15-04-2004 07:52									#181
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quote: I don't understand what you're saying here. Are you saying that you can determine which children will live and which children will die at conception? What about miscarriages?

No, what I am saying is that your standard will decide whether or not an embryo can or can not be killed. That's why the language must be so precise, because this is what is at stake.

Secondly, miscarriages are like dying prematurely. Just because one may die prematurely, does not mean that you stop being a person.

quote: Infants satisfy necessary conditions for sentience (except for those few infants who are born without brains, but these infants always die shortly after birth anyway), and nobody has provided any arguments (except for those based entirely on intuition and not on scientific evidence) to suggest that infants fail any necessary conditions for sentience.

I'm thinking of folks like Peter Singer, who argues that infants do fail a test of sentience.

quote: This is why I, personally, would set the cutoff point halfway through the second trimester (where evidence of brain function is still rather shaky-to-nonexistent) and not at the start of the third trimester (where evidence of brain function is solid).

And what evidence is there against the brain function in the earlier parts of pregnancy? Just because the evidence is uncertain is argument in favour of not killing these children.

quote: Infants are born as humans, and they are born with brains. I don't see where there's a problem.

Again, M'sieu Singer.

quote: Comatose patients still have brain function, albeit at a reduced capacity (e.g., they cannot respond to most stimuli).

And so do unborn children. What level of 'functioning' ought to be sufficient for personhood?

quote: What definition are you using? Certainly not mine. Human infants are human and (except for those with terminal medical conditions) are born with functional brains, hence, by my definition human infants are sentient for all intents and purposes.

Self-concept is a philosophical term, not a scientific one. You assume that just because one has a brain, one has a self-concept. Again, I'm looking at Singer's arguments, and how he defines self-awareness, most of which has nothing to do with science.

quote: You have failed to define "personhood," unless your definition of personhood is "something that begins at conception."

Intrinsic capacity to grow and develop. For the sake of this argument, we could define this as attaining increasing sentience but this is just one aspect of the growth and devlopment of a human person. This development begins at conception.

quote: I can live with an artificial circulatory system, though.

For long enough to properly replace all your veins and arteries throughout your body?

quote: How much of your body can be replaced by machinery or transplants or whatever before you cease to be "you"?

Crux of the argument. Good!

This is one of the biggest problems that Singer has. People are people because of their essential nature present at conception, that exists regardless of their current capacities. This essential nature remains with the person, so long as they are alive.

Now, let's go back to open heart surgery. So long as the person remains alive they remain a person, EVEN without their heart. With an artificial heart, they have not lost their essence or nature present from before.

In this case, it remains the question of whether the brain can exist without the body, or if one could replace every functioning organ of the body, without the deterioration of the brain due to the seperation from their body.

I do not believe this is possible. One of the reasons could be that this connection between the brain and the body is part of this essential nature of who we are, and cannot be lost without losing who we are.

quote: I'd stated in my dilemma that the brain is capable of limited interaction with its environment, e.g., though some sort of speech machine.

And why would the connection work, for the brain to communicate directly with the machine? That's something that has not been shown to be possible either.

Let's suppose we hear certain words, how could we ever prove that this communication to still be the same person as before?

quote: There's really no good answer to either dilemma until we're better able to determine somebody's thoughts from their EEGs (or whatever).

I think we already have a good answer. If we can put someone back together without harm, then we should do so, because to keep the two seperate would be like keeping a heart from another person during heart surgery.

Secondly, this sort of solution seems rather convoluted to the problem of a disease that would be fatal, and incurable. Why not work on curing the body, rather than seperating the body and the brain.

	15-04-2004 08:26									#182
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi Rather vague standard, considering when you will be killing people for falling short of this standard.

No, just vague wording on my part. And no, I can't give less vague wording, because I don't have a PhD in neurobiology.

quote: And embryos aren't rocks. Point?

Embryos aren't rocks, true. They're more like algae, except without the ability to perform photosynthesis.

	15-04-2004 08:30									#183
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I don't think you need a degree to come up with a clear position.

Perhaps the problem is with your position, if you need a degree to properly clarify what you believe.

quote: They're more like algae, except without the ability to perform photosynthesis.

