A cyst is a sack of fluid. A sack of fluid has no moral standing. If you think otherwise, then present an argument.

The emotional aspect here is found in a refusal to recognise that a sack of fluid is not a person. But having an emotional response is fine. Emotions are a part of the mechanism of action, we do what we want to do, and we don't do what upsets us. So if you are upset by abortion, then don't have one.

But your emotional response is in itself insufficient to justify forcing others to comply. That you do not like lime ice cream is not a moral reason to ban lime ice cream. More is needed for the argument to be moral. It is allowable for the local ice creamery to sell lime ice cream, and indeed it would be immoral to ban that sale only on the grounds that you do not like it.

Your own argument, that for a species to kill it's young is unnatural, is both factually incorrect and morally irrelevant. Animals do kill their young. But what animals do is not a guide to what humans ought do. Animals do not talk - should humans then also not talk? There is a gap in your argument.

Yes, because I am a person.

That’s not how it works...at all. A ball doesn’t know what a ball is.

And? I didn't claim any brain makes a person. Some brains do though.

My point was that just because neurons are firing in a brain, that does not necessitate there is a person.

Personhood is mindhood: it is having a mind, not having a brain that could produce a mind or “house” a mind.

You are conflating a capacity for personhood with personhood.

I did not claim evolution is arbitrary. The concept of "nature" is arbitrary.

Nature is defined by evolutionary biology.

It's a scientific fact that, at conception, two cells fuse to become one, combining their genetic material.

Thereby creating a new life, which thereby begins its continual-development process until death.

??? . I can't tell if you are joking. — Bob Ross

If the criteria for identifying a starting point is individuality (you say “an individual human being”) then the more correct point would be birth because until then the mother and child are inextricably fused together.

No they are not. That's not how biology works: they are separate living beings of which one is dependent on the other.

Yes, being a person entitles me to define a person. How else would it work? It's neither incoherent or circular. The argument is quite simply that since I'm the one that needs to decide on a moral framework, I need to figure out how to judge who is a person and who isn't. Since the only fixed point I start out with is that I am a person, I need to proceed from that. — Echarmion

My further response applies to everything you've just said. I think it's possible you're not getting me:
That you claim to be a person begs the question, but even if it didn't, it provides absolutely nothing as to a 'necessary or sufficient' set of criteria. You're just saying 'look at me!!'. I could make the same claim about being black. But, as you know, I'd be either laughed at or charged with racism. Fair enough, too. My point is you have to have a set of criteria, prior to your claim to fit them, and then assess whether you fit them (I imagine this can be easily done, it's just not happening here). I'm wanting your criteria. If that is just 'what I, in fact, am' I'll leave it there and just say I'm not convinced.

I agree — Echarmion

Haha nice, perhaps I misunderstood the point of that passage then. Apologies if so!

we determine personhood based on certain cognitive similarities and their expressions in behaviour. — Echarmion

Which ones? And are they derived from your conviction that you're a person? Seems to remain somewhat circular, if inter-personal.

By doing that it seems pretty obvious that a person needs some kind of thinking apparatus. — Echarmion

I wouldn't disagree, and we're getting somewhere now - but following from the previous comments about consciousness, We would want to know at what level does the consciousness reach the level of a 'personal' consciousness - in the sense that an alien species could have cognitive abilities the same as humans, and not be humans. Are they persons, nonetheless? Yes or no is fine, I'm just curious as to where these ideas go... Not sure where i'd land.

I'm not necessarily arguing my own position in those comments. — Echarmion

Fair enough. It feels that way, so you're being a really good sport if not. Appreciate that!

I think it's useful though to consider the possibility that there's no mystical essence to the human form that somehow turns it into its own category. — Echarmion

I think this is likely part of the answer(given we need to assess personhood, and identity, it's a doozy so I'm loathe to think there's anything but a very complex answer). I don't think there's anything mystical, but I do think there might be a moveable moment. This might be the moment hte heart beats for the first time, as a trivial example, which would be different for different fetuses. I don't think it's hard to offer several possibilities for hard-and-fast rules. Just, i don't see anyone agreeing given either (meaning, depending on your view) a life is being ended, or prevented.

And would we consider the equivalent of a three week old human child a person if it happened to not look like a human? You did ask for a fun discussion, did you not? — Echarmion

VERY fun!! I like these lines. I think if a fetus looked like a dog, and lost its hair, drew in its mandible and slowly became bi-pedal over the first six months, we definitely have to make an arbitrary call as to when it 'morally' becomes 'human'. What would you want to say there?

A cyst is a sack of fluid. — Banno

Lucky we're talking about blastocysts which are not sacks of fluid. They contain the groups of cells totalling around 200, including stem cells which are required for the cascades of development a fetus needs to become viable. It also contains an outer layer of protective cells called the trophoblast. This becomes the placenta. You're talking about one aspect, called the blastocoel. This means, funnily enough, that a blastocyst is a structure, in which a cyst sits. It is not a cyst. Onward..

separate living beings of which one is dependent on the other. — Bob Ross

Again this is more true after birth than before, so birth should be identified as the starting point, if the starting point is based on individuality.

Lucky we're talking about blastocysts which are not sacks of fluid. — AmadeusD

You are factually incorrect. Again.





And again, the point that seems to escape you, these are not images of people.

Funnily, you've posted an image that (if taken at face value) proves my account accurate? Thank you Banno :) Ha...ha? Why not just say "Yes, I was wrong. It's not a cyst. But it's still not a person" ??

And again, the point that seems to escape you, these are not images of people. — Banno

It didn't escape me. It wasn't relevant to the correction I've provided. I agree - that's not a person. But that's not relevant as to whether the above is a cyst or not (it isn't). At least try not to totally misread, conflate and ignore.

The image is of a sack of fluid. That's what a cyst is. There really is no point in discussing this with you when you deny what is before you.

But go ahead, make more posts about me.

That’s not how it works...at all. A ball doesn’t know what a ball is. — Bob Ross

Yeah but balls aren't self-aware. I am though.

My point was that just because neurons are firing in a brain, that does not necessitate there is a person.

Personhood is mindhood: it is having a mind, not having a brain that could produce a mind or “house” a mind.

You are conflating a capacity for personhood with personhood. — Bob Ross

Yes fair enough, but I would still argue that even an unconscious mind is a mind. The neuron firings of an unconscious person don't turn into a random jumble and then spontaneously reassemble into a mind when that person wakes up. There is continuity.

But perhaps on a more fundamental level I'll have to take "capacity for personhood" as evidence for actual personhood. I don't usually have access to brain scans of people I meet.

Nature is defined by evolutionary biology — Bob Ross

Ok, then what part of that biology are you calling nature

Thereby creating a new life, which thereby begins its continual-development process until death. — Bob Ross

That's interpretation, not fact. I've already pointed out that there's nothing "new" about the life, all of its components are already alive, there's no abiogenesis going on (and even if there was, that would not answer the question of moral relevance anyways).

??? . I can't tell if you are joking. — Bob Ross

I'm not. A sperm cell is a single-celled organism. It's alive.

There is a living human being that is created upon conception; so that is where it begins as a living being. After birth is not at all when it becomes a human being: that makes no sense.

Yes fair enough, but I would still argue that even an unconscious mind is a mind. The neuron firings of an unconscious person don't turn into a random jumble and then spontaneously reassemble into a mind when that person wakes up. There is continuity.

What you are describing is a capacity to deploy a mind, and not having a mind. Therefore, you must agree that a knocked out human being technically isn’t a person when they are knocked out; and re-gain personhood when they re-gain consciousness.

This is not a minor point: your whole argument relied on personhood grounding rights, not the capacity to acquire personhood (because they have a fully developed brain). You are starting to morph into my view: the nature of that being sets them out as a person, because they can and will, if everything goes according to the proper biological development, develop personhood.

Also, if you go the capacity route; then you end up with the absurdity that dead human beings have no rights...just food for thought.

Ok, then what part of that biology are you calling nature

I am talking about how a healthy member of a species is supposed to develop and become. People think of “teleoglogy” as a dirty word these days, or a vacuous concept, but we use it implicitly all the time in the medical industry.

When you go into the doctor’s office and complain about your hand not acting properly, or when a child is born without an arm and you take pity on them, you are talking necessarily in teleological terms: your hand, e.g., was supposed to, according to what a healthy human hand normally does, behave such-and-such instead of so-and-so.

You have a nature which is set out by your biology which is set out by the species which you are a member of. Zebras are supposed to have stripes: a zebra which doesn’t have stripes is an abnormality—a defect.

That's interpretation, not fact.

There’s a huge consensus in biology that life begins at conception; so it’s, quite frankly, not worth my time to argue about it. Here’s a good article on it: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3211703 .

"Life begins at conception" is an imprecise short-hand for "a human life begins at conception". Stop picking the low hanging fruits: obviously a sperm is alive and so is my skin cells---we are talking about when a human being is alive.

