Viability is about the connection between the vascular system and the alveoli in the lungs. It's called the AC membrane (alveolar capillary). It starts approaching functionality around 22 weeks. — frank

It requires more than that. Those born with anencephaly, if still alive when born, don't last very long. As far as I can tell from reading that, they don't have issues with their vascular system or lungs; they're just missing a significant part of their brain, and because of that the wider body cannot function properly.

But let's assume that a human could be born and be viable even with anencephaly. Well, it's okay to kill it. It has no cognition, no consciousness, no capacity for pain or sense of the world. It's just a beating heart and pumping lungs wrapped in a skeleton, muscles, and skin.

If consciousness and viability happened to occur at the same time, that was coincdental. — Hanover

Also I'm not sure if it's coincidental. I suspect that a sufficient degree of consciousness is required for a human life to be viable, and as the brain is the most complex organ it stands to reason that everything else is likely to have already developed enough.

Well I'm not talking about the law? I'm only saying that something being a living organism with human DNA is insufficient grounds to conclude that it would be wrong to kill it. I think that consciousness is a morally relevant faculty, and so to determine whether or not it is acceptable to kill a foetus we must determine whether or not it has developed such a faculty to a sufficient degree. The literature seems to suggest that this is determined by the presence of thalamocortical connections, which occurs towards the end of the second trimester, and so I tentatively place the limit there.

I was getting my information from the emergence of consciousness: Science and ethics:

Consciousness cannot emerge before 24 gestational weeks when the thalamocortical connections from the sense organs are established. Thus the limit of legal abortion at 22-24 weeks in many countries makes sense.

The fetus is minimally conscious before that. I think you're looking for a higher level of consciousness. — frank

I'm just reading what the neuroscientists have written, e.g. here:

Functional MRI and electrophysiology studies suggest consciousness depends on large-scale thalamocortical and corticocortical interactions.

So no thalamocortical interactions, no consciousness.

The fetus has a brain-like structure at 3 weeks. I'll put you down for supporting abortion up to 2 weeks after conception. — frank

No, because it needs to be a sufficiently complex brain functioning in the appropriate manner, hence why the brain dead and those with anencephaly aren’t conscious.

As mentioned in an earlier comment to you, the evidence suggests that thalamocortical connectivity is required, which occurs ~24 weeks after conception, and so I support abortion up to around that point.

There’s around five pounds of single-celled organisms in the human body that few care enough about to even feed properly. — praxis

The human body contains 37.2 trillion cells. I guess that means that I am in fact 37.2 trillion conscious individuals.

So your view isn't scientific. You just hold to that folk wisdom. — frank

The scientific evidence supports the claim that consciousness requires a brain-like structure; it does not support the claim that grass is conscious.

I am no more going to use CBC as a reason to condemn abortion than I am going to use it as a reason to condemn mowing the lawn.

How would you show that this view is wrong? — frank

I wouldn’t. I’d dismiss it as nonsense, much like the theory that consciousness is some immaterial magic that arbitrarily attaches itself to random clumps of matter.

There's science that says that? — frank

Yes. Consciousness requires a sufficiently complex and functioning brain (and plausibly some other brain-like structure). A zygote is just a small collection of cells. It lacks the necessary physical stuff that allows for an organism to be conscious.

I don't think there's really a scientific dividing line when it comes to consciousness, owing in part to our lack of understanding of what it is and what's required for it. — frank

We know that adults are conscious and zygotes aren’t. We know that (in humans) a functioning brain is required. We have reason to believe that certain areas of the brain are more relevant than others.

We don’t need certainty or a single, unambiguous neurological process to make (accurate) moral judgements.

I think the reason it would feel wrong to kill a fetus over 24 weeks is that it could possibly survive outside the womb. — frank

Why is it wrong to kill something that could survive outside the womb?

So there's nothing behavioral that signals cognition to you. It's a matter of wiring? — frank

Yes, which is why it would be wrong to kill someone who’s asleep or unconscious or with locked in syndrome but not wrong to take someone who’s brain dead off life support.

