What Are Human Rights?

[4588686]

[quote name='Groo the Wanderer' timestamp='1331264740' post='2398043']
ah. so you have no point, yet when presented with one, you categorically reject it? i see.


you say the church is wrong when it defines a person yet you cannot define one yourself? i see.


methinks one should remove the beam from one's eye before pointing out the splinter in another's...
[/quote]

I don't need a positive answer to think that your answer doesn't work. I'm still trying to think the issue through for myself. I don't thin your answer really is sufficient. And I told you why I think that. That doesn't mean that I have a positive answer.

[Groo the Wanderer]

hasan: tell me what is 2+2

rational human being: 4

hasan: no thats not it

rational human being: .... seriously? what is 2+2 then?

hasan: i dunno. still working it out. but it isn't 4.




think it through. figger it out, then get back to us

Edited March 9, 2012 by Groo the Wanderer

[4588686]

[quote name='Groo the Wanderer' timestamp='1331266085' post='2398057']
hasan: tell me what is 2+2

rational human being: 4

hasan: no thats not it

rational human being: .... seriously? what is 2+2 then?

hasan: i dunno. still working it out. but it isn't 4.




think it through. figger it out, then get back to us
[/quote]


I don't think you understand how critical thinking works.

[Groo the Wanderer]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1331266688' post='2398067']
I don't think you understand how critical thinking works.
[/quote]

i will refrain from making the oh so obvious reply out of charity


so...figure out what a person is then we'll chat

[4588686]

[quote name='Groo the Wanderer' timestamp='1331267286' post='2398071']
i will refrain from making the oh so obvious reply out of charity


so...figure out what a person is then we'll chat
[/quote]

Have you ever read the Socratic dialogues?

[Groo the Wanderer]

have you figured out what a person is yet?

[4588686]

[quote name='Groo the Wanderer' timestamp='1331268100' post='2398082']
have you figured out what a person is yet?
[/quote]

It's an honest question. Have you?

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1331269936' post='2398095']
It's an honest question. Have you?
[/quote]I have uneducated personal opinion and thoughts of what a person is, I'd like to see what you think.
First off, we're talking human species.
Once identified as human, mental acuity is unimportant. During our natural life development, that changes. We don't kill mentally infirm. We don't dump unconsious ederly into the back pond either.
We don't require ability to contribute to society. Infants are a drag and don't necessarilly grow up, or if they do, they aren't guarenteed to be productive members of society.
We don't consider skin cells as being a person. Different than a zygote, they will never become a person.
Generally, as a society, we identify persons as something we are/were/could be. We treat others how we want to be treated if we were in that condition.
Majority opinon wins for the sake of a relatively free and peaceful existence.
At what point, tracking our own personal existince back to conception, then forward to death, would we be fine with someone snuffing us out?
I'f I'm lying on a hospital bed with 80% of my body damaged with 2nd & 3rd degree burns, would I want someone to slip me a lethal dose of morphine?
When I was 3, homeless with unempolyed parents and 2 older siblings, no close family, would I be okay with my parents dropping me in the pond to improve the survival chances of the rest of the family because I'm not a person yet?
How about 1 month old while my mother is suffering from post-partum depression and is having extreme difficulty taking care of herself, much less me?
I imagine you're familiar with Casey and Caylee Anthony. At what point in her life was Caylee not a person, and should not have been cared for by her mother, grandparents, or other humans in society and the cells that became Caylee at 4 could be flushed down the toilet?

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Anomaly' timestamp='1331299275' post='2398187']
I have uneducated personal opinion and thoughts of what a person is, I'd like to see what you think.
First off, we're talking human species.
Once identified as human, mental acuity is unimportant. During our natural life development, that changes. We don't kill mentally infirm. We don't dump unconsious ederly into the back pond either.
We don't require ability to contribute to society. Infants are a drag and don't necessarilly grow up, or if they do, they aren't guarenteed to be productive members of society.
We don't consider skin cells as being a person. Different than a zygote, they will never become a person.
Generally, as a society, we identify persons as something we are/were/could be. We treat others how we want to be treated if we were in that condition.
Majority opinon wins for the sake of a relatively free and peaceful existence.
At what point, tracking our own personal existince back to conception, then forward to death, would we be fine with someone snuffing us out?
I'f I'm lying on a hospital bed with 80% of my body damaged with 2nd & 3rd degree burns, would I want someone to slip me a lethal dose of morphine?
When I was 3, homeless with unempolyed parents and 2 older siblings, no close family, would I be okay with my parents dropping me in the pond to improve the survival chances of the rest of the family because I'm not a person yet?
How about 1 month old while my mother is suffering from post-partum depression and is having extreme difficulty taking care of herself, much less me?
I imagine you're familiar with Casey and Caylee Anthony. At what point in her life was Caylee not a person, and should not have been cared for by her mother, grandparents, or other humans in society and the cells that became Caylee at 4 could be flushed down the toilet?
[/quote]

