Embryo and Einstein – Why They’re Equal

_{Vincent Torley

November 10, 2011

Intelligent Design}

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The photo on the right is a picture of Albert Einstein, shortly after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1921. The photo on the left shows how Einstein looked when he was very young (about three days old). The aim of this essay is to demonstrate on purely philosophical (i.e. non-religious) grounds that a human embryo is a person, who matters just as much as you or I do. I shall also attempt to explain exactly why an embryo is just as valuable as you or I. From this it follows that the embryo from which the adult Einstein developed had exactly the same moral worth (or intrinsic value) as Einstein the man, and that an outside party – for instance, the doctor who took care of Einstein’s mother while she was pregnant – would have been morally bound to treat the embryo Einstein as a fully-fledged human person, having the same inherent right to life as the great scientist whom the embryo later developed into. I have written this essay specifically for people with no religious beliefs, so I will be making use of purely secular arguments, based on uncontroversial scientific concepts, which should be familiar to anyone who has spent time studying the emergence and development of biological forms in the natural world. In the interests of full disclosure, I will state up-front that I am a Catholic, and that I am also a member of the Intelligent Design movement. However, I would like to emphasize that I am not claiming to speak on behalf of any group in writing this essay. The arguments put forward here represent my own personal views.

I am writing this essay in response to some arguments recently put forward by the “New Atheists,” most of whom would totally reject the notion that Einstein as an embryo had the same moral value as the adult Einstein. For instance, evolutionary biologist Professor Jerry Coyne has recently argued that a 100-cell blastocyst cannot be as valuable as an adult human being because it lacks thoughts and feelings, and concludes: “A blastocyst is no more what we think of as a ‘person’ than an acorn is the same thing as an oak tree.” For biologist P. Z. Myers, it is the height of absurdity to regard embryos as being just as valuable as adults (see here and here). Philosopher Sam Harris is utterly incredulous that anyone can still believe an embryo is a unique human person, given the fact that early embryos are susceptible to both fission and fusion (see here). Harris argues that “if our concern is about suffering in this universe, it is rather obvious that we should be more concerned about killing flies than about killing three-day-old embryos” – an odd remark for him to make, as neither flies nor three-day-old embryos are sentient (see here). And the evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins, after contrasting his “secular consequentialist” approach to ethics with “religiously absolute moral philosophies,” adds: “One school of thought cares about whether embryos can suffer. The other cares about whether they are human” (The God Delusion, Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006, p. 297). It is an ethical axiom for Dawkins that only sentient beings matter: early embryos fall outside the scope of legitimate moral concern, because they are incapable of suffering. And even if some embryos turn out to be capable of suffering, “there is every reason to suppose that all embryos, whether human or not, suffer far less than adult cows or sheep in a slaughterhouse” (Dawkins, 2006, p. 297).

However, I believe in giving credit where credit is due, so I should mention that Christopher Hitchens is a noble exception to the generalization that New Atheists tend to be ardently pro-choice: unlike the other “New Atheists,” Hitchens openly refers to the embryo/fetus as an “unborn child,” although he does not go so far as to advocate the repeal of Roe v. Wade. And while Dr. Richard Carrier is generally pro-choice, he is also on the record as saying that he would oppose elective third trimester abortion as being identical to infanticide (see the Carrier-Roth Debate here).

In this essay, I shall endeavor to show that a strong intellectual case can be made, on non-religious grounds (i.e. without assuming the existence of God or an immaterial soul), for the pro-life view that a human person begins at the exact moment when the sperm cell penetrates the ovum (or oocyte, to use a more accurate medical term), and that a human embryo – even if it is severely deformed – has the same right to life as a fully rational human adult. In other words, I shall argue that if you grant that a rational human adult has a right to life, then you must also grant that an embryo or fetus has a right to life, too. What distinguishes this essay from other essays written in defense of unborn human life is that I shall endeavor to explain precisely why a human embryo is every bit as valuable as you or I. Moreover, my explanation makes no appeal to the merely potential qualities of the embryo; instead, I only invoke actual properties. Thus my argument is invulnerable to the philosopher Peter Singer’s criticism that a potential X does not necessarily have the rights of an actual X – for instance, a prince (who is a potential king) does not possess the same rights and privileges as an actual king. And unlike the philosopher Don Marquis, who argues that an embryo/fetus matters just as much as we do because it has a future like ours, my account of why a human embryo matters is based principally on its present characteristics. Finally, my explanation makes no appeal to the existence of an immaterial soul, although it is perfectly compatible with belief in one.

Later, I shall address the moral issue of abortion. In particular, I shall contend that Judith Jarvis Thomson’s argument for the morality of abortion is flawed, and I will show that the available evidence indicates that abortion harms women’s mental health, even in cases such as rape and incest. However, my principal aim in this online essay is to demonstrate that a human embryo is a person who matters just as much as an adult.

My argument in a nutshell

In brief, the essence of my argument is that a human embryo is a person, because it is a complete organism, embodying a developmental program by which it directs and controls its own development into a rational human adult, and in addition, it has already started assembling itself into a rational human adult. A human adult is not merely something the embryo/fetus is capable of becoming, in a passive sense; rather, it is the mature form of the organism that the embryo/fetus is currently assembling itself into, by executing the instructions contained in its developmental program, which has already started running. (In this respect, the embryo/fetus differs vitally from a potential king, who is legally incapable of doing anything to make himself king, and who has none of the rights that properly belong to a king.) I shall argue that it is reasonable to regard any biological organism which is currently assembling itself into a rational human adult through a process which is under its control, as being just as valuable as the adult it will become, and as therefore having the same right to life as an adult. I shall also contend that nothing is acquired by an embryo, fetus, newborn baby or child in the course of its development which would add to its inherent moral value in any way; hence a one-cell embryo must be just as valuable as you or I. Finally, I shall argue that a severely defective embryo, which has no hope of developing into a rational human adult, has the same right to life as a normal embryo, because the correction of its defects does not require the addition of any new instructions to its developmental program; all it requires is the repair of program flaws, and that this correction would in no way alter its identity as a human individual, or add to its inherent value. Given that a normal embryo has the same right to life as a rational human adult, it follows that a severely defective embryo (which is just as valuable as a normal one) has the same right to life as well.

Dedication and Acknowledgements

I would like to express my thanks at the outset to the Intelligent Design movement for alerting me to the ethical significance of the developmental programs which are found in living organisms. I’ll say more about these programs below.

Read the rest of the essay here.

Comments

Hi goodusername, You wrote:
Vjtorley asked if I would value a cd of memories and implied that I would – although I’m not sure what I said to give that impression.
The reason why I made that inference was because of your statement in 12.1.1:
To answer your question about whether I’d value the CD... I already listed what I value with humans – sentence, emotions, feelings, intelligence etc – which of those are present in a CD? If, OTOH, the CD had more than just memories, but somehow captured the complete personality of the person – the “mind”, as often occurs in sci fi – and when the CD were put into a robot it would then speak and act just as the family member would (passing a “Turing test", so to speak), and seemingly was sentient and conscious, etc, then I might very well consider the robot as the continuation of the person. (Emphases mine - VJT.)
In a follow-up comment, you qualified this remark somewhat: you argued that it would be very difficult to store someone's entire personality on a CD, and you added that the CD would also have to be inserted in "a robot or machine that is capable of displaying the sentience, emotions, feelings, thoughts (i.e. the 'personality') of the person on the CD". Fair enough. So you're still prepared to entertain the possibility that a CD, when inserted into a suitably constructed robot, might conceivably be the continuation of a human person. That was what provoked my incredulity. Your response is a heavily qualified one, but it still reflects what I would refer to as "head-body dualism", where the head is viewed as the repository of mental states and one's personality in general. The problem with making these states the foundation of human rights is apparent in cases like the following one, which I mentioned above:
...[W]hat if the person retains his memories while multiple copies are made of the contents of his brain, onto various CDs, and immediately after they are downloaded and inserted into various robots, his sister cannot distinguish between the “real” person and his robot replicas in a Turing test? What then?
A robust biological account of human identity, which grounds our human rights in our bodies (and the developmental programs they instantiate) rather than our mental states, is the only effective response to bizarre cases like this, because it blocks them at the first step.vjtorley_{November 14, 2011
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Eigenstate, Thank you for your lengthy reply. I'd like to zero in on the following comments of yours:
In secular terms, ... rights are grounded in states (e.g. electrical activity in the frontal cortex as the trigger/predicate for legal personhood) because the rights are synthetic. They are legal devices, social constructs, collective value judgments. What is this "natural right" you speak of, asks the secular reader. That’s an undefined term as you have it, stripped from states of being and functional, actual capabilities (e.g. the ability to experience pain and suffering, and to be aware that one is in a state of pain and suffering). Sorry, Dr. Torley, but this is where you and secularism part ways, big time...
Eigenstate, I really think you need to read more widely from secularists' writings. I am amazed that you honestly think secularists don't believe in natural rights. Have you never heard of Ayn Rand and her brand of philosophy, known as objectivism? Say what you like about it, but it's certainly a coherent, well thought-out philosophy. Or for that matter, what about the anarcho-libertarianism of Murray Rothbard? Or if you'd like someone more academic, how about Philippa Foot? A significant number of atheists are Aristotelians or Kantians. Both of these kinds of atheists acknowledge the reality of natural rights. Not all atheists are relativists or utilitarians. I should add that I've lost count of the number of times I've heard atheists argue that we don't need God in order to discern right from wrong; the Golden Rule, they say, is enough. However, the Golden Rule is not a social construct; its application makes perfect sense, regardless of whether you happen to be living in a society, or a wandering stateless nomad. All it assumes is a recognition that you are interacting with an "other", who has interests of his/her own. An atheist who subscribes to the Golden Rule as a fundamental guide to right and wrong ipso facto believes in natural rights. Atheists who don't believe in natural rights don't interest me very much, because to my mind, their position lacks intellectual rigor, and fails to do justice to very basic ethical intuitions. In the Introduction to my essay, I explicitly stated:
I shall simply assume as a "given" that human persons matter in their own right, and that it is (always or almost always) wrong to intentionally kill them. I am of course aware that there are some philosophers who reject the idea that human persons matter in their own right and who regard morality as a purely social construct, but I have yet to hear a convincing explanation from these philosophers as to why it would be wrong to kill a wandering stateless nomad in the Sahara desert. However, most atheists do accept the premise that human persons matter in their own right, and I shall be engaging them on their own terms. My aim will be to show that if they grant this premise, then there is no good reason why they should deny personhood to the embryo; consequently, it is (always or almost always) wrong to intentionally kill embryos.
I have absolutely no interest in arguing for embryo rights, against someone who thinks rights are a social construct. That would be a waste of time: obviously, such a person is not likely to attach value to a non-sentient embryo. All I can do, when debating such a person, is to point out that their own position fails to answer my original question (why it would be wrong to kill a wandering stateless nomad in the Sahara desert), and that both sentientism (which grounds "rights" in states of consciousness, insofar as it recognizes them) and personism (which grounds them in our ability to have a concept of self) are deficient and inconsistent moral philosophies, as I argued in Parts C and D of my essay. My second major quarrel with your post concerns the nature of dispositions. You write:
So yes, I certainly believe “things have dispositions”, but that expands to “[what we call 'things'] have [experience-based patterns of dynamism that is regular enough for us to identify as a principle and which we call "disposition" for lack of a better term, being of teleocentric mind]“. The “disposition” isn’t any more intrinsic than the word “blue” is intrinsic to the sky. Gravity is what it is, and the sky is has the spectral features it has, no matter what handles and concepts we assess them with.
Your claim that "The 'disposition' isn’t any more intrinsic than the word 'blue' is intrinsic to the sky" fails because we have to assume the reality of intrinsic dispositions in order to account for the behavior of the universe in the absence of human observers. It really doesn't matter if the sky is not blue when no-one is looking at it, but it does matter that a blue star like Rigel (in Orion) keeps emitting the wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation that we refer to (in our language) as blue, regardless of whether we are there to observe it doing so or not. Your denial of the objective reality of intrinsic dispositions also makes nonsense of the scientific quest to discover the age of the Earth and of the universe. I hope that you would accept, as I do, that the Earth is 4.54 billion years old, and that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. To estimate the age of the Earth, scientists rely on dating methods which presuppose that things - such as decaying radioactive nuclei - have dispositions, in the absence of human observers. And they'd better have human-independent dispositions, because otherwise it would be impossible to say how they will behave in the absence of human observers. If you don't believe in intrinsic dispositions, how can you be so sure that the ages estimated by scientists are correct? It's no use saying: "Well, these nuclei have always decayed in the same way whenever we've observed them, so it makes sense to assume they decayed that way in times past, too." That's not good enough. You're assuming what you're trying to prove: that these nuclei have a fixed pattern of behavior, even though (on your account) they have no underlying character or dispositions of their own, which would ground such regular behavior. You deny the objective reality of intrinsic dispositions, but accept that things have "regular patterns of dynamism". Sorry, but a regular pattern simply isn't sufficient to warrant a scientific inference about the future or the unknown past. To take a well-worn example, consider the following two cases: 1. Every lump of gold is less than a mile in diameter. 2. Every lump of uranium is less than a mile in diameter. Both statements are probably true, but the second is a law (or more precisely a corollary of one), while the first is not. Why? Because adding atom after atom to a lump of uranium eventually produces an explosion, whereas adding atom after atom to a lump of gold just produces a bigger lump of gold. Uranium has a built-in disposition to explode, which gold lacks. The built-in disposition is what explains uranium's behavior. If uranium did not have such a disposition, then safety precautions at nuclear reactors would be difficult to justify. The general philosophical point I wish to make here is that in the absence of natural dispositions, scientific induction would make absolutely no sense, and everything would occur by chance, and nothing by necessity (let alone design). Or as Aquinas succinctly puts it: "every agent acts for an end: otherwise one thing would not follow more then another from the action of the agent, unless it were by chance" (Summa Theologica, I, q. 44, art. 4). If you acknowledge the fact that some things happen of necessity, then congratulations: you acknowledge dispositions in the minimal sense I intend, for the purposes of my essay. If not, then I wonder whether you really believe the sun will rise tomorrow. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't. Why? Because I can think of 101 other things it might do - and the fact that it has never done these before is no reason to think that it won't do them tomorrow. Third, you seem to be very hung up about teleological language. In response to my assertion that the heart is for pumping blood, you write:
But it requires that we stipulate what we mean by “for”. It’s not a term that entails design, foresight, or any agency at all. It is just descriptive as a matter of retrospect. We observe the dynamics of hearts and blood, and “retro-infer”, as teleocentric beings, that pumping blood is what the heart is “for”, as a matter of pedagogy.
But in my essay on the personhood of the embryo, I didn't argue for any kind of "design, foresight, or any agency at all". I simply assumed that embryos had developmental programs, and I explicitly stated that I was making no assumptions whatsoever about these programs having a Designer. And I certainly didn't assume that the embryo had any foresight or agency. Let me add that you are making a false dichotomy here: you are assuming that in the absence of an agent or Designer, the word "for" can only be descriptive (in a retrospective sense) - whereas I am asserting that the word "for" is prescriptive, regardless of whether we believe in the reality of agents or Designers with foresight or not. Cigarette smoking is bad for your heart, whether you or anyone else believes it or not. That's a prescriptive statement, which is also an objective fact. Likewise, the heart is a pump, regardless of whether anyone knows this fact or not. Pumping blood is what the heart is for, because this pumping process is conducive to the stability and functioning of the body, as a biological whole. That's another prescriptive statement about the heart, which is also an objective fact. I cannot for the life of me see why you would regard such a statement as suspiciously anthropomorphic. My fourth and final point relates to the developmental programs in the embryo. Eigenstate, as far as I am aware, you are not a scientist, let alone a biologist - and I have to say it shows. I'm not a scientist either, but I did a double-take when I read your comment:
... a puddle levels out to form a flat surface of the water filling it as part of "program which generates puddle shapes" in precisely the same way you suppose a zygote is running a "program which generates adult, sentient human beings". "Running a program" is just a human conceptual projection, that can be applied to any law based and/or repetitive process.
