From my frame of mind, however, this “intellectual assessment” is far removed from an actual set of circumstances in which an actual flesh and blood woman – let’s call her Mary – is pregnant, doesn’t want to be, chooses to abort the baby, and then has to endure the reactions of those who insist that what she did was immoral.
While others are pointing out [in particular jurisdictions] that what she did is also illegal.
And that she must be arrested and tried [along with the abortionist] for murder.
What might Mary’s response be to this “philosophical contraption” of yours? And what about the reactions of all the others involved?
Instead, in my view, sooner or later, such “general descriptions” must be related to a particular context relating to a particular abortion embedded in any number of possible variable interactions out in a particular world.
And this is the part that find’s my own “I” fractured and fragmented. Whereas for the objectivists among us, they experience none of that. They are convinced that, in being in touch with the real me in sync with the right thing to do [re God or Reason, or ideology, or nature] they just know what is true and what is not. And, in knowing this, it comforts and consoles them no matter the actual existential outcome pertaining to any particular abortion.
I agree. Only in recognizing that these prejudices are rooted in dasein confronting conflicting goods out in a particular world understood from a particular subjective/subjunctive perspective, this is precisely what precipitates the fractured and fragmented “I” that the objectivists are immune to.
Or, you could ask someone in the pro-life camp, "if forcing women to give birth gives men an inherent and distinct advantage in social, political and economic interactions, why are you still anti-choice?
This is precisely what being fractured and fragmented entails in a No God world for the moral nihilist. This one [me] in particular. He wants to believe the answer is either this or that, but both sides are able to make arguments that the other side are not able to make go away.
It’s reasonable [to him] to think that allowing women to abort their babies means killing them. But it is also reasonable [to him] that forcing women to give birth undermines their capacity to be treated equally in the political arena.
Or the arguments of the narcissists and sociopaths: what’s in it for me?
But: All I can do is to raise the points that I do. To note the reasons here and now they make sense to me. I am no more able to demonstrate that what I think, others are obligated to think as well. And I recognize that, given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge, I may we’ll change my mind.
It’s just that when I suggest in turn that all of this is applicable to the objectivists too, that some refuse to accept that this is possible at all. After all, look at what they have to lose if it is.