I did a relatively light reading on my phone right now, a couple of things:
1) Your argument needs to define what consciosness is and when it becomes relevant. Human mental development is continuous. This creates a problem, as there is no reason why abortion should be banned (at all) or why infanticide should be banned. As noted, there does not seem to be any difference between a conceptus a minute before birth and a conceptus a minute after birth.
2) Your argument regarding the future trajectory seems to miss an important distinction. In order to start a life, one must perform an action. As it currently stands, there is nothing in actual existence that will turn into life. However, with abortion, there actually is such a being that, if left alone, will become a life. In order to stop it, you must perform an action. There seems to be a difference between purely hypothetical beings that we need to act to create and an actual being that, in order to stop from achieving life, we need to act to prevent.
3) Keep in mind, the real reason we debate abortion is that there are competing interests and rights at play. A computer in a virtual world without any real influence or drawback to go against it is not really analogous to a conceptus in the womb a woman.
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 21:18#745980 likes
One obvious problem with your argument is that anti-abortion stances do not necessarily hinge on when a fetus becomes conscious/becomes a person. They're often based on potential rather, and sometimes, if we're talking about a religious-oriented argument, they're based on whether the fetus is "ensouled."
Terrapin StationJune 04, 2017 at 21:20#746020 likes
then you accept that it is something about the physical instantiation of the human body that makes it immoral. I discuss that there dooes not appear to be a rational for this
The problem here though is that you're assuming there is a "rationale" beyond "that's how I intuitively feel about it" at the heart of any moral stance. There isn't. It all comes down to how someone intuitively feels about some stance or other.
Yeah, I'd agree with that more or less, but that doesn't help when they just say something like "It's a moral axiom for me that human fetuses have special moral status."
Something is good or right when it is predicted to increase the net positive-negative experiences in the set of all conscious experiences (opposite is true for bad/wrong). Therefore morality, by definition, requires consciousness.
I disagree with this pre-supposition and so disagree with your argument. It is wrong to murder an unconscious person just as much as a conscious one.
sackoftrout:This is an argument which demonstrates that abortion should not be considered immoral and that anti-abortion views are largely the result of psychological biases.
Demonstrates? I have a few questions pertaining to the first paragraph.
sackoftrout:Moral considerations are applied to protect systems which contain the complete physical and/or informational machinery required to generate consciousness.
What moral considerations in particular are being referred to here? How, and by whom or what, are they applied to protect conscious systems? And what are these systems being protected from?
Why do moral considerations only protect conscious (and not also semi-conscious and non-conscious) systems? Especially if by protecting these others, conscious systems are also protected (e.g., protecting a water supply, or food source, etc.)?
Are conscious systems always conscious? Are they unprotected when they are semi-conscious or non-conscious?
The phrase, "systems which contain the complete physical and/or informational machinery required to generate consciousness" is metaphorical unless it applies solely to computers, robots, artificial intelligence, etc.
If this phrase is intended to refer to both inorganic and organic entities, the word "machinery" is used inappropriately, because machinery is not a component of organic systems. Also, please provide definitions for "information" and "consciousness" which are appropriate for both inorganic and organic systems (in order to avoid category errors).
sackoftrout:These rights uphold the respect and dignity of autonomously guiding one’s own delicate phenomenological experience.
What rights are being referred to here? Are moral considerations being equated with rights (i.e., are they synonymous terms)? What is phenomenological experience as opposed to other types of experience?
I think the whole issue of abortion is sad and bad.
This is the 21st century and people have unprecedented access to a whole plethora of pharmaceutical products ranging from simple cogh remedies to advanced anti-cancer drugs - included among which are a range of contraceptives.
Having a baby is a serious responsibility - this world is not as friendly to life as we'd like and every person must cautiously navigate through life, avoiding pitfalls, grabbing opportunities, outdoing competitors, etc. I think the word for it is ''Family Planning''.
Given these undeniable facts it seems the abortion issue is a failure of people to comprehend what I've outlined above. It's a non-issue because if people understood the meaning of ''Family Planning'' there wouldn't be need for abortion, at least not in its solution-resistant form.
The propagation of human life is founded on the strength of the impulse for sex.
Do you mean to say that without the impulse for sex, there would be no propagation of human life?
Reply to sackoftrout Morality isn't based on arbitrary concepts like murder and level of conciousness, it's the other way around. Morality is concerned with consequences, yet you never consider the implications of your thesis. Let me give you an extreme and forced example: if we judge who has the right to live based on level of consciousness and studies that say humans under the age of 4 lack consciousness are proved, it wouldn't be immoral to kill toddlers according to your so-called moral argument.
Your argument falls because it is based on faulty assumptions, like the one I quoted above.
Moral considerations are applied to protect systems...
sackoftrout:I’m talking about all moral considerations, so the individual becomes the object of moral axioms. This includes rights, but also more general axioms people may have such as the golden rule.
I'm familiar with intersubjective moral codes and subjective moral truths, but not with what you're talking about. Are you referring to some sort of universal morality which is inherent in human nature (i.e., natural law)?
Again, what are these conscious systems being protected from?
Reply to sackoftrout
Thanks for the clarification. So individuals are the objects of natural law, having natural rights. Is there a natural law theory which doesn't contain a natural right to life (irrespective of mental development)? If not, we should probably be concerned about defining life rather than levels of consciousness. Otherwise, what you are proposing is an arbitrary (i.e., personal or cultural) moral framework with no universal authority.
Without deliberate intervention in this system, many more children would be born. Conversely you can say that rational human interference has prevented the natural trajectory towards consciousness for many systems.
I think this is the weakest part of your argument. Surely we make a distinction between an actual, existing entity already on a trajectory toward consciousness, and only possible or potential entities (a fortiori not on any trajectory to anything).
I think this distinction does not really exist and is a fallacy based on failure of intuition.
I appreciate your response, but I still don't understand the argument.
The Roman Catholic Church has traditionally taken exactly the option you suggest, to be against abortion and contraception. Did you intend to block this response somehow?
On the other hand, there are many people in the world (including many American Catholics) who use birth control but are anti-abortion. Doesn't that count as evidence that many people share the moral intuition you say does not exist?
Now that I think of it, the willingness of people to put the economic wellbeing of the currently living ahead of the environmental wellbeing of future generations, suggests this intuition, or bias, is well entrenched, if not always helpful.
Reply to sackoftrout
I see. Your argument is that if you're against abortion, you should be in favor of unrestricted sex. And that conclusion you do not block because, in your view, no one wants that.
Doesn't it make you wonder, though, why no one wants that? Isn't there some reason to think that might be relevant? I can see how you might think that's beyond the scope of your argument, but this is exactly where lots of people confronted with this argument will land.
where negative experiences inflicted must have consent from all individuals (who have working or repairable conscious machinery) affected.
Well, you're still privileging this thing called "working or repairable conscious machinery," which I don't see the import of with respect to morality. Were it absent, then it's pretty clear that aborting a fetus is to inflict harm on it without its consent. I understand that the concept of inflicting harm may not apply to totally unconscious, inanimate objects like rocks, but a fetus is not a rock, despite not possessing the same cognitive abilities of a healthy human adult. So you need to explain how this presently arbitrary criterion somehow confers moral worth on individuals and when it takes place in an organism's development.
Suppose we start with the goal of controlling the growth of the human population, and are given two options for achieving this:
1. Reduced procreation through birth control self control.
2. That, plus abortion.
If we assume the goal must be achieved, wouldn't your criteria lead people to choose option 1, because it will achieve the desired effect without terminating an entity that will become conscious and achieve moral standing. Why choose (2) since it has this downside?
they are both merely systems on a trajectory towards consciousness.
This is your claim, but I don't think it is sustainable. There is a distinction, which people clearly do recognize, between actual entities and possible entities, and it is evident that they encode that distinction in their moral intuitions.
