h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

But what if those people then find that they have fun by raping women, or men? Or small furry animals? Should they still be encouraged to do it?

And oh yes, I know my title is a bit odd for a Freedom From Faith Foundation, but nobody sharing a common faith is surely indistinguishable from nobody having any faith at all - and that's a situation that's utterly impossible. Certainly if you want any kind of mental health in anyone anyway.

"people who infringe on it [a good life] carelessly or purposely are evil." - This covers the rapist types. Since they are evil, they must be removed from our presence... preferably to very small, overcrowded rooms where they can rape each other.

Methinks I spy another row about "faith" in the works...

Children only have the ability to say what they want, if they have been tought to do so. And even then it can be very difficult for them, if the abusing person (m or f) has had long enough contact, makes enough promisses, and makes it clear to the child that something realy DANGEROUS will happen, if it tells any adult, friend etc. what he or she is up to on the line of sex. You would be surprised to what methods pedophiles go to so they can have what they believe is their right to "fun".

For us clear thinking, and welldisposed-to-people kind of persons, it may well be easy to respect what children want, but that can turn into a trap for children who suffer of hyperactivity, depressions, anorexia and the lot.

What a child wants and what it needs can also be two different things. Look at the amount of toys and television kids want. And the people who freely give them what they "want" don´t see, what selfish brutes might come out of the process, and what they need sums up to a whole lot of things.

Oh true. I didn't get everything I wanted when I was a kid and I think it was better for me. Now I never expect to get anything I want so getting it (if I do) is a really nice thing... I can live without buying six new CDs every week.

Children who are used to be told what to do and who have unhappy parents are very more likely to be influenced by people doing them harm. But children who are used to be treated as persons are able to articulate their likings and dislikings very well. One should of course allways distinguish between human rights on one hand and social and economical considerations on the other. For example, there is a right to decide what and when to eat. But children are forced to eat according to the timesheet and tastes of their parents. So children learn early that their own will is neglected. It is sometimes very difficult to see whether it is a question of individual rights or of social behavour: Three people cannot force the 4. to eat what they like in the name of democracy, but a child cannot have every toy she/he wants and must learn to behave socially.

Democracy is often misunderstood as a ruling of the majority. As a matter of fact, democracy has the purpose to secure human rights of the individual.

It's wierd. There is no one way to correctly do anything as far as I can see. Everything appears to have its own advantages/disadvantages. Thus everyone should be able to use the method that works best for them... it's a shame this probably isn't possible. People will always try to work against each other in certain situations. Curse the instincts evolution hasn't gotten rid of yet!

The place I work at has exactly what you said as the basic philosophie: There is no one way to correctly do anything. We believe, that children grow up in a set enviroment, and that they learn to adapt to this surrounding. In the therapies offered by our firm (we´re not a non-profit social organisation) we take a look at the people and institutions concerned with the child. Sometimes we find out, that the whole family has advantages of a bad behavior of the child: Parents do not need to adapt, the school has a child they can blame for the malfunctioning of a class, the child can get toys s/he wants, a brother or sister can continue with her role as the lovely little child that does no harm. And if you look close enough behind the curtain, you can find so much shit stinking in the family for generations, you ask yourself how things could ever change.

And the remadies we perscribe, are not allways what you expect. Sometimes, you just have to let people continue with their "bad behavior", because we as professionals have to accept, that we cannot change a thing.

To return to the first point: We also have to try out certain things on a trial and error basis, as there is never a garantee the concerned familie will react in the same way as the "Smiths and Meyers" before.

Sounds very sensible actually.

Sounds like you are doing a hard work!

But I wouldn't want to leave the impression that my view of life is: everybody can do everything.

Quite on the controrary, what I wanted to say is: You have to respect human rights.

Wonko wrote:

"You have to respect human rights."

Two questions:

1. If there are human rights, what are the corresponding duties?

2. Is it human rights we should respect, or our fellow humans?

Pattern-chaser

The duties are: to respect the human rights of every single person.

The human rights are written rules on how to respect our fellow human at a minimum.

But they should be based in common sense.

Respecting your fellow humans is one of the most important things there is. Everyone should respect everyone else. The amount of total lack of this I see every day sends my head spinning. It's astounding.

Aren't you proud of how I've managed to avoid plugging my entry on ethics for so long? http://www.h2g2.com/A468920 http://www.h2g2.com/F48874?thread=87220

Hi Wonko,

I asked what are the duties corresponding to human rights. You responded "The duties are: to respect the human rights of every single person." This seems tautological to me.

Duties and rights cannot meaningfully or morally exist apart from one another, IMHO. It is only because duties exist that rights can be justified, and vice versa: doing your duties earns you your rights; your rights are your reward for doing your duties.

So what are the duties that go with these human rights? Put another way: what must I do to earn my 'human' rights?

Please don't misunderstand - I'm all for human rights. The question I ask is one that *I* would like the answer to, even if no-one else was interested.

Pattern-chaser

Lucinda wrote: "Aren't you proud of how I've managed to avoid plugging my entry on ethics for so long?"

No! If you'd plugged it earlier, I'd've read it earlier.

Pattern-chaser

Hi Pattern-chaser! Thanks for your reply.

Now it's going to get a little bit complicated. The basis for everything are our genes. According to them, as far as I see, we are a social breed, living together and needing fellows. And, even more, needing a warm environment to live and grow in. And that includes touching, giving our fellows a good feeling so they can build up a form of self confidence.

In social societies people learned to live together somehow, but we are quite a way from this warm environment. Some people felt the need for common basis and worked on some rules which, if acted upon by everyone, could provide a basis. Most democratic conventions declare that everybody has these human rights just from their birth on and should respect the rights of others.

So to say, the human rights are rights and duties at the same time.

No, I also think that you cannot put the two in one pot. We´d have to write a "human-duties-charta" as well. Social duties are dependant on the political system: It is our dutie to pay taxes, if we aren´t clever enough to fiddle the books. There is always a sociaty watching you when it comes to proclaiming duties in general. What is seen as human rights are also dependent of the sociaties who define them. You get to hear the chinese opinion on human rights regularly on german radio, as an example how difficult it is to say "these rights are valid everywhere". In china (so it seems to me) the wellbeing of the sociaty ( or is it nation or social groop) comes before the individual rights. We come up looking at individual cases, where human rights are violated, but they see it as a right to violate the rights concerned, as the groop is more important than the individual.

But looking at my surounding: what would I see as human duties:

at home: Cleaning the loo, sitting down when I pee(Woops, this is a male duty ), making sure there is something to eat on weekends, get rid of the junk, fill up the spending money...

In general: be sociable, make sure I live an independent life, get politicaly invold, in germany you have to stand up, when neonazis go around vandalising, terrorising foreigners, work, drive carefully, and so on...

Now that I have written this, it seems to me very difficult to define general human duties. They are far to dependent on the social system you are living in, and there are a number of human rights, that make it difficult to enforce certain duties, as we are people with a free will. So we can opose to duties other enforce, it just may follow in our heads being chopped of, when we´re in the wrong society...

the paragraph about vandalising and terrorising could be misinterpreted in the way I wrote it. It´s not a dutie to terrorise foreigners, but a duty to do some kind of work.

Our fundamental rights should be earned - how so? By allowing others these rights.