Hotu Matua

Take a minute to think of the most rational individualist person you have known. For the sake of this excercise, take the life of Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand was free to make choices. She generally was consistent with her ideas, and generally made rational choices. So we could have expect her to survive and be living with us today, writing, teaching, developing her ideas in depth. It is clear that she didn't want to die in 1982. On new Year's day 1982, according to Anne Heller, "she rose and wrote the first page of the second part of her script for Atlas Shrugged, observing as she always had, the Russian tradition of welcoming the new year by doing what you hope to do for the rest of the year". Why is she not with us any more? Why her mind didn't help her to survive? Why, in short, is she dead? Ayn Rand is dead because she was not born totally free. She was born, as we are born, wearing the shackles of genes programmed for the self-destruction of the person. We are born, though, with enough freedom to free ourselves completely and definitely, if we choose to do it. We have to be free to think, but we also need to think to be truly and ultimately free. Freedom is something we ultimately gain by choosing to understand how our bodies work, and defeating disease and death. Men are not puppets of their genes... or are we? If we are not, then we should be able to defeat their program and keep being qua man for centuries... for ever... In this sense, transhumanism, if not a philosophy in its own right (I don't think it is a philosophical system as such) is just a corollary of Objectivist metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. What do you think about all this?

I am in shock. I have almost finished reading The Transhumanist Manifesto, by Simon Young. Transhumanism has so many coincidences with Objectivism, that I can't help but bringing this to you immediately. I typed "Transhumanism" in the search bar of this forum and it returned me no entries, no threads. So I suspect this has not been discussed before. I am really thrilled. Transhumanism is "the belief in overcoming human limitations through reason, science and technology". It declares itself "romantic", "individualistic", based on "self-interest" and "love for life". The thesis is simple: Men are rational beings, and our mind is our tool for survival, but guess what? our genes are programmed to make us die, to make that "tool for survival", eventually, a failed tool. Since we love life, and our minds have the ability to transform nature (including our bodies)to ensure our survival, the overriding of our genetic programming is the rational and moral course of action. In other words, love for life translates logically into the search for the continuous enhancement of our bodies and minds and immortality. Transhumanism seeks to put your body processes (and hence, your destiny) under the control of your reason, through science and techonology. It abhorss totalitarism and statism. Body-enhancement is to be placed under the control of self-interested individuals, even when the consequences of that will benefit all humanity. In this sense, it also considers itselfe "compassionate". Trashumanism beliefis in the primacy of existence over conciousness, although the wording seem somewhat different than that used by Objecivists. It strongly condems the nihilism and relativism embedded in postmodernism. It holds that knowdlege of reality is possible. "The purpose of science is to understand nature so that we can improve it, i order to make life easier, less of a struggle, more pleasant, better." Transhumanism also roots ethics in reason. "The chief task of twenty-first-century philosophy is the unification of science and ethics". It rejects the vision of man as a puppet of its genes or environment. It also belives that the ethical should be the practical. "Benevolence is simply common sense". For transhumanism, "good is sensible self-interest, the ability of the rational mind to inhibit antisocial impulses in the interest of maximum survivability and well-being". Even when it does not openly attacks altruism, it places "sensible self-interest" constantly at the base of its ethics. "Self-interest has always motivated propagation. That is the way human beings are programmed: to survive and reproduce. There can be nothing immoral in self-interest unless self-preservation is deemed a crime". In explaining why we cooperate wit others, it establishes self-interest at the root: "Benevolence is simply sensible self-interest, the optimum tactic for mutual survival. In short, we have a better chance of getting on in life by cooperating, whether instincively through innate feelings of empathy, or rationally through concious effort". Transhumanism is romantic. "The belief in human trascendence... is the essence of romanticism. Thus, the ethos of the emerging Self-Enhancement Society might be called technoromanticism, or neuroromanticism, the passionate belief in the transcendece of human limitations -not through religion or politics, but through science-- product of the rational mind in the technowonderland of the modern world. Transhumanism claims to embrace modernity and defines modernity as "the condition of a culture based on the underlying belief in ongoing human progress toward ever-increasing knowldege, abilities, survivability, and well being, attained through reason, science, and technology, as opposed to irrationality or superstition". Although the book glosses over Politics, it does dare saying "Libertarianism and individualism are the safeguards against malevolent ideologies. Let us keep Superbiology away from state control and in the hand of individuals"

