The point which nobody ever mentions in connection to the 'right to bear arms' is the first part of the sentence in which that phrase appears - the necessity of maintaining a 'well-regulated militia'. 'Well regulated'. The entire aim of Wayne LaPierre and his criminal associates is to eliminate any regulatory barriers whatever to the sale of any weapons, to any people, for profit. That's all that is happening here. — Wayfarer

It was quite sad to see when Scalia disregarded his treasured orginialism and ignored the obvious Framer's intent you rightly point out when his majority opinion changed the accepted interpretation of this clause so as to ignore the first 13 words. Thankfully they at least ruled that not all regulations could be prohibited or we'd have plenty more trouble on our hands.

I side with Kant on this, that to 'have' children for some reason is immoral, because it is treating them as a means. One is left with having children by accident, having no children, or having love for the unborn unknown stranger. — unenlightened

I don't think I've ever come across any work on procreation by Immanuel Kant himself, but it seems as though this is a circumstance wherein using someone as a means to an end would not be relevant. Kant's conception of moral person-hood pertained to those who were "rational and autonomous", qualities that an unborn person clearly does not have, so it's gray area whether conceiving a child for some outside purpose is even using a person as a means to an end.
There are a few Kantian authors who agree that concieved children can have moral personhood, but they argue that our "love for the unborn unknown stranger" cannot be a reason either for having a child.
One of Julio Cabrera's ideas on this (ill post below), stems from the fact that when we bring someone into our world, our sense of what is "good" for them is based upon some intra-wordly morality that stems from the starting point of birth. The example he uses is that it one may fulfill the requirements for being a "good father" when they have not yet answered whether its permissible to be a father in the first place. Thus while it is still good to follow our moral rules after a child has been born, we can never procreate for the reason of giving the child a good existence, for as fellow Kantian David Benatar argues, coming into life is always a serious harm.

Julio Cabrera- A Critique of Affirmative Morality
http://repositorio.unb.br/bitstream/10482/17430/3/Livro_CritiqueAffirmativeMorality.pdf

Now, I haven't given my critique, I am answering your questions as if self-actualization is a reason to have children. I will just start off with the idea that why give a new person (inevitable) burdens to overcome, especially if achievement of the supposed ultimate goal (of some elusive self-actualization) is not achievable for many? — schopenhauer1

You're looking for someone to make the case that we should create more people purely for their own good, that good being the fuzzy notion of self-actualization. I think the problem is that this is not a position many (any?) people hold. — Roke

It seems to me that if we assume self-actualization is the ultimate goal, then having children would be a logical step in one's own progression. Many of the common reasons that people have children can be found on Maslow's pyramid. The creation of a family and a child to love falls squarely within the third step of the pyramid, that of Love/Belonging. For those in very poor countries where having children is helpful in order to stay economically stable, the benefits of having children would be within the Safety level of the hierarchy. Passing down the family name can be considered an instance of achievement/prestige, the qualities present within Maslow's fourth level of Esteem. Even some inadvertent consequences of having children help out. Those who raise their children "well" are often regarded as good parents, which garners the respect from others that is part of Esteem as well. For those solely interested in self-actualization as an end goal, having children would seem to be an incredibly helpful choice.

I'm a lot more skeptical about the self-actualization of the child being a reason for procreation, but I suppose that a lot of the things that parents commonly hope for their children to have would be seen as steps on the way up the pyramid. I doubt anyone procreates solely for the chance that their offspring becomes a self-actualized individual though.

Roke, were there any other alternative reasons you were considering earlier that you think people have children for?

