but the actual spark of personhood is maybe 1/5th of the way to being ignited at the time a baby is born.
Says who? By that logic it should be legal to kill a toddler up to the point they become self-aware (I'm guessing that's the arbitrary metric you're using to denote 'personhood').
You're making this distinction between a 'human' and a 'person' that is entirely in your own head.
PK Dick wrote a short story about just that: the future society where you are only considered "human" if you can do some simple calculus. Before that? You can be "recycled" at the whim of your mother (NOT the father!), usually around age 8 or 9. He got more hate mail, back in the 60's! for that one than all the rest combined. Actual mail, eh? Someone paid money to tell him that they hate him.
Daemon Knight had a similar story. Until you turn 16? Your parents can send you "to the adoption agency" which sounds great, eh? Except the 'agency' just keeps you for 6 months, then harvests your organs. The chance of actual adoption is close to zero.
So kids in that story are amazing. They get up in the morning, cook & clean, pay close attention in school, never get in trouble!
The story is about such a boy, 14 and his parents decide to go on vacation on another planet. It's too bothersome to take him along, or even ask relatives to care for him, so they order him to go to the "adoption center". Dark!
Well, in this case, says me, because I am the ultimate arbiter of my morality, much as you are of yours.
Also, you're moving away from the debate. You've brought the question of legality into it, making the depressingly common attempt to take "legal" and "good"/"moral" together, when the two have zero bearing on one another.
And self-awareness is an intersting metric to consider, but even that paltry standard disqualifies huge swathes of people across the globe from personhood, let alone my preferred standard of self-actualization. Think about the average "doctor, lawyer, engineer" who dindu nuffin, or the average pajeet, or the average "refugees welcome" leftist. Many of them would, I think, at least be able to look in a mirror and identify the self and how the self differs from the not-self, but how many have a proper internal monologue, or the ability to imagine and rotate the apple, or even to comprehend the idea of second order effects, let alone predict them?
No, there's more to personhood then the mirror, and we tend to bet on humans since we are the sole species on this planet currently able to produce st least some members that qualify as persons, even if large numbers never make it that far.
You could, perhaps, make a solid argument in the wasted POTENTIAL of any given aborted fetus or baby, that he or she may have one day become a person and contributed to the sprecies at large, but no one ever does. It's always just "muh humans are le special" argumentation for an inherent worth that simply doesn't exist.
Also, you're moving away from the debate. You've brought the question of legality into it, making the depressingly common attempt to take "legal" and "good"/"moral" together, when the two have zero bearing on one another
Replace 'legal' with 'moral' then. Same principle applies. You're focusing on technicalities like a redditor.
And self-awareness is an intersting metric to consider, but even that paltry standard disqualifies huge swathes of people across the globe from personhood, let alone my preferred standard of self-actualization. Think about the average "doctor, lawyer, engineer" who dindu nuffin, or the average pajeet, or the average "refugees welcome" leftist. Many of them would, I think, at least be able to look in a mirror and identify the self and how the self differs from the not-self, but how many have a proper internal monologue, or the ability to imagine and rotate the apple, or even to comprehend the idea of second order effects, let alone predict them?
Again, this whole distinction of human vs. person exists entirely in your head based on what appears to be some arbitrary IQ threshold you've invented.
I would say I'm astounded at your willful dismissal of the core aspects of philosophical disagreement as "technicalities" instead of recognizing them as the critical distinctions that underpin theories of mind, but I would be lying. This type of pompous, self-aggrandizing stupidity is actually quite common and widespread.
No, the same.principle does not apply. You cannot swap out legal for moral and make the same point. Many things are legal that are not moral, and many things that are moral are illegal. Reformulate your arguments from a purely moral perspective, support your moral suppositions, and we can go from there. I've already done so for my position.
Finally, I begin to suspect that you may be taking offense here because you yourself don't meet the metric of personhood. You deny the need to differentiate between a human who doesn't know why the ceiling bird chirps or what it would be like if he hadn't had breakfast that morning and one that does, and pretend that catering to the former at the expense of the latter hasn't been an absolute, objective destructive influence on human society at large.
What is it about humans that supposedly makes them special? We're not fast, not strong, can't heal well, don't live that long, don't have sharp senses, etc. But we do have the minds that out oversized brains can generate as the fruit of many years of growth. Since it is these minds that gives humans our long-fought dominion over the Earth, by what right do those sharing our DNA but absent these minds claim themselves to be those special humans with inherent worth?
And so is the human/person divide illustrated. A human may become, through talent or effort, a person, but personhood is not solely contingent on humanity, nor is humanity the sole criterion for personhood.
