EGGS & RIGHTS & ORDINARY NETS
F. Richard Singer III Edition 4/2008
website & email: conceptualstudy.org/
Abstract: Concepts are acquired by using them, and it is important to stress that this involves using them in the context of a network that includes various conceptual distinctions and relationships. The term ‘net’ denotes such a conceptual network. A net can be used to think and communicate about various matters in some realm of interest. To illustrate CS (conceptual study) for an ordinary net, I focus on a fictional account of my acquisition of various egg concepts. I also briefly discuss some other ordinary nets. In particular I talk about our ordinary net for rights and indicate how this might clarify some aspects of the discussion about abortion. Some of the other conceptual papers on my website give further examples of the use of CS with ordinary nets. Examples include Fearfulness Concepts, Self-esteem & Worth Concepts, Faith Concepts, Work & Employment Concepts, An Ordinary Net for Moral Concerns. One reason for focusing on egg concepts in this present paper is to illustrate the potential for complexity and confusion in a simple ordinary net, even when the concepts are not emotionally laden. It is also intended to illustrate why I find conceptual study useful for thinking about such nets, and in particular why we can take two different perspectives on concepts. Concepts are used in organizing or obtaining information, proposing conjectures, suggesting questions, etc. Such use will be called paraceptual. Thus, saying Ann is Meg’s younger sister uses the sister concept to indicate ordinary paraceptual information. Conceptual information is independent of any state of affairs in a realm of application. For instance, saying that full sisters have the same parents is a conceptual remark about the relationship between concepts used in our public net for family relationships.
Opening Remarks: Since I assume that the reader already knows various ways of thinking about eggs, my account is simplistic and abbreviated. I pretend that my concepts are more precise than one would expect them to be under the conditions described. I also pretend that new egg concepts or nets emerged in discrete jumps, rather than as a continuing expansion and revision of an evolving net. To distinguish a few of these versions, I label them numerically. This is merely a technical device, not recommended for ordinary use, and I talk as if I actually had these distinctions in sharp focus. In fact, I am seldom explicitly aware of which egg concept or egg net I am using, and shift back and forth among them. In most situations, this does not lead to confusion, since I am implicitly guided by a shifting context that supports my thinking.
As with any net, these egg nets freely use a variety of components from my routine net. The concepts it draws on are those that I acquired early as extremely standard versions of commonly used concepts from our public routine net. For example they use concepts from an ordinary perceptual net for color, shape, size, etc. They also use concepts from an ordinary net for numbers.
EN0: I acquired Egg Net 0 as a child in a small town. My first egg concept was primarily perceptual, using a narrow range of attributes. An egg is white and sort of round. It barely fits in my hand. It is smooth and hard, but with a shell that can be cracked open. It is soft and runny inside with a clear part. It also has a yellow part that has a certain smell. EN0 also contained a perceptual concept of an egg carton as a cardboard container having with two rows each with spaces for six eggs.
This presentation of EN0 should be adequate for anyone having similar experiences with eggs, but it is a feeble and indirect way to present this early egg concept. To bring this perceptual egg concept into focus I selected an egg, felt it, looked at it, broke it open. Any activity used in presenting this concept to a novice with eggs might do something similar. This concept was not acquired from a single experience with a particular egg, but from a number of such experiences. I implicitly expected that I could use it with eggs I had not yet encountered. Thus this perceptual egg concept in EN0, while highly manifest, was more remote than my concept of any particular eggs that I had examined.
I told my mother that eggs always came in cartons that contained 12 eggs. She told me that Mr. Barns had chickens that laid eggs, and that he had sold her a bag with 18 eggs. Learning this did not modify any of my concepts. It merely involved expanding my paraceptual information about obtaining eggs. When she also told me that there were egg cartons with 18 eggs, I knew she was mistaken. In saying that an egg carton had room for exactly 12 eggs I was implicitly making a conceptual claim. Since 6+6=12 and given my egg carton concept, this claim was correct. Of course, I did not think in terms of the conceptual-paraceptual distinction. So we could not focus on the fact that she thought I was making an incorrect paraceptual claim and was correcting my information rather than acknowledging the correctness of my conceptual claim and showing me that my egg carton concept was limited. In spite of this, I learned a more flexible egg carton concept in which the claim that an egg carton could contain 18 eggs was conceptually correct.
