[0096 2251 2110 8105]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but really, can you even violate the right to the pursuit of happiness without violating any of the other rights? I mean, those rights allow you to pursue your own happiness as a consequence. I just don't think it's indispensable. Thoughts?

[phibetakappa]

0096 2251 2110 8105, on Nov 29 2009, 09:09 PM, said:

Maybe this is a dumb question, but really, can you even violate the right to the pursuit of happiness without violating any of the other rights? I mean, those rights allow you to pursue your own happiness as a consequence. I just don't think it's indispensable. Thoughts?

I suppose that depends on what you mean by "other rights?"

There are the basic rights:
Right to one's life, liberty, property, pursuit of happiness.

Others?

The concept of rights does not apply to men living alone on a desert island, but in a society. It is only when men consider what conditions are necessary for sustaining and/or enhancing their lives, if and when they live among other men that the need for the concept of rights arises.

There is only one basic right, the right to life, and the other objective rights follow from it, because the other rights are only elaborations on the right to one's life.

The basic right to one's life can be viewed as the over arching purpose and standard of defining a code of rights. If one is going to live among other men the most sacrosanct value one needs to explicitly protect is his own life. After laying out the most basic value, he can then elaborate what this means, which consists of defining the other basic rights.

The right to life means that sustaining and/or enhancing one's life is a necessary condition for living in a society.

The right to liberty/freedom means that the absence of force by others is a necessary condition for living in a society.

The right to property means keeping/disposing of one's values is a necessary condition for living in a society.

The pursuit of happiness means pursuing one's values is a necessary condition for living in a society.

It is true that if a person in a society is not allowed (forced not to) to pursue his values, living in a society is not possible, therefore, harms/hinders his life, i.e., such action impinges on a man's ability to sustain and/or enhance his life in a society. That is one could view the pursuit of happens as subsumed under the right on one's life. It is subsumed under it, but it doesn't make it any less indispensible to defining it explicitly.

It is also true that forcibly keeping men from pursuing their values could be viewed as being subsumed under the right to liberty/freedom.

But I believe the explicit statement of the right to the pursuit of happiness, reaffirms that the individual is sovereign in a society of rights, and that it is the individual that must be left alone to choose his values and to choose the course of actions he thinks is necessary to obtain those values.

The right to the pursuit of happiness explicit abrogates the use of force from individual men's objective, supreme purpose of their lives, which is to pursue their happiness. (See the "Virtue of Selfishness" where Ayn Rand distinguishes a purpose and a standard)

When it comes to other men and their governments the more elaboration and explication the better. Mankind has had a sorry history of violating the rights of individuals.

That's why it is absolutely indispensible to define who sets the terms of the individual in a society, i.e., who is sovereign.

Horrible evils happen today because other men forcibly substitute their own loosely collectivized desires for those of individual men. One major instrument of such evils is the income tax. The individuals pursuit of happiness is not kept sacrosanct, his choice of values and only his choice of his values is not upheld, thus this indispensible right is not protected.

Rather, some groups of men are allowed to force other individual men to fund those groups collective "happiness", thus the pursuit of the collective will or the collective soul is substituted for the pursuit of happiness.

This post has been edited by phibetakappa: 29 November 2009 - 08:31 PM

[0096 2251 2110 8105]

Yes, thank you, I meant life, liberty and property, as John Locke declared. What I'm trying to say is that I don't need a right to the pursuit of happiness for me to pursue my own happiness, because all I need is life, liberty and property to do so. That's why I think that right is redundant and superfluous.

[phibetakappa]

0096 2251 2110 8105, on Nov 29 2009, 10:15 PM, said:

Yes, thank you, I meant life, liberty and property, as John Locke declared. What I'm trying to say is that I don't need a right to the pursuit of happiness for me to pursue my own happiness, because all I need is life, liberty and property to do so. That's why I think that right is redundant and superfluous.

