A Philosophical Debate On The Problem Of Abortion

[tonyrey]

But that’s not what we’re talking about. In this scenario, the mother will die if the fetus is not aborted, so the options are 1) relieve yourself of the responsibility to protect her and her child as your clients, thus leaving the obligation to another doctor who will have to make the same decision, or 2) kill the fetus so that the mother can live. Any way you look at it, the decision to allow both to die (or pass the responsibility onto another) or kill one to save the other is forced on you. What do you choose? How is either course of action not sinful?

Your interest in morality is refreshing - and seems to imply that evil is objectively real. 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…

 

[Betterave]

So now the categorical imperative is not only preferable to other moral principles, it’s true? Do tell. What does it take for an ethical principle to be true?

Okay, so you’re totally missing my point again. I’ll assume you’ve never heard of Wittgenstein and aren’t interested in understanding anything he has to say (he’s a philosopher). I won’t waste my time trying to explain because you already know everything you need to know and you don’t care what people who are almost certainly a good deal smarter than you and know more than you think. You’ve got your introspection, so who cares what anyone else says, right? Their introspective capacities just can’t compete with yours, they’re too lazy, not like you. You’re a very diligent introspector (not that introspection is hard - just don’t ask you to pick up a book!).

I thought I read the name somewhere, but that’s beside the point. I don’t need to know what utilitarians think in order to understand utilitarianism as it is defined. An ideology is not defined by those who claim to adhere to it (unless we count the relevant dictums of its creator, of course).

??? Who is it defined by then? Where are you getting this? Introspection? Allow me to flatly contradict you: You do need to understand what utilitarians think in order to understand utilitarianism as it is defined. An ideology is defined by those who claim to adhere to it. How can you possibly claim otherwise? (Oh right - you know everything by introspection, unlike lazy people who read books. And you refute those who disagree you by ignoring what they say and accusing them of making false assumptions about you when in fact they understand your position quite well - apparently better than you do.)

Utilitarianism, being a very practical commonsense philosophy, has many adherents. More adherents, I would say, than the number of people who’ve actually heard the term “utilitarian.” As such, if I wanted to observe the behaviors of my fellows, I need not look very far, and I certainly wouldn’t have to pick up a philosophy book to read the works of utilitarians. In fact, most consequentialists are either utilitarian or are egoists with utilitarian tendencies. All you really have to do is avoid the works of the deontologists, and you’re there (that, of course, is easier said than done).

Aren’t all of Kant’s rules derived from one principle (the Categorical Imperative), like those of utilitarians?

Aren’t you trying to avoid exposure to deontology? This may not be a good question to ask. There are three major formulations of Kant’s categorical imperative, but roughly, yeah, his maxims are all supposed to be ‘derived’ from one principle. Just like everything utilitarians believe is supposedly ‘derived’ from (i.e., rationalized relative to) one principle. That’s just my point. That’s what makes it ridiculous to claim that utilitarianism is a practical commonsense philosophy, whereas Kant is insane. Morphologically they’re the same, the have the same purported introspective bases, and they run into the same practical problems. Commonsense doesn’t ‘derive’ all of its beliefs from one principle, and pretending that all of your beliefs are simple ‘derivations’ from one principle is naive and ridiculous.

 

[liquidpele]

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?

 

[Betterave]

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

If they couldn’t it wasn’t; but they could.

 

[liquidpele]

If they couldn’t it wasn’t; but they could.

I’ve never heard the story told any other way… what did the opening of their eyes imply and why did they hide their nakedness only afterwards? It was the tree of knowledge after all, what knowledge did it represent if the serpent was lying about it’s nature?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I’ve never heard the story told any other way… what did the opening of their eyes imply and why did they hide their nakedness only afterwards? It was the tree of knowledge after all, what knowledge did it represent if the serpent was lying about it’s nature?

“Right and wrong” come along after the Garden. The question of Genesis 2-3 is: who are you going to trust? Will you trust the One who gave you life, or the one who is telling you things you want to hear (the serpent)? The theological significance is in the fact that human beings are disposed to trust the deceiver. Eating the fruit was a forbidden action, even though “forbidden” was not subjectively experienced as evil.

For Pandora, the problem was curiosity. For Eve and Adam, the problem was misplaced trust. This problem is deeper than the problem of sin, and much of our talk about sin is simply “avoiding the issue” of who we should trust with our lives.

