Dying 13-year-old boy wants sex

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Dying 13-year-old boy wants sex

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Post by RobertUrbanek »

Aside from legality, if a dying 13-year-old boy wanted sex with an attractive woman, would it be immoral to arrange for his wish to be fulfilled?

Would your answer be different if the dying teen was a girl or gay or lesbian?
Untroubled, scornful, outrageous — That is how wisdom wants us to be. She is a woman and never loves anyone but a warrior — Friedrich Nietzsche

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Re: Dying 13-year-old boy wants sex

Post #41

Post by 2ndRateMind »

RightReason wrote:

Thank you for your honesty. Now ask yourself why that is something you and me and really everyone can recognize? It’s not rocket science, right? Right/wrong is something all men can know via observation of the world, logic, and reason.
Uh huh. It's just here that I think David Hume would part from your world-view. According to him, morality is emphatically not knowable by observing the world, and applying logic and reason.

Let's unpack that a little, and say that pregnant 13 year old girls are more likely to suffer illness of some kind in later life than other 13 year old girls who do not get pregnant.

Let's say (for the sake of argument) that is a matter of fact. Call this premise 1.

But when we go on to say 'and that is a bad thing' we are making a value judgment. It is not a fact, just an opinion, an expression of our attitude. But call this premise 2.

So when we then conclude 'and therefore no 13 year old girl should have sex', we are making a moral prescription that is hybrid; based part on fact, part on opinion.

That is why Hume says we cannot derive an ought from an is; our oughts and ought nots depend on our value judgments, just as much as the facts, and which judgments as often as not are culturally biased anyway. And that is why John Stuart Mill's harm principle (which you earlier dismissed as 'weak') is so important; if we assume harm is always bad, it helps us determine when our moral prescriptions are objectively based, while still leaving us latitude for the individual freedoms liberal democracies consider so vital to their founding ideals.
RightReason wrote:
...Observation reveals to us what happens when a child does not have a mother and father. Observation reveals to us the difficulty of teen agers having children, especially single teen agers. Observation reveals to us the emotional consequences of having sex for teens. These collected facts aren’t judgments – they are observed facts.

They also aren’t good or bad – they just are. However, based on what we observe and acknowledge, we can determine what makes sense. We can determine what is right/good – what is in man’s best interest. And it is at this point that we as rational human beings can make statements like ought...
I think you are converging towards these ideas here. Nevertheless, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Maybe single teenage mothers should get more support from the state? Different oughts can easily arise from the same is's, precisely because of the different value judgments we bring to bear.

Best wishes, 2RM.

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Re: Dying 13-year-old boy wants sex

Post #42

Post by RightReason »

[Replying to 2ndRateMind]
Uh huh. It's just here that I think David Hume would part from your world-view.
I’m sure he would, but many have parted from his after proper analysis.
According to him, morality is emphatically not knowable by observing the world, and applying logic and reason.
Uh huh. Reminds me of this scenario:

Joe: Truth does not exist.
John: Is that true?


Joe: We cannot know moral truth via observation of the world and applying logic and reason.

John: How do you know this?

Joe: I know this via my observation of the world and applying logic and reason.

That is why Hume says we cannot derive an ought from an is; our oughts and ought nots depend on our value judgments, just as much as the facts, and which judgments as often as not are culturally biased anyway.
According to some David Hume’s argument is actually self defeating. Probably a topic for another thread, however I will post some excerpts explaining why in fact Hume was mistaken in his “ought-is fallacy� theory. Many have written about this. The truth is human beings being observers of this world we live in and acknowledging the relationship man has with this world is precisely how we determine/know right from wrong.


.

*************



[We] can no longer say that the introduction has been made from "is" to "ought" through an illicit process. On the contrary, the very "is" of human nature has been shown to have an "ought" built into it. It is impossible to determine what a human being, just as a human being, really is in fact without determining what he might be or could be-without taking account of a man's potentialities and actualities toward which those potencies are oriented. It is no less impossible to determine, or even to adequately state what a human being is without making reference to what he ought to be or to that natural end, fulfillment or good, which it is incumbent upon any human being, by nature, to try to be or become. Clearly, there is no dubious inference from "is" to "ought"-as if somehow from an "is" that was exclusive of any "ought"-one could manage to conjure up an "ought." For as our foregoing account should have now made clear, the very "is" of human nature already has its "ought" contained within it.

