Hello, Joe Carter,

You make the point driven home by John Quincy Adams in his defense of the Africans in the Amistad case: Justice is always based upon principles, not sympathy or antipathy. Here are a few excepts from his argument before the Supreme Court:

"The charge I make against the present Executive administration is that in all their proceedings relating to these unfortunate men, instead of that Justice, which they were bound not less than this honorable Court itself to observe, they have substituted Sympathy!—sympathy with one of the parties in this conflict of justice, and antipathy to the other. Sympathy with the white, antipathy to the black ...

"All the proceedings of the government, Executive and Judicial, in this case had been founded on the assumption that the two Spanish slavedealers were the only parties aggrieved— that all the right was on their side and all the wrong on the side of their surviving self emancipated victims. I ask your honors, was this JUSTICE? No. ...

"The District Court has exercised its jurisdiction over the parties in interest, and has found that the right was with the other party, that the decisions of JUSTICE were not in accordance with the impulses of sympathy, and that consequently the sympathy was wrong before. And consequently it now appears that everything which has flowed from this mistaken or misapplied sympathy, was wrong from the beginning. ..."

That is the basic error of Roe. Instead of basing their decision on principles of justice, the Supreme Court based them on sympathy for the possibly difficult situation of the mother and a complete lack of sympathy for her child, if not outright antipathy. For Roe too, "it now appears that everything which has flowed from this mistaken or misapplied sympathy, was wrong from the beginning."

1) One professor critic of your position on the embryo, noted that it contains in effect, a example of the "anachronism" fallacy. Your argument assumes that since we were all embryos, the cancellation of an embryo means the cancellation of a human being. And yet? If the embryo is not human, and is not allow to grow, then ... there will never be a human being that is cancelled, so to speak.

2) Another related criticism? Suppose you decide not to deliberately try every day, to make many babies; by your argument, you should consider all the babies that therefore, that "perished, "because you did not have intercourse every day, to try to make them.

Rawls does have a problem with abortion, but it's not this one. As Erin points out, the Solomon thought experiment would prove too much. That I exist only because my parents conceived me doesn't entail any thing about obligations to conceive children. So too with the fact that my mother chose to carry me to term.

The original position is meant to represent a situation in which we might choose principle of justice. The question is who is 'we'? Rawls is clear that 'we' includes only competent adults who can exercise what he calls the moral powers of thinking about the good and about justice. It excludes, then, children and the incompetent (not to mention animals). It would also exclude the unborn.

The resolutely pro-choice might be ok with this, except the other exclusions have been challenged by some of Rawls' own followers. In particular he has been charged, rather plausibly, with being left with nothing compelling to say about justice within the family, particularly when it comes to children, and nothing to explain our duties to those in our communities lacking these moral powers, such as those suffering sufficiently severe cognitive deficits. It would seem that attempts to broaden the Rawlsian community so as to accommodate these concerns will reopen the questions of whether or not we should also count the unborn. And here Rawls is not very helpful.

I like the essay until the leaps at the end, when Mr. Carter appears to suddenly forget his concession that Rawls was a much smarter man he will ever be. Why not rather accord to Rawls the same respect that Rawls himself gave to the great thinkers preceding him? Why the cocksure certainties that Rawls could say nothing to this fictitious Solomon, and that Rawls's own position is inconsistent on these points?

"If the embryo is not human..."

So much for science. I think you meant to say, "... is not a person."

Mr. Carter puts Rawls in dialogue with Rawls himself. "I supposed those writers saw it [the inconsistency] too and must have dealt with it. But where? I looked for their way out, not mine."

All right. What was the inconsistency in Rawls' thought? Mr. Carter demonstrates, with a concrete scenario inspired by Dennett's "intuition pump", that Rawls' veil of ignorance might have argued against Rawls' own position on abortion.

What then, Mr. Carter asks, was Rawls' way out? "Rawls added additional criteria that he believed must be considered: the due respect for human life, the ordered reproduction of the political society, and the equality of women as citizens with equal rights."

So far so good. In accordance with the Rawlsian methodology, Mr. Carter has allowed Rawls to articulate the way out he opted for.

Mr. Carter then goes a step farther. He argues that Rawls' additional criteria violate the veil of ignorance. "These women were allowed to be born, while the unborn child is not."

In other words, Mr. Rollen, Mr. Carter has indeed allowed Rawls the respect that Rawls gave to the great thinkers preceding him. He then advances the conversation by exposing an inconsistency in Rawls' answer to his previous inconsistencies.

I have a question for Tristian. The "we" contemplating the veil of ignorance includes only competent adults, but is that a guarantee that we competent adults cannot turn out to be something other than competent adults behind that veil? If not, then Mr. Carter's criticism would apply as it stands. If you think we remain competent regardless - and I am ignorant on Rawls' thought here - then I suppose we would have "to broaden the Rawlsian community" for Mr. Carter's criticism to apply.

Erin, I think your first point is well-taken - we cannot apply the veil of ignorance to entities with no moral significance - but by the same token your second point misses the mark. We cannot apply the veil of ignorance to persons that never existed; in Mr. Carter's intuition pump scenario, we are applying the veil of ignorance to people we have known to exist, even though in so doing we may cause them never to have existed. It's a bit confusing, this time-machine retroactivity stuff.

A well-written essay Mr. Carter - beyond your cowardly evasion of using even once the possessive form of "Rawls"! I opted for a single apostrophe, Mr. Rollen for the apostrophe and "s" - I don't know which is correct!

The real flaw in Rawls' "veil of ignorance" lies in the assumption that justice is essentially an I-win-you-lose-out sort of thing. A just society for Rawls would be one where finite goods and bads were distributed blindly--hence the need (in Rawls' mind) to insulate the lawmakers from knowledge of how the laws will hurt or help them. In reality, justice for one man makes a better world for all, and injustice for one makes a worse world for all--as the denouement in Mr. Carter's story should make clear.

T.D. Roy, you seem to assume that Mr. Carter has canvassed the Rawlsian resources for addressing this issue, thereby licensing his conclusions about what Rawls cannot do.

"In other words, any policy we set would have to be applicable not only to the present and the future but to the past as well."

So, policies to benefit the handicapped would be out the door, too, since many people *become* handicapped, or *recover* from it - they aren't that way at all times.

T.D. Roy, it is important I think not to try to squeeze too much out of the original position. The point of it is to derive the basic principles of justice that "free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality." I think the OP gives us a decent handle on giving content to that idea--it succeeds as "device of representation", as Rawls puts it. By contrast, it is very unclear just what it would mean to talk of principles agreed to by a group that includes, as putative equals, competent adults, children (including infants) and the severely cognitively disabled. The problem, of course, is that most of us would agree that our basic principles of justice should apply to all these--somehow we have to squeeze them into the community. So there's a gap between the OP and the ultimate target of the principles of justice.

