The Moral Imperative

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I split off the discussion about reasons for warring on the Taliban into Lasto. Please stick to discussing general philosophical issues in this forum, not current events or politics.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

Overpopulation is an interesting moral question. Can we cull the population in a moral way?

[Primula Baggins]

Cull in the sense of killing living people, or allowing them to die when we could prevent it? If so, definitely no.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

Which is it that you disagree with? Or is it both?

[Primula Baggins]

Both, most definitely.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

Okay, just checking. I wasn't sure from your previous post.

Is there a moral fix to overpopulation? We're definitely going to have to deal with it soon. War and disease is usually the great equalizer, so we either succumb some sort of massive influenza or the third world war, then we'll have our population culled, but I don't think either are moral choices. Not even close.

[MithLuin]

Well, we could always develop space travel and expand to other planets. That has the benefit of being fun and exciting - much better than war or famine, and possibly even moral, too.

Though I realize that this isn't exactly a feasible solution....

[Primula Baggins]

Reducing the birth rate seems like the only real choice to me—doing it without coercion, by giving women the power to limit how many children they have, and offering them education, which motivates them to delay marriage and childbearing. It also motivates them to have fewer children so the children can be educated; educated mothers value schooling and want it for their children, girls and boys.

Anywhere birth control and education have both become available to women, the birth rate has fallen. Populations are getting more urban, so the old reasons for wanting lots of children have become reasons for wanting fewer. And anyway I'm not sure how excited women have really been, historically, about having babies without limit until their bodies give out or they die.

[axordil]

until their bodies give out or they die.

Shouldn't that be an "and?"

In regards to the Aztecs: historically different rules have always applied for individuals within a society, and for the group or its agents. Soldiers and police are expected to do things random individuals are forbidden from doing, specifically, killing when necessary. If you have a system where it's deemed necessary to kill for religious reasons, it only follows that applies to the sacrificers too.

[solicitr]

Prim, does that apply to denying healthcare to the elderly if a procedure would cost more than $X per Quality Adjusted Life-Year remaining?

[Cerin]

Is there a moral fix to overpopulation? We're definitely going to have to deal with it soon. War and disease is usually the great equalizer, so we either succumb some sort of massive influenza or the third world war, then we'll have our population culled, but I don't think either are moral choices.

Did you mean that starting a war or deliberately spreading a flu in order to cut population would be immoral?

[solicitr]

In fact, advanced economies deal with overpopulation systemically and thus 'voluntarily', simply because rearing children gets more and more expensive. Most of Western Europe today has a birthrate well below replacement, in some countries as low as 1.4/woman. In the US it's about 1.9; in other words our population is only growing through immigration.

[Primula Baggins]

Prim, does that apply to denying healthcare to the elderly if a procedure would cost more than $X per Quality Adjusted Life-Year remaining?

Of course. Why would you think I would accept such a repellent idea?

until their bodies give out or they die.

Shouldn't that be an "and?"

After enough babies, a woman can lose her ability to conceive by hemorrhaging and needing an emergency hysterectomy, or by getting an STD that scars her fallopian tubes, or by developing a fistula that makes sex impossible. If she can get some medical care she'll survive, but she won't have any more children.

[MithLuin]

Cerin, I think TED was referring to the 'let nature take its course' approach, in which you wait for an epidemic or war to reduce population.

I think that the world population responds directly to food production - if we produce more food, we can feed more mouths. If we don't...the population does not grow very much. Drought and famine play a significant role in this, as well.

But yes, disease and war have traditionally nipped growing populations before they got exponential, and will likely continue to have an effect regardless of choices we make. After all, it's not like overpopulation is what causes an epidemic, per se. AIDS is decimating Africa, and it's not just striking the cities or 'crowded' areas.

Cultures that insist on taking their population below replacement levels will die out. (Of course, there is a question of how much immigrants are assimilated into a culture.) So, ironically, it's the groups who don't subscribe to the idea of reducing the population voluntarily who will be left. This suggests that this particular moral dilemma isn't going to go away any time soon.

[solicitr]

Of course. Why would you think I would accept such a repellent idea?

mmmmm, can't imagine where I got the idea you might support a bill which contained such an idea.

[Primula Baggins]

No bill contains such an idea.

[solicitr]

You might want to Google "Federal Coordinating Council for
Comparative Effectiveness Research" (passed as part of the 'Stimulus'), as well as Britain's "National Institute for Comparative Effectiveness". And the acronym QALY (Quality Adjusted Life-Year).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Again, please do not discuss current events or politics in this thread. Further discussion of that type will be removed.

[Frelga]

In fact, advanced economies deal with overpopulation systemically and thus 'voluntarily', simply because rearing children gets more and more expensive. Most of Western Europe today has a birthrate well below replacement, in some countries as low as 1.4/woman. In the US it's about 1.9; in other words our population is only growing through immigration.

Cost is a part of it, I am sure, but poverty never stopped people from having children, quite the opposite. In the developed countries, most women are free to weigh the impact of another pregnancy on their health, as well as on other priorities in their life. And most choose to limit the number of children they will have. In other parts of the world - heck, in our own - women either lack the means to make that choice possible or are prevented from making it. The result is obvious.

Edit: x-posted with V. I removed the second part of my post since due to V's request soli cannot respond in thread.

[Cerin]

Cerin, I think TED was referring to the 'let nature take its course' approach, in which you wait for an epidemic or war to reduce population.

Thanks, Mith. If you deliberately decided to take no intervening action in anticipation that war and epidemic would occur, and then when they did occur, took no steps to mitigate the death tolls, I guess I can see where that would be viewed as an immoral choice. But the notion that either (all) war (regardless of circumstances) or a flu bug could in themselves be viewed as either immoral or a choice seemed a bit odd l to me.


edit to correctly attribute quote and explain edit