Than you very much, avgleandt, for this insightful extract. It has been very helpful. Regarding sneezing, it is a reflex, not a volitional action. Therefore, it is beyond the scope of morality. My concern, though, was to find out whether there are morally neutral Volitional actions. When you cannot choose life qua man because that is no longer an option, you may still choose to live like a subhuman or die, and both things are, generally, morally neutral. Living as subhuman (keeping biological life) can be the right and moral thing to do, nevertheless, if by keeping your biological life you can still expect to live, in the future, a life qua man. So, to the case posed to Ayn Rand, I would suggest answering "it all depends on what chances will Person B have to restore bis life to a condition of rationality after having killed C. If by killing C he can shake off the tyranny/threat of person A, B should kill C. If all chances are against shaking off that evil ( if B belives the threat to be permament, so that no future life qua man is foreseen) then B should refuse to obey and die. If B has no idea on the chances to getting rid of A, then any choice is morally neutral."

As you can notice, I am struggling with this issue. To me, the identification of my neighbour's nature as a man, and his identification of my nature as a man, gives rise to the concept of right. Thus, right is identification. It is a result of a deliberate focus on reality. If no identification occurs, then the right just does not appear. A right is not a concrete, like a head or a brain. All men have heads and brains, whether this is recognized or not, whether the man in question lives in a desert island or in society. A man cannot forfeit his head or brain. It is the metaphysically given. Rights, on the other hand, are not "just there", awaiting to become percepts through the senses of the beholder. Rights are a concept derived from human nature, but it is not the human nature. In fact, Peikoff recognizes that rights do not only need two or more people interacting, but a sort of organized interaction. Rights are a further development of human cognitive process over a social process. A man who is not recognized by anyone else as a man still exists. He is a concrete. Existence does not need conciousness to exist. A right who is not recognized by anyone else, though, does not exist. Inherent in the concept of any right is the recognition of that right. A right is like sex. No man can have sex in loneliness. For a man in a desert island, sex just does not exist. And for a man sharing the island with only male companions ( provided all are heterosexual) sex would still not exist, because sex requires at least two people who recognize each other as sexual partners. No man can claim to have sexual activity for the mere possession of sexual organs, needs or desires. By the same token, no man can claim to have rights for possessing a mind as a tool of survival. He needs to commit with the implications of living alongside other minds and have some one commited back accordingly. This why I contend that a right that cannot be exercised is inexistent, and that "right recognition" is, ultimately, a redundancy.

Thank you, avgleandt. Your answer gets me back to my original question. Being act A and act B two different reactions to the same problem (e.g. The problem of having gunmen demanding the surrender of all your property at age 70) can we say that doing either A and B are moral? Or is it that both are amoral? If I realize that running away is the rational thing to do, then not running away is immoral. If I realize that fighting back is the rational course of action, then not figthing back is immoral. If I say that both running away and not running away are moral, I am in the middle of a contradiction. Perhaps what I must say is that both running away and not running away are amoral, or morally neutral. Hence morally neutral acts exist. A morally neutral act is an act that cannot be directed to preserve life qua man without compromising the biological basis of such a life. Would you agree with such definition?

A moral imperative? But what about running away? What about accepting the initiation of force, because the usr of retailatory force would imply your death qua biological being? Taxes are an initiation of force. However we do not believe to be morally obligated to retaliate and endure prison. Ayn Rand fled from the Soviet Union and most surely encouraged her family to escape. She avoided any sort of martyrdom. Mr Garza felt that his life, at such old age, was purposeless if he were to lost all the product of his mind. Had he been younger, say, 30-year-old, he might have thought that giving up his farm to the criminals would not stop him from starting all over again and suceed. Maybe, as a young man with still a future to conquer, fighting the criminals alone would have been irrational, and hence immoral. Using retailatory force is moral only when you have good chances to survive, suceed and live a long, rational life afterwards.

