katisara:
Where did you get that from? I don't see that in any document I've read. In fact, quite the contrary. The ideas of Locke and Thoreau are founded on the ideas that these rights ARE violated -- but still exist.
The ideas of Locke and Thoreau are founded upon the ideas of Hobbes. What documents have you been reading? The declaration of independence, meant to motivate people towards a certain course of action rather than argue the nature of a concept?
It's a very important distinction; if you want to know about Marxist Ideals, for example, you would reference Das Kapital, not The Communist Manifesto.
Thomas Hobbes Leviathan:
By liberty is understood, according to the proper signification of
the word, the absence of external impediments; which impediments may
oft take away part of a man's power to do what he would, but cannot
hinder him from using the power left him according as his judgement
and reason shall dictate to him.
---
A covenant not to defend myself from force, by force, is always
void. For (as I have shown before) no man can transfer or lay down his
right to save himself from death, wounds, and imprisonment, the
avoiding whereof is the only end of laying down any right; and
therefore the promise of not resisting force, in no covenant
transferreth any right, nor is obliging.
For though a man may covenant
thus, unless I do so, or so, kill me; he cannot covenant thus,
unless I do so, or so, I will not resist you when you come to kill me.
For man by nature chooseth the lesser evil, which is danger of death
in resisting, rather than the greater, which is certain and present
death in not resisting. And this is granted to be true by all men,
in that they lead criminals to execution, and prison, with armed
men, notwithstanding that such criminals have consented to the law
by which they are condemned.
This is what is meant by inalienable; you can only impede a natural right, you cannot fully take it away.
quote:
Do you think it's now okay for the Chinese government to kill citizens, or force them to have abortions? Do you think it's okay for the de facto government of Rwanda to authorize genocide and forced relocations on ethnic groups? If not, why not?
If your point is that my views on these things somehow prove an objective morality, or prove that my morality is somehow better than somebody else's (that's called Ethnocentrism, by the way), you'd be mistaken.
What I think about the above situations doesn't mean anything. If I think something's wrong, even if I show you my reasoning, in the end it's based on assumptions that somebody else might not necessarily share.
I don't even have to go to another country; I just need to mention something I find horrible in the Bible and watch the apologetics begin.
quote:
quote:
Objective Morality and Rights are also different things (and, many of those who invented the concept of Natural Rights would argue, complete opposites
You're going to have to give me a quote there, because it's been a while since I read it, but I don't recall anything like that.
Thomas Hobbes:
For though they that speak of this subject use to
confound jus and lex, right and law, yet they ought to be
distinguished, because right consisteth in liberty to do, or to
forbear; whereas law determineth and bindeth to one of them: so that
law and right differ as much as obligation and liberty, which in one
and the same matter are inconsistent.
quote:
Again, either I'm missing part of your argument, or you're quoting someone else and just not providing the quote. My understanding is that, yes, denying people's natural rights IS inherently bad. Again, if that isn't the case, why doesn't the Constitution say, "men have rights to life and liberty, but we're okay with ignoring that"?
Thomas Hobbes:
THE right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is
the liberty each man hath to use his own power as he will himself
for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own
life; and consequently, of doing anything which, in his own
judgement and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means
thereunto.
---
And because the condition of man (as hath been declared in the
precedent chapter) is a condition of war of every one against every
one, in which case every one is governed by his own reason, and
there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in
preserving his life against his enemies; it followeth that in such a
condition every man has a right to every thing, even to one
another's body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of
every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any
man, how strong or wise soever he be, of living out the time which
nature ordinarily alloweth men to live.
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The following quotes can be found in
Leviathan Chapter XIV.
The ideas of Natural Rights and the nature of man were proposed in the basis of explaining Government's reason to exist (Social Contract Theory), which is not to protect one's natural rights, but to restrict those natural rights in order to provide safety.