My last two comments weren't approved, so I'll repost them.
Your principle is that "If a being is not conscious, and has never been conscious, then it's typically permissible to kill that being."
You seem to base this on the following two arguments:
Argument A
A1. A fetus is a human organism that does not currently contain a personal identity but will in the future.
A2. All human organisms that do not currently contain a personal identity but will in the future are typically permissible to kill.
A3. So, a fetus is typically permissible to kill.
Argument B (from the article "Does Abortion Harm the Fetus" on Utilitas, which you have referenced several times)
B1. A fetus is a human organism with a lifetime wellbeing that is currently unmeasurable but which will be measurable in the future.
- Supporting B1: Its lifetime wellbeing is unmeasurable because its current temporal wellbeing is unmeasurable.
B2. All human organisms with a lifetime wellbeing that is currently unmeasurable but which will be measurable in the future are typically permissible to kill.
B3. So, a fetus is typically permissible to kill.
However, neither of A2 or B2 are intuitive or well known moral principles, A2 is subject to counterexamples, and B1 seems untrue.
A2 is subject to the following counterexamples:
- a person who consumes a poison which induces total memory loss and a temporary coma.
- a baby born in a temporary coma.
- the common real world case of a baby that is born in respiratory distress then intubated and placed in an induced coma, which likely will experience retrograde amnesia upon waking up.
These counterexamples would lead many people to reject A2. If A2 were true, then it would be wrong of us to ban killing the humans involved (with the consent of their family members) and harvesting their organs to save other people, because we would be neglecting the pressing interests of humans that really do have interests and a right to life and banning a morally permissible action (you make a similar argument in your Salon article to argue that abortion restrictions are unjust). You write about theories of personal identity, but those are descriptive theories, not normative ones, and nothing about believing that a comatose human who has their memory wiped may be a new "person" after waking up entails believing they are also permissible to kill.
B1 seems untrue because healthy functioning and good future prospects seem like components of wellbeing which can be measured. It seems that you can measure the current temporal wellbeing level of a sleeping or comatose person, and it can take a turn for better or for worse. I mean their current wellbeing, not their lifetime wellbeing. For example, a comatose person in ICU whose renal function is rapidly deteriorating and whose prospects for recovery are diminishing could be said to have deteriorating wellbeing, whilst a sleeping person who will wake up to good health in a few hours could be said to have a better state of wellbeing. The Utilitas article assumes that immediate consciousness is needed for wellbeing to be measurable at a given point in time, but many would dispute that, and nothing like a deductive proof for this position is offered by the authors. This is only one of many criticisms that could be levied at the article.
Because neither argument that you offer in support of your principle is definitive (or even seems persuasive), you can't reasonably exclude the significant possibility that most abortions are seriously wrong. There is no good reason to think that psychological connection to past experiences is needed for FLO to apply. That leads on to the following analogy which would support restricting abortions, even if you don't fully accept Marquis' argument.
1. Suppose you have multiple sclerosis and can press a button which will cure yourself of it, but there is a significant possibility that pressing the button will also kill your sleeping newborn baby, who you plan to give up for adoption.
2. It would be seriously wrong to press the button, even though doing so would cure you of a significant medical condition.
3. Most abortions are similar in relevant ways to the button case, because there is a significant possibility that killing a fetus is morally equivalent to killing a sleeping newborn baby.
4. So, most abortions are seriously wrong.
My last two comments weren't approved, so I'll repost them.
Your principle is that "If a being is not conscious, and has never been conscious, then it's typically permissible to kill that being."
You seem to base this on the following two arguments:
Argument A
A1. A fetus is a human organism that does not currently contain a personal identity but will in the future.
### It's very important that you specific an early, pre-conscious fetus. But, yes, such a mere body is not numerically identical with a person on psychological theories of personal identity, which are the most widely accepted views on these matters.
A2. All human organisms that do not currently contain a personal identity but will in the future are typically permissible to kill.
### Again, the "can" is important: if they are killed, then will not! So what's being said here is a bit incoherent: if killed, it will not be numerically identical to some future being, although it could have.
A3. So, a fetus is typically permissible to kill.
Argument B (from the article "Does Abortion Harm the Fetus" on Utilitas, which you have referenced several times)
B1. A fetus is a human organism with a lifetime wellbeing that is currently unmeasurable but which will be measurable in the future.
### Again, the "can" is important: if the fetus is killed, then it will not!
- Supporting B1: Its lifetime wellbeing is unmeasurable because its current temporal wellbeing is unmeasurable.
### I am not sure what's going on here: "its current temporal wellbeing is unmeasurable" because there is no current wellbeing level: there's nothing to measure: it's not doing well, and not doing poorly either. And how is a "current temporal wellbeing" level different from a "current wellbeing" level? Is there a difference there?
B2. All human organisms with a lifetime wellbeing that is currently unmeasurable but which will be measurable in the future are typically permissible to kill.
### Again, the "can" is important: if they are killed, then will not!
B3. So, a fetus is typically permissible to kill.
### If this is intended to be a reconstruction of the main argument from that article, this does not appear to be accurate or informative.
However, neither of A2 or B2 are intuitive or well known moral principles, A2 is subject to counterexamples, and B1 seems untrue.
A2 [A2. All human organisms that do not currently contain a personal identity but will in the future are typically permissible to kill.] is subject to the following counterexamples:
### For what it's worth, I don't think these are good cases to test these principles with since--due to their controversial nature--- people's intuitions about them will likely be the same as their intuitions about, say, embryos. And the reasons they might give for their intuitions will likely be the same they'd give about their views on, say, embryos.
### I discussed such a case here -- https://academic.oup.com/jmp/article-abstract/36/3/261/895026?redirectedFrom=fulltext -- but this doesn't seem to be readily available anymore.
- a baby born in a temporary coma.
- the common real world case of a baby that is born in respiratory distress then intubated and placed in an induced coma, which likely will experience retrograde amnesia upon waking up.
### Here was this discussion from 2021:
3. The "Comatose Newborn Baby" Objection
Finally, there's an objection that is based on a case like this:
A baby is born, in a coma. That baby has never been conscious. But that baby will become conscious . . eventually.
The argument then is that if the "if a being is not conscious, and has never been conscious, then it's typically permissible to kill that being" principle is true, then it's not wrong to end the life of this baby. But since, they say, it would be wrong to end the life of this baby, the "if a being is not conscious, and has never been conscious, then it's typically permissible to kill that being" principle is false and so the original argument just isn't a good argument in defense of abortion.
I don't think this objection succeeds.
First, the case is basically a unique baby that, for all practical purposes, is just like a beginning fetuses in all its relevant features: the claim is basically, "Killing fetuses that have never had minds is wrong because killing a born baby that has never had a mind would be wrong also" and so the reasoning is close to circular. In that way, the argument is question-begging, or assumes that the principle it is trying to argue against is false in making a case that it's false, if the reasoning amounts to something like this:
This "if a being is not conscious, and has never been conscious, then it's typically permissible to kill that being" principle is false because there could be this comotose "baby" and even though that baby is not conscious, and has never been conscious, that "baby" would be wrong to kill.
If this is the reaction, it basically amounts to just assuming the principle is false.
Next, the reactions to the case that it would be wrong to led this never-been-conscious baby die, or kill this baby, are, I think, emotion-driven: people picture in their minds a more normal baby—who would be wrong to kill, since that baby is conscious, aware and has feelings—and those feelings transfer to this "baby," which is nothing like a normal baby, even though they really shouldn't transfer. And this emotional distortion can lead people to overlook these important questions:
- Would anyone be harmed if the "baby" were killed?
- No, there is no conscious individual here who would be made worse off, compared to how they were, if this body were killed: this case is very different from killing a normal baby since, again, this baby is just like an early fetus, just bigger and born.
- Would any person be killed if the "baby" were killed?
- No, there is no conscious individual here who would be killed, although killing this body would prevent the emergence of a future person.
Next, the case is very different from abortion, so one could agree that it'd be wrong to let the "baby" die but deny that anything follows about abortion.
For one, the comatose newborn "baby" is no longer dependent on anyone in particular, and anyone's body in particular: anyone could take care of this baby. So, one could plausibly think that, all things considered, this matters and makes a difference: yes, someone, or someones, has to take care of this "baby," given the situation, but pregnant women are not obligated to "take care of" pre-conscious fetuses that are in their bodies and so only they can take care of them: that's too much of a burden which they don't have to take on if they don't want to.
It is a fair question, however, to ask about details about the case: in particular, how long would it take for the baby to become conscious? What if it's 50 years? 80 years? Does that matter? Inquiring minds would want to know. Maybe there'd be a point where people would concede that the time is too much and so the lack of harm here really does matter and so it'd also matter with a shorter time period too.
Next, I think it's important to observe that this "baby" is quite different from a beginning fetus in that it is, as the case is intended, very close to being conscious. And maybe that's an important difference. It's like this:
Suppose I've been studying to get into law school, and I'm doing well, but this is very much because of your help in keeping me on track, encouraging me, quizzing me, and more: I literally couldn't do it without you. You've been helping me for years now, and I've almost made it, since the LSAT (test to get into law school) is in a month and I will do well if, but only if, you keep helping me.
Now, it's within your rights to stop helping me, even if I lose out on my dream of going to law school. But shouldn't you keep helping me, unless there's some real good reason why you shouldn't (like I become mean or ungrateful or ..)? I mean, we've come this far; let's finish this! If you had backed out on all this years ago, that'd be one thing, but we're almost to the end here! Let's finish this so I can make my dream come true!
If this case has a moral or a point (and maybe it doesn't!) then it might transfer to the comatose baby—since that baby body is almost conscious and so maybe there is some obligation at this point to make that happen. That intuition, however, won't transfer to a beginning fetus.
So, all and all, the "comatose newborn baby" objection is not a good one, given the differences and the similarities between this "baby" and beginning fetuses and pregnant women.
####These counterexamples would lead many people to reject A2 [ [A2. All human organisms that do not currently contain a personal identity but will {update: CAN} in the future are typically permissible to kill.].
### Well, the big question here about these (hard?) cases is what sort of reasons can be given for them to support anyone's intuitive judgements.
If A2 were true, then it would be wrong of us to ban killing the humans involved (with the consent of their family members) and harvesting their organs to save other people, because we would be neglecting the pressing interests of humans that really do have interests and a right to life and banning a morally permissible action (you make a similar argument in your Salon article to argue that abortion restrictions are unjust). You write about theories of personal identity, but those are descriptive theories, not normative ones, and nothing about believing that a comatose human who has their memory wiped may be a new "person" after waking up entails believing they are also permissible to kill.
### Yes, it's correct that observing that the standard reasons why it's wrong to, say, kill sleeping people do not apply in these cases does not entail that it's OK to kill these beings. But no thoughtful person would claim that: again, they'd observe that the standard reasons don't apply and then ask if there are other reasons to think that such killings would be wrong. Either such reasons can be identified or not. If not, one might think that this judgment isn't supported: it's a mere intuition, but not one that can be supported by good reasons.
B1 seems untrue because healthy functioning and good future prospects seem like components of wellbeing which can be measured. It seems that you can measure the current temporal wellbeing level of a sleeping or comatose person, and it can take a turn for better or for worse. I mean their current wellbeing, not their lifetime wellbeing. For example, a comatose person in ICU whose renal function is rapidly deteriorating and whose prospects for recovery are diminishing could be said to have deteriorating wellbeing, whilst a sleeping person who will wake up to good health in a few hours could be said to have a better state of wellbeing.
