I tend to think that reality doesn’t always offer people good choices. Sometimes all of your choices suck, and you just try to choose the least bad option.

I meant that.

To choose a not that loaded example, I personally think it is “wrong” for people to breed or buy purebred animals.

I don’t think less of people who breed or own purebred animals I don’t think it should be illegal or that purebred animals should be put down, or that the breeds should be allowed to die out. There are many valid reasons a person might breed or own purebred animals. BUT I personally couldn’t do it without pain in my conscience, because I believe it contributes to a larger problem. Therefore, I don’t do it, even though I want a Sphynx cat really really badly.

As Prof Lurker said, it is an action that does not maximize happiness and minimize suffering, which, as an atheist with no use for social convention but with a huge love for people and animals, is pretty much my definition of wrong.

That is why I can’t see it as wrong to have an abortion or get sterilized: there is no suffering involved, whereas with an unwanted pregnancy or child, there’s loads of suffering involved, including the child’s. I cannot consider an embryo that lacks the ability to feel fear and despair as more important than the desires of a woman who is very capable of feeling pain and fear and despair, all three. (People who think it’s wrong of me to not have kids because the kids who don’t exist won’t get the chance to exist and do fun things are on a different freaking planet, sorry. I have no truck with that argument.)

You’re making a distinction here between what you think is right and what you think should be legal, and I appreciate that. Many people are not capable of making that distinction at all. I wish it were otherwise, and that more people were as thoughtful and as reasoned as you are.

My primary problem with many arguments of this type is that if one says “I believe this is wrong, but each person must choose for themselves, and their individual choice may very well be the right thing,” then to me, that’s an action that can’t really be judged by anyone but the person doing it. As such we must refrain from judgment and trust each person to make that decision for themselves. Individual choices may be right or wrong, but the question itself does not have a right answer. Very often the answer is NOT to dictate by law what must be done, because in forcing things one way or the other, more wrong is done to society collectively than would be done if people were allowed to choose and sometimes chose badly (as people do).

I consider it highly unethical to abridge freedom and human agency. If, to me, a thing is more wrong than abridging freedom, then it’s very wrong indeed. If it is not, or if there are likely-to-arise circumstances under which it is entirely okay, then it can’t be called “wrong” categorically. I can only think of a very few things that are always and without exception wrong. (I would rather call those things evil, I think.) Rape is one. I don’t see any grey there at all. None. Enslavement, the total and complete removal of freedom, is another.

Even taking a human life has, for me, huge grey areas. It absolutely should not be legal to murder people, but there are circumstances where it is, if not okay, at least the lesser of two evils to kill (killing being distinct from murder — one may kill in self defense, or to end suffering).

Sounds like what you’re saying is that there are objective standards about what’s right and wrong – e.g. it is always wrong to committ mass murder, it is never wrong to feel empathy, it is wrong to break a promise under circumstances x, y, z.

Unfortunately, what is truly right and wrong (in a given circumstance, or full stop) is sometimes hard to discern, so we have to employ our own judgment, even though this is subjective and we don’t always get it right, and even though our judgment doesn’t *make* an action right or wrong or even *influence* whether it is right or wrong. In addition to the objective standards of when an action is right or wrong, there are standards for when a person acted rightly, i.e. acted in a way that, from his own (admitedly limited) point of view, was most likely the right action.

One reason this might be the right picture is that the criteria for whether an action is right or wrong (whether you think that criteria is, e.g., actions are wrong when social convention deems them wrong, actions are wrong when God says they’re wrong, actions are wrong when they don’t maximize happiness or minimize suffering, etc.) might be different from the *advice* you give a person who is deciding which action to perform (e.g. you wouldn’t say “do the thing that maximizes happiness” or “do the right thing,” since this advice, while it might be strictly correct, is nearly impossible to follow, You would say “do the thing that seems right to you” or “Do what your conscience tells you.”).

So, assume someone broke a promise under the wrong circumstances, and so performed an act that was morally wrong. But he did it because he thought (wrongly) that he was in a circumstance in which it was okay, e.g. he thought he could save 10 lives by breaking the promise. Then, Marymette might say, he performed a morally wrong act by breaking the promise, but he didn’t act wrongly, because he acted in accord with what he thought would cause him to perform the right act.

(Admittedly it might not be the best choice of phrases – “wrong act” vs. “acting wrongly” – you might want to say “objectively wrong” but “subjectively okay,” if those terms aren’t already too loaded? Maybe “ultimately wrong” but “procedurally right”? But am I roughly getting at what you’re thinking?)

Compare the following: Presumably there are objective truths that science is trying to discern (e.g. water is H2O, oxygen has 8 electrons, etc.). And presumably the best way to figure out what’s true is to use (something like) the scientific method. But, of course, sometimes the scientific method spits out something false, like that water is XYZ. If a scientist made this judgment, he would be objectively wrong (in that he had a false belief), but he might still be doing good science, even though the aim of science is truth.

For example, (even though she might not care about my opinion), I don’t think Naamah is, on her part, acting morally wrong-ly (yikes) by getting sterilized, if she is truly following her conscience. I still think sterilization itself if morally wrong. Does that make sense?

I’m not making any sense of it.

How does a medical procedure carry a moral weight all by itself if the actions of the people involved in that procedure, in sound mind and with full knowledge of all the arguments for and against, carry no moral weight? How is there a moral judgement when you subtract all moral agents from the picture? It’s like saying that atoms are morally wrong, or addition, or transpiration.

Just for the record, I have taken in low-income women, including single moms, into my home, but not primarily because I wanted to “save the poor little lives of their babies” or something. I just wanted to do something to help women. I’ve also lived for a number of years in an intentional community that takes in undocumented immigrants and refugees, although since I got married and moved into a tiny place we haven’t taken anyone in, which is starting to bother me.

I think that a lot of very hypocritical Christians have contributed to the number of abortions precisely because they are NOT accepting of single mothers, especially young ones. For someone to demonize a girl for getting pregnant and then demonize her for getting an abortion, WTF? And even though I believe in fetus’ rights, I don’t believe in punishing women who have abortions.

I agree that I am not a victim of legal discrimination as a Catholic Christian, and that is a big deal. To be legally discriminated against is much worse than the kind of social ostracism I feel. And I know that many other minority groups face much more social discrimination than I do. I’m sorry that I didn’t make that more clear. I think that fetuses are legally discriminated against, but I already said that. I do sometimes worry that my free speech as a Christian might someday be legally curtailed in the US, but it hasn’t happened so far.

I don’t believe that I have “gritted-teeth tolerance” of the type I see in Sarah Palin. I’m surely not seething at anyone’s existence (other than sometimes maybe my mother-in-law’s).

Also I didn’t say anything about gay marriage, so I’m not sure if some of the comments about that were specifically directed at my comment or not. I think any kind of domestic partnership (straight, gay, trans, even siblings or other relatives who want to share legal responsibilities) should have the same protection under the law. Whether it’s “marriage” or not is between those people and their beliefs. I don’t think the state should even refer to heterosexual couples as married. Why is it that the state recognizes a piece of paper that the pastor of my church signed, saying I’m married? I know what marriage is in my church, but as far as the state is concerned, why should my rights or designation be different than anyone else’s who is in a domestic partnership?

Nobody has absolute agency in their life unless they live alone in the wilderness or something. But I agree with the rest of the full and equal citizenship thing that Cindy brings up.

And I support Naamah’s right to tell me she thinks I’m morally wrong and a sexist! I want to clarify that just because I think an action is wrong, I don’t think the person is morally wrong. If a person is following her conscience, then there is no “sin” (to use a charged word) in that. For example, (even though she might not care about my opinion), I don’t think Naamah is, on her part, acting morally wrong-ly (yikes) by getting sterilized, if she is truly following her conscience. I still think sterilization itself if morally wrong. Does that make sense?

