jumpmanzero t1_iux093x wrote
I keep reading these articles, but I never really get your point. Like, you see some kind of subjective/objective divide here:
Take abortion: is a human life within a womb significant based on an objective fact or a subjective decision? Left leaning news articles will talk about the pain of a miscarriage and the necessity of the choice for abortion without seeing a contradiction because the significance of life is purely subjective, right leaning ones will talk about human life within the womb as if the idea of its value from conception is a kind of irrefutable objective fact.
And I don't see the distinction working that way. Either side in this, or most other debates, tend to claim "our side is objective fact and your side is incorrect subjective opinion" - but that doesn't mean that's what's happening. In general these disagreements are not about the two sides have taken different approaches to understanding reality, they're just disagreeing on the matter at hand and using "objective"/"subjective" distinctions to discredit their opponents.
As to abortion in specific, I think it's a good example of how metaphor is often not a productive basis for ethical decision making. Each side in this debate has a metaphor:
"Abortion is like murder, therefore wrong"
"Abortion is like other health choices, therefore OK"
With this sort of deontological/metaphor approach, there's not really a framework for resolving conflicts. And thus when conflicts arise, people tend to fall back to consequentialism. For example, when presented with "abortion in the case of rape", many people who otherwise accept a "murder equivalence metaphor" will suddenly become more circumspect because they don't like a consequence of their otherwise clear position.
So how do we actually resolve a debate like this as a society? Well, that's pretty tough.
A reasonable chunk of the population believe that correct ethical reasoning ends with the tenets of their religion. God says abortion is wrong. It's therefore always wrong.
The next chunk believes ethical reasoning can involve some consideration of outcomes - but they have specific beliefs about reality that flavor that consideration. For example, they might believe God endows a soul to a person on conception, and that therefore that person deserves the same ethical weight and protection as anyone else.
A further chunk might believe that a distinction is less clear, such that the ethical weighting afforded a developing embryo-fetus may likewise grow over time (ie. that a 2 cell embryo might be afforded very little consideration, while a 8 month old or "survivable" fetus may require more weight or consideration).
Another chunk might believe that a fetus is not afforded ethical weight - that they are effectively an appendage of a mother. Or that, while having ethical weight, those weights are trumped by a mother's right to control their own body. Or. Or. Or.
These differing viewpoints are often backed by a different understanding of objective reality. Other differences come down to philosophy, and differing opinions on who has a voice in the ethical bargain and/or how to resolve competing ethical priorities - or even what ethics is, and whether it itself is objective or subjective. Or they come down to different ideas about the appropriate intersection of ethics and the law.
Long story short... I don't think the problem is that we don't read enough poetry, are worried too much about science, and thus can't see the truth about abortion. There isn't a magic key to everyone synchronized on this. Some people are likely not clear on their own position or how they came to it... but generally I think people just legitimately disagree on "the state of the universe and whether there actually is a God who is concerned with our fetuses" and/or "how do we decide what's right" and/or "what should be the goal of our laws" and/or "how will things play out if we make a law that says X".
I don't understand what your subjective/objective distinctions (or myth or metaphor or whatever) are bringing in terms of resolving or understanding these questions.
Melodic_Antelope6490 OP t1_ivzx5od wrote
Hi, thanks for the response. Sorry it's taken me a week to read it, I've found a lot of these replies to be someone who's read the first paragraph and rushed back to tell me I'm a moron, which may be true, but still. Anyway, thanks yours is actually helpful and maybe I threw that abortion bit in without enough context.
You're perhaps right abortion isn't the best example, but the point is to reflect that it is a debate between an absurd dichotomy of a person deciding arbitrarily if a life is a life, and a person insisting a life is objectively a life at a point of conception because of a religious 'fact', and that this mirrors say, the gender squabble between the "I feel like a woman on the inside therefore I am a woman and it's morally wrong to say otherwise" and "woman is a female nothing else matters". Unfortunately, these debates really are that absurd. All the points you've raised illustrate that its a broad ethical issue with both outcomes and "values" that might not be agreed on, but it's literally framed in the public sphere as black/white subjective/objective.
So my point in saying the problem is that we don't read enough poetry is perhaps the other way around, we don't read poetry because we can't deal with metaphorical language without a facile insistence on reducing it to objective claims. 'Gender', however you look at it, is a metaphor. A literal man cannot literally be a woman, but masculinity and femininity are metaphors and abstractions, and if you accept that both have kinds of truth, but not the same kinds of truth, you can actually have a discussion. The point is that it's akin to Dawkins arguing about evolution with a seven day creationist. They're trying to argue the same things but putting together two language systems that aren't accessing truth in the same way, genesis one might be 'true', but it isn't an objective scientific theory.
If that makes any sense.
jumpmanzero t1_ixixnuk wrote
I'd certainly agree that many people are unwilling to engage with these questions (or even internally interrogate or understand their own positions) to much depth. That in itself is a complicated problem to tease apart.
In any case, I think your comment here has helped me understand the angle you're coming from.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments