Philosophy Now Forum

Alexiev wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 2:12 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 27, 2025 10:56 pm

Alexiev wrote: ↑Thu Nov 27, 2025 10:37 pm

Arbitrary: Based on random choice rather than any reason or system.

Bad definition. Try Oxford: adjective
adjective: arbitrary

based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

Language is a system. Its purpose is communication. So it is common property, not at your whim.

But it doesn't matter what words you will allow. A baby is a living human being, just as much as you are, ten seconds before and ten seconds after birth. That's morality, not wordplay.

Words are not defined by "personal whim".

Alexiev wrote: ↑Thu Nov 27, 2025 10:37 pmWords are always defined arbitrarily.

You said both of the above. Which one do you actually believe is true?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 2:30 am
This is about you saying "choice" was the REASON abortion is murder

No, I did not say that.
<< please reread what you wrote >>

I pointed out that 99% of the murders are by choice, and only slightly less than 1% without choice.
<< not what you wrote >>

I rather suspect you meant "choice to have sex".

You suspect correctly.
<< then SAY WHAT YOU MEAN -- I give you the benefit of doubt about intention. But you wrote something quite different >>

My point is simply that murder is never a moral choice, but the choice whether or not to create a child has already been exercised in 99% of the cases.
<< here you do it again --- repeating "choice to create a child" and AFTER having typed you meant choice of something else >> ABSOLUTELY NOT -- 99% of children are NOT the result of a choice to create a child. If we are going to discuss issue sin philosophy you have to be more careful how you word things. It is pointless to discuss with you when you say "choice of X" when you meant "choice of Y"

And about your supposed only three possibilities, monotheism, polytheism, or atheism,

This is a separate discussion. Please put it in a different sequence of messages, so we don't overlap the two.

...you need to consider other possibilities (the atheist probably opposed to these others also).

No, those are all included in the other categories. For example, Pantheism is usually a form of "one god" thinking. It's a different "god" alright, but it's still only one.

...all sorts of animisms

They're Polytheisms. Anything with a multiplicity of "gods" is going to fit that.

But you do make a good point in one way: the concept "god," as found in the various Polytheisms, is not at all the same as the concept "God," meaning sole, supreme Being and First Cause. And in this, you point out the mistake that's so obvious in guys like Dawkins, who think that if they criticize Zeus, or Shiva or Odin they're criticizing the same concept as the Christian God, when really, they're just criticizing old mythical and animistic "gods," not anything a modern Monotheist is ever likely to believe in, and not even the same conception of what the word refers to.
[/quote]

Uh ... there are forms of animism where the "spirits" are most certainly NOT the equivalent of gods. Simply a very different conception of the spiritual/mystery.

Even if we stuck to monotheism vs polytheism we can have difficulties. Muslims and Jews might have difficulty with some branches of Christianity and how would you class the Yazidis?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 2:33 am [
You said both of the above. Which one do you actually believe is true?

Arbitrary" has two potential meanings. Only one of them applies to whether "baby" correctly refers to a human who is not of the appropriate age.

Those who use the word incorrectly are either stupid or lying propaganists. Which are you?

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 4:17 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 2:30 am
This is about you saying "choice" was the REASON abortion is murder

No, I did not say that.
<< please reread what you wrote >>

I did. I didn't say that.

I rather suspect you meant "choice to have sex".

You suspect correctly.
<< then SAY WHAT YOU MEAN

I did. And you divined correctly my reference. No harm, no foul.

99% of children are NOT the result of a choice to create a child.

Not what I said. Go back and read again.

I said that 99% of abortions are by choice. And they are.

And about your supposed only three possibilities, monotheism, polytheism, or atheism,

This is a separate discussion. Please put it in a different sequence of messages, so we don't overlap the two.

Uh ... there are forms of animism where the "spirits" are most certainly NOT the equivalent of gods. Simply a very different conception of the spiritual/mystery.

I see you ignored my request.

The "gods" concept is incoherent and contradictory. Don't blame me. I didn't invent it.

Muslims and Jews might have difficulty with some branches of Christianity

Not relevant at the moment. The sole point on which they all agree is that there is one God. Beyond that, Muslims don't agree with practically anything Jews or Christians say about God.

But the trilemma is still accurate. There can only be a) no God/gods, b) many of them, and c) only one. Otherwise, explain what rational middling options there are between none-many-and-one. That seems to me to cover every possibility.

But I suggest you don't muddy the waters unnecessarily for yourself by mixing in the question of the identity of the Being in question. It's not relevant until after we decide whether ANY such can possibly exist.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 4:48 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 2:33 am [
You said both of the above. Which one do you actually believe is true?

Arbitrary" has two potential meanings. Only one of them applies to whether "baby" correctly refers to a human who is not of the appropriate age.

Your choice to confine "baby" to babies out of the womb and to deny it to an offspring ten seconds before is not rational, unless you can justify it. How do you justify it?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 5:31 am

Alexiev wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 4:48 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 2:33 am [
You said both of the above. Which one do you actually believe is true?