As you say, you cannot inflict harm or suffering on a non-conscious object. A foetus is not conscious, therefore you cannot inflict harm on it. Its cognitive abilities are irrelevant.
I was clearly using both words to mean the same thing. A fetus is most definitely conscious, just not as conscious as a more developed human organism.
P = "All actual or possible conscious systems must be allowed to develop." Q = "Unrestricted procreation must be allowed." R = "Abortion must not be performed."
We have as premises
(1) P ? Q
(2) P ? R
(3) ¬Q
From (1) and (3), we can conclude, by modus tollens:
(4) ¬P
So far, so good.
But then I think you are trying to infer from (2) and (4)
*(5) ¬R
Comments (36)
1) Your argument needs to define what consciosness is and when it becomes relevant. Human mental development is continuous. This creates a problem, as there is no reason why abortion should be banned (at all) or why infanticide should be banned. As noted, there does not seem to be any difference between a conceptus a minute before birth and a conceptus a minute after birth.
2) Your argument regarding the future trajectory seems to miss an important distinction. In order to start a life, one must perform an action. As it currently stands, there is nothing in actual existence that will turn into life. However, with abortion, there actually is such a being that, if left alone, will become a life. In order to stop it, you must perform an action. There seems to be a difference between purely hypothetical beings that we need to act to create and an actual being that, in order to stop from achieving life, we need to act to prevent.
3) Keep in mind, the real reason we debate abortion is that there are competing interests and rights at play. A computer in a virtual world without any real influence or drawback to go against it is not really analogous to a conceptus in the womb a woman.
The problem here though is that you're assuming there is a "rationale" beyond "that's how I intuitively feel about it" at the heart of any moral stance. There isn't. It all comes down to how someone intuitively feels about some stance or other.
They can't be wrong when it comes to morality, because there are no moral truths to get right.
Yeah, I'd agree with that more or less, but that doesn't help when they just say something like "It's a moral axiom for me that human fetuses have special moral status."
I disagree with this pre-supposition and so disagree with your argument. It is wrong to murder an unconscious person just as much as a conscious one.
Demonstrates? I have a few questions pertaining to the first paragraph.
What moral considerations in particular are being referred to here? How, and by whom or what, are they applied to protect conscious systems? And what are these systems being protected from?
Why do moral considerations only protect conscious (and not also semi-conscious and non-conscious) systems? Especially if by protecting these others, conscious systems are also protected (e.g., protecting a water supply, or food source, etc.)?
Are conscious systems always conscious? Are they unprotected when they are semi-conscious or non-conscious?
The phrase, "systems which contain the complete physical and/or informational machinery required to generate consciousness" is metaphorical unless it applies solely to computers, robots, artificial intelligence, etc.
If this phrase is intended to refer to both inorganic and organic entities, the word "machinery" is used inappropriately, because machinery is not a component of organic systems. Also, please provide definitions for "information" and "consciousness" which are appropriate for both inorganic and organic systems (in order to avoid category errors).
What rights are being referred to here? Are moral considerations being equated with rights (i.e., are they synonymous terms)? What is phenomenological experience as opposed to other types of experience?
This is the 21st century and people have unprecedented access to a whole plethora of pharmaceutical products ranging from simple cogh remedies to advanced anti-cancer drugs - included among which are a range of contraceptives.
Having a baby is a serious responsibility - this world is not as friendly to life as we'd like and every person must cautiously navigate through life, avoiding pitfalls, grabbing opportunities, outdoing competitors, etc. I think the word for it is ''Family Planning''.
Given these undeniable facts it seems the abortion issue is a failure of people to comprehend what I've outlined above. It's a non-issue because if people understood the meaning of ''Family Planning'' there wouldn't be need for abortion, at least not in its solution-resistant form.
Do you mean to say that without the impulse for sex, there would be no propagation of human life?
