Lynne Baker...
Most interesting talk today by Lynne Baker at the reception to award her the Distinquished Faculty Award for 2005-2006.
Others on this blog could do her talk better justice than I am able (so add on!!).... but basically.... what I heard were her views on when life begins and ends based on her ideas of a person being more than just a biological organism. Her perspective is called Constitution View.... in that we are constituted of our bodies but are more than that.... just as a statue is constituted of marble..yet a statue is more than just marble.
She also talked about First Person Perspective as essential to being human... and the 3 essentials which make up First Person Perspective. Even a newborn baby has them..tho they go from being Rudimentary at birth to Robust by adulthood. One needs to have all three in at least a Rudementary stage plus to be from a "kind"( or species??) which eventually develops them into a Robust state, in order to be considered human. This has implications for both ends of the life spectrum..when human life begins and ends. She said a human organism has these by birth and likely shortly before birth, but that they do not develop at any one set pre-natal point. She also said they certainly do not exist in an embryo or pre-implantation (at 2 weeks after fertilization) ... so... according to this view... embryonic research (stem cell and such) does not deal with "human life." Same logic for end life questions such as Terry Shaivo.
Well.... wow.... lots to think about.... all very interesting. I don't know if I can agree that life which has even the potential to be "human" can be seen as equal to non-human life forms (and hence expendable). That seems like a big leap to me... but... I did like her foundational idea that human life is more than just a biological or neurological identity.
Others on this blog could do her talk better justice than I am able (so add on!!).... but basically.... what I heard were her views on when life begins and ends based on her ideas of a person being more than just a biological organism. Her perspective is called Constitution View.... in that we are constituted of our bodies but are more than that.... just as a statue is constituted of marble..yet a statue is more than just marble.
She also talked about First Person Perspective as essential to being human... and the 3 essentials which make up First Person Perspective. Even a newborn baby has them..tho they go from being Rudimentary at birth to Robust by adulthood. One needs to have all three in at least a Rudementary stage plus to be from a "kind"( or species??) which eventually develops them into a Robust state, in order to be considered human. This has implications for both ends of the life spectrum..when human life begins and ends. She said a human organism has these by birth and likely shortly before birth, but that they do not develop at any one set pre-natal point. She also said they certainly do not exist in an embryo or pre-implantation (at 2 weeks after fertilization) ... so... according to this view... embryonic research (stem cell and such) does not deal with "human life." Same logic for end life questions such as Terry Shaivo.
Well.... wow.... lots to think about.... all very interesting. I don't know if I can agree that life which has even the potential to be "human" can be seen as equal to non-human life forms (and hence expendable). That seems like a big leap to me... but... I did like her foundational idea that human life is more than just a biological or neurological identity.
posted by Carol Soules at 11:53 PM
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