Forced Abortion in China: "I could hear the baby cry"

Exactly, so it's not a long jump from a society that does not care about the rights of a fetus to a society that does not care about the choice of a woman. Why do you think a government would care about the personal choice of a woman to keep her baby when it doesn't even care about the life of that baby?

Is it really? A fetus dies either way.
The only difference is whether the woman wanted it to die.

Is that because both pro-choicers and pro-lifers know it is terrible when a fetus dies but pro-choicers just believe the woman's choice overrides the life of the fetus?

 

No, my arguments do not justify the Holocaust and slavery but your comparing what those people went through with a fetus being aborted is disgusting.

I am giving up discussing fairy tales with you, not my fight to keep women's rights which requires no fairy tales or wrangling over "morals".


If it makes you feel better to think I'm conceding whatever argument you think you had, that's fine....it holds no interest for me nor is it relevant to keeping abortion legal.


<MOD EDIT - Rule 4 - Mischaracterizing quotes>

 

'Straw man fallacy much?

 

Do tell.

 

With a side order of Godwin's rule

 

Ha. I know what a straw-man argument is, I'm asking for you to illustrate the actual fallacy. The Godwin's law claim is vacuous. If someone claims that morality doesn't matter (as Hastings did), then using the Holocaust as a counter-example is an obvious and self-evident response. If you care to take up his defense of moral relativism, then by all means be my guest. However, I would advise reading the exchanges on why he thinks morality is irrelevant before defending his asinine claims. Pointing out that leaving morality out of the question in deference to legal rights would therefore lead to a justification of slavery and the Holocaust (since both are obviously immoral but legally justified in their respective cultures) is not even close to a straw-man. But I look forward to your response.

 

You make the same mistake others make, making the assumption that deadly force in self-defence is only applicable in life threatening situations, it is not. Serious injure is also a justification for the use of deadly force and as pregnancy is already deemed a serious injury in some cases the question that requires answering is what is the difference between pregnancy as a serious injury in those cases against pregnancy in other cases. Another justification for the use of deadly force is loss of liberty.

Your analogy of the lift fails as the other person is not infringing on the persons autonomy or liberty which is what a non-consented pregnancy does to a woman. The equal status of rights is only relevant in the case of two separate entities not when one entity is inside and/or attached to another, the fetus loses it's equal status by virtue of the fact that it is the entity that invades another person without consent, just as any other person loses their equal status if they invade another person without consent eg. a rapist does not have equal status to the rape victim as they are the one invading the other person.

 

Personally I don't believe that morals are absolute, morals are merely a reflection of societies majority at that time usually enforced by that majority ie your slavery issue would, at that time, been moral and justified, just as the holocaust was justified due to the Nazi majority in Germany in WW2. Abortion is some countries is also morally justified in others not, the difference between the USA and other countries is that the USA has a Constitution which does not allow for the state to allow a right to one set of people that it does not allow for all others (equal protection clause) to allow a fetus the right to use another persons body without consent violates that equal protection unless you can provide any other case where a person has been forced to give up their body rights in order to physically sustain the life of another person .. can you?

 

Let me start with this claim first. There are several problems here:

1) It's not whether you believe something is true, but whether or not it actually is: why do think moral relativism is true?
2) If you argue that relativism is true because people disagree, well this would be a non sequitur. Just because people disagree doesn't mean that something isn't true - see Flat Earth Society.
3) To deny moral absolutism would not necessary lead to moral relativism -there are many alternatives available (hence this would be a Bifurcation fallacy) - for example, some consequentalists are not absolutists, but do hold a certain type of moral objectivism (but not absolutism) as being true.
4) If you meant that moral absolutism = moral realism - that there are no non-contextual moral truths - then the question is whether or not this claim itself is a moral truth. By your definition, is the claim that moral absolutism is not true an objective truth concerning morality?
5) If you claim that morality in and of itself doesn't exist but only the culture's majority belief about what is moral -then by definition, you would not object if Roe V. Wade is overturned by a conservative dominant Supreme Court? Again by definition, I would expect to see you arguing against abortion if that were the case. After all no legitimate appeals can be made for why something would be better (equal protection under the law, etc) -because these are not objectively true - they are merely agreements.
6) What do you mean by rights? -Certainly it would be contradictory to assert that something like natural rights exist if morality is dependent on social agreement. Rights on this definition would just mean whatever society gives you - in which case if society agrees to take away those "rights" there could be no objection.
7) If your position is correct then there could be no legitimate criticism of societies who have accepted practices of genocide, slavery, female genital mutilation, or pedophilia. According to your position, it would mean that the US was wrong to free the Jews from the Nazi extermination camps because this was the will of the German people.
8. If your position was right you would have to defend Hitler as moral and Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. as immoral (since Gandhi and King both practiced civil disobedience).
9) If your position was right then it would not be better for the US to have abolished slavery, since there would be no grounds for judging better or worse (or even progress) - there would just be what is - no better no worse. Again in which case you wouldn't have any reasons for defending abortion, since the grounds of those claims would only depend on whether the majority of people believed you. The right to self ownership and autonomy - only if the people agree - if the people do not agree then you must say - I agree that autonomy issues are wrong.
10) Majority rules? Would you take a poll to see how to perform brain surgery? Foreign policy? Questions about how you should live? Can the majority be wrong about what it wants to do? Say for example that a society wants to avoid being attacked by other nations but believes that the best way to do this is to attack all those who have the power to wage war against them. They believe that by killing a small amount of people in each of these other countries will bring lasting peace to their society. Can't a society be wrong about what it wants? Had they known more - they would have chosen differently? Otherwise a society would both be right and wrong simultaneously.
11) How would you deal with an imperialistic society attacking a pacifistic society? For example, would you claim that it would be wrong for the Vatican to invade the US and compel people to legally abolish abortions? But the Vatican believes this to be true. If you say but it would be wrong because we don't believe that - notice there is no way to adjudicate here. If you say that it is wrong for others to impose on others - then you are committed to an objective moral truth that is culturally independent. Which you said doesn't exist.

So given all of this, can we not dispense with the simple idea that morality is culturally dependent on the grounds that it is contradictory, incoherent, and absurd?

 

But here's the thing: the fetus has an equal right to its autonomy, body and its life - if it is an equal. So if someone accidentally comprises your health and you try to save yourself by attempting to kill them, would they not have the same right to defend themselves? And have others step in to ensure that right is protected? How does one choose here?

Why? Two things: 1) Death equals a loss of liberty - hence the fetus has the same right. 2) This begs the question concerning Lockean rights of non-interference. What about positive rights? - that one has not only a right to keep one's life - but also that one has a right to life (for example a right to health care, or to aid, or to clean water, or the basic necessities of life).

First, even in non-consented pregnancies, both the fetus and the woman would find themselves in non-consensual contexts. So the right would apply to both. The issue of spatiality is irrelevant, why would my right disappear if I am inside or outside a body? This looks suspiciously like Judith Jarvis Thomson's violinist example. It's not at all clear that her (and your) intuitionist appeal to libertarian rights is legitimate. Why claim this Lockean state of nature argument that we are islands unto ourselves - this is too ahistorical - too abstract. The reality is that we are dependent creatures, who are thoroughly tied to one through various social means (using the rapist example conflates intentional acts of harm to unintentional - hence it is a weak analogy). This approach (unlike the Lockean myth) is both sociologically, psychologically, and historically informed. As such, it would seem that I would have a duty to aid someone even if I find myself attached to them, even if it required a loss of liberty - just as my island example above suggests (I would have an obligation to stay and help a two year old marooned with me on a deserted island regardless of whether or not it was consensual, or whether or not it entailed a loss of freedom, or physical hardship, or whether or not I am attached to that person. The attachment to, or the location of, the person doesn't add any substantive aspect in and of itself. Dependency makes requests of us regardless of whether there is physical attachment or not - hence the autonomy issue is not directly affected by these.

 

1. I did not say moral relativism is true so please stick to the points made not what you wish to see/

2. You are forming an argument to oppose that I have not made which is a strawman.

3. Again Where have I stated anything concerning moral relativism?

4. There is no such thing as moral absolutism, there is no universal acceptance of certain actions that are always wrong regardless of the reasoning even killing another person can be regarded as not immoral.

