Talk:Violinist (thought experiment)

message: This edit replaces the previous non-neutral material with more non-neutral material advocating the opposing viewpoint.  Is this article the obscure place where the morality of abortion is being debated by editors?  It shouldn't be.
I propose this article be merged with A_Defense_of_Abortion.  Perhaps through the merge process, the POV on both sides can be made neutral, and more succinctly summarized.  Comments?  Blackworm (talk) 22:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV Wars 

message: The current Criticism seems dishonest.  J.J. Thomson's Defense of Abortion actually goes into great detail with the violinist, and other examples (such as people seeds, the giant baby, the fevered brow, and the brothers fighting over chocolate), to incorporate voluntary hookups to other people (to be analogous to a wanted pregnancy going wrong, an unwanted pregnancy that occurred even with contraceptive use, etc).  The criticism section does not give credit where credit is due by making it appear as though this particular violinist example was ALL Thomson had to say on the issue without realizing or acknowledging that most of those faults were addressed in the very same paper a page or two later in slightly altered violinist arguments and other thought problems.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.139.220.200 (talk) 14:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's true that section is misleading and requires a willful ignoring of the rest of the paper (indeed, even the paragraph right after the violinist, wherein she mentions rape specifically).  Casey J. Morris (talk) 23:44, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I tagged the criticism section as being unreferenced. It seems to be a synthesis of WP:OR and poorly understood readings of Thomspon. It should probably be deleted altogether, since Foote gets so much prominence. But I leave that to everyone.Bakaprod (talk) 19:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism section is misleading 

message: Bakaprod's point is important. The article mischaracterizes the thought experiment entirely by leaving out the rape condition. This thought experiment applies ONLY to abortion in the case of rape. Depicting it as Thomson's argument in favor of all abortion is an unfair strawman, very unfair to a very careful philosopher. Thompson has a very different thought experiment for abortion in general, involving a hypothetical world in which people are born by attaching to furniture, and homeowners are responsible for preventing this via installing screens. My understanding of these experiments is from a philosophy class at U. Chicago, and I can cite course date and number if necessary.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.168.27.221 (talk) 18:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abortion vs. Abortion in case of rape 

message: The last two paragraphs in the article (as of this writing) do not appear to be appropriate. The first of these paragraphs does not justify or argue for the misapplication, but instead simply states that it is misapplied, repeatedly. When read carefully, it only proves that Foot did not use the terms in the original sense and is therefore a red herring. Until an argument is made to show that positive and negative rights as defined by Foot cannot be given a Negative-Dominant character in this particular, this paragraph should be removed. Moreover, even should that argument be made it is unlikely that this paragraph would even be necessary, however that is not important to the issue of its immediate removal. Finally, the very last paragraph probably should be deleted because it is not necessary but rather a statement of irony. If abortion were illegal then the idea of positive and negative rights would form the "philosophical legal foundation for the defense against governmental intervention to" make abortion legal.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.220.15.253 (talk) 15:06, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Positive and Negative Rights 

message: The A Defense of Abortion article is in much better shape than this one, and addresses the violinist and it's criticisms well - why not just redirect? 192.17.162.48 (talk) 21:41, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I propose a merge. 75.118.170.35 (talk) 19:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Most Strongly Oppose: this article is dedicated to a specific, well-known, and highly influential thought experiment, the mechanical structure of its account of events, and its consequences (e.g., its influence on Foot). Any issues related to either "attacking" or "defending" abortion belong somewhere else; and, in fact, the presence of any such debate would significantly mislead readers (due to the fact that this article specifically refers to the thought experiment itself, and the consequences of its creation).Lindsay658 (talk) 02:57, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Support. "Defending" abortion is the entire point of the thought experiment; the only way you could leave out "any issues related" to that would be to blank the article. It's only important because of its prominence in the Thompson paper, and that has its own article. This one is redundant. 99.16.199.122 (talk) 06:47, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect 

message: "You would be very generous to remain attached and in bed for nine months, but you are not morally obliged to do so."
This does not seem like a very neutral or objective statement. Whatever about abortion, if this happened in real life, am i the only one who would see it as immoral to detatch myself?
:That seems like a quote. 75.118.170.35 (talk) 19:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As you point out yourself, it's a quote, and a highly relevant one at that. It does not detract from the neutrality of the article; nobody in their right mind should expect Thompson to be neutral here. 99.16.199.122 (talk) 06:45, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality? 

message: Removed section "Rebuttal to Foot's Argument"; none of the arguments were cited, the paragraphs contained no "citation needed" quotations, and history seemed to indicate that it was the original work of Wikipedia editors. Jemfinch (talk) 06:00, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rebuttal to Foot's Argument