Wtf does a cow have to do with killing a child. Can't wait to hear this.should be worth alaugh as Iwatch you connect the 2

And in ora's inuit case eating the child is the right thing to do in my opinion

Am I the only person who is dumbstruck by the fact that *krellin* of all people presents us with a dilemma vaguely referring to the CT shooting a few weeks ago?

Why shouldn't I present this *very real* dilemma when you start trying to categorize which people are eligible to be killed? Of course I choose that situation *specifically* because it strikes an emotional cord. Is it a valid dilemma? Your question, of course, is ridiculous, and I don't even know what you are trying to imply...but I see you are unwilling to address the dilemma I presented...

Socrates -- OF COURSE the discussion is about killing useless citizens. Babies are useless to society until they grow up and contribute, they can't fight for themselves, etc. IF they are unwanted to begin with, all the more so they are "burden", which is how women justify slaughtering their unborn children. So OF COURSE it is a very reasonable and logical step to expand the argument (as it naturally will) to unwanted, unproductive NON-babies.

After all, BEFORE abortion, nobody would have thought about killing babies. Now we are. Next will be retarded wounded school children and your red-headed sister-in law on welfare...

"Why shouldn't I present this *very real* dilemma when you start trying to categorize which people are eligible to be killed?"

Uhh, because it's in terrible taste.

Well, you struck me as part of the pro-gun community that I - and many on this site with me - believe is partly responsible for said tragedy. That's why I wouldn't expect you to come up with an example related to it, which I'd rather expect one of the anti-gun people who would prove what horrible consequences these guns can have, including the presented dilemma... Also, it's a god awful example to begin with. Be sure to look in a mirror any one of these days and ask yourself whether you are really the person to go around and strike emotional chords.

The argument for killing babies given was not based on them being useless, it was based on them being too much to support etc, it is much more like a situation when a lifeboat has only space for one more person on it and there are two people that need it.

Maybe not before abortion, but that's because abortion has been happening for millenia. Otherwise yes the utilitarian argument with life has been around for a long time, babies have been being killed in many cultures for a long time. And a big reason for abortion to be legal has nothing to do with philisophical conversation on whether the foetus is a human yet, whether it is murder etc, but the fact that abortion will happen regardless and this way is safer. Something like 70000 women die a year from unsafe abortions (illegal backstreet ones) and millions of disabilites result from it.

"Noone is suggesting to kill 'any citiizen who is no longer useful and has become a burden'"

It's not framed in this way but rather that any human not fulfilling the prerequisites of "rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness" is not a person because it's incapable of appreciating the value of its own life. Therefore, killing such human non-person is acceptable from an utilitarian viewpoint, because that non-person has no prefference between living and dying and killing it therefore doesn't entail negative utility. That's one of the streams of modern bioethics. I do no agree with it, but it's far from being a mere fringe neo-Nazi rhetoric.

Then the argument shifts to whether they are actually truly people/citizens, and whether it is ok to kill non-persons for said reason. they are not killing PEOPLE who are no longer useful and have become a burden. And it's not acceptale from a JS Mill utilitarian standpoint, and I would not say it is ok to kill these non-persons unless the situation involves a direct choice between th life of a 'non-person' and a 'person'

No, it's not about them being people. It's about the utilitarian principle of maximizing utility by minimizing pain. An animal capable of feeling sensoric stimuli is capable of feeling pain and its pain should be avoid. On the other hand, a human non-person has this perception even lower than such animal and killing it is therefore less morally reprehensible.

You obviously are only familiar with Bentham's Utilitarianism, or at least not familiar with Utilitarianism that makes much more logical sense (mill's). Also, I doubt anyone is saying let's go kill people that we classify as people because on a utilitarian scale it seems ok. That logic naturally leads to it being ok to kill someone just because they are going to be more sad than happy etc. To be a logically sensible argument one must attack their status as people first. Not casually be like ooo pleasure pain. If enough people raped one person I'm sure you could get a hedonic calculus that says the pleasure is greater than a pain, but utilitarianism by and large evolved for reasons like that.

More likely, you are not familiar with utilitarian bioethics, especially the work of Peter Singer and the concept of personhood. You're wholesale assumption of "I doubt anyone" is quite indicative of that.

