The Labyrinth

There are a number of questions that come up when talking about abortion.

• Is the fetus a person?
• Does it have a right to life?
• Does the mother have an obligation to the fetus?
  • In cases of consensual sex
  • In cases of rape
  • In cases of a risk to the mother’s health
  • In cases of a risk to the mother’s life
  • In cases of a risk to the mother’s lifestyle

The first question is usually the fall back question but there is no clear definition of what a person is and so the debate for and against abortion then moves on to say that it doesn’t matter if the fetus is a person or not. Whether the fetus is a person or not, has no bearing on the right (or lack thereof) to have an abortion.

Judith Jarvis Thompson is a professor of philosophy at MIT. Her first analogy goes something like this:

Suppose a very famous violinist is dying and the Society of Music Lovers is searching far and wide for someone with his blood type to keep him alive. It turns out that someone is you. You find yourself kidnapped and hooked up to this violinist. This is in no way something you would or did agree to. If you unplug yourself he dies. But it’s only for nine months.

Since you were forced into this position outside of your will, you have no obligation to remain hooked up. It would be nice of you but not required since the violinist has no right to use your body.

This analogy can only be applied to cases of rape. The problem is that the violinist has no relation to you. I don’t think it’s a wild assumption that if a family member were in need, other family members would feel compelled and willing to do anything they could to save the other person’s life. Even if it meant being plugged in for nine months or several years. In cases of rape you did not chose to have the child but the fact of the matter is that it is your child. It is your own flesh and blood. One reason for believing that aborting a fetus created as a result of rape is that the mother doesn’t want to see the face of their attacker every day of their life for the rest of their life. Well, it’s not something that is going away. Whether the baby is born or not, it is not something that will be forgotten. So aborting the baby is just a placebo. It doesn’t make things better. It just adds another unhappy chapter to your life. There are better alternatives such as adoption. The members of the Society of Music Lovers should be locked up for kidnapping you. Considering it’s not necessary to be physically attached to another person to save there life ever, the violinist example falls short because it doesn’t actually fit the picture of a pregnancy. In real life you’d just have to decide whether or not to keep donating blood to the violinist or give him your kidney. A fetus is not just some random person. And you’re not morally obligated to donate body parts to hospitals.

One of her first assumptions is that a mother has a right to what happens to her body and that everyone would agree. But what does it mean to have a right to your body? Except in cases of rape the mother chose to have sex. I would find it reasonable to assume that by choosing to have sex, one chooses to accept the consequences. However, this never comes up in Thompson’s arguments.

Her next argument deals with cases where the life of the mother is at risk. That is, the mother will die if she has the baby. In modern society these cases are so rare that this argument is usually just ignored.

A key quote from Thomson is as follows:

It cannot be seriously thought to be murder if a mother performs an abortion on herself to save her life. It cannot be seriously said that a mother must sit passively by and wait for her death.

Actually it can be seriously said. But by claiming it can’t be seriously said, Thompson simply assumes the argument is ridiculous as a way to avoid addressing the issue. And the issue is accepting consequences. Whenever one goes to the doctor it is often necessary to sign a form stating you understand the risks of the procedure and accept them. By engaging in sex you accept the fact you could very well get pregnant and that being pregnant imposes certain health risks.

However, Thompson also has a response to this idea of consequences and responsibility:

The mother’s biological relationship to the fetus does not give her any special responsibility for it. You only have special responsibility for another person if you voluntarily assume it. And the mother does not voluntarily assume special responsibility for the fetus simply even if the pregnancy is the result of consensual sexual activity.

Another way of stating this position is:

Yes your honor, I put the gun to his head and I pulled the trigger but how can I possibly be held responsible since I did not voluntarily assume his death?

This argument was more recently found in the attitudes of certain mothers of certain army and military personnel. Their sons and daughters had signed up the service because of the promise of money to pay for college. They had assumed they’d just do the drills and whatnot and walk away with a pile of cash never having seen battle. And when the Iraq war started suddenly their denial of the possible consequences of joining the service wasn’t doing them any good and they cried foul. Thompson and these mothers would like to believe that choosing to perform certain actions in no way shape or form constitutes an acceptance of the possible consequences. Now there’s something that can’t seriously be thought. And yet they say such things in all seriousness.

It’s likely the case that few who are Christian are pro-abortion. In an effort to address this audience she turns to the Bible and the story of the Good Samaritan. The story basically goes that a man was brutally attacked and left for dead. A number of people just walked on by but a Samaritan dressed his wounds and paid for a room at an Inn and agreed to pay any additional charges incurred when he returned (Luke 10:30-37).

After considering a case where 38 people witnessed a murder and did nothing (1). Not so much as call the police she attempts to explain what Jesus was talking about.

