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There are only two possible ethical positions one can take as a response to this sort of proposal: 1. It is absolutely OK to deliberately create and then kill

There are only two possible ethical positions one can take as a response to this sort of proposal: 1. It is absolutely OK to deliberately create and then kill other human beings, as long as they are under a certain arbitrarily-decided age before which we mostly agree that they are not really people yet. 2. It is always wrong to deliberately kill an innocent person and the only way to avoid this with certainty is to never destroy or interfere with a developing human from the moment of conception onwards. Anything that is not (2) is some kind of hand-waving variation on (1). If you are not comfortable with taking personal responsibility for deciding when is the exact moment a person becomes a person, you may be more Catholic in your heart than you previously thought you were.

jbirer 6y ago
I take the collective stance on this, if such experiments lead to big benefits (i.e: treatment for cancer), I would be OK with lab babies.
foxyv 6y ago
My problem with this statement is that it has a few undefined variables. For example: Innocent, Person, Human, Age, Destroy, Interfere, Developing, Conception The variation in the variables above will lead to a combinatorial explosion of different ethical positions. This is why science fiction can be so prolific and interesting. For instance, what is a person? Is a cow a person? A monkey? A homo habilis? How about Neanderthals, elephants, and dolphins? What about a person who has uploaded their mind to a computer? A person who has cryogenically frozen their body? What is a person's age? Is it the time from which an egg was fertilized, implanted in a uterus, connected vasculature, or is it at birth? What is conception? When an egg is penetrated by the sperm, or only when the egg is successfully fertilized? What about a non-viable conception that doesn't divide? Ectopic pregnancies? What is a human being? Is a brain in a jar still human? How about a stem cell line? A brain dead "corpse?" At what point in our ancestry did we become "Human?" At what point are we no longer "Human?" Is a simulation of a human being atom by atom, still a human? If I simulate the growth of a baby from a fertilized embryo would it be murder to turn off the simulation right after birth? What is the difference between that simulation and reality? Are siamese twins a single person or two people? A person who has had their corpus callosum cut has two separate brains. Are they still a single person? Is it ethical to kill one siamese twin to save the other if both will die anyways? What if one siamese twin is already brain dead? Which should be saved? What is the difference between siamese twins and a pregnant woman? I find the problem with a lot of ethics is a fondness for false dichotomies. When someone offers you two alternatives you can bet there are many more.

jbirer 6y ago

I take the collective stance on this, if such experiments lead to big benefits (i.e: treatment for cancer), I would be OK with lab babies.

foxyv 6y ago

My problem with this statement is that it has a few undefined variables. For example: Innocent, Person, Human, Age, Destroy, Interfere, Developing, Conception The variation in the variables above will lead to a combinatorial explosion of different ethical positions. This is why science fiction can be so prolific and interesting. For instance, what is a person? Is a cow a person? A monkey? A homo habilis? How about Neanderthals, elephants, and dolphins? What about a person who has uploaded their mind to a computer? A person who has cryogenically frozen their body? What is a person's age? Is it the time from which an egg was fertilized, implanted in a uterus, connected vasculature, or is it at birth? What is conception? When an egg is penetrated by the sperm, or only when the egg is successfully fertilized? What about a non-viable conception that doesn't divide? Ectopic pregnancies? What is a human being? Is a brain in a jar still human? How about a stem cell line? A brain dead "corpse?" At what point in our ancestry did we become "Human?" At what point are we no longer "Human?" Is a simulation of a human being atom by atom, still a human? If I simulate the growth of a baby from a fertilized embryo would it be murder to turn off the simulation right after birth? What is the difference between that simulation and reality? Are siamese twins a single person or two people? A person who has had their corpus callosum cut has two separate brains. Are they still a single person? Is it ethical to kill one siamese twin to save the other if both will die anyways? What if one siamese twin is already brain dead? Which should be saved? What is the difference between siamese twins and a pregnant woman? I find the problem with a lot of ethics is a fondness for false dichotomies. When someone offers you two alternatives you can bet there are many more.