3 year old starved to death by her parents
I do not mean to offend anyone here with this, but…
There are very few things that illicit an emotional reaction from me and this is one of them. People ask if I believe in the death penalty. Truthfully, I would volunteer to put the bullets in their heads myself. These two are complete, total, and 100% evil. They deserve to die.
There are very few things that illicit an emotional reaction from me and this is one of them. People ask if I believe in the death penalty. Truthfully, I would volunteer to put the bullets in their heads myself. These two are complete, total, and 100% evil. They deserve to die.
How many people just didn't want to get involved? Truly a tragedy.
This site is about AR's Objectivism and objectively, the mother is responsible for her own life first, as is the father.
A child's life is no more important than that of the mother or father.
The state or society has little or no business involving itself in such a matter, unless there's evidence of malice.
There's not sufficient information about this case to determine much of anything, other than a child with severe birth defects died.
A purely emotional (knee jerk) reaction is not Objective
The death penalty administered by the state 'for the good of all' is not Objective and serves no good or purpose. State sanctioned murder is murder, cold and calculated. The only justification for murder is self-protection.
In our society, a mother's duty to her child has been romanticized beyond reality, and the desire to 'save' every child's life at any and all cost and regardless of the viability of the child has only resulted in an enormous burden to a family, and detracts from the ability of that family to have and raise other viable children.
Equating this situation to abortion is nonsense.
And yes, I have two glorious sons. And further, I've experienced the abortion of neonates even though I wouldn't have had it been my decision alone, but they were the decisions of the mother. I accepted and respected those decisions.
KYFHO
"Officials said Nathalyz was born blind and unable to talk or walk. Associate Medical Examiner Andrew Rosen said her lack of nutrition and medical care was "glaring.""
If it were up to me, well, I would consider carefully before loading.. ...
This is a situation where prevention and punishment can be the subject of difference of opinion. Maybe to a libertarian, starving a child is bad but starving is not actual killing so no crime is committed, I await a libertarian response but I think it would be that the act of parenthood is a contract between parent and child. To an objectivist, there would be just enough of government to recognize the right of the child to property, its life, and to impose penalty.
What is offensive is the gratuitous insult to a contributor to this forum made a few minutes ago. I hope it is not deleted by a moderator. Let it stand.
The child was a living human being, and had a right to it's life. No, the parents did not have to feed the child, but they did have a responsibility to make sure the child was taken care of. They could have adopted the child out, dropped her off at a fire station, a hospital, a convent, etc. Instead they chose to stave the child until, at 11 pounds she finally died. That is force.
You might need to see a shrink.
I am having a philosophical discussion. We are looking for logical consistency. there should not be confusion over right to use force to cause someone to act on what YOU consider best action.
Everyone knows something is wrong here, the fact that an innocent person is dead. The facts are that the person wasn't fed. Here's the gap we all assume: the parents were obligated to feed it. It is an easy gap to fill in any philosophy, everyone agrees the parents were morally obligated to feed it. To be consistent we have to determine what caused this obligation, and that cause either has to be universal, or we need to change our philosophy. Most philosophies would argue that by giving the birth to the child the parents implicitly agree to care for it. I personally dislike implicit contacts as do most of you in here who don't believe in the "social contract." The real cause of the parents obligation is that they must have at some point explicitly stated they were going to provide for the child until it was 18. It is hard to go through life without anyone asking you how your child is doing. At some point they said they were taking care of it. At some point, they lied.
There is no doubt the child could have received care either from the extended family or the state or charity. But no one was concerned because the parents were claiming the responsibility.
If you kidnap some one, and lock them in your basement against there will you have committed the crime of kidnapping. When you kidnap them, you are going to have to feed them, if they starve to death you have committed murder. By preventing someone from taking care of themselves or preventing a third party from giving the care you are committing murder.
As for the punishment, I'm not going to way in on that.
In Objectivism , there is a difference between doing something "willingly" and an act that is consistent with Rand's ethics of selfishness. Hitler certainly did what he did willingly, but he did not act in accordance with the ethics of selfishness. It is possible to take on handicapped children in a way that's consistent with Rand's idea of "selfishness." So, if these people you know are doing this from a place of society thinks it's a good thing or self-sacrifice, that would not be consistent with Rand. Objectivist view would preclude the Christianity notion of "the devil having a field day with this couple." Objectivism does distinguish between good and evil. Acting in a philosophically selfless or altruistic way is evil. it's a tough discussion but and we may disagree, but I appreciate your points.
Of course we have a responsibility to the life we create. All kinds of laws nowadays protect babies from irresponsible parents. They reflect the Objectivist view that, once born, the baby is a separate individual with rights. The rights may not be as extensive as those of an adult (for example, limiting the consumption of liquor until 18 or 21, depending on where you live), but they do exist, as I'm sure you know:)
The Objectivist view on abortion is: the foetus is not an independent being. Rather it exists as a symbiote, living off the mother's nutrients. The foetus is a *potential* being, but only the actual baby who is born has rights. The problem here is that if you have laws against abortion, you tend to commit the mother to a 20 year sentence of caring for an infant she did not want to have. In addition, you have the infant in a household that does not want them, meaning all kinds of long-term problems for the infant to be. The crime against the mother is definite. The crime against the foetus is uncertain or nonexistent. That is why there must be no laws against abortion.
I said possessing a rational faculty, not possessing reason -- there is a huge difference. Experience, induction and generalizing allows one to see that a sleeping man, an irrational man, a quiet man, or just a man possesses a rational faculty.
"The right to life is inherent in a human being by virtue of his having a human genome..." -- econfree
I did ask, "What is it about our genome that causes us to have rights?" Do you really think you've answered it?
"The human genome is what makes humans human. It's obviously necessary for being human. Without it, you're not human." -- econfree
I don't doubt that our genome is required to make us human; however, my skin possesses that same human genome. Is my skin human? Is it deserving of rights by virtue of it having a human genome?
The human genome is necessary, but sufficient? Well, that's only something you can answer for yourself.
Side conversation on definitions:
"And as Ayn Rand asserted in ITOE, "definition" identifies an essential characteristic or attribute of an entity;..." -- econfree
"A definition is a statement that identifies the nature of the units subsumed under a concept." -- ITOE (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/defini...)
Where did you see your definition of definition in ITOE? According to the one I found we are simply assigning one word -- namely human -- to two concepts (rational animal, and however you define it), which is fine as long as the concepts are valid and we keep the concepts straight in our minds. I've already said we can use your concept, so please proceed to define it since I assumed wrongly.
Side conversation on identity:
"The emphasized phrase "specific attributes" does not mean, never did mean, and cannot mean, "unchanging attributes."" -- econfree
Then we are in agreement and we're saying essentially the same thing. I'm not questioning whether something is. I'm simply addressing that what it is has changed.
Please don't misunderstand me, I am not saying a leaf turning from green to red is a different entity altogether at every stage. I would hope that you would agree with me, however, that when the leaf turns red it is different than when it (same leaf) was green (namely it's not green anymore). In other words, you no longer identify the leaf as green -- it is now red.
I would also hope that you agree that the molecules making up steam are different when they (same molecules) turn to ice -- namely the total energy is less. If so, what have you identified that is different?
I do change every minute. I am hungry. I am full. I am injured. I am healed. Et al. I am different in all of these cases, but what is consistent in all of these cases is the word "I." The entity in question remains, but it is identifiably different in each of the cases, wouldn't you agree?
In sum, I'm not saying A is non-A; I'm simply saying that a green leaf is different when it turns red, the water is different when it goes from vapor to solid, or I can't be hungry and full. Let's at least agree on this much before we proceed; otherwise, I suggest we part ways. If we can't agree on fundamentals, what can we agree on?
Where did I call anyone "dumb"?
Read more at http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/36...
As for khalling's opinion's, she made it quite clear, explicitly, and as I recall verbatim, that starving a child to death could be her "egoistic" choice. She provided no context.
(That would be a denial of Objectivism. However, as I pointed out, Leonard Peikoff warned that these online discussions encourage rapid response without integration or context. So, khalling may have much more to say. But so far, she has said exactly what EconomicFreedom cited from the earlier discussion of abortion.)
That said, my own brief analysis follows.
I havegiven this example again on this thread. We don't have all the facts of this particular case but in our society I think it fair to assume the parents had plenty of opportunity to give their child up without the child enduring harm. economic freedom wants to take this discussion back to abortion. This case is not the same.
I agree with you that the contexts are brutally complicated.
BTW, if Kira had a daughter, I am not aware of it. I have not read the book in several decades, I confess, but no synopsis I found refers to that. And just to say, it was dramatic fiction. If it were me and my daughter, I would remain even in the USSR to see that she got the best life possible. Different objective people have different objective values
http://www.peikoff.com/essays_and_articl...
>The status of the embryo in the first trimester is the basic issue that cannot be sidestepped. **The embryo is clearly pre-human;**
"Pre-human"? What the heck is a "pre-human"? I've never heard that term before. Abortion advocates used to describe the embryo as "Potentially human" (which it is not; it is an early state of an ACTUAL human being), but "pre-human" is a new one on me. Peikoff continues:
> "only the mystical notions of religious dogma treat this clump of cells as constituting a person.
Peikoff's self-imposed ignorance of biochemistry and embryology is impressive. Actual, real, concrete, physical, material human life begins at conception — biochemists and embryologists all say so. See here, for one example of many:
http://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articl...
The last quote in the above link is interesting:
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients."
* * *
It's clear, then, that Peikoff uses the term "pre-human" in a political sense, and for political purposes, and not in any embryologically exact, or scientifically precise, way.
Peikoff continues:
>"We must not confuse potentiality with actuality."
But that is precisely what Peikoff is doing. More accurately, he his *conflating* the two terms.
>An embryo is a potential human being.
No, it is an actual human being, but at an early stage in development. That it's in an early stage of development doesn't make it "potential." It's still "actual." Peikoff's epistemological confusions here are shocking.
>It can, granted the woman’s choice, develop into an infant.
And an "infant" is an actual, real, concrete, material human being at another early stage of development, which, if not left to starve by its parents, can develop into an adolescent. And an adolescent can develop into an adult. And an adult can develop into an old man or woman. Each stage of development — embryo, fetus, infant, adolecent, adult, senior — is simply a different stage of what is, at every point in time, an actual, real, concrete, material human being.
A "potential" human being is one that isn't actual, real, concrete, and material, i.e., it's the gleam in mom and dad's eyes when they decide to start making babies.
Peikoff continues showing his readers how ignorant he is of developmental biology:
>But what it actually is during the first trimester is a mass of relatively undifferentiated cells that exist as a part of a woman’s body.
"Relatively undifferentiated"? The word "relatively" is Peikoff's attempt at hedging. "Relatively" compared to what? The embryo is "relatively" MORE differentiated than before it was fertilized, and "relatively" less differentiated than when it's an infant. So? Differentiation happens upon fertilization.
>If we consider what it is rather than what it might become, we must acknowledge that the embryo under three months is something far more primitive than a frog or a fish. To compare it to an infant is ludicrous.
Not it isn't. And to compare it to a frog or a fish is just plain ignorant. But basic biochem was never Peikoff's strong suit.
>If we are to accept the equation of the potential with the actual and call the embryo an “unborn child,” we could, with equal logic, call any adult an “undead corpse” and bury him alive or vivisect him for the instruction of medical students.
In fact, it is Peikoff who is equating — "conflating" is more accurate — the actual with the potential. As stated previously, an embryo is an actual human being that is potentially an infant; the infant is an actual human being that is potentially an adult; etc.
>That tiny growth, that mass of protoplasm,
Fantastic ignorance. Peikoff sounds like old Ernst Haeckle from the 19th century, who believed (incorrectly) that the cell was simply a "mass of protoplasm", comprising a few chemical ingredients easily obtained from primeval "warm little ponds" billions of years ago. Sorry, Ernst! Sorry Lenny! The cell is a goddamn biochemical factory, run by means of a biochemical operating system — with "stop codes", "go codes", "either/or codes", etc. — encoded within a genetic algorithm. The actual moment-to-moment functioning of the cell being carried out by nano-technology: molecular-sized machines. Lenny, if you're too old, senile, or lazy to read books on this subject, you can at least watch some computer animations of it on YouTube. Most of them were made by atheist professors of molecular biology or biochemistry, so you can be confident they are not trying to smuggle in "stolen" religious ideas.
>It is not an independently existing, biologically formed organism,
So? Why should physical separability/inseparbility be the differentia of what is or is not an "actual" human being? This is a pure assertion of an arbitrary definition on Peikoff's part. Did Ayn Rand ever say that spatial-extension + physical separability are the two criteria on which individual rights depend, because spatial-extention + physical separability are the epistemological criteria for the concept of "individual"? I don't remember her saying or writing that.
In any case, Peikoff is technically wrong, too. While it is true that *with present technology* an embryo cannot exist on its own outside of a uterus, that may change with advances in technology. And additionally, an embryo can be removed from one woman's uterus and inserted into another woman's to continue development.
