Now, before you jump in and state something along the lines of "I don't have to know it for it to be true", remember that the point in contention I raised about infanticide in the first place was that it was *NOT* universally recognized as "bad, M'kay."
So freaking what it is not universally recognized? Failing to believe in Truth does not make it disappear.
(Instead of attacking the reference, you jumped straight to shooting the messenger, and used an ad-hominem. You COULD have asked for specific tribes, for instance, but did not.)
Why would I be interested in the specific tribes, when it is utterly irrelevant?
When taken in the fuller context, that compared moral absolutism with fixed solar insolescense, my point becomes fully clarified by your statements.
No; you not only deny human rights, but you make up "contradictions" where there is none.
Absolutely false. Defending absolute morality does not mean I will punish people who disagree with me. It does not even mean I claim to know the answer. For example, before the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was published, its answer already existed, even if I (or anyone else) did not know it. And even now that I know the answer, I don't punish people for being wrong.
Also, the ends do not justify the means. Infanticide is despicable, and it is abhorrent that you defend it. You should read about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There are certain things you MUST NEVER do, even if you think they are necessary. Freaking infanticide is on the top of that list; it is one of the most abhorrent things a person can possibly do.
Those two statements are in direct locigal contention.
There is absolutely no contradiction. I said "It does not even mean I claim to know the answer". I said that in the generic sense. Given a generic moral question, I do not claim to know its answer. But given a _specific_ moral question, I _may_ know its answer.
Given the question: "Is it fair to intentionally murder a completely innocent child?", the answer is "no".
To go back to Math. I do not claim to know the answer to all Math problems. Still, I say with certainty that the Pythagoras Theorem is true. No contradiction.
You speak of millions (actually I doubt there is a million; it is more like 50k) of subsects; but some of those "sects" are priviledged. Not only due to size, but due to the internal coherency and beauty of their teaching.
Also, the ends do not justify the means. Infanticide is despicable, and it is abhorrent that you defend it.
You should read about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There are certain things you MUST NEVER do, even if you think they are necessary. Freaking infanticide is on the top of that list; it is one of the most abhorrent things a person can possibly do.
Your argument basically boils down to "Without a perfect moral cornerstone, the very idea of morality becomes laughable." This does not hold, as people still practice moral judgement in spite of the lack of a perfect moral cornerstone, as evidenced by taking and comparing the "moral imperatives" of many world peoples.
What happens is that people temporarily forget about moral relativism when THEY think something is wrong. But as soon as the government wants to forbid something they like, they scream "don't impose your morals on me". I have *never* seen moral relativism be applied with a minimum of consistency. It is ONLY invoked to support something the person agrees with.
So yes, Ultimately your argument must state "You must agree or else", because there is no other way it can exist. (amusingly, why do you think philosophies and religions that proclaim absolute moral validity seek to completely destroy opposing philosophies, religions and cultures that hold conflicting moral characters, if NOT to enforce agreement?)
Absolutely false. Defending absolute morality does not mean I will punish people who disagree with me. It does not even mean I claim to know the answer.
For example, before the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was published, its answer already existed, even if I (or anyone else) did not know it. And even now that I know the answer, I don't punish people for being wrong.
Besides, I have not seen credible answers to key problems raised by moral relativism, such as what happens to human rights (see what I wrote elsewhere about Violians).
Finally: reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
Note that I didn't use any absolute terms in that statement, because there are no absolutes. This seems to be the part you are having the hardest time grasping: you have to make choices, but all choices are *not* equal. Sometimes the better choice is easy to find, like in your ludicrous math example below. Sometimes it is tougher.
I have "a hard time grasping" because you are hardly making any sense. Moral relativism says that no moral framework is privileged. So yes, all choices are equal (as long as different people make them).
Also, how can there be human rights in a world of moral relativism? See what I wrote elsewhere about the Violians.
Within Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, etc. you have sects and sub-sects and cults and more, so it's not that at most one out of three can be true - it's really that at most one out of several million can be true.
Within "Christianity", the Catholic Church has 1.3B members, and the Eastern/Oriental "Orthodox" (that have essentially the same Faith) has some 300M more members.
There is no global overpopulation. Some places (such as Japan) are already experiencing population aging and decline, which is bad in many ways. Other places (such as the USA and specially Europe) already have sub-replacement fertility rates, and their population only grows because of demographic lag and immigration. It is predicted the the European Union population (now at 503M) will reach zero natural population increase by 2015 and zero total population increase in 2035 (at 520M), then start declining.
The USA will grow from 310M in 2010 to 403M in 2050. [1] Asia will increase from 4.2B in 2010 to 5.1B in 2050, then start declining. [2]
The only region that is really growing is Africa. It will increase from 1B in 2010 to 2.2B in 2050. [2] Then its population density will be 73/km2. [3] Compare that to the current population density in Portugal (115/km2), in South Korea (487/km2) and in Taiwan (641/km2). [4]
Global population is predicted to grow from 7B in 2011 to 9B in 2050 and 10B in 2100 [5] and start falling soon after [6].
And according to [7], 40-50% of America-produced food is thrown away. According to [8], 1/3 of the world food is thrown away. And this does not take into account that people eat, just for pleasure, excessive quantities of resource-intensive food (such as meat). If Americans/Europeans want to help the poor, an easy way would be to decrease (say, by 30%) their diet of meat. This will immediately reduce food demand and, for double bonus, the saved money can be donated to charity. And much arable land is wasted on subsidized inefficient corn-based ethanol. You can lobby your government to stop that.
Plus, there does not seem to be a negative correlation between population density and GDP per capita. [9]
African hunger is not caused by overpopulation. It is caused by corrupt and authoritarian governments, and by guerrillas/terrorists motivated by Marxism, violent Islamism, ethnic hate or simply greed.
Overpopulation fear-mongering is very old - at least as old as Malthus. One of its more recent incarnations was the 1968 book "The Population Bomb", which predicted mass starvation to occur in the 1970s.
Anyway, for better or for worse, there is already strong action taken by individuals, foundations, and Western governments to restrict fertility in Africa.
The difference between Hindus that think the cow is a holy animal and people that eat beef is more than a disagreement, and to reduce it as such debases Hinduism.
Hinduism, like any other religion, may be false.
Indeed I know that, among Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, each one contradicts the other two. This means that at most one of them can be true.
This is not universal, however. There are certainly human beings who do not have any right to life (e.g. Charles Whitman). As well, the boundary between human and non-human is unclear, either. Is a fetus human? Does a fully grown bonobo have a right to life?
A convicted serial murderer deprives himself of his right to life through his actions. But let's end this part of the debate; let's agree to disagree.
By the way, how do you consistently apply moral relativism? How do you justify the very existence of the police and the court system if all morality is relative?
On utilitarian grounds. In other words, they benefit me. So long as they also benefit the majority of other people, we're in agreement, and thus society functions. We may occasionally disagree on what the police and the court system are supposed to enforce, but again, so long as we agree on more than we disagree, the system works, and basically enforces some intersection of what we want.
So you impose your utilitarian morality on everyone.
And how do you justify human rights on utilitarian grounds? For example, let's suppose that there is an ethnic minority called the "Violians". They make 1% of the society, and 90% of that 1% are violent criminals.
The majority of the society hates the Violians, so they vote to exterminate them and win by a landslide. How do you justify disobeying the majority vote and protect the human rights of the Violians?
Is that an honest question, or are you just trying to poke holes in the parent's argument? The honest answer is: the best way you can. You use knowledge, history, reason, experience, judgement and yes, sometimes, majority rule.
Suppose I propose another solution: we create an hereditary monarchy.The monarchs will be educated from birth to be excellent rulers.
Since all morality is relative, how can you say your proposal is better than mine?
In true Slashdot fashion, you have not read the article and now think you know it all. But it is not about genetic engineering, it is about avoiding known and harmful genetic variations. And that is *exactly* what we do and why we are so picky about our partners. Please do yourself a favor and read up on evolutional psychology.
Who knows - by actually reading the article and some comprehension of the subject, you may in future write a comment which actually enhances the discussio
I had already read the article. The article does not restrict the idea to removing severe diseases, but includes the possibility of selecting in wanted characteristics.
How? I support power decentralization. If Californians decide they want to use pot, the federal government should not interfere.
and think AGW is made up.
My sig says the opposite of that. I am in fact worried about AGW. I have, in the past, felt doubts about AGW, but: 1) I never expressed those doubts. 2) I have changed my mind. 3) I now actively tell people about the danger of AGW.