All I can say is you are wrong. The US government has been proving you wrong for its entire history, especially in the 30's and today.

The individuals right to pursue their own happiness is violated with every pay check by the income tax, which forces the most productive the pursue the desires of others as opposed to their own.

This post has been edited by phibetakappa: 29 November 2009 - 08:37 PM

[phibetakappa]

0096 2251 2110 8105, on Nov 29 2009, 10:15 PM, said:

Yes, thank you, I meant life, liberty and property, as John Locke declared. What I'm trying to say is that I don't need a right to the pursuit of happiness for me to pursue my own happiness, because all I need is life, liberty and property to do so. That's why I think that right is redundant and superfluous.

Also, I wrote allot more than just clarifying your imprecise use of the word right.

There is a difference between redundancy and elaboration, explication and clarification.

The looters and the moochers in the US history have exploited every loophole they could find to abrogate man's pursuit of happiness, and you think making it explicit that the individual is sovereign and that it is HIS happiness which is inviolate is "superfluous."

Not protecting every individuals right to pursue their own happiness makes every individual man redundant and superfluous.

[JMeganSnow]

Talking about the pursuit of happiness in conjunction with the other rights helps establish the *purpose* of individual rights and the *context* of those rights. Of course, you need to go further and define your terms explicitly, but I'd say that this context of pursuit of happiness has at least provided a tenuous link to selfishness.

[phibetakappa]

JMeganSnow, on Nov 30 2009, 05:04 AM, said:

Talking about the pursuit of happiness in conjunction with the other rights helps establish the *purpose* of individual rights and the *context* of those rights. Of course, you need to go further and define your terms explicitly, but I'd say that this context of pursuit of happiness has at least provided a tenuous link to selfishness.

Exactly. The right states, although somewhat indirectly, who the proper beneficiary of a man's actions is, himself.

As I stated in my previous post, when it comes to governments and other people, the more clarification, elaboration the better. Any assumptions, ambiguity or potential loopholes can let the parasite in and can lead to the gradual enslavement/sacrifice of men, such as in the case of the income tax, business regulations, conscription, etc. etc. Or in the case of every dictatorship in history, such ambiguities, loopholes, and assumptions can lead to full enslavement and full sacrifice of the individual to the collective.

The issue is absolutely securing the necessary conditions for man qua man to live properly in a society. I.e., making absolutely certain that society is subordinated to the moral law, i.e., that society is subordinated to the requirements for man to live on earth.

This post has been edited by phibetakappa: 30 November 2009 - 10:27 AM

[SapereAude]

JMeganSnow, on Nov 30 2009, 01:04 AM, said:

Talking about the pursuit of happiness in conjunction with the other rights helps establish the *purpose* of individual rights and the *context* of those rights.

That is my take on it as well.
It is easy to take for granted what we have (or rather had) in this country.
At the time what the founding fathers were proposing was something new under the sun and I think it reasonable that they felt the need to establish context.

[freestyle]

[quote name='0096 2251 2110 8105' post='238090' date='Nov 29 2009, 05:09 PM']Maybe this is a dumb question, but really, can you even violate the right to the pursuit of happiness without violating any of the other rights? I mean, those rights allow you to pursue your own happiness as a consequence. I just don't think it's indispensable. Thoughts?[/quote]

Ayn Rand addressed this by using the terms "corollaries" and/or "consequences". You noted above that the right to pursue happiness is, correctly, a consequence of of your right to life. This means that you are analyzing this in the proper context and defining life not only as biologically living.

From AR - VOS:

[quote]There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)[/quote]

By the part of your question where you ask: "Can you even violate the right to the pursuit of happiness?," -- You are accepting the premise that one's pursuit of happiness is a (or 'thee') primary right. I can imagine an example that demonstrates why the "right to pursue happiness" is not primary.

