[Vision2020] Unalienable Rights: Historic Precedence

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

Wayne et. al.

Thanks for your friendly reply.

"...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness:"  fundamental "unalienable 
Rights!"  I grew up with these words echoing passionately in my mind!  How many 
Americans, and that means nearly every American, with almost all of us 
speaking these words at one time or another, deeply consider what these words mean?

Wayne wrote:

Without wishing to sound like a traitor, I think the statement at issue is 
neither true nor false, like its sometimes cited corollary:  "That which governs 
least, governs best.
 
Both statements are like the following statement:
 
"The square root of a minus tush abdicates salt."
 
All three statements are syntactically correct and sound like possibly true 
or false English statements.  But because their meaning is so vague and 
ambiguous, it is not possible to determine their truth except by deducing them from 
other equally vague, ambiguous statements.

Ted replies:

But what happened to the fundamental concept of "unalienable Rights?"  A 
statement containing this concept is not the same as "that which governs least 
governs best" nor "the square root of a minus tush abdicates salt."  These 
statements do not attempt to confer upon all human beings fundamental universal 
rights.  One merely expresses a theory about how much government is best, the 
other is nonsense, of course.  A statement asserting unalienable Rights, like the 
famous quote from the Declaration of Independence I used to illustrate my 
point, does!  I do not think this is a trivial difference.  The statement quoted 
from the Declaration of Independence may be vague and ambiguous in some 
respects, but it certainly attempts to introduce "unalienable Rights."

And furthermore, you also write:

I think it is possible to recast "Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty 
and the pursuit of Happiness"into a less dogmatic, more flexible series of 
statements which may be found to be heuristically true (or false) by observations 
in certain contexts.  

Ted replies:

So if you think the statement from the Declaration of Independence I quoted 
can be recast into other statements that are true "in certain contexts," are 
you denying that there are "unalienable Rights" that apply to all human beings 
all the time?

It would seem from your statement that this is indeed your conclusion, though 
you do not quite come out and say it plainly.

I trust you realize the consequences of taking such a position?  
If slavery is not wrong all the time for all people, how are we to argue 
against those who make relativistic arguments supporting slavery in some contexts, 
like Doug "Don't you progressives realize relativism means relativism?!" 
Wilson, who though trashing progressives for introducing moral chaos, himself 
introduces moral relativism regarding what some view as the "absolute" wrong of 
slavery, in his views on the Biblical ethical approach to the American South and 
the Confederacy.

I do not believe that observation and testing alone will get us to any 
principles of Ethics with "unalienable Rights."  Some kind of universal logical 
statements must be inserted somewhere into an Ethical system if it is to have any 
claim to "unalienable Rights."  Introducing "God" into an Ethical system can 
solve the problem, which no doubt is part of the appeal of religion for many.  
It offers what appears to be a solid ground for "unalienable Rights."  Of 
course this really does not solve the problems, because as you have pointed out 
over and over, and every fair observer perceives, there are countless "Gods" 
asserting a variety of conflicting moral rules, and the concept of "God" itself 
requires some sort of basis in observation and logical evaluation, unless you 
take the total "faith" approach to justify belief in God, the later approach 
introducing chaos into the system, because anything goes if you just rely ONLY 
on "faith."  "I had "faith" the family dog was speaking in "God's" voice and 
told me to give all my money to the Moonies!"

I think though that there are some commonalties among many spiritual 
traditions that do offer a starting point for attempting to develop a more universal 
Ethics based on these commonalties: ethical rules against murder, theft, lying, 
and an emphasis on "peace" as a value, etc., that many spiritual traditions 
emphasize.  The devil is in the details though, so this approach has many 
pitfalls.

I am inclined to disagree, if what I am asserting does disagree with your 
position, that there is no valid basis using facts and logical principles to 
develop an ethics that introduces "unalienable Rights" into an ethical system, 
rights which we apply all the time to all human beings in all contexts, not just 
"certain contexts," as you so cleverly put it.

Consider the "hot" moral topic of torture.  This debate is ongoing in public 
right now, because of the so called "War On Terror."  Some side with use of 
torture to gain information to save the thousands of lives at stake in a 
terrorist attack, others say we become just as bad as the terrorists if we use their 
tactics, that the means in this case do not justify the ends, and that torture 
is an "absolute" moral wrong.  Applying the ethical approach I assume you are 
taking, we could justify torture: no "unalienable Right" to happiness for 
all, which I think torture destroys, there.

Indeed there are serious problems with using fact and reason to establish 
"unalienable Rights."  And also with how we can include in Ethics spiritual 
issues that are fundamental for billions of human beings, without ending up at each 
others throats over conflicting "absolute" ethical "God given" rules, that 
end up justifying war against the nonbelievers, with war being a very 
undesirable result from many ethical viewpoints! 

I do think the concept of "unalienable Rights" very important.  And I do not 
think it should be tossed aside without pausing for a long time to consider 
the consequences of what this means, pausing for a few thousand years, at least.

This is wandering a bit off topic, but isn't it a joke that Bush with his 
grand moral convictions that never waver based on his religious faith, is heading 
a system of government that is using "morally relativistic" arguments to 
justify horrific torture of other human beings in prosecuting the "War On Terror," 
some of whom are certainly innocents caught in the wrong place at the wrong 
time, to fight "evil?"

Ted Moffett




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