Who should make policy the courts or the legislators?

[PunkMaister]

Do you even realize that you are just pulling straws now? First of all we were speaking about the U.S not the colonies that preceded it, second of all when it comes to slavery centuries ago it was not Africans but prisoners of war and people from conquered nations by Rome, Greece, Persia that were slaves. An slave at that time could have been most likely blond and blue eyed just FYI.
And another thing yo ought to know is that it was the muslims who began to sold the Africans into slavery and in fact remained the biggest players in the slave trade up 'till it was abolished in all of the Americas and Europe and even then Slavery in the muslim world was not abolished until the early to mid 20th century. In Saudi Arabia alone it was abolished by the 1960s....

[Who is like God arbour]

PunkMaister:

• How do you morally evaluate a crime like genocide?
  By counting the victims?
  
  How do you morally evaluate a crime like slavery?
  By counting the victims?
  
  How do you morally evaluate a crime like eugenics (with compulsory sterilization, prohibition of marriage or reproduction or similar acts for certain individuals)?
  By counting the victims?

[PunkMaister]

PunkMaister:

• How do you morally evaluate a crime like genocide?
  By counting the victims?
  
  How do you morally evaluate a crime like slavery?
  By counting the victims?
  
  How do you morally evaluate a crime like eugenics (with compulsory sterilization, prohibition of marriage or reproduction or similar acts for certain individuals)?
  By counting the victims?

How do you even begin to explain any of this to someone like you who thinks humans have no more value than cabbage in the first place?

[Who is like God arbour]

• 1. I have never said that I think that humans have no more value than cabbage.
  2. Try to explain it.

[PunkMaister]

• 1. I have never said that I think that humans have no more value than cabbage.
  2. Try to explain it.

That is the logical progression of your position in your thread about animal rights vs Human rights whatever...

[sonofccn]

PunkMaister:

• How do you morally evaluate a crime like genocide?
  By counting the victims?
  
  How do you morally evaluate a crime like slavery?
  By counting the victims?
  
  How do you morally evaluate a crime like eugenics (with compulsory sterilization, prohibition of marriage or reproduction or similar acts for certain individuals)?
  By counting the victims?

I am afraid I am not understanding the questions you are asking PunkMaister. Are you asking why genocide is wrong or are you asking him how he can rank genocide as worse then slavery? Or is something else? Sorry for any misunderstandings.

[Cocytus]

PunkMaister:

• How do you morally evaluate a crime like genocide?
  By counting the victims?
  
  How do you morally evaluate a crime like slavery?
  By counting the victims?
  
  How do you morally evaluate a crime like eugenics (with compulsory sterilization, prohibition of marriage or reproduction or similar acts for certain individuals)?
  By counting the victims?

Realistically, I don't see how we can do otherwise. It sounds unfeeling, indeed heinous, to simply reduce each life lost to a mark on a tally sheet, but it's the only way we have to evaluate certain crimes. Which would you say is worse, the Rwandan Genocide (~800,000 killed) or the Holocaust (~6,000,000 killed). How would you evaluate either one without those numbers? How would you evaluate slave trades? The only way is to measure the number of victims. (New World slave trade: ~10,000,000. Islamic slave trade: ~18,000,000. From Encyclopedia Britannica.)

[PunkMaister]

Nihilists like Arbour are incapable of evaluating anything as everything is irrelevant anyway...

[Who is like God arbour]

• 1. I have never said that I think that humans have no more value than cabbage.
  2. Try to explain it.

That is the logical progression of your position in your thread about animal rights vs Human rights whatever...

If you would have read the mentioned thread, you would have noticed, that your conclusion is wrong. I have explicit said that I have no position:

• • If you would have carefully read that thread, you would have noticed that I have only asked questions and have stated a few facts. You will nowhere find an opinion of me.
    
    I have explicit stated that I'm only playing devil's advocate.
    
    Do you know why?
    
    Because, although I have very intensely studied that problem, I have no opinion I could really defend. The more I have studied that problem the more I've found that I don't know enough to form an educated opinion.

Nihilists like Arbour are incapable of evaluating anything as everything is irrelevant anyway...

That is certainly not my position.



And again you fail to answer only one single question. You have your opinions. But if asked to explain them, you refuse and begin to attack the questioner because you think that if he asks you something he has to disagree with you and has a diametrically opposed opinion.

If I ask you to define what a human is and how a human is different from animals and plants, it has to mean that I'm the opinion that humans have no more value than cabbage.

If I ask you to explain, how you morally evaluate crimes like genocide, slavery or eugenics, it has to mean that I think that they are all the same to me.