Choose this day whom you will serve: God or Mammon. There is no middle ground.

 

[Oreoracle]

I question whether this is true. Consider: how many people encourage their spouse to cheat on them? (An action which seems to be implied by utilitarianism…)

How is cheating encouraged by utilitarianism?

Your interest in morality is refreshing - and seems to imply that evil is objectively real.

That depends on what you mean. For example, most people regard pain or suffering as evil (or at least gratuitous pain or suffering). We can agree that pain is very real. Christians will say sexual deviation is evil, and we can also agree that that too is real. Humanists might say that lending an adequate amount of consideration to many species, and not only humans, is an evil effort. This is beginning to occur as well.

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.

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.

 

[liquidpele]

“Right and wrong” come along after the Garden. The question of Genesis 2-3 is: who are you going to trust? Will you trust the One who gave you life, or the one who is telling you things you want to hear (the serpent)? The theological significance is in the fact that human beings are disposed to trust the deceiver. Eating the fruit was a forbidden action, even though “forbidden” was not subjectively experienced as evil.

For Pandora, the problem was curiosity. For Eve and Adam, the problem was misplaced trust. This problem is deeper than the problem of sin, and much of our talk about sin is simply “avoiding the issue” of who we should trust with our lives.

Choose this day whom you will serve: God or Mammon. There is no middle ground.

That’s an interesting take, thanks for sharing.

 

[Oreoracle]

Choose this day whom you will serve: God or Mammon. There is no middle ground.

Are these really your words?!

Your ultimatum here smacks of barbarism and borders dishonesty. I beseech you: replace “God” and “Mammon” with any other personalities and tell me that it still makes sense. There’s always a middle ground available. It’s like telling your child, “You can listen to us (the parents) or to your friends, but you absolutely can’t incorporate our ways and those of your friends into the same lifestyle. Nuh-uh.” But at the end of the day, that’s what always happens to children, is it not?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Are these really your words?!

Yes, and no. Jesus said them first.

Your ultimatum here smacks of barbarism and borders dishonesty. I beseech you: replace “God” and “Mammon” with any other personalities and tell me that it still makes sense. There’s always a middle ground available. It’s like telling your child, “You can listen to us (the parents) or to your friends, but you absolutely can’t incorporate our ways and those of your friends into the same lifestyle. Nuh-uh.” But at the end of the day, that’s what always happens to children, is it not?

You’re missing the point. I’m not saying that a person needs to decide between *believing in *God and *believing in *idolatry. This may be true, but it is not the most important decision. The critical decision is between either a) living a life which depends on a morality that is entailed by trust in one’s true ethical intuitions, and b) living a life that is circumscribed by the conditions of one’s own culture.

The conditions of the culture: demand for security, money, protectiveness (which leads to worry), material prosperity, pleasure-seeking, etc. The belief that these things will bring you lasting happiness has never been true: you don’t have to be a Christian to recognize that.

So the question is: if these things do not bring happiness, then what does? The belief that happiness can be achieved apart from the conditions of culture is a type of faith. This does not have to be faith in God, but it is at very least a faith that the universe was constructed containing the possibility of my happiness. Anyone who has this faith serves God. Anyone who does not have this faith serves Mammon.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

How is cheating encouraged by utilitarianism?

Hypothesize: Bob thinks cheating will make Bob happy. Bob also thinks it will make Jill (his mistress) happy. Bob has good reason to think these things, though they may be wrong. Bob believes that cheating could make Sue (his wife) very upset, but he is quite certain that he can keep it a secret from her. What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.

According to utilitarianism, so far as I can tell, it is morally obligatory that Bob should have an affair.

 

[Oreoracle]

Hypothesize: Bob thinks cheating will make Bob happy. Bob also thinks it will make Jill (his mistress) happy. Bob has good reason to think these things, though they may be wrong. Bob believes that cheating could make Sue (his wife) very upset, but he is quite certain that he can keep it a secret from her. What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.

The problem, of course, is that it’s absurd to think that one can cheat without one’s spouse coming to know that they’ve done so. Sure, it happens, but most of the time gossip and hearsay will do the cheater in despite their best efforts to conceal the evidence.

So I would say that this isn’t necessarily a problem with utilitarianism, but rather a problem with Bob’s common sense. Utility calculations can be tough, but this is rather easy. The probability that his plan will backfire is high, and the recoil (the resultant negative utility) is also high, likely higher than the gain. Because of this, most utilitarians, myself included, would not condone this behavior.

