Is it morally wrong to take a life? Not really, say bioethicists

Originally posted by BobAthome

Originally posted by Titen-Sxull
reply to post by Blaine91555

 

They're absolutely right if you really think about it. Taking LIFE, as in the general meaning of the term LIFE, is not automatically morally wrong. Human beings have understood this for years if you think about it.

Socially acceptable forms of killing:

- Bacteria, diseases and cancerous cells
- Plants to eat, build our houses, etc
- Animals to eat, hunt, euthanize
- Other human beings: in self-defense, war

I think you're over-reacting to their findings a great deal. Death is part of life and considering all life sacred is an absurd premise that cannot be reasonably defended. No one is saying that ALL killing is morally acceptable.

"considering all life sacred is an absurd premise"

based upon the assumption,, / logic / hypothesis ,,etcc,,, that

"all life sacred is an absurd premise"

Has been argued and discussed since PLATO,,

so those for and against that "all life sacred is an absurd premise" on one side,,
and "all life sacred" on the other,,,,

hey they have been arguing this since,, Cain, whacked Able over the head,,

and it is still unanswered,,

amazing how far we have come,,

sometimes it just awe's me.

Me.

"all life sacred is an absurd premise",,,"Kill them all, blow them up" would be this group, ok,, i get it,,

no i dont think thats what they really mean,, now if we can disect that statement using, Locke * (*see old English guy),,,
see what i mean i just splinters into another argument,,

First we must find the CORE the MEaning too that all Unknown question,,
which yet,,,,what?,,
sorry this just in,, apparently the meaning of life,,see above,, has been found and confirmed,, ,,
wait a minute,, transmission is sskjffsf,, ,,,,


lol

reply to post by zorgon


I can't accept that or wrap my mind around it. We have the intelligence to find another way.

The problem is if euthanasia progresses to eugenics or beyond, who decides who survives?

I think we are headed down a bad path here. We must always keep at the heart of our culture that everyone's life is equally important. If we don't, there is a horror story in the making that make all historical atrocities pale in comparison.

I think it's best that we as a culture and people never grant the right for any group or individual to decide who's life is more important than another. The taking of a life should be absolutely limited to self defense of self, family and country. No person should be granted the right to simply unplug someone to give an organ to another person who might not live either. It is a step to far.

Being fatalistic about these things is a kind of surrender.

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


In answer to that point, my personal belief is that it should be decided by a persons living will or lacking that, their families wishes; not by a physician who's only desire is to save money or harvest an organ for someone else.

My instructions are to pull the plug. I do not, nor does a doctor have the right to make that decision for anyone else.

Originally posted by AQuestion
reply to post by r3axion

 

Dear r3axion,

That's certainly an answer I was hoping to get as I agree with self awareness being something special. However, what do you find more special: being self aware, or having the ability to express it through thought and speech patterns easily interpreted by your own species? Perhaps self awareness is a fundamental attribute of nature. While I don't doubt grass doesn't feel pain, how can you with 100% certainty say that it is not self aware?

That is an easy one. Helen Keller wrote about it. Born deaf, dumb and blind she had no language; but, she was self aware and understood pain and pleasure. As for emotional plants, some evidence that we can believe would be in order. I have much more evidence that rocks and plants are not self aware and none showing that they are, living things, yes, based on a certain definition of life, sentient, no.

Philosophy starts with what we know for a fact and the only thing we know is that we exist, after that everything else is a theory at best, some seem more plausible than others; but, if we ignore the first principal we have no chance of arriving at valid beliefs.

Firstly, I don't think you quite understood what I was saying. That's not an "easy one." All that is, are humans perceiving and interpreting the reactions of a fellow human. This is easily interpreted within creatures of the same species. You need to think deeper than that. For example, an ant will never listen to you simply because it does not understand our method of communication. But their communication is easily interpreted by other ants.

Secondly, it is the website of the national science foundation speaking of proof from experiments they have done. I'm not sure what evidence would suit you. A tree will never speak. I never once mentioned anything about "emotions," and nor does the experiment.

"These findings show tangible proof that plant-to-plant communication occurs on the ecosystem level," says NCAR scientist Alex Guenther, a co-author of the study. "It appears that plants have the ability to communicate through the atmosphere."

You can not attribute human awareness to anything other than another human. Other species will not display the same characteristics of the awareness of this species. There are levels of awareness. Humans, so far, are the highest because we are able to think about thinking about thinking about our awareness. This does not mean nature has none. The fact that plants are able to communicate with one another, on its own, shows that they are aware there are others of their kind. That may be as far as their awareness goes, who knows, but that one thing is for certain.

There is even evidence of kin selection among plants.

Recent studies provide evidence that even certain plants can recognize and respond to kinship ties. Using sea rocket for her experiments, Susan Dudley at McMaster University in Canada compared the growth patterns of unrelated plants sharing a pot to plants from the same clone. She found that unrelated plants competed for soil nutrients by aggressive root growth. This did not occur with sibling plants.

Your "evidence" of non awareness is simply projecting your personal interpretation of self awareness onto nature. This can't possibly be, and in that sense, you are correct.

I don't think anything is "right" or "wrong", in order for those two words to even have any validity first one would have to ask themselves who's making up these rules? If you're religious then I could see how you could think certain things are wrong and certain things are right but for me I think it's just personal perception of what you think is right and wrong based upon how you were raised and your personal beliefs. Would I ever kill someone? Probably If my life depended on it. Do I think that I'm going to be judged for it by some fantastical supreme being after I die? Probably not.

I cant fault their logic. I cannot say that it won't led to an acceptance of eugenics at some point.

I also believe in the cyclical repetitive nature of the human learning process.

We've been here many times before.

We constantly teach ourselves what is right and what s wrong.

For me, it's not so much the ups and downs that are important, but the overall trend.

We've come a long way since the 11th century, but we're still learning the same lessons in different contexts.

However, as a species....we're improving...

I am glad the ethisists have had the freedom to share their ideas without fear of burning at the stake.

reply to post by Blaine91555


I don't think this is the direction we as human being should be going. I feel it is incredibly wrong to allow a human to die for no other reason but to harvest organs. What low level would morality be on if that were the case? Human life should be about learning from one another, not a constant Gladiator fight to the top.

reply to post by r3axion


Dear r3axion,

Response and intent are not the same. We cannot presume intent among plants, we can assume intent from ants and bees even if it is limited. Beyond that, we know humans have intent and that is what makes us special. If you were to have a child would you really tell it that it was a cancer on the earth? Every human life matters, you matter, I matter and the kid growing up in the ghetto of India matters, we matter because we feel pain and pleasure and have understanding. Because of our unique attributes we are capable of great feats such as the pyramids and they did it with rocks.

You don't have to believe that people are meaningless to believe that we should not pollute, we should be good stewards of the land. Are we perfect, no; but, we are meaningful and learn. You argue that we are no more important than other animals and plants; but, you also said we were a cancer. We are not a problem, the planet is still doing well. In fact we are more conscious of the effect we have on the environment now then ever before. Not only that; but, we are also now actively working to heal it in many areas.

reply to post by Blaine91555


Actually on the grand scale of things we are weeds... think of it: we are a speck of organic material on a speck of rock in a speck of a solar system....

just like the speck of bacteria carried on the speck of a parasite which will inevitably be killed because you think you are better than them because you have "a conscience" or "self awareness"... Monkeys have self awareness... so do many types of birds... yet they are inferior?

Its the same thing... life is life and that's it.... nothing special...

Here's another example... in africa, there are people who die "needlessly" everyday... so what do you do about it? if life was so sacred, shouldn't you do something about it? of course not... because deep down inside you don't care about them... you say you do to look good... but you don't care, just as I don't, and 99% of the world population don't...

you're job is to survive, my job is to survive, and trust me if you were forced to choose between you or the african person you don't know surviving... you would choose you...

we are but one of the many kinds of weeds of the universe...

The problem with this "we are human therefore we mustn't kill each other and must survive disease" philosophy, is that it has created a huge imbalance in the world populations...

War and disease was nature's way of saying : there are too many people here, we need to control the population...

now we are faced with population booms which are killing our planet and everyone says "go ahead reproduce! we'll feed you! we'll save you! we'll make this world unlivable..."

it's utter BS... people NEED to die in order for the species to evolve properly and prosper...

plain and simple

Originally posted by AQuestion
reply to post by r3axion

 

Dear r3axion,

Response and intent are not the same. We cannot presume intent among plants, we can assume intent from ants and bees even if it is limited. Beyond that, we know humans have intent and that is what makes us special. If you were to have a child would you really tell it that it was a cancer on the earth? Every human life matters, you matter, I matter and the kid growing up in the ghetto of India matters, we matter because we feel pain and pleasure and have understanding. Because of our unique attributes we are capable of great feats such as the pyramids and they did it with rocks.

You don't have to believe that people are meaningless to believe that we should not pollute, we should be good stewards of the land. Are we perfect, no; but, we are meaningful and learn. You argue that we are no more important than other animals and plants; but, you also said we were a cancer. We are not a problem, the planet is still doing well. In fact we are more conscious of the effect we have on the environment now then ever before. Not only that; but, we are also now actively working to heal it in many areas.

I don't believe human life is meaningless, but at the same time I don't believe it is meaningful. We are here, and that is it. None of us chose to come into existence. I believe we aren't living the way we should be. In a sense, we are acting like a cancer. Look at how the rest of nature interacts with one another. When a bee takes nectar from a flower, it also helps pollinate the next one it lands on. Humans don't give back to the Earth what we take from it. We destroy rain forests without planting more trees, we kill animals meaninglessly for trophies without letting them repopulate, we build massive smog filled cities that destroy our atmosphere, we dump chemicals into pristine oceans, I could go on and on.

We don't work with nature, we work against it. The people attempting to work with nature are in the minority. Their projects are not sufficiently funded by governments who would rather spend on plundering the Earth of its last remaining natural oil, just so they can turn it around and make a profit.

People are taking this out of context and don't understand bioethics.

I witness these discussions all the time.

No, it is not morally wrong to kill someone.

As others stated it depends on intent.

What these bioethicists are actually trying to figure out is how to save the most life years or quality years.


A heart patient whose heart stopped beating, has very little chance of recovery, yet a young person who can benefit from the organs, would get many more life years then the person on life support.

You could flip the question, is it moral to maintain a dying person on life support while letting a person who can be saved, die as a result?


Bioethicists break life down into numbers, who can get the most life as a result of this decision....

We have value systems for life, although I don't think "lesser" life forms are simply things we can exploit, they should be respected.

This 'bioethticists' perspective is much like eugenicists....

reply to post by v1rtu0s0


Bing-stop,,,
"they should be respected" but they are not as important, as the "higher" life forms,
say like true Germans,, for instance,,


I argue that each life in its own
is just as important as the whole,,
what we perseve as "higher" is the head more noble than the ass,?
indeed has value and meaning,,
for if the ass says,, thats it were shutting down,, do you not get sick?
see how one is in support of the whole ,,
it is the well being, of the whole,,,etc,,,
see christianity, 101,,


Me.

reply to post by r3axion


Dear r3axion,

We don't work with nature, we work against it. The people attempting to work with nature are in the minority. Their projects are not sufficiently funded by governments who would rather spend on plundering the Earth of its last remaining natural oil, just so they can turn it around and make a profit.

Without giving identifiable specifics, I was responsible for keeping a type of recycling in the United States. It meant that those who profited from selling non-recycled lost a whole lot of money; but, it was good for the environment and make economic sense. Because we kept this recycling here, the whole industry had to change and is in the process of doing so now.

I am not asking for any kudos, not the point. The point is that they couldn't prevent it, they sued multiple times and lost them and I worked with a good partner; but, there was something more, they couldn't win in the media because the public's opinion about taking care of the environment has changed. People actually prefer to recycle if they can. I couldn't say that 40 years ago. By the way, this meaningless human found a lot of meaning in what I did, I would tell people that it was the most important thing I did in my whole life regardless of what cost me personally.

You cannot view us individually and ignore societal achievements. I may have led the fight that I did; but, I was also supported and assisted, everyone involved helped and I could not have done it alone. We are a society and everyone has value, everyone matters because they make up part of humanity and we continue to evolve.

I am so glad. To see some defending of life on this thread, thank you. After spending a few days debating abortion, and humans just being sacs of cells....I was getting quite depressed.

reply to post by Magnum007



That is fine for a round of philosophical discussion. In practice however that idea has always led to human suffering.

As to what I do to help others, talk about a straw man

As to priorities, ones loyalty has to be to family, community and country first or you will not have the resources to help anyone beyond that.

reply to post by nixie_nox


We all understand that I think. Where does it lead to however?

What may seem logical now can become a nightmare for humanity in the future.

Eugenics makes perfect sense, but it ignores humanity for instance. The more power we bestow or allow over life and death can and does lead to horrors. It's the concept that anyone for any reason can decide which life is more valuable that is the danger.

I think the power to make those decisions is best left in the hands of individuals or their families. It may not always be the correct decision, but it must be a Right an immutable Right. The more power we cede to others and the more acceptable it becomes to society, the more likely it will lead to yet another dark stain on our history as Humans.

reply to post by Blaine91555


Dear Blaine91555,

Because I believe we are in agreement about the importance of humans I don't think we have had much to respond to from one another; but, I support what you are saying. We matter. Peace.

Is it wrong to take a life?

Is pulling a weed from a garden diffrent from pulling the trigger of a well aimed gun

If you are starving and you can kill a deer for food is it ok?

If a man is raping your wife and is going to your little girl next is it ok?

And finally is it ok to Kill a man for the paper in his wallet.

Its all dependent on the reason behind the killing.