Zapshe,
The word convenience in no way degrades the argument in the least. It is calling a spade a spade. To not blatantly call it what it is serves to be intellectually dishonest with ourselves and others. So you are at least agreeing that when someone decides to abort a baby that it is convenient (to some degree in the short term) and that was my point. So we agree here?
Correct, convenience does not imply morality and the converse is true. In fact, many moral acts are very inconvenient. When you donate your time to better someone or help them learn or even do something for someone who is incapable of it themselves or even perhaps ultimately laying down one's own life for that of another's is inconvenient many times.
Also, I hear abortion is actually quite inconvenient and traumatic to the woman as well as to the genetically identified entity (aka- the blob of cells) that just so happens to have its own genetic identification code (
BTW - that unique genetic identifier is science rather than dogma to be clear) unique to both the sperm doner and the walking incubation unit (
affectionately known as the "mother"). So it would seem that convenience is un-linked to the actions themselves many times but definitely linked to the
motivation behind those actions - at least in the short term. My point is, when there is no ethical or moral restraints convenience seems to trump many times.
So if you find a logical path that definitively shows you that murdering another human being without cause is morally wrong - will that change your mind? Do you think that path exists?
That's why we were looking for logical paths and trying to figure out what the basis of our ethics actually are. Would you consider an egg a chicken? Would you consider turtle eggs to be turtles? Would you consider a bundle of cells to be a human being? |
You make my point for me.==>
If it is all subjective then I can define the chicken egg as a dinosaur the turtle eggs as rhododendrons and the bundle of cells (human? - again unique DNA identifier of cells is science) as a wooden chair. And tomorrow they would all have different meanings (if convenient) and ways I could interact and interface with them because you asked
ME what I would call them. If I'm in charge we do it
MY way in a subjective society.
Anyone who disagrees is bound to end up a pile of cells (human?) if they don't watch it and I will be perfectly justified in this action. Because it is all subjective. No right, no wrong. No up, no down. No chicken, no turtle. Only what you WANT it to be when you want it to be out of convenience or even hate or even rage or even laziness or even apathy - fill in the blank - it is all legitimate.
So ensuring the quality of life by ensuring the destruction of others? Does that sound counter intuitive to you? That seems very oxymoronic and counter-intuitive to me.
Who decides who lives and who dies? I guess the Chinese! That sounds about right when it comes to the mantra of communism and the 20th century. (Thank you Nietzsche)
Your inconvenient situations are inconvenient for sure but as we stated earlier they are also immoral when one purposely performs those acts on another
knowing that they are wrong. Unless we live in a subjective world - where there is no wrong or right - then they are all absolutely ok. However, me using my famous machine gun from my earlier post on all of them would ALSO be ok so it seems like it all works out in subjective society. That was pretty easy. No people = no problems!
And then we can look at this ethical delima if you say a fetus shouldn't be aborted. If due to rape, is abortion justified? If not, how can you call yourself ethical when a woman was raped and you force her to carry a the baby to term? Psychological trauma and ruining her life. If yes, how come suddenly the rights of a fetus have disappeared? If it has the right to live, what about the rape should interfere with this right? Wouldn't this also be classified as "convenience"? Maybe you finally realized convenience is just a word meant to hide the true nature of the situation so that pro-life people can dodge reality. |
I think I've discovered that the word convenience means that people can do morally reprehensible and ugly things to other human beings and then tell themselves they were justified so that they can go to sleep at night with themselves. All while then railing against others when those others happen to identify the actions for what they are in all of their ugliness and immorality.
It's pretty cruel for people not to go along with another's fantasy of reality when so much mental trauma is involved.
How about the ethical and moral dilemma of that blob of cells (genetically unique by DNA code and science proven once again) doesn't want to be destroyed? I think the blob of cells definitely suffered more than just psychological trauma to be sure since it is now just a red stain on the abortion clinic floor. But again, subjective society says this is fine. Man, I sure am glad I wasn't the recipient of such subjective reasoning - are you glad that you were not?
That's the real question isn't it? Are YOU glad that your walking incubation unit (aka - mother) chose to allow you to live?
Final question, how come in the case of the mother's life is in danger the mother is always the one chosen? If it's a fight between who lives, they say kill the fetus and save the mother. Why's that? How come they don't say, "Kill the mother and save the fetus!" ? Why is the mother's life held up higher? And don't tell me because the fetus is "worth less" or "not as developed", because in a hostage situation, children are usually allowed through first. So children's lives are held up pretty high, but then not a fetus? |
The mother's life is NOT always chosen. That would be an absolute. Are you saying that this is always ABSOLUTELY the case with no exceptions? I think there have been cases where the mother has requested that her child live because she knew she was dying (inconveniently I might add) and that she wanted her child to live so she decided to lay down herself for her child's sake.
Zapshe, my whole point here is what you are dancing around with your many hypothetical and real situations.... What or WHO defines what it is to be human? Is it YOU is it I or is it the Chinese? What if that person is NONE of the choices I just gave you? What if man is not his own god?
My whole argument has been that of Nietzsche's. IF (and only if - there are no half ways here) man is his own god - then we WILL have a subjective society and so all the things you were upset about above don't matter. It doesn't matter about the poor raped woman, it doesn't matter about her psychological trauma, it doesn't matter about the children in a destitute household, it doesn't matter about the person that thinks differently, it doesn't matter about the person's corpse burning in an oven because there is no objective truth.
Does that sound right to you? Does that sound like the world you want to be a part of or have worked toward?
My last question is this for you: What if there is more to life than all of this and that there is such a thing as objective truth and that it can be known? How does that change everything in your thinking?
I suspect that most peoples minds are already made up and in the end - sadly the vast majority of people only learn one way ==> through pain and suffering. There are those that don't go that route though and they learn by observing knowable truth and being receptive to changing their thinking.
I will rest on this issue since I am not here to convince anyone - only ask tough questions that are inconvenient and also make ourselves look in the mirror and ask "Do I like what I see?"
Xanadu