In every way – substantively, rhetorically, entertainment-value-ly, the vice-presidential debate was a better debate than the last. As an Obama supporter (and on October 3rd, an Obama cringer), however, I may be biased.
I recently looked over the transcripts of both debates and noticed a couple of things. First of all, Obama does not come quite off as badly in transcript form as in televisual. Romney was still clearly better and more succinct, but Obama seemed actually to make points rather than melt slowly in the bright hot glare of Romney.
More notably, Lehrer’s horrible job moderating was all the more obvious. The debate meandered down a path, stopped to sniff some flowers, took a rest under the old cork tree, got up, dusted itself, tried to remember where it was originally going, and plumb forgot. The vice presidential debate was, on the other hand, compact and controlled. About 80% of the questions did not make me despair for the soul of the questioner.
Paul Ryan is not my cuppa. But please, let us remember four years ago. Even if I think the GOP has plunged over a cliff of nut-jobbery in the past four years (following a series of shallower plunges), there is actually a sane, even-tempered, fairly well-informed person on that stage with Joe Biden.
In general, I think Biden “won,” in that he had a stronger case to make, and he made it more effectively and appealingly. On the abortion question, they both made little sense. Ultimately I think Biden makes less sense.
Ryan said:
I don’t see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith. Our faith informs us in everything we do. My faith informs me about how to take care of the vulnerable, of how to make sure that people have a chance in life.
Now, you want to ask basically why I’m pro-life? It’s not simply because of my Catholic faith. That’s a factor, of course. But it’s also because of reason and science.
Wait! Right horn of the Euthyphro dilemma? Really for truly? Do tell!
You know, I think about 10 1/2 years ago, my wife Janna and I went to Mercy Hospital in Janesville where I was born, for our seven week ultrasound for our firstborn child, and we saw that heartbeat. A little baby was in the shape of a bean. And to this day, we have nicknamed our firstborn child Liza, “Bean.” Now I believe that life begins at conception. That’s why — those are the reasons why I’m pro-life.
Um, I think I missed the science. (I left nothing out, per the Washington Post transcript). So….reason? There are reasons to be pro-life. Yes, that is technically one of them. Some of the reasons to be pro-life are good ones. Not that one, and for the life of me I don’t understand the inference from bean-with-heartbeat (therefore personhood) to fertilized egg (therefore personhood).
Biden later charges Ryan with selling out, because used to be in favor of criminalizing abortion in the case of rape and incest. Ryan replies:
All I’m saying is, if you believe that life begins at conception, that, therefore, doesn’t change the definition of life. That’s a principle. The policy of a Romney administration is to oppose abortion with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.
Sellout, schmellout. I am utterly down with this answer. Unless it is an absolute fundamental moral right, ditch the principle and go with the pragmatism. And I do think it’s reasonable to think life begins at conception but still say it’s permissible in the case of rape. The fetus many have a right to life, but it doesn’t have the right to use someone else’s body to sustain it. And I am on the record as being puzzled about the incest part of rape and incest. I wish more people would just say, “This is what I believe, our policy is different because it’s more popular, screw you.”
Biden, on the other hand, says this:
My religion defines who I am, and I’ve been a practicing Catholic my whole life. And has particularly informed my social doctrine. The Catholic social doctrine talks about taking care of those who — who can’t take care of themselves, people who need help. With regard to — with regard to abortion, I accept my church’s position on abortion as a — what we call a (inaudible) doctrine. Life begins at conception in the church’s judgment. I accept it in my personal life.
But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews, and I just refuse to impose that on others, unlike my friend here, the — the congressman. I — I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people that — women they can’t control their body. It’s a decision between them and their doctor. In my view and the Supreme Court, I’m not going to interfere with that.
This is not craaaazy different from my view. Except this. I really don’t know when personhood starts. I tend to think much earlier than viability. But I don’t know. So I’m against abortion in many, if not most cases, but I favor keeping it legal, out of a) respect for the difficulty of the question, b) because of the gravity of using someone else’s body without her consent even if you do have a right to life.
But. Here. He says personhood begins at conception (I assume that’s what he means by “life”). But he won’t impose that view on others? Why wouldn’t he? If someone is out there killing people, oughtn’t you be imposing your moral view on them? There are lots of things we tell people they can’t do with their bodies: hit people, neglect their children, take other people’s stuff. If you think abortion is definitely killing a person, you really should say more about why murder should be illegal but abortion should not.
Both answers are not as well thought out as I’d like. But really, I think Biden owes us even more of an explanation.
Biden’s expediency and moral cowardice is inexcusable, for the reason you give. I was about to excuse it, but the only valid ethical reasoning is along the lines you yourself give, that you’re not certain enough to give your position the force of law.
The exception for incest is ethical, the same as for rape: By having consensual sex, a woman incurs a moral obligation to the baby. But as with rape, the presumably underage victim of incest never gave informed consent and therefore has incurred no obligation to the baby.
The moral/legal question has also been improperly reframed–the question is not so much about the mother herself, but the law being changed to permit doctors to do harm to a baby. By what reasoning do we derive a right to perform abortions??
This puts your question
But he won’t impose that view on others? Why wouldn’t he? If someone is out there killing people, oughtn’t you be imposing your moral view on them?
into even sharper relief by obviating the question of the mother.
By having consensual sex, a woman incurs a moral obligation to the baby.
I’ve hear this said alot, but I’ve yet to see an argument for it. Is it self-evident? What am I missing here.
It’s the logic we apply to men when they inadvertently father an unwanted child. Don’t want to pay child support? Keep your pistol in its holster. That’s the chance you took.
This isn’t the legal approach – a man that did not consent or lacked the ability to do so still has to pay child support – but there is a moral logic to it.
Of course, that brings us back to what the status of a fetus is. Whether it constitutes a “baby.” (Also, what constitutes an undue or unreasonable burden.)
The law has a great deal to say about the creation of obligations and rights. What of the father’s right to be informed of a pregnancy prior to an abortion? What if a man were to ask “Please do not abort our child: I will raise it on my own.”
Blaise – that’s a scenario I think about often. Unfortunately it seems to have already been decided by case law:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_rights_and_abortion#Men_and_abortion_in_law
What if a man were to ask “Please do not abort our child: I will raise it on my own.”
He can politely ask the woman to keep the child, yes? I don’t think there’s a place in any of this to compel a woman to take it to term, tho. I mean, uh … do you?
As Mike points out, this has already been decided in Casey, hence my earlier reference to Consent w/r/t Casey. It’s sort of a brutal lawyer’s joke from personal property and chattels law, where deposit of effects may or may not create obligation upon innkeepers.
If the woman were to be financially compensated during her pregnancy (at a rate near the norm for foster-wombs), I don’t see that many would have that much of a problem with it…
So, Kim, that would make a womb a hotel room of sorts in the law of chattels. Sorta reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s joke about negotiating the price for sleeping with his hostess.
Yup. If the woman will agree to it, then I think it ought to be legal.
We already do this with people who are unable to bear children — they essentially hire someone to be their womb for 9months.
I honestly think that women ought to consider it. Not that we ought to force anyone… but that “hey, it’s a life”–if the dad wants to adopt it, and is willing to compensate the woman for the time/effort/ordeal, then I’d consider it a very moral thing to do to go along with it.
(assuming we aren’t talking about teens/in-college folk, who might have social stigma to worry about. in which case we ought to fix that too…)
That we are responsible for the consequences of our willful actions should be self-evident.
In most cases, we hold ourselves responsible to some extent even for the consequences of our accidental actions, especially the callous or negligent ones.
That’s specious. You’re conflating ekousion / akousion / ouk ekousion. Nichomachean Ethics
Religious people, especially of the Western traditions, really should toughen up on the philosophical front, especially their own philosophers. These are not self-evident matters.
Please show the relevance, Blaise. If you intended any.
Aristotle divides actions into three categories instead of two:
Voluntary (ekousion) acts.
Involuntary or unwilling (akousion) acts, which are is the simplest case where people do not praise or blame. In such cases a person does not choose the wrong thing, for example if the wind carries a person off, or if a person has a wrong understanding of the particular facts of a situation. Note that ignorance of what aims are good and bad, such as people of bad character always have, is not something people typically excuse as ignorance in this sense. “Acting on account of ignorance seems different from acting while being ignorant”.
“Non-voluntary” or “non willing” actions (ouk ekousion) which are bad actions done by choice, or more generally (as in the case of animals and children when desire or spirit causes an action) whenever “the source of the moving of the parts that are instrumental in such actions is in oneself” and anything “up to oneself either to do or not”. However, these actions are not taken because they are preferred in their own right, but rather because all options available are worse.
That we are responsible for the consequences of our willful actions should be self-evident.
Such responsibility is not self-evident. The will of a child is not the will of an adult. The distinction is clear enough in law. And who is this we of which you speak? Platoons and companies and regiments of straw men are lined up for battle in such a we.
And did I intend any relevance? What a cheap shot, but I really expect no better from you. The only inexcusable expediency here is your own shiftless, sloppy attempts at ratiocination.
That’s what I thought. Rose seems in the mood to deal with you. I’m not.
As with Morality and Ethics, it stops being personal when you press the Submit button. I’m not alone in being sick of your trollery, Tom.
Thee trolled me with “specious” and “conflate” and overall irrelevance. Your argument ad populum about my fans compounds the offense, Blaise.
If you have a point, please make it. Will and the intellect to contemplate consequences is what separates man from the animals, and is the starting point for “morality.”
The sheer mass of recent meta around here surrounding your stinking up this joint will stand in for any accusations of ad populum.
Tom, I don’t think you’ve answered the question. I mean, you kinda did – you asserted that it’s self-evident. But that’s not really an argument here, since I’m denying that it’s self-evident. I don’t think it’s evident at all. What you’re effectively saying is that a woman has a moral obligation to the fetus as a result of her being pregnant, but in advance of that. That the mere act of a woman having consensual sex imposes a moral obligation on her in the event she gets pregnant. I just don’t see that. I don’t see any logical connection there.
For one thing, the argument for that claim (if it isn’t self-evident!) seems to be question begging: it’s not that the woman has an obligation to take a fetus to term because she had concensual sex. It’s that a woman has a prima facie obligation to take a fetus to term because she’s pregnant, an obligation which can be defeated if the sexual act wasn’t consensual.
But also, why is consent in the sexual act the property that defeats her obligation to take the fetus to term? It seems to me that gets things backwards. It’s not lack of consent in the sexual act that matter wrt the right to abortion, but the lack of consent to the pregnancy (after all, it’s the pregnancy, and not the sex, that imposes the otherwise applicable obligation on her, right?)
Important typographical error in the above: “What you’re effectively saying is that a woman has a moral obligation to the fetus not as a result of her being pregnant, but in advance of that.“
{{{crickets}}} Tom? {{{crickets}}}
Pregnancy and baby seems a distinction without a difference.
As for the rape-incest exception, I was more explaining the thinking behind making the exception. Todd Akin and I believe Paul Ryan opine that permitting the baby to be aborted after a rape just adds one wrong to another. This is logical as well.
The exception is best viewed, as Will writes, via the idea that the father is on the hook for 18 years of support. If so, then the mother can be on the hook for the 9 months of the pregnancy, with the “choice” of bailing after the birth via adoption.
Or you can say the fetus isn’t a baby or a person atall and voilà, problem solved.
I myself think the question of the “rights” of the abortionist is a better way to approach this, since we can stipulate that the mother is under such duress that we’d prefer to suspend moral judgment.
Here’s the logic of your argument, at least, insofar as I can decode it.
1. A woman has a prima facie obligation to take the fetus to term in virtue of being pregnant.
2. That prima facie obligation can be defeated in the case of rape because the sexual act which caused the pregnancy was not consensual.
3. Consensual sex, however, doesn’t impose a moral obligation on the mother (that prima facie obligation obtains when a woman becomes pregnant) but rather is sufficient to defeat all other potential defeaters of that obligation.
4. Therefore, in the normal course of things, consent in the sexual act is sufficient for the woman’s prima facie obligation to take the fetus to term to obtain in the event she should become pregnant.
I reject 1, 2, 3 and 4.
I’m sorry, Mr. Stillwater, I can’t follow your formulations.
What I said was
That we are responsible for the consequences of our willful actions should be self-evident.
Or you can say the fetus isn’t a baby or a person atall and voilà, problem solved.
What I’m saying is the view that consensual sex entails an obligation to take the fetus to term can be treated independently of the moral status of the fetus. And further, that I don’t see an argument linking up consensual sex with an obligation to take the fetus to term. And to repeat, the reason I think this is because built into the argument is the claim that a prima facie obligation to take the fetus to term is baked right in. If follows from the property or concept of being pregnant, and not from any causal or logical connections to sexual activity. If that’s not right, then I’d like to be set straight on it.
But here’s the deal, as I see it: on the view you’re putting forward, permitting abortion in the case of rape constitutes an exception to an otherwise generally applicable obligation, and the rationale is that the sexual act wasn’t consented to. But why should that matter? The woman has a prima facie obligation once she’s pregnant in any event, yes? What does the nature of the sexual act have to do with the resulting pregnancy – those are two distinct things.
So it seems to me that the rape exception is justified not because the sexual act wasn’t consented to, but because the pregnancy wasn’t consented to.
Well, 1, 2 and 4 are standard conservative views, so those formulations ought to be very familiar to you. 3 is a new one, but given 1, you need 3 in order for the argument to be valid.
Pregnancy and baby seems a distinction without a difference.
Also, this might constitute part of the communication problem we’re having here. Those two concepts are most definitely not a distinction without a difference. Being pregnant is a relational property, between a mother and an embryo. Being a baby is not.
That we are responsible for the consequences of our willful actions should be self-evident.
Let’s try this another way. You think the following principle is self-evident: that a woman who gets pregnant from consensual sex has a moral obligation to take the fetus to term. You cash that out by saying it’s self-evident that people are responsible for their willful actions. So let’s focus on actions and the consequences of those actions.
In the situation we’re talking about, the action is having consensual sex. The consequence of having consensual sex is that a woman might become pregnant. Let’s suppose she does. In that case, according to the self-evident principle we’re invoking, a woman who becomes pregnant from consensual sex has a responsibility to … what? As it’s stated, she only has a responsibility to make a decision about the pregnancy. To either take it to term, or not take it to term. So the fact that you think consensual sex imposes an obligation to take the fetus to term is clearly not self evident. That requires argument!
Or so it seems to me.
Why hasn’t birth control come up in this conversation? Or did I miss it?
Aha. Now you’re getting somewhere.
I don’t believe I’ve given my personal opinion on abortion here, except to indicate that I’m probably not in favor of abortion on demand. The quest is for clarity.
Aha. Now you’re getting somewhere.
With just a few more clues I bet I’ll be able to figure this out.
Rose, I mentioned birth control on a comment in the thread below this one:
Is consensual sex a sufficient condition for the obligation to obtain? Again, I don’t think so. A biological obligation to the developing fetus follows from merely being pregnant, but as in the case above, the moral obligation can be defeated if the woman didn’t consent to the pregnancy. In the normal course of things, biologically speaking, con sensual sex is often highly correlated with pregnancy, but that correlation doesn’t imply any moral obligations (hence, the use of birth control).
I don’t know why I’m quoting myself here, except perhaps to nudge you into expressing your thoughts about how it relates to this discussion. {{/nudge}}
Trumwill, Tom, and BP:
WillT wrote: It’s the logic we apply to men when they inadvertently father an unwanted child.
Tom wrote: That we are responsible for the consequences of our willful actions should be self-evident.
It seems to me that you guys are both trying to make make a moral connection between consensual sex and an obligation to a developing fetus such that getting pregnant from consensual sex imposes a moral obligation on the mother. I think this gets things backwards.
If there is a moral obligation to the fetus imposed on a woman, that moral obligation results from being pregnant, from the biological fact that a zygote is dependent on her for its continued existence, and not from having sex, whether consensual or not.
