A feeling, especially if it is not shared by everyone, seems a poor justification for a universal claim and a restriction of behavior that you want to impose on everyone. If you are making the claim that everyone ought to abide by this claim, you seem to necessarily be making some sort of objective claim. — petrichor
When you say they are wrong, aren't you making an objective claim about what is right or wrong for everyone? — petrichor
I don't feel like I have been proven wrong — S
A feeling, especially if it is not shared by everyone, seems a poor justification for a universal claim and a restriction of behavior that you want to impose on everyone. — petrichor
This isn't about the question of whether S has been proven wrong. I am interested in examining this concept of rights, since most seem to just assert their rights claims without even really knowing what they are saying. This is commonly what practitioners of philosophy do. We will examine things often assumed, just the sorts of things people usually take as so self-evident and universally known that it is silly to question them. The people who think it is silly to stop and interrogate our basic beliefs are not philosophical. — petrichor
It would seem that all our rights really amount to is a kind of social agreement to respect certain feelings that are more or less universal in the culture. I don't want you taking what I feel is my stuff. And you don't want me taking what you feel is your stuff. So let's agree not to take each other's stuff and let's make it a rule that one's stuff is not to be taken by someone else.
That about sum it up? Would anyone disagree with that? — petrichor
It would seem that all our rights really amount to is a kind of social agreement to respect certain feelings that are more or less universal in the culture. I don't want you taking what I feel is my stuff. And you don't want me taking what you feel is your stuff. So let's agree not to take each other's stuff and let's make it a rule that one's stuff is not to be taken by someone else.
That about sum it up? Would anyone disagree with that? — petrichor
I don't agree with it, really. Some rights are about that, obviously, and that may be rather common, but not all rights are about that (whether we're talking about legal rights or "broader" moral rights). — Terrapin Station
It's not a perpetual roller coaster, it's a perpetual roller coaster ride if you never reach a point where it isn't worth continuing. Personally, I'd get off at some point. — S
No, you're just putting words in my mouth — S
and you can't enjoy anything if you aren't alive. — S
Doesn't matter. — S
Life is worth starting because life is worth living for lots of people — S
That's literally nonsense, as they've already started. — S
The question is irrelevant. — S
Nothing I've said commits me to the view that modifying children to blind them is ethical, so I don't need to answer for that.
I did say that it can be ethical to have blind children, and I stand by that. — S
I haven't said that it's wrong. I said I don't know — Echarmion
So, essentially utilitarianism? — Echarmion
If you're arguing that consequences, i.e. outcomes by themselves somehow have absolute ethical value, I'd have to hear an argument about how that works. — Echarmion
1. If an act will impose something significant on another person without their consent, then it is default wrong to perform that act
2. Procreating imposes something significant - life here - on another person without their consent
3. Therefore, procreative acts are default wrong — Bartricks
Well, close enough as a rough picture of how rights tend to work, and as a rough picture it's pretty obvious. But there are most probably deviants from the norm who would insist that they have rights that hardly anyone else would acknowledge, on the same sort of basis as others insist that they have rights, whether they're conscious of that basis or not, namely on the basis of their strong feelings. We both agree that there's no objective right or wrong here. There doesn't really, for all conceivable cases, "have to be a kind of social agreement to respect certain feelings that are more or less universal in the culture". That only really works as a conditional, like if one were to add, "if you want to fit in" or something. — S
Your whole notion of rights is so handwaving and full of assertion, I don't know where to begin. You don't even present a foundation. You mask your lack of foundation in simply trying to denigrate everyone. — schopenhauer1
Based on their words, Bartricks and his tribe hate the world and they hate people. They write off three billion years of our existence based on their brief, pitiful view of life. They sneer at human emotion, loyalty, community, and love. How can recognizing that not be part of a philosophical response to their positions? — T Clark
Do you feel better after that little vent? I clearly presented a foundation in moral sentiment. And those longer-term members who are familiar with my views should already know that. Haven't you been following the discussion? — S
