dsayers

Too much obfuscation. Animals have brains and consciousness. Abortions are performed on fetuses, who are not people/moral actors. There is no moral component.

"Life" is not sufficient for being a moral actor. All animals and plants are alive, but we do not say that somebody that walks on grass is guilty of assault.

This looks like an assertion to me. Can you explain how this follows?

A couple of critiques if I may. In your title, you say "best." What does that mean? Do you think the utilitarian argument is more important than the moral argument, vice versa, or that they are the same? Also, in closing, you listed a bunch of different items. Instead of a checklist that tends to polarize people, why not sum it up on principle? Since your post made it sound that that's where those positions were stemming from to begin with. For example, to say "I accept that people cannot exist in different, opposing moral categories," you're simultaneous asserting that you wouldn't initiate the use of force against somebody for disagreeing with you and that you don't support others doing so either. Makes things simpler I think. What do you think?

If by LIKE a child, you mean they are both incapable of surviving left to their own faculties, then yes. Otherwise, the ways in which they are dependent are different. Humans don't breath liquids for example, whereas a human fetus does. Show me where. When you consider that birthing is an involuntary biological process and choice is a requisite of moral consideration, I don't see how I could've ever suggested as much.

There's a lot of information out there already. Things like empathy and language skills are developed mostly during the formative years. As is the physiology of the brain in terms of trauma received, cortisol released, amygdala size, etc. The whole purpose of self-knowledge is to 1) understand why you feel/act as you do, 2) control your behaviors based on that knolwedge, 3) leverage the decision you've made to pair off with somebody of like virtue to perpetuate.

I miss my best friend :*(

Why are those people attacking you? If it's just for disagreeing with them, I would point that out. Are the questions you're getting asked coming out of curiosity? If not, I would point that out. Also, would you be willing to share what it was you discussed and what specifically people are reacting to?

I don't think so. The obligation is created to the child, not the fetuses that get aborted.

If your "chums" would call you a neo-Nazi for disagreeing with them, isn't this an indication that they're not listening? To understand how to change people's minds, you have to first understand WHY they believe what they do. If you haven't already, check out Stef's Bomb in the Brain series. By challenging them when they're not listening, you're going to waste their time and STRENGTHEN the resolve of their convictions, the opposite of your stated goal.

That's not how investments work. By this logic, if a man buys a woman some food and she later clips her toenails, she owes him compensation since she has destroyed part of his investment. Furthermore, once somebody releases something, it is no longer their property. I have already put forth the argument that the zygote/embryo/fetus is the woman's property as it is part of her body which is her property. If you find flaw in this claim, please address it.

How did you arrive at the conclusion that communism is classless? In order for nationalism to be logically consistent, one would have to prove how this dirt is fundamentally different from that dirt as to inspire righteous devotion to it.

When a person chooses to have a child, they are voluntarily creating an obligation to nurture and protect that child until such a time as they are able to do so without their parents. I don't know exactly what you're talking about when you say "child support." Could you elaborate? Your second sentence is just repeating your position as if no challenge has been offered. The fact that a person can dispose of their property as they see fit is neither bad nor hypocritical.

Where does the word "equal" come from? You use it as if it's automatically "good" and allows for us to override reality. The reality is that the fetus is part of the woman's body, drawing upon her resources not unlike her own foot, or an internal parasite. If the man does not like her foot, he doesn't get to hack it off. If he doesn't want to give her a fetus, and he knows that vaginal intercourse to the point of ejaculation could reasonably produce the fetus, then it is his responsibility to block the ejaculation, or select a woman with whom he has established what they will do in event X, Y, or Z and can trust her to follow through.

Hello. I hope you don't mind if I try and help you be precise with your language. Because how we speak is how we think, and it's better to be accurate when taking on new ideas so as not to misrepresent them. For starters, you're not talking about "Stef's philosophy." Stef could die today and it won't change the fact that humans cannot exist in different, opposing moral categories. Next, you said that the NAP states that the initiation of the use of force is wrong, unless in self-defense. Self-defense is not the INITIATION of the use of force, so that caveat is superfluous. Finally, you referenced Alice's need or distress, but these things are not relevant. What you're describing is wrong because Bob has violated his contract, even if it's a drop in the bucket for Alice. If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking out Stef's series called An Introduction to Philosophy. It's long, but well worth it as it will help you to think more rationally and critically to catch mistakes like these and have cleaner conversations. Also, in terms of answering your question, I recommend checking out this video: Basically, Bob created a debt to Alice when he violated his contract with her. The amount of the debt is whatever his contract pledged her, plus compensation for whatever effort she has to put into settling that debt. The creation of this debt was in fact Bob's initiation of the use of force even though it took place by way of deliberate inaction, since his contract pledged action. So for Alice to use force to settle this debt would not be the initiation of the use of force. That said, there is a continuum. If the deal was a dollar for a candy bar, then I think for Alice to hold a knife to Bob's neck would be disparity to a level that she was no longer settling the original debt, but in fact creating a new, much larger debt herself. Such an action would not be self-defense, but retaliation, which is in fact the initiation of the use of force. If Bob failed to give her the candy bar and she went and took one off the shelf in his store, that would not be theft, and her action would be justified. I hope this helps and good luck. I appreciate your dedication to such an important topic!

Suppose your neighbor is a rapist. Why should you love that person? You wouldn't believe all the things that were done to me by my Christian parents because the Bible told them to. I've lost everything that's ever meant anything in my life because of the ripples of this damage. That wasn't love at all.

So... People willing to claim ownership over you would interfere with you living your values, but not with you trying to move half way around the world to live someplace else? And by moving to this someplace else, you make it so that aggression no longer exists? Yes, I can see that one of us isn't seriously considering things.

And? If I pay you to do something immoral, you are free to decline. This is begging the question. You can only take something from somebody that they already have. If I observe that you have no loaf of bread in your house, I didn't take your bread from you.

Yes. Accept that people cannot exist in different, opposing moral categories, live your values, and cut toxic people out of your life. Welcome home! Setting out to accomplish the impossible is just a way of avoiding what will actually work for YOU in YOUR life.

Hi, there. Thanks for your donations and for sharing. I noticed a lot of outward descriptions, with not so much inwards. I can relate. I remember a time when I was getting arrested and the cops were completely in the wrong. I was of the mind that they had no right, and I was belligerent in telling them so in the moment. For which they wanted to--and largely succeeded in--punishing me for. Later on, I learned to look at it from the standpoint of a bear raiding your camp site. Sure that's YOUR sandwich, but what will you accomplish in standing your ground? Priority #1 is getting yourself to tomorrow. Not placating the moguls to fit in well enough to earn your bread isn't in-line with this goal. Does that make sense?

I've never said that I want a free society to be legal. I've said that I accept that humans cannot exist in different, opposing moral categories. If you think in terms of (il)legal instead of exists, then I'm afraid you're not free even in your own mind

The ability to accurately identify one's surroundings is paramount to survival. Belief in the non-existent serves no evolutionary purpose.

You just said it yourself when you used (il)legal as if that's an objective standard. We cannot get together and vote for rape to be legal because all the wishing in the world couldn't change the fact that it is the simultaneous acceptance and rejection of property rights.

How do you know that science cannot answer this? It's like asking what's in a movie after the reel runs out. Kind of answers itself really. Animals have instincts. What separates humans from other animals is our capacity for reason. We also have the capacity for error. So if you're checking in with yourself, asking things like "how do you know?" you should be fine. If you just say "we have instincts" and you view that as license to believe whatever you want, I cannot help you there. Self-knowledge is the process of reconciling what you feel with what you know and identifying why that is. Saying "we have instincts" is like closing the book before the story is over. It's not the whole picture at all.

Common mistake. Aggression is the initiation of the use of force. In that phrase, "force" is far less important than "initiation." Can you only stop rape if you are a participant of rape? It is implied that your use of the word "party" means political party. But that which is political is predicated on the initiation of the use of force. You're asking why there isn't rape-less rape.