Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!liz From: liz@umcp-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.philosophy, net.religion Subject: Re: The Nature of Rights Message-ID: <501@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 6-Jul-83 02:08:27 EDT Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.501 Posted: Wed Jul 6 02:08:27 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 7-Jul-83 11:06:21 EDT References: <224@watdaisy.UUCP> Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept. Lines: 76 From: cbostrum@watdaisy.UUCP >From liz@umcp-cs.UUCP > ... What are the necessary morally relevant criteria > for possessing a right to life? ... >This is a religious question and a matter of belief. Are >humans morally special in some way different from the >animals ...? Whoa! Whether or not you have rights is a religious question? ... if you mean the nature of rights or means of possessing them is religious, then for all those athiests out there who believe in rights, I should hope it isn't! By "a religious question", I didn't mean that atheists couldn't believe in rights. I just meant that different people have different views on human rights, and that (in the context of abortion and someone asking "What's so special about being human?") what it meant to be human depends on what you believe about human rights. By the way, if rights do not depend on people's beliefs, then they must be some kind of absolute standard... (and I do believe in this kind of absolute.) On abortion, you say: The issue about comatose people does seem difficult to solve for many pro-abortion people who take a similar line. I submit that it is simple. It is totally analogous to the way that when someone dies, he can dispose of his property (and in fact his body) for the most part as he sees fit. Why? Because they *are* his property. Once you conceive of a person's body and his life as his propery, this problem dissolves. Just as murder and lying are considered wrong since they are an offense against someone's property (and this is an *implicit* agreement) so killing a comatose person should be accepted as wrong, without his previous permission since there is a similar implicit agreement that this is an offense against his property. Well, the obvious reply to this is that killing a fetus is an offense against the fetus' property. But, I think you mean also that the fetus is not yet capable of having property and that his body still belongs to its mother. This is harder to answer. Two things come to mind. One is that the body of the fetus does belong to the fetus and it is certainly the one that experiences the pain of being forcibly removed (although the woman does experience some labour -- but she has some choice...). The second is that (as I believe that the fetus is human and a person) whether it has grown to the point it can fully possess its body. ... by saying "such arguments endanger [fetal] rights as well" you are engaging in the fallacy of presuming they have rights to begin with. Yes, because I'm assuming they are human. It appears you have an axe to grind, and have already decided for certain that foetuses have a right to life, but no nonhumans do. The question is, **On what ground do you base these beliefs??** While I admit that my criterion so far is not perfect, it is one hell of a lot better than "X can have rights iff X is human", or "X has rights iff God says so" (the last is a screamer). I'm not so much discussing whether nonhumans have a right to life, but whether a fetus (which I'm assuming is human) has a right to life. And, I do base my beliefs in a belief in God as a starting point. I don't think its illogical to believe that there's a God that's interested in our affairs and has some things to say about them. But I also think that from a medical stand-point, a seperate unique life begins at conception and that it is indeed a human life. Sigh...-- -Liz ...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz (Usenet) liz.umcp-cs@Udel-Relay (Arpanet)