tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post6521019441940837489..comments2024-03-27T15:34:14.749-07:00Comments on dangerous idea: Human rights, moral objectivity, and the law of noncontradiction. Victor Repperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-20692620288474613232018-11-05T16:03:31.356-07:002018-11-05T16:03:31.356-07:001. Rights talk sounds more objective than old-fas...1. Rights talk <i>sounds</i> more objective than old-fashioned should and ought talk because the use of nouns co-opts the language and emotion of possession. But 'I have the right to be free' is just equivalent to 'You should not enslave me'. Except that rights have become first class moral principles and all else is second class. No wonder people are so keen to establish rights! Roger Scruton notes that where rights have been incorporated into the English legal system they take precedence over the remedies gradually evolved over centuries of the common law tradition, often to detrimental effect. <br /><br />2. Surely morality has both subjective and objective aspects? We make contact, as it were, with the moral climate through the moral sentiments which vary from person to person, subjectively. Yet the moral climate to which we are exposed and which we are taught has an objective collective effect on the character of society. <br /><br />3. <i>There is some truth about what these women <b>should</b> have a right to...</i> So we can make moral judgements about rights possession? Is that consistent with the objectivity of rights?David Brightlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06757969974801621186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-91430638845966510052018-11-04T12:34:03.499-07:002018-11-04T12:34:03.499-07:00I don't think atheism is incompatible with the...I don't think atheism is incompatible with the concept of rights per se. If you think of rights as the freedoms or privileges that a majority group has decided to impose upon its society and to punish those who deviate, then there is no contradiction. Same with morality, really.<br /><br />Where atheists typically run into issues would be when they get outraged at someone else deviating from the atheist's desired behavior, and proceed to criticize that person and call them evil/immoral/whatever, based upon what is essentially a difference in opinion. It's very hard to successfully justify such outrage without a true standard.<br /><br />Even those who deny objective morality live as though they believe.Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02593005679430527458noreply@blogger.com