Thank you for linking the study. It seems like most of the adopted children did not have any measurable difference from the natural children. Additionally, the two disorders that were more significantly more prevalent (ODD and ADHD) generally aren’t considered to cripple people so badly that a life with them should be considered worse than not living at all. It hardly seems like that would justify claiming that “adopted children have very low quality of life” in the context of a debate on the acceptability of abortion. It comes off as though you’re arguing that being more susceptible to those disorders is a reason to choose abortion over adoption—that you’ve got the potential future persons best interest in mind when you decide whether the life should be allowed or not, but to make this argument from this pseudo-utility perspective, you’d need to show that the poor quality of the disordered adoptees life causes more suffering than the normal quality of the natural children causes enjoyment, but I don’t think this shows that. Or did I misconstrue the general thrust of your argument?
When I made my initial comment I wasn’t aware adoptees’ quality of life wasn’t that bad. I would still argue it should be worse than what could be inferred from that study. Cortisol levels on early childhood are really extremely important and have well documented long-term effects on one’s life. You and your friends might be in the better half, or even be an exception.
I can’t really say for sure whether reaching the repugnant conclusion is necessarily bad. However, I feel like unless you agree on accepting it as a valid conclusion you should avoid that your argument independently reaches it. That certain ethical systems reach this conclusion is generally regarded as a nearly reductio ad absurdum, therefore something to be avoided. If we end up fixing this issue on theses ethical systems then we surely will no long find acceptable arguments that independently assume/conclude it. Hence, we have some grounds for already finding those arguments unacceptable.
I agree we should, ideally, prevent people with scare resources from reproducing. Except the transition costs for bringing this about are huge, so I don’t think we should be moving in that direction right now. It’s probably less controversial to just eliminate poverty.
Sorry but I don’t have the time to continue this discussion right now. I’m sorry also if anything I said caused any sort of negative emotion on you, I can be very curt at times and this might be a sensitive subject.
Thank you for linking the study. It seems like most of the adopted children did not have any measurable difference from the natural children. Additionally, the two disorders that were more significantly more prevalent (ODD and ADHD) generally aren’t considered to cripple people so badly that a life with them should be considered worse than not living at all. It hardly seems like that would justify claiming that “adopted children have very low quality of life” in the context of a debate on the acceptability of abortion. It comes off as though you’re arguing that being more susceptible to those disorders is a reason to choose abortion over adoption—that you’ve got the potential future persons best interest in mind when you decide whether the life should be allowed or not, but to make this argument from this pseudo-utility perspective, you’d need to show that the poor quality of the disordered adoptees life causes more suffering than the normal quality of the natural children causes enjoyment, but I don’t think this shows that. Or did I misconstrue the general thrust of your argument?
When I made my initial comment I wasn’t aware adoptees’ quality of life wasn’t that bad. I would still argue it should be worse than what could be inferred from that study. Cortisol levels on early childhood are really extremely important and have well documented long-term effects on one’s life. You and your friends might be in the better half, or even be an exception.
I can’t really say for sure whether reaching the repugnant conclusion is necessarily bad. However, I feel like unless you agree on accepting it as a valid conclusion you should avoid that your argument independently reaches it. That certain ethical systems reach this conclusion is generally regarded as a nearly reductio ad absurdum, therefore something to be avoided. If we end up fixing this issue on theses ethical systems then we surely will no long find acceptable arguments that independently assume/conclude it. Hence, we have some grounds for already finding those arguments unacceptable.
I agree we should, ideally, prevent people with scare resources from reproducing. Except the transition costs for bringing this about are huge, so I don’t think we should be moving in that direction right now. It’s probably less controversial to just eliminate poverty.
Sorry but I don’t have the time to continue this discussion right now. I’m sorry also if anything I said caused any sort of negative emotion on you, I can be very curt at times and this might be a sensitive subject.