Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
I don't think that's fair at all. Of course it's a moral issue, I just don't think the moral question turns on the same point that others might. Life in and of itself isn't the crux.
Heck HUMAN life in and of itself isn't the crux; I'd be tentatively for extending human rights to chimps.
Why is that? Because I don't think the species we happen to be grants us some special place that we deserve special rights. Rather I think that there's some component of our brain that makes us "people" (for lack of a better word).
Science is just a way of measuring and evaluating something, in and of itself it has no moral position (or it shouldn't).
|
I think that higher life is the crux. "Higher" in the sense that it has a cerebral cortex large enough to consciously recognize its own existence.
The question of rights is... a hard one. Aristotle said that man is a political animal. It is in our nature to ruminate over these questions. Something in our spirit or mind makes us want to answer these questions, I don't think science has a very big place at all in the larger debate about ethics. Although I think it can help to dispel certain pretexts we have about abortion.