Friday, December 04, 2015

Typhoid Mary


I'm going to respond to some comments that Lydia McGrew left on this post:


Problem is, Lydia starts with a principle that's reasonable in ordinary cases, but stretches it to cover cases where that becomes fanatically unreasonable. Extending plausible cases to lend bogus plausibility to implausible cases. 

For instance, if your patient is Typhoid Mary, then it would be wildly irresponsible to just consider what's best for her. For she needs to be quarantined. To act in her best interests, to the exclusion of everyone else, is far too one-sided.



No, I don't, because there is no special, ethically enormously important, relationship between bankers and people who borrow money or between arms dealers and people who buy their stuff. My position isn't just in general to say, "That's not my department." My position is that there is something enormously special about certain life-saving or life-giving occupations that puts them in a special relationship (I keep looking for a word similar to "fiduciary trust" or something, mutatis mutandis, for doctor-patient, fireman-trapped-person, but nothing is coming immediately to mind) to those they help. This is not a _general_ statement that everybody who sells a product or a service just should "do their thing" and not worry about anything else.


Fine. And I say folks like Himmler and Pablo Escobar are not entitled to benefit from that live-saving or life-giving relationship when they themselves are in the business of wrongful life-taking.

"What is Lydia's preferred alternative? If everyone who needs it can't have it, is it better that everyone die rather than saving some?" My preferred alternative is the use of _medical_ criteria for triaging, criteria that assume that the goal is to help as many patients as possible, not criteria concerning "just desserts." There are plenty of the former to permit make the relevant decisions.


Again, as I already explained, in my hypothetical, the organ harvesting isn't punitive. The evil actions of the jihadists make them morally liable to harm–a susceptibility to which they'd ordinarily be immune. But they aren't used as involuntary organ donors as punishment. It isn't to give them their just deserts, but to restore the gunshot victims whom they wrongfully wounded. It creates that possibility because, by their actions, they lose certain prima facie protections. That's a necessary, but insufficient condition, in my hypothetical.

You are here including "defense of the innocent" as a category. It's true that I didn't happen to include that in my list of possible categories. 


Actually, I believe I used "saving other [innocent] lives," which is broader than defense of the innocent. 

But "defense of the innocent," like "self-defense," is always (and should always be) applied to _immediate threat_, not to assassination of a person already neutralized as a threat. 

i) One reason we normally stress "immediacy" is that we normally don't know the future, and the future becomes less predictable the further out we go. But in a foreknowledge or counterfactual knowledge scenario, that would be different.

ii) In addition, I don't grant your stipulative restriction.

There are categories for killing people who are not an immediate threat: One such category is execution. Another is attacking a military target in war. Some would also say that assassination is sometimes justified. That was why I used "medical assassination" as a possibility. Because it gets at the fact that the person is not presently a threat, whereas "defense of the innocent" blurs that and, in fact, accesses intuitions concerning neutralizing an immediate threat.
I take it that your position _is_ that assassination is not always morally wrong, which is why it is a little surprising that you are annoyed by my use of "medical assassination."

True, I think targeted assassination can be morally preferable. Take a decapitation strike. It saves more lives all around if you eliminate one person giving orders rather many persons taking orders. Moreover, some of the people taking orders may be forced conscripts. So it's preferable, when possible, to spare their lives–not to mention collateral damage, or the lives of your own soldiers.

However, that's a different scenario than my hypothetical. So the category is inaccurate.

However, let's remember that Steve's position is much stronger than, "Some given doctor could be justified in not operating on Himmler." His position is that it would be justified for all doctors to enter into an agreement deliberately to let Himmler die by jointly boycotting operating on him. Moreover, his position is that doctors are morally justified in _actively killing_ certain evil people such as jihadists (and presumably, Himmler) and even doing so in order to take their organs for their victims. 

Correct.

So what he's talking about is not some kind of case-by-case doctor decision but rather generalized medical intent either to let die or even actively to kill.


False dichotomy. My examples (Himmler, Escobar, jihadists) do involve case-by-case assessment. 

If we were talking about a) self-defense, b) defense of the innocent, or c) execution, I would agree with you. I am often pointing out that guilt vs. innocence makes a difference.
But when it comes to enlisting doctors to kill their patients (which is what you are doing), then a serious line has been crossed, and that is an _abuse_ of the guilt vs. innocence distinction. It is not that I do not make that distinction. It's that I think you are using it in the wrong context.

Except that you erect a wall between guilt, innocence, and "the patient"–whom you treat as if he's innocent. You say I'm using that in the wrong context, but of course, that objection assumes the very issue in dispute.

"Why should they be nursed back to health while the innocent gunshot victims are allowed to die? In what moral universe is that a just outcome?"
Because organ transplant is _massively_ extraordinary treatment, hence, it is possible to refrain from carrying out that treatment while still treating the patient as an intrinsically valuable entity. 


Which patient? It isn't possible to refrain from carrying out that treatment and still save the life of the innocent gunshot victim. 

It is possible, and indeed mandatory, for doctors to treat both the victims and the perpetrators as intrinsically valuable beings, made in the image of God, and this is possible to do while not carrying out an organ transplant from one to the other. Indeed, it is _impossible_ to do while using the bodies of one group for the benefit of the other.

i) The physicians may "treating" both parties as intrinsically valuable beings, but absent organ transplantation, their medical treatment is futile. At best, palliative care. 

ii) Once again, we're back to Lydia's morally neutral language about "the bodies of one group." 

iii) There's the question of how much work you think the imago Dei is able to do in this argument. That's a category that offers precious little guidance regarding what's permissible or impermissible. Basically, you're using a Biblical category as a cipher, into which you plug the ethical strictures of Kantian deontology. 

The imago Dei is a category that's taken on a life of its own in historical theology and moral theology. That's often far removed from what it means in Scripture. The locus classicus would be Gen 9:5-6, which ratifies the lex talonis and poetic justice.

Christian ethicists routinely invest the imago Dei with moral and metaphysical specifications that can't be exegetically supported. Keep in mind, too, that this occurs in a book (the Pentateuch) which also contains the laws of holy war, involving mass execution of noncombatants. 
 
"So it's unclear what the odium attaches to." The special odium in this case attaches to the _absolutely unequivocal_ treatment of the "donors" as _mere_ objects, as _mere_ means to an end, as _mere_ sources of spare parts.


i) Except that I'm not discussing involuntary organ donors in general, but perpetrators in relation to their moribund victims. There's a vanishing window of opportunity to save the life of the victims by using the perpetrators to supply the organs. Poetic justice.

It's not about generic perpetrators and generic patients. Rather, it's the particular victims of those particular perps. 

ii) Lydia's objection hinges on her Kantian axiom that no human should be used as a mere means to an end. That absolutizes the agent without regard to their moral status. 

No, I'm working with a concept of free will according to which the free individual is an irreducible part of the causal chain. 

Which is also consistent with compatibilism. It's only at odds with que sera sera fatalism. 

As long as his actions are free (he's not just a zombie or a hypnotized robot or something), _no_ other cause or set of causes that precedes his choice _guarantees_ (that is, deterministically makes it the case) that he will make that choice. Otherwise his choice would not be free.

Except that in my hypothetical, we're looking back at the past with the benefit of hindsight. We know how one thing led to another.

Again, defense of the innocent from imminent threat from an active attacker. That isn't what we're talking about with baby Himmler, and it isn't what we're talking about with Himmler who is out cold and needs surgery. Or jihadists, either.


What you did was use a hypothetical that conflates several ethical issues. For instance, there's the distinction between doing harm and allowing harm. There's the distinction between guilt and innocence. I'm taking that apart and considering the elements separately. To give the entire package thumbs up or thumbs down is equivocal. 

"But I didn't advocate that example. That's your example (or counterexample), not mine." My active killing examples are meant to be relevant to your claim that it is morally justifiable for doctors (not state executioners) actively to kill a wicked person in order to prevent his future evil actions. Note that you _reject_ the characterization of this as an execution and also that you specifically argue for _doctors_ qua doctors to do it. I would agree with the death penalty for the jihadists, or for Himmler, but you are talking about having people in a doctor-patient relationship with him kill him when he does not constitute an imminent threat, and you justify this on the basis of preventing his later evil. I therefore think killing a young child based on special ESP that he will otherwise grow up to do evil constitutes a relevant counterexample to the principles you are invoking.

Again, though, that bundles more than one ethical issue. Whether it's morally licit to kill a wicked adult to prevent his future evil actions is a different proposition than whether it's morally licit to kill an innocent child to prevent his future evil actions. The second scenario adds a moral complication absent from the first scenario. 

