Two Philosophical Questions...

This is why posts shouldnt get pulled:
Article 19.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Ephie:

A true agency? Hhhmm...I believe that in the United States, that Agency has morphed into a "being" that is no longer acceptable. As the Agency now wants to control every aspect of my and your life and therefore is slowly taking away my free will. Which I believe is why we are so divided as a nation right now...

What people consider "basic human rights" varies with each person. here in America - it something we are now sorely divided over. Our Constitution states we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...

I believe that:
1. an adult person should be self-sufficient and a productive citizen.
does this mean turn your back on them when they are down? No. it means to give them tools to help them become productive again instead of throwing money at them.

2. a RESPONSIBLE person should be allowed to bear arms. If that person is using that gun to rob, steal, maim or anything other than self-defense - then that basic right needs to be removed. In my opinion, guns are for protection and hunting (food not humans).

3. all people should be able to practice their religion. However, I do not agree that one religion should get more preference over another...for example: Muslims blocking streets to pray...

4. freedom to speak their mind, opinion, etc. within boundaries. If we meet on the street and I start telling you what a horrible job I think Obama and his administration are doing - if you walk away from me, it would be wrong of me to follow you and continue. If you say to me - please stop - then that is your right and I should respect that.

On a public forum like this? We should all be able to state our opinions without swearing and demeaning others. However the site is highly censored because many don't want this place to be a site where we express our political views...I truly believe that your political stance is a very important part of parenthood...your children learn and mimic you and your stance...if they hear you spouting about Obama and how wonderful (or not) you think he is, then most likely, they will copy...if your child sees you give charity, work hard, etc. they will most likely mimic you.

1. There can never be a true agency while encouraging relativism. As individuals we search for truth. There is only one truth. Either there is a God or there is not. Either that God put forth rules or he didn't. There can not be two apposing truths.

2. In a perfect world everyone would but this world isn't perfect and part of what makes us better people is to take care of those that are less fortunate. We as individuals are the ones that should be reaching out to those in need and government should be the last resort. The problem with trying to have government dole out aid is that it removes the personal touch. If the needy sees that someone is sacrificing to come to assistance then the needy is more apt to understand the value of the assistance given. If the one giving the aid knows the one aided then the assistance is more tailored to the need and therefor doesn't become a source of dependancy.

1. No. I think we are able to feel like we have true agency if we operate within certain parameters. Challenge those confines and true agency goes to the wayside because too many agents are operating in one space with differing "destinies" (or ideals, or agendas). So, yes, to the second part. 2. I believe everyone is entitled to basic human rights. The whole live and let live idea. However, we as a species, have proven time and again that we are not capable of operating this way. This has given rise to many of those constructs that impede true agency. Its a circle that keeps spinning and likely always will, IMO.

LOL. We could discuss agency for decades. I studied philosophy for years. My answer to your first question is: it isn't a yes or no question. There is such much involved here, and I'm not sure it's purely fate vs. freedom (which is what this philosophical question is really about). I tend towards the: I have agency within a very limited realm, yet, my agency is fully conditioned. That's my short answer. So, my answer is yes but mostly no.

As to the second, again, it isn't a black and white question. But, in general, I think that communities that live together need certain base line rules for engaging, things we deeply agree upon that hold us all together and make us a people. I see human rights as being this societal "givens." I honestly think many of these givens are being questioned right now in indirect ways in American politics. It should be interesting to see how this plays out.

I think values influence agency, and those will never be similar among people.

I believe everyone should have basic human rights. That's because my personal values and spirituality guide my belief that we should all care for others as well as ourselves. If anyone doesn't have the privileges, foundations, opportunities, good judgment, or abilities of others, they still deserve basic human dignity, and if they are unable to provide it for themselves, good people should feel blessed and enriched to contribute to others. As quoted by Christ and any other spiritual leader in any other major religion or philosophy. It is more blessed to give than to receive, and as mothers, we give and give and give. And I feel we are lucky for that, and I wish I could give more to more people.

However, another person's morals and ethics may feel it is wrong to aid others in their basic human rights, such as the right to be healthy and seek medical attention regardless of your profession, or your spouse's profession, or your financial earning capacity. And they are justified in feeling that way within their own construct, so their version of agency would head toward different results. For example, some people don't view health as a basic human right, but a privilege. Whereas others believe you cannot pursue life without health. It's up to personal opinions to decide that and utilize agency accordingly.

In other words, I think we do have agency, we just all block each other's agency. :-0 I hope I interpreted this right, pretty deep for late night pondering!

These are interesting questions that are almost impossible to answer! You have really got me thinking about this.

