Reign_Cryogen

You've asked the wrong question. The genus is correct. The description is not.

Reign_Cryogen

Quick, oddball question of my own, somewhat related: does anyone have a good link for some information regarding human fetal development? I'm mostly looking for information on nerve/brain development.. trying to work the concept of a compromise for the issue of abortion largely predicated on a vegan-inspired "capacity for suffering" model.

J-D

long-winded fool, I think I've covered below most of the points in your post #509.

1. It is not necessarily the case, as you seem to be suggesting, that the people of a society, as a group, are the lawmakers. (Hence, incidentally, your suggestion that I am part of the law-making body in my State is just plain wrong. I am not a member of Parliament.) I can't think of any instance in which the power to make laws is vested in the body of all the people of that society, and only in that body.

Possibly you think that such an arrangement ought to exist? Is that what you're suggesting? If so, do you expect infants to participate in this process? And fetuses? How? Moreover, if you're going to take this strict approach, shouldn't it follow that the body of people making up the society that makes the law can only legislate for their own society, which means they can only legislate for the body of people as it is made up at that time? Perhaps that last question's not clear. Let me put it like this:--

Suppose all the people of--let's say, Oregon--in the year--let's say, 2005--agree to make a particular law. (I'm assuming for the moment, just for the sake of argument, that the questions about the inclusions of fetuses and infants--and also about people in a persistent vegetative state, people so severely intellectually impaired that they lack all linguistic capacity, and so on--have somehow been resolved.) Is there any basis for suggesting that the law made by Oregonian society should apply to any other society? I can't see that you've offered one. Does that mean that the law should only apply to, and be binding on, the society that has made it? But doesn't that society equate only to the particular body of people that made it? Assuming there is still an Oregonian society in--let's say, 2155--it will be a completely different set of people. But doesn't that mean it will be a different society? So how can the law made by the Oregonian society of 2005 be applicable to and binding on the Oregonian society of 2155? But I can't see any reason why this logic should be restricted to cases where the two societies are completely different in composition. What seems right in that case seems also to be right in the case where the composition of the society has changed only partially. So if you're suggesting that only the people should make laws for the people, then the people of Oregon as of now can make laws for themselves, but not for that different body that is the people of Oregon as of 2055. Or 2025. Or 2006. Or next month.

So I don't think that idea will work.

2. In every country, whether it is a republic or not, and whether it is a democracy or not, laws are made (and changed) by the procedures defined by law for that purpose. In no country that I know of does that procedure guarantee that laws 'reflect the average of opinions of the people'. In no country that I know of is there a procedure that guarantees that laws that cease to reflect the average of opinions of the people also cease to be laws. I don't understand why you assert that this is what happens. Do all the laws in your country 'reflect the average of opinions of the people'? Do you even know what all the laws of your country are? How would anybody even know what 'the average of the opinions of the people' is?

Laws are not, as you suggest, 'opinions that we agree to adhere to'. They are enforced on people whether those people agree to adhere to them or not. The content of the laws is, in fact, determined by opinions about what should be made law. You ask whose opinions: the answer is, whoever are the legislators in the system in question. There is no necessity that legislators act on the basis of what is rational, or conducive to survival, or beneficial to society; sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

3. In practice, if you say that a law should be 'unalterable', you're saying that people now should be able to make a law that people in the future should be denied the power to change. A system allowing for such unalterable laws would mean the rule of the dead. People now would have to accept a law made 200 years ago, if the people then had seen fit to make it unalterable. Why should we accept that people 200 years ago were wiser than we are? Why should people 200 years from now accept that we are wiser than they?

I think perhaps you're confusing the concept of 'unalterable law' with something else. I have certain opinions about what the law should be on various subjects, and clearly the same is true for you. When I say that something is my opinion, I mean that I think it is correct--and I presume that you too think your opinions are correct. I think that's implicit in what the word 'opinion' means. So I think that certains laws ought to be made--and since those ideas reflect my opinions, I don't think they should be changed after they're made. I know that some of my opinions have changed in the past, so I acknowledge that it's possible some of them will change in the future. But it would be self-contradictory to say, now, that something is my opinion now, but that I will change that opinion to another one next year (or next week, or next minute). If I knew that I was going to think something was right tomorrow, I'd have to think it right at once. So if you found me advocating some law and asked me whether I thought that law should be altered after it was made, I would say no. But that's not the same as saying I think it should be made legally unalterable. That would be wrong. People today have no right to make laws to bind people in the indefinite future without giving people in the indefinite future the same legal right to make laws that we have now, which must include the right to alter laws made today.

