Does a Human Fetus Have Less Rights than a Dog?

Does a human fetus have less right than a dog to exist? There are laws against cruelty to animals yet a human fetus in most states has not even the right to exist. What kind of morality is that?

Having recently completed a free Yale course offering on everyday morality put on by a professor of moral psychology I wondered about the omission of abortion as a topic. Apparently morality is thought to have some resemblance to positive laws where good laws that have been decided are no longer controversial; that is they are res judicata. That is convenient for the left that would force bad policy into law from on high.

Morality has a Kantian aspect to it consistent with democracy where the categorical imperative of doing onto others as others should do unto you-only support laws that work universally (for everyone). Universal laws are determined electively in a social context. 

Morality is a balance of personal intersocial power abstracted to a Universal level. Moral norms become those that support individual and group continuity or existence. Circles of morality are those where the elective power of morality is recognized. Unenfranchised creatures aren't electors and are morally exploitable.

Slaves, women and children in past times of history had little or no elective power and were socially exploitable. Then they became enfranchised and exploitation decreased. They became part of the general moral circle. Children were brought into more so than the past and were given limited rights; even pets and dogs were accorded some legal protections because they were liked by enfranchised humans. The glaring omission from the circle of morality prevalent in the U.S.A. was human fetuses that continued to be aborted by the millions annually.

Human fetus' have the problem of being incommunicado and unable to vote or participate in circles of morality. One must think that human fetuses have as much intelligence at least as a puppy at some point in their pre-birth existence. If one could poll a fetus on its opinion about existing or not, it would be unlikely to agree that it wanted to perish.

So at some point in the not too distant future technology may make it possible to test the mental capacity of fetuses and determine if they are as smart as puppies, and even if they can be made to communicate opinions, or learn anything while interacting with experimental researchers wired in some way to communicate. Then perhaps, fetuses may be given some right to exist within the human moral circle prevalent in the United States.

Reincarnation-Catch Alternative, Purgatory and Salvation

I wrote this reply to a post in a course I am taking...

 The ideas in your post are interesting and informative. The 'just world theory' does tend to be a post hoc rationalization especially useful to those that are well-off compared to those in more challenging circumstances.

I have often thought that the theory that 'this is the best of all possible worlds' is wrong. I personally could envision innumerable ways that it might be made better. That is, to clarify, from a secular point of view rather than a metaphysical one.

The 'catch alternative' theory was interesting. I am a Christian and don't believe in reincarnation. The theory of 'catch alternative' is comparable though to the Catholic idea of purgatory where souls must labor to improve their character before being deemed worthy to enter heaven. It is a salvation by works paradigm that was deemed unworthy by protestant theologians first and later by catholic theologians too.

Reincarnation is a good paradigm for working off sin and for finding some just way to pay for bad worldly deeds and benefit from good conduct/actions. Christians have a different idea about finding a just world (reincarnation is a kind of metaphysical justice for the world paradigm)- fundamentally they stipulate that everyone has original sin (thermodynamics make humans consume mass to make energy for living and reproducing and that leads to adverse social relations). The world has people who are naturally wrong and cannot save themselves- God alone can save them as so that is why he sent His Son Jesus Christ to intervene. Those that believe Jesus is God and accept His atoning sacrifice will be found acceptable to God in eternal life.

Sin is a human condition. Those that follow Jesus try to be without sin. God sees Jesus' perfect life without sin in those that accept the Lord as their redeemer. God is perfect and those that would be with God for eternity must be perfect too. Only Jesus Christ could accomplish that, and he conveys his sinless nature to those that have faith in His salvation work. God sees the character of Christ for the saved when they die and go to eternity.

The U.S.A. has many atheists. People that are entirely worldly tend to chase after promotion and wealth. They tend to kiss the derriers of the powerful and richest in order to prosper. Politicians tend toward being shallow, superficial and self-serving. Sometimes they can be hired to work for the good of the people materially at least, and that isn't necessarily bad.

The Lord said that the meek shall inherit the Earth and that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. They are things to think about.

Mind-Matter Duality Reconsidered

People have common misunderstandings about mind/matter duality. Mind is different than lifeless matter, unless one was to stipulate with Leibnitz that 1-dimensional monads form the core of subatomic material existence and they are made of spirit.

I wonder if people would argue against the ability of A.I. to generate questions or sub-routines for-itself and to make 'free-will' choices with its new constructs? Free will might be modeled  within an initially  deterministic A.I. paradigm. To controvert Prof Bloom's defense of reason and free will in his article, one might also want to controvert the capacity for A.I. to write its own code and act on its self-written new code. The biomechanics of the A.I. programming might be said to be in the initial program written by a human programmer.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/03/the-war-on-reason/357561/

Spirit as the foundation of matter-as if zero-dimensional points and one-dimensional strings of M-Theory, embedded in a meta-field phenomenal existence like decohered virtual particles were criterion problems, is challenging to appreciate. Humans regard mass and energy from the inside as it were; like fish made of water swimming in an ocean of water wondering reflectively if their thoughts are made of something besides water or if thought is a different substance than water. So one might arrive at the questions; can water think for itself without sentient being as fish-for-themselves? Can a knower know without existing (perhaps relying on the sentient ocean to think-for-others and for-oneself?

I believe one might distill the question of how and where sentience exists within or without the water-column and find the answer to be within structure. Structure gives rise to sentience. Form of mass and energy is qualitatively different that the components of elements. That is easy to see at the molecular level in relation to atoms and in the assembly of complex machines from kits with and without instruction pamphlets.

A Nobel prize winner; Robert Laughlin, wrote a good book on materials physics titled Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down https://www.amazon.com/Different-Universe-Reinventing-Physics-Bottom/dp/0465038298 the book relates some of the ideas about qualitative states of matter and form comprising significant differences.

I should point out here to the fallacy regarding God that His existence is contingent being, contingent upon severability of mind from matter. There are numerous problems with that idea not the least of which is ideas about what matter or energy is or are. Besides, a soul in my opinion is the information God has about what a human is; a record of his life, and address of each particle comprising the form of beings etc. God can recreate that soul from dust if He prefers to. The soul might be said to be information. God hasn't data-loss issues.

In my opinion God would have a far more subtle math (actually foreknowing all answers to any equation making calculations superfluous) regarding data mapping a soul than phase space maps of Hilbert Space information. Wiki has an article on phase space- "Expectation values in phase-space quantization are obtained isomorphically to tracing operator observables with the density matrix in Hilbert space: they are obtained by phase-space integrals of observables, with the Wigner quasi-probability distribution effectively serving as a measure." 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_space

Matter is a condition of flux from a primordial field. There is information available about photons as carriers of electro-magnetic field, and how there actually are two kinds of photons; those that do not interact and those that do at short range breaking into virtual particles, electrons etc. Photons are emergent characteristics of a form of energy and the entire field behavior of photons is a metaphor for gravity and gravitons perhaps including dark energy.

Max Tegmark of M.I.T. has described a Universe or Multiverse with a foundation of pure mathematics; literally. The quanta or point has form that becomes the Universe as a context of relations. Yet the entire Multiverse complexity from the shape or form of Multi-dimensional matrices is itself a field perhaps in spirit. Sprit (of God) generating a Universe in some mysterious way was described by a neo-Platonist philosopher named Plotinus in 54 little tractates known as The Enneads.

I wanted to note that healthy minds have free will. Use reductio ad absurdam and contemplate that no one has free will to make choices and getting to work, stopping at Starbucks or not, making decisions concerning work etc and are all done automatically without free will. It gets rather silly to consider. Not all humans are healthy of course; all prisoners or people being put on felony trial should have free Magnetic Resonance brains cans and blood tests (if they aren't harmful) to inform courts of the health of the accused. Impaired free will may allow elements of determinism to enter. It is not an either/or.

 Determinism would occur where a finite, Newtonian mechanical system could account for all of the behavioral conditions of matter within a given environment. Experimentalists as is well known are a meta-factor corrupting the finite experimental condition, yet one may use thought experiments such as with mathematics and do so without corruption; maybe. There are always the problems of uncertainty and experimentalist bias existing even within thought experiments regarding math that influence results. That is easily demonstrated on math exams.

With Bishop Berkeley one might develop a bias toward the opinion that everything is idea and that mind determines matter; even if it is the mind of God, and that mass and energy are made at the smallest level of spirit; a field spirit, that allows relationships and differentiated forms to arise that have the quality of solid being in a steady state field decohered from the realm of quantum uncertainty whereat all possible positions of particles exist simultaneously as if they were in a great spiritual field calculating engine that a spirit-actuator set to utility.

