Broken units, broken men

[Grames]

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.

To review my key points in the thread so far:

Regarding the topic of the OP: It is not the essence of the problem that the insane (or those otherwise incapable of volitional, rational thought) should have rights, but that the sane have rights and the law does not know a priori to examining a particular case who are the insane. Therefore the insane must be presumed to have rights or the sane have no rights after all. If the mere accusation of insanity (or of witchcraft, communism, pedophilia, etc.) strips a person of his rights then there are no rights.

On the general topic of rights: 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. Rights are not conditional upon rationality, but upon the rational faculty, and volition. It is not possible in objective law to forbid men to be irrational but only to forbid them to act to violate other's rights. Since only some irrational acts but not others will cause the state to move against the perpetrator, it is not rationality that conditions rights but respect of other's rights.

Men have rights because they are men. It is an epistemological error to claim that criminals are not men, and therefore do not have rights.

There is a contextual interpretation problem with the concept "rights". As a legal and political right to take practical action which exercises an existent power, rights can be stripped by the use of force such as imprisonment. As an ethical principle based upon the requirements of a volitional, conceptual consciousness rights cannot be stripped. My resolution of this is that rights are unconditional and inalienable, and it is the respect due to a man's rights that is forfeited, not the rights themselves.

It is immoral and illegal to violate anyone's rights.

This statement is an out of context absolute. Whether or not rights should be respected is contextual. Do not respect the rights of criminals, or when engaged in self defense.

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.

Both have rights, neither in fact can act freely, the slave's condition is unjust and the criminal's condition is just. If both men escape, the slave achieves justice and the criminal cheats justice.

[Hotu Matua]

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 agree, Grames. But you and me haven't agreed still on the main reason why I brought all this issue about "character": Is "man's nature" only his rational faculty, or all the sum of choices that have made his character as well?

I would appreciate a clear answer, because from our common understanding of "man's nature" we can then understand what is the meaning of "rights are derived form man's nature".

The idea that moral judgment is first and primarily about character is perhaps a Christian holdover.

I don't know about the "primacy" of judging characters vs judging isolated acts, but at least, one is as important as the other:

"Because human actions are volitional, far more useful than asessing any isolated action that a person takes is learning about the source of that action, the agent's basic nature. A person's individual actions proceed from his choices and these, in turn, proceed form his

characteristic way

of using his mind and leading his life. To reach a well-grounded conclusion about another person, it is most helpful to appraise not merely scattered, discrete actions, but the character that authores those actions." ¨

Tara Smith in our same book, page 141. Italics are Tara's.

When giving a sentence to the guilty, the jury does not rely only in the evaluation of the act in question. The jury does take into acount the past history of the accused. They make an evaluation of the accused's character through his past actions. The only way to look into a man's character (man's nature) is by looking at all his acts.

And the number of years in prision will be in line with this evaluation. It will be in line with the degree in whch the accused has forfeited his rights, and the kind of rights he has forfeited.

A first-murderer will not get the same sentence that a recurrent murderer. The number of years in prison (or the possibility of death penalty) will be the result of an evaluation of his overall character.

We don't punish a murder. We punish a murderer.

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.

Show me a single sentence or paragraph written by any Objectivist thinker indicating that, when the State uses retailatory force, it does it by not respecting the accused rights.

I just don't happen to find grounds in Objectivism for this belief of yours.

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.

You are right. Ayn Rand is speaking about a different issue. I apologize for this misinterpretation of her text. I didn't mean to misuse it. I took it from the Lexicon, where sometimes paragrapsh float a bit detached from the broader context. I should nevertheless have read the paragraph more carefully. My fault.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Hotu Matua

[Hotu Matua]

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."

It is my opinion that every time rights are discussed as inalienable, the issue of criminals is left aside. It is assumed we are not talking about criminals.

That is exactly why Tara Smith adds the caveat: "I am leaving aside persons who forfeit thier rights by violationf the rights of others" (underline and bold is mine)

Were it not for this caveat, we would naturally ask: "Hey, Tara, what about the rights of those who do not respect rights: are they also inalienable?"

Paraphrasing Tara Smith, she is telling us "I am assuming that we are not talking about persons who forfeit their rights. I am assuming that my readers understand that we are talking about normal circumstances"

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.

With all due respect to your seniority as an Objectivist, in this case you are twisting a direct, crystal statement of Tara Smith to an extent I find difficult to believe.

She clearly says: "As long as a person truly possesses rights". So the possession of rights is conditional. A person can falsely claim to possess rights, when he has indeed forfeited them.

You are introducing a difference between "forfeiting rights" and "forfeiting the respect of rights" that is not plausible. Having a right necessarily entails having a protection against society. How on earth could someone say: "I am protected but not protected" or "In theory, I am protected. In practice, you can hang me tomorrow."

Grames, I would like to keep alive this debate only if you agree to provide your opinion to these questions:

1) Why did Tara Smith bother to warn us that she is "leaving aside", in her discussion, the topic of people who forfeits their rights by violating the rights of others"? Why didn't she just proceed discussing the inalienable nature of rights, including both virtuous and criminals alike in the same basket? Why did she feel compelled to make the disclaimer?

2) Why did Tara Smith used the expression "forfeit their rights" instead of "forfeit the respect of their rights"?

3) What is the use of a right that cannot be respected?

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.

I never said "per se" or "private".

I put in bold the words "towards me", and "towards you".

I was specifically referring to that type of irrationality that is directed against other person.

A violation of a right is an irrational act commited against other, by means of which the reality of the other's ownership of his life is denayed.

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

"Man can fly" is a true statement within the correct context.

"Rights are unconditional and inalienable" is a true proposition within the correct context. And that context, as Tara Smith says, "leaves aside people who forfeit their rigthts by violating the rights of others"

Edited April 1, 2010 by Hotu Matua

[Grames]

Is "man's nature" only his rational faculty, or all the sum of choices that have made his character as well?

Every man's character is different. Every man's metaphysical nature is the same. Rights are derived from the metaphysical nature of man, specifically the fact that man's rational faculty is his means of living.

"Because human actions are volitional, far more useful than asessing any isolated action that a person takes is learning about the source of that action, the agent's basic nature. A person's individual actions proceed from his choices and these, in turn, proceed form his

characteristic way

of using his mind and leading his life. To reach a well-grounded conclusion about another person, it is most helpful to appraise not merely scattered, discrete actions, but the character that authores those actions." ¨

Tara Smith in our same book, page 141. Italics are Tara's.

A judgement of a man's character is invaluable for the purpose of knowing what the future will hold if I continue to deal with a person. But no jury does or ever should concern itself with the future, only whether a man did or did not commit a particular act in the past. Only facts and testimony relevant to the incident of the specific case are permitted, other elements of the accused's past history are barred from the courtroom. At the end when a jury comes to a verdict it does not judge the character of a man it makes a finding of fact. The finding of fact attributes a particular criminal act to a particular actor. Extenuating circumstances establishing the context of that crime might be taken into account in sentencing, but a long life filled with virtue does not entitle a man to get away with one murder, or a light sentence for a first murder.

Show me a single sentence or paragraph written by any Objectivist thinker indicating that, when the State uses retailatory force, it does it by not respecting the accused rights.

I just don't happen to find grounds in Objectivism for this belief of yours.

In the essay Racism by Ayn Rand

Individualism regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being.

From the essay Doesn't Life Require Compromise?

There can be no compromise between freedom and government controls; to accept "just a few controls" is to surrender the principle of inalienable individual rights and to substitute for it the principle of the government's unlimited, arbitrary power, thus delivering oneself into gradual enslavement. As an example of this process, observe the present domestic policy of the United States.

Definition of inalienable - 1. incapable of being repudiated or transferred to another; "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" 2. not subject to forfeiture; "an unforfeitable right"

This is not a carefully selected definition, but typical of Freedictionary.com, the legal dictionary at FreeDictionary.com, Merrian-Webster.com, yourdictionary.com, Wikianswers.com.

Note the Rand specifically uses the term 'inalienable' not 'unalienable', the word found in the United States Declaration of Independence. The difference is that unalienable rights are intrinsic in the manner of attributes while inalienable rights derive from moral principle. She was aware of the distinction and picked the word consistent with her philosophy. Since rights are inalienable, then by definition even criminals still have them.

There is one passage where Ayn Rand discusses the forfeiting of rights in the essay Racism:

That absurdly evil policy is destroying the moral base of the Negroes' fight. Their case rested on the principle of individual rights. If they demand the violation of the rights of others, they negate and forfeit their own. Then the same answer applies to them as to the Southern racists: there can be no such thing as the "right" of some men to violate the rights of others.

Notice that in this example we are not even considering prisoners but certain people advocating an unprincipled political policy as forfeiting their rights. By accepting the contradiction of initiating the violation other's rights while trying to defend their own, what they are really forfeiting is the validity of their argument. But even fools have rights, and no mere spoken words can justify a violation of fools' rights or forfeit the unforfeitable. The language of "forfeiting rights" cannot be taken literally.

When a criminal is imprisoned and his rights are violated, this is not a case of some men rightfully violating the rights of others. It is justified, but not by right. A "right" is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context. An objective justice system does not have freedom of action but is limited and constrained at every turn to enforcing the negative obligation to not violate rights. The fundamental cause of the criminal's imprisonment is the criminal himself, not the government exercising a right to freedom of action to imprison criminals. Government actions are justified, not rightful. Governments do not have rights, only individuals have rights. There is no conflict created between rights.

It is my opinion that every time rights are discussed as inalienable, the issue of criminals is left aside. It is assumed we are not talking about criminals.

That is exactly why Tara Smith adds the caveat: "I am leaving aside persons who forfeit thier rights by violationf the rights of others" (underline and bold is mine)

Were it not for this caveat, we would naturally ask: "Hey, Tara, what about the rights of those who do not respect rights: are they also inalienable?"

