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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
 Posted - 08/19/2012 : 21:10:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
"Atheism, therefore Feminism," is a piece on how being more than a dictionary atheist entails a moral obligation for social justice advocacy.
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I don't understand why skepticism implies a pro-choice position. Why is a discussion of when a life begins (or rather personhood) necessarily a discussion of ensoulment? Sure, this is the case for many, but I really see no reason why a nonreligious person couldn't think personhood (or a lesser condition implying we shouldn't kill it) should be granted at some point before birth. I don't see why critical thinking should imply some threshold for granting such a condition.
I haven't heard an argument to grant it non-arbitrarily. Certainly there's effectively no difference between a newborn baby and a fetus a couple days before birth, so I wouldn't want to kill a fetus at that stage. And, it seems absurd to oppose the morning-after pill as killing something of value. Since development is essentially continuous, any point in the middle seems arbitrary as well -- a symptom of not being able to define what makes a person, which as far as I can tell is a non-empirical question.
If there's some error in this thinking, I would be happy to hear it because I've tried to resolve this in my mind for years. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2012 : 22:37:58 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Machi4velli
I don't see why critical thinking should imply some threshold for granting such a condition. |
It doesn't, which is why the article states that critical thinking implies that the threshold for "life" shouldn't be a matter of law. In other words, you are free to assign whatever threshold you like for your own pregnancies, but you shouldn't be declaring that someone else's threshold needs to be criminalized. So when Carl Sagan suggested that the detection of brain waves would be his cut-off for abortions, that doesn't mean that that admittedly arbitrary decision should be enforced by the government. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2012 : 08:11:56 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Machi4velli
I don't see why critical thinking should imply some threshold for granting such a condition. |
It doesn't, which is why the article states that critical thinking implies that the threshold for "life" shouldn't be a matter of law. In other words, you are free to assign whatever threshold you like for your own pregnancies, but you shouldn't be declaring that someone else's threshold needs to be criminalized. So when Carl Sagan suggested that the detection of brain waves would be his cut-off for abortions, that doesn't mean that that admittedly arbitrary decision should be enforced by the government.
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This is sort of thing has been a part of the humanists and the freethinking community agenda for over 20 years now. It's not new. These kinds of questions have been central to mission of Free Inquiry since the git-go. Just saying.
It almost seems like some atheists have just awakened to the idea that the promotion of secular values as a political and social cause, when it has been for a while now. You can still be an atheist and not embrace those causes. But as the writer points out, you should.
I don't get why some atheists activists haven't noticed that the very activism they are now promoting of a political and social nature is already the established mission of at least a part of their community and has been for a while now.
The Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles
I'm not suggesting that everyone become a secular humanist. But let's face it. Most of us are humanists even if not officially, and there is very little, if anything on their list of affirmations that most of us don't already agree with, hopefully. I have never joined, but there is very little there (if anything) that I don't support. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2012 : 10:07:24 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Machi4velli
I don't see why critical thinking should imply some threshold for granting such a condition. |
It doesn't, which is why the article states that critical thinking implies that the threshold for "life" shouldn't be a matter of law. |
But it said it shouldn't be a matter of law because it is a debate of ensoulment and lots of Americans don't believe in souls. I reject that this is necessarily the debate.
In other words, you are free to assign whatever threshold you like for your own pregnancies, but you shouldn't be declaring that someone else's threshold needs to be criminalized. So when Carl Sagan suggested that the detection of brain waves would be his cut-off for abortions, that doesn't mean that that admittedly arbitrary decision should be enforced by the government.
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Then why accept the government-enforced cut-off at birth? (And I mean this in the most rational sense, no appeal to emotion intended.) |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
| Edited by - Machi4velli on 08/20/2012 10:19:15 |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2012 : 11:15:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
So when Carl Sagan suggested that the detection of brain waves would be his cut-off for abortions, that doesn't mean that that admittedly arbitrary decision should be enforced by the government. |
Thanks, I read his article (http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml), which of course was very reasonable. He did mention late term abortions comprised less than 1% of abortions, and this is still the case (if http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_termination_of_pregnancy#Incidence is right), so the argument is pretty minimal as I agree with him that none of the criterions used for personhood in earlier terms make much sense at all, and that the extremes are absurd (conception implies personhood or a fetus a couple days before birth doesn't get personhood).
It seems to me Sagan did support the Roe v. Wade criterion (if not the argument) as a practical matter, enforced by government, because it was early enough to cover his criterion for personhood though. (I don't think you were saying anything about Sagan's legal opinion, but it seems to me he would disagree with your idea on the link to government enforcement -- unless of course Sagan said this elsewhere.)
I can't disagree with you that his position was arbitrary to some degree (e.g. what about humans that are born without the mental capacity for human thought as we know it?). Though, I don't see it as more arbitrary than birth or viability (Roe v. Wade's criterion) as the cut-off. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
| Edited by - Machi4velli on 08/20/2012 11:16:34 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2012 : 11:15:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
This is sort of thing has been a part of the humanists and the freethinking community agenda for over 20 years now. It's not new. These kinds of questions have been central to mission of Free Inquiry since the git-go. Just saying.
It almost seems like some atheists have just awakened to the idea that the promotion of secular values as a political and social cause, when it has been for a while now. You can still be an atheist and not embrace those causes. But as the writer points out, you should.
I don't get why some atheists activists haven't noticed that the very activism they are now promoting of a political and social nature is already the established mission of at least a part of their community and has been for a while now. |
It's because not a small number of them are brand-new to atheism. The proportion of atheists among the population is increasing, which means people are becoming atheists faster than people are being born, so necessarily some are becoming atheists late in life (and I've seen several comments that begin like, "when I discovered the skeptic/atheist movement eight months ago...").
It's also because for the last several years, atheism has been dominated by dictionary atheists. I used to be one. "Atheism means you don't believe in any gods, period." That was it. Atheism didn't mean anything more than that. Now, it does.
You know, over the last couple of years I've spent some time trying to build a consistent set of ethics from first principles, logic and empiricism. A morality which began with solipsism, made as few assumptions as possible, and from which god-concepts were totally lacking. A truly a-theistic morality. It never occurred to me that it'd be a hell of a lot simpler to just look at what various religions propose as moral, reject the basis for those rules atheistically ("but if there is no god..."), and see what logically follows.
However, through that exercise I was only ever trying to build the Ethic of Reciprocity. Social justice follows from that, of course, but I wasn't thinking that far ahead. Really, it's been people like Jen McCreight, PZ Myers, Greta Christina, Rebecca Watson and Ophelia Benson (especially Ophelia Benson) who have opened my eyes to the importance of social justice issues specifically, but more importantly they got me thinking that if we tackle social justice first, then spreading skeptical ideals will be so much easier.
But it's for their help to me that I'll happily provide my support to a new name (if nothing else) for the movement, rather than to secular humanist leaders whose writings haven't reached me and got me thinking.| I'm not suggesting that everyone become a secular humanist. But let's face it. Most of us are humanists even if not officially, and there is very little, if anything on their list of affirmations that most of us don't already agree with, hopefully. I have never joined, but there is very little there (if anything) that I don't support. |
The existence of Religious Humanism turned me off. That and the fact that when I first read the tenets of Humanism, there were stated sorta like the Ten Commandments - something to be obeyed - and not as the conclusions to compelling arguments - something to be agreed with. But that sort of stuff is a failure of marketing, which I probably should have tried harder to ignore.
(By the way, PZ Myers has an article in Free Inquiry about this whole subject.) |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Why not question something for a change?
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2012 : 12:00:55 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Machi4velli
But it said it shouldn't be a matter of law because it is a debate of ensoulment and lots of Americans don't believe in souls. I reject that this is necessarily the debate. |
Is there any substantial secular debate over when "life" begins in the womb at all? Sagan went through his exercise "...if we must draw a line..." Must we?| Then why accept the government-enforced cut-off at birth? (And I mean this in the most rational sense, no appeal to emotion intended.) |
Simple: after a pregnancy ends naturally, it is impossible to abort it. That may sound like a glib semantic argument, but we really are talking about whether and when it's okay to artificially terminate a pregnancy. We can also have a debate about skeptical justifications for euthanasia, assisted suicide and murder, but I think it'll be a different debate.
But while we're on the subject, my son was born via a pre-planned C-section without my wife ever going into labor. Her pregnancy was certainly aborted, but without harm to my boy. I'm going to guess that we're only talking about procedures that purposefully kill the freshly-fertilized egg, zygote or fetus as "abortions."
Thus my remarks about your comments, above. I don't think there exists any public-policy debate with large numbers of a-religious people on one side saying, "human life begins at conception" and another large secular group saying, "no, it begins only at birth." In other words, if you reject the idea that the current debate is between people who claim that "ensoulment" entitles a being to government protection and people who claim that that idea is wrong, I don't know what you think the debate is about.
Also:| I can't disagree with you that his position was arbitrary to some degree (e.g. what about humans that are born without the mental capacity for human thought as we know it?). Though, I don't see it as more arbitrary than birth or viability (Roe v. Wade's criterion) as the cut-off. |
I'm saying that any cut-off point is arbitrary, and all pretty much to the same degree. Sometimes we need limits on behaviors (drinking, driving, voting, etc.) and many of them are in fact arbitrary, but should we, as a society, have to agree on an arbitrary line after which abortions should be forbidden or even criminalized? |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2012 : 13:21:01 [Permalink]
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I think the status of the personhood of the fetus is largely a red herring. Freedom of choice is about protecting women's autonomy over their own bodies. Looking at it that way, birth isn't an arbitrary cutoff, it's the point at which the woman is no longer a host.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2012 : 13:44:08 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Machi4velli
Then why accept the government-enforced cut-off at birth? (And I mean this in the most rational sense, no appeal to emotion intended.) |
Simple: after a pregnancy ends naturally, it is impossible to abort it. That may sound like a glib semantic argument, but we really are talking about whether and when it's okay to artificially terminate a pregnancy. We can also have a debate about skeptical justifications for euthanasia, assisted suicide and murder, but I think it'll be a different debate. |
I'm strictly questioning when it is or isn't okay to kill the thing, which may or may not have implications for abortion.
| Thus my remarks about your comments, above. I don't think there exists any public-policy debate with large numbers of a-religious people on one side saying, "human life begins at conception" and another large secular group saying, "no, it begins only at birth." In other words, if you reject the idea that the current debate is between people who claim that "ensoulment" entitles a being to government protection and people who claim that that idea is wrong, I don't know what you think the debate is about. |
I realize that's ensoulment is the argument for lots of anti-abortion people (and said this in a previous post), though I don't think it's rare at all to hear opposition to late-term abortion in particular without any appeal to religion. Regardless, nonexistence of a critical mass of people making the argument without religion is irrelevant to the argument. I'm arguing it now for the sake of discussion because it seems to me it's being irrationally dismissed.
