Baby Theresa

Theresa Pearson suffered from a condition known as anencephaly. Babies born with this condition are sometimes referred to as “babies without brains,” but this isn’t exactly the case. They do have a brain-stem, allowing for autonomic functions like breathing and a heartbeat. What they are missing is the cerebrum, cerebellum, and top of the skull, meaning the have no possibility for conscious thought. Most cases of these are detected during pregnancy and aborted; half of those not aborted are stillborn, and the rest die within a few days.Theresa’s story is unique because her parents made the unusual request to volunteer her organs. The physicians agreed that this was a good idea, especially considering that there are at least 2,000 babies that need transplants each year, and there are never enough organs to provide for this. This was not done, however, because Florida law does not allow for the removal of organs until the donor is dead, and by the time Theresa died, her organs had deteriorated too much to have any further use.A number of professional ethicists were called on by the press to comment, and a surprisingly small number of them agreed with the physicians and parents, saying things such as “It is unethical to kill in order to save” and “the parents are asking to kill a dying baby so the organs can be used by someone else. Well, that is a really horrendous proposition.”So who’s right? The parents and physicians or “ethicists?”Edited by jmrozi1, : Fixed grammar mistake

I'm going to reply to my interpretation of what this means: Like the meaning of perversion, identifying the essence or soul of a person with body parts is subjective, therefore it cannot be used as a concrete medical reason to take any action.If this is what you are arguing, I can grant some credence to your conclusion. However, I would like to clarify that I never identified the essence of a person with any particular body part:A person is the result of an extremely elaborate and complex set of systems working in harmony to allow for the life of the unit as a whole. Most of these systems can be cultured to sustain life operations on their own; however, the life of the unit as a whole cannot exist without any vital system. The brain, an essential part of the nervous system, is one of these vital systems and therefore necessary for any human to live. I'm not saying that a "'person' equates to parts of the brain;" I'm merely saying that it's one of the key components. Although Theresa contains a set of systems working in harmony, the unit cannot function as a whole without the brain functioning correctly. It takes more than consisting of living material to attribute life to some entity. Consider, for example, that there exist communities of single-celled organisms that live and work together to divide labor and provide each other with their essential needs. Should it follow that this community is an organism just because it is composed of life? Note that it is actually widely accepted that to pronounce someone brain-dead is to pronounce that person legally dead. Given this, you cannot kill Theresa; you can only disassemble her.

Edit: I think this is an interesting lesson, but alas, it is off topic so don't respond.

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I'm going to paraphrase a relevant story taken from "The Elements of Moral Philosophy" by James Rachels:A group of investigators had themselves admitted as patients to various mental hospitals. The staff didn’t know the investigators were normal, however, their very presence in the hospital created the assumption that they were mentally disturbed. Though they did nothing to feign illness, everything they did was interpreted as a sign of whatever mental illness that was enlisted on their admission forms. When the investigators took notes, the staff would make entries in their records such as “patient engages in writing behavior.” During an interview, an investigator admitted to being closer to his mother as a child, and then became more attached to his father as he grew older. This is a normal turn of events, but was taken as evidence of “unstable relationships in childhood.” The staff never caught on, but the other patients saw through the experiment.This experiment shows the power of a controlling assumption. Once a hypothesis is accepted, everything can be interpreted to support it. The human brain is a remarkable feature in that it can find a theme where one does not exist; it can find patterns in chaos, despite chaos being defined as being having no pattern.If you have a difference in faith, whether be the intention or existence of God, you may find that you will never agree because faith is the belief in something that hasn’t or can’t be proven. Faith is at its heart an assumption, and therefore subject to the same consequences explained in the story above. Furthermore, everyone, even the agnostic and especially the atheist, has faith. Long story short, I’ll take that bet.Edited by jmrozi1, : added edit note

I'm not sure what it means for something to be arbitrarily subjective, or what a persons personhood is. This seems to be your conclusion, so I need you to elaborate before I can make a meaningful response.I would argue, however, that almost nothing is purely subjective. Life isn't just some human invention; it is a tangible, observed phenomenon. Human life, complex as it is, broken down to its atomic components would probably seem nothing more romantic than a giant chemical box serving no discretional qualities. It can be artificially seeded (consider organ farms), assembled (constructive surgery, organ transplants, etc.) and even cloned (similar to Dolly). Though ethically speaking this may be repugnant, theoretically it is even possible to copy a persons brain and reproduce it while preserving thought patterns and memory.We must be subjective when describing life not because it doesn't have any material basis, but because we don't posses the capacity to fully understand its complexity. It should not follow from this that life is purely subjective. On the contrary, life possibly has the potential to be explained completely objectively on a basis of the complexity of chemical interactions. Just because we don't know how to draw the line doesn't mean it can't be drawn; it simply means our intelligence has bounds.

And what does it mean to play God? I'm not sure that defining life is playing the role of God, especially considering that the English language is a manmade construct.It is arguably impossible to perfectly define a concept with an evolving language. What we are trying to do is merely to refine the definition of human life so that it can adapt to the needs of an evolving culture.

This is similar to saying that you can’t define a three dimensional space if you live in a two dimensional one. Consider that your world is the two-dimensional surface of a white piece of paper, and a three dimensional black sphere passes through it. What you would see is a small circular black dot which gets larger until it reaches some maximum diameter, then gets smaller until it disappears completely. Describing what you saw would be describing this three-dimensional object in the context of your dimension, which can be done without having any knowledge of three dimensional space.In the same sense, life can be defined in the reality allowed by our language. The reason I mentioned earlier that it was arguably impossible is that we cannot predict future applications of its definition. However, not attempting to define life for that reason would be akin to not writing the constitution because it won’t be able to take everything in the future into account. We need to have a definition of life for legal and medical purposes. When a person marks on their driver’s license that they’re an organ donor, when they die we usually take their organs. Generally, when a person’s heart stops beating, we can accept that that person has died. By why is that? Their nails continue to grow, cells continue to replicate, antibodies continue to protect the body, and so on. Life processes are still being continued, yet we still accept that this person has died, and so we take his organs.But does the beating of a heart signify the life of the person? Of course it doesn’t. Hearts can be grown and stimulated to make it beat, even without the presence of a human host. If it is generally accepted that someone who is brain-dead is legally dead, it shouldn’t be playing god any more than using the person whose heart stopped beating. I tend to agree with this; however, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are religious leaders. The US is an unusually religious country; 9 out of 10 people say they believe in a personal God. People generally accept religious leaders as moral experts because people commonly believe that morality can be understood only within the context of religion. However, if we accept the theological conception of right and wrong, we are caught in a dilemma. The following is an argument paraphrased from “The Elements of Moral Philosophy” by James Rachels:Consider two lines of thought: (1) Right is right because God commands it, and (2) God commands it because it is right.If you are under the persuasion of the first line of thought, consider that God has commanded us to tell the truth, and therefore telling the truth is right. However, if he commanded us to lie, then lying would be right. You might be tempted to reply, “But God would never command us to lie because it is wrong.” However, by virtue of the command it becomes right, making his commands completely arbitrary. Saying that God’s commands are good would become meaningless. Consider that if “X is good” means “X is commanded by God,” then “God’s commands are good” would mean “Gods commands are commanded by God,” an empty truism.Under the second persuasion, God commanding something because it is right implies that a standard of morality exists independent of God. He does not make it good by commanding it, but commands it because some logical standard already exists. Even from a religious standpoint, a standard of right and wrong that is independent of God’s will must be accepted.Though this explains why it isn’t necessary to be religious to be moral, it doesn’t explain why I might be perturbed by highly religious leaders as being the only moral experts. My problem is that it is the tendency of a highly religious person to take the Bible too literally, quoting excerpts and interpreting passages to find instructions rather than a guide towards making their own logical judgment. Consider that religious people condemn homosexuality because it is condemned in the bible: In the Leviticus it says “You may not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination (18:22).” Leviticus also gives lengthy instructions about how to treat leprosy, and provides an elaborate routine for dealing with women who are menstruating. It also states if a priests daughter is a whore she shall be burned alive (21-9), forbids eating fat (7-23), prohibits letting women into church until 42 days after giving birth (12:4-5), states that a beard must have square corners (19:27), and states that we may purchase slaves from neighboring states (25:44).I would consider it unreasonable to live by these standards. You might argue that some of these standards, such as the comment on slavery, are outdated. However, this of course leads the door right open to saying that it is all outdated. In my mind, the Bible should be used to find inspiration and guidance for your own moral standard, not as the backbone for it. It's easy to confuse this, which is why I think people that base moral judgment purely on logic should be accepted with religious leaders as morality experts.Edited by jmrozi1, : spelling

Not all religious people have been indoctrinated - consider that some people start their own religion to preach their own beliefs. This does not contradict your statement, but I did want to provide an obvious exception. More importantly, indoctrination implies to a degree that a person is discouraged from independent thought. This is certainly not the case for all religions; in fact, many religions promote the acceptance of other opinions and try to fit them into a greater understanding. Your statement leads to the notion that most religious people are narrow-minded and stubborn, but this isn't the typical religious person; it's just the "louder" one.As far as philosophers not being indoctrinated, I disagree. Consider that Socrates died by Hemlock for his beliefs. Though Socrates might have been strong enough not to be indoctrinated, he seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Of course, no one in most countries today will be executed for their beliefs; however, I wouldn't assume that philosophy hasn't lost all of its corruption in that respect. Philosophy, just like religion, is imperfect because it is adopted and interpreted by people, and people are imperfect.Edited by jmrozi1, : grammar

Looks like I might actually agree with you for the most part. Still, there are a couple things I wanted to clear up: At first I was tempted not to explain this because at the start of the next paragraph you've already acknowledged to a degree the conclusion I wanted to reach. However, I still think it's important to note that history is an excellent indication of the pattern of thought for the present.You mentioned that "they also had slaves back then," but the truth is that slavery, especially with children, still exists. And even though slavery might be uncommon, racism is certainly easy to find. Depending on where a person grows up, even an intelligent and logical person can become a racist. It's the same thing with philosophers: Back in the day of Socrates, people's minds were being shaped at an impressionable age so that their reasoning would be consistent with the religion of their state/country/community. In the same respect, the minds of the philosophers of today have been shaped to some extent by the beliefs or moral standard of their parents. It would be difficult, or maybe even impossible given the limit to our cognitive power, to argue from a completely objective standpoint. To see this further illustrated see Message 14. My point was that though we may have learned from our mistakes, our minds still have the potential to take the same path. I need you to clarify this. A philosopher needs to be nothing more than a student of philosophy to claim this title. A reverend, on the other hand, needs to be ordained. If you're referring to a philosophy professor, obviously the qualifications are a bit stricter, but there are higher level religious positions (the pope, for example) that have stricter qualifications as well.As far as these debates in college campuses...well, that I agree with. A religious speaker will in general be very preachy, which to the scientifically minded person is like nails on a chalkboard. Philosophers are certainly no exception to this, but are in my opinion much less prone to resorting to these "logical fallacies."

Agreed. I'm not sure if this means that you're against the transplanting of vital organs altogether, but my earlier point still stands. We still need to know when a person is dead so that me may bury them and pay our respects [or depending on your culture burn them (Greeks), eat them (Callatians), etc.]. Life processes continue within every body indefinitely, so some understanding of the life of a person as a whole must be reached. I don't think anyone knows what the "actuality" of life is, so the only possible route is to define life on our own terms.Maybe you want to reply, "Use the Bible to understand the actuality of life," but as I mentioned before, there are consequences to taking the Bible too literally (to see what I mean, see the reply to the last quote for Message 24.). Not to mention that even if we did use only the Bible, we'd run into even greater problems of disagreement with interpretations of its meaning. I'm sure that you don't believe burying the dead is playing God (I've yet to see the Grim Reaper at the hospital, so it looks like we need to be the ones to declare that a person is dead), so please clarify your position on the definition of life.If you do believe that burying the dead is playing God (because we cannot define death if we cannot define life), we are left with the option of either playing God or promoting an extremely unsanitary environment.

Please explain this the fallacy of my statements. The first definition for a philosopher using Encarta (http://encarta.msn.com/...res/dictionary/dictionaryhome.aspx) is precisely what I have stated - It reads:
1. somebody who studies philosophy: somebody who seeks to understand and explain the principles of existence and reality.For a reverend, it reads:
1. of clergy: relating or belonging to the Christian clergy, and clergy reads: those ordained in church: the body of people ordained for religious service, especially in the Christian church.First off, damn I'm good (I hope you can forgive a little arrogance because these definitions are almost exactly as I argued). But secondly, if you're not going by the generally accepted definition of these concepts, please explain the fallacy of using Encarta for the definition.Edited by jmrozi1, : added first sentence

rbg writes: Agree. You can also get a teaching degree online, courtesy of Phoenix University.As far as your suggestions, I found the following:hypothesis:
1. theory needing investigation: a tentative explanation for a phenomenon, used as a basis for further investigationscientist:
expert in science: somebody who has scientific training or works in one of the sciencesscience:
1. study of physical world: the study of the physical and natural world and phenomena, especially by using systematic observation and experimentI'm afraid you have overestimated me - I carefully viewed these definitions, as well as the previous ones, and was unable to find anything wrong or deceiving. To me the definitions seem to be perfectly logical explanations considering the primary usage of the words. My gut tells me that you see an inconsistency with the intended and actual usage of these words, so I'm curious to see your side explained.

Fair enough. If what you are saying is that by definition a reverend will need to be more qualified to claim his title than a philosopher, but in reality the opposite is usually the case, then I think it would be appropriate for someone else to defend their qualifications because I tend to agree with this.Now all I have to do is backtrack a few pages and find out where we stemmed off to find out how all of this fits into the big picture...
And here we have it: The "moral" experts that were called to decide on Theresa's fate were mostly religious leaders. The original question was whether the parents and physicians or moral experts were right. The status of the debate is now that both I and rgb have attacked not only the conclusions of the moral experts but their qualifications in general to make this type of decision.