I think premise 2 is false and question begging.

It's the person associated with the human animal who is doing the thinking. That isn't question begging because that leaves open the possibility that the human animal and the person are one and the same. However, if the 'is' in premise 2 is taken to be the 'is' of identity 9and the argument's validity depends on this) then it's question begging, as it takes for granted that the person who is doing the thinking and is associated with that human body is one and the same as that human body. But that's precisely what those who think we are not human animals (merely associated with them) deny.

Imagine there is a weightless box into which a 90 kg person has been placed. We could now say ' the box is 90 kg'. I am the 90kg person in the box. Does it follow that I am the box? No, for in saying 'the box is 90 kg' we are not committing ourselves to the claim that the box itself weighs 90kg, but leaving open the possibility that it is something inside of it that is responsible for the weight. I think exactly the same applies to 'the human animal is thinking'. The 'is' in that sentence should not be read as the 'is' of identity. It's functioning in the same way as it is in 'the box is 90kg'.

Will it be by organized thugs, or a (transparent) democratic majority where all have a say? — jorndoe

Those are not opposites. You have thugs in charge so long as people think there need to be people in charge. You think in a democracy you get decent, good people in charge?!? You get thugs. Sophisticated thugs. You get in charge those who want to be. Good people don't want to be in charge.

You think governments aren't mafias? They're the most successful mafia in any given region.

Governments are monopolies. Do you think monopolies are a good idea?

So. Maybe I'm wrong. Tell me how you would make it work out the way you want it to. — T Clark

What do you mean by 'work' though? I am arguing that governments are 'unjust' (not that they don't work - whether they 'work' or not depends on what goals they're supposed to be achieving....if they're supposed to be creating a just world, then they don't work at all and it is question begging to say otherwise....if you conceive of them as having some other purpose, then maybe they work, maybe they don't...but it's irrelevant to the topic).

Incidentally, you could minimize deaths by means of a brave new world-style government that didn't respect any individual's freedom whatsoever. But it wouldn't be just.

No one in charge escapes the moral responsibilities of an individual to other individuals. The responsibility of us as individuals is not to prevent one another dying. For example, if I plan on engaging in a dangerous hobby, you are not entitled to stop me. That doesn't magically stop applying if you acquire the power to stop me. And that's the point. Sometimes it is right to stop someone from dying, sometimes not. When it is right to stop someone dying, then you're entitled to do that. But you're not entitled to bill the person whom you prevented from dying.

So Sarah is holding onto the edge of the cliff and unless someone saves her she''ll fall to her death. You're close at hand and can easily help her. You're obliged to do that. And I think Sarah has a right to your assistance. But after helping her, you can't then demand payment for your time and effort with menaces.

Nothing alters if you're in government. The president or prime minister would also be obliged to help Sarah and not demand payment with menaces afterwards. Yet presidents don't do this - they make others help Sarah and then they bill Sarah and others for doing so and extract the payment with menaces. That is not just. We would recognize this on a small scale. Nothing changes if the scale increases.

Putting aside moral factors for a minute, do you believe it is possible for groups of humans to effectively and humanely organize themselves without coercive rules assuming no change in human nature, whatever that means? Answer that question in the context of modern society in a world of 8 billion people. Also describe how such a society could be established in an ideal situation where you can specify starting conditions, i.e. go back 200,000 (or 2 million) years? If you can't give a positive answer to those questions, your moral complaints are meaningless. — T Clark

I don't see how you're addressing the argument I presented. I am defending anarchy. Anarchy does not involve anyone 'organizing' us. It's the opposite of that.

If your point is that without some bosses there will be mayhem, then I explicitly addressed this point. I pointed out that, whether true or not, it misses my point, which is about what's just, not about what would minimize mayhem.

I don't see your point. Those in charge are people. And might does not make right. Therefore, what it is just for those in charge to do can be determined by considering what it would be just for individuals to do to one another.

You're sure about that? We're all constantly changing, day by day, moment by moment. There is continuity, but also change. Many of the cells in your body are renewed regularly. That is one of the fascinating things about the nature of identity. — Wayfarer

Yes. As is everyone else. Do you think you die when you go to sleep?

That's why I said 'likely'.

Of course I can forgive a person for being stupid (and in many cases there is nothing to forgive as it may not be the person's fault). But what's that got to do with the topic of the thread?

I've read over 5000 accounts of NDEs, and what you'll find is that many people who have an NDE don't want to come back to this life, but they're told they must return because their objectives for coming here aren't complete. — Sam26

I acknowledge that this would explain why they don't commit suicide.

Do you think I have mischaracterized the DKE? Or are you implying that I am a demonstration of the DKE? (The latter would be somewhat question begging).

I don't know why you would say supposedly corroborate, the data on this is overwhelming — Sam26

Because it hasn't been gathered in a scientific setting. We don't know that things were not mentioned to the patient about the operation afterwards. It's all too flimsy. And that's exactly how we would treat such testimonial evidence in other contexts.

The person who is reporting these experiences almost died. That's not a normal state. The idea that a person's sensory faculties would be operating more reliably under those circumstances rather than less is prima facie absurd. That's like thinking that getting drunk improves one's ability to perceive the world. How would we treat a drunk's testimony? With the greatest of caution. That is how it is reasonable to treat the testimony of those whose brains have been starved of oxygen. Whatever experiences they had when their brains were in that kind of state cannot reasonably be accorded any great probative value.

Note too, that the testimony is 'about' those experiences. If I say that I saw a giant pink bunny while on a hallucinogen, then trusting my testimony does not involve trusting that there was actually a giant pink bunny in the room with me, but trusting that that was how things appeared to me. So, trusting the testimony of those who have had NDEs does not involve according their experiences probative value, rather it involves accepting that things seemed to them as they report.

Again, there is no double standard here. That's exactly how we'd treat the testimonial evidence of someone who was on drugs at the time they had the experiences, or was blind drunk at the time. These are people whose brains were starved of oxygen at the time it seemed to them they were having the experiences in question. So why should their testimonial evidence be treated any differently from the testimonial evidence of someone who was on drugs at the time of their experiences? We can trust that things appeared to them as they say, but we cannot reasonably trust that this is good evidence that this is how things actually were.

I do accept that this may not apply to the experiencer themselves - I accept that those who have actually had NDEs may be reasonable in believing their experiences to be accurate, but I don't think outsiders, such as myself, are being unreasonable in being skeptical about their accuracy (not skeptical that this is how things seemed to the person in question, but skeptical about the veridicality of the experiences being described).

It's not a respectable source. But anyway, the main point is that the DKE is accurately characterized as 'the stupider a person is, the less likely they are to realize how stupid they are'

I'm afraid I have to disagree with the dominant view. The mind as I use it is, for all practical purposes, is synonymous with consciousness. — Sam26

So when I am unconscious I disappear? Consciousness is a state. It's not a thing. It's a state. Water is wet (normally). Wetness is a state. it's not a thing. 'Water is wet' doesn't mean 'water and wetness are the same'. It's the 'is' of predication. Water 'has' wetness. Minds 'have' consciousness. My mind is conscious right now - that doesn't mean it 'is' consciousness. It 'has' consciousness. That's why they're called 'states of consciousness'. They're states, not objects.

When I go to sleep I - the mind - become unconscious. I don't vanish. A new person does not emerge in me every morning. Sleep is not death. I can't escape yesterday's me's responsibilities and debts just by going to sleep. Why? Because I am the same person - the same mind. I was conscious yesterday and I am conscious today, but there was a time in between when I wasn't. there was a break in consciousness, but not a break in me. Unconscious me is not just a lump of meat. It isn't ok to destroy sleeping me. If you destroy sleeping me you killed me - me - rather than simply destroyed the potential venue for a new person.

Anyway, this is just a terminological issue: minds are bearers of conscious states. Consciousness is a state, not an object. Reality doesn't care what labels we put on things, however. So it really doesn't matter, I mention it only because it can cause confusion to conflate a state of an object with an object, and because - ironically - the tendency to conflate consciousness with minds is symptomatic of the very naturalism that precludes the possibility of life after death.

