Abortion

How is this even remotely possible? EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE CONSIDERATION CAPIABLE OF ARTICULATION DERIVES FROM THE EMPRICAL COMPONETS OF THE NATURAL WORLD.

Their opinions were certainly informed by their experiences in life. However, both famously believed in a metaphysical basis for morals, and their universal application. This may have been unrealistic and idealistic, but it was what it was. You can't read Gorgias and believe that Plato's ethics took empirical factors into account.

Well, I think it's impossible insofar as we experience before we reason. But that hasn't stopped many if not most moral philosophers from arguing that morals ought to be derived from first principles. I happen to agree more with your approach than theirs, notwithstanding our different conclusions.
Oh don't be so melodramatic. But feel free to lodge a complaint if you wish.

I think it likely that you have never read any Kant. A quick exerpt from stanford's philosophy encyclopedia with the most pertinent parts in bold:

This allows us to say that a cognition is a posteriori or dependent on sensory impressions just in case it is strictly determined in its form or in its semantic content by sensory impressions; but a cognition is a priori or absolutely independent of all sensory impressions just in case it is not strictly determined in its form or in its semantic content by sensory impressions and is instead strictly determined in its form or in its semantic content by our innate spontaneous cognitive faculties (B2-3). It should be noted that the apriority of a cognition in this sense is perfectly consistent with all sorts of associated sensory impressions and also with the actual presence of sensory matter in that cognition, so long as neither the form nor the semantic content is strictly determined by those sensory impressions. "Pure" a priori cognitions are those that in addition to being a priori or absolutely independent of all sensory impressions, also contain no sensory matter whatsoever (B3). So in other words, some but not all a priori cognitions are pure.
Applying these notions to judgments, it follows that a judgment is a posteriori if and only if either its logical form or its propositional content is strictly determined by sensory impressions; and a judgment is a apriori if and only if neither its logical form nor its propositional content is strictly determined by sensory impressions and both are instead strictly determined by our innate spontaneous cognitive faculties, whether or not that cognition also contains sensory matter. Kant also holds that a judgment is a priori if and only if it is necessarily true (Axv, B3-4, A76/B101). This strong connection between necessity and apriority expresses (i) Kant's view that the contingency of a judgment is bound up with the modal dependence of its semantic content on sensory impressions, i.e., its aposteriority (B3), (ii) his view that necessity is equivalent with strict universality or strenge Allgemeinheit, which he defines in turn as a proposition's lack of any possible counterexamples or falsity-makers (B4), and (iii) his view that necessity entails truth (A75-76/B100-101). Furthermore Kant explicitly holds that not only do a priori judgments really exist in various sciences, including physics and metaphysics, but also that there really are some pure a priori judgments, e.g., in mathematics (B4-5, B14-18).

Kant's interpretation of moral action is action governed by a will that is accountable only to a metaphysical and rational duty to do what is right. The good will is good unconditionally, it is free of both the causal chain before it, and it is good regardless of the consequences.

While Immanuel Kant indulges in some dubious propositions

...he does acknowledge that MOST of our knowledge does flow from experience....

More importantly is your use of his controversial conjectures to refute my empirical claims of experience

but qualify you personal rejection of his Priori Synthetic Propositions

How is this even remotely possible? EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE CONSIDERATION CAPIABLE OF ARTICULATION DERIVES FROM THE EMPRICAL COMPONETS OF THE NATURAL WORLD.

Please refrain from coattail riding, and stand with the courage of personal convictions

(I greatly appreciate extrapolations based on unbiased original considerations)

Instead of adopting vague terms lifted from an overview of Kant's logic of the A Priori, please use more concise context, thereby providing an evidential sequence for evaluation.

You have been responding to the ethical question of abortion by offering nothing other than common knowledge biological parameters. That is the issue at hand.

Can we get back on topic now please?

This is starting to feel like a poetry slam. :listening:

Imagine the espresso machine, clinking spoons and coffee mugs, wafting smoke hangs ponderously in the air, the low jazz murmuring in the floorboards:

Knowledge!
splayed with the
unequivocal processes
of empirical measurements
along with the
self-evident-procedure-of-consistent-articulate-adoptions!

(which by the way is completely UNCOMMON)

yeah

I have much more,
much more complex...
sequencing...


...but only for the appropriate audience...

