donnywithana

Isn't a fetus an infant infant rational being then? If you were to take a fetus out of a woman's body a week before its natural birth, it could survive pretty much as well as a child. Would it have rights? If so, then why would leaving it in the womb for that extra week eliminate its rights? That all depends on how you define "human being." If you define it as "a rational animal that uses conceptual intelligence to purposefully further its own existence," then no, a fetus is not a human being, but neither is a child. If you define it as "a rational animal that uses conceptual intelligence to purposefully further its own existence, which develops from a child which develops from a fetus, and is created by the purposeful act of procreation," then a fetus is absolutely a human being. I don't really care if it turns your concept of rights upside down to recognize that men develop from fetuses, and therefore fetuses are premature men. We can either decide that this particular parasite has the right to live qua parasite, because it's a part of the survival requirements of man to exist temporarily as this parasite, or we can decide that these parasites must be subject to the same rights as any other parasite, and depend on the charitable sentiments of their hosts in order to not be violating their rights.

I just don't see why the distinction comes at birth. It's a pretty unimportant event in the child's development from a physical standpoint. Would it be ethical to abort a child a week before it was due? It's pretty much a child already at that point, why doesn't it have the right to live qua week-before-birth-human? I just think it's pretty arbitrary to say, "Before this being eats food from its mother (milk) through its mouth, rather than from a tube, and breathes air, it has no rights." I don't think that breathing air and eating food make something human.

So would you say that someone also has the choice of whether or not to care for their child? I did put that out there as a possible answer...

I didn't mean that fetus' magically become children, I meant that you don't specifically choose to turn a fetus into a child at any point. You do choose to turn sperm and egg into fetus.

I wouldn't mind taking you up on the debate, but please read the article I linked in my last post. You're operating from the premise that conceptual thinking begins at birth, but this is false. Thought begins far before birth, the only difference is its environment. Here's that link again: http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/tul/psychtoday9809.html Why? I mean, I'm pro-choice, but it's getting to the point where I can't explain my position at all, and I'm wondering if it has grounds outside of convenience. Unfortunately, the small bit of research I've done confirms what I feared. On birth, from the above cited article, "it is a trivial event in development. Nothing neurologically interesting happens." Uh oh. Hold on. Giving birth is not a willful act. If there is a child brewing in your body, you will give birth to it, whether you like it or not. To hold someone responsible for something they did not choose to do is directly against Objectivist ethics (I'm taking that from Rand's discussion of original sin). However, conception is the result of willful action, even if it was not intended to result in a child. Sperm and eggs don't turn into fetus' without anyone doing anything consciously, but fetus' certainly turn into children without conscious input. It is only one's actions that should result in charges for negligence, not one's bodily processes. Once one consciously engages in an act that will eventually result in the creation of a human being, then they are responsible for the consequences. Abortion, then, would be the equivalent of a grace period in which to decide that those consequences are undesirable. Now, if it's determined that fetus' don't have rights, then having such a grace period is perfectly understandable. However, there's no legitimate argument I've heard so far to prove why they should not have rights. Believe me, I want me to be wrong. The way it seems to me, either a child gains rights when the man-creating process is purposefully begun, or when it crosses a threshhold after which it is fundamentally human, or when it becomes able to fend for itself. The purposeful beginning is conception. The point where it becomes fundamentally human is when it begins to think. The point where it can fend for itself is currently established as 18. But the real question is what rights it does in fact possess. The right to live qua man don't really help a fetus or a child, because neither are capable of such survival. They require the right to live qua fetus or child, and life qua either of these things requires some form of outside value, for which they must either rely on charity to obtain, or must be legally guaranteed to obtain. Since the law must progress from rationality, we must decide how to protect the right of a child to live qua child and the right of a fetus to live qua fetus. If we say that a child has the right to live qua child, then we are saying that it is criminally negligent to bring a child into this world and not provide for it. But how does a child come into the world? Through the unwilling act of childbirth. That's not fair, because here I had this completely rights-less fetus, but on my way to the abortion clinic it popped out and now I can't kill it anymore. If we say that the right to live qua fetus exists, then we're simply saying that creating a human is a legally binding action, and once that process has been purposefully undertaken, it would be negligent to cut it short. This certainly infringes upon the right of the parent to do as they please with the values generated by their own labor, but so does the right to live qua child. Alternatively, we could say that no one has the RIGHT to anyone else's life, and if a child doesn't get what it needs from its parents, and no one wants to care for it, or the parent won't allow anyone to care for it, then that just sucks.

If this private organization existed, and had a legitimate message, why wouldn't wealthy individuals support the organization with voluntary donations?

That's dependant on your definition of "human being." You can't just say that something's not a human being because you've arbitrarily defined "human being" to not include it. A human becomes conscious before it's born, and it is not independent upon birth. The only thing that happens at birth is that the infant has to actively take in external nutrition (rather than have it circulated through its blood stream), including breathing. An infant is no more conscious when it leaves the womb than immediately before this event. If we derive rights from breathing air or physically eating food, then this makes sense as a landmark event. Brain activity, however, begins much earlier. Apparently, a 32 week old fetus is behaviorally almost identical to a newborn (http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/tul/psychtoday9809.html).

Yes, precisely. I would assume that the line would have to be drawn at some important event that would distinguish the entity from its previous form in a way that would allow it rights. I was thinking of these potential landmarks: Conception: The first purposeful action has been undertaken in the man-forming process. Two individuals have had sex, and a zygote has resulted which will, if given proper care, become a man. First brain activity: Until this point, the fetus' brain has been silent, and would be incapable of responding to stimulus. Killing it would not inconvenience it in any way, because it would simply be a cellular structure. Birth: At this point, the child leaves the womb, and breathes its own air. The differences pretty much end here, and if the child had been born prematurely, it could possibly still survive qua man. I guess I just don't see birth as being as significant of a landmark as the first two, but it's certainly an easy place to draw a line. Does anyone else have a better choice?

If it's a part of man's survival requirements to exist as a child, then children must have rights to live as children. I think we're moving towards that idea here, but I might be wrong. If that's true though, wouldn't it be part of a child's survival requirements to be a fetus? That's what I meant by non-rights-bearing inputs becoming a rights-bearing product. We all acknowledge that man has rights. In order to create a man, you need a child, material support, and time. If we acknowledge that one of these inputs, the child, has rights of its own, and part of its survival requirements are material support, then shouldn't it have the right to obtain material support? Otherwise it can not survive. But the question is, when do the inputs stop having rights? To create a child, you need a fetus, biological inputs, and time. We've acknowledged that fetuses don't have rights, but is this the correct position? Even if you do think fetuses have rights, you need sperm and an egg to create fetuses, and certainly those things don't have rights. But sex is a purposeful action, and one could argue that it's irresponsible to have sex if you aren't willing to accept all of the possible consequences. So could an abortion be considered the result negligent activity? What I'm trying to say is, man doesn't come into the world as man. In order to become man, it is required that he be provided with all of the inputs that will result in his manhood. I think it simply needs to be defined how far someone can go in the man-making process without it being considered criminally negligent to stop. Logically then, it will be at this point that the proto-man possesses the right to the requirements of his survival and no longer must be considered as a charity object.

Could one say that it would be criminally negligent to bring a child into the world and not take care of it? This is the only way I am aware of to legislate responsibility for one's actions. I might be wrong, but wouldn't being required, by law, to provide value for another individual, against your will, constitute a violation of your rights? I think the difficulty arises from the idea that one can take non-rights-bearing inputs and create a rights-bearing product. What right do the creators have to do as they please with their creation, which by all means should be their private property? Once a piece of private property begins to have rights, it screws everything up, because rights-bearing entities can not be owned, because that's slavery. Also, the new rights-bearing product is not quite finished becoming the final form of its being, and requires further input from its creators. Is it fair to force someone to continue a project they began privately? I think this conversation would be best continued in terms of negligence. If my irresponsibility causes harm to another, in some cases they can claim that I've initiated a force upon them. But isn't applying this to children doing the same thing to people's rights that prohibiting abortion does? It forces someone to provide for someone else just because they need it.

An innocent question: If individual rights are derived from recognition of the conditions man requires to properly survive, and part of man's life includes childhood, then wouldn't it make sense that the conditions required by a child to survive would be part of the conditions that man requires to survive?

I don't think that any of us here achieved our current values alone. We're all familiar with and inspired by the work of Ayn Rand, who herself was inspired by Aristotle, etc. The point is, no one can or should be expected to go out in the world with the assumption that their values are terrible and must be changed. Therefore, if you meet someone who you see as someone you might want to be with, except that you don't see eye to eye on a few important things, I think it would be a great idea to at least try to talk to them and see where they're coming from. Who knows, maybe they could change you for the better!

