Abortion - Why are people pro life?
I am from England in where abortion is legal throughout the country, support is there for those who need it and I would argue that the general consensus is that an abortion is ok to do. According to a recent Ipsos survey, 59% of people agree that abortion should be legally available for all who want it, while 27% disagree.
Me personally I am completely pro-choice. In the UK, you can legally have an abortion up to 23 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy, and I have absolutely no issue with that.
I have never heard a compelling argument for pro-life. All of them have been based on religion or personal feelings in which my answer is always to simply not have an abortion. The fact that abortions are legal doesn't force you to do anything, you can choose to have the child. My main issue with pro-life is that your taking away a choice for people that don't share the same beliefs when having it the other way, everyone can do what they want.
I thought it would be an interesting discussion especially as it is such a hot topic in America right now and I was wondering if someone on here would take me up on the offer to explain why they think banning abortion is the right thing to do.
Me personally I am completely pro-choice. In the UK, you can legally have an abortion up to 23 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy, and I have absolutely no issue with that.
I have never heard a compelling argument for pro-life. All of them have been based on religion or personal feelings in which my answer is always to simply not have an abortion. The fact that abortions are legal doesn't force you to do anything, you can choose to have the child. My main issue with pro-life is that your taking away a choice for people that don't share the same beliefs when having it the other way, everyone can do what they want.
I thought it would be an interesting discussion especially as it is such a hot topic in America right now and I was wondering if someone on here would take me up on the offer to explain why they think banning abortion is the right thing to do.
Comments (1399)
They believe that abortion is murder. Telling them that abortion should be a choice is, to them, telling them that murder should be a choice. Most of us don’t believe that murder should be a choice.
Well, we could start with perhaps a premise that we all agree with:
P1. It is wrong to kill a baby the day after birth.
The argument would then be:
P2. If it is wrong to kill a baby the day after birth then it is wrong to kill a baby the day before birth.
C1. Therefore, it is wrong to kill a baby the day before birth.
P3. If it is wrong to kill a baby the day before birth then it is wrong to kill a baby two days before birth.
C2. Therefore, it is wrong to kill a baby two days before birth.
...
etc.
This line of reasoning will entail the conclusion that it is wrong to kill a baby from the moment of conception.
To rebut it one might have to argue either that P2 is false or that there is some n such that "it is wrong to kill a baby n days before birth" is true but "it is wrong to kill a baby n + 1 days before birth" is false.
Ok understandable. In which case it would have to be discussed on what do we class as a life. Consciousness is believed to start developing around 24-26 weeks into the pregnancy. So if it isn’t aware, awake or has any capability of choosing to do anything is it alive?
But this also brings me back to my first point. This is a belief, and to take away rights from people simply because of that I find disgusting. I mean some people are so pro-life that they would force a teenage girl/ a girl that has been raped to have the child simply because some people believe it’s murder.
Think about how many teenagers who don’t understand life have managed to have an abortion. Think, if they were forced to have that child would their quality of life decrease or increase? Obviously there would be cases of their life increasing but I believe the vast majority would have a decrease.
Quoting Michael
I understand where people would get that from, however my counter would be that it would be wrong to kill a foetus that is conscious, I think the logic of every foetus is a potential life is correct however, to call it murder would be dramatic aslong as the foetus isn’t conscious.
You've begged the question by assuming that we have the right to an abortion.
Quoting Samlw
Why is consciousness the measure of the right to life?
Additionally, it's seen as a road to euthanasia of the elderly, sick, or infirmed, which is in the same territory as readily-available state-sanctioned/assisted suicide if someone happens to convince themself (or, and this is the concern, becomes convinced by others) they should cease living, even for reasons as minimal and transient as a break-up, divorce, or loss of a job or having a bad year, month, week, or even day.
If all of the above becomes not only legal but commonplace in modern society, well, what respect for and purpose of our own life, let alone the lives of others, would be left?
There's a way to look at it not from abortion (nor religion) specifically but from a general cultural and societal standpoint: Unconditional respect for human life or not. Blood sports (gladiators/prisoners fighting to the death for public entertainment/their freedom) or televised executions/public hangings for example all contribute to this dynamic of a given society and have largely been phased out in most all civilized countries for reasons that they do not contribute to (have no place in) modern, intelligent, and advanced societies. Back in man's earlier days when the threat of a bloody invasion and having one's town/city/fiefdom/kingdom/empire sacked to the ground and every man, woman, and child killed or enslaved was a very real and looming possibility on the back of everyone's mind, it was probably of benefit for the average adult man and woman to realize, such things could occur and to be prepared. Now that war is largely technological/nuclear and traditional ground invasions of troops are becoming less and less likely, everyday exposure and thoughts of such have little to no utility only burden and detriment. So, why not instill the value of unconditional respect for human life in any form and at any stage to a populous? We can go forward or we can go backward. People scarcely know their own nature, despite their own self-assurance otherwise.
Well that's a slippery slope fallacy.
But we're not permitted to kill the unconscious, so that must not be the basis for deciding if someone is a person.
The US Supreme Court, prior to striking down Roe v. Wade, didn't rely upon consciousness either. It relied upon viability, meaning the ability of the fetus to survive on its own outside the womb.
Quoting Samlw
Now you've arrived at a new criterion, which is to weigh the quality of life of the mother if she has the baby versus if she doesn't. Is this an objective evaluation I can perform for a woman, or do I just trust the woman when she tells me subjectively what she thinks will be a better life for her? Should married women of financial means be required to have the child where ill equipped teenagers should be allowed to abort? Do you use the "quality of life" criterion exclusively or do you also throw in a time period rule correlated to consciousnes of the fetus, where the woman has to decide before 24-26 weeks whether her life will be better or worse with the baby? If a woman says she thinks her life will be better with the baby and all objective analysis shows she's correct, but she feels social pressue to have the abortion, will she be forbidden to have the abortion, or is her choice supreme and unchallengable?
The point here is that this is not a simple question, which is why it is so hotly contested.
Around 60% of the world’s population has the right to an abortion. And in the interest of freedom and not allowing a government to have control on what life choices you want to make with your personal body, I would argue it should be a basic right. (That’s not saying everyone should be having abortions, it’s saying everyone should have the choice).
Quoting Outlander
That isn’t how assisted suicide works. In anywhere it is Legal.
Quoting Outlander
Let’s put this into context. This is abortion. And I would argue that it shows an actual advancement in civilisation where we can safely choose whether or not to have a kid. That allows for so much more freedom. And the abortion isn’t some mediaeval operation, it’s a pill or a simple operation that does no harm to the mother.
They have a legal right, sure, but the question is whether or not we have a moral right.
Quoting Samlw
Do I have the basic (moral) right to kill you if you annoy me? Presumably you believe I don't. Some believe that I also don't have the basic (moral) right to kill a foetus.
So again you're just begging the question.
In my opinion that’s a weak counter because I can flip the same question and say, is it moral to take away the choice?
The reason some allow for the exception for rape is because people should be given the right to choose to become pregnant. If the sex was consensual, the choice was made to expose yourself to the risk of pregnancy. That's how that works.
I'm not pro-life, by the way, largely because I rely upon a personhood definition when allowing for abortion. The problem is words lack essences, so we'll never figure out the specific moment when the fetus becomes a person. I don't believe though that the clear line distinction of personhood at conception is patently ridiculous. I just can't buy into a 1 day old conceptus being a person as we typically think of people, but I do get the other side's point.
It is moral to take away your choice to kill a foetus for the same reason that it is moral to take away your choice to kill me; both the foetus and I have a right to life, and our right to life takes precedence over your choice to kill us.
I would say to that, your conscious, the foetus isn’t. So in some way you can’t use human rights in the argument because an abortion would be the same as killing something else that isn’t conscious such as a blade of grass.
Quoting Hanover
But with that logic you would be murdering something to cover up a rape. Do two wrongs make a right?
As I asked you before, why is consciousness the measure of the right to life?
Hanover offered the example of killing an unconscious person. I'll add to that the example of killing animals for food.
The matter isn't as simplistic as your reasoning would like it to be.
I would answer this question with a question. Why do we value human life over every other life?
That question has no bearing on the pro-life claim that abortion is wrong. A pro-life advocate could equally be a vegan and believe that killing animals is wrong.
As it stands you haven't justified your claim that it is acceptable to kill an unconscious foetus.
The question was towards the quote below. In which case it does have. You are right in saying that a person like you described would have an issue with that question. But I’m asking on your answer to that question. Further I would say. If you would be in a position to choose over a human life over a farm animal I would say 99.9% of the time, a human life would be chosen.
Quoting Michael
You are the one who claimed that it is acceptable kill a foetus if it is unconscious and unacceptable to kill a foetus if it is conscious. You must explain why being conscious matters. Asking me the question "why do we value human life over other life?" does not provide an explanation or a justification of your claim.
This is a weak argument. As for justifications for pro-life beliefs being based on religion or personal feelings 1) I don't see how pro-choice beliefs are any different and 2) Those seem like pretty good reasons to me. As others have noted, people who are against abortion generally consider it killing a child. Let's take the paragraph I quoted above and change "abortion" to "kill a child." I think that puts a different light on it.
As for my personal feelings on abortion - I am strongly pro-choice. At the same time, I recognize that abortion is a bad thing and shouldn't be used as a normal method of birth control. It has consequences for both potential parents and I think it has a negative impact on society as a whole. We should do what we can to reduce the number of abortions as much as we can with non-coercive means.
Then why take away the choice whether to live or die from the child?
Some think it is wrong to abort even if only moments after conception, because conception is the beginning of unique human DNA. Again, that being a stage in a human being's life.
Some think that, if the fetus does not have rights, because it is not alive, or isn't human, or whatever the criteria, then destroying it without the pregnant woman's permission isn't any more of a crime than an abortion is. (Assuming no harm is done to the woman, obviously.)
If you want to baffle the world with statistics, you need to do better homework. About 49% of the world's population is male, and of the rest, there are many prepubescent, many post-menopausal, and some infertile for various reasons. Thus more than 50% are ineligible for any right to abortion. Perhaps you mean that around 60% of the world' population live in countries where abortion is legal and accessible for women who might want or need it?
I must say I find it odd that folk who get very exercised about the sacred value of a foetus, seem to have little to say about the children killed day after day in wars and famines and from poor sanitation and lack of clean water and of easily preventable diseases. It almost looks like the real agenda is the control of women's bodies and sexual expression, not saving precious innocent human lives. But of course I am an old cynic as well as a pedant.
Quoting Michael
I think it is acceptable to kill a foetus that is unconscious because it would be the most beneficial thing in every scenario that it is chosen. What I mean by that is, that there is a reason every single time an abortion is chosen. That decision affects real people who are living and conscious. There are millions of reasons to have an abortion:
You can’t afford a child
That child has early signs of a serious disability in foetus stage
That child was a result of rape
The parents are extremely young
You and your partner are splitting up
You are studying / working on your career and so many other reasons.
My point, is that normal people want abortions for so many reasons, it doesn’t have to be severe like a rape victim.
And if a child was to come into a lower quality of life just because their parents were forced to have them, that wouldn’t be fair. And that goes for the other side where, if two parents had a lower quality of life due to being forced to having a really disabled child or they couldn’t afford the child that would also be unfair. That is the pros of having the choice. I mean how do you even know the foetus even wants to be born? Can you ask an 8 week foetus? No, because it can’t even conceptualise being a thing.
You can say you are still preventing a human life and I agree, but the benefits out weigh the cons in my opinion.
Quoting T Clark
I know it was a weak argument it was just a small paragraph to get the conversation going. I understand what you mean by 1). I would just say that there is more scientific evidence pointing to the fact that abortion isn’t “killing a child”.
What I would say to 2). If those people see it like that then they do not need to have an abortion. I just find it weird how people push their beliefs on to trying to take away someone else’s choice.
Quoting NOS4A2
Sorry but I don’t understand what you mean by this. The child has no choice regardless of we choose. It has no cognitive function to make a choice.
Quoting unenlightened
Yes
Quoting unenlightened
I do agree with the “agenda” terminology. However I do not mention it because I think it can make you sound quite paranoid. I would say some people definitely have the agenda, but there will be a vast majority that is pro-life for their own reasons.
Possibly. But I would turn it around, and ask what could possibly make a woman become unnaturally anti the new life within her? Whatever that is would certainly be a good target for legislation! Social stigma, isolation, lack of support, grinding poverty, responsibility for another without the means to fulfil the responsibility, homelessness, loss of the child, shaming, guilt, etc. Let's make laws against them during pregnancy and child-care, and then there will be little demand for abortions, except for tragic medical circumstances that cannot be avoided by legal fiat.
The counter claim is that either:
a) the benefits of an abortion do not outweigh the loss of a foetus' life, or
b) moral value is not determined by benefits, i.e. deontology is correct and consequentialism is incorrect
That wasn't my logic. You said that women should have a choice whether to have a child and I agreed. I then said that when a woman is raped, her right to decide whether to have a child has been violated (and she was violated in many other ways most certainly) and that is why many agree that in cases of rape abortion is permissible.
That is, one way women choose to have children is by having sex. It's the most common way actually. Women should have the right to choose to have children, but if they're raped and become pregnant, they were deprived that choice. For that reason, abortion might be argued to be permissible in that instance.
I understand you are pro choice. I was more pointing out the hypocrisy of the fact they would allow an abortion under those circumstances. If they truly believe that abortion is murder and people should be banned from getting them, then that should apply to all foetus lives. And Infact they have made it worse on themselves because they have put so much emphasis on the “killing” of a child.
It is often argued that incest, under-age sex (both of which are usually non-consensual in legal terms at least), non-viable foetus, risk to mother's own life are often included with rape. I think not to allow those exceptions is inhumane, even cruel. However, the cruelty to both mother and child of forcing a mother to go through an unwanted pregnancy and then expecting both mother and child to cope with a dysfunctional relationship is too often ignored. Children need love - for at least twenty years. You cannot create that by passing a law.
Quoting LuckyR
That's a very good point.
Quoting unenlightened
Absolutely. It's the least you can do for a reluctant mother and for the child as well.
Quoting Patterner
That's absurd. Parents (biological or other) not only have the right, but the duty to make decisions about their children's lives. Why should there not be a similar right and duty to make decisions about a foetus? After all, we allow people to make decisions for their relatives when they are ill and unable to make the decisions themselves.
Quoting Michael
The last thing anyone should do is make a decision of this sort based on a philosophical theory - unless, by some miracle, all the theories deliver the same judgement.
Abortion is not a simple yes/no question. It's complicated. For example, there seems to be widespread agreement that late-stage abortions should not be permitted - roughly, at the point when the foetus becomes sentient (conscious). There seems also to be agreement that even those should be permitted when the mother's life is at risk (unless the mother consents to the risk). (I'm assuming that rape, incest, non-viable or damaged foetuses etc. can be dealt with at an early stage.) There is also widespread agreement that infanticide should not be permitted, though mothers should be treated sympathetically. Anything else seems to be hotly contested. Where there is consensus, laws are perfectly reasonable. Where there is not, laws preventing abortion are tyrannical and tolerance (on both sides) is the only option.
Parents don't have the right and duty to end their child's life.
True. So they must have the right and duty not to bring a child into the world. So they must have the right and duty to abstain or use contraception. But all contraceptive methods (including just say no) have a failure rate. So why do people think that they have the right and duty to prevent them using the last-ditch opportunity not to bring a child into the world - early stage abortion? (I'm not saying that abortion is OK, just that it is better than the alternative, which is positively cruel.)
.... and many do not. Should not the parents have the right to their own conscience? It's not as if anybody seriously believes that abortion should not be controlled. I don't know if it is universal but many legal systems prohibit late stage abortions except in very exceptional circumstances.
I reduce the question of abortion to the question of personhood when we want precision in our laws and so forth: But mostly I don't think the law is well equipped for the contexts of life, and so should be permissive. In addition I believe in bodily autonomy: I don't like to phrase it as ownership, but in the legal frame I think every individual owns their body.
Further, most of the laws have been written by men -- I don't see our representative democracy as a palliative for the history of patriarchy that has dominated women's bodies so that men knew that their fucking made a kid.
Somewhere along the line the past women got treated like property, and that still echoes today. The way men look at children isn't the same as women look at children, and I bet the laws would be different if women were the ones with say on the laws (especially if the matriarchy won, but even if we simply restricted such discussions to thems who are more effected today I think)
AH! I seem to detect the voice of reason. Thank you.
But if we aren't talking about a child, I don't think "parents" is the right word. There is only a pregnant woman.
And, again, sneaking drugs into a pregnant woman's food so that she aborts, as long as it doesn't harm her, is no worse than breaking her window. Breaking her window is worse, in fact, because she had been sitting at it for years as it protected her from the cold and rain, looking at the beauty of nature, watching her husband pull into the driveway when he comes home from work.
Fair point. But the question whether there is a child or not. I'm trying to prompt "pro-lifers" to think about all this, so it seems best to talk of parents meaning, the individuals who have primary responsibility for the situation.
Quoting Patterner
I don't understand. It doesn't harm her if she want the abortion, so sneaking would not be necessary. But it sneaking is necessary, then it's likely that she does not want the abortion and in that case, it definitely does harm her.
Women have a right to vote. Approximately 30% of state legislators are women, although that varies a lot depending on the state. Many of the most prominent opponents of abortion are women. To claim that women are not responsible for the laws passed in the same manner that men are is patronizing and disrespectful.
I don't know if that's how the law actually looks at the issue anywhere. But if abortion is legal somewhere, I have to assume that's how the man's (and I use that term extraordinarily loosely) defense attorney would approach it.
In this it doesn't matter when a fetus 'becomes human' what matters is the bodily autonomy of the mother. In other words, no person is morally obligated to use their body to sustain another life against their will, even if that life is dependent on them. Just as one cannot be forced to donate organs to save another person, a woman cannot be compelled to use her body to support a fetus.
.
My view is that abortion is a matter of choice, but I can see why its use to avoid the consequences of casual sex is morally objectionable. Still, some of my relatives have had to have it, and I didn't (and wouldn't) speak out against it, as the circumstances demanded it, although I think it is a decision that has an ethical dimension.
(As it happens, my father was a renowned obstetrician and gynaecologist, and one of the generation of practitioners who introduced oral contraceptives to the world. He was very much involved in WHO efforts to promote contraception in developing nations in the 1960's, and was infuriated by the Catholic Church's opposition. We had many long dinner-table discussions about it. At the time, I was completely convinced by his opposition but I have since come to understand the philosophy behind the objection.)
Oh, I see. Interesting.
So this is part of the argument that "becoming human" isn't a single moment, a single event, but a process. Is that what you were getting at?
Quoting Tom Storm
I've seen this argument. I find it very persuasive. But I don't think that a "pro-lifer" would. The analogy with organ donation is not strong enough. And there's always the argument that the future mother has "signed up" when she consents to sex.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes. On the face of it, it's a very unsatisfactory situation. But in practical terms, it's one way of coping with the difficulty of arriving at a consensus.
Abortion seems to be more of an issue in the USA than anywhere else in the world. It's very odd.
Fair point. A 'pro-lifer' is a member of a tribe, no matter how persuasive an argument might be, the matter is settled for them.
I think that's true. They seem to take the immorality of abortion as a fixed point in the argument and adjust all the other concepts involved to fit in with that.
Rational argument on its own won't cut it.
But let's not stereotype. One expects that not all "pro-lifers" think in exactly the same way and it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that some of them may be able to see another point of view as possible. Conceding that is a big step forward, even if full change of mind (and heart) is beyond reach.
But it means that the argument is not just about rationality.
Unless that philosophical theory is true. If deontology is correct and the moral permissibility of abortion is determined by rules and principles rather than by consequences then abortion may be morally impermissible even if the mother might suffer from not having an abortion.
You've left out a premiss. If deontology is true and the rules and principles are incompatible with abortion, then abortion will be impermissible. However, before we can assert that abortion is impermissible, we have to know 1) that deontology is true and 2) that the relevant rules and principles are incompatible with abortion. We don't know either of those things, so this doesn't help.
That's why I said "abortion may be morally impermissible". The point I was making is that @Samlw was assuming consequentialism in his defence of abortion. His defence fails if consequentialism is false, so to prove that abortion is permissible he must prove that its moral permissibility is determined by the consequences.
Can I ask on your personal stance on abortion?
What if there is no proof of consequentialism either way?
Can I assume that anyone who says that abortion is impermissible whatever the consequences is assuming that deontology is true and must prove that?
What if there is no proof of deontology either way?
There's an interesting question of the burden of proof here anyway. Do we have to prove that abortion is impermissible, in which case, lacking a proof, we can assume that abortion is permissible? Or do we have to prove that abortion is permissible, in which case, lacking a proof, we can assume that it is impermissible?
If we lack a proof both of the permissibility of abortion and of its impermissibility, can we just suspend judgement? I suppose we have to. In that case, there will be nothing to prevent people following their own consciences.
There is, at least at present, no conclusive argument available either way. In which case, there is no justification for a law either way and no ground to prevent people following their own consciences.
The media is highly active in sensationalising an already sensitive issue sadly - especially in the US where major contention exists among more religiously inclined folk.
You should also consider that there are extremists on BOTH sides of the argument too. Some even argue for abortion right up to conception - Bodily Autonomy argument.
I have enjoyed seeing an actual discussion on this issue, I have only recently joined here and its refreshing to have a debate here and not on X. It is crazy to see how much social media inflames this situation.
Quoting I like sushi
Completely agree.
Well, this is the issue I have with morality in general. I don't think any moral claims are either verifiable or falsifiable. Unlike science and maths there's just no way to prove or disprove one claim or another. We just either accept them or we don't, and then make our choices accordingly, and such choices include whether or not to pass a law to ban abortion.
That can only work if folks are honest with themselves about their motivation. Are pro-lifers actually full of love for infants and children, and in particular other people's infants and children? Do they surround themselves with them, support measures to improve child-care, education, etc? If they do, then arguments about the merits of this or that rule can be persuasive.
But my experience has been that most pro-lifers are not great lovers of other people's children, but misogynists and seekers of power over others. If the aim is to support patriarchal power relations, and the right to life and sanctity of life arguments are mere cover, then they will not be convinced by any counter-argument, that points out - for example the horror of a pregnant woman bleeding out and losing her baby in the hospital car park because doctors are too afraid of prosecution to treat her.
Why?
I think consistency is important.
Sorry I am not quite understanding your point. Are you saying:
If someone was to slip an abortion pill in a pregnant woman's body without her knowing and it results in the death of the foetus. Whether or not the person would be arrested for murder depends on your standpoint on abortion?
If that is the correct understanding then @Michael's question still stands, why?
If this isn't the correct understanding please explain,
Doing the right thing is more important, even if it appears "inconsistent".
He made an interesting point, @Patterner, I mean. If it's not legally considered a human, just another mass of organic matter of no significant value to the bearer, perhaps even undesired, it would be akin to placing a laxative in someone's food or drink, I believe is what his point is. That would be simple assault/food tampering, perhaps poisoning, but not murder, according to those who believe personhood cannot exist prior to exiting the womb. Though I imagine "physical and emotional damages" would have a good chance of being levied as charges as well. However, I believe in a state where a fetus is considered a human being, murder or at least homicide may be on the table in such a case. I have read (often, actually) cases and news articles of women either giving birth (unexpectedly or not) and leaving foeti abandoned in restrooms and waste receptacles being charged criminally. It's an interesting converging point of legal philosophy, social and cultural belief, and morality, his scenario is.
It doesn't depend on your standpoint on the status of a foetus. It depends on what the law says. If the law defines the crime of murder as including the killing of a foetus then killing a foetus is murder, and one is charged accordingly, otherwise it isn't and you won't be.
In both US federal and UK law, one can only murder those who have been born. This is the born alive rule.
Yes, of course. If the law says it's murder, then it's murder. And the law says murder only applies when the victim is a human being. Kill someone's cat or dog, and you are not charged with murder. It's illegal, and you'll be charged with something. But you might be in more trouble for how you killed the animal than for the fact that you killed it. Like if you use the gun in a residential area. Of course, those laws are different from one area to another.
Kill someone's herd of cattle, and you are not charged with murder.
This doesn't follow. The fact that we may not consider a fetus a person doesn't mean that we can't place the value of the death of the fetus over indigestion. The unjust killing of a person is murder. The unjust killing of a fetus is feticide.
It's consistent to protect the value of fetus without affording it the full rights of personhood. We offer differing values for differing things, human or not. Burning down your house will result in a more serious crime than burning your cigarette.
And this is consistent with Roe v. Wade law when abortion was legal. There were laws against feticide during those years and there were laws regulating the use of and disposal of fetal tissue and organs. It's not an all or nothing proposition where you either grant fetuses full rights of personhood or you treat them like ordinary refuse.
H'm. You didn't cover "If it's not murder, ..." Given what you've said, if it's not murder. abortion is not murder. It's vicious nasty crime, but who was killed? No-one. So it's not murder.
I heard about that case. It was indeed horrible. But I'm afraid I'm very much inclined to include the doctors in my disapproval. True, they have a good deal at risk and they no doubt have families to consider. But still, to stand back and watch her die, or worse, to walk away, and not keep her company while she died.... Still, I don't really know what happened beyond the headlines.
If moral realism is correct, then there is. So you need to explain why there is no way to prove or disprove a moral claim.
It would have been helpful if you had stated your view. Some people think that moral claims are purely subjective, but that's over-simplified. Moral claims are certainly not proved or disproved in the way(s) that science or math is. But there are moral arguments - not as crisp or conclusive as science and maths, but there they are. You have to work with what you can get.
Good points. But I'm wondering. We can say therr are just killings of people. For example, it's not murder when we execute a convicted murderer. Or when we kill in self-defence. But what is an example of a just killing of a fetus? When it puts the pregnant woman's life in danger seems like an obvious example. Any others?
Sorry. My mistake. At least we agree.
Moral realism can be true even if moral truths cannot be determined.
In a legalistic setting (as opposed to a philosophical one), the questions of when the taking of a life is justified and when it is not is just spelled out in whatever law you pass. That is, I can take a life to save my own, or another, or even to protect my dwelling. There need not be any underlying principle guiding any of this, but just whatever legislatures want to do.
So, if abortion is declared illegal in a very broad way, you end up with unintended consequences like what happened in Alabama. In vitro fertilization became illegal because the fertilized eggs in test-tubes were considered people because human life began at conception, which means their disposal was murder. You would have to preserve all unused fertilized eggs I guess forever. Maybe you'd have to create a birth certificate with each creation of life and a death certificate with each death and then send that to the department of vital records. That needs to be worked among those in Alabama, but that's the problem of the hard and fast rule that a sperm attached to an egg is a person fully endowed with rights.
Roe v. Wade, like it or not, created a workable solution from a pragmatic perspective and now all of this is opened back up to work out now that it no longer is controlling law.
Russell's tea-pot is another well-known example. It was eventually exploded by the Voyager missions.
More seriously, why would indeterminate moral truths be relevant to anything?
Oh, of course. God's judgement.
What constitutes killing a child is not something that can be resolved by science. It's a matter of social convention, consensus. Obviously, consensus is lacking here in the US. It's not unfair that not everyone shares your values.
I'm not sure exactly what this means, but it seems to me that the specific laws we are concerned with have been legislated and enforced wholesale since the Supreme Court kicked Roe vs. Wade out the door.
A subsidiary argument which may not have been mentioned is, "Any species which develops systematic means to kill 70+ million of its own fetuses each year is messed up." A species which so buttresses the killing of its own offspring is not in good shape. For a species to intentionally kill its own fetuses is exceedingly unnatural.
Lots of things we do are “unnatural”. But then also killing one’s offspring happens in nature too. There are various species of birds that occasionally kill the weakest baby so that they can better feed the others.
Regardless, I’m not sure what “naturalness” has to do with morality.
I'm sorry but that's just not the case.
Quoting Michael
Yes, 5 minutes with Google threw up several lists of different species that will kill (and eat) their young. Hunger is one motive. Preventing a predator getting them seems to be another. Males seem to resent or be jealous to new babies. Killing the young is not particularly common, but there is no basis for calling it unnatural. The same applies to that other great taboo - cannibalism.
I can relate with that. What was the statistic...
Quoting Aaron O'Neill
Compare that to: "the rate was 34 abortions per 100 live births in the year 1990" (or 34 percent).
So in less than 200 years we went from 46% of conceptions unwillingly not resulting in healthy living children to 34% of conceptions willingly not resulting in healthy living children. Something to ponder, if nothing else. Kinda shows how far we've come (or I suppose in turn how other qualities have regressed). There's some word for the stark yet paralleled contrast in dynamics between the two - irony, I suppose? Yes, irony will have to do.
Are we overpopulated? Becoming less responsible? More carefree, not having to worry about the level and tenacity of civilization-ending dangers such as famine and invasion that pose existential threats to not only our own personal survival but that of society and even entire swathes of humanity as a whole? People were more religious back then, if not by State or governmental coercion (an obedient populace content and resolute in purpose is a manageable one, after all). Seems to me a lot of it has to do with attitude toward humanity as a species and whether or not we hold ourselves in higher regard to that of the animals, beyond the superficialities of "we're a bit smarter and more physically-capable and as a result just so happened to wind up on top of the primal food chain". Which if not compounded by a sort of metaphysical/religious/divine purpose seems to not offer much as far as a deep reverence and appreciation for our own lives, let alone that of others. Little more than highly advanced, verbally communicative creatures who exist only to propagate one's genetic material, not unlike a common cold germ.
Might be delving a tad off topic (my reply, that is) so to circle back, I agree there is a social and personal psychological drawback to abortion that might not be so widely covered or immediately perceived. What if, say, a woman chose abortion and later becomes infertile. Or simply ponders, as she becomes older, the magnitude of the act, or rather begins thinking along the lines of "imagine what could have been", etc. When you're young you don't really think about such things in any great depth. But many a decision or indecision from one's youth and naivety have been known to haunt persons as they become older and wiser. Something to think about and consider, surely? :confused:
In short, the modern age is what it is. The average low-income person lives a life with experiences readily-available only a king or magistrate would have had 1,000 years ago. It's not difficult to become blinded to or unappreciative of this fact. That said, something about a rape victim being forced to carry her assailant's child to term literally inside her for 9 months just doesn't sit well with me, nor would I imagine it with said victim. I still don't think it's beneficial to society that it be easier/quicker to legally get rid of whatever you want to call what would otherwise become a child than it is, say, a bucket of used motor oil, however. Not as casually with little to no thought about the matter, rather. Still, in a world where people are starving and killing one another in the streets as wars and pre-war tensions rage on in nearly every corner of the globe, there's more pressing issues to contend with I suppose can be said.
a-z-animals.com has 7 species and says that " In fact, up to one in three mammal species are known to commit infanticide."
wildlifeinformer.com has 10 species and says that heads its list as "10 examples with pictures". (They aren't pictures of the animals in the process of eating their young). They say of blenny fish that " it is the fathers that eat their babies rather than the mother." Their story is that it is the father that looks after the eggs until they hatch. But apparently they sometimes eat the eggs they are supposed to be looking after so they can wander off and find another mate.
www.livescience.com has 12 species and introduces its list with "many creatures engage in this behavior."
Quoting Outlander
I would hope that anyone choosing an abortion would treat the matter seriously. Whether they do or not is an empirical question. Proper data, properly gathered is the only serious basis for making a judgement about how many do in fact take it seriously and how many do not.
Quoting Outlander
The only way you can answer that question is to talk to women who have made that decision and become infertile (or chosen not to have children, for that matter). Again, proper data, properly gathered. Anything else is speculation, and possibly fear-mongering and propaganda. "What if.." questions are all too often misused.
What makes abortion unnatural? Murder is an inherent part of humanity, particularly the murder of our own family members. Cain killed Abel after all, and there were only 4 people in all of creation at the time.
But despite our murderous tendencies, with domestic violence, wars, pollution, and even counting abortion, human populations continue to grow.
All is natural.
Argue ethics. That makes more sense.
You could use this claim to argue against the law prohibiting murder. Deciding on which laws to have and which choices to give people has to consist of more than just considering whether people believe differently. If believing differently is all it takes to avoid making a choice illegal, then just let people who want to murder kill whoever they like, they obviously disagree with whoever wants to pass the laws.
At which developmental stage does a foetus become conscious, and what reasoning have you used to arrived at that conclusion?
Why is the bodily autonomy of the baby irrelevant? They're just as much a human individual as the mother is.
But what's the justification for this? At what point does a foetus become a baby, and what's the relationship responsible for making the difference?
Quoting tim wood
Could you give an example or point to statistics?
My claim is that people who insist on using the term foetus instead of baby can't point out what the substantive difference is, and that they use the term to suggest there is one. A human foetus and a human baby are both human individuals.
Quoting tim wood
A given law in a given country existing at a given time doesn't determine what the substantive difference between a foetus and a baby might be. Roe v. Wade didn't dictate reality.
Quoting tim wood
I don't think it has been demonstrated.
Quoting tim wood
OK, so you can't give a single example of a mother dying unnecessarily as a result of lack of access to abortion, even though you claimed that is happening. When you make claims, you need to have a source ready. If it is easy to find on the news, you should be able to give an example.
That's a very good starting-point for developing policy. But, of course, those are lines drawn in a continuous developmental process. The argument against abortion is essentially an argument against the ethical significance of those lines, so they are swept away by a blizzard of slogans and absolutism. Pity.
Can we get some perspective by considering a related but different issue? The idea that contraception is wrong. The abortion argument seems to draw a line at the point of fertilization of the egg and there is a point to that. Still, there are people (some of whom I respect) who believe that that line is not ethically significant. It is true that the causal process does not begin at that point, but is arrived at by means of a causal process which is initiated by the sex act.
There are ethical and legal restrictions on the sex act. So now I want to ask why if it is thought to be so vitally important not to interfere with the development of a foetus/baby/child, it is thought to be ethically acceptable to interfere in any way with the sex act.
Once one has decided that it is ethically important to regulate the sex act, it seems to me that there is no good reason to reject interference with the process at any later stage, until the foetus/baby/child becomes sentient, and even then, when situations arise in which life and welfare
of the baby and mother are in danger and choices have to be made, there is no good reason to prioritize the life of the baby over that of the mother.
Quoting Hallucinogen
This is a non-issue. A human foetus and a human baby are the same individuals being described in different ways. The difference is the ethical attitudes embedded in the description. It is pointless to fuss about which description is being applied when what is at stake is the ethical attitudes embedded in the descriptions.
I would argue that there is a significant difference between the descriptions "baby" and "child", although it gets severely eroded in common use. A child is a baby who has grown up somewhat, probably to the point where they can walk and talk. However, there are somewhat different ethical attitudes embedded in those descriptions as well.
I remember how surprised I was when finding out that back then countries like Sweden and Finland had far more tighter regulation on abortion than the US.
The discussion should be about the exact details, not this old juxtaposition to being "pro-life" or "pro-choice". It doesn't go so that if you are "pro-life", then you are for abortion laws like in Madagascar, where abortion is illegal in all cases, including rape, incest and the mother’s life being endangered. Or that with pro-choice that you think it's totally OK to dispose of a fetus as long as the naval cord is tied to the mother.
Of course the real effect with doing away with Roe v. Wade is that abortions have increased.
I must be missing something. What are the differences that need to be recognized?
Though I suspect that the terms may be being used, shall we say, more flexibly, because "baby" is more emotionally appealing than "foetus".
The same may apply to "egg" and "sperm", which may help to explain explain why they are less protected than babies.
Very true. All I asked was what the differences are that make the difference. I didn't think that was a particularly vicious question. Let me try again.
These are dictionary definitions and not particularly authoritative. However, I have the impression that they are an acceptable starting-point for discussion. So can you please explain where they are wrong?
Quoting tim wood
I don't disagree with you. But it's not quite the whole story. I do think that the labelling of - let's say - an unborn baby as a foetus or a baby is part of the very serious business of debating the issue. I also think that in this context, it is vicious, or at best irrelevant. That was my point.
The emotional overtones of "foetus" and "baby" are very different and are being used to gain rhetorical advantage in the debate. Participants in the debate are indeed playing games with words.
(Not that the proper use of "foetus" in clinical and research contexts is vicious.)
You must forgive me if I made the point in a way that misled you. .
What you said above contradicts what you've said earlier.
In the USA, we are not only charged for murder if kill a human being. Besides the degrees of murder, someone can also be charged with manslaughter, criminally accidental homicide, or not be charged at all. Someone can kill a human being, themselves, and not get charged with murder. Someone can kill a human being in self-defense and not get charged with murder. Someone can medically kill a human being, "pulling the plug," and not get charged for murder. Someone can kill a human being by accident, accidental homicide, and not get charged for murder.
So, regardless of whether or not some considers a fetus as a human being, causing the death of a fetus isn't necessarily murder.
I didn't say any time we kill a human, we get charged with murder. And I gave examples of times we kill a human and do not get charged with murder.
What I meant is that the only thing that gets a charge of murder is killing a human. Not killing anything else, or even a million something elses.
If I was a dictator - which God forbid! - I would legislate that a foetus is a foetus until live birth occurs, after which it is a baby.
I don't know the details about Roe v Wade, but from what I've seen, it is certainly a good start.
I agree with what you said, barring nit-picking details.
Quoting tim wood
I thought they were trick questions, so didn't answer. I would be an idiot to answer either yes or no.
A caterpillar is not just a caterpillar, but a future butterfly. It should be treated as such. Ditto the contents of an egg.
A foetus is not just a lump, but a future person (even if it has died). (There's been some conflict about that between parents and doctors.) This creates a complicated situation. Of course the mother has a predominant interest, and, as a living person, prior rights. But society also has a reasonable interest and perhaps the father too.
When you say it's a "non-issue", do you mean we're in agreement that a human foetus and a human baby are the same thing, despite the different terms used?
Quoting Ludwig V
A person's ethical attitudes ought to be based on reasoning, just as their descriptions ought to be. The descriptions don't justify their ethical attitudes, their reasoning does.
OK, so now that you're saying that inside/outside and viable/not-viable are the substantive differences between foetus and baby here, am I to understand then that you're saying it's OK to abort a foetus because it is inside the womb, or that it's morally OK to abort a foetus because it isn't viable?
If the answer is yes to either of those, then I'm going to ask you why you think that a foetus going from inside a womb to outside the womb makes the difference between it being morally permissible to kill it to killing it not being morally permissible. The same goes for the foetus going from not viable to viable.
Quoting tim wood
Well there's something called the burden of proof. If you're claiming that something is true, you ought to be able to provide evidence that it is true on your own, especially if you're telling me it's easy. Otherwise, your refusal to cooperate is indistinguishable from you having no basis for what you claimed to be true.
Yes.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Yes. But these descriptions involve both facts and values, and that makes for an argument in which it is easy to get confused.
The common argument here is that bodily autonomy is a defensive right - you have the right to refuse interference with your body, but you don't have a right to a specific treatment. And in case of a pregnancy, the fetus/baby is "using" the body of the mother, hence her bodily autonomy takes precedence.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Evidence seems to suggest humans become conscious, in the sense of being aware of themselves and their own awareness, only some time after birth. Plausibly, it may only develop alongside the ability to interact with the environment.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Well one argument is that only once a baby is actually born that it can really separate from the mother and be it's own person. Both physically and mentally. I don't think anyone claims something magic happens at the point of birth but matter-of-factly a new human being needs to acquire certain basic capabilities in order to become an individual, and being born and capable of surviving outside the womb is certainly a prerequisite.
I don't think any system of moral philosophy can have a completely internal and consistent definition of who is a subject to which the system applies. Some interpretation of facts is always going to be necessary. This applies to chimpanzees or Dolphins but also to human babies or humans with severe brain damage. At some point you're going to have to "eyeball" the solution.
At least some moral element must be introduced for a practical law; banned abortion also means additional suffering for many individuals who had no choice in the matter, and so at least some limited abortion must exist.
Another thing is that if you delve too deep into the moral side of it you begin to realize that the suffering of even a conscious fetus being aborted is nothing compared to the experiences of a life. From that standpoint, maybe not even viewing a fetus as a person who can be murdered but as an individual with a potential to live, it seems like the worst kind of crime to purposefully prevent that individual the chance of a life.
I’m sure that this issue, although major, is somewhat temporary, as no doubt an issue with such political traction will at some point experience technological development making more and more premature and less uncomfortable delivery methods possible. I look forward to that.
It is. Quoting Igitur
It really, truly does not seem like anything of any note. This would be the same as pretending "every sperm is sacred" . Preventing a potential is the same as allowing a potential. It is prior to the issue.
Quoting Echarmion
I think this matters, and is not quite as frivolous as many like to assert. Obviously, moments before birth would present moral issues, but if this is based on average viability it becomes as workable policy driver, at the least. There will always be people uncomfortable with where the line is drawn. I don't think we need to care too much. It certainly doesn't strike me as something that needs to be accounted for as between differing views. Just something we live with, unless we have some absolute moral compass (religious, for example).
Given that you state in your next paragraph:
Quoting Igitur
It seems like you do see the practical reason. Indeed all the hard evidence we have seems to suggest that access to legal and safe abortions has significant positive effects.
I can understand the moral position of someone who thinks that abortion is murder. But, as a practical matter, I don't think it's reasonable to claim that no access to abortion would make the world a better place. Who benefits from such a policy? The unborn? But then why do "potential" people have a say at all?
Quoting Igitur
I find this a strange contention. The "chance of life" is not attached to any moral subject. Causal chains don't have rights, do they?
I'm surprised that you think that is a point so obvious and simple that one can simply remind me of it and pass on. There are profoundly different views at stake here. The view that you are expressing here is, on my reading of it, a kind of atomism that posits a world consisting of entities each of which exists in its own right, independently of all the other entities in the world. Everything is what it is, and not another thing. This view works quite well in many contexts, but sometimes does not work at all well.
You can insist that a caterpillar is not a butterfly. I shall insist that a caterpillar is not yet a butterfly. I am thinking of the state of being a caterpillar (or a chrysalis or a butterfly) as a stage in a life-cycle. Because the changes in this life-cycle are so dramatic, we apply different terms to the stages. But we include our understanding of each stage in the concept - the way we think about - each term. We call this the life-cycle of the butterfly, choosing the final stage to identify the life-cycle, which is somewhat arbitrary, but not incomprehensible. This is why there is so much argument about abortion.
Quoting Echarmion
I hate this argument. I would think that a mother who thinks like that about her unborn baby is likely to think like that about baby/child and that will not be a good thing for either child or eventual adult. Perhaps one might one posit a radical change of heart. But in fact it amounts to occupying the opposition's ground and turning it against them. It high-lights how inappropriate it is to think of a foetus as a small person as opposed to a future person.
I think using the caterpillar and butterfly analogy is incorrect, I think a better one would be a seed planted in a garden. The life cycle of a seed starts at germination, where it starts to take in moisture and sprout, if you were to compare it to a foetus it would be the stage where the egg is fertilized and it starts to divide.
I think the analogy works not only with the similarities but also how we view a "seed". If you knew that the seed you planted was going to grow over your favourite plant, blocking the sunlight and killing it. you would remove the seed because the seed is a lot less valuable then your favourite plant.
The difference is the probability. Killing one sperm isn’t really going to affect the chances of a successful pregnancy and birth. Killing a fetus is massively more likely to have prevented a life.
It's about the moral implications of the practical view of the potential of a fetus, specifically. Not about holding the value of the fetus or sperm up to a human life by rote.
Quoting Echarmion
This point (while valid to a large degree) is fully though the point of view of someone already living in this world. It's one argument to say that more humans limit the quality of life of existing humans, and a whole other to say that because of this it's good to prevent new people being born. It's not that they have a say (as they don't), it's that we can still (obviously) measure the pros and cons of the unborn being aborted versus continuing normally.
Currently we have a lot of social and political issues limiting reform at this level, or just making them not worth it. That's why this argument in particular is more about the practical philosophy of limiting abortions and not a moral call to do so now.
Obviously I'm not calling for all abortions to be banned. I just think that in the future, we would do well to adhere to a policy of not aborting when not completely necessary (presuming a future that has improved upon the world today, which might be a stretch, but is also the only way I can see a future at all).
I was talking about a certain kind of concept, so I didn't have an actual analogy in mind. Caterpillar and egg were examples rather than analogies. Yes, seeds vs plants are a better analogy.
Quoting Igitur
There's plenty of room for debate about "not completely necessary".
I think we have to be careful about a policy in relation to decisions that ought to be made at an individual level. A policy of encouraging people to have children because the population is declining (or the reverse) is one thing - and actions to make the process (for or against) easier would not be objectionable. But laws compelling people in either direction are objectionable; people tend to resist them strongly anyway.
Quoting tim wood
You are confusing me with someone who is making that mistake. There are indeed important differences between the flood that has not yet happened and the flood that is happening now. But it is also important not to confuse the flood that has not yet happened with no flood happening.
I think this is just a question of language and emphasis - unless you can show me what hangs on it. I think that what hangs on this is that, just as one should not confuse a foetus with a child, one should not confuse a foetus with a parasite. A pregnant woman is not yet a mother, but her pregnancy is still important, ethically and in other ways.
Totally agree.
I do agree it's a bit of a weird (and perhaps stark) legalistic fiction. But it does highlight an important consideration with bodily autonomy: We generally recognise that there is a hard border where no amount of "greater good", not even family ties, can overcome a person's wishes.
Quoting Igitur
If we're considering purely hypothetical scenarios, then a world where noone ever finds themselves in a situation where they consider abortion does seem preferable.
I merely wanted to point out that, even if you are opposed to abortion on moral grounds, it's hard to argue that banning abortion in the present improves the situation for anyone. It's hard to see how taking the decision away from those most involved - the parents - is an effective strategy.
