Morality in Abortion

[Karpel Tunnel]

Jakob wrote:
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.

I don't think the brain has pain receptors. Lobotomies were relatively painless and that was around the eye. Brain tumors can cause pain if they cause high intracranial pressure affecting parts of the head with pain receptors, but they can even do incredible damage without pain, especially the tumors that are more like webs than balls.

[Karpel Tunnel]

"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.

Interesting. I think there's an intermediate position, because why would a soul choose a womb that doesn't want a child. But once that child is here, she has options. But I'm with Ecmandu as far as 'who are these entities that wanta come in via people who will not appreciate it?

[Jakob]

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.

Its not a question of philosophy, so no consensus, no deadlock.

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.

Well this goes for any body part. We don't feel pain until a damage threshold is crossed.

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?

The "up to a point" part is not part of my fetus-proposition, so I think your objection here is disqualified?

[Jakob]

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.

Yes, because the fetus cant speak for itself it will always remain a speculative issue.

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.

Im the opposite value-wise. However I respect your straightforward thinking.

[Jakob]

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"*

At least here's an original perspective.
Let me think about that.

[Jakob]

Jakob wrote:
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.

I don't think the brain has pain receptors. Lobotomies were relatively painless and that was around the eye. Brain tumors can cause pain if they cause high intracranial pressure affecting parts of the head with pain receptors, but they can even do incredible damage without pain, especially the tumors that are more like webs than balls.

But the thing is more than a brain.
You can surely kill a person painlessly but that is still murder.

[Jakob]

"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.

Interesting. I think there's an intermediate position, because why would a soul choose a womb that doesn't want a child. But once that child is here, she has options. But I'm with Ecmandu as far as 'who are these entities that wanta come in via people who will not appreciate it?

Yes, Ecmandu has a point here.
They are entities like Ecmandu though, apparently. (he posted that he was unwanted pregnancy)

[iambiguous]

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.

Actually, my point is aimed more at distinguishing between a frame of mind rooted in dasein -- "I" as an existential contraption -- than in any particular argument that philosophers -- deontologists, utilitarians, consequentialists etc. -- might propose.

But only to the extent that the arguments are aimed at exploring the moral parameters of a particular abortion in a particular context. And not on what is said to be true given the philosophical parameters of one or another theoretical contraption.

In other words, all individual philosophers have one or another existential rendition of the trajectory I note here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

So, when someone asks them for their views on the morality of abortion, to what extent do they intertwine their theoretical constructs in the experiences that they have had with regard to abortion.

That's where I aim the discussion.

[Exuberant Teleportation]

Abortions could happen in my worldview everyday across the clock if only we did this - CLONE 1000 EINSTEINS!!*

Through the power of science and human ingenuity, we can end this disruptive conflict, and bring the right kind of brain into the world, everyday.

I mean laws like murder would say that Einstein's life is the same as Natalie Portman, but really, Einstein is of the Jews, is a chosen Prophet of God - HERE HIM!!*

[Meno_]

Abortions could happen in my worldview everyday across the clock if only we did this - CLONE 1000 EINSTEINS!!*

Through the power of science and human ingenuity, we can end this disruptive conflict, and bring the right kind of brain into the world, everyday.

I mean laws like murder would say that Einstein's life is the same as Natalie Portman, but really, Einstein is of the Jews, is a chosen Prophet of God - HERE HIM!!*

I think cloning is way overrated, unless we presently may be clones.

Personally I do not think that the electric grid that supports our individual psychic energy , does have some relation to our material manifestation, but that view is modified by our current devolution toward ideal types.

That temporality is so inditerminitive as as to make human lifetime relatively a short term affair like a blink of cosmic time generating immense and colossal mixtures of personae, while indifferent to singular and social numbers indifferently, while at the same time effecting infinite individual senses, of almost unending depth.
The energy grid contains both, and what one expects of a monumental colossal channel of consciousness , does not account for less then infinite possibilities and approaching
astounding and revealing near miracles.
Appearances are almost certainly merely mere reflections and shadows of constant change.
Abortion and murder are mere transmigrations , overcoming actual coming to be and ceasing to experience.

[iambiguous]

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.

Okay, so please provide us with your own intertwined recollection of theory and practice here. In the manner in which I provided you mine in my signature thread.

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.

Let's try this...

Given what you construe philosophy does, what are the limitations imposed on serious philosophers in regard to assessing and then evaluating what an individual believes about the morality of abortion; and what can be disclosed here using the tools that are available to philosophers. With religion of course it all comes down to Scripture.