Indeed, if a question of inference is raised, it is now possible to say that the so-called inferences from "is" to "ought," or from nature to norms, are nothing if not inferences from an "is" that already involves an "ought," to the "ought" that is already implicitly in that "is." If one should prefer to use the language of "nature" and of "norms," one could say that the nature of man, when rightly understood, and not analogized to a misleading geometrical model, is a nature that is inescapably ordered to certain norms or standards of its own perfection.

We need not fear stern reprimands with respect to how we must once more listen to David Hume's complacent censures of supposed inferences from "is" to "ought." On the contrary, it is suggested that Hume, not the natural law moralist, must now be taught a lesson. Clearly, natures and the facts of nature can be construed such that illicit inferences may be drawn from what things are by nature, to what they ought to be. The inferences Hume confidently described as fallacious, however, were not so at all. Rather, those were inferences proceeding from a far richer and more versatile conception of the "is" of human nature than Hume conceived of in his work.

. . .One need only recognize the Aristotelian account of natures and essences, and that there is no longer any problem of how "the norms that are referred to in theories of natural law [are to be] based on judgments about nature." To the contrary, that is precisely what they are based upon.. . . .First, he makes the entirely legitimate point that because ethics is a practical science, its direct concern is with determining which actions we need to perform, and which we must not perform if we are to attain our natural human end, goal, or, as Grisez might prefer to state it, the basic goods of human existence. Grisez adds, by way of further specification, that "because good has the intelligibility of an end, and evil the intelligibility of contrary to end, it follows that reason naturally grasps as goods . . .all of the objects of man's natural inclinations."8

. . .According to Aquinas, Grisez states, practical reason is "the mind . . .functioning in a certain capacity, the capacity in which it is 'directed to a work.' . . . Practical reason is [thus] the mind working as a principle of action, not simply as a recipient of objective reality. It is the mind declaring what is to be, not merely recording what already is. n theory . ..the world calls the turn. The mind uses the power of the Knower to see that the Known will conform to it; the mind calls the turn."9 Grisez continues as follows: Now if practical reason is the mind functioning as a principle of action, it is subject to all the conditions necessary for every active principle. One of these is that every active principle acts on account of an end. An active principle is going to bring about something or other, or else it would not be an active principle at all. It is necessary for the active principle to be oriented toward that something or other, whatever it is, if it is going to be brought about.10 Moreover, against the background of statements like these it should be possible to understand the first principle of practical reason as enunciated by St. Thomas: Bonum est faciendum et prosequendum, et malum vitandum, which Grisez carefully translates as "[glood is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.""1.

. . . Just how is the notion of good to be understood here? In anticipation of my own answer to this question, I would suggest that the only way such a question in this context can be answered is by invoking certain principles from metaphysics. . . .Moreover, if one needs to have light shed on how such a notion of "tending towards" is to be construed, Grisez invokes the notion of "inclination," and more specifically that of "the order of [man's] natural inclinations." 4 To requote Grisez, "reason naturally grasps as goods . all of the objects of man's natural inclinations."

. . . Things are good for no other reason than that men happen to desire them, or are inclined towards them. Immediately, the consequence follows that nothing is really good, but desiring something makes that thing good. Does this not completely shatter that first principle of practical reason that Grisez, following Aquinas, is so insistent upon? If goodness and value are entirely relative to tastes and inclinations, then there is not the slightest ground for holding that good is anything to be done or to be pursued or that evil is to be avoided. In the Latin of Aquinas' formula, Bonum est faciendum et prosequendum, the verbs have a gerundive force, so that the force of the formula in English is that good is necessarily or self-evidently that which ought to be done and should be done. Yet clearly, if good is no more than "any object of any interest,"1 then goodness will not have the slightest obligatory or morally compelling force. With respect to the supposed logically self-evident character of the first principle or practical reason, will it be evident in the least why that which we merely like or desire or are inclined towards should be the sort of thing which we ought to do or to pursue? In fact, is this not the last nerve of the general Kantian line of criticism which is directed against all hedonistic or supposedly teleological theories of ethics?

Just because someone is naturally inclined toward something or finds it a source of satisfaction, happiness, or contentment, Kant in effect says, this has no bearing at all on the question whether such a thing ought to be pursued, cherished, or liked, or whether it is right that it be pursued or done. To perpetrate such an inference would be to commit the "is"-"ought" fallacy. Such would certainly be the contention of any Kantian and Kant would certainly be correct in this regard. What now of Grisez? Surely, he would be the last to choose this first alternative when called upon to apply the Euthyphro test. Instead, he must go beyond his own manner of stating what is to be understood as a good or an end: goods in the proposed sense may well be said to be objects of inclinations. This must be construed to mean that they are objects of inclination in the sense of being things that we ought to be inclined towards, or should be inclined towards, whether we actually are or not. This in turn means that goods are goods that are objectively so, or goods in themselves, and not merely goods relative to their being desired, or to how men happen to feel about them. What does this mean other than that goods must be understood as beings? Having located good in being, Aquinas insists that good needs to be understood as being, and as a being. In other words, metaphysics takes over to clarify and render intelligible that first principle of ethics or of practical reason, namely, that good is to be done and to be pursued. Indeed, it is in his metaphysical treatment of the transcendentals, particularly in the De Veritate,16 that Aquinas addresses himself to the precise question of what bonum, or good, really is. Bonum, he says, is nothing but ens, considered as an object of desire, or appetitus.

. . .Even though he is concerned with the good, or the end, in ethics, and not as it is in metaphysics, there is just no way in which the former can ever be determined without having recourse to the latter. If it is Grisez's proposal to simply consider the human good as being such an end or ends as human beings have an inclination towards, then that ambiguity which, as we saw, the Euthyphro test is so aptly designed to expose, immediately arises. This ambiguity cannot be successfully obviated without recognizing that the good or end is not a mere good, that is, relative to the chance, interests,, or desires of a human being. Rather, it is a good that is objective in the sense that it is something that ought to be desired, whether it actually is so or not.

For present purposes, it is not what the end or the basic goods of human life are that is of concern, but rather how they are determined, and by what method of argument one is able to show that such goods are truly human goods.

. . . it is "the world that calls the turn," the mind having to "conform to the facts." In other words, it is definitely not the domain of what Grisez calls "practice," where in a formulation rather frighteningly suggestive of idealism, Grisez says "the mind calls the turn." Clearly, there can be no such domain of practice or of practical reason, unless it be in terms of metaphysics and of theoretical reason, through which it gets its proper determinations. Need one say more in terms of the wall of separation that both Grisez and Finnis maintain exists between practical reason and theoretical reason, between ethics and metaphysics, between nature and morals, between "is" and "ought"? It is important that we should have been able to effect a breach of this wall of separation, for without such a breach, one might envision both Finnis and Grisez treading on a slippery slope into an ethics merely of Y6uos rather than Qfjis-an ethics so prevalent everywhere today and radically irreconcilable to anything like an ethics of natural law. Instead, let me just conclude in the face of both Finnis' and Grisez's seeming equivocations with a "Long live natural law!"

https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi ... ontext=tcl

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Re: Dying 13-year-old boy wants sex

Post #43

Post by 2ndRateMind »

[Replying to post 42 by RightReason]

Ha ha! I hope you copied and pasted all that; without having to type it out for my benefit!

Anyway, my point would be that Hume's argument has not been demolished, or even damaged, because you still cannot state a moral prescription without first having made a value judgment that is not based on observation or reason, only on our individual preferences. To take another example, I hope both you and I would concur that southern slavery was immoral, since it denied that teleological 'potential' for black people to become the best they could be for no better reason than the colour of their skins. Yet, not all that long ago, slave owners were arguing that slavery was the natural state for black Africans, and that it was 'a good thing' for the 'negros' themselves that they had been trafficked to the Americas. So even human 'potential' is not always uncontroversial.

I do have some sympathy with your point of view, though; indeed, life would be a whole lot simpler (though possibly less rewarding) if we could just derive those pesky oughts directly from those stark is's, but I just don't think we can, free of a value judgment of some kind. The underlying assumption of your long quote, for example, seems to rest on the notions that human nature is naturally inclined to goodness (one value judgment and a debatable observation), and it is 'a bad thing' (a second value judgment) to deny any human the freedom to achieve that potential goodness. This is as value laden a stance as clear as any other I could cite in favour of Hume.

Finally, I would just say that teleology is very shaky ground on which to mount an argument against Hume, since we each just do not know the ends and purposes to which we all and each are or are not inclined to or capable of or made for. It is automatically, therefore, an argument from unknowing, an argument from ignorance.

Best wishes, 2RM

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Re: Dying 13-year-old boy wants sex

Post #44

Post by RightReason »

[Replying to 2ndRateMind]
Anyway, my point would be that Hume's argument has not been demolished, because you cannot state a moral prescription without first having made a value judgment that is not based on observation or reason, only on our individual preferences.
And those value judgments come from what we can see, observe, and acknowledge. Like I said many have written about this, but it is a topic for another thread.
To take another example, I hope both you and I would concur that southern slavery was immoral, since it denied that teleological 'potential' for black people to become the best they could be for no better reason than the colour of their skins. Yet, not all that long ago, slave owners were arguing that slavery was the natural state for black Africans, and that it was 'a good thing' for them that they had been trafficked to the Americas.
Natural Law argument does not condone slavery just because some tried to erroneously use Natural Law argument to do so.
indeed, life would be a whole lot simpler (though possibly less rewarding) if we could just derive those pesky oughts directly from those stark is's, but I just don't think we can, free of a value judgment of some kind.
And yet every culture in every time do just that. We can know and declare right from wrong based on the world we live in.


Me: I know that it's wrong to torture people just for the fun of it.
Skeptic: What's your reason for thinking that?
Me: Isn't it self-evident? Why do I need a reason?
Skeptic: Because if you don't have one, then it's just an arbitrary claim.
Me: How do you know that?
Skeptic: Why, that's self-evident.

http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/papers/reason.htm

Your long quote, for example, assumes that human nature is inclined to goodness


Another thread for another day, but minds much greater than mine have successfully refuted your values judgment argument. They even go as far back as Plato.

For Plato’s full refutation of relativist arguments like yours see full link below.

Plato argued powerfully in favor of the objectivity of values, such a truth, good, beauty. Objective values are those that lie outside of the individual and are not dependent upon her/his perception or belief.

https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201 ... alues.html

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Post #45

Post by 2ndRateMind »

OK, then I have a small challenge for you. I challenge you to state a moral position in which I cannot find a value judgment.

It can be your own, or someone else's. Ideally someone else's, since I do not want you thinking I am attacking you or your most fundamental beliefs, personally.

As for Plato, his great achievement was to be the first to ask and record the questions and raise the topics philosophers are still debating to this day. That is not the same as saying philosophy has made no progress in the last millennia since, or that he was right about everything. But as it happens, I think the Good to be objective, also. I just don't think humans can claim to know 'the Good' in it's absolute sense, or necessarily recognise it, or ever even know that we know it. The most we can know is what we think to be good, and it is no small step towards enlightenment to realise that we may be wrong about what we think the good to be. But I do nevertheless reflect that the story of human history that I find most compelling is that of humanity's quest for the Good, and our gradual, staggered, recalcitrant approach toward it.

Best wishes, 2RM.

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Re: Dying 13-year-old boy wants sex

Post #46

Post by 2ndRateMind »

RightReason wrote: [Replying to 2ndRateMind]
Anyway, my point would be that Hume's argument has not been demolished, or even damaged, because you cannot state a moral prescription without first having made a value judgment that is not based on observation or reason, only on our individual preferences.
And those value judgments come from what we can see, observe, and acknowledge.
Indeed. But they also derive, most importantly, from our attitudes to what we see, observe and acknowledge. What we think is good or bad, and how capable and adequate we are to discerning the difference between the two, in any given context. And that is where subjectivity inevitably creeps in to the moral calculus we all make about aspects of the world.
RightReason wrote: Like I said many have written about this, but it is a topic for another thread.
Then by all means start that thread, and I will willingly participate.

Best wishes, 2RM.

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Post #47

Post by RightReason »

[Replying to 2ndRateMind]
I have a small challenge for you. I challenge you to state a moral position in which I cannot find a value judgment.
Perhaps I do not understand . . . are you starting with the assumption that to even label something right/wrong/good/bad we are making a value judgment? If so, please prove/demonstrate your assumption.

Otherwise, why shouldn’t this statement be considered objective?: Rape is wrong
It can be your own, or someone else's.
Great. I’ve chosen one that is everyone’s statement. It is as we say universal.

I just don't think humans can claim to know 'the Good' in it's absolute sense, or necessarily recognise it, or ever even know that we know it.
So, men can’t know or recognize that rape is wrong? Every society in every time has done so.

The most we can know is what we think to be good
Uh huh. And why would we think something to be good? Perhaps by observing man and man’s relationship to the world he lives in, acknowledging the way this world works? In other words, by being objective.

,
and it is no small step towards enlightenment to realise that we may be wrong about what we think the good to be.
You really believe we might be getting this whole rape is wrong/bad thing wrong? Would you be willing to argue that? Stand up for that?

