A Philosophical Arguement against Abortion

[Charlemagne_II]

hatsoff

(2) Who gets counted? You mention abortion, but this takes for granted that unborn fetuses get the same rights as grown adults.

Of the three points you make, the only one relating to our discussion is #2.

The unborn child gets counted because it has its entire life ahead of it. Moreover, it is innocent of any wrongdoing. Children in their early years have the right not to be treated cruelly, or worked to death, or sexually abused, etc. Grown adults have different rights (to work, to marry, to vote, etc.) only because they are at different stages of life. However, all human life has the same right … the right to life. If a living being doesn’t have that right, it can have no other rights either, because it will be dead before those other rights can kick in, as in the case of the child murdered in the womb.

If you want to make the case that the child in the womb is not a child, you have a very hard case to make. I’m all ears. Prove it!

You certainly can’t believe that an abortion does not produce an adverse effect on the child in the womb.

 

[Betterave]

I would be happy to consider an alternate account of value judgments! But thus far you have presented no such account. You offer a label, “factually bad,” but you haven’t connected that label to a concept. Until you do so, I simply have no idea what you’re talking about.

hatsoff,
Maybe we could start with your answering this question: The badness of judgments in general, in your view, consists in what?

I have no idea why you think we would “have to” do anything. It seems that you’re importing your own value judgments into the situation, but there’s no need to do so. Nonreligious people get along just fine without appealing to a divine moral code.

But they don’t get by just fine in making value judgments by just appealing to subjective preferences which are unrelated to/independent of matters of fact. Did you notice that?

I have yet to hear from you (or anyone else, for that matter) how that’s any different from the Christian account, in which God is the most powerful being and enforces his own preferred moral code.

That’s unfortunate that you haven’t yet run across/understood any accurate accounts of the Christian account. If one’s ‘preferences’ are perfectly based upon a perfect knowledge of what is objectively preferable (a perfect knowledge of the good), then an exclusive focus on the fact that one also has the biggest club is obviously very misleading. Power is not bad in itself; power is only bad insofar as it is misused.

 

[hatsoff]

Are you confusing “enforcement” with “consequences”?

God cannot force us to to good or avoid evil. He can promise consequences, whereby he offers to persuade us one way or the other. But the decision is ours to make. God does not choose hell for our disobedience. We do.

Well, I don’t think most Christian concepts of free will are coherent, but that much aside, I fully agree that God does not force us to behave according to his moral code. He only punishes us if we disobey–and this seems to me no different than the source of your earlier complaint, that in a world without God, those with the most power to punish get to dictate their morality.

hatsoff

(2) Who gets counted? You mention abortion, but this takes for granted that unborn fetuses get the same rights as grown adults.

Of the three points you make, the only one relating to our discussion is #2.

The unborn child gets counted because it has its entire life ahead of it. Moreover, it is innocent of any wrongdoing. Children in their early years have the right not to be treated cruelly, or worked to death, or sexually abused, etc. Grown adults have different rights (to work, to marry, to vote, etc.) only because they are at different stages of life. However, all human life has the same right … the right to life. If a living being doesn’t have that right, it can have no other rights either, because it will be dead before those other rights can kick in, as in the case of the child murdered in the womb.

If you want to make the case that the child in the womb is not a child, you have a very hard case to make. I’m all ears. Prove it!

You certainly can’t believe that an abortion does not produce an adverse effect on the child in the womb.

You can define a code of conduct—or the word “child”—any way you like, but that won’t make me or anyone else care about it. If moral issues were matters of fact, then we could rationally resolve our differences. But moral issues derive from value judgments, and those are decided subjectively.

 

[Sair]

Charlemagne II, you said,

*All human beings must be valued at every stage of development for what they will become.
Unborn children are human beings.
Unborn children must be valued at their stage of development for what they will become.

You can disagree with each premise and the conclusion, but the logic is deductive and valid.

The minor premise (second sentence) cannot be argued, since the unborn child’s DNA is set and will be the same as long as the human being exists.
To your first premise, I would say, Why? I certainly have no recollection of valuing my own life before I was aware that I had it.

Secondly, to qualify as a ‘being’, one must have sentience and at least a degree of self awareness. No-one denies that a human foetus is human, but humanity and being are not one and the same.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Well, I don’t think most Christian concepts of free will are coherent, but that much aside, I fully agree that God does not force us to behave according to his moral code. He only punishes us if we disobey–and this seems to me no different than the source of your earlier complaint, that in a world without God, those with the most power to punish get to dictate their morality.

