Debate: Should abortion be made legal?
Side: yes

Please disabuse yourself of the notion that I object to calling the fetus human. I have no such objection, and accordingly have never raised it. My objection has been against treating any such ascription as a rationally defensible argument unto itself. I only ever presented alternative terminology because you asked that I do so, and I stated even then that I was indifferent to the language used. We may use whatever term you prefer henceforth, if you like. ----- ----- ----- ----- -----Regarding is a psychological process of association, in this case between a concept of a quality and an object. That it involves sensory perception and cognitive processing makes it fundamentally subjective. An utterance is literally defined as an act of uttering, so the distinction you wish to draw between them is tautologically precluded. Either way, (the use of) utterance (i.e. ascription) by a person is a consequence of their individual judgement or preference by simple virtue of originating in the psychological process of regarding. This satisfies the definition of arbitrariness, and is sufficient warrant for my claim. I take your conflation allegation as a response to my point about the variability of language in its use and interpretation. Until such time as you warrant this with an argument which identifies the purported point of conflation, I can only guess at your meaning. For my part, I will clarify that in the single instance where I used the word "language" I was not discussing its concept at all but its actual use. This seems evident to me, from the context, but briefly my point was that ascription involves words which are themselves non-objective as evidenced by the variability of their use and the regularity confusion regarding their interpretation. You argue that: One cannot in truth ascribe the qualities of a tree to a cat. If ascription was arbitrary, one could. Yet if I were to say that what you call a cat has the qualities of a tree, how could you possibly argue otherwise except through appeal to your own regard for that object in question? I do no think you can, precisely on account of this regard being seated in your own individual psychological processes which you cannot share directly to me. Similarly, you claim that: Thus, you cannot escape the human element in a human fetus. But from what basis do you warrant your position that there is a "human element" in a human fetus, except but through your regarding the fetus as human in the first place? This begs the question, and again necessarily relies upon your subjective regard towards the fetus. When confronted with someone who does not regard the fetus as having a human element you can, again, appeal only to your own regard for the fetus as having such an element. I am persuaded that you see the fetus as having some identifiable element which you ascribe humanness to, because your testimony tells me this much. But I do not have any reason to trust your subjective regard over and against my own (nor do you mine). Naturally, ascription has repercussions which we might be concerned about; I've never denied this, and it isn't inconsistent with my position. The reason these consequences exist is because people persist in the idea that our subjective regard for something somehow alters it's objective existence. We both agree that this is invalid, and I never actually claimed you disagreed with me on this point; I advanced it as a component of my own argument. Given that invalidity, it is not rational to alter or defend to others our attitudes towards a situation solely on the basis of what we ascribe to the relevant objects. This is because the objective circumstances remain wholly unaltered; we would be changing our attitude or expecting others to do so purely on the basis of a subjective regard for those objects. That people are prone to doing so anyways demonstrates nothing beyond their proclivity for doing so. When people argue from ascription on any issue from any position, they are attempting to shift how others subjectively regard the relevant objects by asserting their premises as truths inherent to the relevant objects. They are making an argument from a conceptual framework expressly developed to support the conclusion they already hold. To an extent, I think this is unavoidable since all positions are ultimately rooted in non-rational premises. What I find indefensible (from a rational perspective) in the ascriptive approach to arguing issues is that it is often ignorant of its own assumptions, or at least treats them as so given as to be untouchable by discourse. This creates a lot of talking across one another which neither alters anyone's position, nor advances anyone's understanding of those they disagree with. I think that defensible arguments require explicit premises, which must either be debated in their own right or else accepted for the sake of argument. It is not likely to persuade someone to one's own premises, but if the other can accept them for the sake of argument then they can better understand the disagreement in a way that is less divisive. Or, if one can argue from another's premises their odds of causing that person to reconsider their position are significantly greater than if they argue in spite of them. ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- You stated: I find your philosophy questionable, therefore I find the expression thereof questionable as well. The logic beneath this argument is that if a philosophy is questionable then its expression is also questionable. I observed that were you consistent in applying that logic, then the expression of all other philosophies you also find questionable should be questionable too. At no point did I speculate as to whether you did apply that logic consistently. Nor was I aware of the rationale you have subsequently provided at the time, so my observation was sound upon the premises I had to work with. It was not a strawman, but a conclusion drawn reasonably from what argument you had provided me at the time. Nor did I at any point attempt to avoid addressing your argument by making this observation, so it is again not a strawman.You argue that I use Nihilism to claim the correct position not by actually having one, but by virtue of your opponents failures to counter your attacks. Nihilism can't actually hold a position, but pretends to hold a winning position. I find it intellectually dishonest. So I find it questionable.I do not actually disagree with your reasoning here, except that you presume that Nihilism necessarily claims a correct or winning position. Though it would be inconsistent with nihilism to claim an objectively correct position, it is not inconsistent for a nihilist to express positions of preference (including towards nihilism). I do not maintain that nihilism is the correct philosophy and I do not think it follows from the philosophy that it must, so there is no inherent contradiction to it (although there are many professed nihilists who contradict themselves here). That I am a nihilist is a matter of preference only, as are all my other views.What do you mean by the word “value”? I would like to see if your philosophy is inconsistent with your continued existance.That would depend on context, but generally I differentiate between objective value and subjective value. I do not believe the former exists, and so I do not think anything has intrinsic value. But I recognize in myself and others a preference for certain things which I find appropriate to refer to as subjective values. I think perhaps my earlier point on this concern of inconsistency was misunderstood. I would say that I think my existence has no objective value, but that I generally find some subjective value in it. More to the point though, I do not accept that valuing existence is necessary to existing. I think that comes from non-nihilistic philosophies, rather than from within it. Existence does not need any value - objective or subjective - to be, because it merely is.