Volition for individual rights

Political Philosophy
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I’ve been thinking a lot about rights lately as I try to figure out this question of government or no government.  The main challenge was that my concept of “rights” could only be applied to what a society should do; “if men are to live together they cannot harm each other.”

This was a major obstacle because societies are figments of the imagination; a society is only a group of individuals and I couldn’t express why an individual should respect another individual’s rights.  (there was the obvious “fear of revenge” but that’s only applicable if the other person would and could exact revenge, and using that as the basis seemed. . . unwise)

But I think I’ve got it and I’d like feedback.

Is this accurate?  Could you elaborate on this?  Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. . .

 

  1. For man to live qua man, he must alter and control his surroundings.

     -Control being a relationship between someone and something, in which at any time someone may intentionally alter something to suit his desires.  The mechanism for this is knowledge; someone understands something, hence they understand its requirements and possibilities.

 

2.  To control anything, man must first understand it (nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed).

 

3.  Therefor, A MAN survives and thrives by exploring, learning about, understanding, and manipulating his environment.  This line of reasoning, of course, is entirely consonant with and derived from rational self-interest

 

4.  Therefor, to survive and thrive in a society, a man must control other men???

 

I had been stuck there for quite some time, because it would seem to logically follow and yet lead to collectivism and other contradictions. (!) But:

 

4.  Therefor, to survive and thrive in society, a man must control other men.

     -Control requiring knowledge and reason in order to realize the necessary actions and then pursue them (or not).  Knowledge of man’s nature is required to control men, which would be based on the recognition of his mind.

 

5.  For one man to control another he must understand him, in the same way and for the same reasons as understanding nature.  This, contrary to the traditional connotations of “control” WOULD BE TO REASON WITH HIM.

 

6.  An act of force or fraud, therefor, is NOT an act of control, but an illogical and irrational act of mutual destruction.  A murderer gains nothing by murder that he couldn’t gain by production, nor does a thief, and both lose an incalculable amount in the act.  When individual rights are violated it is not an act of selfishness (nor logic, for by definition it ignores man’s nature); it is the Cold War concept of Mutually-Assured Destruction.

 

7.  Since force and fraud are by their very nature harmful to man, for a man to thrive with another neither of them may harm the other.

 

Therefor, the peaceful coexistence of any two or more men must be based on the rationality and love of life of both.  From this they must each recognize the nature of all others, which is the nature of man’s mind, and also recognize all others’ desire to live.

This recognition of man’s mind is necessary for all rights of any sort (individual rights, counterintuitively, being synonymous with “control other men”) as it serves as the basis for any and all contracts, agreements and collaborations; the bare minimum which absolutely cannot be removed.

So, for any two coexisting men, the violence or irrationality of a third (the lack of a concept such as “mind”) is a direct threat to both.  Therefor, out of rational self-interest, whenever individual rights are successfully violated (self-defense failed) the nonvictim/noncriminal members of the society must remove the criminal from their midst (prison, exile, death), for the same reasons that they would throw water on a burning building.

 

Still haven’t answered the question of a government, but I think this is a valid, sound and very sturdy foundation.  Yes?  No?  Irrelevant?

How did I do?

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I think it’s a very good foundation!  My wife and I were talking about the origin of rights just this past Sunday, and I had some of the same thoughts.  I was trying to say why, for millions of years, life existed according to the law of the jungle (no rights), and then why rational beings needed to believe in rights in order to live as rational beings.  I think you answer that very well.

 

I had one other addition.  Whenever someone violates the rights of another, they negate their own rights.  They revert to accepting the “law of the jungle,” and therefore can have their life, liberty, or property seized in return (under objective law).  The sacrifice a person makes by violating the rights of others is the negation of his own rights.  Negating your own rights is never worth it, unless maybe you’re starving.  But that could be another topic for discussion.

1 Like
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5.  For one man to control another he must understand him, in the same way and for the same reasons as understanding nature.  This, contrary to the traditional connotations of “control” WOULD BE TO REASON WITH HIM.

 

6.  An act of force or fraud, therefor, is NOT an act of control, but an illogical and irrational act of mutual destruction.  A murderer gains nothing by murder that he couldn’t gain by production, nor does a thief, and both lose an incalculable amount in the act.  When individual rights are violated it is not an act of selfishness (nor logic, for by definition it ignores man’s nature); it is the Cold War concept of Mutually-Assured Destruction.

This sounds like you did an Orwellian newspeak move here - Reason is Control, Force is Freedom. You basically say here that force is not any kind of control. How is force bad then? The whole idea of force is that it is the one kind of action that truly controls anyone. Force under the Objectivist conception *prevents* the use of reason and thus means of survival.

 

Here are some notes I took on Tara Smith’s book on rights. I don’t have time to explain more, but it’s a start. It starts similar, but ends differently:

 

  1. Human life requires productive effort

                not automatic, need someone’s productivity, goods, process to identify

 

  1. Productive effort requires reasoned action

                to create some object to serve some constructive purpose

                mental effort (some amount)

                goals decided on, no instructions

 

  1. Reasoned action is individual, self – authored

                individuals only possible originators

                rationally assessed individually

 

  1. Reasoned action requires freedom

                not sufficient condition for reasoned action

                physical force, threat

                                not able to live by one’s own judgment

 

  1. Thus, if we seek to live in a society in which individuals are to have the chance to maintain their lives, we must recognize individual right to freedom
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This sounds like you did an Orwellian newspeak move here - Reason is Control, Force is Freedom. You basically say here that force is not any kind of control.

Yes, I know it does.  It sounds blatantly absurd because in the realm of politics, “control” immediately brings to mind collectivism, tyranny and angry men with guns.  But please hear me out (and, if necessary, refute me afterwards): what if the generally-accepted idea of “control” is actually an anticoncept?

 

Control, as applied to anything else in the entire world (anything metaphysically given), is an absolute necessity for human life.  Agriculture, fire, indoor plumbing; the products of reason, knowledge, innovation and, ultimately, the cause of prosperity.

In order to build a car you have to understand metallurgy, the idea of internal combustion, et cetera; a vast wealth of knowledge, without which no amount of screams or threats could construct a single piston.  It takes a rational human mind.

Now control, as applied to other people, suddenly has nothing whatsoever to do with reason and works exclusively by threats?  Yes, the political sense of “control” (violence and force) does strangle reason, but how does it benefit the controller?  A farmer, by meticulously controlling his crops throughout the season, will reap the benefits at harvest.  What does a criminal gain by “control” as the initiation of force?

A mugger in the streets could gain some petty cash that way, for a while.  Is that truly in his own best interest?  “A mind does not function at gunpoint” and if one were to attempt to live off of the minds of others (as criminals do), one would soon find that he will either destroy his victims or himself; he cannot survive on bullets for long.

 

In the very least, if there’s no validity to this whatsoever (which is a distinct possibility), I think we should reexamine what “control” means.

 

Now, as for “reason is control, force is freedom, force isn’t control.”

Yes, reason is control.  That’s the purpose of a rational mind, isn’t it; to control and manipulate our own environment?  I simply think that, when applied to politics, that same word should refer to the same action (constructing a skyscraper synonymous with an eloquent speech, instead of a bomb).

Force is freedom; no.  Freedom is the absence of force and an absolute necessity for human survival; violence is the exact opposite and is, quite literally, lethal.  But, while force isn’t freedom, is force actually control?  (By outlawing guns, drugs, prostitution, et cetera, what amount of control is actually accomplished?)  May be some finer distinction required between positive-control and negative-control; Idk.

 

Force isn’t control- No, I don’t think it is.  That’s the point of this thread.

 

You basically say here that force is not any kind of control. How is force bad then? The whole idea of force is that it is the one kind of action that truly controls anyone. Force under the Objectivist conception *prevents* the use of reason and thus means of survival.

Force is bad for the same reasons that man-eating animals are bad.  It prevents reason, it causes nasty things like death; it’s just bad for you and so you should avoid it whenever it is humanly possible.

I’m not saying that force doesn’t destroy reason; it does.  I’m saying that by destroying reason, anyone who initiates force destroys the very thing which he seeks to control; thus he can’t control other people, no matter how many guns he has.

