Broken units, broken men

[Grames]

I think the answer is there, though I'm not sure if it's what you meant. It doesn't make sense (to me) to assert prisoners have any rights at all. Everything about their situation goes against my understanding of rights and life. I don't think their situation is similar to children or the incapacitated. Children and the incapacitated have rights, and their guardian acts to protect those rights.

The similarity to children or the incapacitated is that the imprisoned have rights but they cannot exercise them.

I think it is better for our understanding of rights to say that they are always there, they truly are inalienable. However, it is more ethical to not respect the rights of criminals than to respect them. A theory of rights which allows rights to be given or taken away is not consistent with justification of rights based on the nature of man, because human nature does not change in prison, or at the moment a crime is committed.

[Hotu Matua]

Grames is helping me a lot to understand the nature of rights by having brought to the discussion of "broken men" the situation of prisoners.

Thank you a lot, Grames.

Thank you also, JeffS, for your clever insisting on the issue.

Grames is inviting us to think in rights as something that are there, as a result of man's nature, and that can be excercised or not, and in all kind of degrees.

He invites us to to avoid thinking in rights as a light that is turned off or turned on, since they derive man nature which is not turned on and off, but rather remains.

So we have to go back to the problem of determining what man's nature is.

Man's nature is in essence the faculty of volitional conciousness.

When can we say that an existent has a faculty for something? When it is all set and ready to do it, even if he is not excercising the faculty at a particular moment. If it is not set and ready, it does not have the faculty, just, perhaps, the potential.

For example, a laptop has the faculty of running software, even if it happens to be turned off, or if it happens to be starting up, until a full booting process is completed.

To say that my laptop has the faculty of running software means that its structure is teleologically all set and ready to work, and not necessarily that it is running the software right now.

When I go into anesthesia, or into sleep, is as if I were turning off (or putting into hibernation) my laptop.

The life of an infant during, say, the first year of life, would be like this booting process from the hard disk, this necessary heating up, that would still be a manifestation of the fact that the hardware is set and ready.

I would not treat my laptop as a broken laptop and throw it to the trash can if I get a dark screen because I have turned it off, put it in hibernation or I am just waiting the booting process to finish. I would treat my laptop with care, because I know it has the faculty to run programs. It is a working laptop.

Under this view, a laptop is a laptop even at hibernation or after being turned off, and even when starting the booting process.

By the same token, a man is a man notwithstanding his condition as an infant, a sleeping man, or a man under anesthesia.

This sounds rational to me. This makes me think the babies have rights. Babies' brains are continually growing into volitional conciusness through the interactions with their mother, their environment and other men. Their brains are not lazy. The process of self-identification is continuous. They are like laptpos under a normal waiting time to boot the hard disk and start Windows.

So I am now in peace with babies. I now abandon my previous thinking. I thank again Grames.

But now we have the issue with persons that, because of a severe brain damage, never develop a volitional conciousness.

They are like laptops that start the booting process but never manage to display Windows. They are broken laptops. We cannot deal with them as with normal laptops. I could not stay with my cup of coffe in hand, wating hours and hours to see whether it can start Windows, because I know it will not start and I will not be able to run any program. I will not treat this laptop as if it were a laptop, because I would be faking reality.

In the case of a laptop, I could throw it away. But in the case of humans, we could not kill them or torture them or abandon them as we would do with a laptop. Ayn Rand asks us to act as if we knew the booting process would be finished some day. Her advice is to act with hope. But, is this just a moral recommendation, like the advice of taking care of our pets and not torturing them, or is it about the State being authorized to punish those who kill or torture a severily mentally ill person?

She never took a clear stand on this specific area of applied ethics, and she even mixed the words "entitled to" with "extended as courtesy" when answering a question.

What it is clear about Rand's answer is that she would not want these severily mentally retarded people to be killed or tortured. She just did not elaborate enough on why should the State intervene, or why should we recognize rights in them in the hope that someday they would be able to improve.

My opinion is that Rand tried to say that a human being, even a broken one, is so precious for so many valuers out there, that it could not be treated as if no one values it, unless proven the contrary.

