So what is the difference between a potential and an actual human being?

[Rau]

In many cases, people just adopt the same views and the arguments used to defend them as most other people in their “tribe” without really thinking these things through on their own.

I’m glad you’re not advocating this approach on weighty matters!

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

If you see someone fall, do you not help them up? Of course you do. But do you think it through and make a decision as to whether it’s the right thing to do? Of course you don’t. So why help? Because you feel it’s the right thing to do.

I help because I “know” it is the right thing to do. Feelings of sympathy are present too. This is a fairly impulsive act, rather distinct from the decision to take a life (for example).

Now reverse the concept. Rather than feelings guiding and informing our decisions and even determining our actions, a lack of feeling or a lack of empathy to be more accurate can also influence our decisions.

 

[o_mlly]

So you’re the deep thinker and anyone who takes the opposing view hasn’t thought about it.

No, as a rational animal, I simply make reason primary and sentient feelings secondary allowing me to act differently than animals.

Now reverse the concept. Rather than feelings guiding and informing our decisions and even determining our actions, a lack of feeling or a lack of empathy to be more accurate can also influence our decisions.

We saw how well that works in Nazi Germany.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

So you’re the deep thinker and anyone who takes the opposing view hasn’t thought about it.

No, as a rational animal, I simply make reason primary and sentient feelings secondary allowing me to act differently than animals.

We’ve already seen that that is not necessarily the case. People react automatically to help someone in obvious distress. I guess you need to think about it first.

And I’ve already given an example of how a lack of empathy dictates our actions. Charities often show individuals in need rather than make a general appeal for donations. People feel empathy for a young child obviously in need of help. But less empathy if it’s just a request for groups.

"Focus on one person in need, not the bigger problem.

We get cautious about empathy when we sense the problem is huge and will overwhelm us. Offer a solution within the grasp of your reader.

Your gift of $25 will make sure she gets the medicine she needs to survive." https://mcahalane.com/why-empathy-is-key-to-great-fundraising/

You’ll be affected just as everyone else. Maybe you just don’t realise it. Or maybe you think you’re different to everyone else. But taking it to your logical conclusion, if you exhibit a lack of empathy then you’re a potential genocidal murderer.

Stretch your arguments to ridiculous lengths and they begin to sound…ridiculous.

 

[o_mlly]

We’ve already seen that that is not necessarily the case. People react automatically to help someone in obvious distress. I guess you need to think about it first.

No, it’s not automatic. Virtue is a habit acquired over time to do good and avoid evil. Virtuous people know habitually what is right and wrong. Their harmony of heart and mind is not automatic but learned.

And I’ve already given an example of how a lack of empathy dictates our actions. Charities often show individuals in need rather than make a general appeal for donations. People feel empathy for a young child obviously in need of help. But less empathy if it’s just a request for groups.

What is your point in repeating that ad schemes often appeal to emotion? Nothing new here. No one argues that we are not moved by our emotions. The argument is whether feelings are sufficient or even necessary as the ultimate guide to do good and avoid evil. I will allow feelings a penultimate status but no more than that.

But taking it to your logical conclusion, if you exhibit a lack of empathy then you’re a potential genocidal murderer.

Why limit the potential evil to only genocidal? What is happening now is a lack of both proper empathy and reason is causing global infanticide.

 

[Gorgias]

And yes, in the case of abortion, it is easier to make the decision to have one in the early stages than it is in the later stages. Gee, I wonder why. If only someone could give the reasons for that…

You said it yourself: empathy. Personal value. And neither trump the intrinsic value of human life.

The conversation started not with “personal value”, but with your challenge “it means what it usually means.” Still, in our discussion of the big ‘ethnic cleansers’, I’m not sure that “personal value” is what’s in play, is it? It’s not like they looked at a single person and judged personal value; they looked at a class of people and said “not human; no value.” That’s kind of right on track with the subjects in this thread, right? Do we look at a class of humans – those in the womb – and say “not human; no value”…?

 

[Gorgias]

There is no such thing as “intrinsic value”. “Value” cannot be separated from the “valuer”.

In this context, the “valuer” is God. We merely follow (or refuse to follow) the “value” He places on humans (who were, if you recall, made in His image and likeness).

The life of a sociopath or a psychopath has no value to his victims .

If you look at it closely, I think you’ll find that this assertion is subtly inaccurate. It’s not that his life has no value, it’s that his victims wish that he valued their lives, as well. But, I get what you’re trying to say.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

We’ve already seen that that is not necessarily the case. People react automatically to help someone in obvious distress. I guess you need to think about it first.

