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From: anderson@ittvax.UUCP (Scott Anderson)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: black/white/grey wrt Laura's axioms
Message-ID: <1364@ittvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Apr-84 10:59:46 EST
Article-I.D.: ittvax.1364
Posted: Thu Apr  5 10:59:46 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Apr-84 02:49:41 EST
Lines: 61

I have great respect for Laura Creighton's intelligence, which
is why I was surprised at the foolishness of her last article--
the one about black, white, and grey.  Perhaps I misunderstood.

Laura says:

    Before anyone can identify something as grey one must first be able
    to recognise white and black. In the field of moral judgements this
    requires being able to determine what is good and what is evil.
    However, once one has determined this there can be no justification
    for choosing the grey -- one should go for the white. Moral
    blackness involves pretending to oneself that one is ``merely
    grey'' rather than recognising that one is persuing evil to a great
    extent.

Of course one should "go for the white," but the problem is that there
isn't any hard decision in the real world in which one of the possible
options is entirely white.  Each choice invariablely has good effects
("white" for those of you who need color-coding) and bad effects (black)
and so the result is, metaphorically speaking, grey.  In making a hard
decision, one examines, as deeply as one can, all the effects of each
choice, and then one tries to pick the one that has the most good (white)
and the least bad (black).  One chooses the lightest shade of grey.

An example is in order.  Using only Laura's postulate that "Life is
good" and the theorem "anything which preserves or enhances life is
good," I submit the following hard decision:  While camping with two
friends that are hyperallegic to @i(Hymenoptera) (bees, wasps, ants,
etc.), you stumble on a large hornets nest and everybody gets stung
badly.  Both friends are lying on the ground in the throes of
anaphylactic shock, and cardiac arrest and death are imminent.  Because
of the severity of the attack, you don't have enough epinephrine
(adrenalin) to save everyone, but you have SOME.  Give the injection to
either person and that person might live (you never know; there's no
such thing as a sure bet).  Give half to each and they'll probably both
die.  Give the injection to George (a "good") and Sally dies (a "bad"),
and vice versa.  Or give some to both--betting on a double good versus
a double bad.  We've got three choices and there are NO white ones.
They're all grey.  Welcome to the world that Hamlet (as in "To be or
not to be") and Sophie (as in the movie @i(Sophie's Choice)) live in:
a world of hard choices.

Just because you have an opinion about what the right answer is
(whatever "right answer" means), does not mean that the option you
chose was white and the options you rejected were black.  It does not
mean that anyone who disagrees with your choice and makes a different
one is wrong.  In the example above, the Don Quixote/Sir Lancelot in me
might well up and I'd save Sally over George merely because she had two
X chromosomes.  "That's a silly reason," you say.  But would I be
wrong?  Well, Sally would be alive, and that's not all bad.

I believe that the answer to 99% (or some high proportion) of all abstract
moral questions is:  it depends.  It depends on the particulars of the
concrete case--the people involved, their feelings, strength, means, etc.
For some sets of people, the answer may be "yes," while for other sets
the answer may be "no."  (What's the question?  I don't know.)

I believe that abortion is such a question.

Scott D. Anderson
decvax!ittvax!anderson