Remark: In general persons tend to mix paraceptual and conceptual claims. This can result in confusion and in more conceptual vagueness than would occur if this distinction is kept in focus. This is especially the case when dealing with remote concepts. However it is seldom more than a passing problem with highly manifest concepts. Furthermore for most of the ordinary use of basic reliable information, whether it is conceptual or paraceptual is of no concern.
EN1: Learning that eggs could be cooked in various ways began as paraceptual information, but evolved into an expanded net having distinct concepts of raw and cooked eggs. My cooked egg concept had perceptual components, such as taste and appearance, and had my egg experience only been with them, the first egg net I acquired would have had a very different perceptual egg concept. EN1 also involved ideas of relationships into which eggs can enter. Knowing that raw eggs could become cooked eggs, my concept of a perceptual egg vacillated between its original version and a kind of food egg version including these perceptual and utilitarian components. A cooked egg concept easily gives rise to concepts such as fried eggs, hard-boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, etc. With egg concepts with such vague boundaries the claim that eggs can be cooked and eaten was neither clearly conceptual nor paraceptual. My egg concept was too vague to bring any consistent sharp distinction between paraceptual and conceptual claims about eggs into focus.
Remarks: The change from a narrow precise concept to a more complex and less precise one is typical of the way concepts evolve. Having clear versions would help classify a variety of claims about eggs as conceptual or paraceptual. While we would seldom make sharp distinctions about such matters, the claim that all fried eggs are cooked eggs would be purely conceptual in a usual fried egg version. Eggs can be cooked with various other ingredients, as in making pancakes. I never acquired a pancake egg concept, altho a person with more concern about cooking pancakes might have. Statements that were conceptual from within his net might seem paraceptual from within mine. In practice this might be difficult to determine, but not for any deep reason. It is merely easier for me to use a less refined egg net, since this is integrated into my thinking about eggs in certain contexts, but not in others. Since ways of thinking change, there is no sharp division between what is merely additional information and what is part of a particular version of concept. Nor does there need to be. Yet it is clear that when using EN1, the fact that eggs can be used in pancake batter is paraceptual information.
EN2: As EN1 expanded, it not only contained various cooked egg concepts, it also included concepts of store eggs, farm eggs, etc. I also saw eggs being laid and hatched. The resulting chicken egg concept extended my earlier perceptual egg concept in a way that my cooking egg concept did not, and so I will classify this as a new egg net. This chicken egg concept was more remote than cooking eggs, since my knowledge of cooking was more immediate than my knowledge of chickens. EN2 related eggs to chickens in a special way that has nothing to do with how eggs are used. The fact that chicken eggs and cooking eggs are related was paraceptual information rather than part of either egg concept. My chicken egg concept also expanded my perceptual egg concept in terms of color. In principle, I could have formed an egg concept that is the union of cooking and chicken eggs. In practice, EN2 merely allowed for both concepts. Maybe if I had lived on a farm and collected eggs for breakfast, I would have used the union concept, rather than thinking of the connection between chicken eggs and cooking eggs as paraceptual information.
EN3: My experience of eggs expanded to include observation of those laid by ducks and small birds, and I saw pictures of ostrich and turkey eggs. This gave a slight perceptual extension of my egg concept, which allowed for differences in size and color. This changed my use of language. When not clear from context I used chicken egg rather than egg for this earlier concept. More significantly, it resulted in extending EN2 to EN3 by extending the chicken egg concept to a biological egg concept applicable to eggs of all animals that reproduce sexually.
Remark: My biological egg concept is certainly not a perceptual concept. If you showed me a biological egg selected at random, I would probably not even recognize it as an egg. EN3 is as remote as I ever went with an egg net. It became part of a much broader net used for thinking about biology.
Perceptual Egg Concepts: Seeing eggs from various birds suggests a possible extension of a perceptual egg concept, focusing on shape, and allowing for various colors and sizes. Such a concept might even include eggs made of wood or plastic. However part of our perceptual experience involves cracking eggs open so these are considered as rather specialized types of eggs, or as egg-shaped, or even as fake eggs. Moreover we would not confuse this with our biological egg concept.
Utility of Conceptual Study for Egg Concepts: Bo has my early perceptual egg concept. Since his cousin Jo grew up on a farm, thru experience she acquired a different perceptual egg concept. She has just seen her first Easter egg.
Jo: Eggs are not blue.
Bo: Of course not, that egg has been dyed. Everyone knows that. Eggs are white.
Jo: You must be teasing. Our chickens never lay white eggs.
Jo’s first statement proposes a correct conceptual claim in her egg net. The information Bo receives is correct for his egg net. While they agree to this shared statement, the word egg in this statement refers to a different concept for Bo than it does for Jo. I call the information proposed by a statement a proposition. Thus while they use the same statement, each is using it for a different proposition.
It is easy to see why they agree on this statement but disagree when Bo says eggs are white. Jo’s statement makes a true conceptual claim from within her net. The proposition Bo imagines when he hears this statement is a true conceptual claim within his net. This is not the case for Bo’s statement. The proposition he sent was conceptually true, but the proposition she received was conceptually false. They argue ineffectively.
Kay uses this situation to introduce them to the conceptual-paraceptual distinction, as well as the concepts of information sent and information received. Since their egg concepts are both perceptual, Kay exhibits both brown and white eggs and break them open. They see that their specialized paraceptual information had limited their egg concepts. They agree to use an extended egg concept. Bo no longer says that eggs are white, but he does say that some eggs are white. Jo agrees.
There is one outcome of this situation that some may consider unfortunate. Jo now finds it difficult to communicate with her teacher. Her teacher does not enjoy playing with conceptual nets. He is indifferent to this conceptual-paraceptual distinction Jo wants to consider. Nor does he see the utility of making a distinction between information sent and received.
Seemingly Superfluous Concepts: Define a good-looking egg as one that looks and smells good when cracked open. Also let good-looking eggs be classified as follows.
A normal egg is a good-looking egg that is edible.
An abnormal egg is a good-looking egg that is inedible.
Suppose all the good-looking eggs we observe are edible eggs because all good-looking eggs happen to be normal. This does not mean that the concept of an abnormal egg is somehow an incorrect concept, or that all claims about abnormal eggs are false. In fact, the claim that there are no abnormal eggs would be a correct paraceptual claim about abnormal eggs. Of course this suggests the abnormal egg concept may be of little practical utility, and to someone with a highly paraceptual orientation this abnormal egg concept might seem superfluous. This abnormal egg concept could still be minimally useful. It is slightly more concise to say that someday we may find an abnormal egg than to say that we may someday find a good-looking egg that is inedible.
In general, we do not need the existence of something in order to have a concept for it. Nor is its existence a necessary condition for its utility. It is not the existence of unicorns that make this concept useful, but that possibility we might want to read a certain story or understand certain myths. In order to prove that Ö2 is irrational, we first conceptualize the rational number whose square is 2. It is not the concept that is false, for concepts can be neither true nor false, altho a concept can fail by being incoherent. It is the proposition “There is a rational number that squared gives 2” that is conceptually false. Our conceptualization of such a number is not only coherent; it was also useful in establishing a conceptual limitation of the rational number system. Nor is this an exception in the historical development of mathematics.
Utility of Conceptual Study for Ordinary Realms: In discussing utility, I assumed that Bo and Jo wanted to understand each other. Conceptual study seems at most mildly useful for this purpose, since they would probably come to a shared egg concept in the ordinary course of interaction. For her teacher, who believes that students merely needed to listen carefully in order to learn, Jo’s distinction between information sent and received seemed silly or even impudent. While Jo found this somewhat disturbing, she also revised her perspective on adult authority. Whether this is good for her or not is difficult to tell. This may help her cultivate confidence in her own powers, but it may do so in a way that places her outside of the norm. In general using a conceptual distinction that others do not make may be useful in some ways, but it is also likely to cause communication problems. Even being aware of making unusual distinctions might make Jo hesitate in responding in the expected manner to a variety of questions that the sender implicitly regards as a clear informational request.