I think of it this way: the conservative argument regarding abortion tries to create a moral connection between the type of sexual act that results in conception and a resulting moral obligation. If the sexual act resulting in pregnancy was not consensual, then there is not moral obligation imposed on the mother. And if pregnancy results from a consensual act, then there is a moral obligation imposed. So the claim amounts to this: a woman has a moral obligation to the developing fetus if and only if the pregnancy resulted from consensual sex.
I think that’s wrong. The basic property which imposes a moral obligation on the woman is being pregnant (not how she got pregnant). The case of pregnancy due to rape is instructive here, because the conservative (I hope you don’t mind my using the word “conservative” like this!) argues that if there was no consent in the sexual act, the mother does not have an obligation to the developing fetus. But that gets things backwards, it seems to me. The reason abortion in the case of pregnancy due to rape is permissible isn’t because the sexual act wasn’t consented to, but because the pregnancy, and the resulting biological (or physical) obligation, wasn’t consented to. That means (at least on my view) that consensual sex isn’t a necessary condition for imposing a moral obligation.
Is consensual sex a sufficient condition for the obligation to obtain? Again, I don’t think so. A biological obligation to the developing fetus follows from merely being pregnant, but as in the case above, the moral obligation can be defeated if the woman didn’t consent to the pregnancy. In the normal course of things, biologically speaking, con sensual sex is often highly correlated with pregnancy, but that correlation doesn’t imply any moral obligations (hence, the use of birth control).
So it seems to me that consent to the sexual act is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish for a moral obligation to be imposed on the woman. I’d say that moral obligation only applies if the woman consents to the pregnancy.
Now, a conservative might say that having consensual sex is a tacit form of consent in the event a pregnancy results. I just don’t see how that follows, tho.
I’m not a die-hard Consequentialist, but the act of procreation has consequences. If we fertilise an egg in a petri dish, we can put the results in the freezer for centuries. If we thaw it out and put it into a womb, the process can continue. Often such in-vitro fertilisation works a bit too well and the gynecologist removes several of the implanted embryos.
When I write a use case, there’s a section in there for Precedent Use Cases. Being Pregnant only means a woman hasn’t rejected an embryo, that the placenta has formed and the embryo can continue to develop. What can we make of the moral and ethical consequences of the previous paragraph? Here’s where the law simply must step in to create some bright lines. Hopefully those lines are create with the guidance of informed ethicists and the medical community, but laws are made and laws are amended and laws are repealed.
When Paul Ryan says he’s against abortion except for his own little list of exceptions, he’s attempting to draw these bright lines according to his own moral standards. He hopes enough voters will share his moral doctrines. Look at Mitt Romney, changing his statements about abortion with more frequency than his shirt. Paul Ryan, erstwhile Randroid, has changed his tune, too. Ayn Rand, whose works he’s pressed on more people than Mitt Romney ever pressed Mormon tracts, said the embryo has no rights and abortion is a moral right. Both these jackasses contradict themselves at the deepest levels. There isn’t an honest molecule in either of them.
I ask a far more fundamental question: I’ll phrase it in light of your statement. If the consequences of consensual sex could possibly create a legal / ethical obligation to carry that pregnancy to term, we must contend with the nature of Consent itself, a word which appears all over in the Casey decision. What if a woman does not consent to carry a pregnancy to term? Society has always given her the right to give her child up for adoption. But before some Legal Bright Line, she currently has the right to abort that pregnancy.
But nowhere along the line in either Roe or Casey are the father’s rights considered. The precedent use case for fertilisation involves sperm. Half the genetic material of any child conceived by consensual sex is that of the father. His consent never seems to enter the legal picture at any point.
I take a pretty hard line on that, myself. I’m not sure what so-called Men’s Rights we’re talking about here, but one thing I think I’m pretty comfortable saying is that if a woman doesn’t consent to being pregnant and carrying to term, then she has no obligation to do so. How that relates to men’s rights is something I’m not really clear on. But as I sit here right now, I can’t imagine a “father’s right” that would trump the right of the mother to determine what happens in her own body.
Fathers just get to pay child support.
I think that’s a different issue than what I’ve been talking about. I’m talking about the right of the mother to determine what happens in her own body, and suggesting that the father has no rights that would trump hers.
You’re talking about a the rights of the father on the supposition that he didn’t want to have a child and abortion was a legal option which the mother rejected. Does the father have a moral obligation to pay child support in that event? I’d say he doesn’t.
How that plays out legally is messy and confusing.
Well, sure, that’s not what /you’re</ talking about. But that's sorta like that old Chicken and Egg problem. There's a rooster in there, somewhere, and that's my point. If a man can be reduced to sperm donor until some squalling child emerges into the world, in which case his wages can be garnished and/or he can be thrown in prison for failing to pay child support — methinks there's something Wrong with this Picture.
Something wrong with my picture? I said the father has no moral obligation to pay child support for a child he did not want to have and where abortion services are legal? What’s wrong with that picture?
(hastily) oh, no, not wrong with /your/ picture. Just plain old obligations without rights.
Ahh. Good. That makes me feel better.
I agree with you that there’s a problem with obligations without rights. I also think the moral properties which come into play at the point of entry into the world from the uterus are really complex and varied. I certainly don’t even pretend to have an understanding of all of them, let alone a solution to the conflicts I’m aware of. But it’s pretty apparent that the way things are set up right now probably isn’t optimal.
I made the same point over at Elias’ blog that you do here about Biden’s remarks. I just don’t understand them.
Sorry – been a busy time, and haven’t been keeping up with other blogs.
maybe that’s because they aren’t meant to be understood.
Faith != Reason.
I agree that Joe faces a logical problem here. If a zygote shares the same moral property as adult humans wrt to right to life, he’s got some splainin to do. Personally, I think the splainin ought to be focused on differentiating his private life from his public life, not on revising his beliefs about abortion per se. Which is what he did in the debate.
In his private life, he concedes that his views on abortion are determined by his religious beliefs. But imposing those beliefs on others without an independent argument supporting the same conclusion is equivalent to imposing his religion on others. So I guess I don’t see the quandry here.
Because he seems to say that from his religion he derives a belief about the *moral* status of the fetus. He’s not saying that everyone should cross themselves or take communion or accepting that Jesus died for our sins. That would be imposing a religious belief. He’s making a comment about what’s morally right. (This is the wrong horn of the Euthyphro dilemma again and is problematic in itself. And, actually, doesn’t the Catholic church have a tradition of rejecting Divine Command theory? And that’s why the embrace of natural law? Although I guess he’s not saying he gets his belief from God, he gets it from his church…)
Moral beliefs are, by definition, not private. You see them as binding not only on yourself but on other people as well.
Well, unless you’re a non-cognitivist. But since he’s talking about a judgment, I assume he is not.
You’re the trained philosopher. I’m not. But morality and ethics are not terms of art exclusive to philosophy. Theology has something to say on these subjects.
I was taught morality is a personal matter and ethics a public matter. Morality is me refusing to eat pork. Ethics is me telling you not to eat pork and attempting to pass laws to that effect.
There is a distinction.
There is a difference in phrasing here. Philosophers usually use “ethics” and “morality” somewhat interchangeably, although there are exception. I tend to use ethics when talking about a code of moral behavior specific to a situation, such as business ethics or medical ethics.
Here’s how my vocabulary falls out, given that I consider morality binding on everyone. There are actually three distinctions to be made. Let’s take not eating pork.
1) For any reason other than a moral belief (your religion forbids it, you don’t like pork, you think it’s unhealthy, you don’t think there is any such thing as objective morality but it strikes you as wrong).
2) You think it’s morally wrong. That means you don’t eat pork (or feel guilt when you do) and think other people shouldn’t eat pork. That does not necessarily mean you think there should be laws against other people eating pork! You can think adultery or lying is morally wrong without thinking there should be laws against them. The reason I was saying that Biden should explain why it shouldn’t be legal is because killing an innocent person is normally the sort of thing that definitely should be illegal.
