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Cyan comments on Is Politics the Mindkiller? An Inconclusive Test - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (276)
Meta: Is the OP really a political position? The mere fact that the resulting comment thread is highly informative and not contentious at all makes me doubt it...
More precisely, it seems to me that a majority of participants here share values, e.g., saving lives is more important than almost anything else. Most of the refutations of arguments against the OPs position are about updating the map to match the territory. Nobody's arguing about what course one ought to set through the territory per se.
Consider the contrast between these comments and the abortion debate in the US. I think the essence of the latter is a disagreement about the absolute and relative moral statuses of and rights due to fully grown humans and potential people. I expect it would continue to exist even if everyone agreed on the pertinent biological and medical facts of the matter.
I doubt that this is a descriptively accurate characterization of the debate. I'm guessing a majority of the most committed pro-life activists aren't motivated by a concern for potential people; they actually believe a foetus is a person, not just potentially a person. A number of Christian denominations preach that ensoulment occurs at conception, and that personhood (in the moral sense) is associated with ensoulment. If everyone agreed on the pertinent biological facts -- one of which is that there is no such thing as a soul -- this justification would no longer work.
Thanks for catching this. The words "person" and "potential person" were just intended to be labels, but I ended up unintentionally sneaking in connotations. Let's imagine that in my counterfactual situation no one is doing that either intentionally or unintentionally.
I don't disagree, but I do think religious people might claim something similar to, "even though the soul is not a physical thing, it still exists in the sight of God".
Yes. If they thought the utility gained by making potential persons into actual ones, was greater than the negative utility to women who become unwilling mothers (would abort if they could), then they would support forcing all women to be constantly pregnant.
They're deontologists -- it's a mistake to attempt to predict their ethical reasoning using consequentialist or utilitarian terms.
That's necessary for any disagreement we could have a real discussion about. I've gotten into political arguments with people with similar values. I'm largely libertarian, not because I believe in individual rights, but because I believe that it's what produces the most happiness. There are plenty of people who are socialist, not because they value equality, but because they believe that it's what produces the most happiness.
Maybe this was already obvious to you, but it wasn't to me until just now. Thank you for that.
I think the abortion "debate" is a Blue vs Green, Arguments as Soldiers issue. Pro- or anti-abortion doesn't follow logically from other positions held by each party. Counterfactually, if the two US parties had chosen different positions on abortion due to some historic accident, then I would expect their electorate to still support each party along current divisions.
I agree. That's why I set up my counterfactual.
I have the contrary expectation -- I can't conceive of a historical accident that would swap the parties' positions on abortion without also swapping their respective bases.