There are other reasons for cheating to be considered wrong from a utilitarian perspective, but this is the most obvious.

According to utilitarianism, so far as I can tell, it is morally obligatory that Bob should have an affair.

There are no obligations in the doctrine of utilitarianism (some utilitarians might support the idea of duty, but their ethical system does not back them on this). If you’re looking for duty-based ethical philosophies, those are labeled “deontological” (“deon” meaning “duty”). Utilitarianism is consequential. Thus, according to utilitarianism, inaction has no moral value, since there are no consequences of inaction in itself. A lot can be said about the morality of the inactive person, however.

 

[Oreoracle]

Their introspective capacities just can’t compete with yours, they’re too lazy, not like you. You’re a very diligent introspector (not that introspection is hard - just don’t ask you to pick up a book!).

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.

Allow me to flatly contradict you: You do need to understand what utilitarians think in order to understand utilitarianism as it is defined. An ideology is defined by those who claim to adhere to it.

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.

That’s what makes it ridiculous to claim that utilitarianism is a practical commonsense philosophy, whereas Kant is insane.

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.

 

[MindOverMatter]

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.

Theists say that something is wrong because it contradicts the nature or principle of absolute love; which is the principle fulfillment of all personal natures, in so far as the good and the dignity of all persons is concerned. This is partly realized through “feeling” (and ones clear understanding of the intrinsic meaning of feelings) and the “revelation” of love; and the realization that the revelation of what love is actually reflects that which we have experienced in some finite sense, and desire the most. To be in the wrong, is to appose the nature of love; it is to be selfish.

That seems reasonable to me, because you can reason from the premise of love, given a proper understanding of its nature, to particular ends that ensures the dignity of all persons, as in that which is good for humanity as a whole in terms of absolute beginnings and ends; not just the emotional whims of individuals. Love dictates the preservation and dignity of all human life.

It seems, if i am not mistaken, that you say that something is wrong just because you had a “feeling”. The problem is, anybody can have feelings, but not all of them imply the fulfillment of humanity, which is demanded by the nature of love; not arbitrarily, but instead by that which flows necessarily from constant and strict reflection on its nature. There is a logic in the axiom of love in so far as abstracting necessary moral ends are concerned.

If you don’t know what love is, thats okay, so long as you are aware that i do not wish to explain it you; but please do not be so quick to assume that its ignorant metaphysical babble. Catholic morality follows necessarily from the nature of a true objective love and can be shown through logical reflection to be ordered to that end.

I would prefer if you didn’t reply to this post, as i am not going to reply any more to your posts, because you do not understand what we believe and yet you arrogantly cuss us out. Thanks for you contribution to this thread.

 

[Oreoracle]

I know you don’t want me to respond, but I’m sure that you realize I can’t just let you have the last word. I’ve found that that’s how many here count their victories.

Theists say that something is wrong because it contradicts the nature or principle of absolute love.
Are you certain that all theists say that? And do theists each not possess their own individual perception of what love is?

It seems, if i am not mistaken, that you say that something is wrong just because you had a “feeling”. The problem is, anybody can have feelings, but not all of them imply the fulfillment of humanity,

Doesn’t this site allow you to have an ignore list? Why not put me on that and be done with it?

 

[MindOverMatter]

The problem, of course, is that it’s absurd to think that one can cheat without one’s spouse coming to know that they’ve done so. Sure, it happens, but most of the time gossip and hearsay will do the cheater in despite their best efforts to conceal the evidence.

So long as its possible not to get caught, it cannot be opposed. And your position only works with life or death situations, and some times people don’t care if they die. Getting caught by ones wife only matters if one cares about getting caught. If good is only relative to what you desire, then a marriage break up isn’t going to be a problem if you view relationships simply as game. If relationships is simply a game, then your happiness isn’t based upon the people your involved with. Its the game that makes you happy. And as with every game that involves risk, you win some, you lose some.

 

[MindOverMatter]

I know you don’t want me to respond, but I’m sure that you realize I can’t just let you have the last word. I’ve found that that’s how many here count their victories.

Its not about last words or victories.

Doesn’t this site allow you to have an ignore list? Why not put me on that and be done with it?

Yes; it seems that i have no choice now.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

The problem, of course, is that it’s absurd to think that one can cheat without one’s spouse coming to know that they’ve done so. Sure, it happens, but most of the time gossip and hearsay will do the cheater in despite their best efforts to conceal the evidence.