At all events it seems plain that it was not morally required of any of the 38 to rush out to give direct assistance at the risk of his own life, and that it is not morally required to give long stretches of his life – nine months or nine years – to sustaining the life of a person who has no special right to demand it.

…it is worth drawing attention to the fact that in no state in this country is any man by law compelled to be even a Minimally Decent Samaritan to any person.

The first statement relies on the assumption that a fetus never has a special right to the mother’s body. Considering this assumption relies on the idea that a mother has to choose to take that responsibility separate of having sex which relies on the notion that choosing one’s actions has no relation to accepting the consequences which is clearly false, the whole house of cards falls down. The statement is correct but it has nothing to do with abortion. You are not morally required to risk your life for another. But then, the Good Samaritan didn’t risk his life either. The attackers were gone by the time he arrived.

The second statement is just flat out false. Many cities have Good Samaritan laws. They were brought about because of cases like Kitty Genovese. Those 38 people today could very well have been charged with a crime and sent to prison. You are not allowed to leave the scene of an accident for this reason. It is your duty to report what you saw to the police.

You may have noticed the term “Minimally Decent Samaritan.” This is an attempt by Thompson to lower the standards. She would like to claim that we are not morally obligated to be Good Samaritans and only Minimally Decent Samaritans. This is because she doesn’t understand the parable. By Thompson’s standards the Good Samaritan was only minimally decent. You are only morally required to help others so far as there is not a great cost to yourself. She then argues that carrying a child and giving birth makes the mother a Good Samaritan. Perhaps this verse will be of some enlightenment to Thompson:

So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. (Luke 17:10)

She continually attempts to apply cases of morality where one helps a stranger (going the extra mile) to where one is doing their duty. If a family member is in need it should be obvious you have a moral obligation to help them any way you can. Carrying a child which is your own flesh and blood isn’t a matter of going above and beyond what is required. It’s a matter of duty. Chris Rock has a bit about two types of black people. He makes a comment that one type brags about how they don’t abuse their children. How they feed them and how they treat them well. Chris Rock asks the obvious question, “what? Would you like a cookie?” You are not morally superior for not abusing your children. You are not morally superior for not killing your own flesh and blood. You are an unprofitable servant only having done your duty. Thompson, like the people in Chris Rock’s monologue want to pretend that doing your obligations is some kind of Moral Mountain that one is not actually required to climb. There is no mountain. You are not climbing. You are walking a level path.

In cases of the mother facing death or rape it is a very difficult situation. For the secular world all they can try to do is rationalize their actions. For Christians we have forgiveness. It is often the case that we come across situations where feel that the right thing to do is sin or that we have no choice but to sin. We need to recognize that just because we rationalized it in our mind doesn’t make it right. If you are raped or your life is at risk you may rationalize an abortion. We rationalize lots of immorality. That doesn’t make it right. One can only pray that they never end up in such a situation and if they are that they have the strength to do what is right.

Thompson also offers the example of one opening a window and burglar getting in. One cannot say that the burglar can stay simply because the open window allowed him in. This would work if we were talking about burglars and not the act of sex. When consenting to sex without protection you are quite literally taking an active role to entice the “burglars” into your house. You cannot invite a burglar into your house, offer him your TV and then call the cops and claim you were robbed when he accepts. She then considers the case where bars were put up and the burglar only gets in because of a defect. But again, this only works when you’re talking about burglars. During consensual sex, one is taking a very active role to entice burglars into ones house. It’s more like setting up a bird feeder behind plate glass with lots of food, going outside and telling birds that it’s there and then pretending it’s the bird’s fault when one manages to smash through the window.
Thompson further attempts to extrapolate this false analogy by going with the analogy of people seed. Instead of burglars, it’s people seed floating around. But, once again, this fails to account for the fact that during consensual sex, one is taking an active role to get the people seed into the house. It doesn’t just magically get there. There is a very distinct physical act which results in the people seed getting into the carpet. It is more like noticing people seed is floating around outside and opening a window only to put a fan in it to suck in the outside air in an effort to attract the people seed.

The only thing Thompson gets right about this analogy is at the end when she states

But this [locking down the house] won’t do—for by the same token anyone can avoid a pregnancy due to rape by having a hysterectomy, or anyway, by never leaving the house without a (reliable!) army.

She is correct in that this again only applies to rape. The act of consensual sex not only invites but actively encourages pregnancy. One knows the short comings of various barriers. By using them you accept the possible risks. Thompson wants to believe that we have some right to sex without consequences. This is not the case.

Mary Anne Warren is also pro-abortion but criticizes Thompson; mainly for her violinist example. Thompson attempts to apply her example to every situation from rape to risk of life to the mother to going above and beyond what is morally required. And as demonstrated above, clearly falls short. Warren argues that only with rape does Thompson’s argument hold up and all other situations must be closely examined.

