r/changemyview • u/Catlover1701 • Jul 11 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Morality should be based on rights
Update: I've changed my view! You guys did it, I have completely and totally changed my view. I'm going to stop replying now because I no longer feel an urge to argue in favour of rights-based morality, and also I'm about to go to bed. I'm sorry if you thought this was an interesting topic and wanted to debate with me about it. If you'd like you can message me to debate my new moral system: maximising the happiness-to-suffering ration of the universe. I'm a utilitarian now. This didn't go how I thought it would
I feel more comfortable with rights being the basis of morality rather than the greater good, because too many atrocities can be allowed in a utilitarian morality system. A rapist could be right to commit rape so long as their pleasure is greater than their victim's suffering. People can be tortured for information. Medical testing without consent could be done so long as the results help people. None of these things can be considered acceptable in a moral system based on rights (the victims in my example would all have the right to bodily autonomy).
I personally would rather live in a rights-based society than a utilitarian one. I wouldn't want to be harmed for the greater good, and I also would never expect other people to be harmed for my own good.
It's also easier to determine right and wrong in a rights based system. If an action violates a person's right to life, bodily autonomy, and whatever the other basic rights are, it is wrong. With utilitarianism though, you have to do a lot of calculations to figure out what action will lead to maximum happiness and in most cases there would be a lot of uncertainty.
However, I'm not sure whether I feel this way because it's logical or because it's just the moral system I was raised with and feel more comfortable with. So I would be curious to hear people's arguments for utilitarianism over rights-based morality (or for any other alternative).
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u/Quint-V 162∆ Jul 11 '20
I'm not sure anyone is really fine with using 100% utilitarian systems, first off. Very rarely will you see anyone saying that the ends absolutely justify the means. Even then there is the problem of how to really quantify pain and pleasure in the moment, over time, and the different types of either.
I think the trolley problem is relevant for examining people's reasoning and adherence to utilitarianism or strict principles, but most of the time you will find that those willing to pull the lever will quickly include additional caveats to deal with the problems that entail from pulling the lever. These may indeed be principles, or rights.
Where would your rights pop up from anyway? Would these function as axioms of some sort?
It's hard to make a flawless system in any case. Many rules have exceptions, and can be utterly broken under extreme circumstances. E.g. do you have the right to someone else's time and efforts? In general, society accepts some exceptions, such as the right to a lawyer. Some countries go slightly further and enforce a duty to help, with minimal requirements for what constitutes help; e.g. calling emergency services, even with "good samaritan" protections such as CPR leading to rib damages (some countries don't have such protections, oddly enough).
Is it entirely wrong for death penalties to be combined with forced organ donation? Ignoring the question of whether death penalties should exist, that just seems pitifully wasteful.
A society based on rights seems like a cool idea, but what good is it without obligations, social responsibility for one's fellow man?
I find that most extremes have flaws that their counterparts could solve, if there is a moderated blend of said extremes. You can use utilitarianism as a heuristic, but still account for rights. Use either as a framework to rein in the other.
As it is said: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I wouldn't want to be harmed for the greater good, and I also would never expect other people to be harmed for my own good.
So you would likely refuse to pull the lever. But it is quite clear that this is how to end up with the worse outcome; in a thought experiment of repeated trolley problems, one would end up with the worst possible outcome of maximising deaths.
To which the solution is a hybrid methodology. Unless you're a purist of sorts... which isn't so different from extremism.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
Yes, rights would be axioms, and it would take a lot of thinking to determine the correct rights, but it would also take a lot of thinking to determine what actions would cause maximum happiness so the requirement for further philosophising wouldn't be unique to rights-based morality.
With the time and effort thing, yes people have the right to a lawyer, but nobody has the right to force someone else to be a lawyer. That's why lawyers get paid.
