PETA doesn't like that anyone got a pig heart transplant. https://www.peta.org/media/news-releases/first-heart-transpl...
This is so simple and newspapers trying to make it into a matter for debate is actually compromising that.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/health/heart-transplant-p...
Even if one were to consider moral character when allocating organs in general: the researchers needed someone who was sick and likely to die, ineligible for human organ transplant (here, because of severity of condition), and not so sick that there was no chance of success or useful data.
So, we're already picking someone who doesn't meet the normal rules.
And, of course, considering moral character when allocating organs probably isn't a great idea.
Naturally it was corrupt
As your link also says, in most areas, you can receive a liver for ALD; there's just a 6 month sobriety rule.
So we know:
- 6 months of sobriety increase odds of ongoing subsequent sobriety
- Sobriety improves LT transplant outcomes.
Many believe, without strong numerical evidence either way:
- 6 months of sobriety before procedure improves outcome of LT transplantation.
Fewer believe:
- A 6 month sobriety requirement is an unnecessary impediment to transplantation.
Your paper says:
"An interval of sobriety prior to LT is very desirable from a medical point of view. Abstinence may markedly improve liver function"
i.e. in many cases, if people could stop drinking, they might not even need the liver!
[0] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/destigmatizing...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_for_End-Stage_Liver_Dise...
The non vaccinated are actively choosing to be a danger to people around them.
It is like actively carrying concealed unlicensed gun which can silently and anynomously fire at people.
[Edit] And if you meant active in context of 'Active shooter', then still use of the word active is not wrong. Virus laden body is like carrying a concealed gun which is on 'auto pilot', it is actively spraying bullets; it IS active all the while.
> The non vaccinated are actively choosing to be a danger to people around them.
> It is like actively carrying concealed unlicensed gun which can silently and anynomously fire at people.
What about giving a life extension to someone who stabs other people?
The recipient of the heart transplant, David Bennett, actively chose to be a danger to people around him.
Ideally there would be two beds, and everyone would get the care they need, but reality means choices have to be made. Refusing a vaccine should send you to the back of the queue.
You won't be denied tramua treatment for a gunshot because your doc told you to stop playing with guns.
You won't be refused heart medicine because you didn't stop eating bacon when your doctor told you to 5 years earlier.
You won't be denied ER treatment because you were drunk when you crashed your car.
There is no rule where we have to treat all patients equally (including mass murderers) except those who didn't accept n earlier-offered treatment or who did something that caused their own medical condition (i.e which probably includes most medical conditions).
Medical care is not an exploding offer.
Honestly - shame on you for trying to sneak in an absurd exception just so you can abuse the medical system to hurt people you don't like. That's not what hospitals are for.
Especially with COVID: if you're at the point of triage and rationing resources, you need to consider likely outcomes, and people with the vaccine presenting at hospital are more likely to survive than those presenting without.
It seems like we're not going to bump into those limits, though, so it's moot.
In my opinion, that logic is flawed.
The currently available COVID-19 vaccines vastly reduce the likelihood of developing severe symptoms from a SARS‑CoV‑2 infection. They also somewhat reduce the risk of getting infected in the first place.
So, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 makes you far less likely to need to be hospitalized, should you contract the virus, which apart from of course being beneficial to yourself also helps with keeping the healthcare system from being overwhelmed.
However, if you've already been hospitalized, it is because you've developed severe symptoms, which in turn means that, in that situation, for you, the vaccine has failed.
At that point, all other factors being equal, your likely outcome is no different from that of a person who hasn't been vaccinated. Therefore, using vaccination as a criterion for triage (which - like you said - is all about rationing resources, not passing judgement) doesn't make sense.
Now, it could very well be possible that being vaccinated improves your outcome even once you've already developed symptoms sufficiently severe to require hospitalization. However, I'm not sure there's conclusive evidence suggesting that is indeed the case.
Current data seems to show that fully vaccinated people who require hospitalization have hospital stays that are 33% shorter and are also about 33% less likely to die (despite having more comorbidities on average than unvaccinated hospitalizations).
So, if you have one bed left, and can put either an unvaccinated or vaccinated person in it-- all else being equal-- the vaccinated person is less likely to die with hospital care, and is more likely to free up the bed for someone else soon.
(We don't know, though, if you deny hospital care to both what the death rate for each would be-- here's where you have to guess. If you assume both die without hospital care, then you should give the bed to the vaccinated patient).
Only because people who got the vaccine are significantly less likely to require hospitalization though. At the start of the pandemic there was a very real possibility that we'd actually run out of ICU beds and ventilators. Much of the 'flatten the curve' effort was to protect healthcare services.
If having your head split open in a DWI accident was contagious you would.
Like 99% of the arguments against vaccination this isn't nearly as pithy as you think.
After seeing what going through the initial wave of COVID in a medical provider in the ER did to my mother I could not care less about how many loopholes in efficacy people want to tout.
Vaccines help reduce severity in some capacity. If you can be vaccinated (and not everyone can), and you chose not to because you know better, ask your YouTube doctor of choice to patch you up.
Honestly - shame on you for treating self-preservation as some sort of moral judgement against people someone doesn't like. People don't like to risk their lives for people who won't help themselves.
That's an entirely reasonable position that I can understand - my advice to those people would be to avoid careers in which they are required to risk their lives for people who won't help themselves.
There's a good reason I'm not a police officer, doctor, fireman, etc. The risk/reward payoff in those careers is far, far too low.
Comparing armed police sent in to deal with possibly armed suspects... firefighters who get sent into infernos... with doctors.
The risks doctors normally face from one patient to another are identical, so it was nonsensical to say they were risking their life for a specific patient. Especially since we've known how to protect from _normal_ bloodborne and airborne pathogens for a long time. The difference is COVID had no vaccine and treatment was limited at the time, it was repeatedly a death sentence.
That's why COVID already forced a rethinking of how far we expect providers to go to save someone: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.120.006...
There's a good reason you're not a doctor, let's leave it at that.