CS is useful for all my nets because I value the potential for clarity enough to compensate for the difficulties in communication. I also find that with this clarity and some extra effort I can sometimes communicate at a more sophisticated level. Altho ignorance may be bliss, when acting on important options, I value correct information that is contrary to bliss over incorrect information that enhances it. Altho I might have been happier had I believed that my students understood much more than they actually did, I doubt that this would have made me better able to help them cultivate personal powers. An ordinary realm is any realm that a person may think about in a competent way without using highly specialized concepts and information. The game of bridge is an ordinary realm but the theory of bridge playing at a life master level is not. There are also ordinary realms of law, medicine, music, etc.; as well as specialized realms. The difference between an ordinary and a specialized realm is often a matter of more refined distinctions. It can also be a matter of highly incompatible perspectives, as is the ordinary realm of taxes as opposed to the realm of taxes for an accountant. The extent to which a person may find conceptual study useful depends on that person’s values and purposes. It is easy for a tax accountant to see how concept clarification might help their clients. For a client who merely wants to leave it to the expert, understanding these concepts may seem irrelevant.
Ordinary Moral Concepts: Most communities denounce a multitude of acts, such as being impolite, as violating community standards, etc. However many acts that are denounced are not considered as egregious. On the other hand, some practices, such as certain sexually based crimes are considered as especially heinous. A person who takes pleasure in inflicting pain on others may be called inhuman, or at least engaging in inhuman behavior. Moreover, there is considerable consensus that some actions are inhuman, altho historically there has been considerable difference in what these are. On the positive side, humans generally have had the attitude that there is a way of being in the world that is appropriate for humans, and that this involves more than not being inhuman. A consensus on what this is and how it is rooted is far from universal.
With the above prelude, we can conceptualize moral values and moral virtues as characteristics that fit us to take a place in the world that is appropriate for a human. We can conceptualize a person’s moral wellbeing in terms of having moral values and moral virtues. Morality denotes those practices that support our moral wellbeing. A moral consideration is one that considers the moral wellbeing of oneself or others, usually in relation to morality. The impact that our actions have on the general wellbeing of others is one type of consideration that can relate to morality. I use the term ‘ethical’ for this type of consideration. Since a person’s general wellbeing includes a person’s moral wellbeing, and since there is greater consensus on aspects of general wellbeing than on what constitutes moral wellbeing, the relation between ethical and moral considerations can be complex.
Example: Most
people consider murder wrong both on moral and ethical grounds. On the other
hand, there is disagreement about cohabitation by an unmarried couple. Its
impact on the wellbeing of others is not as clear as the impact of murder, but
even if a proponent tried to demonstrate that the overall impact in a
particular case was positive, an opponent might still consider it wrong. Altho
he might claim that the ultimate impact must be negative, something more is at
stake. His concern is more moral than ethical, and for him morality is more
fundamental. The proponent is either thinking about ethical consequences or has
different beliefs about what is good for a person’s moral wellbeing. Given the
vague features of our ordinary net for morality, it is hard to bring such
disagreements into focus. The distinction above could help, but using
conceptual study to develop a more coherent net for morality and ethics would
be needed to augment this distinction, such as a clearer concept of moral
wellbeing. Since many such disagreements are likely to be paraceptual, it might
have little effect on settling them.
Ordinary Mathematical Concepts: Altho conceptual study can be used to transform the way a person P thinks about P’s ordinary realm of mathematics, if P merely wants to pass a required math course with as little effort as possible then this use of CS may even have negative utility. Moreover P may deal effectively with balancing a checkbook and other routine processes using a math net that I find incoherent. However P would be able to deal effectively with more situations involving numbers if P had a better math net. To obtain a better math net CS could be useful, but better nets can be obtained without its explicit use. Most mathematicians had somewhat paraceptual attitudes towards mathematics when they were children, but their ordinary childhood math nets were more coherent than most adult nets and were more an asset than a liability in obtaining access to contemporary mathematics.