It's not a relevant counterexample, because it introduces a morally significant differential factor. It's fine for you to probe how far I'm prepared to go, but I'm not inconsistent if I draw a line there.

"Furthermore, by saving this child's life, he's taking the lives of other children (hundreds of thousands) in the future."
"If, moreover, the fireman rescues him, then the fireman is causing the death of hundreds of thousands of future children at Himmler's hands. So it wouldn't be morally outrageous if the fireman is hesitant to bring that about. His action won't be the only cause of that outcome, but it will be one link in a chain of events leading up to that catastrophe. A precipitating event."
Taking the lives? That's the kind of moral confusion that arises from treating a person who helps someone as morally responsible for the evil that person goes on and does. I'm afraid I regard it as simply crazy talk to say that a fireman who saves a child, even, yes, a fireman with ESP who knows that the child will grow up to kill other people, is "taking the lives" of those the child grows up and freely kills. Perhaps this shows what happens when one denies free will?


i) But presumably you believe that there are situations in which enablers are complicit in the evil done by the person they knowingly help. Surely you don't need me to give you examples. Not just hypothetical examples, but real-life examples. 

ii) Most freewill theists affirm the accidental necessity of the past. A few flirt with retrocausation, but that's bedeviled by familiar antinomies. 

And, given ESP, we're viewing the past from the vantage-point of the actual future. From that perspective, it's a fait accompli, even though it might be contingent if we looking ahead rather than behind.

ii) Moreover, your objection is incoherent. You yourself were the one who in your hypothetical counterexample conferred "prophetic powers" (or ESP) on the fireman. For him to know the future, the future must be a given. If he had advance knowledge of the outcome, then that's inevitable–unless he changes a key variable. 

You're trying to ride two different horses at one time. Pick one and stick with it. 

iii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, that it's not inevitable. As a rule, it's morally incumbent on us to consider the consequences of our actions even if we don't know for sure what the consequences will be. Indeed, it's the uncertainties that oblige us to provide a margin for error. So you're still expected to take elementary precautions to avoid putting others at unnecessary risk.  

Take OT regulations requiring a homeowner to put a parapet around the roof, or requiring a property owner to cover an open well. It's not inevitable or even likely that such an accident will happen. In fact, it's quite possible that a child will never fall into that particular well. Quite possible that no one will fall from the roof of any particular house. But if it did happen, the owner would be culpable for failing to take basic precautions.

"If Himmler is in danger of dying in a fire, why not regard his predicament as a providential windfall? A boom for his prospective victims?"
Because you're a fireman who took on the role of being a fireman and who has shown up at this fire.


i) How does that refute what I said? Seems like a non sequitur to me. 

ii) One of my fundamental problems with your position is that you drive a wedge between professional responsibilities and personal/social obligations, as if assuming the role of physician or fireman automatically suspends your personal and social obligations. It's hard to see, even in principle, how you can ethically justify the suspension of personal and social ethical duties. 

iii) In addition, what we call professional ethics isn't even conterminous with normative ethics. It's just a professional code of conduct–for better or worse. For instance, suppose it's a breach of professional ethics for a surgeon to access confidential test-results to ascertain the HIV status of his patients. Yet a surgeon has a moral right to know that inasmuch as invasive procedures expose the surgeon to risk of infection.  

This is a concept of a contributing cause. I have no problem with talking about contributing causes sometimes. It's a useful and an interesting concept. But it is an extremely broad concept and simply cannot sustain the moral weight being placed on it. E.g. "Taking the lives," etc.
In _this_ broad sense of "cause," Himmler's great-grandfather's act of conceiving his grandmother was also a link in the chain of events. Everyone who ever gave Himmler necessary care as a child was also a link in the chain of events. This sense of "cause," though relevant in some contexts, just cannot bear the weight of justifying deliberately letting someone die when you are in such a position that it is normally your responsibility to care for or help that person.

i) But that disregards additional potentially inculpatory considerations, like advance knowledge of the catastrophic denouement. 

ii) As far as that goes, if Himmer's father could foresee the dire outcome of impregnating his wife on that night, it's arguable that he has a duty to abstain for a few weeks, or contracept. 

iii) In addition, you're ignoring something I said before in response to the same basic objection: you have a lot more options when Himmler is four than when he is forty. As an adult, as head of the SS, with the Final Solution underway, saving his life guarantees the death of millions. But at the age of four, there are many potential opportunities to influence his development for the better and deflect him away from that horrendous career. 

iv) Finally, the further back in time we go, changing a particular variable wouldn't merely eliminate the future evil, but eliminate many intervening goods. So that interjects some countervailing considerations into the moral assessment. 

