Someone is wrong on the internet!

[llennhoff]

Lured by a metaquotes post, I was browsing through the antitheism community. I found an example of bad reasoning (in support of a conclusion I agree with *sigh*). I went to post a reply when I discovered that the community only allows members to post. So I thought I would post it here instead:

I saw this question posed in one of the threads from your

Comments

[isolani]

Right on, few things are more frustrating than bad reasoning... supporting a conclusion one agrees with...
Although that being said I feel dredging through my draft dissertation in search of references that haven`t gone into Endnote Reference Manager (tm) yet is possibly more frustrating :-/
(I`m currently disentangling two texts by FR Leavis that are both titled 'Education and the University', one is an article published in the 40's - one a book published quite a bit later. *moan*)

[llennhoff]

I'd probably hammer on the logical absurdities of considering an embryo as a full human being. There was an lj post about this recently in connection with North Dakota passing a law considering a fetus to be a full human being in every respect. The best suggestion I remember from that discussion is that one can influence congressional districting in North Dakota (a very low population state) by siting fertility clinics in the districts you want to have greater influence. While the embryos cannot vote, if they are full people they should count towards the census and thus the population for allocating state representatives should change by a few 10s of thousands

[mlittlej]

Oh yeah, I heard about that, of course they want it to challenge Roe v. Wade, and I'm not sure they'll let a little detail like logical absurdity get in their way. That is a very good point though. During the discussion of the personhood amendment in Colorado I heard some other very silly consequences of a fetus or embryo being given personhood - do we need to arrest pregnant women who drink coffee for child endangerment?

I just figured if I went there she would say, "And that's why in vitro fertilization is wrong!" A lot of those fundies think it is. Not that that answer would really answer the question, of course, I'd have to keep pressing. Arguing with these people is so tiring sometimes.

[isolani]

I think I would generally argue that embryos have some level of independent moral standing (with how much really depending on a lot of factors) - but treating them as if they had personhood leads to utterly absurd consequences.

I`m always irked by questions like 'would you save a child or 500 embryos' - basically if you have to think about that while the building is burning you're doing something wrong. Very wrong.

[mlittlej]

Oh yeah, I know that hypothetical is far from perfect, and I don't know enough about ESCr to know the chances that they have of using it to find a cancer cure, but I used it because oversimplification is needed in order for her to understand. I know that sounds snobby but you read her replies.

Do you have a suggestion for a better hypothetical to give to obstinate anti-ESC people? I guess I could have tried to explain the one I used better but it's not like she would appreciate through rationality anyway.

Anyway, point taken! Sound reasoning is always preferred.

[llennhoff]

Whoops - see reply posted to your deleted response above.

[mlittlej]

sorry, lj wouldn't let me edit!

[psychohist]

I'd suggest that it might be better to accept that the other person has a different moral code rather than trying to change it. In this case, especially, hers is based on religious faith, so you aren't going to change it with logic - and even if yours is based entirely on logic and not at all on emotion, explaining it in a few livejournal posts may not be realistic

[greyautumnrain]

I'd just like to say I really hate it when people who know frak-all about IVF talk about frozen embryos.

[llennhoff]

Care to expand on that? Are you saying they can't understand the feelings the parents of the frozen embryos might have, or that they don't understand just how tiny and undeveloped the embryos are, or what? Feel free not to answer if this is an upsetting topic.

[greyautumnrain]

What bugs me is that the assumptions that people make when setting up or responding to this hypothetical situations. Actually I find the artificial hypothetical situations annoying, but that's a side issue I suppose

[psychohist]

I'm somewhat very offended at the concept that I'm obligated to save the child no matter what.

What if the child is the school bully who pushed my own child in front of a truck and killed him? What if the embryos contain my own embryos and are my only hope of having another child? I'd save the embryos in a heartbeat, even without considering them to be people.

[llennhoff]

I feel an obligation to save the child if the risk to my own life is not greatly increased thereby. I'm willing to push this idea vigorously, but am unsure if I would join social sanctions against a violator and certainly would not support legislative action to make refusal illegal.

When I consider the hypothetical scenario I assume the median kid is not a murderer. In any event I would save the bully who pushed my kid in front of a truck - I'm not willing to return to a blood feud based society. Choosing between an anonymous child and my future genetic immortality would be trickier, but I hope I would save the actual child in front of me.

[psychohist]

I'm not willing to return to a blood feud based society

That would be grabbing the kid from the outside and tossing him into the fire, not just refraining from saving him.

Edit: maybe I should echo Elizabeth's comment above. My picking the embryos is selfish in a sense, but so is "if the risk to my own life is not greatly increased thereby". You're just valuing your own life higher, while I'm valuing my own future children higher.

[llennhoff]

We may have reached the point where we are just comparing utility functions. For me, an actual human being in front of me(*) has a greater value than the potential life of the embryos - especially since in the majority of cases future embryos can be generated whereas the kid cannot be resurrected, and the kid has a higher degree of known uniqueness than the embryos.

But your hypothetical specified that if you lose these embryos that's it for your reproductive chances. I'd still save the kid, but my reaction to your saving the embryos would be primarily horror at the choice you were forced to make while the feeling you made the wrong choice would be something I would not choose to share after the fact.

(*)let's ignore the child killer case for the moment