bd-from-kg

Jerry Smith:

Referring to my argument that the pro-choice position logically entails that either some animals are persons or that babies are not persons, you say:

Well, it's an important part of my position, but I wouldn't call it my "main thesis". After all, Dr. Singer agrees with me on this point, but concludes that babies are not persons and many animals are. Anyway, if you don't think it's supportable, you should have no difficulty in ripping to shreds the argument that I presented in my March 28 post, which is essentially also the argument made by Dr. Singer.

And in my March 28 (1:15 PM) post I gave reasons why every element of this definition is not a legitimate criterion for personhood.

It’s trivial to make a definition of “person” that excludes fetuses; for example, “a person is a human being who has been born”. It’s also easy to make a definition that excludes blacks or Jews. The question is whether you can make a morally defensible definition. We have already discussed at some length what this involves.

Not so. It is also based on the species of the individual and on whether his demise would cause grief to anyone.

Haven’t you been paying attention at all? I most emphatically include as “morally relevant” any future mental events that can reasonably be foreseen.

The question of how to determine whether an event is likely to occur is completely separate from the question of the moral significance of the event if it should occur.

You’re confusing intrinsic value and instrumental value. Something has intrinsic value if it is desirable in itself for it to exist (or occur). Something has instrumental value if it is useful for producing something of intrinsic value. Certainly physical states can have instrumental value in that they can produce mental states. I claim only that they have no intrinsic value.

Since there appears to be a correspondence of sorts between physical and mental states, it’s possible that this is true. But any proposed criterion for “personhood” that involves physical states must be examined closely to determine whether the corresponding mental states do in fact reflect our concept of personhood accurately – i.e., whether they “always agree with our moral values about what a person is” – and whether we might not be excluding other physical states that also do so. Even if this can be done, it seems to me to be more natural and productive to get clear just what our “moral values about what a person is” are before we try to figure out what physical states correspond to them.

My argument on the score was that value is inherently a forward-looking criterion, so that if we are going to base our legal treatment of individuals on their value, only the future is relevant. I also object to a criterion that looks only at the past and present, as yours does. Ultimately the significance of all actions lies in their consequences, which is to say, in the future. So it is absurd to ignore the future entirely in making moral determinations.

Thus it is absurd base an individual’s legal status only on the past and present while ignoring his likely future - i.e., the potential which arises from his nature. It’s clear that you recognize this too, but you avoid doing so explicitly (because it would make fetuses persons) by instead referring to “physiological structures”. The only reason that these structures could be thought to enter into the picture at all is that they are closely related to what the individual can reasonably be expected to do in the future. In other words, these structures have instrumental value: they are means by which certain kinds of mental states or processes will (most likely) be produced in the future. But by specifying them as prerequisites for personhood, you arbitrarily exclude other physical states or structures which can also be reasonably expected to produce the very same kinds of mental states.

This is why it’s more natural and productive to make the definition of “personhood” refer to mental states instead of physical states that will presumably produce them. This sweeps away the confused thinking that tempts one to focus on particular means (i.e., certain physical states) rather than the desired ends (i.e., certain mental states). That way it’s clear that any physical state that is likely to produce the desired mental state has the same moral significance as any other. Since all such physical states are means to the same ends, there is no moral justification for treating some of them differently from others.

This is a tautology. What’s your point?

Jerry Smith

BD:
I would need to learn a lot more about the metaphysical framework Dr. Singer's arguments are based on in order to refute him. I am not here to refute him, though. I am here to talk about how a 'morally defensible' definition of "Person" can be approached.

My first attempt to piece together a definition was a poor one. I did include the stipulation that the species be homo sapiens. As you pointed out, and as I pointed out in a later post, species is irrelevant. My definition was ad hoc, but not arbitrary, because it was designed specifically to include the precise set of those individuals who were "persons" according to my value system.

I did later, however find a much more clear and concise definition, and have posted it. This is the one I referred to in the quote above.
Here it is, in full:
Now, you object that the physiological structures are irrelevant - it is not to them that we give intrinsic value, but the mental states they produce. It is true that the mental state of cognition is an important aspect of humanity. You might even say that it is the defining feature.

Unfortunately, mental states are intermittent in character, and so we are left with an unsatisfactory criterion for personhood by itself, because it cannot diagnose personhood during the periods that cognition is not active. There is more than one approach to resolve this.

