Is an anacelphic baby a person?: Philosophy Forums

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Is an anacelphic baby a person?

jsidelko
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Posted 09/23/09 - 10:49 AM: Subject: Is an anacelphalic baby a person?	#1
Is an Anacephalic baby a person? Anacephalic babies are born with out a cerebral cortex and, consequently, are lacking in any conscious awareness or potential for becoming conscious persons. Healthy human embryos are also non-conscious but, unlike the Anacephalic baby, they possess the potential for conscious personhood. Assuming that actual or potential consciousness are a criterion for personhood, my questions are this: Does a being with the potential for personhood have greater ontological status than a being without such potential? Is an anacephalic baby a person? Is the killing of the healthy unborn ethically less justified than the killing of postpartum Anacephalic babies? Or are they both unethical? Edited by jsidelko on 09/23/09 - 05:42 PM. Reason: spelling
thanatos

mway
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Posted 09/23/09 - 03:08 PM:	#2
I would say they are both ethical. Primarily because it is not until a toddlers age that a "person" becomes self aware.
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jsidelko
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Posted 09/23/09 - 05:40 PM:	#3
mway I would say they are both ethical. Primarily because it is not until a toddlers age that a "person" becomes self aware. 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?
thanatos

mway
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Posted 09/24/09 - 04:14 PM:	#4
jsidelko wrote: mway I would say they are both ethical. Primarily because it is not until a toddlers age that a "person" becomes self aware. 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? 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).
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Hamandcheese
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Posted 09/24/09 - 04:44 PM:	#5
The 'potential baby' argument holds no moral sway for me. It seems more like a pro-lifer rationalization to be more coherent with modern materialist explanations for consciousness and the soul. So for me whether the thing is definitively brain-less or just presently brain-less I don't make much distinction.
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linear_occurance
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Posted 09/24/09 - 05:39 PM:	#6
I would say that you could have more of an argument for a potential person, than a lump of permanently braindead cells. 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.

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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 09/24/09 - 08:07 PM:	#7
jsidelko wrote: Does a being with the potential for personhood have greater ontological status than a being without such potential? No. Is an anacephalic baby a person? No. Is the killing of the healthy unborn ethically less justified than the killing of postpartum Anacephalic babies? So long as this "healthy unborn" is younger than 26 weeks old (by when thalamocortical connections are established) then No is the answer. Or are they both unethical? No.
The question isn't "Which explanations do I believe?" but rather "Which explanations do I least disbelieve?" Absence of evidence THAT MUST BE THERE (i.e. implied by any claim, concept, or (its) predicates, that affects changes in/to the world) entails evidence of absence. [What cannot be done?[What cannot be hoped?[What cannot be known?]]]

Wosret
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Posted 09/26/09 - 12:49 AM:	#8
Philosophically a person is a "self-conscious or rational being", which no infant is, let alone one without a cerebral cortex.
"If you've got any last words, say 'em now." - Nadie. "I am Horo the Wise." - Horo the Wise.

Aceedwin
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Posted 09/26/09 - 12:55 AM:	#9
"The baby's a carrot?" That should be in some kind of comedic act, regardless of the political incorrectness. I reckon it's no more morally condemnable that cutting down a tree, or using weed killer. Sometimes frowned upon, but only by strange hippy-types.
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jsidelko
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Posted 09/27/09 - 09:07 AM:	#10
Institutions around the world contain a number of mentally retarded adults with profound deficiencies in intellectual ability. Their functioning is so low they are at the level of one year old infants or less. Should they be candidates for euthanasia and should their healthy organs be harvested? Initially the T4 Euthanasia Program in Nazi Germany started with the lowest functioning people and gradually worked up to borderline retarded and the intellectually average mentally ill populations. Since the definition of personhood is ambiguous, I can see the practice of involuntary euthanasia leading to a slippery slope. Can any government be trusted to regulate such a program?
thanatos

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