Illness & Morals

[gleam]

Not to turn this into a political thread, but it is the Conservatives who in numbers opposed stem cell research as well as abortion. WriterDom's poll, posted in this thread, confirms that. And the Conservatives who oppose these things generally do so - as you mentioned - on religious grounds.

But political threads are fun!

My tenuous impression (and this is nothing more than my impression from television and campaigns, etc) is that Conservatives tend to oppose any sort of law which promotes social freedom (abortion, gay rights, etc). In their minds, such laws break down what they see as the ideal family unit - the father knows best, chaste until marriage, subservient to your man sort of deal. Liberals tend to oppose economic freedom - the freedom to trade with whoever you want, whenever you want, on whatever terms you want, no matter how big you get - because they feel (rightly or wrongly) that such freedom leads to inequality (whatever that means) which they consider a Bad Thing.

So both camps oppose different kinds of freedoms, while suppoting others. Only the Libertarians, as far as I know, support both.

 

[Unclebill]

Originally posted by Laurel
Hmmm.... I would think that on a purely structural level, you would have to say yes, it is. It has the genes of a human. It has the organs and looks of a human. Then you get into "spirituality" and what "other" ingredients contribute to our humanity. Since I don't believe in any extraneous ingredients - since I believe that we are essentially the sum of our parts, I would have to say yes, it is a human. And if you asked it, I'm sure that's the answer it would give.

"Spirituality" and "other" ingredients get rather nebulous rather quickly as they are quite subjective in interpretation. The perception of "spirituality" seems to be the mainly religious expression or interpretation of the human soul. As an atheist, my perception is a bit different. My perception of the "spirit" or "soul" is the human consciousness that each of us possesses. It is the result of the sum of our biochemistry, our education and our life experiences.

When the person dies, that consciousness dissipates in the process of dying. Some or all of the "information" relating thereunto may remain chemically encoded within the brain cells for some period after death, but eventually, it all dissipates.

But the intended direction of my question as to whether the new entity was human or not was looking toward the idea of using such an entity for replacement organs or other such logistical efforts in the future should cloning become and economical potential. In such an instance, would it be moral to create a clone and then harvest organs for the survival of the entity from which the clone was created?

For an interesting twist on the religious aspect, a few weeks ago I heard a discussion regarding cloning on a talk radio show. A caller declared unequivocally that the clone would not have a soul since only God can give a soul.

I thought about the ramifications of that with the following result. If the caller declares that the clone does not have a soul, he's tacitly saying it is not a human. Thus, from his religious perspective, if it is not human, why would it not be legitimate to harvest the organs for the benefit of the source of the clone? For if it does not have a soul, doesn't it then become one of the "lesser beasts" of God's creation put on earth for man's use?

Originally posted by Laurel
Not to turn this into a political thread, but it is the Conservatives who in numbers opposed stem cell research as well as abortion. WriterDom's poll, posted in this thread, confirms that. And the Conservatives who oppose these things generally do so - as you mentioned - on religious grounds.

I have no disagreement here and it is for this reason that I disagree with a significant part of the Conservative rhetoric and proposed legislation.

But I have witnessed over the past couple of decades a trend of one political faction which I find more frightening than the Conservatives of even 30-50 years ago. They have become far more intent on legislating everything by offering that they are trying to protect me. But I ask, "Protect me from whom?". If they're trying to protect me from myself, that's not their legitimate authority nor is it their responsibility; in fact, it's frankly none of their damned business.

And who is to protect me from them? For that is the much more real threat. I can do very limited harm to others by comparison to that those in control of government can and have already done. As an example, what is the likelihood that I, as an individual citizen, could establish a pyramid scheme confidence game and run it for 60 years unimpeded and unchallenged extracting billions of dollars from innocent people? But government has done it with impunity calling it Social Security.

