Abortion, individual rights, and the future

Another set of questions, assuming free will does not exist.

Are minds still distinct from the mindless actions taking place around them? Are minds and the mindless processes of embryos no different?

Without free will there is no responsibility, without responsibility is there no intention? If intent remains intact, then as I asked earlier, do the intentions of those entities that qualify as people supercede the possible intentions of lower life forms? The answer to this particular question would be the same if intent exists, irrespective of free will. Some of you have already provided an answer.

---

Laz:

I do not think Dennett would grant intent to a blastocyst but there is obviously a line crossed somewhere during a pregnancy. I do not think the potential[emphasis mine] for a *will* constitutes intent.

Then according to you, some life has no will or intent.

Do you also believe Dennett would argue that some of the least complex life forms have no free will or intent, and that both arise in more complex life forms and continue to develop in the direction of greater complexity?

Lazarus

By giving mom a swift kick in the side when unhappy with her choice of food for example or when hungry.  Actually a fetus in the eight month can distinguish between mom's voice and that of others according to some studies and is soothed by tranquil music.. We do not want to go down this road.  [wis]

You are correct to suggest that I am intentionally shifting the playing field.  That is because I see the difference between a winning *high-ground* and a killing field.  It isn't the fact that you and I share a very similar meaning for person that is important Don, it is that Clifford and many others do not.

If we fight that fight as I demonstrated from the definitions the argument can be at best a draw.

Intent however is an act of *will* that demonstrates the presence not the mere potential of a person (self/mind).

All right Laz you have swayed me on this one. I will bite. This does not mean that I think that a respectable ethic can not be founded on consequencialism, but for this particular issue intent may be a profitable avenue to explore. Still though, an objective standard for *will* must be established and I have a hunch that this may be just as difficult as defining personhood.

Clearly however, *will* is not present at the 14 day marker when the primative streak is beginning to form. Thus, by establishing what definitely DOES NOT have Will, SCNT can be defended from this position with less vigorous standards than may eventually prove necessary.

Do you also believe Dennett would argue that some of the least complex life forms have no free will or intent, and that both arise in more complex life forms and continue to develop in the direction of greater complexity?

Cosmos while I think our definition of *life* is still elusive in this respect I think I would argue (I don't know but I suspect Dennett too) that lower order life forms do not possess a sense of self and it is a result of complexity.

Do bacteria distinguish the mother from the daughter clone?

Can our skin cells or muscle tissues *know* each is alive by itself and not as a part of the whole?

However if they all perceived themselves a part of the whole self then why wouldn't all tissues in the body die simultaneously?

By the same token why allow for apoptosis in support the whole self?

Speaking of which, there are times when Kass's arguments against longevity remind me of a sort of defense of Social Apoptosis and in this respect he actually is paralleling Don's Hobbsean position.

A more damaging aspect of my argument, which Lazarus alluded to, but did not really follow through with conclusively is the issue of "potentiality" which manages to almost imperceptably creep in at the end of my logic.  You see, my argument for protection of the new born is based on --A-- its exclusivity from its mother (ie, a separation of rights and interests) --B-- society's interests in preserving the new born because of its value to society.

What I should have added was "its potential value to society".  My argument assumes the future productive potential of an infant becoming a contributing member of society (a person  )

It really is difficult in arguments like these to make an air tight case because "potentiality" has a funny way of always sneaking in.  So I can understand Lazarus' desire to alter the field of play and try to for "intentionality", however I am still not sure that this can be made to work, though I will have to think about this more carefully now.

In fact Don, I disagreed with you on this point earlier, but for pragmatic reasons supported an infant's right to life because of the dangers of infanticide against the will of one or both parents. Additionally modern human societies would not accept government sanctioned infanticide, and science and technology haven't progressed to where they can more precisely assess the personhood of infants and toddlers. So for now, I'd limit these procedures to abortion while still managing to reject the potentiality argument. I will admit this is ethically uneasy territory though.

If future methods used for the determination of personhood remain fraught with uncertainty as they are today, it would seem prudent to fall on the side of life over maximum choice. Exercising one's will to kill an entity at the fringe of qualifying for personhood, when the identification of personhood is not nearly accurate enough, seems reckless. Where sufficient uncertainty exists, the life of the child could be favoured over the will of the parents.

Then according to you, some life has no will or intent.

Do you also believe Dennett would argue that some of the least complex life forms have no free will or intent, and that both arise in more complex life forms and continue to develop in the direction of greater complexity?

Ugghh, I already find myself dissatisfied with this line of reasoning. According to the criteria you presented in your last post Lazarus, what separates the will of a fetus from that of say, a beaver or most other mammals?

Yes, other higher level mammals may not have true choice in that they can not presumably defy their instincts, but the question is why?

I wish to once again refer to my Dawkins quote from the end of The Selfish Gene. "We alone have the power to rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators."

But how? Well, I will certainly not get into the issue of meta-systems and the potential for memes to over ride themselves, but I do believe that you are tacitly approving the notion that the source of *will* is a product of the memetic paradigm. Or rather, that the memetic paradigm can and does over rule the genetic paradigm.

Fair enough, but while a fetus has the innate potential for language acquisition, it has not yet commence with the process. As with the concept of personhood, I do not believe that the *will* is present until well after birth.

And Dennett agrees with me...now where is that link....