But, on second thoughts, if morality ends when a gun begins, why is it preferable to pay taxes instead of going to jail? How would you judge a bunch of Objectivists who campaigns for Objectivism by choosing not to pay taxes and face prison? Would they be heroes or fools? Would that be self- sacrificial, morally neutral or brave? Last month, a 70-year old farmer in Tamaulipas, Mexico, Alejo Garza, fighted back a bunch of drug cartel gunmen. They had demanded him to give up his ranch, his property for which he had worked so hard all his life. The gunmen gave him 24 hours to leave the farm (drug cartels in Mexico use this tactic to get hold of isolated farms and make them training camps for new gunmen or drug factories). They promised that if he did what they said, his life would be spared. Mr Garza asked his workers not to show up the next day. He knew that calling the police would be a mistake: he lived in an isolated place, far from cities, the police were fighting at the big cities and anyway many of policemen were in cahoots with drug dealers. Mr Garza was a skillfull hunter, so he prepared all his rifles and placed them at all windows. He patiently awaited the enemies... Alone. After the 24 hours had passed, the criminals appeared. They came in big numbers, heavily armed and used even granades. Our old farmer died fighting, and killed four gunmen and caused inhuries to many more. Alejo Garza has held as a hero in all newspapers. Even songs have been composed to remember his deed. Were all actions taken by Mr Garza devoid of a moral content? Do you think that it is possible to judge him as a fool or as a hero? Or was his deed morally neutral? To me, he judged that losing his property at this age would mean he would no longer live qua man. But he knew he could not win fighting alone. He knew he was lost, qua man, both leaving quietly his property in the hands of the criminals and fighting alone against them. At this point you could say that he had no choice and his decision was out of the scope of ethics. Nevertheless, by choosing to fight back, he was making a strong moral point. Mr Garza was saying : I am in charge of my life. If I am not to live as a free man, I choose not to live at all. Give me freedom, or give me death.

Morality ends where a gun begins. Before any gun is put on your head, all your actions, big or small, have a moral significance, because they are initiated by you to further or destroy your life. Once the gun is against your head, the specific action you are forced to do does not have a moral content. Of course, in all other actions not directly involving coercion you will still behave as a moral agent. For example, let's say that the government forces you to pay taxes, but provides you with a wide variety of options to pay them. In this case paying taxes would be out od the scope of morality, but the way you choose to pay them would be your free choice and will have a moral content.

Thanks, Euiol for this comprehensive answer. I agree with you in that there are no morally neutral acts. Sometimes we are faced with many possible equally moral acts of small significance (e.g. Should I pick vanilla or chocolate icecream? I like both) but in those situations I can decide to "flip a mental coin" and choose any of them. And the choice to make such a mental coin flipping would be all right. There is no moral neutrality here. Both vanilla and chocolate were rational, moral choices (provided I like them both equally, the cost is the same, calories are pretty much the same, etc). A particular act of charity should be evaluated in the context of my hierarchy of values, as you point out, and then I should make my choice. The difficult issue is to determine how a problem that is affecting directly the lives of people far from the horizon of my daily life will indeed affect me. If Katrina has destroyed New Orleans but I live in Seattle, with no friends or family in Lousiana, how could the fate of the victims of that hurricane affect me? My first answer would be: by helping victims of a disaster/disease, you are raising the chances to be helped by others when a similar situation happens to you. But here the likelihood of being helped by your countrymen within your country is far better than the likelihood of being helped by a far poorer and more distant country, like Malawi. Furthermore, what would be the rational case for Americans helping victims of an earhquake in Iran, an enemy of the USA? Suppose we face that situation ( which is not very unlikely, as Iran suffers terrible earthquakes from time to time). Suppose this one is so devastating, that the government urges the international community to send help. Would be in the interest of American people to provide it? Would it be moral?

Thank you, Jay and SoftwareNerd. Suppose Malawi, in Southern Africa, decides to adopt policies based on Objectivist ideas as fast as possible. The government changes the constitution to ensure protection of rights, reforms justice system, starts atracting investment etc. An international think tank predicts that, within 10 years of laissez-faire capitalism, malaria and other tropical infectious diases will be practically extinct. Everyone rejoices. Fellows at the ARI put Malawi as model to follow even for the government of the USA. However, the pundits at the think tank warn that the change will not take place overnight. During those 10 years, they estimate that between 200,000 and 300,000 children younger than 12 will still perish from preventable diseases like malaria. My question is: Would it be in my rational self interest to help to save the lives of these children during these 10 years of transition to freedom? My direct answer is "Yes, because I would be promoting a kind of world I want to live in. Any society embracing Objectivism is an ally. So I will cancel my susbcription to satellite high-definition TV and use that money to save kids in Malawi." But then my question is, would be immoral not to help them? Would it be immoral to tell myself: "After all, other people will help. I will remain with my subscription and enjoy Superbowl"?

When Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff refer to proper charity ( we know the requirements for this kind of charity) they do it still in negative syntax: "there is nothing wrong with this kind of charity" or "it is not improper". I have found no positive syntax like "it is good" or "it is rational". I have found, though, a single positive reference in one of Tara Smith's books, where she describes a hypothetical example of when charity would be appropiate, and then dares saying that not doing such charity would, in fact, be irrational. My first quesion to you is if there are such thing as "morally neutral" acts. I think there aren't. Anything you do either acts in favor of your rational interests or against them. If action X is moral, is not performing X immoral? My second question is if we could unapologetically refer to proper charity ( that meeting criteria we all know) as a moral thing to do, and not performing proper charity as an immorality. If charity act X is rational and moral, and I choose not to perform it, then my choice is irrational and immoral. If this is so, charity is not morally optional. Can you help me with this issue?

Yeah, the logic of altruism is the logic of contradiction and mind-destruction. But we have to face here also some facts: If Gates or whatever millionaire proves that his donations are not self- sacrificial, because their life standard remains intact... If they prove that they are doing it voluntarily... If they prove that the help is being directed only to those who cannot help themselves ( say, children or victims of natural disasters) or to those talented people who are struggling to raise themselves ( say, soft credit to mothers engaged in a productive project, like in Bangladesh)... Why would we condemn them? If we as Objectivist think that "nothing is wrong with charity" when used to address specific problems and done in non-sacrifical ways, then THAT kind of charity is good. Charity implies persuasion, promotion. That's the opposite of coercion or force. If we have determined that certain type of charity is not wrong, then it is good. if it is not irrational, it is rational. If it is not immoral, it is moral. If it is not despicable, it is embraceble. Furthermore, the fact that millionaire can give away a lot of money for charity speaks eloquently about the benefits of wealth and capitalism. The message is "Getting rich is fun, because you can do a lot of things, including charity". The message is also "Voluntary help works. Taxes are not justified on the grounds of any cause" So, why don't we stop condemning Gates and rather use this case as an example of the infinite options that wealth and capitalism open to our lives?

This all-or-nothing view of rights is practical for all helathy non-criminal adults. For prisoners, small children or mentally handicapped people, this approach does not seem to work, because they act by right in some respects but by permission in other. Suppose a prisoner that has been given one year in jail for a theft. He does not have the right to go shopping to Walmart, but he has still the right to do many things within the borders od the prison. He can choose to read book A vs book B, or to perform manual activity A vs B, or to eat fruit A vs B or none of them at the cafeteria. Furthermore, he has the right to live without being murdered. Is it that he forfeited ALL his rights and then the State is giving him PERMISSION to do certain things, and is respecting his life as a concesion, or has he forfeited only certain rights and not other, or, as one of the members of this forum suggested, he has not forfeited any right, but e State is morally violating his rights at certain extent? Same with children. They do not have the right to go to anyplace they want at any time, get a driver license, and plenty of things we as adults consider part of our freedom. Is it that rights "appear" one by one as they develop? Why cant a 10 year old boy work and keep the product of bis work for himself, without having his parents making decisions about how to spend it? And why, overnight, is the right to keep his money suddenly "appears"?

