Tough Question for Religious Orientated People

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


So who determines what counts as reasonable? I would argue that the only ones qualified to set the standard would be the parents themselves. Otherwise, you get into forced sterilizations and abortions as we have right now in China in order to enforce a one-child policy.

So uncontrolled mass-production of children is waht you espouse, Ben?

May I remind you that not every nation, or even family is able to manage a large population expansion.

Despite what a dogmatic doctrine may command, a growing group of children need sufficient food, shelter and security.

What happens when a population is not controlled, and has no means for support.

Can you say 'South America' or 'Africa?'

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by Arrian
Why would a nuclear holocaust shake people's faith in God, when all the rest of human history hasn't been able to do it?

-Arrian

The whole of human histroy?
Even before the new religions like christianity and islam appeared?

About the nuke war:
The maniacs who launched the armageddon would be undoubtedly some kind of fanatic.

The kind that change dogma/scripture to fit their agenda.

PS
After a nuke war, if I survived, I would make it my business to hunt down every religionist.

In vengeance for destroying our world.

[Az]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
What you consider dire circumstances is different than what many others might consider such. Indeed, the Nazis earnestly believed the "Jewish problem" was a very dire problem. They also earnestly believed that by wiping out Jews/gypsies/gays, they were doing an ultimate good for the service of humanity. That fits squarely within utilitarian values. So the philosophy is still conducive to genocide.

They were wrong for a number of reasons:
a) They were wrong in their utilitarian judgement, quite obviously. Even if they THOUGHT that they're trying to achieve utility they obviously WERE NOT achieving utility. That of course presumes that the Nazis were utilitarians, which is quite wrong, considering that it's quite easy to see how a genocidal war, and the murder of millions, and then billions of people is wrong.
b) this stemmed from the fact that they didn't consider any people except the aryans human, which is obiously wrong.

Utilitarian ethics can be used to justify any atrocity, as I've pointed out.

the fact that "they can used to justify", or used as pretence, doesn't render them invalid, since it's quite obvious that they're not really justifying any such thing.

:Hmmm:

You said "Killing a billion people to stop terrorism is completely uncomparable, ethically." This was as a comparison to Nazi atrocities, so you seemed to be arguing it was okay to kill a billion to stop terrorism.

What I meant to say that the plus that would come from ending muslim terrorism is nowhere close to the minus from killing a billion people.

My turn:

If you are FORCING a woman to have a baby she doesn't want to have for the sole purpose of continuing the human race by your force of will, then how can you say you don't think there is a right for people to exist? You may not have stated such, but it's implicit in your very philosophy!

I don't believe in any rights. The fact that killing a person (without any other context) is wrong ethically, doesn't mean that the person has some inherent life to live.

Taking into account the welfare and happiness of future generations is NONSENSICAL when the question is whether or not there will even BE any future generations! You're not taking into account their welfare, you're forcing their existence.

Why is it nonsensical?

Citing Agathon as agreement is funny, because if you'd read him clearly, you'd see he disagrees with you and makes a clear delineation between such things as not destroying the environment and this scenario.

I didn't cite him as agreeing with me, I cited him as saying why is it wrong to harm people that aren't born yet.

Um, easy: In this instance, their existence will solely be predicated by the forcible actions of you, the murderer/rapist. This is called rigging the system. Without your forceful actions, there is no question as to them existing: they won't.

The fact that my actions are forceful doesn't change anything. Their damage has it's own place in the equation of welfare, You still haven't shown me why the fact that I am changing it somehow changes the entire nature of that equation: murder vs. chance of a happy life of an enormous number of human beings.

Protecting the environment also, I should mention, doesn't involve rape/murder. So there's another big difference.

Once again, this means that there is some red line being crossed by rape/murder. Something that makes the badness of that act, bad with a completely new quality of badness. This isn't the case.

First, you've not demonstrated why "utility" is in and of itself something so precious that it must preserved by these lengths.

Utility is the happiness of human beings. That's what human beings want in their lives. That one of the chief reasons I believe it to be the ethical standard.

Second, you've no evidence that the universe isn't vastly populated by ethical beings, nor that there aren't ethics in other earth beings.

COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.
an equation could show it, perhaps.
Lets mark U as utility:

U of the universe without raping the woman= U of other ethical beings + U woman not being raped.

U of the universe with raping the woman= U of other ethical beings + U of humanity surviving.

Uhumanity surviving >> Uwoman not being raped

this means that.

U of the universe with raping the woman > U of the universe without raping the woman.

Any biologist who has made extensive studies of primate cultures would disagree with you, in that many primate species certainly do have ethics. As I've said, there's absolutely no reason to believe that should humanity go, other ethical, intelligent beings won't take our place. Evolution fills niches, and there is obviously a niche for such being on this planet.

OR, you could save humanity and make that niche filled instantly.

The limits are absurd, but they follow logically from your arguments. You're concerned with the utility in the universe 500 years from now. Well, 15 billion years from now there won't be much of anything to worry about regardless. So what's the difference if humanity dies out today or in 10,000 years?

The difference is that lost utility from 10,000 years of happy human life.

