RE: The value of a human life (and why abortion, economics, pulling the plug and triage)
June 21, 2010 at 4:09 pm
(June 20, 2010 at 3:28 pm)Ashendant Wrote: No, i said that the brain is what define us as sapient being and that all sapient beings should be treated as equals, a sapient infant should be respected when his brain starts functioning, meaning he has full potential of the brain ready to grow, our brain define us as sapient beings and that's why we should respect each other, this also happens if dolphins are found to be sapient(tests have proven this in small detail), they should be respected, because sapient beings are on a higher level than non-sapient sentient animals, just as they are one level above plants, plants over fungi, fungi over bacterias and microbes, bacterias and microbe over plankton and virus(probably in the wrong order)
My point is that an infant isn't sapient, as far as we can tell, and, even if it were, I fail to see why this is the sole criterion for the value of life. Surely personhood is defined by, say, the ability to plan for the future, because then to take that being's life would violate his or her interests, which most people regard as wrong.
'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.' H.L. Mencken
'False religion' is the ultimate tautology.
'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain
'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln
'False religion' is the ultimate tautology.
'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain
'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln
