In session one of this class one of the things that was discussed in our reading material in "The Bedford Guide for College Readers" was writing an opening. The Bedford Guide suggests to "Begin with a story" it advises that "Often a simple anecdote can capture your readers’ interest and thus serve as a good beginning" (2011 pg 429). The story of Aaron is very powerful; as a parent it tugs on my heartstrings and immediately drew me into the rest of the story.
The subject of this essay is, at what point do we stop being meaningless cells and become an actual living person. My personal opinion on this subject, is that we have always been people; at every point from beginning to end. The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations" (ESV). God is specifically talking about Jeremiah in this verse, but I firmly believe it applies to all of us. God knew us before we were ever born, how could he have known us if we weren't alive and in fact people.
The essay brings up several complex points, there is no definitive proof of personhood, and many different people have many different beliefs on when it actually begins and ends. Does it begin once you are born? Is it something you have to have a specific level of capability to obtain? Is it something you could lose if you dropped below that capability.
Smietana cites many people of many different mindsets in the essay. The first of course being Susan Barg she seemed to be of the mindset that God knew what he was doing from the start. At the very least I would say she would agree (though not specifically stated) that life begins at conception.
Robert D. Orr, director of et...
... middle of paper ...
...beliefs represented in his quotations. I do not feel that he ever really counter argued anything due to the fact that it was never clearly stated where he stood on the subject. I feel that the quotations used supporting life starting at conception did a good job of refuting the stance that it begun at any point after but I don't think he himself ever argued anything in the essay.
I don't feel that this essay broadens or complicates anything in regards to my views because my views remain the same after reading it. God knew us before he ever created us. Since God is the creator who gives us the ability to be people we have been with him since the very beginning.
Reading through the essay I felt that Bob Smietana the author was speaking as a reporter. Rather than offering his own opinion he throughout the essay presented opinions from both sides of the arguement.
Do the authors appear to be treating the issue seriously? Does Brooks or Tannen seem to be more serious?
First I will prove premise 1, “Every fetus is a person,” true. The definition of person according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is "a human being." Now surely no one would regard a fetus as anything other than human such as a primate or dog. But some still might say, "Well, it isn't aliv...
Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1948) believed that humankind follows a certain evolution of mind and body. This process involves a beginning (komogenese), a development (biogenese), and then a peak (noogenese) in which humans reach an Omega Point of higher being. Though his ideas were actually applied on a much broader scale of humanity over a large timespan, the theory can be applied to the individual’s process of human development. Single humans begin as common clones of one another. From this commonality many examine their lives and develop the things within them that make them uniquely them. This development of the self only can be ended at death when the individual converges upon an Omega Point in which he has an elevated understanding of and meaning for life. The characters Edna from The Awakening and Mrs. May from ”Greenleaf” encounter a similar human development in which an individual is formed with an understanding of life. The means by which they achieve this differ greatly.
I found the problem with the argument of the article was there was no set argument that was clearly stated. If there was an argument in the article it was not clearly stated and I personally did not catch onto it. Altogether this was a well written article without a clear argument.
To fully understand the argument we should first define the parameters of the debate and the key ideas held by each side. Throughout this essay I will be using the terms conservative and liberal as defined by Singer (p. 125) to refer to either side of the debate. The argument usually centers on whether or not a foetus qualifies as a person-- a complex, self-aware being with future-orientated preferences (Study Guide, p. 20)-- those on the conservative side usually argue that a foetus is a person, or at least potential person, and as a result liken abortion to murder, while those on the liberal side tend to refute the proposed personhood of a foetus. Both Singer and Warren agree that human development is a gradual process and it is impossible to pin point an exact stage where personhood is attained (Singer, p. 129, Study Guide, p.187), however it is clear, at least, that this happens somewhere in early childhood, and that while in utero the foetus only qualifies as a merely conscious being (Singer, p. 136). While I personally agree that a foetus is by no means a person and possesses none o...
Even though many argue a fetus is not yet a person, Marquis does not think it makes a difference at what stage a person is in life, that fetus will eventually be a person who will eventually live a life and to take that away before it even starts would be unethical.... ... middle of paper ... ... This idea, he argues, does not withstand the argument of suicide because it challenges his theory of having the desire to live.
In about ½ of a page (single-spaced), please state whether you agree, disagree, or have a mixed opinion regarding the following statement and argue, via evidence and claims from what you have learned in class, why you have picked your stated position. Be sure to comprehensively explain and support your reasoning.
In “A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality” John Perry conveys conversations between a philosopher and her two friends a few nights before she dies. We then come to how the dying philosopher is trying to have everyone convince her that she will survive even after her body dies. In this John Perry claims that there are three ways of deliberating personal identity: bodily identity, psychological continuity and immaterial soul. The essay then describes the different types of identity and how they can use them to prove to the perishing philosopher that she can still remain alive. I will argue that the only way we can distinguish personal identity is through psychological continuity and how we can determine a person based on their memories and experiences. From this we can go into discussion about some terms that will be used throughout this paper.
This essay will explain both sides of the views and using critical thinking will uncover the real message the author intended to portray.
In order to define personhood, one must first define a human. A Human can be thought about in two different senses, a moral human sense and a genetic human sense. In a moral sense, humans can be thought of as a person who is a member of the moral community. In a genetic sense, humans are merely any physical being categorized as a being in the human species. From this one can conclude that a person is a human in the moral sense. Furthermore, characteristics of a person must be defined in order to differentiate moral beings from genetic humans.
Arguing from the scientific point of view, no one really knows when life truly commences. Vacuum aspiration however is the most prevalent type of surgical abortion, which happens within the first trimester. Demonstrating the beginning of life in a human will justify your debate leaving you with a strong substructure. Life begins when two sex cells are combined to form what is known as a zygote. A zygote has a total of 46 chromosomes, 23 from the male and 23 from the fema...
Katz, Elihu, and Jacob J. Feldman. (1962). The debates in the light of research: A survey of surveys. In The Great Debates, ed. Sidney Kraus. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 173-223.
He arguably defended the ideas that creation was an eternal and a compulsory generative producti...
Existentialism is a term associated with intellectual history. Through propagation of postwar literary concepts and philosophical works, existentialism became part of a cultural drift that prospered in the 1940’s and 50’s, especially in Europe. This concept points out unique groups of philosophical quandaries and now identifies with distinct twentieth and twenty-first century inquiries. It is not so much concerned with “existence” indefinitely, but more precisely the assertion that human existence requires new classifications that are not found in the theoretical range of neither ancient or modern thought. Human beings as a whole can be established neither as beings with set attributes, nor as beings interacting with an abundance of objects. From an existentialist view, to know the truths of science is not enough to understand what exactly a human being is. Human beings cannot possibly be completely understood in terms of basic sciences, such as biology, psychology, physics, etc. They also cannot be understood in just a dualist, “mind and body” view. Existentialism does not reject the cogency of these categories, it just simply states that these cannot be the only traits examined, when trying to understand what it is to be a human. Neither moral theory nor scientific thinking is sufficient. Therefore, existentialism can be defined as “a 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad” (Merriam-Webster).
“Who had the right to decide which life is worth living?” (Brown, paragraph 1) Ian Brown writes this in his essay about his son, Walker, and about genetic manipulation. I agree with his argument and I find that the essay is well constructed. Brown developed his argument by creating an essay by including many points that are well backed up, the point of views of different professionals, and by adding some personal experiences and quotes. He successfully displayed his argument and prove his points.