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Messages - haoruli

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General Discussion / Re: Online Comments (You should have 4 total by the end)
« on: July 19, 2019, 02:37:05 pm »
The topic that whether animals have rights can derive many questions. I think it is crucial to answer the question that should some animals have rights on the basis of complex thought? Personally, I think the answer is yes. Animals should have rights on the basis that they can think and feel pain. Human beings are complex evolved creatures who are accorded rights on the basis that they can think and to feel pain. Many other animals are also able to think (to some extent) and are certainly able to feel pain. Therefore, non-human animals should also be accorded rights, e.g. to a free and healthy life and safety.

What is more, should animals be given rights on the basis that humans have rights? According to Darwin’s Origin of Species we have can know that human beings are related by common descent to all other animals. We suppose to consider animals as same lives as human beings that have rights.

In conclusion, generally animals have rights in the sense that human beings are animals.

Haoru Li

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General Discussion / Re: Online Comments (You should have 4 total by the end)
« on: July 17, 2019, 02:44:08 am »
I agree Xiaoyu’s opinion about Aldous Huxley's Brave New World: a new world that there is a high level of material civilization, and everything is automated, and people don't worry about food and clothing and enjoy the most comfortable life. She points out the question that can the human beings living in this world really be called "human beings" when a person's desire is satisfied. She quotes Huxley’s idea that the world without independent thoughts has no freedom, the measure of life is not the human body, but the existence of self-consciousness. Pursuing the satisfaction of sensory desires blindly, the so-called ideological beliefs are also inculcated by the rulers, having no self-will, such existence cannot really be called "human".
It is true that people are just a machine that has a human body and educated in batches without personal interest and self-will. This can be related to paternalism. Paternalism is the interference of a state or an individual with another person, against their will, and defended or motivated by a claim that the person interfered with will be better off or protected from harm.
If the government makes all decisions for their citizens, it will create a society just like Huxley's Brave New World which human-beings will exist without meaning.

Haoru Li

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General Discussion / Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
« on: July 12, 2019, 10:47:54 pm »
I would like talk about Paternalism. On Dworkin pp. 385-400, we can know that paternalism is the interference of a state or an individual with another person, against their will, and defended or motivated by a claim that the person interfered with will be better off or protected from harm. The issue of paternalism arises with respect to restrictions by the law such as anti-drug legislation, the compulsory wearing of seat-belts, and in medical contexts by the withholding of relevant information concerning a patient’s condition by physicians.
I think paternalism involves limitation on the freedom or autonomy of some agent. Many government measures aimed at changing the behavior of individuals entail some level of coercion. That is, they require governments to restrict the choices of their citizens in certain areas. It indicates that the government is better able to make decisions in a person’s interests than the person themselves which is contradicted with the idea that the individual is best placed to know what is in his or her interests.
In my opinion, it is better for individuals to be able to exercise choice because this enables them to cultivate and exercise moral autonomy. And, where the state does intervene in people’s lives, taking away their ability to make their own choices, undermines their ability to learn from their mistakes and to develop as morally responsible citizens.

Haoru Li

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General Discussion / Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
« on: July 05, 2019, 10:26:10 pm »
I would like to talk about the right of abortion. In the textbook, Mary Anne warren points out that the debate over the moral status of abortion is that the term `human’ has two distinct, but not often distinguished, senses. Since it is wrong to kill innocent human beings, and fetuses are innocent human beings, so it is wrong to kill fetuses. However, does fetuses have the same rights as human beings? What characteristics entitle an entity to be considered a person? From the concept of humanity in the moral sense, a human being must have consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, the capacity to communicate and the presence of self-concepts. Obliviously any of these conditions above cannot be applied to fetuses. In this way I would say fetuses do not have equal rights as normal human beings. A more interesting thing is that abortion is not an isolated moral issue, it can be related to euthanasia. Imagine a situation of an infanticide case. The fetus is diagnosed with a disease that will kill him after a year or two with great pain. An infant is born with such severe physical anomalies that its life would predictably be a very short. It will be better to let fetus not suffer by euthanasia. It can be immoral to practice involuntary euthanasia on persons, since they have the right to decide for themselves whether they wish to continue to live. However, infants are incapable to make their own choices and end that suffering in the most humane way.

Haoru Li

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