Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!laura From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: Re: killing human beings [Mostly reply to Laura] Message-ID: <3704@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Sat, 31-Mar-84 03:04:03 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.3704 Posted: Sat Mar 31 03:04:03 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 31-Mar-84 03:04:03 EST References: <215@ihnp1.UUCP>, <366@denelcor.UUCP>, <1285@sdccs6.UUCP>, <3681@utzoo.UUCP>, <1311@sdccs6.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 115 Kenn, I know lots about abstract thinking. I am arguing from the classic Objectivist opinion. My bottom postulates are that ``humn life is good'' and ``a fetus may be a human being''. The conclusion that follows is that you do not kill a fetus unless you can demonstrate that it is not a human being. This is purely logical. Whatever basic premises you have include ``even if the fetus is human then one should be allowed to kill it''. Therefore you believe that something other than ``human life is good'' as a bottom premise. You believe that the woman's right to live for 9 months in the way that she chooses takes precedence over the fetus' right to life, even if the fetus is human. The question is, where do these rights to of the mother come from? The Objectivist answer is as follows: First -- the right to life Second -- Property rights (since it is necessary to posess the means to maintain one's life) all otehr rights are derived from Property rights. Therfore you can not kill me (deprive me of my life) or rob from me (take away my property), or a whole lot of other things which most people find morally wrong. You, however, cannot be arguing from this position because you do not think that the fetus (which I am going to call a human fetus since typing ``which may be a human being'' is getting boring and you have already said that the humanity of the fetus is not important) has a fundamental right to life. Therfore, rights to life must be decided on some other objective basis than being human (and I am waiting to see what that one is) or cannot be decided objectively at all. If they cannot be decided objectively then there is no point in logic, since they will all be subjective decision based on what one *wants* rather than what is objectively right. * * * Utilitarianism does not wash. Suppose there is no objective right to human life. Therefore a pregnant woman can abort a human fetus because she does not want to go through a pegnancy for 8-9 months. Okay, suppose Gary Samuelson and I decide that your existence really pisses us off. Indeed, we think that we are going to be miserable for the next 8 or 9 months just because we are aware that you exist. Do we have the right to go down and kill you? Note -- this is not the same thing as saying that we do not have the choice to kill you. I can always choose to kill you. Currently, however, if I kill you I will be commiting a crime. What shall you do to justify your existence? You cannot claim as I would that human existence is justification enough because that would be justification enough for the human fetus. Suppose you say ``but I matter to me.'' Okay. There are still 2 of us and one of you. Does that make it morally justifiable for us to kill you? Suppose you got 40 people who would be upset that you were killed to testify on your behalf. Would you then be safe unless I got 50 people to testify that we would get a lot of pleasure out of knowing htat you were dead and a lot of anguish out of knowing that you are alive? How are you going to measure the anguish that you will feel over being killed against the happiness I claim to experience through killing you? the whole idea of measuring them is absurd. You can not sum up happiness and misery this way. Utilitarianism is thus fundamentally flawed. You can not do what you are claiming to do because there is no way a) that you can see all the consequences of every action and b) that you can calculate the happiness/misery produced by these actions. Therefore I accuse you (and all utilitarians) of sloppy thinking. You can not do what you are claiming to do with the happiness-equation. This implies that whatever reason you have for making you decision is in no way constrained to be logical, because your methods are not logical. If you arrive at a logical conclusion it will be by chance, and not through any virtue of your method. It is likely that you will end up concluding whatever you wanted to conclude under such a condition. I believe that any ethical system which is not based on the premise of the innate value of human life will be a subjective ethics based on whim rather than objective truths, and that any subjective system is not logical. I would be interested in seeing any other logical system, but I have not found any yet despite looking. * * * * I talked about criminals because somebody (Scott Anderson?) claimed that most adopted children will have a rotten life which will lead to delinquancy. The facts I have bear this out. * * * * You parsed at least one sentence incorrectly. It was not that the 14 year old had a 13 year old fetus, but that if you were going to sacrifice the baby rather than the fetus on the basis of age then to be consistent you must sacrifice a 13 year old rather than a 14 year old. If this is not your conclusion then other things enter into your decision which you are not mentioning and they are relavant to whether you should decide to abort a fetus as well. * * * * Incidentally, it is generally considered that the tactic of insulting those who disagree with you (such as calling them a moron) is the illogical man's way to argue. There is an excellent article about this called ``the argument from inimidation'' in *The Virtue of Selfishness*. I am exceedingly angry with you, but you notice that I have not called you a moron. The worst I did was to hypotheticallly propose to kill you. As far as logic goes, I'd say that I am at least one up. -- Laura Creighton utzoo!laura "Capitalism is a lot of fun. If you aren't having fun, then you're not doing it right." -- toad terrific