|
On June 18 2013 19:19 MiraMax wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2013 13:11 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 12:10 Acrofales wrote:On June 18 2013 11:24 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 10:47 codonbyte wrote:On June 18 2013 09:45 CallMeLukas wrote:On June 18 2013 08:41 codonbyte wrote:
A fetus on the other hand is physically bound to the woman who is carrying it and therefore doesn't have the same rights as a child outside the womb. So a difference in environment is what grants rights? If not, then where do you draw the line between "abortion is ok" and "abortion is murder?" Following your argument, abortion should be ok right up until birth. Actually, by my argument abortion would not be legal right up until birth because there is a period of time before birth where the fetus would be able to survive outside the womb, and hence abortion would only be legal up until that point, not right up until birth. What's so great about surviving outside the womb? Doesn't it depend upon our own technology? If so, doesn't that suggest that your standard for human life changes as human technology changes, meaning it is a pointless and arbitrary definition for life? If we reach the technology capable of providing a single cell to full human maturity, are all of the hypocrites here going to suddenly accept the premise that life begins at conception, since that is when it can survive outside the womb? Obviously not... It's all complete bullshit, I'm sorry to say. You people have absolutely no reasoning behind your lines drawn in the sand, you just want a line drawn in the sand, period. Just be honest with yourselves and say that you support abortion because it is convenient, but cannot justify it from a moral perspective. It is perfectly fine to say "I reject morality if it is inconvenient," since that is what the majority of human beings do anyway. Morality is meaningless. As I stated before, it is all evolved emotions, and emotions are not absolutes. No. You are guilty of a reductio ad absurdum. While there are a number of different periods in which ethicists argue that abortion can be ethical, they depend largely on what makes a human being human. Being a zygote does not make it human (at least imho). When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that it is somewhere between the first brain activity and birth. Brain activity is a precondition for consciousness, but is clearly not a sufficient precondition (plenty of animals with a brain are not considered conscious). Because we don't know, using "viability outside the uterus" is a fairly decent proxy (and also coincided decently with when higher brain function starts). Umm, reductio ad absurdum is a perfectly valid form of argument, so I have no idea where you get the idea that someone can be "guilty" of it. And no, "viability outside the uterus" is a horrible proxy for determining life, for the reasons I've already listed. The simple truth is that there is no truth, there is no objective, outside of human thinking definition for what makes a human. It is simply whatever we decide or define it to be. Normally people will define moral concepts around what they feel emotionally. Some people feel absolutely nothing for a "clump of cells," while others feel an empathetic connection to it because it has the potential of a grown human being. Neither side is objectively right or wrong, but either way it is absurd to randomly draw the line at surviving on it's own. This isn't about morality, it is about refuting arguments that are patently absurd. No offense, but you really seem to be he worst kind of relativist to me (relativist out of convenience). Take any chair and remove a single atom. Is it still a chair? Most people would probably say yes. Now successively take all matter away atom per atom at what point does the remaining atoms stop being a chair? If the fact that there might be no "objectively correct answer" to this question leads you to conclude that "there are no chairs" or that "there are no relevant differences between chairs and tables, then I am afraid you have nothing of substance to add to this or any kind of concrete discussion other than "it's all relative"! In the real world we understand that ontology is no simple binary matter (it is or it is not), but that doesn't mean the drawn conclusions are "arbitrary". Try to answer me this: at what exact point does a human being die? Is there even a correct answer? Now what do you conclude with regard to the relevance between being alive and dead? "There is none" or "It's merely up to human definition"?
Every concept is up to human definition. Sorry if this fact bothers you, but it is the truth, and says nothing about me personally to state it. People have much difficulty understanding this, for some reason. 90% of philosophical or metaphysical problems can be shrugged away by understanding that concepts and words are things we humans made up, and they are whatever we choose them to be. Imagine someone making up a sound from their mouth and then dozens of people arguing with each other over the meaning of the sound, as though it can be deduced logically.
So as to your question of when a chair stops becoming a chair, again, it would have to hinge on what we specifically define a chair to be. If this question is impossible to answer, it simply means our definition is vague and lacking, which is really true of most words or concepts. That can't be helped, we would go crazy trying to make perfect definitions, it can't be done.
All that we can do is realize that we humans invented concepts such as "life," and therefore debating on when life becomes life is a futile exercise, since it isn't some objective criteria that can be determined empirically or a priori, it is whatever we decide it is, and the decision is necessarily arbitrary, or, if you will, dependent upon capricious human emotions. Look at your own statement.
When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that
Yes, it is just a feeling. And not everyone has the same feelings. The best we can hope for is at least to keep our feelings fairly consistent across time so that we aren't constantly confusing ourselves and each other with our own words. This is why defining life to mean "can it survive outside the womb" is a horrible line drawn in the sand, because it is a criteria which is constantly shifting with time. Definitions, especially one's as morally significant as "life," should not change with the wind.
|
On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good.
Your inherent assumption here is that women didn't want to be coddled in such a manner. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights, and the responsibilities associated with them, because throughout most of history doing so was far more beneficial. For nearly all of human history, the male gender role has been subject to substantially higher mortality rates. There's a reason why we are descended from twice as many women as men.
Simply put, women went along with it. There's also ample evidence from both recent and ancient history that women perpetuated and reinforced these gender roles. The reasonable conclusion is that they did so for their own benefit, because it was a system that worked for them better than the alternatives. These same "oppressive" societies often venerated women.
Please tell me you're not going to argue that women are so weak and helpless that they allowed themselves to be "oppressed" for millennia.
|
On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. Your inherent assumption here is that women didn't want to be coddled in such a manner.
Yeah, that's enough sunprince for today.
|
On June 19 2013 02:11 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. Your inherent assumption here is that women didn't want to be coddled in such a manner. Yeah, that's enough sunprince for today.
He's actually making some very interesting arguments here. Just because something is politically incorrect does not render it untrue.
|
On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights
[citation needed]
On June 19 2013 02:15 datcirclejerk wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:11 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. Your inherent assumption here is that women didn't want to be coddled in such a manner. Yeah, that's enough sunprince for today. He's actually making some very interesting arguments here. Just because something is politically incorrect does not render it untrue.
And just because something is politically incorrect does not make it true.
|
On June 19 2013 02:15 datcirclejerk wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:11 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. Your inherent assumption here is that women didn't want to be coddled in such a manner. Yeah, that's enough sunprince for today. He's actually making some very interesting arguments here. Just because something is politically incorrect does not render it untrue.
I once heard a very interesting and creative argument by a creationist against the validity of evolutionary theory. It was still utterly dishonest, biased, and not worth discussing.
Frankly, debating on forums is already a very difficult medium through which you can change a person's mind; if someone starts from radically different premises than you, it's not really worth the time to argue with them, in my experience.
|
On June 19 2013 02:09 datcirclejerk wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2013 19:19 MiraMax wrote:On June 18 2013 13:11 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 12:10 Acrofales wrote:On June 18 2013 11:24 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 10:47 codonbyte wrote:On June 18 2013 09:45 CallMeLukas wrote:On June 18 2013 08:41 codonbyte wrote:
A fetus on the other hand is physically bound to the woman who is carrying it and therefore doesn't have the same rights as a child outside the womb. So a difference in environment is what grants rights? If not, then where do you draw the line between "abortion is ok" and "abortion is murder?" Following your argument, abortion should be ok right up until birth. Actually, by my argument abortion would not be legal right up until birth because there is a period of time before birth where the fetus would be able to survive outside the womb, and hence abortion would only be legal up until that point, not right up until birth. What's so great about surviving outside the womb? Doesn't it depend upon our own technology? If so, doesn't that suggest that your standard for human life changes as human technology changes, meaning it is a pointless and arbitrary definition for life? If we reach the technology capable of providing a single cell to full human maturity, are all of the hypocrites here going to suddenly accept the premise that life begins at conception, since that is when it can survive outside the womb? Obviously not... It's all complete bullshit, I'm sorry to say. You people have absolutely no reasoning behind your lines drawn in the sand, you just want a line drawn in the sand, period. Just be honest with yourselves and say that you support abortion because it is convenient, but cannot justify it from a moral perspective. It is perfectly fine to say "I reject morality if it is inconvenient," since that is what the majority of human beings do anyway. Morality is meaningless. As I stated before, it is all evolved emotions, and emotions are not absolutes. No. You are guilty of a reductio ad absurdum. While there are a number of different periods in which ethicists argue that abortion can be ethical, they depend largely on what makes a human being human. Being a zygote does not make it human (at least imho). When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that it is somewhere between the first brain activity and birth. Brain activity is a precondition for consciousness, but is clearly not a sufficient precondition (plenty of animals with a brain are not considered conscious). Because we don't know, using "viability outside the uterus" is a fairly decent proxy (and also coincided decently with when higher brain function starts). Umm, reductio ad absurdum is a perfectly valid form of argument, so I have no idea where you get the idea that someone can be "guilty" of it. And no, "viability outside the uterus" is a horrible proxy for determining life, for the reasons I've already listed. The simple truth is that there is no truth, there is no objective, outside of human thinking definition for what makes a human. It is simply whatever we decide or define it to be. Normally people will define moral concepts around what they feel emotionally. Some people feel absolutely nothing for a "clump of cells," while others feel an empathetic connection to it because it has the potential of a grown human being. Neither side is objectively right or wrong, but either way it is absurd to randomly draw the line at surviving on it's own. This isn't about morality, it is about refuting arguments that are patently absurd. No offense, but you really seem to be he worst kind of relativist to me (relativist out of convenience). Take any chair and remove a single atom. Is it still a chair? Most people would probably say yes. Now successively take all matter away atom per atom at what point does the remaining atoms stop being a chair? If the fact that there might be no "objectively correct answer" to this question leads you to conclude that "there are no chairs" or that "there are no relevant differences between chairs and tables, then I am afraid you have nothing of substance to add to this or any kind of concrete discussion other than "it's all relative"! In the real world we understand that ontology is no simple binary matter (it is or it is not), but that doesn't mean the drawn conclusions are "arbitrary". Try to answer me this: at what exact point does a human being die? Is there even a correct answer? Now what do you conclude with regard to the relevance between being alive and dead? "There is none" or "It's merely up to human definition"? Every concept is up to human definition. Sorry if this fact bothers you, but it is the truth, and says nothing about me personally to state it. People have much difficulty understanding this, for some reason. 90% of philosophical or metaphysical problems can be shrugged away by understanding that concepts and words are things we humans made up, and they are whatever we choose them to be. Imagine someone making up a sound from their mouth and then dozens of people arguing with each other over the meaning of the sound, as though it can be deduced logically. So as to your question of when a chair stops becoming a chair, again, it would have to hinge on what we specifically define a chair to be. If this question is impossible to answer, it simply means our definition is vague and lacking, which is really true of most words or concepts. That can't be helped, we would go crazy trying to make perfect definitions, it can't be done. All that we can do is realize that we humans invented concepts such as "life," and therefore debating on when life becomes life is a futile exercise, since it isn't some objective criteria that can be determined empirically or a priori, it is whatever we decide it is, and the decision is necessarily arbitrary, or, if you will, dependent upon capricious human emotions. Look at your own statement. Show nested quote +When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that Yes, it is just a feeling. And not everyone has the same feelings. The best we can hope for is at least to keep our feelings fairly consistent across time so that we aren't constantly confusing ourselves and each other with our own words. This is why defining life to mean "can it survive outside the womb" is a horrible line drawn in the sand, because it is a criteria which is constantly shifting with time. Definitions should not change with the wind.
You bring up a pretty interesting argument but the conclusion you draw from your own words is entirely incorrect. Everything you state actually points to the idea that definitions should in fact change as we see fit, as we're the one making up the definitions in the first place.
