Discussion Another piece of the puzzle (perhaps) with respect to pro-lifer arguments and logic

[TAW122]

Note: This is probably one of the most important thread/topic I have ever written. I feel like I've found one of the root values/anchor point(s) that pro-lifers use to center around their arguments and claims of life being good and that life surpasses everything. If anything, please do take a good read on it as it points out an very important piece of the pro-lifer's argument, at the most fundamental level.

After digging through and picking apart the basis of most prolifers' arguments, I've traced back to the root of where their argument starts. They use "LIFE" as the basis for everything, meaning that for rights, freedoms, and other stuff to exist, there must be life. Thus, they place "life" as the most important construct up there.

(See above diagram for reference)

In other words, they see that without life then everything else is moot or irrelevant, so they put life above all else. Thus, our strategy and tactics would need to be centered around attacking the 'hierarchy' and picking apart why their 'hierarchy' of life being at the utmost absolute is wrong. In addition to this, we would need to bring life from being the most important thing that supersedes everything else. At least that's the direction we should be headed in if we want to defeat their claim.

Also, they like to use "exceptions" and this was when I recalled an debate I had with the prolifer couple (husband of prolifer wife). The husband claimed that there are exceptions, and by those exceptions (especially when there is a threat to 'life', then all the previous rules get ignored and that alone, supersedes the concept of 'rights'. In this case, one would have to counter-argue against why this 'exception' is invalid, which is another can of worms for another thread (any philosophers and debaters feel free to take on the challenge against these prolifers).

So in conclusion, what I'm saying is that if we can somehow claim and prove that life isn't the pre-requisite towards freedom, liberty, and civil rights as well as dismantling it as being an absolute through various other angles (antinatalism, efilism, nihilism, etc.) then we may be able to shut down almost all pro-lifers' arguments and prove that their claim that life being the most important thing to be irrational and moot.

 

[TAW122]

I'm surprised that not many people responded to this thread. Basically, what I mean on this thread is that pro-lifer anti-choicers oftenly use "life" as the precedent and absolute above all else, which means they could conveniently ignore and place everything else (including personal freedom, civil liberties, and human rights) underneath it. To them, it is that life is a pre-requisite for everything else to exist (including human rights and freedoms) and without life then there could be no rights or freedoms.

Therefore, my point is that if we can somehow defeat or change their base of life being above all else (move it down from the top level to the mid or bottom level of the hierarchy/pyramid), then we can easily dismantle their arguments and claims.

 

[lostangel]

Your posts are appreciated here. Thank you but how could one defeat an argument such as that?

 

[Meditation guide]

There might be a religious conviction such as "Only God can choose when someone dies" or the Ten Commandments "Thou shall not kill".

 

[Deleted member 17949]

That would but life at the base of the pyramid and it would be inverted since the base is supposed to be the essential foundations, but in any case I see the point and agree. A lot of arguments on their side assume that life is fundamentally a good and precious experience. There is a certain level of offence taken if you do not value life which is pretty obvious in the way people act around suicide.

 

[EmbraceOfTheVoid]

Your posts are appreciated here. Thank you but how could one defeat an argument such as that?

I don't think you can because most anti-choicers have never dealt with any real adversity in their entire life and their argument is based on willful denial of reality. They won't understand how horrible and inherently pointless life is until they experience it themselves; no amount of arguments will convince them.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I'm surprised that not many people responded to this thread. Basically, what I mean on this thread is that pro-lifer anti-choicers oftenly use "life" as the precedent and absolute above all else, which means they could conveniently ignore and place everything else (including personal freedom, civil liberties, and human rights) underneath it. To them, it is that life is a pre-requisite for everything else to exist (including human rights and freedoms) and without life then there could be no rights or freedoms.

Therefore, my point is that if we can somehow defeat or change their base of life being above all else (move it down from the top level to the mid or bottom level of the hierarchy/pyramid), then we can easily dismantle their arguments and claims.

I wasn't going to say anything until you brought up your surprise at why the thread wasn't getting responses.

I'll be bluntly honest. I've read the OP multiple times and never responded to this thread because...I feel mind-fucked by it. And I can't find a single point to agree on.

First, life is indeed a pre-requisite for all of those things. Non-existent, non-living beings can't experience any of those things. So there's nothing to dismantle or shift around. I've looked at it from every angle and it's as logical and basic as 1 + 1 = 2. To try to say it's not true and not logical would be to try to gaslight someone. And being asked to consider it illogical or disprovable is why I feel mindfucked.

