First of all: “the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is a beautiful poetic saying, without any validity behind it.
Your definition of the point at which a human entity becomes a human being is “at birth”. The problem is that neither sentience (conscious, self aware, feeling) nor sapience (discerning, perceptive, insightful) happens at that point. As you say, "a human in the earliest stages of life is neither." What is important to note here is that “the earliest stages of life” could mean anything, and surely means something very different for sentience than for sapience. If both are required for a human entity to be considered a human being then sapience alone would justify describing an awful lot of people a long way after birth as non-human.
This is a somewhat disturbing assertion. According to this the “more ability to sapience” one has the more one is a real human being, and presumably the more human rights one would would be able to claim. If I was able to claim greater sagacity that should mean I would have more rights than those with less. Clearly Trump supporters are deficient in the sagacity department, and they should naturally have fewer human rights than those who oppose him.
Well, you do very little more than a coma patient would while you are asleep. Even less, possibly., when under general.anaesthetic and reliant on machines for breathing or circulation.VanitasVanitatum:
How so? To quote Forrest Gump: “a person is as a person does.”
A parasite or another symbiotic entity are not considered “human” beings.
Are we going to “vote” which one is the correct version?
It is a useful approach, but that is all. And “rights” are social constructs, given or taken away at the whim of the strongest bully on the block, which would be the nation state. And for the word “democracy”, the definition is this: “We speak of democracy when two wolves and one sheep vote to decide what will be the dinner tonight”.
I prefer the Roman approach as opposed to the Greek one - the concept of “constitutional republic” as opposed to “democracy”.And that is the whole point. Just because we agree on something in principle, we are not required to act accordingly. We can and should be compassionate - because of the reciprocal altruism.
That is when the entity becomes a biologically independent being, who does not rely on exploiting the bodily resources of someone else.
The sentient portion is contingent upon the nervous system, and the sapient part is contingent upon the sufficiently developed brain. But I use the expression to designate the zygote, the blastocyst and the embryo.
What one calls “moral” is subjective. One person’s freedom fighter is the other person’s terrorist - even if they perform the same action. This is fact, unfortunately.
Being asleep is a natural part of living. Just because you act differently when asleep this temporary condition does not make any difference. On the other hand, if someone’s brain has deteriorated to the level that only the brain-stem remains (Terri Schiavo comes to mind) then the personhood disappears. Without a working frontal lobe there is no personhood.
Birth is a clear point that distinguishes between entities, but that distinction is physical, not biological. Your definition of human being has nothing to do with the nature of the embryo, but is entirely determined by its effect on the mother. You’re a long way from biology 101 at this point.
And neither sentience nor sapience is conferred at birth. Your multiple definitions of human being are contradictory. Whatever resources you can call on to defend your position, biology is not one of them.
Biological independence (birth) designates the point when the entity does not rely on the parasitic / symbiotic relationship.
They are both evolving attributes. On the other hand the act of birth is the deciding factor of biologically independent existence.
Perhaps, but it is not a point which conveys sentience or sapience, which are your requirements to be considered a person. Pretty much all that can be said of birth, biologically speaking, is that it is a precise point, which, other than conception, doesn’t otherwise exist in the life of a living entity. Apparently your new (third) definition is “not in a parasitic/symbiotic relationship”, which, again, has really nothing to do with the biological nature of the fetus. Presumably in the future there will be artificial wombs, at which point their occupants would meet your criteria for consideration as persons, even though - biologically speaking - they are indistinguishable from those still within their mother’s bodies.
What is the distinction - as far as the person is concerned - between biological dependence on the mother and physical dependence on machines? We are discussing what makes a human entity a person, and independent living doesn’t seem all that critical, biologically speaking.
Being a zygote or a blastocyst or an embryo or a fetus are all both a natural and a very temporary part of living as well. So is the dependency attached to babyhood and childhood for that matter.Cantankersaurus:
What one calls “moral” is subjective. One person’s freedom fighter is the other person’s terrorist - even if they perform the same action. This is fact, unfortunately.
Being asleep is a natural part of living. Just because you act differently when asleep this temporary condition does not make any difference. On the other hand, if someone’s brain has deteriorated to the level that only the brain-stem remains (Terri Schiavo comes to mind) then the personhood disappears. Without a working frontal lobe there is no personhood.
Let’s examine a somewhat hypothetical example. Take a fully grown, healthy human person, and start replacing its organs with equivalently working artificial prostheses. This process does not affect the personhood - as long as the brain is not affected. As soon as the frontal lobe is removed or damaged, there is no “person” left.
The embryo is also in a temporary state.
That doesn’t mean anything since they do not have sentience or sapience in that state.
Sure they do. It is just not expressed in words or acts. Going by this approach you would expect me to deny personhood for someone who does not speak for a few minutes.
Anyone who has slept would know that they aren’t aware or thinking during that time either.
Rough definition of personhood: An individual human organism with a unique and complete set of DNA that resulted from the unification of a sperm and egg.
To add to what Ender has alluded to, birth does nothing in marking biological independence. A baby outside the womb is just as dependent on others, the only difference being it doesn’t necessarily have to depend on the mother. However, if the possibility of biological independence from the mother is the deciding factor, than fetuses from 20 weeks up, when babies can and have survived outside of the womb, have personhood and must be protected.
Your brain activity is limited to the “white cells”, the subconscious.
Insufficient. Personhood requires an active frontal lobe.
That is not what biologically independent means. It is the fact that the newborn does not use the bodily resources of the mother. The necessary caring can be performed by anyone.
