Because it is a perception by senses we do not share? Obviously a plant must perceive sunlight in order to react to it. Oak trees perceive insect threats and react by releasing scents which trigger production of foul tasting chemicals as a defense in other oak trees. So they must then perceive this and react to the warning.
but they're also not concious, so sentience doesn't really apply. anyway, oak trees aren't human beings, so their personhood isn't under question.
Cats, dogs, mice, tapeworms, and lice can all "suffer" the ability to feel pain. Do they now gain the same rights a human has for if the line is merely ability to suffer than you force rights to be accorded in such a broad range as to make human existence as we now know it impossible.
of course not, because cats, dogs, mice and tapeworms aren't human beings. of course they can't be persons. what a bizarre question.
And the sleeping person?
a sleeping person still has the ability to perceive via senses, they are still 'conscious', therefore still sentient.
What is the means of death avoid any suffering? An instant and painless sleep drifting to death?
that's not the question I asked, I asked "CAN they suffer?", not "DO they suffer?". you're twisting my words to invent problems which don't exist.
These are the myriad of troubles when you attempt to relegate rights through subjective bounds. Objectively human rights belong to any member of species Homo Sapiens - because we are sapient. Membership in a species is an objective criteria while calling for a subjective one encourages others to purpose their subjective measures. A poster from earlier pages was correct when they decried using a subjective definition like "personhood" for it can be changed to reject any group of humans that the one making the definition desires and history shows this will be the case.
it's a misnomer to try and evaluate rights on an objective basis, because 'rights' are by their very nature subjective. humans have no inherent rights, only the rights that are created and upheld on their behalf by their governments, or supranational organzations.
making human rights objective creates far more problems than it solves. if we are all afforded the same rights based merely on our species, it would be an intrusion of those rights to imprison a criminal, or use the death penalty. there's no such thing as an objective morality, so taking away rights - such as the right of freedom or speech - based on what we now as a society consider "right" and "wrong" behaviour wouldn't be allowed.
human life and situations are far too morally gray to try and evaluate on the black and white terms you're suggesting.
Sweetie, do you understand that very few people on LW actually represent the 'conservative' point of view?
BTW, what is your point of view on conservative 'ideals'?
But I hate how a lot of them often apply those "ideals" like when they do things against poor ppl, when they look down on ppl who are down on their luck, how they jump on immigrants, how they attack minorities, how they spread the thinking that only ppl who have money have right to healthcare. how they pretend to care about unborn kids but when the kids are poor they dont care if it dies after its born.
the conservative talk show hosts like OReilly and Limbaugh and Coulter just make want to puke. they the worst scum on earth because all they do all day is spread hate and mean spirit and beat on ppl who are down. Just like abs.
Quote: from Forever Angel at 5:48 am on July 14, 2008 From conservative talking points. -No universal healthcare. -Abortions are evil. -Gays are bad. -The government shouldn't be stepping in to help the poor. Let them fail, that's the only way they'll learn. -RECRUIT! RECRUIT! RECRUIT!I don't think so. That sounds more like your biased imagination. or your own biased failure to read what some conservatives spew out. http://golivewire.com/forums/peer-yaeosoi-support-a.html http://golivewire.com/forums/peer-yaeontb-support-a.html http://golivewire.com/forums/peer-yaapnys-support-a.html http://golivewire.com/forums/peer-yaeaniy-support-a.html http://golivewire.com/forums/peer-yayeoyi-support-a.html http://bconservatives.blogspot.com/2007/11/eric-ventimiglia-to-join-army.html
From conservative talking points. -No universal healthcare. -Abortions are evil. -Gays are bad. -The government shouldn't be stepping in to help the poor. Let them fail, that's the only way they'll learn. -RECRUIT! RECRUIT! RECRUIT!I don't think so. That sounds more like your biased imagination.
From conservative talking points. -No universal healthcare. -Abortions are evil. -Gays are bad. -The government shouldn't be stepping in to help the poor. Let them fail, that's the only way they'll learn. -RECRUIT! RECRUIT! RECRUIT!
-No universal healthcare. -Abortions are evil. -Gays are bad. -The government shouldn't be stepping in to help the poor. Let them fail, that's the only way they'll learn. -RECRUIT! RECRUIT! RECRUIT!
http://golivewire.com/forums/peer-yaeosoi-support-a.html http://golivewire.com/forums/peer-yaeontb-support-a.html http://golivewire.com/forums/peer-yaapnys-support-a.html http://golivewire.com/forums/peer-yaeaniy-support-a.html http://golivewire.com/forums/peer-yayeoyi-support-a.html
http://bconservatives.blogspot.com/2007/11/eric-ventimiglia-to-join-army.html
-Abortions are evil. Mostly, it is murder after all.
-Gays are bad. Bad at being straight - yes I'll agree. Bad as in immoral - well some of them of course but as a commonly shared trait, no.
-The government shouldn't be stepping in to help the poor. Let them fail, that's the only way they'll learn. Actually the argument is that its not in the power of the Federal Government to do so (it isn't) - which is done out of respect for the Rule of Law (something Bush and co seem to despise). That it have negative affects (it does as anytime you uncap demand with limited resources - this is math). And that it has negative social affects (it does).
-RECRUIT! RECRUIT! RECRUIT! Every ideology needs people to replace those who die and more to eventually make law, make social morays and establish a better (in their own view) world.
Quote: from Elm at 3:26 am on July 15, 2008 However if you do hold sentience as your defining line for rights then you must also accept that an adult human in a coma also has no right to life, nor does even a sleeping human who is (even though temporarily) devoid of contact with the world. The human fetus can react to stimulus independently of the mother at a very early point in development so you have ideological contradictions they just now are on the other end of the scale. Truthfully either choice dooms you to make a logical assertion that you would disagree with on moral grounds. Thus it is likely you have not yet arrived at your moral a priori. there a lot of organisms which independently react to stimulus, but they wouldn't be covered by the definition of sentient I provided - plants, for instance, or bacterium. however, I wouldn't call these "sentient beings". reacting to stimulus is very different to "perception by the senses".
However if you do hold sentience as your defining line for rights then you must also accept that an adult human in a coma also has no right to life, nor does even a sleeping human who is (even though temporarily) devoid of contact with the world. The human fetus can react to stimulus independently of the mother at a very early point in development so you have ideological contradictions they just now are on the other end of the scale. Truthfully either choice dooms you to make a logical assertion that you would disagree with on moral grounds. Thus it is likely you have not yet arrived at your moral a priori.
Truthfully either choice dooms you to make a logical assertion that you would disagree with on moral grounds. Thus it is likely you have not yet arrived at your moral a priori.
there a lot of organisms which independently react to stimulus, but they wouldn't be covered by the definition of sentient I provided - plants, for instance, or bacterium. however, I wouldn't call these "sentient beings". reacting to stimulus is very different to "perception by the senses".
Quote: from Fauna at 7:57 pm on July 14, 2008
I suppose the most basic question I would ask in relation to sentience is "can it suffer?". once a foetus can experience the sensation of pain, it is truly sentient, and the issue of its personhood comes into question. ideas about when in the gestational period a foetus can feel pain are, like I said, wide-ranging but I can accept the current time boundaries of when an abortion can be obtained as acceptable (24 weeks, in my country).
as for people in a coma being sentient, that's another issue, but not one which affects my opinions on abortion here. I think we, as a society, would have much less of a problem "turning off the life support" of someone who is relying on machines to survive, than of murdering a concious human being. look at terri schiavo. of course it's more of a complex issue, the idea of someone "losing" personhood after gaining it, but nonetheless, =it's not one which is clouding my opinions.
And the sleeping person? What is the means of death avoid any suffering? An instant and painless sleep drifting to death?
Unless my imagination has somehow started hosting it's own shows every night on the major cable news networks, and even manages to invite itself on as guests, I don't think that's the case. Because we know most conservatives are all about helping the poor, making sure everyone has proper healthcare, equal rights for gays, and letting women make decisions in regards to their own bodies, right?
Because we know most conservatives are all about helping the poor, making sure everyone has proper healthcare, equal rights for gays, and letting women make decisions in regards to their own bodies, right?
Quote: from Elm at 3:26 am on July 15, 2008 However if you do hold sentience as your defining line for rights then you must also accept that an adult human in a coma also has no right to life, nor does even a sleeping human who is (even though temporarily) devoid of contact with the world. The human fetus can react to stimulus independently of the mother at a very early point in development so you have ideological contradictions they just now are on the other end of the scale. Truthfully either choice dooms you to make a logical assertion that you would disagree with on moral grounds. Thus it is likely you have not yet arri Lved at your moral a priori. there a lot of organisms which independently react to stimulus, but they wouldn't be covered by the definition of sentient I provided - plants, for instance, or bacterium. however, I wouldn't call these "sentient beings". reacting to stimulus is very different to "perception by the senses". I suppose the most basic question I would ask in relation to sentience is "can it suffer?". once a foetus can experience the sensation of pain, it is truly sentient, and the issue of its personhood comes into question. ideas about when in the gestational period a foetus can feel pain are, like I said, wide-ranging but I can accept the current time boundaries of when an abortion can be obtained as acceptable (24 weeks, in my country). as for people in a coma being sentient, that's another issue, but not one which affects my opinions on abortion here. I think we, as a society, would have much less of a problem "turning off the life support" of someone who is relying on machines to survive, than of murdering a concious human being. look at terri schiavo. of course it's more of a complex issue, the idea of someone "losing" personhood after gaining it, but nonetheless, =it's not one which is clouding my opinions.
