Morality in Abortion

[Jakob]

It started with the post that I made yesterday.

From the new Dave Chapelle show. I was watching this and couldn't help thinking about Iambiguous' question.

"Im not for abortion."

man from crowd: woohoo!

"Oh shut up nigga"

laughter

"Im not for it, but I'm not against it either."

scattered laughter and female woohoos

"It all depends on who I get pregnant."

Iambiguous didn't consider this a serious challenge.
Let me add my notes.

In order to judge whether or not abortion is moral or not, we have to know not only what we consider morality to be, but also all the physical circumstances both of abortion in general and of any particular case of abortion we are discussing.

Does an embryo feel pain, does it have awareness? If so, killing it seems to be hard to justify except in the way we justify killing livestock. Which is by no thinking about it, I guess.

My experience in general is that abortion is a deeply sad event that saddens women who go through it until many years after. I also think it must be an extremely horrific experience for the unborn creature. And I believe that it gets worse as it gets later, as the creature develops more and more into the utterly sensitive and sentient form of a human baby. I think a late abortion is a kind of murder.

The only reason I see to justify abortion is when the pregnancy results from rape, and then one should proceed immediately after the event so that the conceived lifeforms has no elaborate means of experiencing. Waiting in such a case is simply unnecessary cruelty.

So this is my subjective position, which seems as good a thing to start with as any.

Less subjectively, and more skeptically vis a vis mans capacity to act morally, I find Dave Chapelle's position relevant - it is a way of subjectivizing the issue, which seems to me to be a form of brining it down to Earth.

Iambiguous? The floor is yours.

[Jakob]

Of course there is a very recent popular justification for abortion as the prevention of suffering - to scan embryos for signals of possible Down syndrome or other serious problems. Iceland was said to have reduced down syndrome births almost to zero in this way. Filipino leader Duterte hilariously commented on this in one of his rants, but he didn't really impress anyone in this case because to insult Iceland is really hard. He clearly failed since he could only object to them that they "eat ice", and generally linking them to the "white race". Not his best trolling session but still quite amusing. In any case this all gives a context to the question of aborting those pregnancies which appear to be preparing deeply problematic lives.

[iambiguous]

In order to judge whether or not abortion is moral or not, we have to know not only what we consider morality to be, but also all the physical circumstances both of abortion in general and of any particular case of abortion we are discussing.

How is the manner in which any particular individual's moral judgment regarding abortion not predicated by and large on the manner in which I have come to grasp the acquistion of a moral narrative here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

How is it different for you?

The physical circumstances are embedded in facts that either can be established or not be established. At least in a No God world. With God, the facts established still come down to what any particular Scripture informs us regarding God and abortion. The part where behaviors become Sins. Behaviors judged in the end by God.

But what can be established as in fact true when it comes down to whether particular behaviors ought to be rewarded or punished given the circunstances established regarding a particular abortion in a particular context?

Does an embryo feel pain, does it have awareness? If so, killing it seems to be hard to justify except in the way we justify killing livestock. Which is by no thinking about it, I guess.

Or:

Might a woman burdoned with an unwanted pregnancy find her life completely upended if she is forced to give birth? How could she realistically compete with men for a good education or for a good job or for any other opportunities in a world where only women are able to become pregnant?

Or what if the pregnancy is as a result of rape or incest or a failed contraceptive? What if there is the possibility that her health [either physical or mental] might be impaired if forced to give birth?

Conflicting goods always work both ways of course. Both sides can make reasonable arguments that the other side can only make go away by not thinking about them.

My experience in general is that abortion is a deeply sad event that saddens women who go through it until many years after. I also think it must be an extremely horrific experience for the unborn creature. And I believe that it gets worse as it gets later, as the creature develops more and more into the utterly sensitive and sentient form of a human baby. I think a late abortion is a kind of murder.

But that's my point. Your experiences. Embodied, in my view, in the manner in which I consture the meaning of dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

How is that not applicable to you?

Why should the value judgments derived from your experiences take precedence over conflicting value judgments derived from the experiences of others?

And could you not have new experiences that change your mind about abortion? Or are you of the opinion that your current viewpoint is wholly in sync with the "real you" wholly in sync with "the right thing to do"?

The only reason I see to justify abortion is when the pregnancy results from rape, and then one should proceed immediately after the event so that the conceived lifeforms has no elaborate means of experiencing. Waiting in such a case is simply unnecessary cruelty.

Others however insist that human life begins at conception; and that the baby is no less innocent.

And I speculate that, for many of them, these assumptions are derived from their own personal experiences with families and friends and communities that first instilled and then reinforced in them this point of view.

That, in any event, there does not appear to be argument [philosophical or otherwise] able to resolve this conflict once and for all.

[Meno_]

In order to judge whether or not abortion is moral or not, we have to know not only what we consider morality to be, but also all the physical circumstances both of abortion in general and of any particular case of abortion we are discussing.

How is the manner in which any particular individual's moral judgment regarding abortion not predicated by and large on the manner in which I have come to grasp the acquistion of a moral narrative here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

How is it different for you?

The physical circumstances are embedded in facts that either can be established or not be established. At least in a No God world. With God, the facts established still come down to what any particular Scripture informs us regarding God and abortion. The part where behaviors become Sins. Behaviors judged in the end by God.

But what can be established as in fact true when it comes down to whether particular behaviors ought to be rewarded or punished given the circunstances established regarding a particular abortion in a particular context?

Does an embryo feel pain, does it have awareness? If so, killing it seems to be hard to justify except in the way we justify killing livestock. Which is by no thinking about it, I guess.

Or:

Might a woman burdoned with an unwanted pregnancy find her life completely upended if she is forced to give birth? How could she realistically compete with men for a good education or for a good job or for any other opportunities in a world where only women are able to become pregnant?

