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To: Pistias
Rights do come from God, but so do all things. Rights and righteousness are two different things.

Children and other incompetents do have the same natural rights, but they are not capable of evaluating them, so that job is delegated to adults. A suicide is rightful if it harms no others in comparison to the pain to self the suicide seeks to stop. Its rightfullness is independent from the suicidal man's ability to evaluate it.

Symmetrically, acts of valor should not be confused with duty. The duty to rescue appears when the injury to the resucer is negligible, but it is valorous to come to the rescue selflessly.

A dying culture gains no extra "rights". Thus, the dying Arab Warrior culture, by rights, is not entitled to go out and bomb buildings, but they would be wholly justified to confine their struggle to the cultural or economic sphere. I suggest they breed horses and start martial art studios.

49 posted on 12/04/2001 6:50:59 AM PST by annalex
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To: annalex
A suicide is rightful if it harms no others in comparison to the pain to self the suicide seeks to stop

Nice in practice, but we're still faced with the fact that 9 out of 10 suicides would have to be thought of as not capable of evaluating the rightfulness of their suicide...though I'm sure one could argue reasonably for elderly/terminal assisted suicide on your grounds (which, by the way, happens nearly every day where a relative o' mine works via morphine). Still,

Its rightfullness is independent from the suicidal man's ability to evaluate it

You got that right.

The duty to rescue appears when the injury to the resucer is negligible, but it is valorous to come to the rescue selflessly

I suppose we can't prudently expect people to be heroes, but I just can't get this quote out of my head reading your treatment of valor:

"No matter whether a man is highborn or low, if he has not put his life on the line at least once he has cause for shame." --Nabeshima Naoshige, Ideals of the Samurai

they would be wholly justified to confine their struggle to the cultural or economic sphere

Here's something I never understood about the Lockean system, I'd be grateful if you'd explain it to me: these guys didn't agree to play by any rules, so why is it "unrightful" for them to use any means necessary if they're going to die? No deal exists that would enable them to coexist and maintain their full sets of...rights...other civilizations, property rights are something that is determined in a fight.

I suggest they breed horses and start martial art studios.

If I had the loot and the land, that's what I'd be doing right now (along with FReeping and philosophizing, of course).

51 posted on 12/04/2001 8:17:13 AM PST by Pistias
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