Debate: Should abortion be made legal?
Side: yes

Wouldn't your position also be applicable to actual murder? As a nihilist, you see no special status or value in that which is human, therefore your argument for abortion applies equally to actual murder, no?Your conclusion would follow if that were my argument, but it isn't. Although the absence of objective value does affect my position on the legality of abortion, its function is permissive rather than explanatory. Absent objective value, my own subjective preferences determine my positions. Those preferences revolve around preserving and advancing the well-being of myself and those who matter to me. Legalized abortion poses no threat on that account, whereas legalized murder would. Consequently, though my value nihilism means I regard neither as wrong my position towards their respective legality does differ. An utterance is literally defined as "a spoken word, statement, or vocal sound", but don't let facts get in the way of my position.The process of regarding or ascribing is subjective, true. But the stimuli that triggers a given sense is not subjective which is why our "regarding" is not arbitrary. Non-objective is not the same as arbitrary.Different dictionaries, but no matter. Action is implicit in your definition; one cannot have a spoken word without an act of speech. Similarly, "regarding" is not a coherent concept unless construed as a process or action, and in those respects even you have ceded that it is subjective. Your trigger argument demonstrates why ascription does not occur arbitrarily, but this does not contradict my point which is that where ascription occurs it is an arbitrary process. Whether the process and action are initiated by something objective is irrelevant to the substance of ascription because a causal relationship does not transfer objectivity from the trigger onto its consequence. If that were the case, then nothing would be subjective which your concession alone precludes. Your argument makes as much sense as supposing that because a hot stove causes me to move my hand that I am therefore a stove; it's objective properties don't transfer to me just because I was in relation to it. So long as the process is subjective it is arbitrary, even if it was initiated by something that wasn't. I am arguing from subjectivity to arbitrariness, not from non-objectivity to arbitrariness (though I disagree with your conclusion there as well: if something lacks objective existence but nevertheless exists, then its existence is necessarily a subjective existence).I can argue otherwise by appealing to your regard of the object in question. [...] If your mind is truly as arbitrary as that, then I need not worry, there would be no conversation on the matter as you would be too insane to converse.The purpose of supposing myself to regard trees and cats differently from you was not to seriously suggest we differed here. Rather, it was to pose the hypothetical scenario in which you are faced with another person who sincerely regards the same object differently than yourself. The question, then, is how you would demonstrate to such a person that your regard of the object is correct as you cannot rely on their divergent regard. This was intended to demonstrate the subjectivity of regarding (i.e. ascription) as a process, which you have already conceded at this point. Denouncing them as "insane" when you cannot actually prove your regard correct not only avoids answering the epistemic problem, but is predicated upon an unreliable assumption that a single case of divergent regard can only occur as part of a consistent pattern of divergence that precludes conversation. This is obviously not the case, as demonstrated by the very issue at hand: people vary in their regard of the same object (i.e. the unborn human, shall we call it?), although they are regarding the same object and are still perfectly capable of conversing.Our experience is subjective, but the world that creates our experience is not. It is the objective world that has formed you and your ability to experience it. Therefore, I need not appeal to my own experience alone, but our shared experience of that which is objective.You cannot appeal to shared experience where it does not exist, and the subjective sensory processing through which each of us experiences the objective world precludes us from having identical experiences of it. Even were we acted upon identically, this does not mean we experience being acted upon identically because sensory processing and subsequent cognition are purely subjective and unique to each individual. The objective world may inform our subjective processes, but it does not wholly determine them which is why we have divergent regard for evidently identical objects (again, as pertaining to the issue of abortion).From the basis that a human fetus can be distinguished from other types of fetus. I am not begging the question. If someone identifies a fetus, and I ask them what kind, when they respond that it is a dog fetus, I will understand the dog element in the dog fetus. It’s tautological. A thing is what it is. [...] Thus when I am confronted with someone who does not regard a fetus as having a human element...Your contextual use of "human element" seemed to suggest more than mere biological relation, but I may have misunderstood. At any rate, it is not at all evident that merely because someone refers to the object in question as a human fetus that they necessarily do so because there is a human element to it. "Human fetus" may equally signify that the fetus belongs to or originates from a human, much as "human house" or "human culture" would do (i.e. we don't mean that the culture is actually a human, or the house). It is the subjectivity of regard that makes argumentation concerning ascription so important. If I tell you not to cut down the tree because it is actually your horse, neither I nor you have altered the reality of the horse. Nonetheless, your inaccurate regard makes all the difference in how you conduct yourself. Thus, it is rational to defend our attitudes toward things based solely on what we ascribe to them. The accuracy of a given ascription matters.My imprecision has created ambiguity here, and you've predictably given it the least generous reading you possibly could. I did not mean to suggest that acting upon our respective perceptions was rationally indefensible, but that presenting subjective perception is not a form of rational argumentation (consistent with my previous statements). It was also not my intention to suggest that our actions as determined by our regard of things do not have material implications, but that our regard in and of itself does not alter the object it is directed towards (again, consistent with my previous statements). To the latter point, your remark that neither of our regards has altered the reality of the horse seems concurrent with the point I have been advancing: the differentiability between object and ascription. That position certainly is.I don't make exceptions for it, but nor is this an argument against it. Actually, you stated that "if you are consistent in this view then you should find the expression of any view that differs from yours questionable."The only evident difference between the two statements is that in the first I used "differs" instead of "is questionable". It is not unreasonable to treat the two as interchangeable, since a view that differs from you is necessarily one you find questionable otherwise you'd hold it yourself. At any rate, my intent should be abundantly clear so at this point you're just being disingenuous to no particular end. For reasons already stated, I find Nihilism problematic as it concerns intellectual interactions. For the reasons you just stated, I find Nihilism problematic for one’s personal intellectual well-being. Saying “there is no truth” or “truth cannot be known” has the same internal contradiction as “there are no absolutes”.As I already explained, it is not a contradiction if the statements themselves are not taken as absolute truth statements themselves. Which I do not take them to be, and which nihilism as a school need not do either. Reasserting your previous counter is non-responsive.First, you never said what you mean by the word value, which was actually the question. Actually, I did so explicitly. I defined subjective value as personal preference towards things. Beyond that, I indicated that my definition is context dependent; because I do not believe in objective value the concept is incoherent to me and I utilize whatever conception seems relevant based on how others understand it in context.Second, existence on your part requires certain things for its continuation. That being the case, it is not simply a matter of automation. Knowing what you mean by the word “value” is necessary to determine if your continued existence is in contradiction with your philosophy.You presume my existence, its form, and its conditions without proving them. Even given these three unwarranted premises, you present no explanation as to why it then follows that my existence is not simply a matter of automation. I am also unclear as to what you mean by "automation". Nor do I see what connection value has to automation.