Or what if the pregnancy is as a result of rape or incest or a failed contraceptive? What if there is the possibility that her health [either physical or mental] might be impaired if forced to give birth?

Conflicting goods always work both ways of course. Both sides can make reasonable arguments that the other side can only make go away by not thinking about them.

My experience in general is that abortion is a deeply sad event that saddens women who go through it until many years after. I also think it must be an extremely horrific experience for the unborn creature. And I believe that it gets worse as it gets later, as the creature develops more and more into the utterly sensitive and sentient form of a human baby. I think a late abortion is a kind of murder.

But that's my point. Your experiences. Embodied, in my view, in the manner in which I consture the meaning of dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

How is that not applicable to you?

Why should the value judgments derived from your experiences take precedence over conflicting value judgments derived from the experiences of others?

And could you not have new experiences that change your mind about abortion? Or are you of the opinion that your current viewpoint is wholly in sync with the "real you" wholly in sync with "the right thing to do"?

The only reason I see to justify abortion is when the pregnancy results from rape, and then one should proceed immediately after the event so that the conceived lifeforms has no elaborate means of experiencing. Waiting in such a case is simply unnecessary cruelty.

Others however insist that human life begins at conception; and that the baby is no less innocent.

And I speculate that, for many of them, these assumptions are derived from their own personal experiences with families and friends and communities that first instilled and then reinforced in them this point of view.

That, in any event, there does not appear to be argument [philosophical or otherwise] able to resolve this conflict once and for all.

How do You deal with phylogenetic development whwre the embryo at early stages evolve around the earliest of.specie , starting from creatures from the sea? That has no consciousness except within the current comparable species? In that current accepted fact, and within it's ramifications, how could You justify a human consciousness at it's earliest stage without reference to Deism , which You deny?

It appears sustaining that. contradiction leads to a regression to absurdum

[Jakob]

In order to judge whether or not abortion is moral or not, we have to know not only what we consider morality to be, but also all the physical circumstances both of abortion in general and of any particular case of abortion we are discussing.

How is the manner in which any particular individual's moral judgment regarding abortion not predicated by and large on the manner in which I have come to grasp the acquistion of a moral narrative here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

How is it different for you?

How does it seem to be different for me from what Ive said?

The physical circumstances are embedded in facts that either can be established or not be established. At least in a No God world. With God, the facts established still come down to what any particular Scripture informs us regarding God and abortion. The part where behaviors become Sins. Behaviors judged in the end by God.

Yes.

But what can be established as in fact true when it comes down to whether particular behaviors ought to be rewarded or punished given the circunstances established regarding a particular abortion in a particular context?

I don't even know how I would punish any crime, to be honest. Do you?
Basically all I really know is vengeance and forgiveness. I don't find the penal laws that we have very lucid. But I wouldn't know how to do it better.

Does an embryo feel pain, does it have awareness? If so, killing it seems to be hard to justify except in the way we justify killing livestock. Which is by no thinking about it, I guess.

Or:

Might a woman burdoned with an unwanted pregnancy find her life completely upended if she is forced to give birth? How could she realistically compete with men for a good education or for a good job or for any other opportunities in a world where only women are able to become pregnant?

But why would she have to compete with men? Im not a feminist. And why did she have unprotected sex in the first place?
If she had protected sex and she got pregnant anyhow I would personally say she should keep it. If I had anything to do with it I would compel her to and I would taker part in raising the child.

Or what if the pregnancy is as a result of rape or incest or a failed contraceptive? What if there is the possibility that her health [either physical or mental] might be impaired if forced to give birth?

Rape is, as Ive said in the OP, for me one of the few reasons where abortion isn't irrational, but it needs to be done soon.
As for mental health, birth has been the way mammals have thrived for millions of years, so I would say that is a rather out of the box expectation, even though it occurs. But insanity can occur on the grounds of education and all kinds of other things as well. Which brings us to a primordial philosophical question: When should we allow hypotheticals to dictate our behaviour?

Conflicting goods always work both ways of course. Both sides can make reasonable arguments that the other side can only make go away by not thinking about them.

Probably in most cases. But one might also simply feel that the other needs to change, learn, that his or her ideas are based on insufficient experience or lack of character. And in the end the subjected person might agree that this was the case and that to be compelled to do something it didn't want to do increased her or his happiness. A basic example is brining unwilling kids to school in the morning, enforcing discipline in general, discomforts that make life more comfortable later on.

So then you're talking about long term vs short term interests. It isn't easy for everyone to recognize a long term interest, certainly not for a child.

My experience in general is that abortion is a deeply sad event that saddens women who go through it until many years after. I also think it must be an extremely horrific experience for the unborn creature. And I believe that it gets worse as it gets later, as the creature develops more and more into the utterly sensitive and sentient form of a human baby. I think a late abortion is a kind of murder.

But that's my point. Your experiences. Embodied, in my view, in the manner in which I consture the meaning of dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

How is that not applicable to you?

What you may disregard is that the bottom line is always experience.
We have moral laws to regulate our experience. Or do you think it is solely to please God? Would God put us through lessons that don't enhance our experience? How would that serve God, does he not love his children?
As a child of Creation, my experience is directly pertinent to Creation, its just one of many experiencers, but you have to start somewhere, and if I want to arrive somewhere with you or anyone else we will all need to make our own experiences known.

Why should the value judgments derived from your experiences take precedence over conflicting value judgments derived from the experiences of others?

Im not at all saying they should. Im just putting in my two cents, so that a ball may get rolling.
If the whole world decides abortion is great and especially late stage abortions are desirable, which would very much be in the interest on organ harvesters, then I wont have had any say in the thing, but I don't know that this will be the case, I don't know what will be the case in advance - so with a clean conscience I speak to you of my experience.

And could you not have new experiences that change your mind about abortion? Or are you of the opinion that your current viewpoint is wholly in sync with the "real you" wholly in sync with "the right thing to do"?

Ive talked to an antinatalist girl for a while once and whereas I disagree with her, I did not try to convince her of my views, as hers were born from deep suffering and betrayal. No argument will ever convince her, she might only perhaps have an experience once that justifies it all to her, or she might not.
I dont think arguments should ever overrule experiences. Only when an argument forms an experience, a coherent impulse soundly in terms of the person who hears or reads the argument, then should it be expected to be persuasive. Aristotle went to some length explaining how this is technicality doable, but I prefer to trust in the power of experience. Here I see, for example, a difference between politicians - some speak from experience, some from technicality. I prefer the experienced ones. For example WH Bush was really an excellent president in my view, as he had seen the ultimate of some very important aspect of the US, namely war - and I find Trump excellent because he has seen the ultimate of another very important aspect of the nation, namely business. Neither of these two are very good at argumentation. They just are stubborn because they know what they have seen. Cause and effect. A good leader has seen a lot of that.

To to round this up to bring it back to abortion: ultimately it is a question for which women have the only relevant experience.
That is the one way we could end this: saying well we are men, we ultimately aren't involved in the decision so whatever we say is moot. And it is, in a sense.
Pregnancies are going to be ended all throughout human existence and that doesn't upset me.

The only reason I see to justify abortion is when the pregnancy results from rape, and then one should proceed immediately after the event so that the conceived lifeforms has no elaborate means of experiencing. Waiting in such a case is simply unnecessary cruelty.

Others however insist that human life begins at conception; and that the baby is no less innocent.

How would one argue for the lack of innocence of the baby, though? That is a radical proposition, though I am aware Luther held it and so do millions of Lutherans now - I really am not a Luther-fan. He did not like humans at all and I don't find that a good ground to try to be their leader.

And I speculate that, for many of them, these assumptions are derived from their own personal experiences with families and friends and communities that first instilled and then reinforced in them this point of view.

That, in any event, there does not appear to be argument [philosophical or otherwise] able to resolve this conflict once and for all.

No, definitely not. Philosophy is not law-giver over life and death - it only clarifies the meaning of life. In this way it can greatly improve chances for pregnancies or it can also, as in Iceland, lead to a selectivity before life and allow only the healthiest and happiest pregnancies to proceed.

[Jakob]

That brings it all to Earth. Case closed?

[iambiguous]

In order to judge whether or not abortion is moral or not, we have to know not only what we consider morality to be, but also all the physical circumstances both of abortion in general and of any particular case of abortion we are discussing.

How is the manner in which any particular individual's moral judgment regarding abortion not predicated by and large on the manner in which I have come to grasp the acquisition of a moral narrative here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

How is it different for you?

How does it seem to be different for me from what Ive said?

First, I would need you to provide me with your own existential trajectory regarding abortion. After all, my point is that each of us as individuals comes to embrace a particular moral narrative here as a result of the actual experiences embedded in our lives intertwined with our attempts to "think through" the issue rationally, philosophically, scientifically, etc.

But what can be established as in fact true when it comes down to whether particular behaviors ought to be rewarded or punished given the circumstances established regarding a particular abortion in a particular context?

I don't even know how I would punish any crime, to be honest. Do you?
Basically all I really know is vengeance and forgiveness. I don't find the penal laws that we have very lucid. But I wouldn't know how to do it better.

That's not my point though. The distinction I make is between the behaviors any particular individual [as the embodiment of dasein] comes to believe ought to be punished in a certain way, and the capacity of philosophers to establish what behaviors all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to agree on.

Does an embryo feel pain, does it have awareness? If so, killing it seems to be hard to justify except in the way we justify killing livestock. Which is by no thinking about it, I guess.

Or:

Might a woman burdened with an unwanted pregnancy find her life completely upended if she is forced to give birth? How could she realistically compete with men for a good education or for a good job or for any other opportunities in a world where only women are able to become pregnant?

But why would she have to compete with men? Im not a feminist. And why did she have unprotected sex in the first place?

Assuming the existence of human autonomy, Jane chooses to compete against both men and other women. But she did not choose unprotected sex. Instead, she is the victim of a faulty contraceptive. Or she was raped and impregnated.

If she had protected sex and she got pregnant anyhow I would personally say she should keep it. If I had anything to do with it I would compel her to and I would taker part in raising the child.

Over and again:

My point is not what you think or feel or say or do here and now in regard to abortion, but, how, given the trajectory of your lived life, you came [existentially] to be predisposed morally and politically to believe one thing rather than another. And that philosophy and science appear unable to pin down what in fact all rational folks are obligated to think, feel, say and do in regard to abortion.

Instead, in my view, what you do is to reconfigure what I construe to be political prejudice derived largely from dasein....

Rape is, as Ive said in the OP, for me one of the few reasons where abortion isn't irrational, but it needs to be done soon.

...into a set of -- philosophical? -- assumptions that you seem convinced is a perfectly rational reaction to abortion. And if others come to conflicting assessments, they must be wrong. Why? Because, unless raped [and for other unspecified reasons], it is irrational [and thus immoral] for women to chose abortion. Then, in my view, it just becomes a matter of the extent to which, as with Kant, you reconfigure this into an actual deontological intellectual assessment.

As for mental health, birth has been the way mammals have thrived for millions of years, so I would say that is a rather out of the box expectation, even though it occurs. But insanity can occur on the grounds of education and all kinds of other things as well. Which brings us to a primordial philosophical question: When should we allow hypotheticals to dictate our behaviour?