I say yes, assisted suicide is moral, if and when there is objective evidence of the fact that a rational being wants to end his life and cannot do it himself. The crux of the matter is to have that objective evidence. Most prejudices around assisted suicide lie on the belief that the immorality of killing hinges on the mere interruption of the vital functions of other person. In reality, the immorality of a murder lies on violating the mind of other person, acting against his consent, denying his capacity for reason and choice. Murder is immoral because we act as if the other person didn't exist qua man. We deny reality and by doing so we deny our own mind. That's what makes murder immoral. In a proper act of assisted suicide (meaning, one in which there is no doubt of the intentions of the subject and his mental capacity), nobody is faking reality. Indeed, we are honouring each one's reality of being rational, volitional beings. "I am injecting this high dose of medication into your veins because I recognize you as the owner of your own life, and by doing this I am honouring that fact."

I suggest to check first with a psychiatrist if you have a depressive disorder. Believe me, this is important. Until you're sure your brain is working right, from a physical standpoint, you can go ahead to ask yourself about your premises, values, etc.

Dear fellows: I have read some few articles on how children make concepts, and I am coming to the conclusion that babies are always actively building a conceptual conciousness and that the first basic concepts appear between 6 to 9 months of age. A very important flaw in my reasoning is that, while small babies do not have the faculty for conceptual thinking, this faculty does not just arrive overnight. There is no clear threshold in which we could say "NOW the baby has arrived to his first concept". Indeed, babies start a process as soon as they are born, by means of which they form the concept of "self" versus "non-self" and quickly advance into separating objects in groups, performing the very first acts of differentiation and integration. In conclusion, born babies do have a faculty in the making, and therefore have rights. It is not just a mere potentiality. The difference between a potential faculty and a faculty in the making is that in the former there is no evidence of a process taking place. Babies are feeding day after day their "operating system" (if we were to use computers as a metaphor of the mind) which is "processing" information. Even if the "screen" is still "blank", the computer is ALREADY working and soon will start "opening windows". If I use my comparison with the faculty to run, I would say that a toddler that is giving his first steps is quickly developing the faculty to run. There is a clear process in place that will inevitably lead to the expected result. It doesnt happen overnight. The fetuses, as far as I know, are not still building a self vs. non-self concept since they do not recognize themselves as beings different from their mother (their "environment"). Therefore, as they are not actively building a faculty of reason, they are out of the scope of rights. Most people with neurological damage or dementia are able to form concepts at some level. Their computer is not in the OFF mode, but just working very slowly and very bad. And it is very likely that they have also a basic "self recognition" faculty. As a consquence, they have rights. I don't know whether apes have a conceptual capacity. Information I've found is ambiguous. Finally, I still need to gain a better understanding of the concept of stewardship. While babies may have SOME conceptual capacity, it is obvious that that level of thinking doesn't help them much in terms of survival. They depend on adults. When adult's stewardship should stop? When is it no longer moral to take decisions on behalf of our children? I therefore abandon the model of "grights". I thank you a lot for your patience, insight and feedback. I will keep on sharing thoughts with you on the bioethics realm

Dear fellows: I have read some few articles on how children make concepts, and I am coming to the conclusion that babies are always actively building a conceptual conciousness and that the first basic concepts appear between 6 to 9 months of age. A very important flaw in my reasoning is that, while small babies do not have the faculty for conceptual thinking, this faculty does not just arrive overnight. There is no clear threshold in which we could say "NOW the baby has arrived to his first concept". Indeed, babies start a process as soon as they are born, by means of which they form the concept of "self" versus "non-self" and quickly advance into separating objects in groups, performing the very first acts of differentiation and integration. In conclusion, born babies do have a faculty in the making, and therefore have rights. It is not just a mere potentiality. The difference between a potential faculty and a faculty in the making is that in the former there is no evidence of a process taking place. Babies are feeding day after day their "operating system" (if we were to use computers as a metaphor of the mind) which is "processing" information. Even if the "screen" is still "blank", the computer is ALREADY working and soon will start "opening windows". If I use my comparison with the faculty to run, I would say that a toddler that is giving his first steps is quickly developing the faculty to run. There is a clear process in place that will inevitably lead to the expected result. It doesnt happen overnight. The fetuses, as far as I know, are not still building a self vs. non-self concept since they do not recognize themselves as beings different from their mother (their "environment"). Therefore, as they are not actively building a faculty of reason, they are out of the scope of rights. Most people with neurological damage or dementia are able to form concepts at some level. Their computer is not in the OFF mode, but just working very slowly and very bad. And it is very likely that they have also a basic "self recognition" faculty. As a consquence, they have rights. I don't know whether apes have a conceptual capacity. Information I've found is ambiguous. Finally, I still need to gain a better understanding of the concept of stewardship. While babies may have SOME conceptual capacity, it is obvious that that level of thinking doesn't help them much in terms of survival. They depend on adults. When adult's stewardship should stop? When is it no longer moral to take decisions on behalf of our children? I therefore abandon the model of "grights". I thank you a lot for your patience, insight and feedback. I will keep on sharing thoughts with you on the bioethics realm

