----- Original Message ----- From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 10:12 PM Subject: Re: Infanticide Re: The American Political Landscape Today
> On May 16, 2005, at 7:34 PM, JDG wrote: > > > At 07:03 PM 5/16/2005 -0700, Warren wrote: > >> The problem there is that your reasoning does not reduce. There is a > >> distinct difference between, say, a blastocyst and an infant. The > >> question is not even when the zygote becomes "human". The question is > >> what "human" actually means. > > > > If the answer is "homo sapiens" its actually a rather easy question. > > It's the easiest answers of which we should often be most suspicious. In one sense, yes, but in another sense, no. If the answer is straightforward within our scientific understanding of the world, then the simple answer is usually considered the best. As Pauli said about Maxwell, any idiot can take something simple and make it complicated; it takes a genius to take something complicated and make it simple. The origin of the species was the inital question that Darwin adressed. After over 100 years, we now know a great deal more about this than he did. While there are some borderline calls between species that can mate but almost never do (lions and tigers for example), we have a pretty good working defintion that can be expressed in terms of gene space. Let me give one racist comment as an example of how the humanness of the other is denied, in contradiction with our best scientific understanding. "Blacks and whites are suppose to stay seperate....you don't see the bluebirds hanging around the blackbirds, do you? The implication, of course, is that blacks and whites are as fundamentally different as blackbirds and bluebirds. But, we know they are not. Blacks, Asians, Caucasians, etc. are all part of the same species. The genetic differences between them, while obviously existant, are relatively small...far less than the differences between species. So, a false representation of emperical observations underpins this racist attitude. I'd argue that human societies have, for a number of convenient reasons, denied the humaness of the "other." For a number of reasons, and even when the genetic differences are extremely small (as with the Irish vs. the English), it was "common sense" that the "other" was so different as to render than inherently less than one's own group. To take it even further, one of the best insights that d. brin had in to Tolkin, I think, is that, why he wasn't a racist, he was a racialist. He believed that blood tells...that there is something fundamentally different about "good blood lines." > As I suggested in my note to Dan, extending the epithet "human" to > every member of the species is an ideal and nothing more; in reality we > barely allow that label to be placed on fellow countrymen with whom we > do not agree, let alone other cultures. I would argue that this is denying the humanness of others. Homo sapients are human is a tatology, human is simply a common word for homo sapient. It is considered a critical first step in promoting atrocities....denying that those who are about to be killed, tortured, enslaved, etc. are humans like those who are doing the killing, the torturing, etc., and therefore the actions are acceptable I'd argue that this is the easy answer...that what one wishes to do for selfish reasons really doesn't violate any ethics. It is easy to promote war by dehumanizing the enemy. It's much harder to justify wars that involve the killing of innocent people, just like your kids. If you look at some of the arguements given for blacks being sub-human, Native Americans being sub-human, the Irish being sub-human, you get a number of counterfactuals that are believed and are used to "prove" the point. > The issue of what it is to be human lies at the core of some of our > most divisive debates, I think. Abortion, capital punishment, > end-of-life issues and elective wars (any elective war, not just the > one frequently bandied about here) often, I think, boil down to the > basic question of what we mean when we say "human". > > (Hmm, an aside -- it occurs to me that perhaps *all* wars are definable > as elective. Someone always chooses to attack.) > > As an example, unless one believes in the idea of a soul I don't think > it's possible to suggest -- realistically -- that many members of this > species (by strict definition) are human in many ways. > > That sounds callous and brutal, or rather that suggestion can be used > to reach callous and brutal conclusions, but unless we analyze what's > really meant by our definitions of these seemingly transparent terms, > there's no way any kind of discussion can go forward. > > The problem as I see it is partly that many *do* believe in the idea of > souls, which is -- sorry -- really not much more than superstition. > There's never been anything like proof -- nor even evidence of a > meaningful nature -- to suggest such a thing as a soul exists. Thus a > discussion that begins with assuming the presence of a soul, to me, is > based on a false premise. > > Is a one-week-old zygote human? Genetically, sure, maybe even > potentially. Actually? I don't think the question is so easily > answered. Same for someone who's completely brain dead and on life > support. Now, how about a third trimester fetus? Or someone in a PVS > who appears to evince consciousness in rare and random ways? Those > questions should be even more difficult to answer. Why aren't they human? I think that your "soft" definition of human, instead of one based on a reasonable scientific classification, is really the answer to another question. "Which beings deserve to be treated as I want to be treated because they are my peers?" That is a non-emperical question, unlike the question of humanness. It is strongly related to another non-emerical question "which beings have self-awareness, as I do." Neither of these questions can be answered scientifically. No model of obsevables requires the inclusion of the existance of a non-observable. I do not and cannot see your self awareness. Logical positivism tried to use language to get around this, but Wittgenstein did a very good job of showing that reference to language is not an out. We do not see each others "beetles in boxes." > What about people who do brutal things deliberately? Is the label > "human" applicable to, say, the BTK killer? Or the freaks of nature who > raped and murdered those poor girls in Florida, or that Illinois > creature that beat his daughter and her best friend, then stabbed them > to death? Yes, which means that humans, like us, are capable of horrible brutality. I think there is a certain safety to think that these are Somehow the idea that these actions show them to be different than ourselves, our neighbors, etc. is less frightening than thinking that any human is capable of such atrocities. > Easy labels are troubling to me. They rarely seem to apply universally > when they're analyzed, and for that reason alone I think it's very > risky to behave as though such abstractions represent anything but a > hint about the way the world "really" is. This further suggests that we > should not feel confident enough about those labels to begin using them > to make universally-applicable decisions such as laws. But, this classification is easy only in the sense that it follows straightforwardly from biology. Since elephants are known for their size, is a baby elephant less an elepahant than the much bigger full grown elk? We'd all say no, they are two different species. Is a baby human less human than, say, an adult dog that can do more and actually communicates more clearly? No. Are dolphins self aware, due to their brain size? We have no way of knowing...this is not an emperical question. But, I think this is a question you are getting at when you talk about other species. We know dolphins are not human....but we don't know if they are self aware or not. I'd guess no, but that's just a guess because I cannot perceive the self-awareness of others. > Until we can find or agree on a true, working definition of "human", > then, it seems very clear to me that there are some grey areas to which > no law should be applied, because there will always be some cases in > which those laws are inappropriate or insufficient to address > circumstances. The problem with this is that the "grey areas" are applied arbitrarily...not based on anything systematic. A 2 month preme is human, a 2 week overdue fetus is not human when she has partially emerged, but is fully human only when it fully emerges (I don't think he has to actually breath, but I'm not positive). So, in conclusion, I think we should accept human as the common name for homo sapient. This allows us to focus on what the real questions are: do all humans have rights? And When is it acceptable for individuals and/or society to limit these rights or take actions that would infringe on these rights? (e.g. even though humans have the right of liberty, we can put murderers in jail.) Dan M. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
