My Kidney Challenge

[Belk]

I'd imagine your position would be overwhelmingly the case among people you ask. Which would mean that, in that particular situation, it would be the norm.

I would assume it to be the norm as well.

I'm sure you can understand that someone could have strong reasoning to support the idea that bodily autonomy should be violated depending on the situation. In fact, there is more than one ethical system that would state that the poisoner should necessarily give up a kidney.

I fully admit the possibility. I simply have not seen the case made.

You can use my example, the one that you yourself said you'd most likely lean towards wishing the violation of bodily autonomy, to justify any similar example. The difference is that your probable opinion would be that abortion isn't a similar example, where someone on the other side could say that it is. I don't think there's a good way to argue someone over to your side, and it's this idea that lies at the heart of why the argument as a whole isn't a good one.

Hmmm... I'll cogitate on this one further. I do admit I have seen no small number claim that a woman gives up her right to bodily autonomy because of her willing participation in sex.

You've basically admitted above that your position is situational. Personally, I find Situational Ethics to be a more tenable position that systems that require absolutes regardless of situation.

Just to be clear, in the situation above I would still find bodily autonomy the ethically correct position. I would knowingly act in an unethical manner to protect my child just as I would in a number of other situations.

 

[devolved]

So? No one is talking about an individual's position so that it because a universal law. Where on earth did you get that idea?

I'm sure you've made a typo and "because" = "become" in the above?

You question was "Why should anyone care". Anyone = "any person at all". I answered - if no-one cared, then you would not be here. It's a valid response and that's where I get the "universal law" idea. It's how you formulated the question.

Perhaps you meant to ask "Why should I as individual care". Well, you can ask yourself the following three questions, neither of which are subjective when it comes to answers.

1) Would you mind if someone killed you right now? Why not?
2) If you would, would you change your mind if your parents killed you?
3) If you would not change your mind, would you mind if that happened somewhere between the time you were conceived, and the time you were born?

 

[ToddNotTodd]

I really think that have a good intentions in this, but you are reducing your argument to devaluing a human being to a status of an oak tree, and a human zygote to a status of a germinated acorn.

You don't seem to understand the comparison. It has nothing to do with value. It has to do with the label we put on something at particular time intervals. We don't call an acorn an oak tree, because "oak tree" implies traits the acorn doesn't have, unless you have a non-standard definition of "oak tree". Similarly, if you're calling a zygote a "baby", then you're using a definition other than the norm (a very young child, especially one newly or recently born.).

The point being is that no pregnant woman generally wakes up in the morning and says "gee, I don't think it's a baby in there yet, so I still have a time to cancel it". It's only "not a baby" when it's not wanted. Thus, all of these Hollywood pro-abortion actors going to their first mammogram don't look at the pictures and say "Yes, look at that little fetus we have". I'm not sure if you have kids, but if you do, I highly doubt you did that either. That's why abortion is emotionally-devastating for women.

I've known women who wanted a child, and called it a fetus until it was born. My own ex wife for one.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

I'm sure you've made a typo and "because" = "become" in the above?

Yes.

You question was "Why should anyone care". Anyone = "any person at all". I answered - if no-one cared, then you would not be here. It's a valid response and that's where I get the "universal law" idea. It's how you formulated the question.

Anyone = "any particular individual"
Everyone = "all individuals as a group"

1) Would you mind if someone killed you right now? Why not?

Yes. I don't want anyone to kill me.

2) If you would, would you change your mind if your parents killed you?

No.

3) If you would not change your mind, would you mind if that happened somewhere between the time you were conceived, and the time you were born?

The question is nonsensical. I couldn't have understood the idea when I was a fetus, and if I had been aborted I wouldn't be her now to have an opinion.

 

[devolved]

The question is nonsensical. I couldn't have understood the idea when I was a fetus, and if I had been aborted I wouldn't be her now to have an opinion.

The question was not about whether you could care as a fetus. I'm asking you would you care now? Would you rather exist or not? And in retrospect, if there's a possibility where your parents would have aborted you, are you glad that they didn't?

It's a rather simple issue in context as why you should care as individual.

 

[devolved]

You don't seem to understand the comparison. It has nothing to do with value.

I did understand the comparison, and it has everything to do with value in terms of what I was responding to, since:

1) We don't see cutting down trees as something that's equally wrong as killing humans
2) The objection was actually asking as to why one was wrong and other was not

Clearly, value has everything to do with it. After all, we are not debating why one shouldn't cut down oak tree here.

It has to do with the label we put on something at particular time intervals. We don't call an acorn an oak tree, because "oak tree" implies traits the acorn doesn't have, unless you have a non-standard definition of "oak tree".

