John D. Giorgis wrote:
>
>> One Evil does not justify the other.Why not sell the
>> babies that would be aborted as slaves? A life as a
>> slave is better than no-life isn't it?
>
> That's exactly my point.
>
> I have been rolling this question through my mind,
> and I cannot develop an ethical regime that is both
> pro-choice and also against doing what they did
> to Truman - which of course, has left me very disturbed.
>
Try this: a suffering human being is Evil. A dead human
being is Neutral. An alive and happy human being is Good.
The State tries to maximize Goodness - Evilness.
So, if the State sees the future for the baby as a
suffering human being, then it aborts it. If the State
can guarantee that this human being will be happy,
then it lives.
Truman would be a happy human being - so he lives. His
brothers would be suffering human beings - so they die.
But the catch is that Truman is *not* a self-conscious
human being. He is deceived, so what is done to him is
Evil - despite the fact that he had been happy most of
the time.
So, it was wrong to make him a TV-slave, the correct
thing would have been to abort him.
Of course, this could be fixed; a dead human being
cannot be make alive again, but a living human being
can be killed. But killing Truman would make lots of
people unhappy, so that killing Truman would be Evil.
The lesser of two Evils now is letting Truman live.
Alberto Monteiro
