june

"Property rights and consent only seem to matter to the degree that there is rationality, because we don't grant them to inanimate objects."So no rationality = no property rights or consent. So i can murder a child and still be acting withinpropery rights. Or murder someone in their sleep. Or plug the on a total stranger who is in a coma." I do not agree, and adhere to a natural basis which does not shift and evaporate with all the contractual nonsense. "What does "natural basis" mean?"The unconscious person's rights exist outside rational presence "They do? But you started your paragraph with: "Property rights and consent only seem to matter to the degree that there is rationality, because we don't grant them to inanimate objects.""For sum total, yes I think NAP breach can be superceded by positive downstream effects. "This is a huge statement. And it chucks the nap through such a logical twister. If sum total negates nap breaches, does it also negate 'good actions? So if someone gifts an act of kindess, which then leads to negatice consequences (inadvertant or not), is that sum toral then considered a breach of the nap? Also, with what youve just stated in mind, how does go about determining what constitutes as a nap breach? Its like anybody who violates the nap can just say "no no, this will benefit the person in the long run. Youll see." How can anyone then use counterforce on a nap breacher when there may be unaccounted benefits in the long? They couldnt. People who wish to do so would have to wait until the 'victims' life has come to an end and then tally everything up and only then cpuld a decision be made.

"You are being obtuse, so I must ask: What is your purpose in this thread? Mine is to seek the truth."What is obtuse about me explicitly asking you for your definition of selfownership in a discussion in which you claim that selfownership is uncontestable? And you still havent defined it!!!"I'm not going to retype that entire topic to satisfy your question for that which was already provided. At the time you posted in that topic (entitled unimaginatively enough: where does self-ownership come from?), these two threads were adjacent."I read through that topic. You did not provide your definition of selfownership in it."Now, you brought up your dad's computer as if usage was the only criteria. I clarified that usage alone was not enough..."how does that fit in with your earlier statement (the one which sparked this discussion)?: "Your contesting of it is proof that it cannot be contested. Unless somebody else used your fingers to type that." Have you since recinded this statement of 'proof'?"So tell me who I'm renting my body from or withdraw the demonstrably false claim. Or argument if you prefer. I don't care of its category, just that it's false and that you don't believe you can just make false statements on a philosophy board and get to escape them by asking people what the word "the" means over and over."It was not a claim. I have nothing to withdraw as i never stated anything. You are the one claiming selfownership is uncontestable. You are the one presetenting the claim. I am merely putting your reasoning to test. I pointed out a logical flaw in your reasoning and you are responding with "yeah, well if im wrong, then whats the answer tough guy?!". You do not seem to realise that i have not stated an answer, nor eve that i have one. All i have done is apply logic to your assertation and reasoning of selfownership. All you have done is deflect from having to defend your reasoning.

Im not sure that parenting would rid completely rid this tendency, or even to a large degree. 16 year olds are young, full of life, fresh... in short, they are (can be) very attractive, and that is something i dont think you can just parent away. Wait, arent you presupposing that one party is then sexually un[i/]knowledgable? Both points fall flat wben this is taken into considereation, because 1) neither party is inexperienced, and 2) both parties have (or can) given out understqnding, adoration and experience. I dont see what your arguments have to do with age at all.

im posting through 3g and my data is limited so i cant /wont wastethe bandwidth on videos right now. I will certainly watch it when possible . Just to be clear: are you agreeing with the answers stefgives (im assumjng its one of his videos)? "Where does self-ownership come from is a discussion ongoing right here in a thread that you have participated in. If you wish to come to a definition by asking on these boards, that would be a great place to start."So th discussion we arehaving right now is no longer valid, and you are attempting to redirect it to another thread (which you have left unnamed). Why are you just suggesting this now, its like you are constantly trying skirt the act of actually defining "selfownership". Is it because you do not in fact have a definition for that which you claim to be true?Just to be clear, it was you who stated such in this thread: "Your contesting of it is proof that it cannot be contested. Unless somebody else used your fingers to type that.""In the meantime, you've made the claim that I do not own my body, so I'm asking who does. "Again, that was not a claim, it was an argument against what you stated. I mimiced exactly what you said but changed the subjects (doctor/you) so as to clearly point out a fallacy in your reasoning. You have yet to addres this fallacy. You have yet to define selfownership. You have yet to define what selfownership entails (4th time ive had to bring up this obvious matter). This discussion is futile if you - the person who claimed to hold uncontestable proof of selfownership - cannot define what selfownership as actualy is.