3) You think it should be illegal.
Sorry, meant to add: the first you would consider binding only on you. The second you consider binding on everybody, but not necessarily backed up with the force of government. The third is the kind of act you think ought to be backed up with the force of government.
Ethical philosophy needs to enforce a distinction here. Start with the Greek: ethike, traditions. Morals, from Latin, mors, personal traits.
However artificial the distinction, and seemingly philosophy really hasn’t gone to the trouble of making that distinction, mors is the child wishing laws were passed against the cooking of lima beans and parents who make kids eat ’em.
In modern day parlance, you would call those non-moral norms. There is indeed a way of talking about it, just different vocab.
So would religious prohibition be a non-moral norm?
If you didn’t think it should apply to those outside your religion. For most Jews, a yarmulke is a non-moral norm, not stealing is a moral norm.
And that’s where this whole conflation of Ethics and Morality comes off the tracks in a great wheezing, steaming wreck.
A prohibition or commandment which attaches only to me is Morality. That which binds upon us all is Ethics and expressed in Law. Very simple distinction, without all this awkward, hyphenated negation of non-morality. A Jew ought to wear a kippah in shul. If he does not have one, a kippah will be provided for him: every shul has a few extras for just such occasions. That’s Morality. You can’t go into shul without one.
The Haredim have forced the State of Israel to change the laws on citizenship. Now the halacha laws apply. You can’t just convert to Judaism and be accepted as a citizen of Israel. Your mother must be Jewish. It’s entirely possible to convert to Judaism within halacha but that doesn’t make you eligible for Israeli citizenship by virtue of being a Jew.
Who gets to say Murder or Stealing is Wrong? The law provides for numerous exceptions for killing another person. The personal morality of the Amish and Mennonites which leads them to conscientious objector status is thus recognised in law. Likewise police officers are immunised against prosecution. If enough legislators believe something is wrong, they can enact a law to prohibit it. At that point, Morality is thus promoted to an interpersonal scope. We can demote Law back to personal morality: Roe v Wade and Loving v Virginia demoted abortion and miscegenation out of the scope of law.
But back to Stealing. If I find a wallet on the side walk and pick it up with the intention of returning it to its rightful owner, let’s suppose a policeman saw me pick it up. Should I be busted for stealing? See where this is going? Take receipt of stolen goods. What do we say about someone who purchased stolen artwork in good faith, not knowing it was stolen? Such considerations don’t enter into the judgement of the court: the purchaser must return the artwork at the very least and may face prosecution for being in receipt of stolen goods.
It’s a gaping hole in modern philosophy, arbitrarily declaring something moral or an non-moral norm. Norms don’t work in such situations. Normative anything is an external judgement.
Obviously they should return it, since it isn’t their property but I’d be surprised if there was a lot of push to prosecute someone who was acting in good faith and when told the art was stolen promptly returned it and even more surprised if a jury would convict in those circumstances.
Rose, I get that argument. Here’s where I disagree.
Let’s make a distinction between a regime of moral beliefs following from theological principles and enforced thru God’s divine will including various types of punishment, and a regime of legal beliefs justified by objective principles and enforced thru punishments administered by the state. Given this, your question is the following: how can a Catholic simultaneously believe that abortion is morally wrong without also believing that that moral principle should be codified into state law?
I think the answer is that the insofar as the belief is justified on purely religious grounds, it fails to meet a necessary condition for legal justification, namely, that the moral claim can be justified by objective (specifically, non-religious) properties of the individuals involved. If the belief fails to be so justified, then imposing that belief on others in the form of a governmental law constitutes imposing a religious belief on people who don’t accept that those religious beliefs are binding. And Biden expressed the view that he’s not willing to do that (probably because of a commitment to a general principle separation of church and state, to a principle of not codifying religious beliefs into state law).
I think of it this way: insofar as the only justification for the belief that abortion is morally wrong is a religious justification, that principle doesn’t generalize to others, so imposing it on others would be wrong. Insofar as it can be justified by an independent and objective property, then the moral prohibition would generalize and imposing it on others might be justified.
But that’s the tricky part. The independent property usually adopted by Catholics is “life” or “human life”, where those terms are understood to ascribe the same right to life an adult possesses to a fertilized egg. But on analysis, it’s by no means clear that a fertilized egg possesses any morally relevant properties, let alone the full suite of rights attributed to adults under which a right to life as attributed. The usual response to this challenge is an appeal to a sacred property possessed by the human zygote, something God-given, either explicitly or implicitly.
So it seems to me entirely consistent for a Catholic to hold that abortion is wrong, but ought not be illegal. And the reason a Catholic can hold that abortion is a sin in the eyes of the Lord, but codifying a principle on those grounds is inconsistent with the principles upon which our laws are grounded.
Okay. I think on independent grounds that religion is always a problematic basis for a moral norm (it’s just dandy for a non-moral norm). So there’s that.
I’m not getting your argument here. Either he believes that the fertilized egg possesses morally relevant properties, or does not. From wherever this belief came – from his religion, from a dream he had one night on shrooms, whatever. Once he believes they have *morally relevant* properties, then they are worth protecting. I hope not only Catholic fertilized eggs possess them! If it possesses morally relevant properties, then he could say more about why he is willing to defer to other religions on this one.
Every sperm is sacred.
Is it not possible to accept for yourself on faith that a fertilized egg has – to stop dancing around the word – a soul, but to also recognize that since you don’t know, you do not feel comfortable telling other people what they can or cannot do with their own bodies?
It seems to me your argument works best in a lab where there are nothing but very firm and extreme viewpoints: you believe absolutely that a fertilized egg is a human being no different from a 6 month old and that to purposefully endanger it is homicide, or you believe that there is no soul and it makes no difference what happens to the egg.
I suspect a lot of people don’t fall into either of those two buckets.
It follows that they are worth protecting, but not necessarily thru the force of the state. On purely religious terms, abortion is wrong because it’s a sin and people who engage in it are going to hell. That’s a hard principle to codify into law in our system, if that person believes laws must apply to everyone generally based on objective justifications. Why should the Catholic care if a Muslim women (or another Catholic!) is going to hell because she’s having an abortion?
But presumably, even for the Catholic, the argument does generalize because the morally relevant property in play isn’t that abortion is a sin, it’s that the fetus has a right to life. But now we’re not talking about a specifically religious belief, anymore. We’re talking about a property fetus’s have from the time of conception. If that were the case, then a legal prohibition against abortion might be justified (and not on religious grounds) given that the conditions under which such laws are justified are potentially met (objective propeties and states of affairs and such). And that’s precisely where the abortion debate is focused.
So there is plenty of wiggle room for the Catholic, it seems to me. All they need to do is be aware that a purely religious principle (abortion is a sin) isn’t a sufficient grounds for the passage of a law.
Granted, most people probably don’t make that distinction, but that doesn’t mean the distinction doesn’t exist. (Or so I’m arguing.)
Look, here’s an example: I think dog fighting is morally wrong. Deeply morally wrong. But I’m uncertain that there should be a law prohibiting it. Am I irrational?
I don’t get your argument.
Why must he either believe that or not, with no middle ground and all the consequences about what beliefs about what the law should be that would seem to morally follow if we believe in the moral reason for murder’s illegality, but you can have sufficient uncertainty about it all to allow you to think that you shouldn’t advocate one or other legal proscriptions?
It’s possible I’m reading him as making a stronger statement than he is. But he didn’t say he wasn’t sure when personhood starts (which I believe is what Obama said). He said he accepted his church’s position. Which is pretty damn clear on when full personhood starts.
Actually, I agree with you. I’m almost positive he really is uncertain about when life begins and is just not saying so. Or has not thought it through very carefully.
So … I don’t know. You guys are inclined to be charitable which makes me feel uncharitable. But I would like it if he addressed the sticky thicket of personhood — if he is indeed uncertain.
My wife worked at an abortion clinic for years. She has wonderfully ironic stories about Saturday protestors and their daughters showing up Monday morning to receive abortion services. The principles underlying the protest (abortion is murder!) were apparently very flexible in their application.
