DIALOGUE: Is Abortion a Human Right or an Inhumane Wrong? (with Nathan Nobis)

In this episode Trent joins philosopher Nathan Nobis for a formal dialogue on the issue of abortion hosted at Emory University.

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Welcome to the Counsel of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.

Moderator:

All right, so we will now begin with Trent giving his opening statement.

Trent Horn:

All right. Well, I want to definitely thank [Emery Students For Life 00:00:18], for putting on this event. I know it was a little lot of hard work on their end to put this together, so I’m very grateful. They went through all that work. And I’m grateful for Dr. Novis for agreeing to participate.

Trent Horn:

In my experience as a pro-life advocate, it’s very difficult to get a public discussion like this going. And frankly, many people who identify as pro-choice or as pro-choice advocates do not want to take part in public discussions like this. And when they do, their arguments tend to be more emotional rhetoric than philosophical cases.

Trent Horn:

My interlocutor tonight, Nathan, is a delightful exception to that. He’s an intelligent, thoughtful person on this issue.

Trent Horn:

Now, I oppose the view he defends with every fiber of my being. I believe this is a very serious issue, but I do consider him a very thoughtful person. So I’m looking forward to our discussion, to iron out this issue.

Trent Horn:

So that said, I want to give some reasons for why you should believe that abortion is so gravely immoral that it ought to be illegal. So I think I have here five arguments that I wanted to share.

Trent Horn:

The first argument’s a simple one. I call it the humanity argument. It’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent biological human beings. A fetus is an innocent biological human being. Abortion intentionally kills a fetus. Therefore, abortion is wrong. And now, the scientific evidence is clear on this, that the unborn are biological human beings. Nathan has admitted this in one of his books. He says, “Early abortions involve killing biologically human beings. Individual members of our species.”

Trent Horn:

Now, you might object to the premise. “There’s something wrong with the premise, it’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent biological human beings, since it doesn’t account for killing non-human beings. What if there were intelligent aliens? Would it be wrong to kill them?” Well, I would say yes, but for different reasons. So that would only show there’s different reasons for why it’s wrong to kill rational creatures, which I’ll get to a little bit later, but the existence of intelligent non-humans would not refute the truth, it is wrong to intentionally kill innocent biological human beings. If you believe in proposition, then it would follow that you should be against abortion.

Trent Horn:

Now, another objection might be, “We do intentionally kill innocent biological human beings. We take a permanently comatose individual off life support.” But in these cases, we are not directly intending the death of an individual. We’re not directly killing someone, we’re allowing them to die.

Trent Horn:

So for example, if we were to take an unconscious person off of a ventilator, and they continued to breathe on their own, we wouldn’t proceed to smother them because our intention was to remove disproportionate medical care, not to kill an innocent person.

Trent Horn:

So I think a person is perfectly rational to believe it is always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent biological human being. There’s no reason to doubt that principle. And since the unborn or innocent biological human beings, it follows, it is wrong to kill them via abortion.

Trent Horn:

Number two would be a personhood argument. So my next argument would be based on an inference to the best explanation related to the concept of personhood. So Nathan and I both agree there’s a special class of beings called persons, that have a right to life. We also agree that we are persons, you all watching this debate are persons, but many other humans who don’t understand this debate would also be persons, like mentally disabled adults or newborn infants.

Trent Horn:

We also agree there are many beings that are not persons; rocks, carrots, and I would also say other forms of animal life. I don’t know if Nathan would agree, but I think most people would agree that rats and pigeons are not persons. So any definition of what a person is, it needs to account for clear examples of persons. And it also should not include clear examples of non-persons. So the definitions that we give, we have to be careful.

Trent Horn:

If we say, “Well, a person is just anything that can feel pain,” That will include highly controversial examples, like rats would be an example, or pigeons, or possibly snakes and other reptiles.

Trent Horn:

If we say that a person is any being that can think rationally, engage in rational discourse, it will exclude uncontroversial examples of persons, like newborn infants.

Trent Horn:

A better definition would be an individual member of a rational kind. So under this view, you and me, and Dr. Novis, infants, disabled humans, they would all be persons. This would not depend on our current functional abilities or what we can do, but our innate capacity for certain functional abilities or what we are. So this definition would also exclude non-human animals like rats, pigeons, snakes, because they’re not members of a rational kind.

Trent Horn:

Finally, this definition is species neutral. It could include rational aliens, for example, if it were discovered that they did exist. So this definition, it satisfies an inference to the best explanation. It perfectly accounts for views of personhood pro-life and pro-choice advocates both share. When it comes to these uncontroversial cases like newborns, other lower animal life forms that we generally agree, there might be exceptions, that generally agree are not persons.

Trent Horn:

So this view is also not ad hoc or arbitrary. The inclusion of the unborn in it naturally flows from the definition’s emphasis on rational capacity. Since there’s no good reason to reject this definition of personhood and no better alternative to it, we should include this. And since it would follow the unborn or persons, we should not abort them, because abortion directly kills an innocent person, which all the things being equal, is wrong.

Trent Horn:

My third argument will be one based on personal identity. So it’ll go like this; if an organism that once existed has never died, then this organism still exists. I think that makes sense. If you have an organism, it doesn’t die, it’s still around somewhere.

Trent Horn:

Number two is, I am an organism. Now, some people disagree, but I think that’s very clear. I am an organism. Therefore, I am the organism that once existed in my mother’s womb and never died. It is always prima facie, wrong to kill me. And since I existed in my mother’s womb, it was prima facie, wrong, generally wrong on the face of it to kill me at that time.

Trent Horn:

And what is true about killing me is true in general for everybody else. If it’s wrong to kill me or kill me at any stage of my existence, it’d be the same for all of you. Therefore, it is wrong to kill anyone else who lives in his mother’s womb. So this will be an argument from personal identity.

Trent Horn:

Now, let me defend some of the more controversial premises. First, you might deny that we’re organisms. You might say, “Well, we’re just minds that exist within organisms. We are a mind, not an animal or an organism.” But I think that leads to many implausible conclusions.

Trent Horn:

First, if people are only minds and they’re not physical organisms, no one has ever been raped actually. We could only say their bodies had been raped, in the same way we would say a person’s car has been vandalized, if you are not an organism, if you are just a mind that owns or inhabits a body. But if I am my body, it makes sense also why the government could not take a part of me. If my body’s just property, government could tax it, require forced donations of it maybe. But my body isn’t something I own, it is me.

Trent Horn:

Also, if I am just a collection of thoughts in a mind, then I don’t think that’s a weird thing. Thoughts don’t think, they’re the things we think of. But if you’re trying to understand me and what we’re saying today, you’re a thinking animal. In fact, anyone watching this, there is a thinking animal in this audience, in a chair or in front of a screen. So there’s a thinking animal and there’s you. And I find it highly implausible that you are not that thinking animal that is watching the debate, you are that same being.

Trent Horn:

Finally, if I’m just a collection of thoughts, where am I when I’m asleep? If I’m just a collection of thoughts, do I not occupy a spatial coordinate? Do I stop existing? Do I start existing again when I wake up tomorrow? But if I’m a living organism, then as long as that organism exists, then I exist. And this was true from the moment that I was conceived.

Trent Horn:

The other controversial premise would be, it’s always wrong to kill me. And now, Nathan has said in previous writings, well not all of our rights are universal, like I have a right to drive a car, I didn’t have that right when I was a newborn or a fetus. Or I didn’t have a right to vote when I was five. But there are other rights that do seem universal, like I always had a right to not be tortured, to not be enslaved, for example. And I think most people would find the right to life to be more of an essential right we always have, not a conditional right we may or may not have.

Trent Horn:

My fourth argument would be this; it’s called the future like ours argument. So this is independent of personhood. Even if you’re not convinced about the unborn being persons or personhood in general, we can approach the issue of abortion and, go at it from the reverse direction and say, “Well, abortion’s killing.” That’s pretty obvious. Then we can ask, “Well, what makes killing wrong? Why is it wrong to kill anything? What is it particular that makes killing wrong?”

Trent Horn:

And I would say that what makes most sense is that the wrongness of killing, its primary wrong making feature is that it deprives someone of a valuable future. In particular, a future like ours. Most people agree, it’s not wrong to fumigate a barn to get rid of rats because rats are a nuisance and they don’t have a valuable future like ours. If there were human squatters in a barn, most people would say you could not gas them in order to remove them. You’d have to use other non-violent means, because that would be killing a being that has a future like ours. So if that is what makes killing wrong, then it seems clear to me that human fetuses and embryos, just like human newborns and toddlers, they have a future like ours as well, that abortion would deprive them off. And so, abortion would be wrong.

Trent Horn:

Now, what are some objections someone might make this, you might say, “Well, a fetus doesn’t have a future like ours because we’re psychologically connected to our futures. Where I’m here now and I’ll be there in the future, thinking back on this debate.” But I don’t think that’s the case because we recognize the wrongness of killing beings who are very weakly or maybe not even psychologically connected to their futures at all, like newborns.

Trent Horn:

In writing on this, Nathan has said that even when it comes to newborns, he says of fetuses, “There is no even broken chain of experiences from the fetus to that future person’s experiences. Babies are at least aware of the current moment, which leads to the next moment and so on.” But the problem is, what if it’s transitory? What if there’s a broken link, then we don’t have one being that extends into the future. Just like a broken link in a chain will cause a lamp to fall from a ceiling, a broken chain in identity would mean the person doesn’t persist. If only your disposition survived into the future, like a newborn, I think Nathan would probably think you had not survived.

Trent Horn:

If fetuses do not have a future like ours, because they’re not psychologically connected to their future, I find it hard to believe that newborns would qualify for that as well. But we agree killing newborns is immoral. And it’s so immoral, it ought to be illegal. And the primary wrong making feature there, I would say, is just as much shared with fetuses and embryos.

Trent Horn:

Here’s my fifth and final argument for the wrongness of abortion. Why it’s so wrong, it should be illegal. It’s similar to the future like ours argument, it’s called the impairment argument. So this will be interesting.

Trent Horn:

Imagine Mary conceives a child in the month of July. If she sees in July, she’ll give birth to a child with a mild mental handicap called Bob. Now, most people would say that Mary has not harmed Bob, because if she had waited until August, she wouldn’t conceive Bob, she would conceive Bob’s brother, Bill. So there would’ve been different sperm, different egg. So if Mary conceives Bob in July, she doesn’t harm Bob, even though Bob comes into existence with a mild mental handicap. Any other alternative would mean Bob would not exist at all.

Trent Horn:

But suppose Mary waits a month and she conceives Bob’s healthy brother, Bill, in August. She then takes a drug that causes Bill, while he is an embryo, an embryo that we will call Bill, that causes that embryo to develop a mild mental handicap. Now, unlike in the Bob case, Mary does seem to have harmed Bill because it’s not a choice between Bill never existing and Bill having a mental handicap. Mary is morally blameworthy because she made another choice. She impaired Bill’s healthy development. And if the reason to cause a minor impairment, that’s wrong, is also present in causing a greater impairment, like paralysis, then the impairment would be even worse, and would be equally wrong if not more so.

Trent Horn:

And since death is the most severe impairment of function a person can endure, it follows it’s wrong to inflict death upon Bill when he was an embryo. And so, abortion would be wrong, because it’s a greater impairment.

Trent Horn:

But remember the harm that’s involved. The harm is not merely causing a handicap person to come to existence. Some people will say, in fact, Nathan has said on his website, “The reason causing something like fetal alcohol syndrome to be wrong is because it makes a person worse off.” Life would’ve been better for Bill, if his mother had not taken the pill to give him a mild mental handicap.

Trent Horn:

But that’s an interesting line of argument because it seems to assume that there is a healthy individual in the womb and a pill or prenatal alcohol abuse harms this individual and this same individual exists at a later time with these symptoms and make him worse off.