There a baby, just less developed than the one we see outside the womb.

Why is that so hard to see?

	15-04-2004 08:32									#184
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They are no different from any other random mass of cells, except for potential future state, is basically what you are saying.

	15-04-2004 09:17									#185
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quote: They are no different from any other random mass of cells,

Hardly random.

Otherwise, how would a child come to be born? There has to be real structure and form well before birth.

	15-04-2004 09:53									#186
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Ok, the only difference that could possibly have any bearing on this discussion between it and any other random mass of cells.

Inherently, a bunch of cells has no special right to live. But if you make the case that its potential future state gives it rights, then you cannot stop at conception. Would you say masturbation is killing unborn children? Every sperm is sacred?

	15-04-2004 19:15									#187
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi I'm thinking of folks like Peter Singer, who argues that infants do fail a test of sentience.

What test of sentience does he use?

quote: And what evidence is there against the brain function in the earlier parts of pregnancy?

The lack of a brain.

quote: And so do unborn children.

Are you claiming that a zygote has a brain? Which cell in the single-celled organism comprises the brain?

quote: Self-concept is a philosophical term, not a scientific one. You assume that just because one has a brain, one has a self-concept.

As I've repeatedly stated, brain function is a necessary condition for determining sentience, not a sufficient condition for determining sentience. Otherwise everything with a brain would be "sentient."

quote: Intrinsic capacity to grow and develop.

Then why isn't a bird a person? After all, it has the intrinsic capacity to grow and develop.

Do we stop being persons at middle-age, when we stop growing/developing?

quote: For the sake of this argument, we could define this as attaining increasing sentience but this is just one aspect of the growth and devlopment of a human person.

Then what else, besides sentience, sets humans apart from, say, birds?

quote: For long enough to properly replace all your veins and arteries throughout your body?

Sure. It's not as though they all need to be replaced in one fell swoop.

quote: This is one of the biggest problems that Singer has. ... One of the reasons could be that this connection between the brain and the body is part of this essential nature of who we are, and cannot be lost without losing who we are.

You didn't answer my question. How much of your body can be replaced by machinery or transplants or whatever before you cease to be "you"?

quote: And why would the connection work, for the brain to communicate directly with the machine?

For pity's sake, man. If you're going to operate on the assumption that medical science is static, then there's no reason why we can't use GePap's definition of "personhood."

quote: Why not work on curing the body, rather than seperating the body and the brain.

Who cares? It's a friggin thought experiment. Presumably the hypothetical disease being cured spreads rapidly, takes several months to eradicate, and cannot be cured once it reaches the brain, so that the only safe way to cure the disease is to separate the infected body from the uninfected brain.

	15-04-2004 19:18									#188
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quote: Originally posted by loinburger This test would essentially be assigning rights to the unborn based entirely our level of technology, i.e., it doesn't make sense that a 6-month-old fetus would be a "non-person" in 2004 but would suddenly become a "person" in 2015 when it's able to be kept alive in an artificial incubator thingimajigger. If we change the test to say "at what point could it live separately from the mother without machine assistance," then we might as well just unplug everybody who's in the intensive care ward at the hospital while we're at it.

I don't get the second part at all: the question here is a test at which one can claim that a fetus becomes a human being-it has 0 bearing on the question of mechanical assistance to any individual we accept as a human being already-ie, passed our first test.

I failt o see at all the implied connection you attempt to make.

	15-04-2004 19:21									#189
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quote: Originally posted by GePap Only if you don;t include the statement- at which point could a fetus be viable sans technological help. Then it remains fully biological.

Somebody doesn't become a "non-person" just because they're living with machine assistance (e.g., an artificial heart), so why should the rules for determining personhood be different for the unborn?

	15-04-2004 19:33									#190
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quote: Originally posted by loinburger Somebody doesn't become a "non-person" just because they're living with machine assistance (e.g., an artificial heart), so why should the rules for determining personhood be different for the unborn?

Sorry, but I edited the post after this.

The question is not one becoming a non-person after the fact of being a person. The question is, in a state of nature, at which point does a fetus become viable and capable of having a good chance of survival seperate from the mother.

