|
>...even the men you evoke from beyond the grave to sanction
>& cosign yr beliefs did not fashion their concepts of
>morality around theism?
Kant: "
>
>Kant believed morality was abt reason. Mill believed it was
>abt happiness for all. Aristotle believed God was a concept,
>an idea...a state of perfection where all one's doings were
>activity, rather than process (ie ends in themselves which
>brought happiness, & pleasure as a part of it).
God is
>completely out of the picture for all those three thinkers.
NOT TRUE!
Mill: Mill discusses God quite regularly in his book on the utilitarian ethics. He treats god anthropomorphically meaning that there is a sense of god consciously making decisions...like man. Mill argues that if we do that which is opposition to god, we are not at one with god. If we act against god, we act against ourselves. Mill alludes to the fact that faith is the definition of walking with god.
“The whole force therefore of external reward and punishment, whether physical or moral, and whether proceeding from God or from our fellow men, together with all of the capacities of human nature admit of disinterested devotion together, become available to enforce the utilitarian morality...” Conscience for instance, a mother kills she has a conscience about it.... should indicate what is immoral according to Mill...notice the reference to God.
KANT: Kant argues in the opening preface and chapter of groundwork that Faith supercedes reason, and that God’s will is revealed through reason. On the basis of the fact that Kant’s entire argument is on reason as you conceded, than reason ultimately as Kant said leads back to god, so his whole argument is based indirectly on God! There are many parallels between Kant and mill in this respect. you tried to make it look like i pulled their names out of a hat because you said that they all had diametrically opposing views, but Mill argues too that: “I answer that a utilitarian who believes in the perfect goodness and wisdom of god, necessarily believes that whatever God has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals, must fulfil the requirements of utility in a supreme degree.” Kant, is considered to be a Christian philosopher in many seminaries ...
Mill is not a Christian per se, nor affiliated with any religion known to me, but still exercises recognition of God or the possibility of his existence...
ARISTOTLE:
Aristotle says that happiness is “God-given” because it comes from virtue, which is a “god-like” thing. If his whole argument, in parallel to mill, is based on something (happiness) which is based on god, than the root of his argument, is God! Direct quote: “Happiness seems to be among the most godlike things.”
> if reason, ie a good will is what is
>moral, then something done for any reason other than simple
>adherence to morality is IMMORAL, said Kant. if a pregnant
>mother had her child b/c she wanted to, Kant would call that
>immoral.
..kant says not this, you are taking the total argument out of context, he says this: "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a mean, but always at the same time as an end."
He also says: "Act always on that maxim whose universality as a law you can at the same time will."
so the pregnant woman having the baby because she felt like it would not be immoral, according to Kant because that action is a law which can be willed for all mothers, to have their baby. on the contrary if abortion was a universal law in that it was desired among all mothers, there would be no human race, therefore in going with this premise, abortion is inconceivable.
Mill believed that the greatest happiness should be
>sought, but he never gave a formula for it. that meant that
>it was ambiguous & ethereal...one could never settle for
>certain on a "greatest overall happiness". claiming that the
>killing of a fetus
(especially early on in pregnancy, when
>it barely thinks or feels)
but the word you chose, “barely” leaves room for some thinking and feeling no matter how miniscule...abortion would put a stop to that thinking and feeling, Killing it.
would produce more unhappiness
>than allowing a rapist's spawn to grow, live & be a burden
>to itself, its' mother & its father...would be a very weak
>argument, & i'm sure Mill would be likely to disagree w/
>you.
