Thanks for the input Hexis.
Early in the post you mention that a mentally ill child should be disposed with because he will never have the potential to function in a sound manner.
Yet a healthy child should not be disposed with because he does have the potential to function in a sound fashion.
I do believe there is some merit to this claim. However, from the legal standpoint, only things that exist can be considered, potential means by definition what could be, and not what is.
In summary, from the standpoint of the law, a healthy child and a retarded are on the same level because both lack the ability to function intellectually. This will change later of course when the healthy child acquires the ability to do so and the retarded does not.
Another interesting claim you make...
But at the same time he should NEVER be considerd property, and NO ONE other than me or his mother WILL have the right to decide these things for him, ever!:.
My point was exactly this. The child is private property of the mother and father. Only they can decide if he can be killed before a certain age. In relation to my previous comments, we should note that it would be prudent of a parent to refrain from killing a healthy child and killing a 'vegetable' child for the reasons you mentioned. Yet the bottom line is, the parents should have the right to kill the healthy child as it is property, yet it is certainly unwise of them to do so because much benign potential is neglected as a result.
But after they are born they are most definitely human, there is no logical arguement against that, there human end of discussion. !:.
I do not see a reason to regard them as human. After they are born they have the potential to become human, or human in the regard as having the intellect to cognitively function at a level above brutes. Yet not until then.
Ok BW on another side note your are going to have to take into account that a "majority" of people (so far everyone but you) will base some decisions on emotions if not the whole of their lives. And that no matter how logical your arguements are and no matter how much sense they make, how that would no matter what be the overall best decision for everyone, your going to have to realize that we as humans are not built on logic but rather emotion and that it will never work. You might say that this is not an arguement for NFs or Feeling has no place here but then I say if it doesnt then this arguement should not even have been brought up. Cause if there is only room for cold hearted (not an insult), calculateing, logical thinkers then your arguement is already dead cause if your arguement cant grow from the input from feelers as well then whats the point. This world will always partially be ran souly by emotions and something robotic like this, no matter how logically correct, will never fly. Just like how i respect your outstanding logic and your ability to set aside your emotions for such a topic, I also demand your respect of my emotions as well as the emotions of others who are trying to have a decent debate with you. And if you fail to recognise human emotion (not only in this debate but all others) as a valid stand point for the backing of an arguement then the only thing I can say is, in the most respectful manner, fuck you BlueWing.
Overall good thread,
.
I do believe that emotion is to be regarded as a fact of human nature, or in other words it should be considered. Yet if we want to make the most rational decisions about how to deal with the world, or to know the truth for any reason, emotion is not a reliable guide. This is so because it tends to lack discipline of thought as well as rigor thereof. It is a mere reflection of our biological and psychological dispositions or instincts. I do not believe that emotion needs to be disregarded completely, but instead we should analyze emotions as carefully as possible and see what role they ought to play in our worldview and interaction with the world.
One may ask, is it justified to make decisions based on emotion? For instance, what if we just cannot help but feel the certain way, it may be unhealthy to deny this. It is not true that we cannot change how we feel about things. Quite the contrary, reason may guide emotion by giving us the proper stimulus to react to. Emotion is a psychological response to what we perceive the external world to be. When we are not thinking carefully we have an emotional response to false notions about the world. Careful, rational thinking will highlight what really exists and what is an illusion. This way our emotions will be in accord with the most rational decisions possible.
For example, I may initially feel that a man who wanders around my car at night when its parked on a driveway is a thief, based on my past experience with such situations. Yet later I learn he is just my next door neighbor passing through, after I have acquired such an intellectual realization, I should likely cease to feel the resentment and suspicion towards him that I did before I have analyzed the situation. This approach honors emotion rather than supresses it, as rational thinking allows for us to devise a way to maximize our happiness because it allows for us to interact with the world in a fashion least harmful to ourselves. As for example, it allows us to solve problems in the least tiresome and most efficient manner and as an entailment of this purges many unnecessary fears and anxieties that otherwise would be haunting us.
So, the bottom line is, I do understand the need to acknowledge that emotions are a fact of human nature, yet people who insist on making decisions on emotions without conducting logical analysis of them are in error for the reasons stated above.
Consider a child who's been classically conditioned not to speak. Like, say a parent beats their child every time they say anything. Are these children going to pass your test? No. Are they human? Yes..
Thats quite the rare case, few of which will definitely beat my system. Can't count on that one too often. So, will let it slide.
Sorry man, but you're way off base here, and you're talking about killing babies. You gotta come up with a better argument than that. ..
Hahaha
Plus, your test is so concrete and "cognitive ability" is such a complex matter --
It really is not complex because the minds of babies are simple. Consider the difference in complexity between the mind of Einstein and that of a typical philistine. It is very easy to understand the behaviors and motivations of the latter, yet not the former.
The gulf between a 2 year old baby and a typical adult human mind is much greater than that between Einstein and a philistine.
If you want to convince people, make a more full argument and the way this view would be implemented.
I am not trying to convince anyone. For optimal intellectual growth, ideas are to be pursued for their own sake.
It really is not complex because the minds of babies are simple.
Here comes Ivy with the petty logistics, but that's pretty unrealistic, BW. A child may be capable of speaking but too shy to speak to the test-giver, or simply uncooperative. Toddlers aren't known for their willingness to comply on demand.
We can make people do things they do not consciously will to by evoking their unconscious tendencies. Children tend to be very simple minded and it should be easy for a psychologist to trick them into doing something they may feel uncomfortable doing at the moment. Even the necessity for this shall be rare, as by and large small children tend to be very self-expressive.
