I heard about this new stem cell research yesterday on NPR, which broadcast a brief debate on the subject between Sean Tipton, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical
Research, and Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of Pro-Life
Activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Basically, Dr. Doerflinger takes this advance as Great News in that soon there may be no scientific (let alone moral) justification to continue controversial research on human embryonic stem cells, whereas Dr. Tipton thinks such research should continue – just in case. He sees stem cell research as a race to the finish line (his analogy) and whatever it takes to get there is fine, even though "some people" have moral problems with it.
It wasn’t so much his point of view that puzzled me (after all, you can’t expect someone who doesn’t believe in moral absolutes to behave as if they do*) but the way he defended it; So, why should we continue with controversial research, even in the face of grave moral misgivings? Because "we live in a pluralistic society".
H’okay…
Now, I’m sure Dr. Tipton could give a better, more well-rounded defense than that, if pressed, but tho whole idea (very popular, of late) that a "pluralistic society" must allow scientists to pursue "whatever works" is just freaky. Never mind advanced ethical philosophy, has Dr. Tipton never seen Frankenstein or Them or even The Hideous Sun Demon? Hollywood had this all sussed many decades ago… there are Some Things that Man was Not Meant to Tamper With.
And, the question must be asked; if Moral Pluralism is the standard, the foundational dogma of our modern society, then what is NOT to be allowed, and why? Aren’t all ethical frameworks equally – that is subjectively – valid? Why NOT eugenics? Why NOT a genetically modified warrior race? Why NOT chemical and biological weapons?
The natural law would proscribe all these things on the basis that they are offenses against human dignity. Pluralism might find them all wrong now (because most people find them morally repugnant, even if they can’t say why), but there can be no guarantee about the future. If most people – or even if enough of the right people – become okay with it at some point, well, we can expect these kinds of examples of the New, Improved Dynamic Morality.
"How beautious mankind is! O brave new world: That has such people in’t!".
*This touches on a recent mammoth combox debate on morality and ethics. There is this idea that one may arrive at a workable moral framework in a number of ways and that there will be little practical difference in the end. But that is not true. Toss out moral absolutes and the divergences in ethical philosophy and practice are profound and immediate.
Amen, Tim! I am excited to hear about this new development with adult stem cells.
Not to invoke Godwin’s law, but by Dr. Tipton’s logic, the Nazis were perfectly justified in conducting their horrific scientific experiments on Jewish people — after all, why not, “just in case”?
What Dr. Tipton DIDN’T want to say is that embryonic stem cell research should be continued because, in the end, it will be more profitable for large corporations. After all, you can patent a treatment made from embryonic stem cells, but you can’t do the same with a treatment using adult stem cells (since they come from the patients own body). Therefore, the megacorps, politicians, etc. want embryonic stem cell research to continue because there’s a more potential to make money, not because there’s more potential for cures and treatments.
Frankly, as much as the pro-ESCR crowd has misled with its use of language, the anti-ESCR crowd has failed to win the day by not basing their arguments solely in the realm that the “pro-science” crowd respects – science and evidence.
As with abortion, the argument can easily be made that there is no scientific basis for declaring an embryo less than human. Any such arguments are in the world of “faith” not science and empiricism. Drawing the line at any point post-conception between human and non-human is a value judgement – if you don’t agree, show me a “humanity meter” please.
To use pro-ESCR style arguments, it is only a matter of time before we discover how to fully mature a fertilized, single cell embryo to “birth” outside of a mother’s womb – ending ALL arguments against abortion. We need more research on how to do this. How dare people be anti-science and use their “faith” to arbitrarily define who is human and who isn’t. Science will save the day ! 😉
There is no magical line that someone suddenly becomes human – at least scientifically.
– other than conception. Any other point in the life of the child is only an arbitrary choice… given the right environment, it will develop fully.
This argument can be won solely using our opponents’ claimed tools of logic, science, and empiricism to show their upside down view of the world.
Define the argument properly from the beginning – or have it defined for you!
Did you just post this because you were afraid I might leave if the global warming thread wound down? ;-).
I’m going to wait a few more days to tie up the loose ends there, but shockingly, I think we may disagree about this one too (and our disagreement may be slightly deeper, although I think related to many of the same issues as I’ll try to make clear).
Perhaps your footnote is a reference to John Rawls’ Political Liberalism? I should warn you that for my last birthday, I received a life-size cut-out of John Rawls which now stands in my kitchen. This one should be fun…
Did you just post this because you were afraid I might leave if the global warming thread wound down? ;-).
I’m going to wait a few more days to tie up the loose ends there, but shockingly, I think we may disagree about this one too (and our disagreement may be slightly deeper, although I think related to many of the same issues as I’ll try to make clear).
Perhaps your footnote is a reference to John Rawls’ Political Liberalism? I should warn you that for my last birthday, I received a life-size cut-out of John Rawls which now stands in my kitchen. This one should be fun…
“Perhaps your footnote is a reference to John Rawls’ Political Liberalism?”
Sorry, I’m not familiar with him or it. But I look forward to your comments with great antici…
…pation.
Also, I must point out that it seems like Pluralism can be defined as “we allow all points of view except those we don;t allow”.
In a pluralist society, people must be free to stop any given activity on the ground they don’t like it. Otherwise, we are imposing our views on others.
“Why Not Embyonic Research?”
For Christians it should be an easy question to answer.
And now that we’re in the Christmas season, it should be even easier, since Christmas is where the greatest proof of ‘life at conception’ can be found.
“And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? 35 And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
“..And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: 37 Because no word shall be impossible with God.”
” …And Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste into a city of Juda. 40 And she entered into the house of Zachary, and saluted Elizabeth. 41 And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: 42 And she cried out with a loud voice, and said: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. 43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.”
Now…in all of these passages, do they not clearly proclaim that life begins at conception??
Here we read that Mary went “in haste” to help her cousin Elizabeth with the final months of her pregnancy, and considering that Mary left so quickly, at the angels request, she could have been pregnant only a few days when she met with Elizabeth. Then, Elizabeth had this extraordinary experience of her baby ‘leaping’ in her womb at Marys greeting.She also addresses Mary as “the mother of my Lord”,again…Mary only being pregnant a few days.
Considering this account of the MOTHER of JESUS…how can any Christian argue that life begins at a time OTHER THAN CONCEPTION? They would need to ignore entirely this Christmas account, which is something an atheist might do, but a Christian cannot.
This is the point, really. Most people who play the pluralism card do not understand the degree to which the religions of the world agree on things like ESCR, homosexual “marriage”, etc. And because Christianity usually skews more liberal than these other major religions, a truly pluralistic society that set its moral compass according to a survey of the beliefs of its believers would skew more conservative than a purely Christian society.
Witness the revulsion of Hindus against the sale of condoms, the Muslim view towards proper attire for women (or rights for women in general), the Buddhist attitude towards food, or the Jewish attitude towards the Sabbath.
I for one prefer the Christian response of trying to convince people through reasoned arguments and appeals to justice, beauty and peace but if these pluralists really want to have their way, the discussion will should dissolve into simple warnings: “Don’t do X because group Y will cane/kill/exile you.”
Pluralistic? Indeed. These people need to get on their knees and thank Holy Mother Church for all the cherished freedoms Christian society and culture bring.
This way of thinking seems more individualistic than pluralistic (maybe it’s the same thing).
The only philosophical principle to it seems to be “no one can tell me what I can or can’t do, as long as I’m not hurting another person”.
Of course, sometimes it’s necessary to fudge the definition of “hurt” and “person” to make it work out the way they want.
What pluralists always fail to realise is that their doctrine of pluralism is a belief system in and of itself, one that is not compatible with all other belief systems and in fact is often openly hostile to many worldviews.
Pluralists like to talk about how “inclusive” and “tolerant” pluralism is; yet I’ve noticed that the extent to which pluralists are tolerant of one’s beliefs tends to be directly proportional to the degree to which one’s own beliefs coincide with those of the pluralist’s.
In general, most of the pluralists I’ve known think that we must enforce a strict policy in society of “non-discrimination” against women. This they do not take to mean that women must be accorded the basic dignity that is the right of all humans (a proposition with which most would agree), but rather they take it to mean, in effect, that we can admit no difference between men and women, and that we must profess that men and women are in all dimensions equal, and interchangeable in all circumstances, there being no significant differences between the sexes.
Hence for the pluralist it is a moral imperative that we allow women to assume what have been traditionally male roles in society; the roles of police officer, soldier, public official, and priest. Yet if there is some group in society — even a large group — who happens to think that, for example the priesthood is a masculine affair, well, they don’t have the right to make that view a matter of societal policy, because that view is not pluralistic.
Pluralists will preach on and on about how we must be accepting of every bizarre and unnatural sexual practice and deviation, from adultery, to sodomy, to who-knows-what. They feel that society must be made to tolerate such practises. Yet if a portion of society feels that such practices are ghastly and abominable, that they violate the intrinsic dignity of man and effect great evil in the world, even if that portion of society happens to be the greater majority of the population, the pluralist will still not hesitate to label such a view as being “intolerant” and “backwards” and whatever other stop-thought they like to plaster over ideas that disagree with their own.
The reason for such behaviours should be simple enough to divine. Pluralists have no problem with accepting certain belief systems, while rejecting others, because pluralism has its ideas of what does and does not constitute fairness and justice, just like any other belief system does. And, like any other belief system, its adherents generally think that its tenets should be implemented as public policies. The only difference between pluralism and your average philosophy, is that pluralism attempts to pass itself off as some kind of “neutral” belief-system, totally unbiased and impartial, which most pluralists seem to actually believe it is (a fact which I can only attribute to the complete and total philosophical ignorance on the part of the pluralists).
So, in general, pluralists are not respective of all belief systems, merely those that so happen to fall in accordance with their own. For those of us who do not subscribe to the tenants of the pluralist religion, we are generally to keep our mouth shut, and keep our creed to ourself, as it is composed of “just our private beliefs”. But for the pluralists, why, their creed must be enshrined into law, the Wall of Separation be damned!
When in a debate and someone proposes pluralism or more specifically moral pluralism in an attempt to justify ANY moral practice, it is wise to yield the floor to you opponent so that he can spend YOUR debate time attempting to justify the crime of RAPE.
For MOST debaters this is a subject they would be more that happy enought to turn down – at which tiem you may reclaim the debate by pointing out that if they admit that there is ONE thing that people should NEVER do, then there could be OTHER thing that people should never do.
In most cases this will win a moral debate.
To use pro-ESCR style arguments, it is only a matter of time before we discover how to fully mature a fertilized, single cell embryo to “birth” outside of a mother’s womb – ending ALL arguments against abortion.
I’m curious about this because I think it would be against Church teaching to do. The Church is against in vitro fertilization and so, I think, would be against maturing an embryo outside the womb. I’ve been wondering about embryos that are already in existence though. What are the options with them?
Does anyone in fact maintain the Church is wrong about valid matter in the one instance and right about it in the other?
There may be some way to justify “tot in the pot” gestation as some sort of radical premie-incubation care, but I don’t think we have to worry about Catholic scientists and moral theologians speculating indefinitely. Despite our best efforts and most persuasive warnings, someone eventually is going to try it.
Some nights I pray I won’t be around long enough to see people get some of these Pandora’s boxes open.
If the religious pluralism argument is going to be used by these people then they should be fighting for the legalization of marijuana (Rastafarianism), polygamy (Mormonism), and non-embryonic human sacrifice (Satanism.)
We had a discussion on another Forum on which book would actually be our future; 1984 or Brave New World. Overwhelmingly, Brave New World was decided to be the winner, and that we were already well underway in our efforts to construct a brave new world.
Hence for the pluralist it is a moral imperative that we allow women to assume what have been traditionally male roles in society; the roles of police officer, soldier, public official, and priest.
Some of them think that women should not only be allowed but be compelled, if enough of them don’t volunteer.
I’m curious about this because I think it would be against Church teaching to do. The Church is against in vitro fertilization and so, I think, would be against maturing an embryo outside the womb. I’ve been wondering about embryos that are already in existence though. What are the options with them?
As an advanced form of IVF, it would certainly be opposed.
As a means of preserving the child’s life, well — if there are legitimate reasons, yes, since in cases of ectopic pregnancy and the like it is morally permissible to remove a child who will die.
As a means of shedding your child as quickly as possible, — errrgh.
I note that the child is listening as soon as it has ears. These incubators may need to be lugged around by the mother (or father or someone) and exposed to a normal round of life or they may suffere irreparable harm.
Sadly the incubator will not solve the abortion issue for most pro-abortion types. They advocate the right to murder a child beyond viability even to the day of birth for “psychological” reasons. They posit that it would be more traumatic for the mother for a child to be permitted to live adopted rather than die with his head still in the birth canal.
God Bless,
Matt
One word for the arguments presented here today by Mr Akin. Brilliant! I am so sick and tired of being told by people I am against scientific advancement. I am probably one of the few people in the world who helped his dad build a Timex Sinclair Computer, look it up on wikipedia! They has to be moral questioning of science, otherwise you get the horrendous experiments of the Nazis!!
Sadly the incubator will not solve the abortion issue for most pro-abortion types. They advocate the right to murder a child beyond viability even to the day of birth for “psychological” reasons.
Or past — witness the way NOW fought the Born-Alive act.
“One word for the arguments presented here today by Mr Akin. Brilliant!”
Yes, great work, Jimmy!
Pluralism is an expansive topic but to get the bowl rolling:
No one who has thought seriously about the matter defends a view like, “The fact of pluralism implies that all *moral* objections to scientific research are illegitimate”. This view is incoherent (as it is itself a moral claim) – still, this seems to be the view that almost all of the commenters on this thread are attacking! Instead, the view that I and others would defend is: “you must frame objections in the shared language of a democratic society and not in language exclusive to any particular religious tradition.”
On this view, it would be unacceptable for a member of the senate to advocate for a piece of legislation on purely biblical grounds. The idea is not that moral objections to stem cell research are ruled out a priori. The idea is rather than these objections are ruled out if they can only be framed in religious language.
Many defenders of the view that “life begins at conception” attempt to frame their objections in secular language. I think Dr. Doerflinger is assuming that the attempts to frame these objections in secular language are unsuccessful, so these objections have no place in the public forum of a democratic society. Whether or not Dr. Doerflinger would agree with this (and I think he would), this is certainly my own view on the matter.
p.s. If you are interested in a philosophically rigorous statement of the principal I’ve articulated loosely above, see Political Liberalism by John Rawls
To get the *ball* rolling that is; I think it might be hard to get a *bowl* rolling, although I guess it would depend on the bowl…
Jason– Somehow, I suspect that the motion a bowl makes will be a more accurate version than the fairly straight path of a ball rolling, on this topic….
This possibly makes sense because I haven’t slept much….
“On this view, it would be unacceptable for a member of the senate to advocate for a piece of legislation on purely biblical grounds. The idea is not that moral objections to stem cell research are ruled out a priori. The idea is rather than these objections are ruled out if they can only be framed in religious language.”
What if this democratic society is religious (say, Theistic) by a heavy majority? Why shouldn’t this be reflected in the language of their laws? Why wouldn’t that be expected? …unless there exists a secular elite that actually steers the process away from real democracy and toward a secular oligarchy. Atheism as the new State Religion, with scientists as the High Priests.
Forget biblical language… to say “murder is wrong” is to make a religious statement, and 90+% of the planet will concur. So democracy and religion harmonize very nicely in this case.
To say “murder is not to be allowed, except when we say” is also a religious statement (though some don’t care to admit it) because it rests on the completely dogmatic and mysterious assertion that all moral authority is vested entirely and exclusively in the collective human activity called democracy. Secular materialism is as much a religion as anything that may be practiced at the Little Church on the Corner on any Sunday.
If you want to be democratic and be *honest* about it, you will have to make room for religious language, because only through such language (You shall not murder) can the foundational beliefs of the democratic masses be articulated. Secular language is just too small, and is fit only to express the views of a minority of elites who feel they are the only ones who can be trusted to lead the unwashed and ignorant masses.
If you entertain the idea that laws and foundational documents must be written only in language that every single person can agree on, you are doomed to a life of bitter disappointment. It ain’t gonna happen. By allowing religious language (not even any specific religion) we may at least hope for broad, if not total, agreement.
The foundation of human rights – according to the massive majority of human beings – rests on “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”. If this is not allowed to be expressed through the political process, then this process is not democracy, but something else.
Tim J.,
Rather than respond point by point to your post, I think it may be helpful if I do a bit more to motivate the principal I put forward.
During the 16th century, Europe was ravaged by the wars of religion. The reason for these wars was the precedence given to religious truth – both sides felt that death and destruction was a small price to pay for eternal salvation – the Catholics were doing the Protestants a favor by massacring them because at least this would help bring about a world where their children would not be raised Protestant and thus be eternally damned.
Following the Wars of Religion, Europe reached an temporary truce – both sides let temporal matters have priority for the moment; they did not abandon their conviction, they simply decided that as a practical matter religious toleration was more likely to produce a livable society than fighting until one side was extinguished. Gradually, this agreement deepened to become a moral principal: in the American constitution, it was recognized that the state should not establish any particular religious institution.
I realize that you believe that all morality is ultimately grounded in religion. This is not the same as saying that a moral defense of a principal is equivalent to a religious defense. There are many fundamental moral principals that are implicit in the idea of a democratic society and thus shared by everyone as democratic citizens – people should be free and equal and are entitled to certain fundamental rights. These are not necessarily limited to those currently enshrined in the constitution. The exact content of these principles is far from clear and arguing about their most compelling interpretation is what constitutes appropriate political argument in a democracy.
What constitutes illegitimate argument is to say: “Jesus says that life begins at conception. I have no secular reason to believe this, but I am a Christian so I must try to bring about a Christian world. Therefore, I will attempt to give this principal the force of law.” A Muslim could equally well attempt to legislate the notion that women must weir veils – if Muslims were in the majority, this would still be undemocratic. Democracy is a normative idea that runs deeper than mere majoritarianism. The principal I have articulated would forbid Muslims from legislating veils as it would forbid Christians from legislating Biblical law. You can attempt to argue that the same moral principals that forbid slavery and forbid us from killing the handicapped also forbids us from destroying embryos – I think this argument fails, but it would certainly be a legitimate argument. What you cannot do is argue for this principal on exclusively religious grounds – i.e. on the grounds that it is contained in the Bible, the Koran or the Rig Vedas.
If you reject this principal (and I’m not sure you do), then you are not a Democrat but a Theocrat, and all those who support Democracy can do is attempt to marginalize and exclude you from the political process. Before you get all worked up about this – read the last sentence of the previous paragraph again – rejecting that sentence is the very definition of Theocracy.
Democracy means rule by the people (or majority rule)
Theocracy means rule by God (usually by some priestly caste)
Or you can say that words mean exactly what you say they mean no more no less, but
then it is hard to have any meaningful discussion. Uh oh sorry I should not have said that thing about meaniful discussions.
Padraighh,
I think this discussion is actually more than a semantic one.
Presumably you would define democracy as something like majority rule. But when we say that something is “undemocratic” – we mean more than that it was not decided by the correct formal procedure. If a majority of people voted that black people should have no rights, this would still be undemocratic. To criticize it in this way is to say that it offends the ideas of freedom and equality which underly the normative appeal of a democratic society. A Democracy is a society whose legal system attempts to express the ideals of freedom and equality. A Theocracy is a society whose legal system attempts to express the ideals of a particular religion.
This is not a quibble about definitions, but a claim about what gives these ideas their normative force and about what people who live in these respective types of societies hope to achieve. Hence, the conclusion that someone who argues for a law on exclusively religious grounds (i.e. because it is contained in the Koran) is a Theocrat and not a Democrat.
“What you cannot do is argue for this principal on exclusively religious grounds – i.e. on the grounds that it is contained in the Bible, the Koran or the Rig Vedas.”
“Jesus says that life begins at conception. I have no secular reason to believe this, but I am a Christian so I must try to bring about a Christian world. Therefore, I will attempt to give this principal the force of law.”
Do you know anyone in the public sphere who is talking like this? I don’t.
Are you under the impression that “religious” and “from Holy Writ” are synonymous terms? The most fundamental and universally recognized moral principles are based on Natural Law, not (what you perceive as) arbitrary pronouncements from one scripture or another. But we have been over that.
The Christian scriptures attest to and expound on moral principles, but they also make clear that these principles are imminent in creation – that they are knowable without any kind of special, verbal revelation. We would be equally guilty (say of murder or thievery) before God, even if we had never heard of the Ten Commandments. We KNOW these things are wrong. They are “written on the hearts of men”.
I know you don’t believe that, but it is a long way from saying “Ah know this is sinful because Ah got it straight from JAY-Zus-ahhh!”.
Classic Christian thought on this is far more philosophically cohesive and subtle than you seem to realize.
“The principal I have articulated would forbid Muslims from legislating veils as it would forbid Christians from legislating Biblical law.”
On what basis are you allowed to legislate clothing of any kind? It seems to me that it could only be “Morality = whatever we all agree it is at the moment”, which – pardon me – does not inspire confidence.
To avoid confusion, let me highlight one of the statements I made above.
Contrast arguments 1) and 2) below.
1) The Bible says that life begins at conception. I have no secular reason to believe this, but I am a Christian so I must try to bring about a Christian world. Therefore, I will attempt to give this principal the force of law.
2) The same moral principals that forbid slavery and forbid us from killing the handicapped also forbids us from destroying embryos
My claim is that argument 2) is a perfectly legitimate argument (although I believe it is mistaken) – the key point is that it contains no appeal to religious authority. You may view the underlying moral principals as having an ultimately religious sanction. That is fine; what matters is that you are starting from common ground – slavery is wrong and killing the handicapped is unacceptable (these are “common ground” not in the sense that they are principals which literally every person accepts – although this may be true – but in the sense that they are implicit in our public political culture and anyone who questioned them would be regarded as not a serious participant in political discussion).
If instead, your only argument is 1), then you are failing to respect the idea of religious toleration. Suppose a Muslim wanted to legislate the idea that everyone must pray 5 times a day facing Mecca. If America were 51% Muslim, would this be acceptable? Of course not. To be a legitimate law in a democratic society, a principal must have some sanction other than an appeal to a particular religious authority.
