A young couple learns that there is a 50% chance any child they conceive will be born with a terrible, untreatable disease which will result in the child's painfully slow death in a matter of weeks or months. Under those conditions, *is it morally wrong* for them to have a child?— Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) March 17, 2019
1. Wouldn't the same logic justify eugenic abortion?
2. Since Rauser is fond of thought-experiments, here's a test-case: suppose a couple has three kids. The first kid has a congenital untreatable disease which will result in the child's painfully slow death in a matter of weeks or months. His younger siblings are healthy.
Suppose a time-machine is invented. The couple can travel back into the past and erase the first child from the original timeline. But that action will automatically erase their two younger children from the original timeline. All three children never existed in the new. Would it be wrong to do that to their healthy kids? Would that be tantamount to filicide?
This is an absolutely piercing response! Get your simplistic head round that one, Rauser.
ReplyDeleteOf course, we know Rauser's implicit response to his own thought experiment, and this counter thought experiment absolutely exposes the simplicity and vacuity of Rauser's thought processes.
By the way, what is the point of the 29%? A 'don't know' category is utterly useless. Get lost!
DeleteOn Rauser's own theology, doesn't this mean it was morally wrong for God to create the world? (For various reasons; historically very high infant mortality being just one).
ReplyDeleteOf course. And God knew with 100% certainty the exact number of babies that would be born with untreatable diseases from which they would soon die. No '50% chance' here. Infallible knowledge.
DeleteLike anyone expects Rauser to be consistent.
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