A Philosophical Debate On The Problem Of Abortion

[MindOverMatter]

So are you going to ignore me, or not? I won’t bother to respond if you’ve put me on ignore. And no, the case is not closed before your opponent gets a chance for a rebuttal. You know how debating works, so act like it.

How can you respond when you have no real arguement?

 

[tonyrey]

                           Quote:
                                                                  Originally Posted by **tonyrey**                     [forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=5696855#post5696855)                 
             *If you cannot avoid an evil consequence through no fault of your own you are not committing a sin. All you can do is choose what you believe to be the lesser of two evils.*

Then how was Adam and Eve’s action a sin, if they couldn’t yet understand right and wrong?

Good question! It was not a sin but it was evil.

The story of Adam and Eve is a myth based on historical fact. If you accept evolution human beings must have first recognised the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong at a specific moment in time - given that animals are amoral. They chose to do what they knew to be wrong, as Cain did when he killed his brother. We can only speculate as to the precise nature of their sin but it must have related to their rejection of any principle or authority other than their own desires and ambitions, i.e. the decision to live for themselves to the exclusion of everyone else - including God. In other words they committed the sin of pride which is motivated by the lust for power: egolatry - the worship of oneself.

All this presupposes, of course, that you believe in the distinction between good and evil, but that is presupposed in your question.

 

[Oreoracle]

But I was talking about the moral fulfillment of humanity as a metaphysical whole in terms of ultimate beginnings and ultimate ends.
Can I observe these ultimate beginnings and ends? Or are they only apparent to elite metaphysicians such as yourself? I see much diversity in the universe, and quite a bit of chaos because of the diversity. There doesn’t seem to be any established order, except for the natural laws, and even they can be elusive. Even if things were ordered to be a certain way, it doesn’t follow that they should be that way. An ought-statement cannot be derived from is-statements alone.

If you did a little introspection, you’d see this. We say, “Humans should not kill humans.” because we dislike the fact that humans are being killed by each other. We are displeased with reality as it is, so we express how we want it to be. This world of our desires doesn’t actually exist, but, through great effort, we can work toward this hypothetical, subjectively ideal world being actualized. Morality has always been this way: humans cherrypicking what they like about reality, and wishing to produce more of it, as well as choosing what they dislike, and doing what they can to be rid of it. To you, holiness is good. Why? Because something about being holy satisfies you.

Now, do I say that morality is this way because I want it to be that way? No. Asking whether or not I want morality to be subjective is like asking whether or not I want two plus two to equal four. It’s not what I want, it just is that way. Some people find this to be disconcerting, but it’s ultimately true.

But what i will say is that the fulfillment of humanity as a whole cannot be obtained outside a strict adherence to the nature of love as a universal objective absolute. We need a transcendent principle of being and belief which encourages and inspires people to value life, to see life in the context of an absolute goal that fulfills and unites humanity as a whole. Human beings must view their existence as a sacred gift.

Again, my movie rental scenario that I presented much earlier in the thread that you refused to respond to beats your argument to a bloody pulp, which is why you haven’t responded to it. I suspect that you never will.

 

[tonyrey]

An ought-statement cannot be derived from is-statements alone.

I don’t want to interrupt the discussion but it is important to point out that reasoning implies that we ought to accept the principles of logic! We are not obliged to be reasonable. Sometimes we choose to be unreasonable but on the whole we believe we should be reasonable. To put it another way. The fact that we prefer to reason, and do reason, implies that we believe it is valuable and it is valuable because it achieves far more results than not reasoning…

 

[Oreoracle]

There is such a thing as discretion. In our anonymous society, many people cheat on their spouses with impunity, and (if they are discreet) do so with tremendous “success”. If someone is smart enough to do it discreetly, it’s seems that you’re committed to saying that it is a good. This is why I think that discretion is the fundamental virtue of utilitarianism.

Don’t you think that the couple’s relationship will suffer regardless of whether the cheater is caught cheating? It’s hard to miss the fact that your spouse is missing for a few hours longer than his work schedule demands (mind you, this has never happened to me, of course ). This affects the children as well.

But this is assuming that one spouse will be home to notice that the other is missing for no apparent reason. Sometimes the incongruous work schedules can get in the way.

Given all of this, and the fact that we can never be certain that we can cheat without being caught, I don’t deem cheating acceptable in normal circumstances (abusive relationships can be a separate matter, as can relationships where the two agree to cheat). I don’t think this contradicts utilitarianism at all. The risk factor is too high, and one cannot tend to one’s spouse while spending time with another, so the relationship will suffer anyway.

Similarly, in “transplant”, the utilitarian seems obligated to choose to kill one healthy person in order to save many people’s lives, through organ transplants – but only if the whole episode can be hushed up effectively.

I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to back this one up. How can we prevent people from noticing that someone walked into a hospital but never walked out?

And there is another solution. Organs have to be of a certain quality to be considered usable for transplants, yes? If a patient will surely die without an organ, they can simply lower the standards for usable organs, thus expanding their resource pool. Are we taking a chance that the organ won’t work, or perhaps even kill the patients? Yes. But isn’t it worth the risk to save their lives? I think so. Problem solved, and no healthy person had to be killed.

When one studies utilitarianism, however, it is quite clear that supererogatory actions are entailed by the principle of utility. You are to do “whatever leads to the greatest sumtotal of pleasure (or happiness) and the least sumtotal of pain (or unhappiness).”

I think some clarification is needed here. Yes, that would be, as Bentham said, the best course of action, but an action is considered good so long as it contributes positively to the overall utility. Any overall increase qualifies as good. I don’t think Bentham intended for us to allows act perfectly. Even if he did, there’s nothing saying that we must do what is best, but only what is good.

Many utilitarians (Singer among them) freely admit that this means that they should spend much more of their lives serving the poor and indigent. If you do not agree with this result, you must change the principle of utility.

We were talking about the concept of duty, I believe. Firstly, we have to agree on what a “duty” or an “obligation” is. A duty seems to be related to justice in that it creates a sort of dichotomy: one can only act justly or unjustly, since there is no neutrality. Similarly, duties are actions that we are expected to perform in order to cooperate with justice. Failure to do so is guilty, and shirking from duties is necessarily wrong, given this conception of them.

I’m not sure which iteration you would use, but here is my phrasing of the greatest happiness principle: “The morality of an action is proportional to its contribution to the overall utility; that is, positive contributions are good, the greatest of which is the best, and negative contributions are bad/evil, the greatest of which is the worst.” As you can see: no duty whatsoever. One is free to refrain from contributing to the overall utility, because inaction cannot possibly be assigned moral value using this principle. Again: the morality of a person is a different story, but utilitarianism isn’t so much in the business of judging people as it is actions.

Many later utilitarians, indeed, have done so. What principle of utility do you think yields the best results, Oreo.

I’m glad that you asked, because I’ve been thinking intently about this. If you don’t mind, though, I’ll respond sometime tomorrow. See you then…

 

[Betterave]

Indeed, they are lazy, or perhaps dishonest. When people like the thinkers you support hear about a massacre on the news, do they ever think about why they feel that killing humans, or many other species of sentient beings, is wrong? Nope. They just shrug their shoulders, say that God said it was wrong, and then continue reading or writing about mindless metaphysical babble, instead of just looking at what’s right under their nose. It’s a feeling. That should tell you something.

I think your accusation is lazy and wildly irrational! What a stupid ad hominem caricature! The fact that you say stuff like this should tell you something - it too is right under your nose. It’s very hard to take you seriously. Do you even take yourself seriously?

Really? Let’s see…

Hey there! I’m a Christian. Now I know what you’re thinking–I must be the kind of person who believes that Jesus was the son of God, and so on, because that’s how “Christian” is defined. But a guy named Betterave told me that an ideology is defined by those who claim to adhere to it, so I thought I’d have a little fun by “adhering” to Christianity–and by that I mean arbitrarily dictating what the doctrine says, simply because I claim to adhere to it. So, as a Christian, I believe that the universe was hatched from a magical egg, produced by our master, Lord Bawk-Bawk. Yes, and when he shaped the earth from the yolk of that egg, he flapped his wings and emitted a shrill decree…a decree for the future inhabitants of this planet to hold the lives of chickens above all else. And he came to the young chicks after creation, to wish them good fortune. “Yay,” said the Lord, “may the eggs yielded by thee possess within their shells two yolks, and not just one. This is the gift I, the Lord, offer to you, if only ye will love me.”

So I ask you: Does claiming to be a Christian give me the authority to dictate what Christianity is? Certainly not. Why would it work any differently with utilitarianism? Oh yeah, because you want it to.