However, after starting off on the right foot, Warren goes off on her own misguided tour of morality.

…it is absurd to suggest that forgetting the pill one day might be sufficient to obligate a woman to complete an unwanted pregnancy…As we will see, the moral right to obtain an abortion is not in the least dependent upon the extent of which the woman is responsible for her pregnancy. But, unfortunately, once we allow the assumption that a fetus has full moral rights, we cannot avoid taking this absurd assumption seriously.

Warren uses the term “absurd” a couple times to try to get the reader into the mindset that this argument is stupid and not worth considering so the reader will agree and not bother to really consider what this argument is saying. This argument can also be written as

It is absurd to suggest that drinking and driving one day and killing someone might be sufficient to obligate a court to sentence the driver to prison.

Or

It is absurd to suggest that killing someone in a fit of rage one day might be sufficient to obligate a court to sentence the killer to life in prison.

It’s a popular mindset that we are obligated second chances when we screw up and are exempt from the consequences. It is often that case that people screw up “just once” and inflict serious harm on themselves and others. It only takes one time to pull a trigger to kill someone. It only takes one time to drive drunk and kill somebody. The fact you didn’t kill somebody prior or didn’t drive drunk the other thousands of days you’ve been alive does not change the fact you are directly responsible for this time and nothing prior is going to change that. You do not get one free bank robbery, one free burglary, one free homicide. A court may show mercy but it is by no means obligated.

Likewise, forgetting to take precautions just once and getting pregnant in no way removes the fact you are responsible for your actions and must accept the consequences.

Another problem is dealing with the concept of “Full Moral Rights” and “The Right to Life.” Namely, how it all fits together. Is the right to life the crown or basis? Warren would like to argue that the right to life comes after having full moral rights and that can only be had if you’re a person.

So Warren describes 5 criteria for personhood:

• Consciousness and the ability to feel pain
• Reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex things)
• Self-motivated activity
• The ability to communicate
• The presence of self-awareness and self-concepts

She then goes on to say that not all of the criteria must be met for personhood but “sufficiently” many. What must be proven is that a fetus does not possess any of the qualities. She also distinguishes between genetic and moral humanity. A common argument that a fetus is a human is that it is the product of human reproduction and a human cannot give birth to anything but a human. Warren chooses these 5 criteria for the reason that they don’t deal with genetic humanity.

She then argues that

Whether or not it would be indecent for a woman in her seventh month to obtain an abortion just to avoid having to postpone a trip to Europe, it would not, in itself be immoral, and therefore it ought to be permitted.

This basically boils down to that she believes that abortion is never wrong at any time during the pregnancy. At best in the later stages of pregnancy a fetus has features 1-5 only to the extent that a guppy does, so even in the later stages of pregnancy a fetus has no more of right to life than a guppy does. This poses a problem because even a newly born infant doesn’t posses these 5 criteria which leads to the criticism that Warren supports infanticide.

Warren counters with two points:

• It deprives people wanting to adopt of the pleasure of adopting the child.
• It upsets those who—though they do not want to adopt them —would like to see newborn children kept alive.

However those two points also apply to the fetus. Warren never really manages to show that infanticide is not allowed by her reasoning. She simply argues that the cost of continuing a pregnancy is great but giving up an already born child is easy. However this just results in newborns having the same moral standing as animals in the Tradition View. That is, they have no moral standing. You wouldn’t kill an infant for the same reason you wouldn’t kill a dog; it makes you more likely to be violent towards those with moral standing. It’s not that it’s wrong to kill an infant. It can just lead to you committing immoral acts. This doesn’t actually solve the problem of her view supporting infanticide.

The only way Warren could get away from infanticide is to add additional criteria that in order for the abortion to be okay the mother must have a right to control the fate of the fetus. While in the womb it’s the mother’s body so she has that right. As soon as the baby is born though, that right is gone. However she then goes on to say that if an infant is “defective” destroying it is permissible. But then tries to play it off by claiming that by point 2 they should be preserved. This makes no sense. Basically it’s okay for infanticide but because it’s okay it’s not okay. Warren basically fails to make a solid point to defend her view.

Another objection to Warren is that a guppy will never be a human but a fetus is a potential person and therefore should have the same moral rights as a full human. Warren attempts to make an analogy using the case of a spaceman to argue against this idea:

Suppose that our space explorer falls into the hands of an alien culture whose scientists decide to create a few hundred thousand or more human beings, by breaking his body into its component cells, and by using these to create fully developed human beings, with, of course, his genetic code. We may imagine that each of these newly created men will contain all the original qualities of the spaceman and be real people. Imagine it will only take seconds, and that its chances of success are very high, and that our explorer knows all of this, and also knows that these people will be treated fairly. I maintain in such a situation he would have every right to escape if he could, and thus deprive all of these potential people of their potential lives; for his right to life outweighs all their rights to life together, in spite of the fact they are genetically human, all innocent, and all have a very high probability of becoming people very soon, if he only refrains from acting.

