We have to make a distinction between the phrase "I have serious moral concerns about abortion" and "abortion is a subject which necessarily involves serious moral problems." If someone says the first, then I'll believe it is true for them.Now Cline makes it quite clear that when he says "problems," he just means "questions." And I don't know how anyone could deny that abortion involves serious questions. Surely the question of when something becomes a person with rights is a serious question? They involve questions, just look at what people say, so what reason can be given for thinking the questions unserious? While you might have an easy base case in, say, the morning after pill, the development to a full baby appears gradual, so even that base case becomes entangled in some difficult questions. Finally, some serious philosophers have argued that abortion is always or almost always wrong. You may think you have the right answer to these questions, or that some opposing views are irrational, but how are the questions not even serious?
The second, however, isn't a true statement. There can be cases where abortion poses serious moral questions, but not ever single instance of abortion does. The Christian Right benefits from a blurring of the distinction between the two because if they can get anyone to agree that any cases of abortion involve moral problems, they can quickly move to saying that abortion is inherently problematic. After getting agreement on the premise that abortion involves serious moral questions they then move to conclude that women can't make those moral decisions herself — and therefore they can't be permitted to legally chose to have an abortion.
If abortion opponents have offered the argument Cline ascribes to them--and he provides no evidence they have--the problem is in moving from "there's a question" to "we have the right answer."
This is part of a larger problem I've noticed--people think that philosophical questions are highly restricted, so the statement "it's a philosophical question" can be casually used as an important premise in an argument (the ghostwriting for the recent Antony Flew book comes to mind). Philosophy, far from being narrow, is about as broad in analysis as it gets. Philosophical questions are everywhere. What we need to stop the inference from "it's a serious philosophical question" to "I'm right."
4 comments:
And I don't know how anyone could deny that abortion involves serious questions.
I never denied that abortion involves serious questions, but that I deny that every case of abortion necessarily involves serious moral questions. I've used bold face where I've restored my original words. I don't know what the reason is for why you so dramatically altered my position, but I am very disturbed that it happened.
First, you forgot to add the adjective "moral." Don't you think that's relevant? Even worse, you replace "moral" with "philosophic," but the two are in no way the same. There is more to philosophy than ethics. Abortion might involve a number of philosophical questions which do not touch upon ethics at all. Indeed, one might try to argue that abortion necessarily involves a number of interesting or important philosophical questions, none of which are actually ethical. By substituting "philosophical" for "moral," you're the one who treating philosophy as if it were "highly restricted" — restricted to morality, that is.
Second, I think I was fairly clear in the narrow scope of my position: "there can be cases where abortion poses serious moral questions, but not every instance of abortion does." This implicitly assumes that some cases of abortion may necessarily pose serious moral questions.
Third, I was also clear that people may have serious moral problems in their own mind about abortion generally or any specific case of abortion, but you do not necessarily have to treat those problems as being as serious as they do. I don't deny that they have questions or problems, but I do deny that I (or you) must also necessarily treat those questions or problems as serious. Some people also treat the alleged will of their alleged god as being very serious, but I don't. I expect you don't either.
I don't see how the omitted words affects the substance of what I wrote.
(1) Do you see any evidence that I argued abortion has anything to do with non-moral questions (personhood is to an extent a metaphysical question as well, but it is obviously and intimately tied up with morality)? I take it that every moral question is a philosophical one, using the second word is just a way of broadening my point.
(2) Do you think my criticisms do not touch every case? I argued that even the relatively easy cases are tied up with important moral matters, what cases did I miss?
(3) What does the word "necessary" have to do with anything?
I don't see how the omitted words affects the substance of what I wrote.
This suggests that you don't see the words actually changing the meaning of my statement - that removing them would create a statement which means exactly the same thing. If this is what you think, then can you support this?
Do you see any evidence that I argued abortion has anything to do with non-moral questions
You don't use any non-moral questions as examples, but you make very general statements which either omit the "moral" qualification entirely or replace it with the more general "philosophic" adjective. Neither is true to what I originally wrote. You are being misleading by implying that I denied that abortion "doesn't involve serious questions," and you definitely imply this when you ask "I don't see how anyone could deny that abortion involves serious questions."
If you want to dispute what I have written, you need to include the qualifiers which I used and say "I don't see how anyone could deny that every single case of abortion necessarily involves serious moral questions." The rest of your post does not serve to dispute the legitimacy of denying this.
I take it that every moral question is a philosophical one, using the second word is just a way of broadening my point.
But not every philosophic question is a moral one, so you broaden things in a way that diverge significantly from what I wrote without indicating that you have moved on.
Do you think my criticisms do not touch every case? I argued that even the relatively easy cases are tied up with important moral matters, what cases did I miss?
You said that the relatively easy cases are tied up with important moral matters, but that doesn't mean that just because one person has serious moral problems with early cases because of their beliefs about later cases, then you or someone else must as well. You give no reason to think that everyone must necessarily see serious moral problems in every case of abortion, even early cases, even cases where the fetus is not viable, even cases where the life of the mother is threatened, even cases of rape or incest, etc.
What does the word "necessary" have to do with anything?
It has everything to do with your misrepresentation of my post. If some case does not necessarily involve any serious moral questions, then it may be true that one person has serious moral questions about it while another does not — and the fact that one person does cannot mean that you must as well. The question is not whether any case of abortion might involve serious moral questions, but whether every case must involve serious moral questions.
I don't see how this verbal nitpicking has anything to do with the substance of the issue. Do you seriously think that if I was trying to mislead readers I would have quoted your original statement in its entirety? What is it about my post from "Surely the question..." on that makes it irrelevant to what you claimed?
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