As you probably already know, we were literally one word away from nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

We can't keep playing tightrope forever, eventually someone will fall and by extension everyone else will. — Manuel

And yet what is the alternative? A principled stance for peace will not prevent someone else from pursuing their goals through war, and always avoiding escalation just hands all the cards to the other side. It's not a practical strategy if you care about the outcome.

I don't see a world in which Russia retreats from the territories they conquered in this war. They would rather commit collective suicide. I just don't see them doing this. — Manuel

That seems like a very bleak outlook. What makes you so pessimistic about this?

Maybe I am completely wrong - maybe they will in some future scenario, swap land for peace. But then Ukraine can never be a part of NATO.

No option here is one in which Ukraine has a favorable hand. It's a question of how much they will lose. They can lose more or lose less. That's how I see it. — Manuel

And thus they should give up? Or what is the conclusion you're arriving at here?

But why does NATO exist? It's stated goal was to defend against the Soviet Union. That collapsed and NATO remained. — Manuel

I find this an odd question. NATO has been very successful. There have been no overt attacks on any NATO member. Who would dismantle a successful system of mutual defense? What possible interest could that serve?

You are probably aware that Putin asked Clinton is Russia could join NATO but was rejected. Had Russia been in NATO, this war would not have occurred. — Manuel

I'd be curious as to what your source of information on this is. As far as I know there were informal talks behind closer doors, the details of which aren't public. Reportedly Russia asked for some kind of special status within NATO.

Perhaps NATO could have been more accommodating. But perhaps also Russia should not have made demands at that time.

They only remaining "threat" is China. They're a threat to Taiwan. Not to the world. — Manuel

What qualifies as a "threat to the world"? Was the Soviet Union a threat to the world? Was Germany in 1914?

On the one hand, most people just want peace and prosperity. On the other hand there are clearly different visions as to how the future world looks, and they're not equally appealing from where I stand.

Last I saw Kiev was functioning. It wasn't like Baghdad was left.

I mean full and total devastation of Kiev. — Manuel

It's doubtful whether Russia can afford to do that. But I think more importantly Kiev is part of the russian national heritage at least the way Putin and the (ultra-) nationalists see it.

I don't think Russia is keeping significant operational capacities in reserve. If they had, they had every incentive to use those. Instead Russia got troops from north Korea to aid it's Kursk offensive.

Yeah, in an ideal world they would just take hits and not do anything. This is not that world. — Manuel

Yet it is important to remember that strategic decisions still happen. If there was an inescapable spiral of escalation, then the soviet union would have attacked the US navy ships blocking the shipping lanes to Cuba. They did not though.

Yeah, they will take more land. It might be a forever war. But negotiations have to happen. — Manuel

And negotiations will happen. Everyone is aware that the war must end with negotiations. How else could it be? The question is how one-sided the negotiations will be.

Ukraine simply cannot beat Russia now the numbers don't add up. — Manuel

I don't think "can Ukraine beat Russia" is really a good question to ask. The situation right now is that neither country is strong enough to enforce their demands. They're in a fairly even attritional struggle (with the current level of international aid to Ukraine) that favours Russia but does not offer it a clear route to victory.

Given that, what does it take to "beat Russia"? Take Moscow? Push all russian forces over the 2021 borders? The 2014 borders? Stop their momentum? Keep Kiev?

All of these are, imo, plausible variants of "beating Russia". But at the end of the day the operative question should be: What kind of post-war order do we envision?

A situation where either Russia or Ukraine are building up for the next round to address their grievances isn't stable. A situation where the West leaves Ukraine by the wayside to be absorbed in the Russian orbit would badly damage the cohesion and credibility of NATO.

On the other extreme a destabilised Russia would be volatile and cause all kinds of future security risks. Again it's a strategic calculation. It's not simply about a binary win/ lose outcome.

That's right this does not threaten them. But it is US and UK soldiers using US and UK machinery firing into Russia. — Manuel

But this is ultimately a matter of degrees. Ukraine has been relying on US intelligence and targeting data since the start of the war. It's an open secret that special forces of NATO countries are active in Ukraine.

Imagine Russian missiles being shot with Russian technology from Cuba into the US. What would happen? — Manuel

It depends right? It's a strategic decision of what to do. First of all I have to note that to make the analogy work, the US would already have to be fighting against Cuba on Cuba.

Second Houthi rebels have been firing Iranian weapons at US warships for some months now. Has this caused total war between Iran and the US? Hell Iran just straight up fired missiles into Israel and the result hasn't been a nuclear strike.

They probably will hit Ukraine very hard — Manuel

Are you implying that's not what they have been doing?

But if these attacks continue, they have to reply in kind to the US or Britain. — Manuel

Why though? They don't actually "have to" do anything. This really reminds me of the talk about the invasion itself. Oh Russia "had to" do it because of provocations X, Y and Z. But we're talking about strategic decisions and countries are very well able to take a loss and roll with it.

I don't know how much more evidence one needs to know that Russia is being serious. It is being left without options. — Manuel

What? I honestly have no idea what you mean here.

How is Russia without options? The russian state is not remotely threatened. They're facing more difficult logistics and aerial campaigns which might eventually degrade their capacity to fight in Ukraine but not immediately. Even if Russia's offensive momentum is completely halted it would be able to negotiate, given how difficult it has been for Ukraine to make any headway against heavy fortifications.

