Arguing About Abortion

[Hume]

Uh huh. Tell that to Branden Eich, the Christian bakers re: SSM, or David Daleiden up on felony charges merely for revealing that PP was selling fetal body parts for profit, or taxpayers being forced to fund abortions.

Goodness, we can’t let the presence of a few bad actors discredit an entire collective.

Think of the recent issues with several wayward priests vs. the greater Catholic Church.

We’d hopefully agree in such cases that folks would be making irrational generalizations.

Reality has funny ways of putting to the chase the “glorious beauty of libertas.”

shrug

It’s the basis on which modern democracy is largely built.

Wait until those children of your grow up and begin executing the “glorious beauty of libertas” in their own lives. You might, then, look back with longing for that other view of liberty — freedom for excellence.

Teach your children well!

I plan to. I would hope they’d avoid a situation where they’d even consider abortion.

But nonetheless, I’ll defend their right to have one if they so choose. My girls are not and will never be anyone’s slave, so long as their daddy has a say.

 

[Neithan]

@Hume since you’ve admitted moral relativism, you can argue about liberty all day, but you have no basis for arguing that it is good; it’s just what you want. At the end of the day you can only hope that someone who disagrees with you is weaker. It’s just a power struggle then; we cannot reason our way to the good.

Look at your posts: they are chock full of normative language. That demonstrates that moral relativism is impractical, if not impossible, to actually believe consistently.

 

[Hume]

@Hume since you’ve admitted moral relativism, you can argue about liberty all day, but you have no basis for arguing that it is good; it’s just what you want.

It’s not what I want, it’s just the closest to the moral null, the moral “undefined” as we can get with vocabulary.

As I’ve told everyone else, if you think there’s a better word to describe it, please make your argument.

Classic philo seems to prefer “libertas”.

This isn’t a personal choice. It’s a discussion about the moral default.

That seems to be liberty.

At the end of the day you can only hope that someone who disagrees with you is weaker. It’s just a power struggle then, we cannot reason our way to the good.

I think that’s exactly what people who’re trying to legislate their morality on other people are doing.

It’s about power. “I’m mightier. Greater. Bow to my better way.”

Tyranny, in a word.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

I think that’s exactly what people who’re trying to legislate their morality on other people are doing.

It’s about power. “I’m mightier. Greater. Bow to my better way.”

Tyranny, in a word.

That doesn’t actually have to matter.

 

[HarryStotle]

I think that’s exactly what people who’re trying to legislate their morality on other people are doing.

It’s about power. “I’m mightier. Greater. Bow to my better way.”

Tyranny, in a word.

So what, exactly, are those in positions to force their wills on others to do? ALWAYS restrict their own liberty when someone objects to their exercise of it?

You aren’t offering any positive course of action, just “DON’Ts” — i.e., don’t infringe on the liberty of others.

That doesn’t provide anything in terms of what ends ought to be pursued and when infringing on the “liberty” of others can be permitted.

Take, for example, college students now insisting that they are entitled to “safe spaces” where even the speech or ideas of those they found disagreeable should be curtailed.

At what point does someone’s personal liberty to “not be offended,” itself, become intolerable.

Personal liberty is a very squishy thing. Unless you want to propose defined limits to liberty, you cannot just assume everyone who insists on their liberty not being infringed is going to be reasonable or rational.

That means those insisting on “glorious beauty of libertas” can just go on restricting the liberties of everyone else on the pretext that their personal autonomy is being infringed whenever there are actions of others that offend their right to “feel” safe.

You offer no real solutions.

 

[Hume]

So what, exactly, are those in positions to force their wills on others to do?

You aren’t offering any positive course of action, just “DON’Ts” — i.e., don’t infringe on the liberty of others.

As liberty is the default, that’s largely what law does. A limit to your behavior is just that. A DON’T.

That doesn’t provide anything in terms of what ends ought to be pursued and when infringing on the “liberty” of others can be permitted.

To the first, it doesn’t have to. It’s not trying to tell you what to do - which is sort of the point.

To the latter, that when we take the starting null and build arguments with it, just like you did in your freshman Intro to Aristotelian Logic classes.

Personal liberty is a very squishy thing. Unless you want to propose defined limits to liberty, you cannot just assume everyone who insists on their liberty not being infringed is going to be reasonable or rational.

Sure, we see that and I pointed it out above. While the vast majority of civil societies largely forbade murder, some, to a small degree were more flexible.

That means those insisting on “glorious beauty of libertas” can just go on restricting the liberties of everyone else on the pretext that their personal autonomy is being infringed whenever there are actions of others that offends their right to “feel” safe.

Sure, as pointed out nearly immediately above, the first problem libertas must solve is when there is a conflict of wills.