Trent Horn:

So I think that shows that if it’s wrong to cause this kind of minor impairment and the same reason for that obtains in the major impairment case like paralysis or death, then the impairment argument would show that abortion is wrong, because it’s the worst impairment on a person’s developmental abilities you can cause. It causes of them to no longer develop anymore, it kills them. And that’s a serious wrong when committed against an innocent person, ought to be illegal, just as we do with other born individuals.

Trent Horn:

So that is my case. And I will offer some thoughts on Nathan’s case for why abortion is moral in my next address. So thank you very much.

Moderator:

Thank you very much, Trent. And now, we can begin with Nathan giving his opening statement.

Nathan Nobis:

All right. Hello. Welcome. How are you?

Moderator:

Sorry. Pull up your-

Nathan Nobis:

Okay. This is a new setup for me. I got to get used to it. Look at you. Thank you.

Nathan Nobis:

Okay. I am right handed. So I need to move this or something. Okay, hopefully, this work.

Nathan Nobis:

All right. Hello. Welcome. Thank you for being here. I’m glad to be here to talk with you about important things. And I think a lot of what I say quickly will overlap with a lot of things that Trent brought up. So that’s cool.

Nathan Nobis:

So I got two questions. One is, what should we think about abortion? The other is, what should we think about controversial issues in general? And these thoughts are sort of built upon a number of books and other materials I have, all of which are available for free at this webpage.

Nathan Nobis:

And actually, one of the first things I wrote about this for sort of a popular audience was in Decaturish. So if you know about Decaturish, you can look up an article called Thinking Critically About Abortion.

Nathan Nobis:

So here’s what I think, we should think that at least most abortions are not morally wrong. And so, they should be legal. So why think that, why think they’re not wrong? Well, I think it’s because, at least beginning fetuses, lack what gives anybody the right to life, or makes them or somebody typically seriously wrong to kill. So why think that? Well, because they’ve never been conscious or aware in any way. They don’t have what makes us wrong to kill. There’s not even an us yet, with beginning fetuses. There’s no someone or subject there.

Nathan Nobis:

So another part here is the right to life does not seem to be a right to somebody else’s bodies. So that would suggest that an embryo or a fetus wouldn’t have a right to the woman’s body. And so, the law should not criminalize her, not providing her bodily resources.

Nathan Nobis:

What about far later, comparatively rare abortions? Well, I think some could be wrong. I do, however, think that criminalizing them would be kind of complicated and problematic. So I think that’s potentially a bad idea.

Nathan Nobis:

I do want to say that I try to stay in my lane, so to speak. There are many aspects to this issue that I am not an expert in. And so, I sort of focus on sort of the ethical issues, and other things I leave to other people who know better. So there might be some questions that come up and I’m like, “I don’t know.” And that’s okay.

Nathan Nobis:

So my other question is, how do you think about stuff that’s complicated in general? And for this, I have found that it’s especially important to think about definitions and how you can evaluate definitions. There are different explanations for various phenomena that need to be evaluated. And using some literal logic, some math with words, sort of really helps.

Nathan Nobis:

So I think these two questions, why think that, and what do you mean, can do a lot for thinking about stuff. So I will keep asking these questions to sort of illustrate what I’m doing.

Nathan Nobis:

All right. So about me, I teach philosophy at Morehouse College. I’ve been there since 2006 or so. I’ve got a lot of writings on these topics and other topics. I’m the editor of something called the 1000-Word Philosophy, which is kind of like a mini encyclopedia, which is sort of relevant for these purposes because there’s all sorts of philosophical issues, not just ethical issues here. And sort of to think productively, you have to really kind of know those issues, as well as some things about science, some things about healthcare, health policy, really kind of comes together. And I have this free introductory book available off the webpage or on Amazon for I think, 5.81 or 5.83 or something.

Nathan Nobis:

So I want to observe that if you talk to people about abortion, a lot of times they will begin with circumstances instead of arguments. You ask somebody, “What do you think about abortion?” They’ll say, “Oh, I think it’s wrong in these circumstances. I think it’d be okay if blah, blah, blah.” And that’s good. But what people really need is arguments for those circumstances. So that’s an important thing to notice.

Nathan Nobis:

Another thing I want to point out is that most people who have views on abortion think that abortion is either what it’s called prima facie wrong or prima facie permissible. Very few people think that abortion is absolutely necessarily always wrong. So I’m going to throw this phrase in there.

Nathan Nobis:

I also want to tell you this, I do philosophy teaching videos on TikTok. And the other week I had… Most of my videos, like the abortion ones are like a couple hundred views. But I had one on the concept of prima facie, prima facie wrong, that hit like 40,000 views. So this is what the people want. There should have been a debate about prima facie not the dull, boring topic of abortion.

Nathan Nobis:

So next thing is, I have observed that many people when they engage this issue, many of the things that they have to say about it are what’s called question begging. Their arguments assume what they are trying to prove, so to speak. So here’s a long list, but let me just point at one. Many people might say, “Well, abortion’s wrong because abortion’s murder.” Well, what do you mean it by murder? “Well, wrongful killing.” So you’re saying abortion, killing fetuses is wrong because it’s wrongful killing. So this is like circular reasoning. So it’s like, even if I thought abortion was wrong, I need better than just to say it’s wrong. I need a real argument, not a question begging one. This is also exceedingly common with pro-choice people. They give all sorts of question begging arguments, slogans, and other kind of disengaged response.

Nathan Nobis:

So here’s one, “Abortion is okay. It’s permissible because abortion is a personal choice.” Well, I think if you ask people, “Well, what is a personal choice?” They mean to say, “Well, it’s a choice that you could make that would be okay for you to make. It wouldn’t be wrong.” Like what tie to wear is a personal choice. Pick either one, nothing’s wrong. If you were to say burning down your neighbor’s house is a personal choice, no. So I think this language just assumes what it’s supposed to prove.

Nathan Nobis:

Since this is a medical event, I think to claim that all abortions are essential healthcare, all of them are, seems to be question begging also, because if you ask like, “Well, what does that mean?” It might come down to, “Well, what healthcare people do is permissible. So if they’re doing abortions, abortions are permissible.” And that just assumes what it’s supposed to prove, and that’s bad.

Nathan Nobis:

So moving onto some arguments that you often hear, people are often focused on the question of when does life begin? Well, what do you mean life? One answer is biological life. So you have a claim that embryos and fetuses are biologically alive. That’s obviously true, although apparently some pro-choice people deny this. I think though, that these people just haven’t been asked the right questions, in the right kind of way. But to make this argument work, you need to have the second premise, which is just false. Mold’s alive. Bacteria is alive. Plants are alive. So that second premise is false. So this argument is unsound.

Nathan Nobis:

Somebody might come back and say, “Well, that’s not what I meant. When I said the fetuses are alive or life, I meant to say that they were human. That’s what I mean.” So there is this obsession about whether fetuses are human. Well again, “Well, what do you mean, human?” One answer is biologically human. Well, the fetuses we’re talking about are biologically human. We’re not about not talking about cats or dogs, so that’s true. But then, we have a premise, anything biologically human is prima facie wrong to kill.

Nathan Nobis:

Well, we want to think about that in a very literal way and think, “Well, what if there was a blob of cells in a Petri dish, that were human and they’re alive, would it be wrong to kill those cells?” No. “What if there was a random human organ that was alive, would it be wrong to kill that organ?” No. So this argument does not seem to be so good also.

Nathan Nobis:

I will observe that a lot of people obsess about these sorts of arguments and these are not very good arguments, and it would be good if they talked about better arguments.

Nathan Nobis:

Next, we’re moving onto some better arguments. So here’s the claim, “Embryos are living biologically human organisms. They’re not just clumps of cells. They’re not just organs. They are organisms.” That seems to be true.

Nathan Nobis:

Next, we have the claim that anything that’s a living biologically human organism is prima facie wrong to kill. I believe Trent said something like that. So I think things are starting to get interesting. It seems like, well, I’m a living biologically human organism. I’m wrong to kill. So it might seem like the second premise is true, but the question is, well, why are biologically human organisms wrong to kill or let die when they are wrong to kill or let die? So there’s this why question or why I think that. So I think this takes us to the explanation bit. And I think the best broad answer is that while we are wrong to kill, because we are conscious and sentient beings, we have a perspective on the world, our lives can go better and worse over time, from our own point of view, that makes it such that we can be harmed if we are killed. And this is the basic explanation why killing us is wrong.

Nathan Nobis:

So does this observation apply to beginning fetuses? No, it doesn’t. Does it apply to later ones? Maybe. But I think if you think about, well, why am I wrong to kill, I think you might come to an answer that suggests, well, beginning fetus wouldn’t be wrong to kill.

Nathan Nobis:

So there’s actually an article on this theme in this journal called Utilitas, Does Abortion Harm the Beginning Fetus? And they argue, I don’t know where they are in Europe, you can probably tell by the name, “Well, beginning fetuses don’t have a wellbeing level.” And so, they propose they can’t take a turn for the worse. They can’t be harmed.

Nathan Nobis:

So are we wrong to kill because we are persons? I think that’s a sensible answer. And so, that takes us to the question. Well, what do you mean by person? You’re a person. Why I think that you’re a person? And I got a bunch of questions. So what makes you a person? Why are you a person? What’s the concepts of a person? Common answers are well, I’m human. Well, I’m alive. We already know that you’re human. We already know that you’re alive. The question is, why are you like that also a person? So why are rocks, skin cells, livers, plants not persons? What could end your personhood, if anything? What would end your existence as a person?

Nathan Nobis:

Here are some potential answers; if you think you could continue to exist after the death of your body in some kind of afterlife, how could that be? Maybe you’ve seen a movie like Freaky Friday or these sort of minds swap type stories. Are these possible? If so, what would this suggest about persons?

Nathan Nobis:

And finally, I guess, what do you think it is to personify something? To personify something is to make it as if it’s a person. So thinking about what those characteristics are, would help you think about what persons are.

Nathan Nobis:

So there’s an answer from John Locke, famous philosopher John Locke, that can be updated to something like, “Well, persons are psychological beings. They’re conscious, feeling aware beings that are unified over time.” I think this seems to be sort of roughly correct. If you think about what makes me a person, at least this seems to be a good answer to me. If you think about why would you not like to take a nap and never wake up, well, that would sort of end your psychological states. That would be the end of you, even if your body is still alive. So I think this is a roughly plausible idea and lots of people who think about this, think that also.

Nathan Nobis:

So again, the observation is embryos and beginning fetuses are not like that. So I want to observe that I think the words life and human and human being can mean different things. And so, when people say, “Life begins at birth,” or, “You become human later. Human beings are something different than biologically human organisms,” I think you just simply need to ask people, “What do you exactly mean by that?” And really listen. Because they don’t mean those terms in a biological sense. People use words in different ways and you just need to find out what people mean. So I had a article about this the other day.

Nathan Nobis:

And near finally, so why do you have the right to life? Well, my proposal is you have a right to life basically because you’re a conscious sentient being. Rights make harming you wrong. If you’re like that, you got rights, it’s wrong to harm you, prima facie wrong to harm you.

Nathan Nobis:

So something to notice though about the right to life is that the right to life does not seem to be a right to everything you need to continue living, especially if it’s somebody else’s body. So the right to life is not somebody else’s body. So famous philosopher, Judith Thompson, observed this in the 70s or so. And basically, the application of this issue is she argued that even if fetuses are persons with the right to life, it’s not so simple that they would immediately have a right to their mother’s body, because she argued the right to life is not the right to somebody else’s body. She has some amusing examples to show that, but I guess you could just sort of think about, “How could I get the right to somebody else’s body?” That’d be worthwhile thinking about. And, “Could that person sort of revoke that right?”

Nathan Nobis:

So what about later abortions? They’re by the numbers sort of comparatively rare. Many of them seem to be sort of for medical reasons. Some of them might not be. I’m not super sure. It’s hard to tell. I do think that sort of later abortions involving a conscious feeling fetus could be ethically problematic. So that would be my view because sort of whenever you’re harming or inflicting pain or anything bad on a sort of conscious, feeling being, you are doing something potentially problematic.

Nathan Nobis:

So does that mean that abortions like these should be illegal and criminalized? My thought, and I’m not a super expert on this, is I don’t know a way to do that, that would really work out well, because it seems like this would be sort of very intrusive into medical decisions. And this could lead to sort of all sorts of bad things if you and your doctor, had to sort of justify your choices to the police and the law, and women who have later abortions for medical reasons, get arrested and have to get lawyers and stuff like that. So this seems to me to be a potentially bad idea. So my thought is, probably the best possible response is just to try to make it such that abortions that can be done early are done early.

Nathan Nobis:

So in summary, here’s sort of the main argument, conclusion; most abortions are prima facie morally permissible. Why is that? Well, it’s typically permissible to kill things that are not conscious and have never been conscious. And early abortions kill fetuses that are not conscious and have never been conscious and most abortions are early abortions.

Nathan Nobis:

And so, why think this first idea? Well, it’s a little abstract, but I think you can think about a number of cases and considerations and come to think that, “Well, if you’ve never been conscious, you’re definitely not a person and you can’t be harmed.” So that is my basic case and I’m done. Thank you.

Moderator:

Now, Trent will have seven minutes to reply to Nathan’s statement.

Trent Horn:

First, I’m just going to say, I’m wrong and Nathan’s right, it’s prima facie not prima facie. I’m terrible at pronouncing things. So I’m going to give you one thing. I’ll give you one thing here in the debate.

Trent Horn:

Also, a lot of what Nathan said is absolutely correct. A lot of the arguments on both sides, both sides are question begging. We should stick to the best arguments each side can put forward.

Trent Horn:

Let me offer some thoughts on a few things that Nathan brought up. First, his main arguments seem to be well, abortion is permissible because a fetus has never been conscious. I could call them an NBC, not an NPC, a non-playable character, an NBC, a never been conscious. But I didn’t see a lot of evidence to that claim. It was just kind of more like an assumption.

Trent Horn:

So I have more questions about it. First, what is it in particular that makes us a person? What does Nathan mean by consciousness or sentience? We can think of things that are very conscious. Y’all are thinking about a lot of stuff, and things that have very minimal consciousness, like a rat going through a maze.

Trent Horn:

So what do we mean by consciousness and how does it apply? So if it applies merely in virtue, that if you are any little bit conscious at all, the outside world and therefore, it is equally wrong to kill you, then that would mean it is wrong to kill me or Nathan, just as it would be equally wrong to kill like a rat. No matter how much, if you even have just a little bit of consciousness, in virtue of consciousness, you’re a person, it’s wrong to kill. I find that very implausible.

Trent Horn:

If it’s in proportion to your level of consciousness, then that would mean it’s less wrong to kill less conscious human beings. Whereas, I think most of us would agree that human beings have an equal right to life. So I find that implausible as well.

Trent Horn:

Also, the assumption that you can’t harm an NBC, I don’t think that’s correct. For example, I gave the impairment argument earlier. Or consider a human fetus, if we genetically engineered it to desire to be enslaved by other people. It would solve a lot of our work problems, hiring good help. I think most people would consider that wrong. But if a fetus has never been conscious, how could we have harmed it? But it seemed clearly we’ve harmed the fetus by engineering them to want to be a slave. So I don’t think that’s correct, you can’t harm an NBC.

Trent Horn:

Imagine a newborn that has never been conscious, but will be conscious in a few days. Most people would consider that kind of infanticide to be immoral.

Trent Horn:

To give another exam, that you can’t harm a never been conscious person.

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:34:04]

Trent Horn:

For example, that you can’t harm a never-been-conscious person seems to rely on the claim that harm involves a perspective where things turn out worse for you. I don’t think that’s right, either. Imagine that you stood to inherit a million dollars from your great aunt. Your evil cousin changed the will to get the money instead, and you never found out about it. I would say you’ve been harmed, but you don’t know. You haven’t taken a psychological turn for the worse. Instead, you were deprived something of great value you had a right to. If that applies to the unborn, them being deprived of the right to life, I think it would carry over, they most certainly can be harmed.

Trent Horn:

When it comes to the right to control one’s body, I agree. No one can mandate that we donate our organs to other people, but abortion is not forcing someone to give another person their kidney. It’s more like giving somebody a kidney and then using violence to take it back. Also, if people need my kidneys, usually I’m not responsible for that. But 99% of the time people engage in an activity known for creating helpless beings. Also, if I don’t donate an organ, that’s letting somebody die of a pre-existing illness., whereas abortion is killing a healthy individual. An individual, I would say, does have a right to a person’s body in the same way that a newborn has a right to his mother’s breast milk if that is the only thing that can sustain him. While her kidneys may not have been made for his body, her nourishment through mammary glands have been. I would say the same applies to the uterus for the unborn. They do have that natural right.

Trent Horn:

Why is it wrong to kill biological human beings? Nathan said, “Well, why is it wrong?” I would say, well it’s because we have human dignity and it’s something we just recognize. It’s a basic moral intuition. Many philosophers agree that sometimes we can’t ask why anymore. We hit bedrock. The ethicist Walter Sinnott-Armstrong says we need basic moral intuitions. We can never get started on everyday moral reasoning about any moral problem without relying on intuitions. Even philosophers who disdain moral intuitions, often appeal to them when refuting opponents or supporting their views. The most sophisticated and complex arguments regularly come down to, “but surely that is immoral, hence…” and without a move like this, there could be no way to justify any substantive, moral theory. I would say that I think we’re perfectly justified in having the basic moral intuition that members of the human community, members of the human species, have basic human dignity, whether they’re a newborn, whether they’re an octogenarian, and they have equal human dignity, and we should respect that.

Trent Horn:

I see no reason to question that basic assumption. The reasons that Nathan gave as to why maybe it’s wrong to kill a newborn or a person, I would say they don’t work because they would either show that it is only wrong to kill some human beings, but not others that we agree should not be killed, like newborns, or it would lead to the implausible suggestion that killing, let’s say a rat or a pigeon, would be as wrong as killing a human being because we’re both conscious or sentient or aware, at least to some degree. Finally, Nathan brought up, let’s see, late-term abortions. I don’t think he’s necessarily against late-term abortions, he’s against causing pain. It seemed like, to me, his position would entail late-term abortions just have to be done with anesthetic.

Trent Horn:

That late-term fetuses, it would be moral to kill them if it was done painlessly much like it’s moral to kill unwanted cats and dogs if it’s done painlessly. I don’t know if that’s Nathan’s position on euthanizing animals, maybe we’ll get into that in cross examination. What is a person? He’s right, we should ask questions, but some of them aren’t as helpful, like Freaky Friday, whether it’s the Lindsay Lohan or the original one, it was with Jodie Foster, the original one. People might conceive of that, but I don’t think that’s metaphysically possible. We can’t distinguish it from two people just pretending to be the other person for the day. Locke said, we’re psychological beings. I agree with that. That doesn’t mean that we have to always be able to exercise our psychological capacities. We are animals, for example, or at least you say your mind is in an animal body.

Trent Horn:

I think everyone would agree with that. Even if what makes an animal an animal is that it can engage in sexual reproduction different than other kinds of multicellular organisms, but you’re still an animal even before you reach that level of biological development. And permanent unconsciousness doesn’t mean you stop existing. If you had a one year old who had lost all of their memories, I think people would say that this child was now tragically handicapped, but not, it would not be on par with the child dying. Those are my thoughts. I look forward to talking with Nathan more about his case.

Moderator:

Thank you, Trent. And now Nathan has seven minutes to reply to Trent’s statement.

Nathan Nobis:

I am sort of new to this sort of debating or debate format or something like that. One thing is that a lot of things come flying at people and it’s very hard to keep track of things. Given that, I am unsure how I could have a very productive response. I will just say a few things about some notes that I scribbled and now can barely read. First thing, or one thing I noticed, was that Trent mentioned rats a number of times. You know that some people have pets for rats. No. Rats for pets. I think they find rats to have unique personalities. Are rats conscious? Yeah, of course, of course rats are conscious. They’re aware of the world. They can navigate the world. That’s why they do these mazes, because they can perceive things and smell things and stuff like that.

Nathan Nobis:

I want to stand up for the rats a little bit and point out that a lot of people have rats for pets and would find their rat to be sort of like a dog, a small little dog. There’s this idea of dogs are people’s best friends. You could wonder, well, if somebody is your friend wouldn’t they have to be kind of personish, person-like, something like that. I think there might be more to say about rats and dogs than Trent lets on. There was a question of, what is it to be conscious? I don’t see this as super mysterious. I mean, how it actually happens is very mysterious. Maybe nobody knows this. Some people argue it’s just impossible that we could understand how anything is conscious.

Nathan Nobis:

To be conscious is like, there’s a way it is for that individual to be them. They perceive the world. That’s what it is to be conscious. There’s a way… There’s a famous paper, What is it Like to be a Bat? Which is the question of, well, what would consciousness be like for a bat, what’s a bat’s experience like? Trent, I think, mentioned this idea, like more and less conscious, I’ve thought about this a little bit. I’m kind of unsure that any beings are sort of more or less conscious. Or, for beings that are conscious, I don’t think… I am doubtful that any are sort of more or less conscious than others. Compare yourself to a three year old. Are you more conscious than a three year old? I don’t think so. I think you’re conscious of different things, but you’re sort of equally conscious.

Nathan Nobis:

There were, I think there was a suggestion that if you think that consciousness matters morally, that leads you to thinking that beings that are more conscious than others are entitled to exploit less conscious ones. I think that’s not true. I’m just sort of doubtful of the idea that there are being, there are conscious beings and some of which are more conscious than others. There’s just beings being conscious of different things. This, kind of, domination bit, I don’t think fits a view like this. I guess, an interesting, I mean, one thing that’s sort of interesting is, I guess, some of the main, most influential ethical theories, sort of general explanations for what makes wrong actions wrong, what makes permissible actions permissible, appeal either directly or indirectly to consciousness. Utilitarianism, I’m not utilitarian, but utilitarianism says we should promote good, happy conscious experiences and reduce unhappy, bad conscious experiences.

Nathan Nobis:

That’s a very influential view. Kant had a totally different take and he proposed that we should respect rational beings. Well, rational beings, more recent Kantians have argued, are valuable basically because consciousness, or being rational is being conscious in a certain sort of way. There’s another guy. John Rawls had a very famous theory of justice that he proposed this, that, well, justice is sort of what you would agree to if you didn’t know who you were. If you didn’t know who you were in some situation you couldn’t make it a self-serving decision, you’d have to put yourself in the shoes of every conscious being affected by whatever’s happening and think about whether you could agree with it or not.

Nathan Nobis:

There’s a tradition of thinking that consciousness, feelings, awareness is very important and you can kind of just get at it by thinking about, well, would I want to go into a coma and never wake up? No, not really. Why is that? Because that would almost be like being dead or, in a sense, it would be dead. Perhaps you would be brain dead, your body might be alive, but you would seem to be gone. I mean, what else explains why you wouldn’t want that to happen to you? You would certainly become very different from us, such that many people would think eventually it would be okay to perhaps let your body die. Maybe there could be circumstances where it would be okay to speed that process up, if we need to. I mean, if you’re gone, why would that matter? These are a few sort of random thoughts. I don’t know, what am I doing on time? One more minute. All right. One more minute of random rattling.

Nathan Nobis:

I did want to say something about the… If we are minds, like you are your conscious experiences, there was this claim that rape wouldn’t be wrong or something like that, because that’s affecting your body. That seems to be incorrect. I mean, in so far as a crime like rape affects the body, which does affect the mind, it affects both. I don’t think that’s a good objection to thinking that we are, in our essence, our minds. There’s all sorts of reasons to think that rape would be wrong on any abstract metaphysical theory about what you think people are. I think that’s what I got. Thank you for listening.

Moderator:

All right.

Trent Horn:

Hold on a sec.

Moderator:

Now Trent will have 20 minutes to ask Nathan about his case.

