Is "When Does Life Begin?" a Scientific or Moral Question? Both?

[smac97]

3 minutes ago, Dan McClellan said:

And yet you pivoted away from the demonstrably most effective means to mention only the non-legislative and non-effective one that is part of the "controlling the agency of women" agenda.

Because I find the "'controlling the agency of women' agenda" claim to be absurd.  I couldn't care less what women do to their hair or ears or any other of their body.  Tattoos?  Whatever.  Elective cosmetic surgery?  As you like.  Sterilization?  It's your choice.  And on and on and on.

I hold the concept of bodily autonomy in high regard.  The only reason I think about abortion is because it involves the life of a baby.  I think that is the overwhelmingly predominant concern of pro-lifers.  So the accusation that we (including around half of all women) have some sort of dark and twisted desire to "control the agency of women" is absurd.  Stupid.  I reject it out-of-hand.  I am taking you less seriously for having presented it.

There are reasonable and good faith arguments to be made in favor of elective abortion.  There are also reasonable and good faith arguments to be made against elective abortion.  I can affirm both of these statements very easily.  I hope someday you can come around and do the same.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Dan McClellan]

7 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Because I find the "'controlling the agency of women' agenda" claim to be absurd.  I couldn't care less what women do to their hair or ears or any other of their body.  Tattoos?  Whatever.  Elective cosmetic surgery?  As you like.  Sterilization?  It's your choice.  And on and on and on.

I hold the concept of bodily autonomy in high regard.  The only reason I think about abortion is because it involves the life of a baby.  I think that is the overwhelmingly predominant concern of pro-lifers.  So the accusation that we (including around half of all women) have some sort of dark and twisted desire to "control the agency of women" is absurd.  Stupid.  I reject it out-of-hand.  I am taking you less seriously for having presented it.

There are reasonable and good faith arguments to be made in favor of elective abortion.  There are also reasonable and good faith arguments to be made against elective abortion.  I can affirm both of these statements very easily.  I hope someday you can come around and do the same.

I hope you don't think I'm suggesting your perspective isn't reasonable and good faith just because I'm criticizing it. If so, I apologize for not being more clear about how patiently and reasonably I think you've addressed these issues. I think you've set forth a very thoughtful critique of my concerns, but that does not mean they operate independently of identity politics. No arguments do, and I certainly don't exempt myself. Every last one of us and every last one of our arguments is influenced by our social identities, and like it or not, the vast majority of the anti-abortion argument is built on a foundation of right wing authoritarian identity politics, which is absolutely aimed at prioritizing the agency of men over women. The fact that abortion is socially salient in today's political is the direct work of those politics. If you have consciously endeavored to steer clear of RWA and SDO ideologies, I sincerely congratulate you, but pivoting to persuasion rather than to the provision of information and resources is one of their tactics, as is opposition to emergency contraception, which does not even function after the point of conception and therefore precedes the threshold of life you assert. To employ this rhetoric, thoughtfully or otherwise, is to appeal to right wing authoritarian identity politics. It's sprinkled around your argument. If it's not what compels you, great, but I would expect to see more thoughtful engagement with how identity politics influence us.

[Dan McClellan]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Ok, agree.

But what I was attacking was the posters allegation that it was his personal opinion which perfectly described our culture's social conventions with his statement "Here's how it is."

And now smac raises the issue of whether or not a social convention permitting rape is always malum in se.

I am a Gadamer guy and understand and agree with his hermeneutics, so you can probably deduce that I am all about social convention.

So here is a passage that I am sure you will be able to help us with the interpretation of social conventions:

Numbers 31 15

"And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?

¹⁶ Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.

¹⁷ Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

¹⁸ But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

Was that justifiable rape based on social convention?

I don't think so (but I also think this is rhetoric, not history). The notion of "justifiable rape" certainly had circulation during slavery, but that doesn't mean there weren't plenty of people who recognized it was abhorrent and despicable.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Dan McClellan said:

I don't think so (but I also think this is rhetoric, not history). The notion of "justifiable rape" certainly had circulation during slavery, but that doesn't mean there weren't plenty of people who recognized it was abhorrent and despicable.

Interesting idea- who was the rhetoric supposed to impress- or what might be its purpose?

Just to scare the ____ out of those in the future who might be tempted to go after false gods? 

[Glenn101]

On 7/15/2019 at 5:17 PM, rpn said:

No.   I think a reasonable compromise is  that after 24 or 26 weeks, it should be illegal except for rape, incest, and health of the mother and child's ability to life until birth.   I just don't think that there should be any criminal or civil penalty or forced outing of her for shaming,  for the woman who is involved in an "illegal" abortion.   I would not oppose criminal or civil penalties to drs who perform such procedures, though not those the dr supervises.   And I support a requirement to treat all aborted material reverently and NOT allow sale of it.

Thanks for that insight into your thinking. I have a bit different perspective. It involves the morality of the issue and from there we would get into the issues of religious morality versus relative morality of culture and society.

Glenn

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, Dan McClellan said:

Like it or not, the vast majority of the anti-abortion argument is built on a foundation of right wing authoritarian identity politics, which is absolutely aimed at prioritizing the agency of men over women.

This seems like a very narrow view of an issue that exists in multiple forms across the globe and which has a history that predates anything any reasonable person would label 'right-wing authoritarian identity politics'.

[Calm]

9 hours ago, pogi said:

one is denying life to that spirit person either way.  

In that body, but don't we assume another body will be given it?

[Storm Rider]

2 hours ago, Dan McClellan said:

And yet you pivoted away from the demonstrably most effective means to mention only the non-legislative and non-effective one that is part of the "controlling the agency of women" agenda.

That's pretty petty rhetoric. No one unilaterally thinks for themselves. Every human that has ever lived and will ever lives is governed by their socio-material relationships. Some people prioritize certain social identities and others prioritize others. The fact that the women who oppose abortion are in the minority is not a reflection of a lack of thinking, it's just a reflection of the intuitive perception of greater social capital and/or self-realization in internalizing and defending an anti-abortion ideology. Any one of a number of experiences or relationships could point someone in that direction or in another direction. If people were just aware of these dynamics instead of pretending they magically operate free from contexts, values, and biases, these discussions could be much more fruitful. Rather, we get the kind of deflective rhetoric above, which doesn't address my concern, but just attempts to obfuscate by using a strawman as a way to attempt to leverage the perception of my desire to appear politically correct. 

Just curious, have you ever met a perfect human? Have you ever met a perfect woman? I have not. We have laws that govern humans; we restrict their actions, we force them to act in specified ways. Yet, when it comes to a woman, then somehow this benighted, all-knowing being takes over and we should just trust to do what is best for society? Why? 

We are talking about the human that chose to engage in activity that would result in a pregnancy. If she was such a superior being, why did she just chose not to get pregnant. I know a method that is 100% guaranteed to never put any individual or couple in a situation where they will be pregnant. Which brings up a second issue - that individual female did not get pregnant by herself. Where is her partner's input in all this?  He is financially liable once the baby is born, but somehow loses all rights during gestation. Why? Who wrote that in the book of thou shalt and thou shalt not?  

I wish society and humans were so perfect as you propose. I wish that women were so noble that we could trust them to choose what is best for the human race. What we trust them to do is to take care of themselves up to the point that they are not making decisions for another being. Simply because that being is dependent upon her for a gestational period, does not obliviate that individual's rights. 

[Dan McClellan]

19 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

This seems like a very narrow view of an issue that exists in multiple forms across the globe and which has a history that predates anything any reasonable person would label 'right-wing authoritarian identity politics'.

But in that history, the notion of extending personhood all the way to conception and prohibiting all abortion as a result is largely a contemporary innovation that is the result of the function of opposition to abortion as an identity marker. We saw it in 2016 as Republican primary candidates were tripping over each other to see who could endorse the most extreme "no exceptions" abortion policy. Those were credibility enhancing displays for the sake of increasing their social capital among groups they know value that kind of thing.

[Dan McClellan]

13 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

Just curious, have you ever met a perfect human? Have you ever met a perfect woman? I have not. We have laws that govern humans; we restrict their actions, we force them to act in specified ways. Yet, when it comes to a woman, then somehow this benighted, all-knowing being takes over and we should just trust to do what is best for society? Why? 