Do they have enough cognitive capability to show up as human? — frank

I'd say it's with the development of thalamocortical connectivity, which occurs ~24 weeks after conception.

The biological difference between you as a zygote and you as an adult was that you were in a different stage of your development. — NOS4A2

And I have developed morally relevant faculties that a zygote lacks. The actual possession of intelligence is an important biological difference.

I believe members of the species homo sapiens have moral relevance. — NOS4A2

Being a member of the species homo sapiens just means having a particular genetic makeup. What about having that genetic makeup is morally relevant? Because I say that the possession of a particular set of chromosomes is insufficient, and having actually developed the appropriate cognitive capabilities is required (regardless of chromosomes, allowing me to extend the same or similar moral consideration to non-humans).

You never once deviated from being this particular human, you still occupy the same location in space and time, no matter what nouns you use to identify the state of your development. — NOS4A2

A zygote also develops into a placenta. Why not say that a zygote is a placenta at the moment of conception?

And a zygote can develop into twins. If each twin is a distinct individual then at least one of them is not identical to the zygote (and it would be special pleading to claim that it was one of them but not the other).

Biology and identity just doesn't work the way you claim it does.

At what stage in that development is killing her acceptable? Do all the complex cognitive functions need to be developed at the same time, or does one or the other function take precedence? — NOS4A2

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is no single point, much like with the Sorites paradox. It's acceptable when it's a zygote or blastocyst or embryo, not acceptable when it's due to be delivered in a day, and in between there's a large grey and ambiguous area as it develops more and more into a human like us.

It’s all too arbitrary for my tastes — NOS4A2

There is much more to an organism than its genetic makeup. There are very real, significant, and obvious biological differences between myself and a zygote. Your decision to only consider an organism's genetic makeup is not less arbitrary than my decision to also consider these other important aspects of an organism's being. But I do think that your claim that only an organism's genetic makeup has moral relevance is an absurd one.

I personally need a solid unit of value — NOS4A2

Well, biology and morality doesn't work that way, even if you "need" it to.

There is nothing else with our genetic makeup. There is only one extant species of human beings. — NOS4A2

That doesn’t explain or justify your assertion that it is wrong to kill anything with our genetic makeup.

My own take is that our genetic makeup is neither the measure of whether or not it is wrong to kill something (e.g. it can be wrong to kill an intelligent alien even though it would have a different genetic makeup) nor sufficient to entail that it is wrong to kill something (e.g. it can be acceptable to kill an embryo even though it has the same genetic makeup).

i.e. the claim “it is wrong to kill me because I’m a human” is as fallacious as the claim “it is wrong to kill Mork because he is an Orkan” and as fallacious as the claim “it is acceptable to kill a fly because it is not human.”

Whether or not it is wrong to kill something is not determined by its genetic makeup (whether that be human, Orkan, fly, or other), but whether or not the individual organism has developed sufficiently complex cognitive functions - functions that a fly, an embryo, and an early stage foetus have not developed, but that Mork and I have.

None of the things I mentioned are genetically similar to human beings in any way. — NOS4A2

That’s what I meant by “having human DNA”.

So why does anything with our genetic makeup deserve to live?

Which non-human organisms with human DNA are you talking about? — NOS4A2

All of them. You claimed, with examples, that some things can have human DNA but not be human. So I want to know what it is that makes something with human DNA human, and why having this thing entails that it “deserves” to live.

Here’s an interesting paper:

Could a zygote be a human being?