Second, I've never heard a pro-lifer use that argument to defend any pro-life stance in relation to suicide. I've never heard that argument to defend any rights at all. I would need to see references to the argument being made, in the contexts in which it's being made, before I can give it any more consideration.

 

[Midnight-rain]

Illustrated like this I think I finally get it. How would someone go about dismantling this belief? Instinctually and socially this viewpoint is the default and pro-lifers usually brush us off by saying we're just pessimistic and need therapy.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

As GPE has said, life is de facto a pre-requisite for everything else. You can't have rights, freedom, basic needs, etc without life.

The logical fallacy here might be identified in the way in which pro-lifers create a value system based on this.
Your pyramid is not a value system, it is a description of the way things are, and I can't see anything to change in it.

Pro-lifers might say, "life is the condition for the possibility of/the prerequisite for everything else, therefore life ought to be valued above everything else."
But this immediately raises the is-ought problem.

As Hume identified, no matter how many facts are given or described, you can never, as a matter of logic, derive ought statements (statements of value) from them.

So, just because life must first exist in order for any rights, freedoms, pleasures, needs to exist, it doesn't follow that life ought to be valued above those things in a separate hierarchy of values. A hierarchy of values is logically independent of a neutral description of ontological categories in terms of their hierarchical ordering.

Closely related to this is the genetic fallacy. Just because something (x) originated in a certain way, has a certain history or is temporally or logically dependent on some other thing, doesn't mean that the origin/history/source is relevant or meaningful in an evaluation of (x).

So, just because a certain right or fact about human society is based on life itself doesn't mean that life itself is a dominant or relevant factor in judging or evaluating that particular right or fact.
To think that it is is to commit a genetic fallacy (or fallacy of irrelevance).



e.g. Pro-lifer: "suicide, or intentionally killing the self, is only possible because of life, life is an ontologically and logically prior category. Therefore suicide is always wrong, because life coming first means that it should always take precedence on any issue."

pro-choicer: "in the context of a particular situation, in which costs and benefits have to be weighed and evaluated and choices made based on them, the fact that 'life is at the origin' has no pride of place or overriding force in the cost-benefit analysis. It is just one more variable to be considered among others, at best. In many cases it is in fact an irrelevancy, from a logical point of view".

pro-lifer: "but you ought to always respect and value life above all else..."

pro-choicer: "no, you can't do that, remember? If you're basing your 'ought' on a descriptive statement of fact (e.g. life comes first in the pyramid), you're making an invalid inference.."

pro-lifer: "but all your choices originate in life, so no moral choice can be anti-life.."

pro-choicer: "no, you can't do that, remember? The fact that a set of choices originates in or from life doesn't mean that a particular choice which is anti-life is wrong. To think that it is wrong is to commit a genetic fallacy.."

etc.

tl:dr the pyramid is a descriptive hierarchy. It is not a value system. If pro-lifers derive a set of values from it ( e.g. 'life comes first, therefore life ought to be valued above all else'), then they are committing a logical fallacy or invalid inference.
Grant them the pyramid, but they can't logically do anything with it in terms of constructing a value or normative system.

 

[TAW122]

That would but life at the base of the pyramid and it would be inverted since the base is supposed to be the essential foundations, but in any case I see the point and agree. A lot of arguments on their side assume that life is fundamentally a good and precious experience. There is a certain level of offence taken if you do not value life which is pretty obvious in the way people act around suicide.

This has been my experience with people IRL as well. The moment one isn't appreciative of "life" in general, they are vilified by the people around them. You also hit the nail on the head about people just accepting that "life is fundamentally good" and assigning morality to it without questioning or thinking deeper. It is certainly a lack of self-awareness which is what a lot of people in this world are.

I wasn't going to say anything until you brought up your surprise at why the thread wasn't getting responses.

I'll be bluntly honest. I've read the OP multiple times and never responded to this thread because...I feel mind-fucked by it. And I can't find a single point to agree on.

First, life is indeed a pre-requisite for all of those things. Non-existent, non-living beings can't experience any of those things. So there's nothing to dismantle or shift around. I've looked at it from every angle and it's as logical and basic as 1 + 1 = 2. To try to say it's not true and not logical would be to try to gaslight someone. And being asked to consider it illogical or disprovable is why I feel mindfucked.