I don't think that follows. We have a natural inclination to keep on living, so this could get in the way of suicide. — Relativist

We have a natural inclination not to want to eat something that looks unappetizing. But if we found out that it actually tastes delicious, then we'd go back and eat some more. We can and regularly do overcome natural inclinations.

The point about religious convictions doesn't apply, as the point is that those who have had NDEs are not more likely to commit suicide than those who don't. And it would be peculiar indeed to suppose that the only NDEs that count as evidence are those had by those with religious convictions.

i wouldn't have thought an expert would write a wikipedia page - they're too busy being experts.

But anyway, the main point is that the DKE involves precisely what the original poster said it involves. The stupider a person is, the less likely they are to realize how stupid they are.

Yes, I think so.

I now think you're manifesting the DKE.

I did defend myself (and the original poster). If someone lacking expertise in a particular area will likely overestimate their abilities in that area, then someone lacking expertise in every area will likely overestimate their abilities in every area. Thus, if someone is stupid across the board, they will think they're clever across the board. Thus, characterizing the DKE as involving stupid people overestimating their abilities is quite correct.

I think you don't understand the DKE, for the reasons I've explained.

And it follows that if someone is stupid in general then they will overestimate their intelligence in general. And so a person who identifies the DKE as involving the tendency for those who are stupid to overestimate their intelligence is correct.

Isn't the most moral form of government no government at all?

Governments are monopolies. Aren't monopolies bad?

I think there are margins here. For example, we can generally recognize when someone is a bit smarter than ourselves. It's just when someone is a lot smarter than ourselves that what they say may sound indistinguishable from what someone a lot dumber than ourselves may say - that is, both those much dumber than ourselves, and those much more intelligent than ourselves, will think in ways that seem quite alien to us.

Plus if I can recognize that Jane is a bit more intelligent than me, and Jane can recognize that Janet is a bit more intelligent than her, then even though Janet may be so much more intelligent than I am that I can't recognise it unassisted, I can learn that Janet is really clever and not dumb if, that is, Jane tells me she is. What Janet says will still sound like gibberish to me, but I now have it on an authority I can understand that this is because Janet is very clever, rather than because she's very stupid.

Nevertheless, I can see that there is a problem when it comes to rulers, as it is surely quite dumb to want to be in charge? And immoral too. It's a bit like wealth - the extremely wealthy, if they have gone out of their way to be, are not our most intelligent people, for it is rather silly to dedicate so much of one's life to acquiring vast amounts of wealth. I believe there are statistics supporting this (though I may be making it up): that above a certain income level, IQs go down. The really clever don't want the hassle that huge wealth or huge power brings, plus the really clever are typically going to be quite morally responsive too and will probably have moral problems with being so greedy for power and wealth.

I don't think the poster has misunderstood the Dunning-Kruger effect. And isn't Wikipedia written by those who fancy themselves experts in matters they have no expertise on?

For example, the quote you gave doesn't draw a real distinction. Someone with no expertize in anything, for example, will - by the hypothesis - overestimate their competence generally. Thus, generally stupid people will consider themselves to be much cleverer than they are.

I think the fact the reason of many represents abortions to be morally permissible is itself evidence that the fetus is not a person while it is inside the woman. For it would obviously be immoral to have an abortion otherwise. The rights of the woman do not trump those of the innocent person inside of her. That's as confused as thinking that if you invite someone into your home, then you can subsequently treat the invited guest as if they're an intruder and shoot them. No you can't - you invited them in! You have responsibilities to them now.

Yet even those who are anti-abortion don't seem to think that a person who has an abortion should be treated in the same way as we would someone who invited an innocent person into their home and then shot them. So, what our reason tells us about the morality of abortions does not tally with them being the killing of a person.

Why isn't that evidence that fetuses are not persons? I think it may be.

