Where did Ayn Rand claim that rights are "contextual"?

[Xray]

Someone - I think Xray - asked the pertinent question about the distiction between "metaphysical" and "physical" - when one's life is on the line - regarding Dr Peikoff's quote above. ("Now,...you are in a literal position of being metaphysically helpless. Since life is the standard of rights, if you can no longer survive this way, rights are out.")

Is LP making a false dichotomy between physical and metaphysical?

Yep, that was me who asked the question, in post # 8.

Peikoff wrote:

"Rights are contextual. In any situation where metaphysical survival is at stake all property rights are out." (Leonard Peikoff)

What is the difference between "metaphysical" survival and physical survival?

"You have no obligation to respect property rights. The obvious, classic example of this is, which I've been asked a hundred times, you swim to a desert island — you know, you had a shipwreck — and when you get to the shore, the guy comes to you and says, ‘I've got a fence all around this island. I found it. It's legitimately mine. You can't step onto the beach.' Now, in that situation you are in a literal position of being metaphysically helpless." (Leonard Peikoff)

Again, what is the difference between "metaphysically" helpless and physically helpless?

I really want to know. The term "metaphysical" gives me philosophical headache anyway because it is often used in all kinds of contexts, with sometimes contradictory meanings. In discussions, I avoid using it actively because of that.

TIA to anyone who can help to clear up what exactly Peikoff meant by using "metaphysical" instead of "physical" in the above quotes.

Edited March 26, 2011 by Xray

[sjw]

TIA to anyone who can help to clear up what exactly Peikoff meant by using "metaphysical" instead of "physical" in the above quotes.

For the record, I don't give a damn what he meant.

Shayne

[Xray]

TIA to anyone who can help to clear up what exactly Peikoff meant by using "metaphysical" instead of "physical" in the above quotes.

For the record, I don't give a damn what he meant.

Shayne

It doesn't answer my question though. My guess is that if Peikoff used the word "metaphysical" here, then he must have borrowed the term from Ayn Rand in some way. For imo Peikoff has never come up with a philosophical thought of his own which was NOT connected to his reception of Ayn Rand's thoughts.

Edited March 26, 2011 by Xray

[Dennis Hardin]

Again, what is the difference between "metaphysically" helpless and physically helpless?

I really want to know. The term "metaphysical" gives me philosophical headache anyway because it is often used in all kinds of contexts, with sometimes contradictory meanings. In discussions, I avoid using it actively because of that.

TIA to anyone who can help to clear up what exactly Peikoff meant by using "metaphysical" instead of "physical" in the above quotes.

The Glossary of Objectivist Definitions says: Metaphysical means that which pertains to reality, to the nature of things, to existence.

“Physical” strictly limits you to the material world, exclusive of your mind and consciousness.

In other words, the shipwreck survivor is confronted with no real option but to perish. A strictly physical barrier, such as a fence or a gun, could potentially be overcome. But the island occupant’s invocation of “property rights” prevents the shipwreck survivor from doing anything other than diving back into the ocean—i.e., dying.

Of course, that would be the case if the property rights’ claim was valid and had to be respected by the newcomer. Since the claim is invalid, if the ‘owner’ did not relinquish his claim, the newcomer would have the legitimate option of capturing him or killing him.

An alternate term to “metaphysical” would be “existential,” because that would encompass both the physical and the mental realms.

[anthony]

Of course, that would be the case if the property rights’ claim was valid and had to be respected by the newcomer. Since the claim is invalid, if the ‘owner’ did not relinquish his claim, the newcomer would have the legitimate option of capturing him or killing him.

Thank you: yes.

But in what context would his property rights claim be valid, and have to be respected by the newcomer? Why is the claim invalid in this case?

When an other's right to life is invoked, and takes precedence, of course.

Peikoff: "Rights are contextual. In any situation where metaphysical survival is at stake, all property rights are out."

This is not so much 'contextual', as hierarchical, in my view.

Tony

[Dennis Hardin]

Of course, that would be the case if the property rights’ claim was valid and had to be respected by the newcomer. Since the claim is invalid, if the ‘owner’ did not relinquish his claim, the newcomer would have the legitimate option of capturing him or killing him.

