Do we own our own lives? A discussion on the morality of suicide and voluntary slavery.

[genkaus]

Not actually a conclusion or argument I offered now is it? I'm not looking to establish an argument for any given right, just offering some insight into a way in which one right can be weighed against another (particularly by reference to where their basis might be in relation to the basis of other rights). Whether or not we -should- use such a system for determining what right might overrule or lesson the importance of another would be a different issue entirely. IMO, however, this was one of the more robust ways I can recall having it explained to me.

Our experience of self is the "thing" we refer to when we discuss a right to self determination. I wouldn't say that our experience in and of itself makes a compelling argument for that right but without it it the notion becomes nonsensical (as do notions of rights at all, granted). As I said, we'd probably need to add more before we started an argument (as far as that argument goes I like the utilitarian argument for well being). If we consider the basis for these rights as the trunk of a tree, and the rights themselves as branches, self determination will be "branching out" shortly after the section of the trunk we call "self". We may want to add something, like self awareness or sapience (and by and large people do add something, which might be why we end up with paradoxical readings on the extreme ends of their justifications, such as the right to self determination being granted to human beings with impaired capacities for experience- or self determination for ants) when discussing this right-but we don't have to. We could begin there.

Some things might actually branch out directly from "self" with no other consideration on that end applied -we do justify some rights on that basis alone (and those generally are the rights we extend to the animal kingdom)...and they're also rights which we still recognize even when we revoke the right to self determination here in the real world. For example, neither livestock nor prisoners have the right to self determination (granted it's generally a temporary and conditional revocation in the case of prisoners) but we do not feel that we have the right to cause either undue harm or pain. We take the experience of self as the basis, weigh that against a value judgement of those experiences (particularly those experiences which we would not wish-to-experience ourselves) and we put a wall between "self" and imposition of pain(or any of those negatively valued experiences) - that wall being a "right".

Now, the reason I offered the above is to demonstrate a way in which a right - having to leverage less in the way of justification (and possibly being part of the justification for the next right)- can be set against some other right which we might consider to be further up that tree. I personally think that the right we recognize in livestock or prisoners re harm/pain/ etc is very very closely situated with the right we recognize when we refer to self determination - so it makes for sticky application. If we consider three sets of rights and their justification (ignoring any others that fall on the spectrum)- and keep in mind, as I said above, I'm not looking to justify them merely to justify how we might weigh them if we take them as a given-

1. experience of self -itself- confers some rights -Livestock, prisoners, etc
2. certain experiences of self confer a more elaborate set of rights -the grumblings of self determination
3. activities that arise from certain experiences of self confer yet another set of rights (specifically with regards to the products of those activities) -the beginnings of property rights

What would it mean if 2 had the ability to abrogate 1? If your right to decide what you wanted to do entailed denying another 1? It would mean that the foundation for the very right you're attempting to leverage has been eroded.

What would it mean if 3 had the ability to abrogate 2 (or 1)?

As you said, if you could "sell" yourself as property but still retain your right to self determination you haven't actually -sold yourself into slavery as property-. If you could, then you would have denied (in this case denied yourself) a right that falls further down the tree (and so impeached your justification for the right to do so in the first place). A similar situation occurs when your right to property, or rights over property would come to odds with that elusive number 1.

Now, we do actually leverage a system similar to this when we consider legal disputes involving conflicts of 3, 2, and 1. Property rights don't extend to what would amount to a denial of the right to self determination (you can't own people-or sell yourself), and the right to self determination doesn't extend to a denial of whatever rights are conferred by "self" (you don't get to waltz around deciding to stab people or torture livestock).

[I know that was obscenely long, but I do enjoy our conversations that ring around this subject-so I couldn't help myself. Take a cleaver to the above, help me whittle it down]

The problem is, in your tree-of-self model, it is the missing connectors - the ones you refer to as "certain experiences" that make your position weak.

First of all, let me be clear on this - self-ownership is not the same as property rights. Your self-ownership is indicated by your right to life. Your self-determination is indicated by your right to freedom. Your property rights are the derivatives of one or both of these two rights.

Now you have a trunk representing "experience of self". You have a branch growing out which indicates "right to life" or self-ownership. You can see another branch indicating "right to freedom" or self-determination. Is self-ownership a branch coming out of self-determination or is it the other way around? Or are both of them connected to the trunk simultaneously and thus neither can hold primacy over the other?

The rest of your argument assumes the first choice - with the justification consisting of "certain experiences" - which could easily be used to justify other positions. For example, i could assume that the model goes like:

Trunk/Subjectivity->First Branch/sentience/right to avoid pain->Derivative branch/Self-awareness/right to life->2nd Derivative/Sapience/right to freedom->3rd derivative/rational judgment/property rights.... etc.

The problem is determining which qualities lead to which rights and why, which is the only way to justify which are more basic and thus cannot be abrogated in favor of the derivatives.

Oh I don't know, I probably wouldn't even use the phrase "ownership of life". I would make the argument that all rights should be derivative of rights on a "lower order" all stemming from the same lines of justification, sure - but I don't see the need to invoke anything other than self determination when referencing suicide, for example. I certainly don't see the need to argue that your life is your property-that you have ownership of it, for example.

Well, I don't see the need to invoke self-determination and consider self-ownership to be the sufficient argument. That in no way tells us which is the more fundamental of the two.