[extropy-chat] Euphamism and misspellings.

[Brett Paatsch]

Russell Wallace wrote:

> On 6/5/05, Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> > I ask you again, this is not a loaded or leading question, did
> > you look at the Virtual Human Embryo site?
> 
> No. I have already seen pictures and descriptions of early-stage
> embryos; they formed inputs to my judgement that said entities
> should not be regarded as persons. 

Have you shown those pictures to anyone else to give so that they
could form inputs to their judgement? 

>But I don't make the mistake of confusing my judgement on a 
>moral issue with the scientific facts that formed inputs to it.

Perhaps you are implying that I do. On this matter you would
be wrong. I use scientific facts and experience to inform me
of the way the world is. Is doesn't automatically or easily get
to ought. But ignorance of what is will almost certainly get to
the formulation of very bad policy. Christians (as a category
there are of course exceptions) start with the proposition that
God is and build their worldview including their view of absolute
morality up from that. This is akin to trying to achieve a system 
of objective morality by stealing it all in one greedy, intellectually
lazy, go. 

> > If so do you think
> > that it is misleading to say that at some stages the early human
> > entity is a cluster of cells AND that therefore it is misleading
> > to use the word child as a catchall term to include everything
> > from a fertilized egg to a human infant of a couple of years of
> > age a child?
> 
> No. It represents a view that differs from mine, but that is not the
> same as being misleading.

Okay, so it hasn't mislead you because you were already better
informed. But that is not the question, the question is, is calling an
early stage embryo a child likely, in your view, to mislead those
who have not seen an early stage embryo?

And do you know for a fact that John C Wright has taken a look
at the site or something similar and therefore knows what it is that
he is talking about?

> > I know from person experience that those with faith based world
> > views in the parliaments and congress do not constrain themselves
> > either to the standards of civilized discourse or indeed to the laws
> > of the land if they can escape them in the pursuit of what they
> > regard as the higher purpose as they see it.

> Some do, some don't. Are you of the opinion that those without faith
> based world views typically adhere to a higher standard of conduct? 

Yes, as a generalisation, I do think that, but there are so very few of 
them that it is hard to tell. Those that look to faith to find guidance to 
their moral decisions are abandoning their own judgement to some 
other authority then there own conscience. They have less need to 
look to science or to the law or to the means to persuade others. 
A faith based decision is incompatible with a reason based decision
and so I think it is ultimately an anti-social decision regardless of 
any incidental good effect that may flow from it by fortuitous
circumstances. 

> If  so, I am afraid <understatement of the month> your opinion fails
> to correspond to the state of affairs that exists in the real world
> </understatement of the month> - as this discussion has nicely
> demonstrated.

I'll just let that statement of yours stand. What is gratuitously asserted
doesn't always need to be gratuitously denied. 

Brett Paatsch