I agree that few have seen this Thompson’s argument who is pro-life. I am pro life with some limits. I have read this paper a couple years ago. Let’s leave rape, incest, and danger to the mother out of it for now and look at the violinist argument. Having sex knowing the risk of getting pregnant is very different then waking up and someone is suddenly attached to you. I think this is a major hole in this argument. You can’t enter into an act, knowing that person could be created and dependent on you, and suddenly scream body autonomy and get to back out of the results of that consensual choice. So I see it as a false comparison. Help me with a good comparison. Could you fly a plane where someone could end up being on it because it seemed like a good deal at the moment, then decide you want out and jump out the plane with a parachute letting the person inside crash and die? Of course that would make you guilty of murder or manslaughter or something. You entered into an act knowing a person could end up being dependent on you. You don’t get to back out after the result wasn’t what you hoped for. (Certain circumstances aside) Also, which is very interesting in these hot button issues, is the usage of words. Like, anti-choice vs pro life or pro-abortion vs pro-choice. Nobody would support a partial birth abortion if they called it what it was (deliver half the baby then cut it off at the head and pull the rest out). Pro choice and body autonomy sounds better than being pro-crush a baby’s skull, dismember it piece by piece, then suck out the remains with a straw. If that $&%# isn’t wrong then I don’t know what is. I have sympathy for women in tough situations. A lot more than I do for a man who abandons his responsibilities to a child he created. Does that man get body autonomy if he doesn’t want to be part of the child’s life? Or is his body autonomy gone for the next 18 years and has to bust his ass to provide even Though he didn’t want the kid? The answer to men abandoning that responsibility wasn’t for women to do the same. What are the cultural implications of normalizing this way of thinking? That would be a very important philosophical question to ask. Interesting video. Good luck with your channel. A thoughtful response will get a subscribe. I’ll give you a like though :)
If you're going to sit here and say a good counterargument to Thomson's argument doesn't exist, then you aren't looking. The rebuttal to Thomson's argument I would immediately suggest is Chapter 15 of Scott Klusendorf's book The Case for Life. He also addresses the bodily autonomy arguments of McDonagh and Bonnin. A couple other recommendations: Stephen Schwarz, The moral question of abortion Gregory Koukl, Unstringing the violinist Francis J. Beckwith, Politically Correct Death: Answering Arguments for Abortion Rights. Patrick Lee, Abortion and Unborn Human Life Bernard N. Nathanson and Richard Ostling, Aborting America Rich Poupard, Do No Harm (Except for killing that thing) It's so obvious that you haven't looked or examined near closely enough the pro-life position. And I would also like to note that you have a strong ideological bias when assessing Thomson's argument. You constantly refer to the pro-life position as "anti-choice", which is completely not what the pro-life position argues. And also, one last thing, whether or not a fetus is a human is not being ceded by Thomson, it is an established fact of embryology that from the moment of conception, a new human being is created. This has been well established for decades in the field of embryology. www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html
better it to spread with the conversation in the comment section stating objections to abortion and its incompatibility to any concept of human rights or innocence than for it to sit unchallenged.
I’ve always found the burglar argument to be dissimilar to consensual sex. When you have consensual sex are you not assuming the risk of pregnancy? If not, then how does it hold that a father is obligated to pay child support if of course, he did not consent to pregnancy? Whereas in the burglar situation it is another agent that is choosing to break into one’s house in spite of the “protection.”
In the actual paper Judith says that a burglar burgles your house and enters through the window you left open, although you knew that there are auch things as burglars and that they could enter through the open window. So one could argue that you are partially responsible, but it still doesn‘t change anything about the legal situation.
I would like to ask you a thought experiment : A woman went to hospital for an abortion. One doctor said that her baby had a chance to survive after being taken out of the body, and another doctor assured that her baby would die. Both doctors can do what the woman wants "my body my choice". Which doctor do you think the woman would choose?
This is really well done. I remember the article quite well. But you made me see something that I didn’t see while reading. That the reason why the violinist argument is appealing to pro choicers is because it invites us to identify with the mother. Perhaps if we were invited to identify with the foetus, the argument wouldn’t have such rhetorical force.
Great presentation. I remember a professor referencing this argument in class and he mentioned how this argument can be seen as one based on self-defence. This can implicate one in a situation where one has a justifiable claim to kill the burglar if he meets a certain threshold of harm to well-being. So if we accept this argument, we might also need to accept some form of castle doctrine based on similar reasoning.
Just some rambling thoughts on this text. Writing as someone against government regulation of abortion but would describe myself as "pro-life" in the full implications of that label (as opposed to the right-wing approach of "you have to go through with the pregnancy, but then do nothing to help the child thrive after the fact"): I think my main issue with this essay is that it relies on reductio ad absurdum in cases where that which is deemed absurd is debatable in its absurdity or which the most absurd parts are not applicable to the situation being discussed. Like, in the main situation that the reader is supposed to back away from in disgust (the saving of the violinist), the disgust arises more from the kidnapping against one's will and the privileging of the violinist over the person being kidnapped. But, once you examine the actual situation of care and social responsibility, I don't think it's clear what the so-called "correct" or "obvious" action is. If I ended up in that situation, I can't imagine that my first response would be to walk out and say, "nah man, screw you, just die." Especially if all this was costing me was 9 months of my time for the cost of his life. There's also a certain issue with the burglar analogy, in the sense that burglar has both the agency and the intent to cause harm, both of which the fetus lacks. Perhaps the more apt analogy would be that you set up all these defenses and a lost 5-year-old looking for shelter somehow manages to sneak their way inside. In that situation, I think it's pretty obvious that, knowing that the child is helpless and means know harm, it would be wrong to shoot them solely because they have intruded upon your space. It seems to leave the realm of self-defense at that point. The question would then be whether you have the obligation to care for the child (forever or until you find their home) if casting them back out into the streets would guarantee death. I don't necessarily have a good answer to that question, but if you have to resources to care for the child, it seems like the "moral" obligation would be to provide that care. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the fetus in this case is being treated with the hostility with which one would regard a parasite rather than the care one would give a socially-integrated being (a human). In this sense, it feels as though we're still stuck with the question of whether or not the fetus is a full-fledged human being, because, even though we say "sure, let's pretend that it is", the essay just simply does not grapple with the full implications of that and with the obligations that do come with living in a community of humans (which, as you are well aware, is certainly not limited to fascistic government telling you what to do and what not to do with your body). It seems like part of the issue of why those rejecting the premise of this essay can feel like they are merely "being against freedom" (a fundamentally complex concept that I'm not sure one can actually be for or against in-itself), is because the abortion debate, especially in the US, is premised on whether the government has the right to obligate you to another being without any attention being paid to the obligations that the government itself has towards its people. The very obligations, in fact, which it near-universally fails to achieve. The government forces you to provide care while neglecting (and even outright denying) its own obligations to care. A true "pro-life" stance, whether than involves banning abortion in some cases (it certainly can't involve a complete ban) or allows complete access to abortion, would necessarily involve complete access to the means of preventing unwanted pregnancies (birth control), a universal right to welfare that allows people to live and thrive, and a much-improved and more accessible adoption institution for people who don't want to keep the child long-term. No government on earth, at this moment, has provided that for it's people and it would be ridiculous to even consider limiting abortion without that structure in place (and even then probably shouldn't be limited, although I remain conflicted on the issue). Ultimately, I feel like the abortion issue reveals the limits and contradictions of the ideas of universal rights, laws, and reductionist definitions of "freedom" inherent to liberalism and cannot be properly addressed within that framework. The only recourse for women's rights within liberalism is the idea of absolute property founded on the ownership of bodies, which proves problematic in many other areas (from public health measures to slavery)
Ok I've finally read it all. I think that even in a social and economic utopia, people should get to decide what happens with their bodies. Someone might become pregnant consensually and then change their mind. They should have access to abortion no questions asked cause I don't think government should tell us what we can do with our bodies.
@@TheoryPhilosophy Not a diatribe at all. Just trying to work through an issue that is complicated to deal with from the legal framework we've been given and think that some arguments in this essay make assumptions that would not be obvious to me if I were in said situation. (Plus I didn't expect anyone to actually read the whole thing). And, no, I certainly don't think the government should violently coerce (through imprisonment or worse) people to do things they don't want with their bodies. I'm simply arguing that we do have responsibilities to each other as a result of living in a community/society (and, lost in this debate, whatever collective entities we establish have these same responsibilities), and that this line of inquiry feels inadequate for addressing that component of the world. I don't think that was necessarily the goal Thomson's essay
I feel as though the first situation doesn't require the presumption of hostility or the reaction of disgust on your part to function. If the argument we're pursuing is that I should not be allowed to force you to save the violinist's life, your opinion as the patient is inconsequential. The point is that you should be able to make that call, not someone else, not even the violinist.
@@hatboy9991 by my lights you’re right to intuit that parents has an obligation to provide minimal necessary care to their offspring. We see this legally all the time after birth. Pro lifers just want to extend the states enforcement of this duty to pregnancy, when the fetus can only exist in the womb. Likewise, pro lifers argue that the fetus has a right to the mothers body during pregnancy. Pro choices, and the video, reject that view. That uphold bodily autonomy as the highest value & therefore bc the fetus requires the use of the mothers body, pregnancy requires her continual consent. Therefore according to the pro choice view so long as that fetus is in her, the mother can have it killed for any reason she wants to remove her consent. Wrong race, wrong sex, genetic problems, crancky morning, doesn’t matter bc it’s the mothers consent to use of her body that’s paramount. Stephanie gray connors is probably the best pro lifer I’ve found. Cheers.
I first heard of this argument from PhilosophyTube (Abigail Thorn)'s video on abortion. I don't know if you're familiar with her or that video, if not I highly recommend watching it. Thank you for this very clear explanation. I look forward to seeing more from you !
this is really interesting, and definitely adds way more depth to this discussion than most people consider. I also think Engels’ comment which is that scientists continuously change what is the “objective” starting point of life shows that it’s obviously not an objective fact which gives credence to the idea that it can be fluid. Im tired so hopefully this makes sense haha, that’s just the quote that always comes to my mind when I think of arguments for abortion
I think this is a really good argument, and I personally am a supporter of a person's choice to get an abortion. However, there is a slight concern I have with the argument. Where it compares a pregnancy (despite one's best efforts at avoiding one) to a burglary (despite all the security measures one has put in place), is there not a problem of comparison? Would we not hold the burglar responsible for their actions in a much more substantial way than am embryo? Interested to see what people think.
I also love the essay but am, after years, seeing issues with it. Mainly the intuition pump character of the arguments. In the violinist case we’re asked to identify with the mother, not the foetus. And in another argument the foetus is a burglar. Come on!
A counter argument I know of is that you consent to a pregnancy the moment you have sex. Even if you’re wearing a condom or on birth control, you are accepting the chance of a pregnancy and therefore are consenting to a pregnancy. There is always the choice to not have sex and not consent to a potential pregnancy. Except for rape. I do not know a counter argument for rape other than more hardcore pro-life beliefs like a mother’s responsibility to her child.
OK, so let's add consent. You consent to be connected to the violinist. Then you change your mind. Maybe you lost your job and can't afford the time connected to him anymore, or the care needed to recover. Maybe it's more painful than you thought. Maybe you just decide it's not what you want to do anymore. Should you be punished for disconnecting from the violinist, knowing he will die, even if you initially consented? I'll admit, I have very little philosophy or legal training, but it seems unlikely that there exists a duty to provide continuing care in that circumstance.
@@nwsmith9 Good point. I guess you’re right, you always have the option to remove consent. I think we’re also stepping more into the boundary of responsibility, insofar that you would not be punished if you were to remove consent after having consented to the violinist; however, you made a personal commitment to that person on the scale of their entire life. Maybe it’s not immoral to withdraw, but it’s certainly pretty fucked up to approach the violinist situation, say “yea I will connect myself buddy don’t worry you’re gonna make it,” and then halfway through decide it’s not worth it lol. Again, I don’t think it’s immoral, I just think it’s a lack of judgement that should be addressed
@@nwsmith9 in the same way that a doctor shouldn’t enter a surgery knowing they’re too anxious/stressed to finish the job, a person shouldn’t have sex if they can’t accept the responsibility of bearing a child. I haven’t thought this out fully tho, this isn’t what I believe lol. Just counter arguing
@@HahaHaha-fu6vk I agree that it would definitely be a dick move lol. I just think that we shouldn't have laws that punish people for being a jerk. They should exist to protect people's liberty and rights. I don't know of other laws that force anyone to give up their body for another person to live, without that person's active consent. Not for organ donation, even from dead bodies. Only women. Hell, even cops do not have a duty to protect you. They can stand outside the door while you get stabbed and scream for help and if they feel it would put themselves in danger, they cannot be held liable for not giving up their body for you. It's a crazy standard to put on women, and a case of special rights for a fetus that no other humans get.