I'm sorry, but I have to say you're wrong here. There is a very good reason why scientists don't talk about puddle programs, whereas they do talk about the developmental program in the embryo. It is this. A program is a sequence of ordered instructions with a beginning and an end. It relates to an ordered series of events occurring over time. It has a direction, starting with an initial (immature) form and ending with a final (mature) form. None of this can be said of the behavior of puddles. Appealing to the laws of Nature won't help here; the laws are symmetric with respect to time. The development of the embryo is not. Developmental programs in the biological world are not reducible to laws as such. The behavior of puddles may be regular and repetitive (e.g. the fact that they splash when something goes through them), but they are not directed at any future state. An embryo has, from the moment of conception, genetic instructions from which (in principle) its final form (a mature adult) could be deduced, given enough scientific knowledge about the genome and the environment of the womb. These genetic instructions are there in the embryo from the get-go; they are not just future states. If they were not, the term "program" would indeed be inept. Developmental programs are present in the embryo, and they are real. That's why Professor Eric Davidson could write:
The body plan of an animal, and hence its exact mode of development, is a property of its species and is thus encoded in the genome. Embryonic development is an enormous informational transaction, in which DNA sequence data generate and guide the system-wide spatial deployment of specific cellular functions. ("Emerging properties of animal gene regulatory networks" by Eric H. Davidson. Nature 468, issue 7326 [16 December 2010]: 911-920. doi:10.1038/nature09645. )
And that's why James Watson could write:
"We know that the instructions for how the egg develops into an adult are written in the linear sequence of bases along the DNA of the germ cells." (James Watson et al., Molecular Biology of the Gene, 4th Edition, 1987, p. 747.
In short: I haven't based my argument for the personhood of the embryo on speculative metaphysics or hidden appeals to theology, as you seem to think, but on solid science. It should be evaluated on that basis.vjtorley_{November 14, 2011
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Greetings VJ Torley, an excellent essay with some fascinating references. Just to clarify, dmullenix never actually read Dawkins saying "...that if all the evidence turned against evolution..." He just made that up because it made more sense! What Dawkins actually said (in The God Delusion) was: If all the evidence in the universe turned in favour of creationism, I would be the first to admit it, and I would immediately change my mind. Naturally, Dawkins is just making that up too, because he will be the last person to change his mind when Intelligent Design theory replaces the theory of evolution.Chris Doyle_{November 14, 2011
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Hi dmullenix, Looking at the Dawkins quote, I completely agree with you that the word "evolution" makes a lot more sense than "creationism", in the context provided. The source I quoted from must have accidentally gotten his wires crossed. Thanks for pointing out the error.vjtorley_{November 14, 2011
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That Dawkins quote got mangled somewhere along the line. Kurt Wise said, "If all the evidence in the world turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist, since that is what the word of God indicates.” Indicating that he puts the Bible above all other evidence. In the article you quote, Dawkins says, “If all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it and I would immediately change my mind. As things stand, however, all available evidence — and there is a vast amount of it — favors evolution.” That quote doesn't make sense since Dawkins is already convinced by the evidence that creationism is incorrect. I've read it elsewhere and he actually said that if all the evidence turned against evolution he would immediately change his mind, which makes a lot more sense.dmullenix_{November 14, 2011
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Hello Vince. I was surprised to see my name in your piece. Thanks for the citation. Would you have the URL for that available? I don't remember it and I'd like to see where I failed you. I'm afraid I'm not very impressed with your five reasons for opposing abortion. (1) The entity (a) contains a developmental program (i.e. a complete set of instructions within the cell(s) of that entity, directing its development into a human adult), which has (b) already started running. (4) The entity is a biological organism, which physically embodies its own developmental program. So if it turned out that the mother was actually directing the development of the fetus and doing all of the assembly work using information that she possessed would you deny that the baby that resulted was really human? I doubt it, so #1 and #4 don't really matter. (2) The entity is the kind of thing that matures. More precisely: the entity is the kind of thing that has a mature developmental form. (3) The mature form of this kind of entity is a rational human adult. This is interesting, considering that we have apparently argued on First Things. I remember being shocked that several people on that magazine have expressed sincere regret that few Down syndrome babies are being born lately. I know they're shocked because they're being aborted first, but doesn't that strike you as being creepy that an apparently decent person is sad because fewer Down syndrome babies are being born than there used to be? But judging by #2 and #3, you won't share their sadness, at least for the portion of those fetus's whose Down syndrome damage will be so strong that the babies will never develop into rational adult human beings. Right? (5) The entity is a whole organism, and not merely a body part. Well, I question the use of the word "whole" here, since the "entity" is in fact missing both arms, both legs, both eyes, both ears, it's nose and all of its internal organs. It is in fact, missing ALL body parts. Question: Suppose you start with a rational adult human being and turn him over to a torturer/executioner and that t.e. starts hacking off body parts. I think we would all agree that if he hacks off an arm, the victim is still a human. Ditto with both arms, or a leg or both legs. He'd still be a human without any appendages at all. He'd still be a human if his eyes were put out or his nose was cut off or his ears were amputated and his eardrums were broken. If the t.e. were really skillful, he might remove the victim's heart and lungs and keep him alive on a heart-lung machine and he'd still be a human being. And I'm sure he'd live a little while if he also removed his stomach, liver, kidneys and all his other internal organs. He might be the most miserable human being on the face of the earth, but if he could be kept alive he would still be a human being. But if the torturer/executioner shot the victim in the head, that would be it for him. Destroy the brain and the arms, legs, eyes, ears and all the other organs don't matter. They can be in perfect shape or they can be destroyed, if the brain is still intact and functioning the victim is still a rational human being. I think that's the real key to abortion. What counts is the functioning brain. More specifically, the mind that the brain produces. If it doesn't exist, you don't have a human being, just human flesh. And of course, the brain doesn't really begin to function until birth. Reading your arguments, I think you started with a rational adult human being and worked your way back to conception to see what stayed constant all the way. It turned out that being a discreet organism was all the two have in common, so that became your criteria for human-beingism and the other four reasons were added to bulk up your argument some. My suggestion is that you start thinking of abortion by asking what does a rational adult human human being possess that makes it worthy of what we call "human rights". I'm betting that you will eventually be forced to settle on a functioning brain - a mind. Then you can start asking if a fetus has a mind. Then you can start asking whether any other animals deserve "human rights" and then you can start wondering about other organisms, such as extra-terrestrials and then about non-organisms such as the fictional R2-DE and C3PO of Star Wars fame. My score would be:fertilized egg up to birth - no. Apes - yes, at least for the human rights we give a child. I don't think I'd let them vote. Other animals: Some rights, at least the right to live and live reasonably freely. (I'm thinking of pets and larger animals here.) All other sentient creatures: certainly the right to not be tortured. Space aliens: If you can talk to them, full human rights. (Maybe not voting - they aren't citizens after all.) Robots: Same as space aliens. You can eventually come up with a very defensible philosophy, something that has completely escaped ALL of the "pro-life" people to date.dmullenix_{November 14, 2011
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@Dr. Torley,
I’m rather astonished that Eigenstate is seriously maintaining that in order to qualify as a Dawkins-style atheist, you have to be a self-satisfied one. It’s simply nonsense, because today’s New Atheists themselves wouldn’t qualify, by that criterion.
None of these quotes you provide below this go toward the point you are making here. Understanding and affirming the soothing gratifications and various conceits that Christianity and other forms of theism offer does NOT deny or impinge on the fulfillment of one's atheism, IF one values the gratifications of clear, rigorous, objective(ish) thinking. I was a Christian for decades so both well understand and affirm these same gratifications. It would be great, I think sometimes, to have my consciousness persist after death. It would be gratifying if some form of final and thorough justice were levied, at least upon the people I think were particularly nasty and abusive in this life. None of that be denied or diminished. It just isn't compensation for the kind of fulfillment realized (for some, and Dawkins explicitly puts himself in this category) by eschewing those shallow, imaginary gratifications (and that's a charitable label, many of them are simply conceits) in favor of a disciplined, creative and accountable mind and belief framework. That's why I reiterated the point with regard to Gil. It's not that Dawkins can't appreciate those gratifications. When Dawkins surveys the spectrum, their charms and value is just insufficient in light of the alternative he is comparing it, too. The "materialist concept of meaning and purpose" is far less grandiose than the Christian appeals to our narcissism. It's humble by comparison in terms of "cosmic splendor", admittedly. But that deficit is, for many, more than compensated for by the understanding that the materialist concept of meaning and purpose in life is ACTUAL, and not an exercise in self-deception and anodyne self-aggrandizing.The universe doesn't care, and there is no God, but your daughter cares that you are her father, and the hungry, homeless person cares that you work to bring some shelter or food or medicine to him. And the sunny fall day outside is coldly impersonal -- it's just the weather -- but you are still quite comfort with it's purpose, as an environment for enjoying a brisk walk with your trusty dog at your side. Your wife will be as dead and decayed and annihilated as a person as you will be one thousand years hence, but there purpose in fulfilling the desires for a nice night out on the town, and pleasure of each other's company and affection. That doesn't deny any of the you-will-be-saved-and-you'll-live-forever-and-all-justice-will-finally-be-achieved stuff. It doesn't ignore the appeal of an almighty creator God having a personal interest in little ole you. That kind of belief framework just doesn't find that kind of appeal to be actual, credible, or otherwise sufficient to compete with the fulfillments offered by having the sense to deny all of that.eigenstate_{November 13, 2011
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vjtorley, I actually agree with much of this post, and hope that much of the UD crowd read it. I usually hear on UD that atheists, especially the “New Atheists”, are biased against religion and “don’t want there to be a God” (usually for some odd reason about not wanting justice to exist, or something). I think there are very few atheists that would be disappointed if evolution were disproven. And very few atheists would be disappointed if it were discovered that there’s everlasting life and God. I do have doubts that Gil was ever a “Dawkins-style atheist” though. I’ve never met a “Dawkins-style atheist” that thought that “science had it all figured out”. Not even Dawkins himself: “we must acknowledge the possibility that new facts may come to light which will force our successors of the twenty-first century to abandon Darwinism or modify it beyond recognition.”goodusername_{November 13, 2011
