Quote:
Originally Posted by smiteme
In this instance, I kept human in lower case. I'm simply referring to the genetic human being. I should have said, "Biologically speaking, a unique **** sapiens is present at conception"
I still don't think this is correct. Having a cell with DNA different from the mother does not mean that it is a different organism, you do not need different DNA in order to be a separate individual. This is where my questions in my first post were leading.
Quote:
Originally Posted by smiteme
I actually struggled with this for awhile, and ended up removing it from my paper because it was confusing and took up a lot of space. Basically it sounds bad, but yeah, it is less bad to kill a ******ed person over a genius. This DOES NOT mean it is ok do it, in fact it is VERY VERY unjust to kill a ******ed person, but it is less bad than killing a genius.
I'm not entirely sure I agreed with myself here, and I need to spend more time on this aspect of it, but this was the direction I was going in at least.
When you say that you are not sure that you agreed with yourself, I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that your argument had this side effect conclusion that you don't agree with, and yet you are going to stick with the basic premises anyway?
Basically, this can go 1 of 2 ways as I see it. Either you think that killing any human regardless of IQ is equally wrong, in which case the argument of your paper is flawed. Or, you really believe that the 'badness' of killing a human is directly proportional to their IQ, in which case I just have to say 'wow.'
Quote:
Originally Posted by smiteme
I was really worried that it wasn't going to make sense, and unfortunately, I don't think anyone here has understood the last 3 paragraphs.
I am trying to show that life is only valued in terms of cognitive ability. Since biological life is not valued AT ALL when there is no cognitive functioning, the fetus is not valued until it develops these processes. Since it is not valued AT ALL before this point, its life can be terminated. However, once these processes begin to emerge, its life has at least some value. Since it has at least some value, and has the potential to become Human (with a capital H) it is no longer moral to terminate its life at this point.
I challenge you to reread the last 3 paragraphs slowly. After going over the paper again, it appears as wordy to me as freaking Heidegger. In order to really understand what I'm getting at in the end you almost need to decipher the text. Obviously not what I was intending, but I couldn't explain those thoughts concisely (at least in the amount of time i spent on the paper).
I read your whole thing very carefully the first time. I don't think I'm misunderstanding you, I simply disagree with you. Why does the presence of sub-Human cognitive processes (which I don't think you've defined well anyway) make any difference? You say it's because of potential, but then you choose an arbitrary point along the long line potentiality. Days before the 30th day, cells are moving and changing so that there can be neuronal activity. Without that, you don't get to your point where you say Human-ness begins.
Let me try to phrase this better. You value the life at 40 days less than you value the life of a fly, based on congition alone. But, because of potential, you jump the value at 40 days all the way up to full Human. So clearly you believe that potential matters a lot and can increase the value you place on the life. Well, at 28 days there is still that same potential. Surely it's not that much more of a jump in value than at 32 days.
Why does the presence of a little value from cognition matter to you so much when it seems that potential is far more powerful at contributing to value?
Finally, I have a question for you that may or may not be stupid. How many Humans do you have with a person with dissociative identity disorder?