We are talking about the human that chose to engage in activity that would result in a pregnancy. If she was such a superior being, why did she just chose not to get pregnant. I know a method that is 100% guaranteed to never put any individual or couple in a situation where they will be pregnant. Which brings up a second issue - that individual female did not get pregnant by herself. Where is her partner's input in all this?  He is financially liable once the baby is born, but somehow loses all rights during gestation. Why? Who wrote that in the book of thou shalt and thou shalt not?  

I wish society and humans were so perfect as you propose. I wish that women were so noble that we could trust them to choose what is best for the human race. What we trust them to do is to take care of themselves up to the point that they are not making decisions for another being. Simply because that being is dependent upon her for a gestational period, does not obliviate that individual's rights. 

This strikes me as a pretty textbook example of appealing to the "controlling female agency" agenda. What about the man? Men bear the primary if not unilateral responsibility for unwanted pregnancies, so why is their burden less than the woman's or entirely non-existent? Insisting we need to control women puts the burden squarely on their shoulders when they bear far less of the responsibility. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

22 minutes ago, Dan McClellan said:

But in that history, the notion of extending personhood all the way to conception and prohibiting all abortion as a result is largely a contemporary innovation that is the result of the function of opposition to abortion as an identity marker.

With all due respect, you seem unaware of the actual history of this issue. Across both time and space, one finds myriad responses to the matter of intentionally terminating a pregnancy, including prohibiting all abortion -- in some cases based on 'the notion of extending personhood all the way to conception'.

Quote

We saw it in 2016 as Republican primary candidates were tripping over each other ...

I'll need to read this an an exclusive 'we'. I don't live in America, so I didn't see this. Moreover, I hold a PhD in non-Western history, so I'm disinclined to see this from an American-centric perspective full-stop. It seems to me that you've reduced the historical complexity of this issue to a simple projection of your current dislike for the American Republican Party -- which in turn appears to function as an important marker of your social identity.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Hamba Tuhan

[Dan McClellan]

4 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

With all due respect, you seem unaware of the actual history of this issue. Across both time and space, one finds myriad responses to the matter of intentionally terminating a pregnancy, including prohibiting all abortion -- in some cases based on 'the notion of extending personhood all the way to conception'.

Can you show me some examples that were socio-culturally salient?

Quote

I'll need to read this an an exclusive 'we'. I don't live in America, so I didn't see this. Moreover, I hold a PhD in non-Western history, so I'm disinclined to see this from an American-centric perspective full-stop. It seems to me that you've reduced the historical complexity of this issue to a simple projection of your current dislike for the American Republican Party.

That's a fair criticism. I am addressing a primarily American phenomenon because the current discourse in our country is an outgrowth of a movement that developed in the 1970s to stir up a more politically active religious right.

[Hamba Tuhan]

42 minutes ago, Dan McClellan said:

Can you show me some examples that were socio-culturally salient?

Hassan Yarmohammadi, Arman Zargaran, Azade Vatanpour,  Ehsan Abedini and Siamak Adhami, 'An investigation into the ancient abortion laws: comparing ancient Persia with ancient Greece and Rome', in Acta Medico-Historica Adriatica, 11:2 (Feb. 2013), 291–98.

[Storm Rider]

1 hour ago, Dan McClellan said:

This strikes me as a pretty textbook example of appealing to the "controlling female agency" agenda. What about the man? Men bear the primary if not unilateral responsibility for unwanted pregnancies, so why is their burden less than the woman's or entirely non-existent? Insisting we need to control women puts the burden squarely on their shoulders when they bear far less of the responsibility. 

Pot meet kettle - LOL and you turn around and use textbook, feminist jargon. Men are the "primary if not unilateral responsibility" - Friend, you do know how babies are made right? Okay, please go back and reread that part about an egg and a sperm. That man thing is just 1/2 of the mix. What on earth have you been reading?!?  This is just scary silly.

What is so hard about discussing something that takes place between two individuals and a joint problem? It is not unilateral. The argument is consistently, if a woman carries the baby it is her decision 100%, but, boy, let that child enter into the world and, "Daddy, get out your checkbook!"  

I think both parties should bear responsibility at all times and laws should be written in accord with that position. That includes care for the child as well as what is happening to the child during gestation. 

[Storm Rider]

19 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Hassan Yarmohammadi, Arman Zargaran, Azade Vatanpour,  Ehsan Abedini and Siamak Adhami, 'An investigation into the ancient abortion laws: comparing ancient Persia with ancient Greece and Rome', in Acta Medico-Historica Adriatica, 11:2 (Feb. 2013), 291–98.

1,000 points!!!

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, Storm Rider said:

This border issue is interesting to me. My professional career was in real estate investment management. I have an expert, intimate understanding of what it costs to build and maintain multifamily housing. FIrst, we are talk about a foreign people that are essentially invading another country in the attempt to abuse that nation's laws to gain entry i.e. asylum for economic benefits. Somehow, you assume that we need to magically have hundreds of thousands of family units available because these same individuals have children in tow - now many of those children belong legally to the adults is in question.  

Where does this money come from? Who is ready to spend the billions of dollars to construct the housing so that we can just willy-nilly care for illegal immigrants?  I am unaware of a single, major US city that does not have a homeless problem. You posit that we need to care for foreigners and ignore our own homeless. Why?  

If we could, it would be better to immediately load every illegal entry into the nation that would be sent to shelters, back on airplanes, trains, buses and take them back to their country of origin. 

It is not feasible for any country on the face of the earth to house illegal aliens. No nation can afford this degree of onslaught. Much better that our do-nothing Congress immediately institute a workable immigration policy, perfect the asylum laws, allow for a viable green card system, etc. to accommodate a feasible number of immigrants to the nation. 

Lastly, the only individual responsible for children entering into this nation illegally are the adults who brought them. No one else. 

I support a single-payer, national health policy that supports comprehensive health care for each citizen. If an individual demonstrates they are incapable of caring for the children they bring into this world - male and female - I have no problems sterilizing those individuals. With a national health policy, I see no need for abusers of the system. To be clear, I have a niece with three children under the age of six, unmarried, was unsure who the father was of the first child, and two other children came from the same man. The man is responsible for numerous children from multiple women and he should be sterilized along with those mothers that have similarly demonstrated an inability to care for multiple children out of wedlock. 

I guess you missed my point  entirely, oh Rider of Storms:

I am not interested in why people are so desperate that they leave their homes and come to the USA, even though I understand that desperation -- MS 13 is making life a living hell for ordinary people in El Salvador.  It is a matter of life and death.

What interests me is that these people are treated like rats and that we act like Sadducees and Pharisees, as though holding them in squalor is OK, thus violating our own ethical and moral norms.  Jesus wouldn't be making excuses.  He'd be taking action.  Our Church normally takes action in emergencies, and doesn't ask whether the needy are deserving, be it in a flooded New Orleans or in Haiti, and we are not the only ones who do so.  LDS Welfare Services responds worldwide without asking whether the needy are members of our Church.

We are not speaking foolishly about open borders, or granting healthcare to all who wish, but merely some food, water, and proper care of families in dire straits in ICE border facilities.  I said nothing about building houses.  I said tents and showers.  Our military has some very good ones which are portable.  We have used them in Africa during some health crises there.  Do you recall that at all?  How about ministering compassionately to these people at the border?  Do we really care, or is it all just talk?

In fact, in the past, those arriving at our border are normally in better health than our ordinary American citizens.  Why?  Because they do not eat processed foods and they work at hard physical labor.  That leaves them much healthier than the average American Joe.  They honor marriage and children much better than most Americans, and they are much more loyal.  You seem to have a number of false projections on what these people represent and who they are.  They are not the spoiled rich kids who inhabit our tabloids.

[Dan McClellan]

11 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Hassan Yarmohammadi, Arman Zargaran, Azade Vatanpour,  Ehsan Abedini and Siamak Adhami, 'An investigation into the ancient abortion laws: comparing ancient Persia with ancient Greece and Rome', in Acta Medico-Historica Adriatica, 11:2 (Feb. 2013), 291–98.

Thanks for that paper. In trying to track down some of the sources cited, it seems to me the issue is fuzzier than the article makes it seem. For instance, it cites A Medical History of Persia and the Eastern Caliphate regarding the crime of abortion, but that text states, "Whether in the earliest stages of the pregnancy abortion was forbidden seems uncertain, for the Avesta lays down that a foetus received a soul after four months and ten days of pregnancy." I don't see any explicit indication that personhood was extended to conception. Another portion cites a passage in the Arda Viraf, but the translations I consulted vary between understanding the passage as a reference to abortion or infanticide. The references to the woman being haunted by the cries of the infant seem to muddy that water, and certainly don't indicate the extension of personhood clear back to conception. The article asserts, "In Zoroastrianism foetal life was deemed to begin with fertilization, and guardians were supposed to look after the mother from as soon as her pregnancy was known." There is no reference, however. 

Muddiness aside, I am willing to acknowledge that there were societies where personhood extending all the way to fertilization may have been normative, but I do have to take issue with the notion that the cognitive orientations we label right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation are not identifiable in the ancient and non-Western worlds. These were actually more common where theocratic and patriarchal hierarchies dominated, which certainly seems to be the case in the societies I saw described in the paper. Those societies are outside my area of specialization, though, so I expect the story is ultimately more complicated than that, but I don't think I would significantly alter my claim, even if it was more narrowly focused on a particular context.

[Dan McClellan]

18 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

Pot meet kettle - LOL and you turn around and use textbook, feminist jargon. Men are the "primary if not unilateral responsibility" - Friend, you do know how babies are made right? Okay, please go back and reread that part about an egg and a sperm. That man thing is just 1/2 of the mix. What on earth have you been reading?!?  This is just scary silly.

What is so hard about discussing something that takes place between two individuals and a joint problem? It is not unilateral. The argument is consistently, if a woman carries the baby it is her decision 100%, but, boy, let that child enter into the world and, "Daddy, get out your checkbook!"  

I think both parties should bear responsibility at all times and laws should be written in accord with that position. That includes care for the child as well as what is happening to the child during gestation. 

I do happen to know how babies are made. A male ejaculates inside the vagina of a woman. Tell me, what circumstance predominates in unwanted pregnancies, a man ejaculating without a woman's consent/knowledge and not being concerned about whether or not she gets pregnant, or a woman forcing a man to ejaculate without his consent/knowledge and without wanting to be pregnant? This is a very, very easy question to answer. 

I'd agree with you about both parties needing to bear equal responsibility, but that absolutely will not happen in our culture anytime near our lifetime, and I bet you can tell me precisely why the law for the foreseeable future will overwhelmingly privilege the interests of men.

[mfbukowski]

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Edited July 17, 2019 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

8 hours ago, Dan McClellan said:

That's pretty petty rhetoric. No one unilaterally thinks for themselves. Every human that has ever lived and will ever lives is governed by their socio-material relationships. Some people prioritize certain social identities and others prioritize others. The fact that the women who oppose abortion are in the minority is not a reflection of a lack of thinking, it's just a reflection of the intuitive perception of greater social capital and/or self-realization in internalizing and defending an anti-abortion ideology. Any one of a number of experiences or relationships could point someone in that direction or in another direction. If people were just aware of these dynamics instead of pretending they magically operate free from contexts, values, and biases, these discussions could be much more fruitful. Rather, we get the kind of deflective rhetoric above, which doesn't address my concern, but just attempts to obfuscate by using a strawman as a way to attempt to leverage the perception of my desire to appear politically correct. 

That appears to be essentially the "death of man" hypothesis which relies on the total contingency of the self, which I think is no longer a tenable argument.  I think Chantal Bax has pretty well nullified that way of seeing the world in this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Subjectivity-After-Wittgenstein-Post-Cartesian-Philosophy-ebook/dp/B00N2MSYTW/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=chantal+bax+death+of+man&qid=1563336702&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Her argument is essentially that despite the obvious truth that we are all socially conditioned to a degree, there is enough diversity in our personal experience to overcome it all and remain what we might call in the church "free agents".

Part of it is involved in the varieties of ways in which language can be interpreted- that two individuals with similar backgrounds can differ widely in their opinions.

I think this thread itself pretty much proves that

https://chantalbax.wordpress.com/about/

Edited July 17, 2019 by mfbukowski

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Dan McClellan said:

Tell me, what circumstance predominates in unwanted pregnancies, a man ejaculating without a woman's consent/knowledge and not being concerned about whether or not she gets pregnant, or a woman forcing a man to ejaculate without his consent/knowledge and without wanting to be pregnant?

