So the right to life is a human construct? That means that it is totally okay for the police to shoot everyone they don't like.
Rights are not a human construct; they are inalienable, given by a Creator, and we will be accountable to Him for stepping on the rights of others, and He expects us to do what we can to preserve the rights of others as well.
> So the right to life is a human construct? That means that it is totally okay for the police to shoot everyone they don't like.
No, it doesn't. Language is a human construct,¹ and yet there's yaught bleep mÜOL87 øō°0o. So something being a human construct doesn't mean you can safely ignore it.
Language is a human construct, yes, that cannot be ignored.
But even if there are human constructs that cannot be ignored, my example with police still stands because since the police are the power, they can "construct" rights or deconstruct them still, which means they can ignore rights if they are just a human construct, a construct that they themselves supposedly helped build.
In fact, your argument is really in favor of the ideology that the strongest deserve to rule the weak. That is not the case.
> In fact, your argument is really in favor of the ideology that the strongest deserve to rule the weak.
That's kind of irrelevant. Ideologies are great, manipulative things, seizing every argument and foothold they can to support themselves. Saying “nobody actually exists” counters “the strongest deserve to rule the weak” quite nicely, but it isn't true; arguing “people really exist” is an argument in favour of that ideology, but that doesn't make it false.
The idea of God-given rights has, historically, been the major justification behind “the strongest deserve to rule the weak”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings Does that make you less inclined to believe it? (The answer should be no.)
Ignore manipulative, harmful ideologies until you can shun or counter them. If the Evil Ideology monopolises certain truths, and is the only set of philosophy (that purports to be) grounded in those truths, it seems to all but philosophers like the Evil Ideology is a consequence of those truths.
You said that the idea of God-given rights was used as the major justification for "the strongest deserve to rule the weak", but that is a non-sequitur; you know that what I mean here is the God-given rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," which decidedly goes against the divine right of kings theory.
In fact, if humanism is about human agency, then I am saying that police officers who give themselves the right to shoot people are violating humanism because they violate the agency of others.
That said, rejecting God, rather His principles, will lead to authoritarianism because as man turns away from the principles of correct living, he becomes more of an animal and must be governed. Thus, authoritarianism arises.
But, aren't human police bound by/to human constructs?
I've always wondered why the "Him", "He", turns "Cap H Christians" do it out of respect, not grammar. I've been reading about Haile Selassie, often referred to as "HIM" or His Imperial Majesty.
"The words 'people of the United States' and 'citizens' are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the 'sovereign people,' and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."
> That means that it is totally okay for the police to shoot everyone they don't like.
there's what people can do, and the consequences of it. rights are just a statement about consequences, but just a statement, which is why cops don't have the right to kill without consequences, but in practice they kill without consequences.
Personal project: Exact odds calculation algo and system for Betfair’s Exchange Hi Lo card game. Haskell and C. Sadly found that no liquidity available at calculated odds: https://github.com/jpcooper/betfair-exchange-hi-lo-odds
Most recently doing: Data acquisition, analysis and development in cryptocurrency, betting. Python and Pandas mostly.
Looking for: Interesting work fitting with my background. Not bound to any particular technology or ideology and have a record of picking new ones up quickly.
> The word would is a past-tense form of the verb to will. Checkmate
Here, its an modal verb modifying “like” into the subjunctive mood.
Where it is a past tense of “will” its the other “will” (the modal verb expressing future tense or habitual action), not the active verb referring to exercising will (of which the past tense is “willed”, not “would”.)
Although I've seen a usage (though I think its either actually archaic or an affected archaicism) in which the modal-active combination “would will” expressing exercise of will in the subjunctive mood reduced simply to just “would”, so “would” is sometimes used a form of the verb “to will” in the sense of “exercise will”, but, still, not in the use under discussion.
Personal project: Exact odds calculation algo and system for Betfair’s Exchange Hi Lo card game. Haskell and C. Sadly found that no liquidity available at calculated odds: https://github.com/jpcooper/betfair-exchange-hi-lo-odds
Most recently doing: Data acquisition, analysis and development in cryptocurrency, betting. Python and Pandas mostly.
Looking for: Interesting work fitting with my background. Not bound to any particular technology or ideology and have a record of picking new ones up quickly.