Yours is to rely on probable future mental states. This is adequate for the purpose of making a definition that is inclusive of everything we value as a Person, but it does violence to the concept of a definition. We may value something more or less with respect to what it may do in the future, but we define it with respect to what it is now. It also leaves many of us with a certain amount of cognitive dissonance by including in the definition of person such things as embryos, which do not bear the slightest resemblance to any intuitive notion of what a "Person" is.

My approach is to resolve the issue by making use of the fact that all cognitive states are a result of the workings of some specific kind of physiological structure. In humans this structure would be our central nervous system, coupled to our particular kind of sensory input system and source of oxygenated blood. In aliens, it may be a different structure, coupled to some other sensory input system and some other source of metabolic energy. The ability to produce cognition always depends on a specific kind of structure for its operation.

Until we find a case where cognition results from no kind of physiological structure, or a class of individuals that possess physiological structures identical to our own central nervous system but cannot cognate, then this kind of definition creates a perfect one-to-one ratio between what we react to and value as "person" and what is included in the definition, and it is based on a unique and important criterion of personhood.

You and Dr. Singer may have a problem with the kind of definition that is based on physiological structures, but have you looked to see whether the same kind of definition is applied elsewhere?

What is the problem with defining (for moral purposes or other purposes) the term "automobile" structurally? Sure, we value it as an automobile because it rapidly moves us from one point to another without relying on significant amounts of animal work. The intrinsic value is in the "horseless" (or "servantless") locomotion. Now, my car is sitting in the driveway not locomoting anywhere and I still know it is a car. Do I know it by its structures, or by its potential? To answer this, lets look at the pile of plastic and rubber (or a few years ago, steel and rubber) waiting at the starting end of an assembly line. It has the future potential to help me travel without animal power. It will most likely realize that potential unless someone steps in to stop it, because it is at the factory, and turning plastic and rubber into automobiles is what is done at the factory. It will only fail to become an automobile if someone (the EPA or the IRS for instance) steps in to stop it. Yet, we do not define it as an automobile, because it isn't.
On the other hand, even though my wife's car has a broken ignition and cannot run right now, I can look at it and see that it is a car because it contains the necessary structures to travel without animal power. I understand that one of the peripheral structures is malfunctioning, but the key structures are present.
I look at the other end of the assembly line and I see a new car, fresh off the line. It has no gasoline in the tank and therefore cannot run, but I recognize it as a car just the same.

Structual definitions sometimes do serve better.

The difference between a baby and an embryo is the difference between a car with no gasoline and a pile of plastic and rubber.
The difference between a person and comatose person is the difference between a car and a car with a broken ignition.
The difference between a person and a chimpanzee is the difference between a car and a horse & buggy.
The difference between person and a sleeping person is the difference between a car and a parked car.

I hope that I have demonstrated that it makes sense in this case to make a for a thing that is intrinsically valuable a definition that depends on real structures, in real time, that have instrumental value, and uniquely make the intrinsically valuable phenomena possible.

I hope that we are all in agreement about the most important moral determinations: namely that all persons have a right to life and equal protection of that right and others under the law. Our source of disagreement goes to the definition of Person.

It is absurd to base a person's legal status only on the past and present while ignoring his likely future. Where it concerns non-persons, this is not always the clear case.

If an individual non-person has an inherent potential to become a person, must we then extend it the same rights we extend to persons? Why?

Yes, it would make a fetus a person if we our definition of person was made on the basis of future potential. As I said before, this does violence to the idea of definition.

I meant no such exclusion. The definition I advance speaks of ANY physical structure (not state) that produces mental states such as we call "Personality". If an alien, using alien physiological structures can produce these states, then we only have to identify those structures. We do not need to revise the definition in order to include them.

It is a tautology. I might have been more clear if I had said this:
If anything is capable of cognition, even if it has the body of an orangatan, it will still has some structures that are unique in producing cognition. Therefore, it will be included in the definition I advance.

I think we are talking past each other, because you see the defining of Person differently than I. You seem to approach the subject with the idea that defining a "Person" is more a moral act of bestowing rights, than a practical act of definition. You seem to think that we are not so much approaching a definition of
Person, but determining which individuals are entitled to Rights.

My perspective on it is different. I think that we define Personhood because it is a unique phenomenon that we uniquely value. We then assign rights to all Persons because we value Personhood.