Hmmm… let’s see. I take it this is an attempt at humor? I’d prefer humor that includes an intelligent point. I’ll assume that’s what you were going for. So…

If a practising Christian tells you what Christianity is, you should listen to what he says about Christianity. If a babbling irreligious idiot claims to be a Christian, he shouldn’t get the same respect. If a highly respected utilitarian philosopher tells you what utilitarianism is, you should listen to what he says. If an incoherent non-philosopher does the same, basing what he says on his claim to infallibly ‘introspect’ and interpret his feelings, i.e., the feelings which govern the ‘ultimate truth’ about morality, he doesn’t deserve the same respect.

I take it you don’t understand that? Incredible!

Kant’s rules dictated, oftentimes, that we ought to act in an inhuman manner. He thought that telling a murderer the location of their next victim would be ethically superior to lying! I think I’m justified in calling him a nutjob in every sense of the word.

Is that really what Kant said? I think you might want to double-check that (introspection isn’t going to work this time).

 

[Betterave]

I wrote:
“Yes, it would be wrong because of the consequences, but it would still be wrong if there were no consequences, say if I only was harboring such [unjust, malicious] thoughts in my heart, then died. Do you not see that?”

See what? Yes, a person is thinking (or feeling) in a way that I don’t appreciate. So what? Realistically, what can I do about it? Is it any of my business?

So at this point you went off on an irrelevant tangent about thought police, but it seems you didn’t notice that before doing so you in effect seemed to grant that either consequentialism is false or emotivism is. You grant that you don’t ‘appreciate’ the consequence-free action, i.e., you don’t like it, so your emotivism would seem to entail that it is morally wrong; but it cannot be wrong because of its negative consequences (ex hypothesi, it has none) so consequentialism must be false - according to your own introspective observation of not liking an action which has no negative consequences. But maybe I’m misinterpreting something? You have some introspective method of overruling negative ‘feelings’ (i.e., moral evaluations) that conflict with your good ‘feelings about’ (i.e., moral evaluation of) consequentialism? How does that work? (Substitute ‘valuations’ for ‘evaluations’ if it makes you feel better, you know, more in keeping with your passion for being ‘subjective’.)

 

[tonyrey]

 Quote:
                                                                  Originally Posted by **tonyrey**                     [forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=5696855#post5696855)                 
             *Your interest in morality is refreshing - and seems to imply that evil is objectively real.*

Above, every group of persons has equated the abstract concept of “evil,” which is more or less a quality that we wish to avoid producing, with something in the natural, tangible world. Is it a fact that these natural items exist, and that we wish to be rid of them? Yes. Is it a fact that we should get rid of them? No. Do you see the difference between the two statements? It does not follow that, because something exists that we dislike, it shouldn’t exist. This, in a nutshell, is why ethics are subjective, even though the objects we assign moral values to are indeed objects.

If you take your argument to its logical conclusion we should not do anything at all! To choose to do something implies that we consider the action more valuable than doing something else. It is not primarily a question of disliking something but of whether it is reasonable to do something or let something happen. Morality comes in when some aspect of life (not necessarily human) is concerned. If you kill some one, for example, it is generally unreasonable and wrong to do so because you are ignoring the value of that person’s life. If you assert that nothing is intrinsically valuable you are in effect rejecting the value of your belief that nothing is valuable! If you reject the value of reason you are cutting your intellectual throat… (A grisly image but it makes the point. )

*Anyway I hope to allay your concern that sin is inevitable!
You are equating sin with evil but sin is the deliberate choice of evil. If you cannot avoid an evil consequence through no fault of your own you are not committing a sin. All you can do is choose what you believe to be the lesser of two evils. Reality is sometimes more complex than we would wish… *
I’m glad to see that you’ve made this distinction (between evil and sin, that is). It makes your position seem more credible.

It also seems to support the objective nature of both sin and evil.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Don’t you think that the couple’s relationship will suffer regardless of whether the cheater is caught cheating?

It doesn’t matter what *I *think. The person who considers cheating often thinks the benefit is worth more to him than the detriment. And how can you say he is wrong? Shall we build that into the definition of utility too?

It’s hard to miss the fact that your spouse is missing for a few hours longer than his work schedule demands (mind you, this has never happened to me, of course ). This affects the children as well.