The Happiness of Stereotypes and Social Epistemology

 Perhaps academia finds happiness in deconstructing stereotypes. In an age of automatic transmissions and self-driving cars it is a noble effort. Disambiguating the several meanings of the term stereotype in order to be referencing a similar meaning probably is worthwhile generally. I suppose Professor Bloom sees a linear growth of subjective and collective social epistemology because of his work in cognitive progress for infants to adults. Professor Bloom took up some very old philosophical studies regarding words and objects reference relations and lightly went over the way percepts are categorized and compared to other concepts for purpose of classification, labeling and so forth. At some point that process gives rise to explicit and implicit stereotypes or stored judgments in mind. I am not content to let the notion go unchallenged at least without making a couple of remarks about the use of the word as a pejorative use-truth that presumptively need be corrected.

Human minds are not quite computers with stored data from sensory input. Yet human thought does give the ability to form clusters of associated percepts and form meaningful neural pathways and iterations among them, without arbitrary limits. Stereotypes are incomplete information in a world experience of incomplete information. would point out the usefulness of stereotypes for sailors in dealing with weather and coastal phenomena regarding rocks, sand. fogs and so forth that allows one to evaluate partial information and make a judgment regarding a stereotype recurring in real time. Even such stereotypes or information regarding the draw down of water on a beach might give one time to flee from an approaching tsunami.

Logic structures regarding though classification from percepts and abstract data from studies provide a data base for individuals from which they may form opinions. Opinions different from true knowledge as Socrates pointed out so long ago, yet opinions are often the best one has. Incompleteness theorems abound in human experience because of temporal decay of any complete complex of compresence. Past, present and future along with position are never still. Accurate sorting and classifying of data regarding input with speed allows one to win at blitz chess and comprehend given worldly circumstances as they occur. Sterotypical patterns of behavior, presentation, or meaning of objects where they occur are useful tools for addressing empirical challenges.

It might not be too scientific to place moral values with economic values and cognitive or implicit epistemological mind construction patterns and neural virtual wiring. For me, moral questions should be something else. The concern about stereotypes psychologically speaking might rightly be considered as learning and epistemological concerns instead of morality.

Perhaps psychology has reacted differently to words and objects (W.V.O. Quine) differently than some philosophers in the post Two Dogmas of Empiricism era of linguistic philosophy regarding meanings, language and how they relate to 'objects'. Philosophers realize that words and objects are constructions rather than things in-themselves, although there are consistent patterns of physical interpretation of sensory input from the heterodox physical field that we regard as the quantum Universe field.

Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an interesting article on social epistemology. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-social/

Social epistemology is different than individual subjective epistemology (it is more modern anyway). Some words and meaning values are socially defined- at least the lexicon of a group is from a social context. I just wanted to point out than anyone can use some practice on improving their personal epistemological tools. Stereotypes are a kind of higher level programming language of phrases that an be very useful when not incorrect. They may also be upgraded with better knowledge. Dumbing things down isn't necessarily the best option.

Epistemological limits to what anyone knows about anything including themselves should prompt some self-skepticism regarding the capacity for certainty about anything. Yet one should be able to have something like a 90% probability of accuracy, at least, in having opinions about ordinary matters of experience. Inaccuracy, falsehoods and so forth can be deceptive for-oneself as well as for-others.

I think its wrong to conflate cognitive associative tendencies regarding interpretation of sensed, input semiotic objects/patterns with morals and economic questions of value. People choose choose things on the basis of value to-themselves rather than making choices solely because of archetypal or stereotyped prioritization.

A Sketch of Historical American Population Discovery and Dispersion

The majority of Eurasians settling the Americas arrived via Sibir-Berengia-Alaska. Recent discoveries of human footprints in Chile were dated circa 13,500 b.c. There were two basic theories of human dispersion from Berengia (Bering Sea walkover area when sea level was lower). One was the coastal route and the other via the interior after glaciers receded at the end of the Wisconsin opening the way past Watson Lake, toward the Peace and Frazier Rivers and points south. The coastal route would have allowed faster transit to South America (the Pacific coast).

There was a late settlement by Dorsett Eskimos with dogsleds that were the jet fighters of the day. It took them only 200 years along the Arctic shore to cross from Bering Strait to Greenland. They arrived about the same time at Greenland as the Vikings and Viking Settlements at East Bygd and West Bygd.

Some Eurasians travelling the interior route travelled down the Stikine River to settle the coast too. The Eurasians had more genetic similarity to Caucasians than Africans. They were mixed races that arrived in different waves.

