From: cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: Rights
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Ottawa
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 03:15:08 GMT

In article <93010.184004SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:
>In article <1993Jan8.221932.13807@athena.mit.edu>, cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M
>Kozierok) says:
>
>>what do you mean by "passive" rights?
>
>Rights in the passive voice. The right "not to be...", etc. Rights that
>require others to refrain from the negative, rather than act positively.
>The arguments in favour of this distinction provide a good example of
>the circular arguments in "objectivism".

In many of these cases, I think that the term that would be more
relevant than "right" is the term "authority."  (In fact, I think that
this applies in MOST cases.)

For instance, it takes a great deal of defining to try to describe the
"passive" or "negative" rights.

If you look at it as "authority," then what you get is that "the right
of X not to have/be Y" gets translated to something like "Nobody has
the authority to demand Y of X."

It certainly takes away much of the artificialness of "rights."  And
analyzing "rights" from the perspective of calling them authority of X
over Y makes it conceptually easier to defend/attack them.

>>you have not demonstrated sufficiently what this "circular argument" is.
>>please elaborate. i would like to understand your point.
>
>Here we are. Suppose I live opposite to a large farm which lies between
>myself and a town I need to visit frequently. Suppose that the farmer at
>some point decides he doesn't want me walking across his farm. Has he
>then invoked a passive right (the right not to have me trespass on his
>property), or has he imposed an active obligation (to walk two miles out
>of my way)?

The "authority" issue here is:
A) Does the farmer have the authority to deny trespassers?  On what
basis?  Moreover, SHOULD he have this authority?
B) Do YOU have the authority to demand that you be able to pass
through the farmer's farm?

>Presumably, objectivists would argue for the former, since the farmer
>does have property rights on his side. But what, then, do they base their
>case for property rights on? The nature of rights as human rights. In
>short, objectivists base the case for their version of rights on an
>argument which turns out to rest on their version of rights.

I'd expect that they WOULD deny that there should be "right of
trespass," in general.  If you made arrangements with the farmer, and
agreed to something, that would obviously modify the set of
rights/authorities.

>>if you want to base your argument on individualism, that is.
>
>Considering what I suspect you mean by "individualism", I don't.
>
>Don't get me wrong. I believe that only individuals can act as moral
>agents. I believe that the justice (or injustice) of an act depends
>on its effect on individuals. But I don't accept the idea that somehow
>that means individuals have no enforceable responsibilities to one
>another.

The question of "responsibility."  Ah.  Obviously there will be
"responsibilities to one another."  The question is, how shall such
responsibilities (authority rears its "ugly" head again...) be
arranged?

The "individualism" argument says that individuals should be free to
set up such arrangements.

"Collectivism" would say that there should be a central arrangement
forced on all.

In practice, there's almost certainly going to be some combination of
individual and collective arrangements.  The "Objectivist ideal"
involves a central arrangement just as much as the nastiest Communist
dystopia.

The "Objectivist" ideal would tend to say something to the effect that
"The set of collective responsibilities shall be null."  Since this is
in fact a "collective responsibility," the set of collective
responsibilities would at least contain this one rule.  In an
individualistic system, you've got to FORCE individualism, lest some
should choose collectivism!

-- 
Christopher Browne                |     PGP 2.0 key available
cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca           |======================================
University of Ottawa              | Genius may have its limitations, but
Master of System Science Program  | stupidity is not thus handicapped.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada,can.politics