The following are some of my resent card designs. / I thought I’d do some vector work. / they are also available as prints ect… enjoy!! / ...
The following are some of my resent card designs. / I thought I’d do some vector work. / they are also available as prints ect… enjoy!! We have matching buttons on our blog / / / / /
*Precautionary Note: Though what is herein discussed goes no further than any good college argumentative essay, it approaches sensitive s…
Precautionary Note: Though what is herein discussed goes no further than any good college argumentative essay, it approaches sensitive subject matter in a very objective light. I have received a few comments that state perhaps this is something I should have kept to myself… however, no one learns anything if everyone is afraid to speak (their own) personal truth. If you feel you cannot handle reading a philosophical discussion concerning the value of life, please read no further. Background: Anencephaly is a condition where a baby is born without the cerebral hemispheres and the rear of the brain – in essence, a body without even the ability to breath, and thus DOA Perhaps it sounds horrible of me to say, but the question of anencephaly brings to mind Swift’s satirical document “A Modest Proposal”. In it, the recommendation is very rationally made that hunger and social problems would be eased greatly should the government adopt a system in which the wealthier citizens breed and eat the impoverished of the cities. Though it was obviously a stab at the class structure of the time, it none the less comes off very convincingly, making it one of my favorite things to think over. Some would pall at even reading the suggestion of eating babies, and these are the individuals who will never succeed in debate. To fairly argue anything effectively, the heart and the soul must be left far outside the lines. The most skilled debaters can defend any point of view, regardless of their own personal feelings or faith, and this serves them well not only in a formal setting, but also in their every day lives where it allows for them to look at both sides of all issues. The case of anencephalic infants is an unfortunate one, even so, it must be approached in way unsympathetic from both sides. It simply will not do to have the mothers with personal experience crying, or religious zealots sermonizing to the moon. Ideally, when government is involved in anything, it should hold the same middle ground a good debater does, doing what is best for the whole of the society rather than what assuages fanatics or the over-wrought. This, in reality, should never be expected, as in the real world, we are all subject to the personalization of issues by others. Though as far as I’m concerned social policy regarding severe cases such as anencephaly should be changed, it likely won’t. It makes perfect sense to allow what is otherwise a wasted resource to be utilized in beneficial ways, but the chances of this ever occurring in America are slim. Being that this country was founded on the idea of freedom of belief, there is by far too great a percentage of the population who would see such an action, especially on the part of the government, as an abomination of biblical proportions. The philosophical schools of thought can be used to frame arguments both for and against the consideration of such a healthcare reform, but it is all a matter of an individual’s perception of to what extent government should have a hand in the lives of it’s people. Again, for reasons all my own, I would strongly argue for the institution of such a policy, and so I will put titles to these reasons in philosophical fashion and use them to support this stance. Being that I am an extremely rational pragmatist who utilizes theories ideally, I will be examining the Idealist, Pragmatist, and Utilitarianism based arguments in the general tradition of the Rationalist view – that being you will find no sympathy in the vision I present. First though, I want to glance over Consequentialism, and what I found it’s argument to be in the case of a government intervening in matters of life and death – though it does not work well to proving my point, it does pose in interesting problem which should be noted. So here we begin with Consequentialism. Following this school in any situation is a bad idea in my opinion. In it’s ideal form, it requires one to foresee an incalculable value to the result of their decisions, and yet there is no measure to gauge one outcome or another. Until humans have the divine sight of judging intrinsic value in both individuals and the innate, one who follows this theory to it’s extreme would not only never make a decision ever, but would also be constantly assaulted by anxieties over all the decisions they aren’t making, and whether or not not making decisions is the right choice or not (ha!, I love the run-on). In the case of an anencephalic infant, though it appears that the right decision would be to declare it dead and use it’s organs, this really cannot be said for certain. If we take into account an individual’s faith, there is no telling what the effect of possibly going against their beliefs might be. It appears more beneficial to make the choice which in the end has saved a handful of lives instead of the one which just ends you up with a bunch of dead people, but no one can say what the possible implications, if not the fire and damnation kind, at least mentally, the act would have on those involved. For this reason, Consequentialism leads to a sort of stalemate between the two sides of the debate over government intervention to save the organs. Unlike the typical stalemate however, in this case not acting is actually the successful fulfillment of one side of the argument’s wishes – by not completing the argument efficiently, the result is no action, the precise stance taken by one of the sides to begin with. This reason more than any other is likely to be the one which has kept our government out of the anencephalic infant “mix”. It is a tie in which one of two is doomed to “forfeit” by default. Therefore, though I concede victory to my antithesis’ in the argument under this philosophical theory, I do so unwillingly. Curiosity to why I would include such a powerful claim against my argument can be easily satisfied by noting the way