Clarity is of vital importance in this question, and it tends to muddy the water to ask in terms of when something becomes a human life.  In a purely biological sense, at any age of gestation after conception, there is something that is undeniably genetically human and is alive in a biological sense.  However, you are asking an evaluative question about the ethical relevance of various biological facts, so we might better phrase it as when does intrinsic value, or a right to life, or personhood, begin.

Clarity is of vital importance in this question, and it tends to muddy the water to ask in terms of when something becomes a human life.  In a purely biological sense, at any age of gestation after conception, there is something that is undeniably genetically human and is alive in a biological sense.  However, you are asking an evaluative question about the ethical relevance of various biological facts, so we might better phrase it as when does intrinsic value, or a right to life, or personhood, begin.

Thank you Vaughn. Unfortunately the first two terms are freighted with "baggage" as far as some are concerned. That is why I avoided them. I agree with what you say about the inception of life genetically. All that is needed after fertilization is implantation, nutrition, and time. I suspect that we are coming from the same perspective at a personal level. "Personhood" is a term that I actually did use in the above question. Usage of fetal tissue for research surely tells us that many would not accord "intrinsic value" to the developing human until some future point. "Right to life" is of course terminology that those who oppose abortion are identified by, so if I use that language it immediately polarizes the discussion vis-a-vis politics for some. I'm simply looking for when people believe that the developing human's life is inviolable and beyond consideration for termination, and why they believe this. My students are all over the map on this question, but most of their answers are very arbitrary no matter their perspective on the matter. I am curious as to the epistemological bases that people offer as warrant for their answers. Why do people think this is or isn't a human being with the right to a (per Dom Marquis) "Future Like Ours"?

First, Peter Singer scares me.  The reason Singer scares me is his disenfranchisement and contempt of "defective" persons on opposite ends of the aging spectrum.  But then, I am biased, as I have a son with cerebral palsy and I am a gerontologist.  I do not know where I read this, but perhaps this is a legal definition.... please verify.  When a "fetus" can survive outside the womb, it is a live person, not an "it"  and destroying the "baby" is murder.  I do not have time now to look into this but perhaps you need a legal definition to uncover your non-arbitrary marker.  Good luck finding your answers to this one!  Jan Vinita White, PhD, Gerontologist  

Interesting question and answers. 

I think Bill isn't particularly asking for just a legal or biological answer, but rather opinions on when one might start to see different levels of 'value,' for lack of a better term.  -  I don't like the term "value," but don't know a good one.  I know Jan and others value her son and old folks like me - well, I'm getting there anyway.  :-) 

It is hard to discuss this. I hope no one takes offence and gets angry or personal, as it seems uncomfortable but important to discuss. 

This is a very good discussion.  I wish to add a logical answer to the mix. 

My clear answer is "NO". 

Theorem:  real things are necessarily ineffable.

Proof: from Gödel's Theorem,  every consistent axiomatic system at least as rich as Peano arithmetic must also be incomplete.  That is,  not all true statements of the system have proofs in the system.  Consequently,  no particular real thing can have a complete axiomatic description,  even if it appears to. Therefore,  whatever one says about the thing cannot exhaust its reity.

This is clearly a trivial Lemma from Gödel's Theorem,  but it is worth saying in this confrontational way,  to make the point clearly.  By asking for  "a non-arbitrary marker for the beginning of human life" you are asking for an unequivocal way to understand "life",  which is equivalent to asking for a complete description of it.  But such a description cannot exist,  on logical grounds!

In "The Human Touch" Michael Frayn spoke of the "thingyness of things",  making precisely my point here.  We can say true things about any real thing;  indeed there exist endless (probably uncountable) true statements available,  but someone else will always be able to find something else to say.

The question is a category error.  You are asking for a calculus of value:  this is strictly illogical (and per se irrational).  The formula "calculus of value" is inconsistent,  it is an oxymoron whose only point is to highlight its own absurdity.

