Secular ethics and abortion

[Prodigal_Son]

Or how about a criminal should be able to kill the police officer who tries to arrest him, or the prison guard who tries to prevent his escape? Maybe the criminal felt like he had good reasons for committing his crimes, and regardless, why should he passively submit to corporal confinement just because others deem that he has a responsibility to do so?

 

[Black_Rose]

To your first question: I don’t think it’s interesting or pertinent to ask about what various flawed constructions of ethical systems might have to say about a given question. Do you? If so, why?

To your second: your asking about such a matter of fact seems to be irrelevant to the normative ethical question.

Why should I answer the question? Why don’t you answer my questions?

My question for you remains: why does there have to be some concern for the child’s welfare after it is born, if there is no concern for its welfare before it is born?

What is precisely the point of that question and what response are you trying to elicit from asking it? To point out that is necessary to have concern for the unborn in order to have concern for the born? This is meaningless because a lack of concern for fetuses does not translate into a lack of concern for the welfare of those who are already born.
What are you trying to say about the necessary relationship, independence, or mutual exclusiveness, of concern for the born and unborn?

Let A be “concern for the unborn” and “B” be “concern for the already born”. There are four possible permutations: AB, A~B, ~AB, ~A~B.

Consider:

(1) If ~A then B

By modus tollens of (1):

(2) if ~B then A

You seem to be asking for a utilitarian justification of (1). While modern utilitarians assume “B” by definition, since utilitarianism concerns itself with the utility and preferences of conscious beings, it does not mean that their position assumes (1) because the utilitarian position of “B” is not justified by an opposition to the putative rights of the unborn. (1) simple isn’t the utilitarianism position, and I find the contra-positive of (1), (2), absurd, since a lack of concern for the welfare of those already born does not necessarily mean a sincere concern for the welfare of the “unborn”.

Most pro-lifer’s rhetoric mention that if there is no concern for the rights of the unborn, then the welfare of the born would have no justification. In other words:

(3) if ~A, then ~B

By modus tollens of (3)

Then

(4) if ~~B then ~~A

by double negation

(5) if B then A

Furthermore, even if we accept (3), it does not give any information about the logical necessity of the converse of (5):

(6) if A then B

Stating that if there is concern for the unborn, then there is concern for the born.

Or are you trying to say that B or ~B is not effected by ~A and therefore B (or ~B) are both possible when ~A? In other words:

(7) If ~A then B or ~B

I accept (7) since a lack of concern for the unborn does not provide much useful information about their concern for those already born. But it also does not tell us about the position of people who are pro-life (A).

Assuming A and (7), then these can be true:

(6) If A then B
(8) If A then ~B
(9) If A then B or ~B

Since (6) and (8)’s contrapositives are compatible with (7), so it would be impossible to educe a relationship simply by knowing A and (7)

Is your answer simply: “because utilitarianism says so” - or, more accurately, “because certain utilitarians say so”? Or do you have something more substantive? When you refer to J.J.Thomson’s violinist argument, do you do this because you actually think it’s a sound argument? If not, why refer to it? Are you asking for a refutation of it? (Are you ultimately interested in the truth here - or what?)

The ONLY reason I referred to it was because many, myself NOT included, consider it to be a well-argued pro-abortion argument. I just feel more comfortable to defend abortion using a utilitarian framework.

Since when did universal disagreement matter to a utilitarian? All that the universal abhorrence of infanticide tells us is that we ought to kill our babies quietly, with the utmost discretion. Wouldn’t want cause anyone undue pain by our abominations.

No, you implied that most people, especially those of religious persuasion, would not accept the utilitarian position because it would lead to the permission of infanticide. Since it would permit infanticide, that is supposed to be like a reductio ad absurdum for the utilitarian position. Singer himself does not try to evade that conclusion, but he embraces it in is popular publications, like Practical Ethics, respecting the preferences of parent’s who want infanticide. But he does not promote infanticide; he mere respects it as a viable option in many “tough” situations such as when parents give birth to a disabled infant.

 

[Black_Rose]

Correction:

No, you implied that most people, especially those of religious persuasion, would not accept the utilitarian position because it would lead to the permissibility of infanticide. Since the implications of utilitarian ethics would permit infanticide, that is supposed to be a reductio ad absurdum of the utilitarian position, because of its inconsistency with the “moral intuition”of the general populace. Singer himself does not try to evade that conclusion, but he embraces it in his popular publications, like Practical Ethics, respecting the preferences of parents who choose infanticide. But he does not promote infanticide; he mere respects it as a viable option in many “tough” situations such as when parents give birth to a disabled infant.

I share the OP’s admiration for Singer’s arguments, although not perhaps for Singer himself. Singer is a stunt-man and a charlatan, but he accomplishes these ends by following logic, for the most part – not by, a la Dawkins, making assertion after assertion.

Yes, I admire Singer’s intellect, since he uses it to elegantly delineate his ethical positions and to criticize opposing ethical positions. Using a baseball analogy, he is intellectually equivalent to an ace pitcher who has excellent “stuff” (arguments in the metaphor) because of his superior power (velocity), movement, and the control over his pitches in his repertoire. His control enables him to locate his pitches in the corners consistently, so he can get ahead in the count without having to risk pitching over the middle of the plate, leaving him vulnerable to home runs, and prevents walks. Excellent velocity and movement make it more difficult for hitters to make contact with the ball which generates more swinging strikes, and consequently a high strikeout rate. Likewise, many pro-life apologists simply swing and miss when they are unable to understand or address his primary argument: that ethical consideration should not be determined by membership in the human species. Simply stating that a fetus is a human is ineffective because he readily acknowledges that and it does not address his contention that a fetus does not merit ethical consideration because it does not have consciousness or the capacity to suffer.

Consequently, his personal excellence is indicated by a very high strikeout rate and low walk and home run rate, statistics that are mostly influenced by the pitcher’s ability*. In most cases, strikeouts are a superior way to generate an out; in contrast, allowing batters to put the ball in play to generate an out is more risky since there is a possibility of the batter getting a base hit and/or advancing existing baserunners. This would positively influence indictors of successful pitching performance that emphasize desirable team outcomes, such as wins, low ERA, quality starts, although these somewhat influenced by external factors such as park effects, quality of defense, run-support, bullpen reliability, and, of course, luck. (*Yes, good outfielders can also depress a pitcher’s home run rate by making the occasional leaping catch over the wall at warning track, but most of time, home runs are beyond the reach of even the most talented outfielder.)

Reading Practical Ethics was like watching beautifully pitched shutout. In contrast, reading The God Delusion was like witnessing an embarrassing and disastrous performance like when a starting pitcher gets pulled for giving up seven earned runs in three innings.

But returning to the actual topic of the thread: this is essentially a (supposedly secular) argument against abortion:

1. we have human rights because we are human beings
2. a fetus is a human being
3. a fetus has human rights. the most important among those the right to life.

Could the first premise be justified in secular terms, most importantly, its subordinating conjunction “because we are human beings”? Pointing out that many, of different backgrounds and religious beliefs, acknowledge “human rights” as a valid ethical construct would not count because it does not answer why one has “human rights”. The quote from John Paul II answer this by asserting that those rights come from God and they are granted to all humans. But modern utilitarians assert that those “rights”, or more accurately ethical consideration, is derived from the capacity to suffer and conscientiousness, emergent properties that come into view during one’s development, but it not present at all stages of human development. One can correctly criticize the utilitarian position but not concretely and precisely defining when one would be worthy of ethical consideration since most evaluation of these properties are rather qualitative, and their development is a rather continuous, not an instantaneous process. But, these judgments are easier to make when the gaps between developmental stages are larger, since it is obvious that a blastocyst does not have any of these properties, but a three year old does.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Secular ethics starts from assumptions. One such assumption is that a human person’s life has inestimable moral worth. Utilitarians reject this assumption, and claim that people’s lives are “just another value” to be measured against other kind of values that people have. But this has weird consequences. Peter Singer, so far as I can tell, would have to admit that a world consisting of a nearly infinite number of happy dogs would be morally preferable to our world. But this is bizarre.

