My question would be this: an acorn is a potential oak tree. We wouldn't identity the acorn as an oak tree, though. Destroying an acorn is not equivalent to destroying an oak tree. Do you see humans as differing from this? — frank

I’ve been dying to raise the oak tree, so thank you for doing that! This, to me, is the real conversation. What is a life, and what is a human life? Without having this conversation you aren’t really talking about abortion. We must discuss new life and coming to be to discuss whether killing a fetal human is like killing an adult human in any way.

So here is how I lay it out in the context of an oak tree.

First we need to understand “tree”. There are Maples and Ashes as well as Oaks. So to clarify tree, a tree is an organism with a trunk, branches and leaves.

Next we clarify “oak”. This has to do with an organism’s DNA. An oak is different than a maple as distinguished by their DNA.

Now, to discuss the “acorn” I need another word. “Plant”.

An acorn is planted in the ground and begins to grow. It breaks the surface of the ground and grows into a sapling, later into a tree. At all stages, this was a plant, a unique, individuated organism. What type of organism or plant is this - it’s an Oak. Acorn planted in the ground and growing, sapling and tree are all what an Oak is.

Same for human beings. A human zygote isn’t a different thing than a human adult - it’s what a human being is when it is first conceived like the adult is what a human being is when it is grown.

You don’t want to trust me. You don’t believe me or think I don’t have my own mind. I’m just a religious zealot (even though I don’t sound like one or ever raised the issue and I as just honestly responding to you).

Come on bro, let’s get back to the topic.

Isn’t whatever your agenda is a reason for me to doubt everything you say as well? Should I focus the conversation on what you REALLY think instead of what you are saying?

So there could be reasons to value the life of an adult more than the life of a baby?

Are values so subjective, that you could see someone make a policy that you can kill babies? China had that policy for years.

I’ll put it this way. Others on this thread have said that if I think a fetal human has as much value as an adult human, my values must be off. Would someone who says you can kill babies but you can’t kill adults because adults are more valuable have a problem with their values? Or do you think values are totally up to each individual (so no one’s values can actually be off as there is no objective measuring stick anyway).

If, when it becomes difficult to fix that boundary I just say “everything changes anyway” I can’t say “human” anymore.
— Fire Ologist

Sure you can. — praxis

I don't agree. In order to have one conversation, like we are doing, something has to be fixed between us that is not subject to only my goals or your goals, or else we could never speak. Maybe we never actually communicate. I disagree with that. I see communication as a product of the fixed and the changing, not just the changing. So if either one of us says "abortion" and wants to communicate about this with the other, we must come to some agreement regarding something objective, something fixed, that we each separately agree on. For example, if we each agree "abortion is terminating a pregnancy", neither is free to identify "abortion" as anything less than that. When saying "abortion" we must say "pregnancy" and "termination" or there is no conversation possible. There may be more to an abortion, or maybe not. Or we could both be wrong. But while we seek to communicate with each other about abortion, and while we agree 'abortion terminates a pregnancy' we take that to be an objective fact, fixed in the world we are discussing. Your goals and values, and my goals and values, are no longer up for debate or even relevant on the now agreed fact "abortion terminates a pregnancy" - our values may tell us why we concluded "abortion terminates a pregnancy" but once concluded and posited in a conversation, we move nowhere unless we both hold that fact out as a fact, a fixed objective ground for the next statement (the next motion in the conversation). Now let's say I say "a fetal human being is an early stage adult human being, so a terminated pregnancy means a fetal human being has died" and you say "a terminated pregnancy does not terminate a human being, because a fetus isn't a human being", so we disagree. While we may now discuss what a human is, neither of us can base this further discussion on any other definition of abortion besides "abortion terminates a pregnancy" because that must remain fixed or we get nowhere, and we cannot communicate, and we've said nothing with any meaning or use or purpose. (This doesn't mean definitions like "abortion terminates a pregnancy" aren't revisable, just that we don't get to revise definitions all by ourselves and think we are having a conversation.)

While I understand that my values and my perception abilities and my biases and the structure of consciousness all mediate between me and anything else, and I understand that everything is in motion, there is nothing left to say about anything unless it is also the case that when we speak at all, we can only do our best at fixing permanent unchanging objects buried in all of this change. That's what speaking is, what it does. That's what reason is, what it does. We construct our lines to see if they can withstand all the changing motions. If the lines I construct can only exist for me, (such as what I value might), then there can be no communication or point to a having a conversation.

