Gotta love the extreme right – spew patently absurd inflammatory rhetoric about doctors like George Tiller one minute, and then “condemn” the horror of their murders the next.
Also OMG it’s a new comic!!!
*edit*
Related to this topic: Ben Burgis has a fabulous dissection of Edward Fraser’s take on Tiller’s murder, wherein Fraser at once provides a lengthy argument that Tiller is in fact much worse than Dahmer and thus forfeited his right to live, and at the same time tries to assert (on dubious grounds) that Tiller’s murder was wrong.
Spoiler: Dialetheism once again solves everything!
Is this just ’cause I bugged you for comics on twitter, or were you planning this one anyway? I’m glad someone else observed this hypocrisy. It’s like when people tell me I’m wrong, and why I’m wrong, then when I argue back they tell me that it’s their opinion, and opinion can’t be wrong! Gah!
Sort of both. This one had been in my head for the past week or so, but you bugging me on Twitter was the impetus for me to finally post it. So, thanks!
The “well it’s all just opinion so I can’t be wrong” line is probably my least favorite of the many frustrating conversation stoppers people resort to.
No worries, I think I’m the one that should be thanking you. Ha, completely forgot to mention, really good comic, by the way.
It’s not a bad way to end an argument! And you can’t tell me that it is, because that’s my opinion!
Good comic, because it’s funny — but I’m disappointed by how short the discussion is, though. Maybe everyone’s demoralized by the sheer nuttiness of the incident the comic’s talking about. So I guess I gotta “be starting something”.
Is there actually a valid slippery slope between claiming that abortion is murder, and claiming that anyone who believes that should have the right (or the obligation) to kill abortionists (or “extreme” abortionists, by some arbitrary definition)?
I’d say no.
There’s a few reasons for this.
First, let’s dismiss one group from consideration. A consistent Christian has to follow all the explicit commands of Christianity; and one of those requires submission to rulers and those in authority. This has been upheld, so to speak, during times when those authorities were mass-murdering adult Christians, so there doesn’t seem to be an exception for mass-murdering. Thus, I can’t depend on any explicitly Christian arguments; this is appropriate, because not all pro-lifers are Christian.
There are three moral arguments that I can see in favor of personally killing a murderer. I’ll hit them one at a time.
The first argument is that it’s an application of capital punishment. But capital punishment is the duty and exclusive right of a sovereign power (assuming for the sake of argument that it’s legitimate there). Thus, this argument does not justify a personal killing.
The second argument is that it’s an application of war. But war is, even when not waged according to “just war” theory (which is a Christian concept, and thus not available to me in this argument), a pragmatic concern. And there’s nothing pragmatic about this action; it’s at best pure desperation. The best possible pragmatic result is that you might escape after having done this once; it’s inconceivable that you’d improve the situation in any way. Absolutely certainly, you’d destroy many gains “your side” had made. Most likely, you’d be captured and neutralized (whether permanently in prison or simply killed). Possibly you’d discourage some similarly “extreme” abortionists, but such effects would be swamped by other non-”extreme” abortions (by any definition of “extreme”, it’s rare). Thus, personally killing any abortionist is a poor act of war, and war does not justify a personal killing.
The third argument is that it’s killing a felon in commission. I’m going to simply dismiss this argument, because it’s nonsense — it’s a purely legal argument, rather than a moral one, and it’s totally incorrect: abortion, in law, isn’t a felony. Someone who wanted to argue that it *should be* would have to first successfully make that argument before society — frankly, that argument hasn’t been made even to the satisfaction of most anti-abortion people. And someone wanting to MAKE IT law would be engaging in war, and is dealt with in the argument above. Thus, the law as it stands does not justify a personal killing.
The final argument is defense of self, family, and property. Conceivably, a mother being forced into abortion by her family might lash out at the abortionist; or (more likely, I suspect), a father seeing his wife/girlfriend about to get an abortion against his will might. Such a situation might possibly bring tears to the jury’s eye, but there are a few serious problems. A belief that abortion is murder is neither sufficient to this defense nor necessary for it: a simple proprietary feeling would be as good as a feeling of family, and neither would be sufficient, since in both cases this justification is founded on law, not on feeling, and the law says that if you behave this way you are guilty of murder one. Now, to fully complete this argument I’d have to show that the law SHOULD hold such a person guilty of murder one — but because this comment is long enough, I’m going to limit this proof to merely showing that belief that abortion is murder is not *sufficient* to kill a doctor (and the most I’m leaving unproven is that one would need to have a chance of stopping the killing of a specific fetus related to you). Thus, this argument does not justify killing a abortionist “because abortion is murder”.
Unless I’m missing an option under which willful killing is morally an option or a requirement, I believe I’ve demonstrated that belief that abortion is murder does not imply that one belief that personally killing an abortion doctor is moral.
All right… Let’s go.
-Wm
Oh, I have to occasionally mention decent philosophy comics… SMBC hit one just recently (although it’s generally more geeky than philosophical).
And finally (I hope) a completely different semi-philosophical comic strip (again, the comic itself isn’t normally philosophy-oriented) which might possibly explain how someone could actually accept my argument, and yet murder an abortionist anyhow. Contains 0% philosophical zombies, but may contain trace amounts of other undead.
Wm: I actually agree with you that the view that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life does not necessarily commit one to the view that killing abortion doctors is moral or to be commended. I think if we believe in democracy and the rule of law at all, we have to allow that sometimes the majority is going to support actions that we think are immoral – even with regards to substantial issues like the taking of innocent life. For instance I believe that the Iraq war has unjustifiably cost countless thousands of innocent lives, but I don’t think I would have been justified in killing Cheney or Rumsfeld to prevent it.
However, I believe (and I think almost all of us believe) that there are times when vigilantism is justifiable. For example, if a serial killer were loose and slaughtering hundreds of people, and the government refused to do anything to prosecute him, I think we’d celebrate (or at least not condemn) the vigilante who brought him down. Or suppose our democratically elected leader began the systematic extermination of a race, and there was no way to oppose him from within the system. Would we decry the actions of his assassin? I doubt it.
That’s the target of the comic – the most extreme opponents of abortion who spent years comparing abortion doctors, and George Tiller in particular, to people like Jeffrey Dahmer and Adolf Hitler. When people who spew that sort of dangerously inflammatory rhetoric turn around and act shocked and horrified at Tiller’s murder, it rings a bit hollow to say the least.
BTW nice links, that SMBC comic cracked me up.
chaospet, how can you accept my argument, accept that people reasonably believe that Tiller conducted many abortions, accept that people believe abortion to be murder, and then claim that any mention that Tiller was a murderer is proof of “patently absurd inflammatory rhetoric” on par with Fraser’s (which, by the way, you didn’t even offer as an example when I originally posted — but thank you for pointing to a REAL example, and I’d recommend you link to THAT as “patently absurd inflammatory rhetoric” rather than an overblown Salon article whose self-professed worst example was the term “bloody hands”).
Saying that I believe Tiller was guilty of murder — and I do say that — does not mean I approve of the fact that he was murdered. If the law were changed, we may hope that he would have changed his behavior, and indeed he should have been given that chance.
Your opposition to my *saying* that he was a murderer leaves me with what option? Am I supposed to just pretend to not believe it? If I do so, will it ever be possible to actually dissuade me? For that matter, if neither I nor anyone else can say that, how can I possibly express the fact that it is immoral to murder an abortion doctor — if I can’t explain the reason WHY that murder is immoral?
Wm: You’re putting a lot of words into my mouth. I never said that any mention of Tiller as a murderer is patently absurd inflammatory rhetoric. I said that comparing him to Dahmer or Hitler is. There is a considerable difference. There is room to condemn Tiller’s actions without drawing comparisons to Hitler or Dahmer – for example, one could argue that Tiller simply lacks the correct metaphysical views (about souls or whatever, fill in your favorite view here) to realize that personhood begins earlier than he thinks it does. On this view Tiller is certainly sorely mistaken, but he is no monster – certainly not the sorts of monsters that Dahmer and Hitler were.
Suppose that Jeffrey Dahmer wasn’t ever captured. Suppose he were free and still torturing, slaughtering and eating people. And suppose the government refused to do anything to try and stop him. Would you decry the actions of the vigilante who brought him down?
I certainly wouldn’t. And I suspect that most wouldn’t. And that illustrates just how extreme the rhetoric drawing comparisons between Tiller and people like Dahmer and Hitler is. Say what you will about your opposition to vigilantism – when the rhetoric gets that extreme, it no longer applies.
I have to agree that comparing Tiller to Dahmer (especially the way Fraser does) has all the bad effects you describe. Using Hitler as your comparison point may well be worse. I’m glad you making your reference point for condemnation clear in this comment and in the comic, and I entirely agree with you.
What I’m complaining about is your link below the comic, where you condemn as “patently absurd inflammatory rhetoric” a person whose worst offense (according to the linked article at Salon, I have to take its word because I don’t tend to watch TV) was saying that the doctor had bloody hands. If the use of a very common idiom for being guilty of murder or accessory to murder is extreme, patently absurd, and inflammatory (and equivalent to saying he’s worse than Dahmer), I don’t see what room for dialogue remains.
OTOH, I’m glad to accept Godwin’s law, modified to include references to serial killers. I accept this because what Tiller did was legal and implicitly morally approved by a plurality of Americans; in other words, the guilt that applies to what he did inheres not strictly to him, but also to the people who approved of what he did; and frankly that isn’t a killing offense. The same was true of slavery — killing slaveholders was not a proper way to free slaves or end slavery, nor would comparing them to arbitrarily bad people.
So the solution — for pro-lifers — to fix the problem of Tiller is to change society. I like the fact that your solution for the problem of Tiller’s murderer is the same: change society by urging pro-lifers to shun rabid language.
I think we’re on the same page. Sorry it took me a while to get there.
“I never said that any mention of Tiller as a murderer is patently absurd inflammatory rhetoric. I said that comparing him to Dahmer or Hitler is. There is a considerable difference.”
So it is reasonable to think of Tiller as a murderer.
But it’s “patently absurd” to think of Tiller in any way on a par with Dahmer’s murders.
And it’s patently absurd to think of Tiller in any way on a par with Hitler murders.
Yet given the particularly grotesque – I dare say murderous – quality of late-term abortions, most notably post-birth or “partial” birth abortions (though late-term abortions in general since they generally fall within premie periods of viability), why is it “patently absurd” to think of them commensurately with Dahmer’s grotesque dealings with the dead, with those he had murdered? What quality, specifically, renders it “patently absurd”?
And given the numbers involved over the decades, why is it “patently absurd,” in some prominent respects, to compare him with Hitler?
Why do those comparisons “ring a bit hollow to say the least” when the same persons making those comparisons also disapprove of the type of vigilantism that took Tiller’s life? You state that it does so, but you don’t argue that it does so. You manage to move to your conclusion with rhetorical insistence, with hyperbole and adamancy (***), not via any type of well argued reasoning process.
(*** For example, terms such as “spew,” “extreme,” “inflammatory,” etc. are used, but you never do argue your case whatsoever, much less in a closely, a rigorously argued sense.)
So, care to argue your case, rather than engage in rhetorically enhanced question begging?
Michael: Yes, I agree that one can reasonably hold a view of when personhood starts such that abortion counts as the killing of a person. Establishing exactly what the criteria are for personhood (in the full moral sense of the term) and exactly when/if a fetus comes to possess them is an extraordinarily difficult matter, both philosophically and empirically – and so there is room for reasonable disagreement on the matter. And that is precisely why it is absurd to compare a doctor like Tiller to Dahmer. Dahmer was a demented monster motivated by perverse sadistic desires. He knew his victims were conscious sentient people (in the fullest sense of the term) – and was indifferent to that fact. Tiller on the other hand was simply a doctor with a different view (reasonably held) on a complicated philosophical matter than you. There is no legitimate moral comparison between Dahmer and Tiller – and drawing such comparisons is dangerous and yes, absurd rhetoric that cheapens the debate.
As for your latter question – I already gave an argument in the form of an analogy. I’ll repeat it for you: suppose that Jeffrey Dahmer wasn’t ever captured. Suppose he were free and still torturing, slaughtering and eating people. And suppose the government refused to do anything to try and stop him. Would you really decry the actions of the vigilante who brought him down?
I suspect for almost everyone, the answer is no. And that demonstrates the deep tension between saying someone is the equivalent of (or worse than) Dahmer and at the same time decrying the actions of the vigilante who brings him down. If the comparison with Dahmer is really genuine, then it is difficult to see how such strong opposition to vigilantism in such a case could be.
chaospet,
No. Your analogy is fine and coherent as such, but it doesn’t speak to the questions posed. Rather, it speaks to the tangential issue of vigilantism and the justifications people might use to engage in vigilantism. That’s fine in and of itself, but it does not respond to the questions posed.
A couple of items though as I’ll grant you at least appear to be inclined toward a more coherent and willing understanding:
1) I didn’t broach the subject of “personhood” per se. That (e.g., echoing Peter Singer and others) is a related but different and very nettlesome subject that, in the end and essentially, requires a Gordian Knot solution since it invokes first principles and, ultimately, first principles cannot be argued, rather they reflect precisely that: underlying principles, “dogmas” if you will. I did speak of late term and post-birth abortions (tacitly affirming human life and its destruction is involved), but the issue of “personhood” per se was not broached.
So, unless you’re denying life, biological and human life, is involved, the “personhood” debate is fine, but it obscures the issue of human life per se, which from my own and most people’s pov is not debateable: human biological life is the subject at hand. The “personhood” consideration, while related, is an adjunct to that still more basic issue, one I did not invoke. Hence when you state: “… that is precisely why it is absurd to compare a doctor like Tiller to Dahmer,” you’re again merely engaging in question begging.
2) I do agree, on several levels, that “deep tensions” are involved, but that is precisely the point. Those tensions cannot be resolved via recourse to rhetorical excess and insistence and to the extent you’re seeking clarity and rigor in your argument, that excess should be eschewed since it only leads to question begging and similar forms of assumptions.
Ryan,
There seems to be some slippage going on between three claims:
(1) Not all statements of the view that Tiller was a murderer constitute patently absurd inflammatory rhetoric.
(2) It is reasonable to claim that Tiller was a murderer.
(3) It is reasonable to claim that abortion constitutes the killing of a person.
Originally, you said (1) and Michael B interpreted you as saying (2). Over in the comment thread at my blog, I confidently asserted that you hadn’t and wouldn’t say anything like (2), and, to be be fair, you haven’t yet, but where it gets confusing to me is that you responded to Michael B’s attribution of (2) to you with a defense of (3), which isn’t quite the same thing, and that you did so without denying (2).
My understanding from the discussions we had with M— back when he was getting confused about these issues was always that you thought that the standard arguments against the moral permissibility of abortion were extremely bad, and that belief that abortion is murder (which, together with the fact that Tiller carried out many abortions, would entail (2)) wasn’t rationally defensible. Of course, that view is quite compatible with (1), and I think that, given the plausibility of the standard Judith Jarvis Thompson-type arguments, it’s even compatible with (3). After all, not all killings of persons constitute murder, and in this case, we seem to have pretty compelling arguments for the view that even if, for the sake of argument, fetuses fully count as persons, it would still be morally permissible for women to terminate unwanted pregnancies.
Still, at this point, given the switch-ups….you say (1), Michael B. attributes (2) to you, and you come back with a defense of (3)…I am a bit curious about where you stand on (2).
(Of course, we might want to further disambiguate “reasonable disagreement about whether position Y is the the right view about subject X” from “the most rational position on X is to think Y.” For example, one might think that it’s more rational to be an atheist than a theist, a compatibilist than a libertarian, but given that the flaws in at least some arguments for belief in things like gods and extra-empirical power centers might be subtle and tricky to unravel, generally reasonable people giving the matter their level best might be honestly and even interestingly mistaken about any of these issues. In fact, that strikes me as about the right line about this, so the whole issue might come down to how much you want to pack into your understanding of the phrase “reasonable to believe…”)
Michael:
1) Nobody denies biological life is involved, but it is questionable whether human life is involved. Clearly it is biologically human, but that alone is not enough to establish that the fetus has any moral status. The moral question hinges on whether the fetus is human in the fullest sense – which involves personhood. “Personhood” is undeniably central to the abortion debate; it is why disagreement on the issue is so persistent, and why the comparisons between Tiller and Dahmer are illegitimate. I don’t think I’m begging any questions here, even a cursory look at debate over the morality of abortion bears out the point that the debate typically hinges on issues of personhood.
2) I don’t think there is any rhetorical excess, question begging, or mere “insistence” in using the very analogy offered by folks like O’Reilly and Fraser, the very analogy which I am criticizing. If it’s true that (A)Tiller is morally on par with (or worse than) Dahmer, and it’s true that (B) vigilante action against Dahmer would be justifiable (given that he is free, still killing, and the government is taking no steps to stop him), then it seems to follow that (C) vigilante action against Tiller (in similar circumstances) would be justifiable.
I take it that (B) is intuitively obvious to just about anyone who reflects on it; if you reject this, we may be at an impasse, though at least we’ll have identified the bone of contention. Given that, the people who are asserting (A) should also be asserting (C), and yet we are seeing the contrary – many people who say that Tiller is a monster on par with Dahmer, and yet decry the actions of his killer.
Ben: People are often ambiguous in their use of the term “murder”; sometimes it is used as a morally loaded term (to designate only killings for which a person is morally blameworthy), and sometimes it is used to refer to any killing of a person. In my reply to Michael, I just assumed the less controversial (and more clearly implied by what I had been arguing) reading of (2), which I presented as (3). Looking over his comments on your blog, that was probably a mistaken assumption.
As for whether it could be reasonable to believe (2) given the stronger reading… I have to confess that I am a bit less sure about this, but my strong inclination is that any claim that Tiller was a murderer (in the morally loaded sense of the term) would be unreasonable. Even if you believe (3) (and of course reject Thomson-style arguments), you should acknowledge that the views Tiller is acting on are views of a philosophically complicated issue where there is considerable room for rational disagreement, and this should (at least to a very large degree) be morally exculpatory.
Ryan,
You continue to avoid answering my questions directly and are dissolving into still more confused thinking. Or, perhaps you are moving the goal posts, in which case this has become an exercise in flim-flamming confusion. Nonetheless, the following:
Without overtly stating so, you’re more tacitly acknowledging that first principles are in fact involved. You’re implicitly stating that your own first principles are to be given priority over the first principles of others, but that’s what you’re doing. You’re essentially – consciously or otherwise, I cannot tell though it seems to be the latter – ending the debate via fiat and circumlocution.
Do you accept the fact that first principles are involved, or are you inclined to suggest your own views at that level are the “correct views” and the ones others need to accept as well before they can be allowed into the debate?
And, it is biological human life. It’s biological, it’s human and it’s life. Those are simple descriptive terms and conceptions. The “personhood” debate is in fact philosophically secondary to that still more basic facticity. But here again, first principles are being invoked. In attempting – essentially via a dogmatic assertion that aligns with your own first principles, your own underlying principles – to equate the subject of “personhood” with “biological human life” (or “human life” or “life”) you’re indulging and insinuating your own first principles and stating they need to be everyone’s first principles. Tacitly and unconsciously at least, that’s what you’re doing.
You have also, with Ben’s sheparding now, moved the goal posts:
You previously affirmed: “I never said that any mention of Tiller as a murderer is patently absurd …”
From which I deduced: “So it is reasonable to think of Tiller as a murderer.”
I.e. simply equating “[not] patently absurd” with “reasonable.” Which itself is entirely reasonable, is little or nothing more than definitional. Yet, now you’ve moved on to a different view, have moved the goal posts.
As to the following:
“(A)Tiller is morally on par with (or worse than) Dahmer, and it’s true that (B) vigilante action against Dahmer would be justifiable (given that he is free, still killing, and the government is taking no steps to stop him), then it seems to follow that (C) vigilante action against Tiller (in similar circumstances) would be justifiable.”
All that is true only if some other first principles still are assumed and that only the considerations and logic being presented need to considered, which is silly and which neither I, Feser nor anyone else in that framework accepts.
However, it does appear you’re essentially ending the debate via fiat, via diktat, and there’s no place to go from there.
Michael,
You do a lot of lovely gesturing, with very little specification – particularly for one who rants as much about the use of “rhetoric” as you do. I didn’t respond to your “first principles” chatter because you in no way indicated which first principles you were referring to or how they were relevant to the debate. We could play the “who is doing more invoking of first principles game” – in your assertion that the moral question is connected only to the biological status of the fetus and denying the central relevance of personhood to the debate, you seem to be doing what you are accusing me of. We could debate about which is more central to the debate, but it’s beside the point. I’m not here trying to resolve the abortion debate – my point is only that any such assumptions are questionable and there can be reasonable disagreement about them – which is why the comparison between Tiller and Dahmer is not apt.
In particular, you give no indication of how “first principles” are involved in my claim that if you agree that Dahmer could justifiably be stopped by vigilante action (if the government were doing nothing), then you should also agree that a person who you think is the moral equivalent of Dahmer could justifiably be stopped by vigilante action. It’s a straightforward inference, and you have yet to explain in any way what you think it wrong with it.
If you wish to either explain to me why it would be immoral for a person to stop Dahmer if the government were doing nothing, or explain why it would be ok to stop Dahmer but not Tiller, or explain why there is something wrong with the question (perhaps you could explain which first principles are assumed by the example that you reject), I’d be thrilled to listen.
“You previously affirmed: “I never said that any mention of Tiller as a murderer is patently absurd …”
From which I deduced: “So it is reasonable to think of Tiller as a murderer.”
I.e. simply equating “[not] patently absurd” with “reasonable.” Which itself is entirely reasonable, is little or nothing more than definitional. Yet, now you’ve moved on to a different view, have moved the goal posts.”
I haven’t changed views. I quite clearly explained in my response to Ben the sense in which I agree that calling Tiller a murderer could be reasonable, and the sense in which I disagree with it. Not to mention, there is a pretty sizeable gap between “not patently absurd” and “reasonable”. No “goalpost” moving here, I’m afraid.
“But it’s ‘patently absurd’ to think of Tiller in any way on a par with Dahmer’s murders.”
That’s not quite what he’s saying.
I think he’s saying that It’s patently absurd and inflammatory to equate Tiller’s murders with Dahmer’s murders in *every* way, or by using unqualified rhetoric to allow people to conclude that they’re alike in every way.
It’s not patently ridiculous to equate them in *some* ways, but then the ways in which I could legitimately equate them are pretty tame; I’d quickly decide that other comparisons would be better.
-Wm
“Nobody denies biological life is involved, but it is questionable whether human life is involved. Clearly it is biologically human,”
Clearly you did not mean the first sentence, since you contradicted it in the second.
“but that alone is not enough to establish that the fetus has any moral status. The moral question hinges on whether the fetus is human in the fullest sense – which involves personhood.”
This is legitimate when stated as an ethical principle (one should not willfully kill an innocent *person*). It’s illegitimate when stated as a moral rule to guide daily actions, because it’s not clear what it means to be human “in the fullest sense.” Does that mean that only philosophers are to be protected from murder?
“Personhood is undeniably central to the abortion debate; it is why disagreement on the issue is so persistent, and why the comparisons between Tiller and Dahmer are illegitimate.”
I don’t agree on either point. I think disagreement is persistent it’s a complex issue with two obvious easy solutions at opposite ends of the spectrum, both with huge advantages and neither one completely advantageous. Oh, and because we took the wrong path early; rather than having a law setting forth the hard and fast (but easily modifiable) guidelines, we invented a Constitutional right (one which mysteriously came with a balancing test — how did the founding fathers know to insert THAT into the Constitution?), thus making the Supreme Court a political battlefield and utterly polarizing the issue.
Oh, and the second point: to me, the reason that comparisons to Dahmer are illegitimate is that he is recognized as evil by our audience. What Tiller did (or claimed to do) was seen as decent by as much as half of Americans, and as a “necessary evil” by a strong majority. Unless you’ve got a *specific* comparison, comparing to Dahmer is going to at best beg the question.
-Wm
“If you wish to either explain to me why it would be immoral for a person to stop Dahmer if the government were doing nothing, or explain why it would be ok to stop Dahmer but not Tiller”
I was just thinking about that… I think I have an answer. The law says that Dahmer must be punished. The law says that Tiller shouldn’t be. Both laws are supported by a very strong majority (almost unanimously).
Wow. I think that the comparison between Tiller and Dahmer is absurd partially because the intentions involved. Dahmer had “evil” intentions, I believe most would agree with that. Now far be it for me to agree with the far right, but I think that there is a similarity between Hitler and Tiller, and it does center around what seems to be rather important in this discussion: Personhood.
Allow me to explain before biting my head off, although I will make a few assumptions. First main assumption: In the case of the holocaust Hitler did not see the Jews (and other groups) as people (or having personhood) that deserved the dignity that a person is supposed to have (that is also an assumption). Second main assumption Tiller did not see the late term fetuses as people in a similar way, and in many cases he may not have seen many of them as having the potential to be people because many were likely to die shortly after birth.
Given these two assumptions the similarity is fairly clear. Both Tiller and Hitler had a different perception of the concept of personhood than, say, Michael B. It may even be possible to some how fit Dahmer in there too but I will not try.
I believe that this underlines the importance of personhood in the discussion, if anything here comes down to (or close to) “first principles” (if those are what I think they are) it is the idea of personhood (or at least potential for personhood). Fetuses are people, only Aryans are people etc. Isn’t subjectivity great?
Wm Tanksley: “I was just thinking about that… I think I have an answer. The law says that Dahmer must be punished. The law says that Tiller shouldn’t be. Both laws are supported by a very strong majority (almost unanimously).”
I am of the opinion that the law is supposedly based on morality, but that does not mean that the law is moral or just. And in fact killing Dahmer in an act of vigilantism would be very much against the law itself (no trail etc). Though there is certainly a point about the will of the majority.
I will put forward a reason to stop Dahmer but not Tiller. Firstly Dahmer’s motivation was likely much more “evil” than Tiller’s. I doubt Dahmer thought he was helping people and I also doubt that most other people think he was helping people or doing it for a good cause. Tiller thought he was helping people (supposedly) and many others also believed so (including the people that came to him, whether or not the fetuses were people or thinking anything is debatable). This would put Tiller at a less “evil” level than Dahmer, more of a mercy murderer if you will. Especially if you think that people who are cold blooded murderers who kill for fun have forfeited personhood (I am not sure what I think). Dahmer is undoubtedly the greater evil, and when deciding who to kill it is not better to choose the lesser of two evils.
Secondly Dahmer was more of a pragmatic concern, causing disorder and terror, Tiller was not stalking the street for babies to abort. This falls more under the domain of law though.
That was long, hope I didn’t miss anything. Sorry for the assumptions.
Wm,
“Nobody denies biological life is involved, but it is questionable whether human life is involved. Clearly it is biologically human,”
Clearly you did not mean the first sentence, since you contradicted it in the second.
I did mean it, and there’s no contradiction. But I should have been clearer. The point I was trying to get at is that there many senses of the term “human”, and abortion arguments often equivocate between them (indeed, this is often the textbook example of equivocation). So, while it’s clear that a fetus is human in the biological sense, it’s not clear that it’s human in the sense relevant to its having a moral status.
Does that mean that only philosophers are to be protected from murder?”
No no – philosophers are super-human.
I don’t want to delve too much more deeply into exactly why abortion is a contentious issue – it’s enough for my point that it is.
But as to why Dahmer/Tiller comparisons are illegitimate, I don’t think we want to rely too much on what the majority recognizes or what the law is – it’s too relativistic. Even in a perverse society where the law allows for Dahmer to act as he did and where the majority accepts it, I think we’d still want to say that a vigilante who brings him down is justified.
“Given these two assumptions the similarity is fairly clear. Both Tiller and Hitler had a different perception of the concept of personhood than, say, Michael B. It may even be possible to some how fit Dahmer in there too but I will not try.
I believe that this underlines the importance of personhood in the discussion, if anything here comes down to (or close to) “first principles” (if those are what I think they are) it is the idea of personhood (or at least potential for personhood). Fetuses are people, only Aryans are people etc. Isn’t subjectivity great?”
Let’s grant for the sake of argument that Hitler really didn’t think non-Aryans were people (it’s not so clear to me this is true, but let’s leave that aside). There’s still a substantial difference between Tiller and Hitler – namely, Hitler’s view is completely unreasonable and unjustifiable, whereas Tiller’s view about the status of fetuses (even if he is ultimately wrong) can be reasonably defended.
I never meant to say that Tiller and Hitler’s views on personhood lacked substantial difference, indeed the magnitude of difference is very substantial. I was only saying that given the assumptions there would be a similarity between them at the root of the issue. Even if those roots grow in different directions and different proportions than each other.
Of course as you say we cannot really know what Hitler actually thought on the subject but I feel that I should defend my assumption. Firstly Hitler appeared to not believe that the “inferior races” had as much right to live as the Aryans. The prison camps provided British POWs with better treatment than the Jews simply because of race. The conditions of the camps were made to degrade humanity, and reduce the Jewish inmates to animals. My source for this is Primo Levi’s autobiography. If the Jews were considered people then were seen as not deserving of human dignity or humanity. At least it appears that way So then I suppose we come down to exactly what the definition of “Person” or “Personhood” is.
Thank you for your responses!
chaospet,
Let’s try one issue at a time, to the extent that may be possible.
Contrary to what you’ve now indicated, I didn’t deny the relevance of the personhood debate. Clearly, from varied and sundry perspectives, it is a crucial debate. I denied it is more foundational than the human and life and biology issues since those latter are suppositional/definede terms. I am, suppositionally, stating the fetus is biological in nature, human in nature, and life in nature. Those are suppositional and therein defined terms, not philosophical terms as such.
The personhood consideration is, by contrast, a problematic philosophical issue and debate, essentially, at some point at least, a Gordian Knot type of problem since, dependent upon a priori first principles.
By contrast, you are conflating/confusing the “human life” and “personhood” conceptions, I’m seeking basic definitiional and suppositional clarity before we more on to the more problematic personhood set of considerations. Suppositional terms are precisely that, suppositional and denotative terms, not philosophical issues per se.
Michael,
I didn’t say you denied the relevance, I said you denied the central relevance. But fine, I’ll take your word that that’s not what you want to say. Really, I’m not too interested in a detailed debate of the abortion issue here. The only point I really wanted to emphasize was that the abortion debate is an extraordinarily complex and difficult matter about which there is considerable room for reasonable disagreement, and this is one of the reasons why it’s unjustifiable to draw moral comparisons between Tiller and Dahmer. The fact that we’re wandering astray into a dispute even about which problems are most fundamental in the debate only reinforces my point.
Well, I’ll take you at your word, certainly. Thank you for the exchange.
Having read your comments now at WWWtW, I’ll need to retract the notion you can be taken at your word. Essentially, you want your unargued assumptions (unsuccessfully argued) to be treated as though they have been successfully argued. And we weren’t “wandering astray” when considering basic suppositions/definitions vs. the more problematic philosophical issue of personhood, we were addressing terms and the definitions thereof prior to utilizing those terms when addressing the subject of personhood, when addressing the issues as a whole.
Having read your comments now at WWWtW, I’ll need to retract the notion you can be taken at your word.
This is getting pretty childish.
Essentially, you want your unargued assumptions (unsuccessfully argued) to be treated as though they have been successfully argued.
Once again, you make broad accusations without any specification. What unargued assumptions exactly?
And we weren’t “wandering astray” when considering basic suppositions/definitions vs. the more problematic philosophical issue of personhood
As I stated, I’m not that interested in a detailed debate about abortion. I explained the point I was interested in relevant to the original topic – and I think the exchange until now pretty well demonstrates it. If you care to say something relevant to that point or the earlier questions I raised, or say anything else relevant to the original topic (without the baseless ad hominem shots or unspecified accusations) I’ll be happy to continue.
You asserted and claimed the point, the conclusion, you’re interested in. You didn’t argue it closely, you didn’t argue it rigorously in the least. So, no, the exchange until now does not demonstrates it.
You don’t so much as bother to clarify the suppositional/definitional terms vs. the problematic philosophical issue of personhood distinction that was forwarded in the preceding comment, most notably your earlier confusion/conflation of the personhood problematic with the “human life” term. Do you understand the importance of clarifying, suppositionally, terms, prior to engaging in the more difficult philosophical issue of personhood and related problems. It’s a basic distinction.
Similarly, you haven’t remotely successfully argued a response to the following two queries, posed in my initial comment:
… given the particularly grotesque – I dare say murderous – quality of late-term abortions, most notably post-birth or “partial” birth abortions (though late-term abortions in general since they generally fall within premie periods of viability), why is it “patently absurd” to think of them commensurately with Dahmer’s grotesque dealings with the dead, with those he had murdered? What quality, specifically, renders it “patently absurd”?
And given the numbers involved over the decades, why is it “patently absurd,” in some prominent respects, to compare him with Hitler?
And “childish” as well? Well, yes, if it’s childish to ask you to actually expect a cogent/coherent argument and reply, rather than an indignant harrumph. Whatever.
Correction to final graph?
… to ask you to actually render a cogent/coherent argument and reply …
What I asserted was not my conclusion, it was a premise. Sorry that I didn’t “rigorously” argue for what should be a completely banal and obvious claim – that the abortion issue is a complex one about which there is room for reasonable disagreement. Do you really take issue with that claim?
I didn’t comment on the earlier pair of queries, because in them you attribute claims to me that I did not make. Wm has already explained why.
What I called childish was your “retraction” of the notion that I can be taken at my word based on my daring to disagree with Edward Fraser’s characterization of Ben’s latest post.
And I’ve read Wm’s comments as well as your own and they don’t answer to the questions posed. Or, are you saying it is NOT patently absurd to think of late term and post-birth abortions as commensurate with Dahmer’s grotesque dealings with the dead, with those he had murdered?
Or, another suppositional claim, that “reasonable” and “not absurd” are substantively different from one another. As applied in this discussion, how so? This is another thing you claim via assertion, absent any clarity of terms or concepts whatsoever.
Likewise, you don’t so much as acknowledge the difference between suppositional/definitional clarity applied to the three terms (***) vs. the more problematic philosophical issue of personhood, not even on a conceptual level, much less a specific level applied to the suppositions and arguments at hand.
*** life, biology and human, applied to the fetus. I.e. the fetus is a human fetus, it reflects a biological form, and it reflects life – biological human life. Those are descriptive and suppositional/definitional terms. By contrast the personhood debate is in fact the problematic debate, dependent upon one’s point of view. A Peter Singer might suggest it takes place as much as several months or even a year or two after birth, many others at the moment of birth, etc.
I didn’t say your questions were answered, I said Wm explained how your questions attributed claims to me that I never made. Read again.
Do I really have to explain how there is a substantive difference between “not patently absurd” and “reasonable”? Do you really deny that there can be views about which it is both true that it is not patently absurd to hold them, and yet nonetheless they might be ultimately be unreasonable? It feels like this entire discussion is a massive series of red herrings. Your continued insistence on discussing which issues are more fundamentally relevant to the abortion debate and in which ways they are relevant is another example. As I said already, I am not interested in a detailed discussion of the issue of abortion.
So let’s come back to the issue at hand, and perhaps you can stop dodging my questions. Do you really take issue with the claim that the abortion issue is a very complex one about which there is room for reasonable disagreement? And do you or do you not agree that if Dahmer were free and slaughtering and torturing people and the government were doing nothing to stop him, that the actions of the vigilante who brought him down would not be something to condemn?
Michael B: So the problem is that chaospet has apparently not answered why he sees a comparison between Tiller, Dahmer and Hitler as “patently absurd?” I thought he had said that within the abortion debate there was room for reasonable disagreement due to the complex nature of the issue. And there is very very little room for reasonable disagreement where Hitler and Dahmer are involved. Hitler and Dahmer are viewed as “evil” and for uncomplicated reasons. Both went looking for people to kill in their own way. And I find it very difficult to defend either of their actions as good in any way. The same is not true for Tiller. Some may see what Tiller did as evil but most would probably stop short of calling him evil. He was doing what he, and many others thought was right, including his patients. Now there are those who would disagree with him of course, never mind that many, if not most, of the “human life” he terminated would have suffered and died outside the womb anyway. But the issue is complex with room for disagreement and rational debate on all sides. Now does the question “Was Dahmer/Hitler a murderer?” really have such complexity? Not really.
That is my take on it anyway, and I hope I have understood the discussion so far.
Canuovea,
Thank you. Though I disagree with your premises. Effectively and using the terminology invoked herein, Hitler and Dahmer applied the concept of personhood to suit their own relativistic designs. This gets into an extremely involved set of issues and arguments, but, for example, you’re merely tacitly assuming (rather than positively arguing) that all the fetuses in question are not to be assigned the value of personhood. Again, that is merely one example, but you are tacitly (rather than overtly and transparently) invoking the concept of personhood and (again tacitly) merely assuming (rather than arguing) it’s not an issue you’d need to face.
Again though, thanks for the question.
chaospet,
You simply refuse to hold yourself accountable to questions asked, but are only too happy to pose question. You’re “not interested,” yet you’re interested in asking questions (one of which I’ve answered, and will answer again). Got it. Glad we’ve cleared that up.
But, I’m patient, so to your questions:
“Do you really take issue with the claim that the abortion issue is a very complex one about which there is room for reasonable disagreement?”
No, though that’s such a generic question that it doesn’t mean much at all. The more interesting question is: what is reasonable within the context of specific questions posed and corresponding answers? Only by answering specific questions can “reasonableness” be more realistically and more concretely determined. Reasonableness, in the abstract, doesn’t amout to much. Ok, we agree to be reasonable, and we agree reasonableness is a good thing as a general, abstract principle. That doesn’t add up to much, does it?
“And do you or do you not agree that if Dahmer were free and slaughtering and torturing people and the government were doing nothing to stop him, that the actions of the vigilante who brought him down would not be something to condemn?”
Yes, I agree, though that’s a lot of critical hypotheticals that are abstracted from some very basic realities – i.e. we’d be living is an extraordinarily strange society, entirely unrecognizable from the one we do live in. But, yes, I agree. Regardless though, I don’t agree with the implied equivocation with the Tiller case and murder. I’ll quote from Feser now at length:
“The point is that to anyone familiar with natural law theory, and in particular with the [natural law] approach to governmental authority and just war, it is obvious why a reasonable person could hold both that Tiller was a monster and that it was nevertheless wrong to kill him. Even if someone rejects the line of argument [previously sketched out] … and keep in mind that it is just a sketch, not intended to answer every possible objection – it is unreasonable to claim that no reasonable person could hold it in good faith. Certainly no one unfamiliar with the [natural law] approach to rights, government, capital punishment, just war theory, etc. has any business accusing those who endorse this line of argument of insincerity.”
But your implied response is, essentially: “No, you can’t say that and truly believe it, you can only think and more truly believe and act in the manner I want to impute to you. If you fail to do so, if you fail to assign to yourself the reasoning and principles I wish to impute to you, then you’re just a phony.”
Iow, you insist that your own first principles and purported logic (the direct application of the Dahmer and lawlessness analogy) must be imputed to others in the case of Tiller and if those others whom you’re (in this instance now) willing to carry on a “detailed discussion” with say otherwise, then they’re guilty of insincerity, or something. Iow, you’re willing to carry on a “detailed discussion,” but only as long as you’re allowed to impute your own first principles and reasoning to others. Nice way to argue, if you can get away with it. But you cannot, it’s little more than a grand silliness and arrogation that you’re imposing upon others.
And to this:
“Do I really have to explain how there is a substantive difference between “not patently absurd” and “reasonable”?”
Yes, within the context of the questions asked, you do if you want to be a more serious interlocutor than you have to this point. That’s what happens when a serious give-and-take, a serious discussion wherein all parties hold themselves equally responsible, takes place. So, after I’ve answered your questions at length, again:
… given the particularly grotesque – I dare say murderous – quality of late-term abortions, most notably post-birth or “partial” birth abortions (though late-term abortions in general since they generally fall within premie periods of viability), why is it “patently absurd” or unreasonable to think of them commensurately with Dahmer’s grotesque dealings with the dead, with those he had murdered? What quality, specifically, renders it “patently absurd” or unreasonable?
And given the numbers involved over the decades, why is it “patently absurd,” in some prominent respects, to compare him with Hitler? Let’s limit it to late term abortions only since Roe v Wade and for the sake of simplifying the arguement let’s say Hitler killed six million and there have been six million late term abortions since Roe v Wade. Why is the comparison absurd or unreasonable?
“you’re merely tacitly assuming (rather than positively arguing) that all the fetuses in question are not to be assigned the value of personhood”
As far as I can see, nothing in what Canouvea said relies on this assumption.
“No, though that’s such a generic question that it doesn’t mean much at all.”
It means a lot. As Canuovea explained, the fact that there is room for reasonable disagreement on the abortion issue is a substantial disanalogy between Tiller and Hitler or Dahmer.
“But your implied response is, essentially: “No, you can’t say that and truly believe it, you can only think and more truly believe and act in the manner I want to impute to you. If you fail to do so, if you fail to assign to yourself the reasoning and principles I wish to impute to you, then you’re just a phony.”
That is an inaccurate and childish way of characterizing my argument. I neither said nor implied anything of the sort. My claim is simply that if you accept that it would be justifiable to bring Dahmer down via vigilante action in the sort of case I described, then you are also committed to the claim that it would be justifiable to bring Tiller down via vigilante action. The basis for this claim is not any “first principle” of mine – it is Fraser’s own argument that Tiller is actually morally worse then Dahmer. That’s all. Certainly one could consistently deny that that vigilante action is justifiable in either case, but I think considering the Dahmer case highlights just how intuitively implausible this is. Alternately if you have any sort of argument that, even though Tiller is purportedly a greater monster than Dahmer is, it would be still be justifiable to stop Dahmer via vigilante action but not Tiller, I’d love to hear it.
“we’d be living is an extraordinarily strange society, entirely unrecognizable from the one we do live in.”
If you start with the claim that Tiller was actually morally worse than Dahmer, and given that that government was doing nothing to stop him, this looks like exactly the society we’re living in.
“And given the numbers involved over the decades, why is it “patently absurd,” in some prominent respects, to compare him with Hitler?”
Once again (and for the last time) – your question attributes to me something that I did not say. Wm already explained this: I never denied that it might not be patently absurd to compare Tiller to Hitler or Dahmer in some respects. What I claimed is that it is patently absurd to make one specific comparison: to say that George Tiller was the moral equivalent (or even worse, according to Fraser) of Hitler or Dahmer. I have already explained why more than once, and Canuovea did a pretty good job explaining why as well.
Michael B: First off thanks for the response.
Alright let’s move the ball into your court then. Let us now assume that the late term fetuses are indeed people and they deserve all the dignity and treatment that any person does. Killing them with or without the permission of their guardian (parent) is illegal (as it would be for a child under normal circumstances).
Since Tiller would not simply perform these abortions on demand, that is he would not just abort a perfectly healthy person just because the mother got pregnant and suddenly decided, late term, that she did not like the idea anymore (I got this from a news article, I cannot remember which). Tiller dealt with rape cases and with cases where the baby would not be able to survive once born or would suffer for life or where it might kill the mother (again news article) and even then there was therapy before and after the murder.
This then appears to resemble the Euthanasia debate, except that the child cannot give permission. In some cases if the family members of someone who could not give permission could give it for them and that was fine. Let us assume that is not so and it is still murder.
This would make Tiller appear as more of a mercy murderer. Like someone who sees a person suffering and decides to kill them, in fact exactly that because the baby is a person. Still a murderer though, given the assumptions but even in cases like that described there are those who would sympathize with the murderer. Some would argue that people deserve that kind of treatment as they might say “after all we put down suffering animals, do not humans deserve the same respect?”
What I am attempting to show is that even if Tiller is considered a murderer there is confusion about the morality of his actions, killing a person who suffers is not always considered bad. Therefore I think even in that case there is room for “reasonable disagreement.” Some may say that killing the late term fetus (in the case that it would suffer or die upon birth) is treating it more like a person than if we just allowed it to be born and suffer. Sometimes I wonder if I was suffering and could not communicate would I want someone to kill me? Even if my answer (or yours) is no (I actually am not sure) it might not be the same for everyone.
I believe that this makes the comparison to Hitler and Dahmer “absurd” because no one (I suspect) would call Hitler or Dahmer anything other than a cold hearted killer or genocidal maniac. Tiller can be seen many different ways, but even when we do consider fetuses as people in the full sense of the word the worst that I see he could be seen as is a mass mercy killer (or in the cases where the baby would kill the mother that is self defense). Being a mercy killer can still be viewed as wrong, especially if it is gruesome, but can it really be reasonably compared to hunting down and killing people because they are different? Or just for fun? I personally think it is “absurd.” Although I have already argued that there may have been some small basis for a slight similarity between Hitler and Tiller that was in their view of “Personhood” not in an attempt to equate them morally.
I hope I have made some sense, thank you.
Canuovea,
I believe (I am unclear and do not know with certainty) there’s far greater ambiguity involved in terms of the conditions where Tiller would or would not perform late-term and partial birth (post-birth) abortions. So, at least at this point, I’m unwilling to accept the premises in your second graph. I know what’s advertised, but am also aware there’s at least an alleged difference between what’s advertised and what actually is practiced. I am willing to say that dependent upon the (actual/true) answer to that question, it might have a bearing upon my own valuations. And euthanasia is a similar or related issue, but it begins to blur things even more, so, not to be evasive, but for the sake of some focus I’ll choose to set that aside for now. (I’m not Catholic, but I do take a stand against euthanasia, though I wouldn’t seek to penalize the sufferers themselves via legal avenues. So I will state that much. I will also state that I believe the euthanasia subject, while seemingly attractive from some narrow points of view, gets into some very nasty and nettlesome slippery slopes that become extremely difficult to navigate once that “pandora’s box” in opened. But again, not to be merely evasive, but I’ll set that aside for now.)
chaospet,
You need to set aside the “childish” name calling. I could argue against it, but that would be a further digression still.
In general, you’re dissolving into some basic incomprehensions, as follows:
“As far as I can see, nothing in what Canouvea said relies on this assumption.”
It’s simple. He doesn’t argue whatsoever on behalf of the fetus. He simply assumes it’s not an issue within his line of argumentation, and that’s what I took note of. The fetus, the personhood or lack thereof, is after all central to what we’re discussing.
“It means a lot.”
Yes, but stated as a general principle (i.e. let’s all be “reasonable”), it doesn’t mean much excepting as a very general principle. This is not difficult stuff. Agreeing to be “reasonable,” in the abstract, means little since different people may well be prone to apply different connotations and meaning to the term, dependent upon the specific questions posed and resulting answers. That’s all I was saying.
“My claim is simply that if you accept that it would be justifiable to bring Dahmer down via vigilante action in the sort of case I described, then you are also committed to the claim that it would be justifiable to bring Tiller down via vigilante action.”
No, we’re not, not remotely so, and that’s precisely what I was formulating. Again, take a step back and comprehend better before replying. This notion that others need to abide by your principle, because you say so and because you deem it to be the logic that will be applicable is absurdist nonsense. More on this to follow:
“The basis for this claim is not any “first principle” of mine – it is Fraser’s own argument that Tiller is actually morally worse then Dahmer.”
No. The basis you’re applying and insisting upon is a combination of Fraser’s argument that Tiller is morally worse than Dahmer together with your own adumbrated logic, your resolution (the analogy with Dahmer and the lawlessness scenario). It’s the combination of the two. And we don’t accept your adumbration, we don’t accept your combination, for the reasons given, though that’s a bare bones hint of the overall natural law and related applications. But essentially, we don’t at all accept, nor does society as a whole accept, your adumbration, your combination of Fraser’s basis together with your adumbration and insistency of the logic that must then be applied, as a resolution.
As to your final graph, no, again. Canuovea’s was a sincere reply, but he did not argue or even address the potential personhood of a fetus, of any late term abortion subject, of any partial birth abortion subject or of any post-birth abortion subject. He didn’t address and argue the issue whatsoever. He elided the problem associated with the personhood and potential personhood of the fetus entirely.
As to the patently absurd or not patently absurd distinction, I wasn’t clear about what I was implying by the “in some prominent respects” phrase (especially the “prominent” term, which I intended in a more “pivotal” or “crucial” vein), so I’ll reformulate: Why is it patently absurd to say that Tiller was the moral equivalent of Hitler or Dahmer? I’ve explained three times now why I find Canuovea’s reasoning faulty – i.e. he simply doesn’t address the fetus at all, he merely assumes it’s a non-issue when in fact the human fetus is the very subject being discussed, or one of them. As to your arguments and Wm’s explanation, I again do not see it, but simply put, the following:
Why is it patently absurd to suggest Tiller was the moral equivalent of a Hitler or a Dahmer? Why? I’ve read your and Wm’s comments twice and three times over now in some instances, I’ve responded to Canuovea’s comment repeatedly, and I do not see the validity of the reasoning that you appear to believe to be self-evident.
Thank you.
“He doesn’t argue whatsoever on behalf of the fetus. He simply assumes it’s not an issue within his line of argumentation”
The latter claim doesn’t follow from the former. The only assumption that he needs is that one could reasonably hold the view(and to clarify, I mean something a bit stronger than just “let’s all be reasonable here”) that the fetus is not a person; there is no assumption that it actually isn’t. And this points to why Tiller is not the moral equivalent of Dahmer or Hitler (to answer your last question). Whether he was ultimately right or wrong, Tiller held a philosophically defensible view on an extraordinarily complex matter, and this combined with compassion and concern for the needs of his patients was the basis of his actions. It’s obvious that none of this is remotely true of Dahmer or Hitler, and that is one clear reason why the moral comparison is absurd.
“The basis you’re applying and insisting upon is a combination of Fraser’s argument that Tiller is morally worse than Dahmer together with your own adumbrated logic, your resolution (the analogy with Dahmer and the lawlessness scenario).”
What lawlessness scenario? I didn’t assume lawlessness – I only stated that the government isn’t doing anything to stop Dahmer in my scenario. This could be for any number of reasons. Even if the law permitted Dahmer’s actions – perhaps he the President passes a special ‘it’s ok for Dahmer to kill and eat people’ executive order, or whatever lawful scenario you like – I’m pretty sure the intuitive position is that a vigilante would be justified in bringing him down. Or do you take natural law considerations to rule that out? What of Hitler – he certainly had the support of German law at the time. Should his hypothetical assassin be condemned on natural law grounds?
Michael B: You are most certainly correct that what is advertised is not always what is practiced. I am also aware that anything deserves scrutiny before accepting it as true. Still I find no reason to disbelieve my sources, that doesn’t mean that I totally accept them, but I have seen nothing to the contrary. Then again I have not investigated as much as I should have. Though I should say that if Tiller simply aborted any fetus I would have a problem with that.
Invoking the Euthanasia debate is dangerous I know. Perhaps I should not have bothered. My point was simply that can someone who kills those who suffer (if there is truth in that of course) or would die painfully AS BAD as someone who kills for amusement? Even if you believe that those who kill out of pity (again IF this is true) are evil to say they are just as bad seems at least a little absurd.
This all depends on the truth of the matter of course, but if it were to be made abstract, not Tiller or Dahmer or Hitler, but just someone who kills out of pity for severe suffering and someone who kills for pleasure who is worse? My opinion is the one who kills for pleasure.
My earlier argument was partially to point out the lack of clarity on the subject. There appears to be room for debate or “reasonable disagreement” about whether Tiller was a murderer with arguments for both sides. That is not the case with Hitler and Dahmer. There are different sides to the debate, one focuses on the fetus as a person and one does not so much (or maybe there are actually several sides?). The very existence of these sides demonstrates that there is room for reasonable disagreement. In a sense it was “patently absurd” because among people Tiller’s evil was not quite as clear cut as Hitler and Dahmer’s. But of course this considers society not individuals. To me that is dangerous as well. But as I hope I have argued after that, this opaqueness of evil is not just reflected in society but in the nature of the “murders” as well.
As for the comic itself I figured that what was meant was:
1) the main premise that “People of a certain evilness should be killed” was implied.
2) Hitler was of this certain evilness (I think most people would agree he should be killed or would think it reasonable).
3) The claim was made that Tiller was just as bad, if not more so, than Hitler.
4)The supposed conclusion should be: therefore Tiller should have been killed what was ironic was that the conclusion was TIller’s death was awful.
That is how I saw it. So what Chaospet is saying makes sense:
IF you think that Hitler should have been killed
AND IF you think that Tiller was as bad as Hitler
THAN you would condone Tiller’s death as you would condone Hitler’s instead of denouncing it. If you denounce it than you acknowledge that Tiller was not as bad as Hitler.
That is the logic of it anyway, I think it is valid (though it has been some time since I looked at syllogisms) but I admit that logic is only as good as it’s premises.
I hope I am still coherent as I am getting somewhat tired now.
Thanks for the discussion.
chaospet,
“… there is no assumption that it actually isn’t.”
The point being, he doesn’t argue it one way or the other and it’s not clarified. Arguments like this require a degree of rigor and clarity and a willingness to hold one’s self to the same standards one is expecting of others. Regardless and in general, you don’t respond to questions in anything like a consistent manner. You haven’t so much as clarified your earlier confused/conflated use of “human life” with “personhood,” the former reflecting simple suppositional definitions and the latter reflecting the philosophically complex issue that is reliant, in part, upon suppositional and other bases. So there is not much continuity to your thought. Further, while you’re willing to ask questions, you’re not willing to hold yourself accountable and respond to questions and the result has been a confused melange of various themes being invoked, but little or no resolution in any coherent/cogent sense whatsoever. It’s as if you’re “feeling” your way along each step of the process, avoiding any more truly rigorous reasoning.
Canuovea,
If you believe your sources, fine, believe them. I don’t even know what your sources are am not interested in opening up still other aspects of the debate presently, aspects that are not readily verified.
However, the more central aspect of your comment, where you state in four numbered parts your syllogism. Yes, I understand the logic, and it does in fact get into the central core of the moral conundrums being faced with the subject of abortion. But it doesn’t follow that that’s the logic people will or should apply – due precisely to other factors as I suggested via recourse to the excerpt borrowed from Feser. Let me use a simplified analogy, as follows:
An acquaintance of mine (and thankfully only an acquaintance and not a close friend) committed suicide years back. His suicide was (to make a long and complicated story short) the culmination of a very real medical malpractice situation as a result of one of his physician’s gross negligence that, in turn, made this acquaintance’s life, eventually, unbearable from his point of view. After years of struggling with the condition, he eventually took his life with a .38 round to the temple.
I and his closer friends were acquainted with the more critical details of his situation and, from our point of view as well the from the official point of view, it was in fact a case of gross negligence on the part of the physician. In our minds that physician had effectively destroyed our friend’s life, initially greatly deteriorated the quality of his life and eventually destroyed his life all too literally. His suicide was, effectively, a murder via a long and inexorable process, reflecting a grave injustice and the result of a moral evil committed by the physician.
Yet the physician, due to legal chicanery, got off with a relatively light monetary penalty, and that legal effort itself took a lengthy amount of time. Essentially, the physician got off and justice was not met out via the legal system (as it often is not). A moral evil was not met out with justice.
From our point of view that physician’s gross negligence was an act, effectively, of a type of murder, just as much as at least some who commit first or second degree murder in other scenarios. (In some ways one could argue even moreso since a physician is accorded a special type of trust by society and by the individuals he attends.)
So with those suppositional considerations in mind, you can presumably see where I’m leading. I and his even closer friends could easily argue (and we did, though informally and briefly only) that it would not only be ok, but that it would be just to kill the physician in question on the moral basis that the physician’s wanton negligence, eventuating in a gross deterioration of a life and at the culmination a suicide (murder via a long, inexorable process), was just as morally culpable as someone who more consciously and more directly committed an act of murder, more commonly and more directly understood.
Yet we did not do so (and foregoing, for sake of argument, the legal consequences we would have incurred) due to still other moral considerations, even while we firmly believed and argued that the physician in question was in fact just as morally culpable as some other murderers.
So, is there a certain logic, from a limited and truncated perspective that chaospet’s comic reflects? Well, yes, but no one, other than the murderer himself presumably, actually subscribes to it because there’s an entire range of other considerations at play, and obviously so since the murderer (of Tiller) was a lone wolf, not a part of some conspiracy, tacitly or otherwise, on the part of a group who subscribes to chaospet’s comic’s truncated view. So, in sum, no, chaospet nor anyone else can simply impute his truncated moral reasoning to others who are concerned with the grave moral issues presented by abortion on a societal scale.
Thank you again.
“The point being, he doesn’t argue it one way or the other and it’s not clarified.”
Obviously. You’re the one who brought in lawlessness as a disanalogy – and my point is, whether it’s lawless or not the intuition that it would be justifiable to stop Dahmer is overwhelming. So, you still have yet to explain why there is any real disanalogy with Tiller on the assumption that Tiller is truly morally worse than Dahmer.
“You haven’t so much as clarified your earlier confused/conflated use of “human life” with “personhood,” the former reflecting simple suppositional definitions and the latter reflecting the philosophically complex issue that is reliant, in part, upon suppositional and other bases.”
I never conflated “human life” with “personhood” – I said there was a sense of the term “human” that involves personhood. Repeatedly you attribute things to me that I did not say, and use these false attributions as a basis to call me confused/vague/incoherent/whatever. I notice you did the same thing repeatedly on Ben’s blog as well. It makes discussion with you very tedious.
“So there is not much continuity to your thought. Further, while you’re willing to ask questions, you’re not willing to hold yourself accountable and respond to questions and the result has been a confused melange of various themes being invoked, but little or no resolution in any coherent/cogent sense whatsoever. It’s as if you’re “feeling” your way along each step of the process, avoiding any more truly rigorous reasoning.”
Whatever you say. I’ve answered your questions, and explained my reasons repeatedly. It might not seem coherent or cogent to you, but given that you seem either completely incapable of or completely unwilling to accurately represent anything I say, that’s not much of a surprise. When you’re ready to come back with a reply that addresses claims I actually have made (and doesn’t ignore claims I have clearly made repeatedly), then I will happily continue, but until then I think I’m done wasting energy on this.
I am no apologist for Fraser, but I am one for logic, so here goes:
I think it could be consistent for someone to hold that 1) Tiller is morally worse than Dahmer, 2) A vigilante would be justified in killing Dahmer if the government did nothing, and 3) A vigilante would not be justified in killing Tiller
Presumably, in the Dahmer case the vigilante is justified because Dahmer was doing something against the law, and the authorities were doing nothing. The vigilante is forced to “take the law into his own hands”. However, were it the case that Dahmer’s actions were not illegal, presumably there would be some reason for this law’s existence, and the right course of action for someone who disagrees would be to get the law changed. If some government official made a “Dahmer is allowed to kill” law, then justice would be better served doing something about that government official (and possibly the process for making laws) than by going after Dahmer.
That said, I agree with the main point that Fraser’s disclaimer is dissonant with the rest of what he said, and if he was being a reasonable person he would have noticed how someone could take what he said in “the wrong light” even with the disclaimer.
Hi Thom,
Just curious – if the “Dahmer can kill” law were in effect, and a vigilante did bring him down instead of trying to do something about the government, would you condemn his actions? I wouldn’t. What the law actually is might make a difference to the justifiability of some sorts of vigilante action, but when the rhetoric gets to the level of Dahmer or Hitler it seems much less relevant, if at all.
Now you’ve confused my lawlessness remark (which was simply an allusion to your scenario wherein a Dahmer existed, but law enforcement was not doing anything about it) my “The point being …” remark, which was focused on Canuovea’s unargued valuation of the fetus.
As to the “human,” “life” and “biological” suppositional claims, vs. the philosophical problem of “personhood,” you now evidence the fact that you don’t understand what a simple suppositional claim and resulting clarity involves. You don’t know how to think, in a premise-to-conclusion manner wherein basic premises are properly clarified. E.g., when you state there is a “sense” that the term “human” involves “personhood,” that is precisely the point of suppositional/definitional terms that inform the argument, to clarify and distinguish different and ambiguous senses. You sniff and sneer a great deal, yet avoid precisely those types of clarifications that would enable a more substantial and more probative line of reasoning and discussion to proceed.
Michael B: Source discussions are always tedious, so I am glad we are avoiding that.
Yes the thing about logic is that logic may be valid without being true, or people do not agree on the premises or there are several different versions. My favourite is: The Moon is made of cheese, my arm is part of the moon, therefore my arm is made of cheese. Valid but not true.
However my point is that IF someone accepts that Tiller was as bad as Hitler what is implied (if not explicitly stated) is that Tiller should be killed, because it is likely that most people believe Hitler should have been killed. Or they should at least be happy about both Hitler or Tiller’s death. Satisfied that justice was served. Now if the same people who compared Tiller to Hitler (in a way that made Tiller worse in every way) claimed to be unhappy and disturbed by Tiller’s death it would seem a bit contradictory wouldn’t it? Shouldn’t they be happy that justice would be served? What if when Hitler committed suicide the world went into mourning at his loss of life? (Not because they didn’t get to kill him). That would be odd.
What I find hypocritical is that those who compare Tiller to Hitler seemed to not rejoice that justice was served. Well some do, but that is not the important bit. Those people are at least being honest and upfront.
I hate to do this but, suppose someone else decided to kill that physician for similar but unrelated reasons and succeeded? Against the law yes, but as you said it would be justice. So why say it was not?
Same thing with Tiller. Although to be lenient it was probably just implied that someone of Hitler’s “evilness” should have been killed, nonetheless it was a rather obvious implication in my mind. To say that Tiller was worse than someone who most would say should have been killed and then to cry injustice when Tiller is murdered is hypocritical. In that sense it is not about abortion but hypocrisy. And no matter where you stand, love Tiller or hate him, it still at least appears to be hypocrisy.
Thom Blake: Equating the law to justice or morality is like using a scimitar as a ruler (the ones that draw straight lines, though I suppose making a scimitar a king or president would be silly…).
I have to agree with Chaospet on the subject of the “Dahmer can kill” law. If someone killed Dahmer I would be rather supportive.
Oh, you meant I was now being redacted and censored from commenting here. That’s fine on one level, obviously enough, though it’s one thing to refrain from responding, it’s another to engage in air brushing and censorship such that not only yourself but others as well are “protected” from entertaining unwanted ideas and questions that run contrary to your own views. Petty.
Telling, that.
Canuovea, not hypocritical in the least, not remotely so. To conceive it as hypocritical is to accept your and chaospet’s “logic,” and they don’t do so. I know you want to impute that to them or “us,” but I would likewise not accept the analogy previously provided, of the suicide/doctor scenario wherein someone decides that murdering the doctor via vigilantism would be justified.
Besides, chaospet has been censoring my comments. Telling, that, no?