I assert that, religious or not, people should believe that people’s lives have inestimable moral worth. Why? Because this conforms to our perception of the world. Utilitarian claims do not, but instead try and reason us away from our intuitions.

We go back to, then, what makes a being a person? I agree that, on a secular level, this is a difficult question. But I find it ironic that, just as we move to protect animal “rights”, we are eroding the rights of our own species.

 

[Betterave]

Why should I answer the question? Why don’t you answer my questions?

I did answer your questions! You are the one who doesn’t answer many of my questions! If you did not like my answers, please state what you found unsatisfactory about them.

What is precisely the point of that question and what response are you trying to elicit from asking it? To point out that is necessary to have concern for the unborn in order to have concern for the born? This is meaningless because a lack of concern for fetuses does not translate into a lack of concern for the welfare of those who are already born.
What are you trying to say about the necessary relationship, independence, or mutual exclusiveness, of concern for the born and unborn?

Let A be “concern for the unborn” and “B” be “concern for the already born”. There are four possible permutations: AB, A~B, ~AB, ~A~B.

Consider:

(1) If ~A then B

By modus tollens of (1):

(2) if ~B then A

You seem to be asking for a utilitarian justification of (1).

Sorry, but again: - where the heck did you get this idea from? It’s not even close to anything I’ve suggested.

While modern utilitarians assume “B” by definition, since utilitarianism concerns itself with the utility and preferences of conscious beings…

It sounds like you are making a common error of many beginner philosophy students: you think that there is such a thing as “the utilitarian position on abortion.” There is no such thing. Utilitarianism sets out certain general principles which can be interpreted to imply any number of conclusions when it comes to concrete moral questions. Are you aware of this? You need to modify a great deal of what you write in light of this fact.

Or are you trying to say that B or ~B is not effected by ~A and therefore B (or ~B) are both possible when ~A? In other words:

(7) If ~A then B or ~B

“B or ~B is not effected (affected?) by ~A” is not equivalent to “If ~A then B or ~B” - do you understand that? Also “If ~A then B or ~B” is simply a logical tautology, it is not at all an interesting statement for our purposes here. You need to use modal logic to express what you’re after.

The ONLY reason I referred to it was because many, myself NOT included, consider it to be a well-argued pro-abortion argument. I just feel more comfortable to defend abortion using a utilitarian framework.

That does not answer my questions.

No, you implied that most people, especially those of religious persuasion, would not accept the utilitarian position because it would lead to the permission of infanticide. Since it would permit infanticide, that is supposed to be like a reductio ad absurdum for the utilitarian position. Singer himself does not try to evade that conclusion, but he embraces it in is popular publications, like Practical Ethics, respecting the preferences of parent’s who want infanticide. But he does not promote infanticide; he mere respects it as a viable option in many “tough” situations such as when parents give birth to a disabled infant.

So if I respect killing Jews as a viable option, and write to persuade others that it is so, then I’m not promoting Jew-killing?!? Can you seriously not see the absurdity of that claim?

p.s. re. your little reflection on the greatness of Peter Singer’s arguments: given the weakness of your own arguments you might well pause to consider whether your admiration for Singer is really based on his greatness or rather on the weakness of your own critical thinking skills. I think that’s a question people often forget to ask themselves.