Another explanation, why I have asked these questions, is unthinkable to you - even if I have explicit stated another reason.

[Who is like God arbour]

PunkMaister:

• How do you morally evaluate a crime like genocide?
  By counting the victims?
  
  How do you morally evaluate a crime like slavery?
  By counting the victims?
  
  How do you morally evaluate a crime like eugenics (with compulsory sterilization, prohibition of marriage or reproduction or similar acts for certain individuals)?
  By counting the victims?

I am afraid I am not understanding the questions you are asking PunkMaister. Are you asking why genocide is wrong or are you asking him how he can rank genocide as worse then slavery? Or is something else? Sorry for any misunderstandings.

The question is not, if slavery or eugenics are more evil than genocide or if eugenics is more evil than slavery or genocide or if slavery is more evil than genocide or eugenics.

Let me rephrase my questions:

• If two parties are committing genocide, how do you judge, which party is the more evil party? By counting the victims?
  
  If two parties are committing slavery, how do you judge, which party is the more evil party? By counting the victims?
  
  If two parties are committing eugenics (with compulsory sterilization, prohibition of marriage or reproduction or similar acts for certain individuals), how do you judge, which party is the more evil party? By counting the victims?

And as it seams, Cocytus has understood my question without problems. Why haven't you understood it?

[sonofccn]

If two parties are committing genocide, how do you judge, which party is the more evil party? By counting the victims?

Yes for good or ill the scale and scope is a factor in ranking any two examples.

If two parties are committing slavery, how do you judge, which party is the more evil party? By counting the victims?

Scale and scope as well as treatment of the enslaved. The Nazi's for instance worked undesirables to death while the US had a vested interest in not killing the labor.

If two parties are committing eugenics (with compulsory sterilization, prohibition of marriage or reproduction or similar acts for certain individuals), how do you judge, which party is the more evil party? By counting the victims?

This is harder to quantify since as you noted eugenics cover a wide range of options. I'd rate physically mutilating a person, forced sterilization or lobotomizing, as worse then laws preventing the marriage of mixed races regardless of the numbers.

And as it seams, Cocytus has understood my question without problems. Why haven't you understood it?

We are all different and realize things at different times? You ask interesting questions about many basic things I take for granted. I wanted to make sure before I answered.

[PunkMaister]

If you would have read the mentioned thread, you would have noticed, that your conclusion is wrong. I have explicit said that I have no position:

• • If you would have carefully read that thread, you would have noticed that I have only asked questions and have stated a few facts. You will nowhere find an opinion of me.
    
    I have explicit stated that I'm only playing devil's advocate.
    
    Do you know why?
    
    Because, although I have very intensely studied that problem, I have no opinion I could really defend. The more I have studied that problem the more I've found that I don't know enough to form an educated opinion.

That is certainly not my position.

Really now?

Again you fail to answer a simple question.

And again you have no clue about what you are talking.

Furthermore it is not enough to simply say that A proves B.

Why does the fact that I'm arguing about free will proves that I have a free will, especially if I'm still questioning what free will is at all and insofar it is not even clear about what exactly I'm arguing?

Since when has the ability to talk about something, that one may not have, has something to do with free will?

And why would someone, who does not argue about free will or would not be able to talk about free will, has no free will?

If I read your postings, I see the writings of someone, who don't really talks about free will, of someone who is so afraid that it could be proven that he has no free will, that he is not only determined to not accept any argument but also determined to not really face up that problem.

You haven't answered one single question I have asked in the whole thread. Are you scared?

For somebody that does not have a position you defend that no position of yours nail and tooth as exemplified here...

So you are either a Nihilist or somebody that loves to play Devil's advocate all the time not to get answers but to try to convert whoever posted any kind of argument to the opposite spectrum at any cost for some unexplained sniglet of the universe, either way I really do not care buit I refuse to play your stupid game too...

And again you fail to answer only one single question. You have your opinions. But if asked to explain them, you refuse and begin to attack the questioner because you think that if he asks you something he has to disagree with you and has a diametrically opposed opinion.

If I ask you to define what a human is and how a human is different from animals and plants, it has to mean that I'm the opinion that humans have no more value than cabbage.

If I ask you to explain, how you morally evaluate crimes like genocide, slavery or eugenics, it has to mean that I think that they are all the same to me.

Another explanation, why I have asked these questions, is unthinkable to you - even if I have explicit stated another reason.

Not unthinkable you post all this questions because you get your kicks out of always playing devils advocate and to try to turn people to the contrary of what they stand for and believe in etc, etc, etc. Well either that or again you are a Nihilist who loves to try to spread his own misery around by posting questions and arguing up till whoever you are arguing against can take it no more and accepts your silly arguments, Well is not going to happen to me and I'm not playing your stupid game, find something else to amuse yourself with or better yet go play with yourself.

This thread subject was never slavery anyhow...

[Who is like God arbour]

PunkMaster, with all due respect to Jedi Master Spock, but you are an idiot.

Your last post has proven the correctness of my ascertainment.

I ask question because I want to make you think.

But, as I have said, you don't want to think because, if you start, you could come to the conclusion that what you have taken for granted, is not correct.

A little example: You say again and again that I'm a Nihilist because I ask why humans are special compared to animals. I have asked you, what a Nihilist is. But you have refused to answer that question.

And exectly here is your problem:

1. You think, that, if I ask that question and demand an explanation from you, it has to mean that I think that humans "have no more value than cabbage".
   • The fact is that I have never said such thing. I merely have asked you to give clear and objective criteria for your rating of value and to prove that humans are fulfilling the from you set criteria.
2. From that, you seem to conclude that I would think, that humans are to be treated like you treat cabbage.
   • One fact is that I have never talked about vegetables. I have only talked about animals.
     And that it could be the other way, that - assuming that this would be my position at all - cabbage is to be treated like humans, does not come to your mind.
3. And from that you conclude, that I'm a Nihilist.
   • A Nihilist is someone who believes in nothing, has no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy [1]. If I would argue that animals have the same rights as humans - and because humans have rights, animals would also have rights - I would be definitely not a Nihilist.

I hope I have made it clear, why you are stupid. You make conclusion from wrong assumptions and smatterings. That's the stupidest one can do in a debate.

I have hoped to provoke you to start thinking with my questions. But as you have said: It's not going to happen to you. You will never start to think.

[PunkMaister]

PunkMaster, with all due respect to Jedi Master Spock, but you are an idiot.

Your last post has proven the correctness of my ascertainment.

I ask question because I want to make you think.

But, as I have said, you don't want to think because, if you start, you could come to the conclusion that what you have taken for granted, is not correct.

A little example: You say again and again that I'm a Nihilist because I ask why humans are special compared to animals. I have asked you, what a Nihilist is. But you have refused to answer that question.

*Snip*

That is the logical conclusion of your argument.And why doesn't cabbage has any value it s too a living thing is is not? Now I'm playing devil's advocate for a change...


In the logical progression of your argument implies that we humans have in fact no more value than microbes as they are too living organisms I can go on...

[Who is like God arbour]

PunkMaster, with all due respect to Jedi Master Spock, but you are an idiot.

Your last post has proven the correctness of my ascertainment.

I ask question because I want to make you think.

But, as I have said, you don't want to think because, if you start, you could come to the conclusion that what you have taken for granted, is not correct.

A little example: You say again and again that I'm a Nihilist because I ask why humans are special compared to animals. I have asked you, what a Nihilist is. But you have refused to answer that question.

*Snip*

That is the logical conclusion of your argument.And why doesn't cabbage has any value it s too a living thing is is not? Now I'm playing devil's advocate for a change...


In the logical progression of your argument implies that we humans have in fact no more value than microbes as they are too living organisms I can go on...

The logical conclusion of which argument?

• Show me where I have made an argument from which one could only conclude to what you have said?
  When you have done this, show me, why what you have said, is the logical conclusion of that argument.

The logical progression of which argument?

• Show me where I have made an argument which could only be progressed to what you have said?
  When you have done this, show me, why what you have said, is the logical progression of that argument.

You are again only showing that you don't understand anything - not even the point made in the last post because you are making the same mistakes I have adressed in it.

Do you even know what logic is?

Or do you use that word because it sounds impressive like the word Nihilist?

• • • Supplement:
      • Assuming that you think that I have argued that there is no difference between humans and animals (something I have never argued), the "logical conclusion" or "logical progression" would not be that "humans have no more value than cabbage" because cabbage is also a living thing.
        
        You can't make this conclusion or progression because you don't know the criteria I would have applied to come to such an opinion. To be a living thing does not have to be relevant at all.
        
        The ability to feel pain could be deciding in my opinion. That would also mean, that simple animals like protozoa would be considered different to humans because they are not able to feel pain. On the other side, even an artificial lifeform (an android) would not be considered as different from humans if it is able to really feel pain. (With that I haven't said that the ability to feel pain is deciding in my opinion. It is only an example.)
        
        An intelligent person would be able to see now, that already the question for the applied criteria is important to understand an opinion. That means that this should have been your question. Your attempt to play devil's advocate failed because you simply lack the therefore necessary intelligence.