Europe, Boring Until it's Not

[Speaker to Animals]

How do you know mushrooms don't want to live? They seem to fight hard for life. Along with everything else that lives.

Anyway. Do not get between me and a juicy steak. There will be blood.

It's Lent in 34 minutes. Steak postings should by minimized on days of abstinence.

[Okeefenokee]

You're mixing subjectivity with morality.

It's not like I didn't call it the second I saw you say, "ethically."

There's no way for you determine when a fetus is sentient any more than you prove a lobster wants to live.

[Hastur]

Why is there a difference between a coma patient who might regain consciousness and a fetus who almost certainly will get it?
If potential consciousness is as valuable as active consciousness you can't be pro choice.

[JohnDonne]

Well, I am nothing if not a champion of creatures than can't speak for themselves, a fetus in my opinion need not demonstrate anything, simply having the causal structure at a certain level of development would suffice as a mandate to play it safe in my view. Without it though, where's the subjective ability? How does it morally differentiate from a rock? Human DNA? I throw my own DNA every time I brush my hair.

I understand as well. It's nothing to you because it represents a future you will never experience.

Why do you care about the future again? Chickens or something?

That's not true, it means nothing to itself if it doesn't have the ability to desire to live. It might matter something to me, or to you, but without the causal structure the fetus itself cannot care.

[Hastur]

The desire to live doesn't come with any entitlement. All living things desire to live. Mushrooms, trees, grass, malaria parasites, bacteria and everything else. There exists no law in nature that forces us to respect that will to live.
If we show any mercy at all is just because we have decided not to become monsters. Monsters tend to be ganged up upon and destroyed so it is a good choice not to become one.
If you try to coerce people into giving up their favorite food you will be correctly identified as a tyrannical monster and you will be treated accordingly.

[ssu]

Why is there a difference between a coma patient who might regain consciousness and a fetus who almost certainly will get it?
If potential consciousness is as valuable as active consciousness you can't be pro choice.

The desire to live doesn't come with any entitlement. All living things desire to live. Mushrooms, trees, grass, malaria parasites, bacteria and everything else. There exists no law in nature that forces us to respect that will to live.
If we show any mercy at all is just because we have decided not to become monsters. Monsters tend to be ganged up upon and destroyed so it is a good choice not to become one.
If you try to coerce people into giving up their favorite food you will be correctly identified as a tyrannical monster and you will be treated accordingly.

So uh... you don't use rubber and eat unhealthy food?

[Hastur]

Why is there a difference between a coma patient who might regain consciousness and a fetus who almost certainly will get it?
If potential consciousness is as valuable as active consciousness you can't be pro choice.

The desire to live doesn't come with any entitlement. All living things desire to live. Mushrooms, trees, grass, malaria parasites, bacteria and everything else. There exists no law in nature that forces us to respect that will to live.
If we show any mercy at all is just because we have decided not to become monsters. Monsters tend to be ganged up upon and destroyed so it is a good choice not to become one.
If you try to coerce people into giving up their favorite food you will be correctly identified as a tyrannical monster and you will be treated accordingly.

So uh... you don't use rubber and eat unhealthy food?

Nope, read the thread, let go of the corner flag and join the game.

[ssu]

Nope, read the thread, let go of the corner flag and join the game.

402 pages... I give up.

[JohnDonne]

You're mixing subjectivity with morality.

It's not like I didn't call it the second I saw you say, "ethically."

There's no way for you determine when a fetus is sentient any more than you prove a lobster wants to live.

I'm not mixing anything, a subjective viewpoint is where value comes from, else you are but as a rock, a non-person.

So even after I addressed your point before you made it, you still use the tired argument that abortion can never be justified because we can never be sure when sentience begins. I pointed out to you that we don't need to know when abortion begins, because we can be quite certain where it doesn't exist, it's where causal structures are not present. Yet you made the argument anyway.

[Hastur]

Byt you stated that potential consciousness had a value. Why else let a comatose person on life-support live? Do you deny that an unborn fetus has the potential for consciousness? Makes no sense.