That's not good logic. If yellow, than poisonous. Not yellow, so not poisonous? — Fire Ologist

I think it is good logic. The guide book is about the jungle and its author is clearly keen that we not poison ourselves inadvertently. It warns us against eating yellow berries. It is reasonable to infer that they are poisonous. It does not warn us against eating blue ones. It would be unreasonable - not reasonable - to assume the blue ones are poisonous. For if they were poisonous, then on the assumption this is something the guide book author knows and would wish to warn us about, there'd be a warning against eating them....yet there isn't.

Whereas your whole argument is that X is immoral because it seems immoral to you? Or because you think your invisible friend claims it is immoral?

Definitely because my invisible friend said so, and nothing to do with my response.

It's worth noticing the slip in your spiel. A person has a rational will. A cysts does not. Consistency, where art though?

I knew you were going to that (:

You want to engage in an extended debate in order to hide the simple truth that a cysts does not have the same worth as Mrs Smith.

BRO….I don’t see how that is a simple truth, let alone true. That’s why I keep asking you for an elaboration on your ethical theory. I wouldn’t keep asking if it was clear to me :smile: .

You would use sophistry as a distraction from the immoral act of forcing someone to undergo an extended and unnecessary ordeal.
…
Your pretence of depth is no more than surface posturing.

I am hurt: do you really believe I am being ingenuine?!?

You still at heart want there to be an "is" from which you can derive moral truths to which all rational folk must agree.

I take the is-ought gap very seriously, unlike most Aristotelians, and my response is that the chief good is what is most intrinsically valuable; which, hence, does not fall prey to is-ought gap critiques. Eudaimonia is the most intrinsically valuable, that’s why it is the chief good.

But it can't, becasue in the end what counts as flourishing is chosen. You cannot escape the fundamental difference between what is the case and what we choose to make the case.

I thought you would have said, as a moral realist, “what is the case and what ought to be the case are different”; but instead, peculiarly, you said “what we choose” which is straightforwardly an implication towards moral anti-realism.

The flourishing of the cyst is a far less definite thing than that of Mrs Smith.

The blastocyst has a right to life, which you keep ignoring and sidestepping.

For a start, it is entirely dependent on the flourishing of the mother.

So in the violinist thought experiment, you think you are morally permitted to pull the plug? Is that the idea?

Further, the quality of life of Mrs Smith is something that we can ask Mrs Smith about, while that of the cysts is mere supposition.

You can’t ask a 10 month baby about what they think about their quality of life either...can you just randomly murder those too????

You would choose the flourishing of a cyst at the expense of the flourishing of Mrs Smith.

NO. I cannot violate the blastocyst’s right to life to help Mrs. Smith. For some weird reason, you keep refusing to engage in a discussion about rights….as if you don’t believe in them at all.

If mind, then human being. No mind, so no human being. — Fire Ologist

Well no, that's clearly false. Humans do not have a monopoly on having minds and some humans lack minds. Dead ones, for instance. And it is question begging to assume that human fetuses have minds (and one doesn't establish the matter by simply stipulating that 'human' and 'minded' are synonyms.

It seems your version of Neo-Aristotelianism is somehow grounded in idealism rather than practical living and achieving eudaimonia (human flourishing).

Do you know the difference between normative and applied ethics? I think that's the issue here. My starts with normative ethics, as it should, and then dives into how to best pragmatically implement it into society.

There's nothing incoherent with saying people shouldn't be gluttons but that it should be legal; because giving people rights and liberties is better for allowing people to flourish, in practicality, than giving the government too much power to control people. That it should be legal, does not mean it should be morally permissible.

What counts as a human being and what does not is an issue not of looking around and discovering something that is the case. but of making a choice. The line can be put anywhere we choose. — Banno

So the set of all humans (whatever the definition) is defined by a choice. All definitions are by a choice I take it. You are talking about how we define things, not about any definitions, any particular choices. And your definition of what a definition is, namely, "putting lines anywhere we choose" is wholely unhelpful to any argument about anything. So I can be correct to choose to define a person as a cyst or a grapefruit. Weak.

What is clear is that Mrs Smith is a human being. — Banno

What is clear??!!! I thought our choices are necessary to clarify any definition. What takes your choice away from you and demands that you say "Mrs Smith is a human being"?

Instead of defining a human being you just point "Look over there at Mrs Smith - that's a human being."