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Eocine: Thanks for you comment. However, I never thought this discussion was about the Bible. My spiritual perspective does not arise from Christianity, and in fact I do not take the Bible as an authority on anything, although there is some spiritual truth contained therein. Furthermore, Dr. Torley has stated that his post was intended to demonstrate that an embryo is as valuable as a fully developed human being without reference to any religious belief at all.Bruce David_{November 13, 2011
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Hi everyone, I'm rather astonished that Eigenstate is seriously maintaining that in order to qualify as a Dawkins-style atheist, you have to be a self-satisfied one. It's simply nonsense, because today's New Atheists themselves wouldn't qualify, by that criterion. Have a look at this post on Uncommon Descent. It's a report on the 2007 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference in London included a “social” occasion in which Richard Dawkins, Steve Jones, and Lewis Wolpert all participated in a “debate” in the London Museum of Natural History.:
While Wolpert generally supported the views of both Dawkins and Jones, he also suggested that there were some problems with natural selection bringing about speciation. Dawkins in turn stated that he saw no reason why a mouse could not de-evolve into a sub-species and then re-evolve with wings. Wolpert disagreed, which led Dawkins to say “Lewis, you are starting to sound like a creationist.” Whereupon Wolpert responded, “It is funny that you should say that. [pause] Sometimes in the dark of the night, I wish that it (creationism) were true.”
Or have a look at Jerry Coyne's post, Once again: does religion produce knowledge?:
Religions have both carrots and sticks, but the whole package is certainly one that many adherents swallow as a whole. Can anyone deny that the thought of a benevolent sky father, one who, if you behave yourself, will take care of you and help you obviate death, is something that people want to be true?
Or here's a report in Christianity Today on Christopher Hitchens, who is currently in the advanced stages of esophageal cancer (someone whom we should keep in our prayers, by the way):
Instead of the “false consolations of religion,” which he equates with superstition, Hitchens said he places his trust in medical science and the support of friends and family.
Hitchens, while rejecting religion, nevertheless acknowledges its consolations. Oh, and here's Karl Marx :
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Marx too acknowledges that religion brings happiness - even if he considers it illusory. He says he understands it: as long as human economic conditions remain bad, he claims, people will feel the need for its consolations. Wolpert, Coyne, Hitchens and Marx all acknowledge the consolations of religion, and none of them, I think could be fairly characterized as not wishing that it were true. Eigenstate says you have to be self-satisfied in order to qualify as a bona fide New atheist. I wonder how many of the New atheists would be left standing if his criterion were applied strictly. Hmmm.... maybe not even Dawkins himself? Dawkins sang "Amazing Grace" — in a church, every word, loud and clear, at the wedding of Charles Simonyi, according to Susan Hutchison. See here . Dawkins himself apparently has a different recollection now - claiming that he couldn't have sung it because he doesn't know the words. Considering that he attended Oundle, a Church of England school, from 1954 to 1959, according to Wikipedia, I find that somewhat implausible. In any case, Dawkins acknowledges the consolation of religion in this interview here . He just says that doesn't make it true. He does say, though: "If all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it and I would immediately change my mind. As things stand, however, all available evidence — and there is a vast amount of it — favors evolution." That doesn't sound like a man who's happy that there's no God.vjtorley_{November 13, 2011
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--eisengate: "I freely grant that Dawkins-style atheism leaves many people feeling cold. They don’t want to embrace it, even (especially) if it’s true. That’s been my point through this issue — this is not Gil’s thing, and never was, quite obviously, just by the way he talks about his atheism AND his theism. It isn’t until one understands that Dawkins’ atheism doesn’t have anything like that effect on Dawkins, that one can see the absurdity of Gil’s claims." Well, let’s see. Reflecting on his personal history of intense partisanship, Gil describes himself as a Darwkins-style atheist, which would be consistent with Dawkins’ no concession policy. For you, on the other hand, Dawkins-style atheism is less about partisanship and more about self satisfaction. For me, though, Dawkins-style atheism is less about self satisfaction and more about bad philosophy posing as good science. Did it ever occur to you that there might be several facets to Dawkins-style atheism and that your assessment of what it means is no better than anyone else's. Obviously, such characterizations are subjective. Inasmuch as you attacked Gil’s credibility on the puny grounds that his account of Darwkins-style atheism doesn’t match your definition, perhaps I should, in the same petty fashion, attack your credibility on the grounds that your account of Dawkins-style atheism doesn’t align with my definition. I would not do that, however, any more than I would attack another blogger whose definition of eisengate-style pettiness takes a different form than my definition of eisengate-style pettiness. In fact, eisengate-style pettiness is a mulifacted phenomenon, just as Dawkins-style atheism is a multifaced phenomenon, and no one should presume to define either curiosity in a single sentence.StephenB_{November 13, 2011
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@CannuckianYankee, The same rules would apply to Dawkins himself that apply to Gil, no? We can't read minds. If Dawkins ISN'T really a fulfilled atheist, who finds the atheism that accompanies his worldview gratifying, meaningful, prosperous, etc., he's no more credible when later succumbing to the CS Lewis appeal than Gil is. If Dawkins' goes from "premise to conclusion" and does reverse all his stated values and priorities, then he'd be the first one to say that he, Dawkins, has ceased to be a "Dawkins-style atheist" as the term applied before his conversion. In transition, he would be some new kind of Dawkins-style atheism -- Dawkins Atheism Mark II, identified by angst, despair and melancholy as an unbeliever in tacitly affirming theo-centric definitions of meaning and purpose. Dawkins can change his mind, and retreat from his current Dawkins-style atheism. But in that case, we just have a naming problem. Dawkins is now not a "Dawkins-style atheist" in the extant meaning of the term, just as Gil never was an atheist in that mode. We may need to find a new term to apply - Angsty-Dawkins-style atheism? -- but in any case, Richard would have ceased to be a "Dawkins-style atheist" as that term currently connotes.eigenstate_{November 13, 2011
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Eigenstate, So I suppose then that if Dawkins were to become a theist out of dissatisfaction with his own form of atheism, having looked over carefully his own assumptions and examined them "from premise to conclusion," (to borrow from William J Murray), and found it lacking, then he wasn't really a Dawkins-style atheist to begin with? "OK, that makes perfect sense to me." Is that what you expect me or anyone else while carefully examining your rationale, to say here? Unlikely.CannuckianYankee_{November 13, 2011
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There's been an attempt to reason on this apart from religion, but I don't know if that works. I'm what you might call pro-life*, but really only because of what the Bible says. If the Bible did not describe an embryo as a potential person with all its parts already designated, I wouldn't see any reason not to abort it. The foundation for the belief that an embryo is a person is scriptural. Our arguments boil down to, "God says so." (Not that reasoning of the OP isn't valid, but I don't see a pregnant teenager taking it into account.) There is no basis for convincing an atheist of it. Half of the people who do believe in God don't even care about it. *I don't like labels. I don't picket or bomb abortion clinics. I believe that a woman is responsible for the life within her, and it is not my place to force a decision on her. I won't complain if abortion becomes illegal, but I have no interest in legislating my beliefs. Everything that I learn from the scriptures is for me to do and teach, not to judge or coerce.ScottAndrews2_{November 13, 2011
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@CannuckianYankee, I freely grant that Dawkins-style atheism leaves many people feeling cold. They don't want to embrace it, even (especially) if it's true. That's been my point through this issue -- this is not Gil's thing, and never was, quite obviously, just by the way he talks about his atheism AND his theism. It isn't until one understands that Dawkins' atheism doesn't have anything like that effect on Dawkins, that one can see the absurdity of Gil's claims. I'm fine with your identifying Dawkins' fulfillment as a "leap of faith"; I don't agree with that assessment, and think Dawkins' fulfillment comes precisely from eschewing such leaps, but it doesn't matter. Call it a leap of faith for the purposes of this exchange. The point remains that even if that's the case, it still puts paid to Gil's posing. Wrong or right, your view or mind, it's STILL incompatible with "falling into angst that is remedied by... C.S. Lewis". That's the profile of an anti-Dawkins, the kid who really DOES believe in God (even if not from a religious family or practice) and wants to be a rebel, who wants to "climb up in God's lap so he can slap his face". And then, when the thrill of rebelling wears off, come back home to a hero's welcome for the man who plumbed the depths of the abyss, who wasn't just a rebel, wasn't just a garden variety heathen, but was Dawkinsian in his atheism, and was yet saved by God's insuperable grace. Etc. Etc. Etc.eigenstate_{November 12, 2011
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Eigenstate, You make Dawkins out to sound like some sort of "true believer" rather than the "unbeliever" he claims to be. This is partly why I find your characterization of Gil as not having been a Dawkins-style atheist (call it "true believer") to be somewhat presumptuous. Gil apparently didn't buy into it as much as Dawkins currently has when those times of doubt arose, and looked into something else that had more intellectual promise - and promise fulfilled. That's what I see him saying. You seem to be saying that you must buy into it fully, or you're not an atheist of the Dawkins type, and that to me sounds awfully close to a leap of faith rather than the grand "intellectually fulfilled" foray into pure and unfettered science confirmed logic that many atheists claim as uniquely their own. Grant that Dawkins-style atheism leaves some people cold. Grant that someone like Dawkins could one day re-examine his/her atheism and find it lacking all the wondrous promises heaped upon it; like when it finally dawns on him/her, as the writer of Ecclesiastes came to perceive "All is meaningless and chasing after wind," and I think you'll be closer to reality.CannuckianYankee_{November 12, 2011
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@CannuckianYankee
So I would propose to Eigenstadt that perhaps Dawkins too has his melancholic moments of doubt as well; he just doesn’t show it in the verbal ways in which one could detect it easily. However, some of that “doubt” seems to be manifest in the manner in which he deals with those he disagrees with; particularly with those he thinks are creationists. He seems quite angry at times as if he has some sort of evangelical duty to convert the “idiots” to his way of thinking for their own good; and this need seems to contradict the very worldview he’s trying to convert them to. It shouldn’t matter, but it does. There’s got to be some melancholic doubt rising in there somewhere.
