Trollheart

Hmm. Maybe your grammar standards are just on so high a level to the rest of us that they've actually hit the peak, turned back on themselves like spacetime and begun to return to the point of origin.

In other words, maybe you're too smart to know how smart you actually are...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Freebase Dali

Haha. I think we have a winner.

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Stephen

Ok just clarifying from the OP does filibustering basically mean she talked for 13 hours to prevent them having the opportunity to vote on a bill that would otherwise have been passed? How is that even legal that a lone senator can block the passing of a bill that way? Couldn't any lobby group then fund someone to block whatever they feel like and undermine the whole democratic process?

djchameleon

Yes, pretty much but the thing about it is that it's temporary. So, while it looks like a grand gesture. He doesn't do much past that.

"A filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure where debate is extended, allowing one or more members to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal. It is sometimes referred to as talking out a bill, and characterized as a form of obstruction in a legislature or other decision-making body."

Taken from wiki.

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.

Guybrush

Yes.

If I don't want my partner to have an abortion, I should try to talk her out of it.

No, I don't. I'm not a strict utilitarian. I think utilitarian arguments make sense in the question of abortion because, regarding abortions, I have no stronger moral instinct or normative rule I feel I have to go by which says it's wrong (f.ex thou shalt not kill). In other words, my preferred tools from my moral toolbox are not available and then I have to opt for something else. For me, then, it makes sense to try for the best possible consequences and I think the utilitarian idea of minimizing suffering often leads to good consequences (I don't like suffering, so in a sense, I am sometimes a utilitarian). So, when it comes to abortions, I want the consequences which leads to minimal suffering and best consequences for society.

A thought experiment that would perhaps put us more on the same wavelength here would be if you just forget about utiliarianism and think of me as someone who wants to minimize suffering in the question of abortions, regardless of established moral theories.

Whether or not I would fall back on utilitarian arguments depends on context so it's hard to say.

Alright. You're trying to establish that humans have some basic moral worth which is a lot more than a chicken or any other non-human species, or even in a different category of worth which no number of chickens can achieve. As a thought experiment, let's mentally accept that and make it part of utilitarian theory. We want to maximize human happiness and/or minimize human suffering. We don't care about chickens. Even if you incorporate that as a rule into utilitarianism, it doesn't change the moral worth of the average human fetus vs. the average adult human. In other words, it doesn't really change the utilitarian argument I've made in the case of abortions.

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Something Completely Different

John Wilkes Booth

My objection from the beginning has been that you're failing to establish a serious moral distinction between killing a human fetus vs killing any other human. In other words, I'm saying that whether you acknowledge it or not, "thou shalt not kill" probably has a place in your morality. If not, then I'd ask you for an alternative moral doctrine that outlines why killing people is right or wrong and in which circumstances this applies.

This is what I thought you were doing with your endorsement of the utilitarian ideal to try to minimize suffering. If you are going to arbitrarily apply different standards to different scenarios whenever you see fit, then you're basically cheating, imo. If you can't account for the rule using utilitarian logic, then how can you expect to use it to outline an exception to the rule?

You're still fixating on suffering. My point is that suffering is not the reason we consider killing (innocent) humans to be wrong. At best, it's a peripheral issue which can make a murder more or less heinous.

So, if killing innocent people is wrong in general, then minimizing suffering isn't a valid reason to kill them.

Guybrush

Perhaps we just disagree because I think your expectations and the way you use moral theory is unrealistic and faulty. You think of utilitarianism as irrelevant because you can fantasize scenarios where you think it condones an action which you think is morally bad. Using your logic, I should then think that a rule like "thou shalt not kill" is completely invalid in every moral situation because I can fantasize that I might be the victim of one of these psychopaths you dreamed up earlier and he will kill me unless I kill him first. I don't think killing my would-be murderer in self-defense is morally wrong.

But does the possibility of that scenario mean the idea "thou shalt not kill" has no moral merit? Of course not. In the right context, in my general day-to-day life, "thou shalt not kill" makes a lot of sense. In the ten commandments, that rule validates itself by being a rule laid on us by God. Utilitarianism does not validate itself that way. It validates itself only through its desirable consequences. If we don't desire those consequences, there is no God that tells us we have to apply utilitarianism. We can choose not to.

As I've mentioned, and as far as I know, utilitarianism is generally used when normal laws and moral rules fail to guide or fail to be fair or give us the desired consequences. As an example, think of a mine cave in. One hundred miners are caught in the mine and between them and freedom, there is a pile of rock rubble. The miners will die soon because there is poisonous gas in the mine. People outside the mine have dynamite and can blow away the rubble, saving the one hundred. But there is also a hurt miner stuck in the rubble. They can see that he is unconscious, but alive, but they cannot free him without the other hundred workers dying. In other words, you can save one hundred miners, but in doing so, you have to kill one.

Should a situation like this arise, the law would probably doom these hundred miners because saving them involves murder. God's rule of "thou shalt not kill" would also doom these 100 miners. They still would, even if the hurt miner was awake and asked to be blown up in order to save his friends. As a result, many would probably consider them invalid and think of a utilitarian approach as more valid. But even if they think of the law and commandments as invalid in that situation, does that mean they always are? The point is you can fantasize scenarios that invalidate most moral theories, just as you have for utilitarianism. Yet you argue as if your criticism only applies to utilitarianism.


Another point, then, is that we both agree we have morals "built in". We have a gut feeling of right and wrong. The way you argue, you would think there are actually people who are utilitarian in everything they do. That is entirely unrealistic; of course people don't use utilitarianism like that. No people use any moral theory like that. They are human with built in morals, like you and I. They can use utilitarianism as a guide when a moral dilemma presents itself. Note that I write "guide" and not deitic authority. As previously mentioned, utilitarianism makes sense when consequences are good. When the net consequences of applied utilitarianism are bad, you use that to argue against the appliance of utilitarianism, just as you do with other moral rules or theories, f.ex in the miner scenario mentioned above.


If you're wondering why I think killing is wrong, I should mention that I think killing is usually wrong (not necessarily always). To summarize quickly; I think killing fellow members of society is, generally speaking, counter to my nature as a human being and I think it is damaging behaviour to society. Society is built up by people who cooperate and benefit from that cooperation (otherwise, why make society at all?) and, unfortunately, people who exploit that cooperation. We should make society so that it promotes cooperation and the long term quality of life of its people and so that it demotes exploitation and behaviour which is harmful to our cooperation and the quality of life of the people. Those who wish to exploit their society with anti-social, harmful behaviour, like murderers, should not be able to do so and still reap all the benefits that society gives them. Basically, all members of society should consider themselves to have a social contract. We agree to give up some freedoms (like the freedom to murder) for the greater good of all participants in society. The freedoms we give up, in other words the laws we make, should be so that if we all follow them, we all benefit from them and the quality of life increases for all.

So I value my nature as a human being and obligations that come with cooperation and society. As social animals with social instincts, the two very much go hand in hand. And, like a utilitarian, I value happiness (ex. I wish for human cooperation, society, to maximize the long term quality of life for those who cooperate) and I think suffering is bad.

In light of all of this, I think of the average mother as someone who contributes to society and as someone who has earned society's protection and as someone whose quality of life (happiness) could probably be maximized if given the choice to abort. I think a law allowing for abortion is the best way to maximize the long term quality of life for members of society.

As I am an atheist and don't believe we are judged by anyone but ourselves and our peers, there is no right answer, only opinions and consequences. In other words, if you disagree, that's fine with me.

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Something Completely Different

John Wilkes Booth

Strictly speaking, "thou shalt not kill" as a moral principle is invalidated by the examples you provided. Actually, it's also invalidated by much simpler examples like war or execution. Clearly something more nuanced than that is needed, which I think is generally what is actually put into practice.

I spoke before about a fundamental value for innocent human life, and I think that is more in line with the morality we use on a day to day basis. It works around both the scenarios you provided: if someone is attacking you then you have the right to defend your innocent human life against the threat, and if you have to choose between 100 innocent deaths vs 1 then the verdict is obvious. In addition, and unlike the utilitarian idea to reduce suffering, it can also account for the scenarios I came up with before in which you'd kill someone without causing any suffering. It would still be wrong to take an innocent human life. I think that's a more honest approach to how we feel about murder.

Once again, it's not just a matter of what I can fantasize. The challenge is to provide a serious moral distinction between killing a human fetus vs killing other humans. Thus to apply a different standard to fetuses than that which you would apply to other humans is not a serious solution to that dilemma.
By what standard are the results 'good' or 'bad?' Once again, this removes the need for any moral theory altogether.
I won't bore you with more scenarios to consider, but I'll simply point out that the social contract also falls short of accounting for the normal human's aversion to killing other humans. Remove the social implications and the crime of killing another innocent person is not lessened in the slightest.

...

I'll mention that fundamentally I am coming from the p.o.v. of someone who is pro-choice but has lost faith in the moral arguments from that side. My position at this point feels like one that brushes aside moral issues in favor of practical concerns. I don't necessarily have a moral code that will provide an air-tight solution to all of these issues but that doesn't lessen my objections imo.

Guybrush

Our fundamental morals are an adaptation to an ancient world which we no longer find ourselves in. Cultural and societal evolution has taken us so far so quickly. To illustrate humorously, you could say we are cave men living in a modern world. We may get angry like cave men when someone makes a pass at our woman. We may get jealous of our neighbour when he has a nicer car, like a cave man might get jealous at someone with a nicer cave. Don't take this 100% seriously, the point is that our morality is adapted to a world which no longer exists. That we have these feelings at all makes them still relevant, but it means moral situations arise in our modern society which our evolutionary, built-in morals were not adapted to deal with.

As an example, think of charity. Being nice to someone is a great evolutionary strategy when the ones you help are a potential resource to you; when they are able to reciprocate your kindness. You scratch their back, they scratch yours. But if they are not able to reciprocate, you've simply spent your resources on helping someone else, perhaps even a competitor. When you watch someone who can't reciprocate starve on television, that is a situation your morals are not adapted to. When we evolved, people who starved were close to us, likely part of our group or family. Your moral sense doesn't know that this person can't reciprocate and so you may react as if this person was someone in your society whom your own fitness perhaps partially depends on. If we had had the possibility to adapt to this TV-charity situation through our evolutionary history, giving away resources to people who can't reciprocate would not have been a good strategy. We wouldn't have done it.

So in a sense, charity like that exploits our natural morality. Similarly, I think that when people keep pets and mostly relate to animals as if they are people rather than food, a moral consideration that has evolved in order to apply to people will bleed over onto animals. I've seen a program where a Norwegian family had to live in a tribal society in Africa and some of them cried when the tribal people butchered a pig. Clearly, culture has imprinted on some Norwegians a strong gut feeling that killing pigs is wrong. But is that gut feeling natural? Yes and no.

I think your fundamental feeling for a fetus may be a result of your natural capacity for morale, but I don't think it is part of an evolutionary strategy because the abortion situation that we're discussing here is a modern situation, like watching TV is. While your capacity for moral concern for the fetus is natural, the trigger for your sympathy towards them is likely put there by culture or religion or perhaps both. In another culture, you wouldn't care, just like the tribal people didn't mind killing the pig.

Thus, I don't think a moral concern for fetuses should be considered a fundamental human trait.

I think a wish to not kill other members of your society/tribe/family and so on is a natural part of being human. But humans are adapted to dealing with babies, children, adults and old people. We have adapted strategies for dealing with family, friends and strangers - for being members of a group of cooperating people. But when would we adapt social norms (which is what morals basically are) for dealing with fetuses?

I think of a moral concern for adult women and their freedoms as more natural than a concern for the fetuses they carry.

Reading this, I think we may agree on more things than we disagree on. I don't really believe in the objective worth of morals in itself. Morals have worth because we are emotionally invested in them and sometimes because moral behaviour has consequences we want. I give money to beggars because doing so pleases me at some level, even if I think I know, rationally, that the person won't reciprocate or that it won't give me a place in heaven. I am naturally motivated to be a moral being without having to rationalize why.

But I realize there are moral situations in which my built in morals fall short. Then I think going for the best possible consequences makes sense. I think good consequences improve the environment I and my future family find ourselves in so that our quality of life is raised. I am no island and my happiness depends on others, so that also means good consequences for those people me and my family's fitness and happiness partially depends on.

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Something Completely Different

John Wilkes Booth

I don't disagree about morality's evolutionary origins, but like Richard Dawkins I believe that a society which based its morality strictly on evolutionary concerns would be a pretty nasty place to live. So that said: yes, we have built on our natural empathy towards kin and out of this has come much of our modern morality. Is this not a good thing? I'd personally rather live in a world where people have compassion for each other regardless of what their genes stand to gain from it.

So expanding on this, I think that our morality has evolved a fundamental value for human life through cultural evolution building on top of biological evolution. In essence, we behave as if human life is sacred. I think that fundamentally, this applies to members of our cooperative society and non-members alike. It also applies, for many people, to unborn humans. It only really ceases to apply to them when you rationalize their humanity away.

The other way around this dilemma is to drop the idea of valuing human life altogether and take a more pragmatic approach like valuing human lives that benefit you, or wishing to reduce suffering in general, etc. The only problem I see with these approaches is that they can't actually account for how we really behave. That was why I was giving you scenarios to show the shortcomings of that logic. Not to say "this moral theory isn't perfect" but to say "that isn't why we actually behave the way we do."

Now, maybe the valuing of human life in general is also not a perfect moral principle, but it is in my opinion much closer to the mark than any of the alternatives I've seen. Functionally, we behave as if human life were something to value. It's wrong to kill that unknown hobo, even painlessly, because it's a waste of human life. It's worse when a pregnant woman gets killed, regardless of whether there's anyone in the world who cared about her or her baby, because we do instinctively recognize her bloated stomach as an additional human life that was wasted.

That's basically where I stand. I get the feeling we won't see eye to eye completely, but I think I do understand where you're coming from. At the end of the day, despite our conversation, I do prefer that people have the option to control procreation. It's just that stance comes with a certain level of cognitive dissonance for me which I haven't been able to resolve.