All right then Anse…

You didn’t like my previous question, I guess. Honestly, I’m not that surprised. I’ve found that very few people on your side of the fence appear to be interested in answering it. Easier simply to carry on, I guess.

So here are a few other questions that perhaps you’ll find more interesting:

You say that you extend rights to your fellow humans who are not disabled or imprisoned because you recognize their innate ability to understand and reciprocate your behavior. You also say that even though disabled humans who don't have the ability to understand and respect the rights of others have no right as such not to be abused, we choose not to abuse them because we recognize them as fellow humans. I presume you mean to say that we should choose not to abuse them. You’ve also said that our “common sense of decency” should be enough to give animals – and impaired humans too I gather – all the protection they need from abuse. So then in your ethical scheme all creatures without rights, human and nonhuman alike, must rely for protection on our common sense of decency. Is that about right?

Assuming I’ve gotten it nearly right, from what do you think this common sense of decency derives? How shall we quantify and define it? What principles shall we extract from it and how should we apply them? From what I can see, common sense of any kind is far from being uniformly distributed or universally recognized.

To put it another way, what compelling reason do I have in your ethical scheme to do other than as I like to any being who can’t retaliate against me or benefit me in some way? Let’s assume for the moment that I don’t have to fear opprobrium or retribution from my fellow citizens. If I recognize that another can neither harm me nor help me, why shouldn’t I do with him or her just as I please, within the bounds of my own personal sense of decency anyway?

It seems to me that one advantage of speaking in terms of “rights” is that most everyone recognizes that issues involving rights are taken seriously and usually involve fairly strictly defined responsibilities and limitations on one’s actions as well as liberties.

Cheers.