Paraphrasing Tara Smith, she is telling us "I am assuming that we are not talking about persons who forfeit their rights. I am assuming that my readers understand that we are talking about normal circumstances"

It makes no sense to say rights can not be forfeited except by those who forfeit them. It is a weakness in Smith's presentation that she does this. She puts aside the case of criminals because she isn't writing about law here, but ethics.

With all due respect to your seniority as an Objectivist, in this case you are twisting a direct, crystal statement of Tara Smith to an extent I find difficult to believe.

There is no such thing as "seniority as an Objectivist" and I deny that I have any. All I have is a valid argument correcting a minor contradiction. Accept an argument or argue against it, but don't appeal to anyone's authority ever.

She clearly says: "As long as a person truly possesses rights". So the possession of rights is conditional. A person can falsely claim to possess rights, when he has indeed forfeited them.

This plainly contradicts Ayn Rand's use of the principle of inalienable individual rights so is flatly wrong taken literally. The charitable way to interpret "truly possesses" is "entitled to be respected" because the condition of having a rational faculty is satisfied, and the condition of "respects others rights" is satisfied.

You are introducing a difference between "forfeiting rights" and "forfeiting the respect of rights" that is not plausible. Having a right necessarily entails having a protection against society.

No. Rights are a normative principle, they explain how one ought to act. Rights do not provide protection, only material things such as walls and weapons can provide actual protection. No principle can be used as an out of context absolute, so violating them can be justified for criminals.

1) Why did Tara Smith bother to warn us that she is "leaving aside", in her discussion, the topic of people who forfeits their rights by violating the rights of others"? Why didn't she just proceed discussing the inalienable nature of rights, including both virtuous and criminals alike in the same basket? Why did she feel compelled to make the disclaimer?

She puts aside the case of criminals because she isn't writing about law here, but ethics.

2) Why did Tara Smith used the expression "forfeit their rights" instead of "forfeit the respect of their rights"?

She made a small mistake. This is a common way of speaking of the matter, that rights not respected are rights denied. She did not examine this detail.

3) What is the use of a right that cannot be respected?

It explains why confinement is punishment. Freedom of action is requirement of a volitional, conceptual consciousness so taking it away is harmful. Criminals still have a volitional, conceptual consciousness so their right to freedom of action persists, and they are harmed by the denial of their right. A right that is not respected but still present is also consistent with the principle that rights are inalienable.

[Marc K.]

It is immoral and illegal to violate anyone's rights.

I'm glad you noticed. Yes, it is an absolute statement -- I use them whenever I can as I find that they make communication and principled discussion much easier. Rights are absolute. I'm not sure why you would call it "out of context" though. I'm sure you know the context for a discussion of rights but in case someone forgot I named the context: moral and legal. As you have acknowledged Rights are a bridge between morality and politics.

Rights pertain only to action (another absolute). Rights sanction the moral actions one must take to survive and thrive and they also delimit the actions others may take with respect to you; they may not initiate force against you. As long as someone acknowledges Rights (implicitly or explicitly) and acts accordingly, then they possess and retain their Rights. When someone decides not to live by these principles and initiates force against you, then they have repudiated the concept and must be considered as outside the boundaries of Rights. They have forfeited their Rights and so they have none that I must respect. This reading conforms much better to the quotes you provided by both Ayn Rand and Tara Smith:

"If they demand the violation of the rights of others, they negate and forfeit their own." -- AR from Racism

"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..." -- Tara Smith (cited previously)

In both you see that persons can "forfeit their rights". And as Tara Smith notes, if a person "possesses rights [then ...] he is entitled to have them respected". So I really can't see how you think these quotes support your position. Also, I find it a little disingenuous that you disagree with what Tara Smith has to say on the subject and then try to use her quotes to support your position. You should just say you disagree and leave it at that instead of trying to manipulate what she says, as you acknowledge doing here:

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:

"Little practical difference" is still a difference -- the difference is obvious and is not what she meant, and I think you know that.

Rights are moral principles which means they are absolutes within a moral context. So Rights are conditional upon your respect for them, as you acknowledge here in your response to me:

[...] it is not rationality that conditions rights but respect of other's rights.

But then you contradict yourself not two paragraphs later:

[...] My resolution of this is that rights are unconditional and inalienable, and it is the respect due to a man's rights that is forfeited, not the rights themselves.

I don't have this problem. I say that Rights are absolute (read inalienable) and contextual (read conditional). I say you should never violate anyone's Rights and the criminal is not a problem for me to deal with under this principle. Since he has already violated the principle I know that he has explicitly repudiated it and therefore I won't be violating his Rights when I treat him like the animal that he confesses to be. I take him at his word (or actions) and treat him according to the principles he holds.

You, on the other hand, say that rights are inalienable (absolute) and unconditional (non-contextual). So actually I think it is you who are dealing in out of context absolutes. When the slave and the slave-master come to you and ask which one of us is right, you are forced to say "well you both have rights and you do not forfeit them no matter what you do".

[Hotu Matua]

I say that Rights are absolute (read inalienable) and contextual (read conditional). I say you should never violate anyone's Rights and the criminal is not a problem for me to deal with under this principle. Since he has already violated the principle I know that he has explicitly repudiated it and therefore I won't be violating his Rights when I treat him like the animal that he confesses to be. I take him at his word (or actions) and treat him according to the principles he holds.

This is a beautiful summary, Marc.

I fully agree.

Rights are not ONLY about man's nature but ALSO about a social context.

Withouth a social context rights cannot exist.

Place a man alone in a desert island, with no body to intereact with, just as Robinson Crusoe or Tom Hanks in Casted Away. Will he retain his nature as man? Yes, of course. Will he have rights? No. Absolutely not. Rights cannot be held in isolation. Without a society to defend yourself from, what is the case for a right?

When a person acts as if the social context didn't exist: when he acts as if his fellowmen weren't real and owned his life, projects and values, then the man is placing himself outside the social context. He is acting as if he were Robinson Crusoe, grabbing what he wishes from the environment. It is by leaving the social context and choosing to live an irreal life in a desert island, that his rights break.

Edited April 2, 2010 by Hotu Matua

[A is A]

A right is a sanction to independent action; the opposite of acting by right is acting by permission.

A criminal acts by permission, no independent action (within the limitations of being in prison). I fail to see how such action can be classified as action by right. Rights arise in a social context, not just within a larger context of possessing a rational faculty. By initiating force he has no sanction to independent action, no rights.

A right is a prerogative that cannot be morally infringed or alienated. Factually, criminals are possible; innocent men can be robbed or enslaved. In such cases, however, the victim's rights are still inalienable: the right remains on the side of the victim; the criminal is wrong.

(my bold)

The right to life means the right to sustain and protect one's life. It means the right to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the preservation of his life. To sustain his life, man needs a method of survival—he must use his rational faculty to gain knowledge and choose values, then act to achieve his values. The right to liberty is the right to this method; it is the right to think and choose, then to act in accordance with one's judgment. To sustain his life, man needs to create the material means of his survival. The right to property is the right to this process;

A criminal clearly has no right to life, liberty or property during his time in jail (or even out of jail since he is confined to evade the police). It is illogical to hold that criminals have rights but we shouldn't respect them. What sanction to independent action does a criminal have? Objectivism is not just putting forth a view of rights in a political context. Objectivism holds that rights are to be defended within the context of the Objectivist ethics and philosophy.

All rights rest on the ethics of egoism. Rights are an individual's selfish possessions—his title to his life, his liberty, his property, the pursuit of his own happiness.

[Rights] "are corollaries of ethics as applied to social organization—if one holds the right ethics." (OPAR)

Criminals do not hold the right ethics in a social context: they initiate physical force and drive a wedge between one's mind and reality. Therefore, they do not have rights.

If rights are defined in rational terms, no conflict is possible between the rights of one individual and those of another. Every man is sovereign. He is absolutely free within the sphere of his own rights, and every man has the same rights. If one detaches the concept of "rights" from reason and reality, however, then nothing but conflict is possible, and the theory of "rights" self-destructs.

This is what the criminal holds: his right to violate your rights. He treats people as if they exist by his permission. Thus, his theory or rights self-destructs: he uses force and is opposed by force.

A criminal does not forfeit his rights. He has no rights (to the extent that is legally determined) once he initiates force. What does it mean to say he has no rights: he has no sanction to independent action. A person who steals my car or kills a family member does more than just forfeit an argument. Fools have rights, if they don't initiate physical force against others.

Rights apply morality to social situations: if you use force, you have no sanction to independent action, i.e., no rights. Citing Rand's statement "[ i]ndividualism regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being" as supporting the view that criminals have rights because they are men is an error. It is like saying, "Objectivism regards every man as an end in himself, therefore, everyone is an end in himself, even if you sacrifice others or steal from others." Objectivism is defining a social system for rational beings, not beings with rational faculties. (Soviet Russia existed with beings who had rational faculties.) Criminals choose to exist outside that context. It is not that they lose rights or forfeit rights, they have no rights as soon as they initiate force: the concept no longer applies to them. They act by permission. After they serve their jail time, they have rights to act; but even then there maybe restrictions: unable to vote, carry firearms, etc.

Edited April 2, 2010 by A is A

[Grames]

"If they demand the violation of the rights of others, they negate and forfeit their own." -- AR from Racism

"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..." -- Tara Smith (cited previously)

In both you see that persons can "forfeit their rights".

This is not a serious reply. It is simply ludicrous to take the Ayn Rand quote literally. Speech cannot violate rights, therefore it cannot forfeit rights, even if forfeiting inalienable rights were possible.

Tara Smith's problem is she stated that rights are not the kind of thing that are deserved or not deserved, and yet by the very social nature of rights whether they are respected or not there is a de facto ethical judgement and desert rendered by the person violating or respecting rights. It is a contradiction. It is also a contradiction to maintain rights are justified only by the nature of man, and yet rights can be forfeited when that nature has not changed. The only way out is if something else is forfeited, not the right itself.

