Politics-Ethics Question

[Al68]

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The bottom line here is it is extremely difficult to provide even a good argument let alone a sound one to justify the positive right to life.

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You don't need positive rights here. The negative right to not be harmed (i.e. in extremis: killed, for whatever good) against my will is completely sufficient.

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Wow, I must have missed something. I don't remember anyone advocating the murder of the baby.

[ShakeZula06]

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These babies serve no purpose.

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The exact argument used by Hitler to justify his program of euthanasia. Welcome back!

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Not to mention it isn't the same thing. Nazi germany murdered people that in their twisted opinion served no purpose. In this scenario it's a decision on whether to take care of someone or not.

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That decision being based on an argument of lacking purpose. Try again.

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I think you are the one that needs to try again. A similarity doesn't make two situations anologous, nor does it erase the fact that all your doing is commiting an association fallacy. Are you saying you see no difference between "They serve no purpose, let's kill them" and "They serve no purpose, let's not help them"?
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First of all, because they're humans and it could very well be me in that spot and, following Kant, or even Peter Singer if you like him more, that's all all the reason anyone should need.

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That's certainly is a good reason for why others might feel compelled to help him, but not a good reason for why others should be forced to help them.
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I would hold that often people don't help because they expect the government to help.

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I would tend to agree with you here. However, I think a better plan would be to get rid of this expectancy.

edit: worded this bad. What I mean to say is that government is only expected to provide help in this situation because it does. Obviously it wouldn't be expected to provide welfare if it didn't, thus this wouldn't be a reason for people not to individually contribute to providing welfare to others.

[fretelöo]

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I think you are the one that needs to try again. A similarity doesn't make two situations anologous, nor does it erase the fact that all your doing is commiting an association fallacy. Are you saying you see no difference between "They serve no purpose, let's kill them" and "They serve no purpose, let's not help them"?

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If, as is the case with babies, that not-helping implies certain death, yes, I have to confess that the difference between the two escapes me.
Besides the fact that "Let's kill them" has at least the advantage of being honest to yourself and the world whereas "Let's not help them and let mother nature and the course of all things take care of the matter" is a very easy way to rinse yourself from any guilt and responsibility.

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First of all, because they're humans and it could very well be me in that spot and, following Kant, or even Peter Singer if you like him more, that's all all the reason anyone should need.

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That's certainly is a good reason for why others might feel compelled to help him, but not a good reason for why others should be forced to help them.

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The point of Kants categorical imperative (or Singers preference utilitarism, for that matter) is, that this "good reason" has such a force and weight, and that not obeying that "call of reason" has such dire consequences that "good reason" and "being forced to" blend into each other, become more or less the same. That sounds pretty clumsy, I know but I'm German, my vocab is good enough for discussing poker but not the intricacies of Kant. ;o)

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What I mean to say is that government is only expected to provide help in this situation because it does.

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Probably true from a US point of view. Over here, the sole reason (or at least one of the major ones) for government is to take from the "strong" what it needs to provide for the "weak" (of course, within reason, blablabla. That reason being decided more or less by the question of whether this or that deficit would constitute a breach of his human dignity. Dying of starvation for example, certainly would.). So, I (we) would say, "govt. is expected to help because we expect it to perform the duties we installed it for."

[fretelöo]

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Wow, I must have missed something. I don't remember anyone advocating the murder of the baby.

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From the OP: "Assuming the US has a population of 300 million and the wealth it now owns, should a baby born with no arms and no legs, (with no chance of being fixed), but otherwise healthy, be kept alive and healthy by the government if no one else will do it? "

Let's discuss action theory. Donald Davidson, one of the most prominent philosophers of theory of action of the 20th century would hold that refraining from doing something is, in itself an action (and, frankly, I know of noone who would seriously question that claim). Thus, refraining from feeding a hungry child, willingly and knowingly accepting it's certain death in that event, would constitute homicide, if not murder, an act of yours at any rate.

[Piemaster]

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[Let's discuss action theory. Donald Davidson, one of the most prominent philosophers of theory of action of the 20th century would hold that refraining from doing something is, in itself an action (and, frankly, I know of noone who would seriously question that claim). Thus, refraining from feeding a hungry child, willingly and knowingly accepting it's certain death in that event, would constitute homicide, if not murder, an act of yours at any rate.

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Interesting. So if you fail to prevent someones death when you have the means to are you guilty of murder?

Holy crap, I had better go into hiding then before the police arrest me on suspicion of 50 million counts of murder.

[fretelöo]

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[Let's discuss action theory. Donald Davidson, one of the most prominent philosophers of theory of action of the 20th century would hold that refraining from doing something is, in itself an action (and, frankly, I know of noone who would seriously question that claim). Thus, refraining from feeding a hungry child, willingly and knowingly accepting it's certain death in that event, would constitute homicide, if not murder, an act of yours at any rate.

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Interesting. So if you fail to prevent someones death when you have the means to are you guilty of murder?

Holy crap, I had better go into hiding then before the police arrest me on suspicion of 50 million counts of murder.

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Read (his theoretical account of action) first, babble idiocy later.

[Piemaster]

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[Let's discuss action theory. Donald Davidson, one of the most prominent philosophers of theory of action of the 20th century would hold that refraining from doing something is, in itself an action (and, frankly, I know of noone who would seriously question that claim). Thus, refraining from feeding a hungry child, willingly and knowingly accepting it's certain death in that event, would constitute homicide, if not murder, an act of yours at any rate.

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Interesting. So if you fail to prevent someones death when you have the means to are you guilty of murder?

Holy crap, I had better go into hiding then before the police arrest me on suspicion of 50 million counts of murder.

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Read (his theoretical account of action) first, babble idiocy later.

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Sorry, I mistakenly thought that your summary would be true and reasonably accurate.

[fretelöo]

It is. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

You're missing the very basic point that you can't refrain from something you have no idea about happening and being able to prevent.

Had I just known that a yell yesterday would have scared that murderer away from his victim.... Yeah, then I could have prevented that murder. But, unfortunately, I didn't know it, so I didn't REFRAIN from yelling but simply didn't yell. Consequently, my not-yelling wasn't a refraining from yelling, thus no not-helping-to-prevent-a-murder.

Hope that makes a bit of sense. Again: D.'s one of the most important philosophers of the last century, the 'net is swarming with accounts of his theory of action, so don't try shifting the burden of knowing what you're talking about to me.

That guy didn't teach at Berkeley for 20 years because noone was ingenious enough to come up with your "refutation".

[Divad Yksnal]

Don't know the answer to your question. Could the resources used to save described baby(s), be better used elsewhere? For example, save a healthy life of let's say, an allied country? (Which might indirectly benefit the U.S.) Or improve living conditions of healthy citizens so that they might achieve more, thus benefiting everyone? What if there was a test that could tell you the baby had a reasonable chance to be the next Stephen Hawking/Beethoven/et al?

DY.

[Piemaster]

I wasn't talking about things like that. I was referring to the millions of people dying in Africa every day.

I know they're dying, I know why they're dying, I have the power to prevent them dying (individually at least) and if I went over there tomorrow I could doubtless stop many of them dying, but I choose not to.

Am I a murderer?