Hello ,
I've been reading along...I snip this bit from Clark because it filled
me with questions:
"Do we split a perfectly evolved moral molecule and use its parts to make
a bomb to kill about 130,000 people with two bombs? We did it and called it
moral because not doing it would have resulted in more deaths. Which
instance is less moral?"
I remember hearing this idea in school that it *was* moral to fry all of these
people, but I also remember that the justification was that it would
save more *American* lives. This sets off all these questions in my
mind and I find that I just don't have nearly enough information to
make a solid judgement. It seems that even if my knowledge of the
collision of Japanese and American values dating to that point in history was
impeccable, I still would be unable to make a proper judgement because
I can't see the other stream of possibility that would've unfolded had
the lone nuclear bombing not occurred.
Just can't see it, so I just can't say. The only statement of truth I
can make is that the Japanese "had it coming"...not that they necessarily
deserved it, just that they "had it coming". That's not a judgement
but a clever sort of answer to an impossible question like the old
algebra question, how long is a train? (twice the distance between
from the front to the middle).
My point is that an MOQ guide to morality would have to be extremely
exhaustive to really get at the difficult questions. People pretty
much knew already that it is the right thing to do for a human being
to knock off a germ to save another human being. You've gotta do better then that!
Clark, can *you* say what was more moral regarding that first nuclear
bombing? If you can and your notion holds together, then *that* will
be a true moral guide. Until somebody uses the MOQ to solve some
really tough questions, nobody will care much about its quality as a
moral guide other then to say that it helps to give a bit of
perspective going in.
I've also been wondering about this question of sentience. Just when
does it begin for the unborn child? Does the unborn child exhibit
some trait such as restlessness that says it has it? And what about
the life potential of the fetus who hasn't made it to that stage? Is
the sentience of a retarded child somehow more of an evolution then the
life potential of what shows all the signs of being a healthy child
being born to healthy parents?
The only commentary I've heard so far is that the MOQ regards the
unborn child as biological goo that can be morally aborted just prior to
its first exhibition of sentience. Not that I'm for or against
abortion per se. I'm in no position to tell a woman what to do.
I just can't see where and how one can reasonably make such a judgement.
Maybe if I spent time with the expecting mother I might be able to "divine"
some sort of proper judgement based on what
I see or hear from her. But where is the logical basis for such a
judgement when the future is impossible to see and the circumstance
nearly impossible to decipher? Medical science might virtually solve
the abortion question by some kind of new incubation system (maybe,
maybe not). But what about the woman who just doesn't *want* that
child to be born. Is her *want* greater then the life potential of
the fetus? Once again, I can't say although I might encourage her to
let it live if the circumstances were right.
Can the potential MOQ Moral Guidebook spring into "sentience" to help
me out here? Or is it more like that old empty algebra answer, merely
a clever framework for helping us sort available and incoming data?
Bill
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