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U of Chicago Prof: Infanticide Is Morally Acceptable

You know we treat our pets far far better then our human family members.

A decade or so ago I was face with a young kitten that I had already tightly bond with who was at death door with one lung already full of fluid and I was told by the vet that there was only at most a ten percent chance of saving him even if we went to great extremes in treatment.

I took a deep breathe and decided that I would not have him dying in fear with tubes down his throat in fear and pain with his human no where near.

So he died peacefully with my hands on him and my voice in his ears telling him how must I love him and care for him but if he had been human he would had needed to end his life in an IC unit in fear with all manner of tubes in him in a vain attempts to save him.

You know I am feeling the pain once more over making that choice for him but I am glad I could save him from the pain of dying an take that pain myself instead.
 
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Hawkeye10 said:
I say it might take a 100 years or more to get to your situation, so we should talk about infanticide to carry us over.
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Based on the duration of the Overall Abortion Debate, I think that by the time an Infanticide Debate was settled, **IF** it was settled in favor of allowing it, the 100 years would have passed.... :)
 
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FutureIncoming said:
Based on the duration of the Overall Abortion Debate, I think that by the time an Infanticide Debate was settled, **IF** it was settled in favor of allowing it, the 100 years would have passed.... :)
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I'm a Dreamer....:)
 
nota bene said:
George and Lee continue by arguing that “it makes no sense to say that the human organism came to be at one point but the person — you or I — came to be at some later point,” because “to have destroyed the human organism that you are or I am even at an early stage of our lives would have been to have killed you or me.”
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This is extremely flawed logic. Just because thing A has the potential to become thing B, does not mean that thing A currently is thing B.

A tree has the potential to become a table, that doesn't make a tree a table.
 
molten_dragon said:
This is extremely flawed logic. Just because thing A has the potential to become thing B, does not mean that thing A currently is thing B.

A tree has the potential to become a table, that doesn't make a tree a table.
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Well said.
 
nota bene said:
George and Lee continue by arguing that “it makes no sense to say that the human organism came to be at one point but the person — you or I — came to be at some later point,” because “to have destroyed the human organism that you are or I am even at an early stage of our lives would have been to have killed you or me.” Coyne’s primary claim, that lack of sentience or rational faculties significantly bolsters the case for killing disabled newborns, is flawed.
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AS WAS POINTED OUT IN #29 by molten_dragon, "potential" and "actual" are two different things, and therefore can be treated differently.

MORE, you have quoted a couple dudes who apparently know nothing about how human minds develop, and the similarity between brains and computers, and minds and software. A born human baby has a brain and an Operating System and little else. That OS suffices to do things like make the lungs breathe and change the heart-pumping rate as needed. Another feature of the Human Operating System is the ability to write new software for new purposes. This is the ability that eventually writes mentality-of-personhood software, but the task takes a couple years, usually (at least).

SO NOW THINK about a moderately futuristic computer that will be able to do True Artificial Intelligence. If you don't load TAI software into that computer, then it is basically just a fancy version of today's computers. Can you think of any reason why TAI software **must** be loaded into that computer? Quite a few arguments against abortion --and infanticide-- simply boil down to the claim that "Potential must be fulfilled!!". Which is a Provably False claim, since if you stand at the top of a long staircase, you have the potential to fall and break your neck. (Other arguments against killing very young humans boil down to Stupid Prejudice --"we don't care what you do with a computer, but humans are special!". NOPE! Life is machinery, too!)
 
Hawkeye10 said:
You do know that in the past this is generally what has been done....newborns who were doomed to die and especially if they were doomed to suffer in the process were allowed to die ASAP, for their benefit and for ours.

We should go back to that...spending at times hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical care so that a human can suffer is a bad call.

We do the same thing with those who have lived a long life, we keep them around at great expense, and increased suffering.

Promoting suffering is an immoral act.
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We used to burn people at the stake for being a witch too...


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