From: exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Transcendent values  (was: human rights...)
Summary: Jim Kalb's example is far from convincing.
Date: 11 Sep 92 21:16:21 GMT
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Inc.

In article <18qdq9INNogs@cs.utexas.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
>From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
>Subject: Re: Transcendent values  (was: human rights...)
>Date: 11 Sep 1992 10:26:01 -0500
>Summary: Jim Kalb's example is far from convincing.

>-*----
>In article <1992Sep11.010546.5396@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>> ...  You're trying to decide how to raise your son.  Your son's own
>> desires, purposes and inclinations ("I'd like to eat chocolate more
>> often", or what have you) may be relevant, but more as data to take
>> into account than as something to negotiate about.  It seems to me
>> that you should not make your decision based simply on whatever your
>> own desires, purposes and inclinations happen to be, and still less on
>> those of third parties. ...

>Why not?  "It seems to me" is pretty weak explanation, especially
>when this is almost universally how parents base their decisions. 

>> ... You can't sensibly make the decision based on speculations as
>> to your son's future (and presumably mature) d., p., & i. ...

>Nonsense.  A parent can do this *because* the parent has
>influence over the child's future values.  Many parents I know
>try to both (1) instill certain values in their children, and (2)
>instill habits and practices that the child, looking back with
>the instilled values, will appreciate. 

>> So the only thing left (or so it seems to me) is to base your 
>> decision on the good of the child, conceived as in principle
>> independent of anyone's actual d., p. & i.

>I presume this means the *transcendent* good of the child.  To
>actually do this, it is not enough to assume that a transcendent
>good exists, but also that one knows of what it consists.  But as
>many children come to learn, parents who *proclaim* a
>transcendant good are actually dressing up their *own* desires,
>purposes, and inclinations, and can give no sensible explanation
>that what they proclaim as a transcendent good is really that.
>The child's question "*Why* is that good?" can only be answered
>"because."  The child (most likely a young adult by now) learns
>that the parent reifies the parent's values, and tries to hide
>this magic stunt with a bunch of rhetorical smoke and mirrors.  
>Sometimes the child adopts this deception as their own, and other
>times the child rebels.  Because I dislike deception, I think such
>rebellion is justified.

>No, thank you.  My father was honest in raising me, and I will
>try to be honest with my children.  It may take more guts as a
>parent to say "you have to behave this way because I and other
>adults want children to behave this way," but it is often the
>truth, and as the child matures, this honesty will give the youth
>a more accurate understanding of social relations.  Whether you
>want new adults to better understand society is, of course, yet
>another personal value. 

>Russell

Perhaps a distinction between rational and irrational desires is needed 
here. Very often we are justified in directing someone's behavior because
we are in a position to know what is really in their long-term interest.
 
Natural rights need not then be conceived as transcendent, but rather as 
rooted in people's deepest, long-term, interests as human beings.  And it is 
certainly reasonable to doubt whether all of us are always aware of what our 
deepest desires and interests are, either because of lack of reflective 
ability or some concurrent or long-standing passion which may be blinding us 
to it.

Perhaps by characterizing these rights as transcendent, or as having a 
"transcendent" ground or sanction, one may be implying only that they "lay 
beyond or behind appearance", and on this view, some of our real or 
deepest desires and interest may have this status.  These rights could be 
called transcendent since sometimes what "appears" good isn't *really* good 
for us.  A rational desire would be one that calm rational reflection would 
reveal to be in our long-term interest and well-being, and judgements like 
this could be justified objectively, at least in principle.  For whether 
something is in a person's real long-term interest would take into account 
features of persons that were commonly shared and which were determinitive 
of the human nature and human flourishing.

If life is justifiable at all, then it must be possible to justify the means
to necessary to sustain life.  And if life cannot be sustained without 
leaving persons the unrestrained freedom to pursue those means to sustain 
themselves under the objective conditions of existence, then it is this 
necessity which justifies us in saying that people have a right, a human or 
natural right, to things like life and property, etc. These rights would 
indeed be absolute, but subject to interpretation in the actual working out 
of social relations in the real world.  The basis for the rights would not 
be in the structure or forms of some platonic heaven of Ideas, but rather in 
unavoidable and objective conditions of man's life. [Sorry for the long post 
people, but sometimes one must think and write at once.]
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