I think there's an inherent philosophical disagreement when it comes to labeling a broader category vs the immediate state of any given continuum as something that should either be included or excluded from the broader category.

Of course, in a scientific reductionism methodology, there's an inherent separation, but such separation is due to a necessity to describing a specific stage of progress of any given development.

But, I disagree that category exclusion is viable in a scope of continuum. A germinated acorn is an inception of an oak tree. It has attributes that identify it in the category of "oak tree", on in the very least, "a plant in progress".

Thus, we can label zygote as a "human being in progress", because it doesn't have a potential to be something else. It grows into a human if untouched.

Human being is not a state.... it's a continuum of a process.

Similarly, if you're calling a zygote a "baby", then you're using a definition other than the norm (a very young child, especially one newly or recently born.).I've known women who wanted a child, and called it a fetus until it was born. My own ex wife for one.

Baby is merely projection of meaning when it comes to certain continuum. Calling it something else doesn't really change the meaning of what it is. Again, human being is a continuum of a process.

If you disagree, then when do you personally think that a zygote becomes human being?

 

[ToddNotTodd]

The question was not about whether you could care as a fetus. I'm asking you would you care now?

And like I already said, if I had been aborted, I wouldn't be here to care or not care.

Would you rather exist or not?

Yes, but the idea of non-existence doesn't bother me in the slightest.

And in retrospect, if there's a possibility where your parents would have aborted you, are you glad that they didn't?

I don't have an opinion either way.

Now, if you can show me where someone has questioned a first trimester fetus about whether it wanted to live or not, and it answered in some manner that indicated that it understood the question, then perhaps I'd have a different opinion on abortion.

 

[devolved]

And like I already said, if I had been aborted, I wouldn't be here to care or not care.

Precisely! You just answered your own question as to why should anyone care . You can't care if you don't exist. And you exist because someone cared.

Preference of existing over non-existing is not a subjective preference in context of living beings. People who prefer to not exist are generally fall into a category of "mentally ill" and needing help.

Hence, we should care to "pay it forward" in context of someone giving us an opportunity to exist and explore reality.

I'm not debating contraception techniques as viable means to plan the appropriate timing of having children, but merely saying "I don't care, and neither should everyone" seems to carry a whole baggage of axiomatic implications that are rather disastrous.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

I did understand the comparison, and it has everything to do with value in terms of what I was responding to, since:

1) We don't see cutting down trees as something that's equally wrong as killing humans
2) The objection was actually asking as to why one was wrong and other was not

Clearly, value has everything to do with it. After all, we are not debating why one shouldn't cut down oak tree here.

In the original exchange:

"Well the state of being pregnant is having a child or young developing in the uterus. It would be a premeditated killing of one human being by another, is it not?"

"If I plant a seed, then dig it up and crush it, am I guilty of destroying a tree?"

It's clear that Kylie was taking about a category error in the first statement, using another category error as an example. That has absolutely nothing to do with value.

But, I disagree that category exclusion is viable in a scope of continuum. A germinated acorn is an inception of an oak tree. It has attributes that identify it in the category of "oak tree", on in the very least, "a plant in progress".

Oak trees have trunks.
Acorns do not have trucks.
Therefore, acorns aren't oak trees.

It's pretty simple...

Thus, we can label zygote as a "human being in progress", because it doesn't have a potential to be something else. It grows into a human if untouched.

Or it doesn't. The most you can say is that a zygote has the potential to be a baby. But you can't logically project possible future states onto current states. If someone has the potential to be a child molester in the future, you don't ask them to register as a sex offender now. That's nonsense.

Baby is merely projection of meaning when it comes to certain continuum. Calling it something else doesn't really change the meaning of what it is. Again, human being is a continuum of a process.

If you disagree, then when do you personally think that a zygote becomes human being?

We weren't talking about human beings, we were talking about zygotes and babies. I don't use the phrase "human being" as I don't think it's ever used in a consistent manner.
A zygote becomes a baby when it has the characteristics of a baby.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Precisely! You just answered your own question as to why should anyone care . You can't care if you don't exist. And you exist because someone cared.

That doesn't answer anything. At all. You seem to be grasping at straws here.

Does an aborted fetus feel regret that it wasn't born? If you can show that, you might have a point.

Preference of existing over non-existing is not a subjective preference in context of living beings.

All preferences are, by definition, subjective.

People who prefer to not exist are generally fall into a category of "mentally ill" and needing help. You may claim indifference, but come on.

Fallacy of incredulity.

