Why is human life considered special?

positron

The endless debates goes on about abortion, soul, this and that, and the question always seems to revolve around the moral dilemma if abortion is killing a human being or not.

My question is, why such a fuzz about taking a human life, while majority turns a blind eye to millions of other living beings? Vast majority of the people involved in the abortion debate is probably fueled (literally) by meat obtained by killing many animals - and we know that animals are intelligent, they enjoy their life, they form bonds with other animals or humans etc.

I am trying to understand what is the basis of the 'moral highground' the anti-abortion folks, and also why other living things never comes into picture?

Is this another distorted logic inflicted upon us by hundreds of years organized religion, or may be the an evolutionary feature supported by a survival instinct? Is that why some societies have more vegetarians than others?

(Disclaimer: While I prefer vegetarian food, I tend to eat more non-veg than veg myself, so I am not pushing vegetarianism here).

seamus

Well, I'd say it's a mixture of a number of factors, it can't solely be blamed on religion IMO. Religion naturally adds in some form of voodoo curse if you do get an abortion, but I would imagine the moral foundations run far deeper than that.

The basics being that humans as a species will be naturally inclined to defend members of its own species, particular infants and those in utero. This would logically be a natural instinctual response to ensure survivability of the offspring.
I don't know about anyone else, but I've found that pregnant women and young children evoke a very primal paternal, protectionist response from me, and I don't have any children of my own. Particularly where the women or child would be in my family or close community, I can almost feel the testosterone pumping into my brain

The "specialness" of human life I think is somewhat and add-on to this primal urge because we recognise that we are (as far as we can tell) the only species capable of understanding and manipulating the physical world to the extent that we do. So our intelligent brain posits that because human life is so vastly different to other "animal" species, that it's more worthy of protection.

So both the primal and intellectual value we place on our young drives us towards protecting them at all costs, whether they are distinct organisms or in utero.

I actually believe that the majority of non-religious, anti-Abortion people are primarily defensive fence-sitters. It's a difficult one to make a call on, so in the interests of playing it safe, you're better of not destroying the feotus rather than destroying it and thinking, "what if?".

If religion really was the driving factor behind protecting life, then why do some religious cultures seems to have very little regard for life?

ScumLord

Humans can imagine what another persons thinking and feeling though we sympathize with other people and put ourselfs in their shoes. There's a proper name for it. Children under a certain age don't give a damn about other people because their brains aren't fully developed and able to think the way older humans do.

bnt

I'm of the opinion is that it's not inherently special i.e. I don't believe in a "spark of life" that enters the zygote at conception, for example. It's a continuum, a sliding scale with no units, not a binary "1" or "0".

That is not to say that I place no value on human life: it's just that we choose what value to place on it, ourselves, and it behooves each of us to have a sensible discussion of what value we place on it at different stages, and why. It's my reasoned opinion that early-term abortion is acceptable, not out of some comparative value judgement, but after a sober and compassionate assessment of the consequences of unwanted births i.e. unloved and unwanted children.

I don't expect everyone to agree on every detail. When we ask the law to draw a line between "life" and "non-life", for the purposes of deciding whether abortion is legal or not, course it's going to be controversial, leaving some people unhappy. Mere existence carries no value in the wider natural (non-human) world, so if we are going to place value on human life, we should do so for justifiable, supportable reasons, not just because of our inflated egos and fantasies.

ScumLord

The human animal is pretty amasing though. Without a doubt my favorite animal of all time. Our ability to survive in just about every environment and what the human body and mind are capable of is just outstanding.

A number of things do make us special IMO, our skin is pretty unique and gives us one of the best heat exchange systems in the animal kingdom which allows us huge territorial range, speed and agility. Our ability to eat just about anything means we can walk/swim/climb into just about any environment. Our ability to notice patterns and find weaknesses in everything from the environment to our prey is second to none.

We only seem to notice the damage we do but that very fact shows just how dominant and powerful an animal we are.

Flamed Diving

Gene propagation.

Thread closed.

Borneo Fnctn

Killing within a population of the same species does not benefit the population. It is in fact detrimental. If this happens, the species becomes extinct. Morals are a part of our evolution. If human life was exceptionally special, do you not think parasites and predators would leave humans alone? Humans are sacred to humans. Dogs are sacred to dogs. The show goes on.

Húrin

positron wrote: »

The endless debates goes on about abortion, soul, this and that, and the question always seems to revolve around the moral dilemma if abortion is killing a human being or not....

Is this another distorted logic inflicted upon us by hundreds of years organized religion, or may be the an evolutionary feature supported by a survival instinct? Is that why some societies have more vegetarians than others?

The belief that human life is special is the source of not only opposition to abortion but also murder (shared by pretty much everyone) and war (shared by many among atheists and believers).

eoin5

jackpalance wrote: »

Killing within a population of the same species does not benefit the population. It is in fact detrimental. If this happens, the species becomes extinct. Morals are a part of our evolution. If human life was exceptionally special, do you not think parasites and predators would leave humans alone? Humans are sacred to humans. Dogs are sacred to dogs. The show goes on.

I think thats a bit simplistic. Killing within a population has its merits for strong genes and this occurs in many successful species. We have taken an evolutionary fork in the road towards empathy, theres no way to say that its a better path than the female spiders who eat the males after mating with them.

Húrin

eoin5 wrote: »

I think thats a bit simplistic. Killing within a population has its merits for strong genes and this occurs in many successful species. We have taken an evolutionary fork in the road towards empathy, theres no way to say that its a better path than the female spiders who eat the males after mating with them.

Yes there is. Humans are a far more successful species than the spiders.

Zombrex

Húrin wrote: »

Yes there is. Humans are a far more successful species than the spiders.

And a million biologists get a cold shiver down their spines ...

Sam Vimes

Húrin wrote: »

Yes there is. Humans are a far more successful species than the spiders.

In what way are we more successful?

Zombrex

jackpalance wrote: »

Killing within a population of the same species does not benefit the population. It is in fact detrimental. If this happens, the species becomes extinct. Morals are a part of our evolution. If human life was exceptionally special, do you not think parasites and predators would leave humans alone? Humans are sacred to humans. Dogs are sacred to dogs. The show goes on.

That isn't really how evolution works.

Killing other humans is detrimental to you. How detrimental it is to the population is not really important because evolution works on the genetic level.

If I try and kill you there is a much greater chance I will die in the attempt or soon afterwards. Evolution has designed us to not have strong desire to kill those close to us.

It has on the other hand produced an instinct to kill those not particularly close to us (ie outside of the family or tribe), which is why human history is littered with one tribe (country, clan, religion) going to war with another.

This makes evolutionary sense, that one group would protect their resources from outside invaders, and vice versa invaders would want to take the resources of a group.

So it is very interested to see how we bring about a sense of community and how this in turn eases the human instinct to be aggressive to those we view outside of our community. When we feel that everyone is connected to us, part of our community or "tribe" we feel much less suspicion and aggression to them. And vice versa, we hold often very strong negative feelings towards those that we feel are not part of our community.

This is why the widening of communications and education has greatly lessed problems such as war or xenophobia.

grames_bond

when it's a human its called abortion
when its a chicken its called an omlete!!

thus is the way of life and the world we live in!

Malari

grames_bond wrote: »

when it's a human its called abortion
when its a chicken its called an omlete!!

thus is the way of life and the world we live in!

You do realise that's not a fertilised egg you are eating?

I agree with Wicknight - I think it's an evolutionary societal advantage. That is taken too far in the case of anti-abortionists.

Zillah

Húrin wrote: »

Yes there is. Humans are a far more successful species than the spiders.

robindch

Sam Vimes wrote: »

In what way are we more successful?

Less easy to step on?

Flamed Diving

Húrin wrote: »

Yes there is. Humans are a far more successful species than the spiders.

More successful how? What are your criteria for the world league of species?

robindch

Wicknight wrote: »

This is why the widening of communications and education has greatly lessed problems such as war or xenophobia.

A point made at some length by Michael Ignatieff in, I think, Warrior's Honour: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience.

The excellent Blood and Belonging: Journeys Into the New Nationalism is also worth a punt.

Sam Vimes

robindch wrote: »

Less easy to step on?

Ah but they're much better at hiding from predators. Could it be that.....we each have our strengths that have allowed us to survive? :eek:

scanlas

How do you define success for a species?

and even if one species is more succesful or have better skills than another does that give that species a greater right to life.

Would you say someone being better at volleyball than another person gives the former a greater right to life all things being equal.

Humans are probably the most arrogant of all species, they have this notion of "specialness" and "qualities which sperate them and make them superior"

I'm a bumble bee, I happened to be born into this body, you humans happened to be born into human bodies, genetic chance. I'm thoroughly fulfilled collecting my pollen, I don't get depressed, unlike you humans, most of you walk through the world feeling not good enough, with a background feeling of anxiety. I live in the moment and savour the life in my body. Most of you humans are so identified with thoughts and ideas that you miss the joy in life. It's such a shame.

Good luck, I'm off to bang the queen.

Goduznt Xzst

Húrin wrote: »

Yes there is. Humans are a far more successful species than the spiders.

I know this post has been quoted ad nauseam, but still "what"?

How are you gauging success. If it's by the ability to destroy the environments that we need to survive, then yes, under this skewed viewpoint we are more "successful".

As an engineer, Spiders are absolutely fascinating. The wife hates it, but I refuse to kill spiders when I see them in the house. Spiders are the perfect engineers, with their bodies they can achieve sublime design, function and form effortlessly. An engineer will spend his life to achieve something even close to what a spider does naturally.

The only thing going for us is our intelligence, and as the great man himself once said:

"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value." -Arthur C. Clarke

Zombrex

robindch wrote: »

A point made at some length by Michael Ignatieff in, I think, Warrior's Honour: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience.

The excellent Blood and Belonging: Journeys Into the New Nationalism is also worth a punt.

meh, they stole all their ideas from me :pac:

Zombrex

Zillah wrote: »

The Picard Facepalm:
For those special *groan* moments when only the best face palm will do, accept no substitutes!

robindch

Wicknight wrote: »

For those special *groan* moments when only the best face palm will do, accept no substitutes!

Goduznt Xzst

Wicknight wrote: »

The Picard Facepalm:
For those special *groan* moments when only the best face palm will do, accept no substitutes!

ah so you haven't seen the superior...

Flamed Diving

In fairness, if I had to pick a winner, it would be Bacteria, all the way.

robindch

When the arm angle is just too difficult to get right:



Ok, it's all offtopic, but heavens, it's more fun than this thread!

.

Flamed Diving

Hurin ruined this thread, Robin. We cannot be held accountable.

Tim Robbins

I think it's because of sentinence and conciousness. The human can feel a wide range of complex emotions and experiences compared to other entities in the universe.

The human is also the only entity (thus far) capable of understanding the universe.

Flamed Diving

Tim Robbins wrote: »

I think it's because of sentinence and conciousness. The human can feel a wide range of complex emotions and experiences compared to other entities in the universe.

The human is also the only entity (thus far) capable of understanding the universe.

Apart from the entities on this planet, how are humans more capable than other entities in the universe?

































(Get your facepalms ready!)

Sam Vimes

Tim Robbins wrote: »

I think it's because of sentinence and conciousness. The human can feel a wide range of complex emotions and experiences compared to other entities in the universe.

The human is also the only entity (thus far) capable of understanding the universe.

Sentience and consciousness aren't measures of success with evolution. There is no "best", just "best suited for the environment". If the ice caps melted and all the land was under water we'd die off pretty quickly but it'd be great for dolphins. And crocodiles have been around for millions of years longer than us almost unchanged. Looks like they're pretty successful at what they do.

Overblood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYr7hFjs3wo

towel401

positron wrote: »

The endless debates goes on about abortion, soul, this and that, and the question always seems to revolve around the moral dilemma if abortion is killing a human being or not.

My question is, why such a fuzz about taking a human life, while majority turns a blind eye to millions of other living beings? Vast majority of the people involved in the abortion debate is probably fueled (literally) by meat obtained by killing many animals - and we know that animals are intelligent, they enjoy their life, they form bonds with other animals or humans etc.

I am trying to understand what is the basis of the 'moral highground' the anti-abortion folks, and also why other living things never comes into picture?

Is this another distorted logic inflicted upon us by hundreds of years organized religion, or may be the an evolutionary feature supported by a survival instinct? Is that why some societies have more vegetarians than others?

(Disclaimer: While I prefer vegetarian food, I tend to eat more non-veg than veg myself, so I am not pushing vegetarianism here).

Don't think human life is special? Just do the rest of us a favour and take a long walk off a short pier. Ever try to have an intelligent conversation with a goat? If you did it probably didn't work right? No they just wander around the field aimlessly looking for their next meal/shag. Anyone who claims to have an intelligent conversation with a goat is a 'believer', fraudster or whatever you want to call them.

you dont need to be some religious wacko to be anti abortion. people believe the baby is just a smaller version of themselves without the capability to stand up for themselves. i don't know how someone can for instance be against child molestation and for abortion. whats so special about having left the womb? those paedophile priests were opportunistic and they got away with it, now the church is paying and they are having a laugh. good for them you could say. maybe a child is just another worthless automated pile of molecules living out a meaningless existence.

Flamed Diving

towel401 wrote: »

No they just wander around the field street aimlessly looking for their next meal/shag.

Sounds like most humans I know.

Zillah

towel401 wrote: »

i don't know how someone can for instance be against child molestation and for abortion. whats so special about having left the womb?

The special thing about having left the womb is that you're no longer living inside the body of another human being who does not want you there.

positron

I am impressed by the thought provoking replies here.

I can understand the 'gene prorogation' aspect of humans as a species. This indeed is what urges humans to protect their own gene pool (immediate family, tribe) while waging wars against foreign humans (other tribes, families) or other predators like lions etc

So when they say the 'world is shrinking' or 'global village' etc, other than the 'easy communication', we are also talking about 'accepting larger gene pool' as part of our "tribe" - less threats and more to protect? So that would mean in last 3-4000 years or us humans are slowly changing what's hardwired onto us from millions of years of evolution as we are evolving into living in larger and larger communities!

I need to think about this, but keeping the above in mind, its plausible that one day, given the right alternatives, humans could evolve to not want to eat other living things?

towel401 wrote: »

Don't think human life is special? Just do the rest of us a favour and take a long walk off a short pier. Ever try to have an intelligent conversation with a goat? If you did it probably didn't work right? No they just wander around the field aimlessly looking for their next meal/shag. Anyone who claims to have an intelligent conversation with a goat is a 'believer', fraudster or whatever you want to call them.

you dont need to be some religious wacko to be anti abortion. people believe the baby is just a smaller version of themselves without the capability to stand up for themselves.

I have been enjoying the replies in this thread till I came across this. You are contradicting yourself in so many ways. Based on the above text, a few questions:

* Are you saying goats can't "communicate" at all? They don't communicate hunger, affection etc to other goats? Also, don't you think my (or your) inability to communicate to a goat is only because goat and us does not have a common method to communicate.

Walk down a different 'pier' with me to central Mongolia. How would you have a 'intelligent discussion' with a nomad mongol who doesn't speak English and you don't speak a word of 'mongol kele'. He owns and manages a heard of 1000s of sheep and he can follow the stars in the sky to map his landscape of a thousand sq. kilometers - where as you or I could get lost in Phoenix Park without sign posts!

You might argue that if you puff up and scream, he will get the idea that you are angry. Sure. But even your goat down the pier knows that much!

I guess what I am trying to say is, its extremely preposterous to suggest that only humans have 'intelligence', and other species don't. They all have their own share of intelligence to suit their life style. For an amoeba it might not be a lot compared to us humans, but it obviously is sufficient for what they want to do in this world we share.

I don't want to open a can of worms here but, if 'intelligent conversation' is the criteria, I am fail to see how a fetus, or a newborn baby (and even some grown people) deserves any special regard than a chicken/goat?

I guess I really do have a thing against killing something for food. If there is alternative food source out there, why kill something that you don't need to - after all, killing is denying someone/thing the right to live, and its not hard to imagine animals do enjoy their surroundings and the company of other animals of the same species or otherwise and humans and animals have a lot of emotions in common!

Or one day science will breed a pig that has no survival instinct - like in the Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy - the pig will consciously offer itself for your dining pleasure!

eoin5

towel401 wrote: »

i don't know how someone can for instance be against child molestation and for abortion.

Comparing the two is like comparing manslaughter with miscarriage.

MrPudding

Sam Vimes wrote: »

In what way are we more successful?

Duh. Human heaven is better than spidey heaven, therefore we are more successfuly. Seriously, sometimes I wonder if you guys are just pretending not to understand this stuff...

MrP

JC 2K3

towel401 wrote: »

Don't think human life is special? Just do the rest of us a favour and take a long walk off a short pier. Ever try to have an intelligent conversation with a goat?

Ever try to have an intelligent conversation with a foetus?

Flamed Diving

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Ever try to have an intelligent conversation with a foetus?

I know, they are such bores...

Seeing as we measure specialness with intelligence now. Have you ever had a intelligent conversation with a mentally retarded person?

Hence...

Goat = Mentally Retarded Person = Foetus = Not special

Bravo, towelie. Try to lay off the dubey, eh?

Húrin

Sam Vimes wrote: »

In what way are we more successful?

We control the parameters of ecosystems. We have eliminated our predators. We have learned to harness much of the world's energy and we already use so much of the world's land to feed ourselves.

Húrin

Zillah wrote: »

The special thing about having left the womb is that you're no longer living inside the body of another human being who does not want you there.

Hold on, if the specialness of human life has been removed, and the point of becoming an individual has been branded as "arbitrary" in the naturalist narrative, how on earth has the concept of individual rights survived?

Zillah

Húrin wrote: »

Hold on, if the specialness of human life has been removed, and the point of becoming an individual has been branded as "arbitrary" in the naturalist narrative, how on earth has the concept of individual rights survived?

I was responding to his retarded comment that molestation and abortion are the same thing.

Could you perhaps explain the context of your question in more detail? I'll try to respond, tell me if I've taken you up wrong. Humans are not objectively special. We can still consider them special, however. We give them special rights because we consider them special.

Flamed Diving

Húrin wrote: »

We control the parameters of ecosystems. We have eliminated our predators. We have learned to harness much of the world's energy and we already use so much of the world's land to feed ourselves.

So we use the environment to sustain ourselves, while simultaneously failing to sustain the environment we so depend on to survive.

Geniuses.

eoin5

Húrin wrote: »

We control the parameters of ecosystems. We have eliminated our predators. We have learned to harness much of the world's energy and we already use so much of the world's land to feed ourselves.

What about the AIDS virus? At least the monkeys can resist that. And when we wreck the worlds ecosystems prematurely the spiders will have a much better chance of surviving than us without harnessing diddly squat of the worlds energy.

Anyways this kind of discourse is a bit silly if you dont give success a fixed criteria. The one I'd use is how long weve lasted. According to wikipedia modern spiders have been around for 200 million years. If you generalise us to our order (primates) weve been around for 65 million years.

Flamed Diving

eoin5 wrote: »

What about the AIDS virus? At least the monkeys can resist that. And when we wreck the worlds ecosystems prematurely the spiders will have a much better chance of surviving than us without harnessing diddly squat of the worlds energy.

Anyways this kind of discourse is a bit silly if you dont give success a fixed criteria. The one I'd use is how long weve lasted. According to wikipedia modern spiders have been around for 200 million years. If you generalise us to our order (primates) weve been around for 65 million years.

Simplistic, myopic thinking for simplistic, myopic Christians. Anytime I wonder how anyone could believe what is written in the Bible, I remember this.

Zombrex

Húrin wrote: »

Hold on, if the specialness of human life has been removed, and the point of becoming an individual has been branded as "arbitrary" in the naturalist narrative, how on earth has the concept of individual rights survived?

The concept of individual rights is a human one. It doesn't exist in nature.

To nature a book is just a bit of dead wood. To us it is much more.

positron

Húrin wrote: »

We control the parameters of ecosystems. We have eliminated our predators. We have learned to harness much of the world's energy and we already use so much of the world's land to feed ourselves.

First part of that post is totally incorrect.

To the second one, please let me quote Agent Smith from Matrix:

I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.

Húrin

Zillah wrote: »

I was responding to his retarded comment that molestation and abortion are the same thing.

Could you perhaps explain the context of your question in more detail? I'll try to respond, tell me if I've taken you up wrong. Humans are not objectively special. We can still consider them special, however. We give them special rights because we consider them special.

Sorry. I was thinking of Sam's thread, where numerous posters were commenting from a naturalist perspective. They were trying to refute Sam's statement that a human life started in the womb, and that thus abortion was the killing of a human. They asserted that his point to mark where a new life starts was "arbitrary", and some also said to the effect that the preservation of human life itself was an arbitrary value. So I don't see how that line of thought does not also exclude humanist ideas about the inherent rights of men and women.

Flamed Diving wrote: »

So we use the environment to sustain ourselves, while simultaneously failing to sustain the environment we so depend on to survive.

Geniuses.

Yes, it is incredibly stupid, and it is something I melancholically think about a fair bit. But we are a very successful species. For our size, our population is enormous and we have colonised most of the world's land area. We have apparently cheated natural selection, at least for a time. No other species has done this.

Flamed Diving

Húrin wrote: »

Yes, it is incredibly stupid, and it is something I melancholically think about a fair bit. But we are a very successful species. For our size, our population is enormous and we have colonised most of the world's land area. We have apparently cheated natural selection, at least for a time. No other species has done this.

I'm going to entertain your notion of evolution being some kind success mechanism, for a moment. Why are humans more successful than bacteria, who can survive just about anywhere on the planet, at the most extreme colds/heat, are the most populous, are able to evolve the fastest, and have been here the longest?

PS: I could go on listing these.