subbie - When Does Personhood Begin?

[_EAllusion]

Pretty sure subbie is just hung up on the entire concept of personhood being a thing. He seems to believe that is a radical assertion in itself that requires strenuous defense because...well, I guess just because. He's made the entire (human+alive = self-evident and sufficient) argument his bedrock position and probably can't be persuaded into understanding what otherwise is clear with applying the bare minimum of thought to the problem that this concept of personhood isn't radical at all. But for reasons that do hint at his understanding the problems with his position, he won't be persuaded to merely acknowledge one needs to define what distinguishes human life from all other life, what distinguishes sentience from non-sentience, and what grounds are necessary for rights to be afforded associated with these and other criteria.

Basically, he's just plugging his ears and asserting, "There's no such thing as personhood!"

It does occur to me that while I'm talking about what qualities a being must have to be deserving of moral and/or legal respect, subgenius is probably still caught up on me simply talking about the concept of personhood and misinterprets that as "criteria for personhood." Like I'm trying to defend it as a definition.

Personhood doesn't have to be cleaved in nature. It's a concept to help organize thoughts about moral and legal status. Subgenius implicitly keeps employing the concept while being unaware of that fact. It's an exercise on question-begging. We have these things called rights, obligations, legal privileges etc. that apply to a class of things and we can call that class of things "persons." You can call them "humans' if you want, but then you have to be careful in not assuming everything is biologically human counts and everything that isn't biologically human doesn't. That needs to be justified. And that's just confusing.

You'd think he'd just read a wikipedia link or something by now.

[_subgenius]

Pretty sure subbie is just hung up on the entire concept of personhood being a thing.

It is "a thing". The OP clearly used my "right to life" position to springboard into a more detailed discussion for "legal entitlement to life", which becomes more refined when one considers the gradual entitlement of rights as a living human ages (eg the right to vote, etc.).
Nevertheless, many posters have made the error of considering my right to life statement as being the same as legal entitlement. A right may be considered a legal entitlement and/or a moral entitlement. My original statement does not necessarily exclude either of these entitlements.
But "hung up" is not my argument but rather yours...you, and others, like to conveniently side-step simple questions like do you believe the following statement to be true? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The side-step is when poster like EA try to say "men" just meant white land owners or some other such nonsense...it is nonsense because one does not side-step the notion of Freedom of the Press by saying "Press" just meant quill pens and literal presses.
So, as a starting point - either the right to life is self-evident and unalienable or it is not - correct?

He seems to believe that is a radical assertion in itself that requires strenuous defense because...well, I guess just because.

Nope, i just believe that if you make an ambiguous assertion it is your burden to provide clarification.

He's made the entire (human+alive = self-evident and sufficient) argument his bedrock position and probably can't be persuaded into understanding what otherwise is clear with applying the bare minimum of thought to the problem that this concept of personhood isn't radical at all.

Again, the issue is that whether a human being being alive is distinct from a human being having personhood.

But for reasons that do hint at his understanding the problems with his position, he won't be persuaded to merely acknowledge one needs to define what distinguishes human life from all other life,

That is easy, the human being is the distinction.

what distinguishes sentience from non-sentience, and what grounds are necessary for rights to be afforded associated with these and other criteria.

Quit getting off topic...it is not RightS, plural. Again, if you want to argue my original statement then you have to focus solely on a Right to Life. Now, if you want to argue the capacity or the State to give or take life then so be it...but let us focus on the task at hand.
Your OP clearly wanted to argue that "personhood" is necessary for the Right to Life to be a legal entitlement. However, you also recognize that there are many forms of personhood that may or may not apply to that entitlement, and so far you have not made the distinction for which personhood you consider applicable.
Furthermore you have not established that personhood and Life are mutually exclusive.
Again, the OP is your assertion and the burden is yours - not mine.

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Basically, he's just plugging his ears and asserting, "There's no such thing as personhood!"

Nope. I recognize "personhood" but while your OP asserts it necessity for a certain legal entitlement, you have yet to establish what you, and your posts, intended by "personhood"...ergo my early request for you to clarify among the several manifestations available for personhood.

[_subgenius]

It does occur to me that while I'm talking about what qualities a being must have to be deserving of moral and/or legal respect, subgenius is probably still caught up on me simply talking about the concept of personhood and misinterprets that as "criteria for personhood." Like I'm trying to defend it as a definition.

Yes, all those posts where you say what personhood is and is not - that is just you talking about it, got it!

Personhood doesn't have to be cleaved in nature. It's a concept to help organize thoughts about moral and legal status.

For example, this is not criteria for personhood - it is just you talking about stuff.

Subgenius implicitly keeps employing the concept while being unaware of that fact. It's an exercise on question-begging. We have these things called rights, obligations, legal privileges etc. that apply to a class of things and we can call that class of things "persons." You can call them "humans' if you want, but then you have to be careful in not assuming everything is biologically human counts and everything that isn't biologically human doesn't. That needs to be justified. And that's just confusing.

Do you think a Right is something given? A privilege is given, a right is claimed...ergo the whole pesky inalienable.
The way it looks now is that "personhood" is being argued by the OP as a means to say that Life is a privilege that is thereby granted by the State, Life therefore becomes permission, becomes restricted upon those qualified (a.k.a. class, position, status, etc.)...after all the State can take it, why not also be the give it?....whereas I have stated, as inspiration for the OP, that Life is a Right.

