Rights

Economics Political Theory
1

OK, I know this issue has been discussed extensively. However, I think it is one of the most confusing issues for libertarians, I know it was for me. If any of you know of someone that has already explained rights in this way, please let me know.

There are three categories of creatures I want to discuss. First, is the adult human. Next is the animal. And last is the infant/child human.

The key question, is how do we know that someone has been wronged? There are two criteria. First, we know that someone has been wronged if he or she did not consent to something and someone acted against him or her anyways. For example, I do not know of anyone that would disagree that theft, rape, and murder are all wrong. So what makes them wrong? The reason is because they all imply a lack of consent. Theft is not wrong because someone took something from another person. It is wrong because someone took something from someone else without valid permission (holding a gun to someone’s head and “asking” for something is not valid permission). Rape is not wrong because someone had sex with someone else. Rape is wrong because someone had sex with someone else without consent. And same with murder. The reason it is wrong is not because someone killed another person, but because someone killed another person without consent. So, I think it is pretty conclusive that if consent is not granted, then a wrong has been committed.

But that leads us to animals. If not getting consent means a wrong has been committed, then killing an animal, having sex with an animal, or taking an animals property would all be wrong as well. This presents a conundrum however, for animal rights activists. How should carnivores be treated for killing other animals? How should males be treated for forcing sex onto females in their own species? How can humans reconcile the problems of animal property rights? So obviously, just lack of consent is not the only criteria for determining if a being has been wronged. The other criteria is if another being has the ability to consent, and then withholds consent. The reason animals do not have rights is because even though they do not grant consent, they do not have the mental ability in the first place of granting consent. So, the two criteria in determining whether or not a being has been wronged is that the being in question has the ability to grant consent in the first place, and in the second place did not grant consent.

This leads us to infants and small human children. They have the ability to withhold consent, however they do not have the mental ability to grant consent. Given that they do not have the ability to grant consent, they do not have rights. Now, one may ask “at what point in time do humans gain the ability to grant consent”? Well this is a question best left up to judges and child psychologists. Now, someone that believes that children have rights may say that this is completely arbitrary. But even someone that believes children have rights will have to concede that at some arbitrary point in life, it is all of a sudden OK to have sex with a human or for them to sell things and it not considered theft. However, children do not have rights, because as has already been established, they do not have the mental ability to grant consent. This is also why people in a coma do not have rights, since they no longer have the mental ability to grant consent. I am not a psychologist, so I do not know all the mental abilities of mentally handicapped people, but I would guess they do have some limited abilities to grant consent, if not full abilities, and as such probably have rights.

2

“However, children do not have rights, because as has already been established, they do not have the mental ability to grant consent. This is also why people in a coma do not have rights, since they no longer have the mental ability to grant consent.”

Following your reasoning, child molestation by a parent, or rape of a coma patient would not be wrong simply because they have no mental ability to grant or withhold consent, thus have no rights? I think there’s room for improvement of the definition of what’s right and wrong in human interactions.

3

Those are indeed likely conclusions. And they are the kind of conclusions you reach when you take human feeling out of morality and let a syllogism dictate what is right and wrong for you.

4

children, autistic, and coma patients, etc… have natural rights because they are human - all humans potentially intellectualize and passionately realize natural rights unless they have oughtism[;)] then realizing might be challenging.

5

Correct

Feel free to show it.

6

Potential is irrelevant, as I have already shown.

7

Where? How? Your focus on “ability to protest” or whatever seems absurd to me.

8

You obviously did not read my post. It is not about the ability to withhold consent. Every animal on earth can withhold consent. It is about having the mental ability to grant consent, and then not giving consent.

9

So, when I am asleep or unconcious (have no ability to grant consent), I have no rights to property/self-ownership? Sorry but, ignoring potentiality and the nature of things brings you to your perverse philosophy.

10

The rest of us are talking about humans. It only leads you to discuss animals.

Have you ever tried to pet a dog that doesn’t want you to? The dog grants you consent to pet him and if he withdraws that consent he moves away or bites you. This stuff is so far out there and just factually wrong it’s hard to know whether you are just trolling or delusional.

First you might ask, as we follow your wackadoo logic here, what it means to give consent? Where and how do you determine on an individual basis who has the capacity to give consent? Your blanket statement that small children can’t give consent is ludicrous.

So after all your ramblings, you concede that the critical elements of the issue should be left to someone else with more knowledge. The only person here that is in definite need of a psychologist is you.

11

Being asleep does not mean you have lost your mental abilities. That should be obvious.

12

Do you have a multiple personality disorder?

I think most people are smart enough to understand animals do not have reasoning abilities. Obviously, you are too stupid to understand this.

So says someone that is too stupid too understand animals do not have the ability to reason.

I think it is clear to everyone just how stupid you are, so I have no reason to address your other stupid comments.

13

I don’t know what you mean by mental abilities… I want to agree… but we are trapped in this time when I am asleep not when I inevitably awaken.

I don’t think that I can grant consent (remember what we are talking about) while I am asleep. I may even be able to speak words in my sleep, but it will be a tough sell that this is granting consent.

14

But you still have the mental ability to do so. Your brain has not changed. You just have to be woken up.

Now, the comatose persons mental ability has not necessarily changed yet either. So I would agree that is a weakness in my argument. So I would have to concede they would still have rights.

15

I have no sort of ability to rationalize nor grant consent while I am asleep… I still do not. This is the nature of sleeping humans.

It is good you recognize that the case of comatose people is a flaw in your argument. What is the difference between a 20 year old who doctors all claim will never escape the coma and a 3 year old, who will almost certainly reach moral agency in a decade or so, provided they are not aggressed against as if they are not human?

16

Perhaps it is the philosophy’s perversity, and not it’s neglect of potentiality and nature (or any other theoretical difficulties), that is the real crux of the matter.

Perhaps this whole endeavor of determining right and wrong according to theories completely divorced from human feeling is completely wrong-headed.

Those of us who haven’t gone off the rationalist deep end know in our hearts that there is NOTHING wrong with physically stopping a father from yanking his daughter’s fingernails out. We can try to fiddle with ethical syllogisms, altering a definition here, adding an argument there, until their conclusions agree with that “moral given”. Or we can recognize that it is pointless and silly to perform argumentative contortions in order to “prove” a moral given.

17

Your arguments are based on the idea that you assume consent by default, and only people of sound mind can affirm or take that consent away. That’s ridiculous. I believe you have to assume there is NO consent by default, unless given by the other person.

18

When I say your mental ability has not changed, I mean your brain has not changed.

Well, OK, I will even concede children have rights. But here is the rub.

Someone who is comatose has a right to his or her property still. And, as long as his or her property can pay for him or her to be kept alive, then fine. Once he or she runs out of money, than if someone else wants to pick up the tab, they can. At this point, he or she that is comatose becomes the property of the person that is paying to keep them alive and they can do whatever they with the person.

Same with an infant/child. The parents can leave the child out in “nature” and the child can fend for his or her self (which means the child will of course die). Or the parents can choose to take care of the child, in which case the parents can do whatever they want to the child.

19

No, my arguments assume there is no consent by default. Sorry if that was not clear.

20

Legally, yes there is. Those of us who have not gone off the emotional deep end understand parents rights.