This is bad for Russia but not "mutual suicide is our only option" levels of bad.

Why do you think Russia might use a nuclear weapon? What would be their goal?

I wager that the Americans view 'limited nuclear war' as an excellent means of taking out two potential geopolitical rivals who stand to benefit from a US-China war: Russia and Europe. — Tzeentch

There's no such thing as a "limited nuclear war" between two nuclear powers.

What you'll have is a total curling up in the foetal position while our countries are incinerated. — Tzeentch

Which would not be a limited nuclear war but a total one. I fail to see how this is in Russia's interest.

This is horrifying. Worse that many American and some Europeans think this is a good idea - not all of them to be clear.

I don't understand how people think this is good. We are standing at the precipice of annihilation. — Manuel

We stood at the precipice of annihilation during the Cuban missile crisis or on the few occasions when a detection error almost set off a nuclear exchange. The current situation doesn't seem remotely close to those situations.

Ukrainians have been killing russian soldiers and destroying russian installations using western weapons for years now. Russia could have used a nuclear weapon at any point, yet to what end?

At this point in time, Ukraine is lost and will soon be pressured to the negotiating table by Trump. Even though I understand that it will be a painful process for Ukraine, I consider it to be in Ukraine's best interest. The alternative is an even longer war with an even bleaker outlook, from which Ukraine stands to gain absolutely nothing. — Tzeentch

So is Ukraine "lost" or can they negotiate? Those two statements seem to contradict each other.

And now Ukraine can send missiles into Russia. — Manuel

They have been doing that for a while, albeit with more limited range.

Does this site have anyone on it who can actually read what someone says rather than attack strawmen of their own invention? — Clearbury

For me to read your argument, you would have to actually write it down first. All I have are your conclusions that this or that is unjust. But what is the reasoning that got you there?

That is unjust. It'd be unjust if I tried to do that in respect of others, and so it is unjust of teh government to try and do it. — Clearbury

What makes it unjust, specifically? What's the moral philosophy and what's the argument?

It seems like a perfectly fine policy to limit the ability of everyone to do violence to each other and hand it to some professional and accountable institution.

After all according to your own argument, violence ought to be something tightly restricted.

The other thing governments do - and that seems partly definitive of them - is extract payment for its services with menaces, regardless of whether anyone to whom the services are being provided has contracted them.

On its injustice: I take it that we can all agree that if the local mafia turn up at a business and say to the business owner "we are going to provide you with protection and you must pay us 30% of your profits or we'll smash your business up and imprison you" then this would be unjust behaviour on the mafia's part. — Clearbury

Us agreeing is all fine, but that doesn't replace an argument. The thing about extortion rackets is that they don't provide protection. That is what they say, but that's not actually what is happening. So this situation is actually not at all analogous to taxes or other dues.

if there is no relevant difference between a government and a mafia except in terms of how effective they have been at monopolizing the use of violence, — Clearbury

But of course, this is not the case for many governments.

You're taxed to pay for the police whether you wish to be or not. And if you refuse to pay your taxes, the government will eventually imprison you. — Clearbury

And being taxed is not the same as paying for the individual operation. As I pointed out, your relation with the government is not (only) contractual. Same as your relations with your friends and family.

Not all obligations need to be contractual.

Trump is a demagogue — Wayfarer

Sure. He just doesn't seem like a particularly good one. His speeches may stoke hatred and fears, but they're also meandering and sloppy.

Putin has the military machismo and an air of quiet danger. Hitler had his ideological zeal and his harangues.

Trump just seems to bring so little to the table. Maybe that's his strength, because it makes him seem genuine? Plenty of strongmen seem to have started out as relative nobodys. Putin was considered mostly a blank page when he was made Yeltsin's heir apparent.

Or am I falling for part of the con by buying the appearance of an unfocused, bumbling fool?

Be afraid? This was a photoshopped joke post on Twitter/X captioned, "Let that sink in." Musk was a Democrat just three years ago. Now he has been demonized for political reasons, and many have been taken in by the propaganda. — Leontiskos

Demonised? Hardly. He's deliberately turned himself into a Trump style caricature, picking fights with foreign governments on Twitter, spreading bizarre claims and just generally sounding off on everything and nothing.

He's not being demonised, he's playing the "make the libs mad" strategy at maximum intensity.

Well that's what big pharma says. But they just want to sell you their expensive chemotherapy...

On a more serious note, I do think it's interesting that Trump, a person who so far as I can tell has zero principles and very limited interests beyond his immediate gratification, has ended up at the front of such a change.

During his first term I had assumed the party was going to grudgingly tow the line to get what they could out of his presidency, then dump him when he lost reelection. After J6 I was certain he was finished for about a week, until the dominoes started falling.

Yet here we are, with a GOP that in large parts remade itself in Trumps image. And it somehow worked, too. Is there some deep wisdom in this? It feels like there should be, but that's probably just looking for images in the clouds.

There is little moral underpinnings to your definition of crime save that the act upsets some people. It lacks any clear principle and would treat any vice as a crime if enough people were against it. — NOS4A2

Yes. Hence why people commonly differentiate between morality and legality, or in this case criminality.

