The ‘Truth’ Has Consequences

(This post was written by Steven Fruend back in May of this year in response to the March 31, 2010 post entitled On Grey Matter. My sincerest apologies to Steven for waiting seven long months to post his reply. It is my sincere hope that his gracious patience will permit me adequate time to compose 'the final word on this topic,' which, if it is to be the final word, must as definitively, decisively, and adequately as possible answer the challenges presented. Steven, thank you for your continued patience.)

 

Andrew,

 

I must apologize for my extreme lack of punctuality in responding. As you can see, I too am a busy man. I have been preoccupied with moving my family into a new house, unpacking and setting up all of our belongings. I love having these types of discussions, but family comes first. We are both family men, and I think we both understand that these discussions, though philosophically and socially significant, do not supersede the vast majority of our other familial obligations.

 

I don't know if it will help at all, but I think it may be useful to point out where in this discussion I believe you and I agree. First, as far as I can tell, we both come from the standpoint that the permissibility of abortion does not stem from a women's rights issue or any other legal position for that matter. Abortion is either morally permissible or it isn't. Until we answer that question, nothing else matters. If abortion isn't moral, then a woman would have no more right to have an abortion than would a woman to murder her husband. Therefore, I would stand firmly on your side against anyone trying to argue that this is simply a matter of a woman having the right to do with her body as she pleases. Abortion is, quite plainly, not a women's rights issue unless we first establish that it is morally permissible.

 

Second, even if my particular opinion on abortion proves convincing, I would still promote great caution in the implementation of any and all abortion services. Treating intercourse as if it were merely a recreational activity with no real-world consequences and regarding pregnancy as a reparable inconvenience would be completely irresponsible and would surely lead to other undesirable outcomes and social ills.

 

Take that for what it is worth, but I wanted to at least lay out where I think we might agree. Moving along then. In my post titled "Re: We Hold These Opinions", I attempted to highlight two issues that I felt were detrimental to the way in which you formulated your discussion of the moral implications surrounding abortions. The issues that I addressed were:

 

1) The lack of a basis for why "inherent human dignity" should be considered an objective fact off of which we base morality, and...

1. The unstated major premise that the combination of a sperm and an egg constitutes a "human" worthy of our moral considerations.
   

 

In your latest post titled "On 'Grey' Matter", you valiantly attempted to address these issues head on, and you also graciously answered a few supplementary questions that I asked of you. You elaborated quite thoroughly on many issues surrounding my questions and in the process, you laid out a passionate defense of your moral stance on abortion. The majority of your argument was logical and internally consistent. Once again I found myself agreeing with many of your points.

 

Unfortunately, a handful of sketchy claims and loose ends rendered it quite impossible for me to stand behind even those assertions with which I agreed, for in my opinion, your explanations for the validity of those assertions are anything but substantiated. In fact, it appears to me that you have failed to properly address the two main issues that I had with your original post. I believe that the validity of the issues of "inherent human dignity" and the consensus of what constitutes a human remain just as unsupported as they were at the end of your first post. And though the argument that you have built up around these two issues appears sound, it is ultimately supported by a faulty foundation.

 

Why I Have No Moral Responsibilities Towards Rocks

 

The first fault in your argument is exemplified by your attempt to define "the principle of inherent human dignity" and to explain the way in which we arrive at this principle. You claim that a principle can either be arrived at by Truth or Conjecture, and that "Whether this principle is arrived at by one or the other has implications of infinite measure." While in some respects I agree, I do not think this distinction has vast implications on our current discussion.

 

In evaluating and deciding between two competing ethical claims, the choice does not necessarily hinge on whether or not we are using truth or conjecture to validate those claims. The choice between two competing ethical claims can, as I believe is happening in our current discussion, come down to a disagreement on what exactly constitutes the truth. You seem to have glossed over the need to validate your assertion that inherent human dignity approaches anything near a principle that is grounded in truth.

 

Without establishing the basis of our moral principles, "inherent human dignity" remains a completely vacuous term. In fact, it is a conjecture by your own definition unless justified by a truth. How can we even continue the conversation if we don't at least elaborate on the ultimate basis for our moral principles? How do we know that the concept of "inherent human dignity" constitutes the truth? How do we come to this conclusion?