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?

We clearly have a different take on philosophy here. If philosophy, as many construe it, is the search for wisdom, what constitutes wise behavior when confronting moral conflicts? What can we know here? And how can what we think we know be expressed to others logically, rationally, objectively?

You will either take your own "technical" understanding of philosophy here there or you won't. That's entirely up to you. Assuming that 1] we are in possession of free will and 2] you take into account the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here.

You say...

"No, thats not how my world works. I see different interests, not 'wrong' or 'right'".

How then are your own perceived self-interests in regard to the morality of abortion not in turn but the embodiment of "I" as an existential contraption rooted in your own rendition of dasein derived from the life that you lived? Or is all of that existential stuff simply dismissed as beyond the reach [or concern] of the serious philosopher?

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.

Okay, if that works for you, fine. And if this is how you insist serious philosophers should approach conflicting goods in the is/ought world, we can just agree to disagree regarding both the relevance and applicability of philosophy down in the "for all practical purposes" realm of actual human interactions.

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.

Suppose a serious philosopher does become involved in a context in which an abortion is involved. How would he or she go about acquiring the necessary experiences to adequately judge the character of the woman choosing an abortion; and how would he or she go about assessing her short and long term interests? Or does he or she go up to the woman and say, "I'm a serious philosopher, so there's not much I can tell you."

That, in turn, the arguments of folks like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant etc. are of limited value to her? Depending entirely on how many personal experiences they themselves had with abortion?

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?

Before we get to God, please respond to the point I raised about moral laws being used to regulate our behaviors.

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?

Is there an actual set of objective criteria able to establish if one speaks of God seriously? Or does that more or less come down to others speaking of Him as you do?

If God is invoked in a discussion of the morality of abortion, how does the serious philosopher go about assessing the worth of the arguments?

Let's bring that down to a particular context.

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.

You raised Creation here. You will either connect the dots between what you mean by it, how you construe the meaning of philosophy, and your own personal assessment of the morality of abortion or you won't.

In other words, I would be most interested in witnessing someone making the point you do here to folks outside an abortion clinic. Explaining to those both for and against abortion the philosophical implications of "morality always being tyrannical." Making certain they are familiar with exactly what philosophers can and cannot tell them about killing the unborn.

...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.

What does any of this have to do with what I am asking of you above? And these experiences do pertain to the manner in which you construe objective truth, right?

How would you explain value ontology to those who are in fact interested in connecting the dots between philosophy and the morality of abortion?

[iambiguous]

Abortions could happen in my worldview everyday across the clock if only we did this - CLONE 1000 EINSTEINS!!*

Through the power of science and human ingenuity, we can end this disruptive conflict, and bring the right kind of brain into the world, everyday.

I mean laws like murder would say that Einstein's life is the same as Natalie Portman, but really, Einstein is of the Jews, is a chosen Prophet of God - HERE HIM!!*

Let's take this argument to a context in which those who condemn abortion are confronting those who support it. Gauge their reaction to it.

[iambiguous]

Yo, Jakob, you're up!

[barbarianhorde]

You say...

"No, thats not how my world works. I see different interests, not 'wrong' or 'right'".

How then are your own perceived self-interests in regard to the morality of abortion not in turn but the embodiment of "I" as an existential contraption rooted in your own rendition of dasein derived from the life that you lived? Or is all of that existential stuff simply dismissed as beyond the reach [or concern] of the serious philosopher?

Speaking for Jakob -
Beyond concern, absolutely.

We can only observe when and why abortion becomes a natural choice for women and couples. Namely, when they are degenerate, or active part at least of a degenerate culture.
Abortions occur, naturally, in environments in which childbirths aren't considered a blessing but a curse.
This is all philosophy can observe.
It cant say whether this is wrong or right. Abortion just logically indicates biological decline, which is part of the circle of life.
Now a moralist may want to take an active stance and convince weary life to procreate anyway. But that is not philosophy. Maybe you have an example to the contrary? I don't think Plato or Descartes ever got near this issue, and when it is a question of the golden rule, then that is just a question after the meaning and value of life, which brings us back to the question of health versus decay. A healthy culture will have very few abortions.

I would be most interested in witnessing someone making the point you do here to folks outside an abortion clinic. Explaining to those both for and against abortion the philosophical implications of "morality always being tyrannical." Making certain they are familiar with exactly what philosophers can and cannot tell them about killing the unborn.

