(June 23, 2014 at 9:37 pm)Arthur123 Wrote: Once again, Im moving from the assumption that objective morality exists. If we don't assume that, than genital mutilation, murder, ect. is morally permissible. Your question has nothing to do with the discussion. Im sorry..

Here's what you are doing. You are mentioning behaviors that trigger strong negative emotional responses in most people, and then hoping that they'll accept at face value your assertion that the behaviors are intrinsically immoral.

They are not. Most people do not like mutilation and murder, and so in most cultures, these things are considered immoral. This is how the collective influence of individual mores accumulates into a cultural more.

However, there is nothing-- absolutely nothing-- which is objectively immoral. Not baby rape, not genocide, not nuclear war just for giggles.

Perhaps I should make a thread entitled, "Constantly making unsubstantiated claims that are quickly debunked is morally wrong" . . .

According to biology.com, Living things are those that display the following characteristics

an organized structure, being made up of a cell or cells
requires energy to survive or sustain existence
ability to reproduce
ability to grow
ability to metabolize
ability to respond to stimuli
ability to adapt to the environment
ability to move
ability to respire

My question has to do with your stance on the subject of abortion. You started this thread about abortion. My question is valid. I think you're afraid your answer will poke holes in your stance.

Please answer the question: who decides what's objectively (im)moral?

This is like talking to a 9/11 Truther or Creatard, no matter how much evidence you provide, even if you totally destroy their argument, they stubbornly refuse to budge

(June 23, 2014 at 8:51 pm)Arthur123 Wrote: My motus ponens is as follows:
1. It is morally impermissible to kill an innocent human being

Humanity is irrelevant to the issue at hand: corpses are human, but they're not alive. People on life support can have their right to life suspended too, and that is premised on the cessation of their consciousness, not on the assumption that they're no longer human. Clearly, the deciding factor when determining whether someone's life should be ended is not their humanity, as you continue to baselessly assert, but their conscious state. Fetuses are not conscious, and so there is no life there worth sustaining yet.

In fact, the only thing fetuses really have going for them is that they're genetically human, which is why you keep scrabbling desperately to keep the conversation on that level; I think you know that, conceptually, you can't compete on the level of the actual conversation.

Quote:2. A fetus is an innocent human being
3. Ergo, it is morally impermissible to kill a fetus.

I don't accept that your premises are relevant to the moral issue at hand. Your refusal to even consider additional issues belies the weakness of your case.

Quote:Esquilax, once again, my argument has nothing to do with function whatsoever but with ontology. We do have a ethical hierarchy when it comes to other organisms if it is morally permissible to kill it or not. However, my whole argument has been based on humanity, the inconsistency, and outright arbitrariness, among what a human being actually is among pro-choice advocates.

Do you just not see that you're talking past the pro-choice advocates here? Are you that short sighted? Humanity is not the issue, for so many reasons it's not even funny.

Quote:In regards to objective morality, it is necessary proponent in this debate to accept that killing an innocent human is morally wrong. If not, than both violating a woman's bodily rights and that of her child is permissible, the conversation is a non-starter.

You're going to have to do better than starting with a presupposition, boyo. Presuppositions don't get far here. In fact, I dismiss them out of hand, on principle.

You don't seem to have thought this out very far, frankly; my position, and the one I think the others share, is that morality isn't objective, but is determined by people based on the realities of the world we share. Don't mistake what you want to be true, for the only thing that could possibly be true.

Quote: Agreed, and thats why women shouldn't infringe on the rights of their children in the worst possible way.

Except that the fetus is the one performing the initial infringement. And I see the fundamental dishonesty of your position here, because if the fetus could be removed and left to its own devices rather than terminated, you'd be against that too, so don't pretend like you actually care about the execution of rights as they normally function, here.

Additionally, as has been explained to you, the premises of your own argument don't address whether fetuses actually have a right to life at all, as many things that are human don't have that. Merely dismissing an argument doesn't mean it spontaneously disappears, but it does make it look like you've got no interest in the conversation beyond rehashing your own position over and over.

Quote: thats exactly what I have been arguing! Fetuses also if human beings have the right to bodily autonomy and it is the pro-choice advocate that is being inconsistent in there assertion of rights.

Fetuses are the ones causing the initial infringement, being that they set up shop inside another human being without consent. Removing them is entirely consistent with the rights process. Additionally, you refuse to argue your case for why fetuses should have rights, so I have no reason to accept your premises as true at all.

Quote:I stated my argument, to my knowledge no defeaters have knocked down my thesis. Therefore, it stands.

Burden of proof, motherfucker! Do you understand it!

(June 23, 2014 at 9:48 pm)Arthur123 Wrote: Julia, your quotes support my original thesis. A man women or child belonging to the species Homo sapien. Than it shows certain characteristics of how you might distinguish one epistemologically. In my argument, I've stated a genetically complete organism belonging to the species homo sapien is a sufficient condition for human rights. Your bolded definition once again confuse ontology with functionality.
Kindest regards,

Fail: It is easy to win any argument if you are allowed to make up your own definitions.
Certainly, a fertilized egg is not a man or a woman. You might be able to assert that it is a child as an immature human being, however as the definitions I presented show, that is not in concordance with commonly used definitions in English.
The definition you are making up equates 'human being' with 'cell with complete human genome.' (Though you have ignored the cases where there is a cell with a complete human genome but you don't consider it a 'human being', e.g. cloned pluripotential cell or one of the two cells in a blastula after the first division.) By your reasoning, one is committing murder by NOT splitting that pair into two twins as each is capable of development into an adult human.

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(June 23, 2014 at 9:37 pm)Arthur123 Wrote: Once again, Im moving from the assumption that objective morality exists. If we don't assume that, than genital mutilation, murder, ect. is morally permissible. Your question has nothing to do with the discussion. Im sorry..

Moving from that assumption, why have we decided that killing is morally wrong? If we don't start at that assumption - why would any of those things be "morally permissible"? Or, if you prefer, you skipped a step from where you started to where we are - and even if we start elsewhere we won;t end up where you'd insist.

Since I've accepted the premise that objective morality exists and explained why the rest doesn't follow......and since I've explained that objective morality may not exist - and the rest doesn't follow, can we plug in that missing step? Or can we accept the fact that if the world does not conform to your presuppositions - it may not then conform to your conclusions (more accurately-more presuppositions..but I'm feeling generous)?

(June 23, 2014 at 10:44 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Moving from that assumption, why have we decided that killing is morally wrong?

Societies are subject to descent with modification in the same way that organisms we generally view as such do. Essentially, societies in which everyone goes around killing on a whim are not as likely to succeed as those which develop a taboo against the practice. They are replaced by the less violent ones. Those are the ones we observe.

I wish to differentiate between 'objective' morality meaning a uniform morality as observed by participants and 'absolute' morality meaning a uniform morality as observed by any observer. I believe in the first. I don't believe the second exists. Often in discussion, I find that theists mean 'absolute morality' when they say 'objective morality.' Objective morality is subject to descent with modification and evolves differently in different environs.

Bacon: good for breakfast, bad for the pig. I'm not willing to grant that the pig's viewpoint on bacon is of the same weight as my own. I expect a pig society would develop the opposite inclination. This is much as we see claims for authority from theists of any particular sect.

(June 23, 2014 at 10:07 pm)rexbeccarox Wrote: My question has to do with your stance on the subject of abortion. You started this thread about abortion. My question is valid. I think you're afraid your answer will poke holes in your stance.

Please answer the question: who decides what's objectively (im)moral?

He doesn't think it will. He fucking knows it. Just like he knows his morality argument goes out the window with crack babies, fetal alcohol syndrome and violent parents.