Basically, if valuation is the base act of human cognition, and every object I consider is only made of my values and nothing at all outside of those values, there is no point to speaking because there is either nothing outside of my values to speak of, and/or we would never be able to actually agree on anything ever (as I would have nothing to point to when I said 'I see what you mean').

Essentialism is only half the story. It's the story part; it's the identity of an individuated thing part. Motion is what the story is about. Existence and essence feed into each other, cause each other so to speak.
We don't get to avoid defining when a new human being comes into being if we want to say "human", and think we are advancing any communication or conversation about "abortion."

I’m religious.
— Fire Ologist

Don’t you think this influences how you identify things? — praxis

Not when I'm trying to identify where the car keys are. Religious views need not cloud everything. I'm not trying to determine whether an abortion is a sin or not. In fact I think some abortions might be sins, and some definitely are not. But someone else's sin, like some other woman's pregnancy, is none of my business. I'm not relying on the term "soul" or "God" in anything I'm saying. I'm trying to avoid even "right" or "wrong" as the moral/ethical/social aspects of this are to me, just a total mess of a conversation. I'm just trying say what an abortion is, like what a car is, or what keys are. So, no, not in this conversation.

What about the possibility of consciousness acting in the role of a transitive agent impacting and changing the objects under its influence? — ucarr

But are we talking about the conscious experience qua representation, or are we talking about some kind of construct - presumably a material-symbolic artefact - that instantiates or incorporates this conscious experience? — Pantagruel

Interesting conversation.

I was thinking Kant right out of the gate so I appreciated when his name came up.

Is there a possibility that where this is headed is going to end up restating in QM terms what Kant clarified in the subject (consciousness) that is isolated from the thing in itself (wave, QM theories), due to the phenomenal veil (consciousness’s constructions)?

I think I’m wrong and not getting the nuances here yet.

How does this fit into your thoughts: there are two parts to consciousness. One is as the seat of perception, like a dog is conscious, a function of the brain, out there in the world, like any other thing in itself. The second part, for human beings, is consciousness of this consciousness. This is why we are so cut off from things in themselves. We see representational constructs of things in themselves in our consciousness - consciousness of the things we are conscious of, none of which are simply the thing.

This may just restate the problem really, but does your theory have any application on these terms, namely consciousness and self-consciousness (which is what I mean by consciousness of my consciousness)? Where does the transitive bridge fit in?

If I’m making any sense to you.

I'd be happy to say it is a 'potential person', a partial journey towards personhood, if you like and therefore (for me) not as valuable as a full person. — Tom Storm

Appreciate your point of view.

What would you say to someone who basically agreed with you, but said they did not find newborns and infants as valuable as full persons? Maybe they don’t want to kill babies or anything, they just think that to be consistent with their own valuation, infants are not as valuable as adults.

Confusing because you said that you’re pro-choice because abortion policy is a practical issue. — praxis

Pro-choice is a public moniker for what I would call Pro-abortion rights. Because we need to make public policy, and no one will ever agree on this, I choose the “pro-choice” public policy route with certain limitations.

A religious person might say that they’re pro-life because abortion policy is a spiritual issue. — praxis

And I’m religious. I’d say to them “ok, what does that mean with regards to when a new human being comes into being, and what is your argument for why abortion should be legal or not?” Soul talk is as arbitrary as the whole consciousness or mind or will talk. Arbitrary to me when it comes to what we can measure in a newborn, a toddler, a zygote.

As far as I can tell everything is in a constant state of change and motion at the molecular, cellular, terrestrial, and celestial levels. I think we mark beginning and ending basically in order to take action and achieve goals. — praxis

I agree. Everything is in a constant state of change. That either means that nothing comes to be as each is changed before it takes hold. Or things take hold and come to be for a short time before they are changed beyond recognition, or I’m wrong and there are some permanent, unchanging things.

If we say “abortion” we have to draw some lines and fix some boundaries. One of them is “human”. If, when it becomes difficult to fix that boundary I just say “everything changes anyway” I can’t say “human” anymore. The issue is perfect in this debate because the fetus has its own clear fixed boundaries, or else a doctor couldn’t identify it and remove it. What is that doctor doing besides motion and change like everything else? What is unlike anything else?