The armchair psychology aside (1) one doesn't need some Freudian dissonance to see the benefits of anti-theism; 2) Dawkins is dialectical, not coercive, an advocate for both liberty and peaceful, non-violent progress away from religious practice and faith; 3) if your community were intent on teaching kids and everyone else that astrology did indeed determine the cosmic fate of every individual per their position against the zodaic, your "evangelism" wouldn't be any more hard to explain than combatting malign and destructive nonsense), I'm quite sure Dawkins has those kinds of moments of doubt, despair, etc. He has, in his books and speeches, variously recounted, in blunt, harsh terms, the "cynical interpretation" of a clear-eyed and rigorous look at the world around him. There is no "cosmic purpose", and life IS "meaningless" on parochial Christian sense of that world (i.e. meaning is solely obtain by the valuation of something by God). But it's these very moments, and the way Dawkins' beliefs perform and interact with those moments that make "Dawkins-style atheism" the kind of paradigm that is totally incompatible with Gil's narrative. It is in these moments, in struggling with those insights into reality, that proves out the integrity an fulfilling nature of Dawkins' atheism. It's because of Dawkins' "Dawkins-style atheism" that he DOESN'T fall for the sophistical prose in Mere Christianity, for example. To find refuge in that is to deny the very thing that Dawkins' embraces most deeply. So it's not that Dawkins, or other similar-thinking atheists don't have those moments. They do, and it is the interaction of that form of atheism in those very moments that proves out and tests that form of atheism. For Dawkins', that form of atheism IS sustaining, fulfilling, effective, creative, enlightening and discerning even and ESPECIALLY at those moments. If Gil was a "Dawkins-style atheist", it would be at just those points where he falls into despair that his atheism sustains, clarifies, fulfills, and strengthens him. He was just some other kind of unbeliever, based on what he's said. There's lots of other kinds.eigenstate_{November 12, 2011
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@Gil,
Please write coherently in the future so I can figure out what you are talking about. Is it incomprehensible that I was once a Dawkins-style atheist who changed his mind, based on evidence and experience with the real world, and not that I have some nefarious creative memory?
Sure it's conceivable, it's just not a reasonable conclusion based on what you wrote, and have written. Look I don't doubt that you changed your mind about God, but it's not plausible that you were a Dawkins-style atheist who fell for the theology of C.S. Lewis, or whatever other things soothed your angst, your "inner Sartre". That would not be Dawkins-style atheism, because Dawkins holds his atheism as the very antidote for the angst and melancholy you were wallowing in the first place. You think Dawkins-style atheism is Sartre or Camus. It's not, not at all. It's a godless form of C.S. Lewis, so to speak. It's an atheism that for him is fulfilling, meaningful, enriching, expansive, and numinous in a secular sense. That's all there for you to discover. But by all the signs, you just aren't familiar with the man's writing, speaking and ideas beyond a superficial, "Christian bogeyman" level. If you were, it would be obvious how conspicuously implausible your history is with "Dawkins-style atheism". Think about it, perhaps in brutally simple terms. You are telling us: 1. I was a fulfilled, dedicated, prosperous and happy atheist. 2. As a result, I fell into hopelessness, angst, and despair! 3. Then I read C.S. Lewis, and had a daughter. 4. Now I'm a happy, fulfilled Christian! 1. and 2. conflict with each other. if 1 was true, 2 wouldn't be true. Readers who understand this are just forced to conclude that you simply don't understand what "Dawkins-style atheism" involves.eigenstate_{November 12, 2011
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Dr. Torley,
Telic language is not, as you maintain, an anthropomorphic projection. Teleology is ineliminable from science – even at the inorganic level. Anything that has a tendency to bring about a certain effect E (e.g. the tendency of white phosphorus to generate an explosion in the presence of air) is inherently directed at that effect: it has a disposition which is inherently directed towards the generation of that specific effect (e.g. an explosion). If it didn’t, then literally everything would be an accident. Scientists don’t believe that; they believe that there are laws of nature, which describes natural tendencies of matter/energy. As Professor Edward Feser puts it: if A tends to cause B, then causing B must be inherent or natural to A. There’s nothing anthropomorphic here. If you believe that things have dispositions, then you believe in teleology.
Sure, I have no problem with this. "Impersonal teleology" as a long-form way of saying "law" or "principle" in physics is just fine with me. The problem is the map/territory conflation, where this kind of language begins to equivocate an become confused with the semantics of teleology as directed-by-agents. The product of a willed plan, in other words. I don't have any objection to using agent-telic language either. I will just politely point out where the equivocation becomes problematic. It's worth pointing this out, contra Feser: "dispositions" in the way Feser and others conceive them are retrodictive. We apply tautological tools to our physics as a means of thinking and talking about the subject. Mass attracts mass becomes, per Feserian swizzling, "Mass is disposed to move toward other mass", or even more anthropomorphically "Mass wants to move toward mass". It's all the same physical dynamic; it is what is no matter what we language we use to discuss it. But I only believe things have dispositions as a matter of description and pedagogy. They don't "want" anything or "seek" anything in any agency-directed way. The physical laws and the substance of spacetime are such that mass [behaves physical in such a way that we describe it as "attracts"] mass. This is an area where humans are easily "bewitched by language" (and Feser is a flamboyant example of this problem, as are most followers of Aquinas), but keep in mind that "disposition" is the "map" you use to conceptualize the territory so your human brain can make some headway on the issue. The map is not the territory. Mass does not "beckon" or "desire" or "tempt" or "pull" other mass in any way that matches our anthropomorphic senses of the term. These are just the best terms we can come up with to conceptualize the dynamic. So yes, I certainly believe "things have dispositions", but that expands to "[what we call 'things'] have [experience-based patterns of dynamism that is regular enough for us to identify as a principle and which we call "disposition" for lack of a better term, being of teleocentric mind]". The "disposition" isn't any more intrinsic than the word "blue" is intrinsic to the sky. Gravity is what it is, and the sky is has the spectral features it has, no matter what handles and concepts we assess them with. Things have "handles-which-we-call-dispositions-so-we-can-talk-about-them". And even that isn't complete: using "have" there is prejudicial and problematic, as well. But that just points up the futility of being pedantic here. It makes effective manipulation of these ideas terribly cumbersome. So we "cheat" to our advantage, and use some handy telic shorthand, and it's good that we do. But we fall into error when we forget that "disposition" is a "map" feature, and not part of the terrain.
Your truck example is a badly confused one, on two counts. First, you liken the extrinsic finality of the truck parts (e.g. its engine), whose teleology depends on the ends of their human designers, to the intrinsic finality of the cell’s parts, whose teleology can be described perfectly well in English, regardless of whether you believe cells were originally designed or not. You seem to think that telic language implicitly refers to the end of some designing agent, and you state that “there is no agent that is willing or directing any design”. Extrinsic finality requires an explicit postulation of a designer; intrinsic finality does not.
That doesn't change anything, as I understand it. The "man-made-ness" of the truck/engine is not relevant to the point I was making regarding the language. I could invoke anthropomorphic humans use in reference to organic, non-man-made objects just as well, and it would illustrate the same point. Extrinsic finality doesn't impinge upon our choices to engage in anthropmorphic language or not. I might just as well have used the example of referring to the creek out in my back yard: "she's running a little lower this fall than last fall, and her water's much more muddy". That just obviates the need to bother with the issue you raise here. The stream is no more dependent on human designers than the cell is. I'll just chalk that up to my not choosing an example more carefully.
My pro-life essay is written for people who don’t believe in an agent who designed the cell or anything else in Nature. Even an atheist can legitimately say, for instance, that the function of a mitochondrion is to generate ATP for the cell. Even if (per impossibile) there were no God and no intelligent minds whatsoever in existence, that statement about the function of a mitochondrion would still be true. Likewise, the fact that the heart is for pumping blood is an objective fact. You don’t have to believe in God or any other agent in order to believe it’s true.
Agreed. But it requires that we stipulate what we mean by "for". It's not a term that entails design, foresight, or any agency it all. It is just descriptive as a matter of retrospect. We observe the dynamics of hearts and blood, and "retro-infer", as teleocentric beings, that pumping blood is what the heart is "for", as a matter of pedagogy. The heart and the blood know nothing and care nothing about this. They just are what they are. We humans struggle to avoid being "bewitched by language", and to keep map features distinct from the territory as we make efforts to render the world around us more intelligible. In an animal, the heart certain is "for" pumping blood. The animal requires a means of blood circulation to function. But this "for" is the kind of "for" as "mass is FOR attracting other mass". This is hard stuff, I grant, and very tricky as a matter of avoiding map/territory confusion. Thinking about extramental reality in performative ways is difficult because we are so adept at analogical thinking, and analogical thinking is fraught with dangers (again, this blog is a terrific museum of this problem). Calling DNA "a program" is useful at an elementary/beginner level, but misleading and deceptive at a nuanced level. You are probably aware of the regular efforts in Christian circles to explain and conceptualize the Trinity for children or newcomers to the faith. Perhaps you've heard "The Trinity is like a triangle" as one attempt at such an explanation. While we can see the rationale behind this attempt, and some superficial pedagogical power there, on the whole, most Christian theologians I know would agree this is a counterproductive bit of analogical thinking (for reasons I suspect we both understand and don't need to delve into here). DNA-as-language, or things-having-agent-like-dispositions are similarly problematic. I can certainly see the superficial value and traction of DNA-as-language, but the overall impact of that kind of analogical thinking is to mislead and confuse rather than inform, if you develop a textured familiarity with the biology it addresses.
You suggest that the statement, “The heart is for pumping blood” is a convenient short-hand for, “The heart’s pumping blood is the long term result of a biological exploration of a fitness landscape, with cumulative effects of successful adaptation accruing along the way.” I’ve already explained why this attempted reduction won’t work. William Harvey knew nothing about evolution but he could still figure out what the heart was for, without looking at its evolutionary history. I also used the well known example of “Swamp man” – a creature with a heart that suddenly coalesces from a swamp – to argue that its heart would still be for pumping blood, even though it had no evolutionary history. Function and history are two different things.
No, I don't suppose any of this is contingent on an evolutionary history as far as using our terms go. Harvey was projecting backwards, like you and I do naturally: this things works that way, so we naturally describe this thing as "existing for" that function. Knowledge or ignorance of the evolutionary history doesn't change this one way or the other.
What about an elderly person in a hospital with a weak heart ,which is prone to occasional failure? We could say that the elderly person’s heart is “trying to” beat properly, but this would be anthropomorphic language, and there’s no need for it. What we mean here is simply that the heart is not functioning as it would if it were a normal heart. This kind of language is teleological but not anthropomorphic; it’s just a statement of medical fact.
There's nothing wrong with anthropomorphic language. It's often quite useful, and aesthetically appealing, boot. We just have to be vigilant in watching out for confusing our teleocentric ways of conceiving the world around us with a teleocentric mechanism AS the world around us. As long as we don't conflate and confuse, it's all good.
I’m not making a general point here that would apply to all of the attributes and qualities of state B; rather, what I’m saying is that if an entity in state B has natural rights, it would be more sensible to ground those rights not in the entity’s states, but in the underlying program which generates them.
Ahh, well, here is where I can things really going off the rails, then. If this is a secular appeal, as you claim, then... what's the technical term for my reaction..... oh yeah: WTF??? In secular terms, those rights are grounded in states (e.g. electrical activity in the frontal cortex as the trigger/predicate for legal personhood) because the rights are synthetic. They are legal devices, social constructs, collective value judgments. What is this "natural right" you speak of, asks the secular reader. That's an undefined term as you have it, stripped from states of being and functional, actual capabilities (e.g. the ability to experience pain and suffering, and to be aware that one is in a state of pain and suffering). Sorry, Dr. Torley, but this is where you and secularism part ways, big time. The problem is only exacerbated by your confusion over the "program which generates them" idea. This is gratuitously anthropomorphic language at work, for transparently telic reasons -- you are indeed trading on future states, just apparently in hopes that I, or perhaps even you won't notice. ;-) It cannot be anything more than special pleading as you have it, because a puddle levels out to form a flat surface of the water filling it as part of "program which generates puddle shapes" in precisely the same way you suppose a zygote is running a "program which generates adult, sentient human beings". "Running a program" is just a human conceptual projection, that can be applied to any law based and/or repetitive process. (This is where you've fallen into a "simplistic trap" similar to thinking that yeah, I really can understand the Trinity by thinking about it analogically like a triangle -- "DNA as a language" or "Cell as an operating system" are superficially good as analogical thinking and rigorously bad as analogical thinking). That said, maybe you can refer me to your preamble somewhere regarding the secular semantics of "natural rights" APART from states of being? That seems a crucial part of all this that I can't locate from you.
In reply: legal rights are not the same as natural rights. Your point is perfectly valid for the former, but not for the latter. Natural rights are grounded in a thing’s nature, so it makes sense to base them on the most fundamental feature of that thing. In the case of a living organism, that’s its developmental program. The right to life is not conferred on us by society, unlike the right to vote or drink alcohol.
This is perfectly incoherent in secular terms. I totally understand this as a theistic construct; it's bootstrapped in the sovereignty of God as creator in some supposed capacity to "establish value" by divine fiat. I don't agree with that view, but it's coherent, once you stipulate the existence of such a deity. Natural rights on secular terms obtain as value judgments about states of being or capabilities. Expressed negatively, they are NOT, and cannot be (else you have theism) grounded in "future states" or mere potential. That presupposes some personal telos, some fiat-from-divine will that by definition cannot be reified in secular terms. That's why you see the kinds of positions you do from secularists. Singer's support for sentientism eschews future states because it MUST. Future states as the basis for rights presupposes a divine (or otherwise normative) authority, a goal "blessed" by some divine will. If you take away divine will, the future states predicate doesn't get off the ground. So what if the zygote doesn't become what it might have become? There's no god that cares, and the zygote is just a clump of unthinking cells. It does not and cannot care, or even be the least bit aware. This should be easy to see from your own perspective by just considering the case of the human sperm and egg. They are each "for" (per your semantics) combining so as to produce a zygote, and thereafter a functioning, sentient human being. Why isn't preventing fertilization a deprivation of the "natural rights" of the sperm and egg? They are each "running a program" which aims at producing a human being. This just falls on the other side of your divine fiat (or maybe not if you are a conservative Catholic!). But the zygote is no more running a program toward human individual than the sperm is. It's just one frame lower in the stack, to use programming terminology. If the unthinking, non-sentient sperm or egg are not "possessed of natural rights to human life", then neither can the zygote be, on secular terms. For a secularist, one has to appeal to the states of being and faculties which we want to protect. "Assigned rights" versus "natural rights" as you understand "natural rights". Thanks for the thoughtful reply.eigenstate_{November 12, 2011
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Gil, I think what Eigenstate is essentially saying is that you couldn't have been a Dawkins-style atheist because Dawkins is fulfilled in his atheism, and therefore would never have a need to think otherwise. He would never, like you, feel the need to re-examine his atheism, because there's nothing troubling him about it. Well maybe not, until such time as there is something troubling about it. It sounds rather presumptuous to me. I would say that a person who is not prepared to be bothered in some way with what they claim to believe, has not really done the examination it takes to believe it. In other words, if Dawkins had not had his moments of doubt regarding atheism, one wonders how strongly and thoroughly he has thought it out. It then becomes a belief system that stands rather uncomfortably close to a blind faith commitment, wherein one avoids the uncomfortable and trumps up the wondrous. That might be an accurate way of depicting the current Dawkins milieu, but we're not prophets or mind readers here. We simply don't know, and that's why it sounds presumptuous to me. So I would propose to Eigenstadt that perhaps Dawkins too has his melancholic moments of doubt as well; he just doesn't show it in the verbal ways in which one could detect it easily. However, some of that "doubt" seems to be manifest in the manner in which he deals with those he disagrees with; particularly with those he thinks are creationists. He seems quite angry at times as if he has some sort of evangelical duty to convert the "idiots" to his way of thinking for their own good; and this need seems to contradict the very worldview he's trying to convert them to. It shouldn't matter, but it does. There's got to be some melancholic doubt rising in there somewhere.CannuckianYankee_{November 12, 2011
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Eigenstate: ...man-from-monkeys evolutionist is a Dawkins-style evolution... Please write coherently in the future so I can figure out what you are talking about. Is it incomprehensible that I was once a Dawkins-style atheist who changed his mind, based on evidence and experience with the real world, and not that I have some nefarious creative memory?GilDodgen_{November 12, 2011
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Bruce David: "Well, I agree it’s not absurd, but being saved from absurdity is not a very strong argument. Do you have any evidence for the truth of this belief?" ==== Ultimately if there were a creator, this creator would have the ultimate say in whether or not is was or wasn't. In that we are talking about the Bible here, then yes there are scriptures in both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures which support the fact that abortion would be killing and that should be the biggest basis for christians. However, is there actual science behind conscientiosness, emotions, feelings or at least at what point those develope ??? More and more research is finding out that unborn babies do respond somewhat, but at what actual stage they begin this I can't say for sure. But from the biblical and scientific understanding, at conception there is definitely an entire blueprint or schematic for that particular human being. ---- Bruce David: "Well my whole point is that whether or not your case is convincing depends on one’s worldview." ==== No arguement there. ---- Bruce David: "It’s not convincing to me because I see the soul and the body as separate phenomena, . . " ==== Actually if you look up the Hebrew word 'nephesh' and Greek word 'psyche', you'll find they literally are nothing more than the life enjoyed by a living organism while it's alive on earth and both body/soul cease to exist at death. Nothing floats off into a netherworld. Such concepts didn't enter into Christianity until the second or third century. Animals are shown to be equal to humans at death, with humans having no superiority over animals in this respect. But that will get you alot of controversey around here. Often what you actually read and research when it comes to words/terms in the bible is far different than long held traditional dogmas and doctrines. Many during the Dark Ages and Medieval Times lost their lives for highlighting just such truths about the bible itself. One has to wonder why ??? It was also during those same times when the seeds of atheism began to germinate underground before appearing above ground centuries later. In any event, maybe that explains some things and acknowledges some similiarities of thought here.Eocene_{November 12, 2011
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Maybe I came in halfway here amd missed something ??? From your first post you seemed to be dealing with conscientiousness , emotions, etc. Perhaps an embryo being compare to a clear blank CD , is that correct ???
Vjtorley would give human rights to zygotes/embryos while I would not. The reason I wouldn’t is because, IMO, they don’t have “personhood” – no feelings, emotions, thoughts, etc. Vjtorley asked if I would value a cd of memories and implied that I would – although I’m not sure what I said to give that impression. My answer, essentially, was that not only would I not, but to illustrate the point, described how a heck of a lot more than that would need to be accomplished before I would even entertain the idea of valuing an object/machine in that way.
As time goes on more and more research is being found that an unborn child does have conscietiousness or self awareness as studies seem to show unborn child response and stimulation to music, reading , tone of voice and emotions.
Yes, agreed. While I would say that an embryo is not a “person”, I would say that an 8 month old fetus is. Where I would draw the line is, I fully admit, very problematic.goodusername_{November 12, 2011
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Hi Dr. Torley, Re. your second paragraph, you seem to be saying that as the sperm is travelling up the Fallopian tube towards the egg, there is no mind, and at the moment the sperm pierces the outer membrane of the egg, still no mind, but at the moment the DNA of the two is united and cell division begins, suddenly mind comes into being. Well, I agree it's not absurd, but being saved from absurdity is not a very strong argument. Do you have any evidence for the truth of this belief? You also said, "The whole point of my essay was that a pro-life case can be made without talk of God or a soul. All you need to recognize is that an embryo is a human organism with its own developmental program, which is already running. I can’t see why anything like that should be any less valuable than I am." Well my whole point is that whether or not your case is convincing depends on one's worldview. It's not convincing to me because I see the soul and the body as separate phenomena, and it is the soul which for me has intrinsic value because it is what we really are. The body is just a tool that is used during our temporary residences on this planet, and its value derives from the fact that having a body is necessary for us to be able to experience earthly life. On the other hand, a materialist might conclude that a developing embryo isn't a human being (or a "human organism" ) until it has the capacity to think and feel, and that capacity is completely dependent on a functioning central nervous system. Thus it isn't a human being until it has a well formed brain. In more general terms, my point is that there is no conclusive argument one way or the other, and each such argument depends to some extent at least on one's a priori assumptions regarding the nature of reality. Pro-lifers frequently (and annoyingly) just assume that it is a given that abortion is murder. It is no such thing. It is a matter for each individual's own conscience to decide.Bruce David_{November 12, 2011