Scientists have discovered the oldest human footprint ever seen in the Americas
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2018/04/17/six_of_the_oldest_human_remains_found_in_the_us.html

There were other people that arrived from Western Europe, across the Pacific, and there is a possibility that some Mediterranean people arrived via boats that were caught in the Gulf Stream with the sailors being cast like lifeboat survivors on a sea voyage. Most of the small groups that made it to America were lost to history. What remains in history are the large, more numerous groups.


The Hai da of the Canadian coastal islands were boating people. Some believe they crossed the Pacific. Hai in Chinese language means ocean (like Shang hai). maybe they and others (Aleuts?) paddled along the Eastern littoral of Eurasia to Alaska and points south.

People like the Vikings arrived and made a lasting record of their presence. Farley Mowatt wrote a book named ‘The Farfarers; Before the Norse’ that describes a historical theory of Vikings following an earlier darker, shorter Mediterranean people to America plundering their camps on the way.
The Farfarers: Before the Norse: Farley Mowat: 9781883642563: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more: Books

It is possible that the Irish reached America before the Vikings by a couple hundred years. They may have crossed the continent and continued on to Hokkaido with their light skin boats facilitating trekking.

Interesting inferences may be made about some Viking or Irish influence on certain indigenous structural developments in the upper Midwest. Cahokia’s rise may have been precipitated by some exogenous leadership from European travelers, and a darker side; in North Dakota, has evidence of the first and possibly only stone defense wall around an indigenous village, in North America. There was evidence of a battle at the wall with skeletal remains from the conflict. Europeans and Middle Eastern people used defense walls for thousands of years.

Cahokia - Wikipedia

Cahokia was the center of a true pre-Columbian civilization that reached to Mississippi the Carolinas and beyond.

Another pre-Columbian civilization was a tremendous construction in Amazonia that disappeared into the jungle just a few years after first contact. The biological isolation made the civilization vulnerable to disease from the first Spanish explorers.

Alex Jones Banned From Another Corporate Site

Facebook banned Alex Jones confirming again the policy of corporatism to allow free speech until one says anything corporatists don't want said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-extremists-usa/facebook-bans-alex-jones-other-extremist-figures-idUSKCN1S82D7

Jones is an entertaining figure with useful things to say about the corporatist state of political control. The deep state needed to silence its best critic.

Are Moral Questions Really Economic Questions?

I am somewhat unhappy with the association of morality with economics. It seems somewhat primitive to base moral question on economic questions regarding allocation of resources. It seems that Wright's exchange theory of non-zero sum relations is the preferred alternative for the 1% so that's the way moral psychologists line up as sycophants.

Maybe that is a bit harsh. It does seem that Ayn Rand's theory of objective value is regaining popularity now, and that says something for Allan Greenspan, the Austrian School of Economics and others that might consider moral philosophy to be informed by economics and vice versa. It’s a nice materialist paradigm said with Marx’s objective theory of labor value to compare favorably to Rand's objective theory of value. Crank realist-empiricists can all be happy together with neo-objectivism. Can that be worse than supply--side economics or supply-side morality?

Her theory of value apparently is based on needs for survival like water being objectively valuable. For humans though moral questions should run deeper intellectually than biophysical requisites for existence. Ecological economics textbooks today tend to have objective theories of value for empirical, natural resources, yet though natural ecosystem sustainability have objective value within Rand's paradigm and that of science it is challenging to say that Wall Street has objective values concerning the ecosphere of the world such that restoring it is of the highest value and a new yacht is of far lower value to investors.

https://newideal.aynrand.org/ayn-rand-on-economics-how-capitalism-hinges-on-philosophy/

https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2014/06/economists-subjective-value-ayn-rands-objective-value-reconciled/

From my point of view value theory is entirely subjective. That is human beings determine what of the world is valuable, and that is a matter of education. If the well being of others was the highest value and the heart of a social value system; altruism, then it would seem that all the other issues would be resolved with good faith and determination.

Of course one would have the problem of determining what is good, yet that may be simpler than determining what the prime lending rate should be to control inflation yet increase employment expansion though the ecosphere is being degraded from over-use.

The problem of morality at a distance runs into logic question right away. One cannot verify the need for or the effect of intervention in helping someone at a distance instead of up close. One may not be happy or trusting about giving $10 to some African relief organization as questions about what really happens to the money arise. I think though that if one could actually identify a particular individual in Africa that ten dollars would actually directly benefit meaningfully then far more people would intervene with a contribution.

How can one rescue a drowning swimmer thousands of miles away- fly like superman or teleport? Really, such questions are not practical and practical reason matters.