I knew stem cell research out pay off!

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Sava
then I wasn't refering to you...

Believe it or not, but that Kuciwalker and not I made a comparison does not automatically mean that the comparison is invalid.

[Last Conformist]

@shawnmmcc: When are you going to address my question about who determines whether a disagreement is genuine?

[Mr. Harley]

Kuci - I didn't say the religious texts don't have an internal consistancy - once you grant their premise of being THE divine word. The internal consisteny starts with a series of "god says" premises, and there is no internal consistency, just tautology in that case. That is why Moslems and Christians can kill each other with moral internal consistency - and they have with exactly those claims. Multiple times. Ethically the behavior is bankrupt.

None of my statements are based on a religious text - please find a detailed cite. Every maxim I have quoted is based on internal self-consistancy, i.e. my example of the murderer. There is a premise - that all behaviors you are willing to enforce, reduced to their basic premise (tricky one that - my example of the religious moralist imposing his texts on everyone), are ones you do not mind having enforced on you. No god, no texts, etc.

It also is not relativist at all. The jailer example is a red herring. The person in jail violated those ethical maxims, i.e. he tried to kill someone. The jailer has not. Simple, end of story. In fact ethical laws DO NOT assume all inidividuals are morally equal - you wouldn't need laws then, would you (if it's a high standard we are talking). The fact you must pass laws presupposes people are not morally, or ethically equal. The ethical code of law essentially prevents the criminals' behavior from involuntarily impacting you, i.e. DUI, assault, fraud, murder, etc. However, personal behaviors that do not affect others are not criminalized in an ethical system, that is the individual's problem. Want to have a duel? As long as it IS voluntary, go at it. Want to wear a head scarf, or only associate with fellow believers. Go for it.

I didn't accuse you of being pro-life - I explained why it is an ethical problem and brought it up as the big thorny issue in ethical systems in the modern world. Kuci, I've obviously hit a hot button. Whether using red herring concerning slavery, or saying

Why? Every answer you give is ultimately based on some unjustifiable statement - either a religious text or that "everyone thinks it's true"

when I use neither. Pause a second, I need to get back to bed anyway - and I normally enjoy our discussions - and please try and figure out what hot button I'm obviously pushing. Then let's try this discussion again, I'll check the thread tonight.

Oh, and Elok - we agree to disagree. You are posting the ethical flipside of the whole abortion issue. However, are you willing to truly live with those consequences? As I've stated to BK, have you worked with those handicapped children that will result from if your interpretation is implemented? As a minimum are you willing to pay the higher taxes because of how long we can now keep them alive with medical science - for example individuals with Down's syndrome used to die by early adulthood due to other problems stemming from the extra chromosone - now they live into middle age. The hydrocephlic example will cost well into six figures before it dies. I have a suspicion you are one of those who might just do that (i.e. be willing to pay those taxes). If you are, I'll respect you while opposing you, while I err on the side of choice, for the reasons I've explained.

[monolith94]

Petite, pert breasts are far sexier than those gigonza things, that are just way too big. This obsession with as large mammaries as possible annoys me. A streamlined body is a thing of beauty. I want a woman with low wind-resistance.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Anti-Choice I guess that makes you Pro-Death.

Something has to be alive before it can die.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by monolith94
Petite, pert breasts are far sexier than those gigonza things, that are just way too big. This obsession with as large mammaries as possible annoys me. A streamlined body is a thing of beauty. I want a woman with low wind-resistance.

To petite isn't sexy nor is to big. 34C to 36D are about right.

[Elok]

Fair enough WRT agreeing to disagree, but surely you realize that I'm not going to leave it be in the real world...don't you?

I think I see what Kuci's getting at though, as I've argued it often enough. Any system of ethics must be based on certain assumptions even before it can be logically consistent. The assumptions can be questioned with regards to palatability, and if the internal consistency is flawed, that too, but otherwise a system of ethics is not assailable, because the system by definition establishes its own right and wrong.

I don't distinguish between morals and ethics for that reason. Both are extrapolations from certain core assumptions, and no such basic assumption is of more worth than any other from an "empirical" perspective, if such a thing even exists for existential questions. You can try to make the assumption unpalatable, but it all depends what you have faith in.

In your case, the assumptions seem to be the fairly basic "people should be treated respectfully for no reason beyond respect itself," "personhood is defined by self-awareness," and so on. I'm not arguing against those points, I'm willing to ATD as you suggested, I'm just noting their existence.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Kuci - I didn't say the religious texts don't have an internal consistancy - once you grant their premise of being THE divine word. The internal consisteny starts with a series of "god says" premises, and there is no internal consistency, just tautology in that case. That is why Moslems and Christians can kill each other with moral internal consistency - and they have with exactly those claims. Multiple times. Ethically the behavior is bankrupt.