Understanding and Belief: If P is interested in being elected to a political office conceptual study may help P understand that his 30-second sound bites are blatant propaganda. This may make it easier for him to make them more effective. On the other hand, belief that they are not primarily propaganda, but truths that make P the better candidate may make P seem more sincere. This might satisfy P’s purposes better than seeing how to improve his propaganda. In general, when P’s purpose is to instill a belief rather than foster understanding, not using CS has at least one advantage of allowing an unchallenged firm belief. This may or may not be outweighed by having a better understanding that opens the possibility of doubt. A politician may say that my opponent’s policies are unpatriotic. Without a clarification of this term, this vague statement may help garner the support of the faithful and even increase his support among some other groups of voters. Asking him to clarify this concept in order to bring policy distinctions into better focus is unlikely to be welcomed. The purpose of his statement was to influence attitudes rather than to convey any clear understanding of the differences.
Ordinary Legal Nets: It is against the law to run a red light. Here I am using an ordinary net for legal concepts. In particular, to most adults in our society the concept of running a red light involves the concept of a traffic light and a motor vehicle. It does not include a person running around the block with a red light in his hand. Our ordinary legal net is flexible enough for us to acknowledge that it is not always against the law for a fire engine to go thru an intersection against a red light. To analyze this, we can keep our ordinary concept of running a red light and specify a number of cases in which this was legal. On the other hand we could narrow this concept so that running a red light does not include all instances of going thru an intersection when the light is red. For example, we can specify that an emergency vehicle going thru a red light in the line of duty is running a red light in a legal manner or we can conceptualize such cases of going thru a red light as not running it. For most purposes whether we handle such issues by how we conceptualize or by listing exceptions makes little difference, as long as we can recognize how to apply the law.
In general, our ordinary legal net serves us well enough for many purposes. What bothers people are laws that affect them, but are drafted in a way that only a lawyer can understand. In such cases they may be more likely to feel outrage than to endorse the net lawyers use for what may seem as finding legal loopholes. Many people wish that the net used by lawyers could be closer to our ordinary net for thinking about laws. However altho many adults share parts of a public ordinary legal net, this net is fairly vague and there are matters in which different people use personal legal nets that are not compatible. One application of conceptual study could be to clarify our ordinary legal net. Since this could be a formidable task, I will focus only on one concept, namely the concept of a legal right. Since this is a specialized rights concept, I will relate it to other rights concepts.
Legal Rights: Our public ordinary legal net involves a rights concept, such as the right to remain silent. This concept probably has much the same meaning as the rights concept in the more elaborate net used by the legal profession. R is a legal right means that R may be properly claimed as due and some process for enforcing this claim is available in the legal system. What is involved in a specific legal right and how it is to be enforced may not be clear from the language used to declare the right and may need to be supplemented by various laws. Both the right and the laws may need to be interpreted by the judiciary. Even when a right is clarified, further judicial review or further legislation may change it. It may even be changed because of changing social conditions. Consider the right R to a jury trial by ones peers. This right depends on the concept of peers. R did not prevent the exclusion of women form the jury, even in the trial of a woman. R does not currently prevent a child from being tried as an adult. However it is conceivable that some day a court might interpret R in such a way that children could not be tried as adults because a jury of adults is not a jury of peers for a child. Altho none of this has any effect on the clarity of the concept of a legal right, it does indicate that it may be difficult to clarify what is involved in a particular right.
Example: Jim says that the criminal’s rights should not take priority over the victim’s rights. If Jim had been using a legal concept of rights, he could try to back this claim by saying that the currently recognized rights of criminals actually legal rights because they violate the equal protection clause. Testing this in court would likely show that he was paraceptually wrong. Unless the legal system has some basis for the rights of victims, the rights of a victim must be of a different type. They are not actual legal rights, but perhaps there are reasons that they should become legal rights. If so these potential rights could be clearly specified and reasons for adopting them could be given in terms of currently recognized legal principles. Jim was implicitly using a vague concept of rights in which neither the rights of the criminal nor those of the victim are merely legal rights. His appeal was to a broader kind of rights. The role of conceptual study would be to clarify the concepts being used. This may not help determine whether what he said is true, but at least it would add clarity. Clarification of this would involve placing legal rights in a more extensive net for rights.