5. Not a claim I am making, it is a historical fact that morality is primarily based on the cultural majority of the time, that is not to say that objections cannot or will not be raised to that majority. It seems to me that you only want a black or white situation where in reality there are many shades of grey.

6. There is no such thing as natural rights. Rights are founded on ethical value judgements, which may be empirical or rational. This legitimacy derives from whichever authority conferred the right in question.
A right is different from a law of nature because a right is a protected option not a diktat. A right to life does not mean that one will live, it means that one’s life is protected. However, a law of nature is only a law of nature because it is a diktat and is always true.

One can derive three main principles that govern a system of rights. Firstly, a later right cannot contradict an earlier one (assuming both are granted by the same authority) unless that earlier right has been explicitly repudiated.

Secondly, a right can only be conferred on a body by another body of greater authority or by that body itself.

Thirdly, authority can be ceded.

If one could demonstrate that there were certain seminal ‘Natural Rights’, then some structure or hierarchy of rights could be built around them. Jefferson mentions one possible group of Natural Rights when he says that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights”. As mentioned earlier, rights can be conferred by a higher authority on a lower one and so it follows that a Supreme Being may confer rights on humanity or indeed the world and these will be Natural Rights.

Consequently, one must attempt to prove the existence of a Supreme Being because unless He exists or at least has existed, then there is not the slightest possibility of His conferring rights. There are further objections why one cannot accept that Natural Rights have been conferred by a Supreme Being. The most important is the fact that, even supposing one can know for certain of the existence of a Supreme Being, that does not imply that He will have instituted a system of rights. It is the Judaeo-Christian tradition that asserts that God has set down irrefutable commandments and conferred irrefutable rights. The essence, however, of Judaism and Christianity is that one is given free will so that one can choose to obey or disobey God’s laws, based on the strength of one’s faith. If God conclusively revealed his existence, then everyone would obey His laws because they knew God existed rather than believed He did. Hence, it is likely that if a Supreme Being exists approximating to the Judaeo-Christian model, then he will have ensured that His existence cannot be proven by rational arguments so as to preserve the necessity of people making leaps of faith. Therefore, one reaches the conclusion that the Supreme Being conventionally associated with conferring Natural Rights – that is, the Judaeo-Christian ‘God’ – is, if He exists, likely to have arranged it so that one can never be sure He, his authority, or His Natural Rights actually exist.

Other than from a Supreme Being, Natural Rights can only be conferred by two other sources. The first is another higher authority and the second is humanity itself. Whilst it can be disputed whether man is higher than the animals or merely equal with them, it cannot be disputed that the whole natural world is superior to humanity, which is only one part of it. Hence, Natural Rights may be conferred by ‘Nature’ herself – an idea implied by the term ‘Natural Rights’. Before proceeding, it is important to understand exactly what is meant by ‘Nature’. It is simply the whole universe, excluding any Supreme Beings that might exist. Nature is this self-perpetuating construct that can never be destroyed, except by a supra- Natural Supreme Being. Hence, in order to discover whether Natural Rights have been conferred by Nature, one must ask if there is anything that can be deduced from the workings of Nature that indicates a morality? Aristotle argues in Book 1 of Politics that “Nature does nothing in vain” and few would doubt that there is order in Nature. This does not, however, imply that there is a morality or ethical structure within the natural world. Nature certainly works in accordance with the laws of natural science but, as was demonstrated earlier, scientific laws cannot be equated with rights. Nature must have morality to be able to confer rights. Darwin in The Descent of Man and On the Origin of Species proposes and produces empirical evidence to support the claim that the natural world is based on survival of the fittest through Natural Selection. This suggests that the natural world is entirely amoral and that the only inherent and fundamental – that is, Natural – principle is that of survival. Obviously, Darwin’s work is only theory based on fact and not fact itself. This implies that, just as with a Supreme Being, it is exceedingly difficult to prove that Nature is essentially amoral. However, if one accepts what is currently the most likely explanation of the facts, then it implies that the natural world cannot have conferred any Natural Rights except, arguably, a right to survive. This is arguable because whilst it is true that the natural world enshrines the desire to survive in its structure, it is difficult to claim that the natural world did so based on a moral or ethical valuejudgement. Nature is a only quasiliving organism which, although containing sentient life within it, is not truly sentient itself.

The third authority that could confer Natural Rights is humanity itself. However, if these are to be ‘Natural’ Rights, then they must be directly derived from some quality of mankind – “appertain to man in right of his Existence” – rather than derive from conscious and consensual discussion. Consequently, one must determine whether there is any quality inherent in humanity that can be a foundation for a Natural Right. It can be argued that all people share a common humanity and, if this premise were accepted, one could claim that, therefore, equality of opportunity, equality before the law, even equality of income are Natural Rights. This, however, proves problematic because the premise is highly dubious. What is this ‘common humanity’? Man shares some common characteristics with plants, but more with animals, more still with humans, yet more with his race, and yet more still with his family. Why, therefore, should Natural Rights be based upon similarities between men? Why should they not be based upon the similarities between all living organisms, or between all members of a family? The great problem is who decides where to draw the line. If man draws the line, then the rights are no longer Natural as they are not based on inherent qualities of mankind, rather on a conscious decision of mankind.

Hence, one must conclude that there is no proof that there is anything ‘natural’ – that is, immutable, fundamental or innate – about ‘Natural Rights’. It is plausible that there is a system of Natural Rights instituted by a Supreme Being but it is much less plausible that man could ever discover them through rational reasoning. It is likely, although not certain, that no Natural Rights other than perhaps the right to survive can be derived from Nature. It is plausible, although not likely, that rights to equality can be derived from a common humanity but their purvey would certainly exclude much of conventional humanity. Hence, the large majority of the evidence suggests that there is nothing ‘natural’ about ‘Natural Rights’.

7. your assumption is that all people will agree with all others on their system of morals and/or rights which in the history of mankind is a rather silly assumption to make, the rights and/or morals of a society apply only to them and not to other societies and those rights and/or morals are determined by the majority. In theory if the will of the American people was to bring back slavery and they elected a government who ran on that ticket what the rest of the world think of that decision on a moral basis is pretty much irrelevant, the USA could be forced to change that ideology (as Nazi Germany was by losing WW2) by war or other measures.

8. No that again is your assumption, Please read what I write not what you think it says.

9. Again you are attempting to create a strawman based on an argument you are making not one I have made, no where have I stated anything about people not being able to disagree.

10. Again you are placing words into my mouth, jumping to conclusions with nothing but your own assumptions as reasoning. Majority rules by electing people who best aline with there ideology . .how do you think democracy works, democracy is the majority voting in those who best fit their ideology.

11. Look to history to see where this has happened on numerous occasions and is still happening, and there are societies that morally accept the right to impose onto others, that is THEIR culture, not ours or someone elses hence why, as I have said, morality is based upon majority eg. ISIS accept it is morally acceptable to behead non-believers, that is their majority morality opinion, we however do not accept that it is morally acceptable to behead non-believers and that is out majority morality opinion.

From your responses it is plain to see that you only look at an all or nothing, black or white argument.

 

A fetus only has equal rights until it imposes onto another persons rights without consent, just as all other people have equal rights until the violate another persons rights .. The only entity that can turn a non-pregnant woman into a pregnant one is a fertilized ovum that implants into the uterine wall, if that happens without the consent of the female (assuming that the personhood from conception ideology is accepted) then the separate individual person that is the ovum is violating another persons rights and as such loses it's equal rights status, just as someone attacking you loses their equal rights status.

The person who instigates the injuries does not have the right to defend themselves, only the victim has that right, by your logic the rapist has the right to defend themselves against the victim that fights back.

1. No the fetus does not as it is the one that instigates and maintains the non-consented injuries against the female, again by your logic the rapist can kill the victim that fights back so they do not die and lose their liberty.
2. There is no such thing as the right to life, from where does this right come, which authority deemed there is a right to life, and if there is a right to life why are executions allowed and considered morally acceptable, why is war allowed, why is self-defence allowed all of them take away the so called right to life of others.

You keep attempting to gloss over the fact that it is the fetus that instigates and maintains the non-consented injuries against the female . .there is no equality of rights when one is being injured without consent.