{{But that’s not my argument in defense of Joe. It’s that the criteria justifying a law are different than the criteria justifying a religious moral claim. So maybe the quandry is that insofar as someone accepts the reality of justifying a legal claim, they aren’t committed to their religious principles in the way you think they claim to be.}}
I’m charitable because so many Catholics are in the same exact boat and end up taking the same position. I also think that saying that you have a personal belief that if true means that a law on the books would apply a certain way, but then saying that you don’t want the proposition’s truth to inform the enforcement of the law so that that application results, that you have essentially implied that you are uncertain about the objective truth of the belief – enough, at least, not to make a public truth claim for it with legal-definitional consequences.
I also think the life-personhood distinction looms larger in the statement the more I look at it. Biden is a lawyer, and one of the most prominent lawmakers of his era. He surely knows what it would mean legally for him to say that he accepts that personhood begins at conception, so I think it unlikely to be insignificant that he did not say that. What I wonder actually is whether he correctly stated the religious teaching in question there, or not.
Where a moral belief comes from is important as well. That Biden believes that a zygote is a person gives him prima facie reason to support the criminalisation of abortion. However, this is not the only consideration.
That he arrives at this belief (about the personhood of zygotes) in a way that is inaccessible to others (whom he considers equally reasonable) gives him prima facie reason to refrain from supporting the criminalisation of abortion.
This is basic public reason. While we could prima facie do better vis a vis our moral duties if we appealed to the full scope our reasons, in a pluralistic society where everyone appeals to the full scope of their moral reasons, people on average end up doing worse with respect to their moral duties as they would judge it themselves.
That’s why, if we want to live in a world where we do better with respect to our moral obligations, we have a meta-obligation to discipline ourselves to only making moral claims on others that can be supported by reasons accessible to all.
This is well-said on public reason, Murali, and I fully agree. However, it’s not clear to me that he does believe that a zygote is a person. What he said is that he “accepts” the Catholic teaching that it is “life” (which may be a mistaken rendering of the teaching, but it’s what he allows he accepts). That statement is actually pretty far from a statement of personal “belief” that a zygote is a “person.” But your point about public reason applies to it just as well as to the one you describe.
Is this “public reason?”
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…
Cristian opposition is not based on the Bible, which is fairly silent on the subject, it’s the product [esp in the Roman church] of moral reasoning not unlike that which informed the Declaration.
Murali’s [Rawls’s?] “public reason” rubric is valid, but in the current age, those who simply thump Bible for their position aren’t going to get anywhere—the arguments from most Christian quarters are as much “public reason” as the Declaration is.
And if certain Christians thump Bible for some of their positions, and happen to agree with certain Muslims who thump their Holy Book for theirs, and they agree with others who thump their Kant and Deepak Chopra to derive the same position, well that’s “public reason” too.
What I like about Jurgen Habermas is that like it or not, religion isn’t going anywhere, in fact
religion is gaining influence not only worldwide but also within national public spheres. I am thinking here of the fact that churches and religious organisations are increasingly assuming the role of “communities of interpretation” in the public arena of secular societies.
They can attain influence on public opinion and will formation by making relevant contributions to key issues, irrespective of whether their arguments are convincing or objectionable. Our pluralist societies constitute a responsive sounding board for such interventions because they are increasingly split on value conflicts requiring political regulation. Be it the dispute over the legalisation of abortion or voluntary euthanasia, on the bioethical issues of reproductive medicine, questions of animal protection or climate change – on these and similar questions the divisive premises are so opaque that it is by no means settled from the outset which party can draw on the more convincing moral intuitions.
So we can say what “public reason” ought to be, but this is what it is. Further, I submit that “moral intutitions” might have more to offer than reason alone. Eugenics is quite logical and empirical and might win the argument over the Declaration on points, but I don’t want to live there. If that means cheating the argument with God, so be it.
Habermas, Rawls, inclusiveness, etc.
adss.library.uu.nl/publish/articles/000090/bookpart.pdf
Good comment, Tom.
This brings me back to all of my apprehensions and nervousness about what Nietzsche happened to foresee.
Christianity is going away.
I don’t know that we’ll be better off with it gone.
These folks are being restrained by their knowledge of Heaven and Hell. When we officially become a society where we can appeal to neither rewards nor punishments on the part of people for whom Virtue is not its own reward? I tremble.
Tom,
If you read Murali’s comment carefully, you’ll see that it doesn’t preclude the notion that a religious holding can be offered as a public reason. The question is whether the speaker himself can enunciate the holding with the full voice of his own reason so that it meets the standard of rational (logical, moral…) scrutiny he believes is necessary to sustain it as a public reason he believes can put the full force of his own intellect behind. Some members of a religion will be able to do that with particular holdings of that religion, and others will not. Paul Ryan emphasized a personally-derived public reason relating to his experience with his wife’s pregnancy for his view on this bioethical question (Bean), and downplayed his religion’s role in determining his view, while Biden could only say that, while his religion informed his personal view, he could only offer it as a description of his private belief, but could offer no public reason to justify the state’s restriction of others’ freedom to act according to their private conscience.
I think, but could be wrong, that Murali’s point, and certainly my point, is that these are both valid attempts at offering public reason for the respective positions. The point on Biden, though, is that if he merely acceptsthe religious teaching because it is the teaching of his religion, but isn’t persuaded by it intellectually enough to be able to offer it to his fellow citizens as his own independently-realized rational view, then he can’t responsibly offer the teaching of the church as a public reason for a position that abortion should be illegal. Because pluralism and secularism.
JB,
What folks? And how do you know what’s restraining them, or even that they need to be (externally) restrained?
The folks who are currently fundies, Michael.
How do I know that they need to be restrained? I don’t.
But call it an intuition.
Okay.
I guess you didn’t claim relevance, only that you were observing where the discussion took your own mind. But it seems to me we were talking about what kind of public claims private believers need to make in order to maintain intellectual coherence. That seems like a decidedly mainstream as opposed to fundie concern to me. I wonder how you felt your fear about what’s going to happen when the religion to which these people cling in order to maintain their humanity is finally pried from their clutching hands, whereafter they’ll be unable to locate a church to commune in or a preacher to preach the Word to them, was implicated by this discussion.
I guess the difference is that the religion is making the people act this way rather than holding them back from acting how they’re inclined.
I imagine that if I thought that religion was the horse, rather than the cart, I’d be looking forward to Liberation.
1. The thing you’re worried about happening is not happening – everyone who wants access to (their) religion has it in this country;
2. If it was, there isn’t evidence that the things you’re worrying about happening would happen. America’s religiosity is (voluntarily) in secular (sic) decline, and so is its crime rate.
I honestly don’t understand what you’re talking about. Who, who relies on their religion to get them to do good more than doing bad, and who wants to do good, is losing access to it? How?
Who, who relies on their religion to get them to do good more than doing bad, and who wants to do good, is losing access to it? How?
Just because you like something and think it helps you to do good doesn’t mean you’re going to continue to believe in it.
More importantly, “people who are fundies” are a class of people. If religion dies out, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the people who are the types of people who are fundies will die out.
They’ll have to find something else to fundie about.
What I’m talking about is not “crime” but changes in the culture of what crime consists of.
Who, who relies on their religion to get them to do good more than doing bad, and who wants to do good, is losing access to it? How?
You’re talking about religion as if it’s the driving force rather than the restraining one. There are no access issues at all, it’s all entirely opt-in.
The country recently found that “none” is the largest growing religious group and Protestants, which had been a majority, is now a plurality. This will only continue.
There are a lot of people who look at that and say something to the effect of “yay!” but I am more inclined to look at it and say “uh-oh”.
JB-
Why do you say “Uh oh”? I have this conversation with my mom a lot, particularly now that we have a baby on the way. Zazzy and I are off three different faiths (Catholic, Lutheran, and Jewish) and neither of us feeling particularly strong about any of them and are quite bothered by a lot that comes with organized religion. We don’t anticipate raising the child with a particular faith. My mom insists that there is no way for it to develop morals or ethics or traditions or a sense of belonging. I respond that religion is just one avenue, perhaps the easiest (maybe even the best) avenue to these things, but not the only avenue.