>That which lives within the body of another can claim no right against its host.
Sure it can. In fact, there's an entire legal theory within liberatarianism called "eviction theory" that deals specifically with that issue.
Peikoff's arguments are weak and his assertions arbitrary.
Maybe he should practice what Ayn Rand preached: he should check his premises.
You say an embryo is a human being but in early stages of development. Development you say? into what?
I believe your error is one of equivocation. You seem to confuse two possible and slightly different meanings of the term human. You seem to mean human as the entire process from the merger of two sex cells until death. Human is meant by Dr. Peikoff to mean a living organism possessing a rational faculty, meaning it is matured from the reproductive state to a certain point. The concepts are different, which is ok as long as you keep it straight and don't mix the two up when drawing conclusions.
Potential human is very accurate, if you use Dr. Peikoff's concept. If it continues to develope, then it will be human. If it stops developing, but somehow stays alive, it will not be human.
If we use your concept of human, then I need to ask why you think humans have rights since the rationalization you're using to justify an embryos' rights seems to go: embryos are human and humans have rights; therefore, embryos have rights. Well, what attributes of humans is the source of their rights? Do embryos possess that attribute or is it under development?
Hmmm... funny we didn't see that solution before? </sarcasm>
Consider this,
1. Letting a child starve, you have food but decline to give.
2. As above but it is your own child.
3. There are ten, or a hundred, or thousands of starving children.
4. you have no food but your neighbor has, do you use force to take it to give?
If context is not allowed then answers to all situations must be the same.
Ah, now I see, you say 'An action is moral or immoral depending on your values and the context'.
Quite so.
As you note, context must be allowed. See khalling's note after yours. It is heart-wrenching, but aid workers specifically must inure themselves to such situations. More commonly, people who work in hospitals only have so much empathy to give or they would be emotionally drained in the first hour of any day. Hospitals in particular in our generation began hiring ethicists just because the issues are so complicated and consequential.
Okay so let's get down to the nitty gritty :)
So parents own their children, but the property still has rights? So that must mean there are different kinds of property. Material objects, and human beings, specifically children.
Well, I've never heard someone refer to children as property before, so maybe you can enlighten me on what rights this property has, and what the parents can and can't do with their property, and on whose authority they are allowed to interact with their property?
You're a fucking moron dude. You seriously just equated children to property? Do you understand what property means? It means ownership. It means complete control.
You have zero respect for what a human is if you consider any human property. You also have zero respect for the godamn word property if you think it has rights.
Dude. You're not even wrong. You're beyond wrong. You're in the category of insane. You are the equivalent of 2+2=elephant.
Man, no wait seriously, tell me more about how a human who owns property, another human, is obligated to oblige that properties rights. Please tell me.
She also appears to be in denial in this thread, judging by her comments from two weeks ago:
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/31...
>Posted by $ khalling 2 weeks, 2 days ago
KH wrote: "terminating support is not the same as murder. if there is a child sitting at my feet and I have plenty of food and I do not feed her, and she starves to death because of this, I am not committing murder. Even if I have fed her in the past.
My duty is first and foremost to myself."
>EF's response:
If it's your child, and you intentionally withhold food from her, you most certainly are committing murder. And any jury in this country would justly find you guilty.
[NB: see Foxnews article linked above in this thread]
>KH's reply:
yes, the jury would. Many laws are wrong, so what? . . . just because I have sex, does not mean I have contracted or made a moral obligation to support someone or become their slave.
>EF's response:
Sure it does, whether you wish to call your responbility to the effects of your actions "slavery" or not is irrelevant. And this is true whether or not the effects of your actions were unintentional, because an unexpected and undesired outcome — pregnancy — was forseeable and a possible outcome. You cannot say "I have no responsibility here because the effect was undesired on my part."
That would be an upshot of pure hedonism, not rational selfishness.
If you incur a debt intentionally or because you made an error in your financial transactions somewhere but knew that debt was a *possible* outcome in the deal, you still are responsible to repay the debt. You can't stiff your creditors by telling them, "I refuse to be your slave! I own myself, so I'm walking away from this debt."
yes, the jury would. Many laws are wrong, so what? . . . just because I have sex, does not mean I have contracted or made a moral obligation to support someone or become their slave.
Even Ayn Rand believed that we were responsible for our OWN actions. If you engage in an activity that may result in the consequence of the creation of a life, you must be prepared to bear that consequence. Just as if a man were to have sex with a woman and then kill her to prevent him from becoming a father, would have to answer for ending that life.
Your last statement is referring murder. Objectivism holds that not providing support is not the same thing as committing murder.
In this case on this post, the "parents" clearly engaged in severe abuse resulting in the death of a human being.The child was confined and severely abused. The axiom is I own myself. If we can make a moral case for hoarding food in a starving situation, then we must admit that no action can require you to ever be a slave to someone else. you can't say-well in these cases yes-but in this case no. It's not an axiom if there are a bunch of exceptions-there must be something more fundamental-no matter how uncomfortable.
As a mother, I understand the axiom-it sometimes makes me uncomfortable, but it would be immoral for me to force my decision on another.
Human life begins whenever Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, or Harry Binswanger claims it begins.
>Are we not responsible to what we create?
Heck, not if it interferes with one's personal pleasure! "Just because I have sex for pleasure doesn't mean I'm obligated to enslave myself to an unintended consequence of my action."
"Just because I gamble for pleasure — with every intention of winning — doesn't mean that I must therefore enslave myself to honoring I debt I might incur if I unintentionally lose. C'mon! Enslaving myself to debt repayment interferes with my pleasure!"
[an Objectivist]
2. By answering you stopped her from seeing my question, because your answer started a new thread.
3. Your response was sociopathic ,narcissism not objectiveism.
If you are a guy, you are the guy women should stay away from. If you are a chick, shame on you for saying things beneath your gender.
Wrong. YOU hold that; not Objectivism.
Try keeping the context of this thread in mind.
You wouldn't want what to happen in this 'group'?
The context was "responsibility for the consequences of one's own consciously chosen actions."
Responsibility for the consequences of one's consciously chosen actions.
Consciously Chosen Action: Ms. X chose to have sex with some guy.
Consequence: She got pregnant. (Makes no difference to the moral issue if the pregnancy was unintentional).
Responsibility: She's morally obligated to care for that embryo-fetus until it's born. Then she's obligated either to care for it as her child, or put it up for adoption so that someone else can care for it.
If someone other wants the embryo-fetus and technology allows transplanting it from Ms. X to Ms. Y, fine. If technology advances to the point at which the embryo-fetus can be "evicted" from Ms. X's body and incubated in an "embryo development chamber", also fine. Technology's not there, yet.
Starving one's own child is an example of abandoning one's moral responsibility toward the consequences (i.e., the child) of one's own voluntarily chosen actions (i.e., having sex).
It's irrelevant to the moral issue if the abandoning of one's responsibility takes the form of doing something one shouldn't (e.g., choking the child), or not doing something one should (e.g., withholding food until the child starves).
I'm sure you'll disdain me asking but I hope you'll give me an answer with all the condescension I am sure you're capable of.
Because another human life that her actions helped to create now depends on it.
Also the child doesn't necessarily depend on the parents, it depends on something to survive.
To say the child depends on them, you have to state what it depends on them for, which I'm assuming you mean survival.
This creates another gap, ignoring the grandparents part which I would still like an answer to, as to why the parent is morally obligated to take care of something because it created it.
I'm trying to go back to square one, I hope you'll take the time to indulge me.
No. The grandparents didn't choose to bring their daughter's fetus into existence, any more than the supermarket that provides the daughter with food, or the highway department that maintains the road that allows the daughter to drive to the supermarket (or the hospital). That they all indirectly help the mother and father through the division of labor doesn't make them morally responsible for actions freely chosen and taken directly by two people: the mother and father.
Hey, here's an unexpected upshot of your argument: if the grandparents, and the great-grandparents, and the highway department, and the grocer, and the telephone repairman, etc., etc., bear some moral responsibility for mom and dad's fetus (because their work all "helped", in some way at least, to create the fetus), then Ayn Rand's mother, her father, their grandparents, the Soviet Highway Authority, the pen and pencil manufacturers that made the pens and pencils Ayn used to write out (in long-hand) the manuscript of Atlas Shrugged, the graphite miners who manufactured the pencil lead used in the pencils, etc., etc., they all deserve some of the credit for having "helped" Ayn create Atlas Shrugged. Right? Right. So, by rights, they should all be listed in the book as contributors. They should also be sharing some of the royalty income now accruing to the Ayn Rand estate.
Same argument — brought to a reductio ad absurdum — you made regarding a fetus's grandparents having a moral responsibility for actions freely undertaken by their grown daughter.
Doesn't sound as if you're trying to go back to square one. Sounds to me as if you're trying to find some "clever" way of wiggling out of a moral dilemma for you. It's not clever. It's dumb.
Why don't you indulge me by applying a little common sense to a fairly straightforward issue? It's pretty evident that the mother and the father of the fetus have a moral obligation to care for it until it's born, and then to care for it if they intend to keep it. If they don't intend to keep it, they should put it up for adoption because someone, somewhere, wants it.
>Also the child doesn't necessarily depend on the parents, it depends on something to survive.
I've already made the point above. Indulge me by reading what I wrote.
>To say the child depends on them, you have to state what it depends on them for
Gee, that's a tough question to answer. I'm just guessing here, but, uh, maybe food, warmth, shelter, medical care, to name just a few things. If the parents are too Objectivist to provide these things — preferring to think of themselves as "slaves" instead of "good parents" by doing so — they should put the infant up for adoption. That's not so difficult, and shouldn't interfere too much with their own personal pleasure contributing product-placement for Atlas Shrugged, The Movie, Part 3.
>why the parent is morally obligated to take care of something because it created it.
Love it. First you ask why the grandparents don't bear as much moral responsibility for the daughter's fetus as does the daughter herself; then you ask why the daughter should bear any responsibility whatsoever.
Profound. Here's another "gap" you can fill with your own hot air:
Why is Ayn Rand entitled to profit from something because she created it? If you can answer that, then you can answer why Ayn Rand is obligated to bear responsibility for the consequences of her own actions. It's a tough one, I know.
Why don't you try going back to square one? (Let us know when you get there.)
I'm glad you loved my question but I wish you would answer it. Ayn Rand is entitled to her profits because she has property rights. I'm sure you're not comparing a child to property, because obviously if it was property you could do whatever you like with it, just as AR can do what she wants with her profits.
Why does she get to exercise property rights over "Atlas Shrugged", and not over "On the Road"? Because she created "Atlas Shrugged" and she didn't create "On the Road."
Too subtle for you?
>I'm sure you're not comparing a child to property, because obviously if it was property you could do whatever you like with it, just as AR can do what she wants with her profits.
You're a joy to debate because you're always so consistently wrong. On the other hand, your predictability at being wrong so consistently also makes you somewhat boring to debate. Yes, I am going to compare the child to property. "Property" means "the right to EXCLUDE use by someone else." It doesn't necessarily mean "If I own something, I can do anything I want with it." In any case, the child has its own rights — specifically, the right-to-life — which precludes the parents from doing just anything they want with it, such as killing it, enslaving it, torturing it, etc. Since a sheaf of manuscript paper with "Atlas Shrugged" scribbled on it is a non-human, non-living thing, it obviously doesn't have a right-to-life that could limit, or constrain, what its creator might want to do with it.
Are you clear on the difference between a sheaf of papers and a human child? They are both examples of "property", with the former having no countering rights, while the latter has a right-to-life constraining what its creators (mommy and daddy) can arbitrarily decide to do with it.
Furthermore:
First you write "I'm not going to read through the essays you've written", and then you write "I'm glad you loved my question but I wish you would answer it."
Try going back to square one: try reading the essays I've written. They actually answer your questions.
Ah, so it was the confinement — not the withholding of food — that constituted the physical abuse and therefore, the crime?
Got it.
So, by your lights, had the parents allowed the 3-year old to wander (or crawl) around freely, as well as allowing it to leave their home, catch a bus, or hail a taxi, and go to a job-placement agency to find remuniterative work in order to feed itself, then no crime would have been involved by the mere fact of witholding food.
Got it.
By the way, Objectivism does not say this; Ayn Rand never said it and never would have; and you are very confused on this issue.
Just letting you know that what you claim to believe in the name of Objectivism has nothing to do with Objectivism.
(that's a joke, khalling, put down the phone...)
Nope. But according to you, parenthood stands for slavery.
>according to you it would be illegal for someone with wealth to withhold resources from someone starving.
Nope. Unless the "someone with wealth" was mommy or daddy; the withheld resources were food, clothing, shelter, warmth; and the "someone starving" was their own infant.
>Objectivism never allows one person to hold another in slavery.