Where do you sit on euthanasia? — Tom Storm

Haven’t really thought about it much. It doesn’t really present any metaphysical questions, and ethics discussions are not worth the effort to me.

Notice I’m more interested in what people think a person is and what people think a new life is in the abortion discussion, but not so interested in talking about the moral implications.

Someone has an abortion, I’m fine with that being none of my business, and leaving the laws to capture that is fine with me too. But someone says a zygote isn’t an early moment in the one life of a human being, a person, and I’m interested in their reasoning.

Why not before that? — praxis

There is no organism before conception. A sperm or an egg are specialized human cells, like a liver cell or any other special cell, but they are not organisms. They start something new. But that moment is the rub of the metaphysical question. Conception marks a change. Change reflects difference and becoming and motion. Doesn’t seem like an arbitrary line is drawn at conception to me but I’d love an argument. Conception is a new motion.

Some may view it as an ideological issue. — praxis

It’s an ethical issue, a biological issue, a metaphysical issue, a legal/public policy issue (and all the politicking and ideological virtue signaling that goes with that). By practical, I meant the legal public policy bit.

Cool. We could even leave it at that. — Tom Storm

Legally speaking I agree.

This is probably a quesion of values. I don't particularly value such cells. An adult human being (Mrs Smith of the previous discussion) is in the world, interacting, making choices — Tom Storm

I prefer to discuss what things are and what they do before I discuss their value.

Basically in order to say “I value Mrs Smith to X degree” before you even value or compare her to anything, you have to say “Mrs Smith” and this requires some definition or we are not saying anything useful or able to make the best value judgment.

Newborns are barely different than a small fetus when it comes to making choices, awareness like a human adult, etc. I don’t see it to be consistent to say you value the fetus more after its birth. The fetus once born is as feckless as a lump of cells.

The values folks seem to already know the adult is the most valued and by the time you get to the zygote stage, you obviously have nothing at all that would be valued like the adult. But the phrase “zygote is obviously nothing like the adult” seems to be based only cursory, surface observation, and when this quick treatment is left as good enough for value judgments, it leads to what I see as inconsistent logic (who are all the humans) and inconsistent value judgments (why do we value infants like they are persons like Mrs Smith).

How do you explain preferring choice up to six months to keep the state out of it but actually being anti-abortion-without-exception? — praxis

I get that not everyone is going to agree with me that the long chain of events that is a person’s life includes the moments they were conceived. I get that I may be wrong. I also get that pregnancy and new life and abortion and laws and morals are dense, cloudy things in the world, and now we just have many more ways to continue disagreements.

So to be done with all the disagreement in the law, the law should be a compromise and allow for abortion. Up to six months (or finalize some criteria and pick a day), to draw the line and be done with it. After six months, the law should allow for abortion in certain cases. And upon birth, too late, we all get stuck with a new state citizen.

I am pro choice because abortion policy is a practical issue, and in the interest of trying to move to other practical issues, the “pro-life” side has to accept there will still be abortions, and the pro-choice side has to accept that some abortions will be limited.

But I like the more theoretical aspects, as they pertain to all life and the whole human experience. Regardless of whatever the law is, if someone asked me “would you have an abortion in X circumstances?” I want to first consider “what is an abortion?”in every way I can. And I find it impossible to answer that question without saying the word “human” and pointing to “lives” and coloring in a picture where I ultimately find it impossible to distinguish “human” from the newly conceived zygote in a pregnant adult human woman. So long story short, because some abortions are good (necessary) and some are bad (killing a person with no justifying reason), and because the question is what would I do, you end up with me being against abortion except in (likely few in my case) circumstances when killing the fetal human is necessary.

So I’m all over the place. I’m both pro life personally, but pro choice politically. And I would go 15 rounds on the metaphysics, the science, the fact of the matter, the conversation built into the abortion issue. But politically, I am useless to both sides as I win personally if for some reason abortion stops, and I win practically if for some reason legal abortion continues.

Post like what?

Yes. To keep the state out of it.

But pro-choice and pro-life are political hatchet terms.