I conclude that it's consistent to argue that laws should not be altered and yet not to argue that they should be unalterable. I still maintain my reasons for objecting to your insistence that some laws should be unalterable.

4. You insist that laws, if they are to be rational, should strengthen society. But how do you define the boundaries of a society and with what justification? It is this that makes the question of animal rights relevant. What is the criterion you use to exclude non-human animals from membership of society and what is your justification for adopting that criterion?

5. You ask me to make inferences from 'the function of society in general', and from what is required for society to be 'healthy and productive'. What do you take the function of society in general to be, and why? How do you measure the 'health' and 'productivity' of a society? What are your reasons for considering any of these things to be important?

6. Rightly or wrongly, the law takes the view that you are obliged to obey it whether you understand it or not, presumably because otherwise it would be too easy for people to evade any obligation to the law by claiming not to understand it. Hence the legal maxim, 'ignorance of the law is no excuse'. If you thought that the law meant something other than what it does mean, that's your ignorance and, in the law's eyes, no excuse.

Note that many laws include their own dictionaries, defining the meanings of key terms as they are used in the context of that particular law. If you were on one side of a lawsuit, insisting that a law be interpreted according to a general purpose dictionary against the definitions contained in that law itself, while the other side insisted on the law's own explicit definitions against your general ones, you'd lose. This is no different from 'trick' in the rules of a card game meaning what the rules define it as, rather than the general meaning of 'trick'.

By the way, if you want to rely on English dictionary definitions, how are you going to decide which dictionary to rely on? They don't always agree with each other. Another reason why the law insists on its own definitions.

7. I think it would be wrong for you and your friends to declare me and my friends to be 'non-persons' (or the other way round). I presume, despite your jocular remarks, that you think the same. So far we're in agreement. However, I don't need to adopt the framework of your reasoning to reach this conclusion. You appear to believe that there is some possible means by which the framework of your reasoning could be embedded into law so as to reduce the probability of my friends and I (or your friends and you) being declared 'non-persons'. You have presented no evidence to support your arguments for this conclusion, and I don't believe them.

8. You still haven't explained what you mean by 'complete' cooperation. Whatever it means, it is spurious to imply that the choice is between 'complete' cooperation and war. I want to avoid war, but I don't see how that's a reason to avoid all competition.

9. While they are sleeping, sleeping people are incapable of social interaction. However, they have a place in society established by their past record of social interaction, and which they can reasonably be expected to return to when they wake. As for 'brain dead' people, if by that you mean people who are known for certain to be permanently comatose, then yes, they have ceased to be members of society. It is mainly the difficulty of knowing for certain whether somebody has any prospect of recovering from coma that makes such cases difficult.

10. I didn't and don't say that the suffering of people who have already been born is more important than the suffering of fetuses because I care more about people who have already been born than I do about fetuses. I said nothing about whether or how much I cared about fetuses, or any other categories. You are falsely putting those words in my mouth and I ask you to desist. What I did say is that all categories of suffering should be taken into account, and that in weighing all considerations against each other, it should be taken into account that fetuses don't have the same capacity for suffering as people who have already been born. If one considers it to be a reasonable objective to reduce suffering (and I do) then one can't avoid some sort of comparative estimate of the suffering involved in different circumstances. This is what makes it relevant to consider the fact that fetuses don't and can't suffer the way born people do. I pasted my exact words in for a second time so that you could see them and I challenged you to make your analysis on the basis of the words I actually used. I never used the word 'care' (or 'caring', 'cared', or 'cares') or any synonym. I presume that you inserted into my argument words that I hadn't used because you found it too difficult to make your case on the basis of the words I actually used.