But they're not synonyms - one is a state of a thing and one is the thing itself. But anyway, I suppose that's just a terminological issue (actually, I think it reflects the 'mind is the brain' view currently dominant, where it is consciousness that is what is distinctive about the brain, as opposed to there being a soul that has the consciousness).

There are two types of NDEs that you seem to be conflating. There are those that involve floating about in the room. Those are the ones that, supposedly, others can corroborate - though I think there's no hard evidence of such corroboration. Plus, just as we incorporate alarm sounds into dreams, nothing stops the same happening in these scenarios.

Then there are the NDEs where people seem to have the experience of travelling to a different realm. Those are not corroborated. There's a similarity among these experiences, but there's a lot of similarity between dreams too, and the similarity does not seem significantly greater.

You also haven't addressed my evidence that thsoe who have the latter NDEs don't really believe in them. They typically (not invariably) report the afterlife as being a great place in which they are reunited with loved ones. Ok. So why don't they kill themselves and encourage others to do likewise? That is what we would typically do if we find a beautiful place - we try and revisit it and encourage others to do likewise. These people claim to know, in a way that the rest of us do not, what lies in wait for us the other side of death. And they claim it is wonderful. Yet they seem reluctant - more reluctant, if anything, than the general population - to go back there. That's very peculiar to me.

Why don't they kill themselves? They're telling us death is nothing to be afraid of and benefits us hugely....yet they seem reluctant to die. Actions speak louder than words.

I believe in life after death. But I want to quibble first with some terminology. Why do you say 'consciousness' survives death, rather than 'the person' or 'the mind' survives death? I am not a consciousness. i am a person. I am conscious a lot of the time (though unconscious some of it). When I am unconscious I am not non-existent. I exist, but I am just not conscious. So 'consciousness' and 'a person' are not equivalent. My quibble, then, is that it is persons or minds (I use the terms interchangeably) who survive death, not 'consciousness' (consiousness is something persons have, but it is not what a person 'is').

Although I believe in life after death, I think NDEs are not good evidence for it. They seem better explained as dreams.

I also don't think most of those who have them really believe in them. For most of those who have them experience what seems to them to be a positive afterlife (though about 10% are negative). Yet they don't then kill themselves. Why is that? If you travel to a wonderful place, surely you're keen to get back there again? So, why don't those who have had NDEs kill themselves (and encourage others to do likeewise)? They don't - in fact they the data suggests they are, if anything, less likely to kill themselves than those who have not had NDEs. That makes no real sense, does it? I mean, are they all profoundly irrational? Or do they not really believe they were real? I suspect the latter.

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

If 'thought' is interpreted broadly enough, then a representation of our reason would be a kind of thought, but it would be a specific kind: one generated by our faculty of reason. That's the kind that constitute evidence.

But mere assumptions - which are also going to be thoughts - are not evidence. If I assume there's milk in the freezer, that isn't evidence there is milk in the freezer.

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

Where did I say that? That is a clear misrepresentation of my view.

I said that the reason - the faculty of reason - of most people represents killing newborns to be wrong. And that is evidence that newborns are minded entities.

If our reason represents abortions to be morally permissible, then that would be evidence that the developing entities are not minded entities.

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

Our reason is our guide to reality. That is why I then used the example of a guide to a jungle. So the jungle is reality and our reason is our guide to it.

If the guide to the jungle warns us not to eat yellow berries - and here 'eating yellow berries' is 'having an abortion' - then it is reasonable to infer from this that yellow berries are poisonous (and similarly, reasonable to infer from our reason representing abortions to be wrong, that fetuses have minds). On the other hand, if the guide says 'eat yellow berries if you want', then it is reasonable to infer from this that they are not poisonous. Likewise, if our reason represents abortions to be morally permissible, then it is reasonable to infer from this that the fetus lacks a mind.

But insisting that abortions are the killing of a person - and it is just an insistence, not evidence - or insisting that abortions are the mere destruction of cells - another insistence, not evidence - and then reporting what our reason (our guide) says about acts so-described, is not to gain any insight into the morality of abortions. It is to gain insight into what morality abortions would have 'if' they were the destruction of a person, or if they were the destrution of a clump of cells.

