You’re arguing definitions, claiming that your definition of “life” is universal, and using an ambigious definition of “kid” to pull emotional strings. I think we all agree on the anticipated outcomes of a pregnancy. Given how emotional “life” and “kid” are, taboo them.
Can we agree that morality is a set of rules that maximizes global “fun” when executed locally by each person? That’s what it is to me. I don’t think that it’s obvious that the moral definition of “life” is constant, and that we should therefore expect a constant mapping to a biological definition. If you have a morality where allowing all life to end naturally has a constant value that would be quite critical, but I can’t think of a society that values all unnatural termination of life equally.
Is it moral to assign more value to one life than to another? Is the life of the head of a household with 7 dependents worth more than the life of a hermit, since his family will take a big “fun” hit?
Do we actually mean ending remaining life, seeing as all lives will end at some point, and you can’t take away the ones that already happened? Are some years more fun than others? Are some years in fact negative fun? Do individuals get to decide what is fun for them? Is there some point before which individuals aren’t responsible enough to know what will give them the most fun?
Is it less moral to kill someone when they are awake and die in terror than to kill them in their sleep so that their life simply ends and they don’t experience any more fun?
Answer a bunch of questions like this and I can determine how immoral it is to terminate a life at fertilization (genetic code is unique except for your identical siblings), gastrulation (no more twins can form), various levels of brain activity (beginnings of a mind), birth (eats, breathes, poops, and communicates), infancy, or cancer-ridden old-age. Arguing over whether something is a “life” or not with no moral context is about as useful as arguing over what a “sound” is.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/ http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Politics_is_the_Mind-Killer
You’re arguing definitions, claiming that your definition of “life” is universal, and using an ambigious definition of “kid” to pull emotional strings. I think we all agree on the anticipated outcomes of a pregnancy. Given how emotional “life” and “kid” are, taboo them.
Can we agree that morality is a set of rules that maximizes global “fun” when executed locally by each person? That’s what it is to me. I don’t think that it’s obvious that the moral definition of “life” is constant, and that we should therefore expect a constant mapping to a biological definition. If you have a morality where allowing all life to end naturally has a constant value that would be quite critical, but I can’t think of a society that values all unnatural termination of life equally.
Is it moral to assign more value to one life than to another? Is the life of the head of a household with 7 dependents worth more than the life of a hermit, since his family will take a big “fun” hit?
Do we actually mean ending remaining life, seeing as all lives will end at some point, and you can’t take away the ones that already happened? Are some years more fun than others? Are some years in fact negative fun? Do individuals get to decide what is fun for them? Is there some point before which individuals aren’t responsible enough to know what will give them the most fun?
Is it less moral to kill someone when they are awake and die in terror than to kill them in their sleep so that their life simply ends and they don’t experience any more fun?
Answer a bunch of questions like this and I can determine how immoral it is to terminate a life at fertilization (genetic code is unique except for your identical siblings), gastrulation (no more twins can form), various levels of brain activity (beginnings of a mind), birth (eats, breathes, poops, and communicates), infancy, or cancer-ridden old-age. Arguing over whether something is a “life” or not with no moral context is about as useful as arguing over what a “sound” is.