1. No, I don't think that we truly have agency. I'm not sure if we really should either. If we were all moral human beings, then yes, I think that we should. But we are not. There are too many people in the world that cannot control their impulses to do bad things. I think that those who have no moral agency have made it difficult for those of us who do have moral agency to live peacefully. Does that make sense?

2. Yes, I believe everyone should be born into this world with a clean slate with basic human rights. I think that it is up to that individual to act as a decent human being in order to keep these rights. Those that violate another human being should not be able to keep their rights.

Thank you for asking such thought provoking questions! I think I shall think about this some more while I fold my 4 baskets of laundry!

It seems to me that humans have varying degrees of agency, partly or strongly restricted by various structures (familial and social patterns and beliefs, and basic mental and emotional predilections, figure strongly here).

I've been attracted to the concept of "memes" and "Integral Psychology" as developed by thinkers/scientists such as Ken Wilber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Dynamics). We all experience a conceptual/emotional reality that seems truest to us, and this model shows how our "meme," our understanding of reality, fits in the spiral of human development. Each meme transcends and includes previous memes, and each is absolutely essential to human progress.

The problem with this overview is that each of us will see that while our meme is a "higher" level of development than others, we are also lower than others, and this is hard for our egos to accept. We may even be convinced by our philosophy or brand of religion that our values are the highest possible, and be unwilling to consider the validity, and actual necessity, of other memes. Additionally, all memes exists simultaneously in modern society, which means there are a multitude of needs and motives that exist simultaneously, all pushing and pulling against each other.

This makes it awfully hard to state definitively that there are certain human rights that should be available to everyone. Different memes will understand different needs as more or less necessary, and will often fight fiercely for the validity of their particular views, rejecting all others.

I can even imagine, if everyone's opinions were graphed, that some people would stop with saying our only human right is that we draw a first breath, while others, depending on their take on reality, would argue for clean air & water, access to nourishing food, perhaps health care and meaningful work that pays a living wage. Lower memes might argue against our "right" to pursue happiness, or at least wish to carefully define other people's right to pursue happiness, particularly if they see life as basically a competitive exercise, with other people's successes costing them something that they value.

No matter how evolved or enlightened we are, it's extremely hard to accept that other people will define rights and needs differently. The right to carry firearms, for example, may be seen as absolutely central to some people's memes, but quite beside the point, or even counterproductive, according to other groups' versions of reality. The right of a developing fetus may be essential in some people's realities, while the rights of the woman who's already alive and grappling with her own needs is more important to others. A right to a loving partnership may be limited in some people's paradigms to members of the opposite sex, while others with different life experience may marvel that same-sex couples are not accepted as having the same rights.

I would love to see society grow enough emotionally to recognize the many ways that we are all connected, and understand that some people suffering unearned harm or injustice actually hurts the whole body of humanity. The most obvious way that occurs is that we all live with some fear of loss or deprivation as long as there are "in" groups and "out" groups. We do not want the risk of somehow falling into an "out" group.

When I was younger, I could almost believe that this last fact would be self-evident to MOST people during my lifetime. Now I'll be surprised if we actually get there in the next century or two. But for the sake of my loveable, beautiful and innocent grandson, and all the innocent children being born and raised today, I hope we as a species continue to learn from our errors and successes, and get there while there's still a chance at some wider sense of our interdependency.

Why should someone have a better longer higher quality of life just because they have money?

My personal opinion, that is not right. Nor is starvation when we have more food supplies then ever before...Between the non-food food they try and push off at the stores or REAL FOOD FOOD.

It is all something they use against us as scared tactics. Are they trying to get us to believe we can make a world wide web and have someone like steve jobs come and just rock our minds electronically speaking....But we can not figure out how to stop America from slipping into 3rd world status?? Or we are having third world statuses catch up to where we are...We can not figure out how to make the easy stuff work...but we have rocket science...Man we look dumb.

Sorry rambling.

We have the knowledge to take care of everyone. But making a healthcare system the is for profit...urges us to stay sick. WHICH IS SICK.

I have a life Philosophy...''My choice is what I choose to do, If I am causing no harm then I should not bother you''-Ben Harper .....Meaning I will act out of who I am and the only time someone should raise an eyebrow is if I am endargering myself or someone else.

We do need a system to support what is considered dangerous....Gov't does have a roll here.

As for those who should run the agency. I think it need to be regular citizens. Not a party group out to move their own agenda. We need people that will think for the people and act for the people.

Lobbyists are not Politicians, Congressmen are not Politicians because they work with the Lobbyists and their Special agendas...Corporations are not a buyable gov't making...Because they are out to be Profitted by the Congressmen and the Lobbyists.....We The People are merely pawns in the Corprations game to make money...Funny thing I I HATE CHESS AND NO ONE EVEN ASKED ME IF I WANTED TO PLAY.

Loop holes are what makes this agency not work. Every time we had another President come in he wanted to creat loop holes for his cronies. Those loop hole became the middle classes death sentence. As the middle class has found this out they have installed a few to distract us....and it has worked for many years.

The fog they have had us living under is starting to lift. And..''When the People lead, the leaders will have to follow''...So we will prevail.

It will take a long time to fix what is broken but I have faith it will happen. As I see things roll out across the globe with our Occupations.

So ya know too...GREAT DAY YESTERDAY!!
Happy to report to you too sweet Lady Occupy Tacoma was left alone ALL night by the Tacoma Police!! They were pleasantly woken up at 400a.m. by the parks sprinklers! But we have Occupied a Park that is Owned by WDOT so the city can not come in and evict us. And the State Troopers can only come in with an order from the Mayor with Gov Gregories approval..So we have them socked in the balls...and they dont like it...After being there two hours after dusk the police were called to something...and they only came back to make sure us stinkin hippie were not making free love in public or doing other things....that the media has been portraying us to do...which none of is true...but maybe the pot smoking...but come on.

1) In America, yes...until we break some law and then get caught.

2) Human rights according to American standards?

wow....heavy thoughts for 2:30am!

1. I'm having trouble with "agency". My gut instinct on this one: YES, I believe the more we have constructs (groups, mtgs, panels, etc), the less constructive movement will be achieved. Example: Principal's Advisory Counsel....tends to break into groups/panels. Those independent groups then research & address specific problems within the school district. This increases the time lag & delays direct response. As an Advisory Counsel, we have to wait for the indep panel to report their findings. Takes much longer this way. I prefer a more rapid response to problems at hand!

2. YES, I believe everyone should have basic human rights.....unless they break legally-posted laws or prove themselves to be unaccountable for their own actions.

Hope this helps! Good Night!...:)

1. Yes, and no. We have free will as individuals. We decide what to make out of every day and every moment. We decide how to "be" in the world. AND we live in groups that we have constructed - family, society, country, world. Groups of human beings have rules in order to operate as a society. The little philosophy that I have studied is based on Heidegger's idea of our "being in the world", and that concept - that I have the power to create my world by how I choose to be in that world - has improved my life greatly.

2. Yes. That's why they are called "basic human rights". Thank you for your attachment, I completely agree with this statement of basic human rights!

I really haven't studied agency so I won't go there.

On the topic of basic human rights I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to provide themselves their basic human rights.

I base this on if you have the ability to provide for yourself your perception of a basic human right and you choose not to provide it for yourself, then that right cannot be considered a basic human right therefore society is under no obligation to provide it for you.

If on the other hand society has prohibited you from the ability to provide yourself what you consider a basic human right then it is considered a basic human right that society must provide for you.

Say you are unemployed, you cannot provide food. Did you quit a job just because you don't like working weekends. That was not a constraint placed upon you by society therefore society is under no obligation to provide you with food. Society may choose to but it is not an obligation.

On the other hand you cannot get a job, you are actively seeking a job and you put no constraints on what that job may be then society by lack of needs for your skills is placing a constraint on you and should provide food for you so long as that constraint still exists.

It gets a little squicky when you get into providing for children. On one hand the children are innocent and have no control over their parents choices. On the other hand we as a society have chosen to allow individuals to decide how many children someone has. If society is not allowed any say in the decision to have children we are as innocent in that decision as the children are. As such society is not required to provide for the children if society is doing nothing to prohibit the parents from providing the basic rights. I want to point out that I said not required, I did not say should not choose to. Still society should be allowed to place limits since the decisions are not within our control nor should they be.

Anyway, kinda rambling here....

Okay since people spoke of quality of life, quality of life is not a basic human right. We should be allowed to work harder and provide more. If the right to receive something more for harder work is taken away we have no reason to work. If no one works we will all lose all basic human rights. We would have no food, shelter, water, health care, nothing. We only have these things because people are willing to provide them for a reasonable payment set by society.

I'm skipping #1 and answering #2

Yes I feel every human and domestic animal should have basic 'human' rights. I also fee nature and wildlife deserve basic rights too.

Human rights: shelter, food/water, clothing, safety & basic healthcare

Basic rights for non-human/domestic animals: no littering, polluting, sustainability (replanting and aiding in it's regrowth), no cruelty and basic respect