I find it interesting that Warren objects to Thompson on the grounds her violin example can only apply to rape and then presents her own very similar analogy that can’t possibly apply to anything but rape. Warren is attempting to abstract the concepts and falls of the cliff of reason. I don’t follow how not allowing the process of procreation to even begin shows that potential people can be justifiably aborted. By leaving, the spaceman effectively doesn’t have sex to begin with. Nothing is destroyed because nothing is created. Warren thinks she’s arguing that we’re not obligated to allow potential people from becoming people. What she’s actually arguing is that we’re not obligated to allow potential people to come into existence. And all I have to say to that is, okay. So there’s nothing morally wrong with the natural process by which sperm and eggs die. I don’t think this is anything we didn’t already know.

Jane English takes on the issue of abortion from a different angle. She uses the notion of self-defense. If self defense is never allowed then neither is abortion. If it’s allowed to protect ones life then abortion is okay if the mother is facing death. If when threatened with serious health risks, then abortion is okay if the mother’s health is at risk. She then adds two more ideas. One is that if life prospects are at risk then it’s okay. For instance, you’re a highly trained surgeon and a hypnotized attacker kidnaps you and takes you back to the mad scientist who will erase your memory. The only choice is to kill the scientist or lose all your knowledge of medicine. She believes this applies to teenagers, who if they go through with the pregnancy, face serious changes to their lifestyle. The last idea is that if it’s okay to kill in self defense when any damage to your life prospects is possible. English accepts the surgeon example where serious damage to life prospects is going to happen.

The alternative story is what if the hypnotized scientist only comes out at night and you know this and all you have to do to avoid being put in a bad situation is not come out at night. This is analogous to abstinence. Another added detail is that you should carry mace and if that fails you must accept the result. This is analogous to using a contraceptive and it failing.

The other obvious problem with the version English accepts is again the word “kidnapped.” English, Warren and Thompson all rely on the idea of being kidnapped to try to make their points. And the only time being “kidnapped” applies to pregnancy is rape. So basically her story works out that if you’re raped and you face serious life consequences that you are morally allowed to have an abortion regardless of the fact that the fetus is innocent.

Even if it was not a matter of kidnapping and merely a matter of “self-defense” there is no blaming the victim in when one is mugged. One cannot say “oh, you just shouldn’t have been out on that street at that time.” However, unless it is a rape, one is fully responsible for becoming pregnant. They chose to have sex and they chose not to take proper precautions. And by choosing to have sex they chose to accept the consequences. Self defense doesn’t work because it has no parallel to becoming pregnant. You cannot choose not to be targeted by someone. You cannot tell an attacker not to attack you before they even act. You can choose not to have sex.

English then also takes the position that a fetus is not a person and goes from there. She goes back to the original position and argues that the view on abortion needs to be psychologically viable. We cannot allow late term abortion because it’s not psychologically viable that we are to care for young infants but not care for late term fetuses which look very much like newborn babies. She points to the case where New York nurses alternated between caring for 6 week premature infants and disposing of aborted 24 week fetuses. Basically the aborted fetuses were only about 6 weeks younger than the babies they were caring for. It was emotionally traumatic for the nurses to do this as there was no way for the nurses to see any difference between the two.

English basically relies on the idea that we can’t relate to a fetus in the early stages and that’s why it’s okay to abort it. While it’s not okay to abort a late term fetus because one cannot psychologically distinguish it from a newborn. The net result is that she fails to prove that it doesn’t matter if a fetus is a person or not since her distinction requires that the fetus be a person. So it is in fact necessary to prove that a fetus is not a person before attempting to show its okay to abort it.

Don Marquis just doesn’t touch the issues of rape or when the life of the mother is at risk. Instead he takes a more general approach and comes up with two questions: “What makes killing an adult human being wrong?” and “Is this same feature seen in an abortion?” His strategy is then to show that there exists a feature of killing that is necessary in order for it to be wrong, and that that feature is also a necessary part of abortion. By “necessary” we mean that it must be there. Heat is a necessary condition to melt ice. However a match is a sufficient source of heat as many things can produce heat. If he shows this, then abortion is morally wrong. In order to show that abortion is not wrong, one is required to show that there exists a necessary feature of killing an adult that is not present in an abortion.