I am still thinking that my perspective is correct (yes, my position is shifting by the minute -- with this thread's dialog more closely resembling that of a chat room [lol] )

Indeed, I do wind up lending some credence to the concept of "potentiality", but I still do not grant it the advanced status of a "primary value". In my previous argument potentiality is just a consideration. Potential "life" or "persons" do have value, just not as much value as *actual* persons. I think my argument is still sound.

Ahh, how satisfying to actually find this link after so much hard work. [thumb]

Here's the general link: Edge The world question center

And here's the direct link to Dennet: Dennett's Take on Agency

(And the text, just to preserve it for all times.  )

I believe, but cannot yet prove, that acquiring a human language (an oral or sign language) is a necessary precondition for consciousness–in the strong sense of there being a subject, an I, a 'something it is like something to be.' It would follow that non-human animals and pre-linguistic children, although they can be sensitive, alert, responsive to pain and suffering, and cognitively competent in many remarkable ways–including ways that exceed normal adult human competence–are not really conscious (in this strong sense): there is no organized subject (yet) to be the enjoyer or sufferer, no owner of the experiences as contrasted with a mere cerebral locus of effects.

This assertion is shocking to many people, who fear that it would demote animals and pre-linguistic children from moral protection, but this would not follow. Whose pain is the pain occurring in the newborn infant? There is not yet anybody whose pain it is, but that fact would not license us to inflict painful stimuli on babies or animals any more than we are licensed to abuse the living bodies of people in comas who are definitely not conscious. If selfhood develops gradually, then certain types of events only gradually become experiences, and there will be no sharp line between unconscious pains (if we may call them that) and conscious pains, and both will merit moral attention. (And, of course, the truth of the empirical hypothesis is in any case strictly independent of its ethical implications, whatever they are. Those who shun the hypothesis on purely moral grounds are letting wishful thinking overrule a properly inquisitive scientific attitude. I am happy to give animals and small children "the benefit of the doubt" for moral purposes, but not for scientific purposes. Those who are shocked by my hypothesis should pause, if they can bear it, to notice that it is as just as difficult to prove its denial as its assertion. But it can, I think, be proven eventually. Here's what it will take, one way or the other:

(1) a well-confirmed model of the functional architecture of adult human consciousness, showing how long-distance pathways of re-entrant or reverberant interactions have to be laid down and sustained by the sorts of self-stimulation cascades that entrain language use;

(2) an interpretation of the dynamics of the model that explains why, absent these well-traveled pathways of neural micro habit, there is no functional unity to the nervous system–no unity to distinguish an I from a we (or a multitude) as the candidate subject(s) subserved by that nervous system;

(3) a host of further experimental work demonstrating the importance of what Thomas Metzinger calls the phenomenal model of the intentionality relation (PMIR) in enabling the sorts of experiences we consider central to our own adult consciousness. This work will demonstrate that animal cleverness never requires the abilities thus identified in humans, and that animals are in fact incapable of appreciating many things we normally take for granted as aspects of our conscious experience.

This is an empirical hypothesis, and it could just as well be proven false. It could be proven false by showing that in fact the necessary pathways functionally uniting the relevant brain systems (in the ways I claim are required for consciousness) are already provided in normal infant or fetal development, and are in fact present in, say, all mammalian nervous systems of a certain maturity. I doubt that this is true because it seems clear to me that evolution has already demonstrated that remarkable varieties of adaptive coordination can be accomplished without such hyper-unifying meta-systems, by colonies of social insects, for instance. What is it like to be an ant colony? Nothing, I submit, and I think most would agree intuitively. What is it like to be a brace of oxen? Nothing (even if it is like something to be a single ox). But then we have to take seriously the extent to which animals–not just insect colonies and reptiles, but rabbits, whales, and, yes, bats and chimpanzees–can get by with somewhat disunified brains.

Evolution will not have provided for the further abilities where they were not necessary for members of these species to accomplish the tasks their lives actually pose them. If animals were like the imaginary creatures in the fictions of Beatrix Potter or Walt Disney, they would have to be conscious pretty much the way we are. But animals are more different from us than we usually imagine, enticed as we are by these charming anthropomorphic fictions. We need these abilities to become persons, communicating individuals capable of asking and answering, requesting and forbidding and promising (and lying). But we don't need to be born with these abilities, since normal rearing will entrain the requisite neural dispositions. Human subjectivity, I am proposing, is thus a remarkable byproduct of human language, and no version of it should be extrapolated to any other species by default, any more than we should assume that the rudimentary communication systems of other species have verbs and nouns, prepositions and tenses.

Finally, since there is often misunderstanding on this score, I am not saying that all human consciousness consists in talking to oneself silently, although a great deal of it does. I am saying that the ability to talk to yourself silently, as it develops, also brings along with it the abilities to review, to muse, to rehearse, recollect, and in general engage the contents of events in one's nervous system that would otherwise have their effects in a purely "ballistic" fashion, leaving no memories in their wake, and hence contributing to one's guidance in ways that are well described as unconscious. If a nervous system can come to sustain all these abilities without having language then I am wrong.

Thomas Metzinger's phenomenal model of the intentionality relation (PMIR)

Very interesting.