I do not think I can make my point any clearer than I have done so thus far. I do not think it delivers a clear verdict about the morality of abortions either. But as I think it is fair to say most pro-lifers (and of course, that description is itself question begging) assume that the fetus is a person - and so are only pro-life because they already assume they know that abortions are killings, then all they are doing is reporting what their reason (and probably the reason of most of us) says about killings of persons. Whereas I suspect a sizeable portion of pro-choicers are genuinely agnostic on whether the fetus is a person. If that is correct, then I think that the intuitions of the pro-choicers count for more. For they are reporting what their reason says about abortions, rather than what their reason says about killing persons. But this isn't a basis for any great confidence on the matter.

But you are assuming you know what an abortion is. — Fire Ologist

But to use my jungle-guide again, that is to insist that I am assuming I already know that yellow berries are poisonous. No, I have simply looked up 'yellow berries' and note that the guide book says 'don't eat yellow berries!' Then I have inferred from this that yellow berries are likely poisonous, given it's hard to see why else there would be a warning against eating them.

When it comes to abortions, we can describe them well enough without having to assume that the developing entity whose destruction it will result in is a person or is not a person. We have to assume that the author of the guide book knows a lot about the jungle, for otherwise it would not serve as a useful guide. And so just as we can describe yellow berries and - in principle anyway - learn something useful about them from the guide book, there's reason to suppose the same might be true when it comes to abortions.

As I see it, your objection is that the guide book can't tell us about the poisonousness of the yellow berries until we represent them to be poisonous. But that seems false: the guide book can warn us not to eat yellow berries. (Whether this is actually the case with abortions is another matter - I'm not insisting that our reason does, in fact, harbour the information I'm suggesting it might, rather I'm simply saying that 'if' our reason warns us against having abortions even when we do not represent them to be the killing of a person, then that'd be good evidence that they're the destruction of a person).

In other contexts, we recognize that what our reason tells us about the morality of various acts can tell us something about their other features. For example, in the famous trolley examples our reason tells us that it is wrong to shove the overweight person off the bridge and into the path of the trolley, even though this is the only way to save five innocent lives. Yet it tells us that it is morally permissible - and perhaps even obligatory - to pull a lever that will redirect the trolley into the path of one innocent person if that is the only way to save five others.

That's puzzling on its face. But upon reflection, we can see that there is an important difference between the two cases - a difference that we haven't explicitly described - namely that in the 'shove' case we would be using a person as a means to an end, whereas in the 're-direct' case we are not. Perhaps that is not the right analysis of that example. The point remains, however, that this is not information we fed in, so to speak, but something we learnt about the cases by reflecting on what our reason told us about them.

I'm suggesting we do the same in respect of abortion cases. We already do to some extent, because to use the example you appealed to earlier - the example of the newborn baby - it really is the case that virtually everyone's reason represents the killing of one of those to be wrong, and that really is evidence that they are persons.

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

But you just begged the question - you're assuming the fetus is a person. The question is not whether it is morally ok to kill a person just if they happen to be inside you. The question is whether abortions are right or wrong. (if you object that these are equivalent qusetions, then you beg the question again).

Now, if the reason of most represents abortions to be morally permissible, then that's good evidence that's precisely what they are. And if the reason of most represents them to be morally permissible - something they would very unlikely be if they were the killing of a person - then we can infer from this that the fetus is not yet a person.

Whether this is what the reason of those who have not made assumptions about what the fetus is really does represent to be the case is another matter. I suspect it is. For I suspect that more of those on the pro-choice side are agnostic on whether the fetus is a person, whereas I suspect that virtually all of those on the pro-life side are assuming the fetus is a person....which would suggest that the moral intuitions of the former group are probably more reliable, as they're reporting what their reason tells them about abortions, whereas the latter are reporting what their reason tells them about the killing of a person. The point is that it is the all-important matter. Otherwise all one has is two sides who are doing no more than exploring the ethical implications of their assumptions - which is a pointless exercise.