However if you do hold sentience as your defining line for rights then you must also accept that an adult human in a coma also has no right to life, nor does even a sleeping human who is (even though temporarily) devoid of contact with the world. The human fetus can react to stimulus independently of the mother at a very early point in development so you have ideological contradictions they just now are on the other end of the scale. Truthfully either choice dooms you to make a logical assertion that you would disagree with on moral grounds. Thus it is likely you have not yet arri Lved at your moral a priori.
Truthfully either choice dooms you to make a logical assertion that you would disagree with on moral grounds. Thus it is likely you have not yet arri
Lved at your moral a priori.
If your grandmother were knitting you a sweater and your brother comes along and burns it when it is half way done, you'd be mad because he burnt your sweater. But since you two are arguing semantics, it is not a sweater yet since it's not "finished". The thing is, it is much harder to determine when humans are "finished" and so it is clear that from the moment the sperm merges with the egg, you'd be mad if your brother comes and burns your two-celled fetus because he is really burning your child.
Instead of participating in the never-ending argument of personhood, I think our time is better served arguing over the permissibility of killing your baby. When a woman gets an abortion she generally feels as if she has killed her baby, mostly because she has.
That is to say, many people would agree that it is permissible to kill someone in self-defense or in the defense of a family member. Nobody would be aruging over whether or not a person was actually killed, but rather if killing that other person was justified (permissible).
And similar to the taking of another human life, abortion is not always permissible. It is not morally justified to kill another man because he shakes your hand and it is not morally permissible to use abortions for birth control. It is permissible to kill someone in self defense and it is permissible to have an abortion if having a child would take your own life.
Moving on?
Quote: from Elm at 2:20 am on July 15, 2008 Exactly. And sentience does not develop in humans until about age 2 to 3. Thus if that is your qualifier for the right to life then human children of that age don't posses the right to life either. This is all by the measure you are putting forth as you subjective standard of who can enjoy that right. "Personhood" has long been the standard by which different groups were judged, denied, and killed, by those not of that group in order to dehumanize them. We are human by genetics and our rights are ours by it. Your internal ideological conflict is bare for all to see. Deny and ignore it if you like miss, but that just shows others how irrational you are. sorry, how on earth can you read that definition of sentience and think that it only develops by 2-3 years? "having the power of perception by the senses; conscious. " - so you can't perceive anything via your senses until you are 2 or 3 years old? you can't touch, taste, smell, hear? and everyone under 3 years old is unconcious? what a bizarre reading of that definition.
Exactly. And sentience does not develop in humans until about age 2 to 3. Thus if that is your qualifier for the right to life then human children of that age don't posses the right to life either. This is all by the measure you are putting forth as you subjective standard of who can enjoy that right. "Personhood" has long been the standard by which different groups were judged, denied, and killed, by those not of that group in order to dehumanize them. We are human by genetics and our rights are ours by it. Your internal ideological conflict is bare for all to see. Deny and ignore it if you like miss, but that just shows others how irrational you are.
Your internal ideological conflict is bare for all to see. Deny and ignore it if you like miss, but that just shows others how irrational you are.
sorry, how on earth can you read that definition of sentience and think that it only develops by 2-3 years? "having the power of perception by the senses; conscious. " - so you can't perceive anything via your senses until you are 2 or 3 years old? you can't touch, taste, smell, hear? and everyone under 3 years old is unconcious? what a bizarre reading of that definition.
Perhaps you are using sentience as it ought to be used and not commonly confusing it with being sapient - if so I apologize however I've never encountered anyone who used it correctly.
However if you do hold sentience as your defining line for rights then you must also accept that an adult human in a coma also has no right to life, nor does even a sleeping human who is (even though temporarily) devoid of contact with the world. The human fetus can react to stimulus independently of the mother at a very early point in development so you have ideological contradictions they just now are on the other end of the scale.