There is a living human being that is created upon conception; so that is where it begins as a living being. After birth is not at all when it becomes a human being: that makes no sense. — Bob Ross

It's not a person. That's the salient point. All things being equal, it would be nice to allow it to develop into a person, but all things aren't equal, and that would entail violating the woman's bodily autonomy rights.

"Life begins at conception" is an imprecise short-hand for "a human life begins at conception". Stop picking the low hanging fruits: obviously a sperm is alive and so is my skin cells---we are talking about when a human being is alive. — Bob Ross

I was just explaining what Echarmion was saying. I understood you as misinterpreting him as saying that life begins after conception. Maybe I misunderstood you.

So a foetus doesn’t have a right to live unless some authority declares and confers that right?

Then what exactly are you trying to argue here? Because with the above in mind all we can do is describe the fact that in some places and at some times abortion is legal and in other places and at other times it is illegal.

Anyone can confer a right. And I was just explaining my view of rights, like you asked.

Most of us are quite capable of understanding what “person” means, that rocks, embryos, and flies are not people, and that adult humans (and intelligent aliens) are people. The type of “personhood” that you think doesn’t exist isn’t the type of personhood that any of us are talking about.

I’m sorry but there is hardly any consensus as to what a person is. I don’t think it’s a good idea to start killing living things on such a flimsy basis.

The very real and obvious observable differences between rocks, embryos, and flies on the one hand and born humans on the other hand.

The fact that an embryo has roughly the same DNA as me and will eventually grow into an organism like me simply isn’t sufficient grounds to grant it the same rights as me or even just the right to live at the expense of the rights of the woman who must carry it to term.

I wasn’t necessarily speaking about rights. I was saying they deserve a chance to live and that it is wrong to kill them.

But that's the whole point of this particular line of discussion. The laws have to make that distinction - there needs to be some means to determine whether any given collection of cells and protoplasm is legally a person or not.

Sure, but parents and abortionists also make that distinction with or without the law.

I wasn’t necessarily speaking about rights. I was saying they deserve a chance to live and that it is wrong to kill them. — NOS4A2

I mean you said this:

Our bodies have largely evolved for the task of protecting human life in its earliest development, and many of us hold to right-to-life principles, for instance that a human being in its earliest development deserves a chance to live.

So forgive me for being confused.

Are you now suggesting that it can be wrong to kill a foetus and that a foetus deserves the chance to live even if they haven't been granted the right to live?

There is a living human being that is created upon conception; so that is where it begins as a living being. After birth is not at all when it becomes a human being: that makes no sense. — Bob Ross

To me it seems like an arbitrary starting point. Like sperm and egg magically become a living being the instant they meet. Not a fraction of a second before they meet. Sort of like claiming that a cake becomes a cake the exact instant its ingredients first come into contact.

I think you need to include the concept of an immortal soul for the conception thing to work.

So forgive me for being confused.

Are you now suggesting that it can be wrong to kill a foetus and that a foetus deserves the chance to live even if they haven't been granted the right to live?

There needs to be some basis for granting rights in the first place.

There needs to be some basis for granting rights in the first place. — NOS4A2

That doesn't really address the question. According to your own account of rights there's nothing more to rights than someone having said something like "so-and-so has the right to such-and-such".

So John says "foetuses have a right to life" and Jane says "foetuses don't have a right to life". Where do we go from here?

Do you want to argue that one of John and Jane is correct and the other incorrect? Then there's more to rights than someone having said something like "so-and-so has the right to such-and-such". And so, using your own reasoning, one must be able to point to some measurable property which is "the right" (independent of what either John or Jane say). Can you do that?

But then you also say above that it's not about rights but about wrongness and deservingness, which just shifts the problem: using your own reasoning, one must be able to point to some measurable property which is "wrongness" and "deservingness". Can you do that?

Or perhaps you simply need to accept that not everything is a measurable property that can be pointed to, whether that be "right", "deservingness", or "personhood".

To me it seems like an arbitrary starting point.

The beginning of a life is an arbitrary starting point?

That doesn't really address the question.

Sorry, I didn’t know this was an interview.

You’re making nouns out of my adjectives. I don’t believe wrongness and rightness and rights are measurable properties of anything.

When I confer to you a right, I simply declare your right and then refuse to interfere in whatever activity I have given you the right to. I also work to defend your right from others who might intervene. So when I confer to you the right to eat, for example, I don’t stop you from eating. I also defend you (or at least ought to) from others who would intervene.

