And I think you have conceded the conversation, as you have failed to demonstrate alternative methods for consideration. I don't really see any value presenting additional substantiation, since it is clear you are here only to critique.

wink, wink - nudge, nudge

__________________
-JD
1Thess5:21
Ordained Deacon, PCA
Serving in the SBC
MS

Team blog: ChristianSkepticism.org | Personal:...a Longmire rambles | facebook

Here's the essence of the convo.

The conversation was: why is it moral.

Your response: Because the good reaps more hedons than the bad.

My response: Prove it.

Your response: It's to complicated, but I could, just trust me.

I don't let atheists get off the hook when they think saying so makes it so, I can't let you either. Being a Christian isn't a free ride to making poor arguments.

So, yes, I've conceeded that you couldn't provide a good moral justification. You at least got that right.

__________________
Regards,

J.J.
PCA
Suffix

Got about 10 minutes before chow time, so, to empirically prove my point to my brother, since that is the only evidence he will accept (such a doubting Tom...):

~6000 ambulance services in the US - say they - in toto - only make make 5 life saving trips per week:

6000 X 5 X 52 = ~1,560,000

Total fatalities by auto in the US/year = ~40000

I have the references if you need them.

How could they *know*? It seems to me that there are moral and immoral uses of this convenience machine. Hypothetical arguments for or against based on outcomes does not overturn the right of the individual to weigh these chioces--Automible drivers ought to know and take responsibility for the dangers of driving--the same with your "convenience machine". Convenience is not a wicked goal--it costs no lives, and murder is a sin.

__________________
Rev. Todd Ruddell
Pastor, Christ Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPCGA)
Wylie, TX
www.christcovenantreformedpc.org

Our best marks can contribute nothing to our justification, ...that is proper to faith. Faith cannot lodge in the soul alone, and without other graces; yet faith alone justifies before God.--G. Gillespie

The original hypothetical presented the knowledge that deaths would result as a given. So the statements were assuming that in the argument.

In other words, the original question asked how would one vote it if we are certain that convenience did cost lives.

__________________
R.Vic Bottomly
Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Tacoma, WA

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Your argument only works if you assign an equal amount of hedons all around. Or, if you view your facts in isolations from other facts.

Death could cost 50 hedons while life saving could reap 15 hedons.

When S suffers, for him, it costs 1,000,000,000,000 hedons. When S* gets pleasure it's worth 25 hedons.

How would you know about the above two? Where's the calculations. Gonna find that on your google search engine? Perhaps Wikipedia has an article on it?

Or, say those whose lives were saved went out and did more evils resulting in a net loss of 10,000,000 hedons. Say one became the next Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Amin rolled up into one.

Or, one of those who died by getting hit, counterfactually, happened to be the person who would have (had it not been for the car) invented a cure for cancer, thus saving untold millions of lives. Thus the end result puts you in the red. Negative hedon balance.

J.D. haven't you learned anything from Bahnsen, Frame, Helm, Byl, Oliphint, Rae, Moreland, Craig, Shaffer-Landeau, Pojman, Rachels, Adams, etc., etc., etc.,

YOU HAVE NO WAY TO CALCULATE THE MULTIFARIOUS FACTORS!!! How many times do you need to read that? You have no clue how much John X has to pay and how much John Y receives. No one has been able to do this. As Bahnsen has said, you'd have to be omniscient to be a Utilitarian.

Back to the drawing board for you....

I never said that it was a wicked goal. I'm actually for it, and cars, etc.

I tried to get people to give moral justifications for actions.

Thought it would bring out someo interesting points.

Apparently some people feel threatened that I'd ask them to present moral justifications for actions rather than taking things for granted.

I repent in sackcloth and ashes.

As Bruce Lee said in Enter The Dragon: "Don't think, feel."

