Conquer Club

Metsfanmax wrote:

john9blue wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:
The basic logic, which is fairly simple, is that to be a person, an organism needs to have the traits we normally associate with personhood (e.g. the ability to feel pain, and the ability to see oneself as existing over time).

comatose and unconscious people meet neither of these criteria. can we kill them all?

No. In the case of someone who is temporarily comatose or unconscious, one would obviously reach unintended conclusions if one applied directly the standard of presently seeing oneself as existing over time. Therefore the theory may be modified to be made more explicit by saying that a person is any being that has at some time been self-aware, even if they are not presently in this state (this is what I meant when I said that an organism has the ability to see oneself as existing over time -- it may not be exercising that ability at every moment, though). It can be modified even more if one were to discuss cases of humans in persistent vegetative states that are no longer capable of being self-aware, in which case one might want to extend the definition even further by saying that a person must have at some time been self-aware and also must be capable of being self-aware at some point in the future. These are complications on the main issue at hand, but do lead into interesting questions about how to treat, for example, brain-dead patients.

TGD wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote: At any rate, I choose this definition as a simple way to express self-awareness. If you do not like it, there are other definitions. For example, a crude definition would be that any organism capable of passing the mirror test is a person.

wikipedia wrote:From the age of 6 to 12 months, the child typically sees a "sociable playmate" in the mirror's reflection.

So if you have a child, it would be perfectly okay for someone to kill that child before he or she reaches 12 months of age? Note, I'm not talking about a child; I'm talking about your child.

No, of course not. There are external reasons why it would be gravely wrong for someone to kill my newborn child -- namely, the distress it would cause to me (although this is largely hypothetical as I do not intend to have children). My argument is that it is wrong but it is not murder to kill a newborn child. Note that I specifically advocated a standard of one month after birth to be conservative, because there will certainly be some cases of children maturing faster than the norm.

Metsfanmax wrote:Although there are plenty of reasons why the typical absolute right to life standard is flawed,

I would like to get into this. Why is the absolute right to life standard flawed if applied to your definition of a person?

My apologies again for the lack of clarity; I was referring to the traditional "absolute right to life of humans" standard that is often espoused by, for example, the Catholic Church. One reason it is flawed is, for example, the issue of twinning. Twins can be formed up to two weeks after conception, and this muddles the question of what it means for the newly conceived fetus to be a unique person. Another is that it demands that we can never actively terminate the life of a gravely ill patient in serious pain, yet doctors effectively (passively) do this all the time when they, for example, decide to stop treatment on such a patient that extends the agony. From the doctor's point of view, both decisions terminate a life, yet for some reason people call the first murder and the second being a good doctor.

Metsfanmax wrote:One is either a person or not a person. Once a being is capable of forming memories and being self-aware, it is a person. You are not more of a person than when you were a young child, but you were not a person at all when you were a fetus. This is simply logically obvious. If you insist that you were a person as a fetus, then all you are doing is redefining "person" as "human being," in which case the entire meaning of the argument is lost.

Can you flesh this out some more? This is where I'm having trouble with respect to your definition. Let's ignore abortion for a second and focus on the idea of "personhood" and your definition (from what I can gather): namely, self-recognition. If a human being will eventually be a person, why is it okay to kill the human being?

Well, because we don't apply rights when the conditions for those rights have not been fulfilled. Prince Charles is next in line to be the head monarch of England, but we don't presently grant him the rights of the King just because he will someday hold that title. A President-elect has several months after being elected where we do not give this person access to the nuclear football.

I'm also a bit concerned about your use of logic in what can only be considered a desire (namely, the ability or right to live).

There is no problem with it; in fact, it's the basis for my system of ethics (preference utilitarianism). Ultimately, reason and logic do not dictate what people's desires are; those desires are inputs that must be respected in a system of ethics. Perhaps for that reason, I don't believe in an absolute right to life for persons, but do believe that such an effective right springs from the categorical imperative. Namely, it is my desire not to be killed, so a proper universalization of that principle leads one to the principle that one should not murder.

By the way, for those that care - Mets' definitions and reasoning are not the definitions and reasoning used in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

This is quite correct. My arguments are not accepted as any current legal doctrine; nevertheless, I find them to be compelling on philosophical grounds, even if I doubt that after-birth abortion will be accepted any time soon in this country.

thegreekdog wrote:I also cannot accept your definition of personhood (or your analogy - one that I thought of before posting, but thought I'd wait). It's not that we're treating a prince like a king in the event that he may become a king. It is not certain that prince will become king. It is virtually certain that a human being will become a person.