Arbitrary" has two potential meanings. Only one of them applies to whether "baby" correctly refers to a human who is not of the appropriate age.

Your choice to confine "baby" to babies out of the womb and to deny it to an offspring ten seconds before is not rational, unless you can justify it. How do you justify it?

I've told you ten times how I justify it, but you are too dense to understand. A baby is a very young child, especially one newly or recently born. Fetuses, however "human", have not been born. Hence (for those of us who can think) they are not babies. Nor are they teenagers, adults, or geriatrics.

I guess I need to state the obvious.

The woman breathing for the fetus. It's attached to her. It's not a person, it's a part of her body.

A baby is breathing on its own. A baby is detached and separate. It's a person at that point.

Ventilator sometimes breathes for the mother person,
but only when it's attached to her.

If on a ventilator, is she still a person, or is she just fertile ground for organ harvesting until she can breathe on her own?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 5:29 am

I rather suspect you meant "choice to have sex".

You suspect correctly.
<< then SAY WHAT YOU MEAN

I did. And you divined correctly my reference. No harm, no foul.

99% of children are NOT the result of a choice to create a child.

Not what I said. Go back and read again.

I said that 99% of abortions are by choice. And they are.

That I (strongly suspected you MEANT your words to mean something other than what you wrote does NOT mean "no harm, no foul". I am unable to respond except to the plain meaning of what you wrote. If I responded to what I believe you MEANT you would be justified in complaining "not what I wrote"

And no, you were NOT saying 99% of abortions by choice but that 99% of abortions were the RESULT of a choice the woman had made. A similar example of writing one thing but now saying were saying something else. We can confirm this by noting you did say "when I said "chose to make a child" you really meant "chose to have sex"

So I give up on you. Simply not prepared to take part in philosophical discussion.

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 3:27 pm Ventilator sometimes breathes for the mother person,
but only when it's attached to her.

If on a ventilator, is she still a person, or is she just fertile ground for organ harvesting until she can breathe on her own?

Not an entirely inappropriate example.

Generally, there is a finite amount of time that a person will be kept on a ventilator. At which point will be disconnected to discover whether a dead person or a live person. SOMETIMES the doctors get surprised by the person resuming to breathe on there own. Not often, but it does happen. With modern medical technology it is not always easy to tell dead (but kept going by machine) vs alive. This would especially be the case with brain injury in which can detect brain activity (so not clearly dead) but question whether some critical brain function might have been destroyed. Only one way to find out.

So --- is "pulling the plug" murder?

LOOK --- I have started an "Is Abortion Murder" in the Applied Ethics section of the forum. After all, "abortion" is among the example topics for that section.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 1:20 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 5:31 am

Alexiev wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 4:48 am

Arbitrary" has two potential meanings. Only one of them applies to whether "baby" correctly refers to a human who is not of the appropriate age.

Your choice to confine "baby" to babies out of the womb and to deny it to an offspring ten seconds before is not rational, unless you can justify it. How do you justify it?

I've told you ten times how I justify it,

No, not even once, actually. But go ahead...

A baby is a very young child, especially one newly or recently born.

And I asked you about what the difference between that and a child ten seconds before birth was, and you never even tried to answer that.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 4:53 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 5:29 am

You suspect correctly.
<< then SAY WHAT YOU MEAN

I did. And you divined correctly my reference. No harm, no foul.

99% of children are NOT the result of a choice to create a child.

Not what I said. Go back and read again.

I said that 99% of abortions are by choice. And they are.

I (strongly suspected you MEANT your words to mean something other than what you wrote...

Get over your suspicion. It was incorrect. I said what I meant.

And no, you were NOT saying 99% of abortions by choice but that 99% of abortions were the RESULT of a choice the woman had made.

Both are obviously true. The aborter voluntarily engaged in the action of creating a child, then voluntarily murdered him or her. Both were choices. So what the aborter cannot now say is, "It's about me having choice." The first choice, made wisely, would make the second "choice" unnecessary. And a bad first choice won't make the second moral, obviously.

What I did not say, and what you misunderstood me to have said, and what you suggested I was saying, was that choice was some kind of "reason."

It's not.

Clear now?

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 6:06 pm LOOK --- I have started an "Is Abortion Murder" in the Applied Ethics section of the forum. After all, "abortion" is among the example topics for that section.

I wasn't the cause of the topic here. I was asked, and I answered.

But to bring it back to the topic in the OP, we might ask if it's right for the government to force people who despise the murder of childen to pay for the murder of children simply because somebody else wanted to murder their own children. That would be a good synthesis.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Nov 28, 2025 5:04 pm

Pulling the plug happens all the time without the government's nose in it.
Prove it? Naw, it just happens, as you describe.

Pulling the plug is legally sanctioned killing, as is abortion.

In regards to baby in the tummy, technology can easily distinguish life from death.