You offer no real solutions.

I offer no bridle. Some who suffer from a form of philosophical Stockholm Syndrome would have enormous difficulty with that.

It’s like the 30 year felon that finally leaves prison and wants to go back because they don’t know any other life.

It’s a sort of cognitive dissonance and I’m very sympathetic to that. But the glory of freedom is that no one is forcing you to abandon Catholicism. Go right on living your code. Just don’t force me to do it.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

So what, exactly, are those in positions to force their wills on others to do?

You aren’t offering any positive course of action, just “DON’Ts” — i.e., don’t infringe on the liberty of others.

As liberty is the default, that’s largely what law does. A limit to your behavior is just that. A DON’T.

Yeah but it’s a DON’T for no reason except that someone else CLAIMS an infringement on their “freedom,” whatever that entails.

No need to explain why their “freedom” ought not be infringed except that it is their freedom. No value assessment, just “freedom.”

At what point does “value” enter into the discussion. According to you, never.

Nope, the value of freedom ought to depend upon the value of what that freedom is used for. The value of value doesn’t depend on freedom, the value of freedom depends upon real value.

You, yourself, even tacitly agree to that because you decried the freedom of tyrants. Yet you seem to miss that freedom itself can be tyrannical precisely when it is divorced from value and given standing all of its own.

Even there you are being capricious because you allow that freedom ought to be curtailed in tyrants when it runs into the freedom of others. Yet, how do you know that freedom isn’t, itself, potentially tyrannical since you provide no independent grounds for curtailing freedom except with reference to freedom. Tyrants, after all, are just exercising their freedom.

Modern society is very quickly becoming licentious on the grounds of the very “freedom” that you are proposing is the basic principle of behaviour. On what basis are you going to control the exercise of freedom when everyone is demanding the freedom to exercise their freedom. Ah, yes, “glorious beauty of libertas.” Let’s see how far that gets you when a tyrant appears at your door looking to confiscate your goods on the grounds that your possessing them infringes on his freedom to take them.

You cite the “30 year felon that finally leaves prison and wants to go back because they don’t know any other life,” but freedom (on its own) offers no real hierarchy of values that ought to be pursued to personal benefit, so I am suggesting that your view of freedom is precisely what puts the felon back into prison because freedom on its own doesn’t offer a life of any kind. It is a means to an end (excellence), not an end in itself, which is the point you keep missing.

It is in clearly identifying the end (the good) that gets us to life.

Insisting freedom is the end is a chimera — a false good. No one is “forcing” you to “do it,” whatever the “it” you think, is.

 

[Neithan]

This isn’t a personal choice. It’s a discussion about the moral default.

Is that relative, or not?

 

[Hume]

Yeah but it’s a DON’T for no reason except that someone else CLAIMS an infringement on their “freedom,” whatever that entails.

Welcome to modern ethics - where we have to decide on what’s optimal without trying to convince each other of one another’s god.

What this means is that you lose the power to appeal to supernatural authority. So make your argument, but when you invoke the Brahman in order to make it, you lose guys like me who think the Brahman isn’t real.

No need to explain why their “freedom” ought not be infringed except that it is their freedom. No value assessment, just “freedom.”

You don’t have to explain the null. It’s simply the null. The default. The beginning point.

Libertas.

At what point does “value” enter into the discussion. According to you, never.

Now you’re putting words in my mouth

I’ve said no such thing.

We come to the table with our own values and we try to establish valuable norms that can rely on reason rather than bald fiat.

It’s why “don’t kill people” tends to be more transcendent than “you gotta go to church on sunday” or “it’s illegal to walk with an icecream cone in your pocket” (an actual law once on the books somewhere).

You can make an argument for one without invoking the irrational in a much easier and natural way than the other two. Thus we obviously see it more often in human history.

Nope, the value of freedom ought to depend upon the value of what that freedom is used for. The value of value doesn’t depend on freedom, the value of freedom depends upon real value.

Where this falls flat is that you need tyranny to make it happen. You have to let me define value for you. And I’m sure you won’t like that.

Tyrants, after all, are just exercising their freedom.

To destroy the freedom of others, hence why the great majority are ill-remembered.

Modern society is very quickly becoming licentious on the grounds of the very “freedom” that you are proposing is the basic principle of behaviour.

It has to.

Communication and travel have made ideological pluralism the norm rather than the exception. And since Church and State are divorced, you can’t send the iron-shod boots of the legions to, ahem, “discuss” their heresy/sacred belief, per your view - bringing all back into the same ideological crease.

It is a means to an end (excellence), not an end in itself, which is the point you keep missing.

What keeps being missed is the reality that there is no absolute excellence, only relative excellence. At least, based on what we can actually observe and know.