 

[Black_Rose]

As an axillary verb, “have” implies compulsion, so I interpreted this:

why does there have to be some concern for the child’s welfare after it is born, if there is no concern for its welfare before it is born?

to mean:

If ~A then B

It sounds like you are making a common error of many beginner philosophy students: you think that there is such a thing as “the utilitarian position on abortion.” There is no such thing. Utilitarianism sets out certain general principles which can be interpreted to imply any number of conclusions when it comes to concrete moral questions. Are you aware of this? You need to modify a great deal of what you write in light of this fact.

Fine, there isn’t “the utilitarian position on abortion” with the definite article, maybe “a” would be an appropriate way to describe it. In contrast, there is “the Catholic position on abortion” since it is stated in the Catechism as official doctrine, although it is not justified merely by authority, but generally appeal to natural law and the rights granted God. Utilitarianism certainly is flexible and does not lead to a “rigid” absolute morality, since it does take into account differing contingencies in various situations, but it would be useless if it does permit or prohibit everything. The using the principles of utilitarian reason can lead us to definite conclusions, such as the permissibility of abortion, at least during the first trimester, because a fetus does not have developed nervous system to feel pain and have consciousness.

“B or ~B is not effected (affected?) by ~A” is not equivalent to “If ~A then B or ~B” - do you understand that? Also “If ~A then B or ~B” is simply a logical tautology, it is not at all an interesting statement for our purposes here. You need to use modal logic to express what you’re after.

It is a tautology and does not tell us anything. Likewise, I meant to say that if ~A, then both B and ~B are possible, and that ~A has no influence on B and ~B. The operators I used are unable to express that, and all I could do was express a tautology.

But just answer this:

My question for you remains: why does there have to be some concern for the child’s welfare after it is born, if there is no concern for its welfare before it is born?

What is precisely the point of that question and what response are you trying to elicit from asking it? To point out that is necessary to have concern for the unborn in order to have concern for the born? This is meaningless because a lack of concern for fetuses does not translate into a lack of concern for the welfare of those who are already born.
What are you trying to say about the necessary relationship, independence, or mutual exclusiveness, of concern for the born and unborn?

So if I respect killing Jews as a viable option, and write to persuade others that it is so, then I’m not promoting Jew-killing?!? Can you seriously not see the absurdity of that claim?

I meant said this originally:

No, you implied that most people, especially those of religious persuasion, would not accept the utilitarian position because it would lead to the permissibility of infanticide. Since the implications of utilitarian ethics would permit infanticide, that is supposed to be a reductio ad absurdum of the utilitarian position, because of its inconsistency with the “moral intuition”of the general populace. Singer himself does not try to evade that conclusion, but he embraces it in his popular publications, like Practical Ethics, respecting the preferences of parents who choose infanticide. But he does not promote infanticide; he merely respects it as a viable option in many “tough” situations such as when parents give birth to a disabled infant.

I used the words “permissibility” (on the correction) and “promote” (maybe encourage would be a better word). Surely the words have different definitions whose distinctions from each other are easily discernible and not nebulous with complicated nuances distinguish between the definitions. Permitting X does not mean encouraging X!

p.s. re. your little reflection on the greatness of Peter Singer’s arguments: given the weakness of your own arguments you might well pause to consider whether your admiration for Singer is really based on his greatness or rather on the weakness of your own critical thinking skills. I think that’s a question people often forget to ask themselves.

I do not have 95+ mph fastball to be an ace, but I am more like a fourth or fifth starter.

 

[Betterave]

As an axillary verb, “have” implies compulsion, so I interpreted this:

why does there have to be some concern for the child’s welfare after it is born, if there is no concern for its welfare before it is born?

to mean:

If ~A then B

Okay, so you’re not very good at symbolic logic (I don’t know why you’re trying to use it).

If ~A then B

means

If there is no concern for the unborn child, then there is some concern for the born child.

Now how is that statement even close to the meaning of my question: why does there have to be some concern for the child’s welfare after it is born, if there is no concern for its welfare before it is born?