Thomsons's violinists argument is filled with problems.
You lose your right if you are occupying another body WITHOUT CONSENT and no you do not have any duty what so ever to aid others unless you consent to do so. Read my signature line - "The common law has consistently held to a rule which provides that one human being is under no legal compulsion to give aid or to take action to save that human being or to rescue" - McFall vs Shimp, you cannot be forced into aiding others, it must be your own decision to do so hence why a pregnant woman should not be forced to aid a fetus is she does not wish to consent to being pregnant.

You may considered yourself ethically and morally obliged to aid others, that applies only to you and not to others and should never be a legal requirement forced upon all.

 

Yikes. I believe you may be confused. Your later statement is the very definition of moral relativism.
Every single one of your denials about not being a relativist are blatantly wrong. Moreover, your response overall is unfortunate. I thought this was a place to engage honestly in a dialogue - but half of your post is taken word for word from a Philosophy Now article without citation: (https://philosophynow.org/issues/21/What_is_natural_about_Natural_Rights)
Why would you plagiarize on a web forum? To what purpose? Also if you're going to plagiarize, why use an undergraduate student&#8217;s essay? Very disappointing.

Alas, this is incoherent. This is obviously not my position. My point was to show that disagreement alone can&#8217;t justify the claim that morality is relative to a society or group. You are confusing sociology and philosophy (metaethics).

You&#8217;re not grasping my point. Honestly, at this point I&#8217;m not sure what more needs to be said than the following &#8211; you are presenting a moral relativist position, the challenges I have presented here are the classic arguments against that position, you have to respond to them if you want to justify your position. Your responses demonstrate an unfamiliarity with the basic principles of the argument surrounding these issues. Case in point look at your last claim:

Are you suggesting that this claim is true? Are you claiming that your statements about morals not being absolute are true? Is your claim about morality being decided by majority opinion true? Are these all or nothing truth claims?

The funny thing about all of this is that I support the moral permissibility of abortion (in all cases) but not for confused and contradictory reasons that have been presented in this thread. Why spend so much time and effort writing on a web forum with such seeming lack of familiarity with the scholarship on the topic (both for and against)? Perhaps Plato was right about democracy.

 

Moral relativism covers several philosophical positions of which one I adhere to, that of Descriptive moral relativism, and apologies for not citing .. I thought I had.

So you stoop to childish insults. History more than shows us that morality is very relative to a society or group. Your comment as follows "If your position is correct then there could be no legitimate criticism of societies who have accepted practices of genocide, slavery, female genital mutilation, or pedophilia. ", this statement attempts to paint me as a Normative moral relativists, which I am not.
Disagreement alone can and does show that morality is relative to a society or group, name a single universal moral that is upheld and agreed upon by all societies please.

I am presented one of the philosophical positions, that of Descriptive moral relativism, so far you haven't actually raised a single rebuttal or argument of any merit to the position that morality is relative to a society or group, please do so. Morality is only what is imposed by the majority at any particular time.

I am suggesting from you comments it is true to me, what others think is up to them.

I am saying I see no evidence to support the theory of absolute morals, where as I see plenty of evidence to support the lack of absolutes in morality.

Based on historical facts, yes .. there has never been a time that a single set of moral values bridged the entire world and all of its people.

They are not all or nothing claims, they are observations and research.

My experience in the subject matter is a long and heavily researched one, the moral opinion concerning abortion is of little importance to the subject as IMO morals are not universal, nor are they absolute.

 

You equivocate between the descriptive meaning and the philosophical meaning of the term. It is of very little interest to say that cultures disagree about morality - this is like saying water can freeze. Maybe this was interesting in the 1920s when Margaret Mead was doing early anthropological work, but it's not seriously doubted today. The point that is relevant here is that it is a mere sociological/anthropological claim. But when you attempt to go from that claim to the claim that the nature of morality is determined by the disagreement then you are making a metethical/philosophical claim about the nature of morality itself. See the following:

This is a claim about the nature of morality. Suggesting that people disagree about what constitutes morality is a merely an empirical claim; claiming that because people disagree that morality itself is not objective (or universal or absolute) and therefore relative is a philosophical one. Hence you are conflating the sociological (what people think about morality) and the philosophical (what morality actually is) usages of the term as I claimed in my earlier post. A descriptive account concerns what a culture believes to be moral. You, however, you are making a claim about the nature or essence of morality, that morality is determined by the (majority) culture (meaning no culture or society is objectively right or wrong). This statement then commits you to the following claim:

"If your position is correct then there could be no legitimate criticism of societies who have accepted practices of genocide, slavery, female genital mutilation, or pedophilia." Do you disagree with this claim? Do you not say something like 'well we can criticize them, but that's just our view, there's nothing objectively wrong (wrong for all cultures).' Hence you would not be able to say that any criticism of these would be legitimate (i.e. true).