I think the only objection to this alternative approach - an approach in which moral evidence is our source of evidence into the status of the fetus, rather than arbitrary assumptions about the matter - is that our reason simply does not contain this sort of information about the world and thus is incapable of providing us with insight into it. But that objection seems unjustified as if our reason can inform us of what kinds of act are typically right and which kinds typically wrong, then why think it incapable of giving us other kinds of information about the world, such as when a thing likely becomes a person? That would be analogous to thinking that a guide book about a jungle contains no information about the jungle itself.

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

I'm arguing the opposite. The guide book is only really useful if one doesn't make assumptions. If one makes assumptions and then looks up what the guide book says about what one is assuming, then one is using the guide book to explore an assumed jungle, not the actual one.

But if we are interested in the actual morality of actual abortions, then we need to stop consulting the guide book about our assumptions and instead consult it on the jungle itself. That is, we need simply to read it. And if it warns against eating yellow berries, then - regardless of what assumptions we might have made or not made about yellow berries - the guide book is implying they contain poison.

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

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

If mind, then human being. No mind, so no human being. — Fire Ologist

Well no, that's clearly false. Humans do not have a monopoly on having minds and some humans lack minds. Dead ones, for instance. And it is question begging to assume that human fetuses have minds (and one doesn't establish the matter by simply stipulating that 'human' and 'minded' are synonyms.

That's not good logic. If yellow, than poisonous. Not yellow, so not poisonous? — Fire Ologist

I think it is good logic. The guide book is about the jungle and its author is clearly keen that we not poison ourselves inadvertently. It warns us against eating yellow berries. It is reasonable to infer that they are poisonous. It does not warn us against eating blue ones. It would be unreasonable - not reasonable - to assume the blue ones are poisonous. For if they were poisonous, then on the assumption this is something the guide book author knows and would wish to warn us about, there'd be a warning against eating them....yet there isn't.

What evidence is there that a new born baby has a mind? — Fire Ologist

The reason of virtually everyone represents it to be wrong to kill a new born baby. So, to extend my jungle guide book analogy, the jungle guide book of virtually everyone warns against destroying this kind of berry. The reasonable inference to make is that this kind of berry is minded.

3. We now know substances cannot share all attributes, but what if they share some? For example, substance 1 might have attributes A and B, substance 2 might have B and C. If this were possible, through attribute B we would be able to conceive of both substances, which would go against the very definition of substance in something that is only conceivable through itself. — tom111

I do not follow this. I can see (though I disagree) why it might be thought that two objects cannot share all the same attributes, due to this making them one and the same object. But I can't see any contradiction in the idea of two distinct objects having some properties in common. My car is the same colour as my cup, yet they are distinct things.

He then goes on to explain how the essential nature of a substance is to exist. Given the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), a self-caused thing like substance must have a reason for not existing, — tom111

I also do not follow this. As I understand it, the principle of sufficient reason says that anything that exists has a sufficient explanation for its existence. That doesn't entail that things that do not exist require an explanation for their non-existence. I do not follow his reasoning here either, then. (Though i have never read any Spinoza)

I would say “if our faculty of reason warns us against abortions, then it is reasonable to infer the human fetus is a person.” Likely poisonousness is likely personhood. Why did you jump to “fetus has a mind”? Isn’t that like jumping to “yellow berry has arsenic” — Fire Ologist

I take, perhaps mistakenly, being a person and having a mind to be synonymous. I think the best explanation of why it would be wrong to have an abortion - if that is what our reason represents them to be - would be that the developing entity has a mind (and so is a person - something it is something it is like to be). happy to stick with 'person' if it is thought that something can have a mind and not be a person.

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

Yes, if the guide book warns against eating yellow berries, but issues no warning about blue berries, then I think it's reasonable to have as one's working assumption that blue berries are not poisonous.
And yes, if someone assumes that blue berries are poisonous - and then looks up whether it is a good idea to eat poisonous berries - then that's equivalent in my analogy to someone assuming the fetus is a person and then asking their reason whether destroying a person is morally ok.