Fine, there isn’t “the utilitarian position on abortion” with the definite article, maybe “a” would be an appropriate way to describe it. In contrast, there is “the Catholic position on abortion” since it is stated in the Catechism as official doctrine, although it is not justified merely by authority, but generally appeal to natural law and the rights granted God. Utilitarianism certainly is flexible and does not lead to a “rigid” absolute morality, since it does take into account differing contingencies in various situations, but it would be useless if it does permit or prohibit everything. The using the principles of utilitarian reason can lead us to definite conclusions, such as the permissibility of abortion, at least during the first trimester, because a fetus does not have developed nervous system to feel pain and have consciousness.

Have you considered the possibility that utilitarianism might just be useless?? Using the principles of utilitarianism can lead us to endorse the permissibility of abortion in the way you suggest, or it can lead us to condemn it. It just depends on how you run your utility calculation.

It is a tautology and does not tell us anything. Likewise, I meant to say that if ~A, then both B and ~B are possible, and that ~A has no influence on B and ~B. The operators I used are unable to express that, and all I could do was express a tautology.

Of course it true that if ~A, then both B and ~B are possible, but the claim that ~A has no influence on B and ~B is quite a different matter, right?

But just answer this:
My question for you remains: why does there have to be some concern for the child’s welfare after it is born, if there is no concern for its welfare before it is born?

What is precisely the point of that question and what response are you trying to elicit from asking it? To point out that is necessary to have concern for the unborn in order to have concern for the born? This is meaningless because a lack of concern for fetuses does not translate into a lack of concern for the welfare of those who are already born.
What are you trying to say about the necessary relationship, independence, or mutual exclusiveness, of concern for the born and unborn?

The point is to ask you to justify your claim. You said, “There has to be some concern for the child’s welfare after it is born.” But you seem to think this is compatible with saying that there does not have to be any concern for the child’s welfare before it is born. I wasn’t suggesting any of what you suggested, I was simply asking for you to explain your stated position. So go ahead, don’t be shy!

I meant said this originally:

I used the words “permissibility” (on the correction) and “promote” (maybe encourage would be a better word). Surely the words have different definitions whose distinctions from each other are easily discernible and not nebulous with complicated nuances distinguish between the definitions. Permitting X does not mean encouraging X!

I’m not sure what you’re not understanding about my analogy. Permitting X indeed does not *mean *encouraging X, in the sense that they are not strict semantic equivalents. But so what? Where X is forbidden, not a live option, and one seeks to move the status of X to permissible, live option this most certainly is a case of *encouraging *the practice of X, of *promoting *X (and I don’t see why use of either word would be preferable - do you? ). Think about this, please: if you tried telling us that you think it is permissible to call black people niggers, and someone complained to you that you were encouraging/promoting racism, how honest would you feel saying, “oh no, you misunderstood - I merely promote the permissibility of racism, not racism itself”? Uh, yeah! right!

I do not have 95+ mph fastball to be an ace, but I am more like a fourth or fifth starter.

Well with due respect, I think you need to go back to the minors (or if you’re in the minors already, back to little league or whatever) or maybe even see an optometrist.

 

[Black_Rose]

Have you considered the possibility that utilitarianism might just be useless?? Using the principles of utilitarianism can lead us to endorse the permissibility of abortion in the way you suggest, or it can lead us to condemn it. It just depends on how you run your utility calculation.

