Political Theory

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

Phaedros — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 19:47:55 GMT

Let's say someone is born deaf, blind, with no legs and no arms. Do they have a "right" to legs and arms and a cure to their deafness and blindness? No. Why? Because the resources needed to attain those ends are SCARCE, i.e. it takes someone's labor to acquire and administer them.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

TANSTAAFL — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 19:37:02 GMT

If you had been born blind instead of deaf would you have the "right" to cut out another person's cornea to have it transplanted into your eye so you can see?

I think your first mistake is assuming that because some people are born different or "disabled" that they need to be made the same as everyone else in order to have their own full spectrum negative rights.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

kash-money — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 12:40:52 GMT

Jerlerup, I'd recommend watching this:

http://www.georgeoughttohelp.com/

Now answer this:

Is it better for people to voluntarily cooperate torwards the well being of their fellow man by their own volition? (charity, loans, etc, etc)

or is it better to aggress against peaceful people in order to steal from them to compensate a victim of nature whose natural condition they are somehow "obligated" to change? (this is what you are calling having a "right")

Also I'd recommend reading the first chapter of this:

http://mises.org/books/egalitarianism.pdf

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

Phaedros — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 10:21:01 GMT

Sorry, but your philosophy is incoherent. Do you have a right to candy? Or a sofa? Or a TV?

Of course, you have the right to speak just as you have the right to walk and eat. However, in a private institution there may be rules set down by the owner. You can still say what you want, but you can't expect the owner of that place to like it if it is offensive to him or her.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

Aristippus — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 07:34:10 GMT

You are incorrect. Libertarians do not regard freedom of speech as some universal right. It is for that reason that you cannot shout "Fire!" in my theatre.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

Jerlerup — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 07:08:48 GMT

Well Phaedros. But it is still not a right, it is charity.

As I said before. if anyone had proposed that freedom of speech would be execised as "CHARITY" all of you would say that that was totalitarian. To beg for the right for free speech and PERHAPS get the right...

In the case of disabled peopla you belive that the only way they can excersise their right to LIFE is via charity... But that is not regarded as totalitarian.

No. If this is libertarianism, well then I have to redefine libertarianism myself.

I feel disgusted, once again... As almost every time I speak to fellow libertarians.... Anyone that wishes to contact me can do so via my blogg http://ligator.wordpress.com

I will leave this quasi-freedom discussion.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

Phaedros — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 03:46:39 GMT

An interesting theme in this thread is dependence. The author says that without the government people in need will be dependent on charity. How is that different from being dependent on the government? The real solution is independence and that means finding a way t provide for your own needs, ultimately. Obvioiusly, there are some people that cannot accomplish this du to severe disabilities. There are, and always have been, people who want to help people as much as they can.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

s burgess — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 03:42:55 GMT

Gellerup:

Mtn Dew. I do not wish to force anyone. But to let a disabled person depend on charity is force too. You will force that person to depend on charity for his or her life. To NOT give someone right to speech is FORCE. To not give a person right to live (without the help of charity) is to deprive that person of freedom too.

It seems as if the negative rights of the disabled person only can be defended by positive rights!

to force someone to do something requires me to act.if i dont act im not using force.free speech does not need action or law.but to deny free speech does i must for example threaten to shot you if you say something i dont like.ps way do you think depending on force to get a wheel chair is some how better more noble than depending than charity.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

Ultima — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 01:22:08 GMT

Jerlerup,

Here are my own thoughts: nobody on this earth is born perfect and we are all wanting for one thing or another. In comparison with our highest values, we are all disabled to a certain degree. I would certainly live a better life in some senses if I was more attractive, more charismatic, more whatever. Perhaps my life would be better if I had been born into a different family too, who knows?

Our starting circumstances are all due to chance. However, your logic is the logic that a person born into this world has the right to take from others in order to help themselves. So, an ugly person would have the right to make a beautiful person pay for their surgery. A disabled person would have the right to force a healthly person to buy their wheelchair. A short person would have the right to force a tall person to pay for leg lengthening surgery.

You can't say that you have the right to restitute your type of disability by enforcing a claim on others, but that other people don't have the right to make the same claims. Do you see where that would lead? Everyone would have claims against everyone else and everyone would be making a slave out of everyone else. If you restrict your claims to a subset and say that only THESE disabilities are deserving of a right to restitution, then you are simly placing your own values above other people's values.

The only way out of this in my opinion is to recognize that none of us has a claim on other people for our own situation because others did nothing to cause how the genetic and life lotteries played out for us. Likewise, it is not our own fault, either. Nobody ever said that it's a disabled person's fault that they're disabled. You can blame the universe and random chance if you want, but there is no way to get restitution from the universe. To the extent that you can blame another person for your misfortune then you perhaps have a claim against them, but to the extent that you can only blame the universe or random chance you cannot fairly force someone else to pay for that misfortune.

Think about ithis: A ship is sinking and one person struggles onto a floating piece of plywood that can only hold one person. A struggling swimmer comes over and fights over the same piece of plywood, because he's fighting for his life. If he doesn't he will die. He manages to knock the first person off who subsequently drowns and dies. This is a situation in the limit, but if you subscribe to the logic that those in more dire circumstances have the right to extract claims from those in less dire circumstances,then you can also make the claim that the first guy deserved to die because the second guy was in a worse situation. The second guy certainly had the right to fight for his own life and nobody would expect him to commit suicide, but that doesn't mean that the first guy deserved to pay the price for the second guy's misfortune!

