A discussion with Francois Tremblay resulted from yesterday's post on "Limited Rights". He asserts that rights are limited. The basis for his argument is that property rights can be limited, bought, and sold. I agree with this assessment, but feel that property rights are in a slightly different category from other human rights. You can follow the discussion on the comments on that post. I will explain my thoughts here.
All rights are essentially "property rights" but not all property rights are "human rights". You "own" your body and your life; they are your property. These are your human rights that are absolute and non-negotiable. The other property rights, to your time and possessions, and to a lesser extent- your actions, can be bartered away, as we all do on a daily basis. Therefore, to my way of thinking, the "non-human-rights" property rights are different because they can be bought, sold, or traded.
"Actions" are not the same thing as "rights". In taking a job you are selling some of your time and the actions you will perform during that time in exchange for something else (money). You are agreeing to do certain things in exchange for money. You are not (or, at least shouldn't be) selling your body, but only renting it for a limited duration or job. If I rent something from you, you still retain limited property rights to that thing. My rental agreement does not allow me to destroy that which I rent. With your person, you can give up some property rights to your time and actions for a set amount of time, but you can not sell off your basic human rights. You do not give up your right to not be attacked or defrauded. You do not give up your right to defend yourself against these things. If your boss demands that you give up those rights you have no obligation to abide by his wishes as they violate your basic human rights and are null and void.
During the time which a particular "property right" to specific possessions belongs to you, I would still say it is absolute, but it is within your personal rights to sell off that particular possession and thereby lose any attached property rights.
In a situation where you are "selling yourself into slavery", you would no longer have any rights over that which you sold: your life. Any such attempt to sell your human rights would not hold any legitimacy in my eyes. It is similar to the problem I have accepting the nanny-state embracers and their abdication of responsibility and their acceptance of cradle-to-the-grave "care". Abdicating a right is tantamount to refusing to accept a responsibility that belongs only to you.
You seem to be confusing a few things in your entry. For instance, I have asked you before about the right of action, and now you wrote:
ReplyDelete"Actions" are not the same thing as "rights". In taking a job you are selling some of your time and the actions you will perform during that time in exchange for something else (money). You are agreeing to do certain things in exchange for money. You are not (or, at least shouldn't be) selling your body, but only renting it for a limited duration or job."
I am not talking about actions themselves, but the RIGHT to actions, i.e. the fact that you should be able to do whatever you want to do. Finding work does indeed go partially against this because you have to do certain things at certain times (or like you said, "renting" my actions). That's what I mean when I say that you can trade away part of your right to action.
Then you tried to associate it with "selling or renting your body." It has nothing to do with the issue of self-ownership as you tried to make it. The right of action is distinct from (and is derived from) the right of self-ownership. Whether we are talking about trading one's right to action has no bearing on the issue of slavery or renting oneself. One can give away most or all of his right to action without being a slave. Slavery implies ownership of the other individual, something which is not necessarily present in this case.
Just to be clear on this: the issue of the right of action is distinct from the right of self-ownership. When I get a job, I am not "partially owned" by the company in question. The company cannot "sell" that part of me to anyone else, and they do not control it (they can order you to do things, but you still retain justified free will), so it cannot affect my self-ownership. Slavery means to own the other individual, with all that ownership implies.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the corrections.
ReplyDeleteThere's also the issue of slavery itself, which I don't believe is incompatible with Anarchy. But it depends on the kind of slavery we're talking about. The Icelandic Anarchy had a civil law system, and also had slavery as one of the social statuses.
ReplyDeleteThere could be some things that are compatible with anarchy, but still morally wrong. Slavery might be one of these. While it might be acceptible to sell yourself into slavery if that is what you really want to do, I don't think it would ever be acceptible to own a slave. At least, I would never do it.
ReplyDeleteIt is like rudeness. While you and I have every right to be rude towards other people, it isn't the right thing to do.
You are making me think, that is for sure. ;)
I didn't say it was morally right for an individual to become a slave. To be honest, I don't really know how the Icelandic system worked in this regard: they had a complex social system (and very progressive compared to its contemporary statist systems).
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