Yes. A qualification. Even in those cases, we can recommend to people that this or that course of action would be better prudentially or morally.
Fair point. Banning abortion right now is definitely not the play. I do hope that it eventually becomes a thing of the past.
If a child is brain dead and being kept alive on life support, the parents can decide to harvest the organs and remove life support. This society puts a lot of emphasis on the (supposed) personhood-brain connection.
I'm not sure of the distinction between brain dead and dead dead. But as to consciousness, you can be unconscious and have brain activity, like when you're asleep.
As an American, my two bits: "pro life" folks, especially those who are also pro-guns, pro-death penalty, pro-voter suppression & anti-immigration / ethno-nationalist, seek to control (reverse) demographic trends by controlling women's bodies and use 'Bronze Age superstitions' (rather than modern science / medicine) to 'justify' their movement. :mask:
Agree, but I have no idea what the import of that distinction is. The 'probability' for a single sperm could be, all else equal, the exact same as some other fetus (obviously, from a Sperm which had the same chances as the one im talking about). Point is taken, nonetheless. I would just suggest that what matters is that it is not 'actual' in either case (i take it arguments over 'actual' here are the real meat).
Quoting Igitur
This doesn't really give me anything. The 'moral implications' of a fetus are zero, as far as I'm concerned until viability (which means I have to take a bit of a pot-shot If I'm going to commit to a policy, but it would ensure probablity is taken account of ;) ). Could you perhaps elaborate on what you feel is presented here (in the concept of the 'practical view of the potential of a fetus' and why this wouldn't clear itself back to the Sperm without fault.
Quoting 180 Proof
Absolutely spot on! And I'm not American.
I had similar thoughts when I read the shocking Guardian article re Capital punishment, yesterday.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/935435
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/29/america-executions-death-penalty
The terms: 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice', describe opposing sides of the abortion debate, are not helpful.
It's using loaded, extreme language for a specific and contentious issue. In general, people are FOR life and FOR choice. The trouble is that opponents are then deemed 'Anti life' and 'Anti choice'.
How ridiculous. Call it like it is. 'Pro-life' is 'Anti-Abortion'. Why muddy the waters? To persuade voters of the evils of Democrats?
If you are PRO life, then logically this should extend to opposition to guns, war and the death penalty.
It clearly doesn't and shows the toxic hypocrisy of the Republicans in America.
This is not about saving innocent life.
It is about power and control of women and their bodies.
I think this is a poor argument in some ways. If someone chooses to become pregnant, and/or sees their pregnancy through to a certain point, then changes their minds ... well, is the unborn child to blame for the mother's poor management of the situation.
Of course, I am looking at a specific scenario here and questioning exactly how far along a pregnancy is before the woman decides to abort. I do not see how the 'body autonomy' argument would hold up here because the woman made a prior choice and commitment and so should be held to account to some degree (varying on a case-to-case basis).
As a more concrete analogy if I commit to paying monthly installments for something over a period of time and willingly and knowingly sign up to this commitment, then simply having a change of mind/heart after I have only made 60% of the installments, and expecting everyone to be okay with this (if I have the fund available) is frankly a little ridiculous.
In some sense, I can see this kind of position being put forward to argue against abortions after a certain period of time. The obvious problem is then deciding on where to draw the line. I truly believe there is a line to be drawn and that, to some degree, it necessarily has to be arbitrary in-part but certainly not fully (ie. backed up by latest scientific understanding).
In the UK I believe it is 22 weeks. I am sure there are situations where abortions are allowed after this period depending on the circumstances.
I can a degree of sympathy with those who believe that life is sacred form the point of conception, but personally I just do not see things this way. Open dialogue is a good thing if people can respect/understand the authority of evidence others are working with.
The trouble is when religious 'pro-life' or 'anti-abortion' activists push their 'dialogue' outside abortion clinics. This adds danger to an already fraught situation. Protests and obstructing workers and patients.
Abuse and intimidation have required legislation to enable buffer or protection zones. These will extend to a 150-metre radius.
However, it may be the case that 'silent prayer' is allowed.
Quoting BBC News - Abortion Safe Zones
'Religious freedom'. Is this a fundamental human right? Where are the limits? When it encroaches on other freedoms or rights. Like those of women. A world-wide problem - wider than abortion.
I think if you rephrase this as 'freedom to believe what you want' it sounds even more stupid in a way. We believe what we believe. You cannot expect people to stop believing something just because it seems ridiculous or abhorrent.
It is obviously difficult to cope with this in society. No one has the same mind. The best we can hope to encourage on others is open dialogue. It will be refused by some, but those that accept it may leads others in too.
I am still not sure about how tolerant anyone should be to anyone else. it is another matter of personal choice. What I may tolerate others may not. We have to live with this fact.
OK, so the highest priority is the right to refuse having your body interfered with, unless you're dependent on someone else's body?
It seems to me that this situation doesn't change after the fetus/baby is born. It takes quite a long time for babies and children to no longer be dependent on other people. So I think your criteria would make it permissible to abort children who have been born. If being being attached to the mother's body is a key aspect of "using" her body, then I don't see why this is morally relevant.
Does your criteria mean that, for example if a firefighter who is securely strapped onto something and who is preventing me from falling to my death by holding on to me, that it's morally permissible for him to let go, even though there's no danger to him?
Quoting Echarmion
Which evidence are you referring to?
Quoting Echarmion
But a baby won't survive on its own outside the womb. It's still dependent on society.
OK, why do you think viability is what is morally relevant enough to make the difference between for it to be or not be permissible to abort/kill someone?
Tolerance can be intolerable. The tolerant can be destroyed by the intolerant.
Interesting when it comes to 'open dialogue'. So often closed down by the dogmatic who only listen to their own narcissistic, egotistical desires. Even as they espouse religious beliefs or faith.
The 'personal choice' of those in positions of high political power - who would bully and kill world citizens - who control by hate, war and destruction - should never be acceptable. It is criminal.
If the 'freedom' wedge of vitriolic hate speech and promotion of violence are tolerated, then it becomes normalised. To all our detriment. Extremists in religion/politics manipulate words and images to cover their malignancies and justify acts of terror.
Dear God, if Trump wins he will grant himself the Nobel Peace Prize. Because, of course, there will be no war...he can make deals. He can make wishes come true. Peace to all. He has God delusions. It seems half of America believe him.
We can't stop people believing what they want or what they are told.
Education can help but, yes, not always accessible. And so on...
Apologies, I've gone off- topic. But the issue of abortion seems to be key as to how people will vote in America. Should this be such a determining factor, when there are so many others.
You can be anti- abortion but still vote Democrat, no? Or is it all so very black and white...
I don't know. But I am deeply and increasingly concerned as to the level of ignorance, arrogance and aggression leading to regression and destruction of human rights.
Quoting Samlw
It has been a 'hot topic in America' forever and a day. However, I agree with you that, right now, beliefs about abortion will be a major factor in the American election. Interesting indeed.
"Pro-life" = pro-forced birth = pro-forced labor: unviable foetus (master) over pregnant woman (slave). :vomit:
Welcome to effin' "Gilead" (re: post-Roe v Wade America) aka [s]Trumpistan.[/s]
I couldn't bring myself to read the novel or watch the film.
I do feel physically sick at such things, even in fiction.
But perhaps it's time. To get over myself. To get to know Atwood and the story.
The American Election - the most vile Republican rhetoric.
Too damned close for comfort. I'm not even there but it's everywhere.
Take care :flower:
As for the upcoming election, it's not really as close as "the media" reports and "the national polls" (since the US presidential election is not a national popular election but fifty state elections) suggest. IMO, Amity, it's more profitable to news organizations and social media platforms to sell the "down to the wire neck and neck horse race" story. My 'pessimistic' prediction since 2022 has been and still is that Trump will lose the 2024 by at least the margin he'd lost in 2020. :mask: :up:
The real (appalling) "fun" will begin furiously after the election in 35 days – I expect there will be blood!
I didn't say it was the highest priority. It's one common argument.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Bodily autonomy is specific to things that affect the physical substance of your body. Else every action would fall under bodily autonomy. The justification for the principle is that the integrity of your body is the basic requirement for your freedom as well as the most private sphere of your existence.
Quoting Hallucinogen
What we know from developmental psychology. Children only start to engage in social interactions after a few months. Before 3 months, infants do not respond to the behaviour of others, such as following another person's gaze. It can take up to two years for children to recognise themselves in a mirror.
This seems to suggest that children don't start out with full self awareness.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Right, but so is most everyone. At least with birth, a child can be cared for by anyone regardless of biological relation. So, their dependency exits from the realm of biology and enters the realm of society.
Quoting I like sushi
I don't think bodily autonomy is about blame. Indeed what's special about bodily autonomy is that one can invoke it no matter how good the counterarguments. Even a perfectly innocent child is not entitled to a blood transfusion from you, even if that transfusion causes you only a bit of inconvenience while being a matter of life and death to the child.
Quoting I like sushi
I can see where you're coming from, but my issue is that there's noone to make a commitment to. Pregnancy is not an agreement with the unborn child.
Quoting I like sushi
I don't have strong feelings about selecting some cut off point (provided it still allows a reasonable window of time to actually make a decision).
In principle though I wonder why we should not trust the parents to make that decision themselves.
Couldn't be sure, but I'm an emotivist so my position doesn't hinge on my being able to explicate it.
That said, I'll have a go:
Viability is where the 'potential' slips from 'potential to eventually be able to survive outside the womb' (which, consider, has infinite ways to not manifest) to "(apparent)actual ability to survive outside the womb" (which, consider, requires essentially 'morally relevant action' to extinguish in most cases).
These lines are too stark, and (i think I noted) I accept some level of overlap in terms of acceptable abortions, or refusal of abortions, on my account. Edge cases will have to just exist within the frame work, and some will be, on the facts probably wrong on my view, but fit hte framework and are an acceptable trade off. Viability seems to be the only worthwhile way to distinguish. Whether it matters is up to the person making hte moral statement.
The chances of killing a sperm actually effecting someone (and it would also need to be negative as well, only deaths matter because the chance of a positive genetic change is the same as a negative one), is extremely slim. You might say that with my philosophy it would still be impermissible, and I would probably ask you why you are killing a sperm in the first place.
Maybe it is a requirement for this argument to make sense that killing a sperm would also be impermissible. Maybe it is.
But using this to say what I’ve said is a non-functional argument obviously has some flaws, as that means that any crime that has a probability of effecting something isn’t as impermissible with a lower probability. (Obviously adding a benefit of the crime that doesn’t chance or at least doesn’t change as much affects this, but this particular question works the opposite way.)
Furthermore, if the implications of this idea do in fact clear back to a sperm, then why doesn’t the crime of killing an infant clear back to the fetus back to the sperm?
What’s the point at which a fetus becomes valuable enough to be worth keeping (or morally significant enough to demand keeping)?
(If this doesn’t answer your question just rephrase and I’ll give it another go.)
Quoting Banno
And
Quoting Banno
Quoting Amity
:fire:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/12/how-often-do-views-capital-punishment-abortion-align/
'mercans, of course. Elsewhere saner attitudes might prevail.
Which country is having trouble deciding and needed it's own special choropleth?
Meh. 'merca is a schizoid nation. I guess that's what makes it interesting.
That's consistent, to me. I reject it, but it's a consistent view if this negative view is open to you. Quoting Igitur
I think this was the 'corner' I was trying to push you into (politely, lol). You've responded very well imo.
For me, that viability argument, coupled with the acceptance of a meaningful, but acceptable, margin of error in probability claims of a given case, give me the line I need.
Thank you :)
Let me give this a crack.
First and foremost, in order for this argument to work, we must agree (at least as a mere stipulation) that the end(s) does (do) not justify the means—viz., I cannot do a bad action for the sake of a good end (e.g., I cannot kill and harvest the organs of an innocent, healthy person to save a sick person’s life).
A person (i.e., a living being with a proper will—i.e., with a mind capable of rational deliberation—or, more generally, a part of a rational species) has certain basic rights; and they have rights, which are not mere privileges, because each person must respect, equally, each other person because they are a person. Two of these rights are the right to bodily autonomy and the right to life.
It is important to note that the right to life is NOT the right to anything required to live, and the right to bodily autonomy is the NOT the right to do anything required to preserve or enforce one’s own will about their own body (i.e., autonomy); exactly because the end does not justify the means. I cannot violate your right to bodily autonomy EVEN IF it would result in the upholding of my own (e.g., forcing you to be my slave and work on a plantation to produce goods that help me maintain my health) because I would be performing a bad action for the sake of something good—which is always wrong.
So here’s why I am pro-life: killing an innocent person is to violate their right to life, and so any action which incorporates killing an innocent person as a means towards a good end, such as upholding the bodily autonomy of a pregnant female, is always wrong. I cannot do something bad to do something good: I must find another way that is permissible, or abstain from interjecting (i.e., let something bad happen).
Does that help?
No. A cyst is not a person.
Make arguments, not emotions. This thread contains lots of real arguments regarding abortion. That seems worth continuing.
It's a cyst with a beating heart. They just think it's murder. It's no more complex than that.
Not to begin with.
Quoting frank
Murder is unlawful killing. It's not murder if abortion is legal.
It has a beating heart when they do the abortion. They don't like to do them before 12 weeks.
Quoting Banno
Slavery is ok if it's legal?
That doesn't seem to be so.
Quoting frank
Abortion is not murder if it is legal.
I guess things have changed, but the heart starts beating at 5 weeks, around the time a woman would notice she's pregnant, so most fetuses that are aborted have a beating heart.
Why do you care about the heart, though? Does that give you pause?
Quoting Banno
That's a sketchy way to look at it. They think it's a wrongful killing. Does that help you understand?
I don't. You raised "heart", not me.
Quoting frank
"They" think it against god's law, perhaps.
Point was it's a cyst with a beating heart.
Quoting Banno
They think it's murder.
Your terminology is muddled here, but it seems you are intent only on being a bit of a dick, so I'll leave you to it.
Not at all. I was just explaining what my fellow citizens see as a moral fault.
And by the time a heart develops, we are no longer looking at a cyst. Yet we are still not looking at a person.
This argument is actually offensive, and you're usually a fair-minded person, so I'll chalk it up to [I] lost in translation.[/I]
Quoting Banno
Ok, so stop calling it a cyst, because the fetuses that are aborted look like little humans.
Tough. What folk think their invisible friend says is no basis for moral choice.
Quoting frank
You seem to be having trouble with the fact that the foetus develops over time.
The honorable response to a person who claims crimes are happening is to listen to them, understand what they're saying, and respond with your own viewpoint. It's dishonorable and morally repugnant to suggest that they don't have a right to their feelings. Treat them the way you'd like to be treated if you had a grievance and you wanted to be heard.
Quoting Banno
I've studied fetal development to moderate depth. I'll never forget the mind-bender of realizing how closely the early development of an animal resembles plant reproduction. The womb is a seed pod.
I didn't deny their feelings, just their excuse. What they think their invisible friend says is no justification for forcing their view on others. If they do not agree with abortion, that's fine, they do not have to have one.
You will generally get people behaving as if the conceived entity has preferences, but for a long time - even after it starts looking like a human - it has no preferences. So treat it how you like.
I'd go further and claim that abortion should be sufficiently accepted and available that we see it as equivalent to the morning after pill. So long as the being has no preferences, who cares? Whatever emotional discomfort is associated with that thesis can't be distinguished from social pressure, disgust and tradition.
You could argue against the conditional statement:
But you'd be left having to argue why it's still permissible to "mistreat" rocks and plants.
You could argue that the being has preferences - but that's just false for the vast majority of time the abortion is legislated for. All of this is especially tenuous if you eat meat - what, so it's okay to kill something to eat but not to painlessly avoid diminishing a woman's pain?
All of this is ultimately about legislation and what is permissible to do, the emotional reactions of people - especially people who feel the need to have abortions, or feel strongly about the issue - should be listened to. But not at the expense of sound moral principles, scientific facts and humane laws.
The latter is what you risk when you give the moral disgust response against abortion the same level of respect as a reasoned policy. If you are listening to a friend, fine, public airing of that disgust response in a legislative context harms women's reproductive autonomy.
They think it's immoral. The reason that matters is a little thing called democracy.
They think it is immoral, but their justification for that is shite.
You know that if there were are referendum in 'Merka, abortion would be legal.
You can't even justify believing 2+2=4. That doesn't diminish your civil rights.
Seriously? So you have given up on rationality. Fine. See you on the ramparts.
Rationality is a matter of fashion.
Quoting Banno
Do you even own a weapon of any kind?
I don't need to.
Have a look down the page from Pew Research linked above. Opposition to abortion is overwhelmingly from white evangelical protestant republican conservatives.
What was that you said about Democracy?
There are plenty of cysts in the female reproductive system. A fetus is just another one of those. And if a cyst doesn’t resolve on its own, we remove them. That’s just rationality at work.
They gang together, yes. That's how democracy works. An issue is powerful to the extent it gets people to put aside their differences and join forces. Republicans have been pretty good at that for several decades. These days, not so much.
The issue is now decided at the state level. After years of supporting Roe V Wade, I finally came around to realizing that was the wrong way to do it. When pro-choice people have enough power to create an amendment, then it will be a federal issue. Maybe in a couple of generations.
Quoting NOS4A2
I think there might be a cyst in your skull. :razz:
This also recognises the nuance @frank is looking for.
Given that this is around sixty percent of your population, why is it that they do not have "the power"?
Or is yours a failed democracy.
I read that book (Practical Ethics). It's really not that bad. In fact the discussion uses very similar premises to the abortion argument. I found his treatment of disability actually really nuanced and profound. eg the first few pages of that book are an impassioned defence of welfare programs for the disabled and something close to a social model of disability! But that's for another thread.
It takes a lot of energy to amend the Constitution. That's as it should be.
But we never had a nuclear war. That's a win!
Yep! This is not one of them.
I've read that before. IMO it's a hatchet job.
Issue seems out of thread. We should leave it.
Sure, fathers should have a say. There just isn't much room to include them in any legal frameworks.
One needn’t be religious to oppose abortion or infanticide. The sanctity of human life isn’t just a religious principle, but a humanist one. Our bodies have largely evolved for the task of protecting human life in its earliest development, and many of us hold to right-to-life principles, for instance that a human being in its earliest development deserves a chance to live. Anyone who has carried or cared for a child understands the force of this. Many of us act to see this proposition through.
It is my opinion that we ought not to be so glib and flippant about the killing of human beings. All of this is a grave matter. We know that an individual human lifecycle begins at conception, since it cannot begin anywhere else, and any scalpel through the spine or intentional deprivation of essential nutrients after this point is to kill an individual human being. That’s why the evasions about whether the fetus has feelings or if it is biologically inhuman serve only to cast doubt on the humanity of this being in its earliest stages, to dehumanize it, making the abnegation of any right-to-life principle an easier pill to swallow for those who wish to see it eviscerated with sheers. If you extend this depravity to a different point along the human life continuum, you can see the same arguments used to justify genocide and murder.
I don’t think any of this means we should prohibit abortion. Infanticide is a historical fact. Females often kill or abandon their offspring throughout the animal kingdom. Perhaps we should make humane options available. But it is surely nothing to be proud of.
That's begging the question though. The whole problem is that you have to assume that human beings are around as disembodied souls waiting to exist for that argument to make sense.
And that is definitely a religious position.
Quoting NOS4A2
This is a kind of intellectual sleight of hand. You're starting with a biological description (using descriptive concepts such as "lifecycle") and you want us to conclude from your phrasing ("to kill an individual human being") a moral judgement. But you haven't justified the judgement on it's own terms.
Quoting NOS4A2
So if it's not about feelings or anything else biological, what is it about? Why do we care? What's the humanist principle [I]for[/I]?
Quoting NOS4A2
That's poisoning the well. You're falsely insinuating that your opposition is "proud of" abortion.
Why would anyone need to assume that?
I start at the principle “a human being in its earliest development deserves a chance to live”. Given the helplessness of a human being in his early development, such a principle seems to me imperative. Any subsequent moral judgements proceed from this one.
Exactly. Why do you care or not? You either believe human beings in their earliest development deserves a chance to live, to be protected, or you do not.
Abortion rights is often posited as a mark of an enlightened society, when in fact infanticide, child sacrifice, and acts of these sorts is a stone age and barbaric practice.
Abortion is nothing like infanticide or child sacrifice.
All of them involve the intentional killing of very young and helpless human beings. That’s all I mean.
But one of the challenges the pro-choice advocate faces is explaining the dividing line between killable and not-killable. When and how does that transition take place?
What else would a "human being in it's earlierst development" refer to?
It cannot refer to the actual person that eventually forms after birth, as that person doesn't exist. So it could only refer to their "soul", which somehow already represents the person.
Quoting NOS4A2
In which case your entire argument is begging the question. Why would "a human being in it's earlierst development" deserve the chance to live? It's not at all trivial that future people somehow have the right to exist. Where does their moral standing come from?
Quoting NOS4A2
Really? That is how your morality works? Just a coinflip where you either happen to believe something or don't?
Again your non-religious morality sounds awfully like a religion. Why do we respect people's rights to life and liberty? Because we recognise ourselves in them. We recognise that every individual is valuable in themselves and we can never replace one with another, so the only reasonable rule is to protect all as much as possible.
The problem is, this reasoning doesn't apply to "theoretical people". Individuals are valuable for what they are, not what they might be.
Quoting NOS4A2
This is just more poisoning of the well.
But not all of them involve killing an embryo or foetus. That is a significant moral difference.
It's gradual.
Let's take the pro-life argument I offered at the start:
Quoting Michael
The counter argument is:
P1. It is wrong to kill a baby the day after birth.
P2. It is slightly less wrong to kill a baby the day before birth than the day after birth.
P3. It is slightly less wrong to kill a baby two days before birth than the day before birth.
P4. It is slightly less wrong to kill a baby three days before birth than two days before birth.
...
At some point any degree of wrongness, if there is indeed any wrongness left, is insignificant compared to the wrongness of not allowing a woman to terminate her pregnancy.
It's much like the Sorites paradox. We might not be able to determine where the line is drawn, and there might not even be a precise point where some line is drawn, but we can say at the one extreme a single grain of sand is not a heap and a newly conceived embryo does not have an overriding right to life, and at the other extreme 1,000,000 grains of sand is a heap and a three year old child does have an overriding right to life.
I mean everyone recognises a dividing line between subjects, which have moral standing and objects, which do not.
There is not strictly any empirical basis for even differentiating between living organisms and "dead" matter. Biology is just a specific kind of chemistry.
The simple fact is that we judge the moral value of beings - their value in and of themselves - based on their similarity to ourselves. What else could we do? We only have access to our own consciousness, we are only aware of ourselves as an actor. So that's the starting point we have. We could ruminate on the possible consicousness of blades of grass or even rocks but we'd not get anywhere.
Why is a fetus not a person? Well it cannot walk, it cannot talk, it does not recognise itself in a mirror, it does not display many behaviours in which we recognise ourselves. We know it could become a person in the future, which is the reason we are concerned. But saying it has a right to live because it has human DNA isn't really any less arbirtray than saying a child has a right to live after birth, but not before.
Alisha was slightly pregnant, slightly wrong to abort it, slightly grieved, and overjoyed to get in with her life.
So you're admitting that the dividing line is arbitrary?
"His defence fails if consequentialism is false, so to prove that abortion is permissible he must prove that its moral permissibility is determined by the consequences."
— Michael
I like this statement. I like it in part because it is my own belief that consequentialism is a lie or false and that deontological morality is correct.
The trouble is that choices occur in interwoven patterns that all matter. Each one has a deontological component.
To whit: One is not allowed morally to suggest that one is unaware (unless one is too young or incompetent to be aware), that a living being is not a possible consequence of sexual activity. Consequentialism is a lie as to moral blame, but not moral awareness. That means known possible consequences inform deontological choice. Intent in that sense does not matter. That is to say, one must be willing to 'deal with' a possible pregnancy in a moral way if one engages in sexual activity.
'Deal with', in my parlance here, is a variable term that includes all possible actions or choices which are then themselves subject to objective moral judgment. One is not morally allowed to declare intent and thereby avoid the consequences. Probability becomes highly relevant as well in such a discussion. For example, I would entertain as meaningful or more meaningful the joint statement of a couple, perhaps signed online (as I have recommended in the past), that they DO NOT intend to have a child. Society would then decide not willy nilly (ha ha) but based on evidence, what the probability of the contraceptive being used was. If that fell within some 'reasonable' limit the stated intent would overrule the pregnancy consequence. Note that this is ONLY rank mitigation of the moral choice. It IS NOT an attempt to claim that life is not all morally precious. It is only an attempt to work with the pro-life stance.
Of course we are ALWAYS talking here, about liars and deceit. People lie to themselves and others. So there would then be evidence of properly taking the contraceptive or not. If the evidence is not there, the intent as stated would be IRRELEVANT. The matter carries sufficient moral weight (to me) to require those who engage in it to take on this burden of evidence and documentation. The 'inconvenience excuse' is precisely the sort of moral low bar that needs to be held accountable. I have an ex girlfriend that is mostly neutral about choice, or let's say willing to tolerate it in others. She is pro-life in general herself. But she draws the line at driving an acquaintance to her 3rd abortion within 5 years. I agree with her that there is clearly an immoral pattern of irresponsible behavior there. So, liars and the uncaring need to be called to task for such things.
But this impinges upon the question of punishment (and reward) another moral layer. It is my own current belief that the punishments and rewards of actions/choices are immediate and resonant upon the entire universe, let alone the chooser. But I will try not to derail the thread. Suffice to say summing up the punishment paragraph that restraint IS NOT actually punishment. It is assistance. But then the debate rages on about what is and is not moral. Is morality objective, for instance, becomes a critical issue. On we go, leaving this here for now.
What if there is no proof of consequentialism either way?
The logical concept of proof is already foolish because nothing can be proven. If you mean proven colloquially as in 'beyond reasonable doubt' or, 'by appeal to some moral authority', then fine. But proof in the final sense, is impossible. So we have only a well of beliefs from which to operate.
Many people, often Pragmatists, will overly judge based on consequences, especially as mentioned LIKELY consequences. Among healthy humans, sexual activity is often LIKELY to result in pregnancy, especially over time. There is no reasonable way to claim one is unaware of that possibility as LIKELY, or, at least, that is the meaningful NOMINAL case.
I find it disingenuous and immoral in the extreme to discuss 'ownership of the body'. You own nothing in this reality. You pretend to such things as ownership, a moral delusion only. We all are one. You belong and cannot be made to un-belong. So does any consequential child. Any mention of 'personhood' is likewise ridiculous sophistry in the colloquial sense, although I admit I hate that word as it should be positive meaning the art of wisdom. When a woman is pregnant, she is dealing with two aggregate humans or more and not only herself. There can be no deontological avoidance of this truth. The sexual act will nominally result in pregnancy over time. Everything in the universe belongs to everyone equally. Our conventions in law and culture to the contrary are only immoral beliefs and choices.
The intent of that idea, the 'unity principle' is wise and good. The intent of selfish 'ownership' is not wise, not GOOD. The consequences of unwise belief are ramified immoral immediate resonations throughout the universe. That is contributory to 'universe failure'. The GOOD, to me, perfection, is the only valid goal in the universe, it's raison d'etre.
Can I assume that anyone who says that abortion is impermissible whatever the consequences is assuming that deontology is true and must prove that?
As mentioned, there is no proof. There is only belief. But one must state their belief and argue for it. Teh argument is all. Use as much reason and evidence as you can to argue, yes. But finally, it is only and always a matter of belief. Justification of beliefs is wise.
What if there is no proof of deontology either way?
Again, no such thing as 'proof', but let's assume you mean 'within reason'. Indeed, not only would it be near impossible to prove deontology 'within reason', but we would need mind reading or some such to implement it meaningfully. Still, deceit is not easy. All immoral acts break something in the actor and the universe. This brokenness can be felt and empathized (against). Some others will proselytize overmuch such that their 'good' intent is a blade used to cut, rather than to catalyze wisdom. Proof IS NOT the point.
The point is better and better use of all aspects of wisdom at the same time, all virtues. NO VIRTUE can be left out for the best effect. But if this claimed then one must have some suspicion that morality is objective, or there is NOTHING to stand on. Only the objective nature of morality allows for any judgment at all. This is why anti-judgement (desire) WANTS so badly to denigrate all judgment and many desire type or oriented people will hurl the epithet 'Judgy!' at people who are actually wiser than they are. Desire is merely a synonym for freedom, so freedom IS NOT always wise. The restraint of fear is needed to balance freedom into wisdom.
There's an interesting question of the burden of proof here anyway. Do we have to prove that abortion is impermissible, in which case, lacking a proof, we can assume that abortion is permissible? Or do we have to prove that abortion is permissible, in which case, lacking a proof, we can assume that it is impermissible?
The proof question is not as moot as it seems. Proof is elusive, if not impossible. Rather, make an argument and offer your supporting evidence. My take on the issue overall is that free will is the true and balanced state, or, 'moral condition', of the universe. So, yeah, ... now I am on to free will. The only reason people argue against free will is that as choice approaches infinity, truth, such a choice becomes infinitesimally probable only (and thus infinitely hard to make). So, as we get more and more moral, the next step becomes meta harder to reach. The tendency is to 'give up' or turn to immoral concepts like Nihilism and Moral Subjectivism to defend the ego, the chooser.
As such, I prefer to inform others of what I consider morality to be and to SUFFER their choice with them. This means although I am pro-life myself, I am pro-free-will (perhaps pro-choice) generally. I WILL suffer them to choose. But that sufferance has limits. There are ways to become so egregious in immoral choice that one must be restrained for their own objective good and that of society. Immorality is a disease and it spreads far more easily than does the wisdom to take a truly expansive moral stance, to make a truly moral choice. A moral choice in the final sense is always the hardest choice one can make. Ease is by definition, immoral.
If we lack a proof both of the permissibility of abortion and of its impermissibility, can we just suspend judgement?
I do not think or believe that there is insufficient evidence to make an argument. Pro-life is finally correct. But there Is also pro-free-will. If one is restrained from being able to make actions, that IS NOT the same as not making choices. So, restraint cannot ever affect free will really. That is to say, assuming abortion was indeed an immoral choice universally then merely the choice, even if restrained and prevented, to abort, would be just as immoral.
I suppose we have to. In that case, there will be nothing to prevent people following their own consciences.
In general this is true. It's the malaise or nonchalance of immoral choice that begins to creep in and spread like a sickening thing. It rots the effort towards wisdom and obliges us all, as belonging parts of the universe to step in and restrain, re-inform, and re-release to freedom to act (not choose as that cannot be restrained).
There is, at least at present, no conclusive argument available either way. In which case, there is no justification for a law either way and no ground to prevent people following their own consciences.
I tend to agree that law is not the proper realm for this issue. But, the repeat offender of a principle would need to have the three r effect imposed upon them. Restrain, re-inform, and re-release in as short a timeframe as is possible. Society must attempt to catalyze the good in its members, and this in a way that is not too prolonged or proselytizing. Like all wisdom, it's a tricky balance.
Using birth is arbitrary in the sense that it doesn't really match up to the moral situation precisely. There are arguments to be made for using this particular point (I made some in this thread), but you could make other arguments for e.g. some percentage likelihood of survival in case of a premature birth.
The point I wanted to make was that we should be honest about how we know something is a someone, a person. It's by comparison with ourselves. By trying to figure out whether they think in a way we recognise as intelligence.
There's going to be a point after conception when we can recognise a child as an intelligent being. Beyond that, we don't really have any reason to give a collection of biochemical processes special standing because they involve human DNA, do we?
It refers to the earliest stages of every human being that ever existed. There is no biological evidence that a soul or “actual person” forms at any point during the lifecycle. That’s your assumption.
Not a coin flip. I pointed out that most parents feel the force of this principle, and the evidence is that an unfathomable amount of parents do indeed carry and care for human beings in the earliest stages of development, up until and including incubating them in their own bodies.
You do recognize that you were once a fetus, I assume. At no point in your life were you theoretical after conception. That’s utter nonsense, I’m afraid.
Quoting Chet Hawkins
I'm missing a step in your argument here. I can agree with the first statement, but to get to the second you'd have to establish a duty, in principle, to carry a pregnancy to term.
So, if no actual person forms, then how does morality come into it at all?
Quoting NOS4A2
So, argumentum ad populum?
Quoting NOS4A2
I don't know whether I was ever a fetus. I have no memories of existing prior to birth (as I understand most people do not), and I don't know any other way to establish whether I existed at some point.
"I" am neither my cells nor my DNA. Nor am I a causal chain.
I don’t know what an “actual person” is. What I do know is that a human being forms, and that morality ought to concern human beings.
Biology and anthropology. What is your basis?
Everyone knows, actually. It is an irrefutable fact that you were a fetus.
But there you have it. You are not your cells nor your DNA. Then what are you? A soul?
An actual person is an actual person. Someone you can meet and talk to, and who responds.
Morality ought to concern persons, subjects. I don't see how their species would be relevant.
Quoting NOS4A2
Both biology and anthropology are descriptive. How do you get from that to a moral judgement?
And I already gave you my basis:
Quoting Echarmion
Quoting NOS4A2
"Everyone knows" is not an argument. I gave you the reasoning, I trust you're capable of understanding it.
Quoting NOS4A2
That's one way of putting it. Though I'm an embodied soul, whose existence is measurable. "Soul" often implies something esoteric, but I don't mean to imply that anything mystic is going on. Merely that "I" am formed from a connection of a body, some kind of cognitive process and memories.
A clump of cells would not be me even if it shared my DNA. If you made an exact copy of me, that copy would cease to be me the moment it added it's own experiences.
I don't think any of this is very complicated in principle.
If infanticide were legal, it wouldn't be murder. Substitute anything for the word "infanticide" and the logic holds. "Murder" entails illegality.
The pro-life folks are essentialists. That element worth protecting in you or me they believe exists in fertilized eggs. I don't find that position despicable. I just find it unpersuasive. The conceptus and I surely look distinct in all important ways, but I'm not terribly offended by the insistence that we ought not have fuzzy lines distinguishing which humans are afforded protection under the law and which not.
But turning away from essentialism, if we look instead toward general resemblance, we don't get a fully satisfactory answer either. Why would a 5 week fetus be a person and not the 3 week fetus?
And what does women's choice or viability have to do with any of this? I'd have no problem with heroic efforts to save an organism that was unquestionably a person even if it weren't at the moment viable and even if the person carrying it objected. Viability and choice arguments are pragmatic political insertions, but they ignore the question of personhoid.
And the point is that this isn't philosophy when we all are doing is trying to arrive at workable or even compassionate public policy. It's just political debate, and therefore the vitriol.
Let's talk about the law of Hanoveria that says "Thou shalt not break cups." We can then argue whether a hunk of clay on a turning wheel can be destroyed prior to its full formation. That subtracts the vitriol.
Dear Hanover, nor do I. What is despicable is forcing others to conform to what folk think their invisible friend wants. By all means, may 'merca have a sane ethical and political discussion, without divine intervention.
Are those who do not respond not persons? Are persons and subjects living human beings or are they not?
Point proven. I’ll put you down as the first person I’ve ever met who believes they were never a fetus. Unfortunately the reasoning fully contradicts the evidence.
It is very complicated because you have no thing nor structure nor any formation to point to that can proven to be connected to your body, and that can be labelled with such a pronoun, other than the things, structures, and formations already in there.
American abortion law was fairly progressive prior to Roe's reversal. Anchoring the law in convoluted Constitutional interpretation left it vulnerable. It's now been thrown back to the states and the democratic debate that was stunted for 50 years has been reopened. We're in a time of transition, but i think we'll eventually get it right. Hard decisions are supposed to be messy.
Quite overwhelmingly, professional philosophers are in favour of abortion on demand in the first trimester.
And again, god is involved, with the strongest correlations going to belief in design and theism.
Yep. Also Dobbs. v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Implied rights are not so firm, as recent history demonstrates:
Quoting Alto, The Supreme Court’s draft opinion on overturning Roe v. Wade
If it where as you claim, it would still stand.
Intellectuals advise, but they rarely govern.
If they don't respond, you need some kind of other evidence that they're thinking.
Quoting NOS4A2
I think at least some other species need to be considered. Some primate and whale species, for example.
Quoting NOS4A2
What evidence? You never gave me any.
Quoting NOS4A2
I don't really understand what you're talking about here. "Such a pronoun"? Which one? Is the question whether my mind is connected to my body?
A fetus is not a cyst: that is scientifically and blatantly false.
To your point though, and of which I purposefully left out, my view does raise the question of when exactly does a human being acquire rights? If it is personhood, then it clearly doesn't begin [having rights] at conception.
The two basic views is the personhood vs. animalism style arguments, but I think both fail for reasons I will skip over for now. I think that the Aristotelian view works best: a human being acquires rights that a person gets because their nature sets them out as being a member of a rational species. Trying to dissect rights in terms of when a being currently has personhood vs. merely being alive doesn't really work; whereas analyzing the living thing in terms of its substance works great.
How would that work with a braindead child being kept alive on life support after a car accident? Do the parents have any say in removing life support and/or letting the doctors harvest organs? Do the doctors have to provide heroic actions to keep the child alive?
It all seems very arbitrary. It’s not unlike the soul concept.
You could ask your mother. You could watch any human birth. Look at sonograms and infer from there. But the fact is all homo sapiens were fetuses. You are a homo sapien. Therefor you were a fetus.
Never mind. It’s all to convoluted, like religion
It's arbitrary that communication is part of what makes a person? Hardly.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yeah yeah, no-one is in doubt about the biology. But "I" wasn't around, was I? The thinking process that experiences itself as a continuously existing actor. The "I think, therefore I am" of Descartes. [I]That[/I] "I".
How could that have been around at conception?
Yeah, that was you the whole time, the biology. It's all you are. It's all you will be.
So if I'm shot in the head, nothing relevant changes right? It's still me. No different than a broken arm. The DNA of my cells would be the same, most of the biology would still be perfectly fine.
A relevant change would be a hole in your head and damage to very important parts of your body. It's much different than a broken arm in that it's a different location on the body and involves different anatomy. No, your biology would not be perfectly fine.
But it would still be me right? You haven't answered the question clearly and I would really like a direct answer.
If a cell without a brain is me, then so is my body with some damage to the head, right?
Yes, it is still you even with damage to the head.
I think that if you conclude that a body without a working brain is a person, you should examine your premises.
All those doctors doing organ transplants or shutting off life saving machines in case of irrecoverable brain damage are killing a person, in your framework.
I can't see it from your position because there is no evidence for it. It cannot be shown that personhood or soul or "I" enter or leave the body at any point, and this includes during prenatal development.
As I have argued, making such distinctions is utilized as a process of dehumanization. It couldn't be otherwise. Clearly you require it so as to avoid an uncomfortable truth. The idea that someone becomes a non-person upon injury to the brain, or that a fetus is merely parasite or cyst, are efforts to eschew the conscience so as to make their killing palatable. I don't think turning off life-support is to intentionally kill a person because the doctors were in fact keeping him alive, but to eviscerate a fetus is. These acts are not to be taken lightly. But wherever they are, even celebrated, is barbarism.
Is this supposed to mean that there's no evidence for personhood? Or are you just hung up on the word "soul"? I've already said I'm not using it to refer to anything esoteric or mystical. You can just use another word like "mind" or "self".
Quoting NOS4A2
This is an ad-hominem argument. You're only questioning my moral integrity, but you're not actually making any arguments, moral or otherwise.
From my perspective, you're the one avoiding an uncomfortable truth, that being that we draw lines between what is and is not a person, and these lines are not handed down to us by divine decree.
I understand, and have no problem with either term in common usage, but if I were to ask you to point to whatever it is you're referring to you would invariably point to your body, which has existed and grown since conception. That's what I'm hung up on.
True, it is very uncomfortable for me to watch people make these distinctions. This is because they are not based on much, are often arbitrary, differ across individuals and cultures, yet can justify the worst in human behavior. So, for me, it is no longer about what these distinctions are (for there appear to be none), but why they are being made. My theory as to the "why" in regards to abortion is dehumanization.
And? Once again you leave things hanging by suggesting you have an argument but not making it.
So yes I would point to my body and yes there's a causal chain that point from my current state back to conception. It also points further backwards and forwards indefinitely. But you're not telling my why you think the two are connected.
Quoting NOS4A2
But how are we better off by ignoring the question? If we're not even willing to talk about what makes a person, then how are we going to expose those bad human behaviours?
Which makes it extremely simple. If this connection doesn't obtain, then the other possible connection we could either observe, or care about, is a psychological one. And that clearly does not obtain, if a person 'who would be you' then has it's own experiences. They are not you, any longer. No trouble with this; it's just really uncomfortable for people who want to say they have a definable, observable identity in the sense meant here (rather htan some kind of social character).
As regards abortion, I cannot wrap my head around you knowing, as a fact, that a non-living clump of living cells (by almost any definition of 'living' that isn't arbitrarily academic (i.e tells us nothing about our experiences or intuitions, but could be called 'correct')) could be considered morally important, yet at some arbitrary point along that line, you're happy to make the call - Why is not the same for anyone else? Some call it at conception, some call it at viability with margins of error, some call it at birth.. Where's the catch?
Added later because I read another of your comments:
Why do you think it's alright to kill any invasive being in the human body, but a zygote/fetus? Is there some distinction (other than 'human') you would want to put here to explain it? Legit question - i'm sure there are good answers. I take it you don't have an issue eviscerating a tape-worm, eg.
Come on, Bob. Yes, a foetus is not a cyst. A blastocyst is a cyst. The embryo develops in part of the blastocyst. It is considered a foetus from 8 to 10 weeks on. Here's some stuff to help you brush up on your anatomical terminology.
A cyst is not a person. Those who think it is tend to be trusting their invisible friends to suport their opinion. Others have saner views.
does a good job of setting out Singer's account, involving preferences. I have mentioned the capabilities approach. These views disagree on detail, but agree on timing.
Even if we agree that "a human being acquires rights that a person gets because their nature sets them out as being a member of a rational species", the question arrises as to when the cyst becomes a member of that rational species.
Not in the way you need it to mean for your glibbery. A blastocyst is specifically a state of zygotic development, and not comparable to say, an ovarian cyst. It requires an embryoblast - which gives rise to the potential to become a human being. It is set apart, and Bob's gripe was legitimate, if in hte wrong place and about the wrong part of hte account.
Clearly, 'cyst' is not what's being talked about. We know this because ovarian cysts are sometimes mistaken for zygotic blastocysts. You seem, oddly, to be entirely aware of this.
What is salient, for those with at least a modicum of wit, is that a blastocyst is a "thin-walled cavity", the reason that it is called a blastocyst; a "sprout-bladder"; and that it is unambiguously not a person, not a human being with memories, needs, and preferences.
But there are organisms, unambiguously people, who lack these attributes as well.
I don't afford embryos the rights of a person because they don't look like people. They look like a dividing cell under a microscope. I could pretend it's more than that, but it's not. An unconscious amnesiac is a person if he resembles those I know to be people.
People without those capacities? Ok. They'd be people, then.
Yep, a blastocyst is not a people.
Most things with these attributes aren't humans and all humans go through at least one post-womb phase where they have only needs (which are, unless you're genuinely stupid, insufficient - and even then, arguable. The needs are institutional, not intrinsic). Your cart is literally before the horse. Your criteria for "human being" (which is here, undefined, and exactly what is being discussed) is baked-in to your objection. This kind of failure of either creativity, or clarity of writing is not helpful. Barely asserting your position is not helpful. On your account plenty of people aren't human beings, and vice verse. That's a cool move, i guess..
Think of the difference between a wave and still water. All waves are water but not all water is a wave. The body (specifically the brain) has to be doing something for there to be a person. If the brain isn't doing that thing then there is no person, which is why neither a corpse nor an embryo is a person.
I should add that I'm also somewhat perplexed by your questioning of personhood but your acceptance of rights. Can you point to rights? If not then why expect someone to be able to point to personhood as if not being able to is a gotcha?
Some things just can't be pointed to.
A good point, but then resemblance is not a sufficient criterion either, since a dead human body still resembles a person pretty exactly but isn't a person.
We could add biological details like brain function but we don't have access to those most of the time. So it's about a kind of resemblance but more a resemblance in behaviour.
Beyond that we do afford rights to human beings whose ability to behave as a person has been temporarily or permanently damaged to some extent. I think this can be easily accommodated as being out of an abundance of caution, which seems a reasonable strategy to adopt.
It depends upon what you mean by "resemblance." At first glance sure, but after a while I start to notice differences between a dead guy and and an alive guy.
But as to a sperm affixed to an egg, that doesn't look like any person I know. Quoting Echarmion
The most cautious approach is to afford rights at conception. That would be a really safe approach, but if you think women have rights worth protecting, then the safest approach for them would be to protect the right to abortion up until the moment of birth. Then you have to balance the interests, and once you do that, you're not talking about science, but you're talking about public policy that satisifies the most people.
But the problem is that the ideologues control the debate, not the pragmatists, which is why the respective sides spend the better part of their arguing screaming "misogynist" and "murderer" at each other.
Banno, I know you are a very intelligent person. You cannot possibly think that a blastocyst is a cyst—is the word ‘cyst’ in blastocyst throwing you off?
A zygote is never a cyst: that implies it is a liquid sac that developed abnormally and should be removed. A blastocyst is, even according to your own link, a “hallow ball of cells...[which] implants in the wall of the uterus about 6 days after fertilization”. What you are describing is a stage of the process of development of an alive human being.
Correct. As I noted in my last response, personhood does not begin at conception; and the best way to ground rights in the nature of the being in question—specifically whether or not its nature sets it out as a person. This is not the same thing as saying that a living being is currently a person.