This paper re-examines the question of whether quirks of early human foetal development tell against the view (conceptionism) that we are human beings at conception. A zygote is capable of splitting to give rise to identical twins. Since the zygote cannot be identical with either human being it will become, it cannot already be a human being. Parallel concerns can be raised about chimeras in which two embryos fuse. I argue first that there are just two ways of dealing with cases of fission and fusion and both seem to be available to the conceptionist. One is the Replacement View according to which objects cease to exist when they fission or fuse. The other is the Multiple Occupancy View - both twins may be present already in the zygote and both persist in a chimera. So, is the conceptionist position tenable after all? I argue that it is not. A zygote gives rise not only to a human being but also to a placenta - it cannot already be both a human being and a placenta. Neither approach to fission and fusion can help the conceptionist with this problem. But worse is in store. Both fission and fusion can occur before and after the development of the inner cell mass of the blastocyst - the entity which becomes the embryo proper. The idea that we become human beings with the arrival of the inner cell mass leads to bizarre results however we choose to accommodate fission and fusion.

Many things have human DNA, like sperm or a pool of saliva. Human beings have more than DNA. — NOS4A2

So what distinguishes a human organism with human DNA and a non-human organism with human DNA, and why is this distinction the measure of whether or not it is wrong to kill it?

I use the term "human being" in the sense that it is a member of species homo sapiens, whether it is developed or not. A fetus is not of some other species. If a human lifecycle begins at conception, then we are speaking of human life and no other. This is an existentialist and "animalist" view rather than an essentialist view. — NOS4A2

And to be a member of the species homo sapiens is to have the appropriate ("human") DNA? So when you say that it is wrong to kill a foetus because it is human you are simply saying that it is wrong to kill a foetus because it has human DNA.

I fail to see how you get from "the foetus has human DNA" to "therefore it is wrong to kill a foetus".

You’d need as a premise “it is wrong to kill anything with human DNA” but I see no reason to accept such a premise.

The differences are, as far as I can tell, you place moral value on what human beings can do, while I place moral value on what a human being is. Is that fair? — NOS4A2

Yes. As related to my reply to Hanover above, what a human is depends on how we use the word "human", and how we use the word "human" is a contingent fact about the English language, open to change. If we use the word "human" to refer to anything with human DNA then embryos are human. If we use the word "human" only to refer to sufficiently developed organisms with human DNA then embryos are not human. It is a mistake to commit to some kind of essentialist view of being human such that we can be wrong in (not) using the word "human" to refer to embryos.

And whether or not it is morally acceptable to kill an embryo does not depend on whether or not it is conventional in the English language for the word "human" to refer also to embryos.

We need to look to more concrete facts. These concrete facts are biological, neurological, and psychological. Simply having human DNA is not sufficient biological grounds to entail that the thing "deserves" to live. Whereas being able to think and feel and so on is sufficient biological, neurological, and psychological grounds.

So it's not that entity X with attributes a, d, l, and q ought not be killed. It's that if entity X has the attributes that satisify what a person is then entity X should not be killed.

I do follow what you're saying, and maybe we're not saying anything terribly different, but you seem to be saying that "Person" is shorthand for saying "entity X with attributes a, d, l, and q," so we needn't elevate the term "Person" to mean something more or different. My view though is that entity Y with attributes a, d, l, and c and not q might also be a "Person," so it serves an important function to place entities X and Y into the "Person" catagorization because in our moral universe, People have special rights. — Hanover

Whether or not something "satisfies what a person is" depends on what the word "person" means which depends on how we use it. How we use the word "person" is a contingent fact about the customs of the English language and unrelated to whether or not it is morally acceptable to kill the things that we happen to describe as a person.

Unless you want to say "morally wrong to kill" is part of the definition of "person", in which case to say that we ought (not) kill something because it is (not) a person is to beg the question.

She doesn’t deserve to be killed. — NOS4A2

That someone doesn't deserve to die isn't that they deserve to live. Embryos and foetuses don't deserve anything.

Here it is: it is wrong to kill an innocent human being. A fetus is an innocent human being. Therefore, it is wrong to kill a fetus. Which premise would you disagree with? — NOS4A2

You equivocate.

The premise "it is wrong to kill an innocent human being" is being interpreted as "it is always wrong to kill an innocent human being", but then if I were to deny this premise you would misinterpret my counter-premise as "it is never wrong to kill an innocent human being".

