Abortion and capital punishment

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by obiwan18
See my coma example. We consider a person who is in a coma to still be a person, despite current non-sentience. What counts for personhood is not the current function, but the capacity to function as a person, possessed by zygotes as well as everyone else.

The coma example doesn't compare. A person who is in a coma was sentient before. A zygote has never been sentient. As I pointed out before, theoretically, all your body cells can develop into new individuals. Hence, they all can have sentience potentially.

[Ben Kenobi]

A person who is in a coma was sentient before. A zygote has never been sentient.

UR:

If current capacity for sentience determines personhood, why should we care about the previous state of the person in a coma? What does the person in the coma retain?

I'll try to break this down.

First you say sentience is required for personhood.
Now you say sentience must be acquired previously to be considered a person.

How can anyone ever attain personhood if previous sentience becomes the prerequisite?

As I pointed out before, theoretically, all your body cells can develop into new individuals.

Lacking evidence, 'theoretical' is the key word.

Loinburger:

If your brain were destroyed, would your "self" be gone.

Yes, because the brain cannot be restored.

Why else would it be ethical to take a brain-dead patient off of life support, if the patient's "self" weren't the patient's mind?

Because the condition is irreverseable, as I have said before.

Give me a different brain/mind, and I'd no longer be me.

I learn new things, if that's what you're referring to... I'm the same "me" whether or not I know how to e.g. numerically solve the Heat Equation, though...

Ahh, you start to see. Everyday, your brain deteriorates physically after you reach adulthood. Physically, you have a different brain than you had the day before.

Now, what is it about your brain that allows you to retain your identity from one day to the next?

Your memories change, as do your experiences, yet you would never say that 'loinburger' no longer exists.

Why is this? What stays the same?

This is also why I'm in favor of not allowing a 5-year-old to vote despite the fact that the 5-year-old will somebody be an 18-year-old.

Now we've moved on to a different question.

What rights should all persons have?

I argue that it makes sense to give to the unborn child, only the right to life, because they are incapable of acting morally, just as we keep children from voting.

Therefore, if the unborn child as a person should receive the right to life, we have a moral obligation not only to stop killing but to prevent others from killing unborn children.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Now you say sentience must be acquired previously to be considered a person.

UR didn't use the word "must."

Ahh, you start to see. Everyday, your brain deteriorates physically after you reach adulthood. Physically, you have a different brain than you had the day before.

Now, what is it about your brain that allows you to retain your identity from one day to the next?

Your memories change, as do your experiences, yet you would never say that 'loinburger' no longer exists.

Why is this? What stays the same?

In all likelihood it is merely an illusion of continuity, similar to the illusion of wholeness experienced by severe epileptics who have had the two loaves of their brain separated (such that no communication between the loaves is possible, essentially meaning that they have two brains rather than one brain) who nevertheless continue to believe that (and act as though) they are one person, one "self," rather than two. The change from one brain state to the next is so subtle (much more subtle than having the halves of your brain separated) that it isn't difficult to fathom how such an illusion of continuity could be created -- my brain isn't being entirely recreated from one moment to the next, but rather the changes it undergoes are quite gradual. (It is speculated that if an artificial neuron were developed, that it would be possible to completely replace somebody's brain with an artificial brain so long as the change were gradual enough that the old tissue was able to integrate the new "tissue." Obviously this hasn't been tested out.)

If you're driving at the point that I was somehow "me" before I even had a brain, then I disagree. No illusion of continuity is possible between such drastically different brain states (and "self" states) as "capable of thought" (when the brain begins to function) and "non-existent" (prior to the brain beginning to function). Any way you cut it, the zygote isn't sentient, and for that matter the zygote isn't even capable of basic (non-sentient) thought -- attributing a "self" to such a non-thinking entity is ludicrous, unless a "self" is nothing more than a DNA chain (in which case it is immoral to take a brain-dead patient off of life support).

I argue that it makes sense to give to the unborn child, only the right to life, because they are incapable of acting morally, just as we keep children from voting.

Therefore, if the unborn child as a person should receive the right to life, we have a moral obligation not only to stop killing but to prevent others from killing unborn children.

If the unborn child is a person then clearly it has a right to life. I still don't understand how an entity (the zygote) that isn't sentient, can't even think, and has no "self" can be considered a person, while at the same time another entity (the brain-dead patient) that isn't sentient, can't even think, and has no "self" isn't a person. Is it possible that the zygote will develop a self? Sure, but until that time, there is no self to protect, thus there is no person to protect -- if we start protecting non-existent selfs/persons then we must also protect sperm and egg cells. Is it possible that the zygote has a self despite being incapable of thinking? Only if you make the claim that the self is somehow bound up in DNA (in which case the brain-dead patient has a right to life, and for that matter so does every cell in the human body) or in the zygote's potential to develop sentience (in which case the sperm/egg has a right to life, and in which case you are also mixing definitions -- either the self is bound up in the brain and the capacity for thought [in which case the zygote has no self and is therefore not a person], or the self is independent of brain function [in which case the brain-dead patient has the same self as he/she had prior to brain-death and thus is still a person]. You can't have it both ways).

There are many organisms that don't have the capacity for thought -- do they have a right to life as well? Can you prove that these organisms will never attain sentience? Granted that the probability of them doing so is rather small, but there's only a 60% probability of the zygote attaining sentience -- why accept an organism with one probability as a person while rejecting another organism with a different probability? What's the cut-off probability -- 10%? 20%? How is this cut-off probability determined?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by obiwan18
If current capacity for sentience determines personhood, why should we care about the previous state of the person in a coma?

Because a person in a coma has not lost the capacity for sentience. That person is still capable of sentience, even though at that very moment he isn't. Contrast that to a zygote, which has no capacity of sentience at all. Can you not see the difference?

Originally posted by obiwan18
What does the person in the coma retain?

The knowledge of himself. The person in a coma still retains everything in his brain that makes him an indivdual, even at that moment he is not accessing that storage.

Originally posted by obiwan18
First you say sentience is required for personhood.
Now you say sentience must be acquired previously to be considered a person.

I didn't say that.

I was saying a human in a coma can be considered a person because of his previous demonstration of sentience, which is not what a zygote is capable of.

Originally posted by obiwan18
Lacking evidence, 'theoretical' is the key word.

But aren't we talking about ethics, which is what should be?

[Ben Kenobi]

UR:

Contrast that to a zygote, which has no capacity of sentience at all. Can you not see the difference?

The man in the coma retains the intrinsic capacity to function as a person, as does the zygote. Both are currently non-functional, but still persons because of this intrinsic capacity.

I was saying a human in a coma can be considered a person because of his previous demonstration of sentience, which is not what a zygote is capable of.

As loinburger comments as well, without the word must, your definition is not exclusive.

Sure, one could be a person, but you can't exclude the zygote unless you say previous experience is necessary for personhood.

The knowledge of himself. The person in a coma still retains everything in his brain that makes him an indivdual, even at that moment he is not accessing that storage.

Will this change over time? A person's experiences will change how he perceives himself.

But aren't we talking about ethics, which is what should be?

We are doing meta-ethics, in establishing the definition of personhood. Properly, we should consider all future modes and possibilities, but practically, we should limit ourselves to problems immediately at hand.

I'd be happy with a definition that defends the unborn child, in the cases that women abort in such a way as not to leave loopholes.

I don't know much about the mutability of cells that you allude to, so perhaps you could enlighten us all?

Going to split my post since this is getting kind of long.

[Ben Kenobi]

In all likelihood it is merely an illusion of continuity, similar to the illusion of wholeness experienced by severe epileptics who have had the two loaves of their brain separated (such that no communication between the loaves is possible, essentially meaning that they have two brains rather than one brain) who nevertheless continue to believe that (and act as though) they are one person, one "self," rather than two.

That's a big concession.

Continuity of self does not exist except as an illusion?

What did you mean then, when you said:

I certainly don't feel like I've lost a part of my soul when I e.g. cut my finger...

If a continuous self is merely an illusion, then we have no objective base for personhood. You are no longer 'loinburger' from one moment to the next because of the changes your body undergoes.

attributing a "self" to such a non-thinking entity is ludicrous, unless a "self" is nothing more than a DNA chain (in which case it is immoral to take a brain-dead patient off of life support).

Good question. I don't get asked this very often, so I will try to be more precise in my terms.

Before, I have said that the DNA provides the instructions assisting the zygote's growth and development. DNA by itself, cannot drive the growth, it directs the growth.

The zygote requires two things to meet my definition of personhood - it must be living, and it must be human. Humanness comes from the DNA- and can be expressed, as I have here, as the intrinsic capacity to attain sentience. Living? All living things possess this quality. What makes the zygote differ from gamete cells, and dead cells is that the zygote is both alive and
human.

Can you prove that these organisms will never attain sentience?

By your definition, these other species will not reach the proper amount of sentience within their current lifespans.

