People can be peer pressured into having sex, does that mean we should make sex illegal?
More people are going to give free, enthousiastic, clear-headed, ongoing consent to sex than to losing a lethal duel, but does that mean we should go after the ones that do?
And even if such willingness were a sign in and of itself that someone isn’t clear-headed, would it make more sense to ban the practice than to offer proper mental care and general material support to people considering it?
@protist@mander.xyz has already made my point for me. But let me add another layer.
We’re only talking here on the level of individual rights and consequences, and that tastes extremely cynical and libertarian to me. Both things I associate with an inconsiderate, overly individualist approach that is indicative of a failed state and a breakdown in societal cohesion.
I honestly think the more important factor to this question is societal. The real question is, what kind of society do we want to live in?
One where killing another human being for personal reasons is endorsed or one were it’s seen as an absolute last resort of protectimg other people?
One where the monopoly of violence rests with the state or one where we hold violence to be an individualist right?
One where you have the right to kill yourself or one where you also have the right to kill a (consenting) other?
Yes, you have a right to consent to be killed. But from that doesn’t rise the right for somebody else to kill.
There is a reason the age of dueling ended when the enlightenment and humanism became something our societies adopted as a whole instead of those things being just the pursuit of some airy intellectuals. And it is that, with the rise of democracy, people became aware that they have the right, but also the duty to shape the society we live in to be better. This - for me - is the central point of civilization, to actively construct and shape a society that grows continually more moral and drives us to listen to “the better angels of our nature” to say it in Lincoln’s words, instead of listening to our baser wants.
Off Topic Rant: It is truly terrible to me, that all around the world politics has devolved from giving the great example of striving for (even if not achieving) a more moral, peaceful, unified and just society to giving the example of letting ourselves be governed by greed, egotism and our baser instincts.
That’s honestly the one thing I loved about Merkel and Obama, even if they were two useless, right leaning conservatives (yes, mainstream democrats are conservative, honestly the GOP is reactionary and fascist at this point. Fucking hell the Overton-window is so far to the right), they still inspired people to rise to our better nature. And that is also the biggest societal threat I see from especially Trump being in office. The example he gives for society as a whole is a return to criminal, amoral, egotistical and cynical barbarism.
“People can be peer pressured into both lethal dueling and sex, therefore they’re equivalent” is not a valid argument.
And even if such willingness were a sign in and of itself that someone isn’t clear-headed, would it make more sense to ban the practice than to offer proper mental care and general material support to people considering it?
Do you think we should make suicide illegal?
Again, lethal dueling and suicide are not equivalent. Someone deciding for themselves that they’re going to end their own life…if it’s something they’ve thought about and planned (as opposed to an impulsive attemps, which are 95% of actual suicides), there’s no realistic way to stop it. Dueling involves killing someone else , my man.
People can be peer pressured into having sex, does that mean we should make sex illegal?
More people are going to give free, enthousiastic, clear-headed, ongoing consent to sex than to losing a lethal duel, but does that mean we should go after the ones that do?
And even if such willingness were a sign in and of itself that someone isn’t clear-headed, would it make more sense to ban the practice than to offer proper mental care and general material support to people considering it?
Do you think we should make suicide illegal?
People also don’t often kill each other via sex
@protist@mander.xyz has already made my point for me. But let me add another layer.
We’re only talking here on the level of individual rights and consequences, and that tastes extremely cynical and libertarian to me. Both things I associate with an inconsiderate, overly individualist approach that is indicative of a failed state and a breakdown in societal cohesion.
I honestly think the more important factor to this question is societal. The real question is, what kind of society do we want to live in?
Yes, you have a right to consent to be killed. But from that doesn’t rise the right for somebody else to kill.
There is a reason the age of dueling ended when the enlightenment and humanism became something our societies adopted as a whole instead of those things being just the pursuit of some airy intellectuals. And it is that, with the rise of democracy, people became aware that they have the right, but also the duty to shape the society we live in to be better. This - for me - is the central point of civilization, to actively construct and shape a society that grows continually more moral and drives us to listen to “the better angels of our nature” to say it in Lincoln’s words, instead of listening to our baser wants.
Off Topic Rant: It is truly terrible to me, that all around the world politics has devolved from giving the great example of striving for (even if not achieving) a more moral, peaceful, unified and just society to giving the example of letting ourselves be governed by greed, egotism and our baser instincts.
That’s honestly the one thing I loved about Merkel and Obama, even if they were two useless, right leaning conservatives (yes, mainstream democrats are conservative, honestly the GOP is reactionary and fascist at this point. Fucking hell the Overton-window is so far to the right), they still inspired people to rise to our better nature. And that is also the biggest societal threat I see from especially Trump being in office. The example he gives for society as a whole is a return to criminal, amoral, egotistical and cynical barbarism.
“People can be peer pressured into both lethal dueling and sex, therefore they’re equivalent” is not a valid argument.
Again, lethal dueling and suicide are not equivalent. Someone deciding for themselves that they’re going to end their own life…if it’s something they’ve thought about and planned (as opposed to an impulsive attemps, which are 95% of actual suicides), there’s no realistic way to stop it. Dueling involves killing someone else , my man.