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> I don't think newborn babies are people either What is it, exactly, about newborn babies (for now, I'll ask about embryos later) that makes you think they ar

> I don't think newborn babies are people either What is it, exactly, about newborn babies (for now, I'll ask about embryos later) that makes you think they are "not people"? Is it something they do, or something they don't/can't do? Something else?

orwin 4y ago
Probably consciousness and sense of self? (Not GP). Or lack thereof. Full disclosure: i don't think the debate is on these grounds, i think the violinist or the seed-people are better ways to think about abortion right now (and at least until unwanted children are completely taken care of by the society and not the mother, and until a pregnancy gives you a white year/have no influence on your career prospects). But I did some research last year about consciousness in animals (i was always a functionalist, Chamets made me an illusionnist, i wanted to understand what it meant for animals and for AI). I was quite shocked to learn that a baby in his first weeks had a worse sense than any newborn mammal, and than most birds. What does that mean? For functionalists (probably GP is one), going full moral utilitarist, killing a litter (to avoid getting overwhelmed by kittens) is probably ten time worse than killing a three weeks old baby. Luckily, while i think utilitarist moral intuitions are probably the most accurate, I'm not fully utilitarist, and this kind of intuition repulse me. All of this to say that thinking logically, being pro-life to avoid 'murder' should push people to go full vegan (or eating only insects and seafood), and aborting a cat or killing a litter should be prosecuted as well.
- philsnow 4y ago
  I had to look up the violinist thing, I'll summarize: it's a thought experiment where you wake up and somebody has sewn your body up to a violinist who has a disease and who needs your blood in order to survive. Will you allow this trespass on your bodily autonomy to help the violinist live, or will you demand the doctors separate you, (most likely resulting in the death of the violinist)? The argument seems to be made in defense of allowing abortion because, ostensibly, who wouldn't want to say "get this violinist off of me" in that situation, and of course if one were raped and found out pregnant wouldn't you definitely want to be able to get that violinist out of your uterus. But, it's not the same thing at all, because if you were to separate yourself from the violinist, they would die from their disease / from not being given very extraordinary aid, but if you were to separate yourself from the fetus, it would die from not being given very ordinary means of sustenance. ... and then something about saying that tialaramex is a functionalist (? I can't say whether I agree here). I am also repulsed by any thought that some calculus would allow us to say that N kittens are "worth" M human babies (for whatever M,N). > being pro-life to avoid 'murder' should push people to go full vegan Murder is a particular word we only use when a person kills another person. We wouldn't use it for killing animals, ... or for an animal killing a hum-- wait, here: |--------------------+--------+--------| | perp | victim | result | |--------------------+--------+--------| | human | human | murder | |--------------------+--------+--------| | human | horse | kill | | lion | human | kill | | cat | bird | kill | | dog | dog | kill | | bacteria | ape | kill | |--------------------+--------+--------| | thinking rocks [0] | human | kill | |--------------------+--------+--------| [0] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Home_Soil_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Home_Soil_(episode) Killing animals for food is perfectly fine, but killing them for sport is very much not. > full vegan (or eating only insects and seafood) Because they have lower consciousness or something?
  - pw201 4y ago
    > But, it's not the same thing at all, because if you were to separate yourself from the violinist, they would die from their disease / from not being given very extraordinary aid, but if you were to separate yourself from the fetus, it would die from not being given very ordinary means of sustenance. Why does whether it's a common (pregancy) or uncommon (violinist hooked up to sleeper) occurrence alter the moral status of disconnecting the person who is reliant on their connection to another for their continued existence?
    - philsnow 4y ago
      The difference is not in how common the occurrence is but whether the aid is extraordinary or ordinary. If instead of being sewn up with a violinist, the person in the thought experiment woke up with an embryo implanted in their uterus, then separating themselves from the embryo would be removing ordinary aid and the embryo would die from being deprived of basic nutrition. This latter case is what happens in e.g. date rape, which is, I think, the whole purpose of the "violinist" thought experiment to begin with.
tialaramex 4y ago
Everything? Ultimately the "I know it when I see it" test applies. But specifically, they don't seem to be aware of themselves as distinct from everything else, which is a prerequisite.
- philsnow 4y ago
  After head trauma or a variety of other issues, some people enter a vegetative state, are deemed brain-dead by their doctors, and do not seem to be aware of themselves or anything. Are they no longer people? The machines keeping them alive are taking up resources, maybe it would be fine to disconnect them since there seems to longer by anybody home. The thing is, some of those people actually recover: https://www.macleans.ca/society/health/the-story-behind-a-vegetative-patients-shocking-recovery/ https://www.macleans.ca/society/health/the-story-behind-a-ve... . What about the mentally handicapped? How are we to assess the internal state of a non-verbal person to determine whether they are aware of anything? Making judgements about a person's quality of life and using those to justify killing them is inhumane.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    Yes, if a human is dead that's not a person. We could imagine this not being so. In fact it's a common idea in supernatural fiction, and of course it's a crucial idea in some religions - but in our universe when humans are dead they cease to be people. Is it possible to get it wrong? Sure. Over history we've got this wrong lots of times, and as you showed the most dramatic examples make news. I don't see how the fact that people are capable of error justifies a pretence that newborns are people.
    - philsnow 4y ago
      Those diagnoses aren't wrong, the patients' bodies spontaneously healed themselves. You didn't address my other cases. > I don't see how the fact that people are capable of error justifies a pretense that newborns are people. Well, you're the one proposing this radical idea that newborns aren't people (and suggesting, I believe, that it's okay to kill them because they're "not people"); you justify it. At what age or stage of development do newborns turn from not-people to people? We can't check with you on a case-by-case basis.

orwin 4y ago

Probably consciousness and sense of self? (Not GP). Or lack thereof. Full disclosure: i don't think the debate is on these grounds, i think the violinist or the seed-people are better ways to think about abortion right now (and at least until unwanted children are completely taken care of by the society and not the mother, and until a pregnancy gives you a white year/have no influence on your career prospects). But I did some research last year about consciousness in animals (i was always a functionalist, Chamets made me an illusionnist, i wanted to understand what it meant for animals and for AI). I was quite shocked to learn that a baby in his first weeks had a worse sense than any newborn mammal, and than most birds. What does that mean? For functionalists (probably GP is one), going full moral utilitarist, killing a litter (to avoid getting overwhelmed by kittens) is probably ten time worse than killing a three weeks old baby. Luckily, while i think utilitarist moral intuitions are probably the most accurate, I'm not fully utilitarist, and this kind of intuition repulse me. All of this to say that thinking logically, being pro-life to avoid 'murder' should push people to go full vegan (or eating only insects and seafood), and aborting a cat or killing a litter should be prosecuted as well.

philsnow 4y ago
I had to look up the violinist thing, I'll summarize: it's a thought experiment where you wake up and somebody has sewn your body up to a violinist who has a disease and who needs your blood in order to survive. Will you allow this trespass on your bodily autonomy to help the violinist live, or will you demand the doctors separate you, (most likely resulting in the death of the violinist)? The argument seems to be made in defense of allowing abortion because, ostensibly, who wouldn't want to say "get this violinist off of me" in that situation, and of course if one were raped and found out pregnant wouldn't you definitely want to be able to get that violinist out of your uterus. But, it's not the same thing at all, because if you were to separate yourself from the violinist, they would die from their disease / from not being given very extraordinary aid, but if you were to separate yourself from the fetus, it would die from not being given very ordinary means of sustenance. ... and then something about saying that tialaramex is a functionalist (? I can't say whether I agree here). I am also repulsed by any thought that some calculus would allow us to say that N kittens are "worth" M human babies (for whatever M,N). > being pro-life to avoid 'murder' should push people to go full vegan Murder is a particular word we only use when a person kills another person. We wouldn't use it for killing animals, ... or for an animal killing a hum-- wait, here: |--------------------+--------+--------| | perp | victim | result | |--------------------+--------+--------| | human | human | murder | |--------------------+--------+--------| | human | horse | kill | | lion | human | kill | | cat | bird | kill | | dog | dog | kill | | bacteria | ape | kill | |--------------------+--------+--------| | thinking rocks [0] | human | kill | |--------------------+--------+--------| [0] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Home_Soil_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Home_Soil_(episode) Killing animals for food is perfectly fine, but killing them for sport is very much not. > full vegan (or eating only insects and seafood) Because they have lower consciousness or something?
- pw201 4y ago
  > But, it's not the same thing at all, because if you were to separate yourself from the violinist, they would die from their disease / from not being given very extraordinary aid, but if you were to separate yourself from the fetus, it would die from not being given very ordinary means of sustenance. Why does whether it's a common (pregancy) or uncommon (violinist hooked up to sleeper) occurrence alter the moral status of disconnecting the person who is reliant on their connection to another for their continued existence?
  - philsnow 4y ago
    The difference is not in how common the occurrence is but whether the aid is extraordinary or ordinary. If instead of being sewn up with a violinist, the person in the thought experiment woke up with an embryo implanted in their uterus, then separating themselves from the embryo would be removing ordinary aid and the embryo would die from being deprived of basic nutrition. This latter case is what happens in e.g. date rape, which is, I think, the whole purpose of the "violinist" thought experiment to begin with.

tialaramex 4y ago

Everything? Ultimately the "I know it when I see it" test applies. But specifically, they don't seem to be aware of themselves as distinct from everything else, which is a prerequisite.

philsnow 4y ago
After head trauma or a variety of other issues, some people enter a vegetative state, are deemed brain-dead by their doctors, and do not seem to be aware of themselves or anything. Are they no longer people? The machines keeping them alive are taking up resources, maybe it would be fine to disconnect them since there seems to longer by anybody home. The thing is, some of those people actually recover: https://www.macleans.ca/society/health/the-story-behind-a-vegetative-patients-shocking-recovery/ https://www.macleans.ca/society/health/the-story-behind-a-ve... . What about the mentally handicapped? How are we to assess the internal state of a non-verbal person to determine whether they are aware of anything? Making judgements about a person's quality of life and using those to justify killing them is inhumane.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  Yes, if a human is dead that's not a person. We could imagine this not being so. In fact it's a common idea in supernatural fiction, and of course it's a crucial idea in some religions - but in our universe when humans are dead they cease to be people. Is it possible to get it wrong? Sure. Over history we've got this wrong lots of times, and as you showed the most dramatic examples make news. I don't see how the fact that people are capable of error justifies a pretence that newborns are people.
  - philsnow 4y ago
    Those diagnoses aren't wrong, the patients' bodies spontaneously healed themselves. You didn't address my other cases. > I don't see how the fact that people are capable of error justifies a pretense that newborns are people. Well, you're the one proposing this radical idea that newborns aren't people (and suggesting, I believe, that it's okay to kill them because they're "not people"); you justify it. At what age or stage of development do newborns turn from not-people to people? We can't check with you on a case-by-case basis.