I hate when people say Abortion is not something i would do BUT...
- Thread starter republicanchick
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shagster01
New member
Then by that view you must see a forest and call it a log cabin.
I mean, can't have a cabin without the trees.
Forests are cabins that don't look like cabins yet.
All the pieces are there... it's merely the development that is different.
Tinark
Active member
And what is special about the zygote with human DNA not present in a zygote with chimpanzee DNA or even a human liver cell? What if someone arbitrarily defines a zygote with Jewish DNA as non-human and the equivalent moral worth of a pig zygote?
This is the slippery slope one is lead down when someone defines personhood on the completely arbitrary features of a zygote rather than the inherent features that make a person a person and give them value and make it wrong to kill them (which I've elaborated on previously, consciousness, etc.)
That is a dangerous foundation to construct a moral worth argument for humans, easily kicked away when inconvenient. Instead, if we define personhood based on the unique and worthwhile features that humans (and potentially other non-humans) possess, and form a rigorous justification on why murdering a life with those features is wrong, then we have a solid rational foundation on which to prevent massacres such as the Nazi Holocaust when one realizes that these features are present in Jews and Non-Jews alike. In other words, you define personhood _independently_ of humans and human DNA and then you simply ask the question: which life forms possess these features that give a lifeform worth and make killing such a life wrong?
Cruciform
New member
The fact that the former is a human being.
Again, liver cells are merely cells, not beings.
They would be in direct conflict with science, which demonstrates that the former is a human being at the embryonic stage of development.
Who said anything about "personhood"?
Gaudium de veritate,
Cruciform
+T+
shagster01
New member
I wouldn't say that. . . because I wouldn't have a brain, mouth, thoughts, or any of those other things that PEOPLE need to say those things if I was a zygote.
republicanchick
New member
Then by that view you must see a Shagster in the mirror and call it a rational human.
I mean, can't have a rational human without the Shagster.
Shagsters are humans that don't look like humans yet.
All the pieces are there... it's merely the development that is different
Tinark
Active member
Did you miss the key phrase: _capapable_? When you are asleep, are you capable of consciousness (by being woken up, for example)?
For the other cases you mention, just because they are difficult to determine doesn't mean we aren't on the right track. However, if any of the individuals you listed can never experience consciousness, they are nothing more than a corpse on life support. It is just a body that is being kept alive, but there is no "person" that can actually experience anything. I also said that the absence of any one doesn't necessarily make someone a non-person, but the absence of _all_ of them does.
When we use completely arbitrary definitions for "person" like you do, or simply keep it vague: "The zygote is human/person because I say so, it's obvious so I don't have to explain further?", it becomes a dangerously shaky foundation. If it were truly as obvious as you claim, then it would not have been so easy to get people to think otherwise in Nazi Germany. Such a fragile foundation makes it so much easier for Hitlers to say that Jews actually are not human, that they are just animals that can be slaughtered (and why not? Since we aren't making any distinctions on what makes a human/person worthwhile and why it should be wrong to kill them). Or that black people are non-humans and therefore have no rights. Or that God only gives humans/persons souls, black people are not humans/persons (they are some other kind of animal that God created), so they have no souls.
Instead, if we define personhood and the moral worth of a life based on their objectively verifiable features, rationally grounded, we can see clear as day that black people, Jews, whomever, are conscious beings, can feel pain, can suffer, can form bonds and relationships with others, etc. Therefore, to declare them non-persons is irrational and baseless since they share all these common features with all other people. Anyone who attempts to claim otherwise, whether it be a politician or other hate monger, will have a much harder time getting people to believe objectively verifiable facts are false - they'd have to convice people that blacks and Jews are not capable of consciousness, that they can not experience pain or pleasure, that they can not form bonds and relationships with others, that they are not capable of thought, etc.
This gives us the solid philosophical foundation needed to prevent the kind of atrocities we've witnessed in the past and can actually answer the question: when is it wrong to kill a life form? It is wrong when it has the features that make it inherently valuable. Lacking all those features, it is indistinguishable in moral worth from an insect, a liver cell, etc. However, when it has these features, it is also indistinguishable in moral worth from my mother, my father, my neighbors, my children, etc.
republicanchick
New member
how do you feel about the (so well deserved)
sarcastic, sardonic
inanities of Post 46?
sarcastic, sardonic
inanities of Post 46?
Cruciform
New member
Why should the line be drawn at "the capacity for consciousness," rather than somewhere (anywhere) else? How does "consciousness"---whatever one might mean by the term---supposedly somehow determine or define humanity? How is your determination not entirely and inescapably arbitrary?
QUESTION: Is a living human fetus, then, merely "a corpse on life support"?
Then given the fact that an embryo is both alive and a human being---and possesses the capacity for consciousness at the proper stage of physical development---it must therefore be considered a living human person.
My designations are certainly no more "arbitrary"---in fact, much less so---than yours are.
Rather, because there is simply no non-arbitrary place to draw the line of humanity and personhood between conception and death.
For more info, see this.
Gaudium de veritate,
Cruciform
+T+
Last edited:
republicanchick
New member
Yes but..
how do you feel about the (so well deserved)
sarcastic, sardonic
inanities of Post 46?
how do you feel about the (so well deserved)
sarcastic, sardonic
inanities of Post 46?