Also, I find it a little disingenuous that you disagree with what Tara Smith has to say on the subject and then try to use her quotes to support your position.

It is possible to use Tara Smith on both sides of this argument because she contradicts herself. She actually is on both sides of the issue, no disingenuousness on my part is involved.

"Little practical difference" is still a difference -- the difference is obvious and is not what she meant, and I think you know that.

No actually I don't know that. I should have written "no practical difference" to be precise and prevent this little confusion.

But then you contradict yourself not two paragraphs later:

That is because those are fragments cut and pasted from different posts. I can restate the case in long form it to eliminate the contradiction.

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. Rights are not conditional upon rationality, but upon the rational faculty. Rights are not intrinsic as an attribute is but a principle derived from the rational faculty attribute. The principle is: each man should have the freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. It is impractical, irrational, and unethical to act as if the principle of rights were untrue or nonexistent. Rights refer to practical actions which exercise an existent power, so rights can only be violated by the use of force. Force refers to physical coercion such as assault, robbery, imprisonment, and in an extended sense, fraud.

A truth can be denied but the corresponding facts persist. For the same reason, a principle can be disregarded but not destroyed. Applying this pattern to the principle of rights, we recognized a right can be violated but not forfeited. This is the origin of the inalienability of rights. As an ethical principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context, rights are a normative prescription of how men should act toward each other that remain true even while being denied or violated.

Rights are not the only or even the most fundamental ethical principle. Egoism is hierarchically prior to rights and is the source of the right of self defense. When physically attacked, it is more ethical to defend oneself than to observe the principle of rights with respect to the attacker. A man should value himself more than a random mugger and his rights, and be willing to inflict harm to achieve his safety. In addition to this, the members of a rational civilized society should band together to form a government in defense and retaliation against outlaws, because in contests of force the stronger side wins, and numbers increase strength. The particular actions that a government may take should be delimited and regularized by the principle of rights, so that who it may take action against and what action it may take can be objectively defined. This subordinates retaliatory force to an objectively true moral principle.

The general principle of trade and of all justice is 'value for value'. When a criminal attacks a man he cannot destroy the victim's rights, he merely violates the respect those rights are warranted. The attacker's rights cannot be destroyed either, so appropriate retaliation then is to not respect the criminal's rights.

When a criminal is imprisoned and his rights are violated deliberately as a punishment, this is not a case of some men rightfully violating the rights of others. It is justified, but not by right. A "right" is a moral principle defining and sanctioning an individual man's freedom of action in a social context. An objective justice system does not have freedom of action but is limited and constrained at every turn to enforcing the negative obligation to not violate rights. The fundamental cause of the criminal's imprisonment is the criminal himself, not the government exercising a right to freedom of action to imprison criminals. Government actions are justified reactions, not rightful actions. An ideal criminal justice system would be as inexorable and predictable as a machine. Governments do not have rights, only individuals have rights. There is no conflict created between rights.

This is not my own personal, idiosyncratic theory I just made up. For those of you unable to follow a principled argument and require guidance by an authority figure telling you exactly what to think, then here you go. In a long letter to philosopher John Hospers dated 29 April, 1961, Ayn Rand states that criminals are men, that criminals are to be treated as responsible adult human beings, that criminals have rights. The relevant section of the letter is exerpted in its entirety below, from pages 558 to 560:

7. I am glad that you agree with me on the issue of justice vs. mercy. It is an enormously important principle that embraces all of one's relationships with men: private, personal, public, social and political. But you say that you are not clear on what I would regard as the deserved, in specific cases. My answer is: the basic principle that should guide one's judgment in issues of justice is the law of causality: one should never attempt to evade or to break the connection between cause and effect—one should never attempt to deprive a man of the consequences of his actions, good or evil. (One should not deprive a man of the values or benefits his actions have caused, such as expropriating a man's wealth for somebody else's benefit; and one should not deflect the disaster which his actions have caused, such as giving relief checks to a lazy, irresponsible loafer.) What specific form of reward or punishment is deserved in specific cases depends on the full context of the case. In personal relationships, the rewards deserved by virtue range from an approving smile to falling in love; the punishments range from a polite reproach or protest (when the action involved is an error of knowledge) to a complete break (when the action is proved to be a willful, conscious, deliberate immorality).

But you ask me what is the punishment deserved by criminal actions. This is a technical, legal issue, which has to be answered by the philosophy of law. The law has to be guided by moral principles, but their application to specific cases is a special field of study. I can only indicate in a general way what principles should be the base of legal justice in determining punishments. The law should: a. correct the consequences of the crime in regard to the victim, whenever possible (such as recovering stolen property and returning it to the owner); b. impose restraints on the criminal, such as a jail sentence, not in order to reform him, but in order to make him bear the painful consequences of his action (or their equivalent) which he inflicted on his victims; c. make the punishment proportionate to the crime in the full context of all the legally punishable crimes.

This last point, I believe, is the question you are specifically interested in, when you write: "I find it difficult to say whether a man who has committed, e.g. armed robbery, deserves one year in jail, five years, ten years, or psychiatric therapy to keep him from repeating his offense." The principle of justice on which the answer has to be based is contextual: the severity of the punishment must match the gravity of the crime, in the full context of the penal code. The punishment for pickpocketing cannot be the same as for murder; the punishment for murder cannot be the same as for manslaughter, etc. It is an enormously complex issue, in which one must integrate the whole scale of legally defined crimes and mitigating circumstances, on the one hand—with a proportionately scaled series of punishments, on the other. Thus the punishment deserved by armed robbery would depend on its place in the scale which begins with the lightest misdemeanor and ends with murder.

What punishment is deserved by the two extremes of the scale is open to disagreement and discussion—but the principle by which a specific argument has to be guided is retribution, not reform. The issue of attempting to "reform" criminals is an entirely separate issue and a highly dubious one, even in the case of juvenile delinquents. At best, it might be a carefully limited adjunct of the penal code (and I doubt even that), not its primary, determining factor. When I say "retribution," I mean the point above, namely: the imposition of painful consequences proportionate to the injury caused by the criminal act. The purpose of the law is not to prevent a future offense, but to punish the one actually committed. If there were a proved, demonstrated, scientific, objectively certain way of preventing future crimes (which does not exist), it would not justify the idea that the law should prevent future offenses and let the present one go unpunished. It would still be necessary to punish the actual crime.

Therefore, "psychiatric therapy" does not belong—on principle—among the alternatives that you list. And more: it is an enormously dangerous suggestion. A. Psychiatry is far from the stage of an exact science; in our present state of knowledge, it is not even a science—it is only in that preliminary, material-gathering stage from which a science will come. B. The law, which has the power to impose its decisions by force, cannot be guided by unproved, uncertain, controversial hypotheses or guesses—and the criminal cannot be treated as a guinea pig (I am saying this in defense of the criminal's rights). C. Since the prevention of crime is a psychological issue, since it involves a man's mind (his premises, values, choices, decisions), it would be monstrously evil to place a man's mind into the power of the law, to let the law prescribe and force upon him any course of treatment involving or affecting his mind. If "the prevention of crime" were accepted as the province and purpose of the law, it would permit and necessitate the most unspeakable atrocities: not merely psychological "brainwashing," but physical mutilations as well, such as electric shock therapy, prefrontal lobotomies and anything else that neurologists might discover. No moral premise—except total altruistic collectivism—could ever justify that sort of horror.

Observe that it is I, the unforgiving egoist, who am more considerate of the criminals (of their rights) than the alleged humanitarians who advocate psychiatric treatments out of an alleged compassion for criminals. A penal code has to treat men as adult, responsible human beings; it can deal only with their actions and with such motives as can be objectively demonstrated (such as intent vs. accident); it cannot assume jurisdiction over men's minds, brains, souls, values and moral premises—it cannot assume the right to change these by forcible means.

(If a man is proved to be legally irresponsible, that is, insane, it is a different issue: the law then has the right to commit him to an insane asylum—since, being incapable of reasoning, he is unable to claim the rights of a rational man. But even then, the law does not have the arbitrary power to impose treatment on him, particularly not treatment that might result in physical damage or injury. And, even in cases of insanity, the issue of proving it is enormously complex, controversial and dangerous, since no fully demonstrated, scientific knowledge is yet available on what can be taken as proof.)

[Hotu Matua]

Tara Smith's problem is she stated that rights are not the kind of thing that are deserved or not deserved, and yet by the very social nature of rights whether they are respected or not there is a de facto ethical judgement and desert rendered by the person violating or respecting rights.

Rights are not deserved or underserved. I do not earn rights, they are not a reward. Nobody can give me rights or take rights away from me.

But this has nothing to do with voluntary forfeiting.

It is also a contradiction to maintain rights are justified only by the nature of man, and yet rights can be forfeited when that nature has not changed.

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. Rights are not conditional upon rationality, but upon the rational faculty. Rights are not intrinsic as an attribute is but a principle derived from the rational faculty attribute.

You keep missing two key concepts for understanding rights:

1) The nature of a man is its identity. And its identity includes his choices. The notion of "rational faculty" includes necessarily the notion of volition. This is exaclty why man has to choose to think, and this is why man can choose not to think. The sum of his choices is his character, and his character is his identity.

"A man-made product did not have to exist, but, once made, it does exist. A man’s actions did not have to be performed, but, once performed, they are facts of reality. The same is true of a man’s character: he did not have to make the choices he made, but,

once he has formed his character, it is a fact, and it is his personal identity

" (Philosophy, Who Needs it, 31) Bold is mine.

2) The nature of man includes the fact that man is a contractual animal. Rights are justified only by the existence of a social context. Rights entail a condition, an obligation dictated by the Law of Identity, and this condition is the existence of a social context. A man with no fellowmen to interact with has no rights. A man who chooses to see his fellowmen as objects and not ends, is dropping the social context and thus rendering his rights meaningless.