Oh yeah? Thats nice.
Yeah I think it would play out fairly well. Everyone would understand.

So in short, Jakobs answer is that when a woman wants an abortion, look at her world. She loathes that world and doesn't want a perpetual investment in it. Pregnancy anchors a woman in her world.
Legalizing abortion entirely would be of little consequence in a healthy culture. In a declining one it is following Nietzsches advice about helping decaying natures on their way down, speeding up the process. And thats no doubt why marxist and Islamic fronts push for abortion in the west.

You ask, is this good or bad?
I ask, for whom?

[iambiguous]

You say...

"No, thats not how my world works. I see different interests, not 'wrong' or 'right'".

How then are your own perceived self-interests in regard to the morality of abortion not in turn but the embodiment of "I" as an existential contraption rooted in your own rendition of dasein derived from the life that you lived? Or is all of that existential stuff simply dismissed as beyond the reach [or concern] of the serious philosopher?

Speaking for Jakob -
Beyond concern, absolutely.

We can only observe when and why abortion becomes a natural choice for women and couples. Namely, when they are degenerate, or active part at least of a degenerate culture.
Abortions occur, naturally, in environments in which childbirths aren't considered a blessing but a curse.
This is all philosophy can observe.
It cant say whether this is wrong or right. Abortion just logically indicates biological decline, which is part of the circle of life.
Now a moralist may want to take an active stance and convince weary life to procreate anyway. But that is not philosophy. Maybe you have an example to the contrary? I don't think Plato or Descartes ever got near this issue, and when it is a question of the golden rule, then that is just a question after the meaning and value of life, which brings us back to the question of health versus decay. A healthy culture will have very few abortions.

You seem [he seems] to be suggesting that, technically, serious philosophers -- as with serious scientists -- don't spend much time in the is/ought world. In other words, contemplating the existential interaction between identity, value judgments and political economy.

That the seach for philosophical wisdom here basically follows the path that Wittgenstein forged: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

And, in my own way, seeing "I" as an existential contraption shaped and molded from the cradle to the grave by contingency. chance and change, I basically agree.

But here you are coming to your own moral and political conclusions on various issues in various threads as though this is "for all practical purposes" moot.

Still, for those do choose to engage with others in social interactions, these existential leaps are perforce a necessary factor in their lives. Then [for me] it just becomes a matter of the extent to which they see their own "I" here as "fractured and fragmented" in being down in the "hole" that I am in.

The part I explore in more detail here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

The part, in my view, that you/Jakob basically shunt aside by subsuming his/your own particular understanding of "I" here [intellectually] in, among other things, VO.

I would be most interested in witnessing someone making the point you do here to folks outside an abortion clinic. Explaining to those both for and against abortion the philosophical implications of "morality always being tyrannical." Making certain they are familiar with exactly what philosophers can and cannot tell them about killing the unborn.

Oh yeah? Thats nice.
Yeah I think it would play out fairly well. Everyone would understand.

Actually, I think they would conclude that Jakob and his highly technical philosophical contraptions have almost nothing at all to do with anything that actually matters to them in regard to aborting or not aborting the unborn.

And, if that is how you would like others to approach philosophy in regard to conflicting goods as the embodiment of dasein in a world where political power ultimately prevails, fine.

We can just agree that other philosophers will have different takes on it and move on.

So in short, Jakobs answer is that when a woman wants an abortion, look at her world. She loathes that world and doesn't want a perpetual investment in it. Pregnancy anchors a woman in her world.

A woman? Does he mean all women here? And that your answer here is not just an existential contraption in and of itself? That it is not just a particular political prejudice rooted in dasein, but reflects the most rational manner in which to approach particular women in particular sets of circumstances confronting -- existentially -- an unwanted pregnancy?

Legalizing abortion entirely would be of little consequence in a healthy culture. In a declining one it is following Nietzsches advice about helping decaying natures on their way down, speeding up the process. And thats no doubt why marxist and Islamic fronts push for abortion in the west.

Same here? This is not just one more "general description" of abortion as a moral and political conflagration, but reflects the optimal point of view all serious philosophers must come to? Where do you/he draw the line here?

Again, in my view, if you/he were to bring this to the attention of actual flesh and blood human beings dealing with the wrenching calamities embedded in an actual unwanted pregnancy, they would look at you in a way that, in my view, speaks volumes regarding how many view philosophy in the world today.