Does your government not deal in drugs? — NOS4A2

No?

What is a crime to you, then? — NOS4A2

A crime is committing an act defined as criminal by law.

If we'd like a less positivist definition, we could say a crime is a violation of social norms that's considered so severe that the community reacts with an explicit punishment.

Neither of those really works when applied to state power. As I have alluded to above this kind of anarcho-capitalist discourse suffers from ignoring social relations between people. It considers people self sufficient islands that are only engaged in contractual relationships.

But humans are always born into social relationships that come with obligations. These obligations don't need to be justified by reference to some wholly fabricated state of absolute independence. They need to be justified by reference to other rules for social interaction and organisation.

The state shows no disposition to suppress crime, but only to safeguard its own monopoly of crime. They tend to only punish those who threaten their monopoly. — NOS4A2

As evidenced by what? Do small time drug dealers threaten the state's monopoly? I think not.

According to anarchism crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another. Unfortunately the state sustains itself through these activities. That’s why I can see no way to differentiate state agents from any criminal class. — NOS4A2

And according to me they're not. Claims without arguments don't get us anywhere.

Another way to formulate it is that the government has the monopoly on crime. It can do and get away with theft, murder, kidnapping, for example, which are incidences of violence and coercion. — NOS4A2

But obviously the government does not actually have this monopoly, because other people commit plenty of crimes.

More to the point, this kind of argument just sidesteps the question of whether the state is moral by positing "crimes". But what's the moral significance of a "crime" here and how is it established?

It also might be recalled that Trump’s Republican Party is a completely different party to any other Republican President’s party. Many of his policies (or rather impulses) are diametrically opposite what previous Republican Party leaders have stood for. And also note that almost all the principled Republicans who tried to stand up for principles have been essentially expelled from the Party for insufficient loyalty to Dear Leader. — Wayfarer

Interestingly this would serve as an argument that Trump is one of the most transformational presidents in recent history.

Given the number of kids identifying as LGBT and choosing to sterilize themselves and undergo surgeries I wouldn't say they're too far off. — BitconnectCarlos

I don't know the number. I have always assumed though that it's not a relevant amount of people.

Public trust in higher education has plummeted and anti-semitism has risen. We live in scary times where very basic questions like "what gender am I?" are now suddenly up for question. Not a good sign. — BitconnectCarlos

And do you think we're looking at the cause here or the symptoms?

My personal explanation, which admittedly is typically pretentious armchair philosophy, is that what we're seeing is the result of a lack of avenues for (systemic) progress.

We've lived through the "end of history", but now on the other side we realise we're facing all the same problems, plus a couple of new ones. But at the same time we've lost all faith in utopia. There's no longer anything out there we can strive for without reservation.

One thing that strikes me in conversations is that everyone is pessimistic. Whether it's the climate or islam, the looming disaster is a common thread.

I think all forms of government are unjust. Governments claim a monopoly on certain uses of violence and threats. I take that to be definitive. — Clearbury

This seems to imply that what makes governments unjust is primarily the monopoly on violence. However, the monopoly is not constitutive. In and of itself, the monopoly on violence does not grant government any permission to use violence, rather it limits the violence of all others.

Government policies are backed by the threat of prison. — Clearbury

Some of them are, not all of them. And mostly the threat of prison isn't really what motivates people, though ultimately it can come down to that.

I take it to be morally self-evident that might does not make right. If I am more powerful than you, that doesn't mean I'm entitled to trample on your rights. I am simply more able to do so, but not more entitled to do so. So if it would be wrong for me to use force against you, then it is also wrong for a person with more power than I have to use force against you. And that now applies to the state and politicians. They have more power than the rest of us, but they are not more entitled to force us to do things than the rest of us.

If that is correct, then one can use what we are entitled to do to one another as a guide to what the government is justified in doing. If it would be wrong for me to make you do something, then it is wrong for the government to as well (other things being equal). — Clearbury

The devil though will be in the details of the "other things being equal".

But though it is correct that the state is entitled to protect our basic rights, it is not entitled to force us to pay it to do so. If, for example, someone is attacking you, then I am entitled to help you out and even to use violence against your attacker if need be. But I am not then entitled to bill you for my efforts and use violence against you if you refuse to pay. I can ask you to pay - and it may be that you ought to pay me something for my efforts - but I cannot extract payment with menaces. That would be immoral.

Yet that is what the state does. So yes, the state can protect our basic rights, but it cannot use force and the threat of force to fund such an enterprise. — Clearbury

Is that what the state does? I don't receive an invoice from the police if they stop someone from attacking me. The attacker might be billed, but the protected person is not.

I pay the government for clean water I receive (something you presumably don't object to). I don't pay directly for the more abstract work that goes into ensuring a stable supply of drinking water.

So I think your metaphor here is not quite apt. Obligations to the state are not obligations to a single individual and are not contractual in nature. You need a concept of a communal obligation for the state to make sense.

Assuming you woke up one day in some unknown community, would you be obligated to follow their rules about, for example, producing and distributing food? Or could you just refuse to help, taking what you needed without contributing?

