So what is the difference between a potential and an actual human being?

[Rau]

There’s not much further either of us can go from that point. I’ve repeated myself endlessly.

It’s that what you say omits “substance”. Saying “I disagree”, and not much more. That would be fine were I asserting “Blue is the most attractive colour“ or some such matter which actually is pure personal opinion.

 

[Hume]

It’s that what you say omits “substance”. Saying “I disagree”, and not much more. That would be fine were I asserting “Blue is the most attractive colour“ or some such matter which actually is pure personal opinion.

It’s a philosophical question. Biology doesn’t answer when a fetus becomes endowed with certain rights any more than it answers when we should be able to vote or get a driver’s license.

It’s with reason that we discover that we can’t know for sure, so we should default to choice. Individual liberty.

 

[Rau]

It’s with reason that we discover that we can’t know for sure, so we should default to choice. Individual liberty.

Is that akin to the right of the hunter to shoot at the moving bush ? His choice is pre-eminent?

 

[Hume]

Is that akin to the right of the hunter to shoot at the moving bush ? His choice is pre-eminent?

If the bush required bodily sacrifice, they can choose as they please.

 

[Freddy]

Hume:

It’s with reason that we discover that we can’t know for sure, so we should default to choice. Individual liberty.

Is that akin to the right of the hunter to shoot at the moving bush ?

If he shoots someone then it was obvious he was wrong. How do I prove you wrong or vica versa when you say a few cells is a person. I can say that my definition of a person doesn’t apply to a few cells and you say that yours does.

That’s the end of the discussion right there.

 

[Rau]

If he shoots someone then it was obvious he was wrong.

If he shots someone, we realize actions absent knowing the facts (which is one of your admitted positions) can be reckless. I’d suggest the discussion concludes right there!

 

[Hume]

If he shots someone, we realize actions absent knowing the facts (which is one of your admitted positions) can be reckless. I’d suggest the discussion concludes right there!

In the conflict between the fetus’s supposed right to live and a woman’s right of control over her body, there are no facts, there are only philosophical principles.

As a secular, post-enlightenment state, the principles support one option - choice.

 

[Rau]

When you say “there are no facts” you should add “that Hume is not free to deny”.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

If he shoots someone then it was obvious he was wrong.

If he shots someone, we realize actions absent knowing the facts (which is one of your admitted positions) can be reckless. I’d suggest the discussion concludes right there!

We can agree that a person in the woods is…a person. We cannot agree that a group of cells is a person. We can each argue our position, and obviously we have thought about it and are individually convinced that we are each correct, and we can offer arguments for why we think we are correct, but we’re not going to change our minds.

How about we try this. Here’s your point of view:

As soon as a woman becomes pregnant, that which she carries is human life. It is separate biologically from the father and mother. It is ensouled at the moment of creation. Every life is sacred and human life is created at conception so however you describe what the woman is carrying at different stages of her pregnancy, it is sacred and is to be considered a human being with all the rights that we associate with that. Having an abortion is as morally wrong as killing a child.

Now what’s mine?

 

[Rau]

Now what’s mine?

“I’m not sure when my offspring becomes a human being, but I know I don’t have much empathy or feeling in the early stages, but I concede I do quite a bit later and at some point, I probably have to concede there is a human being so according to how I feel about the offspring it could be ok to abort (or not).“

Btw, I’ve got no idea about ensouling - it’s not something I mentioned.

 

[Gorgias]

Now what’s mine?

A life becomes ‘human’ only once I can emote with it?

(OK… to be fair, it seems it’s more like this: “once I believe that the living organism has ‘feelings’, and I can relate to my impression that it has feelings (i.e., I can ‘empathize’ with it), then it has become a ‘human being’, but not before that point.”)

Something just dawned on me, BTW: the Catholic definition is objective, scientific, and measurable. Your approach is subjective, emotional, and unable to be measured. That realization just took me by surprise – I totally didn’t expect that this would be the dynamic!

 

[o_mlly]

Well, Oxford gives;
“The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.”
“A particular system of faith and worship.”

In recorded history, Hinduism is easily and incontestably the oldest religion.
The oldest known burials (evidence for religious views) are 100,000 years old. Our species is roughly 300,000 years old, for comparison. The oldest anthropomorphized figurines are just under 40,000 years old.

“Sex for fun” predates religion by at least 200,000 years in homosapiens. In other species, maybe as much as 20 million years (the rise of apes). Maybe more.

Nope. Your speculations and illogical conclusions offered as if they were facts just does not fly. Only the human being experiences the existential dilemma. The bones cannot tell the story. Start a new thread to continue.

You share 98.8% of your genes with chimps and bonobos. With other members of our species you share 99.9%.

So pretty similar.

If the important difference was material then you might have a point. It’s not. New thread if you wish to continue.

It’s a very widely shared rebuke of the notion that my bedroom activities are subject to your personal beliefs.

There was no guard posted at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden. Nor should there be in your bedroom. You are free to sin. New thread needed to continue.

No woman has ever aborted a child. Only fetuses can be aborted, unlike children.

Ah, at last. A comment that is on topic. What evidence that the aborted being is not a human being?

 

[Hume]

Nope. Your speculations and illogical conclusions offered as if they were facts just does not fly. Only the human being experiences the existential dilemma. The bones cannot tell the story. Start a new thread to continue.

Just blind denial here…

The starting point isn’t “you’re right” or “I’m right”. The starting point is uncertainty. We then look for evidence to discover the underlying truth.

We have evidence our species is 300,000 years old. We have zero evidence for anything that could be categorized as religious practice that dates earlier than 100,000 years ago.

Our primate cousins have sex for reasons other than procreation. We diverged about 6 or 7 million years ago.

None of it is set in stone, but it appears that intelligent primates (like us) have likely had sex for pleasure waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before religion existed.

If the important difference was material then you might have a point. It’s not. New thread if you wish to continue.

I think it’s related, so I’m going to post. If you don’t like it, create a new thread yourself or leave. You’re the master of your fate, not mine.

There was no guard posted at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden. Nor should there be in your bedroom. You are free to sin. New thread needed to continue.

Excellent. Then you support choice as a rational option.

Ah, at last. A comment that is on topic. What evidence that the aborted being is not a human being?

Who said it wasn’t?

It’s just not a child. It’s a fetus.

Fetuses aren’t children, children aren’t adults. As we progress into these stages, we obtain more rights than we had before.

There’s no good argument for why a fetus should silently have mastery over an adult, thus the only ethical solution in the conflict between a fetus’s supposed right to gestate and the known right of self determination is “choice”.

 

[o_mlly]

Just blind denial here…

Blind assertions, you mean. What is gratuitously offered may just as easily be gratuitously dismissed.

The oldest observed and accurately dated artifact only demonstrates the age of that artifact. Any claims beyond that are speculative. More importantly, evidence of rationality will not be found in the bones. Evidence of the effects of rationality, say like the ritualistic burying of the dead, does. This topic recurs on this forum every so often. Check the archives.

Excellent. Then you support choice as a rational option.

Excellent. Then you support that we have free will. Check the archives for this frequent topic as well.

o_mlly:

Ah, at last. A comment that is on topic. What evidence that the aborted being is not a human being?

Who said it wasn’t?

It’s just not a child. It’s a fetus.

Fetuses aren’t children, children aren’t adults. As we progress into these stages, we obtain more rights than we had before.

There’s no good argument for why a fetus should silently have mastery over an adult, thus the only ethical solution in the conflict between a fetus’s supposed right to gestate and the known right of self determination is “choice”.

Then you agree the fetus is a human being.

So your argument is “might makes right”. If one human being can exercise “mastery” over another innocent human being then the stronger may murder the innocent one. Create and kill.

Being thrown into the world without their consent, humans have to transcend their nature by destroying or creating people or things. Humans can destroy through malignant aggression, or killing for reasons other than survival, but they can also create and care about their creations. (An intelligent atheist.)

 

[Hume]

So your argument is “might makes right”. If one human being can exercise “mastery” over another innocent human being then the stronger may murder the innocent one. Create and kill.

I argue that the mother has mastery over the fetus, yes.

Your need to shift the goal-posts in order to make my assertion sound unreasonable is more evidence of its soundness.

 

[o_mlly]

I argue that the mother has mastery over the fetus, yes.

Well, refreshingly direct. When does the human being as a fetus obtain the right to its life?

Your need to shift the goal-posts in order to make my assertion sound unreasonable is more evidence of its soundness.

Wanna run that logic past me again? Your position is an assertion. And, yes it sounds unreasonable, well, because it is. The goal posts haven’t moved at all. You’d like to the right to kick the baby through the uprights and score a more convenient life for mummy.

 

[Rau]

I argue that the mother has mastery over the fetus, yes.

“Might is right” does sound apt. The elderly and infirmed who become a burden on others have something to fear from that.

 

[Gorgias]

Our primate cousins have sex for reasons other than procreation. We diverged about 6 or 7 million years ago.

None of it is set in stone, but it appears that intelligent primates (like us) have likely had sex for pleasure waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before religion existed.

Well, to be fair, they throw poo at each other, too. So, if you want to point to their behavior as some sort of guide for rational and/or moral actions, be my guest. If I see you picking up poo, though, I’m outta here…

 

[Hume]

Well, refreshingly direct. When does the human being as a fetus obtain the right to its life?

It may very well have it it at conception.

But it’s overshadowed by the right of self-determination by the mother. The conflict ends at birth.

Wanna run that logic past me again?

Sure. I identify an aspect of the relationship between mother and fetus. You then generalize to “innocent human being” in a language change that shifts the goalposts.

Easy.

 

[Hume]

Hume:

Our primate cousins have sex for reasons other than procreation. We diverged about 6 or 7 million years ago.

None of it is set in stone, but it appears that intelligent primates (like us) have likely had sex for pleasure waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before religion existed.

Well, to be fair, they throw poo at each other, too. So, if you want to point to their behavior as some sort of guide for rational and/or moral actions, be my guest. If I see you picking up poo, though, I’m outta here…

I wouldn’t blame you one bit.