[extropy-chat] Re: Moral Relativism

[Samantha Atkins]

On May 10, 2005, at 6:36 AM, John-C-Wright at sff.net wrote:

> Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to draw you attention to a  
> peculiarity in
> this discussion. In answering the hypothetical about whether a  
> stepfather should
> prevent his underage daughter from aborting her baby, notice not  
> what the
> answers are, but notice the method of reasoning used.

That wasn't  the question was it?  I believe it was phrased more in  
terms of what you would advise such a newly pregnant youngster to do.
>
>
> If the answerer weighs the girl's desires for a career against her  
> desire for
> the life of her child, this answer (whether yea or nay) is a  
> subjective one. For
> example, Mr. Prisco answered the girl should spare the child if she  
> wanted, and
> slay it if she wanted. His answer is entirely confined to the ambit  
> of the
> girl's fourteen-year-old emotion.

tsk, tsk.  There is no child.    There is little more than an embryo  
and a grl whose chances to grow up and prepare for life are  
foreshortened by this unfortunate event.

>
> If the answerer weighs the girl’s desires against the changing  
> duties imposed
> upon her by changing circumstances, this answer (whether yea or  
> nay) is a
> relative one. No one has answered this way, but, supposing someone  
> said, "If the
> population of her nation is too low, she must spare the child; but  
> if the
> population is too high, she must slay the child." This answer  
> depends on the
> situation; in this case, on population numbers.

I am amazed that supposedly intelligent people would speak in such  
terms of "slaying a child" or forcing women and even girls to give  
birth regardless of their own needs which should count at least as  
much as those of a fetus.

Discussions like this make me very doubtful that humanity is bright  
enough to survive.   We seem to suffer recurring breakdowns in our  
thinking.

- samantha