It is sometimes wrong to kill an innocent human being and sometimes not wrong. It is wrong if the innocent human being is an adult, a child, a baby, or a sufficiently developed foetus. It is not wrong if the innocent human being is an embryo or sufficiently underdeveloped foetus.

My own take is that for the most part essentialism is false. There's no such thing as the essence of personhood; there's just the social fact that we use the word "person" to refer to certain types of organisms and not to others, based on some general characteristics (much like the word "game").

It happens to be the case that the general characteristics that prompt our use of the word "person" also also happen to be the general characteristics that 'grant' the appropriate moral rights.

So it's not exactly the case that we ought not kill someone because they are a person, but that someone is a person and we ought not kill them because they have thoughts and feelings and wants and so on.

Saying "we ought not kill him because he's a person" is just a more succinct phrasing.

it seems pretty clear that what's being done is recasting the indirect realist in a way that it can be subsumed under an extended version of 'direct realism'. — AmadeusD

Yes, something like this is argued in Semantic Direct Realism that I often quote. There's phenomenological direct realism, or naive realism, that indirect realism opposes (consistent with the scientific evidence), and then there's semantic direct realism which agrees with the indirect realist's rejection of naive realism but calls itself direct realism anyway.

I see something like that here as well, where some accept the existence of mental representations but still call it direct realism even though representationalism is indirect realism.

I think part of the problem is that some here think that "I see a tree" and "I directly see a tree" mean the same thing, when in fact the adverb "directly" modifies the verb "see".

I considered that part irrelevant, insofar as we know nothing of a thing by its effect on our senses, except that is “…an undetermined something….”. To say we know how they affect our senses is already given by sensation, which only informs as to which sense it is, but nothing whatsoever about the thing, except its real existence. — Mww

I don't understand what you're trying to say here.

It is not a contradiction to say that the only thing we know about the magnetic field is how it affects the behaviour of metal (although it may be false).

And it is not a contradiction to say that the only thing we know about distal objects is how they affect our sensory experience (although it may be false).

Yes, it is wrong to intentionally kill a fetus for the same reasons it is wrong to kill any other human being. — NOS4A2

What are these "same reasons"?

Because I would say that it is wrong to kill other humans because it is wrong to kill humans with thoughts and feelings and wants. Embryos and (early stage) foetuses don't have thoughts or feelings or wants. They are more like the brain dead living on life support.

You can disagree with the premise that a fetus is a human being, or that it is not wrong to kill human beings, but it’s difficult to reasonably do so. — NOS4A2

It's not difficult when you make sure not to equivocate. See my post above.

What if the mother wants the child. Does the zygote then deserve a chance at life and become worthy of protection.. — NOS4A2

Only to the extent that the mother deserves her wants respected.

What biological differences make it not wrong to kill and embryo, but wrong to kill a baby? — NOS4A2

The biggest and most relevant difference is that a baby is no longer being carried in the womb of its mother, and so the mother's bodily rights are no longer an issue.

Another significant difference is that the thalamocortical connections that are required for consciousness do not develop until ~26 weeks of pregnancy.

I’ve already described my reasoning and the entities it applies to as best as possible. — NOS4A2

You've asserted that it is wrong to kill anything with human DNA (except in self-defence, etc.). You haven't shown what makes it wrong.

The baby was an embryo. — NOS4A2

It was an embryo, but now isn't. There is a very real biological difference between a baby and an embryo. This very real biological difference has moral relevance and is why it is wrong to kill a baby but not wrong to kill an embryo.

I would refrain as best as possible from positing phantom properties and folk biology. — NOS4A2

So are you now saying that it isn't wrong to kill a human embryo? Or are you refusing to show me what makes killing a human embryo wrong? This is why you are special pleading; you demand that we show you what makes something a person but refusing to show us what makes killing a human embryo wrong.

If I ask you to show me what makes it a person... — NOS4A2

And if I ask you to show me what makes killing a human embryo wrong?

If you’re going to condemn some human beings to death because you’ve relegated them to the status of non-person, you better have something better than your own thoughts and feelings. — NOS4A2

There is a very real biological difference between an embryo and a baby. They might share the same kind of DNA, but there is much more to an organism than its DNA.