I’m actually anti-abortion-without-exception, and if for some reason a pregnant woman asked me what I think her fetus is, I’d say it’s a person. And if for some reason I was pregnant, I would think I can’t have an abortion unless there is some exceptional reason for it.

So you have nothing else you want to address?

Hi praxis,

I don’t want everyone to agree with me. That’s why I’m bothering to talk about this with Banno.

I want to find the most reasonable position. Dialogue with those who disagree helps me test and develop what I hope is the most reasonable position.

I’m sorry you felt attacked.

the world does not always divide up as neatly as you seem to supose. — Banno

I don’t think I’m making divisions any more neatly than anyone else. Definitions and essences are a fickle bitch. But you draw a clear line, in other words, an essential difference, between an adult human and a “cyst”.

I’m working with those distinctions and drawing my own to see what you think (if you would play).

We can’t avoid definitions and hints at essences if we want to form a sentence, let alone have a conversation. We who would speak are slaves to distinctions and distinctions carry essence or definition.

A “human” is one bundle of vague wisps of smoke. But since we know a human is not a grapefruit, theee are some essential distinctions we can speak of.

Presumably they do not like the conclusion, that abortion ought be permitted. — Banno

I agree abortion ought to be permitted. What a pregnant woman does or does not do with her pregnancy and her body is none of anyone else’s business, particularly not the state.

But as a philosopher, I’m still curious about what an abortion actually is.

I can’t conclude a human zygote lump of cells is anything other than a stage in the one life of on individual human being. Adults can be called lumps of cells too, so that doesn’t help.

No one wants to define “human” in the context of one biological life.”

I’m not squeamish about it. I’m not going to make laws or argue morality or ethics that take away a woman’s autonomy just because she is pregnant.

I don’t need to balance the value of a woman versus a fetal human.

But I’m not going to hide from the evidence about what an abortion is just because some other people might use it to make bad law and treat people badly.

Attack you. You are tougher than that.

your beliefs are heinous. — Banno

The conceit…is disingenuous. — Banno

Your use of the word “attack” shows the weakness of your position.

You never said what kind of embryo you posted a picture of. Weak.

You won’t define what the organism is in a pregnant woman. You just want to convince everyone you think the adult woman is more valuable than the “cyst” (which is an “attacking” name for a blastocyst).

You won’t even define what a woman is. Other than [an organism] displaying needs, desires and does ethics. Weak.

And you won’t say how it is logical to see “desires and ethical agency” in a new born, or why someone would logically value a newborn the same as the adult. Also weak.

Cheers!

the cyst …the woman — Banno

Why do you even speak?

Repeating drivel by avoiding interlocution doesn’t bring new meaning to the drivel.

If you don’t see that then “there’s not much anyone can say” to quote you.

Where'd you go? You ok?

the organism — night912

Night - hi. Why did you say "organism"?

Let me see if anyone can follow a simple set of observable, empirical facts and answer a simple question.

We all know what an adult is. We know that an adult is different than an adolescent. And an adolescent is different than a newborn. And a newborn infant is different than an early fetus. Right? We all agree. Banno can show you the pictures if you don't follow :joke: .

But none of these words describe what the individual is. None of these point out any specific thing. That's because all of these are adjectives, describing a stage in a life of something I haven't identified yet. An adult X. An adolescent X. A newborn X. A fetal X.

A "fetus" isn't an individual. An "adult" isn't an actual thing. You need to have some thing in hand to use the terms "fetal, newborn, adolescent, adult" that might describe that thing.

So now let's start over.

Is an adult X an individual organism? Is an adolescent X an individual organism? Is a fetal X an individual organism? Yes. This is simple, animal biology, phrased in simple terms to point out features of individual organisms. It draws distinctions (perhaps arbitrarily and not without difficulty) between apparent stages in an organism's life.

So here is the simple question: What is the fetal stage organism in a pregnant adult human being? What is it? I already packed into this question the fact that it's not an adolescent thing or a newborn thing, and it certainly is not an adult thing. But will you say what it is?

What is the organism in the fetal stage that lives inside a pregnant adult human being?

You can't call it a construct, or a choice, because a doctor may have to isolate it in order to remove it from a woman's uterus. It's a thing, not someone's chosen word for a thing.

More specifically, it's a living individual organism. You can't call it a part of something else, because it's individuated by having its own functioning set of DNA). So what is it?

You can't just call it "a fetus" because that would be making a noun out of an adjective, and simply be avoiding the question "what is the fetus in the pregnant woman?" A fetal what, is the question.

I'll give you my answer just to be fair. It's a person. A human being, at a different stage in the fragile life it shares with the rest of us idiots, like a newborn is, or an old, blind, dying man with Alzheimer's is, or the strongest, smartest man in the world is.

Let the metaphysical and linguistic acrobatics begin, and the likely avoidance of simple facts and a simple question.
___________________________

I've never heard how a new human embryo is anything other than the first moments of a new human being. I would love to see a non-emotional, on point, reasoned argument from observable facts state what a human being is and when such a thing first comes into being.

I've given you my method and my current hypothesis. What do you got?

And before you think I'm pro-life, that to me is a tiresome political movement. I'd rather abortion up to around six or so months remain legal. I'd rather leave pregnant women free on such a sensitive issue and try to convince any who might ask to at least consider what they are doing when they are having an abortion and choose for themselves.

Public policy is less interesting (and even more steeped in bullshit) than the metaphysical question of new life and essence.

I find it so disappointing when people won't just apply their reason and clarify their terms in a conversation surrounding the metaphysical/physical/biological/empirical aspects of this topic. We should be more brave.

If my argument sucks, show me. Or better, make an argument of your own that shows why no one who has an abortion has killed a human being.

But insisting that abortions are the killing of a person — Clearbury

I insist that an adult pregnant woman, for example, is a person. I think we all agree there.

But what do all the examples of a person have in common? What is human being? Are they only adults?

Without insisting anything more, I hypothesize that a person, a human being, is a distinct, living organism having a human set of DNA.

Analyzing further what a person is, what human being” means, using my reason and observation, I see that the adult woman was once nothing more than a fetus, and before that, a zygote, and before that she was not anything at all. It was not until after her conception that there was a distinct living organism having a human set of DNA.

It’s not much, what a human being is, to me. Just the same type of thing as any other mammal. We are the human kind of living organism. All individual living organisms started their individual lives sometime after an individual conception, or at conception.

To me conception is all you need to have a whole life. How long that life endures, and whatever it becomes is all born at conception.

The woman certainly didn’t exist before her conception. And as far as I’ve ever heard or been able to think of for myself, any set of functions or other attributes I add to my simple definition, like a heartbeat, or sensation and brain activity, or consciousness, or self-awareness, or reasoning/willing abilities, or spirits or souls, these are either arbitrary (meaning non-essential), usually they are themselves undefined or vague and untestable, and/or they end up excluding newborns.

So I’m not “insisting” that fetuses are persons, I’m trying to argue it based on what I observe to be a new human life.

it really is the case that virtually everyone's reason represents the killing of one of those to be wrong, and that really is evidence that they are persons. — Clearbury

I know you are trying to be clear and I appreciate that. And maybe you are being clear and I just haven’t caught it yet. And I don’t mean to misrepresent you, I’m just not getting it.

“Virtually everyone’s reason represents X…”
That, to me, translates to “Virtually everyone thinks X.”
The term “reason represents” though is unclear to me, which is why I have translate it “thinks”.

Are you saying that, because all we know is that a fetus before birth may or may not be a person, we should conduct our moral analysis based on not knowing what a fetus is? We should jump to the moral/ethical/policy discussion with the ambiguous nature of the fetus as the best we can get?

relationship entails communication, so it is a language. — Pop

That is interesting. As a metaphysical construct.

Relationship is language.
Things speaking, by simply being, related.

Honestly, I’m not sure I follow you. It would help me if you didn’t use the poison berry/guide book analogy, and just state the case using words like pregnant woman, fetus, person, abortion, rules, ethics, etc.

virtually everyone's reason represents the killing of [a newborn baby] to be wrong, and that really is evidence that they are persons. — Clearbury

Because most other people don’t kill newborns, you see that as evidence that they are persons.

I’d just state, because newborns ARE persons, and adult persons think killing persons is wrong, most people don’t kill newborns.

But there is no evidence of what the definition of a person, adult or newborn, actually is here, just an observation about what they don’t kill.

