Guybrush

^Mr. Booth, you can nitpick at my arguments all you like. I don't want to offend you, but some of your comments seem a bit below you. You are asking questions you seem to be able to answer yourself. You ask me if it's not morally okay to kill someone in a coma because they may have a dream. Are you sure you understand utilitarianism? I am under the impression that you do, so why this question? You know that, according to utilitarianism, an an act which causes more suffering than happiness is morally bad. If I killed anyone, I am pretty sure I would suffer with that personally and probably other people too, hence the act would be morally bad. How could it be good? In the future, if you do understand the concept of utilitarianism, you should be able to judge for yourself whether or not an action is good or bad without asking.

But before you nitpick again; the thing about humans and morale is we have evolved morality as we are highly social beings. When we see someone in need of our help, we may sympathize. What drives that feeling? It is not utilitarianism, nor any other morale theory. It's just some basic emotional reaction which is part of human nature. Without any kind of moral theory to base choices on, we still have a gut feeling we can follow. If you ask me if I would kill a homeless person who would not be missed, I could say no, because he (and I) would suffer for it and that makes it morally bad, according to utilitarianism. But that wouldn't be completely honest. I wouldn't kill a homeless person because my gut feeling tells me it's the wrong thing to do. I wouldn't kill him because I'm pretty much a normal human being.

Humans in general don't follow moral theories in their day to day lives. We instinctively know how to relate to other people which is what morals is mostly about. But sometimes, our inherent morals don't have the answers. We have not evolved to know what we should treat a fetus as from a moral point of view. Relating to them in a social, moralistic manner was not part of our evolution and neither were abortions so we have no inherent reaction to that. Different morale theories exist that can tell us what to do, such as various religious doctrines or moral principles like utilitarianism. So then I ask you, which one should you choose and why?

The reason I like utilitarianism is because it doesn't matter how difficult the question; it is still possible to find the best moral outcome with the best consequences for people. For that reason, it is often employed in difficult life and death situations, f.ex it may allow for one to be killed in order to save thousands. That doesn't mean utilitarianism is the only moral principle I appreciate or follow or that it's good for any situation you could possibly imagine (bring on the comatose hobos universally hated by all), but I still think it provides a good argument and point of view to the abortion debate. Certainly better than f.ex some christian idea that killing is simply wrong and that is that.

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Something Completely Different

John Wilkes Booth

Your utilitarian answer sort of ignores the question: I said the death would be painless, quick and unexpected. The loner/homeless person wouldn't have time to suffer. You mentioned that you would suffer, but that isn't necessarily so. You could be a sociopath.

I agree with what you say about 'gut' morality, but I do think that is exactly why people are against abortion. I think that fundamentally, people value human life. I think that our gut morality often conflicts with conclusions that we might arrive at by utilitarian logic. That is really the point I was driving at with my questioning.

edit -I don't want to seem to dodge this, but I don't have an answer for you. I'll try to explain where I'm coming from instead.

I typically use some form of utilitarian logic to deal with moral questions, but lately I've started to feel like this approach falls somewhat short of the ideals that we're used to. I'm not religious, but it seems like we treat human life as sacred as a matter of habit.

For example, if I were pressed to choose between a painful death for a dog vs a quick death for a human, I would undoubtedly choose for the dog to die. I can't possibly rationalize this as being based on suffering - that's not it at all. It's the waste of a human life that irks me.

anticipation

We are actually all one large lump of cells gyrating and moving in one bubbling universal stew.

Astronomer

Cue Bill Hicks?

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anticipation

Haha I suppose so, it's a very appealing reality. Sexy too, all those sweaty, hot molecules colliding with each other in the darkness. Reminds me of my 6th birthday party, and my 8th too.

kallifrey

An uncommon pro-choice stance:

When considering the sort of people who are more likely to get an abortion (dumb sluts, dysfunctional impulsive types, drug addicts etc), voluntary abortion helps improve the genetic stock of future generations by slightly reducing the disproportionately high rates of breeding by stupid people. When peak humanity is reached, do you really want the population to be comprised mostly of idiots?

According to Freakonomics, their explanation for the steady decline in crime rates in the 1990s, was due to the result of the Roe vs Wade decision 20 years earlier. Fewer unwanted children produced by stupid people, meant fewer criminals in the long run.

Astronomer

Abortion is legal in my state of Australia and "dysfunctional types" still procreate and have babies when they become accidentally pregnant. I would actually argue that those who choose to have an abortion are probably the "responsible types" who have thought long and hard about their decision and the fact that they probably don't have the means necessary to raise a child. The lower SES bogans, "sluts", drug addicts or "dysfunctional" as you say, get pregnant, and think "OMG YES A BABY YAY I'M GONNA BE A MUM!!11!!!"

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butthead aka 216

idiots are having kids in record numbers regardless. just look at any hum drum town in this country and you'll find all te wrong people having kids. i remember when i worked an overnight shift years ago this 20 yr old girl who had a boyfriend fresh out of jail, a baby, and was on welfare went and had another one. i think a lot of thes eppl have kids because they didnt go to college, they kinda got thrown into the real world early, they arent smart, etc etc etc. well now im gettin way off track but regardless of abortions these people are still gonna have kids.

Guybrush

One of the few examples where utilitarianism breaks down is when applied as a personal guidance on morality for sociopaths. It is a theoretical problem; I don't think any sociopath who loves to kill have strived to do so in the utilitaristic way. To think that way requires a very moral sort of person and if their ideal is to maximize happiness and minimize suffering in the world, what are they doing killing people? It absolutely makes no sense, But yes, from a morale theory point of view, that is a shortcoming.

But I still think utilitarism is useful in the case in the case of abortion.

The death of a dog or the death of a human is something that your inherent morals can relate to. Of course people are worth more to us than dogs as our fitness is dependent on other people. I would argue that you don't really need utilitarianism to cover that bit. Instead you'd use it to help you when you don't have a gut feeling.

Whether or not an interest in fetuses is natural, I just don't think it can be. I think that gut feeling is placed there by culture, religious indoctrination or some other moral conditioning from the environment. As I mentioned, fetuses were just not a feature in the daily lives of our ancestors and neither were abortions. Therefore we can't have a natural instinct towards them. Imagine your lover being with another man; the feeling of jealousy is pretty much universal. It's natural and relevant to every man, even if some are more jealous than others. But can you say the same for wanting to protect fetuses? I don't think I have a gut feeling for fetuses and abortions, yet I am otherwise a healthy human being with normal feelings (including jealousy). You do stir feelings in me by showing me a picture of a 6 months old baby because that looks human to me, but an early embryo not so much.

I do have a gut feeling to sympathize with suffering mothers so I'm more interested in protecting them. Possibly, a good moral compromise between the interests of our natural instincts and the best possible consequences would be to allow abortions, but keep the time limit to do so as short as possible while still getting the best consequences from it (that is, people should have time to get tests done, but not wait for many months before making the decision).

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Something Completely Different

John Wilkes Booth

Neither do I. The question is whether their actions are justifiable or even 'right' based on utilitarian logic.
Our fitness is dependent on certain people. We also compete with other people. It isn't as simple as saying we care about all humans because it makes good evolutionary sense. That isn't always the case.

The utilitarian model also wouldn't save us from this, assuming suffering is the metric being used. The dog's suffering is undeniably greater than the human's suffering in this case.

I don't think that all gut feeling morality is purely instinctual. You're right to say culture has probably played its role here. I would argue it has also played its role in convincing us to value fidelity. The jealousy you feel over your partner cheating is no more 'natural' than the urge to protect an innocent human fetus.