Does an individual have a responsibility to maintain a community?
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This resource is a wikidebate, a collaborative effort to gather and organize all arguments on a given issue. It is a tool of argument analysis or pro-and-con analysis. This is not a place to defend your preferred points of view, but original arguments are allowed and welcome. See the Wikidebate guidelines for more.
Why should we be entitled to follow a set guideline to exist in a society?
An individual has a responsibility to maintain a community[edit | edit source]
Argument for If an individual is able to survive without the help of the community for a prolonged time, especially in regards to food, clothing, transportation, housing, tools, medicine, land ownership, cattle ownership, personal security, entertainment or companionship, he does not have a responsibility. However, as only very few individuals are able to achieve this, society is the natural habitat of humans.
Argument against To our knowledge we have free will, and therefore should be entitled to use our free will in a way that is not inhibited by society.
Objection This argument commits the informal logical fallacy petitio principii by basing its conclusion, "we do not inhibit a responsibility to maintain a community", on an assumption, "we have free will", that is in need of as much proof or demonstration as the conclusion itself. Since no such proof or demonstration is presented in favor of its premise, we necessarily have to conclude that no such proof or demonstration has been presented for its conclusion, either, establishing the conclusion as the premise is established, as an unjustified assumption.