My Kidney Challenge

Ethics, Morality, and Sin

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Should you be made to give up one of your kidneys in the scenario presented in the opening post?

Yes
1
14%
No
6
86%
 
Total votes: 7

Kylie
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My Kidney Challenge

Post #1

Post by Kylie »

There is a little girl, named Sally. She needs a kidney transplant or she will die. You are the only compatible donor available.

Should you be forced you to give up one of your kidneys to save her life?

Why or why not?

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historia
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Re: My Kidney Challenge

Post #21

Post by historia »

Clownboat wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2022 4:12 pm
What if gave a drink to poor Sally that caused the kidney failure? I didn't know it would have the said effect, but there it happened.
Yeah, so including some precipitating event that brings about Sally's condition due to an action on your part improves the analogy -- and is typically how these kind of abortion analogies are framed, so a clear oversight in the OP.

The example you gave here illustrates the difficulty with this, however.

No one would expect that giving someone a drink would lead to kidney failure. I've never heard of that, and am having a hard time imagining what realistic scenario would even bring that about.

Whereas with sex, pregnancy is an expected possible outcome. In most cases you have to take determined steps to avoid it.

So, again, the situation is not parallel in an important way.
Last edited by historia on Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:09 am, edited 2 times in total.

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historia
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Re: My Kidney Challenge

Post #22

Post by historia »

Kylie wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:57 pm
historia wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:43 pm
Here I'm simply noting the (from my point of view uncontroversial) point that we bear greater or lesser moral responsibility depending on whether our actions produced harm or an adverse condition in the first place.
The person's need is not affected in any way by our responsibility, however.

If you cause a car accident, for example, don't you think you have a greater moral obligation (as well as legal requirement) to stop and seek help for the people in the other car versus someone uninvolved driving past the accident later?
Again, the people trapped in the burning car are likely to want ANYONE to stop and help them.
Sure, people in need of help want others to help them, that's obvious.

The question that I'm asking here, however -- like the question in the OP -- concerns what moral or legal obligation someone else has to help them.

If you cause a car accident, do you think you have a greater moral obligation (as well as legal requirement) to stop and seek help for the people in the other car versus someone uninvolved driving past the accident later?
Kylie wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:57 pm
historia wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:43 pm
Then the mother does not bear the same moral responsibility.
That's the funny thing about abortion. It seems that people think that how the situation came about has some bearing in how it should be dealt with.

Can you imagine if other medical conditions were treated the same way?
Clearly, there is an important difference between abortion and other medical procedures: abortion uniquely involves two lives, not just one. That gives it this moral dimension that requires a balancing of the rights of the two lives involved based on circumstances -- as is true of other aspects of the law where two people's rights come into conflict. That simply doesn't apply to, say, heart surgery or a broken leg.
Kylie wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:57 pm
historia wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:43 pm
Likewise, here I'm simply noting that using an organ that is designed to gestate a child to do just that is rather different from removing a healthy organ from your body.
So?
So, the less parallel the two situations are the less force the analogy has.
Kylie wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:57 pm
historia wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:43 pm
Yes.
So if someone let your child die so they could save their own, you'd say to them, "Totally understandable, no hard feelings."
I would certainly be upset that my child is dead. But I cannot hold someone else morally responsible for not saving my child's life when that would have entailed them allowing their own child to die. They did not cause my child's death.

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Re: My Kidney Challenge

Post #23

Post by Kylie »

historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:05 amSure, people in need of help want others to help them, that's obvious.

The question that I'm asking here, however -- like the question in the OP -- concerns what moral or legal obligation someone else has to help them.

If you cause a car accident, do you think you have a greater moral obligation (as well as legal requirement) to stop and seek help for the people in the other car versus someone uninvolved driving past the accident later?
Do you have any law that states that the person who caused the accident has more duty to render aid than someone just passing by?
Clearly, there is an important difference between abortion and other medical procedures: abortion uniquely involves two lives, not just one. That gives it this moral dimension that requires a balancing of the rights of the two lives involved based on circumstances -- as is true of other aspects of the law where two people's rights come into conflict. That simply doesn't apply to, say, heart surgery or a broken leg.
But it does apply to a kidney transplant where the recipient is going to die if they don't get one.
So, the less parallel the two situations are the less force the analogy has.
But both analogies can be summed up as, "Does Person A have a responsibility to use a part of their body to keep Person B alive if Person B will die without it?"
I would certainly be upset that my child is dead. But I cannot hold someone else morally responsible for not saving my child's life when that would have entailed them allowing their own child to die. They did not cause my child's death.
And would you always choose your own child to save, no matter how many other lives would be lost?

