debate

this doesnt discuss what i said above your belief disregards moral consideration for anyone who can not abide or uphold the law aka people low iq's or behavioral disorders do you agree or disagree to this assertion

Did you just not see my other post?

i didnt actually, not sure how i missed that to be honest ill address it now what does potentially have to do with moral consideration? we dont put special needs people on a lvl lower than humans, thats a pretty far reaching claim. they have carers for their own good, to take care of them, not because theyr more akin to animals than humans to my moral standard they would be treated as well as they could be because we would want to be treated as such if we were in their position to your moral standard, well, they dont fall under anything. they are legally a protected class but to you they wouldn't be. to your moral baseline they are animals

Potentially has to do with moral consideration because although I dont think they would be able to consent to or obey laws at that point in time, that doesnt stop them from eventually doing so, and would be able to be beneficial to society. Therefore, I extend moral consideration to them because they can still benefit society even if they cant immediately do so. On the topic of the mentally handicapped, wouldnt you say that by making decisions for them and assigning them carers, you are restricting their freedom? You would never use the argument of "well we are restricting their freedom, but it is for their own good" in any other situation. For example, you (probably) wouldnt force people to have a certain diet and restrict them from having unhealthy food even if it is for their own good. You wouldnt prevent someone from smoking even if it is bad for them. If you are okay with restricting their freedom, why would you not be okay with restricting the freedoms of other people who just dont make good decisions? Or would you be okay with making people eat a certain way, prevent them from smoking, etc?

i begrudgingly give the potential argument to you. i have heard it argued that potential doesnt matter with a social contract but i can not remember it unfortunately. the severity of the handicap matters a lot if we're discussing this. some people with down syndrome can live alone and even hold jobs. severity really matters. retarded people simply have very low iq's and can be emotionally stunted, like children. as children have parents around, people with severely low iq's need carers around. are their rights restricted? yes, but so are childrens. this is not because they are less than, but simply to protect them. they are a protected class. we do this for their well being, and those who do not get this help end up in prisons or homeless. not that this really has to do with our moral baselines though, does it?

Well yes society restricts the rights of children for the same reason why society restricts the rights of severely handicapped people: because they cannot make rational decisions. But restriction of freedom does not necessarily mean a revocation of moral consideration. If a child dies, then I view it as society being worse off because of it (because of the potentiality argument that I gave), whereas if a mentally handicapped person dies I view it as a mentally handicapped person dying. But yeah this is going off track from the discussion of moral baselines.

while i will agree in society's eyes certain lives are worth more than others, this has nothing to do with morality. do you agree my assertion that you wouldnt mind grounding up severely handicapped babies for fertilizer would not be a moral wrong?

this is why i would call your views sociopathic i dont mean it as an insult, or in a derogatory manner its more i cant see ths debate going any further i guess i could press to see if you really dont care like if a dog lays in the of a road, would you run it over without a second thought?

That's fine. I would call your views dumb for caring more about whether or not an action is nice or something than caring about optimizing the outcomes for society. If you're talking about pragmatics, then you have to consider how society would react to an action. For example, I would never kill a handicapped person to benefit myself since it is illegal and I would go to jail. But yeah I wouldnt care if someone else were to run a dog over. I wouldnt consider them a bad person or anything. I think we may have reached the "agree to disagree" point of the debate.