What's the "Rights" Answer?

I don't have any "rights." Rights don't exist outside of consensus agreement. 

In other words, they're all made up. Thoughts?

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook and got over 100 comments in response. It seemed like everyone wanted to weigh in on the subject. While reading these comments I realized that most people (or at least those in this small sample) were just guessing as to how their rights were granted to them.  I took a moment to write this on her page and, considering it's a philosophical discussion, I thought I'd share my response here.

Citizens rights is a topic the enlightenment thinkers of the late 16 and early 1700's were wrestling with. There were three primary voices: Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and they each were trying to lay the groundwork to establish a just society with as many freedoms as possible.

They each started with a basic belief of what Man is like in his natural state, but they couldn't even agree on that. Hobbes believed that Man was a brutish animal, and without any restrictions he would always be in a state of war. He thought that the only way to create a society from this starting point was to have what he termed a "Leviathan," or a single ruler with supreme power, that would enforce order. In his society we would give all our rights to the ruler, and that ruler would give us back the rights he deemed appropriate. He called this the "sphere of freedom" and you could do anything you wanted as long as you stayed within the sphere. If you acted outside the sphere (i.e. did something that was not approved by the ruler) you would be punished.

Locke was quoted a lot in the writings of our founding fathers. He was a religious man who believed that we had God given rights of Life, Liberty and Property. He felt that no governing body had authority to deprive any individual of these rights because they came from God. He believed in a "Social Contract" which was similar to Hobbes where we would give up all of our rights (except for those granted by God) to the state and the state would determine what rights we would get back. But unlike Hobbes, Locke was interested in a representative government because he believed that your elected official, a man who had to live under the laws he would pass, would be more just, as far as granting rights, then a King.

Rousseau believed that man in his natural state had no rights, and unlike Locke who focused on the individual, Rousseau believed in the collective "we." He believed that it wasn't until people got together and became a community that rights could be decided. He wanted to make sure that man could live as free as possible and he believed that the only way to do that was to allow the community to establish rights as a whole. He felt that a man who gave up his rights freely would be a happy man. Those rights would be agreed upon by all the people of the community, and once agreed, the people would be free to live within the bounds of the laws that they themselves created.

So yes, governmental structure and its authority is just made up, as are the rights of its citizens. And even though none of us were around when it all happened, we give our tacit consent by remaining citizens, to abide by the laws of the land, and we accept the rights we are granted by the governing body.

What do you think?

If you have any thoughts about "rights," or if you agree with or disagree with anything I've said here I'd love to hear about it. Also please feel free to ask me questions on anything that seems unclear. Your questions will force me to think things through a little more thoroughly, and will help me understand my own thoughts a little better.

One last thing, if you liked this post and you think you’d be interested in hearing my thoughts on future topics, or taking part in the conversation, subscribe to this blog and that way you won’t miss a thing. Thanks, talk to you soon.

The Fallacy of Truth

I heard it said recently that the purpose of philosophy is to “seek the truth.” I will get into what I feel the purpose of philosophy is later in this blog, but for this post I want to delve into the topic of truth.

What is truth?

•       When I was young I was surprised to find out that a tomato was a fruit. To me, all the fruit I’d ever had was sweet and tomatoes weren’t sweet.

•       When I was growing up I was taught in school that that there were nine planets in our solar system. A few years back scientists determined that Pluto was no longer a planet.

•       Back in the day, everyone knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the world was flat. Now we are just as certain that the world is spherical.

One could look at these three examples as I did and come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as the truth, but only our understanding of things. Language is of course made up of words and each of those words has a definition. If a group of people get together and vote to change the definition of a word, as in the case of Pluto, then the reality of our understanding changes as well.

How can someone find a truth that they can rely on

if all the things we know are subject to change?

I took one of the above examples and focused on it for a while: the whole flat-earth, spherical-earth thing. We were sure that the earth was flat and if you had asked anyone about the truth of the earth they would’ve told you beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was flat.  Then we discovered that it was spherical and now if you ask anyone they will tell you the “truth” about planet earth is that it is spherical. Our understanding, and consequently what is true for us changed, but the shape of the earth didn’t.

As a thought experiment I thought, “What if someday we discover that the earth is really hexagonal in shape.” I know, crazy right, but just go with me. I'm sure a spherical earth sounded crazy to the flat-earth people too. This new discovery would become our new understanding. Our new "truth." But the shape of this planet still wouldn’t have changed at all. In this scenario, earth would have always been hexagonal. Its shape would have remained constant, only our understanding of the shape of the planet would have changed.

Then it hit me, there is an ultimate “truth,” and it is constant, but we may never learn it because of our own limitations as human beings. The closest we will ever get to it is our current understanding, and in the quest for a “truth” our current understanding is the only thing that really matters.

So as philosophers I think the search for truth is a waste of time. I believe it is sciences job to discover the truth about things. Come back next time and I’ll tell you what I think a philosopher’s job is.

What do you think?

If you have any thoughts about "truth," or if you agree with or disagree with anything I've said here I'd love to hear about it. Also please feel free to ask me questions on anything that seems unclear. Your questions will force me to think things through a little more thoroughly, and will help me understand my own thoughts a little better

One last thing, if you liked this post and you think you’d be interested in hearing my thoughts on future topics, or taking part in the conversation, subscribe to this blog and that way you won’t miss a thing. Thanks, and I'll see you next time.

2012: A Year of Higher Pleasures

--> Another year filled with tons of changes. One would think that by this point in my life I’d have my course set and each year would be pretty much like the last only more so, but alas that’s simply not the case.

 

At the end of last year I knew that I was leaving the film industry but I wasn’t sure what the future held for me, so I went back to school. I’ve now taken two English courses, two Philosophy courses, a Sociology course, and a Health Basics course, and I’m proud to say that after two semesters I’m a straight “A” student.

Both of my English classes had a ton of writing assignments, and several of my papers got published on a website called The Hollywood Quarterly (www.thehollywoodquarterly.com). On top of the normal essays, I was tapped to write a short play based on my classmates suggestions. This short play, a sci-fi/thriller, was also published on the same site.

Over the summer I turned the short play into a short screenplay and submitted it to the AOF film festival. Not only was it accepted into the festival, I was nominated for two awards: Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Best Dialogue, and won for the latter.

While at the festival I met an Award Winning Director, Anthony Bushman, and we decided to work together to produce my short screenplay titled Butterfly Dust. Providing we can get the money together, we intend to shoot this spring, and begin to submit to festivals over the summer. Remember when I said I was leaving the film industry…? It seems like the universe has other plans. My daughter says that I do a terrible job at quiting.

Through the work I’ve done in my Philosophy class, I have begun to develop my own philosophical views. I’m going to use this blog to begin to flesh them out and hopefully deliver them in small “bite-sized” chunks. I’m hoping that by writing my thoughts here, I’ll be able to figure out how all the pieces fit together, and I’ll be able to make this jumble of ideas a little clearer and more consise.

As you read the upcoming blog posts, please ask me questions on anything that seems unclear. Your questions will force me to think things through a little more thoroughly, and will help me understand my own thoughts a little better

One last thing, if you’d be interested in hearing my thoughts, or taking part in the conversation, subscribe to this blog and that way you won’t miss a thing.

Thanks for reading, and have a great 2013.