Hobbes

[Al Kufr]

I was having a debate on abortion with somebody and I said that a fetus does not have rights since he is not a real human being. Then he said that since the woman decided to have sex she gave up her rights. And then I said that you cant give up rights since they are absolute.Then he says that you can give up your rights just like you can give up your right to remain silent when you deal witht he police, and I said that that right is not a natural right like the right to life. Then he brings up up Thomas Hobbes and said that withought government we would have no rights.

And He said,

Are you familiar with Hobbes' state of nature? Just in case, here's a summary: the state of nature is the state of humans outside of civilization. In this state of nature, everyone has the right to everything. As a result, only the strongest people survive. In Hobbes' own words, life is "nasty, brutish, and short." Why is it that way? Because everyone is only doing what is in THEIR OWN best interest.

As for it not being a natural right, i would argue that the other isn't either. We've talked about hobbs' state of nature. Without the government to stop someone from taking your "natural" right to life, i could walk over to you and shoot in the face, thus taking your "right to life". If this was the state of nature, i.e. a human state with no government, we would all have the right to everything. I would be able to kill you, you would be able to kill me, no one would have the right to life, or anything else for that matter. So the only reason you have your supposed "natural" right to life is because the government exists to stop someone from taking it. Thus, your "natural" right to life is dependent on the government, just like my right to remain silent.

In fact, i could kill you anyway (this is not, just for the record, a threat on your life, but merely an example). i could find you now and kill you anyway, and probably frame it on someone else, thus taking your "natural" right to life, without any ramifications to myself or my own well-being. So how is the right to life "natural"?

Granted the whole idea about a sovereign and whatnot was pretty silly, but i want you to prove that hobbes' state of nature is incorrect. Show me why hobbes was wrong when he said that without government we'd be living in chaos.

Now how would I respond to this?

[Thales]

Rights are a moral concept. You are morally obligated to observe the rights of another. That obligation exists government or not.

It's fundamental that you realize man is the rational animal. John Locke is the father of individual rights and he emphasized over and over again in his Second Treatise on Civil Government that reason is the law which makes rights possible.

In order for men, all men, to prosper we must use reason. We have to think and plan long range. This is our essential nature. If we are secure in our person and property, we are able to use reason in order to not just survive, but to flourish.

When men leave each other free, and don't initiate force, then we flourish. We are able to create and build, and trade. We gain awesome benefits not just from the direct fact of being free from force, but also because we get the added benefit of trade with others. That is in our best self-interest. An egoist would be a fool if he didn't uphold freedom. He'd be working against his own survival, contrary to the point made by the person you were debating.

Man does require goverment in order to live amongst each others peacefully. A proper government subordinates might to right. It places force under objective control. However, governments only secure rights, they don't create them.

[Rainer]

I've been in a heated abortion debate as well.

Unfortunately I have some fellow with some sophomoric version of Evolutionary Ethics...Hobbes follows logically in a political sense.

Rights are metaphysical in nature. Indeed the U.S. Declaration of Independence really seemed to set in stone the idea of individual rights for the first time in government history; but rights are by no means an arbitrary invention of government.

To be moral--simply to live--in a society, we must deal with one another rationally, our transactions must be through trade--not the initiation of force. To continue existing in a society we need a rational environment with our peers, for this reason we require rights to survive in a society. This goes with or without government.

A fetus at an early stage does not require these same rights to continue existing. A fetus doesn't need rights to continue existing. (The mother has a right to opt for abortion--in a very indirect way, a fetus needs its mother to have this very same right intact to continue surviving.)

That might have been more than you wanted, and some of it restated Thales's comments--but there you have it.

[jedymastyr]

..since the woman decided to have sex she gave up her rights...

In a sense this is close to the truth. If the embryo were to develop into an actual human, she would be required to provide the child with support (physical needs, mental needs, etc.) because she brought it into the world and it (being a human and having rights) cannot provide for its own sustenance without its parents.

The problem is, the person you are arguing equates the embryo with a living entity--he believes the embryo, as such, is deserving of rights. The fact is, though, that an embryo does not become a human being (and thus deserving of rights) until it is born. He is equating a potentiality with an actuality--like saying every time you eat an apple, you are eating an apple for each apple seed you consume (since, given time and the right circumstances, they will develop into apples). Such a position is absurd.

Until the baby is physically independent from the mother (instead of a biological parasite), the embryo is lacking a very important trait necessary to achieving personhood, and does not deserve any right.

[Neurosophist]

Until the baby is physically independent from the mother (instead of a biological parasite), the embryo is lacking a very important trait necessary to achieving personhood, and does not deserve any right.

And yet, there are still requirements of the mother in terms of respect of life and consciousness. The mother, were she to neglect the child's needs, such as the need not to be administered excessive amounts of alcohol, would again be found accountable for her actions. Personhood, as you call it, deserves certain rights, but so too do certain aspects of civility on the part of the benefactor.

[the tortured one]

Since he has hit you with Hobbes, why don't you hit him with Locke? John Locke was the intellectual opposite of Hobbes, whose philosophy provided the framework for the American Founding Fathers.

the two schools of thought are basically this: Hobbes felt that humans are savage creatures who need Government to protect them from themselves, and Locke felt that men are noble creatures who need a government to protect their natural rights. Thats in a nutshell, more or less

Then he said that since the woman decided to have sex she gave up her rights.

he's evading the point because he is automatically assuming the fetus has rights. Why would the woman have to surrender her rights to something that doesn't have rights of it's own? Don't play his game.

Then he says that you can give up your rights just like you can give up your right to remain silent when you deal witht he police

you aren't surrendering anything when the police say you have the right to remain silent. They are informing you that you are being arrested for a crime, and that you have the right to talk to a laywer before you answer any questions. The police aren't FORCING you to remain silent, they are telling you that anything you say can and will be used against you during the trial.

As for rights and the government, he is somewhat right, but for the wrong philosophical reasons. If the government does not protect the basic rights of life, liberty, and estate (those were the original 3 rights as said by Locke, Jefferson was the one who changed estate to pursuit of happiness. thats one of the few things I disagree with Jefferson on, because the pursuit of happiness is a form of liberty) as in some form of anarchism, it becomes the rule of gangsters. But thats only half the story, the other half being that if the government oppresses those rights then it becomes a totalitarian existence that will stagnant and die unless it has something to leech off of, thus causing anarchy when it's existence finally does end.

The Soviet Union, for example, ran out of people to conquer and leech, and finally collapsed under it's own weight. Luckily for the collectivists, A new western friendly collectivism arose, so now it has new hosts to leech off of.

so what is a natural right? In essence, it is a right which is required for human existence and growth. Take away the right to life, and you have death. Take away Liberty, and you have slavery. Take away the estate, and you have communism, which is the political manifestation of death.

thus, the role of government is to protect the natural rights of man, no more, no less. Getting back on the issue of Abortion, it still stands that the fetus does not have any rights, so the government has no business perpetuating it's existence.

[Strangelove]

Since thread neuromancy does not seem to be discouraged on this board...

the two schools of thought are basically this: Hobbes felt that humans are savage creatures who need Government to protect them from themselves, and Locke felt that men are noble creatures who need a government to protect their natural rights. Thats in a nutshell, more or less

Not quite, there seems to a bit of a misunderstanding about what Hobbes actually thinks and says in Leviathan.

In Leviathan, Hobbes opens up with a study of human nature, and identifies that what makes us different form animals, and it is our ability to reason, use science, and be rational. However, the problem is that humans do have passions, many many passions. These are emotions, and most people on this board would consider a lot of them to be irrational.

In the state of nature, there is perfect liberty. You are free to do anything you want, because there is no authority that can install the fear of punishment into you to deter you. There is no higher authority that is enforcing any rights, common sense, or reason. Now individuals can act in this situation in two ways:

1. Rational

2. Irrational

If you act irrationaly, then you let your passions dictate your desires. "I want your cow, and since no one will stop me, I will take it, I don't recognise your right to that cow anyway, and no one will protect you".

But we have rational capabilities, and in the state of nature you of course can say "You have a cow, I have some lumber. We can trade, and thus mutually benefit with nobody having to get killed. We may even develop a currency system and other wonderfull things."

This seems fine, but the problem is that Person C sees Person A and B exchange in trade and thinks "Screw them, this is the state of nature, there is no reason for me not to kill them both and take their Cow and Lumber".

With a larger population, the greater likelyhood that there will be more people like Person C, whose passions dictate their actions.

To leave the state of nature, several things need to happen. First, men need to agree to give up their "rights" to kill anyone. This has to be mutual. But as Hobbes notes, "Covenants without swords are but words". Something needs to enforce our mutual agreement not to kill anyone. This is why there is a need for Leviathan, an overiding force of judgement that keeps the rule of law consistent, and which enforces punishment where there is a transgression of the law.

This is Hobbes's argument for why there needs to be enforcable powers to allow for peace. We can see the State of nature in many parts of modern life. International Relations is a good example (with the US argurably taking the role of Leviathan), a school without teachers would be another one, Post-Katrina New Orleans, immediately post-war Iraq is another.

Hobbes's argument for Monarchy, as opposed to Assembly or Aristocracy (unelected assembly) to take the form of Leviathan is valid as well. Compare the single-party stability and benevolence of Singapore with the tin-pot "Democracies" of Latin America. Compare the respect and authority of the Supreme Court and office of President, with the contempt of the Senate and the general rabble of the House of Representitives. I would think that Locke's genius over Hobbes, is in the incorporation of all three elements (Aristocracy, Monarchy, and Democracy) into a single system. After all, a bad Leviathan is bad, with checks and balances, you are only in trouble if all your Leviathan coponents are flawed.

That is what Hobbes argues. That government is a rational way to protect all members of society so that everyone can engage in rational thought, or capitalism. Not that all humans are intrinsically savage and must be constrained like animals in a zoo.

[A.A]

Strangelove,

For the record, I would like to state that with my current understanding of Hobbes, I agree with your reading. I think that Hobbes's emphasis on the rationality of the human being was important and even revolutionary because it came from a non-religious (and possibly atheist) perspective.

Some of the founding fathers of the United States, by the way, did not hold a view of human nature which was very different then Hobbes's. (Hamilton for instance)

[Guest ArenaMan]

To be moral--simply to live--in a society, we must deal with one another rationally, our transactions must be through trade--not the initiation of force. To continue existing in a society we need a rational environment with our peers, for this reason we require rights to survive in a society. This goes with or without government.

I have a hard time buying the idea "we require rights to survive in a society" over "rights are really really useful in a society." I like the thought... maybe you can convince me of it

Is there any systematic proof that someone who renounces the concept of rights will not survive as well as if he were to accept them? Can you rule out every possible counterexample?

Suppose that in a primitive society, a brilliant individual is born, invents a gun, and attains ultimate power over every person. Does he require rights to survive? Is there a reason that this and any other potential counterexample fail?

[Pokarrin]

I have a hard time buying the idea "we require rights to survive in a society" over "rights are really really useful in a society." I like the thought... maybe you can convince me of it

Is there any systematic proof that someone who renounces the concept of rights will not survive as well as if he were to accept them? Can you rule out every possible counterexample?

I know this thread is pretty much dead, but I'm reading Leviathan right now, and I believe he at least partly answered your question for you:

For he that should be modest, and tractable, and performe all he promises, in such time, and place, where no man els should do so, shoud but make himselfe a prey to others, and procure his own certain ruine, contrary to the ground of all nature, which tend to Natures preservation. And again, he that having sufficient Security, that others shall observe the same Lawes towards him, observes them not himself, seeketh not Peace, but War; & consequently the destruction of his nature by Violence.

This was written in the context of Hobbes' nineteen laws that nature requires for maintaining peace in a human society. Note that in the first condition (no laws are enforced), it is not possible to live in any security whether or not you respect others' rights. In the second condition, failure to respect the rights of others deprives you of the security of living in a free society.

Suppose that in a primitive society, a brilliant individual is born, invents a gun, and attains ultimate power over every person. Does he require rights to survive? Is there a reason that this and any other potential counterexample fail?

Obviously, in this case, the individual who invented the gun has to sleep sometime; I would challenge you to come up with a case where this kind of absolute power is maintainable, or even desirable. Remember, a slave has no ability to improve his life, and therefore has no interest in using his mind except as is necessary for survival. That genius would be much wiser if he used his talents to develop better agricultural practices, so everyone can eat better and have more time to devote to improving their lives, which would be of much greater benefit to him than threatening a group of frightened, angry savages with superior firepower.