E.g., a human being that is knocked out on the floor does not have personhood; has the capacity for personhood; and has a nature such that it sets it out as a species which are persons.
The blastocyst is an alive human being: it is a scientific fact that life begins at conception. I am not sure why you would argue the contrary.
All else being equal, we would expect the doctors to do everything they can to rehabilitate them and keep them alive. Circumstances matter, though, as, e.g., the doctors may have to prioritize one sick patient over another; but this is a reflection of limited resources and not a disrespect for human life.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe “person” is a doing rather than a thing. The having of feelings, thoughts, memories etc. are doings, after all. Humans person. It could be said that fetuses do not person, at least yet, just as they are not walking.
But I do not think that justifies killing a human being because he is not, at present, performing that act. To do so to a fetus would deprive it of the chance to ever do so.
You can point to a right if you write it down. You can speak them. But my view of rights is a little different, as I wrote about here.
So a right is a piece of paper with ink markings? That doesn't seem right.
Quoting NOS4A2
And that's the point of departure. It is argued that it is not wrong to deprive a foetus (or embryo) of the chance to become a person; or that there is insufficient evidence or reasoning to support the claim that it is wrong; or that it is more wrong to force a woman to carry the foetus (or embryo) to term.
Perhaps abortion would be wrong if embryos and foetuses were grown in some artificial womb, but the fact that they grow inside a person with rights of their own is a fact that has moral relevance.
Could Artificial Wombs End the Abortion Debate?
That’s one of their manifestations, sure. Grab any bill of rights and point to a right, you’ll have your answer in what it consists of. If there is more to it, go ahead and reveal it.
It’s wrong to kill a fetus for the same reason it is wrong to murder a 40 year old. Both are deprived of a future against their will. Both have their bodies destroyed against their will. The world and the community are deprived of their presence against their will. In any case, any evidence or reasoning to support the claim that it is wrong to kill a 40 year old can be applied to any other human being in any other stage of its life, including early development.
I think it’s the other way about: there is insufficient evidence or reasoning to support the claim that killing a fetus is morally permissible. The only reason I can think of is for reasons of self-defence.
If it is not wrong to kill a fetus, is it not wrong to kill a fetus for personal gain in your view? Can I grow fetuses in order to harvest their organs and sell them, in your view? Why or why not?
I don't know, that doesn't strike me as a particularly honest response.
Regardless, we can clearly conceive of things that don't physically look human but should be considered persons, be them actual animals or hypothetical aliens.
Quoting Hanover
That tracks with my position fairly well. I'm not really unsure about whether a bunch of cells with no nervous system is a person. But things get less sure as pregnancy progresses. As I have pointed out elsewhere, there seems little practical benefit to restricting abortion regardless.
Quoting Bob Ross
This seems silly. An unconscious person isn't brain-dead. There's an obvious and measurable activity still going on. This seems like intentional ignorance to force the conclusion that somehow we can't make an evidence-based determination and must instead rely on arbitrary "nature".
Quoting Bob Ross
Obviously "life" does not begin at conception, since all the cells involved are already alive before they fuse.
Quoting NOS4A2
I think that's not quite true because as Kant pointed out, the idea of some society where you exist together with others is at the basis of moral philosophy. Future people cannot be interacted with even theoretically. Their interests have no bearing on any current situation - they can't affect anyone nor can their interests be affected.
Fetuses do not exist in a void. Fetuses can be interacted with. If they couldn't, they wouldn't be killed.
That's not a right. That's a supposed description of a right. The words are not the thing they describe. I'm not asking you to point to words that describe a right; I'm asking you to point to a right.
As it stands it amounts to me pointing to the word "person" and saying that I'm pointing to a person.
Quoting NOS4A2
Killing a 40 year old isn't wrong just because "he is deprived of a future against his will". It's wrong because "he is deprived of a future against his will and is a person". The "and he is a person" has moral relevance. It is not wrong to deprive a foetus of its future against its will because a) it's not a person, and b) it doesn't even have a will.
Quoting NOS4A2
You mean like scientists growing ‘mini-organs’ from cells shed by foetuses or cultivating embryonic stem cells in general?
Yes, that's acceptable. It could save many lives.
Those are rights. It is a bill of rights. A deceleration of human rights is a declaration of rights, without which there are no rights. It is up to those who confer rights to uphold them and defend them in others. Human beings have no rights other than those that have been declared and conferred by others.
No measurable property called “personhood” appears or disappears in any given human being. Therefor no one can pick and choose with any certainty when one is or isn’t a person. So it’s an arbitrary distinction, a value judgement one applies to others without any reason or evidence to do so. How can one say a fetus is not a person when its “personhood” might be present and operating in proportion to its development? Is a sonogram a “personhood” detector?
The Lockean approach to making the distinction between man and person was theological in origin, had its grounds in the transmigration of souls and God. Those grounds are now gone, but for some reason the Lockean legacy persists. So what grounds are there to make the distinction now?
So a foetus doesn’t have a right to live unless some authority declares and confers that right?
Then what exactly are you trying to argue here? Because with the above in mind all we can do is describe the fact that in some places and at some times abortion is legal and in other places and at other times it is illegal.
Quoting NOS4A2
Most of us are quite capable of understanding what “person” means, that rocks, embryos, and flies are not people, and that adult humans (and intelligent aliens) are people. The type of “personhood” that you think doesn’t exist isn’t the type of personhood that any of us are talking about.
Quoting NOS4A2
The very real and obvious observable differences between rocks, embryos, and flies on the one hand and born humans on the other hand.
The fact that an embryo has roughly the same DNA as me and will eventually grow into an organism like me simply isn’t sufficient grounds to grant it the same rights as me or even just the right to live at the expense of the rights of the woman who must carry it to term.
Do you know what personhood is? Just because a brain is firing neurons doesn’t mean that that being, which has that brain, is a person. E.g., a dog is not a person (traditionally).
Evolution is not arbitrary: that is a myth invented by some evangelical religious people.
It is an undisputed scientific fact that life begins at conception: it is the clear beginning mark of the ever-continual development cycle of an individual human being (until death).
I believe the point he was making is that sperm cells are alive, and so that life began before conception.
Yes, because I am a person.
Quoting Bob Ross
And? I didn't claim any brain makes a person. Some brains do though.
Quoting Bob Ross
I did not claim evolution is arbitrary. The concept of "nature" is arbitrary.
Quoting Bob Ross
It's a scientific fact that, at conception, two cells fuse to become one, combining their genetic material. That is the description, which is all that science provides. The rest is the addition of categories, which can be useful but aren't scientific facts.
Quoting NOS4A2
They aren't person though. You want us to consider them based on their future personhood, not the current one.
That gives you no authority to that claim. Dogs don't know what Dogs are.
Quoting Echarmion
There is no settle consensus on this. All claims of this kind are personal, and don't adhere to any particular argument in biology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginning_of_human_personhood#:~:text=In%20the%20college%20text%20book,silent%2C%20secret%2C%20unknown%22. the complete chaos of this page should be illustrative.
It's not helpful to simply implore others to take your concept on, and argue on that basis. It's the concept that's in question. I should be quite clear that I am in no-way "pro-life" politically, but I notice that pro-choice people tend to have really, really shitty arguments. The only reason i'm pushing back on them (and to rark Banno up) is that they aren't good arguments, and often are counter to the facts. Such as here - personhood isn't a fact.
Quoting Echarmion
He believes otherwise. You would need to fully ignore this to make a claim, as if it were an objection to his position. If personhood starts at conception (a fully acceptable formulation, just not one I personally think helpful, even if true) then the position is fine. Silly, imo, but fine. He's asking you to consider his position that personhood starts at conception. These are just competing theories of personhood. Should be fun to discuss LOL.
Which brings in the much much more interesting question: If personal identity doens't obtain other than through relation R, how is it possible that a child of three weeks could be considered 'a person' and be afforded the rights of a person? Hehehe.
But I'm not a dog. I do know what I am. That's one of the things that makes me a person.
Quoting AmadeusD
Indeed there's not. But in that particular conversation, we had already arrived at the conclusion that a fetus is relevant because it's a future person.
Quoting AmadeusD
I did not mean to claim that personhood is a fact. I'm arguing in favour of an evidence-based judgement of personhood.
Quoting AmadeusD
You're commenting on this discussion without the relevant context of the previous posts/replies.
Quoting AmadeusD
Presumably because "relation R", whatever that is, obtains at that time.
Are you asking me what the evidence is that a newborn is a person?
This is just an elaborate restatement of the initial, incoherent claim, though. So, my response would be the same. It's circular and gives no argument. Just you believe that being a person entitles you to define a person. Which begs the question. *matt walsh voice* "Ok, but what is a person?"
Quoting Echarmion
This can't possibly be the case. It is , in fact, a fetus. It isn't some future person. I understand what's being got at and am sympathetic, morally speaking, but could you clear up how it is that you could hold a view counter the facts, and hold it morally relevant?
Quoting Echarmion
What evidence? That's the point I'm trying to get across - no level of 'evidence' would satisfy a conflict of conceptual analysis (though, i recognise this lends itself to idiots simply moving hte goalposts, so maybe im being a bit too analytical here).
Quoting Echarmion
I'm commenting only on your comportment, not hte discussion. That said, I do have the relevant context in mind. My comments aren't (well, not significantly) askance from the discussion. Though, treat it is a new one if you want to. It would work as such.
Quoting Echarmion
Sorry, 'relation R' is psychological continuity, in Parfitean terms. A child of three weeks does not have this relation in either direction, it seems. And so, could not be considered a personality. Not a personality=not a person? That's hte corner I'm trying to canvas.
Quoting Echarmion
No. There couldn't be 'evidence' I am, though, challenging the concept and offering other ways to look at it. I would want to know how you are claiming a newborn is a person. 'evidence' wouldn't help, without this well-understood. If it's a concept I can jive with, and the evidence for the facts are there, we're off to a great start.
That's propaganda, not an argument. It does not help you that the emotional post you dredged up from six years ago contains propaganda, nor is it surprising that it does. Nor does it help the thread.
But that's the whole point of this particular line of discussion. The laws have to make that distinction - there needs to be some means to determine whether any given collection of cells and protoplasm is legally a person or not.
Yes, being a person entitles me to define a person. How else would it work? It's neither incoherent or circular. The argument is quite simply that since I'm the one that needs to decide on a moral framework, I need to figure out how to judge who is a person and who isn't. Since the only fixed point I start out with is that I am a person, I need to proceed from that.
Quoting AmadeusD
I agree.
Quoting AmadeusD
I think I see what you mean, but then I'm not trying to establish some specific test. I'm merely arguing for my take on the conceptual analysis. Which is that, if we're being honest, we determine personhood based on certain cognitive similarities and their expressions in behaviour.
We could hypothesize whether rocks have some mystical thinking power and are actually fully conscious, self aware beings. But doing so is clearly pointless. All we can do is work with what criteria we can come up with by self-reflexion.
By doing that it seems pretty obvious that a person needs some kind of thinking apparatus. Rocks don't have that (as far as we can tell), so rocks probably aren't persons. Zygotes don't have it either, I'm merely drawing the obvious conclusion.
Quoting AmadeusD
I just don't really think that works because I'm not necessarily arguing my own position in those comments.
Quoting AmadeusD
Oh, right, I wasn't aware of that terminology.
But yes that's a conclusion you could draw. It's obviously a pretty controversial conclusion to draw. Someone might say that even considering the possibility serves as a reductio ad absurdum for my argument. I think it's useful though to consider the possibility that there's no mystical essence to the human form that somehow turns it into its own category.
Now to be clear I'm not saying we should conclude, at this point, that children under the age of 2 aren't people. But if we're not going to invoke some kind of permanent soul or some other special pleading that makes humans special cases, we'll have to approach a human like we would any other lifeform. And would we consider the equivalent of a three week old human child a person if it happened to not look like a human? You did ask for a fun discussion, did you not?
??? . I can't tell if you are joking.
The emotional aspect here is found in a refusal to recognise that a sack of fluid is not a person. But having an emotional response is fine. Emotions are a part of the mechanism of action, we do what we want to do, and we don't do what upsets us. So if you are upset by abortion, then don't have one.
But your emotional response is in itself insufficient to justify forcing others to comply. That you do not like lime ice cream is not a moral reason to ban lime ice cream. More is needed for the argument to be moral. It is allowable for the local ice creamery to sell lime ice cream, and indeed it would be immoral to ban that sale only on the grounds that you do not like it.
Your own argument, that for a species to kill it's young is unnatural, is both factually incorrect and morally irrelevant. Animals do kill their young. But what animals do is not a guide to what humans ought do. Animals do not talk - should humans then also not talk? There is a gap in your argument.
That’s not how it works...at all. A ball doesn’t know what a ball is.
My point was that just because neurons are firing in a brain, that does not necessitate there is a person.
Personhood is mindhood: it is having a mind, not having a brain that could produce a mind or “house” a mind.
You are conflating a capacity for personhood with personhood.
Nature is defined by evolutionary biology.
Thereby creating a new life, which thereby begins its continual-development process until death.
If the criteria for identifying a starting point is individuality (you say “an individual human being”) then the more correct point would be birth because until then the mother and child are inextricably fused together.
No they are not. That's not how biology works: they are separate living beings of which one is dependent on the other.
My further response applies to everything you've just said. I think it's possible you're not getting me:
That you claim to be a person begs the question, but even if it didn't, it provides absolutely nothing as to a 'necessary or sufficient' set of criteria. You're just saying 'look at me!!'. I could make the same claim about being black. But, as you know, I'd be either laughed at or charged with racism. Fair enough, too. My point is you have to have a set of criteria, prior to your claim to fit them, and then assess whether you fit them (I imagine this can be easily done, it's just not happening here). I'm wanting your criteria. If that is just 'what I, in fact, am' I'll leave it there and just say I'm not convinced.
Quoting Echarmion
Haha nice, perhaps I misunderstood the point of that passage then. Apologies if so!
Quoting Echarmion
Which ones? And are they derived from your conviction that you're a person? Seems to remain somewhat circular, if inter-personal.
Quoting Echarmion
I wouldn't disagree, and we're getting somewhere now - but following from the previous comments about consciousness, We would want to know at what level does the consciousness reach the level of a 'personal' consciousness - in the sense that an alien species could have cognitive abilities the same as humans, and not be humans. Are they persons, nonetheless? Yes or no is fine, I'm just curious as to where these ideas go... Not sure where i'd land.
Quoting Echarmion
Fair enough. It feels that way, so you're being a really good sport if not. Appreciate that!
Quoting Echarmion
I think this is likely part of the answer(given we need to assess personhood, and identity, it's a doozy so I'm loathe to think there's anything but a very complex answer). I don't think there's anything mystical, but I do think there might be a moveable moment. This might be the moment hte heart beats for the first time, as a trivial example, which would be different for different fetuses. I don't think it's hard to offer several possibilities for hard-and-fast rules. Just, i don't see anyone agreeing given either (meaning, depending on your view) a life is being ended, or prevented.
Quoting Echarmion
VERY fun!! I like these lines. I think if a fetus looked like a dog, and lost its hair, drew in its mandible and slowly became bi-pedal over the first six months, we definitely have to make an arbitrary call as to when it 'morally' becomes 'human'. What would you want to say there?
Quoting Banno
Lucky we're talking about blastocysts which are not sacks of fluid. They contain the groups of cells totalling around 200, including stem cells which are required for the cascades of development a fetus needs to become viable. It also contains an outer layer of protective cells called the trophoblast. This becomes the placenta. You're talking about one aspect, called the blastocoel. This means, funnily enough, that a blastocyst is a structure, in which a cyst sits. It is not a cyst. Onward..
Again this is more true after birth than before, so birth should be identified as the starting point, if the starting point is based on individuality.
You are factually incorrect. Again.
And again, the point that seems to escape you, these are not images of people.
Funnily, you've posted an image that (if taken at face value) proves my account accurate? Thank you Banno :) Ha...ha? Why not just say "Yes, I was wrong. It's not a cyst. But it's still not a person" ??
Quoting Banno
It didn't escape me. It wasn't relevant to the correction I've provided. I agree - that's not a person. But that's not relevant as to whether the above is a cyst or not (it isn't). At least try not to totally misread, conflate and ignore.
But go ahead, make more posts about me.
Yeah but balls aren't self-aware. I am though.
Quoting Bob Ross
Yes fair enough, but I would still argue that even an unconscious mind is a mind. The neuron firings of an unconscious person don't turn into a random jumble and then spontaneously reassemble into a mind when that person wakes up. There is continuity.
But perhaps on a more fundamental level I'll have to take "capacity for personhood" as evidence for actual personhood. I don't usually have access to brain scans of people I meet.
Quoting Bob Ross
Ok, then what part of that biology are you calling nature
Quoting Bob Ross
That's interpretation, not fact. I've already pointed out that there's nothing "new" about the life, all of its components are already alive, there's no abiogenesis going on (and even if there was, that would not answer the question of moral relevance anyways).
I'm not. A sperm cell is a single-celled organism. It's alive.
There is a living human being that is created upon conception; so that is where it begins as a living being. After birth is not at all when it becomes a human being: that makes no sense.
What you are describing is a capacity to deploy a mind, and not having a mind. Therefore, you must agree that a knocked out human being technically isn’t a person when they are knocked out; and re-gain personhood when they re-gain consciousness.
This is not a minor point: your whole argument relied on personhood grounding rights, not the capacity to acquire personhood (because they have a fully developed brain). You are starting to morph into my view: the nature of that being sets them out as a person, because they can and will, if everything goes according to the proper biological development, develop personhood.
Also, if you go the capacity route; then you end up with the absurdity that dead human beings have no rights...just food for thought.
I am talking about how a healthy member of a species is supposed to develop and become. People think of “teleoglogy” as a dirty word these days, or a vacuous concept, but we use it implicitly all the time in the medical industry.
When you go into the doctor’s office and complain about your hand not acting properly, or when a child is born without an arm and you take pity on them, you are talking necessarily in teleological terms: your hand, e.g., was supposed to, according to what a healthy human hand normally does, behave such-and-such instead of so-and-so.
You have a nature which is set out by your biology which is set out by the species which you are a member of. Zebras are supposed to have stripes: a zebra which doesn’t have stripes is an abnormality—a defect.
There’s a huge consensus in biology that life begins at conception; so it’s, quite frankly, not worth my time to argue about it. Here’s a good article on it: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3211703 .
"Life begins at conception" is an imprecise short-hand for "a human life begins at conception". Stop picking the low hanging fruits: obviously a sperm is alive and so is my skin cells---we are talking about when a human being is alive.
It's not a person. That's the salient point. All things being equal, it would be nice to allow it to develop into a person, but all things aren't equal, and that would entail violating the woman's bodily autonomy rights.
I was just explaining what Echarmion was saying. I understood you as misinterpreting him as saying that life begins after conception. Maybe I misunderstood you.
Anyone can confer a right. And I was just explaining my view of rights, like you asked.
I’m sorry but there is hardly any consensus as to what a person is. I don’t think it’s a good idea to start killing living things on such a flimsy basis.
I wasn’t necessarily speaking about rights. I was saying they deserve a chance to live and that it is wrong to kill them.
Sure, but parents and abortionists also make that distinction with or without the law.
I mean you said this:
So forgive me for being confused.
Are you now suggesting that it can be wrong to kill a foetus and that a foetus deserves the chance to live even if they haven't been granted the right to live?
To me it seems like an arbitrary starting point. Like sperm and egg magically become a living being the instant they meet. Not a fraction of a second before they meet. Sort of like claiming that a cake becomes a cake the exact instant its ingredients first come into contact.
I think you need to include the concept of an immortal soul for the conception thing to work.
There needs to be some basis for granting rights in the first place.
That doesn't really address the question. According to your own account of rights there's nothing more to rights than someone having said something like "so-and-so has the right to such-and-such".
So John says "foetuses have a right to life" and Jane says "foetuses don't have a right to life". Where do we go from here?
Do you want to argue that one of John and Jane is correct and the other incorrect? Then there's more to rights than someone having said something like "so-and-so has the right to such-and-such". And so, using your own reasoning, one must be able to point to some measurable property which is "the right" (independent of what either John or Jane say). Can you do that?
But then you also say above that it's not about rights but about wrongness and deservingness, which just shifts the problem: using your own reasoning, one must be able to point to some measurable property which is "wrongness" and "deservingness". Can you do that?
Or perhaps you simply need to accept that not everything is a measurable property that can be pointed to, whether that be "right", "deservingness", or "personhood".
The beginning of a life is an arbitrary starting point?
Sorry, I didn’t know this was an interview.
You’re making nouns out of my adjectives. I don’t believe wrongness and rightness and rights are measurable properties of anything.
When I confer to you a right, I simply declare your right and then refuse to interfere in whatever activity I have given you the right to. I also work to defend your right from others who might intervene. So when I confer to you the right to eat, for example, I don’t stop you from eating. I also defend you (or at least ought to) from others who would intervene.
No one receives a right property upon being conferred a right.
What is a life?
So you claim that killing foetuses is wrong but don't need to point to some measurable property of being wrong because "wrong" is an adjective, and others claim that foetuses aren't people and need to point to some measurable property of being a person because "person" is a noun?
Such an argument from grammar is special pleading.
I see where you're coming from. I think that fundamentally, my personhood in at of itself must be considered an a-priori conclusion. I experience myself as a continuous and monolithic actor interacting with a world that is outside of me. I experience self-awareness in the sense that I'm aware of my own awareness. I call this personhood.
We could go back to Descartes with this, you probably get the idea. So I think it's less that there are some criteria and then I decide whether I fit them. I look at myself and decide what the necessary and sufficient criteria are to be like that.
I've been reticent to enumerate exact criteria because if I did, I'd certainly make mistakes. But I think the rough outlines aren't that controversial if we're talking about adults. Thinking, awareness, empathy.
Quoting AmadeusD
I see what you mean by circular, but the addition of other potential subjects that you interact with is a relevant addition. If there were no others, there'd be no need for the concept of personhood.
Quoting AmadeusD
I would say they're persons. Personally I also consider some primate and whale species at least close to persons based on the complexity of their behaviour.
Since we don't have inside views of others, human or not, I think we need to rely on signs of complex cognition that can be observed. Like recognising yourself in the mirror, displaying empathy and complex social relations, having significant discretion in how to react to stimuli.
Quoting AmadeusD
I don't really have a strong attachment to any particular line. I think if you want to be more cautious and choose an earlier moment, that's an understandable approach, but we'd need to balance our caution with having a practical solution that doesn't put all the burden of uncertainty on the women.
Quoting AmadeusD
In a way that's what happens, a fetus looks very alien during some of its development. But I think in this scenario, we'd have a whole lot less concerns about abortion. We'd maybe not treat children as human until they actually looked human. I think that in terms of evidence about cognitive ability, we don't have much to go on for newborns. Children don't recognise themselves in the mirror during roughly the first year. In that sense, one could argue that a dolphin is more of a person.
That's of course a one-dimensional view and human children do have abilities in other areas. But if you wanted to establish a set of criteria for personhood that didn't take into account species (directly or indirectly) it seems to me you'd have trouble coming up with a catalogue that included newborn human children without also including a diverse set of non-human animals.
Quoting Bob Ross
I'm not sure that I "must" agree. I can see your point, but it's based on the assumption that a mind is not a continuous entity but a series of unrelated instances. In your view, the mind that go to sleep and the mind that wakes up are different minds. That runs directly counter to the self-awareness of the mind as a continuous entity. And this also matches up with the fact that the physical representation of the mind - the neuronal activity - does not stop while unconscious. In addition, you are not necessarily conscious at any given moment of all your mind. Thoughts and impressions often "pop into" your mind, but since they don't spring up ex-nihilo they're probably really parts of your mind that just weren't in focus.
So why can't I just conclude that "consciousness" is merely an attribute of a mind? In that case there are conscious minds and unconscious minds, that does not seem like a logical impossibility.
Quoting Bob Ross
Uh, what is absurd about that? Why would dead human beings have rights?
Quoting Bob Ross
This is fine if we're talking about subjects where there's no disconnect between what the teleology says it's natural and what individuals usually want. A kind of instrumental theology. People usually want two functioning arms so you can generally assume their interest is to have functioning arms. Such presumed interests are also applied in a legal context when you need to decide on surgery on someone who is e.g. unconscious.
You run into a problem though once you move away from the presumed interests of the person. At that point the teleology would have to be justified against the interests of the person affected and I don't think it can. We have plenty of historical examples about the tyranny of normality.
On the subject of abortion, that brings us back to the familiar question: does a fetus have a presumed interest to become a person? You'd probably say yes, just like an unconscious person has an interest in continuing to live. But to me this comes down to the fundamental notion of logical prerequisites. You have to exist before you can have rights or interests.
Quoting Bob Ross
But what do the biologists mean when they say life? Since obviously all parts of the reproductive mechanism are already alive, they don't mean abiogenesis. But if they don't mean life as opposed to non-living chemical and physical processes, what do they mean?
It just comes down to power. Where abortion is illegal, there are few doctors who will do it because they don't want to be punished.
If you want abortion to be legal, you'll have to get yourself some power. Logical arguments have zero to do with it.
Ok, fair enough. I suppose I am simply left unconvinced :P Common!
Quoting Echarmion
And I think this is why. Though, if you would accept the following, I think I can get to your lilypad without much issue:
For humans, designating what we are is a matter of assigning a label to the already-known criteria, rather htan assessing hte criteria a priori.
I can see why that would be both more reasonable, and the better logical way of going about it. That said, this wouldn't help with a fetus, or zygote :P
Quoting Echarmion
Yeah, for sure. Think this is where I was going. How do you read those back to a fetus? Or, is it hte case that a fetus (even nine month-ers) aren't persons for this reason?
Quoting Echarmion
Ah, i see. THis is a relatively novel bullet to bite. Bravo.
Quoting Echarmion
That's fair, but again, as for the fetus or Zygote (or even infant)? Quoting Echarmion
yeah dude - good fun! Thank you :)
It's literally not but that explains you, i guess. No one's arguing with you. You're being corrected. If you're not interested in such, on your way lad.
It might have human tissue, but it is not a human. Nor is it a person. Nor does it have preferences .
Overwhelmingly this thread has focused on the foetus, without consideration of the person bearing it. What is at stake in the discussion of abortion is the dignity of the person who is to carry the foetus. Now unlike a blastocyst, there can be no doubt as to their humanity, their personhood.
This is why arguments as to the nature of humanity or personhood ought be sidelined. The needs and capabilities of the person are present and undeniable. Those of the blastocyst, in comparison, are minute.
That's where I end up in my thinking -- the personhood of a foetus is more in question than the personhood of the mother, and so the rights of personhood should favor the mother when considering which rights to favor.
Personhood is where I start, but in the end I don't think that you can defend the notion without a notion of ensoulment when it comes to the foetus. And, while that is a perfectly respectable position to live it's not good for law because not everyone believes in ensoulment, and the removal of a mole or cyst ought not be a moral conundrum from a materialist point of view.
That's hardly going to be clearer than "humanity" or "personhood". The reference to Singer went mostly un-noted, but there is something to the idea that a woman has preferences while a cyst doesn't. I'd broaden that to include other capabilities had by a person but not by a foetus. The argument then is simply that the wellbeing of the woman had overwhelming precedence over that of the conceptus.
That's your moral proclamation. And so be it. It wont be so for many (potentially, the majority) of people. Let's just allow that a blastocyst is, in fact, contrary to the biological literature, a mere cyst. Some will still see this as more important, in direct comparison, than the wants and needs of an adult woman (or, lets make it more fun - a young teenager going through a forced pregnancy due to abuse). I do think your consistent use of 'cyst', whether symbolic, or sincerely held as apt, is causing you to jettison other moral positions as invalid rather than counter to your own. With that..
Quoting Banno
Much better. MUCH better. And this seems to me both 'right' morally, and something which can be defended on any system but one of divinity because Quoting Banno doesn't matter to strict moral proclamations from on high, about hte sanctity of a fetus.
I don' think ensoulment, as a concept, can even be brought in here - it's a complete fantasy as regards looking at the facts.
All life demonstrates preferences.
Ok, if that is so, should we prefer the preferences of a cyst to those of Amber Thurman?
Why not?
But you can decide for yourself.
Right. The preferences-angle is BS. People decide for their own reasons.
You know only part of the blastocyst becomes a fetus. The rest is a protective covering and the placenta.
An odd conclusion. That people make their own choices does not make those choices arbitrary. The preference angle can ground the choice between the woman and the cyst. Your choice as to which to preserve is about you. Which will you chose?
Yep.
Victor Frankl said that you can't compare one person's pain to another's. The pain in any being takes up all the available space.
The preference angle is just mumbo jumbo because for some odd reason one is resistant to saying "I value the mother's life over that of the fetus.". Just say it. You don't need to defend it. It's how you feel.
Likewise, your choice of calling it a cyst when I've already told you that most aborted material has a beating heart, is for what? Just call it a fetus. That's what it is.
Norma McCorvey was a working-class woman and did not have significant financial resources.
If you like. I value the woman's life over that of the foetus because she is much more capable and interesting. Others value the foetus over the interests of the woman becasue of what they think their invisible friend thinks. The reason for analysing reasons is to track down inconsistencies and sources for those opinions. I also think that what someone else's invisible friend might say is irrelevant to the discussion.
So, which do you choose? Woman or cyst? And yes, I am obviously intentionally using extreme language, setting otu the extreme case, to show that folk who think abortion indefensible becasue of "ensolement" or some such are shown to value the cyst above the women. And as I have said, I think that morally bankrupt.
I wouldn't bother. Quoting Banno
This type of ignorance can't be reasoned with.
That's important to you. I get it. My attitude about it comes from an event where I was listening to a pro-choice spokesperson and it struck me that she was repeating the arguments Southerners made to defend slavery. We have a right, they aren't human...
I won't try to explain to you how that affected me, except to say that since then I've felt strongly that mutual respect and a willingness to listen are important. If you want others to listen to you, you have to be ready to do the same.
Quoting Banno
I choose the woman, and yes, your language indicates that you have no respect for the other side. I think that's unfortunate. I really do.
He's infuriating. It's by design.
Ironically, you're comparing slaves (and centuries of suffering) to tiny bits of flesh that lack consciousness.
My friend, it is you who are incessantly talking about me.
Quoting frank
Well, not much. Yep. Their arguments hereabouts do not do much to build that respect.
Quoting frank
Thanks. One does what one can.
Quoting praxis
So, on your own argument, @frank, if we don't look to the wider picture but only our "feels", how are we to deal with disagreement? If you would rule out discourse, what would you rule in? But moreover, why?
On your own account, you can give no reason.
You would give moral recognition to slaves but not to blastocysts, but can't say why.
I find that quite odd.
What you're referring to as the "wider picture" is basically logic. How does logic have any force for you if you're a logical pluralist?
Risible. As i said, your need is noted.
Well, no, not just logic. I'm "referencing" all the things that make a person more interesting and worthy of the "respect" you so value, in comparison to a conceptus.
We can use logic in examining the coherence and consistency of a group of claims. Nihilism, not pluralism, would deny this.
So far as your claim, you seem to think that reasons and arguments are irrelevant to moral decisions, that what counts is that "people decide for their own reasons", and that discussion of those reasons is BS.
So I'm puzzling as to why you are even here on a discussion. Are you trying to convince us that we ought not be having any discussions, by having a discussion?
Seems to me your position is self-defeating.
Now you can either show me how I have misunderstood you, or you can abuse me. Again, your choice.
Very much so. Your own morality isn't based on arguments. It comes from the way you feel.
Quoting Banno
No. I'm pointing out that you're building arguments that no one will hear but your allies. Your opponents aren't going to hear you because there's no mutual respect.
Abortion is a moral issue. Pro-choice ought to start with that. Let it be known that you're ok with ending the life of a fetus. Have the guts to say it.
I agree. But with the caveat that what you feel is very much to do with what you think, hence what you think can change what you feel as much as what you feel changes what you think.
It's an interaction. Complex. Iterative. Human.
Quoting frank
I don't much give a fuck.
Quoting frank
You suppose I have qualms about such things? No. Kill the foetus.
All this talk about me is fun, but can we get back on topic?
I wasn't just talking about you. The pro-choice spokesperson said abortion is not a matter of morality, it's about the right to choose.
No, if someone is complaining that it's a moral issue, it's a moral issue. Meet them in that ground and tell them how you feel.
That's muddled. Morality is about how we relate to each other, and comes in to play as soon as you expect me to do something for you, or you for me. So they were wrong.
Yep, abortion is a moral issue.
:up: :up:
The right to choose isn’t a moral issue?
Quoting frank
I don’t think the obvious needs to be stated.
I think the inference is that rights are brute, rather than something "consider-able". Lots of pro-life people take this stance, instead of Banno's, in siding with the mother.
I am not a bundle theorist; and nothing I said entails that. The mind persists as long as its underlying physical constitution is preserved through processes and storage; but this is not the same as claiming that a malfunctioning brain, which may still be a means of preserving a mind, is currently producing a person.
Personhood, as I take it, is a property that a thing has when it currently has a rational will; and this is not found in unconscious humans.
Imagine there’s a person who just died and all their family members or loved ones are dead. A stranger wants to have sex with their corpse: if that dead person has no rights, being dead, then there is nothing, per se, immoral about having sex with their corpse. Are you willing to bite that bullet?
A response one could give is that some actions are immoral and yet don’t violate a right of someone else—e.g., torturing a pig. They would then point out that, similarly, the dead person has no rights but it would still be immoral to have sex with their corpse.
To that, I respond that it is disanalogous; for the actions which are immoral but don’t directly violate a right (of a person) can be morally permissible per accidens (e.g., having to torture a pig if it were to prevent a major societal catastrophe), whereas it is always wrong to have sex with a dead person's corpse (no differently than it is always wrong to kill an innocent person). Persons, given their nature qua rationality, marks them out as absolute objects of respect.
That, and everything you commented, is completely anti-thetical to everything I said. When a person says that their arm is not working properly, they usually are saying it in the Aristotelian sense and not this post-humean sense that you described. Viz., they are saying something is actually wrong with their arm, and not that it is wrong hypothetically relative to their subjective tastes.
Your problem is that you are thinking about this like a Humean. This question makes no sense for an Aristotelian.
They mean that a new member of the human species has been created and is alive.
A sperm and egg are alive: no one disputes that. The fact is, also, that a human being begins to exist upon conception of those two. A sperm is alive, but is not a human; an egg is alive but is not a human, but a fertilized egg is a human.
I didn't say that the living human being was a person during the entirety of gestation; and I've already noted that I ground rights in the nature of a being such that if their nature sets them out as a person, then they deserve rights even if they aren't currently a person.
I don’t understand why I need to point to a property of “wrongness”. I also never said someone needs to point to a measurable property of being a person. I was saying there is no such measurable property, so it makes zero sense that I would say you need to point to one.
My argument this whole time is that it’s wrong to intentionally kill a human being (unless he deserves it or it is in self-defense), to deprive him of life. A fetus is a human being.
I forget the context but I don’t think a country’s legal system has to make the decision.
Echarmion asked "is this supposed to mean that there's no evidence for personhood?"
You responded with "I understand, and have no problem with either term in common usage, but if I were to ask you to point to whatever it is you're referring to you would invariably point to your body, which has existed and grown since conception. That's what I'm hung up on."
I am simply explaining that being (or not being) able to point to something has no bearing on whether or not someone is a person, just as being (or not being) able to point to something has no bearing on whether or not something is wrong.
Quoting NOS4A2
And this is where there is disagreement. It is wrong to intentionally kill a born human, and perhaps a foetus of a sufficient age, but it is not wrong to intentionally kill an embryo or young foetus.
The possession of human DNA and the future possibility of being born is not sufficient grounds to force a pregnant woman to carry the child to term.
But abortion is much older than you might think. Native American women knew which plants would bring about abortion. Anti-abortion is more a Christian thing and perhaps the ethics of a community that's trying to increase its numbers.
Women, burdened by gestation, birth, and child-raising, are the ones who should be deciding what's right for themselves and their communities. That's what I think.
This seems to be the pro-life argument:
a) "X is a human" means "X has human DNA"
b) It is never acceptable to kill a human
c) Therefore, it is never acceptable to kill something with human DNA
The pro-choice crowd deny that both (a) and (b) are true together; it's one or the other:
a) "X is a human" means "X has human DNA"
d) It is sometimes acceptable to kill something with human DNA
e) Therefore, it is sometimes acceptable to kill a human
or
b) It is never acceptable to kill a human
d) It is sometimes acceptable to kill something with human DNA
e) Therefore, "X is a human" does not mean "X has human DNA"
Sometimes you have to show, not tell. I ask you to point to what you’re referring to and you point to a human being. I agree that’s a human being. If I ask you to show me what makes it a person and you have to go off searching into your mind instead of revealing some or other biological fact about that human being, then you don’t have anything but your own thoughts. If you cannot point to any distinction then there is no distinction.
If you’re going to condemn some human beings to death because you’ve relegated them to the status of non-person, you better have something better than your own thoughts and feelings.
And if I ask you to show me what makes killing a human embryo wrong?
Quoting NOS4A2
There is a very real biological difference between an embryo and a baby. They might share the same kind of DNA, but there is much more to an organism than its DNA.
Yes, it’s the woman’s choice. Let’s hope she makes the moral one.
I would refrain as best as possible from positing phantom properties and folk biology.
The baby was an embryo. No embryo, no baby, no human being. But yes, organisms aren’t DNA.
It was an embryo, but now isn't. There is a very real biological difference between a baby and an embryo. This very real biological difference has moral relevance and is why it is wrong to kill a baby but not wrong to kill an embryo.
Quoting NOS4A2
So are you now saying that it isn't wrong to kill a human embryo? Or are you refusing to show me what makes killing a human embryo wrong? This is why you are special pleading; you demand that we show you what makes something a person but refusing to show us what makes killing a human embryo wrong.
Now we’re on to something. What biological differences make it not wrong to kill an embryo, but wrong to kill a baby?
I’ve already described my reasoning and the entities it applies to as best as possible.
The biggest and most relevant difference is that a baby is no longer being carried in the womb of its mother, and so the mother's bodily rights are no longer an issue.
Another significant difference is that the thalamocortical connections that are required for consciousness do not develop until ~26 weeks of pregnancy.
Quoting NOS4A2
You've asserted that it is wrong to kill anything with human DNA (except in self-defence, etc.). You haven't shown what makes it wrong.
What if the mother wants the child. Does the zygote then deserve a chance at life and become worthy of protection, or is it still disposable?
Yes, it is wrong to intentionally kill a fetus for the same reasons it is wrong to kill any other human being. You can disagree with the premise that a fetus is a human being, or that it is not wrong to kill human beings, but it’s difficult to reasonably do so.
Of course human eggs and human sperm are human. They don’t contain zebra DNA, they have human DNA. They are alive and they are human.
Why do you resist the concept of an immortal soul when that is ultimately what you’re arguing?
But you don't favor legislating it, right?
What are these "same reasons"?
Because I would say that it is wrong to kill other humans because it is wrong to kill humans with thoughts and feelings and wants. Embryos and (early stage) foetuses don't have thoughts or feelings or wants. They are more like the brain dead living on life support.
Quoting NOS4A2
It's not difficult when you make sure not to equivocate. See my post above.
Quoting NOS4A2
Only to the extent that the mother deserves her wants respected.
1. I don't believe we have souls.
2. You are conflating the adjective 'human' insofar as it relates to something being a part of a human with the noun 'human' insofar as it relates to something being a human. E.g., my human skill cell (which is a redundant way to put it btw) is not a human.
You already asked this question here, and I responded here.
Should the parents be allowed to authorize the doctors to remove life support?
b-b-b-b-bingo (merely enthusiastic assent. Not trying to say you have the moral authority lol
A skin cell can be cloned and I think you'd need to be a biologist to distinguish a skin cell from a zygote, so it's amusing that you say a skin cell is not a human.
Sperm and egg cells are unlike skin cells though. They can't be cloned because they don't have a complete set of genetic material. Indivicually they don't qualify as a human, according to your apparent qualifications. But then there isn't much difference between a fertilized egg, an almost fertilized egg, and a skin cell, in terms of their genetic potential. And you say that a skin cell is not a human.
I am unsure as to what exactly you are asking here: are you asking if (1) the doctor should have to wait for approval to pull the plug (in the event where the doctor needs to in order to prioritize other patients) or if (2) the parents can simply decide when to pull the plug (even if it isn't a matter of limit resources)?
Euthanasia is a topic that would be interesting to tackle: I am not sure if in every case it is immoral to kill someone out of respect for that person. It's an interesting pickle; but disanalogous to abortion: an abortion is a total disregard of that innocent life.
You don't understand, without the help of a biologist, that a skin cell isn't a human being?
Whether or not you can distinguish a zygote from a skin cell is a separate and completely irrelevant point: a skin cell is not a human being. You don't need to be an expert to put that together.
A skin cell can't clone itself if that's what you mean. By the same token, a zygote can't develop itself either.
Uh, no. I'm pointing out that you believe a skin cell is not a human and that a skin cell can be cloned to produce a human being. Both skin and zygote are alive and have human DNA.
Sloppy language, sorry. I’ll reiterate.
Over a thousand dogs have been cloned. They typically use skin cells from the pooches to make clones of them.
Dog skin cells are alive and contain doggy DNA.
You’ve said that human skin cells are not a human so I assume you’d say that dog skin cells are not a dog.
You’ve said that a fertilized human egg is a human so I assume you’d say that a fertilized dog egg is a dog.
My point is that if the genetic material in a fertilized egg is what defines it as ‘a dog’ or ‘a human’ then the genetic material in a skin cell is also ‘a dog’ or ‘a human’ being that it can be used to reproduce a dog or human instead of the genetic material in eggs and sperm.
To me it’s no weirder to say that a skin cell is a human than it is to say a freshly fertilized egg is a human.
I think, for me, the problem is that a skin cell comes from a 'living human', but a Zygote hasn't reached that stage. What are you cloning? Obviously, they're the exact same process genetically, but practically speaking, cloning a Zygote is extremely weird given we have no 'person' to which the 'clone' could be subsequent at that point.
With the skin cell, we do. Point not missed, just found this interesting.
I didn’t mean to say anything about cloning a zygote. Imagine if you did and it turned out to be a sociopath. You’d have two sociopaths to deal with instead of one. :scream:
There's no weirdness like that with the skin cell.
So it is with a new born baby, yet we give a baby at least enough standing to outweigh the mother’s choice of life or death at that point of development, much sooner than that usually.
A person that is temporarily knocked out (from getting punched) can't tell us what they want us to do and a person next to them that wants to rape them while they are unconscious can: is this "unequal standing" of communication morally relevant to you?!? What you just argued is that we don't give as much moral weight to people that can't communicate with us. What about deaf and mute people? Do they have less rights?!?
Not quite, although I appreciate the elaboration. Dogs are cloned by conjoining a dog egg with a dog cell, which is a synthetic version of egg fertilization. What you are thinking, is that somehow a dog's cell can just become a dog---that's not how that works. Even in cloning dogs, my view is the correct one: a new living dog is created upon fertilizing the egg of the surrogate mother with an artificially manipulated tissue sample from the dog that one wants to clone.
That logic doesn't work because it would support infanticide. The obligations imposed upon parents to support their children are real whether the child is in utero or not and an infant's wants can only be inferred as well.
That is, there is no basis for treating some people as second class citizens if they are indeed people. What is a "person" is a either based upon empirically based observations or it's socially constructed. As has been argued in the transsexual related threads, the argument from the left was pretty solidly that what is a man or woman is a social construct and from there we create laws that protect those socially created classifications.
In truth, I think the left does the same with regard to what a person is, although there seems to be this struggle to try to support it with science. It's not going to be supportable in science though because the essence of personhood is far too nebulous a concept.
That is, let's leave to the right the hard and fast rules: A man is XY and a person is the product of conception. Let's leave to the left the social constructs: A man is a person who so declares himself to be and a person is who society declares them to be. Your basis for not protecting certain fetuses seems wrapped up in protecting certain societal interests consistent with your views on protecting women. That's not a bad thing, but I don't think it needs to be further supported by ad hoc arguments related to science where we try to prove through a microscope that a fetus isn't a person.
My own take is that for the most part essentialism is false. There's no such thing as the essence of personhood; there's just the social fact that we use the word "person" to refer to certain types of organisms and not to others, based on some general characteristics (much like the word "game").
It happens to be the case that the general characteristics that prompt our use of the word "person" also also happen to be the general characteristics that 'grant' the appropriate moral rights.
So it's not exactly the case that we ought not kill someone because they are a person, but that someone is a person and we ought not kill them because they have thoughts and feelings and wants and so on.
Saying "we ought not kill him because he's a person" is just a more succinct phrasing.
It deprives her of life, a future, and the world of her presence. It devalues life, it inflicts unnecessary harm…but mostly it’s unjust. She innocent. She doesn’t deserve to be killed.
Having more or less thoughts and feelings doesn’t make anyone more or less deserving of life or death. So in my mind any such distinction only serves to comfort the killer, not the one who is having his life snuffed out. That’s why the whole ordeal is a purely selfish one.
That’s not my argument, nor have I ever heard it before. Here it is: it is wrong to kill an innocent human being. A fetus is an innocent human being. Therefore, it is wrong to kill a fetus. Which premise would you disagree with?
Is this something you think should be outlawed? Or are you just expressing your sentiment?
I don’t think anything should be outlawed.
Cool.
The moral claim is that persons are sacred, endowed with certain rights. The claim would be, to the moral realist, that in this reality, persons have those rights.
There are also people as well. The claim is that within reality, there are people walking around.
Ergo, don't murder the people.
But denying essentialism does not deny that there are people or that every example of a person is ambiguous and might not be a person. Denying essentialism only means there is no one element that every person has, but instead perhaps that there are a number of criteria that if existing within certain combinations will result in a person.
So it's not that entity X with attributes a, d, l, and q ought not be killed. It's that if entity X has the attributes that satisify what a person is then entity X should not be killed.
I do follow what you're saying, and maybe we're not saying anything terribly different, but you seem to be saying that "Person" is shorthand for saying "entity X with attributes a, d, l, and q," so we needn't elevate the term "Person" to mean something more or different. My view though is that entity Y with attributes a, d, l, and c and not q might also be a "Person," so it serves an important function to place entities X and Y into the "Person" catagorization because in our moral universe, People have special rights.
That someone doesn't deserve to die isn't that they deserve to live. Embryos and foetuses don't deserve anything.
Quoting NOS4A2
You equivocate.
The premise "it is wrong to kill an innocent human being" is being interpreted as "it is always wrong to kill an innocent human being", but then if I were to deny this premise you would misinterpret my counter-premise as "it is never wrong to kill an innocent human being".
It is sometimes wrong to kill an innocent human being and sometimes not wrong. It is wrong if the innocent human being is an adult, a child, a baby, or a sufficiently developed foetus. It is not wrong if the innocent human being is an embryo or sufficiently underdeveloped foetus.
Whether or not something "satisfies what a person is" depends on what the word "person" means which depends on how we use it. How we use the word "person" is a contingent fact about the customs of the English language and unrelated to whether or not it is morally acceptable to kill the things that we happen to describe as a person.
Unless you want to say "morally wrong to kill" is part of the definition of "person", in which case to say that we ought (not) kill something because it is (not) a person is to beg the question.
Believe it or not I’m not quite that stupid. Definitely close but not that dumb.
I briefly reviewed the process before posting. The essence of it is that the DNA in skin cells replaces the genetic material in the normal reproductive process. Canine eggs are used of course but their genetic material is replaced with the genetic material from skin cells. Hence my point, if the genetic material in a fertilized egg is what defines it as ‘a dog’ or ‘a human’ then the genetic material in a skin cell is also ‘a dog’ or ‘a human’ being that it can be used to reproduce a dog or human instead of the genetic material in eggs and sperm.
Maybe you disagree that it is the genetic material in fertilized eggs that defines them as ‘a dog’ or ‘a human’. Is that the case?
Yes, it is always wrong to kill an innocent human being; that’s what such a principle entails. But contrary to your assumption, I wouldn’t think that you believe it is never wrong to kill an innocent human being. You’ve clearly stated otherwise: it is fine to kill an innocent human being if he doesn’t have thoughts and feelings, or isn’t a person.
The differences are, as far as I can tell, you place moral value on what human beings can do, while I place moral value on what a human being is. Is that fair?
Yes. As related to my reply to Hanover above, what a human is depends on how we use the word "human", and how we use the word "human" is a contingent fact about the English language, open to change. If we use the word "human" to refer to anything with human DNA then embryos are human. If we use the word "human" only to refer to sufficiently developed organisms with human DNA then embryos are not human. It is a mistake to commit to some kind of essentialist view of being human such that we can be wrong in (not) using the word "human" to refer to embryos.
And whether or not it is morally acceptable to kill an embryo does not depend on whether or not it is conventional in the English language for the word "human" to refer also to embryos.
We need to look to more concrete facts. These concrete facts are biological, neurological, and psychological. Simply having human DNA is not sufficient biological grounds to entail that the thing "deserves" to live. Whereas being able to think and feel and so on is sufficient biological, neurological, and psychological grounds.
If I grant your view, then every single cell in my body is its own human being. Do you see how absurd that is?
A cell of a human is not the same as a human. A fertilized egg is a human being because it is the earliest stage of development of a completely separate organism of the human species. This is no different than how a nourished seed in the ground is the first stage of a continual process of development for a plant. The seed is not a plant; the water is not a plant; the oxygen is not a plant; the soil is not a plant; but seed in combination with these things produces a seed which begins to grow, and this growing seed is a plant.
If you deny this, then you have to arbitrarily define a point in the process, which has begun, to say "that's exactly where the developing seed is now a plant". That's what a pro-choice person is trying to do when they deny that human life begins at conception.
I use the term "human being" in the sense that it is a member of species homo sapiens, whether it is developed or not. A fetus is not of some other species. If a human lifecycle begins at conception, then we are speaking of human life and no other. This is an existentialist and "animalist" view rather than an essentialist view.
The essentialist view would be the personhood one. One is a person so long as she has the essential psychological traits. It implies that persons were never embryos, never in a coma, and other absurdities.
A "sufficiently developed" member of the species homo sapien is no definition of human being that I've ever heard.
And to be a member of the species homo sapiens is to have the appropriate ("human") DNA? So when you say that it is wrong to kill a foetus because it is human you are simply saying that it is wrong to kill a foetus because it has human DNA.
I fail to see how you get from "the foetus has human DNA" to "therefore it is wrong to kill a foetus".
You’d need as a premise “it is wrong to kill anything with human DNA” but I see no reason to accept such a premise.
Many things have human DNA, like sperm or a pool of saliva. Human beings have more than DNA.
So what distinguishes a human organism with human DNA and a non-human organism with human DNA, and why is this distinction the measure of whether or not it is wrong to kill it?
You're not following. I agree with you that it's absurd, or "weird" as I previously said, and to me just as weird as saying that a zygote is "a human."
Quoting Bob Ross
I was hoping that you would say something like this because I think it goes to the heart of the matter. You grant a human zygote fully developed human status but don't grant a seed fully developed plant status. Why? Because you don't care about seeds nearly as much as you care about your own species. A million seeds could be destroyed and you wouldn't bat an eye.
Abortion feels wrong. I don't think that anyone would deny that, but the fact remains that a zygote is a zygote and a seed is a seed.
Could a zygote be a human being?
Which non-human organisms with human DNA are you talking about?
All of them. You claimed, with examples, that some things can have human DNA but not be human. So I want to know what it is that makes something with human DNA human, and why having this thing entails that it “deserves” to live.
None of the things I mentioned are genetically similar to human beings in any way.
That’s what I meant by “having human DNA”.
So why does anything with our genetic makeup deserve to live?
There is nothing else with our genetic makeup. There is only one extant species of human beings.
That doesn’t explain or justify your assertion that it is wrong to kill anything with our genetic makeup.
My own take is that our genetic makeup is neither the measure of whether or not it is wrong to kill something (e.g. it can be wrong to kill an intelligent alien even though it would have a different genetic makeup) nor sufficient to entail that it is wrong to kill something (e.g. it can be acceptable to kill an embryo even though it has the same genetic makeup).
i.e. the claim “it is wrong to kill me because I’m a human” is as fallacious as the claim “it is wrong to kill Mork because he is an Orkan” and as fallacious as the claim “it is acceptable to kill a fly because it is not human.”
Whether or not it is wrong to kill something is not determined by its genetic makeup (whether that be human, Orkan, fly, or other), but whether or not the individual organism has developed sufficiently complex cognitive functions - functions that a fly, an embryo, and an early stage foetus have not developed, but that Mork and I have.
Maybe I'm missing some context and/or not following you, but this seems to be circular reasoning. You seem to be saying that a zygote is a human being because it will develop into a human being. But this begs the question - how do we define a human being? Or put slightly differently, what are the essential qualities of a particular collection of cells and protoplasm that allow us to call it human?
Also (at the risk of going on a tangent) - do you make any distinction between "human being" and "person". In my mind these are synonyms?
As long as you understand that a human fetus would develop those complex cognitive functions—indeed was in the process of development—had you not killed it, had you not deprived it of the opportunity. Flies do not.
That’s why the abortionist is treading in murky moral waters. At what stage in that development is killing her acceptable? Do all the complex cognitive functions need to be developed at the same time, or does one or the other function take precedence? It’s all too arbitrary for my tastes, so I personally need a solid unit of value, and its existence suffices enough for me.
Do we really want to leave such a social institution to the (let's be honest) whims of a particular class of people who share a political bent? I'm not sure this makes for any good. That may not be quite what you're saying, in that post, though.
Quoting Michael
I think this is intimately tied with (as if this is novel, lol) this:
Quoting Michael
However, a plain reading would intimate there are two things being talked about here. That there can be a 'person' without being a human - something another poster (forgive me for not recalling) bit the bullet on (Echarmion perhaps?) and was willing to call Whales, Dolphins and some speculative others 'persons' without invoking 'human'
This would probably solve the intercessions I'm seeing between people's usage of these words.
Next, we need to understand what in the world we want the words to pick out. 'Human' could be pretty easy, without giving us the discomfort of 'killing humans' because in that phrase, 'humans' includes 'persons'. It shouldn't, to make the moral conversation clearer and easier to digest. So 'human' could easily be some "being which is alive and is constituted from human DNA" (this would capture clones, too).
If, by 'person', we want something like Banno's way of thinking - that there are psychological criteria which can either be met, or not met, then a 'person' could be quite easy to distinguish (perhaps not to test, though) among humans. But finding criteria, re: gestation, as to when a 'human' becomes a 'person' is almost sure to give us those discomforts avoided above - as noted elsewhere, it would mean an infant could be readily killed in service of the greater good (lets say, financially) for the 'persons' involved in the decision.
But, clearly, this just leads to the stupidity of hte entire attempt to cohere views: We just feel differently. No criteria are good enough to shift someone's moral conviction about an act. The language can't help. Banno probably can't conceive genuinely thinking the 'rights' of a fetus could outweight those of an adult woman (i happen to agree, but can conceive otherwise) - NOS (or others) probably can't conceive how anything could outweight an 'innocent life' (notice there's no 'human' or 'person' here - but it means not killing any animals, ever, for any reason, as they aren't moral agents).
So why are we trying?
As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is no single point, much like with the Sorites paradox. It's acceptable when it's a zygote or blastocyst or embryo, not acceptable when it's due to be delivered in a day, and in between there's a large grey and ambiguous area as it develops more and more into a human like us.
Quoting NOS4A2
There is much more to an organism than its genetic makeup. There are very real, significant, and obvious biological differences between myself and a zygote. Your decision to only consider an organism's genetic makeup is not less arbitrary than my decision to also consider these other important aspects of an organism's being. But I do think that your claim that only an organism's genetic makeup has moral relevance is an absurd one.
Quoting NOS4A2
Well, biology and morality doesn't work that way, even if you "need" it to.
Just a random note on this: You can find criteria for a heap.
As far as the abortion debate goes in this analogy, all that is necessary is that we acknowledge that there is some amount that is not a heap (X), some amount that there is a heap ( Y) and some amount where we are uncertain (Z). Abortion would be permissible in X, not in Y, and we can be as cautious or as reckless in Z as our values might might be.
That wont solve the problem of disagreement, which is, in fact, the problem (i.e not having a precise point to rely on isn't a problem, if we were all to accept the grey area is "up to her" as it were). Arguments (and murders) about abortion in the grey area will still occur.
If you have a heap of rice consisting of 10,000,000 grains, you're not properly approaching hte problem.
If you have a heap of eight grains of rice, the proper point at which is becomes a heap, is when at least one grain is no longer on the surface, and is entirely supported by other grains. It is that grain that you're looking for. Not all sorities can be resolved in this way, certainly. But this one can, and I knew it would be example :P
This argument does not rely on essentialism. One ought not need an agreed definition of the essential characteristics of a person in order to see that a bag made of a few cells does not have the same value as a person, be they an infant, a mute, deaf, or even, in the extreme, a woman.
And again, the motivation of those who claim that the bag of cells has such value that it must be privileged above the woman carrying it are suspect. They overwhelmingly tend to hold these views becasue they wish to remain in agreement with their invisible friend. They hypocritically support capital punishment. They refuse to provide for the needs of the economically disadvantaged, who are the very people most at risk. They exhibit misogyny and authoritarianism. These facts are supported by repeated demographic studies.
In democracies worldwide, this issue has been settled for years. There is one major exception to this. If a referendum were held in the United States, the right to an abortion would be supported by sixty to seventy percent of the population.
This issue is predominantly about the parochial failure of democracy in the USA.
Are you entirely sure hte move you want to make is to talk about hte aggregate of the vulgar, rather than the arguments actually at hand? I don't disagree with you at all, regardless of the studies - they seem the only arguments that one can rely on for that position to me too. But, I'm not seeing any of htem in this thread, I guess. And once again, I'll point out:
Quoting Banno
Isn't objectively relevant. I agree that it's relevant, but that's because I agree that its relevant. If I didn't, it wouldn't. And in that situation, there's no real 'argument'. They are two intuitions butting heads, surely.
If you'd steelman the position, we could avoid these diversions.
This is ethics. It's about how you want things to be. Don't discount your view about how you want things to be.
Drop the enchantment of "objective". Those who think the worth of a bag of cells outweighs that of an adult human are wrong.
That doesn't mean they're wrong. Hey, you're the one who wanted to employ reason. :lol:
What happened to your "Just say it. You don't need to defend it. It's how you feel."
You wanted to approach the question rationally and you're throwing out logical fallacies.
I say they are wrong. You and apparently agree, but refuse to put it in those terms. That despite your previous insistence on honesty.
You have the argument arse-about.
It's not that their views are wrong becasue they supposedly come from god - although I would also support that view. It's that their views are wrong. Their views also are incited by an irrelevant mythology, a curious piece of biography that partially explains their motivation.
Not sure what you're asking, or what 'diversion' you're pointing at? What position are you wanting steelmanned? I haven't given 'a position'. I've solved hte problem of identifying a heap. And its not even interesting. Onward...
Quoting Banno
Well, that isn't what i've said. Your position seems to assume not exactly that it must but that it is and that anyone holding those values in, lets say, a different order (hierarchically) is morally suspect. That's just like.. your opinion, man. I'm sure you don't actually disagree (as your question seems to indicate). But, you're acting as if it is objectively relevant. It's just the top of your hierarchy (and mine, coincidentally. But hte only reason I'm pointing to our agreements in this is to avoid your less charitable replies because you can't bring yourself to understand disagreement very well).
Quoting Banno
Definitely. That's not what's an odds, in my little comment. With some small differences, we likely want things to be roughly similar in this regard. Though, I find it quite painful to center myself when thinking about how others 'ought' to be.
Quoting Banno "On my view" would do you a world of good. But, i hear your point and it explains you well. No sarcasm or anything else, there. It's good. Though, this does make me want to ask - surely you're aware that 'the worth of' the two things isn't relevant if you're making decisions on principle (deontologically) alone. I take it those who use the 'sanctity of life' arguments without divinity are on that ground.
Quoting Banno
Correct. I agree that God people are wrong to believe in their God and the surrounding commitments. But that's not a moral statement, is it? Where I would say, if I held the view "abortion is wrong" its a moral statement.
Somewhat ableist, don't you think? You could, after all, learn sign language. Or simply write them a note.
That doesn't support your assertion that they're wrong.
This thread has been predominately esoteric declamations about personhood and humanity. You advocated honesty in the language being used. I say that a bag of cells has less value than an adult human. You agree. Some here do not. Ergo, we both think that they are wrong.
You have insisted that the question be approached rationally. Your presentation includes
1. An argument that ends up being a rationale for infanticide (see Hanover's comment to you on the preference issue).
2. A complaint that pro-lifers are religious.
3. Continuing misrepresentation of what abortion is (cysts) which you admit is only done for the insult-value.
If you want to apply reason to the question, why don't you say something that makes sense?
Hanover assumed my argument was essentialist. It isn't. I did not claim all pro-lifers are religious, but pointed out the correlation. I am using the extreme example of a blastocyst because it is the case in which the conceptus is most different to a human.
So though you claim we should be rational about this, you've got nothing rational to say. :up:
You think it's irrational to say that a zygote does not have the same value as a person?
I'm interested in hearing a good argument from you. I just haven't so far.
We (you and I) seem to be mostly in agreement as to what ought be done. But you variously complain that we ought express our feelings honestly, and also that we ought to provide justification for those feelings. Seems to me you are a tad confused, or just looking to be contrary.
I don't think you have a good argument. If you do, present it.
Yeah. That sentence is about you.
Here is a person:
Here is an embryo:
They are not the same.
The ethical standing of the woman is apparent. That of the cluster of cells, not so much.
Clear enough?
So you approve of abortion as long as it's reserved for blastocysts, so up to 10 days after conception.
Ok.
I would agree with "on demand" in at least the first trimester, and leave further restrictions to an open consensus.
But it seems you agree with the argument: Quoting Banno
It was a "we hold these truths to be self-evident" kind of argument and I'm American, so of course I loved it.
What is their important distinction for the purposes of claiming one has rights and the other doesn't.
You would agree these are different:
Yet they both have the same rights.
Why?
Why do you ask? Do you disagree with Quoting Banno
??
Maybe he thinks you’re irrationally biased against zygotes for some reason.
Might be.
I think I'm still curious as to why you, Banno, think there's such a stark ethical difference between the embryo and the person (i assume you're using the concept - not a person of some example that could be given). I agree, but I don't see why it's being put forward as somehow inarguable. Both positions rely on intuition. You say 'apparent', but obviously not to all. So, curious. We certainly agree, even in detail, on what ought be done here from different principles.
Not something that can be done with a zygote.
The only thing grey and ambiguous about it is the position. The vagueness of the terms used to describe it and the arbitrariness of the acceptable time to kill indicate this. This is because the position lends itself to incoherence. I do not think an incoherent belief should be used to justify killing a human being.
The biological difference between you as a zygote and you as an adult was that you were in a different stage of your development. You never once deviated from being this particular human, you still occupy the same location in space and time, no matter what nouns you use to identify the state of your development.
I never once claimed an organism’s genetic makeup has moral relevance. I’ve mentioned many times that I’m speaking about members of the species homo sapiens. I believe members of the species homo sapiens have moral relevance. I’ve never considered the genetic makeup only; I thought it was clear that I was speaking of the entire human organism, because I’ve said as much.
Every single one of you were zygotes. Luckily no one treated you with such disregard.
We wouldn't know, or care. That's not a moral consideration.
Quoting NOS4A2
None of this is the case, and the quote you responded to points each out. There is no incoherence. There's just potentially uncomfortable bullet biting.
THe 'vagueness' of the terms doesn't exist. The facts are vague. The terms refer to them. This is no point at which a zygote 'becomes a person'. It does not exist. It occurs somewhere in the grey area and any position has to choose an arbitrary point here if that's what the view is based on.
(though, its very, very much worth noting that 'arbitrary' is not apt here. There are reasons which very much restrict what's acceptable on most views except absolutists ones (i.e killing an infant is also fine, or there is no form of contraception which is acceptable).
I’m an art lover and don’t recall ever being invited to an exhibit/lunch.
I wasn’t aware that one needed to know and care if he was being treated morally.
What facts are vague? I ask because we actually know a lot about zygotes.
Now you are. Morality is strictly to do with how we treat one another. A Zygote is not a 'one another'. This is probably the only intuition of Banno's I think needs no defense. This just, as noted, leads to some hefty bullet-biting.
Quoting NOS4A2
At what point the zygote becomes a 'person', or variably 'baby', 'a human' etc... etc... These are the 'facts' on which most people's positions rely(i have excluded those absolutist positions that are doctrinaire rather than reasoned) and they aren't stable or lets say 'complete' enough to objectively inform us of anything within that grey area as to why we would place the flag 'there'. Yes, we know a lot about zygotes and their development, but which way-point would you choose? It sounds like for you it's conception. Others might be implantation, heartbeat, viability, pain reception among others. But none of these are hard-and-fast in terms of telling us when a 'person' comes into being (or, when that might be morally relevant). I can only really understand taking conception to be the salient point if one is to be, lets say, overly cautious, because of the above indeterminacies. If you're not copping to that, I'm unsure how to make sense of it. But this doesn't seem to me a moral question, anyway. It's similar to saying "well, I can't figure out the precise moral facts, so I'll give it a wide berth". I can't see a real problem in that, other than tryig to make others assent (which you're not doing, so that's fine).
But it is genetically distinct from the mother. If it’s not another, what is it? An organ? A parasite?
A zygote is a very brief stage of development of an individual human organism, and it will be the same particular entity, a human being, from fertilization onward.
Do you have an aversion to the term zygote?
Not if it classifies a stage of human development. But when it’s posited as a different being, certainly.
Odd, this turn of phrase. Lucky for me? No. Since I am here it is inevitable that some zygote survived. No luck involved, just bland necessity. Any other zygote would not have resulted in me, but someone else. Lucky for the Zygote? It should have bought a lottery ticket? Happenstance, not luck.
Let me know next time you are in Canberra.
And I have developed morally relevant faculties that a zygote lacks. The actual possession of intelligence is an important biological difference.
Quoting NOS4A2
Being a member of the species homo sapiens just means having a particular genetic makeup. What about having that genetic makeup is morally relevant? Because I say that the possession of a particular set of chromosomes is insufficient, and having actually developed the appropriate cognitive capabilities is required (regardless of chromosomes, allowing me to extend the same or similar moral consideration to non-humans).
Quoting NOS4A2
A zygote also develops into a placenta. Why not say that a zygote is a placenta at the moment of conception?
And a zygote can develop into twins. If each twin is a distinct individual then at least one of them is not identical to the zygote (and it would be special pleading to claim that it was one of them but not the other).
Biology and identity just doesn't work the way you claim it does.
Are these capabilities that a newborn would have? Newborns are unable to focus their eyes, their muscle movements are reflexive, and when they smile, it's a sign that they just passed gas. Do they have enough cognitive capability to show up as human?
I'd say it's with the development of thalamocortical connectivity, which occurs ~24 weeks after conception.
Yes, you have to remember, to legally abort in some countries the foetus can not be any more then 24 weeks old. There are humongous differences, the foetus's lungs and brain are not sufficient enough to work independently, whereas a new-borns is. A new-born's organs are fully developed and functional, allowing the new-born to breathe, eat, and regulate body temperature independently. A foetus can't. A foetus can only react to light and sound where as a new born has more developed motor and sensory skills, a new-born can see (limited), hear and respond to touch and other stimuli. Of course they aren't going to be as developed, (it is a new-born) but comparing it to a 24 week foetus because it has bad eyesight and they smile when they fart is just not correct.
I wasn't suggesting that a 24 weeker is identical to a newborn.
Quoting Michael
So there's nothing behavioral that signals cognition to you. It's a matter of wiring?
There are behavioural differences between a 24 week old foetus and a new-born though.
Before 24 weeks foetus exhibit reflexive movements but this is not indicative of conscious, more for neural development.
And your question of, is it a matter of wiring? wiring is essential for all life.
Yes, which is why it would be wrong to kill someone who’s asleep or unconscious or with locked in syndrome but not wrong to take someone who’s brain dead off life support.
I don't think there's really a scientific dividing line when it comes to consciousness, owing in part to our lack of understanding of what it is and what's required for it.
I think the reason it would feel wrong to kill a fetus over 24 weeks is that it could possibly survive outside the womb.
A nourished seed is analogous to a fertilized egg. A seed and the nourishment required, taken separately, are the egg and sperm, taken separately, respectively (in the analogy).
Are you conceding that you are an ableist? That quote was a consistent consequence of your own thought.
We know that adults are conscious and zygotes aren’t. We know that (in humans) a functioning brain is required. We have reason to believe that certain areas of the brain are more relevant than others.
We don’t need certainty or a single, unambiguous neurological process to make (accurate) moral judgements.
Quoting frank
Why is it wrong to kill something that could survive outside the womb?
There's science that says that?
Quoting Michael
Sentiment probably. That's what's behind morality in general.
Quoting NOS4A2
I can't figure out your terminology . What do you mean when you use the terms "personhood" vs. "human organism / human being"
Yes. Consciousness requires a sufficiently complex and functioning brain (and plausibly some other brain-like structure). A zygote is just a small collection of cells. It lacks the necessary physical stuff that allows for an organism to be conscious.
Per CBC theory, cells are conscious in that they have awareness of their environments. How would you show that this view is wrong?
I wouldn’t. I’d dismiss it as nonsense, much like the theory that consciousness is some immaterial magic that arbitrarily attaches itself to random clumps of matter.
So your view isn't scientific. You just hold to that folk wisdom.
The scientific evidence supports the claim that consciousness requires a brain-like structure; it does not support the claim that grass is conscious.
I am no more going to use CBC as a reason to condemn abortion than I am going to use it as a reason to condemn mowing the lawn.
There’s around five pounds of single-celled organisms in the human body that few care enough about to even feed properly.
Beautiful work.
Ok. The fetus has a brain-like structure at 3 weeks. I'll put you down for supporting abortion up to 2 weeks after conception. :up:
The human body contains 37.2 trillion cells. I guess that means that I am in fact 37.2 trillion conscious individuals.
No, because it needs to be a sufficiently complex brain functioning in the appropriate manner, hence why the brain dead and those with anencephaly aren’t conscious.
As mentioned in an earlier comment to you, the evidence suggests that thalamocortical connectivity is required, which occurs ~24 weeks after conception, and so I support abortion up to around that point.
I'm just reading what the neuroscientists have written, e.g. here:
So no thalamocortical interactions, no consciousness.
If you look back at any source that asserts this, you should see that it's based on an assumption that consciousness is "localized" in the cerebral cortex. So if there are no connections between the thalamus and the cortex, one assumes that the discharges from nociceptors can't make it to the area that governs consciousness. Therefore, no pain, no awareness.
A good source should also warn you that we don't presently have NCC (neural correlates of consciousness) pinned down. What we have are theories. Do our theories on this front conform to observation? One problem with verifying this particular theory is that the fetus is sedated by the conditions in the womb. We can't just thump them and wait for an "ow." What we commonly do in medicine is look for a stress response to confirm pain, such as an increase in heart rate, or a cortisol bump. We actually do see stress responses in fetuses around 18 weeks, but are they actually conscious of anything? The truth is we don't know. We have theories.
When making a decision about life and death, one would really like to have more than a theory that any scientist would tell may change tomorrow.
Shouldn't you guys check a bit sooner?
This says:
"Functional connectivity between thalamus and cortex develops rapidly between 30- and 40-weeks’ gestational age and has been shown to be disrupted in preterm infants using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7859832/#:~:text=Functional%20connectivity%20between%20thalamus%20and,et%20al.%2C%202015).
40 weeks is 9.2 months. That's a pretty lenient standard.
I was getting my information from the emergence of consciousness: Science and ethics:
For example, in the US, abortion regulations were based upon the viability of the fetus outside the womb and not with consciounsess. If consciousness and viability happened to occur at the same time, that was coincdental.
Well I'm not talking about the law? I'm only saying that something being a living organism with human DNA is insufficient grounds to conclude that it would be wrong to kill it. I think that consciousness is a morally relevant faculty, and so to determine whether or not it is acceptable to kill a foetus we must determine whether or not it has developed such a faculty to a sufficient degree. The literature seems to suggest that this is determined by the presence of thalamocortical connections, which occurs towards the end of the second trimester, and so I tentatively place the limit there.
Also I'm not sure if it's coincidental. I suspect that a sufficient degree of consciousness is required for a human life to be viable, and as the brain is the most complex organ it stands to reason that everything else is likely to have already developed enough.
Quoting Banno
It is clear that, ruling out mysticism, a blastocyst is not a person. Abortions on demand at least in early pregnancy are not morally problematic. We can have further discussion as to when pregnancies ought not be terminated, but your position has already been bypassed.
Late gestation pregnancies might be needed because of foetal abnormality, or if symptoms of pregnancy were not clear, or if there were reproductive coercion, difficulty accessing abortion, illness during he pregnancy or other difficult personal circumstances. For these reasons an arbitrary cut-off date is problematic, and a case-by-case approach is preferable.
Data collection varies, but over 90% of abortions occure in the first few weeks of pregnancy, and about 2% after 20 weeks.
Viability is about the connection between the vascular system and the alveoli in the lungs. It's called the AC membrane (alveolar capillary). It starts approaching functionality around 22 weeks.
It requires more than that. Those born with anencephaly, if still alive when born, don't last very long. As far as I can tell from reading that, they don't have issues with their vascular system or lungs; they're just missing a significant part of their brain, and because of that the wider body cannot function properly.
But let's assume that a human could be born and be viable even with anencephaly. Well, it's okay to kill it. It has no cognition, no consciousness, no capacity for pain or sense of the world. It's just a beating heart and pumping lungs wrapped in a skeleton, muscles, and skin.
If an infant's brainstem is intact it can live for a long time. They could put a feeding tube in and maybe a tracheostomy for mechanical ventilation. What we don't want to do is hand a parent a horror movie that they'll have to watch for the next however many years it lives. Let it die.
This seems more akin to the question of when you can pull the plug on a person in a permanent vegetative state. It's not that you can kill the person as in proactively euthanizing it, but you can remove all artificial means of life support and allow it to die naturally. That again is a viability standard and not a consciousness standard. The question being asked is whether it can survive on its own. Of course, should you consider a feeding tube artificial means, it will certainly die if you remove it (and the same being the case for the infant who is no longer offered its mother's milk).
There are also issues related to permanency of one's limitations that are considered. We can withhold life support from a person with severe brain damage because we realize he will never recover. We don't do that for someone who is passed out drunk, despite his consciousness being severly limited. The fetus strikes me as more like the drunk to the extent it will eventually gain consciousness but more like the brain injured to the extent it has no capacity for consciousness in its current physical state.
I tend toward @Bannos analysis to the extent we can look at an embryo and just say it doesn't look enough like an infant that it remains ok to abort it. I move away from that analysis to suggest it's just screamingly obvious and no one should question my criteria because I recongnize that analysis is highly subjective and pragmatic, not really based upon any particular reliable principle.
I also believe the "come on dude, no way you think that thing is a person" is the right's response to the transexual question, substituing "man" or "woman" in for person. You have to consider the implications of your position in how it affects other positions you might hold.
I'm mostly addressing NOS4A2's reasoning. He argues that because a zygote/embryo/foetus is a living organism with a human genetic makeup then it is human and it is wrong to kill it, even if it is not conscious. The same reasoning would then entail that it is wrong to kill a baby born with anencephaly (assuming, for the sake of argument, that it is viable).
I think that the conclusion is false, therefore the reasoning is false. The capacity to be conscious is morally relevant.
It's true that if there is no consciousness, it helps in making the decision not to intervene and let a baby die, but ultimately the decision is more about prognosis than whatever the present state is. For instance, if a baby has a head bleed and the brain is squashed because of that, we go ahead and intervene because of the possibility that the brain could recover and grow. And we do make death easier for children who are fully conscious, but can't live off of special machinery. That's basically killing them, again, because of what we know the future holds.
Think about how that focus on what the future holds bears on the disposition of a fetus. The human potential includes Einstein and Mozart. :grimace:
And Hitler.
I don't think future potential is all that relevant. What matter is what the organism is now and what the parents want. Forcing a mother to carry to term and birth a child because the 1 day old zygote in her womb is a living organism with human DNA just ain't right.
Maybe your society is different from mine. Where I am, prognosis is more important for life and death decisions than present state.
Quoting Michael
I agree. The day-after pill pretty much solves that problem. All women should be able to get it at no cost. Men don't have to pay anything if they generate a zygote. Women shouldn't either.
I don't think they should be off the hook, to be clear, but this is wrong.
I see your point now. Unfortunately perhaps the only answer is reliance on good judgement.
Just immigrate to Canada, dude. They won't be able to find you!
Banno, my position is that a blastocyst is a human being, not that it is a person. Can you please critique that instead of a straw man? I want to hear why you don't think that the blastocyst is alive, a separate alive entity than the mother, and is a member of the human species. It is really weird, to me, to say that it is not a new member of the human species.
What does it mean to be a member of the human species? Is the placenta a human being? It has human DNA, is a living organism, and develops from the blastocyst. Is the heart a human being?
If a blastocyst separates into twins, is that one human being becoming two? Was it already two human beings before the split? Are twins a single human being with two bodies?
Why would it even matter if it was a human being?
It means you’re a certain kind of animal, a great ape, and a member of the last extant species of man.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human
And what does it mean to be that kind of animal?
I’m sure you can figure that out. But if you go watch one, or look in the mirror, you’ll notice they’re not placentas and hearts.
Nor are they zygotes.
All human being were zygotes. That is irrefutable.
All placentas and hearts and lungs were zygotes. That does not entail that zygotes are placentas, hearts, and lungs. And so that all humans were zygotes does not entail that zygotes are humans.
Placentas and hearts were zygotes? I don't follow. The fact zygotes develop human organs seems to me to suggest that they are human, not something else.
Your reasoning is "X was A, therefore A is X". I am explaining that this reasoning is flawed.
That a placenta was a zygote does not entail that a zygote is a placenta.
That glass was sand does not entail that sand is glass.
That a human was a zygote does not entail that a zygote is a human.
Your reasoning is "Parts of X were A, therefor A isn't X." Flawed doesn't even begin to explain it.
Except that wasn't my reasoning. Read carefully what I wrote.
I've read it again carefully and I don't follow it.
These are two different arguments:
1. A placenta was a zygote, therefore a zygote isn't a human
2. That a human was a zygote does not entail that a zygote is a human
You accused me of arguing for (1), when in fact I am arguing for (2).
I understand your assertion, I just don't follow your reasoning. "All placentas and hearts and lungs were zygotes," therefor, "That a human was zygote does not entail that a zygote is a human".
Those are independent claims, not a premise and a conclusion. I am simply explaining that "X was A, therefore A is X" is a non sequitur, offering an example to make it clearer.
I'll try to break it down even further for you:
(1) X was A, therefore A is X
(2) X was a zygote, therefore a zygote is X
(3) A human was a zygote, therefore a zygote is a human
(4) A placenta was a zygote, therefore a zygote is a placenta
In none of these does the conclusion follow from the premise. You have been asserting (3). It's an invalid argument, just as (1), (2), and (4) are invalid.
If you want to argue that a zygote is a human then you need something more than just "a human was a zygote" as a solitary premise.
I appreciate the explainer and I apologize for the confusion.
But you're speaking as if placentas, hearts, and lungs were disembodied, as if zygotes develop into them. Placentas, hearts, and lungs, as intimated, are parts of human beings.
This is an image of in vitro fertilization. It may be before or after fertilization. You can't tell if it's a new member of the human species, can you?
I’d say that the embryo and the placenta are each their own thing, albeit connected by the umbilical cord. I wouldn’t consider any of these three things to individually be “the human”, and nor would I consider all three of them to collectively be “the human”.
But we can even drop consideration of “the human” for the moment and just consider the embryo. A zygote develops into a blastocyst, and then some of its cells develop into a placenta and some into an embryo.
To say that the placenta is part of the embryo rather than that the embryo is part of the placenta is special pleading.
Basically, arguments purely about individual utility or autonomy from responsibility tend to be bad ones. I am not sure the "privacy" framing is particularly useful either. Bodily autonomy, appeals to suffering, social utility, seem better, although pure social utility arguments seem to allow for infanticide and euthanizing the elderly or infirm as well.
These arguments are becoming increasingly convoluted. I'm having trouble understanding them.
Both human zygotes and human embryos are phases or stages of a human being's life. They are not their own entities, but the same entity as it continues to grow over time. All adults were teenagers. All teenagers were infants. All infants were neonates. All neonates were fetuses. All fetuses were zygotes. There is just no way around it.
A human zygote can grow into multiple different living organisms; an embryo, a placenta, and even a second embryo and a second placenta in the case of twins. You treating the zygote as being the same individual as (one of) these later organisms is simply a choice with no physical basis, much like the ship of Theseus.
And it still hasn’t been explained why it is wrong to kill (some of?) these organisms. If you just want to argue that it’s wrong to kill any living organism then there’s less of a problem, but as you specify that it’s wrong to kill humans you need to explain what distinguishes a human from a non-human (and a human from a human organ) and what it is that humans have and that non-humans (and human organs) don’t have that entails that it is wrong to kill humans but not wrong to kill non-humans (or human organs).
As it stands it seems to be that your argument rests on equivocation, ambiguity, and non sequiturs; something like “it’s wrong to kill human children, human children are human, therefore it’s wrong to kill humans, zygotes are human, therefore it’s wrong to kill zygotes.”
"Human" can be predicated of things in different ways. We speak of "human hairs" and "human hands," and surely we can consider both to be properly "human" as opposed to "cat" or "dog" without having to claim that a hand (a part) is a human (whole).
It seems the issue here is a whole that produces something different from itself. The same thing happens with seeds. An acorn is initially part of an oak, it grows from the whole oak. When the acorn falls off the tree it is no longer part of that tree. If the acorn grew into a mature tree we would not say that the second tree was a part of the first or that the two constitute a single tree.
So the question is mereological. Individual animals are generally considered proper beings, wholes. This is because they exhibit a principle of unity and are capable of sustaining their own form. Their organs and limbs are generally considered parts. If I cut my hand off I do not cease to be a man (although my hand remains a human one). My hand does cease to be part of a man, part of a self-sustaining unity.
A placenta is an organ. A featus is not an organ. It has a substantial unity. Human is more rightly predicated of a featus because it is a unified being/member of a species, not an organ.
What is "substantial unity"? Why does it have moral relevance such that it's wrong to kill something with "substantial unity" (or at least some things; is it wrong to kill flies?) but not wrong to kill something without it?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm not sure what this means. Do you mean that it can survive on its own? Because a (young) foetus certainly can't. If it were that simple we'd just remove them without killing them and put them in an incubator.
This is basic biology. It is a member of the human species if it that certain kind of animal: homo sapien.
A member of a species has to be an organism, taken as a whole, of that species: so obviously, e.g., a human heart is not a human being.
Technically, yes. Just like how, likewise, siamese twins are one human being. I think you may be confusing persons with human beings—e.g., siamese twins are one human being, but (usually) two persons.
Having a substantial unity need not imply any moral valence. It just means that something is a proper whole with proper parts.
Life is probably the best example. No lifeform is capable of sustaining itself in isolation, but obviously plants and animals are self-organizing and self-sustaining in ways that rocks, storm systems, stars, etc. are not.
Sure, but this is true of children till a fairly late age, the elderly, and the infirm. We might even add most adult humans if "on their own" means something like "being dumped off in the wilderness."
That's why I would tend to locate the most salient fact as the fact that a featus can't exist outside another person's body. Of course, an elderly parent might not be able to survive without their child's body in a way that encroaches on one's lifestyle even more than pregnancy generally does, so I am not sure if the inside/outside distinction totally resolves the issue, but it does seem particularly relevant.
But a featus seems more analogous to a sapling or sprout to me, and it seems harder to claim that a sapling is not an oak.
Frogs and caterpillars are another good one. A tadpole is a frog in an important sense.
A placenta isn't a living organism. It's an organ. But yes, an individual zygote can split into two individuals. It's why identical twins are identical, or mirror images of each other. In any case, both can trace their history and existence to the one zygote.
Will you state that no human being was ever a zygote? The zygote is just the brief beginnings of a process that does not end until death. The zygote is alive, belongs to the human species, and is an organism. Therefor it is a human being. If not, then what is it?
This is circular.
Quoting Bob Ross
Well, I wouldn't say that homo sapiens are single-celled animals.
What do you think a living organism is?
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes, but importantly each twin is not the same individual as the other and so they cannot both be the same individual as the zygote. Therefore either just one of them is the same individual as the zygote (which is special pleading) or neither is.
The fact that they can "trace their history and existence" to the zygote does not entail that they and the zygote are the same individual.
Quoting NOS4A2
A eukaryotic cell containing (usually) 24 distinct chromosomes.
Basically any living thing.
Sure it does. The facts indicate that they were both the same zygote.
And no human being was every a eukaryotic cell containing 24 distinct chromosomes?
A placenta is a living thing.
Quoting NOS4A2
The zygote grew into them, but they are not the same thing, as proven by the fact that each twin is not the same thing as the other.
As it stands you're saying that A is the same individual as C, that B is the same individual as C, but that A is not the same individual as B. That's a contradiction.
Quoting NOS4A2
This is such an ambiguous question. Glass used to be sand, but sand isn't glass. Butterflies used to be caterpillars, but caterpillars aren't butterflies. My house used to be a pile of bricks, but that pile of bricks wasn't my house.
Your reasoning that "A used to be B, therefore A and B are the same individual" is fallacious. Identity doesn't work that way.
Why does a placenta not count as a "proper whole with proper parts"?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes, but let's take different forms of living organism; bacteria, grass, zygote, placenta, foetus. Which of these count as a "unity" and why only them?
For the same reason a hand is part of a person and not a person.
One of these is not like the others; a placenta is an organ not an organism. A liver is likewise not an organism.
A placenta is an organ of a living thing.
They were the same thing at an earlier stage in their development. It is no contradiction if C splits into A and B.
A used to be A, is my reasoning. It’s a continuum. A doesn’t switch identities at some arbitrary point. You’re the one positing B.
And it is a living thing.
Quoting NOS4A2
If twin A is the same individual as the zygote and if twin B is the same individual as the zygote then twin A is the same individual as twin B.
Twin A is not the same individual as twin B.
Therefore twin A is not the same individual as the zygote and/or twin B is not the same individual as the zygote.
So your definition of an organism is something like "two or more organs keeping each other alive" (although this doesn't account for single-celled organisms)?
So let's take organs away, keeping the rest of the body alive through artificial means. First the skeleton, then the skin, and then everything else until just the vital organs are left. Still human? Still the same individual?
Now let's remove the heart, lungs, liver, and/or kidneys (and again, keeping whatever is left alive through artificial means). Still human? Still the same individual? And to Count Timothy: would a living brain on its own count as an organism, or just an organ?
But what if rather than removing the heart, lungs, liver, and/or kidneys we remove the brain. Still human? Still the same individual?
I think there's certainly something special about the brain. Whereas removing other organs and keeping the remaining organs alive artificially doesn't count as killing the human/individual, removing the brain would. This is why I don't think it matters much if the foetus is killed before the brain has sufficiently developed.
It isn’t. It does not have any means of reproducing, is not predisposed to functioning on its own, has no metabolism, etc. etc. etc. Given the diversity of life, "organism" is a tricky word to pin down, but an organ doesn't have a single quality of an organism.
If twin A was the same individual as the zygote and if twin B was the same individual as the zygote then twin A was the same individual as twin B.
Twin A was the same individual as twin B.
Therefore twin A was the same individual as the zygote and/or twin B was the same individual as the zygote.
Ok, then: A blastocyst is not a human being. The blastocyst is alive. It can be considered as a seperate entity - it might be moved to another host, for example. It has human DNA and so on, but it is no more a "member of the human species" than is your finger.
All this is insubstantial in the argument I presented to you. We have on the one hand a woman, perhaps a nurse, perhaps a CEO, perhaps a sister, mother, daughter, perhaps a care giver or volunteer. Someone who can express their needs, who makes plans and seeks to fulfil them and who has a place in our world.
We have on the other hand, a group of cells.
That you value those cells over the person who must carry them is heinous.
Yes, pro-life people are heinous. They're like those creatures from the Lord of the Rings who are some kind of supernatural evil. They never bathe and they have fangs and they're all ugly.
I think we should be able to tell if something is a human being if we’re calling it a human being.
:up:
A placenta is no less alive than a zygote.
Quoting NOS4A2
"Was" and "is" do not mean the same thing. Each twin was a zygote. But your conclusion that the zygote "will be the same particular entity, a human being, from fertilization onward" is both invalid and false. It cannot be the same particular entity as both twins that develop from it.
On the other side there are chimeras, where two zygotes fuse into one. To say that the eventual baby is the same individual/entity as both the zygotes that precede it is as nonsense as saying that a zygote is the same individual/entity as the sperm and the ovum.
You are saying (or at least it appears that way) that a zygote is a human being because it turns into a human being. But unless you can give some definition/explanation of how to identify a human being this reasoning is circular and vacuous. And as you said elsewhere
Quoting NOS4A2
Does your reasoning rely on some distinction between “person” & “human being”?
I’m saying that a zygote is the earliest stages of a human being’s life. It doesn’t turn into something else. We can identify him as a human being simply because he has human parents. On top of that there is zero evidence that it is some other species, alien, or life form.
I don’t distinguish the two, personally.
Just a history note: in Jamaica, during the time the English used slave labor there, all the slave women who became pregnant aborted their pregnancies so that their children wouldn't grow up in the world they were living in. The same would have been true in Brazil, but there were very harsh punishments for abortion there
It's not true that all women who have sought abortions denied the humanity of what they were killing, and this is still true today.
No it is not. In order for X to be a member of the set of all existent square blocks, it must be a square block.
This is basic biology: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Homo-sapiens . When, for you, does an organism become a member of its species? Anything you say is going to be utterly arbitrary, if it is not conception.
There are ways to tell: I was saying to the naked eye. We can examine it in the lab and determine if it is a human being (or, if you prefer, human fertilized egg).
And to explain what it means to be a square block you describe the relevant geometry.
How do you explain what it means to be a Homo sapiens?
There is no point. It’s like asking when does a species branch into two? There’s just a bunch or organic matter arranged together and behaving in certain ways, and then for practical reasons we group collections of similar organic matter together under a single name.
There was never a point where a non-Homo sapiens simply gave birth to a Homo sapiens. The evolution into Homo sapiens was a gradual process where we can say at the one extreme that it wasn’t human and at the other extreme it is but then in between there’s a grey, ambiguous area and any attempt at a definitive classification is arbitrary.
a homo sapiens is a contradiction in terms: it is a species.
The typical definition of a species, which holds generally for its members and absolutely for its healthy members, is "A group of organisms that share similar physical and genetic characteristics and are capable of interbreeding to produce viable offspring".
