The Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes sweeping pronouncements about rights to housing, education, etc. Who is obliged, however, to see that such rights are positively protected or practiced--the universe? The UN has no institutional standing to require me to house the homeless. Isn't my role not to interfere with people seeking housing, just as I honor another' right to free speech by doing nothing to stifle her expression? The Declaration seems like it should be recast as a desired state document that serves as a guide for government policy and law. Do philosophers find the Declaration sound?

Your question actually seems to be several rolled into one. In general, I think you're asking about what sorts of claims are being made when the UN Declaration states that there are rights to housing, education, etc. Your remark that you yourself only have to not interfere with others seeking housing seems reasonable (though I wonder whether you would agree that you have no obligation to provide housing if (say) your community is struck by a natural disaster that renders large numbers of people homeless). However, I gather that the UN Declaration is asserting that such rights are rights against one's state or society rather than against the members of states or societies. To say that individuals have a right to housing is not to say that particular individuals are obligated to house them. Instead, this right is one held against a collective: society, or the state as its representative. Secondly, the rights to which you refer appear to be positive rather than negative rights. To have a negative right...

Why should the value we place on freedom of speech extend to cover insult and ridicule, given that these sorts of speech aren't obviously constructive?

I don't know where you're writing from, but in almost every part of the world, the law does not protect speech that is insulting or expresses ridicule. This kind of speech is typically classified as defamation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation: When written, it's known as libel, and when spoken, slander. There are some differences in how different nations understand defamation, but in general terms, it's understood as the expression of a false statement, known or believed by the speaker to be false, aimed at harming the reputation of a person or group. This definition suggests that the philosophical rationale for defamation not being legally protected is along the lines you suggest, namely, that it's not "constructive." Generally speaking, we do not much benefit by believing what is false, so the audience for defamatory speech does not benefit from it. Moreover, defamatory speech does not contribute to public discourse and is not even intended to advance our knowledge of the truth. Hence,...

Hello. I wanted to ask about revenge. (1) Is there anything morally wrong with taking revenge? (2) If the urge to take revenge is a genetic instinct (and surely, it's quite plausible that it might be), why should it have less moral authority than any other feeling about right and wrong? The background to this question is that, while there's no explicit eye-for-an-eye in the laws of most contemporary societies, usually judges take community expectations and appropriate punishment into account when sentencing, and not just factors like legal requirements, precedence, rehabilitation and deterrence -- so revenge is arguably still very much a part of modern law.

Modern legal systems and practices are probably shaped by a number of different factors, as you note. Criminal sentencing, for example, is likely to reflect concerns about rehabilitation, deterrence, consistency — and revenge. You rightfully ask: Should revenge have a place in how wrongdoers are treated -- is there something morally suspect about revenge? First, it's key to recognize that revenge does not simply aim at making a wrongdoer worse off. Revenge is instead partly a matter of motive: Whenever we punish someone, we aim to make them worse off in some way. What distinguishes revenge from deterrence and other motives is that in acting so as to avenge, we aim to make the wrongdoer worse off for no other apparent reason than that the wrongdoer should be made to suffer. We aren't attempting to discourage the wrongdoer (or others) from acting wrongly, nor are we attempting to use the suffering as a way to improve the wrongdoer's character, etc. Revenge is fundamentally vindictive . To punish a...

Are there any good reasons to think that life has intrinsic rather than instrumental value?

First, let me offer a gloss on your question: By 'life' here I take take you to mean something like an individual person's being alive or continuing to live, as opposed to all of human life, or biological life in general. I must admit that I cannot think of any compelling reasons to believe that life has intrinsic value, that is, value in its own right or for its own sake. When we reflect on our reasons for wanting to continue to live, we might say 'it's great to be alive!' or 'ain't life grand?' But appearances notwithstanding, such remarks don't seem to amount to saying that merely being alive, apart from the quality or worth of that life, is valuable for its own sake. Rather, we seem to have in mind that there's something about life that is great and grand, apart from simply being alive. If we try to imagine just being alive, is that a good state to be in? As soon as we are tempted to say 'yes,' we are likely to start referring to facts that would make life good but not for its own sake: the...

