This right tonight

[j4]

I caught part of a bunfight discussion on Radio 2 at lunchtime today, between George Monbiot and somebody from (I think) the Spectator, about the environmental ethics of cheap flights. [BBC News: "UK 'must act' on plane emissions" | Report launched today by the University of Oxford]

You already know what Monbiot's line is; I don't need to rehash that here. But the other chap was putting forward a view that I hadn't heard before; he was arguing that Monbiot's call for fewer cheap flights was part of some kind of middle-class conspiracy to trample all over the "rights" that have recently "been acquired" by "poorer people". He claimed that the rich resented the poor becoming richer, and wanted to "punish" them for this by curtailing their "rights" to cheap flights -- whether they are making these flights for pleasure, work, or "education".

Questions I am not going to attempt to answer include: whether the environmentalists' predictions of the future global warming scenario are as exaggerated as their detractors claim; how many flights Monbiot has made in the last year; whether he is more interested in advertising his book than saving the world; how many of our cheap flights to European holiday destinations (of which I've made a few myself) are "educational"; whether there is a middle-class conspiracy to erode the rights of poorer people; whether the poor are in fact becoming richer, and if so, by what metric.

Questions I would like to find answers to include: where do "rights" come from? Are we born with them? If not, do we accrue them as a function of our passage through time, or are they allocated to us by some external agency? Does the discontinuing of a commodity or service which used to exist automatically constitute riding roughshod over somebody's "rights"? If we have a "right" to something, should we claim it, whatever the cost?

Comments

[fanf]

Do you thing that talking in terms of duties instead of rights is less prone to self-righteousness?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I don't know, but anything that gets away from the concept of rights as inalienable things existing in perpetuo without inherent attendant responsibilities is a good thing.

Absolutely

[barnacle.livejournal.com]

Anything that gets away from the concept of things as inalieably good existing in solitudo without inherent attendant drawbacks is a. Oh.

Re: Absolutely

[j4.livejournal.com]

"inalieably" == "not being able to have garlic added to which"?

Every time I think of the word "anatidaeic" I think of you, you know. Fortunately I think of you for other reasons too, otherwise ... hey, hang on, who are you again?

Hi!

Re: Absolutely

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

"inalieably" == "not being able to have garlic added to which"?

This would be the underlying thought process of the philosophy professor who wrote "This dish has too much garlic" as an example of a statement that is self-evidently false in all circumstances, I take it ?

Re: Absolutely

[barnacle.livejournal.com]

I'm the duck, with hands stapled to its sides. That's why I don't fly off.

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

Talking about wrongs works better for me - X has been wronged by Y and Y should make restitution/be punished in some way. It has to be made clear what the two actors are.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

But that limits you to reactive thinking; I'm inclined to think that there's something to be said for proactive thinking in this matter as well.

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

What, you mean go out looking for percieved injustices even when those involved are not complaining? That sounds like a way to consume a large amount of time and effort to create a huge mess ...

I'm not really sure what you mean by proactive thinking if not that.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I mean, thinking in terms of how to build something good, rather than exclusively in terms of how to fix not-good things.