I’ve had the opposite experience from Naamah, actually, of having sterilization/birth control pushed on me for a personal reason that I don’t want to talk about right now. And like I said, I totally think sterilization should be legal – it’s a woman’s choice what to do with her own body. I think the only exception would be when there is another life involved.

I do not support lauredhel’s comment which was basically telling me to shut up and saying that my comments are oppressing her:

“So you think it’s morally wrong for me to not spend the next ten years of my partnership celibate? Here’s the thing – not only do I not want anyone to curtail my legal freedoms, I also just plain _don’t want to know_ about your sexist moral judgements. Legal force isn’t the only oppression out there.”

I don’t see how her following statement that she was just saying, “my point is to keep sexist moral judgements to yourself, or risk being thought of as someone who is sexist and judgemental” fits with that first comment, but whatever.

This is a feminist blog and I try to be a respectful and polite feminist while not curtailing my own views, even if others don’t think my views are feminist. It is also a fat acceptance blog, and that aspect of it is extremely important to me. I want to comment on this site because the ideas on here mean a lot to me.

I don’t agree that it doesn’t matter when I think life begins. Peter Singer (the philosopher and animal rights activist and Princeton ethics professor) thinks that some people with severe disabilities don’t really have viable life as we know it, and that they should be able to be killed. Just because I think those with severe disabilities have real life, and he doesn’t, does that mean that I have no right to say that killing those people should be illegal?

I’m trying to think of some way to tie all this to the Palin/Biden debate so I can justify putting all this up here. But I can’t. Is it ok that it is responding to comments in the thread?

Also, in response to an older comment, I have to say that it doesn’t matter when YOU think human life begins. What matters is the living consequence of making abortion illegal (or merely difficult to obtain). No one wants that, no matter which side of the divide you’re on, unless what you really want (sanctity of life be damned) is to punish women who have unwanted pregnancies.

Stands up to applaud. Whistles. Throws a bouquet of multi-coloured roses.

As a religious person who happens to be gay AND in an interracial relationship, I don’t want tolerance.

I want full citizenship. I want the full benefits of membership in a republican democracy.

I really couldn’t care less if someone can *tolerate* me or not. If someone seethes over my existence, that’s his trip. He or she can seethe all they want. They are welcome to lose all sorts of headspace and energy struggling to tolerate me.

I want full and equal citizenship. I want to determine my next of kin. I want to bequeath my wealth and property to my lover of 13 years. I want what the most dangerous felon can have without anyone’s consent.

I want the birthright that belongs to every free citizen of every free nation.

I want absolute agency in my own damn life.

I work for a metropolitan daily that has a history of endorsing conservative political candidates – and some liberal ones, too. We publish Kathleen Parker, Ann Coulter, Walter Williams and Cal Thomas. Pardon me if the “liberal media” chorus makes me very hot under the collar. My publisher? Republican. Yes, he’s the big bull moose of the paper. Our editorial writer? Liberal. But guess who reads and approves his work? The Publisher. A Republican.

The fourth estate does not have an inflated sense of its own importance. I’m not a political reporter, but I work next to the guys and gals who cover city hall and the county courts. They slog through thousands of pages of documents that trail back to republicans and democrats for crap pay — all so that the media consumer can huff and growl about bias left, right and center. When we get complaints from all sides, we know we’re doing our jobs.

When you run for public office and you win your office, your private life is over. And thank goodness for that, because if it wasn’t, the taxpayers wouldn’t learn about the elected official with dirty money in his home freezer. And taxpayers wouldn’t have learned that one president defiled the Oval Office with the occasional blow job. I won’t even touch Nixon.

Yes, it’s unfair. Yes, it’s vicious. Democracy doesn’t mean getting along and being comfortable.

I can take the heat for that.