 

I do not agree with your particular assertion that the Truth must be traced "back to an omnipotent fundament, a premise of premises, a principle to beget all principles (one that identifies itself titillatingly as I Am That I Am)". I especially disagree with this assertion in regards to moral principles. I will save the bulk of this portion of the discussion for a latter time, but assuming that you are referring to a god, it was shown by Plato circa 380 B.C.E. in his dialogue titled "Euthyphro" that any divinely inspired morality is on quite shaky grounds. Furthermore, positing gods as explanations fails to provide an adequate explanation for anything at all. It has also not been shown that it is impossible for moral principles to come from truths that do not require a god.

 

Setting aside the justification for why inherent human dignity might be a principle upon which our morals are based, let us see if the concept of inherent human dignity appears to provide a coherent explanation for our moral attitudes.

 

Using inherent human dignity, how do we go about explaining our moral attitudes towards our pets? Obviously inherent human dignity does not apply to pets, but then why do we still feel a moral responsibility towards our pets and not towards inanimate objects such as rocks? Are we to postulate an inherent dignity for our pets as well, possibly "inherent canine dignity"?

 

This may sound preposterous to some, but take a second to think about a few things here. Step back from the discussion momentarily and really try to analyze your moral attitudes towards other animals. Take a list of animals ranging from highly intelligent, social creatures such as dolphins, chimps, dogs and elephants, all the way down to comparatively primitive animals such as worms, fish and insects. What most (though not all) people will notice is that your feelings of moral responsibility towards these creatures slowly diminish as you move from intelligent, social animals towards less intelligent, less social creatures.

 

If we have moral sentiments towards things other than fellow humans, why do these feelings seem to diminish as we move away from the more intelligent and social creatures? On the extreme end of the spectrum, why do we not feel moral obligations towards rocks?

 

It would seem strange to use your definition of where our moral attitudes come from in order to explain these things. To say that our moral attitudes towards man's best friend, the dog, are inherent leaves such an assertion without any underlying principles in which it is grounded.

 

It is my assertion that our morals do not stem from such arbitrary and ill-defined terms as "dignity". Moral principles are not simply pulled out of thin air, nor are they handed down arbitrarily from any higher power. They are arrived at only when we are capable of understanding certain things about the world around us. Things such as awareness of suffering, sympathy, social order, altruism and the concept of reciprocity are all factored into our moral choices, and it would seem, then, that any moral system would need to incorporate at least some reference to these concepts.

 

You are right to claim that moral systems rely on principles. However, I do not think that these principles need no explanatory justification. Principles are truths that are grounded in other truths. Moral principles can still be objectively true, whether or not "they exist immutably and unchangeably outside of ourselves and our social constructs". They can be true specifically because of the particular aspects of how our societies have evolved and because of our understanding of aspects of human interactions, behaviors and emotions.

 

Is An Acorn An Oak Tree?

 

The second major fault in your argument is found in your failure to establish as true the notion that a recently combined sperm and egg constitutes a human being, worthy of our moral considerations. You briefly addressed the issue, stating that "Either a person is a person, or they are not. And as such they share the same inherent dignity." But because you have not given adequate justification for why "inherent dignity" should be considered a fundamental moral principle in the first place, this statement does nothing to explain why aborting a one week old embryo would be morally wrong.

 

It is not so simple of an issue that we can just say "Human life clearly has a finite beginning" and leave it at that. Just as an oak tree starts as an acorn and yet we cannot identify any single moment when an acorn "becomes" an oak tree, a human starts as a zygote and yet we cannot identify any single moment when a zygote "becomes" a person. Notice that I used the term "person" here instead of "human", because as you pointed out, of course the zygote is human, for what else could it possibly be?