No one receives a right property upon being conferred a right.

What is a life?

You’re making nouns out of my adjectives. I don’t believe wrongness and rightness and rights are measurable properties of anything. — NOS4A2

So you claim that killing foetuses is wrong but don't need to point to some measurable property of being wrong because "wrong" is an adjective, and others claim that foetuses aren't people and need to point to some measurable property of being a person because "person" is a noun?

Such an argument from grammar is special pleading.

I don't understand your reply. You say there is no means to determine personhood, yet (if I follow you correctly) you agree that a country's legal system has to make that decision.

My further response applies to everything you've just said. I think it's possible you're not getting me:
That you claim to be a person begs the question, but even if it didn't, it provides absolutely nothing as to a 'necessary or sufficient' set of criteria. You're just saying 'look at me!!'. I could make the same claim about being black. But, as you know, I'd be either laughed at or charged with racism. Fair enough, too. My point is you have to have a set of criteria, prior to your claim to fit them, and then assess whether you fit them (I imagine this can be easily done, it's just not happening here). I'm wanting your criteria. If that is just 'what I, in fact, am' I'll leave it there and just say I'm not convinced. — AmadeusD

I see where you're coming from. I think that fundamentally, my personhood in at of itself must be considered an a-priori conclusion. I experience myself as a continuous and monolithic actor interacting with a world that is outside of me. I experience self-awareness in the sense that I'm aware of my own awareness. I call this personhood.

We could go back to Descartes with this, you probably get the idea. So I think it's less that there are some criteria and then I decide whether I fit them. I look at myself and decide what the necessary and sufficient criteria are to be like that.

I've been reticent to enumerate exact criteria because if I did, I'd certainly make mistakes. But I think the rough outlines aren't that controversial if we're talking about adults. Thinking, awareness, empathy.

Which ones? And are they derived from your conviction that you're a person? Seems to remain somewhat circular, if inter-personal. — AmadeusD

I see what you mean by circular, but the addition of other potential subjects that you interact with is a relevant addition. If there were no others, there'd be no need for the concept of personhood.

I wouldn't disagree, and we're getting somewhere now - but following from the previous comments about consciousness, We would want to know at what level does the consciousness reach the level of a 'personal' consciousness - in the sense that an alien species could have cognitive abilities the same as humans, and not be humans. Are they persons, nonetheless? Yes or no is fine, I'm just curious as to where these ideas go... Not sure where i'd land. — AmadeusD

I would say they're persons. Personally I also consider some primate and whale species at least close to persons based on the complexity of their behaviour.

Since we don't have inside views of others, human or not, I think we need to rely on signs of complex cognition that can be observed. Like recognising yourself in the mirror, displaying empathy and complex social relations, having significant discretion in how to react to stimuli.

I think this is likely part of the answer(given we need to assess personhood, and identity, it's a doozy so I'm loathe to think there's anything but a very complex answer). I don't think there's anything mystical, but I do think there might be a moveable moment. This might be the moment hte heart beats for the first time, as a trivial example, which would be different for different fetuses. I don't think it's hard to offer several possibilities for hard-and-fast rules. Just, i don't see anyone agreeing given either (meaning, depending on your view) a life is being ended, or prevented. — AmadeusD

I don't really have a strong attachment to any particular line. I think if you want to be more cautious and choose an earlier moment, that's an understandable approach, but we'd need to balance our caution with having a practical solution that doesn't put all the burden of uncertainty on the women.

VERY fun!! I like these lines. I think if a fetus looked like a dog, and lost its hair, drew in its mandible and slowly became bi-pedal over the first six months, we definitely have to make an arbitrary call as to when it 'morally' becomes 'human'. What would you want to say there? — AmadeusD

In a way that's what happens, a fetus looks very alien during some of its development. But I think in this scenario, we'd have a whole lot less concerns about abortion. We'd maybe not treat children as human until they actually looked human. I think that in terms of evidence about cognitive ability, we don't have much to go on for newborns. Children don't recognise themselves in the mirror during roughly the first year. In that sense, one could argue that a dolphin is more of a person.

That's of course a one-dimensional view and human children do have abilities in other areas. But if you wanted to establish a set of criteria for personhood that didn't take into account species (directly or indirectly) it seems to me you'd have trouble coming up with a catalogue that included newborn human children without also including a diverse set of non-human animals.

What you are describing is a capacity to deploy a mind, and not having a mind. Therefore, you must agree that a knocked out human being technically isn’t a person when they are knocked out; and re-gain personhood when they re-gain consciousness.

