The claim that abortion is murder requires some clarification concerning the concept of murder. The first thing to notice is that the concept of logically implies, or seems to, a lack of moral justification. One of the Ten Commandments says "Thou shalt not murder," but the Old Testament is filled with instances of homicide which are not only considered justified, in many cases they are prescribed by God. I remember reading a book about assassination in which one author, a well-known philosopher from the University of Indiana, wrote an essay with the title "Murder is Sometimes Morally Justified." But he immediately backed off and acknowledged that to call something murder is to imply that it isn't morally justified. In any event, to call something justifiable murder is to commit semantic mistake, to call something justifiable homicide is to refer to a well-known class of actions which only extreme pacifists would claim to be empty.
People in this discussion, however, seem to have missed the semantical point.
https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/w2c62/justifiable_murder/
So murder is at least unjustifiable homicide. But is that all there is to it? Can there be unjustifiable homicides that are not murders? What if there is a homicide that is morally unjustified but legal? On some definitions of murder you have a illegality as a requirement, which of course would exclude abortions where it is legal. And sometimes malicious intent is required. So, what that would mean is that there could be a class of homicides that are unjustified (in the final analysis it was the wrong thing to do), but don't qualify as murder because they were not done for malicious reasons.
And yeah, semantics matters. Unjustifiable homicide carries less emotional weight than does murder, but it may be a more descriptive way to talk about abortion and why you oppose it. It is a clearer concept.
23 comments:
Is murder unjustifiable homicide, or is there more to it? If so, what does the "more" consist in. This is asking a simple philosophical question.
Not malicious? Are you telling me that the Holocaust wasn't motivated by Hitler's hatred of the Jews? Huh?????
It seems my comment was disappeared. It was in response to this:
But is that all there is to it? Can there be unjustifiable homicides that are not murders? What if there is a homicide that is morally unjustified but legal? On some definitions of murder you have a illegality as a requirement, which of course would exclude abortions where it is legal. And sometimes malicious intent is required.
Nazi Germany legalized murdering Jews, for merely existing.
So regardless of whether one thinks the killing was justified or not, it was legal
So if the definition of murder hinges only on human law you will have to tell Jews their relatives were not murdered in order to be consistent.
Hitler and the Nazis held that their society was being ruined by Jews and other undesirables (mentally unfit, perverts, Slavs etc) and so it was best for society to eliminate those undesirables. Did Hitler love his society so much that he vigorously pursued eliminating the Jews and others? Or did he hate the Jews and others so much that he invented the whole "racial superiority scheme"?
I think it's pretty clear that the eugenics movement and the classification of relative racial excellence preceded Hitler, starting with Francis Galton I believe. So I don't think the Holocaust was motivated primarily by Hitler's mere hatred of Jews. Rather adopting eugenics gave him the intellectual basis for perceiving Jews and others as threats to society. Eugenics dehumanized people and so made it intellectually acceptable to murder them. The same way abortion supporters dehumanize the offspring they wish to murder.
The typical tactic of the eugenics movement was not extermination, it was sterilization. Neither is morally acceptable, or respectful of the full humanity of all persons, but they are not the same. Bertrand Russell supported the sterilization of the mentally unfit, but of course was horrified by the Holocaust. Moral thinking failures are just that, but they are of different types. Yes, there were a number of false and misguided racial theories out there that provided intellectual excuses for Nazi attitudes towards the Jews, but I don't think that even the likes of Houston Stewart Chamberlain would have approved of Hitler's Final Solution. Without hatred, I don't think the Holocaust could possibly have happened.
Comparing abortion to the Holocaust is a popular tactic, but a dangerous one. I think if pushed to its logical conclusion you end up dehumanizing pro-choicers and justifying questionably ethical political tactics to get a particular legal result.
You keep saying that unless you fully completely oppose abortion, you are in fact, like the pro-abortion protestor, equating the fetus with a nice lunch. Yep, the nice lunchers are out there. There are people out there who do say that we should have no moral interest in fetal life until it achieves certain mental capacities, and to kill anyone or anything lacking those capacities is morally acceptable. Peter Singer and Michael Tooley are OK with infanticide up to a certain point. I can't imagine, as a Christian, accepting that position without huge cognitive dissonance, though, I would not say it's logically impossible.
Pro-lifers, of course, think that since fetuses are fully persons from conception, the standards for justifiable homicide are extremely high, and one of the requirements, guilty intention, is impossible for a fetus to meet. So that rules abortion out. The differences between fetuses and infants or even adults are all matters of degree, and therefore not relevant to the right to kill somoene.
But there are people who see the fetus as having value, but even though it is a biological entity that develops into a person, its career of mental states has not begun yet, since it lacks the brain development to have the kinds of experiences we have. So taking its life, while certainly a matter of grave moral concern, doesn't have the level of gravity that, say, killing a two-year old has. Thus a person like this might think it morally obscene to get an abortion in order not to look fat in their wedding pictures, but might conclude that getting an abortion is preferable to creating a situation in which an already living child cannot be properly cared for.
I've never been a woman, and I've never faced a difficult choice over a pregnancy. In my personal life I've avoided conduct that would put women in the situation where they are might be forced to make that kind of decision. But when women say there was a tortuous choice they had to make and that they got an abortion even though they valued the fetus they were carrying and hated to do it, it's really unfortunate that you have start questioning their motives and saying that they are really one of the Nice Lunchers. It's one thing to say that they made the wrong decision. They may well have. It's another to say that they are just like Hitler and his executioners.
The real abortion debate occurs within the minds and hearts of women who have to make these decisions. Getting the law on your side MIGHT be a good thing if you can at the same time persuade these women that such a law is a just law. If they think it's a Jim Crow law, it won't do any good. But telling women that any inclination they might have to abort is motivated by the same kind of evil that prompted the Holocaust--if I were a woman facing a hard choice I would conclude that you simply weren't listening to me and hadn't heard a word I had to say. I believe that the political thrust of the pro-life movement will probably mean that they will win some battles but lose the real war, which is winning over people in difficult pregnancy situations to choose not to get an abortion. Alienate those women, and the pro-life strategy will backfire.
The typical tactic of the eugenics movement was not extermination, it was sterilization......Without hatred, I don't think the Holocaust could possibly have happened.
Before the Holocaust there was the Armenian genocide and the Holodomor. There were probably some haters, but I suspect the vast majority of the perps were just following orders and justifying it to themselves by accepting what they were told. Those they were killing were not really humans.
But there are people who see the fetus as having value, but even though it is a biological entity that develops into a person, its career of mental states has not begun yet, since it lacks the brain development to have the kinds of experiences we have. So taking its life, while certainly a matter of grave moral concern, doesn't have the level of gravity that, say, killing a two-year old has.
Other than you just asserting this, I haven't seen a defense.
If you grant that the "biological entity" is a living human being, then if you decide to kill it, you have decided to kill an innocent human being. This is just a fact regardless of the living human being's present capabilities.
I don't presently recall the all the existential experiences I had up to this point but it's obvious that I must have been having experiences all along. I experienced coming into being and growing and developing in a way central to my essence. All of me has been me, and not just my brain.
I wasn't like the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz with the Wizard awarding me a brain. It was always part of me and has continually changed over time but it was always only part of me. I don't understand how the worth of someone can determined by how well part of them operates wrt to adult individuals especially when the part will operate the same as an adult as long as you don't kill him. It's not only getting an ought from an is but an "ought now" from a "will be later, but is not now".
Some rationalize that an offspring is just a glob of cells so there is no morality involved at all. Some rationalize that the glob of cells have "value", and so perhaps you should feel bad about it, but don't worry, it's not really a human worthy enough to protect his life. In both cases, those wanting to protect an an innocent human being from being intentionally killed are opposed by those wanting to allow the killing. It makes no practical difference to pro-lifers if some abortion supporters want to rationalize their guilty feelings away while they kill their offspring and/or support those killings. Both views end with murder regardless of the coping mechanism of the murderers.
