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Annie
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Well, I was constructing my comment to respond to what it seems Scowler is saying.
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Annie
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I gathered that you do not accept the scientific definition of a human being, but that is a separate point.
The point I am making, however, is that in the first case, the death is intended, and in the second, the death is unintended, a side-effect.
And the reason the result in the second can be accepted is that the intention is to save a life. If the operation were performed for certain other reasons, the result, a human death, would not be justified: if a person were going through the surgery to change her sex, for example, or to keep from becoming pregnant (very unlikely, I know), then the reason for performing the operation would be insufficient to justify the death of the baby.
The point I am making, however, is that in the first case, the death is intended, and in the second, the death is unintended, a side-effect.
And the reason the result in the second can be accepted is that the intention is to save a life. If the operation were performed for certain other reasons, the result, a human death, would not be justified: if a person were going through the surgery to change her sex, for example, or to keep from becoming pregnant (very unlikely, I know), then the reason for performing the operation would be insufficient to justify the death of the baby.
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Annie
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Having a scrambled egg is not like having fried chicken because eggs sold in the US are generally unfertilized, so there is no chicken aspect to the egg at all.
So let’s move on to fertilized eggs. Sea turtles eggs are protected under law to an equal extent as sea turtles themselves. We recognize the turtle-hood of a turtle egg, but deny the humanity of an unborn child?
So let’s move on to fertilized eggs. Sea turtles eggs are protected under law to an equal extent as sea turtles themselves. We recognize the turtle-hood of a turtle egg, but deny the humanity of an unborn child?
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Scowler
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That is correct but irrelevant. If you KNOW that death will be the result, and you still perform the action, it does not matter, if you intended it or not. There is of course a HUGE difference. The first case cannot be justified, the second one can be. (Provided the fetus is considered to be a human being, which is not granted.) The whole case boils down to justification. There are innumerable cases where a “small” difference separates the justifiable actions from the unjustifiable ones.
Maybe you never had some eggs from a farm. Those eggs are usually fertilized, but no sane person would mistake them for a chicken. The difference is not just quantitative, but qualitative.
No we don’t. By the way, what the heck is “turtle-hood”? (Is that like Robin Hood?
) We protect them because they will become a turtle when they HATCH. The human zygote or fetus are potential human beings… as soon as they “hatch”… or get born. The law does not consider them human beings, they cannot inherit, for example. A born child can, a fetus - one minute before it is born - cannot. And there is a very good and rational reason for this distinction. A born child is no longer physically dependent on the mother’s bodily resources, unlike the fetus. The dependency is there, but the necessary care can be provided by anyone. Another qualitative difference.These kinds of changes in categorization are common practice. A medical student - one minute before getting a diploma - is forbidden to practice as a physician, even though her knowledge will not get “better” from receiving the paper of the diploma. A person wielding a knife, who is getting ready to stab someone is NOT killer (or murderer), he is a potential killer, and is not tried for homicide, but for attempting homicide.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
You failed to answer Annie’s point that we protect loggerhead sea turtle eggs more than we protect human fetuses. If we afforded human fetuses the same protection we give to turtle eggs, we would not allow abortion.Annie:
No we don’t. By the way, what the heck is “turtle-hood”? (Is that like Robin Hood?
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Scowler
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You cannot expect rationality from the legislature. Maybe if humans would be on the endangered species list, the laws would change.
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Annie
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Sigh, I still cannot get this forum to quote more than one word at a time 
What I am trying to say is that there is a difference between the acts which renders one immoral and the other not immoral. The “non-difference” or sameness that occurs is that in each case, an unborn child dies. Certain acts are called abortion because they have certain qualities which differentiate them from other acts, ie, abortions are committed on babies in their mothers’ wombs, and cannot be committed on babies who have been born, or are totally outside their mothers’ bodies, nor are they committed when the death of the child is due to a different sort of action altogether. We don’t even call it an abortion when someone shoots a pregnant woman in the stomach and kills the baby. Abortions consist of certain actions and intentions, and that is what makes them abortions instead of some other act.
Clearly delineating this sort of thing is not some sort of plot.
(I would like to clarify that I am speaking of the morality of the act itself, which does not necessarily apply to those involved in the committing of the act.)
Yes, as it happens, I have eaten eggs on a farm where the eggs may well have been fertilized. However, just because we cannot see something in the egg does not mean it isn’t there. Hidden in the fertilized egg, as yet too small to see, is a blastogerm. The reason that a fried egg is different from a fried chicken is that what we see is the albumin and the yolk, which are in the egg to provide nutrition for the developing chick. We cannot perceive with our senses the developing chick; however, if the egg were gathered very late from the nest, what we would have is more like fried chicken than fried eggs.
