Quiet, Almost too quiet

[Farm Boy]

Every life is precious. Every life is irreplaceable. Death is unalterable, irreversible suffering. Pain is not a precondition of this suffering.

Disagree with the premises if you want, but have we finally got it in the phraseology that is right for you? Or am I still a shadow patriarch for considering available contraceptives and sex education plus the responsible application of both to be in the financial and ethical best interests of society?

 

[aelf]

The problem is the first line of your post doesn't really jibe with the rest. If every life is precious, then abortion should be unethical. Eating meat? Unconscionable. Farming crops for food? Horrible. Heck, culturing bacteria for food? That's creating and then destroying precious life.

Besides, you have not provided your thesis on why death is inherently suffering. The deaths of persons is suffering, that can be established. The deaths of non-persons? What's your argument?

 

[Farm Boy]

Now that we've belabored the premises, which I thought we were past, the follow up to your last post is the entire exchange we've been having with the stewardship line of discussion you were finding irrelevant. At no point is this conversation simple good/bad, simple yes/no, easy win/lose. Parsing it as such is a total cop out. And I'm pretty sure you know that.

 

[aelf]

No, I don't, because your position is entirely outside of the ethical dialogues revolving around these matters. It is a simple good/bad when it comes down to it; you simply have to go down to the fundamental propositions, just like any philosophical exercise. That's ethics.

I consider things you mentioned irrelevant because I fail to see the relevance, and you haven't exactly been able to explain beyond simply asserting your premises. You haven't even answered my questions.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, I suppose if life really is that simple to you it does go a long way towards explaining why your repeated insistences that I'm lying about some random ass shadow agenda on everything from this to gay marriage(since somehow arguing for poly marriage was a form of back assward ploy). You reject the premises and you reject the possibility of grey areas in morality when fundamentally conflicting values stand on their independent merits.

This has been a good conversation, Aelf. Thank you for the exchange.

 

[aelf]

Sounds like somebody doesn't know what analytical philosophy is. Seems fitting, therefore, that he doesn't know how to defend his positions in a robust manner. In that case, he has no one but himself to blame for his positions supposedly being misunderstood.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ok, that's probably fair since I'm burning out on our exchange for now. I don't particularly feel like digging into the TRUE/FALSE logical game all the way down to "what is life?" "why do we value it?" "When is it due value?" in this thread. We've done it before. We'll likely do it again at some time. But I'll try and skim over it some if you still find this enjoyable.

If we stick on my premises that I don't feel like arguing: "Every life is precious. Every life is irreplaceable. Death is unalterable, irreversible suffering. Pain is not a precondition of this suffering." You then forward the proposition that culturing bacteria is food not tenable: as it is accurately describing producing and then destroying life. This untenability rests on the proposition that life being precious means that it should not be taken under any circumstance, which is flawed. It's not a simple yes/no even though it would be easier if it were. We take life by merely existing, we need to eat continue living, the things we are able to eat are/were living. Were we to stop consuming things entirely human life would not endure, human life presuppose has some ethical value as well. That we consume bacteria does not mean that the bacteria has no innate worth, that the resources we may use to produce it that could have been used on something else to have no worth, it means that we consider the bacterias' worth and the ethical value of its continued predicted existence as bacteria to be an appropriate expense for providing a meal. We consider human life, and it's requirements of meal-eating, to be of greater ethical weight than bacteria being bacteria. It's a situation with conflicting ethical interests, but alone most people seem to find it a relatively uncomplicated one.

Perhaps you would say the bacteria is due zero ethical consideration? That's the gist I'm getting, correct me if I'm wrong. The difference between the two positions, as it would seem to me, is where I'm getting the stewardship section of the conversation you're finding not compelling.

My approximation of your stance: the bacteria either has ethical value, in which case destroying it is monstrous, or it does not have any, in which case it's due no consideration.

Counter stance: the bacteria has some innate ethical value for simply being bacteria, however limited that value may be. Destroying the bacteria intentionally is therefore a net negative is as far as that value is concerned. The destruction of that value, therefore, in order to be an ethical action must be done with the reasonable intention of producing or preserving something of greater value. Specific situation: bacteria are probably due lesser ethical consideration than mature chickens capable of feeling pain, chickens with neural functions more similar to those of the humans we value enough to fuel through consumption, bacteria are probably due lesser ethical consideration of the resources consumed in their production as foodstuffs than are more costly/intensive crops, therefore the production and consumption of bacteria is likely a reasonably good ethical choice for making into food when considering alternatives, and specifically in comparison to mature chickens. Unless there are complicating factors I don't know about, like yoghurt production poisons millions of acres of land a year.

