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Re: [ontolog-forum] An Ontology Modeling Different Age Groups

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Christopher Menzel <cmenzel@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:56:22 -0500
Message-id: <5838044B-8853-49FA-934C-9B57B656C741@xxxxxxxx>
On Mar 25, 2009, at 5:44 PM, Richard H. McCullough wrote:
> You're throwing emotional issues into the discussion.    (01)

Nonsense.  While in fact some people do get emotional over the issue  
of whether a fetus is a human being or a human person for reasons  
usually related to the question of abortion, I had no intention  
whatever of appealing to emotion in my response.  Rather, I was simply  
pointing out that it is a your bald assertion that a fetus is not a  
human being is, as a matter of empirical fact, highly controversial.   
It is not the obvious truth you seem to be assuming it to be.   
Moreover, that a viable fetus shortly before birth is a human being is  
almost universally agreed upon in philosophy, medical science, and  
law.  Exactly *when* in the gestation period it is first to be counted  
a human being is of course a matter of great debate, but virtually no  
one doubts that a healthy fetus one day, say, before birth has  
achieved that status.    (02)

> I'm only talking about the definition of a "part".  The fetus is a  
> part of the mother, in the same sense that a kidney is a part of the  
> mother.    (03)

Only in a strictly mereological sense that is irrelevant to the status  
of the fetus as a human being.  Unlike a viable fetus, a kidney is not  
capable of continued existence apart from the mother's body.  A viable  
fetus is a separate organism with its own DNA that, while contingently  
dependent on the mother's body,  is capable of existing independently  
of it.  Its differences from a kidney are far more profound than its  
similarities.    (04)

-chris    (05)

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chris Menzel" <cmenzel@xxxxxxxx>
> To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 3:03 PM
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] An Ontology Modeling Different Age Groups
>
>
>> On Wed, 25 Mar 2009, Richard H. McCullough wrote:
>>> From the viewpoint of metaphysics/epistemology, a fetus is not a  
>>> human
>>> being, it is a part of a human being (the mother).
>>
>> Among philosophers, medical ethicists, etc, this is an entirely  
>> open and
>> controversial question.
>>
>>> After birth, it is a human being (the newborn).
>>
>> Are you proposing that we become human beings only after birth?  Not
>> that I'm interested in arguing the point, but that proposal is  
>> obviously
>> false.
>>
>> -chris
>
>
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>    (06)


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