17 comments:

  1. Concerning Typhoid Mary, you are not acting contrary to what is medically best for her by quarantining her. It's rather surprising you should bring that up in any way in the context of your recommendation that doctors kill their evil patients to harvest their organs for their innocent patients! Or even in the context of deliberately refusing to treat Himmler (as, say, ER doctors) with the intent of letting him die. This has pretty much nothing to do with quarantining a patient. It might be more relevant to talk about simply locking up a person with plague in a house, shoving food through a hole in the door, and otherwise leaving him to die, but I think it should be evident that, whatever else _that_ is, it's not acting _as a doctor_ toward that person.

    "It's not a relevant counterexample, because it introduces a morally significant differential factor. It's fine for you to probe how far I'm prepared to go, but I'm not inconsistent if I draw a line there. "

    It's strange that you are so resistant to the example of killing baby Himmler but are actually quite open to the example of a fireman with ESP who leaves baby Himmler to die in a fire. You also said at one point that it just wouldn't be legitimate to ask Himmler's mom to kill him as a baby because she has a duty and an emotional attachment to him, which seems to mean that you aren't _entirely_ closed to killing baby Himmler outright. Yet in this post, you act as though you think innocent baby Himmler should be treated as an innocent child. But in that case, the fireman has a duty to rescue the innocent child. The active-passive distinction can't be combined, in anything but a really weird, ad hoc manner, with the innocence consideration to give us the conclusion that it's

    a) right for doctors actively to kill adult Himmler when he is not a present threat, partly because of what he intends to do later,
    b) wrong for anyone actively to kill baby Himmler when he is not a present threat, because of what he will otherwise grow up and do later,
    c) right for a fireman with prophetic powers to stand by and deliberately do nothing while baby Himmler burns to death in a fire fro which he could have been rescued, because of what he will otherwise grow up and do later.

    If baby Himmler is innocent, he's just innocent. and the normal duties of doctors, firemen, etc., toward him hold. If, however, their carrying out their normal duties toward him rather than deliberately withholding their aid so that baby Himmler dies makes them "enablers" of his later evil actions, it's difficult to see how there can be an absolute prohibition on killing him as a baby outright to prevent his later evil actions.

    "Moreover, your objection is incoherent. You yourself were the one who in your hypothetical counterexample conferred "prophetic powers" (or ESP) on the fireman. For him to know the future, the future must be a given. If he had advance knowledge of the outcome, then that's inevitable–unless he changes a key varaible.

    You're trying to ride two different horses at one time. Pick one and stick with it."

    I'm not an open theist, nor flirting with the idea that future statements have no fixed value. But words like "taking the lives" of other children or "insuring genocide" and the like simply abrogate free will. One can know, truly, future events that hinge on the contingent free choices of other rational creatures, but it does not follow from this that one's contributing causal actions guarantee, insure, or even are the same as (as if one is oneself "taking the lives" of their victims) those actions. To say so is simply to abrogate the fact that the later choices are _free_.That they are free doesn't mean that there is no truth value to what those choices will be. It does mean that other people's actions in saving my life don't "guarantee" or "insure" what I do later.

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  2. " But presumably you believe that there are situations in which enablers are complicit in the evil done by the person they knowingly help."

    There can be, but those are cases of what the Catholics call "remote material cooperation," and they are as a class pretty un-cut-and-dried. Whereas the duty of firemen to save people from fires or of doctors in the ER to treat those in front of them is much more cut and dried. Your entire approach involves turning morality on its head: The good and normal actions of people who have voluntarily entered helping professions are being treated as material cooperation with the evil later actions of their patients or the people they rescue (given advance knowledge), and you are then using that to argue that their straightforward act of doing good to that person is morally dubious, that they would be justified in deliberately letting that person die despite their role in society. Indeed, given the strength of your rhetoric ("enabling," "taking the lives," "complicit," etc.), it's difficult how you can avoid arguing that the doctor or fireman has a _duty_ to _at least_ allow the person who will later do evil to die when he finds out that this is the person whom he would otherwise help.