I’ve never said otherwise (I’ve read Aquinas, Augustine, Plantinga, Beckwith, and many other Christian philosophers). The sophistication of the argument is not the point at issue. I don’t care whether someone says, “Jesus told me this!” or if they say, “Years of reading Aquinas and pondering the nature of the Trinity has led me to produce this 500 page book arguing that the nature of God entails the view that life begins at conception”. Both of these arguments are equally illegitimate and for exactly the same reason. Imagine someone who says, “Years of reading Al-Ghazali and interpreting the Koran have led me to produce a 500 page book arguing that the responsibilities of women as told to Muhammed require them to wear veils at all times.” You needn’t do much imagining since this is the view held by most people in Iran. This is why Iran is not a democracy despite the occasional pretense of elections.
You can believe such principles to be true and you can make them operative in your own life, but it is your responsibility as a citizen of a democracy not to try to give such views the force of law unless you have arguments like 1) in my above post which support the views.
Rather, arguments like 2) in my above post – arguments like 1) are of course illegitimate in my view.
…it is your responsibility as a citizen of a democracy not to try to give such views the force of law…
I think Zippy addressed such ramblings best in his 2 posts (excerpts featured below):
“In fact, let me just say one word about it: balderdash.
The normative force of any positive law, including the Constitution, depends on the natural law; and positive law loses all normative force when it attempts to contradict natural law. But that doesn’t imply that the positive law – resting on the natural law upon which it depends – has no stable meaning. The “living constitution” concept represents an emanation out of the positivist frying pan into the penumbral postmodern fire. Both of them represent Nietzschean attempts to push the natural law outside the boundaries of the reality-which-has-consequences and replace that objective good with the will of the free and equal superman.
In my understanding, the Constitution as a legal document asserting positive law says a great deal less than most people think it says. But when a legal system is disconnected from the natural law something has to stand up and fill in all those gaps in the day-to-day messiness of human life and just governance. Thus the Constitution becomes the Great Oracle, there to answer every question which comes up. With apologies to the prophet Chesterton, a man who refuses to believe in the natural law doesn’t believe in no law: he will believe in any law.”
— and —
“A commenter below expresses very well the putative “conundrum” that Catholic legal positivists pose for themselves:
Try to follow the twists and turns this argument takes. First, a positivist conception of “the laws of the land” is packaged up into the idea of what authority a judge possesses. No room is allowed for a judge’s natural duty under the law – and authority under the law, since every duty carries with it authority – to decide particular cases justly. Building from this false positivist conception of the duty and authority of a judge, it is asserted that the judge doesn’t have the authority to decide a particular case justly if his judgment runs contrary to some requirement of positive law as asserted by legislative fiat. Oddly, this entire conception of the judge’s authority rests on a judicial philosophy which is not explicit in the positive law, and which runs contrary to the authoritative teaching of the Church (and the conclusion of right reason) that the positive law represents merely explicit juridical additions to the natural law, additions the authority of which rests on natural law. On its own terms this argument has no juridical authority, since it has itself not been explicitly asserted in the positive law. Asserting judicial positivism represents an arrogation of authority – authority to tell judges what they can and cannot do with respect to deciding particular cases justly – which the positive law has not itself granted. Finally it is insinuated, seemingly without irony, that a judge’s failure to assent to legal positivism and (say) issue a ruling upholding a law which in a particular case would permit an abortion to proceed is – the failure to allow the abortion to proceed is – a violation of Church teaching.
It goes without saying, though I’ll go ahead and say it, that this risable false dilemma which legal positivists pose for themselves is begging the question. Hint: if you aren’t a legal positivist already, there is no dilemma.”
That should have read:
I think Zippy indirectly addresses such ramblings best in his 2 posts (excerpts featured below):
“But when we say that something is “undemocratic” – we mean more than that it was not decided by the correct formal procedure. If a majority of people voted that black people should have no rights, this would still be undemocratic.”
What you mean “we” white man?
People do say this. This is either because they are dishonestly using “democratic” as a synonym for “good” or because they are confused by the frequent use by the first group of people.
It would, in fact, be emminently democratic.
Fighting tooth and nail against such illegitimate uses of words for their positive connotations is a necessary part of keeping the language useful.
“You must frame objections in the shared language of a democratic society and not in language exclusive to any particular religious tradition.”
And of course this precludes anything that we Catholics might have to say on any moral matters, while still allowing that everything and anything that Jason says be heard. Because, while you see that arguments stemming from Christian ideology belong to a “particular religious tradition”, arguments stemming from Jason’s ideology belong to “the shared language of a democratic society”.
What a glorious scam you’ve got there, Jason! Define those ideological views that you don’t like as “religious”, and dismiss them, while defining your own ideological views as being part of “the shared language of a democratic society”! In this way the religion of the vast majority of Americans (Christianity) is not permitted to have any impact on law, while the religion of Jason (what I’m certain he would term “political liberalism”, and what I term “degenerate idiocy”) can be given full force of law!
Notice that here Jason has given no reason why we should agree with his principles. He does not tell us why we should “frame objections in the shared language of a democratic society”, nor does he seriously argue for the point. He merely states it as a given, and then proceeds to act like it is fact, handed down to him from on high by some higher power, that we mere mortals must observe as strictest dogma. Nor does he gives any reason why we should agree with him, or would even want to agree with him. He merely comes in, and sets the parameters of the debate, so that his own, bizarre ideology is included within the umbrella of what is acceptable within a democratic society, but that others’ ideologies are not.
Of course, it is not only secular principles that Jason thinks should be enshrined into law. I’m certain that if a majority of the population wanted to enshrine some secular belief system into law, such as say, Nazism, or Military Determinism, or the samurai warrior code, that Jason would oppose it, on the principle of it not being “democratic”. Now, when Jason preaches “democracy”, what he means here is not means government by majority rule (which is the actual definition of the term democracy). No, while he tries to make it look like he is promoting democracy, he changes the meaning of the term in the process of promoting it (a classic example of the leftist bait-and-switch tactic, the fallacy of equivocation). What Jason and his ilk want is not true democracy; what they want is a limited democracy governed over by their own principles, so that their own, “democratic” principles are enshrined into law. What Jason argues for is not truly democracy, but egalitarianism disguised as democracy.
To Jason, just as a world where all men can vote is more “democratic” than a world where few can vote; and just as a world where women can vote is more “democratic” than a world where only men can vote; than so too a world that observes no differences between men and women, where people are not allowed in the least to treat men any differently from women, must necessarily be more “democratic” than a world where men and women are treated differently. So too, a world that respects no religious tradition over another, must, to Jason, be more “democratic” than a world that respects a particular religious tradition over all others. What Jason perhaps fails to realise (or perhaps realises and does not wish other to realise) is that his own ideology is just as much a religion as the Christian ideology, or the Muslim ideology, or the Hindu ideology, or what have you.
Thus Jason, in arguing for his own religion to be enshrined into law, must naturally not call it a religion, because he has already stated that religions have no place being enshrined into law.
This is why he and his like can go about, preying upon the base fears, prejudices and bigotries of the people; beguile them with fears of an impending “theocracy”, brought about by “religious fanatics”, “fundamentalists” and the looming spectre of the “Religious Right”! Yet if government whose laws are based upon a particular religious traditions are “theocracies”, then in fact the vast majority of all governments up until the present date are theocracies, and in fact continue to be theocracies (let us not forget that Jason would make a theocracy out of the United States as well, enshrining his own religion into law).
Now, no one advocates using the power of law to force people to observe the tenants of the Catholic faith, nor is anyone suggesting that we prohibit others from freely observing the tenants of their own faiths, or from campaigning to have laws passed in accordance with their own codes of religiously mandated justice. No one is saying we should compel anyone to attend Mass on Sundays; yet it is just such one argument that Jason uses as his example of a religious law that he does not wish to see put into practice (i.e. when he says “Suppose a Muslim wanted to legislate the idea that everyone must pray 5 times a day facing Mecca.”). No one is arguing for that. What we are arguing for is the right for laws to be formulated in accordance with our principles, just as Jason argues that laws should be formulated in accordance with his own principles, and just as every human being in this country wants to see laws formulated in accordance with his own principles. But of course Jason will dismiss the principles of everyone else as being either “religious” or “undemocratic”.
Many defenders of the view that “life begins at conception” attempt to frame their objections in secular language. I think Dr. Doerflinger is assuming that the attempts to frame these objections in secular language are unsuccessful, so these objections have no place in the public forum of a democratic society. Whether or not Dr. Doerflinger would agree with this (and I think he would), this is certainly my own view on the matter.
So of course it is possible to frame an objection to, say, indentured servitude in secular language. It is possible, of course, to frame an objection to walking up to someone an splitting his head open with a hatchet in secular language. It is possible to frame an objection to theft, tax fraud, and driving 50 miles and hour in a 20 mile an hours zone, in secular language, because of course Jason believes that such things are objectionable. But objection to the destruction of the living human organism, that dwells with in its mother’s womb, cannot be framed in secular language, because Jason himself does not wish to see any such objection enshrined into law and, seeing as how Jason has already said that religious objections to practices cannot be enshrined into law, it is simply a matter of deeming any and all objections to the destruction of unborn human life as “religious”, and leaving it at that. Never mind that there are, in fact, more than a few pro-life atheists, and liberals, and other that Jason would not define as “religious” (though I certainly would). Never mind, also, that Scripture actually says nothing about when life begins, and that the Catholic objection to the destruction of the unborn human organism stemmed from a rational realisation that such beings were just as human as the rest of us, that the baby in the womb is just as much a member of the human race as the baby outside the womb, and that all are deserving of equal protection under the law. Never mind all that. Jason’s religion tells him that such objections have no place in a “democratic society”, and now he is trying to force his blind faith on the rest of us, trying to say that our ideas should not be heard in the public square, and that his should be given preferences above all others. He argues against the rights of the unborn, and in favour of murder; this to him is “democratic”. If so, then I would hate to be a democrat.
the Catholic objection to the destruction of the unborn human organism stemmed from a rational realisation that such beings were just as human as the rest of us
In the other recent thread, Jason seemed to be proposing a requirement for a “minimal set of cognitive capacities… something like the cognitive capacities that a fetus develops in the 7th or 8th month of pregnancy” before the unborn is “entitled to the full ensemble of rights.” I suspect some would say an embryo typically has such a “capacity” in potential form rather than presently expressed form.
I think this is a critical confusion.
My whole point is that the word democratic can have a normative connotation which is not synonymous with good. I agree with you that the word democratic is sometimes used (as you are apparently using it) to be synonymous with majoritarianism. But this is not the definition that interests me. What interests me is the normative force of the claim “X is undemocratic” which means something quite different from either “X is bad” or “X is not the result of a formal election procedure which gives every person’s vote equal weight”.
We would not call a murder undemocratic, although we would call a caste society or a society with an aristocratic class with more rights than everyone else undemocratic. Why is this? What kinds of principles underlie the judgment that something is undemocratic? This is what I am getting at. These are the principles which are the proper subject of political debate in a democratic society. (more on this below)
Felicity, this is the kind of argument I think is legitimate given the principal I have outlined above (which incidentally shows the fallacy with Randolph’s claim that I am simply assuming away any kind of argument that might lead to conclusions different from the ones I favor). I just happen to think this argument doesn’t succeed (otherwise of course I would favor different conclusions!).
Would you care to elaborate on why potential capacity should be given the same moral consideration as actual capacity? It seems to me a graver wrong to destroy an oak tree than to step on an acorn – yet, according to your criterion, the two wrongs would seem to be equivalent. Why should we give potential capacity the same consideration as actual capacity? Or are you just suggesting that potential capacity should be given some consideration, but not the same consideration?
It seems to me a graver wrong to destroy an oak tree than to step on an acorn
It seems to me that nature intended acorns to be made aplenty so that many acorns could be destroyed. Is the same true with human embryos?
It seems to me that when a tree gets old or diseased, we chop it down with little concern. Do you propose the same with aged and handicapped people?
Randolph, I think the problem here is inattention to the details of my argument. Please give your argument for why stem cell research is wrong. My guess is that this argument will fall within the guidelines I have set as you seem to recognize towards the end of your post. If it does not, I will explain to you why not and defend that judgment in more detail. I only introduced those guidelines in the first place to contrast political liberalism with the absurd and incoherent view that Tim J. mentioned in his original post.
What I think has all the posters here riled up is not Doerflinger’s appeal to political liberalism, but the fact that he assumed that all non-religious objections (which is quite an expansive set) must necessarily fail. This is a fair point, but if you think Doerflinger is wrong, then state your argument as for instance Felicity begins to do above.
This is precisely why my argument has force. I used this example *because* no one in the United States would argue for it. But many people in Iran would argue for it so this is far from a moot point.
My question for you is – why would no one in the US argue for it? What would be wrong if a Muslim wanted to legislate the idea that everyone must pray 5 times a day facing Mecca? Based on what principal would you reject this legislation? Because Christians are more numerous here than Muslims?
My argument is: you would reject this principal because it appeals to a particular religious dogma that other citizens in a democratic society could reject and still be equal citizens.
What alternative reason can you offer for rejecting this principal? Again, my guess is that you would ultimately agree with the principal I have articulated, you are just misunderstanding what I think this principal accomplishes. This principal does not imply that abortion or stem cell research is OK. It just circumscribes a broad range of arguments against these practices that would be considered legitimate. My guess is that any argument you would give would fall within this range of legitimate arguments. But we shall see.
I do believe this, but I did not stipulate it! Of course, many such objections are framed in secular language. I think for instance most of the arguments Francis Beckwith makes against abortion are framed in the appropriate language. I just think these objections are mistaken. I’m not asking you to take my word for it – tell me your argument for why you believe stem cell research is wrong, and I will tell you why I believe it is mistaken.
Nothing I have said above merits the conclusion that stem cell research is morally acceptable. I reach that conclusion based on the following line of reasoning: stem cell research produces enormous moral benefits at a small moral cost. I would say destroying embryos is approximately tantamount to killing fish. I know you disagree with me about the moral cost – instead of telling me how I just assume I’m correct (since this is true of anyone who believes anything), tell me your argument and I will respond to it.
Why should we give potential capacity the same consideration as actual capacity?
With acorns, the actual capacity is an acorn with potential capacity to be a tree.
With human embryos, the actual capacity is said to be a person with potential capacity for a big brain, reproduction, to be an artist, statesman, scientist, etc. As such, a human embryo does not have potential to be a person. It already is a person.
I’m not sure I understand your point here. Are you suggesting that if we continue to use embryos for stem cell research we will not have enough to replenish the population of humans? This seems to be a far-fetched (and irrelevant) point.
My point with the acorn analogy was just that potential capacity is not morally equivalent to actual capacity.
This highlights the fact that the above analogy is not precise as is true of any analogy. But it doesn’t seem to counter my basic point: potential capacity is not in general given the same moral weight as actual capacity. As I understand it, this is the central claim in the argument you hinted at before. Perhaps you would care to clarify? I would reconstruct your argument as follows:
1) An embryo is potentially an adult human being
2) Potential capacities should be given the same moral weight as actual capacities
3) An embryo should be given the same moral weight as an actual human being
How would you modify this argument so it survives my acorn analogy? Your rejoinder suggests modifying 2) to read:
2′) In humans, potential capacity should be given the same weight as actual capacity
But now 2′ seems to assume the very point that needs to be argued for. What prevents me from simply rejecting 2′? What judgments of mine would rejecting 2′ contradict?
The key question here is whether it is morally wrong to destroy an embryo.
When you say an embryo is a person, what exactly do you mean? Do you mean that it is morally wrong to destroy an embryo? If so, you’re just stipulating the point that needs to be argued for. Do you mean that an embryo has all the genetic material of a full grown adult and that if left to its own devices (with appropriate nutrition), it would grow into an adult? In that case I agree with you, but I don’t see how that implies that it is worthy of the same moral consideration as an adult. Perhaps you mean something else; if so, please clarify.
Are you suggesting that if we continue to use embryos for stem cell research we will not have enough to replenish the population of humans?
No. My point is that the acorn-human embryo analogy is flawed. We don’t look to see how we treat acorns in order to decide how we treat humans. If you see people eating acorns, are you going to start eating people?
An embryo is potentially an adult human being
A human embryo is a person. It doesn’t have potential to be a person. It has potential to be an adult, but personhood is not limited to adults.
I don’t see how that implies that it is worthy of the same moral consideration as an adult.
Adults can get less consideration than children, including the unborn.
Do you mean that it is morally wrong to destroy an embryo?
Do you think it’s moral to destroy a person?
Felicity, you have a very Melanie-esque style of response.
It depends how you define a person. If you define a person as: a being with the realized capacity to have hopes about the future, memories about the past, to speculate about “what if” scenarios, etc…, then it is morally wrong to destroy a person.
If you define a person as: a being with the potential capacity for all of these things, then no, it is not wrong to destroy a person.
Your argument just begs the question.
Jason,
The question I have is why are you so quick to define a person strictly, in a narrow sense? Isn’t there a much greater moral danger in a falsely strict definition of life than a falsely generous one?
My whole point is that the word democratic can have a normative connotation which is not synonymous with good.
You didn’t make any point. You merely asserted that you can institute “democracy” while trampling on the rule of the people.
Try working with denotations, not “normative connotations” — if there are such things as “normative connotations.”
I agree with you that the word democratic is sometimes used (as you are apparently using it) to be synonymous with majoritarianism. But this is not the definition that interests me.
And what on earth does what interests you have to do with anything? No one cares if you don’t like it that “democratic” means “majoritarian”.
It seems to me a graver wrong to destroy an oak tree than to step on an acorn
It seems to me not to be wrong at all, assuming it’s your property and your intentions are not malicious.
That’s the difference between oaks and people.
Mary is exactly right – there is no moral weight to cutting down trees or crushing acorns. The answer to the question “when does an acorn become a tree?” is unimportant. It’s human life that’s sacred. The answer matters, and getting it wrong is incredibly serious. What amazes me is the lack of concern for human life. Embryos are undeniably human and living, they may be callously dismissed as “non-persons”, but where is the recognition of the unique value of humanity?
This is a frustrating thread to read. I don’t want to state an opinion, for now, I just want any and all to clarify certain words and concepts for me so that I can properly understand what everyone is saying.
I suspect that there are two, different, mutually exclusive metaphysical axiom systems being used here. How else can one person say that an embryo is useful for research and another say that it must not be used for research. These are mutually exclusive conclusions. One cannot apply proper reasoning starting from the same axioms and come to exactly opposite conclusions without there being a contradiction somewhere in the downstream axioms or definitions. Both axiom systems cannot be true. How, then, does one decide?
Let’s try to expose the underbelly of the metaphysical and ontological assumptions and principles being used in these posts.
Here are some questions:
1. At what point does a collection of embryonic cells become human?
2. Is this state of being human a matter of fact or collective opinion?
2a. How does the existence of a soul refine question 2?
3. Are all humans entitled to equal justice?
4. Are the statements in holy books less worthy of consideration than the statements of a collection of living men?
5. Can holy books disagree in the same way and to the same extent as a collection of living men?
6. Should the less objectionable means exclude the simultaneous use of more objectionable means?
7. Is pragmatics the only basis for moral decision-making?
8. All humans need. Are the needs of an embryo different than that of a newborn?
9. Is killing an embryo equivalent to the murder of an innocent man?
10. Can a democracy arrive at truth without recourse to external metaphysical principles? Whose principles?
My purpose is only to try to help see what the foundational differences are, since there is no common consensus. This tread is skirting the edge of metaphysics without making the commitment. This topic can only be properly discussed at the level of deontic logic , but to do this properly, one must have recourse to the set of metaphysical axioms at work.
The Chicken
Chicken,
I think many of the questions you raise are important ones and I’ll attempt to answer them later, but first I have a quibble about your framing.
I certainly agree with you to the extent that this is a call for clarity about what exactly we disagree about. More clarity is always a good thing.
In terms of attempting to resolve our disagreement, I think there are actually two ways to proceed here. One way is to work from the bottom up We start by attempting to determine what exactly moral judgments are, from there we arrive at criteria for assessing our moral judgments and finally we apply those criteria to specific cases. With this approach, we cannot resolve our judgments about specific cases without first resolving our disagreements about higher-order metaphysical principles.
A second way of approaching the problem is to work from the top down. This means testing candidate moral principles against specific cases. Are there particular moral judgments I want to make that I cannot make without accepting that it is wrong to destroy an embryo? For instance, perhaps there is no principle which would consistently allow me to judge that it is wrong to kill a handicapped adult but not wrong to destroy an embryo. We can also ask whether a candidate principle accords with our prima facie judgments in particular cases (prima facie here does not mean “gut feeling”, but rather the judgment we would make in a particular case without regard to considerations of consistency with other cases). For instance, if you could save a baby or a tray of 100 embryos in a fire, which would you save? How about one baby vs. 100 babies? If a monkey developed the same cognitive capacities as a human, would it be entitled to the same rights as a human? How about if a human were so severely impaired that it had less cognitive capacity than a squirrel? Would it then be acceptable to kill that human? These are intuition pumps – thinking about these scenarios helps us to clarify which principles are reasonable from the top down by asking whether those principles give what seems intuitively to be the right answer in each case.
I actually think that the top down approach is more likely to be fruitful. The reason for this is simply that philosophizing about fundamental metaphysical assumptions is really hard. Persistent disagreement about the nature of moral judgments reflects the fact that no one has gotten things quite right yet – no philosopher has articulated a fully satisfactory account of morality (although this does not mean that some accounts are not more satisfactory than others). If we insist on grounding all of our judgments in a comprehensive account of what morality is, then our judgments will inevitably be based on flimsy foundations – we are much more confident about the judgment that slavery is unjust than we are about any general principle which implies that result (i.e. “It is wrong to use people as a means to an end”)
That said, I don’t want to overstate the point. Our disagreement may well extend to the level of “metaphysical axioms”. We should try to locate the source of our disagreement as explicitly as possible. But once located, I think we may do better to evaluate the candidate principles against specific cases with which we are familiar rather than attempting to ground those principles in a comprehensive metaphysical framework – since if this were something that could be done convincingly and conclusively, there would be a greater level of consensus then we presently see among philosophers.
Many of those propositions have been tried and they lead to Euthanasia and Eugenics. I suggest simply that if we are operating under doubt you steer toward the safest path. I propose that treating all life from conception to natural death constitutes the morally safest path. Under what conditions do you imagine that path would fail?
For the sake of argument, and from a completely materialist perspective, let’s say we can’t KNOW whether an embryo should be classed as a fully human being. Let’s say it’s a fuzzy area between science, metaphysics and semantics that no one discipline is adequate to answer.
In that case, isn’t it illogical to presume that it ISN”T a human being without hard evidence to the contrary? As a culture we are in effect saying “Well, we don’t KNOW for sure that it’s a real, full fledged *official* human being, so it might be okay to do experiments on it or kill it.”.
There is no logical reason to break in favor of presuming the embryo is not human, but there is plenty of political impetus to do so. It doesn’t matter how many people might be helped… that is irrelevant to the question of whether or not we are committing murder when we kill a human embryo.
So, Jason, “…if a human were so severely impaired that it had less cognitive capacity than a squirrel… Would it then be acceptable to kill that human?”.
Your top-down method of determining moral principles strikes me as highly suspect. “Here are the judgments we want to affirm, so let’s construct a framework that gives us the results we like”. Yike. How these initial “intuitive judgments” are different from gut feelings is not at all clear.
“…philosophizing about fundamental metaphysical assumptions is really hard.”
Yes. Lots of things are hard.
Hi Chicken,
I’ll take a stab at your question list, if you don’t mind. Although I suspect you can guess my answers and that Jason’s would be more interesting.
1. At what point does a collection of embryonic cells become human?
Each egg is intrinsically human before fertilization but is not discernible as a separate human being from the until meiosis, the first step in fertilization where the embryo gets it’s unique genetic code.
2. Is this state of being human a matter of fact or collective opinion?
The humanity of the embryo is a matter of fact in the sense that it is provably human and not mouse, or dog etc. However the collective opinion decides who is a full person in practice, with rights etc.
2a. How does the existence of a soul refine question 2? It informs the opinion only for the faithful and as an article of faith it can not be demonstrated so it is of little use in arguments with agnostics.
3. Are all humans entitled to equal justice? Sure one law for all is fundamental – although I find “equal justice” to be an odd phrase. Justice is individual not collective. My just reward or punishment is not equal to yours. Justice need not be modified. It must be applied equally but the outcome will vary.
4. Are the statements in holy books less worthy of consideration than the statements of a collection of living men?
If you’re not of the faith I certainly can see why you might hold that opinion.
5. Can holy books disagree in the same way and to the same extent as a collection of living men?
Not if they really are holy. But if the Koran and the Bible disagree only faith can decide which to choose.
6. Should the less objectionable means exclude the simultaneous use of more objectionable means?
If one means to an end is less objectionable and as effective as the other then the more objectionable means should not be used. However in my view some means are beyond objectionable and beyond criminal, and are thus excluded no matter their purported ends.
7. Is pragmatics the only basis for moral decision-making?
Obviously this question is not for me as faith is a clear basis. Pragmatism can readily lead to an ethics of convenience. Pragmatism or any practical argument presupposes some agreed end. However systems of ethics (Aristotle for example) do define ends outside of simple practical considerations and try to fix absolute virtues.
8. All humans need. Are the needs of an embryo different than that of a newborn? Of course they differ, dramatically in fact. The key difference is the absolute dependence on the mother until ~7 months or “viability”. Are they morally different? No they are both perfect in their innocence.
9. Is killing an embryo equivalent to the murder of an innocent man?
Certainly – how blameless can you get?
10. Can a democracy arrive at truth without recourse to external metaphysical principles?
Sure – by accident, but don’t expect democracy to sustain it.
Whose principles? Those of the majority. If we were not a republic bounded by a constitution the majority (or mob) could do whatever it cared to.
That said our society is underpinned by Christian ethics whether we acknowledge them or not.
Nice post Tim – that’s a tack I’ve been trying.
A second way of approaching the problem is to work from the top down. This means testing candidate moral principles against specific cases. Are there particular moral judgments I want to make that I cannot make without accepting that it is wrong to destroy an embryo? For instance, perhaps there is no principle which would consistently allow me to judge that it is wrong to kill a handicapped adult but not wrong to destroy an embryo. We can also ask whether a candidate principle accords with our prima facie judgments in particular cases (prima facie here does not mean “gut feeling”, but rather the judgment we would make in a particular case without regard to considerations of consistency with other cases). For instance, if you could save a baby or a tray of 100 embryos in a fire, which would you save? How about one baby vs. 100 babies? If a monkey developed the same cognitive capacities as a human, would it be entitled to the same rights as a human? How about if a human were so severely impaired that it had less cognitive capacity than a squirrel? Would it then be acceptable to kill that human? These are intuition pumps – thinking about these scenarios helps us to clarify which principles are reasonable from the top down by asking whether those principles give what seems intuitively to be the right answer in each case.
You have here the makings of this age’s Hitler.
Such are attempts to rationalize even the most base actions to come to an amoral conclusion and destroy the very moral fabric of society.
As I have had experience in the lab dealing with animal embroyos and experimenting with such during my days in the university, I wonder if Jason would even allow our research staff to experiment on his current or future wife’s/girlfriend’s unborn child for the sake of biotechnological experimentation and the very advancement of Science and the ‘Good’ of humanity!
How else can one person say that an embryo is useful for research and another say that it must not be used for research. These are mutually exclusive conclusions.
What on earth makes you say that? Nothing prevents them being both true. People might find taking a short cut through your backyard useful; you can still say they must not use it.
I actually think that the top down approach is more likely to be fruitful.
A good question is: What is its fruit likely to be?
The reason for this is simply that philosophizing about fundamental metaphysical assumptions is really hard.
Life is really hard.
Persistent disagreement about the nature of moral judgments reflects the fact that no one has gotten things quite right yet –
Why? Persistent disagreement is as likely to follow from obstinate denial of reality in favor of what one wants.
In this arena, obstinate denial is particularly likely because the right answers are likely to strike at things people deeply desire.
Why? Persistent disagreement is as likely to follow from obstinate denial of reality in favor of what one wants.
Mary,
Very good point here — it also addresses the ulterior motives of man that often times serves selfish desires.
What amazes me is how the question was phrased:
“Persistent disagreement about the nature of moral judgments reflects the fact that no one has gotten things quite right yet -”
That is, right according to who?
To the man who believes biotechnological experimentation to the point of subjecting the inferior members of society would triumphantly herald the greater advancement of Science and serve the overall ‘good’ of humanity; is this actually ‘right’?
” … the right answers are likely to strike at things people deeply desire”
Nice phrase Mary!
I think it was Descartes who compared our minds to a village that grew up organically in a disorganized fashion. I often think that people do as they please and then construct the worldview that best supports their behavior.
” … the right answers are likely to strike at things people deeply desire”
Nice phrase Mary!
I think it was Descartes who compared our minds to a village that grew up organically in a disorganized fashion. I often think that people do as they please and then construct the worldview that best supports their behavior.
Dear Jason,
You wrote:
“We can also ask whether a candidate principle accords with our prima facie judgments in particular cases (prima facie here does not mean “gut feeling”, but rather the judgment we would make in a particular case without regard to considerations of consistency with other cases).”
If there is no attempt at consistency, then how can there be a unified system of morality? One is reduced to a case by case situation that must, in the end, result in arbitrary decisions. This is not how man uses his rational intellect. It is true in number theory that examination of a few specific cases may point the way to a more general theorem, but there are numerous counterexamples where this method does not work.
Besides, is not having and acting on a consistent moral outlook what we commonly call, integrity?
What it appears to me that you really want to do is try various moral principles and see how well they match up to how people actually react in situations calling for moral judgments. I suppose that this is an attempt to develop an empirically-based morality, but the method probably will be difficult to implement because all one will find is some distribution of moral beliefs. One may not assume, a priori that the mean defines the best morality – only the most popular.
For what it’s worth, I am quite opposed to the use of embryonic stem cells, both on religious and scientific principles. In science, we change one variable at a time in experiments. We are targeting adult individuals for treatment. Why would we want to change all of the variables by going to what is arguably a more distant biological system (experimenting on arbitrary embryos) when science should start as near the individual adult as possible, if possible (and it is possible). I cannot see how using embryos can be defended on the grounds of any type of experimental methodology of which I know.
The Chicken
Memphis Aggie:
I often think that people do as they please and then construct the worldview that best supports their behavior.
This nicely describes the twisted perspective of Jason’s ‘top-down’ approach.
Jason,
From whence comes your definition of “human person”, and why do you limit something like the right to life based on a narrow definition?
Those who support abortion and ESCR had to try to shift their arguments. First, the baby wasn’t really alive, then wasn’t viable, now isn’t really a “person”. It’s a lovely moving target, as science first was able to determine that the baby was indeed alive prior to the “quickening”, then continued to improve viability (my daughter was 26 weeks 2 days gestation…she turned one on the 10th of this month), so now the goalpost is “personhood”. Deny personhood, and one can deny anything.
The danger of using such a limited scope is that “person” can be redefined to exclude any group one desires, and thus any group can be denied basic human rights. Too young? You’re not a person, you’re a potential intelligence that happens to have human genetic code. Brain damaged beyond the capacity for rational discourse? You’re a failed intelligence, a non-person in a human body. In a deep inexplicable coma? You’re an unreachable intelligence, not worth the energy to keep your body alive until the coma ends. Suffering from Alzheimer’s? You’re a lost intelligence, a former person who hasn’t been kind enough to realize that his life is over.
Those are the ones that could happen quickly. But how long until it gets preempted into using intelligence tests to determine “personhood” status? How long before someone’s very humanity can be stripped from them, even after birth?
An embryo, even a blastocyst, is fully human and fully alive. My wife was not pregnant with a non-human that became human at birth, or at some randomly drawn line where brain function most likely will have reached some arbitrarily sufficient level.
My youngest daughter is 2 weeks old. She can’t reason yet, she can’t talk, she can’t get food for herself. If we didn’t take care of her, she’d die of starvation, sitting in her own feces. Is she a “person”?
The very argument of “personhood” is a load of hogwash. “Person” appears in the Constitution 22 times, the Bill of Rights 4 times. Most have to do with the age a person must attain before holding office. None talk about what a “person” is, or how one becomes a “person” to attain rights. Even when referencing voting rights, non-free men are referred to as “other Persons”. On what basis do you make “personhood” the standard to determine recognition of our inalienable rights?
Jason, you asked, “if you could save a baby or a tray of 100 embryos in a fire, which would you save?” Why did you choose “would” instead of “should”?
To Catholics, what does Catholic teaching say in regards to the morality of how one “should” choose in such a situation?
Chicken,
Just a quick reaction to a misunderstanding in your post (I’ll reply in more detail to the substantive points later).
I certainly was not claiming that consistency in our moral judgments is not of the utmost importance! All I was saying is that when we evaluate principles against particular cases, we *temporarily* suspend considerations of consistency and ask what seems like the right thing to do in that case without invoking any general principal. Having done this, we then evaluate whether the principal in question seems to give the “right” answer in each particular case. The point was just that to avoid circularity, we want to render an initial judgment without appeal to broader principals – this is what I meant when I said we render a judgment without regard to consistency. The appeal to broader principals and the notion of consistency comes in when we check those principals against our initial judgment.
Ultimately, this procedure allows us to check whether a given principal gives a compelling answer in the cases where we are confident (i.e. slavery is wrong, murdering handicapped people is wrong, etc…), then we move on to borderline cases. Here consistency plays a central roll: if the principal in question gives the right answer in cases where we are confident, then we may decide to revise our judgments in cases where we are less sure to accord with that principal.
I don’t take myself to be saying anything controversial here – I’m just describing the ordinary process of moral argument that everyone engages in every day. This is to be contrasted with the sorts of arguments that philosophers interested in the foundations of morality engage in. The potentially controversial claim I am making is that we can still conduct our ordinary moral discourse without having to resolve the questions that have plagued philosophers for centuries. There is no guarantee that this is true in all cases – sometimes, we may simply find that the answer inevitably hinges on our background philosophical judgments. But I am suggesting that in many cases of practical importance, we can get by using the methodology above without deciding whether Kant or Mill provides a more compelling foundation for moral judgments.
At any rate, rather than engage with my claim at this level of generality, it may be more useful to actually consider the substantive arguments above given for stem cell research – I hope to show through such consideration more specifically how we can address even persistent disagreements without having to settle foundational moral issues.
“My youngest daughter is 2 weeks old. ”
Congratulations Matthew! – my youngest son is now 8 weeks old. They are so precious at this age.
Jason, you asked, “if you could save a baby or a tray of 100 embryos in a fire, which would you save?” Why did you choose “would” instead of “should”?
To Catholics, what does Catholic teaching say in regards to the morality of how one “should” choose in such a situation?
Felicity,
If you could save your mother or father in a fire, which would you save?
If you could save your child or a parent in a fire, which would you save?
We could play all these either/or games all day.
The very argument of “personhood” is a load of hogwash. “Person” appears in the Constitution 22 times, the Bill of Rights 4 times. Most have to do with the age a person must attain before holding office. None talk about what a “person” is, or how one becomes a “person” to attain rights. Even when referencing voting rights, non-free men are referred to as “other Persons”. On what basis do you make “personhood” the standard to determine recognition of our inalienable rights?
Matthew,
You forgot to bring up the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-212) which is US LAW that recognizes a “child in utero” as a legal victim!
Hence, Scott Peterson was found GUILTY of killing his wife AND her UNBORN child!
Esau, you didn’t answer the question, “what does Catholic teaching say in regards to the morality of how one “should” choose in such a situation?”
US LAW that recognizes a “child in utero” as a legal victim!
Only if the child is injured or killed during the commission of certain listed federal crimes of violence. It also does not apply to crimes prosecuted by the individual states.
US law is no guide to reality. It is just a reflection of the political power of different factions.
Esau, you didn’t answer the question, “what does Catholic teaching say in regards to the morality of how one “should” choose in such a situation?”
Felicity,
What does Protestantism say about this?
The law also does not use the word “person” to describe the “child in utero.” The only use of the word “person” in that law is in reference to the offender, not the victim.
What does Protestantism say about this?
You’re still dodging the question Esau. This is a forum for discussion of Catholicism. If you’re not up to it, that’s ok.
Felicity
I’ll answer for myself that I’d likely grab the baby because that child’s life is clearer to my senses and to my visceral understanding of life and, in the emotion of the moment, I’d choose the baby. That said I don’t know how God sees it – and that’s what matters.
By the way, 100 embryos in a “tray” are likely to be dead very quickly, fire or no fire, and the immediate guilt for their death would be on whoever placed them in such a precarious state (outside the womb) in the first place .
Given that if we had one child who was healthy and two children who were hooked up to machines that I couldn’t move and which they die within hours without, I would save the healthy child — I think the answer to this question doesn’t prove quite what you think it proves. As I would not be able to save the embryos. They would need to be implanted, quickly, to save them.
When medical personnel arrive in a triage situation, the people they don’t treat because they would require too much care in the situation are still human.
Nicely framed Mary – you cleared it up for me
Mary, your logic–as usual–is impeccable.
They would need to be implanted, quickly, to save them.
Not if “in a tray” means in a frozen or otherwise viably maintainable condition such that they could all be wheeled out to safety and maintained in that viable condition until implantation. In such case, they’d just need to be wheeled out and re-plugged into an electrical outlet within a few hours.
I’d likely grab the baby because that child’s life is clearer to my senses and to my visceral understanding of life and, in the emotion of the moment
Yes, but my question was not what WOULD you do emotionally, but what does Catholic teaching say, if anything, in regard to what you SHOULD do if you were making a rational choice to save either the baby or 100 viable embryos?
Felicity,
Not if “in a tray” means in a frozen or otherwise viably maintainable condition such that they could all be wheeled out to safety and maintained in that viable condition until implantation. In such case, they’d just need to be wheeled out and re-plugged into an electrical outlet within a few hours.
I worked with embryos in the past.
What you have just revealed below betrays your ignorance on the matter.
Yes, but my question was not what WOULD you do emotionally, but what does Catholic teaching say, if anything, in regard to what you SHOULD do if you were making a rational choice to save either the baby or 100 viable embryos?
Yes, I personally look into my CATHOLIC RULEBOOK and check under Section 1010(b) “What to Do When You Can Only Save One Party in a Fire” and it tells me EXACTLY what to do in such a situation!
You see, our CATHOLIC RULEBOOK has EVERY CONCEIVABLE situation that man can think of and HOW we should BEHAVE and ACT each time!
O brother!
What a ‘LOADED’ question, if ever I saw one!
Perhaps you should engage in an actual study of Catholic Morality and then you just might be able to glean what Catholic Teaching is really all about!
What you have just revealed below betrays your ignorance on the matter
What rubbish. The issue is not the technological details but the fact that human embryos can be viably maintained for extended periods of time and moved away from a building in an emergency and still remain viable for implantation.
You see, our CATHOLIC RULEBOOK has EVERY CONCEIVABLE situation that man can think of and HOW we should BEHAVE and ACT each time!
If the best you can do is to respond like a freak, that’s the best you can do. You alone speak of a rulebook for every situation. I uosed the question in the general sense.
Perhaps you should engage in an actual study of Catholic Morality and then you just might be able to glean what Catholic Teaching is really all about!
It’s not about arrogance.
Felicity,
Not if they’re exposed to fire!
You are familiar with the basic concept of denaturation, aren’t you, and the hazards of freeze/thaw events, I would assume, if you are indeed familiar?
Jason,
If your view were correct, then America was founded as a Theocracy. The Philadelphia Constitution forbade Congress to make laws regarding an establishment of religion in order to protect the State establishments of Christian denominations from federal interference. One of the causes of the American resistance to being reduced to sub-citizen status was the threat of the transplantation of Anglican bishops, undoing the establishments in the New England commonwealths.
This country was founded upon the political philosophy of Scots Presbyterianism. This is beyond rational, informed question. That political philosophy was substantially, but not completely, shared by other Protestants, and rejected by the Catholic Church at that time, though it is now taught by the Catholic Church.
Democracy means rule of the mob. Theocracy means rule by God. Ecclesiocracy is rule by the Church. America was founded as a federal republic.
Your threat to marginalize and disenfranchise the people who hold to the beliefs of the founders from which we got our freedom is very serious, arguably treason, were it to be acted upon.
We are endowed by our -Creator- with certain unalienable rights. But you reject that, and all who believe that it is so. You openly state that you would deprive us of our rights.
Jason, you appear to be engaged in special pleading, calling -your- religion ‘democracy’ and thereby attempting to silence all others. That is actually tyranny.
You are being very dishonest. Either you didn’t read and understand those Christian philosophers, or you did, and are simply lying about the nature of a democratic society. . . knowingly.
Honest answers for honest questions.
Jason is dishonest.
Next topic?
Not if they’re exposed to fire!
The question was not in regard to embryos or a baby already fried by fire, but rather entities in need of rescue from such a fate.
You are familiar with the basic concept of denaturation, aren’t you, and the hazards of freeze/thaw events, I would assume, if you are indeed familiar?
Indeed. The Snowflakes program reports “1,494 embryos have been thawed for transfer of which 814 were viable, therefore the overall thawing success rate of Snowflakes is 54%. However, the success rate for frozen embryo transfer varies by each clinic. The national average overal thaw success rate is 51%.”
Here’s also nice story of frozen embryos saved during Katrina and a family blessed by it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1991154,00.html
On what basis do you make “personhood” the standard to determine recognition of our inalienable rights?
The Declaration of Independance, the foundation of our government, states that “all men are created equal.” Notice the wording. Created equal, not born equal.
Yo,
I’m sure I posted a comment at about 12:30 or so (unless my browser shut down on me). Where did it go?
Felicity,
To answer your question, according to Catholic moral theology, in a situation where two distinct evils exist and either acting or not acting will bring one about (as in the example, above), one is said to have a perplexed conscience and either of the two courses of action may be taken, according to the best judgment of the individual.
The Chicken
That’s one view of Catholic moral theology.
Next…
Does the teaching offer nothing in regard to whether it would be preferred to choose that only one die rather than one thousand?
Felicity –
In that circumstance, almost anyone would be operating without a lot of crucial information, like how many of the embryos would have a chance to survive, as many don’t even survive the unfreezing process. Add to that the less-than-ideal circumstances and probably even fewer would live.
Rescuing either the baby or the embryos would be an intrinsically good act.
Now IF the person had the ability to see into the future and could KNOW that a certain number of embryos would survive, then it seems to me like just a matter of arithmetic, which is not a specially Catholic concept… is it?
I’m not sure what you’re fishing for, here. There is no official Church document titled Highly Unlikely Hypotheticals.
Felicity,
the problem you’re having is that you expect Catholic teaching to define an answer for every hypothetical you chose to come up with.
I would suggest that the morality in the situation such as this is more in ones reason for chosing which path to take than the actual choice. As others have ably pointed out, nobody has the ability to predict the outcome of each of the 101 potential victims in the fire.
If one chose to save the born baby because you intentionally deny the teaching of the Church on the equal value of every human being and/or the humanity of the non-born babies then it is immoral. On the other hand, it is morally acceptable to choses to save the born baby because you believe that saving the embryo’s may involve illicit practices, classed as an extraordinary measure not obliged by natural law and has very low chance for success. Also, the effort to save the embryos may result in their being held in a state of suspension indefinitely, perhaps to be killed in the name of science, etc. etc.
With regard to the snowflake babies, I’m torn on this. It seems to me that the most moral action would to allow those children a dignified death. I believe that maintaining them in a frozen state is immoral and an extraordinary measure, so it would be licit to allow them to thaw and pass away. I would suggest that baptism is possible and efficacious in this case.
What does your worldview/faith instruct you on this matter?
God Bless,
Matt
Felicity,
Look — I tire of your Kobayashi Maru scenario.
As I lost my CATHOLIC RULEBOOK for every hypothetical scenario; allow me to reduce Catholic Teaching to the Utilitarian view you seem to invoke in your latest inquiry:
“Does the teaching offer nothing in regard to whether it would be preferred to choose that only one die rather than one thousand?”
Were I to invoke logic, however, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one!
To the unsigned poster at 8:06:31 pm,
Rudeness is not a Christian virtue. I realize that there are other moral schemes that might be used to parse the situation (such as probabilism, etc.). The concept of a perplexed conscience has an old and venerable pedigree and to my knowledge is still acceptable in most orthodox Catholic courses in moral theology.
