TomL

Here's the rub: "fear of imminent death" is rather subjective and leaves a lot open to interpretation by the individual. What I'm getting at is: what objectively defines "fear of immiment death"? Someone might be afraid for his life the instant he sees someone with a gun -- that doesn't give him a moral self-defense cause for killing the man. This is critical to the definition of murder in the context of the original question of this thread -- one could make the case that the victor in a death-match only killed his opponent in self-defense. There has to be an element of non-agreement to force in order for self-defense to remain valid. "Fear of imminent death" isn't sufficient, because it applies to a combatant in a death-match. At some point, the assailant intent on killing someone loses the right to his own life, and it has nothing to do with intent. One person cannot objectively know the actual intentions of another person. I think that the forfeiture of rights occurs when the assailant takes a certain kind of action in physical reality -- the kind which specifies a target of the impending force, regardless of whether or not the assailant actually intends to fire or not. I think it is the act of physical target acquistion by an assailant which morally justifies self-defense. I think provocation can be thrown out of consideration because nothing should provoke a rational man to murder -- if someone can be cajoled into initiating force, regardless of provocation, they ought to be held responsible for that action. For this reason I think that #4 is insufficient cause for self-defense -- taking a gun out of a holster and pointing it at the ground indicates a heightened state of preparedness and not necessarily a desire to kill. If we were in a room full of people and he draw and pointed his gun at the ground, I'd have to watch him very closely and be prepared, but I wouldn't be ready to drop him. So my previous definition stands, except that the genus is to be modified to specify criminal action. The means by which a man forfeits his right to life and thus exempts a killer from being a murder (and makes him in fact a moral self-defender) are in fact objectively definable facts dealing strictly with ethics and not merely a "matter of law". The law should be written to reflect this.

I will agree that the genus I've used, "action" in a legal context can only mean a criminal action. The difficultly I'm having now is in applying the "millionth of a second" test to a self-defense situation. The assailant forfeits his right to life at some point, but at precisely which point? At what point in an assault is self-defense morally justified? I'm not currently clear as to how to define that, as I haven't spent enough time thinking about it. I'm certain there is a specific point at which self-defense is warranted, and it is a critical component in defining "murder". To understand the problem I'm working on, consider a man sitting in a room, and the following actions occur in sequence: 1. Another man he doesn't know walks in wearing a gun. 2. The other man puts his hand on his weapon. 3. The other man unsnaps the retaining strap on his holster. 4. The other man draws his weapon out of the holster. 5. The other man points his weapon at the first man. Certainly, at action #5, the first man is justified in killing the intruder. But is he justified in doing so at #4? #3? #2? #1?

No, that's called "acquaintenceship" and "friendship". Dating is after. No one said all. We said you should have a really good idea that there is a good chance it'll work out between you before you start dating. Then it isn't "dating". Dating involves romance, and thus by definition, emotion. There is no such thing as emotionless romance. The same way you do every other person you DON'T date. Do you date everybody you meet just to find out if they're worth being your friend?

No. Note the prase "where the man who dies still possesses a right to his life". There is a way to forfeit that right, and it is to kill someone else. This is what makes self-defense acceptable. However, now I have something else to think about, and it may be that the definition needs a little more work.

And purposely so. I don't care to debate a legal definition without first establishing the morality -- because law should be founded in morality. I don't care what the current legal definition is in our current system. I am only concerned with what it ought to be. I probably could have found a better word than "deprived". How about "terminates" or some such. Morally, it is murder to take an action which causes a man to lose his faculties of reason and/or volition, even if the body continues on.

Murder: The action taken by one man which is definitive in depriving another man of his life, where the man who dies still possesses a right to his life, and to whom life as man qua man is still possible. The last phrase excepts emergent situations, such as a euthanising a fatally injured man in pain on a battlefield who cannot kill himself. It is not an out for one man to claim that life as man qua man is no longer possible to him -- it is evident through facts of reality. If he has a body that can survive, and a mind that can think, then life as man qua man is possible to him, regardless of what he says or how he feels at the moment. The Terry Schiavo's of the world do not have a right to life because they do not possess the faculties of reason or volition -- they are pets and cannot be "murdered" by anyone.

No I wouldn't, because warts and blood are not a fundamental component of the concept "right", and are not presupposed by it. One does not need "blood" or "warts" in order to have "rights". One needs "reason" & "volition". No, I won't. Performing actions on a person's body is not the same thing as killing them. In a social context only. On a deserted island, there is no such thing. Only if she blows her own brains out before transplant surgery starts. If the doctors kill her to take out the heart, they are murderers. How are mowing a lawn and killing someone the same thing? The mind boggles at this ridiculous comparison. He's screwed, but there's no one to blame but himself. Next! Hell, no. In the case of Jones killing Smith, the contract is not one of assisted suicide, but of "consensual murder". Jones is still a murderer, and goes to the death chamber for it. Assisted suicide, as I've already painfully described, does not involve death being induced by the other person. The contract is for Jones to help Smith, but Jones cannot actually physically KILL Smith. Smith must kill himself. You have repeatedly ignored my explanations of: the definition of "rights", "assisted suicide", equivocation of body parts with life itself, and numerous other things -- and continued to use your own flawed definitions and erroneous logic without explaining what you think is wrong with mine or explaining why yours are correct. I have repeated myself so many times its making my head swim. This is out of control, and no new material has been brought in for several posts. You are just repeating the same old, tired things. I'm done.

It was Iron Maiden, and the song is actually called "Flight of Icarus". It's on the album "Piece of Mind" (no that's not a typo). I was a huge Maiden fan in my teens.

You have no idea what "dichotomy" means. A dichotomy is a false alternative; that something is either one thing or another. The mind/body dichotomy is the idea that a person is either defined by their physical body, OR by their consciousness. To reject a dichotomy, one poses a third alternative. In this case, we reject it by defining a person as being the integrated whole of BOTH body and mind (consciousness).

But it is not the same thing for one man to kill himself, as it is for one man to kill another man, no matter how many times you say that it is. It has the same end result, but it is not the same action. Actions are not the same as the effects of those actions. Yes she can, because removal of one kidney or blood or her hair is not removal of her life, and thus does not negate her rights. Perhaps legally in our current system, but I find the practice morally wrong and abhorrent. The point being that his mind, which is what gives rise to the right to life in the first place, is still there -- and still giving rise to that same right. And by my previous explanation, that is not a contract for assistance in suicide, but something else entirely.

No. I am saying suicide is a man's choice, but murder isn't. I wouldn't; they have done nothing to injure anyone else. Punishment is for those who would injure others. It is not the same action. For Jones to kill himself is one action, named "suicide". For Smith to kill Jones, regardless of agreement, is a different action entirely, named "murder". Again, I am not talking about an emergent situation, but a normal, healthy Jones. No, we don't. I make no extrapolation from "kidney" or "blood" to "body". That is uniquely your error here. The morality being questioned is not whether the ending of Smith's life is wrong. The morality being questioned is: who is doing the ending, and how does the person doing the ending know the decision is consistent with reality? Again, there is no such thing as a right to oneself. Rights only exist in a social context, and in the case of a man committing suicide, there is no social context. Only the man himself -- thus, no concepts of a right ever enters the picture. This is not how assisted suicides are done. The helper may set up an apparatus to inject a chemical, but it is the person who is to be killed that physically causes the injection to occur -- not the helper. If the person wishing to die cannot physically push a button, then the helper cannot do it for him as no suicide is possible. I don't know why you are stuck on "irreversibility", I said my argument had nothing to do with that, but rather fundamental nature of "life" as opposed to the non-fundamental nature of "kidney". Yes, there is. The medical professional may set it up such that the subject may inject themselves, but they must not inject the subject themselves. That is murder. Or, by your illustration of using a "medical professional", are you really talking about an emergent situation? Because THAT is different, and wholly outside the context of this thread. I have no idea what the above nonsense means. It has no bearing on my statement to which it apparently was attempting to refer. A contract for assistance in suicide is not a contract for killing someone. I don't see how we can reject the statement of hierarchy which makes all rights possible based on a false equivocation between "suicide" and "murder".