Regarding Bertand Russell:
An early eugenicist, Russell was one of the most dignified and reputable names who finalized the plans for a massive post-World War II campaign for world population control. His ideas on population are now cited chapter and verse by the modern stalwarts of the Zero Population Growth movement. To his credit, Russell was straightforward about the movement's actual goals and objectives. In 1951 he warned about the kinds of dangers he saw in the near future -- apparently the renowned Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were not having the kind of result he was hoping for. In The Impact of Science on Society, he wrote: "At present the population of the world is increasing at about 58,000 per diem. War, so far, has had no great effect on this increase, which continued throughout each of the world wars.... War has hitherto been disappointing in this respect…but perhaps a bacteriological war may prove more effective. If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors would be free to procreate freely without making the world too full." Russell went on, "this state of affairs may be somewhat unpleasant, but what of it? Really high minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's."
But when women say there was a tortuous choice they had to make and that they got an abortion even though they valued the fetus they were carrying and hated to do it, it's really unfortunate that you have start questioning their motives and saying that they are really one of the Nice Lunchers. It's one thing to say that they made the wrong decision. They may well have. It's another to say that they are just like Hitler and his executioners.
Just to be clear, I brought up the Nazis and the Holocaust to make the point that just because there's a law that allows you to murder someone doesn't mean that it therefore isn't murder. Likewise, just because abortion is legal doesn't mean it's not murdering someone.
Certainly women considering abortion have different reasons for killing their offspring than the Nazis had for killing the Jews. In both cases though, I think most perps have to deny the humanity of those they kill.
The real abortion debate occurs within the minds and hearts of women who have to make these decisions. Getting the law on your side MIGHT be a good thing if you can at the same time persuade these women that such a law is a just law.
If women think laws against murder are just, then, if they have a good heart, they will not want to murder their offspring. If they only hear from "progressives" that tell them they aren't killing a human worth keeping alive then I can understand their temptation to think they are bettering their lives by getting rid of their little problem...an innocent defenseless human being created by God.
There is a concept of murder that is a legal one, requiring an actual legal prohibition.
I take it you are familiar with Judith Jarvis Thomson's defense of abortion. The famous violinist? Her argument is very explicit, she claims her defense of abortion works even if the fetus is a person from conception.
There is a concept of murder that is a legal one, requiring an actual legal prohibition.
Yes. Like Nazi Germany's laws allowing the murder of Jews. Of course a moral relativist would argue that killing Jews in Nazi Germany was just for that society. But I'm not a moral relativist.
The violinist argument fails for a number of reasons (that have been discussed previously in this blog).
I assume you believe we, as human beings, have a soul right? If so do you believe that an individual does not have a soul until brain activity begins?
Abortion isn't murder because personhood begins at first breath, not at conception.
The violinist argument is a famous way in which some people who don't deny the personhood of fetuses use to argue the acceptability of abortion in some cases. You said that all defenders of abortion dehumanize the fetus. Thomsonians don't. They could be WRONG in their position--that's not the point. They could be accepting a bad argument. But people sincerely accept bad arguments all the time.
There are various soul theories. William Hasker's emergent dualism holds that the soul is built by the brain. Hasker's pro-choice, and I asked him if his views on abortion depended on his soul theory, and he said no.
You said that all defenders of abortion dehumanize the fetus.
Actually I said I suspect most have to in order to live with themselves. I suspect plenty of people using the violinist scenario in arguments do too.
Victor,
I'm not familiar with Hasker's views. I'm interested if you think and individual is without a soul until he has brain activity.
I don't know when the soul enters the body. i remember Bill Clinton once defending his pro-choice views on the grounds that theologians were not clear on when the soul is implanted. I argue that dualism is true, but I don't have a view on when it enters.
What is a soul then?
Please. Your answer, not Bill Clinton's or other famous philosophers.
I'm a lot surer that materialism is false than I am of any particular theory of the soul. And, for example, if I embraced creationism (as a theory of the soul, not of the origin of species), there could be different views about what the point in time is that God implants the soul.
I did run across this essay on the subject.
https://mosaic.messiah.edu/brs_ed/7/
My question is more basic than when a soul comes into being. I'm interested in what your definition of a soul is in the first place.
Just trying to clear up ambiguity because I think we are operating under different definitions. The essay doesn't help to clear that up.
For instance you seem to favor this:
William Hasker's emergent dualism holds that the soul is built by the brain.
If the soul of an individual is built by the brain, then what built the individual's brain?
Divinely guided evolution.
The individual not the species.
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