Empathy and the Source of Rights
I often tire of people asking (usually in a self-contradictory, petulant tone, more demanding than asking), "Okay, so what is the source of rights?! Where do they 'come from'?!" My reply is usually that the questioner either respects my rights, or he does not. If he does not, he can go to h*ll--I'm not wasting time talking to an uncivilized thug, any more than I would treat with a rampaging elephant, bandit, lion, or hurricane. And if he does respect rights--then my stance is: how dare you demand of me that I justify your own views? Look inside--and figure out for yourself why you believe in such and such.
Second, I point out that to ask for a "source" of rights is scientistic and positivistic. It presupposes someone or some "thing" "legislates" or "decrees" rights. Even the natural law advocate who says legislatures don't "decree rights" seem to move it back a level--to God, or to Nature. But rights don't really "come from" anything. When it is demonstrated that 2+2=4, this is a truth, a fact. Does it make sense to ask what is the "source" of this "truth"? Where does 2+2=4 "come from"? This is just nonsense. And it is similar with normative propositions--with moral truths.
Values and norms is that they are not causal laws. They are not self-enforcing; they are prescriptive. This is a crucial insight: it shows that even the best proof of rights--even the Ultimate Natural Law Proof handed down by God Himself can be disregarded (is not this the lesson of the Ten Commandments?). Or, as Hoppe argues here,
no deviation from a private property ethic can be justified argumentatively ... [T]hat Rawls or other socialists may still advocate such ethics is completely beside the point. That one plus one equals two does not rule out the possibility that someone says it is three, or that one ought not attempt to make one plus one equal three the arithmetic law of the land. But all this does not affect the fact that one plus one still is two. In strict analogy to this, I "only" claim to prove that whatever Rawls or other socialists say is false, and can be understood as such by all intellectually competent and honest men. It does not change the fact that incompetence or dishonesty and evil still may exist and may even prevail over truth and justice. [last emphasis added]Or, as Hoppe explains here,
To say that this principle [underlying capitalism] is just also does not preclude the possibility of people proposing or even enforcing rules that are incompatible with it. As a matter of fact, with respect to norms the situation is very similar to that in other disciplines of scientific inquiry. The fact, for instance, that certain empirical statements are justified or justifiable and others are not does not imply that everyone only defends objective, valid statements. Rather, people can be wrong, even intentionally. But the distinction between objective and subjective, between true and false, does not lose any of its significance because of this. Rather, people who are wrong would have to be classified as either uninformed or intentionally lying. The case is similar with respect to
norms. Of course there are many people who do not propagate or enforce norms which can be classified as valid according to the meaning of justification which I have given above. But the distinction between justifiable and nonjustifiable norms does not dissolve because of this, just as that between objective and subjective statements does not crumble because of the existence of uninformed or lying people. Rather, and accordingly, those people who would propagate and enforce such different, invalid norms would again have to be classified as uninformed or dishonest, insofar as one had explained to them and indeed made it clear that their alternative norm proposals or enforcements could not and never would be justifiable in argumentation. [emphasis added]
What this means is that any norms that are abided by in society are necessarily norms that are self-undertaken by a community of people who share that value.
In the case of civilization, you can envision two types of individuals: civilized people who want to live in peace and harmony and prosperity; and criminals or outlaws, who do not care about this. This latter type are animal-like; even the "best" argument or proof of rights can and will be disregarded by them (see Hoppe's comments quoted above). What do the former people have in common? I suspect that it is the trait of empathy. Only by placing some value on others' well-being--for some reason--can one value respecting their rights; and it seems to me that it is empathy that is at the root of this other-valuing, almost by definition. In my view, evolution is probably what led to this trait, as a psychological matter, but that is not that significant to me. So, in a sense, if we must find a "source" of rights, I would say--it is empathy.
Comments (30)
Gil Guillory sent this comment to me:
Published: September 6, 2006 10:42 AM
Actually, the passage I was thinking of is the second-to-last paragraph here:
http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap8sec1.asp
Published: September 6, 2006 12:12 PM
Another way to put it is to say that rights are based on logic and reality. Essentially, that's what Aristotle did and all natural law philosphers who followed him.
However, every system uses reality and logic, even Marxism (although that may be hard for some to swallow). The conclusions drawn from reality and logic differ because of differing assumptions, differing starting points. Assumptions, or presuppositions, are difficult to prove, so we assume them to be true. For example, we assume that we exist and are not characters in some else's dream. Early natural law theorists assumed that survival was an essential character of human beings and built their logic on that assumption. They saw sociability, which is a similar concept to empathy, as necessary to survival.