The Founders of America recognized that government invested with excess authority was the foundation of tyranny and took extraordinary steps and efforts to constrain the Federal government to minimize the likelihood of this happening. And so long as the restraints they placed on the Federal government are honored, it will not happen.

Today, we have far too many career politicians who are not observant of those limits. In fact, many of them seek more ways to evade and avoid those limits. Rather, they are seduced by the idea of power and the result is ever more flagrant violations of the freedoms upon which this nation was founded and the protection of which our present form of government was instituted. And these people are found in both of our major political parties and in most of the minor ones.

And as to Federal funding, I ask only that it be done in accord with the Constitutional provisions.

 

[gleam]

I offer a question for you to ponder, then. If you clone a human being, you essentially have a replication of the original entity including the brain. In all likelihood, the content of that brain, i. e., memories, will be unique to the exposure and experiences of the new being.

Is the new being a human? Why?

How could the new being not be human?

I'm with Laurel on this. Even if you believe in an immaterial soul (and that's a huge if) are we really supposed to believe that the process of fucking imparts one of these souls to the resulting offspring, but the process of cloning does not?

 

[Unclebill]

Except that the issue of even whether or not to have laws against murder is itself a moral issue. I don't think there's any real way to avoid the moral viewpoint.

I disagree with this premise which is in effect an argument for anarchy.

There are certain things which can universally defined as criminal. And it is the province of law to deal with criminal punishment in a free society.

I offer that laws of prohibition are stupid. They prevent no criminal actions and protect no one from anything. Law should prescribe the punishment for the commission of a crime. And a crime, in simplest terms can be defined with intellectual consistency as the initiation of the use of force.

Any act that one person initiates that violates the right of another by the initiation of the use of force can be defined as criminal action. These acts include murder, rape, robbery, extortion, embezzlement, intimidation, etc.

Legitimate laws prescribe the punishments for these acts. Prohibition laws achieve nothing and thus are useless. Laws that prohibit other non-criminal activities are intellectually definitions of political crimes, i. e., attempts to legislate morality.

So in answer to your argument, a law prescribing a penalty for murder is completely legitimate and morally proper. However, a law prohibiting or prescribing a penalty for engaging in prostitution is both immoral and illegitimate.

Originally posted by gleam
How could the new being not be human?

I proposed the question seeking responses, not wanting to cloud the process possibly by prefacing the discussion with my opinion. And I don't disagree with you. Unfortunately, my previous post may have already biased the discussion considering its content and that was not my original intent with the question.

Originally posted by gleam
I'm with Laurel on this. Even if you believe in an immaterial soul (and that's a huge if) are we really supposed to believe that the process of fucking imparts one of these souls to the resulting offspring, but the process of cloning does not?

Was your reference to the immortal ["immaterial"]soul as believed by many religions?

As to the source of the soul, from my perception of the religious beliefs I've heard expressed, it seems that God provides the soul for the results of procreation as ordained by His design. Thus, since the clone does not result from God's design of human procreation, i. e., it's not the "gift from God" that many people ascribe to a child of normal human conception, God did not provide a soul.

And I'm willing to take a wild stab in the dark here and bet that there are people of religious convictions on both sides of that question.

 

[gleam]

I disagree with this premise which is in effect an argument for anarchy.

There are certain things which can universally defined as criminal. And it is the province of law to deal with criminal punishment in a free society.

I offer that laws of prohibition are stupid. They prevent no criminal actions and protect no one from anything. Law should prescribe the punishment for the commission of a crime. And a crime, in simplest terms can be defined with intellectual consistency as the initiation of the use of force.

Any act that one person initiates that violates the right of another by the initiation of the use of force can be defined as criminal action. These acts include murder, rape, robbery, extortion, embezzlement, intimidation, etc.

Legitimate laws prescribe the punishments for these acts. Prohibition laws achieve nothing and thus are useless. Laws that prohibit other non-criminal activities are intellectually definitions of political crimes, i. e., attempts to legislate morality.

So in answer to your argument, a law prescribing a penalty for murder is completely legitimate and morally proper. However, a law prohibiting or prescribing a penalty for engaging in prostitution is both immoral and illegitimate.

I agree with all of this. It's just that you need a moral theory in place before you can say something like "Any act that one person initiates that violates the right of another by the initiation of the use of force can be defined as criminal action" and be taken seriously. Why on earth should we wish to prevent criminal actions in the first place? Or, to put it another way, what is it about a criminal action that distinguishes it from a non-crimial action, and why do we tend to think criminal actions are undesirable? Why are criminal actions "bad" (a moral term)? And how the heck do we decide what "rights" are, anyway?

I mean let's say you got into an argument with Joe Stalin, and he genuinely felt that there was no such things as individual rights. Individuals can be sacrificed for the majority good, decided by him and him alone. How exactly are you supposed to counter that?

My intent here is not to claim that criminal actions actions are morally acceptable, or that we should be more tolerant of criminals, etc. My intent is to try to show that an absolutist view on certain aspects morality is necessary before one can adopt libertarianism (or any ism) and mean it.

I proposed the question seeking responses, not wanting to cloud the process possibly by prefacing the discussion with my opinion. And I don't disagree with you. Unfortunately, my previous post may have already biased the discussion considering its content and that was not my original intent with the question.


Was your reference to the immortal ["immaterial"]soul as believed by many religions?

As to the source of the soul, from my perception of the religious beliefs I've heard expressed, it seems that God provides the soul for the results of procreation as ordained by His design. Thus, since the clone does not result from God's design of human procreation, i. e., it's not the "gift from God" that many people ascribe to a child of normal human conception, God did not provide a soul.

And I'm willing to take a wild stab in the dark here and bet that there are people of religious convictions on both sides of that question.

Actually, I didn't mean immortal. I really did mean immaterial, which I find is a much more important characteristic of the religious view of a soul. Immaterial souls cannot be detected, even in principle, by science. The religious soul is completely non-physical, it's presence in the physical world makes no difference on the state of the world, and yet it is supposedly a real entity, existing as something real and seperate from the physical world (i.e. not as something contingent on it, like biological consciousness, etc)

I don't believe in an immaterial soul. To those who do, I really can't offer any arguments, since the soul is in principle undetectable through science. Very convenient.

As Gilbert Ryle would ask, what would it mean for a person not not have an immaterial soul? What if this soulless person still walked and talked like other people? What if he was completely indistinguishable from other people, what if he laughed and cried and went to work, but then one day, God comes down and tells you that this person was the result of cloning experiements and has no soul? What would that mean? Am I the only one who finds this a bit absurd?

I mean, what would one say about a person who claimed that immaterial, undetectable gremlins lived in his car? We would, to put it mildly, tend to disagree. At least, I hope we would.

 

[Unclebill]

Originally posted by gleam
I agree with all of this. It's just that you need a moral theory in place before you can say something like "Any act that one person initiates that violates the right of another by the initiation of the use of force can be defined as criminal action" and be taken seriously. Why on earth should we wish to prevent criminal actions in the first place? Or, to put it another way, what is it about a criminal action that distinguishes it from a non-crimial action, and why do we tend to think criminal actions are undesirable? Why are criminal actions "bad" (a moral term)? And how the heck do we decide what "rights" are, anyway?

I agree that first you need a morality. Is that morality to be formulated and founded on intellect (reason) or superstition (faith)?

Knowing what we do of human nature, how do you propose to prevent crimes? If there is a prophylactic means, it is only through the knowledge that those who commit crimes will receive sure and swift punishment. Merely making the declaration "Thou shalt not…" is totally ineffectual to dissuade the criminal, otherwise, we would live in a Utopian paradise already.

Originally posted by gleam
I mean let's say you got into an argument with Joe Stalin, and he genuinely felt that there was no such things as individual rights. Individuals can be sacrificed for the majority good, decided by him and him alone. How exactly are you supposed to counter that?

