So you claim that killing foetuses is wrong but don't need to point to some measurable property of being wrong because "wrong" is an adjective, and others claim that foetuses aren't people and need to point to some measurable property of being a person because "person" is a noun?

Such an argument from grammar is special pleading.

I don’t understand why I need to point to a property of “wrongness”. I also never said someone needs to point to a measurable property of being a person. I was saying there is no such measurable property, so it makes zero sense that I would say you need to point to one.

My argument this whole time is that it’s wrong to intentionally kill a human being (unless he deserves it or it is in self-defense), to deprive him of life. A fetus is a human being.

But surely culture influences individuals, no? Conservatives love this point. So do liberals, but in their own way (exaggerated "Wokeness" and "religious fundamentalism").

A lot of people do blame culture, certainly.

One cannot be against a culture or blame it for blameworthy acts because only individuals can perform blameworthy acts. One has to avoid holistic methods for determining blame or guilt or innocence and use individualistic methods, or else one will always be wrong and therefor unjust.

That doesn't really address the question.

Sorry, I didn’t know this was an interview.

You’re making nouns out of my adjectives. I don’t believe wrongness and rightness and rights are measurable properties of anything.

When I confer to you a right, I simply declare your right and then refuse to interfere in whatever activity I have given you the right to. I also work to defend your right from others who might intervene. So when I confer to you the right to eat, for example, I don’t stop you from eating. I also defend you (or at least ought to) from others who would intervene.

No one receives a right property upon being conferred a right.

To me it seems like an arbitrary starting point.

The beginning of a life is an arbitrary starting point?

So forgive me for being confused.

Are you now suggesting that it can be wrong to kill a foetus and that a foetus deserves the chance to live even if they haven't been granted the right to live?

There needs to be some basis for granting rights in the first place.

But that's the whole point of this particular line of discussion. The laws have to make that distinction - there needs to be some means to determine whether any given collection of cells and protoplasm is legally a person or not.

Sure, but parents and abortionists also make that distinction with or without the law.

So a foetus doesn’t have a right to live unless some authority declares and confers that right?

Then what exactly are you trying to argue here? Because with the above in mind all we can do is describe the fact that in some places and at some times abortion is legal and in other places and at other times it is illegal.

Anyone can confer a right. And I was just explaining my view of rights, like you asked.

Most of us are quite capable of understanding what “person” means, that rocks, embryos, and flies are not people, and that adult humans (and intelligent aliens) are people. The type of “personhood” that you think doesn’t exist isn’t the type of personhood that any of us are talking about.

I’m sorry but there is hardly any consensus as to what a person is. I don’t think it’s a good idea to start killing living things on such a flimsy basis.

The very real and obvious observable differences between rocks, embryos, and flies on the one hand and born humans on the other hand.

The fact that an embryo has roughly the same DNA as me and will eventually grow into an organism like me simply isn’t sufficient grounds to grant it the same rights as me or even just the right to live at the expense of the rights of the woman who must carry it to term.

I wasn’t necessarily speaking about rights. I was saying they deserve a chance to live and that it is wrong to kill them.

That's not a right. That's a supposed description of a right. The words are not the thing they describe. I'm not asking you to point to words that describe a right; I'm asking you to point to a right.

As it stands it amounts to me pointing to the word "person" and saying that I'm pointing to a person.

Those are rights. It is a bill of rights. A deceleration of human rights is a declaration of rights, without which there are no rights. It is up to those who confer rights to uphold them and defend them in others. Human beings have no rights other than those that have been declared and conferred by others.

Killing a 40 year old isn't wrong just because "he is deprived of a future against his will". It's wrong because "he is deprived of a future against his will and is a person". The "and he is a person" has moral relevance. It is not wrong to deprive a foetus of its future against its will because a) it's not a person, and b) it doesn't even have a will.

No measurable property called “personhood” appears or disappears in any given human being. Therefor no one can pick and choose with any certainty when one is or isn’t a person. So it’s an arbitrary distinction, a value judgement one applies to others without any reason or evidence to do so. How can one say a fetus is not a person when its “personhood” might be present and operating in proportion to its development? Is a sonogram a “personhood” detector?

The Lockean approach to making the distinction between man and person was theological in origin, had its grounds in the transmigration of souls and God. Those grounds are now gone, but for some reason the Lockean legacy persists. So what grounds are there to make the distinction now?

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.

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

So a right is a piece of paper with ink markings? That doesn't seem right.

That’s one of their manifestations, sure. Grab any bill of rights and point to a right, you’ll have your answer in what it consists of. If there is more to it, go ahead and reveal it.

And that's the point of departure. It is argued that it is not wrong to deprive a foetus (or embryo) of the chance to become a person. Or at the very least that there is insufficient evidence or reasoning to support the claim that it is wrong.

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.

I think it’s the other way about: there is insufficient evidence or reasoning to support the claim that killing a fetus is morally permissible. The only reason I can think of is for reasons of self-defence.

