Funny events in anti-woke world

Ag3ma

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You also likely know that your position on where the balance of rights should be is just millennia old garbage superstitions. You're not using the word "soul", but you're absolutely using the same meaningless rationalizations they used thousands of years ago to justify abortions, except now we have the technology to demonstrate the continuity of existence from conception to birth, so you don't even have the excuse of ignorance.
No-one's needed modern science to understand that fetuses grow and eventually become babies when they exit the mother's womb, you know. That's not superstition, that's just readily a observable phenomenon, where science has done little more than increase our understanding of how it happens.

But even the ancients realised that there has to be a transitional point where a fetus becomes more than a vaguely shaped blob of cells and something recognisably human-ish. The principle of "quickening" (and thus when some religions decided to believe a soul had arrived) was based on fetal movement. We can understand this from their primitive if reasonable assumption that movement might be associated with thought. Add a load of science, we now have a very good idea about when certain functions develop in a fetus rather than these sort of crude approximations.

This, then, is the consistency, to which your introduction of mysticism is misleading. The development of a fetus has always, at core, been understood by observation and reason - at least, that available to the knowledge of the time. Religions then imposed their mystical notions on top of it (as they have done for most things).

Your religion's hardline stance isn't even really one of deepest principle. It magicked it up over the last few centuries off the back of wider social movements that turned against abortion, following that trend more than making it.
 

tstorm823

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But even the ancients realised that there has to be a transitional point where a fetus becomes more than a vaguely shaped blob of cells and something recognisably human-ish.
There only "has to be" in the sense that a transitional point is required to justify abortion. Why is a vaguely shaped blob of cells not recognizably human? Maybe you'll argue a whole bunch of vague reasons why it's different, none of which are principles that hold up to any scrutiny. Frankly, I have more respect for the person who admits it's just more convenient for that not to be human so we can kill them with impunity.
 

tstorm823

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This is a matter of abstract philosophy and really has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue of abortion.
As it turns out, if your broad philosophical views are stupid, the specifics resting on that foundation are also stupid.
 

Silvanus

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There only "has to be" in the sense that a transitional point is required to justify abortion. Why is a vaguely shaped blob of cells not recognizably human? Maybe you'll argue a whole bunch of vague reasons why it's different, none of which are principles that hold up to any scrutiny. Frankly, I have more respect for the person who admits it's just more convenient for that not to be human so we can kill them with impunity.
Wait, you're telling me it's always a full, personage-having human, at every step, from the first moment? From the second the sperm hits the egg, or before-- are the egg and sperm both full humans?

I mean, it should be plain to any thinking person that a transitional point is necessary. Because if something with absolutely none of the traits of a human is still a human, then "human" becomes a meaningless term.
 

tstorm823

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Wait, you're telling me it's always a full, personage-having human, at every step, from the first moment? From the second the sperm hits the egg, or before-- are the egg and sperm both full humans?

I mean, it should be plain to any thinking person that a transitional point is necessary. Because if something with absolutely none of the traits of a human is still a human, then "human" becomes a meaningless term.
The egg and sperm are not full humans, they are fully the cells of the parents and have no ability to generate independent life sustaining functions. They don't grow, they don't multiply, etc.

The second the sperm hits the egg, a brand new organism is made, distinct from either parent, and having the hallmarks of what we call life. A zygote is a genetically unique, living organism. "Human" doesn't become a meaningless term; it means an individual, unique living human organism. Any definition stricter than that is dehumanizing people. All the stuff about consciousness, awareness, pain, pleasure, etc. is adding extra steps to justify solely the act of abortion. You wouldn't put any qualifiers on "who is human" in any other context without feeling like an absolute turd, all of that is down the path of eugenics. Similarly, the people who talk about a fetus being better off not being born would never say those things in any other context, you'd never look a child of a poor single mother in the eyes and say "you'd be better off dead". These are things said to justify this one specific action that will never be applied to anything else.

When you think "it needs to mean more than just a human organism to be human", the only reason you think that is to justify abortion. For what other purpose would you ever think "hmmm, that particular stage of human development isn't human enough to be human"?
 

Silvanus

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The egg and sperm are not full humans, they are fully the cells of the parents and have no ability to generate independent life sustaining functions. They don't grow, they don't multiply, etc.
That's a point of transition.

The second the sperm hits the egg, a brand new organism is made, distinct from either parent, and having the hallmarks of what we call life.
It takes about 24 hours for a sperm to fertilise an egg after its reached it.