If this is correct, then what matters is what the guide book says about fetus berries. If it warns against destroying them, then it's reasonable to infer that they are persons, as it's hard to see why else it would be wrong to destroy one. And if it doesn't, then it's reasonable to infer that they're not persons, otherwise there'd likely be a warning against destroying them.

But it doesn't really do anything - doesn't really shed any light on the facts of the matter - either to assume the fetus is a person and conclude on that basis that it is wrong to destroy one, or to assume the fetus is not one and conclude on that basis that there's nothing wrong about it. Yet that, I think, fairly characterizes most - though not all - of the contemporary debate.

Hello,

I think the issue of whether materialist monism or idealist monism is the correct view is another matter. The point I was making is that it is question begging to assume materialist monism for the purposes of refuting the view that the mind is immaterial.

If someone argues that the simplest thesis about why the sensible affects the mental is that the mental is sensible, then they are begging the question as it is equally simple to suppose the sensible is the mental.

Hello Fire,

For the most part that may be correct. Our faculty of reason is not a pair of eyes that is able to detect moral properties, but instead we have to make representations to it - that is, we have to, so to speak, describe to it how things appear to us to be - and then it tells us (or does if it is operating well) what moral features are present and what it would be right or wrong to do in the situation we have described. In this sense, our conscience - which I take just to be the name we give to our reason when it is telling us about moral features - is held hostage to information we provide to it.

But I think it must be admitted by all that our faculty of reason contains important information about reality, otherwise consulting it would tell us nothing about anything.

Imagine there's a guide book to a jungle. This guide book warns about eating certain sorts of berry - perhaps it says to steer clear of eating any yellow berry, or any yellow berry above a certain size. It does not say anything else about the berry, and it does not tell you where specifically these berries are. So one could not use the guide book to find the berries. Nevertheless, if provides one with important information: it warns against eating any such berries one may come across.

It is reasonable to infer from this warning in the guide book that any yellow berries one comes across in the jungle are poisonous, or likely poisonous.

The guide book is analogous to our faculty of reason, the warning is analogous to our reason telling us not to do something, and the poisonousness - or likely poisonousness - of the berries is the fetus's person status. If our faculty of reason - or at least, the faculty of reason of many - warns us against abortions, then it is reasonable to infer from this that the fetus has a mind, as this is the best explanation of why it is warning us against having them if, that is, this is what it does.

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

I don't think there's a problem with making such an inference. It seems to me no less problematic than inferring that the yellow berries the guide book is warning us against eating are poisonous (given this seems the best explanation of why we are being warned against eating them). And we do still have to provide information to our reason: we have to describe the scenario. And then it delivers its verdict. That's equivalent, as I see it, to seeing some yellow berries and then looking up 'yellow berries' in the guide book and seeing a warning against eating them (and then inferring from this that they are poisonous). But most people aren't doing this, I suspect, and are instead looking up 'poisonous berries' and seeing 'don't eat poisonous berries' or looking up 'non-poisonous berries' and seeing 'it's fine to eat non-poisonous berries'. That is, they are either asking their reason 'is it okay to kill a little person who is inside of one?' or they are asking their reason 'is it okay to destroy a lifeless lump of cells that is inside of one?'. Obviously the reason of the first group says loud and clear 'no', and the reason of the second says equally loudly and clearly 'yes'. And if either side asked the other side's question, they'd get the other side's answer. Hence why the classic debate is deadlocked. Neither side is really wrong, given the questions they're asking. But they seem to me to be going about things in teh wrong way....

I have, perhaps, a different approach. Maybe I should say what it is first, and then justify it, as the justification is a little long-winded.

What seems noteworthy about the abortion issue is that many perfectly reasonable people think abortions are morally permissible, at least in the early stages of pregnancy. It could be that these people only think this because they have assumed that the developing entity does not have a mind - and so is not a person - until later in the pregnancy process. And/or it could be that most of those who have this view are not relevantly disinterested - they have a vested interest in it being morally ok to abort and this vested interest is corrupting their reason (as it can for any of us). I don't discount those possibilities. However, it could be that it just seems clear to the reason of many that it is morally permissible to abort a pregnancy in the early stages. I take that possibility very seriously too.

