well, given i am clear on your position equating equal rights to children who can not yet demonstrate rational agency even under the most beneolvent circumstances with drugged and sleeping and wakeful men. where do you stand on the fetal issue? the fetal that becomes a completely non-rational adult is a rather rare being …
the main challenge to stretching the continuum of rights out to extend to pre-rational children is that it would extend to something what you would extend to another thing, that it may later become (if some common course occurs), but that it is yet not.
extend rights to prerational children on the grounds of their future rationality. (i said prerational as some children can be rational in my opinion)
tell people i am an architect and can help them design buildings now on the grounds that i have started my 1st day of architect training.
admire the aesthetic beauty of the caterpillar now on the grounds of the patterns of the adult butterflies wings.
human DNA… that’s all that’s needed. The being is human or not. It is about realization for any developing human when it comes to NR. It may take time for any human, and some grow up to be criminals but they very well know what they are violating by their acts of murder, thievery, etc… (whether they think it’s wrong or not is a different story). A person that is mentally ill may realize one day, we don’t know cause all we know is the DNA and the nature of what a human is capable of realizing. Humans are by nature innovative so one possibility for examples sake is medicine, if necessary, is an extension of human nature so it may one day help somebody that currently can’t understand beyond 1, 2, 3. It is the potential that is significant. (not to use an authority solely since I believe I grasp what I’m saying without having to refer to somebody else but Aquinas provides very interesting exegesis not on this point in specific but on potentiality and actuality when it comes to human nature).
As for the fetus, as I currently stand on that issue, I think it is the mother, not the fetus, that is host.
Children are their own property, have liberty, and live. Without going too much into care and responsibility in what parenting defines, the child does eventually get to the point in which they can leave the nest. It gets contingent beyond this generality so I can only guess at what age, what to do with a particular child, etc… at this point in the discussion.
im going to reject the rights come from DNA argument since, animals have DNA, and so do dead people. if we were introducing DNA just to motivate humanity. thats moot. we were assuming human children and not animal children in all these cases. but the point is precisely about the relationship that obtains between being a moral agent now who has rights now and being not capable of rationality now and resolving that tension if it is resolvable.
I think its fair to see you did not mention this issue let alone address it.
i am familiar with realization. i take it you mean that a child can tell you when they have achieved rationality. they can realise it about themselves and we can realise it about them. but since they were not capable of realisation before then, how could they have rights before then? this is the issue.
I didn’t base my whole argument on DNA…lol. First, animals don’t have human DNA. Secondly, dead people are dead no right of life there.
well then this discussion has moved beyond “potentiality” and how that relates to “realization” if you say so, but I dare say not.
Because they are human. It’s that simple. All humans are capable of realizing rights and discover their innateness of human nature. A self-reflection if you will. But it takes time and that time is either as a child growing up, a mentally ill person somehow one day realizing more than they do now, or a Communist. Education, it doesn’t really get any more complicated than that. it’s the same as a boy has an arm, doesn’t know it’s an arm, but has it. One day realizes, “Hey, I have an arm.” It’s human nature to realize these things.
are fetii capable of realizing rights? i think not
fetii are capable of maturing into something that is capable of realizing rights. but i differentiate between long term possibilities (potentiality) and present capability (capability) . maybe thats my foolishness and you can talk me out of it. im not wedded to my position by faith or a handed down dogma, i am just trying to get the best understanding i can, and wrinkle out inconsistencies if they are dewrinkable.
why is potentiality the important element rather than capability? is it just so we can get the youngest of children included (even though they would enjoy the protection of rational moral agent adults whilst they were in their infancy anyhow), and do we do this consistently so as to include fetii?
i didnt read you saying anything about fetii aside from that they ‘have mothers who host them’
you did not discuss whether they have rights. or rationality. or whether they are capable of rights, or of rationality, or whether they had potential for rights, or potential for rationality.
i think at the end you threw in that there is some difference that mean fetii they dont have rights although the youngest of children that are not fetii do have them…
do rights for you depend on, 1)being human(dna),2) being alive,3) being on the cold side side of a womb. ? am i way off understanding your position or is that it boiled down?
I’m still going according to Rothbard on this fetus subject. And I know you read him on this point so I thought I could be brief.[:)] The mother is making a baby (the father has contributed but the mother’s property is being used at this point more exclusively than the father). a newborn child differs as long as it is a healthy brand new baby girl or boy.
to my understanding the Rothbardo-Blockian idea is that fetii do have rights, i.e htey have similar ‘potentials’ to children that are just weeks/months older. but that its a moot point in questions over abortion/eviction since even someone with rights doesnt have the right to make themself a permanent unwanted guest of the host, and minimal force can be legitimately used to evict them. if they minimal force necessary results in death this is merely unfortunate but not a rights violation.
those questions need to be qualified as there is not a sweeping yes no anwer to their unqualified forms. the answer is its contingent on that child being sufficiently rational. the child you have in mind may well be… my theory would entail that if their is no self-owner there because the child is not rational and cannot homestead itself for preciselt that reason, then as an interim ‘solution’ to the problem of provision of security and care for the child is for it to be owned by a rational agent.
Do rational children have rights ? sure
do prerational children have rights ? i cant see how
is it a boundary problem, and/or an ignorance of neuroscience problem ? definitely
Are rational children ‘owned’ by ‘their’ parents ? no, they have a relationship as soverign individuals
are pre-rational children ‘owned’ by their parents ? who else capable of owning such body-material would be a better owner? (certainly not anything non-rational)
I see your position and agree. I was thinking about the mother - the host - in my above analysis as you saw, which apparently doesn’t differ from what you said. Other than the technicality about a fetus being alive or a human being thus having NR. You introduce an interesting point since technically it’s not only the mother and not only the father, but actually a completely different being now at conception - a human being.
edit: but the fetus rights don’t trump the mother’s rights for the fetus is a guest in the mother’s property - not vice versa.
Now you’re trying to narrow the scope of your general argument by excluding certain groups of people, trying to fill the holes in your theory. Me being on a trip doesn’t mean I forfeit my property to the first person trying to homestead it, just because I’m not in the position to deny him consent. The same as my house (property) is my own, my body is my own. No one can claim any sort of rights to it until I die, get consent from me or one of my appointed (by me) caregivers.
A “guest” that was deliberately put there by the consenting actions of both mother and father (whether it was a smart action is not relevant) doesn’t really make it a guest. A prisoner would be a better analogy. I can see a case for aborting rape victim pregnancies.