Akka
Moody old mage.
Oh well, I knew it was pointless.
Carry on.
Carry on.
Why no argument for abortion has ever worked.
- Thread starter Mouthwash
- Start date
That only applies to some. The rest vote Republican. So there's no making the claim they care about the child.
Well, there is that little rape thing...
Nope. Just the opposite. There's a compelling public interest in stopping global population growth.
Maybe not. But if you think it's uncommon for women who are raised in that environment to not see it as 'right', simply because they were raised to see it as 'right', then you're making as much of a mistake.
How about actually reading my post before you plop down your non-RD-standard "rebuttal"?
Did I say that ALL pro-lifers only care about the fetus before it's born? No, I did not.
Yes, I'm aware that there are Christians and their churches that do charitable works. Well, guess what: They don't have the monopoly on doing charitable works. There are plenty of people of a variety of faiths - and no faiths - who do charitable works. However, the only ones I've ever heard of who obnoxiously wave signs in women's faces and harass them if they're entering or exiting a women's health clinic are those who self-identify as Christians.
Do not sit there and tell me that there aren't any Christian pro-lifers out there who really don't care about the welfare of the baby, once it's born and has legal standing as a person. They put the blame on the mother, if she's not able to provide an adequate life for herself and the child, and often blame her for getting pregnant in the first place.
I oppose people who are anti-choice. I am in favor of a woman's right to choose abortion, if she deems that to be the best choice for her situation. Yes, there are some situations for which I think abortion is the only logical, sane, and even compassionate choice. But I'm not about to scamper around, waving signs in these women's faces, and harassing them into actually having an abortion.
Again: Re-read my previous post. It's ludicrous for SOME of these self-identified "pro-life" individuals to claim they're pro-life when they don't actually care about the quality of the life that the new baby and its mother will lead. They're not "pro-life." They're pro-pregnancy. They care about the fetus, but don't want to lift a finger to help after the fetus is born, especially if the mother is on welfare (oh, won't someone think of the tax dollars!). And yet these same individuals are horrified at the idea of actually allowing sensible, age-appropriate sex education in schools. They're full of hypocritical condemnation.
It's true. Lots of people do put their money and sweat down. And I want to acknowledge that this is ridiculously hard. Fostering a child removed from home where he was unwanted is a total cointoss for how difficult that child will be to raise. A single mom who's not able to graduate to self-sufficiency due to circumstances requires a great deal of ongoing charity to prevent the child from being raised in poverty. It's hard. Hard. Hard. Hard. And it should be acknowledged and even inspirational.
We have two pro-life campaigns in my city. One posts pictures of fetuses and demands that they have the right to life, implying that their deaths are 'murder'. I disagree with them fundamentally, and their framing of the debate disgusts me. OTOH, we have a pro-life campaign fundamentally devoted to creating adoption as an option. They don't hide what they are, but they trumpet their efforts to create a solution as hard as they can. Them, I appreciate.
Phrossack
Armored Fish and Armored Men
- Joined
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You made it very clear to Mouthwash that you were outraged by how he went against the majority view of morality.
So if you lived in a society where, say, slavery or marital rape were legal and accepted, it stands to reason that you'd be outraged by abolitionists and anti-rape activists. After all, they're daring to challenge the standard narrative on morality, and since you're a moral relativist, amoral, or both, you'd firmly hold slavery and marital rape to be acceptable.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Yeah, it's hard to read this,
And not conclude that Commodore would have found the abolitionist position that "slavery is always wrong" to be equally "repugnant". It doesn't imply that he personally endorses slavery, but his opposition to it seems rather less enthusiastic than we might have hoped for.
What's peculiar to me is that Commodore claims to defer to the majority, that his morality is a pragmatic one, but the majority opinion in the twenty-first century is that slavery is an absolute evil, that it is always wrong. How can one pragmatically adopt an absolute? Either he doesn't believe that slavery is an absolute evil, in which case he is rejecting the majority opinion after all, merely in a way which is not immediately obvious, or he's entertaining a pronounced double-think.
Perhaps what's repugnant isn't disagreement, but dissent? That what offends him isn't the doubt that the majority can tell its arse from its moral elbow, but publicly expressing that belief? Which would seem to confirm my characterisation of his outlook as "nihilism plus conformity".
And not conclude that Commodore would have found the abolitionist position that "slavery is always wrong" to be equally "repugnant". It doesn't imply that he personally endorses slavery, but his opposition to it seems rather less enthusiastic than we might have hoped for.
What's peculiar to me is that Commodore claims to defer to the majority, that his morality is a pragmatic one, but the majority opinion in the twenty-first century is that slavery is an absolute evil, that it is always wrong. How can one pragmatically adopt an absolute? Either he doesn't believe that slavery is an absolute evil, in which case he is rejecting the majority opinion after all, merely in a way which is not immediately obvious, or he's entertaining a pronounced double-think.
Perhaps what's repugnant isn't disagreement, but dissent? That what offends him isn't the doubt that the majority can tell its arse from its moral elbow, but publicly expressing that belief? Which would seem to confirm my characterisation of his outlook as "nihilism plus conformity".
Actually, my outrage stemmed from him seemingly trying to frame morality as something that can be objectively divided into things that are moral and things that are immoral. The problem with that is that morality is something that is completely subjective to each individual on this planet. Social morality is determined by groups of people generally agreeing on certain moral principles and this varies widely from society to society.
So for him to imply that abortion is objectively immoral, with his only supporting evidence being his own sense of morality, is something I find repugnant because he is attempting to invalidate and handwave away the opinions of millions of people by calling their beliefs objectively immoral.
Well-phrased. I'm not even a relativist when it comes to morality, but I think it takes incredible hubris to declare one's morality as superior. Many times we can, sure. But many, many times we cannot.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I'm pretty comfortable saying that my anti-slavery morality is superior, and that people with a pro-slavery morality are inferior.
I recognise that the reasoning that has lead me to that conclusion is informed by my historical, cultural and personal context. But, I think that context has lead me to a superior, more correct conclusion.
It's not an either/or choice between our sense of morality between developed collectively, as societies, and one sense of morality being superior to another, being more correct than another.
I recognise that the reasoning that has lead me to that conclusion is informed by my historical, cultural and personal context. But, I think that context has lead me to a superior, more correct conclusion.
It's not an either/or choice between our sense of morality between developed collectively, as societies, and one sense of morality being superior to another, being more correct than another.
Because that is the majority opinion now. I doubt you would really feel that comfortable if the pro-slavery opinion was the majority one. The reason being that you would feel intense social pressure to change your way of thinking to avoid being a social outcast. Social pressure can be a powerful force in shaping an individual's morality.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Maybe so. But I'm still right. The majority could insist that the sun is a fiery chariot being chased by a wolf, and that might be a reasonable belief in their historical context, but they're still wrong, and if I presented those historical dumb-dumbs with the unpopular theory that the sun is a ball of fire and the Earth orbits it a distance of ten kajillion miles, I'd still be right, or at least righter than them, no matter how much of an outcast it made me.
Phrossack
Armored Fish and Armored Men
- Joined
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- Messages
- 6,045
Tell me, would it be objectively wrong to murder a wounded veteran for his wallet? Or is that just your opinion?
Lexicus
Deity
Malcolm X once told white people to be more like John Brown. I think contemporary abolitionists were pretty comfortable in their feeling of moral superiority over the Southerners. And they were right to feel such superiority.
El_Machinae said:
It's a balancing act. You can't become too obsessed with the righteousness of your cause because it leads to blowing up abortion clinics and the like. OTOH you can't get too morally relativistic. You need to be able to fight for what you think is right.
Were this true, I'd be a church-going, right-wing-voting, anti-abortion, married-with-children homophobe who rails about my tax dollars going to support anyone less fortunate than me. That's the kind of majority opinions I live in the midst of here, and I don't give any portion of any sort of rodent's anatomy about my views being in opposition. I've had the experience of getting dirty looks from the City Clerk and everyone else in the room when I refused to swear on a bible when we were completing the hiring process for the new municipal census/election workers (by this time I honestly don't recall if this was for the census or an election; I just recall that it happened). The "gasp" of astonishment and looks of disapproval from my new colleagues made it pretty clear that I was the only atheist in the room, and they didn't like that. Fortunately, however, the Charter of Rights does give me the right to be atheist, and so I exercise that right and I really don't care if anyone around me is offended.
So do I feel any pressure to change? There have been people around me who have tried. They haven't succeeded.
Exactly.
Your sun analogy doesn't hold up though because that is something that can be objectively proven to be a certain way. In that case, majority belief becomes irrelevant. Morality isn't objective. You may believe something may be moral or immoral, but there is nothing you can do or show that proves your claims to be an objective fact.
Take honor killings for example. I'm sure you think they are immoral, and I think they are immoral, but they aren't seen as immoral by the societies that engage in them. Our societal moral beliefs tell us that something like an honor killing is immoral, but we cannot tell someone who lives in a society that engages in honor killings that he is objectively immoral and wrong for engaging in an activity that his society says is moral. In his mind, he isn't doing anything wrong and us trying to prevent him from engaging in an honor killing would be seen as an offense against his morality. We simply cannot say another society's moral code is objectively wrong. We can express our disagreement with it, but we cannot state something is moral or immoral as an objective fact.
In the past few centuries, especially within the past few decades, we have come up with ways to show empirically that the sun is not in fact a chariot being chased by an angry wolf. Short of some sort of radical Cartesian skepticism combined with an illogical insistence that reasons to be doubtful imply that what you want to believe is correct (e.g. the tactics of young-Earth creationists), there's no way to maintain the belief that the sun is a fiery chariot being chased by a wolf in light of empirical evidence. Belief that the sun is a nuclear fusion reactor, on the other hand, is very easy to defend empirically.