If the government stopped doing both of these things, then it would - to all intents and purposes - cease to be a government at all. It would just be another business competing in an open market. And that's anarchy. — Clearbury

I don't think an open market could be described as anarchic. International relations are mostly anarchic. Do international relations follow a market model?

Are we entitled to force them to keep doing their jobs in order to avert the mayhem that would otherwise (temporarily) result? I don't think so. — Clearbury

Why not? "You can force others to avoid causing overwhelmingly harmful results" seems like a pretty convincing moral rule.

"Incumbency" seems to increasingly be defined not as any specific government, but as the entire socio-political (though curiously not the economic) status quo.

Reading what people say in right-wing spaces, they're mostly convinced that they're facing an ideologigally motivated group across politics, the media and civil society which will destroy western society unless they're stopped by an overwhelming counter-movement.

Trump was elected by those very multi-cultural young voters whom the Democrats had assumed they could count on. — Wayfarer

That's not just an US phenomenon either. Young male voters are making a sharp turn to the right in the west.

But that would be insane. Trump voters are mostly not insane. Therefore that explanation is false. It seems to me more credible that Trump won more on policy and not personality. Did the republicans simply make up democrat policies as strawmen, and then carpet bomb the media with it, resulting in a vote against the democrats (rather than for an odious criminal)? I don't know. — bert1

Not policy in the strict sense. More like meta-policy. Specifically the idea that the institutions are corrupt, society is falling apart and thus some kind of radical change is necessary.

But there's no specific policy for how this change is supposed to look. Hence the vote was more anti-democrat, in the sense that it was against the existing political and media elite.

Well, Germany seems to have decided that what it should do is chuck the current coalition and aim for new elections in the spring. So both the US and one of the EU's central countries will simultaneously be in a transition period this winter.

What a day.

does anything for them. — Manuel

He'll burn down the system. That's what people want. They're tired of politics, tired of being responsible for the world's ills, tired of worrying about climate change or foreign policy, tired of the current state of capitalism (though the latter they don't identify as the problem).

The solution is to burn it all down. Elect someone obviously hated by politicians and the media. Someone who is "unfit for office", which to their ears means he's a danger to the status quo. He's a danger to "democracy"? Great that means he'll change the system which doesn't work for ordinary Americans.

This is not meant as an indictment. There's stupidity and cultish behaviour around Trump, but their feeling that something is deeply wrong is understandable. It's not limited to the US either. I see a lot of the same sentiment in Europe now.

So Trump would like some nazi generals. They did have pretty stylish uniforms. It's not like Trump has any use for unquestioning loyalists who would follow his orders even if it leads to catastrophe, right?

Though honestly I kinda doubt Trump even knows enough about the nazi generals to appreciate their warped sense of military duty. He's probably thinking more on the level of "they did win a lot and winning good".

What I find weird is that looking from the outside, Harris seems to be doing well while Trump seems to get less coherent every day, while waxing poetically about nazi generals and using the military against the enemy within.

Yet the voters don't seem to care. It's confusing, and that means some part of my model of the world is faulty.

Is all of this not about Trump after all? Everyone talks about the cultishness but maybe that's just a front that hides the real desire to just burn it all down.

I have no issue with legal immigration, and I would be surprised if anyone on this forum does. England thrives on legal immigration. For example, according to NHS Workforce statistics published by NHS Digital, 265,000 out of 1.5 million NHS staff are of non-British nationality, making it 1 in 5. Immigrants contribute significantly to our society, and to disagree is, in my eyes, is regressive. — Samlw

In general, I would agree. However, I do think that it's going to be hard to address the topic of illegal immigration without some preliminaries on how and under which circumstances migration is morally good.

It's easy to agree that people should, in general, have the freedom to move, settle and work where they want to. Yet the social state, still the current iteration of our socio-political system, is arguably not build with this freedom in mind. It's supposed to be an inter-generational contract. The global economy is build on the free movement of goods and services but notably not of people.

Now of course we can argue that these are all arbitrary states of affairs that ought to be simply changed. But how? States are geographical entities, and people moving impacts both sides of the movement. If the smart and capable people leave, that leaves as state of origin worse off. Yet siphoning off the smart and capable is the explicit purpose of most immigration strategies.

Which begs the question, should our goal actually be that people stay put?

My question is this: How do you decide who to let in and who to deny entry? — Samlw

I think our primary issue currently is a procedural one. The western immigration systems are badly broken, and they're not being fixed because the topic has become entirely politically toxic.

Deciding who to let in would be a problem one could approach by degrees, adjusting the criteria based on what the capabilities and needs of the people and societies involved is.

The problem is, whatever rules we come up with we'd need a system to enforce them. And that's where the issue currently lies. And I don't mean physical barriers here. We've created a system of controls that is insufficient to actually control immigration, but does provide a lot of motivation to subvert the rules and a lot of opportunity for organised smuggling to make money. We've got complex an bureacratic asylum and immigration proceedings that tend to punish those who actually attempt to follow the rules while providing ample opportunity to stall or otherwise sidetrack the process.

Nor is there really any simple solution. All solutions seem unpalatable in some respect or others. Holding camps are essentially indefinite detention for at most an administrative crime. Out-of-country immigration procedures have obvious issues with due process. Deportation to unstable or destitute targets seems cruel. Yet it seems to me that if you want some kind of immigration regulation, you need to have somewhat consistent outcomes. A lack of residency permit must lead to some predictable and clear consequences.