I don't agree that this argument is the magic bullet answer to the abortion debate. 9:18 - When a pro-life person concedes that abortion is only justifiable in cases of rape, that is a perfectly consistent position. In fact I'd go on to say it's the MOST consistent position IF you belive the fetus is a full person. It's not at all saying the value of the fetus is lesser when created through rape, what it's actually saying is the level of responsibility for the fetus' survival is different. Instead of being kidnapped and hooked up to the violinist, lets go back and change the circumstatances to show you what I mean. Lets say the violinist had a horrific debilitating disease and asked for your help in a very unique treatment option. To cure this disease she'd need to be temporarily reliant on your body for nine months while doctors put her through a series of surgeries. You agreed, happy to sacrifice nine months for an entire life, and she thanked you greatfully. A couple months into the process and you don't want to share your body anymore and so decide to separate and kill her. She then (I think quite rightly) says: "Well hold on there, bud! I wouldn't even be reliant on you if you didn't give the thumbs up! YOU agreed to this and YOU have a responsibility to see it through. Does your remaining few months here really outweigh my right to life?" If someone thinks that killing her here is wrong but fine in the original example, that position isn't tenuous or weak. There are morally relevant differences, despite it literally the exact same person in both cases. I'd extend and say that you've actually got the more tenous position if you think separation is okey-dokey even after you've made the pianist need you to live. This argument then, can very sensibly justify abortions in cases of rape, but for the 95% of abortions where this isn't the case, they're still immoral. To be clear, I am still pro-choice, but for different reasons to you. I just don't think personhood is something you can concede if you want to be consistent on this topic. I'm happy to go back and forth if you think I've gotten something wrong, thanks for reading :)
I thought people that have abortions didn’t want to get pregnant? The example you used said the person actually WANTED to be attached to the violinist for 9 months.
@@MambaSanon I mean generally no. They wanted to have sex which had the risk of causing pregnancy. The main point of that comment was around choosing to make someone reliant on you. You could make it more "accurate" to pregnancy if you replace the analogy with a magic button that feels really good to press but everytime you press it there's a 1% chance someone is teleported to you and fused to you
@JohnDoe-se8wi But the analogy is flawed. The violinist would die without your help. Therefore the outcome is the same if you had declined at the very start or if you chose to separate: the violinist would die either way.
@eruiluvatar6688 but that's kinda the point right? Pregnancy isn't like the violinist argument it's more like the analogy. The fetus didn't exist before sex, it was made dependent on the woman through sex where it otherwise wouldn't be. Again I'm pro-choice I just think the personhood argument is the best way to do it otherwise sex has some pretty shocking moral implications
You should consider talking to Dr. Avi if you want a counterargument against the pro-choice position. The one thing you left out is the responsibility objection. Fetuses are dependent on the mother when she engages in consensual sex *and* it is her fault that that is the case. Thomson even says in the paper that it could be argued that this fact may give the fetus rights against the mother. She presents the people seeds argument as a possible rebuttal to this line of reasoning, but it's not clear if it succeeds.
it (people seeds) doesn't succeed because it relies on using human intuition to process an inhuman world. it's akin to us judging the morality of aliens or other (intelligent) animals. she doesn't even acknowledge that surely in that scenario, the reader was also a people-plant, who was once a people-seed. and in such a world, it's well known and the only way to reporofuce. and that in such a wolrd, people seeds are afforded rights and are generally objects of love by parent-plants. still, generally, she abstracts the concept so much that intuition of our current world can't apply. she also acts like abstinence is a constant discomfort instead of a residence of an urge. a better analogy would be "people-chocolates", where there's a very tasty chocolate that people eat, and that there are alternate sweets that also taste good (same way that lust can be quenched with other forms of intimacy other than PIV). Surely, in such a world where those chocolates are the only means of reproduction and cause pregnancy, aborting a choco-baby is not permissible, by the same responsibility arguement.
I loved reading this essay like 15 years ago in whatever course it was, one of the better arguments for abortion. If you're against abortion, the essay does offer a very well thought counter argument
This is something I should think about for a long time, just to reach and establish 'my opinion' about this. And I thank you for that. For helping me focusing on my stance on this subject. But still, hey. Some of your replies sounded too.. How should I say, stubborn? or not open for discussion?(My english is pretty bad, so there might be some mistranslated words) just like those prolifers and all the other ones who wont accept other opinions at all. I don't know man. I dont know how to act to those extremists as well so maybe what you are doing is correct. But still, I do think that its not a healthy mindset thats used for debates.. so yeah. Just saying. By the way, thank you for the Derrida videos. They are notoriously hard to translate and what I got in my country were plain awful or too cryptic to understand a sentence- So I had to read/listen to english ones. and your videos were the ones that I watched the most. Again, thanks!
I've posted my response to this essay (which led me to yours). I think her response's weaknesses are revealed by her title - there should be an asterisk and a note at the bottom that says (in certain contexts, but not all of them). And I think that's why her essay isn't more popular today - she's insufficiently extreme, and her essay addresses such a narrow context, it misses a good deal of the cases.
Ya I agree. Abortion should be permissable in only those contexts where the pregnant person wants it, and they aren't forced to. And in which case there should be no restrictions. I'm happy we agree about the importance of easy access to sought after abortion!!
I fail to understand the last point. Abstracting like this is often done, It makes the moral problem clearer and isolates for variables of interest while holding everything else equal. Why would someone's experience be enough, these things need to have an argument made for and against; abstractions such as these are good vehicle for those arguments. Otherwise interesting video.
well, in the consensual sex scenario, I don't think it's fair to paint the baby as a "burglar" whose intention is to harm the house (body) of a woman...
"You didn't choose to be there." That's a very poor attempt at an analogy. In a pregnancy, you certainly chose to be there (unless you were raped). You couldn't be sure that your actions would result in a pregnancy, but you willingly engaged in actions which most certainly could result in a pregnancy. You are responsible for the pregnancy. In the attempted analogy, you are definitely not responsible for anything. There must be a better defense of abortion than this.
lets say you are violinist and someone bring you in this situation and this one is now connected to you and you are dependent on them now. you can construct any thought experiment you want that serve your narrative.
"This argument is airtight" Huh? Dude, the argument is really not good. The situation isn't parallel. 1. The argument supposes that one has the same duty to a random stranger as to your own child. 2. The argument fails because in a pregnancy you yourself cause the embryo to be in that situation, while you don't cause the violinist to be in that situation. 3. The kidney's function is not to support a different human being, while the uterus' function is that exactly. 4. The embryo came into being because of you while the violinist did not. 5. There is a difference between unplugging yourself from the violinist and actively stabbing him to death with a knife. The latter would be parallel to an abortion, the former wouldn't be. You didn't search for any rebuttal to the comatose violinist, but claim to have done all the possible research. That's pathetic. You would have find these rebuttals immediately from pro-lifers if you would have searched for it.
Thanks for the comment; it really helps with engagement and getting more people to watch this! If you want me to explain this to you with smaller words and slower, then you can make a contribution to my patreon 😘
@@TheoryPhilosophy Wow, a really dishonest and terrible reply. Judith Jarvis Thomson's argument is commendable, but it is certainly not "airtight," and Besserglauben gave you five serious objections that require serious replies. You can't just call a person stupid and wave these objections away. For clarity, I'm staunchly in favor of making abortion legal at any point in the pregnancy. I'm about as far from pro-life as it gets, but I was absolutely horrified to see how disingenuous your response was to these objections. For shame.
@@TheoryPhilosophy Wow, what a dishonest reply. Judith Jarvis Thomson's argument is commendable, but it is certainly not "airtight," and Besserglauben gave you five serious objections that require serious replies. You can't just hand wave these objections away. For clarity, I'm staunchly in favor of making it legal at any point. I'm about as far from pro-life as it gets, but I was absolutely horrified to see how disingenuous your response was to these objections. For shame.
I’ve heard this argument plenty of times but never who originally made it and why it’s so watertight. Thanks as always from a fellow Canadian who happens to live in Texas, I’ll use this one a lot.
Don’t you think there is a major difference between waking up and someone attached a person to you without your knowledge or consent vs going into an act knowing what the potential consequences are? I don’t see this argument as being water tight. The analogy I used is you flying a plane because it seemed like a better deal but a person may end up on that plane that you are flying. If their ends up being that person on board (which was part of the original possibility) u don’t get to abandon the plane and use a parachute when you don’t like the results of a consensual choice.
@@aschu234 exactly, this is one of the main faults of Thomson’s argument. Not to mention the fact that pregnancy is a natural occurrence of how people are created in the first place, not something that is as bizarre as being kidnapped.
@@aschu234 if you watch philosophy tube’s channel (they have a video on this topic) and read Thomson’s original essay, they address this point: if you believe people have a right to life full stop, then it doesn’t matter HOW you came to be hooked up to the violinist (or fetus). Because presumably, their right to life outweighs your “right to convenience”. Otherwise, you’d be saying that fetuses who come to be as products of rape have less of a right to life than those that come to be from consensual sex, and if that’s the case, then you’d agree thar not everyone has a right to life equally
@@moderncaleb3923 actually, Thomson very much addresses this point in the original essay, it’s just that most people who discuss her argument don’t get passed the violinist part. If you believe everyone has the right to life, full stop, she says, then it shouldn’t matter whether the fetus came to be as a product of rape or consensual sex. Otherwise, you’d be arguing that people who were conceived as products of rape don’t have as much of a right to life as those conceived through consensual sex. And if that’s the case, then “sanctity of life” cannot be the reason you oppose abortion.
I have read the essay. I just disagree. Some life would have more value than others. Does a rapist/murder have the same value as a 10 year old girl? The answer is no. Some might concede that if a baby is conceived through rape than she does not have to fulfill her duties because she did not sign up for that possibility. That is where the violinist argument falls flat. It would only be comparable to a rape because she was connected to the violinist against her will or without her knowledge. I used to think that a woman should be able to abort a rape pregnancy. Until you see a person conceived of rape who wants to know why he doesn’t deserve life. I understand Thompson’s arguments I just think she made a major mistake in her conclusion. Body autonomy isn’t absolute. If you go into a sexual act that you know could result in a life which is responsible for, you shouldn’t be able to just bail out and actively kill that person. Even if the person is very small.
9:42 this is a huge, and flawed leap in logic. Whether an abortion should be allowed in cases of SA, vs other cases, has nothing to do with the worthiness of the fetus. It has nothing to do with the fetus at all. Thats like saying that if theirs a starving orphan sitting on a street corner, we have to arrest, and put on trial for neglect, every person who passed by them without giving them food. After all, if that person were their parent it would be neglect not to feed the starving child if you were able. If you're against imprisoning all the passers by, you are just saying that the worthiness of the child's life depends on whether or not Random Passerby Joe Schmoe happens to be their parent. Orphans who aren't the children of the Joe Schmoe somehow are less worthy of living??? Therefore we have to arrest Joe Schmoe and anyone else who passes the child. Thats such dumb logic but its exactly what you're saying here
I'm happy you agree that someone shouldn't be punished for choosing not to go through with a pregnancy, like how someone shouldn't be arrested for not helping a starving orphan! What a great way to prove Thomson's point :) Cheers!
@@TheoryPhilosophy think about the actual kind of logic you were using there, though, instead of trying to just assert the conclusion you came to. I'm pro choice too, just pointing out flawed logic.
@@TheoryPhilosophy You obviously cant think that parents have a right not to feed their children (unless you do hold the value of "bodily autonomy" that highly), but to say that I, a stranger, am not responsible to do so means you're saying that the "worthiness of the child's life" is less if the child happens to not be my progeny. Thats your logic. I'm just saying that having separate standards for moral responsibility for another person, based on circumstances and relation to the other person isn't saying that one person is worth less than the other. They're not correlated at all. Just think about it please
Hello, David. I'm Flora. Just discovered your channel via this video, since I'm preparing a class on the same article for high schoolers here in Rio (Brazil). I really appreciate your take on it, including the caveat that some people may not value bodily autonomy: not everyone who doesn't have a clear stance on abortion rights is a bigoted creep, often times misinformation, harsh conditioning on what a woman is supposed to be and religious practices make up the mind of many people with a uterus who are led to think their lives or comfort isn't a value in itself. To keep the conversation going, I suggest you listen to the remarkable Debora Diniz, the authority on anthropological research on abortion in Brazil (though I think she's now a visiting professor at Brown). The following video is from her testimonial at a public hearing on the decriminalization of abortion (yes, in Brazil abortion is still a crime), you can use youtube's subtitles: ruclips.net/video/kuzNoNoYrTg/видео.html&ab_channel=ColetivoTransformaMP
The root cause of death in the abortion scenario is the abortion. The root cause of death in the unplug violinist scenario was different and had nothing to do with me at all.
the reason you dont seem to find an adequate counterargument is that the whole analogy is trying to put the baby in the same place as a P phile and the mother as a victim, its that the analogy is NOT realistic. apart from that we know that 1% of Ations in the US , are because of unwanted intercourse as a matter of fact the overwhelming majority of them are performed because this human life would be an inconvinience. you see this analogy represents the 1 out of 100 cases its not representative for this issue
After hearing you, I need to read the essay... Not because I like it, but because the examples are completely flawed. To compare a sexual assault with a kidnaping Is the first mistake in the premise and it is followed by a series of unconnected arguments...
the anti choice arguement against bodily autonomu is opt out organ donation. This is very real and personal to me. 1. opt out organ donation on death. 2 Compulsory organ donation on death 3. nonfatal organ donation to dependants, 4 compulsorary nonfatal donation with compensation by society - in that order... Filipinos nationals have a legal and ethical duty of care for immediate relatives. Being mostly catholics they are also anti abortion. So when my Filipino friend suffered end stage kidney failure I criticised her family for not offering a kidney. Their response was fatalism. "As needed" means - not me first not me first. Your arguement misses that. In the case of your violinist 4... compulsory non life threatening donation of a kidney - yes. But given 1, 2 and 3 that would be super rare. Your arguement makes the individualist simplification
I don’t think this type of argument works because in usual cases of pregnancy, the mother is responsible for the child being there in the first place, unlike the person kidnapped and hooked to the violinist.
I disagree that this argument is airtight, I feel like you could rephrase the burglar situation as driving in a car and you cause an accident for consensual sex.
What if you CAUSED the kindney failure of the violinist. What if you're directly (even if unintentionally) responsible for the sickness of the patient? Wouldn't you have a moral responsibility to preserve the life of the patient who YOU put in danger? In the same way we would punish a doctor, nurse or parent for criminal negligence, wouldn't a pro lifer say the same about women who didn't follow closely the necessary precautions to prevent this pregnancy?
Your burglar analogy is terribly flawed. The situation isn't parallel, because you consented to sex which can lead to a baby even with protection. The analogy would only be parallel if you personally allowed the burglar to get through the wall around your house so that he is in your frontyard. Without him being inside of the walls there would be no possible chance of him getting into your house. Yet you allowed him into the frontyard while knowing that there is a very small chance of him getting in your house from the frontyard with all your security systems. Then he enters your house. Are you responsible in that situation? Yes, you are. You allowed that burglar into your fontyard, mister. But even that situation wouldn't be really parallel, because the embryo doesn't necessarily harm you, while the burglar does. Also the burglar intentionally harms you, while the embryo doesn't. Also the burglar did exist before your choices while the embryo didn't. Also you equated a sperm with a person, which is not the case since a sperm is only part of an fertilized egg, which would be the person.
Well even in this analogy the burglar wants to harm you and you know that . This already frames it horribly wrong, a baby doesnt harm you, a baby wants love. Heres a better analogy : you invite a "substance" dealer to your home , he gives you said "substances" ,and tells you " this substance gives you a good feeling while taking it BUT is EXACTLY MADE to make you Immobile for 9 months but theres a safety pill so it doesnt happen " You take the safety pill and the "substance" in complete consenst even though you know theres the possibility you could still be immobile (which is why most people ONLY use this substance while married so you can rely on the help of your partner) You get immobile. And its only your fault. But dont be put down , because after those 9 months you get the biggest Gift a Human can have in this world ,the chance to raise a child.
After making this comment I came to realize that I compare a Baby to just drug which still frames it wrong , the truth is you just shouldnt compare a human to anything non human
Part 1/2 Well, it seems to me that you haven´t spoken to many informed "Pro-Life" proponents (and even renowned "Pro-Choice" philosophers or legal scholars who reject this argument like Singer, Tooley, McMahan or Greasley), yet 😉 Nevertheless, here is at least my response to the bodily rights argument, defended by philosophers like Judith Thomson (the violinist case) and David Boonin (the bone marrow case, which is analogous to cases of blood or organ donation). I think something like the following formulation is the strongest version of the argument to which I will respond: (P1): Every person has a right to life. (P2): Unborn human beings are persons (conceded at least for the sake of argument). (C1): All unborn human beings have a right to life. (P3): Every person has the right to bodily autonomy and integrity. (P4): No human being has a legal claim to the use or even continued use of the body or organs of another human being. (C2): The right to life of an unborn human being does not include the legal right to use or even to continue to use the woman's body or organs. (P6): Abortion, and thus the fatal deprivation of the use of the woman's body or organs, does not violate the right to life of the unborn human being. (C3): Abortion, and thus the fatal deprivation of the use of the woman's body or organs, should not be legally prohibited. Now, I think the parental obligation objection (there is a strong duty of parents to care for their depended offspring) as well as the responsibility objection (if you deliberately engage in an act that may result in the creation of a helpless, innocent or morally incapacitated and depended human being, you are - even without further explicit consent - responsible to care for this human being; at least you are not allowed to kill it in any case) is helpful, persuasive for many people and applicable in almost all circumstances where abortion is an issue. But I am afraid it does not go to the heart of the matter. For example, I can come up with a thought experiment on pregnancy which is, at least by my lights, in turn analogous in all morally relevant aspects to the violinist case of Thomson or Boonin´s cases and therefore sidesteps all Pro-Life objections which try to block the argument by pointing out dissimilarities. But I (as well as all Pro-Lifers I know of to which I presented this case) still think it is not permissible to remove the child from the uterus of the woman. Imagine that in the future an incubator will be developed which is what we may call an artificial womb and which can already care for a human being in the first stages of its development and let it mature until "birth". In this future, however, there is also a hereditary disease, which the growing child can only survive if it remains connected to the woman's body during pregnancy. In this thought experiment, the basic care of the child can thus obviously be provided without the woman's body and the connection would have to be maintained for therapeutic reasons alone. Suppose a woman does not want to carry her child (which is diagnosed with this disease) because it was conceived through rape and the psychological and physical strain until birth seems unbearable to her (we can even strengthen the case by assuming the embryo is a "stranger" and comes from a fertilized egg of another woman and was implanted without her consent). In this case, does she have the right to demand that the child be transferred to an appropriate incubator, even if this procedure leads unavoidably to the death of the child? I think it is not permissible to do that and in my estimation in this case as well as in the case of the violinist the doctrine of double effect (DDE) needs to be taken into account. When we consider the conditions of DDE I think all these cases are successfully resolved - even if we grant for the sake of argument Thomson´s premise that not even one’s own child has a natural right to the use of the woman´s body. Furthermore, there are other thought experiments which highlight severe problems with Thomson´s (and Boonin´s) reasoning. For example consider the following case which is inspired by an idea from Francis Beckwith: Imagine that two girls, Lara and Lea, develop as conjoined twins. Furthermore, only in the body of Lea kidneys are formed and we know that Lara's body does not accept any donated kidney. Lara is therefore dependent for her survival on the connection to Lea's body and, in contrast to Lea, would not survive a potentially possible separation. In this scenario we are therefore even faced with the extreme case described by Thomson, in which the connection between two people must be maintained for a lifetime. Suppose that through the connection between the two bodies, the girls suffer for a few months every few years from physical and psychological problems comparable to a pregnancy, in addition to the otherwise already stressful situation. Lara is a fighter and has come to terms with the situation, not least for lack of alternatives. However, Lea, who has all the vital organs in her body, does not want to accept this situation any longer. In this case, does Lea have the right to demand separation, even if it means her sister Lara's death? According to the argument of Thomson and Boonin, I think this would have to be affirmed. For Part 2/2 see first comment in this thread 👇
Part 2/2 (P1): Every person has a right to life. (P2): Conjoined twins are persons. (C1): All conjoined twins have a right to life. (P3): Every person has the right to bodily autonomy and integrity. (P4): Lara has no legal claim to the use or even sustained use of the body or organs of Lea. (C2): The right to life of Lara does not include the legal right to use or even continuous use of the body or organs of Lea. (P6): The separation of Lara and Lea, and thus the fatal deprivation of the use of the body or organs of Lea, does not violate the right to life of Lara. (C3): The separation of Lara and Lea, and thus the fatal deprivation of the use of the body of Lea, should not be prohibited by law. We can also further modify this thought experiment to make it even more similar to the situation of pregnancy. Let us assume that medical progress will at some point make it possible to extract stem cells from Lara's bone marrow, modify them and mature functioning kidneys for Lara within nine months. After that, a separation could take place in which both women could survive and then lead an independent life. However, this procedure and the subsequent operation are extremely time-consuming and associated with a significantly longer recovery time. Due to the current high psychological and physical strain Lara does not want to postpone the operation any longer and insists on an immediate separation. If Thomson, Boonin and their comrades-in-arms want to defend a right to abortion with the principles they have laid down, they would, in my opinion, not only in the previous situation but also in this one, have to agree unconditionally to the demand for immediate separation and even direct killing if separation is otherwise impossible or more "burdensome" (at least according to Boonin, see his book "A Defense of Abortion"). If this conclusion is unacceptable then it seems to me there must be something fundamentally wrong with Thomson´s and Boonin´s argument. What makes at least Thomson's argument seem so convincing to many people at first glance is, at least in my opinion, on the one hand the constructed apparent proximity to the situation of organ failure, where there is generally a justified conviction that one has no obligation to donate an organ, but on the other hand also the "distribution of roles". Imagine, for example, that you and the violinist wake up after nine months and you are told that the violinist is now cured, but that you will die if he does not stay with you for another nine months until you too have recovered. Does the violinist, who himself is obviously not responsible for the fact that you are connected with him, now have the right to separate from you? From this perspective, things suddenly look different for many people and intuition changes accordingly. It seems to me it is correct that the violinist has no positive right to use or even sustained use of your kidneys (or, in the case from Boonin, of your bone marrow). You are therefore not obliged to make yourself available to the violinist as a living dialysis machine, to donate a kidney or bone marrow (you may even defend yourself and resist being plugged into him or the extraction of your bone marrow). It would be very kind of you if you would do so. Not doing so, however, is not a culpable omission. However, if - for whatever reason - a connection to the violinist already exists and the separation requires an action on your part or on the part of a third party which, under the given circumstances, causes the death of the violinist, then this can only be justified according to the doctrine of double effect (DDE) without violating the negative right to life, if your own health is in very serious or life threatening danger by maintaining the connection (e.g. if your own body is poisoned and is damaged in such a way that e. g. you fall in a permanent vegetative state or you even die in the end) and the separation does not involve a direct intended killing action. Contrary to Boonin's argumentation, the refusal to donate an organ or bone marrow is thus ethically fundamentally different from the act of separation, which actually leads to death or other serious damage to the violinist's (or to the other twin´s) health. It seems it does not matter whether a natural or third-party event causing death was already present before your involvement, since in both situations it is now your action or that of third parties that causes the violinist's death. Therefore, in the case of the violinist, the case of the conjoined twins and the case of my analogue pregnancy example at least condition four of DDE is violated (there must be a proportionate reason to allow the bad effect) and if we look at the case of abortion condition two (the good effect must not be achieved or caused by the bad effect) and condition three (only the good effect may be intended) of DDE are always violated. Therefore, under the condition that the unborn human being is a person, in my opinion DDE explains why abortion is never morally and legally permissible (now, I know that for the following argument to be sound you obiously need to accept DDE, which is, like nearly everything in philosophy, heavily criticised by some philosophers like Peter Singer (or see the entry in the SEP). But I have to save its defense for another day ;-) ). Here is a summary of the final argument concerning abortion: (P1): Every person has a right to life. (P2): Unborn human beings are persons (assumed for the argument). (C1): All unborn human beings have a right to life. (P3): Every person has the right to bodily autonomy and integrity. (P4): An unborn human being has no legal claim to the use of the woman's body or organs (granted for the sake of argument). (C2): The right to life of an unborn human being does not include the legal claim to the use or even sustained use of the woman's body or organs (granted for the sake of argument by P4). (P5) An act by which an innocent or incapacitated person is intentionally - i.e. either as a means to an end or as an end in itself - directly or indirectly killed, is without exception morally wrong and inadmissible. An act in which the death of an innocent person is caused unintentionally and indirectly can only be permissible if the criterion of proportionality is satisfied and thus one's own life is at stake or one´s own health is seriously and permanently damaged. (P6): An abortion is an act in which an unborn human being is intentionally directly or indirectly killed, i.e. by a direct attack or the lethal deprivation of the use of the woman's body. (C3): An abortion is, without exception, morally wrong and inadmissible.