Correct. But it is wrong for someone else to take that action into his own hands. Reality does. Only an objective individual can make the judgement. I am hardly in a contradiction; this is hardly the same thing. Killing oneself is not the same as killing someone else. No. Kidneys do not contain consciousness. At least none I've ever come across. Yes. You cannot however, take someone else's life, even if they have agreed that its OK to do so. It is not the irreversibility of the procedure to which I refer, but the fundamental aspect of it. Life is the fundmental that makes donating a kidney possible. You can have life without a kidney, but you cannot have life without life. Yes, it would. His contract is for assistance, not for death itself. He must commit suicide -- he is not being killed. He is only being helped to do it, and once the help is rendered, the contract is fullfilled, whether the attempt was successful or not. There is no surrending of one's life to the helper in an assisted suicide.

A will does not say "kill me and take my stuff". It says "take my stuff after I'm gone". A will does not effectively cancel one's right to one's life the moment it is made as a contract to be killed would. A will is not enforceable before death , nor is it the instrument of death. Death must occur prior to enforcement.

Correct, which is why I said there is no ethical problem for a man to want to die. But it cannot be the object of trade without cancelling the right to trade in the first place. Agreeing to be employed presupposes the right to life, but not does cancel it. It is not the same thing. Agreeing to be killed both presupposes and cancels the right to life at the same instant, and is a contradiction.

The right to life gives one the right to property, which in turn gives one the right to execute a trade. So, if one trades away the right to life, one has traded away the right to property, and the right to execute a trade over that property -- including one's body. It is self-contradictory to attempt to trade one's life, because one's life makes trade possible. If a person were able to give up their right to life and the contract were enforcable at that instant before death, then the contract also ceases to become enforcable at the same instant, because the person no longer has a right to any such contract. "Contract" presupposes "right to life", and cannot exist in its abscence.

A man's life is not money. It can never be the object of trade, or there is slavery -- whether it is self-inflicted or not. It is immoral for the other person (the one who will be doing the killing) to agree to such a "contract". The right to life in particular is fundamental, and is the only fundamental right. All other rights are its consequences or corollaries. It is fundamental and immutable because the facts of reality which give rise to it (reason & volition) are immutable -- one cannot "turn off" one's mind. One can choose to dispose of one's own property by selling it, trading it, or smashing it because it is the product of the mind, not the mind itself. The property itself may go away, but not the ability to create more. The mind itself is not an object that the mind can use for trade -- once the mind trades itself away, there is nothing left and nothing further is possible for man. There is nothing ethically wrong for a man to want to die and even for him to want someone else to do it. But in the abscence of an emergency, it is morally wrong for anyone else to execute that wish. Anyone who does so defaults on his own right to life.

Disposal of the body is not the same thing as disposal of one's life, becuase life as man qua man is more than a beating heart. No, they aren't! How will take the consciousness out of man's body while keeping both intact? If you separate them, they will both die. Removing parts of a body, especially replenishable parts such as blood and marrow, or redundant organs is not the same thing as telling someone its OK to kill you. What if he injects the chemical and you change your mind? What you cannot give up or stop is the ability to change your mind! A typo. I meant to say "you do not posses the right not be killed by yourself.

I have one final thought here. If you've agreed with me up to here -- that a man can give up his life but not his right to it, then here's why being the other man is morally murder. If you take the fool up on his offer, but he still has a right to his life because he can still think and act to further his life up to the instant of death, then he can choose to exercise that right up to the millionth of a second before he dies -- and if he does, you've killed a man with a right to his life that didn't want to die. How can you ever know that's not exactly what happened in the instant before his death? I, for one, could not kill someone even if they wanted me to, because I know what that makes me. (I'm not talking about an emergency situation where the person is dying or life as man qua man is no longer possible, but a normal, healthy person).

No, you specfically referred to one's body as property, and property rights come from the right to life -- not the other way around. I'm not familiar with that, but it doesn't seem to make sense. There is no way for anyone else to occupy your body, so the principle has no application here. Yes, but not because no one else has occupied it. It is so because the body in question is the bio-matter which ultimately gives rise to the consciousness within. One body, one consciousness. No no. You also are mixing up actions with rights. You can in fact have someone take your life, but in the process you cannot give up your right to your life. Right has a very specific meaning. The person who has someone else kill them and thinks they have given up their right is mistaken, and dies committing an error. You do not have any rights with respect to yourself or your own body at all. Ever. You do not possess the right to be killed by yourself, and more importantly, you do not possess the right to not be killed by yourself. Rights are a negative obligation on others. There is no such thing as a moral right to oneself. Edited to fix missing word in last paragraph.