Therefore,  the answer to your question,  "when is the baby fully human" cannot be given absolutely.  It all depends what you mean by "human"!

Personally,  I have some sympathy with Pinker:  my feeling about the newborn scrap put in my arms was one of resentment for my darling's pains;  I regarded it at that moment (and in the weeks following) as a trial.  I guess it is just as well that babies have mothers:  they only survive the father for the sake of the mother ... Of course,  morally,  I recoil from this account ...  But from my point of view "humanity" comes when they start smiling (if then ...). 

The last paragraph just shows the nonsense one can write on this subject,  and highlights the need for careful thought.  There is a further view:  humanity begins (for Christians) at the beginning of time since God says to the prophet,  "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5). And David says similar things to God,  "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them" (Psalm 139:16).

Actually,  this is a radically different view with a very long and illustrious classical history,  which we tend to ignore entirely in these instrumental times.

Hello Chris,

It's been a few years (I think) since I've been on here or conversed with you. Let me ask this in order to see if I am understanding you aright. You say, "That is,  not all true statements of the system have proofs in the system.  Consequently,  no particular real thing can have a complete axiomatic description,  even if it appears to." That sounds to me as if you are saying something akin to what Roy Bhaskar says when he describes "ontological depth". Roy Bhaskar’s version of Critical Realism states that there is a complex and stratified world with multiple perspectives through which it can be seen. There are many lenses through which one may look at the world, and each lens sees something that is undeniably real. These lenses are coherent, but the totality of the real is not fully comprehended by any one of them (Bhaskar, 1986, p. 92). Elsewhere he uses the term “ontological depth” to describe this stratification (Bhaskar, 1998, p. 16).  If this is the gist of your point I fully agree that life is too complex to be fully summed up by our explanations of it. However I am not trying to give an axiomatic description or to make statements that are defensible or defeatable by mathematical or physical reasoning. I am speaking more psychologically and practically. Perhaps (as I often find) I have worded the question poorly. 

I'm trying to understand why people as individual reasoning moral agents consider a particular point in the developmental process to be the marker of human life's undeniable inception. I'm not asking this in the abstract so much as in the personal sense. Maybe I would say this better were I to ask, "When, along the continuum from fertilization to birth, do you think this developing human has attained the status of humanity such that his/her life is of value and that it ought to be preserved?" In asking this question, albeit it poorly stated, thus far I find nothing even vaguely resembling any kind of a consensus amongst my students. Ordinarily the only folks who have a strongly held opinions are those who believe that it is a human from birth (most but not all who respond this way are religious in their view) and those who believe the reproductive rights of the mother negate the personhood of the child. When I make inquiry I find that most of the latter (not all) are young women whose mothers and grandmothers have taught them of the importance of abortion on demand as a civil right.

So the conversation amongst undergraduates in a secular university environment (based on my limited, anecdotal, and non-formal research) seems as arbitrary and conditioned as their political opinions. Seldom have I met any who have struggled with this question and given it deep thought. It is more like they have chosen a side (such as Democrat or Republican here in the States) and are now on that side. They do not hear or listen to the other side at all. It seems to be a case of "my mind is made up don't confuse me with the facts". I'm wondering if and hoping that those who feel strongly about this issue in an online science and social science community/environment such as Researchgate may have more considered and reasoned opinions about this issue. So far they seem to be a bit deeper. Vaughn has thought about it philosophically, Jan comes at the issue as a medical doctor and also as a mother of one whose life is threatened by any sort of eugenic reasoning (she uses viability as her suggested marker), James has understood what I am after and is rightly concerned that this is a very sensitive issue, Filippo give a rich and multi-faceted analysis  of the question whilst telling us to what arenas he looks for a solution (cognitive science and philosophy), even as he urges caution and respect for life, and you have given a mathematical logic/philosophy of science/personal experience/faith-based analysis. I am seeing much greater depth here and enjoying the responses very much. It is wonderful to hear from you Chris.