No, it’s not automatic. Virtue is a habit acquired over time to do good and avoid evil. Virtuous people know habitually what is right and wrong. Their harmony of heart and mind is not automatic but learned.

And I’ve already given an example of how a lack of empathy dictates our actions. Charities often show individuals in need rather than make a general appeal for donations. People feel empathy for a young child obviously in need of help. But less empathy if it’s just a request for groups.

What is your point in repeating that ad schemes often appeal to emotion? Nothing new here. No one argues that we are not moved by our emotions. The argument is whether feelings are sufficient or even necessary as the ultimate guide to do good and avoid evil. I will allow feelings a penultimate status but no more than that.

But taking it to your logical conclusion, if you exhibit a lack of empathy then you’re a potential genocidal murderer.

Why limit the potential evil to only genocidal? What is happening now is a lack of both proper empathy and reason is causing global infanticide.

Empathy is automatic. It’s innate:

“By 10 months, they show concern when their mothers look upset (Roth-Hanania et al 2011). And they may show even greater sympathetic concern for distressed peers (Liddle et al 2015; Roth-Hanania et al 2011).” Do babies feel empathy? Studies suggest that they do.

And no-one has argued that empathy alone is used to determine actions, except for the examples given. It can prompt our actions but it’s often used to help determine them. There’s nothing controversial about that by any means. I have to keep giving examples because some people don’t seem to accept this basic explanation on it’s own merit.

And the limit of a lack of empathy is exhibited by the actions of psychopaths or those who think that some people are less than human. You either don’t posess the facility of empathy or you are convinced by others that it doesn’t apply to some people. In regard to early term abortion, neither applies. It’s simply not possible to feel empathy for a few cells by the very definition of the word itself.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

And yes, in the case of abortion, it is easier to make the decision to have one in the early stages than it is in the later stages. Gee, I wonder why. If only someone could give the reasons for that…

You said it yourself: empathy. Personal value. And neither trump the intrinsic value of human life.

Unfortunately it does. Those you empathise with are more valuable to you than those you don’t. You obviously can’t empathise with someone unknown, although you might grant that whoever that person is has some intrinsic value. But if someone says that either your daughter or a random stranger somewhere will be killed and you have to decide which one, then despite you believing that your daughter and that person have equal intrinsic value, you’ll choose the stranger.

In fact, you’ll choose anyone with whom you empathise.

 

[o_mlly]

You either don’t posess the facility of empathy or you are convinced by others that it doesn’t apply to some people. In regard to early term abortion, neither applies. It’s simply not possible to feel empathy for a few cells by the very definition of the word itself.

I refer you back to post #150:

Precisely the problem. Empathy is your feeling and governs how you think. The less a being resembles you the less you care for that being. We all possess emotions but the objects that give rise to our feeling those emotions are different. Feelings are, therefore, subjective and cannot be trusted as objective standards that permit or deny our acts.

Empathy is a spectrum of responses that varies greatly from person to person. The highly subjective nature of the emotion dismisses it as reliable in determining the objective morality of an act.

The Nazis could not empathize with the Jews feeling that they were not human just as advocates of direct abortion convince themselves that a “few cells” are not human.

 

[Freddy]

Empathy is a spectrum of responses that varies greatly from person to person. The highly subjective nature of the emotion dismisses it as reliable in determining the objective morality of an act.

The Nazis could not empathize with the Jews feeling that they were not human just as advocates of direct abortion convince themselves that a “few cells” are not human.

Nobody has suggested that empathy can determine morality. Where did you get that notion. You are reading what you want to see. Not what is being written.

And genocide is carried out against people. With whom one could empathise. A group of cells is not a person and it’s not possible to empathise with it. By definition.

 

[o_mlly]

A group of cells is not a person and it’s not possible to empathise with it.

Wrong. I do.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

A group of cells is not a person and it’s not possible to empathise with it.

Wrong. I do.

So you can understand and share the feelings and emotions of a blastocyst? Perhaps you can share your experience. Or more likely give us a personal definition of empathy which more suits your purpose.

 

[Gorgias]

Unfortunately it does.

Unfortunately, it happens. That’s pretty clear. Yet, if we’re in the realm of philosophy here (right?) – and probably ‘morals’, since that’s what we’re really discussing! – then the answer is that there isn’t a difference in intrinsic value of human life, no matter who the person is, what they do, or what relationship a given individual has to them.