We could discuss what this objective value come from and find many answers. Humans tend to value everything that reminds them about conciousness. We treat with care, for example, a photograph of a beloved one. We treat with care and respect the corpse of a beloved one. And we treat with care and respect the body of a person that is almost rational, although not quite. We honour these memorials of human nature. In the case of persons who did develop volitional conciousness in the past, but after an accident or disease lost that faculty, we would of course honour all their deeds and personal history.

And as I said before, the State could prohibit the destruction or damage to non-rational human without having given another values a reasonable chance, under objective Law, to become substitute guardians.

There are examples of values in which there no clear owners, in which the State acts as a guardian. We can go over this later when we discuss whether non-rational humans are property and how property rights are lost.

Edited March 29, 2010 by Hotu Matua

[JeffS]

The similarity to children or the incapacitated is that the imprisoned have rights but they cannot exercise them.

I think it is better for our understanding of rights to say that they are always there, they truly are inalienable. However, it is more ethical to not respect the rights of criminals than to respect them. A theory of rights which allows rights to be given or taken away is not consistent with justification of rights based on the nature of man, because human nature does not change in prison, or at the moment a crime is committed.

Agreed. Thanks for the discussion, Grames.

[softwareNerd]

I think it is better for our understanding of rights to say that they are always there, they truly are inalienable. However, it is more ethical to not respect the rights of criminals than to respect them.

So, using this approach... every prisoner -- at the time when he is a prisoner -- has the right to roam free? However we -- justifiably -- do not respect this right? Is that an accurate statement? Edited March 29, 2010 by softwareNerd

[Cmac19]

I think this issue is easier to understand when we stop using the word "men" to describe fully rational beings, and instead use the term "persons". A severely retarded man is still a man, in the technical sense, however he no longer meets the objectivist concept of "personhood" which is essentially a rational thinking being which is capable of "self motivated self generating action" even though a baby may not be able to go out and hunt for its food, it is capable of recognizing food and choosing to eat it, it is capable of learning, of identifying objects in the world around it and, in the later stages, of simple forms of communication. the ability to learn is the distinguishing feature in this case, which distinguishes a human baby from any other animal on earth. however, a person who no longer has all of these abilities, even if they lost them in an accident, they lose their identity as a "person" and all of their rights are transferred to their next of kin... essentially they become property, much like a pet

[Grames]

So, using this approach... every prisoner -- at the time when he is a prisoner -- has the right to roam free? However we -- justifiably -- do not respect this right? Is that an accurate statement?

Yes. Deciding when we should or should not respect other's rights is a problem resolved by the value hierarchy made possible by objective ethics, and not a problem epistemologically defined away by hedging the definition of man so as to exclude problem cases.

[softwareNerd]

Yes. Deciding when we should or should not respect other's rights is a problem resolved by the value hierarchy made possible by objective ethics, and not a problem epistemologically defined away by hedging the definition of man so as to exclude problem cases.

There is no need to "hedge" the definition or the concept of men to resolve the issue that a prisoner does not have the right to roam free. To my mind, using the concept "rights" like this risks detaching it from its referents.

[Grames]

There is no need to "hedge" the definition or the concept of men to resolve the issue that a prisoner does not have the right to roam free. To my mind, using the concept "rights" like this risks detaching it from its referents.

A prisoner may not exercise his right to roam free. It is a mere rhetorical device to say his right has been taken away, so as to make the analogy to a barnyard animal or a creature in a zoo stronger. Analogies are not valid arguments, and a man in a cage is still a man.

What does "risks" mean here? It is an ambiguous, hedging word with no meaning whatever.

[Hotu Matua]

There is no need to "hedge" the definition or the concept of men to resolve the issue that a prisoner does not have the right to roam free. To my mind, using the concept "rights" like this risks detaching it from its referents.

Rights as a principle are derived from the nature of men, but they are not part of the nature of men. They are not "there", like an immaterial soul, awaiting the proper ocassion to be excercised.

Christian views on soul remind me sometimes this view of rights.

According to Christians, the soul is manifested through the mind (and body), but the fact that the mind is inmature, or damaged, or underdeveloped, does not preclude the soul to exist. Thus, every person has right because every person has an intrinsic value given by the nature of his soul.

So, when facing a person with severe brain damage, they say "Look, this is a person with a soul: it is just that he cannot manifest his soul. He cannot excercise his soul."

