Having come from the pro abortion rights position, I don’t think holding that position means you are amoral on other subjects…That seems incredibly arbitrary and lacking in moral foundation.
First of all, you should notice the difference between “amoral” and “immoral”. I think you are referring to the second. Second of all, I don’t know what you mean when you talk about power. Third of all, what is arbitrary about what I said? Very briefly, we can say that morality is about what behavior is good and what is bad. This kind of behavior presumes a mental life capable of intentionality and decision-making. Moral behavior doesn’t really make sense without that sort of mental life.
So, moral agency requires mental properties. However, moral agency is obviously not the same as moral value. The sun does not have moral agency as such, but it would be wrong to destroy. Nevertheless, it’s not clear that it would be wrong to destroy the sun if no moral agent or conscious being was affected. If the universe was completely devoid of conscious life, what would it matter if the sun was destroyed? To who could it matter? The answer is obvious. It wouldn’t matter, and it wouldn’t be anyone there to care. But moral agency isn’t required to have the ability to care. Not all animals have moral agency (obviously), but they are generally able to care (they can be hurt and enjoy). And when you care, actions and events matter to you. They can affect you positively (good) or negatively (bad).
Now, remember the definition of morality I gave above, and you see that we have moved certain organisms into the moral sphere. Some are affected by good and bad, and are therefore affected in a morally relevant sense. When we ask what is good and what is bad, we essentially ask what is good and what is bad for those organisms. They are the objects of our moral consideration (to which morality would not exist without), and thus are not simply a means to end, but an end in themselves.
But what about degree? Is that important? As humans we want to say we can be affected more profoundly than other animals, and that we have more moral value because of it. So if we say that degree doesn’t matter, our justification for treating animals is in serious jeopardy.
In any case, this is the kind of ethical thinking that could be employed in service of pro-choice, and I don’t see what’s arbitrary or relativist about it. I suggest you read this:
plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/
So, to summarize, what could be the pro-choice proposition? The proposition could simply be that the embryo, or fetus, is not able to care yet. That events do not matter to them yet. And therefore, since this matters morally, that they lack the same intrinsic moral value as a human person. You can disagree with this view, and give some arguments, but I don’t see how it’s arbitrary. If you still want to say that, please tell me exactly what is arbitrary.
I do believe that the only way otherwise decent people can justify this murder is to dehumanize the unborn… I think the key to ending this evil practice is education.
I agree that most pro-choice people do not believe the unborn is a human person. They probably agree that he/she is a human being, but not a human person. However, I am not sure if education helps here. After all, these pro-choice views are held by many of the relevant experts. Probably a significant majority.
Is this a joke? First, when a chimp can speak then we can discuss it. Until then it is a silly argument. Humans are not animals.
It’s a thought-experiment, something that can be very illustrative in discussion, and is often employed to investigate the implications of arguments. They cannot be dismissed as easily as you seem to think.
The context of unique DNA regarding a mother and her unborn child reveals that two lives are present.
But that is not contested.
We are not talking about potential people, but real people that exist,
But the point of the argument is to see what happens if we grant that the embryonic stem cells are real people. The embryonic stem cells are the material that divides and multiplies so as to become a body with a brain. So, presumably, if we have some skin cells reprogrammed to behave like embryonic stem cells and put them in the right environment, they are real people (since they could also become a body with a brain). So are the reprogrammed skin cells real people? What is the nature of reprogramming so as to introduce a real person into skin cells? Maybe skin cells are real people without even being reprogrammed. After all, reprogramming seems to be more of a reconfiguration than anything else. But that is absurd, and that is the point.
Your standard is aribtrary and reductionist. Humans are unique. Why bring up animal examples?
I briefly tried to explain this to Lisa above.
YSo, far your arguments seem to be that depending on if one can or cannot experience life, as you think they should, is the criteria to determine if they should live.
Not exactly. In the case of abortion it’s up to the interested parties (and the mother is the moral agent who is the most interested party in this case). What the arguments imply is that the embryo or fetus lacks the intrinsic moral value to trump the interest of other parties, so it doesn’t get to live if the other parties (ultimately, the mother) decide against it. So, the “criteria” to determine if they should live is not exactly the same as the “criteria” for intrinsic moral value, since the mother can very well decide that the fetus should live.