When physically attacked, it is more ethical to defend oneself than to observe the principle of rights with respect to the attacker. A man should value himself more than a random mugger and his rights

Rights cannot conflict. The victim will not have to ask herself: "Which rights shall I value more, my rights or his rights?"

The victim will not be able to recognize (identify) the rights of the agressor, so she will have no issue at all with punishing the agressor, or seeking punishment through the State.

Retaliation has nothing to do with violating the agressor rights, but with punishing, inflicting pain, and treating people as they are.

When a criminal attacks a man he cannot destroy the victim's rights, he merely violates the respect those rights are warranted. The attacker's rights cannot be destroyed either, so appropriate retaliation then is to not respect the criminal's rights.

Nobody says that the rights of the attacker can be destroyed, Grames.

I claim that the attacker denies, at some extent, the reality of the other. The attacker acts, as some extent, as if the social context in his life didn't exist. The attacker is placing himself, at some extent, outside the context in which his rights mean something. He is, therefore, at some extent, forfeiting his rights.

It is in man's nature to think, but he can choose not to think (evasion).

It is in man's nature to live, but he can choose not to live (short or long term suicide)

Why, then, is it so difficult to admit that even when it is in man's nature to possess rights, he can choose to forfeit them (crime)?

This is not my own personal, idiosyncratic theory I just made up. For those of you unable to follow a principled argument and require guidance by an authority figure telling you exactly what to think, then here you go. In a long letter to philosopher John Hospers dated 29 April, 1961, Ayn Rand states that criminals are men, that criminals are to be treated as responsible adult human beings, that criminals have rights. The relevant section of the letter is exerpted in its entirety below, from pages 558 to 560:

I believe that criminals are men, that criminals are to be treated as responsible adults, and that criminals have rights.

If that wasn't true, anyone could enter a prison with a gun and shoot down all prisoners.

I have never claimed that an agressor forfeits ALL his rights.

I have said that the agressor forfeits rights inasmuch as he violates other's rights. Inasmuch as he acts irrationaly in a social context.

That is why there is wide range of possible punishments: because there is wide range in which a man abandons the principle of rights.

Look carefully into this statement from Rand from "Capitalism: The Unknown ideal" (page 227)

The only “obligation” involved in individual rights is an obligation imposed, not by the state, but by the nature of reality (i.e., by the law of identity): consistency, which, in this case, means the obligation to respect the rights of others, if one wishes one’s own rights to be recognized and protected.

There are two enlightenings concepts here:

1) It is the Law of Identity that imposes a condition, an obligation for the recognition of rights. So, rights are conditional.

2) If a person does not respect the rights of others, his rights will not be recognized, and therefore, protected.

Ayn Rand could have said: "the obligation to respect the rights of others, if one wishes one's own rights to be respected". But for some reason, though, she didn't say "respected". She decided to say "recognized". She seems to have found inappropriate to say that the State, when retaliating, would not be respecting rights. She prefered to say that rights will be, simply, not recognized. To recognize means to identify. We will not be able to identify the rights of the agressor. Colloquially, we will not be able to see them. It is not that we took them away. Rights can not be taken away... only voluntarily forfeited.

Edited April 2, 2010 by Hotu Matua

[Grames]

Rights are not deserved or underserved. I do not earn rights, they are not a reward. Nobody can give me rights or take rights away from me.

But this has nothing to do with voluntary forfeiting.

This is bullshit. When Ayn Rand writes that rights are inalienable, she goddamn well means exactly that. Get over it, you are wrong.

[Marc K.]

"If they demand the violation of the rights of others, they negate and forfeit their own." -- AR from Racism

[…]

In both you see that persons can "forfeit their rights".

I’m sorry that you don’t consider my responses serious, I can assure you they are, as are Ayn Rand’s. Demanding the violation of the rights of others is not speech, it is violence, it is force, and is not protected by right. It is ludicrous to say that Ayn Rand should not be taken literally. She was very careful about everything she wrote. I don’t know any other way to take her except literally. How do you think we should take her?

It is possible to use Tara Smith on both sides of this argument because she contradicts herself. She actually is on both sides of the issue, no disingenuousness on my part is involved.

Here is what Tara Smith wrote followed by your reply to it:

"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..." -- Tara Smith (cited previously)

I was being generous when I said you were being disingenuous. There is more than a “little practical difference” between your interpretation and Miss Smith’s, there is a huge difference. It is that difference that we are arguing about. You have changed her meaning completely to fit your interpretation. If you can’t see that difference, then you aren’t trying very hard. Reading the last sentence of the Smith quote makes plain that she considers the issues separate. In the first phrase she considers a person who “possesses rights” and in the last phrase she talks about those rights being “respected”.

I am trying to cut you as much slack as possible because of your history here but you are quickly approaching the limit of cordial, rational discussion. You really need to reconsider your position and your tactics. First you advocate that we ignore the words of Ayn Rand in a discussion of Objectivist principle. Then you mischaracterize and insult Tara Smith and next you dishonestly accuse me, here:

That is because those are fragments cut and pasted from different posts.

No … they are not sir. If you have forgotten what you said, then an easy way to remember is to click on the snapback arrow embedded in my quote of you. But please, don’t accuse me of something that is not true because you can’t remember what you wrote. Here, once again, is the quote in which you contradict yourself, do with it as you may:

[...] it is not rationality that conditions rights but respect of other's rights.

[...] My resolution of this is that rights are unconditional and inalienable, and it is the respect due to a man's rights that is forfeited, not the rights themselves.

What I would suggest is that you go back, reexamine what you said, and explain why you used those particular words – instead of writing five new paragraphs which are just reiterations sans explanation.

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. Rights are not conditional upon rationality, but upon the rational faculty.

I’m not sure exactly where you are going wrong, you will probably have to be the one to discover that, but it seems as though you are being rationalistic and falling into the trap of the mind/body dichotomy.

Yes, rights are connected to our natures metaphysically but let’s not forget everything else that is encompassed by the derivation: epistemology and ethics. To say that rights cannot be destroyed since they are derived from our nature, is to say that a building cannot be destroyed because it is made of stone. And it is just like saying that as long as you live, you will be happy no matter how you act.

Everyone has a rational faculty but a proper ethics is dependent upon acting rationally, so is the concept of Rights.

As an ethical principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context, rights are a normative prescription of how men should act toward each other […]

[…] that remain true even while being denied or violated.

I have separated the wheat from the chaff here, use this formulation to help yourself. The first part is good so let us follow it. Rights, like morals, are normative principles. Now let us name a moral principle and see what makes it normative: if you want to live, then you should act rationally – if you want to achieve the first part, you must perform the second part. If you don’t act rationally, then you will not live. Rights are the same way: if you want freedom, then you should not initiate force against others. Once you deny or violate the second part, then you will not have the first part. The statement is true, it is absolute, but it has two parts, it is normative.

When physically attacked, it is more ethical to defend oneself than to observe the principle of rights with respect to the attacker. A man should value himself more than a random mugger and his rights, and be willing to inflict harm to achieve his safety.

It’s not just that you should value yourself more, as if the mugger has some value, the mugger has no value. If a mugger is attacking you, then you shouldn’t value him at all. You should give no consideration to his rights whatsoever since he doesn’t have any. Right is on your side, he has no right to do what he is doing.

Self-defense is a natural consequence of rights so you have a right to engage in it and you aren’t violating anyone’s rights by doing so.

Rights are derived from ethics so it isn’t actually that it is more ethical than right to take a certain action – the action is the same, so its ethical value is the same.

This is not my own personal, idiosyncratic theory I just made up. For those of you unable to follow a principled argument and require guidance by an authority figure telling you exactly what to think, then here you go.

I am not the rational hero that Ayn Rand is and I thankfully refer to her words for guidance unashamedly. But I guess you should address this to yourself since you are responsible for many of the quotes provided including the long one at the end of your last post. It seems as though you are just throwing a bunch of spaghetti at the wall, hoping some will stick, but that last quote won’t help you.

You must consider Ayn Rand’s work in its entirety, which you haven’t done. And now here you are trying to use her words out of context. She names the context in the letter: “the philosophy of law”. Beyond that, there are some quotes within, which may prove problematic to your position, to wit: “the law then has the right”, “being incapable of reasoning, he is unable to claim the rights of a rational man”

Edited April 2, 2010 by Marc K.

[Grames]

I’m sorry that you don’t consider my responses serious, I can assure you they are, as are Ayn Rand’s. Demanding the violation of the rights of others is not speech, it is violence, it is force, and is not protected by right. It is ludicrous to say that Ayn Rand should not be taken literally. She was very careful about everything she wrote. I don’t know any other way to take her except literally. How do you think we should take her?

People advocating school busing should be arrested? You do realize you are advocating speech codes and censorship directed at political advocacy, not threats directed against individuals? How does your idea of the freedom of speech differ from that protected by the U. S. Constitution's First Amendment? Did Kant not have the right to publish The Metaphysics of Morals because it obliterates all truths and rights?

Reading the last sentence of the Smith quote makes plain that she considers the issues separate. In the first phrase she considers a person who “possesses rights” and in the last phrase she talks about those rights being “respected”.

That is the whole point! She should contrast rights that are respected with rights that are not respected, or rights retained contrasted with rights forfeited. It is not justified to consider the issues separately, because the freedom of action removed by imprisonment is also an ethical right. Not all ethical rights are protected by law, but all lawful rights are ethically justified. The two contexts cannot be left compartmentalized and unintegrated.

Then you mischaracterize and insult Tara Smith and next you dishonestly accuse me, here:

I CUT AND PASTED THOSE FRAGMENTS TOGETHER FROM MY OWN POSTS. I didn't accuse you of anything, and it was completely legitimate of you to object to the contradictions between those fragments. That is why I wrote the five new paragraphs. I have done nothing wrong here, and your taking offense is the product of your own misunderstandings. I would have insisted you should read the thread on your own before responding to you if I knew I was going to be abused like this. I claim that you owe me an apology.

