🚀 go-pugleaf

bpl@lynx.co.nz (Brian Paul Lilburn) writes:

> In article <ZXPX2D1w165w@orchide.dialix.oz.au>, jan@orchide.dialix.oz.au (jan
> >
> >bpl@lynx.co.nz (Brian Paul Lilburn) writes:
> >
> >> In article <5dcbgf$c3o$3@euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au>, d-moss@adfa.oz.au (David 
> >> >
> >> 
> >> >There are also historical, moral, legal and socialogical reasons for
> >> >opposing euthanasia.
> >> 
> >> Indeed. But the so called 'moral' reasons for opposing *voluntary*
> >> euthanasia don't stand up to scrutiny - nor do any of the others
> >> you mention.
> >
> >You are sure about this?  Please demonstrate.
> 
> It's being demonstrated in this debate.

Not very successfully I'm afraid.
                                          Of course, if you include in
> your moral code an absolutism about life including your own, then you
> *have* "moral reasons", and I would be quite immoral to press on you (if
> you were very very ill) that you best agree to have help to end your life.
> Can you see how it works the other way round?

So the absence of an absolutism about life in a person's moral code
implies an absence of "moral reasons", and that in such circumstances it
is quite moral to *press* such a person (if very ill) to agree to have
help in ending his life.  Assuming your antecedent relevant the content
of another person's moral code determines the morality of your actions
towards him, why not his beliefs or race as well.

It is however not relevant since moral reasons can be based on utility     
and there is no need to include an absolutism about life in ones moral
code.  I address this in another post and won't repeat myself here.

If your argument does not work as it is it won't work the other way
round either.

> >
> >> >
> >snip>
> >I take it you are a different sort of pagan that Hippocrates.  Here
> >from his oath.
> >
> > >
> >Not all pagans it seems would agree with you. 
> 
> But if I crawled in mortal illness up to Hippocrates (supposing I lived
> in his era) and asked him to help me end my life, and he refused; would
> he allow me to crawl away and find another herbal expert to do it for 
> me, *or would he take steps to prevent me, or follow me and then 
> watch who helped me and then accuse that person of killing and have
> the authorities punish him*? I doubt it.

The herbalist would probably trained in the same Aesclepian temple
and probably have taken the same oath.  What has this to do with 
my illustration that your *pagan* beliefs, by showing they are
inconsistent with a well known pagan on this issue, are no
more relevant to the argument than my belief or lack of thereof.   
  
                                        But you see what I'm getting
> at - the biggoted 'hypocrates' that now agitates against V.E. from
> the medical establishment.

Your illustration does not demonstrate Hippocrates', or for that
matter the medical establishment's, hypocracy nor biggotry.   

[snip]

> Only the mask of a peculiar religion (and Christianity is peculiar
> in many respects, despite the wisdom of a lot of Jesus's sayings) can
> stop a reasonable person seeing the cruelty and pitilessness of 
> an absolutist attitude to 'life' such as so many of our priests,
> politicians and medical 'experts' are displaying. 
>

You beg so many questions in a single sentence I don't know where
to start.

We know well the callouses that develop on a labourers hands
that permits him to do his work efficiently without blistering
his hands.  They do not stop him from feeling shaft of the
pick otherwise he cannot guide it effectively. 

I know well the emotional callouses that the nurse, the
doctor, and by extension, the priest and the politician develop
to allow them to do the work for their patient, congregation
or community without suffering the emotional damage continues
exposure to suffering, hardship and difficult decisions can cause.
This callous, as with the labourer who can feel his pick handle,
does not mask the empathy or flow of compassion also necessary
for the proper performance of their function.

The callouses in this sense are something positive which allow
a greater objectivity regarding the point in question, rather
than the blindness your evokative argument suggests.
       
Jan