Ordinary Nets for Personal Rights: Since legal rights are not the only kinds of rights, and since people may not be clear about which rights they are considering, debates involving rights can be conceptually vague. A major problem with the concept of a right is the tendency that many people have to talk about legal rights while implicitly using some other concept of rights. Some other types of rights are similar to legal rights in the sense that they may be claimed as due and some process for guaranteeing this claim is available. For example, a club may guarantee its members a hearing when facing expulsion, a referee has the right to call a technical foul, the coach has a right to ask the referee for an explanation, etc. To focus on these kinds of rights, I refer to them as institutional rights. Institutional rights are normally understood by persons with institutional status and accompanied by a process that is intended to guarantee them. They tend to be either explicitly formulated or implicit in traditions for which there is a high degree of consensus in interpreting. As used here institutional rights refer to rights of persons, rather than rights of institutions. I will only discuss the rights of persons that can be understood without reference to the rights of institutions. This ignores some significant concepts needed for a more comprehensive treatment of personal rights.
Institutional rights can be contrasted to other types that can be imagined. The concept of an institutional right is an instance of what can be called a common community right. R is a common right in a community if persons may claim R as being rooted in community values and if this claim is backed up by established social practices or institutions of that community. For instance, parents may have the right to set their children’s bedtimes. Unlike legal rights, backing for many of them may not involve any enforcement process. Backing can be nothing more than public sensibility, which at least would disapprove of attempts to violate such rights. From this perspective, a legal right is a common right where the community is some political entity and the rights are strongly backed by the institution of government and can actually be enforced by the legal practices of that community.
Natural Rights: There
has also been some concept of a right that is broader than that of a common
community right. The Declaration of Independence states that all men are
created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.
These were clearly not community rights at that time, altho there was some
attempt to claim them as rights of Englishmen.
Debates over abortion involve the phrases ‘the right to
life’ and ‘the right to choose’. Clearly there are laws designed to punish
murder or manslaughter, so there is a legal right to life. To say that abortion
is murder or manslaughter in the
For the purpose of this example, I make an initial tentative approximation to the concept of a moral right. A moral right is one whose protection is essential to the long-term moral wellbeing of humanity. Claims to a moral right are supported by reality constants in the sense that nurturing it tends to enhance the moral wellbeing of the human community and its members. Altho moral wellbeing was earlier conceptualized in terms of moral values and moral virtues that fit us to take an appropriate place in the world for a human, there can be considerable paraceptual disagreement about what an appropriate place is. An existentialist might claim that the appropriate place is whatever the actor is able to create it to be. A humanist might claim the place being one who can contribute to the long-term wellbeing of humanity. A theist may agree that the place proposed by the humanist is part of that place but for a different reason. He might look to a higher place for humans, for instance as persons whose purpose is determined by a divine will. Another claim for a higher perspective on our appropriate place might involve our relation to some other inherent spiritual aspect of the world, such as what is entailed in being fully human. Altho there are disagreements about our appropriate place, there will be reality constraints on what constitutes such a place. This can lead to disagreement about which values and virtue fit us for our place, but there is often some consensus on what these values and virtues are.
Example: A theist and a humanist agree that honesty is a moral virtue and dishonesty is a moral vice. Both think that being honest contributes to the long-term wellbeing of humanity and being dishonest undermines this wellbeing. The theist even claims that God’s will includes the wellbeing of humanity. However, he goes beyond this and claims that the basic reason that honesty is a moral virtue because this is what is called for by God’s purpose for us.
Altho calling something a moral right might seem to give it priority over other considerations, it is conceptually consistent to claim that M is a moral right but to oppose enforcing it for amoral reasons. For instance, someone who thinks that every child has a moral right to adequate health care might oppose trying to ensure that right for economic reasons. Even someone who believes that morality has supernatural support may believe that some higher power is suggestive for morality but not prescriptive for establishing it. In general, the concept of a moral right allows for the possibility that such rights may not have much immediate backing or that there are personal consequences for violating them. Any of this might be the case, but this is a paraceptual matter. A person who believes that God’s will determines morality may claim that God’s does not want all morality to be legally enforced, altho he wants some moral rights to be so enforced. Many who believe that God gave the Ten Commandments would not endorse legally enforcing all of them. Moreover they could take opposite positions on whether the legal system should support a person’s right not to work on the Sabbath.
