I think this is too individualistic of a framing for something that has a real cost to the community and society as a whole. Even putting aside the moral problems with you killing yourself and leaving your family, there’s also a legal issue with you abandoning your dependents.
If a father goes and gets himself killed in a duel he’s not just harming himself, he’s harming both the children and mother of the children who depend on him.
And on a grander scale society has taken care of you for many moments in your life and it is only fair that you contribute back to the society that raised you.
Whether you like it or not you have certain duties to society and society has a legitimate interest in preventing you from getting out of those obligations by killing yourself.
thats a pretty naive perspective that ignores the reality of suicide. people are going to do it anyway, whatever you or anyone else thinks. removing options for people in that situation just worsens the harm to people around them and society as a whole, because no one is prepared and they can only do it in an inconvenient place/way. its always a surprise that people have to deal with suddenly, rather than something with established procedures and norms. your position is basically “they shouldnt because its hard messy so we’ll make it really hard and messy to disuade them”. its a circular argument that serves no one.
My argument isn’t we shouldn’t do it because it’s hard and messy, it’s that we shouldn’t do it because it irrevocably harms the community and society so the community and society has a right to try and stop it.
It does serve people, if that father fails the suicide attempt or gets busted by the cops before he can duel, then we can put him in treatment and try and help him out which can keep him alive and supporting his family. If we just throw our hands up and say “you do you” and he gets himself killed for sure then there’s no helping him or his family.
Your seems like an argument against having laws against anything then. Yeah people are going to do crimes, that doesn’t mean we as a society shouldn’t try and dissuade them from doing it.
If you go by this logic why shouldn’t we have ash trays in bars? Sure we as a society think smoking in bars is a nuisance, but some people are going to do it any way so why make it messier and more complicated for them? Should we not even have laws in place banning smoking indoors?
Laws and rules also have a normative function as well. An indoor smoking ban isn’t really enforced by the state, and not even by the bartender as much, it’s enforced by everyone at the bar who understands it’s a nuisance and will yell at you if you do it. We as a society shame those who break the rules, and we should be shaming people who do extremely selfish acts like suicide or dueling. If it were allowed and normal more people would engage in these acts as there’s less of a cost to them.
this is such a false equivalence argument its painful. cigarette smoke materially harms others directly. subjecting someone to your cigarette smoke violates their bodily autonomy unless they consent to breathe your second hand smoke and take on the associated harms. someone committing suicide doesnt harm anyone directly. youre saying them dying is bad for the people in their life because they support them so they should be pressured to stay alive and be actively prevented from dying so they can continue to provide benefit to others.
thats literally the argument pro lifers use against abortion. women revoking their material support of their unborn child in most cases leads to its death, so they argue women should be forced to carry it to term, violating their bodily autonomy. youre arguing the same thing for people who want to die. their life benefits others who may die or be worse off without them so they should be compelled to continue existing against their will.
fuck that. anyone who argues that position is on the slippery slope to supporting slavery. you dont get to sacrifice peoples bodily autonomy because it might be good for fucking society. youre fucking wrong and nothing you can say will convince me such a callous position is right. people have the right to die if they choose to, and people like you make exercising that right worse for everyone.
For abortion I wouldn’t argue a fetus is a part of society. If you deny it care then I have no problem with that. If you deny a child care though that’s neglect and we as a society should step in to ensure that child gets a good upbringing. Same with child support, if we’re going for the full libertarian personal freedom principle then a deadbeat dad has no obligation to his children and should be free to abandon them. His actions aren’t directly physically harming the child so he should be able to do what he wants.
Abandoning your child is shunting your responsibilities and putting real costs on society .
anyone who argues that position is on the slippery slope to supporting slavery.
Do you recognize any case where societal duty trumps bodily autonomy or is that always a slippery slope to slavery?
I think that moral view is too value hierarchical and Deontological, reliant on rules, such as bodily autonomy always trumps societal duty.
While this is true in a lot of cases, such as drug use and abortion, there are some cases where it isn’t. One of them pertaining directly to slavery is the civil war. How does Lincoln end slavery without violating the bodily autonomy of millions of men to fight a war with the south? If we follow the rule that bodily autonomy trumps societal duty then a draft can never be justified, and then the north loses the war and my ancestors are enslaved for way longer then they needed to be.
Of course a draft is not always justified, we shouldn’t be violating the bodily autonomy of millions of men to fight communists in vietnam. This is where deontology fails as the ethics of something like a draft are based more on the specifities of the case rather then any general rule or hierarchy of values.
This is where a more dialectical approach to ethics is valuable. We can recognize the values of bodily autonomy and societal duty in tension. They are in conversation and sometimes one is more relevant to the situation while other times the other value is.
So in the case of suicide we can look at the harm it’s doing to society against the value of bodily autonomy. If that person has no societal value or obligations, say a retired person, then sure there bodily autonomy can be more important and they should be able to kill themselves. But if there value to society and there dependents and obligations are greater then I say there can be cases where societal duty trumps bodily autonomy.
vaccines are great and awesome and i wish there were more and i could get them. no one is being forced against their will to get vaccinated. people who refuse for nonmedical reasons are a danger to others, directly, not in some hypothetical society might be better off way. just like someone else who brought up smoking which also harms others directly. they should be barred from certain places for not getting them yeah. that doesnt violate their bodily autonomy. they can choose not to they just wont be able to do certain things or go certain places because they are a danger to others. you can choose to smoke you just wont be allowed to do it where you will hurt people.
I think this is too individualistic of a framing for something that has a real cost to the community and society as a whole. Even putting aside the moral problems with you killing yourself and leaving your family, there’s also a legal issue with you abandoning your dependents.
If a father goes and gets himself killed in a duel he’s not just harming himself, he’s harming both the children and mother of the children who depend on him.
And on a grander scale society has taken care of you for many moments in your life and it is only fair that you contribute back to the society that raised you.
Whether you like it or not you have certain duties to society and society has a legitimate interest in preventing you from getting out of those obligations by killing yourself.
thats a pretty naive perspective that ignores the reality of suicide. people are going to do it anyway, whatever you or anyone else thinks. removing options for people in that situation just worsens the harm to people around them and society as a whole, because no one is prepared and they can only do it in an inconvenient place/way. its always a surprise that people have to deal with suddenly, rather than something with established procedures and norms. your position is basically “they shouldnt because its hard messy so we’ll make it really hard and messy to disuade them”. its a circular argument that serves no one.
My argument isn’t we shouldn’t do it because it’s hard and messy, it’s that we shouldn’t do it because it irrevocably harms the community and society so the community and society has a right to try and stop it.
It does serve people, if that father fails the suicide attempt or gets busted by the cops before he can duel, then we can put him in treatment and try and help him out which can keep him alive and supporting his family. If we just throw our hands up and say “you do you” and he gets himself killed for sure then there’s no helping him or his family.
Your seems like an argument against having laws against anything then. Yeah people are going to do crimes, that doesn’t mean we as a society shouldn’t try and dissuade them from doing it.
If you go by this logic why shouldn’t we have ash trays in bars? Sure we as a society think smoking in bars is a nuisance, but some people are going to do it any way so why make it messier and more complicated for them? Should we not even have laws in place banning smoking indoors?
Laws and rules also have a normative function as well. An indoor smoking ban isn’t really enforced by the state, and not even by the bartender as much, it’s enforced by everyone at the bar who understands it’s a nuisance and will yell at you if you do it. We as a society shame those who break the rules, and we should be shaming people who do extremely selfish acts like suicide or dueling. If it were allowed and normal more people would engage in these acts as there’s less of a cost to them.
this is such a false equivalence argument its painful. cigarette smoke materially harms others directly. subjecting someone to your cigarette smoke violates their bodily autonomy unless they consent to breathe your second hand smoke and take on the associated harms. someone committing suicide doesnt harm anyone directly. youre saying them dying is bad for the people in their life because they support them so they should be pressured to stay alive and be actively prevented from dying so they can continue to provide benefit to others.
thats literally the argument pro lifers use against abortion. women revoking their material support of their unborn child in most cases leads to its death, so they argue women should be forced to carry it to term, violating their bodily autonomy. youre arguing the same thing for people who want to die. their life benefits others who may die or be worse off without them so they should be compelled to continue existing against their will.
fuck that. anyone who argues that position is on the slippery slope to supporting slavery. you dont get to sacrifice peoples bodily autonomy because it might be good for fucking society. youre fucking wrong and nothing you can say will convince me such a callous position is right. people have the right to die if they choose to, and people like you make exercising that right worse for everyone.
For abortion I wouldn’t argue a fetus is a part of society. If you deny it care then I have no problem with that. If you deny a child care though that’s neglect and we as a society should step in to ensure that child gets a good upbringing. Same with child support, if we’re going for the full libertarian personal freedom principle then a deadbeat dad has no obligation to his children and should be free to abandon them. His actions aren’t directly physically harming the child so he should be able to do what he wants.
Abandoning your child is shunting your responsibilities and putting real costs on society .
Do you recognize any case where societal duty trumps bodily autonomy or is that always a slippery slope to slavery?
I think that moral view is too value hierarchical and Deontological, reliant on rules, such as bodily autonomy always trumps societal duty.
While this is true in a lot of cases, such as drug use and abortion, there are some cases where it isn’t. One of them pertaining directly to slavery is the civil war. How does Lincoln end slavery without violating the bodily autonomy of millions of men to fight a war with the south? If we follow the rule that bodily autonomy trumps societal duty then a draft can never be justified, and then the north loses the war and my ancestors are enslaved for way longer then they needed to be.
Of course a draft is not always justified, we shouldn’t be violating the bodily autonomy of millions of men to fight communists in vietnam. This is where deontology fails as the ethics of something like a draft are based more on the specifities of the case rather then any general rule or hierarchy of values.
This is where a more dialectical approach to ethics is valuable. We can recognize the values of bodily autonomy and societal duty in tension. They are in conversation and sometimes one is more relevant to the situation while other times the other value is.
So in the case of suicide we can look at the harm it’s doing to society against the value of bodily autonomy. If that person has no societal value or obligations, say a retired person, then sure there bodily autonomy can be more important and they should be able to kill themselves. But if there value to society and there dependents and obligations are greater then I say there can be cases where societal duty trumps bodily autonomy.
Just curious, what’s your position on vaccinations?
vaccines are great and awesome and i wish there were more and i could get them. no one is being forced against their will to get vaccinated. people who refuse for nonmedical reasons are a danger to others, directly, not in some hypothetical society might be better off way. just like someone else who brought up smoking which also harms others directly. they should be barred from certain places for not getting them yeah. that doesnt violate their bodily autonomy. they can choose not to they just wont be able to do certain things or go certain places because they are a danger to others. you can choose to smoke you just wont be allowed to do it where you will hurt people.