Okay, I can totally see what you mean. I agree, if you look purely from this perspective where we are already placed within the context of criminal law it seems like there will be a lot of cases where you'd be inclined to say that intention seems to take precedence over consequence. But I am not sure whether that's fair perspective to look from if you want to answer question "what's more important for criminal law - intention or consequence?". When you had already predetermined that every consequence you'll consider will be bad then obviously the question about intent will be much more important from there on out. But notice that criminal law also changes constantly and the way it changes (what new behaviours are penalized) is all about the consequence. — piramjida

I can see why you think that that may not be a fair perspective, but I do think it is important to consider the current context of criminal law. It seems that the way you frame the question of whether intentions or consequences are more important to criminal law is not fair as well since obviously criminal law is created in reaction to consequences and we do not criminalize unrealized intentions, however malicious they are. I suppose the way I wish to frame the question is "in the determination of criminal liability within criminal law, does the intent, or lack thereof, to commit a criminal action matter more than the fact that a criminal action was committed." I think that the self-defense point comes in handy here as it is an overruling of consequences by intentions although other examples of the intent/consequence clash such as criminal negligence muddy the waters.

Yeah, sure. I was kind of speaking from the point of Kantian ethics which defends intentionalism so I should perhaps explain this more clearly. This philosophy generally says that the difference between animals and humans is that humans have the ability to act against their natural urges if they choose to. Only those kind of actions, where you are acting not like any animal would but like a human being, can be considered ethical. So basically intention needs to spring from conscious reason in order to be ethical, unconscious drives cannot be ascribed value of being ethical or unethical.

From that standpoint if we accept your premise then basically there is no ethics to be spoken of. We all act like animals. Even if we think we can act from a reason we probably don't because it might as well be unconscious natural urge. But if that's the case then I am also not sure how results matter, they are just consequences of behavior that you had no choice over and as such were outside of your control, too. — piramjida

First, I don't think that we are merely a product of our unconscious drives, only that our actions are a combination of practical reasoning and these drives, and that it is impossible to determine how much influence either of them has over the decision to do an action.
I do not think one should wholly disregard the importance of intrinsic desires though. For example, of its many symptoms, Parkinson's disease creates neuropyschiatric disturbances in the brain that, among other things, weaken the parts of the brain that react to intrinsic desires. Parkinson's prevents actions, whether moral or not, which appears to show some importance of intrinsic desires in our motivation to be moral, regardless of whether they have any ethical weight on their own.

I agree with keithprosser as well, these absolutist arguments, fascinating as they are, find their true value in helping us to determine where we fall on the spectrum.

I am not saying intention has no importance in criminal law. It very often does, sure. But I am not sure how you can say intention is more important than consequence when only when you have a certain consequence you can start considering intentions. There is a difference between murder and manslaughter, yes, one is penalized more harsher than the other. Now consider the difference between consequence and a lack of consequence - when nobody died criminal law doesn't even consider it (obviously you can speak about attempt or inchoate crimes but even then you have some "consequence" in outside world, sole intent not manifested in any way is probably outside of consideration of any criminal law in the world, that would be Orwellian "thoughtcrime"). When somebody died then it's just a matter of responsibility. The difference is far greater when you consider the consequences. — piramjida

Interesting points. I think that because criminal law starts from a point of bad consequences, to resolve the issue we need to ask whether criminal law ever allows for intention to override these consequences. This seems to be present within self-defense law, where a killing in self-defense is literally termed a "justifiable homicide". When GOOD intentions are brought into the picture, the consequences of action are not as important as these intentions, unlike cases when NO intentions (manslaughter) or BAD intentions (murder) are held, in which consequences take priority. This implies that intentions of an act are more important to the law because they act as a side constraint on the responsibility for the action, thus controlling whether or not the consequence of an action even matters. Obviously you are correct that we cannot police bad intentions that result in either good or no consequences, but because we are arguing within the context of criminal law, a criminally-charged consequence must have already occurred in order for the law to consider it.

Well, consider example where driver A and driver B are on a road and they're in a situation where they need to apply the brakes. Driver A does try to stop the car with the very intent of not causing the accident in that situation and it works. Driver B does the very same thing, his intent is also not to cause an accident in that situation but it doesn't work because there was something wrong with the car that he could not reasonably foresee. Does the fact that external consequence is now somehow tied to the purpose for taking the action change that much?

