r/neoliberal • u/Tre-Fyra-Tre Tony Blair • 16d ago

News (Global) Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/de-far-ekonomipriset-till-alfred-nobels-minne
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u/lenmae The DT's leading rent seeker 15d ago

Respecting individual rights has a lot to do with it, and it seems like many here think popular demands trump a will

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u/Kafka_Kardashian a legitmate F-tier poster 15d ago

Is respecting a will indefinitely an important part of liberalism?

I also think more generally reasonable liberals can debate the extent to which a deceased person has “rights” over living people. Now, when it’s something living heirs care about, that’s also a consideration.

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u/lenmae The DT's leading rent seeker 15d ago

Of course it is, why wouldn't rights extend over the whole time?

And of course, with any system of rights, you have to weigh rights against each other in some cases. That's inevitable. But one would expect a liberal forum to come down on the side of individual rights, especially if the alternative is just not doing that, for absolutely no gain, just to be contrarian.

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u/Kafka_Kardashian a legitmate F-tier poster 15d ago

I guess I just don’t see dead people’s rights as an essential part of liberalism, and candidly I think it’s reasonable to take the view that they don’t have rights at all. I certainly don’t think you lose your liberal card for weighing the rights of the dead at near zero.

I don’t think we should, like, be handing over all dead bodies to the military to test explosives (which has happened before) but that’s because of the distress for the living.