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Bodily integrity vs moral responsibility

#31
Ben the Donkey Offline
(Aug 25, 2016 04:03 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote:
(Aug 25, 2016 04:00 PM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: However, to address a later one... All morality is objective, Trooper. 
We just don't know it.

I'm not quite sure what you mean.  Are you going to leave me hanging?

Not right now. Think about it in terms of social evolution. 

Do we really know why we think how we think?

*edit - actually that last line probably just confuses the thing.
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#32
Secular Sanity Offline
(Aug 25, 2016 04:05 PM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: Not right now. Think about it in terms of social evolution. 

Do we really know why we think how we think?

Whoosh! Right over my head.  I'm going for a hike but I'll give it some thought.  

Hurry back, Ben.
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#33
Ben the Donkey Offline
(Aug 25, 2016 04:12 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote:
(Aug 25, 2016 04:05 PM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: Not right now. Think about it in terms of social evolution. 

Do we really know why we think how we think?

Whoosh! Right over my head.  I'm going for a hike but I'll give it some thought.  

Hurry back, Ben.

Will try. They have the NBN in Tasmania!

I've actually been thinking about it for a while now - I'm not even sure there is any such thing as "social evolution", other than as a nomenclature.
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#34
Secular Sanity Offline
(Aug 25, 2016 04:05 PM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: All morality is objective, Trooper. 
We just don't know it.

Is because society itself is a community of ideas?  Therefore, morality becomes a common thought.

Is that what you mean, Ben?
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#35
Ben the Donkey Offline
(Aug 25, 2016 04:44 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote:
(Aug 25, 2016 04:05 PM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: All morality is objective, Trooper. 
We just don't know it.

Is because society itself is a community of ideas?  Therefore, morality becomes a common thought.

Is that what you mean, Ben?
Very much so.
I really wish i had time to write more about this... I think the problem I've always had is that i'm not as interested in the minutiae as others are. I like the big picture, the why, and the how as a result of the why.

And right now, I'm feeling guilty because i'm probably yabbering on off-topic. Although, to me, it really isn't.

The whole GLB (insert more initials here) thing to me, though, isn't as much about human rights, or scientific explanations, as it is about why we're so defensive about it in the first place. Of course we are. I really don't understand why there are those who don't understand bigots.

Bigots are and have always been humanity, and have always driven humanities success in terms of evolution. It's only now, in a day and age where we can make room for the outlier, that those who are the outlier can live as equals. 
What a wondrous thing we are. 

*another edit - Sorry, Syne. Didn't mean to stray OT, just pressed for time and it happened.
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#36
C C Offline
(Aug 25, 2016 03:34 AM)Syne Wrote: As with any physician's practice, the motive should be assumed to be that of the Hippocratic Oath. IOW, it doesn't really take any guesswork to fathom that it is, indeed, about the patient's welfare. But ethics is not a case-by-case subject, so the specific context does not matter.

The broader range of standards at work behind the decision-making process for this Center would need to concern more than just the variations of a classic physician's oaths in play today. Like protection of itself legally in regard to consequences that might fall out of the prerequisites it ultimately issues, cost management so as to be competitive with rival companies or institutions (what's allotted to these ongoing processes of evaluating a candidate's status over the long haul -- like the two specialists, etc). Back to the moral sub-genre: The expanded complexities of bioethics (including input / guidelines from assorted religious faiths that have contributed to the literature) may augment their traditional medical ethics.

There's the possibility, though, that just the Center's conforming to WPATH could itself have restricted or settled their options over the broader range of interests. If 2011 was the most recent revision / setting of WPATH's standards, then it seems to have introduced items like:

A less ambiguous declaration of "gender nonconformity is not pathological".

Reparative (conversion) therapy is unethical.

“This is no longer about hormones and surgery — it’s about health in a holistic sense.”

Updated incorporations of the latest science research.

Allowing for a broader spectrum of identities – they are no longer so binary. “There is no one way of being transgender and it doesn’t have to mirror the idea of a change of their sex."

Different standards for surgery ("a transgender woman who wants her testicles removed does not have to live one year as a female").

The last area is where one of the Center's prerequisites falls out: "For people who want genital reconstructive surgery, however, the standards of care recommend living a year in the role of the gender they are transitioning."


But all these upfront decrees from WPATH still do not allow us to be privy to the specific details and processes which transpired behind the surface regarding how WPATH arrived at their standards.

Quote:What matters in ethics is what can be justifiably and consistently applied across all decisions.