No more of this and this and a lot more of this and this

Dear Merry Fellow,

I hope you understand I'm not dodging your question. There are so many other factors that enter into a "cause and effect" relationship. I agree with you and Bahnsen in saying that one would have to be omniscient to be utilitarian. Further, I agree with Clark in saying that a cause and effect relationship would also require omniscience to ascertain.

How exactly do machines kill people? Are not machines extensions of the human will and action? Are not machines morally neutral? Perhaps I'm not limiting my thoughts and considerations to your hypothetical situation. I'm not sure that this question can be answered without the specifics of the case--how do those that die from the use of this machine die? Is it human neglect or error? It is a violation of the 6th Commandment, or is it not?

Can the machine be improved so that it poses less danger? Should we refrain form manufacture until such improvements are studied, and made? Is the right use of this machine harmless, and the misuse that kills?

Sorry, brother. Perhaps my mental faculties are not very well suited to this type of hypothetical situation. I would be willing to look at any particular case, and compare it to the Moral Law to arrive at a Biblical finding. But your situation raises too many questions for me to give a good answer.

Thanks,

Rev. Todd,

Sorry for snapping.

the point it: By having X machine, that will cost us X-hundred/thousand/million?... life.

X machine is largly for our convenience, for our ability to grow economically, etc.

Fact is, human life is dying. Howver that happens - accideent, on pupose, etc. - doesn't really matter. We have thousands of dead image bearers for our (largely) convenience machine.

Since having X machine and using it is an action we perform, and since it has certain side effects, and one of those effetcs is loss of human life, then our actions (or approval of the situation) are responsible (whether directly or indirectly, on purpose or by accidents, doesn't matter) for loss of life. It seems that this could be morally evaluated. For example, say that X-machine were the black slaves. We rightly ask them to justify slavery. We find out that the convenience wasn't worth the price.

So, I'm just asking about how we bring moral principles to the situation and apply them, some answers might say something about our character and motives, and thus answering the question touches on the 4 main (or three, if you include the last two, as do Frame and Bahnsen) types of ethical systems.

That was basically the purpose, but this thread dragging on and getting lower on my priority list since other fish have arisen to fry.

It does matter because the proper use of a convenience machine would not cause these deaths, but the missuse would. The same could be said for anything. Proper use of a shovel won't cause 75,000 deaths. But if you use is improperly to stab 75,000 people with it, it will cost 75,000 deaths. Should we then not create the shovel? It matters a lot.

Simply put, if you drive the speed limit, obey all traffic laws, wear your seat belt, and watch out for other drivers (who are all doing the same) as you should, there won't be the 75,000 deaths. The accidents don't happen because people are properly using the convenience machine. They happen because people fail to take all the necessary precautions and use it properly.

__________________

take a car for instance. one could use it properly, obey the rules, get all the tune-ups, etc., and the car could hydroplane and cause a 50 car pile up. Your assumption that car accidents only occur via missuse is a dubious assumption, at best.

Simply put, you must be Amish. Haven't been around vehicles much?

Simply put, people ARE going to missuse it. Can't get around that. So, factor that it. That is: A device that is used for our convenience, but people will missuse it and cost 50,000 Americann lives per yer, and people will properly use it and cost 25,000 lives per year. So, we know that it takes lives - by accident/proper use + accident/improper use + non-accident improper use. Fact is, lives are lost due to our desire to have the machine, doesn't matter how.

And, if you must, take the number down to 25,000. There, that sounds better. Of course we're morally justified with the 25,000. I mean, it's just 25,000. That's a drop in the bucket.

No, its just that he doesn't live in California. Ha!

__________________
Caleb
Trinity Baptist Church
Spokane, WA

Interesting thread.

I know I'm jumping in here late, but this does sound like a classic case of utilitarianism from a worldly ethical viewpoint. Does your pleasure (convenience) outweigh the pain of others (families who lose loved ones). But doesn't that come into play for any convenience machine or invention? I don't know what the statistics are but I imagine over the years the butter knife has caused some accidental deaths. Granted, it hasn't caused near as many deaths as the automobile. But as Tom said, does it matter if it's 75,000 deaths a year or two?