Second, I've never heard a pro-lifer use that argument to defend any pro-life stance in relation to suicide. I've never heard that argument to defend any rights at all. I would need to see references to the argument being made, in the contexts in which it's being made, before I can give it any more consideration.

I think I got that notion of the argument because a few years ago (when I interacted with the pro-life couple when I used to live in the same place as they did), that guy made a statement about exceptions and precedence, which is how I managed to make this connection and pick apart the argument.

tl:dr the pyramid is a descriptive hierarchy. It is not a value system. If pro-lifers derive a set of values from it ( e.g. 'life comes first, therefore life ought to be valued above all else'), then they are committing a logical fallacy or invalid inference.
Grant them the pyramid, but they can't logically do anything with it in terms of constructing a value or normative system.

Well said, this is an interesting take on it.

 

[Marktheghost]

Life isn't only a pre-requisite for happiness, freedom etc; it's also a pre-requisite for suffering. No life = no suffering.
And talking of freedom, what's the point of freedom if we can't use it to choose to permanently end our suffering?

 

[suffering]

Always happy to see your posts, op. We're both from the 'member since 2018' generation lol and I feel less alone in the world when I see your posts. I used to think more about prolifers and what might make them think as they think, but I gave up after awhile. I would never debate one again, it's all futile. At first, I though that they blindness is rooted in cowardice (fear of the darker existential truths) or that they are just blind animals guided by the natural imperative to survive. However, due to my own good nature, I fear I might have underestimated their inborn malice, sadism, cruel stupidity. Just look the at world and the way it always has been with its wars, tortures, abuses.
I remember once before a surgery I said to the nurse "I wish I was never born". To which she replied, coldly "how can you say that? what would your parents think if they heard you?'. I was stunned. I was there, suffering, precisely because my parents created me, and yet somehow I was to blame??? For me, it was like she was saying "how can you say you want to escape prison? what would the guards who brought you here against your will would say about this? ". And then it hit me. She had (or was planning to have) children, for her own selfish needs (most probably to have someone to take care of her when she is old). She didn't want to conceive the thought of her slaves (children) rebelling against her. Most people are like her. They are the devil himself. My guess: You are a good person attempting to find some sort of logic behind their actions, because you think that maybe you can then reason with them. As a good person, you think that the reason behind their mistake is some sort of misunderstanding, because you project your own goodness on the world. You think that they don't know what they are doing (and maybe some of them don't). But for most of them, I think that that is not the case. I think they know exactly what they are doing.

 

[TAW122]

@suffering Good post. My goal is to pick apart and expose their argument so that someone else could reason with them or other people could use that argument against them (not me, but someone else long after I'm gone, preferably someone even more effective at debating and delivering an argument), and make no mistake, I still resent the world and prolifers as a collective and I don't intend to project this "good energy", sometimes I feel like they get their just desserts when misfortune befalls them, but that's another story for another time. There is more I can say on this and would express my thoughts in more detail, but then I would run afoul of the rules here as well as crossing legality, so I'll leave it at that.

Edit: Added an extra sentence.

 

[262653]

I used my imagination to make an inverted pyramid below the one you drew, where the shittier parts of life take residence.

@suffering I call them not devils but people who put their interests above others, or just people. It's like a lion who wants to eat antelope meat, but she doesn't want to part with her meat. The agony an antelope will experience from being eaten alive is not the primary concern here, but the satiation of hunger. The antelope here doesn't give a shit about what lion wants, and will try her best to meet her objectives (stay alive, avoid pain, whatever).

I know some members of my family wouldn't like the thought of me wanting to die and having acquired the necessary means already, and I'm using deception (omitting information) to meet my objectives (like avoid getting hurt by life enforcement officers, not allow them to take away my means for a relatively easy exit, which might prove to be more difficult to acquire during these times, which might reduce my chances for a peaceful exit (avoid potential pain) when the time comes...). I'm using deception instead of more direct methods because I know that if the conflict becomes apparent (to her), the local authorities would not be on my side.

I don't know what are the most common objectives set before pro-lifers which put them in opposition with... what are they against, again? I mean, seriously, what are we talking about here? Right, suicide... but the only incentive I see for myself to figure these out is to, essentially, learn my enemy so that I know his weaknesses, if he has any, and this knowledge might allow me to choose the course of action with the most favorable outcome for myself.