So I don’t say, “Uh oh”. I instead wonder, “So what are they doing instead?”
Kazzy,
you planning on raising it in “default” faith then? Christmas and Santa and the Easter Bunny?
People aren’t going to fundamentally change, they’re just going to change their presumptions about where they end up sorting themselves. It used to be enough to say “a good Protestant (or Catholic) neighborhood”. Then it became “a good Christian neighborhood”.
I don’t know how we’ll sort ourselves next but I imagine that skin color and/or education will be big indicators.
Kim,
We’ll probably celebrate those holidays with our family members that do.
Will we have a Christmas tree? Maybe, maybe not. If so, it’d be more in the Americanized version of the holiday, with little to no emphasis on the Baby Jesus (TM). We’re not going to actively avoid religion; I just don’t know that we’ll be members of an organized religion.
JB,
I see what you’re saying. It is not the change(s) in faith that matter so much as the signaling that goes along with identifying as a member of a particular faith.
The likely thing is that “Good protestant” or “Good Christian” neighborhoods likely already signaled about race and education. Most inner city blacks, for instance, identify as Christian. Would those neighborhoods have qualified as “Good Christian” neighborhoods?
I don’t know how we’ll sort ourselves next but I imagine that skin color and/or education will be big indicators.
“Next”?
There are a lot of people who look at that and say something to the effect of “yay!” but I am more inclined to look at it and say “uh-oh”.
Right, I get it. I don’t get why. Or what the upshot is, especially as relates the discussion that was happenign here.
Biden: “Life begins at conception in the church’s judgment. I accept it in my personal life. But I refuse to impose it on others.”
Aren’t you all so glad that Abolitionists weren’t Biden Catholics…”I personally believe blacks are human but I wouldn’t impose that view on others.”
It’s insane logic! If it’s human and living…protect it!
It’s one step away from Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger who would gladly sacrifice all poor, minority, or unhealthy children on the altar of convenience.
“The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race (Eugenics Publ. Co.,1923)
Abortion is always a thorny debate.
I support a women’s right to choose whether or not she continues a pregnancy.
I’m an athiest, so there’s no issue with my ideals and conflicts of ‘faith’ per se. I also don’t agree with the concept of ‘life’ at conception (or implantation, for that matter).
While I would greatly prefer that both parties involved in the horizontal mambo be responsible and take the necessary precautions – or abstain if those precautions are not available – accidents will still happen and contraceptives do fail.
Abortion should remain an option for those who wish it, in my opinion.
Voilà!
Again echoing that abortion is always a thorny debate.
Like you, I also don’t know when life begins. Viability outside the womb is possibly a good option but as technology gets better this becomes an earlier option and creates other issues especially with out already overspent and often broken adoption and foster child system.
My general view is that abortion should be kept legal within the original Roe framework an unmodified by Casey.
What I like about Biden’s comment is his refusal to impose his religious views on others. He acknowledges that the United States is a religiously diverse country and that the religions are not homogeneous in views on complicated issues. Biden even acknowledges that Judaism is very different than Christianity in views of the world and morality.
Would it make a difference to anyone if the topic were not aborting human fetuses, but killing of animals?
As in, there are many people who believe it is murder to kill an animal.
Would it be appropriate to ask one of those people why they aren’t members of ALF?
Or it they had at least ever watched it?
“On Melmac, we have 1st class, 2nd class and ham. “
Not to me, really. Although I am guessing most vegetarians/vegans, when you come down to it, would save a human life over a rat life.
Most people who profess that X is murder, where X is something the killing of which a majority of people disagree constitutes murder (animals, fertilized eggs) don’t really act that way. Like, it’s the guy who performed late term abortions who got shot, and not the fertility clinic that destroyed embryos.
Excellent point. In fact, I’d like to write a post that expands on that. How would I send it to you?
Absolutely, Mike! Awesome! blindedphilosopher AT gmail.
Because most people recognize, even intuitively, that there is a utility aspect to morality; just as the moral justification for war forbids tilting at windmills, however noble in theory, as being a pointless waste of human life.
When we look at the practical application of abortion bans we see that the end result can be a greater immorality, regardless of ones ideas about when life begins.
Isn’t it often the case with members of churches that they “accept” the church’s doctrine on a given question but that that doesn’t translate in to personal intellectual certainty about the issue? It seems to me that within Biden’s statement about acceptance of church doctrine is ample space for him to share in exactly – and I mean exactly – in what you say here:
Biden does not say he thinks “abortion is definitely killing a person.” He says he accepts church doctrine on the matter – but says nothing about how much uncertainty he has that it’s right in all cases. He can accept the doctrine but be sufficiently unsure about its truth to believe it shouldn’t determine laws that restrict the freedoms of other who don’t accept it. Do you really mean to argue that church members have only two options: to reject completely the truth of church doctrine, or to accept it with so little uncertainty that they should relinquish the option that everyone else has about various possible beliefs about the world they may have to say that it’s not certainly enough true that it should determine public laws?
Also, on this blog, I believe people have been at pains at times to say that “life”does not necessarily” mean “human personhood” for the purpose of this question. I do think Biden probably meant that personhood begins at conception, but it’s still an assumption.
As I understand it, the Catholic church’s position that if a decision must be made between the life of the mother and the life of the baby, the only acceptable moral decision is to let the mother die.
If this were the debate issue, how would it be different for Biden to say that he accepts the church’s position in his personal life, but wouldn’t impose it on others whose faith and moral outlook is different?
On the abortion question, they both made little sense.
This pretty succinctly sums up every argument about abortion, ever.
Both Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion,” and Don Marquis’s “Why Abortion Is Immoral” each significantly changed the way I think about the issue. There are others, but those two stand out.
A couple two three quick thoughts:
1) I didn’t weigh in on whether consensual sex obligates a mother to bring a child to term because I have somewhat mixed feelings. I think it is a reasonable position to take. I also think it is reasonable to take the position that, even if the fetus has the right to life, you are not obligated to use your body to sustain it. I think it is obvious that once the child is born, both mother and father have obligations. THis is why the analogy to the father paying child support fails. It is not his body that is sustaining the baby. That is where the mother has a choice – whether or not to use her body to sustain that life. And it makes sense that he can’t make that choice for her.
That said…I’ve gone through three pregnancies now. No doubt pregnancy takes a toll on the ol’ bod. But really, not that big a toll. People do not exclaim over my six-pack abs, and I did spend a few mornings throwing up. But I’m pretty much back to where I was pre-pregnancy. There are a lot of people who would LOVE to have a healthy domestic adoption. I really sincerely wish more people would go the adoption route. I wish it was more socially acceptable. I wish it were made easy to get excellent health care and other accommodations (not just made by potential adoptive parents) so that more people took this route.
2) People do not need God to act morally. I live among the godless. I am among the godless. Pretty much all of them act morally. For many people, I don’t think they act morally because of actual fear of retribution.
I’ve been thinking about this topic some more and I wonder if the tension you felt in Biden’s answer about abortion has something to do with this question: Is it possible for a person who self-identifies as a “true believer” in religion R to support a secular government wrt the principles that R espouses? Or maybe this question: is it possible for the Religionist to not be a Theocratist?
My answer is “yes”. You appear to think not, since on your view a religious justification for a moral belief is not only sufficient for that belief to become law, but requires that it become law.
No. Not at all what I think. I don’t think he thinks that everyone need accept Jesus, shake incense, cross himself, etc.
But, he already believes that killing an innocent person should, in general, should be illegal. (Or I certainly hope so!). The position he claims to accept is that an abortion is exactly the same crime as killing a person. That is, it is the kind of immorality that requires that we not only find it immoral, but that we intervene to prevent it or punish it. It has the same moral weight. So….why shouldn’t he treat it the same way?
Sure. I think Michael Drew, Murali, and me have given answers to that question, answers – and accounts – which you’re not persuaded by. I’m not sure how the conversation proceeds at this point.
