otto west and iambiguous discuss morality here, not there

So what you are suggesting is that “objective morality” requires that there is no consideration of the details of a situation. An abortion performed to save the mother’s life is on par with an abortion performed when the mother’s life is not in danger. The abortion of a healthy fetus is morally the same as the abortion of a deformed fetus. Pregnancies resulting from rape are to be treated exactly the same as pregnancies resulting from consensual sex. Etc.

Is that your position on “objective morality”?

On the contrary, assuming there is not a universal morality able to be grasped that is applicable to all abortions, then objectivity [one abortion at a time] would seem to be embedded in grasping not only all of the variables [details] involved with each particular abortion, but an understanding of how they are entwined in a particular existential context. The whole, entire relationship between them.

But that’s my point. Each facet of the particular abortion must be grasped. And these are just a few of what may well be many, many, many more. In order to assess the morality of any particular abortion, all of the variables must be grasped and understood in relationship to all of the others.

For example, at what point does an entirely healthy fetus become “deformed”. Deformed to the point that it is moral to abort it. There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of health conditions to be considered here. Both physical and mental.

And what of those pregnancies that resulted from rape in which the unborn fetus is perfectly healthy? How on earth can it be decided that shredding this baby is entirely moral? Indeed, how on earth can it even be decided when a “clump of cells” actually/objectively does become a human baby?

As for my own position on “objective morality”, I am the first to acknowledge it is no less an “existential contraption” than yours.

My point is that, in a world sans God – an omniscient, omnipotent point of view – mere mortals seem unable to establish a definitive frame of mind able to establish in turn prescriptive and proscriptive “rules of behavior”.

All I can do then is to engage in discussions such as this one and [perhaps] be convinced that I am wrong.

And, again, polemics aside, you have no idea of the extent to which I want to be proven wrong. And with respect to both this side and the other side of the grave.

After all, you are able to sustain both the comfort and the consolation of “knowing” – of knowing “in your head” – this:

1] there is a “real me” that transcends contingency, chance and change
2] this “real me” is in sync with one or another understanding of “virtue”, “truth”, “justice”
3] “virtue”, “truth”, “justice” is embedded in one or another rendition of God, Humanism, ideology, nature

Not only that but as a religious person, you are in turn comforted and consoled that “beyond the grave” your “soul” – “I” – is sustained on into eternity.

You know, if I actually understand you. You know, if you are even able to actually explain it to yourself.

So your entire point is not that objective morality does not work as James and vR describe but rather that humans are unable to figure out which details (factors) are essential when evaluating the morality of an abortion.

I just now seen the thread, will reply later tonight.

:-k If one knew which factors to use and how to weigh them, then morality would be objective. Right?

If someone [anyone] was able to establish a frame of mind that allowed us to first define and then to act on an objective moral narrative for any particular abortion, in the same manner in which it can be established if in fact a woman either is or is not pregnant, I suspect that would become “big news”.

And not just among philosophers.

Now all we need do then is to wait for James to demonstrate how his own “intellectual contraption” can in fact be made applicable to any particular abortion that he has come across.

Or perhaps you might make the attempt.

So, on the count of three, let’s start holding our collective breaths.

One, two, three…

Right.

Anyone here care to take a stab at it?

Look, I’m not arguing that this can’t be done, only that no one has ever convinced me that it can be done.

And, again, if someone [anyone] actually did devise such an argument, I suspect that almost everyone would be talking about it. And not just here.

Someone could market it: “How to be absolutely certain if your abortion is moral.”

Sell it with a pregnancy detection kit.

Sounds good.

And, since this is the philosophy forum, let’s try to keep the huffing and the puffing down to a minimum. :wink:

So, you want to start with the subject of abortion? You know I’m a moral nihilist, right?

Okay let me sum up abortion, the weak, stupid, and irresponsible remove themselves from the gene pool, nothing of value was lost. What kind of prize do I win Iambiguous for my answer?

There are of course consequences for mass abortion on any given society but somehow I don’t think your concern is with any of that in discussion.

And Iambig thought that he would have a discussion. :laughing:

I think that I tackled abortion on a number of occasions but … “you were not convinced”.

That’s pretty much your “refutation” of all the arguments. =D>

I prefer to skip all long winded useless complexities and go straight to the basic core of issues.

I don’t need to write a three page dissertation on everything.

Progress. At least we have established that morality is in principle objective. We now need to figure out which of the moral positions is right, wrong … close to the mark or far off.

Moral judgements are not an impediment to action. One can chose to be immoral and take the consequences, so not everyone needs your “righteous pills”. I wonder what the demand might be for such a product. There is actually an advantage to moral uncertainty and ambiguity. Similarly there is an advantage to doubts about the existence of God.

Okay, we both call ourselves a “moral nihilist”. Now, with respect to abortion [and to all other conflicting goods] my own understanding of that is rooted existentially in this:

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.

How about you? What sequence of experiences, relationships and sources of information etc., predisposed you to become a moral nihilist?

In other words, let’s probe the extent to which your own moral and political narratives are more “intellectual contraptions” or “existential contraptions”.

Re abortion, you believe this:

You’re serious, aren’t you?

Okay, making that assumption, how does one go about the task of making a credible distinction between those unborn babies that either do or do not qualify to be aborted?

Is your answer here rooted more in the assumption that all reasonable men and women will share your own political prejudices, or that your own political prejudices are rooted more in the manner in which I construe the meaning of individual daseins interacting socially, politically and economically out in a particular is/ought world?

In other words, to what extent do you acknowledge that your moral and political values “here and now” are just “existential contraptions” rooted in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change? And, thus, that given new experiences, relationships, sources of information/knowledge etc., you may well come to reject what you believe here and now and embrace an entirely conflicting point of view.

Because that is the crucial distinction that I make between a moral nihilist and a moral objectivist.

Not that one set of values is right and another set of values is wrong, but that right and wrong itself seem ever embedded in conflicting goods derived existentially from a particular life lived out in a particular world. And ever governed by the reality of political power. Not who may or may not be right, but who has the power to enforce their own perceived interests.

Which are of course [from my way of thinking] no less existential contraptions. Or, as Nietzsche once intimated, the opposite of truth may well be less a lie than a conviction.

Moral and political convictions in particular.

Note just one.

And my point of course revolves not around the claims folks make regarding the tackles that they have made, but the extent to which they argue in turn that if you don’t tackle it as they do then you are wrong.

Also, situate your own reaction to abortion [as a moral issue] in an actual existential trajectory – like the one I noted above.

And for folks like you, the claim is made that God has also noted the “tackles” you have made on this side of the grave. And that’s comforting because there’s that part on the other side of the grave that folks like me and Otto, well, don’t actually believe in.

You don’t, do you Mr West?

And I acknowledge over and again that exchanges of this sort always revolve around any particular “I” [embodied in dasein] being “convinced” in the “here and now”.

I’m not suggesting that if I am not convinced that makes you wrong, only that what you are convinced of here and now resides “in your head”; more so than embedded in an argument that can be demonstrated to be true objectively for all of us.

Note to others:

Make of this boast what you will. :smiley:

Yes, I do agree with this.

There may well be an argument that does in fact reflect the optimal or the only rational frame of mind here. I have never denied that.

I only note that with respect to a conflicting good like abortion, if such an argument were ever to be established it would sweep the world like a tsunami. And not just among philosophers. Imagine, an argument that establishes definitively whether abortion either is or is not immoral. And either universally for all abortions or individually one abortion at a time.

And even here I acknowledge that it may exist. I only note that “I” myself have not come across it. Or that, if I have, “I” was not convinced of it.

Then what?

Well, if an omniscient/omnipotent God does in fact exist, He knows. And that does settle it once and for all.

Or…

Human interactions may well be just another manifestation of a wholly determined universe.

Or…

The moral narratives of autonomous mortals in a Godless universe may well be embedded in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

And it’s that frame of mind the objectivists seem most discomfited regarding.

Just not you, right?

On the contrary, moral judgments embodied by those in power can precipitate all manner of consequences. Women who choose to abort their babies [along with the doctors who abort them] can be charged with murder. They can be thrown in prison. And, if those in power deem abortion to be “first degree murder”, they might even end up on death row. Where those in power who embrace capital punishment as a moral judgment will execute them.

And all because folks like you insist that there really is a way to differentiate moral from immoral behaviors.

For example, their way.

James, I’m good with absolutes, so I’ll take this.

Rewarding non-consensual sex with assured pregnancy positively re-enforces non consensual birth into reality - that life is always about non-consent.

This is self refuting.

Let’s look at consent and birth, if something happens that was a consequence with respect to sex, retroactively, the consent was violated. Thus all unwanted pregnancies are rape.

Let’s look further.

We know that on the span of a lifetime, each fertile woman can have 52 children. Each fertile woman not having 52 REAL lives, is an abortionist.

So, Im ismbiguous world all women should be raped and forced to have 52 children each.

Iambiguous states that this isn’t an issue (consent) because there is no morality.

Iambiguous, let me give you advice on ethics…

I’ve been to hell. You not only don’t want to be there, you don’t want to be there forever …

So stop trying to show off as the bad ass non-moralist … seriously, it’s not good for your health.
You know what happens to the assholes that say there’s no morality?? Every demon in existence crawls out of the woodwork and eternally damns you, you know why ? Because you always forgive them. “It’s not a problem”

I speak from billions of years of experience, and to this day, I’m still gathering memories …,

My personal experience, with the logical evidence I supplied: stop it!

Women get abortions even when it’s illegal and immoral. People steal. People kill. People commit adultery.

They’re willing to take the risk.

Yeah, it’s because of people like me that there are so many problems in the world. If only there were no values or judgements, then we would be living in paradise. :smiley:

“Anything and everything is okay”. That’s the solution.

Basically there are a variety of constantly changing views out there concerning humanity and its evolution where there is no singular right or wrong criteria to them objectively as the universe doesn’t hand out objectives in of itself (people create objectives not the other way around), however the survival of a belief, value, or perception often requires power to enforce them where the value of belief can also depend on the beneficial relationship with those that adhere to it. If the belief is unbeneficial in terms of survival it loses value or validity.

If there was a group of people that thought it was morally justifiable to kill themselves in mass we can say it wasn’t of much value in that the adherents of that belief are all dead or in the process of dying. It’s not that suicide in mass is wrong but that it negates survival or existential being of the individuals involved. The belief becomes an evolutionary dead end and thereby loses all of its valuation. Once again survival is the metric of all valuations where morality is a residual fictional illusion people delude themselves in. The will to power is the will to survival and vice versa where from it all created valuations stem or revolve from.

Objectivism is like this childlike belief that human beings can somehow master and understand all of reality becoming its sole interpreter. The problem with this is that reality or the universe gives us very little to nothing at all to interpret where everything is self created conjecture. We live in a very subjective universe but not all subjective perceptions, valuations, or visualizations are equal in that some are more successful than others. Some subjective perceptions, valuations, and visualizations are dead ends. In this regard competition is always present as much of human behavior or interaction is. I call this competitive subjectivism, it’s how one thought or idea gains hegemony over all others. It’s not that it is objective but rather its power gains the most traction and is thoroughly pervasive in terms of embracing by people.