in which Consequentialism cheats in order to attain victory for my opposing team. There is a wide spread misconception that just because something is one way, that it got there by merit of it’s reasoning. You can see here that this is not the case. The long and short of something does not make it’s reality right, it just makes it how it is. To give credit to the argument against government intervention based on having noted it has yet to do so is wrong, as it is prisoner to these same rules of engagement. The “against” side might win here, but remember, in the end, cheaters never prosper. Moving on to my case, if I were allowed only one realm of philosophical thought on this issue, I would chose Idealism. It fits perfectly with how I normally think. Idealism says that the brain, and what it tells us we sense, are all that make up existence. When you touch a table, the brain tells you it is solid. If you see the grass, it is only there because you’re brain says so. If you taste a hamburger, it only has flavor because the mind interprets it that way (though I guess if you’re eating at McDonalds, more likely it’s MSG and peanut oil rim-shot). Basically, Idealists think that there is no world outside the brain. These poor anencephalic infants, then, are at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to life – they have no higher brain. No higher brain means no table, no grass, no McDonalds. In essence, these kids have no world. Think of it this way… If the infant has no brain, then in it’s realm of existence, the people making the decisions whether to call it dead or not don’t exist either. There would be no argument, because if to the infant no one exists, then there is no one to see that the infant exists either, by which token it doesn’t. If the infant doesn’t exist, then who cares what we do with it anyway? Right, I know, a lot to take in, but honestly… Idealist thought puts so little value to the life of such an infant, that within it, arguing not to do all possible to use it’s organs elsewhere would be like arguing against the discovery of an endless, free energy supply that also feeds starving Romanian babies in it’s time off. Inane. Ok, time for an theory less intrinsic of the meaning of existence and more focused on proper functioning within that existence. Pragmatism, though admittedly vague in some areas of operation, states that truth of anything should be based on it’s value or usefulness. If truth is the right thing to do morally, then the morality of an action comes from whether it works out to provide a tangible benefit of some kind. Taking the case of anencephaly, the ultimate outcome can be one of two things: a dead baby, or a dead baby and a few healthy transplant survivors. Trying to keep dead baby jokes to a minimum, I’ll just note that the former of these two is not at all productive, while the latter has the possibility of greater usefulness. Revisiting my old friend the math problem, the idea that anyone would choose the variable in the equation 0 = y over that in the equation 0+4 = y, is hard to fathom. Take a simple example: A child, if their mother asked “Ok, little Billy, would you like to have no dessert tonight, or four desserts tonight?” is not going to say he wants none. Even if the child doesn’t like the desserts which he is offered, he will take them to school and trade them or sell them or something, getting what benefit out of them he can. Come on, if it’s something a child knows, then it must be human nature at it’s simplest. To take something instead of nothing is one of the instincts humans are born with… just as is asking “why”. If these instincts are wrong, then asking “why?” is wrong, and everyone in this class is going to hell… do you want to go to hell? I didn’t think so. So, to make a long story short (too late), by the rules of Pragmatism, a government which didn’t consider cases such as anencephalic infants with the realization of the greater usefulness in making a simple pronouncement of death to save other lives would be acting untrue to the best interest of its’ people. It would not be making hierarchical truth out of the more useful approach to the situation, and by the same token would be considered to be acting immorally. Along the same lines as Pragmatism is Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism says that both the morally and logically correct decision in any case is that which benefits the most people. The simple matter under this theory is that for every one anencephalic infant which would be let die, multiple organ transplants would be possible saving multiple lives. Yet another little example: It’s sad when the gazelle gets ripped apart by a heard of bloodthirsty lions, but it is natures way. Think about the benefit in the larger sense. A small pack of lionesses survive another few days off of that one gazelle. Later, perhaps lion cubs will also get the nourishment it provides through their mother’s milk. To top it all off, the whole while the film crew has been getting great footage of “the kill” which will no doubt rake in some money from the Discovery Channel or Nova. This is another simple equation of “which is greater?”: One gazelle, or four adult lionesses, nine lion cubs, three camera guys from Westchester and a director from Cincinnati? (All you gazelles out there can put down your hoofs… you don’t count). Yes, it is the short end of the stick for minorities once again, because the idea of benefiting the greater number just works. Government officials know this, whether or not they act like it, because in a our society their position’s there are entirely thanks to majority consent. If it were as simple as a matter of doing good for the greater number though, the government would have implemented measures to harvest baby organs a century ago. Democracy is very much a Utilitarian institution, but as I earlier explained, it falls to the whim of the slide of public opinions. The majority of people consider what is best for them to be what they want. Because a majority in this country seem to want to obsesses over blind, faith-driven illogicalities, the masses simply will not allow the government to save lives by prematurely taking them. The source of this trend probably began in the same backwards thinking that looked at stem cells and thought they heard the minute heads