Hi! I was looking at images from Abu Ghraib today, and I was wondering -- is there any sense to thinking that the mere act of looking at the prisoners is wrong, or even in some way harms them? Many of the prisoners are not identifiable from the photos, so I'm not sure that my worry is about reputational damage. The same might apply to other sorts of images, and even text. For instance: "Fapgate", where nude images of celebrities were distributed without their consent. Or what about if I find a person's diary on a train and read it? Is there any sense to the feeling that I am violating someone, though that person and I will always be strangers to each other? To add one more twist: what if the author of the diary, or a prisoner depicted in one of the photos, is now dead? Can I still be said to harm them?

Im going to set aside the last part of your question, whether it matters to the morality of looking at the images in question that those depicted are (sometimes) dead. That raises a collection of issues that it would take some time to address (a number of responses on this site under the topic 'Death' may be helpful to you: http://askphilosophers.org/topic/economics?topic=239). So is there anything morally objectionable at looking at the images of Abu Ghraib or of nude celebrities? My sense is that they raise rather different sets of moral issues. The Abu Ghraib images, for one, depict actions undertaken by government representatives (soldiers) in the course of a military conflict. Their release to the public seems to promote a good (knowing what our military is doing) that clearly doesn't apply to nude celebrities. To use a legal idiom, there is no compelling public interest at stake in disseminating nude celebrity photos. So if there is a moral case against looking at the Abu Ghraib images, it seems...

When discussing new laws that give government agencies greater powers in relation to surveillance, people sometimes claim, "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you shouldn't have anything to hide." This doesn't sit right with me, but I find my disquiet difficult to explain. It's not that I'm worried about bad governments potentially abusing such powers; it's more that I feel some sort of violation has happened. In a very different context, when people reveal their inmost thoughts on social media, or even post nude photographs of themselves, it's sometimes said, "This is who I am. Why should I hide anything or keep anything secret?" Again, I'd suggest that the value of some sort of privacy or private space is being questioned. There's a sort of implicit challenge as to why anyone should be private at all. I was wondering whether philosophers have any good reasons why some sort of secret, private space should be valued in itself. If one is not a criminal, is there any reason not to live one's life...

As you suggest, the 'you haven't done anything wrong, so why should you be worried about surveillance?' stance doesn't seem to capture the privacy-based objections to being watched, observed, etc. That stance appears to assume that the only reason we might care about privacy is that it affords us some ability to prevent our illegal, immoral, or embarrassing behavior from being found out. I'm skeptical that privacy has any value "in itself," as you mention. Instead, privacy seems closely related to many other things we may value. Among the values philosophers have suggested privacy serves: - Privacy may protect our right to control the dissemination of information about ourselves and to protect our capacity to craft a public persona distinct from our innermost thoughts or feelings. - Privacy may be essential to intimacy with others or to the development of meaningful relationships with others. - Privacy might serve to enable us to control others' access to us and so limit their ability to manipulate or...

After my mother's sister was diagnosed with cancer, all of the siblings were urged to be genetically tested for the cancer-causing gene. Sadly, my mother possesses that gene. She urged my siblings and me to be tested as well; however, due to personal convictions and leanings towards absurdism and fatalism, I don't think I want to be tested. My sisters' reply to this range from acceptance to curiosity to anger. Should I be tested and make them happy or accept that whatever is going to happen will happen?

I must admit to some confusion about the assumptions behind your question: I'm not a medical doctor, but except in rare cases, having the genetic predisposition to the cancer doesn't guarantee you'll develop it. So getting the test and (potentially) learning you have the predisposition doesn't require that you "accept whatever is going to happen," i.e., resigning yourself to the cancer. The question of whether you should seek out this knowledge is distinct from what you might do with (or without!) that knowledge. In fact, it may make more sense to try to minimize your risk of developing the cancer through your lifestyle choices if you did find out you have the predisposition. Then you're dealing with a known risk instead of merely a hypothetical one. But knowing your situation and how you respond to that knowledge (or lack thereof) present different issues. On the other side, why will you siblings be unhappy if you opt not to get the test?I'm skeptical that they have a moral right that you get the test....

