Re: [asa] Worthy of response?

Burgy said: *I cannot agree. The Nazis made an ethical judgement that Jews
were not persons. That did not make them not persons. A person is a person
regardless of any ethical judgements made by others*.

I respond: right, but the question "what consitutes 'personhood'"
ultimately is a metaphysical / ethical question, not a scientific question.
I agree that empirical data from the natural sciences, such as data about
what can physically happen to a zygote pre-implantation, bears on this
question. However, I don't think such observations can answer the
question.

And, the fact that the Nazis made wrong and evil ethical judgments doesn't
mean there is no basis on which we could reach a different,
*objectively*better conclusion, without reducing the question to a
merely "scientific"
one. In other words, when I say something is primarily an "ethical" rather
than a "scientific" issue, I don't think that relegates the question to the
realm of merely subjective emotion, concerning which the Nazi view is just
as valid as any other view.

In response to my musings on the pre-implantation zygote and ensoulement,
Burgy said: *The problem with this explanation is that is (I think)
entirely ad hoc. Or perhaps there is supporting evidence for it? *
**
I respond: I think you are improperly shifting the burden of proof here.
You asserted that the indeterminacy of the zygote before implantation -- the
fact that it can split into two and then re-fuse or not re-fuse -- defeats
any notion of ensoulement before implantation. In making that assertion,
you took on the burden of proving it.

I offered a few scenarios under which your assertion might not hold. In
doing that, I've at least provisionally defeated your defeater concerning
ensoulement -- you haven't carried your burden of proof. I don't need to
offer any more evidence, because I'm not claiming any specific concept of
ensoulement is necessarily correct. I'm only suggesting that there are any
number of plausible ways in which pre-implantation ensoulement could
possibly remain viable despite your proposed defeater. In order to carry
your burden of proof, you now need to show why my possible scenarios fail.

I could go a bit further, though, and say that if a zygote can split in two
before implantation, and if that results in two distinctly individual
fetuses being brought to term and growing into distinct individuals, that in
itself is evidence against your claim. But at the end of the day, neither
of us has enough data to know what is or isn't possible concerning
ensoulement, or even whether ensoulement is a useful concept.

On 9/4/07, Carol or John Burgeson <burgytwo@juno.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> "I had said: The medical data that indicates fairly clearly that an
entity prior to
> implantation is not a person is as follows:
>
>
>
> David O posted:
>
> "I think that is too strong a statement."
>
> We must disagree, then, on that claim.
>
> "The data you cite certainly suggest that the concept of
"personhood" is difficult to apply prior to implantation."
>
> I understand your use of a milder term. Perhaps it would help if I agreed
that the data, while "clear," is not a rock solid 100% proof. It is, as are
so many concepts in this area, always provisional.
>
> "However, the notion of "personhood," IMHO, ultimately is not
something that can be conclusively determined one way or the other by these
sorts of empirical observations."
>
> We can, on that basis, never have conclusive proof of such things. But
none the less we have to (sometimes) bet on what looks the most likely. That
is all I am doing.
>
> "Personhood" ultimately is an ethical value judgment based on
both present and potentential aspects of the entity."
>
> I cannot agree. The Nazis made an ethical judgement that Jews were not
persons. That did not make them not persons. A person is a person regardless
of any ethical judgements made by others.
>
> "I would argue that the potentiality of a not-yet-implanted human
zygote gives it a kind of dignity that requires us (a) not to discard it
without very good reason; and (b) not to create it without the intention to
bring it to term if possible."
>
> I have not argued otherwise.
>
> "As to "ensoulment," the fact that a zygote that has the potential
to split into two entities before implantation, it seems to me, does not
decide the question one way or the other. If the "soul" is an entirely
immaterial substance that God implants in the womb, and if God knows
beforehand whether a given zygote will split into two entities before
implantation, then it seems entirely possible that God gives that zygote two
souls before it splits, with one going each way as it were. And if the two
entities subsequently fuse, it would seem that God is capable of accounting
for that in advance as well when he does the ensoulement."
>
> The problem with this explanation is that is (I think) entirely ad hoc. Or
perhaps there is supporting evidence for it?
>
> "But I'd also suggest that the notion of "ensoulement" perhaps
isn't very helpful. It analogizes the soul to a material substance that
would be injected, so to speak, into the zygote / fetus / baby at a fixed
time in its development. That makes what is essentially a spiritual
property too much like something material."
>
> Good point.
>
> " Rather than searching for a specific time of "ensoulment," I'd
suggest that we advocate respect for human life from its very start to its
very end -- which means, at least, not taking active measures to terminate
human potentiality."
>
> As in most discussions of this nature, the devil is in the details. Above
you said "without very good reasons" and we might debate endlessly about
what those reasons might be. AT the end, we would have to agree to disagree.

>
> Thanks for the dialing.
>
> Burgy
>

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Received on Tue Sep 4 14:32:37 2007