Hoppe believes that being logically consistent is most important and begins with the implications of argumentation. Where I disagree with Hoppe is that he limits the implications of argumentation to just property, when the same implications apply to survival, sociability and other things. If you substitute survival for property in Hoppe's logic, you can arrive at different rights than if you arbitrarily limit it to just property.
Published: September 6, 2006 12:23 PM
My simple argument justifying property rights in particular goes like this.
Once you are born you have an absolute right to your own life. No one has a right to take your life, for them to have that right amounts to slavery. If I claim the right to come into your house and, looking at your books, determine you are not giving enough of your wealth to the poor or disadvantaged, then I am claiming the right to your life as well. For all I need to do is to say that you must give 100% of your wealth to the poor and starve you to death. If we don't have absolute property rights, we are slaves.
No one has given me a strong argument against this.
Published: September 6, 2006 12:27 PM
I like your final answer to the question much more than your initial, flip answer. I'd have become a libertarian a lot sooner if I'd seen more of the latter and less of the former.
Published: September 6, 2006 1:25 PM
It should be noted that mathematicians with too much free time have proven that 2+2=4 using more elementary statements from Set Theory.
See http://us.metamath.org/mpegif/2p2e4.html
However, in math as with any field there are always statements so basic they cannot be proven. (It's not turtles all the way down.)
Published: September 6, 2006 1:52 PM
Phil: "I like your final answer to the question much more than your initial, flip answer. I'd have become a libertarian a lot sooner if I'd seen more of the latter and less of the former."
Phil, I find this interesting. The latter answer is not really a justification of rights, but more of an attempt at explaining why we have them--more precisely, why most people do adopt/have values that underpin rights. The former is not meant to be flip: it is meant sincerely and seriously to emphasize that rights are sort of a bootstrapping thing: they are presupposed by any participant in civilized discourse (a la Hoppe).
But thanks for your comments.
Published: September 6, 2006 2:39 PM
Stephan:
Consider, if you believe such a creature exists, a well-meaning minarchist. Clearly he doesn't respect ALL of your rights; he's willing to use the power of the state to take your wealth to pay for national defense and courts and whatnot.
He's not going to punch you in the mouth because he doesn't like your hat. He's not a thug in the sense that he's personally, literally going to break into your house in the middle of the night and take your possessions at gunpoint, even though his viewpoints entail that someone, somewhere do that to you if you don't pay your tribute to the state.
You're certainly entitled to say he's a thug and refuse to try to reason with him; you don't need argumentation ethics to do that.
If you decide not to do that, though, and to try to convince him, what are you doing if not arguing? I'm assuming the set of people who didn't start out in life accepting libertarian rights but were later convinced of the truth is nonzero. What can you call the process of convincing such people if not arguing?
Please assume good faith on my part. I'm trying to crack what's a pretty tough nut for me, and I'm bound to get it wrong the first dozen or so times.
Published: September 6, 2006 8:26 PM
Phil:
Sure, I think there are well-meaning minarchists.
My "thug" comment is meant to isolate and illustrate stark opposites, and to highlight the fundamental choice individuals make: to be civilized or not--to try to avoid conflict and find just and fair ways to get along. Etc. It is not meant to imply that I will not talk to someone who I have a decent reason to talk to. It is meant to show that the presuppositions of discourse are in fact civilized norms, and to show that the only real hope at convincing people is to show them that some high-level norm they claim to favor is really incompatible with more fundamental norms that lie at the base of their presumed civilized posture or stance they would claim to be following.
Of course I am arguing with someone like this if I am arguing with them about rights. To the extent they are really engaging in genuine argumentation with me, they *are* accepting civilized norms as valid; the task then is really just to point this out to them. It is almost ostensive, as in when you have point to the barn right in front of someone to show them what you mean by "this barn here."
"I'm assuming the set of people who didn't start out in life accepting libertarian rights but were later convinced of the truth is nonzero. What can you call the process of convincing such people if not arguing?"
Of course, it is. Did I imply otherwise?
Published: September 6, 2006 9:34 PM
Actually, empathy itself has a well-understood origin: it is, basically, a way to reuse modules in the brain which perform emotional analysis of the situation and choose the course of action for the complicated task of decoding intentions of others. Needless to say, guessing intentions of other people gives an individuum a serious advantage - he can use this information to form alliances or evade hostile acts by others.
There is a special set of neurons in the brain - which are called "mirror neurons" because they fire in the same patterns when someone's observed doing something or experiencing something similar to the corresponding actions or experiences of the individuum itself. People have a significant number of these, animals fewer.
