What constitutes a human being?

[o_mlly]

Please tell me how we know this. I’m all ears.

All eyes would probably be more productive. Have you stood beside a coprse and noticed any significant differences?

Where do you think higher cognitive functions arise from?

Rational soul … haven’t we already been here?

That definition makes no sense whatsoever.
The Catholic Church accepts the concept of brain stem death.

Sure, the concept brain stem death is not theological. But if you imply the Catholic Church accepts brain stem death as sufficient evidence the soul has left then I’m *all eyes *for a reference to a Magisterial document on that claim.

 

[PJM]

=Doc Keele;6390347]Is the mind “spiritual”? Animals have minds too. Higher primates can communicate in sign language after all.

Animals have BRAINS, not minds which are able to rationalize, cacuclate intelligetically, know right from wrong, make rational [rather than instinctive] decisions.

 

[Doc_Keele]

For instance, I still don’t know what your goal is myself, which is precisely why I will not engage with you.

I find that quite a strange attitude from a philosophy student, but it’s your choice. Your contribution could well be very useful, but whatever:shrug:

 

[Doc_Keele]

Animals have BRAINS, not minds which are able to rationalize, cacuclate intelligetically, know right from wrong, make rational [rather than instinctive] decisions.

So humans can’t do anything of those things aren’t human beings?

 

[Doc_Keele]

All eyes would probably be more productive. Have you stood beside a coprse and noticed any significant differences?

That’s not answering the question.

Rational soul … haven’t we already been here?

What’s a rational soul? Is someone who can’t be rational soulless?

Sure, the concept brain stem death is not theological. But if you imply the Catholic Church accepts brain stem death as sufficient evidence the soul has left then I’m *all eyes *for a reference to a Magisterial document on that claim.

Well I’ve never across anything in medical ethics that suggested that the Catholic church has a problem with brain stem death. Ever. And never seen anything from the transplant body of the UK that suggests that either.

 

[Syntax]

I find that quite a strange attitude from a philosophy student, but it’s your choice. Your contribution could well be very useful, but whatever:shrug:

…goals determine the context and set the tone for every discussion.

So what’s your goal of drawing out people’s intutions?

I find it odd you cannot answer my question.

 

[Betterave]

So Betterave, if someone blew my cerebral hemispheres out with a gun, you would think it the only morally acceptable course of action to resuscitate me and keep my body alive by all measures necessary?

Of course not! Why would you suggest such a thing?

 

[Doc_Keele]

Of course not! Why would you suggest such a thing?

Just trying to find out what you believe constitutes a human being?

 

[Doc_Keele]

…goals determine the context and set the tone for every discussion.

So what’s your goal of drawing out people’s intutions?

I find it odd you cannot answer my question.

Odd all round.
Fine, you don’t want to be involved in the discussion. End of.

 

[Syntax]

Odd all round.
Fine, you don’t want to be involved in the discussion. End of.

Are you polling, pot-shotting, flaunting your ego, looking for a debate, or looking for constructive solutions?

If you can’t answer this question, you’re intentions are immediately suspect. So why would anyone want to engage with you??

It’s a simple question, Doc.

 

[Betterave]

Just trying to find out what you believe constitutes a human being?

1. Your question (“So Betterave, if someone blew my cerebral hemispheres out with a gun, you would think it the only morally acceptable course of action to resuscitate me and keep my body alive by all measures necessary?”) is posed in such a way as to imply that it follows from what I said previously that I would agree with what you suggested in your question. But how does it follow? That’s what I was trying to find out!
2. How does your first question connect to what you’re asking about now? Do you think that the question, “what constitutes a human being?” is equivalent somehow to the question, “should someone who has had most of his head shot off be kept alive, so far as possible, at all costs?”?

 

[Doc_Keele]

Are you polling, pot-shotting, looking for a debate, or looking for constructive solutions?

If you can’t answer this question, you’re intentions are immediately suspect. So why would anyone want to engage with you??

I can’t see how a philosophy student can sustain this notion that one’s “intentions” are pertinent to having a debate.

No one has to engage with me Syntax. It’s a free world, unless you live in North Korea or Iran:thumbsup:

Think what you like. I find it very nasty-minded, but there you go.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Is the mind “spiritual”? Animals have minds too.

no they dont, they are simply responding to programming whether evolutionary or environmental, anthropomorphizing an animal doesnt mean it actually has a mind. simply assuming it does because it resembles one superficially, doesnt mean it actually has a mind.

Higher primates can communicate in sign language after all.

they are trained to do so. they dont do so spontaneously apart from people teaching them. they only use their own programmed body language in their own social groups.

 

[Betterave]

I can’t see how a philosophy student can sustain this notion that one’s “intentions” are pertinent to having a debate.

Dude - what does that even mean?