Does any animal besides a human have the choice of the manner in which it uses its brain? Is it more likely that animals who seem to possess this ability might be "utilizing their brains" to decide how to further "utilize their brains?" Shoot, I really don't want to get kicked off this forum, so I won't take that thought to its conclusion, but could this type of behavior be considered as a higher mental process, and therefore grounds for isolating one type of animal from another?

I don't see how you came to the conclusion that a child has the right to material support from its parents. I would argue that because need is not a value, and material support is, then it would be the parents' choice whether or not to provide the support. Was I wrong in characterizing this as a rule? Now, there was discussion about taking responsibility for one's actions, and I just wanted to throw in my two cents. I think that what Rand was saying was that responsibility can only be derived from something one has done. In this sense, she's saying that it would be unethical to have a child without wanting to take care of it. I'd say that we can all agree with that. However, she doesn't seem to be implying that one should be forced to take responsibility. I think that's what this discussion is about. I think the question we're trying to answer is, can we force someone to take responsibility for having a child? To say yes would imply some sort of agreement between the parents and child which doesn't in fact exist. To say no seems ghastly, and essentially implies that it should be legal to starve a child to death. It all seems to connect to the reason this thread was started, which stems from abortion. Does a parent have the right to kill a fetus or not? Just because the fetus has left her womb, and parasites sustainence from her in a different way, has the mother's dilemma actually changed? Objectivism seems to have come up with a solution to the question of abortion which seems satisfactory, but because a human is largely a parasite until it reaches adulthood, the situation gets gummy when one says "parasites don't have rights." It works fine with a cellular structure sucking blood from a uterine wall, but gets a little iffy when applied to a snot nosed brat forking down his unearned Happy Meal. To go back to the responsibility thing, is it any worse to starve a child to death because you don't want to take responsibility for having it than having an abortion because you aren't willing to take responsibility for having sex without the intention of having a child?

I agree that this is a desirable conclusion, but I still can't figure out why it's rationally correct. I understand that the child needs this right in order to exist qua child, but need is not a value, and can not be exchanged for one (material support). Are we agreeing that this rule should be broken for children? Would the Objectivist community (ARI, etc) support this idea?

Why? No one else besides children have the "right" to food, water and shelter. Should? What if she doesn't want to? It's her child; she produced it (with another man who, for the purposes of this illustration, agrees with her completely). She doesn't think she "should" give it away. Ok, now we're getting somewhere. The entire purpose of this thread: how does a group get to decide how to impose a law on Paula if they can't back it up immediately? Do they need a majority consensus? Can one individual impose it on Paula alone? Be careful in answering, because this has a lot of very important implications. Ok, I don't have my copy of The Virtue of Selfishness on hand at the moment, so I can't reread the chapter about the ethics of emergencies right now. I'll assume that I grossly misinterpreted or misremembered the text until I can reread it. However, I do remember there being something in there about it being ethical to help someone if no sacrifice is involved. Upon further thought, I suppose that if it was more profitable to personally bear the cost of raising the child yourself than to do nothing and allow its struggles to continue, then no sacrifice would be involved in helping it. However, would someone need to come forward to help the child before it could be taken from the negligent parent, or could the police get involved based on a "law" that prohibits depriving a child of "survival stuff?" Ok, so how do we decide that something should be a law? Then how are they morally enforceable? Evidence of the natural state of "agovernmentalism" being altered by agreements or "laws" to fit the "needs" of man. Ok, here's an answer to my question. Does Objectivism hold that agreements must not be imposed by force under any circumstance? What about in the illustration of the child? How does this relate to Objectivist support of American settlers' displacement of Native Americans or America preemptively protecting itself against ideologies that would have it destroyed through initiation of force? If I'm wrong about Objectivism's support of either of these things, please let me know so I can find other examples or try to find my sources.

Since this is now the Children's Rights thread, let's keep this conversation on topic and start another thread on the "Which is worse, extreme pain or death?" question.

To reiterate something I brought up in the abortion thread as an example: What right does a child have to support from it's parents? Quick, Paula's child hasn't eaten in days, and he doesn't see why he should be forced to feed it. You could say, "Paula chose to have the child, which implies some sort of agreement," but Paula doesn't agree, saying that she has the right to do as she chooses with her own property, and her child doesn't have the right to steal anything from her. Using reason, we might be able to figure out a solution, but it's certainly a complicated question. So in the meantime, do we impose some sort of rule on Paula to make her feed the child? Can we take the child from her even though she's the one who produced it? According to Rand, the only ethical reason for helping someone is if they're in immediate physical danger. Under this paradigm, it might not even be right to help the child. What I'm wondering is how someone might go about imposing their will upon someone that doesn't agree with them. Laws that are rationally decided upon can be enforced with the knowledge that they are correct, as long as everyone agrees on the premises on which the rationale is based. However, not all laws are rationally decided upon, because there arise exigencies which need immediate attention. How does Objectivism feel about this idea? Does a group have the right to impose an agreement on someone before they are able to produce a full logical proof of its necessity?

Please please please please don't start this discussion. It's just not worth it. Just leave it at this (unless of course I've grossly mischaracterized the Objectivist position, which is not unlikely): Man is capable of such powerful cognitive processes that his instincts become subject to evaluation before they are enacted. This is, as far as we know, a uniquely human process. Therefore, while all other creatures that we are aware of act solely based on their brains' biological programming, human brains are set up in such a way that they perceive biologically linked drives (emotions) differently. Humans self evaluate before acting, and thus they possess the ability to choose not to perform an action. Because of this, humans can be held to a higher standard of morality. The systems approach in communication and social ontological theory describes this idea in this way: humans have agency for their actions, but are influenced by social constructions. Because of the law of non-contradiction, no entity can claim a "right" for itself that it does not recognize for others. Because animals do not enter into the systems created by man, they can not reap the benefits that those systems allow. In other words, animals can not demand or recognize rights any more than we can stop our knee from jerking when it's hit with a mallet. So we eat them.

I think we pretty much agree, but we're using the same terms to mean different things So let's make some definitions that we can both agree on. I'm putting these out there for discussion and debate, so don't think that I'm simply asserting these definitions as correct. An Ability is that which one is capable of doing, given the physical nature of their existence. A Freedom is that which one is capable of doing, given the physical nature of their existence, with legal sanction. A Right is a recognition made by a group of an individual's just claim to the legal sanction of an Ability, making it a freedom. Private Property is, literally, that which one is willing to defend against all others. Objectivism holds that individuals have the Right to Private Property, which ensures that they have the Freedom to hold it. Those who attack an individual's Private Property will be subject to evaluation or retaliation from the group. The application of these concepts is that Objectivism, as a philosophy, holds that all non-human matter can be used as a resource by an individual who makes legitimate claim to it. In order to live to the potential of man, man must have the Freedom to live without imposition of force so that man may restructure resources in a way that better suit the end of their life. If a man can not possess the products of his labor, but another man can, there is no reason to produce value rather than steal it from someone else. This is why Objectivism recognizes the Right of an individual to keep that which they are Able and Free to produce. Your Socialist friend may not realize it, but his system of beliefs rotates around the idea of individuals benefitting from something they did not do, while others are punished for simply coexisting with thieves. Objectivism rightly rejects that this is ideal, and therefore the Right to Private Property is fabricated.

I didn't mean the quotes to smear the subjects, I meant them to denote terms that are being used in specific ways that aren't necessarily the common uses. I appologize if this caused unnecessary confusion. The reason for the quotes around "reason" was because I was using it to denote Objectivist reasoning, which is based on certain logical assumptions, and can not be called the only form of reason, as others clearly exist. The quotes around "should" were because it wasn't an absolute statement, it was a subjective statement, and therefore "should" is an iffy word to use. Would "agovernmentalism" be a better term to describe what I was referring to as "anarchism?" Actually the idea of a "non-imposition of force policy" isn't what I had in mind. I allow that agreements should be determined through reason, and because the "non-imposition of force" policy has been reasonably induced, it follows that dissenters are ignoring reality, and "should" (according to Objectivist opinions) be forced to choose between accepting the "truth" (as derived from Objectivist premises), or leaving the group. It's closer to the packaged deal concept brought forward by JMeganSnow. If I live in a society with a reasonably defined law code, and an exigency were to arise, necessitating an immediate policy change, how would that policy be enforceable? According to Objectivism, would society have the right to enforce a policy that was not reasonably derived (with enough specificity as to not allow for rational dissent)? And I repose: If so, what form of imposition is best? Does any individual, or group of individuals, have the right to temporarily impose an agreement on another individual?

Many of you have mentioned that having a baby implies a contract or trusteeship. In the case of the contract: Should parents have to register their pregnancies with the government in order to enter into this contract? What would the terms of the contract be? Does the government (a collection of individuals granted special powers by members of a group) have the right to force someone into this contractual agreement? If so, is there something offered in return for the parents' values being transfered? If the parents don't sign the agreement, should they be forced to abort the pregnancy? Should the child be assessed a contract enforcement fee? Does this violate the idea that nothing that you do before birth can be held against you? In the case of the trusteeship: Who gets to be the trustee? How are the terms of the trust established? Does the government have the right to force the parents to create the trust fund? If the parents refuse, must they terminate the pregnancy? Should the child have to pay the trustee for his services?

When I use the term anarchy, I didn't mean to include nihilism. I was under the impression that anarchy meant the absence of any "government" entity, and individuals could make their own rules. In this sense, antelope are operating under anarchy, because if one of them chooses to leave the group (they, as antelope, can't actually choose anything, but you know what I mean), there's no mechanism engineered into the group to make them do anything. Conceivably, an extremely unusual antelope could choose to try to eat another antelope, and there would be no consequence besides what the other antelope decided to do about it. I guess this does reduce agreements down to the subjective, but look at it this way. If I'm born without very much capacity for intelligence, and I'm incapable of surviving in a world that has decreed, through "reason," that man has the "right" to live qua man, but I am a darned good hunter. According to my own reason, that which will further the end of my own life might be cradle robbery and cannibalism. Now, I understand that I could probably be employed tilling a farm or something, and I also understand that philosophies aren't grounded in ridiculous hypothetical situation. I'm certainly not advocating that we change Objectivism's ideals. I'm saying that reasonable conclusions as to how man should live, in order to support the end of living "qua man," only apply to man. Thus, it might be subjective to any man that is some sort of broken unit, who can not operate qua man, but is deprived the right of living as an animal. A policeman is given the power, by "society" to impose "agreements" upon people. One might say that these agreements "should" be derived from reason, but reason is based on premises which can be debated, and until the debate is settled, there needs to be an interim solution. For example, we've defined "human being" in a specific way in order to solve the problem of abortion, but someone could certainly challenge that. Not to say the definition come to on this forum and by Objectivists is wrong, but it's certainly based on a lot of premises that someone might have a problem with. If we disagree on something, and "reason" is taking some time to figure out who's right, how do we decide which of our policies to impose in the meantime? Does everyone get to decide for themselves? Can someone impose their policy on someone else? Can a majority impose a policy on the minority?

As I see it, there are four popular ways of figuring out what agreements a group will make amongst itself: 1. Anarchism: Your life is the highest value, and so you only agree to do things that will benefit you. No one can impose an agreement upon you except by force, and it's up to you alone to repel that force. 2. Monarchism: The enemy of the anarchist. You hold your life as the highest value, and so you force others to agree to whatever will further your cause. 3. Democracy: The enemy of both the monarchist and the anarchist. You, as an individual, have no ability to create an agreement by yourself. You must convince or force the majority of your group to align with your side of the agreement, and then the rest will have that agreement imposed upon them. 4. Socialism: A disguised wraith with properties similar to monarchism and democracy. You must convince or force the group to think that the group agrees with you. Once this belief is held by enough of those with enough leverage to cement your idea as the "group's" idea, your idea will become one with the group's philosophy. Anarchism is the natural state of things, as we see throughout the natural world (all other organisms besides humans). However, we as humans realize that in order to live as men, and not as animals, it's in our best interest to agree to certain things, like not killing each other or stealing. However, these agreements don't exist before they are agreed on. What does Objectivism think the method of coming to agreements should be?

To be more specific, Objectivism holds that man's ability to live life qua man is impossible under anarchy. Freedom, according to Dictionary.com, is "The condition of being free from restraints." Government therefore certainly removes certain freedoms from men by imposing restraints on them. But they are freedoms that are deemed worth giving up (such as the freedom to steal, kill, etc), in order to gain other "freedoms." The "right" to the products of one's own life is not "real" per se, but Objectivism holds it to be much more important than the right to do whatever you want, no matter what your reason.