By the way. I've stated what my religion is more than a few times in the forum. It's no secret. I'm just not telling you here. Because Satan told me, not to worry, he'll take care of you.

I found a great quote:

"Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere aude! [Dare to know!] Have the courage to use your own understanding! That is the motto of enlightenment."
- Immanuel Kant, 1784 — Fire Ologist

Odd choice of quote for the context. Any keywords that would help me discover the secret?

I thought your argument was that you can tell by sight. — frank

The question was

Can anyone else say that what a person is — Fire Ologist

Note "say".

Any keywords that would help me discover the secret? — praxis

Immaturity.

Note "say". — Banno

You can see it, but you can't put it into words?

:lol: Not helpful.

Not helpful. — praxis

Oh, I don't know. Scientism and essentialism might be seen as things that dissipate with experience.

public policy. It is understandable that the sort of religious person you described would want to stop people from killing zygotes, and there's no reason why they can't try to influence public policy. — Relativist

So my question everyone wants to point out how difficult it is to ask, and how difficult it is to answer, is: what is a human being/person and when does it first come into being?

Pro-choice is a public moniker for what I would call Pro-abortion rights. Because we need to make public policy, and the above question is philosophically deep and no one will ever agree on this (or even talk about it), I choose the “pro-choice” public policy route with certain limitations. Everyone get's to ask these questions for themselves and up to like 6 months or so, when most agree the fetal thing should start to feel pain or has some sort of experience, up until then, they can answer it any way they like. Or they can completely avoid these questions, assert that they don't value 2 week old blastocysts or 2 month old fetuses, etc, or just say they don't even care to think about it, they just don't want to be pregnant and have an abortion. Be done with the public policy by compromise where abortion for any reason is allowed until the fetus becomes some sort of thing that should be protected by the state. And be done with it.

Now back to the question.

No rule, no definition of "individual human being" can work universally because "individual human being" is fundamentally a fuzzy concept. — Relativist

I agree, no definition of "individual human being" works to make a public policy based on that definition, because its fuzzy and no one agrees on the less fuzzy parts even. But if we were to all agree that abortion would remain legal forever, even up to the moment of birth, carve the law in stone and make it a constitutional amendment, is anyone still interested in being a philosopher and answering the question of when my life or his life or her life actually begins? Just for curiosity sake? Anyone?

Seems just weird for someone to say he didn't always exist (which he didn't) but that he won't even conjecture on which point or time period in history when he'd have to say he started existing.

Just no way out? We're here. We're human. Got over it.

Scientism and essentialism might be seen as things that dissipate with experience. — Banno

That was clever. But still doesn't explain Praxis' immaturity. Only mine maybe.

I searched for “religion” posted by Fire and it was easy to find.

I am a Catholic and believe in God. — Fire Ologist

Cat’s out of the bag now, Fire. You got some splaining ta do.

You got some splaining ta do. — praxis

Explain what? To whom?
You worried about whether I am contradicting myself again, or whether I might be a servant of Satan, hiding in the Catholic Church?

The first thesis in answer to the question in the OP is, opposition to abortion derives from religious belief.

So is there anyone here who is atheist or agnostic and opposes abortion?

The second thesis is that opposition to abortion derives from essentialism, the notion that there is some statable property had by any entity that makes it what it is. On this account there is a property had by a zygote in virtue of which it has a value equal to that of an adult human. This is variously thought of as a soul, or being a person, or being a human being.

Is there anyone here who rejects essentialism and opposes abortion?

Explain what? — Fire Ologist

The following for starters. Six months is pretty extreme.

I'd rather abortion up to around six or so months remain legal. — Fire Ologist

To whom? — Fire Ologist

To your fellow Catholics. To God. And if you don’t care about them and how you represent the Catholic faith, to anyone who reads the thread.

Where do the souls of aborted babies go? What would a soul of an embryo frozen for centuries experience?

Is there anyone here who rejects essentialism and opposes abortion? — Banno

Is there anyone here who rejects essentialism and opposes anything?

The first thesis in answer to the question in the OP is, opposition to abortion derives from religious belief.

So is there anyone here who is atheist or agnostic and opposes abortion? — Banno

It's probably mostly religious groups that spearhead pro-life. OP answered. Shrug?

Six months is pretty extreme. — praxis

Fine. Your are talking public policy. Make it 4 months. We’ll call it the Praxis rule.

the Catholic faith — praxis

Is this confession? Or are you a canon lawyer? Why would I think you could understand what I am saying at this point?

Divorce is a legal process. I don’t see any reason to change policy there.
There is no divorce allowed in the Catholic Church.
So others can get a divorce, but I won’t, because I agree with the Catholic Church.

Same thing with abortion policy.

Splaining done.

Your are talking public policy. — Fire Ologist

Supporting policy that is against your principles or faith only means that your principles or faith are weak.

** Before continuing I'd like to personally thank @frank for invoking Godwin's Law. **

If the policy of the land was genocide would you support it?

Where do the souls of aborted babies go? What would a soul of an embryo frozen for centuries experience? — RogueAI

For centuries the answer was limbo because they are unbaptized. Relatively recently the higherup decided that the fate of the unbaptized was up to God. Generous of them to let God decide.

I agree, no definition of "individual human being" works to make a public policy based on that definition, because its fuzzy and no one agrees on the less fuzzy parts even. But if we were to all agree that abortion would remain legal forever, even up to the moment of birth, carve the law in stone and make it a constitutional amendment, is anyone still interested in being a philosopher and answering the question of when my life or his life or her life actually begins? Just for curiosity sake? Anyone?