Thus, if you prefer existence over non-existence, why would you deny that opportunity to someone else? What would be a superior reasoning for cancelling their existence?

There's no "there" there. A zygote isn't a "someone else", only the potential to be "someone else". There doesn't need to be a "superior" reason to cancel their potential existence. I've already shown that we don't always make decisions based on potentialities.

 

[devolved]

In the original exchange:

"Well the state of being pregnant is having a child or young developing in the uterus. It would be a premeditated killing of one human being by another, is it not?"

"If I plant a seed, then dig it up and crush it, am I guilty of destroying a tree?"

It's clear that Kylie was taking about a category error in the first statement, using another category error as an example. That has absolutely nothing to do with value.

I'll concede the point. I think it's a fair correction and failure on my part to read back far enough into the discussion.

Oak trees have trunks.
Acorns do not have trucks.
Therefore, acorns aren't oak trees.
It's pretty simple...

I think I've already addressed that in the very statement you are responding to. I'll repeat it again. A germinated acorn is an inception of an oak tree. It has attributes that identify it in the category of "oak tree", on in the very least, "a plant in progress".

Saying that it's not yet a tree is obvious, but you can't claim that it's in a category that has nothing to do with oak trees.

Or it doesn't. The most you can say is that a zygote has the potential to be a baby. But you can't logically project possible future states onto current states.

Of course we can project future states on the current states. That's one of the features of the brain as a mechanism. That's actually how science works. Otherwise the entirety of scientific enterprise goes out of the window.

Zygote, apart from miscarriage or abortion, doesn't have any other possible potential than becoming a baby.

If someone has the potential to be a child molester in the future, you don't ask them to register as a sex offender now. That's nonsense.

Of course it's nonsense, but I don't see how this even remotely analogous.

Again. Zygote, apart from miscarriage or abortion, doesn't have any other possible potential than becoming a baby.

We weren't talking about human beings, we were talking about zygotes and babies. I don't use the phrase "human being" as I don't think it's ever used in a consistent manner. A zygote becomes a baby when it has the characteristics of a baby.

Of course we are talking about human beings. We are not talking about viability of aborting cows. We eat cows without any major moral hiccups.

Would you agree that both Baby and Zygote are in a category of human being?

 

[the iconoclast]

So destroying a fertilized seed in a woman's uterus is wrong, but if that fertilized seed is an acorn, then it's fine and dandy?

Hey hey kylie.

One is a human life. One is not my dear.

There is moral value of human life compared to non human life ie the premeditated killing of one human being by another.

Do you believe a human zygote is worth more or less, or the same as an acorn? Why?

By depriving them of what they need to survive.

How did he do so?

Cheers my treasure

 

[devolved]

Does an aborted fetus feel regret that it wasn't born? If you can show that, you might have a point.

I was not referring to your feelings when you were fetus. Again, you asked me "Why should anyone care". If you don't think that fetus can care, why would you shift the context of "fetus caring".

I asked you a very simple question as to whether you care that you were not aborted. I'm not asking you as to whether you could have cared if you were a fetus.

If you don't care whether you were aborted or not, then there's no viable reason for you to care whether someone would stab you or not, because such would be the implications of such lack of care for whether you exist or not exist to begin with.

All preferences are, by definition, subjective.

You can't invoke "definition defense" when I communicate the meaning.

My use of the word "prefer" is colloquial in this case, and I think you know that. I use it interchangeably with term "desiring" or "wanting" in such case. Not all of our wants and desires are subjective.

"Preferring" to be alive is not something that you subjectively decide to do. You don't wake up and think "Hmm, do I keep on living today, or should I kill myself?". I think it's rather obvious. You prefer to be alive than dead. There are very few people who prefer not to have existed even in the most extreme and painful circumstances.

Fallacy of incredulity.

Well, with informal fallacies the best you can do is to say that what you said looks like an fallacious thinking. So, by merely invoking fallacy claim you are not showing how that applies in this case.

You seem to imply that you don't really care whether you exist or not, which I have good reasons to doubt is not the case, hence simply invoking fallacy of incredulity doesn't automatically validate your argument. If I say that I never use computers and never will, and you reasonably point out that this forum exists on internet and people use computers to communicate here. I don't get to say "fallacy of incredulity". I'd have to demonstrate to you as to how I can hold this rather conflicting belief.

Thus, you'd have to demonstrate that my doubts are false in your case, and we all agree that such demonstration would probably not be something you either willing to do or something that I would personally encourage you to do... which is decide to not exist.

