• Kamikaze Butter
    40
    I don't believe that a zygote is equivalent to a person, it's just not the same thing.Sam26

    A person is a philosophical construct.

    Barring severe mutation or inter species breeding, we know the zygote is human life. We talk of “human rights” not “person rights.”

    Life obviously is not a human right.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    Except that one could make an argument that the closer one gets to viability, the closer one gets to having a good argument that it's a person. The problem here of course is that the line gets blurry at points, and thus isn't as clear as we would like. For me it's clear that a zygote isn't a person. Thus, not being a person it's difficult to see how abortion could be murder, since murder always involves persons.Sam26

    are you familiar with Don Marquis argument on a future of value ? If so what do you think of it.

    this part is opinion - not argument - but the concept of person hood has a rich history of being used as a justification for making a sub class of human beings that it is ok to do bad stuff to.
  • Hanover
    12.9k
    A person is a philosophical construct.

    Barring severe mutation or inter species breeding, we know the zygote is human life. We talk of “human rights” not “person rights.”

    Life obviously is not a human right.
    Kamikaze Butter

    Rights is a philosophical construct.
  • Sam26
    2.7k
    A person is a philosophical construct.Kamikaze Butter

    The meaning of the word person is not some philosophical construct, meaning, and I talk about this all the time in my thread on Wittgenstein, is something that takes place in language, and how that word is used. So one can't just make up any definition of the word and think it applies, as some philosophers and theologians do. It's more complicated than that.

    Barring severe mutation or inter species breeding, we know the zygote is human life. We talk of “human rights” not “person rights.”

    Life obviously is not a human right.
    Kamikaze Butter

    I'm not saying you can't make an argument that a zygote has rights, especially given that it's a potential person at the very least. Does all human life have rights, does a sperm have rights? It's not as easy as you seem to think it is. By the way, we do talk about persons having rights, but you're also right, we also talk of human rights, but when we talk of human here, I don't think we're talking about the rights of zygotes. Do you think that when the founding fathers were talking of rights, they were including a clump of cells, probably not. Maybe we should expand some rights to potential persons. I don't know.
  • Kamikaze Butter
    40
    Rights is a philosophical construct.Hanover

    Right. I pointed out an issue regarding language and the construction of human rights.
  • Kamikaze Butter
    40
    Does all human life have rights, does a sperm have rights?Sam26

    Sperm does not contain the human genome, therefore it is not human life. Life begins at conception.

    That part is academic.

    I am pro choice, and I have considered that children under two can be executed on the parents’ choice. Some go as high as four.

    Is that immoral?
  • Sam26
    2.7k
    are you familiar with Don Marquis argument on a future of value ? If so what do you think of it.

    this part is opinion - not argument - but the concept of person hood has a rich history of being used as a justification for making a sub class of human beings that it is ok to do bad stuff to.
    Rank Amateur

    When we talk of the zygote or fetus as a potential person we are talking of future value, but we're also talking of present value. No, I haven't read Don Marquis argument.

    Yes, if one makes the argument that since the zygote is not a person, that it's just a clump of cells, and as such has no value, then one can justify doing experiments on zygotes, presumably. One might also argue that any subclass of humans is not a person, therefore they have no rights, and people do and have done this. I believe these are just very poor arguments.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    No, I haven't read Don Marquis argument.Sam26

    In a nutshell -

    P1 - People like you and me have a future, it includes many things of value, relationships, experiences, etc
    P2 - It is immoral to deny people like us our future of value without cause.
    P3 - After the process of conception there exists a unique human organism
    P4 - This organism is alive
    P5 - This human organism has a future of value - much like ours

    Conclusion - If it is immoral to deny a future of value, and after conception there is a human organism with a future of value, it is immoral to deny that organism its future of value. Abortion denies that future of value - abortion is immoral.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    I am pro choice, and I have considered that children under two can be executed on the parents’ choice. Some go as high as four.

