From: gbernath@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (Gregory Bernath)
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: The Ultimate Hypocrisy
Keywords: abortion, birth control
Date: 14 Dec 92 05:05:31 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Ohio University CS Dept,. Athens

In article <1992Dec10.055707.21403@afit.af.mil> wbralick@afit.af.mil (Will Bralick) writes:
>In article <1992Dec8.221838.7337@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu> gbernath@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (Gregory Bernath) writes:
>| This one's really long, so exit now or don't complain.
>
>Thanks for explaining your reasoning.  You quite unapologetically fall
>into a combination of categories (b)(1) and (b)(2) that I described in a
>response to Susan Garvin's posting.
>
>| A normal, grown member of homo sapiens is indusputably a person. 
>| Does this mean that person implies homo sapiens?  Imagine that the
>| starship enterprise time travels back and beams down Lt. Worf.  Not
>| a human anything in him, but still definitely a person.  Personhood
>| does not imply homo sapiens.
>
>It is a stretch to base your argument on a fictional teevee show, but
>I think that you are trying to capture the essence of the ``other minds'' 
>problem.  Anyway, would you agree that there are different capabiities 
>present at different stages of development?  If there is a temporary
>stage where the entity is nonsentient does the entity enter and leave
>the status of locus of rights as it enters and leaves sentience?

Hmmm, a sinusoidal sentience curve.  Gotta admit, never thought of that
one before.  But to answer the question, yes, the number or degree of
rights do change, though it is not an all or nothing situation.  Assume
we have a 36 week fetus.  I think aborting it is wrong.  Assume it 
devolves into an 8 week fetus.  I think aborting it is OK.  

>| Does homo sapiens imply personhood?  Imagine an accident victim,
>| permanently and irreversibly brain dead, but the body still functions.
>
>Provably permanently and irreversibly brain dead or probably permanently
>and irreversibly brain dead?  Interestingly, even if we can call a not-
>yet-born child ``brain dead'' at an early stage in his development,
>this is (normally speaking) a temporary condition.  If the accident 
>victim is temporarily ``brain dead'' do you consider him to be a locus 
>of rights?

Do I consider him to be a person?  No.  A locus of rights?  Yes.  Never
did I state that non-persons can not have rights.  If said victim is not
harming anyone else, he has the right to be left alone.  If fetuses grew
on trees, I would give them the right to be left alone.  Since they are
causing harm to the woman, the woman's right to remove it overrides its
right to be left alone.

>| This is still a living, breathing member of homo sapiens.  Is it a
>| person?  No, it's just an empty shell, nobody's home.  Homo sapiens
>| does not imply personhood.
>
>On this point you will probably receive argument.  Going by a strictly
>naturalistic view of the universe you might draw the conclusion that
>``nobody is home'' only because you have defined ``being home'' to be
>``capable of thinking.''  This is circular reasoning used to support 
>a position desired a priori.

Yes, I did start out with the assumption that thinking=person.  I was
showing that what most consider to be common sense agrees with this 
position.  Do I have proof that thinking = person?  No.  Do I care?
No.  I'm writing my own morality on this position, not law books.  It 
seems right, so I go with it.  If soul = person feels right to you,
feel free to believe it.

>| What does imply personhood?  The commonality in all things we consider
>| "persons" is the ability to think.
>
>Be careful with ``we.''  There are those who will advance the argument
>that the commonality is the presense of an immortal soul.  This is a
>singularly unconvincing argument for those who do not believe in such
>things.  It is, however, a criterion used by many.

And they are welcome to use it.

>| Not capable of thinking means not a person.
>
>Later on you also state: ``I believe thinking implies personhood.''
>which means that your position is
>
>	T(x)  iff  P(x)
>	
>where T(x) is (roughly) ``x is capable of thinking'' and P(x) is ``x 
>is a person.''  You have a lower bound on ``thinking'' that includes
>severly mentally retarded people, but is probably somewhat higher 
>than a house plant.  I would be interested in precisely what that level
>is and what the criteria are that you used to establish it.  Further-
>more, you have eliminated any objections against personhood based on 
>appearance or bodily structure since you are willing to accept any
>species as ``thinking'' beings and hence as persons.
>
>| This usually brings up the usually protests "What about 
>| sleeping people?  [...]
>
>What manner of thinking do severly mentally retarded people possess that
>qualifies them as persons?  Additionally, do they possess the full range 
>of rights, e.g. the right to vote, that are accorded to persons or should 
>they be discriminated against?
>
>| The other objection to this philosophy that I can think of goes 
>| something like "How dare you make judgements on who is and isn't a
>| person!  [...]
>| The flaw in this is its homo sapiens
>| oriented point of view.  What gives you the right to exclude cows
>| and dogs from personhood?  [...]
>
>But can the dog ``think'' as well as a severly retarded person or a
>not-yet-born child after the 24th week?  I suspect that some of the
>great apes can ``think'' better than some severely retarded people.
>More on that later.
>
>| Can I define "thinking" ?  No, but I can tell when it's happening, and
>| I know that to be capable of thinking, one needs a bare minimum of
>| hardware to do it.  According to neuroscientists, the folks who know
>| what they're talking about in this area,
>
>Interesting, argument from authority.  I am not sure that neuroscientists 
>study ``thought,'' though, so much as they study ``brains.''  You might 
>have included psychologists and philosophers to get a better cross-section 
>of the thinking on thinking.  What we see in operation here is a material-
>istic or naturalistic bias built into your criteria.  Because not everyone 
>shares these biases we can be certain that these criteria will not have
>universal support.

Call me kooky, but I say "no brain = no thought".  If the philosophers
want to argue about souls, fine.  I'm mired in the real world, and
see no need to apologize for it.

>| a fetus is not capable of
>| thinking until a minimum of 24 weeks.  The cerebral cortex [...]
>| Thinking is not possible; the hardware does not exist.
>
>Of course brain is a sufficient, but not a necessary condition for 
>thought, so your entire argument falls apart at this point (if not 
>sooner).  The only way to proceed beyond this point in your argument 
>is to deny the existence of rational, non-material beings, e.g. God, 
>angels, demons, etc.  At any rate, even assuming you wish to deny the 
>existence of rational, non-material beings, if you cannot define 
>``thinking'' then your criterion is as useless as your description of
>what is necessary for its manifestation.  

Exactly what falls flat?  We're talking about a fetus here.  No brain =
no thought.  Please stick with the world as we know it here.  If
you want to pull God into your personal morality, feel free to do so.
I see no reason to believe in such an entity, so it has no place in mine.
As far as thinking goes, again I admit I don't exactly know what it is.
And again, so what?  My world view is not black and white, there are
plenty of shades of gray.  When I don't know, I just muddle through
the best I can, and I expect to spend the rest of my life this way. 

>Perhaps you have an implicit, unarticulated definition for ``thinking'' 
>permitting you to define a baseline of physiological capabilities needed 
>for this process.  However, because you admit that you don't know what 
>thinking is, then one is drawn to the ineluctable conclusion that you 
>selected the minimum physiological capability first to coincide with your 
>a priori conclusion and only then established the criteria.

"Ineluctable"?  Lacking a dictionary, I will guess that this means "obvious"
or "inescapable".  In which case I'll thank you not explain to everyone
how I reached my conclusions.  Let's go over again what those conclusions
are:

No brain => no thinking (sticking with organic earth life here)
Brain exists => possibly thinking
Normal human brain exists => definitely thinking
Thinking <==> person
Person has more rights than non-person

You claim that I decided on abortion rights first, and then reached 
these conclusions.  I claim the reverse.  Since I did the thinking, I
think my claim holds more water.

>Another unfortunate side-effect of your schema is the inability to
>distinguish between those things which we typically call persons and 
>which we consider to be loci of rights and members of other species,
>e.g. great apes and cetaceans (if not other even lower forms of mammals),
>that we generally do not consider to be perons.  To be consistent, you 
>should argue for the rights of primates and cetaceans and become a full-
>blown animals rights activist based on an inability to draw the distinction 
>with this criteria between homo sapiens and other species.  So, how do you 
>distinguish the personhood between a very small infant, e.g. a premature 
>infant delievered in the 7th month, and any of the great apes or the 
>cetaceans?
>
>We would like to have a criteria which includes every entity which
>everybody agrees is a ``person'' including the severely handicapped
>(e.g. Down's syndrome), but which doesn't include those entities which
>we agree are not persons, e.g. Coco the gorilla.  Now, if you want to
>assert that Coco _should_ have rights and the not-yet-born child should
>_not_ have rights then you are espousing the ``ultimate hypocrisy''
>alluded to by the subject line.

And being consistent, under my own moral code, Coco would have the same 
rights as a person.  And living in the real world, I see immense 
practical difficulties trying to work something like that into law.
Therefore, at this point in time, I would not want my moral code
written into law.

Now consider the severely retarded person, say one whose intelligence is
much less than a dog's.  I don't call a dog a person, why call the human a
person?  If I was to be 100% coldly logical, I could not.  But I am not
100% coldly logical.  I freely admit to being inconsistent in this regard.
I show favoritism to humans.  I give humans the benefit of the doubt,
which I do not give to anything else.  Inconsistent, yes.  If I was basing
laws on this, you'd have something to yell about.  Since I'm just basing
my own moral code on it, you can take it or leave it.

>The interesting challenge for the anti-life crowd is to try to establish 

And we were doing so well!  Your dogma is showing.  Let's make a little
deal.  You don't call me pro-death, anti-life, or pro-abortion, and I
won't call you anti-choice, pro-slavery, pro-forced birth, pro-lie,
pro-misogyny, or any other wonderful name I can dream up.

>these criteria so that they do not include not-yet-born children.  
>Because the difference between a not-yet-born child 5 minutes before 
>birth and a born child is negligible (and not intrinsic to the child -- 
>there are extrinsic differences) then you must either admit that the 
>not-yet-born child is a person or that the born child is not a person.  
>This was recognized early in the anti-life movement when some anti-life 
>activist (and I forget who) admitted that dependent children (up to age 
>3 or 4 or something) should be disposable.  Perhaps somebody remembers 
>who said that -- I only remember it being said, but would want to try 
>to attribute it for fear of misattribution.  

Only if you base your legal position on abortion on the personhood of
the fetus.  If you base it on the right to bodily autonomy, there is no
problem admitting that both a born and almost born child are both
persons (or both not persons).

>Note that my other respondent and her ilk recognize this problem and 
>hence will usually try to avoid any discussion of the personhood of the 
>not-yet-born child.  Ths is why I label them pro-abortion because they 
>begin with the conclusion that abortion is a social good and reason 
>backwards to its justification.

My, you have a knack for explaining how others reach their positions.
Myself, I'm kind of funny.  I tend to believe people when they tell me
what they think.  You refuse to believe that anyone could reach
a pro-choice position without self-deception.

>So where are we?  We seem to have established that you are an atheistic, 
>pro-abortion, animal rights advocate.  (Humor impaired, please note:
>that was a joke.)  Seriously, though, assuming that you want to retain
>consistency, your criteria seem to lead you to some rather extraordinary 
>positions -- perhaps you might want to revisit the proverbial drawingboard ;-)

Atheistic and pro-choice, yes.  Animal rights?  Nah, I like hunting.
And no need for the drawingboard.

>| Thus, I personally believe any abortion before 24 weeks in not wrong
>| or immoral.  Note that 24 weeks is the lower limit for the possibility
>| of thought; I'm giving the fetus the benefit of the doubt.  What if
>| I'm wrong?  Given the choice of the certainty of harm to a living,
>| thinking being (the woman), and a zillion-to-one shot that the fetus
>| is a sentient being, I bet on the woman.
>
>What certain harm to the woman?  I hadn't restricted the class of women
>to those whose physical health/lives were threatened.

If something did to your body what a fetus does to a woman's body, you
would definitely call it "certain harm".

>| Hope that answered your question.  As I see it, you believe the 
>| potential to become a born homo sapiens implies personhood.
>
>If you check you will find out that the not-yet-born child qualifies as 
>a certain stage of homo sapiens.  ``Born'' is an irrelevant criterion.
>Since you used a fictional teevee show, I will use a work of fiction,
>too.  Why could MacDuff kill MacBeth when the witches had predicted that
>MacBeth would not die by the hand of man born of woman?

Sorry, never read MacBeth.

>| I
>| believe thinking implies personhood.  I've given my reasoning, and
>| I honestly believe that they are logical, and not just rationalizations. 
>
>I think that your reasoning leads you to imputing personhood to certain
>members of the animal kingdom and implicitly denies the existence of
>non-material beings.  You cannot define thinking, but presume to know
>the minimum set of hardware needed to do it, based on the opinion of a
>class of unnamed scientists.  In short, although I am willing to accept
>that you believe that these are not just rationalizations, I am unwilling
>to accept that they are not, in fact, rationalizations.

You're right, I do assign personhood to certain animals.  And I don't deny
the existence of non-material beings; I simply don't work on the assumption
that they exist.  After all, I can't disprove that gremlins live in my
refrigerator and vanish when the door opens, but pretending that they
might exist and acting accordingly would be pretty silly.  And I do 
accept argument from authority in this case, given that the authorities
are pretty damn reputable, and I have limited occasions to dissect fetal
brains myself.  Still no rationalizations here.

>| Suppose kinky video tapes are found [...]
>
>I think that your example is ridiculous.  Prove via film that the 
>device was not removed before engaging in the risky behaviour.  Prove 
>via film that the behaviour is actually being engaged in ... etc. No 
>prosecutor would try to bring these sorts of charges when the simpler 
>possession charge can more easily be proved.  Prosecutors often have 
>to bring a lesser provable charge against those suspected of greater 
>crimes.

The point being that you claim using abortion causing birth control is
murder, yet you seem curiously unwilling to punish women who use it.  As
long as we're playing "Guess what motivates the other person", I'll give
it a shot.  Could it be that you actually think that a zygote does not
deserve the same rights as a born person, and that actually you believe
the woman is far more important than any zygote?
-- 
Greg Bernath          gbernath@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh