I think that it's safe to say that we've had more than enough counterexamples to reject this capabilities approach that Banno has put forward. — S

No. If the capabilities approach said otherwise, I would reject it. — Banno

I'm not sure how you define "approach" here other than a definition that works only sometimes. — Hanover

I don't do definitions. Again, what I wish to do with the capabilities approach is to show how shallow the future of value approach is.

Reject the CA, if you see something better. But take on board [that] the FOV is worse. — Banno

I'll accept the CA, but reject your criteria you've offered. I'm fine with accepting the conclusion that we will never define the essential characteristics of a person, but I instead fall back on the idea that I know a conceptus is not a person but that a newborn is. The precise delineating line is unclear, so within the grey area, I give the benefit of doubt to personhood. — Hanover

My position (which appears to be similar in ways to Rank Amateur's, albeit without a needlessly long and complicated argument) avoids the problems with your positions. Why isn't it better?

Instead of a judgement based on a precise delineation, which I agree isn't possible, you two make a judgement based on rough categories. Yet some of the key concerns people have, some of the key moral dilemmas people face, about abortion apply outside of your rough category. That's a problem for you, isn't it? Would you just dismiss a person's concerns because it falls outside of your rough category? It's simply not a moral dilemma? They're not thinking about it rightly? That doesn't seem right, and it doesn't seem very ethical to me. It seems callous and misguided.

It's not a problem for me, because my answer is that their concerns relating to the "thing" should be guided by what is judged to be of value, irrespective of categorisation of the "thing".

It is relevant because it s a realistic often occurring result of creating a child.

Creating more children is just going to create more children in that situation and not alleviate the situation.

If child welfare was so high on the anti-abortionist agenda then why are so many children in dire circumstances? Children can only suffer because they are created. — Andrew4Handel

Your point (suffering children) is relevant to abortion only to the extent that a child born because abortion is illegal will suffer. Is this always the case? I don't think so.

I could counter you with...

He's like a Western Australian who has a crazy thing for black swans.

Black swans! Black swans! Black swans!

But what about all of these white--

No! Shut up and look at these black swans! We should drive all swans to extinction, because black swans!

Any discussion on abortion needs to start with some theoretical account of the wrongness of killing.
— Rank Amateur
Why? What is being killed? I think most folks agree that at some point the fetus is essentially a person. I think currently - and in some places for a long time - either viability or quickening is the sign of nascent personhood, viability and quickening being not the same thing. And I think most people agree that aborting then is at least problematic. In any case, these occur after the first trimester. Viability, about 24 weeks. Quickening, 13 to 25 weeks. (That is, quickening as when the mother first feels movement.)

The first trimester is about twelve weeks. Answer: some part of a woman's body is being killed, but not the woman herself. Is a person being killed? Either a person is being killed or a person is not being killed. At the moment the accepted understanding is that a person is not being killed. — tim wood

The first premise of the argument has absolutely nothing at all to do with the fetus. The reason we need agreement that it is immoral to kill people like you and me first, because there is no logic in arguing the immorality of killing a fetus if you don't think it is immoral to kill a born human

This is just one more in now a long line of you not taking the time to understand, even a very simple point before commenting on it.

But why is it wrong to kill people like us?
— Rank Amateur
Irrelevant. No one is considering killing "people like us." — tim wood

Again see my point above, again with out any understanding of the argument being made you pick a group of words, out of context and the logic of argument- and go off on a meaningless tangent completely outside the logic of the argument

— Rank Amateur
If you merely said that killing people harms them, I think most folks would let that pass But you want to build an argument on it. So let's look at it. My point here is that you're a victim being killed only while you're alive. When you're dead, you're a dead victim and you are not and cannot be killed any more. Inasmuch as you're dead, whatever your future was, no part of it was actual. Indeed, no part of your or my future is actual, even while we're alive! How can we be deprived of something we neither have nor can have? — tim wood

If the point is, since there is no more harm that can be done to the dead person, than there is no harm left so the harm of killing ends at the moment of death. That is basically the FOVA. What did the victim lose at that moment? His past? His future memory of it, but his past is still there. Or is your point it is pure biology? Killing is wrong because it kills? The argument is one major harm of killing is the loss of all the things in ones future. I do not understand how your point changes that

And you still have not indicated how it is calculated. From above it appears to be the sum of all the wishful thinking a person might do: — tim wood

I have no clue still what you want me to calculate, it seems you are trying in some way to conflate the financial idea of future value into the use here and want me to discount back to some NPV. The argument does not do this and has no need to.