By your reasoning, the definitions should not be kept consistent across time, they should instead undergo constant change to reflect the society that currently use the words.
|
On June 19 2013 02:19 Stol wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:09 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 19:19 MiraMax wrote:On June 18 2013 13:11 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 12:10 Acrofales wrote:On June 18 2013 11:24 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 10:47 codonbyte wrote:On June 18 2013 09:45 CallMeLukas wrote:On June 18 2013 08:41 codonbyte wrote:
A fetus on the other hand is physically bound to the woman who is carrying it and therefore doesn't have the same rights as a child outside the womb. So a difference in environment is what grants rights? If not, then where do you draw the line between "abortion is ok" and "abortion is murder?" Following your argument, abortion should be ok right up until birth. Actually, by my argument abortion would not be legal right up until birth because there is a period of time before birth where the fetus would be able to survive outside the womb, and hence abortion would only be legal up until that point, not right up until birth. What's so great about surviving outside the womb? Doesn't it depend upon our own technology? If so, doesn't that suggest that your standard for human life changes as human technology changes, meaning it is a pointless and arbitrary definition for life? If we reach the technology capable of providing a single cell to full human maturity, are all of the hypocrites here going to suddenly accept the premise that life begins at conception, since that is when it can survive outside the womb? Obviously not... It's all complete bullshit, I'm sorry to say. You people have absolutely no reasoning behind your lines drawn in the sand, you just want a line drawn in the sand, period. Just be honest with yourselves and say that you support abortion because it is convenient, but cannot justify it from a moral perspective. It is perfectly fine to say "I reject morality if it is inconvenient," since that is what the majority of human beings do anyway. Morality is meaningless. As I stated before, it is all evolved emotions, and emotions are not absolutes. No. You are guilty of a reductio ad absurdum. While there are a number of different periods in which ethicists argue that abortion can be ethical, they depend largely on what makes a human being human. Being a zygote does not make it human (at least imho). When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that it is somewhere between the first brain activity and birth. Brain activity is a precondition for consciousness, but is clearly not a sufficient precondition (plenty of animals with a brain are not considered conscious). Because we don't know, using "viability outside the uterus" is a fairly decent proxy (and also coincided decently with when higher brain function starts). Umm, reductio ad absurdum is a perfectly valid form of argument, so I have no idea where you get the idea that someone can be "guilty" of it. And no, "viability outside the uterus" is a horrible proxy for determining life, for the reasons I've already listed. The simple truth is that there is no truth, there is no objective, outside of human thinking definition for what makes a human. It is simply whatever we decide or define it to be. Normally people will define moral concepts around what they feel emotionally. Some people feel absolutely nothing for a "clump of cells," while others feel an empathetic connection to it because it has the potential of a grown human being. Neither side is objectively right or wrong, but either way it is absurd to randomly draw the line at surviving on it's own. This isn't about morality, it is about refuting arguments that are patently absurd. No offense, but you really seem to be he worst kind of relativist to me (relativist out of convenience). Take any chair and remove a single atom. Is it still a chair? Most people would probably say yes. Now successively take all matter away atom per atom at what point does the remaining atoms stop being a chair? If the fact that there might be no "objectively correct answer" to this question leads you to conclude that "there are no chairs" or that "there are no relevant differences between chairs and tables, then I am afraid you have nothing of substance to add to this or any kind of concrete discussion other than "it's all relative"! In the real world we understand that ontology is no simple binary matter (it is or it is not), but that doesn't mean the drawn conclusions are "arbitrary". Try to answer me this: at what exact point does a human being die? Is there even a correct answer? Now what do you conclude with regard to the relevance between being alive and dead? "There is none" or "It's merely up to human definition"? Every concept is up to human definition. Sorry if this fact bothers you, but it is the truth, and says nothing about me personally to state it. People have much difficulty understanding this, for some reason. 90% of philosophical or metaphysical problems can be shrugged away by understanding that concepts and words are things we humans made up, and they are whatever we choose them to be. Imagine someone making up a sound from their mouth and then dozens of people arguing with each other over the meaning of the sound, as though it can be deduced logically. So as to your question of when a chair stops becoming a chair, again, it would have to hinge on what we specifically define a chair to be. If this question is impossible to answer, it simply means our definition is vague and lacking, which is really true of most words or concepts. That can't be helped, we would go crazy trying to make perfect definitions, it can't be done. All that we can do is realize that we humans invented concepts such as "life," and therefore debating on when life becomes life is a futile exercise, since it isn't some objective criteria that can be determined empirically or a priori, it is whatever we decide it is, and the decision is necessarily arbitrary, or, if you will, dependent upon capricious human emotions. Look at your own statement. When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that Yes, it is just a feeling. And not everyone has the same feelings. The best we can hope for is at least to keep our feelings fairly consistent across time so that we aren't constantly confusing ourselves and each other with our own words. This is why defining life to mean "can it survive outside the womb" is a horrible line drawn in the sand, because it is a criteria which is constantly shifting with time. Definitions should not change with the wind. You bring up a pretty interesting argument but the conclusion you draw from your own words is entirely incorrect. Everything you state actually points to the idea that definitions should in fact change as we see fit, as we're the one making up the definitions in the first place. By your reasoning, the definitions should not be kept consistent across time, they should instead undergo constant change to reflect the society that currently use the words.
Yes, I did consider this idea as well. In particular, I thought about how in the past, some races were not regarded "as human" as others, which we used to justify oppression. Obviously it was good that these definitions in particular changed with society over time. Homosexuality as a mental illness is another good point.
But really, the reason we changed our concepts in those cases is because we generally came to feel that "these concepts are causing pain to others, and we generally want to minimize pain." In other words, it was a reevaluation of our own emotions. That is a very different thing than saying we should set a moral definition which we know will change over time, not according to our moral desires, but according to the limits of our own technology. We should avoid explicitly making technology the limiting factor when determining concepts, moral concepts in particular, because it is a criteria which we know will change. We really can't predict how human emotions will change with time, we can't know the morality of the future, but we do know it is extremely likely that viability of a fetus will expand.
|
On June 19 2013 02:11 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. Your inherent assumption here is that women didn't want to be coddled in such a manner. Yeah, that's enough sunprince for today.
If you don't have any actual arguments, resorting to personal attacks doesn't make you look correct except to anyone who already agrees with you.
On June 19 2013 02:16 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights [citation needed]
You left out the rest of my posts, which already explained the reasoning for this argument.
Ultimately, I find it quite misogynistic of you and other posters here to insist on thinking of women as weak and helpless victims who spent millennia under an oppressive social system, rather than acknowledge that they may have perpetuated a system that benefited them. That's pretty much objectification to the fullest possible extent; instead of treating women as competent agents with the power to exercise their own choices, you reduce them to helpless objects.
|
On June 19 2013 02:33 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:16 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights [citation needed] You left out the rest of my posts, which already explained the reasoning for this argument. Ultimately, I find it quite misogynistic of you and other posters here to insist on thinking of women as weak and helpless victims who spent millennia under an oppressive social system, rather than acknowledge that they may have perpetuated a system that benefited them.