Thank you: yes.

But in what context would his property rights claim be valid, and have to be respected by the newcomer? Why is the claim invalid in this case?

When an other's right to life is invoked, and takes precedence, of course.

Peikoff: "Rights are contextual. In any situation where metaphysical survival is at stake, all property rights are out."

This is not so much 'contextual', as hierarchical, in my view.

Tony

Tony,

Epistemologically, yes, the hierarchy is the context.

What gives rise to the concept of rights?

The need to define a man’s freedom of action in society in order to promote man’s proper survival.

If rights are turned against survival in a given social situation (i.e., existential context), they do not apply.

[anthony]

Of course, that would be the case if the property rights’ claim was valid and had to be respected by the newcomer. Since the claim is invalid, if the ‘owner’ did not relinquish his claim, the newcomer would have the legitimate option of capturing him or killing him.

Thank you: yes.

But in what context would his property rights claim be valid, and have to be respected by the newcomer? Why is the claim invalid in this case?

When an other's right to life is invoked, and takes precedence, of course.

Peikoff: "Rights are contextual. In any situation where metaphysical survival is at stake, all property rights are out."

This is not so much 'contextual', as hierarchical, in my view.

Tony

Tony,

Epistemologically, yes, the hierarchy is the context.

What gives rise to the concept of rights?

The need to define a man’s freedom of action in society in order to promote man’s proper survival.

If rights are turned against survival in a given social situation (i.e., existential context), they do not apply.

Dennis,

Thanks. We are in accord.

I might be splitting hairs but to call it contextual when a conflict of rights arises, is still puzzling.

Essentially, it is I who lose my 'right to rights',when I trample on yours.

Therefore, my rights may have become contextual, while yours remain unaffected.

Maybe it is only the blanket assertion in LP's quote ( "Rights are contextual"), that appears to affect both parties, that I'm getting stuck on.

Thinking on it.

Tony

[Brant Gaede]

TIA to anyone who can help to clear up what exactly Peikoff meant by using "metaphysical" instead of "physical" in the above quotes.

For the record, I don't give a damn what he meant.

Shayne

Best thing you ever wrote--here.

--Brant

I care even less

[mcm]

Re: the distinction between metaphysical existence and physical existence:

Issues of moral and political rights obtain in the context of a human being's metaphysical existence—existing as what he is by nature—but not in the context of mere physical existence. A brain dead person on life support still exists physically, but is without the metaphysical existence that warrants any consideration of his moral or political rights.

Peikoff's point would be that it is a contradiction to sustain a principle that derives from and only exists contingent on the survivor's metaphysical existence if it would immediately result in the destruction of that very state of existence that gives rise to the principle in the first place. Since physical existence alone does not give rise to rights, his word choice is more precise.

[mcm]

Now a little more on contextuality ...

Individual political rights are moral principles necessitated by moral rights (as in rights and wrongs) and are both absolute and contextual. That is, within the context that gives rise to them (the social context), their definition and sanction of universal individual autonomy is absolute. That the validity of an individual's political rights is absolute in that sense does not preclude them from being contextual—limited to the conditions in which their necessity arises and limited to definitions and sanctions of actions that result in the protection of one's life.

------------

and on life and death emergencies ...

The right to property is absolute, but when infringed, the recourse has to be to put the original owner back to his original condition. In other words, a reasonable implementation of justice would yield the same consequences as your interpretation does, but does not throw property rights out the window. I.e., the solution here is not to change the definition of "right to property," but to make sure you have a sane definition of "right to justice."

In the case of an emergency requiring an action that would otherwise be regarded as a violation of a right, I am still in favor of the qualification on the definition and applicability of the right rather than mitigating the recourse in the name of justice. I agree with Rand that there is only one fundamental right—the right to life—and that the right to property is a consequence thereof that serves to establish all of the other rights that implement that right. Thus, the necessity to sustain one's "metaphysical existence" (in Peikoff's terms) is of infinitely greater importance than the sustaining a particular traditional definition of the subordinate rights that implement the right to life in normal situations.

