Thank you for that thoughtful, and thought-provoking discussion. (I'm guessing I missed it because you posted it on one of my first days in med school, when my brain was completely overwhelmed.)
I would like to argue back. There are many things I could say: does it really count when conception was artificial and the zygote has never entered a mother's womb; can you really count it as "human" before that's happened. However, all such arguments would be pretty arbitrary. I honestly don't believe there's a single right answer here. Or rather, that it's possible to know a single right answer. My position on therapeutic cloning is based on my own sense of the need to use any possible means to help a person who is suffering. But of course, there are limits even to that: as you pointed out, wanting to help someone who's ill wouldn't justify bashing someone over the head and cutting out their liver
( ... )
The beard fallacy is the statement that there are no beards. Why? Because if on does not have a beard, adding one hair will not make it a beard. If we start with no hairs, we can hairs, one by one until the whole face is covered with hairs. It is a problem of definition. Reality is not always discrete, but it is important to make distinction for logical or ethical reasons. Unfortunately, the nature of reality does not aid our ethical quest. But a line has to be drawn for morality to function. Morality is fundamentally the act of distinguishing right from wrong; therefore, a distinction has to be made. Unfortunately, reality sometimes presents us with a continuum, which makes all distinctions at least a arbitrary
( ... )
Oh. Thanks for a thoughtful response (one I nearly blew because I had originally misunderstood your first answer) - although, as a confirmed ice cream addict, I could have done without the ice cream analogy.
I think you would find it hard to reconcile the language of the Declaration of Independence or that of the Declaration of Rights of Men and Citizens with this guff about self-awareness and personhood. And what you say is exactly the reason why I focus on humanity as a process. Personhood is infinitely less meaningful and more challengeable a notion than humanity (if, for instance, my will is overcome by that of another, whether by hypnosis or by crowd emotion or by any other reason, do I still have my personhood?), and self-awareness ceases every twenty-four hours in the average healthy human being, which on this sort of argument would make any sleeping person fair game. Besides, euthanasia is often about killing perfectly self-aware persons whose life seems to some third party unendurable - paralyzed, in pain, advanced cancer, etc. Which of course raises the issue that since my judgement cannot logically be made out to be worth any less than that of Professor Singer, I might decide that in my judgement the life of Professor
( ... )
Self-awareness ceases when you sleep? An interesting idea, but not one I would totally agree with. Self-awareness certainly changes during sleep, it does not disappear. Which is one of the reasons I would not agree with Singer. (You may have noticed my tendancy to act as devil's advocate from time to time) His writings, or at least those that I have read, seem to be based on an almost freudian view of self-awareness or consciousness. The division of the self into lots of distinct component parts, the conscious, the sub-conscious etc. is becoming more and more out-of-date, the internal monologue, which is often thought of as the conscious mind, is probably only a very small part of our self
( ... )
And I have a tendency to use extremes when arguing, just to make a point. I would, of course, never think of killing Peter Singer, even though I would probably cross the road to avoid him. I was however making the point that the fitness to live and go on living is a matter of opinion. We both have grown up in countries where a certain number of people took it on themselves to decide who lived or who died for political convenience (the Red Brigades, the Mafia, and other assorted terrorists, made the Italy of my youth nearly as dangerous as Ulster). And to decide that a person does not have the quality of life to go on living looks to me not logically different from the Leninist notion of liquidating the members of failed classes, or, even more closely, the Nazi idea of destroying failed races. It was, after all, an actual Nazi belief that inferior races could not be happy except by being destructive; that they were so maladjusted that their desire to destroy their betters (especially, of course, the lofty Arian race) was simply
( ... )
I followed a trail here via nicked_metal, who linked to your post on the pregnancy pact, and read this. While I certainly can't accuse you of not thinking your position through, I have to agree with the commenter above who put their finger on a fallacy. My other qualm with your argument is that it gives no mention whatsoever of the human being whose ability to determine her own future is intimately bound up in the fate of the potential future human being--the pregnant woman. I don't feel any argument about the morality or immorality of abortion is complete if it focuses solely on the fetus. Morality is rarely black and white. Ignoring the woman enables one to pretend it's black and white, but it's a pretty glaring omission. If you didn't intend this challenge for a total stranger, I understand.
You have nothing to learn from me, since there is no way anything I have to say would break through to you. You have all the ideological barriers invented by modern heresies firmly in place, and even if I explained my points ten times over, it would be to no purpose.
I read your point and felt it was lacking, but if you don't want to explain your view as it relates to the role of the pregnant woman, I can't make you. You have a pretty convenient way of disqualifying the views of anyone who disagrees with you, but it's your journal and you're allowed to do that if you want. Take care.
Comments 20
I would like to argue back. There are many things I could say: does it really count when conception was artificial and the zygote has never entered a mother's womb; can you really count it as "human" before that's happened. However, all such arguments would be pretty arbitrary. I honestly don't believe there's a single right answer here. Or rather, that it's possible to know a single right answer. My position on therapeutic cloning is based on my own sense of the need to use any possible means to help a person who is suffering. But of course, there are limits even to that: as you pointed out, wanting to help someone who's ill wouldn't justify bashing someone over the head and cutting out their liver ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Thanks for a thoughtful response (one I nearly blew because I had originally misunderstood your first answer) - although, as a confirmed ice cream addict, I could have done without the ice cream analogy.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment