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Lincoln R. Carr's avatar

It seems like, in some cases, throwing up our hands and saying "It's not my call" is a sort of moral abdication.

Imagine you find a teenage girl in a bathtub, bleeding out from a suicide attempt. Who would stand there and say, "Well, you know, it's her decision." Such indifference would be depraved; saving her would be praiseworthy.

A less dramatic case would be a juror asked to determine guilt under an unjust law. "Who am I to say whether a law is just?" Who would you be if you _didn't_?

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Anthony Dlugos's avatar

Yea, that last paragraph concerns me.

That's the door through which the reactionary, anti-science hordes flooded the libertarian movement and the Libertarian Party.

Can a liberal really think that physician-assisted suicide is a tragedy, that pornograpy is a symptom of moral decay, that vaccines are unsafe, or that the state should take no position when a gay couple walks into a business hoping to order a wedding cake, and the proprietor rejects their business for what amounts to an irrational reason?

I can't see it.

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