    Is that immoral?
    Kamikaze Butter

    Singer's argument - which logical includes infanticide - which many - including me choke on. Of course it has a big caveat that that child is not wanted at all by anyone - that no harm to anyone would be caused by the death of the child - seems a very high hurdle in practice
  • Sam26
    2.7k
    In a nutshell -

    P1 - People like you and me have a future, it includes many things of value, relationships, experiences, etc
    P2 - It is immoral to deny people like us our future of value without cause.
    P3 - After the process of conception there exists a unique human organism
    P4 - This organism is alive
    P5 - This human organism has a future of value - much like ours

    Conclusion - If it is immoral to deny a future of value, and after conception there is a human organism with a future of value, it is immoral to deny that organism its future of value. Abortion denies that future of value - abortion is immoral.
    Rank Amateur

    Hmmm, it's not always immoral to deny that organism its future value. I would stipulate that without good reason it's immoral to deny that organism its future value.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    Hmmm, it's not always immoral to deny that organism its future value. I would stipulate that without good reason it's immoral to deny that organism its future value.Sam26

    think i said that

    P2 - It is immoral to deny people like us our future of value without cause.Rank Amateur

    Probably should be some qualifier such as "just" or "reasonable" etc in front of cause - went fast - hope that is implied.
  • Sam26
    2.7k
    I wouldn't use the phrase "without cause," I would say, "without good reason/s." The word 'cause' has to much other baggage. Moreover, the conclusion didn't say it, which is why I added what I did.
  • Michael
    15.5k
    So your argument is:

    P1. Anything which increases the chance that a foetus will be terminated is immoral
    P2. Casual sex increases the chance that a foetus will be terminated
    C. Therefore, casual sex is immoral

    The argument is valid.

    The truth (and scope) of the premises is debatable, though.

    There's also an interesting counter-argument, utilising the "future of value" that you mentioned earlier:

    P1. Anything which increases the chance that something with a future of value will be born is good
    P2. Casual sex increases the chance that something with a future of value will be born
    C. Therefore, casual sex is good.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    C. Therefore, casual sex is good.Michael

    I agree with the conclusion - and have no need of the premises !!

    I haven't taken any position on the O/P if that was directed at me.
  • Maw
    2.7k
    Let's assume that abortion is morally equivalent to murder.Ronin3000

    "Murder" is a legal term for the unlawful killing of a person. We should not assume that an inchoate fetus is isomorphic to a person.
  • Kamikaze Butter
    40


    Depends on the source and jurisdiction.

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/murder

    Murder occurs when one human being unlawfully kills another human being. See Homicide. The precise legal definition of murder varies by jurisdiction. Most states distinguish between different degrees of murder. Some other states base their murder laws on the Model Penal Code.

    In 2004, Scott Peterson was convicted of 2nd degree murder for the death of his unborn son in California.
  • Maw
    2.7k
    Peterson's wife was over seven months pregnant at the time, at which point the fetus would have been viable, so I don't necessarily disagree that the 2nd degree murder verdict isn't valid. However, over 95% of abortions in America occur prior to 20 weeks of gestation. So in the overwhelming majority of abortion procedures, no, it is not murder.
  • Akanthinos
    1k


    Canadian law allows to specially recognize in advance the rights that a foetus would have had if it had been born, when some situations occurs. Forced abortions are thus upgraded to murder 1, murders of pregnant ladies count has 2 murders, etc...

    The foetus is not a person, tho, under canadian law. For that, legally, he needs tombe both alive and viable. We just really dont like people who kills pregnant ladies.
  • Hanover
    12.9k
    Sperm does not contain the human genome, therefore it is not human life. Life begins at conception.

    That part is academic.
    Kamikaze Butter

    But you can have a dead zygote, so containing the human genome must not be the critical criterion for life.

    You also can get an egg to subdivide without fertilization, and perhaps technology will allow cloning one day. Will all eggs be potential life when that day occurs and therefore be protected as all human beings should?
  • gurugeorge
    514
    It's the abortionist who is the murderer, and "risking" isn't necessarily morally culpable if you've done your best to minimize the risk (it would be morally culpable in the "risk" terms you outline only if you didn't take any precautions).

    However, casual sex is immoral, because the telos of the sexual organs is reproduction, and the continuity of human life through time, not pleasure - the fact that sex is pleasurable (in fact the most intense pleasure of which we're normally capable, second only to some kinds of mystical epiphany) is a byproduct of the telos, it cannot without societal dysfunction and disarray be an end in itself.

    The "sexual revolution" seemed like a good idea at the time, to the (relative to previous generations) ridiculously privileged adolescents of the Boomer generation, but it has been absolutely disastrous for our societies (e.g. in the US, hitting Blacks first of all, and now latterly Whites,, HIspanics, etc., too) - it's led to a massive increase in single-parent families, which has resulted in increased crime, addiction, various kinds of societal dysfunction and a great deal of suffering, not just as a result of the crime and social dysfunction per se, but as a result of psychological dissatisfaction arising from non-conformity with the telos of sexuality. Increased female unhappiness, and increased male suicide are direct social consequences of the loosening of sexual mores. (Females riding the "cock carousel" while nubile and postponing reproduction till their sexual market value has declined, and lower-SMV males being unable to marry and reproduce because the former process shuts them out of the reproductive game and heaps even more mating privilege on already high-SMV males, are two important causes of the profound alienation and dissatisfaction in society today.)

    People will have some casual sex anyway, and always have done, precisely because sexual pleasure is so powerful. And while of course it shouldn't be illegal (not everything that is immoral has to be illegal), you have to actively discourage it publicly by means of societal disapproval and (in the worst-case scenario) social shaming (and/or by means of social tropes like the "shotgun wedding"), in order it to bring its deleterious societal effects to a manageable level.
  • Maw
    2.7k
    What you wrote is eye-gouging claptrap all the way down. Nowhere do you connect why a teleological function of an organ is tethered to morality, or why disregarding said teleology is immoral, or why using the sexual organs for pleasure (e.g. masturbation, casual sex) isn't a valid alternative use. Last I checked, Mother Nature did not hand down Ten Commandments mandating how we must to use our bodies, and our sexual organs in particular.

    As is typical of you, there are no citations, studies, articles, etc. demonstrating a causal relationship between the sexual revolution and societal issues, or how "non-conformity with the telos of sexuality" directly results in "psychological dissatisfaction". And how precisely did the Sexual Revolution "hit" Blacks first? The idea of Black hyper-sexuality is a racist idea that has stubbornly persisted since the 17th century as a cover for white promiscuity. Can we really ignore social media addiction and self-presentation perfectionism, work dissatisfaction and increased work hours, market volatility, blue-collar job flight, increasing economic inequality, stagnate wages,cumbersome debt, racial disparities, etc. as contributing factors to crime, suicide, unhappiness and other societal ills etc.?,..Can we honestly deny that they have a larger impact is societal dysfunction than...supposedly loosened sexual mores? I don't think we can, particularly when recent studies show that younger generations today have fewer sexual partners on average, and overall have less sex than older generations.

    You state that we, as a society, should "actively discourage" casual sex and polyamory, but it's not clear what that would look like in practice, and I think it's fair to say - based on historical precedent - that this would be overwhelmingly focused on women. Jordan Peterson recently entertained the idea of "enforced monogomy", an explosive phrase he typically lobs in order to garner shock and attention (but vague enough to walk back from the otherwise obvious meaning). However, contrary to yours and Peterson's concerns, monogamous relationships are overwhelmingly viewed positively, while, according to a Gallup Poll from 2013, shows that Americans strongly disprove of affairs (91%), and polygamy (83%). Divorce rates are also at 40 year low, as of 2015.

    So yeah...I'm not quite sure how relevant the Sexual Revolution of the 60's has been in the last 50 years to our current "societal dysfunction", when "hookup culture" is more of fantasy played out in movies, TV shows, and in the imaginative minds of conservatives, than what exists in reality.

    Finally, crime has also steadily decreased since the early 90's. It has not increased, as you said. And your idea of that women have a "sexual market value" is blatantly sexist.
  • gurugeorge
    514
    Nowhere do you connect why a teleological function of an organ is tethered to morality, or why disregarding said teleology is immoral, or why using the sexual organs for pleasure (e.g. masturbation, casual sex) isn't a valid alternative use. Last I checked, Mother Nature did not hand down Ten Commandments to mandating how we must to use our bodies, and our sexual organs in particular.Maw

    It's a more or less Aristotelian position. Morality (which has nothing to do with any sort of "commandments" of course) is a function of teleology in the following way: if you want to use a thing successfully, the use you make of it ought to conform to its nature and purpose, any other kind of use is misuse, and will likely backfire. Animals tend to instinctively use things properly (granted some genetic variation, and within the limits set by their genetics and by their lacking reason); humans are odd in that they operate much less on instinct than other animals, and have to choose to use things properly (and can choose not to do so). This is nested in the larger teleology of virtue ethics. Roughly speaking, what is moral is to be the best human being, and specifically the best you, that you can be, where "best" is defined as actualizing your - general and specific - potential. And that necessarily includes your potential to reproduce your kind, and requires some care and consideration for the support structure and genetic closeness of your kind - implying the necessity for both reciprocal altruism and kin altruism.

    As is typical of you, there are no citations, studies, articles, etc. demonstrating a causal relationship between the sexual revolution and societal issues, or how "non-conformity with the telos of sexuality" directly results in "psychological dissatisfaction".Maw

    Glad to see you're a keen student of my posts, and I take your point re. lack of citations, but I'm not out to "demonstrate" anything, I just wanted to briefly outline a position and casually chat about it. I'll let you know when I'm doing a peer-reviewed scientific paper on the topic.

    And how precisely did the Sexual Revolution "hit" Blacks first? The idea of Black hyper-sexuality is a racist idea that has stubbornly persisted since the 17th century as a cover for white promiscuity.Maw

    Even more stubborn and persistent are facts:- https://www.stdtestexpress.com/std-news/the-demographics-of-stds-race-8080172740/

    Human beings are (rational) animals, and like other species, we are divisible into sub-species by means of both plain observation and more recondite scientific investigations (into relative genetic closeness or distance). For humans, there are 3 broad and about 7 or 9 more refined sub-species, or "races," which evolved as a result of relative geographic isolation, mostly in prehistory. Racial categories have fuzzy and somewhat arbitrary boundaries (arbitrary in the sense that there are always edge cases and undecidable cases), but the racial categories are in the main solid enough to provide useful information and be predictive, and there are clusters of average traits that hold across the races (skin colour is only one marker of race, of course - other markers that show consistent average differences between races are skeletal morphology, differences in the brain, proneness to various diseases, aggression, sociability, hair types and coverage, maturation rates - and among a zillion other things, mating patterns).

    It turns out that of the three main races, Asians tend to be the least promiscuous, Blacks the most, with Whites inbetween. And while human culture and society certainly has an independent, standalone aspect that's not directly affected by biology (we might call that aspect memetic, ideational, or just plain cultural), which gives us some elbow room for experimentation; and while "human capital" is probably just as important for outcomes as human biology: nevertheless the structure of the body and brain as mandated by its DNA plays an important role even in culture. Culture is part of the extended phenotype. This isn't rocket science - but it is biology.

    The breakdown of the Black family and the atomization of the Black middle class in the 1960s, and the connection of that breakdown to crime is well documented (cf. for example Thomas Sowell's several books on and around the topic), and in the US, those Blacks who have escaped the Democratic Party plantation are getting increasingly pissed off about it. Of course there's a lot more to it than the sexual revolution, but I'm talking about the specific contribution of the normalization of casual sex, promiscuity, etc., to social dysfunction.

    Can we really ignore ...Maw

    No, and I wouldn't propose to do so in a more general context, but again, the topic is casual sex, and I'm sketching the particular impact of widespread, normalized casual sex as an important contributory cause of social dysfunction, awareness of which is repressed by today's received wisdom.

    You state that we, as a society, should "actively discourage" casual sex and polyamory, but it's not clear what that would look like in practice,Maw

    It would look like a partial return to a more traditional society. The new isn't necessarily the good, and societies can change for the worse, as well as for the better. Some mistakes have been made in the 20th century, as well as some genuine progress. The mistakes should be reversed or fixed as much as possible, the progress retained.

    and I think it's fair to say - based on historical precedent - that this would be overwhelmingly focused on women. Jordan Peterson recently entertained the idea of "enforced monogomy", an explosive phrase he typically lobs in order to garner shock and attention (but vague enough to walk back from the otherwise obvious meaning).Maw

    It's actually just a jargon term in the relevant sciences that he used quite innocently, but of course Leftists are always eager to smear and shut down anything that goes counter to their ideology.

    Things can be "enforced" as social habits.

    I covered the question of legality in my post, if that's what you're worried about. The relaxation of legal strictures on interpersonal interaction in the course of the 20th century in Western cultures I would consider an example of genunine progress (traditional human cultures have often been unnecessarily strict about policing sexuality). Fret not, nobody's talking about handmaidens and their tales ;)

    The sexual behaviour of both males and females is "enforced" extra-legally in traditional societies, but in different ways (and in different ways in different cultures - again, this is the result of both biological and memetic evolution). The focus on females is just an artifact of the difference in the relative abundance of the two sexes' gametes, and the balance, or division of reproductive labour between the sexes in our markedly sexually dimorphic species. Females have to be much more careful about reproduction because they have less potential shots at it, so they bear more risk than males, and there's more pressure on them to get it right, e.g. to take care to choose a good mate, who'll both provide good genetic material and stick around to help them raise the child (especially during the period of greater vulnerability during pregnancy and their children's early development).

    This means that women are effectively more precious to human society, and more a protected class, than men. This is reflected in: the fundamental gynocentrism of human society (under normal conditions, much of human society is built around protecting females and ensuring the safety and stability of their reproductive cycle); the lack of necessity for agency and responsibility in females (other than wrt childrearing - their "one job" so to speak, the only thing society pressures them to take responsibility for); the greater number of taboos around female sexuality; greater male disposability; greater burdens of agency and social responsibility on males (laughably construed by Feminists as men being mean and "in control"). The taboos around female sexuality aren't meant to spoil women's fun, but to ensure as much as possible that they can make the most of their biologically more constrained chance at reproduction. (I say "meant" - of course such habits evolved blindly initially, and religion and tradition have fitfully re-presented to consciousness, and further fostered, those evolved behaviours.)

    However, contrary to yours and Peterson's concerns, monogamous relationships are overwhelmingly viewed positively, while, according to a Gallup Poll from 2013, shows that Americans strongly disprove of affairs (91%), and polygamy (83%). Divorce rates are also at 40 year low, as of 2015.

    So yeah...I'm not quite sure how relevant the Sexual Revolution of the 60's has been in the last 50 years to our current "societal dysfunction", when "hookup culture" is more of fantasy played out in movies, TV shows, and in the imaginative minds of conservatives, than what exists in reality.
    Maw

    Actually it's a fantasy that up until the past 5 years or so was constantly pumped out by Leftists and fellow-travelling creatives in those fields, who encouraged sexual promiscuity, precisely because they hoped it would lead to the breakdown of the White nuclear family form (which Blacks had long copied), which they saw as the main bulwark and seedbed of "patriarchy," "authoritarianism" and "White oppression." Sex ought to be an individual choice, you understand, do what feels right ...

    Conservatives, as the name suggests, are opposed to all that, and would prefer a return to traditionalism, with individuals' sexual behaviour somewhat shepherded by society at large. The belief is that the sexual revolution has led to a joyless narcissism, focused entirely on solipsistic pleasure, and on what can be received rather than what can be given and contributed to the ongoing life and continuity of a people through time. (As a side-light, both consumerism and casual sex are part of the larger syndrome of the Left's relentless destructive critique of traditional European/American - White - social mores, in turn a function of the "long march through the institutions" first proposed by Gramsci and accelerated by thinkers of the 60s like Marcuse.)

    As you point out, even after 50 or so years of propaganda from the cybernetic industries encouraging loose morals, people are still uncomfortable with it. But of course in the trenches of everyday life, it's hard to muster the will to resist the temptation to easy sexual pleasure, especially when "society" tells you it's ok. So people are quite schizophrenic about it; on the one hand, they know they're doing wrong and still give lip-service to what's right, but because society encourages their wrongdoing, they continue to indulge in casual sex against their better judgement - and as the OP pointed out, no form of birth control is 100% effective.

    Things are changing though; on the one hand the Left's position has become increasingly incoherent, inconsistent, incomprehensible and ideologically obsesssed; on the other hand, there is a shift to the Right going on everywhere, especially among the Gen Z young (who see the mess their parents and grandparents got into).

    Finally, crime has also steadily decreased since the early 90's. It has not increased, as you said.Maw

    Crime rose from the 60s to the 90s, then decreased, it is now increasing again. We're living through the aftermath of an earthquake that happened in the 60s/70s, but as I've said and as you've pointed out yourself, there are many other factors involved.

    All this is in the context of the centuries-long fall in crime in European and American societies, but that looks like it's reversing in those societies, with increasing immigration and the demographic decline of Whites (who are relatively well-behaved, though not as well-behaved as Asians).

    I suppose it depends on the scope and "grain" of the investigation - and how honest people are about it.

    And your idea of that women have a "sexual market value" is blatantly sexist.Maw

    As I pointed out, men have sexual market value too; mating is akin to an economic negotiation between the sexes based on guesses at prospective mate quality, likelihood of family stability, of faithfulness, etc. To some extent the negotation is conscious and calculating, but most of it is unconscious, and some smaller part of it is instinctive.

    To encapsulate all of this in a trope: sex is not a toy, it is a nuclear weapon, and should be handled with care.
  • SherlockH
    69
    It depends who you ask really and how they view sex. If A you go around tricking others into sex by pretending you love them yes. If you get 20 different women pregnant and dont take responsibility very likely. If however you have casual sex, always use protection and honest about your intention and have no reserves about how sex needs to wait till marriage you might argue its not immoral.
  • iolo
    226
    I don't really think there is much 'self' to own, just various shifting mental states with a shared name. I've never fully understood the concept 'morality' either, but have always felt it was a deeply obnoxious thing to force life on anybody under capitalism. I don't quite know what people want out of casual sex - handwork, so to speak, should deal with the immediate problem - but I assume that it probably has, like so much else, to do with power. Nasty!
  • Maw
    2.7k
    It's a more or less Aristotelian positiongurugeorge

    I'm well aware of Aristotle's theory of ethics, but there is nothing convincing about tying the mere act of sexual reproduction to enhancing one's moral character. You state that human are "rational animals"; I would argue that our rationality enables us to be unbounded by the shackles of blind instinct, including the drive to reproduction. That an anti-natalist, one who chooses not to have children, or someone who is infertile, one who - regardless of choice - cannot have children, are less of a "person" or less moral - or outright immoral, than a person who does, is outright nonsense.

    I take your point re. lack of citations, but I'm not out to "demonstrate" anythinggurugeorge

    When you attempt to make factual claims about the world, but fail to provide any citations, why should I believe what you are saying? Fortunately, for me, I'm well read enough to know that most of what you said was flat out wrong.

    we are divisible into sub-species by means of both plain observation and more recondite scientific investigationsgurugeorge

    And there it is! Blatant racism dressed up esoteric science and casual observation.

    Things can be "enforced" as social habits.gurugeorge

    As I pointed out in my previous post, monogamy is very much the norm in today's society, and alternatives, e.g. polygamy, are widely disproved of by the general population. So what precisely does "enforced" mean here when it's overwhelmingly approved of? You don't actually outline details in your previous post, but when you say things like "women are a protected class" within the realm of sexuality, then that hints at something more nefarious than simple "social disapproval".

    I can't even bother to respond to the remainder of your sexist, racist, and alt-right garbage post. No point in wasting my time with a bigot.
  • gloaming
    128
    Bigot? Is that word useful here? Apart from attempting to thwart further dialog due to the ad hominem, it doesn't seem to apply. A person who is a bigot is intolerant of a variant viewpoint, and you haven't established as much in this case.
  • Maw
    2.7k


    Per Webster:

    a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance

    No I think @gurugeorge, who has fervently claimed that there are "7 to 9 sub-species" of humans in addition to "three main races" in which Asians are the "most well-behaved" and "less promiscuous", while Blacks are "the least well-behaved" and "most sexually promiscuous"; has stated that the increase of (non-Caucasian, non-Asian) immigration and decrease of the white population leads to the increase of crime; and who additionally believes that women are essentially reducible to their "reproductive function" is, apodictically, a deprived, stupid, deplorable bigot and racist and sexist. And if I were a moderator I would have banned him.
  • gloaming
    128
    It's one thing to show why he may be misapprehended, but quite another to show that he is intolerant. A bigot is a person who will go to extremes, including violence/ad baculum in an attempt to assert his/her views. A thread (as opposed to a threat) on a public forum hardly amounts to intolerance.

