Who is worse off when a fetus is terminated? How about a newborn? How about an adult?

[PyramidHead]

First, I'll quickly define some terms and parameters. If we disagree on these, it might be hard to continue.

To be 'worse off' means to be negatively impacted by something, where 'negative' is relative to the wishes of the person being impacted. For example: if you take away my stereo, I'm negatively impacted, or worse off, if and only if I want to keep my stereo. If I leave it on the curb because I have no use for it, your taking away my stereo does not make me worse off. With me so far?

From this, it follows that the only entities that can be negatively impacted by actions taken upon/against them are entities with wishes. This view is called preference utilitarianism, and I think it is the correct view, provided that we focus on minimizing frustrated wishes rather than maximizing satisfied wishes (the latter gets us into making clones of people, getting them addicted to something, and continually supplying them with it, which seems pointless compared to just not making the clones in the first place, but that gets into the morality of procreation itself and is outside the scope of this thread).

So, given the above, my view is that based on facts about physiology, neurobiology, psychology, etc. that are well established, a fetus cannot be worse off by being aborted because it has no wish to be born. That much is probably agreed upon by a significant number of people. But what I want to get you to consider is that being born does not immediately endow one with all of the requisite qualities that enable one to be negatively impacted by dying. A newborn infant does not gain a cognitive preference for living a full life until much later in its development, so it's hard to see why it should be considered wrong to end its life before it reaches that point. If you agree with my reasoning about being better or worse off, even if you don't subscribe to utilitarianism of any sort, what do you think? And if you don't agree with my basic premises, what part do you disagree with? And if you don't think that morality has anything to do with facts and is just a reflection of mob mentality that can't be reconciled with reasoned argument, could you kindly not reply to this post?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I'd say that we're all worse off because it creates a society where life isn't viewed as being as valuable or as worthy of protection, so the odds of us finding ourselves in a situation where our own life will be terminated is are increased. Societies generally have rules against murder because members of those societies have higher chances of survival than those in societies where people can just kill others whenever they want. You cannot devalue the lives of others in your society without having your own life devalued at the same time.

 

[PyramidHead]

I'd say that we're all worse off because it creates a society where life isn't viewed as being as valuable or as worthy of protection, so the odds of us finding ourselves in a situation where our own life will be terminated is are increased. Societies generally have rules against murder because members of those societies have higher chances of survival than those in societies where people can just kill others whenever they want. You cannot devalue the lives of others in your society without having your own life devalued at the same time.

Are you saying that about fetuses all the way up, just newborns and older, or what? Because it sounds like you're coming out against killing any human in general, born or not. But I know from your history that you're not a pro-life guy, so you probably would say that bodily autonomy trumps value of life as a social concept worth preserving. Is that accurate?

ETA: Do you also feel this way about assisted suicide?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I'd say that we're all worse off because it creates a society where life isn't viewed as being as valuable or as worthy of protection, so the odds of us finding ourselves in a situation where our own life will be terminated is are increased. Societies generally have rules against murder because members of those societies have higher chances of survival than those in societies where people can just kill others whenever they want. You cannot devalue the lives of others in your society without having your own life devalued at the same time.

Are you saying that about fetuses all the way up, just newborns and older, or what? Because it sounds like you're coming out against killing any human in general, born or not. But I know from your history that you're not a pro-life guy, so you probably would say that bodily autonomy trumps value of life as a social concept worth preserving. Is that accurate?

When you're talking about laws, a clear dividing point as to where it applies or doesn't apply is important and "out of the womb" is a clear and precise dividing point precisely because "you have no right to use somebody else's body if they don't want you to" is a clear statement. "Much later in its development" is not one. Is it OK to kill a four year old but not a 12 year old? What if the 12 year old has anxiety problems and his social development is delayed as a result? What about mentally handicapped people or those with brain disorders from accidents? What about those who are so intellectually stunted they thought that voting for Trump was a good idea? You need some delineator to say "life starts having value here" or you start undercutting your position. That's why pro-lifers get such traction over the late term abortion issue despite late term abortion not actually being an issue. Focusing on it exposes wishy-washiness and uncertainty in their opponents' positions and has them trying to defend things which they aren't actually comfortable with defending as opposed to keeping the focus on parts of the argument that they are actually comfortable with.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

First, I'll quickly define some terms and parameters. If we disagree on these, it might be hard to continue.

To be 'worse off' means to be negatively impacted by something, where 'negative' is relative to the wishes of the person being impacted. For example: if you take away my stereo, I'm negatively impacted, or worse off, if and only if I want to keep my stereo. If I leave it on the curb because I have no use for it, your taking away my stereo does not make me worse off. With me so far?

From this, it follows that the only entities that can be negatively impacted by actions taken upon/against them are entities with wishes. This view is called preference utilitarianism, and I think it is the correct view, provided that we focus on minimizing frustrated wishes rather than maximizing satisfied wishes (the latter gets us into making clones of people, getting them addicted to something, and continually supplying them with it, which seems pointless compared to just not making the clones in the first place, but that gets into the morality of procreation itself and is outside the scope of this thread).

So, given the above, my view is that based on facts about physiology, neurobiology, psychology, etc. that are well established, a fetus cannot be worse off by being aborted because it has no wish to be born. That much is probably agreed upon by a significant number of people. But what I want to get you to consider is that being born does not immediately endow one with all of the requisite qualities that enable one to be negatively impacted by dying. A newborn infant does not gain a cognitive preference for living a full life until much later in its development, so it's hard to see why it should be considered wrong to end its life before it reaches that point. If you agree with my reasoning about being better or worse off, even if you don't subscribe to utilitarianism of any sort, what do you think? And if you don't agree with my basic premises, what part do you disagree with? And if you don't think that morality has anything to do with facts and is just a reflection of mob mentality that can't be reconciled with reasoned argument, could you kindly not reply to this post?

The way you have designed the argument, it would be impossible to create a counter-argument using preference utility. For starters Preference Utility and 'Pro-Choice' kind of go hand in hand. Also, preference utility can be applied to beings without the intellectual capacity to consider their own future, but you and Singer eliminate that as a possibility.

I think if you want to have a meaningful moral discussion you might ease up on the application of preference to beings who live only in the present or accept arguments from General Utilitarianism.

aa

eta: Sorry, if I had read the whole OP I would have seen that you are asking for responses outside of Utility theory.

 

[PyramidHead]

Are you saying that about fetuses all the way up, just newborns and older, or what? Because it sounds like you're coming out against killing any human in general, born or not. But I know from your history that you're not a pro-life guy, so you probably would say that bodily autonomy trumps value of life as a social concept worth preserving. Is that accurate?

When you're talking about laws, a clear dividing point as to where it applies or doesn't apply is important and "out of the womb" is a clear and precise dividing point precisely because "you have no right to use somebody else's body if they don't want you to" is a clear statement. "Much later in its development" is not one. Is it OK to kill a four year old but not a 12 year old? What if the 12 year old has anxiety problems and his social development is delayed as a result? What about mentally handicapped people or those with brain disorders from accidents? What about those who are so intellectually stunted they thought that voting for Trump was a good idea? You need some delineator to say "life starts having value here" or you start undercutting your position. That's why pro-lifers get such traction over the late term abortion issue despite late term abortion not actually being an issue. Focusing on it exposes wishy-washiness and uncertainty in their opponents' positions and has them trying to defend things which they aren't actually comfortable with defending as opposed to keeping the focus on parts of the argument that they are actually comfortable with.

Even though you're right about the effectiveness of simple laws, you're answering a different question than what I asked. What I asked was, whether it's legal or not, who is worse off when a fetus, a newborn, a teenager, an adult, etc. is killed? The question you answered was, who is worse off if it's legally permissible to kill a fetus, a newborn, etc.? And your answer was interesting, so I'll discuss it anyway.

It might seem like a society that doesn't value life would have no problem dispensing of undesirables. But that's only true if there is nothing, other than life itself, that can be valued in a way that protects people from being mistreated by society. I think there is at least one other candidate that actually works better than life, because let's be honest, life really means human life. And human life is usually stratified into citizens vs. non-citizens in practice.

The most fundamental ethical/moral rule is probably something like "consider interests other than your own". If you don't have at least that concept, you're not really talking about morality. If our culture shifted from a life-centered moral code to one that puts emphasis on the actual interests of others, it would be just as resistant to the kind of corruption you're worried about, it wouldn't waste resources on situations where the interests of others aren't in play (such as abortion), and it would extend to situations where the interests of others run counter to preserving life (such assisted suicide). Those all seem like major improvements over just declaring all life to be valuable per se. I can see how devaluing life without propping up something to cover what it used to cover would be problematic, but I don't agree that we are morally unequipped to treat each other compassionately without holding life as a good in itself.

 

[PyramidHead]

First, I'll quickly define some terms and parameters. If we disagree on these, it might be hard to continue.

To be 'worse off' means to be negatively impacted by something, where 'negative' is relative to the wishes of the person being impacted. For example: if you take away my stereo, I'm negatively impacted, or worse off, if and only if I want to keep my stereo. If I leave it on the curb because I have no use for it, your taking away my stereo does not make me worse off. With me so far?

From this, it follows that the only entities that can be negatively impacted by actions taken upon/against them are entities with wishes. This view is called preference utilitarianism, and I think it is the correct view, provided that we focus on minimizing frustrated wishes rather than maximizing satisfied wishes (the latter gets us into making clones of people, getting them addicted to something, and continually supplying them with it, which seems pointless compared to just not making the clones in the first place, but that gets into the morality of procreation itself and is outside the scope of this thread).

So, given the above, my view is that based on facts about physiology, neurobiology, psychology, etc. that are well established, a fetus cannot be worse off by being aborted because it has no wish to be born. That much is probably agreed upon by a significant number of people. But what I want to get you to consider is that being born does not immediately endow one with all of the requisite qualities that enable one to be negatively impacted by dying. A newborn infant does not gain a cognitive preference for living a full life until much later in its development, so it's hard to see why it should be considered wrong to end its life before it reaches that point. If you agree with my reasoning about being better or worse off, even if you don't subscribe to utilitarianism of any sort, what do you think? And if you don't agree with my basic premises, what part do you disagree with? And if you don't think that morality has anything to do with facts and is just a reflection of mob mentality that can't be reconciled with reasoned argument, could you kindly not reply to this post?

The way you have designed the argument, it would be impossible to create a counter-argument using preference utility. For starters Preference Utility and 'Pro-Choice' kind of go hand in hand. Also, preference utility can be applied to beings without the intellectual capacity to consider their own future, but you and Singer eliminate that as a possibility.

I hadn't thought about it that way, but it's probably worth pointing out that capacity to consider one's future doesn't equate to currently considering one's future this second. Sometimes people take preference utility to allow the mistreatment of people in their sleep, since at that moment they don't consciously hold a view about what they want for themselves... that's kind of silly, but to address it I would say that capacity is dispositional; given someone's current mental faculties, it makes sense to say they would prefer X if we have good reason to think they would say "yes" if we asked them, even if they are unconscious at the moment or in a coma. If we could wake someone in a coma, we'd be able to ask them what they want, and this wouldn't require any change to a morally relevant aspect of their mental constitution. We can't "wake up" a fetus in that sense; all we can do is project into the future what we think its later self, with non-trivially different psychological/neurological features, would say.

When you mention beings that can't consider their future, is this what you're talking about, or is it something else, like various animals or developmentally disabled humans?

I think if you want to have a meaningful moral discussion you might ease up on the application of preference to beings who live only in the present or accept arguments from General Utilitarianism.

aa

eta: Sorry, if I had read the whole OP I would have seen that you are asking for responses outside of Utility theory.

Yup, I'm opening the floor for people to say I'm wrong that we should primarily consider whether our actions violate another person's interests/wishes/etc. Tom Sawyer has made an appeal to a kind of deontology, rule-based system, where regardless of what we actually value, things work better if we reduce our values to simple rules (don't kill people, don't tell people what to do with their bodies) if I understand him correctly. I still think that's just a statement, perhaps a true one, about what is palatable to the majority of people in 2017, rather than what's actually right. At best, we could say that killing a newborn is no worse than killing a fetus, but in order to keep the masses from getting the wrong idea we should all pretend it's just as bad as killing an adult if not worse. That doesn't sit right with me as a long-term solution, but I get it.