The question is based on the common view that something is absolutely and totally human or absolutely not human.  We do the same thing with life - something is either dead or alive.  But things like viruses confound that binary division.  Unless a sperm or ovum are "human", then the conversion from organic material to human is a process which takes time.  There must therefore be a period time during which the fetus is "somewhat" human.  It seems to me this debate exists inside that "somewhat" phase and cannot settle on an answer because it's looking for an absolute black and white division where only grey overlap exists.  Absent any clear empirical evidence, the answer must always be culturally derived.  When we then factor in that the definition of "human" is very culturally based, the chance of any definitive answer becomes impossible, and confusion is the appropriate rational response.

With regard to abortion, it seems that the debate often falls into more about competing rights of mother and fetus, with anti-abortion granting priority to the child over the mother's right to control her body, and pro-abortion granting priority to the mother's right to autonomy.  There is also the issue of the degree to which society has the right to restrict a person's control over their own body by making abortion regulations in the first place.

The humanness of the fetus is the grounds on which anti-abortion bases it's position.  However, in my view the pro-abortion position is not based on a refutation of this, but on the position the mother, not society, has the right to make the decision.  I don't recall ever having heard a pro-abortion argument claiming the fetus is not human, but rather that it is the woman's right to make that decision in her own individual case.

Thus it is inaccurate to label anti-abortion as "pro-life".  A better label would be "anti-choice".  The clarification "I'm simply looking for when people believe that the developing human's life is inviolable and beyond consideration for termination" - is based on the anti-abortion position that once a fetus is "human" it is beyond consideration for termination.  That assumes there are no legitimate grounds for abortion of humans.  Yet no society holds that right to human life is absolute.  Many believe in capital punishment, and all have armies whose aim is to kill humans when the circumstances warrant.  All societies give people the right to kill others in order to defend themselves, etc.

The issue therefore needs to be broken down into:

1) Does society have any right at all to prevent a woman who wants an abortion?

2) If society does have that right, on what grounds? 

 This is very interesting Brandt. I like the terminology from a pedagogical standpoint. Discussing whether or not there is such a status as "somewhat human" would be a real thought-provoking exercise. I like your highlighting of the cultural derivation of our answers, but I think that our point of interpretation and what we deem to be clear empirical evidence is unavoidable in the human arena. We do this with all sort of empirical evidence. We are the assigners of value and we choose how to weight or how to order the importance of the evidence that we encounter. I question whether there are any purely empirical facts (in the sense of being free from cultural interpretation/ evaluation).

Humans are the ones who decide whether or not the zygote (which has all that it needs information-wise at conception, and only requires implantation, nutrition, and time in order to become a baby) is in fact a "mass of cells" (the old way of speaking about it - before fiber optics let us see inside the womb), something comparable to a "parasite" (Judith Jarvis Thomson's "famous violinist argument), genetically human but not morally human (per Mary Anne Warren), or a being deserving of a "future like ours" (Dom Marquis' FLO argument). Interestingly, Peter Singer agrees with the Pro-life or anti-Choice (as you've stated it) folks here. He says, 

"There is no ontologically significant difference between the fetus and a newborn. True, there are differences of size, location, dependency, and development, but these are “morally irrelevant”. He goes on to say (this is in Writings On An Ethical Life):

"The liberal search for a morally crucial dividing line between the newborn baby and the fetus has failed to yield any event or stage of development that can bear the weight of separating those with a right to life from those who lack such a right."

Thus cultural interpretation of the empirical is unavoidable. None of us sees the empirical (in matters of ethical evaluation) as just brute reality. We all interpret its significance per our own presuppositions. I don't think there is a morally neutral place from which we can pronounce something to be empirically irrefutable. 

Actually, upon scrutiny, most ethical pro-choice arguments are in fact telling us why the developing human is not human in the fullest sense. The latter part of your argument seems to be a matter of "begging the question" from the presumed standpoint of contemporary Western society which assumes a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy. You are certainly right about the fact that no society assumes an absolute right to life, but historically for most of recorded human history, abortion has been culturally condemned (witness the Hippocratic oath's proscribing of both abortion and euthanasia). The odd inconsistency in this is that at a practical level the practice of infanticide, though never approved, has been heavily practiced across ancient cultures and down to the present. 

I am not arguing here so much as "fishing" for answers, but the "pushback" about your final question is "What is the source/basis/warrant for a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy?" Is modern jurisprudence and case law/ casuistry (in the non-pejorative sense of the word) our warrant? If so then we need to remember that we are speaking of an arena where the fluctuating opinion of human judges is the basis for our assumption of rights. This is a recently new right which was "minted" in the 1960's and the 1970's. Such "rights" were unthinkable when we in the West were still reeling from the trajectory of eugenic practices under the 3rd Reich. We have now returned to many eugenic practices that we had recoiled from after seeing where the Nazis took that line of thought. So, once again, unavoidably, we return to culture and to its interpretation of facts. 

Thanks, Bill, for a thoughtful answer.  It seems to me that if we accept that most of the "facts" or terms in this question are culturally determined, and if we want to move to applied ethics, then in a pluralist society we need an protocol which accommodates multiple cultural perspectives.  The only alternative would have to be to allow one cultural perspective to override the others.  If we move to that position, it seems to me we have to adopt a position that, given the lack of consensus and the indeterminancy of terms, it has to be left for each woman to make that decision for herself.  Against that would be the position that we do override some cultural attitudes in some cases, such as FGM.  However, that takes us right back to whether abortion is a sufficiently important case to justify overriding the sincere beliefs of others.  And, at that point, I fear we start the whole circle again...

Observations: The answer to the original question does in part depend on what counts as arbitrary. It also depends on whether the question is primarily social science ("I'm trying to understand why people as individual reasoning moral agents consider a particular point in the developmental process to be the marker of human life's undeniable inception" asks for the cause of people's doing this) or philosophy: "When, along the continuum from fertilization to birth, do you think this developing human has attained the status of humanity such that his/her life is of value and that it ought to be preserved?"  read as "When, along the continuum from fertilization to birth, does a developing human attain he status of humanity such that his/her life is of value and that it ought to be preserved?" - (the answer to that may well be one not captured by what anyone currently thinks). If we are doing philosophy, then the question seems to assume that there is a morally relevant essential difference between two points in development, the point at which it is not morally wrong to deprive something of its life and the point at which it is. If you think the properties that make the difference are physical properties (biological, in this case), good luck to you. I am all ears. But why the species-centrism? What about non-human life-forms? As previously noted, the question can be understood as, "when is something a person?" Star Trek aliens, were they real, would be persons (if we are persons). The show treats them as persons.

I do not think it is arbitrary to say "It is morally wrong to deprive a living reflectively self-conscious entity that is capable of understanding morality and choosing to act morally or not of its life against it will for no morally compelling moral reason." I think that claim is trivially true. Note that this claim does not imply that it is not morally wrong to deprive something of its life when its not like that. So maybe the question should be, "when is it not morally wrong to deprive something of its life?" This assumes that its prima facie morally wrong to destroy life - any life - and thus that some morally compelling reason must exist for it not to be wrong to do so on a given occasion. 

I find Filippo Salustri's post to be extraordinary!  I had thought that the Inquisition had gone out of fashion.  Happily he is not (so far at least) recommending the honourable auto-da-fé tradition to be recovered on my account,  but he does the next best thing,  recommend censorship.  I guess that on this he would be outvoted by most of the other participants on this thread.  Sanity may still prevail,  if precariously.

Seriously,  he accuses me of "duplicity".  In this respect I am a Blairite:  I may be wrong,  but if so then I am honestly wrong.  Although I do thank him for providing the link to my various extra-curricular essays.  In which I do my best (paltry though that may be) to address serious and substantial questions seriously.  How can I be "duplicitous" if I lay out my stall so publicly?