Trent Horn:

Can you hear me?

Moderator:

Okay.

Trent Horn:

All right. [inaudible 00:46:38].

Trent Horn:

That one?

Trent Horn:

Hello?

Trent Horn:

Yeah. I just had a few thoughts and we can just go back and forth on a few things. You brought up the question, you’re trying to understand what it means to be a person. And so, maybe if I were in a per-

Speaker 5:

Mic’s not on.

Moderator:

Let’s try it.

Trent Horn:

How about that? That work?

Moderator:

Yeah, I have. [crosstalk 00:47:37] fine.

Nathan Nobis:

What is this, a microphone for ants? The real one must be at least three times the size.

Trent Horn:

All right. You were talking about, okay, let’s do moral intuitions. If I were in a permanently unconscious state, or people would think that, they would not want life-supporting measures anymore, there seems to be an inference from that, well, because I no longer exist. I’m not sure that we can get from, I would not want to be permanently unconscious to the metaphysical conclusion, I don’t exist anymore. For example, you could ask somebody, would you want to be permanently locked in. Locked-in syndrome is a condition where you are fully conscious, but you can no longer… you’re fully paralyzed. Maybe you can move your eyes, but you can no longer… let’s say you can no longer communicate with the outside world. You cannot move your body, but you’re fully conscious.

Trent Horn:

I suspect many people would say they would rather die than be locked in. I think we would also still agree, the reason for that is that they still would exist, they just don’t want to exist that way. I guess, my concern here is that in these cases of what I want or not want, it doesn’t tell us a lot about the metaphysical status of the person. Does that make sense?

Nathan Nobis:

Sure. Yeah. You can definitely hear me. I think what would be great would be to sort of run a poll and see how people would respond. I think a very… I mean, example that I use in class for a variety of purposes is somebody is smashed by the bus and they’re rendered brain dead, but their body is still alive, their heart is still beating, their lungs are still breathing. They’re taken to the hospital and they’re kept alive. People come see them. How are the people going to feel? Well, hopefully they’re going to be sad. If somebody were to say, “What are you crying about? I mean, his body’s still here. What’s the deal? The person’s still here.” They’re going to say, “No. It looks like my friend is gone,” or whatever. I think a lot of people are going to say the person is there no more, even though the body is there.

Trent Horn:

Well, I think they may have that intuition, but that also might arise from just the reaction of seeing someone-

Nathan Nobis:

I would say someone who is brain dead, who is being kept alive on a heart-lung machine and has total irreversible loss of electrical activity in their brain, that that is a dead human being. For me, my position would be that you are a human organism and when the organism no longer exists, if you don’t have that organic unity, you die. We could your keep body alive indefinitely, but we’re keeping organs alive. It could be also the case that when I see someone who is, well, let’s say, it’s just the upper brain that has been destroyed. They won’t have conscious experience anymore. The sadness is that my friend’s personality is gone. They are highly and extremely impaired and they will not have particular valuable experiences.

Nathan Nobis:

The question might be, well, what medical procedures would be proportionate for that person? What would be helpful? I would say we should still feed this person. We should give them… We shouldn’t let them have bed sores, things like that. But a heart-lung machine may no longer be proportional.

Trent Horn:

To give another example, you might have, let’s say, an 85-year-old woman who has kidney failure and she needs kidney dialysis to stay alive. I would say it’s not… she’s not committing suicide by not using dialysis, because it just may not be no longer helpful anymore. I’m concerned that some of these examples saying, well, it’s not a person anymore. We could look at it in a… Hello.

Trent Horn:

We can turn them around and say, well, what we have here is a case of a person, but the measures to keep them alive are disproportionate, but it would not follow we’d be justified in directly killing them, if that makes sense.

Nathan Nobis:

I mean, sure. You could talk that way. I mean, one thing, though, is about persons… One thought about persons is that it is usually wrong, prima facie wrong, to cause the death of a person. Some change has happened to this person, such that we now think it could be okay to let them die. Some people are going to say, well, it could be okay to actively kill them. The question is, well, what explains that? One explanation is, well, there’s no longer a person there. You seem to be suggesting, it might be okay to do that, but there’s still a person, but they’ve lost all their consciousness, thoughts, memories, abilities, awareness, feelings, they’ve lost all that. I guess some people are going to respond, well, when you lose all that permanently, there’s no longer a person there.

Trent Horn:

I don’t think that is the case that when somebody comes across a loved one who is in a, let’s say, a irreversible coma, they don’t treat that body. If the person is gone, then we just have, there is a body there that my friend Bob used to live in. It’s not like, “Oh, that’s the house that Bob used to live in and look how dilapidated it’s become. That’s so sad.” I don’t think people have the same reaction to when a loved one suffers some kind of permanent disability. I want to ask another question. Then I’m interested in your questions when we go to your time to ask me. Always fun. I want to ask a little bit more about consciousness and the right to life because, and I agree with you, there are some rats that are cute.

Trent Horn:

When I was in high school, we did Flowers for Algernon, the play. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it. It’s about… One of the characters has a pet rat and both of them get a treatment to be really smart. Then a mean person in the play kills the rat. It’s very sad. I don’t think that killing a rat is morally on par with killing the person. What I’m, would like to know, in your position, is, all other things being equal, like let’s say somebody… you recklessly burn down someone’s house and their… One case, their pet rat dies, and the other case their newborn infant dies. I think one of, or it could be negligence, it could be directly killing. I think most people would think that it is worse, all other things being equal, to kill the newborn infant. What are your intuitions in that case?

Nathan Nobis:

I will, I guess, tell you that most people who advocate for animal rights or whatever, agree with you, and they would say, well, the human being has a right to life and the rat also has a right to life, but both rights are sort of prima facie. They can’t be overridden, and it is easier, or we’re more justified in overriding the rat’s life or right to life, basically, because they’re going to say things like, well, a rat has a richer, or a less rich sort of set of experiences, a shorter future, less lifespan. Kind of sounds-

Trent Horn:

Basically-

Nathan Nobis:

… like sort of fewer, fewer possibilities.

Trent Horn:

It sounds like they’re saying a rat does not have a future like ours.

Nathan Nobis:

I guess they, yeah, they would say that, a rat has sort of fewer, a rat would be harmed less by death. That would be the sort of typical answer from say, like Tom Regan, author of The Case for Animal Rights, stuff like that. We could take that same sort of reasoning and you could apply that to various human-to-human cases. What if there’s an 85 year old versus a five year old in some lifeboat or whatever, who should you save? We could bring in various factors to explain the difference, even though we’re going to say, well, unless if we’re not in some crazy lifeboat situation, it would be wrong to actively harm them. If in a hard case we can sort of make some sort of decisions.

Trent Horn:

Do we, because it sounds to me like if we’re saying a rat has a right to life, but it can be overridden a lot more than a person’s. I don’t know if the term right to life, it sounds like it’s going to lose all of its meaning, because it seems like we could think of hundreds and hundreds of cases where it would be morally justified to kill a rat, but only a handful of cases where we can do that with humans. It seems interesting to me what you were saying is that, well, and now this is interesting here, it seems like humans will have, it sounds like you’re using value-laden terms like, well, why is it the case that human experiences are richer? It sounds like that’s a way of saying better or more deserving of help than a rat’s. It sounds like we’re sneaking a value judgment in here, that a human’s experiences are worth more to preserve than a rat’s.

Nathan Nobis:

Yeah. Probably a lot of people think that.

Trent Horn:

Okay. So then-

Nathan Nobis:

… But it actually, I mean, it might kind of just be, not merely a prejudice, but almost like a math thing. There’s more potential for human experiences and such, the numbers are bigger, both in quantity and quality, and they’re going to go with that. It’s not simple, they’re human, the animals aren’t. It’s a function of the-

Trent Horn:

The unique things humans do.

Nathan Nobis:

Yes. And the thought that there are just more things that humans do.

Trent Horn:

True. But then it sounds like this kind of reasoning, working backwards, seems to apply to newborns, fetuses, and embryos, that they will also have these kinds of experiences, even if they’re not aware of them right now. If we privilege human beings as having a right to life, because we don’t want to deprive them of these experiences, it seems like it’s going to apply to, at least newborns, who may be less cognitively aware than a rat, and embryos and fetuses. Wouldn’t the argument kind of go backwards in that direction?

Nathan Nobis:

Not to embryos and beginning fetuses because you don’t have any kind of conscious individual.

Trent Horn:

Is the argument that, well, they’ll have… If the argument were only they will have the experiences in the future, then there is a being, there are these experiences that will happen to something, later. It seems to me, if the argument is, well, they’re not psychologically connected to the future so that being won’t show up, the embryo won’t show up later to have those future experiences. It seems like that would apply to a newborn. because it seems like newborns have very, very dim psychological connectedness. I mean, I don’t remember what it’s like to be a newborn. I don’t know if you do.

Nathan Nobis:

Here’s a silly question. Have you ever seen a baby?

Trent Horn:

This is philosophy there are no silly questions.

Nathan Nobis:

Right. Okay.

Trent Horn:

Only silly people.

Nathan Nobis:

I guess, what do you think, so does a baby… babies are aware of the world. They are aware of other people. They sort of know who some other people are. I don’t suppose that babies have long-term plans, but they’re somehow looking forward to the next moment. They’re the same sort of psychological individual, over time. Of course, they’re the same body. But-

Trent Horn:

Let me ask you this question.

Nathan Nobis:

… I guess I-

Trent Horn:

Go ahead.

Nathan Nobis:

… don’t know. I mean, to me, there’s a big difference between babies and embryos. I’ll just say there’s a big difference between embryos and babies.

Trent Horn:

I agree, Mike, but I think we all agree. There are big differences. Where we disagree is whether the differences are morally relevant. That’s where we’re going to end up disagreeing on that. Here’s what I want to know then, it seems like a rat has more of a present capacity for experiences than a newborn infant. I don’t know any newborn infants that can solve mazes, for example. It sounds like, in that case, if consciousness were, the capacity for conscious experiences is what grounds our right to life, makes it right or wrong to kill us. Then intrinsically, a rat would have more of a right to life than a newborn infant. There might be other… Why do you say that?

Nathan Nobis:

No. That’s you thinking that if you’re, “more conscious or conscious of more things,” you have a stronger right than beings that are sort of less conscious, or something.

Trent Horn:

You said that different experiences can mean certain beings rights are more often overridden than others. Okay. Let’s take, for example, then in a terminally ill infant who’s going, will only live for about six months and a rat. There, it seems like the rat in that six-month period will have more experiences than the terminally ill infant. Would that mean that they’re more of a person or they have more of a right to life?

Nathan Nobis:

Let me switch it to something different. I think it depends on sort of how you ask these questions. Suppose there’s a healthy young dog and there’s somebody who, there’s a human person who will, I don’t know, they’re going to die in five minutes.

Trent Horn:

The dog is going to die or the person?

Nathan Nobis:

No, the human person.

Trent Horn:

And he has a dog.

Nathan Nobis:

There’s a dog and there’s a human

Trent Horn:

Turner and Hooch.

Nathan Nobis:

Yeah. All right. I got to make up this story the right way.

Trent Horn:

Actually, if you want, why don’t you mull on it, and then, because your period will start in four minutes.

Nathan Nobis:

Okay.

Trent Horn:

And you can ask me all the questions. Why don’t you let it marinate? I had one more thing I want to… Well, I have a few more things I want to ask. Your position seems to rely a lot on the idea that, well, you can’t harm… Something that has never been conscious can’t be harmed. What do you think of my examples of we took a human fetus and engineered it so that it didn’t develop properly. Maybe it won’t be conscious. We can harvest organs or maybe we just engineer them to enjoy a life of servitude, so that they enjoy that. They enjoy normally what other humans would find to be mistreatment, they enjoy that. I think many people would find that immoral but it seems hard to justify on the claim that you can’t harm a being that has never been conscious. How would you reply to that?