Human babies (as well as people with profound dementia) would have no chance to survive. Human adults would have some good chance to survive. They would use their minds to feed themselves, build shelters, etc. Please accept the point that babies do not survive by using their minds, and that their lives, while babies, is entirely dependent on adults and their own biological automatisms, just like any other baby mammal. We have come to the point of deciding whether the whole theory of rights is based on the faculty of reason, or upon a human condition/feature other than the faculty or reason. We could speculate that this "other feature" could be a human genome, a human appearance, or the presence of a human neocortex, whether it works properly or not. To me, the whole theory of rights crumbles if we try to lay a foundation other than the faculty of reason. The faculty of reason (meaning, the actual capacity for conceptual thinking) is what keeps the theory of rights rooted in reality, in facts. If this is true, and if it is true hat babies do not have an actual capacity for conceptual thinking, babies just don't have rights. We can't escape that conclusion. If we don't go around killing babies, it is due to other reasons, and we should discover what those reasons are. Maybe my model of grights is rubbish. Maybe we have to develop a theory of stewardship rights. Maybe killing babies violates stewardship rights. I don't know. What I know is that current theory of rights is not compatible with the notion of rights for babies. I have heard no answer for any of the members of this forum, no single statement in any Objectivist book that explains, in logical way, why babies would have rights. All answers or statements appeal to reasons other than that explicitly stated by Ayn Rand while pronouncing her theory of rights, namely, the faculty of conceptual thinking. The most frequent argument is that babies have rights because they are human. But what makes them human? There is no answer. If the answer is "because they will develop (eventually and hopefully) conceptual thinking" we are assigning rights to potentialities, not to actualities. And this asnwer would not apply to the person with a sever neuropsychiatric condition and no chance, according to current medical practice, to any future recovery of conceptual thinking. Furthermore, this answer clashes with our position on abortion, which stands on the fact that an embryo is a potential human being, not an actual one. What makes them human, then? Genome? Neocortex? A mystical soul given by God? Physical appearance? Our feelings? Any answer?

Yes, healthy adults who are sleeping have the faculty of reason. They can excercise it here and now. Just shake them a bit and they will wake up, ready to sign a contract, keep writing an essay or composing a symphony. Try to wake up a baby or a person with severe neurological damage. See what you get. A blind person does not have the faculty to see. I do, even if I close my eyes. If I want to exercise it, I just have to open them back. The blind is helpless. Actually I have mentioned that Grights would be objective, not subject to the whims of the government in office. They could not be revoked. They would be based on the nature of the subjects involved. Specifically, in their ability to match preestablished criteria. In regards of non-human species, there is plenty of accumulated scientific data regarding many of them, and more will be coming over the next years. I am no expert to establish at this point which species would be meeting the criteria of a degree of conceptual conciousness and self recognition. For the time being, I am mentioning chimps, gorillas and dolphins as examples. The difference between the right to life and a gright to life is that a right is claimed by the holder and recognized by the State. A Grith cannot be claimed by the holder, but needs to be provided unilaterally by the rational men, through the State.

