There is no tragedy in life like the death of a child.

[john9blue]

None of this bears on abortion, if that's what you were getting at. When you kill a fetus or an infant, it has none of the characteristics that make a being a person (e.g. autonomy, the desire to continue living, to see oneself as existing over time, plans and goals for the future, etc.). A fetus cannot express the desire to continue living; it has no desires. It is sentient but not yet self-conscious and truly aware. So killing a human fetus or human infant is morally equivalent to killing an animal of similar intelligence and rational qualities. Both are wrong in general, but can be justified given a sufficiently overriding concern on the behalf of others.

It matters not that the fetus or infant may, at some point, have human desires if it is not killed. The argument from potential is not ever to be taken seriously, because no one ever uses it as a self-consistent system of ethics. We treat beings as moral subjects based on how they actually are, not how they might be some time in the future. Prince Charles may someday be the King of England, but that does not mean we now give him the rights of the king.

all i'm asking is if it's okay for me to put a time bomb on a fetus that will kill the fetus later in its life

i also want to know whether it's okay to do this to a child, and how that compares to simply killing the child now.

easy questions, right?

[Metsfanmax]

all i'm asking is if it's okay for me to put a time bomb on a fetus that will kill the fetus later in its life

It is never acceptable to kill an innocent person against their wishes. If you put a time bomb on a fetus (?) that would kill the human being later in its life, obviously that would not be ok. Even if the time bomb killed the fetus before it was self-aware, you would still be greatly hurting its parents, which would make it morally wrong either way.

i also want to know whether it's okay to do this to a child, and how that compares to simply killing the child now.

If by child you mean a young human that is already self-aware, then it is not acceptable to kill this (innocent) person, now or in the future. On average it would be slightly worse to kill the child 20 years into the future, but I don't know any good way to quantify that. That is why a law treating murder equally for all humans that are old enough to possibly be self-aware is probably good policy even if in principle you could quantify the seriousness of killing some people more than others. It would be too hard and lead to too many complications, even if there is moral justification for the idea.

[john9blue]

all i'm asking is if it's okay for me to put a time bomb on a fetus that will kill the fetus later in its life

It is never acceptable to kill an innocent person against their wishes. If you put a time bomb on a fetus (?) that would kill the human being later in its life, obviously that would not be ok. Even if the time bomb killed the fetus before it was self-aware, you would still be greatly hurting its parents, which would make it morally wrong either way.

plot twist: the parents were the ones who ASKED me to put a time bomb on the fetus. i hope you're not implying that this would be okay as long as i have parental consent?

[Metsfanmax]

all i'm asking is if it's okay for me to put a time bomb on a fetus that will kill the fetus later in its life

It is never acceptable to kill an innocent person against their wishes. If you put a time bomb on a fetus (?) that would kill the human being later in its life, obviously that would not be ok. Even if the time bomb killed the fetus before it was self-aware, you would still be greatly hurting its parents, which would make it morally wrong either way.

plot twist: the parents were the ones who ASKED me to put a time bomb on the fetus. i hope you're not implying that this would be okay as long as i have parental consent?

If the parents asked you to put a time bomb on the fetus, and the time bomb went off before the fetus became self-aware, you might be ethically right to do so as long as the parents made it clear that bringing this fetus into the world is not something they desire (e.g. they wanted an abortion but were unable or couldn't afford to do it themselves). However, there are lots of complicating factors. What if other adults heard of this and rumors started flying that a madman was going around putting time bombs on babies? You would create a state of fear in people that might outdo the good created by killing the unwanted baby.

If the time bomb were to go off after the infant became self-aware, it would be just as wrong for you to kill the child as if the parents were to do it themselves.

[john9blue]

i mean, if you really think that setting t = 3 months is okay, but setting t = 6 months is not okay, then i have nothing else to say. i get the feeling that you're just saying that to ruin the thought experiment, though...

[Metsfanmax]

If it makes my position clearer, consider an analogous situation where your friend has a pet frog, but falls on hard financial times and is unable to continue feeding the frog. He looks around for someone to adopt a frog, but since there is an abundance of unwanted frogs in the world, he cannot find anyone to adopt the frog. So he asks you to kill the frog. Would you consider it morally wrong to kill the frog? If not, but you would consider it morally wrong to kill a human fetus in the same situation, then you are defending a position that makes an arbitrary distinction on the basis of species, which is no more justifiable than the sexist's arbitrary distinction on the basis of sex or the racist's justification on the basis of skin color.

i mean, if you really think that setting t = 3 months is okay, but setting t = 6 months is not okay, then i have nothing else to say. i get the feeling that you're just saying that to ruin the thought experiment, though...

I am saying that, except for the specific numbers you chose. I think a reasonable dividing line would be about one month after a child is born, based on arguments I have read. That is definitely early enough to be sure that the infant has none of the important characteristics that make it a person. It's hard to choose a good line, but that's no defense for choosing a bad line.

[john9blue]

If it makes my position clearer, consider an analogous situation where your friend has a pet frog, but falls on hard financial times and is unable to continue feeding the frog. He looks around for someone to adopt a frog, but since there is an abundance of unwanted frogs in the world, he cannot find anyone to adopt the frog. So he asks you to kill the frog. Would you consider it morally wrong to kill the frog? If not, but you would consider it morally wrong to kill a human fetus in the same situation, then you are defending a position that makes an arbitrary distinction on the basis of species, which is no more justifiable than the sexist's arbitrary distinction on the basis of sex or the racist's justification on the basis of skin color.

i'd consider it wrong for the guy to buy a frog and then ask me to kill it a few months later

[crispybits]

Who said he bought the frog? The frog may have hopped into his house so he adopted it and started feeding it and made it somewhere nice to live in there.

[Metsfanmax]

If it makes my position clearer, consider an analogous situation where your friend has a pet frog, but falls on hard financial times and is unable to continue feeding the frog. He looks around for someone to adopt a frog, but since there is an abundance of unwanted frogs in the world, he cannot find anyone to adopt the frog. So he asks you to kill the frog. Would you consider it morally wrong to kill the frog? If not, but you would consider it morally wrong to kill a human fetus in the same situation, then you are defending a position that makes an arbitrary distinction on the basis of species, which is no more justifiable than the sexist's arbitrary distinction on the basis of sex or the racist's justification on the basis of skin color.

i'd consider it wrong for the guy to buy a frog and then ask me to kill it a few months later

What if the woman accidentally left the door open and the frog hopped inside the house?

[crispybits]

beat you to it

[john9blue]

maybe the fact that i'm not stupid enough to think that having sex is some kind of "accident" or "coincidence" means i'm not getting enough pussy.

but at least i'm not wrong

[Metsfanmax]

maybe the fact that i'm not stupid enough to think that having sex is some kind of "accident" or "coincidence" means i'm not getting enough pussy.

but at least i'm not wrong

Having sex is not always about getting pregnant. Some people do it for the enjoyment it brings, with no intention of doing it to achieve pregnancy (obviously the case for gays and lesbians, but not relevant for the purpose of this discussion). Many of these people use contraceptives purely for the purpose of avoiding pregnancy, but even then a few of these people may be the ones it is ineffective for. I see nothing wrong with having intercourse for this reason. If we could not have sexual relations for the purpose of just having pleasure, that would make oral sex morally wrong too.

That all being said, the reason that the pregnancy occurred is not important when deciding whether abortion is acceptable or not.

[john9blue]

why is intent not important? almost anyone would say that it is.

[Metsfanmax]

why is intent not important? almost anyone would say that it is.

I didn't say it's not important. But in the cases where pregnancy was not intended (for example), how can this fact really bear on the ethical question of whether abortion is justified? What conclusion would you draw from the fact that the pregnancy was unintended, and how would it help decide whether it is acceptable or not to terminate the life?

[john9blue]

that would be a known, unintended consequence. i mean this is like saying someone shouldn't be charged for killing someone in a drunk driving accident because all they wanted was to have a good ride with some alcohol. why can't people be responsible for their actions?

i've already gotten you to admit that you think it's okay to kill one-month-old children because they are inhuman, so i'm not sure why i'm playing along with the subject change, but this is a pet peeve of mine.

[Metsfanmax]

i've already gotten you to admit that you think it's okay to kill one-month-old children because they are inhuman, so i'm not sure why i'm playing along with the subject change, but this is a pet peeve of mine.

I didn't say it's okay because they're inhuman -- that would be an obvious mistake. I said it can be justified on the grounds that they're not persons.

that would be a known, unintended consequence. i mean this is like saying someone shouldn't be charged for killing someone in a drunk driving accident because all they wanted was to have a good ride with some alcohol. why can't people be responsible for their actions?

I agree, people should be responsible for their actions. That still doesn't answer the question of whether one should be able to abort an unwanted child.

[john9blue]

because it would be the abdication of responsibility for your actions.

if i'm a stock market wizard who makes money on 95% of his trades, why shouldn't i be responsible for the trades where i lose money? should i just be able to undo those?

[Metsfanmax]

because it would be the abdication of responsibility for your actions.

if i'm a stock market wizard who makes money on 95% of his trades, why shouldn't i be responsible for the trades where i lose money? should i just be able to undo those?

So just to make sure we're clear, the decision whether to terminate the life of a human being should be predicated on the fact that doing so would be an abdication of responsibility for a mistake the parents made? It shouldn't be made on the basis of answers to substantive questions such as, would the parents be able to provide a loving and comfortable life for the child?

[Metsfanmax]

The problem with your argument is that you are pre-supposing that abortion is wrong, and then arguing that people should take responsibility for that wrong. It's a circular argument. If abortion is not wrong in a given case, then "taking responsibility for your action" in that case means doing the right thing and ending the life.

[john9blue]

not at all. there are humble/shy people who won't take credit for their successes. it's any action, not just mistakes.

and no, if you allow the murder of people who don't have a "loving, comfortable life", then you might as well kill half of africa. are you a RACIST, mets??

[Metsfanmax]

I know you're trolling, but still, facepalm

[Haggis_McMutton]

John, you still haven't answered to my "pressing a button which causes/stops a baby being born with high probability" scenario.
Your probabilistic argument for determining whether something should be considered a person seems to mandate that my pressing the button is murder even though at the time I press it there is no inseminated egg present.

Got an answer?
I can find the past post where I describe the experiment more completely if you want.

[codeblue1018]

I thoroughly disagree. The death of an adult, who has spent years making plans and trying to carry them out, is a much more serious loss than the death of a child, who has just barely started to think as a unique individual. Obviously the loss of a child is devastating to the parents, but from the point of view of society, you do not lose as much.

Lol, totally absurd viewpoint mate. There is no need for me to respond further.

[Gillipig]

There is no tragedy in life like the birth of a child to parents who can't take care of it.

[cornpops]

There is no tragedy in life like fat girls who would be really hot if they stopped eating so many doughnuts.
Especially if you live in western Europe, Australia or the USA, where bite-sized girls are in short supply as it is.