Take the NFL. If I own the NFL and decide to exclude a certain individual from being allowed to play in the NFL. You might try the argument that his "right to pursue happiness" has been violated by me, so long as we assume that all he ever wanted was to play football amongst the best players in the world. That argument fails though. It ends up causing a contradiction. My "right to happiness" would include allowing only people I deem worthy into my private organization. His "right to happiness" includes being able to play in my private organization. If you accept the premise that there is a primary right to happiness, then one way or the other, that right gets violated.

That above quote by Ayn Rand really makes sense to me. When I discuss individual rights with people it serves as the starting point which I ask for agreement on as a fundamental and primary principle. A principle, by definition, is fundamental and primary, it can't be watered down or malleable. You would think it hard NOT to understand all that follows if one accepts this principle... However, people will still attempt to evade it, you know, for the "greater good".

[SapereAude]

freestyle, on Nov 30 2009, 10:17 AM, said:

Take the NFL. If I own the NFL and decide to exclude a certain individual from being allowed to play in the NFL. You might try the argument that his "right to pursue happiness" has been violated by me, so long as we assume that all he ever wanted was to play football amongst the best players in the world. That argument fails though. It ends up causing a contradiction. My "right to happiness" would include allowing only people I deem worthy into my private organization. His "right to happiness" includes being able to play in my private organization. If you accept the premise that there is a primary right to happiness, then one way or the other, that right gets violated.

I've always liked the "your right to throw a punch ends where my face begins" analogy.

[phibetakappa]

I found this interesting quote from Ayn Rand's Journals. It is in the chapter 10 on the Communism and HUAC.

"This chapter begins with an open letter addressed "To All Innocent Fifth Columnists," which AR wrote in late 1940 or early 1941, when she was encouraging conservative intellectuals to form a national organization advocating individualism. I believe she wanted the letter to be issued by such an organization."

She explicitly restates a bill of rights, including the right to the pursuit of happiness.

Quote

We believe:
—That each man has inalienable rights which cannot be taken from him for any cause whatsoever. These rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
—That the right of life means that man cannot be deprived of his life for the convenience of any number of other men.
—That the right of liberty means freedom of individual decision, individual choice, individual judgment and individual initiative; it means also the right to disagree with others.
—That the right to the pursuit of happiness means man's freedom to choose what constitutes his own private, personal happiness and to work for its achievement; that such a pursuit is neither evil nor reprehensible, but honorable and good; and that a man's happiness is not to be prescribed to him by any other man nor by any number of other men.
—That these rights have no meaning unless they are the unconditional, personal, private possession of each man, granted to him by the fact of his birth, held by him independently of all other men, and limited only by the exercise of the same rights by other men.
—That the only just, moral and beneficent form of society is a society
based upon the recognition of these inalienable individual rights.
—That the State exists for Man, and not Man for the State.
—That the greatest good for all men can be achieved only through the voluntary cooperation of free individuals for mutual benefit, and not through a compulsory sacrifice of all for all.
. . . (Ayn Rand Journals, 354).

I believe her statement her eloquently echoes what I've stated, and it is a rare formulation of man's basic rights and their purpose, in an interesting context.

Also, when researching I found this interesting section from OPAR:

Quote

In content, as the Founding Fathers recognized, there is one fundamental right, which has several major derivatives. The fundamental right is the right to life. Its major derivatives are the right to liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.

The right to life means the right to sustain and protect one's life. It means the right to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the preservation of his life. To sustain his life, man needs a method of survival—he must use his rational faculty to gain knowledge and choose values, then act to achieve his values. The right to liberty is the right to this method; it is the right to think and choose, then to act in accordance with one's judgment. To sustain his life, man needs to create the material means of his survival. The right to property is the right to this process; in Ayn Rand's definition, it is "the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values." To sustain his life, man needs to be governed by a certain motive—his purpose must be his own welfare. The right to the pursuit of happiness is the right to this motive; it is the right to live for one's own sake and fulfillment.(3)

Rights form a logical unity. In the words of Samuel Adams, all are "evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature." It would be a crude contradiction to tell a man: you have a right to life, but you need the permission of others to think or act. Or: you have a right to life, but you need the permission of others to produce or consume. Or: you have a right to life, but don't dare pursue any personal motive without the approval of the government. (OPAR, 352)

Here he states, "To sustain his life, man needs to be governed by a certain motive—his purpose must be his own welfare. The right to the pursuit of happiness is the right to this motive; it is the right to live for one's own sake and fulfillment."

He claims that the right to the pursuit of happiness is the right to a motive. His purpose must be his own welfare, and the explicit declaration this necessary condition for survival in a society is the explicit purpose of stating this right.

It is possible to punish and harm men for holding and/or pursuing a particular motive. The prohibition of alcohol, cigarettes, sex, abortion, and certain words are all examples.

Men have been murdered for having certain motives, and they have been murdered for being thought to have certain motives.

This post has been edited by phibetakappa: 30 November 2009 - 01:06 PM

[freestyle]

phibetakappa, on Nov 30 2009, 10:44 AM, said:

I found this interesting quote from Ayn Rand's Journals. It is in the chapter 10 on the Communism and HUAC.

"This chapter begins with an open letter addressed "To All Innocent Fifth Columnists," which AR wrote in late 1940 or early 1941, when she was encouraging conservative intellectuals to form a national organization advocating individualism. I believe she wanted the letter to be issued by such an organization."

She explicitly restates a bill of rights, including the right to the pursuit of happiness.


I believe her statement her eloquently echoes what I've stated, and it is a rare formulation of man's basic rights and their purpose, in an interesting context.

Yeah, that is great. I do find it a bit frustrating that even Ayn Rand has to be so redundant in trying to explain this inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That should be understood. At Thanksgiving this year I told someone that I believe in this inalienable right as stated (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness)... And the person responded "Oh, so if it makes someone happy to shoot a bunch of people, that is fine with you?" I mean, how do you even have a discussion with a mind that works that way? I just said: "Please explain to me why you are not thinking of that 'bunch of people' as individuals which I have just stated have a right to their lives?!" Many people simply have a tribal or collectivist mindset and it is nearly impossible to get them to think in terms of individuals.

"That the right to the pursuit of happiness means man's freedom to choose what constitutes his own private, personal happiness and to work for its achievement; that such a pursuit is neither evil nor reprehensible, but honorable and good; and that a man's happiness is not to be prescribed to him by any other man nor by any number of other men."

The part I highlighted SHOULD be understood tacitly. It just needs to be stated because so many hear the word "individual" and then automatically assume everything else is just a nameless, faceless group or society and drop all ability to apply the principle consistently to ALL individuals.

[phibetakappa]

freestyle, on Nov 30 2009, 02:59 PM, said:

. . .I do find it a bit frustrating that even Ayn Rand has to be so redundant. . .

As I've stated, I don't believe she or I am being "redundant." What is happening here is that knowledge is hierarchical, and more specific concepts inherit their attributes from their genetically related relatives.

The principle of one's right to life is the most general statement of summarizing and/or subsuming the unitary total. Cognitively this allows us to hold all aspects of rights as one unit, reducing the cognitive load on our minds necessary for holding all the individual concrete rights and needs we have identified.

Then if we require we can unpack or elaborate all the specific instances which were gathered, and condensed into the single, space saving principle.

It must be remember that developmentally one does not start with the right to life then deduce the others. Rather the developmental process is the reverse, it is inductive.

One starts at some point realizing it is a necessary condition for my life that I have a particular motive. One observes their own lives and the proper lives of others and realizes they all have something in common, that there is the common motive of pursuing one's values, i.e., pursuing one's happiness. Then when the context of living with others and the context of needing explicit rights arise, this observation of a common human motive becomes the right to the “pursuit of happiness.”