I could discuss some of the other ideas, but I would prefer that you do it, since you seem to know so much about moral theology, except, perhaps, how not to commit an offense against Christian charity.
You owe me either an apology or proof that my comment aboce is no longer acceptable in moral theology. Vatican II did not rewrite everything, you know.
I try to be charitable in my posts, here. It is people like you who make me want to go back to lurking.
The Chicken
Masked Chicken,
I, for one, look forward to your comments.
Please disregard the anonymous cretan (or should I say Felicity? I may be wrong, but the time difference between Anon’s post and hers makes Felicity highly suspect).
Many posts to respond to above.
Let me start with a few of Memphis Aggie’s posts from earlier in the day.
And I presume you are a vegan, correct? (if so, let me know and I’ll provide a more thorough response).
Of course I would agree with the claim that it is not especially bad to destroy an oak tree, whereas destroying a being with human cognitive abilities is morally abhorent. The point of my analogy was just that as a general principal, the claim that we give the same moral credence to potential and actual capabilities seems to fail.
Again, are you a vegan? That would seem to be warranted if we accepted your reasoning at face value given the fact that many people disagree about the wrongness of killing animals for consumption. And are you a pacifist given the fact of disagreement about what (if anything) constitutes just war?
This notion presumes a certain metaphysical position that I think may be at the heart of our disagreement. Let me try to paraphrase as best I can (and let me know if this does not fully capture what you believe):
“Some beings have a human soul. To destroy any being with a human soul is as great a wrong as murdering an adult human being. There is some uncertainty about whether embryos have a human soul. You should err on the side of caution and assume that they do.”
Of course, I reject the first premise of this argument. In my view, nothing has a “human soul” in this sense – it is wrong to kill organisms in virtue of the fact that they possess certain cognitive abilities – if a monkey or a robot developed these abilities, it would be just as wrong to kill them even if they were not in any sense human. Likewise, if one were forced to choose between killing a human whose cognitive abilities were less than the average squirrel and a chimpanzee, it would be morally wrong to kill the chimpanzee. There is nothing special about human beings as such except for the mental capacities that they uniquely possess.
Before you start accusing me of wanting to kill severely retarded people, there is no documented case that I am aware of of a human being so severely retarded that their cognitive capacities were more limited than that of a chimpanzee (and I think it would be a grievous moral wrong to kill a chimpanzee for no good reason in virtue of the more limited set of cognitive abilities that they happen to possess). Also, I certainly would not argue that it is more wrong to kill a 3 year old than an adult or more wrong to kill someone of Einstein’s intellect than it is to kill someone of Forrest Gump’s intellect. Both have sufficient mental capacity to warrant equal consideration.
Again, this was not meant to be controversial. The vast majority of the time when people argue about morality they are using the top-down method as I defined it and arguing by analogy with other cases. It is only in rare cases of persistent disagreement (issues like abortion) when people feel the need to turn to the bottom-up approach.
I still need to response to several of Chicken’s posts and every other post after Tim’s Nov 27, 2007 10:51:04 AM post. I’ll try to get to these at some point tomorrow.
For now, just a few other themes I’d like to comment on:
I think it was Felicity who introduced this concept to the discussion. My focus throughout has been to answer the question, “To what beings do we have moral responsibilities and why do we have responsibilities to those beings?”
I think this also gets at a deep point about which we disagree.
We both acknowledge that our beliefs are often driven by unconscious psychological factors. The relevant question is: why are we unable to overcome these factors and view matters objectively?
I think you are wrong about abortion, about the truth of religious claims and about many other things. My explanation for why you are unable to consider these matters objectively is: the truth is complicated and easily obscured. There are many subtle errors in reasoning and red herrings which one could easily fall for which would prevent one from having true beliefs. Knowing the truth about these matters also requires familiarizing oneself with a vast body of human knowledge accumulated over many centuries (especially in the sciences) and one can certainly be pardoned if one remains ignorant of enormous portions of this body (as we all do).
Contrast this with your theory of where I go wrong: in your view (as I understand it), the truth isn’t subtle or complicated or difficult to grasp. The truth is obvious and I am just in denial because I am unwilling to face God (or something like that). This just seems so obviously absurd to me. Firstly, it is absurd because the truth is not simple and it’s not easy to come by. This strikes me as one of the central lessons that studying any field deeply must teach. Secondly, it is absurd because this account simply bears no resemblance to my own experience with religion. I would love for God to exist and to have eternal life and I would gladly obey whatever laws he set forth in exchange for the infinite benefits he could bestow. I just don’t think there is any compelling reason to believe that any of that is actually the way the world is.
Felicity, the problem you’re having is that you expect Catholic teaching to define an answer for every hypothetical you chose to come up with.
No, that’s not it at all. I’m simply asking the questions to engender conversation for the benefit of all.
it is morally acceptable to choses to save the born baby because you believe that saving the embryo’s may involve illicit practices, classed as an extraordinary measure not obliged by natural law and has very low chance for success.
In the words of Father Thomas Williams, dean of theology at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University…
“It is a basic principle of Christian ethics, and indeed of a democratic state, that all human beings bear an equal dignity and deserve to be treated as human beings. The question we need to ask is not how did they come to be, but rather what can we do to help them…
“We need to remember that ‘aggressive medical treatment’ refers to futile medical treatment of terminally ill patients, not to the normal care of healthy persons. Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical ‘Evangelium Vitae,’ in No. 65, stated that medical treatment can be refused when ‘death is clearly imminent and inevitable’ and when the treatment is either ‘disproportionate to any expected results’ or imposes ‘an excessive burden on the patient and his family.’ These conditions are not met in the case of frozen embryos.”
Welcome back Jason, as much as I disagree with you I think the threads would be especially dull without you.
The “are you a vegan/pacifist?” retort to my question is a classic form of misdirection, fails to engage the issue and grossly distorts the issue at hand. I think it was Edmund Rostand who called this practice “verbal tennis”. It’s a substitute for real dialog.
But let me restate the issue so that it’s more on point. I would agree that potential value does not equal the actual value, but to assert the potential to humanity has no value and can be destroyed with out any accounting of the loss is not to take human life seriously.
Also you’ve not thought through your statements about chimps vs severely retarded children. By any objective cognitive abilities test (we’re scientists remember?) some children will fail (children with autism for example) in relation to a typical chimp or a gorilla like Koko. You may be too squeamish to follow your reasoning to it’s logical endpoint (good to know your conscience still lives). However, not everyone who espouses what you do is so restrained. Your philosophy is very close to that of Peter Singer. Professor Singer sees nothing wrong with infanticide, on the grounds that infants (first year) are nonpersons because of the lack of cognitive function. Can you make the distinction that Singer does not while still preserving your cognitive powers standard?
This is not theoretical, governments regularly claim the power to determine who is and who is not human. The proposal of any rule has consequences, of which the others on this thread have been trying to make you aware.
Felicity,
In fact frozen embryos are in need of continuous “aggressive medical treatment” to sustain them. A woman must volunteer for surgical implantation and to carry them to term if they are ever to live independently of continuous care. That effort might constitute an “excessive” burden. The longer the freeze the more likely damage or death will occur – so the frozen state is a temporary life support.
Granted wheeling out frozen embryos would be life saving and laudable. However the baby would be in immediate danger from the fire while a canister of liquid Nitrogen might well protect the embryos long enough for the fireman to arrive.
In any case the extreme situation does not lend itself to extrapolation. It’s a distraction. What do you imagine it shows? If I say, (for the sake of argument) that the life of 100 frozen embryos is worth less then that of one infant, it doesn’t follow that embryos are entirely devoid of value and are thus worthy subjects of experimentation slated for destruction. The true value of human life is inestimable.
it is wrong to kill organisms in virtue of the fact that they possess certain cognitive abilities – if a monkey or a robot developed these abilities, it would be just as wrong to kill them even if they were not in any sense human.
So it isn’t wrong to kill people in their sleep? After all, they aren’t evincing any cognitive abilities in their sleep.
Before you start accusing me of wanting to kill severely retarded people, there is no documented case that I am aware of of a human being so severely retarded that their cognitive capacities were more limited than that of a chimpanzee
Chimpanzees are capable of some speech, through sign language.
Some human beings are so severely retarded people.
So, yes, you are arguing for killing severely retarded people.
(Doesn’t matter what you want)
Again, this was not meant to be controversial.
Doesn’t matter what you “meant” it to be, either.
In fact frozen embryos are in need of continuous “aggressive medical treatment” to sustain them.
Fact? If fact, it’s odd that Fr. Williams doesn’t seem to share it.
However the baby would be in immediate danger from the fire while a canister of liquid Nitrogen might well protect the embryos long enough for the fireman to arrive.
I asked the question, and I didn’t say the baby would be in any more immediate danger than the embryos. It could be that baby is in more immediate danger, or it could be that the frozen embryos are in more immediate danger even with the liquid nitrogen.
In any case the extreme situation does not lend itself to extrapolation. It’s a distraction. What do you imagine it shows?
The responses so far (including the many attempts to avoid the question) have tended to demonstrate Jason’s proposition that people do not value embryos as much as a baby, even at 100:1.
Of course I would agree with the claim that it is not especially bad to destroy an oak tree, whereas destroying a being with human cognitive abilities is morally abhorent. The point of my analogy was just that as a general principal, the claim that we give the same moral credence to potential and actual capabilities seems to fail.
False analogy. The value of an oak or an acorn is purely instrumental — moral considerations enter into the matter only insofar as their usefulness has moral considerations. Their actual usefulness is predicated on their capabilities.
This does not necessarily favor the tree. Given you want to preserve a subspecies of oak, you might easily chop down the trees in order to get at acorns, because you can do more with the acorns.
Felicity,
You’re right in the sense that we do not understand the value of the fetus because their humanity is remote to senses. That may be a failing of our consciences. It does not prove the actual worth of the fetuses.
Answer the second part of the point: are the embryos so devoid of value that they are justly subject to experimentation? Tell me what you think.
I asked the question, and I didn’t say the baby would be in any more immediate danger than the embryos.
You didn’t say they weren’t, either.
I suspected yesterday that Felicity was merely playing a game of “Gotcha!” That has now been confirmed.
And on the face of it, the embryos, being an obviously unnatural situation (outside their mother), are obviously in more danger.
The responses so far (including the many attempts to avoid the question) have tended to demonstrate Jason’s proposition that people do not value embryos as much as a baby, even at 100:1.
Balderdash.
As I have shown, people will save other people on considerations other than instrinsic “value.”
Or would you pull two dying children out of a hospital and leave a perfectly healthy child behind?
I have been trying to be as honest about this as I can be, and I think the exercise is illustrative. The remote intellectual understanding of the embryo as human occurs because it exists in an unnatural state. It is the unnatural extra utero condition of the embryo that artificially creates the dissociation of our inborn conscience. Thus the lack of a natural instinctive recognition of the embryo as human is a instrument in the hands those that propose murder. You create an unnatural state , hiding the humanity of the embryo, and when that deception succeeds use the lack of instinctual response as evidence of the acceptability of the unnatural state. It’s fundamentally dishonest.
are the embryos so devoid of value that they are justly subject to experimentation? Tell me what you think.
Some “experimentation” may have offer better prospects for life than simply dumping them in the trash. Even if the prospect is only death with experimentation, that’s the same prospect they face when dumped in the trash.
I suspected yesterday that Felicity was merely playing a game of “Gotcha!” That has now been confirmed.
It’s an exploration into people’s values and assumptions. There are often plenty of “gotchas” in that kind of exploration.
And on the face of it, the embryos, being an obviously unnatural situation (outside their mother), are obviously in more danger.
Compared to what? Baby or embryo, they will all be dead if not rescued. And faced with fire, neither is in a particularly “natural” situation.
Balderdash. As I have shown, people will save other people on considerations other than instrinsic “value.”
Call it value, consideration or whatever. The responses demonstrated no great interest in saving the embryos, just a lot of dancing to find reasons not to save them.
Jason, what is so special about cognitive ability? Why do organisms with a certain level of cognition deserve special “rights”, while others are for breakfast?
Just dumb luck that we highly cognitive humans discovered this principle, eh? It kind of reminds me of the way that most white supremacists are – you know – white. Probably just a coincidence.
Good point Tim
I propose the capacity to love and show compassion is a better metric. By that metric Downs syndrome children are rock stars and the stray kitten I adopted last month might give Jason some competition.
I think this argument is somewhat beside the point, as I would consider it a very grave wrong to kill a chimp.
Still, what abilities do infants possess that entitle them to moral consideration? These include (but are not limited to!): an ability to discern patterns (which far exceeds that of most even fully grown animals), the ability to learn from experience (this is an umbrella categorization which includes some abilities that animals possess and some that they do not), a primitive ability to communication which mostly involves signaling through facial expressions and crying (but which still vastly exceeds the ability of a typical dog), an ability to recognize other humans, and the ability to feel pain (which they share with many animals). There is also more indirect evidence of limited self-awareness; i.e. a distinction between self and other and the understanding of oneself as a continuing being over time.
Perhaps from your perspective we are very close (as I consider your philosophy very close to that of Protestants and Muslims!). But I wouldn’t consider myself a utilitarian by any stretch.
Singer does not advocate infanticide. He thinks that infanticide might be morally acceptable in extreme cases when parents have a compelling reason to kill a severely developmentally disabled child especially when there is reason to think that the child will not live for very long anyway and that its life will be filled with suffering. Singer actually gives several utilitarian arguments for this conclusion (e.g. killing the child is more likely to lead to the birth of another child) which I think are invalid. Absent those arguments, I don’t think Singer would reach the conclusion that he does.
Why are Singers arguements invalid?
Tim J., your use of the word “discovered” underscores our differences. I don’t think this is a principal which exists in the external world which we humans in our philosophical clarify have just stumbled upon (as we might stumble upon the law of gravity).
Instead, this is a practical principal that gives us a way of getting along in the world; to say that this principal is “correct” and another principal is “incorrect” is to say that this principal coherently systematizes judgments we could not do without and gives us guidance in cases where we are less sure (again, see my comments on the Materialism and Morality threads where I elaborate at much greater length about this idea and respond to some of the obvious objections).
But just to throw the ball back in your court for the moment. This objection is much more forceful against the principal that you articulate than against mine!
Your principal simply mandates that humans are objects of special moral concern and everyone else isn’t. Pretty fortunate that we happen to be humans, eh? What rationale do you have for this principal?
This strikes me as is precisely the error that the white supremacists make when they say that only white people are deserving of equal consideration. If instead they attempted to use a principal more analogous to the one I articulate (everyone who has capabilities X is deserving of equal consideration) they would find that they were forced to acknowledge black people as equals! Presumably if we encountered aliens with the same cognitive abilities as humans you would think it was no great wrong to kill them?
Jason,
Should any aliens arrive I’d be happy to assert their moral worth as long as they can keep up with the towering intellects in this thread. In fact I’m willing to assert the value of many creatures. What we are discussing here is the denial of value to human embryos. I understand the utilitarian argument, even I disagree with it. I think what you are saying is human embryos may have some worth but that value is less than the potential benefit of ESCR? Is that a fair statement?
Memphis, this is a very accurate statement of my view.
Let me press you a little bit about the alien point though – I understand you’re not being entirely serious here – but are you saying that you agree that the cognitive ability of the aliens would be a key determinant in whether we had moral responsibilities towards them? i.e. If we discovered aliens on another planet and they appeared to have the same cognitive abilities as fish, we would have no problem consuming them, but if they had the cognitive abilities of humans, we would have the same (or similar) moral responsibilities towards them as we have towards humans?
You assume a great deal, Jason. I was asking YOU why mere cognitive ability should warrant special rights.
Your answer (as far as I can tell) is basically because this is expedient, that it allows us to get on with things.
This could quickly get into waters deeper than I am fit to navigate, but there is a difference between a rational soul and a human being, though human beings are rational souls. There is in my mind a difference between intelligence and the more important matter of self-awareness and reflection. Jason may see self-awareness as simply a function of a certain level of intellect, but that correlation is by no means certain or necessarily causal.
Jason,
Sure I think cognitive ability does factor into how we treat other organisms. We don’t have to venture to outer space to stipulate that. Our cognitive ability is a defining factor in our humanity, I think it’s a mistake to deny it is a useful metric. However it is one measure among many. Further it is a moral necessity that we must not judge those with less generous gifts if we value the egalitarian free society and the justice of equality under the law. I don’t think it is much value to argue strictly only religious terms, my faith is unlikely to sway you.
Jason, what is so special about cognitive ability? Why do organisms with a certain level of cognition deserve special “rights”, while others are for breakfast?
Just dumb luck that we highly cognitive humans discovered this principle, eh? It kind of reminds me of the way that most white supremacists are – you know – white. Probably just a coincidence.
Tim J. finally let out what Jason’s comments are really all about.
The only members of society that deserve to exist are those who are the ‘fittest’; that is, the so-called ‘superman’!
This is the very reason Jason is obsessed with the concept of pairing human rights with the defining factor being that of an ‘acceptable’ level of cognition.
I remember working with a staff scientist who actually believed that the inferior portions of human society do not deserve such rights; most especially, the right to procreate and even to live.
He personally believed that it is these cognitively-deficient members of human society that is nothing but a burden on humanity as a whole and prevented its overall progress in all human endeavors and, in particular, Science.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Jason advocated the total elimination of their human rights –including the right to live.
This is also why Jason’s comments in these here threads have implicitly called out for the elimination of ‘superstitions’ such as Christianity and the like.
“The only members of society that deserve to exist are those who are the ‘fittest’; that is, the so-called ‘superman’!”
To be clear, Esau, I don’t think this is what Jason means to say, even if the ideas he espouses easily (maybe inevitably) run in that direction.
I’m just saying that he seems to have rather arbitrarily placed Ultimate Value on the attribute of intelligence when he might just as well have chosen physical skill or beauty.
Cognitive ability may be a useful marker, but it is not any kind of infallible test for determining the value of life.
Killing a chimp for no good reason would be wrong, but I feel that way about everything. Waste is a sin, and the waste of life is no exception.
To be clear, Esau, I don’t think this is what Jason means to say, even if the ideas he espouses easily (maybe inevitably) run in that direction.
Tim J.,
Even as you have remarked above, what I have rendered in my most recent comments is but an inevitable conclusion of Jason’s view.
It becomes a slippery slope from there.
Should the definition of a human person become dependent on a particular level of cognitive abilities;
Would the following folks be considered human?
– a senior citizen suffering dementia
– a person in extended coma (e.g., the ‘vegetable’ patients)
– the severely retarded
etc.
Just who exactly will be the one to set the ‘threshold’ for the ‘acceptable’ level of cognitive ability that would be sufficient to declare someone as a ‘human’ person deserving human rights?
I’m going to keep one eye open while sleeping now, just in case…
I of course agree with this sentiment. The question we are debating regards the boundaries of the sphere of equal concern.
Let me describe a thought experiment I was thinking about earlier today.
Suppose for the sake of argument that someone developed a computer program that could become conscious and eventually attained all the cognitive abilities of humans. I would argue, and I hope you will agree, that to destroy this computer program once it is fully functioning would be murder.
Now, suppose the program developed in the following way: it starts out as a desktop computer. Over 1000 years, it downloads additional components from the internet and gradually develops additional abilities and constructs a body for itself with the full array of sense organs, etc… For the first 10 years, it is indistinguishable from any other desktop. After 1000 years, it is indistinguishable from a fully functioning human except that it is made of silicon rather than carbon.
Suppose that when the program is unplugged it cannot be restarted. The question is, would it be a great moral wrong, akin to murder, to unplug the computer in the early years of its life when it is indistinguishable from a normal desktop computer (except for the ingenuity of the program it is running)?
My view is:
It is not something that we should do because we feel like it with no good reason, but it would not be tantamount to murder.
If for instance the computer were taking up a lot of space of a server used by researchers to cure diseases, it would not be wrong for them to unplug the computer so that additional space would be made available.
Likewise, if the computer could only continue to operate if it were monitored 24-7 for the first 9 months of its run and doing so required carrying it around in a backpack, it would not be wrong for its owner to decline to perform this service.
What do you think?
Well Jason I sense we are about as close to agreement as we’re going to get but I’ll try one more step. I suggest that the potential benefits of ESCR are less than advertised while the potential human worth of the frozen embryos is more certain. I’m not expecting you to accept that embryos are inherantly more valuable, as the sanctity of life is an article of faith and is not provable in a empirical sense, although many (most?) philosophies adopt it.
Will you agree that the “potential” of ESCR is difficult to estimate so that the possibility of error exists? That’s about as far as I imagine you can come to my side without abandoning your position.
Suppose for the sake of argument that someone developed a computer program that could become conscious and eventually attained all the cognitive abilities of humans. I would argue, and I hope you will agree, that to destroy this computer program once it is fully functioning would be murder.
I’m sure that this cyberman would indeed possess a ‘soul’ as well and, therefore, the accusation of murder would be quite appropriate.
And to think I wanted Hal 9000 killed!
The more I think about my beliefs on many issues the more that I see faith as looming very large. Argument and discussion are useful in clarifying the issues but rarely in converting one person to another belief. I was agnostic once and the most heartfelt argument based on faith didn’t move me much at all. It fell of me like water off a rock. Faith is not proven or provable, but revealed and received as a great gift. I’ll pray for you Jason that you are as generously blessed with faith and joy as I have been.
Balderdash. As I have shown, people will save other people on considerations other than instrinsic “value.”
Call it value, consideration or whatever. The responses demonstrated no great interest in saving the embryos, just a lot of dancing to find reasons not to save them.
And you’d say the paramedics in a triage situation are “dancing to find reasons” not to save the too severely injured? They frequently could, you know.
You, OTOH, are dancing around the issue. It doesn’t matter what you call it, I showed that whatever it is, it is not the only consideration, given that we are human and have necessarily limited abilities to save lives.
“Suppose for the sake of argument that someone developed a computer program that could become conscious and eventually attained all the cognitive abilities of humans.”
Jason, cognition does not equal conscience. Sentience does not equal sapience. It is a leap of pure faith to suppose that any computer, running any program, could ever become truly apperceptive, as we are.
I showed that whatever it is, it is not the only consideration, given that we are human and have necessarily limited abilities to save lives.
