24 Dec 16
1 edit
Originally posted by KazetNagorraAnd my point, all along, is that your definitions are gleaned from a certain stage of development, where certain characteristics are required. This artificially places conditions on what qualifies for rights. You can't use a definition based around characteristics of a fully grown human or even a human in a stage of development later than birth as criteria for a human in a prior stage of development. Your entire premise rests on criteria that aren't appropriate and aren't applicable, therefore your entire argument is flawed.
Zygotes have no consciousness according to any reasonable definition thereof. I linked an article about foetal development and consciousness; there is no way zygotes have anything resembling a consciousness.
EDIT: let me put this into perspective:. Your argument is akin to looking at a cross country runner in middle school, and applying Olympic standards for what qualifies as a good time for the event.
24 Dec 16
Originally posted by shavixmirStating this over and over again won't make it objectively true.
Jesus H. Christ man!
That a faetus evolved
Irregulary and comes out with a mutation, has nothing to do with what I'm saying.
If a woman wants an abortion; no matter the reason or who's set to gain or lose, it's her choice.
Once a baby is born, it's no longer physically bound to the mother.
End of story.
Get with it.
24 Dec 16
Originally posted by blaze8492Well, of course "certain characteristics are required." I think everyone agrees on that. I use a utilitarian perspective, for which it is essential that harm is done. No harm is done to a zygote by killing it because it doesn't care. And no one else is harmed unless the mother disagrees, in which case abortion is not an issue.
And my point, all along, is that your definitions are gleaned from a certain stage of development, where certain characteristics are required. This artificially places conditions on what qualifies for rights. You can't use a definition based around characteristics of a fully grown human or even a human in a stage of development later than birth as criter ...[text shortened]... n middle school, and applying Olympic standards for what qualifies as a good time for the event.
What you haven't explained is why a zygote should be entitled to protections other than saying "I call a zygote human and humans should be protected." Why?
24 Dec 16
Originally posted by KazetNagorraSo what if I were to happen upon a passed out drunk that nobody knows?
Well, of course "certain characteristics are required." I think everyone agrees on that. I use a utilitarian perspective, for which it is essential that harm is done. No harm is done to a zygote by killing it because it doesn't care. And no one else is harmed unless the mother disagrees, in which case abortion is not an issue.
What you haven't explai ...[text shortened]... ed to protections other than saying "I call a zygote human and humans should be protected." Why?
According to your belief if I kill that bum, would that be murder?
How about a person who is just sitting there out of their mind? They never interact, just sit there rocking back and forth.
Fair game for killing?
24 Dec 16
Originally posted by EladarYes, it would be murder. Your point is unclear to me.
So what if I were to happen upon a passed out drunk that nobody knows?
According to your belief if I kill that bum, would that be murder?
How about a person who is just sitting there out of their mind? They never interact, just sit there rocking back and forth.
Fair game for killing?
Originally posted by KazetNagorraYou can't prove it doesn't care without appealing to your own pre-selected conditions for what constitutes "care." Zygotes are empirically human in genetic makeup, clearly different cells from the rest of a mother's body, and behave in ways that no skin cell or liver cell ever has or ever will without outside intervention to change it into an embryonic stem cell.
Well, of course "certain characteristics are required." I think everyone agrees on that. I use a utilitarian perspective, for which it is essential that harm is done. No harm is done to a zygote by killing it because it doesn't care. And no one else is harmed unless the mother disagrees, in which case abortion is not an issue.
What you haven't explai ...[text shortened]... ed to protections other than saying "I call a zygote human and humans should be protected." Why?
Furthermore, through millenias of observation and with approximately 7 billion current examples, we know that zygote results in a fully grown human after 26 years of development.
To recap:
1) We know it is a human. Not a dog, not a cat, a human.
2) We know it behaves in a way unlike any other cell in the body, and we know it can only come into being with either a) the genetic material of another, consenting adult, or b) the artificial insertion of new genetic material to change the nature of another cell.
3) We know that after it's development is completed, it will have all the characteristics of the species, and we know it is without a doubt of the species homo sapien sapien.
What other evidence do I require to assert that it deserves human rights? Establishing any other criteria brings subjectivity into the discussion. You must subjectively determine that a x point in the life form's development, it is deserving. You have therefore inserted your opinion, and your opinion can change at any time. Human Rights are not subject to the whims of others.
And whether or not it cares is irrelevant. By that logic, I could keep an African as a slave, and as long as the African isn't aware that slavery is illegal, and therefore doesn't care about whether or not it's a slave, it's morally correct for me to treat that African as a slave and property (including the execution of that slave if it doesn't do what I want it to). Boy, that sounds familiar, wasn't that an argument for not educating slaves back when it was legal in the US?
25 Dec 16
1 edit
Originally posted by blaze8492The order that rights are listed in a document is not evidence that the UN framers give the right to life so much priority that it overrides all other rights. It might mean that the UN framers thought it more important, but not necessarily to the point of overriding all other rights. I have addressed the logical argument that you put forward. Other than an appeal to authority you have not provided an argument as to why that one must be alive to have rights entails that the right to life must have overriding priority. First I don't agree that one necessarily loses ones rights after death, so I don't agree with the premise. Second even if one does the conclusion does not follow from the premise. For one thing there is only one premise and you need at least two to draw a conclusion (at least a non-trivial one). So as it stands it's a non-sequitur, you haven't shown that because of your premise (that rights depend on life) the conclusion (the right to life overrides all others) must be true. I can turn this into symbolic logic and show that it doesn't follow if you really want. You need justification beyond this. Some sort of axiom that connects the "is" of aliveness to the "ought" of the right to the continuance of that state with justification is required.