In the same way, I find it somewhat mystical to say "This person has rights, they are there, it is just that they cannot be excercised"

[softwareNerd]

In the same way, I find it somewhat mystical to say "This person has rights, they are there, it is just that they cannot be excercised"

I gather that this is addressed to Grames, correct?

[Hotu Matua]

Yes, although I think Grames does not believe that rights are really there, in the object, but he is rather inviting us to think as if they were there, for simplification purposes.

But I fully agree with you, sofwardNerd, that Grames' way to talk about rights can lead to a detachment of rights from their referents. It is not the intention of Grames, I think, but can lead to that impression.

Edited March 30, 2010 by Hotu Matua

[Grames]

Yes, although I think Grames does not believe that rights are really there, in the object, but he is rather inviting us to think as if they were there, for simplification purposes.

But I fully agree with you, sofwardNerd, that Grames' way to talk about rights can lead to a detachment of rights from their referents. It is not the intention of Grames, I think, but can lead to that impression.

I agree that an intrinsic understanding of rights is wrong. Rights are not attributes. However, the idea that rights can be taken away is another mistake. Rights should not be reified into separate entities, as if they were marbles in a bag and one's rights can be taken away just as your marbles can. Rights are principles for acting ethically toward other people. Rights are about the relationships that should obtain between people, all people including irrational ones. Other principles are prior to the principle of rights. The principle of egoism logically prevents letting thieves roam free as that would be in no one's self interest (objectively, not even a thief's self interest).

[Cmac19]

I agree that an intrinsic understanding of rights is wrong. Rights are not attributes. However, the idea that rights can be taken away is another mistake. Rights should not be reified into separate entities, as if they were marbles in a bag and one's rights can be taken away just as your marbles can. Rights are principles for acting ethically toward other people. Rights are about the relationships that should obtain between people, all people including irrational ones. Other principles are prior to the principle of rights. The principle of egoism logically prevents letting thieves roam free as that would be in no one's self interest (objectively, not even a thief's self interest).

I'm with Grames on this one. Rights are indivisible from the beings who possess them. When we prevent a murderer from exercising his right to freedom of movement we do not take away that freedom, we simply refuse to respect it.

[softwareNerd]

I agree that an intrinsic understanding of rights is wrong. Rights are not attributes. However, the idea that rights can be taken away is another mistake.

True. And yet, it is false to say that the prisoner has the right to roam freely. No competent man in that prisoner's position has the right to roam freely, and never had while he was in that position.

[Grames]

True. And yet, it is false to say that the prisoner has the right to roam freely. No competent man in that prisoner's position has the right to roam freely, and never had while he was in that position.

Rights have two valid contexts, rights are the linking concept between ethics and politics. Legally a prisoner has no right to roam freely but ethically rights cannot be stripped from him. Rights understood as an actual exercise of a power are not the same as rights understood as an ethical principle. The former can be stripped but not the latter.

I explain the situation as: the prisoner does have the right to roam free and the fact that he cannot is a violation of his right. His right is violated deliberately, legally, in retaliation for the prisoner's earlier right's violations. If a prisoner could truly be deprived of his right (necessarily meaning: deprived of what causes rights) and he understood that then his condition in prison would be no punishment. Having no ability or interest in roaming free, being confined would be no inconvenience.

The only way to truly deprive a man of his rights is to kill him.

[Hotu Matua]

I'm with Grames on this one. Rights are indivisible from the beings who possess them. When we prevent a murderer from exercising his right to freedom of movement we do not take away that freedom, we simply refuse to respect it.

Let's remember man's nature is not just the metaphysically given. Man acts constantly, through his choices, to modify his nature. It is in his hand to become a heroe or a brute. He chooses to be rational or irrational.

Ayn Rand says in "Philosophy: Who needs it?" that man creates his own spirit (character) through his actions. Man is constantly building and reshaping his nature, for better or worse. Horses cannot change their nature. They cannot become "more a horse" or "less a horse". Man, in contast, is capable to change his nature by means of his choices. Man can get as rational or as irrational as he decides to get.

Since my rights are derived from my nature as man in a social context, and my nature is that of a rational animal, the only way to keep my rights is to remain rational in my interactions with others. In other words, to keep proving others that I am a man to be respected, not a dangerous beast to be hunted and put in a cage.

Man forsakes his rights inasmuch as he shows an irrational behaviour against others.

The more irrational he behaves in a social context, the higher the degree of rights he forsakes.