Here it is again - the same conflation.

Some cultures believe the earth is flat, some believe it is not flat. Does this disagreement alone show that there is no truth of the matter? Is science relative? No. So just because someone disagrees doesn't mean that someone is not wrong.

Whoa. What does "true to me" mean? Is truth unrelated to facts? If I say 'there is a 10 pound diamond buried under the Washington Monument' it seems that the truth of my statement depends on whether there actually is a 10 pound diamond under the monument. But if I say, well 'No, I mean it's true for me you can believe what you like.' But there either is or is not a diamond under the monument. Hence if "true to me" means irrespective of facts, then whatever you believed about the diamond would be true regardless of the facts and that would mean both beliefs "there is a diamond" and "there is not a diamond" would be equally true for you. Which of course is a contradiction. So if a truth claim is dependent on the facts of the matter, then it can't be just "true for you" alone - it would be objectively true for everyone.

You use the term absolute as if it means objective - typically moral absolutism refers to Kantian deontology.

The same is true for all scientific claims as well. So what? Can't someone be wrong about what they believe? Or are all beliefs equal? Are you suggesting that I am just as right as you are concerning the nature of morality?? I mean we are disagreeing right?

You're making a truth claim based on empirical evidence. Truth claims are either true or false.

Then, as I said before, if this is true, and a Republican president appoints several pro-life justices to the Supreme Court (the majority will have spoken) and they overturn Roe v Wade, your posts on this thread will be exactly opposite of what they are now - you will be writing in defense of banning abortions, since you would have no grounds to make a case in support of abortion rights. As you claim, what is right is whatever the majority says it is.

 

There is no evidence to the nature of morality, how did we come to know what morality is/was, where is or was the universal unquestioned source, the unquestioned interpretation and unquestioned authority because without these it is impossible for there to be a system of universal morality. The sheer differences of moral opinions that exist is evidence enough to show that there cannot be a single true morality.

Wrong, the above would be an argument in favour of normative morality, which takes the meta-ethical morality and implies that we ought to tolerate the behaviour of others even if it is against out own moral standing, that is not my argument, my argument comes from descriptive morality which is that it cannot be assumed that the same moral standing are always there in all historical circumstances, that does not imply that tolerance should necessarily be advocated in those disagreements.

Everything is a belief until such time it is shown to be true or not, belief is not a truth bearer until such time that belief is proven, there is no evidence to support the idea of absolute morality.

All beliefs are equal until such time that one is proven to be wrong or right, your example of the diamond is equally true until such time the diamond is either found or not.

Kantian deontology has it's own critics. Kantian ethics discounts outcome as a valid factor in evaluating the morality of an action, to ignore the outcome altogether simply is not a good idea. Kantian moral duty seems to contradict our natural inclinations and common sense eg where killing one person would save the lives of many others, according to Kantian ethics you cannot kill the one to save the many.

All beliefs are equal until such time one or more is proven to be right or wrong. There is no evidence to support the belief of absolute or universal morality.

Truth claims are true until such time they are shown to be false.

and as I have said prior your point is based upon normative morality, which is not the position I am arguing from . .you are just making an assumption of my position in order to defeat arguments you yourself have made ie strawman arguments.

 

You are making a claim about the nature of morality here: that is has no objective nature and is therefore relative to cultures. Note too that this a logical fallacy: it is an appeal from ignorance (that you are unaware of any evidence): please note that there are thousands of published articles in refereed journals and entire monographs that claim otherwise.

Now you have moved from the metaphysical (what is the nature of morality) to a question of epistemology (how can we know morality). It is a category mistake to conflate the two.

,

Why must there be a universal source? What does this even mean? Do you have a universal source that grounds this claim (that there must be a universal source)? Because since other people disagree with you, it would seem that you must be skeptical about the truth of your own claims.