The point was that you are not always in control of consequences of your actions the way you're in control of your intentions. The guy who wanted to overthrow the dictator might have never been able to reasonably foresee that this might happen and at the time it could seem like the best idea in the world to everybody. But sometimes in life things happen that are just outside of our control. And when you consider it, it feels very weird to attach some ethical importance to what was outside of your control. — piramjida

You are correct that random externalities can in some instances derail us from fulfilling our desired consequences, but it is not even clear that we are truly aware of our own intentions when we act. In the car example, Freudian theory would suggest that the seeming intention to brake and not risk crashing may possibly be masking an unconscious death drive (I don't think too much of Freud's theories but this is just a potential argument). Regardless of specifics, whether or not the intentions we believe ourselves to hold are the same as our actual intentions is impossible to determine. Because of this, I believe that we have more control over the results of our material actions than over the conscious and unconscious drives and influences that make up our mental state.

Also could you elaborate what do you mean that in law intent is usually more important? Hard to talk about every legal system but I'd say it's actually the other way around - criminal law for the most part doesn't even consider cases where there is only "good" consequence but the intent was "bad". On the other hand it very often considers cases where there was no "bad" intent but there is "bad" consequence. — piramjida

I think ernestm is correct in this. The difference between murder and manslaughter is a good example of how the intent to kill or lack thereof affects how gravely the law judges an action. You are correct that the law doesn't deal with rectifying good consequences stemming from bad intentions, but that is due to the fact that criminal law is centered around determining how to judge responsibility for bad consequences and bad consequences only(perhaps not "bad", but that which the law deems "criminal"). The ultimate importance of intent within the law is shown in this stage, as the intent which led to this bad consequence has the final say in how responsibility is assigned.

Consequences. I'm not a die-hard consequentialist, but intentions tend to rank very low in determining whether an action is good or not. Who cares if you had the best intentions to overthrow a violent dictator- if your actions lead to such catastrophe and loss of life that it makes the dictator's violence pale in comparision, in what way are your actions good? — Chany

Well, that's one example but consider the situation where person A and B are driving a car. They both drive the very same way but for some reason person B causes an accident that happened for a reason absolutely outside of his control. The results differ drastically, former is "good", latter is "bad". But are those situations ethically any different? — piramjida

I think that the purpose of an action is the deciding factor in these situations. Within the first one, the purpose of the action is to overthrow the dictator in order to prevent violence. If we assume that the prevention of violence is a good thing that should be aspired to, then the fact that the action resulted in a worse state of affairs negates the importance of the good intentions.
However in the second scenario, while people may have many reasons to drive, the purpose of driving is never solely to not get in a crash, otherwise no one would ever drive due to the fact that risk of crashing exists. Because the crash is an external consequence not tied to the purpose for taking the action, it does not have any ethical strings attached to it. The fact that the driver got into a crash would not have any moral weight upon it unless there was some sort of factor which led to the driver taking an intentional action of crashing, thus shifting their purpose.

Abraham Maslow took these ideas which were already circulating in the milieu and incorporated them into a scientific-sounding type of framework, his well-known 'hierarchy of needs': — Wayfarer

Within Maslow's later work, he began to reformulate his famous hierarchy and added on to it another layer to the pyramid: Self-transcendence. The transition from self-actualization to self-transcendence takes place through "peak experiences" similar to Rolland's "oceanic feeling", in which the individual feels a sense of unity with the world around him, a loss of any and all inhibitions and a disregard for the constraining dimensions of time and space. The state of self-transcendence, however, was a departure from that of self-actualization, a focus beyond ourselves and towards some more lofty goal, a release from the ego.

However, the concept of self-transcendence stands unique from the original hierarchy in that it is not merely constrained to those who have self-actualized but to any, although Maslow did believe that self-transcendence would be achieved more often by those who had self-actualized. Instead of a new capstone built on to the famous pyramid, self-transcendence acts as a blanket which covers the pyramid, decreasing in thickness as it stretches down to the base.

Although I am generally skeptical of theories of transcendence or becoming, it seems to me that the two concepts have become infused in a way that actualization in its modern definition has become a dialectic of the two, celebrating both egocentricity and the liberation from it.