And I think this is true even if the goals of your immigration criteria are purely humanitarian. Arguably, if that's the case, you have the most motivation to make sure only the most deserving benefit from your resources, which will always be limited.

So, to reiterate, I think the big challenge right now is to find a set of procedural rules that is sufficiently humane but also sufficiently predictable and efficient to actually make immigration cirteria meaningful.

An interesting article that appeared in the Guardian (of all places) written by historian and writer Adam Tooze, echoing a sentiment that I have expressed in this thread pertaining to the nature of US actions in the current crises. — Tzeentch

I wouldn't say that. Tooze does not claim that the entire sequence of events is part of an elaborate long term US strategy. He acknowledges that in Ukraine and Israel, the US reacted to aggression. He also explicitly says that Russia miscalculated over Ukraine, assuming that the invasion would not cause the kind of reaction it did.

What he does argue is that the US is shaping it's response to these events deliberately and in concert with each other. This is a general assumption of competence with which it is hard to argue. The article is somewhat light on substance though. It offers few specific explanations for actions and no predictions.

If the US is revisionist, what can we expect the revised world order to look like? The article does not say unfortunately. Iran and Russia weakened seems like a safe assumption. But what's the significance for China, for example?

My further response applies to everything you've just said. I think it's possible you're not getting me:
That you claim to be a person begs the question, but even if it didn't, it provides absolutely nothing as to a 'necessary or sufficient' set of criteria. You're just saying 'look at me!!'. I could make the same claim about being black. But, as you know, I'd be either laughed at or charged with racism. Fair enough, too. My point is you have to have a set of criteria, prior to your claim to fit them, and then assess whether you fit them (I imagine this can be easily done, it's just not happening here). I'm wanting your criteria. If that is just 'what I, in fact, am' I'll leave it there and just say I'm not convinced. — AmadeusD

I see where you're coming from. I think that fundamentally, my personhood in at of itself must be considered an a-priori conclusion. I experience myself as a continuous and monolithic actor interacting with a world that is outside of me. I experience self-awareness in the sense that I'm aware of my own awareness. I call this personhood.

We could go back to Descartes with this, you probably get the idea. So I think it's less that there are some criteria and then I decide whether I fit them. I look at myself and decide what the necessary and sufficient criteria are to be like that.

I've been reticent to enumerate exact criteria because if I did, I'd certainly make mistakes. But I think the rough outlines aren't that controversial if we're talking about adults. Thinking, awareness, empathy.

Which ones? And are they derived from your conviction that you're a person? Seems to remain somewhat circular, if inter-personal. — AmadeusD

I see what you mean by circular, but the addition of other potential subjects that you interact with is a relevant addition. If there were no others, there'd be no need for the concept of personhood.

I wouldn't disagree, and we're getting somewhere now - but following from the previous comments about consciousness, We would want to know at what level does the consciousness reach the level of a 'personal' consciousness - in the sense that an alien species could have cognitive abilities the same as humans, and not be humans. Are they persons, nonetheless? Yes or no is fine, I'm just curious as to where these ideas go... Not sure where i'd land. — AmadeusD

I would say they're persons. Personally I also consider some primate and whale species at least close to persons based on the complexity of their behaviour.

Since we don't have inside views of others, human or not, I think we need to rely on signs of complex cognition that can be observed. Like recognising yourself in the mirror, displaying empathy and complex social relations, having significant discretion in how to react to stimuli.

I think this is likely part of the answer(given we need to assess personhood, and identity, it's a doozy so I'm loathe to think there's anything but a very complex answer). I don't think there's anything mystical, but I do think there might be a moveable moment. This might be the moment hte heart beats for the first time, as a trivial example, which would be different for different fetuses. I don't think it's hard to offer several possibilities for hard-and-fast rules. Just, i don't see anyone agreeing given either (meaning, depending on your view) a life is being ended, or prevented. — AmadeusD

I don't really have a strong attachment to any particular line. I think if you want to be more cautious and choose an earlier moment, that's an understandable approach, but we'd need to balance our caution with having a practical solution that doesn't put all the burden of uncertainty on the women.

VERY fun!! I like these lines. I think if a fetus looked like a dog, and lost its hair, drew in its mandible and slowly became bi-pedal over the first six months, we definitely have to make an arbitrary call as to when it 'morally' becomes 'human'. What would you want to say there? — AmadeusD

In a way that's what happens, a fetus looks very alien during some of its development. But I think in this scenario, we'd have a whole lot less concerns about abortion. We'd maybe not treat children as human until they actually looked human. I think that in terms of evidence about cognitive ability, we don't have much to go on for newborns. Children don't recognise themselves in the mirror during roughly the first year. In that sense, one could argue that a dolphin is more of a person.

That's of course a one-dimensional view and human children do have abilities in other areas. But if you wanted to establish a set of criteria for personhood that didn't take into account species (directly or indirectly) it seems to me you'd have trouble coming up with a catalogue that included newborn human children without also including a diverse set of non-human animals.

What you are describing is a capacity to deploy a mind, and not having a mind. Therefore, you must agree that a knocked out human being technically isn’t a person when they are knocked out; and re-gain personhood when they re-gain consciousness.

This is not a minor point: your whole argument relied on personhood grounding rights, not the capacity to acquire personhood (because they have a fully developed brain). You are starting to morph into my view: the nature of that being sets them out as a person, because they can and will, if everything goes according to the proper biological development, develop personhood. — Bob Ross

I'm not sure that I "must" agree. I can see your point, but it's based on the assumption that a mind is not a continuous entity but a series of unrelated instances. In your view, the mind that go to sleep and the mind that wakes up are different minds. That runs directly counter to the self-awareness of the mind as a continuous entity. And this also matches up with the fact that the physical representation of the mind - the neuronal activity - does not stop while unconscious. In addition, you are not necessarily conscious at any given moment of all your mind. Thoughts and impressions often "pop into" your mind, but since they don't spring up ex-nihilo they're probably really parts of your mind that just weren't in focus.

So why can't I just conclude that "consciousness" is merely an attribute of a mind? In that case there are conscious minds and unconscious minds, that does not seem like a logical impossibility.

Also, if you go the capacity route; then you end up with the absurdity that dead human beings have no rights...just food for thought. — Bob Ross

Uh, what is absurd about that? Why would dead human beings have rights?

I am talking about how a healthy member of a species is supposed to develop and become. People think of “teleoglogy” as a dirty word these days, or a vacuous concept, but we use it implicitly all the time in the medical industry.

When you go into the doctor’s office and complain about your hand not acting properly, or when a child is born without an arm and you take pity on them, you are talking necessarily in teleological terms: your hand, e.g., was supposed to, according to what a healthy human hand normally does, behave such-and-such instead of so-and-so.

You have a nature which is set out by your biology which is set out by the species which you are a member of. Zebras are supposed to have stripes: a zebra which doesn’t have stripes is an abnormality—a defect. — Bob Ross

This is fine if we're talking about subjects where there's no disconnect between what the teleology says it's natural and what individuals usually want. A kind of instrumental theology. People usually want two functioning arms so you can generally assume their interest is to have functioning arms. Such presumed interests are also applied in a legal context when you need to decide on surgery on someone who is e.g. unconscious.

You run into a problem though once you move away from the presumed interests of the person. At that point the teleology would have to be justified against the interests of the person affected and I don't think it can. We have plenty of historical examples about the tyranny of normality.

On the subject of abortion, that brings us back to the familiar question: does a fetus have a presumed interest to become a person? You'd probably say yes, just like an unconscious person has an interest in continuing to live. But to me this comes down to the fundamental notion of logical prerequisites. You have to exist before you can have rights or interests.

There’s a huge consensus in biology that life begins at conception; so it’s, quite frankly, not worth my time to argue about it. Here’s a good article on it: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3211703 . — Bob Ross

But what do the biologists mean when they say life? Since obviously all parts of the reproductive mechanism are already alive, they don't mean abiogenesis. But if they don't mean life as opposed to non-living chemical and physical processes, what do they mean?

That’s not how it works...at all. A ball doesn’t know what a ball is. — Bob Ross

Yeah but balls aren't self-aware. I am though.

My point was that just because neurons are firing in a brain, that does not necessitate there is a person.

Personhood is mindhood: it is having a mind, not having a brain that could produce a mind or “house” a mind.

You are conflating a capacity for personhood with personhood. — Bob Ross

Yes fair enough, but I would still argue that even an unconscious mind is a mind. The neuron firings of an unconscious person don't turn into a random jumble and then spontaneously reassemble into a mind when that person wakes up. There is continuity.

But perhaps on a more fundamental level I'll have to take "capacity for personhood" as evidence for actual personhood. I don't usually have access to brain scans of people I meet.

Nature is defined by evolutionary biology — Bob Ross

Ok, then what part of that biology are you calling nature

Thereby creating a new life, which thereby begins its continual-development process until death. — Bob Ross

That's interpretation, not fact. I've already pointed out that there's nothing "new" about the life, all of its components are already alive, there's no abiogenesis going on (and even if there was, that would not answer the question of moral relevance anyways).

This is just an elaborate restatement of the initial, incoherent claim, though. So, my response would be the same. It's circular and gives no argument. Just you believe that being a person entitles you to define a person. Which begs the question. *matt walsh voice* "Ok, but what is a person?" — AmadeusD

Yes, being a person entitles me to define a person. How else would it work? It's neither incoherent or circular. The argument is quite simply that since I'm the one that needs to decide on a moral framework, I need to figure out how to judge who is a person and who isn't. Since the only fixed point I start out with is that I am a person, I need to proceed from that.

This can't possibly be the case. It is , in fact, a fetus. It isn't some future person. — AmadeusD

I agree.

What evidence? That's the point I'm trying to get across - no level of 'evidence' would satisfy a conflict of conceptual analysis (though, i recognise this lends itself to idiots simply moving hte goalposts, so maybe im being a bit too analytical here). — AmadeusD

I think I see what you mean, but then I'm not trying to establish some specific test. I'm merely arguing for my take on the conceptual analysis. Which is that, if we're being honest, we determine personhood based on certain cognitive similarities and their expressions in behaviour.

