Yes, because I am a person.
And? I didn't claim any brain makes a person. Some brains do though.
I did not claim evolution is arbitrary. The concept of "nature" is arbitrary.
It's a scientific fact that, at conception, two cells fuse to become one, combining their genetic material.
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
I agree — Echarmion
we determine personhood based on certain cognitive similarities and their expressions in behaviour. — Echarmion
By doing that it seems pretty obvious that a person needs some kind of thinking apparatus. — Echarmion
I'm not necessarily arguing my own position in those comments. — Echarmion
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
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
A cyst is a sack of fluid. — Banno
And again, the point that seems to escape you, these are not images of people. — Banno
That’s not how it works...at all. A ball doesn’t know what a ball is. — Bob Ross
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
Nature is defined by evolutionary biology — Bob Ross
Thereby creating a new life, which thereby begins its continual-development process until death. — 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.
Ok, then what part of that biology are you calling nature
That's interpretation, not fact.
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
"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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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. — NOS4A2
That doesn't really address the question.
You’re making nouns out of my adjectives. I don’t believe wrongness and rightness and rights are measurable properties of anything. — NOS4A2
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
Which ones? And are they derived from your conviction that you're a person? Seems to remain somewhat circular, if inter-personal. — AmadeusD
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
I call this personhood. — Echarmion
I look at myself and decide what the necessary and sufficient criteria are to be like that. — Echarmion
if we're talking about adults. — Echarmion
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
Like recognising yourself in the mirror, displaying empathy and complex social relations, having significant discretion in how to react to stimuli. — Echarmion
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
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