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.

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.

There are no obligations in the doctrine of utilitarianism (some utilitarians might support the idea of duty, but their ethical system does not back them on this). If you’re looking for duty-based ethical philosophies, those are labeled “deontological” (“deon” meaning “duty”).

I’m quite aware of the definitions.

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

Some comments from the Stanford Encyclopedia reinforce my point on how utilitarianism is, in a sense, duty-based:

Another popular charge is that classic utilitarianism demands too much, because it requires us to do acts that are or should be moral options (neither obligatory nor forbidden). (Scheffler 1982) For example, imagine that my old shoes are serviceable but dirty, so I want a new pair of shoes that costs $100. I could wear my old shoes and give the $100 to a charity that will use my money to save someone else’s life. It would seem to maximize utility for me to give the $100 to the charity. If it is morally wrong to do anything other than what maximizes utility, then it is morally wrong for me to buy the shoes. But buying the shoes does not seem morally wrong. It might be morally better to give the money to charity, but such contributions seem supererogatory, that is, above and beyond the call of duty.

plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/#ConWhoLimDemMor

 

[MindOverMatter]

You had me going there; I thought you were finally seeing the light. But it seems that you fail to realize that it is your desire (feeling) and others’ for humanity to be fulfilled.

I know i said i would blank you, but i couldn’t resist getting the last word on this statement here.

You fail to realize allot of things. You are good at dodging and twisting.
But I was talking about the moral fulfillment of humanity as a metaphysical whole in terms of ultimate beginnings and ultimate ends. 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. Simply teaching people to live according to what feels good to them, will not solve anything; because pain, suffering, and death, will only repel those who explicitly fear those things in general; and some people who fear absolute death (Ceasing to exists) will do anything to live including kill, abuse, exploit and oppress others, and this is evident in the world.

You say that people act according to feeling, and this is partly true. But most people act against that which is wrong because they believe or feel that its truly wrong; not just in opinion, but in objective truth. The idea that people only do good to avoid the consequences is quite simply false. Evil people have become good because they had come to believe or accept that what they were doing is truly, universally and objectively wrong, and not because they were going to benefit from it. People have given their lives, theists and atheists, because they believed that their behavior and sacrifice represented a higher standard of good, that their actions truly presented what was right, and they made that sacrifice regardless of their personal good in this life. Racism is being overcome because it is believed to be wrong. And we have all benefited from that standard of good and belief.

Truth is an important word, but it is not simply removed from belief, and cannot be if we want a better world. Not being able to prove that universal moral values exist is not a disproof and neither is it unreasonable to believe in the objective good if we believe in the good of human civilization, and especially the good of future generations of innocent children that we are going to bring into this world on the whim of our emotions and sexual activities.

One might say that since we cannot prove moral values logically, that therefore one cannot believe in them. But we are not calculators. In terms of the practical good, it is irrational to teach people that universal moral values do not exist, and that their lives, objectively speaking, is meaningless and ultimately captive to the inevitable despair of death. We are human beings with feelings; we have a personal nature. We need love in order to be fulfilled; and that can only be fulfilled by a greater good then human beings. Thus a logic that follows from the axiom of a belief in existential fulfillment is most rational in a practical and human sense so long as such a belief does not contradict logic. As human beings that want and need to be fulfilled, we have to believe and teach that life has value; we have to believe and teach that life is worth living. Living simply for fear of death or fear of losing friends will not make a better world because a better world is built on sacrifice and strong moral beliefs.

In any case, whether or not universal moral values exist has never been an object of this thread. The Universal Moral Value of people is an axiom of this thread, and ought to be an axiom of life. If you value my existence now, and if value your existence, you would not be happy about the possibility that you and i could have been aborted at the whim of a selfish mother whom lived for her own good. The good of yours and my existence is not being fulfilled. Your dignity is impinged upon by the idea that your existence is not of value until you are proven of being valuable for some mere material end. It stinks. Its as simply as that. We know that a living person is the productive end of the embryonic process; thus to destroy that process, necessarily means that we are destroying a person in so far as a person is the productive end of that process. It doesn’t matter whether or not the person in production is aware it.

Case closed.

 

[Oreoracle]

I know i said i would blank you, but i couldn’t resist getting the last word on this statement here.

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.