Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 20:43:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Tim Vanderhoek <hoek@hwcn.org> To: Eivind Eklund <eivind@yes.no> Cc: Tim Vanderhoek <hoek@hwcn.org>, drifter@stratos.net, Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>, fpawlak@execpc.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Does it's true? Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96.980628203142.28316A-100000@james.hwcn.org> In-Reply-To: <19980629010045.04155@follo.net>
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On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Eivind Eklund wrote: > Not true. An infant has people that relate to it, even though they > haven't met it yet. Then doesn't it have (a) value just as you or me? > > However, as you rightly point out, the argument about "potential" > > value in a pre-born infant is mostly null (unless you can > > demonstrate that a particular pre-born was very genetically > > predisposed to developing at some point in the future many strong > > relationships with other humans). > > Wrong in several ways - I included "relationship to self", and it can > have relationships as per the description above. I considered the "relationship to self", but decided its awfully difficult to prove such a relationship when the person having this relationship to self can't even speak, yet. The criteria "relationship to self" is very similar to "self-awareness", and there is certainly hope of (dis)proving that at some point in time, I don't think it's going to happen in the -chat mailing list.... :-) Regardless, you almost sound as if you're argueing against abortion, now. :) > Of course :-) Human worth is a gradual process, much related to at > which point we're conditioned to consider people to have it. It get > ridicilous almost no matter how you slice it, as we're just talking > about an abstraction, a feeling. I would suggest that some definitions are considerably cleaner, in the same way a well-designed computer system is cleaner. -- Outnumbered? Maybe. Outspoken? Never! tIM...HOEk To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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