Why is moral value necessarily tied to traits of personhood? I see the correlation but I think you need to spend more time on this connection and not just assume it to be self-evident.
Moral value isn't necessarily tied to traits of personhood, and sentient beings that are not persons are of some moral value. However,
greater moral value is tied to personhood and self-awareness because beings that possess those characteristics possess a greater capacity to suffer than beings that do not. Because a self-aware being has the capacity to form preferences and desires about its future, and those preferences and desires would be denied were a self-aware being killed, such a being has a greater capacity to suffer than a being that is not self-aware, cannot form preferences and interests about its future, and thus cannot suffer from their denial.
Are these traits or capabilities necessary in your opinion to qualify a human for the right to continue living?
To a very great extent. That doesn't necessitate that individuals without those characteristics die, and I would oppose the deliberate killing of individuals without those characteristics for the most part because they continue to possess extrinsic moral value in that there are usually others who desire that they continue living.
Are you sure that it is not just the fact that we can't identify as easily with a preborn child because we don't share common characteristics? In other words, because we have little in common, it is much easier to disregard or feel less distress over their plight. Much the same as I feel more *personal* distress over the abuse or murder of a neighborhood child than I do the deaths of children in a village in Africa. Both are abhorrent but I relate more easily to and thus am more morally compelled by one rather than the other. It's an issue of perspective.
I'm surprised that you believe that a preference utilitarian would think this, as most of us have concluded that the distance from a preventable evil is not relevant to the moral wrongness of not preventing it when it would be relatively easy to do so. I'd advise you to read
Famine, Affluence, and Morality if you get the chance. But moral judgments biased in the favor of a certain perspective are essentially unavoidable. You might claim that a human life is worth more than a bird life, but should we consider the ability to fly a moral imperative, we would consider a bird life to be more valuable than a human life.
Since I've tried to reduce this issue to its meta-ethical foundations, I shall first say that happiness is good and suffering is bad. As a result, we should attempt to maximize happiness and minimize suffering. We might also equate happiness with
utility in some morally relevant way. Hence, I assert that the maximization of utility is a preferable course of action, and that respecting a person's interests and preferences about the future maximizes this utility to a further extent than not doing so. The fetus, as a being that is not self-aware and does not possess the capacity to form such preferences and desires about the future, does not possess comparable moral interests that can be weighed against the mother's interests, and there would be no utility minimization in ending its life, because it does not have the ability to conceptualize about its future life.
Why should a fetus' claim to life be dependent on their self-awareness. I understand this argument in the context of the death of the mother in that one can agree that a mother's right to continue living is greater than a fetus' right to live if the two are mutually exclusive. However, the *vast* majority of abortions are conducted based on preference, not necessity.
A fetus's claim to life should be dependent on its self-awareness because there would be no utility minimization in ending the life of a being that was not aware of its own existence in the same way that there would be in ending the life of a being that was aware of its own existence and wished to consider living.
That is a fact. What is your problem with it?
My problem is that this is a logical inconsistency because I do not believe that species membership marks a morally relevant difference between beings of similar levels of self-awareness any more than race membership does. Why should it?
So the morality of killing a living being is dependent on its ability to recognize its own existence? Would that not imply that it is more acceptable to kill a person in their sleep versus after a bout of torture? I'm using this example to demonstrate that the inherent premise is probably not as sound as one might first think.
It is not acceptable to kill persons that are sleeping or temporarily unconscious because they have already formed desires and interests about their future that would be thwarted even if they were killed in their sleep. If a man had planned on getting married in a week's time, his desire to do so would still be thwarted were he killed in his sleep.
Nor is the fact that they are not currently concentrating on those desires and interests morally relevant, because desires and interests continue to exist even when primary focus is not on them. For instance, a person may have a desire to go surfing at the beach as well as a desire to see a film at the cinema. Simply because such a person may be thinking about surfing at the beach rather than seeing a film at the cinema at a given point in time does not mean that his desire to go see a film at the cinema has ceased to exist.
Are you a vegetarian? Do you eat chicken?
I am not a vegetarian, but this is only because the practice of brutally slaughtering animals would not stop if I stopped eating meat. Now, if I were in the public eye, and needed to provide an example for others to emulate, I would probably be a vegetarian, just as Peter Singer is.
I agree that there are difficulties with the potential personhood argument that make it less effective to those with their minds already made up in favor of abortion. That being said, the above examples are frankly a bit silly in the context of the word 'potential.' Your implication here is that a skin cell is the same type of potential as the development of a healthy fetus into a more advanced 'person.' You know very well that those are two entirely different forms of the word 'potential.' It's rather underhanded (I won't quite say deceitful) to equate the prevention of potential human life via condoms or abstinence to the termination of potential human life via abortion.
