Empathy as a standard

Do we have obligations to the above, consistent with the REUEP which speaks of the good life for everyone, now and in the future? How are such ethical beliefs legitimated?
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wvanfleet
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Empathy as a standard

Post by wvanfleet »

I think we should feel obligated to those who have achieved or will achieve awareness and therefore the capacity for suffering.  I think that our undeveloped capacity for empathy is one of our worst deficiencies (relative to our potential), but I think we are getting better.

Bill Van Fleet
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Re: Empathy as a standard

Post by REveritt »

Once when I was on jury duty, the judge--referring to the social status of the murder victim--told us (he was quoting someone) that a society is judged by how it treats those in the dawn of life, the shadows of life, and the twilight of life.  That struck a chord with me.  As a father and grandfather, I can tell you that perhaps the strongest and most selfless emotions I have experienced have been connected with the safety and welfare of children.  I have often been appalled by the lack of concern that our society has for kids, and how we allow them to be commercially exploited and poorly educated.

Nonetheless, when the abortion debate is brought up, I am of two minds.  The woman's rights and desires must be taken into account.  Actually, I would go farther and say that a pregnant woman--and she alone--has the right to decide whether she will carry the fetus to full term.  That is not to say that she does not face a moral problem--it is just that I have no right to tell her what she should do.

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Re: Empathy as a standard

Post by wvanfleet »

I am in agreement with you.  And I think the issue of empathy is part of the problem.

It is quite striking to me how the two sides of this debate do not seem to be based upon sensible assumptions and principles.  Ultimately, the two sides attack each other with unconvincing statements and principles.

There is an assumption that what we value, and should value is "life," when we kill and often eat life and think nothing of it.

So then there is the more specific assumption that we value "human life."  But we don't worry about biopsy specimens and amputated extremities.

It is apparent that we value, to some extent, awareness, such that with our capacity for empathy we wish to avoid suffering, even in others.  But we don't really mind causing some organisms, that we assume are aware, experiencing a fair amount of suffering.  We are indeed becoming more concerned about suffering when it is in other species, as manifested by efforts at establishing animal rights and better quality of life even for species that we are going to kill and eat.

We also value self-awareness, and are more likely to wish to give a good quality of life for, and promote a long life for, any organism that we think might be aware that it could cease to exist and might value being alive (though it is primarily humans that we attribute this awareness to).

So where does the fetus fit into this?  We do assume that at some point during pregnancy the capacity for awareness develops, such that probably the fetus has some.  For instance, it will develop the capacity to experience pain probably before it is born.  But the best guess we can come up with is that the capacity for awareness develops pretty late during pregnancy.  So the killing of an embryo or early fetus may not involve any suffering, certainly compared to the suffering of the organisms we eat.

Then, however, a curious entity comes into existence, by definition.

This fertilized egg, or embryo, or fetus acquires the status of a "person," by definition.

Our religions have helped in this, by beliefs that when an egg is fertilized it acquires a "soul" that is independent of the capacity for awareness.  (This soul is supposed to continue to exist as usual even when the person it is associated with is anesthetized, asleep, unconscious for any reason, or dead.)

As soon as the fertilized egg becomes a "person," by definition, then legally it begins to have rights that were designed only for conscious, or conscious-much-of-the-time humans.

North Carolina does not exist except by definition.  No alien would ever discover North Carolina in its study of the universe (unless it looked at documents in which it is defined).  The 93person94 is assumed to be an entity that can be found by an alien or one of us just by looking at something.  But what is seen is an adult or child or fetus or fertilized egg, not a person, unless we agree to call it that, by definition.

So as long as entities existing by definition only are treated as if they are entities identifiable by science, and as long as we make decisions based upon entities that there is no scientific evidence for, we are doomed to endless, nonproductive disagreement, sometimes accompanied by murder of humans that indeed are aware, and self-aware, and able to suffer, and can indeed know about the possibility of ceasing to exist.

So clarification of our reasoning processes should help prevent much pain, suffering, disability, and early death, and therefore I, as a Humanian, advocate for such clarification.

The mother is indeed aware, self-aware, able to suffer, and aware of the possibility of ceasing to exist.  And she is aware of the suffering that will occur from bringing into existence a child that is not wanted and can't be taken care of adequately.  And that child does not have to be brought into existence.  And indeed if the pregnancy is allowed to proceed, then ultimately there will probably result a child who has awareness, can suffer, etc., for whom we should all have empathy.  But during early pregnancy, that child does not exist, unless we make it exist by definition only.