No, but it allows one person to hold another in DEBT if such has been incurred. If you understand why you have to repay a gambling debt that you never intended to incur (even if you went to the casino for your own pleasure expecting to win), then you're on your way to understanding why you bear moral responsibility for the consequences of other kinds of freely chosen actions you engage in — even fun ones, like sex.
Hey what if it's a test tube baby? No wait, what if a sperm donor unknowingly has a kid and then learns that kid is starving to death?! What if it dies? He's obviously a murderer right? I mean he knew the risk of donating to a sperm bank before he did it. He has to accept the consequences of his actions.
You're a fucking scrub get off the Internet.
I see you've gone back to "square one." Stay there.
Parents being morally obliged to bear responsibility for their own voluntarily chosen actions — such as a moral obligation to care for their infant children or put them up for adoption so that some other adults can care for them — has starved millions? It's a stretch, but OK. If you say so.
>Your premises allow for a Mao, Hitler, Stalin, etc to exist. therefore you are the enemy of human advancement.
Boo-hoo.
The truth is, you're not aware enough even to discern your own premises (which are monstrous, if taken seriously); how then could you possibly discern anyone else's?
Then I suggest you read below the surface. For example, try reading the entire post and not just my justifiably sarcastic interjection at KH's silly accusation.
KH's post was a classic, almost stereotypical example, of Godwin's Law. Look it up if you're unacquainted with it.
It does not behoove me to "read below the surface". The burden is upon you, the author, to make yourself understood.
But you didn't claim not to understand my argument. You claimed that you only read the surface. I'm under no obligation to put everything "on the surface" for the sake of lazy readers who will not read more deeply.
How many people would you shoot in the head cause they've had an abortion? Or are you the type to incapacitate them and throw them in a cage?
Seriously. What's the punishment?
"A blob of protoplasm"... why, gee... you just described Stephen Hawking.
If her indifference to the humanity of a blob of protoplasm is allowed to be exercised by others, then sooner or later it can be applied to coma patients, to quadriplegics, severely retarded, not-so-severely retarded, eventually to where you get monsters like me willing to deny the humanity of non-Americans.
The *only* rational determinant of humanity which allows full freedom of the individual, *is* the genetic code. If it's genetically human, regardless of the existence of tail, of limbs, of specific internal organs, of sex... it is then human.
You say an embryo is a human being but in early stages of development. Development you say? into what?
I believe your error is one of equivocation. You seem to confuse two possible and slightly different meanings of the term human. You seem to mean human as the entire process from the merger of two sex cells until death. Human is meant by Dr. Peikoff to mean a living organism possessing a rational faculty, meaning it is matured from the reproductive state to a certain point. The concepts are different, which is ok as long as you keep it straight and don't mix the two up when drawing conclusions.
Potential human is very accurate, if you use Dr. Peikoff's concept. If it continues to develope, then it will be human. If it stops developing, but somehow stays alive, it will not be human.
If we use your concept of human, then I need to ask why you think humans have rights since the rationalization you're using to justify an embryos' rights seems to go: embryos are human and humans have rights; therefore, embryos have rights. Well, what attributes of humans is the source of their rights? Do embryos possess that attribute or is it under development?
Correct.
>Development you say? into what?
Development into a later stage of human being. It's an entity called a "human being" from the get-go. It doesn't morph into a "human entity" at some arbitrary point decided on by a federal judge or by Leonard Peikoff.
>Human is meant by Dr. Peikoff to mean a living organism possessing a rational faculty,
I give Peikoff credit for meaning what he says and saying what he means. You're now telling us that we give Peikoff too much credit: that he actually meant something he never said. He never said anything about "possessing" a rational faculty.
>Potential human is very accurate, if you use Dr. Peikoff's concept.
Except Peikoff said nothing about that concept. It was YOU who said it, and it is YOU who claim to speak on behalf of Peikoff, clarifying for us what you believe he meant.
>If it continues to develope, then it will be human. If it stops developing, but somehow stays alive, it will not be human.
If it continues to develop, it will change from a human at the embryo stage to a human at the fetal stage, then if born successfully, it will change from a human at the fetal stage to a human at the infant stage. Then from a human at the infant stage to a human at the young child stage. If it doesn't get hit by a bus, it will develop from a human in the young child stage to a human in the adolescent stage. Then it will develop from a human in the adolescent stage to a human in the young adult stage. Then from a human in the young adult stage to a human in the adult stage; then to a human in the middle-age adult stage; then to a human in the senior-citizen stage.
It's a human being at every single stage of its development; it merely changes FORM not IDENTITY. A is A, remember?
It doesn't morph from "non-human" (or "pre-human") to "human" at some arbitrarily drawn line in the sand, drawn for convenience to prop up political arguments for killing it when it interferes with one's social calendar. That's really all Peikoff's argument amounts to.
>If we use your concept of human, then I need to ask why you think humans have rights since the rationalization you're using to justify an embryos' rights seems to go: embryos are human and humans have rights; therefore, embryos have rights. Well, what attributes of humans is the source of their rights? Do embryos possess that attribute or is it under development?
The right-to-life depends upon one being biologically human, not upon the exercise of rationality. If we use your concept of human, it follows that babies have no rights, since they are not conceptual/self-conscious/fully-rational beings. It would also follow that any human being at any stage of development — adolescent, adult, senior — in a non-conscious / non-conceptual / non-rational state (coma, anesthetized, sleeping) would have no rights until and unless he or she awakens.
It seems arbitrary to just say being human means we have rights. If rights are not arbitrarily bestowed upon us, then why do you think we possess them? Keep in mind that restating an assertion is not a rational justification/derivation.
Possessing a rational faculty is not the same thing as being rational. It is the Objectivist's view that rights are a moral principle derived from the fact that we possess a rational faculty -- not that we use our rational faculty. If someone possessing a rational faculty initiates force, then they have chosen to be dealt with on those terms since they've made reasoning with them impossible to the extent of their breach. A fetus does not, however, possess a rational faculty until they develop further; therefore, they have no rights.
Dr. Peikoff doesn't have to define himself explicitly every time he uses a word. It is well known, if drawing from a larger context of his works, what he means when he uses the term human (or man). He uses Mrs. Rand's definition: Man’s distinctive characteristic is his type of consciousness—a consciousness able to abstract, to form concepts, to apprehend reality by a process of reason . . . [The] valid definition of man, within the context of his knowledge and of all of mankind’s knowledge to-date [is]: “A rational animal.” (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/man.ht...)
You misapply the law of identity. A thing is what it is, true, but it doesn't mean it can't change its identity. Causality is the link between changes in identity. Development causes a fetus to change its identity from an unconscious group of cells into a conscious group of cells possessing a rational faculty. Where to draw the line may be argued (like where do you draw the line between a clean shave and a beard? One hair, two, twenty, 100, etc.?). It's obvious, however, that on one end of the development you have a non-conscious cluster of cells and on the other you have a being possessing a rational faculty -- no rights and rights (according to the Objectivist's view).
Your confusion in the law of identity is attuned to calling an acorn a tree, a caterpillar a butterfly, or a bundle of 2x4s (set aside for building a house) a house -- especially if a tree, caterpillar, and house are what they are every stage of the development, as you say. Check your premises Mr. Econfree, you may find that one of them is wrong.
???
> It is the Objectivist's view that rights are a moral principle derived from the fact that we possess a rational faculty -- not that we use our rational faculty.
???
And you can distinguish "possessing a rational faculty" from "using a rational faculty" how?
You know how I tell if a person possesses a rational faculty? I observe him using it. Then I know he possess it. I'm curious to learn how you discover it.
> You misapply the law of identity. A thing is what it is, true, but it doesn't mean it can't change its identity.
Interesting. So in your universe, "A is only sometimes A"; at other times, "A" changes its identity and becomes "not-A". Got it.
>Causality is the link between changes in identity.
Actually, no. You have it backward. "Identity" is the link between "cause" and "effect."
>Development causes a fetus to change its identity from an unconscious group of cells into a conscious group of cells possessing a rational faculty.
And what causes "development"?
The zygote develops — "unfolds" is a better term — according to a genetic algorithm that starts computing the morphological changes from the get-go. The identity, however, never changes: it's a developing human being at every step of the way. It started out human; it remained human. It merely changes form according to a pre-written biochemical algorithm.
Consciousness? What does that have to do with anything?
>It's obvious, however, that on one end of the development you have a non-conscious cluster of cells
Sorry, two questions: 1) why should consciousness have anything to do with rights? and 2) how do you know that cluster of cells is non-conscious?
You wanna know the truth? The truth is: no one knows whether or not that cluster of cells is conscious. You don't know. Leonard Peikoff doesn't know. Harry Binswanger doesn't know. David Kelley doesn't know. Ayn Rand didn't know.
>Your confusion in the law of identity is attuned to calling an acorn a tree,
Sorry, but an acorn and an oak tree are just two different forms of the same plant. The first is a "cause" of the second, which is an "effect" of the first. The acorn-cause and its oak-tree-effect are linked by identity. They're obviously the same entity because the first always develops into the second, and the second always completes the cycle by producing more of the first (become a cause, with the acorn as the effect).
You had it backward. Changes in identity are not linked by cause and effect. There are no changes in identity (unless you're a savage living in a magical world). Changes in form — which are observable instances of "effects", and possibly their prior "causes" — are linked conceptually by identity: i.e., the fact that the thing that is changing is always **the same thing** merely undergoing changes in form.
Our disagreement is still one of definition. You think all are living things with a human genome is human. If we accept your definition, all that means is that some humans have rights and others do not (according to the Objectivist's view of rights). According to your understanding of the source of rights, however, all humans have rights:
"[Rights] are recognized, respected, and protected in beings with certain characteristics. In the case of human beings, the "certain characteristics" are a human genome." -- econfree
I've noticed that you overlooked this critical question getting at the root of your position: It seems arbitrary to just say being human means we have rights. If rights are not arbitrarily bestowed upon us, then why do you think we possess them? I'll also add: What is it about our genome that causes us to have rights?
This is the essential issue here. Forget the proper definition of man; we'll use yours. Please address the essential issue: why do you think the human genome the source of rights? This claim seems arbitrary. Is it?
As a side conversation on identity:
"To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of SPECIFIC ATTRIBUTES. [emphasis mine]" -- Ayn Rand
"A thing is—what it is; its characteristics constitute its identity. An existent apart from its characteristics, would be an existent apart from its identity..." -- Dr. Peikoff (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/identi...)
A is A always until its attributes change, then it changes -- these changes have causes. An acorn's attributes change while in the ground -- not all of them. A caterpillar's attributes change while in a cocoon -- not all of them. A 2x4's attributes change while under construction -- not all of them. An embryo's attributes change while developing -- not all of them. A man's attributes change when he dies -- not all of them. The changes in attributes that do occur are essential enough not to call an acorn a tree, a caterpillar a butterfly, or a 2x4 a house. You seem to focus on the attributes that don't change, claim they are essential, and claim two things are the same. Both -- calling two things different things or the same thing -- are epistemologically sound depending on the concept you're using.
"All things are the same except for their differences. All things are different except for their similarities." -- Thomas Sowell
And as Ayn Rand asserted in ITOE, "definition" identifies an essential characteristic or attribute of an entity; so our disagreement over definition is a disagreement over essentials.
>As a side conversation on identity: "To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of SPECIFIC ATTRIBUTES. [emphasis mine]" -- Ayn Rand
The emphasized phrase "specific attributes" does not mean, never did mean, and cannot mean, "unchanging attributes." It just means that at any given instant we consider an attribute, it is something specific: the maple leaf is GREEN, then the maple leaf turns RED, then the maple leaf turns BROWN. Green, Red, Brown are SPECIFIC ATTRIBUTES (emphasis mine); and they are attributes OF ONE AND THE SAME LEAF (emphasis mine). The leaf, qua leaf, doesn't change its identity. Same leaf. Different attribute.
If you take an ounce of water in a metal container and put it in a freezer, the same ounce of water is now solid ice — the water hasn't changed its identity. It's the same entity — H2O — having changed one of its attributes called "state": from liquid, to solid. If we boil the ounce of water, the same water that was in the ounce container changes its attribute of state and turns to a gas called "steam." SAME OUNCE OF WATER (emphasis added).
(Do you really have a problem grasping this? I must say, it's very basic material.)
If your misunderstanding of Rand/Peikoff were taken literally, we would have to allow the following absurdity:
Since every cell of your body is changing some attribute or attributes of itself every second of every day, it would have to follow that the cell's identity was constantly changing: A is A, one second; then A is not-A the next. And if this were true of a single cell, it would have to be true of a collection of cells, including the collection of cells comprising YOU. So it would logically follow that you are not the same being moment-to-moment, but an A at one moment and a not-A the very next. This is the exact opposite of "identity" which is something that is recognized not to change underneath its various changing attributes. Aristotle called it "substance" and believed it was metaphysical. Rand believed it was epistemological (and dispensed with the word "substance" as being unnecessary, and because it would tend to reify the idea of a metaphysical substance into which attributes were embedded). It's the same basic idea, however.
>A is A always until its attributes change, then it changes -- these changes have causes.
Ayn Rand never said that. Peikoff never said that. Look again. Read again. Check your premises again. Rand never said "A is A until its attributes change" (and then what? A becomes non-A? I don't think so). When a maple leaf changes its attribute of color — from green to red — it's not something different. It's the same leaf with a different color, not a different leaf. When a baseball is hit by the batter to the outfield, it's the SAME baseball, with one of its attributes — spatial location — changed. It's not a different baseball, or a different "thing" with a different identity; it's the same baseball with a different attribute.
>You seem to focus on the attributes that don't change,
???
You can name as many changing attributes of an entity as you want. The phrase "of an entity" specifies that there's an element of continuity behind, or under, or above all those changing attributes. That's why "green", "red", "brown", "solid", "liquid", "gas", "heavy", "light", "rough", "smooth", etc., are called attributes and not entities. They are traits, characteristics, properties, etc., OF some unchanging element (physical, metaphysical, or epistemological) that remains the same throughout the changes of its attributes. That's why we can study it. That's why there's an "it" to study in the first place.
In sum:
Quoting Rand and Peikoff has only demonstrated that you misunderstand them as well as misunderstanding the basic issues. The idea that identity itself changes moment to moment and that we connect these different identities conceptually by means of something called "cause and effect" (which, for some odd reason in your argument, does not change its identity moment to moment along with everything else) is philosophical gibberish. You live in a magical world in which attributes and identities constantly morph into other attributes and other identities, but in which the human intellect — which apparently doesn't morph its identity into something else — connects these different identities into a patchwork identity comprising a bit of *this* identity plus a bit of *that* identity, the sewing being done by the human intellect (which, as mentioned earlier, is oddly believed to maintain its own identity throughout), and the thread being "cause and effect" (which are also oddly assumed always to have an unchanging identity).
It isn't what Ayn Rand or Leonard Peikoff wrote. It does, however, agree nicely with the views of Heraclitus.
Regarding rights:
>What is it about our genome that causes us to have rights?
The human genome is what makes humans human. It's obviously necessary for being human. Without it, you're not human.
>Forget the proper definition of man; we'll use yours.
I never defined "man." I never said "the definition of man is that entity with a human genome." I merely pointed out an irrefutable fact of biology regardless of definitions: "the human genome is biologically what makes us the kind of entity we are: human." It's obviously a necessary condition for being human.
The right to life is inherent in a human being by virtue of his having a human genome, not by virtue of his possession or exercise of reason; people who are sleeping or otherwise unconscious are not exercising reason, and it's hard to see in what way they "possess" reason if they're not exercising it; yet they still have an inherent right to life. It is other people's moral obligation to recognize and, under rational social organization, to protect that right to life from the wanton initiation of force. That seems to be a necessary (though perhaps not sufficient) requirement of survival in society.
Rights don't exist. "Rights" is a convenient fiction used to regulate human interactions.
My issue with abortion has been, and always will be one of equal rights under the law, not one of morality.
If a woman can kill a human simply because s/he is inconvenient and funny looking, then, in the name of "equal rights", I should be allowed to go around killing illegal aliens for the exact same reason.
I find it amusing that this person you cite considers chimpanzees and German Shepherds to be human...
I beg to differ. Rights are a moral principle derived from the fact that we possess a rational faculty. It is the social recognition that we are a volitional being, our lives require the creation of values, the mind is the source of values, the mind functions individually and not collectively, force and mind are opposites, production is the practical means of bringing our values into existence, and that trading based on mutual consent to mutual advantage is the proper relations to have with one another. Establishing a government to secure our rights and banning the initiation of force is the practicle legal implementation of this moral principle -- this is what makes capitalism the only moral political-economic system that has ever existed.
>As she [Ayn Rand] put it: "A piece of protoplasm has no rights-
Argument from arbitrary definition. A fetus is not simply a "piece of protoplasm." In fact, even a single cell is not just a "piece of protoplasm," but a highly ordered, hierarchical biochemical factory, run according to a genetic algorithm whose coded instructions for specific biochemical tasks are carried out by nano-sized molecular machines. The view that the cell, the embryo, or the fetus, is simply a "piece of protoplasm" is 160 years out of date with scientific knowledge. And in any case, if the zygote, embryo, or fetus is simple "a piece of protoplasm," then so is the infant after it is born. The only difference between the smaller piece of protoplasm and the larger piece of protoplasm — as far as the author at the Atlas Society is concerned — is the fact that the former is physically connected to the mother's body while the latter is physically separated from it. The author's theory of rights has little to do with his bloviations on rationality and everything to do with a kind of naive, purely materialist interpretation of property rights: mommy owns her own body, she invited a helpless guest into her body to room with her for 36 weeks, and — according to the author — has the right (based on property rights) to evict the helpless guest before the 36-week lease expires by killing it. After it is born, the lease inside mom's body has expired, and being spatially separated from mom, the parents and society are expected to recognize and protect the new entity's right-to-life.
In other words, while renting a room inside mom for 36 weeks, and needing to share mom's blood supply to survive, it supposedly has no property rights of its own regarding its own body. Property rights, regarding one's own body, only appear in entities that are fully physically distinguishable and separable from one another.
>and no life in the human sense of the term.
What is the "human sense of the term"? Blank out.
>One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months.
Huh? Why can we argue about the "later stages" of a pregnancy? Obviously, the "later stages" developed from the "earlier stages" — from those first 3 months; and the first 3 months developed from the moment the zygote formed at conception. The point is that at no time is the zygote and its development during the first 3 months simply a "piece of protoplasm." Simple pieces of protoplasm don't develop from a zygote to an infant; only actual human beings do so.
>To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable." ("A Last Survey," The Ayn Rand Letter, IV, 2, 3) These conclusions rest on the distinctively Objectivist approach to the relationship between human nature and rights, so to understand Rand's position we must begin with her distinctive view of rights.
We'll see. In any case, a zygote is already a human being at an early stage in its development — in its "entelechy", to use a classical Aristotelian term.
>Rights: Intrinsic or Objective? One way to argue against abortion rights is to hold that a fertilized ovum is just as much a person as an adult human being is, and as such has rights of its own. This amounts to an intrinsicist view that human life, whatever its stage of development, possesses rights. Such a view is common among Christians, for example, who hold that the soul - supposedly created at conception- is the source of one's moral and legal claims. Against this Objectivism recognizes that, although rights derive from the nature of man, they do not inhere in anything.
