Originally posted by huntingbearIs a man with no arms not a person in the same way as a two-armed human is a person? Who's to say that personhood requires self-awareness any more (or less) than it requires arms?
Originally posted by bbarr
[b]First, there is no reason to think that in all cases of abortion there is a chance that a person is killed. A zygote, for instance, has no properties in virtue of which it makes sense to say that it is a person. It neither has the capacity to suffer nor the capacity for self-awareness.
I still don't know w ...[text shortened]... lk about word games. When we succeed in defining 'person,' will we have accomplished anything?[/b]
Obviously there is a difference between not having an arm and not being self-aware. My contention is that along with self-awareness there arises different obligations owed to a creature. Self-awareness is important because a creature who has it can be subjected to types of suffering to which creatures with no self-awareness are impervious. The same goes for creatures who are rational. They can wronged in ways creatures without rationality cannot. So, my contention is that in virtue of the presence of these different properties, our obligations toward a creature changes. The term 'person', and the distinction between a 'moral patient' and a 'moral agent' serve to mark these distinctions. When you run everything together you lose track of the qualities that are morally important.
Originally posted by bbarrWhat do you mean with suffering? The way you describe it, it sounds like an attribute of self-awareness.
[b]I still don't know why those are necessary conditions of personhood.
The capacity to suffer is a necessary condition for personhood because it is a necessary confition for having interests. [/b]
Fjord
Originally posted by bbarrWe have GOD-given gifts.We have faith we have hope and we have charity.We do not need anytning more.
[b]Is a man with no arms not a person in the same way as a two-armed human is a person? Who's to say that personhood requires self-awareness any more (or less) than it requires arms?
Obviously there is a difference between not having an arm and not being self-aware. My contention is that along with self-awareness there arises different obligations owe ...[text shortened]... s. When you run everything together you lose track of the qualities that are morally important.[/b]
Originally posted by bbarr
The capacity to suffer is a necessary condition for personhood because it is a necessary confition for having interests. A creature without interests cannot be wronged. Hence, it makes no sense of saying of such a creature that there are obligations owed to it. Our obligations towards a creature begin with its capacity to suffer. It is absurd to say of some creature who can neither think nor suffer, who is not sentient and lacks the capacity for sentience, that it has interests. At most, a zygote has the potential to develop sentience and the potential to develop the capacity to suffer, and this is why abortions become morally troubling later in the pregnancy. In the early stages of pregnancy there are no such capacities, hence no interests that need to be taken into consideration other than those of the parents. The moral status of early abortion can be easily simmed up: No harm, no foul.
Can we be sure that a being without interests is a being without value?
On the other hand, why should I care about another's suffering? Why call 'foul' when an abortion causes 'harm'? You say 'Our obligations towards a creature begin with its capacity to suffer,' but I don't know why. Why should I not simply look out for #1 and consider the sufferings of others, even sufferings which result from my actions, their problems?
Originally posted by fjordThe capacity to suffer isn't an attribute of self-awareness, as a creature can have the former but not the latter. The capacity to suffer, however, does presuppose sentience. The capacity to suffer involves being able to experience an adverse psychological state. Self-awareness involves a creature being able to represent it's own psychological states to itself. When something is self-aware, it can think about itself; its psychological states can be objects of it's knowledge. I think that a creature who is self-aware can be wronged in more types of ways than a creature who merely has the capacity to suffer, for the former can experience different types of suffering. For intance, it is only a creature who is self-aware who could fear death, because it is only a creature with the sort of representational complexity necessary for self-awareness that can conceive of the 'I' ceasing to be.
What do you mean with suffering? The way you describe it, it sounds like an attribute of self-awareness.
Fjord
Can we be sure that a being without interests is a being without value?
A creature without interests may be instrumentally valuable, if it is valued by another. A zygote may be instrumentally valuable to mother who wants a child, which is why miscarriages are so often tragic. But I suspect what you are really asking is whether a creature without interests may be intrinsically valuable, that is, valuable in and of itself. If you believe that creatures are intrinsically valuable, then you are committed to the view that something may be valuable completely independent of whether people in fact value that thing. On this view, value is out there in the world independent of anything anybody believes or desires. On this view, value is something like a brute fact of the world; it inheres in certain objects alongside their other, less mysterious properties like their shape or mass. I must admit to finding this very mysterious, as I think that value arises in the world from the act of valuing. That is, I don't think the fact that things are valuable is just a brute fact of the world, like a physical law, but rather that things are valuable because we are creatures structured in a manner such that we place value upon things. Ultimately, I think it is in virtue of our being rational creatures that value exists in the world. That is, I am an intersubjectivist about value, whereas the view I'm interpreting you as offering is an objectivist view about value.
On the other hand, why should I care about another's suffering? Why call 'foul' when an abortion causes 'harm'? You say 'Our obligations towards a creature begin with its capacity to suffer,' but I don't know why. Why should I not simply look out for #1 and consider the sufferings of others, even sufferings which result from my actions, their problems?
This would be irrational. You would be failing to see that the properties you have in virtue of which you value yourself also exist in others. As a reflective creature you are committed by your very nature to valuing the autonomy of others and respecting their capacity to set their own ends. It is a categorical imperative.
Originally posted by bbarrI agree with the result of this, but your explanation is in error. I acknowledge moral properties of myself. Why is it irrational to acknowledge these properties in others but ignore them? There is no error in reasoning to say ''Although I do not like to be flayed alive, and I agree that Floyd also would prefer not to be flayed, I will gain [something] to satisfy my own interests by flaying Floyd,'' because there is no basis for reasoning unless you accept some premise (your 'categorical imperative' is an example) beforehand. In the example, I do not ''fail to see that the properties you have in virtue of which you value yourself also exist in others''. Instead, I readily acknowledge them, but I use some other desire of mine to justify ignoring them, accepting that Floyd may have me flayed if he sees fit.
[b]On the other hand, why should I care about another's suffering? Why call 'foul' when an abortion causes 'harm'? You say 'Our obligations towards a creature begin with its capacity to suffer,' but I don't know why. Why should I not simply look out for #1 and consider the sufferings of others, even sufferings which result from my actions, their proble ...[text shortened]... of others and respecting their capacity to set their own ends. It is a categorical imperative.
Also, why does my status as a reflective creature make your penultimate sentence necessarily true? Rationality and consistent behavior are two very different things.
Originally posted by royalchickenYour mistake is to think that rationality consists merely in effectively satisfying your desires. You are, in effect, advocating Hume's view that reason is the slave of the passions, and that rationality involves merely reasoning in a way that doesn't undermine your own self-interest. On the view you've presented, rationality is essentially a matter of abiding by hypothetical imperatives (imperatives of the form 'If X is an end of yours, and you have reason to think that Y will further that end, then you ought to Y'😉. My claim is that some imperatives are categorical (imperatives of the form 'regardless of your desires, you ought to Y'😉. Notice that the position you advocate actually implies the existence of at least one categorical imperative, the imperative 'you ought to act so as to pursue your ends'. Practical rationality cannot be merely instrumental, it cannot consist of merely hypothetical imperatives, for hypothetical imperatives are only imperatives if they derives their force from the categorical imperative 'you ought to act so as to pursue your ends'. As an example, suppose you have a desire for Floyd's flaying, and I ask why this gives you a reason to flay Floyd. Presumably, your response would be that flaying Floyd would satisfy your desire. So, I then ask what reason you have for satisfying your desire to flay Floyd. Would you respond that you have a higher order desire to satisfy your first order desire to flay Floyd? You see that at this point a regress threatens. You'll never actually derive a reason to act if all reasons are based upon desires. So to stop the regress you'd have to accept the basic principle (the principle of practical rationality) that one ought to pursue one's ends, or that one ought to act so as to satisfy one's desires. But this principle is categorical in nature, so the position you advocate implies that not all imperatives can be hypothetical, there must be at least one categorical imperative. So the conception of rationality at play in the position you're advancing actually entails its own falsehood.
I agree with the result of this, but your explanation is in error. I acknowledge moral properties of myself. Why is it irrational to acknowledge these properties in others but ignore them? There is no error in reasoning to sa ...[text shortened]... lity and consistent behavior are two very different things.
Originally posted by bbarrI was not advocating ANY imperative though, instead I was just giving an example of another possible one, which was according to your post not a good example. However, is there any reason why the principle expressed in your previous post is any more correct than some hypothetical other moral principle?
Your mistake is to think that rationality consists merely in effectively satisfying your desires. You are, in effect, advocating Hume's view that reason is the slave of the passions, and that rationality involves merely reasoning in a way that doesn't undermine your own self-interest. On the view you've presented, rationality is essentially a matter of ab ...[text shortened]... ion of rationality at play in the position you're advancing actually entails its own falsehood.
You stated a moral claim, which you called a CI. You then claimed that to act in a way that contradicts your CI is irrational. However, to justify this claim you must show that any other moral rule which could give rise to actions violating the CI contains logical problems. You did that for the one particular example I brought up, but as yet you've shown nothing more than my incompetence in making examples. You still haven't satisfied the requirements of showing your CI to be the only rational moral rule.
Originally posted by Redmikeyes it is. that someone is living, granted its living insides of the mother but it still is living.
No, its not a 'someone', that's the point.
and about birth defects od meltal illness, just because a baby has those does that give us the right to kill it just because its not perfect? get a clue nobody is prefect.
and unwanted babys, if they didnt want the baby then why did they scr*w? and from rape its understandble that they dont want the baby, but rather than killing off what could have been a person who would have a had a great life, why not put the baby up for adobtion? that way someone who wants a baby can have it.
Originally posted by UncleAdamJust because its living doesn't make it a 'someone', as already discussed in this thread.
yes it is. that someone is living, granted its living insides of the mother but it still is [b]living.
and about birth defects od meltal illness, just because a baby has those does that give us the right to kill it just because its not perfect? get a clue nobody is prefect.
and unwanted babys, if they didnt want the baby then why did they scr*w? ...[text shortened]... great life, why not put the baby up for adobtion? that way someone who wants a baby can have it.[/b]