DrSammyD

Sorry about the interfere/force confusion. Force is what I meant. This is where I get lost then. How do I get from "In order for me to survive, others must not initiate force against me" to "I must not initiate force against others"? Is it from the existence of a government that prohibits such actions? What if no government enforces that? (e.g. U.S. under certain circumstances, Somalia) Or is it because of the reason that if I don't attack them, they will be less likely to attack me? What if their ability to attack is eliminated? Why should I refrain then? Or a third option I haven't said. As for the original question, am I supposed to choose death (by starvation) over living as a savage (by killing and eating a human)? Why is that rational self-interest. Sure I may go insane or get a disease, but that is an extra quarter in the game of life, where as death is game over. Actually upon rereading your statement are you saying it's ok to eat that person or that ethics don't apply? Or just merely that it's a possibility that I could do those things?

Yes, I'm fully on board with rational self-interest in normal day to day situations. I agree with Paul McKeever that it is a stupid question designed to undermine egoism and is one of the most unlikely events to occur. It is however a question that I've been asked, and don't know how to respond to on another forum. So I turn to you for help. Here is my understanding of rights under Objectivism. In order for me to survive, I have to be able to make free choices. In order for that to happen, others have to not interfere with those choices. In order for that to happen, we must both agree to not interfere with each other's choices. So we make a non-aggression pact of some sort. If however the only way for me to survive longer is to kill and eat another person, e.g. on a life raft, and since my survival is the basis of me agreeing to the non-aggression, is not the non-aggression pact not getting in the way of my survival. While I agree that it is one of the most obscure circumstances, I'm just wondering if the non-aggression pact is an absolute, or if it's based on circumstance.

I've been trying to find an argument that goes straight from acting out of self-interest, to not killing and eating someone if stranded on a desert island, or lifeboat. I watched video by Paul McKeever, but I couldn't quite make sense of the Objectivism part. P.S. I realize some of you may recognize me from a few months ago with disdain, and I do apologizes for the disrespectful way I acted earlier.

No, this is a discussion on a forum. If I wanted to write a paper on it, I would actually line everything out. But on an online form I can use space savers when I'm speaking, by explaining a concept an using examples, and then by saying "things like that", I'm including things that fall under that concept. I'm not posing as an expert. I've learned things about evolution and biology, and the deducing that which fits with the data I've learned is true. Do you really want me to post data and empirical studies. Nobody does that, and if ever someone does, nobody online ever reads them. So I posted an abstract of a study that I assumed was telling the truth about their findings. Either way, the burden of proof is on those that that assert rights. We can act as if animals don't have rights until they prove they have the capacity to form concepts. The same fallows for newborns.

I've already stated what I've meant by cognate, and then switched the words I used to fit that. I know that it caused confusion, that's why I changed it. I'm not equivocating. I'm saying that they don't actually contain the hardware to perform the function. It just isn't possible with the current iteration of brain that they have. They need actual physical upgrades in neuron count in order to run the software. Let me just take a computer for example because that's the closest thing. Imagine conceptualization as a piece of software. Adult humans actually can run that software because the have the hardware to do it. Even if they didn't actually install the software (experience) they would still have the hardware that could run it. Newborns don't have the hardware to do it. They might have the memory to do it (something that many animals also have) but the don't have the CPU. You can try to install it on there but it will never be able to run that software without upgrades to the CPU (growth in the frontal and prefrontal cortex). If you subtract the amount of brain that goes towards housekeeping, you get the amount of brain that is dedicated to intelligence. A newborn has most of it's brain development already dedicated to housekeeping, and the majority of the rest of the growth will be towards intelligence. But at that time, the intelligence part is not big enough to actually conceptualize. It's not that it doesn't have the experience to do it, it's that it's not big enough. Therefore it doesn't have the capacity to do it. It only has the ability to gain the capacity to conceptualize. What is the empirical difference between an embryo being able to conceptualize, and an adult. It's the existence of a brain that shows that embryo's can not do that, and an adult can. But the existence of a brain doesn't automatically mean that you are able to conceptualize. No, that requires a brain of significant complexity further than that of other brains, as seen in the ones in animals. It is certain parts of the brain that we know gives us the abilities of higher thought. It has been shown that newborns have not developed that part of the brain further than the magnitude of those of some other animals. It's even been explained why that happens for evolutionary reasons. So please, explain to me why their potential to gain that capacity is any different than that of an embryo. One may be further along but that does not change the existence of that potential. After that, you then need to explain why that potential should not be extended to potential offspring further on down the road. This would include anything that might be intelligent in the future, and to stop it from being created by killing it's ancestors is to kill it's potential. Because that's what a newborn is, the potential for the capacity of conceptual thought.