What I would suggest is that you go back, reexamine what you said, and explain why you used those particular words – instead of writing five new paragraphs which are just reiterations sans explanation.

No. I repudiate the version with the contradictions in it, and have provided a corrected statement of my position.

I’m not sure exactly where you are going wrong,

Because I'm not wrong.

Yes, rights are connected to our natures metaphysically but let’s not forget everything else that is encompassed by the derivation: epistemology and ethics. To say that rights cannot be destroyed since they are derived from our nature, is to say that a building cannot be destroyed because it is made of stone. And it is just like saying that as long as you live, you will be happy no matter how you act.

No, it is like saying a plant needs water and sunshine to live. It is like saying a fish needs water to live. Removing a fish from water does not remove its need for water.

Everyone has a rational faculty but a proper ethics is dependent upon acting rationally, so is the concept of Rights.

This is just wrong. It is invalid to claim there is no right to be irrational. The only way to implement "no right to be irrational" would be to establish some Final Authority defining what was true and rational, creating some kind of Objectivist theocracy. The state can only legitimately protect freedom, not truth or virtue. Truth and virtue are enforced by reality. See the essay Who is the final authority in ethics? for more on this.

I have separated the wheat from the chaff here, use this formulation to help yourself. The first part is good so let us follow it. Rights, like morals, are normative principles. Now let us name a moral principle and see what makes it normative: if you want to live, then you should act rationally – if you want to achieve the first part, you must perform the second part. If you don’t act rationally, then you will not live. Rights are the same way: if you want freedom, then you should not initiate force against others. Once you deny or violate the second part, then you will not have the first part. The statement is true, it is absolute, but it has two parts, it is normative.

It is NOT a metaphysical truth that "if you want freedom, then you should not initiate force against others." It is possible, and usually the case throughout history and the rest of the world, that those who initiate force get away with the loot. Justice is a man-made value, it is not self-enforcing as the laws of nature are. This principle is not universal, and is not even an absolute without exception within the borders of a legitimate and competent government. Not every crime is solved. Rights are derived from the metaphysical nature of man. That which is man-made can not negate or take away the metaphysically given facts that cause the truth of universal, inalienable rights. To claim that the man-made can negate metaphysically given is an epistemological violation of the hierarchy of knowledge, and worse, and invocation of the primacy of consciousness.

It’s not just that you should value yourself more, as if the mugger has some value, the mugger has no value. If a mugger is attacking you, then you shouldn’t value him at all. You should give no consideration to his rights whatsoever since he doesn’t have any. Right is on your side, he has no right to do what he is doing.

I do not assert a mugger has any particular objective value, and will accept the assignation of zero value. The point remains, this is an ordinary ethical value choice and no extraordinary ethical theory need be invoked to justify self-defense.

Self-defense is a natural consequence of rights so you have a right to engage in it and you aren’t violating anyone’s rights by doing so.

It is ethical to defend oneself against wild animals and other natural hazards, so the origin of this right is actually not a consequence of the principle prescribing how to treat others, and is hierarchically prior. There is no need to defend oneself against people who do not attack, so the right is inert when dealing with rational people.

You must consider Ayn Rand’s work in its entirety, which you haven’t done. And now here you are trying to use her words out of context. She names the context in the letter: “the philosophy of law”. Beyond that, there are some quotes within, which may prove problematic to your position, to wit: “the law then has the right”, “being incapable of reasoning, he is unable to claim the rights of a rational man”

The discussion is not restricted entirely to within the context of the philosophy of law, she is explaining how ethical principles must restrict what the law can be allowed to do especially in those last two paragraphs. Even in this last sentence, the origin of the right to act was the insane man's life, but as she puts it "he is unable to claim them" so the state only gains them by default. The state has none of its own, primary rights originating in the nature of the state.

[JeffS]

Marc K., I'm sure I don't understand your position.

Does an objectively insane man have rights? Does an irrational person have rights? Who decides what is irrational? I mean, believing in gods is irrational - do all deists lack rights? Would going to church be the action which determines a judgment of irrationality?

If I killed a justly convicted and imprisoned human, would I be guilty of violating his rights? Why, or why not? Do criminals have any rights? What principle determines what rights they have?

[Grames]

Hotu Matua,

Rights are inalienable. It really is as simple as that.

You keep missing two key concepts for understanding rights:

1) The nature of a man is its identity.

2) The nature of man includes the fact that man is a contractual animal.

One of the concepts you are missing is that of a necessary and sufficient condition. The existence of a rational faculty in a man is the necessary and sufficient condition for the principle of rights to be true and applicable. All the things you say about the total identity of a man are true, but they are not relevant to rights either to strengthen or weaken them.

Nobody says that the rights of the attacker can be destroyed, Grames.

Forfeited rights are destroyed, nonexistent, inoperable.

I claim that the attacker denies, at some extent, the reality of the other. The attacker acts, as some extent, as if the social context in his life didn't exist. The attacker is placing himself, at some extent, outside the context in which his rights mean something. He is, therefore, at some extent, forfeiting his rights.

The extent is exactly the respect for rights that a man is owed in exchange for giving respect to other's rights.

It is in man's nature to think, but he can choose not to think (evasion).

It is in man's nature to live, but he can choose not to live (short or long term suicide)

Why, then, is it so difficult to admit that even when it is in man's nature to possess rights, he can choose to forfeit them (crime)?

A man can choose not to think or not to live, but he cannot escape the necessity of choosing. There is no "choosing not to choose", that itself is a choice. There is no escaping the fact that he has that power of choice, which is the most fundamental power and expression of the rational faculty. Rights can no more be forfeited than the necessity of choosing, the essence of the rational faculty, can be forfeited, until death.

Look carefully into this statement from Rand from "Capitalism: The Unknown ideal" (page 227)

Ok, let's.

The only “obligation” involved in individual rights is an obligation imposed, not by the state, but by the nature of reality (i.e., by the law of identity): consistency, which, in this case, means the obligation to respect the rights of others, if one wishes one’s own rights to be recognized and protected.

There are two enlightenings concepts here:

1) It is the Law of Identity that imposes a condition, an obligation for the recognition of rights. So, rights are conditional.

This quote does not support the conclusion that the rights themselves are conditional. The recognition of rights is conditional upon a logical, moral man considering himself bound by logic and morality. A man unconvinced of the correctness or utility of logic or morality will not necessarily recognize your rights. Recognized or not, you still need to be free.

2) If a person does not respect the rights of others, his rights will not be recognized, and therefore, protected.

Ayn Rand could have said: "the obligation to respect the rights of others, if one wishes one's own rights to be respected". But for some reason, though, she didn't say "respected". She decided to say "recognized". She seems to have found inappropriate to say that the State, when retaliating, would not be respecting rights. She prefered to say that rights will be, simply, not recognized. To recognize means to identify. We will not be able to identify the rights of the agressor. Colloquially, we will not be able to see them. It is not that we took them away. Rights can not be taken away... only voluntarily forfeited.

Note that she also avoided here any such language as 'forfeit' or 'surrender'. 'Recognized' implies that something is there, prior to the recognition. Existence comes before consciousness. Consider the range of possible senses in which the word 'recognize' can be used:

rec·og·nize   [rek-uhg-nahyz] Show IPA

–verb (used with object),-nized, -niz·ing.

1. to identify as something or someone previously seen, known, etc.: He had changed so much that one could scarcely recognize him.

2. to identify from knowledge of appearance or characteristics: I recognized him from the description. They recognized him as a fraud.

3. to perceive as existing or true; realize: to be the first to recognize a fact.

4. to acknowledge as the person entitled to speak at a particular time: The Speaker recognized the Congressman from Maine.

5. to acknowledge formally as entitled to treatment as a political unit: The United States promptly recognized Israel.

6. to acknowledge or accept formally a specified factual or legal situation: to recognize a successful revolutionary regime as the de facto government of the country.

7. to acknowledge or treat as valid: to recognize a claim.

8. to acknowledge acquaintance with, as by a greeting, handshake, etc.

9. to show appreciation of (achievement, service, merit, etc.), as by some reward, public honor, or the like.

10. Law. to acknowledge (an illegitimate child) as one's own.

In failing to recognize rights, it is not similar failing to identify the face of an old friend, or to being unable to identify what we had previously been familiar with because the form is changed or mangled. Rights are a claim to how other people should treat you, so sense 7. "to acknowledge or treat as valid: to recognize a claim." is more relevant to what is under discussion. The claim is for protection. The claim does not disappear when refused or not acknowledged.

Respecting others rights will not guarantee one's own rights will be respected, but it is the only basis for any claim.

Consider when a prisoner fulfills his term of confinement and is released. Are his rights are returned to him? Where did they come from? Did the state give him his rights? This would contradict the idea that man is not given his rights by the state but by nature. Did the nature of the man change? No. Then his rights must have been with him all along.

[A is A]

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

Everyone has a rational faculty but a proper ethics is dependent upon acting rationally, so is the concept of Rights.

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

YES. That is the precise principle involved.

[Marc K.]

This conversation has really devolved into absurdity. Let me demonstrate the lengths you are now going to evade the truth.

People advocating school busing should be arrested? You do realize you are advocating speech codes and censorship directed at political advocacy, not threats directed against individuals? How does your idea of the freedom of speech differ from that protected by the U. S. Constitution's First Amendment?

You consider “demanding” and “advocating” to be equivalent, which is equivocation.

Can you think of any speech that would violate someone’s rights? If you answer “no”, then you have contradicted yourself again. If you answer “yes”, then you have made my point.

That is the whole point! She should contrast rights that are respected with rights that are not respected, or rights retained contrasted with rights forfeited. It is not justified to consider the issues separately, because the freedom of action removed by imprisonment is also an ethical right. Not all ethical rights are protected by law, but all lawful rights are ethically justified. The two contexts cannot be left compartmentalized and unintegrated.

