I just happen to think on issues like wanting to live or die..on assisted suicide...or wanting to abort or not abort...the decisions are difficult enough without others intervening unless invited — Frank Apisa

Yeah, well life's complicated and I get to weigh in.

It occurs to me though that I have been over the top in response to your wanting to intervene without invitation. I apologize...although if you persist, I probably will do it more. — Frank Apisa

No worries. Do as you must.

It's not even worth speaking, but just a gesture.

Belief is necessary for knowledge. It's basic epistemology.

And a whole bunch of audacity, pretentiousness, pomposity, and sticking his nose where it does not belong. — Frank Apisa

Generally laws apply to other people too, which allows us to stick our noses into the affairs of other's. What you allow your daughter to do and what she decides to do might be my business, as what I do might be hers.

When did the script flip where I became the proponent of government intervention and everyone else became libertarians?

I'm more just rolling with the punches as it appears she might not have been euthanized. I can't seem to get a good real life example, but must resort to armchair hypotheticals it seems.

My position is had she been euthanized or had she been allowed to die without active assistance, I'd be opposed because I believe the illness should be terminal before such decisions are permitted. That would mean there'd be a duty to intervene in some cases.

I am getting married in 2 weeks — christine

Mazel tov as we non-Christians say.

A Universalist is a Christian who believes everyone goes to heaven no matter what. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_universalism . This is not a mainstream view. Protestants require faith alone to get to heaven. Catholics require some good acts as well.

A Unitarian Universalist is anyone seeking spirituality, without specific creed. Some identify as Christians, others agnostics and atheists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism . That might be your best choice for a pastor for your vows instead of butting heads with a pastor of a faith inconsistent with yours..

What are you suggesting they should have done, that they did not already do? Force-fed her? — andrewk

The problem rests in trying to distinguish her wishes from her current illness. Her 17 year old mental state could well be temporary, but her decision while now weighed down with trauma will be permanent. I would impose whatever necessary to keep her alive at this point at least. If this were a 40 year old with decades of pain, a better case might be made to allow her to die.

Maybe, but that's a pretty stringent insistence on topic hygiene I don't usually see crop up. It's not exclusively philosophical, but philosophy has a part to play, and that characterizes quite a few threads on here, including many of both mine and yours. Besides, the OP ends with a question that is legalistic, not philosophical. — csalisbury

I took your post to question my motives, as if I truly don't care about the traumatized, but I'm just more interested in promoting my brand of conservatism. My point is that I'm interested in the philosophical component of this issue and that's why the focus is on the ethical issue, not on my expressions of sympathy for the young girl and her family. While the latter is humane and appropriate in other contexts, it's not part of this discussion.

Anyway, all of this is an aside and ad hom.

A very poor post, prattling on about non-existent race based interpretations of Nietzche. Really terrible. The concocted stats were an added touch of nonsense.

Some people post threads about trauma and how to deal with it. Others only care about trauma when it results in the greatest trauma of all - liberal government overreach. Who cares more about the experience of the person at the center of this? — csalisbury

How to generically deal with trauma isn't a philosophical question.

I wrote several paragraphs. Your response was one weird question. — frank

The point remains that one is not faced with the choice of either laissez faire or Marxism. It's a false dichotomy. There are 1000s of points in between.

You also fail to support your Darwinian ethical theory that you believe requires that the weak be left to die. When challenged, you insert undefinable ad hoc corrections related to the right to protect those within your sphere, whatever that is. It seems that the arbitrary limit set on the "sphere" will determine whether you're anything from a libertarian to a communist.

Historically, American socialism has been tied to either Marx or Christianity. Your strategy is confusion about what constitutes your sphere? — frank

I'm responding to your posts, not Marx. Libertarianism or Marxism is a false dichotomy.

If I was raped and the next day I was completely clean and physically healthy, I could live with it. — Schzophr

The only thing separating yourself from suicide after being raped is a hot shower?

As for those beyond your sphere — frank

Is my sphere just my immediate family, my extended family, my whole tribe, or my entire race?

I'm not suggesting that you should allow people you love to drown. You should protect yourself and that means protecting your loved ones. — frank

How does it protect me to jump in a lake to save someone?

Opposition to this view is essentially an anti-life ethic which promotes mercy and pity over greatness. — frank

Your principle demands allowing the sinking to drown, both literally and figuratively. Watching people drown seems an odd way to express your pro-life ethic.

It's both true that sometimes trying to help people actually helps them and that sometimes trying to help people actually hurts them. I think our focus as a society should be in doing things that actually help people, as opposed to abandoning the attempt because sometimes we fail.

The Independent article may or may not say essentially the same things as the Fox one - I didn't check - but it would be crazy to base any assessment of an important issue of social policy on a report from Fox News. — andrewk

It would be crazier to ignore the literally of hundreds of other cites simply because Fox reported the same thing too. Obviously Fox wasn't the first to report this, and they all use the term "euthanize."

I'll go a step further as well though. If the parents and doctors simply agreed to her wishes and allowed her to wither away without actively killing her ( which is what the euphemism "euthanasia" is), I'd find the matter still very much offensive. The distinction attempted, even if true, hardly makes this a whole lot better.

Whether or not this 17 year old girl made a naive decision should not come to bear on the decisions of terminally ill patients to end their suffering. — VagabondSpectre

I agree, but legislation can have unintended consequences. I do gain some comfort in knowing that there's a nation reckless enough to be the guinea pig so that the details can be sorted out before these ideas will be tried on my soil.

I do find this Dutch experiment vile. It's a step backward for compassionate end of life care and it treats human life as just another item.

She would have to be kept sedated or in restraints, and on suicide watch during these years of exhaustive experimentation on her psyche. And if in the end, it fails anyway, they will have done nothing but harm. — VagabondSpectre

Or not.

It's not like you get a do over if you choose euthanasia and we're wrong.

This was actually suicide, and it has been misreported. — VagabondSpectre

It was euthanasia, not suicide. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9221159/depressed-girl-17-dies-at-euthanasia-clinic-in-holland-after-suffering-unbearable-pain-since-childhood-rape/

The unfairness is that boys can just tie it in a knot and wait until they get home, but girls have to go right away. For that reason. I think girls should get to go wherever they want.

George III was crazy, not II. Close. So fucking close.

"Georgian English" suggests the aristocratic langauge of royalty, and I'm not sure I'm deserving of that. I do think George II was a nut job, though, so maybe that's what you meant. I could be wrong though. My English history is a bit weak which should come as no surprise.

You do realize that "fuck" is not swearing. Nor is "fuck" cursing. Nor is "fuck" profane.

"Fuck" is vulgar.

And we both know that being vulgar means being "of the people"...sorta like the Vulgate version of the Bible. — Frank Apisa

"Fuck" is vulgar and it is profane because that's what vulgar means right now, regardless of how the ancient Romans spoke.

Rather, I wonder if there is any agreement that honesty in public life should be enforceable in principle in somewhat the same way that it is in business? If my new gizmo doesn't do what it says on the tin, I am entitled to my money back; perhaps I could sue if my taxes are misspent? — unenlightened

Even assuming the analogy apt (i.e. that it is as much fraud for a gizmo seller to sell an ineffective gizmo to you as it is for a politician to obtain your vote under false promises), I'd still disagree with the proposition that both should be afforded the same remedies in court because I do not see the purpose of law as seeking logical consistency. That different classes of people are treated differently in order to advance particular state interests seems reasonable to me. If we choose, for example, to give emergency room physicians greater protection against negligence suits than we do other physicians (as some states do) seems reasonable if the purpose is to reduce emergency room costs and assure the public there will be plenty of emergency care when needed. Logically, though, an ER doctor is just another gizmo maker.

The question then is why can't we sue every politician who secures votes saying he will not vote for X the minute he votes for X if he is just another gizmo producer? My response would be the same as above, which is that the societal effect would be more damaging than allowing the current state of affairs to continue forward. What would happen is that the passage of legislation would cease taking place in the legislative building, but it would move to the courthouse, where every empowered citizen would file endless lawsuits trying to advance their interests before judges and juries.

As an aside, I also am not particularly troubled by the current state of distrust in government and the lying that now occurs except to the extent the acts of politicians amount to actual violations of law. That is, I don't see us at a nadir where we now need to reconsider our limited remedies of impeachment, recall elections (available in certain cases), and just waiting to election time to vote for the other guy. The world has been through far worse times than now.

If we tweak a car's engine it will affect its motion. This does not mean that things in motion are dependent on combustion engines. The consciousness in humans may be created by, be a side effect of, nervous systems. Or it may be that the nervous system affects or is a vehicle for human consciousness (and other animals). Right now we don't know. We can't measure consciousness. So we measure behavior and functions. And we have had a long bias to assume consciousness to be present only in things like us. In fact up into the early 70s it was taboo in science to talk about animal consciousness (or emotions, intention, etc.). But we don't know. — Coben

This is the dualist's quandary: How does the conscious affect the body and vice versa. I don't think this should lead us to wonder whether rocks have a conscious. This is the flip side of the solipsist who wonders whether he's the only conscious being in the universe, where one wonders if everything has a conscious, including rocks. Both positions seems to involve a waste of thought.

I'm not sure what you are doing here or why you answered my question to Unseen if you find this stuff uninteresting. — bert1

It's not interesting because it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous to assert that maybe rocks have experiences, even if you wish to admit their experiences are of a different degree than humans. I'm not sure why you want to admit that though, considering you have no way of knowing that rocks don't have rich mental states and are laughing at the simplicity of humans.

How is it that you know that rocks don't know all sorts of things and aren't silent omniscient gods?

The better question, and the one I assert, is why would I think that? The onus seems to be the one on making the claim.

My argument is NOT that there is no difference - it’s that we need to better understand and explore the many, many, MANY incremental differences in how information is processed and embodied between a rock molecule and human being as an evolution rather than as a single line in the sand. — Possibility

The scientific record doesn't support a theory of higher and lower order rocks where marble, for example, can be shown to have ancient granite ancestors. Much of this has to do with rocks not being able to reproduce, much less actually having DNA.

Rocks don't process information in any literal way. This conversation remains ridiculous regardless of how much you wish to stubbornly maintain it.

Do the various practitioners of the aptly named GRIEVANCE STUDIES deserve this fraud? Is this fraud unethical?

Discuss savagely like dogs fighting over a bone at Hooters. — Bitter Crank

I don't see this as fraud. Fraud would entail falsification of data or results that would deceive those critically evaluating the information. If I say something that prima facie is nonsense, I should be immediately recognized for my bullshit by those charged with critically evaluating my claims. If you create a system that has no objective standard for critical evaluation and that results in bullshit getting through your filterless system, the problem rests with your system.

That is to say, if my dog applies to your university and you allow Fido in because you've eliminated all objective admissions standards, you can hardly complain when cats and dogs get into your university and you look foolish. Such is critically different from me falsifying my transcripts and admissions scores and gaining admission. The latter is fraud. The former is just proof your institution has lost its way.

I can't. The differences in your behaviour from that of a rock do not allow me to make any general conclusions about consciousness, as far as I can tell. But you may have noticed something I have missed. That's why I am asking you (and Unseen if s/he cares to answer).

What is the relevant difference between the behaviour of humans and the behaviour of rocks, such that you attribute consciousness to the former but not the latter? — bert1

So this conversation isn't interesting. It is based upon the false premise that you cannot decipher a meaningful difference between rock behavior and my conversation with you here and that has somehow caused you to wonder whether rocks are thinking, conscious things. I suppose the task you're assigning me is that I offer up some distinction and we go round and round with some nonsense Socratic attempt for you to show me that people and rocks aren't too terribly different in terms of consciousness. It's no more interesting for me to do that than it might be for me to assert that actually rabbits are planets and then we can go round and round where I point out that all the distinctions you provide are vague and subject to ad hoc corrections, so maybe rabbits and planets are just the same. Definitional imprecision is a universal objection, but it hardly means we really can't distinguish cats from dogs.

Do you believe that a rock molecule has the capacity to receive an isolated bit of information from its environment (eg temperature change, directional force) that it embodies, and in doing so transmits information to its environment - whether or not it is aware of that information AS temperature change or directional force as such? — Possibility

The behavior of a rock differs not so slightly from the behavior of a person. I understand that every object is subject to physical laws, but surely you see a difference between a ball bouncing off a wall and a person throwing a ball.

Are you suggesting you don't know you're communicating with a conscious being and wonder if I might be a rock?

Since you can decipher my behavior from a rock, why not use the distinctions you recognize to answer your own question.

It does, but what follows from that? That's perfectly consistent with the idea that alteration in the functioning of a plant, or a rock, or a cell, or a plastic bottle, or whatever, likewise affects its consciousness. — bert1

As I noted, the only reason I believe any object other than myself has consciousness is by observing its behavior. Consciousness cannot be seen directly and the only consciousness I can actually experience is my own. I therefore have no reason to believe rocks have consciousness.

Why do you think a nervous system is necessary for consciousness? — bert1

Because alteration of an organism's nervous system predictably affects its consciousness.

With the Turing test, the question is whether an AI entity that behaves entirely conscious is actually conscious. It is indisputable that consciousness exists, considering I know myself to be conscious. I cannot know, however, whether anything else is conscious, but I assume there are other conscious entities based upon their behavior. So, if you had a computer that acted entirely conscious, I would not know if it were amazing mimicry or whether it was actual consciousness. The key here though is that what I'm trying to decipher with the Turing test is whether a particular entity is conscious just like I know myself to be. I don't doubt my own consciousness, just the consciousness of others..

Moving to free will. If we see a computer that appears to act freely (just like people do), we might conclude that it too must be free because its behavior looks to be free, but that entirely begs the question. The question being begged is "Does free will exist?" That is, how can we say that the computer is free because it looks free like us when we're not even sure we're free? Unlike consciousness, where we know we're personally conscious and we don't ask "Does consciousness exist," we don't know if we're free and we do ask "does free will exist?". The best we can say is that the computer looks to be free like us, but we're not even sure we're free.

That's actually quite paradoxical. If your aware of social Darwinism along with conservative sentiment that statement doesn't contrive with those doctrines. — Wallows

It's a false dichotomy to require that I either accept we are either (1) entirely products of our environment and genetics or (2) entirely products of our choices. The conservative position is no more #2 than is the liberal position is #1. To accept #1 is to deny free will of any sort. To accept #2 is to pretend I could fly if I just chose to.

My position is that our environment and our genetics shape us, offer us all sorts of benefits and challenges, and define us is some real ways. I don't discount though the power of the will, whatever it is, that propels some of the the struggling to greatness and some with so many privileges to failure. Good choices and bad choices matter, including refusing to take the steps needed to move you out of your misery.

I suppose I'm lucky I can eat a hamburger and not gain the weight that some Native Americans do, but it's not a foregone conclusion that I won't get fat and some of the Native Americans I spoke of won't be thin. Choices matter.

Part of me wants to say that psychology is anti-rational. I mean, if a person was exposed to trauma, abuse, and neglect, and form a resulting aversion towards risk with dealing with people, then what's wrong with that? — Wallows

If you evolve in an adverse environment, then you may be ill equipped to survive once you leave it. While your paranoia might make you particularly well equipped to survive abuse, it's going to limit you once you're freed of the abuse.

There's a native American tribe in the southwest US that is known to be the most obese and diabetic population on the planet. They evolved in the desert, deprived of a predictable source of food. Their bodies became super-efficient at storing energy, but they now live in a land of plenty, so they just keep getting fatter and fatter.

A eats meat every day. He owns a pet that just eats grass.
B is a vegetarian. He owns a pet that eats meat every day. — orcestra

B might own a cat. Are you suggesting cat ownership is unethical because cats are unethical because they are carnivorous and any association with a meat eater is unethical?

Would the world be a better place if no animal were a predator and we were all plants?

What can science say about prayer? Only that such experiments as have been performed have not detected any effect. But the comfort it gives to believers is not visible to science either. There is no significant contradiction here, unless a believer were to assert that prayer does have a literal and measurable effect on recovery. For there is no evidence for that. ... Today. In the future, who knows? We already know about the placebo effect. Shouldn't prayer have exactly such an effect, in some cases at least? :chin: — Pattern-chaser

The point is that no study has shown the effectiveness of prayer in offering a cure for the illness. Having cancer and feeling calm about it because of the prayer isn't a cure for the cancer. The placebo effect can always be accounted for using proper methodology.

Consider this:

Group A - 100 sick people are prayed for by 100 people and the sick people are told about it.
Group B - 100 sick people are prayed for by 100 people and the sick people are not told about it.
Group C - 100 sick people are not prayed for.

The results could be used to determine if there were a statistically significant difference among the groups and it controls the placebo effect.

If A and B > C, then prayer works.
If A and B < C, then prayer hurts.
If A > B, but B = C, then the placebo work.
If A = B = C, then prayer doesn't work and there's no placebo effect.
If B > A and C, then prayer works only when you don't tell people about it.

Anyway, you get the picture. Such a study can be done to account for whatever variables you have.

I agree but this common ground between science and religion seems to be impossible to find and this is probably due to, as you said, zealots on both sides of the issue. — TheMadFool

This just defines true blue religious believers pejoratively as zealots. Is it really a zealot who believes that if he prays for his dying friend, his friend may receive divine intervention? I think that's a mainstream belief among believers, but it's obviously not compatible with science. If prayer actually worked, then those results would be published in the New England Journal of Medicine and would become prescribed treatment, right?