[Ice_nine]

[quote name='Anomaly' timestamp='1331299275' post='2398187']
I have uneducated personal opinion and thoughts of what a person is, I'd like to see what you think.
First off, we're talking human species.
Once identified as human, mental acuity is unimportant. During our natural life development, that changes. We don't kill mentally infirm. We don't dump unconsious ederly into the back pond either.
We don't require ability to contribute to society. Infants are a drag and don't necessarilly grow up, or if they do, they aren't guarenteed to be productive members of society.
We don't consider skin cells as being a person. Different than a zygote, they will never become a person.
Generally, as a society, we identify persons as something we are/were/could be. We treat others how we want to be treated if we were in that condition.
Majority opinon wins for the sake of a relatively free and peaceful existence.
At what point, tracking our own personal existince back to conception, then forward to death, would we be fine with someone snuffing us out?
I'f I'm lying on a hospital bed with 80% of my body damaged with 2nd & 3rd degree burns, would I want someone to slip me a lethal dose of morphine?
When I was 3, homeless with unempolyed parents and 2 older siblings, no close family, would I be okay with my parents dropping me in the pond to improve the survival chances of the rest of the family because I'm not a person yet?
How about 1 month old while my mother is suffering from post-partum depression and is having extreme difficulty taking care of herself, much less me?
I imagine you're familiar with Casey and Caylee Anthony. At what point in her life was Caylee not a person, and should not have been cared for by her mother, grandparents, or other humans in society and the cells that became Caylee at 4 could be flushed down the toilet?
[/quote]

can they just give you a non-catholic tag so I can give you mad props?

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Ice_nine' timestamp='1331312236' post='2398258']
can they just give you a non-catholic tag so I can give you mad props?
[/quote]I'd just spend the props on beer and wickedness anyways.

[Groo the Wanderer]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1331267412' post='2398074']
Have you ever read the Socratic dialogues?
[/quote]

some of them yes, but it only takes common sense, not plato to define a person

[4588686]

[quote name='Groo the Wanderer' timestamp='1331335496' post='2398419']
some of them yes, but it only takes common sense, not plato to define a person
[/quote]

Then how it it that you are offended by the idea of me questioning/attacking your positive assertions on a matter that I have not come to a definitive decision about? I don't know what defines a person. But I think your criteria of a unique genetic code is not a sufficient condition since a piece of flesh of that fetus would also have the same a unique genetic code from the parents.

[PhuturePriest]

[quote name='Ice_nine' timestamp='1330921985' post='2396396']
Well, the issue comes up in a lot of threads but gets sidetracked. I know rights are derived from God, but can we argue about rights from a philosophical view without making a direct appeal to theism? What specific rights do we have as humans? For example, some people say marriage is a right, but why isn't it exactly?

I was hoping some of the people who frequently bring up these things could use this thread to elaborate more.
[/quote]

Well, although I'm sure this has been answered, marriage is not a right, it is a vocation. Nobody has the right to get married, just as nobody has the right to become a Priest or Religious. To belittle it as a right is to take away what makes it a sacrament.

[Tally Marx]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1331201418' post='2397662']


I didn't say 'lack consciousness' I simply said that secular and scientific evaluations of personhood usually do not hinge on genetics alone. If you take a skin sample from that fetus that skin sample would have a genetic code unique from the parents but that doesn't mean that science proves that the skin sample is a person. I am obviously not saying that a fetus is the same as a piece of flesh. Obviously a fetus is a living thing. Only cowards deny that. But the question of whether it is a human person is debatable and the question of whether it is entitled to any rights is not answered by the mere fact that it is alive and has a unique genetic code.
[/quote]

Personhood is an ambiguous term which has come to mean exactly what the person using it thinks it should mean. Consciousness? But then what use is consciousness without self awareness? And at what age does one obtain self awareness? One year? Or maybe personhood is independence! What level thereof? Anatomical? Functional? Societal? You will not find a uniform answer.

However, if you look up "person" in the dictionary (Merriam Webster's tenth edition, collegiate) it is followed by two words: HUMAN INDIVIDUAL.

That is the question to ask. Are the unborn human individuals?
The educated answer, from a scientific standpoint? Yes.
They are organisms, plain and simple.

Now, what human individual would you deny human rights?



Edit: grammar error

Edited March 10, 2012 by Tally Marx