A zygote isn't a "someone else", only the potential to be "someone else". There doesn't need to be a "superior" reason to cancel their potential existence. I've already shown that we don't always make decisions based on potentialities.

Well, we do make decisions based on potentialities in a scope of potential uncertainty that we tend to give some room for, if there is such possibility of uncertainty. Thus, your potential child molester analogy doesn't hold, because we can't even scope such things to some consistent circumstances.

What is the uncertainty associated with a Zygote's progression to a infant (if not aborted) that you would rule out such potential as over 75% certain as per known statistics?

If there was a 75% certainty if a nanny you hire would molest your child, would you hire the nanny? Would you hire if there was even a 25% certainty?

While we don't always do that, we do that in cases where certainty is much greater than ambiguity. In this case it is, otherwise you'd have to demonstrate that it's not.

 

[Kylie]

Sure, and that's what I pointed out, your original analogy can only work if government is impregnating you.

I'll go over it again. If forceful donation of kidney is analogous to Kylie getting pregnant, then the best you can argue with that analogy is that government can't impregnate you.

But that's not what is happening during an unexpected pregnancy. You follow through with a biological mechanism of sex fully understanding that it can result in your "loss of kidney" as per your analogy, and you do it anyway.

So a proper analogy is that there is a donor waiting in fully automated hospital ran by robots.

You fully understand that if you show up with a compatible blood type and lay undressed on the table next to the patient, that it would be interpreted by these robots as a form of consent and they will follow through with the procedure.

So you are curious and you take your pill that alters your blood to be incompatible and you lay dressed on that table, and nothing happens. It's thrilling and exciting for you.

So one day you show you show up and as you lay down your dress rips and your pill runs out. The robots interpret that as consent and donate your kidney.

You then wake up and say... Hey guys! I did not mean to do that! I just liked doing everything up to donating the kidney.

Since the robots can't hear or understand you, you run and hire a killer and another doctor to shoot the guy and take the kidney back.

That's essentially the analogy you are attempting to paint.

I was pointing out that since I can take steps to avoid becoming pregnant, your analogy does not work.

 

[Kylie]

Sorites paradox actually argues against your position, since at any point of reducing of person concept to a minimal requirement of such concept you can't say that it's not a person.

But even in context of our collective ignorance, we generally err on the side of life in virtually all circumstances where we are not sure. That's the reason why we don't kill off autistic children or keep people on life support even though there's a good chance they are not coming back.

What you seem to be framing is sounds similar to Zeno's paradox, in which case if there isn't a moment in which we can say "Hey it's a person now", then we will never get to a person, because all we have is a sequence of these moments in time where we check "is it a person now?". If we trace the development of pregnancy in 5 second intervals and you keep saying no every 5 seconds ... Even after the child is born, then we have a serious legal problem on our hands.

No, I am pointing out that there is no one instant when it becomes a person, just as there is no one instant when it stops being a heap.

 

[Kylie]

Kylie,

I really think that have a good intentions in this, but you are reducing your argument to devaluing a human being to a status of an oak tree, and a human zygote to a status of a germinated acorn. You really don't see a problem with this? It's absurd and you are much more intelligent and better than resorting to this.

You seem to be unfamiliar with the concept of an analogy.

The reason why a lot of people are rolling their eyes here is because neither of the arguments presented are inherently new, nor these are in any particular way interesting. Most of these arise after as a need to rationalize certain position rather than a means to properly evaluate a moral standard of following through with a pregnancy.

I'm sorry - where do you get the idea that people are rolling their eyes at me? Is there some commentary thread about this of which I am unaware?

The point being is that no pregnant woman generally wakes up in the morning and says "gee, I don't think it's a baby in there yet, so I still have a time to cancel it". It's only "not a baby" when it's not wanted. Thus, all of these Hollywood pro-abortion actors going to their first mammogram don't look at the pictures and say "Yes, look at that little fetus we have". I'm not sure if you have kids, but if you do, I highly doubt you did that either. That's why abortion is emotionally-devastating for women.

So, can we be brutally honest here? It's only not a baby when it's not wanted.

Wow. You really have no idea what you are talking about, do you?

Now, given the above, I'm not faulting you with your attempt to justify abortion, because you are not waking up and thinking through philosophy of human being.

Wow. Someone doesn't share your beliefs about this, and they must be broken. How arrogant.

Your actions is a result of a long chain of events and ideological fights that result in these intellectual mind-games in which both sides may devolve to absurd positions in order to defend either case. The kidney challenge is not a new argument you came up with. You've seen it, and you think it makes sense, hence you repeat it here. And you may be repeating it even after viable objections are raised and people here will show you that the analogy is flawed.

Yeah, just demean anyone who doesn't agree with you.

Again, it seems to me that what constitutes whether a baby is a baby is whether that baby is wanted. Is it a woman's fault not wanting a baby? Is the woman selfish? Well, there is a point to discuss at to why a Christian culture would not create an environment for a mother in which which fear of consequences of having the child would not override desire to have one.

Again, you have no idea what you are talking about. Or do you understand the mindset of a woman who choose to have an abortion?

No one is ready to be a parent, and I have two kids. I was terrified in both cases. People told me about all of the joy of holding your child for the first time. I felt terror, because I was not sure I was ready. And I felt guilt for feeling terror, because I realized how truly selfish I am. You don't understand how selfish you are until you have kids. It alters your personal freedom and life drastically. You no longer live for yourself and everything is about them. But, what else do we have in context of humanity? Yes, we've got hedonism, but it's a self-negating proposition. If your parents did not suffer the child birth and its consequences, you would not get to enjoy anything.

Hey, parent here. I think I know a little bit about what it's like.

Now, your profile page doesn't have your gender, but unless you are a mother, I think I'd know a bit more about what it's like to actually have children than you do.

Hence, I think there is a healthy balance between terminating an unwanted pregnancy and forcing someone to raise a child they don't want. And that's where the conversations should take us, but these seldom do because we end up in this pseudo-intellectual BS games of regurgitating seemingly valid arguments and responses to justify either extreme.

What do you think a viable middle ground would be?

Let people choose what happens to their own bodies. Simple.

 

[Kylie]

Hey hey kylie.

One is a human life. One is not my dear.

There is moral value of human life compared to non human life ie the premeditated killing of one human being by another.

Do you believe a human zygote is worth more or less, or the same as an acorn? Why?

It's called an ANALOGY.

We aren't going to get far if you can't comprehend that concept.

How did he do so?

Cheers my treasure

Do you know that sperm die in a few days if they don't fertilise an egg? By not making sure that every single one of his sperm fertilise an egg, he is depriving them of what they need to survive.

 

[devolved]

I was pointing out that since I can take steps to avoid becoming pregnant, your analogy does not work.

You are correct, but if you can take steps to avoid becoming pregnant successfully, then there wouldn't be any need for me modifying the incorrect analogy that you are framing to begin with.

Likewise, why would you need an analogy to discuss something that should be rather obvious?

 

[devolved]

You seem to be unfamiliar with the concept of an analogy.

IMO analogies are only appropriate and viable when we are discussing contextually-unknown concepts that need to be explained in terms of what we already understand.

So, if we are attempting to explain what a behavior of electron is like, we use terms like "spin" and "polarity", etc, as analogies to our existing context.

What you are attempting to do is to force a context of meaning on a situation that doesn't warrant such context, and you are attempt to say "because we behave like so in this situation, therefore similar behavior in other situation is justified"... but that's not the case until you can demonstrate that these situations are analogous in any the same way you are framing an analogy.

It's not.

I'm sorry - where do you get the idea that people are rolling their eyes at me? Is there some commentary thread about this of which I am unaware?

Yes.

Wow. Someone doesn't share your beliefs about this, and they must be broken. How arrogant.

I did not say that they are "broken". I say that there's a lot of mental twist games here in order to justify something that should otherwise be fairly obvious.

I think it's much more arrogant to treat people here as though they are in a first grade and need your extensive analogies to understand your position on this issue, especially when the analogy you frame is not analogous at all.

Again, you have no idea what you are talking about. Or do you understand the mindset of a woman who choose to have an abortion?

I'm not claiming that I understand a mindset of any given woman who wants to do that, but a part of my work I actually involved in this issue of interviewing at least 30 women on camera about their experience. So, I'd say I don't have a full understanding, but I have a very good sample to derive some generic understanding as to why.

Hey, parent here. I think I know a little bit about what it's like.

I'm not lecturing you. I'm merely pointing out that none of us are "ready" or always in a position of joy.

Let people choose what happens to their own bodies. Simple.

How far are you willing to take that ideal? What would be viable exceptions to that concept?

So, if someone is jumping from a bridge, we should not attempt to stop them? Suicide clinics are ok? At which point do we intervene in addiction and dependency problems? Would you be ok with someone selling their heart or kidney on the open market to feed their family?

Do we have any viable responsibility to society and other people apart from our individual boundaries?

 

[devolved]

No, I am pointing out that there is no one instant when it becomes a person, just as there is no one instant when it stops being a heap.

Again, this is a paradox, because if there is no one instances at which it becomes a person, then how do you ever get to a person ?