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Is it really exploitation if you pay someone who is well informed 50k [0]? Are there not legitimate cases where someone has significant risk of carrying a child

Is it really exploitation if you pay someone who is well informed 50k [0]? Are there not legitimate cases where someone has significant risk of carrying a child themselves (e.g. extremely tiny body and hips)? Modern medicine has greatly reduced the risk - if you find someone who is informed, doesn't have these same risk factors and well compensated I honestly don't see a problem with it. There very well may be cases where the surrogate is being exploited, but I contest that the idea as a whole is fundamentally unethical. [0] - https://www.westcoastsurrogacy.com/surrogate-program-for-intended-parents/surrogate-mother-cost https://www.westcoastsurrogacy.com/surrogate-program-for-int...

jahaja 8y ago
Yes. I don't like this kind of rationalization where one lifts up edge-cases without regard to its proportionality. - "I was able to buy a really nice house after discovering Herbalife".
philipov 8y ago
If you pay attention you will discover that ethics does not ever rest on the fundamental essence of an idea, but on the particular human circumstances in which it most often occurs. By stripping away those circumstances, and adopting the most optimistic view possible, you are cherry-picking: all things can be ethical when you remove them from reality and imagine they only occur under the most favorable interpretation. There is a theory under which totalitarian dictatorship may be benevolent, but we consider it unethical for politicians or the military to establish one, because reality differs from theory. Likewise, professors dating students or managers dating direct reports can be totally consensual and free from coercion. It is unethical nonetheless, because we recognize what happens in practice is more important than the rare counterexample. Do not confuse ethics with moral absolutism!
- obmelvin 8y ago
  Thank you, I appreciate your reply and for you altering my thinking in a much more constructive manner than the other poster.

jahaja 8y ago

Yes. I don't like this kind of rationalization where one lifts up edge-cases without regard to its proportionality. - "I was able to buy a really nice house after discovering Herbalife".

philipov 8y ago

If you pay attention you will discover that ethics does not ever rest on the fundamental essence of an idea, but on the particular human circumstances in which it most often occurs. By stripping away those circumstances, and adopting the most optimistic view possible, you are cherry-picking: all things can be ethical when you remove them from reality and imagine they only occur under the most favorable interpretation. There is a theory under which totalitarian dictatorship may be benevolent, but we consider it unethical for politicians or the military to establish one, because reality differs from theory. Likewise, professors dating students or managers dating direct reports can be totally consensual and free from coercion. It is unethical nonetheless, because we recognize what happens in practice is more important than the rare counterexample. Do not confuse ethics with moral absolutism!

obmelvin 8y ago
Thank you, I appreciate your reply and for you altering my thinking in a much more constructive manner than the other poster.