How do you do anything like this with morality? I don't really want to be a moral relativist, but nobody has ever convinced me of anything else, with one minor exception, in regards to moral questions. The only non-relativistic standpoint that has been demonstrated to me is that some moralities are better for human survival than others: namely, that cooperation yields benefits that increase survival value to each member of a group of cooperating individuals, and that in order for this to be stable, free-riders and people who hurt group cohesion need to be punished so that they don't bring down the group as a whole. So morality probably evolved as a means to keep group cohesion at a high enough level to reap survival benefits from being social.
But I certainly can't prove slavery wrong in some moral sense, much less anything about abortion. I can give my opinions on these things, which match up with the liberal mainstream of early 21st century America. But I can't prove these better than any other, and I've not seen anyone do this especially convincingly either. They can be justified in relation to other moral axioms that I would hold as an early 21st century liberal American, but not in any more absolute sense.
So how is it that you, or just about everyone else who takes a stance, do not identify as a moral relativist? Can you show that the views of an early 19th century Southern US slaveholder are morally wrong without reference to modern moral axioms that cannot themselves be proven? Otherwise, I'm like Commodore except for two things: I'm at an even more advanced stage of moral relativism, and I would legitimately like to be proven wrong.
And yet there are people who insist the Earth is flat and that the Moon landing was a hoax, in spite of overwhelming evidence. Even some ancient Greek scientists knew that Earth isn't flat.
"Honor" killings (just call them murder, okay? There's nothing at all "honorable" about them) are not a society-wide thing. There are plenty of imams and other Muslim authorities who have made it clear that these murders do not have wide acceptance now.
People (they're not always men; there's a woman in prison in Canada for helping her husband and son murder her three oldest daughters and her husband's first wife) who engage in these murders are not doing it out of morality. They're doing it because they think their pride was stomped on when a female relative or fiancee refused to do as she was told (ie. wear a hijab, not wear makeup, decide for herself whom to love/marry, get more than a basic education... or in some regions, any education at all).
You're missing the point. People may believe that stuff, but we can comfortably tell them they are wrong and dismiss their beliefs because there is empirical evidence that contradicts them. No such evidence exists for moral codes, so while you may disagree with a particular moral code, you cannot say that it is objectively wrong.
Askthepizzaguy
Know the Dark Side
If morality is relative then it doesn't exist.
Knowing what is moral or not, that is not guaranteed. But if something is moral, then it was always moral, regardless of culture, acceptance, tradition, or legality.
One does not subscribe to the theory that morality is objective because they have all the answers and can write them down in a book and therefore have the final word. Morality, like scientific truth, like mathematical truth, is not fluid. While there's always going to be an epistemological argument about whether or not the truth can be known with certainty, I'm of the opinion moral truth exists, just like scientific or mathematical truth, or historical truth.
It is there to be explored and discovered, weighed carefully, and debated. But if for instance, raping someone is morally wrong, then it is so independent of whether or not it is legally permissible, traditionally acceptable, popular, or even if it is thought to be morally correct.
Then, it is our understanding of what is moral that is incorrect. The rightness or wrongness of a particular moral value hasn't changed based on our understanding or interpretation of things, any more than the value of 2+2 would change if someone didn't quite understand arithmetic, nor would the Earth be the center of the universe if someone erroneously thought it was.
Our personal understanding of morality may be flawed, but objective morality exists, or there is no morality, only popular opinion or one's private opinion. If all opinions are equally valid or morality were to change based on a popularity contest then morality isn't real.
I do not agree with such a premise. Objective morality is the only kind left that exists as an option. Whether I personally have mastered understanding it or not, it is out there to be understood as much as possible.
Knowing what is moral or not, that is not guaranteed. But if something is moral, then it was always moral, regardless of culture, acceptance, tradition, or legality.
One does not subscribe to the theory that morality is objective because they have all the answers and can write them down in a book and therefore have the final word. Morality, like scientific truth, like mathematical truth, is not fluid. While there's always going to be an epistemological argument about whether or not the truth can be known with certainty, I'm of the opinion moral truth exists, just like scientific or mathematical truth, or historical truth.
It is there to be explored and discovered, weighed carefully, and debated. But if for instance, raping someone is morally wrong, then it is so independent of whether or not it is legally permissible, traditionally acceptable, popular, or even if it is thought to be morally correct.
Then, it is our understanding of what is moral that is incorrect. The rightness or wrongness of a particular moral value hasn't changed based on our understanding or interpretation of things, any more than the value of 2+2 would change if someone didn't quite understand arithmetic, nor would the Earth be the center of the universe if someone erroneously thought it was.
Our personal understanding of morality may be flawed, but objective morality exists, or there is no morality, only popular opinion or one's private opinion. If all opinions are equally valid or morality were to change based on a popularity contest then morality isn't real.
I do not agree with such a premise. Objective morality is the only kind left that exists as an option. Whether I personally have mastered understanding it or not, it is out there to be understood as much as possible.
No, I got your point just fine. Apparently you are missing mine. There's a difference between observation and argument, and I was merely observing that there are still people who believe in a flat Earth and Moon hoaxes.
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