I agree with you, Mikee. Any attempt to destroy a well-developed fetus, who could otherwise survive if born prematurely, looks to me as very dangerously close to killing a born baby. The argument of not being a "separate/independent entity", as I have pointed out in other thread, sounds too weak to me. I bring the case of the Siamese twins that share vital organs. One cannot survive without the other. They are not physically independent. However, we can recognize two entities here. If left, they will grow up into two minds, two persons. You could not murder them arguing that they were not independent entities. In the case of the fetus, "Physically independent" is also an irrelevant concept, because cell by cell, tissue by tissue, the fetus always remains an alien to the mother, a creature inside a creature. The fetus is not part of the body of the mother. It is not an organ, like the uterus. True, it lives within the property of the mother, but so does my hypothetical old aunt with severe neurological damage after a stroke, occupying a room of my property and draining a porcentage of my income. Should I just expell her from my property and leave her on the street, or take her to the woods and abandon her?

So if I take her to the desert to let her starve there, it is morally OK, while if I use a club to bang her head, it is morally wrong. Is that what you are suggesting? I know you don't mean it. Letting her without food and hitting her with a club are both ways to murder her. It would be the same for my old mother with dementia or with my baby. Both are depend on me for their survival. They can't use their minds as tools for survival.

I invite you to do this mental experiment: Drop 50 babies in an inhabited island. Be generous: leave them some matches, lanterns, bows and arrows, some bottles of purified water and a first-aid kit. Leave them alone and come back one year later. Tell me how many of them will be alive. Do the same experiment with 50 people with severe dementia.

Every idea can be misinterpreted or distorted. That's not a good argument for rejecting an idea. On the contrary, the concept of GRIGHTS preserves and protects the life of precious entities while any debate on their rights is going on. In essence, a gright is a protection, granted by the State, to ensure the preservation of life in entities that are developing a faculty of reason, had a faculty of reason but lost it or are close to having it. Had the Nazis believed in the importance of GRIGHTS, no Holocaust would have occurred. The practical implications of this model is not that vulnerable old people or babies will be hurted. All the contrary: the implication is that the defense of life will be extended to cover as weell late-stage fetuses and some non-human species. The real resistance I foresee in Objectivists is to include these last two groups of entities under the model.

Just to make my point about the nature of rights, clearer, let me quote Ayn Rand Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's right into reality -- to think, to work and to keep the results-- which means: the right of property. ASm page 986, as quoted in Peikoffs "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" And let me quote Peikoff in the same book "It would be a crude contradiction to tell a man: you have a right to life, but you need the permission of others to think or act. Or: you have a right to life, but you need the permission of others to produce or consume..." (location 6433-6441 of the Kindle edition) For Rand and Peikoff, a right (as any other concept) cannot exist in the abstract, detached from reality. This is not just flamboyant poetry. It is just another evidence of the holistic approach of Objectivism and its abhorrance of dualities or dichotomies. In harmony with this concept we can arrive to other related conclusions, like 1) A prisoner can't go shopping for Christmas because he does not have the right to go shopping for Christmas. It is not because, while having the right, he still needs the permission from the State. That would be a contradiction. If he has a right, he doesn't need permission to excercise it. The truth is that he has given up that right by not respecting the right of others. He can't claim unilaterally his right to liberty for the sake of "being a man". 2) Babies and small children cannot translate any "right" into reality: they cannot act without permission from their parents. So, they don't have rights. Same with people with severe dementia.

You may have noticed by now that unless we have a common understanding of that "faculty or reason" means, we cannot go ahead. I just read all entries under the name "faculty of reason" in Peikoff's textbook Objectivism, and none of them advocates perceptual conciousness (the kind of conciousness babies have) as a qualifying faculty or reason. All of references to factulty or reason, implicitly or explicitly, refer to conceptual conciousness. You may be confusing "faculty " with "potentiality". But faculty is an actuality. Babies do not have a faculty of reason. They have the potential to develop it, if and when appropriate conditions are met. There is no guarantee for that. In the same way, people who have lost their faculty of reason, have just lost it. They have the potential to regain it if and when, hopefully, wonderful therapies are discovered before they die...