 

But just because a small blob of tissue comes from a human doesn't mean that it is worthy of our moral considerations. Why would a sperm and an egg, when combined, require us to treat it with dignity, but not a sperm alone and an egg alone? Is it a product of two living creatures, commonly designated "human"? Well, obviously yes, but that does not mean that any blob of cells that comes from a human must therefore also be designated a human. Semen, ovum, skin cells, etc. all come from humans, but we don't see anyone running around claiming that the sum of all nocturnal emissions from our youth are the equivalent of the greatest massacre ever perpetrated by man. Nor is every menstruation.

 

It seems to me that something else is needed in order for us to give our moral considerations to a living being. Those things seem to be things such as desires and the ability to suffer. 99 percent of abortions in this country are performed before a fetus has either of these attributes. For that 99 percent, I see no persuasive argument for why these abortions should be considered morally prohibited. For the remaining 1 percent, I very well may be persuaded that those instances are morally wrong.

 

Many of the questions that you raise are answered when we view morality from my point of view. I have not set out to explain my view of morality in its entirety in this response. But we can still see that your questions are at least answerable. You brought up some interesting questions when you asked "...who are we to snuff out that life? Who are we to gauge for any person their quality of life, a subjective value judgment? What right do we have? And had we the right, why would it stop there? Where is the point at which we could no longer claim the right to make that call? How do you establish that point? What are the criteria? A six-year-old develops leukemia: poof!"

 

Though I agree that many of these questions need to be asked and may end up being quite difficult to answer, that does not mean that we should resort to slippery slope arguments in an attempt to incite paranoia about the potential ramifications of abortions. A child with leukemia is conscious, can suffer and has desires. I don't believe that any properly developed moral theory would ever permit killing a child simply because that child has leukemia.

 

So what about the anencephalic child? In my understanding of morality, it would be morally acceptable to abort the anencephalic child at any period of development simply because the child cannot and will not ever be able to experience pain, have desires or achieve consciousness. In fact, the child will never have any "experience" whatsoever. She will have no desires, no wishes, no senses, etc. A child that has no conscious experience and never will, is hardly a child at all.

 

We DO Hold These Opinions

 

I would like to tie this back into your original post entitled "We Hold These Opinions". You started off your argument pointing out that, in short, opinions are not necessarily facts, and facts are what really matters. But it should be painfully obvious to anyone reading this discussion that the facts are not always so easy to discern. We may both believe whole-heartedly that our particular view is correct, even if someone else doesn't believe that our position is properly justified.

 

So where does this leave us? It leaves us right where we are: trying to convince another that our opinion is the one that more closely aligns with the truth. But in this light, we must also be open to the possibility that our opinion does not align with the truth. Though I do give credit to any man or woman who confronts these difficult questions, I also realize that many people come to the discussion with the sole intent to justify some aspect of their lives rather than to truly investigate whether or not their beliefs are valid. It is quite possible that these people will only retreat further into their own beliefs, rather than actually weighing the evidence.

 

Here is where an understanding of some complicated human psychology can prove beneficial. The book "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)" is an excellent discussion about how difficult it can be to admit when we are wrong and explains the tendency for people to seek out information that confirms their beliefs rather than disproves them. The authors do an excellent job showing how, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, people will continue to dig deeper into their erroneous beliefs. I highly recommend reading this book, if for nothing more than to help us keep in mind that it is not such a simple task to convince yourself or others that we hold incorrect beliefs.

 

Honestly, I don't harbor any delusions about changing your mind about abortion (though that is not to say that I think it is impossible). I simply enjoy subjecting my understanding of the world to contrasting ideas. But since I know from experience that these conversations can go on for quite some time, I suggest that you have the final word on this topic and wrap up the abortion dialogue, hopefully to move on to that "conversation we look forward to having": Morality and the existence of God.

 

Suggested Further Reading:

 

Please, take the time to read some of these resources as they are excellent discussions of relevant information surrounding the topic of abortion.

 

1. http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2010/04/abortion-question-of-womens-rights.html
   
2. http://www.efn.org/~bsharvy/abortion.html
   
3. http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
   
4. http://philosophy.wisc.edu/shapiro/Phil101/Marquis.pdf
   
5. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/debates/secularist/abortion/carrier1.html
   
6. http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2005/11/abortion-and-infanticide-part-i.html
   
7. http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2005/11/abortion-and-infanticide-part-ii.html