teaearlgreyhot Wrote:This brings up two more questions. (1) Why is the species of the two parties in an act of murder important?
Because if we say it is okay to kill humans, we set ourselves up for suffering, whereas the act of killing another animal poses no such threat. It comes down to human survival. Now, you can argue that humans and animals (indeed, we are part of the animal kingdom) are no different and we all deserve the same inalienable rights, such as that as the right to life. While I can see the rationale behind such an argument, this isn't my immediate concern.
To be more concerned with the matters of your own species is a justifiable and rational position to hold. Extending our conscience to all other animals is a distinctly human trait, and one we can (and arguably should) utilize for the benefit of other species, but this has no footing in a human rights issue.
Quote:On the second question: What is a human?
Is a "human" synonymous with "the human body"? Say a human were in a completely vegetative state and we knew for sure that (1) there is absolutely no human consciousness at all inside of it nor (2) there is absolutely no possibility that person could reawaken from the vegetative state. This "person" is completely fried and is just a drooling set of organs. Would it still be murder to kill such a person?
For all intents and purposes, one could consider euthanasia as a form of murder. Absolutely. What is human is an easy question to answer. A human is a member of the species homo sapiens. A 'living-dead' body such as that of a brain dead victim, is still a human, despite whatever function their brain is capable of performing.
Sentience and self-awareness are two traits of humans, most notably the latter. And as I have already pointed out, our capacity for self-awareness doesn't even kick in until the 15 month mark or so. Humans are not the only forms of life to display sentience, and so is not a distinctly human trait either. What separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom are our genetics and - more importantly - what those genes are capable of. We all know that humans posses an incredible edge with our brains. We are also highly evolved social creatures, among other things.
Quote:Or say that the consciousness of a person who once inhabited a human body were somehow stored in a computer. Would it be wrong to take an ax to that computer effectively killing the person stored inside?
This is a very interesting question and I would love to be able to answer it with any kind of authority. As the technology for transplanting a human brain into an inorganic body does not yet present itself however, this is impossible to answer at present. Just for the sake of discussion though, I would say that no, I would not classify a synthetic form complete with a human brain as human. I would not consider it murder in this context.
I want to mention consciousness. We still do not know the exact ingredients of consciousness, but I believe it to be a combination of our brains and bodies, not just limited to our brains alone. It would stand to reason that this would be the case as our bodies and brains act in a symbiotic nature to one another. Physical memory, for example, could very well (and most likely does) contribute to what we would classify as consciousness. I can't imagine any kind of physical memory could be transferred to a synthetic form. And so, perhaps consciousness is limited to us in our human bodies. Just a thought.
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