What's the point of placing such primacy on purely thinking about the future without any regard to the here-and-now situation and suffering? Frankly, if being more concerned with real people than non-existent one is "short-sited," I don't have one bit of regret about being labeled such. Of course, I do care about the future and would like to make a future world that's as nice as possible for as many people as possible. I'm just not going to rape/murder to see it done.

In that case, it's quite obvious that you believe that raping/murdering someone is always wrong, no matter the context, and thus you believe in rights.

But your logic reminds me of the people who scoff at animal rights activists by saying that if it weren't for humans breeding chickens/cows/pigs so they could eat them, then they might be extinct. As if it were better for a chicken to live and be slaughtered for a dinner than to never have lived at all. It's a truly bizarre line of thinking.

Certainly! Do you think that people that suffer from terrible illnesses, such that make euthanasia ethical, would be better off not born at all?

Increased utility for here-and-now people, yes. But to cause suffering to those people on a thin promise of it increasing for the future generations that would otherwise not even be created is an abhorently immoral position, and is fundamentally undercut by the premise that the increase of utility should be ensured for those certain/likely to be there, not for those who otherwise wouldn't be there except for your forcible actions to increase their utility. It's a strangely circular logic you have.

The logic is not circular, Without those people that will be there, there would be no utility, since Utility is a function of the number of people who experience it. the value of this function for no people at all is zero.

The last anecdote is irrelevant, but I'll at least address the first part: We live in a pecular time of history where one could argue this is true. But it hasn't always been that way, and I'd argue that for most of human history, life has been more grim despair than happiness. The vast majority of people in history have lived in times of horrific wars and atrocities, devastating plagues and disasters, and great oppression. You're applying your narrow experiences and the snapshot of the modern world to all of history, which isn't particularly accurate.

And a myriad of little happy occasions, marriages, births of children, enjoying playing in the garden, having sex, eating tasty food, hearing jokes, etc. etc. Otherwise, you think they're better off not being born in the first place.

But regardless, you don't know for sure...it could be that more people will ultimately suffer horribly than will benefit from your rape/murder.

Yes, there is a chance, a big chance, that this will lead to nothing, and humanity will be exinct anyway. So yes, then utility would decrease. But there is a chance of an enormous increase in it, comparing to that ocassion of rape, and thus, it's still ethical, since this is a good bet.

Of course, given mankind's penchant for genocide, I'd also have to wonder if our destruction wouldn't ultimately be of utilitarian value to other intelligent lifeforms. Perhaps in our extinction is the prevention of our spreading massive genocide to other worlds, or of our race being a victim of such?

Perhaps, if we'd attack other worlds. Even if our race would become vicitimes of genocide afterwards, There still would be a dramatic increase in utility, comparing to leaving that woman alone.

Again, this is contradictory. If you believe it's wrong to "prevent the next generation from existing," you're de facto claiming they have some sort of right to exist.

No I am not.

Your entire argument has been about forcing a woman to bring said generation into existence, against her will and at the expense of her life, just so those future people can exist and, as you put it, "increase utility." That IS saying they have some sort of "right" to exist, whether you're unwilling to explicitly state it or not.

If there would be some way to know that they'll be all little Hitlers, for example, I wouldn't claim that their lives will increase utility, and thus I would say that their lives will not increase utility, and thus I'd claim it to be immoral.



I really dig this argument. It allows me to sharpen my argument skills, and I am now really certain that I am right.


Also, the fact that you resort to Aliens in your argument is a sure sign that I am gaining ground.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Arrian
I disagree, Agathon.

First, I disagree that it's wrong to say "the guerilla captain might kill everyone anyway," because that seems to me a very reasonable objection to make. Someone who hands you a gun and tells you to pick someone to die is the type who might then just laugh at you and gun you all down anyway. But ok, what if that's not an issue (so I TRUST this madman)...

If I give into this sick ****, and shoot a fellow hostage (or myself) to save the rest, he WINS. And I don't want him to win. I want him to lose badly, and all others who come after to lose badly too. Hence shooting him, resulting in the rest of his guerrila types shooting me and the rest of the hostages, killing us all. Is that possibly seflish? Yes, it might just be. But it ain't religious.

"Head like a hole. Black as your soul. I'd rather die, than give you control!"



-Arrian

You are basically changing the case, though. It is STATED that you are sure this will happen. You are sidestepping the moral dilemma, so your answer is worthless crap.

[Az]

[Theben]

There is no "right to exist" for people who don't yet exist. If you believed such, I'd imagine you'd oppose birth control, condoms and abortion in all cases, wouldn't you?

No, and I don't, because my idea of "right to exist" isn't based on the individual. I actually don't believe in absolute rights, anyway, other than "might makes right". Gasp and scoff and point fingers all you want, but it's true. But don't mistake an individual's personal power as the only means of "might". There's the collective strength of society, manifested in various ways- police, morals, and ingrained attitudes, for starters (after all, you don't HAVE to stop at that red light, espec when no one's around. So why did you?) Back on track: MY moral stance (and I suspect Azazel's) is that the survival of the human race is paramount. Therefore, while the personal freedoms of the woman are important, they are not as important as to make the attempt to save humanity. And let's face it: this 1st/last generation will be misable no matter what. But they'd be more miserable, IMHO, if they lived their lives knowing that no one was to come after they are gone.