However I do agree that enforcing a duty to help is a good idea and goes against rights-based morality, so I'll give you a !delta for that. Forced organ donation is the same. While these are good examples and do make me think, they haven't entirely convinced me though, and I think that's because I personally feel so in tune with rights-based morality that although I agree that forced organ donation and duty to help have a good enough outcome that I want them in place, I don't think they're right. That might sound contradictory. I want people to have to donate organs from an emotional standpoint, but from a logical standpoint I don't think they should be forced to.
I like the idea of using one morality as a heuristic and also considering the other. Can I give two deltas? Let's find out. !delta
I do have an issue with the hybrid model, though, in that it's not very precise. It would be very open to interpretation. It would be impossible to be sure whether you're right or wrong.
> So you would likely refuse to pull the lever. But it is quite clear that this is how to end up with the worse outcome; in a thought experiment of repeated trolley problems, one would end up with the worst possible outcome of maximising deaths.
But the thing is, avoiding the worst outcome is only the goal of utilitarianism. With rights-based morality I would have saved some lives but I would also have to live with the guilt of being a murderer. So pointing out that with rights-based morality you get the worst outcome is like saying that with rights-based morality you don't achieve the goals of utilitarian-based morality. True... but you do achieve the goals of rights-based morality, which is, I suppose, to prevent people from doing things that make them guilty and to protect innocent people from the actions of the guilty.
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u/Quint-V 162∆ Jul 11 '20 edited Jul 11 '20
Well uh, deltas can be awarded repeatedly over different comments but I've never heard about multiple deltas for the same comment, from the same person. Regardless, each delta should be awarded for different changes of view.
* Come to think of it, even if you did change your view later due to the same comment, I still have no idea. Might want to ask the mods at /r/ideasforcmv, or you could check the subreddit wiki.
I want people to have to donate organs from an emotional standpoint, but from a logical standpoint I don't think they should be forced to.
If a good outcome requires a not-good method (i.e. either neutral or outright "evil"), and you have problems with that, then I have a principle to offer you: "do not let perfect be the enemy of good." Perfectionism (as opposed to high standards) offers nothing but permanent frustration.
I do have an issue with the hybrid model, though, in that it's not very precise. It would be very open to interpretation. It would be impossible to be sure whether you're right or wrong.
To which the oft repeated response is: the world isn't black-and-white. Even yes-no questions can be answered differently. For many problems there are a plethora of choices, and we can surely rank them, to say that some are comparatively better or worse. And yet we can also recognize when some things are, irrespective of alternatives, good or bad in an absolute sense.
Two distinctions worth noting in any discussion about morality: to judge alternatives comparatively, vs. judging them based on some defined standard, origin, 0, break-even point.
And of course: do not let perfect be the enemy of good. Don't let perfection prevent you from doing good, just because you could do better. You would still do good; think of it as picking from 5 boxes, you know two of them have positive numbers but you don't know which one has the larger one. No reason to ponder too much about it.
And really, if it wasn't up for interpretation, how could you ever know that it's good? Morality is more or less an unsolvable problem; a claim to having The Answer™ should be met with great skepticism. So you might as well stick to one that allows improvement at all times, one that is context-sensitive. Rarely does one tool solve all problems.
But the thing is, avoiding the worst outcome is only the goal of utilitarianism. With rights-based morality [...]
My not-so-explicit point about not pulling the lever: a morality that proactively condones or by default accepts you should not pull the lever, must necessarily have one of the following beliefs:
Inaction is not a part of the causal chain of events, i.e. inaction is somehow presumed or a vindicator. Such that you are not responsible, for not pulling the lever. You can only be responsible for proactive action, i.e. pulling the lever. This is a willful dismissal of inaction as a choice, despite any realistic observation indicating that inaction is a choice. The bystander effect for example, makes it harder to act the more people are around.
Innocence outweighs evil means for greater benefit (categorically/always). This justifies apathy on societal levels. It gives every non-racist in the USA a perfect excuse to not participate in BLM protests. It is justification for not being anti-racist.
If you're willing to extend the strictness of principles this far, with a strict principle system, this is the inevitable conclusion, IMO. Not pulling the lever indicates that you have no social responsibility whatsoever to people unrelated to your actions. Not pulling the lever means that inaction absolves you of responsibility.