Many people kill fetuses and many don’t. If you were a person considering whether abortion killed a persons or not, whether some of these people who kill or don’t kill got the rule about killing persons right or wrong, the evidence, the guidebook, most people’s reason, the consensus, is still lacking.

Tons of differences.

What kind of embryo is it? I can’t tell by looking at it. Do you know?

you can't tell a zygote from Mrs Smith, there is little more to say. — Banno

:lol:
The point is you can’t tell.

Let’s try this. Do zygotes and Mrs Smith have anything at all in common?

See, I know the answer (there a few for sure). I’m just wondering if you could “tell” anything in common since you won’t tell the difference, and think I can’t.

I don’t think you can say what Mrs Smith is. So you just want to moralize about value. Too many (undefined) desires, needs and wants, but not enough physics and biology and simple logic. You just want to talk about her value, comparing her to cysts over a nice ethical lunch. :lol:

The question is whether abortions are right or wrong. — Clearbury

But you are assuming you know what an abortion is. You have to assume what an abortion is before you can hold it up for moral judgment.

The question is simply, what is an abortion?

Or more simply, when does a human being first come into being?

If you know that, you know that very thing you need to know about an abortion, and we can start to make moral judgments about it.

What is an abortion?
Typically, removal of unwanted tissue from a pregnant woman’s uterus.

What is the tissue? Is there anything we need to know about that?

If we end up concluding (after reasoning from evidence and making No assumptions) that this tissue is an individual human being, it would change the definition of “abortion”, don’t you think?

We may have to make policy on abortion, have laws and protections enforced, and even claim who is good and who is bad, but in the meantime, when we are discussing the many questions surrounding this practice, we can’t avoid the question “what is a human being” and satisfy any moral judgments we want to make about it. At least I don’t see how.

reason of most — Clearbury

The abortion debate is illogical statements, wrong facts, and mundane political agenda - the reason of most fails.

I’ll settle for the reason of one, anyone.

There are consistent positions that both include the zygote (new fetus) as a person and exclude the new fetus as a person. We should never assume anything.

I think the most consistent position is the zygote me was just me before I woke up this morning. It was me yesterday, a long time ago. I’m not very much, but the zygote me was enough for me to be measured and found to exist.

From there it would seem “abortion is wrong”. But I haven’t gotten there yet. I don’t think we can never kill a person, so just because abortion means killing a person to me, it doesn’t mean abortion is wrong.

But I’m still interested in just the facts.

You said a person has a mind. Yes, I agree. But if this is an essential element that must exist at the moment a new human being first comes to exist (the moment a mind comes to exist), are you willing to explain whether a new born baby is a person too?

I’m not saying this is your definition of a person. You said mind equals person or human being above somewhere. I’m just going with that to start a discussion about what we mean by human being as a part of a conversation about pregnant human beings (and abortion).

it may be time to reassess your values — Banno

Not so fast. So quick to judge my values.

So far you said a human being has “needs and desires” and “can do ethics and lunch”. That’s a human being as you choose to see it.

Is that it? Any more qualities of Mrs Smith that distinguish her from the zygote?

Newborn humans can’t value anything.
Newborns can’t conceptualize anything that would allow for them to participate in ethical behavior.
Newborn humans are, cognitively, less than many other species of adult mammals.

If you don’t give me more qualities of Mrs Smith, then, what is your highly moral and ethically superior reason for treating newborn human as you would Mrs Smith? Or don’t you value newborns either?

Then how is a new born baby any different than a zygote, because new born babies don’t do ethics or lunch either?

True. And if you keep comparing all these values, you keep sounding like you are avoiding the conversation. I'm asking you to tell me what you value about Mrs. Smith. Do all I get is "desires and needs." Everything I come up with applies to the cyst, or it doesn't apply to the tiny new baby.

Again.

if the faculties of reason of most warn against having abortions, then regardless of what assumptions we might make about fetuses, our guide-book on reality - our reason - is implying that fetuses are persons.

On the other hand, if the faculties of reason of most do not warn against abortions, then our reason is implying that they are not the destruction of persons. — Clearbury

I'm just not sure how this helps a pregnant person who asks "I don't know what to do because I don't want to be pregnant or have a baby, but I also don't want to kill a person, so what would you do if you were me?" I guess I'm saying, please write the guidebook according to Clearbury.