Your prolix diatribe accomplishes only one thing: it obscure the initial topic to claim that you have 'refuted' it. Neither of the cute hypothetical scenarios set the moral grounding you claim to have established. Instead, you present both and tacitly exclaim 'See? Wouldn't that be so horrible if one twin wanted to separate itself from the other? See? Wouldn't it be so horrible if someone requested their fetus be inserted in the incubator?' Your choice to virtue signal in place of substantive argumentation isn't going to work on me, and I encourage anyone else prepared to read your word salad to critically interrogate those critical points where you leap from your hypothetical to your conclusion. Unfortunately, like most who leap without looking, you didn't stick the landing.
@@TheoryPhilosophy Huh! It seems to me I hit a nerve... Well, I think your response sadly speaks for itself and I let the readers decide who has uttered a "diatribe" here.
this is an issue which I never had a stake in, so, because I have never been of the mind that it's my place to dictate what others choose to do, I didn't have any strong opinion. I can see both sides of the issue. However, I think that this is impossible to know and therefore, along with other good, practical reasons, people should be allowed to decide for themselves. What I say is impossible to know is that which is God's will. Nobody knows what that is, despite many interpretations that ultimately can be surmised as best guesses. The practical reasons are as important and they are the matters involving the way that every society simply does not concern itself with ensuring that each baby is taken care of, loved, nurtured, and protected after birth. It would be impossible for this to happen anyway, and it never will. Also, life is generally disregarded and taken for granted in so many other ways that it is the highest hypocrisy to suggest that it is indeed precious and sacred. Those are noble notions but they are not realized or even considered in so many ways which are dependent upon factors that are arbitrary, preducdicial, tribal, financial, and more. The same logic about how every baby absolutely must have the right to its life could be applied to people in Yemen, for example. But it is not, primarily because of an unspoken but obvious truth that exists which is that their lives are not as valuable. I find that difficult to say but I think it's important to just say it. If they were VALUED things would be different. Why mince words? These are my thoughts and thanks for the video.
I think there is a God and there is a will. I think it's debatable whether anyone knows what those things are, precisely, and I think it's possible to distort them.
changed my mind. A life is a life. We don't care about other species so what's special and different about humans? Good thing I'm not a politician, but then I'm able to decide and do something different, so there's that. Namaste shalom.
I think that is very easy to dismiss the argument against abortion. Where does the idea that abortion is wrong comes from? Well, from the idea that human life, wether is in a form of a fetus or a completely developed, is sacred. Dismissing this property can give place to drop the "no" to abortion. But yes, it can also give place to kill without consecuences, wether we're talking about a fetus or a kid, or a teenager, or whatever. So, what's the differece between a fetus and full developed human? The will. So, fetus don't posses will, nor until they develop, so... no will, no person, no problem with abortion. For me isn't biology wich makes us special or sacred or different from a rock (and thus having right to rights). Is the phenomen of consciousness and the subsecuent will to live wich makes a person from a human being. So, rights don't come from our human condition, but from our wishes, expectations, rationality and will. That would be the nihilistic approach for me. Sounds hard, but I think that trying to debate biology or politics is a waste of time. The problem is not if abortion is wrong or right, the problem if there's something as a kind of trascendental "human dignity", and I think such thing doesn't exists. At least not from a secular point of view, at least not without falling in the trap of escencialism that eventually lead us in the same direction of religion.
The problem with that point, I would argue, is that it loosely sets the condition of will and dignity as prerequisites for life. What if someone is in a coma and has no will or dignity? Or a new born without any sense of will or dignity? I think I can agree but I think you need to be a little clearer what you mean so that your argument doesn't imply that some autonomous (I mean autonomous in that they aren't fully biologically dependent on someone else like a fetus or the violinist) people are more worthy of life than others.
@@TheoryPhilosophy Yes, that's the problem. I arised to this argument, and I agree with you, those questions you arise are pretty valid. But there's a thing here, why are we asking this? I mean, if we discard human dignity and killing newborns and people on coma is a rational consecuence of it (based on the decition to do so)... well, so be it. I mean, to think that this consecuence is a problem is just the consecuence of not acepting the argument at its full. Even thoug, I'm working in the same questions you just arised. For me it would be horrible to promulgate we do such things. But I haven't came yet with answers to your questions (wich I made before to myself). My english also limitates the reach of my answer, I would love to give you more insight into my argument but is difficult to do so. My point on abortion is: dismiss the idea of trascendent and essencialist santity or dignity of human life. Let's stay with the ethics of respecting the "others" life proyect and conscious will to live. Fetuses don't posses will, so following this argument, will not be inmoral to abort a fetus. It arises questions, and many other problems. But I really think that human dignity is not a value that can be proved, not at least from the points of view I mentioned earlier. And this is pretty much the only defense from the anti-abortion paradigmn. That's why I say that the best argument to refute the problem of "abortion is wrong" is to refute the very idea of an essencialist human dignity. There's no way to prove that human life is valuable on its own. So we should move further to other questions or narratives. What could make a human life valuable? I mean, more valuable then the life of an insect, for example. Is there anyway to prove that we are more valuable that other creatures just by being human? I think not. There's no differece between an insect and a human from a naturalist point of view. This idea of "every human life is sacred, because, you know, we are humans" can only be sustained based on religious beliefs. So, what is the differece? Where is the limit? How a life becomes valuable? My answer is "by being consciusly valued as so, by having the knowledge or consciousness of your own existence and by having the will to live". That will also finish the problem with asisted suicide. If there's an express wish to die, that wish should be respected (as long as the person is not suffering from a mental condition that could misslead their judment). What about people suffering from coma... well, before they fell into a coma, if there wasn't an express wish to end their lives before it, or an express wish to be killed if they become a vegetable then we shouldn't have a right to end their life. And also we shouldn't because people can wake up from coma ocassionaly, so to end the life of a person who is in coma, in my point of view would be accountable as an inmoral action. Unless there's proof that the coma is irreversible (wich means actual brain death) we should not terminate the life of a person who is in coma. Same argument aplies to people who passes out, for whatever reason, we respect the will, and we respect the will that preceded before the person passed out. I mean, at this point I think is clear that I'm not talking about being always conscious to be considered as a person. We sleep, so no, it also would be inmoral to kill someone during his sleep because the previous example: you don't need to be conscius for us to respect what you've decided or willed in the past. The will is respected as long as its stands for itself. Like I said, fetuses can not will, so is not inmoral. Once a human being becomes conscious and starts to will (because if someone threatens to your life you will run or try to defend yourself or whatever in order to survive) we should respect that will.
@@TheoryPhilosophy in respect to newborns, I have no answer yet. But I wouldn't advocate for killing newborns. My most sincere answer is that I have not arguments yet to say wether that would be ethical or not.
@@TheoryPhilosophy Finally, and just for the sake to be clear and explain myself, because I'm an anxious person: I'm not a fascist, nor do I advocate for eugenics or any of the sort. I just think that this could be maybe the most solid refutation to the anti-abortionist argument, but I'm conscious that this road can lead to very unconfortable questions, and I think about them very often. Personally I can see why many of the people who is pro-abortion don't go this way, is VERY controversial and dangerous indeed, but it is to me the most effective and solid argument to end the debate.
@@TheoryPhilosophy People in a coma have impaired wills and unimpaired dignity. This is not merely to avoid ableism, it's because if dignity isn't a categorical property of humans by whatever means we came to believe human life is valuable, the alternative is to hold that human value is always transactional and we would have a set of moral assumptions based on misanthropy instead.
Deliberately calling the “pro-life” argument the “anti-choice” argument, really shows your bias. You’re essentially strawmanning because it’s not about the fact of choice in their argument, but rather about the life. Just as “pro-lifers” don’t call “pro-choicers”, “anti-lifers”.
The family duty of care arguement against autonomy is also the selfish gene arguement. "I would die for 2 siblings or 4 cousins" as Julian huxley said. Your arguement is very USA specific. Individualism is particularly WEIRD. The real arguement about the borders of life is actually magical similarity. We can't take their organs because they look like they could wake up. Abortion is murder because it has eyes (as many vegans say). Its loyalty to common sense tradition vs selfish individualism. I prefer the argument that carrying a baby to term for adoption is on average abandonement. That is a right to welfare arguement. You want it to live - make sure your church pays the surrogacy fees and child support
This is actually, a wrong way to create a philosophical premise. You can't make a false equivalence to support your preexisting ideas. This is not how philosophy works.
I'll give you the true equivalent to a poorly thought out philosophy paper like this one he's explaining. It's actually quite simple if you think philosophically and logically at the same time. Not emotionally. That's what philosophy is. A woman who consents to sex, consents to the risk of pregnancy. EQUIVALENCE = A woman who consents to giving her kidney to someone consents to the risk and can't just stop mid operation. A woman who does not consent to having sex DOES NOT consent to pregnancy. = A woman not consenting to give her kidney but being forced anyway and wanting to stop mid operation. I honestly can't even believe this paper was published and actually viewed as a philosophical statement.
@@itsnothing7 oh the state of academia is at such a deep at this point , I would be surprised if she didnt got to hold several lectures talking about this "milestone" of the A tion debate. perhaps she even got a fancy title out of it
I'll add a second example, present in a movie called "Children of Men": lets assume that the last living woman capable of giving birth is about-to-self-abort-herself while pregnant with the last boy-girl twins = the last chance of humanity to go on. What do we do now, force her to give birth? Children of Men, the silly movie, naturalizes pregnancy and motherhood, in what I'd call "ultra anti-abortion reactionism": every woman is the last chance of man. Ok you can read the movie as the destruction of welfare state, but I dont really buy that, thats the actually reality not the films point of view :P
how about this analogy ( in my previous comment I already exposed the flaw of this thought experiement you proposed) : you go to your local supermarket and find a drink so delicious you just gotta try it , but hold on theres a warning : consumption Could lead to you being responsible for a human life for at least 9 months and probably 18 years well despite this risk you still eat this delicious drink , turns out you get all tired and realize that what the package warned you about is actually happening. but what about your career ? your partner ? your whole life ? infact you didnt think this entire thing would actually happen , you thought it was some kind of gimmick now you wish you didnt do it ,you whish............. you could just.... stop it. unplug. it. now that doesnt seem that unrealistic, its on the news all the time and the people against it are dorks anyways ,right ? how could they take your right of freedom after all ! Tell me is it rightfull to end this human ? after all you knew the risks and still tried infact it was Your CHOICE.
watching till the VERY END this has to be 1000000% a false flag operation , jordan peterson AND relativation of fascism !? thats something this RIGHT does , who everyone talks about
@@TheoryPhilosophy yes it is , but thats itrelevant as my goal wasnt to make it more comprehensible but instead more like real life (not like your proposed analogy)
Remember, my loves. Everytime you comment, it means I'll reach more people with the algorithm 😘
I agree that few have seen this Thompson’s argument who is pro-life. I am pro life with some limits. I have read this paper a couple years ago. Let’s leave rape, incest, and danger to the mother out of it for now and look at the violinist argument. Having sex knowing the risk of getting pregnant is very different then waking up and someone is suddenly attached to you. I think this is a major hole in this argument. You can’t enter into an act, knowing that person could be created and dependent on you, and suddenly scream body autonomy and get to back out of the results of that consensual choice. So I see it as a false comparison.
Help me with a good comparison. Could you fly a plane where someone could end up being on it because it seemed like a good deal at the moment, then decide you want out and jump out the plane with a parachute letting the person inside crash and die? Of course that would make you guilty of murder or manslaughter or something.
You entered into an act knowing a person could end up being dependent on you. You don’t get to back out after the result wasn’t what you hoped for. (Certain circumstances aside)
Also, which is very interesting in these hot button issues, is the usage of words. Like, anti-choice vs pro life or pro-abortion vs pro-choice. Nobody would support a partial birth abortion if they called it what it was (deliver half the baby then cut it off at the head and pull the rest out). Pro choice and body autonomy sounds better than being pro-crush a baby’s skull, dismember it piece by piece, then suck out the remains with a straw. If that $&%# isn’t wrong then I don’t know what is.