Why would unquestioned interpretation and authority matter? Do you not see how this problematizes your own claim? Allow me to rewrite your claim simply changing science with morality: "There is no evidence to the nature of science, how did we come to know what science is/was, where is or was the universal unquestioned source, the unquestioned interpretation and unquestioned authority because without these it is impossible for there to be a system of science. The sheer differences of opinions that exist is evidence enough to show that there cannot be a single true science.

Given that you are making an empirical claim -this would be self-referential, since not all people (particularly if throw history into the mix - which you did) accept the validity of empirical (i.e. scientific) methodology.

The number of people who believe something is irrelevant to its truth.

Nonsense. Wikipedia is not your friend here. My concern related to your metaphysical claim that morality was relative to each society - hence, no legitimate critique could be given in response to these actions (as I pointed out in the post). Legitimate here means justifiably true. I make no claims about toleration. Your response is that all acts are both moral and immoral depending on cultural perspective. Which means that, had you lived in Nazi Germany and 1780 America, you are claiming that it would have been immoral for you to stand against the Holocaust and slavery, but moral for you to stand in support of Hitler and slave masters. Oy.

Are some beliefs better than others? Can some beliefs be justifiably held? Can you make a justifiable inference to the best explanation? What constitutes proof? Certainty? But all empirical claims, are falsifiable. Even your own. Are you claiming that everything you write here has no justification (because none of it is certain)? Care to take on the claim of whether or not the theory of gravity is absolutely true in the standard model?

Regardless of evidence either for or against? No. Even if your claim was true (it's not), all one would have to due is come across a skeptic who denies that the diamond has been found, and by your definition there could be no truth since this would lack universal acceptance.

Wait...what?!? This is exactly the opposite of what you wrote earlier. Otherwise, until you show the flying spaghetti monster does not exist, any claim that it existed would be true. Notice that a lack of evidence for it's existence would not be enough to show that my belief is false. See Higgs Boson circa 1968.

Um no. Your stated definition of "normative morality" concerns relativity claims of other nations determining morality. I made no reference to that. If, as you said, morality is dependent on the culture of which it is a part then you would be committed to defending the abolishing of abortion (if majority decisions dictated), - but realizing this, you now retreat to a position of ethical subjectivism, which means that anyone's moral beliefs are just as justified as anyone else's. In which case you would have no grounds to critique another belief since there is no truth or objective reasons that can be used to justify those claims. If on the other hand, you claim that your belief is right because it has better rational reasons or evidence behind it, then you are committed to a position that undermines ethical subjectivism and moves back to a position that the moral beliefs are people are open to critique and evaluation, which of course was the position I suggested at the very outset of this discussion.

But maybe you would like to continue the debate over metethics and ethical subjectivism in a more detailed manner? Perhaps Cognitivism (naturalism and non-naturalism) and non-cognitivism (and the various issues concerning moral psychology: do moral judgments express belief? Are beliefs evaluated in terms of truth and falsity?) Perhaps the debate between cognitive naturalism vs cognitive non-naturalism? Or perhaps you would like to argue against the Cornell Realists (Nicholas Sturgeon for example) or maybe those who are naturalistic realists but who subscribe to a certain type of reductionism (like Richard Brandt)? Or maybe J.L. Mackie's Error-theory or Richard Joyce's moral fictionalism? Perhaps the debate over internalism and externalism in moral psychology? Please something other than the same ole same ole.

 

Forced Abortion happens in America too:
Teen Girl Sues to Prevent Forced Abortion

Here's another one:

[video=youtube;wL2X3KtUhCA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL2X3KtUhCA&nohtml5=False[/video]

Question here for pro-choicers is, when do you think it should be too late for a woman to make up her mind?

 

Forced abortion is a crime.

As is forced pregnancy.



Women have until 23 weeks to make up their mind as you well know. If there is a threat to her or her fetus, anytime.

 

And yet the ease of abortion-on-demand allows forced and coerced abortion to flourish.

Waiting until 23 weeks is totally unacceptable.

Not that abortion at 6 weeks is good either, but 23 weeks is just plain murder; morally, ethically, objectively, however you want to slice the cake.

 

I state a 23 week cut off on abortion is legal and you came up with that ???

 

It's the law. Do you agree with it?