 

[aelf]

Ok, that's probably fair since I'm burning out on our exchange for now. I don't particularly feel like digging into the TRUE/FALSE logical game all the way down to "what is life?" "why do we value it?" "When is it due value?" in this thread. We've done it before. We'll likely do it again at some time. But I'll try and skim over it some if you still find this enjoyable.

If we stick on my premises that I don't feel like arguing: "Every life is precious. Every life is irreplaceable. Death is unalterable, irreversible suffering. Pain is not a precondition of this suffering." You then forward the proposition that culturing bacteria is food not tenable: as it is accurately describing producing and then destroying life. This untenability rests on the proposition that life being precious means that it should not be taken under any circumstance, which is flawed. It's not a simple yes/no even though it would be easier if it were. We take life by merely existing, we need to eat continue living, the things we are able to eat are/were living. Were we to stop consuming things entirely human life would not endure, human life presuppose has some ethical value as well. That we consume bacteria does not mean that the bacteria has no innate worth, that the resources we may use to produce it that could have been used on something else to have no worth, it means that we consider the bacterias' worth and the ethical value of its continued predicted existence as bacteria to be an appropriate expense for providing a meal. We consider human life, and it's requirements of meal-eating, to be of greater ethical weight than bacteria being bacteria. It's a situation with conflicting ethical interests, but alone most people seem to find it a relatively uncomplicated one.

Ah, but your arguments seem to be predicated on some kind of hierarchy of life, where one life form is worth more than another. Hence the latter can be sacrificed for the sake of the former.

Which brings me back to my point about there being a difference in how people value different kinds of lives/deaths. That's why it's strange to lump the destruction of embryos and livestock together with the deaths of persons through murder or accident. Not that the destruction of non-persons should be carried out for no good reason (but I say this for different reasons). The only motive for someone to do what you did is he/she valuing the life of an embryo as much as the life of a person.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ah, but your arguments seem to be predicated on some kind of hierarchy of life, where one life form is worth more than another. Hence the latter can be sacrificed for the sake of the former.

That's probably true.

Which brings me back to my point about there being a difference in how people value different kinds of lives/deaths. That's why it's strange to lump the destruction of embryos and livestock together with the deaths of persons through murder or accident. Not that the destruction of non-persons should be carried out for no good reason (but I say this for different reasons). The only motive for someone to do what you did is he/she valuing the life of an embryo as much as the life of a person.

It's more that I'm valuing the life of an embryo as the life of a human. If I valued it as much as if it were fully developed, as say as entirely equivalent to the life of the mother who carries it, then the loss of a million a year would justify, no, require far more draconian measures to reduce it. I guess I view it more like this: killing a cow is killing a cow, the cow now has as much relative value as it's ever going to have. Killing the human embryo is different. It's clearly human. It's not unlikely to survive and be a person/citizen/whatever instead well within the scope of one short year. Many embryos are considered full fledged and wanted already by the people who intentionally create them in different situations and society will protect those embryos if not as such, as far closer to such. The only thing that justifies their destruction, really, is that reproductive freedom for the persons who are now is a greater ethical imperative than is, say the freedom to select cow meat for a meal instead of an alternative. As the ethical imperative diminishes in importance, such as being too damned lazy to provide sex education or just preferring not to, or being too cheap to make available condoms or just preferring not to, or simply being too lazy or drunk to be assed with actually putting one on, or preferring the "feel" of riding bareback, or whatever, the cost being paid becomes less tenable. There will always be some degree of abortion in a nation of 300 million that is probably necessary, or absolutely necessary. That the number would be a million a year? That stretches credulity.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

I do not know what to do about this case. It has just come to my attention that a landlord in Maine has been charged with manslaughter as a result of an (accidental) fire that killed six last year. He did not keep the house up to fire code standard.

I would appreciate your ideas on this. I sort of like the idea of closing out the books for each year at some point. Further, the landlord's action was the proximate, not the direct cause of the deaths. In addition there is the point that the man has not been found guilty, not that has kept me from posting other cases.

Your thoughts?

 

[Bootstoots]

If he didn't intentionally kill people, why should it count? Every drunk driving accident and whatnot killing four or more would be on the list by that standard.

 

[Cheetah]

Yeah, not intentional, so it shouldn't be counted in this statistic.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

I think I agree. Thank you.