So, for all practical purposes, what are you saying here? If a woman chooses to have an abortion because giving birth will damage her mental health, what do you say to her?

And situations of this sort do happen. Nothing hypothetical at all about them out in the real world.

Conflicting goods always work both ways of course. Both sides can make reasonable arguments that the other side can only make go away by not thinking about them.

Probably in most cases. But one might also simply feel that the other needs to change, learn, that his or her ideas are based on insufficient experience or lack of character. And in the end the subjected person might agree that this was the case and that to be compelled to do something it didn't want to do increased her or his happiness. A basic example is brining unwilling kids to school in the morning, enforcing discipline in general, discomforts that make life more comfortable later on.

Well here of course you would have to deal with one context at a time. And hope that your general description above can be made applicable somehow. The assumption being that you would have acquired the sufficient experiences yourself; and that you are able to judge behaviors as either in sync or out of sync with "character"; and that you are able to properly distinguish between the short term interests of a woman contemplating abortion and her long term interests.

On the other hand, being a man yourself, how many experiences involving an unwanted pregnancy can you fall back on? And, in regard to abortion, one person's assessment of character and interests [short or long term] is likely to encounter very, very different assessments from others.

Then, for the objectivists, it all configures into "one of us" vs. "one of them".

My experience in general is that abortion is a deeply sad event that saddens women who go through it until many years after. I also think it must be an extremely horrific experience for the unborn creature. And I believe that it gets worse as it gets later, as the creature develops more and more into the utterly sensitive and sentient form of a human baby. I think a late abortion is a kind of murder.

But that's my point. Your experiences. Embodied, in my view, in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

How is that not applicable to you?

What you may disregard is that the bottom line is always experience.

First, how is your own assessment of "I" in regard to the is/ought world at odds with my assessment in the thread above? How do you see the choices that you make in a different light?

We have moral laws to regulate our experience. Or do you think it is solely to please God? Would God put us through lessons that don't enhance our experience? How would that serve God, does he not love his children?

But these moral laws are embedded historically and culturally and interpersonally in contexts that precipitate many, many, many different individual experiences. At times vastly at odds. Most of which are beyond our own capacity in the modern world to really and truly grasp. And, in the modern world, conflicting goods are everywhere. Which set of "experiences" should we rely on today in regard to establishing a rational assessment of the abortion wars?

As for God, are you invoking Him here?

As a child of Creation, my experience is directly pertinent to Creation, its just one of many experiencers, but you have to start somewhere, and if I want to arrive somewhere with you or anyone else we will all need to make our own experiences known.

How does Creation factor in here? What are you able to demonstrate to us are the most important truths embedded in it when confronting an issue like abortion?

Why should the value judgments derived from your experiences take precedence over conflicting value judgments derived from the experiences of others?

Im not at all saying they should. Im just putting in my two cents, so that a ball may get rolling.

Well, my own two cents here revolves around the assumption that your two cents is derived from the manner in which I construe a sense of identity [in regard to an issue like abortion] as an existential contraption embedded in the trajectory of your lived life. Back again to this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

Thus, what I would appreciate from you is your own rendition of this.

You note that, "with a clean conscience I speak to you of my experience", without probing the extent to which it is precisely your own unique set of personal experiences [derived from dasein] that predisposed you to embrace one set of moral and political prejudices over another.

Then this part:

And could you not have new experiences that change your mind about abortion? Or are you of the opinion that your current viewpoint is wholly in sync with the "real you" wholly in sync with "the right thing to do"?

You note:

Ive talked to an antinatalist girl for a while once and whereas I disagree with her, I did not try to convince her of my views, as hers were born from deep suffering and betrayal. No argument will ever convince her, she might only perhaps have an experience once that justifies it all to her, or she might not.
I dont think arguments should ever overrule experiences. Only when an argument forms an experience, a coherent impulse soundly in terms of the person who hears or reads the argument, then should it be expected to be persuasive. Aristotle went to some length explaining how this is technicality doable, but I prefer to trust in the power of experience. Here I see, for example, a difference between politicians - some speak from experience, some from technicality. I prefer the experienced ones. For example WH Bush was really an excellent president in my view, as he had seen the ultimate of some very important aspect of the US, namely war - and I find Trump excellent because he has seen the ultimate of another very important aspect of the nation, namely business. Neither of these two are very good at argumentation. They just are stubborn because they know what they have seen. Cause and effect. A good leader has seen a lot of that.

But what does that have to do with addressing my point? This one: That your arguments here and now will encounter new experiences, new relationships, exposure to new information, knowledge and ideas. And in a world ever confronting us with new contingencies precipitating new chances to change.

To to round this up to bring it back to abortion: ultimately it is a question for which women have the only relevant experience.
That is the one way we could end this: saying well we are men, we ultimately aren't involved in the decision so whatever we say is moot. And it is, in a sense.
Pregnancies are going to be ended all throughout human existence and that doesn't upset me.

I have no idea what this has to do with the points I raise above. Perhaps others following the discussion might be willing to assist me here.

[Silhouette]

I'm sorry if this was intended to be only a discussion between you two, but Dave gave me an idea in what Jakob quoted - for a position on abortion to throw out there.

Feel free to ignore if you didn't want anyone else joining in.

I've heard of the current abortion debate being summed up as deontologists on this subject versus consequentialists on this subject.
Deontologists are absolute in their attitudes on the morality - specifically of murder.
Consequentialists are relative about this morality, dependent upon the other consequences of either preventing or allowing a potential future birth that may potentially result in anything up to a full and normal postnatal life.

But these moralities are born from an attempted universalisation of an initial dialectic of opinions about what people would like to happen to themselves: people discuss their own particular preferences, which evolves into a discussion over the preferences of others, and only after that, finally into universal rules about preferences in general for everyone.

Dave brings universal morality back to its roots in particular preferences.


Following on from this revisit, and revising how we got to this dilemma of a debate in the first place, we start from being in a position to express your preferences in the first place. Perhaps this can be reduced to communicating aversion to destruction by the smallest reasonable metric.
The next stage is to revise the legitimacy of this discussion over personal preferences becoming a discussion over the preferences of others. To what extent should individuals be able to impose preferences over others - particularly those with different preferences. This ties back to the previous and initial stage of being able to express this at all.

So before we reach the present day universalisation of morality that results in this deadlock, using the outlook expressed comedically by Dave Chapelle, perhaps the questions are at what point do lifeforms objectively fight back against destruction, and should people of one moral universalist view be able to impose on the decisions of those with another moral universalist view?

[Meno_]

In other words, do one set of life form
such as the early embryonic, have some voice in the matter, or should?
Before You start hollering comically, or anticedent- dialectically, such views are in fact are expressed.
Not by the embryo , of course but mothers for those who hold to dignity of life.

[Jakob]

"perhaps the questions are at what point do lifeforms objectively fight back against destruction"

When do humans begin doing that?
When does the crying for milk end and the self-reliance begin? And when does it count as fighting?
Are you suggesting we should be able to abort children until they grow an ego, or until they have he capacity to prevent us from killing them?

I am not aware of any deadlock.

[Meno_]

Are you suggesting we should be able "to abort children until they grow an ego, or until they have he capacity to prevent us from killing them?

I am not aware of any deadlock."


No suggestions . But a part of ego , is an implicit intention to live and grow.
This does start at conception and it is part of the individuation, unless it's multiple embryos.

The awareness may not start in the very insemination, unless the pre eminance of the sperm over the ovum could be demonstrated.

In fact spermatozo act as swimming toward a statically set of ovum, and swim toward it, the man deeply posits them into the urethra. But it is an action of the sperm, and philosophically credit meaning through manifestation as described by behaviorist later interpreting it in terms of a kind of preggenetic intentionality.

So it is arguable, on both levels, ego, and id.

Where ego and Id are broadly separable in two sets, pleasure/reality.
The ovum conceivably has more reality, for it behaves as if in a state of stasis, expecting one fortunate sperm to reach the gate, whereas millions of others do no reach that luck.

[Silhouette]

"perhaps the questions are at what point do lifeforms objectively fight back against destruction"

When do humans begin doing that?
When does the crying for milk end and the self-reliance begin? And when does it count as fighting?
Are you suggesting we should be able to abort children until they grow an ego, or until they have he capacity to prevent us from killing them?

As suggested by "Perhaps this can be reduced to communicating aversion to destruction by the smallest reasonable metric", developing an ego won't be the smallest metric.

Something like an aversion response to threatening stimulus, which a zygote, for example, does not demonstrate. There is a time period after conception over which there is only a propensity to grow into something that can object at some basic level to being destroyed - which will occur some time during gestation.

As I understand it, part of the anti-abortion argument is taking into account the potential to grow into something that can object to being destroyed at, or beyond some basic level. This is where the 2nd of the 2 questions comes in. Dave's feigned individualistic approach to the debate draws attention towards personal decision making about oneself, rather than for others. If a lifeform can't yet object at a level in answer to the 1st of the 2 questions, then there is nothing against destroying it on an Individualistic level.

The only issue I see here is whether the mother and what she is growing inside of her as part of her is separate to her. If they are not separate, the mother can at all times decide for the could-be baby while they are the same organism - based on her own Individualistic response to stimulus that is threatening to part of her. If they are separate, only what the mother is growing has a "say" on this Individualistic level, and not the mother herself. After the baby is born, it has long surpassed the point at which it objects to threatening stimuli on this basic level that answers the 1st of the 2 questions.

I am not aware of any deadlock.

You are aware that those who think abortion can be allowed, and those who think it cannot be allowed are still in open debate in the political sphere, I am sure. Maybe you know different, but as far as I am aware, still no consensus has been reached - therefore deadlock. And whether or not you've made up your own mind and formulated your own argument one way or another, this would not appear to have (yet?) brought about consensus amongst these 2+ sides.

[Jakob]

First, I would need you to provide me with your own existential trajectory regarding abortion. After all, my point is that each of us as individuals comes to embrace a particular moral narrative here as a result of the actual experiences embedded in our lives intertwined with our attempts to "think through" the issue rationally, philosophically, scientifically, etc.

And I agree.

I don't even know how I would punish any crime, to be honest. Do you?
Basically all I really know is vengeance and forgiveness. I don't find the penal laws that we have very lucid. But I wouldn't know how to do it better.

That's not my point though. The distinction I make is between the behaviors any particular individual [as the embodiment of dasein] comes to believe ought to be punished in a certain way, and the capacity of philosophers to establish what behaviors all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to agree on.

Thats not what philosophy does or ever did, so this is a contraption (one made out of straw) on your part.
You appear to conflate religion and philosophy.

Assuming the existence of human autonomy, Jane chooses to compete against both men and other women. But she did not choose unprotected sex. Instead, she is the victim of a faulty contraceptive. Or she was raped and impregnated.

If she had protected sex and she got pregnant anyhow I would personally say she should keep it. If I had anything to do with it I would compel her to and I would taker part in raising the child.

Over and again:

My point is not what you think or feel or say or do here and now in regard to abortion, but, how, given the trajectory of your lived life, you came [existentially] to be predisposed morally and politically to believe one thing rather than another. And that philosophy and science appear unable to pin down what in fact all rational folks are obligated to think, feel, say and do in regard to abortion.

I didn't say anything about having any beliefs. Nor do I agree that philosophy tries to pin down what humans should be doing with their lives.
Ive never read any philosopher who tried to do that, have you? If so, who?

Instead, in my view, what you do is to reconfigure what I construe to be political prejudice derived largely from dasein....

Yes, Dasein reconfigures everything that touches it - that is what Dasein is.
again, no deadlock.

Rape is, as Ive said in the OP, for me one of the few reasons where abortion isn't irrational, but it needs to be done soon.

...into a set of -- philosophical? -- assumptions that you seem convinced is a perfectly rational reaction to abortion. And if others come to conflicting assessments, they must be wrong.

Ah - thats wha you think.
No, thats not how my world works. I see different interests, not "wrong" or "right".
Again you confuse religion for philosophy.

So this is moot:

Why? Because, unless raped [and for other unspecified reasons], it is irrational [and thus immoral] for women to chose abortion. Then, in my view, it just becomes a matter of the extent to which, as with Kant, you reconfigure this into an actual deontological intellectual assessment.

As for mental health, birth has been the way mammals have thrived for millions of years, so I would say that is a rather out of the box expectation, even though it occurs. But insanity can occur on the grounds of education and all kinds of other things as well. Which brings us to a primordial philosophical question: When should we allow hypotheticals to dictate our behaviour?

So, for all practical purposes, what are you saying here? If a woman chooses to have an abortion because giving birth will damage her mental health, what do you say to her?

As little as I have to. Id avoid that person, because it seems that if pregnancy will ruin ones mental health, her mental health couldn't have been very strong in the first place.

And situations of this sort do happen. Nothing hypothetical at all about them out in the real world.

That goes for a lot of things philosophy doesn't rule.
Philosophy can handle great human projects, general directions of thought, it can give peace with the world as it is in all its power hungry madness, but not alter the direct necessities in a womans life.

A philosophical question here could be:
What is mental health?
What is mental health that a pregnancy can ruin it?
Is mental health a form of control?

Philosophical questions which may allow you to ask your question with more clarity.

Conflicting goods always work both ways of course. Both sides can make reasonable arguments that the other side can only make go away by not thinking about them.

Probably in most cases. But one might also simply feel that the other needs to change, learn, that his or her ideas are based on insufficient experience or lack of character. And in the end the subjected person might agree that this was the case and that to be compelled to do something it didn't want to do increased her or his happiness. A basic example is brining unwilling kids to school in the morning, enforcing discipline in general, discomforts that make life more comfortable later on.

Well here of course you would have to deal with one context at a time. And hope that your general description above can be made applicable somehow. The assumption being that you would have acquired the sufficient experiences yourself; and that you are able to judge behaviors as either in sync or out of sync with "character"; and that you are able to properly distinguish between the short term interests of a woman contemplating abortion and her long term interests.

On the other hand, being a man yourself, how many experiences involving an unwanted pregnancy can you fall back on? And, in regard to abortion, one person's assessment of character and interests [short or long term] is likely to encounter very, very different assessments from others.

Lets just say that I wouldn't be talking about this if I had no experience with the issue.

My experience in general is that abortion is a deeply sad event that saddens women who go through it until many years after. I also think it must be an extremely horrific experience for the unborn creature. And I believe that it gets worse as it gets later, as the creature develops more and more into the utterly sensitive and sentient form of a human baby. I think a late abortion is a kind of murder.

But that's my point. Your experiences. Embodied, in my view, in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

How is that not applicable to you?

Because my being rooted in Dasein is not a problem for me.

What you may disregard is that the bottom line is always experience.

First, how is your own assessment of "I" in regard to the is/ought world at odds with my assessment in the thread above? How do you see the choices that you make in a different light?

We have moral laws to regulate our experience. Or do you think it is solely to please God? Would God put us through lessons that don't enhance our experience? How would that serve God, does he not love his children?

But these moral laws are embedded historically and culturally and interpersonally in contexts that precipitate many, many, many different individual experiences. At times vastly at odds. Most of which are beyond our own capacity in the modern world to really and truly grasp. And, in the modern world, conflicting goods are everywhere. Which set of "experiences" should we rely on today in regard to establishing a rational assessment of the abortion wars?

As for God, are you invoking Him here?

Somehow - Im saying we should take his name in vain.
If we are speak of God let us do it seriously. Otherwise what sense is there in that subject?
If God is trivialized, is it still God we are speaking of?

As a child of Creation, my experience is directly pertinent to Creation, its just one of many experiencers, but you have to start somewhere, and if I want to arrive somewhere with you or anyone else we will all need to make our own experiences known.

How does Creation factor in here? What are you able to demonstrate to us are the most important truths embedded in it when confronting an issue like abortion?

My subject here is philosophy, I hope to show you what it is and why it doesn't speak about abortion. Morality and abortion are closely tied though - morality is always tyrannical. Philosophy can ask whether it is required that one is tyrannical, and must conclude that it is always in one way or another required.

Why should the value judgments derived from your experiences take precedence over conflicting value judgments derived from the experiences of others?

Im not at all saying they should. Im just putting in my two cents, so that a ball may get rolling.

Well, my own two cents here revolves around the assumption that your two cents is derived from the manner in which I construe a sense of identity [in regard to an issue like abortion] as an existential contraption embedded in the trajectory of your lived life. Back again to this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

Thus, what I would appreciate from you is your own rendition of this.

I disagree that here is no objective truth.
You cant attempt to disprove the idea that the world is will to power without showing a will to power over the idea of will to power.
It can be understood also through value ontology. But I don't want to impose that on you, as from where you operate, you cant work with it.