At which point is the life of the fetus viable as an individual distinct from the body of another human being. That is the question. So as I said above, I fail to see the connection you are trying to make with machine assistance to anyone we consider a human being already- and this would include any premature births, since they are obviously no longer in the mother's body, so the woman's right arguement is gone and if the woman does not want to care for it at this point she can give it up for adoption.

	15-04-2004 19:43									#191
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quote: Originally posted by GePap At which point is the life of the fetus viable as an individual distinct from the body of another human being.

Why is this question even relevant for determining personhood?

quote: So as I said above, I fail to see the connection you are trying to make with machine assistance to anyone we consider a human being already- and this would include any premature births, since they are obviously no longer in the mother's body, so the woman's right arguement is gone and if the woman does not want to care for it at this point she can give it up for adoption.

What's the difference between a premature birth living with the assistance of a machine and a fetus living with the assistance of a machine? Wouldn't it be more consistent to say that children born prematurely are non-persons?

	15-04-2004 20:04									#192
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quote: Originally posted by loinburger Why is this question even relevant for determining personhood?

Why is it not? It is as useful as any of the theoritical and unprovable assertions made here. Anything based on sentience or pain involves knowledge of the brain we lack-theological assertions simply can;t be proved, and if you make personhood based on sentience or pain you always get the problem of people in coma's and whatever. This is a simple, relatively easy test that says- as long as the fetus in essence is a parasite of the women's body, she can remove it. Once we can show that the fetus is now an occupant being cared for within the woman and no longer fully dependent on the woman for survival (without getting into the issue of technology), we can consider it a seperate human being.

quote: What's the difference between a premature birth living with the assistance of a machine and a fetus living with the assistance of a machine? Wouldn't it be more consistent to say that children born prematurely are non-persons?

A fetus living with the assistacne of a machine would no longer be in a woman's body, NO? So this would no longer be an issue of abortion, which is the point of the thread. As for consistency-consistency is a virtue of limited value on issues in which each case is so damned particular.

	15-04-2004 21:09									#193
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quote: Originally posted by GePap Why is it not?

Because it isn't relevant for determining the personhood of any other organisms, e.g., children born prematurely.

quote: A fetus living with the assistacne of a machine would no longer be in a woman's body, NO? So this would no longer be an issue of abortion, which is the point of the thread.

If a fetus being kept alive on a machine is a person, then so is a fetus that is not being kept alive on a machine (i.e., a fetus that is still in the womb). If you claim that a fetus being kept alive on a machine is a non-person, then why do you claim that a child born prematurely that is being kept alive on a machine is a person?

	15-04-2004 22:48									#194
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quote: Originally posted by loinburger If a fetus being kept alive on a machine is a person, then so is a fetus that is not being kept alive on a machine (i.e., a fetus that is still in the womb). If you claim that a fetus being kept alive on a machine is a non-person, then why do you claim that a child born prematurely that is being kept alive on a machine is a person?

You are attempting to define "personhood" on abstract notions-which means you will never get a resolution.

I am using a very simple physical definition-
what you pose is a sidenote- if for some reason a fetus is being fed and nurtured by machines, even if biologically they would not be viable, we are assuming that someone has taken responsibility for the life of this fetus-otherwise it would simply have been terminated, and under my simple little test, that would have been OK, since the fetus would still not have reached independent personhood.

Is this metaphysically fulfilling? No. But it is as good a working definition as you can get without it being based on theology.

	15-04-2004 23:04									#195
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Fetuses being the only "parasite" which are deliberately created by their host, are the same species as the host, and are in fact required for the future existence of their host's race?

Recall the siamese twin argument-if some lousy punk is using my liver and heart to support his head, without contributing to the well-being of those organs or supplying anything in return, can I kill the stupid thing? He's not needed to keep me alive, so how is it his body when the only things that are distinctly "him" are superfluous to my survival? "Parasitism" is a bit oversimplified, GePap.

	16-04-2004 00:22									#196
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It conveys the fact that the fetus is not yet independent of the woman.

Siamese twins are a byproduct of a problem in the womb-but the question here is still one of separating the independence of the woman from the independence of the fetus and when we can declare the fetus or fetuses (including joint fetuses) to be persons deserving of some sort of equal rights.