For instance: an important right implementing the right to life is the right to be free from any arbitrary exercise of defensive force. The free exercise of one's autonomy not only requires that initiated force be prevented, stopped, and punished, but also that the exercise of defensive force be objectified—that is, not only objective in its specification, but also objectified by being known or knowable to all subject to its exercise in advance. I usually illustrate this with the statement that over half the value of liberty is in the justifiable expectation of it. It is this necessary prohibition of any unilaterally, arbitrary exercise of defensive force that is the Achilles' heel of the anarchists.

It is already a long understood and practiced principle that one may unilaterally exercise defensive force in emergency situations where the objectified forces and procedures of government cannot intervene in time to counter a threat to one's life. The public's individual rights to objectified force still obtain, but those are satisfied by making such an act subject to an investigation and determination immediately after the fact. But that kind of arbitrary force is not regarded as a violation of the prohibition against arbitrary force that is merely alleviated by justice. There is simply no right of anyone to prohibit it at all.

Identical to my example of the lost hiker and Peikoff's example of the shipwreck survivors, emergency actions of self-defense are straightforward act-or-perish situations. There are no grounds to define a right of anyone that would restrain the actions taken to preserve life in those contexts, and so no such rights exist.

While I agree that concretely there is little or no difference in the end result compared to the proposal to rather mitigate recourse, that appears to be a hierarchical inversion of the principles.

The preservation of life is the central component of the reason for the existence of individual rights in the first place. An imminent threat to one's existence threatens the very necessity for all of one's rights. The value of acting to preserve one's life in an emergency act-or-perish situation inherently supersedes the value of defining and sustaining a corollary right such as the right to property to conflict with it. In other words, the validity of property rights is limited to contexts in which they do not conflict with the right to life they are designed to implement.

That said,

... it seems your stated disagreement or concern is one of articulation and not necessarily theory.

Yes it is. The ethical imperative as well as its extension into a social context is in principle identical for every individual human being. The standard is always that which is good for the individual's own life in the long run (the context). The extension of one's ethical mandates into a social context necessitates the radical capitalist government described by Rand that subordinates both the populace and the government to objective definitions of the rights to be enforced and the specification of procedures by which they will be defended.

The stated disagreement therefore is actually one over whether the right to life in these emergency situations will be protected by definition of the implementing rights or by specification of the implementing procedures. Should a post facto adjudication be "no violation, so no charges filed"? Or should it be, "you violated his right in mitigating circumstances." (Both could be separate from the issue of restitution.)

Given the knowledge that rights are extensions of individual ethics to a social context, I cannot accept that rights should be defined such that a patently moral action could qualify as a violation, even if subsequent procedures of enforcement would be defined to excuse it. In a perfectly rational government, a moral action may not be a crime—define accordingly!

Not that this conclusion will make the task a simple cut and dried process. Lines must still be drawn within a continuum like the stages between the fetus and the adult with a full set of rights. It is moral to break into the cabin and take the owner's food to save yourself from immediate death, but it is not moral to break into the pharmacy to take the medicine you cannot afford that will prolong your life for months. The task of a rational, moral individual is to define rights for the sake of his own life with the consideration that he could be either one of the parties involved in these examples.

[Dennis Hardin]

Tony,

Epistemologically, yes, the hierarchy is the context.

What gives rise to the concept of rights?

The need to define a man’s freedom of action in society in order to promote man’s proper survival.

If rights are turned against survival in a given social situation (i.e., existential context), they do not apply.

Dennis,

Thanks. We are in accord.

I might be splitting hairs but to call it contextual when a conflict of rights arises, is still puzzling.

Essentially, it is I who lose my 'right to rights',when I trample on yours.

Therefore, my rights may have become contextual, while yours remain unaffected.

Maybe it is only the blanket assertion in LP's quote ( "Rights are contextual"), that appears to affect both parties, that I'm getting stuck on.

Thinking on it.

Tony

Tony,

Everything is contextual in Objectivism except the axioms of existence and identity, which have no exceptions. Consciousness requires a context: the existence of a being which possesses it.

Quite frankly, I am thrilled that someone on OL actually wants to discuss Objectivism--and knows enough about Objectivist epistemology to appreciate the importance of conceptual hierarchy.

I will bite my tongue before I say anything about those who find philosophical details boring. . .

Thank you!

[Xray]

“Physical” strictly limits you to the material world, exclusive of your mind and consciousness.

In other words, the shipwreck survivor is confronted with no real option but to perish. A strictly physical barrier, such as a fence or a gun, could potentially be overcome. But the island occupant’s invocation of “property rights” prevents the shipwreck survivor from doing anything other than diving back into the ocean—i.e., dying.

But a property owner standing in the way invoking property rights could potentially be overcome as well, i. e. by shoving him aside (in case the shipwrecked individual is physically stronger).

An alternate term to “metaphysical” would be “existential,” because that would encompass both the physical and the mental realms.

Imo "existential" would be the far clearer term. I'm not sure if I recall this correctly: wouldn't Rand originally have preferred to call her philosophy "Existentialism", but as the term was already in use to label another branch of philosophy, "Existentialism" was no option?

In a fully rational society, there can be no conflict of interest between individuals, and their rights.

I think conflicts of interests between individuals would exist in a fully rational society as well.

Edited March 28, 2011 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

There I am trespassing on an island to save my life and the owner appears and tells me to swim back out to sea where I will die. I refuse and he pulls a gun and tells me again to get off his island. Here he is using retaliatory force against my use of force or is he using his idea of property rights to kill me?

--Brant

fortunately I have my own gun and kill the SOB using retaliatory force proportionate to the threat

Edited March 28, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[sjw]

<snip>

While I agree that concretely there is little or no difference in the end result compared to the proposal to rather mitigate recourse, that appears to be a hierarchical inversion of the principles.

For the record, I didn't see any argument whatever before this statement, I view this as a long-winded version of "I think this because I want to, not because I have any logical reason to."

Shayne

Edited March 28, 2011 by sjw

[mcm]

There I am trespassing on an island to save my life and the owner appears and tells me to swim back out to sea where I will die. I refuse and he pulls a gun and tells me again to get off his island. Here he is using retaliatory force against my use of force or is he using his idea of property rights to kill me?

Both.

fortunately I have my own gun and kill the SOB using retaliatory force proportionate to the threat

Justifiably.

Keeping our rights contextual, it should be noted that the conflict between the two survivors must be considered in the context of individual ethics, not social politics, use of the term "property rights" notwithstanding. On an island inhabited by only one person, there is no society, no politics and no political rights. There are only moral rights and wrongs. So the man on the island can only claim that it is morally necessary and right that he kill all intruders. The survivor who swims to shore will have to be maintaining that it is morally necessary and right to kill the person threatening him with the immediate loss of his "metaphysical existence." One would need to know more details to ascertain their actual relative rationality, but in no case are there any political rights at stake.

[mcm]

Re questions on ownership of property and its duration raised earlier ...

The standards for claiming ownership of property are also contextual. The principle is absolute, but its application can result in different procedures in different times and circumstances. The principle is that while anyone can physically possess land (and things—and matter), the moral relationship of "ownership" is applicable solely to the product of human reason and physical action that is the source of an object's value. Since no one created matter, no one can own it.

Moral ownership is a relationship between a person and the product of his reason and effort that justifies his claim to exclusively possess, use, and dispose of its embodiment in physical matter (physical property) or capacity to be embodied in physical matter (intellectual property).

There is no intrinsic measure of reason and effort required to establish property. It would be a task of any society to define it objectively per the context in which values exist in that society. Not only could a simple fence suffice in some contexts it could just as well be much less or much more. Justifying ownership of property across generations requires a continuing embodiment of some added amount of reason/effort that contributes to the maintenance of its value. Since intellectual property represents a finite product of reason/effort, IP rights must expire after the life of the creator plus a sufficient period of time to sustain their value to someone who would acquire them on the day of the creator's death

[Dennis Hardin]

“Physical” strictly limits you to the material world, exclusive of your mind and consciousness.