So, this means that the concept of rights based on empathy is hardwired in our brains. However, one needs to understand that empathy is not infallible, by far. For it to work there has to be a significant similarity in mental structure between people - after all, empathy does not tell what other person feels, but rather what the observer would feel in other's place.
The empathy is also limited to emotional processing, and does not tell anything about other's higher-level cognitive functioning.
In other words, it means that the conscious understanding of rights cannot be completely and satisfactory explained by empathy.
My hypothesis is that it has memetic origin, rather than genetic - societies having some form of this concept in their culture were more successful ecomonically (and, therefore, military) and mostly displaced societies which didn't.
It must be noted that the competing, collectivist, memeset is also based on empathy - in fact, it consists of immediate action based on emotional demands of empathy to the poor and downthrodden, unmediated by any conscious rational processing needed to consider longer-term consequences of one's actions.
Published: September 6, 2006 9:40 PM
Averros, this may be right, but in my view, it is only of incidental interest, since the empathy point is merely explanatory of *why* people (for some reason) to value others' well-being and are willing to respect their rights. It is not a justification for the values one has, any more than a physiological/evolutionary explanation for why humans find the taste of chocolate better than that of rotted meat is a *justification* of this taste, or actions based on this taste preference. IT is just an explanation of why we might have this taste preference. But the fundamental given is the taste preference itself; our eating choices follow from, or are based on this. Likewise, those people who happen to be empathetic in this sense are going to desire acting-civilized and trying-to-justify their interpersonal behavior. Etc.
Published: September 6, 2006 9:45 PM
Phil: What can you call the process of convincing such people if not arguing?
Stephen: Of course, it is. Did I imply otherwise?
Not intentionally, I infer from your response, and perhaps only in my flawed understanding of what Hoppe (and you, since most of what I know of Hoppe is actually from your defense on anti-state), but I thought the crux of Hoppe was that argumentation necessarily presupposed argreement about fundamental norms, and these norms included full (anarchist) libertarian rights.
If that's true, then whatever the process of convincing minarchists happens to be, it can't be termed argumentation, since the minarchist is manifestly not in agreement with some libertarian norms, such as "It's wrong to take property from you against your will even if it's to pay for national defense."
If that's not true, then I have even less of an idea of what Hoppe was trying to get at than I thought I did. I'm fine with assuming "We're not going to punch each other" and "We're going to communicate in good faith" as required norms; I thought Hoppe was trying to go much further than that.
Clearly I'm missing something; my goal here is to figure out what. I suppose since I've spent this much time thinking about it I ought to just get off my ass and read the primary source material, but I appreciate your indulgence.
Published: September 7, 2006 1:12 AM
Phil:
the idea is that if there is genuine argumentation that means that each party *is* respecting the others' right to control their body, and not threatening them into accepting their arguments, and also supporting any norms society-wide tht would make argument possible. The idea is that argumentation by its nature requires certain implicit presuppositions. Therefore, if your opponent advocates someting that contradicts it, you point out that he is in dialectical contradiction.
I see your issue; the point is that if they are really arguing they *are* agreeing w/ libertarian norms; if they simultaneously assert a non-libertarian norm they are in contradiction with themselves, and thus they cannot be correct.
Published: September 7, 2006 1:59 AM
“Hoppe believes that being logically consistent is most important and begins with the implications of argumentation. Where I disagree with Hoppe is that he limits the implications of argumentation to just property, when the same implications apply to survival, sociability and other things. If you substitute survival for property in Hoppe's logic, you can arrive at different rights than if you arbitrarily limit it to just property.�
Roger,
Where you miss the mark is to think that there is anything outside of the libertarian non-aggression ethic, which calls for respect for private property rights, which can provide for human survival, and peaceful, cooperative sociable human interaction. Only this libertarian ethic can accomplish this, and all other ethics violate rules which then necessarily puts such goals in jeopardy.
If you substitute any other ethic for the libertarian ethic, you will find that it cannot be justified and this is because such an ethic will either be non-universalizable, will allow and encourage aggression, or else if followed strictly, would lead to the demise of the human race.
Published: September 7, 2006 4:17 AM
I see your issue; the point is that if they are really arguing they *are* agreeing w/ libertarian norms; if they simultaneously assert a non-libertarian norm they are in contradiction with themselves, and thus they cannot be correct.
It seems very odd to me to describe someone as being in agreement with a norm when they believe they are not.
(As an aside: I'm also not sure I understand what the phrase "really arguing" is intended to connote. I'm a little wary of a "no TRUE Scotsman" argument trying to be snuck in here.)
