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Princeton Prof Advocates Euthanizing Handicapped Babies
An earlier idea of Singer's, that a human life is not necessarily more valuable than an animal's, led (at least in part) to the founding of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA] and the Animal Liberation Front.
We're running this here -- after some serious soul-searching -- because Singer raises thorny ethical questions that make people think in new ways even when they don't agree with him, and if there's one thing Slashdot readers are good at, it's coming up with unique reactions to controversial ideas that cause most people to shut down their critical thinking abilities and issue emotional, knee-jerk responses.
The floor is now open. Please try to treat this as an important ethical discussion, not as flamebait. It's a serious -- if frightening -- subject, and the debate now being carried on about it in academic circles will no doubt affect the way we treat our fellow humans and other life forms, both organic and cybernetic, in the 21st century and beyond.
Cambridge Undergraduate Advocates Euthanising Princeton Prof
This is not the correct terminology. How can a handicapped child decide (and make clear to it's parents) that it does not want to live?
People protesting over an Professor of higher learning? What has this country come to?
I don't necessarily agree with his position on euthanization. That doesn't mean that I have to protest him personally.
Further more, to pressure the school to not offer him tenure is inapproptiate at best. Steve Forbes, et. all, neet to relize that there is a commitment that needs to be made. You can't choose to fund higher learning, and then tell the free-thinkers what to believe.
People who throw away pre-concieved notions and think outside of the box are the most important people to support... Lest free speech, and philisophical development come to a screeching halt.
Of course, I'm not a parent yet, so my mileage may vary.
I've always felt very strongly that a human isn't necessariy a person. I've read that full-grown mature dogs operate at the same level of intelligence as a three month old baby. You could get off relatively unharmed for killing the dog, but killing a three month old baby would surely get you a long prison sentence.
;)
People regard the _potential_ for intelligence with perhaps a little too highly. I feel that while there can't be drawn a specific line in the sane, once someone shows that they are self-aware
they are a person. And no sooner. For example, if
a baby was born as a vegetable and was kept alive
in that state for 30 years, I wouldn't consider
that a person, just a human body.
With that in mind, I really don't feel that harming a non-sentient human is the same thing as
harming a mature person. I also, for the same
reasons, beleive strongly in the right of a mother
to decide to abort a child at any stage of
pregnancy.
But that said, I'm very aware that my opinions don't translate well into the real world, and they aren't exactly popular, so I guess we're stuck with what we've already got
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
Thomas Swift was being sarcastic, sadly enough, our esteemed bio"ethics" professor is not. The fact of the matter is that there are some things that just seem wrong to us. Without any use of logic, it just seems wrong that retarded children should not have the chance to live simply because they are severely disabled. In cases such as this, the basic instict we have is often correct. However, I'll admit, that there may be a logical point behind Singer's argument.
It is hard to watch someone die. Often we say that it is kinder to pull the plug than watch the suffering. Now I am an agnostic who does not find anything inherently wrong with physician-assisted suicide. However, I think there is a clear difference. One person has had a chance to lead a full life while the other has not. Whatever that life may be, isn't it true that there is at least some moral imperative to giving a child the best life possible.
What if this is all that there is? If there is no heaven or hell or afterlife? Then is it fair to the child to kill it and deprive it of everything. Existence is precious, we should treasure it for ourselves and for others. Pain tells us that we are alive. While it may be hard to watch, until a child can choose for his or herself whether or not to end his/her existence, we have an obligation to preserve that obligation.
Sorry Mr. Singer, but you are wrong.
14 digits of Pi are all we need.
Do you know someone who is *severely* disabled?
Stop and think about this for a while.
Think Hellen Keller too.
I guess he's not saying that parents *should*, but that parents should have the right.
It's a tough one really.
Do we start to intervene in natural selection with
a species refinement process. That's what this boils down to.
There are two issues here though.
If society accepts this, are we moving towards perhaps defining what the humane genome should always be?
-- hjw http://puzl.info/
(One time I learned to spell. Then I forgot it for the previous version of this post. Sigh.)
;)
I've always felt very strongly that a human isn't necessariy a person. I've read that full-grown mature dogs operate at the same level of intelligence as a three month old baby. You could get off relatively unharmed for killing the dog, but killing a three month old baby would surely get you a long prison sentence.
People regard the _potential_ for intelligence perhaps a little too highly. I feel that while there can't be drawn a specific line in the sand, once someone shows that they are self-aware
they are a person. And no sooner. For example, if
a baby was born as a vegetable and was kept alive
in that state for 30 years, I wouldn't consider
that a person, just a human body.
With that in mind, I really don't feel that harming a non-sentient human is the same thing as
harming a mature person. It's more like harming an animal, grounds for a slap on the wrist at best. I also, for the same reasons, believe strongly in the right of a mother to decide to abort a child at any stage of pregnancy.
But that said, I'm very aware that my opinions don't translate well into the real world, and they aren't exactly popular, so I guess we're stuck with what we've already got
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
As I mentioned in a previous post, I would not be surprised if Mr. Singer did advocate not only killing disabled children but also feeding them to the hungry. In a book he wrote (can't think of the name, might have been Rich and Poor?) he argued for the absolutely affluent giving everything they possible could to the absolutely poor. In this case, it would probably include any meat. And it would make some sense. Is it not more sensical to allow the meat to go to use to feed the hungry? Is it any different than organ donation?
In the end, Mr. Singer keeps to his ethics very closely. While I, more conservative than liberal do not agree with many of his points, I do respect that he acts upon his beliefs.
14 digits of Pi are all we need.
If your family can't cope with their retarded children, they can surrender their parental rights and institutionalize them. Personally, I would say that having you in the family is probably the greater burden.
(Oh, and BTW: I have a cousin who is autistic. I'd rather have him remain alive, than all the NAZI pukes who ever advocated killing him.)
If you think retared people should be murdered, what about sociopaths like you and Dr. Singer? One of your ilk, and his henchmen, killed ten million non-combatants in the 30's and 40's.
Maybe it's time for *you* to stick the barrel of a shotgun in your mouth, and take one for the team.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
> 3. Ethical is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Eugenics of the sort espoused by
> Singer, in a fascistic darwinian sort of way, contribute to the future viability of the
> species. However, see point two.
Eugenics of this sort could also work against the survival of the species. Sometimes a 'defect' may give a person a better chance of survival than a 'normal' person. An example is sickle cell aneamea which is eventualy fatal but provides some resistance to malaria which is more rapidly fatal, thus improving the viability of the population in a Malaria rich environment.
Any artificial selective control will reduce genetic diversity, this makes the species less adaptable, it is like pre-selecting an evolutionary branch before we know the next selective pressure we will come under.
Maybe you live in interesting times
Singer is also on record as advocating forced euthanasia of elderly people and others who are no longer living what he deems quality lives.
The ironic thing is Singer recently wrote a very self-righteous article saying those of us Americans who don't contribute at least 20 percent of our income to stopping world hunger are equivalent to mass murderers, but if we follow Singer's logic consistently we could get around this by donating our income to euthanize poor people in hungry nations which would also serve to alleviate human suffering.
Whoever said Singer was very consistent hasn't read him very closely -- he's constantly making acceptions to his utilitarianism which render it all but meaningless.
Also there are the sheer medical costs that are required to care for an extremely
handicapped person. Although parents should be able to care for the child if they can
afford to, most such parents aren't so well off, and thus the costs necessary for care
are sent to insurance or the governemnts health care program, and as a result the
average American citizen. I don't have anything personal against disabled people, but
it is outrageous that a fair share taxes I pay should be used by the government to
subsidize the exhorbant medical costs of someone who cannot pay for them by
themselves. I don't mind giving charity, but tax money should not be diverted towards
such a resultless cause. The benefit of
Regardless of the real arguments in this debate on both sides, I find it extremely outrageous -- and would find it more so were I the parent of such a child -- that you think yourself fit to condemn someone to euthanasia purely on a financial basis.
Who are you to decide whether these people represent a resultless cause? Now perhaps you yearn for the days of Stalin's Russia or the third reich; perhaps you worship at Landover Baptist church, but last time I looked your views have no more weight than those of the disabled, the "resultless cause" to which you refer. Perhaps we should also euthanise the unemployed, since your tax dollar goes to providing them with subsistence, and maybe illegal immigrants should be sent to the chair because you have to pay a small amount towards building them crappy, mean housing tenements.
the average person outweighs the need of a
single lesser individual. In effect,
Er. Again, how do you choose to regard these people as "lesser"? Do you think their views are of no worth (and I include here the non-Stephen Hawkings, the ones who think of nothing higher than dressing themselves or eating their next meal)? But you yourself share these views at least part of the time.
such programs disrupt natural selection, where those
incapable of independant survival are weeded out by failure to fend for oneself.
Instead, the capable are being brought down by the needs of the disabled. Lastly,
promoting the disabled population will ultimately lead to a continued abundance of
highly disabled indivuals, as their genes will be passed on down, thus creating future
struggles with disability as well.
Perhaps we should just weed out everyone who's not blonde, blue-eyed and 6 foot? I'm sure it wouldn't take you long to re-open Dachau, Treblinka and Auschwitz.
The point is, we won't end up with a population of monsters; comparatively few of the extremely disabled live long enough or get the chance to have children. If you're talking about those that do: the blind, those with crippled legs, etc. then I'm pretty saddened.
I have to agree completely. It's just cold, hard, darwinism. The incidence of mutations like Downs and so forth has rocketed enormously (and alarmingly) over the last few hundred years. It's a basic principle that any mutation which does not detrimentally effect the fertility of ones offspring will tend to propogate and spread throughout a species. Not as fast as a mutation that actively increases the same factor, true, but with nothing to hold it back, any mutation will tend to spread.
In the "modern world" where such an enormous (an until recently unthinkable) amount of our resources is being squandered on the preservation and extension of the lives of those who would ordinarily be unable to fend for themselves, we're feeling the strain every day.
The line should quite clearly be drawn at "genetic disorder causing serious physical and/or mental impairment".
Genetic defects such as these need to be wiped out, or by the basic principles of evolution, they will become uniformly distributed across the whole species.
The biggest threat to the human race is not Global Warming, nor the Atomic Bomb, nor even Four Digit Years.
Note, I'm not normally this Fascist, in fact I consider myself fairly Liberal, but in this matter, I feel very strongly that it's another case of the Human race naively and arrogantly ignoring the laws of nature in the name of sentimentality. Usually it's done in the name of "progress" or "money", but _any_ attempt to beat Mother Nature will be met by a just and equal retribution.
Everyone who has not read his book should just stop commenting. What he suggests is not to better help others, it is that the hapiness if the couple creates a child that is not disabled outweighs the wrong of killing a child. Read it then come back, the man is sick but I wouldn't advocate killing him and firmly believe he has a right to his beliefs even though I vehemtly disagree with him. I have know many parapelegics, asmahtics, and people with other disabilities that were happy with their life. Every one deserves a chance to live.
That said. I recently had to hlep amke a decision to stop life support for my grandmother, it was the hardest decision I ever made. The professor refers to in his book a hemophiliac child, not one with no arms or no legs.
The wrong lies not in the fact that the animal suffers (remember, animals hunt, kill and eat each other every day)
So does animals of the species humans. That doesn't make it right does it?
Suffering is suffering, it doesn't matter if the suffering individual is a relative/white/human/other animal/alien/...
And what is it you want to avoid with a society that repect it's weaker members? Suffering isn't it?
Dr. Singer is a Jew who claims that his relatives were killed during World War II. It is very ironic that he would advocate his position. Dr. Pierce, another scientist, has some deep insight into this problem in his latest RealAudio broadcast. Click HERE to get it.
How old is this particular NAZI puke? Could he be the same one, or does Princeton have an ongoing tradition of
avocoating crimes against humanity?
Yes, NAZIs also have an ongoing tradition of supporting the Green Party and supporting various world aid organization.
stands up to any scrutiny is economics.
You can't argue for perpetuation of the species.
The idea of a single well-defined species is an
over-simplification, and even if it wasn't, an
allele that causes one form of disability today
could protect against who knows what in the
future. "Over-specialise and you breed in
weakness. It's slow death."
You can't argue that a disabled infant can never
lead a normal life. To begin with, most disabled
people do. Also, every year we push back the
boundaries of medicine. An incurable condition
today will probably be treatable in the future.
If nanotechnology takes off in our lifetime,
almost any medical condition will be trivial.
Finally, it comes down to economics. A disabled
child costs its parents (and in more enlightened
countries, the State) a lot more to raise and
will probably never pay back that investment,
in monetary terms at least. But if you have the
resources to spare for carrier groups, you have
them to spare for social welfare. The developed
world is not so poor that it needs to divest
itself of less functional human unit, especially
considering the negative effects such a policy
would have on society as a whole.
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Alright now. Usually I'm rather reactionary, opting to respond to comments posted by others rather than taking any real intiative (except perhaps to do a line by line rip of an article or post a silly joke no one laughs at anyway). This is going to be.. a little different.
What hubris it is for humans to even dare suggest that they are indeed exempt from natural selection. Do you think that out in the wild parents (read: animals) allow their offspring to go on living if it is clear that they can not fend for themselves? Clearly not. Only the strong survive. This is the natural way of things. The only thing that separates humans from the natural world is their disgusting way of thinking.
This man is a genius. To think people condemn him for having a view that conflicts with their own. Personally, I'd switch my choice of university in order to be in one of his classes. It's nice to have an instructor who actually has intelligent thoughts.
I'm not so sure about the "human consciousness" issue, having no clear recollection of my first year or two of life. But hey, whatever. I will agree that it's not always "wrong" to kill a person. I'd like to question morality itself, however.. Which brings me to:
How true. Think of how many insects and other critters you step on every day, squashing the life out of them. What makes you think you're so much better? Because you can "think"? Because you can "feel"? News flash: animals can feel pain too. Ever seen a kid kick a dog? See how it whimpers? Ever seen a dog get depressed? See how sad it looks? No creature is "more deserving" of life than any other, though some are simply better built to survive it.
Also, thinking about all the vegans and vegetarians out there. They don't want to eat animals (ok, that comment was broad-sweeping.. I'll admit right now that that is not the rationale for all of them.. for those that it is, that is who the following is concerned with, alright?). Well.. guess what? Plants are alive too! Just because they can't run off, they aren't "deserving" of life? Because they can't scream, you assume they can't feel? By that line of reasoning, a mute amputee would not be deserving of life either. Think about it. (also think about how sick vegans and such get because it's so hard to maintain a healthy diet without eating any kind of animal product)
Oh please! This man is talking about the ending of suffering, not the complete opposite: torturing an entire people and putting them to death. The Jews weren't "unfit" to live.. Hitler was simply a sick, very sick, man. By the way.. he also isn't advocating making euthanasia (do you people even know what that means??) mandatory, simply that parents have that option. As in nature. Again I ask: what makes you think you're above the natural order?
Clearly an enlightened mind. So long as I can draw breath, I'll talk about whatever the fuck I want. You want to restrict my freedom of speech? You'll have to kill me first. Most people may not be willing to step up to the plate to defend their freedom anymore, but I'll be damned if I'm not. He obviously missed Singer's entire point.
Personally, if I were the disabled child, I'm not sure I'd want to know that my parents said that. Well, unless I was really that miserable. I don't know. I say I'm not sure because, well, I'm not disabled (subject to controversy with regards to my mental capacity, I'm sure). =P
Obviously because that would make sense. The fact that they are protesting proves that they don't make sense.
Wow.. someone actually taking the time to become more informed. More people should get a clue from this and do the same.
As I said, I don't think we're talking about mandatory stuff here. Purely an option. And it should certainly only be used in extreme circumstances. Anyone who thinks you need to be euthanised because of a minor defect is clearly nuts. Only those disabilities which inhibit a person's ability to actually live life and survive in the world should be considered. And no, it's not about saving money, you loons. Gah. Not everyone thinks about your precious fucking money! Get off it!
This I find odd. ;) However, I'm not going to disagree with the man personally because he has chosen this way of life, nor does it cause me to discredit the main point he has come under fire for simply because I disagree with him here. I never said there was anything wrong with not eating meat, just that it seems silly to me. If people don't want to eat (or wear) animals, that's fine. But plants are living things too.. And you have to eat something .. Of course, all of that is premature. I'd like to know why he doesn't eat meat/wear leather. ;)
Clearly this man is the root of all evil..? Ha!
This really saddens me. Perhaps one day the U.S. really will be about learning and free thought again, rather than ignorance and submission.
I'm going to wager on the "not thinking" theory. People really should open up their minds and actually think about things. A lack of questioning.. is decidedly unhealthy. Just think how horrible your life would be if you never questioned anything and simply accepted everything the way it was. No, seriously, close your eyes and just try to imagine..
Pretty fucking scary if you ask me.
Well, I'm all for it. I'm also for anything that brings us closer to recognizing that we are indeed a part of the natural world rather than its ultimate masters. Humans always try to manipulate the other creatures on this earth, and think themselves to be above all else. Humans as a whole have the right to decide the fate of entire species, trimming their numbers as "appropriate" (coyotes and wolves are evil.. kill the fuckers! no one cares about animal species until they are already on the brink of extinction.. and then it's too late.. humans don't have clue 1 about how to balance the natural order because it's far to complex to predict or even assess properly), yet parents can't even have the right to decide if their child is healthy enough to survive in the world?
Throw off the shackles of conventional "thought", and actually ponder these weighty issues before making a snap judgement. The world will be better off for it.
Also note the difference between "fit to survive" and "deserving of life". All things are deserving of life, whether you think so or not. However, not all things were built to survive. Sad to many of us? Yes. A fact of nature? Yes. Morality is wholly in your mind. There is nothing natural about it. Do you think nature is guided by some greater morality? No. It's something completely different, something most people clearly do not even understand, although they damn well should .
~ Kish
Bartmoss:
As much as I enjoy being taken out of context, I have to ask you to find somewhere in my posts where I advocate killing children after birth.
I'll save you the time looking, because I didn't. My point is that sometimes we have to make the hard decisions, for ourselves, our childern and our society.
All too often we expend great costs on keeping a child alive which should die. I'm not referring to pre-mature babies or conjoined twins, but rather ones that are anasyphallic (no brain, only stem), or have other overriding health issues. I want people to think about this during the pre-natal phase.
Just because we have the technology to extend life, does not necessarily mean that we should always use it. The hard question is when to say enough has been done. It's hard to set emotions aside, but speaking as one who has had to make the choice to remove life support from a loved one... You need to consider what will be better for the person, not what is EASIER on you.
As far as the Hitler comment, I don't condone his actions, but I can understand his motivations. He is one of the greatest leaders of the 20th Century, and also one of the most morally misguided ones (right after Stalin).
It seems to me that the real issue brought up by Peter Singer's comments is the clash of ideologies between Utilitarianism and what might be called American Traditional Liberty - or the right for every man to pursue his own happiness. Certainly the objectivists are the most clearly in opposition to P. Singer's views. In a utilitarian world view, the most good for the most individuals is sought (or the least pain for the least individuals). Actions are weighed against an analysis of the results which they will bring about on all concerned. It is for example obvious to a Utilitarian that it cannot be justified to eat, say, a sheep - because it adds only a small amount to the 'pleasure' of the eater, and takes a large amount from the 'pleasure' of the eatee. So they don't (and of course, Singer doesn't). Objectivists and other libertarian type thinkers believe the world is best served by each individual having responsibility for their actions, and following their own selfish interests, without regard for others. It is an interesting argument and not without value(see Ayn Rand's 'The Virtue of Selfishness'). I think calling P. Singer another Hitler is a rather unfair critique, although his ideas might 'superficially' be seen to be similar, more careful analysis of his ideas is called for. I urge people to understand his philosophical grounding (read his books?!) before dismissing his ideas. I would certainly say that having heard him speak many times, he delivers the most logically coherent and consistent arguments and thoughts on any subject of any speaker I have seen. He is a hopeless politician though, and forgets that most of what he says will be misunderstood or misquoted :-( Remember, it is a philosopher's job to upset everyone!? Bruce
The Beginner wrote that our basic instinct tells us that killing a retarded child is not correct.
;-)
However,
1. The basic instinct in fact does tell a mother to abandon her child if it proves not to be able to survive on its own. This holds true for most primitive tribes that have been studied so far (refer to Eibl-Eibesfeldt or the like).
2. It is one of the great achievments of civilisation that we don't kill when our instinct tells us to (when we catch our partner in bed with another person, when we encounter a tresspasser...). It's good to know what your basic instincts tell you to do - but you should control them and think civilized before acting!!!
As posted previously, it comes down to drawing the line between "fit to live" and "unfit to live".
Maybe you are too frightened to draw the line...
Maybe people who do just try to play god (although - has anybody seen him around lately?
MOooOD
This kind of moral pseudo-religious bullshit has no place on Slashdot. It just acts as flamebait.
Euthanasia is not tech, it is not science, it is not news for nerds. Euthanasia has been around for millenia before genetics, and will remain around for many more to come.
Whether it is good or bad, well I've got plenty of opinions on the subject, but I don't think that Slashdot is the place to air them.
What next, are we gonna start discussing gun control on the grounds that someone made a techie rifle? Heck, why not just get a Perl script to write random pointless circular arguments automatically!
Get this off Slashdot. NOW!
--
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
By this same arguement, then, the arguement about Stephen Hawkins is also flawed. The number of relative geniuses and the proportion of the population that are born severely disabled are so small that the odds of them coinciding more often than is good are vanishingly tiny.
If this is not the case, and certain physically disabling mutations are reliably associated with better-than-average intellect, we'd expect to see that correlation over several generations of the same family, in a predictable manner. If Hawkins disease is such a case, then I stand corrected and would be greatly pleased. Could someone post a URL with a reliable study?
...is never a good idea. Remember the Marty McFly lesson - don't mess with the past. Just say no. :-)
It's got nothing to do with *his* take on
whether someone *deserves* to die. It's
about compassion. It's not supposed to be
an easy decision, or made quickly. But that's
what people who have these views are getting
at: it can be the right thing. It's not like
they're trigger-happy or psycotic. In this
case his views mostly serve to stimulate
discussion, not prompt execution of "broken"
babies...which would make his dismissal quite
silly.
Don't think of it as "deserves to die". Think
of it as "deserves to stop living" (where
living can mean suffering).
And for the sake of discussion, please explain
the moral difference between man and animal.
In any case, there are a lot more than one
person who share (to some extent) his views.
Hmm. I guess we kill them, since you have
deemed them disabled.
I should be able to manage my unborn children on an ROI basis. (Abortion) After all, offsping mainly exist to provide for the continuance of our genetic heritage. Healthy ones have a better chance of achieving that goal.
I realize this is a common attitude, but really have trouble understanding this - what's the difference between a baby 2 seconds after it's born and a fetus 2 seconds before it's born? Especially when we regularly spend millions of dollars each year to preserve the lives of premature infants - infants that, biologically, are young enough to be legally aborted?
People are getting really upset with this professor, but that just begs the question: What, exactly, is the difference between abortion and infanticide?
--
Clear, Dark Skies
This is really nothing new. The ancient Greeks did it to the babies who were defective in some way, or just because they were unwanted. They would just leave them on the side of a hill to die of exposure or to be eaten by the first predator that happened by. Do we vilify Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Hippocrates, et. al. as "soulless monsters?" The last time I checked, the answer was no. In fact, the Greeks are held in very high regard. Do we lament the loss of ancient philosophers that never were? Did you even know this about the ancient Greeks?
Remember, Practicality always takes a backseat to the illusion that we are "civilized" and "moral".
Even as we exploit powerful political offices for sexual favors...
Even as we condemn our elders to corrupt modern-day death camps known as nursing homes...
Even as we toxify our planet in the name of economic progress...
Even as we strip away freedoms such as the right to defend oneself while outlaws lick their chops...
Religion is to blame. Elitist liberals are to blame.
Ventura for President
Slashdot: Liberal News for Nerds. Liberal Stuff that Matters.
So, you also agree that guns don't kill people?
--
Clear, Dark Skies
Your arguement in regards to replacing words isn't what that man said. It's inflamatory. We eat meat. That means we kill furry animals. We've been doing it for thousands of years and we're not going to stop anytime soon. Those pointy sharp teeth in the front of your jaw were given to you by evolution so you can eat meat!
So, if you don't want to kill animals, fine. But I'll be fscked before I treat a dog/cat/deer/cow/rat/rabbit with anywhere near the same respect that I treat a human life. We're the dominant species on this planet, and membership has it's privliges. Kudos, AC
Interesting question. My guess is that the US Constitution is not as badly drafted as the Weimar Constitution was -- if Hitler had been forced to stand in a two-party Presidential-style election rather than being appointed Chancellor because leader of the largest party, then I doubt he'd have taken control in Germany. And the USA never had economic conditions which were bad enough to generate the underclass politics which fed the Nazi party (got pretty close, though).
But I wouldn't kid yourself that there's anything intrinsic about American political culture which would be inimical to Nazism. Mentally deficient people have been forcibly sterilised in the USA (not to the same extent as in Sweden). And it's one of only two developed countries to have operated a system of apartheid since the war. The potential's there everywhere.
jsm
Regardless of the rights or wrongs of Prof. Singer's suggestion, where would it actually lead to? As it stands, he is suggesting this for severely handicapped foetuses. But remember the abortion laws. In the UK, the law was brought in for special cases only. A doctor had to be convinced that there was a medical reason for the termination before it could go ahead. Now we have lunchtime clinics where one can have a termination simply because it isn't convenient. I'm not saying that Singer's suggestion would lead to young children being executed because they cried too much (!), but I think that the boundaries would be stretched before too long.
you are contradicting yourself. There really isn't a difference (imho) of aborting a pregnancy and killing a newborn. The fetus is already in progress to become a person, just as the newborn is. Neither can survive on its own.
And when you have a whole society that preaches that we are merely Protozoa, version 25,311, then why shouldn't we behave like animals? Someone said there is a thin veneer of civilization over our barbarism, but in some people even the veneer is worn off.
If you deny the God that is there, then He will leave you to gnaw on yourselves.
Yes, that's exactly what he is saying. I'm
suprised you didn't believe that right off,
considering it's a perfectly reasonable thing
to say.
Thank you for blessing this conversation with
your highly intellectual contribution.
Oh. I'm wasting my time here, since I'm not
logged in...but you won't see people laughing
at you behind your threshold.
Amazing. You'd think the Dutch, after being fucked by the Germans not even 60 years ago, had a little more brains when it comes to these things. Sad, sad..... :(
In quite a few countries, this practice is common if the child is a female and the parents already have a female child (or even if they don't sometimes).
..I find it difficult to put much stock into someone who consistently plays the Hitler card in this arguement. Singer is not advocating the wholesale slaughter of people, but the option to euthanize a newborn child who is clearly not fit to survive in the world. I believe that in the natural world, you won't find this to be so "insane" a notion. Nor is homosexuality, for that matter. Does anyone here happen to realize how many female sea gulls are lesbians? According to many religious people, does this mean the are "the bird of Satan"? After all, why would "God" create such a creature to be "sinful" by nature?
Disclaimer: I became disgusted with religion at an early age. All attempts to "reform" me have met with actual thought and much subsequent criticism.
~ Kish
an important point to consider in this oft-cited example is that by the time Stephen Hawking's disease became apparent, he was in his 20s, married, and had a Ph.D. not quite a baby and not quite apropos to this discussion. --neil
What if you could stop the birth of a deformed child before it was conceived...by looking at the genetic flaws of the parents? 2 things I can tell you 1) the technology exists to locate genetically damaged family lines 2) there is (to my knowledge) no protection from genetic discrimination on the part of the health insurance providers. We are debating a hypothetical issue (about deformed children), but a practical concern about genetic desrimination is here now. To prevent these ethical nightmares, how do we create legal protection?
-------------------------------------------------- -
Maybe there should be an option to post news of general interest on Slashdot that
precludes comment but that refers Slashdotters to discussion forums on other sites so that those
who are interested may still have their say.
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actually, if i'm remembering the article that the first poster mentioned correctly, it was the action of disabling comments that instigated all that flame.
this is a discussion site. if people don't want to read certain articles or any of the discussion, then don't read them!
so this doesn't affect the cost of ram...it's an issue that isn't going to go away any time soon. in fact, it's probably just going to become _more_ of an issue as genetic engineering becomes feasible. those people who do the genetic engineering are nerds...do i need to twist the argument around anymore to show how this topic does affect ram prices??
if it affects us, and we're nerds, the news that'll affect us is 'news for nerds.'
"The things we wizards have to put up with."--Jethro Bodine
--neil
It's given me sort of an odd perspective on discussions like this one.
But I haven't gathered my thoughts enough to post constructively yet, so I figured I'd just pop in a quick mention.
A comparison I have noted in many comments is one of 'euthanasia for disabled babies v. euthanasia for terminally ill patients'. This model of comparison is convenient due to the fact that many of us have already faced decisions about "pulling the plug" and already questioned the ethics of euthanasia for terminally ill adult patients, but the comparison is fundamentally flawed, in my humble opinion.
The questions that come to my mind are:
I think there are a lot of interesting questions raised here about the value of human life versus other life, and whether the value of a single, joyless, handicapped "life" is worth sacrificing resources that could be used for others
Personally I would be in favor of this, but only if it was ensured that an amount of money equivalent to the lifetime care of the child was donated to actually help feed the hungry or another worthwhile cause. If the baby was simply "put down" without purposefully directing the saved resources into helping the human race in another way, then I would be strongly opposed to such actions.
How dare you call Mr. Singer a nazi! Singer is a jewish man.
--
Deja Moo: The feeling that
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
the comparison with the North American Buffalo is, IMO, invalid. There are plenty of species that drop the sprog and move on; in general the amount of care provided to offspring is proportional to the amount of care that's needed. Buffalo may have a longer gestation period than humans, but they're fully grown after about two years. So of course the parents aren't going to be as protective.
If you want to compare like with like, look at elephant calves. An elephant isn't fully grown until it's about twenty, and its parents (indeed, the herd) are much more protective.
As for the 'pointing to the actual genome': that's just silly. Sorry. Evolutionary theory was around long before genetics (peas notwithstanding), and a hell of a lot more is known than genomic research provides.
You have an excellent point. The difference is that in the U.S. abortion (until late term) is legal and infanticide isn't.
Morally, I find that before birth, the fetus is a portion of the mother's body, totally reliant on her. Once birth is completed, you have a self-contained being. This is why in many religions there are death rites for dead babies, but very few ceremonies for miscarriages.
Um, nothing to say here, but I wanted to highlight the question of parents from other countries.
On the contrary, you can attack the conclusions even if the premises are right IF the conclusions leads to morally questionable results or, more importantly, if the logical model that permits such premises is not sound. Singer thinks that consciousness doesn't begin until a month or more after full-term birth. How did he come to that conclusion? What's consciousness to begin with? We are tying consciousness with life, and at the same time position consciousness above life itself. And based on what? What is the scientific basis for such thinking? A 5 year old child is not aware of the consequences of education? Should it not matter whether he/she gets an education, then? A handicapped 3 year old child will definitedly not be aware of the difficulties that lie ahead. He/she will be conscious that he/she exists, all right, but he/she will not know what the full implications of his/her handicaps are. Would that make this child less unconcious and then more suitable for euthanazing?
Singer's premises will be valid (or wrong) if and only if we clearly and unquestionably know:
1) what consciousness is in the first place,
2) whether there are degrees of consciousness or there are just absolute consciousness or unconsciousness,
3) that we know for sure a newborn is unconscious, and that such fact stop us from treating a newborn and a 1 year old as equals,
3) that human life can be quantify and qualify in terms consciousness, and MORE IMPORTANTLY,
4) the fact that the possibility, however narrow, that a supossed unconscious (and therefore non-sentient) handicapped baby would have prefered to go on living is of no consequence and irrelevant compared to the benefits and whatever moral reasons one would have to kill him/her.
Singer is drawing conclusions using some form of logic which soundness is not that clear, at least to me. There are more thinks to take into account, more questions that remain unanswered or even stated! How can we then make such a leap? Prove me what consciousness is and how it quantify and qualify life. Show me that the benefits of killing a handicapped newborn outweights whatever future choice this baby would have made.