By mine, I could say, they are not human, therefore they are not persons. All humans should under my definition equal all persons.

[Az]

The coma arguement is the best thing you've got, obiwan, push it through.

( sorry UR, and loinburger, just want to spice up the debate. )

[loinburger]

Originally posted by obiwan18
The man in the coma retains the intrinsic capacity to function as a person, as does the zygote.

The man in the coma is a thinking entity (although his thinking is currently stunted) and is thus capable of sentience in his present state, the zygote is not a thinking entity and is thus incapable of sentience in its present state. As I've said previously and as I reiterate below, ethics does not generally deal with potentials, but only with actuals.

If a continuous self is merely an illusion, then we have no objective base for personhood. You are no longer 'loinburger' from one moment to the next because of the changes your body undergoes.

I'm still "loinburger" because from one moment to the next the number of "loinburger" cells I've got far outweigh the number of "non-loinburger" (i.e. new) cells I've got, and those new cells are integrated by my loinburger cells so that they too become loinburger cells. The problem arises when too many of my loinburger cells are removed at once, e.g. if somebody shoots me in the head. This isn't really germane to the topic at hand, though -- what matters is that the brain's the thing that does the thinking, thinking is a necessary prerequisite for one to acquire a "self," the zygote doesn't think, therefore "I" did not exist when my body was a zygote/embryo.

The zygote requires two things to meet my definition of personhood - it must be living, and it must be human. Humanness comes from the DNA- and can be expressed, as I have here, as the intrinsic capacity to attain sentience. Living? All living things possess this quality. What makes the zygote differ from gamete cells, and dead cells is that the zygote is both alive and
human.

1. If an entity must merely be alive and human to qualify as a person, then the brain-dead patient is a person, since the patient's DNA has not changed and the patient is alive (albeit alive on a respirator, but this shouldn't make any difference unless you want to claim that people with artificial hearts are not alive).

2. Ethics does not generally deal with capacities or potentials -- we don't treat a 5-year-old as an 18-year-old even though the 5-year-old has the potential to grow into an 18-year-old, we don't treat a convicted murderer as a reformed convict even though the murderer has the potential to be reformed, we don't lock up non-murderers for the crime of murder even though they have the potential to commit murder, and we don't treat non-sentient entities as sentient even if they have the potential to acquire sentience at some future date.

By mine, I could say, they are not human, therefore they are not persons. All humans should under my definition equal all persons.

Are you therefore claiming that no other species in the universe is capable of sentience? Or are you claiming that there is no moral imperative to reciprocate with any other sentient species in the universe?

My definition of personhood ("sentience is a necessary and sufficient condition for personhood") allows us to treat non-human sentient entities as persons, as our ethical equivalents. Your definition ("alive and human") is anthropocentric to the extreme.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by obiwan18
The man in the coma retains the intrinsic capacity to function as a person, as does the zygote. Both are currently non-functional, but still persons because of this intrinsic capacity.

This is a false analogy. A person in a coma is similar to a person who is sleeping: both are capable of sentience. A zygote has no intrinsic capacity to function as a person. How? It cannot eat, it cannot breathe, it does not have a brain, it doesn't have any limbs, it doesn't have lungs or other vital internal organs. I ask you, how can a zygot compare with a person?

Originally posted by obiwan18
As loinburger comments as well, without the word must, your definition is not exclusive.

Sure, one could be a person, but you can't exclude the zygote unless you say previous experience is necessary for personhood.

If a zygot is not sentient, it is not a person. What else do you need?

Originally posted by obiwan18
Will this change over time? A person's experiences will change how he perceives himself.

A person in a coma? How would that change?

Originally posted by obiwan18
We are doing meta-ethics, in establishing the definition of personhood. Properly, we should consider all future modes and possibilities, but practically, we should limit ourselves to problems immediately at hand.

Actually, defining a person has nothing to do with ethics. What to do about a person is what ethics is about.

Originally posted by obiwan18
I don't know much about the mutability of cells that you allude to, so perhaps you could enlighten us all?

I didn't say anything about that.

I was saying that a person's body cells can be theoretically be caused to grow into clones of that person.

If sentience is what makes a person, will you be against destroying sentient robots?

[Ben Kenobi]

Loinburger:

The man in the coma is a thinking entity (although his thinking is currently stunted) and is thus capable of sentience in his present state,

Yet UR concedes:

That person is still capable of sentience, even though at that very moment he isn't.

Now, are you working from the same definition of sentience as UR?

If so, both of you cannot be right.