    That completely reverses the order of moral duties and the clarity of moral duties.

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  3. Fascinating discussion! Lydia--I must commend you on your excellent argumentation accomplished with both grace and clear reasoning. You mentioned earlier, "It is possible, and indeed mandatory, for doctors to treat both the victims and the perpetrators as intrinsically valuable beings, made in the image of God..." That really does sum up the relevant threads of the debate into an inescapable, Christ-manifested conclusion. After all this is a Christian blog, right? It is hard to imagine that Christ, who gave his life for the Himmler's and Jihadists of this world and expended his final breath pleading for mercy on behalf of his killers, would subscribe to any Christian ethic that would call for the murder of the injured guilty (while defenseless and helpless) to harvest their organs for the innocent.

    But when one believes that our Lord of glory unilaterally predetermined the very evils that the Himmlers of this world commit, as Steve and Rocking do, it should not be to surprising that they would ignore the revolutionary, counter-intuitive ethic of Christ: "But I say unto you, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you."

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    1. Matt B

      "You mentioned earlier, 'It is possible, and indeed mandatory, for doctors to treat both the victims and the perpetrators as intrinsically valuable beings, made in the image of God...' That really does sum up the relevant threads of the debate into an inescapable, Christ-manifested conclusion. After all this is a Christian blog, right?"

      Both sides affirm the imago Dei. Not sure if you think otherwise.

      "It is hard to imagine that Christ, who gave his life for the Himmler's and Jihadists of this world"

      This begs the question. Of course, you're an Arminian, so you would argue "Christ...gave his life for the Himmler's [sic] and Jihadists of this world." But that's not what those who are Reformed or Calvinistic would argue.

      "and expended his final breath pleading for mercy on behalf of his killers"

      Is this an allusion to Luke 23:34? If so, it's quite likely the longer reading of Luke 23:34 was a scribal interpolation. For example, see what Alan Kurschner has written.

      "would subscribe to any Christian ethic that would call for the murder of the injured guilty (while defenseless and helpless) to harvest their organs for the innocent."

      If what I've said above is correct, then it undercuts the basis for your conclusion.

      "But when one believes that our Lord of glory unilaterally predetermined the very evils that the Himmlers of this world commit, as Steve and Rocking do, it should not be to surprising that they would ignore the revolutionary, counter-intuitive ethic of Christ: 'But I say unto you, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.'"

      Wow, you're punching below the belt, I see!

      1. Ironically, you criticized Steve for his (alleged) ad hominem in a different thread, yet you have no problem using ad hominem against him. What makes you think Steve "ignore[s]" this? What makes you think Steve doesn't "love his enemies" or "do good to his enemies"?

      2. You likewise call Steve "brother" in the other aforementioned thread, but now you say Steve (and I) "ignore[s]" Christ's "ethic" to "love your enemies, do good to those who hate you." But if Steve doesn't "love" or "do good" as Christ enjoins Christians to do, then can you call him your "brother"? Is this a Freudian slip about what you really think about Calvinists

      3. Note (importantly) this is quite different than saying our theology and arguments lend themselves to this conclusion. That'd be one thing if that's what you're arguing. But that's not what you've written.

      4. No, rather, you're personally attacking Steve by saying Steve "ignore[s]" Christ's commands. That's a low blow, especially since it's not as if you know what Steve does or doesn't do in his personal life.

      5. Not to mention, even if (arguendo) it's true one's theology and arguments lend themselves to this conclusion, one could live better than their theology.

      6. By contrast, I think it's fair to say Steve (and I) has been having an amicable debate with Lydia.

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    2. Thanks for the exchange Rocky. You are right. Perhaps I can see how my comments could be interpreted as an overreach by assuming too much as it concerns your or Steve's personal ethic or obedience to Christ's command to love our enemies. For that I apologize--that was too personal. However you both are arguing that doctors (I would assume even Christian doctors) would be morally in the right to murder evil perpetrators, while they are injured, helpless and defenseless, in order to harvest their organs for the innocent. How does align with Christ's commands as to how we are to treat our enemies, Rocky? Why even argue for it? Wouldn't you agree it runs contrary to the counter-intuitive, revolutionary ethic Christ has given for us to both follow and model?

      Secondly I do find your argumentation to be rather odd given your theological determinism. You do believe that the past actions of Himmler, and all the evils committed by jihadists have been exhaustively predetermined by God-- don't you Rocky?