The most common/dominating circumstance is likely mutual nonconcern about whether pregnancy occurs due to mutually consenting sex.  Forced sex of women by men is more common than the reverse, but unfortunately nonconsenual sex with a woman as perpetrator is not uncommon ( https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/the-understudied-female-sexual-predator/503492/ )

In that case responsibility and thus decisionmaking needs to be shared imo, but I would weight a woman's concerns about her short and long term physical health and impact on her life higher in most areas due to the fact she can't walk away and refuse to accept responsibility for 9 months outside of abortion.  And it is unpredictable and out of her control to a great extent, while financial and social situations are for the most part more predictable and controllable....at least as much as in a nonpregnant scenario.

I think a man's concerns on how it will affect his long term financial and social situation should be weighted the same as the woman's financial and social costs assuming they both agree if the baby is carried to term, both will choose to be equally involved....though the career costs for a woman to have children may often be much higher than a man, even in just perception of being willing to commit to a career (especially in some cultures***).  If the man does not have a history of being responsible, given it is more likely the woman will be responsible for the child even if she isn't particularly responsible herself except when she chooses to give it up, again I would weight her concerns higher.  If the reverse is true, the woman is an addict or something similar and the man more likely to become a single parent, personally I would weight his long term concerns more....but even with long term potential equality, the fact the fetus is a physical part of the woman for 9 months and will have long term physical impact on her and sometimes in highly detrimental ways, the fact of pregnancy is of much, much greater concern to the woman than the man even if parenthood concerns might be equal.

I don't think a man can truly understand the emotional and physical impact that pregnancy has on a woman.  Complain to God if you think that unfair. (There are undoubtedly somethings a woman may not be able to understand, but I can't think of anything major at the moment that can't be faked by drugs to some extent; for example high testosterone can be injected).

***https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/12/18/asia-pacific/social-issues-asia-pacific/no-place-mother-south-korea-battles-raise-birthrate/#.XS6qiNHF2hA

Edited July 17, 2019 by Calm

[Anijen]

On 7/15/2019 at 1:04 PM, Dan McClellan said:

"... and even this paper (which does not appear to have been peer-reviewed or published)..." 

Emphasis mine in both quotes..

SMAC wrote: 

Quote

... Jacobs finally published his study into biologists' opinions on whether life begins at conception. That study won him a Ph.D.,...

 

Just a small curious question, I sincerely would like to know; if the paper is a Phd dissertation, (as SMAC mentioned in the OP), does that not mean it was peer reviewed by the Phd holders evaluating that dissertation and I always thought dissertations in their nature is a form of publishing?

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

That appears to be essentially the "death of man" hypothesis which relies on the total contingency of the self, which I think is no longer a tenable argument.  I think Chantal Bax has pretty well nullified that way of seeing the world in this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Subjectivity-After-Wittgenstein-Post-Cartesian-Philosophy-ebook/dp/B00N2MSYTW/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=chantal+bax+death+of+man&qid=1563336702&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Her argument is essentially that despite the obvious truth that we are all socially conditioned to a degree, there is enough diversity in our personal experience to overcome it all and remain what we might call in the church "free agents".

Part of it is involved in the varieties of ways in which language can be interpreted- that two individuals with similar backgrounds can differ widely in their opinions.

I think this thread itself pretty much proves that

https://chantalbax.wordpress.com/about/

I thought I would continue this thought in giving an example of Bax's reasoning.

Sorry, but a good knowledge of Wittgenstein is somewhat necessary but I want to include this anyway.   

http://www.illc.uva.nl/Research/Publications/Dissertations/DS-2009-06.text.pdf, page 17