Rather than such exclusive devotion to generalization and universality (a la Kant or whatever equivalent philosophical selection from the past), WPATH seems to be moving in a pragmatic direction of placing more emphasis on being flexible at the level of particular cases or "patients". But obviously it's still got one foot in the other via items like recommending the one-year roles (though "recommend" doesn't exactly sound like a strict, iron-clad rule).

By there just being such a distinct authority / standard for care as WPATH -- that specializes in transgender folk -- is venturing down from an abstract, idealized level of evaluating humanity broadly to empirically recognizing and contingently / particularly dealing with a differentiated group and the special interests of its members. I'm not asserting that's either good or bad, future-wise. But our claims of there being basic humans rights require the protection of universal applicability, of being born with them or having them via the agent-hood of being human rather than having to pragmatically earn them in the course of life. A trend of gradually eroding away at the old German codger's lingering influence from the past in that respect is not necessarily a warm prospect.
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#37
Syne Offline
(Aug 25, 2016 03:45 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: All his work has been peer reviewed, published and with strong empirical evidence.  It’s easy to locate, if you’re interested.  

Well this study of his is laughable. It never makes an empirical connection between emotion and memory...it only assumes emotion is a factor in cognitive impairment due to brain damage. With only newer technology used, it describes things that have been known since the 1950s. And I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that was in L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics. Hell, he even used to word "somatic" to describe it...and that's the second word in this guy's study. This study even makes use of skin conductance response (SCR), which is what they use in Scientology.

So how much credibility are you willing to lend him now?

Quote:Most people have no problems with putting an animal out of their misery.  Why?  Do we have more empathy for animals or is it our views on human specialness?

You don’t seem to be interested in the surgical risks or the consequences. As you can see in the above quote, objective ethics refers to a view that a person's action can always be seen as right or wrong, regardless of the consequences.

There are plenty of cosmetic procedures that impose life-threatening risks.  A healthy self-image can be quite subjective.  The standards of beauty that society imposes on people are subjected to cultural ideals and fluctuate over time.  Consider for a moment the difficulties that amputees, who are not suffering from BIID have to face.  Most amputees seem to grieve more over their loss of body image than function.  They feel that their self-image is no longer complete.  They feel rejected, less attractive, and part-whole.  BIID suffers have said that they feel more complete.  Surgery seems to reduce the severity of BIID.  However, surgery doesn’t reduce the severity of BDD.  People that are obsessed with cosmetic surgery are never satisfied but physicians continue to perform the surgeries that they request.

Surgical risks are a minimal concern when dealing with permanent loss of function. The consequences of regret in these cases are inestimable. Most cosmetic surgery does not involve removing functional healthy tissue, so while there should be some oversight to catch BDD, it does not pose the same permanent loss of function these others do.

Are you arguing against all elective surgery, on the basis of risk, or is this just a red herring to distract from the topic?

CC, do you think the motivations for the SOC have an effect on whether they are ethical?
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#38
C C Offline
(Aug 25, 2016 07:17 PM)Syne Wrote: CC, do you think the motivations for the SOC have an effect on whether they are ethical?


WPATH could be a rather bloated, complicated example of an SOC that may overlap into areas beyond what a "Standard Of Care" minimally implies. So to switch to a more generic context...

The origins of an SOC are as much susceptible to the dissections of outer ethical movements and schools, and their interpretations projected upon it, as is perhaps almost anything. But of course it will already carry its own internal flavor of such, albeit possibly very light in some cases (depending). Which is to say, an SOC can indeed potentially fall off the end of its assembly line without any moral input beyond the species of oaths its authors adhere to.

A diagnostic and treatment criterion for _X_ is supposedly worked out by cooperating medical professionals employing the available data of scientific evidence and current technology / skills. If formulation of that particular SOC is occurring at a level above the self-interests of any particular medical facility slash special interests, then "reasons for choices in guidelines" seem safely confined to the purposes of that select group of professionals.

One can assume that the professionals would include at least some individuals with background in the burgeoning varieties or spectrum of medical ethics. But that's not necessarily a given -- perhaps depending upon what sort of illness or clinical conditions slash circumstances the SOC is addressing. Also, a "Standard Of Care" is certainly not a "Care Ethics".

(There is "care ethics" as a practice devoted to maintaining the welfare of both care-givers and care-receivers. And there is "care ethics" as a moral theory or reference to a special category of moral theories. Care ethics as virtuous practice is arguably descended from [informal] sentimentalist tradition. Although there's probably nothing preventing a flavor of it from revolving around a particular formal theory.)
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#39
Syne Offline
If ethics are a construct of motivation alone, no cogent discussion about ethical merit is meaningful.
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#40
Secular Sanity Offline
(Aug 25, 2016 04:59 PM)Ben the Donkey Wrote:
(Aug 25, 2016 04:44 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote:
(Aug 25, 2016 04:05 PM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: All morality is objective, Trooper. 
We just don't know it.

Is because society itself is a community of ideas?  Therefore, morality becomes a common thought.

Is that what you mean, Ben?
Very much so.

Do you know what made me think of it?  Fernando.  

I know-I know, you probably don't even remember.  You need to work on that.  Big Grin

(Aug 25, 2016 07:17 PM)Syne Wrote: Well this study of his is laughable. It never makes an empirical connection between emotion and memory...it only assumes emotion is a factor in cognitive impairment due to brain damage. With only newer technology used, it describes things that have been known since the 1950s. And I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that was in L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics. Hell, he even used to word "somatic" to describe it...and that's the second word in this guy's study. This study even makes use of skin conductance response (SCR), which is what they use in Scientology.

So how much credibility are you willing to lend him now?

It has nothing to do with Scientology, Syne.  Somatic just means relating to the body.  You have the somatic nervous system, somatic biology, etc.  Damasio’s hypothesis has nothing to do with Dianetics.  He’s a professor of neuroscience.  Hubbard used it in terms of describing psychosomatic ills. "Hubbard described Dianetics as "the hidden source of all psychosomatic ills and human aberration" when he introduced Dianetics to the world in the 1950s."

Science advances through new discoveries, a continuous accumulation of knowledge, new technologies, theoretical explanations, testing hypotheses and theories, and either accepting them or rejecting them.  It’s not surprising to discover that some ideas are related to previous ones.

Damasio’s hypothesis is similar to an idea that was originally developed independently by two 19th-century scholars, William James and Carl Lange.

Antonio Damasio’s—Life and Work

How Our Brains Feel Emotion—Antonio Damasio

Nevertheless, I’m not stuck on Damasio’s hypothesis.  I was simply trying to convey to you that our emotions aren’t necessarily a hindrance. Curiosity is an emotion. Empathy is an emotion, etc.

The Conditions of Morality by Allen Wheelis
Certainty is not to be had. But as we learn this we become not more moral but more resigned. We become nihilists. If we know nothing for sure, how can we ever know we are right? And if we can never know we are right, how can we act? We can live without truths if we must, but quietly. But to defend good an attack evil means killing people, and how can we do that without being sure? The longer we are paralyzed by this nostalgia for lost certainty the deeper our nihilism. To go back is not possible; to go on requires that we give up the demand for certainty, become willing to act in a field of probable goods and probable evils, "to fight a lie" as Richard Hilary said, "in the name of a half truth."

Once we leave the mythical realm of certainty and enter the real world where all is contingent and temporary, we find immediately, as a great bonus, that we are already beyond nihilism. We are not in chaos, as we had feared, but in some agreement of what is wrong and what is right. Agreement is never complete, never yields certainty, but it is more than a random throw.
Nihilism and Reason—Allen Wheelis
My wife and I order sandwiches and coffee, a couple with a child, sit at the next table. The boy’s knee upsets the glass of milk, it falls. The snap of glass and splash of milk is followed a moment later by another sound, something like the crack of a rifle; the boys head jerks back. After a moment he begins to cry. His father stares at him unspeaking, unmoving. All faces are towards the family, all eyes on the man who now slaps the boy again, his hand like a rapier, quicker than a reflex, the child can’t see it coming, there’s no time to flinch: again that rifle shot, and the boy’s head jerks back. The outline of the father’s hand appears like a negative on his son’s cheek, finger’s white, outlined in red.

There is a murmur of protest. Ladies whisper disapproval. His mother is dismayed but does not intervene, does not protect, wipes away his tears with her napkin. I think the child feels her sympathy; she is telling him that this is all that is safe, that she would do more if she could.

The man is carved stone, impaling the boy on a murderous stare. The man moves not a muscle; his controlled fury does not subside. His gaze remains fixed on the convulsed boy and his expression does not alter. A minute passes. The mother daubs at her son’s face.

There it is again, that rifle shot. His head jerks back again. The murmur grows louder: “What a shame!” “He didn't mean to do it!”’ “It was an accident!”

I turn away, cannot bear to look. A young couple beside us is silent. The girl has lowered her head, the young man is staring at the father, his shoulders hunched forward, muscles as if they would burst out of the yellow tennis shirt.

Where is your nihilism now?
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