You note that, "with a clean conscience I speak to you of my experience", without probing the extent to which it is precisely your own unique set of personal experiences [derived from dasein] that predisposed you to embrace one set of moral and political prejudices over another.

Rather, my experiences are my Dasein.
And I do specify my experiences to a greater extent than you do yours.

Then this part:

And could you not have new experiences that change your mind about abortion? Or are you of the opinion that your current viewpoint is wholly in sync with the "real you" wholly in sync with "the right thing to do"?

You note:

Ive talked to an antinatalist girl for a while once and whereas I disagree with her, I did not try to convince her of my views, as hers were born from deep suffering and betrayal. No argument will ever convince her, she might only perhaps have an experience once that justifies it all to her, or she might not.
I dont think arguments should ever overrule experiences. Only when an argument forms an experience, a coherent impulse soundly in terms of the person who hears or reads the argument, then should it be expected to be persuasive. Aristotle went to some length explaining how this is technicality doable, but I prefer to trust in the power of experience. Here I see, for example, a difference between politicians - some speak from experience, some from technicality. I prefer the experienced ones. For example WH Bush was really an excellent president in my view, as he had seen the ultimate of some very important aspect of the US, namely war - and I find Trump excellent because he has seen the ultimate of another very important aspect of the nation, namely business. Neither of these two are very good at argumentation. They just are stubborn because they know what they have seen. Cause and effect. A good leader has seen a lot of that.

But what does that have to do with addressing my point? This one: That your arguments here and now will encounter new experiences, new relationships, exposure to new information, knowledge and ideas. And in a world ever confronting us with new contingencies precipitating new chances to change.

How could you fail to miss that point?
I suggest you give it another reading.

To to round this up to bring it back to abortion: ultimately it is a question for which women have the only relevant experience.
That is the one way we could end this: saying well we are men, we ultimately aren't involved in the decision so whatever we say is moot. And it is, in a sense.
Pregnancies are going to be ended all throughout human existence and that doesn't upset me.

I have no idea what this has to do with the points I raise above. Perhaps others following the discussion might be willing to assist me here.

Well I find it hard to believe that you do not know what women and autonomy have to do with abortion.

[Jakob]

The only issue I see here is whether the mother and what she is growing inside of her as part of her is separate to her. If they are not separate, the mother can at all times decide for the could-be baby while they are the same organism - based on her own Individualistic response to stimulus that is threatening to part of her. If they are separate, only what the mother is growing has a "say" on this Individualistic level, and not the mother herself. After the baby is born, it has long surpassed the point at which it objects to threatening stimuli on this basic level that answers the 1st of the 2 questions.

I can agree to that being the only real question if we have for the sake of the argument established that it is morally wrong to kill a being outside of oneself and not part of oneself.

I am not aware of any deadlock.

You are aware that those who think abortion can be allowed, and those who think it cannot be allowed are still in open debate in the political sphere, I am sure. Maybe you know different, but as far as I am aware, still no consensus has been reached - therefore deadlock. And whether or not you've made up your own mind and formulated your own argument one way or another, this would not appear to have (yet?) brought about consensus amongst these 2+ sides.

I meant that it is not a philosophical deadlock.
Nor is the question whether infidels should be killed or not a question for philosophy to answer.

By the way, I would say the baby is not part of the woman since she doesn't feel pain when it is wounded. If there is pain in the first place,, which seems likely, it feels its own pain.
It is not wired into the mothers nervous system.
If the woman would feel the pain of the death, it would be a kind of partial suicide, which it isn't, it is in the terms I just gave closer to homicide.

[Silhouette]

I meant that it is not a philosophical deadlock.

What is the philosophical consensus?
Generally I don't involve myself in topics such as these, so excuse me if I am out of touch.

By the way, I would say the baby is not part of the woman since she doesn't feel pain when it is wounded. If there is pain in the first place,, which seems likely, it feels its own pain.
It is not wired into the mothers nervous system.
If the woman would feel the pain of the death, it would be a kind of partial suicide, which it isn't, it is in the terms I just gave closer to homicide.

An interesting argument.

However, neither man nor woman feels the pain of their own e.g. liver degeneration until it has passed a certain point of damage. Do we therefore conclude that the liver is not part of the man or woman because they don't feel pain when it is wounded, at least up until a point? Perhaps a liver is only part of them after this point? Please excuse my rhetorical phrasing. A liver does not feel its own pain though, nor does a zygote or any stage of development before sufficient development of a nervous system. Are we to say this is the deciding factor? A nervous system? Before which, homicide is impossible?

[Ecmandu]

It's a homicide to be sure.

Let's be clear about this though.

I'll use an analogy I used in another thread and then some...

When you gently fondle the genitals of a one month old baby... does it REALLY have any grasp of it being sexual assault?!?!? No!! Only small kids (not infants) and adults think something is wrong. So really? How much consent does a fetus really have?

But I'll take it a step further... if your mother and father don't want you, what kind of narcissistic arrogant prick would you have to be to not give a shit, heartless!!

You folks want the baby to have true agency ... then treat it like an adult!!!! If my mother didn't want me (and I am an adult now) then FUCK NO!! I wouldn't want to be born!!!

That's called the adult integrity argument for fetuses being aborted. You fucking whiners hate that you might have never been born. GROW UP!!!

If my mother wanted to travel back in time and abort me, I'd let her!!

Act like adults and stop being so damned selfish to this regard. I love my mother enough to give her that right. All you pro lifers don't give a shit about your mothers!!

Does the human species need you selfish pricks, NO, so fuck off.