| I'm saying that any cut-off point is arbitrary, and all pretty much to the same degree. Sometimes we need limits on behaviors (drinking, driving, voting, etc.) and many of them are in fact arbitrary, but should we, as a society, have to agree on an arbitrary line after which abortions should be forbidden or even criminalized? |
Well, my thinking is currently that we do need to agree on a line if only to avoid the extreme of allowing termination (of the fetus, not of the pregnancy) a couple days before birth. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2012 : 15:23:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Machi4velli
Well, my thinking is currently that we do need to agree on a line if only to avoid the extreme of allowing termination (of the fetus, not of the pregnancy) a couple days before birth. |
I think it'd be mighty difficult to find a doctor willing to perform an abortion that late without similarly extreme mitigating circumstances. Shouldn't decisions like that be left to medical ethics boards on a case-by-case basis instead of having a hard line drawn by elected officials who are mostly uneducated in such matters? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2012 : 15:45:10 [Permalink]
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Ashley Miller, The difference between “atheism+” and humanism:The desire to hold on to “atheism” rather than use the term “humanism” isn’t from a fundamental difference of goals and beliefs, but from a difference of self-definition. I personally like “atheism+” because it’s more confrontational, embraces a minority position that is loathed by many, and it is more transparent about the belief that religion is one of the root causes of many social injustices. My humanism is more than just secular, it is anti-religion. Edited to add that Jen McCreight has also written on Why Atheism+ and not Humanism? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2012 : 17:37:33 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Machi4velli
Well, my thinking is currently that we do need to agree on a line if only to avoid the extreme of allowing termination (of the fetus, not of the pregnancy) a couple days before birth. |
I think it'd be mighty difficult to find a doctor willing to perform an abortion that late without similarly extreme mitigating circumstances. |
I suppose the rarity and existing opposition by doctors to perform such a thing makes it practically not all that important, though .7% or so of all abortions being late-term isn't nothing, and some of those beyond the very extreme may also be morally objectionable.
By Sagan's argument, with which I agree, it's a decision to be made conservatively to be sure we don't include those we deem worthy of rights since we're unable to set it. It must be sometime late term yet before birth, I think, which I suppose brings me to politically pro-choice up to that point, the Roe v. Wade position covering any objections I may have (though disagreeing with their reasoning based on viability).
However, beyond that point, a decision to not support late-term choice on this basis seems a perfectly acceptable argument, at least good enough to not be called contrary to skeptical inquiry.
I don't think it's the intent, but it sometimes feels skepticism the movement can at times appear to attempt to frame particular political positions as if they're the only positions that can be taken by a fully critically thinking person.
| Shouldn't decisions like that be left to medical ethics boards on a case-by-case basis instead of having a hard line drawn by elected officials who are mostly uneducated in such matters? |
I'm not entirely convinced of the need for a great deal of education on the topic to make an informed decision (though my inability to make one may be evidence of the contrary). In a practical sense, though, I think this works given the rarity (though there's the problem of who populates the board), which I'll grudgingly accept politically if not in conscience. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2012 : 06:21:01 [Permalink]
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Phil Plait speaks out against hate directed at women:What the hell is going on in the online community?
If you’ve been reading or paying attention at all to any of the online
cultures like skepticism or general geekery (scifi, gaming,
convention-going, and so on), you’ll have seen astonishing and
depressing displays of sexism. That’s been true for a long time. But
recently some sort of sea change has occurred, and what we’re seeing
now is a marked increase in outright misogyny and thuggery.
The examples are so distressingly ubiquitous I hardly need point them
out. A woman gamer wants to make a documentary showing misogyny in
video games, and she gets rape and death threats. Rebecca Watson
calmly and rationally tells men not to hit on women in enclosed spaces
and reaps a supernova of hate and irrational vitriol. And now we’re
seeing death threats, rape threats, all kinds of violent threats,
against women who are simply trying to improve the way they are
treated at meetings as well as online.
This. Must. Stop. Unfortunately, he thinks the hate is generally confined to the Internet. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2012 : 07:46:58 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W:
Unfortunately, he thinks the hate is generally confined to the Internet.
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Plait:
Internet discussion devolves quickly, but discussions in person tend
not to. We know when we are facing another living, breathing, feeling
person, but that knowledge is easily overwhelmed by emotion online.
But the two are not separate: raging emotions online have real life
consequences. Threats and bullying online don’t just go out into the
ether. They affect real people, and can cause a lifetime of damage. |
Well... Most if the vitriol and stupidity is coming from online rants. I doubt that he thinks it all starts and ends online, as the above paragraph indicates.
I think this is an important statement given Plaits association with the JREF and his high visibility in the skeptical blogosphere in general. He has chosen not to remain silent. That's a good thing. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Rebecca Watson Not Appearing at TAM