I have sympathy for women in tough situations. A lot more than I do for a man who abandons his responsibilities to a child he created. Does that man get body autonomy if he doesn’t want to be part of the child’s life? Or is his body autonomy gone for the next 18 years and has to bust his ass to provide even Though he didn’t want the kid? The answer to men abandoning that responsibility wasn’t for women to do the same. What are the cultural implications of normalizing this way of thinking? That would be a very important philosophical question to ask.
Interesting video. Good luck with your channel. A thoughtful response will get a subscribe. I’ll give you a like though :)
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If you're going to sit here and say a good counterargument to Thomson's argument doesn't exist, then you aren't looking.
The rebuttal to Thomson's argument I would immediately suggest is Chapter 15 of Scott Klusendorf's book The Case for Life. He also addresses the bodily autonomy arguments of McDonagh and Bonnin.
A couple other recommendations:
Stephen Schwarz, The moral question of abortion
Gregory Koukl, Unstringing the violinist
Francis J. Beckwith, Politically Correct Death: Answering Arguments for Abortion Rights.
Patrick Lee, Abortion and Unborn Human Life
Bernard N. Nathanson and Richard Ostling, Aborting America
Rich Poupard, Do No Harm (Except for killing that thing)
It's so obvious that you haven't looked or examined near closely enough the pro-life position.
And I would also like to note that you have a strong ideological bias when assessing Thomson's argument. You constantly refer to the pro-life position as "anti-choice", which is completely not what the pro-life position argues.
And also, one last thing, whether or not a fetus is a human is not being ceded by Thomson, it is an established fact of embryology that from the moment of conception, a new human being is created.
This has been well established for decades in the field of embryology.
www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html
better it to spread with the conversation in the comment section stating objections to abortion and its incompatibility to any concept of human rights or innocence than for it to sit unchallenged.
@@kwazooplayingguardsman5615 totally agree! Share it with all your friends who probably also hate freedom!
I’ve always found the burglar argument to be dissimilar to consensual sex. When you have consensual sex are you not assuming the risk of pregnancy? If not, then how does it hold that a father is obligated to pay child support if of course, he did not consent to pregnancy? Whereas in the burglar situation it is another agent that is choosing to break into one’s house in spite of the “protection.”
In the actual paper Judith says that a burglar burgles your house and enters through the window you left open, although you knew that there are auch things as burglars and that they could enter through the open window. So one could argue that you are partially responsible, but it still doesn‘t change anything about the legal situation.
the philosophy of those biceps, when?! dang it! :D
Try sun and steel by yukio mishima
I would like to ask you a thought experiment : A woman went to hospital for an abortion. One doctor said that her baby had a chance to survive after being taken out of the body, and another doctor assured that her baby would die. Both doctors can do what the woman wants "my body my choice". Which doctor do you think the woman would choose?
This is really well done. I remember the article quite well. But you made me see something that I didn’t see while reading. That the reason why the violinist argument is appealing to pro choicers is because it invites us to identify with the mother. Perhaps if we were invited to identify with the foetus, the argument wouldn’t have such rhetorical force.
Fantastic work on a great essay. I also appreciate the “raises the question” as opposed to “begs the question.”
Great presentation. I remember a professor referencing this argument in class and he mentioned how this argument can be seen as one based on self-defence. This can implicate one in a situation where one has a justifiable claim to kill the burglar if he meets a certain threshold of harm to well-being. So if we accept this argument, we might also need to accept some form of castle doctrine based on similar reasoning.
Just some rambling thoughts on this text. Writing as someone against government regulation of abortion but would describe myself as "pro-life" in the full implications of that label (as opposed to the right-wing approach of "you have to go through with the pregnancy, but then do nothing to help the child thrive after the fact"):
I think my main issue with this essay is that it relies on reductio ad absurdum in cases where that which is deemed absurd is debatable in its absurdity or which the most absurd parts are not applicable to the situation being discussed. Like, in the main situation that the reader is supposed to back away from in disgust (the saving of the violinist), the disgust arises more from the kidnapping against one's will and the privileging of the violinist over the person being kidnapped. But, once you examine the actual situation of care and social responsibility, I don't think it's clear what the so-called "correct" or "obvious" action is. If I ended up in that situation, I can't imagine that my first response would be to walk out and say, "nah man, screw you, just die." Especially if all this was costing me was 9 months of my time for the cost of his life.
There's also a certain issue with the burglar analogy, in the sense that burglar has both the agency and the intent to cause harm, both of which the fetus lacks. Perhaps the more apt analogy would be that you set up all these defenses and a lost 5-year-old looking for shelter somehow manages to sneak their way inside. In that situation, I think it's pretty obvious that, knowing that the child is helpless and means know harm, it would be wrong to shoot them solely because they have intruded upon your space. It seems to leave the realm of self-defense at that point. The question would then be whether you have the obligation to care for the child (forever or until you find their home) if casting them back out into the streets would guarantee death. I don't necessarily have a good answer to that question, but if you have to resources to care for the child, it seems like the "moral" obligation would be to provide that care.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the fetus in this case is being treated with the hostility with which one would regard a parasite rather than the care one would give a socially-integrated being (a human). In this sense, it feels as though we're still stuck with the question of whether or not the fetus is a full-fledged human being, because, even though we say "sure, let's pretend that it is", the essay just simply does not grapple with the full implications of that and with the obligations that do come with living in a community of humans (which, as you are well aware, is certainly not limited to fascistic government telling you what to do and what not to do with your body).
It seems like part of the issue of why those rejecting the premise of this essay can feel like they are merely "being against freedom" (a fundamentally complex concept that I'm not sure one can actually be for or against in-itself), is because the abortion debate, especially in the US, is premised on whether the government has the right to obligate you to another being without any attention being paid to the obligations that the government itself has towards its people. The very obligations, in fact, which it near-universally fails to achieve. The government forces you to provide care while neglecting (and even outright denying) its own obligations to care. A true "pro-life" stance, whether than involves banning abortion in some cases (it certainly can't involve a complete ban) or allows complete access to abortion, would necessarily involve complete access to the means of preventing unwanted pregnancies (birth control), a universal right to welfare that allows people to live and thrive, and a much-improved and more accessible adoption institution for people who don't want to keep the child long-term. No government on earth, at this moment, has provided that for it's people and it would be ridiculous to even consider limiting abortion without that structure in place (and even then probably shouldn't be limited, although I remain conflicted on the issue).
Ultimately, I feel like the abortion issue reveals the limits and contradictions of the ideas of universal rights, laws, and reductionist definitions of "freedom" inherent to liberalism and cannot be properly addressed within that framework. The only recourse for women's rights within liberalism is the idea of absolute property founded on the ownership of bodies, which proves problematic in many other areas (from public health measures to slavery)
You should look up the word "prolix," and then correct your diatribe.
Ok I've finally read it all. I think that even in a social and economic utopia, people should get to decide what happens with their bodies. Someone might become pregnant consensually and then change their mind. They should have access to abortion no questions asked cause I don't think government should tell us what we can do with our bodies.
@@TheoryPhilosophy Not a diatribe at all. Just trying to work through an issue that is complicated to deal with from the legal framework we've been given and think that some arguments in this essay make assumptions that would not be obvious to me if I were in said situation. (Plus I didn't expect anyone to actually read the whole thing). And, no, I certainly don't think the government should violently coerce (through imprisonment or worse) people to do things they don't want with their bodies. I'm simply arguing that we do have responsibilities to each other as a result of living in a community/society (and, lost in this debate, whatever collective entities we establish have these same responsibilities), and that this line of inquiry feels inadequate for addressing that component of the world. I don't think that was necessarily the goal Thomson's essay
I feel as though the first situation doesn't require the presumption of hostility or the reaction of disgust on your part to function. If the argument we're pursuing is that I should not be allowed to force you to save the violinist's life, your opinion as the patient is inconsequential. The point is that you should be able to make that call, not someone else, not even the violinist.
@@hatboy9991 by my lights you’re right to intuit that parents has an obligation to provide minimal necessary care to their offspring. We see this legally all the time after birth. Pro lifers just want to extend the states enforcement of this duty to pregnancy, when the fetus can only exist in the womb. Likewise, pro lifers argue that the fetus has a right to the mothers body during pregnancy. Pro choices, and the video, reject that view. That uphold bodily autonomy as the highest value & therefore bc the fetus requires the use of the mothers body, pregnancy requires her continual consent. Therefore according to the pro choice view so long as that fetus is in her, the mother can have it killed for any reason she wants to remove her consent. Wrong race, wrong sex, genetic problems, crancky morning, doesn’t matter bc it’s the mothers consent to use of her body that’s paramount. Stephanie gray connors is probably the best pro lifer I’ve found. Cheers.
I first heard of this argument from PhilosophyTube (Abigail Thorn)'s video on abortion. I don't know if you're familiar with her or that video, if not I highly recommend watching it. Thank you for this very clear explanation. I look forward to seeing more from you !
This is way better than Philosophy Tube.
I love love love Abigail too
this is really interesting, and definitely adds way more depth to this discussion than most people consider.
I also think Engels’ comment which is that scientists continuously change what is the “objective” starting point of life shows that it’s obviously not an objective fact which gives credence to the idea that it can be fluid. Im tired so hopefully this makes sense haha, that’s just the quote that always comes to my mind when I think of arguments for abortion
your comments at the end were also super insightful and added more to the point.
I think this is a really good argument, and I personally am a supporter of a person's choice to get an abortion. However, there is a slight concern I have with the argument. Where it compares a pregnancy (despite one's best efforts at avoiding one) to a burglary (despite all the security measures one has put in place), is there not a problem of comparison? Would we not hold the burglar responsible for their actions in a much more substantial way than am embryo? Interested to see what people think.
I also love the essay but am, after years, seeing issues with it. Mainly the intuition pump character of the arguments. In the violinist case we’re asked to identify with the mother, not the foetus. And in another argument the foetus is a burglar. Come on!
A counter argument I know of is that you consent to a pregnancy the moment you have sex. Even if you’re wearing a condom or on birth control, you are accepting the chance of a pregnancy and therefore are consenting to a pregnancy. There is always the choice to not have sex and not consent to a potential pregnancy. Except for rape. I do not know a counter argument for rape other than more hardcore pro-life beliefs like a mother’s responsibility to her child.
OK, so let's add consent. You consent to be connected to the violinist. Then you change your mind. Maybe you lost your job and can't afford the time connected to him anymore, or the care needed to recover. Maybe it's more painful than you thought. Maybe you just decide it's not what you want to do anymore.
Should you be punished for disconnecting from the violinist, knowing he will die, even if you initially consented?
I'll admit, I have very little philosophy or legal training, but it seems unlikely that there exists a duty to provide continuing care in that circumstance.
@@nwsmith9 Good point. I guess you’re right, you always have the option to remove consent. I think we’re also stepping more into the boundary of responsibility, insofar that you would not be punished if you were to remove consent after having consented to the violinist; however, you made a personal commitment to that person on the scale of their entire life. Maybe it’s not immoral to withdraw, but it’s certainly pretty fucked up to approach the violinist situation, say “yea I will connect myself buddy don’t worry you’re gonna make it,” and then halfway through decide it’s not worth it lol. Again, I don’t think it’s immoral, I just think it’s a lack of judgement that should be addressed
@@nwsmith9 in the same way that a doctor shouldn’t enter a surgery knowing they’re too anxious/stressed to finish the job, a person shouldn’t have sex if they can’t accept the responsibility of bearing a child. I haven’t thought this out fully tho, this isn’t what I believe lol. Just counter arguing
@@HahaHaha-fu6vk I agree that it would definitely be a dick move lol. I just think that we shouldn't have laws that punish people for being a jerk. They should exist to protect people's liberty and rights. I don't know of other laws that force anyone to give up their body for another person to live, without that person's active consent. Not for organ donation, even from dead bodies. Only women. Hell, even cops do not have a duty to protect you. They can stand outside the door while you get stabbed and scream for help and if they feel it would put themselves in danger, they cannot be held liable for not giving up their body for you.
It's a crazy standard to put on women, and a case of special rights for a fetus that no other humans get.
@@nwsmith9 agreed 🤷♂️
I don't agree that this argument is the magic bullet answer to the abortion debate.
9:18 - When a pro-life person concedes that abortion is only justifiable in cases of rape, that is a perfectly consistent position. In fact I'd go on to say it's the MOST consistent position IF you belive the fetus is a full person. It's not at all saying the value of the fetus is lesser when created through rape, what it's actually saying is the level of responsibility for the fetus' survival is different.
Instead of being kidnapped and hooked up to the violinist, lets go back and change the circumstatances to show you what I mean. Lets say the violinist had a horrific debilitating disease and asked for your help in a very unique treatment option. To cure this disease she'd need to be temporarily reliant on your body for nine months while doctors put her through a series of surgeries. You agreed, happy to sacrifice nine months for an entire life, and she thanked you greatfully. A couple months into the process and you don't want to share your body anymore and so decide to separate and kill her. She then (I think quite rightly) says: "Well hold on there, bud! I wouldn't even be reliant on you if you didn't give the thumbs up! YOU agreed to this and YOU have a responsibility to see it through. Does your remaining few months here really outweigh my right to life?"
If someone thinks that killing her here is wrong but fine in the original example, that position isn't tenuous or weak. There are morally relevant differences, despite it literally the exact same person in both cases. I'd extend and say that you've actually got the more tenous position if you think separation is okey-dokey even after you've made the pianist need you to live.
This argument then, can very sensibly justify abortions in cases of rape, but for the 95% of abortions where this isn't the case, they're still immoral. To be clear, I am still pro-choice, but for different reasons to you. I just don't think personhood is something you can concede if you want to be consistent on this topic. I'm happy to go back and forth if you think I've gotten something wrong, thanks for reading :)
I thought people that have abortions didn’t want to get pregnant? The example you used said the person actually WANTED to be attached to the violinist for 9 months.
@@MambaSanon I mean generally no. They wanted to have sex which had the risk of causing pregnancy. The main point of that comment was around choosing to make someone reliant on you. You could make it more "accurate" to pregnancy if you replace the analogy with a magic button that feels really good to press but everytime you press it there's a 1% chance someone is teleported to you and fused to you
@@MambaSanon the real world equivalent would be " intercourse" you know that one you agree to , and know the consequences that could occur....
@JohnDoe-se8wi But the analogy is flawed. The violinist would die without your help. Therefore the outcome is the same if you had declined at the very start or if you chose to separate: the violinist would die either way.
@eruiluvatar6688 but that's kinda the point right? Pregnancy isn't like the violinist argument it's more like the analogy. The fetus didn't exist before sex, it was made dependent on the woman through sex where it otherwise wouldn't be. Again I'm pro-choice I just think the personhood argument is the best way to do it otherwise sex has some pretty shocking moral implications
You should consider talking to Dr. Avi if you want a counterargument against the pro-choice position.
The one thing you left out is the responsibility objection. Fetuses are dependent on the mother when she engages in consensual sex *and* it is her fault that that is the case. Thomson even says in the paper that it could be argued that this fact may give the fetus rights against the mother. She presents the people seeds argument as a possible rebuttal to this line of reasoning, but it's not clear if it succeeds.
it (people seeds) doesn't succeed because it relies on using human intuition to process an inhuman world. it's akin to us judging the morality of aliens or other (intelligent) animals. she doesn't even acknowledge that surely in that scenario, the reader was also a people-plant, who was once a people-seed. and in such a world, it's well known and the only way to reporofuce. and that in such a wolrd, people seeds are afforded rights and are generally objects of love by parent-plants. still, generally, she abstracts the concept so much that intuition of our current world can't apply.
she also acts like abstinence is a constant discomfort instead of a residence of an urge. a better analogy would be "people-chocolates", where there's a very tasty chocolate that people eat, and that there are alternate sweets that also taste good (same way that lust can be quenched with other forms of intimacy other than PIV). Surely, in such a world where those chocolates are the only means of reproduction and cause pregnancy, aborting a choco-baby is not permissible, by the same responsibility arguement.
I wish this wasn't so relevant right now. Thank you for this.
I loved reading this essay like 15 years ago in whatever course it was, one of the better arguments for abortion. If you're against abortion, the essay does offer a very well thought counter argument
This is something I should think about for a long time, just to reach and establish 'my opinion' about this.
And I thank you for that. For helping me focusing on my stance on this subject.
But still, hey. Some of your replies sounded too.. How should I say, stubborn? or not open for discussion?(My english is pretty bad, so there might be some mistranslated words) just like those prolifers and all the other ones who wont accept other opinions at all.
I don't know man. I dont know how to act to those extremists as well so maybe what you are doing is correct. But still, I do think that its not a healthy mindset thats used for debates.. so yeah. Just saying.
By the way, thank you for the Derrida videos. They are notoriously hard to translate and what I got in my country were plain awful or too cryptic to understand a sentence- So I had to read/listen to english ones. and your videos were the ones that I watched the most. Again, thanks!
I've posted my response to this essay (which led me to yours). I think her response's weaknesses are revealed by her title - there should be an asterisk and a note at the bottom that says (in certain contexts, but not all of them). And I think that's why her essay isn't more popular today - she's insufficiently extreme, and her essay addresses such a narrow context, it misses a good deal of the cases.
Ya I agree. Abortion should be permissable in only those contexts where the pregnant person wants it, and they aren't forced to. And in which case there should be no restrictions. I'm happy we agree about the importance of easy access to sought after abortion!!
@@TheoryPhilosophy can you kill a toddler that is 30 day old?
I fail to understand the last point. Abstracting like this is often done, It makes the moral problem clearer and isolates for variables of interest while holding everything else equal. Why would someone's experience be enough, these things need to have an argument made for and against; abstractions such as these are good vehicle for those arguments. Otherwise interesting video.
well, in the consensual sex scenario, I don't think it's fair to paint the baby as a "burglar" whose intention is to harm the house (body) of a woman...
"You didn't choose to be there." That's a very poor attempt at an analogy. In a pregnancy, you certainly chose to be there (unless you were raped). You couldn't be sure that your actions would result in a pregnancy, but you willingly engaged in actions which most certainly could result in a pregnancy. You are responsible for the pregnancy. In the attempted analogy, you are definitely not responsible for anything. There must be a better defense of abortion than this.
Bookmark: 18:13
What if sex is consensual and protection is used?
What is freedom...as a philosopher that's an essential question.
lets say you are violinist and someone bring you in this situation and this one is now connected to you and you are dependent on them now. you can construct any thought experiment you want that serve your narrative.
the thought experiment still works if u switch the roles lol, wdym?
Good video. I don't think it's concerning that people need examples which they can relate to to fully understand a concept.
*not fully but better*
I just had to read the essay thank you for introducing me to this great work
"This argument is airtight"
Huh?
Dude, the argument is really not good. The situation isn't parallel.
1. The argument supposes that one has the same duty to a random stranger as to your own child.
2. The argument fails because in a pregnancy you yourself cause the embryo to be in that situation, while you don't cause the violinist to be in that situation.
3. The kidney's function is not to support a different human being, while the uterus' function is that exactly.
4. The embryo came into being because of you while the violinist did not.
5. There is a difference between unplugging yourself from the violinist and actively stabbing him to death with a knife. The latter would be parallel to an abortion, the former wouldn't be.
You didn't search for any rebuttal to the comatose violinist, but claim to have done all the possible research. That's pathetic.
You would have find these rebuttals immediately from pro-lifers if you would have searched for it.
I would advise you personally to look up pictures of aborted babys. And then make up your mind: Should that be allowed?
Thanks for the comment; it really helps with engagement and getting more people to watch this! If you want me to explain this to you with smaller words and slower, then you can make a contribution to my patreon 😘
@@TheoryPhilosophy
Does the boot go further inside as you defend murder or does the licking get harder
@@TheoryPhilosophy Wow, a really dishonest and terrible reply. Judith Jarvis Thomson's argument is commendable, but it is certainly not "airtight," and Besserglauben gave you five serious objections that require serious replies. You can't just call a person stupid and wave these objections away.
For clarity, I'm staunchly in favor of making abortion legal at any point in the pregnancy. I'm about as far from pro-life as it gets, but I was absolutely horrified to see how disingenuous your response was to these objections. For shame.
@@TheoryPhilosophy Wow, what a dishonest reply. Judith Jarvis Thomson's argument is commendable, but it is certainly not "airtight," and Besserglauben gave you five serious objections that require serious replies. You can't just hand wave these objections away.
For clarity, I'm staunchly in favor of making it legal at any point. I'm about as far from pro-life as it gets, but I was absolutely horrified to see how disingenuous your response was to these objections. For shame.
I’ve heard this argument plenty of times but never who originally made it and why it’s so watertight. Thanks as always from a fellow Canadian who happens to live in Texas, I’ll use this one a lot.
Don’t you think there is a major difference between waking up and someone attached a person to you without your knowledge or consent vs going into an act knowing what the potential consequences are? I don’t see this argument as being water tight.
The analogy I used is you flying a plane because it seemed like a better deal but a person may end up on that plane that you are flying. If their ends up being that person on board (which was part of the original possibility) u don’t get to abandon the plane and use a parachute when you don’t like the results of a consensual choice.
@@aschu234 exactly, this is one of the main faults of Thomson’s argument. Not to mention the fact that pregnancy is a natural occurrence of how people are created in the first place, not something that is as bizarre as being kidnapped.
@@aschu234 if you watch philosophy tube’s channel (they have a video on this topic) and read Thomson’s original essay, they address this point: if you believe people have a right to life full stop, then it doesn’t matter HOW you came to be hooked up to the violinist (or fetus). Because presumably, their right to life outweighs your “right to convenience”. Otherwise, you’d be saying that fetuses who come to be as products of rape have less of a right to life than those that come to be from consensual sex, and if that’s the case, then you’d agree thar not everyone has a right to life equally
@@moderncaleb3923 actually, Thomson very much addresses this point in the original essay, it’s just that most people who discuss her argument don’t get passed the violinist part. If you believe everyone has the right to life, full stop, she says, then it shouldn’t matter whether the fetus came to be as a product of rape or consensual sex. Otherwise, you’d be arguing that people who were conceived as products of rape don’t have as much of a right to life as those conceived through consensual sex. And if that’s the case, then “sanctity of life” cannot be the reason you oppose abortion.
I have read the essay. I just disagree. Some life would have more value than others. Does a rapist/murder have the same value as a 10 year old girl? The answer is no. Some might concede that if a baby is conceived through rape than she does not have to fulfill her duties because she did not sign up for that possibility. That is where the violinist argument falls flat. It would only be comparable to a rape because she was connected to the violinist against her will or without her knowledge.
I used to think that a woman should be able to abort a rape pregnancy. Until you see a person conceived of rape who wants to know why he doesn’t deserve life.
I understand Thompson’s arguments I just think she made a major mistake in her conclusion. Body autonomy isn’t absolute. If you go into a sexual act that you know could result in a life which is responsible for, you shouldn’t be able to just bail out and actively kill that person. Even if the person is very small.
9:42 this is a huge, and flawed leap in logic. Whether an abortion should be allowed in cases of SA, vs other cases, has nothing to do with the worthiness of the fetus. It has nothing to do with the fetus at all. Thats like saying that if theirs a starving orphan sitting on a street corner, we have to arrest, and put on trial for neglect, every person who passed by them without giving them food. After all, if that person were their parent it would be neglect not to feed the starving child if you were able. If you're against imprisoning all the passers by, you are just saying that the worthiness of the child's life depends on whether or not Random Passerby Joe Schmoe happens to be their parent. Orphans who aren't the children of the Joe Schmoe somehow are less worthy of living??? Therefore we have to arrest Joe Schmoe and anyone else who passes the child. Thats such dumb logic but its exactly what you're saying here
I'm happy you agree that someone shouldn't be punished for choosing not to go through with a pregnancy, like how someone shouldn't be arrested for not helping a starving orphan! What a great way to prove Thomson's point :) Cheers!
@@TheoryPhilosophy think about the actual kind of logic you were using there, though, instead of trying to just assert the conclusion you came to. I'm pro choice too, just pointing out flawed logic.
@@TheoryPhilosophy You obviously cant think that parents have a right not to feed their children (unless you do hold the value of "bodily autonomy" that highly), but to say that I, a stranger, am not responsible to do so means you're saying that the "worthiness of the child's life" is less if the child happens to not be my progeny. Thats your logic. I'm just saying that having separate standards for moral responsibility for another person, based on circumstances and relation to the other person isn't saying that one person is worth less than the other. They're not correlated at all. Just think about it please
@@allank8497 changing your argument now? Tisk tisk, Allan
@@TheoryPhilosophy huh?? i literally just rephrased it. what
Hello, David. I'm Flora. Just discovered your channel via this video, since I'm preparing a class on the same article for high schoolers here in Rio (Brazil). I really appreciate your take on it, including the caveat that some people may not value bodily autonomy: not everyone who doesn't have a clear stance on abortion rights is a bigoted creep, often times misinformation, harsh conditioning on what a woman is supposed to be and religious practices make up the mind of many people with a uterus who are led to think their lives or comfort isn't a value in itself. To keep the conversation going, I suggest you listen to the remarkable Debora Diniz, the authority on anthropological research on abortion in Brazil (though I think she's now a visiting professor at Brown). The following video is from her testimonial at a public hearing on the decriminalization of abortion (yes, in Brazil abortion is still a crime), you can use youtube's subtitles: ruclips.net/video/kuzNoNoYrTg/видео.html&ab_channel=ColetivoTransformaMP
do you accept that the thing inside the woman a human?