This is a moral/practical dichotomy. While it is possible for someone to relinquish one's life, it doesn't follow that one can reliquish their right to life. One's life, and one's right to life, are two different things entirely. One can, in fact, relinquish one's life and allow someone else to kill them. But one is not giving up one's right to one's in the process. The right ceases to exist when one dies, but one has it to themselves up to the instant of death, and it belongs to no one else. It is an error for one to think otherwise. If virtue is acting to achieve ones values, and morals are guides for that action, then there can be no contradiction between morality and virtue. The alternative to consider here is not to pursue what "works" or what is "ideal" (in the sense that most people mean the word), but to realize that in this case as all others, the ideal is the practical. For an in-depth explanation, see Chapter 9 of OPAR, and integrate into the current context of this thread.

Fine, but you are failing to identify the cause of the right to life. The fact of one's ownership of one's own body is not the causal factor for the right to life. It is the fact of the existence of one's faculties of reason and volition which gives rise to the right to life, and one's ownership of one's body is a consequence of that. So, you are thinking the hierarchy is this: [property right to one's body] -> [right to life] when in reality we actually have this: [faculties of reason & volition] -> [right to life] -> [property right to one's body] and for that matter, all other property rights. What I meant in my question of physically turning off the faculties is that, if you can come up with a way for a man to physically turn off those faculties but still be alive long enough for someone else to kill him, then I'll jump the fence. If you commit suicide or give yourself a frontal lobotomy (which I think is physically impossible, by the way, to do with any degree of certainty that your body won't die), then your faculties and your thus right to life ceases, but in either case you're either not alive or not able to sign a contract, so who cares? Here is one situation: if you could devise a machine that would give a man a frontal lobotomy if he pushed a button, and that man signed a contract saying that someone else could kill his (morally lifeless, but biologically living) body afterwards, then I'd say that was morally acceptable. The man's life qua man ends when he lobotomizes himself, so the death of his body after that is morally meaningless.

manavmehta is right. You should not approach a stranger simply because she is physically attractive -- especially when you are only doing so with the ultimate goal of romantic involvement. To do so is to treat a woman like a piece of meat, even if she doesn't realize it (or wants you to!) A man who is looking for romance puts himself in the position of having exposure to meet and get to know women. That means joining groups, clubs, and generally putting oneself in social situations. Through those acquaintences, one gets to know the women one comes in contact with, and can observe qualities in them which may make them attractive, and thus give the man a reason beyond physical appearance to have some romantic thoughts. A good tip here is to put oneself in social situations likely to yield the right kind of women -- like this forum, my IRC channel, or OCON. People are both physical bodies and mental contents. Both must be considered as an integrated whole. I'm not saying that someone with good premises but who is physically unattractive should be your target, but that both body & mind should be considered in the question "should I ask her out?" To answer the question: can you look at someone and gauge their premises -- yes, to a certain extent, as has already been discussed on the thread where the women were trading makeup secrets and such. A well-dressed and groomed presentation says something about how the person thinks of themself, and their body language can tell you if they mean it or not. But there's no way to know from physical appearance if its someone you should date or not -- you need to also evaluate their premises and sense of life, which can only come through conversation and observation. Note that it doesn't have to be direct conversation -- you can always evaluate people on what they say to others, especially in public.

I find it oh so ironic and hilarious that someone would come in, tell us to dispense with philosophy, and then proceed to offer philosophic advice. Love it!

We cannot. You are equivocating "life" with "property". The right to property is given rise to by the right to life, but the right to life is an entirely separate concept. You cannot simply call a human body "property", it does not fit the definiton of "property" until is devoid of reason and volition; that is, until its a corpse. Only then can it be considered "property". "Property" is that which a man creates through his own effort (both mental and physical), and thus his right to that property means it is his to use and dispose of as he wishes. Since a man does not create his faculties of reason and volition through his own effort -- they are handed to him by nature -- then he cannot claim them to "property". Likewise, he has no means whatsoever of disposing of them except by suicide. He may use them, but not dispose of them. He simply can't, there is no other way. If you can come up with a way for a man to physically shut off his faculities of reason of volition, I'll jump the fence.

Yes, but not until after you are dead. Right up to the instant of death, you still have the right to your life, no matter what agreement you make to the contrary. The fact of your lack of rights after death has no impact on the fact of your rights before death.