While I do get the distinction you are trying to make, I’d say it isn’t murder unless John doesn’t want you to kill him. It still may not quite be ethical, but it’s not the same thing.
And, yes, I’d say the reason kicking her off is preferable is that she still has a (albeit extremely small) chance of surviving. Self-defense requires you to use the least level of force that would work. That means the one most likely to have a favorable result.
Plus, knowing you stabbed someone will feel worse, as it’s something you have been taught is wrong forever. When you had a less forceful choice, you will find it harder to rationalize.
I’m always amazed that a nation of people who get in their cars to go a quarter mile to a place where they can buy crappy processed food that they will then eat off of paper plates are suddenly contemptuous of “convenience” when they’re using that word to describe my decision to not permanently affect my body and at least temporarily alter my entire life for the sake of some theoretical person I don’t know.
But tell you what, if we can use your body, your health, your time, and your money, I’d be perfectly willing to go through with a pregnancy and give it up for adoption.
Describing pregnancy and childbirth as an “inconvenience” is insulting and delusional. Expecting a woman to do this and then hand the baby over to starngers and go on like nothing happened is insulting and delusional.
A woman who has an avortion has closure. A woman who gives her child away has a lifetime of “what if.” And if she later finds out her child was molested, tortured and/or killed by the adoptive paents…well, I cannot image a greater suffering.
Thanks for answering. Sorry for the snark. It just gets very frustrating when several people keep asking essentially the same question without reply from anyone.
I think I’m starting to see the disconnect.
In your example, Action 1 is passive. I am not doing anything to John, I am simply not taking action to save him, hence letting him die.
Action 2 is active - I am taking action to kill John.
In my example, Action 1 is active then passive. Mary Ann takes action against Ginger, and then passively lets her die.
And the addendum of stabbing with a spear would equal your Action 2 of taking action to kill Ginger.
You are equating your Action 1 (completely passive) with my Action 1 (active/passive), where I’m equating my Action 1 (active/passive) with Action 2 (completely active).
I understand the moral distinction between actively harming someone and passively not preventing harm to someone, I can agree with you there.
However, what I’m talking about is taking action that you know will cause death, just not immediately, and then pretending that you are only passively not preventing that death.
So you’re not only actively causing a death, but you are being hypocritically dishonest about it.
However, it’s not always bright-line clear-cut as to which you’re dealing with. In the real world, there are often investigative and legal processes to determine which category a particular situation falls under. And even with that, it often ends with some people disagreeing with the outcome.
Ginger is not attacking Mary Ann, she’s just holding on. Mary Ann is not in immediate danger from her. Is kicking Ginger loose self-defense? How so? Ginger does not present a clear and immediate threat to her life.
However, she won’t have the strength she needs to survive the night if she spends part of that strength holding up Ginger. If Mary Ann is going to survive, she has to get free of Ginger now, not half-way through the night when she’s already exhausted. So she kicks her loose, knowing that her action will result in Ginger’s death. Is that murder?
Mary Ann and Ginger is a horrid analogy. To make it work Mary Ann would have to be some kind of compulsive vampire that must feed off Ginger’s vital fluids, maybe dracula was on the island and got her. The only way to stop her is to kill her. Further Ginger can’t replace the fluids faster then they’re taken and will eventually die killing them both anyway. In other words it so off base it’s gone AWOL, becuase it doesn’t take into account the fetus’s use of the mother’s body.
Actually on second pass your analogy does address that. Mary Ann is attempting to use Ginger’s body as a flotation device. I submit that it would be in Ginger’s right to fight free.
The best abortion analogy I could come up: People are suddenly getting very sick and dying. Scientests discover that, in order to be saved, they must be hooked up to another person’s body for nine months. People start allowing this to happen, some for money and some for altruism.
Six months into the process, you get hooked up to a dying person. Three months later, when they start unhooking people, most of the unhookings go okay. However, sometimes one or both of the people die, and sometimes they can’t be unhooked. Also, some of the people who were dying have developed amazing capacities, and some have become psychotic serial killers.
You decide the risk is too great, and demand to have your person be unhooked right away. Should you have the right to do so, or shoud the person remained hooked up to you against your wishes?
I can see why you have a problrm and not like my example. If abortion were simple, there wouldn’t be a debate. I know it seems (it may actually be) hairsplitting, but I wouldn’t call it hypocritical. It preserves a very simple truth for Catholics “don’t kill innocents”.
There are two equally valuable lives and inaction will surely cause two deaths.
It’s closer to self-defense, but in self-defense there’s an actual intent to kill. In the life-of-the-mother cases the harmful action is not willed by someone.
I know that the pollution form my car is going to hasten/cause someone’s death. Even if I could pinpoint who that guy was, shooting him would be morally different.
You’re right, inconvenience does not capture it. Still. Doesn’t abortion become murder at some point before birth? If I shot a 8 month pregnant woman in the stomach, what should I be charged with with respect to the now dead fetus?
No, anyone who describes an abortion as ‘convenient’ is. I’m saying that people who use the word ‘convenient’ to describe choosing to not turn one’s life upside down are assholes.
We start from the same point - there are two equally valuable lives and inaction will surely cause two deaths.
The choices are:
Do nothing and everyone dies.
Kill the egg inside the tube - the egg dies but the mother’s health is preserved.
Kill the egg by removing the tube - the egg dies and the mother’s health is damaged.
Harmful action absolutely IS being willed by someone - namely the heads of the Catholic Church. They have chosen to willfully harm women when better options are available.
The explanation is that they are not killing the egg, they’re just letting it die. This is not like “someone somewhere may be harmed by my car’s exhaust”. This is equivalent to pushing rocks over onto John, and then running away as fast as you can. John dies. “I didn’t kill him, I just didn’t prevent the death.”
Catholics kill innocents, they just pretend they don’t. Hypocritical is the nicest thing I’d call it.
Can you explain to me the difference between killing an egg one way and killing an egg the other? Because the difference that I see is that one method ends one life and harms another, while the other method ends one life and doesn’t harm another. Seems extremely obvious to me which is the moral choice.