RChildress107
Well-known member
I did. Just giving another example of a what could be a preferred value construct.
Sentience. Or potential sentience--but only if ever sentient in the right way/amount at some earlier time. And not if one is dependent on a single other human being. Meaning your mother, of female parent. If you happen to be at some date after birth dependent on a single human being for any reason though, that's different.
Seems like you have to work pretty hard to exclude the poor little fetuses from belonging to the class of humans that possess any value. Or being valued.
I think it's much more straightforward to simply value human life. Which clearly begins at conception. Regardless of how one determines, preferentially and subjectively, to define personhood.
And I think that the generally desirable response to dependent or otherwise vulnerable human life is protect and nurture it. To facilitate its natural flourishing as able. Because I am a human being who has been once in the womb, once so dependent, and I'm grateful I was given the opportunity to continue to live and develop both before and after birth.
And I think to nurture and protect dependent and vulnerable human life, yes particularly that which reasonably can be expected to grow, develop and thrive, is generally more desirable than to seek excuses or rationalizations for devaluing or disrespecting it. And I think definitions of personhood that preferentially exclude the weakest and most powerless humans tend to have corrosive effects on our society and civilization.
My point from the beginning is that none of this requires either some arbitrary or subjectively defined "intrinsic" value nor a theological underpinning. Not that such arguments are not possible. Or unknown to me.
You have given no reason for valuing human life, other than that you are human (and even that reason you have been unwilling to defend). That is the definition of an arbitrary belief.
I value persons because every person, no matter how stupid, or evil, or handicapped, is a self aware, autonomous being capable of experiencing and interacting with the world around it in a categorically different way than non-persons.
When you say you value humans because you are human I suspect the above is what you value about them, not the inanimate collection of human DNA.