You would be right there. Oh wait a second, just remembered that I am very familiar with Singer. Oops. Singer marks a return to a Utilitarianism that in my mind is very similar to Bentham's Utilitarianism - a basic limited understanding of pleasure and consequences that neglect the fact pleasures are not commensurable, and that utilitarianism needs to promote certain societal values to truly work. I did say by and large for a reason. If this is going to turn out to be a prolonged debate on utilitarianism feel free to make a seperate thred for one - just chucked the data into my old calculator (hedonic of course), and it says that would be morally right.

'Therefore, killing such human non-person is acceptable from an utilitarian viewpoint, because that non-person has no prefference between living and dying and killing it therefore doesn't entail negative utility'

And the question is whether cattle who have autonomy and self-consciousness should be killed.

The point of comparison is not that new-born should be killed; merely that if you use this sort of criteria and apply this utilitarian rule to other animals we routinely destroy, what conclusion do we come to?

No, I don't want a discussion on utilitarianism. I don't believe in utilitarianism. I just wanted to point out that saying the only ones trying to abolish the principle of sanctity of life are neo-Nazis is wrong. Some of the most influential contemporary philosophers, like Singer, argue for just that redefinition of the right to live.

And the conclusion is we shouldn't be killing those animals. The more sentience the animal has, the more of a person it is. Singer is a vegan for a reason.

Unless Singer has, without me knowing, said we should kill people for that reason then I haven't been shown to be wrong. To say an animal is worth more/the same or whatever is not in anway to say that we should go kill the people who are 'non-persons'. But whatevs.

Really? I thought he was a vegan 'cus he woke up bored one day and thought it would be a laugh.

The selfish internet loves to rag on Peter Singer.

Abort Stressedlines

Also abolishing the sanctity of life is not at all the same thing as redefining personhood.

Lastly, I would like to point out that an entity, biological or otherwise, human or otherwise, does not need to be considered a person for it to have value in a utilitarian framework. Destroying the statues of Buddha in Afghanistan harmed no one bodily, but was wrong for it's psychological harm, for example. On this basis it does not follow that a utilitarian is suddenly going to be okay with animal cruelty or infanticide willy-nilly.

Here's the actual article (the one summarized by the telegraph article): http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full

I find the section right before the conclusions really bizarre, where they discuss adoption versus "after-birth abortion" as they'd have us call it...

I am really amused by the telegraph bit saying the writers of this opinion have recieved death threats.

I mean somebody who believes in the sanctity of life but is happy to issie death threats seems a little beyond me.

@Ernst: regarding adoption vs 'after-birth abortion'; i can see the position, but it also remains clear that secrectly finding adoptive parents and telling the mother that the hospital has ended the life of the child, could in some circumstances be the best solution - though this may necessitate presenting a dead baby to the mother for burial (as befits her sensibilities/psychology)

It becomes an interesting question, where do you draw the line - the article does not propose any point, but allows for neuologists and psychologists to answer that question later...

What if we propose 11 years old (or a specific psychological test which can be passed by the average 11 year old, but possibly also by younger children) if we have to draw the line somewhere what is wrong with 11 years?

I mean a utilitarian might say that waiting is a waste as you uave to feed that brain and body as it develops, but on the otherhand circumstances change, maybe economic conditions mean that having four children is just too much and you need to rempve one of them... Presumably you choose the youngest - because (all else being equal) it has the least invested in it, in terms of both time, money, education, and experience...

Where do we draw the line? Or do we leave society out of it and hVe individual parents decide for themselves (anecdotally, mothers tend to become attached to their fetus' far earlier than fathers, who need to wait until after-birth to begin their bonding)

Is that a death threat santa?

oh no ..... this thread has taken a rather sinister turn, are death threats covered in the forum rules?

Only in the context of metagaming, example:

"If you don't move your fleet to Brest, I will abort you, Stressedlines."
^This would not be allowed.

It would be in a metagaming-only game.

Is "abort Stressedlines.exe" a death threat? Where do we draw the line?

I'm doing some plans for a house extension and my architect needs to know how big each room should be. Where do we draw the line?

On where do we draw the line, I find it obscene that a 21 week old foetus can be aborted in one hospital ward while its equivalent is placed in an incubator in another. I believe that this ambiguity must have struck Singer and Dawkins and prompted them to arrive at their position on handicapped new borns. All is possible under their morally subjectivist atheist world view.