Philosophy A being less than human, more than animal

[ShieldWife]

I thought about making this thread from an abortion discussion in the politics subforum.

If one believes that a fetus is nothing but a chump of flesh in the mother’s body, then there is obviously no justification for regulating abortion. If a fetus is a human life then abortion is murder and we are actively engaged in the greatest mass murder in the history of human, far surpassing any authoritarian ideology you could care to name. If that is the case, abortion must be outlawed in nearly every case including for victims of rape and child molestation.

A high percentage of people take a more moderate approach than the above dichotomy, suggesting that they place some human value on a fetus but not the value of a full human life. People who would allow abortions in the case of rape or first trimester abortions would fall into this category.

So my actual question extends beyond abortion. From the perspective or moral philosophy, is it possible or desirable to have a category of beings which are morally something in between human and animal. Whose lives cannot be taken with the same ear as animals, but whose lives still have some value and are entitled to some rights. Some could see this position as a slippery slope. For others, it should make sense because those traits which tend to be associated with the value of human life are very much lacking in some humans.

In practice, fetuses are treated as something in between human and animal. Attacking a pregnant woman and causing a miscarriage is a worse crime than not causing the miscarriage, but she can kill her fetus if she likes. Children general are considered humans and murdering a child is as severe a crime as murdering adults, but children aren’t entitled to the same rights as adults and in fact a parent can legally commit assault against a child. People with severe enough mental defects or damage aren’t entitled to a full range of rights and in some cases, people in comas or who are brain dead or close to it, can be killed or removed from life support under the right circumstances.

If some earlier species that was an intermediate step between human and ape still existed, like homoerectus, would such a creature be entitled to the same rights as a human? If not, could we treat it as nothing more than an animal?

If the value of a human life comes from the cognitive ability of individual humans or the moral capacity of individual humans, then many humans would not be entitled to human rights. Including fetuses who have no capacity for morality and limited cognitive ability. The same could be said for newborn infants, so that could be problematic.

Does anybody have any thoughts regarding this?

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Well, such things would be useful since they would help cover for many situations today where things are well, less than clear. And further it would allow us to head off lunatics like Singer. since we have placed the animals in question into a fitting category with moral implications rather than be an idiot and grant them person-hood.

 

[MementoMori]

But god the quagmire that would need to be waded to even get a simple determination of what would count as that very grey region of "higher than an animal but lower than a human".

If politicians could somehow read "shall not be infringed" as a reason to criminalize the act, something as gray as what constitute a semi-human is going to be a crapshoot.

 

[Captain X]

It's a complicated issue, but I generally come down on the side of the fetus as being less than a fully formed person who has been alive for some time and is sentient. For me, the whole issue of abortion comes down to a question of bodily autonomy. I really don't like the idea of people having abortions for what amounts to convenience, but at the same time, I find this preferable to the idea of people being forced to carry a pregnancy to term against their will. I also find it preferable to having more unwanted births, especially in light of the fact the people who seem to want to force women to become brood mares don't seem to care what happens once the birth happens, and all this would do is create more suffering all around. I maintain that there would be fewer abortions if sex education was better in this country.

 

[ShieldWife]

Well, such things would be useful since they would help cover for many situations today where things are well, less than clear. And further it would allow us to head off lunatics like Singer. since we have placed the animals in question into a fitting category with moral implications rather than be an idiot and grant them person-hood.

But god the quagmire that would need to be waded to even get a simple determination of what would count as that very grey region of "higher than an animal but lower than a human".

If politicians could somehow read "shall not be infringed" as a reason to criminalize the act, something as gray as what constitute a semi-human is going to be a crapshoot.

Well, to place a value on a life, to determine a being’s humanity, we could device some test of cognitive function. You score high enough and you’re a full fledged human with full human rights, score lower and you have limited rights but you still receive some protections. Score low enough and then you’re effectively an animal and have no rights. This no doubt sounds pretty evil to a lot of people and would get into Peter Singer territory since dogs would end up beating newborns on most tests of cognitive ability.

It's a complicated issue, but I generally come down on the side of the fetus as being less than a fully formed person who has been alive for some time and is sentient. For me, the whole issue of abortion comes down to a question of bodily autonomy. I really don't like the idea of people having abortions for what amounts to convenience, but at the same time, I find this preferable to the idea of people being forced to carry a pregnancy to term against their will. I also find it preferable to having more unwanted births, especially in light of the fact the people who seem to want to force women to become brood mares don't seem to care what happens once the birth happens, and all this would do is create more suffering all around. I maintain that there would be fewer abortions if sex education was better in this country.