Besides, the fact is the body of the woman is more than willing to treat the baby as a parasite-IIRC most miscarriages or natural abortions occur when the systems designed to avoid the internal defenses of the woman from attacking the fetus fail.

	16-04-2004 02:38									#197
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Yes, but how is a siamese twin not a "parasite" off his brother while the fetus is a parasite off the mother? If the criterion is being a useless unnecessary drain of resources, they both fit the bill.

As to your last paragraph, you're describing something much like the normal function of the immune system, which attacks all "foreign" cells, even if they happen to be organ transplants keeping the body alive. Not significant IMO.

	16-04-2004 08:19									#198
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quote: Originally posted by Elok Yes, but how is a siamese twin not a "parasite" off his brother while the fetus is a parasite off the mother? If the criterion is being a useless unnecessary drain of resources, they both fit the bill.

NO, because each siamese twin needs the other-they are symbiots if anything. Now, if you tell me one twin can die and the other live and walk around attached to a corpse, fine-but their relation is nowhere like that of a mother and child, which is mean to end, as opposed to that of siamese twins. So the "comparison" ytou are trying to make is not very good, and misses the general point.

quote: As to your last paragraph, you're describing something much like the normal function of the immune system, which attacks all "foreign" cells, even if they happen to be organ transplants keeping the body alive. Not significant IMO.

Well, it is significant in that the woman's body would normally see the fetus as a foreign object- I don;t see the immune system of one siamese twin going after the other-robalby due to being genetically identical (while a child is not genetically identical to the mother).

So one, it shows yet another clear distinction between the case I am making and the attempt to compare this to siamese twins.

Any attempt to define being a person (beyond the taxonomical and zoological definition of a human being as a member of the species Homo Sapiens) based on some brain activity will invaribly run into the cases of the braindead and those in vegetative states. Thi is a simple testwhich point would be the earliest we woul consider a fetus a person capable of rights? This gives you a marker with a reason.

	16-04-2004 09:41									#199
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quote: Inherently, a bunch of cells has no special right to live.

We are all just a bunch of cells, by that same logic.

quote: But if you make the case that its potential future state gives it rights,

No, the state at conception gives the unborn child the right to life. This state allows the child to grow and develop as she grow older.

quote: Would you say masturbation is killing unborn children? Every sperm is sacred?

No, because by itself, the sperm will not develop into a child, as the zygote will.

	16-04-2004 09:57									#200
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quote: What test of sentience does he use?

Good question! He thieves from Bentham.

"The question is not, can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"

However:

"Now it must be admitted that these arguments apply to the newborn baby as much as to the fetus. A week-old baby is not a rational and self-conscious being, and there are many non-human animals whose rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel pain (sentience), and so on, exceed that of a human baby a week, a month, or even a year old. If the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee".

[Peter Singer, "Taking life: abortion", in Practical Ethics (London: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 118.]

So he argues that what is necessary is not a 'capacity' to feel pain, but that the unborn child does not suffer ENOUGH to be considered a person!

quote: The lack of a brain.

Does the brain spring into being spontaneously?

quote: Are you claiming that a zygote has a brain? Which cell in the single-celled organism comprises the brain?

No, I claim a continuum of development, such that moral distinctions anywhere along the continuum are meaningless.

quote: As I've repeatedly stated, brain function is a necessary condition for determining sentience, not a sufficient condition for determining sentience. Otherwise everything with a brain would be "sentient."

Why the distinction between necessary and sufficient? What other conditions must be met for sufficient conditions of sentience?

quote: Then why isn't a bird a person? After all, it has the intrinsic capacity to grow and develop.

As a bird would, not a person.

quote: Do we stop being persons at middle-age, when we stop growing/developing?

Growth takes many forms, rather than just physical growth.

quote: Then what else, besides sentience, sets humans apart from, say, birds?

Could they ever attain sentience? No. Their lack is not temporary, but permanent.

quote: Sure. It's not as though they all need to be replaced at the same time.

But you are severing the head from the body. How are you going to keep the brain alive?

quote: You didn't answer my question. How much of your body can be replaced by machinery or transplants or whatever before you cease to be "you"?

I did. Everything but what connects your brain to your body, and your body to your brain.

quote: For pity's sake, man. If you're going to operate on the assumption that medical science is static, then there's no reason why we can't use GePap's definition of "personhood."

Why do you need to communicate with others in order to be a person? That's the assumption you seem to be making. You don't. Even if you could not communicate, you would still be a person.

quote: It's a friggin thought experiment. Presumably the hypothetical disease being cured spreads rapidly, takes several months to eradicate, and cannot be cured once it reaches the brain, so that the only safe way to cure the disease is to separate the infected body from the uninfected brain.one fell swoop.

Rather implausible. The problem with these thought experiments, is when extrapolating these esoteric conclusions, they will not apply to real-world situations.

In this example no one is saying that the unborn child lacks this capacity to develop, regardless of the answer that I give to the thought experiment. The only thing we clarify is the definition of personhood as something in the substance, not in the parts of people, in their essence.

	16-04-2004 16:18									#201
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi "The question is not, can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"

Does he suggest any means by which we can measure "suffering"?

quote: Does the brain spring into being spontaneously?

No. I've already said that it does not.

quote: Why the distinction between necessary and sufficient?

Because in this case, necessary conditions are insufficient, and sufficient conditions are unnecessary. Nobody has proposed a set of conditions that are both necessary and sufficient, hence the distinction must be made.

quote: What other conditions must be met for sufficient conditions of sentience?

DinoDoc already asked this, and I answered him.

quote: As a bird would, not a person.

You defined personhood as "intrinsic capacity to grow and develop." Using this definition, a bird (or a dog or a cat etc.) would be a person.

quote: Growth takes many forms, rather than just physical growth.

Example?

quote: Could they ever attain sentience? No. Their lack is not temporary, but permanent.

Why should sentience matter, if personhood is simply the capacity to grow an develop? If you're now saying that personhood is the "capacity to grow and develop sentience," then this would mean that somebody who is sentient is a non-person (since they no longer have the capacity to grow and develop that which they already possess).

quote: I did. Everything but what connects your brain to your body, and your body to your brain.

But what's your body? Like I said, we've already established that you could lose your limbs and your heart, and yet still be a "person." So, what other organs define "personhood" -- are we non-persons if we lose our kidneys? Or our lungs? Or our spleen?

The fact of the matter is that you can't name a single organ, besides the brain, whose loss would result in the loss of our personhood. It should also be noted that the organs you've proposed (such as the heart) are only relevant in that they help keep the brain alive.

quote: Why do you need to communicate with others in order to be a person?

When did I ever say that we did?

quote: In this example no one is saying that the unborn child lacks this capacity to develop, regardless of the answer that I give to the thought experiment. The only thing we clarify is the definition of personhood as something in the substance, not in the parts of people, in their essence.

In this example we demonstrate that you are using an invalid definition of "personhood" -- you have this vague notion that somebody's personhood is linked to this ill-defined thing that you call a "body," but when faced with a dilemma that forces you to separately consider the brain and the body all you're able to do is either dismiss the dilemma when it becomes apparent that you cannot satisfactorily answer it (as you are doing now by claiming "implausibility" several pages after the fact) or else try to wiggle out of the dilemma by using terms that you cannot even define (such as "body" or "person"). You are attempting to separate personhood from brain function so justify your assigning personhood to a brainless entity, but this leads you to a contradiction when answering the dilemma, so now you're trying to hose me.

	16-04-2004 18:14									#202
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Well GePap, as a test, you define "personality" in terms of biological self-sufficiency of the mother, no? Sorry if this has already been asked, but does that mean that in the future, when we can invent functioning artificial wombs, a dozen-cell zygote will be a person, and illegal to abort? Do women have to race against the clock to whack their kids?

	17-04-2004 17:39									#203
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So if, by the magic of technology, BK's brain was separated from his body and his consciousness was being kept alive through artificial means (brain in a jar and all that) he believes he would cease to be a person. Heh, that's an interesting admission.

I had always thought that, for Christians, the soul is what mattered for determining personhood, not the physical body. The physical body is merely a shell, isn't it? We don't keep it once we die and our souls go on to a new afterlife.

	17-04-2004 18:38									#204
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Not for the Orthodox (like me), it ain't. Death is considered unnatural because it separates body and soul, and arises as a consequence of sin; we believe in the bodily resurrection, and that point is VERY emphatically hammered in during retreats. The body-as-cage idea is just a holdout from Gnosticism. The soul "matters" for personhood in much the same way that a teapot isn't a teapot without a spout, but still needs a handle and a body to hold the tea. A Christian person is a complete whole to us. I don't know about other denominations.

	18-04-2004 23:10									#205
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So, in response to loinburger's thought exercise, were your brain put in a jar so to speak, would you cease to be "you" because you'd lost the rest of your body? Is your consciousness enough to make you Elok?

	18-04-2004 23:30									#206
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Well, if my brain were in a jar, and I were still functioning, I would technically "have a body," it's just that I would be something akin to a quadruple amputee. If body and soul are together, I am alive and me. With that said, it's a pretty sick thing to do to somebody, and I'm not sure that the church wouldn't advise just letting a guy go if you had to do that to save his life for some reason. We distinguish between "kill" and "let die," between acknowledging the inevitability of death and directly causing it.

A consciousness existing outside human flesh altogether is nebulous territory, but if I had to hazard a guess, I wouldn't call it human if it's just patterns of energy on a silicon chip, even if those patterns are based on human thought.

	19-04-2004 00:08									#207
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That sounds like you're saying that without a brain, there's no conciousness... n'est-ce pas? If one could have only a brain and still be a person, but can't be a person without that brain, wouldn't that be the logical conclusion?

	19-04-2004 01:45									#208
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I never said that consciousness doesn't reside within the brain. So far as we know, it does, or at least its function in relation to the human being depends on the brain remaining to some degree intact. I'm not arguing otherwise. I do think that the brain produces consciousness or the ability to communicate consciousness, rather than being consciousness itself; if you built an adult-size brain out of atoms, molecule by molecule, and brought it to life, it would still need considerable time to organize into an aware being, assuming it *had* awareness as a consequence of being brought to life by artificial means, and didn't just continue firing chemicals in a random, closed system.

There's no distinction, to my mind, between that long, arduous organization and, say, the body's development of lungs in utero. As it's all one consequence of the initial vitality coalescing into meaningful form, it doesn't matter what stage it's in.

Also, your example (or loin's, or whoever's), is something of an extreme amputee, so to speak. If cutting off my leg doesn't make me a non-human, then neither should cutting off other organs. The brain is the necessary requisite because, yes, it is the center of the innate self. There's no such thing as a prosthetic brain. Beyond that, it also controls the rest of the body, which is important in its own right.

But the "potential" does matter because it's a normal consequence of existing conditions, not just a possibility. Think of it this way: when you move to another state, you're expected to get certain documentations changed, but you're given a certain amount of time to change them. The government doesn't kick your door in the morning after you move and arrest you for fraud because their records have you living in a different state. They don't accuse you of a tax-evasion scheme or anything. They just assume that within a reasonable period of time you will file the appropriate paperwork and said paperwork will be processed. Until then you are effectively a resident of that state, even without the "requirement," because it is understood that said requirement will be met shortly.

The same rules should apply here IMO. The zygote/embryo has no brain, but it's working to get one. We think of butterflies as "insects with big pretty wings," but you can't stomp on fifty caterpillars and say you've never hurt a butterfly, and an acorn that's just started to germinate is still an oak tree even though it hasn't even poked out of the ground yet. You're arguing that I should poison the seedling quickly, before it sprouts, and if I call it a tree before then I might as well call an acorn one as well.

	19-04-2004 01:52									#209
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Funny how these debates always end up with these "consciousness/sentience" debates. Personally, speaking, I think it's a dead end. The South Dakota court clearly agrees, if terminations in the case of Ectopic preganancy. It's a straight balancing of mother's needs against foetal needs, and Junior loses whether he/she's considered conscious or not.

	19-04-2004 03:50									#210
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Yeah, but there's still the question of non-ectopic, non-life-threatening pregnancies. With cases that might kill the mother, it's a matter of killing unwanted cells or killing another person to save your own life, and either way it's acceptable. When it's killing unwanted cells or killing another person who reminds you of unpleasant events, is an economic burden, or may be handicapped, things get sticky and pseudo-eugenic to some of us.