Certainly we can have fantasies about what the child, or adult, might have been like had we allowed the pregnancy to proceed, but that is a fantasy in the head of an adult, not an entity in the world that is identifiable by perception or scientific investigation.

So I watch with sadness the endless debates in which no one seems to address these basic issues so important in such decision-making.  We have a long way to go to becoming a rational species, IMO.

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Re: Empathy as a standard

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So where does the fetus fit into this?  We do assume that at some point during pregnancy the capacity for awareness develops, such that probably the fetus has some.  For instance, it will develop the capacity to experience pain probably before it is born.  But the best guess we can come up with is that the capacity for awareness develops pretty late during pregnancy.  So the killing of an embryo or early fetus may not involve any suffering, certainly compared to the suffering of the organisms we eat.

Then, however, a curious entity comes into existence, by definition.

This fertilized egg, or embryo, or fetus acquires the status of a "person," by definition.
This is a classic slippery slope problem.  This Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quickening) discusses some of the legal standards that have been used over the years to fix the beginning of personhood under law.  The "time of quickening" has often been used as a legal threshold.  Interestingly, this is still the case among the Shi'ite Muslims, which is why cleric-dominated Iran is now a center of stem-cell research, while the secular USA lags behind.

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Re: Empathy as a standard

Post by wvanfleet »

Yes, but the important point here is that the appearance of personhood is not an event in the world but instead an arbitrary act of definition.  I can lay my hand on the desk and define "Abuland" as the area of the desk under my hand, but Abuland is an entity, so to speak, by definition only.  We can draw our lines around anything and then assign a label to what is within those lines, but that doesn't mean that there has appeared a new entity in the world.  Nevertheless, the law is behaving as if such an entity actually exists in the world.  It is like assuming in one's definitions what one is trying to prove.

So then of course if for some reason one wants to advocate a particular viewpoint, one can attempt to prove that one is right by using a definition that includes what one is trying to prove.

It is interesting that this process is not considered more obvious to everyone.  I wonder whether there is little challenge of it because of the wish not to challenge the accuracy of the belief in the existence of the "soul."  To do so would be rather "soulless."

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Re: Empathy as a standard

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Yes, but the important point here is that the appearance of personhood is not an event in the world but instead an arbitrary act of definition.  I can lay my hand on the desk and define "Abuland" as the area of the desk under my hand, but Abuland is an entity, so to speak, by definition only.
Easy to say, but in the case of a fetus, there comes a point when it clearly is a person.  If I say that a one-year-old infant is a person, is that an arbitrary act of definition?  What about an infant that was born yesterday?  What about an infant that has emerged from the womb, but is still connected to its mother by the umbilical cord?  What about a full-term fetus five minutes before birth?  At what point is calling it a person no longer arbitrary?  If we are concerned about protecting a child, then we need to know when it comes into existence.  Mind you, I don't have the answer, I am just posing the question, and I don't think pointing to an "arbitrary act of definition" answers it.

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Re: Empathy as a standard

Post by wvanfleet »

REveritt wrote:
Yes, but the important point here is that the appearance of personhood is not an event in the world but instead an arbitrary act of definition.  I can lay my hand on the desk and define "Abuland" as the area of the desk under my hand, but Abuland is an entity, so to speak, by definition only.
Easy to say, but in the case of a fetus, there comes a point when it clearly is a person.
What you write below clearly shows that there is no such point, other than what we decide it will be.
  If I say that a one-year-old infant is a person, is that an arbitrary act of definition? 
Yes, of course.  It may be in agreement with others, but it still is just deciding how to use a word.
What about an infant that was born yesterday?  What about an infant that has emerged from the womb, but is still connected to its mother by the umbilical cord?  What about a full-term fetus five minutes before birth?  At what point is calling it a person no longer arbitrary?
At no point.  It may be your own personal decision.  It may be majority vote.  It may be concensus.  But it still is just a definition, like the definition of North Carolina.
If we are concerned about protecting a child, then we need to know when it comes into existence.  Mind you, I don't have the answer, I am just posing the question, and I don't think pointing to an "arbitrary act of definition" answers it.
I agree that the question is not answered by recognizing that the definition of "person" is simply a definition, not a statement of fact that can be subjected to scientific verification.

I think that an answer to the problem is the one that I have given above, wherein rather than valuing of "personhood," we acknowledge valuing of prevention of suffering, and all of the other good things that come by virture of our human capacity for empathy.  The Humanians have a better answer than the non-Humanian Christians, IMHO.

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