From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Jan 14 2003 - 17:03:50 MST
Lee Corbin writes:
> gts writes
>> All creatures have a natural right to struggle to better their own
>> existence, because that is what it *means* to be a living creature.
> This is a little circular, of course ;-)
Not really. If I claimed that squares have four and only four
perpendicular angles, because that is what it means to be a square, I
think you would probably reply that my argument was "a little circular."
But actually my argument would be very square. :-)
>> If you are lost and hungry in the desert then you have a natural
>> right to kill and eat rattlesnakes. But don't be fooled into
thinking
>> rattlesnakes don't also have a natural right to defend themselves.
>
> Then why doesn't everything we do---since we are biological
> organisms---fall under this rubric?
It does.
> E.g., Adolph Hitler had
> a natural right to feed upon all his countless victims. We
> are, after all, speaking scientifically here.
Hitler's victims had a natural right to defend themselves. It's a damned
shame that they were denied their rights to do so.
As I wrote in the message to which you are replying, the world is
inherently unjust. But the injustice of the world does not imply the
non-existence of natural rights.
>>> For example, it's not been found in our DNA
>>
>> On the contrary, it is the very essence of our DNA.
>
> Would you therefore expect that the next robot I design,
> which flees from lights and moving objects and feeds upon
> unguarded electricity outlets to have its own "natural
> right" to that electricity? (Just as I have a natural
> right to hunt my critter down and turn it back into spare
> parts?)
Yes.
It would be part of its nature to seek electricity outlets to survive.
No organism, organic or inorganic, need make excuses for pursuing its
own survival.
At the same time, organisms in need of that same electricity source
would have a natural right to defend their access to it.
> So then we can find in my computer code that natural right
> just as we find in DNA our natural right? Preposterous.
I see nothing preposterous about it.
-gts
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