This is not a minor point: your whole argument relied on personhood grounding rights, not the capacity to acquire personhood (because they have a fully developed brain). You are starting to morph into my view: the nature of that being sets them out as a person, because they can and will, if everything goes according to the proper biological development, develop personhood. — Bob Ross

I'm not sure that I "must" agree. I can see your point, but it's based on the assumption that a mind is not a continuous entity but a series of unrelated instances. In your view, the mind that go to sleep and the mind that wakes up are different minds. That runs directly counter to the self-awareness of the mind as a continuous entity. And this also matches up with the fact that the physical representation of the mind - the neuronal activity - does not stop while unconscious. In addition, you are not necessarily conscious at any given moment of all your mind. Thoughts and impressions often "pop into" your mind, but since they don't spring up ex-nihilo they're probably really parts of your mind that just weren't in focus.

So why can't I just conclude that "consciousness" is merely an attribute of a mind? In that case there are conscious minds and unconscious minds, that does not seem like a logical impossibility.

Also, if you go the capacity route; then you end up with the absurdity that dead human beings have no rights...just food for thought. — Bob Ross

Uh, what is absurd about that? Why would dead human beings have rights?

I am talking about how a healthy member of a species is supposed to develop and become. People think of “teleoglogy” as a dirty word these days, or a vacuous concept, but we use it implicitly all the time in the medical industry.

When you go into the doctor’s office and complain about your hand not acting properly, or when a child is born without an arm and you take pity on them, you are talking necessarily in teleological terms: your hand, e.g., was supposed to, according to what a healthy human hand normally does, behave such-and-such instead of so-and-so.

You have a nature which is set out by your biology which is set out by the species which you are a member of. Zebras are supposed to have stripes: a zebra which doesn’t have stripes is an abnormality—a defect. — Bob Ross

This is fine if we're talking about subjects where there's no disconnect between what the teleology says it's natural and what individuals usually want. A kind of instrumental theology. People usually want two functioning arms so you can generally assume their interest is to have functioning arms. Such presumed interests are also applied in a legal context when you need to decide on surgery on someone who is e.g. unconscious.

You run into a problem though once you move away from the presumed interests of the person. At that point the teleology would have to be justified against the interests of the person affected and I don't think it can. We have plenty of historical examples about the tyranny of normality.

On the subject of abortion, that brings us back to the familiar question: does a fetus have a presumed interest to become a person? You'd probably say yes, just like an unconscious person has an interest in continuing to live. But to me this comes down to the fundamental notion of logical prerequisites. You have to exist before you can have rights or interests.

There’s a huge consensus in biology that life begins at conception; so it’s, quite frankly, not worth my time to argue about it. Here’s a good article on it: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3211703 . — Bob Ross

But what do the biologists mean when they say life? Since obviously all parts of the reproductive mechanism are already alive, they don't mean abiogenesis. But if they don't mean life as opposed to non-living chemical and physical processes, what do they mean?

It just comes down to power. Where abortion is illegal, there are few doctors who will do it because they don't want to be punished.

If you want abortion to be legal, you'll have to get yourself some power. Logical arguments have zero to do with it.

I call this personhood. — Echarmion

Ok, fair enough. I suppose I am simply left unconvinced :P Common!

I look at myself and decide what the necessary and sufficient criteria are to be like that. — Echarmion

And I think this is why. Though, if you would accept the following, I think I can get to your lilypad without much issue:

For humans, designating what we are is a matter of assigning a label to the already-known criteria, rather htan assessing hte criteria a priori.

I can see why that would be both more reasonable, and the better logical way of going about it. That said, this wouldn't help with a fetus, or zygote :P

if we're talking about adults. — Echarmion

Yeah, for sure. Think this is where I was going. How do you read those back to a fetus? Or, is it hte case that a fetus (even nine month-ers) aren't persons for this reason?

I would say they're persons. Personally I also consider some primate and whale species at least close to persons based on the complexity of their behaviour — Echarmion

Ah, i see. THis is a relatively novel bullet to bite. Bravo.

Like recognising yourself in the mirror, displaying empathy and complex social relations, having significant discretion in how to react to stimuli. — Echarmion

That's fair, but again, as for the fetus or Zygote (or even infant)?

it seems to me you'd have trouble coming up with a catalogue that included newborn human children without also including a diverse set of non-human animals. — Echarmion

yeah dude - good fun! Thank you :)

It's literally not but that explains you, i guess. No one's arguing with you. You're being corrected. If you're not interested in such, on your way lad.