Murder, Suicide, and the Convertibility Thesis
In the last few weeks, my social media accounts have been abuzz with the topic of abortion. One common defense of it has been something like, "Since unwanted children will not be aborted, they will most likely end up in the foster care system, where they will probably be abused and raped. So abortion is a better option." After I asked whether they would apply this logic to a two year old, they said they would. In the eyes of my interlocutors, death was a better option. This isn't an uncommon view. I would think most, if not all, persons who committed suicide thought the exact same thing and this motivated their suicide. So, is death better an abused life? In light of the convertibility thesis, it is not. The convertibility thesis states that "being" and "good" are basically the same thing, just considered differently. Where there is being, there is goodness coextensive with it. If being alive is participating in being, and death is not participat...