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Is an anacelphic baby a person?

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Is an anacelphic baby a person?
linear_occurance
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Posted 10/21/09 - 02:42 PM:
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baden511 wrote:


To be fair linear, having your own user name spelled incorrectly doesn't put you in a strong position to make this comment. It's occurrence not 'occurance'. And I presume you meant to call yourself linear occurrence as 'occurance' not being a word would render your user name completely nonsensical. I agree that that doesn't denigrate any of your arguments which we'll take on their own merits; but it does put you in a difficult position with the above comment.




So because I made an error in my name, I can not claim the position that the mass murder of philosophers is "crude and stupid"? I have poor grammar, so I can no longer claim to be less crude than an advocate of genocide? What exactly is your point here?
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Posted 10/21/09 - 03:21 PM:
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baden511 wrote:


So according to you, if we change our mind on an ethical issue because we realize that the effects of following our original opinions through to their logical conclusions are undesirable, we are no longer within the bounds of ethical philosophy. That's your position?


That is my opinion. Philosophy and reason is not always about getting the best practical results nor is it about establishing morality upon opinions. If a mathematician or scientist said 'our spaceship won't work unless we change the value of the law of gravity in our calculations because we don't want to go through the toil of having to create new designs and build another spaceship from scratch, so lets just ignore the law of gravity," it would make his job much easier but its not consistent with reality. Whether freedom or morality or any of that 'actually works and is practical' is meaningless to me. Others will just have to learn to live within the boundaries of what these concepts really are.
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Posted 10/22/09 - 06:58 AM:
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linear_occurance wrote:


So because I made an error in my name, I can not claim the position that the mass murder of philosophers is "crude and stupid"? I have poor grammar, so I can no longer claim to be less crude than an advocate of genocide? What exactly is your point here?


My goal wasn't to embarass you linear or to make you look like a fool. Your inability to spell your own user name doesn't necessarily reflect disastrously on your intelligence.

But since you asked, here's my point: There are plenty of people out there who would describe you as stupid for making that mistake, and even more I suspect who would call you both crude and stupid for equating the act of killing a baby (who had not yet reached personhood) with unplugging a toaster. I wouldn't use those words; I might use the word sociopath though, and at the very least I don't believe you should be allowed around young children ('under the age of toddlers' as your partner in bad taste mway put it) since you feel you have the right to treat them like toasters - unplugging them at will.

So, in short, no, I don't think your position of judging the killing of philosophers crude and stupid but the killing of babies as perfectly OK is remotely tenable.

P.S. I didn't accuse you of bad grammar. Spelling and grammar are not the same thing.
"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Moses (Numbers 31:17-18)

"Do not harm little children" - Satanic Bible. Rule no.9

"And the prize is: Eternal heavenly bliss. Or a peanut. Your choice." - The Divine Game Show Host
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Posted 10/22/09 - 12:13 PM:
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#34
baden511 wrote:

P.S. I didn't accuse you of bad grammar. Spelling and grammar are not the same thing.
Alright, here's my point: a name is a random allotment of letters, and you therefore cannot misspell your name on your birth certificate. Since we all name ourselves on this board, whatever we name ourselves becomes our name. So, you can't tell Catheryn (for example) that she has misspelled her name and that it should be Catherine, Katherine, Kathryn, Cathrien, or whatever. It is whatever she says it is. The other point made is that any attack on someone's spelling is an ad hominem attack, unless, of course, the misspelling has resulted in incoherence or has resulted in a misunderstanding.

I will agree that anyone who actually believes that killing babies is morally appropriate and comparable to unplugging toasters is a sociopath. However, I seriously doubt anyone on this board believes that, but I expect many of the statements contained on this board are just academic nonsense. I don't offer that as a criticism because I think academia is where nonsense should be aired and explored as opposed to in real life where things actually matter.
"Nothing is impossible for the man who will not listen to reason." John Belushi, "Animal House"
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Posted 10/23/09 - 07:45 AM:
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#35
Hanover wrote:

Alright, here's my point: a name is a random allotment of letters, and you therefore cannot misspell your name on your birth certificate. Since we all name ourselves on this board, whatever we name ourselves becomes our name. So, you can't tell Catheryn (for example) that she has misspelled her name and that it should be Catherine, Katherine, Kathryn, Cathrien, or whatever. It is whatever she says it is. The other point made is that any attack on someone's spelling is an ad hominem attack, unless, of course, the misspelling has resulted in incoherence or has resulted in a misunderstanding.

I will agree that anyone who actually believes that killing babies is morally appropriate and comparable to unplugging toasters is a sociopath. However, I seriously doubt anyone on this board believes that, but I expect many of the statements contained on this board are just academic nonsense. I don't offer that as a criticism because I think academia is where nonsense should be aired and explored as opposed to in real life where things actually matter.


Thanks for the comment Hanover. I agree with the main point here; the spelling issue is largely irrelevant. There are plenty of smart people out there who aren't good spellers. I don't think though that there are many smart people out there who would compare babies to toasters, and I'm not quite as confident as you are that mway and linear think that what they are putting forward is academic nonsense. Still, I take your point.
"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Moses (Numbers 31:17-18)

"Do not harm little children" - Satanic Bible. Rule no.9

"And the prize is: Eternal heavenly bliss. Or a peanut. Your choice." - The Divine Game Show Host
linear_occurance
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Posted 10/24/09 - 03:38 PM:
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Baden:

"There are plenty of people...who would call you both crude and stupid for equating the act of killing a baby (who had not yet reached personhood) with unplugging a toaster."

And apparently, there are roughly an equal amount (if not more) of people who would not. Or many countries would not be pro-choice.

"I wouldn't use those words; I might use the word sociopath though, and at the very least I don't believe you should be allowed around young children ('under the age of toddlers' as your partner in bad taste mway put it) since you feel you have the right to treat them like toasters - unplugging them at will. "

You compare anyone who believes that infants who have yet to achieve personhood as equal to something without personhood (I know, an absurd concept), as a sociopath. This includes all the medical persons who practice abortion and any woman who has had one performed. Are you sure that you wish to compare at least half of a nation (as this is roughly the portion of the US that agrees with a woman's right to choice) as mentaly disturbed?

I have yet to figure out how to quote a person, and I appoligize for this. I hope you can refrain from pointing out another frivolous lack in understanding on my part.
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Posted 10/24/09 - 08:52 PM:
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That is not my position linear.

You said:

linear_occurance wrote:


But I would think that until the child in question becomes a "person" (my deffinition is self-aware), you have not killed a "person" through abortion. You have, as mway put it, unplugged a toaster.

Thus making it ethical, in my book.


This was after mway had written in respose to jsidelko as follows:

jsidelko wrote:
Are you suggesting that a pre- toddler or a profoundly retarded adult with a"mental age"of less than two years may be candidates for euthansia?


mway wrote:
Definately. Human beings are just biological machines, and euthanasing ones without definably human abilities is the same as turning off a toaster (you could argue all humans, but i'll leave that for another thread).


I am not comparing all those who support abortion at some stage to sociopaths. But those who would support the killing of babies right up until the moment of pregnancy and in mway's case (and I interpreted you as supporting mway in this, please correct me if you don't) beyond to pre-toddler years because they are not yet self aware (your definition) and thus are equivalent to inanimate objects are positing in my view an indefensible position.

Please note: I'm restricting myself here to commenting on babies who are close to being born (who could survive if born at that time) and those who are postpartum up until the age they become self-aware (the rest can be dealt with in an abortion thread).

First of all, there is a continuum of awareness/self-awareness that runs from inanimate objects through plants through lower and higher forms of animals through young humans (like babies) and very old humans (consider alzheimer's patients) to normal adult humans. You would morally equate killing any living thing not at the very far end of this continuum with changing the state of an inanimate object, making 'self-awareness' the defining criteria. There are so many things wrong with that view, I'm not sure where to start. Here are a couple of points.

1) Babies are aware and feel pain, just as we do. Having not been socialized through language, they do not yet understand that they are persons. However, all things being equal, they will develop to that stage. If you equate them with an inanimate object you deny all the myriad of ways that they are already human and furthermore you deny them their development into persons.

2) People in comas are less aware than babies and can't even feel pain. Should we always pull the plug even if they have a chance to wake up?

3) If someone knocked you unconscious, you would be less aware than a baby and wouldn't even feel pain. Should we have the right to kill you?

4) In points 2) and 3) we are dealing with unaware humans who lack some of the human characteristics of babies, for example feeling pain, being awake, and having the ability to move. They share with babies the potential for full awareness (though unlike babies, they have previously been aware.) So, in your schema, are they not even more likely to be treated like inanimate objects? or are you going to try to say that because they were aware before that cancels out every other consideration, in which case are you not cherry-picking your categories?

Life, particularly human life, and especially fragile and vulnerable human life demands and deserves respect and care. This is the very root of morality and ethics, not a branch that can be arbitrarily cut off with a couple of crude ideas picked up somewhere about self-awareness.

P.S. This commentary, insofar as it is directed at you, is based on my best attempt at interpreting your posts (mway was clearer to me than you were). If there is any misinterpretation, please clarify your exact position.









Edited by baden511 on 10/24/09 - 10:05 PM
"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Moses (Numbers 31:17-18)

"Do not harm little children" - Satanic Bible. Rule no.9

"And the prize is: Eternal heavenly bliss. Or a peanut. Your choice." - The Divine Game Show Host
linear_occurance
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Posted 10/28/09 - 02:39 PM:
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1-This does not apply to the thread. As stated, my argument was one that pertained to braindead babies, or a fetus, which is not self-aware. I do not know how you came to the conclusion that we were discussing full fledged children as candidates for euthinasia.

2- You could make an argument either way, depending on the likelyhood of the reimergence of conciousness (I do not know enough about coma patients to even assume that there are varying degrees), and how long the coma has lasted, I would assume that at a certain point it would be practical and ethical to pull the plug.

After ten years of being braindead, would it not be acceptable to pull the plug? As now we have kept a vegetable alive for ten years at quite a cost to others. This is my opinion though, once again.

3- No. It is certain that my conciousness will return, and I am already self aware. I do not know how this would be cherry picking my categories. A temporarily braindead person is not the same as a body yet to achieve "personhood". In one instance you would be effectivley killing a fully developed person (the unconcious instance), in the other, you would be preventing a person from forming, not ending a life.

"human life, and especially fragile and vulnerable human life demands and deserves respect and care. This is the very root of morality and ethics, not a branch that can be arbitrarily cut off with a couple of crude ideas picked up somewhere about self-awareness."
-Baden511

Ok. How do you define "Human Life"?

My deffinition is the combination of an acceptable intellect (self-awareness) and a human body. Without either one, in my opinion you are no longer human. You are either a coma patient (or an anacelphic baby), or a floating conciousness.

Until this is achieved, I would assume the subject to not be human. Therefore, it is ethical to euthinize babies without a brain in my opinion.

This is how I arrived at my crude ideas about human life, and how we should treat it.

I thought I explained this in the earlier posts, but I appologize, as apparently I was not clear enough.

Edited by linear_occurance on 10/28/09 - 02:49 PM
baden511
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Posted 10/29/09 - 12:41 AM:
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linear_occurance wrote:

Ok. How do you define "Human Life"?

My deffinition is the combination of an acceptable intellect (self-awareness) and a human body. Without either one, in my opinion you are no longer human. You are either a coma patient (or an anacelphic baby), or a floating conciousness.

Until this is achieved, I would assume the subject to not be human. Therefore, it is ethical to euthinize babies without a brain in my opinion.


Thanks for the clarification. In the quote of yours I referred to, you only mentioned self-awareness (which would not necessarily exclude babies) as your definition of what 'human life' is and said you agreed with mway about his comparison with unplugging a toaster. Mway, in the quote I referred to, had said that even babies before they were toddlers could be candidates for euthanasia. I took you as agreeing with him, which was wrong as you've clarified, so in fact our positions are not as different as I thought.



"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Moses (Numbers 31:17-18)

"Do not harm little children" - Satanic Bible. Rule no.9

"And the prize is: Eternal heavenly bliss. Or a peanut. Your choice." - The Divine Game Show Host
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Posted 10/29/09 - 01:32 AM:
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It seems that human life is not justly tradeable between others, by which I mean that we should not kill other people merely for our own benefit or convenience.

It also seems that some human life is of no value to the one living it (the anencephalic baby).

But there seems to no reason not to trade something of no value (the life) for something of value (our benefit and convenience).

It's a problem. It's not obvious to me that allowing the baby to die or killing it is morally permissible - or that it isn't. We've got good reasons for holding both principles. Sometimes they conflict. And there may be no higher principle which we can invoke to decide between them. That may be just the way it is.
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