It is in the same pattern the abstraction of the other rights follows.

For example, we recognize the fact that our survival depends on producing certain goods/supplies. We observe and recognize ourselves protecting those goods from beasts and other men. We observe and recognize ourselves planning and taking steps to gain and/or keep/maintain all the things our life requires. It is only much later that we abstract these observations and form the concept property, and still later that we realize that such things need to be explicitly declared and protected from other men and government.

Eventually, we have many different requirements collected. Eventually we will have a cognitive need to summarize and reduce all of them to a single unit, to make it easier for us to use and remember. It is then that the need arises to formulate all these individual observations into the single principle of the “right to life.”

As people have been stating, all of the individual discoveries of what is required for living with others in society, becomes the necessary context on which the more condensed principled formulation of rights are formed.

All the individual necessary conditions are the context, and/or the initial data, evidence which was initially required for inducing the more sophisticated abstract formulations of rights as such.

[phibetakappa]

freestyle, on Nov 30 2009, 02:59 PM, said:

"That the right to the pursuit of happiness means man's freedom to choose what constitutes his own private, personal happiness and to work for its achievement; that such a pursuit is neither evil nor reprehensible, but honorable and good; and that a man's happiness is not to be prescribed to him by any other man nor by any number of other men."

The part I highlighted SHOULD be understood tacitly. . . .

I guess in an O'ist society such a statement would be assumed and/or not repeated often, but given mankind's history, and record of violating rights it is definitely necessary to explicitly remind society of what every individual man requires to live amongst other men.

Europe for example has always explicitly practiced the opposite premise, i.e., that men's motives are to be prescribed to him by any other man and especially by other controlling groups of men. This is the premise behind the idea of "democracy," dictatorships, mixed economies, any other statist regime.

In the US, especially in the last 100 years, congress (for the most part) has proceeded on the same premise that men's motives are to be prescribed to him by any other man and especially by other controlling groups of men, namely congress.

Even in the microcosm of families, it is very common for them to proceed on the same premise, that men's motives are to be prescribed to him by any other man and especially by other controlling groups of men, namely our mini-dictatorial parents.

This post has been edited by phibetakappa: 30 November 2009 - 01:53 PM

[freestyle]

phibetakappa, on Nov 30 2009, 11:34 AM, said:

As I've stated, I don't believe she or I am being "redundant." What is happening here is that knowledge is hierarchical, and more specific concepts inherit their attributes from their genetically related relatives.

phibetakappa, on Nov 30 2009, 11:48 AM, said:

I guess in an O'ist society such a statement would be assumed and/or not repeated often, but given mankind's history, and record of violating rights it is definitely necessary to explicitly remind society of what every individual man requires to live amongst other men.

I do understand what you're saying, and I definitely see the purpose for offering detailed and ample exposition of the concept of individual rights. (See my Thanksgiving example in the above reply). Nevertheless, what I say is redundant is the act of qualifying Individual Rights (the term, itself redundant) by adding what amounts to, "So long as your individual rights don't violate my individual rights."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in your first reply I think you were assuming that I was saying that the consequential "right to pursue happiness" was redundant to discuss? That is not what I intended to project.

[phibetakappa]

freestyle, on Nov 30 2009, 04:46 PM, said:

Nevertheless, what I say is redundant is the act of qualifying Individual Rights (the term, itself redundant) by adding what amounts to, "So long as your individual rights don't violate my individual rights."

Yes, I understand your point about "individual rights."

Ayn Rand in VOS, and CUI concludes her article on "Man's Rights" with this statement:

Quote

"The term "individual rights" is a redundancy: there is no other kind of rights and no one else to possess them."

Or in OPAR page 357 Peikoff states:

Quote

"Individual rights," in short, is a redundancy, albeit a necessary one in today's intellectual chaos. Only the individual has rights."

This post has been edited by phibetakappa: 30 November 2009 - 03:22 PM