(July 24, 2014 at 3:09 pm)Esquilax Wrote:(July 23, 2014 at 10:41 am)Heywood Wrote: If in your mind future expectation of person-hood doesn't grant a being moral protection....then you should be okay with killing a perfectly healthy human being under general anesthesia. The moment a human is under general anesthesia...they are simply a piece of meat.....there is no person there....so it should be "okay" to kill that being....right?
You keep saying this, which is kinda amazing, because it demonstrates just how much you will not learn about how the brain and consciousness works, even when you're corrected on it.
Even unconscious, the human brain still works. The autonomic processes that keep the body alive, the beating heart and breathing lungs and so on, continue to function, which should be a hint to you that there's still something going on in there. The subconscious, just as much a part of the mind as anything else, still functions. The person's longterm memory still functions, as does whatever parts of the brain govern personality.
What you're doing, and at this point I'd have to say it's willfully because you've been told this before, is equivocating the expression of consciousness, with consciousness itself. Even under anesthesia, the person is still bound up in their headmeats, still stored in the brain even if dormant. The mind is still in there, it's just not able to do all the things it can at normal functionality at the moment.
You can make all the fiat assertions you like about future personhood, but the medical community would disagree with you; they know that there's a fundamental difference between a sleeping person and a brain damaged one that has nothing to do with abstract potential, defined with completely arbitrary dividing lines by the random, wild assertions of some guy on the internet. Your consciousness is your brain, and when it's unconscious it's still within normal operating parameters. When it's damaged- or missing in the case of the fetus- then it's not. That is when there's nobody at home. Future personhood doesn't come into it at all; in the former case nobody is answering the door, and in the middle case the occupant has vacated the premises, and in the latter case the house isn't even built yet.
Autonomic processes occur in a fetus too...that doesn't make the fetus a person....your point is impotent.
Whether you like it or not, it is a fact that personhood is something that can easily be switched on and off. Why shouldn't this be true? The process of pumping blood around your body can be switched on and off, what makes the process of personhood so special that it can't be switched on and off? Do you believe in a supernatural soul or something?
What reason, other than wanting to justify abortion, is it necessary to consider past personhood when deciding moral protection? I can't think of any. Morality should guide our actions and adding past personhood as a criteria for granting moral protection just so I can justify abortion is an instant of actions guiding morality.
But suppose I add past personhood as a criteria for granting moral protection......I then run into contradictions. Suppose there is a house fire. Inside the house is newborn and an old man on his death bed. I can only save one. Who should I save? If I first consider future expected personhood, my choice is clear....I save the newborn. If I then consider past personhood....then I must conclude that I should save the old man who is about to die anyways.