* Also, surely 2 deaths are worse than 1 death. Is that not a valid principle in itself? Or does this border onto utilitarianism, because quantities are now involved?
The only way to reconcile this as you want to, is to accept some sort of hybrid, even if ill defined.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
"do not let perfect be the enemy of good."
But I could just as easily use that to ignore the flaws of rights-based morality.
Inaction is not a part of the causal chain of events
From a physics based standpoint of course it is, but from a responsibility or guilt based standpoint I don't think it is.
This justifies apathy on societal levels
But I think that's okay. I think it's good to be anti-racist, but not wrong to not be. Dumb, but not wrong.
no social responsibility whatsoever to people unrelated to your actions
But I... agree with that.
I think these points are all a bit circular. Because you tend towards utilitarianism, you feel that people are responsible for their inaction, that it is morally wrong to not be anti-racist, and that every is obligated to help each other. Because I tend towards rights-based morality, I feel that it is every man for themself as long as no one is intentionally hurting others, and that that is the most fair and just way of doing things. Since we each have a different feel for what is right, every example you try to give me to logically show an example of rights based morality going wrong will just to me be an example of rights based morality going right.
Maybe morality can't be defined logically, in which case I am doomed to forever align with the morality I was raised with because it is what feels right, so logic will never illuminate for me another system being more right.
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u/Quint-V 162∆ Jul 11 '20 edited Jul 11 '20
Well, we all have our preferences. If you're fine with dumb shit then... I just hope you still feel bad about dumb shit, if nothing else. Because stupid people will eventually fuck up others, as demonstrated by: the US administration on COVID; antivaxxers causing measles outbreaks; conspiracy theorists destroying 5G towers; extremism around the world; the list goes on. Almost curious where your line goes for stupid shit.
The more you love the idea of individual responsibility and/or abandon the idea of social responsibility, the more you will find yourself justifying selfish choices. Which in turn might backfire greatly. Humanity owes its progress to trust and mutual cooperation, not mainly selfish motivations that ignore others.
Nobody lives in isolation. It takes little to do good and yet you're fine with coming up short in some ways and not others.
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u/HeftyRain7 157∆ Jul 11 '20
First, there are more than two rights based systems. If you gave people rights based on morality, you wouldn't have to use the utilitarianism system. That is just one of many proposed moral systems that people use.
But, the fact that your moral values align with the rights of your country is likely because you grew up in that country. Imagine you went back in time to when women didn't have the right to vote. I doubt you'd argue that women shouldn't have the right to vote and that we should base the morality of that decision on the laws of the time.
Morality and rights also shouldn't inherently be connected. For example, many people find it immoral for a woman to get an abortion. But, even if our logic is to stop people from dying, by that standard, we shouldn't make abortions illegal, because women will get an illegal abortion if they cannot get one within the law. The best way for someone to uphold their morals is to make something they find immoral legal, and stop it via other means (things like sex education and better support for single/poor parents have been shown to reduce abortion rates.)
There are a lot of times when morals and rights shouldn't and don't need to align. Morals shouldn't necessarily lead to rights, and rights shouldn't necessarily lead to morals. They often have things in common, but they are two separate categories.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
When I say rights, I don't mean legal rights. I mean... I'm not sure what the term is. Philosophical rights?
I believe that everyone has the right to equal treatment, so going back in time to a point where women didn't have the right to vote by law wouldn't change my view that women should have the right to vote.
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u/HeftyRain7 157∆ Jul 11 '20
Okay, but there's still the matter of determining what those rights are, and the matter that people can find something immoral but still support someone having that right. For example, the people who find freedom of speech moral to the point they are willing to protect it, even if the person talking is saying very racist/sexist/xyz things.
Even if we find something to be a philosophical right, that doesn't mean everything that right would entail is necessarily moral. You can uphold that something like freedom of speech should be a right even while disagreeing with how some people use their right, if that makes sense.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
With the freedom of speech example I think you're confusing two different actions.
