[cinntaile]

It's a bit disappointing to read the comments here, the level is not very high. He's a philosopher, he's going to ask thorny questions and sometimes end up with logically sound but inhuman answers. This doesn't really tell us much about him as a person. You can lower your pitch forks.

[throw0101b]

> He's a philosopher, he's going to ask thorny questions and sometimes end up with logically sound but inhuman answers. This doesn't really tell us much about him as a person. You can lower your pitch forks.

He seems to accept that what most folks would call infanticide is okay:

> Similar to his argument for abortion rights, Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"[61]—and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living".[62]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer#Euthanasia_and_in...

So he's not just "I'm just asking question, bro.". He seems to accept many positions and not just using them as though experiments. Or, if he started things as 'just' thought experiments, he has now accepted those "inhuman answers" as valid.

[jhanschoo]

I agree that in our present society, infanticide is frequently illegal. There have been societies in the past, however, where infanticide e.g. infant exposure was still ultimately a practice; wikipedia tells me that it was extremely common in the stone age. Presumably, it was tan accepted form of population control before easy birth control. Conversely, apostasy was illegal and disgusting in many medieval societies but more widely tolerated today.

So whereas your disgust (and our illegality) at infanticide today serves as a good starting point to thinking about its morality, I don't think it's infallible and certainly not a veto over Singer's reasoned argument.

[throw0101b]

> So whereas your disgust (and our illegality) at infanticide today serves as a good starting point to thinking about its morality, I don't think it's infallible and certainly not a veto over Singer's reasoned argument.

I fail to see where I make any moral judgements on Singer: can you please quote me the parts of my post where I do so?

AFAICT, I simply describe the common contemporary moral stance ("…what most folks would call…"), and what I interpret as Singer's position ("He seems to accept…"). Is stating the facts (AFAICT) taking a moral position on them?

Is stating "Bob (appears to) believe the Earth is flat" the same as stating "I believe the Earth is flat"?

[cinntaile]

How do you even reach that conclusion based on that sentence? Your quote talks about equivalency, you interpret this as infanticide is ok. Those are two vastly different things?

[throw0101b]

Peter Singer's FAQ:

> […] Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living. That doesn’t mean that it is not almost always a terrible thing to do. It is, but that is because most infants are loved and cherished by their parents, and to kill an infant is usually to do a great wrong to her or his parents.

> Sometimes, perhaps because the baby has a serious disability, parents think it better that their newborn infant should die. Many doctors will accept their wishes, to the extent of not giving the baby life-supporting medical treatment. That will often ensure that the baby dies. My view is different from this, but only to the extent that if a decision is taken, by the parents and doctors, that it is better that a baby should die, I believe it should be possible to carry out that decision, not only by withholding or withdrawing life-support — which can lead to the baby dying slowly from dehydration or from an infection — but also by taking active steps to end the baby’s life swiftly and humanely.

* https://petersinger.info/faq

Do not most people nowadays consider a post-birth entity with the DNA of homo sapiens a person of particular sub-type "infant" (as classified by age)? Singer does not classify them as a person from what I've read.

[cinntaile]

That is about babies with life-threatening diseases that are being kept alive by medicine who have zero chance of leading any form of normal life.

One chance was more than enough. I assume you're arguing in bad faith at this point.

[throw0101b]

> That is about babies with life-threatening diseases […]

No, it is not. When he talks about "disabilities" he also means things like Downs syndrome.

[dlubarov]

He's not really getting into the topic of how we evaluate whether the life is worth living. He's just observing that sometimes, parents and doctors make the decision that a particular life is not worth living; then he makes a point about how such decisions should be carried out.

[hotpotamus]

Have you read any of Singer's writing? You've gone through a wikipedia article and cherry picked out the most provocative aspects of his philosophy, but, given that he's one of the most famous modern ethical philosophers, don't you suspect that there might be some depth to his reasoning?

[throw0101b]

Peter Singer's FAQ:

> […] Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living. That doesn’t mean that it is not almost always a terrible thing to do. It is, but that is because most infants are loved and cherished by their parents, and to kill an infant is usually to do a great wrong to her or his parents.

> Sometimes, perhaps because the baby has a serious disability, parents think it better that their newborn infant should die. Many doctors will accept their wishes, to the extent of not giving the baby life-supporting medical treatment. That will often ensure that the baby dies. My view is different from this, but only to the extent that if a decision is taken, by the parents and doctors, that it is better that a baby should die, I believe it should be possible to carry out that decision, not only by withholding or withdrawing life-support — which can lead to the baby dying slowly from dehydration or from an infection — but also by taking active steps to end the baby’s life swiftly and humanely.

* https://petersinger.info/faq

Do not most people nowadays consider a post-birth entity with the DNA of homo sapiens a person of particular sub-type "infant" (as classified by age)? Singer does not classify them as a person from what I've read.

[csense]

When I was in my teens and early twenties, seriously grappling with establishing my positions on fundamental moral issues for the first time, I thought carefully about abortion, because I didn't want to mindlessly adopt any side's shouted slogans. I wanted to have an independent, logically well-constructed view on the issue.

I have not read Singer's position on the issue until just now. His position is basically exactly the same as what I independently concluded (and still believe).

> He seems to accept that what most folks would call infanticide is okay

If you life begins at conception and abortion is never morally okay, you can skip reading my argument because I know it won't convince you; I'll see you in the footnote [1].

If you believe abortion is okay before a fetus is A weeks old, pick some X < Y < A. Two women are pregnant with fetuses of X weeks old. Alice gets an abortion at Y weeks (morally okay, according to you). Brenda gives birth at X weeks, then asks to have the baby euthanized at Y weeks (morally murder, according to you).

The only difference in the two situations is that Alice's child happens to live in her body, and Brenda's child does not. They are at the same stage of development otherwise. If Brenda's child has additional rights that Alice's does not, what are those rights based on?

My answer is that the law needs a bright-line test to determine what is or is not a person. Whatever test we pick should be easy to understand / perform (even for a layman), and there should be no false negatives (it's fine to forbid the killing of an organism that does not yet have the moral status of a person, and abhorrent to permit the killing of an organism that has the moral status of a person.)

"Birth" is an easy-to-measure bright line that already has some legal and historical backing (e.g. for establishing one's legal age for things like school / driving / tobacco use, we count since birth.)

So I would say infanticide of an infant that has the same level of personhood as a fetus is morally on the same level as abortion, which is morally on the same level as euthanizing a pet. Having infanticide be regarded as murder (legally) is an unavoidable side effect of trying to find an easy-to-test heuristic (has the person been born yet?) to approximate something with moral color that's hard to test (is this organism human enough yet that killing it is morally worse enough than euthanizing a pet that the parent should go to jail for it?) [2]

Your argument is basically a reductio: You have decided that infanticide must be defined as murder, and any moral system that allows it must therefore be thrown out. "Infanticide = murder" is "too far up the stack" to be used as a premise, especially if you're pro-choice. If you say "infanticide = murder, we must adopt a system that provides this outcome" then a pro-life opponent would say "abortion = murder, we must adopt a system that provides this outcome." It's basically that one weird trick that makes mathematicians hate you: If coming up with an argument is too hard, just make your desired conclusion an axiom; the proof is then trivial.

[1] I reject the premise that life begins at conception, as the arguments in favor seem to invariably rest on either an unmeasurable claim based on the "soul," or some religious authority. Government is in the reality business, and separation of church and state is an important principle. Therefore the premise is invalid for creating policy.

If you accept the premise, it seems to me that the pro-life side has an enormously strong case for its conclusion that abortion is murder. Despite the simplicity of the pro-life argument, I'm always astounded when I realize how many pro-choice people seem to be fundamentally, perhaps willfully, ignorant or incapable of logically addressing their opponents' position.

[2] The logic behind "innocent until proven guilty", and the entire legal/court system, is based on the same kind of thinking. You're trying to find an easy-to-test heuristic (was there a written law against something the person did, did the court system follow the rules of evidence and procedure?) to approximate something with moral color that's hard to test (did this person do something so bad that they deserve to be jailed or otherwise systematically punished?)

[Paradigm2020]

Could the baby fully develop outside the womb to it's full fledged human potential is my personal "ideal" cut off date, some use so called point of viability of the fetus [1] but from reading up on it (just now) 28 weeks would be the date for me based on [2]

But in all honesty given the trauma, complications,... involved my simple solution [3] would be to just hand out free pregnancy tests (one for every week of the year) to avoid the problem all together.

The whole abortion thing has just turned into one part of the "culture/identity wars" unfortunately instead of a problem that we as a society want to fix in the best way for everyone. [4]

Infanticide was still practiced even in late 19th century in Europe/France by poor farmers who were starving [5]

I think the whole point of the philosopher is just to do his "branding" as the logical "efficient altruism" solution would be to just bring the kid to an orphanage.

Unfortunately every year it gets harder and harder to get attention and hence these silly "solutions" that are meant to force people to form an opinion pro or con.

---

[1] depends on technological possibility and availability, generally considered 21 weeks in USA. [2] Of those that are born before 28 weeks, many do not survive. Those that do face high rates of disability and other medical complications. (the gap is getting wider between top end and middle, again complicating references here) [3] emperor for a day simple solution. [4] morning after and abortion pills that can be used within a week would be the logical outcome for the problem if there was no ideological nonsense to it. [5] Geert Mak - in Europe book, don't have it at hand but 1/3rd of the book is dedicated to his sources, if anyone really want his reference will find it tomorrow.

[throw0101b]

> Infanticide was still practiced even in late 19th century in Europe/France by poor farmers who were starving [5]

It is still practiced now:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide#Modern_times

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-ratio_imbalance_in_China

[throw0101b]

> [1] I reject the premise that life begins at conception, as the arguments in favor seem to invariably rest on either an unmeasurable claim based on the "soul," or some religious authority. Government is in the reality business, and separation of church and state is an important principle. Therefore the premise is invalid for creating policy.

Can you define "life" please? Because by some definitions bacteria and fungi are alive:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_(biology)

If single-celled organisms are (allegedly) alive, why not a multi-cellular organism like a zygote/fetus?

Further, just because it is alive, does not necessarily mean it is a person (according to some). Further-further, just because it is a person does not necessarily mean we have any moral obligation towards it (according to some):

> Some philosophers, like Thomson, think so, but very many philosophers disagree. If I live alone in the woods and wake one day to find an infant on my doorstep, am I obligated to care for it? Or may I simply step over it and go on about my day, until it dies from exposure and neglect? To think I am obligated in justice to help it, as a great many people (philosophers and non-philosophers alike) do, is to think we owe things to other people simply because they are people. And if we can owe things to other people simply because they are people, then Thomson’s argument falls apart. If the fetus becomes a person long before birth — as even Thomson concedes — and if we can owe things to people simply because they are people, then we can owe things to the fetus as well, long before birth.

* https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2022/06/05/phi...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Jarvis_Thomson

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion

So according to some folks (I am not making the argument, just describing it) : it can still be life/alive (which started at conception), and also be considered a human person, and abortion would still be okay.

[spacemadness]

Considering how often I heard from fellow STEM majors in university that studying anything outside STEM was a waste of time, my expectations for an HN philosophy discussion is pretty low.

[RandomLensman]

There is a market for his ideas and he is selling to it.