And he recovers his rights inasmuch as he proves objectively to have adopted rational behaviour against others.

In summary, we do not take away the rights of criminals.... neither we refuse to respect rights that remain there, as floating attributes waiting a better ocassion to be excercised. Criminals forsake their rights by going against his rational nature, by becoming (to a degree) beasts or brutes.

This approach fits well with the concept of justice. If a man behaves as a beast, he deserves to be treated as a beast. But it is not about me refusing to recognize his rights. It is not about me punishing him in revenge. It is about me accepting his reality as an irrational being, as a brute or beast that needs to be hunted and put in a cage. Justice is a virtue derived from rationality.

The degree of irrationality (the degree by which a criminal has twisted and spoiled his nature) comes hand in hand with the degree of the criminal gives up his rights.

Hurting a man with my fists during a party while drunk implies a degree of irrationality which is different than planning carefully a murder. As a consequence, I will be forsaking more rights (or for longer time) if I deliberately murder some one than if I sent him back home with a blue eye.

What do you think about this?

Edited March 30, 2010 by Hotu Matua

[Grames]

Let's remember man's nature is not just the metaphysically given. Man acts constantly, through his choices, to modify his nature. It is in his hand to become a heroe or a brute. He chooses to be rational or irrational.

Ayn Rand says in "Philosophy: Who needs it?" that man creates his own spirit (character) through his actions. Man is constantly building and reshaping his nature, for better or worse. Horses cannot change their nature. They cannot become "more a horse" or "less a horse". Man, in contast, is capable to change his nature by means of his choices. Man can get as rational or as irrational as he decides to get.

...

What do you think about this?

I don't like this at all, man is like a horse in his inability to change his nature. Man can get as rational or as irrational as he decides to get, but he cannot be arational, or nonrational short of suicide. Beasts and stones are arational.

"A man that is like a beast" begins an argument by analogizing, and all analogies are ultimately bad analogies. Analogies can be useful for some understanding of parallel relationships but they do not prove anything.

By analogy, a man deciding to be rational or irrational would be like a horse deciding to run or stand still.

[Hotu Matua]

Grames, I beg to differ.

Man has certainly a nature that is metaphysically given, as the horse, but he differs from the horse in that he can sculpt his nature and become something he was not, for better or worse. And it is upon this sculpted nature, not over the metaphysically given, that we have to make a moral judgement.

Let me insist: when we treat a man as he deserves, we are treating him by what he is, which means by what he has chosen to be.

We are not just punishing bad actions and rewarding good actions. We are judging a character, an integrated entity as it reveals itself through our senses.

When we put a criminal in prison, we are not telling him "Hey, we know you have rights, but we're gonna act as if you didn't have them. we're gonna play blind for a while, OK?."

What we are telling him is "We don't see in you a fully rational person. Therefore we don't see in you a person with full rights. Therefore we won't treat you as if you had what you don't have."

The whole point of retaliation is that the State neither strips the criminal from his rights nor violates his rights in revenge.

It is the criminal who, by altering his nature, by choosing to become something he was not, forsakes his rights, and we just treat him accordingly.

The time will come (we hope) when we will see a terrorist gasping on the floor, swiming in his own blood, in agony after being shot by the soldiers of a free America.

That day we will be in peace with ourselves.

We will be in peace not because we know we have deliberately "violated" the terrorist's rights in the name of justice. We will be happy because we will see the body of a being that has spoiled his rational nature to the point where we just cannot see it any more. We will be in peace because we will be seing reality as it is. Transparent. Crystal clear.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Hotu Matua

[Grames]

Hotu Matua,

You are conflating the rational faculty with rational action (again). If you can admit babies have a rational faculty then it should be easier to admit adult terrorists and criminals have a rational faculty, for the same reasons and more obviously true. In addition to all the things a baby can do, a man that has chosen to be a particular kind of man has exercised his volition, volition which cannot exist without a conceptual consciousness. Punishment is for those men who choose not to think, not beasts that cannot think.

Second, objective law is properly concerned with actions and the people who perform them, not character. Nothing about character can be proven, there are no laws against certain characters. There is no law against being a murderer, there is a law against murder.

