in their eyes that has lead them to give me gifts. But if I steal, I am not living by my own effort. Rather than others acting on their own best judgement of the facts I am forcing them to do otherwise. Instead of choosing to give me a gift, which they want to do, which they feel is the best thing for them to do and thus is a productive action, I take against their will which is merely a transfer; the behavior of a parasite. But it is not even a lossless transfer because ultimately man isn't built to be a thief. I don't mean from an intelligent design perspective, I simple mean that man's mind does not cope well with such things. It is not healthy for it. And so dishonest and illegitimate behavior prevents man's flourishing and is irrational in and of itself, even before its effects on others are considered. What could a natural rights advocate reply to that? I would say again that he misunderstands what Rand was saying. She does not say that all men are rational by nature so it is right for them to be as such. She says that man's nature is such that reason is the only way for men to get on in the world. The fact that some men choose to be violent is, if anything, only further evidence of this; that man needs to reject those impulses (within himself as well as those of others) and live on the basis of reason if he is to flourish as a human being.

Here is an edited and slightly expanded presentation. The weakpoints in my argument as it stands, that I can see, are: 1) Why must consistency or inconsistency be preferable, why can't they be equally valuable/valueless? 2) Why must man survive by his own efforts? Why not each survive by a mixture of his own efforts and those of others, or exclusively on the efforts of others? Is it better for a man to starve than live on the effort of others? That is, if man's value is his own life, surely his life can be improved and thus his value obtained by stealing from others? What restricts 'his life' to 'his life which doesn't involve violence' without resorting to a circular argument?

Selene, I am studying economics and politics (you may or may not be aware that in the UK we generally study a single subject at university, rather than the broader 'minor-major' education you receive in the United States. I am doing what is called a 'joint-honours' degree where I study economics half of the time, and politics the other half. I hope ultimately to go into management or management consultancy, and/or perhaps one day a Phd and lecturing. I don't think my grades will suffer because of the direction of the views I express. Nor do I expect a great deal of hostility in class. I have always written essays and exam answers that are decidedly free market in economics and pro-liberty in politics. I think it actually benefits me because they're unusual in their extremity which makes them stand out, and they are also seen as more original which seems to be the key to high grades in written answers. Class discussions are usually very courteous. There is one student, I think he's Swiss, who seems more belligerent so perhaps it's a British thing.

It's my understanding that, technically (though often used otherwise in everyday speech) 'communism' refers to a stateless, post-socialist society where the means of production are owned 'collectively', whatever that means. Socialism, in contrast, is a state-dominated society whereby the means of production are owned by the state. I think Cuba sits firmly in the socialist camp. The discussion around Cuba appears (from looking at the reading list, we haven't studied it yet since term has only recently begun) to be around: 1) whether it is legitimate/moral/etc to use per se undesirable means to achieve benevolent ends. That is, socialists/egalitarians debating whether state repression etc is an acceptable price to pay for what they regard as a more equal or generally better off society. 2) Whether the Cuban government is trying to equalise the right thing i.e. equality of outcome vs equality of opportunity vs democratic egalitarianism, brute luck vs option luck, etc etc. Obviously this is a marginal question to someone with views such as mine since the only thing that should be equalised through force is a freedom from violence (i.e. all men being equally free from violence). Obviously for non-socialists and those who don't place great (or any) weight on egalitarianism the argument is rather irrelevant since we disagree with the ends as well as the means so there's no trade-off, Cuba's form of government is unambiguously evil. My lecturer got both his bachelors degrees and his doctorate from Oxford. He's been lecturing (here and in Canada) for three years, he is quite young. His non-academic portfolio explains many of the topics: He has worked with street children in Calcutta, Mexican Zapatistas, and the Papuan freedom movement. I guess he teaches what he knows! You're right that West Papua has no special significance to us in the UK as, say, a topic on the 'war on terror' might. I assume it's just a case study for the application of ethics. Having international or even historical case studies isn't unusual in my experience. For example we studied a medieval Jewish trading syndicate in the Mediterranean and the cod crisis a few years ago in Newfoundland when thinking about institutions and game theory.

Xray, FYI the point of the presentation is to express one's own views, not just to inform the class of some reading one has done. Originality is one of the marking criteria. My topic ('theories of rights') was chosen from a list so I had limited choice. I could otherwise have chosen: Theories of equality Poverty Global trade Cuban socialism Theories of intergenerational justice Climate change Reducing greenhouse gas emissions (I'm not entirely sure how this is substantially different to the preceding topic) Water rights in India Animal rights Human and cultural rights in West Papua Theories of democracy Zapatistas in Mexico Consensus democracy in anarchist movements Theories of liberty Street children in Calcutta Freedom of movement in Palestine Personally I felt that rights was the most obvious topic because my views on any one of those subjects will be based on my conception of rights. In order to answer a question such as "Do the affluent have a duty to feed the starving?" I would need to lay out my theory of rights.

Thank you all for your feedback. I said that man can "lean from, trade and interact," with other men. So, I can learn from Ayn Rand, I can trade with Bill Gates, and I can interact with my friends. Does that make sense? In British English minimize is spelt with an 's' (as are all 'ize/ise' words e.g. tenderise, capitalise etc). The use of Z is the American spelling. You are quite right, I'll change that. Would "man's reason does not function under coercion," be more correct? Or "man's mind does not function properly/healthily under coercion,"? Proscription means the act of prohibiting: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/proscription I think you have misunderstood that slide. The statement in quotation marks at the head of the slide (that rights are mere gifts of the state) is not my view, it is a common criticism of a conception of rights of the kind I am expressing. The bullet points beneath it are the reasoning I use to debunk it. I would have said that "Ethics tells us what we should or should not do, rights are the principles at the top of the ethical pyramid that embody those should-nots in order to inform political action, or non-action. Would you disagree with that? What do you think rights are for? I felt that 'may not' was too much a description of material fact. "You may not initiate force against me." But of course you CAN do so; it's physically possible, just not moral. How about "should not"? A good suggestion. Yes, I'll need to run through it a few times once I'm happy with what I've got so far and see how much, if any, time I have to spare. I'd ideally like to critique some other conceptions of rights (or denials of them). I'd also like to relate my/the objectivist conception of rights to other areas of the class such as equality, poverty etc.

Selene, I'm not sure what you're referring to with regards tracking computer usage. A year ago an EU directive requiring internet service providers to retain usage data (i.e. who emailed who, who visited which website, though not the data itself) for 12 months, if that's what you mean? If so then obviously I oppose it. Quite aside from the very worrying implications for privacy, freedom of speech etc, what ISPs do with their customers' data should be a matter of contract between them, not state coercion. Xray, you are correct I am a student. I don't think there's really time for me to address all specific objections to an inalienable right to one's own body. There's an endless list of "What about..."s and to address each on the basis of its own consistency or consequences is just impractical. I'm not sure that's even how the objections will be framed. I think I certainly am trying to impress the 'negative' nature of rights as freedom from coercion and define them. Here is my Powerpoint-in-progress to show the precise argument I'm making. Right now it's very text heavy (and not properly formatted in all places) because I'm writing almost everything on there, but once I'm happy with it I'll reduce it down into summaries as it should be. Let me know what you think.

I think they would probably initially agree that they own their own physical bodies if I asked them. But if I asked them if they think they have an absolute right to the use of their own bodies as they wish, I think there might be some disagreement. I think some would object to drug taking and prostitution, for example, on the basis that while it might be your choice it creates social ills; externalities. They might also agree in principle but say that in practice 'choice' is limited such as women becoming prostitutes because they have no other option or people working for low pay/in bad conditions because they have no choice. I can imagine a variety of other things they'd probably object to such as, certainly viewing child pornography, but also perhaps some other kinds of pornography (violent, animals etc), incest, polygamy, making 'hateful' speech (race, religion etc). And that's before extending a right to your body to a right to other forms of property....

I'm in the UK. The class will be 20, 21 and 22.

Thank you for your reply. The presentation topic is 'theories of rights' for a course titled 'political theory in practice'. My train of reasoning, though it is not complete, hence my posting here, goes something like this: *** Consistency is better than inconsistency; to say that inconsistency is better would require us to consistently apply the standard of inconsistency which is impossible. Therefore we can judge arguments on their consistency. Given this standard, the human senses must be valid for purposes of reasoning about the world. Any argument they are not would itself rely upon the senses and thus be inconsistent. There must be truth, since any argument that there is not is itself a statement of truth and therefore inconsistent. Given that there is truth and that the senses are valid, we must be able to find truth through the senses i.e. through observation. We can observe that people act both to gain and to keep things. Since man is mortal, which we can also observe, we know that man must make choices. He cannot do and have everything in his lifetime, he must choose which things to pursue and in what way. This implies some standard of value. Man does not pursue good food or large houses or companionship as ends in themselves, he pursues them for some higher end. This standard, this end in itself, is man's own life. But we also know that, while men value each other, they are a potential threat to one another. Men can deprive other men of their lives. By his nature man seeks his own life, the purpose of man's life is to live his own life. So it must be morally bad for one man to deprive another of his life. If we wish to inform our (political) actions from morality then some principle must be established that connects the two. We call such a principle a right, and so the right to life. Corollary to this is the right to property since man's life consists of applying reason to the world i.e. producing. If man has a right to his life, he must also have a right to that which he produces. From this it follows that capitalism is the proper organisation of society since it is the only system that protects man's rights. *** As I say I don't feel it's complete and I was hoping for some help in refining it and preparing counter-arguments to some of the criticisms that will inevitably be made. I am certain that some members of the class will be aghast at it, but others I think will be sympathetic. Class yesterday was on equality, and while one classmate insisted that 'opulence' was immoral, at least while people are starving, another countered (quite rightly in my opinion) that since wealth is produced 'opulence' is created by those who enjoy it (at least under capitalism) and to become wealthy is not at the expense of the poor, and that if the opulent were deprived of their wealth in order to aid the poor they would simply cease to produce. There seemed to be a consensus, at least amongst those who spoke, that egalitarianism is at least impractical or impossible, and probably undesirable. Nobody mentioned rights i.e. what about the opulent man's RIGHT to that which he produces but most people did not seem to be keen on robbing him. I don't think that's too bad for what is essentially a socialist, collectivist, often openly Marxist system of higher education...

I'm doing a presentation at university on theories of rights, and will be making it from an objectivist perspective. Ayn Rand wrote: "Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave." My question is with regards to the part in bold. It seems to me that a likely response to this assertion is "But man can have his life sustained by others. This might make some or all men 'slaves' but that is just a slur word." What would you, or Rand, say to this?