If one considers the fetus to be in that gray zone, then consideration for the bodily autonomy of the mother would be a good justification for why abortion would be allowed and infanticide wouldn’t be, because functionally a 1 day old newborn and a 9 full term fetus are otherwise the same. Though the newborn actually requires way more work than the fetus. If adoption isn’t available, would infanticide be permitted because the strenuous physical demands which a newborn would place on its caretakers, thus violating their bodily autonomy?

You mention it’s better than more unwanted births, do you think that there is a eugenics angle in to this pro-choice argument? Women who have unwanted pregnancies and who desire abortions are likely of below average intelligence, morality, self control, and likely have other dysfunctions that may genetically or socially be passed onto their children? I imagine that the great majority of pro-choicers of today would cringe at this argument even if it might appeal to Sanger. Is this something we should consider from the paradigm of the gray area fetus?

 

[Captain X]

If one considers the fetus to be in that gray zone, then consideration for the bodily autonomy of the mother would be a good justification for why abortion would be allowed and infanticide wouldn’t be, because functionally a 1 day old newborn and a 9 full term fetus are otherwise the same. Though the newborn actually requires way more work than the fetus. If adoption isn’t available, would infanticide be permitted because the strenuous physical demands which a newborn would place on its caretakers, thus violating their bodily autonomy?

No, that would be pretty straightforward as murder for the reason you say, to basically everyone who isn't an extremist feminist.

You mention it’s better than more unwanted births, do you think that there is a eugenics angle in to this pro-choice argument?

It's pretty provable that there is - they're more than happy to come right out an admit it even if they refuse to use the actual word. But that isn't the context I am using for "unwanted births." I am thinking more in terms of either people having this additional burden on them, or in terms of unwanted children ending up as wards of the state.

Is this something we should consider from the paradigm of the gray area fetus?

Not really. It just helps to show everyone else who the horrible people are when they out themselves in this way.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

I find this preferable to the idea of people being forced to carry a pregnancy to term against their will.

You are holding a rope. On the other end is a man hanging over a cliff. You were both placed in this situation by a criminal.

You shouldn't have to hold him up, it's not fair, but you have to anyway.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

You are holding a rope. On the other end is a man hanging over a cliff. You were both placed in this situation by a criminal.

You shouldn't have to hold him up, it's not fair, but you have to anyway.

That is a pretty good argument. Sometimes you are obligated to another through no choice of your own, or their own. I mean, in even some of the weirdest pro-choice metaphors, they seem to ignore this fact.

 

[Fleiur]

I think this is relevant to this thread.
The true story behind Roe vs Wade.

 

[Deleted member]

That is a pretty good argument. Sometimes you are obligated to another through no choice of your own, or their own. I mean, in even some of the weirdest pro-choice metaphors, they seem to ignore this fact.

According to my view of the world which is founded in dharma, being put in the position of having to make that determination--of whether or not to save someone's life--is a misfortune based on one's past actions, but one where someone can still live righteously. So because of your past actions in past lives you may, through that fault of your own, be confronted with a situation you don't want -- the decision of whether or not to save the life of another. But you still have the power to make that choice, and thus decide whether or not the accrual of dharma continues to be good or ill based on those past actions. You have no choice but to be in that situation, however, as a consequence of your own past and fate.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

According to my view of the world which is founded in dharma, being put in the position of having to make that determination--of whether or not to save someone's life--is a misfortune based on one's past actions, but one where someone can still live righteously. So because of your past actions in past lives you may, through that fault of your own, be confronted with a situation you don't want -- the decision of whether or not to save the life of another. But you still have the power to make that choice, and thus decide whether or not the accrual of dharma continues to be good or ill based on those past actions. You have no choice but to be in that situation, however, as a consequence of your own past and fate.

I would guess that such a thing makes sense from a dharmic point of view. But given my secular, but rooted in the Western tradition combining Judeo-Christian and Graeco-Roman beliefs, I would disagree. Especially, due to my ideological/philosophical leanings, to me it is an unfortunate accident, that such things happen to people regardless of whether or not they are good or they are bad. To me, it is being part of society that forms mutual obligations, that it is a partnership to seek the common good, and to allow each of us to seek our personal good. So you have no choice of whether or not this happens, but you have a choice whether you make the correct decision or not.

 

[Deleted member]

I would guess that such a thing makes sense from a dharmic point of view. But given my secular, but rooted in the Western tradition combining Judeo-Christian and Graeco-Roman beliefs, I would disagree. Especially, due to my ideological/philosophical leanings, to me it is an unfortunate accident, that such things happen to people regardless of whether or not they are good or they are bad. To me, it is being part of society that forms mutual obligations, that it is a partnership to seek the common good, and to allow each of us to seek our personal good. So you have no choice of whether or not this happens, but you have a choice whether you make the correct decision or not.

Nothing is an accident. In the West, we could well frame it in the context of Western Spiritual Economy and say it is a direct operative action of one's moral outlook, a challenge on the path to enlightenment, which appears differently for different people according to the circumstances of their life, prior choices, and mental state.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Nothing is an accident. In the West, we could well frame it in the context of Western Spiritual Economy and say it is a direct operative action of one's moral outlook, a challenge on the path to enlightenment, which appears differently for different people according to the circumstances of their life, prior choices, and mental state.

I guess that is true, but to me that would just mean that everything is cause and effect, with that lovely thing known as free will and of course chance tossed into that. Looking beyond the human level, everything happens for a reason and just doesn't happen out of nowhere. A table will not just suddenly rocket into the sky without some sort of prompting after all.

...Or wait, am I about to get dunked on by quantum physics.

 

[Deleted member]

I guess that is true, but to me that would just mean that everything is cause and effect, with that lovely thing known as free will and of course chance tossed into that. Looking beyond the human level, everything happens for a reason and just doesn't happen out of nowhere. A table will not just suddenly rocket into the sky without some sort of prompting after all.

...Or wait, am I about to get dunked on by quantum physics.

Quantum physics is well-addressed by Ms Trent in her work, as reproduced below:

It is important to understand that our perception of the universe is mediated through the five physical senses. In theory, those five senses could be multiplied many times over. There is no limit to the number of senses we might, in principle, possess. It follows, therefore, that the portion of the cosmos prehensible to those five senses is only a tiny portion of total reality. If our senses were multiplied, we should be blasted by the terrifying immensity of the Universe: overwhelmed, crushed and shattered by a multi-dimensional vastness too terrible for us to tolerate. “Human kind cannot bear very much reality”.

This little safe and sealed portion of the cosmos that has been allotted to us – this world of the five senses – is in itself an act of mercy, a manifestation of the kindness of our Great Mother. Goodness and kindness are woven into the very fabric of the cosmos, and Nietzsche’s vision of an empty, cold, meaningless universe is a foolish rejection of that goodness based on a profound misunderstanding of our place within the nature of things.

Imagine a tiny creature who spends her entire life on a table in a room. The surface of that table is a map of the world. The table, and indeed the whole room, represents the world of the five senses. This creature was taught from the beginning that the map on the surface of the table is a picture of the world, and that by studying it she may know the world and herself. Now imagine that one day this creature forgets the original tradition and decides to learn more than the map shows her. She makes telescopes and other instruments and soon she finds that she can see to the far ends of the room. She learns many things that were not included on her map of the world. She learns about tables and chairs, about the carpet and even, in the far distance, sees the window and the door, though she cannot quite be sure what they are.

Now she scorns her map and believes that she knows far more about the world than her credulous ancestors who believed in it. She has discovered countless things they never dreamed of.

But what she does not know is that beyond this room are other rooms, beyond all those rooms another house and then dozens of other houses in the same street and hundreds of other streets in the town, hundreds of other towns in the country, and hundreds of other countries in the world – and not only countries, but vast seas, forests, deserts, Arctic regions, underground caves and inconceivably more. And all these things are shown on the map on the surface of the table; the map that she now believes to be ‘obsolete’ because of her new and superior knowledge gained by looking round the single room of that portion of the universe visible to the five senses.

Certainly she knows some things unknown to her ancestors, but they are a quite random assortment of things – just the things that happen to be in that particular room; and of those only the ones that are near enough for her to see clearly. They make no particular sense, of course, because they are a random selection, and so begins the Nietzschean vision – the assumption that, because the limited selection of reality available to our five senses is random, so the universe itself is meaningless and without pattern.

This Nietzschean vision, when faced squarely by a mind as courageous as Nietzsche’s does have something of the vast, terrifying quality of the vision we should see if our senses were multiplied to the point where we could see everything. Nietzsche himself went mad and ended his days in an asylum. Most lesser minds remain sane because they do not really face up to the full implications of what they believe.

