The priority of morality to law
Amartya Sen considers the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
[T]he Declaration took the firm view that human rights do not depend on legislation for recognition. People have these rights simply by virtue of being human. The contention here was that the acknowledgment of a human right is best seen not as a putative legal instrument, but as an important ethical demand–a demand that everyone should have certain freedoms irrespective of citizenship, nationality, and location. Such a recognition would lead to fresh legislation rather than await it. The Declaration championed the priority of morality to law.
That’s useful – the idea that the acknowledgment of a human right should be seen as an important ethical demand rather than as a legal instrument. The ethical demand comes first, then the legal instruments are drawn up in accordance with it.
Such a recognition would lead to fresh legislation rather than await it. The Declaration championed the priority of morality to law. It constituted an open invitation to all to re-organize the world in such a way that the basic freedoms recognized as rights would actually be realized.
Yeah. It’s also an open invitation to all to notice places where that is not happening, and to make ethical demands about them.
This is very interesting, and puts what the Islamists are trying to do in a very different light. In fact – of course we knew this, but this makes it clearer – the OIC and its tributaries is making a power play. Someone should tell them that democratic people take a dim notion of arbitrary uses of power.
Funny thing happened. I misread the author as “Arundhati Roy”.
So I was rather annoyed by the article and every sentence I read I found dogmatic and questionable – I had a critical counter argument for almost each statement.
Even though I found the general theme not too offensive, it was just not put in the right manner by the author and obviously the author was exercising maximal slime to appear enlightened.
I was also put off by OB’s endorsement of the article.
So when I figured this does not compute, I rechecked the author and to my amazement it was Sen and not Roy.
Upon rereading the same article, I found it so agreeable and so well crafted now!
I think we need a veil of ignorance on the author, lest we get swayed by our biases. Maybe you should hide the author and make it available through email only! Says something on how we process complex information.
HR – Vancouver – BC
In the “Dangerous and Ugly” thread I asked about the ultimate foundations for ethical/moral judgements, and I was referred to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Charter on which the Declaration is based.
Here is an extract from the Preamble to the Charter:
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
* to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
* to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
* to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
* to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
…………………………..
And here is an extract from the UDHR:
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
……………………………
I can’t see any basis for the Charter and the Declaration here apart from “faith”.
I thought it might be interesting to search B&W for the term “faith-based”. I found an article by George M Felis entitled “Faith is a Moral Failing”.
I quote:
By “faith” in this context, I mean (and honest believers also mean) believing something because one chooses to believe it, without regard to the absence of evidence/reasons to believe. (Sometimes, faith even entails believing something without regard to the presence of counter-evidence/reasons to believe otherwise. But the absence of positive evidence is quite problematic enough, so let’s leave the presence of counter-evidence aside.)
…
Faith is not a mere failure of reason: Faith is the willful abdication of reason.
…
Faith declares that some beliefs – these important ones right at the center of my world-view that shape how I see many other things – need not be justified at all.
…
Faith is a moral failing. The abdication of reason is the abdication of justification. When people stop even trying to rationally justify their actions in the world – when they decide to act from faith instead – then they might just do anything at all and call it right and good.
…
That was pretty much the point I was trying to make in the “Ugly” discussion.
If the UDHR is not faith-based, what is it based on?
If it is faith-based, why is it not subject to the criticisms in George Felis’s article?
Hamidreza – ha!! That’s hilarious! I have the same reaction to Roy.
Kees I didn’t ‘refer’ you to the UD; I asked if you had read it and said you might find it of interest. In other words I didn’t use ‘see the UD’ as an argument.
The UD isn’t based on ‘faith’ in the sense that G gives for the purpose of that article. It is, as Sen says, a moral demand. That’s not the same as a truth-claim, or ‘believing something because one chooses to believe it, without regard to the absence of evidence/reasons to believe.’ It is based on the experience of history and the needs of human beings.
Tell us – do you treat people badly? Or ‘badly’ if you prefer? Do you grab all the treats, push people off the sidewalk, beat up smaller weaker people whenever you get irritated? If not, why not? If you don’t, then the reason you don’t is the same sort of reason that is behind the UD.
Look – try not to oversimplify. Nobody here thinks (I think it’s safe to say) that rights are real things that exist in nature. I think we’re all well aware that morals are human constructs. But it doesn’t follow from that that they can’t or shouldn’t be universalized. Some of them should be.
Kees, if you’d rather the UDHR didn’t apply to you, kindly post your address so we can come round and steal everything you own and torture you to death for our own amusement – because, after all, there’d be nothing wrong with that, would there?
Well now Dave who are you to say that? Who am I?
“The UD isn’t based on ‘faith’ in the sense that G gives for the purpose of that article. It is, as Sen says, a moral demand. That’s not the same as a truth-claim, or ‘believing something because one chooses to believe it, without regard to the absence of evidence/reasons to believe.’ It is based on the experience of history and the needs of human beings.”
It’s exactly the same kind of faith, but you can’t admit it because of your moral/political commitments. Where is the historical evidence that people need equality, for example?
You said:
“
Tell us – do you treat people badly? Or ‘badly’ if you prefer? Do you grab all the treats, push people off the sidewalk, beat up smaller weaker people whenever you get irritated? If not, why not? If you don’t, then the reason you don’t is the same sort of reason that is behind the UD.”