I'm embarased my gender was the one raping and beating women for centuries.
|
On June 19 2013 02:38 ComaDose wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:33 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:16 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights [citation needed] You left out the rest of my posts, which already explained the reasoning for this argument. Ultimately, I find it quite misogynistic of you and other posters here to insist on thinking of women as weak and helpless victims who spent millennia under an oppressive social system, rather than acknowledge that they may have perpetuated a system that benefited them. I'm embarased my gender was the one raping and beating women for centuries.
No, you don't understand! This system benefited women! Blah blah mortality rates and stuff. Arguments! Mindless speculation!
Seriously, you must be some kind of misogynist not to see this bro.
|
On June 19 2013 02:02 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 01:17 Acrofales wrote:On June 18 2013 14:43 sunprince wrote:On June 18 2013 12:53 Acrofales wrote:On June 18 2013 12:15 sunprince wrote:On June 18 2013 12:10 Acrofales wrote:On June 18 2013 11:24 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 10:47 codonbyte wrote:On June 18 2013 09:45 CallMeLukas wrote:On June 18 2013 08:41 codonbyte wrote:
A fetus on the other hand is physically bound to the woman who is carrying it and therefore doesn't have the same rights as a child outside the womb. So a difference in environment is what grants rights? If not, then where do you draw the line between "abortion is ok" and "abortion is murder?" Following your argument, abortion should be ok right up until birth. Actually, by my argument abortion would not be legal right up until birth because there is a period of time before birth where the fetus would be able to survive outside the womb, and hence abortion would only be legal up until that point, not right up until birth. What's so great about surviving outside the womb? Doesn't it depend upon our own technology? If so, doesn't that suggest that your standard for human life changes as human technology changes, meaning it is a pointless and arbitrary definition for life? If we reach the technology capable of providing a single cell to full human maturity, are all of the hypocrites here going to suddenly accept the premise that life begins at conception, since that is when it can survive outside the womb? Obviously not... It's all complete bullshit, I'm sorry to say. You people have absolutely no reasoning behind your lines drawn in the sand, you just want a line drawn in the sand, period. Just be honest with yourselves and say that you support abortion because it is convenient, but cannot justify it from a moral perspective. It is perfectly fine to say "I reject morality if it is inconvenient," since that is what the majority of human beings do anyway. Morality is meaningless. As I stated before, it is all evolved emotions, and emotions are not absolutes. No. You are guilty of a reductio ad absurdum. While there are a number of different periods in which ethicists argue that abortion can be ethical, they depend largely on what makes a human being human. Being a zygote does not make it human (at least imho). When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that it is somewhere between the first brain activity and birth. Brain activity is a precondition for consciousness, but is clearly not a sufficient precondition (plenty of animals with a brain are not considered conscious). Because we don't know, using "viability outside the uterus" is a fairly decent proxy (and also coincided decently with when higher brain function starts). I have a different take on this: it doesn't matter when the fetus starts being human. Take the following thought experiment: If there was an adult human hooked up to your body so that they could survive, would you be ethically required to stay connected for their sake? My position is no, your bodily autonomy trumps their survival. While it might be admirable for you to sustain them at cost to yourself, you are certainly well within your right to choose not to do so. When we apply that to abortion, it doesn't matter if the fetus if human. Even if it was, the woman's right to bodily autonomy means that she is allowed to disconnect herself from it, even if this would result in the fetus's death. What matters more to this perspective is whether the fetus can survive, because at that point it is no longer necessary to kill the fetus after removing it from the woman's body. But in that case you run into trouble of culpability. If you were to hook someone up to your body, knowing full well they will need to stay hooked up for the next 9 months, after which they will be dependent on you for a further 16 years (give or take)... and then after 2 months you decide you made a stupid mistake, or you were drunk when hooking up, etc. I am not sure that bodily autonomy trumps the rights of that "person" you have connected to yourself. Of course, this circles back to the OP: in the case of rape you are forcibly hooked up to that human being, which makes the whole situation completely fucked up of course. But the analogy might be getting a bit stretched. I just want to use it to show that it clearly is important when you consider the foetus as a human being. Clearly you are in your rights to remove a leech, regardless of if you knew all of that stuff about how it would depend on you for the next 17 years before you willingly connected it (although there might be some radical animal rights activists who argue that you're not). I don't buy the culpability argument. Consenting to sex (if consent was even present, since it is not in rape cases) is not consent to pregnancy. Otherwise, you would be arguing that abortions are okay in the event that all birth control precautions are reasonably taken (since pregnancy is then unintentional, taking away culpability), but not okay otherwise. I don't see anyone making that argument, since social conservatives are opposed to abortion regardless of such culpability. That's about as sensible as going to Vegas and claiming you never consented to losing money, just to gambling. By having unprotected sex, you KNOW that there's a chance you will get pregnant, or impregnate the girl, so as not to be gender-specfic (not to mention the risk of getting AIDS, chlamydia, herpes, etc. which is another discussion entirely). By disregarding that risk (for whatever reason), you are responsible for the outcome. If you afterwards realize that you were incredibly stupid, but are now pregnant (or your wife, girlfriend, one-night stand, prostitute, whatever), then you are responsible for this. It wasn't forced on you, it was a risk you knowingly took. Of course, as long as what is being aborted cannot (sensibly) be called a human being, what you are doing is removing an unwanted clump of cells from your body. I see no ethical objections to that, and I would argue that a woman is entirely within her right to do this regardless of how that clump of cells got there (whether due to stupidity, an accident, rape, or any other reason for ending up pregnant). But it really is important to be able to decide what a human being is, when a foetus becomes a human being, etc. That's like saying that consenting to eat a restaurant means that you are consenting to possibly get a food-borne illness. Doesn't fly. There's a difference between an unmitigated risk such as gambling in Vegas, and a minimal risk once you've taken all proper precautions. Generally, most reasonable people would conclude that you are responsible for gambling losses, but not responsible for catching a food-borne illness from a restaurant.
Except that clearly when you have unprotected sex, you have taken NONE of the proper precautions to prevent pregnancy.
|
On June 19 2013 02:29 datcirclejerk wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:19 Stol wrote:On June 19 2013 02:09 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 19:19 MiraMax wrote:On June 18 2013 13:11 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 12:10 Acrofales wrote:On June 18 2013 11:24 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 10:47 codonbyte wrote:On June 18 2013 09:45 CallMeLukas wrote:On June 18 2013 08:41 codonbyte wrote:
A fetus on the other hand is physically bound to the woman who is carrying it and therefore doesn't have the same rights as a child outside the womb. So a difference in environment is what grants rights? If not, then where do you draw the line between "abortion is ok" and "abortion is murder?" Following your argument, abortion should be ok right up until birth. Actually, by my argument abortion would not be legal right up until birth because there is a period of time before birth where the fetus would be able to survive outside the womb, and hence abortion would only be legal up until that point, not right up until birth. What's so great about surviving outside the womb? Doesn't it depend upon our own technology? If so, doesn't that suggest that your standard for human life changes as human technology changes, meaning it is a pointless and arbitrary definition for life? If we reach the technology capable of providing a single cell to full human maturity, are all of the hypocrites here going to suddenly accept the premise that life begins at conception, since that is when it can survive outside the womb? Obviously not... It's all complete bullshit, I'm sorry to say. You people have absolutely no reasoning behind your lines drawn in the sand, you just want a line drawn in the sand, period. Just be honest with yourselves and say that you support abortion because it is convenient, but cannot justify it from a moral perspective. It is perfectly fine to say "I reject morality if it is inconvenient," since that is what the majority of human beings do anyway. Morality is meaningless. As I stated before, it is all evolved emotions, and emotions are not absolutes. No. You are guilty of a reductio ad absurdum. While there are a number of different periods in which ethicists argue that abortion can be ethical, they depend largely on what makes a human being human. Being a zygote does not make it human (at least imho). When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that it is somewhere between the first brain activity and birth. Brain activity is a precondition for consciousness, but is clearly not a sufficient precondition (plenty of animals with a brain are not considered conscious). Because we don't know, using "viability outside the uterus" is a fairly decent proxy (and also coincided decently with when higher brain function starts). Umm, reductio ad absurdum is a perfectly valid form of argument, so I have no idea where you get the idea that someone can be "guilty" of it. And no, "viability outside the uterus" is a horrible proxy for determining life, for the reasons I've already listed. The simple truth is that there is no truth, there is no objective, outside of human thinking definition for what makes a human. It is simply whatever we decide or define it to be. Normally people will define moral concepts around what they feel emotionally. Some people feel absolutely nothing for a "clump of cells," while others feel an empathetic connection to it because it has the potential of a grown human being. Neither side is objectively right or wrong, but either way it is absurd to randomly draw the line at surviving on it's own. This isn't about morality, it is about refuting arguments that are patently absurd. No offense, but you really seem to be he worst kind of relativist to me (relativist out of convenience). Take any chair and remove a single atom. Is it still a chair? Most people would probably say yes. Now successively take all matter away atom per atom at what point does the remaining atoms stop being a chair? If the fact that there might be no "objectively correct answer" to this question leads you to conclude that "there are no chairs" or that "there are no relevant differences between chairs and tables, then I am afraid you have nothing of substance to add to this or any kind of concrete discussion other than "it's all relative"! In the real world we understand that ontology is no simple binary matter (it is or it is not), but that doesn't mean the drawn conclusions are "arbitrary". Try to answer me this: at what exact point does a human being die? Is there even a correct answer? Now what do you conclude with regard to the relevance between being alive and dead? "There is none" or "It's merely up to human definition"? Every concept is up to human definition. Sorry if this fact bothers you, but it is the truth, and says nothing about me personally to state it. People have much difficulty understanding this, for some reason. 90% of philosophical or metaphysical problems can be shrugged away by understanding that concepts and words are things we humans made up, and they are whatever we choose them to be. Imagine someone making up a sound from their mouth and then dozens of people arguing with each other over the meaning of the sound, as though it can be deduced logically. So as to your question of when a chair stops becoming a chair, again, it would have to hinge on what we specifically define a chair to be. If this question is impossible to answer, it simply means our definition is vague and lacking, which is really true of most words or concepts. That can't be helped, we would go crazy trying to make perfect definitions, it can't be done. All that we can do is realize that we humans invented concepts such as "life," and therefore debating on when life becomes life is a futile exercise, since it isn't some objective criteria that can be determined empirically or a priori, it is whatever we decide it is, and the decision is necessarily arbitrary, or, if you will, dependent upon capricious human emotions. Look at your own statement. When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that Yes, it is just a feeling. And not everyone has the same feelings. The best we can hope for is at least to keep our feelings fairly consistent across time so that we aren't constantly confusing ourselves and each other with our own words. This is why defining life to mean "can it survive outside the womb" is a horrible line drawn in the sand, because it is a criteria which is constantly shifting with time. Definitions should not change with the wind. You bring up a pretty interesting argument but the conclusion you draw from your own words is entirely incorrect. Everything you state actually points to the idea that definitions should in fact change as we see fit, as we're the one making up the definitions in the first place. By your reasoning, the definitions should not be kept consistent across time, they should instead undergo constant change to reflect the society that currently use the words. Yes, I did consider this idea as well. In particular, I thought about how in the past, some races were not regarded "as human" as others, which we used to justify oppression. Obviously it was good that these definitions in particular changed with society over time. Homosexuality as a mental illness is another good point. But really, the reason we changed our concepts in those cases is because we generally came to feel that "these concepts are causing pain to others, and we generally want to minimize pain." In other words, it was a reevaluation of our own emotions. That is a very different thing than saying we should set a moral definition which we know will change over time, not according to our moral desires, but according to the limits of our own technology. We should avoid explicitly making technology the limiting factor when determining concepts, moral concepts in particular, because it is a criteria which we know will change. We really can't predict how human emotions will change with time, we can't know the morality of the future, but we do know it is extremely likely that viability of a fetus will expand.
We will eventually reach a point where we can take a skin cell from a person, reverse engineer it back to a stem cell from which we can then grow another complete human. In fact, we're pretty much there already. Eventually we'll most likely be able to do pretty much whatever we want. So yes, hurting people is bad, at the moment we are however limited by our technology to the point where hurting the parent could be considered more important than hurting something entirely and directly dependant on someone else that also lack any kind of self awareness.
Our technological limitations has to be considered, as they play a very direct role in our ability to make "accurate" emotional decisions.
|
On June 19 2013 02:38 ComaDose wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:33 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:16 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights [citation needed] You left out the rest of my posts, which already explained the reasoning for this argument. Ultimately, I find it quite misogynistic of you and other posters here to insist on thinking of women as weak and helpless victims who spent millennia under an oppressive social system, rather than acknowledge that they may have perpetuated a system that benefited them. I'm embarased my gender was the one raping and beating women for centuries.
Meanwhile, men were dying in droves from hard labor and slaughtered on the battlefield, yet women (who were twice as likely to survive to pass on their genes, despite the high mortality rate of childbirth prior to modern medicine) were unilaterally oppressed by men! /sarcasm
In any case, the historical records we do have completely demolish the popular myths that domestic violence was historically accepted (plenty of evidence to show that wife beaters in Western culture were flogged, tarred/feathered, and hanged). War rape, on the other hand, actually existed, but that's actually better treatment than what victorious armies did to the men...
However, I'll take this line of discourse as an admission that you have no legitimate arguments to make, since you are resorting to the fallacy of original male sin.
|
On June 19 2013 02:40 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:02 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 01:17 Acrofales wrote:On June 18 2013 14:43 sunprince wrote:On June 18 2013 12:53 Acrofales wrote:On June 18 2013 12:15 sunprince wrote:On June 18 2013 12:10 Acrofales wrote:On June 18 2013 11:24 datcirclejerk wrote:On June 18 2013 10:47 codonbyte wrote:On June 18 2013 09:45 CallMeLukas wrote:
[quote]
So a difference in environment is what grants rights? If not, then where do you draw the line between "abortion is ok" and "abortion is murder?" Following your argument, abortion should be ok right up until birth. Actually, by my argument abortion would not be legal right up until birth because there is a period of time before birth where the fetus would be able to survive outside the womb, and hence abortion would only be legal up until that point, not right up until birth. What's so great about surviving outside the womb? Doesn't it depend upon our own technology? If so, doesn't that suggest that your standard for human life changes as human technology changes, meaning it is a pointless and arbitrary definition for life? If we reach the technology capable of providing a single cell to full human maturity, are all of the hypocrites here going to suddenly accept the premise that life begins at conception, since that is when it can survive outside the womb? Obviously not... It's all complete bullshit, I'm sorry to say. You people have absolutely no reasoning behind your lines drawn in the sand, you just want a line drawn in the sand, period. Just be honest with yourselves and say that you support abortion because it is convenient, but cannot justify it from a moral perspective. It is perfectly fine to say "I reject morality if it is inconvenient," since that is what the majority of human beings do anyway. Morality is meaningless. As I stated before, it is all evolved emotions, and emotions are not absolutes. No. You are guilty of a reductio ad absurdum. While there are a number of different periods in which ethicists argue that abortion can be ethical, they depend largely on what makes a human being human. Being a zygote does not make it human (at least imho). When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that it is somewhere between the first brain activity and birth. Brain activity is a precondition for consciousness, but is clearly not a sufficient precondition (plenty of animals with a brain are not considered conscious). Because we don't know, using "viability outside the uterus" is a fairly decent proxy (and also coincided decently with when higher brain function starts). I have a different take on this: it doesn't matter when the fetus starts being human. Take the following thought experiment: If there was an adult human hooked up to your body so that they could survive, would you be ethically required to stay connected for their sake? My position is no, your bodily autonomy trumps their survival. While it might be admirable for you to sustain them at cost to yourself, you are certainly well within your right to choose not to do so. When we apply that to abortion, it doesn't matter if the fetus if human. Even if it was, the woman's right to bodily autonomy means that she is allowed to disconnect herself from it, even if this would result in the fetus's death. What matters more to this perspective is whether the fetus can survive, because at that point it is no longer necessary to kill the fetus after removing it from the woman's body. But in that case you run into trouble of culpability. If you were to hook someone up to your body, knowing full well they will need to stay hooked up for the next 9 months, after which they will be dependent on you for a further 16 years (give or take)... and then after 2 months you decide you made a stupid mistake, or you were drunk when hooking up, etc. I am not sure that bodily autonomy trumps the rights of that "person" you have connected to yourself. Of course, this circles back to the OP: in the case of rape you are forcibly hooked up to that human being, which makes the whole situation completely fucked up of course. But the analogy might be getting a bit stretched. I just want to use it to show that it clearly is important when you consider the foetus as a human being. Clearly you are in your rights to remove a leech, regardless of if you knew all of that stuff about how it would depend on you for the next 17 years before you willingly connected it (although there might be some radical animal rights activists who argue that you're not). I don't buy the culpability argument. Consenting to sex (if consent was even present, since it is not in rape cases) is not consent to pregnancy. Otherwise, you would be arguing that abortions are okay in the event that all birth control precautions are reasonably taken (since pregnancy is then unintentional, taking away culpability), but not okay otherwise. I don't see anyone making that argument, since social conservatives are opposed to abortion regardless of such culpability. That's about as sensible as going to Vegas and claiming you never consented to losing money, just to gambling. By having unprotected sex, you KNOW that there's a chance you will get pregnant, or impregnate the girl, so as not to be gender-specfic (not to mention the risk of getting AIDS, chlamydia, herpes, etc. which is another discussion entirely). By disregarding that risk (for whatever reason), you are responsible for the outcome. If you afterwards realize that you were incredibly stupid, but are now pregnant (or your wife, girlfriend, one-night stand, prostitute, whatever), then you are responsible for this. It wasn't forced on you, it was a risk you knowingly took. Of course, as long as what is being aborted cannot (sensibly) be called a human being, what you are doing is removing an unwanted clump of cells from your body. I see no ethical objections to that, and I would argue that a woman is entirely within her right to do this regardless of how that clump of cells got there (whether due to stupidity, an accident, rape, or any other reason for ending up pregnant). But it really is important to be able to decide what a human being is, when a foetus becomes a human being, etc. That's like saying that consenting to eat a restaurant means that you are consenting to possibly get a food-borne illness. Doesn't fly. There's a difference between an unmitigated risk such as gambling in Vegas, and a minimal risk once you've taken all proper precautions. Generally, most reasonable people would conclude that you are responsible for gambling losses, but not responsible for catching a food-borne illness from a restaurant. Except that clearly when you have unprotected sex, you have taken NONE of the proper precautions to prevent pregnancy.
I specifically addressed this point earlier. Even when people take all the precautions to have protected sex (yet a pregnancy results against the odds anyway), anti-abortion advocates do not then permit abortion.
Therefore, culpability is not actually an issue, since anti-abortion advocates oppose abortion regardless of whether it was protected or not.
|
On June 19 2013 02:50 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:38 ComaDose wrote:On June 19 2013 02:33 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:16 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights [citation needed] You left out the rest of my posts, which already explained the reasoning for this argument. Ultimately, I find it quite misogynistic of you and other posters here to insist on thinking of women as weak and helpless victims who spent millennia under an oppressive social system, rather than acknowledge that they may have perpetuated a system that benefited them. I'm embarased my gender was the one raping and beating women for centuries. Meanwhile, men were dying in droves from hard labor and slaughtered on the battlefield, yet women (who were twice as likely to survive to pass on their genes, despite the high mortality rate of childbirth prior to modern medicine) were unilaterally oppressed by men! /sarcasm In any case, the historical records we do have completely demolish the popular myths that domestic violence was historically accepted (plenty of evidence to show that wife beaters in Western culture were flogged, tarred/feathered, and hanged). War rape, on the other hand, actually existed, but that's actually better treatment than what victorious armies did to the men... However, I'll take this line of discourse as an admission that you have no legitimate arguments to make, since you are resorting to the fallacy of original male sin.
dude domestic violence is still a problem
|
On June 19 2013 03:02 ComaDose wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 02:50 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:38 ComaDose wrote:On June 19 2013 02:33 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:16 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:
Women [...] had limited rights [...] but this does not equate to "oppression". I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it. Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights [citation needed] You left out the rest of my posts, which already explained the reasoning for this argument. Ultimately, I find it quite misogynistic of you and other posters here to insist on thinking of women as weak and helpless victims who spent millennia under an oppressive social system, rather than acknowledge that they may have perpetuated a system that benefited them. I'm embarased my gender was the one raping and beating women for centuries. Meanwhile, men were dying in droves from hard labor and slaughtered on the battlefield, yet women (who were twice as likely to survive to pass on their genes, despite the high mortality rate of childbirth prior to modern medicine) were unilaterally oppressed by men! /sarcasm In any case, the historical records we do have completely demolish the popular myths that domestic violence was historically accepted (plenty of evidence to show that wife beaters in Western culture were flogged, tarred/feathered, and hanged). War rape, on the other hand, actually existed, but that's actually better treatment than what victorious armies did to the men... However, I'll take this line of discourse as an admission that you have no legitimate arguments to make, since you are resorting to the fallacy of original male sin. dude domestic violence is still a problem
That doesn't mean domestic violence is socially or legally acceptable.
Not to mention the fact that the majority of non-reciprocal (one-sided) domestic violence perpetrators are women, contrary to the lies that have been perpetuated on this topic.
|
On June 19 2013 03:07 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 03:02 ComaDose wrote:On June 19 2013 02:50 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:38 ComaDose wrote:On June 19 2013 02:33 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:16 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 00:39 ComaDose wrote:
[quote]
I was surprised to see something so stupid till i noticed it was sunprince that wrote it.
Yes throughout the global history of the planet women had limited rights and that does mean they were oppressed. Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort. Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights [citation needed] You left out the rest of my posts, which already explained the reasoning for this argument. Ultimately, I find it quite misogynistic of you and other posters here to insist on thinking of women as weak and helpless victims who spent millennia under an oppressive social system, rather than acknowledge that they may have perpetuated a system that benefited them. I'm embarased my gender was the one raping and beating women for centuries. Meanwhile, men were dying in droves from hard labor and slaughtered on the battlefield, yet women (who were twice as likely to survive to pass on their genes, despite the high mortality rate of childbirth prior to modern medicine) were unilaterally oppressed by men! /sarcasm In any case, the historical records we do have completely demolish the popular myths that domestic violence was historically accepted (plenty of evidence to show that wife beaters in Western culture were flogged, tarred/feathered, and hanged). War rape, on the other hand, actually existed, but that's actually better treatment than what victorious armies did to the men... However, I'll take this line of discourse as an admission that you have no legitimate arguments to make, since you are resorting to the fallacy of original male sin. dude domestic violence is still a problem That doesn't mean domestic violence is socially or legally acceptable. Not to mention the fact that the majority of non-reciprocal (one-sided) domestic violence perpetrators are women, contrary to the lies that have been perpetuated on this topic.
Incidence of violence: 75% low frequency. Injury percentage: 8.1%.
I'd also like to point out that the authors of the paper offer a couple of potential explanations as to the discrepancy between men and women as perpetrators: "One possible explanation for this, assuming
that men and women are equally likely to initiate physical violence,20 is that men, who are
typically larger and stronger, are less likely to
retaliate if struck first by their partner. Thus,
some men may be following the norm that
“men shouldn’t hit women” when struck first
by their partner. A different explanation is that
men are simply less willing to report hitting
their partner than are women.2"
I'd argue that both are true, to some extent. It's worth noting that the general reasoning for why female domestic abuse is such a huge issue is still represented by this study: 20% change of injury i.e. 1 in 5, while the rate for men is less than half that. While domestic violence against men definitely deserves more attention, men generally speaking aren't seriously injured by it and therefore tend to not fear for their lives.
Also it's sorta disingenuous to cherry pick one study of a particular demographic (mean age of ~22 years old) when tonnes of research has been done demonstrating the opposite. I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's incredibly biased to characterize all research other than this one study as "lies." I mean, the BJS released this study, for example. Seems pretty legitimate.
By the way, aside from ancient Rome (and even there I've only found clear sources for 50BC onward) I'm not seeing where domestic abuse was universally derided in the West. As a matter of fact, it wasn't criminalized in the UK or the US until the 1800's.