To be clear my position is that you should treat everyone, fatties, smokers, antivax, whatever, merely because I don't know when I'm going to find myself in one of the "wrong" groups and I'd like to get treatment then, so I think they should get it too.
Is a heart attack going to infect your provider?
Is neck cancer going to infect your provider?
We have a vaccine that significantly reduces the odds of putting our healthcare providers at risk and becoming part of the group of people crippling our ability to provide emergency medical care... if you don't take it not because you're ineligible, but because you've decided you know better, you should not be a priority.
And really this is already how it works. When ICUs get overwhelmed, people with COVID who code might not get resuscitated.
The massively increased risk to the provider combined with the chances of recovery mean you will just die:
https://www.cdha.nshealth.ca/system/files/sites/documents/co...
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And I guess saying I have strong feelings supposed to be some backhanded ad hominem? I mean clearly you have strong feelings as well, writing tirades about the "fatties", the difference between us is what I write is based on reality
My comment was as a follow up to your statement: "Vaccines help reduce severity in some capacity", there's a lot of behaviors that reduce severity in some capacity, and doing those would translate in lots of time savings and less pressure on the healthcare system in the same way as the vaccines do, the vaccines just have the extra "bonus" of being able to infect healthcare workers, so their negative effects compound. But if your argument is about first principles, any sort of self preservation has the same problem. So I was just commenting on that.
You're right the bit about feeling strongly was probably a subconscious dig, sorry about that, but I was amused at the "shame on you" and had a moment of weakness, my bad.
Also I didn't intend much with the fatties, I find it eandearing and have been a fatty myself at times in my life and have many I like, if that offended I'm sorry and I wish I hadn't used the term, but that's life and these are just internet comments.
Problem is that there is not enough capacity for curative treatment only. In this case it would make sense to allocate some hospital capacity for people without vaccination, and more capacity for people that have been vaccinated (maybe in the same ratios as population vaccination).
And also allocate some hospital capacity for people with other diseases so they're not impacted by the fact that some people refuse vaccination.
Yes, you would. Doctors refuse to give people treatment until they've lowered their weight, reduce their cholesterol, given up smoking or drinking, or increased their level of exercise all the time.
There is no point giving someone life-saving medical treatment if it isn't going to work because of some other factor. That's a waste of time and money. In every case the patient has to show that they're willing to do their part. Medicine is not just popping a few pills or turning up for surgery. There's effort required in order to get better.
In the case of Covid, having the vaccine is part of that effort. Someone who hasn't tried to improve their long-term health by, for example, giving up smoking, and someone who hasn't tried to improve their long-term health by having the Covid vaccine are basically the same - they're both putting their health at risk unnecessarily. Doctors should consider that when they're prioritizing treatment.
Although some might argue that there was a certain correlation between the two.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/anthony-stokes-tee...
In the case of ties, the question of who “deserves” the organ is relevant to the board members. Uncomfortable but true.
Also doesn’t really apply here as this guy had a last ditch experimental operation. The family in the article just wanted revenge.
For lack of a better word, they are maximising the duration of the organ.
Genuine ties do happen though, and at the end of the day the board is human.
The victims family is saying “Our principle is that people who stab Ed should not get a heart, therefore David should not get a heart.” The doctor is saying “Our principle is that we don’t use the patient’s past violence or convictions to determine whether they should get a heart or not, so the stabbing doesn’t disqualify David.”
Neither party can offer a valid argument as to why their principle is true, because both of their principles are normative.
That question makes the more-topical issue When the ER fills up, should unvaccinated people be treated by administering carbon monoxide in the hospital parking garage? look trivial to resolve, in comparison.
I think people have the ethical issue in this case backwards: the reason this guy got this transplant is because it was an experiment. We effectively used an ex-con as a guinea pig. (Personally, I'm fine with that, he was fully aware and consented, it was his only chance.)
If this guy had died due to the experimental heart failing, we'd probably be seeing a bunch of op-eds about our moral failure to prevent exploitation of a vulnerable (ex-)prison population.
Yeah. There is no shortage of pig organs which is kinda the whole point. Rationing limited care is different than denying perfectly available care simply out of retribution. I thought the context made that distinction rather self-evident.
There is not a huge supply of these transplantable pig hearts at the moment. But if the procedure proves to be viable and the long term consequences make it favourable we can scale up transplantable pig heart production.
The reason we are not transplanting pig hearts to thousands of patients right now is not because of any such supposed shortage though, but because the procedure is not proven yet. The experiment in question is set out to provide data to help answer that question.
Yes, but not for their moral failings. We deny care for health reasons, as generally speaking the goal is to optimize for additional healthy years of life.
On the contrary, you’re probably massively overestimating how much the society at large cares for convicted felons.
The sad reality is it’s not a lot.
Which is why I doubt we’d see a single op-ed about it.
If you have one hospital bed and two COVID patients that are looking like they will die if they don’t get admitted you treat the one with the greater chance of survival. Being vaccinated is predictive of a higher survival rate…
The majority of ethicists agree that normative statements can express true statements.
But the positive/normative distinction is also not important here: medical ethics is a prescriptive and lexical ethics, one that you must follow if you are to practice medicine. It's not interested in what any individual does thinks should or shouldn't be the case: you do no harm and you always render treatment in accordance with your means.
What do you think is a good candidate for such a statement? My impression is that arguments must proceed from axioms, positive axioms aren’t helpful because the statement is normative and normative axioms just reproduce the issue.
> medical ethics is a prescriptive and lexical ethics, one that you must follow if you are to practice medicine.
What is the meaning of “lexical ethics”? Google didn’t return anything helpful.
I believe the essence of the claim you are making is that, “There is a powerful enforcement body that will only permit doctors to practice medicine if they do no harm and render treatment in accordance with their means.” I think this a positive claim about human behavior, a proposition potentially belonging to the set of sociological or historical facts.
I suspect the family is talking about the way things ought to be, “Heart transplants should go to good people”. And you are pointing out that the doctors are responding with a positive claim, “That’s not what we do here.”?
Here's an intuitive one: "you shouldn't kick puppies." Most people think that expresses a true statement (not that "most people" is itself indicative of truth value).
In terms of my own ethics: "act only in a way that you can will be universal law." Of course, not everybody agrees with that one, but I think it's an awfully good candidate.
We can talk about if and how those proceed from axioms, but I suspect that'll be a long thread :-)
> What is the meaning of “lexical ethics”?
Sorry: lex is in lex, legis, "law." Medical ethics don't concern themselves with normal moral objects or even moral laws in the deontological sense; they are literally a book of rules that doctors (broadly) are not allowed to disagree with.
So yes, I think it's correct to read the doctors' responses as a positive claim: they're pointing out that it's a category error to appeal to their (potentially true!) moral beliefs.
They’re allowed to disagree, as long as they still follow them.
Dura lex sed lex and all that.
Worth pointing out that truth is a pretty complicated word in this case. The statement is intuitively true in the sense that it is a command that ought to be followed, but it's not a factual truth statement in an empirical sense. Likewise often truth statements or commandments are reframed emotional stances, say "you should not look at porn!" expressing simply disapproval.
Lay ethics discussions conflate truth claims a lot so it's hard to draw any conclusions from it. Also there's a deep cultural aversion to argue that moral statements have no truth value, despite it being a common philosophical position.
Well, yeah, it would kind of be silly to be an ethicist if you didn't believe that, and even if you were it would be contrary to self-interest to admit to it. It’s like polling astrologists on the reality of planetary influence on personality and personal fortunes.
This all works out because it isn't actually contrary to their self-interest: academic philosophy doesn't care whether your position undermines some grounding claim, because there's no universal consensus around that grounding claim to begin with. You'll find plenty of moral philosophers who think that morality is a purely preferential mental phenomenon; they don't mind admitting that because there's still plenty of interesting work to be done if that's the case.
With an indirect death penalty attached, yes. Can’t think of how this could go wrong at alllllllllllll
Funny how a lot of problems work themselves out when swift justice is delivered. This whole thread doesn’t exist in that alternative, more just world.
If we take that into account, then do loners without friends/children/family not deserve the same consideration?
To me, you are undermining your view that life-taking is bad, by engaging in it yourselves. To me, this is a paradox. You seem to be standing up for your belief in the badness of life-taking, by doing something against those who do it, then you do something which goes against the very thing that you are trying to protect--which, to me, makes it seems like you are merely pretending to protect.
So, to me, their moral claim (?) that they are somehow "better" than this life-taker, and therefore have a right to say/do this life-save withholding, is completely undermined by their action of said withholding (or proposal to do it).
On the other hand, my ape-brain very much endorses the logic of revenge and sees no problem with an eye for a eye. It will teach people a lesson, let them know they can't mess with us, and let them know there are consequences if they try. Hopefully, my ape brain says, that will make us safer and rest easier, in future.
But the logical/rational part of me trying (but maybe failing) to consider this from an ethical or moral point of view, says, "Nah, that doesn't work."
That's why the legal system is so important. We need a way to do these things, that's not about individuals getting revenge. So...you kill Alice, then society takes it up with you, through their legal/punitive officers--rather than Alice's family.
But even so...that doesn't fully resolve it for me, the paradox I see there.
But at the same time, I get your point of view. I mean, what that means we can't punish anyone? Because we don't want to seem bad, by pushing back against the bad people? Are you saying we just turn the other cheek? That's crazy.
Yeah, I get that...But I think it's important...You do some crime, and I say, "I have to get back at you". But no, I'm the one that has to be moral. Individuals have to be moral. The state doesn't have to be moral in the same way. But we can't let that spill over to individuals otherwise everything collapses.
I mean, I'm not saying I can resolve this right here--and your strong reaction to what I said, indicates that I have raised a complex, subtle point that's not easy to resolve. People face stuff like that, it's difficult, so they react strongly, or emphatically, like you did.
So I think we need the state, the organs of the state, to be able to enact this violence on our part (take their money, their freedom, their life--maybe? I'm not sure about the last one). Then we can afford to be moral and live up to that, and that's good overall. It's not perfect but then what other options do we have?
My interpretation is not uncharitable, it's precisely the same argument you are making, and, to me, it makes no sense - as shown by my examples. Clearly, you have no problem with fines for thieves and prison for kidnappers, and why should you - so you agree with me.
I think the resolution to the problem of 'punishment' is exactly the one you point out at the end: we hand over the monopoly of violence to the democratic state.
Thus the point you're making is wrong: the problem is not at all whether we punish by exactly the same measure that we're punishing for. The simple truth is that the death penalty is a qualitative very different kind of punishment (which I find barbaric, just for the record).
Edit: I don't really see where I react strongly or emphatically. I'm just pointing out that your logic does not hold up.
> But at the same time, I get your point of view. I mean, what that means we can't punish anyone? Because we don't want to seem bad, by pushing back against the bad people? Are you saying we just turn the other cheek? That's crazy.
> Yeah, I get that...But I think it's important...You do some crime, and I say, "I have to get back at you". But no, I'm the one that has to be moral. Individuals have to be moral. The state doesn't have to be moral in the same way. But we can't let that spill over to individuals otherwise everything collapses.
I mean doesn't that look like I'm making an effort to understand your POV? That's exactly what I'm doing? What does that look like to you? How did you take that?
---
Second thing:
> My interpretation is not uncharitable, it's precisely the same argument you are making
Well I'm saying it is uncharitable. I think you think that it's the same, but maybe you don't see how you've misinterpreted.
In my first post (GP?) I don't mention the state. Now, it's understandable if maybe you thought I was talking about that (use of possibly ambiguous "you", or "their", or "yourselves" to refer to who I was saying claimed they could punish like this), but to me I was clearly replying to the ancestor phrase "The victim's family is saying:" Maybe that was not clear, but I thought it was. Sorry, maybe that was what confused you?
So, in that context where I am talking about it (what I said up there), the context is: when people say they want to respond in the same way. That is different to the point you're making, I think. I think you're saying, that I'm saying:
"We don't have a right to punish people, because if we do, we are not moral. And we shouldn't punish people in the same form as their transgression."