I think it's important to avoid any equivocation.

This seems to be the pro-life argument:

a) "X is a human" means "X has human DNA"
b) It is never acceptable to kill a human
c) Therefore, it is never acceptable to kill something with human DNA

The pro-choice crowd deny that both (a) and (b) are true together; it's one or the other:

a) "X is a human" means "X has human DNA"
d) It is sometimes acceptable to kill something with human DNA
e) Therefore, it is sometimes acceptable to kill a human

or

b) It is never acceptable to kill a human
d) It is sometimes acceptable to kill something with human DNA
e) Therefore, "X is a human" does not mean "X has human DNA"

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. — NOS4A2

Echarmion asked "is this supposed to mean that there's no evidence for personhood?"

You responded with "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."

I am simply explaining that being (or not being) able to point to something has no bearing on whether or not someone is a person, just as being (or not being) able to point to something has no bearing on whether or not something is wrong.

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. — NOS4A2

And this is where there is disagreement. It is wrong to intentionally kill a born human, and perhaps a foetus of a sufficient age, but it is not wrong to intentionally kill an embryo or young foetus.

The possession of human DNA and the future possibility of being born is not sufficient grounds to force a pregnant woman to carry the child to term.

If not-A entails (B and (not-B)), then A is entailed. Is that what you're saying isn't the case?
Is B here the proposition that the universe has an nth term? And A is the proposition that there's a non-contingent entity in the universe's series of terms? — Hallucinogen

The example of the Presidents explains what I mean in simple terms.

You conflate "A is required for B" and "A is necessary". The former does not entail the latter.

given that all non-contingent entities are necessarily omnipotent and eternal — Hallucinogen

That's not a given.

To deny theism is to deny a necessary entity — Hallucinogen

One can believe in some necessary thing without believing that this thing is God. Theism does not have exclusive ownership of necessity.

Perhaps the necessary entity is a physical singularity of infinite density that underwent a rapid expansion known as the Big Bang. The atheist can accept this.

….but only know its appearance…..no. The thing-in-itself does not appear; if it did, it wouldn’t be in-itself. It would be that object of sense as mere appearance, hence the contradiction. — Mww

You should read the next part:

viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something.

i.e. the only thing we know about distal objects is how they affect our senses.

"B and if not A then not B" does not entail "necessarily A".

B ∧ (¬A → ¬B) ⊭ □A

As an example, a 46th President of the United States requires a 1st President of the United States, but a 1st President of the United States is not necessary.

Regarding Kant's ding an sich, I think this quote provides a simple account of it:

And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something.

As an analogy to this that the direct realist can accept; we do not see magnetic fields, only the affects that magnetic fields have on other things such as metal.

Kant (and other indirect realists) simply apply this same reasoning, arguing that metal is to phenomenal experience as the magnetic field is to metal (except, at least with respect to sight, there is not even direct physical contact between metal and the sense organ).

Of course, we are able to formulate mathematical models of this magnetic field, use these models to try to predict observable phenomena, either falsify or fail to falsify our models, and in doing so can be said to "know" something of the "thing in itself", but I'm not sure if this sense of knowing the thing in itself is the sense that is relevant to Kant's remarks above.

But then even if scientific realism is inconsistent with transcendental idealism, one can be an indirect realist and a scientific realist, so if this discussion is trying to equate indirect realism with transcendental idealism and argue that any problems with the latter are also problems with the former then I think it commits a fallacy. Much like the scientific realist, an indirect realist can accept that we can know something about things that we cannot directly perceive.

There’s a world, it’s really a world…..so what? World being, of course, an abstract entity. Sorta like Rawls (?)….where’s the university.
(Crap. I can't remember the author or the name of the paradox. Maybe identity. Guy sees all the accoutrements which constitute a university, but wants to know where the university he came to visit is located.) — Mww

Gilbert Ryle's category mistake from The Concept of Mind.