X-Message-Number: 16950
Subject: Re: Argument that life has inherent value
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 18:06:27 -0700 (PDT)
From:  (Peter C. McCluskey)

  (david pizer) writes:
>Message #16930
>2.	In order to desire something, the thing doing the desiring must be alive
>it must be a living being.  So value, the end of desire, is dependent on
>life.  Only living things (living beings) can give value to something else.
>
>3.	In order for any first thing to give something to a second thing, the
>first thing must first have it to give.

 Non sequitur. I could give you a black eye without having one myself.
A depressed masseur could give you pleasure without having any himself.

>  So if only living things can give
>value, then living things must have value.

 Even if your conclusion followed, step 2 implies that you are using the
term "living things" in a manner that is too narrow for your argument to
apply to comatose or frozen people.

 If you observe carefully what kind of arguments actually convince people,
I think you will see that the approach you are taking is pretty futile.
 I am fairly confident that, as long as people can be convinced cryonics
has a nontrivial chance of working, it will be easy to argue that anyone
who treats frozen people as dead is callous enough that he might want to
kill off the comatose, terminally ill, etc. next.
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter McCluskey          | Fed up with democracy's problems? Examine Futarchy:
http://www.rahul.net/pcm | http://hanson.gmu.edu/futarchy.pdf or .ps

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