Now if you are using sentience as sapient then your original contradictions remain and you must deal with allowing allowing non sapient humans to be void of natural rights as well.
Quote: from Elm at 2:49 pm on July 14, 2008 It's own. It shares no organ system with the mother, it has different genetic code, responds to stimulus independently, is often of a different sex and blood type and cannot be created by the mother's body alone. Let alone the fact the fetus can die and the mother can live and the mother can die and the fetus can live which mandates they aren't they same entity. But since it's not a person at that stage, it's more like a tapeworm than anything. Just some entity living inside you, feeding off of what you feed on, growing in your stomach...Although nobody seems to care if you have a tapeworm removed.
It's own. It shares no organ system with the mother, it has different genetic code, responds to stimulus independently, is often of a different sex and blood type and cannot be created by the mother's body alone. Let alone the fact the fetus can die and the mother can live and the mother can die and the fetus can live which mandates they aren't they same entity.
But since it's not a person at that stage, it's more like a tapeworm than anything. Just some entity living inside you, feeding off of what you feed on, growing in your stomach...Although nobody seems to care if you have a tapeworm removed.
"More like" is at least more accurate. The problem with saying its like that is that parasite isn't invited in and usually a fetus is (by consenting to sex with the known consequence of pregnancy one implicitly accepts the risk of pregnancy with the sex act). A tapeworm also isn't human while a human fetus is (see its even in the name). Quote: from Baron Samedi at 3:05 pm on July 14, 2008
Is the same criteria for a small colony of bacteria yet I doubt you would say that the colony would be part of her. And I doubt you'd tell her she doesn't have a right to get that bacteria out of her system...
Is the same criteria for a small colony of bacteria yet I doubt you would say that the colony would be part of her.
And I doubt you'd tell her she doesn't have a right to get that bacteria out of her system...
Which again are not human. No bacteria will ever grow up and graduate high school or hold it's own baby in its arms or have arms. Human fetuses grow up and do those things all the time.
Quote: from Baron Samedi at 3:05 pm on July 14, 2008
I agree, help me get them the fuck out of my party. They think I'm just some freedom hating faggot. You guys are the ones who need to work on getting them the hell out...Maybe then the republicans can get back to being the party of Lincoln, not the party of Reagen.
I agree, help me get them the fuck out of my party.
They think I'm just some freedom hating faggot. You guys are the ones who need to work on getting them the hell out...Maybe then the republicans can get back to being the party of Lincoln, not the party of Reagen.
Funny you should say that, I like Reagan, I hate Lincoln. Reagan never jailed people for disagreeing with him, never arrested journalists, never ended the writ of Habeas Corpus, never started a war with our neighbors. Reagan helped end the cold war via diplomacy - a word our current Republican President might have to look up. (I lived through Reagan's presidency btw). Quote: from Baron Samedi at 3:05 pm on July 14, 2008
Not at all in fact it shows that of those two broad groups the conservative is much more likely to literally help the literal family down the street than any liberal is. The point is that one makes sacrifices themselves to help others and the other forces others to make sacrifices that they themselves are unwilling to make. You tell me which is the more noble action? If we provided universal healthcare, everyone would be making the same sacrifices. That sounds more noble to me than just telling the poor "Hey, forget about that $15,000 medical bill. Just work harder. You'll be fine."
Not at all in fact it shows that of those two broad groups the conservative is much more likely to literally help the literal family down the street than any liberal is. The point is that one makes sacrifices themselves to help others and the other forces others to make sacrifices that they themselves are unwilling to make. You tell me which is the more noble action?
You tell me which is the more noble action?
If we provided universal healthcare, everyone would be making the same sacrifices. That sounds more noble to me than just telling the poor "Hey, forget about that $15,000 medical bill. Just work harder. You'll be fine."
No they wouldn't be. Someone who doesn't work would be making no sacrifice for example. While someone working very hard would be making an extreme sacrifice. Also a healthy person working an average job would be sacrificing his or her family's future security for helping someone who might be naturally sickly. Why should his or her children perhaps not go to college because he is being taxed more? You see their liberty to pursue their own happiness has been removed by force.
Infringing on economic liberty is the same as infringing on social - different groups have convinced you that liberty can be cut up and divided and be destroyed piecemeal without affecting the rest and it most assuredly cannot.
374 users online 
223752 members 224 active today Advertise Here
374 users online 223752 members 224 active today Advertise Here
You have 1 new message.
