At best, I'd call that a soft science. Regardless, science and the scientific method do not make moral judgments.
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New Abortion Law Wave
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Well, you might earn it. But the tax part is not yours. Because living in a country is a sort of social contract where you pay tax against what the government delivers. What they deliver is not for the citizen to decide. Only to perhaps have an opinion and choose politicians who claim to represent their interest.
I for one might have an opinion on what government and municipal community do with it. But that's all it is. An opinion. I am aware that this is how society works. No one single person gets the tax part of my salary, the ones running the town and country does.
Last edited by Rolf12,
It depends on the kind of science we're talking about. There's no shortage of scientists making sweeping generalisations based on what they consider to be empirical evidence. You can apply the scientific method in moral disputes, it just doesn't work particularly well since science is data-driven whereas morality, for the most part, isn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_of_morality
1776 begs to differ, but that's beyond the scope of the debate.
Once we agree what morality is, whether or not something is moral/immoral is objective and quantifiable. This is my position and the position of others who argue for the science of morality. However, I think science of morality is a bit of a misnomer, since the scientific method can't be used to answer moral questions (as addressed in your Wikipedia article under criticisms). I'd rather call it something like the logic of morality.
I'm not American, so I'm just guessing that you are referring to that century old constitution. Whatever that says, I believe has little bearing on reality.
It's quantifiable in a sense that you can put arbitrary boundaries based on popular consensus and make decisions by applying data against that consensus, however that doesn't make the process objective, it merely means that the resulting decisions will have popular approval. You cannot make a logical system based on a fundamentally illogical construct. For instance, as far as abortion is concerned, it technically has zero externalities - it only affects the woman and the unborn child, unless it has to also be publicly funded. You and I will not be aborted, we're already fully grown. Our children wouldn't be aborted either, unless we made an independent decision to do so. The only reason why abortion is a moral issue at all is because we apply value to human life, more value than any other kind of life on the planet, specifically because it's our own species. You might say that survival of the species is the primary motivator here, but if that were the case, everyone would be planting trees and turning their energy-efficient lights when they don't need them, which clearly isn't the case. There are other motivators that supersede what can be objectively quantified, I'll collectively call them "gut feelings".
Science is used all of the time to make moral judgments with. Science is thought to be able to explain anything and everything, when it can't. People use science in modern times in place of religion. Using science, which is flawed by design, to justify killing babies is not right. It's just an excuse.
Freedom is hard to swallow when you've never had a taste before.
I have no right to judge or punish any other person. My only intention is to point out why something is wrong and let them do as they please. Let them suffer and die. Regardless of your beliefs, only a higher power can determine when or if someone should die.
As with any other murderer, abortion doctors and women who have abortions will get what they deserve eventually. Should they be locked up like someone who kills another person? I would say yes. Should they be murdered for murdering? I still would say no.
Of course, I think the only reason an abortion should be performed is when the life of the mother is at risk. Otherwise, it's only done as a "convenience" killing.
The scientific method cannot itself lead to moral judgments. I also don't think anybody is justifying killing babies, with or without the scientific method. Embryos and fetuses are not babies.
Like I said, we have to agree what morality means before we can get objective truths about it. Without a specific definition of what it means to be moral, we can't have objectively true conclusions.
...which is precisely why science and morality are incompatible. Science is concerned with making objective assessments based on empirical data. It's not based on "agreement", it's based on observing, testing and codifying unchanging natural laws. Science can measure and verify that at normal pressure water will always boil at 100 degrees Celsius, every single time. What it cannot do is quantify and make a decision on whose moral code is superior unless you feed it a set of subjective parameters which will invariably be tainted by your own system of values. In that sense, value is arbitrary in the first place, making it unquantifiable. It's the agreement part that makes science incapable of making moral judgements - we can agree that murder is a morally evil act, but that's hardly scientific. We don't have to agree that the Earth orbits the Sun - it just does, and we can use science to prove that. Science is de facto not equipped to deal with moral questions, so in that sense I agree - it shouldn't be used to make moral judgements, which are better achieved by opposing parties arguing their sides of issues and appealing to what makes us uniquely human. A moral judgement rooted in cold calculation is justifiable, but not necessarily moral.
Just my two cents:
Right now discussions about abortion are too much polarized by both political parties and we are losing sight of what's important.
I work in a medical field and let me tell you just few things.
First of all, abortion sucks. I hate the leftist campaign "pro-chioice" who chants stuff like 'I aborted and I'm proud of it'.
Abortions is not a walk in the park, is a medical procedure with associated risks that everybody should consider as last option.
Right now we have a WIDE disponibilty of anticontraceptive, both to prevent the damage (condoms, contraceptive pills, ecc) and to try to fix it in emergency (morning after pill). The combined efficacy of those method is nearly 100% and the vast majority of unwanted pregnacy came from a misuse of those methods (using a not well preserved condom, acohol intake with the contraceptive pill, ecc).
When someone engage in vaginal-penetrative sex, it accept the risk of a pregnacy, because sex has the ultimate scope of procreation. When someone get pregnant, is not "an error" is the system working as intended despite the efforts they put to prevent it.
We should stop the narrative of "the baby has not the mother consent to grow in her body" because it's part of the risk of engaging in reproduction.
it's like breaking your wrist while playing some sport and being angry at your bones because they broke without your consent.
or like being in a falling plane and whining that you never consented it to fall it down.
it's an implied risk that you accept.
but when shit hit the fan, is when you need to accept it, fix it and move on.
Pregnacy is not for everything, I have seen mothers been broken by it and who needed years of therapy to not hate their own son.
Sometimes in the news we hear about infanticide caused by post partum depression.
If the baby is going to ruin the mother's life, neither of them will benefit of the continue of the pregnacy.
Abortion is a right for the woman for a reason, we cannot force them to shoulder a weight like that.
BUT it should be their last option, NOT the first.
First of all we should teach EVERYBODY both man and female how to correct use contraceptives, prevention is ALWAYS better
Pretty much everywhere in europe (and some USA redditor told me is the same for them) you can show up in an hospital without even say your name to deliver, sign a module to leave the baby to them and go home, totally free of charge. There is a HUGE request of newborn baby for adoption, they usually find a new family in just few days.
Also governemnt often have support plans for soon-to-be-mothers to help them both with money/items and socially with a support group who could help them grow the child despite a poor social/economic condition.
Abortion MUST NOT be seen as an easy "out of jail card" because it's not.
Having a child is hard, and will always be. It's not something you can just brush it off.
A child consume money, time, energy and require sacrifice.
Also you'll never be prepared enough for when it'll come, something that you are not prepared for will alway happen.
But this must not scare or discourage people to have child because is something that has a meaning in itself and for every sad parent, I have seen tenth or hundreds happy.
That's why I don't like a lot of liberals campaign on this theme, abortion is a needed evil since we do not live in a perfect world, but it must not be glorified.
It must not been depicted as an easy way out of problems because "sex with condoms does not feels as good".
too often I have seen people depicting it as something positive, something that needs to be celebrated.
It's not that.
Abortion is something that should be accepted, but mourned.
When you see the actual women who wants to have one, there is no joy in them, there is the sadness and the weight of the situation, and often after there is the weight of the decision, they question themselves if they did the right choice, if there really was no other way.
Abortion is needed because the society failed.
it failed to teach people how to prevent it from happen
it failed because it could not protect whose who were raped
it failed because it could not support those who needed help
And since we failed, because we does not live in a perfect society, we need to keep it, but not market is as a cure-all solution, but as what it is, an extreme remedy for situation where the alternative is worse.
What me MUST do, without political color, to decrease the number of people who need to have one, is not to ban it; but to act on the causes the lead those woman to request one.
Sure, we'll never be able to eliminate all the need for people to have one, but we should strive to reduce that number as low as we can, because the only "good" abortion is the one that doesn't need to be performed
Right now discussions about abortion are too much polarized by both political parties and we are losing sight of what's important.
I work in a medical field and let me tell you just few things.
First of all, abortion sucks. I hate the leftist campaign "pro-chioice" who chants stuff like 'I aborted and I'm proud of it'.
Abortions is not a walk in the park, is a medical procedure with associated risks that everybody should consider as last option.
Right now we have a WIDE disponibilty of anticontraceptive, both to prevent the damage (condoms, contraceptive pills, ecc) and to try to fix it in emergency (morning after pill). The combined efficacy of those method is nearly 100% and the vast majority of unwanted pregnacy came from a misuse of those methods (using a not well preserved condom, acohol intake with the contraceptive pill, ecc).
When someone engage in vaginal-penetrative sex, it accept the risk of a pregnacy, because sex has the ultimate scope of procreation. When someone get pregnant, is not "an error" is the system working as intended despite the efforts they put to prevent it.
We should stop the narrative of "the baby has not the mother consent to grow in her body" because it's part of the risk of engaging in reproduction.
it's like breaking your wrist while playing some sport and being angry at your bones because they broke without your consent.
or like being in a falling plane and whining that you never consented it to fall it down.
it's an implied risk that you accept.
but when shit hit the fan, is when you need to accept it, fix it and move on.
Pregnacy is not for everything, I have seen mothers been broken by it and who needed years of therapy to not hate their own son.
Sometimes in the news we hear about infanticide caused by post partum depression.
If the baby is going to ruin the mother's life, neither of them will benefit of the continue of the pregnacy.
Abortion is a right for the woman for a reason, we cannot force them to shoulder a weight like that.
BUT it should be their last option, NOT the first.
First of all we should teach EVERYBODY both man and female how to correct use contraceptives, prevention is ALWAYS better
Pretty much everywhere in europe (and some USA redditor told me is the same for them) you can show up in an hospital without even say your name to deliver, sign a module to leave the baby to them and go home, totally free of charge. There is a HUGE request of newborn baby for adoption, they usually find a new family in just few days.
Also governemnt often have support plans for soon-to-be-mothers to help them both with money/items and socially with a support group who could help them grow the child despite a poor social/economic condition.
Abortion MUST NOT be seen as an easy "out of jail card" because it's not.
Having a child is hard, and will always be. It's not something you can just brush it off.
A child consume money, time, energy and require sacrifice.
Also you'll never be prepared enough for when it'll come, something that you are not prepared for will alway happen.
But this must not scare or discourage people to have child because is something that has a meaning in itself and for every sad parent, I have seen tenth or hundreds happy.
That's why I don't like a lot of liberals campaign on this theme, abortion is a needed evil since we do not live in a perfect world, but it must not be glorified.
It must not been depicted as an easy way out of problems because "sex with condoms does not feels as good".
too often I have seen people depicting it as something positive, something that needs to be celebrated.
It's not that.
Abortion is something that should be accepted, but mourned.
When you see the actual women who wants to have one, there is no joy in them, there is the sadness and the weight of the situation, and often after there is the weight of the decision, they question themselves if they did the right choice, if there really was no other way.
Abortion is needed because the society failed.
it failed to teach people how to prevent it from happen
it failed because it could not protect whose who were raped
it failed because it could not support those who needed help
And since we failed, because we does not live in a perfect society, we need to keep it, but not market is as a cure-all solution, but as what it is, an extreme remedy for situation where the alternative is worse.
What me MUST do, without political color, to decrease the number of people who need to have one, is not to ban it; but to act on the causes the lead those woman to request one.
Sure, we'll never be able to eliminate all the need for people to have one, but we should strive to reduce that number as low as we can, because the only "good" abortion is the one that doesn't need to be performed
As I said, science cannot make moral judgments. However, if we replace the scientific method with logic, since I don't want this to turn into a semantic discussion, then I'd argue that moral judgments can be as objective as the boiling point of water once we precisely define what it means for something to be moral.
Haha. Freedom? By your tone I understand you rate the situation in US as more free than the rest. From what I see from outside, I do not agree.
First one must specify what freedom means. Having corporations and lobbies running wild on citizens expense is not freedom for me. And I have a hard time seeing founding fathers having that vision.
I'm from the nordic european. Have a pretty clear picture of what free health care (and abortion) and education means. There definitely are downsides. But that's not this discussion.
I would happily argue that the U.S. is easily one of the most free countries on the planet, although as you say, that's not really a part of this discussion.
I don't see the benefit of applying logic to an illogical set of values in a desperate attempt to calculate the "one true path". What you're basically saying is that "as long as everybody thinks the same way", meaning we establish a universal set of values with total agreement across the entirety of the species, we can "logically" decide moral quandries. That's antithetical to individualism, incompatible with human nature and ultimately futile - if we all collectively agree on what is moral, there's no reason to have a moral code anymore, we've effectively become machines. Moral quandries are decided via abductive reasoning, there's nothing logical about them. We all have very incomplete data sets, or "experience" to work with and make the best call we can, it's not fact-based, it's primarily feeling-based. We're getting off track here though, so I'll leave it be.
Sure you can. All logical systems are based upon axioms which are taken as true. It's the only way to avoid circular logic systems that can prove anything. Yet the axioms inherently limit the viability of any logical system.
"What if you aborted Hilter?" Sorry, the reason humans "have value" is because "humans have value" in their effect on society. Of course, you can then get into the moral discussion when it's likely a human won't have value on society--hence the aborted Hilter comment--or whether we as a society should support others, like babies, when their mother/father/whoever isn't interested in caring for them. The point, though, is it's really hard to every claim anything has zero externalities.
While I agree with many of the points in that I am not entirely sure I go with the underlying logic of some of it, and I am not sure how many opt for such things as a contraceptive or are otherwise "proud". Though I don't find those that would want to claim some kind of pride (though I would wonder if it was pride in going up against those that would call it murder and such, as opposed to the act itself) to have terribly much to be prideful of.
I am not sure the analogy with the broken wrist works in the way you have it there. By all means "shit happens, use protection/knowledge next time, let us sort it though" but the attempt to draw parallels with consent there don't work. The foetus by definition lacks agency...
I would also agree education is the way -- unwanted pregnancy is but one of the many possible downsides here, and abortions only solve a fraction of those, at a higher cost a lot of the time too.
I can't get to calling abortion an evil. At worst I am going with morally neutral.
Similarly I have to ask "When you see the actual women who wants to have one, there is no joy in them" do we have data on what goes for different cultures here? China does crazy loads of them (partially due to abysmal education on the matter. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-30996036 ) and what little I can find says it does not have much in the way of anything here and it is treated like anything else. Going with other things then some notable differences in things like incidence rates of PTSD also differ -- the UK and US army did stuff there and despite using similar tactics, weapons styles, suffering similar casualty rates, doing the same wars more or less, having similar training, recruiting from similar pools of people (the US and UK armies, cultures and histories recent and longer term are similar and intertwined... hopefully this does not need too much qualification) the PTSD rates and resulting actions among UK peeps was different enough to note and explore, cultural differences being one of the main factors however.
If I look at the US it is major political and cultural issue. In the UK it is not one -- outside of Northern Ireland* no mainstream movements to block it/frustrate it, readily available for free on the NHS (free public healthcare) without being put through the wringer first, no politico of any note of any stripe has it as a talking point... If however the US peeps get, for want of a better term, infected with the idea that there is a serious moral issue with abortion then that could colour something regardless of what their logical ultimately leads them to, compare it perhaps with a person that left religion still having some religious thought patterns they fall back on in moments of stress or something. Might also be interesting to see how it varies with state, locality or region (basically do the big cities with low amounts of religion in readily available states care half as much?), and if you could is a difference between abstinence only states and similar states with more comprehensive education (not sure what the results might be there -- ending up going in blind can be easier to deal with the consequences for than knowing it all and then results being what you were told they likely would be).
*Northern Ireland by virtue of its extent of self governance and some historical quirks is these days one of the most restrictive places in Europe for it (especially now Republic of Ireland have legalised it and Poland is warming somewhat to the concept). Such a thing might be an interesting one actually as I have heard some opinions and actions coming out there before that are quite in contrast to a lot of other places.
The societies we currently live in are as far from the natural state of things as possible, we've crossed past the Dunbar's Number a thousand fold in any random modern metropolis - just this fact alone puts a big question mark at the end of "the value of a single human life". Does a single ant have any significant, inherent value in comparison to the hive? As for "What if's", they are hardly logical arguments, they're mental exercises with little practical application. Comparing that to a real moral quandary is like comparing riding on a tricycle to riding on a bicycle - looks similar at a distance, but lacks most of the intricacies of the real deal. It's also worth noting that axioms are only assumed true - a logical system based on a premise that can be disproven is hardly sound. This is why axioms must necessarily be self-evident in order to be viable, that's what I meant when I contrasted feeling-based and fact-based reasoning. The orbit of the Earth is a self-evident and verifiable fact, moral calculations rarely are.
When artificial wombs are ready we won't need abortion anymore also remember just because daddy was a rapist doesn't mean that the son/daughter created that way deserves to be punished.It shouldn't be an act of revenge.
I don't think it's really about revenge in those cases, it's more about the psychological trauma. Carrying the result of being violated for months on end can't possibly be healthy, at least from a mental health standpoint, so I'm reluctantly okay with it being an option in those edge cases which account for less than one percent of all abortions.
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