It rests on the point that no matter how much you want to parse it, we alive born human beings in a sane state of mind with almost no exception value our future. We make plans, we save money, we dream and hope about what is to come, we look forward to seeing our children grow, to see their children.... do you not value your future?

Are you here arguing that killing is never justified, cannot ever be justified? — tim wood

You have severe reading comprehension issues. I was assuming we all know there are types of justified killing- I was hoping we would not have to argue them all in this thread

A long post I know, but comprehensive I think.

I take your subjective emotive position as primitive and undeveloped and rife with problems because it doesn't offer a reason (as it's emotive) for me to accept your position. If you like murder and ice cream, but I don't, I don't know how you're going to convince me of either. We're just dealing with preference under your theory.

I'm not denying an immediate intuitive reaction people have when faced with moral issues, like feeling repulsed by murder. This is not an entirely rational reaction I'll admit, but it's not entirely emotive. There are good reasons, after all, for believing murder wrong, as in it would destroy society. Matters of conscience are more complicated than just emotive preference for things, like ice cream.

I called your position primitive because I do agree that we start with these intuitive reactions to situations, but we then derive principles for deciphering the morality of hard cases. Utilitarianism and Kantianism are two efforts of providing such principles. I think we all agree that few if any actually keep the categorical imperative in their head at all times and use it to decide right from wrong, but that's not to say it might not describe the process many undertake intuitively.

We also have to admit that some often feel emotional repulsion to things that they morally ought not feel such repulsion for (e.g. homosexuality, mixed race marriages) and we must admit that some feel a lack of emotional repulsion when they morally ought to (e.g. child molesters, serial killers). The idea that we can logically convince the morally misguided to change their emotional preference makes as much sense as logically convincing someone to like ice cream who doesn't. We do, though, change people's minds when it comes to moral questions, which means something more is at play than simply emotional reaction.

In the examples I gave of people having an inappropriate moral compass, all have a certain underlying principle that is being violated. Namely, each shows a lack of respect for autonomy and deprives people of the power of their own decision making. This principle that drives much of moral theory must therefore be applied consistently throughout other moral decisions. So, for example, if I find homosexuality abhorrent, my mind could be changed by pointing out that my moral rejection requires that I ignore the moral principle of affording people the same autonomy I insist upon providing people in all other situations. Assuming I'm reasonable, I then will reconsider and then take a permissive view on homosexuality, perhaps while even maintaining my emotional repulsion to it. It is the logic, not the emotion, then that drives the final decision.

So, back to abortion. If we accept that we must protect individual autonomy at a certain level in order to be moral people, we then must figure out who has the right to this protection. We generally say that people do, and for reason, we must decide who is a person. The fetus is a hard case because it tests our ability to offer a fine tuned definition, but find a definition we must. Throwing our arms up (ala @Banno) to the notion of definitions is too easy. We all know the limitations of definitions and we all know the problems of essentialism, but just because we can't figure out an exact and always accurate definition of a cup doesn't suggest we don't know when we have a cup and when we do. My response then is as it was, which is that we have to offer a definition of "person" that liberally protects things that might not entirely be people, simply because the destruction of something that might be a person is so morally wrong.

We do, though, change people's minds when it comes to moral questions, which means something more is at play than simply emotional reaction. — Hanover

We change minds by means of logical arguments? I think emotional appeals are our primary means. I'm just at a loss to think of a case where minds were changed via logic. Could you give an example?

— Rank Amateur
When? Under what circumstances? And the how& etc? If it's the individual, then his FOV gets close to zero and even to negative values the more danger he's in. Or is this all abut unreal, speculative FOVs? What you apparently forget, and that Marquis never apparently even thought about, is that reality governs. FOV is presumably about reality (never mind how). If you're a combat soldier, your real FOV is affected by the combat. In any case, how that soldier's FOV would be calculated is a clear function of the risk he is subject to — tim wood

Are you saying the soldier does not value his future? No matter how uncertain it may be, if so make the case. But there is a sort of good point here, one can value something more than ones future, but that does not mean they dont value it at all


In the interest of time and space.

Do you think it is true or not true that people value their future, if not true why?

well written and I agree.

However, while still the important concept legally, in most current academic treatment now about the ethics and morality if not admit, grant for sake of the argument the personhood to the unborn at a very early stage of development.

The core issue is, is it biology or something else that makes us a moral actor? If biology the the answer is easy. If something else, what. And all criteria expect one fails on begging the question.

Entity A is not a person because it does not have characteristic X
However characteristic X is in entity B and entity B is a person
Then they modify characteristic X so it only applies to entity A

Leaving the logic to entity A is not a person because entity A is not a person

The exception is the embodied mind argument that our personhood has nothing at all to do with biology. We do not exist as persons until we are an embodied mind. Most often agreed to be sometime in early childhood. This argument is logical and persuasive, the only major issue is it allows infanticide, which as to your whole point above people generally reject.

Which do you think is more important:

The right to live (fetus) or the ''freedom'' to have an abortion?

I think abortion devalues human life if it's unleashed in all its forms, meaning permitted under any and all circumstances. Women will not opt for a safer and more ethical alternative like abstinence or contraception.

I'm not saying abortion should be banned but it needs to be monitored and regulated for the benefit of women themselves. — TheMadFool

This debate - not just here - is fraught with loaded language. "The right to live (fetus) or the "freedom" to have an abortion. Please lay out how a fetus has any rights and how they were got. Please define "freedom."

How do you know what women will do?

Monitored and regulated. By whom? For whom? And in fact, in Roe that's what we have.

It's clear a lot of people have soft feelings for fetuses, but at the same time also soft thinking. I did not do it in the OP, but here I will: for this thread I define ranting as presenting as arguments anything that is not an argument, and without any support. Ranting is destructive. If persisted in, it's a form of abuse. This does not include expressing non-arguments and identifying them as such, but loaded language and ranting is just a sign that someone has sent his or her thinking out to be done by someone else.

Do you think it is true or not true that people value their future, if not true why? — Rank Amateur

At last, brevity. Let's see if we can stick with it - i have hopes! Yes, I think it is true that people value their futures. But certainly not all in the same way. That leaves the question as to what that valuation is, how it's realized, expressed, quantified - if even these apply. And no, it's not about money and finances.

My point generally is that whatever you or I are doing, we're doing it now. I value my future. What does that mean? It means I am doing something now. What am I doing? I am realizing/expressing something now that I appreciate now. In short, there is no future qua future. To be sure we don't usually think and talk that way, but accuracy in argument requires some precision in usage. ONe can even defend a more radical view that there is no such thing as an FOV: it's all now dressed up in "future" language.

My bad. I wasn't brief. I agree most people value their futures i some way or another. Proceed.

because there is no logic in arguing the immorality of killing a fetus if you don't think it is immoral to kill a born human — Rank Amateur

Why is this necessary? Yours is a claim ("Because there is no logic") made without support, and that is ambiguous. We both agree that not all killing is immoral - what then of your claim? And if we're going to argue this, why not first prove you're human? I think we can grant that killing is immoral, with some exceptions.

Unless you want to covertly import the notion that a fetus just is a born human - which it obviously is not.

We should be mindful of two things here (at least two): the legal-social part of the debate which I think collapses into what we should or should not do and why, and the biological part, which is just what the fetus is, and when, and how changes in the fetus might make a difference, all under the guide of best information.

What did the victim lose at that moment? — Rank Amateur

Fair question. You seem to think you know the answer: what did he lose? Keep in mind the "what." As a guide, here, when suing for compensatory damages in a wrongful death suit, you only get what you can show was likely and demonstrably lost. Might the deceased have overcome his aversion to the lottery, bought a ticket, and won a half-a-billion dollars? Indeed he might have. But you won't get any of it on recovery.

So the killed lost something. He lost everything. We have to parse this a bit. Primarily, what he lost is the he-ness that made him he. To say, then, that he lost everything - or anything, implies a he that is no longer. Perfectly common and ordinary usage that we all understand in its ordinary context. But this argument subverts that common understanding, so we have to break it down for clarity's sake.

A long post I know... — Hanover

:groan:

...but comprehensive I think. — Hanover

Well, if it turns out not to be, then I'll think up a suitable punishment for you.

I take your subjective emotive position as primitive and undeveloped and rife with problems because it doesn't offer a reason (as it's emotive) for me to accept your position. If you like murder and ice cream, but I don't, I don't know how you're going to convince me of either. We're just dealing with preference under your theory. — Hanover

I think that it can offer a reason, and that having an emotive basis wouldn't prevent someone in that position from doing so. I like ice cream because it tastes yummy, and I'm not all that bothered if you don't like the taste of it, because that's ludicrously unimportant in comparison to how we feel about murder. I abhor murder because it feels very wrong to me. If you have a similar enough emotional foundation to me, then we have something to work with. If you weren't understanding why it should feel wrong, then I would appeal to your emotions and your capacity to reason about them. I could bring up various hypothetical scenarios involving murder and urge you to empathise with the victims.

I'm not denying an immediate intuitive reaction people have when faced with moral issues, like feeling repulsed by murder. This is not an entirely rational reaction I'll admit, but it's not entirely emotive. There are good reasons, after all, for believing murder wrong, as in it would destroy society. Matters of conscience are more complicated than just emotive preference for things, like ice cream. — Hanover

These good reasons you mention are irrelevant or at least secondary when it comes down to the act of moral judgement for the typical moral agent. Your way of judging morality is a more mechanical way. I'm not a robot, and robot-like decision-making or behaviour is unsuited to ethics. Even if it didn't lead to the destruction of society, I would still judge that murder is wrong. That would be a nightmarish society, not a morally acceptable one. The reason that murder is typically judged to be wrong in the first place has nothing to do with wide-scale considerations about society, it's judged to be immoral because it goes against your conscience, and your conscience is guided by emotions, like the feeling of guilt.

I'm not going to disagree that matters of the conscience are more complicated than matters of what foodstuffs you like. My position is that they're two obviously different things anyway, and that your comparison is highly inappropriate and misleading. I don't judge whether murder is right or wrong through my taste buds. It's not really about complexity, it's about severity. I wouldn't judge you to be the scum of the earth if you didn't like the taste of ice cream!

I called your position primitive because I do agree that we start with these intuitive reactions to situations, but we then derive principles for deciphering the morality of hard cases. Utilitarianism and Kantianism are two efforts of providing such principles. I think we all agree that few if any actually keep the categorical imperative in their head at all times and use it to decide right from wrong, but that's not to say it might not describe the process many undertake intuitively. — Hanover

But I don't need utilitarianism or Kantianism to "decipher" the morality of "hard" cases. Even if I happen to use such a framework here and there on a given ethical topic, it would merely be an expansion of my initial moral judgement. I wouldn't robotically adopt an ethical conclusion from any given formula if it did not sit well with me. I would reject it or at least think that I would need to investigate why there's a mismatch.

We also have to admit that some often feel emotional repulsion to things that they morally ought not feel such repulsion for (e.g. homosexuality, mixed race marriages) and we must admit that some feel a lack of emotional repulsion when they morally ought to (e.g. child molesters, serial killers). — Hanover

Yes.

The idea that we can logically convince the moral misguided to change their emotional preference makes as much sense as logically convincing someone to like ice cream who doesn't. We do, though, change people's minds when it comes to moral questions, which means something more is at play than simply emotional reaction. — Hanover

The exceptions are like those who just don't like the taste of ice cream and never will, because they're incapable. Maybe they lack the capacity to taste. Everyone else is capable of coming around, and that's because they have that emotional foundation and intellectual ability to draw the right type of connections. Not only is it possible to appeal to the capable on such a basis, in some cases it succeeds. Think of young children, for example. They're very emotional, and can be very selfish, but you have to get them to empathise with the feelings of others in order to get them to see why it's wrong to be very selfish.

In the examples I gave of people having an inappropriate moral compass, all have a certain underlying principle that is being violated. Namely, each shows a lack of respect for autonomy and deprives people of the power of their own decision making. This principle that drives much of moral theory must therefore be applied consistently throughout other moral decisions. So, for example, if I find homosexuality abhorrent, my mind could be changed by pointing out that my moral rejection requires that I ignore the moral principle of affording people the same autonomy I insist upon providing people in all other situations. Assuming I'm reasonable, I then will reconsider and then take a permissive view on homosexuality, perhaps while even maintaining my emotional repulsion to it. It is the logic, not the emotion, then that drives the final decision. — Hanover

To talk of principles is to talk of the surface layer, so it's not a deep analysis. Principles are guided by emotion. Homophobic principles are based on homophobic feeling. To counter that, you could try to get them to empathise with homosexuals. If the exercise in empathy is successful, then they will have overridden their formerly dominant feelings and gained new dominant feelings on the matter which allow them to reach a different judgement. But they'd have to put some effort into being open enough to begin with.

So, back to abortion. If we accept that we must protect individual autonomy at a certain level in order to be moral people, we then must figure out who has the right to this protection. We generally say that people do, and for reason, we must decide who is a person. The fetus is a hard case because it tests our ability to offer a fine tuned definition, but find a definition we must. Throwing our arms up (ala Banno) to the notion of definitions is too easy. We all know the limitations of definitions and we all know the problems of essentialism, but just because we can't figure out an exact and always accurate definition of a cup doesn't suggest we don't know when we have a cup and when we do. My response then is as it was, which is that we have to offer a definition of "person" that liberally protects things that might not entirely be people, simply because the destruction of something that might be a person is so morally wrong. — Hanover