The gap widens when we consider our duties to, for example, animals. Whether our principles of justice can even be applied to animals, and if so how--Rawls' theory as he left it just doesn't help on that one. Nor, really, does it help with abortion. Whether and how our principles of justice should apply to the unborn is the question, but I don't see that there is a principled Rawlsian answer. Rawls supposed the unborn stand outside the moral community defined by justice as fairness, but he seems to just beg the question there. Why are the unborn out but neonates in? Or are they? Rawls gives us no answers.

Good catch, Mike Melendez. One can (foolishly, irrelevantly) quibble over "personhood" or perhaps "human-being-ness", but one can't deny that a human embryo is in fact human any more than one can question whether a chicken egg is of a chicken. It is 'human' factually. It is 'life' factually'. It is 'unique' factually, and 'innocent' factually. If ending a unique, innocent, human life is always wrong, and it is, then killing a fetus/embryo is always wrong (and supporting-a-mother's-"right"-to-kill-a-fetus is similarly always wrong).

This premise need not carry any purchase with that tiny demographic of thorough-going moral nihilists out there, but for the rest of we the sane and moral, this issue is open and shut.

A few commenters have pointed out that the thought experiment operates on the hidden assumption that the embryo is a unique, innocent human life. That's true, but since the 'presumption' is a scientific fact, it's not incumbent on the author to make this explicit.

I really don't get this argument. Are you saying that people behind the veil of ignorance would change their views depending on what would have come about had their policies been implemented? If so, then that would not constitute an extension of Rawls's theory. He's very clear that his theory is not a consequentialist theory. Those behind the veil of ignorance are not allowed to know ahead of time how they (or their loved ones) would fare if they were to adopt certain policies. Otherwise, the temptation to adopt self-serving policies would be too great and, thus, defeat the whole purpose of the exercise. The same would be true if those behind the veil found out ahead of time how they (or their loved ones) would have fared if they were to adopt certain policies. It's important to note that he calls it the veil of "ignorance" for a reason.

Joe Carter says: “The new policy will be applied immediately applied to anyone who would have been affected by the policy had the people wisely chosen to implement it sooner.”

I don’t know Rawls, but I doubt that his theory says anything about the need to pick a form of society that the people behind the veil, once emerging from the veil, would wish to have been implemented already long into the past. After all, if history had gone very different to how it actually did – say, through society’s having been organised in a wonderfully just way, for the last thousand years – the chances are the neither I, nor my wife, nor my co-workers, etc, would have been born. We all came into being through our parent’s chance meetings, that could have so easily been averted – so too with our parents, and back and back – even minor changes in the past would have meant that millions of people would who did come into being would not have. So by Joe’s argument, it would be immoral for the people behind the veil to choose to have anything different to how it is – for that would result in many of the people alive today, not having been born!

The main problem with Joe’s thought experiment, though, is that there is a world of difference between killing (or being willing to lose) someone who is alive now, on the one hand, and making things such that a person who could have been born will not be. (After all, it would be morally wrong for someone to kill me gratuitously, but it would not have been morally wrong for my parents never to have married, and never to have conceived me – i.e. to have made things such that a person who could have been born (me) was not actually born).

Of course, someone who thinks abortion is wrong does not think that aborting a young foetus is the same as ‘making things such that a person who could have been born will not be’, but rather, thinks that it is actively killing a person. But the person who supports abortion doesn’t think that. So it turns out that Joe’s thought experiment is of no help in getting us any further in the old debate: is the foetus a person, do we have the same obligations towards the foetus as to people? Joe’s thought experiment – or at least what he does with it – simply begs the important question, and assumed what it wants to conclude.

Nathan Duffy says: “one can't deny that a human embryo is in fact human... If ending a unique, innocent, human life is always wrong, and it is, then killing a fetus/embryo is always wrong.”

This is a fallacious argument, and it rests on eliding the difference between ending the life of something that is human, and ending a human life. The former is ending the life of something that can properly be described by the adjective ‘human’. But being so described does not make that thing ‘a human’, ‘a human being’. ‘Human’ is an adjective in the first instance, and a noun in the second. There is human skin, human hair, human language, and there are human hearts, human livers, and human embryos. All these things can be properly described by the adjective ‘human’ – they are ‘of humanity’, they somehow ‘belong to what is human’. But none of them are humans, none of them are human beings. Or at least, if you want to argue that an embryo is a human being, you will need to do a whole lot more than telling me that it is a human embryo. I am happy to agree to that – it is an human embryo, rather than the embryo of any other species. And, if all goes well, it will become a human being. If you want to convince me that all human embryos are human beings, you must being an argument of some sort. This was a bad one – and it’s a shame to bring such bad arguments to bear on such important, and life-changing issues.

***But being so described does not make that thing ‘a human’, ‘a human being’. ***

Anyone who doesn't understand that an embryo is a "human being" needs to take a lesson in basic biology. That fact isn't in dispute, which is why the pro-abortion camp resorts to using "personhood" as the criteria. There is no disputing that what is being killed is a "human being."

***Or at least, if you want to argue that an embryo is a human being, you will need to do a whole lot more than telling me that it is a human embryo.***

Check out any book on embryology. The claim that a human embryo is a human being isn't controversial.

In his essay above, Mr. Carter lucidly outlines the conditions of Rawls' 'veil of ignorance' and some of its later iterations. But when Rawls lifted the veil the original position he disclosed was a timid and cautious one. He assumed that people would prefer not to take risks to achieve something greater in life. This is not necessarily true. Perhaps his own psychological predilections led him to envisage a world of wimps as his preferred starting position.

Joe says: “Anyone who doesn't understand that an embryo is a "human being" needs to take a lesson in basic biology. That fact isn't in dispute, which is why the pro-abortion camp resorts to using "personhood" as the criteria. There is no disputing that what is being killed is a "human being." ”

According to the full Oxford English Dictionary, ‘Human Being’ is defined as “a person, a member of the human race; a man, woman, or child”. And ‘Human (noun)’ is defined as “A human being, a person; a member of the species Homo sapiens or other (extinct) species of the genus Homo”. I don’t take the OED as gospel, but in both definitions they equate ‘human’ with ‘person’. That seems perfectly natural to me – and given the OED’s equations, I take it that it is natural to many others too. To call something ‘a human being’ is synonymous – to my ear – with calling it ‘a person’, and that brings with it all manner of important moral conditions. Being describable by the adjective ‘human’ doesn’t, in itself. My previous comment to Nathan Duffy was based on that equation (which is why it was so clear to me that things that are human, are not necessarily human beings, i.e. people).

It isn’t up to books on embryology to tell me whether or not an embryo is a human being, or what is synonymous: a person. ‘Human being/person’ is, amongst other things, a moral category – and I don’t need or want scientists to make moral decisions for me. That would be to mistake their expertise! I will trust embryologists to tell me all manner of things about embryos, such as: what they are made of; what their structure is; how similar they look, at different stages, to human beings/people; how similar their capacities are, at different stages, to those of human beings/people; whether their DNA is the same as that of human beings/people etc etc. They can tell me lots of these facts, and some of them may well enter in to which point in the development of the embryo I will be willing to call it a human being, a person.

If you really insist that ‘human being’ is a term owned by the scientists (I don’t know why you would), then I suppose I will give it up to you. But only on the condition that you don’t try to use the application of the term itself to move, in an argument, to our moral obligations towards it. If the word is to be defined by scientists, it surely wont, in itself, have any moral ramifications. If it is to carry moral weight, it can’t be something that scientists have the authority to tell us about – only because science is not a study into the moral status of little creatures. I find that notion bizarre, and am not sure why anyone would want to advance it. (Though, as I say, what scientists discover may affect whether we see the embryo as something to which we have moral obligations, and at which stage we see the embryo as being in moral fraternity with ourselves.)

In sum – I take ‘human being’ to be synonymous with ‘person’, as does the OED. If embryologists or you do otherwise, then the phrase cannot be a part of Nathan Duffy’s argument. ‘Human being’ is *either* a scientific term, *or* a moral one – it cannot be both. I would much prefer you give me a good old religious argument against abortion (scriptural, mystical – anything... Please!). It upsets me when religious people feel that they need to conjure up a scientific basis for what is a moral or religious issue, and should be decided as one.

Gabriel, yes, not all human 'things' are human beings. Quite right. What separates an embryo isn't ONLY that it's human. Did you not read my entite post on purpose? An embryo is unique, innocent, human and life. Fingernails and sperm cells can be some of these things, and they're certainly 'human', but it's only at conception that the embryo acquires ALL these properties. The most oft overlooked is 'unique'.

If you eliminate a sperm cell from existence, its progenitor, the DNA carrier, remains in existence. Not so w/ an embryo; destroy it and that unique, innocent, human life -- each descriptor a fact -- is eradicated. You can either offer a defense of such a heinous practice or you can't. And you haven't, and you can't.

Erin: Your first point makes no sense. Even if one took it to mean what I think you meant -- that at some point an embryo is not a person and then at a later point it magically becomes one -- if I could somehow go back in time and destroy the non-person embryo that would have "become" you, then you would not exist. No other embryo ever COULD become you. So you would be gone.

The supposedly fine point that "a person wasn't there yet so a person couldn't be killed" is simply false. If, as I said, this were actually possible to do, it would be no comfort to you if I told you, "I am about to go in my time machine and kill that embryo that became you, but don't worry, it has no personhood yet so I won't actually be murdering you."

I'm not saying that this is your personal position -- you merely said it was an objection to the premise. But the premise does not allow that objection.

Nathan Duffy says, in response to me: “Gabriel, yes, not all human 'things' are human beings. Quite right. What separates an embryo isn't ONLY that it's human… An embryo is unique, innocent, human and life. Fingernails and sperm cells can be some of these things, and they're certainly 'human', but it's only at conception that the embryo acquires ALL these properties. The most oft overlooked is 'unique'.”

I can’t see the relevance of all the extra qualities with which you describe the embryo, namely: uniqueness and innocence. Is every particular embryo unique? I suppose so, in some ways. I would have thought that sperm are also unique (they are all in different places at a given time, at the very least, and probably have minutely different shapes, etc etc). I don’t see that it really matters that much (i would think it wrong to kill one of two utterly identical twins who had just been born). Moving on: is an embryo innocent? I suppose so, in a sense. It certainly isn’t guilty of anything (though perhaps certain doctrines of original sin may dispute this). If everything that isn’t guilty is innocent, I suppose an embryo is innocent. I’d be more inclined to say that embryos are neither innocent nor guilty – as they are not moral agents in any way. I can’t see the kind of uniqueness, and the kind of innocence, that embryos have, making all that much moral difference to them. That’s why I ignored that part of your comment.

What seems to me to be doing the work in your argument is this shift from an embryo being something that is living and human, to its being something that is a human which is alive. In your recent remarks you made the very same shift, and I think that it is illegitimate: not everything that is living and human, is a human being which/who is alive – in that, not everything that is living and human is a living person, to whom we have moral obligations on the same level as to other living people. (You didn’t actually talk about ‘a human which is alive’, but rather ‘a human life’. This is a difficult phrase. But I take it to refer to the life that a living human being has).

There may be some really good arguments against abortion. But I don’t think that your argument is one of them. It seems to me more like verbal sleight of hand. The general direction might be fruitful, however: pile up qualities which the embryo has, which make your interlocutor see the embryo more and more as *being significantly like* born people – and if you can find enough of these, you may convince them to regard abortion as wrong. As I said, though, the quality of ‘being human’ seems irrelevant to me other than by the verbal slip into being a human being, i.e. person; and the qualities of life, innocence of sorts, and uniqueness, don’t seem to be enough either.

Gail et alia.:

Remember, in your example you end up talking to a person, and telling him or her he won't exist. So you end up invoking, a person - who wouldn't exist in real life. If the embryo never developed into a person, that situation would never happen. Except in the most strained science-fiction scenarios.

By the way? Human skin is "human" tissue; but it is not a human person. The important thing, is when does human tissue, DNA, a body, acquire the mind or spirit that makes it a human person. (In my case by the way, I use the term "human being" and "human person" as synonymous. Though to be sure, others distinguish them. Perhaps to be sure, the term human "person" - that is a human consciousness, a mind - would be better. )

By the way, it doesn't matter if the DNA is "unique." In the case of identifical twins, is one of them not a person?

What matters is, "ensoulment": when did that bit of human matter, even that human being, acquire a mind or spirit, and thus become a human person?

"Is every particular embryo unique? I suppose so, in some ways. I would have thought that sperm are also unique"

And I explained why they aren't unique in the same way. You neglected to quote it, and apparently neglected to consider its significance. So go back and read.

To reiterate: a sperm can be a unique sperm, but it's not a unique human entity; it's just a part of another human. Same goes for a finger, or a strand of hair. The strand is unique among other strands; it is not the unique, sole carrier of the human DNA that can be found in it, and scorching the strand of hair won't kill the person whose head the hair was taken from. But destroying the embryo does remove the unique, innocent human life from existence (unlike the hair).

As for innocence, it is derived from the other facts of the embryo; that it's a unique human life and that it is only 0-5 days old (or whatever) and incapable of being guilty of anything. Though, if it makes you feel better, my case can be made just as strongly without 'innocent' by replacing it with 'lacking guilt' (this doesn't require it to be any kind of moral agent). The real purpose of the 'innocent' descriptor is to distinguish its moral status from, say, a serial killer on death row who is a unique, human life that DOES deserve death. But, like I say, 'lacking guilt' rather than 'innocence' is fine with me.

You can, of course, claim that it is sometimes permissible to destroy a unique, innocent, human life; you can not claim that a just-conceived embryo is not one. It is. Factually. And there's no reason to shift the conversation away from what we know to be true unequivocally to that which we don't know (whether an embryo is a "person").

Erin

"By the way, it doesn't matter if the DNA is "unique." In the case of identifical twins, is one of them not a person?"

... they are both unique human life. Identical twins don't share exactly identical DNA, as I'm sure you're aware of.

"By the way? Human skin is "human" tissue; but it is not a human person. The important thing, is when does human tissue, DNA, a body, acquire the mind or spirit that makes it a human person."

That actually isn't the question. That's an irrelevant question advocates of abortion, or Pro-choicers use to attempt to shift the goal posts. The question is at what point the human life ceases to be a mere part of another human life (which an unfertilized zygote, or a hair folicle clearly is, for example), and becomes its own, unique human life. Thanks to embryology, we know the answer. Before embryology there used to be a grey area. There isn't one now. Or rather, if there's any grey area, it's in that brief, fleeting moment when the new DNA is being constructed... perhaps it would be morally permissible to destroy an embryo with only a 30% completed DNA strand? Maybe. But once it's 100%, we have a new unique human life that is no longer merely a part of its mother or father. Sorry facts are so brutally detrimental to your argument. Rough life.

Nathan, I think I finally understand what you have been trying to say – thank you for your persistence! I now take it that you main point is this: An embryo is “the unique, sole carrier of the human DNA that can be found in it”, such that if the embryo is destroyed, there can never come to be a person with precisely the DNA that was found in that embryo. And if I am correctly connecting your response to me with your response to Erin, embryologists have now discovered/shown that an embryo really is such that if it is destroyed then there will never be a person with the DNA that there would have been had by the person to be born from that embryo. – and this, seems to be the crucial fact, for you, that carried moral weight with it – that forbids our (gratuitous) destruction of it.

I’m afraid, though, that I simply don’t see why it carries that weight for you! I am trying to think of more to say, of some way of going in to more detail – but I find myself at a loss for words. Why is this quality such a morally significant one for you? I really can’t see.

Perhaps this will help. The point that you are making, is presumably not the following one: that it is morally wrong to fail to bring into existence a person who otherwise would have come to be. I assume that it is not that point, because that is certainly false. After all, my not having sex with my wife right now, is, perhaps, failing to bring into existence a person who otherwise might have come to be. Is the point, then, that it is morally wrong to actively stop from coming into existence a person who otherwise would have done (rather ten merely passively fail to bring it about)? Perhaps we are getting into more controversial waters here, but this also seems to me to be wring – and I *thing* that you might agree with me here. Because I do not think that it is wrong to use a condom, or to be on the pill, when having sex – which would actively be stopping a person being born who otherwise would be. I grant that if you oppose contraception, you will not agree with this point – but you strong distinction between sperm and an embryo is what leads me to think that you will be with me on this point.

However, if your point is not that it is wring to fail to produce a person when one could, nor that it is wrong to stop a person who could have been produced who could have been – then what is your point? Isn’t destroying a young embryo – who, you seem to grant, may well not be a person – just one way of stopping from coming into existence a person who otherwise would do? After all, the embryo has a unique DNA such that if it is destroyed, no person with that DNA will be born (again, if I have understood the biology that you included in your last comment). But is it not the case that a given sperm, if it got together with a given egg (or whatever), would have produced an embryo with a unique DNA, which would become a person etc etc. So, my stopping a sperm from joining viably with an egg or whatever), I am just as much stopping from being born a person with a unique DNA who otherwise would have been born. I don’t see the difference between the two cases – however, I think that you find the former to be wrong and the latter not to be. The only difference that I could think of that we could add to my description that would make a moral difference would be that in the embryo case, what is being destroyed is *already* a person; whereas in the sperm case, the same potential is being destroyed, but there is no person there *already* to destroy.

So, it seems to me – if I have understood your point – that if it to work, you must still rely on the idea of the embryo being a person. And it’s uniqueness, etc, is not what is morally significant here, or doing the argumentative work for you.

"Isn’t destroying a young embryo – who, you seem to grant, may well not be a person – just one way of stopping from coming into existence a person who otherwise would do?"

No, my point is that there is nothing sacred or special about personhood; there is something special and sacred about individual human lives. So who cares about the various ways of 'stopping a potential person from coming into existence'? Not I. Who cares about the destruction of unique, innocent human lives? I.

So, given the scientific facts of the situation, and as a supporter of 'choice' you must either claim that it is sometimes permissible to destroy unique, innocent human lives, and defend that monstrous claim (which you haven't even yet ventured an attempt at), or you must become Pro-choice.

I, being a defender of life, have no duty to address any questions of personhood because that is an artificial barometer, no more morally significant to me than at what point a human life becomes an adolescent or a convalescent.

Correction to last post: ".. or you must become Pro-LIFE"

Nathan. This is almost comical. You are back to your phrase ‘unique, innocent, human lives’. I don’t particularly like the phrase, I find it rather opaque (the ‘human lives’ bit). But fine. Let’s say that whatever it means exactly, it is true of a young embryo. I will just say: I have no idea why the mere fact of being ‘a unique, innocent human life’ should be any moral bar to being destroyed. My reasoning is very simple. Now, (a) I can’t see any reason why a young embryo shouldn’t be destroyed (though I’m very open to being given one), and (b) since a young embryo, according to your definition/description, is a unique, innocent, human life, and (c) since I don’t think that you know anything about embryos which is morally relevant, which I do not know – I therefore conclude that the qualities of being a ‘unique, innocent, human life’, are not, in themselves sufficient to be a moral bar to being destroyed.

Why can I not, at the moment, see any moral reason why a young embryo should not be destroyed? I suppose, if I’m honest, it is because a young embryo is simply not similar enough to paradigm cases of the kinds of beings who I think it is morally wrong to destroy – not similar enough that I see them as included in that embargo, that they are included in the group to whom my relationship is governed in that way.

You don’t so much seem to be presenting a argument that killing an embryo is wrong, as you seem simply to be stating that it is. You are telling me that it is ‘a human life’ (okay – perhaps this is what biologists are saying, in any case, as I have said, I still don’t even quite know what it mean). I accept it! But why should I take this to have any moral weight? You talk of ‘scientific facts’. I will grant them all to you – what I don’t see, though, is what moral relevance any of them have. Can you say anything which will go towards explaining, or showing, their moral relevance? When I use the word ‘person’, I really just *take it to mean*, a human being to whom we have moral obligations such as not to kill it (gratuitously). So I would phrase my previous question, by saying: Could you give me any reason to believe that an embryo is a person. It seems. However, that we mean different things by the word ‘person’. That’s fine. I’ll scrap the word, and just ask the question: *why* should I think that ‘a unique, innocent, human life’ should not be (gratuitously) destroyed (if an embryo counts as such a one)?

I wasn’t sure, from your previous comment, if you thought that there was a burden of proof/persuasion on the person who want to argue that there is no moral wrong to destroy an embryo, rather than on the person who want to argue that there is a moral wrong to destroy it. If you do think that, I don’t know why you do. Is it a kind-of caution: if it may be wrong to destroy it, we had better be on the safe side, and only do so if someone can give us a good argument that it is not wrong... If that is your thought, I don’t think it’s right. After all, if we imagine that it is not morally wrong to destroy an embryo, then it may be the mother, or the future child, or the grandparents etc, who will be terribly harmed by the non-abortion of the child (let’s say the mother will be killed in childbirth, or the child will be born with a terribly painful and debilitating illness which will kill it after a year of suffering). So it does not seem obvious, which side is doing the greatest harm, if they turn out to be wring. – Furthermore, if I suddenly claimed that we should not pick apples off trees, because they are each innocent, unique, apple lives – and as such it is morally wrong to destroy them. If I claimed such a thing, I don’t think that you would have to stop eating apples until you came up with an argument to defend your practice. It is me who would need to bring an argument to convince me of my claim. Why do you think that the embryo case is different from the apple case? If you do think so, perhaps you need to bring an argument for that. In sum: you need an argument for your claim that burden of proof is on the side who do not think that it is wrong to kill an embryo.

Finally. I wish you’d stop with your rhetoric of “monstrous claims” and “heinous practice[es]” etc. There doesn’t seem to be anything obvious about this discussion – and I don’t think that a discussion of this sort is the place to be throwing around that kind of unhelpful ‘big talk’.

I wonder what the original Solomon would say. It would probably be decisive, and involve less use of wordy arguments. Maybe that's the whole point of Joe's article: solving this intractable problem is going to take a benevolent dictator with the unquestioned power of life and death. What will you say to Him when He comes?

Gabriel-"or the child will be born with a terribly painful and debilitating illness which will kill it after a year of suffering). "

This debilitating illness can be determined at the embryonic stage? Sir, you must be a prophet! What about the embryos who could well be the gift of God to humanity? Will you or your kin be able to determine this from an embryo?

If you have no qualms w/ the wanton destruction of innocent, unique human lives, then I'm sure I have no arguments thay can persuade you. My intent wasn't to persuade you. It was to state in clear terms what abortion is, and if in order to retain fidelity to a pro-choice stance, one must defend the act of destroying individual human lives, need I say more? I don't feel I need to. The point is already made.

I think that this will be my last contribution to this discussion – but I feel the need to respond to Nathan’s last comment. Just to say that you have set up a wonderful rhetorical trap – but I just don’t think it has much substance. It certainly sounds monstrous and heinous, doesn’t it, to say that there is nothing wrong with ‘destroying innocent, unique, human lives’! If a person who hadn’t read the rest of the thread, heard that I thought that, he would – probably justifiably – think that I was some kind of a/immoral madman. Even *I* agree that it *sounds* like that, But that’s because talking of human lives, to me, *is* to speak about lives to whom we owe respect and which make moral demands on us – not least of which are not to be (gratuitously) killed. It turns out that you apply this phrase to embryos, though – and I just don’t see why one should not kill a young embryo. To the degree that I don’t see that, I also don’t think that it is appropriate or correct to call a young embryo ‘a human life’. That seems to me to be a misdescription, given what that phrase to mean.

Now, there are two responses that you could make. You might say (a): “But I *do* think that young embryos are creatures which we are morally forbidden form (gratuitously) harming, so I *do* want to call them ‘human lives’, for there is nothing in that phrase that I do not think applies to embryos: I take them to be part of our moral community”. I don’t have any problem with that. You might try to convince me that they are in our moral community, or you might not bother. But this seems to me to be a reasonable thing to say. However, you might say (b) “But biologists have shown us that embryos are properly described as unique human lives, and *that* is why I insist that this is what we call them – you can use the term as you like, but scientific fact is on my side, and it would be heinous to kill a unique human life, so based on science, I say that it is morally wrong to kill embryos”. I have a feeling that this is the option you would opt for – and I think it is muddled. Perhaps biologists have shown all manner of things about unique possessors of DNA etc, and that embryos are such beings. But science has not, and could not possibly show that *this* quality is a quality that is of any oral significance. So it seems that science is only half the story: science shows us that embryos have a certain quality, such as being the sole possessor of a given DNA. And *you* then say: “Aha! *This* is just the kind of quality that makes something part of our moral community, such that we are forbidden from (gratuitously) destroying it”. Maybe here is the crux of our disagreement: I do not see that that particular quality is the all-important one with the moral weight. And I don’t know why you do. You have offered no reason for doing so. Rather you have offered rhetoric – you have employed this phrase that even I agree – “a unique human life” – sounds like the kind of thing we wouldn’t want to destroy. But that is a phrase one applies to things one things that morally one oughtn’t to destroy! If it a phrase that scientists have given, for who knows what terminological reasons, it cannot in itself carry the moral weight with it. All it carries with it, in the scientists mouths, is a certain biological quality, They *you* - after the scientists have let, or taken off their scientific hats – say that that is the kind of quality that makes for moral obligations. I don’t see what is so special about that quality. And yet I think it *is* wrong (gratuitously) to kill a baby who is fairly far on in the pregnancy, and I think it is wring to kill born babies, and children, and adults. So I not sure that this is case where you can just make a loud moral sigh, and despair of my evil soul, who just wants to make life easy for myself, etc etc.

I have no idea, by the way, why you think that my motives in saying any of this are “in order to retain fidelity to a pro-choice stance”! – I wouldn’t say that I have any ‘fidelity’ to such a stance – rather, I just haven’t been convinced by an anti-early-abortion stance). Interestingly – as a biographical fact – I don’t think that I have ever read any literature at all – not even an article or an op-ed – which supports abortion. The only literature on abortion that i have read are the frequent article here at ‘On the Square’. And they seem to be full of bad arguments (like Joe’s above), sophistical non-arguments (often found in the comments threads, such as: if you can’t specify exactly when in the pregnancy abortion becomes wring, then it must be at conception, etc), and moral rhetoric and verbal sighs at the evil selfishness of anyone who disagrees (found in the articles and the comments). If only people who were anti-abortion stopped thinking that it was *blindingly obvious* that they are right, and that anyone who can’t see it must be doing it out of some perversity or some self-interest! Then they may take the time to set out some clear reasoned thoughts on the matter. They would take the time to try to get to the exactly point of disagreement. They would take the time to explain, perhaps, why no argument on that point could be given. Or what kind of argument could be given. Or to explain upon who they think the burden of proof is. Perhaps this is too much to ask of articles written out at high speed in a few hours, without any time for any real thought. Ad too much to ask form a brief comments thread. Perhaps I need to turn to slow and reasoned journals of philosophy and theology. Certainly this comment thread has not been good for my stress levels or my heart.

gabriel,

not sure if you're still reading. i was wondering what you use as criteria to evaluate "similarity" when you speak of "not similar enough." size, weight, shape? number of chromosomes? rationality? ability to feel pain?

in any case, when i compare "andrew" as an embryo and "andrew" today, i certainly don't find "similarity," the same 46 chromosomes notwithstanding. instead, i find "identity." by this i mean that whoever i am, i was then and am today that same being.

thanks for clarifying.

First, thanks to Gabriel for keeping the discussion reasonable and irenic - rare in this sort of discussion!