The discussion about abortion involves both theists and non-theists. If we conceptualize moral rights theistically then discussions about such rights would be irrelevant for an atheist. An agnostic would not know whether or not there were such rights, but would certainly not know how to determine them. An advantage of the broader concept of a moral right proposed above is that more people could meaningfully be included in this debate or in other debates about rights.
Many persons advocating the pro-life position have theistic beliefs that morality is based on God’s will. While abortion is not legally murder, they believe it is morally murder. They believe that God will hold a person who kills an unborn child morally responsible and that a society that does not protect this right will fail to prosper in some significant way. This would be a backing for the right to life, but not an enforcement process, altho this backing may suggest that there should be some legal enforcement process. A theist taking a pro-choice position can use the same basic belief about the source of morality. The difference then could rest on paraceptual matters about the will of God. Whether they can make progress in their debate depends on how they handle disagreements about God’s will or which rights he wants enforced by the legal system. To the extent that they have the same concept of God’s will, any disagreements will be about paraceptual claims and about how to know God’s will and how he expects a society to implement morality.
Altho theists could make the paraceptual claim that morality is rooted in God’s will, they might still make progress with non-theists who have different beliefs about the source of morality. The main thing needed in order to make progress is agreement on which practices are moral and which moral rights need to be legally enforced. Using the broad concept of a moral right allows for a different type of discussion. The debate would focus on what enhances the long-term moral wellbeing of humanity. To make progress with non-theists they would need to find other evidence about what supports the moral wellbeing of humanity. Some of the discussion could consider the existence of God and the nature of his his will, but more to bring out paraceptual differences than to settle them. Of course, focusing on the moral wellbeing of humanity also still leaves enormous room for disagreement.
Such debate may seem to focus on paraceptual matters, but unless a shared concept of the wellbeing of humanity is being used, there may be more misunderstanding than actual paraceptual disagreement. In particular, does the concept of the wellbeing of humanity mean the greatest wellbeing for the most even if this may involve the sacrifice of some? Most important for discussing abortion, how does the wellbeing of unborn humans fit in, and is the legal protection of their life as essential to the moral wellbeing of society as the legal protection of everyone else’s life. Without some serious conceptual study I do not see how I could understand what either proponents or opponents of abortion are claiming.
Disparate Claims
about Natural Rights: Conceptualizing a natural right as one whose
protection is essential to the long-term wellbeing of humanity allows for various
claims about such rights. I will only consider two opposite extremes. One claim
is that there are definite natural rights that are applicable to all persons
and thus should be backed by the social institutions for a society to be
healthy. Another claim is that there are no natural rights. Someone making this
claim might say that altho there seems to be evidence that a human society
cannot flourish for a long period without some rights of various types, it is
merely having common community rights that matter, rather than what they
actually are. Moreover, what rights are useful might depend more on cultural or
environmental factors as on human nature. For instance, they might say that
altho the rights claimed by
Human Rights: Altho what are now called human rights can be conceptualized as natural rights, they can also be conceptualized as rights of a common community type, where the community is humanity. Common human rights are those that are rooted in a consensus that is backed by community attitudes and institutions that support persons in these rights and censure violators of those rights. Using this concept, common human rights did not even exist thru most of human history and they may change significantly as the consensus changes. They could expand or they could shrink or even disappear. Most people interested in human rights have a different concept in mind, one that roots human rights in something stronger than consensus. Altho the 18th century concept of a natural right may have been too theistic, the broader concept that I have proposed might serve for both theists and non-theists. There could be considerable consensus on what such human rights entail, altho there would be paraceptual differences in why having them as community rights enhances the long-term wellbeing of humanity.
