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I read the summary Rick directed us to, and I'm a bit puzzled. The
doctor intervened in a situation where (the summary says) "there are
only two options--surgery or
death." As a result of the intervention, the alien boy's physical life
is preserved, but in the end his parents kill him because, as they put
it, "This was not our son. This was only a shell. There was
nothing to do but end the pain of the shell." What I'm puzzled about
is why Rick describes this outcome as a disaster. It turns out that
the (physical) outcome was death either way. And that death resulted
from the parents' acting on their beliefs at least as much as from the
surgeon's intervention. I suppose this might be described as a
disaster if one shared the parents' religious beliefs -- but, because
they are entirely fictional, I don't see how anyone could. It would be
different if some obviously bad consequences occurred by means other
than the parents' choices. One could describe the episode, as
summarized, as about free will and determinism, or about the bad
consequences of religious fanaticism. (One thing it's not about is the
bad consequences of government intervention, because the surgeon
refuses to comply with the government representative's direction not to
perform the surgery.) Rick Duncan wrote:
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