The problem is the quality of the Violinist argument. It doesn't offer anything close to what it pretends to aim at. The Violinist is neither a baby nor a baby in the making, so we are right away being distracted from otherwise very important issues such as the feelings of a mother with regard to her child (under normal conditions). Then, within this already oxymoronic comparison, another scratch of logic is being superimposed when the not-so-trivial issue of the "right to live" is being addressed, 'on the spot' as it were. (What would you want me to say? "Glad we sorted that out - next problem please"?) Also thrown in the mix: the presumption that it all depends on whether or not the foetus is a "person". Never mind that besides the concept "person", most people would posit that a "person in the making" still isn't a trivial matter. It's a different concept and less easy to face - but that doesn't mean we could simply ignore its implications.lordpasternack wrote: In English, please? For the record, the Violinist Thought Experiment was raised to concede to the notion that the foetus is a "person" - to make the point that, even if it WERE a person, it has no particular right to live inside and live off another person, and that other person has the right to withdraw that support, at any rate. That's all conceding that the foetus is a "person" - which, at least during the first trimester of pregnancy, it just frankly ISN'T.
The Violinist thought experiment has no scientific value - it has to be a 'live experiment' to be scientific. Of course it might have psychological value - but not unless it is being treated according to the rules of the particular rules applicable to this particular discipline. Yet, even if there's psychological value to the Vioninist experiment, most mothers - under normal conditions - will still consider that 'more than a violinist is here', in their womb. After all, it isn't "some violinist" or "some thing" they are concerned with. It's about their child. What I abhor is not what a particular mother decides to do at some point in time, playing by the rules of the law, but what kind of general education we are offering ourselves - beyond the particular cases.
Admitted, you built in an "at least during the first trimester of pregnancy" clause in your argument, like a tiny footnote, probably because you are too well aware that a foetus may react to sound as early as week 16/17. (Again, this may not imply personhood, but it is not clear why not - the argument cannot be, for instance, that those sound-reactions occur 8 weeks before the formation of the ear; life isn't defined by the shape of our ears). Your built-in precaution demonstrates some awareness of my point - whatever good or bad 'English' there was to it. Few serious scientists would consider the time prior to child birth one monolithic chunk of 'non-life-of-some-kind' (in spite of it being called 'foetus'), and no jurist seems to think of this period as imposing 'out-law' status to what's in the womb. So the facts of what professionals think are a bit at odds with your on-the-spot 'interjection' ("at least during the first trimester of pregnancy"). The reality in society is more like this: *most certainly* limited to this first tremester, after which we need to take our responsibility and talk about this forthcoming human life there and how to deal with it according to what we know - not just according to what we don't know yet (and maybe dislike to know).
If these are the words of someone who had an abortion, it can be understood. What I don't like is this being generalized. Few people would put it this way. Even those who are fully aware that 10 weeks and 20 weeks pregnancy is a huge difference, would not easily compare human life with non-human life this way. If we compare human life with non-human life (let's say in the way of Peter Singer), it behooves us to reflect much more in-depth about this matter, and it's clear that on that tricky road even our Human Rights may become endangered. Comparing human life with non-human life no trifle, and will outreach far beyond the discussion on abortion. Treating animals well is a good thing - I am pro. But none of my sympathies for animal life entices me to compare human life with non-human life, and I don't see how one can defend this beyond any doubt. Peter Singer cannot nullify our human ancestry (which is uniquely human for the last 6 to 10 million years). No one can really 'logically' argue that human culture is meaningless, or even just equal to animal conditions. That simply is an argument-less position. And yes, it may be more difficult to defend why mankind is 'entitled' to valuate their own culture this way - but the fact is: we do. We all live our lives as educated people - well, most of us. So... that's where you are. We are 'stuck in it' so to speak. Attached to this comes the notion of responsibility.lordpasternack wrote: Killing other fully developed conscious beings (non-human animals) is far more ethically questionable than flushing a 10-week-old foetus out of a woman.
Before birth, mothers will usually talk about "their baby", not "their foetus". Notwithstanding personal considerations / conditions, those facts are important and meaningful. I would take extreme caution not to treat human beings as if the perennial question of life would just be a mathematical problem. Under normal conditions the natural feelings of a mother are a gift of nature, of evolution if you want. Exceptions (particular conditions) may rather confirm the general rule.
About my remark on what the spartans did, you say:
Nothing naive about this argument. The fact that the lines in the sand are fuzzy is exactly the reason why we shouldn't put our head in this sand. The fact that there is "no particular discrete moment at which personhood... emerge" is exactly the reason why we should be cautions not to destroy the notion of personhood before we have a less than vague idea about what it is. Things like personhood, childhood and so on are not myths (I guess that's your mistake here), they are psychological and philosophical observations, there are good arguments behind these things. We're not talking about unicorns here, but about rational observations, resulting in supported - albeit not fully crystallized - concepts of what human life really is.lordpasternack wrote: That's just naive denial of reality. The fact that the lines in the sand are fuzzy, and there's no particular discrete moment at which personhood, or childhood, or adolescence, or adulthood, or middle-age, or old age suddenly emerge, doesn't let you avoid the fact that there is a clear qualitative difference...
The photos you posted: nice, all of them. Differences? You bet. But from photo 3 on most people realize there's more than a lump of non-life. "foetus.jpg" is essentially an argument pro-human-life. That doesn't mean there's no legal conditions to abort it. It means this deserves caution, how we think and speak of it.
lordpasternack wrote: ...there's increasing evidence that birth actually does make a very significant difference to the neurology (and hence putative sentience and consciousness) of the being that just emerged from their mother.
Yes, but that doesn't mean we can only then start to consider it life. This is where we must learn to look at science with a sense of realism (we invented the scientific method, after all). You cannot defend something scientifically if the human experience of most mothers on the planet tells a different story.
lordpasternack wrote: I'm a materialist - but that doesn't mean that I don't respect life, particularly conscious life. Far from it. I'm just not sure at all what you're batting at.
I don't dispute your respect for life (I could only hope that it might become more self-explicatory). Conscious life: that is *not my* limit to humanism. I'm battering for respect, dignity, grateful life. I'm battering like those who consider the environment is in danger. There are also those who don't stop destroying our environment because they are not sure if it will really end in a world-wide calamity.
lordpasternack wrote: You're right that there's no rational argument that abortion is the only solution to any which issue you care to mention that it does resolve. When did anyone ever claim it was?
Those claims are available indirectly a number of times in this discussion's threat. Willingly or not - I'll not discuss that or suspect too much. I can believe in people's best intensions. But reckless conclusions are in my opinion very close to the thing "no one was ever claiming" according to your perception.
Of course I agree that prevention and contraception is always far more ideal. At this point we can agree. And in my replies to 'pussercat-from-hades' (who likes to play with my own nickname too), I conceded that abortion seems inevitable for now, because we as a society don't know how to deal better with the situation. I have no easy solution on offer. Whatever I would defend, some people would say "that's because you are religious". But it isn't that simple.
When you posit "it doesn't even require any kind of elaborate rationalisation - other than that the mother does not wish to be a biological mother", I can only reply that "things we do not wish" are not necessarily sacred. Sometimes we have to do the things we do not wish, because we have to act responsibly.
As far as your personal story goes, at the end of your post: I am very cautious not to jump from general considerations to personal ones. Just as in jurisdiction, there is the personal tuning of a verdict, case by case. In the case of abortion, when it happens within the restrictions of the law, it still demands a personal approach, an understanding of particular conditions and so on. Blaming people for doing what they see as the only remaining, reasonable solution at hand is not on my agenda. But to generalize this or that personal experience and promote 'last resort solutions' to the level of accepted practice is asking too much. There is too much at stake: our valuation of life itself.
