Ciceronianus

False dilemma. Stop the trolley. It's just a "thought experiment" after all.

Proponents of eudaimonia and of virtue ethics don't decide what is good from their absolute interior, nor do they claim to be free from all external i...

Well, I don't think a non-legal right necessarily exists where a duty exists, either, so I'm afraid we still disagree. Something about the belief that...

Not me, no. I've checked.

Just what "duty" means is certainly significant, as is the question whether a duty implies a right or whether a right requires a duty. I think claimin...

Legal rights may be subject to restrictions, yes. I don't think I've questioned the existence of legal rights, nor have I claimed there should be no l...

The concept of "rights" as used now is, I think, relatively new, and probably arose during the Enlightenment as you note. Perhaps that's the case also...

Well, like Ayn Rand, you're free (have a right?) to define "moral virtue" (as opposed to "immoral virtue" or "piano-playing virtue" etc., I assume) as...

As I said, one is obligated (has a duty) to live a particular way--i.e. virtuously--to live according to nature. That doesn't mean someone else has a ...

I'm not sure what you mean. That legal right may not exist someday, as many think there should be no such legal right. Would that mean the right is no...

You don't explain what a non-legal right is, but I won't chide you for it. No doubt you'd reference some right not to do so. Aristotle is not my favor...

You beg the question by insisting I address a situation involving a right. I don't address circumstances where someone has a right to what I have beca...

I allow someone to share food I'm eating. Or, someone takes some of the food I'm eating, and I don't prevent him/her from taking it. He/she isn't enti...

I think anguish is caused by reading Sartre--dread being caused by thinking about reading Sartre, as I noted previously. Behold this knowledge of the ...

Now there are moral rights as well as natural rights and legal rights? I don't think so. You seemed to feel there was some moral right (apparently) wh...

If you say so. I'm not sure what knowledge his theory of anguish would encompass, or derive, in that case. Knowledge of the cause of anguish? Knowledg...

We're probably thinking of "knowledge" differently, then, or at least "branches of knowledge." What Jolly Jean-Paul (sorry, I enjoy giving philosopher...

Very sensibly, when the Republic transitioned into the Empire, the Emperors were granted (assumed, really) the title Pontifex Maximus, Highest Priest,...

The difference arises from the fact I think what it is proper or moral to do should not be determined based on supposed "rights." I don't think I shou...

I'm blissfully ignorant of Sartre's concept of anguish, and it is my daily prayer that I will remain so. In what sense does his concept constitute kno...

You must think that our world is full of natural rights or legal rights, brimming with them. We have no natural or right to windows of a certain thick...

I gladly acknowledge my ignorance of pure mathematics. Let's say natural sciences, practical mathematics, what we used to call the "social sciences"; ...

The law is so enormous I'm not sure it's useful to attempt to define it. I've practiced law for 40 years now, and am leery of efforts by philosophers ...

Unlike other branches of knowledge, philosophy purports to study them, and even to know them or something about them, by thinking alone; from the armc...

Philosophy is the study of reality, knowledge, existence, beauty, and goodness, and most anything else, to the extent that can be achieved by thinking...

Imprimis, fairly early on in this thread, titled "Natural Rights," I noted that I felt the only rights that exist are legal rights. The conversation t...

Legal rights are a very small part of the law. What people may consider moral or immoral is a very small part of the law. If a law addresses what peop...

Well, I don't think it's a play on words, which normally refers to punning. Regarding the I've explained why I feel this isn't the case already, so I ...

Many of what are called "natural rights" aren't legal rights, depending on the system of law. Legal rights exist, though, in the sense that they've be...

[ Yes. Laws (and legal rights) may be violated, and it may be that the recourse provided in the law for violation is not provided for one reason or an...

We may assert there should be legal rights which are not currently legal rights (i.e. the violation of which is prohibited by the law, or are not reco...

It's odd, then, that laws addressing such inalienable/natural rights tend to vary from time to time, and nation to nation, and legal system to legal s...

Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. I think the police are part of the process of law enforcement. Law enforcement is part of the recourse a...

A person who has a claimed right in those circumstances wouldn't be entitled to protection of that right or entitled to recourse in the event of viola...

Well, I don't think we can equate morality and the law, and so am hesitant to characterize laws as moral or immoral. They're merely laws, and will rem...

I'm not sure that a law can be described as immoral in the way we would call an act or ommission immoral, or a person immooral. I think a law could re...

I voted "no" because I don't think it appropriate to speak of "rights" that are unenforceable. or the violation of which is without recorse. There are...

I read Hart's Concept of Law a long time ago, but think it was in the analytic philosophy tradition, so it may well be that Wittgenstein influenced Ha...

I'm afraid I can't watch the entirety of that video right now. You're probably better off quoting Austin than me. I've hears Scalia was a legal positi...

Legal positivism is the view that, as was said succintly and simply by John Austin in 1832, long before Wittgenstein was born: The existence of law is...

I don't think I've said that about the Declaration of Independence, though. Do attorneys who don't know very much also tell you they were/are not proh...

Ah, but I was an altar boy, and a good one I will say, for years. I arose in the wee small hours of the morning to participate in the ritual of the ma...

There is nothing prohibiting a lawyer, or anyone else for that matter, from reading the Declaration of Independence in college, or anywhere else. As f...

I think it's pretty well established that the (first) Council of Nicea was called by Constatine at the urging of a synod of bishops primarily in an ef...

I'm not interested in the sex life of others, unless it inolves me. So, I don't find myself asking people about their preferences or relationships or ...

I was going to suggest that what took place regarding self-mutilation took place at or around the same time as the Church began to abandon its glorifi...

Well, no. Ptolemy (who may have been his half-brother), Callisthenes and Nearchus were all there with him when Darius was defeated, Tyre besieged, Jer...

I think it's likely there was a real person, Jesus, as well. We can add to the sources you note the brief mention made by Tacitus to someone like him;...

I don't think it's reasonable to maintain that the quality (or quantity) of historical evidence supporting the existence of Jesus is comparable to tha...

Christianity was peculiar in that it encouraged its believers to die. Martyrdom was actively sought by Christians. To die for the faith was to be guar...