Nathan Nobis:

It depends on how you ask the question, but what if you ask it like this? What if we could create beings that really enjoyed just working hard for other people. That’s kind of… they liked being people’s personal servants. What if we could create beings that were like that?

Trent Horn:

And they also liked behavior that we would, that people with normal or healthy human natures would not enjoy, such as mistreatment or objectification, for example.

Nathan Nobis:

Okay. The same question is, well, what if you could create beings like that? That really enjoyed this. This is what they most wanted. This is what they’re into. This is what they find fulfilling in life. You could think about that question and then sort of have an answer. What if you add on and those beings are human beings. That might change people’s answers because initially, if you say, well, there are these beings that like working for other people and blah, blah, blah. I mean maybe you think they’re like, are these robots or something like that?

Trent Horn:

We could call them meeseeks. They do whatever you want and then they pop out of existence. It’s a deep cut for anyone who watches certain television shows.

Nathan Nobis:

If you throw on, and they’re human beings-

Trent Horn:

I think that that does change it. If I say well, would it be wrong to make a being that enjoys being blind and deaf and being slimy and going around in a cave? A being like that doesn’t seem to be wrong, but causing a human being to become something like that, like at the end of Harlan Ellison’s book, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.” I think that the idea of consciousness doesn’t reflect well to the idea that when we look at beings to determine if they have a deprivation or an absence, we have to take into account the kind of being that they are. Humans are a kind of being that ought to develop a certain way.

Trent Horn:

Whereas other beings may not have that particular teleology, for example. I do think that the question… For example, if I have a drug that can cause literacy in a being and I have a cat or a 10-year-old human, I mean the cat, that’d be interesting to have a cat that can read. I don’t want to give them too many more abilities, frankly. I would say that wouldn’t be the right use because the cat, they have an absence of literacy. The 10- year-old human has a deprivation they ought to have in their human nature. Human beings ought to be treated in certain ways and ought to develop in a particular way. Any who? That was my 20 minutes. I will… You can ask me whatever you want. Go right-

Nathan Nobis:

Okay.

Moderator:

Well, Nathan, you have 20 minutes to ask Trent.

Nathan Nobis:

Okay. I think a lot of people, or some people would want to say like, well that wouldn’t be a human being. You’ve created some different type of being, so. I don’t know.

Trent Horn:

No. I’m saying you take a fetus and you just cause it to not… it develops eye cavities, but not eyeballs, ears, but no aural nerves, things like that. It seems if you take a fetus and you change its psychological desires, it seems to me, I’m not convinced that you can not harm someone that’s never been conscious because I have a strong-

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [01:08:04]

Trent Horn:

… harm someone that’s never been conscious, because I have a strong intuition that if you prevented a human fetus or human embryo from developing properly or in accord with their nature, you have harmed them. And death would prevent them from developing at all, would be my position.

Nathan Nobis:

Shuffling my papers around, hoping to… Well, all right. So, let me see. I guess I’m going to say that I am not really sure what I want to ask you about, because there’s just so much stuff.

Trent Horn:

You could throw some now, or we could play around with stuff from the audience.

Nathan Nobis:

And I honestly…

Trent Horn:

Whatever you like.

Nathan Nobis:

I honestly think it would be more interesting to hear questions from-

Trent Horn:

Ooh, that’s always cool.

Nathan Nobis:

… the audience because I honestly-

Trent Horn:

We could have more time. We could do a little back and forth on what people ask us.

Nathan Nobis:

Okay. All right. Because… yeah, we’ve kind of been all over the map in the details, and I wonder…

Trent Horn:

We’re nerding out. People might have more standard questions.

Moderator:

All righty. Well, since the participants want to, we will now move to the open question and answer session where anyone can ask a question at the mics. And then the speaker… you should direct your question to a particular speaker who then gets two minutes, and then the other speaker can have one minute to also reply if that is applicable. Please only direct your questions to one of the speakers, and try and keep your question under 30 seconds. If you are on Zoom, you can also submit your questions at the link found on the slideshow, but we will give priority to people who are live at the mic. All right. So why don’t you go first?

Participant:

Hopefully… Okay. You can hear me. Awesome. I think it’s Trent. I am horrible with names. I’m sorry for that.

Trent Horn:

You’re correct.

Participant:

Okay. But you brought up the idea earlier in your opening discussion where it was more appropriate to bring, to take someone off of life support, but it wasn’t… If you could take someone off life support and then let them go, they have to go, but you cannot suffocate them. Would the equivalent not be taking a fetus off of life support? Having abortion before they’re viable is a different argument than post-viability.

Trent Horn:

Yeah. I would say that aborting, especially in the case of a healthy embryo and fetus, but I would say in general, aborting a fetus or embryo is not the equivalent of taking a dying human being off of life support, because the embryo or fetus, they are not dying. There is nothing pathologically wrong with them. They are in the precise location and circumstances they ought to be in order to continue to develop. They are intimately… Now they’re very, very helpless at that stage of development, and so they rely on their mother’s body for sustenance. They cannot live anywhere else, but that doesn’t mean that they are a dying person that is on life support. They just have an intimate relationship with their mother and require unique care that the rest of us do not require.

Trent Horn:

To say abortion in that case is like taking someone off life support, that’d be like if I took my 18-month- old… Texas doesn’t usually get that cold, but we had a bad winter year and a half ago… and just put him outside when it was -10. I’m like, well, I’m not killing him, I’m just not allowing him the use of my home anymore. And he just can’t survive out there, that’s because he’s not developed enough. I think people would see that that’s not on par. So I would say abortion is not like taking someone off of life support, it’s taking a healthy individual and ending their life. I’d also say the right to life for adults is usually like, leave me alone, don’t stab me, don’t shoot me, don’t kill me. For children, the right to life entails the duty of someone else to feed them, house them, keep… Children’s right to life is violated when people ignore them, especially small children, newborns, and I would say embryos and fetuses. So their right to life entails a right to assistance from others.

Nathan Nobis:

I think there is something of comparison to be made with your suggestion. People are familiar with the idea of brain death and the thought that, well, if somebody, if there’s an individual or body that’s brain dead, it can be okay to let them die or perhaps actively kill their body. There’s a lesser known concept of brain birth that would be at the other end. And so basically to be brain birthed would be to be such that there’s a brain, and there’s like consciousness has been birthed in the brain. So, this sort of end of life, beginning of life, there’s differences of course, but people do propose that there’s sort of two sides of the same coin in some way. So there’s being brain dead, but there’s also being not brain alive. So I would call embryos and beginning fetuses not brain alive. They’re not brain dead, but they’re not brain alive either.

Moderator:

All right. You’re next.

Participant:

Hello. I wanted to hear, during Trent’s questioning of you, Nathan, you were going to reword one of his questions, and you were going to mull it over a bit and tell us how you would have re-metaphored his metaphor. And I’d like to hear that, please.

Trent Horn:

It’s about the dog? Like when, I think I said something about… Was it like, someone, there was a man and a dog? She was wondering if you had more on that.

Nathan Nobis:

Oh yeah. I think we just want an example like this. Suppose there’s a healthy dog and there’s some human being that… yeah, was going to die in five minutes. There’s this sort of common… well, let’s have them, let’s give them 10 minutes. There’s this sort of common view that, oh, well, human beings are always more important than any animals. It would always be worse to kill a human being than an animal. So the question here is this. Again, we have the case. Who would be harmed more by being killed in this situation, the human being who is going to die anyway in 10 minutes, or the dog? I think many people are going to say, well, really the dog, because the dog is expected to live for probably quite a while, much longer than 10 minutes. And they might think, well, the human’s been around for a good while, they’ve lived their life. So by anything like the numbers, the dog has more to lose here. So I don’t suppose it’s too far out there to think that, because I think a lot of people would think that.

Trent Horn:

And I’ll offer my thoughts on that. I would disagree, and I think many people would also disagree. Now, I will admit there could be some cases where we might find it preferential to save a dog over a person. Like it’s my choice between the dog that played Comet on Full House and Hitler, and they’re both in a sinking boat. Get over here, Comet, you rascal. But that example you gave, I’m not so sure I’m convinced by that.

Trent Horn:

Here’s an example I could think of. Let’s say we have two criminals, Bob and Bill, typical philosophy people. Two people. Bob likes to drive around, and he shoots stray dogs. And Bill has a sniper rifle, and he sits in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, where once every two weeks, someone reliably jumps off. There’s a documentary actually called The Bridge where someone filmed the bridge and caught like 20 of these suicides. They phoned it in to try to stop them, but usually it was too late. I would say that someone jumping off the bridge, saying, well, they’re going to die anyways and they want to die. I think people would find that absolutely morally heinous, because there is a certain intrinsic value in dignity that human beings have, even if they have a very short lifespan versus non-human animals.

Nathan Nobis:

Well, I don’t think anybody has to deny that to say that, honestly, the dog has more to lose, because this human person’s going to be here for 10 more minutes.

Trent Horn:

Well, I think there’s a difference between quantity and quality, but we can…

Moderator:

All right. Lady over there.

Participant:

Okay. Dr. Nobis, this is a question I had for you about your statement that all are conscious, there’s just different levels. They’re conscious of different things, and that they were equal, I believe you said a three-year-old and adult. They’re just conscious of different things in their life, and they have a right to life. And so I just wanted to take that one step further and see if you would continue with this thought process.

Participant:

So if you want to think about then an innocent human fetus, it’s just another state of consciousness, right? So this innocent human baby, their consciousness is their mom and dad’s voice, their warmth of where they live. They’re feeling comfortable there. They don’t feel harm or threat. My question to you is since all of these are in different states of consciousness, the fetus, the baby, the toddler, the adolescent, the teen, the adult, would you use that same rationality, could you not see to conclude that that innocent human fetus is just equal as well in their right to life, they’re just in a different state of consciousness? You stated all were equal consciousness.

Nathan Nobis:

So I think the initial example you gave was that of a fetus? Or no.

Participant:

Yes. I’m just saying this is the consciousness. You said in the debate that there were a three-year-old, doesn’t matter your level of consciousness, you’re aware of just whatever you’re aware of because of your age or whatever. Well, the fetus is aware of what they’re aware of, which is a warm environment, their parents’ voices, these type things. So again, it’s just a different state of consciousness. So therefore they also should have an equal right to life.

Nathan Nobis:

Oh yeah. Well, I agree. That was the point about… My view isn’t that every abortion must be okay. I mean, that’s kind of a common pro-choice bumper sticker. But no, I think that if you have a fetus who’s conscious, and so the one you mentioned is, I think that aborting that fetus would be wrong unless there’s some overriding good reason to do it. So I agree with you.

Participant:

Okay. But I guess my point is there wouldn’t be an overriding good reason to do that to these innocent human babies, which are just conscious of different things. From the moment of conception, they’re conscious of things in their mother’s womb, so it’s just a different level of consciousness. Based on your philosophy, you would say they’re equal. It doesn’t matter, they’re just aware of different levels of what’s going on, is your words earlier. So I’m just trying to show you that this could be also to state the value of human life, the way you’re using that argument.

Nathan Nobis:

Well, I don’t think at the very beginning, and I think Trent agrees with me, I don’t think at the very beginning, they’re conscious. That would be because they don’t have a brain, nervous system, adequate development. I think I’ve heard Trent say maybe that happens at the earliest, like 12 weeks.

Trent Horn:

Well, the position that I would take. So for example, legislation that prohibits the abortion of pain-capable unborn children tends to be set at around 20 weeks after fertilization, legislation that would prevent the abortion of a pain-capable child. So my arguments are independent of whether the child’s consciousness or not.

Nathan Nobis:

Well, no, what I-

Trent Horn:

But so, but I’m agreeing with you, that I think if the argument is, well, beings that are conscious, they have interests, things like that. And I agree that does, for the 1% of abortions that take place after 20 weeks, that introduces another element. But I don’t think it’s that strong of an element, because all that would require is that if you feel like killing this individual would be helpful, you would just do it in a painless way. Just like how we euthanize cats and dogs who are also conscious.