^^saying that mill would agree with you is a weak argument and a weak evidence its merely hearsay, in seeing you dont know him. Mill’s argument would prove aborting a fetus to be detrimental t the over all happiness:
Resorting to abortion is a means to an end. That end being supposed happiness for the woman. But that woman’s happiness would come at an expense, this being, the woman knowing that she has deprived a life from reaching its rull potential. Mill argues that unhappiness results from choosing the nearer happiness, out of convienence when there was the potential for an even greater happiness. therefore, the greatest happiness was not met. the potential in the hypothetical situation we are talking about is that for the mother to receive a blessing through nourishing a life, and seeing it grow...but as mll says: “Men often, from the infirmity of character, make their election for the nearer good, though they know it to be less valuable.” SO maye the nearer good would be that the baby would not haveto suffer knowing that it was a product of rape, but the greater good, and that good which mill argues supercedes all others, is the good that the mother could have...overcome and obstacle of circumstance, making her victory worth more, giving her a sense of satisfaction, and making her efforts worth more. Also, in this, happiness mill argues comes from satisfaction.....the woman has it in her power to overcome that which has happened to her, according to mill, this means there is potential for a greater happiness than abortion, and electing that route, according tomill, would be more moral...
“All the grand sources, in short, of human suffering are in a great degree many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort.” So whatever pain that they experience is conquerable....according to mill...
“Questions of ultimate ends are not amendable to direct proof. whatever can be proved to be good, must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof.” you cannot prove therefore, that abortion is good...because maybe even though that woman would be free of a burden, the baby would be forever thrown into the eternity of death, and you cannot prove that death is good because if it were greater than life, why dont we wake up in the morning and kill ourselves, no matte how hard our life is?
his theory actually was seen to be somewhat cruel at
>times, b/c it was no respecter of persons -- each person's
>happiness meant as much as the next person's,
you’re wrong, respectfully i say this....Mill was a respecter of persons: “A person in whom the social feeling is at all developed cannot bring himself to think of the rest of his fellow creatures as struggling rivals with him for the means of happiness, whom he must desire to see defeated in their object in order that he must succeed in his.” In a nutshell, you cannot USE others as means for happiness because their happiness is just as important. I beg to differ with you on the grounds that saying every man has an equal right to be happy, is the argument that typifies what it means to be a respecter of persons. With regard to abortion, to kill a baby for your own happiness is using that baby as a means...this parallels with KANT who says not to treat each other as a means but as ends. You tried to paint it as if the two thinkers were totally different, and they are not.
and a fetus,
>which arguably would not have developed faculties of feeling
>by the time initial pregnancy is detected...wouldn't be able
>to experience the depth of unhappiness the pregnant mother
>would.
...this argument is shallow, you are assuming that there is no after life. And if there is no after life, what is the point of being moral in the first place, and what is the point of this discussion. In assuming there is no after life you are assuming the baby has no soul.....if you concede there is an afterlife, then you concede that the baby can feel....its a tricky one.
Aristotle; Aristotle did not believe in rules,
>or absolutes.
^^YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY SPEAKING TO THE CONTRARY OF WHAT IS TRUE!
“Happiness, then, is something final and self sufficient and is the end of action.” The “end” is an absolute!!!!
Aristotle was one of the very first scientists, and as a scientist he bases argument on fact or ovservation. That which is fact is a rule!
Aristotle speaks of those things which are without qualification...he talks specifically about the things that are familiar to us, like happiness, being familiar without qualification...!
“With a true view, the facts all harmonize, with a false, the facts all clash.”
Lets look at abortion through this perspective....people say that a fetus is not a life, and yet a fetus is the initial foundation of you and i as living, breathing creatures, that “fact” clashes, because we did not come from that which was not living—how then can a fetus not be life? How then can abortion not be murder, in seeing that murder is putting a stop to life? That (saying abortion is not murder), in itself, is another clashing of “fact” with what is reality which means the view is false, according to Aristotle, so you cannot reject my point that Aristotle had relevant things to say!
thanks for giving me the opportunity to exercise my mind and challenge my beliefs, cuz now they are stronger!
-Otto
|
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
Freestyle Board 
aight, here's the reason, u real with yours, i am once i bring my guard down, we both stupid as hell, we both got our talents, want a lot of the same things, like a lot of the same things, we both