In other words, the shipwreck survivor is confronted with no real option but to perish. A strictly physical barrier, such as a fence or a gun, could potentially be overcome. But the island occupant’s invocation of “property rights” prevents the shipwreck survivor from doing anything other than diving back into the ocean—i.e., dying.

But a property owner standing in the way invoking property rights could potentially be overcome as well, i. e. by shoving him aside (in case the shipwrecked individual is physically stronger).

But in that case the shipwreck survivor would be saying that he does not respect the island occupant's property rights, changing the issue from a "metaphysical" one to a purely "physical" one. He would be implicitly denying that the occupant's claim of rights was valid. If he recognized the occupant's rights to deny him the ground he stood on, the barrier facing him would be 'metaphysical." He would have to dive back into the water and eventually drown from exhaustion.

An alternate term to “metaphysical” would be “existential,” because that would encompass both the physical and the mental realms.

Imo "existential" would be the far clearer term. I'm not sure if I recall this correctly: wouldn't Rand originally have preferred to call her philosophy "Existentialism", but as the term was already in use to label another branch of philosophy, "Existentialism" was no option?

You're correct. Existentialism was one of several terms Rand considered for her philosophy, but of course she rejected it for the reason you mention.

In a fully rational society, there can be no conflict of interest between individuals, and their rights.

I think conflicts of interests between individuals would exist in a fully rational society as well.

Rand's argument was that, in a rational world, there would be no conflicts of interest because everyone would recognize that their interests must be consistent with objective reality. She felt that most such conflicts arise because people do not fully understand what is in their interest. I think she had a valid point--but for her to suggest that, for instance, "fully rational" men and women should not feel jealous or hurt when they are rejected romantically is pretty ridiculous.

[sjw]

Keeping our rights contextual, it should be noted that the conflict between the two survivors must be considered in the context of individual ethics, not social politics, use of the term "property rights" notwithstanding.

If there are three people, do you consider rights to magically appear? Four? Four hundred? Tell us what magical number or magical incantation is required in order for the parties to have rights.

Shayne

[mcm]

If there are three people, do you consider rights to magically appear? Four? Four hundred? Tell us what magical number or magical incantation is required in order for the parties to have rights.

"... magical incantation"? Time to reread Ch 19 of the Virtue of Selfishness.

In several of my comments and from various points of view I (and others) have tried to explain why and in what way political rights are contextual and not, as you view them, concrete entities or attributes with a fixed intrinsic nature. Now, once again you seek to invalidate the explanation I related of the minimum conditions necessary for the question of political rights to arise if I cannot give you a single concrete minimum number of human beings in a society to be able to establish a government that defends individual rights.

But there is no such number. There are many different numbers that could fulfill the prerequisite condition of the principle depending on the particular group of people, the place, the time, the infrastructure, the technology, etc. at hand. I have already cited the source of this principle [see OPAR ch.10 "Government - Individual Rights as Absolutes" p.351 ppb] and I regard that as one of the most important pieces of knowledge I have gleaned from Objectivism—the line between ethical rights and political rights that precious few commenters can grasp or apply without conflating them.

The principle is simply that political rights are exclusive to politics, and politics only exists when it is necessary to extend and apply ethics to a social context—objectively. The moral imperative for individual autonomy necessitates in turn a neutral third party institution to remove force from social interaction in ordert to enable every individual to pursue his own life by his own moral code. In other words, the sole purpose of government is to enable individual ethics to be universally exercised unimpeded.

Two men on a desert island cannot institute a neutral third party institution for the defense of rights, hence no political rights can exist in that context. When I explain this in conversational debate, I like to say that the minimum requirement would be a population large enough to have a judge, a sheriff, a posse, a few shopkeepers, farmers, and usually, a bartender a hangmen and several pretty ladies living in a big house on the edge of town. The actual number is only, in any given situation, that which is sufficient to sustain neutrality in the system of justice and checks and balances thereto. To request a specific number is to not understand the principle of contextual political rights—even though you did touch on it when you used the phrase earlier, "contextual absolutes." The principle of right to life is absolute. The application of that principle is contextual.

