The Unnaturalness Argument raises concerns about the unnaturalness of crossing species boundaries, and while it is sufficiently inchoate that it may perhaps resist conclusive refutation, it is nonetheless a very weak objection and it fails to provide any reasons for those who do not object to chimeric research to change their minds.
And against those weak objections stands the huge benefit of allowing people in great suffering to get help in putting an end to the pain and misery when they are not strong enough, or do not have the resources, to do so themselves.Most of the jurisdictions that allow assisted suicide make it available only for the terminally ill.
These are weak objections, and perhaps find widespread acceptance because Platonism seems to be unfathomable these days, given the general popularity of various forms of naturalism.
A similar, though weaker, sort of objection concerns McEar, a hypothetical agent who essentially has the power to do only one thing, namely, scratch his ear.
This objection is weak at best.
If intuitions really do the job in a thought experiment, the first objection is weak because neither rationalists nor empiricists have a theory about the reliability of intuitions.
But the majority, especially those who favour a two-state solution, would be unhappy with Romney's remarks that "the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish," having rattled off a weak series of objections, and appearing to think that the West Bank borders on Syria.
The more important objection to the weaker forms of guidance, if it is an objection, is that the Bank is pretty transparent already, and offers reams of forward guidance in its Quarterly Inflation Reports.
But I think Plantinga is even now still making things too easy on himself by construing the objection in some needlessly weak ways, and much of his response takes advantage of this needless weakness.
The first objection strikes me as weak.
If general or strong theories of restriction are open to the objection stated above, the weaker theories are open to a different objection: they risk being vacuous if their proponents did not have any independent way of identifying paradoxical cases.
