Abortion and Morality

[Hawker]

Two questions that must be addressed before talking about the morality of abortion:

1)  Who decides what is right and what is wrong?
2)  How do you know if the decision maker is correct?

I would say that anybody can decide what is right and what is wrong.  The 2nd question is a whole different ball game.

I must say though, I think the Golden Rule is a WONDERFUL ethical principle.  It is Universal (distributes to everyone) at the same time that it takes into account individual circumstance and/or perspective.

For tough ethical questions like these, I follow the Golden Rule.

Isnt' that avoiding the question? 

Let me remind you of it: if its morally OK for a woman to have an abortion that kills any unborn thingy inside her, how can it be immoral for her to have an abortion that only kills female unborn thingies.

The golden rule says you are allowed to intervene to stop someone doing something wrong.  My question was how can abortion on demand be OK if abortion to select a sex is wrong?

[the joint]

Two questions that must be addressed before talking about the morality of abortion:

1)  Who decides what is right and what is wrong?
2)  How do you know if the decision maker is correct?

I would say that anybody can decide what is right and what is wrong.  The 2nd question is a whole different ball game.

I must say though, I think the Golden Rule is a WONDERFUL ethical principle.  It is Universal (distributes to everyone) at the same time that it takes into account individual circumstance and/or perspective.

For tough ethical questions like these, I follow the Golden Rule.

Isnt' that avoiding the question?  

Let me remind you of it: if its morally OK for a woman to have an abortion that kills any unborn thingy inside her, how can it be immoral for her to have an abortion that only kills female unborn thingies.

The golden rule says you are allowed to intervene to stop someone doing something wrong.  My question was how can abortion on demand be OK if abortion to select a sex is wrong?

I sort-of avoided the question because my previous post implies the possibility of simultaneous right/wrong states according to the Golden Rule.  Two people can abide by the Golden Rule and reach entirely different conclusions.  I think it's entirely possible that someone can think it's OK for a woman to have any abortion, but think that it's not OK for a woman to have an abortion given that she knows the fetus is female, and be completely right about it.  

I personally don't hold that view  

[Explodicle]

My question was how can abortion on demand be OK if abortion to select a sex is wrong?

If the expected consequences from one rule are good, and the expected consequences from another rule are bad.

[dayfall]

Are you saying it's rational to cooperate in a prisoner's dilemma? Are you universally applying superrationality?

I can certainly imagine situations where I would rather someone defects, even against me. For example, we want Bitcoin miners to defect against one another, not conspire to keep profits high! If I can do more good overall by defecting against you I'll do it, and I hope that you would adopt a similar policy. Wouldn't you betray me to cure cancer?

Yes, I do say so.  I can certainly rationalize it.   It is not superrationality but maximizing the overall good.  Aborting the female child does not do this.  The woman is irrational to conclude she should have the extra male at the detriment to society.

I would prefer us miners dropped the difficulty to a level high enough to just secure the network.  It is a waste (al la tragedy of the commons) for anyone to mine higher.  Please explain why you want up to keep difficulty higher than required for network security.  (keeping difficulty high for security sake is not defecting)

Well, it isn't exactly betraying you if you just said you wanted me to do it.  And in the scenario you mean ("more good overall"), we could talk it over and someone agree to be the "sucker".  For instance the defector can split the profits fairly amongst the cooperators. 

[memvola]

The woman is irrational to conclude she should have the extra male at the detriment to society.

Why? It's precisely your norms of society that postulate this. How can you assert that your metrics are universal?

Besides, it's cherry picking, since conflicting norms can be discovered for other reasons of abortion. What makes this stand out?

Two people can abide by the Golden Rule and reach entirely different conclusions.

Precisely. But I don't think the gist of Hawker's point depends on the golden rule, but on consistency in ethical reasoning.

For example, we want Bitcoin miners to defect against one another, not conspire to keep profits high!

I partially agree, but I think some issues are conflated here. We want them to defect against one another, because the system is built upon a descriptive reality that they would do so. If they don't, the system wouldn't work efficiently. So it's specific to the technical context. In a grander context, we would prefer the miners to keep mining even if it's unprofitable, since it would help the network. This won't work of course, but it's still desirable.

I'd like to defend dayfall here, because I agree that acting towards an enlightened self-intrest is rational, mostly because of transcendental issues. Not overreaching towards something above your life does not make much sense, and you are not doing it anyway. Even if you are a reptilian bastard, what you call immediate self-interest would still serve something greater than your life, be it continuation of your genes, or your attitude itself. So, while you're at it, why not work towards creating a more coherent perspective? The reason I don't agree with dayfall is, that this resulting perspective does not need to conform with his/her particular world view.

[Explodicle]

I'd like to defend dayfall here, because I agree that acting towards an enlightened self-intrest is rational, mostly because of transcendental issues. Not overreaching towards something above your life does not make much sense, and you are not doing it anyway. Even if you are a reptilian bastard, what you call immediate self-interest would still serve something greater than your life, be it continuation of your genes, or your attitude itself.

I'm not certain I understand so please correct me if I'm misinterpreting:
An enlightened self-interest is one that values abstracts like not defecting more highly than specifics like familial success. So if your goal is to maximize utility on a situation-by-situation basis, then defecting is always irrational.
Yes?

[memvola]

I'd like to defend dayfall here, because I agree that acting towards an enlightened self-intrest is rational, mostly because of transcendental issues. Not overreaching towards something above your life does not make much sense, and you are not doing it anyway. Even if you are a reptilian bastard, what you call immediate self-interest would still serve something greater than your life, be it continuation of your genes, or your attitude itself.

I'm not certain I understand so please correct me if I'm misinterpreting:
An enlightened self-interest is one that values abstracts like not defecting more highly than specifics like familial success. So if your goal is to maximize utility on a situation-by-situation basis, then defecting is always irrational.
Yes?

No, I don't agree with that. Hmm, actually after reading the history of the debate, I think I mostly agree with you. I thought you said defecting is always rational. I'm merely saying that it depends on whether there is a greater good attained by not defecting. Good here of course is what you deem to be good (maximizing utility could come into play here depending on your ethical preferences). For instance "not betraying" can by itself be a moral for you, and you might value it higher than your life, it's perfectly rational. So, in essence, surviving doesn't happen if what survives isn't you.

[dayfall]

Why? It's precisely your norms of society that postulate this. How can you assert that your metrics are universal?

The reason I don't agree with dayfall is, that this resulting perspective does not need to conform with his/her particular world view.

It is not because it's my "norm", I was assuming a disproportionate ratio would be harmful.  If you think it would cause a better society then advocate it.  If my premise is faulty then this case would no longer stand out. 

If it is rational to believe having 10 males to 1 female is best, then they need a lottery or some such.  This would invalidate my argument because the woman would no longer be defecting; she would actually be helping herself and her society.  However, it is likely that this belief is not actually rational.

[memvola]

It is not because it's my "norm", I was assuming a disproportionate ratio would be harmful.  If you think it would cause a better society then advocate it.  If my premise is faulty then this case would no longer stand out. 

My point is, what's a better society is not an objective judgment. It depends on what you think is good, what your ideal society is. I'm sure we'd agree on this or that superficially, but without us agreeing on fundamental values, there's no point in discussing actions. As an extreme example, if I believe that ultimate elimination of sexes from the human species would be a good thing, where would we start debating? Certainly on the desired results, and whether they themselves are good according to our respective values. Ordinary examples are a lot more subtle and convoluted though...

If it is rational to believe having 10 males to 1 female is best, then they need a lottery or some such.  This would invalidate my argument because the woman would no longer be defecting; she would actually be helping herself and her society.  However, it is likely that this belief is not actually rational.

Two things here. First, even if we shared the same goals, we still wouldn't know what's best, we don't have the science. Second, we don't share the same goals.

We could judge if the abortion is justified in case by case basis, but there are many leaps one needs to take in order to accept that these cases are "less" justified than other elective abortion cases.