 

[Hume]

Hume:

This isn’t a personal choice. It’s a discussion about the moral default.

Is that relative, or not?

Based on our previous interactions, you went to college. When you took philo or science classes and they introduced the concept of the null, was it described absolutely or relatively?

Uncertainty can’t be absolute, by definition. And it’s relation to another concept by relativity would also be uncertain.

It’s a false dichotomy because the null is not a claim.

 

[Rau]

I’m just not interested in being forced to submit to your god anymore than I’m interested in being forced to submit to Islamic god.

In a democracy we must all submit to majority deliberations. Currently, that includes the legal right for abortion clinics to exist and operate. At a future date, that might reverse. This could be seen as either unfair religious tyranny or democracy at work.

 

[Hume]

Would depend on the method, of course.

For example, I’m thrilled the gays can finally marry. But I detest that it was by fiat from the supreme court.

Who knew the founder’s legalized it 220 years ago and we JUST noticed…

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

Yeah but it’s a DON’T for no reason except that someone else CLAIMS an infringement on their “freedom,” whatever that entails.

Welcome to modern ethics - where we have to decide on what’s optimal without trying to convince each other of one another’s god.

Let’s make note of the fact that you are opting for “what’s optimal” whatever that entails.

In modern ethics there isn’t even a nod towards the notion of “another’s good,” let alone “another’s god.”

That is problematic precisely because, as you are demonstrating, there is no apparent need to speak of what is “good” for another, let alone what is good for oneself when you can just make reference to “what I want” as part of that “glorious beauty of libertas.”

Again, the question becomes what will happen when all understandings of the good are eroded and we are left with each wanting their share of the “glorious beauty of libertas.”

My guess is that ain’t gonna be pretty and since even the most meagre conception of the GOOD for everyone will be a distant memory, the imposition of the “glorious beauty of libertas" by those with access to power will prevail.

But do keep teaching others to be concerned about what they want as a function of will rather than trying to conceive a positive conception of what is objectively good, since there is no need for anyone to know that as long as they are willing to just “DON’T” as the limit to their behaviour without any specification of when the DON’Ts might require some arbitration, rare as you might imagine that will be.

 

[Hume]

Let’s make note of the fact that you are opting for “what’s optimal” whatever that entails.

Modern Ethics does this, yes.

This is not the same as the moral null being liberty. Two different concepts here, albeit related.

What we’re doing is that when in doubt, we default to the null - just like we do in science, just like we do in philosophy, just like we do in statistics.

That is problematic precisely because, as you are demonstrating, there is no apparent need to speak of what is “good” for another, let alone what is good for oneself when you can just make reference to “what I want” as part of that “glorious beauty of libertas.”

Sure, there doesn’t appear to be an absolute good that we can observe.

Again, the question becomes what will happen when all understandings of the good are eroded and we are left with each wanting their share of the “glorious beauty of libertas.”

No slippery slope needed - we see it play out across the civilized world.

Largely religiously motivated laws against women, minorities and now homosexuals have slowly been erased in the name of liberty. The construct previously holding them up was revealed to lack substance. Ergo, we have rejected their supporting hypothesis and defaulted back to liberty.

Women vote, blacks can vote, races can intermarry and now gay folks can marry.

Libertas.

My guess is that ain’t gonna be pretty and since even the most meagre conception of the GOOD for everyone will be a distant memory, the imposition of the “glorious beauty of libertas" by those with access to power will prevail.

I view this as just remorse over the divorce of church and state.

Harry, the speed jumps in communication made it bound to happen. It was inevitable. Pluralism was going to happen whether we liked it or not.

But do keep teaching others to be concerned about what they want as a function of will rather than trying to conceive a positive conception of what is objectively good…

There is no objective good. At least, not one I can observe.

…since there is no need for anyone to know that as long as they are willing to just “DON’T” as the limit to their behaviour without any specification of when the DON’Ts might require some arbitration, rare as you might imagine that will be.

Not rare at all. “On the ground” it’s why we have the justice system, as flawed as it (and all human systems) can be.

 

[JSRG]

Hume:

I’m just not interested in being forced to submit to your god anymore than I’m interested in being forced to submit to Islamic god.

In a democracy we must all submit to majority deliberations. Currently, that includes the legal right for abortion clinics to exist and operate. At a future date, that might reverse. This could be seen as either unfair religious tyranny or democracy at work.

The problem is, we aren’t submitting to majority deliberations. The whole thing got forced on us by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, a decision so poorly reasoned that even the staunchly pro-choice John Hart Ely wrote a lengthy article criticizing it at the time, declaring there hadn’t been a decision less grounded in the Constitution in the last several decades.