This type of pompous, self-aggrandizing stupidity is actually quite common and widespread
It certainly is in this thread, in which you've typed out various walls of text focusing on semantics and technicalities that serve no purpose other than to stroke your own ego and waste time.
Some people are dumb (you may include me in this category if you wish). That doesn't deprive them of personhood.
Says who? By that logic it should be legal to kill a toddler up to the point they become self-aware (I'm guessing that's the arbitrary metric you're using to denote 'personhood').
You're making this distinction between a 'human' and a 'person' that is entirely in your own head.
PK Dick wrote a short story about just that: the future society where you are only considered "human" if you can do some simple calculus. Before that? You can be "recycled" at the whim of your mother (NOT the father!), usually around age 8 or 9. He got more hate mail, back in the 60's! for that one than all the rest combined. Actual mail, eh? Someone paid money to tell him that they hate him.
Daemon Knight had a similar story. Until you turn 16? Your parents can send you "to the adoption agency" which sounds great, eh? Except the 'agency' just keeps you for 6 months, then harvests your organs. The chance of actual adoption is close to zero.
So kids in that story are amazing. They get up in the morning, cook & clean, pay close attention in school, never get in trouble!
The story is about such a boy, 14 and his parents decide to go on vacation on another planet. It's too bothersome to take him along, or even ask relatives to care for him, so they order him to go to the "adoption center". Dark!
Lordlavalamp is the sort of person that small communities quietly dispose of in the woods. You can't have reptiles like that around people you love.
Well, in this case, says me, because I am the ultimate arbiter of my morality, much as you are of yours.
Also, you're moving away from the debate. You've brought the question of legality into it, making the depressingly common attempt to take "legal" and "good"/"moral" together, when the two have zero bearing on one another.
And self-awareness is an intersting metric to consider, but even that paltry standard disqualifies huge swathes of people across the globe from personhood, let alone my preferred standard of self-actualization. Think about the average "doctor, lawyer, engineer" who dindu nuffin, or the average pajeet, or the average "refugees welcome" leftist. Many of them would, I think, at least be able to look in a mirror and identify the self and how the self differs from the not-self, but how many have a proper internal monologue, or the ability to imagine and rotate the apple, or even to comprehend the idea of second order effects, let alone predict them?
No, there's more to personhood then the mirror, and we tend to bet on humans since we are the sole species on this planet currently able to produce st least some members that qualify as persons, even if large numbers never make it that far.
You could, perhaps, make a solid argument in the wasted POTENTIAL of any given aborted fetus or baby, that he or she may have one day become a person and contributed to the sprecies at large, but no one ever does. It's always just "muh humans are le special" argumentation for an inherent worth that simply doesn't exist.
Replace 'legal' with 'moral' then. Same principle applies. You're focusing on technicalities like a redditor.
Again, this whole distinction of human vs. person exists entirely in your head based on what appears to be some arbitrary IQ threshold you've invented.
I would say I'm astounded at your willful dismissal of the core aspects of philosophical disagreement as "technicalities" instead of recognizing them as the critical distinctions that underpin theories of mind, but I would be lying. This type of pompous, self-aggrandizing stupidity is actually quite common and widespread.
No, the same.principle does not apply. You cannot swap out legal for moral and make the same point. Many things are legal that are not moral, and many things that are moral are illegal. Reformulate your arguments from a purely moral perspective, support your moral suppositions, and we can go from there. I've already done so for my position.
Finally, I begin to suspect that you may be taking offense here because you yourself don't meet the metric of personhood. You deny the need to differentiate between a human who doesn't know why the ceiling bird chirps or what it would be like if he hadn't had breakfast that morning and one that does, and pretend that catering to the former at the expense of the latter hasn't been an absolute, objective destructive influence on human society at large.
What is it about humans that supposedly makes them special? We're not fast, not strong, can't heal well, don't live that long, don't have sharp senses, etc. But we do have the minds that out oversized brains can generate as the fruit of many years of growth. Since it is these minds that gives humans our long-fought dominion over the Earth, by what right do those sharing our DNA but absent these minds claim themselves to be those special humans with inherent worth?
And so is the human/person divide illustrated. A human may become, through talent or effort, a person, but personhood is not solely contingent on humanity, nor is humanity the sole criterion for personhood.
It certainly is in this thread, in which you've typed out various walls of text focusing on semantics and technicalities that serve no purpose other than to stroke your own ego and waste time.
Some people are dumb (you may include me in this category if you wish). That doesn't deprive them of personhood.