Actually mice have the same ratio as humans. But when it comes to birds, you have to think about what it has to do. It has to develop a motor system that allows it to fly. Think about all that entails, and I'm sure you can see why it might need a bigger brain. Especially with smaller birds. Hummingbirds need to be able to move far quicker and with much greater accuracy than say a seagull. But did I not also say that absolute brain size is still important. You still do need a minimum amount of brain for things like memory and decision making. And those things are not directly tied to body size. This isn't an algebra problem, it's a calculus problem. But either way, when we are talking about primates, brain size probably a better indicator of intelligence than the ratio. http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produ....1159/000102973 Baby's still have nearly as complex a nervous system to control. All the basics of a humans body that the brain has to control are there. A baby's brain isn't growing just to control a baby's body, it's growing to control an adults body. But here's a link on brain size vs. body mass if you insist. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/kinser/Int3.html I will say there are competing theory's and the one I'm most inclined to agree with is that intelligence is the brain size minus all the house keeping parts of the brain. That includes things like heart beat, balance, motor skills, memory, and all that type of stuff. This house keeping stuff of course varies in size based on the size of the animal and activities it has to perform.

You're right, I defined it too simply by using mere volume, Sorry I didn't explain it further. Elephants do have a bigger brain, but It's down to how much percentage of the body is brain, and how much body does the brain have to run. Absolute, as opposed to relative, brain size certainly has an effect -- you really need a basic minimum number of neurons -- but relatvie size has a real effect, since every creature needs to devote a minimum amount of brain power to control muscle motion and instinctive behavior and basic function. For intelligence, you need a minimum number of neurons to be available in the frontal and pre-frontal cortices, where we do a lot of what is called "higher thought processes", as opposed to the above, and running bodily functions and sorting through sensory input. By the time a human is born, most of the brain development has happened in the non pre-frontal cortices. This is for very good evolutionary reasons. Before you need to think intelligently, you need to have control of your body. Your brain needs to tell you heart to beat, your lungs to breath, so on and so forth, and it needs to happen before you are born, because after you're born, you have no support system for that type of thing. So the emphasis of brain development before birth is on that. After that, your brain develops the capacity to think, or conceptualize as Marc K has been pointing out is what I've actually meant. We do not have the ability to conceptualize as newborns. The first chapter of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology has a lot to say on how we think. As newborns we really only have the capacity to retain percepts, which are groups of sensations, something we automatically do through our nervous system. In other words we can remember things, much like animals can. I'd suggest watching this video for more on this if you don't like to read. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_LP2OUxekI...feature=related I wrote the word "will" as *will* because it is conditions based. Chimps *will* develop the capacity to think or conceptualize provided that social interaction remains important to chimps and those that are smarter will be able to reproduce. And yes that is how evolution works. I know that evolution isn't a straight line, but being smarter is definitely advantageous, and as long as it is, chimps will develop their brains even further. Similarly an infant *will* develop the capacity to think or conceptualize. It does not have it yet, but on the condition that the parent decides to take care of it and put energy into it, it *will*. A newborn does not have the conceptual capacity. You could throw all the experience in the world at a newborns brain, but if it's pre-frontal cortex never grew more than proportionately, it would still be at the capacity of less than a chimp, as I've explained with the development process of the brain.