In my society the things you describe as acting badly are widely regarded as praiseworthy. If we’re talking about nations, my nation wants to do well, and if necessary at the expense of other nations. My nation wants to have a large and powerful army, and is constantly at war. I’m not sure that any of our elected politicians are pacifists, I never hear pacifist sentiments expressed in the mainstream media.
Suppose I am a man from Tanna. We have lived there pretty much undisturbed since 400 BC. In my society we expect the women to take all the best food because they bring babies and do most of the real work, and the women require us men to beat up smaller weaker people occasionally to earn their admiration. We usually manage to turn it into a game. We’re mostly pretty happy about the way things are. We don’t have any education.
“Look – try not to oversimplify. Nobody here thinks (I think it’s safe to say) that rights are real things that exist in nature. I think we’re all well aware that morals are human constructs. But it doesn’t follow from that that they can’t or shouldn’t be universalized. Some of them should be.”
Give an example please, and the rationale to justify its being universalised.
No. The burden is on you. I don’t have time or inclination to teach you the basics by typing them out in comments. You’re just trolling – your reply to my (perfectly reasonable) question was infantile.
In my society the things you describe as acting badly are widely regarded as praiseworthy.
Really? If you beat smaller, weaker people up on the streets, you get praised, where you’re from?
Which society is this, pray tell?
I must say that Kees has a point.
Now this may not be the best place to raise it or address it – and appeals to practical values (security, etc.) without a more in depth explanation does not do justice to the question in my opinion.
This point was brought up in a previous thread where we discussed the lack of an empirical basis to a value system such as the golden rule.
OB,
Would you mind giving me a definition of trolling, so that I know what it is I’m being accused of?
“Would you mind giving me a definition of trolling, so that I know what it is I’m being accused of? “
That, my friend, is the proof in the pudding.
Kees, this is bullshit; we did initially reply to your claims but you ignored the replies. Look: this is stupid:
“But they declared themselves happy and content with their lives. They have seen the alternative, and they don’t want it.”
All of them? Every single Tanna made that declaration? And if so you are quite quite sure all of them were free to say whether or not they were happy?
This is the objection we raised from the outset. You’re taking a particular society to be a monolith, and far from justifying that, you haven’t even noticed our objections to it – such as John Meredith’s about confusing the rulers with the ruled, and mine about your claim that ‘people used to think differently’ when of course what you meant was that ‘the ruling class used to think differently.’
Your sudden discovery of other cultures is doubtless very exciting for you (Montaigne was excited about it in the 16th century, as was Herodotus in the 5th BCE, and it is an exciting and interesting fact about the world) but you are oversimplifying what follows from that discovery and ignoring all efforts to explain your error.
Run along now.
“Run along now”? I thought you said you don’t have any authority here? Did you look at that definition of “troll”? What are you doing in your messages, other than trying to provoke an emotional response? And you’re relying on your position of authority to make demeaning remarks, “run along now” here, “now go away” in the other thread.
Why do you identify yourself as “we” here? You do it continually. You’re taking your own little society here as a monolith, and trying to treat anyone with a different view as a non-person; opposing views are non-views which you don’t even need to respond to. I notice that the authors of the UDHR feel able to speak on behalf of “the common people”. Do you think they asked everybody in the world if they are happy about, for example, the crude and unworkable notion that men and women are equals?
Of course your assumption is that if people were truly free to choose, and properly “educated”, they would choose your way of looking at things, you think your way is the only enlightened way forward.
As far as I know, the Tanna reached a group decision to live in their traditional way. You ask whether everybody there was consulted, but that requirement comes from your own world-view. Maybe the Tanna believe decisions like that should be made exclusively by the women? Or maybe they think the ruling class should decide. Whatever they believe, the point is that you can’t come up with any rational reason why they should drop their beliefs in favour of yours, why for example they should accept your unjustified and unjustifiable “faith” that men and women are created equals.
Your beliefs are based on exactly the same wooly and undefinable “faith” you criticise so often in religious believers, and you aren’t able to confront this fact because it would deprive you of authority and leave you nowhere to stand.
Run along now.
Oh, I do have authority in that sense; I certainly didn’t mean to deny that. I can delete all your comments. I meant I don’t have specious ‘authority’ of the kind the Vatican claims to have.
I have no ‘faith’ that ‘men and women are created equals’; I would never phrase it that way. You’re wrestling with a phantom of your own invention.
Is the authority claimed by the Vatican any different to that claimed by the authors of the UDHR?
Is your authority to declare your own moral judgements should be universal any different to that of the Vatican?
I don’t think so. I think if you had a rational justification for your moral supremacy you would say what it is. You could demonstrate to me in a sentence that I am wrong. But you can’t, because I’m right. Your morality is based on nothing more than the Pope’s.
I like the way you say “I would never phrase it that way”, but without saying how you would phrase it. You’re as evasive as that Christian you were ganging up on the other day.
And don’t try to tell me I’m evading your questions, when you refuse to say what they are. More evasiveness.
Ooooooookay, you’re officially a troll, and subject to deletion. I did tell you what (a few of) the evaded questions were – mine, John Meredith’s, Dave’s. I’m not going to spend my time repeating questions that you refused to answer to begin with.
“You could demonstrate to me in a sentence that I am wrong. But you can’t, because I’m right.”
I can. Here’s an extract from your own earlier post. The sentence that constitutes my demonstration is the second one:
“I don’t see where anybody, nations or individuals, gets the authority to insist that the Tanna must adopt their moral values. And if that is true of the Tanna, then it is true universally: nobody has the right to declare universal morals.”
Use the law of non-contradiction or it will make a fool out of you.