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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Do people have an inherent right to live?
 
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namesake
Jun 19, 2006

"When I was a girl, around 12 or 13, I had a fantasy that I'd grow up to marry Captain Scarlet, but he'd be busy fighting the Mysterons so I'd cuckold him with the sexiest people I could think of - Nigel Mansell, Pat Sharp and Mr. Blobby."

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Can you prove that people don't have an inherent right to live? Before people argue with you it would help to say what you do believe in.

Rights generally fall into two groups: the supposedly self-evident (these don't actually exist) or the kind that exist to guarantee a certain principle or form of society is upheld. The default state of a right is that it doesn't exist until it is given either a moral weighting or an enforcement mechanism, so no you can't prove it doesn't exist but that's totally irrelevant.

So what principle would guarantee a right to live? Well egalitarianism is one; why should I die while others live (so long as my death is actually preventable)? A demand for the survival of the human race through numbers rather than any other criteria could be another. Self interest, in the sense that someone might be in a position to save my life and I'd rather they did so without thinking.

* # ¿ Feb 24, 2015 20:53
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# ¿ May 9, 2024 22:14
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Do people have an inherent right to live?