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[the__lord]

For the first time, I'm casting the decisive vote, which means I should expect plenty of argument. Anyway, here goes:

Let me start by saying that this debate surpassed even the last one, and both participants did very well.

It seemed to me, that killtacular was arguing that the benefits of stem cell research outweighed the ethical questions involved. His

Comments

[killtacular]

I don't know, I'd say there was one potential human in there, and four non-potential humans, but that which one was the potential human hadn't been decided yet. I still don't see how this is less plausible.

Think of it this way (kind of the reverse). Say you have a heap of sand. You remove one grain. It's obviously still a heap of sand. Then remove another one. Still a heap. There is no cut-off: one grain of sand can never be what determines whether something is a heap of sand or not. But clearly if there was no sand whatsoever that wouldn't be a heap of sand, and I certainly wouldn't call one grain of sand a heap. And it works in reverse: You also can't decide on the basis of one grain of sand what is "not a heap" and what "is a heap". Its the problem of vagueness.

This (the sororities paradox) i think is at least metaphorically relevant here: because we don't know which embryo will be implanted, and if that embryo is going to be rejected, we don't know which of them will be the potential human. The problem is simply too vague to make a call. They are all potentially implantable, but only one is potentially a human (which is what we were talking about).

I don't know, any one of them could turn out to be a human, but I don't think that makes them potential humans until that potential is actually established, which happens upon implantation.

[the__lord]

I don't know, any one of them could turn out to be a human, but I don't think that makes them potential humans until that potential is actually established, which happens upon implantation.

Ignoring the irrelevant that was the rest of your comment, I'll skip right to the point. That last sentence highlights your confusion on the issue. If any of them can turn out to be a human, that is precisely what defines them as potential humans. At that point at time, each and every one of them is a potential human. Every one of them has the potential to become a human. Now let's reverse to the time of creation, or conception, or whatever you want to call it. Again, each of them is a potential human. Only when one is successfully implanted, and the others are condemned to termination, do those others cease to be potential humans. Don't make me use the head smashing against the wall icon.

[killtacular]

The problem is that you define potential so loosely by doing that by making it irrelevant. If the only criteria is "if x can turn out to be a human, that is precisely what defines them as potential humans" then, you know, every individual egg in a woman's body is a potential human. You may say the egg requires fertilization to become a "potential human", but that is no more principled a difference than me saying that an embryo must actually be inside a womans body to be a potential human. So, I suppose you are right that potentially it could turn into a human, but this shouldn't be a protected ethical category (which was the original context in the debate) unless you want to deem menstruation unethical. don't make me, uh, continue using this icon in my further replies.

[the__lord]

Why type all of that out, when "yes lord, you are correct sir," would have had the same effect?

Your icon is entirely appropriate under the circumstances.

[killtacular]

because if you accept what I said as an accurate representation of your position than you are in fact not in agreement with somnambulisa as you originally stated, and thus are self-contradictory.

[the__lord]

The only part I read was:

I suppose you are right

[killtacular]

i find it hard to believe you randomly selected a fragment of a sentence in the middle of a paragraph as "the only thing you read"