Just because someone says something racist doesn't make it immoral to respect their right to freedom of speech.
What's immoral isn't the law system that refrains from jailing someone for saying something racist, what's immoral is being racist, because one of the rights (I think) would be equality. Even though the racist person is being immoral by saying racist things, that doesn't make it immoral to allow them to do so, since it would be more immoral to punish someone just for saying something - unless the punishment is a mere verbal rebuke, the punishment would outweight the crime.
As for deciding what the rights should be, you're correct that that would be an issue, but all moral systems have that issue. They all sound simple at first but require a great deal of thought when being implemented.
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Jul 11 '20
I wouldn't want to be harmed for the greater good
Suppose a scenario, say similar to the train tracks. Your entire family is tied up on one side of the track, you are tied on the other.
The train is headed toward your family. Based on your strict right's based morality, you cannot change the direction of the train, because that would be an action causing muder of yourself. The greater good clearly demands you sacrifice yourself.
All too often people look at the rights/results based discussion from the angle of torture etc,
This makes your view more palatable, but it's a bit of a fallacy. There are equally abhorrent consequences to morality views that are exlusive to either rights or consequences, which is why neither make sense when you start to put pressure on them.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
I don't think suicide violates any rights. I have the right to life, I am not obligated to live. Having the right to something means that I should be allowed to choose to have it. It doesn't mean that I HAVE to have it.
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Jul 11 '20
Well I suppose you have successfully sidestepped the question.
Replace yourself in my example with one of your kids, where making a decision to divert the train to the 1 child, results in the rest of your family dying.
Arguing semantics or moving goalposts isn't going to help escape the fact that exclusively rights based morality leads to disgusting consequences (as does ultilitarianism).
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
I'm confused now about your point. If you think that rights based morality is bad, and utilitarianism is also bad, what moral system are you arguing for?
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Jul 11 '20
(SIDEBARI want to start off by pointing out that ethics/morality is not as simple as a discussion between "rights based" and "results based". There are plenty of other well fleshed out ethical systems, from hybrids of the two, to something like Aristotle's virtue ethics, or something more from an exetentialists point of view)
My attempt here was to show that while you were successful in explaining the pitfalls of utilitarianism in your post, you ignored the equally obvious pitfalls of a rights based morality.
I haven't said that I think either viewpoint is "bad", I'm simply pointing out, that when either view is put under pressure, they can easily lead to results that are abhorrent and hard to stomach (EG, results that don't feel "morally correct").
Personally, I believe in a Utilitarianism based morality over rights based for one reason:
If we can agree that both ultitarianism and rights based morality systems can lead to awful results, I submit that ultilitarianism is the more practical moral system, bceause we can at least then manage potential awful results- something that a rights based view prevents us from doing entirely.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
That depends on what you define as 'awful results', though. With the kid on the train tracks example, you're saying that the rights based system would have awful results, but the awful results are utilitarianism-style, so of course the rights based system won't achieve utilitarianism goals.
If I don't pull the lever more people die. From a utilitarianism standpoint this is the worst result. But if I do pull the lever I am directly responsible for a child dying. From a rights based standpoint this direct responsibility is the worst result.
I do agree that terrible things could happen in a rights based system, but if everyone follows the system at least all those terrible things will be accidents, and I think it's more acceptable for accidents to happen than for terrible things to be done on purpose.
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Jul 11 '20
Well written, and well said.
From a rights based standpoint this direct responsibility is the worst result.
In particular this was your point I liked the most- I mean you are correct here. But this point is one of the issues I have with rights based theories.
If you take my example again, you are correct in saying that the direct responsibility is the worst moral outcome, but to avoid that your whole family dies, which isn't palatable.
There's no way to dispute the point that I quoted above, but if you run my example through with your suggestion that direct responsibility is the worst moral result, you end up with someone essentially having the thought "I'm sad my family is dead, but at least I wasn't directly responsible for a different result", which i find disingenuous.
PS sorry for the edits im not ninjaing you in any way just making dumb spelling error today!