In general, using conceptual study to clarify our ordinary nets will neither settle paraceptual differences of opinion nor settle differences in value commitments. All that it can do is clarify such differences by showing the conceptual distinctions that need to be recognized. For Bo and Jo, their limited egg concepts could easily be discarded in favor of a broader concept. In many cases, conceptual distinctions need to be maintained. Continuing to recognize the distinctions can still face difficulties. Persons may recognize that they use the same term for different concepts. They may even understand the concept being used by each other. Merging these into a common concept may be logically possible, but if the distinctions are pronounced, I doubt if it would be useful. Both would have a tendency to revert to the concept they prefer. The solution I propose is to keep both concepts and change terminology. This can also face difficulties. The term used may seem desirable to both. Moreover the term may also be used for concepts that differ from both of their concepts.
Having proposed two different concepts of a human right (and there may be others), there may be occasions in which there is confusion about which is being used. One solution is to add an adjective, using terminology such as ‘common human rights’ and ‘higher human right’. The term ‘human right’ could still be used for either, when it was clear from context which concept was being used. Since more people seem to be using the concept of a higher human right, it might be useful to reserve the term human right exclusively for that concept. Supposing that this common concept was less widely used, we could coin a new term such as ‘humanistic rights’ for the other concept in order to stress the difference. Conceptually, a specific right can be both a human right and a humanistic right. The right to free speech was supported as a human right prior to the adoption of the Bill of Rights. If it was a natural right at that time then it remained one after it became a legal right. It has not yet become a humanistic right, altho advocates for human right are working for it to become one.
Most people seem to believe that there are rights beyond common community rights. This does not mean they do not also want them to be humanistic rights, i.e. common community rights for the human community. In fact, a major move in that direction was to codify the consensus on human rights, when on 12/10/1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has 30 articles. It may be accessed at un.org/overview/rights. This was followed by an effort to influence social practices, as I quote below.
Following this
historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the
text of the Declaration and “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read
and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions,
without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.”
Institutions such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International back these rights. Human Rights Watch is an independent, non-governmental organization, supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. It accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly. It investigates and exposes human rights violations and holds abusers accountable. It challenges governments and those who hold power to end abusive practices and respect international human rights law. Similar remarks apply to Amnesty International.
My own attitude towards human rights seems to be unusual. I have yet to formulate the concept clearly enough to determine whether they conceptually include all natural rights or only some of them. Moreover I have paraceptual reservations about the existence of natural rights, finding their existence at most somewhat plausible. I have a commitment to the rights that others claim are human rights, but I would be committed to them even if making them humanistic rights did not enhance the long-term wellbeing of humanity. This commitment is rooted in my personal ideals. What is important to me is that these rights become humanistic rights and to a large extent legal rights. This goal I share with those who believe they are human rights. I examine this in the light of my values and purposes, so the utility of applying conceptual study to concepts related to rights seems obvious. Since the main example I use is emotionally charged for many people, for some of their purposes and values CS might have negative utility.
Loose Ends: In an earlier version of this paper, I found the concept of a natural right too vague for my purposes, and so I asked a different question. Is there some coherent way to conceptualize a rights concept that involves the idea that P may properly claim a right as due and this is backed by something other than some human social practices? Since I only had a tentative way to conceptualize such rights, I was reluctant to use such a concept. However others talked as if there were such rights, and I wanted to think about such discussions. At that time, I formulated the concept of a higher right as any type of right that is not conceptualized as common community right. The terminology was not intended to suggest that having a higher right is more important than having a common one. It may well be to a violator, especially if the backer of the right is higher in the sense of being able to punish. For most persons who want their rights protected, there is considerable evidence that having a common right is of more immediate practical importance. In fact, the kind of common rights that seem most important are those that people have wanted to claim as legal rights. It was only when revising this paper that I formulated what I find to be a coherent concept of a natural right and the instance of this I called a moral right. The concept of a higher right conceptually includes the concept of a natural right. The higher right concept is formulated by what it is not. Thus it might possible to conceptualize a type of higher right that is not a natural right. I have yet to make such an attempt or even consider the utility of doing so. Nor have I given much thought about how to settle paraceptual differences with regard to the existence of higher rights or what common community rights actually are higher rights.