That’s why the question becomes difficult – we’re conflating “personal relationship” (and therefore “personal value”) with “(intrinsic) value of human life.” There are those who think that this value is variable – that it fluctuates based on the actions of the person. There are others who think that this value is purely subjective and not at all objective.

If we accept this stance, then we give dictators a free pass: Pol Pot? Stalin? Hitler? They were merely exercising the right to assign a ‘value’ to the life of those whom they massacred. No harm, no foul.

Except that’s not right, either, hmm?

But if someone says that either your daughter or a random stranger somewhere will be killed and you have to decide which one, then despite you believing that your daughter and that person have equal intrinsic value, you’ll choose the stranger.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. That’s the typical “trolley problem” formulation: how do you choose between “personal valuation” and “value of human life”… and how squeamish does it make you to move from the latter to the former?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Unfortunately it does.

Unfortunately, it happens. That’s pretty clear. Yet, if we’re in the realm of philosophy here (right?) – and probably ‘morals’, since that’s what we’re really discussing! – then the answer is that there isn’t a difference in intrinsic value of human life, no matter who the person is, what they do, or what relationship a given individual has to them.

That’s why the question becomes difficult – we’re conflating “personal relationship” (and therefore “personal value”) with “(intrinsic) value of human life.” There are those who think that this value is variable – that it fluctuates based on the actions of the person. There are others who think that this value is purely subjective and not at all objective.

If we accept this stance, then we give dictators a free pass: Pol Pot? Stalin? Hitler? They were merely exercising the right to assign a ‘value’ to the life of those whom they massacred. No harm, no foul.

Except that’s not right, either, hmm?

If you believe there’s an intrinsic value then it’s equal for all. But not everyone is equal to us personally. A mass murderer has less value to everyone than a saint.

But why do so many people think this gives a ‘free pass’ to mass murderers etc? Just because you think someone has less value than you then it may give you a personal reason to kill them but it doesn’t give you the right to kill them. Why is this mistake so often made?

 

[o_mlly]

So you can understand and share the feelings and emotions of a blastocyst? Perhaps you can share your experience. Or more likely give us a personal definition of empathy which more suits your purpose.

Better than that. I can sympathize with another human being.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

So you can understand and share the feelings and emotions of a blastocyst? Perhaps you can share your experience. Or more likely give us a personal definition of empathy which more suits your purpose.

Better than that. I can sympathize with another human being.

No, it’s the group of cells with which you said you could empathise. I’d like to know more about the emotions and feelings it had. Or, failing that, your personal revised definition of ‘empathy’ which will better suit your arguments.

 

[goout]

o_mlly:

Freddy:

A group of cells is not a person and it’s not possible to empathise with it.

Wrong. I do.

Or more likely give us a personal definition of empathy which more suits your purpose.

Acknowledging the humanity of another human being. Acknowledging the common humanity of the other human being and myself and all others. Identifying with another human being. Not subjecting our common identification to one’s capacities to function or one’s potency, but rather basing that common identification on the simple existential reality that we are both human beings.

How’s that?

the opposite is to turn your back on the obvious, to live in the superstition that the one who is obviously human and obviously existing is not human.
Don’t live in superstitions Freddy.

 

[o_mlly]

No, it’s the group of cells with which you said you could empathise.

Nope, that’s what you feel is the person in the womb. Because I know the person to be in essence the same as me, I can sympathize.

 

[Gorgias]

Nope. God is only one of the valuers. Every one of us is a valuer, and our judgment is based upon our value system.

From a Christian perspective, it still comes down to God as the “valuer” and the believer as someone who follows God’s commands or disregards them, no?

Even if there is God, and he has a “value” system, that does not make the value “intrinsic”.

It’s “intrinsic” to the creation that God created.

And therefore the victims do not value the rapist’s existence.

Two thoughts:

• how did we move from ‘psychopath’ to ‘rapist’?
• “they wish him dead” is different from the question of whether he is a human and has objective value as such.

But why do so many people think this gives a ‘free pass’ to mass murderers etc?

Because it’s the same calculus that can be applied. If you come up with a different answer, the only possible justification for it is “well, I think ‘apples’ in this case and ‘oranges’ in that one!”. (And yes, I view utilitarianism as an invalid approach.)

Just because you think someone has less value than you then it may give you a personal reason to kill them but it doesn’t give you the right to kill them.

Let’s turn it back on your thought experiment, then. You’re in a situation in which you can save only one person and therefore, are making the choice to ‘kill’ (by virtue of not saving) another. Just because you think that the stranger has less value to you, it doesn’t give you the right to defer to save him (and thereby condemn him to death), does it? Why are the two cases different?