A note on the term "cognition", since I know it is bound to come up eventually: I have used the term very loosely. I should have qualified it as cognition at a human level, or some such. I hope there is no major disagreement over the basic idea the term is meant to express. I do understand that some animals are capable of some levels of cognition. I do not mean to include them in our definition. I take it as given that human levels of cognition are well-defined.

[ April 01, 2002: Message edited by: Jerry Smith ]</p>

Danya

Your right. So use one or the other and watch the context or word your sentences in another way that does not make it appear that the person is in favor of murdering babies and children.

Here is how you could have worded it to keep from being insulting:
"Rather than having an abortion to prevent a child from a 'low-quality' life she can give it a good life and give joy to a couple who desperatly want a child."

See how easy that was?

[ April 01, 2002: Message edited by: Danya ]</p>

Danya

How does saying that Dr. Singer is making arguments for both sides show that I am off the point? You imply that someone thinks it's ok to kill babies. You give me some out of context quotes from this doctor. I read it and find they are not really advocating killing babies but debating the issues of all kinds of decisions related to death and dying from both sides of the arguments. His personal views appear to be pro-life and identical to yours. I brought it up because you were being misleading. The original point was that you say abortion has caused a demoralization for life even outside of abortion. You have still not proved this to be true.

I did until I read it from someone who actually knows how to make a point. But it's still not a good argument.

More twisted logic. We are talking about embryo's. We are talking about first trimester abortions. I do not agree that embryo's are persons. I can agree that a 9 month old fetus could be considered a person. Your word games change nothing except the fact that you cannot be taken seriously. You are the one that completely misses the point and I think you do it purposely. Not only that but you take ten paragraphs to do it. You have not stated a new point or idea since page 2 of this thread and it is no longer productive to debate with you.

bd-from-kg

Jerry Smith:

This is a response to your third (!) March 31 post. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to reply to your latest one.

Actually I had something to say about intent as the term is used in the law.

Actually the usual legal criterion is that, if a prudent person could reasonably have been expected to be aware that it was a possible result of the action, you are responsible for the result.

What on earth are you talking about? In the first place, as I pointed out some time ago, pregnancy can hardly be called an unintended result of voluntary sexual activity in the legal sense. Anyway, it’s self-evident that one’s responsibility can extend this far. And it is almost equally self-evident that pregnancy resulting from voluntary acts is such a case. As I said earlier, if you grant that the fetus is a person (as you seem to be doing here), this is all so obvious as to be hardly worth discussing. But since it is apparently not self-evident to you, I have offered an extended argument to this effect. If your only response is that I’ve offered no good reason, there’s not much left to talk about.

No, it’s the only case where responsibility takes this particular form. There are lots of cases where one’s responsibility for the consequences of one’s acts extends much further than this.

Is this really so opaque to you? Do you really regard it as a reasonable position that the fact that you have created a person does not impose on you a much heavier responsibility to that person than any that you might have to someone that you did not create? This seems so elementary and basic as to hardly be in need of argument.

Anyway, I thought I expressed the principle involved quite well when I asked “If you create another human being because you found it inconvenient to take measures to avoid doing so, do you have the right to kill him – also for the sake of your own convenience?” For reasons you have yet to explain, you felt that this did not “relate” to the issue of abortion. If you continue to evade this question I can only conclude that it’s because you have no satisfactory answer.

I guess you’re talking about the case of a drunk driver who struck a pedestrian who needed a blood transfusion from him to survive? I’m not familiar with this case; perhaps you can give a clear citation or reference. I find it hard to believe that the decision was as you describe it. But if it was, all I can say is that I find it outrageous. (Of course, the decision could be right. The court in question may have properly interpreted a law which was not written with this kind of situation in mind. In that case the law should be changed.)

In any case, the courts aren’t God. Just because they say something, that doesn’t make it right. They don’t even claim that it does; they claim only that it’s the law. And we’re talking here about what the law ought to be, not what it is.

Perhaps you can explain the moral principle by which the drunk driver cannot be legally compelled to give a blood transfusion under these circumstances, even though he will be facing a long jail term if the pedestrian dies. What exactly is so precious about your bodily fluids that entitles you to withhold them from someone who is in mortal danger as a result of a felony that you committed? I honestly don’t get it.

This was not a “counter” to the drunk-driver analogy. The point was to remind you how totally divorced from reality it was to compare the fetus to an intruder forcing his way into your home to steal your stuff, or to a mad scientist from a third-rate horror movie siphoning blood from his helpless victim.

But in reality I think that all of this is pretty much beside the point. I think that the woman would have a duty to bring the fetus to term even if she had not been its co-creator, and even if she bore no responsibility at all for its situation. Here once again I can do no better than quote what I said on the earlier thread:

Now let’s sharpen the example a bit. Let’s suppose that the two twins have grown up with no one suspecting that Mary was dependent on Jodie’s blood supply. Both have become successful authors: Mary writes more philosophical tracts, while Jodie produces mystery novels. One day, as a result of a minor accident, they are admitted to a hospital for routine tests, which reveal Mary’s dependence on Jodie. Jodie immediately demands that she be separated from Mary, pointing out that she has no obligation to keep supplying Mary with bodily fluids to keep her alive and that without Mary she could lead a happier, more normal life. Is Jodie in the right? Does her right to “control her own body” take precedence over Mary’s right to life? If so, don’t the doctors at the hospital have an obligation to enable Jodie to exercise her rights? Otherwise, isn’t this supposed “right” meaningless?

It seems self-evident to me that separating the twins at this point would not only be wrong, but would be a horrible crime – outright murder, in fact. Mary is clearly a person, and her right to live obviously outweighs Jodie’s right to “control her own body”. For in controlling her body in this way Jodie would also be controlling Mary’s body, killing her in the process – and this she does not have a right to do.

Now of course if Mary were not a person, the moral calculus would be very different. Thus what this example illustrates with stark clarity is that physical dependence of one individual on another does not justify killing her if the dependent individual is a person. If the dependent one is not a person it’s a different matter entirely; in that case of course there is no moral objection to killing her.

This is why pro-choice advocates find the kinds of arguments that you’ve presented based on the physical dependence of the fetus on its mother compelling while those who are pro-life tend to see them as completely beside the point. If you come at these arguments with the point of view that the fetus is not a person, they look very persuasive, but if you view the fetus as a person they just look ridiculous.

So why don’t we move on to the real question – the central question, to which the others are mere commentary – the question of whether the fetus is a person?

WJ

I haven't been on for a few days but I saw somewhere in this thread that someone said I used the word 'baby'? I could be wrong , but I never used the word 'baby' while in the mother's womb. Instead, I called it a Being.

To that end, maybe all the confusion about whether the thing is a person in a political/legal realm relates to that word. The fact is, it is a being(?). Preventing the Being from becoming a human, no matter where in the process (after conception), would be tantamount to aborting a person. No?

(Certainly, as been argued I think, taking parts from the being at a certain stage of development, then sucessfully transplanting them onto a baby, would perhaps settle the question of whether 'it' is a person-trimester arguemnt.)

In spite of that, it remains logical to predicate one's existence (as per my previous post). In this case, one can observe the phenomenon, the Being. One doesn't snap a finger and exist outside the womb. Thus, there should be no question that an 'abortion' takes place.

I really don't see all the postulation over semantics here? If one want's to kill a person in the early state or stages of becoming a human, it's called abortion. Is it wrong? Is killing another human being wrong?

person=being?

Walrus

KJELLMUSIC

How about the aborting of all those Christmas trees every year? Lots of cloning and factory-style reproduction involved too.

bd-from-kg

Sigh.

From your post of March 27, 02:07 PM :

Given the reference to the threat to the mother's life, it's clear that the individual you refer to here as a "baby" has not yet been born.

[ April 02, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>

WJ

Thank you BD! I stand corrected! Let me insert the correct word, since semantic's seems to be the real issue here.

I said then; "The examples I gave were emminent death of the mother-making it justified to kill the [baby] in hopes that the mother can conceive again in the furture, etc.."

Replace baby with Being. How does it make it any different? And here's another word-sacrifice.

Is sacrifice and killing the same thing? Do we shoot down the plane with the fewest people onboard compared to the target of thousands?

Decisions are difficult at times, but killing is killing, no? (Again, I used to be pro-choice, but all life and existence is a process.)



Walrus

Tristan Scott

Brian K asked at the top of this thread if abortion was a religious issue. I see that it has been answered several times that it is not, however it seems to me from watching the debates on the issue that many Christians especially fundamentalists and Catholics are against abortion.

It is odd that there is not one mention of it in the Christian bible, even though it was definitly an issue during the era of the Early Church. Also odd since their was credible and popular scripture available that would have condemned abortion.