Lol, I just realize this thread is about abortion wtf. Why are we arguing about this again o.0
|
On June 19 2013 03:15 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 03:07 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 03:02 ComaDose wrote:On June 19 2013 02:50 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:38 ComaDose wrote:On June 19 2013 02:33 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:16 kwizach wrote:On June 19 2013 02:10 sunprince wrote:On June 19 2013 02:00 Shiori wrote:On June 19 2013 01:55 sunprince wrote:
[quote]
Limited rights does not equate to "oppression". Children in the modern world have limited rights (along with limited responsibilities), but no reasonable person would argue that we "oppress" children. Oppression is much better suited to describe differential treatment such as racial discrimination, not merely differential treatment of any sort.
Historically, women were simply treated similarly to the way we treat children today, with limited rights but also limited responsibilities, and a great emphasis on protecting and coddling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OppressionRead up. Your definition of oppression is utterly ridiculous.Let me emphasize the relevant part: "Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" Just because we supposedly "coddled" women (which, by the way, is a massive generalization and fails to acknowledge the fact that we "protected" them in the same way that we protect golden treasure; you know, as objects) doesn't mean that we didn't oppress them, because such coddling doesn't make our denial of rights for women any more just. Limiting the rights of children isn't oppressive because children are children and therefore we have a good, sensible reason to limit their rights, and do so in their own best interests. Please tell me you're not going to argue that we denied women rights for their own good. The reality is that they chose to forego these rights [citation needed] You left out the rest of my posts, which already explained the reasoning for this argument. Ultimately, I find it quite misogynistic of you and other posters here to insist on thinking of women as weak and helpless victims who spent millennia under an oppressive social system, rather than acknowledge that they may have perpetuated a system that benefited them. I'm embarased my gender was the one raping and beating women for centuries. Meanwhile, men were dying in droves from hard labor and slaughtered on the battlefield, yet women (who were twice as likely to survive to pass on their genes, despite the high mortality rate of childbirth prior to modern medicine) were unilaterally oppressed by men! /sarcasm In any case, the historical records we do have completely demolish the popular myths that domestic violence was historically accepted (plenty of evidence to show that wife beaters in Western culture were flogged, tarred/feathered, and hanged). War rape, on the other hand, actually existed, but that's actually better treatment than what victorious armies did to the men... However, I'll take this line of discourse as an admission that you have no legitimate arguments to make, since you are resorting to the fallacy of original male sin. dude domestic violence is still a problem That doesn't mean domestic violence is socially or legally acceptable. Not to mention the fact that the majority of non-reciprocal (one-sided) domestic violence perpetrators are women, contrary to the lies that have been perpetuated on this topic. Incidence of violence: 75% low frequency. Injury percentage: 8.1%. I'd also like to point out that the authors of the paper offer a couple of potential explanations as to the discrepancy between men and women as perpetrators: "One possible explanation for this, assuming that men and women are equally likely to initiate physical violence,20 is that men, who are typically larger and stronger, are less likely to retaliate if struck first by their partner. Thus, some men may be following the norm that “men shouldn’t hit women” when struck first by their partner. A different explanation is that men are simply less willing to report hitting their partner than are women.2" I'd argue that both are true, to some extent. It's worth noting that the general reasoning for why female domestic abuse is such a huge issue is still represented by this study: 20% change of injury i.e. 1 in 5, while the rate for men is less than half that. While domestic violence against men definitely deserves more attention, men generally speaking aren't seriously injured by it and therefore tend to not fear for their lives. Also it's sorta disingenuous to cherry pick one study of a particular demographic (mean age of ~22 years old) when tonnes of research has been done demonstrating the opposite. I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's incredibly biased to characterize all research other than this one study as "lies." I mean, the BJS released this study, for example. Seems pretty legitimate.
By "lies", I'm referring to the academically documented fact that certain groups have fought to suppress information on domestic violence. This perpetuates the popular misconception that domestic violence is a gendered male-on-female problem, when the reality is that it is that there is gender parity, and that it's often reciprocal.
Here's several additional studies, including a scholarly review which examines 286 scholarly investigations which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, if not more aggressive, than men in domestic relationships:
http://smu.edu/experts/study-documents/family-violence-study-may2006.pdf
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2005.079020
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID41E2.pdf
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V70 version N3.pdf
http://www.nij.gov/journals/261/teen-dating-violence.htm
http://lab.drdondutton.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/DUTTON-NICHOLLS-AND-SPIDEL-2005-FEMALE-PERPETRATORS-OF-INTIMATE-VIOLENCE.pdf
http://www.fact.on.ca/Info/dom/heady99.htm
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
On June 19 2013 03:15 Shiori wrote:
By the way, aside from ancient Rome (and even there I've only found clear sources for 50BC onward) I'm not seeing where domestic abuse was universally derided in the West. As a matter of fact, it wasn't criminalized in the UK or the US until the 1800's.
My main argument is that there isn't evidence to show that domestic violence was socially accepted, and that this would, in fact, go against our understanding of historical Western society, which traditionally protected women and put them on a pedestal (chivalry, anyone?).
On June 19 2013 03:15 Shiori wrote:
Lol, I just realize this thread is about abortion wtf. Why are we arguing about this again o.0
Because people are dragging in this false notion that women were or are oppressed. Ironically, I've also been arguing strongly in favor of abortion rights in this thread, yet the insinuation remains that I am against women simply because I have a politically incorrect understanding of history.
|
On June 19 2013 00:18 Reason wrote:Show nested quote +On June 19 2013 00:08 wherebugsgo wrote:
I think the issue is pretty simple. There are no hard and fast rules for when a fetus becomes viable-Roe v Wade determined that the interim point is around 28 weeks, albeit the fetus would need external aid to live. However, one can simply defer to the opinion of the doctor taking care of the woman. If the fetus is viable according to the doctor, an abortion should not be performed.
There are some minor problems with this, but it's probably the simplest and least controversial way of dealing with the "matter". I put that in quotes because the "definition of life" controversy really has only been espoused and pushed forth by conservatives.
That's a really roundabout way of saying "there should be no exceptions or late term abortions because of rape/incest but, on a related issue, I do think the 20 week legal limit could be universally made a little less rigid". You haven't actually addressed the "matter" of rape/incest exceptions.
There is no matter. Are we talking about late term rape/incest exceptions?
e: I would say that regardless of circumstance, if the woman can provide evidence that she had difficulty accessing health services, she should be allowed an abortion regardless of how late she is able to finally access said services.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