We could hypothesize whether rocks have some mystical thinking power and are actually fully conscious, self aware beings. But doing so is clearly pointless. All we can do is work with what criteria we can come up with by self-reflexion.

By doing that it seems pretty obvious that a person needs some kind of thinking apparatus. Rocks don't have that (as far as we can tell), so rocks probably aren't persons. Zygotes don't have it either, I'm merely drawing the obvious conclusion.

I'm commenting only on your comportment, not hte discussion. That said, I do have the relevant context in mind. My comments aren't (well, not significantly) askance from the discussion. Though, treat it is a new one if you want to. It would work as such. — AmadeusD

I just don't really think that works because I'm not necessarily arguing my own position in those comments.

Sorry, 'relation R' is psychological continuity, in Parfitean terms. A child of three weeks does not have this relation in either direction, it seems. And so, could not be considered a personality. Not a personality=not a person? That's hte corner I'm trying to canvas. — AmadeusD

Oh, right, I wasn't aware of that terminology.

But yes that's a conclusion you could draw. It's obviously a pretty controversial conclusion to draw. Someone might say that even considering the possibility serves as a reductio ad absurdum for my argument. I think it's useful though to consider the possibility that there's no mystical essence to the human form that somehow turns it into its own category.

Now to be clear I'm not saying we should conclude, at this point, that children under the age of 2 aren't people. But if we're not going to invoke some kind of permanent soul or some other special pleading that makes humans special cases, we'll have to approach a human like we would any other lifeform. And would we consider the equivalent of a three week old human child a person if it happened to not look like a human? You did ask for a fun discussion, did you not?

That gives you no authority to that claim. Dogs don't know what Dogs are. — AmadeusD

But I'm not a dog. I do know what I am. That's one of the things that makes me a person.

There is no settle consensus on this. — AmadeusD

Indeed there's not. But in that particular conversation, we had already arrived at the conclusion that a fetus is relevant because it's a future person.

Such as here - personhood isn't a fact. — AmadeusD

I did not mean to claim that personhood is a fact. I'm arguing in favour of an evidence-based judgement of personhood.

He believes otherwise. You would need to fully ignore this to make a claim, as if it were an objection to his position. If personhood starts at conception (a fully acceptable formulation, just not one I personally think helpful, even if true) then the position is fine. Silly, imo, but fine. He's asking you to consider his position that personhood starts at conception. These are just competing theories of personhood. Should be fun to discuss LOL. — AmadeusD

You're commenting on this discussion without the relevant context of the previous posts/replies.

Which brings in the much much more interesting question: If personal identity doens't obtain other than through relation R, how is it possible that a child of three weeks could be considered 'a person' and be afforded the rights of a person? Hehehe. — AmadeusD

Presumably because "relation R", whatever that is, obtains at that time.

Are you asking me what the evidence is that a newborn is a person?

Do you know what personhood is? — Bob Ross

Yes, because I am a person.

Just because a brain is firing neurons doesn’t mean that that being, which has that brain, is a person. E.g., a dog is not a person (traditionally). — Bob Ross

And? I didn't claim any brain makes a person. Some brains do though.

Evolution is not arbitrary: that is a myth invented by some evangelical religious people. — Bob Ross

I did not claim evolution is arbitrary. The concept of "nature" is arbitrary.

It is an undisputed scientific fact that life begins at conception: it is the clear beginning mark of the ever-continual development cycle of an individual human being (until death). — Bob Ross

It's a scientific fact that, at conception, two cells fuse to become one, combining their genetic material. That is the description, which is all that science provides. The rest is the addition of categories, which can be useful but aren't scientific facts.

Fetuses do not exist in a void. Fetuses can be interacted with. If they couldn't, they wouldn't be killed. — NOS4A2

They aren't person though. You want us to consider them based on their future personhood, not the current one.

It depends upon what you mean by "resemblance." At first glance sure, but after a while I start to notice differences between a dead guy and and an alive guy. — Hanover

I don't know, that doesn't strike me as a particularly honest response.

Regardless, we can clearly conceive of things that don't physically look human but should be considered persons, be them actual animals or hypothetical aliens.

The most cautious approach is to afford rights at conception. That would be a really safe approach, but if you think women have rights worth protecting, then the safest approach for them would be to protect the right to abortion up until the moment of birth. Then you have to balance the interests, and once you do that, you're not talking about science, but you're talking about public policy that satisifies the most people.

But the problem is that the ideologues control the debate, not the pragmatists, which is why the respective sides spend the better part of their arguing screaming "misogynist" and "murderer" at each other. — Hanover

That tracks with my position fairly well. I'm not really unsure about whether a bunch of cells with no nervous system is a person. But things get less sure as pregnancy progresses. As I have pointed out elsewhere, there seems little practical benefit to restricting abortion regardless.

Correct. As I noted in my last response, personhood does not begin at conception; and the best way to ground rights in the nature of the being in question—specifically whether or not its nature sets it out as a person. This is not the same thing as saying that a living being is currently a person.

E.g., a human being that is knocked out on the floor does not have personhood; has the capacity for personhood; and has a nature such that it sets it out as a species which are persons. — Bob Ross

This seems silly. An unconscious person isn't brain-dead. There's an obvious and measurable activity still going on. This seems like intentional ignorance to force the conclusion that somehow we can't make an evidence-based determination and must instead rely on arbitrary "nature".