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Re: My Kidney Challenge

Post #24

Post by historia »

Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:36 am
historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:05 am
If you cause a car accident, do you think you have a greater moral obligation (as well as legal requirement) to stop and seek help for the people in the other car versus someone uninvolved driving past the accident later?
Do you have any law that states that the person who caused the accident has more duty to render aid than someone just passing by?
Sure, consider Illinois law on this matter:
Salvi & Maher wrote:
Illinois law requires a driver who is involved in a car accident in which an injury occurred to provide “reasonable assistance” to the person who was injured.

. . .

While drivers involved in accidents are required to render aid, this duty does not apply to bystanders or people who witness an accident. Bystanders have no legal requirement to provide aid to people who are injured, unless they have a special relationship with the person who needs aid (such as a parent/child or property owner/guest relationship).
But my question here is not primarily about the legal requirement -- that was just a parenthetical remark.

Rather, I'm asking you if you think you have a greater moral obligation to stop and seek help for the people in the other car in an accident you caused versus someone uninvolved driving by later?
Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:36 am
historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:05 am
Clearly, there is an important difference between abortion and other medical procedures: abortion uniquely involves two lives, not just one. That gives it this moral dimension that requires a balancing of the rights of the two lives involved based on circumstances -- as is true of other aspects of the law where two people's rights come into conflict. That simply doesn't apply to, say, heart surgery or a broken leg.
But it does apply to a kidney transplant where the recipient is going to die if they don't get one.
Sure, I'm just noting here that your digression about heart surgery and broken legs was not germane.
Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:36 am
historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:05 am
So, the less parallel the two situations are the less force the analogy has.
But both analogies can be summed up as, "Does Person A have a responsibility to use a part of their body to keep Person B alive if Person B will die without it?"
Sure, and, since the two situations involve very different moral obligations and different uses of the organs, the two situations are sufficiently not parallel to render the analogy less forceful. What we might decide in one case doesn't tell us what we should decide in the other.
Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:36 am
And would you always choose your own child to save, no matter how many other lives would be lost?
I feel like this line of questioning is growing tedious when I've already answered the basic question.

Let me ask you: Do you think you have a greater moral obligation (as well as legal requirement, see above) to help your own child versus a stranger?

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Re: My Kidney Challenge

Post #25

Post by Clownboat »

historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:01 am
Clownboat wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2022 4:12 pm
What if gave a drink to poor Sally that caused the kidney failure? I didn't know it would have the said effect, but there it happened.
Yeah, so including some precipitating event that brings about Sally's condition due to an action on your part improves the analogy -- and is typically how these kind of abortion analogies are framed, so a clear oversight in the OP.

The example you gave here illustrates the difficulty with this, however.

No one would expect that giving someone a drink would lead to kidney failure. I've never heard of that, and am having a hard time imagining what realistic scenario would even bring that about.

Whereas with sex, pregnancy is an expected possible outcome. In most cases you have to take determined steps to avoid it.

So, again, the situation is not parallel in an important way.
I acknowledge the faults in my analogy and was not trying to make an argument with it. Truly just trying to inquire about your thoughts on the matter in this unlikely scenario.
(If it helps at all, imagine she had an allergic reaction to the drink or that some brake fluid accidently and unknowingly entered the drink).

Would you then argue that I should be forced to provide my kidney to Sally or should I not be forced even in this scenario?
Again, I see the faults and am not trying to set you up for any 'gotcha' scenario.

Another analogy.
You and your partner have a 2 year old.
The unlikely scenario is that you have the choice to maintain the life of your 2 year old, but your next three pregnancies will naturally abort, or you can choose the next three pregnancies to occur and lose your 2 year old.

You want both, but must choose one. Which would you choose?

With this analogy, I'm only trying to point out that there is a clear 'value' difference between the 2 year old and what humans abort. I think we must discuss abortion with this in mind and is why all the 'it's the murder of a baby' arguments fail on me personally. The loss of either is a tragedy, but they are not equal tragedies and some anti abortion people seem to not acknowledge this.

Nobody wants to be sick, but we can't pretend that having a cold and having cancer is the same.
Nobody wants to lose their 2 year old or their fetus (except for mothers that have determined that the fetus is unwanted of course), but we cannot pretend that the loss of either is the same. Yet, 'murdering babies' is the war cry for many that don't want the mothers to be able to choose.

So, for arguments sake, let's say that a baby is being murdered when an abortion happens... Would you rather have a cold or cancer or would it truly not matter because you're sick either way?
Can we truly see the murder of a 2 year old as being no different then the murder of an unwanted fetus/baby, just because a baby is claimed to be murdered in each scenario? Cold or cancer, matters not as you are sick either way.
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Re: My Kidney Challenge

Post #26

Post by Purple Knight »

This fails as an abortion analogy because everyone concedes that Sally is alive, conscious, and aware. One of the main points of the choice side is that an unborn fetus is not. Nor is it freeliving, which Sally is, and will continue to be, once she gets my kidney.

Sally is not a parasite living in my body; she just needs to take one bite out of it. If the pro-life side is correct, all a parasite needs is 1) to be a person, full human rights, and then no questions asked it can go inside you and you have to die for it rather than carve it out if that's what it needs to live. I understand that's not what a baby is, but that's what the pro-life argument is: It's a person, taking it out kills it, killing it is murder so QED you can't. It's a valid argument actually but it has some serious consequences.

Now, I have used the argument and I will continue to use the argument that people have full rights to their own bodies, because that's the society we live in. If I was somehow born with 10,000 kidneys I don't need... I get to keep them too bad. It's important that society follows its founding principles, and it's better to have a bad founding principle that's followed than a good one that isn't, because at least in the former case you get equal rights.

But I don't believe I have the right to just walk by a person drowning and let him drown, and I don't believe I have the right to let Sally die either.

The only question in my mind is whether I have to give my second kidney to her twin sister Shally. My answer is probably.

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Re: My Kidney Challenge

Post #27

Post by Wootah »

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #26]

And that is the biggest fallacy of the pro-murder side. None of us is free-living or able to live in isolation from society. Most people are not as alive, conscious and aware as a baby. A baby constantly tries to grow and learn about where it is and its environment, most people in our society don't do that anymore. Babies are way more human than us.
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Re: My Kidney Challenge

Post #28

Post by Kylie »

historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 11:18 am
Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:36 am
historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:05 am
If you cause a car accident, do you think you have a greater moral obligation (as well as legal requirement) to stop and seek help for the people in the other car versus someone uninvolved driving past the accident later?
Do you have any law that states that the person who caused the accident has more duty to render aid than someone just passing by?
Sure, consider Illinois law on this matter:
Salvi & Maher wrote:
Illinois law requires a driver who is involved in a car accident in which an injury occurred to provide “reasonable assistance” to the person who was injured.

. . .

While drivers involved in accidents are required to render aid, this duty does not apply to bystanders or people who witness an accident. Bystanders have no legal requirement to provide aid to people who are injured, unless they have a special relationship with the person who needs aid (such as a parent/child or property owner/guest relationship).
But my question here is not primarily about the legal requirement -- that was just a parenthetical remark.

Rather, I'm asking you if you think you have a greater moral obligation to stop and seek help for the people in the other car in an accident you caused versus someone uninvolved driving by later?
I personally think that anyone who can help should help in whatever way they can. But, I also hold that there is no objective morality.
Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:36 am
historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:05 am
Clearly, there is an important difference between abortion and other medical procedures: abortion uniquely involves two lives, not just one. That gives it this moral dimension that requires a balancing of the rights of the two lives involved based on circumstances -- as is true of other aspects of the law where two people's rights come into conflict. That simply doesn't apply to, say, heart surgery or a broken leg.
But it does apply to a kidney transplant where the recipient is going to die if they don't get one.
Sure, I'm just noting here that your digression about heart surgery and broken legs was not germane.
Only if we consider that a fertilized egg is a person. I do not.
Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:36 am
historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:05 am
So, the less parallel the two situations are the less force the analogy has.
But both analogies can be summed up as, "Does Person A have a responsibility to use a part of their body to keep Person B alive if Person B will die without it?"
Sure, and, since the two situations involve very different moral obligations and different uses of the organs, the two situations are sufficiently not parallel to render the analogy less forceful. What we might decide in one case doesn't tell us what we should decide in the other.
As I've said, morality is, I think, subjective, so while you may consider the morality of using a kidney to keep someone alive and a uterus to keep someone alive as very different, that does not mean that viewpoint is going to be held by everyone, and you can't expect evceryone to view the issue from your viewpoint.
Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:36 am
And would you always choose your own child to save, no matter how many other lives would be lost?
I feel like this line of questioning is growing tedious when I've already answered the basic question.