Huh? If the nature of something inheres in that something (A is A), and if rights are derived from the nature of something, then rights surely inhere in that something.
>Rights are principles.
To RECOGNIZE rights is a principle. The rights themselves are inherent in a human being.
>As such they apply to beings with certain characteristics.
They are recognized, respected, and protected in beings with certain characteristics. In the case of human beings, the "certain characteristics" are a human genome.
>Rights are based on the fact that the use of force against others is not a reliable means of gaining values,
I think the author is out of his league here, and simply has no idea what he's talking about. Force is often a "reliable" means of gaining values; that's why people continue to rob banks. The reason we abjure the use of force against others is not because of considerations of reliability, but because it is WRONG to do so.
>Right To Life. Because they are unable to support themselves by reason, we cannot extend this right [i.e., the right to life] to infants or the unborn in a clear and straightforward manner. An infant, for example, may possess a developing rational faculty, but he cannot use it to support his life; indeed, he requires so much care that to offer him the full right to life and liberty is to consign him to death.
Then, by the same argument, we cannot extend this right to John Galt while he's asleep, and we cannot extend this right to Hank Rearden when he's under general anesthesia to have his gall bladder removed. Indeed, during the sleeping state and the anesthetized state, to "offer" Galt and Rearden the full right to life and liberty would be to consign both of them to death.
>The Claims of a Potential - But an infant, after all, is an independent living organism in the process of developing into a rational being. An embryo or early-term fetus, or an unfertilized ovum for that matter, also has the potential to develop into a rational being, but is not yet an independent organism.
First the author claims that the potential to develop into a rational being is the crux of the issue regarding the right-to-life; now he claims that it is really the potential of something that is physically attached to become physically separated that is the crux. Which is it? Both? Are they of equal value in determining the "rights status" of a being? Apparently not. Consider:
In the author's view, the zygote, embryo, and fetus, lack the right-to-life because they are only potentially rational and potentially physically separable from the uterus.
After birth, however, the infant, which has now physically separated from the uterus but is still only potentially rational, now has the right-to-life: in the author's view, to kill it would be an act of murder.
So the issue of "potential rationality" is a bit of a red-herring by the author. It's really the issue of physical separateness that determines, according to him, whether the simple "piece of protoplasm" should have his right-to-life recognized and protected by those who are stronger than him.
The infant is still just a "piece of protoplasm" in the first 12 weeks after birth as it was in the first 12 weeks after conception. There's obviously MORE protoplasm in the infant than in the zygote but why should quantity of protoplasm be the criterion on which the argument depends?
The difference — and the only real difference as far as this Atlas Society author is concerned — is that in the first twelve weeks after conception, it is physically attached to the mother, while after birth, it is physically separated from the mother. And THAT is all there is to this author's argument.
According to her, no crime has been committed here at all.
That's a rather unphilosophical, non-conceptual, and concrete-bound appraisal of the situation. Halling gave an opinion on a *general principle* regarding morality in a previous thread. For your information, general principles subsume concrete instances. The above story from Fox News is a concrete instance subsumed under Halling's general principle.
The only relevant thing about Halling giving an opinion on the above story would be if she claimed it was morally abominable that the parents withheld food from their child until it died and that it represented a *crime*; for if she claimed that, she'd be contradicting the more general principle that she upheld in the earlier thread.
She said, "I love you, son".... and let go.
They found her body about a quarter mile away, IIRC.
No, you're not obligated to live for your child. But, some of us think the word "obligation" is neither accurate nor appropriate...
"Obligation" is an important word in Objectivist Ethics. It is the opposite of the anti-concept "duty" and a logical follow from final causation. "Man is confronted with a great many *musts*, but all of them are conditional..." -AR, Causality vs Duty, Philosophy Who Needs It
Their position, however, leaves room for the "duty" of the sister to feed the starving man from her own body in the end of The Grapes of Wrath, and by extension an argument can be made for slavery.
"Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define "moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward survival." I won't argue with philosophers or theologians who choose to use the word "moral" to mean something else, but I do not think anyone can define "behavior that tends toward extinction" as being "moral" without stretching the word "moral" all out of shape.
We are now ready to observe the hierarchy of moral behavior from its lowest level to its highest.
The simplest form of moral behavior occurs when a man or other animal fights for his own survival. Do not belittle such behavior as being merely selfish. Of course it is selfish. . .but selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative.
"An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.
The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she'll drive off a police dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college -- and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a drowning child. . .and it is still moral behavior even when it fails."
...
"Spelled out in simple Anglo-Saxon words "Patriotism" reads "Women and children first!"
And that is the moral result of realizing a self-evident biological fact: Men are expendable; women and children are not. A tribe or a nation can lose a high percentage of its men and still pick up the pieces and go on. . .as long as the women and children are saved. But if you fail to save the women and children, you've had it, you're done, you're THROUGH! You join tyrannosaurus rex, one more breed that bilged its final test.
...
"Nevertheless, as a mathematical proposition in the facts of biology, children, and women of child-bearing age, are the ultimate treasure that we must save. Every human culture is based on 'Women and children first' -- and any attempt to do it any other way leads quickly to extinction."
- Robert A. Heinlein "The Pragmatics of Patriotism".
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1165294...
You do not necessarily have to live for your child. But, a woman who won't, can't rightly wear the proud badge of "mother", as there's something missing in her soul.
In "The Poisonwood Bible," there is a catastrophic event which has a mother helping her youngest child and her disabled child swim in dangerous water. at some point the mother lets go of the disabled child telling her to go back to shore very sternly. The disabled daughter grows up thinking that at that critical moment her mother did not choose her to survive. She eventually confronts her mother about this when she is grown and successful despite the handicap. Her mother is stunned that she felt this way all those years without asking her about that awful day. The mother's reasoning and choice was based on the fact that she knew the disabled daughter had tremendous will and keen problem solving. She knew that her daughter would be determined enough to have the best chance of the three of them to fight to survive the water. It is wrong for another individual to tell you what you must do in difficult moral dilemmas. That choice is yours alone and you must live with it and its consequences while someone else telling you your moral "duty" does not bear the consequences.
This is of course in the context of not deliberately harming another.
As I said, if you won't live for your child once you created him/her, the badge of "mother" doesn't apply.
"...live with it and its consequences"
Sometimes the consequences can and do involve a needle and a very long nap.
Your statement is interesting. You're suggesting there are "moral" and "immoral" ways of withholding food from one's own infant until it does of starvation. Do tell.