But, you see, I can construct the scenario in any way I like. Let’s say that the husband regularly goes to NYC on business trips, and has a liaison there. The extramarital relationship helps relieve stress, and the mistress doesn’t care to be anything more. I just don’t see how such a man can be expected to remain faithful, given the standards of utilitarianism.

The risk factor is too high, and one cannot tend to one’s spouse while spending time with another, so the relationship will suffer anyway.

But it’s not clear why the relationship matters so much to a utilitarian. If a man’s bored with his wife, and she’s hard to disentangle from, why bother? A divorce would lead to pain and inconvenience, and deception is much easier (and perhaps, more “fun”). Why should her potential for pain matter more than the man’s potential for pleasure?

I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to back this one up. How can we prevent people from noticing that someone walked into a hospital but never walked out?

And there is another solution. Organs have to be of a certain quality to be considered usable for transplants, yes? If a patient will surely die without an organ, they can simply lower the standards for usable organs, thus expanding their resource pool. Are we taking a chance that the organ won’t work, or perhaps even kill the patients? Yes. But isn’t it worth the risk to save their lives? I think so. Problem solved, and no healthy person had to be killed.

Once again, I can set up the situation however I like. I need not even prove that the example is possible (which it is), only that *if it were *possible, then transplant would be the only right thing to do.

I think some clarification is needed here. Yes, that would be, as Bentham said, the best course of action, but an action is considered good so long as it contributes positively to the overall utility. Any overall increase qualifies as good. I don’t think Bentham intended for us to allows act perfectly. Even if he did, there’s nothing saying that we must do what is best, but only what is good.

The problem is *when *do you follow the principle, then? Can you pick and choose?

We were talking about the concept of duty, I believe. Firstly, we have to agree on what a “duty” or an “obligation” is. A duty seems to be related to justice in that it creates a sort of dichotomy: one can only act justly or unjustly, since there is no neutrality. Similarly, duties are actions that we are expected to perform in order to cooperate with justice. Failure to do so is guilty, and shirking from duties is necessarily wrong, given this conception of them.

I will agree with this definition (although the word “guilty” is vague).

I’m not sure which iteration you would use, but here is my phrasing of the greatest happiness principle: “The morality of an action is proportional to its contribution to the overall utility; that is, positive contributions are good, the greatest of which is the best, and negative contributions are bad/evil, the greatest of which is the worst.” As you can see: no duty whatsoever. One is free to refrain from contributing to the overall utility, because inaction cannot possibly be assigned moral value using this principle.

And I assume that the only reason one should follow this rule is because one feels like it?

I’m glad that you asked, because I’ve been thinking intently about this. If you don’t mind, though, I’ll respond sometime tomorrow. See you then…

Not a problem. I am curious about one more thing, while you’re thinking: do you focus on pleasure or happiness, in your interpretation? More importantly: How do you define pleasure (or happiness)?

Peace out.

 

[Oreoracle]

It doesn’t matter what *I *think. The person who considers cheating often thinks the benefit is worth more to him than the detriment. And how can you say he is wrong?

The benefit may be worth more to him, but to the greatest happiness principle, the calculation stands, and the odds are against him.

Shall we build that into the definition of utility too?

I think it’s already part of the GHP (greatest happiness principle). If I’m right with my calculation, then I am also right in attempting to prevent the spouse from cheating. As for our ability to predict consequences, that’s just an inherent difficulty with the system. Rule utilitarianism attempts to correct this problem, but as I said earlier, it’s a bit of a hypocritical philosophy.

Why should her potential for pain matter more than the man’s potential for pleasure?

From what I’ve seen, the pain of knowing you’ve been cheated on typically outweighs the pleasure of cheating.

Once again, I can set up the situation however I like. I need not even prove that the example is possible (which it is), only that *if it were *possible, then transplant would be the only right thing to do.

Well, you got me there. But we could construct scenarios to make any ethical system look absurd, could we not? In the end, I think utilitarianism is the best. But as you can see, I’m doing my best to see the advantages and disadvantages of several ethical systems, so my opinion could be subject to change. I think it stands to reason that no ethical system will fully align with our often contradictory intuitions, preconceptions, or whatever things motivate us to try to form such systems.

The problem is *when *do you follow the principle, then? Can you pick and choose?