A zygote is a genetically unique, living organism. "Human" doesn't become a meaningless term; it means an individual, unique living human organism. Any definition stricter than that is dehumanizing people. All the stuff about consciousness, awareness, pain, pleasure, etc. is adding extra steps to justify solely the act of abortion. You wouldn't put any qualifiers on "who is human" in any other context without feeling like an absolute turd, all of that is down the path of eugenics.
OK, let's stop with the accusatory rhetoric for a moment. I'm not adding any such qualifiers to 'what is human'. I think a zygote is human-- in the same way a sperm, egg, or cell culture is human. 'Human' refers to the species, and doesn't necessarily carry implications of thought process etc.

The difference is that I think those thought processes are the meaningful metrics to judge moral questions on, rather than whether or not something shares a species with me.
 

Ag3ma

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There only "has to be" in the sense that a transitional point is required to justify abortion. Why is a vaguely shaped blob of cells not recognizably human? Maybe you'll argue a whole bunch of vague reasons why it's different, none of which are principles that hold up to any scrutiny. Frankly, I have more respect for the person who admits it's just more convenient for that not to be human so we can kill them with impunity.
For much the same reason we switch off the life-support when someone is in a persistent vegetative state. There's not really a person there: it's a lump of technically living meat. A lump of meat that others may have a deep emotional connection to (and very understandably so), but nothing we need feel any pressing societal need to preserve, for society to compel the next of kin to maintain, for as many years as it takes until whatever other necessary organs collapse as well.
 

tstorm823

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Are you genuinely interested, or is this going to be another tangent to throw judgemental insults? I'm happy to answer if it's the former, but I ain't sleepwalking into the latter.
My actual insults have been pretty firmly aimed at the person who said:
That wasn't me rationalizing my beliefs, it was me mocking yours.... deserves nothing but derision....
Gotta speak to people in the language they can understand.

From you, I would genuinely like an answer to why you think thought processes carry more moral weight than membership in the same species.
For much the same reason we switch off the life-support when someone is in a persistent vegetative state. There's not really a person there: it's a lump of technically living meat. A lump of meat that others may have a deep emotional connection to (and very understandably so), but nothing we need feel any pressing societal need to preserve, for society to compel the next of kin to maintain, for as many years as it takes until whatever other necessary organs collapse as well.
That isn't the same reason at all. If someone suggested we should dismember that person in a vegetative state alive, you would be rightfully disturbed independent of their mental capabilities. There is a difference between killing someone and not preventing their death, that is why we find switching off life support acceptable, and that principle applies equally to those not in a vegetative state at all.
 

Seanchaidh

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As it turns out, if your broad philosophical views are stupid, the specifics resting on that foundation are also stupid.
you're literally quibbling over someone not putting the word 'just' before 'a belief'. and you think that's important. have a mirror.
 

Silvanus

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From you, I would genuinely like an answer to why you think thought processes carry more moral weight than membership in the same species.
Fair enough, I was being presumptuous.

My conception of morality centres on the prevention of suffering and the improvement of quality-of-life. As best we understand it, the capacity for both suffering and enjoyment of life are associated with brain functions: cognition, emotion, (to some degree) awareness, some others.

As such I feel no moral obligation to something that cannot suffer and does not think. I consider that equivalent to a moral obligation to (say) a culture in a lab. The fact that it shares a species alone is not meaningful to me and I don't see why it should be: a severed human arm would also be of the same species.

N.b. I'm genuinely not intending any of this to be derisive; I'm just trying to be descriptive. But i want to emphasise none of this reasoning is devised in order to justify abortion. The position on abortion is the result, not the cause, as you seemed to think. And this conception of morality leads behaviour in lots of ways entirely unrelated to abortion: it's why I don't eat meat, except for animals that lack brains (mussels, cockles, scallops etc).
 

Ag3ma

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That isn't the same reason at all. If someone suggested we should dismember that person in a vegetative state alive, you would be rightfully disturbed independent of their mental capabilities.
There is no meaningful point that you are making here.

You fundamentally have to start addressing the cognitive capabilities of the organisms involved, what they think and feel.

There is a difference between killing someone and not preventing their death
There are a great number of philosophical and psychological theories on this sort of thing (for instance, the well-known if crude "trolley problem") and a summary would be that this distinction is vastly less clear or obvious than you want to make out.

However, none of really matters anyway unless there's a "someone" dying. And this is where cognitive capability really starts to matter.
 