Lazarus

By giving mom a swift kick in the side when unhappy with her choice of food for example or when hungry.  Actually a fetus in the eight month can distinguish between mom's voice and that of others according to some studies and is soothed by tranquil music.. We do not want to go down this road.  [wis]

Actually I do want to go down this road. I have had this topic on my mind for the entire day (thank you, all participants for this spark. ) and I believe that my thoughts on this issue have begun to solidfy.

No offense Lazarus, but you have failed to define your terms. Your argument from intentionality may not be hampered by the same memetic baggage as the concept of personhood, but it is still just as ambigious.

I am attempting to center my position on language acquisition and the memetic paradigm. Indeed, as Dennett makes clear, this position is by no means a certainty at this point. However, are you seriously going to try defending your position of intent on Mozart for babies? If so, is it any less speculative than my position?

I do not condone infanticide and like you I believe that late pregancy abortions are usually a sign of utter immaturity and recklessness. Yet, at the same time I am not one to submit to *taboo*. A new born does not meet my standards for what it takes to be considered a "person" -- not by a long shot.

Funny that you wrote this here because I was addressing some of it the same time there .

I will try to get back later but I promise to return to this point tomorrow if I don't make it back from putting my children to sleep.

BTW, Don there is a secondary and important carry over to this discussion that is directly derivative of the Evolutionary Psychology of offspring that has created some of its own memetic baggage.

BTW did you see the other principle besides PMIR?

The first is the phenomenal self-model (PSM), which incorporates "the content of the conscious self: your current bodily sensations, your present emotional situation, plus all the contents of your phenomenally experienced cognitive processing" (299).  According to Metzinger, a PSM comprises a number of computational processes that make system-related information (e.g., information obtained from the sense organs) available in an integrated form.  The PSM is a self-model in that its operations simulate and emulate abstract properties and states of its own internal information processing.  It is a self-model in the sense that it performs these functional operations for itself and represents their outputs to itself.  Otherwise put, the subject and object of the PSM are the same -- which gives theoretical expression to the important idea that human selves are embodied.

I am going to go get kicked by my adolescent infant now for a PSM. )

this topic tends to fall directly under the topic of what defines a person.

or even more generally, when is ok to remove an existing process.

well the types of processes we are primarily concerned about are processes who'se basis is intelligence.

thus.. new problem, what constitutes an intelligence?

humans are intelligent, we know that. we aren't really sure if animals are going to fit into our category of a process who'se basis is intelligence or not, but we've been killing them for a long time.

you know, its a funny thing. we discuss so many topics, but they are all hinged on just a few necessary concepts.

what defines intelligence? what defines morality?

in fact it doesn't even make sense to discuss a topic like abortion until these questions are answered.

No sense at all. [mellow]

I do not condone infanticide and like you I believe that late pregancy abortions are usually a sign of utter immaturity and recklessness.  Yet, at the same time I am not one to submit to *taboo*.  A new born does not meet my standards for what it takes to be considered a "person" -- not by a long shot.

Let us admit that honestly.

From your quote of Dennett:

...
This assertion is shocking to many people, who fear that it would demote animals and pre-linguistic children from moral protection, but this would not follow. Whose pain is the pain occurring in the newborn infant? There is not yet anybody whose pain it is, but that fact would not license us to inflict painful stimuli on babies or animals any more than we are licensed to abuse the living bodies of people in comas who are definitely not conscious. If selfhood develops gradually, then certain types of events only gradually become experiences, and there will be no sharp line between unconscious pains (if we may call them that) and conscious pains, and both will merit moral attention. (And, of course, the truth of the empirical hypothesis is in any case strictly independent of its ethical implications, whatever they are. Those who shun the hypothesis on purely moral grounds are letting wishful thinking overrule a properly inquisitive scientific attitude. I am happy to give animals and small children "the benefit of the doubt" for moral purposes, but not for scientific purposes. Those who are shocked by my hypothesis should pause, if they can bear it, to notice that it is as just as difficult to prove its denial as its assertion
...

"If selfhood develops gradually, then certain types of events only gradually become experiences, and there will be no sharp line between unconscious pains (if we may call them that) and conscious pains, and both will merit moral attention." Compare this to what I wrote a few posts ago.

If future methods used for the determination of personhood remain fraught with uncertainty as they are today, it would seem prudent to fall on the side of life over maximum choice. Exercising one's will to kill an entity at the fringe of qualifying for personhood, when the identification of personhood is not nearly accurate enough, seems reckless. Where sufficient uncertainty exists, the life of the child could be favoured over the will of the parents.

Of course such a scenario would be dealing with young children after birth and as I've stated earlier, for the time being, infants probably should be granted the right to life for practical reasons.

I also suggested that our ability to determine personhood could be the limiting factor, but if selfhood (or personhood) arises gradually, this ambiguity will be inherent to human development irrespective of our scientific and technological progress.

Ethics presumes free will, and is only applicable to real-world decisions when there is no willful designer who would override the actualization of our free will. Thus, let's focus on cases where there is free will and no willful designer

Fair enough.

Then consider the real-world story of Nathaniel Broadway and Sierra Swann.
The text below was taken from
http://www.cardin.ho...TICLE5561=22215

In April, a 17-year-old runaway from the Baltimore City foster care program gave birth to twin daughters at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The mother, who had had another child removed from her care because of abuse, was allowed to leave the hospital with the babies. A month later the twins were dead, victims of child abuse.