 

[Doc_Keele]

1. Your question (“So Betterave, if someone blew my cerebral hemispheres out with a gun, you would think it the only morally acceptable course of action to resuscitate me and keep my body alive by all measures necessary?”) is posed in such a way as to imply that it follows from what I said previously that I would agree with what you suggested in your question. But how does it follow? That’s what I was trying to find out!
2. How does your first question connect to what you’re asking about now? Do you think that “what constitutes a human being?” is equivalent somehow to “should someone who has had most of his head shot off be kept alive, so far as possible, at all costs?”? What’s with that?

I was responding to your post with the quote from a NEJM leader, which was referring to “brain death” not brain stem death - as people with brain stem death diagnosed properly do not live for years as this leader stated about “brain death”.

The two questions are clearly related. If someone with most of their brain dysfunctional is still a human being, then we must keep that “person” alive just like any other human being.

 

[Syntax]

I can’t see how a philosophy student can sustain this notion that one’s “intentions” are pertinent to having a debate.

If you don’t understand that intentions are directly relevant to any discussion, then you don’t have the first clue about the pursuit of philosophy at all which consists of gaining wisdom and understanding. Clearly, it is a debate that you want. And this difference is precisely why I never went to Law School.

Later!

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Right - in the same way that an animal does.

an animal must choose from certain reactions, programmed by evolution, or environment. there is no reason to suspect that they are exercising free will any more so than a roomba is when it reacts to a stairway or a wall.

But the point about free will that was being made was that it distinguished a human being?

it does. we know that we are exercising free will. we dont know that animals are. we must simply assume that other human beings are based on our subjective experience.

 

[o_mlly]

That’s not answering the question.

Sure it is. I’ll bet you did not have a conversation with the cadaver. Even cavemen noted the difference.
Therefore the intellectual principle which we call the mind or the intellect has an operation “per se” apart from the body. Now only that which subsists can have an operation “per se.” For nothing can operate but what is actual: for which reason we do not say that heat imparts heat, but that what is hot gives heat. We must conclude, therefore, that the human soul, which is called the intellect or the mind, is something incorporeal and subsistent.
Summa I, 75, 2

What’s a rational soul? Is someone who can’t be rational soulless?

If by “someone” you mean some person, no.

Well I’ve never across anything in medical ethics that suggested that the Catholic church has a problem with brain stem death. Ever. And never seen anything from the transplant body of the UK that suggests that either.

Read more. Suggestion - December 1989 “Discourse to the Participants of the Working Group [on the Determination of Brain Death and Its Relationship to Human Death].”

 

[LongingForLight]

So Betterave, if someone blew my cerebral hemispheres out with a gun, you would think it the only morally acceptable course of action to resuscitate me and keep my body alive by all measures necessary?

Just to clarify, it is not Catholic theology that a human being must be kept alive by all measures necessary. Extra-ordinary measures do not have to be taken; there are definitely situations where it is appropriate to “pull the plug”. However, ordinary measures, like food and drink, cannot be morally prevented.

I don’t think there is any definite material requirement for a human being; after all, a person’s body can be completely destroyed and yet that person will still exist as a human being - not as a earthly living human being, but as a soul in Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. The requirements are, rather, to be human (to have previously been a living human with an earthly body, however brief that life), and to exist.

The term “human animal” is either a synonym for human being, or a contradiction in terms, for the definitions I can think of. It is a synonym when we are discussing a human being but drawing attention to the animal side of the human being’s nature. It is a contradiction when we are trying to refer to the nature of the being, as a human is immortal and an animal is mortal; a thing cannot be both at once. Perhaps what you are trying to ask by asking when a human is just a human animal is, “When does a human being become just a human body, with no being in it?” using terminology that Catholics would find clear and understandable.

As for the attachment of the soul and the being to the body, I don’t know that there is any official Church teaching on this. We tend to assume that death occurs and the soul seperates from the body when the free will no longer controls the body in any way, though - right? Isn’t that why brain death is considered significant - because without the brain, how can the will act upon the body? However, I don’t know that there is any evidence of this, including philosophical or theological evidence - perhaps the soul actually lingers within the body for some time, but simply with the free will unable to act upon the body.

 

[Betterave]

I was responding to your post with the quote from a NEJM leader, which was referring to “brain death” not brain stem death - as people with brain stem death diagnosed properly do not live for years as this leader stated about “brain death”.

Translation(?): It doesn’t follow, my question was poorly worded.

The two questions are clearly related. If someone with most of their brain dysfunctional is still a human being, then we must keep that “person” alive just like any other human being.

But a person with most of their brain dysfunctional **is **still a human being; and it does **not **follow that we “must” or even can “keep that ‘person’ alive just like any other human being”! Obviously! Try to use some common sense here!