Yeah. I mean, it’s not like you haven’t convinced me of anything. But this is why I think he need not be a theocrat *in general* and still have some fundamental tension on this score.
I am not up on Rawls. But I took public reason to mean ultimately you should be willing to compromise even if you are firmly grounded in reason. That’s why, during the LeagueCast, I was bringing up abolition and sufragettes? Do I have him wrong, Murali?
So I guess, most charitable reading, Biden thinks that people who are born have moral status that is backed up by publicly accessible reason, and thus can be made illegal. Biden also thinks at conception, the zygote has sufficient moral properties for personhood but the only reason for thinking this is either a) argument from authority, or b) divine command, so he’s not going to insist anyone else think this, also. (Although why not, if b?). This is more charitable and explicable, but still a problematic view.
This is more charitable and explicable, but still a problematic view.
Why problematic? The right to life of the fetus cannot be understood by analogy of the right to life of autonomous adults, it seems to me. That’s a distinction most right-to-life advocates pass right over. On a purely descriptive level (in the normal course of things) the fetus is physically, biologically dependent on the mother for sustained existence. No autonomous adults, in the normal course of things, are in a similar situation. So arguing by analogy about these two things is inherently problematic. (Not that I’m suggesting you’re doing that.)
To use the fancy talk, ceteris paribus, the fetus (let’s just stipulate) has a right to life. But honoring that right requires the exercise of an obligation on the mother. Does she have a choice as to whether she will, in fact, honor that obligation? Ought she have a choice? (I know you know this stuff…)
So here’s the thing: just because Biden thinks that the fetus has a right to life it doesn’t follow that he’s committed to making abortion generally illegal with exceptions. Of course, the Church thinks it ought to be generally illegal. But that’s a different type of argument with a different rationale.
I’ll try this from another angle. I’ve argued (on the virtual pages at this site!) that even if a fetus is imbued with the full suite of human rights, abortion ought to be morally and legally permissible. That is (to borrow Michael Drew’s framing of things) I can publicly argue with the full force of my intellect and emotional commitments for both of the following claims: a fetus has a right to life; abortion should be legal.
Am I irrational?
Not at all. Like I said, I think reasonable the argument you both put forward (and JJT mentioned above) – that a right to life on the part of the fetus need not trump the right of the mother to use her body to sustain that life.
Not at all irrational! Not at all what Biden said!
Aaand….
I wonder now if the tension you’re feeling is that the Catholic Church takes as it’s official line that abortion should be illegal with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother (or whatever they are). If so, the Ole Joe is in a pretty blatant inconsistency if accepts the Church’s views on abortion and also believes abortion ought to remain legal.
Is that maybe what’s going on here?
Not at all irrational! Not at all what Biden said!
Biden said he thinks life begins at conception. He said he accepts his church’s Doctrines. As it so happens, the CHurch thinks abortion should be illegal except for rare exceptions. Biden things abortion should be legal.
That’s an inconsistency, right? We can agree on that. But that’s not the inconsistency you’re worried about. (I’m still not clear on what it is.)
Your argument is that since Ole Joe believes a) that personhood begins at conception and b) killing innocent persons ought to be against the law, he’s committed to c) abortion should be illegal. In the thread, you’ve said that his reasons for thinking personhood begins at conception don’t matter, what matters is that he in fact holds that belief. ANd given that he does hold that belief, he’s inconsistent in thinking that abortion ought to be illegal.
Supposing what I’ve written here is correct, it’s this last move in the argument that I’m still unclear about. Why do you think that just because he holds the belief that life (or personhood) begins at conception that he’s committed to thinking that abortion ought to be illegal? (And by phrasing the argument this way, I’m deliberately taking the religious dimension out of discussion to try to figure out where we disagree.)
Ok, got to rush here because today is a busy day.
>Your argument is that since Ole Joe believes a) that personhood begins at conception and b) killing innocent persons ought to be against the law, he’s committed to c) abortion should be illegal. In the thread, you’ve said that his reasons for thinking personhood begins at conception don’t matter, what matters is that he in fact holds that belief.
Yes, that’s what I was saying. As I said above, though, I’m willing to be convinced that: Biden thinks that people who are born have moral status that is backed up by publicly accessible reason, and thus can be made illegal. Biden also thinks at conception, the zygote has sufficient moral properties for personhood but the only reason for thinking this is either a) argument from authority, or b) divine command, so he’s not going to insist anyone else think this, also. (Although why not, if b?). This is more charitable and explicable, but still a problematic view.
In other words, I agree that maybe my jump to C is unfair.
Still problematic view because it relies on arg from authority and divine command. THe problem I had with Ryan.
And I did not say that abortion should be made illegal because I had three easy pregnancies. See upthread: I believe abortion should remain legal. I do not consider myself in a position to say to any woman she should or should not carry a baby to term.
Statistically, pregnancy is not all that dangerous. I simply wish more people would exercise the option of carrying to term. It’s not a HUGE amount to ask in return for a life. Obviously, the mileage varies, and there are OF COURSE cases where it is a huge amount to ask, and OF COURSE the answer in those cases would be different. I do not consider myself pro-life (which I read as a legal stance), I do not consider myself having given a utilitarian argument for the pro-life position. If the fact of the matter changes about the huge waiting lists of people willing to adopt, then my opinion on this would change.
>The right to life of the fetus cannot be understood by analogy of the right to life of autonomous adults, it seems to me. That’s a distinction most right-to-life advocates pass right over. On a purely descriptive level (in the normal course of things) the fetus is physically, biologically dependent on the mother for sustained existence. No autonomous adults, in the normal course of things, are in a similar situation. So arguing by analogy about these two things is inherently problematic.
Allow me to be clear: I do not think a 4-cell clump has all the same moral properties as an adult. Nor a 12-week fetus, for that matter. But this is the problem with viability as a cut-off. There aren’t fully autonomous adults in that situation, but there are plenty of people we don’t want to kill who are dependent on others for their sustained existence. Infants, children, people on dialysis, the disabled. Leave them alone and they die. What’s so magical about independence?
Rose,
I think what’s magical is being a person. Even a newly born baby is a tabula rasa. Give the kid 6 months, and then, I basically can’t forgive someone for killing it. Before then, it requires a very high burden of “this kid’s life would be SO bad…”
(this says that people born essentially brainless would possibly be killable — I’m thinking someone with only brainstem activity. I’ll stand by that)
Wrt to this claim:
In other words, I agree that maybe my jump to C is unfair.
Could the reason why we’re sorta talking past each other be accounted for by this claim:
The position he claims to accept is that an abortion is exactly the same crime as killing a person.
?
Cuz I didn’t read him as ever saying or implying that abortion is exactly the same as killing an innocent adult human.
Yep. Think that’s it.
Whew!
{{Damn politicians}}
Ryan’s “bean” argument was from “moral intuition”: Saw the sonogram and the heartbeat, said, yeah, that human life.
http://patterico.com/images/7weeks.jpg
That doesn’t get you to “from conception,” and there’s also a good point here that abortion doesn’t have to be equal to murder to be one of those things we rightfully make illegal.
As for the Roman church and the argument from authority, I think Catholics give assent with their intellect when they “accept” the church’s teaching on something–it’s not just a Euthyphro thing. Think the teaching on contraception, to which the lion’s share of Catholics do not give their intellectual assent. Or as SNL’s Joe Biden put it
“I accept the teachings of the Catholic Church, but then I ignore them and do whatever I want. Now I feel kinda guilty about that — but yeah, whatever.”
there’s also a good point here that abortion doesn’t have to be equal to murder to be one of those things we rightfully make illegal.
I like the comment, but this part above has me stumped. If it’s not murder, then what intuition would justify making it illegal?
And just to clarify one thing; on my view a moral intuition is not the same thing as “really strong feelings”.
Our minds get so hung up on terms and analogies. It’s how we’re wired to think, but the philosophical mind tries to see the essences of things, not their facial similarities.
