What is the right to life and why does it exist?

  • Thread starter Thread starter fakename
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
John21652 said:
If you have no rights, then why would society impose consequences on me if I either enslave you, kill you and take all your stuff?
Click to expand...
keep in mind, im talking about natural or unalienable rights.

to answer your question: because people generally feel threatened by such behavior, so they want to discourage it.
 
hazmat said:
keep in mind, im talking about natural or unalienable rights.

to answer your question: because people generally feel threatened by such behavior, so they want to discourage it.
Click to expand...
Why do they feel threatened? Where does the threat come from? What’s the threat to?
 
John21652 said:
Why do they feel threatened? Where does the threat come from? What’s the threat to?
Click to expand...
people want to live, people want their stuff. if they see someone taking lives and stuff, then they will feel threatened because they too have lives and stuff.
 
hazmat said:
people want to live, people want their stuff. if they see someone taking lives and stuff, then they will feel threatened because they too have lives and stuff.
Click to expand...
Areb you saying all people want to live? Are you also saying all people want to own stuff too?
 
hazmat said:
no, im talking generally.

though i have wondered whether suicidal folks fear being killed…
Click to expand...
If you are talking generally, then you are talking about ‘folks in general’. Correct?

So that must mean most normal folks. Right?
 
i just said people. i would say most people want to live, and most people want to keep things that belong to them. if by normal you mean common, sure. whatever.
 
hazmat said:
i just said people. i would say most people want to live, and most people want to keep things that belong to them. if by normal you mean common, sure. whatever.
Click to expand...
So you wpuld then agree that most people have a desire to live? Correct?
And most people want to own stuff. Correct?

If most people want to live and to own stuff, wouldn’t it be fair to say they think they have a right to live and to own stuff?
 
sure, people think they have rights to their life and stuff. there are rights under law, but laws can be broken. people think they have natural/unalienable rights, but these rights are alienated daily. if someone shoots you dead, youre dead whether you think you have a right to life or not. theyre immaterial, indistinguishable for rights that are not there.
 
hazmat said:
sure, people think they have rights to their life and stuff. there are rights under law, but laws can be broken. people think they have natural/unalienable rights, but these rights are alienated daily. if someone shoots you dead, youre dead whether you think you have a right to life or not. theyre immaterial, indistinguishable for rights that are not there.
Click to expand...
Let’s look at the first sentence you wrote in response to my questions. We’ll forget the rest of your response for the moment, because you went off on a tangent and introduced concepts that need to be dealt with after we establish a few facts.

So, you began by writing “sure, people think they have rights to their life and stuff…”

We arrived at the fact that most people would feel that way. Correct?

If you agree that most people think they have a right to their life and stuff, then we can state that it is an objective truth about people that they think they have a right to their lives and stuff.

Agreed?
 
LeafByNiggle said:
When you say the murderer forfeits his right to life as distinct from losing that right, I think the only grounds on which that distinction can be made is if forfeiting involves a free choice while losing does not. And it may be that the murderer did make a free choice to kill unjustly, and he may have known that death is a potential penalty for doing so. But that does not mean he freely gave up his right to life. He most likely thought he could get away with it without being caught. In fact, in the end, his right to life is most certainly taken from him by the execution of the death penalty. Now such a loss of his right to life may be entirely just. But it is still correct to say that he “loses” his right to life.
Click to expand...
The current law and whether he gets caught or not has nothing to do with it. By the standards of natural law, when you murder someone you are effectively saying your life is forfeit period. Ignorance of this is not an excuse. It’s self evident.
 
hazmat said:
sure, people think they have rights to their life and stuff. there are rights under law, but laws can be broken. people think they have natural/unalienable rights, but these rights are alienated daily. if someone shoots you dead, youre dead whether you think you have a right to life or not. theyre immaterial, indistinguishable for rights that are not there.
Click to expand...
Its inherent human nature to want to live. Our bodies naturally want to live and are made to fight to live as long as possible. If we don’t want to live, or our bodies seem to be operating in a way that is against wanting to live, something is going wrong. If your immune system is attacking healthy cells in your body instead of working as it should and attacking foreign entities that should not be there, something is wrong. The inalienable right to life is a recognition of the self evident truth. If you are an American you should feel fortunate to live in one of the few countries that recognizes this right as something that is not given by a government but rather comes from our Creator whoever you believe that to be.
 
user "Nate13":
Its inherent human nature to want to live. Our bodies naturally want to live and are made to fight to live as long as possible. If we don’t want to live, or our bodies seem to be operating in a way that is against wanting to live, something is going wrong. If your immune system is attacking healthy cells in your body instead of working as it should and attacking foreign entities that should not be there, something is wrong. The inalienable right to life is a recognition of the self evident truth. If you are an American you should feel fortunate to live in one of the few countries that recognizes this right as something that is not given by a government but rather comes from our Creator whoever you believe that to be.
Click to expand...
I think that this understanding of the right to life makes it more intelligible: the right to life is the natural instinct of self-preservation, the need to survive.

But this right doesn’t need to be used all the time since people don’t always face life-or-death situations all the time (though the right is generically always exercised since at no time is it true that people naturally don’t want to survive).