That, I think, is good evidence that this is what they are. If we have good evidence too that killing a person is seriously wrong, and would remain so if the person is inside one's body (especially if one is responsible for the person being inside of one), then we have good evidence that the developing entity is not a person in the early stages. For by hypothesis, if they were a person, it'd be seriously wrong to have an abortion.

My approach, then, is not to try and settle the issue of whether the developing entity is a person or not and then extract the moral implications of this; rather it is to take what our reason tells us about the morality of abortions and extract from this a conclusion about the status of the developing entity.

I can anticipate two lines of criticism. One would be epistemological: that what our reason tells us about the morality of actions is not a source of insight into their non-moral features. The other would be that everything i have just said about the moral permissibiity of early-stage abortions could be said equally well about their moral impermissibility. There are plenty of reasonable people who think abortions are wrong throughout. And although they too may be biased or may simply be making assumptions about the status of the developing entity and extracting the moral implications, they may be sincerely reporting the unbiased reports of their reason on the matter.

I think that's correct. But - and this is why i think this approach is different and is an approach, rather than a particular view - establishing whether this is the case is what the debate should be over. That is, the debate should not be over whether or not the developing entity is a person yet or not. Rather, it should be over whether those who think abortions are morally permissible are more likely than the other side to be reporting unbiased deliverances of their reason. If they are, then that's good evidence that early stage abortions are morally permissible (and if that is incompatible with them being the killing of a person, then it's good evidence that this is not what an early-stage abortion is).

Here's what I mean. Let's imagine you are convinced the developing entity is a person. And that - that - is why you believe abortions are wrong. Your reason is not telling you about abortions. You are telling your reason about abortions; you are representing them to be the killing of a person and then simply observing that your reason tells you that killing a person is wrong (and that the location of the person doesn't matter).

Well, that isn't really evidence that abortions are wrong; it's evidence that if abortions are what you believe them to be, they'd be wrong.

By contrast, if abortions seemed wrong 'without' you assuming that the developing entity is a person, then that'd be quite good evidence that they are wrong (and that the developing entity is a person....for why else would they be wrong?).

Likewise, if abortions seem morally permissible to those who have no firm views about whether the developing entity is a person or not, then that's quite good evidence they're morally permissible.

What we should really be asking - if this approach has merit - is not whether the developing entity is a person or not, but which side's moral intuitions are a product of making assumptions about the matter and which side's moral intuitions seem independent of such assumptions.

However there are two forms of monism. One could assume that the only things that really exist are the objects of sense experience and then conclude that the default simplest view is that the mental is an aspect of those objects; or one could assume that the only things that really exist are the subjects of sense experience - minds - and that the sensible world is made of such sensations.

Although a monistic view is inevitably simpler than a dualist one, it is question begging to assume the kind of monism that turns the mind into a sensible object, as opposed to assuming the kind that turns sensible objects into mental states. It would be equally question begging to go the other way. That is why I do not think appeals to simplicity favor materialising the mind over mentalizing the sensible.

That applies as well to the claim that material entities cannot causally interact with immaterial ones. As well as being a claim that - to my mind anyway - is not self-evident to reason and so seems no more than a dogma, it leaves open whether the fact of interaction should lead us to conclude that the material is mental, or that the mind is material.

This is why I think appeals to such arguments are question begging. They will only seem to have evidential value to those who are already convinced that really only material things exist (and thus are already convinced the mind is material).

None of this is evidence that the mind is immaterial, but it doesn't seem to rise to being evidence that the mind is material either. The matter seems left open.

I should say that I am not arguing that monist immaterialism is true - though I don't dismiss it either - just that there still seems no real evidence that the mind is material

Yes, I agree that the mind is not the body (yet are causally connected). And yes, I too do not consider theological claims to have any probative force.

Perhaps I misunderstood, but your evidence that the mind is the body is that doing things to the body affects what happens in the mind. Yet by that reasoning i am a donut as the donut is affecting what is happening in my mind.