On Thursday, June 6, 2002, at 12:47 PM, Marta Russell wrote:
>> On Thursday, June 6, 2002, at 03:01 PM, Luke Weiger wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Marta Russell" <ap888 at lafn.org>
>>> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>>> Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2002 9:53 AM
>>> Subject: Re: Singer's views
>>>
>>>> NO he doesn't. His line is drawn much earlier - This has already
>>>> been posted on LBO in the past so I'm not going to take the time to
>>>> look it up and give you the quote. It is in the archives and it is
>>>> 28 or 30 days.
>>>
>>> To paraphrase the Hitch: "Wrong. Wrong. Wrong as could be." The
>>> only
>>> reason Singer draws the line so very early is to avoid any charges
>>> that we
>>> lack the requisite certitude to model public policy based on the data
>>> at
>>> hand.
>
>
>>> -- Luke
>
>
> If so, all the more poor the rationale.
because . . .? if general scientific opinion is that self-awareness occurs around 15-21 months accoring to mirror tests, isn't 30 days well away from that? geez, we're less precise in crash-tests than in this.
>
>
>>
>> quite to the point, thanks. also . . .
>>
>>>
>>>> So all these various "scientific" statements are really guesses, it
>>>> is not known for certain.
>>
>> um, no. even to the extent that these measure are imprecise and
>> there's no way to say, "at day 552+2hours+31minutes+05seconds, human
>> children attain self-awareness," it's nevertheless nothing like me
>> guessing off the top of my head how many jelly beans could fit in the
>> space occupied by the atlantic ocean. it's seems to me that reducing
>> such things to "guesswork" (when they aren't) is irresponsible in the
>> extreme, and precisely the sort of thing that modernists always accuse
>> postmodernists of doing.
>>
>>>> Can you imagine if society were to allow parents to kill their babies
>>>> based on this? It would be absolute chaos.
>>
>> no, it would not. why do you think it would be?
>>
>> j
>
> Well I for one would not want to live in a world where you two guys
> views were dominate.
> We are talking about real lives here, not playing some video game.
> marta
>
well, fortunately for all of us, that seems unlikely. i'm not the utilitarian or consequentialist that singer is, but all of us, singer, luke, myself, and you, agree very much that we are talking about real lives. i'm trying to discern an argument in your response and can only seem to find red herrings and reprobation. j