It is clear that she has capabilities, needs, and desires — Banno

Finally. Some qualities of a human being. I think we should skip desires because how on earth can you know a new born baby has any desires?

What "needs" and "capabilities" does Mrs Smith have that a cyst does not have such that we can point to Mrs. Smith and say "human being" and point to a cyst and say "see, not a human being"?

Your insistence on conception as an absolute partition from which moral considerations apply — Banno

I have yet to talk morality. Your insistence that I am talking morality is deluded.

I can honestly stipulate that the law and policy should be that every pregnant woman gets to decide for herself whether to carry the baby to term or to abort the pregnancy. None of my business. Pregnancy is totally unique and there is no analogy to it. I would love to move away from the hidden agendas in what is really a basic philosophic discussion. I am willing to say, as policy, a woman can abort her unborn child even though it is a human being just like you and me.

So your insistence on avoiding a simple question, or answering it with "choices" and "needs" seems to me like you have no clue what this discussion is.

What is a human being?

BRO….I don’t see how that is a simple truth, let alone true. — Bob Ross

And that is a problem that is about you, not about the difference between Mrs Smith and a cysts. You deny the blatant difference before you. Then you use sophistic argument in an attempt to justify yourself. The cyst is not of the same worth as Mrs Smith. Denying this requires considerable agility.

What a mess. There's little here with which one might work, and that little would require exorbitant effort to clarify.

Cheers.

It would be unreasonable - not reasonable - to assume the blue ones are poisonous. For if they were poisonous, then on the assumption this is something the guide book author knows and would wish to warn us about, there'd be a warning against eating them....yet there isn't. — Clearbury

All of that is a reasonable way to make an assumption. But what if you don't want to make an assumption? The guidebook is unhelpful if you do not want to make an assumption.

All berries and poisons aside, we are talking about the life and death of human beings, and/or the aborting (killing) of human beings, or not. It matters to both the pregnancy woman and the baby where the poison/person actually is.

I do not think it is reasonable to infer that, because a human fetus (a thing that all of us came from directly according to our DNA) is not like me, an adult who uses his mind to think about things, I was not a human being when I was only a fetus. I think it is more reasonable to infer that a human being, like any living thing, changes through many stages and all of those stages make up one life, of one living individual thing, like a human being.

All of that is a reasonable way to make an assumption. But what if you don't want to make an assumption? The guidebook is unhelpful if you do not want to make an assumption. — Fire Ologist

I'm arguing the opposite. The guide book is only really useful if one doesn't make assumptions. If one makes assumptions and then looks up what the guide book says about what one is assuming, then one is using the guide book to explore an assumed jungle, not the actual one.

But if we are interested in the actual morality of actual abortions, then we need to stop consulting the guide book about our assumptions and instead consult it on the jungle itself. That is, we need simply to read it. And if it warns against eating yellow berries, then - regardless of what assumptions we might have made or not made about yellow berries - the guide book is implying they contain poison.

And so applied to the abortion issue, if the faculties of reason of most warn against having abortions, then regardless of what assumptions we might make about fetuses, our guide-book on reality - our reason - is implying that fetuses are persons.

On the other hand, if the faculties of reason of most do not warn against abortions, then our reason is implying that they are not the destruction of persons.

What a mess. — Banno

Right. You can't stop contradicting yourself. Contradictions like:

What counts as a human being and what does not is an issue not of looking around and discovering something that is the case. — Banno

And "look around, see what I've discovered that is the case:

What is clear is that Mrs Smith is a human being. — Banno

Total mess.

if the faculties of reason of most warn against having abortions, then regardless of what assumptions we might make about fetuses, our guide-book on reality - our reason - is implying that fetuses are persons.

On the other hand, if the faculties of reason of most do not warn against abortions, then our reason is implying that they are not the destruction of persons. — Clearbury

I'm just not sure how this helps a pregnant person who asks "I don't know what to do because I don't want to be pregnant or have a baby, but I also don't want to kill a person, so what would you do if you were me?" I guess I'm saying, please write the guidebook according to Clearbury.

Again, if you decide that the cyst is of the same value as Mrs Smith, that is about you.

True. And if you keep comparing all these values, you keep sounding like you are avoiding the conversation. I'm asking you to tell me what you value about Mrs. Smith. Do all I get is "desires and needs." Everything I come up with applies to the cyst, or it doesn't apply to the tiny new baby.

Again.

I'm asking you to tell me what you value about Mrs. Smith. — Fire Ologist

Again, you missed considerable back story...

"AmadeusD: I think I'm still curious as to why you, Banno, think there's such a stark ethical difference between the embryo and the person

Banno: Well, ethics is about what we do. And I'm off to an art exhibit and lunch with friends. Not something that can be done with a zygote. — Banno

Then how is a new born baby any different than a zygote, because new born babies don’t do ethics or lunch either?

Then how is a new born baby any different than a zygote...? — Fire Ologist

When you find yourself asking a question such as this, it may be time to reassess your values.

it may be time to reassess your values — Banno

Not so fast. So quick to judge my values.

So far you said a human being has “needs and desires” and “can do ethics and lunch”. That’s a human being as you choose to see it.

Is that it? Any more qualities of Mrs Smith that distinguish her from the zygote?

Newborn humans can’t value anything.
Newborns can’t conceptualize anything that would allow for them to participate in ethical behavior.
Newborn humans are, cognitively, less than many other species of adult mammals.

If you don’t give me more qualities of Mrs Smith, then, what is your highly moral and ethically superior reason for treating newborn human as you would Mrs Smith? Or don’t you value newborns either?

I'm just not sure how this helps a pregnant person who asks "I don't know what to do because I don't want to be pregnant or have a baby, but I also don't want to kill a person, so what would you do if you were me?" I guess I'm saying, please write the guidebook according to Clearbury. — Fire Ologist

But you just begged the question - you're assuming the fetus is a person. The question is not whether it is morally ok to kill a person just if they happen to be inside you. The question is whether abortions are right or wrong. (if you object that these are equivalent qusetions, then you beg the question again).

Now, if the reason of most represents abortions to be morally permissible, then that's good evidence that's precisely what they are. And if the reason of most represents them to be morally permissible - something they would very unlikely be if they were the killing of a person - then we can infer from this that the fetus is not yet a person.

Whether this is what the reason of those who have not made assumptions about what the fetus is really does represent to be the case is another matter. I suspect it is. For I suspect that more of those on the pro-choice side are agnostic on whether the fetus is a person, whereas I suspect that virtually all of those on the pro-life side are assuming the fetus is a person....which would suggest that the moral intuitions of the former group are probably more reliable, as they're reporting what their reason tells them about abortions, whereas the latter are reporting what their reason tells them about the killing of a person. The point is that it is the all-important matter. Otherwise all one has is two sides who are doing no more than exploring the ethical implications of their assumptions - which is a pointless exercise.

I think the only objection to this alternative approach - an approach in which moral evidence is our source of evidence into the status of the fetus, rather than arbitrary assumptions about the matter - is that our reason simply does not contain this sort of information about the world and thus is incapable of providing us with insight into it. But that objection seems unjustified as if our reason can inform us of what kinds of act are typically right and which kinds typically wrong, then why think it incapable of giving us other kinds of information about the world, such as when a thing likely becomes a person? That would be analogous to thinking that a guide book about a jungle contains no information about the jungle itself.

Not so fast. — Fire Ologist

Not at all. If you can't tell a zygote from Mrs Smith, there is little more to say.

You are back to just begging the question. This has been by far the most unproductive conversation I have had in a while.

The question is whether abortions are right or wrong. — Clearbury

But you are assuming you know what an abortion is. You have to assume what an abortion is before you can hold it up for moral judgment.

The question is simply, what is an abortion?

Or more simply, when does a human being first come into being?

If you know that, you know that very thing you need to know about an abortion, and we can start to make moral judgments about it.

What is an abortion?
Typically, removal of unwanted tissue from a pregnant woman’s uterus.

What is the tissue? Is there anything we need to know about that?

If we end up concluding (after reasoning from evidence and making No assumptions) that this tissue is an individual human being, it would change the definition of “abortion”, don’t you think?

We may have to make policy on abortion, have laws and protections enforced, and even claim who is good and who is bad, but in the meantime, when we are discussing the many questions surrounding this practice, we can’t avoid the question “what is a human being” and satisfy any moral judgments we want to make about it. At least I don’t see how.

reason of most — Clearbury

The abortion debate is illogical statements, wrong facts, and mundane political agenda - the reason of most fails.