Which is the most illustrative reason for my advocating basing morality on intellect, not faith, feelings or other totally subjective criteria.

Originally posted by gleam
Actually, I didn't mean immortal. I really did mean immaterial, which I find is a much more important characteristic of the religious view of a soul. Immaterial souls cannot be detected, even in principle, by science. The religious soul is completely non-physical, it's presence in the physical world makes no difference on the state of the world, and yet it is supposedly a real entity, existing as something real and seperate from the physical world (i.e. not as something contingent on it, like biological consciousness, etc)

Pardon my misinterpretation. And just for info, I took immaterial in the sense of irrelevant, not the sense in which you meant it.

But in all candor, I've never encountered anyone who espoused that the soul was not an abstraction, that it was a concrete or material entity. And I had never thought of it in such terms either much like a man's mind is an abstraction whereas the brain which houses it is the material or concrete physical entity. (And, yes, I have met a few in whom I think the concrete might be taken literally! )

Originally posted by gleam
As Gilbert Ryle would ask, what would it mean for a person not not have an immaterial soul? What if this soulless person still walked and talked like other people? What if he was completely indistinguishable from other people, what if he laughed and cried and went to work, but then one day, God comes down and tells you that this person was the result of cloning experiements and has no soul? What would that mean? Am I the only one who finds this a bit absurd?

I mean, what would one say about a person who claimed that immaterial, undetectable gremlins lived in his car? We would, to put it mildly, tend to disagree. At least, I hope we would.

Being an atheist, I don't consider this as a possible scenario even in theory. And it is this variety of questions and the lack of rational answers that has led me to embrace my atheist beliefs. Thus to try to interpret or discuss it is meaningless for me.

And on the last paragraph, I'm inclined to agree with you. Having worked in the electronics field on Navy ships for something on the order of 20 years, however, there were times the gremlin theory was about the best I could do. Particularly after working on a problem for two or three days and suddenly, the problem was gone yet there was nothing I had done which I could reasonably stipulate as a solution.

I once cancelled an exercise missile firing because of a problem which just "went away" after about two hours of troubleshooting. I had no way to predict if it would return or not within the next 24 hours which covered the "window" of our scheduled firing. And those opportunities were so rare that I really hated to do it but it was a decision to risk throwing away a $250,000 missile for an exercise or not and I could not assure the Captain of a reasonable success, thus we cancelled the firing. Had it been a tactical situation, I would not have had a second thought about prosecuting the firing, however.

As it turned out, that problem never recurred in the year or so while I remained aboard the ship.

 

[Laurel]

For an interesting twist on the religious aspect, a few weeks ago I heard a discussion regarding cloning on a talk radio show. A caller declared unequivocally that the clone would not have a soul since only God can give a soul.

I thought about the ramifications of that with the following result. If the caller declares that the clone does not have a soul, he's tacitly saying it is not a human. Thus, from his religious perspective, if it is not human, why would it not be legitimate to harvest the organs for the benefit of the source of the clone? For if it does not have a soul, doesn't it then become one of the "lesser beasts" of God's creation put on earth for man's use?

Shazzaam! Bill rips it up!

 

[Cheyenne]

I wonder if the Fat Bank give out pints of Ben & Jerry's like the Blood Bank does...

Hey! You get ice cream at your blood bank? I get OJ and stale cookies!

I obviously don't donate for the treats.

 

[Shelby]

I started to post a huge reply, but even I was confused when I read what I was about to submit.

We are so overpopulated now. I'd save a child at any cost. But heroic measures to enable us to prolong the lives of seniors? Nope. Zero population growth means nothing to so many people. Adopting children means nothing to so many people. I believe that having children is a not a right.

If Nancy wants to prolong the life of Ronnie. I would probably also. But I don't agree with it.

Off topic, I know.