Marquis begins by considering all the people involved in the case of a killing. Suppose A kills B. We can consider how A is affected, how B is affected and how those who knew B were affected. In the first instance A is desensitized to violence. But that isn’t what makes killing wrong. That is an effect of killing being wrong. This is the same type of argument that English uses in the New York nurses example. And certainly the people who knew B would be upset but that doesn’t make killing wrong as killing hermits is also wrong. This is similar to Warren’s argument against infanticide. So the only thing left is to consider the affect on the victim.

He then argues that what makes killing someone wrong is not the changing of the biological state, but rather the denying that person of the enjoyment of living. Just as an adult is denied the life he would have had, an abortion denies the fetus the life it would have had. And since this is why killing an adult is wrong, it is also wrong to have an abortion.

One problem with his argument is that it doesn’t necessarily apply if the fetus is so deformed that it cannot have a future similar to a normal human. It also doesn’t work if one is convinced that it’s not always wrong to kill an adult as Thompson and English attempt to argue. However, they showed that it’s not always wrong to kill an adult but failed to show that such situations had any relationship to an abortion.

Two other main objections are presented. One is that a better explanation for what makes killing wrong exists other than Marquis’ and doesn’t have anything to do with abortion. One explanation is the desire account. What this basically argues is that it is necessarily wrong to kill someone only when they desire to live. It then assumes a fetus has no desire to live. And we assume we can assume this because we assume the fetus is not sentient. It merely has a metabolism but no real mental activity. It’s not thinking. But this has nothing to do with Marquis’ argument since his argument deals with “potential” not what is currently happening. It also fails because it is wrong to kill someone just because they don’t want to live.

If we go with the idea that it is a sufficient condition for the wrongness of killing then the idea actually adds to Marquis. We can then argue why it is wrong to kill people who want to die but have a valuable future and also why it is wrong to kill those who are terminally ill but do not want to die. Wanting to die has nothing to do with the correctness of killing someone. A person can want to die and yet it will not be morally right to kill them as mentioned prior. And in the case of capital punishment, the criminal can not want to die all he wants but it is morally the correct thing to do, to put him to death for the betterment of society and as a punishment for his crimes. So really, desire is not a sufficient measure for judging the morality of killing.

The other argument is the discontinuation argument. This basically says that the killing of a human is wrong because it causes the cessation of life. But this fails since it is wrong to kill a person who is in a coma but has a chance to recover and lead a valuable life. A fetus can be considered to be in a coma. Therefore it is not a necessary condition in both cases.

The final objection is that contraception must also be wrong by Marquis’ argument. However for them to assume this they must also believe that by Marquis’ argument it is morally wrong for one’s “seed” to die as happens naturally on a regular basis. Without fertilization, there is no future. The only thing contraception changes, is that in some cases, it dies outside the body rather than inside. This is a biological fact. And by Warren’s spaceman example, it’s perfectly okay to not offer your seed to be used to bring about fertilization. Claiming that Marquis’ argument goes against contraception is as ridiculous as claiming it’s immoral to not have sex.

1. http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/kitty_genovese/

It is my opinion that there are so many ethical theories because people most often create theories based on their abilities failing to consider their inabilities. There is a theory that if you are good all year long Santa will bring you gifts. It is common knowledge that no child has ever actually seen Santa Claus. Parents tell their children that because Santa has so many children to visit, he stops time to get it all done in one night. What they are afraid to tell their children is that Santa is not coming to their house because the children have been rotten. This is probably why my parents just decided to not let us even believe in Santa. If the paddle was any indication, I had no chance of Santa ever leaving anything for me except a piece of brimstone. I have seen some rotten children that believe Santa brings them things every year. I am curious as to what ethical theory they follow.

Egoism is by definition the most self-serving theory out there. It also seems to be prevalent among young children. Consider that they are happiest when you give them everything they want and most miserable at the utterance of “no.” As they become older, they learn a bit of Utilitarianism as they learn to share. Some of them even claim to be happy because they shared and made other children happy. I suppose that if they failed to give a cookie to the bully as well, they would have something to look forward to in the schoolyard, which is when they learn of Consequentialism. They soon learn that egoism may get them pummeled later on. Children often grow up and begin looking to ask out the opposite sex. Rejection becomes a way of life for many children and those that follow Consequentialism may lead a very lonely life fearing the consequence of rejection. I believe it is quite apparent that misery does not have to be a way of life but there is no avoiding that it be a part of life.

Deontological ethics throws pain and pleasure out the window and bases goodness on doing your duty. Your duty tends to be whatever you perceive it to be or whatever others tell you it is. They have a duty to do their homework and receive good grades. They have a duty to acquire a job to earn money. Their duty to follow their parents’ orders now comes into question. It is very easy to say that doing your duty is good but very hard to say what that duty should be. Reason is then required to determine what is a good duty and what is a bad duty. It is also questionable to say that doing your duty of washing the dishes while seething inside is actually doing good.

