Is there a rational basis for morality in a purposeless universe?

[Peter_Plato]

A foetus lacks the capacity to feel pain or to have any conscious awareness until at least the third trimester.

And you would know that how?

The Silent Scream is a political pro-life propaganda film.

Certainly! However, the fact that it came from a physician who personally attended numerous abortions and had an expert medical awareness of fetal development shows that you have no grounds for your facile dismissal of it.

Hmmm…botched abortions are far more likely to occur if the procedure is performed illegally without medical supervision. That’s what will happen if abortion is altogether outlawed - and does happen in countries where it is so.

And let’s also legalize murder so long as it is done cleanly under strict expert supervision in properly sanitized killing facilities. At the moment, regrettably, it occurs in dingy back alleys and frequently gets botched so the victims must suffer inordinately from knife and gun wounds when they could have been spared all that if murder were only permitted under the auspices of experts who know how to effectively bring about death.

Your point here presumes that abortion is morally permissible. You can’t use this to justify abortion.

Most people recognise that if they had been aborted, they would not currently exist to have an opinion one way or the other.

That is correct! So the fact that someone protected their rights for them when they were most vulnerable in the womb was a morally critical element in their continued existence and development, and one they should be most thankful for. Perhaps even pay someone else the same respect.

They also recognize that were not aborted precisely because they had the good fortune to be born to parents who had respect for the right to life of any human being. Their very life today is owed to the forward looking moral sensibilities of their parents who sought the protection of their offspring’s current rights even back then when they protected their pre-born rights. That a right to life should be maintained from the moment of conception is the only way to insure the development necessary to have any “sentient” rights later on.

Did you actually comprehend my argument? A presentient foetus has no awareness of being alive, nor any capacity to imagine a future for itself. Adult humans have both awareness and the capacity to imagine a future.

Only because someone protected their right to develop to the point of having the awareness and capacity to imagine a future.

Your argument is like holding that people have a right to protect themselves from harm only if they have the capacity or firepower to do so. Prior to that, they are fair game. In other words, this is reducible to might makes right. They can morally protect themselves only if they have the power to do so. This is not so much a moral principle as an observation of a regretable fact. The moral and legal implication is that if the person is not successful in protecting him/herself then no loss is incurred. What is the point of making a moral statement about this? A fetus has the right to life if it has the capacity to make a legal claim (express its displeasure about having its rights rescinded) to such a right, otherwise there is no issue.

Continued…

 

[Peter_Plato]

… From previous.

Suppose we take up this habit. How well will you sleep at night, knowing someone might kill you during your deep sleep stage? Again, you raise doubts as to your comprehension of my argument.

What is most disturbing here is that you do not see the implications of your own thinking. Suppose we make a habit (enshrined in the law) of only recognizing some demonstrable trait, i.e., sentience, as giving someone a right to life itself. How is that demonstrable trait determined? By government fiat? By the whim of the majority?

For example, in the United States, under the Declaration of Independence, the basis for having inalienable rights, undeniable by any future government or interest group, under the law of the country, was as a natural consequence of being human.

The point of the Casey Decision is that individuals now have a right to subjectively determine the value of anything (people, institutions, goods, etc). That legal right seems to have been granted as an absolute one, but not really, because by what determination was that right granted to the people? Answer: by an act of government. So via the Casey Decision, the government actually claimed to place itself as the ultimate authority by which rights are granted to individuals. It claimed for itself the right to determine the absolute nature of rights and in turn, as a “subsidy,” place it into the hands of “the people.” Contrary to the Declaration of Independence, there are no longer what could be called inalienable rights. All rights have through the Casey Decision become “alienable.” They can be taken away from any individual by the “will (read: tyranny) of the majority.” The fail safe mechanism in the Declaration to protect the people from bad government has been casually revoked in this decision. Bad governments, governments that can override inalienable rights are now legal.

You might argue that the majority will always intuitively choose the good. That places a great deal of faith in the wisdom of mediocrity. Look around you! Western culture is ripe for exploitation by a wealthy and powerful oligarchy who control the media and have a very solid grip on a malleable and pacified public. There is now a legal basis for tyranny.

Once the nature of rights have been subordinated to the “will of the people” all it takes is for some to assemble the largest carrot by which to lead the people and voila you have a recipe for the rebirth of fascism. The rights of individuals have been kicked right out from under them without so much as a whimper.

Your reference to peaceful sleep is appropriate here. If I were an American I would have trouble sleeping at night seeing, from a distance, what is happening to a country that has aborted its own Declaration of Independence in order to fail safe the rights of the current oligarchy of the living. Hopefully, this “oligarchy” will soon take notice of how it is ripening itself for picking by an even more elite and powerful oligarchy. The people of the United States have “aborted” their own fetal beginnings in the Declaration by being convinced of the very same botched moral thinking that you are pedaling in this forum.

Indeed, I do comprehend your argument. It is a self-serving piece of tripe that you have swallowed hook, line and sinker because you have no idea what the far-reaching implications of your own thinking are. At least have the practical self-interest to see this.

How can any entity have interests without actually having them? The having of interests requires sentience and at least some level of emotional investment in one’s own needs.

Indeed. To even ask this question means you do not believe in the concept of inalienable rights and have forsaken the only sound basis for political justice.
Merely being a human is what entitles an entity to have interests. The fact that some (all?) humans are not aware of (some or any of) their rights is not a cause for their being taken away. This is a blind siding mugger’s mentality just before he clocks you and lifts your wallet or takes your life. It is also a morally immature perspective reminiscent of a young child who believes out of sight out of mind: if you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

A foetus might have a stake in the outcome of its gestation in a theoretical sense, but that would mean every sperm and egg has much the same theoretical interest. Do you want to make menstruation and nocturnal emissions illegal too, since they deprive a potential zygote of its interests?

A sperm will, on its own, merely degenerate. As will an egg. A zygote is a complete organism that, all things being equal, has the necessary features to become a complete human being.

The legal idea of interest, at least as it is understood in modern times, is derived from sentience - that is, the actual capacity to have interests in the first place.

No. The legal idea of interest safeguards sentience as a good. To have sentience requires a human being who is capable of it. The human being’s sentience is important in the sense of being a capacity that makes human existence good. However, it is all the features of a human being that makes the right to life important. Sentience is only one aspect - a necessary and important one, but not the only one.

And here’s the thing - I am different to a foetus in utero, in the only way that matters morally. You are different to a foetus as well.

Actually, at one time I was a fetus. So were you. Without that adventure, I would not be here today. What matters morally to my existence is that any rights I have today depend completely upon my having had a basic right to life as a fetus. Without that, all my rights would have been revoked and I’d have none.