 

[*Lazer*]

Morning girl according to the latest studies I have read those differences are less then researchers would believe. It is just that there are less of them in the cord blood.

 

[Unclebill]

Originally posted by Shelby
We are so overpopulated now.

Based on what scientific evidence, calculation or extrapolation?

Given the population of the earth as 6 billion, all of the world's population could be housed in an area the size of Texas in the manner of 6 people per abode with each abode on a lot just over 1/6 acre (about a 7,200 sqft lot).

Now just how do you declare the current population as overcrowding the earth?

 

[Shelby]

My simple definition of overpopulation is that many are starving. No science, no figures. C'est tu. Simply me.

 

[Unclebill]

Originally posted by Shelby
My simple definition of overpopulation is that many are starving. No science, no figures. C'est tu. Simply me.

And the VAST majority of the world's population lives under some form or other of tyrannical government. They are not permitted the exercise of their rights and freedom which are the purveyors of prosperity and advancement of the standard of living. So the fact is your condemnation of overpopulation is in reality a condemnation of the oppressive governments which prevent or plunder the production and accumulation of wealth which brings with it the advances to feed, clothe, house, educate and medicate those in poverty.

Don't you find it curious that the United States whose population is less than 5% of the world's total has produced the greatest proportion of wealth in history? And the reason is freedom. And note that I said produced, not looted, not seized, not taken from someone else. It was all created by the entrepreneurial spirit of the American businessman on whatever segment of the scale he might operate from the corner grocer to Microsoft.

 

[morninggirl5]

Morning girl according to the latest studies I have read those differences are less then researchers would believe. It is just that there are less of them in the cord blood.

Then they should start using the cord blood and save an awful lot of money in the process. The process of egg donation is expensive, time consuming, and can be painful for the donors. I don't think there would be anyone with objections to the research using cord blood and most parents would gladly donate it at the time of birth.

Any ideas why they're not using cord blood?

 

[Shelby]

We have babies starving in the US, in Canada, in China, in Mexico....shall I go on? I do not believe that reproducing is a right.

Tyranny or not,oppressive government or not. "Freedom" in the US has started to wreak havoc with the number of infants and senile that the government has been left to deal with.

My condemnation of overpopulation is simply that.

For Christ's sake...we need a piece of paper proving that we're 18/19/21 to see certain movies, to drink, to drive, but hell, have a baby? Anytime, anywhere.

 

[Samuari]

.

those of you who oppose stem cell research because of where those cells come from: if such research meant the difference between life & death for your father/mother/S.O./sister/best friend, do you think you would still be against it? Do you think it would affect your judgement? Who or why not?

Just a return to Laurel’s original question, but looking at a different example: In China they have developed a new system for procuring transplantable organs. It seems that there are harvesting teams standing by at executions, to rush in remove usable organs, many of which have already been sold, having been previously cross matched for tissue and blood type, a much easier procedure when the donor is still alive. Execution methods have been changed to accommodate the new booming market in body parts, and in some cases execution dates changed to fit the customer’s needs.

So, the changed question is this: Would those of you who oppose capital punishment feel any differently if Granny was getting a new heart from an executed prisoner? Would it matter if it was from a country that had a different standard for justice than we do?

 

[RisiaSkye]

Is it OK to jump into the thread without giving a damn about party allegiances? Alrighty, then...

My grandfather has Parkinsons, My great aunt has MS. My father has Grave's disease. All are neurological, and all could potentially be helped by stem cell research.

IMHO, the operative word here is "cell." When we're talking about a thing so small and underformed that the removal of a cluster of cells means its termination, it's not a person.

And please don't start with the "but everything is a cluster of cells" nonsense. Clusters arrange into molecules/tissues/organs/ bodies, it's the process of development. If there are no clearly developed tissues, and absolutely no organs, it cannot live without a host environment. It's a parasite, not a separately viable entity. So, I say yeah, do the research.