An act is immoral when it contradicts love. In other-words; an immoral act is a selfish act. A selfish act is when one acts only for the good of ones self. To act for the good of others is to act in conformity to love in so far as love is to act for the greatest good of some persons “being” and all the potential good that can be manifested of that being. To deprive some person of “being” for the sake of ones own pleasure or for the sake of relieving the burden of some persons existence (potential or otherwise), is a selfish act, because it is an attempt to undo a pending or actual good for the sake of ones self.

Good, in so far as it is to be thought of as objective, is an expression of ultimate reality; that is to say “perfect united reality” as opposed to potential contingent reality. Ultimate reality is the root of all that which we perceive as good; it is the root of our desire to preserve our lives and seek out the good of living. In the act of “existing” we perceive the potential good of things and some of us realize that this good occurs when we, as a community of beings, actualize the “ought of love”. We see the greatest good when we act for the greatest good of others rather than just our selves, and we see conflict when we don’t conform to love. Perfect reality is an eternal expression of being which has been “shared” with us, allowing us to participate in that eternal act which is existence. (Potential beings that don’t have to exist). Thus, in so far so far as all potential reality is measured by that which is perfectly real, to act selfishly is an act of war and rebellion against perfect existence which is “absolute unity”. The opposite of absolute unity is selfishness and nothing. The more we unite in love the greater the moral goods that come from the human race, simply because when they love, they are conforming to that eternal act of existence which Christians call God. The more we conform to the perfection of being the better life is in terms of social relations.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Well, I don’t think most Christian concepts of free will are coherent, but that much aside, I fully agree that God does not force us to behave according to his moral code. He only punishes us if we disobey–and this seems to me no different than the source of your earlier complaint, that in a world without God, those with the most power to punish get to dictate their morality.

There’s a big difference, isn’t there? We can depend on God to be fair and just and loving.

As to human dictators, there is no such guarantee. Right?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

hatsoff

*You can define a code of conduct—or the word “child”—any way you like, but that won’t make me or anyone else care about it. If moral issues were matters of fact, then we could rationally resolve our differences. But moral issues derive from value judgments, and those are decided subjectively. *

Since you do not reply to my specific points, I take it you have no counter.

You have not offered to prove that the unborn child is not a human being, and you have not offered to prove that the unborn child has no right to life.

You also have not offered to prove that there is a big difference between matters of taste (the difference between chocolate and vanilla ice cream) and matters of value judgment (the difference between taking a life and nurturing life). You have confused the two, thereby making it possible in your mind to argue that all value judgments are subjective (matters of taste, rather than concerned with objective good and evil).

It would seem that in your world there is neither objective good nor evil. You can hardly be blamed for thinking this way with respect to abortion because the Supreme Court itself has endorsed this kind of madness in Roe v Wade. You have grown up in a world no longer able to think its way to the truth because it no longer even believes in truth. It believes only what it wants to believe, or what it is comfortable believing, or what it can be conned into believing; or it believes in nothing at all.

 

[hatsoff]

There’s a big difference, isn’t there? We can depend on God to be fair and just and loving.

Not if the Bible is any indication. According to that monstrous volume, God is an angry bully who demands that we obey him absolutely, and threatens eternal torture as punishment for anyone who fails to do so in even the slightest regard—which as it turns out is everyone.

Since you do not reply to my specific points, I take it you have no counter.

Not at all. In one of your recent posts, you claimed that some of my comments were irrelevant. In fact, they were quite relevant to the post which they addressed. However, it turns out that we have both drifted from the original topic, the continuity of our discussion splintering into distant tangents. I was attempting to tie together some of those tangents, so that we can get back to the subject of the morality of abortion, and its status as a value judgment.

It appears you do not feel the same, and so I will be happy to resume responding point-by-point.

You have not offered to prove that the unborn child is not a human being, and you have not offered to prove that the unborn child has no right to life.

Unborn fetuses are human beings by definition. Some of them are granted rights by the government. Others are not. This is not the subject of our dispute.

You also have not offered to prove that there is a big difference between matters of taste (the difference between chocolate and vanilla ice cream) and matters of value judgment (the difference between taking a life and nurturing life). You have confused the two, thereby making it possible in your mind to argue that all value judgments are subjective (matters of taste, rather than concerned with objective good and evil).

Taste is a kind of value judgment. And I am not trying to “argue” that all value judgments are subjective. They are relative by my definition. So, if they are not relative by your definition, then you must have something else in mind than I do when you talk about value judgments. That’s why you needed to provide a definition—so that I knew what you meant!

Now, your alternate account of moral value is a kind of minimize net harm model. But as I explained earlier, this is just one of many possible codes of conduct which we could use. I have no reason to privilege it over my current model of behavior, in which abortion is permissible under certain circumstances.

It would seem that in your world there is neither objective good nor evil.

I cannot tell you whether such things exist until you define them. But I don’t think you can do so without appealing to God.

 

[JohnDamian]

I cannot tell you whether such things exist until you define them. But I don’t think you can do so without appealing to God.

What is wrong with appealing to God in an argument about objective morality?

 

[hatsoff]

What is wrong with appealing to God in an argument about objective morality?

If you appeal to God, then you must first establish the existence of God. That would seriously disrupt the current conversation.

 

[JohnDamian]

If you appeal to God, then you must first establish the existence of God. That would seriously disrupt the current conversation.

I see no sensible reason why one cannot appeal to the concept of God; irrespective of belief.

 

[hatsoff]

I see no sensible reason why one cannot appeal to the concept of God; irrespective of belief.

I would never suggest otherwise.

 

[Betterave]

Taste is a kind of value judgment. And I am not trying to “argue” that all value judgments are subjective. They are relative by my definition. So, if they are not relative by your definition, then you must have something else in mind than I do when you talk about value judgments. That’s why you needed to provide a definition—so that I knew what you meant!

Now, your alternate account of moral value is a kind of minimize net harm model. But as I explained earlier, this is just one of many possible codes of conduct which we could use. I have no reason to privilege it over my current model of behavior, in which abortion is permissible under certain circumstances.

I cannot tell you whether such things exist until you define them. But I don’t think you can do so without appealing to God.

I think you are wrong: taste (as you’ve described it) is not a kind of value judgment - it’s no kind of judgment at all, any more than being cold, or feeling sluggish, or delirious, or having itchy armpits are judgments. I don’t know if you have me on your ignore list or something, but I’ve asked for your own definition of the badness of judgments in general and you’ve ignored my question. Now it seems you owe us your definition of ‘judgment’ (and perhaps an explanation as to why your definition is not purely stipulative, but rather warrants our paying any attention to it). Also: are you equating ‘subjective’ with ‘relative’? If so, why would you do this?

 

[Betterave]

If I may play devil’s advocate, or at least present objections I have heard to your points…

Conception is a necessary but insufficient component of personhood. The sufficient component is self-awareness.

I don’t truly believe in right and wrong.

Conclusion of Premise 1 and 2 is unsound because of falsity of 1 and 2.

Extension of Conclusion 3 is unsound because of unsoundness of Conclusion 3.

True, but…

…the concept of a “person in development” does not equate to a “person”, and thus does not receive the rights and privileges of a “person”.

Value-judgement is unsound. No proof is given.

Conclusion is unsound due to massive falsity of premises.

Very good.

Pro-Life Spirithound is back!
Your argument falls apart because of a lack of definitions. As in Premise 1, we need to define a person as co-terminous with a human being. Person=human being, human being=person.

As in Premise 2, we need to stipulate moral absolutism. The relativist has no guidelines but her own.

Not so good. If we simply stipulate moral absolutism, our opponent can just as well stipulate moral nihilism, can’t she? Whatever our moral position, it shouldn’t be based on mere stipulation. We need to recognize that there are not just two alternatives: either moral nihilism (or emotivism or anarchism) or moral absolutism. One of these may be correct, we needn’t deny that, but (mistakenly!) thinking that these are the only alternatives is not conducive to productive dialogue, it seems to me.

 

[Sair]

*Well, the word “whim” implies carelessness and ill-appreciation, which are not usually associated with ethical positions, although they can be in some cases. I think it’s best to say instead that morals are based on passions. *

The word “whim” really implies an action performed by impulse and without well thought out justification.

You don’t offer any reason why you should not value the life of the unborn. You just say you don’t value it. We’ve offered you well thought out reasons why you should value that life … because it is the same as the life you once lived in your mother’s womb. Your mother valued you enough to give you birth rather than value you so little as to kill you because you were a temporary inconvenience.

We should all be for life rather than for death, and least of all the death of the innocent unborn.

Why must the life of the unborn be valued above the lives of the born? That doesn’t make any kind of rational sense.

In any case, I rather think that when it comes to abortion, it’s not a question of not valuing the unborn, but of valuing other things more. Let’s take the all-too-common circumstance of a pregnant teenager; let’s imagine she has no support network - the father of the foetus has no interest in hanging around, her parents are indifferent, and because of this, having a child will mean she must delay the completion of her education indefinitely. Is it wrong for her to value her own future prospects more than the insentient foetus? The foetus that cannot value its own life? I don’t believe it is wrong in such circumstances.

It’s kind of like asking whether we should value the life of a cow over the taste of steak - my opinion should be obvious from what I’ve written previously; but that’s exactly what it is - an opinion. I can’t call upon any facts that will convince any and all people that we should not kill cattle for food, just as you cannot quote any facts that will convince any and all people that abortion should be illegal.

 

[JohnDamian]

Why must the life of the unborn be valued above the lives of the born? That doesn’t make any kind of rational sense.

Why the opposite?

In any case, I rather think that when it comes to abortion, it’s not a question of not valuing the unborn, but of valuing other things more.

Pro-Life is valuing all life; and deciding never to acitvely and willingly cause a death.

 

[Sair]

Why the opposite?

People who are already here are more valuable than the unborn, by virtue of the fact that they are sentient, aware, and able to interact and form relationships with others. At the time when the majority of abortions are performed, the human foetus is none of these things.
Since it is unable to attach any value to its own life, its value comes entirely from the attitude its parent(s) have towards it.

Pro-Life is valuing all life; and deciding never to acitvely and willingly cause a death.

I’m presuming you mean human life here. It’s impossible for any animal to live without causing death.

My observation has generally been that Pro-Lifeists (by which I mean not everyone who claims to be pro-life, but in particular those who politicise the issues of abortion and euthanasia) tend to ignore the needs of people who are not able to be used to make a political point. They value the unborn more for their own ends, which, in general, seem to be to enshrine their brand of moralism in the laws of their nation. As to their being interested in any of the people who are already here, if I’m not mistaken, Pro-Lifeism tends to go hand-in-hand with conservatism, which generally speaking is against things like publically-funded healthcare. Not meaning to derail the thread or anything, but how does that fit in with valuing life above everything else?

 

[JohnDamian]

People who are already here are more valuable than the unborn, by virtue of the fact that they are sentient, aware, and able to interact and form relationships with others. At the time when the majority of abortions are performed, the human foetus is none of these things.
Since it is unable to attach any value to its own life, its value comes entirely from the attitude its parent(s) have towards it.

A lived life has had the gift of potential in these areas; how can anyone say that a person who is more privaleged than another deserves more?

I’m presuming you mean human life here. It’s impossible for any animal to live without causing death.

Not essentially, there are many parasitic lifeforms that live off others without killing them; there are many that eat parts of plants but do not kill the whole etc.

My observation has generally been that Pro-Lifeists (by which I mean not everyone who claims to be pro-life, but in particular those who politicise the issues of abortion and euthanasia) tend to ignore the needs of people who are not able to be used to make a political point. They value the unborn more for their own ends, which, in general, seem to be to enshrine their brand of moralism in the laws of their nation. As to their being interested in any of the people who are already here, if I’m not mistaken, Pro-Lifeism tends to go hand-in-hand with conservatism, which generally speaking is against things like publically-funded healthcare. Not meaning to derail the thread or anything, but how does that fit in with valuing life above everything else?

The existence of life is more valuable than the quality of life. It is better to be alive in poor circumstances than to be not alive. In the same way; it is sensible for anyone from any end of the political spectrum to want to protect citizens lives – even if some (conservatives) feel that once an individual has been brought up they are responsible for themselves - most (in fact all sensible ones) would value protecting children until they are able to look after themselves, in general this would include basic medical care, education and essentially life. To say one would like education / healthcare for the poor, but that their very being alive is not important is ridiculous.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

If I may play devil’s advocate, or at least present objections I have heard to your points…

So long as you’re open to the possibility of eternal damnation, sure, go for it.

Conception is a necessary but insufficient component of personhood. The sufficient component is self-awareness.

It seems like you’re arguing that because we make moral judgments about self-awareness that we must therefore ignore the value of any nature which intrinsically gives functionality to self awareness. But this doesn’t follow. For example, If you believe in the soul, you could say that it is the soul that is most relevant. However, it would be shortsighted indeed if one were to ignore the importance of the brain in its ability to provide functionality for the souls expression in the physical order. The brain is just as important and relevant because if the brain is damaged, we cannot function in the real world as a person. Having a “brain” is an intrinsic part of what makes us a person. Similarly, i exist now as a person because the elements intrinsic to person hood were in production from the moment of conception. In light of the fact that i am here now, so long as the embryonic process was allowed to mature, I know that it was in fact “i” that was being made. In light of the fact that i am here now as the end product of a definite process, proves that the embryo was in production to the intrinsic end of creating “me” or a person from the moment of conception; and thus the embryo is just as important to my functional value as a person since my very nature as a person is defined by that moment of conception. If somebody attempts to stop that process, they destroy the end to which the embryonic process is in production; which is a “person”. Therefore it is correct for me to conclude, insofar as i am the intrinsic end product of that process, that a human embryo is a developing person.

I don’t truly believe in right and wrong.

It is irrelevant. Most people who fight for pro - choice do so on the notion of moral equality and moral dignity. “Moral truth” is the defining motivation of the pro choice movement, regardless of whether it is rational or not to believe in objective moral values.They argue that pro life is intrinsically “wrong” because it is depriving women of a moral dignity which they ought to have as “persons” with freewill. And they try to morally justify the use of abortion as not being murder by using the moral argument that a embryo should be denied the value of a person because in its present state, it is not a walking talking person; and they expect us to recognize and understand the objective moral truth of their statement. They may not really believe in right and wrong, but so long as they attempt to justify abortion on “moral terms”, they are bound to a standard of moral truth that is true whether we subjectively think it is or not, and is a truth that we can reason to according to that universal moral standard. Pro-choice is a moral argument; it isn’t an argument against objective moral values. Otherwise their claim cannot be determined as objectively valid.

Ones position on moral nihilism is really irrelevant because that is the the motivation of the movement.

…the concept of a “person in development” does not equate to a “person”, and thus does not receive the rights and privileges of a “person”.

This is just an assertion. You have not provided us with any explanation as to why an embryo does not equate to a person. As i said before, it is correct to think of the embryo as having the same value as a person because that is the intrinsic end to which the embryonic process is in act; it is making a person. If you destroy the embryo you destroy the end to which the embryonic process was in act. If we truly value the end to which the embryonic process is in act, we cannot justify destroying that embryo. In so far as the human embryo is intrinsically in act to that which we value, it is right for me to think of the embryo as being a person in development. We say that people have value not because of what they can give us as persons, but rather because they are persons, and thus we must protect all that which is immediately intrinsic to the existence of a person which includes their dna and what ever other nature that is intrinsic to person-hood such as their conception. If you value my existence as a person now, then you must value my conception.

Continued…

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Continued…

Value-judgement is unsound. No proof is given.

It is not just a value judgment, it is a logical inference from a premise that serious pro-choice and pro-lifers share.

My argument only fails if “pro-choice” isn’t a moral value judgment, which it obviously is regardless whether or not the opponent believes in objective moral values.

Of course, this thread is not intended to be an argument against philosophical nihilism. That’s why if you read my argument carefully you will see that i say “If we truly believe in right and wrong and correct moral conduct” or “If human life has intrinsic moral value, and if you value my life now, then you must value my conception”. These statements are obviously conditional and obviously concedes quite blatantly that if you are not willing to accept the premise of “moral truth” and if you don’t value my life, that therefore the argument has no force. But like many people on this forum, you are far too important to read my posts properly.

A further weakness in your argument is that you go back and forth from saying “person” to “person in development” back to “person”.

Merely saying so doesn’t show me that there is a weakness in my argument. So long as i show the moral/ontological connection between the two time indexes, which i have done, then my argument is valid.

In Premise 1, what precisely does “in virtue of” mean?

It is a figure of speech designed to show an important connection between two concepts. Usually it is to show the contingency of one concept upon the existence of another.