The tragic case of Sierra Swann and the death of her twins has grabbed news headlines throughout our region because the circumstances surrounding these deaths were horrible -- and preventable. This tragedy focused attention on Baltimore’s child welfare system, which totally failed these children.

The facts of the Swann case are horrifying. On May 11, severely malnourished one-month-old twin girls died after having their skulls and ribs fractured. The mother was allowed to leave the hospital with the babies after a hospital caseworker was reportedly told by Child Protective Services (CPS) that the mother did not have an "open case" with the agency.

Why is society making such a big deal about two dead babies when they were only one month old? The U.S. Senator who wrote the article and is horrified by the incident does not take a pro-life position by any stretch of the imagination. Then why is he so deeply concerned about one month old babies? Why is the couple in such deep trouble with the law? Why will they likely be doing an awful lot of time behind bars at the expense of taxpayers? Do we live in an irrational society?

I will now rewrite the story in two variations and let you judge how society should react in each case.

Variation #1:

Perhaps the incident shocked society so much because the babies suffered much from the beatings and malnutrition during their brief lives. So, let us change the story and say the Mr. Broadway was tormented by the endless decibels of the crying babies but was too humane to bring himself inflict pain on the two little objects of his discomfort. Instead, he scraped up $100 U.S. and bought a gun. When he arrived home from the gun shop, Ms. Swann held one baby outside the house. Inside the house, Mr. Broadway gently pressed the barrel of the gun to the skull other baby to make his aim sure. A mature victim would likely be seized with terror under such circumstances but the baby’s mind was much too immature to comprehend her impending doom and was very much at peace. Mr. Broadway aimed carefully and pulled the trigger, ensuring that the baby died a painless death. He then brought the second baby into the house and ended her life in the same manner. Would the courts likely reduce his penalties because he was humane in his methods of ending the lives of the babies? I would say not because premeditation would aggravate the case against him.

Variation #2:

In this variation, the couple is childless and is camping in a park. They are not tormented by the decibels of crying babies but are hungry for a good meal. They gather together a pile of wood, some bailing wire, and a fallen tree branch. They pick up a couple of stray dogs and bind them to the tree branch with the bailing wire. They suspend the tree branch with the dogs above the wood pile and set the wood on fire to prepare a feast for themselves. They do not bother to kill the dogs in advance because they figure that the fire will do a plenty good job of that. Some people in the area hear the desperate howls of the two dogs crying out in excruciating pain and call the police. They arrive on the scene just as the dogs whimper their last. Will the couple find themselves in worse legal trouble than they would in Variation #1? If not then why not?

Let us compare the two variations. In variation #1 the minds of the two young victims have a great deal of potential but that potential has not yet been developed because they are at an extremely immature stage of life. The minds of the two victims in variation #2, have much less potential but have a great deal more actual development than the minds of the victims in variation #1. The victims in variation #1 died a peaceful and painless death. The victims in variation #2 experienced excruciating pain as they were being roasted alive. The couple in variation #1 demonstrated compassion to their victims by ensuring that they did not suffer. The couple in variation #2 demonstrated a wanton disregard for the comfort of their victims.

I will now let you be the judge. Decide the appropriate sentences for the couple in each variation of the real-life story. However, I must warn you that you are forbidden to borrow any capital from the Bible and you must not consider any possibility that there is a God or any sort of willful designer of nature. Given the facts of each variation, how would you judge the couple in each case?

Clifford, in all fairness all three examples (the real one and both hypotheticals) are red herrings.

We have all already granted (albeit Don reluctantly) that after the hazy line (or period) that we are collectively attempting to define that a human is present and as such the examples you offer are ones that do not really enter into defining whether to proscribe actions toward a clump of cells that are not *yet* human or even only a *part* of that human.

IMHO this whole discussion risks the kinds of absurd primitivism that was encountered by anthropologists when filming tribal folks that were certain that photography was stealing their souls because it copied their images.

Guess what, many of the arguments being heralded by society as *rational* in defense of humanness are no different qualitatively than those made by the *primitives*. They are not irrational they are ignorant of the distinctions we claim knowledge of.

Are they wrong?

Not from their perspective but we argue from a different qualitative set of criteria.

I have argued and it has been ignored that as we acquire knowledge it does alter ethical considerations. This is the case because it does not presume a perfect morality. Are you offering a perfect moral code that applies in this instance Clifford?

No offense Lazarus, but you have failed to define your terms. Your argument from intentionality may not be hampered by the same memetic baggage as the concept of personhood, but it is still just as ambigious.

I am attempting to center my position on language acquisition and the memetic paradigm. Indeed, as Dennett makes clear, this position is by no means a certainty at this point. However, are you seriously going to try defending your position of intent on Mozart for babies?  If so, is it any less speculative than my position?

Actually I am not simply arguing response mechanisms Don but obviously there are rational constraints on interrogative methods for fetuses. fMRI and other ongoing studies do support issues of neocortex activity so unless we want to sidetrack this thread completely lets back up to the core issues.

So defining my terms is important. I am saying that in order to go beyond the reasonable doubt argument that buttresses potentiality we must offer a standard of absence that is based objectively on what is present, not what might be.

Potentiality is far too vague to be overcome as it does as you noticed creep back in through probabilistic relations but it is possible to determine what isn't present. We can argue this or that fetus can have the potential to be the next Einstein or Christ etc but after the fact we see that they are Nathaniel Broadway.