Boris, MtG, et al: Let's say 1,000,000 little girls (since we're using imagery to aid our moral stances) come up to you and tell you that they are in incredible pain. There is no cure, but you know that 1% of them will someday recover (i.e. in the future) and then live normal, happy lives; otherwise each day until death is excruciating agony. What do you do if:

1) They ask you to kill them?
2) They tell you they don't want to die?

[Az]

MY moral stance (and I suspect Azazel's) is that the survival of the human race is paramount.

I wonder, though, what is YOUR position why is this so? For me, it's derivative of my pure utilitarian ethics.

[Theben]

Originally posted by Azazel
I wonder, though, what is YOUR position why is this so? For me, it's derivative of my pure utilitarian ethics.

I can't tell you, other than I've felt this way for a long time. Likely part of it is my willingness to sacrifice my own well being for others, and I project that onto my 'ideal' humanity. One also tends to see a lot of similarly glorified themes in history and media, and I might have unconsciously picked up on that. But I can say that it's not utilitarian, since I place such a high emphasis on this facet alone. It's definitely a more of mine. But then I never claimed to be utilitarian . Let's just say I've grown attached to humans.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Whoha


why kill male offspring?

Well, given that humanity has fallen, it is highly unlikely there will be loads of baby formula- babies have to be fed-that only leaves the mother-but women who are breastfeeding are less likely to get pregnant again quickly (which makes sense)-and the fact is, we would not need any more males, we need females; so why slow down the possible birth rate and waste the precious energy of the womans body feeding someone who is totally useless at that point?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Theben
Boris, MtG, et al: Let's say 1,000,000 little girls (since we're using imagery to aid our moral stances) come up to you and tell you that they are in incredible pain. There is no cure, but you know that 1% of them will someday recover (i.e. in the future) and then live normal, happy lives; otherwise each day until death is excruciating agony. What do you do if:

1) They ask you to kill them?
2) They tell you they don't want to die?

1) Tell them they are free to kill themselves-but that what we can do is dope them up real good until we can see if they have a chance to recover
2) We will dope them up real good and will wait to see if you have a chance to recover.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Theben


I can't tell you, other than I've felt this way for a long time. Likely part of it is my willingness to sacrifice my own well being for others, and I project that onto my 'ideal' humanity. One also tends to see a lot of similarly glorified themes in history and media, and I might have unconsciously picked up on that. But I can say that it's not utilitarian, since I place such a high emphasis on this facet alone. It's definitely a more of mine. But then I never claimed to be utilitarian . Let's just say I've grown attached to humans.

Very nice, BUT humanity HAS come to an end if we get to the situation given. Those few human beings are the unfortunate few outliers in the great decimation of the human race, and all the rape and misery to be inflicted by a few males desperate to pass on thier genes by the violation and suffering of the one female left are not going to do sh1t to bring humanity back.

These individuals are at best a postscript of mankind- a last very short chapter to the human saga- and it would be a horrible final word on man if they spent the last few years (probalby lucky to make it even a decade) involved in a maccabre scheme to "breed" humanity back by forcing a woman to be a "new Eve".

Again, it is fine and dandy for the men, who have nothing to lose, to talk grandosely about the needs of humanity, but humanity has ended, and that that point it owuld be playing russian rulette with a womans life simply for an "ideal". Though that could be placed on her tombstone- died of utility.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by GePap


Well, given that humanity has fallen, it is highly unlikely there will be loads of baby formula- babies have to be fed-that only leaves the mother-but women who are breastfeeding are less likely to get pregnant again quickly (which makes sense)-and the fact is, we would not need any more males, we need females; so why slow down the possible birth rate and waste the precious energy of the womans body feeding someone who is totally useless at that point?

because the first group of males will die off, and before that happens the first group won't be able to hunt,gather,etc.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by curtsibling


So uncontrolled mass-production of children is waht you espouse, Ben?

May I remind you that not every nation, or even family is able to manage a large population expansion.

Despite what a dogmatic doctrine may command, a growing group of children need sufficient food, shelter and security.

What happens when a population is not controlled, and has no means for support.

Can you say 'South America' or 'Africa?'

If any country could deal with such a large pop boom it would be the US, considering we are the largest agricultural producers on the planet in addition to other advantages we have.

[Theben]

Originally posted by GePap


1) Tell them they are free to kill themselves-but that what we can do is dope them up real good until we can see if they have a chance to recover
2) We will dope them up real good and will wait to see if you have a chance to recover.

Sorry, but there are only 2 possible outcomes- you kill them or they live on in misery. What do you do?

[Theben]

Originally posted by GePap

These individuals are at best a postscript of mankind- a last very short chapter to the human saga- and it would be a horrible final word on man if they spent the last few years (probalby lucky to make it even a decade) involved in a maccabre scheme to "breed" humanity back by forcing a woman to be a "new Eve".

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"

The "horrible final word" would only matter if someone survives to tell the tale, and since in your choice, no one would, it doesn't matter. Is hope such an awful thing to have?