And a hundred years from now, no more Parkinsons, MS. Lou Gehrig's, diabetes, etc.

 

[Unclebill]

Originally posted by Shelby
We have babies starving in the US, in Canada, in China, in Mexico....shall I go on? I do not believe that reproducing is a right.

Tyranny or not,oppressive government or not. "Freedom" in the US has started to wreak havoc with the number of infants and senile that the government has been left to deal with.

My condemnation of overpopulation is simply that.

For Christ's sake...we need a piece of paper proving that we're 18/19/21 to see certain movies, to drink, to drive, but hell, have a baby? Anytime, anywhere.

Freedom is NOT the problem. Irresponsibility is the problem and sadly too much of it is instigated, condoned and rewarded by government. It was the establishment of the welfare state's requirement that if a woman lived with the father of her kids, she was NOT eligible for government aid which went a long way toward destroying the family as an institution in many situations. The result is history.

It is this sort of irresponsible government bureaucratic stupidity that has wrought the havoc, not our freedom nor the diminution of our freedom.

And while reproduction may not be a right in your perspective, how do you propose to curtail this privilege? It is probably the single strongest motivator of the human being that exists, the drive to perpetuate the species.

And your last paragraph simply reinforces my point; too many rules by too many politicians with too much time on their hands and their hands too deep in my pockets trying to steal too much of my earnings.

 

[Mensa]

A rough way to give blood

Hey! You get ice cream at your blood bank? I get OJ and stale cookies!

So that's what he's doing these days. Is he still wearing gloves when he starts the blood flowing?

 

[Laurel]

OJ hanging out at blood banks? Why am I not shocked?

 

[Demian]

I Don't Like the Concept...

But I wanted to say Hi to Laurel...

 

[Laurel]

Hi Demian!

What do you think of OJ staking out blood banks? Kinda scary, huh?

 

[Oliver Clozoff]

Definitely a difficult issue

As a future physician, I'm acutely aware of the great potential good of stem-cell therapies. Nevertheless, I can't help but fear the consequences of treating early embryos the same way we do other tissue cultures. Are these really equivalent?

The potential for cures is great. However, society has a long history of establishing limits regarding what is and is not acceptable in terms of medical research. For example, experiments must be approved by ethics panels which evaluate potential harm to study subjects. The central tenet of the Hippocratic oath is "primum non nocere" - first do no harm and it should be the physician's first principle, both in clinical practice and in research. Nazi scientific experiments in WWII

The question of when life begins is easy: it's obviously at conception. A sperm and egg join to form a cell with the entire genetic blueprint of a human being along with all the necessary machinery to construct that being. The question of when an individual's "humanity" begins is a much harder one to determine. Is it at conception, when life begins? at the point of viability? at birth?

Our society's eventual answer to this question will frame how future people view our endeavor into stem cell research. While stem cell research would give us much better understanding of embryological development, and provide a potential source of incredible cures, it would have to proceed in the face this murky, unsettled question.

We ought to consider and weigh the consequences of either action. To not proceed could be to allow future suffering that could have been avoided. Alternatively, proceeding could allow us to perpetrate what later generations may regard as unethical, immoral, inhumane, etc., much as we view unethical Nazi medical experiments.

I'm glad the pressure's not on me.

 

[Unclebill]

Originally posted by Laurel
OJ hanging out at blood banks? Why am I not shocked?

Was he alone or did he bring along another blonde to offer as a donation?

 

[Barb Dwyer]

I'm late to this discussion but...

Stem cell research is a fascinating and challenging issue. It causes us to examine both our intellectual and emotional responses (as evidenced here).

Ultimately, as we consider these ethical boundaries, the opportunity to cure disease is an exciting and essential affirmation of life and not a destruction of it. But, as with anything, there is the potential for abuse or misuse. We must insist on some sort of oversight to these endeavors to ensure that companies or individuals do not exceed established and accepted parameters and guidelines.