Nevertheless, this vision is not – not remotely – the experience we should have if the kindly limitations of the world of the five senses were stripped away from us and we could see the totality of the cosmos in all its vicissitudes rather than that tiny compartment of it which is the physical world. Nietzsche and all those who believe that modern science has shown us ‘the universe as it is’, are still living on the charity of our Great Mother; still resting in the enclosing protection of Her hand, shielded from the real Universe as It Is, the least glimpse of which would destroy them. Even as they boast of their rejection of tradition and ridicule the ancient map which She provided for us, they still live on the same table, in the same room in the same warm, comfortable house, sheltered from the terrible winds of the total cosmos.

But why is it not possible for us to see the total cosmos? Precisely because in our present state we are too weak to see it. Maid has the capacity to see the Whole; that is, to see the Absolute and the Infinite – to see the Divine, in which the total cosmos has its being. But seeing the Divine is precisely what humanity – and our present phase of humanity more than ever before – has strayed from. Opening us up to the total cosmos now would be to expose us to a massive overload of contingency – something like the Nietzschean universe multiplied countless millions of millions of times: an endless multi-dimensional chaos from which our souls could find no protection.

This is not because the universe is chaos, but because seen by one who had not attained true spiritual realization, it would necessarily appear so.

To wit, quantum mechanics is a chance to look at the very limits of what our limited, physical perception allows. It is a chance to experience Nietzsche's madness. It is a hint of the true grandeur of Creation, which we are incapable of perceiving. Quantum mechanics is an excellent reason to step back, and tremble in fear, and turn your heart back to the Almighty. Quantum mechanics is terrifying when considered for its full implications... And it is an overwhelming testimony to the existence of God, for it shows how limited our knowledge is and how total our ignorance is, and how overwhelming complicated the Cosmos is, and how the Cosmos exists only by the continuous action of Divine Grace.

 

[Cherico]

What Im going to say is going to piss people off but here it goes.


I am completely fine with abortion, if a woman tells me she would be an unfit parent I tend to belive her, I also understand that unwanted children have a much larger tendency to become criminals and thus make things even worse.

Its their body their choice their responsibility.

Notice that little extra? Thing is if abortion is legal and a man has no say in it that means logically speaking the decision to have a child is a unilateral one. Birth control for women has existed for over 2 generations now, the day after pill is a thing, abortion is some thing you can get in pretty much all 50 states.

So by that logic we need to get rid of child support all child support. You want to have a child with out some ones permission fine you get to do that on your own with out his fincial backing. You want to take away custody well now you have full fincial responsibility for the children.

It sounds harsh but if we combined power and responsibility it would fix a lot of our social problems.

 

[Scottty]

It sounds harsh but if we combined power and responsibility it would fix a lot of our social problems.

This last point of yours hits the nail on the head.

 

[Fleiur]

What Im going to say is going to piss people off but here it goes.


I am completely fine with abortion, if a woman tells me she would be an unfit parent I tend to belive her, I also understand that unwanted children have a much larger tendency to become criminals and thus make things even worse.

How does she know she would be an unfit mother when she's full of emotions?
You should not believe her because she's scared, emotional and hormonal. You should be the voice of reason to not kill the child that she's bearing.

Its their body their choice their responsibility.

What is responsible is not to kill your child because you don't like the consequences /results of your actions.

 

[almostinsane]

What Im going to say is going to piss people off but here it goes.


I am completely fine with abortion, if a woman tells me she would be an unfit parent I tend to belive her, I also understand that unwanted children have a much larger tendency to become criminals and thus make things even worse.

Its their body their choice their responsibility.

Notice that little extra? Thing is if abortion is legal and a man has no say in it that means logically speaking the decision to have a child is a unilateral one. Birth control for women has existed for over 2 generations now, the day after pill is a thing, abortion is some thing you can get in pretty much all 50 states.

So by that logic we need to get rid of child support all child support. You want to have a child with out some ones permission fine you get to do that on your own with out his fincial backing. You want to take away custody well now you have full fincial responsibility for the children.

It sounds harsh but if we combined power and responsibility it would fix a lot of our social problems.

This assumes that the fetus is a clump of cells and not an unborn child. If it is a clump of cells, you are correct. If it is an unborn child, then your conclusions are monstrous.

Given that a fetus has his/her own DNA and is distinct as a biological life separate from the mother, I am inclined to believe the fetus is a human being and cannot be killed.