Third, this is exactly the kind of reasoning I warned against in post #81. This appeal to the changing nature of the man is an attempt to use epistemology to resolve an ethical problem by redrawing the boundary of the concept man to deny that evil men are men at all. It is a contradiction to hold men have volition and have rights because of their need to act volitionally, and then deny that some are men after all because of what they have chosen.

Justice and judgement is not a passive response to changing character of the criminal, but an active interference in the criminal's life. Punishment deliberately and willfully strips a criminal of freedom of action with the intent of causing harm proportional to the harm inflicted. If imprisonment didn't violate the criminals rights, it would not reciprocate the crime and would be unjust.

[Hotu Matua]

Bear with me, Grames. This is very exciting and productive and I think I am learning a lot.

Hotu Matua,

You are conflating the rational faculty with rational action (again). If you can admit babies have a rational faculty then it should be easier to admit adult terrorists and criminals have a rational faculty, for the same reasons and more obviously true.

My point is that rights are derived not only from rational faculty (understood as the metaphysically given), but from rational actions as well , because actions are also part (maybe the greatest part) of the identity of men.

In other words, men are not just men because of their rational faculty, but because of the things they do with that rational faculty. They are both the metaphysically given AND their self-made character. That's what man's identity is all about. That's why Objectivism conceives man as a heroe, and not only as a breathing rational animal.

That's also why Ayn Rand always refers to "savages", "brutes" as if they were in a different and lower category than men. Morally speaking they are, and rights derive from moral judgements, as I will show below.

Second, objective law is properly concerned with actions and the people who perform them, not character. Nothing about character can be proven, there are no laws against certain characters. There is no law against being a murderer, there is a law against murder.

You are correct, but you seem to miss that a theory of rights is not 100% about Law and politics. It is a bridge between ethics and politics. Rights derive directly from moral judgement. Rights theory is the application of moral judgement to the interactions among men (the social context). Rights are the way to submit society to morality. And morality is about judging characters.

Third, this is exactly the kind of reasoning I warned against... This appeal to the changing nature of the man is an attempt to use epistemology to resolve an ethical problem by redrawing the boundary of the concept man to deny that evil men are men at all. It is a contradiction to hold men have volition and have rights because of their need to act volitionally, and then deny that some are men after all because of what they have chosen.

I don't mean evil men are not men at all in all contexts. I mean that, within the context of morality, which is the source of the concept of rights, an evil man is different from a good man. They do not fall under the same umbrella. And that difference counts. I do not respect all men equally. The statement "All men deserve respect because they are men" is wrong.

Justice and judgement is not a passive response to changing character of the criminal, but an active interference in the criminal's life. Punishment deliberately and willfully strips a criminal of freedom of action with the intent of causing harm proportional to the harm inflicted. If imprisonment didn't violate the criminals rights, it would not reciprocate the crime and would be unjust.

Whether judgement is a "passive" or "active" response is not the point. The point is that it is still a response. It is reactive. It is a response to what I see in a man. And what I see in a man is not just his rational faculty, but mainly and more importantly, what the man has done to himself: what the man has become.

You may find interesting this quote from Rand, when refering to bloody dictators:

"Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the nonexistent “rights” of gang rulers. " (The Virtue of Selfishness, 140) The quotations marks around "rights" are Rand's, not mine.

If we invade Iran and topple or kill Ahamadinejad, a modern "gang ruler", we will not be deliberately and willfully stripping him of any right, because his "rights" are, to start with, "nonexistent".

Edited March 31, 2010 by Hotu Matua

[Hotu Matua]

As part of the discussion, you may also find intersting Tara Smith's view on the subject of justice and rights:

"A person might forfeit his natural rights by violating the rights of others"

"An individual's rights are always held on the condition that the rightholder respect other's rights, thus throughout, I am leaving aside person who forfeit their rights by violating the rights of others. As long as a person truly possesses rights, however, he is entitled to have them respected..."

(Taken from "Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist", page 173).

In the same way that we know that values, while objective, are not intrinsic by relational, we may think in rights as necessarily relational, not intrinsic.

It makes no sense speaking about the rights of a lonely man in a desert island.

It is both what you shouldn't do to me and what I shouldn't do to you what makes rights exist.

"I seek life and values. You seek life and values. Thus, we better abstain from messing in each other's life and values." It is the recognition of the existence of two or more rational entities what makes rights possible.

