Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’.
That…sounds familiar. What a shocker. No one could see this coming. /sarc
Arguments in favor of abortion generally take three forms: 1) arguments which consider the rights of the pregnant woman, 2) arguments which consider the independent viability of the fetus, and 3) the cognitive development of the baby.
By equating infanticide to abortion, only the cognitive development of the baby remains an issue — arguments about pregnant women and viability are irrelevant. This is a huge favor to those who wish to argue against abortion!
I think the best response is to engage the argument with the expectation that the engagement will lead the authors to reconsider and condemn at least some abortions on the very grounds they are using to argue for infanticide.
I would find out what the proponents consider to be the criteria for prohibiting infanticide — for example, is it when the baby says his or her first word? I would then question what makes that different than thinking the thought which is expressed with the word, and then point out that such thinking actually develops much earlier than speech. And so forth.
I expect that that whatever criteria are being use will turn out to be criteria that can be applied to, say, 8 month old fetuses, and thus, an honest philosopher would have to agree that infanticide and at least some abortions are morally equivalent, and will condemn them both.
I didn’t say that clearly. What I’m saying is: If the authors will explain why they think that killing a 1 year old is wrong, we can work backwards, and I think I could convince them that what’s true of the 1 year old is also true of an 8 month old fetus, although at a much less sophisticated level.
If the authors will explain why they think that killing a 1 year old is wrong…
But that is not the case — they, “do not put forward any claim about the moment at which after-birth abortion would no longer be permissible…” In good Utilitarian fashion, they kick that can down to “neurologists and psychologists.” My guess is that they embrace your cognitive view, Bob, so it infantacide would still be “moral” if the baby (or anyone else, for that matter) was in stage IV sleep or anesthetized.
Thank you for the link to the paper.
Titus I think you are incorrect when you say that the authors don’t explain why killing a 1 year old is wrong. The authors claim that a being has a right to life if it has “aims” which can be frustrated, or if it can appreciate its life.
I understand “aims” to be the British way of saying “goals”, and I assume the two terms are equivalent. The authors assert that a newborn baby can experience pleasure and pain, but has no aims. We could get into the weeds here, discussing whether or not the fulfillment or frustration of a baby’s goals are the trigger for when pleasure or pain is experienced, but I’d rather point out what is obvious to anyone who observes a newborn baby: in addition to simple goals like rooting for a nipple, babies have all kinds of information processing goals. Newborns stare at faces longer than they stare at other things. Newborns show a greater interest in their mothers’ voices than in other sounds. Research on newborns shows evidence for a variety of other information processing goals.
I’m not arguing that the authors’ criteria for the right to life are the right ones, but as I expected, the authors’ own criteria are met by newborns and even by late term fetuses.
===
I don’t know what to make of the rest of your comment, about utilitarians, stage IV sleep, anesthesia, and so on. Suppose I said that only those who can ride a bicycle have a right to life. A testube of chemicals, a one cell zygote, and an anesthetized Lance Armstrong are all unable to ride a bicycle, but is a discussion of the three cases really necessary? Because if so, I’m going to argue that the chemicals in the testtube not only have the potential to eventually come to life, but to ride a bicycle! 🙂
Indeed, a debate about where these guys think life “begins” (sometime after birth but before age 18?) is much too weedy and, frankly, not that informative. Their “goals/aims” criteria is interesting, but arbitrary — there’s nothing sacred about “goals”, and, as you say, newborns, and thus fetuses have all kinds of “goals” they see no problem terminating.
What is truly disturbing is that the baby’s moral status depends on whether he or she is desired by the mother. And while no one can argue that it is a horrible life prospect to be unloved by one’s mother, even adoption is no salvation. Why? Because the mother would feel bad about giving the baby up! We’re talking Susan Smith territory here – “How can you, baby, possibly live without me, me, me?” It’s Feminism run amok – women’s feelings override the moral status of another human being:
What we are suggesting is that, if interests of actual people should prevail, then after-birth abortion should be considered a permissible option for women who would be damaged by giving up their newborns for adoption.
Anyways, I was poking fun of your criteria of “cognition” wrt personhood. I have two analogies that I employ on this issue. One is on the issue of duty, but we’re long past pregnancy phase here, so it’s not germane. The other is the sleeping man analogy. Consider a man who is asleep (delta NREM or under general anesthesia). He has biological processes, but no cognition — his brain activity is less impressive than the waking state of slaughter animals. If his condition were to persist, we’d be talking about “death panels” instead. Would it be moral to kill him? Certainly not! Why? Because we expect him to wake up — he has a future. It’s the same reason I can’t just butcher people on the street — they have futures, too! Same goes for a fetus, no?
Now, using the above reasoning, I cannot tell you where the line is, or if there even is one, but my sense is that if your fetus has made it 3-4 months, and there are no biological problems, the future looks pretty certain. Things get much murkier at conception — but first world hospitals and mandatory health insurance sure make it look brighter…
It’s Feminism run amok – women’s feelings override the moral status of another human being:
Actually, two other human beings. But since the other one didn’t need to carry anything around, he doesn’t really matter.
You can’t butcher people on the street because they have a present. The future is unknowable, but the present suffices. You appear to have funny ideas about sedation. When a person wakes up from sedation, what allows them to start acting like themselves again? Their brain, right? So, obviously, their brain was maintaining their personality while they were under sedation, and it would be wrong to butcher such a brain. In contrast, a zygote has no brain, nor does a blastocyst. Embryos develop brains quite early, but such brains are not equivalent to a newborn baby’s brain. The differences between brains at different stages of development is where I think the abortion argument should focus.
What if the brain has no future?
What if the brain has no future?
Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see.
Seriously, I think your question is better answered with art than with philosophy.
I recommend this movie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Night_(1998_film)
Very powerful, very well done. And very Canadian. A few people think the impending end of the world means that it is ok to go murdering people, but the vast majority face the end with dignity, and one character points out that the end of the world is a time to be even more considerate, rather than less so.
Oh, but we certainly have veto power over it — that is the issue. Regardless, mull it over and have a good weekend.
for example, is it when the baby says his or her first word?
And if you happen to be mute, sorry. It’s the disposal for you.
Simpler argument is to ask them who/what entity decides the “rights to life” and what is the process of conferring such rights? There is no need to piece meal where the line is drawn, ask outright where it is. This is the problem with people who support abortion, the line to them is grey. For those who are pro life, the line is well set: “at conception”.
I will say, if you consider the argument of whether a “right to life” can be conferred, there is a counter argument related to the death penalty. After all, there is a process in the US in which the “right to life” can be taken away. I’d say its a fair question, but the answer for me is rather simple. The taking of the “right to life” in relation to the death penatly occurs only when a person has already decided they individually had such authority to take it on their own. Further, I can point to the authority of “the people” by referencing the US constitution.
This is incidental to the argument, but I don’t see why the pro-life line should be set “at conception”. I don’t even see why there must be “a line” at all. Conception doesn’t involve abiogenesis, after all. Why not recognize the continuity life from the parents to children, and treat all eggs and all sperm as not particularly different from a one cell zygote? Sure, a zygote is diploid and an egg is haploid, but if you’re going to discriminate on the basis of chromosomal make-up, you’ll have to do some pretty arbitrary mental gymnastics when it comes to cases where babies have chromosomal anomalies. The most extreme example is where the newborn baby simply has only one set of chromosomes, just like a sperm or an egg.
I don’t see why the pro-life line should be set “at conception”.
They didn’t ask you. They don’t base their morality on wikipedia.
But I’m asking you: what is the moral argument for saying that there is a difference between a human egg and a one cell zygote? Both are just one cell, yet both have potential – if various events occur, both could become a newborn baby. I already explained why discriminating on the basis of diploid vs haploid is problematic. So what’s the moral argument?
what is the moral argument for saying that there is a difference between a human egg and a one cell zygote?
It is the first cell of a person, no longer merely the tissue of mom or dad. The sperm race is over, the quantum state has collapsed, probability has resolved into genetic certainty.
The typical retort is to say that a one cell zygote is just as much a tissue of mom as the unfertilized egg was, but I’d like to take a different approach, and ask why isn’t an unfertilized egg considered a cell (perhaps the first cell) of a person? It certainly is a living human cell, and for every adult human, we can identify a single egg that he or she came from. The argument isn’t quite the same for sperm — fatherless mammals are possible, so sperm isn’t strictly necessary.
I think your quantum mechanics metaphor just muddies the waters — lets just stick to realistic biology.
fatherless mammals are possible
Jesus Christ
Ha! The concept of the Trinity is an endless source of mystery!
I was thinking, rather, of Kaguya the mouse. But checking wikipedia, it turns out that the same thing has also been done with humans (although the human embryos were not brought to term).
Toolin’ along in my Chevrolet
Tokin on a number and diggin’ on the radio…
Something for the open thread…
That…sounds familiar. What a shocker. No one could see this coming. /sarc
Arguments in favor of abortion generally take three forms: 1) arguments which consider the rights of the pregnant woman, 2) arguments which consider the independent viability of the fetus, and 3) the cognitive development of the baby.
By equating infanticide to abortion, only the cognitive development of the baby remains an issue — arguments about pregnant women and viability are irrelevant. This is a huge favor to those who wish to argue against abortion!
I think the best response is to engage the argument with the expectation that the engagement will lead the authors to reconsider and condemn at least some abortions on the very grounds they are using to argue for infanticide.
I would find out what the proponents consider to be the criteria for prohibiting infanticide — for example, is it when the baby says his or her first word? I would then question what makes that different than thinking the thought which is expressed with the word, and then point out that such thinking actually develops much earlier than speech. And so forth.
I expect that that whatever criteria are being use will turn out to be criteria that can be applied to, say, 8 month old fetuses, and thus, an honest philosopher would have to agree that infanticide and at least some abortions are morally equivalent, and will condemn them both.
I didn’t say that clearly. What I’m saying is: If the authors will explain why they think that killing a 1 year old is wrong, we can work backwards, and I think I could convince them that what’s true of the 1 year old is also true of an 8 month old fetus, although at a much less sophisticated level.
But that is not the case — they, “do not put forward any claim about the moment at which after-birth abortion would no longer be permissible…” In good Utilitarian fashion, they kick that can down to “neurologists and psychologists.” My guess is that they embrace your cognitive view, Bob, so it infantacide would still be “moral” if the baby (or anyone else, for that matter) was in stage IV sleep or anesthetized.
Thank you for the link to the paper.
Titus I think you are incorrect when you say that the authors don’t explain why killing a 1 year old is wrong. The authors claim that a being has a right to life if it has “aims” which can be frustrated, or if it can appreciate its life.
I understand “aims” to be the British way of saying “goals”, and I assume the two terms are equivalent. The authors assert that a newborn baby can experience pleasure and pain, but has no aims. We could get into the weeds here, discussing whether or not the fulfillment or frustration of a baby’s goals are the trigger for when pleasure or pain is experienced, but I’d rather point out what is obvious to anyone who observes a newborn baby: in addition to simple goals like rooting for a nipple, babies have all kinds of information processing goals. Newborns stare at faces longer than they stare at other things. Newborns show a greater interest in their mothers’ voices than in other sounds. Research on newborns shows evidence for a variety of other information processing goals.
I’m not arguing that the authors’ criteria for the right to life are the right ones, but as I expected, the authors’ own criteria are met by newborns and even by late term fetuses.
===
I don’t know what to make of the rest of your comment, about utilitarians, stage IV sleep, anesthesia, and so on. Suppose I said that only those who can ride a bicycle have a right to life. A testube of chemicals, a one cell zygote, and an anesthetized Lance Armstrong are all unable to ride a bicycle, but is a discussion of the three cases really necessary? Because if so, I’m going to argue that the chemicals in the testtube not only have the potential to eventually come to life, but to ride a bicycle! 🙂
Indeed, a debate about where these guys think life “begins” (sometime after birth but before age 18?) is much too weedy and, frankly, not that informative. Their “goals/aims” criteria is interesting, but arbitrary — there’s nothing sacred about “goals”, and, as you say, newborns, and thus fetuses have all kinds of “goals” they see no problem terminating.
What is truly disturbing is that the baby’s moral status depends on whether he or she is desired by the mother. And while no one can argue that it is a horrible life prospect to be unloved by one’s mother, even adoption is no salvation. Why? Because the mother would feel bad about giving the baby up! We’re talking Susan Smith territory here – “How can you, baby, possibly live without me, me, me?” It’s Feminism run amok – women’s feelings override the moral status of another human being:
Anyways, I was poking fun of your criteria of “cognition” wrt personhood. I have two analogies that I employ on this issue. One is on the issue of duty, but we’re long past pregnancy phase here, so it’s not germane. The other is the sleeping man analogy. Consider a man who is asleep (delta NREM or under general anesthesia). He has biological processes, but no cognition — his brain activity is less impressive than the waking state of slaughter animals. If his condition were to persist, we’d be talking about “death panels” instead. Would it be moral to kill him? Certainly not! Why? Because we expect him to wake up — he has a future. It’s the same reason I can’t just butcher people on the street — they have futures, too! Same goes for a fetus, no?
Now, using the above reasoning, I cannot tell you where the line is, or if there even is one, but my sense is that if your fetus has made it 3-4 months, and there are no biological problems, the future looks pretty certain. Things get much murkier at conception — but first world hospitals and mandatory health insurance sure make it look brighter…
It’s Feminism run amok – women’s feelings override the moral status of another human being:
Actually, two other human beings. But since the other one didn’t need to carry anything around, he doesn’t really matter.
You can’t butcher people on the street because they have a present. The future is unknowable, but the present suffices. You appear to have funny ideas about sedation. When a person wakes up from sedation, what allows them to start acting like themselves again? Their brain, right? So, obviously, their brain was maintaining their personality while they were under sedation, and it would be wrong to butcher such a brain. In contrast, a zygote has no brain, nor does a blastocyst. Embryos develop brains quite early, but such brains are not equivalent to a newborn baby’s brain. The differences between brains at different stages of development is where I think the abortion argument should focus.
What if the brain has no future?
What if the brain has no future?
Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see.
Seriously, I think your question is better answered with art than with philosophy.
I recommend this movie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Night_(1998_film)
Very powerful, very well done. And very Canadian. A few people think the impending end of the world means that it is ok to go murdering people, but the vast majority face the end with dignity, and one character points out that the end of the world is a time to be even more considerate, rather than less so.
Oh, but we certainly have veto power over it — that is the issue. Regardless, mull it over and have a good weekend.
for example, is it when the baby says his or her first word?
And if you happen to be mute, sorry. It’s the disposal for you.
Simpler argument is to ask them who/what entity decides the “rights to life” and what is the process of conferring such rights? There is no need to piece meal where the line is drawn, ask outright where it is. This is the problem with people who support abortion, the line to them is grey. For those who are pro life, the line is well set: “at conception”.
I will say, if you consider the argument of whether a “right to life” can be conferred, there is a counter argument related to the death penalty. After all, there is a process in the US in which the “right to life” can be taken away. I’d say its a fair question, but the answer for me is rather simple. The taking of the “right to life” in relation to the death penatly occurs only when a person has already decided they individually had such authority to take it on their own. Further, I can point to the authority of “the people” by referencing the US constitution.
This is incidental to the argument, but I don’t see why the pro-life line should be set “at conception”. I don’t even see why there must be “a line” at all. Conception doesn’t involve abiogenesis, after all. Why not recognize the continuity life from the parents to children, and treat all eggs and all sperm as not particularly different from a one cell zygote? Sure, a zygote is diploid and an egg is haploid, but if you’re going to discriminate on the basis of chromosomal make-up, you’ll have to do some pretty arbitrary mental gymnastics when it comes to cases where babies have chromosomal anomalies. The most extreme example is where the newborn baby simply has only one set of chromosomes, just like a sperm or an egg.
Oh, wait, I’m replying to Leland! So, I need to include a Wikipedia link!
Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Sperm_Is_Sacred
I don’t see why the pro-life line should be set “at conception”.
They didn’t ask you. They don’t base their morality on wikipedia.
But I’m asking you: what is the moral argument for saying that there is a difference between a human egg and a one cell zygote? Both are just one cell, yet both have potential – if various events occur, both could become a newborn baby. I already explained why discriminating on the basis of diploid vs haploid is problematic. So what’s the moral argument?
It is the first cell of a person, no longer merely the tissue of mom or dad. The sperm race is over, the quantum state has collapsed, probability has resolved into genetic certainty.
The typical retort is to say that a one cell zygote is just as much a tissue of mom as the unfertilized egg was, but I’d like to take a different approach, and ask why isn’t an unfertilized egg considered a cell (perhaps the first cell) of a person? It certainly is a living human cell, and for every adult human, we can identify a single egg that he or she came from. The argument isn’t quite the same for sperm — fatherless mammals are possible, so sperm isn’t strictly necessary.
I think your quantum mechanics metaphor just muddies the waters — lets just stick to realistic biology.
fatherless mammals are possible
Jesus Christ
Ha! The concept of the Trinity is an endless source of mystery!
I was thinking, rather, of Kaguya the mouse. But checking wikipedia, it turns out that the same thing has also been done with humans (although the human embryos were not brought to term).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaguya_(mouse)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis#Humans
Disgusting
so much for the attempt to close italics…
And wow, Andrew Breitbart’s passing is a bit of a shock. Condolences to his friends and family. He will be missed.
Shocking.
Yeah, they’re dancing on his grave over at DU (seriously — animated .gifs and everything…).
Way too young. Best wishes to his wife and kid — I know they’ll get a lot of support, but nothing will completely fill that void.
Very sad. There is a vacuum in the conservative movement with his passing but maybe the people who he inspired will fill it.
HuffPo mods scrubbing like crazy I’m sure. DailyKos, FDL, and DrudgeRetort not so much.