I’ll settle for the reason of one, anyone.

There are consistent positions that both include the zygote (new fetus) as a person and exclude the new fetus as a person. We should never assume anything.

I think the most consistent position is the zygote me was just me before I woke up this morning. It was me yesterday, a long time ago. I’m not very much, but the zygote me was enough for me to be measured and found to exist.

From there it would seem “abortion is wrong”. But I haven’t gotten there yet. I don’t think we can never kill a person, so just because abortion means killing a person to me, it doesn’t mean abortion is wrong.

But I’m still interested in just the facts.

You said a person has a mind. Yes, I agree. But if this is an essential element that must exist at the moment a new human being first comes to exist (the moment a mind comes to exist), are you willing to explain whether a new born baby is a person too?

I’m not saying this is your definition of a person. You said mind equals person or human being above somewhere. I’m just going with that to start a discussion about what we mean by human being as a part of a conversation about pregnant human beings (and abortion).

You are back to just begging the question. This has been by far the most unproductive conversation I have had in a while. — Bob Ross

No doubt.

Begging the question occurs when an argument's conclusion is assumed in the argument; when X is assumed in order to prove X. So your suggestion is something like that I am assuming that a cyst has less value than Mrs Smith in order to prove that a cyst has less value than Mrs Smith. But that is not what I am doing. I am pointing to the truth that a cysts has less value than Mrs Smith, and using that to show that any argument to the contrary must be in error.

I am not in any way setting out to prove that a cyst has less value than Mrs Smith. So I am not begging the question.

We might at again flip the question you keep asking of me, and ask you why you think that Mrs Smith has only the value of a zygote.
So there's that.

you can't tell a zygote from Mrs Smith, there is little more to say. — Banno

:lol:
The point is you can’t tell.

Let’s try this. Do zygotes and Mrs Smith have anything at all in common?

See, I know the answer (there a few for sure). I’m just wondering if you could “tell” anything in common since you won’t tell the difference, and think I can’t.

I don’t think you can say what Mrs Smith is. So you just want to moralize about value. Too many (undefined) desires, needs and wants, but not enough physics and biology and simple logic. You just want to talk about her value, comparing her to cysts over a nice ethical lunch. :lol:

But you are assuming you know what an abortion is. — Fire Ologist

But to use my jungle-guide again, that is to insist that I am assuming I already know that yellow berries are poisonous. No, I have simply looked up 'yellow berries' and note that the guide book says 'don't eat yellow berries!' Then I have inferred from this that yellow berries are likely poisonous, given it's hard to see why else there would be a warning against eating them.

When it comes to abortions, we can describe them well enough without having to assume that the developing entity whose destruction it will result in is a person or is not a person. We have to assume that the author of the guide book knows a lot about the jungle, for otherwise it would not serve as a useful guide. And so just as we can describe yellow berries and - in principle anyway - learn something useful about them from the guide book, there's reason to suppose the same might be true when it comes to abortions.

As I see it, your objection is that the guide book can't tell us about the poisonousness of the yellow berries until we represent them to be poisonous. But that seems false: the guide book can warn us not to eat yellow berries. (Whether this is actually the case with abortions is another matter - I'm not insisting that our reason does, in fact, harbour the information I'm suggesting it might, rather I'm simply saying that 'if' our reason warns us against having abortions even when we do not represent them to be the killing of a person, then that'd be good evidence that they're the destruction of a person).

In other contexts, we recognize that what our reason tells us about the morality of various acts can tell us something about their other features. For example, in the famous trolley examples our reason tells us that it is wrong to shove the overweight person off the bridge and into the path of the trolley, even though this is the only way to save five innocent lives. Yet it tells us that it is morally permissible - and perhaps even obligatory - to pull a lever that will redirect the trolley into the path of one innocent person if that is the only way to save five others.

That's puzzling on its face. But upon reflection, we can see that there is an important difference between the two cases - a difference that we haven't explicitly described - namely that in the 'shove' case we would be using a person as a means to an end, whereas in the 're-direct' case we are not. Perhaps that is not the right analysis of that example. The point remains, however, that this is not information we fed in, so to speak, but something we learnt about the cases by reflecting on what our reason told us about them.

I'm suggesting we do the same in respect of abortion cases. We already do to some extent, because to use the example you appealed to earlier - the example of the newborn baby - it really is the case that virtually everyone's reason represents the killing of one of those to be wrong, and that really is evidence that they are persons.