A zygote is not physically similar to me.
It's a bunch of cells. It does nto have the moral standing of the person carrying it.
Could you flesh out exactly what you're saying about fully developed humans like yourself? I'm assuming it's not that you think you have some sort of divine grace. Why should you have legal protection? Is it a matter of sentiment?
The pro-life argument is not "thou shall not kill." It's not to kill unjustly, which would exclude killing the innocent.
We all agree, for example, that holding someone against one's will ought be prohibited, yet we distinguish between false arrest and legal arrest and between kidnapping and incarceration. We allow certain actions in response to other actions, so it's not hypocritical to permit capital punishment yet prohibit abortion. One person has been found guilty and deserving, and the other not.
What constitutes the just taking of a human life (or deprivation of any human right) might be complicated and nuanced, but that doesn't mean the allowance of some deprivation of human rights in some cases means it must be allowed in all cases.
This is consistent with the biblical commandment at Exodus 20:13 that says ??? ???????? (do not murder) which is obviously different from ?? ????? (do not kill). That is, killing is sometimes ok, but never murder because murder has a specific definition that excludes war, capital punishment, but I doubt euthanasia. I point out the biblical passage because I am not confused into thinking the pro-life position isn't aligned with it, but I don't think the position is internally hypocritical.
What exactly is the argument? Adult humans are also a "group of cells."
An unborn child can be a sister or daughter, unless we want to say that passage through the birth canal turns us into sisters and sons.
They cannot be a caregiver, CEO, etc., true. Is being these things relevant to a right not to be euthanized? Or the ability to express one's needs or "have a place in the world?"
Infants are also largely incapable of these things (temporarily at least). So are those with serve developmental disabilities, dementia, etc. The severely injured also become temporarily unable to do many of those things. In the case of those with dementia, etc., it is pretty much impossible that they will ever be/be able to do any of these things, whereas the unborn child or infant can at least eventually become/do these things.
The need to rely heavily on others is also there in all cases (fetuses, infants, the severely disabled, etc.) In general, taking care of infants is more difficult and time consuming than having them in the womb, and taking care of adults with dementia, severe brain damage, etc. is significantly more difficult (and expensive) than taking care of infants.
Now, people will often claim that pregnancy is different because there isn't a way to transfer the responsibility until birth. I do think this is relevant, but we have to be careful here lest we lapse into assuming that, in the real world, it is in any way easy (or even in many cases possible) to pass off relatives with dementia or brain injuries to others' care. This is often far from easy, and whereas pregnancy and infancy end relatively quickly, care for someone with a brain injury can last decades, precluding any involvement in the workforce or public life. This is why I think arguments about "burden" are generally going to "allow too much." It's far easier to find people willing to adopt children than 30-year-old men with severe brain damage, and the former also tax society much more.
I don't really know if, given our society, those with brain injuries or dementia "have a place in the world." Certainly not much of one. And they might be quite unable to voice their desires as well.
That "exactly" is again a pointer to essentialism. What gives someone moral worth need not be a single characteristic or even a given group of characteristics. The rope is a rope despite no one thread running through it's whole length. There need be no essential common feature but instead a series of overlapping similarities. But when we stand back and consider what is before us, it is one rope.
Stand back and consider the differences. We ought not give the blastocyst the same moral standing as the person who carries it. If you cannot see the difference then there isn't a lot more to be said.
It ought be the person carrying the blastocyst who has the main say in what to do with it.
Sure, all that. There is a version of the naturalistic fallacy sitting in this thread. Roughly, folk argue as if, if we could only set out explicitly what it is to be a person or a human or whatever, then we would know for sure if we are allowed to do abortions - we need the "is" to decide the "ought". I think that fundamentally flawed. We decide what is to count as human, and what isn't; we don't discover it.
I don't think having some level of clarity implies essentialism. Considering this is one of the more fraught moral dilemmas of our time, I am not sure if "it just is, and if you don't agree there is nothing to say," is a particularly good argument.
Also, a blastocyst becomes an embryo at around 10 days, which is before women generally have any idea they are pregnant and thus before most abortions (aside from abortions that are accidental side effects). Most abortions do occur early though. And most people have problems with very late abortions. That's why some level of clarity is important, since "it just is," does not seem to close the door on infanctide or distinguish between early and very late abortions.
Indeed, it's not much better than "Here is a hand. If you hold my hand up before us both, and say "here is a hand", and I disagree, that would put an end to one way the conversation might go. At some stage it is reasonable for you to say that I am wrong to say this is not a hand.
BTW, it seems possible to affirm this and that abortion should be legal without having to claim that it is morally unproblematic. People have a right to divorce for instance, but it isn't always unproblematic. An Uber driver I was talking to the other week had a stroke in his mid-40s and his wife divorced him shortly after when he could no longer earn as much and required care for instance.
Issues like mass abortions of girls because of a preference for boys, etc. It's not like eugenicists designs vis-á-vis selective abortion lack moral valence, like it's the equivalent of getting a hair cut. Nor is it without social import, in some societies, e.g. Eastern Europe in the 90s, 50% or even 70+% of human conceptions in some states ended in abortion.
This is still circular logic. What makes one collection of cells and protoplasm a member of the human species? It is not merely the presence of a particular set of genes/chromosomes - there must be something else.
@Bob Ross
I want to "yes, and" Eric's comment. Even if you grant that a being is a member of the human species, that does not mean they count as a person or as a moral agent.
Everyday intuitions about moral agency are also limited by the status of a person. Children (especially) and young adults are treated with more lenience for behaving in a socially unacceptable manner and for committing moral wrongs, children's legal status is also different. People's status as an agent may change if they go into a permanent coma, we have next of kin rules, waivers, and even (arguably) the ability to extend our capacity for consent after our death with organ donation and wills. Moreover, unfertilised gametes and severed limbs are recognisably of the species homo sapiens and are not treated as moral persons - unless one is willing to admit that shagging, the normal functioning of fertilised ovums, menstruation and masturbation are each a peculiar brand of industrial slaughter.
[hide="Extra detail"]
The unfertilised gametes, severed limbs and dead bodies aren't even conscious, the former two have no moral agency and the latter are treated as moral agents (as if they were alive) in a limited fashion. People in permanent coma are alive, have the capacity for rational thinking (if they wake), but nevertheless not autonomous. Children count as restricted moral agents, not capable of rational decision in all the senses we'd like, young adults (16-18ish) are seen as unrestricted moral agents but their culpability is diminished due to their age.
[/hide]
To summarise, each of those entities counts as a member of the species homo sapiens, but they are not a moral agent. Some of them count as persons and have restricted or removed moral agency, some of them don't count as persons but nevertheless are treated as moral agents.
It is an animal. Severed limbs are not animals. Gametes are not animals. Those are parts of animals. Being a human animal is all that is required to be a member of the human species. The theory of identity at work is “animalism”.
You're still going around in circles. How do we identify whether a collection of cells and protoplasm is an animal - let alone a human animal. Why is a severed limb not an animal (I agree that it isn't, but you have not provided a coherent explanation)?
A severed limb is not an animal by virtue of it being a part of an animal, which for some reason you never quoted nor addressed before accusing me of being circular, but I can also add that animals typically metabolize, have the capacity to reproduce at some point in their lives, breathe oxygen, and so on. A severed limb cannot.
:up:
Yes. And I'd add that from the standpoint of apologetics a a pro-choice argument that has to rely on the claim that "fetuses are not human," seems to have set it self up for descending down all sorts of metaphysical rabbit holes regarding nominalism, essence, substantial change, etc.
I think it's probably not relevant. We also conscript adults and at times command then to engage in suicidal behavior on the battlefield. Hence, it simply isn't the case that we never force innocent adults towards (almost certain) death either (e.g. I recall one US company—about 150 members—in the Korean War in which just three members were left alive by the end of the night after being ordered not to retreat because it would collapse the entire front).
Now it’s a human person. First it was a human being, then it was a human animal, next it’s a human person.
My finger is not a beginning stage of human development: that’s the difference.
All red herrings, my friend.
You don’t think a baby has a place in the world? You don’t think that a baby would express, if they could, that they don’t want to be murdered? Irregardless, this is all irrelevant to my position: I don’t think it is morally relevant to this moral dilemma whether or not the mother or baby can express their needs, is capable of planning, nor “has a place in the world”.
What exactly morally are you suggesting? I think I’ve made my argument clear: in a standard abortion case, we have a woman that wants to uphold their right to bodily autonomy and can only do so by means of murdering another human—and to do so is always morally impermissible because murder (viz., killing an innocent human being) is a bad object for actions (and so all actions of that species are wrong). What’s your position? Are you make a consequentialist-style argument that we should justify the good end (of upholding the woman’s bodily autonomy) via a bad means because the end consequentially outweighs (perhaps significantly) the bad means? Is that the idea???
Interesting story, and very heartfelt. I don’t think that even women in the West necessarily abort while denying the humanity of their children: I think there are people who just don’t understand ethics (or disagree with my ethics [;) and they sincerely believe they are doing the right thing.
Also, I will say that, to your point, your example exemplifies a rare occurrence in abortion-situations in the West (if we were to map it over) because in your example the women are doing it solely for the benefit of the child—so it is a complete sense of respect for them (even though I think what they are doing is immoral).
I never argued that: this is a blatant straw man.
What?!? :sad: You are making me sad, Banno, with all these blatant straw mans.
So your view is based off of degrees of moral standing for persons? Is that the idea? So a elderly person has less rights than a person in their prime?
A genetically unique individual which has the genes of a human is, standardly, considered a member of the human species. I don’t see anything circular here.
I never suggested it did. I don’t know why everyone is coming at me with straw mans after I gave a very specific argument that addressed this very point. I will say it again. Not all human beings are persons, and not all persons are necessarily human beings. The obvious rejoinder to my position, prima facie, is the personhood-style arguments; but I think they fail for many reasons (which I will skip over for now) and that the best way to ground rights is in the Telos (ps: I know that’s a dirty word now) of a being such that it marks them out as a person (as opposed to being currently a person). In short, I take a hybrid view between animalism and these personhood-style positions.
When talking about abortion, this point would imply that, it is possible that, an unborn child’s legal status is that it can be killed. At that point, it doesn’t a legal status; which is what a personhood-style position is going to want to argue.
These are all good points. I would say that that:
1. The morally relevant differences between these examples and abortion is NOT that people’s status’ change but, rather, that, when properly understood, they are toto genere different moral dilemmas.
2. Euthanasia does not involve, when properly understood, the killing of an innocent person in the sense which happens in abortion: the person who wants to die is giving consent from a rational state of mind, whereas the unborn child is not. I think it is implied in “innocence” that the person is not partaking in whatever is in question; but, if you want, we can just tack-on “it is wrong to kill an innocent person who isn’t properly consenting to being killed” (and, yes, “properly” is doing a lot of work here).
3. Killing a person who is in a permanent coma, who had not properly consented to being killed prior to comatose, is being murdered; and, no, a family member should not have the power to command their execution.
4. Consent for organ donation and wills are examples of consent which are properly crafted during a rational mind-set; and so this is perfectly fine. However, to use a person’s dead corpse to experiment on or donate in ways which were not consented would be immoral; even if it could save someone else’s life.
Unfertilized gametes and severed limbs are not members of the human species: they are parts of humans.
According to personhood-style arguments, I think you bring up a good point here (although I know this is not what you are intending to convey) that dead bodies would not have any rights whatsoever; because rights are associated with actual personhood—current persons. So it should be, under their view, morally permissible to do anything to the dead corpses (such as having sex or using it as a punching bag).
It only makes sense to give it EVEN PARTIAL respectful treatment, other than as a mere subjective taste, if one is thinking about it like an Aristotelian: that being was a member of a species which marks it out as a person, and this means I still have to respect this being even after death.
What is a moral agent is different than what is a person; and the former has nothing to do with grounding rights. Moral agency is about which agents are held responsible for their free acts and to what degree; and personhood is about features of the mind which ground certain innate rights.
Then, Michael, you are literally arguing that there is no point at which a human being acquires rights.
I want to here, Banno, your moral theory. Explain it, so I can see what I am working with here. How does the graduations of rights work?
I realise it's likely you will side with the mother regardless, But i think that's what he wants you to admit.
If the idea that is that, stepping back, in the round, the mother takes moral priority, does this include up to the anticipated date of birth? Timothy nearly got there, point out a human is also a clump of cells.
But there is obviously also a difference between a blastocyst and a fetus. But also, a fetus and a baby. Which means what to your version of the argument? The reason most want an 'essentialist' account of personhood is to demarcate at which point a 'clump of cells' gets moral priority (you may bite the bullet of late-term abortion. I don't, so this isn't obvious to me). This is because we don't make decisions 'in the round' or 'stepping back'. We make them on the actual facts (i.e how far along is this fetus at hte time the abortion has been proposed).
The whole point of having a discussion about abortion is to test and discuss our ethical theories. You are copping out with blanket assertions. If you want to engage in a productive ethical discussion, then hit me up.
Do you consider a brain dead individual on life support to be a member of the human species?
Probably none
Your replies are becoming even more incoherent. Here's what you said a few days ago:
Quoting NOS4A2
I'll try one more time. What are the characteristics that describe a human person / human being?
Yep.
Firstly this is not "uncontroversially true" - it is an opinion. Many people disagree with you.
And on that note we will have to agree to disagree. I understand and respect your principled opinion. But I (along with many other people) consider a brain dead body to be a hunk of meat, not a person.
Uh ...
Quoting Bob Ross
I think that's a matter of respecting the wishes of the person who is now gone.
Is he some other species? I’d love to hear that argument.
Humans have the capacity to speak a language at some point in their lives.
You said that dead people have no rights; therefore, your position necessitates that it is not impermissible, in principle, to do those horrific things. That was my point.
Eric, with all due respect, you are not understanding what I am saying. I can tell, because:
You asked:
I never once claimed that a dead human being is a person. I said it is uncontroversially true that a dead human being is still a member of the human species. This is not a matter of opinion: biologists do not think that you magically are no longer a member of Homo Sapiens when you die, just as much as a dead dog is not thereby no longer a dog.
To be fair, in colloquial speech, we use "person" and "human being" interchangeably and loosely sometimes; but we have to separate these conceptions to have a proper discussion of rights.
You wouldn't be violating the corpse's rights if you did horrific things to it. We would check you in to the nearest psych ward for other reasons.
What reasons? This is the problem with your position: you have no moral reasons to punish or rehabilitate them because you deny that anything wrong is happening to that corpse. Having sex with it is morally on par with having sex with a sex doll (for you).
To admit someone as mentally ill, you must have a proper moral reason or reasons for doing so. What are they doing that is wrong?
Bob. We burn corpses. We bury them. Are you saying this is immoral?
Well, no - the whole point is to decide whether we ought allow abortions or not.
We are to judge ethical theories by what they say we ought do. If someone presents an ethical theory that implies an unethical act, we ought reject that ethical theory.
Now treating a cyst as of equal moral standing to Mrs Smith is unethical.
Hence we ought reject any theory that implies this.
So if a person decides that they wanted to charge any necrophiliacs out there to, umm, do their thing on their corpse - say $100,000 a pop - and then donate that money to a worthy charity? Apart from being really bizarre (in my opinion) I'm guessing that would be morally/ethically OK.
So what happens if a person does not specify what to do with their corpse? That's up to the estate. Should the estate be allowed to rent the corpse out to necrophiliacs? I can't give a definitive answer but my sense of things is that unless the person expressed some desire in that regard then I would disapprove. Of course there is always the laws of the land to take into account as well.
Quoting NOS4A2
It's really hard to follow what you're saying since you keep changing your terminology.
You have repeatedly stated that you do not see any difference between being a person and being a human being - so I was using your terminology. I'm assuming here that when you say "human being" then this entails being a member of the human species.
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
You're all over the map here contradicting yourself. Is there a distinction between personhood (being a person) and being a human being (i.e. being a member of the human species?) Yes or no?
And to answer your question, I consider a brain dead body on life support to be a hunk of meat.
1. This is a red herring: you are purposefully avoiding my line of questioning.
2. No, burying them is not immoral per se. This doesn’t violate any of their rights which are applicable to dead people.
If I take your position seriously, then we cannot say that a dog fossil is a dog fossil.
You are just sidestepping the conversation and begging the question. I have tried many times to inquire on what moral grounds you believe this and you keep sidestepping.
You didn't address anything we were really discussing about: I am asking @frank if it is morally permissible (and subsequently legally permissible) to have sex with a corpse, and there answer was ~"no". My point is that this is wrong, as it is wrong to have sex with a corpse; and any view that grounds rights completely in the quality of being alive will have to admit that, in that theory, it is never impermissible to do heinous things. So far, @frank has dodged this problem instead of biting the bullet.
What you are asking, is whether or not, separately from my discussion with frank, it is morally permissible to have sex with a corpse if that now dead person signed a contract giving proper consent to it being done. This presupposes that the dead person prima facie has a right not to be used as a sex doll, which is incompatible with @franks position. For me, I am going to say it is impermissible; because I believe that it is possible to commit immoral acts upon oneself, which are beyond the purview of justice (because it does not relate to how one should treat other people), and one such act is allowing people to degrade your corpse with sexual acts. However, I would say that not everything that is immoral should be illegal; as laws are about justice, which is a sub-branch of morality. The law should not regulate that what specifically you should do with your own body, as we have seen how much of a disaster that becomes. So, in short, it would be immoral but not illegal (according to me).
The modern take would be to say that it should not be illegal and whether or not it is immoral is irrelevant; because each person should be able to pursue their own conception of the good.
Thanks for clarifying that. How about cremation? Does burning in a furnace violate the corpse's fundamental human rights?
A corpse of a dog is a hunk of meat that used to be a dog until it died - it is no longer a dog. A dog fossil is a fossil of an animal that was a dog when it was alive.
That’s right. Thank you. It’s the easiest assumption to make.
I haven’t contradicted myself, or at least you have not shown it. I already said, no, I don’t think so.
Would you eat it?
I am asking you why you believe that a zygote does not have the same fundamental right to not be killed when innocent like a woman does; and you refuse to engage. No, you do not get to blanketly assert that a zygote does not have the right to life and then try to pin it on me to explain (again) why I think it does.
Are you going to actually answer the question and engage in a discussion on ethics?
I don't think so; although I would have to think about it more. I would imagine that, all else being equal, cremating a body is done out of respect for that dead person in order to give it to loved ones to cherish. Since they are dead, there is nothing really being violated about them by doing that (like disrespecting their corpse by having sex with it would).
For me, it is fundamentally about properly respecting life relative to the nature and Telos of each life-form (as best as possible).
You didn't ask @Banno to clarify if the blastocyst he posted was created by fertilization or electronically created parthenogenesis. If the latter, is it not human due to its lack of viability? If so, does that mean viability is a relevant criteria for personhood?
Scientists in the study of human origins place a lot of significance to burial of the dead. I've never thought through what that really means.
If you had to choose between saving a fertility clinic where a million (or a billion or a trillion) zygotes are stored or saving an orphanage where a dozen kids are trapped in the burning building, do you really have to think about which to save?
A very clarifying question as to the value of each. Wouldnt the one saving the zygotes instead of the children be a moral monster?
Nice one RogueAI. :up:
If you can't see that Mrs Smith has rights not had by a cyst, no theory that I could offer would help you.
Indeed, it's clear that moral theory can be a post hoc attempt to justify doing wrong.
If a theory in physics does not match how things are, we reject it. Again, if a theory of morals does not match how things ought be, then we should reject it.
A cyst ought not bump the rights of Mrs Smith. Thinking otherwise requires ideology.
For what it's worth, Jewish law:
"The obligation to bury applies to every corpse, even criminals who have been put to death, the unclaimed slain, suicides, and strangers to the community. To be denied burial was the most humiliating indignity that could be inflicted on the deceased, for it meant “to become food for beasts of prey”.
https://rohatynjewishheritage.org/en/culture/death-burial-mourning/#:~:text=The%20obligation%20to%20bury%20applies,food%20for%20beasts%20of%20prey%E2%80%9D.
Abortion is a super controversial topic, and there absolutely no consensus, like in physics in your analogy, that pro-choice is the right answer. What you are doing, is lazily asserting your position and then saying it is obvious as justification.
E.g., "Why should a woman be allowed to abort a child?"
Banno: "Because it is obviously true"
What kind of intellectually lazy, disingenuous response is that?!?
I respect you Banno, and I want to have a substantive conversation about this topic that challenges both of our positions; but in order to do that you have to actually give an account of why you believe pro-choice is the right answer. Otherwise, there's nothing for me to engage with you about.
As a side note, how do you expect to convince a pro-life person that your position is correct if you just blanketly assert and say it is obviously true as justification?
You are right: I didn't ask that. So why did you comment on my post? I am not following on what your response has to do with my response to Banno. What you brought up was not even remotely relevant to what we were talking about.
Yeah, that's why I would have to think about it more. That's a good point.
See, this is good question to spark the conversation. I wish @Banno would have brought this up, because, if I were doing the arguing for them, this exactly what I would offer in favor of supporting that a woman has a different moral status than a zygote.
I would save the child over the billion zygotes, and prima facie this supports @Bannos point; however, upon deeper reflection, I don't think it helps their case. I am not saying that we cannot have different moral weights for different relevant moral factors when morally analyzing a situation: I am saying that we cannot violate someone's rights.
You may ask: what is the morally difference, then Bob? It's simple: it is always wrong to kill an innocent person, but it is not always wrong to let an innocent person die. Omissions are not morally calculated the same as commissions. In your scenario, if I had to go use the zygotes to put out the fire to save the child, then I would be doing something immoral; but if I am letting the zygotes die because I cannot save them and the child and the child has more moral weight (in this situation) than the zygotes, then nothing immoral is happening. This is no different than having to choose between saving a 90-year old or an infant---one should save, all else being equal, the infant because age can be a morally relevant factor in that kind of dilemma. HOWEVER, age is not a morally relevant factor to whether or not you can violate a 90-year old's rights---e.g., you cannot use the 90-year old's life to save the infant.
Hopefully @Banno decides to engage in the conversation.
That's not quite right. If there were a vote in 'merca, it would be legal. And elsewhere - in roughly comparable nations - it is a non-issue. Those nations in which it remains problematic are authoritarian, so whatever consensus there is remains hidden behind ideology.
Quoting Bob Ross
Not mine. I'm asking instead what folk think about the right of Mrs Smith and the rights of a cyst. If they think the cyst is the equal of Mrs Smith, that is not a fact about cysts and Mrs Smith, but a fact about them. They stand judged by their judgement.
Quoting Bob Ross
I don't think there is anything here with which to engage. If I were to hold up a hand and say "here is a hand" and you asked for proof, there would similarly be little more to say.
Quoting Bob Ross
That's not really my concern. First, I would not expect to change your mind, since your view is doubtless close to what has been called your "form of life" and not really open to discussion. Second, I'm not doing politics here, but ethics. I have shown a method that can be applied to ethical issues in order to cut through the bullshit. We differ as to what we think folk should do.
You haven't and that's what I am asking you to do: what method?????? You have offered nothing but a blanket assertion that a woman has more rights, or a higher degree of a right, to bodily autonomy than the zygote has to life. Nothing else has been elaborated on.
I am not asking politically: I am asking ethically. You have been refusing to engage in ethics, not politics.
Banno, do you really believe that it is equally as obvious that a woman should have a right to abortion as the fact that your hand exists? C'mon man.
I think it is a complex issue, and is clearly not resolved in the philosophical literature on abortion.
There have been votes; and red states vote no; and blue states vote yes. There is no consensus.
Yep. Although I'd characterise it as that a woman has standing not had by a cyst. I'm sorry you can't see that.
Quoting Bob Ross
Well, yes. But you would have me add to that literature.
That's cool. It's like 'equality in death'. Thanks for the source.
Without checking, from what I recall this is not true. Since the Dobbs decision, when there’s a vote on the ballot in red states it goes pro-choice. Legislatures in red states don’t always allow the issue to be voted on, however.
Wouldn't the more pertinent issue be wills or a person's expressed desires about what should happen to their body and property after their death?
Seems to me there are obvious limits here, but there also doesn't seem to be no rights. For example, if a person spends their life trying to protect an ecosystem by acquiring land to create a nature reserve, all else equal, it seems unethical to ignore their will and sell the land off to loggers.
Now, wills are a legal issue, but their presumably a legal issue because they have some degree of ethical valance. If people's identities and rights completely vanish at their death it's not even clear why their children should inherit their estate. But "dispossessing the widow and the orphan," is one of the key things railed against as sin/wickedness in the Bible and plenty of other cultural and religious contexts as well.
Is it never warranted for military officers issue orders that are almost certain to result in the deaths of their innocent men? Suppose that the soldiers are conscripts and haven't had a choice in joining the military.
I am not sure this is obvious. The Third Reich's invasion of the Soviet Union couldn't have been repelled without these sorts of acts for instance, and so refusing to do them also essentially dooms many innocents to death.
And the plot hook for Antigone; where would we be without it!
It's not an absolute non-issue. Almost all European states have a limit at or below 15 weeks for elective abortion, most at 10-12, which is a good deal more restrictive than many US states, including some conservative ones. The US is bipolar in allowing abortion at any gestational age or at 20+ weeks in several states (only Iceland, Singapore, and Vietnam have national limits this high) but also banning it in almost all cases.
Quite a few European states have gone in the opposite direction. For instance, in Estonia, where close to 70% of conceptions ended in abortion at one point, is now down to eleven weeks.
Everyone will eventually be proven to be Jewish.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/christopher-columbus-dna-sephardic-jew-b2630798.html
(Also, I much prefer the traditional way of making blastocysts. Much more enjoyable.)
I get what you're saying, but I wouldn't say that cashes out in terms of rights. With civil rights you have to be able to show up in court. Natural rights are enforced by nature, but not necessarily in a timely fashion.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I think Bob's point was that the corpse itself has natural rights. I think what exists are customs for dealing with the remains of a human. The corpse can't show up in court.
But that reminds me of a story I wrote once. This guy keeps seeing corpses, but the people around him treat them as if they're still alive. The welfare of the corpse is discussed while it's eyeball is falling out.
He goes in for a job interview and people are bustling around the boss, but of course the boss is a corpse.
I don't follow this.
The position I am aware of is that governments have the duty to protect natural rights. For example, my right to free speech isn't given to me by the government, but the government must recognize it and protect it else it's an immoral government.
You seem to be describing some sort of karmic system where mother nature is going to send its wrath if not respected and that will result in eventual compliance with her dictates.
The problem is that you have all sorts of horrible governments that openly deny rights and this can only be stopped by intentional intervention and uprising, if at all, but never just by the consistent hand of nature.
So, if people have the natural right to respect in death, it's obvious the dead can't enforce it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means someone else must enforce it for the dead, just like an infant couldn't enforce its own rights without assistance.
This idea is rooted in Stoicism. The idea is that when things follow their nature, they thrive. For instance, it's in a tree's nature to grow toward the light. If it does this, it will become healthy and green. If it goes against its nature, it will shrivel and die. The same is supposed to be true for individuals and societies. It's supposed to be in the nature of a society to protect the well-being of the citizens. If it doesn't do this, the society will suffer from internal conflict and it will shrivel. So basically, good and evil are the same thing as health and sickness.
Quoting Hanover
It just seems like this is pulling the idea of rights all out of whack. It's that tradition weighs in on what we should do with corpses. You can't violate the rights of a corpse. You can go against tradition.
Are you arguing that a both have rights, but one trumps the other? Or are you arguing that only one of them has rights?
Sigh. I'm a glutton for punishment. I'll try one more time. Here are two statements from you:
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
The second statement clearly contradicts the first. The second statement says that there IS a measurable property that appears (and may disappear) in any human being - namely the capacity to speak a language.
And again, you do not make any distinction between the terms "person/personhood", "human", or "human being" - so you cannot define your way out of this contradiction.
I don't know any way to make this any clearer.
If you could save one child by pouring billions of zygotes on a burning building to put the fire out, again, do you really have to think about what to do? You wouldn't let the kid die.
Yeah, Bob is wrong.
https://www.npr.org/sections/2022-live-primary-election-race-results/2022/08/02/1115317596/kansas-voters-abortion-legal-reject-constitutional-amendment
1) should individual human beings be protected by government policy?
2) what constitutes an individual human being?
The answer to #1 is: yes, of course. I don't think anyone disagrees.
#2 is the source of disagreement.
There are religions (e.g. Roman Catholicism) that teach that zygotes are individual human beings. For them, this is non-negotiable. However, their religious view should not be imposed on everyone else. There's a rock-solid reason to think zygotes are not individual human beings: monozygotic twins. If a zygote is an individual human being, then monozygotic twins are a single human being, which is non-sensical.
There is no well-defined set of necessary and sufficient properties that unequivocally delineates when something is an IHB. Everyone would probably agree that a newborn infant is an IHB, and this implies an IHB is something that emerges gradually during fetal development. But there is no right answer regarding when the fetus constitutes an IHB: it's a fuzzy concept, not a well-defined one. Any definition we create would be arbitrary
The capacity for human beings to acquire a language at some point of their lives is measurable and apparent. Humans are aware of and can understand language at some point in their lives. This seems to me a fact and is observable, at least so long as they are allowed to live. No other species can do this. All of this is because humans have the biology for language. This biology, and all material required to develop it, is present from the very beginning to the very end of every human being’s life—the biological-continuity of identity—none of which comes and goes. And this is just one characteristic of human beings. No such thing can be said of “personhood” or any other account of psychological-continuity.
Yes, I thought I made it clear that “human”, “person”, “human being”, “member of the human species”, are different words for the same kind of entity. I can point to a member of the human species and also call him a “human” or a “person”. In any case I see no contradiction to define my way out of.
By the way “meat” is flesh as food, in English. If human and canine corpses are “meat” as you claim, would you eat them? If you meant “flesh”, do humans lack flesh? If you meant “bug food”, are human beings immune to bug bites?
I don't think that is true at all. Red states are predominantly conservative; and conservatives are not pro-choice.
Yes (under certain circumstances), and this gets into the principle of double effect; and is not pertinent to the abortion discussion.
Technically, it is always wrong to directly intentionally kill an innocent human being—I usually just shorten it to “don’t kill innocent humans” to keep it simple
I am assuming that this was a rhetorical question, since you quoted my answer.
So you would let a child die rather than save their life by sacrificing/using zygote(s)? I think your position is absurd. I also don't think you would let the child die, if push came to shove.
It’s true, and it’s something that you can easily verify for yourself.
Many more states will vote on it next month. Some Republican lead legislatures in red states prevent it from being on the ballot. Why? See above.
I think you're right. At least in the US, the estate of a deceased person has "rights" and the executor of the will is supposed to enact the intentions of the deceased, and you can have lawsuits related to "the estate of..." but this does seem materially different. I mean, it's also about the rights of the inheritors, but they are alive.
Well, presumably in virtually all cases of elective abortion the woman having the abortion isn't acting [I]in order to[/I] have an abortion. I can't imagine the abortion is ever the end being pursued (barring your extreme outlier cases).
The intended goal will be something like avoiding poverty, not detracting from the care of one's existing children, etc.
And yes, we might rank "stop the Confederates from reaching Washington and preserving slavery for another 100 years" differently than an individual family's desire to avoid poverty, but double effect doesn't make the distinction cut and dry.
Except that the double effect was part of an extended discussion of abortion involving Philippa Foot and Anscombe, the very one in which what 'mercans call the "trolly" problem was first deployed.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yep. Folk don't generally fuck in order to have an abortion.
And you think corpses are food. Articulation is one thing, bad ideas are another.
This is false. There's more to biology than genetics – there's morphology and physiology – and more than the stuff already contained within a zygote is required for it to grow into a baby (e.g. nutrients from the mother).
What do (all) innocent human beings have (that other organisms don't have?) that entails this conclusion?
Extending this, here are two trolley problems:
1. If you don't change the track then five babies die. If you do then one baby dies. What do you do?
2. If you don't change the track then one baby dies. If you do then five zygotes die. What do you do?
I don't think there's any moral dilemma with (2), whereas there is with (1), showing the obvious moral difference between killing a baby and killing a zygote. We ought change the track and let five zygotes die to save the baby.
Notice that I've made (2) even more extreme by requiring an active choice that kills more things, whereas traditionally the active choice kills fewer. That's how little zygotes matter.
Quoting Bob Ross
The argument is pretty clear, and has been stated a few times. Whatever standing the cyst has is negligible in comparison to that had by Mrs Smith.
You don't understand my position; and have straw manned it time and time again. If you want to understand it,then we need to actually discuss it from the foundation up. Otherwise, you will continue to be confused from your own perspective.
The most common republican view, although not officially, is that abortion should be illegal except under certain grave circumstances. E.g., https://news.gallup.com/poll/246278/abortion-trends-party.aspx#:~:text=Views%20on%20Legality%20of%20Abortion%2C%20by%20Party%20ID .
Democrats commonly want it legal in all or most circumstances. You are making it sound like both republicans and democrats see eye-to-eye on abortion....not at all.
You are confusing the end with the intentions. I can directly intend something which is not the end I am trying to bring about (e.g., start my car to go to the grocery store). A woman who opts-in for an abortion is directly intended to kill an innocent human being as a means towards the end of upholding her own bodily autonomy; because the abortion (1) at least partially (if not totally) facilitates the end and (2) it is a part of the direct intentional flow of the act.
This is entirely different than your example before, as a tactical bomber is directly intending to bomb, e.g., a military base and only indirectly intends to kill innocents (as a statistical certainty) as a side effect of the means of bringing about the end; which is evident from the fact that if there were no innocents that were to die, then the bomber would still perform the same tasks towards the same end. Whereas, with the abortion, if an abortion is not needed then it changes the act itself; for the act's end stays the same but the objects change (which is not true in the tactical bomber scenario).
What do you mean "except"?
They are persons.
What do (all) innocent human beings have (that other organisms don't have?) that entails that they are persons?
I know many Republicans that believe that abortion should be allowed up to a certain point in the pregnancy for any reason. I don't know one Republican that says that if prior birth control (condoms, the pill, etc.) failed that the woman should be forced to carry through with her pregnancy.
To me, the issue becomes moral only when the fetus develops a nervous system and is capable of feeling pain. Zygotes do not have nervous systems. The brain and nervous system does not fully develop until the 2nd trimester. This is the grey area for me.
I think that abortions should be allowed for any reason through the first trimester. In the final trimester, the only reason to have an abortion would be because the life of the mother is at risk, and these cases are extremely rare and is stressful enough to not have the government deciding this for us.
If someone was raped or the birth control they were using failed, I would think that they wouldn't wait until the last moment to have an abortion. They have at least 12-16 weeks to make that decision because they already made the conscious choice to not get pregnant in the case of failed birth control. I personally do not know anyone that wanted an abortion waited until after 16 weeks to have one. I don't know if this even happens. So we could be making a mountain out of a mole hill here in this thread.
Well, there are GOP lawmakers who oppose morning after pills.
And there are Democrat lawmakers quoted as saying that abortions should be allowed up to the moment of birth for any reason. I think we can both agree that there are extremists on both sides of the (any) issue. Fortunately it appears that more moderate minds are winning on this issue as many states are voting to keep a woman's right to choose, but with some restrictions.
This is a misrepresentation. I never said nor implied biology was equal to or less than genetics.
Try it with the human zygotes still in their mother, where they are generally found. For some reason you removed the mother entirely.
You said "this biology ... is present from the very beginning ... of every human being’s life." Except it's not. The genetics is present but the morphology and physiology aren't.
Then the moral dilemma concerns whether to kill a baby or an adult. We're concerned with whether to kill a baby or a zygote. So for the sake of argument we can assume that the zygote is not growing inside a woman but an artificial womb.
Intentionally sacrificing one, five, or even a million zygotes to save one baby is not a dilemma at all. We obviously should.
You believe there are just two sets of genes swimming around in there?
To kill a zygote you abort it. Go give abortions.
There are 46 DNA molecules, each coiled around proteins, contained within cytoplasm and a cell membrane.
Quoting NOS4A2
We're considering a variation of the trolley problem as explained here:
1. If you don't change the track then five babies die. If you do then one baby dies. What do you do?
2. If you don't change the track then one baby dies. If you do then five zygotes die. What do you do?
We can assume, for the sake of argument, that we are technologically advanced and have developed artificial wombs within which the zygotes in question are growing.
I think that (1) proposes a moral dilemma but that (2) doesn't. It is quite clear that we ought take positive action to sacrifice the zygotes to save the baby, and even though the zygotes are more numerous.
Single-celled organisms, even if capable of growing into something like us, simply do not deserve remotely the same kind of (or even any) moral consideration.
All of which are biological.
Isn’t that convenient. Remove the one act under discussion from the argument entirely.
Recall that it is the abortionist who must justify the act of killing. These thought-experiments are excuse-making for killing. We’ll need to come up with some better ones.
And? It's not the biological stuff that's morally relevant. Ants are biological. Flies are biological. So what?
Quoting NOS4A2
We're talking about whether or not it is wrong to kill zygotes. The manner in which the zygotes are killed is presumably irrelevant.
Your deflection is telling.
Flies don’t develop into human beings.
If they are out of the womb they are already dead. Convenient.
Develop into human beings. Interesting that you now phrase it that way.
But also, why does it matter? Why is it wrong to kill something that develops into a human being but not wrong to kill a fly?
Quoting NOS4A2
As I said, in the scenario under consideration these are living zygotes growing inside an artificial womb. When we have to choose between doing nothing and letting one baby die or doing something that causes five zygotes to die, what should we do? We should do the thing that causes five zygotes to die because they do not deserve anything like the same kind of moral consideration as a baby.
I don’t care about flies and am at constant war with them. It’s wrong to kill a human being when he doesn’t deserve it. Flies deserve it in virtue of their very nature.
Fine, we should kill zygotes if and only if no mother is present and doing so will stop a train from running over babies. Now, absent those conditions, is it right or wrong to kill zygotes?
It's neither right nor wrong. It's morally neutral. We've established from the trolley problem that five zygotes deserve less moral consideration than one baby. And I'll go so far as to say that one million zygotes deserve less moral consideration than one baby. Each individual zygote deserves negligible moral consideration, and certainly when compared to the moral consideration of a woman being forced to carry to term and birth a child.
Is it morally permissible to kill all zygotes then?
If it's the mothers' desires, yes.
But it would mean the end of the species.
Yes, as would happen if everybody alive refused to procreate.
Refusing to procreate doesn't involve the act of killing.
So? You were suggesting that killing all zygotes is wrong because it would mean the end of the species. I am simply showing that "it is wrong because it would mean the end of the species" is a non sequitur.
No, I think killing a human being in its zygote stage is wrong because he doesn't deserve it. I was trying to appeal to your utilitarianism.
If you could take a time machine and go back to the time when a mother was an innocent zygote, would it be ok to kill her then?
And as shown by the trolley problem killing five zygotes is less wrong than allowing one baby to die. Killing ten million zygotes is less wrong than allowing one baby to die.
The moral worth of one zygote is so negligible that killing it is less wrong than forcing a woman to carry it to term and birth it against her wishes.
Quoting NOS4A2
That depends on whether or not killing the zygote in my grandmother's womb would kill me, because killing me would be wrong.
It doesn't follow that it is right to kill zygotes.
It wouldn't kill you because you weren't born at that time. It would just kill your mother. Her moral worth decreased in proportion to how far we travelled back in time to the point that it is negligible.
I didn't say it's right. I said it's neutral. The moral worth of a zygote is negligible, as shown by the trolley problem.
Quoting NOS4A2
I misread and thought you were asking about me going back in time and then someone terminating my grandmother's pregnancy, and that it would be a Marty McFly in Back to the Future situation.
But as for the question as asked, that really depends on how time travel works. Does the future still exist in some sense but changes as the past is changed? That would change my answer. If the future doesn't exist then no, it wouldn't be wrong to terminate the pregnancy (but it may be wrong to have gone back in time as that would have erased what was the present and is now the future).
But you think it’s right so long as the mother desires it, up until and including species extinction.
I was trying to test your intuition of whether the zygote has more moral worth if you knew who she would become: the mother. I didn’t even mean your own mother, but I guess that makes the stakes higher.
But no the future doesn’t exist in the past.
I think it's not wrong, or at least negligibly wrong, or at least less wrong than forcing the mother to carry the child to term and birth it (much like it's less wrong than allowing a baby to die).
Quoting NOS4A2
Then abort away.
Assuming that no one is forcing the mother to carry the child, and everyone believes it is wrong to intervene, should she or should she not kill her child?
The act of abortion is the act to which we need to apply our ethics, but remains completely unresolved.
No, I’m simply pointing out the fact that abortion has been on the ballot in seven states since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and in each instance, in red states and blue states, anti-abortion advocates have lost. And again, many more states will vote on the issue next month.
But you've switched the example. The example was ordering men to make a last stand where they are sure to die. That the men not retreat or surrender but instead fight to the death is the intention.
She can do what she wants. There's no "should" either way.
There is a “should” for the one committing the act of killing. Should I or should I not take this course of action? But I appreciate the honesty.
To the extent that one can ask "should I or should I not kill the weeds in my garden".
Plant ethics. Sure. But we’re talking about the killing of a human being.
As established by the trolley problem, the moral worth of a human-as-zygote is less than the moral worth of a human-as-baby (and in fact, the moral worth of five humans-as-zygotes is less than the moral worth of one human-as-baby).
The moral worth of a human-as-zygote is equivalent to the moral worth of a plant.
This doesn't seem very hard. If the question is: "let one person die (to make it easy, assume they are 100 years old) or every woman in the early stages of pregnancy in the world miscarries, it seems an easy choice to make.
Even excluding the (potential) children themselves, a great, great many women very much want to become pregnant. Some sort of scenario (however bizarre) where they have become pregnant and would otherwise give birth but will lose the children if there isn't some sort of sacrifice isn't without moral valence.
Plus, abortion is generally not about zygotes.
I understand the position. A human-in-utero is morally insignificant. I just don’t understand how one can reach that conclusion. I suppose his worth might increase and decreases with his cell count, or, he is morally worthless until he is in my phone book, but who knows?
But weighing the moral worth of human beings in various stages of their development so as to decide who are morally permissible to kill is a disgusting business. We’ve left ethics entirely and have approached an exercise in excuse-making and dehumanization, in my opinion.
It's no less disgusting business than weighing the moral worth of non-human organisms. Is it wrong to kill plants? Flies? Cows? Dogs? E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial?
Tell that to the vast majority of parents who have children, that the child they have created and are carrying is morally insignificant and it doesn’t deserve to live.
That does not address my point. I'm not interested in sentiment (unless you want to argue that morality is sentiment).
You claim that all humans deserve to live, but then must also accept one of these:
1. No non-humans deserve to live
2. Some but not all non-humans deserve to live
3. All non-humans deserve to live
If you accept (1) or (2) then you accept that it is appropriate to weigh the moral worth of living organisms. I don't see why weighing the moral worth of individuals within a species is any less disgusting than weighing the moral worth of species within a genus (or higher up in the taxonomy).
And I'll add, you already accepted with the trolley problem that the lives of five zygotes are worth less than the life of one baby, so why the about-turn?
Women who have miscarriages can suffer extreme emotional stress. Some may kill themselves. Also, miscarriage itself can cause death. Your scenario muddies the water. It's easier to use a trolley-car situation like what Michael is doing.
The point that Michael has made, which seems irrefutable, is that a zygote's life is nothing compared to an actual person's life, and any number of zygotes can be killed/sacrificed/used to save a person.
This is entirely too vague. Do you think the blastocyst has a right to life or not?!? You are purposefully avoiding the question, because you know if you grant it rights then you cannot make this kind of argument that Mrs. Smith has more of a right to bodily autonomy.
Traditionally, a rational will; i.e., a sufficiently free will. That is a serious and impactful difference between humans and other species: most, if not all, other species lack the capacity to go against their own nature and inclinations such that they are motivated by pure reason.
Traditionally, a being which has a Telos such that it will have, if not already has, a rational will are called persons (because their nature marks them out to be such); and their will must be respected.
More technically, a being which has a such a "rational Telos" is not necessarily a person but, rather, will be; and their nature marks them out as such; and this is what grounds their rights (and not whether or not they currently are a person).
Well, zygotes don't have a rational will, therefore by your own logic they aren't persons.
I could see that (although I have many examples of Republicans that do not support that at all); because they lack a coherent position.
None of this matters; and can be demonstrated as useless considerations simply by observing that you probably eat other animals that can feel pain and have a nervous system much more complex than a fetus’ and your argument here would apply equally to all those animals. Viz., the principles which you are analyzing and committing yourself too, would entail, if granted, veganism.
Also irrelevant. Aborting a child from rape or a failing in contraception is no different than killing an infant born out of wedlock—two wrongs do not make a right.
There is no such example: I pull the lever if the one is being sacrificed is substituted for any number of zygotes; and this is not incoherent with my position. Like I said, you don't understand it.
Pouring zygotes on a building to put out a fire (to save a child) is not analogous to pulling a lever to save five by sacrificing N-amount of zygotes, for the zygotes are directly intentionally killed in the former as a means towards the good end whereas they are indirectly intentionally killed in the latter not as a means but rather a bad side effect of using the means to bring about the good end (and, at this point, with my principle of double effect, saving the child is always going to significantly outweigh the bad side effect of killing the zygotes but this is only valid for analyzing side effects NOT means).
Interesting, I guess we will have to see what happens then.
I apologize: I was not intending to alter the example to my benefit. I am not following what difference it makes if the tactical bomber cannot retreat. What are you suggesting?
In that quote you explicitly say that things without a rational will are not persons.
