An Abortion Dialogue

gwern

A few years ago, I wrote a little dialogue I imagined between 2 materialists, one of whom was for and one against abortion, centering on the personal identity question. I recently cleaned it up and added a number of references for the biological claims.

You can read it at An Abortion Dialogue.

Early feedback from #lesswrong is that it's a 'nicely enjoyable read' and 'quite good'. I hope everyone likes it, even if it doesn't exactly break new philosophical ground.

You can read it at An Abortion Dialogue.

Early feedback from #lesswrong is that it's a 'nicely enjoyable read' and 'quite good'. I hope everyone likes it, even if it doesn't exactly break new philosophical ground.

Yes, but the same could be said of children and the elderly (that they are currently not very valuable to society), but it is still illegal to murder them.

The elderly arguably have grand bargains protecting them. Young people pay into Social Security to meet the promised payments to current old people, in the expectation that future young people will do the same for them, and so on.

Like wills. Why should we execute wills that leave millions to pet dogs or something? The dead person is dead, beyond any caring. Just take their bequest and do something useful with it! But of course, if we did that then people writing wills no longer trust will executors and will disperse their assets in life or just waste them.... (read more)

3PlaidX15y

People on average increase in societal value from conception to childhood, and then it gets more complicated from there depending on how they turn out. And yes, typically their value declines as they become elderly. But, as in your example with your adopted friend, even a baby that starts out unwanted, if society invests a bit in its welfare, will soon become part of the social fabric and so on and thereby become valued. Certainly there are some people who literally nobody likes, but even then, there's still reason B. As it happens, my best friend was adopted as well. But I hardly think the limiting factor in the number or quality of my friends is society's production of babies.