[sjw]

Mike, note well the views of the Founders, which in terms of their understanding of rights, are far superior to either your view or Ayn Rand's view of them. Note well the implication in their use of the term "rights" that they belong to the individual whether he choose to be part of a society or not, then reflect upon why you should adopt such a perverse view as the "contextual" theory of rights:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

"As, therefore, it is impossible to discover any origin of rights otherwise than in the origin of man, it consequently follows, that rights appertain to man in right of his existence only, and must therefore be equal to every man."--Thomas Paine

"All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another."

"When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent; and they have a right to demand and insist upon the performance of such conditions and previous limitations as form an equitable original compact."

"Every natural right not expressly given up, or, from the nature of a social compact, necessarily ceded, remains."

"It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave."--Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists

"The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a contract with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist."--Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

[sjw]

It is far more accurate to say that a man may not notice his own Rights until he has another man trying to usurp him, than to say that his rights are only created upon meeting enough other men to fulfill the non-objective requirements of mike's magical incantation.

Shayne

[mcm]

Shayne,

Without the time right now to walk you line by line through your quotes of the Founding Fathers waxing eloquent over their discovery of the power and profundity of individual rights, precious little of what they said in those quotes could contradict anything I have said. The only significant difference is that without the benefits of Ayn Rand's contributions they were ethically naive. It is actually they who for the most part relied on magical incantations cobbled together from random snippets of incoherent and often contradictory edicts gleaned from religious texts subject to centuries of agenda-driven editing to validate their own sound reasoning they exercised independent of and significantly contradictory to them.

And reasoning is what happens to be missing from your present replies as well. Your quotes, assertions, and characterizations here are seldom if ever accompanied by a demonstration of how one could integrate your positions into a cogent philosophical system. These immediate comments are nothing more than pure, intrinsicist right-wing conservatism that is perpetually skeptical of man's ability to recognize and define objective truths and must rely on "truths" anchored in either long-standing institutions, distant history, or supernatural realms. This thread itself appears to have been initiated by you because your inability to validate the explanations of Peikoff or commenters here awaits a specific concrete historical quote from Ayn Rand before you can take contextuality seriously.

It is far more accurate to say that a man may not notice his own Rights until he has another man trying to usurp him, than to say that his rights are only created upon meeting enough other men to fulfill the non-objective requirements of mike's magical incantation.

It is no value to anyone to know that you think this until and unless you can explain why you think it—why is it more accurate?—why are the requirements I explained non-objective?—what "magical incantations"?—what relationship to the contrary do you think ethics has to politics?—what, if any, are the different meanings in different contexts of "moral rights" and "political rights"?—what are the specific differences between the Founding Father's view of rights and Ayn Rand's, Leonard Peikoff's, or mine?—etc., etc., etc.

Piss on the ideas, or get off the pot.

[sjw]

Without the time right now to walk you line by line through your quotes of the Founding Fathers waxing eloquent over their discovery of the power and profundity of individual rights, precious little of what they said in those quotes could contradict anything I have said.

That's because you don't understand what they say.

And reasoning is what happens to be missing from your present replies as well. Your quotes, assertions, and characterizations here are seldom if ever accompanied by a demonstration of how one could integrate your positions into a cogent philosophical system.

Well, to tell you the truth, the degree of ignorance you have about rights as well as your incompetence at resolving meaning (e.g. your inability to grasp that those quote from the Founders clearly contradict the idea that rights are created by society), combined with your zealotry over Rand, has really dissuaded me from wasting my time providing any. So I'm just objecting to the sheer stupidity of your remarks.

Shayne

[mcm]

... ignorance ... incompetence ... zealotry ... stupidity ...

Shayne

Assertions, assertions, how you do let them fly,

But so sad you can't show us that they actually apply.

[sjw]

Assertions, assertions, how you do let them fly,

But so sad you can't show us that they actually apply.

You are no good at philosophy, but at least you have some promise with poetry.

It is too bad for you that we find, that individual rights are a bit to much for your mind.

Shayne

-Sorry for the bad poetry.