If you fail to act towards me as a rational being, you are forfeiting your rights. You are forfeiting them to the extent of your irrationality towards me.

If I fail to act towards you as a rational being, I am forfeiting my rights, to the extent of my irrationality towards you.

When we say that my rights are inalienable, we mean that nobody can strip them from that person, other than that person himself through his own choices.

Holding rights is not inconditional. It depends on a condition, a single one: my choice.

My approach conciliates the fact that rights can be forfeited by the agressor, with the fact that rights are derived from human nature.

If we hold that man's nature is ONLY the metaphysically given (the rational faculty present at man's birth) we will obviously have a problem, a contradiction (How a man can escape his nature? How a man could forfeit his rights? How could we retaliate without violating his rights?)

But if we hold that man's nature, man's identity is BOTH the metaphysically given AND his character built day after day thorugh myriad of choices, then we can understand how man can change his nature, translate this into specific behaviours towards others, and then come to a point in which he forfeits his rights.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Hotu Matua

[Marc K.]

I explain the situation as: the prisoner does have the right to roam free and the fact that he cannot is a violation of his right. His right is violated deliberately, legally, in retaliation for the prisoner's earlier right's violations.

I understand that you are arguing against several positions and so forgive me if I do not know all of the intricacies of those positions, but I cannot think of any context in which this statement would be accurate.

It is immoral and illegal to violate anyone's rights. We do not violate a criminal's rights, he has forfeited them by his actions. It is a man's actions which determine how he should be judged. If a man decides to act like an animal, then he should be treated like one.

Consider an imprisoned criminal and a slave. Both are in the same physical condition and yet one retains his rights and the other does not. One may act in accordance with his rights and the other may not. Even if both men escape, one acts properly according to his rights and the other does not.

If a prisoner could truly be deprived of his right (necessarily meaning: deprived of what causes rights) and he understood that then his condition in prison would be no punishment. Having no ability or interest in roaming free, being confined would be no inconvenience.

The prisoner has deprived himself of his rights by deciding not to use his reason but he can't understand that because understanding requires reason also. It is hard to know what he would consider "punishment" since he doesn't see living as a looter or violating other's rights or even the threat of imprisonment as "punishment". But indeed, by his actions, he is telling us that he has no ability or will or interest in roaming "free" since being free and surviving (even in the absence of society) entails certain actions which he is not willing to take.

Legally a prisoner has no right to roam freely but ethically rights cannot be stripped from him. Rights understood as an actual exercise of a power are not the same as rights understood as an ethical principle. The former can be stripped but not the latter.

Of course they can, the exercise of your rights is conditional upon you not interfering with someone else's exercise of their rights; it is part of the same concept. Your right to act is a moral sanction and if you act improperly then you forfeit that moral sanction, you strip yourself of it, others just recognize your forfeiture.

The only way to truly deprive a man of his rights is to kill him.

So being deprived of freedom is not a loss of rights?

[Marc K.]

Rights derive directly from moral judgement. Rights theory is the application of moral judgement to the interactions among men (the social context). Rights are the way to submit society to morality. And morality is about judging characters.

I'm not sure in which context you are operating here (it seems to be two different contexts one is an enumeration of rights, the other is a theory of rights) so you may want to first read my reply to Grames above before deciding to reply to me. But, as I read the above, I think you are missing or confusing something.

Rights (their enumeration) derive directly from moral action. Rights pertain only to action.

And morality is less about judging characters than it is about acting properly. Judging someone's character may be one of the actions you should take but morality deals more with your own actions, which actions are proper and how you decide which actions to take.

And what I see in a man is not just his rational faculty, but mainly and more importantly, what the man has done to himself: what the man has become.

I'm not sure what point you are making here so maybe there is no disagreement, but what a man has become is determined directly by how he has used his rational faculty. All men possess a rational faculty so there is nothing special (among men) about that. We all have the ability to be rational, the question is: are we rational? And that is most easily judged by the actions we take.

[Grames]

My point is that rights are derived not only from rational faculty (understood as the metaphysically given), but from rational actions as well , because actions are also part (maybe the greatest part) of the identity of men.

In other words, men are not just men because of their rational faculty, but because of the things they do with that rational faculty. They are both the metaphysically given AND their self-made character. That's what man's identity is all about. That's why Objectivism conceives man as a heroe, and not only as a breathing rational animal.

That's also why Ayn Rand always refers to "savages", "brutes" as if they were in a different and lower category than men. Morally speaking they are, and rights derive from moral judgements, as I will show below.

Actions play a part in forming the identity of men, but all actions must be included not just some of them. In word similar to yours, not only the things they do with that rational faculty create their characters, but also the things they choose not to do with that rational faculty. I disagree with your interpretation of Ayn Rand's usage of the words "savage" and "brute". Actual savages and brutes remain men, which is why they can be judged at all.

You are correct, but you seem to miss that a theory of rights is not 100% about Law and politics. It is a bridge between ethics and politics. Rights derive directly from moral judgement. Rights theory is the application of moral judgement to the interactions among men (the social context). Rights are the way to submit society to morality. And morality is about judging characters.

We were discussing criminals in prison, so law and politics is the relevant context for that response. Even in the personal ethical context, morality must be primarily about judging actions first because that is all that can be witnessed about another man's character. It takes a great deal of observation over time to form a reliable judgment about a man's entire character, it is a conclusion induced from many individual judgments of particular actions. The idea that moral judgment is first and primarily about character is perhaps a Christian holdover.

I don't mean evil men are not men at all in all contexts. I mean that, within the context of morality, which is the source of the concept of rights, an evil man is different from a good man. They do not fall under the same umbrella. And that difference counts. I do not respect all men equally. The statement "All men deserve respect because they are men" is wrong.

Evil men remain men in all contexts. I agree all men should not be respected equally. It follows that all men's rights need not be respected, specifically those of evil men that initiate violations of rights.

"Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the nonexistent “rights” of gang rulers. " (The Virtue of Selfishness, 140) The quotations marks around "rights" are Rand's, not mine.

If we invade Iran and topple or kill Ahamadinejad, a modern "gang ruler", we will not be deliberately and willfully stripping him of any right, because his "rights" are, to start with, "nonexistent".

You are misusing that quote. The essay it comes from, "Collectivized Rights", argues that there are no such things and therefore the figureheads of collectives do not wield national rights or have special sovereignty protections. The reason for her conclusion is that collectives do not exist. But individual men do exist, so her reasoning here can not support your contention that rights can disappear.

[Grames]

As part of the discussion, you may also find intersting Tara Smith's view on the subject of justice and rights:

"A person might forfeit his natural rights by violating the rights of others"

"An individual's rights are always held on the condition that the rightholder respect other's rights, thus throughout, I am leaving aside person who forfeit their rights by violating the rights of others. As long as a person truly possesses rights, however, he is entitled to have them respected..."

(Taken from "Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist", page 173).

I can quote Tara Smith to support my position (from the same page):

"A person possesses rights ... simply in virtue of his nature as a human being. While a person is entitled to have his rights respected, then, strictly speaking, he does not deserve to. .... rights are not the sort of thing either a person does or does not deserve."

I can address her more direct statements claiming that rights can be forfeited as follows: There is little practical difference between saying a man has forfeited his rights and saying that a man has forfeited the respect of his rights. That second quote you gave is actually about the respect of rights:

"An individual's rights are always held on the condition that the rightholder respect other's rights, thus throughout, I am leaving aside person who forfeit their rights by violating the rights of others. As long as a person truly possesses rights, however, he is entitled to have them respected..."

Strictly speaking, when a rightholder does not respect other's rights, what he forfeits is the respect due to his own rights. This formulation of just retaliation more obviously responds to the crime proportionally, explains why imprisonment is punishment, and does not contradict itself by claiming that rights both are and are not conditional [edit] upon behavior.

If you fail to act towards me as a rational being, you are forfeiting your rights. You are forfeiting them to the extent of your irrationality towards me.

If I fail to act towards you as a rational being, I am forfeiting my rights, to the extent of my irrationality towards you.

Innaccurate. Irrationality per se does not forfeit the respect of my rights, only my violation of your rights can do that. My private irrationalities do not forfeit my rights or the respect due to my rights.

When we say that my rights are inalienable, we mean that nobody can strip them from that person, other than that person himself through his own choices.

Holding rights is not inconditional. It depends on a condition, a single one: my choice.

Rights are unconditional and inalienable for all men. You can not even give them up by your own choice, that is what inalienable means.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Grames