(11-09-2012, 06:08 PM)FireIceTalon Wrote: Yea. The socialist argument against marriage is that it arose from private property, and that women were traditionally expected to remain loyal to their men for purposes of inheritance. Under socialism, it is thought that all relationships would become open, and the cultural stigmas of women being things like "sluts" or "cheaters" would disappear. I tend to agree. The argument against this of course, is that there is no real love involved in non-marriage or polyamorous relationships, but what is 'real love'? How do we define it? Another is that jealousy arises too easily, and it is here where this may still be a problem under socialism. Human emotions and consciousness change, but they don't go away. I personally would stick with just one person just because that is how I was raised, and I think love between two people in itself is a very complex thing!
I'm pretty sure you either have to throw the "human nature doesn't exist, it's all tabula rasa" argument overboard, or you have to accept the argument that values are entirely mutable to the social situation. Now, even if you accept the 2nd argument, there's no reason to necessarily accept that jealousy will disappear with a socialist arrangement of society. But you seem to have high hopes.
If you're wondering how to define "real love," then that's a pretty good sign it isn't an objective thing.
-Jester
(11-09-2012, 07:42 PM)kandrathe Wrote: At some tipping point depending on your definition of what a child is, it gets civil rights. I don't believe it's day one, but it surely isn't the day of birth either.
Surely why? Children don't have names before then. They don't show up on censuses before then. They are not treated as citizens in any other regard. By what reasoning or evidence is this "surely"? Even if it was entirely arbitrary, it's as good as any other point. It has the large, obvious advantage of that being the point of separation from the mother.
-Jester
(11-09-2012, 07:52 PM)Taem Wrote: Is it safe to assume then that human testing could be done if the embryo were to be grown in a test tube? If your definition of "birth" means exposed to the air/world around them, then under your own definition, it would be lawful to keep expermints grown in a testtube indefinitely so long as they remained suspended in an artificial embryonic solution. Fyi, I'm not agreeing nor disagreeing with what you wrote; merely playing devil's advocate with something that struck me as an obvious flaw to your logic. With all the law changes happening in acceptance of stem cell research... it's only a matter of time. I even heard scientists can grow meat right now. I dont imagine human being too terribly far off tbh.
Just because something doesn't have citizen's rights doesn't mean it doesn't have any rights at all. Cruelty to animals, for instance, is criminal.
-Jester