I’ve been engaged in a knock-down-drag-out on the subject over The Anti-Manicheist. He’s a good centrist Christian blogger who is (in my opinion) just a bit too accommodating on Seamless Garment of Life issues. I’d encourage interested readers to head over and help me out, or… club me over the (virtual) head, as the case may be.
Hi dlw:
Thanks for visiting this corner of the blogosphere. I’m not sure who the “you” is in your comments. If it is me (Steve N), then I’m just a reader, former grad student, professional engineer, and occasional contributor here at Ales Rarus. Eric (Funky Dung) is the proprietor of the space and he is indeed a grad student at Pitt (and hopefully future contributing member of the species!).
I think (hope) you were joking with the last barb, but just in case… As to a scientific basis for “believing” anything, science cannot (i.e., it is intellectually incapable) of getting AT morality. There is therefore no possibility a priori that science can tell us anything about when “human beings” should be accorded care and protection.
Cheers!
Hope you are enjoying your vacation.
What no link to the Anti-Manicheist?
You are a grad-student? That’s cool.
I was one of those once and sort of am still.
I hope you can find someone with more forensically-oriented friends that can help me make you appreciate all that work I did spelling out those def’ns and giving you links to those pictures to illustrate why there is no scientific basis for the belief that we are human beings at conception.
🙂 dlw 🙂
Thanks for clearing that up for me, Steve.
I gotta disagree with science not being able to tell us anything about morality. Science does inform us much about the world we live in and the likely consequences of the actions we take. Now, it will not settle how we should value the different consequences of our possible actions, since one cannot derive an ought from an is without an intermediary normative premise according to Hume’s dictum, but it does supply the facts that should be the primary grist for our deliberations on right conduct.
The long and short of it is that our beliefs about when we become human beings are based on fallible traditions not Scripture or Science and should thereby be open to potential scrutiny/deliberation and some legitimate disagreement.
My basic point was that it isn’t self-evident that the newly-formed zygote is a member of the human species and that potentiality is necessary but not sufficient for it to be a human being.
I then gave my reasons for why I think 48 days is a reasonable time for us to view the human embryo as a human being, which isn’t to say that abortions before this time are not tragic, but they are not murder and should not be viewed in the same way as 2nd or 3rd trimester abortions or infanticide.
dlw