Rafael wrote:
Use of wealth for any purpose can be argued to be a destructive, correct. That is the argument of consumerism versus investment. The question can't be answered by a man, or a group of men, but it can be answered by the actions of a market.
I'm not pretending harm isn't bad, nor am I disagree defining harm as bad. My mistake, when I said self harm in that case, I meant strictly in the sense that there is some biological standard of damage that qualifies. In this regard, why should anyone but the person self-consenting to it determine whether or not it's "harmful" (in the biological sense) or bad?
Because whether it's harmful in t he biological sense is not up for determination. It is. If you do the same thing to an animal, it's harmed. All you're doing is relying on the ability of human beings to make a claim contrary to reality to say they have the ability to determine if harm is bad, when they really do not.
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Where did I say that? All I said is a personal choice is a personal choice and a choice of that nature isn't inherently "harmful" or "bad" or "non-harmful" or "not-bad". If we say that harm is something which someone doesn't want to be subjected to, then that means self-harm cannot occur because that would make no sense. But I do not mean to speak to that capacity, not in that particular case.
The circular argument is underlined. You're trying to
show that the personal choice to harm onesself is not necessarily bad. You can't argue that it therefore isn't necessarily bad because whether it's bad or not is up to the individual.
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Incorrect, it is my view you are being sullied and distracted by the small scope in which physical biological damage is considered harm, yet I perceive harm to encompass a much broader and equally important scope. That is why I'm using both definitions. For example, we talked about unhealthy obsession with gaming which has other consequences than just biological health related ones. But ultimately, I realize that when you say harm to mean biological, physical damage, I am forced to accept that of course, self-harm is obviously a possibility. But I do not find it harmful in the general sense, because I view that harm is something which is determined by consent and I find this to be more important than preventing someone, no matter what his conditions, from physically damaging himself.
No
we aren't talking about about broader scope of things that might be considered harm under more "generic" as you like to claim, definitions. You're talking about those things. I'm only talking about biological damage, which, by it's nature is harm to the actual
self, and is generally very difficult or impossible to reverse. My opinion isn't "sullied or distracted" by anything; that's what I've been addressing the whole time and
you've been trying to switch back and forth between the definitions of harm in a manner akin to the "Nothing is better than God, a cheeseburger is better than nothing therefore a cheeseburger is better than God" examples.
I know perfectly well that you think harm is defined by consent, but I've seen no actual evidence of that presented yet.
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Like I said, the only time contrary in which the law finds legal custodianship to be the case which I only would believe would occur in cases of a) children/minors b) people who formally consent to being overseen. In the cases where the State may determine someone must have a caretaker, that is at odds with what I outlined above.
Which is absurd, and flies in the face of reality. Normal, healthy people go to great lengths to avoid mutilation; when people do engage in self mutiliation they frequently are also willing to do it to other with or without consent, and people who suffer accidental, injurious, or medically necessary amputation require significant efforts to both mentally and physically cope with the consequences. A person willing to inflict those consequences on themselves in the first place is demonstrating incompetance to make their own decisions and exercise their own rights. It is the responsibility of government; specifically of the courts, to determine their incompetance and assign them a caretaker.
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Which it does, and there's no substantial difference. If you invent a difference, it's only so you can place your particular views in some sort of elevated distinction above the same arguments you find detestable, but are ultimately not different an any substantial way.
Except that it creates no such slippery slope (spurious, fallacious reasoning) and the fact of the matter is that I've demonstrated it to be different and you're just pretending I haven't based on the conclusions you're trying to arrive at. I've seen nothing from you but circular argument and begging the question.
In fact, if such a slippery slope would occur, it would be only a short time before almost everyone was determiend incompetant, grew tired of it, and disposed of the few morons who tried to extend such concepts in such an absurd and impractical fashion. It really doesn't matter if such a slippery slope is possible in theory because it is self-correcting in reality.
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We happen to live in a society where personal liberties, exceptions being noted in The Constitution, are the basis for law in our society.
And that same society has determiend that people can be found incompetant to exercise their rights. You're committing a stolen concept fallacy; you want to recognize society's ability to determine that we will have rights but reject the limitations society attaches to those same rights.
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What you mean to say is you don't agree with it, because logically it makes perfectly, simple sense.
No it doesn't. It's a circular argument. It's just saying that if you chose to harm yourself it isn't harm because it's a choice. It's nonsensical.
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It's not adherence to philosophy for its own sake. The fact is, we live in a society where personal liberties and rights of the individual are maximized by the framework of our Ultimate Law. So it's adherence to the philosophy of the framework that our society is structured around.
Except that it isn't, because we do not have any such philosophy. You're ignoring the other half of it where we remove the ability of certain individuals to exercise their rights when they do things that cause them to become incompetant. All you're doing is picking and choosing the parts of the way our country works that agree with your philosophy then saying that's the way things actually work.