but the baby is a human and has the actual gene(s) for brain and the potential of such is to realize rights. whether now or later doesn’t matter.
all humans, even human zygotes, develop with minds. it is in their nature to do so. teapots don’t have such a potential, and though dogs have the potential to develop a mind it does not have the potential to know rights but a human zygotes does. give the human zygote time, watch, observe, and note it’s developmental growth stages. It will happen. And soon such a human zygote given the opportunity to fully bloom into a full fledge human being might out argue the both of us.
what becomes actual has always been potentially within our nature as humans. and one of those actualizations is to know rights. dogs don’t fulfill this and therefore never had the potential. unfortunately for dogs it was a done deal when they were little tinnie, whinnie zygotes.
so what… it only has causal potential, itlack teleological potential. i could admit the significance of your point if it was teleological potential that they mindless-babe had…
The point is, why does something that does not have a mind, but only the potential to have a mind, ‘demand’ to be treated like it had its future mind ? and not ‘demand’ to be treated like the thing it is in the present (lacking a mind)
A child has the future potential of reasoning. They have an inherent capacity within them - potential, whereas inanimate objects do not. No?
Correct. But teapots don’t have the inate potential of becoming rational, like children do. Therefore the terms retain their meaning. A baby could have their arms broken, they may not be able to consent / not-consent at the time, but in the future when they are able to - and the physical defects / abnormalities / injuries are still there, surely they would have a case.
To extend this logically, the same would go for a person who is sleeping would it not? Raping / violating someone who is asleep, or in a coma - aren’t they in a period of cannot consent / or not-consent? But when they wake up, they surely will be.
The issue of debate would then not change.
There remains, however, the difficult case of children. The right of self-ownership by each man has been established for adults, for natural self-owners who must use their minds to select and pursue their ends. On the other hand, it is clear that a newborn babe is in no natural sense an existing self-owner, but rather a potential self-owner.[1] But this poses a difficult problem: for when, or in what way, does a growing child acquire his natural right to liberty and self-ownership? Gradually, or all at once? At what age? And what criteria do we set forth for this shift or transition?..
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The mother, then, becomes at the birth of her child its “trustee-owner,” legally obliged only not to aggress against the child’s person, since the child possesses the potential for self-ownership. Apart from that, so long as the child lives at home, it must necessarily come under the jurisdiction of its parents, since it is living on property owned by those parents. Certainly the parents have the right to set down rules for the use of their home and property for all persons (whether children or not) living in that home.
But when are we to say that this parental trustee jurisdiction over children shall come to an end? Surely any particular age (21,18, or whatever) can only be completely arbitrary. The clue to the solution of this thorny question lies in the parental property rights in their home. For the child has his full rights of self-ownership when he demonstrates that he has them in nature — in short, when he leaves or “runs away” from home. Regardless of his age, we must grant to every child the absolute right to run away and to find new foster parents who will voluntarily adopt him, or to try to exist on his own. Parents may try to persuade the runaway child to return, but it is totally impermissible enslavement and an aggression upon his right of self-ownership for them to use force to compel him to return. The absolute right to run away is the child’s ultimate expression of his right of self-ownership, regardless of age.
i’m not well-exercised in Aristotlean thinking, but I think there is a case to be made, as the wiki I linked shows, that with every action, including knowledge, ie. one of the three senses of action, there is the teleological potential. For any action has the potential. And most actualities of human beings are not only realized in a full life span, but in generational occurences. The potential of the human species in general has always been present when it comes to it being actualized. It simply would mean it never was made possible, for various reasons, until such a time.
I understand this point, but I don’t think this is answerable until a full life-time has happened (which did thousands of years ago, but when the first human that realized rights occurred is debatable surely). Since it is known that in that specific zygote, exists the potential of a ‘mind’, then it has the potential to realize rights. Wherever the potential exists then the actualization is potential to exist (tongue twister).
In isolation this might be a whole other event. For instance, I couldn’t say, if I were an alien from planet zozo, that such a human zygote will grow into a being that realizes rights. Keeping in mind that I never saw or knew that the adults of such a species could learn such a thing as rights. But we know what human zygotes grow into. And we know this species realizes rights. Time is not a factor, because when something is universal it has no need for the limits of time.
maybe potential is confusing people. a zygote child is expected to develop(by a causal and not teleological process) under certain known conditions into a mindful-child.
A mindful adult, is not a moral agent deserving of rights respect because he is a potential self owner and potential mind-haver, but because he is an actual mind haver, an actual self-owner. it should be the same standard for non-mindful adults, or non-mindful zygotes, or anything non-mindful. all non-mindful things are not moral agents (until in some cases they change and are then moral agents when those facts about their minds becomes true about them…)
but it’s not “anything non-mindful”. Natural law from all the sciences are included in this discussion. The human species has the potential. Not “anything non-mindful”. That would be unscientifically validated and I know we are sticking to what is within the bounds of science and not fantasy.
but the kind of baby that is so harmed before it manifests reason and will, would similarly be counter sued for peeing on unconsenting adults, tweaking noses, crying loudly at night and disturbing homesteaded quietude.
I think the question ‘surely they have a case?’ is yet debatable. . you as a person with a mind who people understand by teleological analysis have rights against other similar mindful people about their interactions with a biological mass, that was not a ‘person’ in the teleological sense. the sense in which your zygote was you is different to the sense in which your adult body was you yesterday. the adult body has this teleological construction, internal referent of I, which is related to mind-possessing. this mind possessing is absent from zygotes, as is the possibility of comprehension by teleological analysis. to claim that a zygote is a ‘person’ is ‘stretching it’ , a dead body may have been a person… but is it the person. is your dead body you after your death? or does the teleologically udnerstandable concept of you (the I) simply cease to refer to any presently existing material bodies.
well, i’m unsure… in the past i considered this and shrank away from the position you have seen me put forth today, based on such counter arguments… yet today i feel more tenacious with it. I think the question here is, is a sleeping person a ‘person’ in the causal/body sense, or in the teleological/mind-having sense. It may be arguable that as you sleep, you’re brain is still manifesting sufficient neurological behaviour as to constitute an emergent mind (even if the mind is not consumed with outward, conventionally understood awake-related tasks). Common lingo says, asleep, unconcious, dead to the world, but they dont allege brain-death, do they really allege mind-death?
the mother is not obliged to aggress against the child’s person. This is actually hard to interpret despite going down easy on first glance, as it originally did for me. the child’s person, put me in mind of a sovereign person… but this is what is denied…
the concept ‘aggress’ does not apply in causal explanations but teleological, hence if the childs person could possibly face aggression, (if aggression is an issue for it) then we are saying it is self-owning. if it was not self-owning there would not be teleologically-owned property to aggress against.
again, we say, so long as the self-owner is a guest of a self-owning landowner it must necessarily come under the ‘house rules’ or else show that it is not under house rules by taking advantage of the right to leave (which was granted at the time of invitation).
but something that is not a self-owner can’t be agreeing things, and consciously obeying rules and choosing/acting to stay…or go… and all these teleologically understandable things that are reserved for mind-having-self-owners…
Maybe I need to hit up some expert advice from Sage’s Expert Moral Philosopher, eh sage? oh the quandaries!
its an ‘offspring’ - a child… its so young a child, that it is a zygote, or somewhere between zygote and onto the next stage whatever that is… feotus-child?
I’m unconfident in judging that case.(a child after 9month gestation) i can confidently judge zygote as mindless, and confidently judge toddlers that i have met as mindful, but in between my knowledge is wanting, perhaps lack of exposure? lack of detailed experimental observation? lack of analytic contemplation?
mindless-baby cannot act, as ‘human action’ teleologically understood requires a mind (reason&will). if i speak of potency it is referent to the impossibility of the mindless-baby acting.
yes… i anticipate that you will say the mindless-baby has the causal potential of becoming a mindful-baby that acts.
but i can only say that the potential for a thing to later become a something that can do some act, is not the same as a thing that can do some act
I don’t think that is clear at all. A child is a human being who is not yet an adult.
And I’m not sure how what you are saying addresses this problem at all:
“for when, or in what way, does a growing child acquire his natural right to liberty and self-ownership? Gradually, or all at once? At what age? And what criteria do we set forth for this shift or transition?..”
I’m sorry, I’m just still unclear about what you mean when you say "zygote child".
Well I refer to a child, as goes the common definition as “a human being that is not yet an adult”. I guess it would be good to clear up how you are defining it, since you seem to apply the label to fetus-child? zygote-child? Which doesn’t make much sense to me.
And what precisely do you mean by “mindful”?
A new born baby / child has the tools (brain / mind) / computer (AI) … he has the hardware (potential self owner). And a way I guess you could describe it, is that the process the baby experiences, i.e learns about it’s environment from empirical observation - could be analogous to that of installing software / becoming self aware? Or that it’s booting up… to the time it can show reason & free will.
Huh? Counter sued after they have required reason and will, for what they did - when they did not possess reason and will? lol
I don’t think I did. But it has the potential. It is within it’s nature. Right? (If I understand your meaning of zygote correctly?)
" the question here is, is a sleeping person a ‘person’ in the causal/body sense, or in the teleological/mind-having sense"
Why cannot it be both? It could be said the sleeping person is an individual engaged in purposeful behavior. Sleep is a part of human nature isn’t it? It’s like re-charging the batteries… which is required, that is life. You can will yourself awake, but eventually the body will shut down regardless.. ‘it’s run out of fuel’ (energy). It’s like your brain is on temporary hibernation, i.e you’re a light sleeper, you can be woken by unnatural noises etc, so your mind is still running.
The point I was trying to make, was that in a coma situation - say the mind is not ‘working’, and the individual did not voluntarily end up in the situation and cannot get out of it. They don’t suddenly become ‘non-mindful’ in the sense that they are someone elses property. “Guardianship rights” and Block addresses this in the lecture, bringing up the example of the Terri Schiavo case. The husband should he choose to give up caring for her; “trustee ownership / guardianship rights”, then he relinquishes them, and it goes onto the family, or next of kin etc.. should they not want to care for her, it goes to anyone else and continues on.. until the rare case that no-one wants to care for her / baby.. making all the pro-lifers hypocrites, but anyway - the same applies to babies.
You don’t think.. that if someone is in a coma - and their property is violated (someone breaks their leg, or arm) - that when they re-awake, they wouldn’t have a legitimate claim for restitution? You wouldn’t call that person an aggressor?.. because the adult had become a"non-mindful" and could not consent / non-consent? She’s now got a broken leg, re-awoken and can’t do anything about it? Where’s the justice?
It’s like the abortion issue; there is no just A) or just C)… there is a possible B.
A) Child is not self owning (empty)
B) Child is not yet a full self owner, but has the potential.
C) Child is self owning (full)
It is not a self owner, yet, and cannot agree to things, yet. But when it can, then it displays:
But when are we to say that this parental trustee jurisdiction over children shall come to an end? Surely any particular age (21,18, or whatever) can only be completely arbitrary. The clue to the solution of this thorny question lies in the parental property rights in their home. For the child has his full rights of self-ownership when he demonstrates that he has them in nature — in short, when he leaves or “runs away” from home. Regardless of his age, we must grant to every child the absolute right to run away and to find new foster parents who will voluntarily adopt him, or to try to exist on his own. Parents may try to persuade the runaway child to return, but it is totally impermissible enslavement and an aggression upon his right of self-ownership for them to use force to compel him to return. The absolute right to run away is the child’s ultimate expression of his right of self-ownership, regardless of age.
How else would you answer that question? Tbh, I think you are over complicating things.
As you point out, the baby / child cannot yet consciously obey the rules etc, choose to act / stay or go.. well should the property owners decide to withdraw their invitation for the baby / child, and obviously the baby cannot purposefully act / reason, then it won’t move - and as such it is trespassing. It then must be removed in the gentlest way possible.
"To see this point, consider the following case: (pg 18-20 - Block Appalachian Law - Uncompromisable) *spelling mistakes, copied from pdf.
Suppose one day you wake up to find yourself attached to another person, e.g., Thompson’s"~by now famous violinist, through your kidneys. You have two healthy organs, and the other person has none that are functioning. During the night, while you slept, doctors performed an operation connecting that person to your kidneys through a sort of umbilical chord, and there you lie. This operation was conducted without the permission or even knowledge of either “patient.”
What rights and obligations do you have with regard to this violinist? First, let us stipulate that the person in question is a complete innocent. Last night he was in a hospital bed; this morning he woke up in your bed attached to you. He is not a rapist. You were “raped,” but this was not done by your bedmate; instead, it was the act of evil doctors who have since vanished fiom the scene. What you are confronted with is the result of the rape, namely, this person lying in bed with you attached to your kidneys1" completely dependent upon you for his life.
What can you do with this person? Suppose he goes back to sleep and is thus totally helpless. Can you just slit his throat? That would be murder and must therefore be opposed.145 Killing him is aggressive; it constitutes initiatory violence. Even if you can get away with it on practical grounds, it should certainly not be allowed on the basis of legal principles. What can you do? Do you have to let him stay attached for nine months or for any particular length of time? Instead of slitting his throat, can you sever the connection between the two of you - which would also cause his death? If you did that, you would still be guilty of the initiation of coercion, surely a crime, specifically, murder. What you must do is notify somebody - the association “Friends of Kidney Victims” or a hospital or the Salvation Army or the Church and have them sever the connection between you two, without thereby lulling this dependant.
If a parent abandons a newborn in the woods or shoves a five-year-old out into a blizzard, he is doing something akin to that of slitting the chord between you and the kidney victim who is attached to you. It is incumbent upon the individual to at least make a phone call to an orphanage, or put the child on the proverbial Church steps,146 or be in touch with whatever organization functions in this capacity in any given society. It is only if no help is forthcoming from any such quarter that these actions can possibly not be interpreted as murder."
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From these examples is derived the principle that when one evicts a trespasser, or deals with any other violator of rights, one is obliged to do so in a certain way; it must be done in the least invasive manner possible consistent with upholding property rights. If a trespasser is on your lawn and you have a bazooka, you are not entitled to blow him away - not as a first step in any case. That is far too extreme and incompatible with the doctrine of private property rights. The homeowner has the right to make sure that the outsider does not trespass further, but he must be evicted in the gentlest manner possible. Suppose a viable baby was removed from the womb, and the doctor lulled it afterward.Ii3 It seems crystal clear that would be first-degree, premeditated murder and ought to be dealt with accordingly. It is an understatement of the highest order to say that this is hardly the gentlest manner possible."
Block’s other paper, directly addresses this.
Been mulling over this a bit, sorry if there seems to be lots of tangents and thoughts that don’t appear to address the issue, though I think they do - I just probably haven’t outlined it clearly enough. Cheers.
Isn’t your thinking here too linear? It’s not as if the scenario involves a ‘something’ like a teapot. That is known to not have the potential to act. The zygote is not in isolation the only ‘thing’ it ever will be.
It is a growing organism that has the potential to realize rights. Again, this theory of yours is only thinking about a zygote as some kind of organism in isolation that is not ever, even in potency, something other than a zygote. That the zygote is a whole other species or even individual, but that is incorrect theorizing. It is a human zygote and a human being involves being a zygote at one point in time in his or her lifespan. The two are NOT exclusive of each other. One can’t take the zygote out of the human experience. If one does, then there is NEVER a human. They are inseparatable. They are one in the same, simply at different growth stages.
edit: maybe a new thread is in order, or we can set this topic down for now. I think what is important to realize is the debate is not over. There is quite possibly a lack of episteme from all sides to settle this once and for all. I don’t know when I’ll be back to reply I have some events I need to partake in. have a good day![:D]
For those of you that think small children have rights, could you please outline how a parent knows if he is violating the child’s supposed rights? You all seem to claim that a parent killing or having sex with a small child is violating the child’s rights. Is killing someone or having sex with someone always wrong? If not, then why is killing or having sex with children always wrong? Is it because they do not consent to it? If it is because they do not consent to it, what do they ever consent to? If they never consent to anything, then does that not mean that everything a parent does to a child is violating it’s rights? I am just very confused at how you determine when a child’s rights have been violated.
For those of you who think children do not have rights. Could you please outline and elaborate how murder is then not justified? Or is it? If a man murders his child he is only liquidating his assets of property. Perhaps meaningfully to reduce his cost of living.
It would seem Spidey you have far more reconciling to do with your theory then ours. Ours does not hold that people are born into slavery and can be treated as property.
IF your ok with infanticide just say so. Get it out in the open so we know your true nature. Stranger already admitted his disgusting nature.
Quiet frankly this whole thread is the pits. It’s disgusting. Contemporary thought generally claimed that doing harm to a child was worse off then doing harm to a person. You’ve made it the opposite. Under your concept we have no moral, ethical, or legal repercussion for damaging a child as they are nothing more then property. A rug, broom, a garbage can. The reason why children have historically been held to a level of protection is due to the reasons Wanderer pointed out. The child will potentially be someone, and you have taken advantage of them before they get to that point. Than you ignore the lifelong consequences they will have to face from your abuse.
A child is not property. You’ve only fooled yourself into thinking so. Property does not stop becoming property. Property cannot will itself out of being property without the owners consent. Children are not property.
And contrary to your argument, which only shows your lack of understanding in children, children can think critically at a young age and children make moral decisions at a young age. An 8 year child knows it doesn’t want to be sexually abused, it will vocalize it as much. If your raiping your child and it’s telling you to stop are you going to assume that she’s thinking irrationally?
The only irrational person is you for assuming so. It’s idiocy. Quiet frankly I’m shocked Nir has apparently fooled himself down this path as well.