As we near adulthood, duty becomes something of the past and our will begins to take over. We act not because others tell us too but because we know what we are to do and desire to do it. Our reason continues to mature as we experience more things in life. After several years of watching Cops and the news, we learn many things from the follies and glories of others. We also recognize that sometimes the right does not always bring happiness. When we accidentally crash our parent’s car we know the right thing to do is to tell them but happiness will find someone else. The time it takes to tell the parents depends on the goodness of the will and the distance to the nearest phone.

When we become adults we hope to be virtuous people who have learned from life what it means to be truly virtuous. We understand that our sight is limited and sometimes when we do not get what we think is good for us we later learn that it would not have been good for us. As Garth Brooks once sang; “…sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.” We discover that sometimes the consequences of our actions are nothing like we intended. The BB gun you gave Johnny may end up putting his eye out. We sometimes follow our duty only to end up pointing a gun at a small child demanding to take him home.

Aristotle, I believe, was best at defining a moral person with the idea that to be moral one must know they are acting morally, willingly be moral and be consistent. To know what is moral one must know the difference between good and evil. I do not think we will ever be able to articulate what the good is any better than we can articulate the taste of a food. It may make morality seem subjective but I do not believe it actually is. It just requires one use reason properly to know the good for one’s self as no one can tell you what it is. I believe most people spend their lives waiting for good things to be handed to them believing they are good people because they use their logic and reason for justifying evil rather than for discovering the good.

Thursday: It is Not the Lies. It is the Attitude.

These kinds of assignments I have noticed are given in many philosophy courses. This is at least the second time I have done it. For the most part, I speak my mind already. I run into trouble when people ask why I say the things I do. I tend to answer that as well but if they make assumptions about my motives and blast me for their assumptions before letting me answer I let them have it. Especially if they insist their assumptions are correct despite everything I say.

Friday: Pulling Strings

I often get into debates on-line about anything, though usually religion, because it is interesting. One of the things about writing is that you cannot see facial expressions. You have the ultimate poker face when playing with words and when done properly (or immorally depending on how you look at it), you can manipulate people. When I post I tend to keep my answers short and relatively to the point. The opposition on the other hard often gives out more information than they needed to. That information usually deals with their preconceived notions of what you believe. Knowing what they accuse you of believing allows you to play with them. Which in this case is ironic because the topic deals with Christianity and Christians’ alleged desire for control.

I posted a rebuttal with some very informal words to an accusation that “the rod” is used to essentially beat Christian children into submission to God. Brainwashing essentially. Because I referred to science textbooks as “bullshit” when it came to evolution in that they do not question it, he perceived my reply to be done in a “rage.” I told him I was not angry. He insisted I was.

In response to another accusation that honoring fathers and mothers is a doctrine used to manipulate children much like the rod to turn them into God-fearing robots. I responded that it was common sense that if you honor your father and mother they do not kill you. To which he responded, “As for ‘common sense’, are you kidding me?! If you disrespect your parents, they kill you?!” He then asked if what I said was in the Bible. To which I responded “Who’s harboring anger? One who speaks calmly and firmly or one who spews off because he doesn’t get the joke?”

Saturday: Liar

During the course of the discussion of evolution I had to continually enforce the idea that it does not take religion to question evolution. Of course, it was hot on the tails of control, which I casually maintained as best I could to direct the conversation where it needed to go. My opponent made the claim that evolutionists don’t try to make anything I do illegal in response to the idea that Christians and everyone else all want the same thing; their morals in the school system. To which I responded:

“It’s not illegal to teach against evolution but according to the PBS series “Evolution” when students requested that evolution be challenged in the schools based on scientific evidence, it was shot down because people claimed it was actually a religious argument when the students made it perfectly clear it wasn’t. Same thing you are doing. So yes, you are making it illegal to challenge your views by falsely labeling any opposition as religious.”

And from there is pretty much his goal to get me to admit it really was all about religion. He could not deny evolution could be debated outside the realm of religion but he could not accept that I did not have religious motives. Every rebuttal to what I said was an attack on creationism, which apparently he could not figure out, had nothing to do with evolution, which we were currently discussing. He asked me flat out “Do you personally believe in the creation myth? A simple yes or no will suffice. Dodging will again show you to be a liar.”

Which I of course avoided answering with anything but questions as to the relevance of his question to the issue. So of course, he called me a liar. I asked him why. “The way it shows you to be a liar is that you claim some non-religious opposition to evolution while I’m convinced, now more than ever, that you really just want to shoot it down because you believe in the creation myth”

I think the response would be obvious, “So I’m a liar because you “suspect” I have an ulterior motive which has yet to actually be proven because I don’t and have made it clear that I don’t. My personal beliefs have no bearing on the scientific evidence against evolution.”

