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Originally Posted by alansmithee
I don't understand this at all. I can see something not being right, but how isn't it "a" right? Who decides what things are rights and not in the absence of law, besides personal whim?...
And if there is no laws governing an act, people/corporations/whatever certainly do have a right to do it.
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I understand that as a conceptual and legal entity, a corporation, that which is on paper, does not in itself have moral responsibility. (Any more than a rock has moral responsibility). I also understand that if there is no legislation barring a particular act, a corporation can perform that act. But in my view, a corporation is also composed of people. In my view, those people have moral resposibility that runs above and beyond their duty to turn a profit. I think that even if it was perfectly legal to perform a particular act- to enslave an ethnic group, for example- it wouldn't be my "right" to do so even if it might be a "legal right".
I shouldn't be able to inflict unreasonable costs on you regardless of the legality. I want to use the term "natural law" because that's what it seems like - a violation of natural law. I'm hesitant to do so because: 1) natural law may be to take inflict costs on others and reap benefits; and 2) just because something is natural doesn't make it right.
I suppose laws are created based on moral consensus. That moral consensus is composed of different individuals' personal morality. I also suppose that in the absence of law, personal morality (or personal whim), does dictate what is a right and what is not. Personal morality is a murky topic for discusion, but I suppose that is what this interaction boils down to...