Lesbian couples will soon be able to have thier "own" children.

[Gabu]

It is wrong because, in my view, it is not for humans to have power over creation.

Don't they already have power over creation?  You don't get an egg meeting with a sperm until you have sex.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It is wrong because, in my view, it is not for humans to have power over creation.

Don't they already have power over creation?  You don't get an egg meeting with a sperm until you have sex.

That's reproduction rather than creation. Perhaps creation should have been written as Creation (which would have, and does, look a little odd. Though also a little pre-19th century. Which is clearly a Good thing).

There's a real danger of this going round in circles, btw.

[Alcon]

I'm tempted to say that it's because it's wrong and to let things go off in circles from there. But I won't because that would just be totally unproductive.

It is wrong because, in my view, it is not for humans to have power over creation. You could ask "why" to that, but that question would be as perplexing to me as my views on this issue seem to be for you. If you (impersonal you, obviously) see a particular fact as being self-evident then explaining things to someone who does not see it as being self-evident (quite the reverse) and who regards it as an opinion (and a very strange one to boot) is quite difficult; in fact it's all too easy to head off into the territory of trite one-liners and respond with (say) "some things are wrong because they are wrong".
I could be very wrong here, but I'll guess that the problem in this case is that while I (essentially) live in a world of moral certainties, you don't. Of course, there's nothing wrong with people thinking in very different ways about certain issues. Dignity of difference and all that.

I know that you have the view...but if you can't explain it to me, how did you explain it to yourself?  Or did you come into existence with that arbitrary belief?  I just don't understand why.

You could argue (for example) that it's wrong to interfere in the evolutionary process in such a way.

In what sort of harmful way?

See that thing about things seeming self-evident from my perspective but apparently not yours.

There has to be a logical explanation for it being self-evident, though, or I don't think it...why would I?  Isn't "evident" kind of a variant of the word "evidence"?

Uncalled for.

If you're going to give me a silly, vague answer like "everything and nothing," I didn't imagine you'd be offender if I gave you a plain-silly response. 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

...but if you can't explain it to me, how did you explain it to yourself?

In the same sort of way that I know that (say) committing fraud against someone who never (not even at later date) finds out that they've been defrauded is wrong (yeah, probably not the best example, but I'm tired right now), it just seems obvious to me that messing around in test tubes and creating life from those tubes is wrong.

Which is the problem in explaining it in any detail. I suppose one way of putting it would be to say that if something isn't morally acceptable to me, it's morally unacceptable, but that's not entirely right either. Maybe I need some sleep now or something.

[Alcon]

Well...yeah...but in that case, whether they realize it or not, they are being negatively impacted.  There's an obvious and rational explanation for immorality there.

Don't you think that, if you can't really find a rationale for your beliefs, you might want to reconsider it?  I know I'm committing a cardinal sin of debate here, but that's the same attitude that fueled things like racism.  "I feel this way, and it's obvious to me although I can't explain why, so that's how it is."

Sleep well. 

edit: I sure sound like a jackass when I debate.  Please don't take this argument personally.  It's just intellectual.

[Jake]

Probably because it's unnatural, and blatently so, on several different levels.
(should add that, personally, I find "ordinary" IVF to be almost as bad).

Let me say that I personally agree with Al on both points here (this and IVF).

Agreed. Why growing kids in test tubes is accepted is one thing I'll never understand.

[Gabu]

That's reproduction rather than creation. Perhaps creation should have been written as Creation (which would have, and does, look a little odd. Though also a little pre-19th century. Which is clearly a Good thing).

What's the difference?  Not a rhetorical question; I'm honestly curious.

The other big question I'd be curious to know (and this isn't putting you on the spot; I honestly want your input), is where something stops being natural.  It just seems to me that everything in the world works through natural forces.  Everything that these scientists are doing is done through processes that God allowed to function when the universe was created.  There just seems to be this impression that I don't quite get that the moment something happens in a sterile laboratory instead of out in a field or whatever, that it's then "unnatural" and is therefore bad.