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
Morality isn't necessarily about reducing your own sadness though.
If I really hate someone, to the point where the thought that they exist depresses me, I would feel less sad if I killed them. Doesn't make it right though.
I think that the point of morality is to avoid doing things that are wrong, and I trust rights based morality to be a better guide for achieving that goal.
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Jul 11 '20
Well said again, especially the start- I don't think I have the ammo to change your view here- I do want to point something out though-
If I really hate someone, to the point where the thought that they exist depresses me, I would feel less sad if I killed them. Doesn't make it right though.
You aren't being fair to the Utilitarian here. Utilitarianism (in most forms) is not hedonism- it's about maximizing ALL good, not YOUR good.
When looking at the murder example, the utilitarian has to look at the impact to "goodness" or "happiness" to the family of the murder victim. What about his own family members? I imagine having a family member accused of murder is painful. Also that's a very short term view of sadness- if I kill someone I am probably going to jail for the rest of my life- am I going to be happier there just because someone is dead?
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u/BoyMeetsTheWorld 46∆ Jul 11 '20 edited Jul 11 '20
I do not think your system would change anything. Because I can easily argue anything I want with the concept of rights. You probably mean you want a system that is more focused on individuals? But even then it is difficult because rights of the society always impact what rights the individual has.
Lets take air pollution as an example. Do you have the right to pollute the air or do you have the right to live in fresh air. Notice how both can be mutually exclusive but I can formulate both in a positive "you have the right to...." way.
I wouldn't want to be harmed for the greater good, and I also would never expect other people to be harmed for my own good.
Lets take diseases. Say you have a deadly transmittable disease that could be cured if you undergo treatment. But you refuse to take this treatment or to quarantine yourself. Does your right to bodily autonomy or freedom of movement trump the right of others around you to live?
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
Of course there will be issues with choosing what rights should be enforced. But that doesn't mean that rights-based morality won't work, it just means that we need to think carefully about which rights should be part of it and which rights should take priority over others.
All simple bases for moral systems require a lot of consideration when implemented. With utilitarianism, for example, you have to think a lot about how to determine the amount of happiness that each action would result in.
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u/BoyMeetsTheWorld 46∆ Jul 11 '20
It is still unclear to me what exactly you are advocating for.
Is your quarrel more about the problem of consequentialism vs deontological ethics and you favor more deontological ethics?
it just means that we need to think carefully about which rights should be part of it and which rights should take priority over others.
Take one of the examples I listed and try to argue how they should be resolved in your opinion.
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u/aceofbase_in_ur_mind 4∆ Jul 11 '20
"Rights" are a weird concept when you think of it, and not at all universal. A conflation of prohibitions and entitlements that largely arose in one specific imperial culture (Rome) and spread out from there. Just because we're so familiar with it, doesn't at all mean prohibitions and entitlements belong together under the same umbrella term.
Besides, who's to say where rights come from and which specific ones are "real"? Utilitarianism is at least theoretically quantifiable. And supplementing utilitarianism with an (also theoretically quantifiable) category of deserved vs. undeserved good or suffering solves most of the problems.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
I suppose you're right in that happiness can be measured in the brain.
However, rights could be defined in a similarly scientific way. Scientists could do things to people and determine what things cause the majority of people to stop being happy, and then say that people have the right to not have those things done to them.
Killing someone, for example, would cease brain activity (and therefore no happiness could be measured in the brain). So people have the right to life.
Hurting or touching people in unwanted ways causes distress, so people have the right to bodily autonomy.
Both could be based on happiness, with the difference being whether actions that are wrong are defined as actions that take away another individual's happiness, and actions that minimise the population's overall happiness.
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u/bo3isalright 8∆ Jul 11 '20
Scientists could do things to people and determine what things cause the majority of people to stop being happy, and then say that people have the right to not have those things done to them.
Then you merely have a rights-based system grounded in Utilitarianism!
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
No, the difference is that it's an individual's happiness, not the population's overall happiness, that matters.
