One argument is that birth is a practical, unambiguously observable cutoff that approximates some more slippery criterion like self-awareness. Even if you believe that self-awareness is the morally relevant threshold on a theoretical level, you might say birth as your answer because you think that’s the best cutoff for society to use in practice.
Well, maybe less of an approximation and more of a safe lower bound. If I’m confident that the metaphysical criterion I’m concerned about begins sometime after birth but I’m not sure exactly when, I might suggest a legal threshold of birth to be on the safe side, as it might be infeasible and morally risky to evaluate individual infants on a case-by-case basis.
That makes sense. As a bit of a side question (feel free to ignore), if you were 99% sure that your metaphysical criterion was after birth, would that count as “on the safe side” enough to suggest a legal threshold of birth (and not before at all) for you? How confident would you have to be?
One argument is that birth is a practical, unambiguously observable cutoff that approximates some more slippery criterion like self-awareness. Even if you believe that self-awareness is the morally relevant threshold on a theoretical level, you might say birth as your answer because you think that’s the best cutoff for society to use in practice.
Thanks CC that makes some sense, if “personhood” is interpreted legally or “practically” rather than as morally or metaphysically (which I prefer).
I don’t really agree though hat it “approximates” slippery criterion. I’m not sure why “birth” would be any kind of proxy for self-awareness.
Well, maybe less of an approximation and more of a safe lower bound. If I’m confident that the metaphysical criterion I’m concerned about begins sometime after birth but I’m not sure exactly when, I might suggest a legal threshold of birth to be on the safe side, as it might be infeasible and morally risky to evaluate individual infants on a case-by-case basis.
That makes sense. As a bit of a side question (feel free to ignore), if you were 99% sure that your metaphysical criterion was after birth, would that count as “on the safe side” enough to suggest a legal threshold of birth (and not before at all) for you? How confident would you have to be?