32. Negative Rhetorical Sentence

My sentence:

If, to pursue lucrative judicial judgements, we relinquish personal responsibility, must we not also relinquish self-determination?

Geez, Winnie, will you never pass the toast?

Other examples:

"But is this not unjust?"

Plato, "The Allegory of the Cave"

His student Glaucon questions the fairness of Socrates' insistence that the enlightened remain a part of society rather than live in some type of learned ivory tower.

Since my presentation, I've realized this isn't truly a negative rhetorical question since Glaucon is asking a question to which Socrates gives a real answer.

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, afflictions, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

In a country and time where Jews are strongly persecuted, Shylock, the moneylender, defends his humanity.