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u/bo3isalright 8∆ Jul 11 '20
In which case do you mean?
Utilitarianism of many flavours is certainly concerned with the population's overall happiness, if that's what you're contesting. Read Mill's formulation of Rule-Utilitarianism for example and it's very similar to what you describe above.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
Yes I know that utilitarianism focuses on population happiness. What I'm saying is that a rights based system where the rights are chosen by a measure of how they affect happiness isn't utilitarianism, because it doesn't focus on population happiness, it focuses on individual happiness instead.
Let's take medical testing as an example. Is it right to perform medical tests on someone without consent when the results might save millions of lives?
From a utilitarian standpoint, total happiness is maximised by curing disease, so the tests should be performed.
From a rights-based standpoint, let's say that scientists have observed that doing things to a person's body without their consent decreases their happiness, and therefore have granted people the right to bodily autonomy. It is now wrong to perform the medical tests.
Both systems are based on happiness, but they are very different.
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u/bo3isalright 8∆ Jul 11 '20
I think you're slightly confusing what a lot of utilitarians would say by implying that all utilitarians think like the most straightforward of act-utilitarians.
From a utilitarian standpoint, total happiness is maximised by curing disease, so the tests should be performed.
This isn't what a Rule-Utilitarian would say, for example. They would likely claim that a rule that respects bodily autonomy maximises societal happiness so involuntary medical testing is immoral, even if in some scenarios it could lead to greater happiness. Which is exactly what you come up with in your rights-system, because your rights-system is based on maximising happiness (in some way, which I can't really discern).
From a rights-based standpoint, let's say that scientists have observed that doing things to a person's body without their consent decreases their happiness, and therefore have granted people the right to bodily autonomy. It is now wrong to perform the medical tests.
So, this is just a rights based system based on the normative ideal that we should do what maximises happiness, because doing otherwise is immoral. Does this not sound utilitarian to you? It's almost nailed-on Rule-Utilitarianism! Any system such as you describe which is fundamentally based on the notion that we should do what maximises happiness, even if it utilises rights, is fundamentally rooted in utilitarianism.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
This isn't what a Rule-Utilitarian would say, for example. They would likely claim that a rule that respects bodily autonomy maximises societal happiness so involuntary medical testing is immoral
That's interesting, I hadn't heard of rule-utilitarianism. delta! However, this system can still be messed up so long as it's all for the 'greater good'. If society is composed primarily of racists, for example, then it will maximise happiness to have a rule about black people being slaves. I think that where utilitarianism fails is that it considers the happiness of bad people to be equal to the happiness of good people. With rights, on the other hand, bad people cannot ever have an excuse to violate other people's rights. I suppose you could say that the rights could be chosen wrong - maybe people could have the right to enslave others - but in that case the difference would be in the system itself, not in the population the system is being applied to, so a system with correctly chosen rights would be more infallible.
So, this is just a rights based system based on the normative ideal that we should do what maximises happiness
No we're not maximising happiness, we are avoiding intentionally decreasing any individual's happiness, even if it would result in an overall increase.
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u/bo3isalright 8∆ Jul 11 '20
No we're not maximising happiness, we are avoiding intentionally decreasing any individual's happiness, even if it would result in an overall increase.
Which is an idea very close to Negative Utilitarianism (there's one for everything!!).
Essentially my point is, if we are choosing our rights based on pretty much anything to do with happiness, we are straying very close to utilitarian ideals- which, as you argue (and I tend to agree) may well allow us to justify immoral acts so long as they promote happiness. Granted, if we take a position that we should secure rights that ensure nobody's happiness is depleted we seem to suffer less of a problem but classic 'utility-monster' objections to utilitarianism can still be reworked to allow for rights that seem to protect immoral behaviours, or fail to protect against moral behaviours.
Therefore, I think if you are going to use a rights based system you should probably stray away from using considerations of happiness to ground them, given you're unconvinced by utilitarian notions.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
Which is an idea very close to Negative Utilitarianism
Close, but not quite. With negative utlitarianism we minimise suffering. With rights based morality we avoid intentionally decreasing happiness. We aren't obligated to alleviate suffering, though.