The point is that you were dishonest. You said that changing Tara Smith’s quote in the way you did, didn’t change its meaning at all and in fact supported your position; nothing could be further from the truth. I demonstrated how your reading of her quote completely changed the meaning and now you are evading your dishonesty by changing the subject, which makes you intellectually dishonest.

Let us review this point because it is very telling about your methods of argumentation. Here, once again, is what she said:

"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..." -- Tara Smith (cited previously)

It is pretty self-explanatory but since you are having trouble, I’ll help. It says:

- rights are conditional

- if you violate other’s rights, you forfeit yours

- if you possess rights, they should be respected

As far as I understand your position, these points contradict yours, so you cannot honestly think that her quote supports your position. However, you will notice that she does address your concern that she “should contrast rights that are respected with rights that are not respected, or rights retained contrasted with rights forfeited.” He who doesn’t violate other’s rights retains theirs and they should be respected. He who violates the rights of others forfeits their own.

Also, do you consider freedom of action an “ethical right” that is “protected by law”? It is hard to tell from your sentence structure and line of reasoning above.

I claim that you owe me an apology.

I have abused you and owe you an apology for the contradictions written by you which you now repudiate? Absurd.

No, it is like saying a plant needs water and sunshine to live. It is like saying a fish needs water to live. Removing a fish from water does not remove its need for water.

You are evading again. Do you accept that the derivation of rights entails considering more than just metaphysics? Are there epistemological and ethical concepts and principles involved in the derivation? If not, then perhaps you could spell-out the reduction of rights to the metaphysical level for me without mentioning the other branches.

This is just wrong. It is invalid to claim there is no right to be irrational. The only way to implement "no right to be irrational" would be to establish some Final Authority defining what was true and rational, creating some kind of Objectivist theocracy.

This is more than just a mischaracterization. You have accused me of saying something that I never said. Is this more evasion of the truth? Here is what I said:

Everyone has a rational faculty but a proper ethics is dependent upon acting rationally, so is the concept of Rights.

Notice how I don’t claim that “there is no right to be irrational”, nor do I even imply it. What I have said is something with which you should be able to agree.

“A proper ethics” refers to “a proper code of ethics”. A proper code of ethics is dependent upon acting (including thinking) rationally, it cannot be discovered by acting irrationally. Since the concept of Rights is derived from a proper ethics, it also is dependent upon acting rationally, it cannot be discovered by acting irrationally.

The validation of a proper ethics and the concept of Rights can only be achieved by practicing and observing rational action. Nothing about the nature of a proper ethics or the concept of Rights can be discovered by observing irrational behavior.

Objectivist theocracy? When you put words in my mouth and then use scare tactics like this, I’m not sure what to call it besides a dishonest, insulting, appeal to emotion.

It is NOT a metaphysical truth that "if you want freedom, then you should not initiate force against others." […] This principle is not universal, and is not even an absolute without exception within the borders of a legitimate and competent government.

So now you only recognize metaphysical truths? Are you denying that the principle "if you want freedom, then you should not initiate force against others" is true? Do you also deny that the principle “if you want to live, then you must act rationally” is true?

Rights are derived from the metaphysical nature of man.

Strictly speaking and in the widest sense of the word “derived” you are correct, if extremely inaccurate and misleading. All knowledge is derived ultimately from the metaphysical nature of things -- but to state it in a detailed discussion of a very high level concept in which all parties accept the truth of the statement is superfluous and probably only meant to be confounding.

Rights are derived directly from a proper code of ethics which is itself dependent upon a proper epistemology and metaphysics.

It is NOT a metaphysical truth that "if you want freedom, then you should not initiate force against others." […] This principle is not universal, and is not even an absolute without exception within the borders of a legitimate and competent government. […] That which is man-made can not negate or take away the metaphysically given facts that cause the truth of universal, inalienable rights. To claim that the man-made can negate metaphysically given is an epistemological violation of the hierarchy of knowledge, and worse, and invocation of the primacy of consciousness.

This is more confusion and contradiction. First you say that the principle is not universal or absolute and then you say that rights are universal and inalienable so the only thing I can figure is that you don’t consider the non-initiation of force principle to be part of the concept of rights. If you don’t, then you have contradicted yourself again. If you do, then you agree with me on that part.

You’ll have to explain further about how what I have said invokes the primacy of consciousness, I have no idea what you are talking about.

I do not assert a mugger has any particular objective value, and will accept the assignation of zero value. The point remains, this is an ordinary ethical value choice and no extraordinary ethical theory need be invoked to justify self-defense.

This is confused, I don’t know what you are talking about. Which is “an ordinary ethical value choice”? The choice of whether to be a mugger or not? Are you contending that it could be ethical to choose to be a mugger? Or are you saying that the choice of whether to defend yourself is “an ordinary ethical value choice”? If so, I wouldn’t call it “ordinary” it is a moral imperative. And which extraordinary ethical theory are referring to? The concept of Rights?

It is ethical to defend oneself against wild animals and other natural hazards, so the origin of this right is actually not a consequence of the principle prescribing how to treat others, and is hierarchically prior.

Let me get this straight, the principle that provides you with the moral sanction to defend yourself against other men is the law of the jungle? Morality is derived from the actions of animals?

This is hilarious, that we could discover anything about the concept of rights by observing animals!!!??? I’m sorry to inform you but the concept of right doesn’t even enter the picture when dealing with wild animals.

Notice also how you have stolen the concept here: “so the origin of this right is actually not a consequence of the principle prescribing how to treat others, and is hierarchically prior.” What you are saying is: the right to self-defense is hierarchically prior to the principle of rights.

There is no need to defend oneself against people who do not attack, so the right is inert when dealing with rational people.

Well of course, all rights would be “inert”, using your words, when dealing only with rational people. But as you are quick to point out above, what about the rights of the irrational? Does someone have the right to initiate force against you? Why not? What is preventing him from doing so? Or, more precisely, since I’m sure you’ll skirt that question, what principle is it that provides you with the moral sanction not to be attacked?

The discussion is not restricted entirely to within the context of the philosophy of law, she is explaining how ethical principles must restrict what the law can be allowed to do especially in those last two paragraphs. Even in this last sentence, the origin of the right to act was the insane man's life, but as she puts it "he is unable to claim them" so the state only gains them by default. The state has none of its own, primary rights originating in the nature of the state.

Everything except the first paragraph falls under the rubric of “philosophy of law”. So are you admitting that you took Miss Rand out of context then? I guess it doesn’t matter since even here you mischaracterize her again when you say “even in this last sentence, the origin of the right to act was the insane man's life, but as she puts it ‘he is unable to claim them’”. Clearly that isn’t what she meant. She said “[…] since, being incapable of reasoning, he is unable to claim the rights of a rational man.” So she isn’t referring to the man’s life in this sentence but his capacity to reason.

But the part that should be confounding to you is the fact that he must “claim” them at all, doesn’t this contradict your theory?

[A is A]

Bravo, Marc

[Grames]

.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Grames

[Dante]

If I'm understanding the two sides of this debate correctly, both agree that punishing prisoners in proportion to the crime they have committed is morally proper, and it is morally improper to punish beyond the extent of the rights violation (i.e. it is improper to punish more than is merited by the crime). One side believes that people forfeit rights when they violate the rights of others. The other side believes that people forfeit the obligation to respect those rights when they violate others' rights. One side believes that rights cease to exist to the extent that the holder violates others' rights. The other side believes that rights continue to exist but cease to deserve respect to the extent that the holder violates others' rights. Is this summation correct as far as it goes?

[Grames]

If I'm understanding the two sides of this debate correctly, both agree that punishing prisoners in proportion to the crime they have committed is morally proper, and it is morally improper to punish beyond the extent of the rights violation (i.e. it is improper to punish more than is merited by the crime). One side believes that people forfeit rights when they violate the rights of others. The other side believes that people forfeit the obligation to respect those rights when they violate others' rights. One side believes that rights cease to exist to the extent that the holder violates others' rights. The other side believes that rights continue to exist but cease to deserve respect to the extent that the holder violates others' rights. Is this summation correct as far as it goes?

I agree with this summation of the essence of the debate.

[Grames]

You consider “demanding” and “advocating” to be equivalent, which is equivocation.

"Demanding" has several senses given by any dictionary, but the only ones that violate rights are threats of force such as a robber's demand "your money or your life" or a kidnapper's demand for ransom. How could either sense possibly apply here, where there is no "or else" clause at work? Where is the hostage? The civil rights movement was a demand for justice based on moral arguments, not threats. This particular argument was invalid, but that does not transform it into a threat. The demands Ayn Rand refers to throughout the Racism essay are repeated and urgent calls for justice, statements of their claims, not threats. The essay provides the exact text of a "demand" by quoting the N.Y. Times:

As if the blatant racism of such a demand were not enough, some Negro leaders went still farther. Whitney M. Young Jr., executive director of the National Urban League, made the following statement (N. Y. Times, August 1):

"The white leadership must be honest enough to grant that throughout our history there has existed a special privileged class of citizens who received preferred treatment. That class was white. Now we're saying this: If two men, one Negro and one white, are equally qualified for a job, hire the Negro."

Consider the implications of that statement. It does not merely demand special privileges on racial grounds——it demands that white men be penalized for the sins of their ancestors. It demands that a white laborer be refused a job because his grandfather may have practiced racial discrimination. But perhaps his grandfather had not practiced it. Or perhaps his grandfather had not even lived in this country. Since these questions are not to be considered, it means that that white laborer is to be charged with collective racial guilt, the guilt consisting merely of the color of his skin.

Where in this passage is there a lurking threat of violence if the demand is refused? You have not reviewed the essay Racism, you have not consulted a dictionary, you show no evidence of familiarity of history of the civil rights movement, in short you show no evidence at all of knowing what you are talking about.

The point is that you were dishonest. You said that changing Tara Smith’s quote in the way you did, didn’t change its meaning at all and in fact supported your position; nothing could be further from the truth. I demonstrated how your reading of her quote completely changed the meaning and now you are evading your dishonesty by changing the subject, which makes you intellectually dishonest.

