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Author | Topic: Rights of Nature? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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dronester writes:
I don't believe in personifiying nature in either direction. I believe in exploiting nature to the fullest. Of course, that means in a sustainable way, so that future generations can continue to exploit it in a sustainable way (what Phat might understand as "good stewardship). If it was merely a binary choice, I would think worshiping nature would be better than attacking nature. Recognising the "rights of nature" would put its needs in competition with our own needs. Ultimately, it would only motivate us to find clever new ways to exploit those "rights" while convincing ourselves that we weren't.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
dronester writes:
Correct. The battle is already lost. At best, we can hope to salvage something from the defeat. ... you are sounding like a defeatist. All I can suggest is blood, sweat, toil and tears. Granting "rights" to nature is certainly not a solution.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
dronester writes:
Then why not skip the silly rhetoric and talk about society's rights?
Giving rights to nature isn't so much about protecting nature, it is about protecting society from companies that poison our environment.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
You'd have to have different bounds for gorillas and guinea worms, wouldn't you?
And I'm asking why we can't as a society decide to apply the same sort of 'limited bounds' to a non-human entity (e.g in this case a gorilla) that we do to other humans?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
Sure, and for millions of species, we can set millions of different standards - or we can categorize. I personally like to categorize by the number of legs. Two-legged species get the most rights. Four-legged species are for eating - but we treat them well until we eat them. Six-legged species are on shaky ground, rights-wise and any species with more than six legs is just begging to be killed on sight. Of course, legless creatures such as fish (eat) and snakes (kill) have to be shoehorned in arbitrarily. I say we can ultimately confer rights on whatever we deem to be worthy of moral consideration. The more moral consideration we bestow the greater the rights we are likley to confer.
But you're not really on topic, are you? The question isn't whether "should" we "give" "rights" to "nature". It's how we can treat nature in a way that's most convenient for us.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
onifre writes:
I don't recognize that nature has inherent rights to live unimpeded. The lion impedes on the zebra and th zebra impedes on the grass. We have a responsibility not to impede on either one too much. But are we responsible to "nature" or to our own offspring?
Isn't it better to say that we recognize that nature too has inherent rights to live unimpeded and so we create laws to see to it that this fundamental principle (my words) is protected? onifre writes:
Yes. We recognize rights when it's convenient. I recognize your right not to be punched in the face and in return you recognize mine. The social contract is full of such arbitrary reciprocal granting of "rights". Is it arbitrary like you guys are suggesting, that we create rights then assign other things these rights? We also pontificate about rights such as equality when we don't mean it.
onifre writes:
And my socks have a degree in Art History.
... you're all super smarty pants....
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Catholic Scientist writes:
Anything that's edible automatically loses some rights.
ringo writes:
But chicken is delicious! Two-legged species get the most rights.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
onifre writes:
Well, that hasn't happened yet.... First, we recognized their right not to be bought and sold like a hammer. Then we recognized their right not to be lynched for looking at white girls. Then we recognized their right to use the same drinking fountains. Some of those great leaps forward were made because it was more convenient than putting up with boycotts, etc. If we had just issued a blanket recognition of their right to equality, based on principle, we could have done it in one step (and gotten further than we are now).
How was it convenient to recognize black people had the right to be treated as equal individuals? onifre writes:
So we, the people, just woke up one morning and said to ourselves, "Hey, the rights of black people are being infringed on. Well, we can't have that any more." More so, wasn't the matter on civil rights that we recognized the fact that the rights of black people were being infringed on? I don't think so. That realization comes one person at a time for individual reasons. One person grows up with the maid's kid as his best friend and he says to himself, "This guy should be able to sit beside me on the bus." Another person's maid doesn't show up for work and she says to herself, "We have to change the rules on buses so I don't have to do my own housework." And another person in an ivory tower says to himself, "We have to treat black people equally because it's the right thing to do." There are probably more ebony maids than ivory towers.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
dronester writes:
Of course we do. It isn't murder if the victim is wearing a different uniform. It isn't muder if he's about to kill a child. Are you really suggesting that all homicides should be treated the same? Really?
Do we really need to "make up" rules/laws for certian ideas, like murder or rape? Really?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
dronester writes:
No problem. If she said, "Yes," it isn't rape. If she changes her mind and doesn't testify against hm, it isn't rape. Okay, now make a similar argument for rape. Now will you withdraw your silly question?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
dronester writes:
Nonsense. Your own definition says, "the unlawful compelling...." When it's lawful it's lawful and when it's unlawful it's unlawful. When it's compelling it's rape and when it's not compelling it's not rape. The victim can change her mind about whether or not she was compelled and about whether or not she's a victim. It's all relative. What you described wasn't rape. Edited by ringo, : Fixed quote.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
onifre writes:
If you say to George, "I'll meet you at noon," and he doesn't show up until three, you tend to conclude that he came at his own convenience instead of the prescribed time. If people "deserve" certain rights but they aren't granted untill a century later, that suggests that the convenience of the granters had higher priority than the "need" of the grantees. How would that be convinient? You said rights are given when it's convinient. How would the above be convinient? How would the delay be explained except by convenience/inconvenience?
onifre writes:
I think not. You can't speak up until you have the right to speak up. First, some white people decided that black people "should" have rights - but nothing was actually done about it until it became convenient for a significant number of white people.
First, black people made it clear that their rights were being infringed on by saying that very thing. It took time for that concept to spread to, I feel, many people today. I certain recognize that.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
onifre writes:
Let's put it another way then: You are given the "privilege", if you prefer, not to have your inherent rights infringed on. It makes no sense to say "You're not free because we haven't given you that right." That is not a right someone can give you. I can give you a piece of cake or I can give you the opportunty to eat the piece of cake you already have. Either way, you only get the cake that I let you have.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tempe 12ft Chicken writes:
Not unlike flint knapping. ... the chimpanzees break off the stick and then use their teeth to fashion one end into a point. (I find it ironic that we can sit here in front of our silicon marvels and still be impressed by flint knapping.)
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