1994-06-10 - Re: Crime and punishment in cyberspace - 3 of 3

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From: Patrick Juola <juola@suod.cs.colorado.edu>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: bd44dcb7d1a581b9b89a78c8e51655c1b1b371b64b8a084ff766bf5ac3ad961b
Message ID: <199406101545.JAA29420@suod.cs.colorado.edu>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1994-06-10 15:45:57 UTC
Raw Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 08:45:57 PDT

Raw message

From: Patrick Juola <juola@suod.cs.colorado.edu>
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 08:45:57 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Crime and punishment in cyberspace - 3 of 3
Message-ID: <199406101545.JAA29420@suod.cs.colorado.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


  > 
  > Well, that's one view of rights.  However, most attempts to base so 
  > called natural rights (i.e. rights that are somehow intrinsic to human 
  > existence) have been largely unsuccesful.  It's a tough argument to make.
  >
  Seems to me the 'inalienable rights' that are mentioned in our founding 
  charter carry this argument quite well. I suspect they also 'prove' them
  as well.

Proof by declaration of self-evidence?  ``We hold these truths to
be self-evident.... that [all humans] are endowed by their creator
with certain inalienable rights."  If, for some reason, I claim that
the right to liberty is *not* self-evident, it can be very difficult
to convince me otherwise.

This is one of the difficulties of natural-rights arguments; that they
tend to assert certain rights (right to privacy, right to property,
right to personal space, right to free speech, &c) axiomatically when they
are often the subject of the discussion.

Patrick





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