However with a clump of cells if the argument is they can have the potential to be a human (given conditions that are presumed not necessarily applied) then we are allowing the argument to hinge on a variable that is almost impossible to disprove, only to make value relational assessments for.

Intentionality is different and can allow the lack of the presence of the human to be affirmed. If the *absence* of the person is demonstrable then the potentiality argument is moot.

Hence intention describes a quality of self hood that is associated with the will and developing consciousness, obviously in the natal state this will be tenuous, fragile, and barely discernible thus for a variety of interests the benefit of the doubt is going to be weighted to the opportunity side of the equation. Society is rationally biased, it is irrational to expect them not to be.

However if we can affirm that a person is not yet present then potential becomes irrelevant. This is the effect of a qualitative shift from our knowledge base.

When society felt that the center of our souls was in our heart instead of it being a mere pump then they proscribed heart surgery. This debate mimics that one. We went thought this for centuries with respect to doing autopsies for anatomical research and also for developing blood transfusion technologies and the social debates on potential in each case inhibited the advance of progress by successfully meeting memetic interest of reasonable doubt.

Does a spirit inhabit the dead body?

The acceptance of Reasonable Doubt over this potential allowed society to proscribe anatomical research literally for centuries. Prove there is no spirit present and the argument is over. We are facing the same type of debate.

This is also a relevant aspect of the Teri Schiavo case and whether menstruation shall be socially proscribed.

Are you all seeing how the argument of potential becomes absurd yet?

Change how we understand the dilemma and there is no dilemma.

BTW Don,

I am attempting to center my position on language acquisition and the memetic paradigm. Indeed, as Dennett makes clear, this position is by no means a certainty at this point.

If you rely on this argument you will find that the ability to learn language allows potentiality to reenter as a basis for deciding to abort or not because language acquisition is a process not a product.

You will also introduce Chomsky's innate grammars and questions of acquisition versus formal learning for language as defined by Cognitive Psychology. Early language development is not learned, it is acquired and that is based on the potential to receive the neo-cortical restructuring that is responsive to environmental stimuli.

Don you aren't perchance going to argue that one has to be able to defend their humanity by oral argument before they are granted their rights as a human? )

The Vatican already conducted that proceeding for almost 175 years in the 16th & 17th Centuries with respect to Africans and Amerinds and the basis of the debate was the same, albeit on far less reliable information. [wis]

What I am trying unsuccessfully to do Laz is look for an objective measure of (as Cosmos put it) "selfhood". IMO, it is well after the initial acquisition of language, when various terms and concepts are modeled together into a cohesive and complex whole that the "first person perspective" is formed and also with it "selfhood". This speculation is what, in my heart of hearts, I believe is neccesary and sufficient to produce a "person", entitled to all of the associated rights and priviledges.

However I understand that this is just an opinion and that there may be better arguments that more effectively advance our agenda. Regardless, after reading your response this morning I am coming to see that you are also looking for an objective criteria to anchor your argument. You're right, there are rational constraints on interrogative methods, while brain scans taken via fMRI seem to have the potential to be much more objective. Put in the simplest terms (and correct me if I'm missing something crucial), you are searching for readings from fMRI scans taken of fetuses or new born infants that show the presence of brain activity unique to humans. If such unique human brain activity could be demonstrated as present (or not present) then I agree that this could completely alter the dynamics of the debate and detract from the potentiality position, which is inherently unfalsifiable.

I'm starting to look through your thread on brains, memory and behavior, but if you have any materials in particular that you had in mind please share. Have there been any researchers who have attempted to collect data for the specific purpose you are proposing? I'm guessing that this would be rather improbable.

Don

I just came across this Betterhumans Column by Benjamin Sparrow.

The Legal Road Ahead
Something's missing from discussions about advancing science and technology: It's the law

...

Questions never answered

Much of the mess I've described stems from the fact that the law lacks a clear concept of what a person is; particularly, where personhood begins and ends. It seems paradoxical that the law guarantees a plethora of rights for all people, but fails to say exactly who receives those rights. Granted, there's strong debate over how to define personhood, and we don't know nearly enough about the mind to draw strict criteria for it. Even so, a law that defines personhood based on the mind—rather than the species—could solve legal debates ranging from abortion to brain death. Moreover, it could eliminate all of the legal obstacles in many fields of research. Geneticists could freely conduct embryonic stem cell research, because the law would only protect embryos as property. They would have equal opportunity to public funding, because restricting funds on the premise of protecting non-sentient life would be unfounded. And while many avenues would be open, we would also ensure public safety by protecting people rather than cellular masses. In other words, a law of human rights based on the mind would better protect civil rights for all people, while also ensuring freedom for valuable scientific work.

Yet we can't expect Congress to legislate a more progressive view of personhood without compelling evidence to support it.  Strong AI is one development that could make the case for giving human rights to other intelligent beings. Imagine, for example, a Max Headroom look-alike arguing in court that his programmers shouldn't be allowed to turn him off. Yet because this scenario lies with future technology, the very evidence we require may depend on progress that is hindered by the current laws.

....

Clifford, in all fairness all three examples (the real one and both hypotheticals) are red herrings.

There is more to my post than the three examples alone. I ended the post with a question. Your claim about my three examples being a red herring is a red herring in itself. My question has been both ignored and avoided.