I'm not exactly sure how providing evidence that shows the framers of the world-body's chosen Human Rights Document considered the Right to Life to be of special importance constitutes an unjustified belief. You also haven't addressed the logical argument I put forward (that because life is required for any rights to exist, the Right to Life is the most f ...[text shortened]... ng up your claim, so as of now, the one with the position that is least justified is you, not I.
Originally posted by DeepThoughtYou haven't, really. Without life, there is no speech for us to discuss "freedom of speech." You don't discuss granting a rock or a desk freedom of speech. It is not capable of speech. Without life, there is no discussion of Torture. Torture requires a living being for it to apply. Without life, there is no discussion of expression. Desks do not express opinions.
The order that rights are listed in a document is not evidence that the UN framers give the right to life so much priority that it overrides all other rights. It might mean that the UN framers thought it more important, but not necessarily to the point of overriding all other rights. I have addressed the logical argument that you put forward. Other th ...[text shortened]... ess to the "ought" of the right to the continuance of that state with justification is required.
As to death, show me a corpse with an opinion at this moment in time. Show me a corpse with a statement to make verbally or in writing that needs protecting. Show me a corpse that needs protection from illegal quartering of troops. Show me a corpse that can be made into a slave. Show me a corpse that fulfills any condition requiring it to be granted rights. It's not alive, and therefore cannot exercise any of its' rights from the moment of death until the end of time, and will in fact decay into nothingness over time rather than grow. It has no future.
To be alive is to be entitled to rights, and therefore, and human that is alive and has a future ought to be granted the rights of humans as traditionally afforded to them. Can you name a single human right which is preserved for the human in question on basic principal after death? In other words, can you name an action or liberty protected as a human right that the corpse can execute at any time in the future as a corpse?
EDIT: After thinking about your last sentence a bit, perhaps the best way I can put it is that a Human that is alive may, at any current or future point in time, exercise the rights humans afford each other as a byproduct of being a member of the species. Death removes that ability. It is my believe that Human Rights are afforded simply for being a member of the human species. They cannot be earned, they cannot be granted, they are inherent from the moment the life begins to the moment the life ends.
I believe this because it is the only interpretation which leaves nothing open to the whims of the mob or the times. If rights are inherent at the moment life begins and removed the moment life ends, then rights are guaranteed for the duration of one's lifespan. No one can arbitrarily say that your rights end under certain conditions, because they inherent and a function of the very fact you are alive.
The implication, then, for anyone who wants to remove rights, would be to end life. Protecting Human Rights, therefore, requires first and foremost protection of Human Life and the ability of a living human to remain alive. It follows, then, that the first and most important Human Right is the Right to Life. Through the Right to Life, all other Human Rights and Liberties may be experienced. Through Life itself, all other Human Rights and Liberties are experienced.
Above all else, if Rights are inherent upon the condition of being a human, and the first and most important right is the Right and Entitlement to Life itself, there is no ambiguity. No one can deem anyone, under any conditions, to be sub-human. No one can deem anyone, under any conditions, to be unworthy of having their rights protected. This guarantees Rights are, theoretically experienced fully by all.
How one would turn that into an Axiom, I'm not sure. But that's the motivation for my belief.
Originally posted by blaze8492Your conclusion does not follow from your premise.
You haven't, really. Without life, there is no speech for us to discuss "freedom of speech." You don't discuss granting a rock or a desk freedom of speech. It is not capable of speech. Without life, there is no discussion of Torture. Torture requires a living being for it to apply. Without life, there is no discussion of expression. Desks do not expr ...[text shortened]... ty protected as a human right that the corpse can execute at any time in the future as a corpse?
The problem with your argument is stark when it's expressed in symbolic logic:
Suppose x is a person is written as P(x) and y is a right R(y), x has y is written H(x, y). Person x has right y is then P(x) & R(y) & H(x, y). That the person x is alive is written as L(x). The claim that one right is more important than another I'll write as (x > y).
To specify a right it is enough to specify that x is a right and to specify what predicate the right is to. In an abuse of notation I'm going to use the same predicate symbol to specify what a right is to when applied to a right as the symbol to say that a person has that property. So P(x) & L(x) means x is a person and x is alive and R(x) & L(x) means x is a right and x is the right to life.
Your claim is something along the lines of:
(∀x ∀y (P(x) & L(x) <-> R(y) & H(x, y))) ⊢ (∀x ∀y (R(x) & R(y) & L(x) & (x ≠ y)) -> (x > y))
For all x and y if and only if x is a person and x is alive then y is a right and x has that right it follows that for all x and y if x is a right and y is a right and x is the right to life and x is not y then x is more important than y.
The left hand side represents your premise that in order to have a right one must be alive and the right hand side the notion that the right to life has priority over all other rights. As a matter of the rules of logic you cannot get from the left hand side of this equation to the right hand side without additional premises. What are they?
Further I'd dispute the left hand side of the equation. I'd simply go for:
∀x ∀y (P(x) & R(y) -> H(x, y))
In words if x is a person and y is a right then x has right y.
So I do not agree with your premise. I do not agree that your conclusion follows from your premise, it is a non-sequitur.
Edit: I corrected the logic above (translating informal logic into formal logic is not trivial). Also I've just noticed your edit and will respond to that in a separate post.