The root cause of death in the abortion scenario is the abortion. The root cause of death in the unplug violinist scenario was different and had nothing to do with me at all.
the reason you dont seem to find an adequate counterargument is that the whole analogy is trying to put the baby in the same place as a P phile and the mother as a victim, its that the analogy is NOT realistic.
apart from that we know that 1% of Ations in the US , are because of unwanted intercourse
as a matter of fact the overwhelming majority of them are performed because this human life would be an inconvinience.
you see this analogy represents the 1 out of 100 cases its not representative for this issue
"You believe everyone should be like cattle" LOL
After hearing you, I need to read the essay... Not because I like it, but because the examples are completely flawed. To compare a sexual assault with a kidnaping Is the first mistake in the premise and it is followed by a series of unconnected arguments...
the anti choice arguement against bodily autonomu is opt out organ donation. This is very real and personal to me. 1. opt out organ donation on death. 2 Compulsory organ donation on death 3. nonfatal organ donation to dependants, 4 compulsorary nonfatal donation with compensation by society - in that order... Filipinos nationals have a legal and ethical duty of care for immediate relatives. Being mostly catholics they are also anti abortion. So when my Filipino friend suffered end stage kidney failure I criticised her family for not offering a kidney. Their response was fatalism. "As needed" means - not me first not me first. Your arguement misses that. In the case of your violinist 4... compulsory non life threatening donation of a kidney - yes. But given 1, 2 and 3 that would be super rare. Your arguement makes the individualist simplification
Thanks for the video! It is so amazing! Your video helps me a lot to understand her argument!😊
I've used a similar argument to this before with a car crash and the driver wakes up and is hooked up to medical equipment. Fantastic video.
I don’t think this type of argument works because in usual cases of pregnancy, the mother is responsible for the child being there in the first place, unlike the person kidnapped and hooked to the violinist.
This feels pretty solid
I disagree that this argument is airtight, I feel like you could rephrase the burglar situation as driving in a car and you cause an accident for consensual sex.
Impeccable timing with this video
What if you CAUSED the kindney failure of the violinist. What if you're directly (even if unintentionally) responsible for the sickness of the patient? Wouldn't you have a moral responsibility to preserve the life of the patient who YOU put in danger? In the same way we would punish a doctor, nurse or parent for criminal negligence, wouldn't a pro lifer say the same about women who didn't follow closely the necessary precautions to prevent this pregnancy?
Your burglar analogy is terribly flawed.
The situation isn't parallel, because you consented to sex which can lead to a baby even with protection.
The analogy would only be parallel if you personally allowed the burglar to get through the wall around your house so that he is in your frontyard. Without him being inside of the walls there would be no possible chance of him getting into your house. Yet you allowed him into the frontyard while knowing that there is a very small chance of him getting in your house from the frontyard with all your security systems. Then he enters your house.
Are you responsible in that situation? Yes, you are. You allowed that burglar into your fontyard, mister.
But even that situation wouldn't be really parallel, because the embryo doesn't necessarily harm you, while the burglar does.
Also the burglar intentionally harms you, while the embryo doesn't.
Also the burglar did exist before your choices while the embryo didn't.
Also you equated a sperm with a person, which is not the case since a sperm is only part of an fertilized egg, which would be the person.
Well even in this analogy the burglar wants to harm you and you know that .
This already frames it horribly wrong, a baby doesnt harm you, a baby wants love.
Heres a better analogy : you invite a "substance" dealer to your home , he gives you said "substances" ,and tells you " this substance gives you a good feeling while taking it BUT is EXACTLY MADE to make you Immobile for 9 months but theres a safety pill so it doesnt happen "
You take the safety pill and the "substance" in complete consenst even though you know theres the possibility you could still be immobile (which is why most people ONLY use this substance while married so you can rely on the help of your partner)
You get immobile.
And its only your fault.
But dont be put down , because after those 9 months you get the biggest Gift a Human can have in this world ,the chance to raise a child.
After making this comment I came to realize that I compare a Baby to just drug which still frames it wrong , the truth is you just shouldnt compare a human to anything non human
@@sirnikolas1636 I thought I made that distinction clear by my additions, but thank you brother
this was incredible
Excellent video, as are all of your videos. Thank you.
why wont you use "pro life" ?
Though no that I think about it , calling you "anti life" could be interesting
or would that be .... disrespectful ?
Because anti abortionists are in favor of any life because the only life in question is the person with the womb
@@Karamazov9can you repeat that in english
@@sirnikolas1636 Anti abortionists aren’t pro life because the only person alive during a pregnancy is the person who has the womb
Her paper is among my inspirations on what a great argument looks like, and how to structure it. I keep coming back to it.
Part 1/2
Well, it seems to me that you haven´t spoken to many informed "Pro-Life" proponents (and even renowned "Pro-Choice" philosophers or legal scholars who reject this argument like Singer, Tooley, McMahan or Greasley), yet 😉 Nevertheless, here is at least my response to the bodily rights argument, defended by philosophers like Judith Thomson (the violinist case) and David Boonin (the bone marrow case, which is analogous to cases of blood or organ donation). I think something like the following formulation is the strongest version of the argument to which I will respond:
(P1): Every person has a right to life.
(P2): Unborn human beings are persons (conceded at least for the sake of argument).
(C1): All unborn human beings have a right to life.
(P3): Every person has the right to bodily autonomy and integrity.
(P4): No human being has a legal claim to the use or even continued use of the body or organs of another human being.
(C2): The right to life of an unborn human being does not include the legal right to use or even to continue to use the woman's body or organs.
(P6): Abortion, and thus the fatal deprivation of the use of the woman's body or organs, does not violate the right to life of the unborn human being.
(C3): Abortion, and thus the fatal deprivation of the use of the woman's body or organs, should not be legally prohibited.
Now, I think the parental obligation objection (there is a strong duty of parents to care for their depended offspring) as well as the responsibility objection (if you deliberately engage in an act that may result in the creation of a helpless, innocent or morally incapacitated and depended human being, you are - even without further explicit consent - responsible to care for this human being; at least you are not allowed to kill it in any case) is helpful, persuasive for many people and applicable in almost all circumstances where abortion is an issue. But I am afraid it does not go to the heart of the matter.
For example, I can come up with a thought experiment on pregnancy which is, at least by my lights, in turn analogous in all morally relevant aspects to the violinist case of Thomson or Boonin´s cases and therefore sidesteps all Pro-Life objections which try to block the argument by pointing out dissimilarities. But I (as well as all Pro-Lifers I know of to which I presented this case) still think it is not permissible to remove the child from the uterus of the woman.
Imagine that in the future an incubator will be developed which is what we may call an artificial womb and which can already care for a human being in the first stages of its development and let it mature until "birth". In this future, however, there is also a hereditary disease, which the growing child can only survive if it remains connected to the woman's body during pregnancy. In this thought experiment, the basic care of the child can thus obviously be provided without the woman's body and the connection would have to be maintained for therapeutic reasons alone. Suppose a woman does not want to carry her child (which is diagnosed with this disease) because it was conceived through rape and the psychological and physical strain until birth seems unbearable to her (we can even strengthen the case by assuming the embryo is a "stranger" and comes from a fertilized egg of another woman and was implanted without her consent). In this case, does she have the right to demand that the child be transferred to an appropriate incubator, even if this procedure leads unavoidably to the death of the child?
I think it is not permissible to do that and in my estimation in this case as well as in the case of the violinist the doctrine of double effect (DDE) needs to be taken into account. When we consider the conditions of DDE I think all these cases are successfully resolved - even if we grant for the sake of argument Thomson´s premise that not even one’s own child has a natural right to the use of the woman´s body.
Furthermore, there are other thought experiments which highlight severe problems with Thomson´s (and Boonin´s) reasoning. For example consider the following case which is inspired by an idea from Francis Beckwith: Imagine that two girls, Lara and Lea, develop as conjoined twins. Furthermore, only in the body of Lea kidneys are formed and we know that Lara's body does not accept any donated kidney. Lara is therefore dependent for her survival on the connection to Lea's body and, in contrast to Lea, would not survive a potentially possible separation. In this scenario we are therefore even faced with the extreme case described by Thomson, in which the connection between two people must be maintained for a lifetime. Suppose that through the connection between the two bodies, the girls suffer for a few months every few years from physical and psychological problems comparable to a pregnancy, in addition to the otherwise already stressful situation. Lara is a fighter and has come to terms with the situation, not least for lack of alternatives. However, Lea, who has all the vital organs in her body, does not want to accept this situation any longer. In this case, does Lea have the right to demand separation, even if it means her sister Lara's death? According to the argument of Thomson and Boonin, I think this would have to be affirmed.
For Part 2/2 see first comment in this thread 👇
Part 2/2
(P1): Every person has a right to life.
(P2): Conjoined twins are persons.
(C1): All conjoined twins have a right to life.
(P3): Every person has the right to bodily autonomy and integrity.
(P4): Lara has no legal claim to the use or even sustained use of the body or organs of Lea.
(C2): The right to life of Lara does not include the legal right to use or even continuous use of the body or organs of Lea.
(P6): The separation of Lara and Lea, and thus the fatal deprivation of the use of the body or organs of Lea, does not violate the right to life of Lara.
(C3): The separation of Lara and Lea, and thus the fatal deprivation of the use of the body of Lea, should not be prohibited by law.
We can also further modify this thought experiment to make it even more similar to the situation of pregnancy. Let us assume that medical progress will at some point make it possible to extract stem cells from Lara's bone marrow, modify them and mature functioning kidneys for Lara within nine months. After that, a separation could take place in which both women could survive and then lead an independent life. However, this procedure and the subsequent operation are extremely time-consuming and associated with a significantly longer recovery time. Due to the current high psychological and physical strain Lara does not want to postpone the operation any longer and insists on an immediate separation. If Thomson, Boonin and their comrades-in-arms want to defend a right to abortion with the principles they have laid down, they would, in my opinion, not only in the previous situation but also in this one, have to agree unconditionally to the demand for immediate separation and even direct killing if separation is otherwise impossible or more "burdensome" (at least according to Boonin, see his book "A Defense of Abortion"). If this conclusion is unacceptable then it seems to me there must be something fundamentally wrong with Thomson´s and Boonin´s argument.
What makes at least Thomson's argument seem so convincing to many people at first glance is, at least in my opinion, on the one hand the constructed apparent proximity to the situation of organ failure, where there is generally a justified conviction that one has no obligation to donate an organ, but on the other hand also the "distribution of roles". Imagine, for example, that you and the violinist wake up after nine months and you are told that the violinist is now cured, but that you will die if he does not stay with you for another nine months until you too have recovered. Does the violinist, who himself is obviously not responsible for the fact that you are connected with him, now have the right to separate from you? From this perspective, things suddenly look different for many people and intuition changes accordingly.
It seems to me it is correct that the violinist has no positive right to use or even sustained use of your kidneys (or, in the case from Boonin, of your bone marrow). You are therefore not obliged to make yourself available to the violinist as a living dialysis machine, to donate a kidney or bone marrow (you may even defend yourself and resist being plugged into him or the extraction of your bone marrow). It would be very kind of you if you would do so. Not doing so, however, is not a culpable omission.
However, if - for whatever reason - a connection to the violinist already exists and the separation requires an action on your part or on the part of a third party which, under the given circumstances, causes the death of the violinist, then this can only be justified according to the doctrine of double effect (DDE) without violating the negative right to life, if your own health is in very serious or life threatening danger by maintaining the connection (e.g. if your own body is poisoned and is damaged in such a way that e. g. you fall in a permanent vegetative state or you even die in the end) and the separation does not involve a direct intended killing action.
Contrary to Boonin's argumentation, the refusal to donate an organ or bone marrow is thus ethically fundamentally different from the act of separation, which actually leads to death or other serious damage to the violinist's (or to the other twin´s) health. It seems it does not matter whether a natural or third-party event causing death was already present before your involvement, since in both situations it is now your action or that of third parties that causes the violinist's death. Therefore, in the case of the violinist, the case of the conjoined twins and the case of my analogue pregnancy example at least condition four of DDE is violated (there must be a proportionate reason to allow the bad effect) and if we look at the case of abortion condition two (the good effect must not be achieved or caused by the bad effect) and condition three (only the good effect may be intended) of DDE are always violated. Therefore, under the condition that the unborn human being is a person, in my opinion DDE explains why abortion is never morally and legally permissible (now, I know that for the following argument to be sound you obiously need to accept DDE, which is, like nearly everything in philosophy, heavily criticised by some philosophers like Peter Singer (or see the entry in the SEP). But I have to save its defense for another day ;-) ). Here is a summary of the final argument concerning abortion:
(P1): Every person has a right to life.
(P2): Unborn human beings are persons (assumed for the argument).
(C1): All unborn human beings have a right to life.
(P3): Every person has the right to bodily autonomy and integrity.
(P4): An unborn human being has no legal claim to the use of the woman's body or organs (granted for the sake of argument).
(C2): The right to life of an unborn human being does not include the legal claim to the use or even sustained use of the woman's body or organs (granted for the sake of argument by P4).
(P5) An act by which an innocent or incapacitated person is intentionally - i.e. either as a means to an end or as an end in itself - directly or indirectly killed, is without exception morally wrong and inadmissible. An act in which the death of an innocent person is caused unintentionally and indirectly can only be permissible if the criterion of proportionality is satisfied and thus one's own life is at stake or one´s own health is seriously and permanently damaged.
(P6): An abortion is an act in which an unborn human being is intentionally directly or indirectly killed, i.e. by a direct attack or the lethal deprivation of the use of the woman's body.
(C3): An abortion is, without exception, morally wrong and inadmissible.
Your prolix diatribe accomplishes only one thing: it obscure the initial topic to claim that you have 'refuted' it. Neither of the cute hypothetical scenarios set the moral grounding you claim to have established. Instead, you present both and tacitly exclaim 'See? Wouldn't that be so horrible if one twin wanted to separate itself from the other? See? Wouldn't it be so horrible if someone requested their fetus be inserted in the incubator?' Your choice to virtue signal in place of substantive argumentation isn't going to work on me, and I encourage anyone else prepared to read your word salad to critically interrogate those critical points where you leap from your hypothetical to your conclusion. Unfortunately, like most who leap without looking, you didn't stick the landing.
@@TheoryPhilosophy Huh! It seems to me I hit a nerve... Well, I think your response sadly speaks for itself and I let the readers decide who has uttered a "diatribe" here.
this is an issue which I never had a stake in, so, because I have never been of the mind that it's my place to dictate what others choose to do, I didn't have any strong opinion. I can see both sides of the issue. However, I think that this is impossible to know and therefore, along with other good, practical reasons, people should be allowed to decide for themselves. What I say is impossible to know is that which is God's will. Nobody knows what that is, despite many interpretations that ultimately can be surmised as best guesses.
The practical reasons are as important and they are the matters involving the way that every society simply does not concern itself with ensuring that each baby is taken care of, loved, nurtured, and protected after birth. It would be impossible for this to happen anyway, and it never will. Also, life is generally disregarded and taken for granted in so many other ways that it is the highest hypocrisy to suggest that it is indeed precious and sacred. Those are noble notions but they are not realized or even considered in so many ways which are dependent upon factors that are arbitrary, preducdicial, tribal, financial, and more. The same logic about how every baby absolutely must have the right to its life could be applied to people in Yemen, for example. But it is not, primarily because of an unspoken but obvious truth that exists which is that their lives are not as valuable. I find that difficult to say but I think it's important to just say it. If they were VALUED things would be different. Why mince words? These are my thoughts and thanks for the video.
I think there is a God and there is a will. I think it's debatable whether anyone knows what those things are, precisely, and I think it's possible to distort them.
@@cody3659 the circumferance of that circular argument spans continents
changed my mind. A life is a life. We don't care about other species so what's special and different about humans? Good thing I'm not a politician, but then I'm able to decide and do something different, so there's that. Namaste shalom.
Thanks David !
I think that is very easy to dismiss the argument against abortion.
Where does the idea that abortion is wrong comes from? Well, from the idea that human life, wether is in a form of a fetus or a completely developed, is sacred.
Dismissing this property can give place to drop the "no" to abortion. But yes, it can also give place to kill without consecuences, wether we're talking about a fetus or a kid, or a teenager, or whatever.
So, what's the differece between a fetus and full developed human? The will. So, fetus don't posses will, nor until they develop, so... no will, no person, no problem with abortion.
For me isn't biology wich makes us special or sacred or different from a rock (and thus having right to rights). Is the phenomen of consciousness and the subsecuent will to live wich makes a person from a human being. So, rights don't come from our human condition, but from our wishes, expectations, rationality and will.
That would be the nihilistic approach for me. Sounds hard, but I think that trying to debate biology or politics is a waste of time. The problem is not if abortion is wrong or right, the problem if there's something as a kind of trascendental "human dignity", and I think such thing doesn't exists. At least not from a secular point of view, at least not without falling in the trap of escencialism that eventually lead us in the same direction of religion.
The problem with that point, I would argue, is that it loosely sets the condition of will and dignity as prerequisites for life. What if someone is in a coma and has no will or dignity? Or a new born without any sense of will or dignity? I think I can agree but I think you need to be a little clearer what you mean so that your argument doesn't imply that some autonomous (I mean autonomous in that they aren't fully biologically dependent on someone else like a fetus or the violinist) people are more worthy of life than others.
@@TheoryPhilosophy Yes, that's the problem. I arised to this argument, and I agree with you, those questions you arise are pretty valid.
But there's a thing here, why are we asking this? I mean, if we discard human dignity and killing newborns and people on coma is a rational consecuence of it (based on the decition to do so)... well, so be it. I mean, to think that this consecuence is a problem is just the consecuence of not acepting the argument at its full.
Even thoug, I'm working in the same questions you just arised. For me it would be horrible to promulgate we do such things. But I haven't came yet with answers to your questions (wich I made before to myself).
My english also limitates the reach of my answer, I would love to give you more insight into my argument but is difficult to do so.
My point on abortion is: dismiss the idea of trascendent and essencialist santity or dignity of human life. Let's stay with the ethics of respecting the "others" life proyect and conscious will to live.
Fetuses don't posses will, so following this argument, will not be inmoral to abort a fetus. It arises questions, and many other problems. But I really think that human dignity is not a value that can be proved, not at least from the points of view I mentioned earlier. And this is pretty much the only defense from the anti-abortion paradigmn. That's why I say that the best argument to refute the problem of "abortion is wrong" is to refute the very idea of an essencialist human dignity. There's no way to prove that human life is valuable on its own.
So we should move further to other questions or narratives. What could make a human life valuable? I mean, more valuable then the life of an insect, for example. Is there anyway to prove that we are more valuable that other creatures just by being human? I think not. There's no differece between an insect and a human from a naturalist point of view. This idea of "every human life is sacred, because, you know, we are humans" can only be sustained based on religious beliefs.
So, what is the differece? Where is the limit? How a life becomes valuable? My answer is "by being consciusly valued as so, by having the knowledge or consciousness of your own existence and by having the will to live". That will also finish the problem with asisted suicide. If there's an express wish to die, that wish should be respected (as long as the person is not suffering from a mental condition that could misslead their judment).
What about people suffering from coma... well, before they fell into a coma, if there wasn't an express wish to end their lives before it, or an express wish to be killed if they become a vegetable then we shouldn't have a right to end their life. And also we shouldn't because people can wake up from coma ocassionaly, so to end the life of a person who is in coma, in my point of view would be accountable as an inmoral action. Unless there's proof that the coma is irreversible (wich means actual brain death) we should not terminate the life of a person who is in coma. Same argument aplies to people who passes out, for whatever reason, we respect the will, and we respect the will that preceded before the person passed out. I mean, at this point I think is clear that I'm not talking about being always conscious to be considered as a person. We sleep, so no, it also would be inmoral to kill someone during his sleep because the previous example: you don't need to be conscius for us to respect what you've decided or willed in the past. The will is respected as long as its stands for itself.
Like I said, fetuses can not will, so is not inmoral. Once a human being becomes conscious and starts to will (because if someone threatens to your life you will run or try to defend yourself or whatever in order to survive) we should respect that will.
@@TheoryPhilosophy in respect to newborns, I have no answer yet. But I wouldn't advocate for killing newborns. My most sincere answer is that I have not arguments yet to say wether that would be ethical or not.
@@TheoryPhilosophy Finally, and just for the sake to be clear and explain myself, because I'm an anxious person: I'm not a fascist, nor do I advocate for eugenics or any of the sort. I just think that this could be maybe the most solid refutation to the anti-abortionist argument, but I'm conscious that this road can lead to very unconfortable questions, and I think about them very often. Personally I can see why many of the people who is pro-abortion don't go this way, is VERY controversial and dangerous indeed, but it is to me the most effective and solid argument to end the debate.
@@TheoryPhilosophy
People in a coma have impaired wills and unimpaired dignity.
This is not merely to avoid ableism, it's because if dignity isn't a categorical property of humans by whatever means we came to believe human life is valuable, the alternative is to hold that human value is always transactional and we would have a set of moral assumptions based on misanthropy instead.
nice shirt pal
wonderful ! Congratulations of explanation . Thanks
Thank you so much for this.
EDIT: This comment section though...
Deliberately calling the “pro-life” argument the “anti-choice” argument, really shows your bias.
You’re essentially strawmanning because it’s not about the fact of choice in their argument, but rather about the life. Just as “pro-lifers” don’t call “pro-choicers”, “anti-lifers”.
😘
The family duty of care arguement against autonomy is also the selfish gene arguement. "I would die for 2 siblings or 4 cousins" as Julian huxley said. Your arguement is very USA specific. Individualism is particularly WEIRD. The real arguement about the borders of life is actually magical similarity. We can't take their organs because they look like they could wake up. Abortion is murder because it has eyes (as many vegans say). Its loyalty to common sense tradition vs selfish individualism. I prefer the argument that carrying a baby to term for adoption is on average abandonement. That is a right to welfare arguement. You want it to live - make sure your church pays the surrogacy fees and child support
pro-algorithm comment
Thats actually easy to defend. This is a false comparison
This is actually, a wrong way to create a philosophical premise. You can't make a false equivalence to support your preexisting ideas. This is not how philosophy works.
I'll give you the true equivalent to a poorly thought out philosophy paper like this one he's explaining. It's actually quite simple if you think philosophically and logically at the same time. Not emotionally. That's what philosophy is.
A woman who consents to sex, consents to the risk of pregnancy.
EQUIVALENCE = A woman who consents to giving her kidney to someone consents to the risk and can't just stop mid operation.
A woman who does not consent to having sex DOES NOT consent to pregnancy. = A woman not consenting to give her kidney but being forced anyway and wanting to stop mid operation.
I honestly can't even believe this paper was published and actually viewed as a philosophical statement.
@@itsnothing7 oh the state of academia is at such a deep at this point , I would be surprised if she didnt got to hold several lectures talking about this "milestone" of the A tion debate.
perhaps she even got a fancy title out of it
Awesome!
I'll add a second example, present in a movie called "Children of Men": lets assume that the last living woman capable of giving birth is about-to-self-abort-herself while pregnant with the last boy-girl twins = the last chance of humanity to go on. What do we do now, force her to give birth? Children of Men, the silly movie, naturalizes pregnancy and motherhood, in what I'd call "ultra anti-abortion reactionism": every woman is the last chance of man. Ok you can read the movie as the destruction of welfare state, but I dont really buy that, thats the actually reality not the films point of view :P
how about this analogy ( in my previous comment I already exposed the flaw of this thought experiement you proposed) :
you go to your local supermarket and find a drink so delicious you just gotta try it , but hold on theres a warning :
consumption Could lead to you being responsible for a human life for at least 9 months and probably 18 years
well despite this risk you still eat this delicious drink , turns out you get all tired and realize that what the package warned you about is actually happening. but what about your career ? your partner ? your whole life ?
infact you didnt think this entire thing would actually happen , you thought it was some kind of gimmick now you wish you didnt do it ,you whish............. you could just.... stop it.
unplug. it.
now that doesnt seem that unrealistic, its on the news all the time and the people against it are dorks anyways ,right ?
how could they take your right of freedom after all !
Tell me is it rightfull to end this human ? after all you knew the risks and still tried infact it was Your CHOICE.
honestly, having watched this video , perhaps you are pro life in disguise lmao
watching till the VERY END this has to be 1000000% a false flag operation , jordan peterson AND relativation of fascism !?
thats something this RIGHT does , who everyone talks about
Pretty incomprehensible lol
@@TheoryPhilosophy yes it is , but thats itrelevant as my goal wasnt to make it more comprehensible but instead more like real life (not like your proposed analogy)
@@petruska111 This is real life to you? My god...