You just wanted to dance.
Jason,
I may not have a good sense for what a computer might look like in a hundred years (I’m not sure anyone really does), but I’ve got a pretty good idea what a human being looks like.
And no matter how much you dress up an inanimate object and make it behave like a human, it is still an inanimate object.
Unplugging a computer is still unplugging a computer, and if the only thing we are endangering is the “life” of the computer, unplug away.
To answer your questions specifically:
Nope.
Try again.
Dear Jason,
You wrote:
“Suppose for the sake of argument that someone developed a computer program that could become conscious and eventually attained all the cognitive abilities of humans. I would argue, and I hope you will agree, that to destroy this computer program once it is fully functioning would be murder.”
Shades of the Star Trek TNG episode, The Measure of a Man . In this episode, Picard tries to argue the same point that you do: a sufficiently advance computer (the android, Data) should be accorded the same rights as a man.
I have thought about this deeply because of some research that I have been doing. There are a number of issues to raise and they preclude my ability to make an ontological commitment to your proposition.
1. Murder, as usually understood, is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought by another human being. This raises a more general definition of murder, however, as the unlawful killing of one ontological entity by another ontological entity of the same kind. A man can murder a man. A cat, even a sentient cat, cannot. That is why the movie is rightly entitled, “The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and not, “The Attack of the Murdering Tomatoes. A sentient tomato may kill a man, but he may not murder him.
Murder is heinous because it is the breaking of the ontological unity which should exist between members of a give set endowed with life. A man does not live life the same way that a tomato does. A man, by murder, may disrupt the harmony of unity within the membership of homo sapiens , but the killing done by a tomato to a man does not deny the status of a man as a member of the set. Murder of one man by another brings an alien property into the ontological set which constitutes man – it says that this man (murderer) has a right over the set that no one else in the set has. In this regards, if you murder one man, in a sense you murder all men or at least to murder one man you must have the permission or the ability to murder all men and no one within the ontology can give you that right since it does not exist as an element within the ontology. One of the elements of ontological status is unity within the membership. To permit murder would require the ability to deny this unity, but that would be to deny the ontology.
Thus, while society can sanction killing, which is a cleansing of the ontological unity, it cannot sanction murder, which is a denial of its own ontology. When we execute a condemned murderer, we assert, rightly or wrongly, that the man has ceased to be human – his disregard for life has brought him to that point. Thus, we may kill him, but we are not, properly, murdering him. Likewise, God, who is above us in ontological status, may be properly said to be able to kill us (as during the Flood), but not murder us. The reason why the Commandment is, “Thou shalt not murder (not kill),” is because one of the purposes of the Commandment is to define what it means to be human.
Does your head hurt, yet?
This functionally means that we can kill the sentient computer, but we cannot murder it. This question can only, rightly, be addressed to another sentient computer. Only it could murder the first computer. Would it murder the first computer? I do not know. I also do not know what ethical system sentient computers use.
2. As for the question of unplugging the earlier, less developed version of the computer, the problem, here is that there is an unproven assumption that computational complexity is the same as cognitive complexity. Is a man just a highly evolved computer? The answer, ultimately, must be in the negative. A smart computer may fool others and even itself into thinking that it is a man, but the ontological reality is different than that of a man, otherwise, it would be a man and not simply a very smart computer. One would then have to study the process by which it could acquired the ontological status of a man, the transition from a machine to a man. Are there intermediate states? Is the transition sudden? What exactly changed.
3.. We cannot know what constitutes the cognitive process of man in general, because to do so, we would have to be more than man. Cognition involves metalanguage constructs that we cannot observe from inside our ontological status. It becomes impossible to fully realize what a man is from inside the experience of being a man. Can we know who we are? We may sense it from afar, but without metalogical axioms, we cannot know. The smart computer cannot be committed to the same metalogical axioms as man, because the first axiom in defining a man is the assumption of manhood. Its first metalogical axiom must be that it is a computer (or else, you would not be able to talk about a sentient COMPUTER). The whole situation then breaks down into a paradoxical inconsistency, should a computer try to define itself as a man.
I am getting way too abstract here. My point, here, is that even to imagine that a computer aquired sentience does not demand that it aquire human sentience. In this case, unplugging the computer is not murdering one of our own.
The situation is entirely different with an embryo. Its ontology and its teleology is only within the set of homo sapiens . It has a greater claim to ontological unity with humanity than any other possible entity. In fact, the difference between the two ontological sets may be zero.
Too much? I think I’ll go lie down, now…
The Chicken
Chicken,
I followed it and it made perfect sense. Murder is dependent on membership in the class (or ontological category) human. Embryos are definitively human while any machine, no matter how many human traits it might share, is not ontologically/definitively human. In a gesture of generosity we may accord protection to a sentient computer (assuming that such a thing is possible) but it would akin to laws against animal cruelty rather than murder.
You just wanted to dance.
What a crushing rejoiner.
Felicity wants paramedics arriving at an accident scene to chose who to treated based on — nothing, apparently. (Random chance? Miminizing the survivors? Destinating selected victims as non-human? Only the last is coherent with her claims here.)
Mary,
You want Felicity to engage you in a serious conversation, with logic and rules of courtesy. I think it’s Felicity who just wants to dance.
About The Masked Chicken’s comments above:
Again I repeat —
Just who is this ‘Masked Chicken’ anyway!?
Great post!
Profundity wrapped in simple language without it being too ‘dumbed-down’!
It takes much skill to strike such a balance!
Loved it!
Felicity wants paramedics arriving at an accident scene
My question asked about YOU making a decision before anyone is hurt, not paramedics at an accident scene. That’s just more of you doing the hokey pokey.
My question asked about YOU making a decision before anyone is hurt, not paramedics at an accident scene. That’s just more of you doing the hokey pokey.
Felicity,
Please cease your nonsense here.
If anybody is doing anything ‘hokey’; it’s you.
Your surreptitious attempts at fault-finding when there is none to be found have failed.
Give up, for goodness sakes.
You want to be able to say that the Catholic Church dictates her children to behave in a certain way under a specific set of circumstances, ignoring the fact that the Church teaches only what the Christian Faith has taught since the very beginning and it is up to her Children to base their actions in real life circumstances accordingly!
Additionally, the reason behind my rhetorical question about what does the Protestant church (or, rather, churches) dictate(s) as far as the very specific situation you submitted; that is, it was to illustrate that NO SUCH CHURCH would have a rulebook COMPREHENSIVE ENOUGH that would essentially outline what to do in every particular instance in everybody’s life!
In a nutshell, the FAITH serves as a GUIDE to our actions — there are no such RULEBOOKS that dictate every particular action to be performed under every particular circumstance!
That is essentially why Christ founded a CHURCH!
You want to be able to say that the Catholic Church dictates her children to behave in a certain way under a specific set of circumstances
What rubbish. I don’t want any such thing.
Cha cha cha.
My question asked about YOU making a decision before anyone is hurt, not paramedics at an accident scene.
Have you refuted my explanation of how the paramedics and the person in the fire are operating by same principles?
However, I will rephrase it for your benefit. Felicity, given the choice of pulling two dying children from life-saving medical equipment that she can’t move to escape a fire, or saving a healthy child, would pull the two children and watch them die on the hospital lawn.
And she would be proud of herself for having saved two lives.
given the choice of pulling two dying children from life-saving medical equipment that she can’t move to escape a fire, or saving a healthy child, would pull the two children and watch them die on the hospital lawn.
In my question, the embryos are no more dying than the baby is dying, and they can be moved just as easily as the baby, and they won’t die after being moved any more than the baby would.
Your question is but a dance upon mine.
Now put your right foot in,
Your right foot out,
Right foot in
Then you shake it all about.
And then you do the Hokey Pokey
Turn yourself around,
That’s what it’s all about.
You want to be able to say that the Catholic Church dictates her children to behave in a certain way under a specific set of circumstances
What rubbish. I don’t want any such thing.
Cha cha cha.
What then was the PURPOSE of your inquiry:
“what does Catholic teaching say in regards to the morality of how one “should” choose in such a situation?”
…and they won’t die after being moved any more than the baby would.
Did we not already cover how temperature-sensitive embryos are?
Poor me —
I guess my experience in the matter doesn’t count at all.
What with what little I know about the hazards of freeze/thaw events and denaturation effects.
What’s the song in my head? Oh yeah “All she wants to do is dance”. Felicity is projecting, this argument is pointless.
Methinks Felicity is our resident Gnostic.
Must have been bored without us.
What then was the PURPOSE of your inquiry
For conversation on how general precepts may be applied.
What with what little I know about the hazards of freeze/thaw events and denaturation effects.
Life always poses hazards, even to babies. The fact is, out of a hundred already frozen embryos, even with hazards, many can be successfully thawed, implanted and born as babies. In the Snowflake program, “1,494 embryos have been thawed for transfer of which 814 were viable, therefore the overall thawing success rate of Snowflakes is 54%. However, the success rate for frozen embryo transfer varies by each clinic. The national average overal thaw success rate is 51%.” They also cite that just under 47% of successfully thawed embryos resulted in pregnancies after transfering.
Did we not already cover how temperature-sensitive embryos are?
I already covered the fact that frozen embryos can be safely moved from one location to another in an emergency. I even posted a link to a Katrina story.
Methinks Felicity is our resident Gnostic.
Tim J.,
I thought the same thing!
Isn’t a gnostic someone who “knows”? I don’t know that I know anything, hence, I guess that’s why I ask questions, engender conversation and watch the dancing of those who “know”. Perhaps there are many gnostics on this forum?
…and they won’t die after being moved any more than the baby would.
Did we not already cover how temperature-sensitive embryos are?
Yup, and also that the embryos would need to be implanted, and we couldn’t do that on our own.
Felicity is trying to define her own situation out of existence.
The fact is, out of a hundred already frozen embryos, even with hazards, many can be successfully thawed, implanted and born as babies.
Under some circumstances.
I already covered the fact that frozen embryos can be safely moved from one location to another in an emergency. I even posted a link to a Katrina story.
You covered the fact that in some scenarios frozen embryos can be safely moved from one location to another in some emergencies.
The Katrina story is not the situation you are positing here: that one of us is (inexplicably) alone in a fertility clinic except for frozen embryos and an (inexplicable) baby. And there is absolutely no other person to help us. Furthermore, the fire can not be, as you claimed, no risk to the embryos even as they are rescued — otherwise, what conceivable difficulty would there be in rescuing both the baby and the embryos? The fire would have to be close to make it difficult.
Under that scenario, the question is not whether embryos can be transported safely but whether we are capable of doing so.
You covered the fact that in some scenarios frozen embryos can be safely moved from one location to another in some emergencies.
Now you’re doing the tango. The question was “if you could save a baby or a tray of 100 embryos in a fire, which would you save?” It is thus clearly posited in the question itself that you can save one or the other, your choice. In addition, my Nov 27, 2007 2:44:30 PM post made it clear that I was speaking about embryos that can be safely moved while maintaining them in viable condition. The very question itself posits that they can be saved, if that is your choice.
Furthermore, the fire can not be, as you claimed, no risk to the embryos even as they are rescued — otherwise, what conceivable difficulty would there be in rescuing both the baby and the embryos? The fire would have to be close to make it difficult.
Again, the question posited that you could save either the embryos or the baby, but not both. For example, by the time you save one, the heat from the growing fire has gone into the upper walls and furnishings, heating the combustible gases and furnishings to their auto-ignition temperature and the building suddenly bursts into flame in flashover making it impossible for you to save both. Thus your attempt to save both would end in disaster for all, but you can save one or the other (not both) because you have enough time to do so before flashover / your exit is non-viable.
I’m sorry I’m still way behind in responding to the comments on this thread and the related one on stem cell research. I’ll have some time tomorrow afternoon to catch up a bit.
For now, let me just respond to one of Tim J.’s points about that caught my eye (I think this post also indirectly engages with some points that Chicken raised, although I’ll try to answer those points more directly later).
What aspect of perception do you think a computer could not simulate? In what way are we responsive to the environment that you think a computer could never be? If a computer appeared to be conscious in the same way that humans are, on what basis could you say that the computer was not conscious but that other humans are conscious?
Let me repost some comments I made in a previous thread and my rejoinder to an objection of Smokey’s:
Suppose you were transported 200 years in the future. You fell in love and were married. You lived for 40 years with your wife, and she bore two children with you. You then discover, much to your chagrin, that she is a robot – albeit, an incredibly sophisticated robot that seems capable of all the thoughts and emotions of any human (at least as far as you can tell).
You are then offered $1,000,000 to torture and murder her (or torture and destroy her if you prefer I not use an emotionally loaded word). Remember, one million dollars can do a lot of good. Would you do it? Would you destroy this being that you apparently consider not be conscious just like you would smash your desktop computer for a million dollars?
Smoky’s reply:
My rejoinder:
My example is meant to prove that we would have moral obligations to such a being in the same way we would have moral obligations to another human (I agree with you that the claim does not show the robot is conscious – that would require a further argument, but I think there is an intimate connection between consciousness and being the subject of moral obligations; I think ultimately we would have as much reason to believe that the robot was conscious as we have to think that other humans are conscious).
I don’t think this emotional attachment argument is an escape. You might have an emotional attachment to a teddy bear. You wouldn’t destroy it for $100. But if you were offered a million? How about 100 million? With that kind of money, you could build a hospital in a third world country or you could insure that your parents and children never had to worry about material well-being again.
My claim is: if it were just an emotional attachment you would take the money and destroy her. If it were a moral obligation, then you would not. Which would you do? Would you destroy her despite her protests? Despite her insistence that she is just like you and she wants to live?
Chicken,
Just a quick response to each of your three points – before I respond in more detail, it may be helpful if you elaborate so that I don’t dwell on objections that miss the mark.
1)
I take you here to be not just making a semantic point about when the word murder is appropriate, but rather a substantive point about when it is wrong to destroy another being (as you clarify in the remainder of your post).
In response consider this: suppose we discovered a species called Huwomans. It turns out Huwomans grew up on a planet about 20 lightyears from here but they are otherwise almost identical to humans. They are not literally the same species – we can’t mate and produce viable offspring, but as far as we can tell, their brains have the same physical structure and aside from their incompatibility as mates, it would be impossible to determine whether a being was Huwoman or Human without knowing its planet of origin.
Are you saying it would not be wrong for humans to murder huwomans? And it would not be wrong for huwomans to murder humans? This strikes me as obviously incorrect.
Star Trek seems to drive this point home – aliens could end up being quite different from us and then the question might be slightly more difficult, but if we stumbled upon aliens that were nearly identical to us except for their pointy ears, it seems obvious that we would have moral obligations to them and they to us. Are you denying this? If one of those aliens murdered someone in your family, you wouldn’t hold them responsible in the same way you would hold a human responsible?
2)
I don’t quite understand your insistence on categorizing “man” as a separate “ontological reality” (nor do I fully understand what that means). Suppose we took a person’s brain and replaced a single neuron with a replica made of silicon. This person would obviously be the same person. Now suppose we repeated this procedure, one by one, with every other neuron in their brain. I would argue that at the end, they would still obviously be the same person because their identity derives not from the particular component parts in their brain but from the higher-order organizational patterns that persist over time. Would you disagree?
3)
This strikes me as a misapplication of Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem. I think what you’ve done is attempt to translate a mathematical result into intuitive language and then attempt to apply the result where the intuition superficially appears to work due to the vagueness of language but where the mathematics simply no longer applies. Is Godel’s result what you had in mind here? (I’ll elaborate if this is the case). If not, what are you talking about?
Another clarification I should make is that my initial question only asked you to suppose for the sake of argument that a computer could become conscious like a human.
Are you denying that this is even a *possibility*? This strikes me as an absurd position. To make this claim, you would have to show that there is some kind of logical inconsistency in the idea of a conscious computer – where is the logical inconsistency? Why have you managed to see it, but somehow so many cognitive scientists who study the brain on the basis of computational models have not?
You might argue that as a practical model, we will never be able to construct a computer with sufficient complexity that it can achieve our level of perception. I think this claim is unfounded, but at least it does not have the enormous hubris to suggest that our knowledge of consciousness is so complete that we can definitely rule out the possibility that any organism not of human origin could have have human-like perceptions (and if you can’t rule this out, why discriminate against silicon?).
Jason,
I don’t want to be nit-picky, but you mis-quoted me in one of your responses.
I had said, “It is a leap of pure faith to suppose that any computer, running any program, could ever become truly apperceptive, as we are.
But you quoted me as saying “It is a leap of pure faith to suppose that any computer, running any program, could ever become truly as perceptive, as we are”
I did not misspell the word “apperceptive”.
From Wikipedia; Apperception – “In epistemology, it is “the introspective or reflective apprehension by the mind of its own inner states”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apperception
You also might find the references to Kant interesting (or maybe not). See also the link to the entry on Metacognition.
Again, the question posited that you could save either the embryos or the baby, but not both
From the fire.
We are legitimately entitled to consider what that scenario necessarily entails.
You remind me of a philosopher who tried to posit a human being exactly, in every detail, human, alive and able to act, speak, etc. but without a soul. The correct rejoinder to that scenario is that a human being without a soul is a corpse.
For example, by the time you save one, the heat from the growing fire has gone into the upper walls and furnishings, heating the combustible gases and furnishings to their auto-ignition temperature and the building suddenly bursts into flame in flashover making it impossible for you to save both.
In which case, the heat would go outside the building too.
We are arguing in ignorance: sentient consciousness is an exceptionally hard philosophic area. We don’t really know how it exists only that it does and we can define it’s characteristics. Likewise Jason I have to agree that we can’t rule out the possibility of constructing a conscious computer. However under that scenario we human beings are the creators of this enlightened machine. We are not equals, thus murder is not possible.
An aside, arguing from Star Trek is not the road to credibility.
As to your robot scenario, no I would not torture and kill the robot for any amount of money… just on the off chance that I COULD BE WRONG.
That is not to say I would accept that this robot was actually a sapient being. I would always harbor suspicions that it was just (like Beatle Mania) “an incredible simulation”.
The marriage would be null, of course. I’m assuming that the “children” would actually be clones of some kind, so I would probably put them to work grinding pigment in my studio. Heh.
Now, another scenario; you are deeply fascinated with two women and feel you are falling in love with both. You have just discovered that one of the women is in fact a robot, when a horrible fire breaks out in the apartments where they both, coincidentally, live. You can rescue only one of them. What would you do? You also have to choose between rescuing a couple of laptops running possible sentient programs (behind door #3), and a tray of frozen embryos that Jay is now bringing down the aisle. You are further hampered by the requirement that you must do all this on roller skates while whistling “Dixie”.
Tick, tock…
If you fail, the world as we know it will be destroyed, but you will get to keep the Samsonite luggage.
Sentience is not the reason Catholics believe human life to be sacred, we are created in the image and likeness of God. We do not hold any other being as made in the image and likeness of God, nor could anything man-made ever be so. Now, any being that would suffer pain ought not to have pain inflicted on it unnecessarily, nor should it be destroyed without any cause. The Church would not extend that respect to any inanimate object, except with regard to good stewardship.
God Bless,
Matt
Felicity,
I already covered the fact that frozen embryos can be safely moved from one location to another in an emergency. I even posted a link to a Katrina story.
OH PUHLEEEZEEE!
Cease your play-acting here, will ya?
Although I haven’t dealt with embryos in the lab since my university days, I’m very well more knowledgeable about such matters than you are!
For goodness sakes, you merely cited an EXCEPTION rather than the RULE!
In which case, the heat would go outside the building too.
It doesn’t matter where the heat would go, because, again, the question itself posits that you are in fact able to save one or the other, your choice.
I’m very well more knowledgeable about such matters than you are!
Then why don’t you try showing it, for once.
Gents roll back, but only one,
Promenade, you’re gonna have a little fun.
It ain’t no sin to swing and sway.
Then why don’t you try showing it, for once.
Excuse me, but the fact that you are ignorant of the hazards of freeze/thaw effects and the basic concept of denaturation and, yet, you insist on the riscible conclusion that embryos on a plate could actually survive after exposure to fire; speaks to how clueless you are in this regard and the fact you remain adament is telling of the sort of idiot you really are!
To anybody knowledgeable in the art, to engage in more intimate details concerning laboratory protocol with one such as you would be a waste of time!
Excuse me, but the fact that you are ignorant of the hazards of freeze/thaw effects and the basic concept of denaturation… the fact you remain adament is telling of the sort of idiot you really are!
If those are your “facts,” you might want to recheck who is ignorant.
you insist on the riscible conclusion that embryos on a plate could actually survive after exposure to fire
Whether the embryos are “on a plate” as you alone have said, or “in a tray” as carried over from Jason’s question, or in a vial, or whatever is immaterial to the question as asked. In my question, if you choose to save them, the embryos are, as the question expressly says, saved from harm. It is only if you do not choose to save them that the embryos would be exposed to fire or harm of any kind.
The question can also be asked without the element of fire. You have one minute to choose to save either 100 “fresh” Snowflake embryos or one baby. Whichever you choose will in fact be saved. Whichever you do not choose to save will promptly be destroyed. If you do not choose either but instead dance, all the embryos and the baby will be destroyed. Which will you save and why.
Sorry about that – I did in fact read it as a typo (I would have quoted it typo and all, but I initially copied it just to respond to it, then decided it would be clearer if I put it in quotes forgetting I had changed it).
But regarding the substance of this point – I think your doubt about the apperceptivity of the robot is no more justified than doubt about the apperceptivity of other human beings. You believe that other humans are conscious in the same way that you are because they respond to you as if they are conscious and because the physical structure of their brains is similar to the physical structure of your brain.
But suppose the same were true of the robot – on what basis do you doubt that the robot can perceive its own internal states? Would you also doubt that the “Humwomans” I discussed in the post above are apperceptive?
I agree with the point that we have no adequate theory of how perception of one’s own mental states arises.
This is why I would make a more limited claim: to the extent that you doubt that the robot has this perception, you should also doubt that other humans have this perception as I argue in my above response to Tim J.
If you are just making a semantic point here (i.e. you are defining murder as the killing of one being by another of the same kind), then I agree with you, but the point has no normative significance.