That is what I'm saying...but I'm also genuinely trying to explore it and being more modal than, "well it is 100% like this." I'm just saying what I said up there.
But I think your mischaracterization is that your meaning is maybe like this:
"You are referring to the state. You are saying the state cannot punish people because it would undermine its moral position somehow. This is obviously nonsense. You are wrong. Because then we do not punish anyone. Also, what's really wrong with punishing in the same form? It's not even a point. Also wrong."
Let's leave aside the "same form" thing because that's, probably, you know, something else. But I just think your mischaracterization is to mischaracterize or misinterpret, the who of what I'm talking about. And that part's understandable maybe--ok?--because I didn't make it explicitly clear. But what you're saying I'm saying, is not exactly the point I'm making, and it is uncharitable because it doesn't seem to try to see it from the point of view where it could be true...your mischaracterization throws out the stuff I'm saying about the seeming moral paradox, and reduces the modal exploratory aspect to an absolute one, ignores the part where I'm making an effort to consider your PoV, and seems to deny that considering this as a moral problem is a valid consideration. Also, saying "You have no problem with punishing" is a complete mischaracterization, stripping off the subtlety of what I'm trying to explore, which is that, to me, these things are moral issues like I said above.
I mean one basic point is, if what you're trying to do is prove me wrong, then having to misinterpret and reduce what I'm saying in order to prove it wrong, is invalid...it doesn't touch what I'm saying. So you've only proved wrong, if you have, your misinterpretation of what I'm saying. And sort of validated what I'm saying and the difficulty of proving it wrong, by avoiding dealing with it.
Now maybe you don't see it like that, and I get it. Maybe you just genuinely think your interpretation was totally valid, and I'm just shifting the goal posts to avoid being pinned down by the formidable pincers of your immaculate logic...or some stuff like that, whatever. Or maybe you are doing it deliberately...or maybe it's just a blindspot and you don't realize you're doing it? Maybe?
For me the far more important point tho, is about how people interact in discussions, not the proving wrong. And it just seems like you're saying, what I've said is all invalid and wrong. It kind of hurts. Because it does hurt. And also because I'm dealing with the topic genuinely, and curiously. And it just feels like you just want to prove a point, and you don't care who you misinterpret, like you don't care how you misinterpret what someone says into some form you can say "it's wrong" because it seems you only care about saying "it's wrong." rather than about hearing or dealing honestly and respectfully with what someone is saying.
I mean you could have just said, "Well maybe it's right, how could this guy be meaning in a way that's right? What could they be trying to say here that's not the obvious rebuttal I can make or what I might be misinterpreting? Maybe they're more subtle than that?" Because when you do that, you know, mischaracterization and say "you're wrong", I feel a bit sad, because it seems like you're saying, "This person is stupid." Because you're assuming the stupidest interpretation, the one that obviously doesn't make sense. Is that what you think I'm saying? Why do you need to look down on me?
And I just think that's a bit sad. I'm engaging genuinely, but it seems you just wanna prove someone wrong...and you don't care who you hurt? I was a little scared to reply you because I got the feeling you might do that...but, I gave you a chance.
I picked up the strong reaction in your first answer, and I felt scared you would try and just do that, and you did. It was a feeling, but some points in the text you could link it to are: "undermine what exactly? [[ your point about undermining is invalid, there's no complexity here ]] That makes no sense." It was my feeling about your intention but those words are even pretty strong to me. I get that maybe you don't see that...sad to say, but I think that not seeing it might be obvious. Maybe you can think about how that might come across...
---
Third thing: I mean if you want to take some overly literal editorialized misinterpretation of what someone said, and pretend it's their logic that doesn't make sense, rather than your interpretation (because I guess that helps you feel smart(er?) for seeing the flaws in their logic, but it's a little unfair and twisted to foist your perverted misinterpretation on what they say, just to get your rocks off by feeling they're wrong and you're smart, right?), I mean it's actually not that difficult to do that...so how does it feel,
"My interpretation is not uncharitable...so you agree with me...Thus the point you're making is wrong"
I mean I can do that, and be like, "Gotcha. If I'm wrong, but I agree with you, then you're wrong too?"
Clearly a more simplistic misinterpretation than your more subtle misinterpretation, but of the same kind, and seemingly the same intention. The thing is, that kind of stuff, doesn't lead to interesting or fun conversations, I think...because then we got to waste time maybe going back over like, "i didn't mean that," "you didn't mean this", it's a time saving effort if you just respond to the strongest position. And even if I didn't mean that strongest position, then maybe I can rise to it (I mean--you see me as capable of that, right?) then we could have had a more fun and interesting conversation, right? but to do that you have to surrender the temptation of seeing someone else as stupid, and what they're saying as wrong, so you can feel smart(er)? because if you don't surrender that temptation, it's just for you then, it's not a contribution to the community. maybe you feel as if your contributions will not be appreciated, so you fall back to this. getting your jollies in this "taking" way (and in this current context, kind of immoral, because nobody took anything from you at the first, at least not here~~not saying you had an easy time online tho...but does that mean you keep being unkind/uncharitable?). because when you do that, it hurts, because you're devaluing what other people are saying. I hope you see that, or reflect on it, and maybe try to be better to others...please.
And let me help you with another thing you are confused about [0]. So, in essence your argument is that I am wrong because I am answering to what you wrote rather than what you thought you wrote or wish you wrote, and that's what you call 'uncharitable'.
The main problem with your 'argument' is that you make absolute statements, but then are not able to back them up, getting upset when someone points that out. It's simple engineering practice to check how things hold up at the limits. Not 'punishing' someone with the same thing they did does not hold up in the limits of simple wrongdoings, e.g. taking away some property. What this should tell you is not that you require a more charitable interpretation and special rules for the fringes to rescue your argument, but maybe that the overall logic is flawed. And it is: as I wrote in the other comment, the simple truth is that the death penalty is a different beast altogether.
[0] What's with that condescending tone with all your replies? Can you not simply make a statement that stands on its own two feet?
In a consequentialist, utilitarian moral system, revenge cannot be a moral good on its own. If a universe where one person gets hurt is worse than a universe where no one gets hurt, a world where two people get hurt must be worse still.