Then,  more entertainingly,  he accuses me of "fairy tales" and "faulty reasoning".  Let us consider his points in turn.

It is perfectly true that Gödel's theorems apply strictly to formal systems.  But it is,  equally,  perfectly untrue that their validity is "limited" (whatever that means) to formal systems.  Truth is true,  unconditionally.  Mathematical theorems express rationality:  it was when Pythagoras has grasped this essential fact that he saw a means of escape from the clutches of the capricious Greek gods. To claim that reality is rational is a moral,  not a logical position.  This is why Hippasus was drowned:  demonstrating that root two was "irrational" appallingly undermined Pythagoras' faith (sic) in rationality.

In fact,  "irrational" numbers are as irrational as "imaginary" numbers are imaginary - that is,  not at all.  David Hilbert's Paris address of 1900 proposed a set of Problems,  including the challenge to prove "completeness":  he thought that truth was provable.  But Gödel showed in 1931 that truth was not provable,  not using finite formal systems anyway.  How we understand rationality itself affects everything!  You can't just plonk Gödel in a box and pretend he isn't relevant to the question at hand.

Bill Johnson has pointed out that his Question admits lots of different sorts of answers.  It seems to me that this serves to highlight the quality of the Question,  which is confirmed by the quality of its discussion here (excepting Salustri's prejudice of course).

@Chris, upsetting as Filippo's post was, I wouldn't worry too much about it.  It's just the academic version of trolling.  I find people in every researchgate discussion who don't understand how rational discourse works and attack the speaker, their motives, or their manner of presentation.  In my experience attempting to refute their points only encourages further, and worse, abuse.  You will notice the discussion simply skipped over his post and ignored it completely.  I, for one, thought your points were worthwhile.  In particular, your use of Goedel was 100% in line with how many have used it before.

Filippo I have been away from Researchgate for a while because of having "too much on my plate" professionally speaking. I remember from past conversation here that you were much more respectful of people of faith. I can only assume that something has occurred which has caused you to be as dismissive as you are of Chris' faith. I believe you are a professor of engineering and that Chris is a research physicist with a Chartered Engineer degree amongst his academic qualifications. Both of you are men who have excelled in your respective fields.

I cannot speak for the field of engineering but I know that in the field of physics there are a very large number of theists of great note (John Polkinghorne, Stephen Hawking's former associate is but one who comes to mind). In the fields of paleontology and biology, though Richard Dawkins wishes it were otherwise, there are a large number of well-respected theists. The late Stephen Jay Gould, who was certainly no theist himself, pointed this out in a very respectful and tolerant article in Scientific American. He wrote, "Science can work only with naturalistic explanations; it can neither affirm nor deny other types of actors (like God) in other spheres (the moral realm, for example). Forget philosophy for a moment; the simple empirics of the past hundred years should suffice. Darwin himself was agnostic (having lost his religious beliefs upon the tragic death of his favorite daughter), but the great American botanist Asa Gray, who favored natural selection and wrote a book entitled Darwiniana, was a devout Christian. Move forward 50 years: Charles D. Walcott, discoverer of the Burgess Shale fossils, was a convinced Darwinian and an equally firm Christian, who believed that God had ordained natural selection to construct a history of life according to His plans and purposes. Move on another 50 years to the two greatest evolutionists of our generation: G. G. Simpson was a humanist agnostic. Theodosius Dobzhansky a believing Russian Orthodox. Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs—and equally compatible with atheism, thus proving that the two great realms of nature's factuality and the source of human morality do not strongly overlap." It is because of this understanding that no one thinks it odd that Simon Conway Morris (a theist) is arguably the most noted paleontologist in the world at present. Nor is it considered an anomaly that Francis Collins, another noted theist who used to be an atheist, headed up the Human Genome Project. 