If it is not wrong to kill a fetus, is it not wrong to kill a fetus for personal gain in your view? Can I grow fetuses in order to harvest their organs and sell them, in your view? Why or why not?

Think of the difference between a wave and still water. All waves are water but not all water is a wave. The body (specifically the brain) has to be doing something for there to be a person. If the brain isn't doing that thing then there is no person, which is why neither a corpse nor an embryo is a person.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe “person” is a doing rather than a thing. The having of feelings, thoughts, memories etc. are doings, after all. Humans person. It could be said that fetuses do not person, at least yet, just as they are not walking.

But I do not think that justifies killing a human being because he is not, at present, performing that act. To do so to a fetus would deprive it of the chance to ever do so.

I should add that I'm also somewhat perplexed by your questioning of personhood but your acceptance of rights. Can you point to rights? If not then why expect someone to be able to point to personhood as if not being able to is a gotcha?

Some things just can't be pointed to.

You can point to a right if you write it down. You can speak them. But my view of rights is a little different, as I wrote about here.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Yes, it is still you even with damage to the head.

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.

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.

Yeah, that was you the whole time, the biology. It's all you are. It's all you will be.

If they don't respond, you need some kind of other evidence that they're thinking.

It all seems very arbitrary. It’s not unlike the soul concept.

What evidence? You never gave me any.

You could ask your mother. You could watch any human birth. Look at sonograms and infer from there. But the fact is all homo sapiens were fetuses. You are a homo sapien. Therefor you were a fetus.

I don't really understand what you're talking about here. "Such a pronoun"? Which one? Is the question whether my mind is connected to my body?

Never mind. It’s all to convoluted, like religion

An actual person is an actual person. Someone you can meet and talk to, and who responds.

Morality ought to concern persons, subjects. I don't see how their species would be relevant.

Are those who do not respond not persons? Are persons and subjects living human beings or are they not?

"Everyone knows" is not an argument. I gave you the reasoning, I trust you're capable of understanding it.

Point proven. I’ll put you down as the first person I’ve ever met who believes they were never a fetus. Unfortunately the reasoning fully contradicts the evidence.

That's one way of putting it. Though I'm an embodied soul, whose existence is measurable. "Soul" often implies something esoteric, but I don't mean to imply that anything mystic is going on. Merely that "I" am formed from a connection of a body, some kind of cognitive process and memories.

A clump of cells would not be me even if it shared my DNA. If you made an exact copy of me, that copy would cease to be me the moment it added it's own experiences.

I don't think any of this is very complicated in principle.

It is very complicated because you have no thing nor structure nor any formation to point to that can proven to be connected to your body, and that can be labelled with such a pronoun, other than the things, structures, and formations already in there.

So, if no actual person forms, then how does morality come into it at all?

I don’t know what an “actual person” is. What I do know is that a human being forms, and that morality ought to concern human beings.

So, argumentum ad populum?

Biology and anthropology. What is your basis?

I don't know whether I was ever a fetus. I have no memories of existing prior to birth (as I understand most people do not), and I don't know any other way to establish whether I existed at some point.

"I" am neither my cells nor my DNA.

Everyone knows, actually. It is an irrefutable fact that you were a fetus.

But there you have it. You are not your cells nor your DNA. Then what are you? A soul?

What else would a "human being in it's earlierst development" refer to?

It cannot refer to the actual person that eventually forms after birth, as that person doesn't exist. So it could only refer to their "soul", which somehow already represents the person.

It refers to the earliest stages of every human being that ever existed. There is no biological evidence that a soul or “actual person” forms at any point during the lifecycle. That’s your assumption.

Really? That is how your morality works? Just a coinflip where you either happen to believe something or don't?

Again your non-religious morality sounds awfully like a religion. Why do we respect people's rights to life and liberty? Because we recognise ourselves in them. We recognise that every individual is valuable in themselves and we can never replace one with another, so the only reasonable rule is to protect all as much as possible.

The problem is, this reasoning doesn't apply to "theoretical people". Individuals are valuable for what they are, not what they might be.

Not a coin flip. I pointed out that most parents feel the force of this principle, and the evidence is that an unfathomable amount of parents do indeed carry and care for human beings in the earliest stages of development, up until and including incubating them in their own bodies.

You do recognize that you were once a fetus, I assume. At no point in your life were you theoretical after conception. That’s utter nonsense, I’m afraid.

All of them involve the intentional killing of very young and helpless human beings. That’s all I mean.

That's begging the question though. The whole problem is that you have to assume that human beings are around as disembodied souls waiting to exist for that argument to make sense.

And that is definitely a religious position.

Why would anyone need to assume that?

This is a kind of intellectual sleight of hand. You're starting with a biological description (using descriptive concepts such as "lifecycle") and you want us to conclude from your phrasing ("to kill an individual human being") a moral judgement. But you haven't justified the judgement on its own terms.

I start at the principle “a human being in its earliest development deserves a chance to live”. Given the helplessness of a human being in his early development, such a principle seems to me imperative. Any subsequent moral judgements proceed from this one.

So if it's not about feelings or anything else biological, what is it about? Why do we care? What's the humanist principle for?

Exactly. Why do you care or not? You either believe human beings in their earliest development deserves a chance to live, to be protected, or you do not.

That's poisoning the well. You're falsely insinuating that your opposition is "proud of" abortion.

Abortion rights is often posited as a mark of an enlightened society, when in fact infanticide, child sacrifice, and acts of these sorts is a stone age and barbaric practice.

Trump’s back in Butler, Pennsylvania today, the same spot where a smooth-brained anti-Trumpist found his balls and did what all anti-Trumpists wanted to do if they only had the stones, which is to assassinate their folk devil.

Apparently even Elon Musk is going to be there. So if they wanted to destroy two folk devils in one they might just try to do so.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/oct/05/us-politics-donald-trump-kamala-harris-joe-biden

One needn’t be religious to oppose abortion or infanticide. The sanctity of human life isn’t just a religious principle, but a humanist one. Our bodies have largely evolved for the task of protecting human life in its earliest development, and many of us hold to right-to-life principles, for instance that a human being in its earliest development deserves a chance to live. Anyone who has carried or cared for a child understands the force of this. Many of us act to see this proposition through.

It is my opinion that we ought not to be so glib and flippant about the killing of human beings. All of this is a grave matter. We know that an individual human lifecycle begins at conception, since it cannot begin anywhere else, and any scalpel through the spine or intentional deprivation of essential nutrients after this point is to kill an individual human being. That’s why the evasions about whether the fetus has feelings or if it is biologically inhuman serve only to cast doubt on the humanity of this being in its earliest stages, to dehumanize it, making the abnegation of any right-to-life principle an easier pill to swallow for those who wish to see it eviscerated with sheers. If you extend this depravity to a different point along the human life continuum, you can see the same arguments used to justify genocide and murder.

I don’t think any of this means we should prohibit abortion. Infanticide is a historical fact. Females often kill or abandon their offspring throughout the animal kingdom. Perhaps we should make humane options available. But it is surely nothing to be proud of.

I don’t remember saying that and I think you’re imagining things. If I’m wrong I’d like to know what I said and in what context. Forgive me.

Any quote or context?

FEMA is an illusion? Jesus christ.

Nothing can be done by the state? What do you mean?

There are plenty of cysts in the female reproductive system. A fetus is just another one of those. And if a cyst doesn’t resolve on its own, we remove them. That’s just rationality at work.

And it should be easy for you to look it up yourself but you apparently prefer to stay misinformed. Can't help people who are unwilling to help themselves.

I did. Very easy. It’s not looking good. It’s starting to look like Katrina. Remember that?

Then it should be easy to show me a photo or video of FEMA doing something.

Looks like they were right. From what I can see the only people saving anyone is private, state, and local people. Remember Katrina?

From my view the federal response to the recent hurricane and flooding has been obscene, another indication of its wasteful inefficiency. Out of money and out of time. While Biden and Kamala are busy with more important things, like funding foreign wars and campaigning for power, the people who live there are largely left to fend for themselves.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/02/us/fema-floods-north-carolina.html

I’m not sure he grabbed women by the pussy. The phrase “You can do anything” only means “I did everything” in clown world. What was hilarious, however, was the speech, how it was used, and the reaction. Like I said: clown world.

But there is nothing funny about slapping a woman in a drunken rampage.

I was never stuck on it on the first place. In fact I thought it was hilarious. The only thing I do not condone was the gossip and ink shortage that resulted from it.

I don’t know if I condone getting drunk and slapping women. Not a good look.

I thought we were supposed to care about such things. At least that’s what I was taught. I was supposed to feel outraged when Trump said “grab them by the pussy” decades ago. Are we finally past that?

Trouble for the upcoming first gentleman, or baseless rumors?

Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband is being accused of slapping his ex-girlfriend for flirting with a valet worker at a ritzy gala in 2012, a new report claims.

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, 59, supposedly struck his then-girlfriend — described as a successful New York attorney — in the face so hard she spun around while in a valet line after an event at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2012, the three unnamed friends of the woman reportedly told the Daily Mail.

All three sources requested not to be named due to fear of retaliation from Emhoff, the Daily Mail said.

https://nypost.com/2024/10/02/us-news/doug-emhoff-accused-of-forcefully-slapping-nyc-girlfriend-for-flirting-with-other-man-at-ritzy-gala-in-2012-report/

This is the same guy who got his nanny pregnant, so it's hard to put it past him.

The Seven Wise Men could not have been wrong nor would they teach such a distasteful doctrine. I think this reasoning (or lack thereof) adds more to the character development of Socrates, specifically giving the reader another reason not to trust him. Probably a reference to his arguments in Protagoras