What a mess. — Banno

Right. You can't stop contradicting yourself. Contradictions like:

What counts as a human being and what does not is an issue not of looking around and discovering something that is the case. — Banno

And "look around, see what I've discovered that is the case:

What is clear is that Mrs Smith is a human being. — Banno

Total mess.

It would be unreasonable - not reasonable - to assume the blue ones are poisonous. For if they were poisonous, then on the assumption this is something the guide book author knows and would wish to warn us about, there'd be a warning against eating them....yet there isn't. — Clearbury

All of that is a reasonable way to make an assumption. But what if you don't want to make an assumption? The guidebook is unhelpful if you do not want to make an assumption.

All berries and poisons aside, we are talking about the life and death of human beings, and/or the aborting (killing) of human beings, or not. It matters to both the pregnancy woman and the baby where the poison/person actually is.

I do not think it is reasonable to infer that, because a human fetus (a thing that all of us came from directly according to our DNA) is not like me, an adult who uses his mind to think about things, I was not a human being when I was only a fetus. I think it is more reasonable to infer that a human being, like any living thing, changes through many stages and all of those stages make up one life, of one living individual thing, like a human being.

What counts as a human being and what does not is an issue not of looking around and discovering something that is the case. but of making a choice. The line can be put anywhere we choose. — Banno

So the set of all humans (whatever the definition) is defined by a choice. All definitions are by a choice I take it. You are talking about how we define things, not about any definitions, any particular choices. And your definition of what a definition is, namely, "putting lines anywhere we choose" is wholely unhelpful to any argument about anything. So I can be correct to choose to define a person as a cyst or a grapefruit. Weak.

What is clear is that Mrs Smith is a human being. — Banno

What is clear??!!! I thought our choices are necessary to clarify any definition. What takes your choice away from you and demands that you say "Mrs Smith is a human being"?

Instead of defining a human being you just point "Look over there at Mrs Smith - that's a human being."

It is clear that she has capabilities, needs, and desires — Banno

Finally. Some qualities of a human being. I think we should skip desires because how on earth can you know a new born baby has any desires?

What "needs" and "capabilities" does Mrs Smith have that a cyst does not have such that we can point to Mrs. Smith and say "human being" and point to a cyst and say "see, not a human being"?

Your insistence on conception as an absolute partition from which moral considerations apply — Banno

I have yet to talk morality. Your insistence that I am talking morality is deluded.

I can honestly stipulate that the law and policy should be that every pregnant woman gets to decide for herself whether to carry the baby to term or to abort the pregnancy. None of my business. Pregnancy is totally unique and there is no analogy to it. I would love to move away from the hidden agendas in what is really a basic philosophic discussion. I am willing to say, as policy, a woman can abort her unborn child even though it is a human being just like you and me.

So your insistence on avoiding a simple question, or answering it with "choices" and "needs" seems to me like you have no clue what this discussion is.

What is a human being?

I take, perhaps mistakenly, being a person and having a mind to be synonymous. — Clearbury

What evidence is there that a new born baby has a mind? When you say you have a "mind" do you mean certain the thing that seems to coincide with certain brain activity? Or do you mean self-conscious thinking, because I don't see that evidence until we get at least a few weeks or months past birth.

if the guide book warns against eating yellow berries, but issues no warning about blue berries, then I think it's reasonable to have as one's working assumption that blue berries are not poisonous. — Clearbury

That's not good logic. If yellow, than poisonous. Not yellow, so not poisonous? Couldn't it mean the author of the book never saw a blue berry before? And blue berries are more poisonous? Yellow berries are poison berries tells you nothing about blue berries at all.

If mind, then human being. No mind, so no human being. So when a person has an accident and they have no mind, while they live, the thing that lives is not a human being? Though they continue to breath and their heart beats and their cells conduct mitosis, etc., they cease to be a human being and we should call them some other animal? Or is it a human being with a very short life expectancy?

The orphanage, of course. — RogueAI

Problem solved. All questions answered. No more reason to debate abortion I guess.

Why are people risking their lives to save anything? Are orphans under fire more valuable than firemen?

You can distort the morality all over the place if you don’t define the terms. What is a fertilized egg? Is that a stage in a chicken’s life? Or do you mean something like an acorn that hasn’t hit the dirt yet? Or do you mean a living human organism, like a fireman or an orphan?

