Following Obi's example of the mentally disabled, it is reasonable not to defend a lower life form like a snail or rat simply because of the abundance of said organisms and the rate at which they multiply, as well as the fact that they are both a form of pestilence in themselves.
Humans are abundant, proliferating, and seeing what we do to our planet and each other, let's face it, we're a damn nuisance as well. I could slaughter many humans for a much more positive effect than killing rats or snails.
But a mentally disabled human, first and foremost, is still much more intelligent that any lower life forms.
Depends what is meant by "lower life form". I would argue that the smartest chimpanzee, crow or elephant is smarter than most retarded people in many relevant aspects. Heck, I'd argue that they are probably smarter than the dumbest non-retarded humans. It's silly to assume that all humans are smarter than all members of other species. While it is probably true for the most part, I'll be damned if there isn't overlap.
We cannot be biased negatively simply because any particular disabled person is not up to par with the average person in intelligence or development.
Why not? They are useless. At least most animals can fend for themselves.
Another reason it is morally right to care for the mentally disabled is simply because we can.
That's your argument? Are you serious?
No other species can care for and recognize in such a way that we can, the mental disabilities or malformities of another human being.
That is unsubstantiated. Elephants have been shown to care not only for their disabled (and deceased) members, but also for other species such as antelopes or humans. As I said before, the capabilities of humans and animals
overlap, probably more than most people would be willing to accept. If you care for a mentally disabled human, then you should, at the very least, care for the most intelligent of chimpanzees, crows, elephants or other species besides ourselves that are currently recognized as the most intelligent of the animal kingdom, because they are most probably smarter than your retard and are easily more moral than the non-negligible number of humans that are scum.
That is, if intelligence is your criterion. I, for one, do not embarrass myself with arbitrary criteria. If an animal is delicious we'll eat it, if an animal is a pet we'll protect it, if we are impressed by an animal's intelligence and have qualms about killing or eating it then we'll protect it. It's all about appearances, really.
You cannot create a lumped morality based on similarities, but rather use your INTELLIGENCE to create a morality for a general situation while refining it relative to situations.
That's not going to work either. There is no guiding principle for morality. You can't use intelligence to create a general morality and/or to refine it, because there is no frame of reference relative to which you could do it. Are you trying to maximize global happiness? Minimize global unhappiness? What entities are eligible for rights, protections, etc. and on what grounds? Intelligence? Self-awareness? The capacity for feeling pain? Being alive? A combination of all of these factors? Frankly, it's all pretty arbitrary.
An absolute morality is bound to fail when presented with new evidence and subjected to reason. In the times of the Old Testament it was good morality to stone adulterous women to death. Today it is just seen as assault, attempted murder, and just being a dick.
And in a thousand years we'll be back to stoning them, reminiscing these "weak ass 21st century pansies" who protected adulterous women from the punishment they deserved.
We are not above this.
Aeolus said:
My personal approach to the issue is that I don't know where to draw the line. Obviously, almost all reasonable people agree that abortion is unethical as the fetus makes its way through the birth canal. What about 10 minutes before that? Still unethical? 20 minutes before? Yeah, still pretty clearly unethical. Keep pushing it back... increment by increment. I don't know what threshold I could cross where I'd say "ok, now's it's alright to kill it!" The only safe bet, assuming you are interested in ethical behavior, is not to kill it. Admittedly, a baby is inconvenient many times, but I don't know any other way I can be consistent in my beliefs.
It is worthless reasoning to only consider one side of the threshold. Imagine a really large number. Subtract 1. Is it still large? Clearly. Subtract 1 again. I am pretty sure it's still large. Now, if you keep that line of reasoning, you'll conclude that 0 is a large number. But clearly, 0 is not large, it's small. If you had no idea whether 0 is large or small and no solid argument to determine which way to go, you could err on the side of caution and say it's large, not because of the argument from a large number (a terrible argument if I've ever seen any), but from being cautious about what you do not (and cannot) know, assuming "large" is the conservative position. However, if you know 0 is small, it would be lunacy to conclude that it is large from the argument you present.
The same goes here. It is clearly unethical to kill a baby as it makes its way through the birth canal. It is however clearly not unethical to kill a fetus right after conception because there is clear evidence that nothing magical happens at that point to make it so much more than its constituents. I am not an expert on the matter, but it seems fairly clear that a fetus doesn't have any interesting qualities in the first few weeks. Thus the "threshold" you are speaking of is after that point and before birth. It is quite possible that the threshold is arbitrary, but that does not mean we cannot give meaningful lower and upper bounds for it.
In a nutshell, your argument is that the threshold for large numbers is zero because you know a large number and you can't fathom where, exactly, the threshold between "small" and "large" might be located. Truth is, the location of the threshold between "small" and "large" is indeed arbitrary. But if there's a place it is
not located at, it's zero.
The point is that when you try to measure "human-ness" (and therefore the right to live) by factors other than being genetically human, you find yourself in perilously deep waters very quickly that are filled with intellectual contradictions.
Considering the fact of evolution, I am skeptical that "genetically human" is a proper definition either. Imagine that "humanity" goes on for a billion years and that evolution splits the human genre into several species that cannot breed with each other. Then nobody is "genetically human", they just "have humans as a common ancestor". But we have common ancestors with chimpanzees too, so why don't they have the same rights as we do? What if one branch of humanity became immensely smarter than all the others (like, homo super-sapiens)? Clearly they would treat the others like we do chimpanzees and would give them lesser rights, even if the others were as smart as we are, even if the smartest "lesser humans" were smarter than the dumbest "higher humans" in some aspects (a fact which, in my opinion, stands true when comparing humans to chimpanzees).
The truth is,
all measurements of the "right to live" are arbitrary, for a very simple reason: the right to live is arbitrary. Right now, it corresponds, more or less, to being "genetically human", but it was different in the past and it will be also different in the future. If it's your favorite definition of the right to live, enjoy living in the present I guess.
Tangerine said:
Except gametes by themselves do nothing and they need to be fertilized before they start leeching nutrients and growing. I think the key word here is fertilized - that's where life begins :P
The word "leech" is appropriate here. An organism that leeches resources from another without the host's consent is a parasite. I don't see why parasites should be protected. Although they also leech resources from society, disabled people are not parasites since society consents to their leeching. If it is impossible to move a parasite from an unwilling host to a willing host without killing it, it's a shame, but I would still favor the host.
The "potential" of an organism is also a weak argument. If a human has the right to life, it's because he or she is there right now and that the cost of replacing him or her is clearly greater than the cost of letting him or her live, not to mention the cost of the loss of him or her (mourning and possibly a loss of productivity) and the implications that terminating him or her would have on the status of other human beings. Consider performing abortion and then making a new baby five years later. The genetic potential is identical, the environment potential is arguably greater if the parents are ready. So the potential of this scenario is arguably superior to the potential of keeping the baby. The loss of the fetus will only affect the parents if they affect anyone, which is fine since it was their choice. Moreover, performing the abortion spares the woman the hardship of going through with an unwanted pregnancy. It seems that the only "downside" of abortion is the loss of an opportunity of life for some particular genetic configuration. I don't think that's a big deal.