In previous comments you said that it is wrong to kill zygotes because they're human and wrong to kill humans because they're persons. Combining these together you were saying that it is wrong to kill zygotes because they're persons.
So you're contradicting yourself.
At the very least you need to amend your original remarks and say that it is wrong to kill zygotes because they will be persons, and then I will deny this claim; it is only wrong to kill something if it currently is a person, and what it could be in the future (or was in the past) is irrelevant.
I understand your confusion, but I've clarified this many times now. A zygote is not a person (in that strict sense that you mean) but has a nature that marks it out as going to be a person (aka: "will be" a person, as you put it). It is not, under my view, the immanent personhood that grounds rights but, rather, the teleological nature.
When I said "because they are persons", I was speaking loosely in the sense of the teleological claim; which how persons were defined in the pre-modern sense. In the modern sense, you are right to point out that they are not persons.
To clarify, this teleological account of rights IS NOT equivalent to grounding rights in potential persons; for "potentiality" is a very loose term that covers more than telos (e.g., perhaps a cow has the potential to be a person since we could give it a brain chip).
For your view, as you and I have noted, you have to ground rights in actual personhood; and this leads to absurd results (e.g., a knocked out human has no rights while knocked out).
One cannot just ground rights in the organism nor personhood: it must be grounded in the consideration of the nature of the organism.
In short, to make this painfully clear, in modern terminology a zygote is not a person (nor is a knocked out adult) and I would say they are teleologically marked out to become a person; and in pre-modern terminology (which I prefer) a zygote (and a knocked out adult) are persons because their nature marks them out as such. Either way you prefer, human beings have these rights because they are teleologically set out as (becoming) persons.
It is also worth mentioning that non-persons still have rights---they just aren't the same. E.g., a cow has the right to not be tortured for fun.
How many times are you going to ask the same question?
The answer is still no, I would not use the zygotes to put out the fire. I've elaborated in detail why that would be wrong: please ask questions if you are confused at all on it.
This is a really bad ethical principle. If I take it seriously, then we should kill and harvest the organs of physically disabled people to save the lives of normal, sick people. It is nonsense.
It's not clear what you mean by teleology.
If you just mean that a zygote is highly likely to naturally develop a rational will whereas a cow developing a rational will would require artificial intervention then it needs to be explained why this distinction is morally relevant, and why being highly likely to (naturally or otherwise) develop a rational will entails having a right to life.
This a strange distinction.
Let's say there are two tracks. On one there is a box containing one living baby and on another there's a box containing five living zygotes. If you don't pull the lever then only the baby is run over and if you do then only the zygotes are run over.
This is achieved in one of three different ways:
1. Pulling the lever changes which track the trolley travels down
2. Pulling the lever switches the boxes
3. Pulling the lever moves the box containing five zygotes onto the primary track, before the box containing one baby (stopping the trolley from travelling further).
These seem to be morally equivalent. If one ought pull the lever in the case of (1) then one ought pull the lever in the case of (2) and (3). (3) is equivalent to @RogueAI's example of using the zygotes to put out a fire.
But if you still insist that (1) and (3) are morally distinct, then what if you don't know which of (1), (2), and (3) is the manner in which the baby can be saved? Each is equally likely. Should you pull the lever or not?
In my mind the answer is clear; always do what you can to save the baby, irrespective of how or how many zygotes are killed in the process.
OK, your position is absurd.
Correct.
I don’t think all humans deserve to live.
It’s less a matter of sentiment and more a matter of justice. Two unjust conclusions have been made about these beings. One, that they are morally worthless, and two, that they deserve to die.
These are the conclusions of dehumanization. You judge the moral worth of a human being based on their physical characteristics, and not because who they are and what they’ve done. In this case, separate human beings according to their stage of development. Segregate them in the mind, then theorize unrealistic scenarios wherein you are forced to choose between these beings and the ones you prefer morally who should live or die. Base all further conclusions on this unjust analysis. This is all it takes to justify their killing.
On the other hand, many people who want have children afford moral worth to the child they are carrying, believe he deserves to live, so much so that they will sacrifice their own security and resources for him to survive. No trolly problem or dehumanization will convince them otherwise. I suspect this is a more instinctual rather rational exercise, but so long as someone sees moral worth in them, the being is not morally worthless.
The "innocent" was implicit there.
Quoting NOS4A2
I didn't say that they deserve to die. I have only said that we ought kill zygotes if it saves babies and that it is acceptable to abort a zygote.
Quoting NOS4A2
What is the distinction between who someone is and what something physically is, in particular with respect to zygotes? You're the one who often argues against anything like a soul or folk psychology and reduces everything to base biology.
But again, you haven't answered the question. Why is it wrong to judge the moral worth of a human but not the moral worth of a non-human? You're engaging in speciesism without even attempting to justify it.
Quoting NOS4A2
Well now we might be getting somewhere. Are you suggesting that a living organism has moral worth if and only if someone sees moral worth in it?
That leads to problematic scenarios, such as what if I see moral worth in cows or the serial killer trying to kill you, or what if the pregnant woman doesn't see moral worth in the zygote growing inside her but some random kid half the world away does?
Strangely, you seem to be saying that the nature (capacity for reason and abstract goals) which allows abortion is what grounds the right to not be aborted.
Your question is illicit. The standing of Mrs Smith ought far surpass whatever standing you might grant the blastocyst. Your attempts to show otherwise are either misguided or malevolent.
You've lost this discussion.
I agree with this. This is not a matter I generally debate as it's a cesspit of virtue signalling and philosophical bullshit. What do you think is happening when people make the sorts of arguments that makes?
That argument does hold sway with me, and I can understand why some want to avoid stripping that special assignment from the deserving. I don't think it helps though to assign it where it isn't deserving. To say that the value of my life and your life is infinite is true, but to then to say that also of the zygote doesn't just benignly elevate the zygote to special status, but it demeans my status. It suggests that the loss of the zygote is truly is as monumental as the loss of a child.
As in really? You read of a child drowning and that evokes the same thoughts as a zygote being disposed of at the fertility clinic?
And this is where I think the pro-choice get rightly offended, even if it's doubtfully based in anything I've said about the sacred and holy. It's not in the idea that zygotes are afforded great value. It's in the idea that living breathing people are reduced to the value of a zygote and the rights of each must be weighed as if my life is of no more woth than a zygote.
And I say all this because I am about as religious a poster as posts here, but I find this pro-life position hard to swallow. It just seems the result of some dogma that demands zygote = person without much thought into what that means and it obviously comes from a religious tradition foreign to my own that violates my views of the who we all are.
Quoting Hanover
Yes, that is probably the answer to my quesion to
Quoting Hanover
Yes. Perhaps my reaction to this is a banality - to identify as religious can signify different things to different people; it’s a very adaptable term. And seems to encapsulate some of our worst and best impulses. The 'religious' may have very little in common.
Quoting Hanover
Fair enough. I think in the end this 'mystical' perspective will always come down to the presuppositions we hold. Elaborate post hoc justifications are often built upon them. I'm not sure I know what sanctifying life means, except as a kind of poetry.
A lot of people I have encountered who pontificate about the 'sacredness of human life' are simple hypocrites. They're quite comfortable with capital punishment and don't seem to mind if the poor die in vast numbers through lack of affordable services.
That is precisely why I think the trolley problem I suggested works well; because it isn't intractable. It's self-evident what one should do. Even NOS4A2 and Bob Ross accept that we ought actively bring about a situation that kills multiple zygotes so as to save one baby, showing that even those who claim that zygotes are humans who deserve to live accept that their lives do not carry the same moral weight as born humans, and that there are situations in which allowing the zygotes to live is morally worse than causing them to die, proving that their "right to life" is not absolute. That presents the opportunity to explain that the life of a zygote has less moral weight than the woman's bodily autonomy.
I don't see where this conclusion comes from. I agree the trolly problem can show that there are certain circumstances that justify the killing of an innocent person, but I don't see how that changes the weight a pro-lifer would afford an embryo.
I would assume that if the question is whether one should kill one person to save five, that question would be answered by the pro-lifer the same whether "person" is defined as an infant of an embryo.
The trolly argument (as typically presented) doesn't ask you evaluate the lives that would be killed versus those saved before you decide how to steer the trolly. Questions like "who do I throw off the sinking ship to save it, the nun or the thief?" are typically answered by the Kantian that you cannot morally decide to throw anyone off and both the nun and the thief have to die.
In any event, I don't see how we can make the trolly problem fully applicable to the abortion issue because the only true instance where a choice of life has to be made is when there's a question about saving the mother, which even the most pro-life folks usually defer to saving the mother. That is, most would argue the trolly should be steered to save mom and to run over the embryo. The bigger question is why some sick fuck would put an embryo and a mom on the railroad tracks in the first place
This is the comment in question. Even two pro-lifers accept that we ought kill the zygotes to save the baby (notice in particular that we kill five to save one).
To make this more applicable to abortion, let's assume that continuing the pregnancy will damage the mother's spine, leading to permanent paralysis. Ought we terminate the pregnancy (if that's what the mother wishes)? I say yes. Not only is a zygote's life worth less than the life of a baby, it's worth less than the mother's ability to walk.
So we accept that not only is a zygote's "right to life" not absolute but also that their lives are worth less than other things (even things other than something's life). We might disagree with how little/much a zygote's life is worth, but at the very least we must accept that "we ought not terminate a pregnancy because the zygote has an absolute/overriding right to life" is false.
Pro-choicers then claim that the zygote's life is worth less than the mother's bodily autonomy. Pro-lifers might disagree, but given the reasoning above at least one of their arguments against abortion has been refuted. It's not enough to say that the zygote is human and has a "right to life"; it must be argued that this "right to life" has moral precedence over other concerns.
I mean it in its standard sense: science of purpose [behind things as opposed to the physical cause of things].
No, I mean that a zygote will naturally develop into a being with a rational will all else being equal; no different than how a zygote will naturally develop into having two hands, a body, a brain, etc. per se (whereas, per accidens, it may not fulfill the Telos of which it has for various reasons [e.g., improper gestation, etc.]). When you say it is “highly likely”, you are not noting what it was designed to become but, rather, the probability of, in reality, under the nuanced circumstances, of its environment allowing it to develop into what it was supposed to become.
This is an example, if I am understanding it correctly, of a trolley problem which would be analogous to @RogueAI’s example; and it would equally be immoral to do so.
#3 is fundamentally different than #2 and #1 because it is the only example Michael has (in their thought experiment) where the zygotes are a means towards saving the baby. I am suspecting neither of you understand this, and this is the root of your confusion.
I would say this would be immoral; because you are not noting the probability of weighing who might likely save but, rather, the probability of doing something immoral vs. permissible. This would be a sadistic game that I would encourage anyone to avoid playing.
If we were talking about probabilities of producing bad side effects then that would be a different story.
That’s because you don’t believe they have rights; and I do. If you thought they had the right to life, then you wouldn’t make this kind of claim.
All your argument has been thus far, is that zygotes don't have rights. I want to know why you believe that.
Moreover, no, you cannot give zygotes a degree of rights cogently: that converts it into privileges.
So, why do you believe a zygote does not have rights, such as the right to life? Where or when does a human being get those rights?
You just keep asserting it, without giving any ethical reasons for believing it. Why believe that a zygote does not have a right to life? Answer that.
What???
If you are going to claim, like @Banno, that a zygote does not have a right to life or (if I am being overly-charitable) that there are different degrees to a given right, then you must be able to back that up with good reasons and, overall, a cogent and internally coherent ethical theory. Neither of you have demonstrated that at all: Banno just keeps blanketly asserting "it's obvious!".
There is no purpose.
Quoting Bob Ross
There is no design.
Quoting Bob Ross
I fail to see why this is morally relevant. In every case you are performing some action which kills the zygotes and saves the baby. That is all that matters.
Quoting Bob Ross
Saving the baby is all that matters. It is morally impermissible to allow the baby to die because you are unsure whether or not the death of the zygotes is a means rather than an unfortunate consequence.
Quoting Bob Ross
I'm not claiming that they don't have a right to life. I'm claiming that even if they have a right to life this right to life is not absolute. We see this in the case where we are willing to sacrifice (as an unfortunate consequence) five zygotes to save one baby. Some things are worth more than the life of a zygote (e.g. the life of a baby, or the life of the mother). We just disagree on which things are worth more than the life of a zygote. I think that the mother being able to walk is worth more, and so abortion is permissible if continued pregnancy would lead to the mother's paralysis. And I think that the mother's bodily autonomy is worth more, and so abortion is permissible if the mother does not wish to carry a child to term.
They either deserve to live or deserve to die. The one who seeks to eviscerate the child must face this question, or he has no sense of justice. Everything else is an exercise in excuse-making, in my opinion.
There is only a grammatical distinction between who and what one is. There is no actual distinction.
Just to be clear, my assertion was that it is wrong (and stupid) to judge the moral worth of a human being based on their physical characteristics. However, it is right to judge the moral worth of human beings based on their actions and behavior.
Yes, “moral worth”, like innocence, is not a property of any given object. It is more like a status we afford or ascribe to other things when we consider them morally, at least insofar as I understand the phrase.
The problematic scenario is the one we now find ourselves in. Some pregnant mothers do not see moral worth in their child, do not consider them worthy of moral judgement, and end up seeking its killing. Some have to kill them or die. Some have to kill them or raise the child of their abuser. Some have to kill them or sacrifice their livelihoods. These are very difficult decisions to make and the stakes are very high, but in black-or-white terms, the killing is always selfish act while the birthing is a selfless one.
I'd also hold that the sanctity of human life encompasses the right to live to the ability to one's creation, so much so that I would be violating your human rights if I held you against your will in my basement, yet I don't think it hypocritical to incarcerate the guilty. What this means is we draw a distinction between justifiiable imprisonment and unjustifiable imprisonment.
We can do the same for killing. Examples would be war, self-defense, and punishment. I get that you disagree that capital punishment should go in that list perhaps for a variety of other reasons, but someone who is opposed to murder can consistently and non-hypocritically be in favor or capital punishment just as someone can object to an unjustifiable X but support a justifiable X.
The death due to lack of services I know occurs worldwide, but much less so in the West. I'm not suggesting all is well and that there isn't room for improvement, but I don't see where people don't mind unavoidable death occuring all around them or where that mindset is more pronounced among the religious. Are you saying the religious shrug their shoulders to worldwide hunger and withhold support where their non-religious counterparts are trying to assist?
In writing about personhood you contrasted us with other species, saying that we possess a "rational Telos" that other species lack, and this rational telos is what grounds human zygotic right to life. Are you suggesting that rational telos is somehow virtuous, or maybe suggesting that human zygotes should have the right to life simply because they’re like you (instinctually valuing what is like you)?
Then what is there to argue? Pro-lifers ascribe moral worth to zygotes and pro-choicers don't. There is no objective fact-of-the-matter that determines one group to be correct and the other incorrect.
Quoting NOS4A2
But not wrong (and stupid) to judge the moral worth of an organism based on the physical characteristics that determine its species?
Quoting NOS4A2
False dichotomy.
If someone accepts that a zygote is a second class person, then I do think they'll have a problem not prioritizing the mother's life. A real pro-lifer could not accept that and would have to bite the bullet and do as Alabama did and say that zygotes in test tubes are people and their disposal is murder. If you're getting concessions from pro-lifers that zygotes are red headed stepchildren, then they aren't true believers.
Would you kill 3 barely conscious, immobile, unresponsive people who will never recover in any way in order to save a single child who is in all ways healthy? That is, do you believe that all people are of the same moral worth in terms of preserving their lives or do you value some more than others? That is, you have a trolly with 3 wonderful people barreling towards a cliff in which all will surely die, but if you veer right, you'll save them, but you'll kill a dozen prisoners, all in for violent felonies.
What about killing 1 person to save 50,000 dogs? Would you do that? And they're super cute dogs. They have floppy ears and their entire body wags when they see you. Fucking cute as shit. Are you going to kill those just for one snotty nosed kid?
This second trolly question is important because it might be that pro-choicers can be accused of picking which people they want in society, offering no inherent value to human life. It's just a human choice based upon human priorities at the time.
I tend to agree with Banno on this one. If you require argumentation to establish that a bunch of cells trumps the personal autonomy and rights of a woman, there's a problem.
Quoting Hanover
No, I was arguing that some of those who hold a faith in Gods (and the free market) seem to be against universal healthcare. In Australia, for instance, healthcare if mostly free if you are poor or homeless. People are less likely to die unnecessarily from preventable conditions. Many opponents of universal healthcare I've encountered are also opponents of abortion. It's not like they give that much of a fuck about life. Just this particular issue. It's also a curious read of the Gospels (for those who are Christians). Jesus would be a supporter of universal healthcare.
Quoting Hanover
I was talking specifically about capital punishment and abortion. These other examples are a distraction even if they are also examples of contradictions - there's a reason some religions spawn conscientious objectors. I am not making an argument against capital punishment, I am simply identifying a contradiction. It should be noted that there are some religious folk (famously Sister Helen Prejean) who do campaign against capital punishment who are also against abortion on the basis that only God can take lives.
You are, then, begging the question; and using "obviousness" as a cop-out to actually put in the intellectual work to have a coherent position. Anyone can make an argument that X is true because if X is false then something must be wrong: that's just lazy, circular logic.
If you cannot provide any reasons for why the zygote does not have a right to life (in your view); then you are just wasting everyone's time, because you don't have a view.
This is an aside, but I disagree. It's no more or less logical to choose backward looking reasons (causes) for why things exist as they do than it is to choose forward looking reasons (purposes) for why things exist as they are. In either instance the first cause or the final purpose is unknowable, and both provide explanatory power. The resistence to looking for purpose is that it demands an altered world view where you accept that purpose exists instead of the typical view that accepts that just causes exist, but the acceptance of causation or the acceptance of purpose are both acts of faith.
It grounds the right to life for all members of any rational species: it is the fundamental principle that grounds rights for persons—of any kind.
This doesn’t make any sense to me: virtue is excellence relative to something, whereas Telos refers to the purpose(s) behind something. The Telos is what grounds what is virtuous; whereas your question presumes that virtue is absolute and wonders if a specific Telos is virtuous or not. For an aristotelian, this makes no sense at all. Virtue is determined by whether or not a thing is excellent at being something (e.g., itself, a farmer, a spoon, a clock, etc.) and usually in terms of what it is itself (e.g., the virtue of a clock, the virtue of a human, etc.).
The virtue of a person is simply certain states of being, behavioral habits, and intellectual dispositions which make a person excellent at being a person.
What do you mean by “like you”? If you mean that they look like me, then that is obviously false (unless you think a zygote looks like an adult). If you mean that they have a nature such that they are marked out as a person, because their Telos dictates that they will develop rational capacities; then yes; but this does not only apply, in principle, to humans: any rational species would suffice, or even, honestly, a member of an irrational species that happens to be rational (by freak accident) or a being which is rational (in the proper sense) which is not a member of a species (e.g., certain AI).
CC:@RogueAI
Then, e.g., you cannot say that a baby should have been born with two arms but was born with one instead.
So you think a tactical bomber that kills an innocent bystander when blowing up a military building is intending the same thing in terms of killing in every morally relevant sense than a terror bomber who also kills in innocent person?
So you think that pulling the lever to save the five by killing the one is the same kind of intention [of killing] as killing an innocent person to harvest their organs to save five sick patients?
Your view is too naive. Intentions matter.
A right is a entitlement which one can exercise about themselves on other people which is irrevocable. What you just described is a privilege—not a right.
Whatever “right to life” entails or means, it must be absolute if it is a right. E.g., if you have a right to practice any religion (peacefully) that you want, then there is absolutely no circumstances where the nation in which you live can stop you from practicing your religion (peacefully). What you are arguing, is the nonsensical and internally incoherent position that, e.g., the right to freedom of religion isn’t always applicable; which would, in all honesty, convert the “right” to a “privilege”.
You don’t understand what a right is. Rights are not circumstantial. You cannot go and kidnap an old person who is about to die and harvest their organs to save a young sick patient: the cops would stop you, because that old person has a right not to be killed when innocent. You can’t say “well, in this circumstance, although I think they have that right, we can kill them because I value this young patient more than a really old person who is about to die anyways”. THAT’S NEVER HOW RIGHTS HAVE EVER WORKED.
Pretty much. That's right.
When your moral theory arrives at an immoral position, then your moral theory is wrong. Giving a zygote standing over Mrs Smith is immoral, and hence so is any moral theory that reaches that conclusion. Your moral theory reaches that conclusion. Hence it is wrong.
That argument does not require the backing of an ethical theory. It is meta-ethical in that it tells us how to evaluate ethical theories. And yours comes out wanting.
Quoting Bob Ross I haven't denied that zygotes have rights, but instead have maintained neutrality on that odd issue. My position is that whatever rights the zygot might have are far outweighed by those of Mrs Smith.
That little parenthetical withdrawal made me smile. You rights are ABSOLUTE, except for...
Would you say that ‘DNA’ could replace “Telos” in this sentence?
If @Bob Ross would have the argument framed in terms of rights, then we can evaluate it is terms of rights. The rights of Mrs Smith outweigh the rights of a mere cyst. If it seems that they do not, then the way rights have been allocated is in error.
Talk of telos marks the theistic underpinnings of certain ethical views. Saying babies should be born with two arms marks ableism, failing to acknowledge the variety of human life. Presumably a person with one arm is to be pitied, but their impurity must debar them form the Temple. Talk of "should" marks the move from how things are to how you want them to be, or to how you think your invisible friend want them to be.
:100:
@RogueAI
You are begging the question: whether or not my theory arrives at an “immoral position” is exactly the essence of the abortion debate, which you are supposed to be engaging with me on.
By positing that any moral theory which arrives an immoral position is wrong, you are not wrong (in that claim); but the problem is that you must provide an alternative moral theory in order to demonstrate that an immoral position actually was reached (unless you want to appeal to moral intuitions).
That is exactly the issue: you aren’t engaging with any of the ethical considerations of this dilemma. You are just keeping it vague and appealing to a moral intuition that you have (at best) that we should allow women to violate a zygote’s rights.
:smile: We can split hairs on what exactly the right to practice religion entails, but my point is that if it is a right than whatever it entails is absolute—surely you can agree with that?!? Otherwise, we are talking about privileges...I think we can find common ground here.
They are given by us to best uphold the respect we deserve; and, in this sense, are innate. If there were no societies, one would still have basic human rights.
This is internally incoherent; for a right is absolute, and saying someone has the right to X but only by a degree such that someone else’s right to X can trump it is to say, in a convoluted fashion, at best, that the former only has a privilege to X. If they have a right to X, then that cannot be taken away even for someone else’ right to X.
E.g., if I have a right not to be murdered, then I cannot rightfully be murdered even if someone else could be saved from being murdered, who also has a right not to be, by sacrificing me. To say I have a degree of a right to not be murdered, is to really say I have a privilege to not be murdered (in some scenarios).
I think that evolution and biology are the groundings for Teleology: I don't think that there needs to be an agent that designed it for there to be design.
Or for there to be a soul. Aristotle believed a fetus in early gestation has the soul of a vegetable, then of an animal, and only later became "animated" with a human soul by "ensoulment". For him, ensoulment occurred 40 days after conception for male fetuses and 90 days after conception for female.
We are arguing whether it is right or wrong to kill a human being at this stage in his life. It’s an important question.
I don’t understand where this is going. Do you mean something like believing black cats to bring misfortune?
True, I meant they deserve to live or do not deserve to live. So which is it?
You're not making any sense. You claim that moral worth (and rights) are not properties of objects but "a status we afford or ascribe to them" but then suggest that whether or not it is wrong to kill a human is independent of whether or not we afford or ascribe moral worth (and rights) to them.
Do "so-and-so has a right to live" and "it is wrong to kill so-and-so" mean different things to you?
Quoting NOS4A2
Both humans and flies are living organisms. You seem to be claiming that it is wrong to kill (innocent) humans but not wrong to kill (innocent) flies. You are judging the morality of killing a living organism based on its physical characteristics (specifically in this case the physical characteristics that determine its species).
So why is it wrong to judge that it is wrong to kill some humans (e.g. babies) but not others (e.g. zygotes) based on their physical characteristics but not wrong to judge that it is wrong to kill some living organisms (e.g. humans) but not others (e.g. flies) based on their physical characteristics?
Quoting NOS4A2
Zygotes don't deserve anything, and so neither deserve to live nor deserve to die.
For purposes of a conversation about when a woman can terminate her own pregnancy, most of us, for some ambiguous reason, agree, that the moment of birth demonstrates a sufficiently formed thing we can justifiably call a human being. Maybe it actually starts sometime before birth, or maybe even a few months after birth, but despite those possibilities, most of us stipulate that the moment of birth is at least the moment a new human being can clearly be individuated and identified as such.
For some other ambiguous reason, we all also agree that all human beings share a similar (maybe not identical) right to life, that human life is valued and to be granted as a right to all who have such life. Murder is wrong, because human life is of value, etc.
All sides of the conversation basically agree with these above statements. We all know we won't go killing any babies once they are born without owning up to killing a baby person, and we all would admit killing baby persons is a big no-no because such things are human beings with the right to life.
But when we now ask of ourselves, "can we abort the human fetus sometime after pregnancy but before birth?" intractable disagreement erupts, confusion runs rampant, and logic plays second-fiddle to emotion and posturing.
Can we abort the human fetus sometime after pregnancy but before birth? It depends on two things: whether all humans deserve the same right to life (are there some humans who can justifiably be killed?); and it depends on whether a newly conceived zygote is a human being, or such a zygote is not a person until much later.
The easier question is: is a newly conceived zygote a human being? Or when does a human life come to exist as a human life? (It's an impossible metaphysical pickle, but a straight forward question.)
It occurs to me, if no one ever wanted to abort a fetus, why would anyone question what we were when we were two-days conceived? We would simply see our two-day-old stage of being whatever we are. This is the basic biology of it. All life works that way. Procreation of a species starts at the moment of conception, and ends with two adults having sex, to start it all over again, and again... these are what each human being most fully is. We are living, changing beings now, in the most basic sense, just as we were living, changing beings the day of our conception. All just different stages and functionings along the same simple way of life.
If someone asked me, "What is the oldest moment when anything about you, anything at all relating to just you, first came to be? When did anything about you make it's first appearance?" I would not answer when I was born. I would have to point to when my unique DNA started doing it's human DNA thing. Just like each one of us. We did not exist, and then we existed, and the oldest piece of what is happening in me right now that I can physically prove and demonstrate in the world today, is connected to the information contained in the DNA present at my conception.
Any moment to claim a new human being first comes to be after conception (such as birth) is arbitrary, unless you want to pick the moment of self-consciousness or some higher function (in which case you are way after birth). Science has to go on the demonstrable and testable - which is, for a human body, the moment of conception. Conception is one demonstrable limitation in the life cycle of a human being - it is the limitation I call, it's starting point. I see no better moment or time period during which a new human being first comes to be.
So maybe the only reason to do the mental acrobatics needed to define the moment a new person comes-to-be as happening sometime after the moment of conception, is to see if we can more easily justify abortion?
If a human being comes to be sometime after conception and before birth, then during the time the zygote is a not a human, we can abort it with as much or little consideration as removing an unwanted mole or kidney. We don't have to address the harder, moral question surrounding when can we kill human beings anyway.
But let's assume that two-day-old human zygotes are little baby people. What demands that the woman refrain from booting the new house guest from the premises? Seems to me nothing does, but a convention regarding the value of human beings. Because we can easily use reason to say "Adult women are more valuable than unformed zygote humans, and as human zygotes only exist within the pregnant woman's body, she should get to decide what to do about the zygote.
This argument is both ridiculous (as it undermines the function of any moral law) and impossible to refute (as no one agrees on an objective morality beyond the vague, ambiguous, "killing people is bad").
So can a woman abort her tiny one-celled human being?
So my approach is, the intellectually honest position is to admit you first existed at the moment you were conceived in your mother's woman, as all humans beings trace their presence back to this moment and nothing before then. And then admit we adults all have a choice when it comes to morality - do we want a universal morality or not? If we don't, we can let people decide for themselves which human zygotes get to go on living (squatters that they are), and which do not. If we do want to say "All humans have an equal right to life" then we have to say "I will not kill human zygotes." (We can deal with exceptions to the rules later, as when the life of the mother and zygote compete with each other, or other reasons.)
And my approach to this is, there is no morality without an objective morality. If we live in a world where each of us gets to decide whether to kill this or that person, we may as well say we live in a world where there are no rules. People are idiots, including you and me. Maybe we shouldn't value ourselves at all, in which case abortion makes total sense. But if we, for some ambiguous reason, want to say human beings are wonderful flowers on the face of this universe, highly valued and not to be killed, then we are stuck with the beauty of two-day-old baby Ziggy too.
Yes, folks focus (overly focus, in my opinion) on the life vs death of the fetus when addressing the topic of abortion, whereas the crux of the issue lies elsewhere, namely whose autonomy should supercede the other's.
Yeah, I don't buy that (sorry Aristotle).
Though your objection to abortion is based in Aristotelianism?
Technically, neo-aristotelian. The part I was discussing was Aristotelian in nature; but you pointed out some other point that Aristotle made, assuming you are right, about souls. I am not sure he actually believed that, and don't want to re-comb through all his literature to find out.
Two zygotes can fuse into one, creating a chimera. One zygote can split into two, creating twins. The origin and persistence of a personal identity doesn't work in the neat and tidy way that you might want it to.
Quoting Fire Ologist
We are dealing with exceptions. If continued pregnancy will kill the mother then abortion is acceptable. If continued pregnancy will paralyse the mother then abortion is acceptable. If continued pregnancy is not what the mother wants then abortion is acceptable.
As soon as you accept that the zygote's right to live is not absolute – that sometimes abortion is acceptable – the claim "abortion is unacceptable because the zygote has a right to live" is accepted to be a non sequitur. There is always an explicit "unless there are good reasons to abort".
We just disagree on what constitutes good reasons. You might agree that if the mother is at risk of death or paralysis then the reasons to abort are good, but not agree that if the mother doesn't want to continue the pregnancy then the reason to abort is also good.
I appreciate your elaboration on your thoughts, and I cannot possibly dissect all of it in one response; so I will address some key points that you may find worth digesting.
1. Persons are not, traditionally, identical to human beings. You used them interchangeably throughout the conversation, and most people are going to deny that rights are grounded in the organism—they usually believe it is grounded in personhood. The question becomes: “(1) when does a human being become a person, and (2) what is personhood?”. Conventionally (right now), personhood is mindhood: it is to be a person. The more I think about it, the more I want to use ‘personhood’ in the pre-modern sense: to have a nature that sets own out as developing into having a mind with a proper, rational will.
2. For those who are pro-choice, if I were to iron man there position, they have no problem with providing the asymmetry between infanticide and abortion: the latter is the killing of a person, the former (in all permissible cases) is not. The reason I think you, specifically, think this is a problem, is because you are equivocating ‘human beingness’ with ‘personhoodness’.
3. When life begins, does nothing to comment on when a life has rights. You are right that, scientifically, it is uncontroversially true that your life began with conception; but this doesn’t directly address if you have any rights upon beginning to exist. You need some further argument for that.
4. “killing people is bad”, as you put it, is not really a good representation of pro-life positions (if we iron man it): a pro-life person (usually) thinks that human beings acquire their rights immediately upon beginning to live and the ends do not justify the means, so it is straightforwardly immoral to abort.
5. Whether or not “we want” a “universal morality” is irrelevant to ethics: either you really should or should not do such-and-such, or there isn’t.
Just food for thought for you too chow down on and digest.
No, we've shown with examples that the life of a zygote pales in comparison to the life of a person. For example, if an orphanage and fertility clinic with x amount of zygotes (where x is whatever huge number you want) are on fire, you save the orphanage. In a trolley car situation, you run over x zygotes to save a child (again, where x is any huge number you want).
Yes, one is the reason to conclude the other. If you believe the first the other ought to follow. Does that make sense?
I don’t kill flies because of their physical characteristics but because of what they do. I kill other organisms because I need to eat them, not because they have hooves or fins. But this conversation is about killing members of your own species.
Many parents would disagree with you. So what is your reasoning?
How about all of them? Then again there would be no orphanage, nor any human for that matter.
So your view follows Neo-Aristoelianism in believing that abortion is wrong because it interrupts the natural potential of the fetus to become a virtuous, rational human being, which contravenes its telos and human flourishing.
I feel that it's wrong also, though I'm not anti-abortion. Are you anti-abortion or would you support making it legal up to, say, thirteen weeks (when over 90% are performed)?
You have said that rights are not properties of objects; that all that can be said is that we either do or don't grant rights to something.
If whether or not it is wrong to kill something depends on whether or not it has a right to live, and if whether or not something has a right to live depends on whether or not we grant it the right to live, then whether or not it is wrong to kill something depends on whether or not we grant it the right to live.
So arguing over whether or not it is wrong to kill zygotes is arguing over whether or not we grant zygotes the right to live. You grant zygotes the right to live and I don't. So where do we go from there? By your own logic it is not the case that one of us is correct and the other incorrect.
Quoting NOS4A2
We're not talking about whether or not we do kill things; we're talking about whether or not it is wrong to kills things.
Why is it wrong to kill (innocent) humans but not wrong to kill (innocent) non-humans? They only differ in their physical characteristics, and according to you it is wrong to judge an organism based on its physical characteristics.
Quoting NOS4A2
That single-celled organisms don't deserve anything, regardless of physical characteristics (e.g. genetics).
All you have offered is examples which presuppose your own ethical position without offering moral reasons for accepting your position. E.g.,:
I say "yellow is the best color".
You say "why is that?".
I say "because if you have to choose between yellow and any other color you are going with yellow".
You say "how does that answer the question?".
You are analogously begging the question: I want to know why you think we can morally evaluate the zygotes as not having basic human rights which would bar you from making the conclusions you keep making in your examples. All you keep doing is presupposing your own position in your examples, just like I could presuppose yellow is obviously the best color and my example is that I would pick yellow over any other color...that just presupposes my position that yellow is the best color, and that's why I would pick it. When you say "we would pour the zygotes on the burning building", you are literally presupposing what you are supposed to be proving: the zygotes don't have a right to life.
Do you see what I mean?
Sort of: not sure exactly what you are saying here. It is neo-aristotelian because I view personhood and rights as ground fundamentally in rational Telos—viz., in the Telos of a being such that they are marked out as supposed to be developing into a being with a rational will.
Yes, it also disrupts the human virtue that a being could have; but that’s not why. Killing a person in self-defense disrupts their ability to achieve human virtue…
Ethics doesn’t care what you feel: it cares about what moral reasons you have.
No. Abortion is always immoral, unless you are including “abortions” in the sense of side effects, as opposed to means, of upholding the woman’s right to bodily autonomy and life (e.g., hysterectomy on a pregnant cancer patient).
Again. How are theories of morality to be judged unless on the basis of the actions they justify? Unless you are claiming that the only criteria for a good moral theory is internal consistency, then there must be moral truths against which we can compare theories. And one of those moral truths is that Mrs Smith should turn out to have greater value than a cysts.
This is similar to an argument made for supporting slavery in America. It's not about humanity, it's about whose autonomy ought to prevail. Bad precedent to set.
True. But how do these possible turns of events detract from what I'm saying occurs at the moment of conception, a conception that occurs prior to any of these other moments anyway?
The mechanics of conception may be broad and are a moving process themselves, true. But the result is the object (or possibly objects in your case) we still have to call a new human zygote. I am saying a new human zygote is the best place to start defining a new human being. Are you saying you agree that a human being started being human at conception and that some of these human beings live for a short time becoming a "chimera" or twins (starting newer human beings in a different way than typical conception)?
The question of what is a human being and when does it come into being is only one question in this discussion, but it is a key question necessary to define what an abortion itself is (removal of a human fetus before birth). Is abortion the killing of a human being or not?
Quoting Michael
You've moved on to address when an abortion is acceptable. I'm just trying to say what an abortion is.
You talk about exceptions. I have to presume you mean exceptions to some rule. Presumably exceptions to a rule like: killing human beings, such as you and me and new born babies, is to be avoided. For example, a rule like: With exceptions in cases of the life and health of the mother, abortion is to be avoided, because abortion is the killing of human beings and killing human beings is to be avoided.
So if you want to have a conversation about exceptions, I have to assume you think that abortion involves the killing of a human being. Otherwise, if the zygote/fetus isn't a human being, killing it does not implicate this rule or its exceptions.
Quoting Michael
How is that last one an exception? What is your rule, that, without the exception, it would otherwise be wrong for a mother to terminate her pregnancy because she didn't want to be pregnant and/or have a baby? What makes "pregnancy is not what the mother wants" an exception to what rule?
Quoting Michael
I really hadn't commented on my reasons why abortion might be acceptable or not. I never said I agreed that killing any human was a bad thing or not, nor whether killing is sometimes good and best. I merely said an abortion is the killing of a human being.
I agree abortion is acceptable at times. Do you agree abortion is killing a human being?
Feelings have a nasty habit of influencing our moral reasoning.
Quoting Bob Ross
Neo-Aristoelianism doesn’t appear to take a firm position on the issue, not being based on moral universalism or divine command. It seems within the sphere of virtue ethics that arguments could be made for legal abortion supporting human flourishing better than making it illegal. It's not like there are no negative consequences of making abortion illegal.
By the way, what is the reasoning for placing high moral value on "rational will."
I appreciate that. I am conflating distinguishable concepts of human being and personhood. But I am trying to treat this more plainly. I see the distinction between a human being and it's personhood as a distraction. I am focused on one key moment (or time frame) in the existence of the full human person - when did it first come to exist? Birth? conception? Age of reason? In the mind of God before all time? Never? When.
Further, this is a speculation about the nature of the human subject for sake of addressing the following already established, immovable objects: a newborn baby is a human being and it is one that has a right to life. We can ponder whether a this newborn has a mind, can experience, displays "personhood" etc., but it doesn't matter what we find - we already cannot kill a newborn baby. So the sole focus is, "is there a time before birth, possibly at conception or sometime after, when this newborn being that we now cannot kill and recognize as having rights, should still be treated as a person so as to cause us to protect its body from abortion?" If we stick to physical, demonstrable, observations to base our definitions and conclusions, the moment of conception seems plain. If we stray into the nature of mind, and personhood as if these are distinct from the body, then we will either show that even newborns are not persons, or I'd love to hear a good definition of a human being that clearly demonstrates that a newly conceived fetus is not simply the first moment any of us came to be.
Quoting Bob Ross
I think people are conflating two different issues as one. The moral vagaries surrounding killing persons, and the definition of persons. On the one hand, there is "what is a person/human being (the thing we protect after birth) and when does it begin?" Do we start being human beings the day we are born, which is the same day our right to life is recognized (depending on the state of course, but that's a third issue)? Or do we start being a human being sometime earlier than that or later than that? That is one issue. On the other hand there is the question of, "Because killing human beings or persons is wrong, when is abortion potentially wrong?" The answer may be always, or never, but it is a different issue.
Quoting Bob Ross
We are stipulating that all new born babies are human beings, with rights. If it is uncontested that a human life began at conception, and it is a human being such as a baby that has a right to life, I do not see any good arguments grounding a removal of those rights before the baby is born while retaining the fact that it is a human being. What happens in the womb that is so different from a new born that would allow this otherwise individual human life to be seen as not have the same rights as anyone? All the arguments I've seen contradict themselves.
Quoting Bob Ross
I'm anti-private-right-of-abortion-without-exception. I'm not pro-life. This conversation has so many permutations. I think people like delving into the minutia before even admitting the common ground they share.
Newborn is a human being.
Killing human beings is to be avoided.
A newly conceived zygote is a prior stage in the life of the newborn.
So a newly conceived zygote is a human being, the killing of which should be avoided.
Avoided, but for any subsequent exceptions somebody might argue for.
Moral theories are not analyzed based off of moral intuitions: moral intuitions are analyzed in terms of moral theories. Moral theories are evaluated based off of how well they evaluate what is actually good qua (right and wrong) behavior.
Because I must, in order to be a morally good agent, respect a thing relative to its nature; and in order to respect a fellow will, like mine, I must treat them as an end in themselves and never a mere means.
Why not? Moore, at least, says that they are. And saying that they are not is presenting a particualr moral theory. Argue your case!
Quoting Bob Ross
I quite agree! And pro-life views evaluate the behaviour around abortion in an appallingly bad way! They claim that a cyst has more worth than Mrs Smith!
Thanks for making my case!
I hate the term pro-life. Using it leads everyone to imprecision about everything. Just like “pro-choice.”
I’m “anti-private-right-to-abortion-without-exception.” Makes a great T-shirt.
There is no pro life position that a cyst is worth MORE than Mrs. Smith (even if what you mean by cyst is an ectopic pregnancy).
So do I. That's one of the reasons I use it. It's mere propaganda, and should leave folk feeling cold.
I don’t know what you mean by a means to an end. Does anyone deliberately get pregnant and have an abortion as a means to some end?
Anyway, sure, we value what is like ourselves. That makes sense.
Making abortion illegal dramatically infringes on the will of mother and others involved. Wouldn’t a good moral agent respect the will of a pregnant woman?
It is not the case that we all agree on what the word "human being" means and just disagree on whether or not zygotes satisfy the required criteria. Rather, we each use the word "human being" in different ways (albeit with a strong family resemblance), and for some of us the term also designates zygotes and for some of us it doesn't.
This is why most of the arguments made here are non sequiturs. Whether or not it is wrong to kill a zygote does not depend on how we use the word "human being". Either way, a woman's bodily autonomy has precedence over a zygote's life. Whether you call it a human or not, a zygote is still just a single-celled organism, and single-celled organisms regardless of their genetic composition are morally irrelevant.
It is a metaethical claim; and, I would like to point out, you still have not presented a normative ethical account of your position.
Metaethically, I think Moore is a load of nonsense; and perhaps that’s the root of our disagreement. You cannot base your normative ethical theory on moral intuition; because intuition is unreliable: you must also have reasonable evidence to back it up. The whole point of normative ethics is to decipher what is actually wrong and right behavior to then correct or validate moral intuitions that we have; what you are doing is backwards.
Why? Back this up. You never back anything you say up, and so, unfortunately, there is nothing for me to rejoin.
The intuition that I have that it is wrong to never sacrifice an ant to save a person is insufficient to disprove the theory—that’s what you are missing here. Rather, my understanding of what is actually good and bad, and how to best codify it into moral principles and what not, is sufficient to demonstrate that this theory fails.
You have not provided why it would be, e.g., wrong to never sacrifice an ant to save a person other than an intuition you have; which is not sufficient to disprove it. I want to know, and have been asking @Banno countlessly, why, under your theory, it is wrong to never sacrifice a zygote, in a manner where it is a means towards the end, to save a person (in the modern sense of ‘person’)? I still hear crickets.
You whole post here has no argument in it.
You just make statements.
I thought we were talking about abortion and why someone would be “pro-life”.
You mentioned “the word” human being. In the context of abortion, that’s a newborn baby. Every government and regulation says so.
So your philosophical mind isn’t the least bit curious about when a human being actually starts being a human being.
Quoting Michael
Let’s grant this point you made with no argument at all. Grant it. I’ll even grant that the woman has precedence over a toddler and she can throw them into the ocean to drown. Is a zygote a human being, like a newborn baby is?
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting Michael
Embryology shows that the zygote does not develop directly into a human being. The embryo undergoes many changes that reflect the organisms' evolutionary history. The human embryo initially resembles a fish embryo (It even has gills.), then an amphibian, a reptile and eventually a mammal. So while the embryo has the potential to become a human being, in this current state it isn't.
And to say that an embryo/zygote has the potential to develop into a human being, miscarriages shows that isn't necessarily the case. This is why I don't like bringing up terms like "potential" and "possibility" as if these things exist outside our minds. They don't in a deterministic universe. "Potentials" and "possibilities" are simply ideas that stem from our own ignorance of the deterministic path some process will take.
And then there are some extreme environmentalists who think we should be saving the flies in the Amazon rainforest, yet are fine with terminating the life of a zygote, embryo or fetus. In the grand-scheme of things humans are not more valuable, or special, than flies or cockroaches. To humans, yes, humans are special, but that is a subjective projection.
Some might argue that humans are destroying the planet, and that adding more humans to a planet with limited resources is immoral for those already alive, or that bringing an unwanted child, or a child with severe mental or physical handicaps, into the world is immoral.
Morality is subjective. It is up to each of us to do what is right for ourselves and to pick our battles carefully with others that are doing something different that either has an effect on how others live and the choices they can make or it doesn't.
This is why I get peeved when people on the right argue that the issue should have been taken out of the federal government's hands and place it with the states. The federal government never had it in their hands. Instead, Roe v. Wade implied that the decision was with the individual. In giving it to the states we now take it out of the hands of the individual and place it among a group - the people that live in a certain state to decide for the individual.
As a Libertarian, I believe in the right to life and the right to choose. Abortion is one of those issues that is difficult for a Libertarian to navigate. But as a deterministic moral relativist, I can only make decisions for myself, and what is best for myself, not for others that may be in entirely different circumstances.
Ok I found the closest thing to an argument in your post. But that’s dumb. If a zygote IS NOT a human being, it is certainly not wrong to kill it and the debate is over. No one cares about killing a skin cell or a cyst or a lung.
What is a new human being, is one of two essential questions at the heart of the discussion. Otherwise, the state would have little interest in a zygote, like they have little interest in a cyst, and there would be no need for the various governments to make laws regulating women’s pregnancies telling them when they can and can’t kill the fetuses.
Using the word “non sequitor” is a tactic without argumentation.
Glad to hear your opinion and interested to read your perspective.
If it isn’t an individual human, what is it? The distinct genetic material is there and we know that every human being went through this stage of development. Here is a biologically continuous process and entity that has begun here and ends only at death. So what other kind of entity could it be? Where in time and space does the human being pop into existence?
I’ve tried “a member of the species Homo sapiens” or “a biologically distinct human organism”.
If I understand your position at all, basically because a person has a “rational will” and an ant does not.
If abortion contravenes the telos of a zygote, making abortion illegal also contravenes the telos, rational will, or flourishing of the mother and others involved.
Some people might use the word "human" to mean any living organism with genetics like you and me, and so include zygotes. Some people might use the word "human" to mean any living organism with genetics like you and me and which are multi-cellular, and so exclude zygotes but include embryos. Some people might use the word "human" to mean any living organism with genetics like you and me and which are multi-cellular and which have grown a sufficiently developed body, and so exclude zygotes and embryos and early stage foetuses but include late stage foetuses.
The idea that one of these groups is correct in using the word "human" to mean what they mean and that the rest are incorrect is mistaken. You need to abandon this essentialist view of the world and language.
It is problematic because it is circular logic: you are saying that moral judgment X is wrong because moral judgment X seems wrong to you. This kind of thinking, lands you in wishy-washy territory where you can justify anything to yourself so long as you have a strong intuition about it. It's nonsense.
EDIT:
That's like me saying it is morally permissible to enslave people because it seems morally permissible, to me (or perhaps to many people), to enslave people. It has been the case where the common intuition was that enslaving people is not per se wrong, and your argument so far would then entail that they were right; because we can evaluate moral theories based off of strong intuitions we have in examples. It is nonsense.
You might as well ask when an embryo pops into existence. It doesn't. There's a single-celled organism which we label "zygote" that gradually develops into a simple multi-cellular organism which we label "embryo" that gradually develops into a more complex multi-cellular organism which we label "foetus" that gradually develops into an even more complex multi-cellular organism which we label "human" or "person".
Some might use the label "human" earlier in the development cycle than others, but that's a personal linguistic convention with no philosophical or moral relevance.
That is a fundamental problem with all moral claims.
I say that it is right to kill annoying children and you say that it is wrong to kill annoying children. Where do we go from there?
Is "it is right/wrong to kill annoying children" something that can be empirically verified or falsified? Is it something that can be deduced from necessarily true axioms?
A means is anything which, at least in part, facilitates the end; and the end is the intended reason for committing the act.
E.g., killing someone to harvest their organs to save five sick patients is an example of killing someone as a means; whereas killing someone by pulling the lever to divert the train to save five people is an example of killing as a bad side effect.
Every action has at least one end; because an action is a volition of will. The end may be as simple as “I don’t want to be pregnant”.
That’s not at all what I am arguing. Any person (in the pre-modern sense) has a right to life; and this can include, in principle other species or potentially AIs.
Respecting the will of a pregnant woman is per se good; but it cannot be done with a bad means. Ends do not justify means!
All moral theories fundamentally begin with "what is actually good?" and then derive principle therefrom. There's nothing intuitional about it (at least not in the Moorean sense).
You can't derive a proposition from a question.
Exactly right. So what should we call this shape-shifting being?
Correct; and I would say, to keep things less confusing, they are a person because their nature marks them out as one (even if they never fully realize their Telos—such as in a cognitively disabled person).
If I am understanding this part correctly, then yes prima facie. The right to life of the zygote is in direct conflict with the right to bodily autonomy of the mother; and my point is that the ends do not justify the means, so the mother cannot abort the child as a means towards the good end of upholding their bodily autonomy.
What?
Not if you are a lawmaker making policy on when a woman can and cannot decide what to do with her own pregnancy.
Ridiculous argument.
According to you, there could never be a controversy surrounding any abortion. It’s just word games and platonic form manipulation easily avoided by playing other word games.
But there is a controversy if you haven’t noticed. It’s about the essence of a physical object that is either aborted or carried to term at which point it is recognized in all governments as a human being. And it’s about the balancing of the rights between a pregnant human mother and a pre-born human being. If it’s not a pre-born human being, there is no controversy (or the controversy would be resolved), and if you establish or stipulate that it is a human being, then you get into the balancing act.
You are basically avoiding the whole discussion.
When it's a zygote call it a zygote. When it's an embryo call it an embryo. When it's a foetus call it a foetus. When it's a baby call it a baby.
The idea that there must be some label that names/describes it from the moment of conception to the moment of death, and that the existence of this label entails moral facts about, is mistaken.
When it’s born, the government calls it a human being. Are they right about that?
I haven't said that. These are two different questions:
1. Are zygotes human?
2. Is it wrong kill zygotes?
The two are not the same. It can be wrong to kill zygotes even if we don't label them "human" and it can be right to kill zygotes even if we do label them "human".
You claimed that we derive moral principles from the question "what is actually good?". We don't, because we can't derive propositions from questions.
No. Are human zygotes human beings?
Unless that is the question you haven’t entered the abortion debate.
And you sound like an essentialist every time you point to some distinct object. Like a zygote.
I've addressed it. The question makes no sense in context. The term "human being" isn't like the term "bachelor" with an explicit set of necessary and sufficient conditions; it's more like the word "game".
Either way, what does zygotes being or not being human have to do with whether or not it is wrong to kill zygotes?
A many-named thing. What do I label it if I want to know what kind of animal it is?
If you want to know what kind of animal it is then look at it and put it under a microscope. Its physical nature has nothing to do with the conventions of the English language.
But it would be nice to know what type of organism we are ontologically speaking, wouldn't it? Can we not have a word for that?
Are you serious?
A human being in the context of abortion is at least a body, clearly able to be defined and delimited. Body like a pregnant mom. Body like a fetus that can be distinguished from the mom, scraped out and thrown away.
A human being is the thing that pops into existence at birth. No need to delve deeper once it is born. It’s that thing. No more gaming is needed in the context of abortion. The lawmakers and doctors and mothers are done with the hand-wringing at that point. The little bundle of popping joy is the same human being as all of us adults.
Separately, most people agree it is usually bad to intentionally kill human beings. Throwing a newborn baby out a 5 story window would be bad, for instance. It is bad, so they say, because the newborn is a human being and, so they say, killing human beings is bad. (That’s a logical argument.)
So, some people wonder if maybe, aborting a 7 month pregnancy might be like throwing a baby out a window, for instance. Hence the debate.
You can if you want. That's your choice, and it certainly has no moral relevance. An organism just is the physical stuff that it's made of, and that physical stuff is what it is regardless of what, if anything, we call it.
It has plenty of moral relevance because that organism is the recipient of your behavior. In any case, it would be nice to have a single name for the being we're talking about.
It’s not just bodily autonomy that’s at stake. If I’m not mistaken, the ultimate goal of Neo-Aristotelianism is human flourishing. There doesn’t seem to be a good argument that making abortion illegal will somehow ameliorate human flourishing in general or for the individuals involved in particular cases. Generally speaking, people seek abortion because they’re not prepared to be caregivers. They reason that they, and a child, are not in a position to flourish.
Yes. "it is wrong to kill X if and only if X is a human" is not a tautology. For some X it might be wrong to kill it even if it isn't human and for some X it might be right to kill it even if it is human.
Quoting Fire Ologist
And this is where we need to distinguish been an intensional and an extensional reading.
It is not the case that it is wrong to kill me because I am human but that it is wrong to kill me and I am human. It is not the case that it is wrong to kill you because you are human but that it is wrong to kill you and you are human. It is not the case that it is wrong to kill humans because they are humans but that it is wrong to kill humans and they are humans.
It would be wrong to kill us even if we weren't human. It's wrong to kill us because we are sufficiently intelligent organisms capable of suffering and the like.
You are just playing epistemology games and post modern metaphysician.
So no one can know or say anything about the “real world”. That’s your answer. Probably resolves the discussion with anyone who disagrees with you (at least in your mind).
Impossible to argue with the “word game” resolution to the question of what a particular thing may actually be.
But the government isn’t playing word games. They are assisting some people with killing fetuses and punishing others for doing the same thing based on physical evidence like a dead fetus and calling it a “human being” and a “person” in order to apply laws against homicide.
So you might want to get in the game.
That's true of every organism regardless of whether we call it "zygote", "human", or "cow". Labels have no moral relevance.
That’s it? You are sufficiently intelligent?
This has nothing to do with laws regulating when and how you can and can’t conduct an abortion.
I’m not going to waste time figuring out “because you are human”. There is a law already - it is wrong to kill a human. That’s the law we are grappling with. Is a a 7-month fetus one of those same things that the law already applies to. Forget “because” word game issues. Be honest.
It’s not a word game to a pregnant mom. Help her think it through.
Yes. It would be wrong to kill sufficiently intelligent extra-terrestrial life, even though they are not human.
And the reason it would be wrong to kill them isn't because they're Kryptonian or Species X but because they are sufficiently intelligent and capable of suffering and the like.
So the moral pivot point for right killing and wrong killing for you is “intelligence”?
Is that your position?
When "intelligence" is taken to be a general term covering such things as a sufficient degree of self-awareness/consciousness, yes. That's why it's acceptable to kill plants, zygotes, the brain dead, and flies, but not babies.
It's trickier when considering more complex non-human life like cows and dogs, and I'm not averse to vegetarianism being the morally superior position, and that I'm in the wrong in eating meat.
Let's take such an account seriously.
How will you tell if you have your ethical theory right? After all, it will not do to go to all that effort and get the results wrong.
You will need something against which to compare the theory in order to evaluate it.
And whatever you compare it to will need to be independent of the theory, in order to avoid circularity.
The alternative would be either to compare the theory to itself, or to alternate theories. In the first case you would not be able to tell that the theory was right, but only that it was consistent. In the second, you would not be able to say which theory was correct, but only that they perhaps contradict each other.
This is the process used in the sciences, where theories are compared not just against each other but against how things are. How things are provides a way to assess the worth of a piece of science.
In ethics we compare the theory against how things ought be. That's how ethics differed form science.
A central part of ethics is that how things are never tells us how things ought to be. We have to decide that for ourselves.
So how should things be? Well, for one thing, a bunch of cells ought not be evaluated as of the same worth as Mrs Smith. Mrs Smith has qualities not had by the cyst that qualify her as of greater value. If a theory does not agree with this evaluation, it has gone astray.
Those who think otherwise have generally let extraneous factors influence their thinking. Most often they think that there is some mysterious spiritual entity enshrined in the cyst that gives it preeminent value. Usually this is because they think this is what their invisible friend says is the case. Sometimes it is becasue they cannot deal with ideas of gradation, needing a definitive point such as conception from which to apply their expositions.
But for the rest of us it is clear that they are muddled. A cyst is not of the same worth as Mrs Smith.
So back to your claim. Ethical theory cannot tell us how we want things to be. What it can do is inform us about the consistency and consequences of our behaviour.
We do not want Mrs Smith to be reduced to the same value as a mere cyst.
And those who disagree are in moral error, despite how sophisticated their moral theory.
And notice that those who think that abortion is wrong are in Moral error. They like to think they have the moral high ground, and that those who disagree are not taking a moral stance. But if you look at the comments in this thread, you will see that this is not the case. The reasoning of those who are in favour of abortion is often clear, well-considered and valid. Those against abortion do not have a monopoly on moral theory. Further, it is apparent that they are doing it wrong.
What seems noteworthy about the abortion issue is that many perfectly reasonable people think abortions are morally permissible, at least in the early stages of pregnancy. It could be that these people only think this because they have assumed that the developing entity does not have a mind - and so is not a person - until later in the pregnancy process. And/or it could be that most of those who have this view are not relevantly disinterested - they have a vested interest in it being morally ok to abort and this vested interest is corrupting their reason (as it can for any of us). I don't discount those possibilities. However, it could be that it just seems clear to the reason of many that it is morally permissible to abort a pregnancy in the early stages. I take that possibility very seriously too.
That, I think, is good evidence that this is what they are. If we have good evidence too that killing a person is seriously wrong, and would remain so if the person is inside one's body (especially if one is responsible for the person being inside of one), then we have good evidence that the developing entity is not a person in the early stages. For by hypothesis, if they were a person, it'd be seriously wrong to have an abortion.
My approach, then, is not to try and settle the issue of whether the developing entity is a person or not and then extract the moral implications of this; rather it is to take what our reason tells us about the morality of abortions and extract from this a conclusion about the status of the developing entity.
I can anticipate two lines of criticism. One would be epistemological: that what our reason tells us about the morality of actions is not a source of insight into their non-moral features. The other would be that everything i have just said about the moral permissibiity of early-stage abortions could be said equally well about their moral impermissibility. There are plenty of reasonable people who think abortions are wrong throughout. And although they too may be biased or may simply be making assumptions about the status of the developing entity and extracting the moral implications, they may be sincerely reporting the unbiased reports of their reason on the matter.
I think that's correct. But - and this is why i think this approach is different and is an approach, rather than a particular view - establishing whether this is the case is what the debate should be over. That is, the debate should not be over whether or not the developing entity is a person yet or not. Rather, it should be over whether those who think abortions are morally permissible are more likely than the other side to be reporting unbiased deliverances of their reason. If they are, then that's good evidence that early stage abortions are morally permissible (and if that is incompatible with them being the killing of a person, then it's good evidence that this is not what an early-stage abortion is).
Here's what I mean. Let's imagine you are convinced the developing entity is a person. And that - that - is why you believe abortions are wrong. Your reason is not telling you about abortions. You are telling your reason about abortions; you are representing them to be the killing of a person and then simply observing that your reason tells you that killing a person is wrong (and that the location of the person doesn't matter).
Well, that isn't really evidence that abortions are wrong; it's evidence that if abortions are what you believe them to be, they'd be wrong.
By contrast, if abortions seemed wrong 'without' you assuming that the developing entity is a person, then that'd be quite good evidence that they are wrong (and that the developing entity is a person....for why else would they be wrong?).
Likewise, if abortions seem morally permissible to those who have no firm views about whether the developing entity is a person or not, then that's quite good evidence they're morally permissible.
What we should really be asking - if this approach has merit - is not whether the developing entity is a person or not, but which side's moral intuitions are a product of making assumptions about the matter and which side's moral intuitions seem independent of such assumptions.
And science is the process where we inquire about what a human being is, what a pregnancy is, comparing newborns to adults to zygotes. Science, like metaphysics, physics and biology, theory of mind, psychology, but in the context of abortion, really mostly biology and medicine.
Quoting Banno
I agree that morality and ethics are a separate inquiry, where we take what science tells us, whatever we now agree is most rational/factual/state of affairs, develop our ethical/moral/legal norms, and apply them to the state of affairs. We say “this a pregnant woman and as a human being, she is entitled to many rights, and ought be treated as all human beings ought be treated.”
Quoting Banno
Mrs. Smith is a bunch of cells. Calling a human zygote a bunch of cells or a cyst doesn’t say anything.
Saying Mrs. Smith “has qualities not had by the [zygote cyst creature you call it]” is an assertion about what a human being is, but it’s not an argument.
Are you saying that only entities who demonstrate certain “qualities” that are of “greater value” shall be recognized as human beings? (That’s a scientific question.)
Or are you saying that a human zygote is a human being, and Mrs. Smith is a human being, but because Smith at the later stage has these high value qualities, and the zygote human doesn’t, we can kill the zygote anyway due to some moral law manipulation and exception creation surrounding the prohibition against killing human beings? (That’s the moral/legal question?)
The monotony of this for all of us is that some pretend the science to talk about ethics, and others pretend the ethics to talk about science. No one is attempting to simply get it right.
And we should do the science first. Who cares about abortions in the first month if we metaphysicians and biologists can say “a 4 week old human fetus can’t be a human being because all humans must have A, B, and C, and a zygote doesn’t have any of those.”??
The answer to when in the unfolding of time does a new human being come into being (such that we can no longer kill it morally) is an essential part of this debate, because only after there is any human being can there possibly be a life of any sort or value that could be be treated immorally.
So let me ask you the scientific question: Does a brand spanking new born baby have enough of the same high value qualities as Mrs. Smith, that it makes sense to protect them both as human beings, as persons (which the whole world already does)?? Why are new babies more special than “cysts” or the human zygote stage? What are the qualities of living bunches of cells that cross the threshold and have to be called “human beings” and when in the history of any of us adult humans does that threshold get crossed?
I’m hoping you to choose some behavior and functioning (some qualities is better) occurring after conception and before natural, adult death.
I’d be surprised if the human qualities you state, beyond having human DNA, will include both a newborn baby (which is more like a plant, or like a fetus without its needed uterus/ life support system) and Mrs. Smith? What human qualities cover the adult and the newborn but leave out the human zygote? Maybe some abortions do not involve killing human beings (at 3 weeks) while others do (at 8 months)? So what are the high value qualities of human being that cover both? Or should we be making it legal to kill unwanted baby children? I’m open to those discussions if the science takes us there.
Hi Clearbury, welcome.
I could easily be misunderstanding, but I think I have to disagree. I don’t think you can reason about morality without some concrete matter in hand to be moral about. And to have a concrete matter in hand, you must have already defined for yourself certain terms (such as “human being” and even “new human being”).
Morality is the morality of actions, and actions are in a physical, shared world that requires us to define objects and transact with those objects among other human beings. We need multiple human beings, individuals interacting, before we can make moral statements about, for example, killing them as good or bad, or stealing from them as good or bad, etc. I don’t see how you start by evaluating what our “reason tells us about the morality of abortion” without already defining the objects involved in an abortion. Just saying “abortion” shows we already started somewhere that is clearly specific and full of definitions and objects; “abortion” delineates as distinct: women, pregnancy, fetuses, removal before birth, and fetuses that would otherwise become a baby. If we don’t define these terms in some way (and I suggest the clearest and most precise manner we can muster), how would we know how to apply any moral analysis at any stage in a pregnancy? As an example, If the developing entity is not a person, no moral question even arises to evaluate. We don’t wonder about the morality of killing a kidney (at least not in the same way as the morality of aborting an 8-month old human fetus).
I do think we can stipulate the question “what is a person?” We can say for sake of argument, a fetus at 4 weeks is not a person but a fetus at 8 months is a person. We can then create our morality around all the permutations that might arise within those definitions. Or we can try to refine our definitions…and then refine our moral reasoning…
But we always need the definitions of the involved parties and objects and processes, or some general parameters for each, in order to develop the morality. Otherwise, to me, we may only be using bad facts to develop a bad morality.
I feel that P2 is incorrect because I deny the *idea* behind P1.
A baby does not have value within itself, it only has value within the context that it will eventually become valuable and there exists no distinct line by which to seperate those states. As a baby develops, it becomes valuable as it turns into a person with personality, desires, ideas, etc. However, a baby at birth is nothing but an animal, and its conciousness is no more complex than one.
Theres no moral difference between an internal and external baby, but theres a big pratical difference.
I dont believe there is any moral issue with taking the life of something that does not understand life. Others simply project their emotional state and values upon the baby, or act as if their future values should be considered in the now in some strange retrocausal argument about valuing "potentiality". However, the fundamental remains that a baby cannot understand their life, and so cannot value their life, and I care not for those who wish to impose their values upon others.
One can choose to say that they value consciousness outright, but then they'd have to become vegan and be supportive of animal rights aswell. Otherwise their position would be hypocritical. Such people should see abortion and animal farming as equally morally bad processes. Of which theres no argument but to simply disagree on that value and question why consciousness is to be valued.
So then what are we saying when we say, "human rights"? Is anyone free to decide when you are a human or not and deserving of "human rights"? Are we free to decide when you are a "Michael" or "Mary"?
These definitions are circular.
Mrs. Smith is a bunch of cells and a mind. Any minded organism trumps any mindless organism, like a zygote.
So the equation is bunch of cells plus a mind equals a human being? Is that the magic formula? No mind, no human being?
Yes, this is why parents can order life support removed from brain-dead children and have their organs harvested.
So, by your logic, you are saying a brain dead child is not a human being. Is that right?
I prefer person, rather than human being, which is vague. A brain-dead child is not a person anymore. It's a hunk of meat being kept alive by machines. Remember the Terry Schiavo case? Same thing. She wasn't a person. Her husband had the right to take her off life support.
And how about a dog or a chimp, do they have minds?
Most likely. Minds are a necessary but not sufficient condition for having moral value. Bugs might have some kind of primitive minds, but probably not. We kill them with impunity. Same with lizards, snakes, fish, etc. They probably have minds, but we casually kill them too. As a species becomes more sophisticated (aka it's intelligence increases), we give it more moral consideration. For example, I'll eat squid but not octopus.
Ok, if it’s not a human being then what is it?
This is the second time I’ve heard the suggestion that a brain-dead human is “meat”. They think a brain-dead child is food.
This is a joke...right? We derive conclusions and answers to questions. Yes, literally every study has fundamental questions it is trying to answer. Propositions are just truth-apt statements that we formulate to try and answer those questions.
Does a human being have a mind when it is sleeping? Even a primitive one?
How about when it is knocked unconscious? It is not “brain dead” but it cannot be roused. Is there a “mind” there.
Are unconscious states, such as sleeping and unconsciousness, are these states and time periods during which no “person” is present?
How is a person present in a body that cannot wake up? Due to drinking alcohol and passing out?
Do you really want to require certain behavior of a human being, such as “minding”, be present before you see essential qualities present upon which we can legislate pregnancy? We are going to tell pregnant women when they can and can’t kill fetuses. You are saying “mind” makes the difference?
So, “neo-”Aristotelianism is not itself one specific view: it is just any view that is a modified version, a sublation, of Aristotelianism—it’s a “modded up” version of the original. Thusly, it is hard to talk about “neo-Aristotelianism” other than getting into someone’s specific (modded) view.
In Aristotelianism, the ultimate goal for each human is human flourishing; and society is supposed to be structured in a way to uphold, incentivize, etc. that as best as possible. In that view, abortion seems straightforwardly immoral; because (directly intentionally) killing an innocent human being quite literally is the opposite of contributing to flourishing or allowing them to flourish.
Giving people basic human rights seems to be the best way to respect a human’s rational nature.
By “flourishing”, what we really mean is eudaimonia (viz., to be a eudaimon) and this is just to say that one is living well by fulfilling their Telos. To allow people to live well (in this sense), we have to respect them as persons: we cannot kill them simply because we don’t believe we can take care of them. Not only is it simply not true in the western, developed world (as there are plenty of pro-life institutions which will provide for the child) but also, even if it were true, you cannot violate someone’s rights: rights are inherently deontological.
My answer is really simple, as I agree that one has to evaluate the moral theory through some standard beyond it: goodness. Goodness is not within the ethical theory proper (i.e., normative and applied ethical theories which comprise it proper), and is the presupposition for the evaluation of such.
EDIT: No, metaethics is not a part of the ethical theory; that's why it is called meta-ethics.
Morality is about behavior, and not directly about what is good. On the contrary, what is good is what is used to determine right and wrong behavior.
I would also like point out that your reasoning leads to an infinite regress: for we could ask the same for the standard that is outside of the theory which is being applied, and would have to perform the same steps.
Personally I am a foundationalist, so for me there is a place the buck stops; because it has to.
No one who supports abortion will give a definition of a human being that includes a new born baby, yet everybody seems to think new born babies are precious, cute baby human beings; put it back in the uterus and we need to look for minds and higher consciousness, or value before they will say what it is.
I actually don’t mind calling us only meat in this discussion. This conversation about moving physical bodies around and what the nature of those bodies are. We are defining objects and motions like “pregnant woman” and “fetus” and “abortion tools that terminate the life and/or remove the fetus”, etc. It’s all meat, from the moment of conception. That’s all we need to define a whole human life. That’s all we can objectively measure. They want to add “mind” to the meat or “consciousness of pain” or other abilities and functions. But these are not essential to answer the question of what a new zygote is. Just because a zygote, like a new born baby, might one day be self-aware and have a mind, those remain possibilities, not actualities in the meat at those stages. The actuality in the meat is at least the unique DNA, along with the fact that it is unique DNA making it a whole organism as opposed to a human kidney or appendix.
It’s really quite simple. An organism has a beginning middle and end both in time and in space. The beginning in time is the moment of conception. A unique organism begins to take up space upon its conception. All the things that this human zygote may or may not become or do won’t change what it is.
My one objection is that meat is flesh-as-food, flesh that we eat. I think we're in trouble when we start viewing other members of our species as food. But otherwise I fully agree.
Just to add, note that the act of abortion itself, the act of killing this organism, is rarely mentioned in these discussions from an abortionist standpoint. It's all about the relative status of the victim in comparison to the killer or the moral permissibility of a bystander to intervene. The act itself, whether it's the deprivation of the means to survive or the evisceration of the organism with a vacuum, lays hidden behind its vocal defense. The question whether it is it right or wrong to kill this organism remains largely untouched.
A lot of people seem to think consciousness is important to deciding whether abortions should be allowed. I guess my question is: are you proposing we have a "consciousness test" for fetuses? And will this test be 100% accurate, or will it sometimes mistake whether a fetus is conscious?
If the consciousness test is not 100% reliable, that would be a reason against allowing abortions. One could only still support abortions if one were willing to sacrifice an innocent person, a morally repugnant decision.
I think this reasoning defeats any condition stipulated that purportedly would have rendered abortions permissible.
:100:
You take a new born baby and cut its head off and you are Hitler. You take a 6 month old human fetus and cut its head off and no one can say what just happened.
So you believe that the state knows better than individuals whether or not they're in a position to flourish (achieve eudaimonia if you prefer) with a child?
Science can tell us how things are. So it can tell us what we can do. And whatever we ought do might best be some subset of what we can do. So science can tell us what we can do but not what we ought do.
My target here are those who think that abortion is impermissible from conception. Within a few hours of conception the conceptus forms a ball of cells that will eventually become the placenta and foetus. That fluid-filled ball is a blastocyst. A cysts is a fluid-filled ball of cells. The conceptus is quite literally a cysts at this stage. I choose this becasue it exhibits the maximum difference between a conceptus and Mrs Smith.
Now Mrs Smith participates in life in innumerable ways that a mere cyst cannot. If you cannot see that Mrs Smith has greater worth than the cyst, then that is about you, not about Mrs Smith or the cyst.
And it is irrelevant whether we are to count he cyst as a human being or not. A ball of cells is not of the same worth as Mrs Smith.
I mentioned that there are those who "becasue they cannot deal with ideas of gradation, needing a definitive point such as conception from which to apply their expositions". This seems to be what you are up to.
You claim Moore is "a load of nonsense" then adopt the core of his thinking. Fine.
Quoting Bob Ross
An odd thing to say. Moral theory is about goodness, and about behaviour, but not directly about what is good? I can't make much sense of that.
Quoting Bob Ross
Ok, I'll go along with that. What is not good is counting a cyst as having the same worth as Mrs Smith.
Quoting Bob Ross
This is unclear. It sounds as if you think we must test the theory and the observation together, but that would be a misunderstanding. That the worth of the cyst is less then the worth of Mrs Smith is what is sometimes called a "basic" claim. It is foundational, in that it is, as you say, "where the buck stops".
What you are doing is to attempt to engage ethical and other theories in order to undermine this basic truth.
A foetus was killed.
So a human foetus is not a human being?
I’m waiting for the qualities of an organism that make it a human being.
Based on what physical or metaphysical evidence can we make a decision about “what counts as a human being?”
Every hopeful expectant parent would disagree with you. To them, because it's the cyst that will grow into their son or daughter, it's far more valuable than any random Mrs Smith who they probably don't even know.
You can't say a thing has value unless you also say for whom it has value, so your statement ''a cyst is not of the same value as Mrs Smith" has no truth-value.
Now turn that into a general rule. Who is it we allow to decides the value of the cyst?
Traditionally, morality is about right and wrong behavior; and, subsequently, about goodness and badness. My point is that goodness and badness are not evaluated themselves in the theory: the theory is about what an agent should or should not be doing in light of what is good and bad. This is a substantial claim to avoid the issues you originally brought up.
Again, why? What do you think goodness is? How are you relating it, normatively, to behavior?
That is partially fair: the part of Moore’s thinking where he claims we have to use intuitions, insofar as they are self-evident facts, I think is correct. The part that is a load of nonsense (to me) about his theory is that he thinks we can literally intuit the right thing to do based off of a pure intuition of what goodness itself is; which not just totally obscure but also a cop-out.
This is the same risk you are essentially taking, because you are evaluating your moral theory, whatever it may be, based off of your core moral intuitions; whereas I don’t think there are any such self-evident moral facts, and that doing so ends up causing people to ad hoc justify their own intuitions instead of doing ethics.
EDIT: for Moore, the concept of 'goodness' is this totally mysterious goo-goo-gah-gah.
Firstly, again, a mother should not be asking herself if she should abort because she doesn't think she can flourish with a baby in her life: that's not the point I was making.
Secondly, the state is in charge of providing, pragmatically, an adequate basis for human flourishing; but there are limitations, and I would say that the individual should be endowed with a certain level of responsibility to figure out how to flourish themselves. I don't think societies that try to give the government full control to legislate morality end up doing to hot: that's why, pragmatically, in terms of applied ethics, I would lean towards giving the individually as much power to make decisions about themselves; instead of entrusting that to the government. However, the laws which are put in place by the state are there to help with incentivizing the human good and barring immoral acts that are severe enough (e.g., marriage, rights, murder, rape, etc.).
Nope, people (regardless of "precedent") can and have successfully navigated competing interests and have overwhelmingly concluded that slave owner and slave interests are equal (as adult humans). Similarly, the majority of folks have concluded that an adult human mother's interests outweigh those of a human fetus'. Simple, really.
When a sentient being is awake, there are two answers to this: the being itself, and everyone else. When the being is unconscious, there is only one: everyone else. A cyst isn't yet conscious, so at this stage the answer has to be: everyone else. But everyone else should bear in mind, when dealing with a being (or cyst) that is not currently conscious but may at some stage become conscious, that if they kill that being (or cyst), they are preventing the occurrence of a life which may be, on balance, pleasant. I would argue that this is wrong, on the grounds that if the being were allowed to develop, it would value its own life positively, and we ought to take that into account when deciding whether to kill the being (or cyst).
I suggest that a being's moral standing is proportional to the maximum potential remaining lifetime net pleasure of that being. That is why, if a child and an old person are trapped in a burning building and we can only rescue one of them, we think we should rescue the child: it has a greater potential for future net pleasure. If we apply this logic to the cyst, it seems that the cyst must have moral standing that is even greater than that of the child, because its potential for net future pleasure, being for a longer period, is greater. I infer that if we kill a cyst, we are failing to respect its moral standing, which we should not do.
Quoting Herg
So they get to make the decision. No one here is suggesting that we make abortion compulsory.
Quoting Herg
Why? The person most directly effected is the one carrying the cyst. If someone values that cyst above the needs of the mother, let them take it and bear it.
Bit hard, that. So let the one carrying the cyst decide.
Really? That is as specific as it gets? No other starting point than “whatever”?
Quoting Banno
True. And Mrs Smith is not of the same value as a newborn baby. And a blind and deaf four year old is of different value, etc etc.
Of course.
Quoting Banno
I’ll take a “mere” definition.
You keep relying on Mrs. Smith to make your point. What is a “Mrs Smith”?
Quoting Banno
If you don’t give any thought to the definitions, you don’t even have any “bone” in some other “shit poor theory.”
I get it.
But do you?
I haven’t really been talking about the moral question at all. Rather engage on something more concrete, more scientific, something we can abstract objects from and with logic discuss them here...
You have to moralize about something, or else there is nothing to say. “Mere definitions.”
“Mrs Smith is of greater value”. So what? What is a “Mrs Smith” then if you think you can move on to the morality surrounding the moments before and after birth for something like a “Mrs Smith” (“whatever” that is..)
Get my question?
Every definition of “human being” I come up with either starts with conception, or it is some point well after the day I was born. So in the context of abortion, there is no logical reason to grant special protection to newborn lumps of flesh.
We can play moralist politician and preacher about the subject, or we can just say what it is.
Fuck value! Kill ‘em all! (That’s a Metallica album - don’t kill anyone.)
Value WHAT!!?
Not sure what "subsequently" is doing here, but I agree that morality is about what we do.
Quoting Bob Ross
Then what basis do you have for deciding if an action is good or not, that is not an intuition? Invisible friends don't count.
Quoting Bob Ross
That's been answered, repeatedly. If you think that the cyst is as valuable as Mrs Smith, then there is something extraneous influencing your evaluation.
Yes. In fact I am.
I guess I’m not making sense to you.
Hope you are okay too then.
Maybe you are annoyed I keep asking “what” when you want to go in to the motions of “how”.
You told me to fill in “whatever” on what a “person, human, baby, but not a cyst” thing is.
Seems like a hole in any argument based on that just waiting fo open up to me.
I mean “whatever” has as much a definition as any other term, it’s just really broad in practice, so you are pointing to “mere definitions” and “backbone” by pointing to “whatever” anyway. May as well define something more specific. See what “whatever” is really useful and whatever is not. Or maybe you don’t care.
Definitions are the backbone and morality valuations are in the movement of that backbone. (Judgment is in both positions but I digress.)
We all have to play with essences. It’s called having a conversation. A dialogue.
I’m asking the scientific question: if a pregnant woman was considering whether to carry to term or have an abortion, and she asked “Is a human fetus at any stage a full enough thing to be called a person, human being, thing like me, little baby?”
What is your answer? Not how to live morally with ambiguity. We can get to that later. What would you be able to say to her using your reason and experience (since you have been a person all of your life, or maybe not, or maybe you can’t say that either, or…)?
I think the more meta/physical/empirical questions here are way more interesting. Let people figure out what to do about it for themselves.
Neither of us should think we’ve said much if we are trading value judgments without sharing a context, like a basic definition.
Without definitions, we may only be monologuing, and about abortion no less. Painful.
You define stuff all the time here. Come on, play with it a bit. Humor me. What are the essential qualities of a living human being, that we must be able to measure in some way to demonstrate the coming to be of this human being?
REVISED:
And if you were really wondering if I was ok, thanks for asking. I am ok. To give you a more specific answer to whatever “ok” means, I am a bit longing for some actually stimulating conversation, but that’s still within my definition of “ok”. I am being more specific for you answering your question to try to convey something meaningful, so that this might be a conversation. Any definition of a human, person, not a cyst, Mrs Smith thing would be appreciated.
In a representative democracy, legislators are elected to act on behalf of their constituents. Although this system isn’t perfect and representation can feel indirect, the will of the people generally prevails. From my perspective, democracy remains the best framework for enabling the people to flourish. I recognize that you may view this differently, but as we’ve discussed, in the U.S., the prevailing sentiment is a love of freedom and choice. The minority who dissent often base their views on faith: faith in the immortal soul, in God, and, ultimately, in what other mortals convey to them.
Your Neo-Aristotelian schema doesn’t seem to align with any part of this system.
That we were all cysts is the ineradicable problem of the act. Had any of these worms wiggled their way into any of our mother’s ears we wouldn’t exist. Mrs. Smith was once a cyst, and therefor she (and everyone now living) would have been reduced to the value of a cyst had she been sentenced to death at that time in her development, at least according to your evaluation. Our beginnings mean that much to you. So far, if anyone has reduced her to the value of a cyst in this discussion it has been you.
It’s a huge straw man because, as is explicit in the arguments, everyone you accuse of being morally wrong for reducing Mrs. Smith is in fact trying to elevate the value of the life you dismiss as a mere cyst, while not reducing anyone else’s. You’re the one defending the killing, after all. No one else is using dehumanizing language to describe the victim of this act.
So the moral high-horse doesn’t stand too far from the ground.
That's just bullshit.
Interesting that the libertarians hereabouts are so keen on controlling the very bodily autonomy of others. Women, specifically. Black and poor, predominantly.
For the most part that may be correct. Our faculty of reason is not a pair of eyes that is able to detect moral properties, but instead we have to make representations to it - that is, we have to, so to speak, describe to it how things appear to us to be - and then it tells us (or does if it is operating well) what moral features are present and what it would be right or wrong to do in the situation we have described. In this sense, our conscience - which I take just to be the name we give to our reason when it is telling us about moral features - is held hostage to information we provide to it.
But I think it must be admitted by all that our faculty of reason contains important information about reality, otherwise consulting it would tell us nothing about anything.
Imagine there's a guide book to a jungle. This guide book warns about eating certain sorts of berry - perhaps it says to steer clear of eating any yellow berry, or any yellow berry above a certain size. It does not say anything else about the berry, and it does not tell you where specifically these berries are. So one could not use the guide book to find the berries. Nevertheless, if provides one with important information: it warns against eating any such berries one may come across.
It is reasonable to infer from this warning in the guide book that any yellow berries one comes across in the jungle are poisonous, or likely poisonous.
The guide book is analogous to our faculty of reason, the warning is analogous to our reason telling us not to do something, and the poisonousness - or likely poisonousness - of the berries is the fetus's person status. If our faculty of reason - or at least, the faculty of reason of many - warns us against abortions, then it is reasonable to infer from this that the fetus has a mind, as this is the best explanation of why it is warning us against having them if, that is, this is what it does.
On the other hand, if it issues no such warning - or only issues it if one represents the fetus to b a person (which would be equivalent to looking up 'should I eat poisonous berries?' in the guide - a question that it will obviously answer with 'yes' and that tells one nothing about whether the yellow berries are poisonous or not) - then it is reasonable to infer that the fetus is not a person.
I don't think there's a problem with making such an inference. It seems to me no less problematic than inferring that the yellow berries the guide book is warning us against eating are poisonous (given this seems the best explanation of why we are being warned against eating them). And we do still have to provide information to our reason: we have to describe the scenario. And then it delivers its verdict. That's equivalent, as I see it, to seeing some yellow berries and then looking up 'yellow berries' in the guide book and seeing a warning against eating them (and then inferring from this that they are poisonous). But most people aren't doing this, I suspect, and are instead looking up 'poisonous berries' and seeing 'don't eat poisonous berries' or looking up 'non-poisonous berries' and seeing 'it's fine to eat non-poisonous berries'. That is, they are either asking their reason 'is it okay to kill a little person who is inside of one?' or they are asking their reason 'is it okay to destroy a lifeless lump of cells that is inside of one?'. Obviously the reason of the first group says loud and clear 'no', and the reason of the second says equally loudly and clearly 'yes'. And if either side asked the other side's question, they'd get the other side's answer. Hence why the classic debate is deadlocked. Neither side is really wrong, given the questions they're asking. But they seem to me to be going about things in teh wrong way....
I am following you here.
Quoting Clearbury
I would say “if our faculty of reason warns us against abortions, then it is reasonable to infer the human fetus is a person.” Likely poisonousness is likely personhood. Why did you jump to “fetus has a mind”? Isn’t that like jumping to “yellow berry has arsenic”. It’s poisonous but we can’t use use reason, without more facts, to infer something specific. Unless to you, human being equals minded being.
Quoting Clearbury
That I don’t follow. Can you clarify? I would use your analogy to equate “the berries are poison” with. “the fetus is a human being”. How did you get to “fetus is not a person”? Are you saying if you found a blue berry and didn’t see anything in the book about blueness, you could infer it must not be poisoneess?
Who said anything about any of that? I could care less what you or anyone does. I don’t need a law for or against abortion or lump flesh surgery or not. I will recognize my own morality and choose accordingly like everyone else has to. Politicians are all idiots like the rest of us. Are the ones who say “a lump of flesh called a human blatocyst is not a whole human life” accurate? Are they just as full of shit as someone saying anyone is controlling anyone else by trying to have a conversation?
Not everyone consider meat as food, nor does everyone who eat meat as food consider every kind of meat as food.
[QUOTE] note that the act of abortion itself, the act of killing this organism, is rarely mentioned in these discussions from an abortionist standpoint. [/quote]
Did the mother kill all the zygotes/embryos/fetuses that were miscarriage? Was the mother wrong for having miscarriages since, by your definition, it's the act of killing all those organisms?
That is exactly right. The question is whether all of Banno’s wonderful concerns for other women apply to people in the earliest moments of their lives.
More specifically for me, the question is simply what is a human being regardless of whatever one might want to do with it at any stage in its life.
I’m just trying to clarify what are the pawns on this game board. Banno’s leaping to game strategy and using it to tell me something can’t be a pawn, but won’t define a pawn.
The question is whether a miscarriage is the end of the short life of a person, or not. Why jump to asking for blame and “wrongness” without addressing the moving pieces of the argument.
If a new person/human being is costs when we have a zygote, then clearly yes, a miscarriage is the death of a person/human being.
I see human beings as bodies - we have the magical power of “mind” or whatever makes us feel so special when we start philosophizing about things as adults, but we remain bodies, bodies that only began growing, living, as a unique organism at conception. Any other moment in the life of the human body asserted as the moment the human comes to be a living human individual, is arbitrary. Waiting and hoping for a better argument or definition of a human being.
And why would a woman be “wrong” for something out of her control like a miscarriage? No one is ever wrong for anything they cannot intend. (This is a tangient conversation about morality generally. If a fetus is not a person, we don’t need to talk about morality, and if a fetus is a person and no one wants to kill it, we don’t need to talk morals either.)
Utter lies, but that seems par for the course.
Show me any definition that states otherwise.
Miscarriages are not the intentional killing of a human life, so no.
What you are describing is a secular view, which removes ethics from politics, as a pragmatic means of allowing people to flourish the best; and I agree with it other than that it doesn't actually completely remove ethics (even though it purports to). There's a difference between normative and applied ethics: I don't trust the government one bit to have the power to ban, e.g., gluttony. Gluttony, e.g., is bad for you; and the idea of banning something because it inhibits the human good is not foreign to America: we've ban, e.g., hard drugs even if those people addicted to them don't harm anyone else.
Your whole argument is that X is immoral because it seems immoral to you: is that actually how you are thinking about Mrs. Smith?
I am evaluating whether not Mrs. Smith has the right to, or should, kill the human being developing in her womb in virtue of what is actually good and how I think that relates to behavior. Viz., what is actually good is what is intrinsically valuable, what is most intrinsically valuable is what is the chief good, the chief good is eudaimonia, being a eudaimon requires one to be just, being just requires one to respect other beings relative to their (teleological) natures, a person has a nature such that they have a rational will, and to respect a rational will is to treat it as an end in itself and never as a mere means.
Do you see how in depth my analysis is, even if you completely disagree with it, about why X is wrong? Whereas your analysis is just "uh, X seems wrong so it must be"? That's my problem with your view. Give me an elaborate explanation like I have of my position so I can actually contend with it.
If we just have a clash of pure intuitions, then I can just intuit the opposite about X and you have no basis to say I am wrong; or, at best, you would appeal the masses and make your view straightforwardly a form of moral anti-realism.
You're trying to remove intuition from ethics. That's impossible. If your ethically theory leads to extreme counter-intuitives (and yours does), it's as good as dead. It doesn't matter how internally consistent it is. Eventually, we're going to reach a point where you say, "no, I won't sacrifice a zygote to stop the trolley car" and the rest of us are going to shake our heads, and the discussion is pretty much over.
Intuitions are a part of ethics: they are not sufficient themselves, as pure intuitions, to justify or annul a position. You are begging the question, and it is impossible for me to change your mind because you lack justification for you view.
Imagine we are debating if it is morally permissible to own slaves; and I say it is and you say it isn't. You bring up all these moral reasons for why it is wrong, and I say "your theory leads to the extreme conclusion that slavery is wrong, so your theory is dead". I have given myself the ultimate cop-out, which is to justify my position I am supposed to be arguing for by intuiting it is right. THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
Either you understand what goodness is and how it relates to the problem of abortion and can justify your position, or you are just ignorant and circularly justifying your position because it seems right to you. It's nonsense.
Another way to put this, is that it is perfectly fine to intuit based off of evidence; but a pure intuition lacks all evidence, and is invalid. Pure intuitions are just cop-outs to justify one's position without actually justifying it, and I can prove anything right through a pure intuition because it is circular.
In ethics, you have to have some sort of concept of what actual goodness is and how it relates to right and wrong behavior; or else you are just acting blindly with these pure intuitions of yours. Like I said, anything can be justified with a pure intuition.
Banno, when I say I am a fundamentalist, I think a better way for me to put it is that I am not suggesting that we can justify anything with a fundamental, pure intuition; but, rather, that there are ideas which are so fundamental that a proof is virtually impossible (such as the law of non-contradiction).
However, if I have to deny being a fundamentalist and sublate my view by saying we must have a proof for everything we say in order to avoid these nonsensical "pure intuitions", then I am perfectly happy to do that. It is nonsense to think that one can say X is wrong because it seems wrong. There has to be some evidence to support claims, otherwise we are acting upon blind faith.
The bottom line is that if a Neo-Aristotelian truly values human flourishing they will value choice because:
Problem solved. All questions answered. No more reason to debate abortion I guess.
Why are people risking their lives to save anything? Are orphans under fire more valuable than firemen?
You can distort the morality all over the place if you don’t define the terms. What is a fertilized egg? Is that a stage in a chicken’s life? Or do you mean something like an acorn that hasn’t hit the dirt yet? Or do you mean a living human organism, like a fireman or an orphan?
Hard to say what I’d do without definitions.
Because us deep thinkers are so squeamish about burning orphans, pregnant victims of rape and all the other emotionally charged aspects of this discussion, no one ever thinks through the problem simply and methodically and using actual empirical evidence and reasoned argument. Maybe a fertility clinic is another name for human trafficking superstore. I don’t really care to judge the good or bad of burning orphans versus burning zygotes. Just wondering if anyone can say why a burning orphan is a burning human being, whereas a burning zygote is not. How do you define an orphan that makes it something other than a human lump of flesh like any other fertilized egg at a fertility clinic?