So if you're utilitarian, you believe in justice as a means to prevent crime. Punishing people can act as a deterrent, imprisoning people can separate them from would-be victims, and rehabilitation can prevent future crimes.
Some people aren't consequentialists, but retributivists. They believe that deserved punishment is innately good. A universe that is fair is one in which those that cheat are issued handicaps to balance that out- think the reckless driver who gets pulled over frequently enough that it doesn't buy them any time in the long run. A fair universe is morally preferable to an unfair one. This also makes sense, though it's somewhat at odds with the utilitarian perspective.
That's interesting. And I don't know much about that, but your comment is going to help me look into that, when it's time for me to do so: consequentialists, retributivists, and utilitarianism. Thank you :)
It's an interesting, seemingly two valid perspectives that are in contradiction. Thank you! :)
They say that the specific argument that life-taking is bad is undermined by arguing for life-taking.
This does not preclude other arguments for why life-taking may be bad, nor other arguments for why it may be justified in specific circumstances.
Note that graderjs' very own comment gives examples of other possible arguments for "eye for an eye":
> It will teach people a lesson, let them know they can't mess with us, and let them know there are consequences if they try. Hopefully, my ape brain says, that will make us safer and rest easier, in future.
As such it's very clear that graderjs is not making any sort of claim to absolute morality, but addressing the weakness of a specific line of argumentation.
What they were saying is specifically that arguing that someone who takes a life should be punished in a life ending way because of the severity of taking a life is undermining that argument's own central claim of the severity of taking a life by at the same time arguing for ending a life.
Your analogies are flawed for two reasons:
1. there are other justifications for punishments that may (or may not) be valid. One argument may be that it is preventative, for example.
2. in neither example would most people argue that we're imposing a particularly extreme sentence because the action was particularly extreme, and this is central to the argument made by graderjs.
In the case of the theft example, if anything we'd tend to argue a fine is not a very serious punishment. In the case of kidnap, we argue for serious sentences because of the seriousness of the crime, but a prison sentence would not be seen by most people as equally cruel as the uncertainty and fear and trauma imposed on both the victim and their loved ones, and most people would argue that the prison sentence is not just a response to the seriousness of the crime committed.
Some people might nevertheless find it hypocritical to argue for prison sentence on the basis of the seriousness of kidnapping, and its their right. But that in itself does not make a prison sentence unjustifiable even if you agree with them, because you may have many other arguments, such as e.g. risk of reoffending, or signal effect to others.
The point is in other words not that a given punishment can't be justified, but that if you choose to argue that something is particularly severe and then in the same breath argues for inflicting that same thing on someone because of that perceived severity, you're undermining that argument.
Graderjs also makes no argument about other justifications of 'punishment', and, again, I'm with you. Note that I often write 'punishment' in quotation marks. I don't believe (and the numbers between countries support that) that revenge is a productive reaction from a society.
From there I comfort myself with two thousand years it took a truly global institution to fully completely and no more strings attached reject capital punishment, the CCC, Catholic church law, closed the last loopholes allowing capital punishment only very recently.
We need to be patient with some nations to get there... Patient and persistent. As you were with your comment. Thanks again!
It's nice to get that here after slugging it out with someone who's seemingly misinterpreting what you're saying, so thank you for that support :) xx
r/im14andthisisdeep
I like to point to this page from Franquin's Idées Noires (finally in English as "Die Laughing", only a few decades late) [1], which makes much the same point as you. (The whole book is very much worth it if you like dark humour - it's a crime it took so long for it to get translated to English given how many other languages it's been translated to decades ago)
Translated the speech bubbles are roughly:
"The law is clear: Every person who voluntarily kills another will have their head cut off. Let the executioner do their job."
"Over here, my friend."
"And so a good deed done..."
"Sorry, but the law is clear: Everyone who voluntarily kills another..."
[1] https://i.pinimg.com/474x/c5/3c/45/c53c451e1fea4fd04ea6cf674...
Can you offer a valid argument for the truth of your own principle, that it is impossible to offer a valid argument for the truth of any normative principle? I think your own position is a normative principle, and hence your position is self-refuting.
To call an argument "valid" is to make a normative claim; it is to claim that a rational agent ought to accept it. To call an argument invalid is to claim that a rational agent ought not accept it. Rationality has as much oughtness as morality does, and hence is a normative discipline just as morality is.
Initially I claimed, “There are no valid arguments for normative claims.”, I would like to amend my claim.
Def: An inferential system is a tuple of axioms and inferential rules.
Def: An argument is a non-empty ordered sequence of statements. The last statement is called its conclusion.
Claim: If an inferential system produces an argument for a normative claim, the system is either inconsistent or permits inference from positive statements to normative statements or the argument proceeds from normative axioms.
Proof. Suppose S is a consistent inferential system and that A is an argument in S from S’s axioms to a normative conclusion. If S has only positive axioms then A makes inference from positive to normative statements. QED
Corollary: There are no arguments for normative claims that don’t proceed from normative axioms in consistent systems that don’t permit inference from normative to positive statements.
I agree with you there. But you haven't explained how this (obviously true) statement is relevant to the original discussion, about the morality of providing life-saving medical treatment to perpetrators of serious crimes.
My original point was in response to the claim that “the key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are”. I took this to be an ought and wanted to point out that its truth isn’t established anymore than the ought indicated by Ed’s family, and that in fact there would be serious difficulties with establishing either one for the reason given by your last post:
> a valid deductive argument with a normative conclusion must either have a normative premise, or else rely on a logic whose inference rules permit normative statements to be inferred from non-normative ones.
But also I think that this poster makes a good point that the doctors are actually making a positive claim.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30081152
> To call an argument "valid" is to make a normative claim; it is to claim that a rational agent ought to accept it.
I think I had in mind a textbook definition I had read.
An argument is called valid if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. And then we say that an argument is sound if it is both valid and has true premises.
Which seems like a useful pair of definitions, and in that context I was confused about the terms.
I actually haven’t ever thought about or heard of this idea of ‘when is a rational actor committed to accepting claims’. But yeah, seems interesting to me.
I think your overall point is, you are expressing scepticism about claims to know the truth of some particular moral proposition, grounded in a more general scepticism of the possibility of any moral knowledge at all.
I think that kind of general moral scepticism is (usually) a form of normative scepticism. The big problem I see with normative scepticism, is that attempts to argue for it logically and rationally turn out to be self-refuting, because logic and rationality are themselves normative concepts. Furthermore, if one understands knowledge as having a normative component, normative scepticism collapses into radical scepticism (there is no such thing as knowledge), which obviously ought to be rejected.
I don’t have any sense for the various properties of inductive arguments. So to the extent that moral arguments are inductive, I have nothing to say. Thanks for pointing out that I’m assuming moral arguments must be deductive. Any recommendations for an introductory text on inductive arguments?
> That’s why I read your statement as intending “valid” informally rather than formally, since in its informal sense the term is not restricted to purely deductive arguments; and informally it is very much a normative concept (formally, I think it has multiple formal senses, some of which contain more normativity than others)
Understood.
> I think your overall point is, you are expressing scepticism about claims to know the truth of some particular moral proposition, grounded in a more general scepticism of the possibility of any moral knowledge at all.
Yes, that is my point.
> I think that kind of general moral scepticism is (usually) a form of normative scepticism. The big problem I see with normative scepticism, is that attempts to argue for it logically and rationally turn out to be self-refuting, because logic and rationality are themselves normative concepts.
This is the first time that I’ve heard of normative epistemology, which I gather is what you are talking about. One thing I will say though, thinking about this seems smoother than thinking about normative morality because (I think) I don’t have as many childhood memories of people telling me what I ought to think compared to those of people telling me what I ought to do.
You can easily find a lot of resources on this topic, but I can't think of any to particularly recommend. To give my own high-level summary, there are three main types of logical arguments:
- Deductive arguments: from the premises, the conclusion necessarily follows. If the premises are true, and the argument is valid, the conclusion must be true. These are the kinds of arguments found in mathematical proofs, and classical syllogisms such as "All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal"
- Inductive arguments: from many particulars, infer a generalisation. If all swans so far have been observed to be white, it is reasonable to conclude that "All swans are white" – and the more observations you make, the stronger the conclusion becomes – but that conclusion can never be certain, only probable, because maybe tomorrow someone will discover a black swan, proving the conclusion to be false after all–which is of course what actually happened, when Europeans came to Australia and found swans which were black. (Also, confusingly, "mathematical induction" is a type of deductive argument, not induction in the logical sense.)
- Abductive arguments: from a situation, infer the truth of its most plausible explanation: If I walk into a room and find toys spread all over the floor, I am going to conclude that our four year old did it. Now, maybe some crazy stranger broke into our house, threw toys everywhere, then left – not absolutely impossible, but far less likely than it being our four year old.
The big difference: in deductive arguments, if the argument is good, and the premises are true, the conclusion must be true; in non-deductive arguments, the argument can be good, and the premises can be completely true, and yet the conclusion can still be false. A deductive argument which produces a false conclusion from true premises is by definition a bad one; a non-deductive argument which produces a false conclusion from true premises can still be a perfectly good one, provided that unfortunate outcome is improbable.
The natural sciences use all three, but rely heavily on induction and abduction. Historians primarily use abduction – induction works best for repeatable events, whereas many of the events historians study are essentially unique and unrepeatable (World War II was in many ways a unique event in human history, nothing quite like it had ever happened before, even World War I was different in many ways, and if World War III ever happens it is going to be very different again).
I think a lot of moral reasoning must be non-deductive, because deductive arguments generally deal with certainties, whereas it is quite natural for people to say about moral issues "I think it is probably wrong but I'm not 100% sure". I think moral reasoning often involves some degree of induction – if you repeatedly encounter particular situations which offend your conscience, you are likely to adopt a moral principle which condemns whatever those particular situations have in common – generalising a principle out of particular cases, which is essentially what inductive reasoning is. But, as in all inductive reasoning, you can never be sure that there will not be some case which might convince you that your generalisation needs an exception – a moral black swan.
> This is the first time that I’ve heard of normative epistemology, which I gather is what you are talking about.
Yes, exactly. A lot of the concepts traditionally used in epistemology appear to be normative. For example, in the classical definition of knowledge as "justified true belief", justification appears to be a normative concept – a belief which is justified given some evidence is a belief which one ought to hold (or, at least, one is permitted to hold) given that evidence, a belief which is unjustified given some evidence is a belief which one ought not to hold given that evidence.
> One thing I will say though, thinking about this seems smoother than thinking about normative morality because (I think) I don’t have as many childhood memories of people telling me what I ought to think compared to those of people telling me what I ought to do.
I think a lot of people grow up exposed to conservative religious approaches to morality, which they often experienced as being pushed on them inflexibly and never with any convincing justification–and it is unsurprising many such people become attracted to the idea that "morality is subjective". However, I wonder, is that "throwing the baby out with the bathwater"? Most of these people would feel strongly that genocide, slavery, apartheid, torture, child abuse, theocratic totalitarianism, etc, are immoral – yet, having accepted "morality is subjective", those moral positions they endorse must be just as subjective as those which they've rejected. Subjective morality weakens their own moral positions. Indeed, once you believe that morality is subjective, you can no longer claim (in any objective sense) that anyone else's morality is wrong, including that of various religious conservatives – the most you can consistently say about their morality is that you don't like it – but why should they (or anyone else) care about what you like?
> To call an argument "valid" is to make a normative claim; it is to claim that a rational agent ought to accept it.
Idk, it could just be a claim that the argument can be expressed in a logical system, combined with the normative axiom that rational agents should only trust arguments that can be validly expressed in such a formal system.
Regardless this seems to be missing the forest for the trees. Nobody has put forth any arguments for either position that are emperical in nature. Is there really a practical difference between impossible and possible but nobody knows how?
You can argue that one will lead to a preferable world than the other.