I'm not saying that absolutely everything done by scientists is necessarily good, or even that this is, only that I don't see where the division between "natural" or "unnatural" occurs.

There's a real danger of this going round in circles, btw.

Yes, I kind of have a feeling it may.  I'll let you know when I see it going there.

[HardRCafé]

Agreed. Why growing kids in test tubes is accepted is one thing I'll never understand.

Because people without morals think anything is justified unless you can explain why not without morals.

[opebo]

Agreed. Why growing kids in test tubes is accepted is one thing I'll never understand.

Because people without morals think anything is justified unless you can explain why not without morals.

Yes, though we would call 'morals' nothing more than your subjective preference, intolerant.

[opebo]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2444462.ece

In related news, Eli Lilly and Company now produces an early pregnancy test with an applicator shaped like Jodie Foster's fist.

Jodie Foster is a lesbian?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's an obvious and rational explanation for immorality there.

To you, yes. But presume that you grew up in a society in which it's fairly common to view something as immoral if it causes harm that the victim is aware of? No knowledge, no harm, or something like that?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

No, because I do have a reason for thinking in the way I do over this issue. But as I explained earlier it's not easy to explain something "obvious" to someone who does not see it as being "obvious" at all. Especially when the other person thinks in a different way to you.

The last point is the most important one IMO.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Actually that's not the sort of attitude that fueled Racism (with a big "R") at all. If anything the opposite is the case; a hell of a lot of "scientific proof" for Racist theories was published in the 19th and early 20th centuries and was propagated (and believed) by countless well educated people who believed equally strongly in Reason, Science, Progress and so on (the capital letters are Important here). They "knew" that Whites were superior to other "races" and had plenty of "proof" for it.
The connection between a Mississippi lynch mob and 19th (and before then actually, although obviously not developed to the same ghastly extent) century intellectuals might seem like an odd (or even a far-fetched) idea, but it's there.

[Gustaf]

I thought it was common knowledge that things got a lot worse for other races in the wake of Darwin and all that.

Anyway, ALcon you seem to be ignoring the fact that any account of morality, of what is wrong and right, involves at least one step of assumption (of course, all sort of knowledge does). There is always a step in every argument that cannot be explained. Conclusions come from premises, but at the very least one single premise must remain unexplained. You can draw the conclusion that there is no knowledge (or no moral knowledge) if you want. But Al doesn't and there is nothing wrong with that.

[elcorazon]

If God created man's mind in such a way that man has been able to figure out new ways to procreate, then God must have deemed those ways to be appropriate.  (seems as logical as some of the other distinctions in this thread)

[Alcon]

To you, yes. But presume that you grew up in a society in which it's fairly common to view something as immoral if it causes harm that the victim is aware of? No knowledge, no harm, or something like that?

Awareness aside, no, if there is no direct or relative harm to someone else, I do not consider it immoral

No, because I do have a reason for thinking in the way I do over this issue. But as I explained earlier it's not easy to explain something "obvious" to someone who does not see it as being "obvious" at all. Especially when the other person thinks in a different way to you.

I can understand that, but I'd at least appreciate an attempt.  Even if I don't follow the logic, it's very hard to maintain an internal debate when I don't even understand the sort of process behind it.  Of course, it's not your job to entertain my personal reflection, so I suppose that's pointless.

Actually that's not the sort of attitude that fueled Racism (with a big "R") at all. If anything the opposite is the case; a hell of a lot of "scientific proof" for Racist theories was published in the 19th and early 20th centuries and was propagated (and believed) by countless well educated people who believed equally strongly in Reason, Science, Progress and so on (the capital letters are Important here). They "knew" that Whites were superior to other "races" and had plenty of "proof" for it.
The connection between a Mississippi lynch mob and 19th (and before then actually, although obviously not developed to the same ghastly extent) century intellectuals might seem like an odd (or even a far-fetched) idea, but it's there.

But was that the fundamental belief, or the rationalization thereof when approached with those remanding rationales?

[Alcon]

I thought it was common knowledge that things got a lot worse for other races in the wake of Darwin and all that.

Anyway, ALcon you seem to be ignoring the fact that any account of morality, of what is wrong and right, involves at least one step of assumption (of course, all sort of knowledge does). There is always a step in every argument that cannot be explained. Conclusions come from premises, but at the very least one single premise must remain unexplained. You can draw the conclusion that there is no knowledge (or no moral knowledge) if you want. But Al doesn't and there is nothing wrong with that.

Yes, it's just a foreign thinking process to me.  I'm not interested in challenging it as much as poking it to try to gain a great appreciation/understanding from it, since it's being used by someone who is smarter than I am.

What is the test for you that distinguishes emotive, ignorable rationale from this unexplainable, but still usable type?

I'm really a lot less interested in changing minds than I am in understanding them, which is why I tend to poke and prod people too much for my own good.  I'm not trying to make fun of your system of belief.

[Bono]

If God created man's mind in such a way that man has been able to figure out new ways to murder, then God must have deemed those ways to be appropriate.  (seems as logical as some of the other distinctions in this thread)

[Gustaf]

I thought it was common knowledge that things got a lot worse for other races in the wake of Darwin and all that.

Anyway, ALcon you seem to be ignoring the fact that any account of morality, of what is wrong and right, involves at least one step of assumption (of course, all sort of knowledge does). There is always a step in every argument that cannot be explained. Conclusions come from premises, but at the very least one single premise must remain unexplained. You can draw the conclusion that there is no knowledge (or no moral knowledge) if you want. But Al doesn't and there is nothing wrong with that.

Yes, it's just a foreign thinking process to me.  I'm not interested in challenging it as much as poking it to try to gain a great appreciation/understanding from it, since it's being used by someone who is smarter than I am.

What is the test for you that distinguishes emotive, ignorable rationale from this unexplainable, but still usable type?

I'm really a lot less interested in changing minds than I am in understanding them, which is why I tend to poke and prod people too much for my own good.  I'm not trying to make fun of your system of belief.

The test would obviously be an assumption of some sort too...

I don't now if you're familiar with Rawl's idea of a reflective eqilibrium, but that's more or less my idea of how to go about this (as far as morality is concerned, that is). But generally, it's a matter of simply accepting certain propositions because it makes sense, seems rational, etc to do so. That is the case with most things that one believes. Of course, exactly what constitutes this can vary from person to person.

Anyway, the idea of a reflective equlibrium is this: on the one hand one has certain moral principles which seems to make sense (such as: always act so that you can simultaneously will that the maxim by which you are acting could be elevated to a universal law of nature, always act so as to maximize the total sum of welfare for all sentient beings, etc). On the other hand you have your considered moral intutions. For instance, when I heard of the Virginia Tech shooting my initial reaction was that this is wrong. Even when thinking about it I'm certain that it is wrong to kill 32 innocent people like that. When the moral intutions and the principles clash one adjust both so as to bring them to a reflective eqilibirium which maximizes both as much as possible. Thus, some principles will have to be modified and some intutions will have to be given up in the process.

This is obviously a quite complex issue and I should note that I haven't really made up my own mind about morality yet, in a specific manner, and I don't expect to reach any sort of definite knowledge in that area ever. In an everyday way I'm mostly, like most people, a primitive intuitionist. 

[angus]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2444462.ece

In related news, Eli Lilly and Company now produces an early pregnancy test with an applicator shaped like Jodie Foster's fist.

Jodie Foster is a lesbian?

Ha.  Don't really think so.  But she has the sort of fists that bulldykes are attracted to.

Anyway, lest I be accused of taking credit, it's not an original line.  It's from Family Guy.  And I think the line--spoken by Meg's gym teacher, a very Janet Reno-looking woman with a deep voice and cropped hair--was actually, "We're going to need some sperm and an applicator shaped like Jodie Foster's knuckles." 

The episode was the one where Bertram and Stewie are involved in a fencing duel, fighting for control of the playground.  Stewie wins, of course.