Luis Espinal.
http://www.cs.fiu.edu
This basically comes down to whether or not the child would want to live as disable/disfigured/crippled as it is. This is the same question as the euthanasia question, except the child cannot answer. Those who oppose euthanasia will naturally oppose this. I don't oppose euthanasia, but some care has to be taken in deciding, on the child's behalf, whether or not it could stand to live. If the child is gruesomely and dibilitatingly disfigured and disabled without any hope of being able to leave a painless, peacefull life, let alone a good one, then I'm not morally against euthanizing it. In fact I think the insistence of many anti-euthanists to FORCE people to live miserable suffering lives is reprehensible and highly immoral. Incidentally most of this people are Christians who insist on forcing their belief and worship of their god on others, which includes not having the sympathy to put one out of their misery.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Please moderate the above post up, he has a very good point. Some people have been saying how consistent Singer is, but IMHO after reading this he really seems like a complete wacko!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
In Holland abortions are legal. Eutanisea is legal (with rules!) I am not proud of these dicisions but I feel they are right.
In a world where medicine can prolong life, where people who would have died of natural couses can be kept alive for decades. Don't you think that it is an issue that people are kept aliva against their wishes? Don't you think that keeping someone alive for months with breeding aquipment and such, is immoral. A discision to 'kill' someone might just be to not help anymore. These people(?) die as they would when there would be no medical science.
People; how Moral is it to bring into this world a baby that has no place in this society. Don't you think that that is the issue, suffering live-long in a society where you have no place.
I think that the recent proposal in Holland makes sense: If a baby has no chance of survival beond its (one) year, it is legel (but still the parents choice) to commit an abortion up until a long time into the pregnancy.
Should parents be required to destroy their lives in order to pay for the medical bills of a child that will most likely live no more than a year? I would argue no. What happens in societies where technologies to keep the child alive are not availabale? The child dies. Why not ease the pain? If the government requires that a parent keep a severely disabled child alive, then they should provide the resources to do so.
If the parents value their child's life at any expense, then they will do what they can to preserve that life. Shouldn't someone that values quality of life be able to do what they feel is right as well?
The baby has rights!! But when do those rights begin? When it is born? When it is concieved? One could argue on this topic till their blue in the face. I would argue not until a child has had the chance to develop. These babies will never get that chance. What about teenage mothers dumping their babies in a dumpster? Those children would have the chance to lead a full life.
At no time was there any mention of "pulling the plug" on individuals that accquired these disabilities after birth. They have had the chance to live a full life. Some severely disabled infants don't.
It all boils down to this. Should people be allowed to end their lives if they are suffering (that's just a whole other can of worms)? If we decide that adults have that choice, then in the case of a newborn I would argue that it becomes the parent's choice.
"You know what makes America great? Everybody has the right to be wrong!"
Are you in some way suggesting, say, a couple of black parents are just going to up and give birth to a white infant? Did you even bother reading the article? Do you know what article I'm talking about? I've got this great idea.. If you want anyone to take what you have to say seriously, at least pay a little fscking attention to the context. You can have and voice any opinion you want, and can even do so completely uninformed (as is your right), but do you really want to look like a total idiot?
~ Kish
Nonono; perhaps my phrasing was off whack. What I meant was: they have to decide what they know, deep down, to be right.
There is nothing special about people who aren't disabled that gives them the right to decide that someone else's life isn't worth supporting. But people need to realise this when they decide to continue someone's life so that the person they're supporting is a valuable part of their experience, not just a chore and a drain on the taxpayers' money.
If there is one thing that would really make my life hell, and I guess does make the lives of handicapped people hell, it is being thought of as a waste of space, unworthy even of the chance of existence; it is the attitudes of "normal" people, much more than physical disability or pain, that would hurt and upset me.
axolotl
It's not my field but I read somewhere a calculation showing that, even if we get the moral courage to do it, attempting to reduce significatively the incidence of undesired genetical characteristics by Nazi-style sterilization, simply doesn't work unless in a very very long term (centuries for the half).
Sorry I can not provide references.
--
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
So.. humans are better than animals, right? Well, hell yeah! Let's go kick a mangy pack of dogs for fun..
Damn. How.. Oh, nevermind. Everything and everyone is ( equally!! ) "deserving of life", though not everything and everyone is "fit to survive". Perhaps you should examine the differences a little before you jump the gun.
~ Kish
We have good reason to believe animals suffer as we do, therefore (to simplify slightly) I decided to become vegan. We do not have good evidence to believe plants suffer in any way. Yes, I have read "Secret Life of Plants", and some experiments look quite convincing, but the conclusion that plants feel pain is utterly unwarranted and a leap in the dark.
In any case, if plants could suffer we should still be vegan (I'm not seriously suggesting plants do feel pain, this is just for people with over-open minds). A pound of beef requires 10 pounds of grain to produce. Assuming plants feel, less suffering is incurred by eating them directly rather than pumping them through extremely inefficient processing machines (which, incidentally, contributes to children dying of malnutrition and related diseases. The West wastes grain on animal feed while children die. We are exporting the meat culture to other countries around the world yet the current world population cannot possibly be supported on a beef-rich American diet. McDonalds et al fuel starvation and poverty, and if you buy from them you support that process)
Female Prison Rape in NY
The comparison to Hitler is more apt that you apparently think. Yes, he killed the Jews, whom he thought inferior. However, the sick, the weak, those with congenital diseases, the alcoholic, the mentally or physically infirm, these were all separated, prevented from reproducing (under the various German Health Acts), and were planned to be killed.
As you point out, Singer isn't saying to make this mandatory. However, unless people disagree with him, his views could easily be adopted by the majority and become mandatory. Secondly, due to the statistical and biological fact of "regression to the mean," eugenics is unlikely to work with massive coercion, and its proponents would realize that. Finally, I simply find it strange that a bunch of supposed geeks, who often seem to take offense at the idea of parents controlling the lives of teenaged children, find nothing wrong with parents having complete control over their children's life and death.
I also wonder how, if "morality is wholly in your mind" and "there is nothing natural about it," why Hitler was evil? Certainly the Jews couldn't resist his power; weren't they being selected against in a social sense? Why do you seem to claim it's a good thing to give to Oxfam; shouldn't natural selection weed out those who can't fight to survive when food is scarce?
This thread is a bit awkward spawning from the same day as the 30th anniversary of Monty Python's first airing. And in suggestion, I propose everyone to take a deep breathe, turn off your computer, stop indulging in this mind-fuck, and go pop in a copy of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Now see how you feel after watching it in its entirety. =)
P.S. Listen to the ending song carefully.
I think it is important to realise that Prof Singer is not advocating eugenics, nor cost efficiency, nor quality of life. These are all human-oriented values. By this, I mean they assume that a human metric is what counts.
There are too many of us, we consume too much, we pollute (think about the electricity your computer is sucking, the plastics and rare metals inside of it), we prolong lives past a time where the effort to maintain life is fair. Note that I'm not talking cost-effective. I'm talking resource equity- not just for people but for the environment we rely on. Assuming that Singers argument is based on human metrics is inappropriate- I think he is looking at the bigger picture: That we expend an inordinate amount of resources on specific, rather than broad based solutions.
For example how can our western society justify keeping Kerry Packer alive after a well deserved (oops) heart attack at inordinate cost when other people regularly starve to death? Similarly, with the extremely disabled, the personal tragedy is undeniable, but so are all of the unlamented deaths in the 'third world'. Anyone aware of the level of HIV infection in Africa?
I've worked with disabled people. Most have some chance at making their lives personally rewarding. I remember one girl, same age as me, who had had a profound siezure at two. She had no motor skills, was constantly convulsing, had to be fed throug a hole cut in her stomach, had to be strapped to her wheelchair or she would literally tear muscles from the strength of her convulsions and had very little brain tissue left after 20 odd tears of this. Quality of life... you decide. When she died of associated complications, her mother was devastated, but so relieved. I don't think we are talking downs syndrome here, folks.
Anyway, I've rambled too much. Don't mistake Cerebal Palsy or the like as the sorts of disabilities we're talking about. And don't forget how much it takes to preserve a life when so many others suffer because we have the luxury of living in such an affluent society.....
Maybe people and animals have some equal valuations in parts. (Not totally since we all eat animals and process for clothes) But the ability to communicate at a very high level sets us apart. This ability is solely enough reason to never allow his idea to happen. Even the most severly handicapped individual is still sensient and may have some communication ability which adds value to our culture.
Singer thinks that consciousness doesn't begin until a month or more after full-term birth. How did he come to that conclusion? What's consciousness to begin with? We are tying consciousness with life, and at the same time position consciousness above life itself. And based on what? What is the scientific basis for such thinking? A 5 year old child is not aware of the consequences of education? Should it not matter whether he/she gets an education, then? A handicapped 3 year old child will definitedly not be aware of the difficulties that lie ahead. He/she will be conscious that he/she exists, all right, but he/she will not know what the full implications of his/her handicaps are. Would that make this child less unconcious and then more suitable for euthanazing?
Singer's premises will be valid (or wrong) if and only if we clearly and unquestionably know:
1) what consciousness is in the first place,
2) whether there are degrees of consciousness or there are just absolute consciousness or unconsciousness,
3) that we know for sure a newborn is unconscious, and that such fact stop us from treating a newborn and a 1 year old as equals,
3) that human life can be quantify and qualify in terms consciousness, and MORE IMPORTANTLY,
4) the fact that the possibility, however narrow, that a supossed unconscious (and therefore non-sentient) handicapped baby would have prefered to go on living is of no consequence and irrelevant compared to the benefits and whatever moral reasons one would have to kill him/her.
Singer is drawing conclusions using some form of logic which soundness is not that clear, at least to me. There are more thinks to take into account, more questions that remain unanswered or even stated! How can we then make such a leap? Prove me what consciousness is and how it quantify and qualify life. Show me that the benefits of killing a handicapped newborn outweights whatever future choice this baby would have made.
Luis Espinal.
http://www.cs.fiu.edu
I cannot agree with him to kill disabled babys off because of a disability.
Though this raises another question: Why doesn't the law allow somebody else to decide when his / her life is not lifeworthy anymore?
I am not talking about people with a broken heart who want to jump from the next bridge and who now should get a gun by the government to make it sure. I am talking about terminal ill people, who are in pain and who know that they have no way of ever recover.
I liked the idea of the "death computer" they had in Australia, it leaves you alone with your decision if you are REALLY ready to end your life.
Unfortunatly this device is now banned again, because the Austrialian government feared that a "death tourismus" might start. I wonder in what way human life is more precious then any other life? We have the right (and the merciness) to put our Dog to sleep when the pain for him gets to big, but if I had a car accident or develop cancer, and life for MYSELF doesn't make any sense anymore (because of the pain) I have to suffer maybe for YEARS.
The best thing that can happen to you today is die in a car accident right away, otherwise you might be waking up in a living hell, and there is NO way for you to escape.
To make my point: Killing people right after birth because of a defect is something that I cannot combine with my values, but as an adult person (who is allowed to go into war to kill other people) I should be allowed to decide how long I really want to life.
So, as shocking as his ideas might be. I think they stirr (hopefully) enough up to make people think about the value of life, and who should be allowed to make the decisions about it.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
There are people that kill because of Argentinian soccer.
Should we discuss it here?
If somebody wants a forum to discuss things from talk.*, take the code and start it. Slashdot should be focused on its terrain.
Things were pretty bad in this neck of the woods in '33. The Federal Government had just violently put down a peaceful protest of WW1 veterans that were seeking their overdue compensation, over 1/4 of American workers were unemployed, many who still worked did so at lower wages or reduced hours. In addition, the banking system and the stock market were in ruins, and many Americans looked over the Atlantic at the rising stock of the Third Reich and Marxism for salvation.
In other words we were ripe for a dictator or demagogue to lead us out of the wilderness. What we got was Frankin Roosevelt, who created the modern Welfare State and gave us the progressive Income Tax, Social Security, among other things. We were damn lucky to have him despite his excesses looking at the perspective of what happened to Germany and the USSR during the 1930's and 1940's. Suffering inflicted on these countries by their leaders and by WW11 makes even what happened during the Civil War pale by comparison.(Just imagine all our major cities leveled and 20 Million dead)
What saved us I think was enough diversity in our ethnicity to prevent a charismatic despot such as Hitler from gaining absoulute power. While the early 1930's were truly desperate times here as well as overseas, any would-be dictator who would try to gain power here would have to appeal to, or at least not piss off to a great extent, a much larger and more diverse group than existed in Italy, Russia, or Germany at the time. A would-be dictator would also have to overcome our rebellious and skeptical attitudes toward government in general as well
Actually, the Nazis had an Euthanasia program for everybody, not just Jews, in order to keep the german blood strong and all that
It's almost impossible to have a baseless snobbish opinion of the General Theory of Relativity.
Steven Hawking is not a good example. He would have passed the "Peter Singer" test, and would still be alive as he is today. Steven Hawking has Lou Gherig's disease (ALS). He was completely normal until he was in college. Singer's argument is to get rid of severely disabled infants, not adults.
Incorrect. Singer is quite clear that he is in favor of forcible euthanasia of elderly people who don't have a high quality of life.
According to Singer's philosophy, this is not worthwhile employment for the caregivers, any more than digging holes and immediately filling them in again is worthwhile employment for ditch-diggers.
He'd have been better off responding that he doesn't really believe his own arguments, or that he believes them but not to the point of going to prison for acting upon them.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
For example, Singer was involved in starting the Great Ape project, which advocates equal rights for primates, the same moral and legal rights as humans. (Rights but not obligations, in the same way that young children and the mentally ill are absolved of certain responsibilities.) Peter Singer (and in my brief overview of the Great Ape site) has never said that apes deserve *equal* rights. What he has said is that apes deserve the basic rights to live unmolested by humans (as in animal experimentation). Apes, obviously (at least according to Singer himself) are not capable of the kind of complex cognitive abilities that would neccesitate giving them "equal" rights such as voting or owning homes, etc. Without sounding too harsh, this is another example of Singer being misrepresented. This fact suggests a rather different 'spin' on the quote than /. suggests. It does seem, to me at least, to be inconsistent to believe that apes should be protected and respected, but not so children. Again, Singer has never stated that children shouldn't be afforded these same basic rights, only those whose brain is so severely damaged that there is no significant cognitive activity happening (what constitutes "significant" can be difficult to determine) much in the same way that with, say, insects there is not enough cognitive ability for the insect to be able to register suffering or for that matter any conscious thought, so it is ethically Ok to kill insects (no one is suffering), maybe fish, probably not normal adult mammals, and not normal adult primates. So there is no inconsistancy to Singer's beliefs. Basically any animal that is capable of actual mental sufferring should be given the right to not be subjected to suffering by human hand. This includes normal children AND apes. dave
It seems very unlikely that Singer wants this institutionalized. I think he's just trying to make some points, and make us think.
What I think his goals are:
1. To get us to stop thinking of ourselves (ie humans) as special, in some holy, spiritual way.
2. To get people to see the suffering we cause animals because we don't view their pain as valid.
3. To see that some humans are in states that are no more, and sometimes less "humanlike" than the state some animals are in.
4. To get people to think about the unseen poor with the same empathy that we apply to our children, even to our non-existent children.
He doesn't want to legalize infanticide. He doesn't even think it's necessary. He wants to change how we think about these issues, so that we can start making more rational ethical decisions in other areas.
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
Why should just the parents of the child to have the right? Usually it's the society that has to pay. And that brings as to the question - shouldn't we kill adults too? Peter Singer could be a candidate for this kind of killing. His mother has alzheimer disease and there is great risk that he will have it too. Taking care of retarted elders is really expensive... Besides - better act now than later - before he can make more childs that are high risk for alzheimer.
Talk about a subject that goes straight to the hindbrain and bypasses all rational thought.
First - Let's get rid of all the slippery slope arguements. You can't say "Wrong Haircolor buddy", that's not what this debate is about. It's a dangerous subject, yes, but still.
Second - I'm admitting that I have a HEAVY emotional investment in this kind of issue. My brother in law (and a good friend of mine) has Muscular Distrophy and will probably die of heart failure in about a year or two. He's the same age as I am (22) and ever since he was 10 has been confined to a wheelchair. Due to family circumstances, which are (IMHO) a fairly direct result of his illness, he rarely if ever gets outside. He is intelligent, witty, friendly and probably smarter than I am, but he never enjoyed school (due to the teasing he endured) never went on to university and has spent the majority of the 5 years I've known him inside. He can no longer lift his arms above his head and I can see him getting weaker by the year. His total number of friends is probably 5. The number he sees in the average week is maybe 2. Think about it. NO. THINK ABOUT IT. Really. He LIVES on the internet. He plays quake all day. He composes music on his computer. He has little to no human contact, and spends most of his time depressed.
I also have a cousin who has a strange little inherited disease my family carries. She is 7 with the mentality of a 1 year old. She is deaf, she still wears diapers. She will NEVER be capable of normal adult thought. Hell, she'll never have normal CHILD thoughts. Due to a sucessful bone marrow transplant, though, the primary symptom of the disease, no immune system, has been eliminated, so she'll probably live a normal lifespan. My aunt and uncle are probably two of the most emotionally strong people I know. They now have an infant to take care of for THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. THEN they'll have to provide for some sort of care for her after they're gone. My family is pretty close-knit, so it may well be a relative, but it could just as easily be a group home of some sort.
Now, put yourself in the situations of the parents of these children. I know I have hundereds of times. What's the answer? I'll be fscked if I know. Abortion? It would now have been an option in my Brother in law's case, there are pre-natal tests to determine the presence of his type of MD. Euth? How can I say. I have NO IDEA WHAT IT'S LIKE. NONE. These are two people I see and deal with regularly, but I can't even claim to have the right to express an opinion. My brother in law is the only person who can make these decisions for him. My cousin's parents are the only ones capable of making their decisions. Who am I to say what choices they should and should not have?
For my part, both myself and my wife are carriers for our respective diseases. If we were to have a child, there's a good chance that it would have either MD (something like 85%) or my family's disease (something like 25%). We have decided that if we ever wish to have children that adoption is our only option.
I'm going to fire off an e-mail to my BIL, asking him to participate in this dicsussion. I don't know if he will, but if we don't take into consideration the opinions of those involved, then what are we?
I disagree with those who say that we are no different than animals. We have a greater responsibility and greater potential. We also have a responsibility to prevent pain and suffering where it falls within our power.
Does that mean we don't have the same options? Who knows.
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
Once value thresholds are compromised, it's purely a matter of time before a new limit is set.
Excel
-----------------
A guy walks into a bar and asks a girl if she'd sleep with him for a million dollars. She says sure. He then asks if she'd sleep with him for one dollar. Shocked the girl responds...What kind of girl do you think I am? He replies...We've already established that, now we're just negotiating.
This is, of course, redundant; everything has already been said by this point...
:)).
What I find surprising about this is the similarity between this protest and that of all of the other ones that go on in America(possible in other places, I haven't been there
To Wit: Anti-Abortionists chant and yell and scream outside of abortion clinics. You don't want an abortion? Don't have one!
Anti-fur activists chant and scream outside of a clothing store. You don't want to wear leather? Don't buy their products!
Evolution got you down? Don't force other people to share your views.
This is a great big planet we are sitting on, with lots and lots of people. There is no unanimous opinion, ever, about anything!
Just leave me alone.
Computers can only simulate determinism. ~Hermetic.
I disagree. I think a lot of us come here for all the reasons you mention... but also to think, like Roblimo suggests. I find the comments incredibly interesting, including the ones that I strongly disagree with. It makes me think hard about what I feel.
But I see what you mean. There should be a new category/icon for something like "ethics", so that readers can steer clear of these issues.
This is a horrific idea. I have a cousin who, when born, had a cerebral palsy-like condition due to his mother being clinically dead for several minutes during birth and the ensuing lack of ocygen to his brain for that time. For the first several years of his life, no one knew what exactly this would mean for him, since he had obvious motor coordination problems and appeared to have some sort of mental retardation.
He's now in his mid-20's, holds a B.S in Accounting (from a real university, not a mail-it-in type), lifts weights, serves as a deacon in his congregation, and is a useful, productive member of society, not to mention a hell of a guy (he was the best man in my wedding). He's not Stephen Hawking, in either direction, but I'd venture to guess that there are a lot more folks like him than like Hawking. And by this prof's lights, he should have been killed before finishing his first month.
We are not the same as animals. Humans have inherent value. If the word "humanity" has so little meaning for someone, then I for one am ashamed to have them as part of my species.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
When the rubber meets the road, not even he believes his utilitarian ethics.
Charles Colson's Breakpoint Commentary #90929 - 9/29/99 "Putting His Money Where His Mom Is: Peter Singer's Hypocrisy" exposes Singer for the hypocrit he is. The article can be had by contacting: correspondence@breakpoint.org
This article basically points out that Singer's own mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but rather than euthanize her (as his philosophy demands), Singer spends thousands of dollars providing her medical care. When asked about this contradiction, Singer rationalizes his actions by saying it provides worthwhile employment for the caregivers!
Singer's cold utilitarianism is easy for him in high, removed academia, but in the real world - with living, breathing _people_ who all children, siblings, spouses and parents - it is cast in a truer light. It is shown to be hollow and evil.
Don't believe a word he says.
cwh
By bestowing a life long burden on the taxpayers to support a child that should have been naturally un-selected, we
are in essence creating a life where there should never have been one.
Basically what you say is that children should be killed because they cost the taxpayer money. This is probably the
most disgusting attitude a human being can have. You should be ashamed of yourself. I can't even come up with a
good term to describe you. You disgust me.
So maybe you and all other likeminded folks should adopt all these defective and unwanted babies, and raise and feed them till their deaths entirely at your own expense.
Maybe one day, you can even let one of them marry your own daughter, without any concern for any of their disabilities and shortfallings, since they're just as good as anyone else to you, and produce you some wonderful grandchildren, for whom you shall also pick up the tab if necessary.
This all reminds me of an incident that took place around here not too long ago. A woman tried to stage an accidental fall of her Downs syndrome-afflicted baby daughter by dropping her off a 45-meter-high suspension bridge. The baby somehow miraculously survived. Apparently, the mother had attempted to put her up for adoption three times in the past, unsuccessfully. Now, where the bloody hell were the folks like you to pick up for her and adopt this child and avert a tragedy like this from ever occuring in the first place???
However bright we may be, it is not for us to decide. Consider: every civilization that has successfully evolved has done so with strong restrictions against infanticide. That alone should prove the dangers. If a society could gain a competititve advantage by killing defective children, why has this practice never taken hold? The answer is simply that it does not confer any net advantage to a society.
Even if some babies would be "better off dead," any society that allowed such things would suffer other maladies. The bright white line between life and death is one of those absolute values that people must have in order to work together and prosper. Allowing infanticide blurs that line, coarsens people, and reduces their trust of each other.
there are two separate types of Euthanasia -- active and passive. The latter is the "allow to die" method and is already legal in many cases. The former, which is the issue in this case, is when a person is actually killed.
I'm going to skip past the issue of what criteria qualifies something/someone as a person (which is often an issue with abortion and has bearings on whether euthanasia constitutes murder) and deal only with the issue at hand -- active vs. passive euthanasia.
Often, infants born with downs syndrome also have a digestive tract problem which is easily fixed by a simple medical procedure. Without it, the children can't digest food and will die. In the case of passive euthanasia, someone (generally the parents) decides that the child should be allowed to die (ie. that the operation should not be performed). Now, the nurses (and doctors) have to watch this child suffer and waste away over a course of weeks until it starves to death. You can imagine how hard it must be on the nurses and doctors who are forced to witness this, not to mention the starving child.
Now, the issue at stake is, once it has been determined that the person should die, whether it might make more sense to end things quickly and painlessly rather than allow the suffering to continue unnecessarily. The issue of murder certainly comes up, but might you say that making the choice to refuse an operation or life support which is necessary for a person to live is the same as actively killing them?
There are other issues at stake here as well. What conditions are necessary to justify euthanasia? Is it sufficient that the parents not want to deal with raising the child? Perhaps they won't be able to manage it either financially or emotionally. Or perhaps it should only be when it is determined that the child will suffer so much in their life that death would be preferable? How do we know that someone with down's syndrome is actually miserable? What about people with other disorders? We are forced to look at this issue from the outside and are actually comparing our concept of life in that state to our perception of a normal life. The potential euthanasia victim will never have the benefit of this perspective and our perception of their situation is certainly skewed.
I would say that in cases where passive euthanasia was approved then active should be as well. Certainly, it cuts short any sort of window where the patient is allowed a chance to recover on their own, but at the same time it reduces both the suffering of the patient as well as the doctors, nurses, and (possibly) the family. By the way, families are not required to visit a patient who is being allowed to die. Once the decision has been made, the weight is really on the shoulders of the hospital staff. This is why I put the "possibly" before family in the previous sentence.
u forget that it's an old idea. The last to try it plunged the world into a long and bloody war. Yes, such ideas are what made Hitler and his minions famous. This professor should be resigned from his position, such suggestions and ideas are highly dangerous.
god forbid a man with ideas that you find dangerous have a job, one where he might get to pass those ideas on.
Clearly somthing must be done to stop all this "thinking" thats going on. Its so wrong! maybe we can gather them all up and put them in camps, and kill them! yes! rid the world of all these "dangerous ideas".
Just beacuse you disagree with someone, dosn't mean that there wrong, and you're right.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I'm not quite sure how this "criticism" (what in the hell are we criticising here??) puts a hole into anything I said. Are we criticising the idea that humanity suggests it is exempt from natural selection, or whether or not there is any truth to the matter? If you are striving toward the latter, and somehow think of this statement as criticism of myself, I daresay you aren't tracking this discussion very well and need to reread it a few times. OTOH, if you meant the former.. Well, I can't really see that, or else your arguement lacks even more direction and sense.
At this point you appear to be reaching coherency. At any rate.. I suppose that if I believed that we ought to live in a world where humans fashion weapons of mass destruction, subjugate other species and even other groups of humans, believe they are the ultimate masters of the fate of the world and all of its inhabitants, etc., then I might agree with anything you are saying so far. At this point I can only ask this: Even if a huge meteor struck the earth and wiped out every last human, or if we launched nuclear weapons which wiped out every last human, do you believe that life on earth would end? Do you really think that humans are the "masters" of this world? If not, then how can they not be a part of the natural world, and as such, subject to its laws?
Further, my points are a little deeper than a fscking mantra such as the one you suggest. Am I against technology for its own sake? No. Is it artificial? Ah, most of it would kind of have to be, no? What I'm so obviously against is the idea that something so easily found in the natural world could be considered "evil" or "wrong". Or did you miss that?
Could someone from the class please point out precisely when and where I stated that I agreed with Singer's philosophy ?? I'll save you the effort: I didn't.
At any rate, I find it laughable that you think my arguements so poor, and yet you obviously failed miserably in your interpretations of my points. Care to try again?
~ Kish
(Oh, and Big Brother was about surveilence and privacy, not property.)
I suspect he'd talk to them and point out that unless they want to make a full time job out of eating their fruit, it might be better, healthier, and in the long term more satifying, to give some of it away.Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
This man, unfortunately, has tenure at Princeton, so there's little use in demanding that he leave his field (they can't fire him and it's doubtful that he will resign). But to promote infanticide for selfish reasons: that's the mark of a mind that should be watched very carefully.
Who the hell does this man think he is that he can decide who is human and who is not? Let's take, for instance, Stephen Hawking. He wasn't born with Lou Gherig's disease, but let's say that he was found to be susceptible to it at birth. Furthermore, let's say his parents euthanized him because he would eventually "cramp their style" or someone else's. Think of what the world would have lost.
While we're at it, what about Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder, two men who became talented musicians, even though both were blind?
This man has no right whatsoever to decide that handicapped children have no potential. Every human does, even those with severe cases of brain damage in one form or another. To snuff out that potential, particularly when it's involuntary, to decrease the parents' "suffering" isn't simply inhumane; I think this one qualifies as inhuman.
While we're at it, I think it calls upon us to define what is human. to start, let's say that a two-year-old is human. Why? Because I don't think anyone will argue that it isn't, so we have a convenient baseline for comparison. Is a newborn human? Genetically, it certainly is. Morphologically, it's as human as a two-year-old (who, I remind you, is still not fully-developed).
An infant carries on all of the same biological processes as a two-year-old (meaning all of the biological processes of an adult except those involved in reproduction; but since this isn't counted against a two-year-old's humanity then it's not fair to count it against an infant's). Granted, the average two-year-old is toilet-trained, but I don't think anyone here is going to say that toilet-training makes someone human.
Its brain, while still maturing, has the capacity to learn, even if the child hasn't learned how to vocalize yet. Since people who are born mute for one reason or another are considered human, it's not fair to count the inability to speak against an infant.
It can't survive on its own, but neither can a two-year-old (or most animals at a comparable stage of development) so that cannot be counted against it either. If you want to take the "parasite approach" then I must remind you that parasites are still considered alive, and that there are many full-grown adults who are just as parasitic yet still couunted as human.
Does it have consciousness? I'd love to see how he proposes to test that question(assuming he's ever tried; I've found that many philosophers tend to go on convenient assumptions and leave the testing to others). Just when is this "magic moment" that the brain develops consciousness? I'm in the camp that believes the brain is pre-wired for consciousness, and has it as soon as it develops to the point where it could possibly posess it (which is probably, to be honest, still in the fetal stages; I don't claim to know exactly when).
Oh, and let's get to the "suffering" bit, while we're at it. Who, exactly, suffers? I do quite a lot of work with Down's Syndrome children (my uncle had one of the more severe cases on record, in case you're wondering how I got started in this). The children don't seem to be suffering; they make the best of the situation. And the parents... well, the parents of the children are frankly among the happiest people I've ever seen; they aren't suffering either. Yes, it's an extra burden; I never argued that it wasn't. But it's pure selfishness to reject a child because of something which will mean an extra burden for yourself.
There are risks involved in having a child. When you decide to have a child, you accept those risks. To remove the risk... that's a grey area at best; it reduces burdens, but at what cost? Perhaps a disrespect for human life? I see something of that in this professor.
But enough of this rant. I don't agree with this guy. I'll respect his right to say it, but I don't believe it should be from the professorial position he currently enjoys. There's nothing that can be done about it, of course (he has tenure, after all). And as long as he teaches this as only one philosophy out of many, that's one thing. But if this man starts indoctrinating his students, that's quite another.
The doctors told my parents to off me and now I'm perfectly normal with the exception that I'm prehaps taller/stronger than average and smarter than average. Then the doctors told my aprents to off my younger sister who is a few years younger and was born with similar problems to me. She is still handicapped but in no way is her life a waste. Her ever present laugh gives me reason to remember how precious life really is. Every step of the way has been a struggle for her and the rest of the family but she has came a long way. I think having a loving supportive family can mean a lot.
:P
I'm not overly violent but people like this lead me to beat the crap out of them. Maybe it serves them right. They wanted to kill me and now I could kill them without breaking a sweat. If they like survival of the fittest so much lets see how they like being at the lossing end of things.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
If suffering is the main criterion for when we may kill a child, shouldn't the suffering of parents, family, etc., be considered as well? If the death of a perfectly healthy child would spare that child and its family from grinding poverty or severe emotional distress, why not kill it?
For that matter, why are suffering and pain the only acceptable reasons for killing. Once you have accepted that morality is merely an evolutionary mirage, which serves only to ensure the survival of the species, you are, so to speak, liberated from its demands. After all, our awareness of evolutionary anthropology is itself part of evolution. If people are just biochemical machines, and if I am evolved enough to realize that, I am just following my evolutionary destiny when I act in a way that maximizes my pleasure at the expense of others. So, let's stop pretending that ideas such as suffering, pain, and morality have any validity except in as much as they allow me to get what I want from others, even if that means killing.
At the risk of incurring the wrath of my techo-elite compadres, might I suggest a little supplemental reading toward the 'value of life beyond a big package of genetic material':
"When God Weeps : Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty" by Joni Eareckson Tada
Maybe she's a little older than the babies in question here, but a interesting counter-perspective to wrestling with the 'value-of-life' question from someone who's been there, done that.
Despite the above, it's now five hours after the story was posted, and there still isn't a single comment with a -1 score (or, as far as I can see, any that really deserved one). An absolute tribute to the maturity of the /. crowd, and quite miraculous given the flame-fests that this sort of issue usually deteriorates into.
Worth remembering as a data point next time we get one of those "socially retarded geeks" media screeds. Unless there's been some "outside the box" moderation (why no "First Posters" on this thread?), this is truly remarkable.
Kudos to roblimo for raising an "edgy" subject, too.
jsm
I fervently support anyone's right to express 'dangerous ideas' *as long as they are not in a position where they can implement them*. A professor at a university? No big deal. A legislator? I'd want them kicked out of office for coming out in support of infanticide.
I agree... WHY CONTINUE TO BREED DEFECTIVE GENES??
But then again... without vegies.. we'd have no ledgens like That Hawkins fellow.. and boy does that vege have a brain!
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
There are many, many, many people in the world that seem to be uncomfortable with their own intelligence -- so they try to take away the independent reasoning of others and impose their own static worldview. This is zealotry. The Nazis were zealots, the Stalinists (but not Stalin) were zealots, most of the anti-Singer demonstrators are zealots, and some of his supporters are zealots. Zealotry is not an acceptable, "adult" mode of thought; it indicates immaturity.
If Singer contributes nothing else to civilization, he will STILL have served a useful purpose in generating a valuable debate. In considering his opinions/ethics, look at what he's effectively (indirectly) done:
- Pointed out that "Pro-Life" really means Pro-HUMAN Life. Not life in general; just human life. That's an important point.
- Pointed out that "Pro-Choice" has implications beyond the choice of a single individual at a single point in time. Our relationship, as a species, to the world and the process of evolution is affected by this position.
Lastly, most of the debate on/about Singer can be boiled down to one thing: a knee-jerk reaction, either pro or con.The debate going on right here and now is NOT a complete debate -- it's just the first step. All we've done so far is make the opening declarations; the trick is to CONTINUE the active debate, as a society.
Frankly, I doubt that this will happen on a large enough scale. A knee-jerk reaction is simply easier, and possibly more pleasurable. It is also less responsible, and less interesting by virtue of being less complex.
Finally, you may wonder why I've tried to avoid stating my opinion on Singer -- that's because I don't think that my ethics are sufficiently sophisticated yet. My opinion would be, from a strict standpoint, useless. More people should be realizing this about their OWN opinions, rather than screaming at each other on CNN.
They're screaming about things most of them don't even fully understand, much less have formed a fully logical argument about.
The problem really is that if you let a disabled child live, he'll get a chance to pass on his defective genes and cause more children like him to be born afterward. Simple sterilization should be good enough to stop defect propagation and after a few generations, the original problem of having defective children should be drastically reduced in frequency. Selective breeding really is a good idea. Just ask the Bene Gesserit...
There are many other examples (too many, one might say), but I'll list one I've actually witnessed. Have you ever seen a dog give birth to a litter of pups? Have you ever seen a dog eat those pups if they were far too sickly (or whatever) to survive anyway? Guess what..? I have.
And since you obviously missed the point, humans are still a part of the natural world. Or do you indeed believe we are above it? If so, I'm surprised you didn't take a stronger arguement against my thoughts on the matter.
~ Kish
This type of thinking is just the first step.
.02 worth.
Who decides who is worthy of life and who isnt? Hitler decided that Jews werent people, at the advice of his medical Gestapo. Pol Pot decided that anyone with any handicap (including poor vision) werent human and worthy of life.
The question is, what gives any human the right to decide the worth of another human being?
First its handicapped children, then the elderly, next come parapalegics. The blind, the deaf, et...
Who decides who has a right to live and die? The people with the power? Would that not be a throwback to fascism?
The point is that anyone who doesnt like what YOU stand for could always find some way to make a case that YOU are subhuman and not deserving of life. It not longer is a question of right or wrong, but rather who has the power to make those decisions.
I prefer to live in a society where life and liberty are determined by logic and reason, not force.
Of course the point could be made that killing these people is "the right thing to do" or that it would be "unloving to allow them to suffer". You can take a pound of horse manure, put it in a box and wrap it up in pretty celofane paper, but that doesnt change what it is.
No human has the right to judge worth of a another human. Why? Because our judgements will always be clouded by our own biases and prejudices.
Yes, I know a said before that I prefer to live in a society governed by logic and reason...and how do we achieve that? By recognizing where our biases cloud our judgement is a good first step.
My
Dear Princeton People: I represent the Slashdot Community (hence I also represent Linux Torvalds, who R000LZ!), so listen up!
We decided not to like Peter Singer! We think he's a dummy-brain! All his essays are FUD! Fire him or else! You run M$ Windows, don't you? You must be a lackey of BILL. Yeah, I bet everyone at Princeton is owned by BILL G.
If you don't fire him, we will hack your site! We use linux! Its better than WinBLOWS! You probably believe all that ZDNET FUD about WinBLOWS NT being better. Did Jesse Burst go to Princeton?
YOU GUYS SUCK
This is why you should probably refrain from posting other people's email addresses in a forum like this.
click-clickity-click-click click-clickity-click-click Here that? That's the sound of your buttons being pushed...
Blar.
Remember that article from a few weeks ago that said geeks might suffer from mild autism?
We'd better kill them, too!
Seriously, if we can decide who can live and who can die, where will the line be drawn?
"Women should be made continuously pregnant because otherwise a Stephen Hawkin might miss being conceived."
That's the logical extension of the argument.
Female Prison Rape in NY
Seeing as I can't moderate you, I'll reply instead.
He was not talking about autistic children, he was talking about a person of 17 with the mental age of 1, who will remain that way for the rest of their life. Autistic is quite different.
You are relating this sort of thinking to Hitler, yes? Hitler and his ideas are almost incomparable (I say almost). Whilst he wanted everyone of a certain race or races killed (genecide) here we are talking specifically about killing children who are severely handicapped (euthanasia). Whilst genecide is almost (again, I say almost) globally accepted as wrong, euthanasia is still a hotly debatable issue.
Now for my personal opinions on this (or are they my personal -feelings- on this? Perhaps there should be clearer destinction).
1)I think that this sort of action should be legal, but HIGHLY HIGHLY controlled. Allowed only in the most severest of severe cases.
2)I believe also that there should be distinction between physically handicapped, and mentally handicapped. Severely mentally handicapped children we have little to no hope for, in helping them to lead a normal life. We cannot replace their brain, they will always be handicapped and ALWAYS require supervision, support, assistance, etc. Whilst severely physically handicapped people can eventually benefit from advanced technologies that allow them to move around, communicate, etc. And physically handicapped people at least have the one organ functioning which we have the least ability to replace or correct - the brain.
Still, it's a complex issue, with no easy cut and dry answers.
el bobo
1. Who could and who should decide when to end a childs life?
IMHO: The parents - if they can afford to pay the bills from the hospitalization et all. If they cannot, I don't think they should have a choice.
Like my father always said to me "I brought you into this world, I can take you out".
2. Might this actually happen someday, will we start 'giving involuntary euthanesia' to children who might become criminals or something else 'undesired' (aka killing them)?
Anything is possible. I don't see it going that far, but I do see us eventually NOT treating infants that are born with problems that would cost over $10k to fix. It sounds sick, I know - but if you think about the initial cost, and you think about the family's costs over the (possible future) life of the child, it is *enourmous*. I know a family that was, and still is very much bankrupt from such a child. The child unfortunately never did improve.
Then again, my step son is a-ok after having been born premature. Because his father was in the military, taxpayers paid for his treatment - the bills would have been astronomical in the private sector. He was on oxygen for many days - in the hospital for about 6 weeks - the doctors ended up giving him a 90% chance of braindamage. He's fine now - but would *I* have insisted that the doc's let him go as is? Yes.
Just let them grow up, they'll probably be okay.
Define probably - is that probably if someone shells out a million or so for treatment for those first few months? What if it's not treatable, and it's a lifetime problem?
There is no probably. Babies are born screwed
up all the time - it's just that you never hear about them in the media - and society ignores it for the most part. You will hear about the women who was impregnated and is going to have 12 kids and the couple cannot afford it and someone's taking a collection for them and companies are donating cars and a house etc to them.
After all, they can always ask for assisted suicide later.
What if they can't talk? What if they can't hardly communicate at all?
There are no guarantees here. There never will be. Its like playing the lottery - the only difference is that as time passes the chances of medical technology helping to improve the situation increase dramatically. And the thing is - if you lose - and your child is severly disabled - who's going to take care of that child after you're gone?
http://slashdot.org/~tf23/journal
You first.
on the comments themselves.
To put it simply, I'm seeing a lot of ad hominem attacks on Singer himself, such as that he is "dangerously mad" (Shouldn't he then be up a clock tower in Texas with a rifle?), whilst another decries the fact that an American professor is allowed to say this (fact: He is Australian as it said in the article, working at an American university). Such arguments embarass only their authors. Furthermore, I see him compared to the Nazis and their eugenics campaign, but I fail to see anyone pointing out that American and Swedish governments both had their own post-1945 eugenics programmes, which shows it isn't just racial supremecists who indulge in such things.
Anyway, on to my comment on the article: I would suggest we read the book. The man Singer is a philosopher (Indeed, I have a fine book by him on Ethics), and we can hardly expect to see all the caveats, ifs, ands and buts that are no doubt integral to his arguments in this less than single page article.
I will now no doubt be tarred as a baby eating madman.
While I agree with his basic argument, there's one factor I haven't seen mentioned. Is there any guarrantee that a seriously disabled child won't be "fixable" sometime in its lifetime, assuming it lives long enough? Someone already alluded to CF as an example of how medical tech can extend the lifetime, but it's also possible that tech could, for example, give limbs to someone born without any. Major limb reattachment has been proven and todays /. has another article on human tissue cloning, which means it should be viable technology before a child born today would become an adult.
/. The effects of technology on seemingly unrelated ethical issues can't be ignored.
That's one reason I'd say this topic _is_ appropriate for
c.
Log in or piss off.
You're not the editor.. you wanna be an editor, dump a shitload of time and money into creating a new "News for Nerds" site..
Slashdot is pretty much about anything that's interesting and not just the latest AMD K-999 6.5-tittyflop, cryogenically-cooled, uranium-based Intel-compatible microprocessors..
I'm a nerd.. a bioengineer. This story interests me. It matters to me.. my wife and I are trying to have kids.
This is something I have supported for a long time and now FINALLY someome with some possible influence brings it up. Do you think somebody that's completely messed up wants to go through life like that? I sure as hell wouldn't want to! Someone in that situation has years of misery ahead of them before they can go about killing themselves, assuming they are capable of doing so. If they aren't, do you realize how hard it is to get somebody else to help? Do you think the parents really want to spend the next 30 years or so of their lives taking care of someone (assuming the kid is too messed up to get through school in a decent time if at all and unabl to work so is dependent on its parents). I think the next step is to think clearly and realize that we have WAY to many people so just not even give the choice, but terminate the screwed up kid immediately and give the parents the option of adopting one of the MANY kids up for adoption, or born to large families with little money. Though of course, this will probably be disagreeable to many. I also support a 2 child limit everywhere, US and elsewhere, and 1 child limit for severe problem areas.
Something that hasn't made headlines is the fact that Singer's mother has Alzheimer's disease. If Singer was consistent with his beliefs, he would allow her to starve to death. According to what he says, in the long run, doing so would reduce the sum of human suffering.
He isn't doing that; he's paying huge sums of money for her care, AND he admits that this is hypocrytical.
In other words, he doesn't want to live in the kind of society he's advocating.
The logical outcome of Singer's worldview is that whoever has power decides who lives and who dies, period. I don't want to live in that kind of society.
Besides, Singer's ideas fail the Golden Rule: "Do unto others," or if you prefer "What you yourself hate, don't do to your neighbor. This is the law; the rest is commentary." (Rabbi Hillel the Elder, ca. 40 B.C. - 10 A.D.)
------ "Darn floor. Big bite." (Koko the gorilla's best attempt at explaining the experience of an earthquake.)
Singer does not say he's just trying to get people to think about difficult things. He says parents should be allowed to kill their children. It looks to me like he does want it institutionalized.
What you think his goals are is irrelevant, unless you can substantiate it with quotes from Singer himself.
------ "Darn floor. Big bite." (Koko the gorilla's best attempt at explaining the experience of an earthquake.)
Ppl are saying that you have absolutely no idea how the child is going to turn out, they might be genius that will contribute greatly to society, or they might place immense strain on their family and associates.
Why not extend the abortion period? Say 15 years or so. "welp, sorry mate, you just didn't turn out right." Just give parents the right to kill their kids willy-nilly, and we might beat the population problem down.
Anyway, by that time you might have a good idea whether you want to keep him/her, and you might have gotten some good labour out of the kid.
M.
Unfortunately, it seems like this is a social science question, and we all know how full of idiocy and slippery conditions those are. So I'll go out on a limb and propose a few things below:
- Only humans deserve "human rights."
- Others deserve a more limited set of rights, which should be wrangled over somewhere.
- We need to determine who's human and who isn't.
- There's a (semi-crude) test for "humanity" that's so general it even applies to machines.
- Give every person over the age of 4 a Turing test. If they pass, they get full human rights. If not.... ????
4 was an arbitrary number, chosen because most human children know a big subset of one human language at that time. People whose minds work will be able to pass the test; people whose minds don't work won't. I'd say that those who don't pass should get at least the same rights as, say, a pet animal.(Let the flaming commence.)
Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.
- It is the ones who would prohibit this procedure who created that label. It is deliberately pejorative. The medically correct term is Intact Dilation and Extraction (intact, compared to the previous best-practice technique which involves slicing the fetus up in utero and removing it in pieces). Notice that the anti's never mention the gruesome nature of the alternative, or the danger to the woman of having sharp instruments poking around inside her.
- There isn't a birth involved in a "PBA" (ID&E). No contractions, no natural dilation.
- Abortions done late enough to require this procedure are almost always the consequence of heartbreaking tragedies. Fetuses so deformed they cannot survive, parents trying desperately for a child and their best chance is to avoid the complications of a full-term pregnancy and try again right away. This is true "family values"... and these are the people demonized by the anti's!
Just like gay-bashers often having suppressed homosexual feelings, sometimes the people pointing at other people and calling them monsters are monsters themselves.--
Deja Moo: The feeling that
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
The real irony here is that our present knee-jerk response to infanticide is unique to our time. In the past, when our standard of living was lower, children weren't recognized as humans -- read any anthropology text if you don't believe me; just learn _some_ history. Until a child had grown to 8 or 10 years old, (and thus passed through the most dangerous part of life, disease-wise) he or she was not given a 'real' name, they weren't really considered members of the family, and they weren't buried with the family. Specifics vary from culture to culture, but the concept is true everywhere there's a high infant mortality rate. Just a few decades ago, India still gave names to children when they had passed their first 7-8 years. France didn't have a word for infant until the middle of the 19th century. Even here in America, until the 1950's, stillborn babies below a certain weight didn't need records -- they just threw the corpse out.
But I digress. My only point here is that the morals of our time are not the only morals, nor have they always been as they are now. Think about it.
If a dog is in extreme pain and you know it will die in a month, you put it out of its pain. A baby on the other hand, you go to any means necessary to preserve its life..Even if it will never live a year, or be conscious. Its odd in a country where so much murder occurs we seem to hold the value of human life so high that it causes suffering. Singer makes some interesting points in his books.. For example a 2 week old baby barely qualifies as sentient, a dog has more understanding of its environment and personality. Now those of you who say 'but it will become a human' or 'it is a human' then one must abandon abortion since the idea that its ok to end its life inside the womb but not out is just silly.
The deliberate killing of severely handicapped newborns (and of people of all ages) has been going on since before time began. It has been done for more reasons than can be counted. It will always go on. Another form of it is when the insurance company won't pay for preventative medical costs but will pay for treatment after you get a disease. Anyway, you all are taking the easy way out to imagine that a good example of this is a kid born with four toes on each foot. A good example of this is a kid born with a body completely covered with hair, or with two heads, or with three legs. Nature is just not aware of our idea that things can be perfected. We are not meant to liver forever. We have the option of killing those who ask for it or those who are born with so many strikes against them that there is no way their lives will ever enjoy any kind of happiness. I know, who am I to make that decision? Well, I'm the one who made the decision to create the life in the first place. If I can decide to create lives, I can decide to kill a newborn who is not born with the health to do anything in the world except suffer. I am more moral any day of the week than you who decide that a life filled with unremedial suffering is to be prolonged. Singer is right.
does anyone have this sicko's e-mail address? i'd like to write a nice letter to him . . .
--
Deja Moo: The feeling that
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Just a quick point -
Hawking developed ALS in the 1970's. He wasn't born with any disabilities if I remember correctly.
People, especialy childeren,that are "handicaped" are very difficult to deal with, but they can be taught. Simply just saing "NO" to them when they do something bad will teach them not to do it again. I know 3 people with a "handicap" that are very under control. Geting rid of them is NOT nor will it EVER be the answer.
What about him? He got ALS later on in life, so any choice of euthanasia would have been his, not his parents'.
You should probably at least read his stuff before you begin spamming people.
In one of his short stories (I don't remember the name and I'm not at home so I can't look it up), PKD described a future society in which children weren't considered human until their brain functioning had reached the point where they could pass a certain mathematics test. Up until that point, they could be "aborted" at will. Is that where we're headed?
No sig? Sigh...
She told me herself that life isn't bad, but given the pain and other consequences of her condition she felt she would have been happier overall if she had not been born. I cannot argue with that. And given that a fetus or infant has no ability to make the decisions involved, I have to stand up for the rights of parents to choose what is best for their own family.
--
Deja Moo: The feeling that
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
There's no requirements for people to be parents and "create" life, everybody have the "right".
However they don't have the right to take that life.
The rules of our society prohibits the latter, but for some of the people who becomes parents, even the former should be forbidden.
Who's most poor ?
The handicapped child with the almost non-functional brain.
The starving Ethiopian, or
the (black?) American born in a gang-ruled LA ghetto ?
Clearly, killing off handicapped children seems to be more a matter of saving the parents, (than the child,) from suffering.
..for that oversight. Please insert the word "many" right before "vegans". In a post this long, however, I'm bound to make mistakes like these. *sigh*
Even if I were to agree with you, which I don't, having never been a plant, I can safely we say "we don't know anything for sure about what it's like to be a plant". People who haven't been raped can't even understand what it's like to be a rape victim. They can say they do, but do they truly understand ? I think not. Therefore, it seems a little.. well. It seems untoward to assume one can assume what it's like to be a plant. Humans don't even fully understand how the human brain functions.
Besides which, to me, most ethical concerns are largely religious concerns. Most religious seem to agree on the notion that humans have souls. Is there proof to back this up? No. Even if it were true, is there proof that other life forms don't have souls? No. Perhaps plants have souls and their souls allow them to feel? No way to know for sure. We're not plants.
However.. as I stated more clearly farther down in the article, I could care less one way or the other if someone is vegan. It's their choice. To me, neither choice is any more "ethical" than the other.
~ Kish
What a fine picture of atheism you paint. "Weak-minded xtians" sounds a lot like "Low-life Jews." Kill the retards? Only the little children declared "normal" by science and atheism have the right to live?
Just what is suffering by your definition, anyway?
I don't think I have ever read such incredible selfishness before. But I think I can understand what must have gone through the minds of Hitler, and Pol Pot, and the Leaders of the Shining Path, and the various Death Squads still roaming Latin America and other areas of the world. It must be very similar to what I am seeing in your post.
Perhaps suffering is physical pain. To me, greater suffering is knowing I am of no value to the world as a human being. Knowing that only the genetically superior can rationally claim the right to live, and hence their only value to society.
How can a handicapped child ever know she is suffering, having never known anything differet? How can you ever be really sure you are happy, having never felt real sadness? How can there be pleasure if you have never experienced pain?
And the atheist claims that human reasoning is the only absolute in the universe, having never felt faith.
Tell me, who is disillusioned? I'd rather live as a retarded Christian than be in the bodage of fanatic atheism. You bring shame on your fellow atheists who do not share your views, and damage their cause.
I'm damn glad people like you are the Minority, and I hope that we never see people like this in power in the United States.
All the discussion about the effect on society and what it all means is a quaint exercise. But if a parent is so sure that they are incapable of providing for a handicapped child that they are willing to kill it rather than try... do you really want to force that parent to keep that kid based on some nebulous sociological theory? I've got a sociological theory for you -- it's better to have fewer screwed-up families in the world than more. A flippant attitude to a serious subject with deep ramifications, perhaps, but it works for me.
Peter Singer is a staunch utilitarian. Many philosophies have an idea of a highest good. For utilitarianism the highest good is happiness/pleasure. Not physical pleasure necessarily (John Stewart Mill argues that humans seek out intellectual pleasures and value them more highly). It's not happiness for the individual they're talking about either, it's average happiness. Everyone's pains and pleasures are weighed equally. The utilitarian maxim would be something like 'an action is right if (and only if) it tends to maximize overall happiness and avoid pain.'. Given this, humanely killing a critically deformed child would not even be questioned by Singer. The infant incures no pain. The parents incure pain at the loss of a child, but this pain is going to be outweighed by the fact that they will not suffer they're whole lives trying to keep a doomed offspring breating (read not LIVEing). It's a philosophy and Singer believes it absolutly. Philosophies (and people who adhere to them) such as Kantianism and Utilitarianism often upset people. Get used to it..it's not a bad thing. I'm only posting because it's very important to understand that this is not a random statement on Singers part...it has deep philosophical roots.
Ethics:The study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by the individual in his relationship with others.
Moral(s):Conforming to established standards of good and bad behavior; Rules or habits of conduct...
Responsib(le|ility): Involving personal accountability; Being a source or cause; Dependable, reliable. -American Heritage Dictionary
If you really grasp the definitions above, and measure these against what's being discussed here the issue becomes rather clear-cut. In order to kill a child you were responsible for bringing into the world, you would have to then make an irresponsible decision and act upon it. In other words, you would have to say, "I wasn't the cause of this child -- it wasn't my fault." At that point, you have just killed yourself, to some degree. Sex has a known set of consequences, just as pulling the trigger of a loaded gun in a crowded room has consequences, some consequences far worse than others. Accepted/refused responsibility for the consequences of one's actions to a greater or lesser degree is the point of life or death in an individual.
Too much attention and "philosophy" seems to be focused on fixing "effects" or consequences rather than finding underlying causes or sources. Killing a kid as a solution to a problem in the humanities is as 'replacing a fuse with a buss bar because it was always blowing' is to the physical sciences.
Bio"ethics" is going to be oxymoronic until the above definitions are understood in all their ramifications by those who are the "authorities" on the subject and presume to teach others about it.
--Time wounds all heels. --R.A. Heinlein
It seems to me that most people posting on this are arguing that society should allow the parents to euthanize their "severly handicapped child." But, what about parents that don't want to? There have also been posts by parents who have told us about their own children who would have been euthanized under this system, but were not, and ended up leading a "normal" (or close to) life.
What concerns me is that, if this practise is allowed, will parents be also able to still choose NOT to euthanize these infants. I, personally, am against this practise and would not choose it for my own child, but I can understand why someone would. If I allow them to euthanize their child, will they allow me to keep mine alive?
Maybe I've just read/watched too much science fiction (Gattaca and a certain Star Trek episode come to mind), but if we create a choice, we have to see that it remains a CHOICE between at least 2 alternatives.
What hubris it is for humans to even dare suggest that they are indeed exempt from natural selection. Do you think that out in the wild parents (read: animals) allow their offspring to go on living if it is clear that they can not fend for themselves? Clearly not. Only the strong survive. This is the natural way of things. The only thing that separates humans from the natural world is their disgusting way of thinking.
I think that it is perfectly in tune with our "nature" for human parents, or for humans in general, to care for those who cannot care for themselves. It's called "compassion."
"Natural selection" does not go anywhere near explaining why we do what we do, so I wouldn't hold it up as an idol we must submit to.
------ "Darn floor. Big bite." (Koko the gorilla's best attempt at explaining the experience of an earthquake.)
The problem with human beings is that we've removed ourselves from the natural loop. In every case, those natural forces that keep other species healthy, fit, and continuously evolving have been short circuited by man.
Natural Selection, the Darwinian force, is no longer an issue for us. Genetic disease runs rampant. We have the power, through medical science, to keep even the most terribly afflicted alive and suffering.
Starvation, while still a problem in some regions, is being overcome. We can bend nature to our will and turn a cow into a milk-making machine. We can hydroponically grow nearly anything. If you're hungry in this world, it's only through enormously bad luck. Even in those places where starvation is still a problem, it obviously hasn't interrupted the breeding cycle. We're immune to overcrowding now.
Natural disasters take out a goodly number of humans every so often, but the rest of humanity rushes to the scene. Through massive state funded reconstruction efforts we can maintain livable conditions in even the worst ravaged areas.
Morals... Anything that could possibly carry this species closer to godhead is held back by morality. It's been happening since the dark ages; Galileo et. al..
Why is it that a commedian can scream out loud "It's time to thin the herd! It's time to stop rewarding stupidity!" and the crowd laughs, applauds, and AGREES, but a scientist who considers the ethics of the commedian's reasoning is branded as immoral? Has the global consciousness been so damaged by the actions of a few madmen that we can no longer even consider the possibility that not everyone is fit to survive? Why not take the classic jokes seriously: How come you need a license to drive but any idiot can become a parent?
In the movie Gattaca, a world was presented where there was no excuse for weakness. No genetic predisposition towards heart failure, madness, bigotry, violence, addiction, and a host of other conditions. The trend in the movie was not towards killing the weak, but preventing them from being born at all. The supposed reward for the rest of humanity was in science and the arts; humans on the moons of Jupiter, six fingered pianists, etc..
Even with rewards like these dangling in front of our noses, we can't admit that what we really want - global cosmic justice - can't be attained. We continually block genetic research on moral grounds. We are afraid, when we know that fear is useless and only ACTION gets results.
It's about time to stop bowing to religion when we know that we're approaching godhead. It's time to conquer our bodies and our minds.
Is it time to thin the herd?
--Threed
A decision to euthanize is not necessarily a decision without regard to our 'human factor', as you like to call it. If the greater good is to care for one thousand people, rather than dwindling it away on one retarded invidivual, I wouldn't say this is ignoring our humanity. Decisions of this gravity are made all the time, the primary difference in this case is that it demands a positive act -- the baby must be euthanized.
Futhermore, I believe that Singer's position is more than just mere disability, there is an extra condition in there as to the persons' mental and emotional capacity. I personally believe a human is more than just flesh and bones. If the person is effectively incapable of human communication, thought, reason, etc; why insist that it is on par with the rest of humanity?
I also take issue with the argument that we technically can provide sufficient care for both. Many people are all too willing to espouse such views, but I find that when push comes to shove most people are unwilling to ante-up (eg: sacrifice their career to sponge bath such people -- even family).
Even if in modern society it is technically possible, given our current economic state, it isn't necessarily economically sustainable. If taxes are high enough, or if you start to tax the 'rich' excessively, you may find that the 'rich' loose their incentive to create new industries...and as a result the rest of the economy falls back -- people suffer even more.
Finally, you must acknowledge that we humans are never going to be absolutely willing to make such sacrifices. Given this knowledge, how can you in good conscious bring a creature into existence if it is only going to suffer. The decision to abort/euthanize, does not necessarily mean that it was done without regard to humanity.
I can see why many people find such reasoning frightning, as it enters grey areas and might possibly lead to other more distateful acts. But I don't think these arguments are sufficient to totally abandon logic and reasoning. If I were to make such a decision, I would want more facts (eg: economics, costs, physical and mental capacity, etc etc etc).
You know, I wouldn't worry about Dr. Singer so much if he was a lone crackpot. The trouble is (as is shown already on this Slashdot discussion) that so many people are willing to go along with this nonsense. Pope John Paul II is right to warn that we have a "Culture of Death", where our answer to problems is to simply kill. [No, I am not Catholic; however, I believe JPII is absolutely correct about this.]
This is exactly what the pro-life movement has been warning about for decades now. I can date my conversion to a pro-life viewpoint pretty exactly; it was when, as part of a "bio-ethics" class, I was exposed to the viewpoints of Joseph Fletcher, Peter Singer's predecessor in such positions as the alleged morality of infanticide. I hadn't really thought about abortion very much, but I concluded that, if there was such a consensus about the fact that there really isn't any ethical difference between a fetus and a baby, that there is no magic moral pixie dust that confers personhood and humanity by a trip out of the uterus (something Singer and Fletcher would agree with), then either we arrive at a viewpoint where, if human life is sacred at all, we must treat life in the womb as sacred, or else humans are simply animals that may be killed when they are too much trouble, and there is no logical reason not to kill unwanted children, or unhappy and unwanted old people, or anyone that enough of us feel are inconvenient.
The only reason that Singer stands out is that he boldly embraces and proclaims this logical conclusion, rather than stopping short of it. So the man is not a hypocrite. I don't consider this much of a virtue. I'd rather have a person who is hypocritical and inconsistant in refusing to follow a bad premise through to clearly evil ends, than someone who in the name of "boldness" or "consistancy" or "integrity" follows through a bad premise to consistantly evil ends.
(Side note -- I'm bothered by the subtle and not-so-subtle ad hominem attacks going on here. It seems as if, according to Dr. Shapiro, Roblimo, and the majority of Slashdotters, that by definition anyone who holds to the traditional Christian position that it's simply wrong to kill children, or anyone else, because they are "defective" by some standard is "unthinking", whereas anyone who's willing to entertain Dr. Singer's philosophy is by definition an intellectual. This is nothing more than name-calling.)
At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, I would like to know how this differs in any essential way from Nazi philosophy. The Nazis declared that ceratin people were defective, and therefore that killing them was not an immoral act, since they weren't really "human" or "people" anyway. Singer is saying the same thing, he's simply replaced "Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and anyone who doesn't get along well with the Third Reich" with "children of any race who don't measure up phyically and mentally, or whose life might cause their parents too much suffering."
I propose a simple alternative philosophy. It's not new, but neither is Singer's. It is this: that human life is sacred. It is sacred because it is a gift of God, and we are made in His image. It is a gift, and therefore we have it by simply being born into this world. As a gift, we do not earn it by being smart enough, or fit enough, or pain-free enough. We simply have it, and to deny this is to deny legitimate human freedom and dignity.
might deprive the human race of the next Einstein or Hawking
Why is it that when we place a value on a human life, we measure it by intellectual achievement? Maybe a baby with severe mental or physical challenges can help its parents to know love. Or maybe help a stranger to know humility.
I think what is dangerous about a law that would allow termination of infants due to genetic "defects" is what are the "defects". Some people allude to the "wrong color eyes or hair".
Here's some other examples that may hit close to home... Some genetic scientists say that drug addiction is predetermined by DNA. I have heard some gay people tell me that they are "naturally gay". Perhaps there is a genetic connection there too. Maybe if we look deep enough into the human genome, we will find those DNA strands that make someone an asshole (or a geek) too.
Once we take the step to accept killing infants with horrible physical challenges, how much farther of a step is it for us to advocate killing drug addicts, gay people and assholes? I'll bet there's a strand in our DNA that causes us to be rebellious... I say if we look for the love within all of us, we'll find the tax money to support these lives.
Well, once again, I am underwhelmed by the slashdotters inability to see to the core of the issue.
The thing is, as most of the Able-bodied forget, that disabled folks are HUMAN BEINGS, with human feelings and desires.
It is easy to look at a disabled person and see only the equipment that helps them stay mobile or keeps them alive. thats certainly all the average person does. But this does not make the sum total of a person's being, and this kind of dehumanization is the sort of thing that allows for the genocide of entire minorities.
The Nazis certainly had a similar set of principles that told them why it was sensible, from a eugenics point of view, to eliminate the handicapped, homosexuals, Jews and Gypsies. Their science said that they were inferior, after all.
The hole you are looking into goes a lot further down than you are seeing.
I guarantee to all of you, that your opinion on what to do with the disabled will change when it is YOU with the spinal cord injury.
Yes, this is an angry post. But that is the only way to react when you see your people being oppressed. The disabled are my people. We will not stand by and allow ourselves to be exterminated at birth. Just as we have forced an unwilling society to allow us into your public buildings, your public transportation, protected those of us that refused to go into nursing homes, we will protect the children too. The ones with Spinabifida, Multiple Sclerosis, Cerebral Palsy, Muscular Distrophy, and many other conditions. We will not LET you kill them, for they are our brothers and sisters.
Why not ask the people who actually LIVE with disability what they think?
--M
--"You can lead a man to knowledge, but you can't make him think."
If we were to start killing those children that were born different wouldn't that hinder evolution? And how 'imperfect' need a child be? Would the so-called shadow forms of autism that supposedly many nerds suffer from be okay? If you are born female in China that is considered imperfect. Think of the time I waste trying to convince others that my ethical ideas are correct, what a waste of my precious time. It would save me a lot of time if I just killed those who disagreed with me.
-Matt
What we have here is a failure of imagination. He can't think of a fate worse than suffering. What's more, he would have to kill everyone to get rid of it all. Short of that, what threshold would he set? Why not set it a little lower?
Why are people who don't believe in God so eager to play God?
>How old is this particular NAZI puke? Could he be the same one, or does Princeton have an ongoing tradition of avocoating crimes against humanity?
Crimes _against_ humanity? If anything, he is providing a service to humanity by suggesting that we help further advance the human species by weeding the gene pool.
Nice to see the eugenicists are back.
>But their decision ought to be the true decision. I don't think so. Because somewhere you have to draw the line. Is blindness a reason to be murdered?
/J - to know recursion you must first know recursion
This is, in some ways, a bit like the "partial birth abortion" debate. Third trimester abortions are NOT done in this country unless there is a severe risk to the life of the mother, or the infant is not viable (ie is going to be born without a large portion of its brain). It does, however, make a nice strawman for those who are against abortion. And I *do* think that in the case of a VERY severe handicap, in some cases it is kinder to let the child die. It's easier on the child, it's easier on the parents, and it's easier on society as a whole.
BUT
Which brings me to my next point: There are "severe disabilities" that are NOT apparent at birth. How old can the child become and still have the parents allowed to kill him, or at least to "let him die"? One year old? Five? Thirteen? Seventeen?
Last but not least, I am bisexual. My housemate is gay. If a "gay gene" is ever found, those who consider us "undesirable" might engage in selective abortion or infanticide. This gives me the chills on a very irrational, personal level. Likewise, I know that in ancient Scandanavia and in modern China, babies are killed or left to die for the "defect" of being female. Since I'm female, this does not sit well with me at all. "But those abuses won't happen!" How do you know that?
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Point #2 is invalid unless you can supply proof by pointing to the actual genome(s).
An argument cannot be made on the basis that all other complex organisms behave in a similar fashion.
Take, for example, the North American Buffalo. Upon giving birth to a new calf, if the calf cannot (or refuses) to walk after a day, the mother leaves it to die. Assuming your argument was based on facts from other specie behavior, we would want to think that the maternal parent of this calf would stay with its calf to protect and guard it from danger until it finally wasted away on its own.
Second comment: A lot of tests can be done on the fetus before its born, if one of these test was found to provide conclusive evidence of the fetus being handicapped, is abortion ok?
Just some things to think about.
-Vel
This page is so heavily hitted that I doubt my post will be read, moderated up or down. Just want to throw in my two cents worth.
:)
I read the comments in full nested more and I noticed that most atheist-related post are moderated like it has been in many slashdot pages. Like there is a strong correlation between geek-mentality, pure logical thinking, and atheism. I can see why: logics has nothing to do with humanity, ethics, spirituality, and emotion. To factor them in our decisions may seem illogical and wasteful but to deny them is to deny to human aspect of us. This includes the belief of a higher power.
If we continue to make policy without the human factor, I can see where this leads to:
1. Killing infants for economic reasons. We already allow abortion. Now we want to kill them because they are 'defective' and serve to purpose in a society. What's next? If we don't have enough money to spent on new Athlon, Itaniums and other precious goods, we can better finance them if we have two children instead of three?
2. Killing/Eating unproductive member of the society. Instead of spending money to put them into prisons or elderly care. Why don't we just recycle their organic material for a better model. We should take care of the homeless too... They do nothing but eat up our food supply and spreading diseases.
3. Manufacture prostitutes. forget marriage and relationships! What kind of girl you want to screw around with? Somebody with big boobs and tight openings? Doesn't that model you see on the streets really captivate you? We can have for you in a year thanks to our accelerate growth process. Do you want options? Red hair? brown hair? blue hair? Do you want it extra broad shoulders? You want her to look like your sister? Do you have gene we can base our model with?
4. Let's suck our earth resources dry... we are not going to be around forever anyway so why bother.
Maybe I need to get something eat. I'm off for lunch. Take care, yall.
Hasdi
see TNT Animal Farm, you GNU 'communist'!
Aye aye sir, I'll get right on it!
Hmmm, logical. Yes, I'll grant that this proposal is indeed logical for extreme cases of disability. And the logic works on at least three levels that I can think of right off the bat.
Yes, all very logical.
And the ability to reason is one of the key things that distinguishes humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. However, another key difference is our capacity for emotion. The emotional arguments must also be considered, and that is when the waters get muddied just a whole heap. I have to admit that, for me, the emotional arguments are very hard to argue either for or against (partially because I do not hold very strong religious beliefs).
Basically, I have to cop out and say that there is no easy answer to this issue. A solely logical approach would be just as terrifying as a solely emotive approach.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
I think jflynn has some good points here. Yes, the choice to euthanize an infant would be a very difficult one; but in extreme cases, where there is no real hope of the child being able to experience life and enjoy it -- whether it be due to extreme mental retardation, or a physical disorder that promises a life of pain -- I think the parents should have that option. In addition to the physician, I think there should be some sort of counselor trained in helping families cope with children with disabilities, to give the parents an idea of what taking care of the child would entail, both physically and emotionally.
Again, I agree. As much as I don't like the government saying what we can and cannot do, there do need to be some guidelines, with a skilled evaluation performed by an expert (or experts) in the area(s) of the child's disabilities.
The society must not _play_ God, it must _obey_ God. That's why that Bible was written, to know what the Rules are.
>A severely handicaped child is one that can't live without continuous high-effort medical aid, and even then has a severely reduced live expectation
I disagree, the only real criteria is potential intelligence. All physical deformities are irrelevant. Just like S. Hawking shows, a perfectlly functioning, intelligent mind can be housed in a horribly malfunctioning body. As far as I am concerned the body is just a machine under the direct control, and an extension of, the mind. Bodies can be fixed, diseases can be cured, minds cannot be "fixed".
Singer seems to be advocating the position that these decisions are best left to the new parents, and not society at large. Unfortunately it is not currently that easy, we need to first find the moral ground on which these decisions can be made. Hopfully we can reach a consensus on what the correct moral standing is (not that mob rule makes any moral belief system any more right or wrong) on this issue and then act on it.
RE: Morals. Personally I believe that morals are very near absolute fact, with very few loopholes and interpretation required. I also believe that at some time in the future they will become mathematical, scientifically proven fact, for all to see and evaluate. I don't believe we currently have the know-how or tools to objectively determine a moral code, but I hope we are mature enough in the future to do so.
I believe the Scientific Method (Science!=Technology it's a method darnit!) can solve any problem thrown at it, if it is used wholeheartedly and with logical detachment.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
Agreed--a healthy and productive society and culture can not be maintained whilst stifling free questioning and thinking.
/. for raising the issue and prompting me to think about it.
I support euthanasia regarding sentient beings choosing it for themselves. I haven't formed a conclusion yet for the case that one person decides it for another--thank you
On one thing I am very certain, however. Euthanasia of any sort should not be legal until it is very certain that the threat of socialized health care has passed. Given Hillary's history of pursuing social health care in the US, and given her current bid for voter-sanctioned political power, I'm afraid that that time is far away.
If we had any semblence of social health care AND permitted euthanasia, it would follow too easily that government policies would affect euthanasia decisions. Perhaps the politicians would be bright enough not to sieze the power overtly. But imagine that government-administrated health care largely replaces our current lot, and the politicians decide that 5cc of euthanizing chemicals are covered, but very expensive corrective operations are not. And worse, because corrective operations are not covered, all research to develop them ceases.
Certainly the issue needs to be debated. But on a practical level, many other aspects of our society need to change before such a thing can be brought to fruition, if it is to ever be. At the very least Americans pressing the government with their pathological sense of entitlement to health care needs to stop.
---------
Once in a while you get shown the light,
---------
Once in a while you get shown the light,
In the strangest of places, when you look at it right -
For years my friends in alt.tasteless have had almost this same exact idea. Except we stretch it a little and make it include all tards, stupid-ass trash, and things that even Vomit Boy himself wouldn't cohabitate with [very few things..].
KILL THE TARD SPROGS
The geek crowd endorses Nazi Germany style handling of "lesser" people than themselves (starting with retarded babies). Why was I *not* surprised at all of this? You people forget real fast the lessons you learned in high school about how people picked on nerds, now you've found someone smaller and more helpless to kill. Great job hypocrites. Maybe someone 100 IQ points smarter than you should hoist you by your own petards. And mega kudos to the atheist guy in this thread who didn't need religion to justify the value of a human life. I really hope Generation X never rises to power because if they do then Hitler and the Holocaust would pale in comparison. You're a bunch of cold blooded murderers.
There realy shouldn't be any replies to this. Everyone will have a different set of answers to this, so don't bother posting them.
Before you can consider the killing (and I use that word because because euphemisms will only hinder this debate) of other people, we should first form out own opinions on euthanasia and suicide.
Ask youself, if you were in a position that you would never enjoy life again, would you go on, or would you want to end it? Not just terminal cancer and the like, but if you were injured in the wilderness with no hope of rescue, what would you do?
What would you do if a close friend or relative was in a similar position? would you help them if they decided to kill them selves?
What is the difference between suicide and euthanasia? When is someout not justified in killing themselves?
these questions need to be asked before you can ask the questions posed in the article.
Democracy isn't about no one telling you what to do. It's about everyone telling you what to do.
To your first point: As I said, I misworded my statement. Besides, it is effectively impossible to avoid any blatant generalization whatsoever throughout the course of everyday speech. Or would you care to disagree with that notion?
As for your second point: I never said it was impossible to subsist on vegetables. It's obviously quite possible. The problem being, it's a little more difficult. Unsurprising, since most people who don't choose that lifestyle can't keep themselves healthy, anyway. That you are actually informed enough to avoid that pitfall is highly commendable.
In short, your proposed notion is incorrect. I am operating under no such misconception, and as such, feel no need to elaborate further on the point.
You should always question what we "know". Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Egyptians not "know" what the brain was for? They thought vital organs such as the heart to be very important, but could not divine the purpose of the brain. Didn't they think it was worthless? Clearly we think such a thing laugable.. now.. Who's to say that plants do not have some mechanism by which they feel pain? What will we "know" twenty or thirty years from now?
I'm not really refuting what is "probable". I'm talking about what is "possible". Besides which, what is "probable" depends strongly upon what we "know".
This all appeals to the idea that ethical concerns such as this even make sense. Where does one draw the line for this kind of thing? Are carnivorous animals "evil" or "wrong" for eating other animals? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that whenever a wolf or a lion decides to attack something, they (the prey) are going to survive a little longer and feel a little more pain than the relatively quick and painless death a human could deal out to an animal (which is not to say that such is always the case.. though if you're going to slaughter an animal for food, or whatever, it seems to make the most sense to do it as painlessly as possible.. there's really no point in causing it to suffer any more than it has to).
Point being, I'm not concerned with ethical concerns, nor am I arguing with the idea of whether or not it is "right" to be a vegan. I don't care if anyone is a vegan or not. And I don't see any point in involving ethics in such a decision, because to me, such ethical reasoning is inherently flawed. Those are my opinions. I see no further need to argue these points, however. I believe we've covered the relavent ground. So, to each his (or her) own.
~ Kish
I see the issue as being "when does a lump of cells stop being a lump of cells and become a human life?" For instance, if you're a pro-choice American like many of us are, you probably think that a zygote is not a person, but a born baby is. If you're willing to accept that a zygote may not be human, what makes you think that a born baby necessarily is? If we define being human as "possessing a human conciousness" then I can see it being entierly possible that very young infants don't possess one, and therefore, killing them would not technically be murder, disabled or not.
Singer has been advocating this for years, it's hardly breaking news. (See his book Practical Ethics, for example.)
Well, considering that there are 257 comments on this story as I write this, I'd say that a lot of people on Slashdot feel that it is worth debating. Most of the comments I have seen are well thought out. Like Roblimo, geeks are great at debating things that most people just react violently to. I feel that this most definitely belongs here.
I'm going to bring up a historical point. This all sounds a bit benevolent (keep people with disabilities from having to suffer life in our society), if you choose to blatently ignore the ethical shortcomings of such a policy.
Then you open your history text book to 1930s Germany, when euthenasia of disabled children was allowed by Hitler. The result was families who lost thousands of children. It resulted in the clinical murder of Jews, Poles (a nation the Nazis favored with their worst tendencies), and many others. Read about what happened to thousands of disabled children who were sent to hospitals to care for them. Read about how many of them died soon after their arrival, with "measles" or some other deadly disease listed as the cause of death.
More often, it was a doctor and a needle full of poison.
To advocate the euthenasia of children because they were born with disabilities is not only wrong, but appalling. What does it say about our society? What will we do next? Advocate the sterilization of anyone who has a genetic predisposition for diabetes, or MS?
Although I am not a parent, I know that if I fathered a child who was disabled, I would do everything I could to care for that child. Its who I am, its the right thing to do. Not quietly ask a doctor to inject an overdose of morphine.
If Stephen Hawking was euthanized as a child (granted he wasn't born with his illness... not in it's worst stages) the scientific community would not have the insight into the universe that his genius has given us.
Luckily he was born relatively normal.
Parents should consider long and hard if the only reason they are going to euthanize a child is because they feel that the child may be physically maladjusted for our society. There is no reason to assume that the child, were it "normal", would even want to live in today's norms, maybe it would want to be a recluse....
basically the parents are deciding if THEY want to deal with the burden of raising a child who will not coincide peacefully with our society.
In this case, if doctors were to be able to figure out a fetus' social opinions or orientation, would the parents have the right to euthanize the child if he were not to become what they desired, or if he were to become a recluse?
Eugenics of this sort could also work against the survival of the species. Sometimes a 'defect' may give a person a better chance of survival than a 'normal' person. An example is sickle cell aneamea which is eventualy fatal but provides some resistance to malaria which is more rapidly fatal, thus improving the viability of the population in a Malaria rich environment.
I see that, but nobody is suggesting you kill everybody who has sickle cell aneamea (at least I don't think anybody is). But if somebody is so disabled that they can't do anything for themselves how is keeping them alive going to be of use to anybody? Eugenics is one of the best examples of a slippery slope we have. In general society has chosen not to venture on to that slope. I just don't see why society should have to pay the cost of caring for somebody who has never been and never will be a benefit to society.
Why is the ability to take care of oneself equated with the ability to make a contribution to society? I don't see a connection at all. The obvious counterexample is Stephen Hawking- clearly he cannot take care of himself due to gross and costly physical disability. Now, would you care to make his contribution to society for him so we can put 'im down? Go on, knock yourself out- you can do it! :P
My own take on the difference between infanticide/culling and abortion is this- abortion is a woman saying "Whoa! I DID NOT WISH to do this. At all. I never made a decision to bring a life into the world and I'm not prepared/equipped to cope with that, no matter what the baby would be like. Stop!" I also feel, if you're going to do that, best do it as early as possible.
I don't think 'intelligent' culling of the human herd is a reasonable plan. It is a severely stupid and shortsighted plan, because few people advocating it believe in any sort of higher authority that can pass judgement on what's worthwhile and what's not. The inevitable result of this lack of judgement would be babies destroyed because they would have missing fingers, babies destroyed because they were female (but a better story would be made up), babies destroyed once someone figures out how to predict that the baby would probably be a computer geek, etc etc. These decisions would not be _made_ by educated, wise people. They'd be made by just random people, some of whom will be unreasonable. The result would be a great deal of abuse of the system.
Yes, its that shocking thought we all have at one point...usually when we're about 10yrs old..
Most of this has been covered. Perhaps you should read this entire thread before posting more comments? I'll stick to the things that have had little coverage so far.
Do I care what you believe to be qualifications for being a "genius"? No. Did you miss the entire rationale for why I called him a genius? Obviously. Try reading my post.. again.
Since you don't seem to comprehend anything other than the most direct and base of speech, let me enlighten you of my opinion: You are an idiot. You are reading too much into what I am saying. This is not what I was implying. I was implying nothing, actually. There is no implicit meaning. You obviously chose to overlook the explicit meaning in order to hunt for ways to attack my arguement because the rest of your arguements against mine are an indication of utter cluelessness.
It means.. precisely.. what it says.. Or is that too much for you to grasp? I don't give a fuck if you think the same as I do. I simply believe people should actually ponder the facts of the matter before throwing their opinions into an arguement and attempting to support them as facts, as you have done throughout your post.
~ Kish
Peter Singer is also featured in the "That's Outrageous" column of the October 1999 issue of Reader's Digest.
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Now, certainly the fact that Peter Singer is Australian does not mean that ALL (or even ANY) Aussies agree with him, but I find it interesting considering Austrailia's recent decision to enforce mandatory Internet censorship.
Some interesting questions....
Who gets to decide the official measure of a "defect"? Heart problems? Deformed limbs? Nearsighted eyes?
Doesn't it assume that the condition (which cannot be treated today) will not be solved by the time it affects the life of the infant? Back in the early 1990's, this principle could have been used to "eliminate" AIDS but, whoops, there are drugs now that can slow the disease down to a crawl.
Why does it matter in societies that legalize abortion? Are we saying that women can eliminate a baby from the population because "it's not the right time, it would affect my career" but not "I don't want to raise a mentally retarded child"? This means that parents must pretty much play deft and dumb when it comes to the progress of their developing child, less if they decide to have an abortion, they be accused of this form of euthanasia.
Facts are...I believe that while science can make general predictions, there are no absolute facts. The movie Gattaca makes this very point. No one can measure the potential of a child or account for future advancements of science.
But then again...this issue is really more about the subject of abortion (the killing of any developing child) than about euthanasia (the killing of a selected "misfortunate" child).
Just my OPINION...please treat it as such.
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Just so you know, you haven't exactly given a correct definition of a partial-birth abortion. You've made it sound like it's something that's done during or immediately following natural labor. Instead, it's a procedure for deliberately induced abortions - the woman's cervix is dilated and the fetus is partially removed from the womb so that it can be terminated (hence the term "partial-birth"). It's a mid-to-late-term abortion technique, banned in cases where they aren't necessary to save the life of the mother in about 20 states. It's also the procedure for removing a dead late-term fetus that isn't miscarrying properly...there's a lot of vigorous debate on the issue of PBAs, which you can read all about.
...having no clear recollection of my first year or two of life.
I did some checking and came across a diary I had kept when I was a newborn:
Day One -- Still tired from the move.
Day Two -- Everybody talks to me like I'm an idiot....
(Thank you, Steven Wright)
And you thought people felt strongly about abortion...
Yes, my apathy for my fellow humans is appalling.
But why should society as a whole expend the energy required to maintain an additional life, especially when there are already so damn many human beings, and when these individuals aren't going to be making positive contributions to the world around them?
People who get upset by views like mine and the professors have to realize that no one (except maybe some officials in China) is in any position to act on them.
-- VHEMT
I really don't think that this belongs here. Call me offtopic, blame me for ducking the question, but I'm here for tech news, tech thoughts, and a little bit of fun along the way. Not that other stuff doesn't creep in, but mostly we steer clear of stuff like this.
I remember a few years ago when sengan posted an article alleging that the US bombings of Iraq were an illegal event, and that touched off a huge firestorm. I can't imagine the flamewars here on this one.
Please, lets not make the flaming any worse than it already is!
tkr@brown.edu
Well, I can provide some anecdotes too...
But many vegans _do_ have problems, not due to a failure of veganism, but in the difficulty adapting to the lifestyle, the problems of finding common vegan nutrient sources in a carnivorous world, etc. You know this already.
A good friend of mine went vegan -- two weeks into it he passed out from protein shortfall. He's adjusted completely now, and he's modified his diet -- he'll eat shellfish because they can't feel pain; when he's in europe he'll have milk & eggs because the farms are more humane, etc. But I wonder how many vegans have major problems as well. I certainly hear enough horror stories, and people who couldn't keep on it either. And then we have mineral absorbtion problems (eg, iron from meat or iron from greens??); meat minerals usually have 2 orders of magnitude better absorbtion than greens or pill form, etc.
Well, anyhow, that's all for now. I'm not going to touch a conciousness thread to save my life.
ciao
I believe strongly that every living thing has a right to their own life, this encompasses both to live and to die by their own choosing.
But.
This does not cover everything and does not tell us how to suitably deal with others in society.
To have some idea to properly deal with ethics we need to have a solid humanity goal in mind, otherwise we are just fumbling in the dark for disjointed ideas. Religions tend to have goals such as individually getting to heaven. Evolution tends to point more towards creating better strength and intelligence.
I favour the latter. From there we can see that he has some interesting ideas to contribute, but it is important to keep in mind the existence of society, we do not live in isolation.
This is similar in some ways to racism, it is very bad on a personal and society level but it is a natural process of competition.
What is important is a clear understanding and a good balance.
We are one people. With one will. One resolve. One cause. We shall prevail!
Why should parents murder their disabled babies? I was born with multiple physical disabilities (Nager's syndrome), and my folks let me lived. I almost didn't make it either due to many problems I had (e.g. had to get a tracheostomy). I managed to live with my harsh handicaps for over 23 years, and living happily with my first full-time job (QA Manager & Web Developer).
I believe parents should let their babies survive and suffer. Everyone suffers. Disabled babies/people should be given a chance to live.
My 2 cents. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Which does bring up a burning question. Anencephalic infants cannot survive; many die before birth, and the rest are all dead within weeks. This is all due to failure of the skull and brain to form correctly; there is no cure.
Some women carrying anencephalic fetuses have tried to donate their organs. This has not happened yet, because hospitals refuse to take the organs before clinical death (the heart stops), and by the time the heart fails the organs have been damaged by lack of oxygen and cannot be transplanted. Meanwhile, other babies die for lack of hearts, livers and kidneys.
Should we:
- Define life as "natural circulation" and allow the current situation to continue?
- Define life as "presence of a living cerebral cortex" and allow parents to donate their anencephalic babies' organs immediately at birth?
- Define life as "conscious existence" a la Singer, decide that massive surgical intervention to save malformed newborns is too expensive for society to bear, and allow the parents of babies with biliary atresia (a fatal malformation of the liver) a choice between euthanasia or natural death? (Most babies with this problem die, due to lack of donor livers or rejection of transplants.)
- Other?
Sometimes there just aren't any easy choices.--
Deja Moo: The feeling that
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
The question really is who gets to decide what constitutes a disabled baby, and should they get that right? Is for instance blindness enough to disqualify a child, or what about 10%, or 50% healthy vision?
It's the difference between saying all women should have abortions in all cases and saying that all women should have the right to choose to have an abortion when they see fit; it's the difference between saying that everyone should use Linux all the time, and saying everyone should have the choice to use Linux when it best suits their needs.
The Slashdot headline is misleading and inappropriate.
Whan my wife was pregnant with our son (second child), her waters broke at just shy of 26 weeks and he was expected to be delivered shortly. My wife and I were discussing that if he did arrive early, should we allow him to die on his own if that was the way it was going to be (ie, minimal intervention) so that he wouldn't later in life suffer from any disabilities caused by his premature birth. Fortunatly, he held in there (with only bed rest, steroids (for his lungs, just in case) and lots of antibiotics (to prevent infection from the torn sack)) and wasn't born until 4 days before his due date (the sack closed up again). Mind you, he came out backwards, with a knot in his cord (which broke as the doctor was trying to extricate the placenta), and was rather blue (due to the knot), but only needed 6 hours of O2. He's been basicly fine since; if he suffered any brain damage, I'ld hate to see what he would have been like without it. He's a real terror @ 4 :), real geek material.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
If you want to call yourself a rational being, then if you're going to treat two creatures in a radically different way (one you kill and eat, the other you love and protect), you need a rational justification. Ethical anthrocentrism - i.e., giving additional ethical consideration to an organism solely because it is of the species Homo sapiens - is not such a justification, any more than ethical consideration based on race, gender, hair color, et cetera, would be.
And are you sure we're the dominant species? I think the cockroaches, or maybe cyanobacteria, might have a claim to better evolutionary fitness. Really, the idea of a "dominant species", or of a "food chain", doesn't jibe with how the ecosystem works. Species - yes, even ours - are interdependant, and we forget that at our peril.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
That's why we need AC posting.
The problem is that most people are in the grip of an irrational, non-utilitarian way of thinking that ignores the horrible consequences of inaction. I know that we have very strong intuitions against killing babies - I have them myself - but a previous poster was spot on in saying that the moral distinction between babies and foetuses is very shaky. In some cases, permitting a baby to live that would suffer horribly, cause others to suffer horribly, and not contribute anything to the world to make up for that suffering, is a monstrous decision. Yet those advocating infanticide are seen as the monsters. No, we are only being compassionate. It's monstrous to put people through so much suffering for no good purpose.
It's the fallacy of "the default option cannot be immoral, because it is the default" (the default option being letting the baby live). It's akin to saying "it cannot be immoral to eat meat, because that is the default option in our culture". The latter is not a rational argument for the former. If a billion people say a false thing, it is still false.
I wish someone would explain why infanticide is always morally worse than ANY amount of suffering.
Female Prison Rape in NY
This idea is bad from the beginning, and it will lead to worse ones if its allowed to be put into practice, it may start with just the killing of severly retarded children, but that will lead to the killing of any newborn with any kind of birth defect and from there will lead to the killing of any imperfect child for any from being near sighted to haveing a oversized birthmark! allowing the euthenizing of children because of mental or physical retardation will lead us down a road that 50 years ago we fought to destroy.
Ah, the slippery slope argument. Are you saying that society is so inept that it is incapable of implementing a policy that won't degenerate to the lowest level? There is capital punishment in the States and many countries. By your argument killing a serial murderer would lead to killing an accidental murderer then to killing a robber then killing a jaywalker. Has it?
Communism is the belief that we could eliminate poverty, hunger, warfare, and many other "bad things" if people worked together for the good of all.
I don't believe in communism, mostly because people suck. I don't exclude myself from that belief, either. I _know_ that if I lived in a communist society, I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning to go to work; I have trouble enough when my having a bed depends on getting out of bed.
But I get away from my point. Communism is NOT bad. Its the idea that a society can be beneficial for all involved. It doesn't work, but that doesn't make the IDEA a bad thing. Maybe someday, people will aspire to be greater than we are currently, and it WILL work. Maybe it will STILL be a bad thing.
The fact is, that the people in power in the USSR, (and historically, in China) have followed a policy that I would fight against with all my being; namely the belief that "IDEAS CAN BE DANGEROUS"
If you're not following me by this point, go, read "1984" by Orwell, and then come back.
There is a quote, and I'm sorry to say that I don't remember who said it, but it goes something along the lines of: "I would give my life to defend the rights of a man to shout at the top of his lungs that which I would spend my life arguing against." The original was more clear, and if anyone knows the exact quote, please share it.
I don't believe that anyone in power during the Red Scare actually was afraid of communism. It was merely a political tool; a way of getting the people worked up into a frenzy; mob rule which gave them almost unlimited power.
The symetry of the whole scheme, in retrospect, is that which the people feared so much, was EXACTLY the cause to which they were assisting!
My points are: Communism is not a bad thing. Ideas are a great thing. If hope is the best thing, _THINKING_ is not far behind it. Ideas lead to thinking, therefore censorship prohibits thinking. QED
>>>>>>>>>> Kvort
-Don't mind me, I'm personality-deficient and mentally-impaired.
There was an article in an australian newspaper the other day about peter singer (he is an australian). The article discussed how on one hand he advocated euthenasing the elderly who suck valuable dollars from international health budgets, but on the other hand, with his mother who is quite affected with Alzheimers disease he has recently travelled back to australia to put her in a top-notch nursing home ($$$) -- when questioned, he replied "what can i say - she is my mother"
response
It turns out that some of the most socially active and compassionate people are the parents of disabled children. Society would be weakened if it was considered socially inacceptable to accept the responsibility cast upon you by a disabled child.
I know a couple of people who were born with partial limbs due to thalidomide (sp?). When the big thalidomide scare was in progress, parents with "malformed" foetuses were often advised to have them aborted (by doctors). They were told that the children would have no quality of life and it was kinder to kill them at that stage.
Well, the two peeps I know are now in their 20s and very happy and successful.
Friends who have worked with the handicapped tell me that despite being restricted by communication abilities or learning difficulties, most people seem very happy.
It is too easy to think to ourselves, "Gosh, if I lost the use of my eyes I would rather die than go on like that."
A fair question does arise as to how reasonable it is to transpose those feelings onto someone else.
On the other hand, anyone who has seen/heard One by Metallica may well be able to understand this professor's attitude to the matter.
I think that the main difficulty in legislating for euthanasia is in control...what will count as severely disabled?...who should decide?...Are the parents' feelings of difficulty in coping with the child overriding the rights of the child who, with appropriate assistance, may well be very happy in life?
I'm not pro-life but do feel that there are serious questions that are difficult to cope with as regards the law.
In the Republic of Ireland, abortion is illegal. However, if a judge permits it, a pregnant woman may travel to another country for an abortion.
If the US were to introduce pro-euthansia legislation, how would it cope with parents from other countries bringing their children over to have them euthanised?
Many, many questions all round.
In English -- Existence without life. That was the mantra that a Nazi propaganda film used to justify the killing of the handicapped. As surely as it was wrong then, it should be deemed wrong now.
The highest good in eyes of humanistic thinkers has become the elimination of suffering in both the present and perceived future. I'm not sure whose suffering Singer is trying to limit in his vision of the world. Is it some sort of communal suffering that is caused by society having to bear the cost of caring for the person? Is it that the parents have to suffer because of the extra time and effort they put into caring for their child? Or is it the personal pain that the handicapped child may encounter through a difficult life? I would expect that Singer and others would place emphasis on society and the parent at the expense of the child. After all, if a baby in a mother's womb isn't a life until it is born in the court's eyes, why not extend it to newborns with limited functionality. It's a slippery slope we're on, and it sickens me to see the likes of Singer promoting it.
I was raised in a parochial school where we were taught abortion was a sin, but I don't think I really learned about the miracle of life until recently. Some friends of ours gave birth to a baby girl who was diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis. It's a rare genetic disorder which causes tumors. She was rushed to newborn intensive care immediately after she was born. Tests showed that she had an "exceptional" tumor on her heart, tumors behind her eyes, and a tumor on her brain. Aside from the fact that she needed ventillation, she looked like a normal baby.
After a week in the hospital, the baby was released to go home. It wasn't a week later before she was back in. In the middle of the night as she was crying, she had stopped breathing. The parents performed CPR, and she was rushed off to the hospital. She would remain there for two months, going through ups and downs. She grew and became strong enough to breathe on her own again. She was released from the hospital in early August and hasn't had to return since then.
Despite the fact that she spent days on ventilation and underwent two exploratory surgeries, she is a very happy baby. The parents have been through a lot of emotional suffering, too, but after all of this, they say that they do not regret what they have been through. It has made them stronger people, and they have developed a stronger bond with their baby daughter.
Singer should get off of his high horse, get out of his ivory tower, and live life a little before trying to draw up some euthanistic utopia where no suffering exists!
-- P.J.
> Your arguement in regards to replacing words isn't what that man said.
So, what's the difference?
> We eat meat.
Does that mean that it's right to do it or what? Rapeists rape, then it must be right!
> We've been doing it for thousands of years and we're not going to stop anytime soon.
Hopefully, when people realise what enourmous amounts of completley unnecessary suffering it causes.
> Those pointy sharp teeth in the front of your jaw were given to you by evolution so you can eat meat!
Yes, what's your point? Whatever ever comes out of an evolutionary process is by definition morally right? Come on!
> We're the dominant species on this planet, and membership has it's privliges.
Might is right! Yeah. So if I'm sometimes mightier than you (by holding a gun or something), it's completley acceptable for me to do whatever i feel to you because I'm "dominant" and get "priviliges"?
Good golly!
It is best to let Nature take her course. When humans interfere, it is usually for the worse. Overpopulation is a prime example. Why should starving people be fed? It is a sentimental notion. But science teaches us that starvation means that a population has outgrown its resources. The population will decline and eventually re-establish equilibrium with Nature. This is true for rodents, deer, frogs, and people. I consider the Princeton Plan as interference in nature. That is why I oppose it. Let the defects sink or swim on their own merits without any need to explicitly kill them.
This is really pointless, your example is exactly the opposite of what you are saying! sounds to me like even it they had been able to kill their children, there is no way in hell they ever would have dreamed of it! And you say their other kids are now fucked up too, do you mean fucked up like they think its a good idea to kill innocent children because they have problems?
This idea is bad from the beginning, and it will lead to worse ones if its allowed to be put into practice, it may start with just the killing of severly retarded children, but that will lead to the killing of any newborn with any kind of birth defect and from there will lead to the killing of any imperfect child for any from being near sighted to haveing a oversized birthmark! allowing the euthenizing of children because of mental or physical retardation will lead us down a road that 50 years ago we fought to destroy.
In Australia we appreciate people's rights to differing opinions. This is in contrast
I don't think the question has a cut and dried answer, and just because you have a differing opinion to some. Don't use the counter example of our internet censorship legislation because that is very un-Australian and the current government sucks.
Hamish
The scary part to me is that the health insurance providers haven't been excluded from this role. I have done genetic research into the causes of Alzheimers disease, and worry that this research may end up a tool for discrimination. To my knowledge there are no controls barring use of familial traits for pre-existing conditions for refusal of coverage.
It will be telling in the new century if the cost of treatment is allowed to become a defining trait.
Who, you? My comments are only out of context if you don't bother to read the article. At least brush up on your English before you bother trying to debunk my commentary. You seem to be missing a word somewhere in your post.. Amazing for such a short one. Do you know what the preview button is for, by any chance?
~ Kish
Up until not too long ago, people _could_ "euthanize" babies right after they were born (or during birth). Even healthy ones. It was called partial birth abortion. I know some places have banned this, but I'm not even sure that all states in the US have done so, much less the state of the world. Some (but not all) abortion-rights people supported the mother's right to do this. I think it would be interesting to see where they come down on this issue, too.
Would he be received differently, if he advocated early amniocentisis and other tests to determine disability, and then abortion of those babies?
Please note, I have tried to leave my views on abortion out of the above paragraph, they are not relevant to my point here.
My point is that the man's job is to incite debate on bioethical issues, at least in the class he teaches. This is the most important duty of academics, and universities in general. We go to school to expand our horizons, to learn things that might never be useful in a specific sense, except that they teach us to think critically. If I was just going to school to learn programming and networking, I would be done now, but I have 2 more good years of it, and I look forward to having a teacher as colorful as this gentleman. I doubt I will, because OSU is a public school, and more subject to the whims of popular opinion, and that is a shame. Disagree with the man if you wish (I do), but he would be lax in his job if he did not say what he believed. I will be severely disappointed if Princeton bows to public pressure and censures or fires the man.
Communication is only possible between equals
Can you sum it up in a word? *No.* In a noise? *Whuuuurghhhhh!*
might as well get them out of the gene pool too.
you know this is the kind of thing english profs might suggest every day, all the time, all over the place. how come this professor is getting a bad rap? I bet its cause he is in the sciences. So such suggestions become mad scientist evil ones.
-I go to Rice, so figure out my email address
Let's see. 500 yrs ago the Spaniards (at least some of them) thought they were perfectly justified in doing what they did to native Americans because, in the process, they were giving them the word of god and baptising them. The point is, they were imbued with a culture that placed being baptised as the focal point of life.
Cut to 1999 USA. Today's prevelant religion is that the individual, entitled to his/her privacy and pleasure, is the focal point of life. Consequence---the bazillions of dollars that were spent in the middle ages on cathedrals are spent nowadays on todays cathedrals---high tech hospitals.
This post (and responses) are more of the same. People are so wrapped up in this world view, they simply cannot get beyond their emotions to see the logic in what this prof is saying. They're behaving no differently from a Spaniard, torturing a native to convert and convinced, all the while he is doing so, that he is doing the right thing, helping out both the native before him and his own soul.
Infanticide is nothing new; it's an age-old practice that has been condemned in some cultures and accepted in others, but practiced in pretty much all of them.
Some points that are worth considering, though:
First, we need to understand that we have rights by virtue of the fact that we have granted ourselves those rights and have accepted the corresponding duty of protecting those rights. There's really no such thing as a natural right to life or anything else (nature hardly seems to care whether anything in particular lives or dies).
We can certainly decree that infants do not have the right to life, but by doing so, we also endanger ourselves. We could even justify this on the grounds that a severely disabled child might likely have a painful and short life if allowed to grow up, and infants don't have a sense of self anyway, so it's not like killing an adult who has already formed a sense of themselves and has developed hopes, dreams, aspirations and so forth.
However, by making a concrete committment to value the life of every human being, and to protect the lives of those who cannot speak for thsmselves no matter what, we offer ourselves a certain degree of protection. If we start to say that such-and-such a type of human being does not have the right to live, it is easier for others to make the same argument about other types of people, and each of us risk falling into one of those categories someday. By treating all human beings as having the right to life, we steer clear of the slippery slope.
It's also worth questioning peoples' real motives. Some people would see infanticide as a caring act meant to prevent the suffering of the child. Others, however, would undoubtedly see it as a means to erradicate a parental, social, tax or other burden foisted on themselves.
I won't draw any conclusions here, though this is one subject that isn't going to go away, especially as genetic and biological research advances. Not discussing the issues now might lead to an unfortunate situation down the road.
All those that are proponents of a Pro-Life, no euthansia, movements should especially take a look at this post.
This professor proposes that we kill our defective offspring to ease their suffering. Has the audience ever heard of infanticide? This is a naturally occuring side-effect of those suffering from post-pardum depression. They view their children as defective, and therefore attempt to eliminate them.
This fits right into the 'survial of the fittest' theory. Parents sub-consiously wish to produce the strongest offspring (physically and mentally).
This is noted in Darwin's work. Why should we resist the natural processes of life? The pro-life and religious right would say that to terminate the pregnancy, or let the child die, might deprive the human race of the next Einstein or Hawking. I will tell you this: There will be no anasyphallic genuis, there will be no quadriplegic who can be self-reliant.
So I ask you all this question:
Could you, in good conscience, knowingly bring a severly disabled child into this world? And if so, would you not feel the least bit guilty?
By bestowing a life long burden on the taxpayers to support a child that should have been naturally un-selected, we are in essence creating a life where there should never have been one.
I'd hate to be in her place, but I certainly wouldn't count her condition (at least what you described of it) as SEVERE. Most of what I enjoy in life doesn't really require legs at all. Art, music, computers, good food, the company of loved ones, a good read, etc. Of course other people may get enjoyment out of other things.
If I were to lose the ability to enjoy these things (eg: severe mental disability, full paralysis, the Hellen Keller thing, being in jail for life) I think I might reconsider whether life is worth living.
But in any case, this is a rather poor defence of Singers philosophy; he's by no means a shoddy thinker. Singer takes a utilitarian line in most of hs philosophy (ie act as to secure the greatest happiness for the greatest number). Since animals are capable of experienceing pain and pleasure, and pain and pleasure are the only things which utilitarianism concerns itself with, it is consistent to treat humans and animals as equals, or at least on a scale according to their capacity for pain and pleasure. I don't think you can attack Singers principles effectively except by attacking utilitarianism, or perhaps more fundamental, morality as a whole. It's here that Kant's criticisms provide the most substantial attack
This makes for a pretty poor moral theory, since moral theories are supposed to guide you in your actions in response to any given situation (or at least a wide range of them). Letting a response be determined by a factor which is in principle unknowable does not resolve things any further.
This is by no means a complete refutation, and the arguments between deontologists and consequentialists has raged ever since Bentham and Mill (J. S. Mill made the statement that animal life should be valued as much as human life long before Singer ever appeared on the scene) and it certainly doesn't show any signs of abating or reaching conclusion... and indeed a good few would say it never can. Singer is a philosopher of some repute, and I'm glad he's been appointed to the position, because even if I do disagree with his views, he's certainly going to force people to think.
---
Can you sum it up in a word? *No.* In a noise? *Whuuuurghhhhh!*
From the very little bit I've read about this man, he sounds like a thouroughly evil little shit to me.
wow, you probably didn't even bother to read the linked artical. he was talking about parents making the disision to end there babies lives.
What's "absolutely necessary"? Who's going to decide that? The all-loving, all-powerful Big Brother? What would Mr Singer do to those who (Horrors!) actually feel entitled to the fruits of their own labor?
Maybe you would make that desision yourself, you don't know. beacuse you never botherd to learn
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The problems we face have a lot to do with the fact that we have evolved into intelligent free-thinking individuals. If a wild animal were born severely handicapped, it would die, either through neglect/starvation or by becoming prey to another animal. But because we place so much emphasis on ethics and moral rights (as we rightly should) we have a whole mess of problems to deal with. The higher up the food chain, the more responisbility you have. We're at the top, unfortunately for the rest of life on this planet, we ain't doing a very good job.
Because somewhere you have to draw the line. Is blindness a reason to be murdered?
This is why it worries me.
My parents were told when my mother was pregnant that if I came to term it was likely I'd be missing limbs, or at least severly retarded. Needless to say I came out with all the parts intact, (2 months premature) but they were instructed to baptise me as it was assumed I would not live very long. Well I lived. I grew. Despite a rash of strange illnesses and happenings in my first couple years on this planet, I did Ok. I was born at 2 pounds, now I'm 6'1" 260. Shows what they know. I know that medical science has ways of telling if babies are okay by testing their response to stimuli and certian milestones in their deveopment, but it's not like medical science is never wrong. Do we really understand enough of the brain to not give these kids the chance? Of course for every Stephen Hawking there are sadly sadly retarded children, and that sucks, but I've seen plenty of retarded people in my life who are making a contribution to society. They may not be writing novels or building spacecraft but they're not making crack babies or doing smack either. I just cant support something like this for ANY level of retardation, severe or otherwise. The next wonderdrug may be just around the corner for all we know. Then how stupid would we look?
-Rich
In these cases, I would argue that euthanasia is perhaps not the solution. However, severe congenital defects, the kinds that usually end up limiting the life of the affected individual to little more than a few years, I have less trouble thinking that euthanasia can be a reasonable idea, especially in situations where the parents would be unduly burdened financially or what have you.
Of course, if I'm thinking correctly, an amniocentesis should be able to pick these things up, and then it's an issue of whether the parents wish to bring such a severely disable person into the world.
That's the way to tell 'em: Put up or shut up.
--Threed
I think the real question here is not whether it is right to kill someone in order to stop their suffering (god knows there have been enough debates on that subject) but whether or not this is actually euthanasia.
Not being disabled myself, I cannot say if "severely disabled infants" are doomed to a life of suffering. I must admit to feeling that everyone should be given the chance to make what they can of their life - with the help of their community of course.
People with severe disabilities *do* need more help to travel through their lives but who can say that if they are given this help their life will be one of suffering. Many people have created something wonderful despite severe disabilities.
We need to put more effort into giving help to those people that need it so the question of whether disabilities leed to lifelong suffering no longer needs to be asked.
(DOH, I was going to agree with Singer's ideas, but as soon as I started writing this I changed my mind and started to ramble!)
Singer has nothing at all to do with Nazis. He's an ethicist who is willing to ask tought questions about life and suffering, and follow logic and compassion even when they fly in the face of convention.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
What is a handicap?
Do you think it's legitimate (sp?) to kill a baby just because it's blind or deaf. Or even just because it can only see with one eye? I guess there are a lot of people out there that are deaf, visually impaired or otherwise handicapped. Most of them master life quite ok if not even better than "health" people.
Just think: This is the first step. Next comes you are allowed to kill people that get handicapped during an accident or some sort of sickness.
Then come the color-blind, the obese... anything beyond "normality". Do we really want that?
Maybe I'm exagerating. Just my opinion.
Hitler tried the same and thank god, he was stopped!
If you want to kill anything that is handicapped and doesn't work as it was meant to be, then get rid off that buggy piece of software now!
--- If OS were buildings, then the first woodpecker to come around would erase 95 % of civilization.
One problem with your argument is that you have the hidden assumption that the money saved by not saving the life of the disabled baby would actually be used to prevent people from starving.
But of course it would not be. In our society, preventing people from starving is a much lower priority than about ten thousand stupid government programs. Tragic, but true.
I believe that when human life is involved you absolutely cannot just look at the bottom line. To do so is to start down a terrible path that ends with anyone who is "unproductive" being classified as worthless, and therefore being eliminated.
Can you not imagine the hell of a society where you live in fear every day of not being productive or "good" enough to justify your own life?
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
I realize that it's all already been said, but I still wanted to contribute my 2 cents....
After reading all of this, I was struck by how nasty people got about this topic - since I'm a bit of a fence-sitter on the issue, I read all posts with an open mind.
What if Singer were to contribute part of his income to the care of disabled people? "Mercy killings" wouldn't even be an issue if the government assisted their families in caretaking. Most families of disabled people find themselves emotionally and financially drained from the needs of the disabled person - an argument used by many here as a good reason to kill them at birth.
But if we could work out a way to finance a support system for these families, part-time institutions or the like, then the point becomes moot. Elimianting the emotional and financial burdens leaves everyone free to unconditionally love a disabled person without the baggage.
Idealist? Perhaps. But if Singer, and others with the means to do so, would turn their donations to this sort of cause, it could happen.
Siobahn www.siobahn.com
1. Who could and who should decide when to end a childs life?
I think the parents should decide, since their emotional investment is greatest. However, how could they do this? Extensive testing will not come up with something like "This child has a 68% chance of a `worthwhile' life" (nor should it). Would it be even possible?
I think most handicapped people would definately say their life was worthwile, should they decide? In some committee perhaps?
2. Might this actually happen someday, will we start 'giving involuntary euthanesia' to children who might become criminals or something else 'undesired' (aka killing them)?
Just let them grow up, they'll probably be okay. After all, they can always ask for assisted suicide later.
It only hurts when you survive
...somebody has to take the other side so I'll sacrifice myself (for the greater good of the discussion).
;). So I'll be the first to admit I haven't the slightest personal insight in this issue. But hey, that's why it's in a disscussion. So if you think I'm moraly corrupt please feel free to enlightenment me and other /.'ers with your insight.
I would say there could be very good arguments in support of this concept. Children born severly disabled are very likely to either die very young after much suffering or require extensive and expensive care though the entirety of thier lives. The most severly disabled will not be able to contribute to society and instead become dead weights consuming resources that could be put to other use. The most severly disabled will most likely encounter a great deal of suffering; not just physical, but mental as well. So, in all practicality exactly what purpose does letting the severly dissbled live serve.
Now the theological aspects of this are a whole different and very complex argument and I'm not going to delve into that, but other than those reasons based on religion or morality (typically derived from religion) there are no reasons not to do this.
Now, before you fire your flame thrower let me just say, I'm not disabled (other than slight shortsightedness). Neither am I a parent (as far as I know
Also, I never said I personaly adgree with this, I'm only saying that it makes logical sense and seems practical.
-E29
P.S. I'm really glad such an interesting and contravesal topic got post (even if it wasn't really news for nerds). It is a great mental exercise and should allow us to step away from our petty computer issue and discuss a really meaningfull issue. I hope that we will all leave this thread somewhat enlightened.
First off, your base dismissal of my response has no merit. Second off, Bartmoss over there has been flinging such base reactions at everything even close to the top of the discussion of this article.
Perhaps if you actually read the article, you would understand how my comment makes sense. Since you, like Bartmoss, apparently did not.. I see little reason in enlightening you. It really doesn't take that much to reach the fscking article, and I'm not going to bother parroting it.
Actually, just so you might figure something out and get a clue, I'll give you this: Obviously the parents are going to be the ones who ultimately decide. Ostensibly the doctor would give them the option of deciding if in his medical opinion the child was "ill-equipped to survive in the world" or whatever. The parents are obviously not going to have racist feelings toward their own child (at least not in "normal" circumstances.. please don't bore with examples right out of a Jerry Springer show), and the doctor is not going to decide if the child dies. The parents will. Does this not make sense to you, Mr. Knee-Jerk Reaction?
And you people are accusing me of a lack of thought. Yeah. Sure.
So, anyone care to mention how the "race card" is going to be played in this scenario? Don't bother responding to me personally.. I've had enough conversation on this article. See closer to the bottom of the discussion if you care.
~ Kish
I'm not really sure that citizens of highly civilized countries consume more. Consumption is a two way street- you can't measure it without knowing what I produce. A hydroelectric dam doesn't really consume water- you get water and electricty back out. A citizen of the US doesn't just eat and breathe, he produces products, or knowledge, or food, or whatever his job is. Since we export knowledge and technology, our net consumption is probably negative. In addition, your number of 95% looks made up. Where'd it come from?
I wish to raise some very important points that I have not read yet.
1. How can a group of humans being the parents and/or some other selective body choose what is a retardation/disability vs. a benefit. Example. Eons ago homonids gave birth to a child with five fingers. These five fingers would have been viewed as a disability to many of the local homonids but in evolutionary process came to become an advantage to help the species survive. Do we know enough about every deformity that brings us to the conclusion that every disability/retardation/mutant is not benifitial?
2. I agree to the posts that describe disabled people as a burden to their society, but many of the great thinkers and artisians were/are disabled. But by lacking in one area they excell in another. Just like you. Some are very social people but some are hermits. I am sure you have a talent just like they have a talent can we honestly say one talent is better than another. And furthermore who decides which is better a great theoritical physisist or the person who speaks for the physisist because he is mute?
yah, I brake it all.....
My main problem with this sort of thing (and there are many problems with it) is the question of who decides the fate of the handicapped child?
Well said. What makes one person more qualified than another to judge the nature of suffering?
I regularly work with kids who suffer from severe diseases that will probably kill them before they're grown. They require continuous care. I've also seen the joy that lights up their faces when I pull a quarter out of their ear or make a playing card change from red to black. The other day I watched a little boy and his father playing with their train set. Am I to seriously believe he takes no joy in life because his back bones have been fused so he can sit up right in his wheel chair?
I find that attitude both arrogant and unworthy of a human being.
--
Clear, Dark Skies
I agree with this professor. In fact I go
as far as to agree with what someone else
was saying about eating dead babies and
people (recyling).
perhaps its just me? I do not put so high a value
on human life in general. Am I selfish? yes I am.
I just find myself completely incapable of feeling
emotion for people I do not have a personal
relationship with.
A baby i just come into this world, no real
relationship with anyone...fine kill it. I don't
care.
Its alot like eating veal. Yea, an animal
suffered in a cage. Big deal, it tastes good.
No matter how I think about it, I just can not
feel sorry for it. Luckly the fact that I am
unable to feel this sort of empathy does not
bother me one bit.
I also realize that this is a society thing.
Our society frowns on infantacide. There are
many examples of cultures where infantacide is
perfectly acceptable, even for so small a "defect"
as being female.
On the same token, we have a problem with "Child
Molestation". Again, in some cultures (no off the
top of my head I can't remember...my memory fails
me) what we call incest or child molestation is
perfectly acceptable behaviour.
Now am I advocating either of these things? No.
I have no children, nor any desire to have
sexual relations with children. I am simply
making a point about morality.
If you believe that every life is special, and
given by Some mystical God (which I do not), then
it follows quite naturally that infantacide is
wrong.
Again, maybe its just me. I see very little
real value in our societies rules beyond that
some people seem to NEED rules to be imposed
externally, unfortunatly, to keep their illusion
of order, they feel the need to impose their
rules on others...thus is the nature of government
I supose.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I forgot to add that Happiness IS an issue, not the most important one but it is worth considering. If a person has an IQ of 50 but is able to support themselves and are happy then all is good. Their life has quality.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
Well, we don't have any choice in the life thing. It is, as another Slashdoter put, a 100% fatal STD. So who would deny that a life of suffering is preferable? One of the few things I value is my mind- if I had Alzheimers, I would be VERY disappointed in anyone who stood in the way of me taking my own life. Everyone says "It's your life. Do what you will." UNTIL it comes to ending it. Excuse me people, but since I got out and figured out what death was, it's been MY decision to keep waking up, and I would very much like it to be my decision to STOP waking up. This is a basic right that I think many, many people are being denied.
If a disability is acquired later in life, then it should be the choice of that person to end his/her life if that person so desires. I don't see the state or some pro-life idiot paying my medical bills, so if I reproduce, and that reproduction is severely flawed and would be better off dead, then so be it. If the state or anyone else wants to pay my bills and medical insurance, THEN I will seriously consider what they have to say when they get all huffy about the "sanctity of life". If they do not have a part in it, then they do not have a right to interfere in it- it's a simple equation that is older than our present "civilization". And something the uptights cannot understand, for some reason. Figure that one out, and cold fusion isn't far behind.
I can see where this discussion is going, and I'd like to contribute one thought before it gets crowded. I'll try to be brief, since I have class in five hours and I've yet to sleep...
A lot of folks, here and elsewhere, have been comparing the "intelligence" of human infants, or fetuses (not that I want to open that can of worms,) to the "intelligence" of other animals. They reason that since some animals are as intelligent as some humans, either those animals deserve more rights and protection, or those humans deserve less.
You've been watching too much "Star Trek". On "Star Trek", they neatly separate every species into a "sentient" category or a "non-sentient" category, and thereby decide whether it's morally okay to eat them. Science fiction has always reasoned that since we have a moral obligation towards our fellow man, we are equally obligated towards anyone who thinks like a human.
Here's my proposal: We have a moral obligation to protect humans not because they are "intelligent", or "sentient", or "conscious", but rather because they are human. Therefore, we will always be bound to protect any organism that is genetically human, even if said creature is less self-aware than the chicken that supplied my dinner tonight.
I apologize if this isn't all that coherent. (I don't know if I'll have the nerve to re-read it later today.) I just wanted to get the idea out there.
MSK
Ah, i like this guy. a true parasite is someone who can't take care of themselves after the age of 18. yes, then PLEASE, kill my roommate's pathetic girlfriend. there are a few other yuppie scumbags that need to be offed too, you know, the trust fund baby types who spend their entire lives living off of their parents, usually spoiled rich kids, like the kennedy's. now on a more serious note, how can you possibly see yourself as humane and not want to terminate the life of someone who is grossly physically deformed and will live out their miserable and short existence entirely in pain. i had a cousin once who half of his brain was outside his head. needless to say, he didn't live a full year but keeping him alive was !@#$ing disgusting and cruel. that is NOT the humane solution. we knew he would die but the doctors wanted to keep him alive as long as possible. plus, my uncle and aunt are catholic so they believe not to ever question God, but this isn't a matter of questioning God. this is a matter of terminating a life instead of keeping it alive with drugs, tubes, surgical knives, etc.
I think that once you start down that slippery slope, you'll find it hard to reverse it. What is the definition of severely handicapped? In two more centuries we may view handicapped individuals as less than perfect, genetic aberrations who need to be fixed or culled. Society itself may start opening up this practice in order to achieve two goals, neither wholly altruistic. 1) Organ recycling/Lab research. 2) Lowering apparent social cost. While both may not apparently affect the parents of afflicted children directly. Who's to say that some rich person or group would not offer money for healthy organs and tissues to those parents?
My family has a history of several diseases.
Among them is diabetes. By all accounts it is being passed along my mothers side of the family. Without treatment, those family members would die quite young.
I think that is an excellent reason for me to not have children, to strengthen the gene pool. Healty natural selection in action, by my responsible choice.
Likewise, I believe that just because a life can be saved does not mean that it should. The world has a finite amount of resources. We should learn to use them effectively/efficiently instead of in knee jerk emoitonal reactions.
Peter Singer's parents were Austrian Jews who fled to Australia just a step ahead of Hitler.
Everybody thinks the Holocaust was just directed against Jews, they were actually his last target.
Hitler started by euthanizing retarded adults and infants, then cripples, then Gypsies, then Catholics, then all other Christians, and then, finally, Jews, in that order. He actually killed more Christians in the death camps than Jews. 6.5 million and 6 million, respectively. The balance of the 14 million were all the other groups.
Margaret Sanger, the founder of the Birth Control League that she later renamed Planned Parenthood, advocated "pulling up the weeds in the human garden." She classed as weeds the defectives, blacks, and Jews. She was also an avid supporter of Hitler.
Or to quote Senator Barbara Boxer, "Of course we have to have legal abortion, what if your daughter was raped by a black man?" She really said that.
Ain't it great to be a liberal.
That point has already been asserted in this thread. =P
The point I was trying to make, however (and by the way, I rather doubt that many vegans/vegetarians are subscribing to the theory you are presenting, since they ostensibly don't believe plants "suffer"), is that it is not "wrong" to take a life in order to survive, and that nothing is "undeserving of life". After all, when you get hungry, you've got to eat, right? I myself can't just soak up sunlight and suck nutrients and water out of the dirt with my roots. Thus, being an animal, something has to continually die in order for me to live, be it plant, animal, or both. Loss of life is not the primary issue at hand. The rationale behind certain actions, however, is.
*sigh* You are witnessing a typo, which has been covered in this thread as well.
~ Kish
Hi I'm a first time poster. I just wanted to say one thing, Mr.Hawkins (the Astronomer/Physicist). He is considered one of the greatest minds of this century. It's amazing that anyone would advocate euthenasia. I'm staggered and amazed at the ignorance. Please pardon any misspellings.
Can somebody post that piece of office folklore that goes "Would you abort a foetus that will suffer deafness, and such and will be born in such a horrible family [...]" and ends "You have killed Beethoven."
Is it historically true?
--
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
This is an interesting way to twist my point around, and is quite far from my original point. I certainly made no claims as the ones presented in the last two sentences of the preceding paragraph. Let's try to stick a little closer to on topic.. This arguement can be taken in far too many directions for me to bother responding. ;)
Obviously animals are capable of suffering. I never suggested otherwise. I believe your extremist twists on my statements were unwarranted, actually. What I was saying is that we don't have sufficient evidence to support claims either for or against whether or not plants suffer. Why? Because while animals are comparable to humans (big fscking surprise, humans are animals), the same is not true of plants. There's simply no way to know for sure. Until you can shed some light that invalidates that statement beyond all question, there's no point in continuing with this thread, now is there?
"Over-open minds"? At what point should I stop thinking, pray tell? When you think I've thought too much? When too many people disagree with my opinions? When I won't content myself to not speaking out about how I feel? Anyone who truly believes that you can be "too open" is really just asking for someone to follow, at least every once in a while. Thinking for yourself.. is good..
As for the rest of your comment.. The world is hopelessly overpopulated with humans (there would be plenty of food to go around otherwise). Why is that? Because our precious technology allows us to overcome natural selection by attempting to place ourselves above it. In fact, that isn't quite what we did.. Instead, the changes the rules of the game, and the place where it is played, but the game in and of itself is quite the same.
A bit more to the point, however: I myself am not overly concerned with the "suffering" aspect of this entire arguement. I am merely stating that nothing is any more "deserving of life" than anything else. As such, I'll continue to eat whatever I deem appropriate. Sure, maybe eating beef consumes more resources than just eating grain, but you know, maybe I like eating beef? Certainly other animals can subsist on a broad range of things, though even they seem to prefer certain food sources over others in many cases.
At any rate.. I won't respond to any more arguements revolving around veganism! =P
~ Kish
Here are a few of my thoughts on the subject. Some of them may be contradictory (in case the fact doesn't come through in these musings, btw, I disagree with him).
1. Citing individual cases as reasons why it's a bad idea is usually, well, a bad idea. For every Stephen Hawking there is probably someone made radical contributions to humanity which would not have happened had they devoted their time to maintaining their disabled child. A similar argument, which I've seen on several occasions, is the guy who would have died in a car crash had he been wearing a seatbelt.
2. As a species on this planet, we're genetically encoded to react against anything that endangers the next generation (and I don't mean the borg). This is why all those ridiculous "for the children" pleas are so effective. And no matter what your feelings on the subject, you'll have to agree that this is no longer necessary for the perpetuation of the human race.
3. Ethical is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Eugenics of the sort espoused by Singer, in a fascistic darwinian sort of way, contribute to the future viability of the species. However, see point two.
4. Points two and three above refer only to the continuation of the species, and ignore what could happen should indiviual human life become devalued through practices such as abortion, euthanasia and infanticide. This isn't my view, but it's one I'm willing to listen to with an open mind.
5. All laws and ethical systems are for the good of most members of society. This tyrrany of democracy inevitably has adverse consequences for the minority. Attitudes to those minorities decide whether this is viewed as a good or bad thing.
6. I'm an athiest, but that doesn't mean I can't steal the good bits from various holy books for my own philosophy. As far as I'm concerned, all philosophies that don't involve killing everyone else boil down to 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'.
I've never been able to understand how people can believe that a human's life is more important than any other animals. As an example, let's take me, and my cat.
How do I affect the world at large? I make a big mess. My species and I have wiped out more other species than any other single species. We've poisoned the air, and the water, and demolished huge areas of land for our living space.
My cat and his species, however, may have wiped out a couple of species of rodent, or small flightless birds. The only pollution they've ever caused it from their excrement, or their corpse. AFAIK, cats have never cut down a forest, or paved a swamp.
So from the planet's view, human = bad; cat = not bad. The only thing that thinks humans are any good are other humans, and their pets.
The only thing that humans have over other animals is a better ability to reason. But even our own culture doesn't value that much!
Calmacil
I can't seem to face up to the facts, I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax... --Talking Heads
It's not that we on Slashdot are largely ad hominem; we just happen to (largely) argue that accepting views and beliefs because someone tells you that "This is how it is" is at the very least unthinking. I can tell a five year old advanced physics theory until he can recite to me every word that I tell him; does that mean that he understands what he's saying? Not at all. I for one have no particular disrespect for members of organized religion, but I do question the various methods that the religious members use to propogate themselves.
In case you haven't noticed, I'd say a pretty good amount of the Slashdot community is Atheist or Agnostic, as far as religion goes. Does that make us smarter? Does it mean we'll end up in Hell? Who knows.... but this debate was originally meant to argue whether or not this is an ethically correct option. (At least, that's how I had thought of it...) About that, here's my opinion...
We all are born, as someone earlier stated, with one option guaranteed: we're going to die at some point in our lives. Whether that's God's decision or not is a matter of belief/opinion; but the main thing is that we do die. Humans don't have any more right to life than animals do; and we happily slaughter cows and various other farmland animals so that we ourselves might eat food and perpetuate ourselves on this planet, and perhaps in the future other planets as well.
However, if we DO have a chance to live, it's my personal belief that we should make the most of what we can. But, and this is also (still) my opinion, if we have no chance of enjoying life, should we live? Why should we live, if there is nothing that we can produce for the benefit of humanity or ourselves? In today's culture and world, more and more people seem to care less about humanity than they do themselves. For the most part, this is understandable- because Humanity as we know it is not in any great imminent danger, and the next thing that we should look to (according to a certain Hierarchy of life) is enjoyment. Once hunger, thirst, shelter, safety, and peace have been achieved, people look to entertainment. But what do all of these things have in common? QUALITY OF LIFE. If a reasonable quality of life is unattainable for any individual, should they abandon life? I think that this is the real question.
Furthermore, if one's quality of life (the infant's) is in such a poor condition that it worsens the quality of life for others (the infant's parents) in several ways (money that they can't afford to spend on decent healthy food; money they can't spend on time to get away, and relax, which is also important to quality of life; money they can't spend on helping others) then is it unreasonable and unethical to halt the one's life? If bringing the infant's life to a close is a way of improving the quality of life for others, is it unethical and wrong?
On one side: a baby which needs constant medication to not cry all day because of unbearable pain and has only 5% the active neurons of a normal baby. There simply *are* situations where 'no action' is simply the wrong thing to do, ethically. The rule is not 'do not kill'. The rule is 'dont let others suffer'.
On the other side: what if they were wrong about an illness and it turns out to be curable in a few months? Well, what if a murderer turns out to be innocent, after he has been executed?
A society that allows the Death Penalty has to allow Euthanasia as well. If you want to play God, then do it consistently!
Once we allow people to decide what people are worth having rights and what people do not, the whole concept of the Bill of Rights is null and void.
Argh... My nice, coherent response to your comment just got eaten. Since I can't stand duplication of effort, I'll just give you an outline of what I said:
There is no qualitative difference between races. There is a big, huge qualitative difference between species: members of two different species cannot produce viable offspring together.
It's bad to base morality on quantitative differences. If chimpanzees are equal to humans, what about gorillas? Lemurs? Dogs? Chickens? Fish? What about bacteria... you must have killed thousands of bacteria just in the last few days. Murderer!
Sure chickens suffer. My point is, it's not clear to me that we should care. Is causing harm intrinsically evil, or is it only evil to cause harm to a fellow human? Although the first interpretation is more common these days, the second interpretation is perfectly valid, and I think that it's the correct one.
(I have more reasons for believing that than simple distaste for quantitative rules, but I won't go into them here, especially not the second time typing this... Basically, I think that morals are interpretations of altruistic instincts that are present in every human, instincts which, of course, apply only to other humans.)
MSK
As noted, this topic is sensitive and people's views are going to offend each other. This is where it's very important that we remember that different thoughts are to be encouraged even when the actions they contemplate may be reprehensible to us. Exposing some values that lead people to end up on the different sides of this issue may be helpful.
Some people deeply believe that is wrong for a full adult in irremediable acute pain to decide to end their own life.
Others may be deeply empathetic with the pain they imagine in a seriously handicapped child, and think it mercy to kill the child instead.
Another group will think that this kind of euthansia will benefit society, and rather coldly decide it is a good idea for that reason.
I find all three views expressed above at least uncomfortable. I don't wish to assign a value of "true" to any one. I think you have to look at each individual case, weigh the options carefully, and make a hard decision, knowing you could be wrong. What I am sure of, personally, is that I don't want the government mandating the "one true" practice. I think the choice needs to be made at a much more local level -- between the family concerned, and their doctor, with legal advice. My pro-choice bias undoubtedly shows here, and I realize this will be no less controversial than abortion.
Note we've already had to deal with this problem in the form of acephalic babies. IIRC, It's been decided that they are braindead, and their life support may be legally terminated currently.
So it may be that the question isn't whether it is ever acceptable, but rather under which circumstances, and for what reasons. Decision where there is no obvious right or wrong should be made at the family level, with government supplying reasonable guidelines for that choice.
It's the old "i think therefore i am" schtick. Without a concept of self a person is little more than a chunk of meat. A brain dead adult is effectively dead, as is a brain dead child.
I would urge anyone interested in the ethics of this topic to look at the Robert Latimer case, which has been an ongoing thing here in Canada for many years now.
It is my firm belief that the world is overpopulated. This is the result of personal experience as well as courses in biology and geography.
There are numerous signs of this human overpopulation. In certain geographical regions it's obvious: inadequate food supply and starvation. In others it's less clear. Some places like the US appear very prosperous and so the signs are less clear, but they are there when you know what to look for. Apparently biologists and animal behavioralists can see distinct links between animal populations and overcrowded human populations. Overcrowding in animal populations leads to increases in aggressive behaviour, which has been linked to the higher rate of violent crime in big cities. It also leads to increases in homosexuality in animal populations, and there may again be a link to human animal populations.
This problem is only getting worse, not better. The population of the planet has followed an exponential curve as far back as population data goes and shows no signs of changing. Because of modern medicine more people are surviving to childbearing age. But the global birthrate hasn't changed much over the millenia. Now sure, it has decreased significantly in the "first world" countries, but that's such a tiny share of the world's population that that doesn't have a very big effect.
Now the greatest problem with the exponential growth curve again comes from the comparison to biological data. Nearly every time a population grows exponentially in the wild, it rushes past the carrying capacity of the environment. After this point it very quickly depletes the resources it needs and then crashes. Eventually most biological systems tend to stabilize, but not always. Sometimes the die-off is so severe that the population is wiped out.
The carrying capacity of the planet for its human inhabitants is a huge point of debate in geographical / biological circles. Many think we've already passed it. They point to the fact that the "breadbasket of the world", the US midwest, is only able to produce as much as it is using completely unsustainable farming practices, washing away 2 or 3 cm of extremely fertile topsoil every year (which ends up in the Mississipi delta). Other scientists think there will never be a carrying capacity for the planet, saying that since we're smart humans we'll overcome any natural limits and will be able to sustain this exponential growth rate as long as we want to.
Who is right? Probably neither side is 100% right. But the results of being wrong when assuming that there's no need to worry could be disastrous. For that reason it makes sense to try to limit the population growth of the planet as soon as possible.
China has often been criticized for its alleged human rights violations. Among these are the government imposed limits on the number of children people can have. This is one issue I clearly remember from my classes. China did this because it didn't think it could support the population it knew it would have soon. They calculated that even if they successfully limited every couple to one child the lag effect from the growth of the population would still end up adding over a billion people to their population before the parents of these only-children died of old age. And of course they have been far from successful at limiting couples to one child.
At a most basic level population growth is the result of the difference between two factors, the birth rate and the mortality rate. To reduce population growth the mortality rate must be raised and/or the birth rate must be lowered. Obviously increasing the mortality rate is the easier option. Just as obviously, decreasing the birth rate is the generally more morally easy option. However it's very hard to convince people to control their procreation. Increasing the mortality rate doesn't necessarily mean throwing more wars. It can also mean doing less to help very sick people live. That is where this article comes in.
Keeping a severely damaged baby, or one that is 2 months premature alive is an enormous expense. There is no guarantee of the baby living, and no guarantee of the baby having a reasonable quality of life if it does survive. It is also spending enormous resources to lower the death rate, and doing nothing to reduce the birth rate. Aside from that, admittedly by a small margin, it increases the resource use of the average living creature, thereby reducing the carrying capacity of the planet. Clearly in purely population-centered thinking this is a bad thing.
The human race needs to decide how important the various factors involved here are. How important is the life of the child? How important is the quality of life of the child? How important is the pain and suffering of the parents, and is it reduced or lessened by the child living? And of course, how important is it to try to control the growth of the earth's human population?
As to how my views fit into this... I am undecided. I've extended the question and asked myself if I care if the human population stabilizes, crashes, or grows exponentially. I've also asked myself if I care what happens to the average human's quality of life in the future. So far the answer to both questions is I don't really care. None of these processes moves quickly and nothing is likely to affect me during my lifetime. I don't really feel any enormous allegiance to the human race, and to tell the truth, the suffering of people I haven't met and will never meet doesn't really bother me.
I believe strongly in the principle of enlightened self-interest. When I donate money to a charity I do it because it makes me feel good to know that I'm helping someone. When I play a video game it's because I enjoy the game. When I help someone out, I do it because it makes me feel good and because I know that that person is more likely to want to help me out at some point.
I also believe that everyone lives by the same philosophy, it's just that most people make these same decisions on an unconscious level and so they are able to believe in selfless behaviour.
Anyhow, this wasn't meant as flamebait, but I know many people are likely to have strong reactions to it... so flame away.
Of course, the pro-choicers are backpedaling violently when this extension is raised. Giving all kinds of reasons why this is different.
The US has been leading the charge in devaluing human life. The only surprise about this modest proposal is that it came from an Aussie, not an American.
Anonymous Spleen-Venting Flameboy
Every sperm is sacred ....
Is Steven Hawking's disease congenital? If so, there's enough evidence right there that the Prof. is off base.
Also, it's a pretty gray area on what you think qualifies as a deformed baby. It might be life support today, but in 50 years? Male, female, black, green eyes? It sounds absurd, but the slippery slope is...well, slippery.
But he obviously has a right to speak, and I thank him for opening the debate, but I think over time such a thing would be abused. The masses are simply not wise enough to do the "right thing" -- which is why government is a necessary evil.
I strongly believe a physician should "Do No Harm. ". Disconnecting life support machines might be acceptable, but it would require some serious thought before approval.
For example, technology could advance to the point where your child's live could be significantly improved in just a few years, but you disconnected? What a terrible thing to live with.
But, like I say, I'm glad he opened the debate. I'm not a big fan of people who are so dogmatic they refuse to consider issues.
Do you really understand what you are talking about? Someone with an IQ of 50 will never leave an institution. And people with low IQs almost never are self-supporting. Most studies over the last thirty years (not too many, given how much the whole concept of IQ irritated the academic Marxoids) have shown that essentially no one with an IQ two standard deviations from the mean (70 or below) is self-supporting and most people with an IQ between 70 and 85 will never break even with social service support and over a lifetime most people with IQs from 85 to 100 are close to a net loss, but barely. It really seems to be related almost directly to IQ, even looking at environmental factors.
People really don't understand how little is still not understood here about IQ and society. It is not popular and it has been well suppressed, but nothing has really been discovered in thirty years.
In some way, he has to messure the quality of life, or in fact, a future possible life. Where is the line? When does a life become unworthy to live?
One possible messure is how good an individual is for man kind. That was what the nazists tried to do in germany...
Another possible messure is pain. But could he, or anyone else, except the baby, who could possibly not answer the question, certainly messure if the pain is to high to make the life worthy of living?
Yet another messure would be the problems for the parents. So if you cause me problems, I'l kill you. SOunds to me like just any murderer reasoning....
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
At issue here is not simply Singer's complete disregard for the value of human life (which should be enough in itself, and should greatly concern everyone here), but also the fact that Princeton still (in claim if not in fact) is a Presbyterian institution, and Singer's views are anathema with the stated goals and values of Princeton and the Presbyterian reformed theology worldview it ostensibly represents.
It is completely right and appropriate to protest Singer and his appointment, and Princeton should be ostracized as an aberration because of Singer's hideous views. Furthermore, it is *completely* appropriate to fund "higher learning" and place bounds on what is consistent with the values of the institution. Under your logic, the *only* thing that can be taught is that there are no values at all (no objective truth, or as Dostoevsky put it, "If God does not exist, then all things are permissable"), which of course points out the implicit logical fallacy: It cannot be objectively true that there is no objective truth.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
John Leo was frothing at the mouth about this last week. Where was /.?
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
Morally, I find that before birth, the fetus is a portion of the mother's body, totally reliant on her. Once birth is completed, you have a self-contained being. This is why in many religions there are death rites for dead babies, but very few ceremonies for miscarriages.
wow, I'm glad that you've managed to convince you'reself that it's ok. I see you've convinently ignored the fact that most babies could survive ouside the womb in the third trimester..
The babies *arn't* dependent (after a certan point) on the mother, they just happen to be in there. is OK for a mother to abort a babie 3 days befor the due date?
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I can imagine this will stir up more histeria than expected. I read a very interesting book, called "The Secular City" by Harvey Cox. I recommend it to anyone with an IQ over 37. Here is an interesting quote from the book, that is slightly relative to this story:
"The relativization of values does not have to lead to either individual or group solipsism. It can have a much more constructive result, the recognition that since everyone's perspective is limited and conditioned, no one has the right to inflict his values on anyone else. In political terms, a certain degree of healthy relativism provides the philosophical basis for pluralism."
In other words, Harvey Cox said unto the world, your values are not everyone elses, dont force them on me. I am pro-choice, and tend to have an open mind about things like this, its very healthy to take others perspectives into account.
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"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"
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Let's suppose that we did things Singer's way, and children born "defective" could be legally killed.
Let's also suppose that health care in this country will be eventually nationalized. (I hope not, but we're headed that way.) The State will have a very strong incentive to "minimize costs" by encouraging the destruction of the "defective" children as well as children with significantly sub-par IQs. Worst case, children perceived as being predisposed to threaten the State could be targeted.
And under such a scenario, what will happen when people realize that a disproportionate number of the terminated children are non-white? (Why do you think the left keeps pushing "family planning" so heavily?)
Odds are folks will note the precedent set by the National Socialists (started out killing handicappers, ended up killing anyone they didn't like) and this won't go anywhere. This is an *extremely* dangerous slippery slope Singer is treading on.
For the record, Princeton University is not a Presbyterian institution.
It has no current connection with the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) or any other branch of presbyterianism (PCA, EPC, OPC, etc.) Any connection is purely historical. There is a nearby Princeton Seminary that is run by the PCUSA which split off from the university when it took its secular route. I don't recall exactly when that happened, but it was at least 20 years ago, and possibly much, much earlier (50+.)
Princeton acknowledges its Presbyterian heritage, but the academics there have zero respect for it, and it's certainly not how the institution represents itself.
Addressing your second point, the university clearly values "new theories and new thinking" more than objective truth, consequences, or divinely revealed morality -- the center Singer has been appointed to is one of 'Ethics and Human Values'. Nothing reformed about that.
--A recent Princeton graduate and Presbyterian
In 1969, an infant born at 28 weeks would typically die. In 1999, that same infant has a probability of survival greater than 0.90. That doesn't come without cost - personal as well as financial - I can assure.
http://www.techreview.com/articles/apr95/Soloman.h tml _ of_preemies/survival.html
http://www2.medsch.wisc.edu/childrenshosp/parents
So, what happens when a "preemie" or preterm infant is born? What disabilities can they face?
http://www2.medsch.wisc.edu/childrenshosp/parents_ of_preemies/index.html
I contend that having the ability and freedom to discuss concepts of euthanasia and heroic efforts to save lives raises awareness in society. Individuals born as preterm infants live today because people can talk about the issues, and can subsequently choose to act or not.
Graham
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
Singer is a professor in the Center for Human Values. Here is some contact info.
These gleaned from http://webware.princeton.edu/DOF/dofs taff.htm
and http://webware.princeton.edu/DOF/chrl st00.pdf
Now, I don't think they would publish their email addresses if they didn't expect feedback, and I'm sure they've gotten some on this, but they probably aren't expecting a slashdot. Be polite, no matter your views. These people are academics, professors and administrators by training, they will simply ignore you if you are rude.
Communication is only possible between equals
I'm the original poster. Sorry dude, you don't
know what you're talking about. autism is horrible,
but not in the same league as these kids. (And
I've seen both.)
Eliminating deformed babies is not the answer to society's woes. Elimination of adults who have done nothing with the life that has been given them, those who have wasted their exisistance, That is a solution. Every city has a red light district. Every city has a playground where drugs are sold. Every city has people who refuse to get off their asses and make an attempt at being a useful and productive member of society. Those people should be Euthanized. (But then again that would be Murder, wouldn't it?)
Yes, NAZIs also have an ongoing tradition of supporting the Green Party and supporting various world aid organization.
You are right, I think he meant Marxist. Maybe Maoist. Or Stalinist. Take your pick.
Do we want humans that are good at sorting out the best specimens or do we want people that are good at fixing the natures bugs ?
What is the meaning of life anyway ?
What about if we could stop the suffering of millions by killing the guys that forces them to use lousy software ?
Let's suppose that we did things Singer's way, and children born "defective" could be legally killed.
Let's also suppose that health care in this country will be eventually nationalized. (I hope not, but we're headed that way.) The State will have a very strong incentive to "minimize costs" by encouraging the destruction of the "defective" children as well as children with significantly sub-par IQs. Worst case, children perceived as being predisposed to threaten the State could be targeted.
And under such a scenario, what will happen when people realize that a disproportionate number of the terminated children are non-white? (Why do you think the left keeps pushing "family planning" so heavily?)
Odds are folks will note the precedent set by the National Socialists (started out killing handicappers, ended up killing anyone they didn't like) and this won't go anywhere. This is an *extremely* dangerous slippery slope Singer is treading on.
This is not a flamebait, just another point of view.
The whole concept of overdue abortion is not so unique idea as it might sound. The only viable solution left to protect the environment seems to be getting rid of some (or most) of the undue load. That meaning humans. In contrast to the thought of euthanazing people based on disabilities, it might be more productive to do the selection based of statistics instead. Ie. 95% of the human population should be a good start, preferring citizens of highly civilized countries, as they tend to consume more (oh yes, yours truly included). Unless, of course, someone comes up with a more appropriate critearia (like, say, the use of OO-methods to recycle the code...?).
See also some interesting references related to the topic.
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OTTERS RULE.
You do have a very good point, some handicaped childeren are very hard to deal with, but none the less, a parent is suposed to love their child unconditionaly. That means what ever happens you dont just give up on a child by killing them becuase they are hard to deal with. I know 3 different "handicaped" people that are very under control and very kind. They can be tought if the parent is persistant. Simple actions such as saying no to them doing something bad will teach them. Killing them will ease the suffering not only for the parent but the child as well but it is not the right thing to do. Steven Hawkings is said to be "handicaped" but he is one the most brilliant people on this earth. What would happen if someone was to kill a "hanicaped" child that would someday change the world, just to ease the pain of the parents.
The modern medicine is giving us more and more opportunities to decide on the destiny of our child: now we can detect the sex and some mental illnesses before the birth (which is already a BIG issue in some countries). Maybe one day we could even detect the Linux, MS or the -whatever- gene.... I consider that parents who know that know their child is handicapped and decide to keep him anyway are crazy but I'm also sure that people like Singer are wrong and dangerously mad. I don't know what is the right decision, I don't think there is one. All I know is that I don't want to hear anything about the sex or the possible illnesses of my future child because in this particular situation knowledge is negative.
Those babies never adopted eventually die of exposure. It was the duty of the temple priests to give these truly unwanted babies a proper sendoff to the hereafter.
I've never forgotten this incident. Somehow, this practice seems more humane, more natural, than our current system.
I don't want to seem like a soulless monster, which is what professor Singer has been stigmatized as, but the I do feel the man has somewhat of a point.
First of all, I would like to state that I disagree with waiting until months after the birth to perform the "act", but I think it should be considered from the prenatal stage to recently after the birth. Since modern medical technology has enabled people to forsee the physical status of the baby in fetus form, potential serious disabilities should be fairly detctable. In such a case the doctor could make a detailed note of this to the expecting parents, and the option of abortion could be raised, or closer monitoring of the fetus could be done to see what actions could be taken.
I know this may sound inhumane, but I'm sure the severly disabled aren't exactly living in a state of bliss. Yes there are many disabled people who do manage to somewhat overcome their situation and live relatively normal lives. However, I'm sure that there as many if not more disabled individuals who are unhappy and miserable because of their situation. As a sidenote I would like to say that the decision depends on what is labelled as severly disabled (obviously 'too light' or 'imperfect skin' and such minor issues shouldnt be listed, only EXTREME CASES OF DISABILITY).
Since I have no experience with disability, I will admit that I don't have much of a place saying that euthinasia will benefit the disabled themselves, but then there are the utilitarian reasons for it. First of all the parents have to be considered in the affair. Yes, the majority of such are readily willing to take whatever action needed out of obligatory parental and familial love, but without a doubt it places them in a highly stressful, expensive, and to some extent miserable situation to have to devote their own lives to taking care of a single disbaled person. It can be especially problematic in households with multiple children, where the 'healthy' ones are neglected because of demands of the disabled child, or where there are multiple disabled children that require more care.
Also there are the sheer medical costs that are required to care for an extremely handicapped person. Although parents should be able to care for the child if they can afford to, most such parents aren't so well off, and thus the costs necessary for care are sent to insurance or the governemnts health care program, and as a result the average American citizen. I don't have anything personal against disabled people, but it is outrageous that a fair share taxes I pay should be used by the government to subsidize the exhorbant medical costs of someone who cannot pay for them by themselves. I don't mind giving charity, but tax money should not be diverted towards such a resultless cause. The benefit of the average person outweighs the need of a single lesser individual. In effect, such programs disrupt natural selection, where those incapable of independant survival are weeded out by failure to fend for oneself. Instead, the capable are being brought down by the needs of the disabled. Lastly, promoting the disabled population will ultimately lead to a continued abundance of highly disabled indivuals, as their genes will be passed on down, thus creating future struggles with disability as well.
Lastly I would like to adress the moral issue. As I stated above, I do DISAGREE with killing after an extended period after birth. The decision for euthinasia should be researched, contemplated (and hopefully finalized)before the birth process occurs. And despite what we think, fetuses are not fully sentient beings like developed human beings. Who among us can recall memories from the fetus stage, or even the early stages of infancy? The fetus or infant may be human physically, but nearly in terms of mental capacity. Thus I think it's fair to label it as a lesser version of a human during this transitory period.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I don't strongly advocate Mr. Singer's proposal, but I do feel that the option perhaps be looked into instead of being instantly labelled as murderous evil. Though it may seem cruel, the plan does have potential benefits to the masses, which is the general goal of the majority of such proposals. Perhaps if a clear line on what constitutes severe disability were drawn, and the decisions were backed by months of prenatal research, the plan could be a decent idea.
And before I close, I would like to ask that I not be flamed. It is my opinion on the issue, and you have every right to strongly disagree with me. But when people resort to heavy personal attacks because the way an individual thinks, as is being done to Mr. Singer, they commit just as great a crime as what they are convicting him of.
-Ater-
For the past two years I've been watching my advisor's family life slowly go to ruins. He is one of the brightest minds that I have ever seen in my entire life. His research contributions in our area has been phenomenal... until his son was prematuraly born with a severe mental disability. Ever since he barely teaches a single class and almost does no research of whatsoever. His family life is shattered and I often see him with tears in his eyes. His life is a total ruin. He is a wonderful person because he REALLY wants to help his son, but at the same time he perpeatually blames himself for not being able to help him even more. He has been even considering quitting his job altogether and dedicating his life on helping his son. However, he is the breadwinner in the family (Christians; don't believe in public schooling) and is the sole source of family income.
I know this is just one example of an unfortunate case, but we should seriously consider the number of lives that can be destroyed by a severely disabled infant.
Maybe a better solution (instead of euthanizing infants) would be to create better institutions for disabled people? A lot of parents cannot cope with the fact that if they would give up on their baby, that it would lead an unhappy and terrible life in an institution where nobody cares about him or her.
The topic has been around a long time and probably nobody is reading this, but I'll give it a try anyway... It's been a few years since I've kept up with this type of issue, but I'm wondering how US laws have evolved on this topic. The last I heard, when people are in a situation where they are hooked up to machines 24/7 to survive (this is what I would call severely disabled, not this BS about killing people just because they're blind or retarded), some unlucky parent or relative is forced by law to pay everything they have, then go into heavy debt while they and the health insurance company pay tons of money to the hospital. When the people at the hospital realize they can't get any more money out of them, they pull the plug themselves, legally. I remember a case where a guy got burned really badly and wanted to die, but he had to pay for expensive treatments, and they refused to give him powerful painkillers back then because they were worried about addiction. What's tragic is that hospitals and doctors can do almost whatever they want but parents or relatives who are required to economically sacrifice themselves can't make a decision on the matter. It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't need money to survive, though. Of course everything could have changed in the past few years, but I doubt it has changed much.
In the same way that I want to provide the best possible home, family, and education for my future child, I also want to provide him with a body that is whole, functional, and enables him to live his life to the fullest. If my first attempt to create a body for him is damaged by mutation, radiation, teratogenic chemicals, or any other force not under my control, I feel that I have an obligation to him to be patient and try again. If I am genetically predisposed to pass on a permanently disabling condition to my child, I also believe that I am obligated to do everything in my power to keep from passing on that condition, even if it takes more than one attempt to create a body without the condition.
This said, creating a child is not an easy thing. To those who think that allowing parents to try more than once will lead to people continually trying to create the perfect child, I see that as the real-life equivalent of re-rolling the dice over and over and over until you get some perfect score (Or for the AD&D players, re-rolling until you get all 18s - it's possible, but would you really be willing to spend the nigh-infinite amount of time needed to do it?). Factors which do not critically hinder a child's ability to succeed, whether rising from genetics or upbringing, are not mine to control.
Furthermore, once the child has grown into his body and has begun to create his own personality, I have no right to stop that process. Though I have no way of proving that a newborn has no real personality, I do not believe a child's personality begins to form in earnest until weeks or months after birth, and I don't believe the process ever really ends.
Many disabling conditions can be detected long before birth. Some of them can't. If nine months passes and the child is born and only then do I find out that his body will be permanently crippled - that he will never be able to live his life as a normal human being - then I have to be strong enough and patient enough to try again.
I find it rather strange that couples who would otherwise be able to produce any of an infinite variety of bodies for their child snap their fingers and curse their luck when a chance event causes things to go wrong.
Now for a statement that I'm sure will offend a huge number of people - If you are one of the people who was born with a severe disability, did you ever stop to think that perhaps your life could have gone differently if your parents had decided to wait and try again?
For the record, I have no idea if there is some magic waiting room where a child's soul waits to be born into the world, but that way of considering the unknown seems to be the most fair of those I've heard.
An earlier comment was made:
"Points two and three above refer only to the continuation of the species, and ignore what could happen should indiviual human life become devalued through practices such as abortion, euthanasia and infanticide. This isn't my view, but it's one I'm willing to listen to with an open mind."
Without comment, or implying disagreement or agreement, contrast that with this:
"Anything is cheap when there's too much of it".
Which at first blush you might think is slightly-off topic. But upon reflection, maybe not..
As several have pointed out, there may be no correct answer.
If ever there was a taboo subject to top all others... since you brought it up, i might point out another book that considers canabalism -- Stranger in a Strange Land, by Heinlein.
The idea presented by Heinlein is that if there is a full sense of trust between individuals, then one indivitual could rightly put the other to death for any reason, and at any time.
One must wonder then if that kind of trust inhearently exists between mother and child.
On another note, i should mention (after just reading Clarke's predictions for the future) that disabled people might become a thing of the past soon enough.
And on to what i really wanted to say... i dont know how much research has been done regarding this, but it is my feeling that at least mentally disabled people are not useless. It seems that some of these people, while being disabled in a general sense, may excel at one thing or another. For instance, i used to work at a small manufacturing company doing assembly work. My boss hired me to do a lot of the electronics work, but was discussing with me at one point that he tends to hire people who are mentally slow to do some assembly work because their minds dont wander as much.
The article on slashdot recently that associated autism with genius is another clue that might lead us to discover that the common "retard" might actually be a genius in a select field if he could only express he thoughts...or gain the information he needs.
And to sum up these thoughts, i dont think we know enough about the actual feeling of the disabled person to justify putting them to death for their differences. It seems that if this type of practice existed, it would be attacked in much the same way as racism. its just another discrimination against a minority.
-James
(As you can see, my own opinion is still up in the air.)
10
Parents should be allowed to terminate the lives of their children.
Of course, the act of doing so would indicate that the parents are completely batshit insane and should then subsequently be locked up for the rest of their lives.
But they should still be allowed to do it in the first place. But you can't have people who do things like that running around on the streets, they're obviously psychopaths and represent a danger to society.
goto 10
Sorry, just meant to throw a number out there, I don't know anything meaningful about IQ derivation. I meant to point out the exception of a person who might not be the most intelligent but can still be happy.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
(First I have to say that the very high sensitivity/crudity ratio of the comments on this controversial topic today make me very proud of the Slashdot community).
Michael Specter wrote an extensive profile of Singer, entitled "The Dangerous Philosopher" in the September 6, 1999 issue of _The New Yorker_, which ends:
'The Peter Singer who has just moved to America is not the unyielding radical who wrote "Animal Liberation" twenty-five years ago. In a sad fulfillment of Ann McDonald's wish, [she is an advocate for the disabled and a friend of Singer] Singer has been dealt a bitter dose of real life. His mother, Cora, who was once an intellectually active and vibrant woman, has fallen ill with Alzheimer's disease. She no longer recognizes Singer or his sister or any of her grandchildren. She is in a state that Helga Kuhse, who is her medical executor as well as her son's closest academic collaborator, described to me as one in which sho would clearly not want to live any longer:"She always said,'When I can't tie my shoes and I can't read, I don't want to be here.' Those were her criteria, physical and mental. And she knew what she was saying- she was a doctor. We don't have active euthanasia in this country, but she certainly would not want drugs to treat an infection or anything else that could prolong her life."
'Singer would never kill his mother, even if he thought it was what she wanted. He told me that he believes in Jack Kevorkian's attempts to help people die, but he also said that such a system works only when a patient is still able to express her wishes. Cora Singer never had that chance; like so many others, she slipped too quickly into the vague region between life and death.
'When Singer's mother became too ill to live alone, Singer and his sister hired a team of home health-care aides to look after her. Singer's Mother has lost her ability to reason, to be a person, as he defines the term. So I asked him how a man who has written that we ought to do what is morally right without regard to proximity or family relationships could possibly spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on private care for his mother. He replied that it was "probably not he best use you could make of my money. That is true. But it does provide employment for a number of people whgo find something worthwhile in what they're doing."
'This is a noble sentiment, but it hardly fits with Peter Singer's rules for living an ethical life. He once told me that he has no respect for people who donate funds for research on breast cancer or heart disease in the hope that it might indirectly save them or members of their family from illness, since they could be using that money to save the lives of the poor. ("That is not charity," he said. "It's self-interest.") Singer has responded to his mother's illness in the way most caring people would. The irony is that his humane actions clash so profoundly with the chords of his utilitarian ethic.
'That doesn't surprise Bernard Williams. [another philosopher; a critic of Singer] "You can't make these calculations and comparisons in real life. It's bluff," Williams told me. "One of the reasons his approach is so popular is that it reduces all moral puzzlement to a formula. You remove puzzlement and doubt and conflict of values, and it's in the scientific spirit. People seem to think it will all add up, but it never does, because humans never do."
'Singer may be learning that. We were sitting in his living room one day, and the trolley traffic was noisy on the street outside his window. Singer has spent his career trying to lay down rules for human behavior which are divorced from emotion and intuition. His is a world that makes no provision for private aides to look after addled, dying old women. Yet he can't help himself. "I think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really difficult," he said quietly. "Perhaps it is more difficult than I thought before, because it is different when it is your mother."'
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. -Albert Einstein
This is not about a vegetable on life support. It's about any child with ANY defect. ANY defect. Are you comfortable with killing anybody? Anything? I'm not. But I won't intervene to prevent it. That's my position on the matter. First trimester abortion? Go ahead, there is no brain development yet, after that it get's iffy.
Singer's argument is that a newborn infant is not a person, and that it might in some circumstances be better (in a compassionate sense) to use euthanasia than to allow a newborn to develop into a severely handicapped person who will experience great suffering.
The arguement may or may not be sound, and there would certainly be many practical difficulties with doing this, but it doesn't make him a "nutcase asshole" Nazi apologist.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
It cant, but your still put the dog to sleep. A very tricky subject indeed. Brad
Actaully, we should imprision menstruating women if they aren't trying their hardest to become pregnant.
Menstruation is murder! Nuns are mass murderers.
Someone who is truly disabled to me would not have the ability to take care of them self at age 18. If the child has a fighting chance they should get that chance. Morally speaking of course. Remember, abortion is legal in many places. My morals dictate abortion is wrong after the first month. I don't like the idea that it can feel the pain. Most of the methods used involve violent removal. If the concept of reproduction is removed see the fetus matches the description of a parasite. The irony of a disabled fetus is that it will never rise above the parasite. It will remain a drain and source of suffering for the families who raise them.
The world is already over populated as it is. Why add more strains to nature and the economy? Why burden an organism with life when it will be one of agony? I wouldn't want to live if I was severely disabled from birth. The sad thing is that if I was I could never communicate that I wished to be destroyed.
It's the old "give a person a fish, teach a person to fish" issue. Indiscriminate giving just creates dependents, and our society (esp. speaking of the U.S. here) is flush w/ dependent types who expect to have everything handed to them on a silver platter.
An important question is what good is the life of a terminally demented child. Say, we are talking about infants who have no hope of recovery (with current standards of medicine), and will probably remain dysfunctional for the rest of their lives. These infants cannot think -- we can demonstrate that they do not think by means of any number of tests for neural activity. The question to ask is whether such a life is worth anything to the fuzzy cloud of Humanity. The child certainly would not mind if he were (painlessly) removed -- he would barely know that he was being killed. The parents certainly, in spite of their terrible sorrow, might not want to be burdened by a child that denies them all the pleasures of parenthood. Is the child any better than any other anthropomorphic living dead, for example a brain-dead accident victim? We do not seem to mind the fact that many brain-dead people are unplugged all the time; should we really have a different standard for brain-dead babies?
Of course this classification of "mentally-useless" is a dangerous one. I understand fully well the implications of a mis-classification, even one caused by a lacking in our current state of knowledge.
I am sorry, however, I cannot easily dismiss Singer's viewpoints as entirely invalid.
(Notice that few of us have any ethical problems with purging brain-dead programs like Microsoft's operating systems...)
Your argument in regards to replacing words isn't what that man said. It's inflammatory. We enslave Negroes. That means we kill blacks. We've been doing it for thousands of years and we're not going to stop anytime soon. The ability to invent gunpowder weapons was given to you by evolution so you can kill Negroes!
So, if you don't want to enslave blacks, fine. But I'll be fscked before I treat a black/Negro/colored/junglebunny/spearchucker with anywhere near the same respect that I treat a human life. We're the dominant species on this planet, and membership has its privileges.
** NOTA BENE **
I became a vegetarian because I was having problems sorting out, in both tone and argument, the difference between arguments often advanced for eating meat and arguments defending slavery. Peter Singer's ethical arguments follow in Utilitarianism a direct line from Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, but Peter Singer bases his ethical system on the capacity for happiness. In his view, a healthy pig has a greater capacity for happiness than a severely retarded newborn, so killing the newborn and sparing it and the parents years of suffering is easily more moral than killing the cow just so you can enjoy a flank steak.
Let's drift the topic:
I have nothing ethically against eating human flesh if it has died from natural causes, as they do as a form of respectful "burial" in Papua-New Guinea.
But, from a health perspective, eating people whose health hasn't been strictly controlled can be dangerous. Besides common illnesses, in PNG they had the problem of "kourou" (?), "the laugh illness" (?). It was a nervous system disease caused for eting the brain of your ancestors similar to "mad cow"'s. Bovine Spongiform Disease was caused by cows eating (processed) ewes, remember.
Of course, I prefer fish.
A few comments, more on-topic:
One person has had a chance to lead a full life while the other has not
I'm not sure we're actually discussing cases where "the chance to lead a full life" is the issue.
