torek@umich.UUCP (Paul V. Torek ) (10/02/85)
In article <241@3comvax.UUCP> michaelm@3comvax.UUCP (Michael McNeil) writes: >No, what we need to be able to do with a definition of humanity is >to separate the wheat from the chaff, to discard those accurate but >irrelevant indicators we have heretofore associated with humanity >from those that have real relevance to the question of whether a >being should be considered "human," deserving of "human rights." No!, what we need is to FORGET altogether about the non-issue of defining humanity! It is not "human rights" per se, but rights (and other normative points) simpliciter we should ask about. If one must have a definition for "human", let it be the scientific one (Homo sapiens), keeping in mind that IT BEGS QUESTIONS TO *ASSUME* that the category marks anything normatively SIGNIFICANT. >[...] And I don't mean just the physical experience of *pain* [...] but >more importantly the special poignance we associate with "snuffing out" >a being which has a mind, is capable of experience and feeling, and has >attained a near human level of sophistication and complexity. Another non-issue. "Poignance" requires, it seems, conceptualizing one's death; I doubt that even a child of three could grasp the concept! It's not the poignance that makes death avoiding (that would be circular!)! It's the loss of the life ahead! >However, it must be the degree of sophistication the entity possesses *then* >-- not what it may have later when it grows up. Remember, we must rule >out future capabilities -- eggs and sperm *also* grow up to become people. Non-starter. The egg or sperm does NOT grow up to be anything -- it ceases when it meets its mate! Something ELSE grows up. The tricky question is, what makes something "the same being" IN A RELEVANT SENSE. I say the answer is, being the same *subject of experiences*. If the child of two -- who has no sense of "poignance" -- is the same *experiencing subject* as the woman she will "grow up to become" -- and she is -- then killing the child is wrong precisely insofar as depriving that woman of that life ahead would be wrong (that's what my view comes to). So there you have it folks: two non-issues (humanity, poignance) and a non-starter (the "eggs and sperm have futures too" argument). --the THIRD side, Paul V Torek torek@umich