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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 05/13/2009 : 14:00:53 [Permalink]
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dglas said:
Tell you what, why don't you provide your own stipulation of human being and be certain to provide evidence for that stipulation - not for determining when someone is a human being - but for the stipulation itself. Good luck.
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You also have failed to apprehend my point. Are you, or are you not, a person? If you answer "yes" then we have a common starting point AND a common definition of personhood. We can agree that you posses the minimum necessary qualities to be considered a person.
My point is, and has been, that anyone who wants to include a human zygote/embryo in the definition of "person", then they must be capable of explaining why. Show me the qualities (of personhood) that dglas has, that a zygote also has. That would be the evidence.
That help you grasp what I'm saying?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2009 : 14:55:00 [Permalink]
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I suspect dglas is a person.
I consider myself to be one.
So, what part of me qualifies me as a person?
I'd say my ability to feel and follow complex reasoning, the product of my CNS.
Does that definition applies to feti?
Probably, but certainly not before the development of the thalamus in the 30th week or so. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2009 : 15:08:37 [Permalink]
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Simon, I'm not attempting for formulate or decide what should be included as a quality necessary to personhood. As yet I seem to be unable to communicate the point I am trying to make. That point being nothing more than you cannot rationally accept any expansion of the definition of "person", to include things that clearly lack any quality you could point to in yourself as necessary to personhood, without some good reason.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2009 : 16:27:34 [Permalink]
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I think I get it now.
For example: 'foeti are persons, they have a beating heart', is irrelevant unless you'd describe somebody leaving on an artificial heart as no longer a person... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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dglas
Skeptic Friend
Canada
397 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2009 : 19:34:38 [Permalink]
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| @Dude: So, your understanding of a definition, whatever the particulars of the definition, is fixed. And the onus of responsibility for any inclusion or exclusion of "something" within that definition is something that must be justified, within the context of that definition. Otherwise the definition simply does not apply. Am I understanding this properly? |
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- dglas (In the hell of 1000 unresolved subplots...)
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The Presupposition of Intrinsic Evil
+ A Self-Justificatory Framework
= The "Heart of Darkness"
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| Edited by - dglas on 05/13/2009 19:37:04 |
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Mycroft
Skeptic Friend
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2009 : 01:16:46 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Or, until the fetus is viable outside the womb, it might be considered an endoparasite vectored by the male of the species. After it is viable, it quickly becomes exoparasitic upon the same host and it's vector.
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Kids continue to be parasitic for many years after leaving the womb. It's been 17 years so far for my kid, and there is no sign of the parasitic behavior changing anytime soon. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 05/14/2009 : 02:40:29 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Mycroft
Originally posted by filthy
Or, until the fetus is viable outside the womb, it might be considered an endoparasite vectored by the male of the species. After it is viable, it quickly becomes exoparasitic upon the same host and it's vector.
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Kids continue to be parasitic for many years after leaving the womb. It's been 17 years so far for my kid, and there is no sign of the parasitic behavior changing anytime soon.
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Mine finally metamorphosed from their larval stage into adults and now have parasites offspring of their own. Being merely an observer now, I have become convinced that, if there is a god, it designed children as paybacks for all the shit we gave our parents when we too, were parasitic. My version of a possible god, unlike that of 'most everyone else, has a sense of humor, albeit a wretched one.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2009 : 07:21:44 [Permalink]
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Dude wrote: | What needs to be clarified, and demonstrated, and evidenced, and argued... is WHY that definition should be expanded and extended to include an embryo. |
See, right there you say “that definition” – you are assuming that other people in this conversation are applying the same definition of “personhood” as yourself. You assume that in this conversation, “personhood” has already been defined in a way which excludes embryos because they are less developed.
| At some point between fertilization and external viability is the demarcation of personhood. Do I know where that is? No. No one does. |
From this am I to gather that if a woman has a late term abortion or miscarriage that a “person” has died. That is also questionable and depends completely on the definition of “person.”
| No, we can't agree on that. That is the very point of contention in the broader argument this thread has drifted into. |
An embryo proper is a grey area? Okay, then at what stage of development will you agree there is no grey area when it comes to the biological classification of something a a human being
| ..... Well, "human being" is not a technical term used in biology. It is, however, commonly used the same way as "person". |
Wait just one minute. On page 3 I wrote: | It is a biological reality that an embryo is a homo sapien (human) simply at a very early stage of development. |
I was telling you that I am going to use the scientific name for our species “homo sapien” interchangeably with the common name for our species “human” so you'd know what I mean by “human.” (The others are correct, saying something is a “human” is not the same as saying it is a “person” unless, of course, one's definition of “personhood” includes anything which is a human.)
A human zygote is not a human, it is a human zygote. Human and human zygote are not interchangeable terms.
Just like caterpillar and butterfly are not interchangeable terms.
They are different, and distinct, points in the life cycle of those organisms, yes. |
Um, no. A child an adult are in different points in the life cycle, but both are human beings. You have made a false comparison.
A caterpillar is not a butterfly and a butterfly is not a caterpillar, but both are members of the order Lepidoptera.
A human adult is not a human embryo, and a human embryo is not a human adult, but both are homo sapiens (humans.)
| If you answer "yes" then we have a common starting point AND a common definition of personhood. We can agree that you posses the minimum necessary qualities to be considered a person. |
No, you have a common starting point but no common definition of personhood. Yes, we can agree that dglas posseses the minimum necessary qualities to be considered a person, but we have not yet established what those minimum necessary qualities are. If just one of those is being a human, then that includes unborn humans at almost any stage.
| That point being nothing more than you cannot rationally accept any expansion of the definition of "person", to include things that clearly l |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2009 : 07:33:21 [Permalink]
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Mab wrote: | I thought she stated in no uncartain terms that personhood is arbitrary subjective definition. |
Yup. And for the record, I think the term "person" is about as useful as "spiritual" when it comes to deciding laws and public policies.
There are concepts of personhood which include animals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person | Animals - Some philosophers and those involved in animal welfare, ethology, animal rights and related subjects, consider that certain animals should also be granted personhood. Commonly named species in this context include the Great Apes and possibly cetaceans or elephants, due to the acknowledged intelligence and intricate societies of such species. In animistic religion, animals, plants, and other entities may be persons or deities. |
In my own definition, I think of degrees of personhood. To some degree, my cats are persons in the sense that they clearly have discreet personalities. And in reading about the behavior of great apes under close observation, I can't help but think of them as types of persons. But I would never say that a cat or ape should have equal rights to a human being. Similarly, because I can feel the fetus inside me kicking and moving around, I'm emotionally moved by its presence and start to think of it as a baby. The other day my husband referred to it as "my child." But if I try to think of it as a "person" I get no where I guess because it hasn't displayed any unique behaviors and I know that the level of development that it is low (the brain has just started to really develop.)
Terms like "person" (and "spiritual" for that matter) often have meaning personally or within the context of specific conversations, but again, they become pretty useless in discussions of law and public policy because we really need something more objective in those areas. Deep philosophical conversations about finding a definition of "person" strike me as a lot of intellectual masturbation since no matter what beautifully consistent system some philosophers comes up with, people will always be more moved by their gut intuition when it comes to such subjective concepts which are so susceptible to social change. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 05/14/2009 07:36:10 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2009 : 07:40:29 [Permalink]
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To elaborate on what I just wrote with an example - I could imagine a time in the future when scientists and engineers have made it so that unwanted pregnancies can be safely removed and placed in an incubator for the duration of their development and then put up for adoption. Assuming this is a time where such a procedure is very affordable and covered by the state or ubiquitous nonprofits, such a social change in circumstances surrounding unwanted pregnancies could cause attitudes toward abortion to radically. If that were to happen, it wouldn't surprise me it the language we use referring to embryos and fetuses changed, and the most standard definition of "person" came to include even embryos.
