Hi Thresh #146, Your non-zygote references/analogies are irrelevant as I have previously said. If you define personhood as a Lowest Common Denominator exercise and include all stages from zygote to death, then the zygote is included. But this is circular.
IGR, I didn't merely define this; (1) I argued that being a human being is the only known morally significant difference that is self evident in a being attaining personhood, human rights, right to life, etc. Otherwise, animals would be worthy of human rights, like the right to life. Otherwise animals would be persons, but they are clearly not. Therefore, unless you've got a coherent reason to disagree, we should treat human beings as valuable, as persons, and as having rights. (2) I also, listed a reason, as you requested, why we should include the zygote, just out of safety, due to the absence of strong reasons for putting the line somewhere else. But you continue to be highly reckless with human life in your moral reasoning. (3) Also, I noted that my definition is more inclusive and coherent than others because it provides personhood status to all the beings we obviously know are persons.
So, it is up to you show to why certain humans are not persons and certain humans are persons. You have merely asserted an arbitrary, 25 week line of gestation of when a human becomes a person. But you haven't argued for why this is important. And you have ignored the logical inconsistencies that spring from your ageism.
Yet further, you argue something about sentience being important, but won't actually commit to it. You say, "
wrt sentience, I did not say that sentience is necessary for personhood" -- then why are we even talking about it? Why would the lack of inclusion of sentience hurt the pro-life movement if it is not necessary for a human to avoid being killed arbitrarily?
And it means that the most powerful arguments (that relate to sentience) cannot be included. No matter how much you object that this is the reason or deny it, it is obvious. So I ask this hypothetical - if the zygote was sentient, do you really think that you would omit reference to sentience in the anti-abortion argument?
Now, you're back on sentience. What the heck man? I've already answered your question, IGR. I said, "
The omission of sentience being a factor in personhood does not weaken the anti-abortion lobby because it is incoherent and unnecessary, just as the omission's of one's race being a factor in personhood didn't weaken the anti-slavery lobby." Yes, it is obvious that sentience is not included, but that isn't some kind of flaw in the pro-life movement.
And, just to ask, what powerful arguments for sentience? Keep in mind, you don't include sentience as being necessary for personhood.
You argue "right to life". But as with rightness/wrongness, that is another human construct. There is no natural consequence of an abortion, other than that the aborted does not have life byeond that point. From the perspective of nature, there is no right/wrong and no right to life.
So, from that reasoning, it follows that there is no right or wrong to murder, or rape, or anything, because because nature neither knows, nor cares. This is consistent with moral Nihilsim. But Nihilism is wrong. Also, it boils the issue down to the fact that you merely don't like the anti-abortion stance, but you cannot object to it in any objective way because it is merely your preference to be against the pro-lifers.
Ok, so you don't like abortion and I say it's wrong. In political discussions, the moral side wins, because morality is clearly a real thing and most people will choose the moral side. Nobody cares what your preference on a matter is.
Your building demolition is about sentient people with awareness and expectations and so on. The analogy is about uncertainty, but the consequences in your analogy are substantially greater than for a zygote - it has no sentience, no awareness, no expectations. So the significance of the uncertainty is greatly different in your analogy, so it is a poor analogy. Rather than "the unborn are not humans with rights", you are an advocate of anti-abortion so you have to show that "the unborn are humans with rights". You might assert this, but you have not established it. The natural/default position is that there are no rights, because rights exist in a person's brain/mind.
The whole reason for the analogy, is because if there is uncertainty on the importance of your stated requirements for personhood-- sentience, awareness, expectations -- then you should, of course, err on the side of caution. But you continue to be highly reckless with human life in your moral reasoning.
You say that rights only exist in a person's brain
So, if a person doesn't "think" they have rights, as in babies, toddlers, comatose, people under anesthesia, sleeping people, etc., then they don't? This is clearly not a consistent notion.
You state " The abortion lobby has failed to provide strong evidence that the unborn do not have a right to life". But "The anti-abortion lobby has failed to provide any evidence that the unborn do have a right to life". This is because there is no such evidence - because this "right" is a human construct. This so-called "right" is not a part of nature - unless you call human ideas/constructs part of nature, that is.
Again with the moral nihilism. This is not a plus as most people disagree with you. If human rights don’t exist, who cares about freedom, life, liberty, the imposition on mothers, or anything moral? Here are some reasons why moral nihilism is not a good choice:
"
Head start: Most realists write as if there is a presumption in favor of realism. Realist views get a head start, and the burden of proof is on the anti-realist to challenge realism. From the way they write, this is so whether the anti-realist is an error theorist, non-cognitivist, or subjectivist. David Enoch has a paper defending this way of thinking in Oxford Studies of Metaethics, Vol. 1. Related stuff can be found in his book, Taking Morality Seriously. So if you accept that, nihilism has a count against it right from the start.
Moorean fact: Here's something that we know: Killing babies just for fun is wrong. So we know any view incompatible with that claim is false. Therefore, nihilism is false. This argument won't work against subjectivists or noncognitivists, since they can accept that killing babies just for fun is wrong. This argument looks question-begging, but it is surprisingly hard to say what's wrong with it.
Bad consequences: The moral nihilist claims that there are no moral truths. The global nihilist claims that there are nonormative truths whatsoever. This means that there are no truths about practical rationality or epistemology. This last claim is unattractive, but how can you stop the slide from moral nihilism to global nihilism?
No reason to believe: This strategy consists in pointing out that the arguments for nihilism don't support it, or at least not very strongly. For example, Mackie's Ethics presents two arguments for nihilism: The argument from disagreement and the queerness argument."
So I ask this hypothetical - if nobody at all believed that there were human rights, would human rights exist? If yes, why? rgds, igr.
Yes. Because, just like logical truths, moral truths are obviously real.
Killing babies just for fun is wrong and if your axioms prevent you from seeing that self evident truth, you need to rethink your axioms.
btw, what you call "the abortion lobby" is a gross mis-representation - it is "the non-anti-abortion lobby". (if it was "the abortion lobby", it would call itself "pro-abortion" rather than "pro-choice")
A minor semantic difference. We all know what I mean. The pro-choice side dehumanizes the unborn to a point where you give mothers the choice on whether to arbitrarily end their children's life at some point after they are alive. I can be much more incisive than "the abortion lobby" if you wish. After all, what problem do you have with calling them "the abortion lobby"? Is there something wrong with that?
Oh, I forgot, you don't believe in right and wrong. What don't you
like about that, IGR?
