निताइ dasa
Nitai's servant's servant
Sorry for the clickbait title.
Okay, so I was contemplating yesterday night about the nature of rights(by which I mean moral rights), and came to the following conclusion (or at least definition):
From what I understand, we human beings have 2 categories of rights, rights that nourish life, and rights that nourish rationality (or consent). I will give a brief description of what I mean by these two terms below:
Rights that nourish life
It is generally the moral understanding that life (generally understood as human life, but can extend to other forms) is intrinsically precious in of itself, and therefore there exists a moral obligation to protect it. That is why human beings naturally have a right to things like food, water and shelter, because these rights preserve something which is intrinsically valuable (life). This is pretty clear to understand, and is generally accepted.
Rights that nourish consent
This is a little harder to grasp, but philosopher Kant puts these rights as follows "One should not treat a rational agent (an agent who is able or may in the future perform moral actions), as a mere means to an end" (paraphrasing here)
What this essentially means is that as rational agents, human beings have a right not be used as mere tools (i.e their body, words, actions, thoughts, or things that 'belong' to a human being) to achieve an end. "mere tools" means here that we have to respect a person's ability to choose (and consent) and we cannot force them (or their property) against their will.
Rights under this heading include rights of ownership (hence why theft is wrong), rights of autonomy(hence why actions like genital mutation is wrong), rights of copyright (my ideas are mine, you cannot use them as a tool for your gains unless I consent).
Now this starts to get vague (and controversial), when you start saying things like one has a right "not to be offended". For example, if I use horrible hate speech against a minority (who does not want to hear it, causes her great pain) then does that means I am violating her rights?
Now my first question is: Which of these two categories override the other? Does the right to life, override the rights of consent? Are they equal? In many cases, our moral intuitions conflict with each other on this issue. Can you make an argument for your position without the use of moral intuition?
Kant for example argues that the rights of life overrides the rights of consent because the rights of consent arise from and are dependent, on the rights of consent (if I wasn't alive, I would not be able to choose in the first place, therefore it more morally urgent to preserve the former at the expense of the latter). Actually many of the ethical/moral dilemmas (especially in the field of bioethics) can be explained due to the contracting beliefs about these two rights.
Now we get to my actual point:
Is the act of killing* wrong, because it ends my life, or because it forces my body into a state which I do not consent too? Which of the above two rights does the act of killing violate?
*Note, I don't really want to get into the guilty vs non-guilty killing debate here. Assume that you are killing something or someone that is innocent, by moral standards.
Simply put in terms of an analogy:
If I killed a person who was morally neutral about the act itself(she did not want to live, or die), then was my act wrong? If the person wanted to die, and I killed her, is the act wrong? What if the person in question was a elderly person? What if the person was a child? Does it even matter?
The question has been killing me (pardon the pun) all night. I personally take the Kantian perceptive (that right to life always trumps right of consent), but I can see the intuitive appeal in other position.
Let me know what you think
Nitaibol!
Okay, so I was contemplating yesterday night about the nature of rights(by which I mean moral rights), and came to the following conclusion (or at least definition):
From what I understand, we human beings have 2 categories of rights, rights that nourish life, and rights that nourish rationality (or consent). I will give a brief description of what I mean by these two terms below:
Rights that nourish life
It is generally the moral understanding that life (generally understood as human life, but can extend to other forms) is intrinsically precious in of itself, and therefore there exists a moral obligation to protect it. That is why human beings naturally have a right to things like food, water and shelter, because these rights preserve something which is intrinsically valuable (life). This is pretty clear to understand, and is generally accepted.
Rights that nourish consent
This is a little harder to grasp, but philosopher Kant puts these rights as follows "One should not treat a rational agent (an agent who is able or may in the future perform moral actions), as a mere means to an end" (paraphrasing here)
What this essentially means is that as rational agents, human beings have a right not be used as mere tools (i.e their body, words, actions, thoughts, or things that 'belong' to a human being) to achieve an end. "mere tools" means here that we have to respect a person's ability to choose (and consent) and we cannot force them (or their property) against their will.
Rights under this heading include rights of ownership (hence why theft is wrong), rights of autonomy(hence why actions like genital mutation is wrong), rights of copyright (my ideas are mine, you cannot use them as a tool for your gains unless I consent).
Now this starts to get vague (and controversial), when you start saying things like one has a right "not to be offended". For example, if I use horrible hate speech against a minority (who does not want to hear it, causes her great pain) then does that means I am violating her rights?
Now my first question is: Which of these two categories override the other? Does the right to life, override the rights of consent? Are they equal? In many cases, our moral intuitions conflict with each other on this issue. Can you make an argument for your position without the use of moral intuition?
Kant for example argues that the rights of life overrides the rights of consent because the rights of consent arise from and are dependent, on the rights of consent (if I wasn't alive, I would not be able to choose in the first place, therefore it more morally urgent to preserve the former at the expense of the latter). Actually many of the ethical/moral dilemmas (especially in the field of bioethics) can be explained due to the contracting beliefs about these two rights.
Now we get to my actual point:
Is the act of killing* wrong, because it ends my life, or because it forces my body into a state which I do not consent too? Which of the above two rights does the act of killing violate?
*Note, I don't really want to get into the guilty vs non-guilty killing debate here. Assume that you are killing something or someone that is innocent, by moral standards.
Simply put in terms of an analogy:
If I killed a person who was morally neutral about the act itself(she did not want to live, or die), then was my act wrong? If the person wanted to die, and I killed her, is the act wrong? What if the person in question was a elderly person? What if the person was a child? Does it even matter?
The question has been killing me (pardon the pun) all night. I personally take the Kantian perceptive (that right to life always trumps right of consent), but I can see the intuitive appeal in other position.
Let me know what you think
Nitaibol!
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