I appreciate the candor and respect of atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel when he writes: "…I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that...My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning and design as fundamental features of the world. Instead they become epiphenomena, generated incidentally by a process that can be entirely explained by the operation of nonteleological laws of physics on the material of which we and all our environment are all composed. There might still be thought to be a religious threat in the laws of physics themselves, and indeed the existence of anything at all – but it seems to be less alarming to most atheists." (Nagel, 1997, pp. 130)

The atheist theoretical physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss has made this proclamation about the whole issue: "Not only is it inappropriate to try to convince people of the validity of scientific theories by first arguing that their deeply held beliefs are silly, it is also clear that the existence of God is a metaphysical question which is, for the most part, outside the domain of science.” On the Side of the Angels,New Scientist, July 8th, 2006.

It seems to a number of atheists with a good grounding in philosophy and logic that the scorn and contempt poured on religious believers by Dawkins, the late Hitchins, Dennett, and Harris, is without warrant or depth, especially in terms of the epistemic limits of their own disciplines (Michael Ruse and Fern Elsdon-Baker come to mind).

In terms of epistemology (I am a philosopher) Chris holds Scripture to be (for him) a valid truth-source. You obviously reject it, which is obviously your right. But why must you portray him as somehow superstitious and contemptible for embracing such beliefs? I've never heard you speak this way in the past. Is there some event, experience, or research project which has led to your scorn for religious thought?

I'm not attacking you Filippo or defending Chris. I am questioning the scorn you express, and that I hear some in the sciences expressing, for anyone who communicates the notion that faith is an integral part of their understanding of the universe. Whence this contempt and disdain for theism? Stephen Jay Gould did suggest the notion of NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria), such that religion and science would respect each other's realms of work and research, and try to avoid making pronouncements in the other's field, but you seem to be saying something much stronger than what Gould proposed.

1. "It is perfectly true that Gödel's theorems apply strictly to formal systems.  But it is,  equally,  perfectly untrue that their validity is "limited" (whatever that means) to formal systems." The proof shows formal systems cannot be both consistent and complete. There is no proof that this holds for natural languages. This does not imply it doesn't. 2. Generally, except for assertions that describe the motive for the assertion, the truth of descriptive assertions (the theses and reasons advanced in this discussion, for example) is independent of the author's motive for making the assertion. 3. Not to change the topic, but I disagree with Aristotle that truth is a function of pathos. I agree that it involves ethos, not just logos. 4. I assume "reality is rational (or not)" is a metaphor. Physical states do not stand in truth-functional relations, they stand in causal relations. Descriptions of physical states stand in truth-functional relations. A set of descriptions can be called "irrational' if inconsistent. But it is people who are rational or irrational, in reasoning consistently or not, and in rejecting fallacies or not, among other marks of rationality.  (Calling numbers irrational is another metaphor.) 5. Since the demise of systematic philosophy, the approach is to identify a problem and offer a solution. The problem: to answer "under what conditions am I not taking an unreasonable risk of acting immorally when I kill something that is biologically human?" Putting it this way assumes that life is intrinsically valuable (at least human life). That is the problem I face, but it may not be the problem you face, if you reject the thesis that human life is intrinsically valuable. How do I know life is intrinsically valuable? If that is asking if I can provide a valid argument from necessarily true premises to the conclusion that life is valuable, I cannot.  Whether one can communicate what life's value is in a descriptive language or not, one learn's it through experience, as one learns of color and all other qualitative phenomena (as Aristotle noted). The reason for calling attention to this is to note that our joint conversation about when something becomes a person (another version of the question) hits a wall as soon as a disagreement in our basic assumptions impacts what is being said.That either stops progress altogether or causes the topic to change to the disagreement over a basic assumption. You see this pattern in this thread. Shall we talk about the nature of God? Hard to know how to take "I hope God does not exist" when we disagree as to what God is, or even if the notion is intelligible. 

I don't understand Filippo. This isn't at all what your demeanor used to be. "File a report" on you? What does that even mean? What happened in the two years I was off Researchgate? I didn't read any "creationist" writing in what Chris said - not of the sort that is usually associated with that term in the USA. It is usually a term to refer to young earth proponents. Are you under the impression that Chris thinks the earth is 7,000 years old? I didn't see any indicator of such a belief in what he wrote. What are you so angry about?