How important is the act of argumentation itself, specifically? Would it be a fair translation to say that it could have been called, somewhat flippantly, "Being a logically consistent non-thug" Ethics? Is the point of bringing argumentation into the picture so you can say "But we've implicitly agreed not to be thugs, and to be logically consistent." If so, then the well-meaning minarchist thinks he's doing both of those things. He's just wrong about one of them. If the domain of the argument is what is entailed by those things, it seems like putting the cart before the horse to claim that your (albeit correct) version of what those things entail gets priviledged status, assuming your goal is to convince someone of what those correctly entailed claims are.
Part of what's troubled me about the argument is that it's always seemed like it's intended to be used as part of a cheap rhetorical trick. "Well then, I guess we aren't really arguing after all." (I don't think it was intended that way, only that I don't have a good feel for what it's supposed to be able to /do/ other than that.)
Published: September 7, 2006 9:57 AM
Even though by the standards of this board I'm a minarchist/criminalist sheep everywhere else my comments tend to elicit the response "Libertarianism is applied autism". I would suspect that I exhibit less empathy than the average person (I would also surmise this is the case for libertarians as a whole), but I don't see how whether or not I "feel your pain" has anything to do with an analysis as to its cause and possible alleviation.
My take is that all ethical/normative statements are inherently subjective. Your desire to murder everyone on the planet cannot be proved to be wrong. I would certainly consider it so, but to paraphrase someone else, that would just be me saying "Ugh, murder, boo!".
I don't know if people can be divided so easily into civilized and animals. As pointed out in "Ordinary Men", ordinarily peaceful people carried out massacres and experiments like the Stanford Prison one and that (fake) administration of shocks reveal that most of us can cross over the line. That doesn't make me any more lenient toward criminals though. I don't really care if there's no free will and you aren't responsible for your actions because everything was pre-determined (with some quantum dice/coins rolled/flipped), punishing you (depending on the nature of the punishment) prevents further criminal acts on your part, warns others and makes people feel good. The last one isn't really sufficient, but why not list bonuses?
Published: September 7, 2006 10:14 AM
Enough, look past Kinsella's occasional impatience and at the substance of the arguments - he's working on some fundamentals here that are important. Questioning fundamentals is often dangerous work, irritating friend and foe alike - people simply do not enjoy being told their basic worldview is wrong. It makes them cranky, and Stephan is responding to that constantly, and, in the case of Person, repeatedly. If you are looking for gentle reassurance, you probably need to try Daily Kos or Thomas Friedman, maybe.
Published: September 7, 2006 11:33 AM
Mr. cowardly-anonymous Enough--Thank you for your vapid post. (And my post was not an article, O Perceptive One.)
Published: September 7, 2006 11:33 AM
Vince: when has Stephan Kinsella responded to me?
Published: September 7, 2006 11:46 AM
Phil,
Kinsella: “I see your issue; the point is that if they are really arguing they *are* agreeing w/ libertarian norms; if they simultaneously assert a non-libertarian norm they are in contradiction with themselves, and thus they cannot be correct.�
Phil:“It seems very odd to me to describe someone as being in agreement with a norm when they believe they are not.�
It does indeed. It is the same kind of oddness that can be apparent when someone says something like this: “such and such a topic is unworthy of comment, but here is my comment on the topic…�. They claim to believe, and in a strange way, they do believe the topic does not warrant comment, and yet their actions betray a more fundamental truth: that they actually do believe the topic to be worthy of comment, since they are in fact commenting on it. Their actions dispute and refute their statements. And it is this dialectical contradiction which reveals their true belief. And this is true even if they fail to recognize the inconsistency between what they say, and their act of saying it.
“(As an aside: I'm also not sure I understand what the phrase "really arguing" is intended to connote. I'm a little wary of a "no TRUE Scotsman" argument trying to be snuck in here.)�
Well it is very important for you thoroughly analyze what it means to argue. And keep in mind that Hoppe is not inventing the wheel on this question. When you think about what it means to argue, you will conclude that it is action which implies conflict free application of scarce resources such as each person’s body towards discourse in the pursuit of truth. When applied to property norms, it implies also a drive towards universalizable truths which any arguer can in principle agree with, and all can agree to disagree without threat of violence.
“How important is the act of argumentation itself, specifically?�
Argumentation is the only way we have of justifying anything including ethics or property norms. Any ethic that violates the ethical presuppositions of argumentation simply cannot ever be justified in argumentation because any attempt to do so would constitute a dialectic contradiction. And if an ethic cannot be justified in argumentation, it cannot be justified; ever.
“Would it be a fair translation to say that it could have been called, somewhat flippantly, "Being a logically consistent non-thug" Ethics? Is the point of bringing argumentation into the picture so you can say "But we've implicitly agreed not to be thugs, and to be logically consistent." If so, then the well-meaning minarchist thinks he's doing both of those things. He's just wrong about one of them. If the domain of the argument is what is entailed by those things, it seems like putting the cart before the horse to claim that your (albeit correct) version of what those things entail gets priviledged status, assuming your goal is to convince someone of what those correctly entailed claims are.�
Argumentation ethics is simply a more rigorous and precise formulation of what it is I think you are saying. The key of argumentation ethics is that it is in the argument and ONLY in the argument, that anything can be justified. And so it makes sense to show what it is about the peaceful ethical presuppositions of argumentation that validates the libertarian ethic and also shows all other ethics to be unjustifiable.
“Part of what's troubled me about the argument is that it's always seemed like it's intended to be used as part of a cheap rhetorical trick. "Well then, I guess we aren't really arguing after all." (I don't think it was intended that way, only that I don't have a good feel for what it's supposed to be able to /do/ other than that.)�
It’s just rigorous, and the form of reasoning is kind of unusual to us, and yet at that same time, it is simple once you hammer away at it for some time. So when something as simple as this also demonstrates the a priori validity of the libertarian ethic, people freak out. But it is no trick and when you see this, all arguments against it will probably tend to strike you as quite surreal.
Published: September 7, 2006 5:07 PM
I'm curious about what you think of Roderick Long's critique of what he calls the Hoppriori argument. I assume you will disagree with him. Perhaps you could write an article or blog post in an attmept to refute it?
http://praxeology.net/unblog05-04.htm#10
Published: September 7, 2006 11:34 PM
Curious,
I hope I am not being presumptuous to guess you might be directing that question to me. If so, the answer is yes, or at least I have written a blog posting in response to Roderick’s comments here: http://blog.mises.org/archives/005071.asp if you search there for “I enjoyed your discussion of “The Hoppriori Argument� very much.�, you’ll find my swing at his position there.
There are other entries in that thread that follow where i debate a person or two.
Published: September 8, 2006 4:15 AM
Philosophy (huh!), what is it good for?
Published: September 8, 2006 8:10 AM
TGGP
Are you serious? Answer this then.
What is the use of ideas? What good are they?
Sione
Published: September 8, 2006 7:02 PM
I was aiming for a laugh. There's a well known song that goes "War (huh!) what is it good for!? Absolutely nothing!".
But seriously, how often is anyone in a situation where they have a pressing need to hire a philosopher? If you're a philosopher I guess you can teach philosophy to students so they can become teachers of philosophy. That's about it.
Published: September 9, 2006 1:37 PM
Rights are a silly fiction perpetrated on society by philosophers and other con men promoting nefarious agendas. There is nothing in nature to suggest that a human being has any special claim on life or liberty. Indeed, nature, whatever that is, seems to hold mankind in apathetic disregard, if at all.
Assert your right to life until the day you die. A lot of good it will have done you.
-- This post brought to you by the Postmodern Objective Truth Society of Bored Devil's Advocates.
Published: September 9, 2006 5:38 PM
Michael, your last comment about asserting a right not doing any good, is positivistic. It implies that teh "test" of normative claims is some kind of empirical success.
What you are missing here is that *rights are for civilized people*--not criminals. As always, criminals can only be dealt with by force or some other method; they are treated as mere technical problems. Rights are *for* civilized people. It is civilized people who seek to justify their action--and to whom? to criminals? No--to other civilized people.
When you call rights a fiction, you in essence validate rights. Because anyone who seriously maintains this position is unable to criticize the legitimacy of civilized people enforcing their conception of rights--which is all that the civilized person seeks anyway. So--thanks for the assist.
Published: September 9, 2006 7:30 PM
TGGP
So why do you regularly post your arguments on the VMI blog? After all, you are engaged in debating aspects of philosophy.
Sione
Published: September 11, 2006 1:26 AM
I'm not sure if many of my posts could be considered philosophical. In this thread I stated that the propositions usually debated in philosophy are subjective, which I suppose might count as a philosophical statement insofar as it deals with aspects of philosophy. In that sense the statement "Screw philosophy!" might count as well.
By the way, I'll count your comparing the field of philosophy to my posts on the VMI blog to be a small victory within my one-man-war on philosophy. Take that, Hegel & Kant!
Published: September 11, 2006 8:06 AM
On second thought, the second part of my last post doesn't make much sense and is likely the result of misreading and posting too early in the morning while not fully awake. Oh well. Rationality is just another form of bourgeouis oppression and to be truly free one must throw the shackles of such restricted thinking and its constraints on the use of language off oneself. Stop making sense and make sure you do everything for the lulz.
Published: September 11, 2006 8:22 AM