Of course. It’s always up to the individual to determine how hard, and when, they will try to do good deeds or commit evil acts. It’s not like there’s a quota one has to meet in order to qualify as a “good person” and get a reward, or as a “bad person” and be punished. As I’ve said before, utilitarianism is only in the business of assigning moral values to actions, not people. Describing someone as evil has no pragmatic value other than its capacity to warn others that said person may commit evil acts.

I will agree with this definition (although the word “guilty” is vague).

I left it that way intentionally because different ideologies have different beliefs regarding what one is guilty of.

And I assume that the only reason one should follow this rule is because one feels like it?

I wouldn’t quite put it that way, but that’s more or less the case.

Not a problem. I am curious about one more thing, while you’re thinking: do you focus on pleasure or happiness, in your interpretation? More importantly: How do you define pleasure (or happiness)?

Well, pleasure and happiness are the same thing based on how I define them. “Pleasure” or “happiness” is the feeling produced by the satisfaction of preferences. “Preferences” are, I assume, biological compulsions that we possess which cause us to desire an item (not necessarily in the physical sense), or items, of some sort.

I’ll assume that you’re asking whether I focus on bodily pleasures or on spiritual, cultural, and other mental pleasures. Firstly, I must say that bodily and mental pleasures are usually inseparable. Being healthy improves our overall attitude, and having a positive attitude tends to improve our physical health, or so the health experts say. One needs an adequate foundation of physical pleasures (health) before one can hope to experience the ‘higher’ mental pleasures. For example, we both enjoy exchanging and formulating ideas, but we certainly wouldn’t have the time or even the ability to do so if we were worrying about where our next meal is coming from.

So I’m going to give the boring answer and just say that it depends on the circumstances.

I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Then, I’ll get to the other post that I said I’d respond to.

 

[Oreoracle]

What principle of utility do you think yields the best results, Oreo.

As you’ve shown, utilitarianism has a few faults (and with my explanation, I’ll probably give you even more ammunition to use against utilitarianism). You’ve attacked the doctrine well, but utilitarianism has one major weakness, one that you haven’t exploited directly so far. The weakness is time. This seems almost trivial to point out, but this is actually where most arguments against utilitarianism originate from.

You see, the doctrine is consequential, meaning that it determines the morality of an act by its consequences. This sounds simple, but here’s the catch: over time, any action will produce an infinite number of consequences. Where is the stopping point, one might ask? For example, let’s say you were to help a neighbor build a garage in his backyard. This action, at first glance, would seem to have a positive utility, but this can change over time. Later, perhaps, your neighbor’s son begins to experiment with drugs, and the garage turns out to be the perfect place to do this without being seen. But it can get worse. The son could establish a meth lab in the garage. Let’s hypothesize further and say that he makes a mistake in mixing the chemicals to create the meth, and causes an explosion, killing himself and a bystander who was walking along the alley behind your neighbor’s house. After all of this, do you share any of the blame for the death of these two people because you helped build the garage that made it possible? Utilitarianism is silent on the matter, because it doesn’t seek to blame anyone. Nonetheless, this makes it difficult to deem your original action good, when it clearly resulted in bad consequences in the long run.

Let’s look at the reverse. This next strong argument against utiliarianism is one that has little relevance in today’s world, but is a persuasive argument nonetheless. One might ask, as many have: “So if anything that produces more happiness than suffering is good, then crucifying Jesus must have been a good thing, right?” This argument will make any utilitarian uncomfortable. We do have a few arguments to fall back on. Two in particular come to mind. We could say that crucifying Jesus, though pleasing to the audience, was ultimately wrong because it reinforced a violent culture, causing even more harm than we see at first glance. Also, we could say that other Christians would become even more terrified by the prospect of death, resulting in more suffering Just as killing animals on a farm can cause other animals to panic, so too can human sacrifice cause humans to panic.

But then, looking at the timeline, did Jesus’ sacrifice really cause more suffering in the long run? Why, it’s been the inspiration for billions of Christians for over 2000 years! Who could argue with that utility value (well, I would, given the Crusades, Inquisition, and so on, but if Christianity hadn’t caused those things, it would have been another religion). So even by the standards of other ethical systems, Jesus’ crucifixion might be considered acceptable if one knew the positive consequences that would take place over successive generations. Of course, none of this would apply if we were only speaking of lesser known people who were sacrificed. But do you see how time throws a wrench in utilitarian ethics?

Ugh…I’m approaching my time limit. I’ll finish later.