No, you are wrong. A newborn has a brain that is about 370cc, where as a chimp has a brain size of around 400 cc and adult brains are 1400 cc. At that point, it has less than the capacity to cognate than a chimp. All brains learn and have cells that connect through experience. But because something has a brain does not mean that it has the capacity to cognate, that requires a rather large amount of brain cells. When I'm talking about a species, yes seeds are birch trees. But because we have names to differentiate between things in the category of birch, we don't say that a bunch of seeds are trees, even if scientifically they are members of the birch species. The problem is you are confusing the definitions of tree, one being the family of species known as trees and the members therein, and the other being an member of that species of ambiguous size. So in the first sense yes acorns are a group of trees, but not in the second. Yes this will extend out into the human definitions as well. In the first sense when you say human, you mean Homo Sapient, and in the other you mean a member of that species, once again of ambiguous size. It is a scientific versus common language issue that you are trying to force into the issue, but I've been using the scientific meanings. But surely you know that scientific terms are objective facts and more clear cut than common language. This is the obvious means to arbitrate meaning when it comes to morality if indeed morality is supposed to be based on objective facts. There is no room for ambiguity where it can be avoided.

Why is it not apparent what I meant by the rest of my statements? Is it not obvious that I did not mean that in the sense of "a fetus does not filter blood for the body and the liver is"? I meant that they are in two different categories, the liver being in the category of organs which are parts of a member in a species, and the other is a member of a species.

it's not a birch until it's fertilized. It's not a goose until it's fertilized. Or a chicken, or what ever. Biologically it doesn't have all the components to become another iteration of that organism until that point. If seeds are indeed fertilized than yes it is a birch in that it is part of the species, and not in the sense that a leaf is part of the species, but that it is a individual within that species. As is an embryo, or a seed, what ever, it matters not, biologically it is included in the concept of birch, or goose, or chicken. I wasn't evading, I was just assuming that that explaining one example could be extrapolated to the rest because all of them were directed at one aspect of the argument. But clearly that was something you refused to do for yourself. What I meant by this was that the grown adult has the equipment (read: amount of neurons/brain cells) to actually think, where as a chimp, newborn and fetus do not. That is what is meant by capacity to think. A newborn has the ability to gain that amount of neurons/brain cells, but does not currently have that therefore does not contain the capacity to think. In this part I forgot to add in "even if you don't accept that a fetus is human" in front of that it does have the potential to become human. Ergo it would be, under your definition, three times removed instead of just twice, as it is under mine.

Although you are right about a fetus having the same rights as a liver you are wrong in the biological sense that a fetus is just like a liver. A fetus is a different organism. This is shown in that it grows completely new organs such as a liver. Livers do not have the capacity to grow other individual humans. To say that a liver is the same as a fetus is exactly like saying a tree is the same as a grove.

You seem to think that concepts can not have sub groups within that concept. It's as if you thought that with in the concept of Trees there could not be oak trees, apple trees, pine trees, or Birch trees, all of which are included when I say tree. Very similarly within the concept of birch trees, there are adult birch, young birch, and yes seedling birch. Just as the concept of tree does not mean All of the concept of birch tree, so to does the concept of birch tree not mean All of the concept of adult birch, or seedling birch. The concept of flock of geese would mean a gathering of adult geese. The gathering geese eggs would be just that. Concepts within other concepts don't lose their meaning merely by being grouped together. And to say that a fetus isn't a human because it is inside the mother is exactly like saying a joey isn't a kangaroo when it's in it's mothers pouch. You would deny biology and all that we've learned about life to say that it is not indeed a human. All humans have to have come from this stage of development, and it is directly traceable to this single type of individual. Either way, this still does not give it the capacity to think, nor does it give it to a newborn. The fact is that as it stands a newborn does not have the capacity to think. It has the ability to gain the capacity to think, but this is a capacity twice removed. If you are willing to allow a twice removed capacity to give something rights, there is absolutely no reason to allow it for something three times removed, namely a fetus, who *will* become a human, who will develop a capacity to think. I reject that because you could extend that even further, such as to animals like chimps who *will* reproduce, and through enough generations *will* have the capacity to think, whatever. If our rights do come from our capacity to think, then indeed no newborn actually has the capacity to think and is therefore property to be discarded just like any other animal with out the capacity to think, with no regard for ensuring that it does survive e.g. giving it to an orphanage.

A human is a collection of organisms (cells) which collectively have the capacity to assimilate materials to produce near identical members of themselves with DNA that is compatible with yet distinguished from members of the same species, that species being bipedal primates in the family Hominidae, or that species from earth which members of have the capacity to cognate. That is the only objective definition of human.

OK, fine, I'll stop with that for right now. But I will say that development of technology should never actually have an impact on a moral question. If you ever did develop the artificial womb it would continue to be moral according to my definitions, but not to yours. A fetus is most definitely a human. One of the defining characteristics of humans is that all of them have at one point had hosts. To say that while it has a host it is not human, but after it no longer has a host it becomes human is the same exact thing as saying if you are less than 3 feet you are not human, but if you are over 3 feet you are. It is completely arbitrary. It is not a chicken, or an elephant, and yes while it is a parasite, to say that it is not human is like saying that a tapeworm is not a tapeworm when it is actually living inside someone, and is only a tapeworm once it is outside of the body. There is no sense in saying this. It is human, it's just a human fetus, not a human child, or a human adult, but human none the less. I will accept your capacity to think as part of the definition. Obviously there are people who can think but do not, you are right. You are trying to have your cake and eat it too. On one hand you say that part of Einsteins Identity is his hair, and his capacity to think or reason at different times can not be separated from his identity before he actually has that as part of his identity, and yet at the same time that when he was a fetus he did not have as part of his identity the capacity to think. This is nonsense. You do not have anything as part of your identity before you actually have it. You can only have it after or during. It is only once you have the ability to cognate that you actually say you have it. It is not part of the tables identity that it's leg is broken two days before it's leg actually is broken. Therefore the ability to cognate is not also with a newborn or fetus before it actually does. The fact that given enough time and energy the new born will be able to cognate and therefore should be given rights, is the same as saying the fact that a fetus will be able to think and there fore should be given rights. Even if you don't accept that a fetus is it's own human, you can't deny that it is the same as saying a fetus will become it's own human, and then given enough time and energy will be able to cognate and therefore should be given rights. By saying lump of flesh, you neglect that there is the function of becoming an adult human. Is that not also the function of a child, working at becoming an adult human. The child left alone would not function to survive, and depends on another human for survival. The same is true of the fetus. Both are not fully functioning, it's just to the empirical question of how not fully functioning that differentiates between the two. Fine, not necessarily reconnect, but give it some means to survive, just as you have to give it to the newborn. But I won't talk about this part any more as stated before

1. and 2. are the problems I have. A fetus no longer completely requires the woman. We now have things like test tube babies. It is now completely possible for a fetus to live with out the mother. Babies require milk from their mother, but now we are able to get milk from somewhere else. Again the problem with this reasoning is that biologically, the concept of a fetus is that it is human regardless of a host, much like a tapeworm is still an individual tape worm, regardless of a host. There is however one thing that the tape worm and the fetus have that allows us to kill them, a lack of cognition, and that is definitely part of their concept, is that they are not cognitive; Something that a newborn also has. Any way, again by your reasoning, we would never be able to use living embryos for scientific experiments. They would fill the definitions that you have for a living human. You seem to think that as soon as the umbilical cord is broken, that it becomes a human with rights. But if that were true, when ever you disconnected a fetus from the mother, it would suddenly have rights, and you'd have to reconnect it again because now there is another obligation to it to ensure it survives, something no other human has.

It either is or is not cognition that rights are derived from. If they are not derived from mans ability to think, than what is it? It then has to be derived from potential to think. If you say it's one of these, you have to accept that abortion is right and abandoning babies is right, or neither are right. If you don't think it comes from one of these things than you are patently not an Objectivist. That is the basis for all Objectivist ethics, cognition. I say it is Cognition, and therefore have no responsibility to those without it. If someone doesn't value that newborn, it is altruism in it's purest form to say that they are responsible for it. We already accept abortion, what is so wrong with infanticide that makes you so queasy about it. I'm sure you think I'm sick, but I'm only taking it one logical step further. Telling them they can dump their babies in the dumpster is exactly the same ethically as saying they can have an abortion. If I would have said they should get an abortion 80 years ago, I'd get the same reaction you think I'd get now with the dumpster.

So if a fetus was a test tube baby, it all of a sudden has rights. How does location even begin to objectively matter when it comes to retaining of rights? This would have all sorts of implications, including never being able do scientific work with stem cells or medical advances with cloning organs. You wouldn't say that a tape worm isn't an individual organism because it's inside the female. Also, I *assumed* you had the wits to understand why a Child is fundamentally different from an Adult-- namely cognition. Empirically it has no where near the same cognition, and less than some animals who don't have rights. Also, show me how a retarded person to live with out care, or a person with cancer or self inflicted gun shot wound. Nobody is required to help these people to survive. And if it's the mere fact that you chose to bring a life into this world, why isn't the solution to kill it. That it has all ready been born is no real reason to prevent that from happening if you could already do it 2 minuets before hand. It would be much cheaper. No instead you require a costly and dangerous operation to be done before hand, and once again, on a desert island, you require them to punch themselves in the stomach, or use a coat hanger, whatever. There is no chance of a safe abortion happening in Africa. So you tell me what they are supposed to do there, and why Objectivism only allows an out for those fortunate enough to live near someone who is able to perform that operation especially because of something so arbitrary as an umbilical cord connection. You people keep arguing in a vacuum of America when real ethics applies everywhere, because in reality, that's what has to happen.

No, that's the same exact bullshit that the pro lifers say. They say because there's the potential for rational thought in a fetus, a fetus *will* develop a rational faculty. In order for a fetus to survive it must not be aborted. But a fetus doesn't have rights. "To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable." -you know who. edit: I know I said I didn't want to use her quotes in an argument, but this was just far too applicable for me not to.

I'm sorry RationalBiker, but these arguments usually stem from some weird argumentation about children's rights in the sense that they are not able to think for themselves. But one of the core tenants of Objectivism is that rights are derived from man's ability to think. Since these children are at or less than the cognitive abilities of a chimp, there is no justification to say that they have rights at all according to these arguments. Of course once they are at the capacity to think for themselves, well there would certainly be no justification for the parents to be responsible for the child at all, as they will have come into their full rights at that point.

What gives the right to the child the right to be cared for, since no one else has the same right? By not aborting the child, that is in itself an inaction. so how can an inaction lead to an obligation, especially if there is no means by which to abort the child, e.g. as objectivists so love to put it, on a desert island.

So, I've still only found an abortion thread. There is still nothing explaining why the parents still have an obligation after the child is born. I saw that the child doesn't have full rights yet and that was well explained but not the parents obligation after.

Sorry, I'm not trying to start a thread on abortion, or children's rights. I was just using those things as examples to show how some of the things said weren't really compliant with established Objectivist reasoning. This is more towards people actually being obligated to their children to look after their well being, something I'm not sure that is legally required.

Firstly, if giving birth to a child holds them to a responsibility of caring for a child, would not also creating a child be the same, in that the act of conception forces the parent to take care of the offspring. In other words, if you say that it has a responsibility to the child after it is born, there is nothing magical that changes that says you don't have a responsibility to it before it is born, something that most Objectivists would say you don't have. So if you are going to say one you are forced to say the other. Secondly, it is an implied contract that is created through an act, Something I'm not sure that Objectivism allows. We don't have implied contracts when we chose to live somewhere, such as having to pay taxes in Objectivism. How then do we have one here? The only thing I can think of is that creating a child is an act of force, and therefore binds you to a responsibility to it. But this would of course happen as soon as it was conceived, again something Objectivists don't agree with. Also, I'd rather not just get into whether or not Rand said this or Rand said that. I'd merely like to stick to the tenants of what reason says. And this is obviously an ethical question, so I'm sure that Objectivism has something to say about it.

So I was wondering how Objectivism deals with children. How does Objectivism allow that parents are able to use force in order to force their children to do things But at the same time say that those children still have rights that the parents can not violate such as killing them or neglect if at all. Also how does it force the parents to take care of the child or at the vary least ensure that it is taken care of e.g. orphanages, adoption if it does at all require those things.