Which Of These Three Starements Do You Reject? (Abortion Related)

[soon2bepro]

Reject 1 & 2. as long as by handicapped you mean intellectually handicapped. I don't think they should be considered humans. I guess if you suggested a temporary such condition you'd put me in a difficult position though.

Because I would say it's not ok to kill an unconcious man simply because he will wake up after a while, but by the same token it shouldn't be ok to kill a fetus since it will likely become a human. I don't have a good answer to this.

I guess it has to do with the fact that there are people who already know this unconscious man and love him/like him/need him, and when you kill him you're hurting them by taking away their chance to see him again. If there are no such people, I guess the only moral responsibility has to do with everyone's need for assurance that they won't be killed whenever they're not watching.

It could also have to do with the likeliness of becoming a human, but I'm not sure.

I need to do more thinking on the subject, that's for sure.

[KipBond]

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I reject #1 and #2.

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[carlo]

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The inconsistencies:

1. It's okay to bomb a clinic where they kill children.

2. A fetus is a child.

3. It's not okay to bomb a clinic where they kill children (fetus = child as per #2).




All the above is true but a qualitative understanding might say that a handicapped born child is different than an unborn child. His judgment could very well be that he rejects none of the scenarios.

This thought would not try to be consistent but take a wider perspective of "child" than you would expect. A soldier "kills" in war and another "kills" on the street during a robbery. At what point is there a separation of identity of the two individuals?

Judgment is a sticky matter and "judge not" is a powerful mantra for personal edification.



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Also ,as noted in the original post by OP there are the adjectives "fetal child" and "retarded child". Clearly you cannot then base your syllogism(or lack thereof) by the word "child" as there are of course differences. So which is more logical; the use of "child" or the qualifying adjectives?

This is a difficulty with mathematical presentation of real life situations not the least of which is the attempting to place a number implicitly on a word. If "child" were somehow a number,say "3" then there is no problem, the queries would solve themselves. Otherwise the idea of a "retarded 3" or "fetal 3" must be dealt with.

[David Sklansky]

The child being handicapped had nothing to do with the point at all. I almost didn't even use that word. I did it only to provide some supposed reason for the killing.

[David Sklansky]

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Logically you must pick at least one to reject.


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Why? Why must the rejection be all or nothing?

I have about a 50% rejection level for #1. About a 85% rejection level for #2. And about a 5% rejection level for #3.


PairTheBoard

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I totally accept that answer. In fact it is close to mine. But it strays from the point. Because in real life many people won't admit that they do this. Especially in regards to #2

[carlo]

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he child being handicapped had nothing to do with the point at all. I almost didn't even use that word. I did it only to provide some supposed reason for the killing.

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Appreciate that, but you can change "handicapped" to "healthy" or just plain "child" and my observer can think the same logically and accept all three statements.No rejections.

[PantsOnFire]

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I did it only to provide some supposed reason for the killing.

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I suppose a more general arguement is to examine the situations where a human life is voluntarily taken.

Some of the more prominent examples are capital punishment, euthenasia, abortion, assisted suicide. This could even be extended to making life-threatening decisions like separating co-joined twins.

All of these have differenct facets to each situation. However, I can say in general that I do not condone the bombing or killing of anyone who would take it upon to themselves to carry out any of these actions unless I came across someone in act and whatever they were doing was currently illegal.

[Drew_aces15]

Proponents of abortion (or many of them) have long since stopped trying to say a fetus is not human. What else could it be? Instead the status of "person-hood" is either bestowed or denied to it. In this case I see #2 as irrelevant, because certain people can justify murder without regard to the victim being human.

Killing handicapped children, unborn children, abortion doctors, or handicapped-children-killers is immoral. Is the real question, "is killing people to stop an injustice like abortion or euthanasia moral or justified?"? If so, I say no.

I reject #1 - and lament that in this hypothetical, there are no other remedies

[luckyme]

I tend to reject any moral question that has an ALWAYS in it, or implies one.
So, all 3 are rejected on moral grounds, with 3 the closest to being accepted.
1. would be more tempting if the parents were in the building, but still rejected. As set up,it's a bit like blaming the gun.

luckyme

[PairTheBoard]

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The child being handicapped had nothing to do with the point at all. I almost didn't even use that word. I did it only to provide some supposed reason for the killing.

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It does make a difference when weighing the moral principles involved. If the children were in horrible agony due to an illness they are going to die from within the week and these are mercy killings by the parents, it evokes different moral principles than if they are having the kids killed because they are say, boys, or brown eyed, or they don't like the shape of their noses.

PairTheBoard