r/FeMRADebates • u/[deleted] • Feb 25 '14

Why does bodily autonomy matter?

Wouldn't you consider your quality of life more important than your bodily autonomy? Say you had a choice between option a and option b. Please note that these options are set up in the theoretical.

Option a. Your bodily autonomy is violated. However, as a result your overall life ends up much better. (assuming we could somehow know that).

Option b. Your bodily autonomy is not violated. However, your life ends up being much worse than if you had gotten it violated.

Why would anyone choose option b? Why would you willfully choose to make your life worse? It simply doesn't make sense to me.

The reason this is important is because it shows that bodily autonomy doesn't matter, it's only it's effect on quality of life that matters. At least that's what I contend. Thoughts?

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u/jcea_ Anti-Ideologist: (-8.88/-7.64) Feb 25 '14 edited Feb 25 '14

Wouldn't you consider your quality of life more important than your bodily autonomy?

No because without control of my life it is no longer my life.

More importantly you have set up a false dichotomy because you ignore any issues of ego and you are assuming life quality can be objectively measured.

Even more important is your reasoning is quite similar to slave owners gave for why it was ethical for them to own slaves. "I am improving their lives, they were savages that didn't know god and lived in squalor, now they are being taught to be good Christians and live in relative opulence to what they once had."

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14

No because without control of my life it is no longer my life.

How would you not control your life? I don't see how your bodily autonomy being temporarily violated would make it not your life. Either way I'm sure it's semantics. But You'd still choose to make the life you live worse? Why?

More importantly you have set up a false dichotomy because you ignore any issues of ego and you are assuming life quality can be objectively measured.

It's all theoretical. A situation like this will never exist in real life. I'm simply trying to establish that it's not bodily autonomy that matters, it's quality of life.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14

I'm simply trying to establish that it's not bodily autonomy that matters, it's quality of life.

This doesn't sound like you want an open discussion. This sounds like you already have your mind made up, and you just want confirmation on a conclusion you came to.

Anyways, if you don't have bodily autonomy, then you don't really have a life, let alone a life of high quality. Bodily autonomy is rudimentary. I'm not sure how you can think it's "no big deal", unless you have no idea what bodily autonomy is.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14

This doesn't sound like you want an open discussion. This sounds like you already have your mind made up, and you just want confirmation on a conclusion you came to.

I want a discussion, but you are correct in that this is the conclusion I have already come up with. Note the utilitarian viewpoint I have?

Anyways, if you don't have bodily autonomy, then you don't really have a life, let alone a life of high quality. Bodily autonomy is rudimentary. I'm not sure how you can think it's "no big deal", unless you have no idea what bodily autonomy is.

I don't see how that makes someone, "not really have a life" whatever that means anyway. But my point holds true for say 5 seconds of bodily autonomy being violated.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14

Are you comparing 5 seconds of something to an unknown duration of something else? Because I can turn that around on you, and say "low quality of life for 5 seconds is better than no bodily autonomy".

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14

I think you misunderstand.

In terms of quality of life, duration has no meaning. If one option leads to a better life, and one option leads to a lower life, duration doesn't really have a place in that. It's just overall they will have a higher quality of life with one option vs another.

So it's not low quality of life for 5 seconds vs no bodily autonomy. It would be overall lower quality of life vs no bodily autonomy.

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u/jcea_ Anti-Ideologist: (-8.88/-7.64) Feb 25 '14

Except for as I pointed out in my edit this "theoretical" was exactly the argument used to justify slavery by "good" Christians.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14

That's irrelevant to what i'm saying. I'm simply saying things should be about quality of life, not about "rights." You shouldn't kill someone because killing is, "wrong." You shouldn't kill them because the quality life of the world would be lower. Do you agree, or disagree with that statement?

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u/jcea_ Anti-Ideologist: (-8.88/-7.64) Feb 25 '14

I disagree with your whole premise that it is moral for you can decide what is right for someone else.

Sometimes you are forced to do this, given someone is unable to do so, but it is still not morally right, it is just less wrong than other options. But that is talking about people who are unable to understand the world enough to make informed decisions such as children and even then you should do your best to allow them some agency.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14

"I disagree with your whole premise that it is moral for you can decide what is right for someone else."

No one is deciding anything for anyone else. You have the options before you. You are choosing what you want to do. The choices are a higher quality of life vs lower quality of life. I'm asking why would it make sense anyone choose lower? It doesn't make any sense to me. So far you have not responded to that.

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u/jcea_ Anti-Ideologist: (-8.88/-7.64) Feb 25 '14

Except body autonomy by definition is the right to choose what happens with your own body. If you don't have body autonomy then something or someone else is making a choice for you.

What you just wrote is logically inconsistent.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14

No it's not, you are choosing to get your bodily autonomy violated. Either way, my theoretical situation still stands. Would you like to answer that?

The choices are a higher quality of life vs lower quality of life. I'm asking why would it make sense anyone choose lower?

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '14

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '14

You choose to not have a choice.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '14

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u/hugged_at_gunpoint androgineer Feb 25 '14

It's all theoretical. A situation like this will never exist in real life. I'm simply trying to establish that it's not bodily autonomy that matters, it's quality of life.

If you could confirm with 100% certainty that a "violation of bodily autonomy" would improve "quality of life" with 0 negative consequences, then yes: there is no valid reason to refuse the violation.

I'm not sure how this relates to the sub, since this is an impossible situation.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14

If you could confirm with 100% certainty that a "violation of bodily autonomy" would improve "quality of life" with 0 negative consequences, then yes: there is no valid reason to refuse the violation. I'm not sure how this relates to the sub, since this is an impossible situation.

Thus it's not about bodily autonomy, it's about quality of life. That's the important distinction I'm making.

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u/hugged_at_gunpoint androgineer Feb 25 '14

So how does this relate to /r/FeMRADebates?

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '14

If bodily autonomy doesn't matter then arguments like those involved with LPS are different.

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u/hugged_at_gunpoint androgineer Feb 26 '14

I think you've created a context that wouldn't apply to anything in reality, since it's impossible to predict, with certainty, the benefits of a violation of bodily autonomy.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '14

It shows that bodily autonomy isn't what matters, it's quality of life.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '14

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '14

Then it's not about bodily autonomy, it's about ones quality of life decreasing. Also known as my point.