 

The gist of it is this.  Let’s say you know a mechanic and you want him to build you a car; the best car ever.  So you decide you’re going to “control” him; you’re going to get him, somehow, to postpone all of his other contracts and do this for you.

Do you think you’d be more likely to ever see that car if you reasoned and haggled with him, or tried to hold a gun to his head for several consecutive weeks?

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Yes, I know it does.  It sounds blatantly absurd because in the realm of politics, “control” immediately brings to mind collectivism, tyranny and angry men with guns.  But please hear me out (and, if necessary, refute me afterwards): what if the generally-accepted idea of “control” is actually an anticoncept?

If force is not control, then what is it? Just walk away if a gun is put to your head, you said it’s not control. You are totally free to do so. The person what the gun has failed to control his or her environment with the only possible way - reason.

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If force is not control, then what is it? Just walk away if a gun is put to your head, you said it’s not control. You are totally free to do so. The person what the gun has failed to control his or her environment with the only possible way - reason.

Force is the opposite of reason; it prevents its victims from using their minds properly- AND ultimately harms its perpetrators.  It isn’t control, the act by which we’ve built aircraft and skyscrapers; I think it’s mutually-assured destruction.

 

 

 

This sounds like you did an Orwellian newspeak move here - Reason is Control, Force is Freedom. You basically say here that force is not any kind of control. How is force bad then? The whole idea of force is that it is the one kind of action that truly controls anyone. Force under the Objectivist conception *prevents* the use of reason and thus means of survival.

 

  1. For man to live qua man, he must alter and control his surroundings.

     -Control being a relationship between someone and something, in which at any time someone may intentionally alter something to suit his desires.  The mechanism for this is knowledge; someone understands something, hence they understand its requirements and possibilities.

 

2.  To control anything, man must first understand it (nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed).

 

3.  Therefor, A MAN survives and thrives by exploring, learning about, understanding, and manipulating his environment.  This line of reasoning, of course, is entirely consonant with and derived from rational self-interest

 

4.  Therefor, to survive and thrive in society, a man must control other men.

     -Control requiring knowledge and reason in order to realize the necessary actions and then pursue them (or not).  Knowledge of man’s nature is required to control men, which would be based on the recognition of his mind.

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Force is the opposite of reason; it prevents its victims from using their minds properly- AND ultimately harms its perpetrators.  It isn’t control, the act by which we’ve built aircraft and skyscrapers; I think it’s mutually-assured destruction.

I don’t understand. This is control over a person. To prevent the use of something to some extent is control. When reasoning with someone, there is no kind of control because the other person can literally respond in any manner they want. It simply doesn’t make sense to say you are controlling a person by persuading/reasoning with them. Control means in this context that there is no choice but to act in one particular way. Skyscrapers are built with control, yes. But materials can’t function independently. Other people, though, can. The rest I addressed in my first post.

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I don’t understand. This is control over a person. To prevent the use of something to some extent is control. When reasoning with someone, there is no kind of control because the other person can literally respond in any manner they want. It simply doesn’t make sense to say you are controlling a person by persuading/reasoning with them. Control means in this context that there is no choice but to act in one particular way. Skyscrapers are built with control, yes. But materials can’t function independently. Other people, though, can. The rest I addressed in my first post.

Alright then; if, in my original post, you change “control” to the use of reason and productive action then I guess it becomes a fairly standard Objectivist line of reasoning.

 

My main idea was that “control of nature” is an entirely different concept from “control of man” and since they have such opposite literal meanings they’re a package-deal (I think).  But the rest is semantics.

 

If you actually want someone to do something for you, I’m contending that the ONLY way to achieve that (in any matter that requires skill or reason on their part) is by persuasion and commerce; not bullets.

 

Tara Smith’s reasoning was very helpful and enlightening, though; thank you for sharing it.

But how would you derive a need for governance from the need for freedom?

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But how would you derive a need for governance from the need for freedom?

Never mind; I just answered my own question.  Thank you!  =]

 

Freedom and the rule of law aren’t opposites; sometimes I find myself treating them as such.  Old habits.