I read a novel yesterday, Pines, by Blake Crouch, that made me wonder about the nature of humanity.
The boundaries of humanity
There has been a long debate held by the "pro-life" and the "pro-abortion" (or pro-freedom or whatever) about the nature of feti (or fetuses). When does a baby start being human?
This debate was previously had by the pro and anti-slavery factions in America (the continent). In the beginning, it was said that black people did not have souls, that they were made for work, that they needed masters, that they did not have the sufficient intellectual capacity to be independent human beings. This argument has been retorted many times now and slavery was de-legalized.
A bit of pretty music: Vivaldi - Amor Sacro (Motets)
Now, even the worst criminals are held under the "Human Rights" because every member of the homo sapiens race, after a few months of existing in their mothers' wombs, is considered to be a "full human being". But reading into all the debates of death sentences for these criminals, together with the racial, sexual and religious discrimination, among other kinds of discrimination, we may begin to wonder why so many people are against certain kinds of human beings, or certain human beings who hold certain beliefs and/or preferences.
I have also read debates about euthanasia for people with certain kinds of disabilities. Be it paralytic or mentally disabled, there are people who consider that these subsets of homo sapiens should not "waste" the resources of welfare that societies set for the less fortunate individuals.
But... where do we put the line?
Some would say that anything above fetus is a human being, but then, what is it that makes a human "human" after the months of being a fetus have passed? Is it a certain amount of intelligence? But then disabled people would not count either. Is it the age? What if they developed faster? (Should we then be able to "abort" children who were born a few months early and have to develop in special conditions?)
Well, then, if not those, then is what makes them human our perception of them? Our perception of the quality of their future could be a major factor. If we think that they are going to enjoy their lives without putting us in peril, we might decide to let them have human rights.
Eating animals
We can then join this debate with the debate about eating or not eating certain animals. In the west, we don't eat dogs but we do eat cows. We frown upon eating felines and canines and, depending on the region, on certain other races, but we promote that other races should be enslaved for our satisfaction and then killed for their flesh. What is it that makes an animal exempt from being eaten? A dog's right to live, for example, may stem from the fact that we spend a lot of time with them and we consider them to be our "friends".
But then again, we do not eat our enemies. Well, some do, but it is not a generalized thing. So it is not a thing of "friendship" and "enmity". Then maybe it is the perceived distance of relation. We have a long historical friendship with dogs, and they are our "pets", same as cats, but we won't eat horses either because they are our rides, another whole kind of slaves.
But anyway, there are people who eat dogs, and also monkeys and apes (source), but there are also those who eat humans, and we call them cannibals because they break the "social contract", but wait a second: do cannibals consider the humans they eat less human? Maybe they consider everyone human but they do not see the relationship between humanity and eating a being.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Then we, or I at least, run into a blank. I can't find any argument that makes me any different from anything else. Am I human just because I am homo sapiens? Do all homo sapiens deserve human rights? If some do not, where do we put the line? I suppose that the line will be subjective and relative to our beliefs of who should survive, who should not have a chance at it, who should live in captivity and who should just stop existing.
Where do you think these boundaries are? When does a being start and stop being a human?
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