If it is rather "underhanded" to compare the two, (presumably because of the greater probability of an existing fetus becoming a person than a skin cell), then it is similarly underhanded to compare a seven month old fetus with a three day old blastocyst, because a fetus also has a greater probability of becoming a person than a three day old blastocyst does.
I would question the motives of a person that did disconnect themselves from the violinist. If they had nothing better to do, it is poor form on their part to let the other person die. That being said, pregnancy is a different creature altogether because while sex gives pleasure as an important side effect, its primary evolutionary goal is obviously procreation. It's rather hard to get pregnant without sex. Thus, the violinist example has a few glaring holes.
I already said that I don't use the violinist example in its original form, and that I believe that Thomson is wrong. Hence, your criticisms of it are not especially relevant to my arguments. Moving on.
I'm rather perturbed that we are equating the cost of human life with the damage on foodstuffs that rats can wreak. Take a step back for a minute and reexamine precisely what we are discussing. This is a human life, not a rat. I'm surprised that your own experiences with fatherhood haven't given you a different view.
The problem with this is that it begs the question in assuming that I would automatically consider a human life to be of greater moral value than a rat merely because it is human. It is true that most human lives are of greater moral values than rats because most humans are persons, and rats are not. However, if a rat were to have the same level of self-awareness, rationality, capacity to feel pleasure and pain, etc., as some form of human life, (such as a fetus), then I do not regard species membership as establishing a greater inherent value in the life of the human than the life of the rat.
My position is somewhat utilitarian in nature. The interests of society at whole are damned when human life is reduced to a quantifiable value. Thus, when the interests of the mother in terms of preference are placed above those of allowing a viable human life to continue, society as a whole has suffered.
That is neither a utilitarian nor a consequentialist position, and I would advise you to study those ethical schools to a greater degree. It conflicts with very fundamental values set out by Jeremy Bentham in his
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.
When the American Bald Eagle was an endangered species, and it was a crime to kill them, did you know that if you destroyed the bald eagle's eggs, they were equally protected as the living eagle itself and the same crime?
I was just wondering how that fit in to all of this...?
Care
That's probably not an equal comparison because there is a far more drastic difference between a human embryo and a grown human than there is between an eagle embryo and a grown eagle.
Regardless, I would say that I favored such a policy if the end consequence was the preservation of an endangered species.
Once again, whether the belief that humans are humans regardless how small (straight from Dr. Seuss) has its origin in religion or simply an inate respect for all things living should have absolutely nothing to do with whether it's considered a "valid" opinion or worthy of being held up by law.
Mere life clearly isn't the morally relevant aspect of this belief, or the killing of a worm would trouble you as much as the killing of a fetus. I also do not believe that human life is inherently superior to nonhuman animal life at the same level of self-awareness and sentience.
The separation of law and state does not mean anything which smacks of religion is therefore "bad" and must be ignored or eliminated. The separation of law and state is simply there to assure that the GOVERNMENT does not dictate to citizens what religion they must worship, and punish those who don't.
It has nothing to do with whether or not people are influenced by their religious beliefs and therefore vote accordingly.
Anti-christians seem to think that "the separation of church and state" means we cannot incorporate anything into law which has been referred to in the Bible or which is taken up as a cause by constituents. They are wrong, of course. Separation of church and state simply means our government is not authorized to force a particular relgion upon us. Period. It doesn't mean we can't listen to those of certain religious groups and, if they vote winningly, apply their laws.
The fact is, many who aren't Christian also think abortion is a horror which should be eliminated. You don't get to trample all over the desires of the MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE in a democracy simply because you hear a few Christians stating it's not Christian. It doesn't matter. The fact is, if voters don't want it, it ain't happening. What their religion is has nothing to do with it.
In fact, separation of church and state exists just so we can prevent anti-Christian zealots, just as much as we can prevent Christian zealots, from taking over the government and discriminating against those who don't have the same core beliefs. Which is why it's so alarming to hear people say "we can't make abortion illegal because the Christians want us to." That has nothing to do with the separation of church and state, and in fact is a violation of that very precept because you are bringing church into law and declaring that someone of a particular relgion has no voice because of their religion.
That is a blatant misrepresentation of my statement. Of course Christian voters ought to be permitted to vote merely on the basis of their beliefs if they want to. However, if a
law were to be created that was solely based on religious tenets, and was not based on any legitimate public interest, (such as an Old Testament law regarding beard trimming, for instance), this would be an establishment of a state religion in one regard, and would thus be unconstitutional.