Elok hasn't made a single religious argument...

None of my statements are based on a religious text - please find a detailed cite. Every maxim I have quoted is based on internal self-consistancy, i.e. my example of the murderer. There is a premise - that all behaviors you are willing to enforce, reduced to their basic premise (tricky one that - my example of the religious moralist imposing his texts on everyone), are ones you do not mind having enforced on you. No god, no texts, etc.

I never said they were religion-based - what I said was that they reduced to a unjustifiable statement, that it's OK to enforce behaviors that you don't mind being enforced on you. There's no

It also is not relativist at all. The jailer example is a red herring. The person in jail violated those ethical maxims, i.e. he tried to kill someone. The jailer has not. Simple, end of story.

The person in jail was black, the jailer was not. Simple, end of story.

The fact that you can specifically define the distinction doesn't make it objectively valid.

In fact ethical laws DO NOT assume all inidividuals are morally equal - you wouldn't need laws then, would you (if it's a high standard we are talking).

I didn't mean in terms of action, I meant in terms of rights. I said morally identical, that is, you could switch the two people and the morality of the situation would be the same. This is not true of any ethical systems, and so it's not an argument against Elok's.

I didn't accuse you of being pro-life - I explained why it is an ethical problem and brought it up as the big thorny issue in ethical systems in the modern world. Kuci, I've obviously hit a hot button. Whether using red herring concerning slavery, or saying when I use neither. Pause a second, I need to get back to bed anyway - and I normally enjoy our discussions - and please try and figure out what hot button I'm obviously pushing. Then let's try this discussion again, I'll check the thread tonight.

You do base yours on an unjustifiable statement - ALL moral systems are, because there's (obviously) no a priori way to determine the "true morality", and it's equally clear that there's no experiment you can perform. Morality is relative

Oh, and Elok - we agree to disagree. You are posting the ethical flipside of the whole abortion issue. However, are you willing to truly live with those consequences? As I've stated to BK, have you worked with those handicapped children that will result from if your interpretation is implemented? As a minimum are you willing to pay the higher taxes because of how long we can now keep them alive with medical science - for example individuals with Down's syndrome used to die by early adulthood due to other problems stemming from the extra chromosone - now they live into middle age. The hydrocephlic example will cost well into six figures before it dies. I have a suspicion you are one of those who might just do that (i.e. be willing to pay those taxes). If you are, I'll respect you while opposing you, while I err on the side of choice, for the reasons I've explained.

This is an argument from a completely different angle, and it is valid - whether or not fetuses have these rights, can our society function with a complete abortion ban?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Something has to be alive before it can die.

A fetus is clearly alive.

[Mr. Harley]

Very close, Elok. The assumption, and actually it is tautological to the term itself, is internal consistency over a broad application. Which is what ethics is/are.

So all rules within a system of ethics must be applicable to whatever situation ensues. Saying "I am always right, make me world dictator" obviously does not have the broad application, it applies to that one individual, and cannot apply to any other. Ditto for slavery, which is why I hadn't used it, it's a straw man - the application is so direct that it doesn't really present any actual issue at all for the ethicist.

I have agonized over abortion, etc. for decades, and been on the receiving end. I would have a little boy, well actually an adolescent, except while I wanted the child, she did not (barrier methods do fail - I learned belt and suspenders after that). However, it is in some of the grey application areas that ethics have problems. For a moralist it is simple, the divine text says otherwise.

Your ethical examination of the entire IV-F, abortion, stem cell issue is internally consistant. I am quite familiar with it, it is the same one I came over two decades ago, which is why Roe vs. Wade is a bad decision either way - medical technology cannot be the indicator for when life begins. That really has grotesque implications, for example, a moving bar to define murder?

However, as I noted, you ethical conclusion, while internally consistant as to what is human, ends up with certain results that I simply find absurd, the actual problem with the purest form of Libetarianism (in response to other posters comments, not yours). My examples of some of the more extreme birth defects, and all some genetic diseases, makes even your very simple, straight foward definition of human produce some horrendous results, i.e. the Tay-Sachs child who is going to have a horrendous death. I would abort in a heartbeat, but while my wife may be a carrier, I am not.

That is why, and I cannot remember the quote in any kind of detail, or who said it, but essentially it states that philosophers are the most dangerous, and heartless, people. They can lay down maxims without regard to the results, all in the name of internal consistency. Which is why, as you noted, when I come to certain areas where internal consistency comes to an unsolvable dilemma, i.e. abortion and the well-being of the parents versus the rights of the embryo/fetus/unborn child - I then add the additional corrollary standards that you note I apply.

