Your right to life is not separated from your right to defend that life.
 

What do you think?

The same right, or two different rights which infringe on each other?

I believe they are two separate rights. Call them inalianable rights if you like.

I believe that you have the right to life, but that when your life is put in danger, you have to choose if your life is more important than the person who is putting your life in danger. In effect, you must decide if your right to defend your life is more important than the other persons right to live - if it comes to a mortal struggle.

For example, acts of heroism occur every day. That is one person putting someone else's right to life above their own. Often this involves the hero not being in a position to defend their own life because they have put the needs/rights of another person above their own.

If you don't have the right to defend yourself, then you're living only at the mercy of others.

Of course you have the right to defend yourself. You also have the right to choose how you do so. You have the right to choose if you do so at all, or if you put the rights of others above your own.

My question is not whether you do or do not have the right to defend yourself. It's whether it's separate from your right to live or not.

For example, just because someone kills you doesn't mean you didn't have the right to live. It just means you're now dead.

If you had acted on your right to defend yourself, then you might not be dead, or you might still be dead.

Just because you don't achieve your desirable outcome by excercising your right/s doesn't mean you never had them.

None of that changes my answer - they are the same right. Your own personal beliefs and ethics may dictate your actions, but that's not what you asked about.

I voted true, because. If I have a right, I have the right to defend it. IMHO bb

when someone chooses to threaten your life, they implicitly put their rights above yours. self defense of your right to live by any and all means available is the only logical response. you seem to have overlooked that little item.

That's true Jim, but I didn't overlook anything. In fact, I've posted almost exactly the same scenario in another thread.

The issue is not whether either is a right. It's whether you can separate them or not.

What about pacifists who choose not to defend themselves? Are they excercising their right not to defend themselves rather than not excercising their right to life.

a pacifist that chooses not to defend their life is deciding that being a pacifist is more important than living....it's their right to defend or not.

i think you're actually discussing the decision to act on your right...your right to defend the life that is yours by rights........it's all the same right. the choice does not effect it.

So you agree they have a right to defend themself or not?

I think I know what I'm discussing. I just don't understand why it's hard for you to understand.

Do all rights to do with the person belong to the same right? What about the right to breath fresh air? Is that the same right? Just because if you don't breath you'll die doesn't mean you've decided not breathing is more important than living. It simply means you decided not to breath as is your right, and a consequence of that is dying.

they have the right to choose to defend their right...or not, yes. it's all part of the same right to live. its a right, after all...not an obligation.

Can someone take away your life?
Can someone take away your right to life?

Can someone take away your defence of your life?
Can someone take away your right to defend your life?

Two different rights that do not infringe on each other.

I don't think it really matters as long as you die only once.

So you think the statement is false Merc? If so, can you tell me why you think that?

My rights have nothing to do with the other persons rights. Once another person makes a decision to put my life in danger, i.e. killing or harming me, it matters not to me what their rights are, my rights, at that single point, trump theirs. Someone is going to survive and it will be me. Otherwise you are just a piece of meat for the grinder of predators and criminals. I will not stand for that. The moment the other person makes the decision to do me harm they lose their right to life in my mind. No conflict there. They had a right, they lost it.

ok, I'm not saying anyone doesn't have a right to life, or a right to defend that life. I hope you understand that.

I think I know what you are getting at in this thread as well as the most recent gun thread, I just don't think it is being communicated clearly.:)

I could be wrong and you may just be wacked too!:D

Naw, not really, I just think we all disagree on this issue, among a few others and no one is going to change anyones mind based upon anything anyone says on these threads. :headbag:

Yea, it's kinda like watching a Coke commercial and switching from Pepsi.:D

I'm not exercising my right to kill in self defense. I'm just giving my attacker the maximum opportunity to exercise his right to commit suicide.*

Inspired by the soldier's motto:

*It's not my job to die for my country. My job is to give the enemy the maximum opportunity to die for his.

Not separable, no. Indeed, I'm not sure they can be distinguished each from the other. Or whether it's a distinction without a difference.

And this, Aliantha, is how I know you're a fundamentally sensible creature.

thanks UG...your good opinion means the world to me. ;)

I really think it's the difference between the two universal spiritual laws:

• Law Of Christianity: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
• Law Of LaVeyan Satanism: "Do unto others as they do unto you"

Are you gonna give your attacker the benefit of the doubt, or strike back if you can?

Those who have been adjudged to no longer be their own responsible party still have a right to life; yet, some of them may be stripped of the right to defend themselves (with only a right to be defended by others). The same can be said of some prisoners. The right to life and the right to self defense are distinct and separate in practical application. Considering that what constitutes mental incompetence and what constitutes a crime is in the eye of the beholder in power at the time, the separation between the right to life and the right to self defense becomes a distinction with a difference.

Food for thought.

Though you could use the same argument to conclude it's without a difference too, from that eye of the beholder proviso. A bit thorny, meseems.

This is exactly part of the way I think about this situation. This of course then goes to suggest that one is a natural right and the other is completely regulated by society, therefor, not natural at all. However, the impulse to defend one's life is certainly natural.

And about as inalienable as anything is likely to get. Granting for the sake of the argument that these are two rights, distinguishable, they are inextricably bound together; even the mentally incompetent and the imprisoned still possess the right of self defense -- whether they exercise it intelligently, rightly, or to proper effect or not. This is where keepers come into the picture -- they are a matter of the practical application of such right. The right to do something is not predicated upon actual competence at the doing, as this does not enter into this part of this philosophical question. It is not out of the question, though, to require competence at it, to avoid trespass upon others' rights.

One more illustration of Ringer's Paradox: a freedom restricted is a freedom preserved.

The right to self defense is itself derived from the right to life. It wouldn't make sense to have a right to self defense except against lethal threats. The keepers function [to defend those in their charge] is; also, derived directly from their dependents' right to life (and humane treatment): it is not derived from a dependents' right to self defense.

Exercising our inalienable rights is dependent upon being able to assign the appropriate derivations of social mores and laws to those rights. Playing Devil's advocate here goes to the heart of the personal security versus collective security issue in which some believe that the right to personal defense mechanisms (e.g. owning firearms) can be supplanted by collective security mechanisms (e.g. police) in the right to self defense. Your quoted statement above indirectly makes that argument for them - Q: If keepers (e.g. police, guards, health care providers ... etc.) can provide the right to self defense for some, in practical application, why not for ALL!

A: Because the right to life and the right to self defense are, IN MOST CASES, inextricably bound together.

Everything in moderation.

Well said and well thought, Boxes.