Trent Horn:

But I think my position would be that most people would see that with like a newborn or a new… like dogs or cats, yeah, we just painlessly euthanize them if they’re unwanted. We don’t do that for newborns, and I think the only reason to justify that is something unique to their human nature, which fetuses and embryos would, or at least their identity or future like ours embryos and fetuses would share. But I agree with Dr. Nobis. It’s not a great argument to say, well, they are also conscious and have interest. I personally don’t… that probably doesn’t apply before 20 weeks, maybe 12 at the absolute earliest, but probably, and even then, 12 weeks, 88% of abortions occur before that time.

Nathan Nobis:

Yep. But what I was really calling in the big guns for, so to speak, was just the factual information about how beginning embryos and fetus don’t feel things. They’re not aware of the world, don’t have a perspective, don’t hear things like what you mentioned. What you mentioned was, would be true, I think, about far later fetuses. And what I said was I think abortions like that could be problematic. So I’m agreeing with you.

Moderator:

All right. Gentleman over here.

Participant:

Short and sweet. And I submitted it online, because I didn’t know how this worked, but if consciousness grounds the right to life, I believe those were your words, Dr. Nobis, and all conscious beings are equally conscious, then why don’t we prosecute first-degree rat murderers?

Nathan Nobis:

Well, do you think that… There’s lots of things to say here, but do you think, or let me ask as a matter of fact, are any harms to animals legally prosecuted?

Participant:

Ask that question again? Also, I’d rather you engage with Trent on this than me. I think Trent kind of knows where I’m coming from with this question, and…

Trent Horn:

Well, I guess I’ll… let’s have fun here. I would agree that, for example, causing pain unnecessarily in animals can be a criminal act, though the reasons why that wrong may actually differ. So that’s one thing I would agree with you on, that point. But I think the question’s concern, it seems to be, well, do we… what is the right to life? Is it possessed equally?

Trent Horn:

I guess what maybe the gentleman here and what I guess what I would like to try to figure out is, do you… it sounds like you’re saying, well, all conscious beings are equally conscious, but they’re conscious of different things. And so they all have a right to life, which sounds like they equally have a right to life. Yet some beings’ right to life, it’s easier to override that right to life than others, which sounds like they don’t have an equal right to life. That’s the part that still seems a little unclear. It sounds like you’re just saying, well, no, beings that have different experiences have less of a right than others. If it’s an equal right, but you could… it’s like all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. It’s like, oh, it’s, you can override it more. I think that’s just another way of saying they have less of a right to life. Maybe that’s what we’re trying to figure out.

Nathan Nobis:

Maybe. But your question was, which you asked, so I’m going to respond to you…

Participant:

Sure.

Nathan Nobis:

… was why are the laws as they are? And you probably believe that there are many, or at least some, unjust laws. And then there’s the question, well, why aren’t the laws as good as they should be?

Trent Horn:

Mm. I see what you’re saying there.

Nathan Nobis:

There’s all sorts of complex answers for why the laws aren’t as they should be.

Participant:

Right.

Nathan Nobis:

Should people be, get that sort of sentence for… should that be, should rat abuse be that type of crime? I’m going to say, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t really know. I mean, what kind of crime was… Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know why the laws are as they are.

Participant:

No, but it seems like it would follow from your, from those two statements that I gave previously, that you should be out campaigning for rats’ lives and protecting them from, due to their equal right to life that they have.

Trent Horn:

You know, I might… maybe I could stick up for your position a little bit, if that’s okay.

Nathan Nobis:

Sure.

Trent Horn:

Because I see what you’re saying here, but it may also be the case that something could be wrong, and yet we don’t apply the laws full maximum force and penalty to it for extrinsic reasons. For example, I think abortion should be illegal, but I don’t think it should necessarily be, someone should be charged with first-degree murder. But I do believe that it is homicide and it ought to be treated like similar, maybe like crimes… The punishment for feticide could parallel other statutes for infanticide.

Trent Horn:

But your question seems… But I think you make, you raise a good point. It seems like the law would only treat the killing of rats if it was done in like a sadistic, torturous way to simply cause them pain, versus just when we fumigate and kill them because they’re pests and nuisances and things like that, which is something we don’t do to humans. So it’s like, why wouldn’t we just apply the law in those cases? And you’re saying, well, sometimes… It sounds, I mean, do you want, do… You’re an animal… you write about animal rights and things like that. Maybe you think the law should be changed, I guess.

Nathan Nobis:

Well, again, I’m going to say, I’m going to stay in my lane. And there are people in the law school who do animal law, and many of them argue that various laws should be changed to be more animal friendly.

Participant:

Right. I think I just see-

Trent Horn:

We should probably-

Moderator:

We got people in the queue, so we’ll go on now. Gentleman over there.

Participant:

All right. So, Dr. Nobis, I was curious. So let’s just say, hypothetically, you have a scenario where there’s a baby, and he gets born extremely prematurely, so before 12 weeks. And you have the exact same scenario, except the baby doesn’t get born prematurely. In either scenario… And so when the baby gets born prematurely, you have to have machinery that keeps it alive. Would it be acceptable, morally acceptable, to take that pre-born or that early-born baby off of that machinery and effectively kill it? And if so, why is that okay, and it’s not okay to have an abortion? Or it is okay… or why is that not okay and that is okay to have an abortion?

Nathan Nobis:

So the question is, would it be okay to-

Participant:

Essentially I’m asking if you-

Nathan Nobis:

… end the life of this born-

Participant:

So yeah. So essentially I’m asking if you were to have a child that were to be born extremely prematurely, would it be acceptable to end its life by depriving it of equipment that it needs to survive?

Nathan Nobis:

What is… Well, so let me just observe that this introduces at least the fact that this baby is no longer uniquely dependent upon any person’s body, so that might be relevant. Is this baby conscious, feeling, anything like that?

Participant:

Well, I don’t know. Is a born baby conscious or feeling at 12 weeks? But I guess, why would it be okay to, or what’s the difference between killing the baby inside of its mother’s womb versus taking it off or cutting it off from resources it needs from its mother to survive, versus unhooking it from machinery that it would need to survive outside of its mother’s womb at the same developmental stage?

Nathan Nobis:

Yeah. Good question. My view would be, if the baby, if this baby is conscious and they’re somehow aware of the world, then yeah, there’d be an obligation to help the baby. Why is that? Because if the baby dies, it’ll be worse for the baby. So.

Trent Horn:

We should probably-

Nathan Nobis:

I think this, the fact that you picked 12 weeks is kind of a iffy area. You could change the example to, well, what if there was an embryo being kept alive.

Participant:

Right. Well, let’s just say, let’s just take that scenario. So then why is there a difference there? Why do we, why is it okay to end the embryo’s life in one situation, but not in the exact same situation except it’s inside of its mother’s womb in the second scenario?

Nathan Nobis:

Well, what I’ve been proposing is make a list of similarities and differences between you, the baby, that 12-week fetus, and the embryo, and see if any of those differences seem to make a difference.

Participant:

So then-

Moderator:

Let’s let Trent… yeah.

Trent Horn:

Yeah. And then also, I think we should try to keep the questions a little bit shorter, that way we can finish out with everybody here. Yeah. Well, what I would say is that we should not directly kill innocent human beings. We might not always give them certain medical care. Some medical care might be disproportionate and not helpful for them, like if they are dying, for example. And so it’d depend, different cases, but for a child born prematurely, I would say we should not directly kill them, and we should not deny them basic care all human beings deserve. They should be fed. They should be kept at a comfortable temperature, have human touch, things like that. Other more advanced treatments, cases will differ in bioethics.

Participant:

All right, Dr. Nobis. Jumping into the animal realm for a minute here. You might recall, hopefully, if you don’t, then I would ask you to just think about this a little bit. About four years ago, four or five years ago, a YouTube live feed of an eagle’s nest was shown for, I don’t know, 45 days or so. And obviously mother and father were taking great care of the eggs. Had I walked up and smashed those eggs, do you think that would’ve been a problem to most of the people in the room?

Nathan Nobis:

Ask most people. Would this have been a problem?

Participant:

Actually, would it be a problem for you?

Nathan Nobis:

Sure. Yeah. Yeah, this doesn’t sound like a great thing to do, especially since they’re going to be displeased that you did it.

Participant:

Go ahead.

Nathan Nobis:

But I think this is probably ultimately going to come down to, we have… bald eagles or exotic animals have aesthetic appeal to us, and that would be why we don’t want the eggs to be destroyed, because we’ll miss out on seeing some bald eagle on the bald eagle cam. And it’s also true that, I would suppose, the birds are going to miss out on their babies, and it would be bad for the birds. So I think that seems like a common sense sort of reaction.

Trent Horn:

And that… Well, yeah, I think we should keep going though, because we had a bad habit of back and forth with people.

Moderator:

I’ve been a little bit flexible on the timing just because we have more time because Nathan gave up his time, but let’s, yes, let’s keep it quick.

Trent Horn:

That’s true. Well, what I would say is, actually, I don’t think this is a particularly good analogy for abortion, like Nathan said, because my arguments against abortion were predicated on that human beings have essential rights or it’s wrong to kill them in virtue of their humanity. Or that I was once a fetus or an embryo, if it’s wrong to kill me now it was wrong to kill me then.

Trent Horn:

The reason we see it’s wrong to destroy bald eagle eggs is because we would like there to be a larger number of… These are exotic animals, as Nathan said, that we enjoy. They make us feel patriotic, and so we would like more of them. And so it’s not a question of identity like, oh… well, it kind of is. We always want bald eagles. If it was like pigeon eggs, people probably wouldn’t give… So we don’t have to talk about rats, we can talk about pigeons, which I consider flying rats, an even less sympathetic creature. People have a different intuition. The eagle is valued for extrinsic reasons. I think human beings have intrinsic rights, so it’s different.

Participant:

Right, just the consciousness versus pain is the only thing that…

Trent Horn:

Oh yeah. But I think there that once again people would be mad because, you’re right, an eagle’s egg, a fertilized eagle egg does not feel pain. But if you, by smashing it, reduce the overall number of eagles then people want eagles.

Moderator:

All right. Lady over there.

Participant:

Yeah. So my question is, and I would ask Trent to address this, so we were talking about human rights. So a lot of times you’ll hear in the pro-choice argument that who’s got the greater right, the mother or the child. So I would like for you to address that, because that seems to come up, that the mother has that right, whereas what happened to the right of the child? So who has the greater right?

Trent Horn:

Well, it’s a difficult question to answer, because it’s, you naturally would ask the greater right to what? It’s like asking who’s better. Better at what? So I would say the mother has more rights than the child, but I would say both she and the child have the same basic rights, like a right to life. And so in the vast, vast majority of abortions, the mother’s right to live her life would not outweigh the child’s right, live her life how she chooses, would not outweigh the child’s right to have a life. In questions where a person’s life is in danger, a mother’s life is in danger, I would say that they’re equal, and so we should not directly kill the child to save the mother, and we should not directly kill the mother to save the child. That gets more bioethics, sticky questions. I cover a little in my book if you want to see more of that.

Participant:

My question is for Nathan. So Trent talked about this a little bit, but you didn’t respond. So I was wondering, you said that you don’t have a right to someone else’s body, but how does that apply to newborns who depend on their parents using their bodies to keep the child alive? It’s considered neglect if you don’t give a child what they need. So how is that different than the woman having a child in her womb? Also, how does the situation change when you consider that, in 99% of cases, the whole reason the child is there in the first place is because the mother made a free choice that resulted in the child being there?

Nathan Nobis:

Yeah. Well, I think children have a right to be fed. They have a right to be fed something. If a woman doesn’t want to breastfeed, it’s not like, I don’t think she’s violating the baby’s rights or something like that. So I don’t know, but I guess we’re going to wind up in a situation where, what if that is the only thing to eat? A cabin in the woods situation.

Trent Horn:

Or some rural or developing countries around the world today. That may a child’s only source of sustenance in a very impoverished area.

Nathan Nobis:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. I mean another possibility is you could think that, well, a child, a born child and an embryo or a beginning fetus are different in various ways, such that the born child is conscious, feeling, aware. And if you’re like that you have rights of various types. And if you got a right to be fed, well, if push comes to shove and the only thing to eat comes from somebody else’s body, well, maybe you would have a right to that body. What was your second question? I forgot.

Participant:

It was about the fact that, in like 99% of cases, the abortion is not because of rape or incest. It’s because the woman made a free, conscious choice that resulted in the child being conceived. So does that change the child’s right to her body, from your perspective?

Nathan Nobis:

I don’t really think so. I think just because you consent to something with a chance that something will happen from it, that doesn’t mean you must accept that potential outcome.

Participant:

Even when it affects another living organism?

Nathan Nobis:

Well, it depends on what sort of living organism it is. So, as I keep emphasizing, for me, or from my point of view, the fundamental moral category isn’t living organism per se, but conscious being. So yeah, if it affects a conscious being, another conscious being, then that would be a big deal. But if it doesn’t, perhaps not or not yet.

Participant:

Okay.

Trent Horn:

Yeah, no, I would agree that causing something to exist and be needy, you may not always have an obligation to it. If I throw seeds on a field and plants grow, I don’t do anything immoral by letting them wither in the sun. If I were in a lab and I created like puppies ex nihilo with my little puppy genetic machine, and I just let them starve, I think that could be wrong. Not as wrong as killing a human being, but it might be animal abuse. So I think that Nathan’s right, that it really will depend on the kind of creature that is dependent.

Trent Horn:

And so the bodily rights argument says, well, let’s assume that this is a human being with the same right to life as you and I. And to cause a human being to exist who’s dependent on us, like if I had my genetic puppy machine and I just tweaked it to be a genetic human infant machine and ding, out pops a newborn infant, and just, I walked away, I think I would be guilty of a very unjustifiable homicide of a human being, one of the worst crimes you can commit. Specifically, because I made someone that is so dependent and is a human being and has rights. And I think Nathan’s right, that this will come down to, well, is your right to life, is it grounded in being a member of the human species, member of rational kind, having a future like ours, or is it just your conscious abilities? So that’s kind of the crux that’s dividing us.

Moderator:

Over there.

Nathan Nobis:

I can add, I… Oh, I guess not. Nevermind.

Moderator:

Gentleman over there.

Participant:

Okay. First of all, thank you both. This is really great. It’s a much needed dialogue on this topic, so thank you.

Participant:

I have kind of more of a more deeper philosophical question-

Moderator:

That’s his job.

Participant:

Yeah. Yeah.

Participant:

I came the right place because I think this is fundamentally a philosophical issue.

Participant:

The consciousness issue says, “Why would we not consider inevitability of consciousness to determine a person’s right to life for personhood? Because a fetus is inevitably going to achieve consciousness.” Furthermore, we don’t know when consciousness begins. Nobody remembers their infancy, but we can all agree that an infant is conscious.

Participant:

More fundamentally, consciousness is just one more definition of what a person is. When I reflect back on history when we defined Blacks as not human. That played out negatively. In those days during slavery, there were laws that stated what percent Black made you human or not human.

Participant:

With the genocide, if you’re Jewish, what percent Jewish you were defined you as a human. It seems like across human history every time that we try to define a person or redefine a person, inevitably it’s turned out to be wrong. It seems like whether it’s consciousness or other values that it’s doomed to fail.

Participant:

At the end of the day, what’ll happen is you’ll end up killing people that… No definition’s perfect. Every definition is flawed. Inevitably you’ll end up killing people because of a variation in that interpretation.

Participant:

How do you adjudicate that variability? Do you understand what I mean by that? That if I say being conscious defines you, but it’s very squishy, you’re going to have one doctor that’ll interpret it one way, another doctor… Inevitably you’re going to kill innocent people.

Participant:

How do you in a society where we believe in life, liberty, and you’re innocent to proven guilty, how do you adjudicate that? Does that make sense?

Nathan Nobis:

Yeah. I think one thing about your examples is that if somebody were to say, “Oh, Black people or Jewish people aren’t people, they’re not human beings.” I think they’re saying something that’s just false. They have either a false idea about what it is to be a person, or they sort of misunderstand what these people are like.

Nathan Nobis:

I don’t think that means that there’s a problem with the idea of being a person per se, it’s that people sort of misapply it. They don’t recognize that these beings, these individuals, are people when they really are people.

Nathan Nobis:

I’m not sure if you’re suggesting there’s some kind of problem with the concept of person, but there’s definitely been a problem applying it. That has gone bad in many circumstances, but that doesn’t mean it sort of always goes bad.

Participant:

If I can just add. I’m sorry.

Moderator:

Let’s let Trent respond.

Trent Horn:

Yeah. I think that in the examples you bring up, and this is really getting back to the question of how we apply consciousness? That is difficult because I think it certainly comes in a gradient. Nathan has said, “Well, beings have different experiences and that will change whether we can override their right to life.” Things like that. Does make it problematic.

Trent Horn:

The comparison though to race or ethnicity may not be as apt. Well, one comparison that might be apt when it comes to conscious abilities giving us our value would be crimes committed against the handicap. Such as forced sterilization in the early 20th century of individuals that were deemed feeble minded. It was a case Buck V. Bell in the early 20th century the Supreme Court upheld for sterilization. One supreme court justice said, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

Trent Horn:

I guess I’ll reiterate this in my closing, but grounding our rights in consciousness, I feel like will either give disproportionate moral treatment to beings that do not have a right to life, certain non-human animals, or it will deprive the right to life to beings that are deserving of it, of certain less developed human animals.

Moderator:

All right, lady over here.

Participant:

This is a question for Dr. Novis, but I was going to-

Trent Horn:

Popular guy.

Participant:

Or both of you I guess. It’s kind of just a wondering question, but if you compare a do not resuscitate order to an abortion, a do not resuscitate order is in an instance where if the patient is in a situation where they could not make the conscious decision to resuscitate or not resuscitate for themselves, it’s usually done by the family or by somebody who’s appointed before. That is usually done within the patient’s best interest.

Participant:

Then in the case of an abortion, it’s usually within the best interest of the mother. Then their decision in the case of a do not resuscitate order is usually based on the person’s life. They probably lived a fair amount of life, maybe 20 years, 40 years, 80 years, whatever it might be. They can base that order off of what their life was like if they would’ve been fine just being able to watch TV or whatever it might be. In the case of an abortion, the fetus obviously has no history, has no life to base that around.

Participant:

I guess my question is are we in the position to decide that? Kind of going off of inevitability claim where a fetus is going to have a conscious if it continues through the full term?

Nathan Nobis:

Okay, good.

Nathan Nobis:

I think that, that something will inevitably happen and that something happening sort of gives you various rights. The fact that it’s inevitable well, if it hasn’t happened yet, you sort of don’t have the rights of that sort of actual thing.

Nathan Nobis:

I mean, suppose somebody’s going to be… What’s the word? You’re made for president. What is that event where they make you president?

Trent Horn:

Elected, inaugurated.

Nathan Nobis:

Inaugurated, yeah. The inauguration is tomorrow. It is inevitable that they will be inaugurated some might say. That person still doesn’t have the sort of rights of the president.

Nathan Nobis:

To get to your question, well, yeah, of course, sort of the end of life, beginning of life issues are different in various ways despite being similar in some ways. I guess I’m going to have to keep kind of going back to well, embryos and beginning fetuses are not yet… They don’t have a perspective on the world. They’re not of aware of anything. They’re not like a someone yet. If they’re not like a someone yet, then I think it would be okay for the woman to decide what she wants to do.

Nathan Nobis:

On the other hand, the later ones, it’s sort of a different story. Far later abortions, there is somebody sort of in there experiencing things, feeling things, et cetera. Again, I’m not somebody who says every possible abortion must be okay. There are some people who say, “Oh, he’s pro-life. He’s a pro-lifer because he thinks some abortions might be wrong.” It’s interesting how these categories happen.

Nathan Nobis:

I mean, I think the picture is sort of at the beginning a someone hasn’t started so that would be a big difference.

Trent Horn:

Well, I wouldn’t mind actually just getting in two more questions and closing because [crosstalk 01:50:31] I have to go to the airport soon.

Trent Horn:

I have a potential flight.

Participant:

I have two quick yes or no questions first that you both can answer.

Trent Horn:

Yes.

Participant:

First if you both would consider yourselves open-minded?

Nathan Nobis:

I would.

Trent Horn:

Sure.

Participant:

Then second was, if someone brought to you enough evidence for the other argument, if you would consider yourself able to change your mind, if that’s something that you would do?

Nathan Nobis:

Definitely.

Trent Horn:

Sure. Though, I guess what I might add is I am always willing to change my position when given enough evidence, but I think I’m also justified in believing that certain moral propositions are either self evidently true or there is no countervailing evidence.

Trent Horn:

I guess I’m open-minded to the idea that some genocide or rape could be permissible. I mean, I’m open to evidence, but I’m also pretty convinced no such evidence exists. While I’m open-minded, I think there are many moral positions I can’t possibly conceive of there being evidence to disabuse me of it. For me, abortion would be one of those positions. I’m open to evidence, but I’m also firmly convinced it does not exist.

Participant:

Final question, which I think Trent you’ve already answered. Dr. Novis what kind of argument or evidence do you think you’d need to hear in order to change your mind?

Nathan Nobis:

Well, something I wanted to say about me and this book is most of this, or a lot of this, each section is critical of common pro-choice arguments.

Nathan Nobis:

I think this is sort of interesting in that I think kind of the most important paragraph of the book says, “Oftentimes pro-choice people have not so good arguments for their views. I think they could have better arguments and we try to provide these arguments.” I think people often kind of form their views on the basis of their tribe or their group. They kind of like stick with their groups and I think that’s not so good.

Nathan Nobis:

You asked, what could conceivably change my mind or something like that? I think one thing to notice is that a lot of the issues that we’re talking about here are actually very abstract. What is our essence? Are we at root our bodies? Are we at root our minds? What are our minds? Are our minds and our brains? How are our minds and our bodies related?

Nathan Nobis:

One thing about these questions is these are all questions that people have been debating for thousands of years. In many cases there’s sort of, no, this must be the correct view. I think you would have to come down very firm on issues that people think it’s really hard to figure out what to think about them.

Nathan Nobis:

A layer to that is that some people think that if there’s an issue where it seems like a lot of people disagree about it and those people seem kind of reasonable people, maybe you should be very tentative in sort of holding your views on the matter.

Nathan Nobis:

For me, I think it would come down to some very abstract things, but I’m not super sure that having views on super abstract things is often so smart.

Trent Horn:

I guess I’d have to be shown the unborn are not biological human organisms. Mothers do not have a moral duty to allow them to reside in their body or maybe some kind of metaphysical argument that we are identical to certain mental states.

Trent Horn:

Well, I guess the answer is, are you open to changing your mind? Yes. If there were evidence that Nathan was right, I would, but I’m not convinced of that, but I’ve changed my mind on things before. This is basically does the other person’s side, do those arguments work? Right now I’m not convinced to that, but people think about things.

Moderator:

All right gentlemen, over here.

Participant:

Yeah. I think both of you guys could answer this question, but this primarily for Trent.

Participant:

How much responsibility do you feel the law has in requiring the offering of one’s life to another? Is it just for laws to require giving of one’s life to another to any degree? Whether through work or through the end of one’s life.

Participant:

We already have protections against negligence. Pro-life seeks protection of the fetuses against abortion. Let’s say I’m the closes family member of a severely disabled sister. Should I not be held legally responsible for her life? I think just how much responsibility does the law have in requiring the giving of one’s life? And if it is just, how much should be required to enable that person to support that life?

Trent Horn:

Wow. That is a complex question that I’m going to have to give a, it depends answer to. The question is how much should the law compel us to be responsible for others?

