diff --git a/01-principles/01-03-equality-vs-the-morality-of-life-apologia.md b/01-principles/01-03-equality-vs-the-morality-of-life-apologia.md index b454406..751ca46 100644 --- a/01-principles/01-03-equality-vs-the-morality-of-life-apologia.md +++ b/01-principles/01-03-equality-vs-the-morality-of-life-apologia.md @@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ The notion of "rights" arises when a creature, having a certain objectively requ - To hold a rational being back from applying its reason to its life is to oppose its very means of supporting its life; and therefore ultimately to oppose its life **qua rational being**, and reduce it to less than human. - An objective fact about humankind is that we have limbs capable of exerting brute force and predating on other rational beings; but it's also an objective fact that we have a rational brain capable of directing these same limbs to labour to produce instead of to predate on those who do produce. - A rational being's pursuit of its morality **qua rational being** consists of scientifically observing the objective facts about reality and learning knowledge of how to terraform nature to produce its needs for a holistic life -- in other words, a rational being pursues its requirements for life not as a predator or a brute, but through productivity. -- . +- When a rational being has need for the produce of another rational entity, rationality, and therefore morality, demands that it engage in mutually voluntary **trade** -- that it exchange the produce of its own rational efforts (cognitive or physical) for the produce of the other. - Ergo finally, due to the metaphysical nature of rational beings as rational beings, which must live as such, the moral code which preserves and promotes rational life **demands rationality**; and the right to pursue that moral code in a social context **demands productivity**. A right therefore, cannot consist of a claim to predate on other rational beings (which would amount to treating the victim as less than human) -- whether on their minds, their bodies or their produce. A right for a rational creature consists solely of a right to exercise one's own capabilities toward the moral end of one's own life **qua rational being**, within a social context.