The way I see it, I'm leading the race, followed by you, with Banno in his old banger trailing way behind in the distance, eating our dust with his mystical criteria which somehow manage to successfully rule out the counterexamples which have been raised against him. :smirk:

You suffer from similar problems as Banno, but you're driving a better car. Still, mine is of a different class which outperforms you both. :sparkle:

Anyway, getting back on track, any thoughts I might have about protecting individual autonomy ultimately stem from emotion. But note that I've never said anything about my moral judgements being a matter of raw, mindless, unrestrained emotion. I say that people should have the right to certain protections, but, more relevant to my position on abortion, I say that if a "thing" is of value, then a "thing" is of value, and it doesn't and shouldn't matter whether or not this "thing" counts as a person. If a "thing" is of value, then that's a basis to guide our actions in respect of it. I think that going down the route of "fine tuning" a definition is completely the wrong approach; understandable, but the wrong approach nevertheless. If it were a legal matter, then maybe that approach would be better suited, but as a matter of aesthetics or morality, it is not the best way to approach the topic of abortion.

As I argued previously:

Instead of a judgement based on a precise delineation, which I agree isn't possible, you two make a judgement based on rough categories. Yet some of the key concerns people have, some of the key moral dilemmas people face, about abortion apply outside of your rough category. That's a problem for you, isn't it? Would you just dismiss a person's concerns because it falls outside of your rough category? It's simply not a moral dilemma? They're not thinking about it rightly? That doesn't seem right, and it doesn't seem very ethical to me. It seems callous and misguided.

It's not a problem for me, because my answer is that their concerns relating to the "thing" should be guided by what is judged to be of value, irrespective of categorisation of the "thing". — S

I don't think that you've overcome this argument. Not by a long shot.

And you still have not indicated how it is calculated. From above it appears to be the sum of all the wishful thinking a person might do:
— tim wood
I have no clue still what you want me to calculate, it seems you are trying in some way to conflate the financial idea of future value into the use here and want me to discount back to some NPV. The argument does not do this and has no need to. — Rank Amateur

Nothing financial about it. You repeat the idea of an FOV, future of value. That is, a something called a future (that you gesture at but have not adequately defined) that apparently has a value. In ordinary terms, sure, no problem. But for your argument it's a tool, a lever. I want to know how it works.

Best I can do is suppose that a person has a present attitude and feelings about thoughts he's having that concern a speculative not-yet. Those thoughts may make him feel good - or not. If this is what you mean, then this is what you aver has value. if it has value, it has that value in some terms and is somehow assessed. What are those terms and how is it assessed? I've asked this before. At his juncture I think you should meet the question head-on and either answer it or refuse to answer it. Either way we'll be done with it.

Are you saying the soldier does not value his future? No matter how uncertain it may be, if so make the case. But there is a sort of good point here, one can value something more than ones future, but that does not mean they don't value it at all — Rank Amateur

I imagine that he does, but you have kept referring to FOV as a something. I merely point out that on my best understanding of what that something might be, the value of that something might just depend on the probability of its possibility, and that such a probability decreases in the present of material risk.

Loaded language? You claim women should be allowed unrestricted abortion in a ''free'' country. I simply counterbalanced it with human rights, the most basic of which is the right to live.

The problem I see is for women themselves, not for anyone else. Abortion is in a gray moral zone and if I'm correct when unsure we should be cautious for fear that we may do something wrong. In this case the danger is even greater because this is about possible murder.

If abortion is allowed as a simple unqualified choice then how would you distinguish it from whim and fancy? Are women willing to become so free on abortion that they'll ignore the, even if slim, chance that they could be committing murder?

I don't think so. Women are sensible and won't ever commit to unrestricted abortions. If they do despite my objections then it means they don't understand my point.

The way I see it, I'm leading the race, followed by you, with Banno in his old banger trailing way behind in the distance, — S

Different ethical strokes for different ethical folks?

I see the inverse. :D

As far as I can tell you're saying that the fetus has value. Ok, so what? I don't think anyone has disagreed with you on that. The disagreement was over whether the value of the fetus is equal to the value of a person's autonomy, and I would agree that a person's autonomy has greater value than a fetus.

Many things have value, but we arrange these values into hierarchies or attempt to balance them when they are in conflict. And what both @Banno and @Hanover have done is attempt to provide some way of reasoning through that balance between conflicting values. But I'm not sure where you have done so.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I pretty much thing it is morally permissible to get an abortion at any time prior to birth. My general argument mirror's @Hanover, but my rough criteria make the line of personhood further along in development.

Your point (suffering children) is relevant to abortion only to the extent that a child born because abortion is illegal will suffer. Is this always the case? I don't think so. — TheMadFool

What doesn't make sense is if someone opposes abortion but does not help suffering children.

If someone thinks abortion is wrong then why would they not think all suffering of children is wrong and take action?

As the saying goes actions speak louder than words. So children are not being brought into a fair world where they can be guaranteed a good outcome and that is not just something created by humans but inherent in nature.

If abortion is illegal people will either try and abort the child themselves, or have backstreet abortion or abandon the child at birth which increases the ,Likelihood of it having a poor quality of life.

The reason I posted that video is to illustrate that there are children suffering appallingly with no opportunities and yet people want more children born that are unwanted that could be aborted painlessly before they have left the womb and experienced life fully.

I am not desperate for people to have abortions but I think it is the route of least suffering.

Yes, the "absolute freedom" position is an extremist position. It should be rightly rejected. — S

If in a freedom there is nothing in it that is free, then it is not freedom. What you're writing about is license, and you're positing something that does not exist, absolute license. This confusion leads you to propositions that sound reasonable, but are not. Recast they may be reasonable. Or, if no one is paying attention they may pass as reasonable, but as to meaning, no.

If I translate, it works out to this, there is no abortion except as we, the people in control, allow it. Any freedom there may be in this has nothing to do with abortion itself.

As far as I can tell you're saying that the fetus has value. Ok, so what? I don't think anyone has disagreed with you on that. The disagreement was over whether the value of the fetus is equal to the value of a person's autonomy, and I would agree that a person's autonomy has greater value than a fetus. — Moliere

Talking about what other people are disagreeing over isn't necessarily relevant to my position and what I've ended up disagreeing with. You'll have to actually go into what I've said, who I've disagreed with, over what, and why.

The one and the other don't have to be of equal value. The fetus just has to be valuable enough to prioritise alternatives to abortion in at least some cases, such as giving birth and keeping the baby, or giving birth and handing over control to social services. I'm all for discouragement of the less advisable route and encouragement of better options. And I never endorsed intervention except in exceptional circumstances, and intervention doesn't necessarily mean strapping the mother down, completely taking away her freedom, and forcing her to give birth. I certainly wouldn't be in favour of that kind of extreme intervention. Intervention can take many forms. I'm talking about some form of intervention in the case of red flags, like grossly irresponsible behaviour.

I raised the problem from the start about the ambiguity in "control", and there's ambiguity in "freedom", too. We would need to break these concepts down. But no one replied to my original comment and everyone else carried on regardless.

Many things have value, but we arrange these values into hierarchies or attempt to balance them when they are in conflict. — Moliere

Yes, I don't disagree.

And what both Banno and @Hanover have done is attempt to provide some way of reasoning through that balance between conflicting values. But I'm not sure where you have done so. — Moliere

I've been arguing that the outcome should be determined based on a valuation which allows for greater subjectivity than basing it on whether the fetus counts as a person, and then arguing over what criteria to go by. That depersonalises the situation, and makes it about rule following. But it's a very personal situation, and should account for feelings, values, desires, and the like.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I pretty much thing it is morally permissible to get an abortion at any time prior to birth. My general argument mirror's Hanover, but my rough criteria make the line of personhood further along in development. — Moliere

It's not my view that it is morally acceptable to get an abortion for any reason whatsoever, no matter how irresponsible the reason, and the legislation here in the UK doesn't legally permit that.

If in a freedom there is nothing in it that is free, then it is not freedom. What you're writing about is license, and you're positing something that does not exist, absolute license. This confusion leads you to propositions that sound reasonable, but are not. Recast they may be reasonable. Or, if no one is paying attention they may pass as reasonable, but as to meaning, no.

If I translate, it works out to this, there is no abortion except as we, the people in control, allow it. Any freedom there may be in this has nothing to do with abortion itself. — tim wood

Out of the two of us, it seems to me that you're the one who is confused. You should have just asked me to clarify my meaning if you weren't sure. By "absolute freedom" in that context, I meant the position whereby it's judged to be morally acceptable for someone to have an abortion for any reason whatsoever. "It's her body, she can do what she wants with it". This is indeed what some people believe, even on this very forum, as I recall from a previous discussion. And it is as I described: a form of extremism. It's radical far-left thinking which I reject.

Loaded language? You claim women should be allowed unrestricted abortion in a ''free'' country. — TheMadFool

I have claimed no such thing.

I simply counterbalanced it with human rights, the most basic of which is the right to live.

The right of what to live?

The problem I see is for women themselves, not for anyone else.

The first sense I've seen in a long time (aside from my own of course). Let women control as to abortion. No men allowed. But would you abide their decision?

Abortion is in a gray moral zone

A categorical statement. Proof? Roe v. Wade does a good job of sorting it all out. Comply with Roe and by current understanding you won't be in a grey area at all, except for some folks who will rant that you are.

and if I'm correct when unsure we should be cautious for fear that we may do something wrong. In this case the danger is even greater because this is about possible murder.

This presupposes the result of "caution" without considering what it means in this context. Or do you mean that a determination of what "caution" is shall be made in every circumstance, and the "cautious" option chosen? Of course this leads to problems with defining what is cautious and not cautious - not a problem if you're just an un-thinking authoritarian.

If abortion is allowed as a simple unqualified choice then how would you distinguish it from whim and fancy?

Just can't keep your hands off it, can you. No one I know of advocates for legitimizing, for example, the arbitrary.termination of a pregnancy one minute before birth. No responsible woman I've ever heard of advocates for that, nor any responsible person. As to whim and fancy, that sounds like your problem, not a problem that any real woman would ever have. I would argue that women have an absolute right to that which they have any right to. If the right that they have is not their right, then it's not a right at all. And the question is to balance their right to an abortion, which I argue they have, against the right of the other. And the other evolves from embryo to fetus. As to fetus, current understanding is that within the first trimester at least, there is no person to be concerned about. Beyond that I yield to best science, noting that clearly when near birth the only difference between the person and the fetus is geography. But at law a very significant difference. You simply seem confused about these stages, among other things.

Are women willing to become so free on abortion that they'll ignore the, even if slim, chance that they could be committing murder?

Or suicide? There's risk in the procedure, Or how about getting run over on the way to the hospital. In any case, your question starts, "Are women...?" But is has never occurred to you to let them answer, has it.

I don't think so. Women are sensible and won't ever commit to unrestricted abortions. If they do despite my objections then it means they don't understand my point.

No one I know of is seeking unrestricted abortions. Your observation is irrelevant. And you really don't have a point, because you appear to be concerned with something that is not really an issue.

— Rank Amateur
I imagine that he does, but you have kept referring to FOV as a something. I merely point out that on my best understanding of what that something might be, the value of that something might just depend on the probability of its possibility, and that such a probability decreases in the present of material risk. — tim wood

The entire concept is, how it is an important way someone is harmed, when their life is prematurely ended is the loss of all that they could or would have done and seen and been if they had not been killed. I don't understand why that is such a difficult concept.

Out of the two of us, it seems to me that you're the one who is confused. You should have just asked me to clarify my meaning. By absolute freedom, I meant the position whereby it's morally acceptable to have an abortion for any reason whatsoever. "It's her body, she can do what she wants with it". This is indeed what some people believe, even on this very forum, as I recall from a previous discussion. — S

Then it wasn't absolute freedom you were speaking of. Let's start with, "It's her body, she can do what she wants with it." Actually, him or her, it's not - if we're under law. And I think the moral stance runs alongside law. No one "can do what they want with their body." You may want to refine this to "No law or moral rule permits an individual complete freedom of the use of his or her body." If this, then I would agree with you.

But then, what do you mean? It can only mean that, so far as abortion is concerned, women are somehow not able to make that decision, but are subject to external rule. With respect to a fetus-as-person, I cannot disagree; the stricture would be binding on all, not just the mother. Before that, however, how does it, in a free society, come to be any of your business?

The entire concept is, how it is an important way someone is harmed, when their life is prematurely ended is the loss of all that they could or would have done and seen and been if they had not been killed. I don't understand why that is such a difficult concept. — Rank Amateur

Try the "their"! Third-person personal pronoun. Used on what justification? You seem unable to discriminate between terms that mean different things. You appear to think that if it is alive (if you're actually thinking at this point), it is a person. - without even specifying any sense of it. At law? in church? In your church? Or my church? Or when it might become a person - or is it always a person? And so forth.

I think these arguments go astray without care in the use of language. Especially on this topic.

Talking about what other people are disagreeing over isn't necessarily relevant to my position and what I've ended up disagreeing with. You'll have to actually go into what I've said, who I've disagreed with, over what, and why. — S

I was using that mostly as a segue to talk about what I believe your position to be. If you want me to go through your posts and comment individually I will, but it seems like an odd request right off the bat when you could just correct my understanding.

But if you want I will. Just say so.

The one and the other don't have to be of equal value. The fetus just has to be valuable enough to prioritise alternatives to abortion in at least some cases, such as giving birth and keeping the baby, or giving birth and handing over control to social services. — S

Alright, fair enough. Then you consider the fact that the fetus can become a human to have enough value to warrant some sort of moral stop on abortion at some point.

But, why? Is it just a brute value for you?

I'm all for discouragement of the less advisable route and encouragement of better options. And I never endorsed intervention except in exceptional circumstances, and intervention doesn't necessarily mean strapping the mother down, completely taking away her freedom, and forcing her to give birth. I certainly wouldn't be in favour of that kind of extreme intervention. Intervention can take many forms. I'm talking about some form of intervention in the case of red flags, like grossly irresponsible behaviour.

See, to me this seems to be less about the value of the fetus, then, and more about the moral worth of the parent's actions in relation to the fetus. So if someone is irresponsibly pregnant then the fetus has more value than the woman's right to choose, whereas if someone is responsibly pregnant then the fetus has less value than the woman's right to choose, perhaps where the fetus is on a sliding scale of value of some sort depending on development and emotional commitment.

Is that a right or wrong way of interpreting you?

I raised the problem from the start about the ambiguity in "control", and there's ambiguity in "freedom", too. We would need to break these concepts down. But no one replied to my original comment and everyone else carried on regardless.

I guess my value is mostly with respect to a person. The woman is a person, which means they have moral autonomy -- they are the one's who weigh and deliberate in their own personal circumstances about what is right and what is wrong, because no one is better suited to the task than the person who is weighing that decision.

Would the choice effect some other person then the sort of infinite value I assign to person's would require some other means of deliberation -- but I really, honestly do not view the fetus as a person in the least. Value, I grant -- but not anything in relation to the value of a person.

Yes, I don't disagree — S

Cool. At least one point of agreement then :D.

I've been arguing that the outcome should be determined based on a valuation which allows for greater subjectivity than basing it on whether the fetus counts as a person, and then arguing over what criteria to go by. That depersonalises the situation, and makes it about rule following. But it's a very personal situation, and should account for feelings, values, desires, and the like. — S

I agree with your conclusion, but not how you get there. I don't think there's an opposition to be had between our emotive and cognitive capacities -- when it comes to judgment they work in tandem, and answering moral questions requires judgment.

Rules are proposed just because they give cognitive content that we can consider. Of course in so considering them we use our emotions, it's just easier to share linguistic expressions -- rules -- than it is to share our base emotions when we are in disagreement (clearly if we are in agreement this isn't as hard!)

It's not my view that it is morally acceptable to get an abortion for any reason whatsoever, no matter how irresponsible the reason, and the legislation here in the UK doesn't legally permit that. — S

Well, that draws the lines then. :D

Do you acknowledge a difference between morally righteous, morally permissive , and morally repugnant? I don't care about what words are used so much, but I do think there is a middle category between good and evil -- and I tend to think a great deal of our actions fall into that middle category, and abortion is one of those. (EDIT: I should add a fourth category, that of the non-moral, where many actions fall -- but it seemed a bit off course)

The example above, is about a born human, take out their, and put in you.

I am still on premise one. It is wrong to kill Tim wood( people like us), and an important reason it is wrong is it deprives tim wood of the life you would have had (the future) if you were not killed.

It is wrong to kill Tim wood( people like us) — Rank Amateur

Granted, with only arcane exceptions.

and an important reason it is wrong is it deprives tim wood of the life you would have had (the future) if you were not killed. — Rank Amateur

Granted provisionally. It may be a reason. The importance I question, and to whom is a question.

But you cannot have this categorically, or reasonable killings as when necessary in self-defense, or in combat, and so on, become unreasonable. You haven't qualified the thing, and I do not think you need to. I grant that killing people is immoral. We both know this is not categorical - but that is not (yet) relevant.

Proceed.

Here is the problem with personhood, in moral/ethical arguments -

The core issue is, is it biology or something else that makes us a moral actor? If biology, the answer is easy. If something else, what. And all criteria expect one fails on begging the question.

Entity A is not a person because it does not have characteristic X
However characteristic X is in entity B and entity B is a person
Then they modify characteristic X so it only applies to entity A

Leaving the logic: entity A is not a person because entity A is not a person

The exception is the embodied mind argument that our personhood has nothing at all to do with biology. We do not exist as persons until we are an embodied mind. Most often agreed to be sometime in early childhood. This argument is logical and persuasive, the only major issue is it allows infanticide, which as to your whole point above people generally reject.

I have, and we have already had this chat on justified killing, I think at least twice. I have allowed there are such things as justified killing, and asked forbearance in not having to go down the path of exactly what and when and why, in the hope of saving time, with an assumption that our position on it would not be sufficiently different to effect the argument in question