I don't disagree that republics are the best political system we've got; I am saying that, ideally, allowing people to choose, per se, is not necessarily going to correlate to helping them flourish. E.g., stopping a child from eating too much candy (even though they want to keep enjoying more), stopping people from be able to try hardcore drugs that will ruin their life, etc.
We give people liberties because it is pragmatically the best thing to do; and not because it is ideally the best. See what I mean?
Yes, exactly.
It seems your version of Neo-Aristotelianism is somehow grounded in idealism rather than practical living and achieving eudaimonia (human flourishing).
Whereas your whole argument is that X is immoral because it seems immoral to you? Or because you think your invisible friend claims it is immoral?
Perhaps "I am evaluating whether not a cysts has the right to monopolise Mr Smith's womb, in virtue of what is actually good and how I think that relates to behaviour. Viz., what is actually good is what is intrinsically valuable, what is most intrinsically valuable is what is the chief good, the chief good is eudaemonia, being a eudaimon requires one to be just, being just requires one to respect other beings relative to their (teleological) natures, a person has a nature such that they have a rational will, and to respect a rational will is to treat it as an end in itself and never as a mere means"
Your pretence of depth is no more than surface posturing. You readily disvalue Mrs Smith and privilege a cyst over her.
It's worth noticing the slip in your spiel. A person has a rational will. A cysts does not. Consistency, where art though?
You want to engage in an extended debate in order to hide the simple truth that a cysts does not have the same worth as Mrs Smith. You would use sophistry as a distraction from the immoral act of forcing someone to undergo an extended and unnecessary ordeal.
You are getting there, Bob. You still at heart want there to be an "is" from which you can derive moral truths to which all rational folk must agree. Your present thinking is that eudaimonia provides that foundation. But it can't, becasue in the end what counts as flourishing is chosen. You cannot escape the fundamental difference between what is the case and what we choose to make the case.
The flourishing of the cyst is a far less definite thing than that of Mrs Smith. For a start, it is entirely dependent on the flourishing of the mother. Further, the quality of life of Mrs Smith is something that we can ask Mrs Smith about, while that of the cysts is mere supposition.
You would choose the flourishing of a cyst at the expense of the flourishing of Mrs Smith. That is the flaw in your account.
Appeals to eudaemonia do not help your case.
Yep.
Your insistence on conception as an absolute partition from which moral considerations apply is quite arbitrary. The conceit that it is based on science is disingenuous.
There is grave danger in treating Mrs Smith as a mere incubator.
I take, perhaps mistakenly, being a person and having a mind to be synonymous. I think the best explanation of why it would be wrong to have an abortion - if that is what our reason represents them to be - would be that the developing entity has a mind (and so is a person - something it is something it is like to be). happy to stick with 'person' if it is thought that something can have a mind and not be a person.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Yes, if the guide book warns against eating yellow berries, but issues no warning about blue berries, then I think it's reasonable to have as one's working assumption that blue berries are not poisonous.
And yes, if someone assumes that blue berries are poisonous - and then looks up whether it is a good idea to eat poisonous berries - then that's equivalent in my analogy to someone assuming the fetus is a person and then asking their reason whether destroying a person is morally ok.
If this is correct, then what matters is what the guide book says about fetus berries. If it warns against destroying them, then it's reasonable to infer that they are persons, as it's hard to see why else it would be wrong to destroy one. And if it doesn't, then it's reasonable to infer that they're not persons, otherwise there'd likely be a warning against destroying them.
But it doesn't really do anything - doesn't really shed any light on the facts of the matter - either to assume the fetus is a person and conclude on that basis that it is wrong to destroy one, or to assume the fetus is not one and conclude on that basis that there's nothing wrong about it. Yet that, I think, fairly characterizes most - though not all - of the contemporary debate.
What evidence is there that a new born baby has a mind? When you say you have a "mind" do you mean certain the thing that seems to coincide with certain brain activity? Or do you mean self-conscious thinking, because I don't see that evidence until we get at least a few weeks or months past birth.
Quoting Clearbury
That's not good logic. If yellow, than poisonous. Not yellow, so not poisonous? Couldn't it mean the author of the book never saw a blue berry before? And blue berries are more poisonous? Yellow berries are poison berries tells you nothing about blue berries at all.
If mind, then human being. No mind, so no human being. So when a person has an accident and they have no mind, while they live, the thing that lives is not a human being? Though they continue to breath and their heart beats and their cells conduct mitosis, etc., they cease to be a human being and we should call them some other animal? Or is it a human being with a very short life expectancy?
The reason of virtually everyone represents it to be wrong to kill a new born baby. So, to extend my jungle guide book analogy, the jungle guide book of virtually everyone warns against destroying this kind of berry. The reasonable inference to make is that this kind of berry is minded.
I think it is good logic. The guide book is about the jungle and its author is clearly keen that we not poison ourselves inadvertently. It warns us against eating yellow berries. It is reasonable to infer that they are poisonous. It does not warn us against eating blue ones. It would be unreasonable - not reasonable - to assume the blue ones are poisonous. For if they were poisonous, then on the assumption this is something the guide book author knows and would wish to warn us about, there'd be a warning against eating them....yet there isn't.
Definitely because my invisible friend said so, and nothing to do with my response.
I knew you were going to that (:
BRO….I don’t see how that is a simple truth, let alone true. That’s why I keep asking you for an elaboration on your ethical theory. I wouldn’t keep asking if it was clear to me :smile: .
I am hurt: do you really believe I am being ingenuine?!?
I take the is-ought gap very seriously, unlike most Aristotelians, and my response is that the chief good is what is most intrinsically valuable; which, hence, does not fall prey to is-ought gap critiques. Eudaimonia is the most intrinsically valuable, that’s why it is the chief good.
I thought you would have said, as a moral realist, “what is the case and what ought to be the case are different”; but instead, peculiarly, you said “what we choose” which is straightforwardly an implication towards moral anti-realism.
The blastocyst has a right to life, which you keep ignoring and sidestepping.
So in the violinist thought experiment, you think you are morally permitted to pull the plug? Is that the idea?
You can’t ask a 10 month baby about what they think about their quality of life either...can you just randomly murder those too????
NO. I cannot violate the blastocyst’s right to life to help Mrs. Smith. For some weird reason, you keep refusing to engage in a discussion about rights….as if you don’t believe in them at all.
Well no, that's clearly false. Humans do not have a monopoly on having minds and some humans lack minds. Dead ones, for instance. And it is question begging to assume that human fetuses have minds (and one doesn't establish the matter by simply stipulating that 'human' and 'minded' are synonyms.
Do you know the difference between normative and applied ethics? I think that's the issue here. My starts with normative ethics, as it should, and then dives into how to best pragmatically implement it into society.
There's nothing incoherent with saying people shouldn't be gluttons but that it should be legal; because giving people rights and liberties is better for allowing people to flourish, in practicality, than giving the government too much power to control people. That it should be legal, does not mean it should be morally permissible.
So the set of all humans (whatever the definition) is defined by a choice. All definitions are by a choice I take it. You are talking about how we define things, not about any definitions, any particular choices. And your definition of what a definition is, namely, "putting lines anywhere we choose" is wholely unhelpful to any argument about anything. So I can be correct to choose to define a person as a cyst or a grapefruit. Weak.
Quoting Banno
What is clear??!!! I thought our choices are necessary to clarify any definition. What takes your choice away from you and demands that you say "Mrs Smith is a human being"?
Instead of defining a human being you just point "Look over there at Mrs Smith - that's a human being."
Quoting Banno
Finally. Some qualities of a human being. I think we should skip desires because how on earth can you know a new born baby has any desires?
What "needs" and "capabilities" does Mrs Smith have that a cyst does not have such that we can point to Mrs. Smith and say "human being" and point to a cyst and say "see, not a human being"?
Quoting Banno
I have yet to talk morality. Your insistence that I am talking morality is deluded.
I can honestly stipulate that the law and policy should be that every pregnant woman gets to decide for herself whether to carry the baby to term or to abort the pregnancy. None of my business. Pregnancy is totally unique and there is no analogy to it. I would love to move away from the hidden agendas in what is really a basic philosophic discussion. I am willing to say, as policy, a woman can abort her unborn child even though it is a human being just like you and me.
So your insistence on avoiding a simple question, or answering it with "choices" and "needs" seems to me like you have no clue what this discussion is.
What is a human being?
And that is a problem that is about you, not about the difference between Mrs Smith and a cysts. You deny the blatant difference before you. Then you use sophistic argument in an attempt to justify yourself. The cyst is not of the same worth as Mrs Smith. Denying this requires considerable agility.
Cheers.
All of that is a reasonable way to make an assumption. But what if you don't want to make an assumption? The guidebook is unhelpful if you do not want to make an assumption.
All berries and poisons aside, we are talking about the life and death of human beings, and/or the aborting (killing) of human beings, or not. It matters to both the pregnancy woman and the baby where the poison/person actually is.
I do not think it is reasonable to infer that, because a human fetus (a thing that all of us came from directly according to our DNA) is not like me, an adult who uses his mind to think about things, I was not a human being when I was only a fetus. I think it is more reasonable to infer that a human being, like any living thing, changes through many stages and all of those stages make up one life, of one living individual thing, like a human being.
I'm arguing the opposite. The guide book is only really useful if one doesn't make assumptions. If one makes assumptions and then looks up what the guide book says about what one is assuming, then one is using the guide book to explore an assumed jungle, not the actual one.
But if we are interested in the actual morality of actual abortions, then we need to stop consulting the guide book about our assumptions and instead consult it on the jungle itself. That is, we need simply to read it. And if it warns against eating yellow berries, then - regardless of what assumptions we might have made or not made about yellow berries - the guide book is implying they contain poison.
And so applied to the abortion issue, if the faculties of reason of most warn against having abortions, then regardless of what assumptions we might make about fetuses, our guide-book on reality - our reason - is implying that fetuses are persons.
On the other hand, if the faculties of reason of most do not warn against abortions, then our reason is implying that they are not the destruction of persons.
Right. You can't stop contradicting yourself. Contradictions like:
Quoting Banno
And "look around, see what I've discovered that is the case: Quoting Banno
Total mess.
I'm just not sure how this helps a pregnant person who asks "I don't know what to do because I don't want to be pregnant or have a baby, but I also don't want to kill a person, so what would you do if you were me?" I guess I'm saying, please write the guidebook according to Clearbury.
True. And if you keep comparing all these values, you keep sounding like you are avoiding the conversation. I'm asking you to tell me what you value about Mrs. Smith. Do all I get is "desires and needs." Everything I come up with applies to the cyst, or it doesn't apply to the tiny new baby.
Again.
Again, you missed considerable back story...
Quoting Banno
Then how is a new born baby any different than a zygote, because new born babies don’t do ethics or lunch either?
When you find yourself asking a question such as this, it may be time to reassess your values.
Not so fast. So quick to judge my values.
So far you said a human being has “needs and desires” and “can do ethics and lunch”. That’s a human being as you choose to see it.
Is that it? Any more qualities of Mrs Smith that distinguish her from the zygote?
Newborn humans can’t value anything.
Newborns can’t conceptualize anything that would allow for them to participate in ethical behavior.
Newborn humans are, cognitively, less than many other species of adult mammals.
If you don’t give me more qualities of Mrs Smith, then, what is your highly moral and ethically superior reason for treating newborn human as you would Mrs Smith? Or don’t you value newborns either?
But you just begged the question - you're assuming the fetus is a person. The question is not whether it is morally ok to kill a person just if they happen to be inside you. The question is whether abortions are right or wrong. (if you object that these are equivalent qusetions, then you beg the question again).
Now, if the reason of most represents abortions to be morally permissible, then that's good evidence that's precisely what they are. And if the reason of most represents them to be morally permissible - something they would very unlikely be if they were the killing of a person - then we can infer from this that the fetus is not yet a person.
Whether this is what the reason of those who have not made assumptions about what the fetus is really does represent to be the case is another matter. I suspect it is. For I suspect that more of those on the pro-choice side are agnostic on whether the fetus is a person, whereas I suspect that virtually all of those on the pro-life side are assuming the fetus is a person....which would suggest that the moral intuitions of the former group are probably more reliable, as they're reporting what their reason tells them about abortions, whereas the latter are reporting what their reason tells them about the killing of a person. The point is that it is the all-important matter. Otherwise all one has is two sides who are doing no more than exploring the ethical implications of their assumptions - which is a pointless exercise.
I think the only objection to this alternative approach - an approach in which moral evidence is our source of evidence into the status of the fetus, rather than arbitrary assumptions about the matter - is that our reason simply does not contain this sort of information about the world and thus is incapable of providing us with insight into it. But that objection seems unjustified as if our reason can inform us of what kinds of act are typically right and which kinds typically wrong, then why think it incapable of giving us other kinds of information about the world, such as when a thing likely becomes a person? That would be analogous to thinking that a guide book about a jungle contains no information about the jungle itself.
Not at all. If you can't tell a zygote from Mrs Smith, there is little more to say.
You are back to just begging the question. This has been by far the most unproductive conversation I have had in a while.
But you are assuming you know what an abortion is. You have to assume what an abortion is before you can hold it up for moral judgment.
The question is simply, what is an abortion?
Or more simply, when does a human being first come into being?
If you know that, you know that very thing you need to know about an abortion, and we can start to make moral judgments about it.
What is an abortion?
Typically, removal of unwanted tissue from a pregnant woman’s uterus.
What is the tissue? Is there anything we need to know about that?
If we end up concluding (after reasoning from evidence and making No assumptions) that this tissue is an individual human being, it would change the definition of “abortion”, don’t you think?
We may have to make policy on abortion, have laws and protections enforced, and even claim who is good and who is bad, but in the meantime, when we are discussing the many questions surrounding this practice, we can’t avoid the question “what is a human being” and satisfy any moral judgments we want to make about it. At least I don’t see how.
Quoting Clearbury
The abortion debate is illogical statements, wrong facts, and mundane political agenda - the reason of most fails.
I’ll settle for the reason of one, anyone.
There are consistent positions that both include the zygote (new fetus) as a person and exclude the new fetus as a person. We should never assume anything.
I think the most consistent position is the zygote me was just me before I woke up this morning. It was me yesterday, a long time ago. I’m not very much, but the zygote me was enough for me to be measured and found to exist.
From there it would seem “abortion is wrong”. But I haven’t gotten there yet. I don’t think we can never kill a person, so just because abortion means killing a person to me, it doesn’t mean abortion is wrong.
But I’m still interested in just the facts.
You said a person has a mind. Yes, I agree. But if this is an essential element that must exist at the moment a new human being first comes to exist (the moment a mind comes to exist), are you willing to explain whether a new born baby is a person too?
I’m not saying this is your definition of a person. You said mind equals person or human being above somewhere. I’m just going with that to start a discussion about what we mean by human being as a part of a conversation about pregnant human beings (and abortion).
No doubt.
Begging the question occurs when an argument's conclusion is assumed in the argument; when X is assumed in order to prove X. So your suggestion is something like that I am assuming that a cyst has less value than Mrs Smith in order to prove that a cyst has less value than Mrs Smith. But that is not what I am doing. I am pointing to the truth that a cysts has less value than Mrs Smith, and using that to show that any argument to the contrary must be in error.
I am not in any way setting out to prove that a cyst has less value than Mrs Smith. So I am not begging the question.
We might at again flip the question you keep asking of me, and ask you why you think that Mrs Smith has only the value of a zygote.
So there's that.
:lol:
The point is you can’t tell.
Let’s try this. Do zygotes and Mrs Smith have anything at all in common?
See, I know the answer (there a few for sure). I’m just wondering if you could “tell” anything in common since you won’t tell the difference, and think I can’t.
I don’t think you can say what Mrs Smith is. So you just want to moralize about value. Too many (undefined) desires, needs and wants, but not enough physics and biology and simple logic. You just want to talk about her value, comparing her to cysts over a nice ethical lunch. :lol:
But to use my jungle-guide again, that is to insist that I am assuming I already know that yellow berries are poisonous. No, I have simply looked up 'yellow berries' and note that the guide book says 'don't eat yellow berries!' Then I have inferred from this that yellow berries are likely poisonous, given it's hard to see why else there would be a warning against eating them.
When it comes to abortions, we can describe them well enough without having to assume that the developing entity whose destruction it will result in is a person or is not a person. We have to assume that the author of the guide book knows a lot about the jungle, for otherwise it would not serve as a useful guide. And so just as we can describe yellow berries and - in principle anyway - learn something useful about them from the guide book, there's reason to suppose the same might be true when it comes to abortions.
As I see it, your objection is that the guide book can't tell us about the poisonousness of the yellow berries until we represent them to be poisonous. But that seems false: the guide book can warn us not to eat yellow berries. (Whether this is actually the case with abortions is another matter - I'm not insisting that our reason does, in fact, harbour the information I'm suggesting it might, rather I'm simply saying that 'if' our reason warns us against having abortions even when we do not represent them to be the killing of a person, then that'd be good evidence that they're the destruction of a person).
In other contexts, we recognize that what our reason tells us about the morality of various acts can tell us something about their other features. For example, in the famous trolley examples our reason tells us that it is wrong to shove the overweight person off the bridge and into the path of the trolley, even though this is the only way to save five innocent lives. Yet it tells us that it is morally permissible - and perhaps even obligatory - to pull a lever that will redirect the trolley into the path of one innocent person if that is the only way to save five others.
That's puzzling on its face. But upon reflection, we can see that there is an important difference between the two cases - a difference that we haven't explicitly described - namely that in the 'shove' case we would be using a person as a means to an end, whereas in the 're-direct' case we are not. Perhaps that is not the right analysis of that example. The point remains, however, that this is not information we fed in, so to speak, but something we learnt about the cases by reflecting on what our reason told us about them.
I'm suggesting we do the same in respect of abortion cases. We already do to some extent, because to use the example you appealed to earlier - the example of the newborn baby - it really is the case that virtually everyone's reason represents the killing of one of those to be wrong, and that really is evidence that they are persons.
Sure we can.
More backstory:
Quoting Banno
Again, if you cannot tell the difference, then that is an oddity about you, and an end to further discussion.
Tons of differences.
What kind of embryo is it? I can’t tell by looking at it. Do you know?
I could not have been clearer and you seem to largely ignore what I wrote so I have nowhere to go from here.
It’s been an interesting and fruitful discussion for me. :sparkle:
Honestly, I’m not sure I follow you. It would help me if you didn’t use the poison berry/guide book analogy, and just state the case using words like pregnant woman, fetus, person, abortion, rules, ethics, etc.
Quoting Clearbury
Because most other people don’t kill newborns, you see that as evidence that they are persons.
I’d just state, because newborns ARE persons, and adult persons think killing persons is wrong, most people don’t kill newborns.
But there is no evidence of what the definition of a person, adult or newborn, actually is here, just an observation about what they don’t kill.
Many people kill fetuses and many don’t. If you were a person considering whether abortion killed a persons or not, whether some of these people who kill or don’t kill got the rule about killing persons right or wrong, the evidence, the guidebook, most people’s reason, the consensus, is still lacking.
Where did I say that? That is a clear misrepresentation of my view.
I said that the reason - the faculty of reason - of most people represents killing newborns to be wrong. And that is evidence that newborns are minded entities.
If our reason represents abortions to be morally permissible, then that would be evidence that the developing entities are not minded entities.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Our reason is our guide to reality. That is why I then used the example of a guide to a jungle. So the jungle is reality and our reason is our guide to it.
If the guide to the jungle warns us not to eat yellow berries - and here 'eating yellow berries' is 'having an abortion' - then it is reasonable to infer from this that yellow berries are poisonous (and similarly, reasonable to infer from our reason representing abortions to be wrong, that fetuses have minds). On the other hand, if the guide says 'eat yellow berries if you want', then it is reasonable to infer from this that they are not poisonous. Likewise, if our reason represents abortions to be morally permissible, then it is reasonable to infer from this that the fetus lacks a mind.
But insisting that abortions are the killing of a person - and it is just an insistence, not evidence - or insisting that abortions are the mere destruction of cells - another insistence, not evidence - and then reporting what our reason (our guide) says about acts so-described, is not to gain any insight into the morality of abortions. It is to gain insight into what morality abortions would have 'if' they were the destruction of a person, or if they were the destrution of a clump of cells.
I do not think I can make my point any clearer than I have done so thus far. I do not think it delivers a clear verdict about the morality of abortions either. But as I think it is fair to say most pro-lifers (and of course, that description is itself question begging) assume that the fetus is a person - and so are only pro-life because they already assume they know that abortions are killings, then all they are doing is reporting what their reason (and probably the reason of most of us) says about killings of persons. Whereas I suspect a sizeable portion of pro-choicers are genuinely agnostic on whether the fetus is a person. If that is correct, then I think that the intuitions of the pro-choicers count for more. For they are reporting what their reason says about abortions, rather than what their reason says about killing persons. But this isn't a basis for any great confidence on the matter.
I know you are trying to be clear and I appreciate that. And maybe you are being clear and I just haven’t caught it yet. And I don’t mean to misrepresent you, I’m just not getting it.
“Virtually everyone’s reason represents X…”
That, to me, translates to “Virtually everyone thinks X.”
The term “reason represents” though is unclear to me, which is why I have translate it “thinks”.
Are you saying that, because all we know is that a fetus before birth may or may not be a person, we should conduct our moral analysis based on not knowing what a fetus is? We should jump to the moral/ethical/policy discussion with the ambiguous nature of the fetus as the best we can get?
I insist that an adult pregnant woman, for example, is a person. I think we all agree there.
But what do all the examples of a person have in common? What is human being? Are they only adults?
Without insisting anything more, I hypothesize that a person, a human being, is a distinct, living organism having a human set of DNA.
Analyzing further what a person is, what human being” means, using my reason and observation, I see that the adult woman was once nothing more than a fetus, and before that, a zygote, and before that she was not anything at all. It was not until after her conception that there was a distinct living organism having a human set of DNA.
It’s not much, what a human being is, to me. Just the same type of thing as any other mammal. We are the human kind of living organism. All individual living organisms started their individual lives sometime after an individual conception, or at conception.
To me conception is all you need to have a whole life. How long that life endures, and whatever it becomes is all born at conception.
The woman certainly didn’t exist before her conception. And as far as I’ve ever heard or been able to think of for myself, any set of functions or other attributes I add to my simple definition, like a heartbeat, or sensation and brain activity, or consciousness, or self-awareness, or reasoning/willing abilities, or spirits or souls, these are either arbitrary (meaning non-essential), usually they are themselves undefined or vague and untestable, and/or they end up excluding newborns.
So I’m not “insisting” that fetuses are persons, I’m trying to argue it based on what I observe to be a new human life.
And if the majority decided we need to have a human sacrifice to help the crops that would settle it for you? :roll:
Show me where I stated it isn't. Also, show me a person who has eaten all types of meat and/or wants to eat all types of meat.
Miscarriages are abortions. Therefore, according to your definition, "that the act of abortion itself, the act of killing this organism," Miscarriages are the acts of killing those organisms.
Here's why I said it is question begging: you are saying that is it morally permissible to abort because it is obvious that the woman should be able to abort. You are just masking it with other words now.
It's not that they, in total, have the same value: it's that they both have equal, basic human rights. I have consistently kept this conversation in terms of rights, not in total value. I do not disagree that in some circumstances, like when you have to choose between saving one person or the other in a manner that doesn't use one as a means towards saving the other, that we can, and should, value a newborn over an extremely old person.
I have never suggested that all humans are completely equal in value, but have consistently held that we have basic, inalienable rights.
So the question becomes: why don't you believe that all humans have equal, basic human rights? Do you not believe in rights?
I apologize: I was not intending to sidestep any of your response. If there's something I missed, then please feel free to bring it up.
Likewise, I enjoyed our conversation; and until we meet again, Praxis!
A miscarriage is by definition, an abortion. Therefore, according to
a miscarriage(abortion), is the act of killing the organism, which is wrong.
Why is absolute morality only absolute sometimes and relative some other times?
What if we were to start off with a definition like this: a human as a viable (it can survive on its own without artificial life support) organism descended from apes with a brain to body ratio of at least 2%
This does not mean that parents that want to save the life of their premature fetus should be legally prevented from doing so. This is only to determine when it is okay to choose for yourself when it is permissible to have an abortion. If you don't want an abortion you have that choice, or want to continue to keep your infant or elderly family member on life support, you have that choice.
I think we would agree what a human is 99% of the time and it is only in the gray area of embryos, fetuses, and the brain-dead, or those on life support that we might disagree. And it is in those grey areas that we as individuals should have the right to decide what we want to do without government interference because at that point what a human is is subjective.
Morality only appears to be absolute when a vast majority of people agree. The morality that we thought was absolute would be shattered when we meet an alien species with a different set of morals.
My issue is the identity of indiscernibles. She’s some other being one minute then a human being the next, while anyone watching this supposed change can see that one organism isn’t replaced by another.
Rather, it is a kind of being or animal or organism whose life begins at this time and ends that time, after which it decomposes. “Viability” is too squishy of a continuity principle for me. I want to be able to point at something and say “that’s a so-and-so” without having to check its vitals. There needs to be a taxonomical term for this being and “human” or “man” suffices.
But I’m still interested to read what other non-human being precedes us.
Fine, you don’t consider meat as food. I’m only stating that every dictionary does.
We’re speaking about the medical procedure some people choose to terminate a viable pregnancy. You’re equating this with the natural and spontaneous death of a fetus.
There was a time when they were not considered persons. It was the same with slaves. It’s the same instinct and language at work in this discussion, where a mere designation is used to justify all sorts of ill behaviors.
Where'd you go? You ok?
Quoting night912
Night - hi. Why did you say "organism"?
Let me see if anyone can follow a simple set of observable, empirical facts and answer a simple question.
We all know what an adult is. We know that an adult is different than an adolescent. And an adolescent is different than a newborn. And a newborn infant is different than an early fetus. Right? We all agree. Banno can show you the pictures if you don't follow :joke: .
But none of these words describe what the individual is. None of these point out any specific thing. That's because all of these are adjectives, describing a stage in a life of something I haven't identified yet. An adult X. An adolescent X. A newborn X. A fetal X.
A "fetus" isn't an individual. An "adult" isn't an actual thing. You need to have some thing in hand to use the terms "fetal, newborn, adolescent, adult" that might describe that thing.
So now let's start over.
Is an adult X an individual organism? Is an adolescent X an individual organism? Is a fetal X an individual organism? Yes. This is simple, animal biology, phrased in simple terms to point out features of individual organisms. It draws distinctions (perhaps arbitrarily and not without difficulty) between apparent stages in an organism's life.
So here is the simple question: What is the fetal stage organism in a pregnant adult human being? What is it? I already packed into this question the fact that it's not an adolescent thing or a newborn thing, and it certainly is not an adult thing. But will you say what it is?
What is the organism in the fetal stage that lives inside a pregnant adult human being?
You can't call it a construct, or a choice, because a doctor may have to isolate it in order to remove it from a woman's uterus. It's a thing, not someone's chosen word for a thing.
More specifically, it's a living individual organism. You can't call it a part of something else, because it's individuated by having its own functioning set of DNA). So what is it?
You can't just call it "a fetus" because that would be making a noun out of an adjective, and simply be avoiding the question "what is the fetus in the pregnant woman?" A fetal what, is the question.
I'll give you my answer just to be fair. It's a person. A human being, at a different stage in the fragile life it shares with the rest of us idiots, like a newborn is, or an old, blind, dying man with Alzheimer's is, or the strongest, smartest man in the world is.
Let the metaphysical and linguistic acrobatics begin, and the likely avoidance of simple facts and a simple question.
___________________________
I've never heard how a new human embryo is anything other than the first moments of a new human being. I would love to see a non-emotional, on point, reasoned argument from observable facts state what a human being is and when such a thing first comes into being.
I've given you my method and my current hypothesis. What do you got?
And before you think I'm pro-life, that to me is a tiresome political movement. I'd rather abortion up to around six or so months remain legal. I'd rather leave pregnant women free on such a sensitive issue and try to convince any who might ask to at least consider what they are doing when they are having an abortion and choose for themselves.
Public policy is less interesting (and even more steeped in bullshit) than the metaphysical question of new life and essence.
I find it so disappointing when people won't just apply their reason and clarify their terms in a conversation surrounding the metaphysical/physical/biological/empirical aspects of this topic. We should be more brave.
If my argument sucks, show me. Or better, make an argument of your own that shows why no one who has an abortion has killed a human being.
CC: @RogueAI:
I have been trying, from the start, to get @Banno to answer similar questions; but, unfortunately, they refuse to engage. The whole argument, as far as I can gather thus far, is that it seems immoral to force a woman to continue going through with pregnancy because of any value placed on the unborn human and, therefore, abortion is permissible. This is just utter garbage: it is entirely circular.
I will say that, with respect to my view, I have been using my terms too loosely sometimes; and this is something I will avoid doing in the future. To be painfully clear to everyone, here’s what I am arguing:
@Banno refuses to discuss whether or not a zygote, embryo, or/and fetus have basic human rights; and this thwarts the conversation to a stand-still.
If I were iron-man a pro-choice position, then I would say that you are asking an irrelevant question because you are equivocating personhood with “human beingness”; and that you are absolutely right that a new human being is create upon conception, but that a person is not thereby created upon conception and personhood grounds rights. A person, under this view, is a being which currently has a mind which has a rational will, and not a mere natural potential for one, and this is indicated, for an organism, by having a brain which is functioning aptly enough to deploy such a subjective experience (as a mind with rational capacities). Therefore, up until the unborn human being acquires the proper brain it is morally permissible to abort.
This argument sucks for multiple reasons:
1. What grounds rights is the rational nature of a being and not its mere acquisition or possession of a mind—otherwise, all animals would have equal rights—and so it is clear that infanticide would be equally morally permissible in this view (for children, especially at really early ages, clearly do not have a rational will).
2. Many human beings which even a pro-choice person wants to count as a person would not count under this view and thusly would not have any rights. E.g., a person who we know is going to wake up from their coma in 2 days time but currently does not have enough brain function to deploy a mind with rational capacities has no rights for those 2 days.
3. Dead people have no rights, which leads to the logical conclusion that one can do whatever they want to a dead person’s body as long as it serves no injustice to anyone who may have known them. E.g., sex, desecration, etc.
This is why anyone and everyone should be going for a teleological analysis of this, even if they don’t believe that we are designed in that strong, theological sense of having an agent which endowed us with purpose. I am curious what @Leontiskos thinks about this.
I am waiting for @Banno to respond with “but it’s obvious we shouldn’t value the zygote over the woman!!!!”. :roll:
That’s an interesting choice of words. Eudaimon translates to "having a good attendant or indwelling spirit".
You say I refuse to talk about rights. Here are the places I talked about rights in this thread.
Whatever rights we might grant to a cysts, the rights of the woman carrying it ought take precedence. Mrs Smith is of greater value than a collection of cells.
I'm sorry you cannot see this.
But that is not what you are doing in that post. You are kidding yourself.
Quoting Fire Ologist
If that is so, you should have no objection to it being removed so it can stand on it's own.
At best, if I grant what you said here then, you are saying that the blastocyst has no right to life; which is the most basic right a human has :sad: ; or, worse, you are saying that rights have degrees.
Why do you even speak?
Repeating drivel by avoiding interlocution doesn’t bring new meaning to the drivel.
If you don’t see that then “there’s not much anyone can say” to quote you.
I agree with this. The people who don't see this seem to want a justification beyond the obvious. What do you think is at the heart of this difference?
Hence they look for arguments to reject what is apparent. They can only do this by positioning the premise as if it were the conclusion.
If 'thought' is interpreted broadly enough, then a representation of our reason would be a kind of thought, but it would be a specific kind: one generated by our faculty of reason. That's the kind that constitute evidence.
But mere assumptions - which are also going to be thoughts - are not evidence. If I assume there's milk in the freezer, that isn't evidence there is milk in the freezer.
That certainly seems possible.
But is their reasoning as simple as:
A bunch of cells may become a human being, that's close enough to Mrs Smith for us to be unable to differentiate between the two?
These debates seem like interminable time wasters.
True enough. There'd be a good argument for having a fixed abortion thread, "All abortion arguments go here".
Quoting Tom Storm
I doubt if anyone would find this convincing. I suspect that such folk supose there to be something special about a zygote, the supposition being that there is some "mystical" property that enters the cells at the fusion of two haploid cells. They attempt to articulate this in secular terms such as being a person or a human being or the subject of inalienable rights. Each of these attempts to have the zygote count as the equal of Mrs Smith.
The motivation for this is almost always theological. Occasionally it is inveterate essentialism.
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
Your use of the word “attack” shows the weakness of your position.
You never said what kind of embryo you posted a picture of. Weak.
You won’t define what the organism is in a pregnant woman. You just want to convince everyone you think the adult woman is more valuable than the “cyst” (which is an “attacking” name for a blastocyst).
You won’t even define what a woman is. Other than [an organism] displaying needs, desires and does ethics. Weak.
And you won’t say how it is logical to see “desires and ethical agency” in a new born, or why someone would logically value a newborn the same as the adult. Also weak.
Cheers!
I wasn't attempting to put the argument convincingly, just trying to understand the thinking.
Quoting Banno
Yes, that seems likely.
Hmm. I don't think I've sunk so low as that feeble comment - yet.
The bit to about essentialism. It may be that you are an example of this - I don't know what you do of a Sunday. But the world does not always divide up as neatly as you seem to supose.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Quoting Fire Ologist
You agree with Banno for zygotes. Why?
I agree abortion ought to be permitted. What a pregnant woman does or does not do with her pregnancy and her body is none of anyone else’s business, particularly not the state.
But as a philosopher, I’m still curious about what an abortion actually is.
I can’t conclude a human zygote lump of cells is anything other than a stage in the one life of on individual human being. Adults can be called lumps of cells too, so that doesn’t help.
No one wants to define “human” in the context of one biological life.”
I’m not squeamish about it. I’m not going to make laws or argue morality or ethics that take away a woman’s autonomy just because she is pregnant.
I don’t need to balance the value of a woman versus a fetal human.
But I’m not going to hide from the evidence about what an abortion is just because some other people might use it to make bad law and treat people badly.
I’m sorry you felt attacked.
Quoting Banno
I don’t think I’m making divisions any more neatly than anyone else. Definitions and essences are a fickle bitch. But you draw a clear line, in other words, an essential difference, between an adult human and a “cyst”.
I’m working with those distinctions and drawing my own to see what you think (if you would play).
We can’t avoid definitions and hints at essences if we want to form a sentence, let alone have a conversation. We who would speak are slaves to distinctions and distinctions carry essence or definition.
A “human” is one bundle of vague wisps of smoke. But since we know a human is not a grapefruit, theee are some essential distinctions we can speak of.
It feels wrong, if that’s what you’re getting at. Do you want everyone to agree with you that it feels wrong?
You didn't answer my question Banno. Let me try again: DO YOU THINK that the zygote has a right to life? Any right to life at all? If so, then what does that right to life entail in your view?
Don't be.
Hi praxis,
I don’t want everyone to agree with me. That’s why I’m bothering to talk about this with Banno.
I want to find the most reasonable position. Dialogue with those who disagree helps me test and develop what I hope is the most reasonable position.
So you have nothing else you want to address?
Your position is clear: pro-choice (up to six months).
You have an understanding of the nature of a loaded question. You are asking a loaded question. The aim is rhetorical, to "derailing rational debates... - the recipient of the loaded question is compelled to defend themselves and may appear flustered or on the back foot" (source)
Rights are assigned, commissioned, not discovered. Becasue of that they are communal, and not an individual preference. Hence I will make a comparison rather than accepting your demand for an absolute judgement. Whatever rights we might choose to assign to the zygote, the adult human carrying it may veto. Her rights have priority.
That's all the answer I have for you.
Yes. To keep the state out of it.
But pro-choice and pro-life are political hatchet terms.
I’m actually anti-abortion-without-exception, and if for some reason a pregnant woman asked me what I think her fetus is, I’d say it’s a person. And if for some reason I was pregnant, I would think I can’t have an abortion unless there is some exceptional reason for it.
FYI: people who post like this seem to get banned quickly.
Post like what?
How do you explain preferring choice up to six months to keep the state out of it but actually being anti-abortion-without-exception?
It has some value in that it has a decent chance of becoming a person. If I saw a zygote dying on the sidewalk, would I take it in the house and keep it nourished and warm and safe for nine months? Probably not. But I might call the zygote-equivalent of the SPCA to come get it.
What about you? How far would you go to save a dying zygote? Would you hook your body up to it for 9 months? What if it meant you would be bedridden during that time?
As yet the question of whether she should or should not end the life is unresolved. But only evil would weigh the value of an innocent life to justify his killing. This is the game being played here.
No one here is, I think, arguing that abortion be made compulsory.
Cool. We could even leave it at that. :wink:
Quoting Fire Ologist
This is probably a quesion of values. I don't particularly value such cells. An adult human being (Mrs Smith of the previous discussion) is in the world, interacting, making choices, exchanging views, is loved and has a history and her loss is likely to be palpable. The loss of some cells may have a psychological impact on the putative mother, but for me cannot be compared to the 'value' or status of Mrs Smith. If you disagree with this, I suspect it's because we see things differently and I suspect such a quesion of competing values cannot be reconciled.
Supporting choice up to six months doesn’t exactly scream “anti-abortion-without-exception,” but maybe they are being sincere.
But you are implying a zygote has some rights, but are not clarifying what they are; because you don't know....
I get that not everyone is going to agree with me that the long chain of events that is a person’s life includes the moments they were conceived. I get that I may be wrong. I also get that pregnancy and new life and abortion and laws and morals are dense, cloudy things in the world, and now we just have many more ways to continue disagreements.
So to be done with all the disagreement in the law, the law should be a compromise and allow for abortion. Up to six months (or finalize some criteria and pick a day), to draw the line and be done with it. After six months, the law should allow for abortion in certain cases. And upon birth, too late, we all get stuck with a new state citizen.
I am pro choice because abortion policy is a practical issue, and in the interest of trying to move to other practical issues, the “pro-life” side has to accept there will still be abortions, and the pro-choice side has to accept that some abortions will be limited.
But I like the more theoretical aspects, as they pertain to all life and the whole human experience. Regardless of whatever the law is, if someone asked me “would you have an abortion in X circumstances?” I want to first consider “what is an abortion?”in every way I can. And I find it impossible to answer that question without saying the word “human” and pointing to “lives” and coloring in a picture where I ultimately find it impossible to distinguish “human” from the newly conceived zygote in a pregnant adult human woman. So long story short, because some abortions are good (necessary) and some are bad (killing a person with no justifying reason), and because the question is what would I do, you end up with me being against abortion except in (likely few in my case) circumstances when killing the fetal human is necessary.
So I’m all over the place. I’m both pro life personally, but pro choice politically. And I would go 15 rounds on the metaphysics, the science, the fact of the matter, the conversation built into the abortion issue. But politically, I am useless to both sides as I win personally if for some reason abortion stops, and I win practically if for some reason legal abortion continues.
Good question: no, I would not volunteer to save a random zygote nor a random adult by having them use my bodily resources to save their life; and I don't think that is immoral nor would it be morally permissible for society force hook me up to them.
It depends on how difficult or easy it would be to save that life. E.g., we expect someone to call CPS when a baby randomly shows up on our front porch and we expect them to make reasonable accommodations to keep that baby alive until they show up; or we even expect, if there were no CPS, for them to take care of the baby. But if they had to use their own bodily resources to do it, or had to choose between themselves surviving or the baby, then I don't think we would blame them if they chose themselves (assuming it isn't their baby).
If, for some reason, I am forceably hooked up to someone and am sustaining their life; then that would be immoral but also it would be immoral for me to unhook myself.
Honestly, this is a good, separate question about justice which equally applies to helping anyone in society. Should you splurge on a boat, with your hard earned cash, when you could have easily helped change a homeless person's life? These are all good questions, but I don't think it is as relevant to abortion as you probably think it is. Me not helping a homeless person right now is not a violation of their rights---or is that what you are suggesting (essentially)?
Yes. The question is loaded.
Assuming that it is optional, the mother has every right, and no one would intervene, should she kill her offspring? Is it right or wrong to do so? Is it just? The answers to these questions ought to inform one’s position.
Legally speaking I agree.
Quoting Tom Storm
I prefer to discuss what things are and what they do before I discuss their value.
Basically in order to say “I value Mrs Smith to X degree” before you even value or compare her to anything, you have to say “Mrs Smith” and this requires some definition or we are not saying anything useful or able to make the best value judgment.
Newborns are barely different than a small fetus when it comes to making choices, awareness like a human adult, etc. I don’t see it to be consistent to say you value the fetus more after its birth. The fetus once born is as feckless as a lump of cells.
The values folks seem to already know the adult is the most valued and by the time you get to the zygote stage, you obviously have nothing at all that would be valued like the adult. But the phrase “zygote is obviously nothing like the adult” seems to be based only cursory, surface observation, and when this quick treatment is left as good enough for value judgments, it leads to what I see as inconsistent logic (who are all the humans) and inconsistent value judgments (why do we value infants like they are persons like Mrs Smith).
Why not before that? A zygote does not just come into existence on its own.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Can you clarify what you mean by that? Some may view it as an ideological issue.
There is no organism before conception. A sperm or an egg are specialized human cells, like a liver cell or any other special cell, but they are not organisms. They start something new. But that moment is the rub of the metaphysical question. Conception marks a change. Change reflects difference and becoming and motion. Doesn’t seem like an arbitrary line is drawn at conception to me but I’d love an argument. Conception is a new motion.
Quoting praxis
It’s an ethical issue, a biological issue, a metaphysical issue, a legal/public policy issue (and all the politicking and ideological virtue signaling that goes with that). By practical, I meant the legal public policy bit.
Doesn’t resonate with me. But thanks for taking the effort. I’m pretty good with us holding different views on this.
But I’m interested in asking you something else. Where do you sit on euthanasia?
Haven’t really thought about it much. It doesn’t really present any metaphysical questions, and ethics discussions are not worth the effort to me.
Notice I’m more interested in what people think a person is and what people think a new life is in the abortion discussion, but not so interested in talking about the moral implications.
Someone has an abortion, I’m fine with that being none of my business, and leaving the laws to capture that is fine with me too. But someone says a zygote isn’t an early moment in the one life of a human being, a person, and I’m interested in their reasoning.
Cool I respect that and you put your case well. It's not an area that interests me. But I am interested in people who are interested.... if that makes sense.
Quoting Fire Ologist
I wouldn't argue that. I'd be happy to say it is a 'potential person', a partial journey towards personhood, if you like and therefore (for me) not as valuable as a full person. That's my call based on some pragmatic values. Not being a practitioner of philosophy, I'm pretty much blind to the infinities this kind of discussion can generate.
As far as I can tell everything is in a constant state of change and motion at the molecular, cellular, terrestrial, and celestial levels. I think we mark beginning and ending basically in order to take action and achieve goals.
Many see beginning and endings as conventionally true but ultimately like illusions. I tend to see it that way though I recognize how very limited my perspective is.
Quoting Fire Ologist
Confusing because you said that you’re pro-choice because abortion policy is a practical issue.
A religious person might say that they’re pro-life because abortion policy is a spiritual issue.
You should be able to answer a basic question like that. Let me try to ask it differently:
1. What do you believe a 'right' is?
2. Do you believe anything has any rights?
3. What has rights (if any)?
4. Do humans have rights?
5. If humans have rights, then what rights do they have?
6. What rights, if any, do human beings in the womb have?
If your theory can't answer these, then it has serious problems.
But that's the thing. Categories are mental objects that can represent the world as it is only to a degree. Our categories tend to fall apart when we attempt to distinguish one thing from another with finer detail. Astronomers have the same problem in defining what it is to be a planet. This is why I am saying that there is a grey area. Your boundaries might not line up with others, and since there is no clear boundary, it is up to you, and you alone, to decide what you want to do with your boundaries. If you can't even clearly distinguish what it is to be a human in these grey areas, then your foundation for limiting what others can do in these grey areas is not as solid as you think.
But how far would you go to saving a zygote? I can envision myself maybe running into a burning building to save a person trapped there, but a petri dish or a test tube? No way. Would you put yourself at risk to save a zygote?
All of these scenarios I give are to show we value actual persons infinitely more than one-celled organisms, and I think obvious conclusions can be drawn from that regarding the abortion debate.
Pro-choice is a public moniker for what I would call Pro-abortion rights. Because we need to make public policy, and no one will ever agree on this, I choose the “pro-choice” public policy route with certain limitations.
Quoting praxis
And I’m religious. I’d say to them “ok, what does that mean with regards to when a new human being comes into being, and what is your argument for why abortion should be legal or not?” Soul talk is as arbitrary as the whole consciousness or mind or will talk. Arbitrary to me when it comes to what we can measure in a newborn, a toddler, a zygote.
Quoting praxis
I agree. Everything is in a constant state of change. That either means that nothing comes to be as each is changed before it takes hold. Or things take hold and come to be for a short time before they are changed beyond recognition, or I’m wrong and there are some permanent, unchanging things.
If we say “abortion” we have to draw some lines and fix some boundaries. One of them is “human”. If, when it becomes difficult to fix that boundary I just say “everything changes anyway” I can’t say “human” anymore. The issue is perfect in this debate because the fetus has its own clear fixed boundaries, or else a doctor couldn’t identify it and remove it. What is that doctor doing besides motion and change like everything else? What is unlike anything else?
Appreciate your point of view.
What would you say to someone who basically agreed with you, but said they did not find newborns and infants as valuable as full persons? Maybe they don’t want to kill babies or anything, they just think that to be consistent with their own valuation, infants are not as valuable as adults.
And there we have it. Mother’s should kill their offspring when they are cysts. At least we’re out with it.