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goodusername: "First, one would need to “somehow” (I have no idea how) “capture the complete personality of the person” onto the CD – not merely memories. Memories are only a part of what we are. Even if this monumental feat were somehow accomplished, I STILL would not view the CD as a person. After all, a cd is just an inanimate piece of matter. Even IF all the data required to form a mind/person were on a CD – there’s still no sentience, emotions, feelings, intelligence etc present." "And so yet ANOTHER monumental engineering feat would need to be accomplished, namely a robot or machine that is capable of displaying the sentience, emotions, feelings, thoughts (i.e. the “personality”) of the person on the CD (again, I have no idea how such a thing would be accomplished)." ==== In other words you'd have to accomplish on a CD the very reverse of what this scripture says about what happens to a living person at death: Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 Amplified Bible (AMP) (5) "For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; and they have no more reward [here], for the memory of them is forgotten." (6) "Their love and their hatred and their envy have already perished; neither have they any more a share in anything that is done under the sun." '''''''''''' So clearly, there is no conscientious thought, reasoning, no longer any massive amounts of data memory files of life's experiences and neither do any longer have any sort of emotions such as love , hate , jealousy , etc, etc, etc. At death it is clear here they cease to exist at the point of death. Death is always the opposite of life. The verse below is interesting as it compares the same eventuality of humans and all animals. Death is equal to all. This next scripture may interest you. "Ecclesiastes 3:19 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW) (19) "Humans and animals have the same destiny. One dies just like the other. All of them have the same breath of life. Humans have no advantage over animals. All of life is pointless." Maybe I came in halfway here amd missed something ??? From your first post you seemed to be dealing with conscientiousness , emotions, etc. Perhaps an embryo being compare to a clear blank CD , is that correct ??? As time goes on more and more research is being found that an unborn child does have conscietiousness or self awareness as studies seem to show unborn child response and stimulation to music, reading , tone of voice and emotions. Again, I came late here and no doubt from reading the OP there are clearly things I don't agree with. There may also be another thread here dealing with similiar subject matter, but for the moment I can't think of where I posted some of the same thoughts. Maybe this makes some things clearer, or maybe not.Eocene_{November 12, 2011
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Vjtorley/Eocene:
Even more preposterously, you are prepared to seriously entertain the notion that a person’s identity could be transferred to a CD which could be inserted into a robot. If the robot passed the Turing test for being that person, you’d be prepared to consider it as a continuation of that person. I have trouble believing that you seriously believe this.
Recall what the original question was – and look again at my answer. The question was if I would ascribe any ethical value to a CD of memories. I answered “no”, and since it was implied that I would (for some reason), I figured I would go through the list of requirements, yet again, before I would even entertain the notion of valuing a machine in such a way. First, one would need to “somehow” (I have no idea how) “capture the complete personality of the person” onto the CD – not merely memories. Memories are only a part of what we are. Even if this monumental feat were somehow accomplished, I STILL would not view the CD as a person. After all, a cd is just an inanimate piece of matter. Even IF all the data required to form a mind/person were on a CD – there’s still no sentience, emotions, feelings, intelligence etc present. And so yet ANOTHER monumental engineering feat would need to be accomplished, namely a robot or machine that is capable of displaying the sentience, emotions, feelings, thoughts (i.e. the “personality”) of the person on the CD (again, I have no idea how such a thing would be accomplished). If ALL of that is accomplished – and while speaking with the machine it seemed for all the world that I was speaking to the person I knew – and I couldn’t tell any difference, then in that case “I might very well consider” that I was in fact speaking to the same person I once knew. Is any of this feasible? I don’t know – but I was hardly trying to give the impression that it was in any way trivial or within reach – if anything, I was trying to give the opposite impression – my point was to explain just how trivial a “cd of memories” is to anything that I would even consider of human value.goodusername_{November 12, 2011
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Hi Bruce David, In response to what you wrote in 9.1.1.1.1, I'd like to invoke a distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic dependence. Plant growth is intrinsically dependent on the presence of carbon dioxide, water vapor and various nutrients. However, the dependence of plant growth on soil is merely extrinsic: nothing in the nature of a plant requires or presupposes the existence of soil, and indeed hydroponic agriculture is possible. Likewise, thinking and choosing are not intrinsically dependent on the existence of a nervous system. There is nothing about the nature of thinking, as such, that requires these things, and we can certainly imagine a life-form thinking even if it didn't have a nervous system: it might have some other kind of body, or it might not have a body at all. Thus it is not absurd to attribute a mind to a fertilized egg, even though it lacks a nervous system. Seeing, on the other hand, is intrinsically dependent on the existence of bodily organs that receive and transmit light; in the absence of these, there is no seeing, by definition. Thus it would be absurd to attribute sight to a fertilized egg, but it would not be absurd to attribute a mind to it. The intellect (which thinks) and will (which chooses) are extrinsically dependent on the body, but not intrinsically dependent. Rather than saying that they do not require a body in my post above, I should have said that they do not intrinsically require a body. After death, I believe we are in the hands of God. It is certainly a most unnatural thing for a soul to be separated from its body, and without God interposing, all our mental activities would shut down at the moment of death. The post-mortem state is extremely unnatural, which is why Jews, Christians and Muslims look forward to a resurrection, when we shall be complete again. Finally, I'd just like to say that even if I didn't believe in God or a soul, if I still believed that it was wrong to kill people, I'd include embryos in my definition of people. The whole point of my essay was that a pro-life case can be made without talk of God or a soul. All you need to recognize is that an embryo is a human organism with its own developmental program, which is already running. I can't see why anything like that should be any less valuable than I am.vjtorley_{November 12, 2011
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Hi Eigenstate, Thank you for your reply (10.1.1.1.1). I can't go any deeper, so I'll have to start a new thread here at #16. Telic language is not, as you maintain, an anthropomorphic projection. Teleology is ineliminable from science - even at the inorganic level. Anything that has a tendency to bring about a certain effect E (e.g. the tendency of white phosphorus to generate an explosion in the presence of air) is inherently directed at that effect: it has a disposition which is inherently directed towards the generation of that specific effect (e.g. an explosion). If it didn't, then literally everything would be an accident. Scientists don't believe that; they believe that there are laws of nature, which describes natural tendencies of matter/energy. As Professor Edward Feser puts it: if A tends to cause B, then causing B must be inherent or natural to A. There's nothing anthropomorphic here. If you believe that things have dispositions, then you believe in teleology. Your truck example is a badly confused one, on two counts. First, you liken the extrinsic finality of the truck parts (e.g. its engine), whose teleology depends on the ends of their human designers, to the intrinsic finality of the cell's parts, whose teleology can be described perfectly well in English, regardless of whether you believe cells were originally designed or not. You seem to think that telic language implicitly refers to the end of some designing agent, and you state that "there is no agent that is willing or directing any design". Extrinsic finality requires an explicit postulation of a designer; intrinsic finality does not. My pro-life essay is written for people who don't believe in an agent who designed the cell or anything else in Nature. Even an atheist can legitimately say, for instance, that the function of a mitochondrion is to generate ATP for the cell. Even if (per impossibile) there were no God and no intelligent minds whatsoever in existence, that statement about the function of a mitochondrion would still be true. Likewise, the fact that the heart is for pumping blood is an objective fact. You don't have to believe in God or any other agent in order to believe it's true. You suggest that the statement, "The heart is for pumping blood" is a convenient short-hand for, "The heart's pumping blood is the long term result of a biological exploration of a fitness landscape, with cumulative effects of successful adaptation accruing along the way." I've already explained why this attempted reduction won't work. William Harvey knew nothing about evolution but he could still figure out what the heart was for, without looking at its evolutionary history. I also used the well known example of "Swamp man" - a creature with a heart that suddenly coalesces from a swamp - to argue that its heart would still be for pumping blood, even though it had no evolutionary history. Function and history are two different things. Second, I'm afraid the examples you provide of anthropomorphic language when describing trucks are not very good ones. Apart from the use of the feminine gender, there's nothing wrong with the sentence "She's running well at the moment" to describe the operation of a truck engine: it's literally true. To say, on the other hand, that the engine is "trying to start" is indeed anthropomorphic, but it's just convenient short-hand for: "The truck driver is trying to start the engine, but the engine is not functioning properly". What about an elderly person in a hospital with a weak heart ,which is prone to occasional failure? We could say that the elderly person's heart is "trying to" beat properly, but this would be anthropomorphic language, and there's no need for it. What we mean here is simply that the heart is not functioning as it would if it were a normal heart. This kind of language is teleological but not anthropomorphic; it's just a statement of medical fact. Regarding Singer's prince->king example, you write:
Singer’s point keeps its equity in the parts that do support the isomorphism: StateA -> StateB does NOT imply that the attributes and qualities of StateB transitively apply to StateA. That’s all.