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tstorm823

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you're literally quibbling over someone not putting the word 'just' before 'a belief'. and you think that's important. have a mirror.
Where are you putting "just" in "abortions have nothing to do with beliefs"?
You fundamentally have to start addressing the cognitive capabilities of the organisms involved, what they think and feel.
Why?
However, none of really matters anyway unless there's a "someone" dying. And this is where cognitive capability really starts to matter.
Why? Your evaluation of personhood based on those characteristics is as arbitrary as any random characteristics we could pick. You could just as well say we have to consider the weight, cause you're not a person until you weigh more than 10 pounds. You're insistent that a particular characteristic is required, but I'm saying a human being is a human being, full stop. You've got to justify why that added feature is required to be a human, you can't just say "we must consider" and "it really matters".
My conception of morality centres on the prevention of suffering and the improvement of quality-of-life. As best we understand it, the capacity for both suffering and enjoyment of life are associated with brain functions: cognition, emotion, (to some degree) awareness, some others.

And this conception of morality leads behaviour in lots of ways entirely unrelated to abortion: it's why I don't eat meat, except for animals that lack brains (mussels, cockles, scallops etc).
That may be a consistent moral structure (most likely described as ethical hedonism, yes that is a real phrase, I did not make that up), but I think you can recognize that is not the moral system that the majority of society is built on, certainly legally. Lots of pigs are smarter than lots of children, and while you don't eat pigs, I have my doubts you would ever put their rights and protections above an infant based on cognition. We value membership in our species, it's honestly the greatest movement in history that we value people simply as members of our species. That's the concept of "human rights", that you are entitled to certain things simply by virtue of being human, no further consideration necessary.
a severed human arm would also be of the same species.
To address this, an arm is not a member of the same species, as it is not an individual organism.
N.b. I'm genuinely not intending any of this to be derisive; I'm just trying to be descriptive. But i want to emphasise none of this reasoning is devised in order to justify abortion. The position on abortion is the result, not the cause, as you seemed to think.
To be clear, I don't think you're sitting there going "how do I justify abortion, let's define life in a way that I can", as though you are knowingly attempting to delude yourself. But I do think abortion is a cause here. If not for the subject of abortion, I don't see much reason to stop and consider where to draw a line of where the unborn become human. If nobody wanted abortions, would you have even thought to suggest a zygote isn't a human?
 

Silvanus

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That may be a consistent moral structure (most likely described as ethical hedonism, yes that is a real phrase, I did not make that up), but I think you can recognize that is not the moral system that the majority of society is built on, certainly legally. Lots of pigs are smarter than lots of children, and while you don't eat pigs, I have my doubts you would ever put their rights and protections above an infant based on cognition.
Indeed I would not-- but that too is based on suffering and the improvement of quality-of-life. Because while I'd consider a pig's cognition above some very young children, there are other indicators that show even very young children have a higher capacity for suffering and for the enjoyment of life. And even with that aside, there are other considerations, such as the strength of the emotional bond between the subject and others.

We value membership in our species, it's honestly the greatest movement in history that we value people simply as members of our species.
I don't share this perspective. And I think that much of society's moral framework-- such as that which allows it to slaughter animals unnecessarily and en masse-- is immoral and unjustified.

To address this, an arm is not a member of the same species, as it is not an individual organism.
It is not a member of the same species, but it is of the same species. Being a member has additional implications, one of which would seem to me to be a very basic level of independent existence.

To be clear, I don't think you're sitting there going "how do I justify abortion, let's define life in a way that I can", as though you are knowingly attempting to delude yourself. But I do think abortion is a cause here. If not for the subject of abortion, I don't see much reason to stop and consider where to draw a line of where the unborn become human. If nobody wanted abortions, would you have even thought to suggest a zygote isn't a human?
Yes, quite honestly, because I thought quite a lot about this kind of thing before I ever had a fully formed opinion on abortion. I didn't know the term 'zygote', but in essence I considered the question earlier.

And to reiterate, I think you've chosen to 'draw a line' in just the same way I have, just earlier. The point at which the sperm reaches the egg is a point of transition. It's a point of transition I consider more arbitrary than mine.
 

tstorm823

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it's not a belief, it's a matter of human rights
it's not just a belief, it's a matter of human rights
You are just making up sentences for other people to have said.
It is not a member of the same species, but it is of the same species. Being a member has additional implications, one of which would seem to me to be a very basic level of independent existence.
Which a zygote has. Given proper environmental conditions and sources of energy, any individual post conception will grow, produce cells, and chemically maintain itself in a way that a severed arm cannot.
Yes, quite honestly, because I thought quite a lot about this kind of thing before I ever had a fully formed opinion on abortion. I didn't know the term 'zygote', but in essence I considered the question earlier.
Quite honestly, this feels like you're claiming you don't exist in society at all. I cannot imagine any way that someone would exist in this society, and with neither knowledge of pregnancy nor an opinion on abortion would be thinking deeply about when human life begins, just devoid of all that context.