Fifty
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Do you agree with the following statement by philosopher Colin McGinn:
If you don't agree with him, why not?
If you don't agree with him, why not?
Death, Abortion, Intentionality, ETC!
- Thread starter Fifty
- Start date
nonconformist
Miserable
I disagree, because McGinn reminds me of Ginsters, and Ginsters pasties are horsehockye
Fifty
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COULD YOU TRANSLATE THAT INTO AMERICANESE PLEASE NONCON??????
If the fetus' consciousness "has no value" then neither does that of a person in dreamless sleep, no? (Maybe even dreaming sleep as well.) It's obviously important whether the person is dead, or whether the fetus will develop into an intentional person, or whether the non-intentional sleeping person will wake up. To me this seems so obvious that I think I might be missing part of his argument...
If he is talking about the value of a consciousness as some sum of experiences and decisions and whatnot, i.e. an accrued property as opposed to a categorical state, then that is kind of weird.
If he is talking about the value of a consciousness as some sum of experiences and decisions and whatnot, i.e. an accrued property as opposed to a categorical state, then that is kind of weird.
How does one determine whether something else has intentionality?
Fifty
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Is there an imagined scenario where I could fail this intentionality test and yet not want to be killed?
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
I'm not sure I understand exactly what is meant by "intentionality". I gather that it's something to do with having and exercising will? Could you explain if that's wrong, and what it actually means?
If my impression is correct, then I think I mostly agree with the dude, except the part where he says absence of this intentionality thing is even bad rather than neutral.
If my impression is correct, then I think I mostly agree with the dude, except the part where he says absence of this intentionality thing is even bad rather than neutral.
Fifty
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J-man
Deity
QUOTE=pau17;7621203]If the fetus' consciousness "has no value" then neither does that of a person in dreamless sleep, no? (Maybe even dreaming sleep as well.) It's obviously important whether the person is dead, or whether the fetus will develop into an intentional person, or whether the non-intentional sleeping person will wake up. To me this seems so obvious that I think I might be missing part of his argument...[/QUOTE]
I disagree, because:
Sleep (or a dreamless sleep for that matter) doesn't remove intentionality. Even a person that has fainted has intentionality. A fetus that grows up gains intentionality but a person who wakes up is still the same person, has the same personality from before the sleep and the same memories.
I disagree, because:
Sleep (or a dreamless sleep for that matter) doesn't remove intentionality. Even a person that has fainted has intentionality. A fetus that grows up gains intentionality but a person who wakes up is still the same person, has the same personality from before the sleep and the same memories.
It seems that it would be very difficult to separate sentience from intentionality from consciousness in a human brain (as concepts). But I mostly agree, I think.
That's a nice bunch of words, but when I read this (from your link):
I don't think it is well enough defined, to make an ethics debate about it. Are there, at least for the purpose of this issue, some "measurable" quantities that define someone having "intentionality"?
Fifty
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how come we cant have an ethics debate about stuff thats not well-defined (i.e. we don't have necessary and sufficient conditions for them completely spelled out)? If that were the case we couldn't have ethics debates about almost anything!
While someone is asleep, they are essentially dead to themselves. If they never wake up (and sometimes they don't), there is no reckoning or judgment upon that from their end, only from outsiders. The fetus that similarly never wakes up because it is terminated might not have any life experiences or memories, but it obviously has the potential to have them. I haven't thought through this debate, so I'm just throwing things out there, but it seems unfair to act as a placeholder to the value of an unconscious person's consciousness
crazyeye but refuse to vouch for a fetus and call it worthless. Biologically, the fetus "wants" to live too.
J-man
Deity
While someone is asleep, they are essentially dead to themselves. If they never wake up (and sometimes they don't), there is no reckoning or judgment upon that from their end, only from outsiders. The fetus that similarly never wakes up because it is terminated might not have any life experiences or memories, but it obviously has the potential to have them. I haven't thought through this debate, so I'm just throwing things out there, but it seems unfair to act as a placeholder to the value of an unconscious person's consciousness
Biologically, the fetus "wants" to live too.
A person who is asleep had intentionality until he went asleep, a fetus never had any intentionality whatsoever.
A fetus "wants" to 'live' perhaps but so does a sperm, or an egg cell. But nobody (except for certain very orthodox religious people) complains when we wont let them grow up to a being that has intentionality.
According to the link, a sleeping person has intentionality still. Just not consciousness.
Because in any discussion, if a new concept is introduced, that isn't well defined, the only purposs it serves is to muddy the waters, make the discussion less clear, divide the different opinions even more and allow people to hide behind that concept.
Even in the very event, that a consensus is reached about the impact of that concept, it would solve nothing, as now the discussion would just be moved on that concept itself, how to apply it and so on. But the more likely outcome is that some will reject the thesis involving that concept, and some will accept it, but those that accept it will then move on to constantly bicker about how one should apply this thesis, because the concept still is unclear.
And even worse than the fact, that it means something else to everybody, there is nothing but intellectual honesty (and I don't trust people to have that) stopping somebody to redefine his own image of that concept as he sees fit. If you manage to argue someone into a corner, he can easily escape, by adjusting his view.
Debating about a vague concept, that everybody has his own idea of, is pretty pointless and just mental masturbation.
That is true, there is certainly a degree of measure. But then the person just has more intentionality as a result of biological and chemical processes that have assembled his/her consciousness. A fetus is much more important than a sperm. Even if it is less important than a grown human, I disagree that it has "no value" as the original statement says. I don't think you have to be a pro-life fundie in order to argue this. I would agree much more with the OP if it had used the word "less" value instead of "no" value.
Maybe I'm not quite grasping the concept of intentionality that is being used, or maybe it just seems ambiguous if you start to chop it up as uppi is pointing out. The entry in the SEP is mammoth enough and admits in the first paragraph to there being puzzles in intentionality.