There’s nothing analogous to a pre-born human, not a puppy or Koko the Gorilla or a full-grown saint or sinner. We can stilt the language this way or that, blastocyst or baby, but in the end, Ryan looks at the “bean,” the human life he and she created, and pronounces it to be good, and that it wouldn’t be right to end that life.
What do we mean by “right?” Justice, or morality? Hell, we don’t quite know*. It’s like when opponents call capital punishment “murder.” No, it’s really not murder, nor is it patently unjust, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ban it anyway.
Better to speak of these things as they are rather than to shoehorn them into terms and analogies. Words are for facilitating communication and conveying reality, not for obscuring and distorting it. Calling it a “bean” probably provides more clarity just by being neutral.
______________
* Doesn’t Plato himself cheat the question with sentimentality and “moral intutition”?
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/republic/summary-analysis/book-x-section-iii.html
Tom,
I appreciate the story, but that doesn’t answer the question. If Ryan and his wife looked at a sonogram and decided to take the baby to term, good on em.
If they looked at that sonogram and decided to terminate the pregnancy, then good on em as well.
I don’t see how looking at a sonogram changes our moral intuitions about these things. So I guess I’m still unclear about what intuition other than “abortion is murder” would justify making the practice illegal.
Since moral intuition about the “bean” is a lost cause, try the capital punishment angle. It is by definition not murder [which is unjust or unlawful killing] yet some say ban it anyway.
I might be even one of them. The pro-life position—and the Vatican’s. not co-incidentally—is that when killing is unnecessary, don’t. Abortions are on the whole unnecessary and so are executions.
Abortion is never necessary except in situations where taking a pregnancy to term threatens the mother’s life. And even then, it still might not be necessary to abort the fetus, at least for some folks.
So where do we draw the line wrt necessary? It’s strikes me as just another way to reintroduce the same problem. It doesn’t resolve anything.
And I’m not saying that I disagree with your conclusion here. I just haven’t seen a sound argument for that conclusion yet. At least for a general prohibition. I’m quite likely persuadable that the time frame for legal abortion should be shortened to something less than second trimester (is that what’s allowed?). {{Well, certainly I’m persuadable about that…}} I might be persuaded that the time frame ought to be quite restricted, actually. But, I gotta admit, I’m not persuadable that there ought to be a general prohibition on it.
I just haven’t seen an argument that comes close to convincing me for that conclusion.
An absolute ban from the moment of conception, no, that ain’t going to happen. Even the religious history of abortion bans is from ‘quickening,” about 4-6 weeks, just around the time it becomes a “bean.”
http://patterico.com/images/7weeks.jpg
We play sophistic games with what to call what’s in that picture, but it’s unmistakably “human life” scientifically, philosophically, aethetically, by any and all “moral intuition.”
The 4-cell cluster, not so much. You have to get scientifical and analyze the DNA, then draw some poetic or metaphysical conclusion about what to do or what you can’t do about it. It gets just as intellectual as the hoops some go through with the “mother’s body” bleat. “Moral intuition” is a little tough to apply to a “mass of cells.”
Between the extremes, 80% of us seem to have a moral intuition that there’s a point where abortion is doubleplusungood [“wrong”] and should be banned by any society that considers itself civilized—and that point may even be moving toward pre-viability.
Brain waves, the ability to feel pain, react to outside stimulus, whathaveyou.
Resolved: We as a society should ban the unnecessary taking of human life.
Yes, I’d much rather debate the concept of “necessary” than the concept of “rights.” Thx for the discussion.
Actually Stillwater, that’s sort of where I wound up. I became convinced it was somewhere after four cell clump, somewhere well before viability, but don’t know where.
TVD, quickening usually occurs at 18-20 weeks (although for my second two, it was at 13-14 weeks).
Ah, thx for the correction, Rose. As the 7 weeks photo with a heartbeat
http://patterico.com/images/7weeks.jpg
appeals to my sentimentality if not “moral intuition,” the “bean” argument moves me.
I admit not having studying the cutoff of “quickening” deeply. Islam seems to put it at 120 days, 4 months/16 weeks, in the zone that you as a mother report as early as 13-14 weeks, where the “bean” moves on its own. Surely this is “life,” more specifically human life, trying not to let the words get in the way but not letting them be flitted away either.
Resolved: We as a society should ban the unnecessary taking of human life.
“But, he already believes that killing an innocent person should, in general, should be illegal.”
Not necessarily. Biden can believe that it is immoral without believing that it should be illegal.
If Biden didn’t believe that killing an innocent person in general should be illegal, that would be a very interesting debate topic.
“No doubt pregnancy takes a toll on the ol’ bod. But really, not that big a toll. People do not exclaim over my six-pack abs, and I did spend a few mornings throwing up. But I’m pretty much back to where I was pre-pregnancy.”
This was my argument about smoking for a long time. “Sure the smoking is taking a toll, and my teeth are yellow, but I’m totally fine.”
Anecdotes aren’t data and all that. People do get sick from pregnancy. There is a risk of death.
And the risks aren’t all immediate and bodily. Post-partum depression caused my step mother to commit suicide (and guilt about this is one of the things that led my biological father to kill himself), so my anecdotal data is scary as it gets.
The data is a mess, IMO, but the psychological toll of giving a baby up for adoption is pretty nasty, too. It’s more than I could take, so I’d have an abortion if I couldn’t raise the baby.
I can only imagine that there is a monstrous psychological toll (for some people, anyway) to having a baby that you don’t want (and will give up) simply because you are afraid of being legally punished. (We’d have to look at data from countries where forced continuation of pregnancy occurs, and that data will be messy, IMO.)
I don’t mind working or going without a meal here or there, but if I was forced to work or forcibly kept from food, this would damage me in ways I can’t quite state.
Thus, I conclude that any attempt to make abortion illegal would do substantial psychological and bodily harm to women.
Possibly Biden recognizes that the question is not as uncomplicated as many make it out to be and that in those cases where it may be a gray area (as both of my pregnancies were) the govt has no business imposing some particular faith’s ideas on those who do not subscribe to that faith?
Pregnancy may not have taken a huge toll on your body, but that doesn’t mean that it is without risk for many, many other women. Nor does it mean that a woman carrying a child with a defect that will end his/her life shortly after birth ought to be obligated to carry that life to term just because it is a life. (Yes, I know that someone here did that. No, their situation was not at all similar to what my husband and I faced).
I wonder about the utility of utilitarian arguments on this issue. It seems like a bad road for anti-abortion folks to go down since it can always be massaged to give either side the correct answer. That’s not to say that utilitarian arguments shouldn’t be part of the calculus. I think they should. But if there’s a slippery slope in invoking them, it seems to me the grade is tilted against the pro-life side.
Utilitarianism itself hits a problem with potential persons and questions about population size, too. See especially Parfit’s “repugnant conclusion.”
So, I see your point that it’s hard to argue about abortion on purely utilitarian grounds. But maybe not impossible. Just hard.
This was a virtue argument, not a utilitarian argument. I by no means think that in all cases, greater happiness would be maximized if the mom bore the child, and CERTAINLY not if she were forced to against her will. I was simply saying that I wish more people would consider it seriously, and I wish society were set up so that it were easy for her to do so.
Just because pregnancy did not take that big a toll on your body does not mean the same is true of other women. Had I gone through a 3rd pregnancy, I risked partial paralysis. There are lots of things that can go wrong. And those wrongs are not just to the woman’s health from the pregnancy, but to other parts of her life, particularly if the father is abusive or the family may be in economic crisis. And women still die of childbirth, there are dramatic drops in the numbers of child-birth deaths, but it still occurs. Pregnancy and birth can be life threatening both directly and indirectly.
There is also the ethics and morals of how much population a planet can support; the resources that humans use vs. the resources needed by other species to survive. There are ethical and moral concerns about unwanted children that go beyond decisions made on a personal basis of a woman’s right to control her body; perhaps giving birth to an unwanted child is immoral and unethical. I wish those ‘environmental’ moral concerns had even a tenth the consideration that religious concerns hold. We don’t all have to partake of any particular set of religious beliefs; we do all have to partake of the same planet; and we share that planet with others.