A Natural Right to Sustenance?

[Purple Knight]

Question for Debate: Is there a natural right to sustenance, in other words, to not starve to death, not thirst to death, and not die of exposure? Bonus question: Are there limitations on it?

Now, I see no problem with positive rights. Those who champion the idea that there are none almost always believe in self-defence, which is the positive right to take a certain action. Similarly, a natural right to sustenance would be fulfilled by stealing, if you had nothing. This runs exactly parallel with the Libertarian idea that you can't hurt anyone, but you can stop yourself from getting hurt, even if it means hurting someone. Likewise, you can't steal, but you don't have to starve and that comes first. They're free to disagree, but not denounce it on principle, because their self-defence runs on the same principle of an overriding positive right in a specific situation.

But rights and responsibility must go hand-in-hand. A natural right to the basics can only co-exist with a limit on population growth. One right cannot expand and crush all others. One can prove this logically by imagining a system where there are not enough resources for even one more person, at the moment. There is no rich man from whom to take. If someone adds a living body, they have also subtracted one. If someone really has to die, the one who added a person delivered this death, and violated that natural right to sustenance, no matter whose it happened to be.

[Yozavan]

All nature does it eat itself. " A natural right to sustenance "? Just might be an oxymoron. Without a ' spiritual context', or playpen if you will, I don't see how this question has merit. All nature does is devour itself. A doomed cannibal on the road to extinction.

[oldbadger]

Question for Debate: Is there a natural right to sustenance, in other words, to not starve to death, not thirst to death, and not die of exposure? Bonus question: Are there limitations on it?

There are no natural rights ... which is sad, but there it is.

No natural right to strength, brilliance, sustenance, health, longevity or anything else.

This is why humans can cluster together in attempts to improve our security, safety, health, cohesion and the rest of the benefits.

[Purple Knight]

There are no natural rights ... which is sad, but there it is.

No natural right to strength, brilliance, sustenance, health, longevity or anything else.

This is why humans can cluster together in attempts to improve our security, safety, health, cohesion and the rest of the benefits.

That's actually a dangerous idea because it suggests that a society which chops up some of its people for organs is not violating anyone's natural rights, and so long as their society is actually better overall than the alternative society which holds that such an atrocity may never be done, they're even doing the right thing.

Without the moral high ground, the idea that you can't chop up one person to save six others, cannot survive, because it's fundamentally less practical than the idea that you can.

It also means that the Nazi society is not doing anything wrong if they really achieve health, happiness, safety, freedom, peace, and wealth for its members. Imagine that they kill every Jew and somehow their society actually improves, even if only because most people in it were actually racist. So we have a huge negative six million mark right away, but over time, societies which tried to remedy racism and failed or even succeeded incompletely, ended up with more injustice and murder, and in, say, 200-300 years, it not only balanced out but actually favoured the Nazis. Then, if there really are no absolute rights given by nature, nobody can say anything against them.

[oldbadger]

That's actually a dangerous idea because it suggests that a society which chops up some of its people for organs is not violating anyone's natural rights, and so long as their society is actually better overall than the alternative society which holds that such an atrocity may never be done, they're even doing the right thing.

If you don't agree with people being able to leave body parts for others after death then you don't have to agree to it yourself.

Without the moral high ground, the idea that you can't chop up one person to save six others, cannot survive, because it's fundamentally less practical than the idea that you can.

There will no doubt be people that agree with you here (UK) but of course if one of your organs is failing and you will die then you would refuse any organ transplant yourself.

It also means that the Nazi society is not doing anything wrong if they really achieve health, happiness, safety, freedom, peace, and wealth for its members.

Nazi society? You think I live in a Nazi society? We live here with many different races, cultures, religions and more. We keep any extremist groups down.

Imagine that they kill every Jew and somehow their society actually improves, even if only because most people in it were actually racist. So we have a huge negative six million mark right away, but over time, societies which tried to remedy racism and failed or even succeeded incompletely, ended up with more injustice and murder, and in, say, 200-300 years, it not only balanced out but actually favoured the Nazis. Then, if there really are no absolute rights given by nature, nobody can say anything against them.

That's murder! We don't support murder here.
Your number of six million is very wrong, and you've ignored the full list of cultures, races and nationalities that were victim to the German Nazis 80+ years ago.
11-12 million is accurate. Why did you ignore the Gypsies, Jehovah-witnesses, Blacks, Ukrainians, Latvians, Freemasons, Gays and Russians as well as the Jews who were murdered in death camps?

[Purple Knight]

That's actually a dangerous idea because it suggests that a society which chops up some of its people for organs is not violating anyone's natural rights, and so long as their society is actually better overall than the alternative society which holds that such an atrocity may never be done, they're even doing the right thing.

If you don't agree with people being able to leave body parts for others after death then you don't have to agree to it yourself.

That's not what I said. I said if there are no natural rights, you can harvest people for their organs without their consent, as long as it makes society better.

That's murder! We don't support murder here.

Why not? If there's not a natural right not to be murdered, because there are no natural rights, you have to justify this. Sorry my figures were wrong. I used old numbers and didn't calculate the interest correctly.

[oldbadger]

That's not what I said. I said if there are no natural rights, you can harvest people for their organs without their consent, as long as it makes society better.

Whatever is a 'natural right'?
There are no rights in nature, none at all.

Why not? If there's not a natural right not to be murdered, because there are no natural rights, you have to justify this. Sorry my figures were wrong. I used old numbers and didn't calculate the interest correctly.

There are no natural rights, so civilisations make common laws, common to all people.
You like laws which protect all, don't you?

[Purple Knight]

That's not what I said. I said if there are no natural rights, you can harvest people for their organs without their consent, as long as it makes society better.

Whatever is a 'natural right'?
There are no rights in nature, none at all.

Actually there's one: You get to try to stay alive.

But what people actually mean by a natural right, is a right that should be protected by law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_r ... gal_rights

[oldbadger]

Actually there's one: You get to try to stay alive.

More a challenge than any kind of right.

But what people actually mean by a natural right, is a right that should be protected by law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_r ... gal_rights

Laws are man made. No nature in that.
Legal rights are man made.

[marke]

Question for Debate: Is there a natural right to sustenance, in other words, to not starve to death, not thirst to death, and not die of exposure? Bonus question: Are there limitations on it?

Now, I see no problem with positive rights. Those who champion the idea that there are none almost always believe in self-defence, which is the positive right to take a certain action. Similarly, a natural right to sustenance would be fulfilled by stealing, if you had nothing. This runs exactly parallel with the Libertarian idea that you can't hurt anyone, but you can stop yourself from getting hurt, even if it means hurting someone. Likewise, you can't steal, but you don't have to starve and that comes first. They're free to disagree, but not denounce it on principle, because their self-defence runs on the same principle of an overriding positive right in a specific situation.

But rights and responsibility must go hand-in-hand. A natural right to the basics can only co-exist with a limit on population growth. One right cannot expand and crush all others. One can prove this logically by imagining a system where there are not enough resources for even one more person, at the moment. There is no rich man from whom to take. If someone adds a living body, they have also subtracted one. If someone really has to die, the one who added a person delivered this death, and violated that natural right to sustenance, no matter whose it happened to be.

There is something fundamentally unfair for millionaire and billionaire democrats to advocate taxing working Americans more and more to pay for ever expanding government support for non-earners in the US and around the world.