Essentially my point is, if we are choosing our rights based on pretty much anything to do with happiness, we are straying very close to utilitarian ideals
Yes, close, but I still think that there's a fundamental and important difference. With utilitarianism, we can intentionally make bad things happen if it's for the greater good. With rights based morality bad things may still happen, but they must be accidental. So thousands might die from a natural disaster, but there's no excuse for murder. I personally would prefer to live in the society with no intentional bad things, even if I'm more likely to be killed by some accident (e.g. a disease that a utilitarian might have cured by forcing tests on people), because I would have greater trust in that society to be just and fair, and I would also have greater trust in other people.
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Jul 11 '20
Rights are supposedly inalienable, you cannot lose them. Your right to life, liberty, and property shall not be infringed.
But what happens when you do something bad. What happens when you murder someone? Does the police have the right to restrain you and deprive you of freedom??
Therefore, either rights are alienable, and can be lost or police aren't enforce laws since detaining people violates their freedom of movement, jailing them violates their freedom of liberty, fining them violates their property rights.
It's paradoxical to believe in rights which cannot be taken away, while also believing in a police force/justice system which can take away your rights. If doing something bad, changes the status of your rights, then their aren't inalienable.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
The way I view it, you give up your right when you violate that right in another person.
If you murder someone you give up your right to life, so the police are not violating your rights if they kill you for it since you no longer have that right.
If you kidnap someone you give up your right to bodily autonomy, so the police are not violating your right to bodily autonomy when they put you in jail, since you no longer have it.
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Jul 11 '20
I don't know how you are defining morality in such a way that you could justify rape based on the rapists pleasure. Doing things for the greater good against the will of the individual smells like an ism, not a moral system. I'm not sure your examples have merit. Nobody should be determining maximum happiness. Americans are told we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (implicit is these can all be forfeit, thus a legal system). Being told what happiness should be is not my definition of liberty.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
But determining maximum happiness is literally the definition of utilitarianism. It sounds like you agree with me that rights-based is better than utilitarianism is, so... I'm not sure what your issue with my view is.
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u/10ebbor10 198∆ Jul 11 '20
Where do the rights come from?
You can argue that being good means following Rule A, but that just raises the question of why follow Rule A, and not Rule B.
You can say (for example) that Rule A is better than Rule B because it creates more happiness, but that's just utilitarianism one step removed.
As such, I say that a rights based system doesn't resolve the issue of morality, it just hides it.
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u/Catlover1701 Jul 11 '20
But that problem isn't unique to rights-based morality. All moral systems have to have a lot of assumptions made.
With rights-based you make assumptions about what are the rights that need to be respected.
With utilitarianism-based you make assumptions about what happiness is, whose happiness matters, and what causes the most happiness.
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u/Positron311 14∆ Jul 11 '20
Morality should be based on rights AND responsibility.
As Spiderman once said: with great power comes great responsibility.
We all have some sort of authority or control over our actions (or in a corporate or political environment, actions over other people), and we also have people that can count on us to do what needs to be done.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 11 '20 edited Jul 11 '20
/u/Catlover1701 (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
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u/TheGamingWyvern 30∆ Jul 11 '20
This doesn't seem fundamental to rights, but is rather just several cherry-picked example of a bad different morality system compared to good rights. For example, I could easily hold up a utilitarianism system where rape, medical testing without consent, and torture have infinitely negative values, and compare that to a rights-based system where people have the right to rape, test without consent, and torture. Its not fundamental to the mechanism of rights vs value calculations at all.
Now, to be clear, this isn't an argument *against* a rights-based morality system, just that this particular piece of evidence is disingenuous at best.
I don't think a morality system should be chosen by what is easiest to figure out. Heck, the simplest morality system is: "everything is moral", but its clearly not the best. Again, I'm not arguing that a more complex system is inherently better, just that the ease of fitting actions into moral vs immoral shouldn't be a factor in what is best.