Either it can be made relevant to the lives that we live or it remains but one or another rendition of Will Durant's epistemological contraptions:

"In the end it is dishonesty that breeds the sterile intellectualism of contemporary speculation. A man who is not certain of his mental integrity shuns the vital problems of human existence; at any moment the great laboratory of life may explode his little lie and leave him naked and shivering in the face of truth. So he builds himself an ivory tower of esoteric tomes and professionally philosophical periodicals; he is comfortable only in their company...he wanders farther and farther away from his time and place, and from the problems that absorb his people and his century. The vast concerns that properly belong to philosophy do not concern him...He retreats into a little corner, and insulates himself from the world under layer and layer of technical terminology. He ceases to be a philosopher, and becomes an epistemologist."

Only, alas, my own reaction to this -- fractured and fragmented and down in my hole like Dostoevsky's underground man -- is, in it's own way, just as demoralizing.

You ask, is this good or bad?
I ask, for whom?

No, I ask how a particular individual living a particular life out in a particular world historically, culturally and experiential, comes to acquire [existentially] actual points of view about good and bad behaviors, given the manner in which I construe human interactions here in my signature threads.

I ask "for whom?" too. But my own understanding of how one comes to acquire a sense of identity here in regard to the morality of abortion, is only more or less in sync with yours. I too note the extent to which philosophy is of limited value in regard to value judgments. I would just never construe this as an ontological assessment.



Note to others:

Just out of curiosity...

This Fixed Cross, Jakob, barbarianhorde thing...is this anything like the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost?

Seriously though, if they are all the same person, what do you suppose the point is? Are they characters he plays here?

Me, I don't care what one chooses to call themselves at ILP. I'm only interested in what they actually have to say about identity, value judgments, political power, determinism and the really big questions facing us all.

[iambiguous]

Yo, fixed jakob the barbarian, you're up!

[Silhouette]

Actually, my point is aimed more at distinguishing between a frame of mind rooted in dasein -- "I" as an existential contraption -- than in any particular argument that philosophers -- deontologists, utilitarians, consequentialists etc. -- might propose.

But only to the extent that the arguments are aimed at exploring the moral parameters of a particular abortion in a particular context. And not on what is said to be true given the philosophical parameters of one or another theoretical contraption.

In other words, all individual philosophers have one or another existential rendition of the trajectory I note here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

So, when someone asks them for their views on the morality of abortion, to what extent do they intertwine their theoretical constructs in the experiences that they have had with regard to abortion.

That's where I aim the discussion.

As far as I understand this approach, it seems to me to frame each view within its own unique context.

The consequence of such an approach would be that views resist comparison, to the extent that highly variable contexts, and people themselves differ.

As such, I suppose the purpose is not to universalise answers across all people, or objectivise answers independent of subjective variation, but instead to compare different causes for each outlook. This defies the political aim to universalise a single law across all people irrespective of their experiences that form their different outlooks, and seems to foster a more empathic understanding and exchanging of stories to perhaps individualise legal cases and attribute blame variably across a population dependent on the deterministic factors they've encountered in their life.

I think Dave Chapelle was attempting to relate his outlook universally - that appears to be the intention of comedy, at least limited to the audience a comedian attracts - rather than exclude himself as a special case that gets to choose as a consequence of his unique experience and individual authentic interaction with it.
However, I do find it an attractive notion to tailor law to individuals instead of imposing a singular rule across all of society. Bespoke law, as opposed to prêt-à-porter law sounds more comfortable

Interestingly, this ought to be attractive to the individualist-minded of us, but I think it actually works the other way around.
Individualists, who champion Free Will and personal responsibility seem to me to prefer singular society-wide law, whereas Socialists, who champion Determinism and social responsibility seem to me to prefer to take circumstances into account when it comes to law. Abortion is a perfect example, where the deontological Conservatives favour anti-abortion for all, where consequentialist Progressives favour individual choice on the matter.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Abortion is a perfect example, where the deontological Conservatives favour anti-abortion for all, where consequentialist Progressives favour individual choice on the matter.

And of course they each use the opposite type of argument - Conservatives talking about the suffering all the women they know who had abortions go through after, for example. And progressives talking about rights to one's own body. Religious conservatives, it seems to me are in a very tricky position since presumably God takes these babies to Heaven - and if he doesn't......????? So that area much be uncomfortable.
Here's the way one Catholic keeps it 'up in the air' so to speak...
https://www.catholicherald.com/faith/yo ... o_heaven_/
But notice that this undecided format should still be very disturbing, because either babies get to Heaven and are happy forever, which is really not something to get worked up about OR God treats the innocent as poorly as abortionists do. But because it is undecided I think most Catholics probably avoid noticing that either possible conclusion is problematic.

I guess my point is that everybody is rather ad hoc. Progessives probably judge conservatives, on this issue, for their epistemology. But in the end they rely on apriori knowledge also. And conservatives tend to think progressives have no values, but they are actually remarkably similar to the Conservatives.

[iambiguous]

Actually, my point is aimed more at distinguishing between a frame of mind rooted in dasein -- "I" as an existential contraption -- than in any particular argument that philosophers -- deontologists, utilitarians, consequentialists etc. -- might propose.

But only to the extent that the arguments are aimed at exploring the moral parameters of a particular abortion in a particular context. And not on what is said to be true given the philosophical parameters of one or another theoretical contraption.

In other words, all individual philosophers have one or another existential rendition of the trajectory I note here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

So, when someone asks them for their views on the morality of abortion, to what extent do they intertwine their theoretical constructs in the experiences that they have had with regard to abortion.

That's where I aim the discussion.

As far as I understand this approach, it seems to me to frame each view within its own unique context.

Unless someone is able to construct an argument aimed at including all abortions -- a universal morality? -- that seems reasonable to me.

Provided of course that the argument is able to be demonstrated as, for all practical purposes, applicable to all unwanted pregnancies.

The consequence of such an approach would be that views resist comparison, to the extent that highly variable contexts, and people themselves differ.

The comparisons here would seem to be only more or less applicable. Obviously, in any particular historical and cultural context, there are going to be factors that overlap. But the closer you get down to the individual experience, the greater it would seem to be distinct from the experiences of others.

As such, I suppose the purpose is not to universalise answers across all people, or objectivise answers independent of subjective variation, but instead to compare different causes for each outlook.

For all practical purposes what else is there? It's just that for me and my ilk, we are still down in our holes. Each of our individual "selves" being fractured and fragmented beyond being able to embrace one side or the other. Instead, we can only acknowledge that given conflicting goods both sides [all sides] are able to propose reasonable arguments based on conflicting sets of assumptions regarding that which is said to constitute the "human condition".

This defies the political aim to universalise a single law across all people irrespective of their experiences that form their different outlooks, and seems to foster a more empathic understanding and exchanging of stories to perhaps individualise legal cases and attribute blame variably across a population dependent on the deterministic factors they've encountered in their life.

In fact, the focus on empathy in relationship to human morality was explored here in a Philosophy Now book review:
https://philosophynow.org/issues/116/Em ... d_Morality

For me though, empathy, while clearly embedded in human biological imperatives, is no less rooted memetically in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

[Ecmandu]

Iambiguous,

I already gave a proof for pro choice in this thread.

You thought that impossible. So you're slowly being backed into a corner by me

Now it's "what about a specific woman?"

The whole point of pro choice is that we don't dictate those decisions with some algorithm

You'll never find this proof by definition.

So really, to 'make your point' you're debating people to the absurd.

[Arcturus Descending]

Ecmandu,

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.

That is an easy thing for you to say but you cannot really know that and since it cannot ever happen (at least I do not think that it could lol)...
How much of an "adult' can you be if you would allow your mother to go back and abort you? Why would you not fight her tooth and nail?
You seem to greatly value everything in this forum, from your perspective, which you put in here as being real and truth and yet you do not value your own life in such a way?
You do realize, do you not, that if you allowed your mother to abort you the world could never, would never have known all of your so-called truths? It would be as though they had never existed at all?
Is there not a kind of selfishness involved in your just allowing her to destroy you?
Would she not in some way be violating your consent and would you not in some way be violating your own consent to exist?

[Ecmandu]

Arcturus,

Most people are innately, existentially, frustreted that they never could have been born.

These are the people that we don't want to populate the earth.

Yes there is 5th dimensional space and time where these decisions can be made

[surreptitious75]

You dont need to access another dimension of space and time if you regret ever being born
As there is suicide or death by natural causes that will take care of that particular problem
Also you could give your life purpose or meaning so that you did not regret ever being born

[Ecmandu]

You dont need to access another dimension of space and time if you regret ever being born
As there is suicide or death by natural causes that will take care of that particular problem
Also you could give your life purpose or meaning so that you did not regret ever being born

I've given it to you in proof form, but still, instead of responding to the proof itself, you keep saying this over and over again!

We don't die dude.

[promethean75]

*nods*

Sing it with me, E: you can't kill me