You know that thing about Schroedinger’s cat? I have never understood that. Why? Because either the cat in the box is dead or not. It is not our knowledge or pereception which make it one or the other, our opening the box simply allows us to discover an already existing fact.
In the same way, a turtle egg contains a turtle. It does not contain a cat. It does not contain an elephant. It does not even contain a bird. What is inside the egg is a turtle just as much as what has emerged from the egg 2 minutes later is a turtle. It defies common sense to say that one second before it is hatched it is not a turtle, but one second after it hatches, it is a turtle.
Human beings go through stages, with varying levels of dependence. Some humans are aged, wrinkled and bent over. They do not reeally resemble one year olds much, but even the oldest human was once a one-year-old. Each of us has been a toddler, a teen, a young adult. We got to those stages by passing through the stages of being
blastulae, zygotes, fetuses, infants, toddlers, etc.
Location, dependence, size, none of these ought to make a human less-than-human; that was a tactic used by slave-owners.
What I am trying to say is that there is a difference between the acts which renders one immoral and the other not immoral. The “non-difference” or sameness that occurs is that in each case, an unborn child dies. Certain acts are called abortion because they have certain qualities which differentiate them from other acts, ie, abortions are committed on babies in their mothers’ wombs, and cannot be committed on babies who have been born, or are totally outside their mothers’ bodies, nor are they committed when the death of the child is due to a different sort of action altogether. We don’t even call it an abortion when someone shoots a pregnant woman in the stomach and kills the baby. Abortions consist of certain actions and intentions, and that is what makes them abortions instead of some other act.
Clearly delineating this sort of thing is not some sort of plot.
(I would like to clarify that I am speaking of the morality of the act itself, which does not necessarily apply to those involved in the committing of the act.)
Yes, as it happens, I have eaten eggs on a farm where the eggs may well have been fertilized. However, just because we cannot see something in the egg does not mean it isn’t there. Hidden in the fertilized egg, as yet too small to see, is a blastogerm. The reason that a fried egg is different from a fried chicken is that what we see is the albumin and the yolk, which are in the egg to provide nutrition for the developing chick. We cannot perceive with our senses the developing chick; however, if the egg were gathered very late from the nest, what we would have is more like fried chicken than fried eggs.
You know that thing about Schroedinger’s cat? I have never understood that. Why? Because either the cat in the box is dead or not. It is not our knowledge or pereception which make it one or the other, our opening the box simply allows us to discover an already existing fact.
In the same way, a turtle egg contains a turtle. It does not contain a cat. It does not contain an elephant. It does not even contain a bird. What is inside the egg is a turtle just as much as what has emerged from the egg 2 minutes later is a turtle. It defies common sense to say that one second before it is hatched it is not a turtle, but one second after it hatches, it is a turtle.
Human beings go through stages, with varying levels of dependence. Some humans are aged, wrinkled and bent over. They do not reeally resemble one year olds much, but even the oldest human was once a one-year-old. Each of us has been a toddler, a teen, a young adult. We got to those stages by passing through the stages of being
blastulae, zygotes, fetuses, infants, toddlers, etc.
Location, dependence, size, none of these ought to make a human less-than-human; that was a tactic used by slave-owners.
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Ender
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In what way is intent of significance in your understanding of morality?
That life begins at conception is a basic embryological fact. When to assign the label of “human being” to that indisputably human entity is a political choice.
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Scowler
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It is getting late, and I am tired. So I will respond to the other parts of your post tomorrow. However, I can help you here quickly and easily. Us your mouse to highlight the text you wish to quote. Then click on the “Quote”, which pops up when you release the mouse button. That will open you edit window with the “quoted text” in it.Sigh, I still cannot get this forum to quote more than one word at a time
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Annie
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Yes we do make arbitrary classifications; however, they relate to man-made classifications, not to external reality. So the med student has to get the license because there is a man-made law prohibiting practicing medicine without a license. However, the student still has the knowledge; and likely would be called upon in the case of a dire emergency.
However, these are not external realities. At conception, new lives comes into existence: they are alive, they are individual, they are human. It is only their location which renders them inconvenient and therefore sufficiently sub-human to kill.
However, these are not external realities. At conception, new lives comes into existence: they are alive, they are individual, they are human. It is only their location which renders them inconvenient and therefore sufficiently sub-human to kill.
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Annie
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Thanks so much, Scowler. Even in the rare occasions I can get one of my devices to highlight several words, it still only quotes one!
Sleep well!
Sleep well!
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Rau
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It is probably the label “person” that better fits that qualification. It would seem awfully difficult to recognise a human being (a quite objective term I would have thought) after birth and something different just prior, or anytime after conception.
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Rau
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Odd…I find it works fine on iPhone and on windows PC.
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Annie
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Unfortunately I am using an iPad and and Android. I guess there are so many devices that it’s hard to coordinate to all of them!
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Scowler
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That is not questioned.
Now, generally I am not a fan of Aquinas, because of his weird terminology. But he has one thing right. Actuality is not the same as potentiality. The zygote is not the same as a fetus, a fetus is not the same as an infant, etc… The zygote is a potential fetus, the fetus is a potential infant, and so on. There is a very good reason for that, there are both quantitative and qualitative differences, which require a different terminology.
However, I disagree with the Aristotelian concept of “essence” or “substance” and the “accidents”. These are nonsensical terms. The egg is a potential chicken, the acorn is a potential oak tree. One kernel of wheat is insufficient to bake a bread.
I am glad you brought it up. The thought experiment is very hard to understand. But the point is simple. The usual terminology for our “macro” word is not applicable to the sub-atomic world. There is a qualitative difference between the two. In the double-split experiment “logically impossible” things happen, like one electron passing through two slits at the same time.
True. But as the example above shows it is very problematic to decide which classification is valid. By the way, in an emergency everyone may be called to help, not just the medical students. But that is really irrelevant.
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Rau
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Our offspring are that from the moment of conception. At that point we have our son or daughter. Only growth remains. What happens at birth is of legal significance, for the law arbitrarily decides when we have a person - the subjects of the law. It can choose the time point that suits the voters.
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o_mlly
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If we allow that we are uncertain as to the exact moment that a human soul animates the conceptus but we do know that moment is prior to birth then what may we morally do to in uncertainty to terminate this being? Kreeft’s argument obtains: May an uncertain hunter fire his weapon at a target that may not be a deer but a human being? No.
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Annie
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WRT your first point, the being in question has actuality from the moment of conception. He or she is an actual, not potential, human being, and all those things you mention are pretty absurd, since all they are are arbitrarily determined levels such as toddlerhood or adulthood. Children exist in and of themselves, not as potential older people.
Eggs are potential chickens, well, not the whole egg but the ova within the egg, only until they are fertilized or become unfertilizable. Once either event happens, they are no longer potential chickens.
Acorns are baby oak trees: they are just at the eariest stage of being an oak tree. The tree which grows from the seed has the same genetic make-up as the seed, and has grown from the seed in accordance with its nature.
And bread could be made from a single kernel of wheat; it’s just that it would be a very small loaf, probably made by those microscopic hands.
WRT your second point, you totally missed the point of what I was saying. If we were sub-atomic particles, there might be some relevance, but we’re not.
WRT your third point, no, it doesn’t. The classification systems you brought up were based on man-made structures such as the legal structure. However, when we classifiy rather than create classifications, we are dealing with already-existing structures.
Somwhen we classify things in science, we are considering things which exist, and then trying to sort them into categories. Scientists try not to be arbitrary but focus on things external to themselves.
In law (which relates to med students and the like), classifications are created and then entities classified according to that system.
Eggs are potential chickens, well, not the whole egg but the ova within the egg, only until they are fertilized or become unfertilizable. Once either event happens, they are no longer potential chickens.
Acorns are baby oak trees: they are just at the eariest stage of being an oak tree. The tree which grows from the seed has the same genetic make-up as the seed, and has grown from the seed in accordance with its nature.
And bread could be made from a single kernel of wheat; it’s just that it would be a very small loaf, probably made by those microscopic hands.
WRT your second point, you totally missed the point of what I was saying. If we were sub-atomic particles, there might be some relevance, but we’re not.
WRT your third point, no, it doesn’t. The classification systems you brought up were based on man-made structures such as the legal structure. However, when we classifiy rather than create classifications, we are dealing with already-existing structures.
Somwhen we classify things in science, we are considering things which exist, and then trying to sort them into categories. Scientists try not to be arbitrary but focus on things external to themselves.
In law (which relates to med students and the like), classifications are created and then entities classified according to that system.
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Annie
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OTOH, the moment of ensoulment is unnecessary. We are not to kill human beings, irrespective of their having a soul, because they are human beings.
WRT arguments attempting to defend abortion on the basis of Aquinas’s medieval understanding of embryology, why do these debaters accept what Aquinas says about ensoulment but not what he says about abortion and abc? Hmmmmmm…
WRT arguments attempting to defend abortion on the basis of Aquinas’s medieval understanding of embryology, why do these debaters accept what Aquinas says about ensoulment but not what he says about abortion and abc? Hmmmmmm…
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o_mlly
Guest
The soul is the sine qua non of humanness.
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