11. I have obviously failed to make clear what I mean when I object to your 'stonewalling'. It isn't a description of the way in which you choose to pursue your argument. What makes me say you're stonewalling is not what you do say but what you don't say. You have made large general assertions about what is 'healthy' or 'unhealthy' for a society and about what 'strengthens' it or 'weakens' it. I have asked you to explain the evidence on which you base those conclusions. You have consistently refused to do so, apparently on the (insulting) grounds that you can read my mind and know that I am certain to dismiss whatever evidence you produce. Maybe I will. Maybe if you finally deign to disclose it I will see flaws in it. That's not a justification for your response.

I'm not asking that you produce this evidence and do nothing else. By all means say anything else you want to say in addition. But if you repeatedly refuse to answer my questions, I think I'm entitled to call that 'stonewalling'.

12. You assert that the majority believe in 'equal inalienable human rights'. You also assert that legal abortion is a majority assumption. You suggest that this means there is a contradiction in the beliefs of the majority. But there is only a contradiction if people believe that 'equal inalienable human rights' should extend to cover rights for fetuses. If you insist on a meaning of 'human' that includes fetuses, then you can show a contradiction in the words on the basis of that definition, but that doesn't show a contradiction in people's beliefs. It only shows that the words used were an imprecise expression of what the people in question really believed.

Here's an example from real life, which also involves legal language. I was once talking to somebody who was outraged that somebody, in a case she knew of, might be charged with 'aggravated assault'. She had only ever encountered the word 'aggravate' in its colloquial sense of 'provoke', and she knew this particular assault was unprovoked. I was able to explain that the law uses 'aggravate' in its original sense of 'make more serious', so that 'aggravated assault' means 'more serious assault'. The only contradiction was between the implications of the two possible meanings of 'aggravated'--both of which, incidentally, can be found in dictionaries, but only one of which is used for legal purposes.

I believe in 'human rights', but neither you nor the dictionary is entitled to dictate to me the meaning of words in my own beliefs. I believe what I believe, not what you tell me I believe on the basis of your definition of my words (even though these may conceivably be ill-chosen).

13. I'm not sure what you mean by 'conjecture'. If you mean 'baseless and unfounded guess', then of course it's unreasonable for me to ask you for empirical data to support your conjectures. But in that case, it's unreasonable for you to expect me to attach any weight to your conjecture. It seems to me, however, that your assertions about the effects on societies of different abortion laws are based on a theoretical model of how societies function. I say that models in sociology, like models in other natural and social sciences, should be based on empirical data. The impression I gather is that your model is based entirely on shuffling words around, and I put no credence in models of that kind.

14. I asked you what, apart from power, could prevent people's rights from being violated. You answered, 'Choice'. Whose choice do you mean, if not the choice of the people who have the power to control whether or not somebody's rights are violated? It only makes sense to talk of an elephant 'choosing' not to trample on a mouse because the elephant has the power to trample on a mouse. Power is a precondition of choice.

15. You say that 'inalienable' means 'unwilling to violate with choice'. (I bet you won't find that definition in any dictionary, by the way.) Every time somebody is imprisoned, it means that other people have willingly chosen to violate their liberty. So any legal system that authorises imprisonment is incompatible with an inalienable right to liberty, although it may be compatible with an alienable right to liberty.

16. I agree with you absolutely when you suggest that the test should be which abortion laws produce more suffering. That's why I made the tabulation I did, and that's how I support my position about what I think those laws should be.

17. You ask me how death can weigh less than suffering. Let me give you an example.

You are in the army (or with the army) during a war. A shell fragment rips open the belly of the man next to you and his intestines fall out. He is still entirely conscious, but in uncontrollable pain. There is no medical assistance available and he is certain to die, but unless somebody does something he will take some time dying. He is screaming in agony and begging you to kill him. He'd kill himself, but he's dropped his gun and can't control himself sufficiently to pick it up.

Now I don't suggest that this is a direct parallel with the case of abortion. I am suggesting that it is a different kind of case which illustrates the same principle that it is possible, in some instances, for death to be outweighed by other kinds of suffering.

18. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes just as much rational sense to me on the assumption that its use of the word 'human' is not intended to extend to cover fetuses. I don't see why it doesn't to you.

J-D

If this means that you are dropping your claim that there is an actual contradiction within existing law, then I'd be happy to get back to the real argument. You were the one who introduced that issue into the debate, not Dr Rick.What do you mean by 'predation', and what do you mean by 'society'?

ecco

I think LWF has left the building.

long winded fool

That is not inconsistent. If you were in a burning building and could only save either a bed-ridden eighty-year-old terminal cancer patient, or a healthy baby, which would you save? Can I determine by your answer which one of these things is "more human?"

You were implying that saving a three-year-old over a bucket of embryos is inconsistency in my position. Since my position is that it should be illegal to murder an embryo, I can only assume that you equate letting a bucket of embryos burn to murder. Since, by your own admission, this is not murder even if they are 100% human beings, there can be no inconsistency.

It is entirely consistent. Why do you view something comprised of millions of cells to be a human being? Why do you need to count cells before you can identify the species of an organism?

Saving a three-year-old rather than a bucket of embryos does not necessarily imply that I see differing levels of humanity between the two. Couldn't it be the case that one 100% human organism has less of a chance of survival as another 100% human? Wouldn't you save a healthy child over a bed-ridden, elderly man with terminal cancer? If you recall, I specifically stated that I would save the bucket of embryos over a three-year-old if all of these humans had an equal chance of survival. I don't think you can get anywhere with this line of debate.

I did state this, but I'll state it again. A four celled embryo is a human being if, and only if, it is an indivudual organism of the species homo sapiens. A sperm cell is not a human being if, and only if, it is not an individual organism of the species homo sapiens. While they are necessary for reproduction, sperm cells cannot reproduce. Egg cells cannot reproduce. Four celled embryos are members of a species that can reproduce.

You are confused and I'm not?

Instinctively, I would have difficulties as well. But sometimes instincts must surrender to rationality. Just because something makes me feel uncomfortable doesn't mean that it is wrong.

But you said: "an unimplanted embryo is not an organism of the genus homo."

How can "what genus is it?" be the wrong question to ask in response to this statement? Do you want me to assume that an unimplanted embryo is not an organism, but is of the genus homo?

Reign_Cryogen

Bingo.

The point I was driving at is that the language was ambiguous. An organism is a collection of systems. Since those systems aren't in place until late in development, your question was quite begged.

long winded fool

Great. Thank you for that. Now that we have determined what is the case, can we get on with what should be the case?

If they are so foolish as to fail to understand the concept of survival, then law no longer exists anyway. This is not an argument that we should be able to make unalterable laws. I never said that we should make decisions for those in the future. The "unalterable law" to which I refer is the law of survival. Suicide should always be illegal from a societal point of view, because legal social suicide renders law useless. When a society destroys itself it is violating the only unalterable law that exists. The one and only purpose of society outside of the opinions of those it is composed of is to survive.

Illegal abortion should be an "unalterable law" only in the sense that humans are required before a society of humans can exist. Therefore, for a society of humans to exist and to survive, there must be an unalterable law that says: "Humans have the right to exist." If there is not, then society becomes an anarch state of competition and survival of the fittest, which is the opposite of society. When this fundamentally "unalterable" law is manipulated, i.e. "Humans have the right to exist, but some members of our species are not really humans..." the foundation of society is weakened.

Unalterable, as I use it in this argument, carries with it the implied premise: "If society is a good thing..."

Animals are species that are incapable of participation in society as anything other than resources. In order to be considered for inclusion in a functioning society, there first must be evidence that some benefit can be gained from the inclusion. The benefit of animals is that they provide resources, but ultimately cannot understand rules. The only species that is capable of understanding rules is the human species, therefore the human speices must have the right to exist. Therefore, society is composed of those species that understand its rules, and those that cannot are resources and attain appropriate rights. As of right now, homo sapiens is the only known species that can participate in the rule-making process of society.

And the reason that the line is drawn at species and no narrower is because interspecies competition is war and war is detrimental to society, which as we well know is based on cooperation and not competition.

The function of society is survival. Health and productivity are measured in relation to survivability. The laws which ensure maximum survival are the only rational laws. Any others are detrimental. I consider these things important because, without them, there would be no society to refer to.