I have not edited Tara Smith's words, and my noting that the practical difference between forfeiting one's rights and forfeiting the respect of one's rights is "little" (a criminal remains behind bars either way) does not qualify as an instance of dishonesty. Your hysterical accusations humiliate you.

Let us review this point because it is very telling about your methods of argumentation. Here, once again, is what she said:

"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..." -- Tara Smith (cited previously)

It is pretty self-explanatory but since you are having trouble, I’ll help. It says:

- rights are conditional

- if you violate other’s rights, you forfeit yours

- if you possess rights, they should be respected

As far as I understand your position, these points contradict yours, so you cannot honestly think that her quote supports your position.

Since it is beneath your dignity to read the thread and know what you talking about, allow me to assist you.

(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."

And yet a criminal is judged and rendered what he deserves. If it is his rights that he deserves or does not deserve, this is a problem. So that is the method of my argument, I can hold the context of two separate paragraphs in mind at once and attempt to integrate them.

Also, do you consider freedom of action an “ethical right” that is “protected by law”? It is hard to tell from your sentence structure and line of reasoning above.

What a confession. It is not hard at all.

The law can only extend its jurisdiction over rights that can be physically violated by an initiation of force. The general freedom of action is physical and can only be violated by initiation of force, therefore it can and ought to be protected by law.

I have abused you and owe you an apology for the contradictions written by you which you now repudiate? Absurd.

You have falsely accused me of dishonesty repeatedly. That is why I merit an apology.

You are evading again. Do you accept that the derivation of rights entails considering more than just metaphysics? Are there epistemological and ethical concepts and principles involved in the derivation? If not, then perhaps you could spell-out the reduction of rights to the metaphysical level for me without mentioning the other branches.

Now you are equivocating. I am addressing rights, you want to address the derivation of rights.

“A proper ethics” refers to “a proper code of ethics”. A proper code of ethics is dependent upon acting (including thinking) rationally, it cannot be discovered by acting irrationally. Since the concept of Rights is derived from a proper ethics, it also is dependent upon acting rationally, it cannot be discovered by acting irrationally.

The validation of a proper ethics and the concept of Rights can only be achieved by practicing and observing rational action. Nothing about the nature of a proper ethics or the concept of Rights can be discovered by observing irrational behavior.

And by using the word "discovered" you have conceded my point here, because what is discovered is prior to the discovery. Existence exists before consciousness identifies. Rights are not merely invented, they are true in a manner paralleling any scientific principle discovered.

And if irrational behavior was never observed to have any negative consequences for living, then a proper ethics could have no justification to damn irrationality and that would be a profoundly important conclusion.

Objectivist theocracy? When you put words in my mouth and then use scare tactics like this, I’m not sure what to call it besides a dishonest, insulting, appeal to emotion.

If you do not want to accept the logical consequences of your ideas, you should think them through before committing to them. If what you have written is not your idea, be willing to retract or revise it.

So now you only recognize metaphysical truths? Are you denying that the principle "if you want freedom, then you should not initiate force against others" is true?

It is true, but some person must enforce it by taking away the freedom of those who initiate force. It doesn't happen automatically. Those who initiate force will always have to deal with the consequences of that action, but it is not guaranteed or automatic that the loss of freedom is one of those consequences.

[Grames]

Continuing the response of the previous post.

Strictly speaking and in the widest sense of the word “derived” you are correct, if extremely inaccurate and misleading. All knowledge is derived ultimately from the metaphysical nature of things -- but to state it in a detailed discussion of a very high level concept in which all parties accept the truth of the statement is superfluous and probably only meant to be confounding.

Rights are derived directly from a proper code of ethics which is itself dependent upon a proper epistemology and metaphysics.

The law of gravitation is derived from a proper mathematics and a set of accurate observations. Yet gravity was a real existent before its principle was ever discovered. The same is true for the example of rights.

This is more confusion and contradiction. First you say that the principle is not universal or absolute and then you say that rights are universal and inalienable so the only thing I can figure is that you don’t consider the non-initiation of force principle to be part of the concept of rights.

What do you mean by "a part of" a concept? The non-initiation of force principle is not one of the referents of the concept "rights", because rights are positive rights to action, while the NIF is a negative. It is a restatement of the principle, a conclusion derived from a premise.

This is confused, I don’t know what you are talking about. Which is “an ordinary ethical value choice”? The choice of whether to be a mugger or not? Are you contending that it could be ethical to choose to be a mugger? Or are you saying that the choice of whether to defend yourself is “an ordinary ethical value choice”? If so, I wouldn’t call it “ordinary” it is a moral imperative. And which extraordinary ethical theory are referring to? The concept of Rights?

An ordinary Objectivist ethical value choice is to choose the greatest value over a lesser value, or a disvalue. Stated negatively, never sacrifice a greater value for a lesser value, or disvalue. An extraordinary ethical theory would be the theory of "inalienable yet still forfeitable rights", extraordinary because of the obvious self-contradiction.

Let me get this straight, the principle that provides you with the moral sanction to defend yourself against other men is the law of the jungle? Morality is derived from the actions of animals?

This is hilarious, that we could discover anything about the concept of rights by observing animals!!!??? I’m sorry to inform you but the concept of right doesn’t even enter the picture when dealing with wild animals.

You beclown yourself here. Pay attention to the man as he defends himself from the animal, not the animal. Ethics comes before politics. Egoism comes before rights.

Notice also how you have stolen the concept here: “so the origin of this right is actually not a consequence of the principle prescribing how to treat others, and is hierarchically prior.” What you are saying is: the right to self-defense is hierarchically prior to the principle of rights.

The general principle of self defense leads to the right of self defense when defending against attacks by other men. Nothing is stolen.

.. what about the rights of the irrational? Does someone have the right to initiate force against you? Why not? What is preventing him from doing so? Or, more precisely, since I’m sure you’ll skirt that question, what principle is it that provides you with the moral sanction not to be attacked?

No one has the right to initiate force against me. Other's rights end where mine begin. Only two factors can prevent a man from violating rights: the man's own rationality and self control, or physical force.

Everything except the first paragraph falls under the rubric of “philosophy of law”. So are you admitting that you took Miss Rand out of context then? I guess it doesn’t matter since even here you mischaracterize her again when you say “even in this last sentence, the origin of the right to act was the insane man's life, but as she puts it ‘he is unable to claim them’”. Clearly that isn’t what she meant. She said “[…] since, being incapable of reasoning, he is unable to claim the rights of a rational man.” So she isn’t referring to the man’s life in this sentence but his capacity to reason.

Rand had also expressed here her doubts about any objective definition of insanity at the time of writing, so she would not accept any legal justification to regard the man's rights as voided, or equivalently, that the man was no longer a man. She regards his status as merely an incapacitated man, potentially capable of recovering his wits.

But the part that should be confounding to you is the fact that he must “claim” them at all, doesn’t this contradict your theory?

He cannot claim them, yet they persist and state must still honor them. That supports the idea that rights derive from what one is, not what one does. A legal finding of fact that he is not a man (brain dead or otherwise irrecoverably injured) would be required to eliminate the legal presumption that he has rights.

[Hotu Matua]

Hotu Matua,

Rights are inalienable. It really is as simple as that.

One of the concepts you are missing is that of a necessary and sufficient condition. The existence of a rational faculty in a man is the necessary and sufficient condition for the principle of rights to be true and applicable. All the things you say about the total identity of a man are true, but they are not relevant to rights either to strengthen or weaken them.

False. The existence of a rational faculty in man is necessary, but NOT sufficient. Rights need the existence of a social context to exist themselves. And you know what a "social context" means and implies.

Don't jump from metaphysics to politics without going through ethics.

Rights are not a link between metaphysics and politics, but between ethics and politics.

A man can choose not to think or not to live, but he cannot escape the necessity of choosing. There is no "choosing not to choose", that itself is a choice. There is no escaping the fact that he has that power of choice, which is the most fundamental power and expression of the rational faculty. Rights can no more be forfeited than the necessity of choosing, the essence of the rational faculty, can be forfeited, until death.

You are again talking as if rights were an attribute of man's mind, or rational faculty. Rights are derived from nature but not part of nature. They are objective because they derived from the metaphysically given but they are not THE metaphysically given.

Rights are not given, taken away or returned. But they exist ON A CONDITION. On an ethical condition. And you know well what that condition is.

Consider the range of possible senses in which the word 'recognize' can be used:

rec·og·nize   [rek-uhg-nahyz] Show IPA

–verb (used with object),-nized, -niz·ing.

1. to identify as something or someone previously seen, known, etc.: He had changed so much that one could scarcely recognize him.

2. to identify from knowledge of appearance or characteristics: I recognized him from the description. They recognized him as a fraud.

3. to perceive as existing or true; realize: to be the first to recognize a fact.

4. to acknowledge as the person entitled to speak at a particular time: The Speaker recognized the Congressman from Maine.

5. to acknowledge formally as entitled to treatment as a political unit: The United States promptly recognized Israel.

6. to acknowledge or accept formally a specified factual or legal situation: to recognize a successful revolutionary regime as the de facto government of the country.

7. to acknowledge or treat as valid: to recognize a claim.

8. to acknowledge acquaintance with, as by a greeting, handshake, etc.

9. to show appreciation of (achievement, service, merit, etc.), as by some reward, public honor, or the like.

10. Law. to acknowledge (an illegitimate child) as one's own.

Rights are a claim to how other people should treat you, so sense 7. "to acknowledge or treat as valid: to recognize a claim." is more relevant to what is under discussion. The claim is for protection. The claim does not disappear when refused or not acknowledged.

I'm afraid you are wrong again.

A right is by definition a VALID* claim, or it is not a right. (*Valid understood as valid within a social context of mutual recognition as rational beings).

Thus, not recognizing the validity of the claim automatically means not recognizing the existence of the right.

And thus, the best sense of "recognize" in our discussion are those numbered 1,2 or 3, not number 7.

Consider when a prisoner fulfills his term of confinement and is released. Are his rights are returned to him?

No. Rights are not given, taken away, or returned . Rights are the only responsibility of the holder of those rights. The holder has to sustain his rights, by living as a contractual animal, which means, by living up to his nature.

Where did they come from?

From his nature as a contractual animal, AND a context in which this nature can operate, which is the social context.

Again, rights are rooted in metahphysics AND ethics.

Again, a lonely man in a desert island has no rights, regardless his rational faculty. Place a second man in the island, and rights automatically appear. If one of the two men develops dementia, rights will fade in proportion to the degree of dementia. If one of them dies, the rights of the other will automatically disappear. Rights are not attributes.

Did the state give him his rights?

Nope. And this is why Ayn Rand, in an effort to detach rights from the pure realm of politics, in an effort to release our understanding of rights from the whim of dictators, emphasized so much that rights are derived from man's nature. This was also the rationale of the Founding Fathers when writing about rights. It was the urge to protect man from tyranny that made them emphasize so strongly the metaphysical basis of rights. But neither the Founding Fathers nor Ayn Rand forgot that rights do not jump directly from metaphysic to politics, as you are trying to do.

Did the nature of the man change?

Yes, but you will fail to understand it until you admit that man's nature is that of a contractual animal, that man's nature is modified by his choices, and that rights do not have only a metaphysical but also, and more importantly, an ethical dimension.

Unless you understand this, you will remain stuck in the apparent paradox of how rights can be inalienable and forfeitable at the same time.

To be released, the prisioner has to prove that he is living again according to his nature: that he is willing to accept the reality of others. That he is ready to treat other as traders.

Hi has to prove that he has changed and is NOT an objective threat to others anymore.

In fact, prisoners sentences commonly get shortened by the observation of productiveness, rationality, and other virtues while in prison. A virtue is a pattern of behaviour. And this pattern may have appeared or reappeared during the time in jail and become part of the prisioner's identity or nature.

Please listen to Leonard Peikoff podcast # 15 about the forfeiting of rights. When asked directly at what extent people can forfeit their rights and become voluntary slaves, he never answers that rights cannot be forfeited. He says that an enslaver has to be prosecuted on the grounds of being an objective threat to others, not on the grounds of having violated the slave's rights. When using the example of a sadomasochist relationship, he says that when done in the privacy of a hotel room, the State cannot intervene and punish the sadist partner accusing him of having violated his partner's rights. Listen carefully not just the answer but the question that triggers the answer. Nobody is asking about "forfeiting the respect of one's rights" but forfeiting one's rights directly.

To introduce "respect" between "forfeit" and "rights" is to introduce a redundancy that only obscures the meaning of the concept of "rights".

Rights ARE MEANT to be respected, or they are not rights. Rights ARE MEANT to be valid claims in a valid context, or they are not rights at all.

In conclusion, the State does not violate the rights of the criminal during proper retaliation.

Edited April 8, 2010 by Hotu Matua

[A is A]

"Demanding" has several senses given by any dictionary, but the only ones that violate rights are threats of force such as a robber's demand "your money or your life" or a kidnapper's demand for ransom. How could either sense possibly apply here, where there is no "or else" clause at work? Where is the hostage? The civil rights movement was a demand for justice based on moral arguments, not threats. This particular argument was invalid, but that does not transform it into a threat. The demands Ayn Rand refers to throughout the Racism essay are repeated and urgent calls for justice, statements of their claims, not threats. The essay provides the exact text of a "demand" by quoting the N.Y. Times:

As if the blatant racism of such a demand were not enough, some Negro leaders went still farther. Whitney M. Young Jr., executive director of the National Urban League, made the following statement (N. Y. Times, August 1):

"The white leadership must be honest enough to grant that throughout our history there has existed a special privileged class of citizens who received preferred treatment. That class was white. Now we're saying this: If two men, one Negro and one white, are equally qualified for a job, hire the Negro."

Consider the implications of that statement. It does not merely demand special privileges on racial grounds——it demands that white men be penalized for the sins of their ancestors. It demands that a white laborer be refused a job because his grandfather may have practiced racial discrimination. But perhaps his grandfather had not practiced it. Or perhaps his grandfather had not even lived in this country. Since these questions are not to be considered, it means that that white laborer is to be charged with collective racial guilt, the guilt consisting merely of the color of his skin.

Where in this passage is there a lurking threat of violence if the demand is refused?

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

The treat of violence is that Young's demands were to be enforced by governmental laws. Who is the 'white leadership' that he is referring to? The whites in power, in government. Ever hear of affirmative action?

Edited April 9, 2010 by A is A

[Grames]

False. The existence of a rational faculty in man is necessary, but NOT sufficient. Rights need the existence of a social context to exist themselves. And you know what a "social context" means and implies. Don't jump from metaphysics to politics without going through ethics. Rights are not a link between metaphysics and politics, but between ethics and politics.

The point to identifying the rational faculty as the necessary and sufficient condition is to exclude anything else about an individual man's identity as relevant. Of course at least one other person needs to be around before the issue of how to treat that person can arise. The presence of one or more other people is all that social context means. Social context does not only mean that peace and friendship and rationality prevail, it also includes conflict. Rights are the means to resolve conflicts and to prevent them from happening in the first place. Given that there is someone around, it is necessary and sufficient to understand the requirements of a rational faculty to conclude how you should treat him and how you should be treated by him. Even if he comes to a different conclusion and initiates force it is still true that he should not have done so. When you defend yourself, you uphold a more fundamental ethical principle that is not dependent on a social context.

You are again talking as if rights were an attribute of man's mind, or rational faculty. Rights are derived from nature but not part of nature. They are objective because they derived from the metaphysically given but they are not THE metaphysically given. Rights are not given, taken away or returned. But they exist ON A CONDITION. On an ethical condition. And you know well what that condition is.

An attribute and a truth derived from that attribute are two different things, and yet the only way to destroy the truth is to destroy the attribute. This does not make a truth into an attribute or metaphysical, but necessary. Rights are necessary and true for all men. What is conditional is whether or not men know this truth and act accordingly by exchanging respect for rights.

I'm afraid you are wrong again.

A right is by definition a VALID* claim, or it is not a right. (*Valid understood as valid within a social context of mutual recognition as rational beings).

Thus, not recognizing the validity of the claim automatically means not recognizing the existence of the right.

Hmmm. For invalid claims, not recognizing the validity of the claim automatically means not recognizing the existence of the right. For valid claims, not recognizing the validity of the claim automatically means not recognizing the existence of the right. The difference between the two cases is that not recognizing the existence of the right is true by the correspondence principle of truth in one case and not the other. The correspondence is between the recognition which occurs inside one's head and the fact which lies outside one's head. Not recognizing facts does not make them blink out of existence.

No. Rights are not given, taken away, or returned . Rights are the only responsibility of the holder of those rights. The holder has to sustain his rights, by living as a contractual animal, which means, by living up to his nature.

It does not matter what words are used, truths that are sometimes true and sometimes not true are nonsense. And there is no possibility of living up to one's metaphysical nature, a metaphysical nature is what one is, it is given, there is no choice in the matter.

Unless you understand this, you will remain stuck in the apparent paradox of how rights can be inalienable and forfeitable at the same time.

I'm not the one stuck with the paradox, the explanation of inalienable rights and exchanged respect for rights eliminates the paradox.

To be released, the prisioner has to prove that he is living again according to his nature: that he is willing to accept the reality of others. That he is ready to treat other as traders.

Hi has to prove that he has changed and is NOT an objective threat to others anymore.

You just described a very non-objective punishment scheme that could never be proven. There is no mind reading, and a criminal is capable of lying to gain release. What can be proven is that a prisoner was sentenced to X years, and that he has served those years.

In fact, prisoners sentences commonly get shortened by the observation of productiveness, rationality, and other virtues while in prison. A virtue is a pattern of behaviour. And this pattern may have appeared or reappeared during the time in jail and become part of the prisioner's identity or nature.

And having fooled the parole board, they rape, rob and murder again. Prison is not supposed to be rehabilitation, for the reasons Ayn Rand explained in the quote from her letter to Hospers. The fact that the rehabilitation game is commonly played does not justify it, and the rate of criminal recidivism provides evidence of its ineffectiveness.

Please listen to Leonard Peikoff podcast # 15 about the forfeiting of rights. When asked directly at what extent people can forfeit their rights and become voluntary slaves, he never answers that rights cannot be forfeited. He says that an enslaver has to be prosecuted on the grounds of being an objective threat to others, not on the grounds of having violated the slave's rights. When using the example of a sadomasochist relationship, he says that when done in the privacy of a hotel room, the State cannot intervene and punish the sadist partner accusing him of having violated his partner's rights. Listen carefully not just the answer but the question that triggers the answer. Nobody is asking about "forfeiting the respect of one's rights" but forfeiting one's rights directly.

The question asked at 13:06: "'To what extent can an individual voluntarily relinquish his rights? For example, could someone sell himself into slavery, or consent to be physically beaten?'"

To which he answers forthrightly, "No, or at minimum, he cannot expect government protection for this transaction." This leaves no room for forfeitable rights. Furthermore, when it is possible to get away with this confidentially it would not be moral (not compatible with life, i.e. rational egoism). Rights are not violated with violence but with force. The distinction is that violence is mere physical action while force is physical action defeating the mind and will of the victim. Retaliatory force is not a different kind of force, it is also physical action defeating the mind and will of the target. Boxers do not violate each other's rights, and committing suicide does not violate rights even though both examples involve violence. Dueling to the death violates rights.

And it is invalid to claim that the form of the question proves anything at all. For most people the very language they use to describe things is transparent to them, it is take for granted as valid. Few people reconsider what they assume to be correct.