screaming in pain as they become livers and hearts (but I digress into a different paper). To sum this one up, within Utilitarianism, the choice serving the most individuals’ benefit, in the case of anencephaly, is organ harvesting. This is a mathematical certainty. / Aware of my approaching dangerously close to redundancy, Rationalism is pretty much the way I think. That is, I think logically within any situation and judge accordingly. I am not a faith driven person, nor am I one to put any stock in emotional pleas. Some may consider this heartless, but many of those who do are likely the same ones who bomb abortion clinics to save lives, or those who would let a murderer go free just because he had a family to support. The question of pronouncing anencephalic infants dead in time to harvest their organs falls along the same lines as abortion as far as how it strikes some people as wrong. I believe the argument goes something like, (you’ll just have to imagine the southern twang) “God is the only one who can choose who lives and who dies. Repent! Or his whim will smite you down!”, or (use a 19th century presidential-type voice for this one) “Every human has the right to make their own choices of how to live and who to be. The day we start deciding for others what is right, is the day this country looses what makes it America. Apple pie, and guns! Up with the Democr… uh, …Republic!” Now, I will say that both of these arguments are rousing, and I wish I could buy into the impassioned hype, but my self-respect won’t allow it. The world is over populated as it is, and the prospects for a 14 year old rape-victim mother aren’t exactly wonderful. By this same token, it may be thinking I would prefer to let the anencephalic infant AND all the people it’s organs could save die – but if you are, it’s just that damned emotion getting in the way again. I am a child of logic, not Satan. It is merely the sensible thing to do to save some room on earth and abort unwanted babies – the same goes for using a life which has no purpose other than the good it can do others, for (ding, ding), the good of others. Many based on faith, emotion, or hard-headedness would strongly refute any argument I could make in this matter, something which I have come to live with, but still makes me a bit ill. It is hard for me to conceive of why anyone born with this amazing thing called a brain would choose some other haphazard system or emotion to make choices instead. Equally as hard to imagine is an infant without a brain being kept alive on principal. This posed question is not a discussion of the morality of harvesting organs, the government already allows this. Instead, it is the question of at what point does the possible benefit of an action merit possible but unlikely infringement on the freedoms which the government also allows us all, thereby classifying it as unethical. As I stated in my introduction, my personal belief is that there should be reforms as to policy regarding the point of death in severe situations. I also said this is not going to happen. The majority of people in this world can’t vote correctly, how can we expect they are capable of sensible thought. When asked for something tangible, most give you back a rant on the sacred nature of life or morality, or some vapid-of-certainty ism which could only have been made up by a masochist. Though not really asked, close enough as this question is to the morality of cutting one life short to save another, I will go ahead and say with no hesitation that it, to, is morally sound. Truthfully, I’d say it was immoral not to declare the anencephalic infant dead in time to use it’s organs for others. Again though, popular opinion and my own do not often occupy the same areas. So, long winded as can be, I think it’s time to wrap this whole thing up. A government, in the end, would have great difficulty implementing any reform which sought to effect something as closely guarded as people’s belief in the value life. I have talked a lot about how philosophical theories would work to prove that greater good comes from the action of readjusting the scale of death because debating on the implications of action of those who make rules in our society is moot – it is the response to these actions by the general public which carry the impact. It is the effect of ending the life, not the implementation of new law, which divides the masses on this subject, and so it was a more efficient use of debate to go to that core of ending life. It is no mystery why the three theories I chose are Idealism, Pragmatism, and Utilitarianism; like their very names, the three theories I chose give you just what would be expected. They represent the earliest of natures within man and his society. Before advanced thought we were “animals”, and though we like to think we have left that behind certain aspects of our old beast-like selves were better. One of these things was the will to survive presenting itself as part of all decisions, not just those that actually impacted our own lives. The world has becomes so sickly politically correct as to forget that sometimes things just have to be done because it’s for the best. Cutting life short when it is one obviously not fit to live is not cruel, it’s best all around for most everyone. I think if people would stop looking up quite so much, and start looking around, enough of them would see this truth to make a change in government policy. In the end however, there is no fighting humanity and it’s often infuriating will.
My weaving Harvest Fields was featured today in the ”’Colour M…
My weaving Harvest Fields was featured today in the ‘Colour Me a Rainbow’ group, during their yellow-themed week. Next is the invite-only special challenge with other yellow featured artists! Many thanks to the hosts for the feature – the first one for this artwork!
!http://images-2.redbubble.net/img/art/framecolor:black/framestyle:flat30/mattecolor:black/product:framed-print/size:large/view:preview/2…
“The Blue And The Grey An American Quilt” Placed in the top 10 for best of “Q” in the group Alphabet Soup, what a great honor, thanks all that voted! “Harvest Time” placed in the top 10 in the “Find A Wagon” Challenge in the group “Scavenger Hunt” Thanks again for all who voted!
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