(June 13, 2012 at 3:15 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Im starting to think that the "nature of man" is a fortress whereby one can assert just about anything. It's not entirely you, it's been cropping up alot. I see it written alot, but I never see it elaborated upon, and I always wonder why things that are part of the "nature of man" like our contradictory tendencies don't get included into these rights, if it;s so important that these rights be based upon whatever our nature is. I demand contradictory rights as part of my nature! (I also demand that you refuse me those rights.)
Well then allow me to elaborate on my position or, rather, assert it in the first place as I may have been somewhat ambiguous about my explanation. I'll translate it into bullet points for you so there's no confusion.
-Life is where I begin, we are alive only in the sense that we are conscious, I see nothing about life that is unique other than the development of the conscious mind. All life that is not conscious is simply a series of chemical reactions that exhibit certain rare proporties. Rare properties =/= valuable life. Real value in life comes from the thoroughly unique property of thought as this is all that distinguishes life from non-life.
-The nature of life (the basis for the nature of man) is, according to my previous point, that of a thinking, conscious being. As the basis of the value of life is such cognition, that cognition is the most important moral concern in my opinion. Not only does consciousness lead, by it's own presence, to value, but also to autonomy, for acting as an entirely free agent is exclusively the result of cognition, as autonomy can be considered nothing more than free cognition and acting on the decisions that we form through free cognition (as our action is based on the thoughts and motivations we derive from cognition). That is to say, autonomy is cognition and it's respective action, upon which nothing is enforced by an external individual or faction. Thus autonomy is the freedom of this cognition, which I have already asserted to be the single value of life.
-Having asserted that cognition is the value of life and autonomy is a form of free cognition, we must now ask the question 'so what? there are other forms of cognition, such as reasonable desire etc'. In answer to this I find only one necessary response, autonomy should be the basis for moral determination simply because it is the epitome of cognition. That we say that autonomy is the epitome of cognition relies on what was shown in the last point, that autonomy is simply free cognition. In this we see that autonomy is the very purest form of cognition, as otherwise there is some infringement on cognition itself, if we are forced to think or act in a way then we do not cognate or act other than we would according to our internal free cognition is to act contrary to the single valuable aspect of life, meaning that we are acting against the value of life itself. To put it simply, autonomy is the act of, and the result of, free cognition, to impose on autonomy any form of control (either in it's cognitive basis or it's resultant act) is to violate the fundamental value of life and so cannot be considered anything but immoral.
[there's a bit here about animals and the movement from this assertion of the moral value of cognitive and active autonomy to actual living stuff but basically: -Animals demonstrate cognition and may be assumed to thus be subject to the right to autonomy -As well as the deduction that humans are animals, we have first-hand knowledge of human cognition, thus we can say almost irrevocably that we should not violate autonomy in any circumstances.]
Thus, I would conclude that autonomy is the founding right upon which moral judgements should be made as it is the foundation of the value of life in it's purest form (a long-winded and kind of intricate process reaching this conclusion but I assert nothing other than the first point, at least I don't think so)
Quote:Just why do you think that it isn't in the nature of man to enslave our fellow man? If our history is to be of any use to us in this endeavor then I can confidently say that "the nature of man" isn't something I'd turn to when sourcing authority for rights, or arguing why any given right is a good idea, at least not if I had an alternative. Keep in mind that I'm a huge fan of man...lol.
Once again you have misunderstood me but I did not make it clear enough, I think I explained it best above. But to recap, man is a cognitive animal and we should not violate that autonomy because of the above points. Furthermore, if you insist on looking at morality from a subjective, the autonomy of an individual represents their desires based on a whole range of internal factors, not a single one as focused on in utilitarianism. Thus it seems that we are considering a totality whereas the utilitarian would be looking too narrowly at pleasure alone, or the situationist at love etc.
The rest of your rant about human nature has been removed because it rests on the misunderstanding we had, while I do very much agree with you. I wasn't advocating natural law but rather drawing the most fundamental rights from the nature of true life itself, of which humanity is a part and thus included in the inviolable rights.
Religion is an attempt to answer the philosophical questions of the unphilosophical man.