(applause)


Couldn't help it -- I was inspired. Can we get back on topic now please?

From previous conversations I understood that, for you, the most important basis for human morality is the fundamental realization and acknowledgement that "we're all in this together", or the Golden Rule more or less. If I'm wrong on that assumtion, let me know

...we are our own moral standard, and fortunately there happens to be tremendous commonality pan-culturally and pan-geographically. It's not some Darwinian free-for-all. We're in this together, we know we're in this together, we recoil in horror at the same things, and we rejoice at the same things.

NeitherExtreme wrote:

The simplest and highest moral (people to people) that He taught is to "Love your neighbor as yourself".

Which is something that people believe anyway...

By the way, welcome back, it's good to see you again!

Don't you think that the child, once it is one of us, needs to be factored into any pragmatic or utilitarian view of the issue? At that point, isn't it part of the society which we are trying to help?

As I understand it, if a person were to hit a pregnant woman, causing a miscariage, they would be guilty of manslaughter. If, on the other hand, the mother chooses to have the child aborted, it all ok. So is it the mother who decides whether or not the child is human?

Hi all.

I've read some of this thread, though not all of it, so if I rehash something, please forgive me (or ignore me).

Also, just to make things simple, I'll say right up front that I am in large part against abortion. That said, I don't demonize women who've had an abortion... nor to appreciate people who do. If I care about babies, I should care about mothers too. The abortion industry, on the other hand, has none of my sympathy. I realize there are many reasons that people support abortion, but any group that would stand behind late-term "partial birth abortion" scares me, whatever their stated motives might be.

Aedes, I'll direct this response to you, but anyone else can chime in. We've had some discussions involving morality, and some of what I have to say stems from those conversations...

From previous conversations I understood that, for you, the most important basis for human morality is the fundamental realization and acknowledgement that "we're all in this together", or the Golden Rule more or less. If I'm wrong on that assumtion, let me know, because the rest of this kinda hangs on that...

I'm sure that you've realized the tension between the "we're all in this together" value and the value of individual autonomy. People can use their autonomy to infringe on another's autonomy or well being. So we need to choose, individually and as a society, which one of these values is the more basic, and the more important. And, I assume, we would both conclude that, in general, the "we're all in this together" (or Golden Rule) value trumps the Autonomy value. (Rationally, I think it must, because the Atonomy value, if give free reign, will in the end give autonomy only to those with power, destroying the autonomy of the individual it valued in the first place.) So then I think that, in principle, the autonomy of an individual stops, or is at least comprimised, at the point that it crosses paths with the autonomy or well-being of another individual.

So the question becomes: When does the fetus become one of us, to be included in the "we're all in this together"? Because at that point, the individual autonomy of another, if it is in conflict with the fetus', is either "trumped", or at the very least a comprimise must be worked out. Now, I don't pretend that choosing when a fetus becomes "one of us" is easy. There are many biological, philosophical, psycological, and, for some, religious issues involved in this. But, if the value of a fellow human is more important (or at least as important) as an individual's temporary autonomy, then I think we should turn much our focus on the question of when the fetus becomes one of us, because at the poin that it is one of us, we need to consider the well-being of the mother and the child. Also, at that point pragmatic considerations for the overall good of society would include the well being of the child in that society, which I think is a very important point to make.

Also, as a legal issue, this really confuses me... As I understand it, if a person were to hit a pregnant woman, causing a miscariage, they would be guilty of manslaughter. If, on the other hand, the mother chooses to have the child aborted, it all ok. So is it the mother who decides whether or not the child is human? Seems odd to me. It also seems to send a mixed message to the public. How can a woman be expected to have a guilt-free abortion if she knows that if someone else ended the fetus' life it would be called murder?

Sure. But it's a lot more complicated than the pure black and white question of human versus not human, or alive versus dead.

The law isn't about the definition of human. The law is about the definition of murder, which legally need not be applied equally to all humans in all situations.

There are many things that I just don't understand about the anti-abortion argument, but what confuses me the most is the general hidden assumption that abortion is an assault on the fetus.

You act like giving the woman a right to abortion gives her the autonomy to aggress against the fetus, when it is the other way around: outlawing abortion gives the fetus carte blanche to aggress against the woman, while allowing abortion simply maintains the boundaries the woman should have as a person.