*drops the mic on "prolifers"*

[promethean75]

i'm amused by the abortion debate because its one of the best existential nuggets there is for proving, beyond any doubt, that despite every attempt to either rationalize or condemn it, it remains forever unresolved. its one of those bitch-of-a-situations that demonstrates the vanity of both science and philosophy in claiming to provide any guidance (vis-a-biggs). there aren't many of these... unresolvable dilemmas, i mean... that accentuate the real absurdity of man's existence. it's one of those most important problems that you'd think nature would give us a break with, ya know? capital punishment- not so difficult. women's suffrage- easy, no problem. homelessness- duh. draft dodging- nah that totally makes sense. minimum wage- absolutely. abort the fetus- fuck.

for a thousand more years thinkers will provide some variation or another of the same basic lines of reason which have to date been used to either support or not support it... and still there will be no closure.

i support abortion, but i'm a nihilist, so being moral or not is never a question for me. if i ever got pregnant i would not hesitate to terminate the little miscreant.

[Meno_]

But what if....... The fetus is a soul?
Then that is drastic an no political twist can argue against it.

Oh not the argument of a crystal soul, of a maggot, or a rook, not the experience of politics, but, that inversion as fun, and thereby the insane woman can claim symbiosis with it, ....
Could the fetus or the mother be severed by lobotomously?


The fetus as soul can gain
conscious right to life , in any case.
Who would fight for their rights?
No one would dare, no one can care!!!!!! And no one would be able to.

Who fears for the crucified?
He was crazy , to give up his god given right to life, for whom?
The swine for whom pearls of wisdom
are as convenient as faux innuendo for and by the unknown, by the soulless ghosts of the invisible twilight, that's it.

And that is unforgiveness!

[Ecmandu]

i'm amused by the abortion debate because its one of the best existential nuggets there is for proving, beyond any doubt, that despite every attempt to either rationalize or condemn it, it remains forever unresolved. its one of those bitch-of-a-situations that demonstrates the vanity of both science and philosophy in claiming to provide any guidance (vis-a-biggs). there aren't many of these... unresolvable dilemmas, i mean... that accentuate the real absurdity of man's existence. it's one of those most important problems that you'd think nature would give us a break with, ya know? capital punishment- not so difficult. women's suffrage- easy, no problem. homelessness- duh. draft dodging- nah that totally makes sense. minimum wage- absolutely. abort the fetus- fuck.

for a thousand more years thinkers will provide some variation or another of the same basic lines of reason which have to date been used to either support or not support it... and still there will be no closure.

i support abortion, but i'm a nihilist, so being moral or not is never a question for me. if i ever got pregnant i would not hesitate to terminate the little miscreant.

I just solved it in the post above. Treat the fetus like an adult.

[Silhouette]

I just solved it in the post above. Treat the fetus like an adult.

Problem of induction though?

Perhaps another identity error between t1 and t2?

You have declared it solved, but let's see if you can incorporate here any of the lessons we've been discussing on the "3 Christs" thread here.

The reason I generally "don't involve myself in topics such as these" is because of what promethean said.
I offered the Dave Chapelle inspired angle because it translates the fundamental philosophy beneath the topic into the Individualism that anti-abortionists usually support in other aspects of their lives, such that they ought to be forced to re-think their stance on abortion in light of this and their own consistency.

This angle throws into ambiguity the classification of the act of abortion as homicide. And in following it, I don't think there's any doubt that after birth, it would be homicide to murder a baby.

You seem to have little aversion to stances such as Antinatalism, from what you've said - but Antinatalism in hindsight is obviously problematic: you can't assume the hindsight in foresight. Hence the problem of induction and identity error.

The object of topics like these may be to identify exactly why it can't be solved, and I think those issues are at the centre of this. Solving is sometimes solving unresolvability.
Assuming it can't be solved, this is in direct conflict with the apparent political desire to make a law either way - which of course is the whole problem.
Maybe Dave Chappelle's joke can be translated into an argument that dispels this political desire.

[Ecmandu]

My argument is simple:

If anti abortionists want to treat them like adults, than do it! Let's not fuck around!

I'm an adult. I love my mother. If she literally could and wanted to go back in time to abort me, I'd let her.

I hate these narcissistic fucks who don't give a shit about anyone but just want to be here.

And those fucks should hate themselves.

I get angry about this, because, I don't think anyone who doesn't consent to their abortion doesn't deserve to be here.

Now think about this for a moment. Who do we really want here in this species?

[promethean75]

"I hate these narcissistic fucks who don't give a shit about anyone but just want to be here."

The truth is I shoulda ended up as a brown stain on the mattress, E, but I didn't. I'm here... and godammit I gotta finish it.

[Ecmandu]

"I hate these narcissistic fucks who don't give a shit about anyone but just want to be here."

The truth is I shoulda ended up as a brown stain on the mattress, E, but I didn't. I'm here... and godammit I gotta finish it.

I'm a "pill baby", (mother was on the pill) - I shouldn't have even been born. My father even wanted my abortion... my mother decided to have me anyways. The odds of me being born are minuscule -- but here I am, pissing a lot of people off by saying true things.

[Meno_]

"I hate these narcissistic fucks who don't give a shit about anyone but just want to be here."

The truth is I shoulda ended up as a brown stain on the mattress, E, but I didn't. I'm here... and godammit I gotta finish it.

Well, it does.sound as a.project, but really who cares or a.stays around OR leaves, if it wasn't for morality everyone would wish they had.never been borne, some are sticker son's and love.the pressure cooker of imagined and well thought out imaginary outcome, but some fetus souls couldn't care less, especially upstaged neophytes.

Indirection calls further direction.
That's what used to call an imaginary optimist.

Pleasure in that ? Like making love.and dealing with inconvenient consequences.

The mother even, would hate that. regardless.

Please spare the child! (In all of us)
But don't ruin the rod.

[Ecmandu]

Btw: I'm not an anti natalist