We have all already granted (albeit Don reluctantly) that after the hazy line (or period) that we are collectively attempting to define that a human is present and as such the examples you offer are ones that do not really enter into defining whether to proscribe actions toward a clump of cells that are not *yet* human or even only a *part* of that human.

Admitting that a human is present still does not answer the question about why a mature dog deserves radically lesser rights than a one month old baby. If a posthuman is present, will it deserve little or no rights just because it is not a “human.” Consider also that Timothy McVeigh, in the last few minutes of his life, was human but he did not have the same legal rights as a law abiding citizen. If it is a capital crime to kill a one month old baby then why should it not be a capital crime to kill a mature dog? If you own a healthy, mature dog and kill it in a painless way then you suffer absolutely no legal consequences whatsoever. The legal consequences of doing the same to a one month old baby are radically different. Do you agree with the laws or do you think they should be changed?

The contributors to this thread have been kicking around ideas relating to personhood and rights. Are these ideas just academic musings or do represent a definite basis by which any of the contributors would be willing to make major decisions and defend them logically. If the former, then please be honest and admit it. If the latter, then

Answer the question please .... [glasses]

I have argued and it has been ignored that as we acquire knowledge it does alter ethical considerations.  This is the case because it does not presume a perfect morality.  Are you offering a perfect moral code that applies in this instance Clifford?

I did not offer any moral code at all in my last post. I was simply giving the contributors to this thread a chance to test their own theories on a pair of real-world type situations. No takers so far.
Again, will someone

Answer the question please .... [glasses]

Edited by Clifford Greenblatt, 10 June 2005 - 09:20 AM.

Answer the question please

I think in an ideal world, the dogs would be valued much higher than they are in this world. I don't think the law should be changed, because this is not an ideal world. We can only fix so and so much at a time so in the case of your example, species seems like an arbitrary, but a fair approximation of worth, given the real-world constrains that we're facing.

Also, one might suspect that the kids have much more of the type of cognitive functions that we value most. We can't measure them very well after all. This suspicion may be enough to warrant the legal decision.

I have already explained why I think potentiality generally fails to account for my favor of the kids, but that leaves room for other differences between kids and dogs to explain the different values we're assigning to them.

If you want to extend your argument from kids to blastocysts, then you would either have to defeat my argument against potentiality in general or show that these "other differences" extend to blastocysts.

Clifford I have asked you this direct question before that you have avoided. I will trade a response to your hypothetical musings for one clear answer to this straight question.

Who shall be the final arbiter for human evolution, fate, chance, or choice?

Initially I'll address reality not your view of potential realities. Though in the overall scheme of things that have more likelihood of existing than the cells IVF prepped for SCNT to obtain ESC.

In the case you offer:
http://www.cardin.ho...TICLE5561=22215 of the real-world story of Nathaniel Broadway and Sierra Swann i grant a response for ethical analysis because it is a question of fact not an imaginary construct.

The same difference for validity as the potential of the cluster of dividing cells and the products of your imagination.

Why is society making such a big deal about two dead babies when they were only one month old?

Because it is considered a systemic failure not just an individual transgression because the state has a compelling interest in the children due to their presence in this world, not because of their potential.

The U.S. Senator who wrote the article and is horrified by the incident does not take a pro-life position by any stretch of the imagination.  Then why is he so deeply concerned about one month old babies?

Because we care for our offspring and as all children are born (read a distinction here between birth and conception) totally dependent there is a clear and well established common community right of interest in the welfare of those less able to defend their own interests.

The failure of the system to protect the children from known and preventable risk implies the system has failed to adequately care and protect the children that are in shared custody with the State. Parens Patria.

Why is the couple in such deep trouble with the law?

The individuals involved are not a legal couple, the boyfriend is not a guardian and in fact it is his presence at all that is the dilemma for the State as he was a known predator basically.

The man is up for murder, the mother is charged as a negligent homicide and general neglect. There are more laws violated in relation to her failure as a parent to protect her young from her own stupidity and culpability however from the facts presented she is not a direct party to the murder but is substantially an accessory.

The mother, who had had another child removed from her care because of abuse, was allowed to leave the hospital with the babies. A month later the twins were dead, victims of child abuse.

The facts of the Swann case are horrifying. On May 11, severely malnourished one-month-old twin girls died after having their skulls and ribs fractured. The mother was allowed to leave the hospital with the babies after a hospital caseworker was reportedly told by Child Protective Services (CPS) that the mother did not have an "open case" with the agency.
***

Unfortunately, this is not the first time Baltimore CPS has failed to protect children. A year and half ago, a two-month old baby was beaten to death by a mother with psychiatric problems who was still on probation for abusing her first son. This tragedy occurred after CPS was informed the baby was in danger because of the mother’s deteriorating mental health condition.

***

The failure to protect children in Baltimore is not an isolated situation. Federal reviews of all state child welfare systems show that no state has passed all the child well-being standards assessed during the reviews. Maryland failed to pass any of the seven measurements on child safety, well-being and permanency.

Why will they likely be doing an awful lot of time behind bars at the expense of taxpayers?

Because society deems them individually a threat and criminal in their actions to warrant punishment.

Do we live in an irrational society?

Probably. Though that is not a specific conclusion from the facts presented. It is the case that irrational acts are performed all the time and law is written to address the inequities of conduct, generally

There is an attempt by society to deal with irrational acts and the attempt is failing. So the government in the form of the Congressional representative is asking for an accounting of the systemic failures and initiate a search for remedial actions to improve oversight in situations like these as the facts indicate a possible trend of bureacratic failures. A situation that might have been prevented if the underage drug addict hadn't been pregnant with the twins to begin with.

