Kieran wrote:jonny2mad wrote:Your stable hi tech society makes me think of a society thats just living on things like wind solar etc so I'd imagine a lot poorer society, under those conditions would we be able to look after the number of severely disabled demented people we do now, I don't know but if we wouldn't then I'd support killing them .
Would I do it personally well its not a job I'd seek, if I was a doctor in certain circumstances yes
Let's say it's an energy rich society, fusion powered or something. No over population or anything and with plenty of resources to look after the frail. Would you personally want to see those who can't look after themselves (and have no kin, friends etc to look after them) killed?
Would your ideal society practice social darwinism and eugenics?
Do you think that the Nazis were right to kill the mentally and physically disabled?
Darwin noted that aiding the weak to survive and have families could lose the benefits of natural selection, but cautioned that withholding such aid would endanger the instinct of sympathy, "the noblest part of our nature", and factors such as education could be more important.
Were the Nazis right or wrong overall wrong, operation T4 was covert they lied to the family's and they killed people who could have a life albeit with impairments, for example killing downs syndrome children who had loving parents .
I don't see the difference between say abortion and infanticide actually I do see the difference,I think killing a deformed brain damaged child that the parents don't want as better than killing a healthy pre born baby that the parents don't want but that could be adopted .
At the moment the first is illegal the second is quite normal
Were the Nazis wrong in sterilizing alcoholics well they didn't give them a choice stop drinking or we sterilize you,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/ ... alcoholics This seems more ethical.
Here is one example. Louis Repouille had a son who was described as 'incurably imbecile', had been bed-ridden since infancy and blind for five years. According to Repouille: 'He was just like dead all the time.... He couldn't walk, he couldn't talk, he couldn't do anything.' in the end Repouille killed his son with chloroform.
another case
"In 1988 a case arose that well illustrates the way in which modern medical technology forces us to make life and death decisions. Samuel Linares, an infant, swallowed a small object that stuck in his windpipe, causing a loss of oxygen to the brain. He was admitted to a Chicago hospital in a coma and placed on a respirator. Eight months later he was still comatose, still on the respirator, and the hospital was planning to move Samuel to a long-term care unit. Shortly before the move, Samuel's parents visited him in the hospital. His mother left the room, while his father produced a pistol and told the nurse to keep away. He then disconnected Samuel from the respirator, and cradled the baby in his arms until he died. When he was sure Samuel was dead, he gave up his pistol and surrendered to police. He was charged with murder, but the grand jury refused to issue a homicide indictment, and he subsequently received a suspended sentence on a minor charge arising from the use of the pistol."
The first T4 murder was a baby called Gerhard Herbert Kretschmar he was born either legless or with one leg and one arm blind and subject to convulsions he was also classed as a idiot although their not sure how they came to that diagnosis.
His parents a farm worker and his wife wrote to Hitler asking that their son who they referred to as the monster, be killed personally if thats what his parents wanted, Id ask them now are you sure you want to do this, but if that was their wish I'd most likely have said go ahead
I would consider the effect on the parents as well as the child, hopefully they would be able to move on
http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1993----.htm interesting haven't read it all so singer may well disagree with me.
"What causes more suffering in the world than the stupidity of the compassionate?"Friedrich Nietzsche
optimism is cowardice oswald spengler