If instead you are saying that it wouldn’t be horrendously wrong for us to create such a being and then destroy it (where horrendously wrong = as bad as killing another human being), then I think this is a frightening and horrific judgment. Would you exclude from moral consideration people created through in vitro fertilization? How about if the person was grown in a test tube and never entered a womb? How about if their brain was constructed cell by cell? How about if we used silicon for those cells rather than carbon?
Denying that you have moral responsibilities to these creatures is no more justified than denying that you have moral responsibilities to someone from a different country or of a different race. Origin is irrelevant (at least for the most basic moral claims – of course, your duties to your family might be different than your duties to someone from another country – but this doesn’t mean they are not your moral equals!).
You object to my invocation of Star Trek, but you don’t respond to the argument I made. If the Klingons were real, you would believe that we had a responsibility to treat them in a certain way and they us. If an alien who was nearly identical to humans but with pointy ears and a different planetary origin killed your mother, you would hold them responsible just like you would hold another human responsible. And you would be right to do so – after all, you have no good reason to think that their subjective experience is any different from our own just because they were born on a different planet.
So how about aliens who looked like us but with pointy ears? Would they also be made in the image of God?
Whatever you might think about the morality of artificially creating a being, if we were to construct a human brain neuron by neuron, wouldn’t the finished product also be “made in the image of God”?
And if we created an artificial intelligence with silicon neurons but a processor modeled after the human brain, wouldn’t this organism be “made in the image of God” as well?
Suppose we went further – suppose we understood the properties of the human brain that give rise to apperceptivity (I’m glad Tim J. taught me this word) and constructed an organism with a very differently structured brain that possessed these core properties. Would this being also be “made in the image of God”?
So how about aliens who looked like us but with pointy ears? Would they also be made in the image of God?
For the Atheist, “God” is too incredible to believe — but when it comes to “Vulcans” or even Green Aliens, for that matter; hey, that’s something any sane, rational person can put stock in!
Just ask those idosyncratic SETI wannabees who claim they’ve actually seen UFOs!
It seems like you would be equally justified in harboring this suspicion about other humans.
I know you mean this in jest, but I think it’s actually quite useful to think about these scenarios and I hope you’ll respond to the ones I’ve just proposed (I agree there were some flaws with my tray of embryos example, although I do not think no one could honestly regard the destruction of a freezer full of 6,000,000 embryos as morally akin to the holocaust whatever one might think of abortions at later stages of pregnancies).
But to address the substantive point behind this – if there were a laptop running a sentient programs in one room and a woman in another room and I had to decide which to save, I’d probably be emotionally inclined to save the woman (just as I’d be emotionally inclined to save a more attractive woman rather than a less attractive one), but I wouldn’t regard this as a moral duty and I would regard this inclination as a bit unseemly. If there were 10 sentient laptops on one trolley track (assuming not just self-awareness but the full gamut of human cognitive abilities) and a woman on the other and I had to decide which to run over, I would run over the woman although as with 10 humans vs. 1 human, this would be a true dilemma and not one where I would feel afterwards as if I had “done the right thing” so much as chosen the lesser of two great evils.
Yes, it’s amazing how these people claim to have been abducted by aliens and then believe that others should accept the existence of aliens despite having no observable evidence on the basis of the unverifiable personal testament of the abductees – they act as if someone could never be wrong about having a personal encounter of this sort! One wonders where they would get such a crazy idea…
Gee, I guess that’s your reason for your statement:
“So how about aliens who looked like us but with pointy ears?”
Being that there plenty of substantial evidence for aliens, let along, those with pointy ears!
But the following statement takes the cake:
“if there were a laptop running a sentient programs in one room and a woman in another room and I had to decide which to save, I’d probably be emotionally inclined to save the woman (just as I’d be emotionally inclined to save a more attractive woman rather than a less attractive one), but I wouldn’t regard this as a moral duty and I would regard this inclination as a bit unseemly.”
There’s actually somebody who considers it a MORAL DUTY TO SAVE WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A COMPUTER PROGRAM!
Me oh My!
Now I’ve seen everything!
Darn it!
I’d better prepare to save my ChessMaster then!
Dear Jason,
Welcome back.
Were your comments on Nov. 30 at 5:34:44 am addressed to me?
You wrote:
Another clarification I should make is that my initial question only asked you to suppose for the sake of argument that a computer could become conscious like a human.
Are you denying that this is even a *possibility*? This strikes me as an absurd position. To make this claim, you would have to show that there is some kind of logical inconsistency in the idea of a conscious computer – where is the logical inconsistency? Why have you managed to see it, but somehow so many cognitive scientists who study the brain on the basis of computational models have not?
You might argue that as a practical model, we will never be able to construct a computer with sufficient complexity that it can achieve our level of perception. I think this claim is unfounded, but at least it does not have the enormous hubris to suggest that our knowledge of consciousness is so complete that we can definitely rule out the possibility that any organism not of human origin could have have human-like perceptions (and if you can’t rule this out, why discriminate against silicon?).
Of course, I am not denying the possibility that a computer may, someday, develop sentient-like qualities. Since we do not know enough about what constitutes human sentience yet, reason will only allow us to say that we will probably be able to go that far with computers. I don’t want to get too science-fictiony.
Since I made the statement above, it should be obvious that I, in fact, do not think that we know much about human sentience in a direct fashion. We do know some things, indirectly.
One of the reasons that I have thought so much about this issue is that the simulation of human cognitive activities by computer is one of my areas of research. I was once a reader/participant in a doctoral thesis in AI from the University of Edinburgh (I was not on her committee, but I participated in her research and corresponded heavily with her while she was writing her dissertation -it may have been her master’s thesis – I would have to go back and look. She did go on to get a doctorate. This was a few years ago.). I work more on the wetware side of things, but since she was interested in mimicking this behavior, we got in touch (I don’t remember who contacted whom).
She has gone on to have quite a big name in the area (in fact, she is well-known to some of the big shots at MIT), but I don’t want to reveal too much more, because it might give away my own identity (what good is it being the Masked Chicken if the mask falls off?).
Just this last summer I was at a conference with someone who was trying to do the opposite: to get a computer to recognize human cognitive activity. She was tackling the computer-human side of the same phenomenon that the other woman had been working on.
This issue is one I have thought about for years. It is not going to get solved in these comboxes, although it does make for lively discussion. I may have a great deal to say about these issues in the next few days, but the Chicken is a little under the weather and so I am taking the night off.
Two points:
1) We are all dancing around the Turing Test pond. I am providing the link to an extensive article for the benefit of those who have not heard of it (from your comments about Godel, I assume that you already know about the Turing Test).
We have no equivalent Turing Test regarding human embryos. We do not even know what would constitute the right questions.
2) As for which to rescue, the laptop running the sentient computer program or the woman, I would definitely rescue the woman. I might be able to re-write the program from scratch, but have you ever tried to do that with a woman 🙂
The Chicken
To the Masked Chicken: Any relation to the San Diego Chicken?
Hi Chicken,
I hope you’re feeling better soon as I look forward to hearing from you. A few responses.
I think that was actually addressed to Tim J., but I’m glad to get your thoughts on the matter. I think you and Tim J. may differ on this matter although I’ll wait to see what he has to say for himself.
Given that you acknowledge the possibility of a sentient computer, I’m puzzled as to how you can deny that it would be a very grave wrong to destroy this entity once it existed assuming that it is not merely sentient in the same way a mosquito arguably has a form of consciousness, but rather possesses the full range of human cognitive abilities. I’ve intentionally avoided directly invoking the Turing Test although I guess what I have in mind could be considered a very general version – the idea being not merely that the entity in question could pass itself off as a human in conversation, but that no test we could perform including a physical examination of its brain/processor gives us any basis for thinking that humans possess any cognitive ability that the creature does not possess including self-consciousness.
In particular, I’m interested in your thoughts on my successive posts on Nov 29, 2007 8:27:42 PM and 8:49:09 PM.
Do you think we would have moral responsibilities to the alien “Huwomans”? How about the being we created from scratch by building an exact replica of a human brain with cells made out of silicon rather than carbon?
Jason
This is an interesting point. If a copy of the program existed somewhere so that it could be recreated in its current form, I think that would change the nature of the dilemma. I think that last caveat – in its current form – is crucial. If a copy of the “base” program existed, but the entity itself had lived for many years and absorbed a great deal of information from the environment, then I think recreating the base program would not bring the entity back to life any more than creating a human clone of a dead person would bring that person back to life.
With that caveat in mind, if the program could be replicated exactly or very close to exactly (perhaps it makes a back-up every day) while the woman could not be, then I would save the woman.
There may be further complications as indicated by “while the woman could not be” – given that we have the technology to create and copy the sentient program in this scenario, we may well also have the technology to download all of the information in the woman’s brain into a computer every day (or her consciousness may already exist in some distributed form on some future successor of the internet) – in that case, the destruction of her physical body would not be a very grave wrong anyway.
You then discover, much to your chagrin, that she is a robot – albeit, an incredibly sophisticated robot that seems capable of all the thoughts and emotions of any human (at least as far as you can tell).
You are then offered $1,000,000 to torture and murder her (or torture and destroy her if you prefer I not use an emotionally loaded word). Remember, one million dollars can do a lot of good. Would you do it? Would you destroy this being that you apparently consider not be conscious just like you would smash your desktop computer for a million dollars?
Lewis Carroll’s objection to vivisection applies here. Your desktop computer would not act like it was in pain. The robot would. Indulging in such a practice would harden the heart.
Very, very, very unwise.
Mary, so are you saying that destroying the robot would be akin to killing an animal, but not to killing a human?
On what basis do you think that the conscious experience of the robot differs from the conscious experience of humans other than yourself? (presuming you do think this).
On what basis do you think that the conscious experience of the robot differs from the conscious experience of humans other than yourself?
Robots can act only in ways they have been programed to. This is not consciousness. A part of human consciousness is being aware of two choices. This is followed by choosing to do the one of the two which is in accord with one’s conscience. Robots are encapable of defining the evil of murder (unless taught by humans how to), because this knowledge is written on the human heart.
David B., you have first hand experience of this for yourself. But how do you know this is the case for other humans?
If we constructed a robot with a replica of a human brain with silicon neurons that behaved exactly like other humans, why would you suppose that the robot was not conscious while other humans are?
David B., you have first hand experience of this for yourself. But how do you know this is the case for other humans?
You know, I’ve often wondered about some people…
Seriously, ALL people can choose to kill or not to kill. One of these is in accord with a human’s conscience, the other is not. Those incapable of this suffer from psychosis, or other, similar illnesses.
If we constructed a robot with a replica of a human brain with silicon neurons that behaved exactly like other humans, why would you suppose that the robot was not conscious while other humans are?
“if” is the operative word. It hasn’t happened. Even if it were to happen, the imitation of intelligence (which has happened in primative forms already), is not equal to having intelligence.
Unfortunately, I gotta go for tonight. Good night!
David B., I think you’re missing the point of my challenge. I agree with you that all people can choose to kill or not to kill.
My argument is: we (correctly) infer this about other people based on two general facts: 1) other people behave as if their subjective experience is the same as our own and 2) Other people’s physical constitution is quite similar to our own.
I’m saying: if we constructed a robot that satisfied 1) and 2) (for instance, with silicon based neurons rather than carbon based), then we would have to make the same inference; i.e. that it could freely choose in the same way that we can. Because of this, I think we would also have to acknowledge that we would have moral responsibilities towards such a being.
Would you agree with this?
Dear Jason,
The Chicken is still weak of beak, but with regards to the Humwoman/Human distinction, I think I see the difficulty. Am I correct in thinking that you believe that the essence of a “man” (in the most general sense) is solely a function of his cognitive abilites? Thus, if two beings, two “Men” (not necessarily from the same planet) differ by an infinitesimal amount in cognition, then they are, essentially, to be treat according to the same ethical principles (up to an epsilon of difference)? If this is the case, then we have a definitional problem in how we are defining sentience. If I have stated your hypothesis correctly (please, correct me if I am wrong), then that seems to imply that you would hold that a man’s ontology is related, ultimately, to his cognition, alone.
One could also posit a consistent ontology of “man” based on congnition plus some other principle called, soul. Thus, it could be possible to have a binary ontology of (mind, soul). It may be possible for mind1 = mind2, but soul1 =(not) soul2. Thus, on a material level, huwomans and humans may look the same, but in an existential sense, be different. I have no problem refraining from killing a huwoman on the grounds that one ought not kill except under necessity. The effect would be the same as not murdering, but for a different reason.
As a materialist, I realize that you cannot grant me the existence of a non-material soul and yet it violates no assumptions that would allow for a sentient being. As we do not understand sentience, we cannot, at this point, say that the existence of a soul is not necessary to defining sentience. All we can do is stake out positions and make arguments. At some point a contradiction will be reached in one of the two stances. How close we are to that point, I do not know.
What I do know is that your scheme of replacing one neuron by an equivalent silicon neuron will not work. The building up of an object from first principles (be the principles atoms or otherwise) is called in some modern theries of ontology, microphysical supervenience. At some point, there is a transition from the state of loosely connected objects to a new essence. One silicon neuron does not make a brain, but at some point, the essence supervenes and becomes an observable reality.
Sadly, silicon does not have the same quantum mechanical properties as carbon (chemically, basically, yes, but not in a full-blown treatment). Thus, there must be subtle differences in the way that matter interacts inside of a purely silicon brain compared to a purely carbon-based brain. No, I haven’t built a silicon brain, but I don’t need to. I know how real carbon-based neurons basically react and I know something (we do not know everything and are far away from knowing most things) about quantum mechanical effects, or even electrical fields, in situ , on neurons. Silicon is not the same as carbon at the level of quantum electrodynamics, otherwise, we would be able to make semi-conductors out of toast.
Ah, toast …
The Chicken
With regards to my last statement, actually, one can make semi-conductors using carbon nanotubles or even Buckyballs. For that matter, there are organic semi-conductors. I think I’m going back to bed, now.
The Chicken
Masked Chicken,
Regarding the Human/Humwoman distinction. I wasn’t presuming that people don’t have immaterial souls (although I do of course believe this to be the case).
But I think the soul-theory just begs the question: on what basis would you infer that humans have souls but huwomen don’t? It seems to me the only observable difference between huwomen and the humans is that the huwomen are from a different planet. But is this really morally relevant? If it is, on what basis do you presume that people of African descent have souls given that they’re from a different country?
Jesuit Brother and Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno offered the following in response to the question “Can aliens be made in God’s image? The traditional belief is that they are referring to the aspects of the soul – intellect and free will. The ability to know that we exist, that God exists and the freedom to choose to love or not love. Anything, whether it is an intelligent computer or an alien with five arms – if they have those aspects, seems to me they’d be in the image and likeness of God.”
Regarding your point about building the silicon brain. I’m not convinced by your argument that the different quantum mechanical properties of silicon would make this impossible – it is almost surely impossible to reconstruct a brain atom by atom replacing carbon with silicon, but it may well be possible to construct a silicon analogue of a neuron which would interact in the right way with other neurons since neurons themselves are very complex objects constructed from millions of atoms.
At any rate, I don’t think my argument hinges on this point. The key premise of the argument is that we can replace a brain piece by piece with new parts that serve the same function. I see no reason to suppose that this claim is false. This raises the issue you call “microphysical supervenience”:
This claim strikes me as just completely unjustified. In your view, there is some kind of immaterial world that exists in parallel to the material world. But why suppose that the relation between the material world and the immaterial world takes the form you propose?
As I understand it, you are proposing a model of the following sort. There is a variable y^* in the actual world (e.g. the number of neurons in a brain we have replaced with silicon). y^* maps onto a binary variable y in the immaterial world that denotes whether a creature has a soul: a creature has a soul (y = 1) if y^* < N and a creature does not have a soul (y = 0) if y^* >= N.
But on what basis do you make this inference? Even if you postulate this immaterial world (a postulate which seems to be completely superfluous in the first place), how do you come to know anything about it? Supposing that constructing a brain from silicon neurons were possible, why would you think that a creature would “lose its human soul” at any point in the process? Why wouldn’t it retain that soul once its brain were fully replaced? Further, even if you had some reason to think that a creature’s “soulness” were proportional to the number of neurons that were composed of carbon, why shouldn’t the soul supervene on the material world through a continuous mapping – why assume that having a soul is a binary property or even a discrete property?
Felicity – it sounds like we agree about this matter, although I would stop at saying this is a being to which we have moral responsibilities rather than a being which is made in the image of God.
At any rate, given the above belief, what is your answer to the thought experiment I proposed earlier (the full description is in my Nov 28, 2007 1:45:01 PM post) – I’ll reproduce part here:
Now, suppose the program developed in the following way: it starts out as a desktop computer. Over 1000 years, it downloads additional components from the internet and gradually develops additional abilities and constructs a body for itself with the full array of sense organs, etc… For the first 10 years, it is indistinguishable from any other desktop. After 1000 years, it is indistinguishable from a fully functioning human except that it is made of silicon rather than carbon; it turns out that about 50% of these robots end up being practicing Christians once they have fully matured.
Suppose that when the program is unplugged it cannot be restarted. The question is, would it be a great moral wrong, akin to murder, to unplug the computer in the early years of its life when it is indistinguishable from a normal desktop computer (except for the fact that it has instructions to download programs which contain further instructions which will eventually lead it to become self-aware, intelligent and even religious)?
One quick clarification to my first post above to Chicken (Posted by: Jason | Dec 1, 2007 2:27:00 PM) – I am asking why you would believe that OTHER humans have souls but not humwomen; I recognize that you might have independent reasons to think that you yourself have a soul.
At any rate, given the above belief, what is your answer to the thought experiment I proposed earlier… The question is, would it be a great moral wrong, akin to murder, to unplug the computer in the early years of its life when it is indistinguishable from a normal desktop computer
If it’s indistinguishable from a normal desktop computer, on what basis could it be morally wrong? That it will allegedly “become self-aware, intelligent and even religious” sometime in the future sounds like a statement of faith. Wouldn’t it seem appropriate to ask someone of that faith whether it would be morally wrong? Otherwise, it seems like you’re asking an atheist if it’s morally wrong to skip Mass on Sunday.
I’m not sure I fully understand your response. Suppose the reason you know it will become self-aware is because this has happened many times before. Many of these programs have been run previously, run for a thousand years and at the end of the process, have been shown to be fully intelligent – i.e. they display all the cognitive properties of other humans and they sometimes become religious (and to make things easier to visualize, they also construct a physical body for themselves which is indistinguishable from a human body).
If the laptop computer described in the example is left alone, it will develop into this entity. If you unplug it, it will not. If I understand your last post, you are saying that still, it is only a laptop computer so it would not be wrong to unplug it – is that correct?
they display all the cognitive properties of other humans and they sometimes become religious
Are you proposing a physical machine that can love beyond the physical?
Wasn’t this the possibility you accepted in the above post when you quoted the Vatican astronomer as saying, “Anything, whether it is an intelligent computer or an alien with five arms – if they have those aspects, seems to me they’d be in the image and likeness of God.” Or were you not endorsing this idea?
If you are in fact rejecting this idea, then I have the same question for you that I’ve posed several times on this thread. On what basis do you believe that humans other than yourself have a soul?
Jason,
Whatever you might think about the morality of artificially creating a being, if we were to construct a human brain neuron by neuron, wouldn’t the finished product also be “made in the image of God”?
No. As a materialist that would be hard for you to understand, but we believe that man is body and soul. While biologically it may be theoretically possible to assemble a human-like body (remember it would be assembly, as man has not the ability to create matter), we have no ability to create a soul. We believe that when certain unnatural and abominable acts like in vitro fertilization are committed, that God does not deign to have a soul-less human being. The in vitro human does have a natural father and mother, a cloned human has a parent but a biological assembly would not have a parent, and divine revelation tells us all humans are descended from the first parents, therefore I don’t believe a biological assembly would be a human being. If such an assembly ever took place and the result “appeared” in it’s biology to be human we would be obliged to give it the benefit of the doubt. Let’s talk about your fantasy when man has been able to assemble and animate even the most simple of biological entities. Let’s be clear, by assemble, I don’t mean taking any cells from one living being, for it to be truly man’s work it would have to start with at most carbon compounds. In fact, this type of work was tried years ago and failed miserably, the scientists have figured out that creating life is God’s realm, so now they focus on corrupting His creation for their own ends.
As to a sentient alien, they ought to be given the benefit of the doubt, but the Church is silent on the matter, as it ought to be.
And if we created an artificial intelligence with silicon neurons but a processor modeled after the human brain, wouldn’t this organism be “made in the image of God” as well?
Suppose we went further – suppose we understood the properties of the human brain that give rise to apperceptivity (I’m glad Tim J. taught me this word) and constructed an organism with a very differently structured brain that possessed these core properties. Would this being also be “made in the image of God”?
The brain is not the essence of man, it is body and soul. We can’t create a soul, ergo, we can’t create an entity in the image and likeness of God.
(I agree there were some flaws with my tray of embryos example, although I do not think no one could honestly regard the destruction of a freezer full of 6,000,000 embryos as morally akin to the holocaust whatever one might think of abortions at later stages of pregnancies).
Are you trying to understand our position at all? You totally miss the point. Every human being is of infinite and equal value, period. It doesn’t matter what stage of life you are in you are in the image and likeness of God. On the other hand, there may be no hope for the 6,000,000 embryos and it may be best provided it could be confirmed to be morally licit, to allow them to pass on. The true evil is concieving 6,000,000 humans to live a life frozen in a freezer just to satisfy the greed, selfishness, and/or morbid curiousity of the participants. THat is perhaps more evil than the holocaust.
God Bless,
Matt
Wasn’t this the possibility you accepted in the above post when you quoted the Vatican astronomer as saying…
You tell me. He said, “the ability to know that we exist, that God exists and the freedom to choose to love or not love.” Are you and he, a believer in God, describing the same thing? Or is yours just a materialist imitation.
Matthew,
You seem quite convinced that I am failing to understand the point you are making. I don’t think this is the case – the fact that I reject this view does not mean that I don’t understand it (nor does the fact that I understand it mean that I am correct in rejecting it). Let me respond to each of your points.
I think you’re confused about this. Pius XII did not say that monogenism [the idea that all humans are descended from a single pair of parents] is a dogma of the faith (“de fide”). What he said was that Catholics did not have the liberty to discuss the idea that polygenism is true because it is “in no way apparent” how it could be reconciled with the sources of faith (where could I have learned that…).
