Reading Time: 4 minutes The question of personhood is central to a variety of current controversies. American courts recently considered the question of whether elephants are persons. Google fired an engineer for suggesting that a machine is sentient. And the U.S. Supreme Court argued that Roe v. Wade failed to adequately consider fetal personhood. These disputes involve a conflict […]
personhood
Posted inLaw
What does being a ‘person’ do?
Reading Time: 8 minutes In 2008, a Macedonian court found a bear guilty of damaging beehives. Since it had no owner and belonged to a protected species, the state was made to pay the fine instead. Legal history abounds with stories of animal trials, especially in the Middle Ages and early Enlightenment, when both secular and Ecclesiastical variants played […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Responding to Wilcox #5: When Is a Human a Human Being?
Reading Time: 9 minutes This is the fifth piece in series debating Clinton Wilcox at the Life Training Institute (a pro-life organisation) with the following chronology: JP: Abortion: The Human/Human Being Distinction CW: About the Alleged Human/Human Being Distinction CW: About the Alleged Human/Human Being Distinction, Part 2 JP: Pro-Life Debate: Answering Criticisms on the Human/Human Being Distinction JP: Responding to Wilcox #2: “An […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Responding to Wilcox #3: Human, Humans, Human Beings, the Sorites Paradox & Identity
Reading Time: 5 minutes Today, again, I am continuing my rebuttals of Clinton Wilcox over at Life Training Institute, a pro-life organisation, after he tackled a post I wrote concerning human/human being distinction. My original piece was here, his two pieces here and here, and so far my two rejoinders here and here. This is my third in that […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Responding to Wilcox #2: “An Embryo Is an Innocent Human Being”
Reading Time: 8 minutes To continue the rejoinder to Clinton Wilcox over at the Life Training Institute, who took issue with one of my posts looking at the pro-life/pro-choice debate concerning abortion. I responded to the initial part of his first piece here. Today, I will look at his comments with regard to points 1-5 from my original post […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
Personhood vs Bodily Autonomy – the Central Arguments of Pro-Life Advocacy
Reading Time: 2 minutes Anthrotheist made a strong point on another thread concerning what the central argument should be in the abortion debate: The abortion debate isn’t about personhood or whether or not a nonviable fetus is a human being. That angle is purely a red herring introduced by the pro-life movement to distract people from the fact that they are […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Abortion: The Human/Human Being Distinction
Reading Time: 13 minutes Every abortion kills an innocent human being…. Biology shows that a “ZEF” (Zygote, Embryo, Fetus – the three distinct prenatal developmental stages) is, in fact, a distinct, unique and individual human being…. The issue at hand is when we are considered human beings. That question can be answered by biology… -Mark Bradshaw The question remains, though, […]
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Posted inPhilosophy
What Is Rationality? How This Impacts Personhood and Other Debates.
Reading Time: 7 minutes We often see rationality popping up as a property that humans apparently exclusively have. This appears in several arguments, most notably those concerning personhood (and thus abortion) as well as famous arguments like CS Lewis’ Argument From Reason. I am going to look at what rationality is and hopefully show that it is not uniquely […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Dealing with some Pro-Life Arguments: Human Individuals
Reading Time: 11 minutes Vincent Torley recently hit a thread with a sizeable comment regarding his pro-life stance. I will post the whole comment here, and will try to deal with most of it, though it might take some unpicking, so if I miss some pertinent aspects, be sure to let me know. Let me say, first of all, […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, Philosophy
“Morally Benign” Children and Human Sacrifice
Reading Time: 4 minutes Well, extra points for trying to shoehorn in weird blog titles, I guess. So, yesterday I talked about how children are often more “idealistic” and “morally benign”. I will admit that the use of the term “morally benign” was at best nuanced and unexplained, and at worst rushed. The question is, can children even be properly moral? This […]