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Post #48

Post by 2ndRateMind »

RightReason wrote: [Replying to 2ndRateMind]
I have a small challenge for you. I challenge you to state a moral position in which I cannot find a value judgment.
Perhaps I do not understand . . . are you starting with the assumption that to even label something right/wrong/good/bad we are making a value judgment? If so, please prove/demonstrate your assumption.
Yup. Exackerly that. To state something is good or right is a statement of our personal approval. To state something is bad or wrong is a statement of our personal disapproval.

So, let's expound, since this seems to be a tricky point, for you.

Fact: Rapes happen.
Opinion: Rapes are bad.
Moral Prescription: (say) Rapes should be punished in law to stop them happening.

The fact that rapes happen, and seem always throughout history to have happened, would tend to indicate conclusively that not everyone agrees with you (and me) that rapes are bad. If everyone thought them bad, there would be no rapes. But that is not the 'universal' situation we find in the world.

As recent examples, take the rapes of the Rohingya women in Myanmar, by the military intent on ethnic cleansing. Or the rapes and sexual slavery of the Yazidi women by ISIS. Clearly, not only the soldiers concerned, but also their commanders, thought these rapes to be 'good'.

Nevertheless, and this is the point, even if everyone thought all rape to be bad, it would still be a value judgment. It's not a matter of fact, but of our attitude to the fact. Universal consensus does not alter this status.

Best wishes, 2RM.

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Post #49

Post by RightReason »

[Replying to 2ndRateMind]
Yup exackerly that. To state something is good or right is a statement of our personal approval. To state something is bad or wrong is a statement of our personal disapproval.
Yes, approval or acknowledgment based on what we objectively know.
So, let's expound, since this seems to be a tricky point, for you.
For me? Did I miss your proof/evidence that good/right/bad/wrong is subjective opinion? Simply seems like an assumption you continue to assert.
The fact that rapes happen, and seem always throughout history to have happened, would tend to indicate conclusively that not everyone agrees with you (and me) that rapes are bad.
Sorry, false argument. The fact that some people do not act in accordance with what is right/good has no bearing on whether said thing is right/good. It might just mean the person agrees/acknowledges/knows it is wrong, however does it anyway. Quite frankly this happens all the time. I’ll go out on a limb here and say rapists know what they are doing is wrong – they simply do not care.

If everyone thought them bad, there would be no rapes.
You can’t be serious? Even if an entire society (which interestingly enough has never existed) were to say we don’t think rape is wrong – that wouldn’t make the wrongness of rape relative or subjective. It would simply mean that society got it wrong. The one does not prove the other.
But that is not the 'universal' situation we find in the world.
Actually the universal situation we find ourselves in is people know what is right/good vs. what is wrong/bad. Universally, rape is known to be bad/wrong.
As recent examples, take the rapes of the Rohingya women in Myanmar, by the military intent on ethnic cleansing. Or the rapes and sexual slavery of the Yazidi women by ISIS. Clearly, not only the soldiers concerned, but also their commanders, thought these rapes to be 'good'.
I don’t see that as a good example. Clearly, they rationalized their behavior and perhaps tried to make some claim that doing X (a wrong) can be justified if it brings about Y (a good). But again that doesn’t make X good. It simply means they think one can do a bad/wrong in the name of good.

“Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.�
― G. K. Chesterton
Nevertheless, and this is the point, even if everyone thought all rape to be bad, it would still be a value judgment. It's not a matter of fact, but of our attitude to the fact. Universal consensus does not alter this status.
I agree that it isn’t about consensus. That is not what makes something right/wrong. I think you’re confused. It isn’t about our attitude of the fact. Our attitude is irrelevant. It is about the fact.

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Post #50

Post by 2ndRateMind »

RightReason wrote: Our attitude is irrelevant. It is about the fact.
Hmmm.

Perhaps you have never had cause to change your mind about your moral positions. If so, I can understand, if not condone, your 'certainty'.

But I have, twice in my life, and found my moral certainties required radical revision, and were not certainties, at all. The first time was when I switched my politics from conservatism to environmentalism, (aged around 20) and the second time was when I discovered faith, (aged 33) and changed from a convinced and strident atheist to a (reluctant, and not very good) Christian.

So, I have some related questions for you:

1) Do you think you know the ultimate, perfect, objective Good in all situations and circumstances?

If so...

2) On what basis, and with what reasoning, do you arrive at this conclusion?

3) Does it not strike you as somewhat arrogant to think you are as morally infallible as God?

If not...

4) Why does this not persuade you that in some situations and circumstances the grounds of your morality (ie, what you think good or bad, right or wrong) is your opinion only?

5) And if in some situations and circumstances, for consistency, why not all?

Best wishes, 2RM.

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