Banjo

I wonder if you have talked with your granddaughter much about this. Have you been willing to say to her what you wrote in your last post, "I should have liked you (her) to have had the possibility of carrying out legal euthanasia" (at the age of thirteen)?

Given that you say that she is now in a good place in life, obviously she couldn't be experiencing that now if she had been able to legally end her life back then. Much joy in her life, her present partner's life, and your own life would have been irretrievably cut off with her intentional death.

If your granddaughter has a child of her own, would she want that child to be able to end their life legally at thirteen?

JP
You wrote ‘Certainly you can say that I have not justified my position but why would that failure on my part prevent you from being able to demonstrate that your own position is valid and sound’. JP, if you have not justified your position, developed a sound argument or even demonstrated that the god called God exists, there is no basis for your further opposition to VAD. I reject your unsubstantiated claims and thank you for the discussion.

In contrast, my ethical position on VAD has been quite rigorously justified in the comprehensive 117-page Exit ACT submission to an ACT Select Committee on VAD, which I referred you to in my first response. Which you wrote that you ‘can’t read’.

The Exit ACT submission details my ethical position on VAD, based on respect for individual autonomy in the human rights model, that ‘all people have the right to access VAD so that their quality of life is not reduced below what they consider to be an acceptable threshold’, with the details and caveats noted in that submission.

My OLO article was an overview of the ACT’s laws on VAD and did not include details. Similarly, a summary article discussing a ‘right to freedom of speech’ might not discuss all possible exceptions, such as slander, libel, vilification, censorship. Given the OLO article’s objective and length, it did not include VAD specific eligibility criteria, caveats, exceptions or other detail. For the details that were not in the OLO article I referred you to the submission that you did not read. Without that context, you cannot represent my positions accurately.

However, you hold a position that you cannot justify. If I were to respond to anybody’s questions with unjustified nonsense, that would be disrespectful to them. But that is what you have provided to me. We cannot conduct an intellectually respectable discussion if you expect me to justify my positions (see submission) when you are not justifying yours.

I will write more on religion, ethics, science and thinking in an upcoming book, and possibly in future OLO articles

David

You will be happy to know that I have now read right through your submission.

You have been dismissive of me because you say that I have not presented arguments to support my case.

I must say that I was rather surprised then to see the absence of argumentation for your position.

You repeatedly make bald assertions, eg. “59. VAD is ethically right because it is an expression of individual autonomy” and “individual autonomy is a human right”, without providing any argument to support them. In these instances you need to provide justification for why the expression of personal autonomy makes something ethically right or why it is a human right. (Indeed, what a “human right” even is.)

How do you know what is ethically right? Please provide a clear answer.

Yes, I know that you quote Mill and the UDHR, almost like someone might quote the Bible(!), but in turn how do Mill and the authors of the Declaration know what is ethically right?

Do you and Mill have access to a particular source of knowledge that enables you to make irrefutably true moral pronouncements? If so, what is that source? If not, are you just making them up according to your own preferences? And if you are just making them up, why should anyone prefer your preferences over their own?

You will probably say that lots of people agree with you and to some extent that may be true, but so what? Is that how moral truth should be determined, by a popular vote? If that were so, then if a vote were taken and your moral preferences were voted down, would you then accept that you were indeed morally wrong after all?

This is why I come back to saying that how we have come into being is of absolutely crucial importance for understanding morality. If materialism is true and we have just unintentionally happened into existence for no purpose then moral talk is meaningless. The universe would not be meant to be in one state rather than another, thus nothing could be “right” or “wrong”.

JP
A quick commentary on the last two issues/fallacies in your 16 July post.

You have again misrepresented my position, writing that I would probably adopt a populist position. I’m not sure how you could draw that conclusion given that I’ve been repeatedly urging you to construct sound arguments. Ethical, logical, mathematical, scientific, academic and consequential issues (opposed to some political issues etc) must be assessed on arguments and evidence. Popular support is irrelevant. That is another strawman argument. Why do you keep doing this? It is disrespectful. Does your god called God want you to be dishonest in our discussion?

You seem serious with your argument ‘If materialism is true and we have just unintentionally happened into existence for no purpose then moral talk is meaningless’ before making another bizarre argument involving a state of the universe.

I’ve asked you to construct sound arguments, yet your argument is clearly invalid and unsound. The premises do not lead to the conclusion; the argument is clearly nonsense. I don’t accept the demonstrably false conclusion, which you have not shown is dependent on whether something happens into existence.

On the contrary, if we talk, think and act ethically, we can make a person’s life better, and improve their well-being and make the world a better place. A person would not think it is meaningless if their suffering were mitigated and their well-being were improved. Ethical talk, then action, is highly meaningful. And it is independent of how we have ‘come into being’.

JP
Thanks for reading the Exit ACT submission.

I determine what is ethically right or wrong through reason and argument. Everybody, including Mill, you, and me should be using their brains to think and construct arguments supported logically by premises and evidence. We would be deceiving ourselves if we accepted any arguments, including about what is right and wrong and how we ought to behave (ethics), that are not sound or cogent.

We might subscribe to a utilitarian philosophy (achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number); to Kant’s moral philosophy; or acting to make the world a better place; or something else, but only if we can justify it. This has nothing to do with the origins of the universe, unless you’re arguing that a god is involved. But you failed to demonstrate any god’s existence. So that argument is rejected. Please have the courage to demonstrate your god’s existence or admit that your belief is unfounded. Don’t leave us hanging.

In my first response to you I wrote ‘individual autonomy should be paramount’. That is supported by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but probably not Kant. If people have individual autonomy, the right for people to make decisions about their own lives and futures, then they will be happier and that makes the world a better place.

I accepted individual autonomy and that UDHR position axiomatically in my OLO article and the Exit ACT submission to the ACT Government on the ACT’s VAD Act. That was appropriate as I was agreeing with the Act’s claim that it should respect individual autonomy.

I am uncertain where you stand. If we agree on individual autonomy, then we can move on. If not, please state your objections and we can discuss. I’ve also asked you to construct an argument: ‘If you reject my call for individual autonomy for individuals with decision making capacity, I would argue that there is no rational alternative.’

So let’s reset. Do you accept that a person (with appropriate decision-making capacity etc) has individual autonomy? If not, please develop a rational argument against it.

Thank you.

David

I note that you don’t think that morality can be determined by popular vote.

No, I was not being disrespectful to you. I thought that by having questions such as this in your survey: “Q 2. Do you agree that every adult of sound mind has the right to implement plans for the end of their life?” you must have thought that numbers matter. Why ask the question though if it is irrelevant as to whether or not more or less people believe that such a “right” exists?

You say that you accept personal autonomy axiomatically. According to the dictionary, axiomatically means self-evidently or unquestionably. This is where I take issue with you. Is it really self-evident? Surely all things are questionable?

For this discussion now let us take it as true that there is no God/god.

If there is no God that has deliberately made the universe then the only alternative explanation for our existence must be that everything has unintentionally happened into being.

If our existence is unintentional, then there can be no intended purpose for our existence. Agreed?

Of course, any individual or group of people can make up purposes or goals but that is all they can ever be, made-up goals to suit their own preferences. It would also be the case that other individuals or groups of people could make up their own goals that are different to the first ones. However, neither group can meaningfully say that their goals are “right” and the others’ goals are “wrong” in an objective sense, given that both sets of goals are just made up.

The same would be apply for morality. In an unintentional universe each person or group can make up their own moral values. One person/group can say that they believe that personal autonomy must be given almost absolute respect while another can say that it shouldn’t. Depending on our preferences we may want to say that one group or the other is “right” but simply saying that does not make it so. (continued