It would be an unprecedented dystopia for all the naturals, until they died out. The selfish superhumans would, however, be right at home, and humanity might progress faster since everyone might be smarter. What about selecting for people with genetic traits that make them good at working together with other people?
The naturals will not die out. There will always be a percentage of people who refuse to treat their babies as objects.
I don't think your objections hold much weight. First, strength, intelligence, and longevity don't appear to be necessary.
It is not about being "necessary", it is about "increases the chance of". Being strong, tall, beautiful and intelligent increases the chance of financial success.
I've quoted your original post that you linked here. Yours is a circular argument. Moral people would avoid eugenics, therefore immoral people would benefit from eugenics, therefore eugenics empowers the immoral people and is therefore an immoral technology. Let's walk through your causal process with a slightly different (and I think more reasonable) first assumption:
Actually, I said that selective killing embryos is evil in itself. Humans are not just objects.
I suggest you go read up on Huntingtons. If we can prevent that gene from even popping up, we improve lives.
There is NO scenario where being born with Huntington's is a good idea. There is only one "moral" choice here. And while you were tangled in the underpants of semantics, you missed it.
Except that the choice is not "being born with Huntington" x "being born without Huntington". We are speaking of "being born with Huntington" x "not being born at all".
The technique being discussed involves selective abortions.
Moral absolutism is even more absurd...the idea that everyone around the world in all different cultures over the entire history of humanity somehow follows the same set of morals is such a leap of the imagination, that it stands out as fiction.
Straw man. I am not saying that everyone agrees; I am saying that there is right and wrong, even if people believe otherwise.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
Slashdot Mirror
So freaking what it is not universally recognized? Failing to believe in Truth does not make it disappear.
Why would I be interested in the specific tribes, when it is utterly irrelevant?
No; you not only deny human rights, but you make up "contradictions" where there is none.
There is absolutely no contradiction. I said "It does not even mean I claim to know the answer". I said that in the generic sense. Given a generic moral question, I do not claim to know its answer. But given a _specific_ moral question, I _may_ know its answer.
Given the question: "Is it fair to intentionally murder a completely innocent child?", the answer is "no".
To go back to Math. I do not claim to know the answer to all Math problems. Still, I say with certainty that the Pythagoras Theorem is true.
No contradiction.
There is no hypocrisy in what I said.
On the other hand, you could not JUDGE me as a hypocrite and remain a consistent moral relativist.
You speak of millions (actually I doubt there is a million; it is more like 50k) of subsects; but some of those "sects" are priviledged. Not only due to size, but due to the internal coherency and beauty of their teaching.
Also, the ends do not justify the means. Infanticide is despicable, and it is abhorrent that you defend it.
You should read about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There are certain things you MUST NEVER do, even if you think they are necessary. Freaking infanticide is on the top of that list; it is one of the most abhorrent things a person can possibly do.
What happens is that people temporarily forget about moral relativism when THEY think something is wrong.
But as soon as the government wants to forbid something they like, they scream "don't impose your morals on me".
I have *never* seen moral relativism be applied with a minimum of consistency. It is ONLY invoked to support something
the person agrees with.
Absolutely false. Defending absolute morality does not mean I will punish people who disagree with me. It does not even mean I claim to know the answer.
For example, before the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was published, its answer already existed, even if I (or anyone else) did not know it. And even now that I know the answer, I don't punish people for being wrong.
Besides, I have not seen credible answers to key problems raised by moral relativism, such as what happens to human rights (see what I wrote elsewhere about Violians).
Finally: reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
I have "a hard time grasping" because you are hardly making any sense. Moral relativism says that no moral framework is privileged. So yes, all choices are equal (as long as different people make them).
Also, how can there be human rights in a world of moral relativism? See what I wrote elsewhere about the Violians.
Within "Christianity", the Catholic Church has 1.3B members, and the Eastern/Oriental "Orthodox" (that have essentially the same Faith) has some 300M more members.
You went from "unplanned pregnancy" to "unwanted child" without justification.
There is no global overpopulation. Some places (such as Japan) are already experiencing population aging and decline, which is bad in many ways. Other places (such as the USA and specially Europe) already have sub-replacement fertility rates, and their population only grows because of demographic lag and immigration. It is predicted the the European Union population (now at 503M) will reach zero natural population increase by 2015 and zero total population increase in 2035 (at 520M), then start declining.
The USA will grow from 310M in 2010 to 403M in 2050. [1]
Asia will increase from 4.2B in 2010 to 5.1B in 2050, then start declining. [2]
The only region that is really growing is Africa. It will increase from 1B in 2010 to 2.2B in 2050. [2] Then its population density will be 73/km2. [3] Compare that to the current population density in Portugal (115/km2), in South Korea (487/km2) and in Taiwan (641/km2). [4]
Global population is predicted to grow from 7B in 2011 to 9B in 2050 and 10B in 2100 [5] and start falling soon after [6].
And according to [7], 40-50% of America-produced food is thrown away. According to [8], 1/3 of the world food is thrown away.
And this does not take into account that people eat, just for pleasure, excessive quantities of resource-intensive food (such as meat). If Americans/Europeans want to help the poor, an easy way would be to decrease (say, by 30%) their diet of meat. This will immediately reduce food demand and, for double bonus, the saved money can be donated to charity. And much arable land is wasted on subsidized inefficient corn-based ethanol. You can lobby your government to stop that.
Plus, there does not seem to be a negative correlation between population density and GDP per capita. [9]
African hunger is not caused by overpopulation. It is caused by corrupt and authoritarian governments, and by guerrillas/terrorists motivated by Marxism, violent Islamism, ethnic hate or simply greed.
Overpopulation fear-mongering is very old - at least as old as Malthus. One of its more recent incarnations was the 1968 book "The Population Bomb", which predicted mass starvation to occur in the 1970s.
Anyway, for better or for worse, there is already strong action taken by individuals, foundations, and Western governments to restrict fertility in Africa.
1 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_11.htm
2 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_2.htm
3 : According to [2], Africa will have 2.2B people in 2050, and according to Google[10] and Wikipedia [11], the area of Africa is 30,221,532 km2
4 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density
5 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_1.htm
6 : http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_6.htm
7 : http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=56376-us-wastes-half
8 : http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/74192/icode/
9 : http://sanamagan.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/population-population-density-gdp-per-capita-ppp/
10 : https://www.google.com.br/search?q=africa+area
11 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa
Hinduism, like any other religion, may be false.
Indeed I know that, among Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, each one contradicts the other two. This means that at most one of them can be true.
Merely because people disagree, it means there is no moral Truth? That does not make sense.
And does that apply to Math too? If one person says 3 ^ 4 is 81 and the other says 3^4 is 12, they are both right?
A convicted serial murderer deprives himself of his right to life through his actions. But let's end this part of the debate; let's agree to disagree.
So you impose your utilitarian morality on everyone.
And how do you justify human rights on utilitarian grounds? For example, let's suppose that there is an ethnic minority called the "Violians". They make 1% of the society, and 90% of that 1% are violent criminals.
The majority of the society hates the Violians, so they vote to exterminate them and win by a landslide. How do you justify disobeying the majority vote and protect the human rights of the Violians?
Suppose I propose another solution: we create an hereditary monarchy.The monarchs will be educated from birth to be excellent rulers.
Since all morality is relative, how can you say your proposal is better than mine?
I had already read the article. The article does not restrict the idea to removing severe diseases, but includes the possibility of selecting in wanted characteristics.
I have changed my sig to make it clearer.
The old sig was
The new sig is:
How? I support power decentralization. If Californians decide they want to use pot, the federal government should not interfere.
My sig says the opposite of that. I am in fact worried about AGW.
I have, in the past, felt doubts about AGW, but:
1) I never expressed those doubts.
2) I have changed my mind.
3) I now actively tell people about the danger of AGW.
The naturals will not die out. There will always be a percentage of people who refuse to treat their babies as objects.
It is not about being "necessary", it is about "increases the chance of".
Being strong, tall, beautiful and intelligent increases the chance of financial success.
Actually, I said that selective killing embryos is evil in itself. Humans are not just objects.
Except that the choice is not "being born with Huntington" x "being born without Huntington". We are speaking of "being born with Huntington" x "not being born at all".
The technique being discussed involves selective abortions.
Read before writing. I did say what could be done in such a situation.
Straw man. I am not saying that everyone agrees; I am saying that there is right and wrong, even if people believe otherwise.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
And how do you base a political philosophy on that?
How do you even justify the existence of the police, if morality is relative?
The moment you say "it is not fair to impose your morals on others" you are making a moral judgment.
Your analogy does not make any sense.
Duh.
See what I wrote elsewhere.
Please read before writing.