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Quote by: tman_ndsu08 I've asked this question to pro-rights people before with no response.
Say I go down to the mall and there is a man there who points a gun at me and says he's going to kill me. Does me saying to him "I have a right to live" stop him from killing me?
No.
I don't "deserve" to live. Deserving to live isn't going to stop that bullet from killing me.
I have to earn my life. I have to try to live. |
Well there is an interesting point of view. I would not want many people to hold this point of view, even less to act on it! I guess because people can hold such an idea, that is why we have laws against killing. True not everyone respects the law, but I think we will do better if most people believe others have the right to live, and none have the right to kill, except in self defense. Even when killing in self defense there best not be another option.
Like, women who have killed abusive husbands who truly are a threat to them, have to gone to prison for murder.
The samurai had social permission to kill whomever they saw fit to kill. I don't think I would like to live with this social agreement, unless I alone had this right, and could avoid the negative consequences of using it.
We have rights when we socially agree on them. Cultures have different ideas about what our rights are, but whatever a culture decides, it is a socially enforced right, or a socially enforced taboo. It is as real as putting your hand on a hot burner will burn. The society makes it so.