Pain tells us that we are alive
I'm reminded of Joseph Heller's views on this from Catch-22 (transcribed from memory, may be wrong)
My personal view is that the real mistake here is to try to make general moral rules about these things. I personally feel revulsion at this sentiment; but I wouldn't necessarily presume to tell parents facing this problem what their choice should be. On the other hand, I don't want to say that "anything goes"; there should be some moral statements which are actually true. I guess that a lot would depend on the motives -- I would not like to see disabled children become the victims of infanticide because they were "inconvenient", but would mind less if euthanasia were carried out because the parents simply couldn't cope. There is a distinction there.
Of course, perhaps the answer is that there is no right thing to do when such an unfortunate child is born. Perhaps either decision is very badly morally wrong. I'm not aware of any obligation on the universe to always provide us with a "right thing to do" -- perhaps genuine "moral tragedies" can exist.
Thank heavens that the immediate question -- that of academic freedom -- is much more clear cut. I refer all present to Mill's On Liberty, which says all that needs to be said on this.
jsm
I have an uncle who had a child born with muscular dystophy. Their son lived to about 25 or so before he had the final complete systems failure. Later, in a discussion with my uncle, he talked about the toll of the whole experience on the family, and how it would have been better if their son had not been born at all. I find it bizarre some of the arguments here that the knowledge that your child will be self aware and possess a survival instinct is sufficient knowledge to forgo an abortion. In my cousins case, everyone would have been better of if that path had been followed. Mr. Springer, of course, is talking about euthanasia, a different issue, and my cousin in this sense is not part of his argument since he lived quite a normal life for a few years.
The destruction of very young babies (and not just handicapped ones as suggested) is one Gedankenexperiment among many in Singer's wider interest in the cognitive science and the issues it raises. He investigates how our moral principles consistent with our modern scientific knowledge.
/. suggests. It does seem, to me at least, to be inconsistent to believe that apes should be protected and respected, but not so children.
For example, Singer was involved in starting the Great Ape project, which advocates equal rights for primates, the same moral and legal rights as humans. (Rights but not obligations, in the same way that young children and the mentally ill are absolved of certain responsibilities.)
This fact suggests a rather different 'spin' on the quote than
Not the sort of mistake a Princeton professor would make.
On the other hand sparking debate through controversy is no bad thing.
Slashdot circa 1933 (?)
Shock horror: Physics professor advocates poisoning of kittens to test nuclear theory.
- Kazparr
Mr Singer has applied that same argument to old people. He states it is immoral to spend money to keep them alive when it could be so much better spent on increasing the happiness of many. Unfortunately, when it came to his own mother having Altzheimers, he has spared no expense to help her. This makes all of his arguments worthless.
If you start off with the notion that human life is not more valuable than animal life, then you are bound to come to some crazy conclusions. It seems clear, from this brief description, that Singer is trying to build a morally consistent world view based on this rather odd premise. Unfortunately people who aim for total consistency are rather difficult to argue with, unless you have an equally consistent opposing viewpoint, and often frighteningly persuasive. I would say rms is one such person, although I wouldn't say he is as crazy as Singer.
The obvious counter argument to Singer's euthanazia proposal is that you should not eliminate suffering by eliminating the person. Evidently he believes that a one month old baby is not a person, but as the father of a four month old baby I would have to profoundly disagree with him.
The notion of whether or not the infant has rights or not, is however, irrelevant. This is where a lot of the arguments about animal rights miss their point. Let's simplify the argument by talking about animals.
It is possible to believe that it is wrong for humans to cause suffering in animals without according animals "rights". Why? Because it is dehumanizing to cause suffering in another living thing without good cause. The wrong lies not in the fact that the animal suffers (remember, animals hunt, kill and eat each other every day) but in the fact that you as a person are diminished by such an act, and more broadly so is the society you live in. If you accept this principle, then the question posed by Singer is easier to resolve. A society which does not respect its weaker members, which eliminates them out of convenience, is a sick society.
Now, I'm in trouble because, starting from my premise I'm going to come to a rather strange conclusion. If you apply my argument to highly realistic computer simulations of immoral acts (murder, torture, rape) then my argument says that these are also immoral (not _as_ bad obviously, but still quite wrong), and should not be tolerated. This opens up a whole new can of worms about video game censorship, so I'm going to stop here before I start an off-topic flame war.
I intend in this post to address the same problem as all of the others here, but from a different viewpoint. This post is intended to build on others here. I beleive that the lives of children are, in fact, sacred. Those that are living should be allowed to live -- but not to produce offspring. /. poll to see what the average number of children is for /. readers. An honest, straight poll this time (no silly answers), with everyone answering. What you will find is that, statstically, as people become more fit for survival in our world, their likelihood to have offspring decreases tremendously. (/. readers will have fewer children than the average individual.)
To murder living beings for any reason is, from a logical standpoint, calling for extremists to end the practice, in addition to being morally offensive and violating the principles on which our nation (for those of us in the US) was built.
Our biggest problem as human beings rests not in our compassion for the lives of the living, but in our desire to violate the principle "If a man works not, neither let him eat." This is a RELIGIOUS principle that keeps people that are not favored for survival in an economic world from surviving. By this rule, an individual is always given the opportunity to obtain subsistence by becoming a productive member of socitey. The survival of productive individuals is not in question here, though... what is, is the continued support of nonproductive individuals.
Just as shepherds remove sheep with undesirable traits from the flock to remove them from the breeding cycle, we are removing people from the lineages of the future, often by our own devices, while at the same time introducing stimuli to make other individuals produce offspring. The difference here is that in our society, those traits that are favorable to our offspring's survival are removed while emphasizing unfavorable traits.
I think that a good idea along the lines of this argument would be to have a
However, even as this occurs, those with undesirable traits, both genetically and culturally, are given incentive to produce offspring.
In the United States, welfare is despicable for its damaging effects to the next generation. In what other institution do we find clear incentive for the least productive members of socitey, those that could not survive without government support, to reproduce in large numbers? I will not even attempt to approach this subject from a genetic viewpoint, as I beleive that there is not a genetic connection to poverty in the least. I will, however, state that the majority of our behaviors are, in fact, learned from our parents. There are (depending on the argument you support) between one and ten instincts for humans. Every other behaviour that we may treat as an instinct is merely a preference that has been trained into us by society. In this practice, we are giving a considerable portion of our youth to training by those that have lost in life, that demonstrate social traits that inhibit our progress as human beings.
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
I am amazed at the number of people here who seem to think that moral decisions are influenced by economic or other concerns. Allow me to ilustrate:
/. is also revealed in another way - the numerous attempts to detract from Singer's ridiculous proposition through arguments such as, "what about Hawking?" While I have great respect for the contributions of this theorist (so far as I am able to understand his thinking), his contributions to society (and many would argue his contributions are minor) are entirely irrelevant.
My killing you would be wrong. (I think we are all in agreement here.)
My killing you would be just as wrong if I were paid $10 million for the act. (Some would claim this is worse, since I am now guilty of covetous greed as well as murder.)
The act would *still* be just as wrong if it netted the entire wealth of the planet, to be used solely for the purpose of helping others and eliminating human suffering worldwide. (Any disagreement on this point is an implicit agreement that "the end justifies the means", and ultimately nullifies any claim of the existence of right and wrong.)
The "unclear on the concept" problem prevalent here at
From the only logically consistent moral point of view, Hawking has no more or less worth than you, I, a German Jew, a Sudanese Christian, or even a deformed infant. (I would argue, counter to Singer, that all of the above have sustantially more worth than, say, a cat or a porpoise.) If you do not believe this, then I respectfully request that you reevaluate your value system, at least to the point that you admit you are a bigot and do not hold all men to be created equal, for that is the only logical conclusion that can be reached.
Slashdot is a funny place: despite all the "expertise" in computers and logic, a logical, well-thought-out argument is quite hard to find, but wooly thinking abounds, especially if wrapped in the latest trendiness.
THINK, people!
Finally, has it occured to none of the morallly challenged here that because of the gravity of the issues at debate, it might be best to fall on the "safe" side, and grant life the benfit of the doubt? Surely those who are not entirely sure (and I think if they are honest, most of Singer's supporters fall into this camp) should realize that life and death decisions are final, and if there is even the slightest chance they are wrong, the only morally correct thing to do is to support the position that grants and affirms life, for there is no reprieve from death.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Which do we value more? Humans or potential humans? This is a major component of why both this and abortion are contravertial.
Society has invested a lot of resources into making a typical 20 year old. At this point in their life, they have passed through primary and possibly secondary school systems, costing taxpayers money, and using up time of people qualified and willing to educate them.
The theory behind the continuation of society is that society invests the time and energy into helping an individual develop, after which this person repays this debt through productivity and taxes. At this point in history, this exchange is creating a net surplus of resources - people get to retire when they get old, standards of living go up, etc. Resources ARE distributed unevenly, but that's a different issue.
Having kids is gambling. You invest time, love, and money, and maybe they fall ill and die, and maybe they win a noble prize, and maybe they become a mass-murderer. You can influence the odds, but you can't control the outcome.
The question our Ivy league friend raises is how this equation changes as the weights shift - what if there's only a 1% chance this child will reach maturity? What if there's a 1% chance that this child will ever be able to communicate with others in any way? What if there's only a 30% chance that this child will ever be a 'normal' member of society?
This child quite likely WILL take up more of the caregivers' resources. Is the child worth it if [s]he is unlikely to ever be develop a mental or emotional capacity beyond that of a goldfish? a poodle? an 8-year old?
At what point does the potential for a human to survive/succeed become small enough that the burden to actualized humans outweighs it?
-- end of post (I hope you weren't expecting me to try and answer any of these questions) --
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
I'd venture to say that I worked in a natural foods store as an assistant bakery manager for some time. Indeed, one might say that since I rose to the position of assistant manager, I was there for a while. I'd then venture to say that you're wrong. I'd also venture to say that most people in general are not very healthy. Finally, I'd venture to say that the entire point was to stimulate thought. Apparently I stimulated more thought in some than others (and no, I'm not going to explicitly point out precisely who I mean by that.. just don't assume anything ;).
Oh, and by the way, most importantly.. "Many" is defined as "a large number of persons or things". The word "large" is even more subjective. I could state that I believed any number more than 1 (hell, I could even say the number 1) was a "large" number. That said, precisely how do you plan to go about proving my statement factually incorrect? By proving that there are no unhealthy vegans anywhere in the world? That's patently ridiculous.
As I said, I made a typographical error. I apologize. However, with the correction to the sentence, there is nothing left for you to disprove about that sentence. Thank you, and good day.
~ Kish
So humans are the masters of the world? We control nature? We are unto gods? And practically everyone who responded to my thread wondered why I said hubris .. Guess what, genius? Cockroaches are evolutionarily superior to humans. Pretty funny, don't you think? Guess what else? After humans are long since dead, cockroaches will still be around. So will nature. So will the earth. So.. how precisely are we its masters? Simple. We're not. We'd like to think so, however.
Actually, try this little experiment: wander off into some woods that are populated by wolves. Don't take a gun. Figure out how high up on the food chain you actually are. I'd certainly like to see the wolf consider your "value" as a life form.
First off, that's not what I said. Second off, I explicitly stated more times than I can count that all things are equally "deserving of life" but not all things are equally "able to survive" it.
This is probably the least enlightened and/or original arguement I've seen yet. It practically boils down to "no you're wrong, and I'm right".
~ Kish
Those acquainted with Peter Singer's work will know he proceeds from a basis of absolute utilitarianism. ie. his ethics seek to maximise good for people regardless of the means by which this is accomplished. In so doing he rejects the doctrine of double effect (that failing to do something with outcome X can have a different moral character to actively doing something with outcome X) and others such norms -- with challenging consequences.
For instance, he argues that the money we spend on luxuries rather than the charity we know would save lives is morally equivalent to killing for luxuries. On this basis he donates 10% of his annual income to charity. While I can't speak for other Slashdot readers, I find his argument on this matter (read Practical Ethics; another useful book on this matter is Causing Death and Saving Lives by Jonathan Glover) both unassailable and disturbing given the way I live my life.
His advocacy of infanticide and the like on the basis that infants are not people follows similar levels of intellectual rigor, although my disagreement with a number of his supporting arguments on this matter gives me the comfortable position of differing on these issues. Although I frequently disagree with his conclusions, I consider his highly focussed arguments on such matters very useful for clarifying my own ethics by difference; for identifying where pure utilitarianism goes wrong.
On both these issues, Peter Singer's scholarship forces me to look more carefully at my own beliefs and motivations and I consider him one of those distinguished thinkers whose work encourages us not only to memorize his conclusions -- which are frequently abhorrent -- but to actually think outselves about uncomfortable matters. As such I consider him absolutely worthy of his appointment and hope his ethics will stir up critical and original thought in the US, much as it has in both Australia and Germany.
remove the sz's from my email to use it
Ok. Let me set you straight. I never said we were avoiding natural selection. I said the opposite several times. There's no way around it. That said, you are just about the dumbest fscking idiot I've ever had the misfortune of having to read their pathetic excuse for "commentary". If you're going to refute my assertions, at least refute the assertions I actually made myself, rather than responding to the ones you made up in your head and subsequently attributed to me.
Or do you like looking stupid in front of everyone else?
The rest of your comment is likewise so much drivel. I've stated and restated my point throughout this entire thread. I've spent more time responding to comments on this thread than I have posting onto any other discussion this whole week. The least you could do is actually fscking read the damn things before you continue to bother the hell out of me. Since you won't, however, feel free to chat with yourself for a while, because I have no further comments to make on this or any other post here today.
~ Kish
And the question no one ever seems to ask is: "Does human life have any inherent value?" If your answer is "yes", then I urge you to stop a moment and try and set down the reasons for your belief. On what assumptions do you base your valuation of human life? Can you say honestly that you do so because of carefully-thought out reasons, rather than simply as a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of your *own* life being terminated? Is there anything besides unexamined emotion behind your fear of what Singer proposed?
I can already see some of the responses:
"Humans are intelligent..."
And why does that make us special? And if somehow it really does then is intelligence a binary situation or a spectrum?
"All life has value..."
Why?
"They all have potential..."
Everything has potential. That leftover lasagna I'm pondering whether to eat or throw away has the potential to become part of a living, thinking (heh) human being. (Which, if I understand what a lot of the posters seem to be assuming, is the height of privelege. We are the wonders of creation after all.) If I throw it out, has it missed its chance? Am I an evil so-and-so for denying it the chance to tour my digestive tract, and perhaps flake off as bits of dead skin a couple of months later, indistinguishable from the hamburger I ate the next day? Virtually everything anyone ever does affects the future of someone else, positively, negatively, frequently both. If you are afraid of infringing upon someone else's potential I suggest you stay in bed. Oops. You just reduced your own potential. Oh no. What if someone else's potential depended on you fulfilling yours? Or not fulfilling? How can you handle the emotional stress?
grumpy as usual,
zeke
While I'm not exactly a barrister on retainer for a nether power...
I *do* have to disagree with you here; frequently, the ends *do* justify the means. In fact, this is commonly recognized, if not often admitted, in society. The character of intent is a admissible and admirable purpose in society.
For instance, even you would probably agree that teaching somebody basic electronics and chemistry, with the intent of training them to construct explosive devices for use in killing civillians for the sole purpose of extortion, would generally
be considered wrong. Training, however, the same person with basic electronics, chemistry, biology and more, however, is a commonly accepted practice in high schools. The difference is intent.
For all you know, it may be perfectly ethical for somebody to kill me. After all, what do you know of my capabilities or intent? While I may, truly, be what I claim to be -- a mildly eccentric graduate student -- verifying that might be non trivial, and even with that information there is no evidence that, say, I am not evil incarnate. Were I to pose a dire threat to society, perhaps trading threatening skills or information as currency among those who violently oppose it, then another principle takes over: that of self-defense. Here, we have a recognition of means.
Killing me without reason would, most likely, be wrong on most moral compasses; doing so on the basis that I *may* be evil, the same. However, if I were to lash out against society via bomb or bullet, it would be as justified to stop me through incarceration or worse as it would be unjustifiable to randomly incarcerate the innocent; or would you rather that the many sacrifice *their* rights and lives, upholding one principle so that one may throw down the rest?
If you wish to make moral judgements, then to ignore the ends is willful blindness.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
> The fetus is already in progress to become a person, just as the newborn is
By God(tm)! You're right, while we're at it, lets outlaw spermacides, as sperm is in the process of becoming a person, just as a fetus and a newborn is.
> Feynman's book, that shortly after he got to
> princeton, somebody tried to talk him into
> joining a group of NAZI symathizers.
Just because someone tries to recruit you into a movement, doesn't mean you automatically join that movement, or even have the slightest interest in it.
My gf loves him completely and without pretense. She loves him by the most sincere definition of the word.
His parents, though I'm sure they love him too, are feeling the effects cashwise of supporting him. Can their needs be ignored, can their burden be written off? If so, will those who choose to fight selective euthanasia be held monetarily accountable for his support?
Damn, I don't know. This is definitely the wrong topic to show up on /. six beers into the night.
not sure where he stands,
\Ben
"parents of severely disabled infants should be allowed to kill them painlessly in order to save them from a life of suffering"
I think it would be extremely difficult to say whether or not a severly disabled child is going to have a "life of suffering". A friend of mine who did his community service at a special school once commented to me that for those kids every day was a massive party - they were rarely upset. Admitedly it would be expensive to send children to such a school, so I don't know that it would be the same for low income families to have such a child.
One practical issue with such children is whether or not the child is expected to outlive the parents. If so, what happens to them once the parents die, especially if the children are no longer minors?
Back to my subject, though, when you're born with a disability it's probably much easier to get used to, and when you don't have to worry about the difficulties of "normal life" things might be more fun. Basically it comes down to money - if the parents are rich enough to keep the child in comfort and don't have to worry about what he's costing them (and the state), then killing the child most likely won't be an issue, and the child most likely wont live a life of suffering. On the other hand, if the family is poor and the child will be a financial and emotional burden its life may well be one of suffering, and so the arguement for killing it is strong.
I was thinking about that as well, but the main point I was trying to make was that there is no real diffrence between a babie a few weeks away from being born, and one that's outside the womb.
I really wish people would at least be consistant with this, ether it's OK to kill babies, or its not. this "this is the way we do it now, so it must be ok" stuff is completly bogus.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The problem with the argument that it's kinder to euthanise a disabled child is this: if the child really felt that he would be better off dead than alive, he could very well kill himself later on.
Sounds absurd doesn't it? Then it's ridiculous to think that you're doing a disabled child a favor by killing him -- after all, even the most severely disabled people show a fierce desire to live.
The crux of this debate centers squarely on one's premises regarding the origins of morals.
For those who believe (as I do) that there are moral absolutes, the answer is clear. For those who do not, then the answer is, essentially, "If it feels good, do it."
Without a set of moral absolutes, there is no standard to which one can point and say, for example, that Hitler's actions were wrong. We may have the vast majority who would agree (rightly) in condemning the actions, but that's all it would be - an agreement based on majority.
What happens if the majority suddently decides that it's OK to commit genocide against the Jews? Does that all of a sudden make it OK? If not, why not?
Remember the U.S Declaration of Independence - "We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." That clearly defines the source of our rights and the basis for moral absolutes.
(flame away )
Would your opinion change if this were limited to disorders that were known to either be fatal within a short period of time (i.e. not Huntington's, for instance), or those that lacked either the capacity for thought or to express it?
If you're focusing on viability and output, there are diseases which render infants essentially will not procreate at all due to longevity issues, or permanent dependence on 24/7 life support, and from a gene pool point of view don't matter.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
In reading a large sample of the comments so far, I've noticed an interesting phenomenon. Almost all of the responses condemning this notion are phrased in absolutes (e.g. "It is wrong to kill a baby."), whereas most of the responses supporting this idea are phrased as opinions (e.g. "I think that there are times when it's OK to kill a baby."). Why is that? Does that say something about the closed-mindedness of the people against this idea?
As for myself, I can't completely disagree with Prof. Singer. I'm not a parent, so I admit that I don't have all the evidence needed to judge the situation, but I've often thought that I would not want to raise a child with a severe disability (especially a mental handicap, moreso than a physical one), and if I were to have such a child, I'd want to give it up somehow, and start over. I don't know that euthanizing the child is necessarily the right answer, but I certainly won't say that it's the wrong one...
If the value of life was to be measured in how painless you could get to the end of it, then it would probably be best to kill off everyone on birth. Much suffering would be avoided that way, and in a hundred years or so would cease altogether. Many of the more important works in art and literature have been the result of experienced pain and suffering. It is quite often the painful life that shows its preciousness and makes its worth felt every day. Do we really want to live in the "Brave New World" of Aldous Huxley where we have strictly normalized forms of social interaction, strictly controlled biological levels of health, an effectively senseless life until the death? I find myself unable to demand absolutions for parents that decide they's rather save themselves and others the responsibility and bother, even though I am not in the situation to condemn them. But I consider it wrong to try to establish a social or legal code intended as a substitute for their own conscience.
Your argument is moot. Using it one could argue that the use of condoms has prevented the birth of many geniuses (as if those people have more right to live, but that's another point). While this might be true (how can it ever be tested?) should the use of condoms be banned?. I don't think so.
Even if parents decided to kill every odd child (to mention an arbitrary reason) our society probably wouldn't look much different (ethics aside).
I have relatives to whom this happened-
they had 2 out of their 4 children born severly
retarted. Of course, there was no way to kill the
child (it was not known beforehand that the
child was damaged) and anyway they didn't believe
in abortion. I have since watched the two parents
slowly be destroyed by their kids (and I only
visit them once a year or so) and have watched the
normal kids get really fucked up. Of course,
everyone in the family goes on about how affectionate
the retarted kids are, and sure, they are, but
they are also horrors. I don't really want to go
into details but I'm sure you can imagine. More
to the point, they have little intelligence to speak
of. One kid, who is now 17, can't count, can't
read, can't reason or perform basic functions. She
is functionally a 1 year old or worse, and to
boot she has a 17 year old's strength and she
is often very angry at the world, for obvious
reasons.
Now all things being equal, is it better for her
had she been killed at birth? Maybe, maybe not. But
all things aren't equal. She exacts a huge toll
on everyone around her. And also, don't forget
that there was a normal kid who was not born, as
a result of her consuming a certain amount of
family resources. Instead of a year of the trama
of killing an infant, her parents have suffered
nearly two decades of horror, and will continue to
do so forever.
As an aside, the parents are still avid
christians. It never ceases to amaze me
that people will continue to worship a god
who fucks them. (of course, I am an atheist, so
I think their misfortune is just bad luck)
At any rate, I hope this becomes legal, since I know
I'd kill any of my kids who were retarted. It won't,
of course, since the US is filled with weak-minded
xtians. So, I guess I'll be stuck doing weekly
amniocentheses (mispelled) with a hand
on the ripcord.
I hate to tell you guys this, but many parents are already practicing infanticide to get rid of 'unwanted' (e.g. unaffordable, handicapped, and/or illegitimate) children.
An infant cannot defend itself against an adult. All you have to do is press its mouth against a pillow or blanket and it will die of hypoxia in minutes. And then the coroner rules "SIDS" (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) to get the parents off the hook.
How do I know this? Well, I'd rather not say. But believe me when I say that this is a common occurrence. All Singer is doing is trying to get society at large to stop being hypocritical and admit that this stuff happens. Parents assume the role of God and Grim Reaper over their child for the first 1-2 years of the child's life. To pretend otherwise, is to be ignorant or a hypocrite.
I am sorry -- I was being a dick. Sorry -- that is kind of a hot button for me. If you are interested, the book called "The Bell Curve" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684824299 /o/qid=939273583/sr=8-1/002-0921043-8016 265) is a good introduction to IQ and social issues. You need to have a decent handle on stats, but that should be easy -- one of the appendixes has an excellent intro to stats.
I agree that there are many happy retarded people out there, and many less bright happy people. My issue is that they are essentially never self-supporting and the key issue here is IQ. Smart blind people can get work, so can smart deaf people. Their life is less easy, but they can do quite well. When someone with an IQ of 70 who lives with their parents loses their parents, they cannot live alone unless you think that the prospect of serious property damage and really horrible injuries is OK. They aren't that smart and they make mistakes, potentially with knives and boiling water and electricity.
I have watched the deinstitutionalization frenzy that the liberals have foisted upon us that gave us cities full of the insane crapping on the sidewalk try to do the same to "liberate" the retarded from institutions. The mortality rate doesn't double -- the norm in Texas is that it goes up 20,000%. Yes, I mean twenty thousand percent. They cannot live alone for the same reason that a two year old child cannot reasonably be expected to stay out of traffic. This costs society (i.e., the government) a lot of money as it is not socially acceptable (and this I agree with) to watch retarded adults die -- at least not now, although the liberals keep pushing for "halfway houses" and we are seeing more and more of this.
Eugenics would stop this.
If people have a moral/ethical/religious problem with that, then I would like to REQUIRE them to have an insurance policy large enough to care for their child after they are gone OR THEY WILL BE FORCED TO HAVE AN ABORTION. I don't care about your belief system -- I care very much that you are asking me to take care of your adult child at $40,000 or more a year until they die.
hi,
i see a similar situation for a friend of mine. he has a brother who lays in a chair all day. he is able to watch tv and that's about it. my friend says that he seems to be aware of things but doesn't care enough to respond to them.
personally, i think he should have been terminated at birth. he is now 24 years old. my friend told me once that he is happy that he will be successful because that means he can take care of his brother if something ever happens to his folks (he also meant his younger adopted brothers too).
my friend has never complained about his brother. he just seems indifferent. the disabled man will never provide any output other than human waste and some heat. should he live? to what purpose.
i feel that everyone must have purpose or they might as well not exist. that is what keeps me from drug loserland or from playing too many video games.
however, my friend seems accepting of his brother so no problemo. also, please note that I said at birth. my controversial 2 cents.
Case in point, from just down the street here -- the nutbar who shot up a church in Ft. Worth a few weeks back was a disturbed adult who lived with his father until his father died. Then he took all of his father medication and went on a shooting spree. I agree with you here. The fewer nut the better. If we can get them in the womb, let's do it. There is almost no chance that we are killing a future genius if we know that they are nuts.
Stephen Hawkins was born a happy, healthy child who was stricken with disease later in life. Singer is suggesting the euthanasia of a hopelessly disabled child at no later than one month of age. Singer does not suggest the euthanasia of adults.
=>>=
Peter Singer is a philosopher in the tradition of Utilitarianism - The doctrine that the right thing to do is that which brings about the greatest good for the greatest number I suggest that we all read some of his books before attempting to comment out of our asses. IMHO it seems like most /.'s don't know or seem to want to understand philosophy. After all would we have computers if it wasn't for the philosophical questioning of mathematics itself? How else do you think Alan Turing came to his conclusions? Pd - What was it that Socrates said about an unexamined life?
As always, with ethical issues people all too often resort to knee-jerk responses. There are "rational" arguments for both "sides". That is what qualifies it as an ethical debate.
We ignore so much of the bad stuff (tm) that happens - people dying and starving all over the world (including 1st world streets), people suffering and dying from easilly prevented diseases, the large-scale killing of animals (also capable of suffering/pain) in our animal produce industries and yet people foam at the mouth at the idea that parents of children _severely_ disabled be allowed to decide their child's euthanasia.
I have mixed feelings on the subject but I think part of the "pro" rationale would be that 1) surely the parents are in the better position to make a caring-based decision, and 2) we need to remember that we are talking severely disabled to the point that the child will suffer and has no chance of an interactive life with "acceptable" suffering. My take on the statements are that it would need to be an incapacitating level of disability. Is it ethical to force the child and parents to go through such suffering because we, who aren't involved/affected, are uncomfortable with such difficult issues?
On a side note, this already does happen to some extent in the system but just isn't acknowledged. I have certainly heard of enough cases where children who were incapable of surviving without medical intervention had that intervention stopped. If the prescription of analgesics, etc to ease the suffering hastens the person's death isn't this then euthanasia? There are also a number of cases each year where "loved ones" have assisted family members/partners with debilitating illnesses to die.
Its already happening and there is no right answer (tm). There is no black/white, just shades of grey and I don't think I am in a position to force my personal opinion on anyone with anything other than debate/discussion of the issues.
As much as I enjoy having my words twisted around into meanings not previously intended.. I fail to see how this questions whether or not it is hubris to claim that humans are exempt from natural exemption. Indeed, there is a good argument against your points in the replies to your post preceding this one. I'm not quite sure what kind of point you are trying to make here.
Excuse me, but we're talking about the two parents of their one child deciding whether or not to euthanize said child. I'm not sure how this directly correlates to one human trying to impose his "perfectionist" views upon the rest of the entire world.
I believe what you mean to say "if people don't disagree with those who twist his views around and make them utterly extremist". If people agreed with what he's saying word for word, what you suggest would not be a possibility.
Well, once you actually have a child and it becomes independent enough to make decisions on its own.. it's, well, an independent life form. Not some kind of "extension" of the parent. It is now a separate entity. That's a different arguement entirely.
At any rate, "supposed geeks"? I imagine that depends on whether you think of "geeks" as "free thinking free willed human beings with a strong attraction to those things nerdy or geek-like" or as "lumbering automatons who do not truly think for themselves and are simply clueless in a manner different than that of the rest of the world". Do you always call into question the "geekiness" of those who disagree with you? Are you the "top geek"? Have you subjugated us, and now we must obey your will and agree with your every thought? heh.
"Hitler was evil"..? Is this a documented fact? Morality is highly subjective (or did you at some point note an all-encompassing moral code that every human abides by? I rather.. doubt.. it), and as such, you are stating an opinion, not a well known fact . Fact: I am male. Opinion: I am evil incarnate. Just because some (or many.. or most) people believe me to be evil, based on their own moralistic/ethical views, does that mean I am? Obviously that's subject to some debate. Please stop trying to weigh in your opinions as documented facts. At least feel free to look up "holy war" in the Jargon File, so you, as a "superior techno geek", may grasp the concept of why I find your arguements laughable in terms you can understand better.
In short, you're arguements don't make a bit of sense. If I didn't cover that enough for you, again, see the preceding replies.
~ Kish
Hitler didn't only advocate genocide. This is simply what he was most famous for. He advocated killing anyone who didn't fit his idea of a perfect person. And many physically and mentally disabled people were killed under his regime. Interestingly enough, this was done under the guise that it was humane to kill them, saving them from a miserable existance.
Once we have perfected Genetic Engineering the whole concept of birth defects will become something we tell our grandchildren to scare them on Halloween. But then Genetic Engineering is a big 'Ethical' sticking point as well so perhaps we are no better off. Examples of GE gone mad: Star Trek and the Eugenic Wars, Gattaga (written and directed by a Kiwi too! And no I do not mean the fuzzy brown/green fruit!)
-- Oliver Jones - Deeper Design Limited
There are a million different things that I want to write--a million different ways in which I want to respond to what Professor Singer proposes and what I think Princeton University effectively endorses by giving him a platform from which to preach. And I will write a logical response to what he's proposing in another post to this topic.
But in this post I want to deep-drill one key point of this entire discussion: the concept of suffering.
Look at the list of posts on this topic already. As I write this there are more than 400--and I'd bet money that at least 50% of them use the word "suffering" at least once. Singer has cast his views in terms of suffering, and cloaks himself in mantle of righteousness by saying that he's working for a world with less suffering. The entire debate is cast in terms of suffering--the poor baby is suffering; the poor family is suffering; society is suffering; everybody is suffering. We can all make the world a little bit better by reducing the suffering--all we have to do is off this child over here.
There's just this one little problem. Who says that severely disabled children, or severely disabled adults, are suffering at all?
I've worked with handicapped children for years. Twenty-eight years ago I taught handicapped children how to swim in Washington, D.C. Nine years ago I wrote my first Windows program for non-verbal children. Eight years ago I wrote a communications program for profoundly handicapped children, permitting a 12-year-old boy to go from a vocabulary of 0 words to 400 words over a weekend.
And seven years ago I heard the most ominous question you can ever hear: "Um, by any chance...did you have amniocentesis done?" My youngest daughter has Down Syndrome. She's one of the "severely handicapped" that Peter Singer advocates "euthanizing" in the first month after birth.