Sunday: Something about Phones

I never answer the phone simply because if it’s for me, I know the call is coming and listen to the machine as the caller leaves their message and pick up or they just page me and I call them. I am not so sure it is a lie about whether I am there or not. I’m quite honest about the fact I have no intention of talking to the person on the other end of the line if they don’t leave a message for me as instructed.

Monday: Look Him in the Eye

I generally have no problems telling the truth and speaking my mind. However, I do have limits to how much information I will share or what issues I will take up. Off the Internet, I am about the same. I just do not have much I would need to lie about. I was at a car dealer looking at a brand new car, which I wanted to pay $250 a month for over five years. It was completely doable with 15% interest. The kid I was talking to must have been new. He kept doing the “look at their forehead” thing from Newsradio. Maybe it is a real negotiating technique. He asks me, “what can we do to get you in the car today?” I looked him straight in the eye, “Nothing. You could give me $100 a month payments and I still would not take it. You don’t make $20,000 decisions on impulse.” He had been talking to his superiors about “pulling some miracles” to get the rate down so I told him I’d come back the next day which would give them some time to work their magic. I then thanked him for his time and walked out.

That pretty much sums up my style. Kantian ethics are based on Christianity, which I have been evaluating for three or so years now. I have always been a Christian, I have just never really examined what that all entails until recently. To unwaveringly answer every question asked of you honestly I think is impossible. Not in the sense it cannot be done, but in the sense no one could ever avoid convienently finding an excuse not to on at least several occasions.

Utilitarianism’s principle of doing that which brings about the most good for the most amount of people is the underlying principle of “The Last Supper” used to justify the more provocative issue of censorship. The question is asked “if you could kill Hitler before he was Hitler, would you do it?” If you are looking at pure consequence and don’t recognize the loaded question, then as the movie illustrates, the answer of course is “yes.” It isn’t until a seemingly right-wing conservative is invited over that the actual answer is revealed to the students.

Utilitarianism deals with murder the same as any issue; if it brings about the most good then do it. The students were certainly acting within the confines of the moral code prescribed by utilitarianism. So then we have to decide if utilitarianism is bad because it justifies murder. We then realize that murder is justified in every moral system. The problem of course is that it is also a loaded question. Murder is not justified for every act. People look at one instance where murder was okay and think they can go murder any one. Or they read about a holy war and think they can have one too. The concepts of “situation,” “motive” and “authority” have no meaning to them.

Assuming all the guests would grow up to be Hitlers, according to utilitarianism the students did nothing wrong because the concept of authority fits nowhere into the system. Everyone must do what brings about the most pleasure for the most amount of people. The students successfully rid the world of a few people with ideas they didn’t agree with. What they did wrong was not consider other options besides killing or that maybe their ideas were the ones that were wrong. As the conservative pointed out, talking is also an option. The real question is “If you met Hitler before he was Hitler, what would you do to stop him from becoming Hitler?”

The students apparently believed that indeed death was the only answer to censoring ideas they felt were evil. They invited controversial guests over, listened to their ideas and then poisoned them with arsenic mixed with wine. To hide the bodies the students planted them in the back yard and grew plants including tomatoes over the mounds of dirt. The students were far from justified in killing their guests as they removed people from society who had yet done no wrong. The final guest’s actions were justified in that he removed Hitler after he became Hitler.

Considering the last painting of the five students lying on the floor was done in Marc’s style it is safe to assume two outcomes. One is that the final guest literally killed the students with the poisoned tomato juice which Marc had made mention of earlier when he complained that his stomach hurt. Or the conservative proved his point even better by symbolically killing Hitler by converting the students from their ways. In other words he stopped the Holocaust by making Hitler sympathetic to the Jews.

Regardless, the movie illustrates what happens when censorship goes too far. It also illustrates that pure utilitarianism doesn’t work. You cannot go by consequence alone, especially when the consequence cannot be known. Paulie stated at the beginning they could not know the mind of God. It took several days for them to find out that the first guest was a serial rapist though Luke’s statements seem to indicate maybe the first guest wasn’t really the guilty one. The students had no idea their guests would be or are a great evil or that only by killing them could they eliminate the evil. The final guest had the evidence in the back yard. Maybe he left it up to the courts; maybe he took it upon himself.