Hard to say what I’d do without definitions.

Because us deep thinkers are so squeamish about burning orphans, pregnant victims of rape and all the other emotionally charged aspects of this discussion, no one ever thinks through the problem simply and methodically and using actual empirical evidence and reasoned argument. Maybe a fertility clinic is another name for human trafficking superstore. I don’t really care to judge the good or bad of burning orphans versus burning zygotes. Just wondering if anyone can say why a burning orphan is a burning human being, whereas a burning zygote is not. How do you define an orphan that makes it something other than a human lump of flesh like any other fertilized egg at a fertility clinic?

Did the mother kill all the zygotes/embryos/fetuses that were miscarriage? Was the mother wrong for having miscarriages since, by your definition, it's the act of killing all those organisms? — night912

The question is whether a miscarriage is the end of the short life of a person, or not. Why jump to asking for blame and “wrongness” without addressing the moving pieces of the argument.

If a new person/human being is costs when we have a zygote, then clearly yes, a miscarriage is the death of a person/human being.

I see human beings as bodies - we have the magical power of “mind” or whatever makes us feel so special when we start philosophizing about things as adults, but we remain bodies, bodies that only began growing, living, as a unique organism at conception. Any other moment in the life of the human body asserted as the moment the human comes to be a living human individual, is arbitrary. Waiting and hoping for a better argument or definition of a human being.

And why would a woman be “wrong” for something out of her control like a miscarriage? No one is ever wrong for anything they cannot intend. (This is a tangient conversation about morality generally. If a fetus is not a person, we don’t need to talk about morality, and if a fetus is a person and no one wants to kill it, we don’t need to talk morals either.)

everyone you accuse of being morally wrong for reducing Mrs. Smith is in fact trying to elevate the value of the life you dismiss as a mere cyst, while not reducing anyone else’s. You’re the one defending the killing, after all. — NOS4A2

That is exactly right. The question is whether all of Banno’s wonderful concerns for other women apply to people in the earliest moments of their lives.

More specifically for me, the question is simply what is a human being regardless of whatever one might want to do with it at any stage in its life.

I’m just trying to clarify what are the pawns on this game board. Banno’s leaping to game strategy and using it to tell me something can’t be a pawn, but won’t define a pawn.

Interesting that the libertarians hereabouts are so keen on controlling the very bodily autonomy of others. Women, specifically. Black and poor, predominantly. — Banno

Who said anything about any of that? I could care less what you or anyone does. I don’t need a law for or against abortion or lump flesh surgery or not. I will recognize my own morality and choose accordingly like everyone else has to. Politicians are all idiots like the rest of us. Are the ones who say “a lump of flesh called a human blatocyst is not a whole human life” accurate? Are they just as full of shit as someone saying anyone is controlling anyone else by trying to have a conversation?

The guide book is analogous to our faculty of reason, the warning is analogous to our reason telling us not to do something, and the poisonousness - or likely poisonousness - of the berries is the fetus's person status. — Clearbury

I am following you here.

If our faculty of reason - or at least, the faculty of reason of many - warns us against abortions, then it is reasonable to infer from this that the fetus has a mind, as this is the best explanation of why it is warning us against having them if, that is, this is what it does. — Clearbury

I would say “if our faculty of reason warns us against abortions, then it is reasonable to infer the human fetus is a person.” Likely poisonousness is likely personhood. Why did you jump to “fetus has a mind”? Isn’t that like jumping to “yellow berry has arsenic”. It’s poisonous but we can’t use use reason, without more facts, to infer something specific. Unless to you, human being equals minded being.

On the other hand, if it issues no such warning - or only issues it if one represents the fetus to b a person (which would be equivalent to looking up 'should I eat poisonous berries?' in the guide - a question that it will obviously answer with 'yes' and that tells one nothing about whether the yellow berries are poisonous or not) - then it is reasonable to infer that the fetus is not a person. — Clearbury

That I don’t follow. Can you clarify? I would use your analogy to equate “the berries are poison” with. “the fetus is a human being”. How did you get to “fetus is not a person”? Are you saying if you found a blue berry and didn’t see anything in the book about blueness, you could infer it must not be poisoneess?