Morality isn't based on arbitrary concepts like murder and level of conciousness, it's the other way around. Morality is concerned with consequences, yet you never consider the implications of your thesis. Let me give you an extreme and forced example: if we judge who has the right to live based on level of consciousness and studies that say humans under the age of 4 lack consciousness are proved, it wouldn't be immoral to kill toddlers according to your so-called moral argument.
Your argument falls because it is based on faulty assumptions, like the one I quoted above.
Quoting TheMadFool
Which pro-life supportes are also against.
I'm familiar with intersubjective moral codes and subjective moral truths, but not with what you're talking about. Are you referring to some sort of universal morality which is inherent in human nature (i.e., natural law)?
Again, what are these conscious systems being protected from?
Thanks for the clarification. So individuals are the objects of natural law, having natural rights. Is there a natural law theory which doesn't contain a natural right to life (irrespective of mental development)? If not, we should probably be concerned about defining life rather than levels of consciousness. Otherwise, what you are proposing is an arbitrary (i.e., personal or cultural) moral framework with no universal authority.
I think this is the weakest part of your argument. Surely we make a distinction between an actual, existing entity already on a trajectory toward consciousness, and only possible or potential entities (a fortiori not on any trajectory to anything).
I appreciate your response, but I still don't understand the argument.
The Roman Catholic Church has traditionally taken exactly the option you suggest, to be against abortion and contraception. Did you intend to block this response somehow?
On the other hand, there are many people in the world (including many American Catholics) who use birth control but are anti-abortion. Doesn't that count as evidence that many people share the moral intuition you say does not exist?
Now that I think of it, the willingness of people to put the economic wellbeing of the currently living ahead of the environmental wellbeing of future generations, suggests this intuition, or bias, is well entrenched, if not always helpful.
I see. Your argument is that if you're against abortion, you should be in favor of unrestricted sex. And that conclusion you do not block because, in your view, no one wants that.
Doesn't it make you wonder, though, why no one wants that? Isn't there some reason to think that might be relevant? I can see how you might think that's beyond the scope of your argument, but this is exactly where lots of people confronted with this argument will land.
Well, you're still privileging this thing called "working or repairable conscious machinery," which I don't see the import of with respect to morality. Were it absent, then it's pretty clear that aborting a fetus is to inflict harm on it without its consent. I understand that the concept of inflicting harm may not apply to totally unconscious, inanimate objects like rocks, but a fetus is not a rock, despite not possessing the same cognitive abilities of a healthy human adult. So you need to explain how this presently arbitrary criterion somehow confers moral worth on individuals and when it takes place in an organism's development.
But what if you look at it the other way round?
Suppose we start with the goal of controlling the growth of the human population, and are given two options for achieving this:
1. Reduced procreation through birth control self control.
2. That, plus abortion.
If we assume the goal must be achieved, wouldn't your criteria lead people to choose option 1, because it will achieve the desired effect without terminating an entity that will become conscious and achieve moral standing. Why choose (2) since it has this downside?
This is your claim, but I don't think it is sustainable. There is a distinction, which people clearly do recognize, between actual entities and possible entities, and it is evident that they encode that distinction in their moral intuitions.
I was clearly using both words to mean the same thing. A fetus is most definitely conscious, just not as conscious as a more developed human organism.
Quoting sackoftrout
So you're assuming naturalism.
We probably should have done this at the beginning.
P = "All actual or possible conscious systems must be allowed to develop."
Q = "Unrestricted procreation must be allowed."
R = "Abortion must not be performed."
We have as premises
(1) P ? Q
(2) P ? R
(3) ¬Q
From (1) and (3), we can conclude, by modus tollens:
(4) ¬P
So far, so good.
But then I think you are trying to infer from (2) and (4)
*(5) ¬R
That's no good.(P ? R) & ¬P does not entail ¬R.
Wikipedia calls this Denying the antecedent.
It is perfectly consistent to affirm (1) through (4) and R, as I keep suggesting many people do.
ALSO: You cannot infer from (1) through (3) that R ? P.