I agree. My point with the embryo is that this is not a complete description of the situation. What we have is: Developmental program that transforms A to B and is currently at state A, followed by: state B. I'm not making a general point here that would apply to all of the attributes and qualities of state B; rather, what I'm saying is that if an entity in state B has natural rights, it would be more sensible to ground those rights not in the entity's states, but in the underlying program which generates them. Finally, you write:
Singer could have said, if he were to anticipate your objection, that we should rather consider the cast that a 7 year old boy does not have legal accountability assigned to him in the same way it would be assigned to him at 27. Tom, our 7 year old, will predictably become a 27 year old man, and on the same terms as your zygote becomes a 27 year old adult. But between 7 and 27, the "arrow" happens: Tom7->Tom27, and this is fundamental to the status of Tom as a legal person. At 27, barring any extenuating mental problems, he has reached the age of competence and legal accountability.
In reply: legal rights are not the same as natural rights. Your point is perfectly valid for the former, but not for the latter. Natural rights are grounded in a thing's nature, so it makes sense to base them on the most fundamental feature of that thing. In the case of a living organism, that's its developmental program. The right to life is not conferred on us by society, unlike the right to vote or drink alcohol. You may recall that at the very beginning of my Introduction, I wrote:
[In this article] ... I shall simply assume as a "given" that human persons matter in their own right, and that it is (always or almost always) wrong to intentionally kill them. I am of course aware that there are some philosophers who reject the idea that human persons matter in their own right and who regard morality as a purely social construct, but I have yet to hear a convincing explanation from these philosophers as to why it would be wrong to kill a wandering stateless nomad in the Sahara desert. However, most atheists do accept the premise that human persons matter in their own right, and I shall be engaging them on their own terms. My aim will be to show that if they grant this premise, then there is no good reason why they should deny personhood to the embryo; consequently, it is (always or almost always) wrong to intentionally kill embryos.
I hope the point I was trying to make is clearer to you now.vjtorley_{November 12, 2011
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Dr. Torley, It seems we agree on some points and disagree on others. I would like to ask you some questions regarding your second paragraph, however. If you believe that a human being is "one thing", how is it possible for a fertilized egg, which has no nervous system whatsoever, much less a fully functioning brain, to have a mind? You say, "In speaking of the mind, incidentally, I don’t mean a separate thing from the body. On my view, there is one thing – a human being – with many different powers, most of which require a body, but two of which (intellect and will) do not." How is it possible for the mind to be "not separate" from the body and yet not "require" a body? And if the human being is "one thing" and the mind is not separate from the body, what happens to the mind and will upon death of the body? It appears to me that you are trying to have it both ways--the mind and body are one for the purpose of making abortion immoral, yet two different things for the purpose of affirming the immortality of the soul.Bruce David_{November 12, 2011
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Dr. Torley, Thanks for the feedback.
Thank you for your post. Let me be clear: I do not credit a three-day-old embryo with any foresight, intent, will or consciousness. Having a goal requires none of these things. I should say that I am using the word “goal” in a third-person sense; I am not using it to mean “intention” or “aim”. You can replace “goal” with the Greek telos, if that makes you feel more comfortable. Any biologist would say that the heart is for pumping blood. That is its telos – which is not the same as saying that in times past, organisms with hearts were more evolutionarily successful than those lacking them. The latter statement may well be true, but it isn’t the same in meaning. A doctor who knew nothing about evolution (e.g. William Harvey) could still figure out what the heart is for, without looking at its history, and if (per impossibile) a creature with a heart were to suddenly coalesce from a swamp, its heart would still be for pumping blood too – even though it had no evolutionary past.
I don't have any problem with telic language in biology, nor do I wish to discourage its use. But I do identify a major problem in people forgetting that there is anthropomorphic projection at work. There's no problem in my saying of my truck: "she's running fine right now", or "she's trying to start, but can't quite turn over", that's useful and effective use of language. But it's a problem if BY THAT, I start to think my pickup truck is a female person of some kind. It's a "way of speaking" and it's powerful, but some reasoning has to be maintained about the anthropomorphic underpinnings of our telic language. The heart is "for" pumping blood, in that casual, but useful sense. Per biology, there is no agent that is willing or directing any design, there. It's the long term result of a biological exploration of a fitness landscape, with cumulative effects of successful adaptation accruing along the way. The problem is, that's a clumsy mouthful to regurgitate over and over in conversation, so we, being highly resourceful beings, use a kind of anthropomorphic shorthand: it's "for" pumping blood. That works, I use and endorse the same kind of language all the time. But I try not to forget that the "for" is a pedagogical device in my language to breeze past the non-telic (so far as we can tell) processes at work.
The point I want to make here is that no matter how hard you try, you cannot totally eliminate teleological language from biology – and nor should you. Most biologists have no wish to, anyway; only a few radical philosophers seem to want to pursue such a path. A developing embryo has a telos: as a very young human being, it is on the first step of a long journey towards becoming an adult human being.
I understand, and my comments above hopefully clarify my position on that. I don't think the radical professors' efforts here are fruitful, but I can understand the impetus, even so. While telic language is wonderfully useful and effective for us, it's also an invitation to people to start confusing the map with the territory, to start confusing "for"-as-descriptive-of-systems-evolved-from-impersonal-and-sometimes-stochastic-processes with "for"-as-the-intention-of-some-cosmic-designer. If you and I talk about our pickups as a "she" ("she's running well right now!"), and people start to get confused about the personhood of our pickup trucks, we'd consider avoiding using such anthropomorphic language, perhaps. But the better option, it seems to me, would be to just advise people to be aware of the utility AND the risks of anthropomorphic language, and to proceed accordingly. Don't confuse map with territory. Don't confuse "heart is FOR pumping blood" with some kind of agency or intelligence in that design.
I should add that in Part A, section (i) of my essay, where I list the five requirements for qualifying as a human person, I do not use the word “goal” at all. I use the term “developmental goal” just once, in Part A, section (iv), Argument #2. Here I simply mean the terminus, or end-point, of the developmental program: a rational human adult. Lastly, I quote Professor Maureen Condic, who remarks in passing that “the ‘goal’ of both sperm and egg is to find each other and to fuse”. Notice that even here she uses inverted commas. So I do not think that your accusation of anthropomorphism is a fair one.
Again, I'm sorry I gave the wrong impression. I don't mind the language you are using, per se. I use it myself, and to good ends. But you've broken the isomorphism in your application here, and perverted the analogy. You've gotten confused about your pickup truck really being a "she" just by using "she" to refer to your truck. The sperm and egg example is a good one to iluminate your problem. As humans, we have a pervasive inclination to "telify", to superimpose telic concepts on the world. It's useful on the main, but prone to pitfalls like this one. It's just part of our evolved psychology -- we are adapted profitably to construe the world around us in teleo-centric frames. It's advantageous for us in the same way paranoia is advantageous for a deer (and humans!). Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the deer that skitters away because she hears a twig snap somewhere nearby is expending energy unnecessarily; there is no predator snapping that twig preparing to make that deer its lunch. But even so, that "mistaken judgment", wrong most of the time, is advantageous for the deer. Better to expend the energy "by mistake" ten times, than to be wrong just once, when there really is a predator about to attack, and become its lunch. Humans see the world through intensely teleo-centric lenses. We are "telists" by nature. And good for us, that's a very powerful trait, overall, even though it's a constant source of mistaken judgment, just as "run from the predator!" is for the deer the vast majority of the time. Unlike the deer, we have the rational faculties to understand our predicament, and both benefit from our teleocentric paradigm AND achieve some level of critical objectivity, so as to identify some cases where where our teleocentric biases lead us into folly, mistake and self-deception.
Regarding the prince in training: I’m afraid your example fails as a parallel. Ordinarily, princes are schooled in the art of being a good king; but this is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for them to become king. Many princes have ascended to the throne without any preparation, and many others who were well-prepared to reign as king have never been given the opportunity to do so. All the training in the world cannot make a prince a king. For that to happen, (i) his father must die or voluntarily cede the throne; (ii) he must be the first in line to succeed his deceased or retired father; and (iii) he must be publicly crowned king. These three facts, and these alone, can make a prince a king. So the potential of a prince to become a king is vastly different from the potential of an embryo to become an adult. The embryo is doing something (executing a developmental program) which, if allowed to continue, will turn it into an adult, in about 18 years’ time. But the training that the prince is undergoing will not make him a king, no longer how long it continues. All it will make him is ready to assume the responsibility, when and if that happens – a fact which is beyond his control, unless he engages in parricide.
I'm afraid this just looks like an exercise in special pleading, with some pedantry. Prince->King is in many, many ways NOT like zygote->Einstein, granted, and I never supposed or asserted otherwise. Singer's point keeps its equity in the parts that do support the isomorphism: StateA -> StateB does NOT imply that the attributes and qualities of StateB transitively apply to StateA. That's all. That's what the arrow signifies, a change in status or configuration, and one which entails changes that predicate different ontological assignments: the "right of kingship", say, or "electrical activity in the cerebral cortex". Singer could have said, if he were to anticipate your objection, that we should rather consider the cast that a 7 year old boy does not have legal accountability assigned to him in the same way it would be assigned to him at 27. Tom, our 7 year old, will predictably become a 27 year old man, and on the same terms as your zygote becomes a 27 year old adult. But between 7 and 27, the "arrow" happens: Tom7->Tom27, and this is fundamental to the status of Tom as a legal person. At 27, barring any extenuating mental problems, he has reached the age of competence and legal accountability. But at 7 year old, the same person, with the same DNA, is different enough in substantial terms that we do not assign the rights or responsiblities to him at 7 that we do at 27. That avoids the (apparently) distracting disanalogical features of the Prince->King example. I'm tempted to point out that your assault on the Prince->King idea fails on the merits -- "(iii) he must be publicly be crowned king" is an example of the special pleading I'm talking about, as it's not hard to imagine scenarios where the prince becomes king upon the death of the father-kind, no ceremony or any other protocol needed -- but I don't think it matters for our purposes, here.eigenstate_{November 12, 2011
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