Doddy writes:
But, I don't think you should choose a particular stance just because it is easy to define, but rather you should choose one that matches the feelings of morality that you have, and leads to the most acceptable conclusions.
The feelings of morality that I have are exactly the things I try to avoid. Look at it this way. The people that tied Mathew Sheppard and beat him to death relied on their feelings of what morality was. The sons of a bitches that wanted to erect a statue to commemorate Sheppard's so-called "entrence into hell" also relied on their feelings of morality. Even our very "logical" nemesis jug also rely his feelings of morality on this issue.
I concluded a long time ago that these feelings of morality that everyone should have are not reliable at all. If I can't trust nemesis jug's feelings of morality, why should I trust my own?
You are are firefighter running down the corridor of a IVF clinic, which is on fire. You are looking for survivors. Inside a room, you see a six year old boy, huddled in the corner. On the other side of the room, in an open fridge, is a freezer box that is clearly marked as containing 24 human embryos from Subject A541. Suddenly, you hear the groaning of the roof truss above you - the room is in danger of collapse. There is no way you could make it across the room to save both - which do you save: the little boy, or 24 human embryos?
This scenario would definitely give me a moral dilemma IFF I consider all human life to be equal. I'm going to tell you another thing about my beliefs that will make everyone, conservatives and liberals alike, hate me. I don't believe that all human lives should be given the same weight. Furthermore, I believe that the value of life depends on the situation.
In this particular case, I would definitely go and try to save the boy. Why?
The boy would feel a great deal of pain before he dies. The embryos won't even feel a thing. They won't even complain. Heck, they won't even have an opinion on the matter.
The boy I know for sure have some potential to contribute for the better of humanity. Furthermore, I know for sure that he will not just fall down and die for no apparent reason after I saved him. The embryos, on the other hand, have potentials that are too uncertain. For all I know, the rising temperature could have already at least lead the way to the death of the embryos. For all I know, they could simply be thrown away like so many other embryos.
Permit me to introduce a scenario where I
could potentially choose to rescue an embryo over a boy.
Fire in building, boy on one side, embryo on other, could only save one, blah blah. The embryo happens to have the genetic makeup for an immunity against a terrible and deadly disease that could kill many people. In other words, an antibody could be made using what the future person that is currently this embryo. In this particular case, I might, and I must stress the word might, go to try to rescue the embryo and leave the boy.
I don't know about you, but to me the pain that the child will feel makes him by far the better choice to save. To me, the ability to think and feel is a much better indicator of humanness than simply possessing a set of unique human chromosomes.
See, by this definition of being able to feel pain and such would make an unborn child that is 30 minutes away from being born a person. Or, you could argue the other way and say that because a 2 day old child's consciousness is so primitive that he can't really feel pain the way we do therefore shouldn't be considered a person.
I've thought through all of these. It stopped being so obvious, to me at least, after thinking about it for so long. It's a really big grey area.
Edited by Tazmanian Devil, : changed "a" to "an" right before a word started with a vowel
Disclaimer:
Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.
He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!
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