Can human nature be applied to the unborn?

[Freddy]

Freddy:

That wasn’t included in the definition you gave. Put those goalposts back where you found them!

It in my first post to you from the Catechism 1730.

The ability to make moral choices isn’t mentioned. And rationality might allow one to make moral decisions but being able to make them isn’t itself part of the definition of rationality.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

There’s a tree in my garden. I’m going to cut it down and make a table. I won’t bother going through the multiple steps I go through (from cutting the tree down to varnishing the table). But can you pick a point when it ceases to be a large piece of wood and becomes a table?

I would think between the fashioning and the varnishing.

To be more specific, the point wherein it can stand and be adequately used as a table, is where I think most would say it is a table.

So I cut a log and it’s already a table? I don’t think so.

The point I am making is that the tree is a potential table. It contains all the neccesary material (or dna if you like) to be a table but it obviously isn’t a table when it’s still in the ground and is obviously a table when it’s standing next to my barbie with a few beers resting on it.

Exactly when the one becomes the other is a mtter of personal opinion. There isn’t an exact moment when one becomes the other. At one time it is more a tree and less than a table and then gradually becomes less of a tree and more of a table.

Do you agree?

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

Don’t know if I’ve seen the debate your talking about but I’ve watched Trent before and I think his argument basically comes to this:

Human Nature (The quality that makes someone human, our humanity or personhood) is pretty hard to define. So hard in fact that we know we are human, but separating any physical traits of a particular human from that particular person will not take away from their humanity. Go ahead and try it for yourself…here’s my example:

If I wasn’t conscious, but I was a human person in this world…would I no longer be considered a human or a person? No, there are plenty of people who unfortunately are still living, in a coma, unconscious, and yet still human. I would still be a person. So too with the unborn. They are not conscious as far as I understand but that does not make a human fetus not human, because that quality (consciousness, or lack thereof) does not in and of itself make humans who are currently living outside the womb any less human.

It tends to goes like this…the thing is, that it’s a ridiculous proposition to say that the fetus of a human (conceived by two other human sex cells) is not human in the first place. Which is usually the argument some pro-choice’s use to support their beliefs.

 

[Freddy]

It tends to goes like this…the thing is, that it’s a ridiculous proposition to say that the fetus of a human (conceived by two other human sex cells) is not human in the first place. Which is usually the argument some pro-choice’s use to support their beliefs.

Nobody argues that. The discussion is often about when personhood arises.

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

Ok well I think its pretty important considering that a zygote is human…and also a person I tend to think the terms are synonymous…so when do you think it arises?

Also what is the difference between a human and a person to you?

 

[jochoa]

Human nature outside the context of theology comes across as referring to natural human development.

Being a zygote is a natural stage of human development, therefore being a zygote is one with human nature, as being an infant is one with human nature.

 

[po18guy]

As to human status or nature, I ask two questions:

1. How do you achieve human life, other than through an embryo?
2. If unaborted, what does the embryo become?
   All abortionists and all pro-choicers were, at one stage, an embryo.
   Q: How dare they use the element of time and development to place themselves in a “superior” position when they themselves have benefited (at someone else’s hands) from birth?

This is the danger of relativism.

 

[Freddy]

Ok well I think its pretty important considering that a zygote is human…and also a person I tend to think the terms are synonymous…so when do you think it arises?

Also what is the difference between a human and a person to you?

Examine a blood sample and someone might tell you that it’s human. As opposed to simian. But if there are three objects in a spacecrafts and two of them are human, that obviously is a different meaning of the term.

The first is an adjective. The second is a noun.

The first means that what we are sampling has human dna. The second means that we have two people. Two human beings. Two persons.

 

[Vico]

Vico:

Freddy:

That wasn’t included in the definition you gave. Put those goalposts back where you found them!

It in my first post to you from the Catechism 1730.

The ability to make moral choices isn’t mentioned. And rationality might allow one to make moral decisions but being able to make them isn’t itself part of the definition of rationality.

Yeah, its there, for choosing good vs evil is ones own counsel, cleaving to God is moral good: ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."

 

[o_mlly]

So I cut a log and it’s already a table? I don’t think so.

Nor does anyone else. But the living tree is no longer a living tree but dead wood. Just as the body of a human being cut from the mother’s womb is no longer a human being but a cadaver.

Contrarily, a poster who changes his hidden persona does not change who he is, does he?

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

Ok,

So given your example:

The first is an adjective. The second is a noun.

With the first being the word (human) and the second a noun (person). Could you tell me how exactly it is possible to have something be a person without being human? To me it seems that you cannot have one without the other. For example if you were to say that sample of blood is human, but that blood is not a person, I would say sure of course but I would also say that it came FROM an individual person.