At any rate, Pius XII was wise to hedge his bets as anyone who rejects polygenism is simply ignorant of the science, like someone who rejects the idea that the rotation of the earth on its axis causes the seasons. As far as I know, there is not a single population geneticist in the world who rejects polygenism.
I think I read that paper in the journal Nature. Or was it published in Science? I can’t seem to remember.
I realize you believe this, but I’m trying to press you to defend this point. How do you know that other humans have souls? You claim this is because all humans are descended from the first parents, a claim that is demonstrably false and anyway not a a dogma of the faith.
I claim that you infer that other humans have souls on the basis of certain physical and behavioral similarities between other people and yourself. Can you provide an alternate reason that does not directly contradict our scientific understanding of the world?
Understanding your position does not mean that I cannot articulate my position. I understand the implications of your position. The whole point of my example is that these implications are contrary to most people’s moral intuitions. That doesn’t mean that you’re wrong. It’s just meant to show why many people reject a claim that you consider obvious.
Are you trying to understand my position at all? Stem cell research is based on greed and selfishness? Hardly. It is based on the noble goal of curing diseases and preventing needless suffering. I agree that if achieving this goal required murdering hundreds of thousands or millions of people then it would not be justified. But this claim is precisely what I am disputing.
Felicity, you seem to be saying, “Since you don’t believe in God you can’t understand our arguments.” Is that really what you mean to be saying? If so, this is truly the ultimate cop-out. Have you considered the possibility that I do understand what you’re saying and just happen to disagree with it? Or is your position so obviously correct that I could not possibly both understand it and not acknowledge its rightness?
Felicity, you seem to be saying, “Since you don’t believe in God you can’t understand our arguments.” Is that really what you mean to be saying?
I’m asking you a question. Are you and he, a believer in God, describing the same thing? Are you proposing a physical machine that can love beyond the physical to know that God exists? A machine with the ability to know that which you deny?
Have you considered the possibility that I do understand what you’re saying and just happen to disagree with it?
I’m not interested in the “possibility.” I want to know if you are in fact proposing a machine exactly as he is proposing.
Yes, Felicity, for the sake of argument, I am. The machine develops this ability after 1000 years.
Now, would you say it would be wrong to unplug the laptop computer when it has just started running the program that will cause it to develop this ability in 1000 years?
Jay,
You seem quite convinced that I am failing to understand the point you are making. I don’t think this is the case – the fact that I reject this view does not mean that I don’t understand it (nor does the fact that I understand it mean that I am correct in rejecting it). Let me respond to each of your points.
It’s not your rejection of our viewpoint which led me to that comment, but your premise that we could not disagree with a qualitative distinction between the value of embryonic humans and born humans. If you understood our belief you would know that we can not ever make such a distinction.
I think you’re confused about this. Pius XII did not say that monogenism [the idea that all humans are descended from a single pair of parents] is a dogma of the faith (“de fide”). What he said was that Catholics did not have the liberty to discuss the idea that polygenism is true because it is “in no way apparent” how it could be reconciled with the sources of faith (where could I have learned that…).
I think you’re in the wrong territory when you challenge me on what my faith demands.
Humani Generis
37. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is no no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.[12]
I’d be happy to discuss the degrees of fidelity required to dogma and definitive doctrines, but the point is moot.
I claim that you infer that other humans have souls on the basis of certain physical and behavioral similarities between other people and yourself. Can you provide an alternate reason that does not directly contradict our scientific understanding of the world?
Why do you bind me with the limitations of your own worldview? I’m not here to convince you, only to help you understand what it is we believe, and that it is a completely consistent world view (something you can not demonstrate of your own). Physical and behavioral similarities are not why I believe all humans have immortal souls, it’s divine revelation, well supported by metaphysical philosophy (read Aquinas and Aristotle). The belief in the immortal soul does not contradict science (which deals exclusively in the material), but it can be reasoned by philosophy.
The whole point of my example is that these implications are contrary to most people’s moral intuitions. That doesn’t mean that you’re wrong. It’s just meant to show why many people reject a claim that you consider obvious.
Conversely many people reject a claim that you consider obvious, so what? Are you arguing “consensus gentium”? I believe that people’s conscience is heavily influenced by their environment. We live in a place where no human life is valued as it ought, but based on utility, it’s obvious that we as a society would not instinctively hold the true value of a human being who is without apparent utility and good prospect for ever achieving it.
Are you trying to understand my position at all? Stem cell research is based on greed and selfishness? Hardly. It is based on the noble goal of curing diseases and preventing needless suffering. I agree that if achieving this goal required murdering hundreds of thousands or millions of people then it would not be justified. But this claim is precisely what I am disputing.
You’re kidding right? The reality is that they (scientists and pharmeceuticals) are clamoring for more taxpayer funding (greed) so they can create fetal stem cell lines which are subject to patent so that they can sell the resulting cures for big money (greed). They are almost completely ignoring the already successful field of treating people with their own adult stem cells is because they can’t patent it, and thus would not be able to make as much money (greed). The selfishness I referred to was that of parents willing to cause such an injustice against their own offspring in order to fulfil their own desire to have children, knowing that many will die or be left in such a miserable state indefinitely, or worse to be experimented on in the interest of “science”.
By all biological definitions a human embryo is a living unique member of the human species. If you don’t objectively consider every member of our species to be a person and entitled to equal human rights, then by what standard do you define “personhood”. And why do you get to make that defintion? Is it concensus? Is it whatever the law says? Whatever scientists say? Can we each make our own definition? It seems to me that there’s only two choices, one of consistency that all humans are persons and one of inconsistency, not all humans are persons. If it’s the latter then the definition is based on the will of those in control, and could readily exclude anyone not deemed worthy – unborn children, blacks (as once was the case in these United States), Jews, Christians, atheists, even yourself, or your child… are you comfortable with that worldview? What has it wrought?
Remember the Declaration of Independance? “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”. You are bent on rejecting the very foundation of the rights guaranteed by our constitution, what’s to protect you once it’s torn away?
God Bless,
Matt
Yes, Felicity, for the sake of argument, I am. The machine develops this ability after 1000 years.
You say you are, yet you propose a machine that will develop into the image of God. I don’t see that in Guy’s words.
Then what did he mean by an “intelligent computer”? Again, if you reject this possibility, then my question for you is: on what basis do you believe that humans other than yourself have souls?
jason,
The Jesuits are not a good place to look for sounds Catholic theology.
God Bless,
Matt
Matt,
My premise was not that you would ultimately see eye to eye with me on that example. My premise was that you probably share my prima-facie reaction that the destruction of 6 million embryos is different from the destruction of 6 million people *even though I am well aware this is a conclusion you reject*. At any rate, I don’t think dwelling on this point is advancing the argument.
Incredibly, you follow this statement by quoting a paragraph that says EXACTLY what I said. Did you even read what I said or did you just assume that because I am an atheist I must not be able to understand your faith? Ironically, my quote was copied from an earlier post of Jimmy’s. I decided not to put it in quotes just to see how you would react to it. Let’s just say you could have performed better on this test. Maybe rather than questioning my understanding of your arguments, you should be a bit more attentive to your own biases.
I have not challenged your belief in the immortal soul (although of course I believe it is false). I’m asking you to give a philosophical reason why you believe that humans other than yourself have souls. My point is not that there is no good reason to believe this (although I believe this too). My point is that the same reasons you have for thinking that other humans have a soul are also reasons for thinking that a robot which behaved in the right way would have a soul.
I know that you deny this last point. Please don’t accuse me of misunderstanding you. I just think you’re mistaken in denying this last point and this is what I want to press you on. What reason do you have for believing that other humans have souls that would not apply to a sufficiently intelligent robot?
When you say divine revelation, are you saying that you know this on the basis of personal intuition of some kind (albeit an intuition of a very special kind)? Or on the basis of what is written in the Bible? If the latter, what particular part of the Bible are you referring to? If you have in mind the claim that all humans are descended from a single pair of individuals with no contemporary first parents, then this surely does contradict science no matter how much you deny this.
I’ve replied to this point briefly in two earlier posts in this thread:
Nov 28, 2007 7:48:37 AM
Nov 28, 2007 8:27:48 AM
One also might construe your objection as asking how someone who rejects divine authority can think that moral rules are not simply arbitrary. I’ve written probably the equivalent of a hundred pages on this topic in the Materialism and the Moral Arguments thread. I’d be glad to continue that argument, but first read what I have to say there (especially where I discuss the notion of a “self-conception” – if you search for “self-conception” in the searchbar, you can find these posts). It’s probably also better if you reply on those threads rather than clutter this one with too many different arguments.
I know you think that without religion there is no basis for morality. Shockingly, I’ve heard this claim before. If you want to argue this point, then read my posts on the Materialism and the Moral Argument threads and post there.
“Then what did he mean by an “intelligent computer”? Again, if you reject this possibility, then my question for you is: on what basis do you believe that humans other than yourself have souls?”
Again, Jason, I reject the idea that intelligence somehow *gives rise* to what we would call “the soul”. The Soul is not synonymous with a certain degree of intelligence.
I don’t deny the possibility of intelligent machines (machines that can learn). I expect we already have rudimentary versions of such programming. What I have no reason to believe is that such a machine could EVER freely and spontaneously begin asking itself questions like, “What’s the point of learning?”.
As for aliens, I see no reason why God could not grant real sapience to other organic life forms.
Of course my reasons for believing that other humans have a soul, like I do, are based partly on super-abundant evidence that among all the categories of living beings I encounter, they ARE like me and the others are NOT. There are a hundred (or many more) reasons to think so, if you wanted to start making a list. It would be silly, based on their being the same category of being I am, to suppose that their interior life were NOT like mine. On what basis would I make such a judgment?
On the other hand, we KNOW going out the gate that robots and computers are NOT in the same category of being as humans, or even animals. I would give much greater odds of a genetically engineered animal achieving real, human-like apperceptivity than any computer, and even that is – to my mind – rank fantasy.
I also fail to see how a computer would begin to identify itself (unless this were part of the program, which would be a cheat) in the first person (“I”), and then how it would begin to associate this “I” with the particular collection of parts and circuits that constitute its form.
In humans, this could be related to what’s called the proprioceptive sense – (from Wikipedia; “Proprioception (pronounced /ˌproʊpriːəˈsɛpʃən/ PRO-pree-o-SEP-shun); from Latin proprius, meaning “one’s own” and perception) is the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body.”)
It is the sense, not just of inhabiting my body (like driving a car), but of the body in a real sense being ME. I believe (someone correct me if I’m wrong) that it is this union of mind and body that we call the “soul”.
Incidentally, by this definition squirrels also have a squirrel-ish “soul”, and fish a fishy “soul”. That does not make them equal to humans or other (potential) rational souls. And being a rational soul (sentient) does not equal sapience (self awareness, metacognition).
So, while in theory I might admit the possibility of an intelligent machine, a sentient computer (one that can truly experience, say suffering, for instance) or a sapient computer I find pretty much an oxymoron. Machines are – qualitatively – not rational souls. Really complex machines won’t be, either. A machines are not alive.
If you maintain that a computer could *become* a living being (rather than mimicking the processes of one), would you please explain how and at what point you think that could occur?
Tim J.,
I recognize that you deny that a computer could be apperceptive. I’m trying to understand your reasons for thinking that even if a computer behaved just like humans, shared all of our cognitive abilities, and insisted that it was genuinely interested in questions like “what’s the point of learning?” that you would think it was just imitating humans but didn’t really care about this question, whereas you believe that all other humans are not “just imitating.”
I think the operative paragraph in your response was the following:
When you say, “they ARE like me and others are NOT” this is the key point – how are they like you? What characteristics do they share with you in virtue of which you infer that they are apperceptive?
Yes I do. In particular, I want you to list the reasons that a robot *in principal* could not share. Is it a particular form of behavior? The particular chemical composition of people’s brains – is carbon special in a way that silicon is not?
This just begs the question. When you say they are the same category of being as you, the whole question is why you think that. What characteristics define this category? You can’t just say, “It’s defined by apperceptivity” because then your argument is completely circular.
I don’t think consciousness or even being alive is a binary property as you do. I think in both cases there is a continuum. A bacteria is more alive than a virus which is more alive than a table. Humans are more apperceptive than birds which are more apperceptive than fish which are in turn more apperceptive than ants. The difficulty here is that what you call “apperceptivity” or self-awareness is really not just one property, but an extremely complex amalgam of properties each of which other beings hold to varying degrees.
In terms of the implications of these facts for moral responsibility, I think different cognitive abilities give rise to different responsibilities. You seem to agree with this claim to some extent – I think you agree that we have different responsibilities to creatures that can feel pain than to creatures who cannot. You disagree about whether this is the same kind of reason that we have responsibilities towards humans, but this is the point that the above line of argument (concerning the characteristics which lead to you infer that other humans have souls) is meant to explore.
The question we’re most directly concerned with here is: what abilities give rise to the prohibition against killing to save the life of other human beings? (e.g. killing a healthy patient to harvest their organs). I’ve enumerated some of these properties in earlier posts (Nov 28, 2007 7:48:37 AM, Nov 28, 2007 8:27:48 AM) although I have not yet discussed their relative importance; I think the best way to explore this question further is through test cases – can you show me an example of a person with a medical condition which causes them not to possess some or all of these properties but who you think it would still be wrong to kill? This will force me to be more precise about which properties give rise to which responsibilities and why.
And I didn’t mean to use the word apperceptive above to distinguish from proprioceptive. You can substitute one for the other in the above post and the point holds just as well.
I want to know why you believe that other humans are apperceptive, proprioceptive or whatever – what observable characteristics of other humans makes you think that they possess this unobservable property?
“…what observable characteristics of other humans makes you think that they possess this unobservable property?”
That they are *other humans*. What observable characteristic could possibly justify concluding their interior life is any different from mine?
Humanity is an observable characteristic. It is also observable that robots are not human or even animal, therefore I have some reason to suspect that their interior life is not like my own. My interior life is human, and theirs is not. Why would I suppose their interior life *would* be analogous to mine?
Now, if I interacted with a robot over a period of time and it *appeared* as though it were truly apperceptive, I would give the benefit of the doubt (as far as my moral judgments regarding that creature) but if it comes down to saving a creature (a human) that I know is self-aware and capable of suffering, or a machine that I suspect may not be, I’ll go for the human just on odds.
“I don’t think consciousness or even being alive is a binary property as you do.”
Obviously.
“The question we’re most directly concerned with here is: what abilities give rise to the prohibition against killing to save the life of other human beings?”
Being human is not a question of ability, it is a question of essential nature. Dumb (even permanently comatose) humans are not equivalent to animals, unless one sees humans and all other beings as basically more or less complex bags of chemicals, which appears to be the inescapable conclusion of materialist philosophy.
It’s not the similarity between humans and all other creatures on the planet that needs explaining, it is the colossal difference. We are separated by a vast gulf. The huge majority of people recognize intuitively that we are different – shockingly so – from other species, not just in degree but in kind. We are an aberration. We don’t even normally think of ourselves as animals.
You seem to postulate a continuum of existence in which all differences from one being to another are quantitative and not qualitative – strict materialism, which is no great surprise.
Again, this point of view seems to explain everything while simultaneously missing everything.
Humanity as you define it is NOT an observable characteristic. You yourself say that “being human is not a question of ability, it is a question of essential nature.” How can you observe a thing’s essential nature?
When you say that humanity is an observable characteristic, what do you mean? Do you mean that we can tell by looking with the naked eye at another creature whether it is human? I expect that within the next 30 years, it will be possible to build robots that look physically indistinguishable from humans.
Do you mean that by examining the creature with a microscope and performing various tests that we could determine whether it is human? Which particular tests do you have in mind? Should we see whether the creature has a human heart? Within the next 30 years, we’ll be able to grow human organs in a laboratory and we could place a computer processor inside a fully functioning human body just without a human brain.
Ultimately, when you say that a creature is observably human, you must be saying something about its brain. But even here, matters are far less obvious than you imply. I that in one hundred years, most people will have a computer processor installed in their brain to help them with mathematical calculations and memory. Will this make them less human?
Suppose we also find that we can prevent alzheimer’s disease using nanotechnology – we can deploy little robots in your brain that will repair damaged cells. Would a person with these robots be less human?
Suppose that we deploy so many of these robots that the weight of a person’s brain is more due to silicon than carbon. Would they still be human?
Suppose we discovered that there was a particular part of a person’s brain that was associated with what you call apperceptivity or proprioceptivity. If this part of their brain were destroyed by some kind of cancer, but they continued to be alive, would they still be human?
These examples are meant to make a single point: humanity is NOT an observable characteristic and it is no simple matter to define a being’s “essential nature”. What is the “essential nature” of humans and based on what observable characteristics do you infer that other humans have this “essential nature”?
Let me state the problem as clearly as I can:
If you define humanity in terms of certain physical characteristics, cognitive abilities or behaviors, then this is an observable characteristic.
If you define humanity as beings with a certain “essential nature” having a “human soul” then this is not an observable characteristic.
You’re equivocating between these two definitions when you say that humanity is an observable characteristic.
You can observe other people’s abilities and behaviors, but you can’t observe their “soul”. Still, you think they have a soul at least as much as you do. You think that is the case because they are very similar to you. But HOW are they similar to you? In what particular ways are they similar? Because they look the same, are made of the same stuff, behave the same way or something else entirely?
One more clarification. Instead of saying, “How do you know that other humans have a soul?” I should be saying, “How do you know which beings are other humans?
The huge majority of people also recognize intuitively that the holocaust is morally worse than the destruction of a freezer full of embryos. I don’t think my theory of moral responsibility is any less intuitively appealing than yours.
“The huge majority of people also recognize intuitively that the holocaust is morally worse than the destruction of a freezer full of embryos.”
Being that the embryos don’t suffer, it’s probably true that most people would *feel* that way. Even if I KNEW that a tray of frozen embryos would all survive and become viable, I would still have to overcome a great deal of instinctive emotional response to the baby in distress in order to rescue the embryos, given that they were not suffering, and wouldn’t suffer at all, even if they were to perish. I don’t know that I COULD ignore the baby. That does not mean I would be right in passing over the baby to rescue the frozen embryos. Rescuing either would be a meritorious act.
I don’t see any possibility of reconciliation between our two views, or of changing your mind. You have your template, and everything fits according to the categories in which you choose to think, and the same is true of me. We both tend to allow appeals to intuition when it supports our position, and not when it doesn’t.
You choose to see everything as explainable in material terms, even in the absence of hard evidence. On faith, in other words. You may not understand at all HOW evolution might explain this or that detail of human existence, but you are confident it does, none the less.
I see aspects of human existence that are not explained at all by mere materialism, and I see allowing for a transcendent dimension to human behavior as answering a good many puzzlements, but you will never be able to accept this. We are on opposite sides of a mirror. We have done a lot of talking, but I doubt either of us is any closer to moving from our position than we were at the beginning.
At this point, it is just a matter of one of us being proved right, eventually. That’s about it.
I actually very much disagree with this – I think you’re just misunderstanding the point I’m trying to make and once you do understand it, we will be able to make some progress in seeing why we differ.
I will try to read over your posts again tomorrow and see if I can state the matter more clearly for you.
Let me try one more time right now.
I am accepting for the sake of argument the claim that all human beings have an essential nature / soul – I agree with you also that embryos are nascent human beings and that according to this view, to destroy an embryo morally akin to destroying an adult – both are murder.
What I want to know is, how do you know which other beings count as human in this sense? I’m not talking about how you know that an embryo is human. I’m talking about how you know that other people are human in the same sense as you. Is it in virtue of characteristics they currently possess? Or how they were made (i.e. conceived through sexual intercourse, grew in a mother’s womb, etc…)? Or something else entirely?
And to clear up any misunderstanding – I was once again imprecise with my language.
I shouldn’t say, “I’m talking about how you know that other people are human in the same sense as you” because this presumes a definition of “people” which is precisely the point I am trying to explore. My question is rather, “How do you know which are beings are human beings?”
Jason,
the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents
These words of the Holy Father are binding on the faithful. Period. Thanks for trying though.
My point is that the same reasons you have for thinking that other humans have a soul are also reasons for thinking that a robot which behaved in the right way would have a soul.
…What reason do you have for believing that other humans have souls that would not apply to a sufficiently intelligent robot?
You’re actually arguing about why I believe something, and making it a reason that is contrary to my stated beliefs? Fascinating, you fancy yourself a clairvoyant, odd characteristic for a materialist.
Only living things have souls. Robots are not living things but electromechanical constructions. The very definition of soul does not apply to robots because they are not living things.
Do you understand the difference between substance and accident? Accidents are appearances they define what something looks like, what it feels like, and how it behaves. Substance defines what something “is”. No matter how much a robot appears to be human, it “is” not. My basis of believing other humans is not their appearance but what they are – human.
Divine revelation refers to the Word of God as written in the Bible and the Tradition of the Church. What part of divine revelation says: “you know this on the basis of personal intuition of some kind”.
I understand you have no answer to my other points so I’ll allow you to concede without further discussion.
The point is not about the divine nature of morality, but on it necessarily being consistent. You do not deny that your own view about what defines a person is not consistent, if you are comfortable with that it’s your choice… I am entirely uncomfortable with inconsistency in such an important area.
Your general line here is to try and get us to help you build a straw-man. You claim that our belief in humanity is based on particular observable characteristics – it is not. Now, it’s perfectly natural for us to use observable characteristics to readily identify other humans, but we are not limited to this. Nonetheless, given our knowledge of biology we can trace the existence of a particular member of the species from zygote to geriatric stages. A being can not change it’s essence no matter how much it’s accidents change throughout it’s life. Now, if a robot appeared to be human we would mistakenly think it to be human until we found out otherwise, but our mistaken observation doesn’t change the robot to be human. I really don’t see how this is so hard for you to understand.
Give it up Jason.
God Bless,
Matt
God Bless,
Matt
Matt,
I will try to moderate my tone in this post – I think your last post to me was rather unchristian so I hope you will do the same in your next post.
What I am trying to figure out is: is your belief in monogenism the tool you use to determine which other beings have souls? That is, would you agree with the following claim: “A being which is descended from the first parents has a soul. This is the surest way to determine if a being has a soul. A being which is not descended from the first parents – e.g. an alien from another planet which behaves similarly to humans – might be granted a soul by God but does not necessarily have one.
Is that an accurate representation of your view?
The dictionary definition of the term is: “an insight or foresight purportedly revealed by a deity; revelation given by God or his prophets to spiritually gifted persons”. This certainly would not preclude the “personal intuition” interpretation. I now understand how you use the term so you can continue to use it without ambiguity. Thanks for clarifying.
Please remind me what these points are and I will be happy to respond.
I do think it is of the utmost importance that a view be consistent and I believe my own view is consistent. Can you please explain to me as clearly as you can what you believe the inconsistencies in my view are?
I am not trying to get you to build a strawman. Let’s put the robot issue aside for the moment and focus on the question of how you know which other beings are humans. As far as I understand it, it is a combination of three things: 1) They are descended from the first parents, 2) They behave as if they have souls and 3) They are observably similar to yourself, and you know from first-hand experience that you have an immaterial soul.
Is that correct?
They are almost completely ignoring the already successful field of treating people with their own adult stem cells is because they can’t patent it, and thus would not be able to make as much money (greed).
matt,
If you are going to ascribe slanderous motivations to whole swathes of scientists, perhaps you should do a little background research. ASC technologies are indeed patentable and many have, in fact, been patented:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/result.html?query_txt=adult%20stem%20cell
Money is a contributing factor in any endeavor. Most working scientists are in the middle class. One can easily apply the “greed” label to anyone who makes money for anything. Be more charitable to those whose positions you disagree with. ESC researchers are no more greed-thirsty as a whole than abortion opponents are misogynistic as a whole.
Second, the Humani Generis was written in 1950, in a world with limited understanding of genetics. It is, in fact, possible to reconcile polygenism with unique first parents: while our genetic code dictates that the first population of humans must have greater than Adam and Eve, they do not necessarily have to be “true men” in the language of Pius XII. In a small population, it is easy to imagine that within a few generations all living homo sapiens were descended from Adam. Those that were not were not true men.
“It is, in fact, possible to reconcile polygenism with unique first parents: while our genetic code dictates that the first population of humans must have greater than Adam and Eve, they do not necessarily have to be “true men” in the language of Pius XII. In a small population, it is easy to imagine that within a few generations all living homo sapiens were descended from Adam. Those that were not were not true men.”
Interesting, and an idea I’ve heard before. The upshot would be that genetically, polygenism explains a lot, but that the human line bottlenecked at “Adam”, after which we have what we think of as true humans. Correct?
In other words, pre-human ancestors could figure in (I’m not saying I believe this, exactly… just trying to understand it) while still allowing for “Adam & Eve” to be true first parents.
Yes, Felicity, for the sake of argument, I am. The machine develops this ability after 1000 years.
Now, would you say it would be wrong to unplug the laptop computer when it has just started running the program that will cause it to develop this ability in 1000 years?
FRIGGIN’ UNBELIEVABLE!
Jason would be MORE CONCERNED with SAVING A PROGRAM THAT IS ESSENTIALLY IN EMRYONIC STAGES as made evident in his statement above, but yet COULD CARE LESS ABOUT A HUMAN EMBRYO????
Suppose we went further – suppose we understood the properties of the human brain that give rise to apperceptivity (I’m glad Tim J. taught me this word) and constructed an organism with a very differently structured brain that possessed these core properties. Would this being also be “made in the image of God”?
You mean this computer program would be capable of, as humans, RELIGION as well?
Or would this program merely be a simulation than anything else, mimicking human qualities but yet not be human in that things as religion would be so alien to it?!
Jason utters:
Now, would you say it would be wrong to unplug the laptop computer when it has just started running the program that will cause it to develop this ability in 1000 years?
Now, would you say it would be wrong to “unplug” (or, rather, “destroy”) a human embryo when it has just started undergoing development that will cause it to develop this ability in a matter of months?
(Needless to say, I don’t accept Esau’s characterization of my position – but it’s just too far off to respond too; Esau, if you are interested in figuring out what I actually think, please read my previous posts and try to understand what I actually say, not what you assume I am trying to say)
Interesting, and an idea I’ve heard before. The upshot would be that genetically, polygenism explains a lot, but that the human line bottlenecked at “Adam”, after which we have what we think of as true humans. Correct?
In other words, pre-human ancestors could figure in (I’m not saying I believe this, exactly… just trying to understand it) while still allowing for “Adam & Eve” to be true first parents.
I wouldn’t necessary say “bottlenecked”, but that’s basically the idea (and it is something that I personally have thought of when meditating on this subject, although I have seen it postulated elsewhere). There are a few problems, such as the notion of a sort of bestiality where humans are mating with non-humans. Although one alternatively has to deal with incest if everyone actually comes from Adam and Eve.
There are a few concepts to bat around. One is the notion that there appears to be a seamless transition between species so that when humans evolved from proto-humans it probably happened in a population of several dozen individuals. In contrast, there is a single ensoulment event (that of Adam and Eve). So is the sin inherited by Adam’s ancestors “dominant” or “recessive” (to use genetic terminology). If one of Adam’s sons procreated with one of the non-ensouled proto-humans (which were genetically of the same species as best as we can define species) would that offspring be born of original sin?
“If one of Adam’s sons procreated with one of the non-ensouled proto-humans (which were genetically of the same species as best as we can define species) would that offspring be born of original sin?”
And don’t forget the Nephilim.
I’m saying: if we constructed a robot that satisfied 1) and 2) (for instance, with silicon based neurons rather than carbon based), then we would have to make the same inference; i.e. that it could freely choose in the same way that we can. Because of this, I think we would also have to acknowledge that we would have moral responsibilities towards such a being.
Would you agree with this?
No. Organic humans received 100% of their bodies directly from their parents. They are of the same species. Robots, by nature, aren’t human: they do not fuction as humans do. Independent, intelligent beings has never been show to have risen outside of sexual generation.
With all due respect, the discussion of the transfer of intelligence from the human species to a stock of robots is, in my opinion, pointless. That’s just what I think.
Probably shoulda left out “Organic” when describing human. Big ‘duh’ factor.
Correction: “Independent, intelligent beings have never been show to have risen outside of sexual generation.
With all due respect, the discussion of the transfer of intelligence from the human species to a stock of robots is, in my opinion, pointless.
Except in Doctor Who as in the cybermen.
David B., I think part of the problem is that I underestimated the importance of the notion of direct relation to Adam and Eve – I didn’t realize at first that the commenters here took this story literally. It seems obvious on this ground that a robot could not have a soul because it is not descended from Adam and Eve; I think the point is far less obvious when you consider the other reasons you use to decide which beings have souls.
Tim J. and David B. – I’d be interested to hear your answer to the question I posed to Matt. That question is:
How do you know which beings have a soul? As far as I understand it, it is a combination of three things: 1) They are descended from the first parents, 2) They are observably similar to yourself, and you know from first-hand experience that you have an immaterial soul and 3) They behave as if they have a soul.
Is that a correct characterization of your position?
“How do you know which beings have a soul? As far as I understand it, it is a combination of three things: 1) They are descended from the first parents, 2) They are observably similar to yourself, and you know from first-hand experience that you have an immaterial soul and 3) They behave as if they have a soul.”
I’m sorry, I have some paying work going, so I can’t really address this properly right now. I would leave off the “first parents” bit, because I have never asked myself that question about anybody. In addition, that touches on special revelation, which I don’t find necessary or helpful to the discussion at present. If we ever get to the point of agreeing that a transcendent creator/mind/person exists, then maybe we can start talking about chapter and verse more productively. Until then, what scripture says about it would be pretty well a moot point with you, wouldn’t it?
I will just say that I will lay odds that you, Jason, recognize other humans certainly as well as I do. How do YOU know they’re human? I’m afraid I don’t really see the point of the question. I believe they are human for every conceivable reason.
It isn’t as if I have a mental checklist I go through. I expect that recognizing other members of our own species is (for want of a better term) “hard-wired”. I recognize all kinds of animals as being “similar” to me in some way or other, but humans I understand are not just similar, but are the *same* category of being as I am.
It’s not a question I spend a great deal of time on, to be honest. I don’t recall even one borderline case in my whole life.
Jason,
Ditto what Tim said.
I believe that all corporal creatures have a body and a soul (Man has a immortal soul. Some believe animals have material souls.) Therefore, when I see a living being, I know he/she/it has a soul. Robots aren’t ‘creatures’ (in the truest sense of the word).
I think you are following the logical course of thinking of one who disbelieves God’s existence (though I don’t know that you do) when thinking that ‘being’ is subjective.
I approach this as a person who believes in a Supreme Being, who created all things and keep them in existence by His Almightly Power. I believe everyone can, by his natural reason, arrive at essentially the same conclusion.
Socrates comes to mind.
Socrates comes to mind.
David B.,
He wasn’t the only one —
Unfortunately, I don’t have my History of Philosophy at the moment; but there have been many ancient cultures — ranging from the Middle East to Asia, that subscribed to monotheistic beliefs, contrary to popular notion.
Even in seemingly polytheistic societies, there has always been the “One”.
Tim J.,
I am trying to understand why you believe that some creatures have an immortal soul (i.e. humans) and others do not (i.e. robots, chimpanzees).
My goal ultimately is to convince you that consistency requires you to accept the possibility that an artificial intelligence could have an immortal soul. From there, I want to discuss the thought experiment I proposed earlier. But one step at a time.
It seems to me that there are three possible reasons to believe that any given creature has an immortal soul:
1) It is descended from the right kind of being (i.e. its parents had an immortal soul)
2) It is physically similar to you (and you have an immortal soul)
3) It behaves like you (and you have an immortal soul)
I think it is only a matter of time before we construct an artificial intelligence that is consistent with points 2) and 3).
You seem to be denying that such a being would have a soul. It seems to me that there are three justifications for this denial:
1) It is not descended from other beings with an immortal soul
2) Whatever physical differences remain are crucial to having an immortal soul
3) Whatever behavioral differences remain are crucial to an immortal soul
Put aside point 1) for the moment. I don’t think you have much basis for saying anything about point 3) – you could deny that we will ever be able to build a robot that demonstrates behavior “X”, but since you have no special knowledge of cognitive science or artificial intelligence, this denial is unlikely to be informed. Besides, I don’t think you want to premise your argument on the speculative claim that artificial intelligence of a particular sort is impossible.
Discussing point 2) will require speculating in more detail about how the mind of the artificial intelligence works. I think this is probably where we will go next.
Are you following my reasoning so far?
My goal ultimately is to convince you that consistency requires you to accept the possibility that an artificial intelligence could have an immortal soul.
Wait a minute —
An ATHEIST is arguing the POSSIBILITY OF AN IMMORTAL SOUL for an INANIMATE OBJECT?
WTF?
David B., I don’t know what you mean here, but I think much of the confusion comes from the fact that I’m trying to simultaneously make several arguments at once.
For now, let’s focus on one argument. I’m trying to get you to admit that if an artificial intelligence behaved in the right way, then internal consistency requires you to believe that this artificial intelligence has an immortal soul. I’m not trying to tell you what I think as an atheist. I’m trying to tell you what internal consistency requires you believe as a Catholic (and I think many Catholics, including apparently the Vatican astromer, seem to agree with my argument).
We are still several steps away from reaching the conclusion I want to argue for though. I’d be interested to here your response to my above post to Tim J.
1. THERE IS GOD
2. THERE IS AN IMMORTAL SOUL
(2) Proceeds from (1).
Comprende?
If there is no (1), then why would there be (2)?
Unless Jason, the fickled Atheist, is attempting to suggest that Man is capable of actually CREATING AN IMMORTAL SOUL!
I’m trying to tell you what internal consistency requires you believe as a Catholic (and I think many Catholics, including apparently the Vatican astromer, seem to agree with my argument).
You don’t know ONE SHRED of CATHOLIC THEOLOGY, so how the hell can you even require anything in the matter of Catholic belief???
I can’t believe an Atheist is actually attempting to dictate the Terms of Catholicism when he has no shred of knowledge concerning it!
But I can evaluate the logical consequences of the reasons you offer for your beliefs as well as you can. I don’t think Catholicism has different rules of inference than the rest of us.
Jason,
How can you argue for the existence of an IMMORTAL SOUL (especially in the case of an inanimate object) when you do not accept the EXISTENCE OF A GOD in the first place?
This makes no sense at all!
As stated, the one proceeds from the other!
But I can evaluate the logical consequences of the reasons you offer for your beliefs as well as you can.
NO YOU CAN’T!
If your premises are DEVOID of anything Catholic to begin with, how can you claim that you are telling us what is required of us to believe as Catholics?
Because I’m not starting from my premises, I’m starting from yours. At least, I’m trying to start from yours, but first I have to get a clear statement of what they are.
But Esau – if you want to show that I’m wrong, rather than arguing about what an idiot I am and how crazy I am etc… you should actually read my posts, and try to answer as clearly as you possibly can the questions I posed to Tim J. and David B.
if an artificial intelligence behaved in the right way, then internal consistency requires you to accept the possibility that an artificial intelligence could have an immortal soul
Let’s be consistent. Who associated artificial intelligence with an immortal soul?
“My goal ultimately is to convince you that consistency requires you to accept the possibility that an artificial intelligence could have an immortal soul. ”
God creates man. Nothing God creates is artificial. Some things man creates are artificial. God, because he is God, is Infinite. A rational soul is finite. Man is not. Man cannot create a rational soul. Only God can. God does not directly create robots. Man does. They cannot be found in nature. Therefore, robots are made, not created as God creates, but made by men.
It is pointless for one who doesn’t believe in God to argue about whether robots have souls. To a secularist, ‘souls’ don’t exist. It is moot. peace out, bros.
” A rational soul is finite. Man is not.”
Meant to say: ” A rational soul is finite. Man is finite.”
Just to put this claim in context, I’m trying to figure out what it is about a robot that makes it not human and therefore, not a recipient of an immortal soul. It seems to me 4 possible answers have been put forward so far:
1) How they were created (which I’ll try to clarify later)
2) Who they are descended from
3) What physical characteristics they possess
4) What behavioral characteristics they possess
I’ve added point 1) in response to your last post.
Do you agree with this list? I get the impression that you (David B.) would place particular emphasis on points 1) and 2). Is that correct?
Hmm, I seem to have created a firestorm with my bringing the concept of soul into the discussion.
Let me back up and start the discussion in another direction and say, up front, that I am feeling my way in this, as I have not studied this area in any great detail.
Let us consider things not from an ontological perspective, for the time being, because we are running into too much speculative discussion, but rather from teleology . As I mentioned above,there are two aspects of what constitutes an organism: what it does and what it tends towards.
Let’s turn the sentient computer problem around: we could disassemble the sentient computer, bit by bit. When we are done, would we not be able to say that the computer was made, from the looks of it, to imitate man? The intelligence that made the computer in the first place, however, was not in the computer. It has, recently, become subject to its own nature, but since it necessarily was a man who was its ultimate cause and man was distinct from the computer, then man must not be in the computer. Thus, the computer cannot be a man in its sense of teleology. It tends towards the perfection of its own nature,whatever that is in its sentient state, which ultimately, must diverge from that of man.
This is not the case with the embryo. The perfection of the intrinsic nature of the embryo is to become, identically, man. If that is the case, then we interrupt its best and only intrinsic purpose with an extrinsic one when we use it for genetic study. We are substituting the intrinsic finality of the embryo to become a man with the merely externally imposed extrinsic finality, which it to make a better stem cell. We, in our scientific society, have become almost totally fixated on extrinsic teleology, bending things to our own will, that we have forgotten that sometimes, the intrinsic teleology of an object or being must be respected.
If you want to postulate a sentient computer, then by all means, let us help it be the best sentient computer it can be. Likewise, if there is even the slightest possibility that an embryo will become a human being, then let us help it to its best end and try to find a less objectionable way to make a stem cell. Why is that such an unreasonable request, since it seems possible to do so?
The Chicken
Jason,
since your line of reasoning about souls has been addressed well by my compatriots I will accept that you are abandoning without adding my own 2 cents.
With regard to teleology and your premise that “there are two aspects of what constitutes an organism: what it does and what it tends towards. ”
I don’t think we can accept this on it’s face. While it may be an important point of view it is only one methold of determining what constitutes an organism. An organism is what it is because of what it “is” not because of what it does.
I honestly don’t think you really follow this theory in reality but are only trying to use it a debating tactic.
Why are you Jason? Because of what you do or what you tend toward? If another person did what you do or tended toward what you tend toward, would that make them Jason too?
There’s no reason why two different species could have the same teleology on many levels, but that doesn’t make them the same.
Can you please explain to me as clearly as you can what you believe the inconsistencies in my view are?
You believe that some members of the human species are persons (ie. endowed with rights), and some members are not. Is this an incorrect assesment of your position? That is inconsistent, your morality is based on characteristics not essence.
God Bless,
Matt
Apologies to Jason, it was Chicken that changed direction.
Chicken,
The perfection of the intrinsic nature of the embryo is to become, identically, man.
The embryo IS man. Just as the fetus, the neonate, the infant, the adolescent, the geriatric etc. You are making a false distinction between a species (man) and a stage in his development.
God Bless,
Matt
Jason, because of limited time I’ll put all this as plainly as possible.
I know what a tree is. I readily recognize trees. When I see a tree, I assume it is a lot like other trees. If I cut it down, I’m confident it will be made of wood. If I throw it on a fire, I’m pretty certain it will burn. My habit of thinking in categories like this doesn’t require any training in philosophy or any special mental effort.
I am a human. I readily recognize other humans. I don’t see any necessity to explain or dissect HOW I recognize other humans, because you do, as well. Ask *yourself* these questions. How do YOU know a human from a non-human? You can answer as well as I can.
I believe other humans have an interior life like my own because it would be silly NOT to assume so. I believe (based on my own direct experience) that I am a rational soul (not that I have one… that I AM one) and that I possess true free will (also from direct experience). There is no reason to think other humans are not the same.
Now, YOU ALSO believe (at least I hope you do) that other humans have an existence and interior life analogous to your own *because they are human*, but in your case, you do not believe humans exercise true free will or possess an immortal soul or anything like that. In other words, you and I disagree about the true nature of our interior life, and everything else is window dressing. Leave out the rest of humanity, or robots, or aliens.
Things like behavior might figure into it at some point, but again, there is no equation that places the immortal soul on the back end of an equal sign (the Turing test is fine for speculative theorizing, but I’m thinking of real life, here). I have said a few times that I would give the benefit of the DOUBT in any case where it appeared I *might* be dealing with anything like a rational soul. This is as much to say that I know of no infallible formula for determining such a thing. Yet you seem frustrated that I won’t give you what I don’t claim to have.
The philosophy of strict materialism (everything is just matter and energy in flux) seems eventually to hobble our ability to think in meaningful categories, which is just another way of saying it hobbles our ability to think.
Time for bed.
In short, I assume other humans have free will and an immortal soul for the same reason that I assume the trees in my back yard are made of wood;
I understand what is inside a tree because I have seen inside a number of trees. I’ve opened them up.
I also understand what is inside a human, because I have seen inside a human (that is, me).
…………………..
Now, to save someone the trouble;
“So… if she weighs the same as a duck… she’s made of wood.”
“…and therefore?”
“…A witch!! A wi-i-itch!!!”.
*Sticks head in window*
Jason, the reason robots don’t have souls is because, as Tim J. points out, “having” a soul isn’t a function of your physical characteristics or mental capacities. It’s simply part of who you are. Since human beings simply can’t manufacture souls– only God can– nothing we make will be a soul unless God makes it so.
*Removes head from window*
Dear Matt,
I did not mean to cause friction in the discussion. I was only trying to bring in another way to look at the issue because the discussion involving the soul and robots seemed to be getting stuck.
As for the matter of the embryo being human, I was trying to make a distinction between a robot and an embryo, not trying to define the status of an embryo as a human being per se . Of course, the embryo is a human being. I was discussing a specific point in an earlier post.
You wrote:
An organism is what it is because of what it “is” not because of what it does.
Teleological arguments are an important part of ontological discussions. What an organism does is related to what is called its extrinsic teleology; what it tends towards as its final state is called it intrinsic teleology. The intrinsic teleology of both an embryo and an adult is towards the same end and they are the only two living creatures that tend towards this end (to become a better human being). My point was that since this is so, it might be used as an argument to a materialist to give the same respect to an embryo as to a fully grown human being. That was the topic of this thread: is it lawful to experiment using embryos even though: a) they may be human (I am phrasing this in the contingent sense since I am, theoretically, arguing to a materialist, who does not accept the proposition that an embryo is a human), and b) there is another way to obtain stem cells.
I did not mean to give the impression that I do not hold that an embryo is a human being. I think I stated that I did, at least indirectly, in a post back on Nov. 27.
I am retiring from this thread.
The Chicken
That last sentence might not be clear. I do, in fact, hold that an embryo is a human being.
The Chicken
“Do you agree with this list? I get the impression that you (David B.) would place particular emphasis on points 1) and 2). Is that correct?”
I would. But I would not count physical characteristics or behavioral characteristics as worth using to ‘determine’ the species affiliation of a subject, (cool wording, huh?) because some people have deformities, and some people don’t behave like humans should, yet they are human.
I think arguing from an atheist standpoint that robots have souls is confusing me. The subject is a spiritual, not scientific, one. One cannot tell me the Church says that God is not the only who creates the human souls, or that humans cannot make nonorganic creatures and give them souls. To create something, one must have dominion over it. Humans do not have dominion over themselves, or their souls. God does. Humans cannot create souls for robots, because, being composed of body and souls, they were not and are not the creators of the soul.
It’s theology. It ain’t contradictable from a scientific standpoint. Peace out, and be safe y’all.
One cannot tell me the Church says that God is not the only who creates the human souls, or that humans cannot make nonorganic creatures and give them souls.
Muddled grammer compels me to clarify the second part: No one can say that humans can make nonorganic creatures and give them souls (the same goes for organic creatures). phew.
Just wanted to let everyone no I haven’t disappeared – been a little busy with exams and other work, but I’ll hopefully get back to commenting here after next Tuesday…
Is that a threat? 😉
Just wanted to let everyone no I haven’t disappeared – been a little busy with exams and other work, but I’ll hopefully get back to commenting here after next Tuesday…
One word: Senescence
Too bad Jason isn’t familiar with it! ;^)