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2004-12-09 Home Front: Culture Wars

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Posted by tipper 2004-12-09 4:12:50 AM|| || Front Page|| [11125 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 My sister's med school class was at an ethics lecture with a visiting speaker. He was going on about how spina bifida babies should not be saved. Only at the end did one of my sister's classmates inform him that she (the classmate) had spina bifida, a fact which the rest of the class knew. Guess she wasn't worth the effort of saving, though.

People forget that Nazism started with just this type of euthenasia of "defective" babies. It never stops there. It's just that the choice of whom to whack next varies according to cultural preferences.

Posted by Kathy L 2004-12-09 6:09:26 AM|| 2004-12-09 6:09:26 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 What was the speaker's reaction?

Posted by Spemble Whaimp3886 2004-12-09 1:41:43 PM|| 2004-12-09 1:41:43 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Who was the speaker?

Posted by lex 2004-12-09 1:50:41 PM|| 2004-12-09 1:50:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 subjective judgment that some lives are less worthy than others This is the oldest debating trick in the book. Accuse your opponent of the most obvious flaw in your own argument. A Utilitarian would argue that there are always choices to be made and we should rationally choose the alternative that does the most people, the most good. A utilitarian given the choice between expending resources to save one child with a terminable disease and expending the same resources to feed a child in the Sudan, would choose the latter. In practice you could feed hundreds of Sudanese children for the cost of treating one terminally ill baby in the West.

Posted by phil_b 2004-12-09 2:24:35 PM|| 2004-12-09 2:24:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 I don't know who the speaker was and I can't remember what she said about his reaction. I just remember thinking that it was all very ironic.

#4 - I understand the point, but I think it's a false dilemma. And although a "true" utilitarian would describe it as you said, in practice it always seems to work out more as the "some lives are less worthy than others."

Posted by Kathy L 2004-12-09 3:15:46 PM|| 2004-12-09 3:15:46 PM|| Front Page Top

23:57 Bomb-a-rama
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23:42 AJackson
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23:33 Frank G
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23:29 gromky
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