By all accounts Annie is severely disabled. There are a long list of "features" in Down Syndrome, including mental retardation, poor respiratory systems (Annie is a regular at the Emergency Room), a tendency to have spinal cord problems, and of course the obvious visible symptoms of Down Syndrome. As a Down Syndrome child, Annie has another burden: as she matures she will have to justify her continued existence in the face of people (not including, but morally dependent upon, Peter Singer) who point out that since Annie does not have 46 chromosomes (she has 47), she is not part of homo sapiens sapiens, and thus is not human.
Since Annie was born I have been involved with handicapped kids in a variety of different ways--in official capacities on state and local agencies; on boards and committees of social service agencies; and as a volunteer in a therapeutic riding program--a program where we use horses to provide physical therapy and other kinds of instruction to kids with a wide range of "feature sets". Between the kids I've worked with and the parents I've worked with, I dare say I've seen pretty much all of it. I know the rules for admission to Children's Hospital in Philadelphia (the baby must survive 24 hours before admission will be approved--the helicopter cannot take off until CHOP radios approval). I know lots of people who've stayed at Ronald McDonald House, hoping that their child will live through this series of treatments. I know lots of parents who came home from Ronald McDonald House to make funeral arrangements. More than half of Annie's preschool class have died.
Which is to say, I have a pretty good handle on what having a handicapped child means.
Does Annie suffer? Not any more than any of her sisters suffers. Or than you suffer. She's mentally retarded--but that doesn't mean she doesn't know joy. She has lots of limitations, but that doesn't mean her life doesn't have meaning. If the tragedy of adolescence is the loss of childhood innocence, then perhaps Annie will suffer less than her teenaged sisters--because in all likelihood Annie will always have the mental acuity of a child.
Parents of handicapped kids like to say that having a "special needs" child is like booking a vacation to France. You plan for a trip to France, you read all the books about going to France, perhaps you take a Berlitz course in French. But when your flight lands, the flight attendant says, "we're terribly sorry, but there's been a change in plans. We've landed in Portugal, and you'll have to get off here. We know you planned to go to France, but you're getting your vacation in Portugal, and unfortunately there's no way to change it."
Well, that's quite a blow. You're not prepared for Portugal. You don't have any books on Portugal. You remember that there's some kind of separatist movement in Portugal, so perhaps it could be dangerous. Being in Portugal makes you feel uncomfortable, and frankly, pretty awkward. You don't like being in Portugal. In fact, you really hate being in Portugal. But love it or hate it, you're in Portugal.
After seven years, eight months, and eighteen days in Portugal, I can tell you that you can get used to Portugal. And you can find all sorts of reasons to like Portugal. And you can be extremely proud of being in Portugal.
And you can discover, as I have, that being severely disabled doesn't mean that you suffer--it means that you're different. Annie isn't going to major in Physics at MIT. She isn't going to compete for an Olympic medal. But that doesn't mean she suffers.
There are disabled kids who suffer--but not in the way you might think. In the first few weeks after birth there are a lot of emotional battles to contend with--not the least of which is the whispered question from a well-meaning relative, "does this sort of thing run in her family?" There are lots of people suggesting that having a handicapped child is too much of a burden. There are lots of people suggesting that you can place the child in an institution. And there is bound to be someone, somewhere, who suggests that an "accident" might not be viewed as a tragedy.
Disabled kids also suffer from fathers who cut and run--gravy-sucking pond scum who abandon their wives when it becomes clear that Junior won't ever play second base for the Yankees. (Am I showing my biases here?)
And disabled kids suffer from the nagging fear that someday, somebody is going to come for them. That's why the disabled picketed at Princeton--they're genuinely afraid that artful semanticists like Peter Singer will lay the philosophical foundation for another Kristalnacht.
I worry--I fear--for Annie. Not because she suffers in any sense (well--her bottom sometimes suffers when she crosses the road without permission). But because I am certain that there will come a day when she is threatened by people promising to help her. Annie costs society a lot of money--she costs the school system better than $30,000 per year, and probably costs the welfare system another $5-8,000 a year. Sooner or later that funding stream is going to stop. Sooner or later some well-meaning legislator--schooled in the ideals of Peter Singer--will propose "helping alleviate the suffering" by making euthanasia "a therapeutic option." And then some other well-meaning sort will propose increased help "to those who really need it" by "trimming the rolls" of the system.
And then somebody will come for Annie.
Back in the '60s we had a saying that seems apropos: "Off the pig!" It'll sure alleviate my suffering.
The problem with that is, once you start down that road where do you draw the line? 10 years after you say it's OK to euthanize babies because they're severely handicapped, do you come out and say it's OK to euthanize them because their parents are impovereshed and you want to save them a life of poverty and hunger? Do you say it's OK to euthanize them because their parents down want them and you want to save them a life of neglect and despair? Each step you take makes the next one a little easier; I'd just as soon not start down that road.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Interesting to see that an ethical matter like this one isn't really discussed by the people here. Lots of posts, hardly any replies.
In our quest to be political correct, we sometimes forget to think for ourselves (or learn from others, for that matter).
If you don't think that humans are a part of the natural world, or that we are not subject to natural selection, you clearly believe yourself to be an artificial life form.
At any rate, you, as have many others, have clearly misinterpreted my point. At least be original and misinterpret it in a way that hasn't been done previously.
~ Kish
That's right, asshole.
We established that at Nuremburg.
You know, I remember reading in Richard Feynman's book, that shortly after he got to princeton, somebody tried to talk him into joining a group of NAZI symathizers.
How old is this particular NAZI puke? Could he be the same one, or does Princeton have an ongoing tradition of avocoating crimes against humanity?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Hitler killed thousands of the people we now call the Handicapped right around the time he began rounding up Jews in large numbers. How disappointing that an American University will give this terribly wrong man, Mr. Singer, a position of respect, and a public forum. I doubt anybody who advocated killing blacks or Jews would get the same consideration from Princeton.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
I would like to make one point that seems to be being ignored by most. The point is that taking any systematic action that would reduce the diversity of the human gene pool should be approached with the greatest trepidation.
Sickle cell anemia exists because the gene that causes it also protects from malaria, and is beneficial to the carrier when only one copy is present. The ruthlessness of natural selection has largely weeded this gene out of the human population in areas where the malaria parasite isn't found, but in areas where it is, this gene is reasonably common.
My question is, what are we wiping out when we systematically decide that people with a certain defect should be killed at birth? Are we wiping out the only people who'll be resistent to the next plague? Are we wiping out the ability to think and put ideas together in a certain way from the general (non-disabled) population? What is the hidden cost?
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
In the Netherlands we've got a political party which is (as a product of the late 60's) fond of abortion and euthanesia. They've (not them alone, but...) preached their gospel so ofthen that the legislation is quite liberal at that point at this moment. I'm sure many countries have this problem.
Quite scary, even the medical doctors changed their three thousand year old oath of hypotacres (what was his name?). At least in the Netherlands the phrase "to protect life" has been deleted and changed into something less.
And now, a few weeks ago a secretary of state (minister Borst, for the dutch folks) announced that she thought the age for self-decision about euthanesia could well be dropped from 18 to 12 (for those seriously ill). Great clamour arose, but she was confident those youngsters could make a perfectly good decision. The proposal was officially dropped "because there wasn't enough support". No condemnation or whatever. Sounds a lot like "not yet enough support".
Kind a creepy. Between 12 and 16 you aren't allowed to buy tobacco (special "no excuse will be accepted" stickers popping up all around), but you'll be perfectly capable of deciding about your own death. And they seriously think this...
Once the nazis started gassing mentally ill, they had to stop pretty soon once the germans found out what happened to their family members. Civilization has developed a long way after that...
Reinout van Rees
"He believes that we should give everything not absolutely necessary for our own existence to the hungry, starving and dying."
What's "absolutely necessary"? Who's going to decide that? The all-loving, all-powerful Big Brother? What would Mr Singer do to those who (Horrors!) actually feel entitled to the fruits of their own labor?
From the very little bit I've read about this man, he sounds like a thouroughly evil little shit to me.
He's no altruist: He's a classical guilt-tripper pretending to be an altruist, in order to get gullible people to go along with a throughly evil premise: The premise that we are all duty-bound to be slaves to the collective.
If he really believes what he preaches, let him give away everything he owns, including the cothes on his back, just like Saint Francis did. If he did that, I'd still think he was a jackass, but he might not be a hypocrite.
FUCK HIM.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I don't necessarily agree with this man's opinion. However I wonder when I read this article why he is talking about babies?
Why not go from there to adults?
And what qualifies as "disabled"?
Could I be considered disabled?
Maybe someone who's read more on this man could fill me in.
Let me clarify: When the discussion is about what Singer thinks, what you think Singer thinks isn't relevant. What Singer actually says (which, coupled with his actions, is the only way we can draw conclusions about what he things) is relevant.
------ "Darn floor. Big bite." (Koko the gorilla's best attempt at explaining the experience of an earthquake.)
Stephen Hawkings
Lou Gerhig
Katherine Hepburn
Woodie Guthrie
Bill Gates (yes I think he is functionally autistic)
Each of these would be candidates wouldn't they?
And all of us 'normal' folks would be all the better off, right?
Unless and until Mr. Singer could predict how to manage to exclude one, some or all of these exceptions, let's keep it free swim in the gene pool.
A successful test in life doesn't necessarily mean you pass.
Star Trek and the eugenic wars??? What about REAL eugenics, as practiced in many western countries from the 1920s and 1930s right up until the 1970s in the case of Sweden and Canada. Nazi Germany is the obvious example, but the US was actually the model for Germany's eugenic laws: California had something like 30,000 forced sterilisations of so-called feebledminded women in the period before WWII. THAT's genetic engineering gone mad. All documented in Daniel J. Kevles, _In the Name of Eugenics_.
Your post made some good points and contrary to what you believe, I've found a lot of well thought out arguments on Slashdot, yours included.
Why then did you have to end your discussion with the self-same name-calling that bothers you?
I take it this is exactly the not-so-subtle ad hominem attack you were talking about? What you're saying here is no different to "...wooly thinking abounds, especially if wrapped in traditional Christian mindset".
Everyone thinks. People come up with different conclusions. Deal with it. If you want to change their minds don't tell them to think, they have already. Instead, give them a different perspective to think about.
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge, and where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"-T.S.Eliot
> Who gets to decide the official measure of a
> "defect"? Heart problems? Deformed limbs?
> Nearsighted eyes?
IMHO this is quite clear. A severely handicaped child is one that can't live without continuous high-effort medical aid, and even then has a severely reduced live expectation. A hundret years ago, the worst of those childs (after they died) where shown (conserved) in curiousity cabinets as "monsters". Today, we can keep them alive for years.
It's not a matter of evolution* - these poor creatures can't breed anyway. I think it's more a matter of luxury - can you afford it to keep someone alive? Normal childs can be kept alive by giving them to eat and drink, a worm place to sleep, and intellectual challange and social contact to learn.
And since resources are limited, you really should think about the luxury to keep a severely handicapped child alive some years for a million dollars. You could probably spent the money better by donating a $5/child vaczine to the third world and save hundrets, if not thousands of lives.
There are a lot of serious questions with high-tech medicine. Is it ok to lengthen one's live by painful 6 weeks for $100k, which is a typical statistic for some sort of cancer operations, or is that just a lot of money wasted and even denying a death in peace? Or is it ok to give them poison (or illegal drugs) instead so that they can die without pain?
This isn't just about money, it's also about live quality. You can't ask non-concious people, but sometimes, you can ask concious. I once worked in a hospital (instead of military service), and we had a 86 year old woman, who had a very serious disease - she was operated every second day for over a month, and to our all surprise, she actually survived that. Some months later, still bound to bed (with little hope to recover much more), she asked us why we didn't let her die. Sometimes, suffering is worse than death.
*) ordinary, cheap medicine matters to evolution. It keeps people healthy and attractive who aren't really that strong.
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
When I was pregnant with my older son the ultrasound "showed" that the umbilical cord has only 2 valves, rather than the necessary 3. These valves carry in oxygen and "food" to the fetus and carry out waste. With only 2 he was going to be either seriously disabled or die or something. They wanted me to go to a geneticist, to get an amniocentesis (where they stick a long needle into your uterus and remove some of the fluid) which in itself is a dangerous procedure, carrying a risk of spontaneous abortion. I suppose the thinking behind this was to give me the option of aborting my son should something "serious" showed up.
To make a long story a little shorter, I refused all the tests and when my son was born the cord proved to have all 3 valves and he was a healthy 10lb 2oz baby. Ridiculous.
It galls me to think that people are having children so casually that they would consider them an inconvenience in any way or that they could be capable of dehumanizing them to the extent of murdering them.
I think that all humans are worthy of our respect, regardless of their abilities or appearance. Respect as in respecting that they know themselves best and that they should be the ones to decide their fate.
Perhaps we should be concentrating our efforts in pursuit of new and more effective methods of communicating with people who are 'severely disabled' rather than coming up with new rationale for eliminating thier presence.
The asshole who says it's allright to murder anyone he thinks doesn't deserve to live, is severely disabled.
Anyone who can't see the moral difference between a human being and an animal is severly disabled.
If someone is so severly disabled that they want to cash out, that's their own business. Anyone who takes it upon himself to make that decision for anyone else, is a murderer.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If you think it's such a problem kill yourself then. Don't try to force your views on others.
We just need to *discourage* the unfit from reproducing. As it is today, we give enormous benefits, discounts and payouts to people to *do* have children. We ENCOURAGE it.
It would be nice to have a society where people would be smart enough to think about the greater good in their family planning choices. If I had some horrible genetic defect that would cause all of my offspring to have a 50 IQ, I would either not reproduce or I would (via genetic engineering) fix that defect.
Peter Singer's ethics is a very consistent system, and I have a lot of respct for that.
I read his Practical Ethics when I took a philosophycourse a few years ago and found that the form of utilitarianism he proposes is one that I can agree on. So I became a vegetarian..
But the consequences of this utilitarianism is open for debate, for example, to impose suffering on animals that feel pain is wrong, but killing an animal that does not have any idea about "life", "future" or has any hopes or plans for the future isn't necessariy wrong. The problem is knowing whether animals do have ideas, and also to hold animals captive without imposing pain or suffering on them. So there are still problems with eating meat, even if the actual killing isn't it.
Now, how different is a human infant to an animal? Do they have plans, ideas, hopes? This is a difficult question. Peter Singer's argument is based on the idea that they are like animals feeling pain but without a mental projection of themselves and thus unable to have an idea of themselves in other future situations, no plan, no hopes. Killing a healthy adult means disrupting these hopes and plans, which is wrong. Killing an infant doesn't invole disrupting these things as they aren't there. And so it isn't wrong in the same sense.
But I'm sure Singer, as I, sees other problems with killing infants. The act of killing an infant does not only have an impact on the infant itself, or the parents, but this practice would have an impact on the society as a whole, that might outweigh the benefits. Also, it is a theory based on vague assumptions (the mental processes of infants). I personally would not argue in favour of actually practicing infanticide, other than to provoke thought. Maybe that is what he is doing?
When I learned about his ethics I personally interpreted him as saying "don't treat humans worse, treat animals better". The difference between us isn't that great.
my first post on /. ever.. and I didn't bother creating an account.. maybe next time :)
my Swedish is better than my English- Humm
You were mad accurate and funny. For the team..hehe... well done!
My main problem with this sort of thing (and there are many problems with it) is the question of who decides the fate of the handicapped child? In the issue of doctor assisted suicide, the patient decides whether to let him/her self die. When you're dealing with a child (I'm assuming an infant), it is not them who decides to live or die; it is the parents. As soon as you make it legal to terminate someone's life without their concent, you've started down a slippery slope that leads to No Place Good.
In addition to that, allowing infant genocide (correct term?) would lead to immense corruption with unwanted pregnancies. For example, if an 18 year old got pregnant, chose to have the child, and then 4 months into motherhood realized that it was a lot harder than she thought, she could go to the doctor, bribe him into saying that the child was handicapped in some way, and have the kid, well, basically "put to sleep."
NOT GOOD.
-davek
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
Anything that has the ability to choose should have the right to choose. That is to say, you do not make decisions for me(unless I say its ok for you to do so). Euthanizing a child, with this reasoning, is wrong(in most cases).
Thats probably a bit too idealistic for more than a handful of people to swallow.
I assume everyone agrees there are cases that children should be euthanized, and cases where they should not be. The extreme case where most people, i believe, will agree would be an all but brain-dead child being born in some form of coma. Assuming that case belongs to the set of acceptable euthanizable babies, one should try and find the boundary points. Where do you(most people will differ...) draw the line?
I believe the ability to think is what makes us human. If there was a baby that would not ever be able to think, it would not be "murder." Its ok in my eyes for someone in such a situation to euthanize. A baby that is not mentally able to make this decision for him/herself does not need to be guaranteed life.
How different of a question is this from abortion/contraception? Both regard uprooting a plant before it has a chance to grow. Its just a question of when and under what conditions its ok to do so. All the abstraction in the world won't allow us to plug some information into a formula and decide what is right.
There are cases where it is ok, and even right to euthanize a baby. The question is under what circumstances should we, as a society, decide a baby is euthanizable.
You just don't get do-overs with human lives.
'We have a moral obligation to protect whites not because they are "intelligent", or "sentient", or "conscious", but rather because they are white people. Therefore, we will always be bound to protect any organism that is genetically a member of the white race, even if said creature is less self-aware than the negro that served my dinner tonight.'
In what way is that different? Answer: it's not. I just changed 'species' to 'race'. It's just as arbitrary, just as racist/speciesist, just as wrong. The reason to give anyone a right to, say, not suffer, should only be the ability to suffer, nothing else.
And both negroes and the chicken you ate tonight are most likely concious and can suffer. And the latter probably lived a hellish life before death.
One of the MANY flaws of this argument is that there is no way to tell what, in the long run, qualifies as a 'severely disabled' infant. My son is a wonderful example. At 3 months old he was diagnosed with large rapidly growing cysts in his brain. They had been present since long before birth and had caused malformations in his brain. He required immediate surgery to relieve the pressure in his brain. He hemmoraged during the operation and required an emergency craneotomy (That is, they removed a one inch diameter peice of his skull so they could reach inside and cauterize the area). After the operation the doctors told us that a lot of blood washed over his brain and along with the cystic material and malformations that we would be 'lucky' if he were only moderatly mentally retarded. We were also told that his motor control would be poor and that he may never even sit up. That was three years ago. My happy, walking, running and talking son scores in the 75% percentile on cognitive ability tests and attends a typical pre-school. In short, the doctors were wrong. I'll repeat it again if you missed it, the doctors were dead wrong. Which would have been the case if we lived in a "Singerian" world. Yes, there are still issues. For example he does not have great motor control so while he walks fine, he runs like a drunk linebacker and still has to use the hadrail to ascend or descend a flight of stairs. He also gets speech therapy 3 days a week. How about his quality of life, and the quality of life of my family? Just fine thank you. The moral of the story? Yes, there are birth defects and syndromes where the outcome is guaranteed to be grim. But for the rest of the cases, we just don't know. I don't know. You don't know. The doctors don't know. -joe
Kish's comments deserve some thought and hit right at the heart of this whole matter. Are we the product of natural selection and is there moral truth that governs human policy-personal and corporate?
Its got me hyperboled.
"The Kish of Death
Kish , Kish!!
Evolved from a fish?
Feeding on meaningless
Lies your main dish?
All is evolved.
Purpose is void.
I can see that life's meaning
For you is destroyed.
Have we really considered
Or looked closely around?
When has anything magically
Just appeared from the ground?
There is always a seed,
And someone who plants it.
There was clearly a creator
Of seeds on this planet.
But why are we here?
What was God's purpose?
Are we created to be served
Or Created for service?
What on earth is our place
In this world? In this time?
To glory in our achievements?
Or to pay for our crimes?
And who are we?
What do we know?
Do think God doesn't see us
Throw his seeds from his bowl?
Who are we to judge value
Of an infant seeds fruit?
To crush it and reject it
As a tender young shoot?
Will God remain quite
As we twist to our ends?
Do we know a babes destiny
Or for what he was planned?
Did we create conception by
The power of our hands?
It is with the Creator
That we have begun to contend.
His voice is not silent.
Perhaps we just can't hear.
Perhaps there is just too much
Dar Wind in our ears. "
Copyright 1999 Dan's Mark
It's wonderful to see local talent being appreciated... :)
...
Singer has been making comments like these for years here in Melbourne - why does his appointment to Princeton suddenly make them worthy of Slashdot?
I'm not saying this isn't important - just that it isn't new or radical. Sigh. I guess if it had been reported when he lived here, it would have been "Wacky Australian Prof murders babies!"
-Korny
>This is about killing infants, not fetuses Ah, but the difference between an infant and a fetus is simply the dividing line we are using for whether we are talking about a person, whom killing is murder, or not. Abortion is simply killing someone that is legally not considered to be a person, based on their age. The real issue is when (and if) you draw the line, and declare them a person. A pro-life[1] person would draw that line at conception. An pro-choice person would draw that line where you did. Other societies have been known to draw the line at birth, or a few days after. Other people would draw the line when they started crawling, or talking, or when they moved out of the house. This issue is doomed to be debated over and over, as everyone seems to have their own view of what is and isn't a person[2]... [1] BTW, anyone else think pro-life and pro-choice are really loaded labels? They also imply that you have to choose to either be anti-life or anti-choice... [2] The alert reader may note that I have not stated where I draw that line. This lack is deliberate...
What Singer is basically advocating is the sentencing of the death penalty to infants. When it's all boiled down, that's what's happening. You choose some criterion: genetic defect, disability, etc. You identify those children that meet that criterion. You then kill those children. What happened to the concept that people have an intrinsic worth unto themselves, and that they must be proven guilty before punishment may be sentenced?
The even scary part is...when do you draw the line? Why not kill off children who would require surgery in the first 3 months of life? They are probably costing the American taxpayers millions of dollars in healthcare for infant health care. Why not just save them from the suffering of surgery, saving dollars while you're at it, and just "euthanize" them?
And where does it end? Should children be "euthanized" if they are born with downs syndrome? What about diabetes? What about children who are born to parents who are on welfare who have more than their "allotted" number of children? What about homosexual children, (assuming that it's a genetic thing)?
The problem with Singer's philosophy is that there is no end. You cannot just limit it to a specific criterion. Once the precident is set for killing off children for a particular reason, the dam is broken, and children will eventually be able to be killed for any reason at all. In essense, "no-fault killing".
Of course, in I, Claudius Livia is portrayed as a ruthless murderess. On one level, she justifies her many murders (including that of her own husband, Augustus Caesar) by claiming she was trying to preserve the Roman Empire and prevent a destructive civil war. It seems clear to me, as an audience member, that her primary motivation is the increased glory and power of herself and her posterity. She doesn't like her "defective" nephew Claudius, because in being physically disabled, he reflects badly on the family and diminishes her personal glory.
People who are bigoted against disabled people probably don't really care about whether they are suffering or not. They only worry about the consequences to themselves. To give you an idea, just think about this question: Two families have disabled, infants. One of the infants is perfectly beautiful, an infant that appears as an ideal of what an infant should be, but has sub-normal intelligence (like Charlie from "Flowers for Algernon). The other infant has normal intelligence, but looks like the "elephant" man, which one is more likely to be put to death?
Because of this fact, I consider it immoral to even suggest something like this to people. Fortunately, most parents love their children, whether they are "defective" or not, and wouldn't consider such a drastic measure. But if this view became prevalent, I'm sure there would be government officials present at all births to convince parents to do the "humane" (read cost-effective) thing.
After all, I remember how irritated my school was for having to give me occupational therapy (hey, I didn't make the law! I'd just as soon been treated as a "normal" student. I didn't have any choice and neither did they.) and let me out of the oh so essential gym classes that all students "had!" to take, handicapped or not. If only I had never been born, or put to death soon after, think how much simpler it would have been for their beautiful, bureacratic machine....
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I have an aunt that is mentally retarded (Down's Syndrome). She is in her thirties IIRC, though has about the age-based "intelligence" of my six year old brother.
When she was young, she climbed. She ran. She was a kid and a half! But by your standards, she just wasn't good enough and should have been cut off her right to live just as soon as they found out she has Down's Syndrome.
My immediate family spent a LOT of time with her as I was growing up... meaning *I* spent a lot of time with her (I am the oldest of my siblings). Whenever my grandparents wanted time to "themselves" or something of the like, they would drop my aunt off at our house and we would "watch" her.
Yes, she is "troublesome". So is my six year old brother. So is my 17 year old brother. So am I. She does not "understand" things as easily as you or I do, it is harder for her to draw involved conclusions. Did we treat her as if she was stupid, or "trash" or like we'd been better off if she hadn't existed? Not in a million years!!
It is all in how you look at things. If you look at her as a human being capable of thought, love, and everything you and I are capable of, she becomes real. She becomes a window into ourselves... into who we are on a lower level. Who we wish we could show... she is uninhibited. She shows love on a whim... when you talk to her, she ends with "I love you" even though it doesn't seem quite right. She shows pleasure with things that make her happy and displeasure with things she knows she doesn't like.
She has less self control than you or I (just like my little brother), and has to be told to "turn off the water before it gets too deep" or "don't eat too much chocolate, it will make you feel sick". Sometimes *I* need to be reminded of what not to do... sometimes *I* need to be told.
Mentally retarded people are capable people. They may be "slow" by your standards... they might not be able to play quick coordination-oriented games. They may not be able to operate cash registers as quickly as you... but that's not their function.
I love that aunt more than any other I have... why? Because she is real. She is honest. And heck, she likes science fiction more than anyone I know!
Now, she is in a "home" for people "like her" with a very caring person that takes care of these women. They are people.
If you look at it as a "defect", they become easier to count and harder to look at. If you look at it as a window, as WHO THEY ARE, they become people.
If I have a mentally retarded child, I will do my best to make them feel like they are the most wonderful person on earth. If I have a "normal" child, I will do EXACTLY the same.
You have to WANT to make it work for things to work in ANY family, in ANY relationship. Mentally retarded people aren't any different in that respect.
Maybe your parents would have thought your hair colour was a "defect"... would you be so quick to say "defective" children weren't deserving of life then?
Until you are IN a family with a mentally retarded person, I do not believe you are fit to judge. I am not a "weak-minded Christian", and I would never dream of putting an end to the life of such a wonderful person.
She can think, she can dream, and she can *be*. She, however, cannot express it but through her eyes which are a direct window to her heart. Her speech is scattered, but if you want to talk to her, you can. But you have to WANT to talk to her.
I suppose you should join those people who attempt to "reconstruct" their retarded children and make them more "normal". Put them in "normal" schools and make them do "normal" work. Everyone needs to be "normal", right?
Maybe you should look at yourself before you are quick to judge about these "weak minded" people. Isn't destroying a "defective" child weak minded? Isn't that the easy way out?
Look it up: The NAZIs started the holocaust by gassing people with physical and mental handicaps, on the pretext that it was the "kind" and "merciful" thing to do.
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
When some academic pinhead starts floating trial ballons like this, it is *imperative* that he suffer massive public ridicule, ostracision, and loss of *any* position of authority.
Decency demands that Singer's career ends as a vague memory at Princeton: i.e. "That nutcase asshole who said that Hitler was morally entitled to commit the crime of the century."
-jcr (A Jew who sure as hell isn't going to go quietly.)
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Then maybe you can explain the why moral differencies should be founded on the race/species/haircolor/intelligens/whatever of the individuals in question and not relevant properties such as the ability to suffer when talking suffering and so on?
So if I am more intelligent that you I have the right to torture you to death in return for "a slap on the wrist"?
Why should not the suffering I give you count just because you (or any concious animal, AI or alien) are less intelligent?
>>Granted, my views are strongly tied to my theistic beliefs, although I don't believe this makes them any less valid. Actually... As long as your religious beliefs are based on "faith," it does. Any attempt to invoke faith in a serious debate automatically makes you lose that debate. And who's to say when a soul enters the body? According to "The Terminal Experiment," it's between nine and ten weeks. According to Madeline Murray O'Hair, it's never. According to the Mormons, it's before conception(?). At any rate, it's clear that killing babies is wrong. There's no question about it. The real question is whether it's more wrong not to in some cases. I (personally) would prefer to have been killed at birth if I had down's syndrome, but not if I had cerebral palsy. My pleasure in life is to think, to use my mind, to create. Some people don't feel this way. For them, it would be a different story. I don't think that making any sort of moral code that is less conplex than a human mind (specifically, my own) can be successful. But there's still right and wrong, and often, sadly, there's wrong and more wrong. Anonymity is preferable to anyone I know reading this and recognizing me.
Peter Singer starts from a premise (utilitarianism) I do not agree with, works his logic flawlessly, and comes to conclusions that make me shiver. Yet he is doing all of us a service. He unflinchingly deals with issues that we all think about, but seldom speak about. In our silence we often toy with the same ideas he expounds, but fear to speak them.
Sometimes we come close to practicing them. Everyday, grieving parents and doctors agree that a baby is so deformed that they should not take heroic measures to save it. This is only a short step away from euthanasia. What of an encephalitic baby (one that is born without a brain?). Would it be a sin to kill such a baby? Why?
Peter Singer forces us to confront the issues that modern medicine is throwing into our lap. For that we should be grateful.
The real question should be; "What constitutes 'severely disabled'?"
Are children who are autistic disabled? Do they need to have leukemia? How can anyone draw the line?
The question is whether the child will live a happy life, or if it would be a miserable life. That depends largely on the child. Humans are very adaptable creatures, and tend to compensate for shortcomings. People who are blind have exceptional hearing, in most cases.
Finally, how would you feel if you had a child with a disability, and euthanised it only to find that a year later, a cure was developed?
The decision is not only moral, but can be spiritual for many people aswell. Spirituality is something that many people interpret differently.
The only answer is, there is no answer.
Ok, the subject here is a little harsh, but this really is an important point. The very people calling Singer a Nazi are, in fact, acting more like Nazis than Singer ever has. I find this quote extremely disturbing: "He provides a convenient ethical framework for bigotry and cost-saving measures that cut lives," said Stephen Drake of the Forest Park, Ill., disability group Not Dead Yet. "I really don't think there's room for this kind of discussion." There's no room for DISCUSSION??? That's ridiculous. Discussion is how we communicate ideas and change each other's minds. Political correctness strikes again. When will the burning of all of Singer's written work begin? When will the secret P.C. police, dedicated to wiping out any discourse deemed (even mildly) offensive by anyone begin targetting all of us here who've weighed in on this topic? So on the one hand, we have the ethicist, trying to find ways to alleviate the suffering of human beings in general, who believes strongly in animal rights and helping the poor, and on the other, outraged people who, having no conception of what Singer is really arguing for, wish to prevent him from even discussing his views. I know, I know...I'm being drastic. But the irony really strikes me, and political correctness really, REALLY annoys me. All we see nowadays, it seems, are knee-jerk emotional reactions to everything. Even opinions and free expression are becoming victims of this new "offensive material free" culture of ours. Another question: Why now? Singer's Practical Ethics has been around for 20 years, so why all the fuss now? Another case of the media making something out of nothing? Another case of uninformed idiots trying to force their ideas of what is and isn't offensive on everyone else? I think its both.
Plain text good, HTML bad...this should be easier to read, if anyone cares.
Ok, the subject here is a little harsh, but this really is an important point. The very people calling Singer a Nazi are, in fact, acting more like Nazis than Singer ever has. I find this quote extremely disturbing:
"He provides a convenient ethical framework for bigotry and cost-saving measures that cut lives," said Stephen Drake of the Forest Park, Ill., disability group Not Dead Yet. "I really don't think there's room for this kind of discussion."
There's no room for DISCUSSION??? That's ridiculous. Discussion is how we communicate ideas and change each other's minds. Political correctness strikes again. When will the burning of all of Singer's written work begin? When will the secret P.C. police, dedicated to wiping out any discourse deemed (even mildly) offensive by anyone begin targetting all of us here who've weighed in on this topic?
So on the one hand, we have the ethicist, trying to find ways to alleviate the suffering of human beings in general, who believes strongly in animal rights and helping the poor, and on the other, outraged people who, having no conception of what Singer is really arguing for, wish to prevent him from even discussing his views.
I know, I know...I'm being drastic. But the irony really strikes me, and political correctness really, REALLY annoys me. All we see nowadays, it seems, are knee-jerk emotional reactions to everything. Even opinions and free expression are becoming victims of this new "offensive material free" culture of ours.
Another question: Why now? Singer's Practical Ethics has been around for 20 years, so why all the fuss now? Another case of the media making something out of nothing? Another case of uninformed idiots trying to force their ideas of what is and isn't offensive on everyone else? I think its both.
Want a normal healthy child or a vegetable that must be kept on constant life support?