In the abortion debate, one of the most important considerations is whether a fetus has 'personhood'. The reason, of co
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2022 7:24 pm
In the abortion debate, one of the most important considerationsis whether a fetus has 'personhood'. The reason, of course,is that if the fetus meets the requirements for personhood, thenthe moral worth of the fetus is on par with that of any other humanand, presumably, deserves the same rights. For thisdiscussion, you will propose a definition that meets the criteriadiscussed in the section on definitions.
Please be aware that you are not being asked to simplyfind a definition! Your aim is todevelop a definition that is so precise that withoutfail it only includes what counts as a person and nothingelse. Below is an example of how this works. Your post must showsome critical thought being applied in the following way. Simplygiving a definition is not sufficient.
Here is an example: A person is a being who is capable ofrational thought.
Now that we have something to start with, we need to test it. Wecan do this in two ways. First, we can ask if there is anythingcapable of rational thought that is not a person. Can you think ofany? Do dolphins or elephants, for example, have rational thoughts?(You might notice that this pushes us further to ask what we meanby 'rational' or 'thought'!)
So, significant problems arise with this definition. Forinstance, it wouldn't seem to include infants, mentally incompetentpersons, and so forth. 'Rational' is also somewhat ambiguous andso, even if the definition works, we now need to provide a cleardefinition of 'rational'.
Since the proposed definitiondidn't include something that it should have, weneed to modify it. Again, we could try to define rationality, butlet's go a different route.
Second example: A person is a being that is warm-blooded. This definition doesn't seem to work because it doesn'texclude all that it should. For instance, some fish arewarm-blooded and it doesn't seem as if they should fall into thesame 'category of value' as humans.
So, again, the definition doesn't work. But what happens when wetry to refine it with other mental or biological components? Orperhaps behaviors? Something else?
Note that I don't expect this assignment to be easy in the sensethat you'll quickly come up with a definition. (No one hascome up with a definition that isn't controversial for some reasonor another.) The point is to gain a better understanding ofwhat it takes to define a term clearly and uncontroversially. YouMUST offer a definition and then test it. Justlike in math class, show your work!
Please be aware that you are not being asked to simplyfind a definition! Your aim is todevelop a definition that is so precise that withoutfail it only includes what counts as a person and nothingelse. Below is an example of how this works. Your post must showsome critical thought being applied in the following way. Simplygiving a definition is not sufficient.
Here is an example: A person is a being who is capable ofrational thought.
Now that we have something to start with, we need to test it. Wecan do this in two ways. First, we can ask if there is anythingcapable of rational thought that is not a person. Can you think ofany? Do dolphins or elephants, for example, have rational thoughts?(You might notice that this pushes us further to ask what we meanby 'rational' or 'thought'!)
So, significant problems arise with this definition. Forinstance, it wouldn't seem to include infants, mentally incompetentpersons, and so forth. 'Rational' is also somewhat ambiguous andso, even if the definition works, we now need to provide a cleardefinition of 'rational'.
Since the proposed definitiondidn't include something that it should have, weneed to modify it. Again, we could try to define rationality, butlet's go a different route.
Second example: A person is a being that is warm-blooded. This definition doesn't seem to work because it doesn'texclude all that it should. For instance, some fish arewarm-blooded and it doesn't seem as if they should fall into thesame 'category of value' as humans.
So, again, the definition doesn't work. But what happens when wetry to refine it with other mental or biological components? Orperhaps behaviors? Something else?
Note that I don't expect this assignment to be easy in the sensethat you'll quickly come up with a definition. (No one hascome up with a definition that isn't controversial for some reasonor another.) The point is to gain a better understanding ofwhat it takes to define a term clearly and uncontroversially. YouMUST offer a definition and then test it. Justlike in math class, show your work!