The value of a human life (and why abortion, economics, pulling the plug and triage)
June 20, 2010 at 6:55 am
(This post was last modified: June 20, 2010 at 6:59 am by Autumnlicious.)
First off, with respect to EvidenceVsFaith and Saerules on the beginning statement of the current quote post (see the hidden part below), the clear intent of the phrase "Well - once it is no longer a foetus I would think it would be ethically wrong to end the newly born baby's life for the same reason(s) as it would be to end mine" is to show that from the perspective of another affecting the one, in this case EvF or the newborn, it is unethical and immoral to destroy the one's life without their consent if they bear the capacity, potentiality or have a third party with the same faculties acting in their place as guardian to act as the means of granting consent.
When an organism is incapable of making present decisions by virtue not of body but of mind or lack thereof, it falls to the legal guardian to make the decision. This is a well established area in law and is commonly accepted. In matter of a developing fetus, during the early to mid stages of growth there is insufficient brain mass, folding and electrical activity to sustain the potential for that individual to grow into a functioning adult. This area of philosophy, if you are curious, is often called the potentiality argument. Often it is used to argue against abortion, however I am using it to show that a developing fetus during much of its development is fundamentally a nonperson. If it were to be removed or birthed during those times and it's body was kept functionally alive, it would never develop into a thinking individual. No exceptions. That is due to the complexity of biology involved.
To establish the clear illegality of destroying an infant without consent as another, one must recall that an infant has the clear potential, assuming all bodily needs are met, to develop into a thinking individual. However, as the concept of rights are a non entity to an infant, it falls to the parent(s) to act as the legal intermediary, much as one may act as a legal intermediary for an unconscious or comatose individual. Please note that potentiality does not guarantee a mind will be developed, but it does guarantee a significant nonzero chance of that. Please note the usage of significant and non zero, as would fall under scientific and mathematical definitions. I must reiterate that the fetus at earlier stages has a fundamentally zero chance, by nature of limits and noting that an insignificant number close to zero is functionally zero, and therefore has no rights and no potentiality.
However, it does not end there. A parent, for example, may not willingly destroy their child, as one acting as a legal intermediary for an incapacitated individual may not simply pull a gun and shoot them. Only under extenuating circumstances may the right to end a life be granted, whether in best interests of the individual at hand (infant) or of a significant group of people. Killing an infant, say, to prevent many developed individuals from being killed by a bomb, is ethically permissable only as we note that there is potential for an infant to grow into an individual against the further stage developed group of individuals. However, as individuals age and die, the value judgement involved requires that one balance off the potential for a developed, thinking organism that has lived longer to live to the maximum age and continue developing as a thinking being with the potential of an infant to live and develop into a thinking organism. Therefore, one may make the value judgement of saving an infant over a group of terminally ill patients or elderly, as they are close to death and/or functionally stagnant for intellectual growth due to failing and aged biology.
This system of thought thoroughly discards emotion in favor of potential, where potential to develop into/further as a thinking being and the potential to live to the maximum age. This is due to the tied nature of aging (time) and the development of thought, or as we physicists say:
d(developingThought)
-----------------
d(time)
Wherever the rate is highest implies the highest value, the lowest, the lowest value. Therefore the most valuable are the developed beings with the best cognitive development. But consider this - this is an equivalency statement for only one (1) individual. An infant is less valuable than a child, a child less than a teen, a teen less than an adult, with an adult more valuable than the elderly. From the perspective of economics or the development of a thinking being, this is the most logical system to consider if a thinking being is considered absolutely valuable over nonthinking beings, in an equivalent comparison, and thinking beings increase and decrease in ability over time.
Equivalent comparison, to define, is matching a single individual or object from one category against a single individual or object of another. For cases with N individuals, it becomes between thinking beings:
Nd(developingThought)
-----------------
d(time)
However, d(developingThought)/dt can be correlated to real world value by analogy of economics, which accounts for the cheapness and expensieveness of human life throughout history, as a single being consumes an approximate amount of resources and produces an approximate value of work. When that is considered, it also makes sense that a single life has a real world resource value, and thus justifies the procedure of triage et al.
In addition, this system fully justifies the act of "pulling the plug" on comatose patients. Resource wars, however, are inherently wasteful through this system unless one belligerent can take control of a desired resource and begin monetizing it in such a way to offset the real world cost of human life, which is rather difficult as it takes time to monetize said resource and if an opponent can destabilize that operation long enough, the former will spend literal human resources at an unsustainable rate, further justifying this system as a simple, concise look at the laws or theorems that dictate the value of human life and anything connected to it.
The following is the exchange that set this off:
This is not a philosophy paper by origin, but it is an aggregation of numerous papers on the bioethics of stem cells, abortion and human potentiality. If anything, I believe that this system at the core is cold, clear logic that accurately describes anything involved with the value of any thinking being with respect to the resources involved. After all, in business, time is money. One thing physics loves to note, energy is mass.
When an organism is incapable of making present decisions by virtue not of body but of mind or lack thereof, it falls to the legal guardian to make the decision. This is a well established area in law and is commonly accepted. In matter of a developing fetus, during the early to mid stages of growth there is insufficient brain mass, folding and electrical activity to sustain the potential for that individual to grow into a functioning adult. This area of philosophy, if you are curious, is often called the potentiality argument. Often it is used to argue against abortion, however I am using it to show that a developing fetus during much of its development is fundamentally a nonperson. If it were to be removed or birthed during those times and it's body was kept functionally alive, it would never develop into a thinking individual. No exceptions. That is due to the complexity of biology involved.
To establish the clear illegality of destroying an infant without consent as another, one must recall that an infant has the clear potential, assuming all bodily needs are met, to develop into a thinking individual. However, as the concept of rights are a non entity to an infant, it falls to the parent(s) to act as the legal intermediary, much as one may act as a legal intermediary for an unconscious or comatose individual. Please note that potentiality does not guarantee a mind will be developed, but it does guarantee a significant nonzero chance of that. Please note the usage of significant and non zero, as would fall under scientific and mathematical definitions. I must reiterate that the fetus at earlier stages has a fundamentally zero chance, by nature of limits and noting that an insignificant number close to zero is functionally zero, and therefore has no rights and no potentiality.
However, it does not end there. A parent, for example, may not willingly destroy their child, as one acting as a legal intermediary for an incapacitated individual may not simply pull a gun and shoot them. Only under extenuating circumstances may the right to end a life be granted, whether in best interests of the individual at hand (infant) or of a significant group of people. Killing an infant, say, to prevent many developed individuals from being killed by a bomb, is ethically permissable only as we note that there is potential for an infant to grow into an individual against the further stage developed group of individuals. However, as individuals age and die, the value judgement involved requires that one balance off the potential for a developed, thinking organism that has lived longer to live to the maximum age and continue developing as a thinking being with the potential of an infant to live and develop into a thinking organism. Therefore, one may make the value judgement of saving an infant over a group of terminally ill patients or elderly, as they are close to death and/or functionally stagnant for intellectual growth due to failing and aged biology.
This system of thought thoroughly discards emotion in favor of potential, where potential to develop into/further as a thinking being and the potential to live to the maximum age. This is due to the tied nature of aging (time) and the development of thought, or as we physicists say:
d(developingThought)
-----------------
d(time)
Wherever the rate is highest implies the highest value, the lowest, the lowest value. Therefore the most valuable are the developed beings with the best cognitive development. But consider this - this is an equivalency statement for only one (1) individual. An infant is less valuable than a child, a child less than a teen, a teen less than an adult, with an adult more valuable than the elderly. From the perspective of economics or the development of a thinking being, this is the most logical system to consider if a thinking being is considered absolutely valuable over nonthinking beings, in an equivalent comparison, and thinking beings increase and decrease in ability over time.
Equivalent comparison, to define, is matching a single individual or object from one category against a single individual or object of another. For cases with N individuals, it becomes between thinking beings:
Nd(developingThought)
-----------------
d(time)
However, d(developingThought)/dt can be correlated to real world value by analogy of economics, which accounts for the cheapness and expensieveness of human life throughout history, as a single being consumes an approximate amount of resources and produces an approximate value of work. When that is considered, it also makes sense that a single life has a real world resource value, and thus justifies the procedure of triage et al.
In addition, this system fully justifies the act of "pulling the plug" on comatose patients. Resource wars, however, are inherently wasteful through this system unless one belligerent can take control of a desired resource and begin monetizing it in such a way to offset the real world cost of human life, which is rather difficult as it takes time to monetize said resource and if an opponent can destabilize that operation long enough, the former will spend literal human resources at an unsustainable rate, further justifying this system as a simple, concise look at the laws or theorems that dictate the value of human life and anything connected to it.
The following is the exchange that set this off:
I come to the conclusion that all of pregnancy is harmful because it is demonstrably so ^_^
This is not a philosophy paper by origin, but it is an aggregation of numerous papers on the bioethics of stem cells, abortion and human potentiality. If anything, I believe that this system at the core is cold, clear logic that accurately describes anything involved with the value of any thinking being with respect to the resources involved. After all, in business, time is money. One thing physics loves to note, energy is mass.
