When is it a human being?

Terry, I cannot, of course, tell you the precise point in time or development when a human organism becomes a human being. There is no single universally accepted or useful criterion for that. Indeed, it's like trying to determine when a child becomes an adult in some non-arbitrary way. But it is always "obvious" to us when an adult is no longer a child, when he no longer fits that category we call child. And the pattern of traits which signal this obvious shift in identity is multiple and complex, never or rarely single and simplex. Remember that categories such as puppy-dog, child-adult, organism-personand other dualistic bifurcations are tools to think with (for better or for worse), never discriptions of empirically clear divisions in nature.

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terry wrote:

I'm not sure I understand your distinction between self-awareness and self-consciousness. I think most people have a pretty good idea of what the "self" is, even if they cannot put it into words. You do not have to be an engineer to drive a car.

Following your comparison; you'd have to be a very good driver if you are going to steer your Self through all of life without bumping it along the way. Sooner or later that Self will need repairing.

So, while you don't have to be consious of the self for it to functoin, you have to know of it and about it if you are going to be able to modify it as needed whenever that may be.

Personally I am working towards shedding the entire idea.

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JLN,

It is interesting that questions such as this which clearly imply (to us) that duality rests on interrelational functionality continue to be pursued as though there could be an "objective" answer. I've just watched that episode of Voyager where the holographic "doctor" wins the "legal right" to control his "literary output" as "an artist" even though the court refused to decide if he were "a person". The simple philosophical point that definitions are ultimately about subsequent actions was certainly well understood by the writer of this episode.

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Fresco, I remember the episode clearly.

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are you guys talking about star trek? Smile

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Terry wrote:

real life wrote:
In what way is one eating his/her young to be considered 'ethical' ?

If eating some young now will enable the animal to survive and have more young at a time when they are more likely to survive to reproduce themselves, it is ethical.

HH's point was that humans should 'aspire' to be like animals. Would you consider a human eating their young something that we should 'aspire' to , or consider ethical for humans?

In other words, is what is 'ethical' for animals also ethical for humans?

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Terry wrote:

real life wrote:
So if one cannot interact with others ( i.e. person in a coma, person who has severe injury, person with mental retardation, one who is deaf and blind, etc ), are they NOT persons?

Persons who are mentally retarded, blind, or deaf CAN interact with others,

Sometimes. Sometimes not. That's the point. What do you do with the 'nots' ?

Terry wrote:

and people in some types of coma/anesthesia may be able to hear even if they can't respond.

They may. Or they may not.

Terry wrote:

But as I said, it becomes human when it BEGINS to interact. I said nothing about losing your status as a person if you are temporarily incapable of response. If the brain completely and irrevocably loses its capacity for awareness, the person no longer exists even if the corpse is kept "alive."

How do you determine if this is the case? What of the cases that doctors have diagnosed as irreversible PVS, who have subsequently come out of their coma?

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Voyager to be specific, yeah, I remember the episode clearly too. :wink:

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Cyracuz wrote:

To me it is all very simple. A person begins when the umbilical cord is severed. Then the infant is no longer a part of the mother, and relies on it's own lungs, it's own mouth and belly.

Not so simple since you have given four different criteria:

a) no umbilical cord connecting

b) relies on it's own lungs

c) relies on it's own mouth

d) relies on it's own belly

What if it doesn't meet all four?

What if a newborn preemie needs a feeding tube or IV for nourishment, and a respirator?

He may fail b) and c) and possibly d).

Is he not a living human being?

Is it enough that he has no umbilical cord connecting him to a mother? Is he a human being then?

If simply being detached from a woman ( i.e. no umbilical cord ) IS enough, then is a fertilized egg growing in the lab, which is NOT implanted in a woman, considered a living human being? Why or why not?

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Somewhere you went from debating the subject's status as a person from it's status as a human being.

But your objections are valid I suppose. Just seems to me that birth is a logical time to set as the beginning of personhood. After all it is a line we must set, it is not a universal absolute.

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real life wrote:

HH's point was that humans should 'aspire' to be like animals.

You misconstrue my point. I was having a go at your implication that the atheist view of a human being was that they are just animals:

real life wrote:

To an atheist, a human is an organism and nothing more, correct? No soul, no spirit, just an animal, right?

To which I replied:

hingehead wrote:

First I take offence at 'just an animal'. Being an animal should be something to aspire to. You wouldn't beat your wife, drive drunk, or rip-off your elderly parents.

By which I meant: given the behaviour of many humans being an animal would be a major improvement.

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hingehead wrote:

real life wrote:

HH's point was that humans should 'aspire' to be like animals.

You misconstrue my point. I was having a go at your implication that the atheist view of a human being was that they are just animals:

real life wrote:

To an atheist, a human is an organism and nothing more, correct? No soul, no spirit, just an animal, right?

To which I replied:

hingehead wrote:

First I take offence at 'just an animal'. Being an animal should be something to aspire to. You wouldn't beat your wife, drive drunk, or rip-off your elderly parents.

By which I meant: given the behaviour of many humans being an animal would be a major improvement.

Yes, we know what you MEANT, because we read what you SAID.

Now if you SAID is not what you MEANT, then that is a problem...........but not ours.

You want humans to 'aspire' to be animals, but you cannot honestly face what that would produce.

Your never-never land where all the animals are nice and more moral than humans actually does exist. It's on the screen when you watch a Disney movie.

If you take offense at being termed 'just an animal', then I suggest you aspire to be something more.........a human being.

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Clearly you do not understand my meaning at all.

I bolded the the word 'JUST' in your quote. Oh forget it - you aint worth it.

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Enjoy .... Humans

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Mintaka? Piers Anthony lives!

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Cyracuz wrote

Quote:

Somewhere you went from debating the subject's status as a person from it's status as a human being.

But your objections are valid I suppose. Just seems to me that birth is a logical time to set as the beginning of personhood. After all it is a line we must set, it is not a universal absolute.

The point is that "logic" follows after the line is drawn for functional purposes. Logic is based on static sets, but line drawing is dynamic and negotiable according to mutual needs.

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Maybe it is just semantics, but to me it seems that drawing any line is a matter of logic. The applicance of static sets, so to speak.

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Cyracuz,

Consider statements like...

Let's use this sawn off tree trunk for a table
OR
You call that "a knife" ? Now, this is a knife ! (Croc Dundee)

My point is that all line drawing serves some function or purpose.

My favourite anecdote comes from South Africa in the days of apartheid when "non-Whites" were obliged to travel on the top of double decker buses. Because of sensitive trading agreements, Japanese were defined as "White" whereas Chinese were defined as "non-White". The poor bus conductor was expected to recognise the difference and enforce the rule !

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The reason a line must be drawn is because a law must set specific parameters, as in:

"Abortion is (or isn't) legal from point X to point Y."

Many people want to leave the definition of when a human life begins somewhat fuzzy.

But any law on the subject must set a date.

So if our laws say: "Human life begins at 24 weeks gestation and abortion is legal until that point (a line is drawn)"

then the question is:

What makes an unborn child at 23 weeks, 6 1/2 days NOT human while one at 24 weeks IS human?

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real life

The answer to your question "What makes...." is "the social need for drawing lines somewhere"......nothing more and nothing less !

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When is it a human being?

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