I guess the hardness of man's heart has its effects on all things, whether it be marriage, the automobile, or the butter knife.

__________________
Ryan Barnhart - Pastor of OGBC
Husband to a beautiful wife, Father to two beautiful girls
"But by the grace of God I am what I am." I Corinthians 15:10

"I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms. And in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer." - John Paton

Now that's an intrinsic evil.

Dear brother, according to your answer, no technology would ever have been developed. We would exist in a perpetual state of analysis paralysis. I concur with the fact that we humans are indeed limited by our non-omniscience. How wonderful it is that we have sovereign guidance over all these things! Since we know that "all things work together for good", we can take some comfort in knowing that even with our simple pragmatic calculations we do not pre-judge the worth of even one human life over the other. It is a choice to utilize the technology we develop with an understanding that some risk comes with the reward. You did not include the consideration that along with my vote to allow the machine would also be my tacit expectation to utilize it. It is my choice to take the risk, along with my authority over my family to expose them to the risk and I am willing to do that only because the risk is so small, the reward so great and the ultimate outcome is under God's sovereignty. I use this rationale every day.

It is this rationale that we follow when we reject the "convenience machine" of abortion. God has helped us understand the risk v reward in this instance. The risk of murdering or tactily approving the murder of a human being, any human being, no matter what the "hedon" balance is, compromises our assurance of eternal reward.

It is also this rationale that I follow when I approve the "convenience machine" of capital punishment. God has helped us understand that certain acts (say murder) outweigh any present or future potential of this person, so the risk of approving this death does not compromise my eternal reward and is also a high reward for society, in general.

My seeming "empiricism" is always tempered by my God-given morality and an understanding that He is sovereign.

SDG!

"Hedon balance". Now there is an interesting term. My mind is incapable of forming a mental picture around those words, and for that I am grateful.

J.D.

No technology would develop only if you oversimplify things. You see, I don't only take consequences into account (or, sometimes God tells us what they are and so an omniscient being told us what they are and we can trust him). To give a cost/benefit answer, as your only answer, suffers from the problems I've listed.

"All things work tegether for good" is simplistic again. Why not bring back American slavery? Because it's immoral? Oh, so we need to look at the morality of our actions? That's what I'm doing here. So you've begged the question, again.

I know we all have the "gut feeling" that our use of cars isn't immoral. And, it probably isn't. But, when asked for a moral justification for that, we must admit that you've flat out not given good reasons for that "gut feeling." The numbers you gave were always shown to be based on short sighted and sloppy calculations, you frequently assumed the morality of the action up for discussion, and you didn't include other necessary features required for making moral decisions, you just appealed to teleological ethics.

And, as I've said, and as you continue to ignore, my cost v benefit analysis includes trust in God's guidance, through Word and Spirit - what He does tell us and what He doesn't tell us. What do you have to offer?

The only one oversimplifying is you - you continue to try and run the discussion off-course by critiquing vs. offering an alternative to my rationale. It is easy to drum up problems, not so easy to give solutions. Your method is weak.

lol - My earlier presupposition that automobiles have a higher reward than risk was based on a reasonable assumption that I then backed up with factual evidence based on a presupposition of the equal value of human life. At least my "short sighted and sloppy" calculations refer to real numbers and not to some figmented "hedon" that I pulled from some nether region of my body!

You appeal to "something" that disallows for anyone to make any decision based on anything because we can't possibly know all the consequences caused by our decision. Now, I will and have admitted to our non-omniscience, but I have plenty of support to decide/choose based on my faith and reason. What are you appealing to?

Are you afraid to swat a fly because of all the potential ramifications? All I hear is what I hear from my atheistic opponents:

What if? What if? What if?

Let's discuss what is.