Rhetorically, utilitarianism apportions ethical consideration to beings based on their capacity to suffer and consciousness (awareness of their surroundings and their identity). Yes, you are indeed correct that there are multiple interpretations of utilitarianism, thus many possible ways to construct an “ethical consideration function” with respect to time [f(t)], approximating these characteristics, assuming a smooth and normal process of human biological development. But any interpretation of the rhetoric of utilitarianism would be inherently constrained so that it could not permit or prohibit everything. For example, for the value f(0), the moment of conception where a zygote is formed, it would be zero, no matter what function is used, since consciousness and the capacity to suffer are highly correlated with the complexity of nervous system. A lack of a nervous system would seem to preclude ethical consideration, no matter how liberal or conservative one’s interpretation of the rhetoric might be. The function would begin to assume a positive non-zero value, after gastrulation which creates three germ layers, when the ectoderm starts differentiating, beginning the formation of the epidermis, teeth, and nervous system. After that the function’s rate of change, the derivative, is now positive (df/dt > 0) and seems to reach a maximum at the preoperational stage around age three (from Piaget’s theory of child development) and stays stable throughout one’s life. The designation of the preoperation stages is rather arbitrary and convenient, but consistent with Singer’s interpretation of utilitarian ethics. The derivative would assume a negative value if one is suffering from a neurological disease, such as Alzheimer’s disease in its late stages or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. In contrast, the position taken by the Catholic Church assumes that f(t) assumes a constant, a straight line parallel to the x-axis , where df/dt equals zeros for all t.

Based on the constraints of utilitarianism as described by the hypothetical function, it would be obvious that f(2 months) < f (30 years) and so on…

An obvious implication from this is that human beings outside of the womb merit more ethical consideration than those already developing, which partially answers your question. I will admit that this formulation does allow some concern for the unborn since the constraints, delineated above, does not necessarily mean that f(t)= 0 during the first nine months and does not automatically permit (or prohibit) infanticide or abortion during the second or third trimester. During the first nine months, f(t) may cross some critical threshold depending on what interpretation one uses, but this is rather subjective.

Of course, no utilitarian philosopher has constructed a precise way to quantify this, as it would be undesirable, but the function is just for illustrative purposes to use the constraints of any interpretation of modern utilitarianism.

Of course it true that if ~A, then both B and ~B are possible, but the claim that ~A has no influence on B and ~B is quite a different matter, right?

Yes, they are both different claims. I will just fold a bad hand okay!

The point is to ask you to justify your claim. You said, “There has to be some concern for the child’s welfare after it is born.” But you seem to think this is compatible with saying that there does not have to be any concern for the child’s welfare before it is born.

I’m not sure what you’re not understanding about my analogy. Permitting X indeed does not *mean *encouraging X, in the sense that they are not strict semantic equivalents. But so what? Where X is forbidden, not a live option, and one seeks to move the status of X to permissible, live option this most certainly is a case of *encouraging *the practice of X, of *promoting *X (and I don’t see why use of either word would be preferable - do you? ). Think about this, please: if you tried telling us that you think it is permissible to call black people niggers, and someone complained to you that you were encouraging/promoting racism, how honest would you feel saying, “oh no, you misunderstood - I merely promote the permissibility of racism, not racism itself”? Uh, yeah! right!

Certainly, if Singer has his way, there would be more infanticide. If it is allowed, a non-zero number of people would do it since they would no longer be fearful of breaking the law and receiving punishment, just like allowing people to call certain minorities would inevitably result in increased name calling. You are correct that the consequences for permitting infanticide would be increased rates of infanticide relative to a period when infanticide is discouraged by the law. Of course, a society that encourages infanticide would have higher rates of infanticide than one that merely permits it. My response concerns Singer’s position, not the obvious consequences if the law adopts it. He is not an advocate for infanticide, just an advocate for the parents to exercise their liberty on the issue of infanticide.

 

[Black_Rose]

After that the function’s rate of change, the derivative, is now positive (df/dt > 0) and seems to reach a maximum at the preoperational stage around age three (from Piaget’s theory of child development) and stays stable throughout one’s life.

I meant to say, the value of the function (not its derivative) reaches its maximum at age three. By definition, at a maximum (or minimum), df/dt would equal zero.

Continuing the function analogy.

I said before:

One can correctly criticize the utilitarian position because it does not concretely and precisely define when one would be worthy of ethical consideration since most evaluation of these properties are rather qualitative, and their development is a rather continuous, not an instantaneous process. But, these judgments are easier to make when the gaps between developmental stages are larger, since it is obvious that a blastocyst does not have any of these properties, but a three year old does.

To reiterate, the function assumes a positive value after the differentiation (refers to cell differentiation which different from differentiation in calculus, of course) of the ectoderm and a positive rate of change until age three (give or take). According to utilitarians, ethical consideration is primarily influenced by neurological traits, not the status of the fetus or baby, thus being in the womb or out of it, have does not influence ethical consideration. Consistent utilitarians reject the notion that a fetus gains special status after it is born and removed from its mother’s uterus. In the terms of the function, the moment of birth is not a discontinuous point where it jumps upward and cannot be differentiated on that point, but instead retains its continuity on that point. Since a baby’s ethical consideration does not drastically change at the point of birth, infanticide is most likely permissible if one finds abortion morally acceptable during the late third trimester.

But I think my last post clearly, but most likely inadequately, outlined a secular paradigm for the morality of abortion (and infanticide) using a utilitarian framework. There are some solid conclusions one can derive from this, but its explicit prescriptions of the morality/immorality of abortion/infanticide based on designated demarcation lines are clearly lacking and perhaps arbitrary.

 

[Betterave]

Rhetorically, utilitarianism apportions ethical consideration to beings based on their capacity to suffer and consciousness (awareness of their surroundings and their identity).

Stop right there! (Too late.) You are mistaken right from the beginning here. Utilitarianism does not work like this at all. It has a very simple universal maxim: maximize utility/value/pleasure/happiness (or minimize the opposites). It is not based on “apportioning ethical consideration to beings.” Utilitarianism evaluates the consequences of acts, it does not evaluate persons as bearers of “ethical consideration,” whatever that means. This error invalidates pretty much everything else you say. Your “ethical consideration function” is simply not utilitarian in spirit. It does not make sense from a classical utilitarian perspective.

Certainly, if Singer has his way, there would be more infanticide. If it is allowed, a non-zero number of people would do it since they would no longer be fearful of breaking the law and receiving punishment, just like allowing people to call certain minorities would inevitably result in increased name calling. You are correct that the consequences for permitting infanticide would be increased rates of infanticide relative to a period when infanticide is discouraged by the law. Of course, a society that encourages infanticide would have higher rates of infanticide than one that merely permits it. My response concerns Singer’s position, not the obvious consequences if the law adopts it. He is not an advocate for infanticide, just an advocate for the parents to exercise their liberty on the issue of infanticide.

Hmmm… I don’t see that you’ve added any new argumentative point here, so I’ll just note again that this seems to be obviously dishonest rhetoric and refer you to the analogies I’ve already given to explain why this is the case.

 

[Betterave]

But I think my last post clearly, but most likely inadequately ], outlined a secular paradigm for the morality of abortion (and infanticide) using a **utilitarian ???] **framework. There are some **solid conclusions ???] **one can derive from this, but its explicit prescriptions of the morality/immorality of abortion/infanticide based on designated demarcation lines are clearly lacking and perhaps arbitrary ].

 

[Walter_Maxey]

I do think most pro-life Catholics underestimate the efficacy of formidable secular arguments that permit abortion since those positions are extremely well-argued and internally consistent. What arguments should a pro-life Catholic wield that is not derived from Church teaching or the Magisterium?

I just started reading this thread, but I cannot stress enough that Catholics underestimate the efficacy of formidable secular arguments against abortion.

Check out the Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League. Here is a link to their library: godlessprolifers.org/library.html

Also, check out the organization called Libertarians for Life. They are true libertarians who are trying to get the abortion plank out of the Libertarian Party Platform, but for pure libertarian, individual rights based, non-religious reasons. Here is a link to their library: l4l.org/library/index.html

I think Catholic pro-lifers need to brush up on their secular arguments for life. We don’t need to preach to the choir. Which do you think is more effective, a “God is Pro-Life” bumper sticker, or an “Abortion Stops a Beating Heart” bumper sticker? I’m not saying a bumper sticker will convince anyone, but the point is that we need to think about our audience, not about ourselves, when we fashion our pro-life arguments.

–Walter

 

[Walter_Maxey]

we need to think about our audience, not about ourselves, when we fashion our pro-life arguments.

And the more we frame our arguments in religion, the more we play into their hands. Their “freedom of religion” arguments should be bogus and vacuous, but in many cases, we give their arguements strength when we argue using religion.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

And the more we frame our arguments in religion, the more we play into their hands. Their “freedom of religion” arguments should be bogus and vacuous, but in many cases, we give their arguements strength when we argue using religion.

I agree.

Religion is not needed to be pro-life. I became pro-life for absolutely no reasons but secular ones.

 

[Black_Rose]

Stop right there! (Too late.) You are mistaken right from the beginning here. Utilitarianism does not work like this at all. It has a very simple universal maxim: maximize utility/value/pleasure/happiness (or minimize the opposites). It is not based on “apportioning ethical consideration to beings.” Utilitarianism evaluates the consequences of acts, it does not evaluate persons as bearers of “ethical consideration,” whatever that means. This error invalidates pretty much everything else you say. Your “ethical consideration function” is simply not utilitarian in spirit. It does not make sense from a classical utilitarian perspective.

I never claimed “apportioning ethical consideration to beings” is utilitarianism, but certainly utilitarians do need some way to consider whether certain entities can harbor interests and preferences such as: zygote, embryos, blastula, fetus, one month old, five year old, twenty year old, an elder women with Alzheimer’s, pigs, cows, great apes, dogs, cats, oysters, etc.

The aforementioned function only pertains to human development, and is a general description to illustrate some of the constraints of utilitarian ethics. I used “ethical consideration” (maybe a bad choice of words), but I made it clear that it is not a utility function by not calling it that. If the function crosses some critical value, then one would be considered a “person”. By I do believe my description of the function served it purpose, explaining why in a utilitarian framework, that the interest of the born are taken with more consideration than that of the unborn.

A utility function’s (name removed by moderator)ut would not be time, but I would imagine it would include personal health, income, environment, and other things that determine quality of life. But since killing a fetus who has very little or no capacity to suffer, meaning it has little ethical consideration, that action would not that much disutility since its non-existent interests would not be violated.

 

[Betterave]

I never claimed “apportioning ethical consideration to beings” is utilitarianism, but certainly utilitarians do need some way to consider whether certain entities can harbor interests and preferences such as: zygote, embryos, blastula, fetus, one month old, five year old, twenty year old, an elder women with Alzheimer’s, pigs, cows, great apes, dogs, cats, oysters, etc.

Of course.

The aforementioned function only pertains to human development, and is a general description to illustrate some of the constraints of utilitarian ethics. I used “ethical consideration” (maybe a bad choice of words), but I made it clear that it is not a utility function by not calling it that. If the function crosses some critical value, then one would be considered a “person”. By I do believe my description of the function served it purpose, explaining why in a utilitarian framework, that the interest of the born are taken with more consideration than that of the unborn.

Well that may be true, but it is entirely incidental to an actual utilitarian analysis of abortion. I’m not understanding the point of your bringing it up.

A utility function’s (name removed by moderator)ut would not be time, but I would imagine it would include personal health, income, environment, and other things that determine quality of life. But since killing a fetus who has very little or no capacity to suffer, meaning it has little ethical consideration, that action would not that much disutility since its non-existent interests would not be violated.

That’s obvious, but it’s also true for killing anyone - the act of killing itself has negligible disutility (assuming that it’s done relatively quickly and certainly if it is done by means of a ‘suprise attack’). It’s the consequences for ever after which are connected with an act of killing that are primarily morally relevant in utilitarian analysis.