This is not logically contradictory though, because it is not a contradiction to say that sometimes I should exercise my rights and sometimes not.

So my next question for elaboration is “what is a right”? If I’m not mistaken it is a rational title to something.

So clearly all rights are founded on human nature. But some rights are alienable (and I think that the right to life is one actually); people self-sacrifice, they permit minor acts of personal dishonor to themselves, etc. So are all rights founded on human nature?
 
user "fakename":
I think that this understanding of the right to life makes it more intelligible: the right to life is the natural instinct of self-preservation, the need to survive.

But this right doesn’t need to be used all the time since people don’t always face life-or-death situations all the time (though the right is generically always exercised since at no time is it true that people naturally don’t want to survive).

This is not logically contradictory though, because it is not a contradiction to say that sometimes I should exercise my rights and sometimes not.

So my next question for elaboration is “what is a right”? If I’m not mistaken it is a rational title to something.

So clearly all rights are founded on human nature. But some rights are alienable (and I think that the right to life is one actually); people self-sacrifice, they permit minor acts of personal dishonor to themselves, etc. So are all rights founded on human nature?
Click to expand...
also, is it true that people forfeit their right to life if this right is just an instinct which cannot be forfeited by nature? Do murderers always have the right to life even though they are being killed (since the right to life is just an instinct of self-preservation?
 
John: people think and feel all sorts of things. yes, you can say they think they have a right to life and stuff; i dont disagree with that.

nate: what our bodies want is just what our bodies want. men want to have sex with the women they find most attractive–thats natural; that doesnt mean they have an unalienable right to. if you get killed or simply die, what bearing did your right to life have on anything? it didnt impede death. it does nothing, its immaterial.
 
fakename said:
I think that this understanding of the right to life makes it more intelligible: the right to life is the natural instinct of self-preservation, the need to survive.
Click to expand...
Please note this ties into everything I said in earlier posts, I just said it with different language here. If this made it more understandable good, but now think of this inherent nature of the human person as a facet of natural law.
But this right doesn’t need to be used all the time since people don’t always face life-or-death situations all the time (though the right is generically always exercised since at no time is it true that people naturally don’t want to survive).
Click to expand...
Most succinct statement of the right to life I have heard yet. Yes its from Bonanza haha.

youtube.com/watch?v=hNLoDBkgCbo
Starting at 5 minutes in.

youtube.com/watch?v=-EF5kd68BSg&feature=related
From the beginning
This is not logically contradictory though, because it is not a contradiction to say that sometimes I should exercise my rights and sometimes not.
Click to expand...
So my next question for elaboration is “what is a right”? If I’m not mistaken it is a rational title to something.
Click to expand...
A right the way we are describing it would probably best be described as something in conformity with fact, reason, truth, or some standard or principle. If I say a right is inalienable, I’m saying that the right in question is something that is inherent to the nature of the person in question. So in other words by virtue of being human you have a right to life.
So clearly all rights are founded on human nature. But some rights are alienable (and I think that the right to life is one actually); people self-sacrifice, they permit minor acts of personal dishonor to themselves, etc. So are all rights founded on human nature?
Click to expand...
Exactly. Human nature which comes from our Creator, whether a person believes that to be God or chance. Its a principle anyone regardless of their religious beliefs can hold onto.
 
hazmat said:
John: people think and feel all sorts of things. yes, you can say they think they have a right to life and stuff; i dont disagree with that.

nate: what our bodies want is just what our bodies want. men want to have sex with the women they find most attractive–thats natural; that doesnt mean they have an unalienable right to. if you get killed or simply die, what bearing did your right to life have on anything? it didnt impede death. it does nothing, its immaterial.
Click to expand...
Actually the fact that men’s bodies want to have sex is important. However the right to have sex or “pursue happiness” cannot impede on another person’s rights. Certain rights supersede other rights. The right to life is going to supersede the right to pursue happiness because you can’t pursue happiness without the right to life. One person’s right to pursue happiness is not going to trump another person’s and rape is not going to be allowed. This is not that hard to think out and your making it way harder than it has to be. An entire country was founded on this idea and has done pretty well. Don’t you think there might be something to it?
 
The right to life is a moral property of human nature. Therefore, you cannot really give up your right to life anymore than you can give up being a man. When you give up your life (say, for a good cause), then you are merely giving up the ability to exercise that right, but you are not giving up your right to life. You also cannot sell it, or transfer it. This is why it is called an inalienable right. No one can take it away from you, not even yourself. This does not mean that no one can take away your life, but only that they can’t take away your right to life.

Actually, the right to life is not the only natural and inalienable human right. A person also has an inalienable right to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness. These rights belong by nature to every human being. And they cannot be taken away, although people can be prevented from exercising these rights. Some totalitarian governments may not recognize one or more of your natural and inalienable rights. That does not mean that you lose your rights under a totalitarian government, but that they are simply putting an impediment to the free exercise of your right.

The right to life is not the same as the instinct of self-preservation. A right commands an obligation on others to respect that right. Instinct commands no such obligation on other people. The State has a responsibility and an obligation to protect your life, not because you have an instinct to survive, but because you have a right to live. Even if you lose your instinct or “will to live”, the law still ought to protect your life because of your right to live.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top