Let me ask you: Do you think you have a greater moral obligation (as well as legal requirement, see above) to help your own child versus a stranger?
So you think it's morally acceptable to let a plane filled with hundreds of children crash, killing everyone on board just so you can save your own child? How many children does it take before you'd save them instead of your own child?

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Re: My Kidney Challenge

Post #29

Post by Clownboat »

Wootah wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 8:03 pm [Replying to Purple Knight in post #26]

And that is the biggest fallacy of the pro-murder side.
I have never met one of these pro-murder people. Do they want all people to be murdered and the more the merrier, or are these people just desiring the murder of babies? Do they eat the babies by chance? Please help me to understand more about these pro-murder people as I would like to avoid them.
None of us is free-living or able to live in isolation from society. Most people are not as alive, conscious and aware as a baby. A baby constantly tries to grow and learn about where it is and its environment, most people in our society don't do that anymore. Babies are way more human than us.
What are you on about? A baby is not more human than we are.

Human
noun
a human being, especially a person as distinguished from an animal or (in science fiction) an alien.

You start with slander and end with a nonsensical statement. I wonder if you had a point to make.
You can give a man a fish and he will be fed for a day, or you can teach a man to pray for fish and he will starve to death.

I blame man for codifying those rules into a book which allowed superstitious people to perpetuate a barbaric practice. Rules that must be followed or face an invisible beings wrath. - KenRU

It is sad that in an age of freedom some people are enslaved by the nomads of old. - Marco

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Re: My Kidney Challenge

Post #30

Post by historia »

Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 10:13 pm
historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 11:18 am
I'm asking you if you think you have a greater moral obligation to stop and seek help for the people in the other car in an accident you caused versus someone uninvolved driving by later?
I personally think that anyone who can help should help in whatever way they can.
Okay, but that doesn't really answer my question.

I'm asking whether you think you have a greater obligation to provide aid than a bystander. Not just whether you should help, but whether you must help because you are morally (if not also legally) required to do so.

At this point I can only surmise that your answer to that question is 'no', you don't think that someone who caused a car accident has any greater moral responsibility to help the victims than someone driving past the scene later. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 10:13 pm
historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 11:18 am
Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:36 am
historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 2:05 am
Clearly, there is an important difference between abortion and other medical procedures: abortion uniquely involves two lives, not just one. That gives it this moral dimension that requires a balancing of the rights of the two lives involved based on circumstances -- as is true of other aspects of the law where two people's rights come into conflict. That simply doesn't apply to, say, heart surgery or a broken leg.
But it does apply to a kidney transplant where the recipient is going to die if they don't get one.
Sure, I'm just noting here that your digression about heart surgery and broken legs was not germane.
Only if we consider that a fertilized egg is a person. I do not.
You're undermining your own analogy here, though.

Each element in the kidney analogy should represent something in the abortion scenario, right? I take it that the person with the functioning kidney represents the mother. Likewise, the kidney is the womb. And Sally represents the unborn child, right?

Sally is clearly a person. So, if the unborn child (or "fertilized egg") is not also a person, then the two scenarios are not parallel, and your analogy breaks down.
Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 10:13 pm
As I've said, morality is, I think, subjective, so while you may consider the morality of using a kidney to keep someone alive and a uterus to keep someone alive as very different, that does not mean that viewpoint is going to be held by everyone, and you can't expect evceryone to view the issue from your viewpoint.
If I thought everyone shared my viewpoint I wouldn't be on a debate forum debating the issue.
Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 10:13 pm
historia wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 11:18 am
Kylie wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:36 am
And would you always choose your own child to save, no matter how many other lives would be lost?
I feel like this line of questioning is growing tedious when I've already answered the basic question.

Let me ask you: Do you think you have a greater moral obligation (as well as legal requirement, see above) to help your own child versus a stranger?
So you think it's morally acceptable to let a plane filled with hundreds of children crash, killing everyone on board just so you can save your own child? How many children does it take before you'd save them instead of your own child?
Again, I've answered two questions on this point already, and you have yet to respond to my question once. I'm willing to answer your continuing questions here, but not if you're just going to ignore mine. I'm here to debate, not give an interview.

Do you think you have a greater moral obligation to help your own child versus a stranger?

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