“carefully avoided” like people who are talking about hot dogs carefully avoid calling them hamburgers.
in response to the whole tone of your post, i don’t think “selective morality” is an apt term. “murder” is a socially defined word, and when applied to different societies (say, iraq to mr. bush) it is meaningless. one might even go so far as to say that one society considers another a part of it when it defines the term “murder” with respect to that society.
in other words, i don’t think people selectively apply their morals, rather that their morals are defined selectively. killing humans is “wrong” even for food, while killing animals for food is common and accepted. does that mean that humans put their morals on hold when dealing with non-human animals? no, i think it means that the moral adherance to refraining from murder is simply defined specifically defined for interhuman interactions, not inter-species interaction.
If our anti-murder behavior is stemmed from self preservation, then only people who could be aborted would feel threatened. Obviously anyone who advocates or goes through with abortion is beyond that point.
Joe Random has already aired most of my views on this subject, except the relation of murder to stealing. Murder for revenge or retribution can be “justified” what you whuckfistle seem to be talking about is random killing.
Since the dawn of man (insert epic movie music) certain things have become, by neccesity, sacred. Meaning every living thing is entitled to them, not by religion, but by self-preservation and the preservation of the species. These things are IMHO one’s life and one’s possesions. The latter can be related to the former in that one’s life is that person’s possesion, and the loss of life can be a loss of companionship for a loved one (taking something from them).
This doesn’t seem as convincing in print as it does in my mind, one last stab. Wanton killing sprees are not only wrong because they create a need for the killer’s elimination, but they are wrong because there is nothing right about them. A person who started killing people randomly would be seen as an uncontrolable force, that the community would have to deal with in order to survive. It may not seem wrong to you, but it sure as hell is wrong to the person that was killed…he lost his most valuable posession. Others, not wanting to be robbed of their lives, will act accordingly. Thusly, those that “run amok” sp? will be killed off, and if that is before they have reproduced…will be genetically selected against (“wrong” for the continuation of your genes, contradicting your natural urge to spread them).
Very sorry to hear about your daughter. Ive heard some say ,"Kill the rapist, not the baby". I dont know what I would do in that situation. Im against abortion - however, Id be against raising that child also. I wouldn`t be up-in-arms against an early term abortion in that situation, now that I think about it. It would take some discussion with family and such to come to a comfortable conclusion.
Im still concerned with societies leniency towards mothers who kill their babies and the acceptance of late term abortions in general. If birth is the start of life - then why are we so passive when it comes to those who kill their children. Our society gives way more grief to sexual predators than it does to mothers who kill their own babies. We tend to feel sorry for the people who kill rather than feel rage. I think we may be turning a corner in society where we become complacent with murdering the young and it`s only a matter of time before it becomes acceptable to some degree.
by “killing babies” are you referring to post-birth murder of babies, or abortion?
how passive are we? do you have any examples of what you consider leniency in these situations? it seems to me society tends to show true hate for murderous mommies.
there is a well-documented disease (if you will) that new mothers experience, presumably due to all the levels of the various hormones associated with birth, when they are far different than they would normally be, along with the physical and emotional stress of the event. that, coupled with the physical labors of having to take care of a new baby (in many cases with no help) can drive some new mothers over the edge. i for one think it warrants more sympathy than rage.
i think this is a ridiculous and unfounded statement.
This says it all for me. Murder is wrong because I don’t want it to happen to me or those I love (self-serving). We all agree that it’s wrong and attach penalties to the act in order to protect ourselves.
The second, I think that if partial birth abortion becomes more acceptable we may extend the mothers rights to one hour, or one day, or one week after birth. Maybe not through legal routes but perhaps through the lack of effort to prosecute the parents who take the killing into their own hands. Then, just maybe, in the future these actions may become legal and acceptable.
Read the link I posted earlier in the thread, if you haven`t already. It refers to the passiveness I alluded to. These stories are becoming more and more common. Or more and more reported on, not sure how to take it yet.
could you please define what you mean by “partial-birth abortion”? i think the term is an intentional misnomer (like pro-life) intended to imply that would-be mothers who abort are murderers.
then, please explain how late-term abortion is equivalent to post-birth murder. i think you would be hard-pressed indeed to find a member of the pro-choice camp who feels that a mother should have the right to kill a child after birth, when the child is no longer a part of her body.
Those of you claiming that murder is wrong because of self-interest: is this an accurate statement of your reasoning?
I don’t want other people to murder me. If I murder other people, I will contribute to a general sense that murder is acceptable – and specifically, people will conclude that killing me is acceptable. Therefore, I do not murder other people, and therefore, other people will not murder me.
If so, let me ask: why is the perfect murder unethical? The perfect murder is one in which the murderer believes not only that nobody will suspect her of the deed, but also nobody will suspect that a murder was committed at all.
My understanding is that social contract theory (“you don’t kill me, I don’t kill you”) contains no restriction against committing perfect murders: your own self-interest isn’t materially harmed by committing one.
The abortion argument is a total red herring, IMO.
Ill concede your argument if youll be willing to tell me at what point and at what time you will fail to feel sympathetic towards mothers who kill their babies. One hour, one day, one week. When would your sympathy turn to rage? - that is the part that we need to contend with. When and why society does or doesnt feel enraged about such activities? BTW- I didnt say that they were equivalent, I said that I could see how one may lead to the other, or will lead to the other. And when does a baby not become a part of her body? right after the cord is cut? what if the cord were allowed to remain attached for a few minutes while the mother was able to inspect the baby and decide if she wanted to keep it or not?
Red Herring or not, you must have an opinion on it, no?
Further more, I`m not here to debate abortion, just the fine line that seperates abortion from the killing of newborns, and how we as a society are ready to deal with this issue as it relates to our thoughts on murder in general.
• The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (H.R. 760, S. 3) would ban performance of a partial-birth abortion except if it were necessary to the save a mother’s life. The bill defines partial-birth abortion as an abortion in which “the person performing the abortion deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother,” and then kills the baby. The bill would permit use of the procedure if “necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.”
• In a partial-birth abortion, the abortionist pulls a living baby feet-first out of the womb and into the birth canal (vagina), except for the head, which the abortionist purposely keeps lodged just inside the cervix (the opening to the womb). The abortionist punctures the base of the baby’s skull with a surgical instrument, such as a long surgical scissors or a pointed hollow metal tube called a trochar. He then inserts a catheter (tube) into the wound, and removes the baby’s brain with a powerful suction machine. This causes the skull to collapse, after which the abortionist completes the delivery of the now-dead baby. From here.
My opinion on abortion? It doesn’t involve suffering of a being with an identity, with the capacity to experience pain, with a concept of the past and hte future, with desires and interests. Fetuses are non-persons. As they develop the above characteristics of persons, they become ethically protected. In the first trimester, there’s strong neurological evidence that have none of the above characteristics. Ergo != murder.
Abortions are limited in second and third trimesters. In the third trimesters especially, we have a protoperson vying for rights with a complete person, and legally (and ethically) we must weigh the two beings’ interests against one another. The full person generally wins such a contest – that is, the mother’s real interests generally trump the fetus’s real interests.
Once the baby is born, the mother has the moral duty to care for the being or to arrange for such care. It’s very easy in our society to arrange for such care: mothers may hand the child to the doctor and surrender it. At that point, surrendering the child satisfies both the mother’s interests and the child’s interests.