### OK. And these cases differ from, say, an embryo how? The most obvious answer is that what happens to these bodies matters because of how it's going to affect the person--the person who was and, we hope, will continue existing.
The Utilitas article assumes that immediate consciousness is needed for wellbeing to be measurable at a given point in time,
### I don't know about that: everyone knows that human people sleep and so all discussions of these topics should be able to accommodate this obvious fact.
but many would dispute that, and nothing like a deductive proof
### I am not sure why you are seeking (deductive) "proofs" here: do any arguments given about controversial ethical and philosophical issues amount to "proofs"?
for this position is offered by the authors. This is only one of many criticisms that could be levied at the article.
### Perhaps you should write up a careful reply article.
Because neither argument that you offer in support of your principle is definitive (or even seems persuasive), you can't reasonably exclude the significant possibility that most abortions are seriously wrong. There is no good reason to think that psychological connection to past experiences is needed for FLO to apply.
### Well, you are saying there's no good reason here based on some judgments about some controversial and potentially genuinely hard cases. And these are cases that, while people have intuitive judgments about them, those judgments are not super easy to justify anyway, on any more theoretical views (including, say, so called "substance" views), especially without leading to other judgments that are not intuitive to many people.
That leads on to the following analogy which would support restricting abortions, even if you don't fully accept Marquis' argument.
1. Suppose you have multiple sclerosis and can press a button which will cure yourself of it, but there is a significant possibility that pressing the button will also kill your sleeping newborn baby, who you plan to give up for adoption.
2. It would be seriously wrong to press the button, even though doing so would cure you of a significant medical condition.
3. Most abortions are similar in relevant ways to the button case, because there is a significant possibility that killing a fetus is morally equivalent to killing a sleeping newborn baby.
4. So, most abortions are seriously wrong.
### I don't see this as a very relevant analogous case, but I am going to suggest that you run this by other people to get their reactions. I do, suggest, that you explain why these cases might be relevantly similar. I do think that being cautious makes good sense, but I do think that people often don't accept that in a serious, consistent way: see Abortion, Animals, & the Precautionary Principle
So a big picture reaction I have here is this: do you understand that the questions here is are "what is it to have a 'Future Like Ours'"? and "what characteristics must a being have to have a 'FLO'?" In reading what you have written, I am unclear if you understand that's what the issue is. Perhaps this page will help; search it for 'Marquis' if you want:
ReplyDeletehttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-ethics/
Turn now to just one way in which personal identity enters into the broader debate over abortion. Perhaps the most famous anti-abortion argument in the philosophical literature comes from Don Marquis, who argues that, because it is prima facie wrong to kill any entity with a future like ours, and because a fetus has a future like ours, it is prima facie wrong to kill a fetus (Marquis 1989). Peter McInerney and others, however, have denied that fetuses have futures like ours by appealing to considerations of identity. To have a future like ours, for instance, presupposes that one is identical to some person who will experience said future. But a fetus is not a person, it seems, and so it cannot be identical to any future person. Indeed, none of the relations deemed relevant to the identity of persons are present between a fetus and anything else, simply because a fetus lacks a psychology with memories, beliefs, desires, intentions, and a general character capable of establishing any sort of plausible connection to a future experiencer, so that any experiences that experiencer undergoes cannot be the fetus's future experiences (McInerney 1990, Brill 2003). (The same point might be true as well for infants, but instead of taking that to be a reductio of the objection, one might also quite plausibly take it simply to be a point in favor of rejecting Marquis's criterion of the wrongness of killing: given that infants also lack a future like ours, Marquis's account is substantially incomplete, for it fails to explain why killing infants is wrong, when it obviously is.)
This objection assumes a purely psychological criterion of identity, however, one in which, further, “person” is what's known as a substance concept, a term designating a kind to which an individual always and essentially belongs throughout its existence. But as we saw earlier, “person” might be merely a phase sortal, designating a kind to which the individual belongs – if it does at all – for only part of its existence. This could mean, then, that I, now a person, could still be identical qua individual, to some organism – a fetus, say – that was not a person. Thus if some past fetus is identical to me – if we are one and the same animal, or organism – then he did indeed have a future like ours (Marquis 1998).
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-ethics/
ReplyDeleteSo I think you are saying this:
ReplyDelete"I would regard it as a serious harm if I were killed in the event that I lacked a personal identity [meaning, any future person that is 'in' my body, so to speak, is not the same individual as the person prior to the mind-wiping coma)."
Question: who is the "I" here? If the "I" before and after the mind-wiping coma happens are the same person, then, well, there wasn't a mind-wiping coma. If there's a a different person after the mind-wiping coma (which the case is trying to suggest, I think), then that's not you: that "I" isn't you.
Perhaps a variant on "day man" and "night man" here will help see the point:
https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/02/10/personal-identity/
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I understand that, and yes I read the SEP article a few weeks ago. I've been clear throughout that I'm criticising the idea that continuous psychological connections are necesssary for FLO to apply, and I've given counterexamples that don't currently involve a psychological identity in order to make that point.
ReplyDeleteCould you please either explicitly say we should permit the killings in the counterexamples (assuming families gave permission and the motive was organ and tissue harvesting for persons in medical need), or explicitly say they should be illegal (which they already are) and give good reasons for this (which don't also apply to most abortions)?
No, you have not been "clear throughout" on this. For example, "Does the future like ours account conflict with our moral judgements in more serious ways? No . ."
ReplyDeleteHere you appear to be assuming that the FLO account to various cases when, for at least some of these cases, it does not appear they have FLO since--as a mindless and never-minded beings--they aren't connected to any such future, and so don't have a FLO, if a FLO requires a psychological connection, as many critics argue. Same with these "mind-wipe" cases.
Perhaps you are just assuming animalism, or something like it, but not saying so? It seems like that's what's going on, since you are insisting that various beings have "futures like ours" yet they don't have any psychological connections to those futures or even the past people who existed prior to their their pre-mind-wiping comas.
Again, I understand you have these controversial cases, ones that some people would have strong intuitions about, but what I am interested in what reasons they'd give for these intuitions. Insisting that a mind-wiped, now unconscious being -- now a "rebooted" adult that's sorta like an embryo -- has a FLO, without any explanation of how that's so, won't do.
I basically think that 'I' is my brain, which is numerically identical to the developing brain present from about 5 or so weeks into pregnancy. It's not capable of sustaining consciousness at that age, but lots of adult brains aren't capable of sustaining consciousness temporarily after poisonings, traumatic brain injuries, or sedation. In season 3 of Smallville, Clark Kent's brain is switched with Lionel Luthor's brain. Who is walking around at the Kent's farm in Clark's body? Lionel Luthor. In season 4, Clark Kent has his memory wiped. Who is walking around disoriented in the Kent farm in Clark's body? Clark Kent without his memory. His personality is different but all personalities change over time. What about a mind swap (but not a brain swap) like in Freaky Friday? According to the brain identity theory, that would be impossible. Brain identity might be false, but it seems as reasonable and plausible as any of the alternatives. I'd also note that the SEP article (and you yourself in the Beckwith review) highlight that several authors believe that metaphysical views of personal identity might be irrelevant to abortion issues, because with a bit of work almost any theory can be made to work with either the pro life or pro choice stance. All this to say, I do think you should give a clear and succinct yes or no answer to the counterexamples, particularly the common real world case of comatose (and often premature) newborns in NICU, in order to move the discussion forward. If an account implies that killing these human beings for organ harvesting is acceptable, then that is a major mark against that account. You use the same logic in criticising sanctity of life arguments by concluding that killing the permanently comatose is intuitively reasonable in some circumstances, which is a mark against sanctity of life arguments.
ReplyDeleteMore: "You should either explicitly say we should permit these killings [of "mind-wiped" individuals, described above], or explicitly say they should be illegal (which they already are)."
ReplyDeleteNow, hold on: this makes it sound like laws explicitly engage the possibility of "mind-wiped" individuals, described above. I am no lawyer, but I really doubt there are any laws that address the possibility of a something like someone going to sleep with a Trump-like personality and "lived experience," losing literally all of that while sleeping, and then waking up either as a literal blank slate or, say, with a Kamala-Harris like personality and understanding of the world.
So just to be clear, you have these various controversial cases. And you have offered these judgments about these cases, intuitions about these cases.
ReplyDeleteIs it that the only argument you have given for these judgments a claim that such beings have a future like ours, despite lacking any psychological connection to them?
If so, and if having a FLO requires a psychological connection to that future, then these beings don't have a FLO. So, when you say they have a FLO, then your argument for these intuitions here is based on a false claim.
(I will add that I think many people would be emotionally manipulated here by their own minds, since they can't successfully imagine a case of an adult, or harder - a baby -- that's really never been conscious and so is comparable to an embryo: they can't think of anything other than a more normal adult or child).
On the other hand, if (pace the common view) having a FLO does not require a psychological connection, but mere bodily continuity then, well, it might seem that there's bodily continuity, but probably there really isn't: e.g., in the Trump mindwipe change to a blank slate or Harris "transformation," there'd have to be such radical changes to the brain such that even people who think the person is somehow identical to the brain (or identical to the results of the brain, or whatever) should think there's a new person, given the changes in the brain. But then such a view, "brainism"--as a version of animalism--will have to deal with the objections and concerns about that type of view: https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2021/03/11/animalism/
Anyway, as I have said, I am fine updating what I have said with a precautionary principle to deal with the "has been conscious before but now they are not conscious but this is all highly uncertain yet they can be conscious again" cases, along with the other considerations mentioned about these cases. But that's not going to have any implications for embryos and beginning fetuses or for imaginary cases where there's a born child or adult body that's functionally equivalent to an embryo in terms of never been conscious, as was explained here: https://www.abortionarguments.com/2021/03/the-animal-rights-domination-and.html
"Brainism" runs into none of the problems of animalism described in the article you link, because the counterexample it provides for animalism is a BRAIN transplant.
DeleteYes, my position, as stated repeatedly, is that having a FLO does not require a psychological connection. That FLO requires psychological connection is not "the common view", it's the view of some critics. There's plenty of responses that disagree with it in the literature. The counterexamples are another critique of it because they demonstrate its implausible implications.
An infant that is intubated and sedated because of respiratory failure on delivery would experience retrograde amnesia but have bodily/brain continuity. A variety of common sedatives have this effect, particularly on a premature neonate. It doesn't require any "radical changes" to the brain, the brain is just very immature at that age and prolonged induced comas involve powerful drugs. It happens everyday in all major birthing centres. If you want to assert this is highly uncertain without any medical training, go right ahead and assert that, but assume for the sake of argument that there's a new sedative in NICU that certainly has this effect. These are infants that are not currently conscious and have no psychological connection to their past. Not to mention that the past conscious experience to which they lack a connection was either being delivered unresponsive or being in a state of near suffocation prior to painful airway manoeuvres, then rapid sedation and intubation (if indeed premature infants are really conscious rather than simply reflex driven at birth, which is unclear: https://www.nature.com/articles/pr200950). Your account jettisons all the value-making features of personhood accounts that made them attractive to philosophers like Tooley and Singer in the first place.
If you apply the precautionary principle to the premature comatose infants because they might still have a psychological connection, then you're incorrect on a point of medical fact, and if you want to dispute that then just assume a hypothetical sedative that certainly induces amnesia (although you can just look to the real world!). If you apply the precautionary principle on other grounds, then you should explain what those are and why they don't apply to fetuses also.
You write: ""Brainism" runs into none of the problems of animalism described in the article you link, because the counterexample it provides for animalism is a BRAIN transplant."
DeleteThen you overlooked some of what was mentioned about animalism / "brainism" (depending on the details of what this view would be); update this accordingly:
"Animalism entails that even a human animal on life support with no possibility of conscious activity is still one of us. And we can’t outlive these animals in an afterlife or—if technology ever enables this—by uploading our consciousnesses to a virtual reality,[6] or getting new bodies through brain transplants.[7] So animalism denies some common views about our identity through time."
And, of course, one would have to explain and defend this view that we = our brains. At least the identity theory isn't currently very popular, for many reasons: https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2024/02/03/mind-body-problem/. Property dualism is a common view though (for us, minds "emerge" from sophisticated-enough brains or other "hardware" but aren't identical to the hardware) and my views on these topics gibe with that.
To return to the big picture, your focus seems to be on cases that don't fit anything like a principle like this:
If a being is and has always been completely unconscious, then it's typically OK to kill that being, due to it not being a person, it can't take a turn for the worse or be harmed due to not being conscious, etc.
This is because you have cases where the being was conscious before and isn't now.
And so these are something of hard cases: they aren't quite like, say, embryos, and they aren't like typical sleeping people either (which I think was what this initial response was about). Either way though the "they've never been conscious" principle just doesn't apply to them.
You have intuitions about these cases. I have asked what the justification for these intuitions is since you realize that just because many people have a reaction to a case, that does not entail or show that reaction is correct.
Seems like you are just appealing to brain or bodily continuity and calling that a FLO. OK, that's a view out there--combining Marquis with something like animalism--and people have said things about it, pro and con. That's how it goes, and none of this amounts to "proofs" either. (I think you complained about the lack of a "proof" of something, but you just don't find that with these topics).
Now, it's commonly thought that if something has a FLO, then it's usually wrong to kill it. I am not sure but you may be assuming that something is wrong to kill ONLY IF has a FLO, in the sense of a having a psychological connection to a future.
DeleteI denied that and proposed that something could be wrong to kill for reasons other than having a FLO. So one could be "cautious" and propose that if a being is close enough to being conscious and having a FLO, that's good enough, and there are many external factors that would be relevant in typical cases here too. I think you claimed that in some of these born baby in coma cases there's no continuity between early and later psychology but I don't know that anyone could know that with certainty, so giving them the benefit of the doubt would be wise.
So, again, you have some cases for which judgments about them are controversial, you have an explanation for these judgments which is controversial (insofar as it appeals to animalism or brainism). In saying that I am not suggesting that my views on these matters are not controversial, but that's basically what you get when you are dealing with these topics.
Given that, I think this has run its course, since this is getting repetitive now; so I recommend you try to write up something for a forum bigger and better than an "introduction to these issues" page. It looks like there's a lot on these topics so perhaps you could work your cases into the discussion and push it forward:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C11&q=marquis+abortion+animalism&btnG=
Good luck! Thanks!
This may be useful too, maybe: https://responsiblethinker.substack.com/p/a-problem-for-the-future-like-ours. I didn't recheck but I think he discusses some things that overlap here.
DeleteWell US law gives the following definitions that would apply to all my counterexamples, so yeah it would be against the law.
ReplyDelete(a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=1-USC-1760845812-956340326&term_occur=1&term_src=title:1:chapter:1:section:8
§ 1111 defines murder as the unlawful killing of a human being with malice
https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1536-murder-definition-and-degrees
Also, lots of doctors have been convicted for neligence due to mishandling NICU patients over the years, some of whom were probably premature and in an induced coma.
No, this is like claiming the law addresses who should be punished in a Lockean prince and cobbler / Freaky Friday type case. The law does not engage who, if anyone, should be punished in some hypothetical philosophical thought experience of "Trump does evil stuff and then goes into a coma, his mind is wiped, and the person that emerges has the memories and personality of Hillary Clinton."
ReplyDelete