henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Aug 05, 2021 3:00 pm
The strongest always wins.
That's not what I meant (though, I can see from my sloppy construct why you might think so).
Sure, Joe can enslave Stan through the exercise of might, but no
right is established.
Yep. I agree.
It's interesting, though: if Nietzsche were right about God being dead, then what is there, other than my "might" at the present moment, to secure for me my "rights"?
And what happens to my "rights" when I am old, or young, or female, or poor, or unpopular, or from a minority...Advocates for those groups admit and even insist that those groups lack the power they allegedly deserve...which means they also lack the might to defend themselves against the "hegemony" or "oppressive power" of some other group...and insist that they deserve to be accorded more power, so they can defend the alleged "rights" that they do not have the might to produce on their own.
None of that is coherent. If might makes rights, then only the mighty are in a position to determine what rights exist. The powerless have no justification, then, because they have no might. But they want to claim the rights to which their lack of might apparently disentitles them.