You don't believe them for lack of evidence, or you don't want to believe them for lack of comfort?

The framework upon which my reasoning could be imbedded into law in order to protect minorities is already present in law: Equal and inalienable human rights. I point out that fetuses should be included due to the fact that they are members of the species. Many people disagree, but none can seem to iron out exactly why they disagree without resorting to "it's my opinion." That's fine if it is, but the inconsistency remains. The burden is on the pro-choice to explain how some innocent humans can be legally murdered when human rights exist.

Exactly. And the same argument that can be used to exclude fetal homo sapiens can be used to exclude dark-skinned homo sapiens. It all depends on how you define human. Right?

You're right. I apologize for insinuating this. But you must admit that the KKK feels the same way you do, just about different humans. I am trying to get you to understand that, when the word human becomes subjective to the individual, any discrimination, no matter how horrible you feel about it, can be justified.

The precondition of power is irrelevant. In a rational society, power is legally equalized, even if it is not physically equal.

Without the ability to defend rights by any means necessary, including lethal force, they are not rights.

This is not logical. What if there were a way to immediately end the life of every human on the planet in an entirely painless, even pleasurable, way. Is this the right thing for a society, (read: group of humans) to do? Or is it better to allow the virtually immesurable suffering that will take place accross the world throughout the life of the planet than to end it with death?

long winded fool

This is scientific nonsense.

Gsohierchaput

I'll try to argue that fetuses are not human beings and that abortion is morally correct from a constructivist-ish stand point.

1. Species in general are mental constructions, defined by arbitrary criterias. What I mean is, the species-classification system we have relies on criterias that could, rationaly speaking, be quite different. No two humans are exactly the same, so regrouping them together and labeling them human is arbitrary. This generalization is very useful in all areas of human activity, but is still ultimately without justification; moral arguments made using this classification as premise are thus invalid.

2. Society itself is also a mental construct; it is strictly the sum of its constituents (emergent properties are also mental constructions in constructivist thought). This society is can only exist if there are people to contruct it (to assemble it in the cognitive processes of the mind). In this way, even if a bunch of fetuses and severely mentaly handicapped people would be assembled together (!), there would be no society because those "human beings" cannot mentally constuct it. In other words, even if there is the physical apearance of a society (ex: ants or whatever), there can be no society unless its constituents "create" this society. The ant example might be good to illustrate this: even if ants build, herd aphids to get their dew, use agriculture to grow mushrooms, have a "social structure", they are not a society, because none of the ants think they are a society; they are but drones. In conclusion: to be in a society, you must mentally construct this society. If you do not mentally construct a society, then you are in fact alone and no moral or ethical standard can apply to you.

3. Fetuses cannot construct a society. In fact, they cannot construct anything, since they have little to no sensory input and poorly developped mental functions. If you cannot construct a society, then you are not a social being, just as a rock is not a social being. Why? By the fetuse's own criterias (or rather lack of them). Its that simple. Since morality is exclusively a social phenomenon, then fetuses cannot be the object of any moral judgement. Crushing a fetus is the moral equivalent of crushing a rock. Both can be moral or immoral, but the morality is not dependent on either (but rather on those who construct society; if someone is emotionaly attached to the fetus - or the rock - then it can be immoral to destroy it).

4. It is not logicaly possible to decide moral value based on society itself; you cannot say that it is moral to strenghten society, because society is the field in which morality is possible. Saying that it would be immoral to destroy society is non-sensical since it implies that morality exists outside society. If there is no more society, then there is no more morality.

5. Finaly, wihtout even pondering about the criterias for morality, the constructivist can say that abortion is moraly irrelevant since a fetus is not the type of thing that morality can apply to.

I'd like to note that I am not really a constructivist myself, so this post is more for the exercise than anything else... But I mostly agree with the conclusion. I understand, though, that if someone doesn't grasp the basic ideas of constructivism, then this post will seem pretty non-sensical in itself... If this is the case, then I am sorry; but in general, discussing morality is futile unless there is a apriori agreement on some sort of epistemological model, whatever that model might be. Moral theory and ethics are inseparable, in my opinion...