OK NOW IT IS SO CLEAR wrote:
So a one year old is not a person and has no rights.
OK, I can live with that.
Actually, come to think of it, a sleeping (non dream state) person (oops, can't say that - human being) has no will either. So we each have no rights during periods of each night. Not sure I can live with that.
Wait a minute, did you say "rational"? OK, none of my kids are persons and quite often my wife is not.
Man, this just keeps getting easier. Looks like nobody is really a person with any rights. (except me of course, purely rational, 100% independent - and never, ever asleep).
The rest of you, be scared. Be very, very scared.
A few obvious points:
Ummm. The fact that an entity or being does not have rights does not mean that "anything goes" with respect to that entity. There are lots of good reasons to make laws to protect non-rational agents, including fetuses. But the entire concept of rights is based on a social contract--and in order to sign the contract you need to be a person, a rational agent.
Obviously we act irrationally sometimes. And I agree with you that the whole metaphysics here is very suspect and might have some negative effects. But it is the metaphysics that grounds our system of government and actually underwrites this whole conversation, for better or for worse, as soon as the concept of rights are invoked as justification.
You can dispute the whole idea of a will, as one poster did. But if you throw out the idea of a will, you also throw out the "antiquated" idea of a right. These two concepts were born together.