I’m sure that even if Roe v. Wade were overturned we’d see plenty of states allow for abortion on demand, but that would at least be decided by majority (within its state).

 

[Hume]

The problem is, we aren’t submitting to majority deliberations. The whole thing got forced on us by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade…

They just preserved a woman’s right to choose. It’s a hard linguistic trick to say that “choice” is forced on you.

You get to choose.

I’m sure that even if Roe v. Wade were overturned we’d see plenty of states allow for abortion on demand, but that would at least be decided by majority (within its state).

Sure. Places like Utah and Mississippi would ban it overnight. Places like FL, NY and CA would offer it until the end of time. Fair point.

 

[Hume]

Might challenge you on the constitutionality point.

As glad as I was to see it happen, the Commerce Clause calling for legalized same-sex marriage was hard for me to buy.

 

[JSRG]

JSRG:

The problem is, we aren’t submitting to majority deliberations. The whole thing got forced on us by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade…

They just preserved a woman’s right to choose. It’s a hard linguistic trick to say that “choice” is forced on you.

You get to choose.

This makes no sense. Of course choice is removed when the ability to enact particular kinds of laws is gone. I suppose the removal of choice is more indirect when it comes to the voters as they vote for politicians rather than laws (referendums excepted), but that’s splitting hairs. But more importantly, you bringing up the question of “choice” is a complete deflection from what I said! You made the assertion that “the legal right for abortion clinics to exist and operate” was the result of “majority deliberations.” But it isn’t a majority deliberation when a policy is declared by an unelected body. The question of “choice” you brought up is irrelevant to that question.

Granted, whenever the Supreme Court strikes down a law as unconstitutional it is defying the result of “majority deliberations.” The Constitution serves the role of overruling majority deliberation entirely in certain cases–well, at least when you can get the right 5 people to say the Constitution does, at least. But one can hardly say that the nation’s current abortion policy was decided by “majority deliberations” when it was decided by a thoroughly undemocratic body and is usurping the power of “majority deliberation.”

Further, I would say that the Supreme Court “preserved a woman’s right to choose” in the same way that they “preserved an employee’s right to choose” when they ruled minimum wage laws unconstitutional under the reasoning it interfered with supposed freedom of contract in Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (later overruled in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish). That is, in both cases (as John Hart Ely put it in the essay I previously pointed to) “the Court had simply manufactured a constitutional right out of whole cloth and used it to superimpose its own view of wise social policy on those of the legislatures.”

But even if someone disagrees with that assessment and say that the right to abortion is in fact found in the constitution, it doesn’t make any sense to try to put forward the argument that all the Supreme Court did was “preserve” a particular constitutional right when the whole argument is that the right in question isn’t found in the constitution to begin with!

As glad as I was to see it happen, the Commerce Clause calling for legalized same-sex marriage was hard for me to buy.

… huh? The Commerce Clause isn’t cited once in Obergefell v. Hodges.

 

[HarryStotle]

JSRG:

The problem is, we aren’t submitting to majority deliberations. The whole thing got forced on us by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade…

They just preserved a woman’s right to choose. It’s a hard linguistic trick to say that “choice” is forced on you.

You get to choose.

There is an aura of “truth” in what you say, but the substance dissipates very quickly.

Think, for example, of how the progressive view of gender is rapidly indoctrinating young children in schools.

It started out as respecting the freedom of those who have same sex attraction, then moved to promoting same sex marriages, then to legally imposing the revised view of marriage on everyone and calling those with traditional views, “bigoted” for holding them.

Activists understand how they can marshall the media and peer pressure to impose (force) the “received” progressive narrative on others.

Now, many in elementary schools are being indoctrinated into transgender ideologies and their supporting presumptions that there is no such thing as human nature, even where biological reality is concerned.

So now we will have at least a generation of young people who have “received” an indoctrination in gender theory and views of human nature that are completely capricious in the sense that they have no direct connection to a defined or apprehended human nature. That may be extremely destructive to the conception of what it means to be human and the capacity of those young people to live fully human lives.

The reason is that sufficient numbers of people in society have bought into your Nietzschean view that freedom of will is all that matters, and that humans can make themselves into whatever they will.

Incidentally, that completely sidesteps the point that will acting independently of reason can only act capriciously; and that reason absent any foundational and true premises can only come to nonsensical conclusions.

 

[Neithan]

That’s why I asked you earlier where you’re getting this, because I’m curious: is this your original thinking, did you read it somewhere or did someone teach it to you? I certainly never took a class about a moral null.

If you’re using the null hypothesis, you’re making a claim by calling it moral. You’re saying that that moral “default” is libertas. Is the moral default always and necessarily libertas? Is it libertas contingent on some condition?