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Town Heretic
Ta for the detailed response. So many here just launch into am attack.
There's no need for that. I have the argument to advance. Anything else would only be a distraction.
You say that we are born with certain rights - don't you think the wording is interesting here? "Born with" rights. Not a slam dunk, but indicitative of the constitutional view.
It's the premise of agreement in our compact, the foundation that frames the conversation. We may restrain and focus or limit exercise, but we don't create within you the right to be.
You say that no demands are needed for rights to be conferred
A toddler, by way of easiest illustration, can't and needn't demand a thing to have the protections and guarantees of right.
, but rights can only be relied on as part of a social contract.
For protection, to be sure.
Of you want to exercise a right you need the cooperation of others - you need them to grant that you have the rights.
Or, rights will not defend themselves.
Society enforces the rights it thinks matches their idea of morality.
Absolutely. At its best that enforcement follows a rational understanding of both right and obligation relating to it.
And don't you think that if Chimps could speak and demand to be treated better then they would be awarded rights too?
I think an ant would object to being stepped on, a leaf would lament the fall, and a bird would find his sky violated by shot and machinery. But it's a very different topic steeped in very different arguments.
Fœtuses have the same brain function as someone who had recently died.
If the degree of function mattered we'd assign right by it instead of increasing the obligation of those with a higher functioning in relation to those with less, and those with lower functioning would find themselves with less right, instead of more protection, which isn't the case.
Organs function, but nobody is at home. We use brain function as the determine...
Rather, we use brain functioning and essentially in potential to determine when someone who is artificially sustained will not return to the point of exercise absent that artificiality. A different animal. In fact, that potentiality in examination supports my idea.
But of course, there is no logic that can be uniquely appealed to, because that way lies strict utilitarianism with rights granted according to economic value of individuals (sort of applies already listening to some of the libertarians get...)
A dangerous precedent to be sure and one we've rejected in premise, in our agreement about right and what our relationship to it must be.
No, abortion is a moral issue.
All issues of right are necessarily moral issues as well. But the two aren't inherently in conflict. The issue here isn't abortion, but the right to exist and what our obligations are, rationally, in relation to it. That is, abortion as an artificial interruption of process is either an interruption of right or it is not. My argument remains an impediment to anyone who is of the "not" inclination. They must answer it if their claim is rational. If it is not it arises from the sort of premise they'd object to else.
Logic can be used but value judgements must be made.
Needn't be but will and can be. That is, a sociopath might understand the value of right, if only as it applies to his own preservation and freedom or the necessity of protecting it in others without essentially valuing the moral instrumentality of it.
And that means there is room for divergent correct answers here
Yes and no, respectively, if we are rational and understand the premise of our agreement. Change that premise and you lose far more.
, and we all have to respect the rightness of conclusions we disagree with.
No. I don't have to respect the proffer that violates the rule of reason within the compact's context that sustains our self-determination and collective struggle toward both intellectual and moral efficacy. I can appreciate a different context, but it cannot frame the conversation. And within the context I hold the high ground and repeat to any challengers the particulars of reason that will, or so far has been, met with side bar or silence.
Always a pleasure to talk to you though. :cheers: