is he completely devoid of rational faculty? does that happen? i dont know… im not a psychiatrist/brain scientist… when people dream (even if they forget dreams) dont they often reason ? i must get to the beach before my hulk costume turns into a ferrari and drives away… i.e. positing value, and considering means to ends. however absurd the contents of the means and the dreamed about ends ? (i am openly speculating here )
I’m asking if someone who hypothetically temporarily loses all rational faculty, a dreamless unconsciousness, does that person then temporarily lose all rights?
if you are telling me that they arent moral agents then that would follow. is that going to be a problem?
wow. Any proof for that ?
I’m telling to they have temporarily lost they moral agency. As you put it earlier:
So I took it a step further, to temporary diminished capacity. Dreamless unconsciousness due to minor head trauma, drunken stupor, what have you. Mental capacity is currently not there, but will presumably return. Has this person lost his or her rights? Is it permissible to steal from the unconscious? To rape the unconscious? To beat the unconscious? Upon awakening, would this person have no standing to seek restitution, simply because he or she lacked the mental capacity at the time of the “attack”? Could one then get away with murdering another simply by rendering the victim unconscious first, and thereby only face charges of a non-lethal physical assault?
This is really just a simple question. Does a temporary loss is mental capacity lead to a temporary loss of rights? Even if you don’t believe a true loss of mental capacity is possible, assume for the hypothetical question that it is.
yes, if its a complete loss you have in mind and not an impairment. then that would follow. is that going to be a problem?
A complete, though temporary, loss, yes. I find your answer rather asotounding. Does that mean if I hit you in the head with enough force to knock you into dreamless unconsciousness, and then rape and kill you, I should only be liable for the whack to the head? i mean, you have no rights while you’re unconscious…
you are the one alleging that with a swift blow to my head ,without killing me you can make me not be me. make me be not capable of reason, make me not be a rational agent. maybe thats the astounding claim? or maybe its not astounding and hitting me so hard to the head that i lose rational capacity is killing me in the meaningful sense of the words ‘killing me’
There are more elegant ways. Just put some sleep-inducing drug in your drinks.
There is a high probability that you would recover from the blow, and be “you” again, but for the short time you were unconscious, you lost rational capacity. Using your argument, you had no rights during that short time. You (had you not been killed) or your heirs would then have no standing to seek restitution for any would-be crimes committed against you while you were in that state.
As Juan pointed out, drugs are an even better solution. You certainly could be put in a drug induced coma.
this would almost be a problem if in turning off my rational mind completely you hadnt breached libertarian law, horribly.
Evil and good are religious ideas. Right and wrong are philosophical ones. No contradiction there.
No it does not.
It certainly does not.
Nope, it still does not.
In none of these cases has the brain of the person changed.
More importantly, in all of these cases they can still file charges.
So I guess I should clarify that the only way we know a wrong has been committed, is if someone files a complaint, that either his or her person or property has been violated or the person or property of someone he or she has a responsibility for has been violated.
No, for the same reason that you can’t go wreck up someone’s car just because they aren’t driving it at the moment, or break into their house when they’re on vacation. The person has already homesteaded the rights to actions extending into the future, and interfering in the present is a violation of those rights, albeit a violation that is not evident until later. So if you kill someone who is unconscious, you have violated their right to continue living the future—a right which has not been abandoned, unless the person is already dead.
As far as children’s rights are concerned, I think Stephan Kinsella’s approach is useful:
The parent(s), by bearing a child, have caused the child’s future-rights to become “entrenched,” in much the same way as an unwitting trespasser farming your land acquires rights to that land if you are aware of the trespasser but do not challege him/her (adverse possession), or an airplane pilot incurs an obligation to land the plane for the sake of the passengers. The only question is: at what point can a piece of matter be considered a “potential moral agent” (like an unconscious adult)? At one extreme, a separated egg-and-sperm pair clearly is not, and a 9-year-old child clearly is. My guess is that the transition would occur during or shortly before birth, but I think we have a continuum or Ship-of-Theseus problem here. More philosophizing is needed.
Then again, I may be all wrong. This is one of the most difficult issues in ethics, even among libertarians.
If neither the baby, nor the babies parents, nor the babies grandparents bring a case to court, what wrong has been committed?
If I were to kill everyone in the world in one fell blow so that there was nobody left to take me to court, has a wrong been committed? The obvious answer is yes. People have rights and moral value independent of their ability to defend or think for themselves.
You cannot give consent while you are sleeping. You cannot “file a complaint, that either [your] person or property has been violated or the person or property of someone[you have] a responsibility for has been violated” while you are sleeping.
Alcohol and other drugs affect brain chemistry. Blows to the head can cause the brain to impact the inside of the skull, causing damage. When you are unconscious, due to drinking a significant amount of alcohol, or you are in a drug induced coma as part of medical treatment, or you have been knocked out by a blow to the head, you are unable to “file a complaint, that either [your] person or property has been violated or the person or property of someone[you have] a responsibility for has been violated.” Further, you are incapable of being aware that such a violation is taking place.
So killing one person may be a crime, but killing an entire family tree is not? I’m just trying to clarify your position.
Doesn’t the application of Natural Law/Rights clear up all the ambiguation here? It seems to certainly close any perceived holes with extenuating circumstances (i.e. impairment, mental retardation and children).
If you accept, like they do, that parents have the right to take their children to the middle of the desert/ocean/frozen tundra and abandon them with the intention of the child being killed by exposure then you are advocating child murder. They cowardly hide behind some notion that it wasn’t the actions of the parents that caused the death but the climate. Like dropping a baby off a cliff and saying it wasn’t the fall that caused the death but it was the Earth’s fault for the sudden stop. It’s a disgrace to freedom minded people and inherently evil.
Just like Spidey in this thread.