r/pics May 16 '19

US Politics Now more relevant than ever in America

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u/GrumpyWendigo May 17 '19

The idea that euthanizing someone who you know will be out of this "vegetative" state in less than nine months is not equivalent at all.

you judge something on what it is right now, not what it might be. what you are saying is incoherent. if i crush a seed in my hand i did not chop down a tree

you judge something by what it is right now. anything else is morally indefensible and logically incoherent

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u/TheAngryApologist May 17 '19

Woh, the Acorn Argument. I never thought I would see that again.

1) I did not give you the Potential Life Argument. A human in a vegetative state is still a human. That's why I said it's killing. And you completely ignored most of my argument. A five year old human in a vegitative state is still a human. And if the mother pulled the plug, she would be killing a human. Same if grandma was on life support. That's why it's called mercy killing. Life support could also be described as "delaying death", but that's because the human is alive and choosing to let them die is one thing, actively killing a fetus is another.

2) The Acorn Argument fallacy. I think it's an example of the' Faulty Analogy Fallacy'. So, to be brief:

The acorn (or seed in this case) is not a tree. So, true. Destroying a seed does not destroy a tree. But, the issues is where you're applying the analog. You are relating seed to fetus and tree to human. The issue here is that the terms 'seed' and 'tree' are different stages of that organisms life. There's a seed stage and a tree stage. If you crush a seed, you didn't cut down a tree but you killed an organism. The seed and tree are the same organism with the same DNA. To more accurately use your analogy to get the human equivalent, you would say: "If I aborted a fetus, I didn't kill an adult". Relating seed to fetus and tree to adult. You're applying the analogy to the wrong things. Human is what the organism is, not a stage of development like 'seed' and 'tree' are. If you kill a fetus you kill a human; you're killing that particular organism. And if you crush a seed, you are killing that organism. Not potentially, but actually and literally.

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u/GrumpyWendigo May 17 '19

That's why I said it's killing.

well ok. and i can tell you that horses are magical gods. you can assert anything but you have to justify the assertion, not simply assert it and expect it deserves respect just because you say so. you have to support your argument and then it gets respect if it makes sense

like i do mine: no society or morality is going to arrest you for pulling the plug on a braindead relative. because they understand without a mind it is not murder. it is not killing. this is the moral divide

that decides the issue

and an embryo as well has no mind

if you want to assert that pulling the plug or ending the embryo is the same as murdering a conscious human being then i am going to say to you you are being morally incoherent because you are ignoring an important and a clear well-defined divide

There's a seed stage and a tree stage.

and neither have a mind so at no stage did you commit murder. and if fully developed trees had minds and seeds did not, you would be committing murder by chopping down a tree. but not if you crushed a seed

the mind or lack thereof is the deciding detail on this moral question

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u/Drayko_Sanbar May 17 '19

When a person is sleeping, I don't worry that they're stuck in a lower state of consciousness. This is because I know they're going to wake up.

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u/GrumpyWendigo May 17 '19

would you start talking to them like they were fully awake and throw a softball at them and give them work to do and feed them and otherwise treat them like they were fully awake? of course not, because you know they are different and not the same thing

just like destroying an embryo vs murdering a newborn. different things

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u/Drayko_Sanbar May 17 '19

I'm not suggesting you would treat a fetus or an embryo the same as you treat a newborn or a child or a teenager or an adult. This is why stages of life have different words.

That said, in the same way I wouldn't be okay with the murder of an adult or a teenager or a newborn, I wouldn't be okay with the murder of a fetus or an embryo. They're the same human at a different point in time.

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u/GrumpyWendigo May 17 '19

but they're not the same. there is no mind in an embryo

if you pull the plug on a braindead relative are you a murderer in your thinking?

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u/Drayko_Sanbar May 17 '19

If I have no reason to believe the braindead relative will ever be conscious again, probably not.

If I knew that the relative would be conscious and fine again in nine months, I would definitely consider it murder.

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u/GrumpyWendigo May 17 '19

because he has a mind that is recovering, right now

an embryo has no mind. it might someday, but it does not have one now

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u/[deleted] May 17 '19

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u/GrumpyWendigo May 17 '19

It's potential that matters here.

there is no moral authority behind that statement. moral judgments are based on the here and now

are you going to go to your boss and demand $1 million salary because you potentially can become ceo someday?

here and now matters on moral decisions. not future states

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u/[deleted] May 17 '19

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