Assuming the best possible thing is happiness, (because, after all, everything a person does is to acquire that), if everyone was connected to an IV which injected a chemical that causes complete happiness, wouldn't that be the best possible life? And wouldn't killing them not be a crime, since the only reason murder is "wrong" is because we instinctively fear death, and these people would not have instincts, and would therefore be the equivalent of robots? Since they wouldn't know that they're about to die, they'd be happy until they'd cease to exist - and once they cease to exist, they can't be unhappy. For that matter, no one would volunteer for such a type of happiness, since such happiness would be equivalent to ceasing to exist. So why are happiness and life inherently good? Are they inherently good? Why is it bad to murder someone? Are morals at all important? And so on. In other words, happiness does not semantically equal good. Happiness is a completely different concept, which cannot be...

You ask a whole bundle of questions at once -- more than can be tackled in my response. Let's focus on two interrelated strands of your question: the badness of death and the wrongness of killing. Suppose we could use chemical measures to make people (as you say) completely happy. You say such people would not have "instincts" and would not fear death. Both claims strike me as very implausible. A happy life seems rather to require instincts: instincts to pursue and engage in various activities that make us happy. Furthermore, I see no basis for thinking that a 'completely happy' person would not fear death. Exactly why people fear death is hard to pin down. But one plausible explanation is that they fear because death entails losing out on the further goods of life. But a completely happy person would have more reason to fear death, since (after all) they would stand to lose more than less happy, or unhappy, people would. So I find the initial thought experiment to be, well, perhaps not impossible --...

Hi! I like to know how a philosopher comes to conclusion that a particular thing has an Instrumental value or an Intrinsic value. I read in Wikipedia, in Swedish section, that ice cream has an instrumental value, that there is no end in itself to eat ice cream, but it is good and makes me feel good. Feeling good has an intrinsic value. Is it a matter of on's preference to arrive at that kind of conclusion? Is it possible to say that any thing that is made by human has an Instrumental value.? Thank you for your help! Best regards Alan

The notion of intrinsic value is important to many debates in philosophical ethics. Very roughly, to say that something has intrinsic value (or is intrinsically valuable) is to say that it is good or desirable as such or for its own sake. On classical views, what has intrinsic value is worth seeking or having for reasons having to do with its own properties or nature. In your example of eating ice cream, the act of eating the ice cream does not seem to have intrinsic value. Rather, eating the ice cream is a way to attain something that has intrinsic value: pleasure, or "feeling good," as you expressed it. In this respect, ice cream itself does not have intrinsic value but has instrumental value: Its value is that it is a means to attain something else of intrinsic value. (Note that intrinsic and instrumental value are not mutually exclusive; something can be both good or desirable as such as well as being valuable as a means to other intrinsically valuable things. Good health might fit in this category:...

Existence is filled with happiness and suffering, but the amount of happiness and suffering is not guaranteed. Non-existence, on the other hand, has no happiness or suffering. Non-existence isn't good or bad, yet existence is labeled either good or bad. Why is it that existence must be labeled good or bad (or fulfilled/not fulfilled) with no middle ground, yet non-existence must remain neutral?

Here's one reason to think that not existing is neither good nor bad (this reasoning is due, roughly, to Epicurus): Non-existence is not a state of us -- it's not a state that one can be in. Moreover, it's not a state a person can experience or undergo. And if everything is good or bad for us only because of our experiencing it, non-existence can't be good or bad for us. But not everyone thinks that 'non-existence' is neutral in this way. For one, many of us fear death, suggesting that we think it would be bad for us to be in a state of non-existence. Why that should be is somewhat mysterious -- indeed, Epicurus issued the argument above in order to persuade us we shouldn't fear death. Another route to questioning the neutrality of non-existence runs like this: Some people are harmed by being brought into existence. (Imagine a person born into the worst possible life circumstances you can think of -- persistent and painful medical condition, poverty, parental neglect, etc.) If so, then it follows...

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