Where does the potential argument lead if it indicates the mother should have been denied her right to be pregnant to begin with.

Clifford I have asked you this direct question before that you have avoided. I will trade a response to your hypothetical musings for one clear answer to this straight question.

Who shall be the final arbiter for human evolution, fate, chance, or choice?

I assume you accept only the position of naturalism. Therefore, I will answer this question with an assumption of naturalism. Although many deny this, nature does has a definite set of laws, even if it is assumed that nature is all that will ever be relevant to any of us. Those laws are both deterministic and statistical. Humans may think they are the masters of their fate because they see themselves on top of the hill. If they could see the mountain behind them then they would know that their will is just another process within a much greater scheme that was long in effect before they ever existed.

Edited by Clifford Greenblatt, 11 June 2005 - 10:00 AM.

I think in an ideal world, the dogs would be valued much higher than they are in this world. I don't think the law should be changed, because this is not an ideal world. We can only fix so and so much at a time so in the case of your example, species seems like an arbitrary, but a fair approximation of worth, given the real-world constrains that we're facing.

Also, one might suspect that the kids have much more of the type of cognitive functions that we value most. We can't measure them very well after all. This suspicion may be enough to warrant the legal decision.

I have already explained why I think potentiality generally fails to account for my favor of the kids, but that leaves room for other differences between kids and dogs to explain the different values we're assigning to them.

If you want to extend your argument from kids to blastocysts, then you would either have to defeat my argument against potentiality in general or show that these "other differences" extend to blastocysts.

Thanks for giving your answer to my question.
You wrote of ideal world. Whose ideals are the basis of such a world?
From your analysis, in which you refer to the cognitive functions that we value most, it would appear that the value of everything in the real world is determined by the desires of the majority of the population. Those desires could change significantly as cultures change.

Lazarus Long Said;

"Who shall be the final arbiter for human evolution, fate, chance, or choice?"

Does not Fate (Destiny) cover all those?, whether it be chance or choice taking place. Just wondering why place it among those two.

(123456)
Does not Fate (Destiny) cover all those?

Destiny, especially as you have written it with the implied *theistic truth marker* of the upper case is a form of fatalism that contradicts the freedom of choice that combines with chance as the basis of evolutionary theory and Natural Selection.

Chance and choice are not contradictory but fate contradicts both depending on how one defines probability.

Einstein is purported to have replied to the issues of probability suggested by QM by saying:

I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world

However I will go a step further and point out to theist fatalists that promote destiny contradictorily with free will that:
I shall never believe that God uses loaded dice to play with the world.

Destiny logically contradicts free will yet this glaring error in judgmental reason seems to be routinely ignored by theistic rationalization.

Chance and choice are forces that influence one another and as such exist within a dynamic synergy. Sometimes the forces of nature are overwhelming for good or ill like during a typhoon, earthquake, or a tsunami. However like river alluvium from annual floods a force of nature can be controlled and mere chance and probability turned into advantage. Advantages that have defined the basis for human progress and what we call civilization since our most ancient times. Advantages that are derived of comprehension,

Chance comes, choice is what we make of it, destiny is how we rationalize choice (ex post facto) when not seen in a just a *divine* sense and that is because the arguments of destiny are social constructs and artifices mostly used for excusing historical ethical conundrums and manipulating prophetic social memetics to direct large scale collective action. The arguments of destiny are the carrots and sticks for effective charismatics to use for driving social development.

Hawkins on fatalism

(Clifford)
I assume you accept only the position of naturalism.

One clearly prevalent and repeating problem with your argument as presented Clifford is that you assume too much.

Therefore, I will answer this question with an assumption of naturalism.

Please Clifford do not bias your response on the basis of my presumed bias; instead provide an answer simply dependent logically on the qualities or properties of the principle under examination. We can achieve a far more satisfactorily objective understanding this way.

However since you offer I will reply:

Although many deny this, nature does has a definite set of laws, even if it is assumed that nature is all that will ever be relevant to any of us. Those laws are both deterministic and statistical.

This is unclear, you are superimposing a subjective human interpretation for principle. Natural laws are not statistical, how we identify and measure them often is. There is no part of probability that determines that a specific photon going through the slot will take a designated path. Diffusion/diffraction is determined by us statically (recognized) but the specific property of randomness cannot be overruled by an artifice of the human psychological need for certainty.

Determinism is not precise, randomness is a chaotic element necessary for there to be *ranges* of freedom.

Humans may think they are the masters of their fate because they see themselves on top of the hill. If they could see the mountain behind them then they would know that their will is just another process within a much greater scheme that was long in effect before they ever existed.

I do not suggest we are masters of our fate, however it is a noble struggle for self definition that is a part of what it means to be alive.

I certainly agree that we (as individuals and as a species) would be wise to show a far greater measure of consideration and appreciation for all that has contributed not only to humanity but all the precious life we share the Earth with.

I see that mountain of immense magnitude leading back to a swirl of coalescing stardust and it does not diminish either the beauty or the import of the myriad of processes for me; nor does it preclude and sidestep the issues of evolving intelligence becoming self deterministic. We cannot beg ignorance anymore for our actions as a species, fatalism is a doom not a boon.