As I said, comparing abortion to murder is a red herring.
i think my point on empathy applies here. we see others as people because they are so similar to ourselves. we have these feelings (i don’t want to be murdered), and we assume that others also have these feelings. due to the similarity we see, we develop an empathy, and we feel bad when we hear about the death of another person.
also, due to the complex nature of human interaction, it is very difficult to determine whether our lives would be better without the person we could perfectly murder. indeed, it seems when people decide their lives would be better without someone, it may just be the social contract that prevents their murder of that person.
additionally, i think the social contract argument extends to the perfect murder by becoming an individual moral or ethic. we don’t want to be killed, so we don’t kill, and we say it is wrong to commit murder. its application to the perfect murder could just an extension of the ethic that goes beyond the reason for having it (like, in my opinion, many people’s objection to abortion).
another way the social contract makes the perfect murder immoral is that our interests are advanced by society. murder is detrimental to society, and therefore indirectly detrimental to us.
i must agree. asking how we feel about abortion with regards to its relation to murder is assuming that abortion is murder.
whuckfistle, if a fetus was aborted at 6 months using that technique, would that make it partial-birth abortion?
for murderous mommies, i think as with deciding our emotions for all things we must consider each case individually. if we hear about a mother suffering from postpartum psychosis who smothers her 2-week-old, that seems particularly unfortunate. a mother who throws her 2-year-old into a pool because she can’t afford crack and food for a baby is unfortunate as well, but perhaps more deserving of rage (she seems more responsible).
that said, i think i must feel sympathy for anyone in the unfortunate position of deserving my rage. unless my rage was unfounded, in which case i will regret feeling that way in the first place.
Ramanujan, FWIW, I agree with you – but I don’t think the argument you’re putting forward is really social contract theory. Social contract theory as I understand it is based on enlightened self-interest; empathy and altruism are not involved in building a SCT ethic.
As for not committing the perfect murder because it hurts society, I’m p[retty skeptical of that as a legitimate selfish reason. Imagine a common circumstance in which a Perfect Murder might be contemplated:
A relative or friend wills me a bunch of money, but isn’t likely to die any time soon.
I can commit a perfect murder and inherit all that money – nobody will even suspect the relative was murdered.
In this circumstance, why would enlightened self-interest prevent me from committing the perfect murder? In other words, what material harm am I likely to suffer from committing the murder – and how does that material harm compare to the material gain I receive by committing the murder?
Sure – empathy provides me an excellent reason for not committing the murder. The Golden Rule provides an excellent reason. Altruism provides an excellent reason. But self-interest doesn’t.
As an aside, it would seem that this practice of extending our ethics past their original scope leads so quite a few instances of “illogical” morals. For example, most people find it morally reprehensible for someone to torture or murder cats or dogs. This is probably because we tend to anthropomorphize our pets, and as a result, they get sucked into the fringes of our moral framework.
Joe, the fact that we grant some protection against harm to animals is one of the other arguments that social contract theory doesn’t adequately model our ethics. There are stronger arguments, however; generally, any theory of ethics that depends entirely on self-interest has a whole bunch of holes in it. Perfect murder, infanticide, cruelty to animals, execution of the severely retarded – SCT doesn’t condemn any of these.
i think you are falling for what moral absolutists often fall for when criticizing moral relativism. you are oversimplifying self-interest. i know very few people who value material possessions over social friendship. consider, for example, what you would do with all the money in the world if there were no people to buy things from, or to share it with.
i said previously that human interaction is so complex, it is extremely difficult to determine that your life would be better without a particular person as part of it. in the case of your would-be dead relative, you might very well value his or her companionship (or anything else you might get from his being alive) more than the money you would receive. it’s next to impossible to predict what you would lose by committing that murder, and therefore how it relates to what you would gain.
i don’t think a theory based solely on self-interest could possibly have any holes in it. you have no perspective beyond your own. i think people that see holes in it have no idea what is meant by “self-interest”. there are plenty of (possibly biologically encoded) factors that affect your happiness – empathy is merely one of these things. that you don’t opt for material gain in all situations does not mean you are not always acting out of self-interest when making conscious decisions.
consider how you would feel if you loved your cat and someone killed it. you might wish vengeance on that person. i think this brings us right back to where we were when discussing social contract theory with regards to murder, so i think that issue is adequately addressed.