It's disappointing that you don't want to have children. I cannot begin to explain how much illogical and unreasonable love I have for my own children.

Metsfanmax wrote:

thegreekdog wrote:I also cannot accept your definition of personhood (or your analogy - one that I thought of before posting, but thought I'd wait). It's not that we're treating a prince like a king in the event that he may become a king. It is not certain that prince will become king. It is virtually certain that a human being will become a person.

I will dispute this claim before PLAYER gets in here. Something like 50% of pregnancies are estimated to be spontaneously aborted (although often this happens before the woman knows she is pregnant). It is far from certain that every conceived life will eventually become a person. Although I admit that if you wait until, say, the second or third trimester, this argument becomes stronger.

It's disappointing that you don't want to have children. I cannot begin to explain how much illogical and unreasonable love I have for my own children.

I will still consider it, but you are right that I can't possibly understand those feelings before having children of my own. I try to factor it in the "plus" column of my whether to have children spreadsheet (metaphorical spreadsheet, so far), but I don't know if it's enough for me.

Metsfanmax wrote:(although this is largely hypothetical as I do not intend to have children).

tkr4lf wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:(although this is largely hypothetical as I do not intend to have children).

That's a real shame. You should father many, many children. You know, do your part in balancing out all the stupid people that shouldn't breed.

tkr4lf wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:(although this is largely hypothetical as I do not intend to have children).

That's a real shame. You should father many, many children. You know, do your part in balancing out all the stupid people that shouldn't breed.

Metsfanmax wrote:

tkr4lf wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:(although this is largely hypothetical as I do not intend to have children).

That's a real shame. You should father many, many children. You know, do your part in balancing out all the stupid people that shouldn't breed.

Why do that when I can just kill all the babies of the stupid people?

premio53 wrote:How would you respond in these situations?

1. A preacher and his wife are very, very poor. They already have 14 kids. Now she finds out she’s pregnant with the 15th. They’re living in tremendous poverty. Considering their poverty and the excessive world population, would you consider recommending she get an abortion?

2. The father is sick with sniffles, the mother has TB. Of their four children, the first is blind, the second has died, the third is deaf, the fourth has TB. She finds she’s pregnant again. Given this extreme situation, would you consider recommending abortion?

3. A white man raped a 13-year-old black girl and she’s now pregnant. If you were her parents, would you consider recommending abortion?

4. A teenage girl is pregnant. She’s not married. Her fiancé is not the father of the baby, and he’s upset. Would you recommend abortion?

In the first case, you would have killed John Wesley, one of the great evangelists in the 19th century. In the second case, you would have killed Beethoven. In the third case, you would have killed Ethel Waters, the great black gospel singer. If you said yes to the fourth case, you would have declared the murder of Jesus Christ!

God is the author of life, and He has given every single individual supreme value. Each life—whether inside or outside the womb—should therefore be valued by us. God knows the plans He has for each individual and has written in His book all the days ordained for us before one of them came to be. When we presume to know better than God who should be given life, we are putting ourselves in the place of God and are guilty of idolatry. (The evidence Bible)

Night Strike wrote:

The Story: The Chinese government recently admitted that over the last four decades the country has aborted 336 million unborn children, many of them forcibly.

premio53 wrote:How would you respond in these situations?

1. A preacher and his wife are very, very poor. They already have 14 kids. Now she finds out she’s pregnant with the 15th. They’re living in tremendous poverty. Considering their poverty and the excessive world population, would you consider recommending she get an abortion?

2. The father is sick with sniffles, the mother has TB. Of their four children, the first is blind, the second has died, the third is deaf, the fourth has TB. She finds she’s pregnant again. Given this extreme situation, would you consider recommending abortion?

3. A white man raped a 13-year-old black girl and she’s now pregnant. If you were her parents, would you consider recommending abortion?

4. A teenage girl is pregnant. She’s not married. Her fiancé is not the father of the baby, and he’s upset. Would you recommend abortion?

In the first case, you would have killed John Wesley, one of the great evangelists in the 19th century. In the second case, you would have killed Beethoven. In the third case, you would have killed Ethel Waters, the great black gospel singer. If you said yes to the fourth case, you would have declared the murder of Jesus Christ!

premio53 wrote:How would you respond in these situations?

1. A preacher and his wife are very, very poor. They already have 14 kids. Now she finds out she’s pregnant with the 15th. They’re living in tremendous poverty. Considering their poverty and the excessive world population, would you consider recommending she get an abortion?