I'm still "loinburger" because from one moment to the next the number of "loinburger" cells I've got far outweigh the number of "non-loinburger" (i.e. new) cells I've got, and those new cells are integrated by my loinburger cells so that they too become loinburger cells.

So weight is the ultimate determinant? Suppose we cut off your head, and leave the rest of the body. Clearly, more than half of your body remains, yet do you stay loinburger?

1. If an entity must merely be alive and human to qualify as a person, then the brain-dead patient is a person, since the patient's DNA has not changed and the patient is alive (albeit alive on a respirator, but this shouldn't make any difference unless you want to claim that people with artificial hearts are not alive).

Alive = intrinsic capacity to function as a person. The brain-dead patient, though he may breathe, has lost this capacity.

2. Ethics does not generally deal with capacities or potentials -- we don't treat a 5-year-old as an 18-year-old even though the 5-year-old has the potential to grow into an 18-year-old,

Both the 5 year old and the 18 year old have a right to life, that is not abrogated by their lack of current function. The zygote may not currently function as a person, but instead possesses the intrinsic capacity to function. The zygote is not potentially a person, but already is a person.

Are you therefore claiming that no other species in the universe is capable of sentience? Or are you claiming that there is no moral imperative to reciprocate with any other sentient species in the universe?

Sure, they can be capable of sentience. If we run across a sentient species, then we should reciprocate. It still does not mean they qualify as human persons.

My definition of personhood ("sentience is a necessary and sufficient condition for personhood") allows us to treat non-human sentient entities as persons, as our ethical equivalents. Your definition ("alive and human") is anthropocentric to the extreme.

Anthropocentric?
Do you believe a mollusc is sentient? What about a pig, or a dolphin?

Secondly, why would aliens we meet have the equivalent amount of sentience we do? What if they are vastly more advanced than we? By your definition, they should treat us as cattle, and have every moral right to do so.

[Ben Kenobi]

A zygote has no intrinsic capacity to function as a person. How? It cannot eat, it cannot breathe, it does not have a brain, it doesn't have any limbs, it doesn't have lungs or other vital internal organs. I ask you, how can a zygot compare with a person?

You are confusing intrinsic capacity with current capacity.

Given time, and a comfortable womb, the zygote will develop those features you require for personhood.

A man in a coma does not currently function as a person, though he retains the capacity to function. This is why we treat, and take care of him as opposed to the brain-dead patient.

Actually, defining a person has nothing to do with ethics. What to do about a person is what ethics is
about.

That is normative ethics. First you need to know what a person is, before one can apply ethical principles to persons.

I was saying that a person's body cells can be theoretically be caused to grow into clones of that person.

Then show me the money!

[loinburger]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Now, are you working from the same definition of sentience as UR?

I'm not sure. Maybe he and I will have a debate over our definitions in a coupla years or so, if Poly gets too slow. All that is germane to the discussion at hand is that we both agree (as does the dictionary) that thought is a necessary condition for sentience.

So weight is the ultimate determinant? Suppose we cut off your head, and leave the rest of the body. Clearly, more than half of your body remains, yet do you stay loinburger?

For pity's sake. At no point have I ever claimed that a non-thinking entity has a self -- that's your claim, not mine. I've claimed just the opposite many times. If my head is removed then obviously I become a non-thinking entity, therefore I cease to be loinburger.

Alive = intrinsic capacity to function as a person. The brain-dead patient, though he may breathe, has lost this capacity.

If this is your definition of "alive" then you're simply begging the question -- you're defining a "person" to be a human who is alive, and you're defining somebody to be "alive" if they are a human person. Don't you see the blatant circularity here?

The zygote is not potentially a person, but already is a person.

I'm not going to address this until you give me a reasonable definition of the term "person." You've essentially rendered the term meaningless.

Sure, they can be capable of sentience. If we run across a sentient species, then we should reciprocate. It still does not mean they qualify as human persons.

Obviously they wouldn't qualify as human persons, seeing as how they're not human. According to your definition of personhood they would not be persons of any kind, though, and we would therefore be under no obligation to recipricate with them. Under my definition they would be considered persons, as is their due.

Anthropocentric?
Do you believe a mollusc is sentient? What about a pig, or a dolphin?

You've quoted me out of context (by quoting and addressing two related paragraphs as separate independent paragraphs) in order to throw a pack of strawmen my way. Obviously I wasn't referring to molluscs or pigs, seeing as how in the paragraph directly above the quoted paragraph I was referring to all species in the universe, not merely all species in the world.

