Is the right to LIFE an inherent right?

BS. Ownership predates any government and you own yourself whether or not government exists.

That makes no sense.

You're not listening. The bus driver has no desire to be alive, never has. It simply never occurred to him to kill himself until that very instant. Now, using your argumentation, you'd have to say that he did nothing wrong by killing those 100 people. You have to either accept that he did nothing wrong or change your argument because changing the particulars of my hypothetical situation is not an option, so stop trying.

 

Can you give me a definition of the word ownership?

If its not clear to you, my analogy, fine but it isnt my argument.

Just slow down, you are racing ahead and not getting the detail of my argument. Lets go through this slowly. Do you deny that he must be alive in order to kill himself?

 

The state of being an owner, per Mssrs. Merriam and Webster

It certainly seemed to be your argument since you made the assertion...

Look, I understand your argument, you just want to change the circumstances of my hypothetical so that you don't have to answer the question. The fact that someone is alive does not necessarily mean that a desire to live exists. The person in my hypothetical has no desire to live.

Your argument isn't exactly deep so you shouldn't assume that people can't comprehend it. It is just that I reject the validity of your argument that basically amounts to 'If everyone has a desire for chocolate then everyone is entitled to chocolate..."

 

Since you don't seem to want engage in the obvious fallacy with which your argument first finds itself on, we'll move to the next. How does self-ownership guide ethical action?

No you just didn't understand what I said.

Please answer my question: must the bus driver be alive IN ORDER to kill himself, that is does he not have to exist in order to carry out the act that will end his life?
This doesn't not change your hypothetical in any way.

No that is not my argument at all. See you don't understand it. Just answer the question above and I will help you get it

 

In your case it wouldn't since you don't think ownership can exist outside of government. You've essentially resigned yourself to the whims of any despot that happens to come along.

For those that don't need to rely on a state to decide their ethics for them, it is the logical basis for the right to life. If I own me, and you own you, then neither of us has a claim to the other.

 

Well no in giving you the benefit of the doubt. Lets assume ownership exists on its terms. Now how does that establish a moral order?

WHY?

Why? Why does owning oneself prohibit harming others? Also wouldn't this mean you could never harm anything because every separate entity or item 'owns itself'?

 

I know you think you are coming at me with some heady stuff and I'm just too dim to get it, but I probably understand your utilitarian argument, complete with all of the pitfalls, better than you do.

However, I'll humor you by stating the blooming obvious. Yes, someone has to be alive in order to kill their self.

After your next reply you'll see why you do indeed have to alter my hypothetical in order for your argument to work.

 

If you own your self then that means that I don't own you. I have no right to harm or destroy that which I don't own unless it harms me in some way. It is inherent in the concept of ownership, which you are assuming exists on its own terms, so, unless you are now questioning the concept of ownership again, I don't understand the basis of your question.

Perhaps this is what you are looking for. The logical extension of me owning my own self is that other unique entities with similar minds also own themselves. Does that help?

 

Instead of trying to read minds just engage in the discussion.

Hooray! You finally did it. Ok so from that point it is clear that the bus driver sees his existence as the means to an end, where the end is his death. He doesn't want to live he wants to die. But he needs to do something in order to die and in order to do something he must be alive for some short duration. So his life becomes his means of suicide. Do you agree that this is correct?

Ok let's see.

 

See im looking at a non sequitur here. you have bot shown why individual self ownership requires mutual recognition of such ownership.

why is it inherent? the definition didnt mention it at all.

Well no I assumed your definition was correct. But your definition never mentioned the assertion you have just made.

Why only with similar minds?

 

If you would have taken my post in its entirety instead of parsing it like this then you would have recognized that the answer to that question was already given.

You don't know what "to own" means? Seriously? Use your google machine, bro.

You ask "Why only with similar minds". I know what it is like to be human...I know very little about the thought processes, self awareness, etc. of caterpillars and broccoli.

 

But you don't know what all humans minds. You don't know what they think or how they think. They could be retarded and thereby have a mind of less capacity than a dog or pig.

 

No, I do not agree that this is correct....lol

That's absolutely absurd. "So his life becomes his means of suicide"??? What?!

My hypothetical man just wants to not exist. His ideal world would not have him in it to begin with. He doesn't relish the idea of violently killing himself. He simply wants to 'not be' and suicide is his only means to that end. If he had his druthers, he would never have been born at all.

 

Sure, they could even be Australian or something.

Look, knowing that my mind is fairly representative of the human race it is logical to conclude that if I own myself then other humans also own themselves. Anything else would be a contradiction. Besides that, I don't usually judge what is and what isn't by what the mentally retarded think...

 

Also my question was not what are similar minds but WHY only similar minds. Could you answer that please?

 

Ok so you are saying you have to have the average rational capacity of a human to own your life even though you said we all own our lives because it is bound to us and no one else? Seems like you've got two competing assertions here. Do we own ourselves because we comprehend our existence and the fact we are alive etc or do we own ourselves because our lives are our own as a fact of nature?

 

This just occurred to me...Mega, are you really arguing this?

Do you not think that you own yourself? Who does own you then?

 

I'll help you to understand. Let's start here. Do you own your self?

 

Yes.

No

No one. Ownership is an invention and is entirely imagined.

 

No, I do not.

 

Okay, so when there are thoughts formulating in your mind (you'll have to excuse the expression 'your mind', of course you contend that it isn't yours but I know of no other way to describe it) whose thoughts are those? They aren't mine because I'm not even aware of them until you type them out onto your keyboard and post them on the internet. Whose thoughts are they? Do they belong to you? The brain where those electrical charges converged to form ideas, is it yours or someone else's?

 

If by whose you mean who created them and who hold them well that would certainly be me.

If you mean who is in possession of them that would be me.

Not sure what you mean by belong. I certainly possess them, ie they are in my possession.

That is my brain, but that does not mean I own my brain or my thoughts. All I do is POSSESS these things. I do not own them.

 

So you possess your brain, you possess your thoughts...but they don't belong to you...? It's funny that you refer to them as "my brain" and "my thoughts" then, don't you think? There really aren't even words that you can use to describe your brain or your thoughts that don't denote that they belong to you. I guess we could just assign names. We could call your mind Fred and your thoughts Wilma but then the entire ruse would collapse as soon as a third party came along and asked what we were talking about. We'd have to break down and tell him that Fred is MegadethFan's mind and Wilma is MegadethFan's thoughts for him to know what we were referring to. I guess we could reword 'your thoughts' to 'the thoughts that formulated in your brain' but then we'd also have to change 'your brain' to 'the brain residing in Megadeth's cranium'...but you'd contend that it wasn't your cranium at all. You possess it but somehow you don't own your own head...

This is such a simple and basic concept that you can't even assert that you don't own them without using words that directly impose ownership.

"I don't own my brain," and "I don't own my thoughts," are self-contradictory statements. It amounts to gibberish.

 

Define belong.

Allow me to phrase for clarity - the brain I possess and the thought I possess. That is what I meant.

See above. If you are saying belong is the same as possessing then yes you are right.

You contend I do own my head? On what basis?

No you are imposing such meaning. Use the word possession because that is what I mean.

How are self contradictory? Are you saying possession IS ownership? Because if you aren't then there is clearly no contradiction

 

Yes, I do. The simplest basis would be that you just referred to it as "my head". So, yes, I think your head is yours...and so do you apparently, though I'm sure you'll now contend that you don't...