Of course, we may have different preferences, so we may not agree even if we agree on that extrapolation. But often basic human preferences like not wanting to be the victim of unprovoked public violence do align.
Example of application: Consider "It is always immoral to have children". Obviously, if humanity universally obeyed that principle, human extinction would inevitably and quickly follow. Therefore, that principle is false. From which obviously follows: "It is moral to have children (at least sometimes)".
Now, I would propose we accept that meta-moral principle as an axiom. To me, and to many others, it seems self-evidently and intuitively true. Who seriously doubts or denies this axiom? Well, most of the people who doubt or deny it, do so not due to its specific content, but due to a philosophical objection to accepting any moral axioms at all. The number of people who are happy to accept moral axioms but would refuse to accept this particular one appears to be rather small. It seems as good a candidate to be an axiom as any other. So why not accept it as an axiom?
The term "valid" has both formal and informal senses. I agree some of its formal senses are non-normative, but I think its informal uses have a strong normative element. The original comment to which I was responding wasn't very clear about in what sense it was intending the term, but when people aren't clear, it is not unfair to assume they mean a term informally rather than in some specific formal sense.
> Regardless this seems to be missing the forest for the trees. Nobody has put forth any arguments for either position that are emperical in nature. Is there really a practical difference between impossible and possible but nobody knows how?
What is the proper role of empiricism in human knowledge, including moral knowledge? You seem to be making some assumptions here which you are not making explicit.
If one accepts moral sense theory – that moral intuitions are a form of empirical knowledge – then we can have direct empirical knowledge of the truth or falsehood of moral propositions.
If one accepts pragmatism – that beliefs can be justified by the pragmatic benefits of believing them, and that pragmatically justified beliefs can constitute genuine cases of knowledge – then empirical evidence can be used to establish the pragmatic benefits of a moral belief, and hence (indirectly) to establish its truth.
One may believe that some axioms are self-evidently true, and that one's knowledge of the truth of those axioms is innate rather than empirical – in which case, if one accepts that for non-moral axioms, how about accepting it for moral axioms as well?
>Neither party can offer a valid argument as to why their principle is true, because both of their principles are normative.
I'm pretty sure someone mentioned that the Dr's pov is that the doctors don't punish crime. Someone else does that. If they have a crime worthy of death, someone else determines that and administers that punishment. The Dr's stay out of that conversation.
As long as there is no such law, it's not for doctors to impose such restrictions.
The first one “Our principle is that people who stab Ed should not get a heart, therefore David should not get a heart.” means that there is no rehabilitation for ex-cons, that doctors have the power to condemn people to death based on their past by refusing a life saving procedure and that in the case of new research like this one, doctors cannot have access to the best candidate.
Extrapolating the second principle means living in a society where the judicial system decides the punishment and people pay their due afterward, potentially reducing recividism. It means that when doing an experimental procedure that requires very specific candidates, the doctors have to pass on an ideal candidate delaying discovery.
No.
> Should we have saved Hitlers life with a breakthrough transplant?
Yes.
It really is not complicated: Doctors are not in the business of judging their patients.
That isn't intentional or desirable though. It's a flaw. Doctors are people and people are imperfect.
To the top of the transplant list immediately pushing others down or “ohh.. awkward. we’ll treat you fairly from now on”?
Doctors making moral judgements and withholding treatments based on their patients lifestyle has a pretty ugly history.
We have a justice system to make these calls. Let the doctors treat everyone and the justice system decide who lives and dies.
Let the legal profession handle how to deal with criminals. Punishment and medical care have no place existing together.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/health-care-pri...
And where do you draw the line for who gets help for stuff unrelated to covid? Having a do no harm type moral code seems like the best way to navigate and avoid the minefield of deciding who deserves care in what circumstances.
It may be the case that implementing a policy of vacating beds of burn victims is too challenging, but that doesn't undermine the "should" in the "we should vacate beds of voluntarily hurt when accidentally hurt need the beds".
At the end of the day, understanding the benefit of a vaccine requires trusting information, and I think that information, and trust, has been compromised. You could equally hate on anyone deciding that smoking was bad for you, not long ago, because of how thoroughly compromised the "science" around it was.
But, and this is a really important but, the way to punish that behavior isn't to deny them care in the hospital. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that not every unvaccinated person is unvaccinated by choice. But more generally because applying any sort of moral standard to who lives and who dies in an emergency gets incredibly murky incredibly quickly.
If you want to punish people for failing to get vaccinated, I'm all for it. But do so outside of a hospital.
at best, the vaccines reduce your personal chance of hospitalization and death.
for those at risk from COVID, take the vaccine. But pretending you're assisting your community by doing so is ridiculous and unfounded in data. "Fully vaccinated" people appear MORE likely to catch and spread Omicron 90 days post-vaccination.
Source: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.20.21267966v...
As a soon to be triple vaccinated healthy adult I wish we could soon admit that we do this for our own good and to not be away from work.
By now it is very clear that about the only thing the current vaccine does against Omicron is lessen the consequences for the individuals who take the vaccine.
I still recommend it but it won't save anyones life except those who take the vaccine.
as a result of what? Failure to isolate COVID patients?
Someone who has served their time in prison and is now released is considered to have paid their debt to society.
You may think, as I do, that this man served nowhere near what he should have for the crime he committed. However, the law has been followed and he is no longer in prison.
If the people the New York Post is targeting think that he should still be punished, then he should still be in prison. The problem is that the type of people clamor for these people to stay in prison also are at the forefront of refusing to pony up the money to pay for that prison.
The bigger issue IMO is that the killer never paid any of the monetary judgement against him to the victims family.
For example, felons in the US are banned from owning guns even after they served their time.
Do you consider that good or bad?
I'm not a big fan of that, but I would prefer that it reflect the harm done from the crime and the statistics surrounding recidivism.
A simple drug possession offense should not warrant banning you from voting or guns when you are done. If you were convicted of an armed robbery, maybe the guns should be banned.
I really don't like the idea that once you're done with the justice system it continues to punish you. Once you are done with it, you should be done--especially if the crime was "victimless" (ie. something like drug possession where the only harm would be to yourself).
This becomes a significant issue in, for example, sex offenders. Some places have so many restrictions on sex offenders that, for all intents and purposes, they cannot comply with probation and cannot function in society. Well, if you're going to do that, at least be honest that you are simply "executing them on the cheap and out of sight" and either keep them in prison or execute them explicitly.
This is one of the problems with low-level drug convictions--the "felony" conviction becomes a poor man's "social discredit" system. And most of us from Western democracies understand pretty solidly why "social credit" systems are pernicious.
I suspect that quite a lot of people would support denial of medical care to sinners. For example, the sentiment of "triage against the unvaxxed" seems to be pretty strong.
(For the record, I am fully vaxed but do not support mistreatment of people who believe in conspiracy theories.)
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/twitt...
Glad Doctors don’t discriminate based on past actions of an individual. Would be a very dystopian society if we did.
It probably depends on what you mean by 'accurate'. They almost certainly do not believe this person has repayed a debt to the victim, the victim's family or society in general. Phrasing the issue as one of repaying a debt is problematical when it is beyond the means of the perpetrator to make amends.
Note that this is not an argument for the doctors doing anything different. All else aside, it is in the best interests of society as a whole that they should select the most medically-suitable candidate available for this research.
I could see him being all over the press being annoying for the victim's family, but I don't see this as him being rewarded with anything. What he got is one of the worst option, though the fact that he's survived this far makes it better in hindsight. Then again 2 weeks means nothing, let's see if it actually lasts.
For the first one, I can totally understand what the victim's family must be going through, but doctors aren't (and shouldn't) be in the business of making moral judgements on who should and shouldn't get to live. There is an established process in place for organ transplants (time on the wait list, viability of the transfer) and that's all that needs to be followed.
Frankly, I could care less what the family thinks. If they feel so strongly, then they should advocate for some legislative change. Most families would kill if given the option, and also the luxury of having someone else do it for them.
Why would anyone want to add complexity to triage would be my knee jerk wonder, it’s supposed to be a quick process
Would the hospital need to wait for the legal system to get back to them before treatment can begin? How would you know if the patient has committed a crime without waiting?
This is literally what they are all about. It's like complaining that the IOC keeps whining about athlete doping just to try to stay relevant.
That said I have though about it more than once, simulation in the head style and a world were PETA wins turns in to a uglier world in most cases.
Note: this is specifically about PETA, some other animal rights/welfare organizations are somewhat reasonable.
I'm glad that he wasn't refused the kidney transplant simply because he was incarcerated, although I'm sure it happens.
And in any case: seems like the man served his time.
He was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to 10 years behind bars, probably served less so it’s likely that he’s been a free man for 25+ years.
It’s been over 30 years since the incident. Give the man a break.
Lets say a man goes to prison for 25 years for murder, and upon release the victim's husband kills him. The victim's husband gets revenge, but is it just?
Justice shouldn't be subjective, imo.
Also justice can't be objective. Put n people in a room and ask them what is just and you'll get n different answers.
When push comes to shove, how many of them even expect to get out alive? Is death penalty really just in such a situation?
The US just puts them in ADX Florence where they are tortured mentally (complete isolation, no end in sight, basically no human interaction at all). Which is probably what they deserve, but it’s still torture.
> how many of them even expect to get out alive?
What I would want is suffering for a long time. Now is that justice or vengance? I say it's both.
> Which is probably what they deserve
Is that not what you would describe as just?
I don’t think changing the name of what happened from “treatment” to “experiment” tells me anything new. If another person with a roughly identical health status but without the violent history is also willing to accept the pig heart, then the decision must be made to use the scarce resources to treat Ed or the “non-violent” person.
> we'd find ourselves regarding this operation as his sacrifice for the greater good.
I agree that people may be talking about the transplant and Ed differently had he died on the table.
I know what a concealed weapon is, but what is 'openly carrying a concealed weapon'?
A gun is just a tool. It can be used for both good and bad purposes.
Also, the NY Post article says; "To some families, it’s an outrage that a person convicted of a violent crime would be awarded an organ others so desperately need. But doctors often disagree and there are no laws prohibiting someone with a criminal history from receiving a transplant."
Elsewhere in the same article, it says; "A jury found him guilty of battery and carrying a concealed weapon but acquitted him of of intent to murder. Washington County Circuit Judge Daniel Moylan called the stabbing a case of “extreme violence” and sentenced him to 10 years behind bars."
The facts of the crime are not given, but apparently a jury did not believe he intended to kill, and since the victim did not die right away, there was no killing to prosecute.
In particular, ‘openly’
I know of people who were legally openly carrying a firearm and got convicted of carrying a concealed weapon because of a jacket. The laws vary by state, so such a thing is possible in some states.
I don't like the wording of that charge(if it even really exists), but that's all I can come up with.
Hey PETA, source?
I'm not either, but at least this was a case where the personally arguably "needed" it. Usually we treat animals like garbage just for fun.
Given that their chance of survival is so slim, choosing to use a person for whom such small odds give more information to science, rather than do moral good by helping this person survive, seemed a reasonable tradeoff.
Is this too cynical a read on the choice they made?
Look. I am a Muslim. That means, by religious scriptures, we are programmed to avoid pork. why? Simply because "god told us to avoid pork". No other thing. Abstain from eating pork and people follow that.
Now, when it comes to saving a life, those religious considerations do not stand because a life is at stake. Same for " consuming wine is prohibited" but if alcohol is necessary as a medicine, its allowed because the intention is not to get drunk but to get treated. That is important.
Now, when it comes to using a pig heart as a replacement, I am pretty sure no resonable person, from any religion would have problems with because the end goal is to save a human life.
These PETA people are keeping themselves relevant by being the dissenting voice that nobody has to listen. Yeah, if PETA or their supporters are reading this, again, fuck you. Let us save lives and your organization can watch us do it.
FTFY. PETA is a shit organization.
Just kidding, I think I know what you mean.
I think the main problem is not the life saving but the good publicity the guy gets. I'm not going to publicly agree or disagree with either article right now, though - I'm conflicted about each of them.