iambiguous wrote:Jakob wrote:In order to judge whether or not abortion is moral or not, we have to know not only what we consider morality to be, but also all the physical circumstances both of abortion in general and of any particular case of abortion we are discussing.
How is the manner in which any particular individual's moral judgment regarding abortion not predicated by and large on the manner in which I have come to grasp the acquistion
of a moral narrative here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382How is it different for you?
How does it seem to be different for me from what Ive said?
The physical circumstances are embedded in facts that either can be established or not be established. At least in a No God world. With God, the facts established still come down to what any particular Scripture informs us regarding God and abortion. The part where behaviors become Sins. Behaviors judged in the end by God.
Yes.
But what can be established as in fact true when it comes down to whether particular behaviors ought to be rewarded or punished given the circunstances established regarding a particular abortion in a particular context?
I don't even know how I would punish any crime, to be honest. Do you?
Basically all I really know is vengeance and forgiveness. I don't find the penal laws that we have very lucid. But I wouldn't know how to do it better.
Jakob wrote:Does an embryo feel pain, does it have awareness? If so, killing it seems to be hard to justify except in the way we justify killing livestock. Which is by no thinking about it, I guess.
Or:
Might a woman burdoned with an unwanted pregnancy find her life completely upended if she is forced to give birth? How could she realistically compete with men for a good education or for a good job or for any other opportunities in a world where only women are able to become pregnant?
But why would she have to compete with men? Im not a feminist. And why did she have unprotected sex in the first place?
If she had protected sex and she got pregnant anyhow I would personally say she should keep it. If I had anything to do with it I would compel her to and I would taker part in raising the child.
Or what if the pregnancy is as a result of rape or incest or a failed contraceptive? What if there is the possibility that her health [either physical or mental] might be impaired if forced to give birth?
Rape is, as Ive said in the OP, for me one of the few reasons where abortion isn't irrational, but it needs to be done soon.
As for mental health, birth has been the way mammals have thrived for millions of years, so I would say that is a rather out of the box expectation, even though it occurs. But insanity can occur on the grounds of education and all kinds of other things as well. Which brings us to a primordial philosophical question: When should we allow hypotheticals to dictate our behaviour?
Conflicting goods always work both ways of course. Both sides can make reasonable arguments that the other side can only make go away by not thinking about them.
Probably in most cases. But one might also simply feel that the other needs to change, learn, that his or her ideas are based on insufficient experience or lack of character. And in the end the subjected person might agree that this was the case and that to be compelled to do something it didn't want to do increased her or his happiness. A basic example is brining unwilling kids to school in the morning, enforcing discipline in general, discomforts that make life more comfortable later on.
So then you're talking about long term vs short term interests. It isn't easy for everyone to recognize a long term interest, certainly not for a child.
Jakob wrote:My experience in general is that abortion is a deeply sad event that saddens women who go through it until many years after. I also think it must be an extremely horrific experience for the unborn creature. And I believe that it gets worse as it gets later, as the creature develops more and more into the utterly sensitive and sentient form of a human baby. I think a late abortion is a kind of murder.
But that's my point.
Your experiences. Embodied, in my view, in the manner in which I consture the meaning of dasein here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529How is that not applicable to you?
What you may disregard is that the bottom line is always experience.
We have moral laws to regulate our experience. Or do you think it is solely to please God? Would God put us through lessons that don't enhance our experience? How would that serve God, does he not love his children?
As a child of Creation, my experience is directly pertinent to Creation, its just one of many experiencers, but you have to start
somewhere, and if I want to arrive somewhere with you or anyone else we will all need to make our own experiences known.
Why should the value judgments derived from your experiences take precedence over conflicting value judgments derived from the experiences of others?
Im not at all saying they should. Im just putting in my two cents, so that a ball may get rolling.
If the whole world decides abortion is great and especially late stage abortions are desirable, which would very much be in the interest on organ harvesters, then I wont have had any say in the thing, but I don't know that this will be the case, I don't know what will be the case in advance - so with a clean conscience I speak to you of my experience.
And could you not have new experiences that change your mind about abortion? Or are you of the opinion that your current viewpoint is wholly in sync with the "real you" wholly in sync with "the right thing to do"?
Ive talked to an antinatalist girl for a while once and whereas I disagree with her, I did not try to convince her of my views, as hers were born from deep suffering and betrayal. No argument will ever convince her, she might only perhaps have an experience once that justifies it all to her, or she might not.
I dont think arguments should ever overrule experiences. Only when an argument forms an experience, a coherent impulse soundly in terms of the person who hears or reads the argument, then should it be expected to be persuasive. Aristotle went to some length explaining how this is technicality doable, but I prefer to trust in the power of experience. Here I see, for example, a difference between politicians - some speak from experience, some from technicality. I prefer the experienced ones. For example WH Bush was really an excellent president in my view, as he had seen the ultimate of some very important aspect of the US, namely war - and I find Trump excellent because he has seen the ultimate of another very important aspect of the nation, namely business. Neither of these two are very good at argumentation. They just are stubborn because they know what they have seen. Cause and effect. A good leader has seen a lot of that.
To to round this up to bring it back to abortion: ultimately it is a question for which women have the only relevant experience.
That is the one way we could end this: saying well we are men, we ultimately aren't involved in the decision so whatever we say is moot. And it is, in a sense.
Pregnancies are going to be ended all throughout human existence and that doesn't upset me.
Jakob wrote:The only reason I see to justify abortion is when the pregnancy results from rape, and then one should proceed immediately after the event so that the conceived lifeforms has no elaborate means of experiencing. Waiting in such a case is simply unnecessary cruelty.
Others however insist that human life begins at conception; and that the baby is no less innocent.
How would one argue for the lack of innocence of the baby, though? That is a radical proposition, though I am aware Luther held it and so do millions of Lutherans now - I really am not a Luther-fan. He did not like humans at all and I don't find that a good ground to try to be their leader.
And I speculate that, for many of them, these assumptions are derived from their own personal experiences with families and friends and communities that first instilled and then reinforced in them this point of view.
That, in any event, there does not appear to be argument [philosophical or otherwise] able to resolve this conflict once and for all.
No, definitely not. Philosophy is not law-giver over life and death - it only clarifies the meaning of life. In this way it can greatly improve chances for pregnancies or it can also, as in Iceland, lead to a selectivity before life and allow only the healthiest and happiest pregnancies to proceed.
Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2019 8:04 pm