Secondly, why would aliens we meet have the equivalent amount of sentience we do? What if they are vastly more advanced than we? By your definition, they should treat us as cattle, and have every moral right to do so.

1. I don't see sentience as being a quality of which somebody can possess a greater or lesser quantity. Either one is self-aware or one is not.

2. I don't see where you're deriving this "treat us like cattle" strawman, seeing as how I've never claimed that we ought to treat any persons as cattle (unless you believe that locking up murderers or denying five-year-olds the right to vote are tantamount to treating murderers or five-year-olds as cattle...)


C'mon, that's one case of completely missing the point of what I've been posting for the past umpteen pages, one blatantly circular argument, and two strawmen, not to mention one use of the much-despised "lol" argument. Is there any point to my continuing in this debate? Should I just throw up my hands in despair and be done with it?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Now, are you working from the same definition of sentience as UR?

If so, both of you cannot be right.

Check carefully the wordings of the two quotes. It seems that both of us agreed that a man in coma is capable of sentience.

Originally posted by obiwan18
You are confusing intrinsic capacity with current capacity.

I am not confused, you are.

The opposite of intrinsic is not current, it is extrinsic. An "intrinsic" ability is one that is built-in, a native ability so to speak. A man who is sleeping has the intrinsic ability of vision, even though he is not currently using it. A man in a coma has the intrinsic capability of sentience, even though at that moment he is not using it.

Originally posted by obiwan18
Given time, and a comfortable womb, the zygote will develop those features you require for personhood.

You are arguing about potential here, not about intrinsic ability per se. Show me a zygote is intrinsically capable of sentience, and we will continue in this direction.

As I pointed out before, each and every body cell has the potential to become a person.

Originally posted by obiwan18
A man in a coma does not currently function as a person, though he retains the capacity to function. This is why we treat, and take care of him as opposed to the brain-dead patient.

Exactly. As opposed to a zygote, an embryo, or a fetus, which has no capacity of sentience.

Originally posted by obiwan18
That is normative ethics. First you need to know what a person is, before one can apply ethical principles to persons.

I am rather sure that we agreed on using sentience as the measuring stick. If that's not your definition, speak up.

Originally posted by obiwan18
Then show me the money!

Just because in theory it is the case doesn't mean we can do it now. Consider fusion. In theory, we can build fusion reactors. It is just that we haven't been able to do so.

[Ben Kenobi]

Sorry guys, I didn't know that you responded.

Loinburger:

I've claimed just the opposite many times. If my head is removed then obviously I become a non-thinking entity, therefore I cease to be loinburger.

Good So then it doesn't matter what happens to the cells in your body. Something in you stays loinburger regardless of the turnover as your cells die and renew. I was trying to pull you off the position that there is nothing we retain over time.

Don't you see the blatant circularity here?

One can be alive and not necessarily a person, or even a human. One can possess human DNA, yet not be a person. I'm trying to account for both sides at the same time.

If this is your definition of "alive" then you're simply begging the question.

Indeed. Perhaps a better definition is that if it wiggles, it's alive. Defining life is hard, which is why it is much easier to define personhood given that the zygote is already alive, in that living things can only come from other living things.

According to your definition of personhood they would not be persons of any kind, though, and we would therefore be under no obligation to recipricate with them.

We're going to have to work out sentience as a boolean value first. Why would an advanced alien race care about the application of human rights?

Why is sentience a boolean value? Do you consider self-awareness = sentience?

If so, do we know that producing brain waves = self-awareness?

I don't like anthropocentric, because according to what we know now, your argument is less broad than mine.

[Ben Kenobi]

UR:

I am rather sure that we agreed on using sentience as the measuring stick. If that's not your definition, speak up.

Part of what makes us people is the capacity for sentience, but other qualities can be included as well. My definition states person as the intrinsic capacity to function as a person, and I go with whatever people believe people need to function.

Show me a zygote is intrinsically capable of sentience, and we will continue in this direction.

Intrinsic:

1 a : belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing.

That's the definition I've been using throughout.

Part of the essence of the zygote includes the DNA inherited at conception. This DNA provides the instructions needed for the zygote to grow a heart/lungs/brain, etc. This DNA is inside of the one-celled zygote, and is therefore a part of the constitution of the zygote. Without the diploid DNA, you cannot have a zygote, so therefore, this DNA is part of the essential nature of the zygote.

Any clearer?

Just because in theory it is the case doesn't mean we can do it now. Consider fusion. In theory, we can build fusion reactors. It is just that we haven't been able to do so.

I meant show me the theory.
Never heard of this before.