RE: Whose business is it, anyway?

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Jan 09 2003 - 10:04:22 MST


Rafal writes

> ### Most people with severe deformities resent their disability (a fact). We
> have to use probabilistic arguments about the child, and assume that she
> will develop the common attitude, rather than her mother's idiosyncratic
> distaste for limbs. Therefore, the Golden Rule (in the form of veil of
> ignorance) demands that we act in the predicted interest of the child, and
> stop/punish her mother.

Of course, I balk when I read phrases like "Golden rule demands",
"we act", and "predicted interest". Surely you feel some unease
with these terms and all that they imply.

Don't forget Hal's post of Monday 1/6/2003 6:54 PM which included

"It's not a simple issue. And looking forward, what happens if everyone
else starts enhancing their children with some kind of neural interface
that makes them seem inhuman? Is it really wrong for someone to say
that they want their kids to grow up the same way as their ancestors
have done? It might not be Extropian, but I think we can all recognize
the discomfort that someone would feel if they knew their children were
going to be fundamentally unlike them, foreign in some way."

To wax satirical for a moment, I can just see you "acting"
to "save the children" of religious non-conformists who
don't want their children enhanced with the latest gadgetry
or genes. I mean, you already think it perfectly justified
for the state to remove children from the care of "unfit"
parents, or force medical treatments upon them which the
parents oppose. BTW, do you ever get a little charge out
of getting to use the word "force"?, (a not entirely fair
question.)

Lee



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