2. The father is sick with sniffles, the mother has TB. Of their four children, the first is blind, the second has died, the third is deaf, the fourth has TB. She finds she’s pregnant again. Given this extreme situation, would you consider recommending abortion?

3. A white man raped a 13-year-old black girl and she’s now pregnant. If you were her parents, would you consider recommending abortion?

4. A teenage girl is pregnant. She’s not married. Her fiancé is not the father of the baby, and he’s upset. Would you recommend abortion?

In the first case, you would have killed John Wesley, one of the great evangelists in the 19th century. In the second case, you would have killed Beethoven. In the third case, you would have killed Ethel Waters, the great black gospel singer. If you said yes to the fourth case, you would have declared the murder of Jesus Christ!

God is the author of life, and He has given every single individual supreme value. Each life—whether inside or outside the womb—should therefore be valued by us. God knows the plans He has for each individual and has written in His book all the days ordained for us before one of them came to be. When we presume to know better than God who should be given life, we are putting ourselves in the place of God and are guilty of idolatry. (The evidence Bible)

oVo wrote:

Night Strike wrote:

The Story: The Chinese government recently admitted that over the last four decades the country has aborted 336 million unborn children, many of them forcibly.

China and India both have populations that exceed one billion people.

It sounds like contraceptive methods haven't worked out very well there and require a renewed emphasis towards birth control. Your focus here is on the abortion of unwanted pregnancies that you refer to as "unborn children," consider the tragedy of children actually born in China who are abandoned on the side of the road because they are female.

comic boy wrote:

premio53 wrote:God is the author of life, and He has given every single individual supreme value. Each life—whether inside or outside the womb—should therefore be valued by us. God knows the plans He has for each individual and has written in His book all the days ordained for us before one of them came to be. When we presume to know better than God who should be given life, we are putting ourselves in the place of God and are guilty of idolatry. (The evidence Bible)

Your morals are entirely your own business but you wont find any support for your views in the Bible , abortion is not mentioned at all . You will of course argue that it comes under the subject of murder but I would like to know from where you draw the definition of a living being . The Bible does not say , The Torah defines life as half way out of the birth canal ( and is specific in allowing certain abortions up to this point ) whilst current secular science is far more pro life in its guidance than Jewish law at the time of Moses.
Doesn't your good book mention something about taking God's name in vain ?

_sabotage_ wrote:Abortion, like theft, murder, prostitution and drugs, is going to happen, whether legal or illegal. Suggesting that it is against God doesn't mean shit. Most people believe in God at their convenience, if ever. Making it illegal just increases the risk involved.

Forced abortion is another story. If you would like to quote from the Bible, perhaps you should start at the top: Do onto others as you would have others do onto you.

You wouldn't want others to force their beliefs and their decisions on you and in doing so you are breaking the law which governs all others. So stop being a dick. You have your opinions, don't impose them on others and don't call others murderers for disagreeing you fucking hypocrite.

tkr4lf wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:(although this is largely hypothetical as I do not intend to have children).

That's a real shame. You should father many, many children. You know, do your part in balancing out all the stupid people that shouldn't breed.

patches70 wrote:Save the World and off yourself JR! I can think of no other act that could be more selfless. After all, you've participated in "fucking the planet" and raping the oceans and you are yet another mouth to feed. We have to lighten the ship after all, might as well start with you.

AndyDufresne wrote:

patches70 wrote:Save the World and off yourself JR! I can think of no other act that could be more selfless. After all, you've participated in "fucking the planet" and raping the oceans and you are yet another mouth to feed. We have to lighten the ship after all, might as well start with you.

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

I'm nominating patches too, and the rest of us. We'll just make the voluntary involuntary as well.


--Andy

chang50 wrote:Hey Mets,I don't entirely agree with all of your thesis but I just wanted to say you are very brave to present such controversial ideas on this forum knowing the flak you would receive from the usual quarters...

oVo wrote:

Night Strike wrote:

The Story: The Chinese government recently admitted that over the last four decades the country has aborted 336 million unborn children, many of them forcibly.

China and India both have populations that exceed one billion people.

It sounds like contraceptive methods haven't worked out very well there and require a renewed emphasis towards birth control. Your focus here is on the abortion of unwanted pregnancies that you refer to as "unborn children," consider the tragedy of children actually born in China who are abandoned on the side of the road because they are female.

Frigidus wrote:For the record, Metsfanmax does not represent the views of everyone in favor of allowing abortion. Just thought I should point that out.

Metsfanmax wrote:I am sure that many more than 336 million potential persons have been murdered by tissues. Time to sue Kleenex!