We can either meet this growing storm with all the fortitude of good spirit we can muster along with every tool of knowledge we can bring to bear or we can continue to indulge in ignorance and pray to personal angels for salvation from the impact of our presence on Earth.

Things don't improve by accident and self reinforced ignorance is not innocent.

You wrote of ideal world. Whose ideals are the basis of such a world?

Mine. That was what you asked for, wasn't it:

I will now let you be the judge.

From your analysis, in which you refer to the cognitive functions that we value most, it would appear that the value of everything in the real world is determined by the desires of the majority of the population. Those desires could change significantly as cultures change.

See Lazarus on assuming [sfty]. In fact, I do not respect values by virtue of the "majority" having them at all. The majority seems to want too many things that I consider not worth wanting or even outrageously wrong, including but not limited to war, opposition to trying to develop rejuvenation medicine, hysteria about the outcomes of football games, fashion madness, you get the idea. In the context of such observations, I cannot have any respect for values on the basis of how many people seem to have them alone. I have to trust my own judgement, and if that's not possible, the judgement of the few ones I trust (which includes many fellow imminst members here). So as I already said I was talking about my own values, in accord with your question. (If value dynamics were an important point of yours, then yes, my values do change over time, similar to cultural values.)

I cannot and do not expect anyone else to abide by my values. I often try to advertise my values, because it will make them easier to achieve and I grant the same right to everyone else. What I do expect from others is to show the same level of tolerance, not only towards me, but also towards others who are so tolerant. Thus, to return to the initial topic, unless you can demonstrate direct harm being done, and that demonstration survives the ensuing defense, please let anyone do to their clearly non-sentient early-stage fetuses whatever they wish to do to them.

This is unclear, you are superimposing a subjective human interpretation for principle.  Natural laws are not statistical, how we identify and measure them often is.  There is no part of probability that determines that a specific photon going through the slot will take a designated path.  Diffusion/diffraction is determined by us statically (recognized) but the specific property of randomness cannot be overruled by an artifice of the human psychological need for certainty.

I did not mean that natural laws have statistical variation in them. I meant that the laws of nature include both deterministic principles, such as conservation laws, and also statistical principles, such as the laws of thermodynamics. The statistical laws and deterministic laws generally work together rather than in isolation from each other.

Determinism is not precise, randomness is a chaotic element necessary for there to be *ranges* of freedom.

The charge of an electron is quite precise with absolutely no range of freedom whatsoever. Also, many processes that are random on a microscopic scale become highly deterministic on a macroscopic scale. You can predict the rate at which heat flows across a thermal gradient with very high precision.

Unless Computrix can make you bigger than the universe, there are only so many ways that your personal atoms can be arranged. What will you be doing for the next
10^(10^(10^(10^(10^(10^(10^(10^(10^10)))))))) years? The probability distribution of all that you can possibly be and do within nature has always been intrinsic to the laws of nature and nothing in the power of your will can ever change that distribution one iota.

I do not suggest we are masters of our fate, however it is a noble struggle for self definition that is a part of what it means to be alive.


I certainly agree that we (as individuals and as a species) would be wise to show a far greater measure of consideration and appreciation for all that has contributed not only to humanity but all the precious life we share the Earth with.

I see that mountain of immense magnitude leading back to a swirl of coalescing stardust and it does not diminish either the beauty and import of the myriad of processes for me nor preclude and sidestep the issues of evolving intelligence becoming self deterministic.

We cannot beg ignorance anymore for our actions as a species, fatalism is a doom not a boon.  We can either meet this growing storm with all the fortitude of good spirit we can muster along with every tool of knowledge we can bring to bear or we can continue to indulge in ignorance an pray to personal angels for salvation from the impact of our presence on Earth.

Things don't improve by accident and self reinforced ignorance is not innocence.

The philosophy of fatalism is a bad inference from a recognition of our absolute limitations. There is a vast wealth of marvelous things we can do within our limitations and we would be negligent not to make full use of these great abilities. However, we need to be honest and admit that the full set of possibilities of all that we can ever do or be has already been fully determined by something that will always be much greater than ourselves.

(Clifford)
I assume you accept only the position of naturalism.

One clearly prevalent and repeating problem with your argument as presented Clifford is that you assume too much.

Perhaps my assumption that you accept only the position of naturalism is a bad one. Perhaps you believe or at least have some regard for the possibility that something transcends nature. If so then please let me know.

Some leading members of the Immortality Institute, and most notably the founder, regard physical continuity as being absolutely essential to immortality. They regard a person’s life as irreversibly ended if that continuity is broken. It cannot be resumed in a discontinuous copy. It will be interesting to extend this idea into transhumanism, posthumanism, post-posthumanism, post-post-posthumanism and so on ad nauseam. At some stage, do you not think that you might look back at your distant past human condition as being a laughably primitive state? However, would you not also be grateful that your life was not ended there?

Now lets look at immortality another way. A person changes much throughout life. Does a person really have a unique identity that can survive the effects of gradual changes that mount up to massive changes over a very long period of time? Why do immortalists demand personal continuity? Why are they not content with working for the eternal survival and advancement of the world population as a whole. Why are they unable to consider themselves as fully living on in the contributions they make to future generations?

Edited by Clifford Greenblatt, 12 June 2005 - 01:55 PM.