[__Xzyx987X]

It's a slippery slope. Sure, they were already discarded, and I agree it won't hurt anybody. But next time a similar issue comes up, there is precedent to dispose of embryos... Politicians will think that because people agreed to that much, it will be OK to take further steps in that direction in different situations. Perhaps eventually they will randomly take newborns for genetic experimentation because of this precedent. Be very careful with what messages you send to those in charge.

The slippery slope argument is what's known as a logical fallacy. If something is wrong now, it will still be wrong in the future, regardless of whatever other descisions we make. Of couse, I'm a moral relativist, so as far as I'm concered what's morally right is whatever society believes is right. Still, if we start experimenting on babies just because we let a few embryos that were going to die anyway serve a useful purpose, then our morals weren't worth much to begin with.

 

[__Xzyx987X]

I think that you’re contradicting yourself here. If you were a true moral relativist, you would never make a value judgment about morals (you did it when you said “then our morals weren't worth much to begin with”).

If you think that morals that allow experiments on babies are not worth much, then you’re comparing it against some other moral code which you consider better.

What I really meant there, was if one can't keep one small adjustment in your morality from leading to a big one, your morals aren't that stong to begin with. But yea, I see what you mean.

BTW, I’m not a moral relativist. I think that some moral codes are better than others, and “society” or “culture” can’t justify everything. It doesn’t matter if a whole society thinks that it’s right to kill babies and experiment with them, they’re still wrong. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter to me whether the majority of a society thinks that a blob of cells has legal rights because it has a soul; they’re still wrong.

I try to ground my ethics on utilitarian grounds: the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Things are more complicated than this, but it’s a good start.

I used to believe in utilitarianism, but ultimately the concept seemed fundamentally flawed to me. There are way too many arguments that break it. In the end, a moral code only makes sense if it works all the time. Eventually what I realized is that since you'll never have a moral code that always works (or at least I could never think of one) you might as well just believe in whatever morals you want. I don't think that morality is some inherent property of exhistance. It's just a by-product of society. As such, society might as well decide on what morality should be.