      As such it is strange that you would then move to arguing about what constitutes the moral duties of others in response to agents of evil God predetermined according to his divine pleasure. For in your view not only our moral duties, but also the moral ethic we adopt to appraise and evaluate those moral duties, are themselves determined by God. Why bother trying to convince Lydia her ethical appraisal of how to care for injured, unconscious jihadists is wrong or misguided? Moreover you suggest certain actions should be taken to "prevent" this future evil and "prevent" that future evil... perhaps forgetting that in your view every future evil from every Himmler, Escobar and jihadist has already been unconditionally predetermined by divine fiat. I would like to comment more specifically on key points in the exchange but I live over in Asia and it is 1:45am. Will check in tomorrow. I have enjoyed reading the exchange. Have a good day.

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    3. Matt B

      "However you both are arguing that doctors (I would assume even Christian doctors) would be morally in the right to murder evil perpetrators, while they are injured, helpless and defenseless, in order to harvest their organs for the innocent."

      You're using loaded language. What makes you think, for example, allowing a terrorist who tried but failed to suicide-bomb a large market area to die of his own self-sustained injuries is equivalent to "murder"?

      "How does align with Christ's commands as to how we are to treat our enemies, Rocky? Why even argue for it? Wouldn't you agree it runs contrary to the counter-intuitive, revolutionary ethic Christ has given for us to both follow and model?"

      This begs the question. That's what this debate is meant to tease out.

      "Secondly I do find your argumentation to be rather odd given your theological determinism. You do believe that the past actions of Himmler, and all the evils committed by jihadists have been exhaustively predetermined by God-- don't you Rocky? As such it is strange that you would then move to arguing about what constitutes the moral duties of others in response to agents of evil God predetermined according to his divine pleasure."

      I'm not here to debate Calvinism vs Arminianism. If it becomes relevant to the bioethics, and if I desire to do so, then, sure, I can debate it. But at the moment this appears to be your pet issue, not mine.

      "For in your view not only our moral duties, but also the moral ethic we adopt to appraise and evaluate those moral duties, are themselves determined by God."

      You have a bad habit of putting words into people's mouths. Why don't you let people speak for themselves (if they so wish)?

      "Why bother trying to convince Lydia her ethical appraisal of how to care for injured, unconscious jihadists is wrong or misguided?"

      This is a debate. Or at least discussion. That's what happens in debates or discussions. One side tries to persuade the other. Or both sides try to persuade those listening in, etc.

      Besides, Lydia is doing the same, and trying to convince others of her own position. Why don't you take issue with her as well? Instead, you're full of praise for her, even though both sides are basically doing the same thing (e.g. you said "I must commend you on your excellent argumentation accomplished with both grace and clear reasoning").

      "Moreover you suggest certain actions should be taken to 'prevent' this future evil and 'prevent' that future evil... perhaps forgetting that in your view every future evil from every Himmler, Escobar and jihadist has already been unconditionally predetermined by divine fiat."

      The fact that God has predetermined everything including evil and suffering doesn't absolve people of moral responsibility and ethical decision-making.

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    4. Rather than spend his time begging the question and throwing out 'Aren't we just puppets' canards, perhaps Matt B ought to familiarise himself with compatibilism and moral responsibility.

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    5. Matt,

      This post is not about the Calvinist/freewill theist debate. You're not entitled to threadjack the post as a pretext to opine about your hobbyhorse.

      I will briefly respond to your comment

      "It is hard to imagine that Christ, who gave his life for the Himmler's and Jihadists of this world and expended his final breath pleading for mercy on behalf of his killers, would subscribe to any Christian ethic that would call for the murder of the injured guilty (while defenseless and helpless) to harvest their organs for the innocent."

      i) I take it that you're a unitarian. Evidently, you don't believe Jesus is the preexistent Son incarnate who in OT times destroyed the antediluvians, destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and ordered the mass execution of the Canaanites.

      Likewise, you don't seem to think the Jesus who will return to punish the wicked is the same Jesus who died on the cross.

      ii) Needless to say, I didn't call for the "murder" of the terrorists in my hypothetical. That's no better than village atheists who accuse Yahweh of commanding "murder," or pacifists who accuse just-war theorists of condoning "murder".

      Further off-topic comments by you will be deleted.

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    6. Matt,

      I will briefly respond to your second off-topic comment. If you attempt to threadjack this post with further extraneous comments, they will be deleted.

      "How does align with Christ's commands as to how we are to treat our enemies, Rocky?"

      Obtuse question. In my hypothetical, the jihadists aren't my enemies. Rather, they are the enemies of the Jewish worshippers.

      "Why bother trying to convince Lydia her ethical appraisal of how to care for injured, unconscious jihadists is wrong or misguided?"

      Because predestination isn't fatalism.

      "Moreover you suggest certain actions should be taken to 'prevent' this future evil and 'prevent' that future evil... perhaps forgetting that in your view every future evil from every Himmler, Escobar and jihadist has already been unconditionally predetermined by divine fiat."

      Another confused objection If we successfully prevent some incident, then we were predestined to prevent that incident. We're not preventing what God predestined; rather, we're predestined to prevent the incident in question–assuming we're successful.

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    7. As far as that goes, Jesus' teaching isn't all that radical.

      4 If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. 5 If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him (Exod 23:4-5).

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    10. As for the claim that it's self-defeating to try to convince someone of something if you think determinism is true, here's what Richard Swinburne--prominent free will theist--had to say on the matter:

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      It has been argued that any argument for determinism would be self-defeating. For suppose a scientist discovers an apparently cogent argument for determinism. He will conclude that he has been caused to believe that his argument is cogent. But when we discover of people that they are caused to hold beliefs—e.g. as a result of the way they were educated, or of subjection to drugs—we do not regard them as having a rationally justified belief. To be rational in adopting a belief we have to do so freely, i.e. uncaused, the argument goes. So no one can ever be justified in believing determinism to be true. For one who believes determinism to be true must believe his belief to be caused and so unjustified. (There is a statement of this argument, subsequently retracted, by J. B. S. Haldane in his Possible Worlds, Chatto and Windus, London, 1930, p. 209. For references to other statements of it, including one by Epicurus, and discussion thereof, see K. R. Popper and J. C. Eccles, The Self and its Brain, Springer, New York, 1977, pp. 75 ff.) This argument has, I believe, no force at all. The mere fact that our beliefs are caused is no grounds for holding them unjustified. Exactly the reverse. I argued in Chapter 7 ["Beliefs"] that to the extent that we regarded them as uncaused or self-chosen, we could not regard our beliefs as moulded by the facts and so likely to be true. The point is rather that if we see some belief to be caused by a totally irrelevant factor (e.g. a belief that I now am being persecuted being caused by something irrelevant in my upbringing) then we rightly regard it as unjustified. But a belief that determinism is true could be both caused and justified, if caused by relevant factors, e.g. hearing relevant arguments. -- The Evolution of the Soul (revised edition) (OUP, 1997), p. 233, fn. 2.

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  4. I am moving my comment from the other thread.

    Lydia, While I am not necessarily in full agreement with Steve, I do not understand why you believe that doctors have a moral obligation to save the life of anyone brought before them in need of emergency care. Why must doctors *always* do what is in the best interest of their patients? In the military doctors are not always able to do what is in the best interest of their patients. Sometimes they must do what is best for the mission instead. For example when supplies are limited there are times when doctors must treat those who can return to combat *first* even though this means that others with more serious injury, who could otherwise be save, *will* die. A real world example of this happened when doctors gave penicillin to those with venereal diseases in WWII rather than to patients with more serious illnesses like pneumonia. This meant that more people were able to return to combat quickly as effective fighters but it also meant that some people who *would* have lived in normal triage circumstances died. I don't believe this is wrong. I think that sometimes there are other considerations that are more important than the doctor patient relationship. Why must a doctor always act in the best interest of patient using only medical considerations in their triage?

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    1. I think this is a good point. I said something similar in the earlier thread too:

      "In addition, there can be different triage criteria depending on circumstances. Thus far we've largely been considering civilian scenarios. If we consider a wartime scenario, then the military triage criteria are (very roughly) to prioritize individuals most likely able to return to fight the enemy. Moreover, our military would not prioritize the injured enemy over our soldiers. It's not simply about 'saving as many lives as possible.' This could arguably parallel doctors treating Himmler or Escobar."

      (Source)

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  5. This discussion is never going to end. Lol.
    But it's very interesting

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  6. Excellent dialogue, mostly *eyebrows raised at a certain individual*.

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