I can't speak for Joel Katz but it seems to me you're treating the issue too superficially. Of course people in certain situations would be better off dead than alive. I don't think anyone else than some hardcore believers would argue against this - for some people suicide is a sin no matter what.
Yes, of course they do. But Joel's statement didn't allow for that, his statement is absolute:
"
It is a fact that we value life over death, just as it's a fact that the sky looks blue."
My objection here may be trivial or semantic; but for a moral system claiming to be revolutionary and/or uniquely scientifically correct, the proposers of it really need to dot all their "i"s. They can't leave the slightest vagueness.
It is NOT a fact that "we" value life over death. It's also NOT a fact that "we" perceive the sky as blue. The only facts seem to be: The difference between physical life and death; and the wavelengths the sky sends to a ground-based eye. Perceptions/beliefs/individual brain interpretation of these don't seem to be "facts" in this simple sense.
At least, if the intended fact is only one perception/interpretation that is True. But the sky does NOT look blue to everyone, and science needs to explain who/how those who perceive it as orange are scientifically wrong, as much as it needs to explain who those who believe death is more value than life are scientifically wrong.
It's a fact that humans percieve the sky mostly as "blue", but some don't. It's a fact that some percieve death as bad, but some don't.
The next question to ask in this case is:
Would they want to live if they had the chance for a better life? Would a deeply depressed person want a better life if they had the chance? Would a tortured person want a better life if they had the chance? My guess is that they would. Any ideas or data that points to the contrary?
I'd submit PTSD folks who are well past their torture or other pathos but yet kill themselves 20 years later, from the memories inescapability. And prisoners who are so used to being imprisoned that they commit crimes after being released in order to get back; even though they wouldn't have prior to incarceration. Also, folks who self-sabotage, because they no longer believe a real effort for success is possible, and if it becomes close they upend it in order to return to their more comfortabe and stable misery and self-pity.
In addition, if you have a person who only wants to die (ie. end his or her consciousness) from the very moment he or she was born, I'm pretty sure that this person would have nothing useful or meaningful to say about morals. After all, morals seem to be solely in the domain of conscious beings.
Don't quite understand this. This person seems conscious until he dies, his consciousness simply wants to eliminate itself. After he offs himself sure, he has nothing to say on morals. But prior to that?
I can vaguely recall some murders of younguns by their parents because the parents didn't want to bring the child into or raise them in this "cruel" world. Some people don't believe living life is the highest moral imperative.
Some think avoiding suffering is; and if that means killing themselves or others, that's the consequence of their morality (if it can be said this is a morality, and imo it should).
Linda: I'm not being flippant or dismissive or a jerk. At least these aren't my intentions. I
sincerely apologize if I've come across like that (or really been that). I greatly respect you and your incisive thoughts in this forum.
