Oh, I agree.
Under CE’s statement that doing so is a theocracy,
What he said was: demanding the government and non-believers act in accord with your holy book is a de facto theocracy.
There's a difference.
there is nothing wrong with raising a human in a cage to see what effects a life of cage-life has on the human mind.
Like a Skinner box? ;)
In all seriousness, such an experiment would be a violation of the child's rights.
“What he said was: demanding the government and non-believers act in accord with your holy book is a de facto theocracy.”
That’s funny. I could’ve sworn that what he said was: #4 - Your ethical problems DO NOT dictate what a scientist can do. This is an example of theocracy. If you don’t like that research, don’t engage in it.
“Like a Skinner box? ;)
I had never heard of the Skinner box rumor. I intentionally came up with a hypothetical where the research really couldn’t be done In a more humane way.
“In all seriousness, such an experiment would be a violation of the child’s rights.”
Then you admit that there is a some magical line out there and your argument is significantly weakened. There is no more reason to support some notion of Randian natural rights that exist on their own than there is morality based on a Holy Book. If you take God or some arbiter that is above human thought out of the equation, then you’re left with all systems being equivalent in theory. There is nothing logically flawed about someone supporting a system where everyone gets skinned alive except those he needs to keep around to help with his continued existence. There may be practical considerations, but let’s not pretend that if our world contains nothing supernatural that it still makes sense to support some mystical concept of rights that exist out in the ether.
Believers voting their values does not a theocracy make. The church does not control the state in such a system. People by their own free will decide which church to attend and which values to select and support. People in a democracy/republic such as ours are free to change their minds at any time, convince others to change their minds,leave a certain church without fear of punishment by the state, etc. If the majority vote their own values (and let’s be clear, that’s what everyone does; our government is always oppressive to someone), then good for them.