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Single Idea 4055

[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 3. Abortion ]

Full Idea

A week-old embryo without a brain may be a potential human being, but so are a sperm and an ovum that are about to meet in a dish, and it wouldn't be wicked to keep those apart.

Gist of Idea

It isn't obviously wicked to destroy a potential human being (e.g. an ununited egg and sperm)

Source

Michael Lockwood (When Does a Life Begin? [1985], p.19)

Book Ref

'Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine', ed/tr. Lockwood,Michael [OUP 1988], p.19

A Reaction

Sounds fine, but it may be a slippery slope. Is it acceptable to deny a place at music school to a potentially great musician?

The 24 ideas from Michael Lockwood

16362 An identity statement aims at getting the hearer to merge two mental files [Lockwood]
2949 We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood]
2958 No one has ever succeeded in producing an acceptable non-trivial analysis of anything [Lockwood]
2959 If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways? [Lockwood]
2960 Commonsense realism must account for the similarity of genuine perceptions and known illusions [Lockwood]
2961 Empiricism is a theory of meaning as well as of knowledge [Lockwood]
2962 Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood]
2963 There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood]
2964 How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood]
2966 Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood]
2967 We might even learn some fundamental physics from introspection [Lockwood]
2950 Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood]
2969 How does a direct realist distinguish a building from Buckingham Palace? [Lockwood]
2970 Dogs seem to have beliefs, and beliefs require concepts [Lockwood]
2971 Perhaps logical positivism showed that there is no dividing line between science and metaphysics [Lockwood]
2951 Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood]
2952 A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood]
2953 Fish may operate by blindsight [Lockwood]
2954 Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood]
2955 If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood]
2956 There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood]
4054 I may exist before I become a person, just as I exist before I become an adult [Lockwood]
4055 It isn't obviously wicked to destroy a potential human being (e.g. an ununited egg and sperm) [Lockwood]
4056 If the soul is held to leave the body at brain-death, it should arrive at the time of brain-creation [Lockwood]