In a similar way, a human embryo must be a part of a particular person. It could not be given the trait of being human without being a person. It also could not be an individual part of either the father or the mother because it has its own genetic code. Thus the embryo is in fact a person.

 

[FaithHopeCharity]

Do you, or anyone else, have a link to the debate?

My apologies for such a late response, I haven’t checked these forums recently. As for the video, I have provided a link and Trent Horns side if the argument is about 5 minutes long and starts at 10:18 in the video.

 

[FaithHopeCharity]

Catholics believe God creates the human rational soul and infuses it into the material provided by the parents at conception which is the fertilized egg in the womb of the mother which develops into a complete human body.

Thank You for the response!
I would like to mention that during this debate, Trent Horn tries to steer away from a Catholic response. I dont blame him for this because if he did, he would get a heated response saying that Trent was imposing Catholicism on society.

From what I understand, humans were created in the image and likeness if God. But after the original sin, human nature became corrupted but not completely erased of the image of God. This entails exactly you said in that humans are given a soul from the moment of conception.

This leads me to what I mean. How do I define human nature to those who do not believe in a soul for the sake of defending the rights if the unborn?

 

[Kei]

The point I am making is that the tree is a potential table

Not of itself, but insofar as it has the potential to become a table, sure.

So I cut a log and it’s already a table? I don’t think so.

If you cut the log in a certain fashion, then it could be.

Would you deny something is a table if it is, say, circular? Or if it is a long table that is able to stand and has a flat top for all the food? I would indeed say these are different types of tables, though they are different from typical modern western tables.

Exactly when the one becomes the other is a mtter of personal opinion. There isn’t an exact moment when one becomes the other. At one time it is more a tree and less than a table and then gradually becomes less of a tree and more of a table.

Do you agree?

Not quite.

If you show me a picture, a snapshot of any part of the table-making process, I think I and others could tell you, “Nope, not quite a table yet.” “Yup, it’s a table now,” etc. At a certain point it will fit the definition of “table”, and at others it will not.

Now, when making a table, there is a point wherein you could make a table, but you could also fashion a variety of other woodworks. A tree is full of unactuated potential to be a large manner of things.

However, a child is the offspring of human parents. Human parents never give birth to horses, flies, pigs, etc, but always other humans. At what stage does the human baby have unactuated potential for being a human being? I say none. If you really think there’s a possibility of there being a point in time for this, but are unsure, then being on the safe side and abstaining from possible murder would appear to me to be the moral choice regardless.

 

[Freddy]

Ok,

So given your example:

Freddy:

The first is an adjective. The second is a noun.

With the first being the word (human) and the second a noun (person). Could you tell me how exactly it is possible to have something be a person without being human?

You can’t. Nobody has said that. If you are a person, your are obviously human. But if something is human (a blood sample for example) it is not necessarily a person.

What a woman is carrying after conception is human. Again, that’s obviously undeniable. But the question is: When is it a person? Or a human meaning a human being.

If you consider a few cells to be human, then I will agree. If you say that those few cells are a person then I will most emphatically disagree.

 

[FaithHopeCharity]

Forgot to include the link, my bad

 

[Freddy]

At what stage does the human baby have unactuated potential for being a human being? I say none.

I agree with your statement above. But my argument is not whether there is a potential to become a person. It’s the point at which it becomes a person.

 

[FaithHopeCharity]

It’s the point at which it becomes a person.
[/quote

This is exactly what I think Trent tries to figure out in the second premise of his argument. As I said, he claims that human nature is the only criteria that is unique to said persons. But again addressing the problem, how do we define human nature?

Now, I’ve looked into both theological and philisophical views on how to define human nature, but I do not see any clear cut definition sadly.

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

If you say that those few cells are a person then I will most emphatically disagree.

Ok, but I just expressed that those few cells have DNA that is different from any person on earth including the mother and father of those cells. So if the cells are human, and yet they are not OF = a direct or even separated part of any individual human, then certainly they must be a person. Since they have the quality of being human, and yet not of any particular being than itself. It must be a person.

when do you think a person receives “personhood”

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

If you say that those few cells are a person then I will most emphatically disagree.

Ok, but I just expressed that those few cells have DNA that is different from any person on earth including the mother and father of those cells. So if the cells are human, and yet they are not OF = a direct or even separated part of any individual human, then certainly they must be a person. Since they have the quality of being human, and yet not of any particular being than itself. It must be a person.

No. It simply makes it human. And a potential person.

As to when it becomes a person, there is no point at which that happens. Just like there is no point at which a child becomes an adult.