Quote

My reading of On Certainty proper then starts by discussing the way in which the child is prepared to become a full-blown participant in the community’s practices, according to the analysis offered in these writings. I will point out that Wittgenstein takes a person’s ability to doubt and question things to be dependent on and constrained by the certainties she acquires through a socialization process. However, as I will go on to show, he does not take the subject’s worldview to be entirely socially construed. According to Wittgenstein, an infant almost automatically incorporate its elders’ certainties but that is made possible by an instinctive trust that comes with its own basic presuppositions. This perspective gets refined and enhanced to correspond to the community’s certainties, but the child’s inborn capacities may prevent complete conformity from ever being reached. Wittgenstein’s naturalism prevents him from holding that the subject is the mere and utter product of its upbringing. Moreover, if no process of initiation ensures that it is the exact same things that the members of a community come to take for granted, the world picture that is conveyed to children need not make for a monolithic unity to begin with. According to the account offered in On Certainty, in other words, a community’s world picture may not exactly form a clear and distinct whole, showing variations between the one member and the next. And, as I will argue, this also suggests how a person might come to take a step back from the certainties he or she inherited. The heterogeneity possibly present in a community provides opportunities for realizing that things could also be seen differently, thereby breaking the unquestionability of what one takes to stand fast. Wittgenstein may consider world pictures to largely be a matter of convention, he does not claim that the subject is unable to break with the customs and conventions it always already finds itself entangled in. Rather than comparing it to the way a machine is built up out of its components or a body is composed of its parts, the relationship between individual and community as it is at work in Wittgenstein’s writings can be captured by means of the fibre-and-thread analogy he originally uses to explain the way our concepts are no fixed and rigid entities. 18 C

So with a diversity of inputs we weave our own tapestries of our perceptions of "reality" following the LDS concept of "creating worlds from matter unorganized"

So no, we are not completely contingent beings - we retain the abilities to be actors and not objects which are acted upon.

[california boy]

12 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I don't see how that follows. Again my analogy to shooting into a box without checking to see if a person is inside. Not being able to check is not a justification to shoot. Instead it is a justification that you shouldn't shoot. To say that it should be up to the shooter since anyone else doesn't know either strikes me as a deeply problematic argument.

Like I said, A very even handed approach.  That doesn't mean that I agreed with everything you wrote.  I personally don't think your shooting in a box analogy works.  If we never did anything that we didn't know the answer to already, what would the world look like today?

Isn't that why we let people believe even in things they don't know are facts?  If a person believes there might be a person in the box, then they shouldn't shoot into it.  If a person believes there is no person in the box, then there is no moral decision to be made.  

All of this discussion comes down to personal belief.  Whether one group is entitled to force their personal beliefs on others just seems wrong.  The side that believes there is yet to be an actual person in the fetus is not forcing others to abide by that belief.

Like many here, I personally would never participate in an abortion.  But I don't think I have the right to force that belief on others until something more than personal opinion can show that the spirit is actually in the fetus.  Because that for me is the factor.  A body without a spirit is just a body.  It is exactly how we feel when someone dies.  Just a body.  Elvis has left the room.

Edited July 17, 2019 by california boy

[Dan McClellan]

6 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

That appears to be essentially the "death of man" hypothesis which relies on the total contingency of the self, which I think is no longer a tenable argument.  I think Chantal Bax has pretty well nullified that way of seeing the world in this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Subjectivity-After-Wittgenstein-Post-Cartesian-Philosophy-ebook/dp/B00N2MSYTW/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=chantal+bax+death+of+man&qid=1563336702&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Her argument is essentially that despite the obvious truth that we are all socially conditioned to a degree, there is enough diversity in our personal experience to overcome it all and remain what we might call in the church "free agents".

Part of it is involved in the varieties of ways in which language can be interpreted- that two individuals with similar backgrounds can differ widely in their opinions.

I think this thread itself pretty much proves that

https://chantalbax.wordpress.com/about/

I'd recommend looking into dual-process cognition, which demonstrates that our cognition occupies a spectrum between the intuitive and the reflective. Evolution and shared patterns of human experience create a high degree of consistency on the intuitive side of our cognition, which is more automatic, faster, and subconscious. This cognition bleeds into that cognition over which we have conscious control, which is where that diversity of personal experience comes into play. The two poles of this spectrum frequently conflict, and we can take one of two approaches when that happens. We can decouple, which is when our reflective cognition overrules our intuitive, or we can rationalize, which is when the reflective side buttresses and defends the intuitive. Identity politics is a function of intuitive cognition, so while we may come up with a myriad of different ways to explain, rationalize, or defend it, it frequently comes back down to our subconscious impulse to advance our interests within a group that is important to our self-identity. A very good and accessible discussion of many of these dynamics is Haidt, The Righteous Mind.