In fact I would simply describe my rules that I attempt to apply in cases like that are respect and choice. I also attempt to test my ethical conclusion via reducio ad absurdem (reduced to the absurd, taking it to the most extreme conclusion for some of the other posters who may not know) which is why I abandoned the line of reasoning you currently apply to this genie in the modern technical lamp. That reducio ad absurdem test of ethics is actually the biggest difference, I expect, between your ethics and mine. You are probably a more pure ethicist than I, in that you take the internal consistancy and apply it come what may in this case. I do apply a certain relativist examination of the consequences, making my ethical system much more complex, but I hope a little less harsh in the application.

[Kuciwalker]

So all rules within a system of ethics must be applicable to whatever situation ensues. Saying "I am always right, make me world dictator" obviously does not have the broad application, it applies to that one individual, and cannot apply to any other. Ditto for slavery, which is why I hadn't used it, it's a straw man - the application is so direct that it doesn't really present any actual issue at all for the ethicist.

I don't see why a morality has to be so to be true. You've got a fundamental assumption here that morality must be acceptable by most people to be true.

[Japher]

I have also been all over the abortion issue, and I have drawn the line now that I am having a kid of my own

Once they form an ability to react they are alive and that begins at around 3 mos... Anything after that is murder IMO. If you are going to abort take the morning after pill, or catch it quick. That kid gains awarness fast, and when it does it IS alive.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Elok
There's no way to talk either side out of it, but briefly put for the sake of an effort, our human rights are not contingent upon ability.

Really? So a dead person has as many rights as a living person?

Originally posted by Elok
Once the being is genetically distinct from its parents, it is for all intents and purposes uniquely human, regardless of what it can or cannot do. Sez I.

So a cancer cell has full human rights. That's neat.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Elok
Assigning value to anything beyond "glob of cells" is highly subjective.

Either you are very confused, or you are trying to confuse others.

Originally posted by Elok
We're all globs of cells, some more complex than others

That is very disingenuous. It's like saying everything is matter. It is a true statement, but it is also a meaningless statement.

Originally posted by Elok
First of all, nobody can define what it means decisively

Nobody can precisely define probability either, it doesn't mean it is useless.

Originally posted by Elok
and even the imprecise definitions rely on methods of measurement which can't be proven when the subject is an infant or fetus.

How do you prove a measurement?

Originally posted by Elok
Notice how this establishes one's right to live as something to be proven or earned with time.

No kidding. Even if it is by your DNA method, you still need to show the subject in question carries human DNA and is distinctively different from the its parents. So how is yours different? It is still a test that establish boundaris.

Not that I agree with this test.

Originally posted by Elok
So at least some aspects of the intellect come from life experience combined with the emerging abilities of the developing brain

Sentience != intellect.

Originally posted by Elok
Thirdly, even out of the womb a child is far from developed into the intelligence we associate with "humanity," as anybody who's read the names Piaget or Erikson knows. Even in adolescence the brain is not developed entirely, and choosing a point along the spectrum of growth in the meantime cannot be anything but arbitrary.

Again, you are either confusing sentience with intelligence, either because you don't know the difference, or you are trying to confuse others.

[Mr. Harley]

Kuci - hello again. You are now looking at why many moralists find ethical systems very uncomfortable. A moral system has no need for the applicability test. A moral system is based on typically a religious text and the maxims contained therein. It then applies various contextual arguments to them, like Elok points out that I use, though I submit I only use them when the broad applicability hits a dilemma, i.e. abortion and the various situations that arise concerning it.

Look at Judaism. If you take a literalist look at the text, you can be Orthodox or Hasidic. If you take a relativist look at the text, you can be reformed. If you try to find some compromise between the two, you are Conservative (I'm oversimplyfying to make a point). However, all used the Torah as the base line and then interpret it.

Thus many Christians have no problems imposing a ban on Sunday alchohol sales even though a non-Christian does not feel the Sabbath is Sunday. Even some Christians disagree, but nevertheless a majority imposed that in many states. From their standpoint that is moral, just like a moslem feels comfortable banning non-moslem men from marrying their woman, but the reverse is acceptable.

In Florida in the 1990's the local Christian town council passed rules to prevent the local Santeria believers the right to make animal sacrifices. Since the zoning changes were blatant, SCOTUS threw them out. My point is that all of these examples I've mentioned passed someone's morality test, but all fail the broad application criteria of ethics. Which is why I find it amusing when moralists claim ethics are all relative and thus inherently flawed. Actually ethics are an attempt to guarantee the moralists have the right to practice their own private morality, as long as it does not interfere with others in their own different practice.

Ethics are anything but relative, and have a much better chance of surviving the passage of time and changes in the culture with many fewer changes. Much of what I espouse has been around in the West since the European enlightenment, roughly three centuries. If you look at Taoism, most of the concepts I discuss here are over two millenia old.