Yeah and it is ridiculous. You are mostly just "venting" on others.. spewing the bile, so to speak. Human rights started as a concept arguably from the Greeks, a little more fully in the Middle Ages, actually made into its proto-modern form in John Locke/Enlightenment political thinkers, and essentially goes from there. All of them have some sort of appeal to Natural Law..which is a kind of law that is assumed to be of an ethereal/cosmic/godly kind that is above any time and place. It is a historically-rooted concept that ironically formed in certain times and places. It is a human invention that goes along with Enlightenment notions of universality (think Kant's Categorical Imperative). Moral sense is not so sophisticated that all cultures think of this. The specific idea of human rights, is very much a culmination of Western ideals that came to its more-or-less modern form in the 1700s. — schopenhauer1
Okay. Excuse me for looking for a more realistic source to explain ethical rights. — S
It's not as if that stopped while I was young. When I read about Peter Singer, I was incensed. Since, though, I've been able to mute the reaction to understand the argument. I still refuse to agree, but in as much as it is at no threat of becoming law, emotion strikes me as a limiter to understanding. Understanding not just of the other side, but of my own thought processes. — JosephS
The best sorts of philosophical discussions I've been party to have been where the opposing sides helped each other with their arguments, filling in gaps, helping perfect the syllogisms. — JosephS
When we're too married to the result, rather than to the philosophy of the matter, it approaches rhetoric, or worse. — JosephS
Ah I see. But then again, you’re not looking at the whole experience. Say you get off after 1 hour. Then if I asked you: would you like to get on a roller coaster for 1 hour 1 minute, you would say no. Not worth starting and not worth continuing. The point is, you wouldn’t start something you don’t think is worth continuing for the whole duration. — khaled
I’m really not. Ok all I’m claiming is that experiences worth starting are a subset of experiences worth continuing, do you agree? — khaled
So then, do you think not having children is a bad thing? Because you’d be “denying” someone enjoyment? If not then what’s the relevance of this fact? — khaled
Doesn't matter.
— S
How doesn’t it matter? And even if it didn’t can’t you just answer the question? You already answered it later here — khaled
Which I think is a totally stupid claim. “Blindness is worth starting because blindness is worth living through for lots of people” do you agree with that claim? If not what makes it different from the one you just made? — khaled
Their children’s lives haven’t though.... what do you mean?? Their lives have started and are worth living through, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are worth starting for other people. Other examples: if someone had their eyes gouged out their blindness has started and is worth living through, that doesn’t mean it is worth gouging other people’s eyes out — khaled
Even if it was can you answer? — khaled
Why are you treating two acts with the same intent and consequence differently? — khaled
But it's the only possible justification. What's the supposed alternative? — S
You don’t know whether or not genetically modifying children to suffer is right or wrong? — khaled
No, not necessarily. All I said was that childbirth risks harming someone in the future without their consent. Actions that harm others in the future without their consent are wrong in almost every ethical system. Name one such action that is right. — khaled
My argument is basically this:
1. If an act will impose something significant on another person without their consent, then it is default wrong to perform that act
2. Procreating imposes something significant - life here - on another person without their consent
3. Therefore, procreative acts are default wrong — khaled
It seems to me that claims of rights, especially those having to do with freedom, are rooted in this sense of "mine", of self-possession and rightful possession of other things belonging to that self. And where something is thought to belong to someone else, we have no rights. I don't have a right, for example, to eat your dinner, control your thoughts, use your body for my ends, pollute your drinking water, invade your privacy, silence your ideas, do experiments on you, and so on. Any disagreement? — petrichor
I question the entitlement to "have" children. They aren't yours. They aren't dolls. They aren't pets. They are people. They don't exist to serve your interests. They have interests of their own. — petrichor
Perhaps there's just no good justification for claims of rights at all. Maybe it's just something we pulled out of our collective asses. So far, I haven't seen any convincing arguments for entitlements. Even if we assume the existence of God, assertions of "God-given" rights make me wonder where people get the idea that such things as God-given rights are self-evident. — petrichor
Just cut the crap and be straight with me. — S
There are plenty of examples where actions that harm others are right. Self defense is the most obvious one — Echarmion
I disagree with your claim that harming future people is wrong in "almost every ethical system". Can you provide some examples (of said ethical systems) — Echarmion
No, I don't. — Echarmion
You cannot impose life on another person. — Echarmion
Let's start with this one then:
1- Imposing something that risks significant harm on someone without their consent is wrong
2- Childbirth is imposing something that risks significant harm on someone without their consent
3- Childbirth is wrong — khaled
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