Political Crossfire Forums

[Kindred]

The Grandmaster wrote: Kindred wrote: Here's a question for you:

If you do not believe in human rights, do not answer the question.

Hypothetical question:

A guy brings you a human being with the same capacity to feel, think and suffer as a common deer, an axe, and one billion dollars. You have two options.

1) Kill the human being, and take the $1 billion. Keep in mind that investing this $1 billion into human rights causes will end up saving more humans.

2) Do not kill the human. The human is released.

Which one would you pick?
The two aren't related properly as even you can, and I think before have admitted, the animal cannot value it's life, as much as the human can, or would. In short it is my belief these animals have no aspirations or hopes, dreams or values in their life aside of eating and sleeping. Basically while they are alive, I don't believe they have as much to live for, by even a comparable margin, to a human. This is also somewhat parallel to our other thread.

And Kindred, you didn’t answer his question. What is your answer?

They are directly related, in fact they're identical in this hypothetical situaton. What are you talking about?

[Kindred]

tman_ndsu08 wrote: perdidochas wrote:

So you're saying that retarded people have no rights?

Even retarded people have much more capacity to reason than a dog.

Wrong. Some retarded people do, others don't; it depends on the actual disability in quesiton.

[Kindred]

tman_ndsu08 wrote: Kindred wrote:

So an infant also has no rights?

It's more than reasonable to suspect that it will in the future.

It's not reasonable to suspect that of a dog in the future.

And what does that mean in terms of the moral consideration we ought to give each?

[MplsBison]

Kindred wrote:
Wrong. Some retarded people do, others don't; it depends on the actual disability in quesiton.

Actually, even the most retarded people still have more ability to reason than a dog.

[MplsBison]

Kindred wrote:

And what does that mean in terms of the moral consideration we ought to give each?

That means that it's raesonable to suspect that a baby will become an adult, reasoning being.

A dog never will.

[agentkgb]

tman_ndsu08 wrote: agentkgb wrote:
Out of curiosity, are you against abortion then?

There's a difference between a baby that has been born and a baby still inside the mother.
Yeah, but unless it is retarded, the fetus will gain the ability to reason, just as the infant will.

[Kindred]

tman_ndsu08 wrote: Kindred wrote:
Wrong. Some retarded people do, others don't; it depends on the actual disability in quesiton.

Actually, even the most retarded people still have more ability to reason than a dog.
You couldn't be more wrong! Some individuals are born with an entire cerebreal hemisphere! They're basically just a brain stem; such an individuals intelligence is not even in the same league as that of a dog.

[Kindred]

tman_ndsu08 wrote: Kindred wrote:

And what does that mean in terms of the moral consideration we ought to give each?

That means that it's raesonable to suspect that a baby will become an adult, reasoning being.

A dog never will.
But some mentally disabled people won't, where does that leave them?

[ChainRetardant]

Where did the billion dollars come from?

I would kill the deer, and yes i would put (most of) the billion dollars towards animal rigthts.

I personally feel that the deer is killed in a natural manner and hasn't been stuffed in a crate all its life and not see daylight, beaten until murdered without remourse, living a tortured existance inside a factory farm.

[MplsBison]

agentkgb wrote:
the fetus will gain the ability to reason, just as the infant will.

True.


However, you're opening the door for artificial intelligences to gain rights.


So I'm going to close that loophole with:

if you don't have your own body, you don't have rights.

[MplsBison]

Kindred wrote:
You couldn't be more wrong! Some individuals are born with an entire cerebreal hemisphere! They're basically just a brain stem.

Such things are not humans.

Therefore, denying rights to them is not the same as denying rights to a healthy infant.

[MplsBison]

Kindred wrote:
But some mentally disabled people won't, where does that leave them?

They have more reasoning ability than a dog.

[agentkgb]

tman_ndsu08 wrote: agentkgb wrote:
the fetus will gain the ability to reason, just as the infant will.

True.


However, you're opening the door for artificial intelligences to gain rights.
I don't really have a problem with that.

[agentkgb]

tman_ndsu08 wrote: Kindred wrote:
But some mentally disabled people won't, where does that leave them?

They have more reasoning ability than a dog.
Not necessarily.

[Faet]

As humans, we created the idea of 'rights'.

Just as I value my life, I also value the lives of other animals. Is that hard to understand?

[agentkgb]

Faet wrote: As humans, we created the idea of 'rights'.
That's not necessarily true.

[agentkgb]

Faet wrote: No borders, no nations. No flags, no patriots
Anti-Flag rules!
Sorry I'll shut up now.
Faet wrote: Just as I value my life, I also value the lives of other animals. Is that hard to understand?
For a lot of people it is. People might respect the right of non-humans to not be tortured needlessly, but a lot of people (for reasons I really don't understand) don't believe animals have rights beyond that unless they're human. I agree though.