Where does that right come from?
Where does that right come from?
I suggest reading “The Objectivist Ethics” and “Man’s Rights”, which should give you the essentials for understanding the answer.
I suggest reading “The Objectivist Ethics” and “Man’s Rights”, which should give you the essentials for understanding the answer.
Could you summarize it in one or more paragraphs as you normally fantastically do?
Where does that right come from?
The starting point is asking questions like: what principle(s) must men follow if to live in society in a way that allows them to enjoy their lives?
I suggest reading “The Objectivist Ethics” and “Man’s Rights”, which should give you the essentials for understanding the answer.
For convenience to those interested, here are the links:
They’re freely available for reading at the Ayn Rand Center (links).
Plus a couple of more that might be helpful:
Could you summarize it in one or more paragraphs as you normally fantastically do?
I can. Unless you are asking why humans have rights. In that case, do read the books.
David is quiet fantastic. We had a sheer misunderstanding once, but he’s really fantastic when summing up points: “lo bueno si breve, dos veces bueno” . I hope you’re not accusing him, or this philosophy, of being simplistic
Animals don’t have rights in our human eyes, because rights are not granted, they exist. It’s an abstract concept of course, like paper money, or God, but the three of them tools exist (albeit in different forms: rights as a fundamental requirement for man’s successful existence, bank notes as the representation of material value, and God as a character of our imagination, a symbol or extrapolation of man’s categorical superiority to other critters.
(Other) animals can only have rights when they achieve the need for them themselves: when and if any particular species achieves rational thought.
We can’t grant animals rights, the same way a caricature, God, can’t grant US rights. Rights might be, like money and divinities, a natural occurring phenomena.
But we CAN grant them entitlements. For instance, in the whole world, except for Canton and Korea, dogs have certain “rights”. They are not rights, but 80% of the population (everyone except those Cantonese and Koreans) remembers than we owe the Dog an immense deal: they helped us develop ourselves into the species we are now, with our poor noses and bright minds. Conversely the dog’s brain has shrunk since they were wolves or jackals.
The issue of entitlements is interesting and a tolerable debate as long as the word, or meaning, of RIGHT, is used.
Awright, well first thanks to Trebor for reminding me of the modern webs world and where you can read these (and other) essays at the click of a wrist. And thanks to ARI for making these wrist-clicks fruitful. Briefly, man requires a conceptual code of principles (i.e. “morality”) guiding his choices whereby he can survive, because unlike animals, man’s nature is that he is a volitional, conceptual being. A basic fact about man’s nature, which must be recognized by morality is that man is a volitional, conceptual being who exists by reason, not an animal that depends on genetic instinct or brute strength. The concept of “rights” then exists as an aspect of morality that pertains to how man deals with man, and it specifically holds that man is a volitional, conceptual being who exists by reason; and, specifically, reason and force are mutually exclusive. So, the notion of “action by right” is perfectly sensible as applied to man, because of the specific nature of man. But animals are not volitional, conceptual beings who exist by reason, so the question of an animal “respecting the rights of others” is simply ridonculous.