My point being that our concept of what is a "person" is subjective and totally dependent on the circumstances and mainstream values of the society at the time. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 05/14/2009 07:41:29 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2009 : 09:50:37 [Permalink]
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Marf:
...If just one of those is being a human, then that includes unborn humans at almost any stage. |
A human zygote is not a human. It's a potential human. And I think we can say that about any stage before viability, even if that line moves in the future. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2009 : 10:23:18 [Permalink]
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marf said:
See, right there you say “that definition” – you are assuming that other people in this conversation are applying the same definition of “personhood” as yourself. You assume that in this conversation, “personhood” has already been defined in a way which excludes embryos because they are less developed.
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You are insane. Certifiable.
I'm saying that personhood has been defined to include you. Though I am beginning to doubt that you actually meet the minimum requirements for personhood.
The RECENT attempts to expand the definition of personhood, to include zygotes and embryos, are just arbitrary assertions made by a minority group. No one has established, through evidence or argument, that a zygote is a person.
Now, seriously, stop being stupid.
| No, you have a common starting point but no common definition of personhood. Yes, we can agree that dglas posseses the minimum necessary qualities to be considered a person, but we have not yet established what those minimum necessary qualities are. If just one of those is being a human, then that includes unborn humans at almost any stage. |
Here is where you are falling off the argument.
Clearly "being a human" is not in anyone's list of minimum qualities to qualify as a person, except those who have made recent attempts to expand the definition.
Equally clear, if we did not have a common definition of "person", then we could not agree that dglas is, in fact, a person!
There is a great deal of personal bias (overwhelmingly so I think) that goes with this particular topic. It would cloud any debate to establish an objective list of the minimum qualities necessary to be a person. That does not mean it is impossible.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2009 : 10:51:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Mycroft
Originally posted by filthy
Or, until the fetus is viable outside the womb, it might be considered an endoparasite vectored by the male of the species. After it is viable, it quickly becomes exoparasitic upon the same host and it's vector.
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Kids continue to be parasitic for many years after leaving the womb. It's been 17 years so far for my kid, and there is no sign of the parasitic behavior changing anytime soon.
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The parasitic behaviour may continue, but it wouldn't had affected your wife had she put it up for adoption, or dumped it in the trash-bin. Here is the great distiction. Until the parasite draws its first breath of fresh air, its host can't do anything but have an abortion to be rid of it.
An endoparasite has to be surgically removed. We owe her that option.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 05/14/2009 10:51:51 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2009 : 15:41:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by dglas
@Dude: So, your understanding of a definition, whatever the particulars of the definition, is fixed. And the onus of responsibility for any inclusion or exclusion of "something" within that definition is something that must be justified, within the context of that definition. Otherwise the definition simply does not apply. Am I understanding this properly?
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Let me see if I can illustrate my point with an example.
If you were to go on a deep sea mission to one of the isolated vent ecosystems it is likely you would discover a new species. Whatever that species may be, no one would accept only your assertion if you classified the new animal as a member of a particular genus. We would require you to explain why your new discovery should be classified that way. What characteristics does it posess that lead to the conclusion.
With regard to persons there is, obviously, a large grey area. But we can all agree that you, dglas, are a person. If some one wants to expand that definition well outside the grey area to include animals or human zygotes, it requires more than just making the assertion.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 05/15/2009 : 18:10:16 [Permalink]
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Dude (with my emphasis in bold and italics): The RECENT attempts to expand the definition of personhood, to include zygotes and embryos, are just arbitrary assertions made by a minority group.
...
Clearly "being a human" is not in anyone's list of minimum qualities to qualify as a person, except those who have made recent attempts to expand the definition. |
You are insisting that there is a singular definition of "person." I reject that notion because it is clear to me that among academics, bioethicists, and laymen, there is quite a bit of debate over how personhood should be defined. You are only right in that the one you are claiming to be the is the one that is most popular. Popularity alone is a pretty weak thing to appeal to, especially when it isn't overwhelming. Bush was the most popular candidate in the 2004 US Presidential Election, but he still barely won by over 50%.
The first line from the article Paradigms and Personhood: A Deepening of the Dilemmas in Ethics and Medical Ethics by Edmund L. Erde, published in 1999 in Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics is" | There seems to lack an intellectually and morally satisfying consensus on an analysis of personhood. |
And from his conclusion: What kind of self should medicine care for? For example, medicine seems to waiver (correctly) between a Platonic and an Aristotlian stance. This is evident in the imperative (most) physicians (used to) feel to preserve and/or restore rational life and non-rational life.
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Indeed, as with medicine, it seems wise that most of us waiver about which of these models applies to us and about which of the correlative parent-paradigms ought to apply. There are strengths and weaknesses in each. |
Evidence in academia that a definition of "person" has not be commonly established is plentiful.
From The Personhood Wars by Theodore E Fleischer, published in Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 20: 309-318, 1999:
Two visions of what it means to be a person are at war with on another. Personalism argues that a human being achieves a claim to life and medical resources only if he possesses certain capacities, primarily coginitive abilities and self-consciousness. Physicalism - or vitalism - contends that every human being, even one who lack capacieis, is entitled to have a life. The former view dominates bioethics today, but the battle continues.
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As we enter a new century, where is the personhood debate headed? If Walters has accurately gauged the public pulse, society will increasingly tolerate ending lives of marginal humans. We will draw the cricle of humanity ever tighter, as we exclude those who fail to exhibit "minimal personhood." How far will this take us? Maybe Walters has pushed his proximate personhood approach to the edge of society approval when he argues that parental decisions to transplant organs from their living anencephalic infants are justified because they are doomed anyway. Maybe not.
Stephen Pinker, author of the widely-discussed How the Mind Words, argues in a recent New York Times article that mothers who kill their newborns (he calls this "neonaticide") are victims of a primal biological urge they are powerless to resist. Prosecutors and juries are lenient with these distraught new mothers because, according to Pinker, "we, like many societies and like the mothers themselves, are not completely sure whether a neonate is a full person." Moral philosophers teach us, says Pinker, that the right to life must be found in "morally significant qualities human happen to possess" such as consciousness and dread of death, which neonates do not posssess "any more than do mice" (nor, he could have added, any more than does an 18 month old child).
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If we re-conceptualize the goal of bioethics, we may begin to discover that the meaning of our humanity cannot be fully encompassed in personhood language that focuses exclusively on personal capacities, interests, and characteristics; and that, tragic though their natural history may be, individuals achieve moral status by living out the destiny of the body. We may also learn that those who have lost or never had cognitive abilities offer the gift of their frailty and vulnerability to members of the human community with whom they live in interdependence. |
At no point in this essay is anything supernatural or religious appealed to. Now I don't agree with Fleischer, but he is not some religious nutjob. He is a serious academic with a Master of Law who got published in a reputable journal.
I do agree with this guy:
From The Troublesome Concept of the Person by Bert Gordijn, published in Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 20: 347-359, 1999: | In today's bioethical debates, the concept of the person plays a major role. However, it does not hold this role justly. ...the concept of the person is unsuited to be a central concept in bioethical debates, because its use is connected to serious problems. First, the concept is superfluous. Secondly, it is a confusing concept and it lacks pragmatic use. Thirdly, its use leads to simplifications. Finally, the concept can easily be used as a cover-up concept. Therefore, it is argued that relinquishing the concept of the person could enhance the clarity and quality of bioethical debate. |
Back to Dude:
Equally clear, if we did not have a common definition of "person", then we could not agree that dglas is, in fact, a person! |
All that is clear from that is that our definitions of "person" overlap. They are not necessarily the same definition. I'm pretty sure Robb would agree with you that I'm a person, but I don't think Robb and you are likely to adopt the same definition. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 05/15/2009 18:11:36 |
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Souter retires!