You'd think he'd just read a wikipedia link or something by now.

I have, but it is not my burden to do the legwork for the OP....perhaps you could grab a dictionary and sort out the whole Right vs Privilege vs Inalienable stuff while we wait for Honor to clear up the OP.

[_DoubtingThomas]

I understand you prefer the answers to such question be derived from what scientific investigation has to say about what Is, and that ethics or moral philosophy's many approaches with varied results telling us conflicting things about what Ought to Be is unsatisfying.

Yes because there is probably no objective morality. EAllusion's philosophers of ethics are kind of useless.

And as noted above, this tells us that for Homo sapiens, taking life Is part of the natural order of things.

Yes it is called anthropology, but thankfully we also have medicine, behavioral science, neurology, and other fields. Science cannot tell us how to behave, but it can tell us what is physically and psychologically harmful.

Can't say I agree with that conclusion but again, it's just an observation of what Is and then infering some form of purely science-based code of conduct from it. Otherwise one would end up trying to determine what Ought to Be, and that isn't what science does.

I bet the most successful alien civilizations in the Universe don't end up killing each other. Now in his book Steven Pinker argues that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise because of science and reason.
https://www.amazon.com/Enlightenment-No ... 0525427570

Philosophy has been around for thousand of years, but it hasn't contributed much to humanity.

[_DoubtingThomas]

Yes, all those posts where you say what personhood is and is not - that is just you talking about it, got it!

Hey do you oppose abortion when the life of the mother is in danger? Why?

[_EAllusion]

Yes, all those posts where you say what personhood is and is not - that is just you talking about it, got it!

You are incapable of making a simple distinction between talking abut what the concept of personhood refers and doesn't refer to and talking about examples of ideas about what qualifies for having personhood status? Are you likewise incapable of understanding talking about the difference between what the concept of ethics refers to and specific ideas about what is ethical?

Personhood doesn't have to be cleaved in nature. It's a concept to help organize thoughts about moral and legal status.

For example, this is not criteria for personhood - it is just you talking about stuff.

Yep. It appears so.

The way it looks now is that "personhood" is being argued by the opening post

The opening post is just asking you when whatever you think has a right to life has traits such that it has a right to life worth being respected. Conception of an embryo would be my guess based on how you've talked in this thread, but who knows? The idea is to set you up to defend that, but you've long been historically incapable of doing that, so you'll just spend page after page thickly dodging the topic.

[_EAllusion]

Yes because there is probably no objective morality. EAllusion's philosophers of ethics are kind of useless.

Cool. By "objective morality" you likely mean something like what philosophers of ethics call "moral realism" or the idea that moral statements can be true or false and at least some of them are true. Weirdly, this doesn't stop you from speaking in terms of moral truth.

While I think you seem naïve on this topic and I highly recommend you read up some more, it doesn't strictly matter if moral realism is true or not. People who reject moral realism usually think moral disputes can be adjudicated in some way. For example, people who think moral thoughts are like tastes usually think moral disputes are like convincing a person to develop or consider their tastes in such a way that you agree about food preferences. You clearly have moral opinions that you expect to have persuasive force. Hence you insisting that it is not wrong to kill fetuses before 24 weeks, but it may be wrong to do so after because you've identified that as cut-off point for the development of consciousness.

That the development of consciousness matters to the wrongness of killing is something you seem to take as self-evident, but it isn't. That's a position that requires defending. If you think defending moral assertions is pointless because "there is no objective morality" then stop making moral assertions.

[Guest]

Cool. By "objective morality" you likely mean something like what philosophers of ethics call "moral realism" or the idea that moral statements can be true or false and at least some of them are true. Weirdly, this doesn't stop you from speaking in terms of moral truth.

It is subjective. What can be morally right for you may be morally wrong for me. But I am always open minded.

While I think you seem naïve on this topic and I highly recommend you read up some more, it doesn't strictly matter if moral realism is true or not. People who reject moral realism usually think moral disputes can be adjudicated in some way. For example, people who think moral thoughts are like tastes usually think moral disputes are like convincing a person to develop their tastes to align with yours.

I agree because we humans are social animals and we should work together to solve complicated problems, but philosophy alone probably won't get us anywhere. We need the help of science. Read Pinker, Shermer, Harris, and other intellectuals on how science has contributed to the progress of humanity. Do you have any evidence that philosophy of ethics has significantly contributed to human progress?

You clearly have moral opinions that you expect to have persuasive force. Hence you insisting that it is not wrong to kill fetuses before 24 weeks, but it may be wrong to do so after because you've identified that as cut-off point for the development of consciousness.

That the development of consciousness matters to the wrongness of killing is something you seem to take as self-evident, but it isn't. That's a position that requires defending. If you think defending moral assertions is pointless because "there is no objective morality" then stop making moral assertions.

It is likely, but not 100% obvious. I am wiling to change my mind. Please tell me when can a human have rights? Why?
Is it before 24 weeks? in third trimester? After birth? After two years old? Please don't ignore my questions.

[_honorentheos]

Yes it is called anthropology, but thankfully we also have medicine, behavioral science, neurology, and other fields. Science cannot tell us how to behave, but it can tell us what is physically and psychologically harmful.

[_DoubtingThomas]

But anyways, I still don't understand why Abortion is the center of the Supreme Court debate. Why can't the center of the debate be Citizens United? Or Climate Change?