George Bailey makes some interesting points it seems to be worthwhile to dissect.  Taking them in order :-

Pretending a reference point at the beginning of life that can be considered objective and neutral is very difficult. It depends too much on the possible options belief of individuals.

I am currently an admitted extremist on the original question since I believe human life truly begins when a body expressed from a human genome, develops the capacity to ascribe mental states to itself. While this is not an arbitrary marker, it is completely subjective. It can only be objectively identified once we develop the capacity to ascribe mental states to others.

In the stages of life immediately following conception—whether within or outside a human uterus—until this capacity emerges we are simply vehicles in which it is gestating. The emergence of this self-awareness signals our birth into the community of humans. If circumstances in life result in someone relinquishing its self-awareness, it returns to being a living vehicle without a human driver.

While I believe in the care and protection of these vehicles, full human rights should not automatically be attributed to them since they are not truly human beings. Calling these vehicles human is akin to referring to my foot as a human foot.

Though certain non-human beings have demonstrated what appears to be the capacity to ascribe mental states to themselves and others, they are obviously not human. What rights and special privileges are provided to these human vehicles and non-human, self-aware minds, represent what they (or their human advocates) have managed to negotiate from us—currently the dominate species on the planet.

Hello Kevin,

While I think differently about this, you have stated your position quite well and persuasively. The late Mary Anne Warren and also (in a harder form than either you or Warren argue) Peter Singer emphasize this capacity to differing degrees. Singer goes so far as to say that unless those mental states include a reflective sense of the value of one's life and the capacity to understand what is being lost if that life is taken, then there is insufficient cognition to warrant assigning intrinsic value to the person. 

Now you use the term "self-awareness". From the way you have written I am assuming you are not using this synonymously with "self-recogntion", which is fully developed around age 2 ( https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bennett_Bertenthal/publication/232461249_The_Development_of_Self-Recognition_in_the_Infant/links/02e7e52d16492a5da1000000.pdf ). Thus I take your meaning regarding self-awareness to be a bit more nuanced.

I also thought that this statement of yours was very interesting: "Though certain non-human beings have demonstrated what appears to be the capacity to ascribe mental states to themselves and others, they are obviously not human." Is this perhaps some of Franz de Wall's research to which you are referring?

Article The Development of Self-Recognition in the Infant

Hello Bill,

Thank you for your insightful response.

I am of the opinion that the qualitative awareness of any internal mental state is the key to being truly human. I believe conveying personhood based on a specific quantitative degree of this awareness (a la Singer) is needlessly divisive. While some would argue that my qualitative position is also divisive, any answer to your original question other than, 'conception', is equally so.

As for self-awareness, my take is that Bertenthal and Fischer's self-recognition is a form of meta-"self-awareness" in which the infant becomes aware that what it is looking at in the mirror is related to the "self" of which it is already internally aware. Base self-awareness figures to occur at some point after the emergence of the prefrontal cortex (at 24-28 months in humans).

De Waal's primate research influenced many of us who believe humans do not have a monopoly on self-awareness.

It seems to me that basing "humanness" on any form of mental activity is extremely problematic.  If a person is in a coma, asleep, delirious, or possibly just on heavy mind-altering drugs, such that they are incapable of experiencing such mental activity, are we then to say that they are not human during those times?  Responding that they still have the potential capacity for such mental states is not an adequate response.  If a person is born with severe brain damage, rendering them incapable of ever having such mental states, are they not still a human being?  If someone enters into some fatal illness, such that they lose consciousness, never to recover, have they ceased to be human?

But if you have a body expressed from a human genome, and the mental activity of an ovarian cyst, why is it extremely problematic not to regard you as a human being? The problem seems to be the significant drop-off between how we treat humans in contrast to other life forms.