The point is you can’t tell. — Fire Ologist

Sure we can.

More backstory:

Here is a person: — Banno

Here is an embryo:

They are not the same.

Again, if you cannot tell the difference, then that is an oddity about you, and an end to further discussion.

Tons of differences.

What kind of embryo is it? I can’t tell by looking at it. Do you know?

I could not have been clearer and you seem to largely ignore what I wrote so I have nowhere to go from here.

It’s been an interesting and fruitful discussion for me. :sparkle:

Honestly, I’m not sure I follow you. It would help me if you didn’t use the poison berry/guide book analogy, and just state the case using words like pregnant woman, fetus, person, abortion, rules, ethics, etc.

virtually everyone's reason represents the killing of [a newborn baby] to be wrong, and that really is evidence that they are persons. — Clearbury

Because most other people don’t kill newborns, you see that as evidence that they are persons.

I’d just state, because newborns ARE persons, and adult persons think killing persons is wrong, most people don’t kill newborns.

But there is no evidence of what the definition of a person, adult or newborn, actually is here, just an observation about what they don’t kill.

Many people kill fetuses and many don’t. If you were a person considering whether abortion killed a persons or not, whether some of these people who kill or don’t kill got the rule about killing persons right or wrong, the evidence, the guidebook, most people’s reason, the consensus, is still lacking.

Because most other people don’t kill newborns, you see that as evidence that they are persons. — Fire Ologist

Where did I say that? That is a clear misrepresentation of my view.

I said that the reason - the faculty of reason - of most people represents killing newborns to be wrong. And that is evidence that newborns are minded entities.

If our reason represents abortions to be morally permissible, then that would be evidence that the developing entities are not minded entities.

Honestly, I’m not sure I follow you. It would help me if you didn’t use the poison berry/guide book analogy, and just state the case using words like pregnant woman, fetus, person, abortion, rules, ethics, etc. — Fire Ologist

Our reason is our guide to reality. That is why I then used the example of a guide to a jungle. So the jungle is reality and our reason is our guide to it.

If the guide to the jungle warns us not to eat yellow berries - and here 'eating yellow berries' is 'having an abortion' - then it is reasonable to infer from this that yellow berries are poisonous (and similarly, reasonable to infer from our reason representing abortions to be wrong, that fetuses have minds). On the other hand, if the guide says 'eat yellow berries if you want', then it is reasonable to infer from this that they are not poisonous. Likewise, if our reason represents abortions to be morally permissible, then it is reasonable to infer from this that the fetus lacks a mind.

But insisting that abortions are the killing of a person - and it is just an insistence, not evidence - or insisting that abortions are the mere destruction of cells - another insistence, not evidence - and then reporting what our reason (our guide) says about acts so-described, is not to gain any insight into the morality of abortions. It is to gain insight into what morality abortions would have 'if' they were the destruction of a person, or if they were the destrution of a clump of cells.

I do not think I can make my point any clearer than I have done so thus far. I do not think it delivers a clear verdict about the morality of abortions either. But as I think it is fair to say most pro-lifers (and of course, that description is itself question begging) assume that the fetus is a person - and so are only pro-life because they already assume they know that abortions are killings, then all they are doing is reporting what their reason (and probably the reason of most of us) says about killings of persons. Whereas I suspect a sizeable portion of pro-choicers are genuinely agnostic on whether the fetus is a person. If that is correct, then I think that the intuitions of the pro-choicers count for more. For they are reporting what their reason says about abortions, rather than what their reason says about killing persons. But this isn't a basis for any great confidence on the matter.

it really is the case that virtually everyone's reason represents the killing of one of those to be wrong, and that really is evidence that they are persons. — Clearbury

I know you are trying to be clear and I appreciate that. And maybe you are being clear and I just haven’t caught it yet. And I don’t mean to misrepresent you, I’m just not getting it.

“Virtually everyone’s reason represents X…”
That, to me, translates to “Virtually everyone thinks X.”
The term “reason represents” though is unclear to me, which is why I have translate it “thinks”.

Are you saying that, because all we know is that a fetus before birth may or may not be a person, we should conduct our moral analysis based on not knowing what a fetus is? We should jump to the moral/ethical/policy discussion with the ambiguous nature of the fetus as the best we can get?