It seems to me that a lot of Dan's concern is based in the extremes -- the fringes, the things which happen rarely if ever, but which (to him at the very least) seem to pose some serious ethical or moral questions.
If so, then I would agree that it is interesting territory to explore, but I am pretty sure that Dan is wrong in his estimation of how such a situation would actually work. I respond to this in another email.
Possibly. Possibly. But it doesn't hurt to air the ideas, I think.
In this light, overlooking the very rare late-trimester abortion circumstance on the grounds that it's very rare is a little like ignoring the Earth-orbit crossing asteroids on the grounds that they've only caused three or maybe as many as five mass extinctions in 500 million years. The costs of failure may be far too great to be careless about precautions; amortization of risk is literally impossible when the very uncommon eventually does happen, as it eventually will, and when the results are potentially so devastating.
Ack!! An abortion of the type Dan describes might kill a few people, while an asteroid could kill millions and harm many more. I think your example is misleading when used to justify Dans example for that reason.
Actually it's not. Assuming there is a god that weighs the value both of societies and of individuals based on the societies they create, it's sensible to consider individual complicity in social trends.
That is, if I know my neighbor is in the Klan, and I know there was a Klan rally last week, and I suspect he was there, and the result of the rally was a cross burning and a house arson, I am complicit in the crime of my neighbor by *not* reporting what I know, regardless of where the chain of plausibility leads. Even if he provably wasn't present at the burning, the possibility exists that he was involved, and I am ethically bound to report what I can say is true.
On a larger scale, if there is a god and we regard the death of an innocent as a sin, and if it was within our power to stop that death but we chose not to prevent it, we are guilty of a sin of omission and are thus in danger of damnation. So if there is a question whether a late-term fetus has a soul and we do nothing as a society to explicitly protect that soul, we might be in danger -- as a society -- of damnation.
An asteroid strike, as devastating as that would be, is nothing compared to eternal damnation.
If that's where Dan is coming from, at the very least we owe it to him to consider his point of view. Atheists are ideally rationalists. Rationalism includes hearing *all* sides of a discussion without prejudice, or at least letting all have a hearing.
So Dan doesn't necessarily have to provide a cite to have a legitimate concern that is worth discussing, I think. If what we're really talking about is a subset of ethics or morality, one of the best ways to do so is to talk about philosophical posers rather than history (at least to exclusivity), or so it seems to me. It seems more prudent to discuss "what if?" than "what happened?".
No, he does not have to. But I would like to know if the subject is purely hypothetical or if it is rooted in actual events. That does make a difference I'm sure you would agree.
Again, no, not if it's a discussion of ethics, and particularly if we're trying to see how an ethical society might function under various conditions. Practical matters are another issue, or so it seems to me.
If it never happens, then it is as valid as discussing invisible puce unicorns. If it does happen and happen often then it is a subject that deserves discussion that would lead to actions.
The difference here is that an abortion based on thin emotional grounds is considerably more likely than the presence of unicorns of any shade or degree of perceptibility. We know, unlike unicorns, that abortions happen, after all. If the rest is a discussion of shade or visibility, we start getting into the realm of hair-splitting, methinks, while ignoring the fact of the unicorn.
If it never happens then I would be against legislation regarding such a specific situation. If it does happen and happen frequently, I would be much more likely to support legislation to prevent the frivilous waste of human potential or at least not oppose it. (Pretty much depends on the frequency kenneth)
I agree, REM ref's aside. But "never" is pretty absolute, and infinitely less likely than "plausible", eh? Isn't there some place between never and plausible that can serve as a foundation for discussion?
I hope that helps you understand where I am coming from.
I think I know where you're coming from. I hope I'm helping expand on where I think Dan is coming from, and why I think it's something worthy of discussion, because to my mind it is.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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