I was there at the time of the trial but you won’t see me. Star Trek is actually a very low budget documentary and they couldn’t afford to put a juror on camera who couldn’t act like he cared no matter how much they paid him. Before the hearing we the jury were all given a sheet of paper, which I had hoped would have kept me occupied for the duration of the trial. Unfortunately it had only the following written on it.

sen·tient (s n sh nt, -sh - nt) adj. Having sense perception; conscious

con·scious (k n sh s) adj. Having an awareness of one’s environment and one’s own existence, sensations, and thoughts. Capable of thought, will, or perception

If Data were as annoying and useless as that stupid hologram on that trash ship Red Dwarf I wouldn’t even be here. Speaking of which I hear the Federation is working on one of those holograms as well. I guess it’s supposed to act as the ship’s doctor or something. I suppose this trial will decide if future creations such as the so-called holographic doctor should have rights. Picard had better have a good case to warrant me wasting my time that could be better spent playing Quake CXI on my computer.

I hate my computers. They’re so obedient to my every command. I hit the power switch and they turn on. Well, three of them do. One of them has “issues” and requires it be powered on, then off and then on again before it actually boots up. I’m sure it’s because I use it so much. It has to rebel in order to feel it’s not completely under my control. Whenever I’m coding my latest project is when it gets really obnoxious. It doesn’t do what I meant; it does exactly what I tell it to. It knows what I just typed will lock it up, but it doesn’t care. I was told once that I made my TI-85 graphing calculator act like a Pentium. I think my computer can read and knows I just said that. It’s not the first time. I’m sure it’s jealous and that’s why it acts like a TI-85 at times. When I’m surfing around the Internet it’ll occasionally throw an error at me and close the window. The thing’s got personality.

My computers know a lot of stuff. I have one that can sing anything. Rap, Country (I try to encourage it not too), Alternative, it’s all there. It can even play classical music. My main computer (the obnoxious one) I sometimes play games with. It cheats so badly. I know I’m a bad chess player but even I know you can’t move a queen from B4 to E6 to knight a rook with a pawn. It thinks it’s clever. If I have a question and my computer doesn’t know the answer I just hop on the Internet and ask the computer at Google. That thing knows everything. It even knows that my server is a good place to find programming related information, which is a very well guarded secret. That server of mine is very modest.

I’m very attached to my computers. If one was ever stolen and I found out who it was, I’d want them punished like someone who drowns puppies. If it were just the Pentium 200 I wouldn’t care so much. Maybe just a slap on the wrist. It’s not all that cute, not smart at all, and really should be dead any time now anyway. Kind of like that stereo of mine that was stolen from my car. It’s hard to care when the insurance company foots the bill for one that’s infinitely better. Speaking of my car, there’s a piece of machinery that should be dropped in a lake. It’s big, it’s ugly, and it just refuses to die. At least it doesn’t leak all over the place. Darn puppies. If they weren’t so cute they’d go the way of those rats that New Yorkers are so fond of.

I’ve been working with computers since I can remember and now this council wants to try to convince me that this robot, Data, deserves basic human rights. It’s got some personality, it’s intelligent, and people have some sort of emotional connection to him. Riker there flipped its switch and I can’t count how many people gasped. People get so emotionally attached to things that they begin to think the object of their affection actually cares about them as well. I hear this thing’s been through a number of battles. Apparently it’s self preservation has made room to include its buddies whom are listed in the credits. Oddly enough it’s greatest “affection” goes to some extra that was allowed to speak and then promptly killed at the end of the episode. I wonder if it feels guilty that it couldn’t preserve her life. I doubt it. The thing has no real emotion. It’s highest ranked memories play like highlight footage ranked by the number of electronic signals sent at the time. I don’t see it as any wonder
that one of the trinkets he’s taking with him is a hologram of the girl it got “intimate” with. Apparently he works, too.

Now this computer hacker wants to disassemble it so he can make another one. The robot decides that it doesn’t want to and here I sit listening to Picard and Riker go at it. It could be worse I suppose. That Kirk fellow never really nailed his language skills. Riker says he’s a robot, Picard says obviously but the thing is also self aware and intelligent in the sense it can learn and evaluate situations without any reprogramming. As I was sitting there wondering when it was time for Picard to go have his tea and Riker to go hit on some interplanetary woman I realized something; the robot made a decision.

It decided that it didn’t want to be disassembled and that it would be better to retire and abandon his comrades for an unknown period of time than to be disassembled and risk not seeing them ever again. This robot took many seemingly unrelated ideas and combined them into one coherent solution and then made a decision. Last I checked my computer only did what it was programmed to do. Data has obviously been given free will. One would argue that he was just preserving himself but he is willing to undergo the operation when he feels it’s safe. When he decides it’s safe he will decide to be experimented on.

Data may not have a soul (do we ourselves even have a soul?) but as he has a will of his own he is by definition conscious. Therefore by Maddox’s own definition Data is a sentient being. If we are to enslave computers then we must not give them a will. To give them a will but then deny them options by force is hardly humane. Even if it is all just an illusion of will should we harden ourselves when simple reprogramming will remedy the situation? I vote that all machines given an inherent ability to choose be allowed to act upon those choices with all the rights of human beings.