Doc_Brown wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:The tricky part of this debate is determining that required amount of self-awareness which guarantees personhood status...
Quite right. And if you look back at the quote I gave in response to TGD's question earlier in the thread, the authors basically punted on the question. They gave some arguments then said it was ultimately up to the psychologists to determine personhood.
To me, we have to draw the line somewhere. Without "enough" conclusive data from the psychologists, it's dangerous for these philosophers to take their moral stance because they're going to overlook the consequences of their stance (I'll explain further below). However, given the available evidence, which I've gleaned, a fetus lacks self-awareness. The Roe v. Wade at least compromises with the anti-abortionists, but as a moderate, I'll admit that that's the best it's going to get for awhile.
Not to go on a tangent, but I think this article represents the biggest problem with moral philosophy: "I don't know the consequences of this, so let's punt it and resume this ethics debate." It's not a helpful approach because it ignores what psychologists somewhat know already about self-awareness, but that's another argument we could continue if you like. (Apparently, this argument can't be avoided, as I'll explain below in response to the rest of your post).
Doc_Brown wrote:Let me throw this into the mix though: If this is the question we're asking, what does it say about us? Usually, if you're asking how far you can push the limit, it's because you really don't like the limitation at all and would rather have the freedom to do what you want. If you think the limitation is good and helpful, you're much more likely to steer well away from it and leave a wide safety margin. If our question is, "Up to what point is it permissible for me to eliminate something I might come to consider in imposition on my life?" it suggests that our central philosophy is based on selfishness and colored by violence. I would propose that a self-sacrificial philosophy that loves and appreciates life would instead ask, "How far back should we extend protection, and what reasonable means of protection should be extend?"
I'm not sure if this makes complete sense. I will acknowledge here that I would (for the most part) fall in the pro-life camp. Now, unlike player's knee jerk expectations, I would have said it was perfectly appropriate for her to get the fetus removed after her miscarriage. My wife has had three kids and one miscarriage. If any of those pregnancies had been ectopic, I would have insisted that it be terminated. But I'm not in here trying to debate pre-term elective abortion, the question is about after-birth abortion and the reasoning that goes into it. And possibly the potential to extend that reasoning much further.
I don't know what's best for people unless they express their preferences in the real prices which are exchanged to achieve the goal of their decision. Therefore, <removes moderate hat, puts on the classical liberal hat> let them make their own decisions and incur their own costs. What would that entail?
Suppose a lady aborts a baby in the 3rd trimester. I'd imagine her community would stigmatize her actions and make her feel shamed (that's a cost incurred); however, in other communities the cost of being stigmatized might be drastically lower. The point is that there are various cultures across the national boundaries of the US. National laws, universal ethical laws, etc. ignore the actual preferences and values of people within these subcultures.
The optimal solution, which enables people to express their own form of humanity, i.e. what they value as a human being, would be achieved by giving people the freedom to choose for themselves. Let them set their own prices and incur the costs of their own decisions. Trial-and-error would enable the evolution of various social orders in small subcultures/communities across the US.
"We" don't have a central philosophy. Not to be mean, but you're speaking about people holistically, which overlooks the individual decisions, costs, and benefits which people reject or accept. Individuals are different and respond differently to incentives. "People" as whole is a term which doesn't exist, in regards to your position. I use the term "we" or "people" as a short way of saying "all the individuals within a hopefully defined geography." My position is that
methodological individualism is a more useful approach ITT and for understanding things like: the philosophies which influence people and which are created by people, and for understanding what's best for "people."
By establishing national laws or universal moral rules (which article's philosophers adhere to), we prohibit individuals from making their own decisions and thus learning from trial and error. In turn, we prohibit the evolution of new and/or improved social orders of various subculture and communities. That kind of prohibition is a consequence of unknown proportions. In my opinion, it's best to let individuals decide and to let communities develop on their own because the individuals in the Ivory Tower, from the abortion clinic, or from wherever really don't know what's best for everyone else.
It's the Hayekian knowledge problem: knowledge is disperse, but the price mechanism reflects this knowledge most efficiently, so that individuals can make the choices which most efficiently satisfy their own desires, whatever those may be.
Doc_Brown wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:Also, there's this:
If a fetus is a person, than any miscarriage could be construed as murder, manslaughter, or negligent homicide if the mother was found to fail her duty in providing some extreme amount of safety in order to minimize the chances of a miscarriage. The degree of minimizing that risk could be extremely restrictive on the woman's set of choices.
Therefore, having her strapped to a bed and fed hospital food with constant medical tests would greatly minimize the chances of a miscarriage. Because, according to the implications of your interpretation of their argument, we wouldn't want a miscarriage--that would be negligent homicide of a person.
It's a fair question. But extend the same reasoning in the opposite direction: A child is most definitely a person. Should we remove them from any house that has guns? Maybe parents with swimming pools should not be allowed to raise children because of the potential for drowning? For that matter, how many kids have died in cars? Maybe all children should be locked in a carefully controlled facility with a strictly regulated diet, no sharp objects of any kind, and no access to anything that could harm them.
So, yes, if you grant personhood to an unborn fetus, there are implications that go with it. If the mother engages in very risky behavior (like refusing to give up her professional boxing career as an extreme hypothetical example) that results in a miscarriage, than the grant of personhood to the fetus would require criminal action against the mother. But accidents happen, and parents are generally given the benefit of the doubt to make decisions about what is best for their children (within reason), and the same would apply to the unborn. So I think this approach is really just a straw man.
It isn't a straw man because the implications of my scenario is to illuminate the fact that we don't know what's best for everyone. As I think you've shown, choices are not "100% safety or 100% satisfaction of whatever else." My point is that choices are made at the margin. In other words, an individual foregoes X-amount of safety in order to secure X-amount of satisfaction (of whatever).
This ratio of "safety-to-satisfaction of whatever else" various across individuals because people value things differently. Since it differs, we can't know what the optimal safety level is for everyone. Therefore, using my above argument, give people the freedom to make their own decisions, so that they may find what's best for themselves.
My problem with the article as you've summarized for me is that they initially assume what's best for everyone. Or, they assume that a fetus is a person, which is a stance that would have various repercussions. Hence, the reason I brought up my scenario. If a woman didn't opt to 100% safety (i.e. be in a hospital for 9 months), then a miscarriage could be construed as manslaughter, or negligent homicide--based on the article's position that a fetus is a human. It's absurd, but I'm taking their argument to its logical conclusion (reductio ad absurdum, I think), in order to show another problem of the unintended consequences of their fetus=person assumption.
(I've chopped up our dialogue. I think the following deals more with the argument of personhood status).