Seems just weird for someone to say he didn't always exist (which he didn't) but that he won't even conjecture on which point or time period in history when he'd have to say he started existing. — Fire Ologist

You acknowledge the concept is fuzzy, and yet you think it should be possible to identify a point at which a human life begins.

Consider another fuzzy concept (with no pun intended): having a beard vs being clean-shaven. What's the point at which whisker growth constitutes a beard? Even after shaving there are follicles present. Shall we say, 1mm of growth? 1cm? Any point we identify is arbitrary.

A human life is something that gradually emerges, similarly a beard gradually emerges. There is no objective point of demarcation. That's what it means to be a fuzzy concept. Fuzzy doesn't mean it's a mystery to be solved- it means there is no fact of the matter that determines a boundary.

Here's an article that discusses the problem of vague concepts, which is exactly what I'm referring to.

Seems like there has to be an answer. — Fire Ologist

My argument is everything is arbitrary after you have a living organism with 46 chromosomes. — Fire Ologist

And "46chromosomes" is not arbitrary?

Suppose in fact there doesn't have to be an answer. Suppose we have to make decisions about the rights and wrongs and the life and death of our neighbours in peace and in war; for the saints and the murderers, for the unformed and the agonised. Suppose the difference between murder and justified killing is something we establish and disagree about arbitrarily without end?

I'll tell you where I stand; I don't like abortion. But if a woman in society is in such a situation that her pregnancy is not wonderful news, or at least a bearable interruption, then the whole society is guilty. And I take the same stance about kids shooting their fellows in schools, and Trump, and Hitler, and Jews and Palestinians and Ukrainians and Russians.

Perhaps this is what is unique about 46 chromosomes; our capacity for unlimited cruelty to ourselves; our propensity to condemn each other while taking no responsibility for each other.

I assume all those reading this popped into existence sometime. — Fire Ologist

You assume wrong. The world is a mess of ever-changing matter doing ever-changing things. This matter gradually coalesces into various forms and behaviours, and we pragmatically label easily distinguishable forms and behaviours, but it is almost never the case where something has some inherent identity that unambiguously starts at one instant and ends at another.

See for example the ship of Theseus, the Sorites paradox, twins, chimeras, and two Homo heidelbergensis (not) giving birth to a Homo sapiens.

You are persistently committing to essentialism which is a mistaken philosophy.

We can, and do, kill non-human organisms, including single-celled organisms. You admit to killing flies. Is any of this wrong? If not, why are single-celled humans special? Physically they only differ from non-humans in their DNA and the manner in which they are created. So why is their DNA and manner of creation morally relevant?

It’s the only single-celled organism that develops into children and adult human beings. You were one, for instance. Are human beings morally irrelevant?

In your view matter has identity? Like electrons have dispositions proper to them by which we can recognize they are electrons? Under variabilism how is scientific theory possible?

In your examples you treat of artefacts which most philosophers agree are mere accidental configurations of matter. But reductionism wrt humans is far more controversial. Read up about what quantum mechanics says on the issue of holism:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physics-holism/

It’s the only single-celled organism that develops into children and adult human beings. — NOS4A2

Why does it matter what the single-celled organism develops into? Why is it acceptable to kill a single-celled organism that develops into an adult fly but not acceptable to kill a single-celled organism that develops into an adult human?

Are human beings morally irrelevant? — NOS4A2

They are when they're single-celled zygotes. They're not when they're babies or children or adults.

In your view matter has identity? Like electrons have dispositions proper to them by which we can recognize they are electrons? — Johnnie

I did specify that it was "almost never the case" because I was specifically considering the fundamental particles of the Standard Model.

But reductionism wrt humans is far more controversial. — Johnnie

That's precisely the issue. One cannot reduce being human to a particular configuration of matter (e.g. the presence of 46 chromosomes containing specific DNA), and so asking for some "point" at which some material object "becomes" human is a foolish question.

Why does it matter what the single-celled organism develops into? Why is it acceptable to kill a single-celled organism that develops into an adult fly but not acceptable to kill a single-celled organism that develops into an adult human?

It’s not the same species as us. Why do you think humans are as morally relevant as flies?

It’s not the same species as us. — NOS4A2

So are you saying that it is only wrong kill an innocent organism if that organism is the same species as us? Are you saying that it wouldn't be wrong to kill an innocent intelligent alien? Are you saying that it wouldn't be wrong for an intelligent alien to kill an innocent human?

Why do you think humans are as morally relevant as flies? — NOS4A2

I'm not saying they are. I'm asking you what it is about humans that makes us special.

So you are saying that it is only wrong kill an organism if that organism is the same species as us? Are you saying that it wouldn't be wrong to kill an innocent intelligent alien? Are you saying that it wouldn't be wrong for an intelligent alien to kill an innocent human?

It all depends on the species. Is the alien one that inserts eggs into the human abdomen, so that they rip out the chest as soon as they are old enough? Flies too can lay eggs in humans. So I kill them.

It all depends on the species. — NOS4A2

So what about a species determines whether or not it is wrong to kill its innocent members?

Scientism and essentialism might be seen as things that dissipate with experience. — Banno

I don’t know how science could be the ultimate authority on the issue. It can’t, for instance, prove or disprove the existence of a soul.