    We should hope a moderator is somewhat wiser about silencing opposing views than you are....?
  • Ciceronianus
    3k
    If casual sex is immoral, then of course thorough, formal, painstaking sex is moral.
  • gurugeorge
    514
    I'm well aware of Aristotle's theory of ethics, but there is nothing convincing about tying the mere act of sexual reproduction to enhancing one's moral character.Maw

    What does anything I said have to do with "enhancing one's moral character?" What does that even mean?

    You state that human are "rational animals"; I would argue that our rationality enables us to be unbounded by the shackles of blind instinct, including the drive to reproduction.Maw

    Reproduction isn't a "blind instinct," if it were a blind instinct people would do it instinctively and automatically. As I said in my last post, reproduction is a function of conscious thought, a mass of unconscious calculation and a small measure of instinctive behaviour.

    That an anti-natalist, one who chooses not to have children, or someone who is infertile, one who - regardless of choice - cannot have children, are less of a "person" or less moral - or outright immoral, than a person who does, is outright nonsense.Maw

    It's fortunate that I never said any such thing then, isn't it?

    When you attempt to make factual claims about the world, but fail to provide any citations, why should I believe what you are saying?Maw

    You obviously wouldn't believe what I'm saying even if I provided the cites :)

    And there it is! Blatant racism dressed up esoteric science and casual observation.Maw

    The science isn't "esoteric," nor is it "racist" to point out that it exists. I used "recondite" jokingly because it's complex biochemistry stuff that I don't understand myself. But the results are quite legitimate and widely accepted. You're ill-informed if you think otherwise.

    Once again, try to let the science sink in: human beings are animals, and there is biodiversity in the human animal just as there is in any other animal. It is not "racist" to point that out, and it is not "racist" to take that fact into consideration when thinking about morality and social problems.

    You can't just throw the word "racist" around randomly as if it were some sort of ideological garlic, you know. You've seen what happens when you do that, right? You get Trump. :)

    As I pointed out in my previous post, monogamy is very much the norm in today's society, and alternatives, e.g. polygamy, are widely disproved of by the general population.Maw

    And yet for some time now we have seen increases in single parenthood, a decline in marriage and in reproduction, and increasing divorce rates.

    So what precisely does "enforced" mean here when it's overwhelmingly approved of? You don't actually outline details in your previous post, but when you say things like "women are a protected class" within the realm of sexuality, then that hints at something more nefarious than simple "social disapproval".Maw

    As I said, the situation would look like a partial return of traditionalism. For example, even 50 years ago, having a divorcee as the lead character in a tv show was understood as borderline unacceptable - is that what you think of as "nefarious?"

    I can't even bother to respond to the remainder of your sexist, racist, and alt-right garbage post. No point in wasting my time with a bigot.Maw

    The bigot takes an average as a stereotype, and then pre-judges every member of the group as possessed of that stereotypical set of traits. Can you point to where I've done that?

    No I think @gurugeorge, who has ferventlyMaw

    "fervently" lol

    claimed that there are "7 to 9 sub-species" of humans in addition to "three main races"Maw

    Not "in addition to," they're just alternative classifications, one very broad, the other more refined and detailed.

    in which Asians are the "most well-behaved" and "less promiscuous", while Blacks are "the least well-behaved" and "most sexually promiscuous";Maw

    TEND TO BE. Again, we're talking about AVERAGES ACROSS POPULATIONS. There are lots of Asians who are promiscuous and lots of Blacks who aren't. There are plenty stupid Asians and smart Blacks. Etc., etc., et multae ceterae. THAT IS IMPLICIT IN THE VERY FACT THAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT AVERAGES.

    has stated that the increase of (non-Caucasian, non-Asian) immigration and decrease of the white population leads to the increase of crime;Maw

    That's just what happens when you import groups that are on average more violent than Whites, who outbreed Whites.

    and who additionally believes that women are essentially reducible to their "reproductive function"Maw

    Wrong again, that's not what I said.

    You jump to conclusions and you seem to be incapable of parsing nuanced distinctions, you are gratuitously insulting, and you would ban someone who says things you don't agree with. In short, you seem to be an exemplary product of our current education system. Good job!
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