Trent Horn:

My answer would be that it would depend on every single situation and circumstance. For example, if I have explicitly caused others to be dependent on me. For example, if I’m just flying my plane… I don’t know. I wish I had a plane. I wish I had my own plane. I’m [inaudible 01:56:21] have to worry about being late go to ATL back to Dallas I’m not obligated to take you there.

Trent Horn:

If I let you come on the plane and I started flying back and I parachute it out, no, I actually have an obligation to keep flying and take you there. If you explicitly say, “I’m going to be obligated or you cause people to need you,” I think family relationships are important. I think parents have stronger obligations to their children.

Trent Horn:

If I find a baby that is abandoned in the woods, I have a minimal obligation to get that baby help. Maybe not more than that. If a woman is pregnant and doesn’t realize she’s pregnant, which happens and she gives birth in a field, I would say she has more obligation to that child in the field than I do to a child I find because she is the mother of that child. Even if she wasn’t aware of the pregnancy. The law will have to be applied in different is based on the gravity of harm, the nature of relationship, and other circumstances.

Nathan Nobis:

I’m not sure. It’s complicated.

Nathan Nobis:

Yeah, I mean, it’s another legal question. Very broad. I’m not sure. Leave it to the lawyer.

Moderator:

We have just a couple minutes left and so I want to put myself in as the last person on the queue.

Moderator:

My question is I have trouble with an argument that says that we have special rights by virtue of being human because I don’t feel like my rights should depend on the attributes of other people who are categorized as part of my species. I feel that my rights should be based on how I am as an actual being.

Moderator:

I also have trouble with a theory that says that my right to life depends on consciousness or having psychological states because I do feel it’s problematic to distinguish between people and most animals there.

Moderator:

If I thought that then especially today with technology, I would think I would have to be a hardcore animal rights person and vegan. There’s no reason why we have to kill animals for food because they can feel pain and they can recognize us. They can like people more than other people and so on.

Moderator:

I’m more sympathetic to a view that the right to life actually depends on something far greater than merely being conscious and having a psychological life, but actually the ability to plan for the future, to be conscious of yourself as an existing being, to recognize others as beings deserving of the same rights.

Moderator:

I would think that the right to life actually depends on something far more complex, which I think most animals are not capable of at all. Though, I suppose if we find more things about dolphins or whatever, or chimpanzees, I might come to think otherwise.

Moderator:

If that’s the case, then that would successfully distinguish between people and as far as we know animals and it would successfully rule out everyone who hasn’t been born yet. It seems like that would be a stronger pro-abortion argument than the one that, Nathan you’re [crosstalk 01:59:34] making.

Nathan Nobis:

That’s a typical lawyer’s answer because it sounds like you’re seeing the sort of right to life and even being a person as a matter of a contract. It’s like I have it because of this agreement with other people.

Nathan Nobis:

I think the hard part would be, well, what about babies? What about people who can’t make these sorts of contracts, or plans, or thinking about their existence, et cetera? What about them?

Moderator:

Yeah my argument is that a lot of infanticide also is not wrongful, but that it is sensible to draw a bright line at birth because if we drew a line anywhere else, it would just be inevitably subject to gaming and self-interested people who would want to draw the line earlier or later.

Moderator:

Birth is really a very strong, it’s a defensible position because it’s easy to verify. Drawing it before birth leads to a police state and drawing it after birth leads to some self-interested murders happening so that it’s a nice administrable line.

Nathan Nobis:

Yep. Yep. Good lawyers answer.

Trent Horn:

Well, I guess I’m going to disagree with that. Let me work backwards through what you said.

Trent Horn:

First, I agree with you that if you’re grounded in consciousness you’re going to have to give non-human animals rights on par with humans that most people would find counterintuitive at best.

Trent Horn:

If you set the bar very high so that you have to have rational complex thought, you’re going to not infants. You’re saying, well, perhaps there are extrinsic reasons that infanticide is wrong, not intrinsic, that it’s just wrong to kill babies.

Trent Horn:

I think no. Someone like Peter Singer has proposed. Maybe you could draw the line of 28 days after birth because what about if a child you missed that they had some negative health issue and you only found that out right after they were born. Some people would justify in infanticide in that case. I would say, no. Infanticide is wrong. We don’t directly kill innocent people.

Trent Horn:

I think that the pro-life view does not lead to either extreme animal rights positions or in infanticide. Those are the two. I think the consciousness view is always weaving between allowing and infanticide or making it morally wrong to kill animals that I would say are not persons.

Trent Horn:

Then going backwards to your previous point about species. Well, why would species matter? I think species does matter. I think the term speciesism is I don’t agree with that term. I think to something an ism doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. I think species differences are morally relevant.

Trent Horn:

For example, if you were just disgusted and repulsed at the thought of having sexual intercourse with a person of a different race, you might be a racist. You might be a racist if you’re pulse at the thought of having intercourse with a member of a certain race.

Trent Horn:

If you’re repulsed at the thought of having sexual intercourse with something of a different species, I would say you’re a normal, healthy functioning adult. You’re not a speciesist and if you were not repulsed by that, you would actually have psychological issues. I do believe that species membership is quite relevant and plays into the ethics of abortion.

Moderator:

All right. Now Trent…

Moderator:

One final thing. I think we’re going to move on to the closing statements-

Nathan Nobis:

God.

Moderator:

Yes. It’s the benevolent voice in the sky that’s asking this [crosstalk 02:03:09].

Moderator:

One piece of feedback that we’ve received a lot from peers, classmates, and people on this that I didn’t find it totally addressed tonight in this panel by… Nathan made brief mention to it, but was particularly the fact that both of the people discussing this will never have to make this decision themself. Both being men.

Moderator:

In particular, both being white men, when a majority of… Or at least in Atlanta, a lot of women that have to face this decision are Black women and there’s a racial disparity most certainly on that in this country. Could you both just comment on that?

Moderator:

I think it’s important to kind of hear your thoughts on you guys both discussing that. Both being men.

Trent Horn:

I probably won’t be a victim of racism, but I can still hold of view racism is wrong. I can work to oppose racist laws. For example, if I were a college student who did not have children. It wouldn’t make sense to say, “Well, why are you against people? You call it abuse. I call it corporal punishment. Corporal punishment that really is abusive.”

Trent Horn:

You say, “That should be illegal to spank your child with a rod.” Something like that, “To leave a permanent mark. That should be illegal.” “Well, you’ll never have to make that decision. You don’t have children.” “That doesn’t matter. Even if I don’t have children, I can still clearly see what you call corporal punishment is really abuse and children should be protected under the law.” Just because an issue doesn’t affect you doesn’t mean you are unable to speak about it.

Trent Horn:

Then also what’s funny about this position is if you can’t talk about abortion unless you’re in the position to have one, that means many pro-choice advocates… There are many women who have had hysterectomies or are post-menopausal. They won’t probably have an abortion in the future. Many of them are pro-choice. They couldn’t talk about this. It’s a bit of an undercutting argument.

Nathan Nobis:

I think anybody can and should make arguments that something is unjust and wrong and anybody can and should make arguments that something is just and not wrong. We should all do our best to very carefully, systematically, in fair and balanced ways sort of figure out which arguments are good and which arguments are bad.

Nathan Nobis:

You could swap out Trent and me for women basically saying the exact same things with their own spin. I think people often sort of respond defensively to things that they don’t like seeing happening and that can lead to saying things that upon reflection might not make great sense. That happens with all sorts of stuff believe it or not.

Moderator:

All right let’s go to closing statements. Trent now has five minutes for a closing statement.

Trent Horn:

Yes. Well, I would just say it was really great to be here. It was really great to interact with, Nathan. As I said, it’s hard to find thoughtful pro-choice philosophers who are willing to engage others. This was enjoyable to be able to do that.

Trent Horn:

I would just say check out… Let’s see. No, I don’t want to join Emory wifi because you’re going to email me a code to get in and that doesn’t make sense if I don’t have wifi.

Trent Horn:

I had a great quote, but he might say it in his closing. It’s from him. It’s from Nathan in an article. He talked about how pro-choice advocates don’t do themselves any favors by saying, “We’re not going to debate this issue. We’re not going to educate people because pro-lifers do a really good job educating people and we need to educate people more.” I’m like, “Yeah, Nathan’s right. I want to keep educating people. That’s important. I want to keep doing that.”

Trent Horn:

I would encourage anyone who’s listened to this to examine the arguments that were put forward, to dive deeper into the philosophical literature I put forward. Opposition to abortion can be defended with powerful philosophical arguments showing the wrongness of killing human beings. The depriving beings of the future like ours. I gave an impairment argument.

Trent Horn:

I believe that the pro-life view best explains the term person and the view Nathan articulates would lead to extremely counterintuitive results. I think it becomes inconsistent. I think the pro-life view explains all the data around us very well and makes sense of human equality and human dignity that we want to preserve. I would just encourage you to continue to dive deeper into the subject on both sides.

Trent Horn:

Get Nathans book. You have no excuse because it’s free. Go to abortionarguments.com. My book isn’t free, but if you’re absolutely poor, email me or message me and I’ll help you out there. Then there’s other great books on these subjects. One I’d recommend if you want to philosophical treatment would be Chris Kaczor book, K-A-C-Z-O-R, The Ethics of Abortion.

Trent Horn:

I think we should just continue this dialogue, but ultimately my position is that all human beings should have intrinsic dignity. There are these powerful arguments to show that if we value newborns onward in the human community and we don’t show that same value to non-human animals, the most plausible explanation is that, that value is shared by human embryos and human fetuses. If they have that same basic value we have, we ought to protect them under the law.

Moderator:

Okay, Nathan, you have five minutes.

Nathan Nobis:

I don’t think I’ll take them all.

Nathan Nobis:

I think I have just maybe two thoughts, which is this. I recommend that if you are passionate on this issue, that you find people who you disagree with and talk to them. Ask them why they think what they think.

Nathan Nobis:

Try to understand what they think. Try to see things from their point of view. That’s not a matter of agreeing with them or anything like that. It’s just a matter of understanding and being able to accurately report on, oh, here’s why they think that. I don’t agree, but here’s why they think that.

Nathan Nobis:

This issue is a very polarizing issue and one thing that often happens is you see people you disagree with and you sort of demonize those other people. You think they’re evil, terrible, bad, and maybe they are, but that tends to happen before you even sort of understand their views. I think that’s kind of a bad thing. If you disagree with somebody, passionately disagree with somebody, it would be good to know what they really think.

Nathan Nobis:

The second thing is that abortion is really a complicated issue. If somebody is passionate about it, they tend to think it’s really simple. “Oh, it’s just obviously wrong,” or, “Oh, it’s so obviously okay that I wouldn’t bother debating it. That would be terrible,” but the truth of the matter is abortion is actually a very complex issue.

Nathan Nobis:

There’s all sorts of complexities to it in terms of ethics stuff. The metaphysics of person stuff. What rights are? What kind of laws we should have? Science stuff, health stuff, there’s all these parts. I guess thinking that it’s simple and obvious contributes to sort of polarization and people not sort of understanding each other. That can’t be good.

Nathan Nobis:

Talk to people, learn more about it. If you think it’s simple and obvious, you probably don’t know very much about it. There’s lots of great resources to learn about it. That’s my few minutes.

Moderator:

Thank you, Trent. Thank you Nathan, for your time and for sharing your viewpoints. Thank you to everyone in the audience, and on Zoom for participating. Now we’re done. Thank you. [crosstalk 02:11:35].

Moderator:

Oh, I do have a question if I can? Is anybody here from the medical school? A few people. Aren’t you part of this group? No. Okay. Okay. Okay, just wondering.

Moderator:

Thank you.

Moderator:

As a final, thank you for Trent and Nathan coming out tonight. I really appreciate them traveling here for this event.

Moderator:

As a final reminder, we just want to let it be known that any views expressed in this discussion don’t represent or express the views of Emory University, Emory Healthcare, Emory University School of Medicine, or Emory Medical Students for Life.

Moderator:

Thank you everybody for attending and thank you to Trent and Nathan. We really appreciate it.

 

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