There is no story. It was a direct rebuttal to what you just said. You are trying to prove selfownership by the means of control, yet have not stated how control translates into selfownership, nor what selfownership actually entails. Thats the issue ; and this will be the third time i have attempted to pry the answer from you -- the previous two failed. So, once again, what are all the factors involved which grant selfownership, and once attained, what does selfownership entail?

Wait, lets not sidestep the issue at hand here -- You attempted to prove selfownership through an example and i refuted that example. Do you agree that i just pointed out a contradiction your logic? If not, what is your defense against what i just said?

and you dont own you even though youre excerising ownership over your body (as per your earlier "proof" of selfownership: "Your contesting of it is proof that it cannot be contested. Unless somebody else used your fingers to type that.)So again i ask, what are all (lets be thorough here) the factors that determine selfownership, and what then does having selfownership entail?

i didnt say you were "proposing" a moral system. But i was under the impression you have a moral system/code (whatever) that you follow yourself. Am i mistaken on this?

The question is invalid, because relative morality claims that morals subjective, so the very term "ought" or "should" implies the very thing relativity opposes - objectivity, a ceiling, universality, a "right" answer.

You know, this could just be a matter of semantics, but i shall state my case anyway. We have established that you cannot hold people morally responsible if they do not follow your moral system (if morals are considered to be relative). Therefore your moral system does not extend outwards in any objective sense, and you cannot claim "people should/shouldnt do this"; your morals can only apply to yourself, such as "i personally will not/choose not to do this".This is not a system concerning behaviour within societies, this is a system corcerning your own behaviour only. I.e., it is a personal preference.

why wouldnt they?

Thanks for your inputting your perspective into the discussion. What is interestng about your claim of moral relativism (that is, morals are not objective/universal) is that you that you cannot therefore statethat anybody is in the 'wrong' for their actions IF they do not follow your moral system. So if someones commits a murder, and they personally follow no moral system, then you cannot morally hold them accountable. This then begs the question, what is the point of relative morals? In fact 'morals' isnt even the right term anymore, i dont think, a more apt description is "personal preference". this argument is confusing. So because someone argues against self-ownership, they are actually proving self-owership. Therefore self-ownership is determined via control. So to put it another way, i am controlling my computer right now, therefore i own this computer.... even though i dont, because im using my dads computer right now. Youre attempted proof of self-ownership is therefore severly lacking. Im very interested in pursuing your argument for selfownership. But first, could you clearly define what establishes selfownershop, and what then does selfownership grant

"I would find the parents that had their kids doing that kind of thing at that age a bit suspect. "Just for clarification: you would find it suspect for someone to not initiate force upon someone elses voluntary choice?"... however there has to be some standards here. "there is -- voluntarism."For one, in the case that the four year old was having sexual relations, would they even understand what any of that even means at that stage?"What if they don't? You seem to be implying that if a person cannot wholly "understand" a topic then another person has the right to supercede their voluntarism and make a decision for them. This logic not only applies to the parent-child relationship but to all situations involving 2 or more parties (i would like to know your parameters for "understanding" by the way; is their one, or can any person with a better "understanding" of a topic supercede everyone elses voluntarism?). In the end i think what lies at the center of your objections is simple: do children have full rights of self-ownership and voluntarism, or not? You seem to be arguing 'no' (PLEASE correct me if i a mistaken; you havent outright stated this, but i sense it is has been implied), which basically means you are arguing against the concepts of self-ownership and voluntarism themselves.

Please do not bestow your argument unto me, state it yourself. I have argued my position, that is: In the context of voluntarism age is a non-issue, irrelevant. All that matters is that no party uses force unto another. Two 4 year olds, for example, could voluntary choose to engage in sexual activity (whatever kind is possible at that age) and nobody could morally argue against it. To do so would be to argue against voluntarism itself.

If you consider yourself a voluntarist then there is no sweeping "age of consent"; The time at which a person may engage in sexual activity is the time at which they voluntary choose to do so. I don't see any room for debate here.

Reputation points are signalled both to the post and poster, as far as i'm aware. And a posters low score will automatically hide their posts from view

That is true. But it must have took time and effort (that was possibly better spent elsewhere) to implement this "hide post" system in the first place. But i digress, my suggestion was merely about the idea of not hiding posts. If other people agree about the idea (or dont), then great! Feedback will have been received, and then if enough people, or the right people, show positivity toward it, then we can determine what is worth the time and effort.

personaly i cherish judging for myself what i deem to be negative or positive. Having others decide for me what gets hidden and what stays in view seems... off, for lack of a better term. As Ray H. above noted, complaining without suggestions is not really productive, so my suggestion here is to simply have every post always in view by default, and those that prefer to have posts hidden by decisions from others can enable such an option in their personal account settings. Do you think that is a fair suggesfion?

Ever since getting in to philosophy my interest in film is higher than ever, and certainly more appricative. Before i would consume film like fast food, but now i treat film like a fine meal, something that needs to be cherisbed and given tjme to be disgested, so to speak. I would recommend sticking to a time period you like (1970s are a great bet) because modern film is yet to be filitered by time and so you will run into a lot of duds. The last film i watched was "la belle noiseuse", a 1991 french film about the process of creating a pajnting and its effectz on the people invovled. The runtime was crazy, something like 4 hours , and there were only 2 or 3 locations really used, but it was seriously one of the most engaging films i have ever seen. The long takes of the artist literally drawing were so engaging. I havent had tbe urge to watch another film since, because this one is sti,l lingering in my mind

"Consent isn't a moral rule."Define "moral rule" then"and even if it was, the child does not withhold consent either."True. So at this point the parent does not know what the child-to-be's voluntary choice is, yet acts on it anyway. Its like if i saw a complete stranger in a coma and decided to pull the plug... no thouht given to what the person may actually want or not want, i just decide to make the decision for him. The difference with this scenario and having a child is that a coma person may have given some information of what to do i such a scenario, but an unborn child never has the option to do so."Stef raises his daughter completely without coercion so yes, it is possible."Maybe i should have expanded with an example. Definition of force: "make (someone) do something against their will.So how is it possible to raise a child without force? When a baby voluntaryily plays with a dangerous object and the parent takes that object away, is this not the use of force? To put it another way, would a lot of babies even make it past the age 5 without some type of force being applied in their upbringing? "Whoops, forgot to answer this. No, rape does not become morally justifiable under those circumstances."Okay. But you previously stated:"rape cannot be morally justified because any justification breaks down into contradiction."Where is the contradiction?"The person "raped" may actually understand and not consider it rape."Definition of rape: the unlawful compelling of a person through physical force or duress tohave sexual intercourse; any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person.Sounds like rape to me, by definition."These types of scenarios are generally specious because they don't exist in reality. There has never been or will never be a scenario were a person holds a threatens to kill another if they don't rape a stranger. "This is a fallacy. Just because an event has not happened in reality does not mean its logic can be dismissed (and it woildnt surprise me at all if this scenario has happe ed in history either.) You can make an argument against the scenarios logic, but to dismiss it as "it wont happen, so we lets not take it into account" is truly anti-philosphical you can take this scenario (of a person in what one may consider 'danger') to many degrees, but thr core argument is this: how is it morally justifiable to use force on a person or/and their property without their consent?

@xelent apoligies if my phrasing wasnt clear enough for you

One thing that irks me the wrong way is how posters with lots of thumbs down get automatically hidden from threads and require and manual unblocking just to reveal their data. That does not seem right. I want to see all the input, and other users opinions/thumbs up and down shouldnt be able to block me out

"I know they are differentiators, but you can always find a scenario where they do not matter, using it as a thought experiment. Property and consent are irrelevant if a person is unconscious, has stated no prior wishes, and your ability to save them from death does not demand shoving them or their property around in any way."Firstly i do realise that this is sort of a side arguement to what we are actualy discussing, but i still have to disagree. Property rihts and consent do matter in your scenarios (within the context of actually following these concepts, of course)because youre talking about a person, and a person is said to own their body. So anything you do to interfere is effecting tbese rights of property. That is inescapable. And consent factors in because how can you gauge what a persons voluntary choice is without their consent? So again i reiterate, what 'right' do you have in these scenarios to interfere with a persons property, negatively or positively, without knowing what they approve or dont approve of?"NAP as a principle can never work in an absolute sense without sum totals, because effects themselves are totals. You affect an owner's property a microscopic amount by breathing nearby, so we are really talking about significant aggregate actions, and it is best-guess how far you can connect the dots."Well put! I am not disagreeing with you here: The nap cant work without sum totals, yet sum totals contradict what it means to breach the nap. "So like if Einstein's parents were like "let's not violate NAP by creating life", then for a few more years people would have continued to incorrectly understand space and gravity. I do not see this like spanking, where there is simply no real tangible upshot. "What if someone got spanked as a child and detested the experience so much that they vowed to not let bad experiences get to them anymore and went on the live a happy life ; or to put it another way: can bad experiences (such as being the victim of a nap breach) have positive downstream effects, and thus be validated by sum total? okay, thanks for the clarification"rape cannot be morally justified because any justification breaks down into contradiction."What if someone held a gun to your head and said "rape a stranger or die", is rape then morally justifiable?"If you can show a valid moral rule that childbirth violates then you've shown it cannot be morally justified."Consent. A child does not consent to being born, the parent forces that decision unto it. What is your response to this argument?" Justifications for having a child do not violate any such moral rule. There's no coercion involved and no violation of universality. "Okay, lets skip the process of having a child (for now) and examine the process of raising a child. Definition of coerce: "To bring about by force or threat"Definition of force: "make (someone) do something against their will.(Please comment if you have a problem with these definitions)I ask you: do you believe it is possible to raise a child without a single use of coercion?

As a general note i want to point out that its tiring to see responses, in which there is possibility of a lot of worthy content for discussion, be guarded by undefined terms and thus basically impossible to respond to properly."There's nothing morally wrong with harm. The only harms that are immoral are those that cannot be morally justified. "Please define "morally jusifiable", as specificably as possible.

"Yes there are those differences, but I mean to put them aside for argument sake. "They cannot be put aside as they are the fundamental differentiators of the argument. "Imagine if there is an unconscious person inside a burning building, a person floating face down in a lake, or lying on a railroad track, etc. Do you automatically violate NAP by rescuing them, either conveying them from the danger (or calling for others to act), knowing everything that subsequently follows will include bad stuff in their newly-extended lifespan?"It depends on what your definition if the nap is. As i said, if consent is required for any possible violation, and you have such consent, then resecuing the person from your scenarios would be in-line with the nap. However, if you do not have consent then you are making decisions for them. for example, what if this person CHOSE or WOULD LIKE TO REMAIN in the positions of your scenarios? If you act to intervene then it is YOU making a decision FOR THEM, which is the total oppoisite of voluntarism / allowing people to make their own decisions, i.e you are using force -- and i wont even go into the topic of consent because when taken into consideration it makes the nap even more convoluted than it is already is, in the sense of logic.as for the rest of your post, it really is a matter of definitions. If you want to define the nap by your equation then thats okay, but i am generally addressing the standard definition of the nap:("Aggression, for the purposes of NAP, is defined as the initiation or threatening of violence against a person or legitimately owned property of another. Specifically, any unsolicited actions of others that physically affect an individual's property or person, no matter if the result of those actions is damaging, beneficial, or neutral to the owner, are considered violent or aggressive when they are against the owner's free will and interfere with his right to self-determination and the principle of self-ownership.")So your equation, going by tbe standard definition, is not actually following tbe nap. Because sum totals are not recongised. Violating a persons property rights by going against their free wikl = breaking the nap. With your definition/equation you account for sum totals, and so many things, such as spanking, could be brushed aside as not violating tbe nap, because the sum total of the child is positive (i have read many accounts of people who appriciate that they were spanked, or dont view it that negatively in retrospect, for example).