Second, I think this argument is revolving around two unstated assumptions. The first is Duffy's. The second is Gabriel's.

To clarify what Duffy is arguing, I will restate his basic argument as a syllogism.

1. Innocent human lives should not be killed.
2. Embryos have been proven to be innocent human lives.
3. Embryos should not be killed.

Statement 1 rests on the fact that everywhere else, we all know it is wrong to take human life absent good cause. I'm not aiming this at you, Gabriel - I'm reaching for common ground. Babies, adults, older folks, whatever race - all human life is sacred (or has a right to life).

The unstated assumption is that this moral weight of human life in every other circumstance creates a brightline moral rule that human life always has moral weight.

This right to life, accorded to all human life, is the presumption that is then taken into the debate over embryos. Since we have such a brightline moral standard, it is not surprising that pro-lifers would be keen to emphasize that embryos fall under the category of life.
This is also the reason that "unique" is stressed - unlike the DNA in our bodies, which is just skin cells, embryos have unique DNA and so (the argument runs) must be considered as more than DNA-carrying cells - embryos are human life!

Bear with me, Gabriel. I realize you've heard this before, or mostly. You wrote: "Maybe here is the crux of our disagreement: I do not see that that particular quality is the all-important one with the moral weight." I agree, this is the crux! Duffy's argument takes the form of a question: if human life has moral weight, and embryos are human life, why shouldn't they be accorded the moral weight human life is accorded everywhere else?

If you will forgive me for saying so, you have not stated your counter-argument very clearly! While admitting the biological facts, you believe that the embryos are not similar enough to the rest of human life to partake of the "moral umbrella".

I believe you are relying on a distinction between "personhood" and "life". This is your unstated assumption.

Duffy believes embryos must be accorded moral weight, because they are human life, and human life has moral weight in every other instance. To defend, it is not enough simply to say, "What is special about life?", when we all know that life is special in every other instance. You must answer your own question: human life is special, unlike other forms of life, because it has personhood, and embryos are not persons.

A principled defense can proceed on one or both of two distinctions between embryos and other human life: physical development, and/or personhood. Now there are other instances of human life that is physically disadvantaged relative to the rest of us - I think that is a doubtful path to take. You will probably be left with "personhood". Many others have taken this path; it is well-trod.

Now, Duffy denies that he has to defend the personhood of embryos. He may be right. I am pro-life and am happy to accept his life argument as it stands. I have set out these observations in the interest of moving the debate forward; I sincerely hope they are helpful to both sides.

And Gabriel, while I realize this hasn't been good for your stress levels - you would have fared much worse on most other forums, and we would have fared much worse in most pro-choice forums!

Remember Rollens: "you seem to assume that Mr. Carter has canvassed the Rawlsian resources for addressing this issue, thereby licensing his conclusions about what Rawls cannot do."
That's a fair point, Rollens. I would only note that neither of us are in a position to know if Mr. Carter has done his due diligence, but that the form of his essay, at least, follows the Rawlsian prescription of allowing reply.

Looking at the reply I just made to Gabriel, and original posting, I think maybe I underestimated how thoroughly the "personhood"/"life" distinction has been thrashed out - though it seems to have been lost in the last few posts.

Maybe Gabriel is going for an "ought"/"is" distinction, a la David Hume. He's right that at base, stating "John is a person" is a statement of fact only.

Gabriel, science alone cannot prove value, morality - you're right. But in the natural law, existence follows essence: it looks this way, because of its being, its essence. It is not that John is a person because he has 46 chromosomes; John has 46 chromosomes, because he is a person who is human. That is the natural law idea. Since this is always the case, we feel safe in turning around and saying: if you have these physical characteristics, you are a person. That is the scientific observation, and like all science it is not infallible. It is possible, theoretically, to have 46 chromosomes and not be a person.

In the natural law conception of the world, the being carries its moral import in its very nature. I must respect your life, not because the outside moral law proves I must, but because you are sacred. In other words, the moral import does not come over and above the "is", as an afterthought or an overlay.

Move up a philosophical level, folks. Gabriel is a nominalist positivist, or some such, not a natural law guy. Why does "ought" derive from "is"?

T.D. Roy, how is it that you take yourself to know that "neither of us are in a position to tell whether Mr. Carter has done his due diligence" in substantiating his claims about what Rawls cannot do?

And do you really imagine Rawls so simplistically drawing conclusions about what Kant or Mill couldn't do, and about how these men "negate" their own theories?

Dufy:

Your "facts" of course, are not really conclusive. They are minor facts, cited selectively, in service of, warped by, your pro-life ideology.

First, you seem to imagine that you yourself, are the arbiter of scientific facts when you cite embryology, and declare that it is the relevant and final and unequivocal decider, in this matter. But 1) embryology itself, is far more variable than your biased construction of it. Mostly embryology addressess itself to the embryo as a biological "organism," not as a person, or a real, full human being. Indeed - as others have noted here - 2) other fields of knowledge - especially Psychology, Anthropology, Philosophy/morals, are just as relevant as your fictionally monolythic/dogmatic "embryology."

For example? The (debatable) "fact" that a zygote or embryo has a "unique" set of DNA characterisitics, makes it a unique organism/individual, or set of cells. But 1) why is biological individuality, important in determining our humanity? Identical twins are close enough to identical in DNA. And suppose they were exactly identical?Suppose we clone biologically identical human beings or future persons? Would they not therefore be human persons?

Then too, 2) the most important thing in our humanity, most thinkers agree, is not just our DNA: it is our mind, spirit, or "soul." That determination is not arbitrary: it is agreed upon by generations of philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists. What the sciences you deny say, is that the essence of being a human being, is our human intelligence, our mind. And they ask as their central question, is this: when does the brain become large enough, developed enough, to sustain higher-order thinking? A mind? The thing that makes us human persons.

To ignore the importance of that mind, is to think of humanity, in the most brutally simple, animalistic terms: as if we are just a collection of cells. While generations of higher-order thinkers - and religions - have said that our most valuable characteristic, the thing that makes us human - is our spirit, or mind.

For you to base your arguments, your definition of humanity, on a grossly simplistic idea of "embryology," to ignore and denegrate the other sciences and religion, their focus on the spirit, soul, or mind, is to attack the very core of humanity. And of religion too.

Your definition of a human person, is an insult to all of mankind. Since it takes no cognizance at all, of our greatest characteristic.

Where the founders intended on the principles of justice asserted in the Declaration of Independence guaranteeing the eventual end of their temporary tolerance (for the sake of the union) of the grave injustice that was slavery, the current atheocracy's very existence depends upon those principles being forever forgotten. (For an explanation of the term "atheocracy" see Bishop James Conley's First Things article *America's Atheocracy* at:
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/07/americarsquos-atheocracy )

Personhood as the basis of our rights just doesn't work. The atheocracy rebuilt American law on a strange new foundation, or more precisely, on no foundation at all other than raw power or "might makes right." In other words, it was rebuilt upon godless theories of jurisprudence like legal positivism; it must resort to using "legal personhood" instead of our humanity as the basis of our rights, a personhood which they very conveniently pretend to have the authority to bestow and withdraw as they see fit. Corporations get it; the child in the womb does not.

Personhood can be measured as accurately as one can measure the presence of a soul in a living being, which is to say it can't really be measured or verified at all. What qualities of personhood do corporations have that the child in the womb does not? For the atheocracy the answer can only be rooted in completely arbitrary standards it comes up with to suit its own purposes. This way the atheocracy, without any way for opponents of their rulings to definitively prove them wrong, can declare whatever they want to be a "person" and also declare that some members of the human family are not. This enables them to withdraw the protection of law from vast segments of the human family according to atheocratic or popular bigotry. (In the case of the child in the womb this was media-manufactured bigotry that made Joseph Goebbels look like an amateur.)

Children living in the womb are a segment of humanity currently being lethally tyrannized by the atheocracy. From the perspective of these members of the human family the rule of law has been entirely abandoned and bloody anarchy reigns. Tolerance of this kind of injustice is built into legal positivism. Consider the thought of noted legal positivist Hans Kelson:

“What is a legal person is for the law, including of course, the Constitution, to say, which simply means that upon according legal personality to a thing the law affords it the right and privileges of a legal person.... The point is that it is a policy determination whether legal personality should attach and not a question of biological or 'natural' correspondence.”

So no human being, from the newly conceived to the elderly, is really safe from the atheocracy. There is no "biological or 'natural' correspondence'" between their humanity and their being a legal person under the law. This is completely contrary to the Declaration's assertion that humanity has an inalienable right to life, and that the very purpose of government is to protect humanity's inalienable rights.

If humanity is merely the product of a mindless, purposeless process which quite accidentally spewed us forth, then there is no such thing as inalienable rights; we are just animals with greater intellectual capacity than other animals; we have no more intrinsic, inalienable rights than does a cow. Cows get butchered. In a government divorced from theism and natural law (the laws of nature and nature's God) there are no inviolable ethical principles limiting the actions of those in power as they “do what they know is best” to those who aren’t. This is how they can rationalize the "legalization" of butchering children in the womb.

If you think the use of the word "butcher" is inflammatory, it is only an accurate description of what routinely happens to babies in America. What is inflammatory is what is being done to those babies. If an accurate description of that sounds inflammatory that is only because what is being done to them is outrageous and inflammatory. If those euphemistically blathering on and on about the issue according to their sanitized, unrealistic portrayal of it dare to look at them, here are some *GRAPHIC* pictures of what abortion does to babies on the Priests for Life web site. You have been warned:

http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/photosassorted/index.htm

Andrew and TD Roy – thank you so much for your comments! – I’m so glad that you thought that my comments were reasonable and irenic – I would always feel slightly guilty after sending them off, that perhaps I had allowed my frustration to get the better of me - and I spologise to Nathan and Joe if indeed I have not been as polite as I ought to have been... Anyway, seeing as it’s not just me and Nathan going round in circles, perhaps I’ll allow myself to write again – in case any of you are still there... Before trying to actually answer some of your questions, let me clarify a couple of things...

TD Roy says: “Maybe Gabriel is going for an "ought"/"is" distinction, a la David Hume. He's right that at base, stating "John is a person" is a statement of fact only... Gabriel is a nominalist positivist, not a natural law guy”. Now, I don’t really know anything about natural law theory, but at the end of your comment you give what seems to be a gloss of it – namely: “In the natural law conception of the world, the being carries its moral import in its very nature. I must respect your life... because you are sacred”. If that is what natural law is, then I think I’m on board! I am certainly not a Humean, - that is, I do *not* think that one cannot derive an ought form an is. In fact, quite the opposite – and quite in line with how you describe the natural law position – I think that the way that something is, is precisely what brings it into moral community with us, i.e. is precisely what brings the ‘ought’ with it. ((As to whether I’m a nominalist positivist – I have no idea! – I certainly don’t tend to find myself much liking the things that people who are generally known as nominalist-positivists write! – I’d be happy, for example, to talk about souls, and the like. If I must lay my cards on the table, I would probably call myself a Wittgensteinian [of the later variety] – even if I am not a very good one!)).

Now, having said that I think that that way something is, is what brings it into moral community with us, I think I have come round to a place where Andrew’s question is appropriate. Namely: “i was wondering what you use as criteria to evaluate "similarity" when you speak of "not similar enough." size, weight, shape? number of chromosomes? rationality? ability to feel pain?”. I think that TD’s comments also point towards a very similar question. TD says: “While admitting the biological facts, you believe that the embryos are not similar enough to the rest of human life to partake of the "moral umbrella". I believe you are relying on a distinction between "personhood" and "life". This is your unstated assumption.” I wouldn’t describe my position quite in that way, however. I think that calling something ‘a person’ *is* to say that they are a part of our moral community. The former doesn’t *ground* the latter, rather it just *means* the latter. My saying this, of course, will prompt the question: So what do you take it to be about something that makes it into a person, i.e. which grounds its inclusion in our moral community? To this I reply: that thing’s degree of similarity with the paradigmatic case of a person, of a being that is included in our moral community. I take a such a paradigm to be a rational adult human. I think that we take our moral community to radiate out from such paradigmatic members, through complicated links of similarity. Of course, this brings us back to Andrew’s question: what respects of similarity do I take to be the all-important ones?

I suppose that I think all manner of things are relevant, but that very few things will be *necessary*. Thus, rationality is certainly not necessary – because babies are not rational, nor are people in vegetative states, etc. However, babies and people in vegetative states, have a certain physiological similarities to adults – recognisable arms, legs, head, etc. Of course, people in vegetative states are physiologically more similar to rational adults than babies – but still, babies seem to be similar enough. By babies, I count babies in the womb (forgive me, I don’t know the technical terms) – who are well developed enough to be similar enough, in this way, to adults. Thus, there is no one quality which is the key – i.e. either rationality, or physical properties – rather, having enough of one or the other, may be sufficient to make one similar enough (maybe rationality would be individually sufficient – but that would probably carry with it certain physiological characteristics – but that is an issue for another time...). I would want to use Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘family resemblance term’, to describe the way that the term ‘person’ works: “For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that... we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail.” (*Philosophical Investigations*, #66).

It occurs to me that it is not merely a matter of similarity, but other relationships between the members of the class of persons, may also play a significant role in keeping them part of the class. So, for example, certain relationships of causality and potential may also be relevant. E.g. that something could *become* a rational adult human, may be relevant in making it a part of the group, and that something will certainly never again be a rational adult human, may do something to exclude them (I’m thinking of someone who is brain dead – this might be more serious than someone’s being in a vegetative state). But these qualities will, equally, not be enough in themselves. So, something which has the potential to become a rational adult human, but which is extremely physiologically unlike a rational adult human – such as a very early embryo, may still not be a part of the class, for reason that its extreme physiological difference, and its lack of rationality, together, overpower the fact of its potential to become a rational adult human. Now, another quality may also enter into the mix – namely: ability to exist independent of other people. Of course, babies are unable to do so – they will starve. So too certain people in comas, etc. But they are not quite so directly dependent on other people for being sustained, as are young embryos, who are non-viable outside the womb etc etc. – I imagine that this list of interwoven and overlapping, qualities and resemblances – none of which are necessary, and perhaps none of which are individually sufficient, but all of which are relevant, and which must be combined in the right way --- I imagine that this list of qualities and similarities could be extend in a much much more complex and rich way than I have done. But it is a beginning, and it should give you an idea of the kind of things that i think combine to make people included or excluded from the class of people.

I would quite another of Wittgenstein’s remarks (he is not talking in relation to abortion at all!): “Look at a stone and imagine it having sensations.--One says to oneself: How could one so much as get the idea of ascribing a sensation to a thing? One might as well ascribe it to a number!--And now look at a wriggling fly and at once these difficulties vanish and pain seems able to get a foothold here, where before everything was, so to speak, too smooth for it. / And so, too, a corpse seems to us quite inaccessible to pain.--Our attitude to what is alive and to what is dead, is not the same. All our reactions are different.--If anyone says: "That cannot simply come from the fact that a living thing moves about in such-and-such a way and a dead one not", then I want to intimate to him that this is a case of the transition 'from quantity to quality'.” (*Phil Inv*, #284). One might wonder that the above kinds of qualities: physiological similarity, rationality, etc, would be the kinds of thing that could tip someone over the qualitative divide between ‘being a member of our moral community’ and not being. But i would say, with Wittgenstein, that often there are cases where a quantitative change of seemingly mundane kinds, can make for enormously serious qualitative ones (namely, make for someone becoming a person!). // relevant to this is the fact that all the properties I talk about above are ‘is’ properties – and the right combination of the them in the right degrees, will make you count as a person – as far as I’m concerned – which is something that carries all manner of ‘oughts’ with it. So that is just to illustrate why I don’t think I’m a Humean...

Now, another point – you may say: ‘The above few paragraphs are ridiculous! – After all, you just mix together all these qualities in such a way that you make sure to exclude young embryos, and give absolutely no *reason* for doing so!! After all, perhaps ‘being an organism that is a sole carrier of DNA’ (or whatever quality Nathan said that embryologists had proved that embryos have) is sufficient to make an embryo similar enough to rational adult humans?’. My response to this would simply be to say that I wasn’t trying to make an argument, but merely to engage in a description of the kinds of networks of overlapping qualities and similarities that do seem to describe what I take to make certain beings count as people. As it happens – as a matter of description – I don’t take young embryos to be part of that community. And I can point out the ways in which they see too alien to the paradigmatic members of that community, that seems to account for my not including them. I’m not sure that I could possibly *argue* for the things that I take to be lacking to be the all-important things; not could I *argue* against the DNA-quality (whatever Nathan mentioned) being not sufficiently important. All I would say is: I do not feel, see, young embryos as in moral community with me. I suppose my hope is that putting together the above explanation of how the things that unite all people into moral community may be very complicated, and very mixed – and that there may simply be no clear list of necessary and sufficient conditions – may make the position seem less ridiculous. (It may be important to point out that there are many concepts that we have for which we cannot give a clear list of necessary and sufficient conditions as to what makes something count as falling under that concept or not. Wittgenstein’s paradigmatic examples are ‘game’ and ‘number’ – but they are all over the place. The more important a concept is, and the more deeply entrenched in natural language, I would almost expect it to be all the more likely that it will be a family resemblance term. Therefore it is not surprising to me that ‘person’ is one...).

Now, you may wonder where this leaves us. Could I persuade you to see the moral community my way? Could you persuade me? As I said, I don’t think that this is the area for syllogistic/deductive arguments, etc. Would you indulge me another couple of quites form wittgenstein: “Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and heretic. // I said I would 'combat' the other man,--but wouldn't I give him reasons? Certainly; but how far do they go? At the end of reasons comes persuasion. (Think what happens when missionaries convert natives.)” (*On Certainty* ##611-2). And: “[C]onsider that the justification of an ‘ethical proposition’ merely attempts to refer the proposition back to others that make an impression on you. If in the end you don’t have disgust for this & admiration for that, then there is no justification worthy of that name” (*Public and Private Occasions*, p. 83). Thus, I don’t think that you could make a deductive argument to persuade me that young embryos are part of our moral community. But I imagine that you might be able ‘convert’ me, if you made enough of an impression.

A final comment to Andrew. You said: “in any case, when i compare ‘andrew’ as an embryo and ‘andrew’ today, i certainly don't find ‘similarity,’ the same 46 chromosomes notwithstanding. instead, i find ‘identity.’ by this i mean that whoever i am, i was then and am today that same being.” – O don’t think that there is identity there – though certainly there is a certain physical continuity. But there can often be continuity with no identity. Consider blocks of wood, and the statues chiselled form them – the block of wood is not the same thing as the statue. So too, there is physical continuity between an acorn and an oak tree, but they are different things. And so too, between a boat, made of all the parts of a scrapped car, etc etc. I think that identity in the sense that you mean/need relies – I’m sorry to say it! – on the kinds of similarities and overlapping properties that was discussing above...

Oh – I think that I have one final ‘final point’... Namely: I don’t think that there will be one precise moment at which the being in the womb will suddenly become sufficiently similar and related to the community of people so as to *at that precise moment* to become a member. I think that being a member of the human moral community is a matter of degree, and that the being in the womb slowly becomes more and more of a member. I suppose that the degree of membership goes hand in hand with the degree of wrongness in (gratuitously) destroying it. The fact that there is no clear point need not be any defect in this way of seeing things – though it may make things hard for law-makers.

Well. Many thanks for bearing with me – if indeed you have! I share TD’s sentiment: “I have set out these observations in the interest of moving the debate forward; I sincerely hope they are helpful to both sides”.

gabriel,

i just ate lunch. before i ate lunch, i had no sushi in my stomach. now i have sushi in my stomach. does that mean i'm no longer "me?" that my identity has somehow changed? that whoever i "am" has fundamentally changed?

the same could be said for each breath i take. my hemoglobin changes in response to oxygen. does whoever "i" am change as well?

it therefore seems obvious that living things "change" in space and time in such ways that do not affect the identity of said living things. an embryo at 1 day is the same embryo at 8 days even though it now has many more cells. gabriel yesterday and gabriel today, after several more breaths, some sleep, and a few meals, are both the same being.

at the level of ontology, then, i simply don't see any difference at all between (1) me as an embryo and (2) me today.

thanks for your thoughtful replies.

DOes our soul change?

If it does not, then a major element of Christian doctrine - about "changing" and saving and "transforming souls - is false. Indeed, the Bible is nonsense.

If our souls never change, there is no point in trying to "save" anyone's soul; since all that was predetermined at birth.

In addition? Given this high degree of predetermination, there is no freedom, either.