To me it just doesn't make sense to say that one's person misfortune is a claim on other people who had absolutely nothing to do with that person's circumstances. I'm not a philosopher or a moral expert and I'm still fleshing things out in my head, and I think under some situations failure to act could certainly seem like aggression (the problem of a person dying of thirst in a desert and a passeryby absolutely refuses to help him is something that causes problems for me personally) and that I haven't worked out, but I really don't think you can extend this to normal everyday circumstances unless you want to run into the trap where everyone has a claim against everyone else.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

Southern — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:26:17 GMT

Southern. If I, with some human help, can get back my rights and humans withhold it, then I am deprived of my right by force.

If a group of persons are kept as slaves on an island, and they are declared free, but have no way to leave the island, are they REALLY free then?

That is what I am thinking about.

It is still so that charity is not the same as a right.

Reread the words that you use. "if a group of persons are kept as slaves on an island", those peoples rights have been violated by the slave master and have the right to be compensated.

A more realistic analogy would be: someone is born on an island where the technology to leave does not exist. The people of this island can see ships sail by everyday. The people on the ships can see the people on the island, but never stop.

You declare that those people on the island have a right to leave the island, this in someway entitles them to the the technology and ships of those who sail by everyday. Because without it those on the island who wish to leave are slaves, because they are unable to excise thier right to leave. The people on the ships are violating thier rights somehow by not giving them either the technology/boats to leave.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

mikachusetts — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 21:39:43 GMT

Laotzu del Zinn:
See OP, if you were the other type of libertarian (from the other side of the aisle), we advocate voluntary communities with it written in the "contract" (you accept to be a member of the society) that assholes who want the disabled to fend for themselves are not welcome in our communities.

Contractual communities that keep the unwanted out? When did left libs become Hoppeans?

Liberty Student:
Yeah, the disabled are going to hang out with a bunch of broke ass whiners who don't understand economics. That will put hearing aids in their ears!

You'll show those damn capitalists!

When will you understand that socialism will turn the oceans to lemonade, fly roasted pidgeons into our mouths, and create the right amount of hearing aids and wheelchairs.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

thelion — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:53:55 GMT

Leibniz had an article on this question. Read this article. (Its in French, but if you don't know French, google translate I think will do pretty good job, since its easier language to translate from).

http://www.archive.org/details/mittheilungenau00mollgoog , pp. 41-70.

Leibniz said that Golden Rule, which is only rule of law, since it imposes no privledges on anyone, not only protects people from violence, but also requires people to give charity where it is not much difficulty or cost to person whose help is asked.

Leibniz was first to bring up this question from libertarian perspective (he denies any law not in accordance with Golden Rule, which pretty much is everything we have today).

But he clarified that this is not absolute law that can be will nilly extended to anything that people want other people to give them.

His examples are all of sort: I am standing with rope and you are in hole; help you get out of hole, because I would expect same.

Because it is violating golden rule to require anything that is inconvenient to people who are supposed to provide it. What or what is convenient can only be voluntary.

Leibniz is clearly defending only voluntary charity, since if government must force you, it is clearly inconvenient for you.

To extend Leibniz's idea beyond what is voluntary and at discretion of person giving aid is to make what other posters here have already written (besides as several books do, misinterpreting Leibniz):

If B gives X to A voluntarily, and A expects B to give X to A, this is voluntary charity and in accordance with Golden Rule; it means, although A and B have different preferences, it is convenient for B to give this to A, according to B's preferences, which determine foregone opportunity of giving up X, i.e., X's cost.

If A and B have different preferences, what is cost to A and cost to B differ, then A cannot expect B to give X to A and force B to do this, simple because he would do same if B asked this of him. A's cost (foregone opportunity) of doing this differs from B's, so how can he claim that, by forcing B, "he not is doing to others what he wants others not to do to him"? A cannot.

If A were willing to give X to B if B was in A's circumstances and A was in B's, this does not imply "he not is doing to others what he wants others not to do to him" when he forces B to give up X to A, becuase preferences vary and costs vary, and A certainly cannot abide by "he not is doing to others what he wants others not to do to him" if A forces B to give to A what is more costly to B while A forces A to give to B what is less costly to A. Costs cannot be compared, so how can they be equal. Costs being unequal, A cannot claim reciprocity. He is willing to give less and receive more, but B is supposed to be giving more and recieving less.

If A and B exchange something, then even though they both gain, giving less for more, in this case, so Golden Rule is satisfied and consistency is satisfied.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

Smiling Dave — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:59:52 GMT

unless you want to claim you are a superior being and I should be subservient to you.

Don't tempt us, LS.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

Mtn Dew — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:43:02 GMT

"Mtn Dew. I do not wish to force anyone. But to let a disabled person depend on charity is force too. You will force that person to depend on charity for his ocr her life. To NOT give someone right to speech is FORCE. To not give a person right to live (without the help of charity) is to deprive that person of freedom too.

It seems as if the negative rights of the disabled person only can be defended by positive rights!"

You have all sorts of "rights" that you may or may not be able to actually use. You have a "right" to fall in love and spend the rest of your life with someone - but if you're ugly and no one can get past that, do you have the "right" to force me to pay for your plastic surgery?

You have an incredibly skewed view of rights. I don't think you need to call yourself a libertarian.

Re: The "disability paradox" and negative rights.

liberty student — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:42:59 GMT

Laotzu del Zinn:
See OP, if you were the other type of libertarian (from the other side of the aisle), we advocate voluntary communities with it written in the "contract" (you accept to be a member of the society) that assholes who want the disabled to fend for themselves are not welcome in our communities.

Yeah, the disabled are going to hang out with a bunch of broke ass whiners who don't understand economics. That will put hearing aids in their ears!

You'll show those damn capitalists!

@OP, I am sorry you are deaf, and I would do what I can to help you, but you have no right to demand anything from me. Your "rights" cannot violate mine and still maintain the pretense that some things are rights, unless you want to claim you are a superior being and I should be subservient to you.