The blastocyst is an alive human being: it is a scientific fact that life begins at conception. I am not sure why you would argue the contrary. — Bob Ross

Obviously "life" does not begin at conception, since all the cells involved are already alive before they fuse.

It’s wrong to kill a fetus for the same reason it is wrong to murder a 40 year old. Both are deprived of a future against their will. Both have their bodies destroyed against their will. The world and the community are deprived of their presence against their will. In any case, any evidence or reasoning to support the claim that it is wrong to kill a 40 year old can be applied to any other human being in any other stage of its life, including early development. — NOS4A2

I think that's not quite true because as Kant pointed out, the idea of some society where you exist together with others is at the basis of moral philosophy. Future people cannot be interacted with even theoretically. Their interests have no bearing on any current situation - they can't affect anyone nor can their interests be affected.

But there are organisms, unambiguously people, who lack these attributes as well.

I don't afford embryos the rights of a person because they don't look like people. They look like a dividing cell under a microscope. I could pretend it's more than that, but it's not. An unconscious amnesiac is a person if he resembles those I know to be people. — Hanover

A good point, but then resemblance is not a sufficient criterion either, since a dead human body still resembles a person pretty exactly but isn't a person.

We could add biological details like brain function but we don't have access to those most of the time. So it's about a kind of resemblance but more a resemblance in behaviour.

Beyond that we do afford rights to human beings whose ability to behave as a person has been temporarily or permanently damaged to some extent. I think this can be easily accommodated as being out of an abundance of caution, which seems a reasonable strategy to adopt.

At what point can we distill with more certainty cultural factors from others (geographic, socio-economic, individual psychological, etc.)? — schopenhauer1

One way of looking at this is that "culture" is simply what remains of a statistical difference between two groups once you have eliminated anything more specific than that.

The other approach is to conclude based on the behaviour of some sample. If you can distill a cultural practice from the sample, and that practice provides an explanation for the difference you're seeing, then that's evidence that culture is causing the difference.

Others would say that it derives from socio-economic circumstances of simply being poor. If you are poor, and discriminated, these are the activities that a subgroup might tend towards.. — schopenhauer1

That really is a separate question though, isn't it? One would be whether there's causal connection between some cultural practice and a statistically significant deviation in outcomes.

The other is whether you can then clearly trace back the origins of the culture. The latter will often be immensely difficult, but is not necessary required to solve a problem.

I understand, and have no problem with either term in common usage, but if I were to ask you to point to whatever it is you're referring to you would invariably point to your body, which has existed and grown since conception. That's what I'm hung up on. — NOS4A2

And? Once again you leave things hanging by suggesting you have an argument but not making it.

So yes I would point to my body and yes there's a causal chain that point from my current state back to conception. It also points further backwards and forwards indefinitely. But you're not telling my why you think the two are connected.

True, it is very uncomfortable for me to watch people make these distinctions. This is because they are not based on much, are often arbitrary, differ across individuals and cultures, yet can justify the worst in human behavior. So, for me, it is no longer about what these distinctions are (for there appear to be none), but why they are being made. My theory as to the "why" in regards to abortion is dehumanization. — NOS4A2

But how are we better off by ignoring the question? If we're not even willing to talk about what makes a person, then how are we going to expose those bad human behaviours?

I can't see it from your position because there is no evidence for it. It cannot be shown that personhood or soul or "I" enter or leave the body at any point, and this includes during prenatal development. — NOS4A2

Is this supposed to mean that there's no evidence for personhood? Or are you just hung up on the word "soul"? I've already said I'm not using it to refer to anything esoteric or mystical. You can just use another word like "mind" or "self".

As I have argued, making such distinctions is utilized as a process of dehumanization. It couldn't be otherwise. Clearly you require it so as to avoid an uncomfortable truth. The idea that someone becomes a non-person upon injury to the brain, or that a fetus is merely parasite or cyst, are efforts to eschew the conscience so as to make their killing palatable. I don't think turning off life-support is to intentionally kill a person because the doctors were in fact keeping him alive, but to eviscerate a fetus is. These acts are not to be taken lightly. But wherever they are, even celebrated, is barbarism. — NOS4A2

This is an ad-hominem argument. You're only questioning my moral integrity, but you're not actually making any arguments, moral or otherwise.

From my perspective, you're the one avoiding an uncomfortable truth, that being that we draw lines between what is and is not a person, and these lines are not handed down to us by divine decree.

I think that if you conclude that a body without a working brain is a person, you should examine your premises.

All those doctors doing organ transplants or shutting off life saving machines in case of irrecoverable brain damage are killing a person, in your framework.

A relevant change would be a hole in your head and damage to very important parts of your body. It's much different than a broken arm in that it's a different location on the body and involves different anatomy. No, your biology would not be perfectly fine. — NOS4A2

But it would still be me right? You haven't answered the question clearly and I would really like a direct answer.

If a cell without a brain is me, then so is my body with some damage to the head, right?

So if I'm shot in the head, nothing relevant changes right? It's still me. No different than a broken arm. The DNA of my cells would be the same, most of the biology would still be perfectly fine.