'Personhood' Ammendment in Mississippi

[Ziggy Stardust]

At the very least, in principle, anyone who is pro-life should be campaigning with great vigour for increasing the foreign aid to poor countries since there are clear-cut all-agreed sentient human person beings there who do a lot of preventable dying.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Those who are pro-life should themselves be donating to charities to tackle poverty worldwide rather than lobbying the government to give more foreign aid, or at least campaigning to reform how the government gives aid. Most government aid, or at least most aid given by the US government, consists of bribes given to corrupt regimes in order to keep them in line with what our leaders consider to be our national interests. Almost none of it benefits the poor people in poor countries.

 

[El_Machinae]

They're not mutually exclusive. And it's not necessary for gov't foreign aid to be ill used. You can campaign for better gov't spending, more gov't spending, and still have time to donate personal time & money.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Those who are pro-life should themselves be donating to charities to tackle poverty worldwide rather than lobbying the government to give more foreign aid, or at campaigning to reform how the government gives aid. Most government aid, or at least most aid given by the US government, consists of bribes given to corrupt regimes in order to keep them in line with what our leaders consider to be our national interests. Almost none of it benefits the poor people in poor countries.

As I said, "at the very least". Donating to charity themselves is one step better. Giving up their way of life here and volunteering to improve living conditions there themselves would be most effective since it would almost certainly save more lives than fighting for the pro-life cause would.

 

[Cutlass]

How can the nonexistent hurt? So you're immoral and evil because you're not currently trying to stop world hunger?

I'm trying to stop world hunger by making multiple forms of birth control more available and safer.

 

[Linkman226]

So, a morning after pill is worse since it destroys more potential?
You are confusing a whole species with an individual. I specifically talked about extinction of a species and with it the destruction of potential for sentience.

1. Sure
2. Ah I see. Well of course species extinction is a bad thing. Although I should note that you are presupposing that evolution's a path towards sentience, which it's not.

I don't think that's at all self-evident. In a consequentialist ethical system, the ethical course of action is the one which has the preferable outcome; whether one involves a greater degree of initiative than the other is neither here nor there. The reason that you wouldn't fault me for not living the life of a saint is that we would not argue that the outcomes resulting from that course of action would be ultimately preferable. (Or maybe you would, in which case I suppose we simply disagree.)

Well, two things:
1. This is why I reject a purely consequentialist ethical framework, though I won't go ahead and embrace deontology either.
2. Of course it is ultimately preferable in a consequentialist framework. The suffering of the starving and the diseased will always outweigh pretty much everything else, if not for the level of pain, than the sheer quantity of people experiencing such pain.

At the very least, in principle, anyone who is pro-life should be campaigning with great vigour for increasing the foreign aid to poor countries since there are clear-cut all-agreed sentient human person beings there who do a lot of preventable dying.

And I do. Instead of wasting it on, say, Israel.

Those who are pro-life should themselves be donating to charities to tackle poverty worldwide rather than lobbying the government to give more foreign aid, or at least campaigning to reform how the government gives aid. Most government aid, or at least most aid given by the US government, consists of bribes given to corrupt regimes in order to keep them in line with what our leaders consider to be our national interests. Almost none of it benefits the poor people in poor countries.

And I do donate.

As I said, "at the very least". Donating to charity themselves is one step better. Giving up their way of life here and volunteering to improve living conditions there themselves would be most effective since it would almost certainly save more lives than fighting for the pro-life cause would.

Of course, but charity is of supererogatory ethical value (see rejection of consequentialism above)

I'm trying to stop world hunger by making multiple forms of birth control more available and safer.

Again, your earlier logic dictates that you should be living the life of a saint.

 

[Cutlass]

Again, your earlier logic dictates that you should be living the life of a saint.

And this follows from what?

 

[Linkman226]

The idea that action = allowing through inaction.

 

[Cutlass]

The idea that action = allowing through inaction.

Which is sometimes absolutely true. It's situational.

 

[Linkman226]

Again, how can a nonexistent thing be immoral?

 

[Cutlass]

If you know that inaction is going to result in harm, and you don't act, then you have been immoral.

 

[Linkman226]

Aren't you aware that your inaction is resulting in harm to the hungry, since you COULD be helping?

 

[Cutlass]

Aren't you aware that your inaction is resulting in harm to the hungry, since you COULD be helping?

You are assuming I'm not acting. I am, in the way I think will be most effective in the long run. The fact that I don't give away every thing I have does not equal my not acting.

 

[MantaRevan]

Aren't you aware that your inaction is resulting in harm to the hungry, since you COULD be helping?

He/she isn't HARMING anyone, simply not helping someone in need of help either. It's akin to harming occasionally, but 98% of the time, it's completely neutral, abit destructive.

 

[Linkman226]

You are assuming I'm not acting. I am, in the way I think will be most effective in the long run. The fact that I don't give away every thing I have does not equal my not acting.

You're not acting sufficiently. Again, your logic not mine.

He/she isn't HARMING anyone, simply not helping someone in need of help either. It's akin to harming occasionally, but 98% of the time, it's completely neutral, abit destructive.

That''s my point!

 

[woody60707]

Better to be safe then sorry.

 

[Cutlass]

You're not acting sufficiently. Again, your logic not mine.

Nothing I said in this thread can be construed to make that statement true. You have deliberately chosen to misrepresent me in order to have your way.

 

[El_Machinae]

Actually, maintaining your existence has opportunity costs and negative externalities. So, 'doing nothing' is actually a potential way of 'making things worse'. The only way to balance the negative externalities is through the generation of positive externalities. We can never overcome the opportunity costs of our own existence, but we can try to make a 'net good' despite that.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, two things:
1. This is why I reject a purely consequentialist ethical framework, though I won't go ahead and embrace deontology either.

Fair enough, but it has to be kept in mind that your conclusions about the differing ethical content of action and inaction are made within the terms of your own more fundamental ethical position, and so can't be offered as self-evident, as you attempted to to do previously.

2. Of course it is ultimately preferable in a consequentialist framework. The suffering of the starving and the diseased will always outweigh pretty much everything else, if not for the level of pain, than the sheer quantity of people experiencing such pain.

Well, there's nothing resembling a consensus of that sort among consequentialist philosophers, past and present, so I don't think that this is self-evident. The obvious complication would be the question of whether the amount of good that any individual can do by dedicating themselves to saintly altruism is better than the amount of good they could do by living a relatively ordinary life of everyday virtue. (Itself complicated by the great variety of opinions as to what constitutes "good". An Epicurean notion of pleasure-vs-pain is far from the be-all-and-end-all on the matter.)

Again, how can a nonexistent thing be immoral?

The question here would be why inaction is conceived of as "non-existent". If morality lies in concious choice, then the existence of the choice is sufficient; the amount of physical activity resulting from it is neither here nor there.

 

[El_Machinae]

Man, nearly 30% of my budget is spent on luxuries/cost-of-living. How couldn't saintly altruism *not* be better than that?