>Our disagreement is still one of definition.

And as Ayn Rand asserted in ITOE, "definition" identifies an essential characteristic or attribute of an entity; so our disagreement over definition is a disagreement over essentials.

>As a side conversation on identity: "To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of SPECIFIC ATTRIBUTES. [emphasis mine]" -- Ayn Rand

The emphasized phrase "specific attributes" does not mean, never did mean, and cannot mean, "unchanging attributes." It just means that at any given instant we consider an attribute, it is something specific: the maple leaf is GREEN, then the maple leaf turns RED, then the maple leaf turns BROWN. Green, Red, Brown are SPECIFIC ATTRIBUTES (emphasis mine); and they are attributes OF ONE AND THE SAME LEAF (emphasis mine). The leaf, qua leaf, doesn't change its identity. Same leaf. Different attribute.

If you take an ounce of water in a metal container and put it in a freezer, the same ounce of water is now solid ice — the water hasn't changed its identity. It's the same entity — H2O — having changed one of its attributes called "state": from liquid, to solid. If we boil the ounce of water, the same water that was in the ounce container changes its attribute of state and turns to a gas called "steam." SAME OUNCE OF WATER (emphasis added).

(Do you really have a problem grasping this? I must say, it's very basic material.)

If your misunderstanding of Rand/Peikoff were taken literally, we would have to allow the following absurdity:

Since every cell of your body is changing some attribute or attributes of itself every second of every day, it would have to follow that the cell's identity was constantly changing: A is A, one second; then A is not-A the next. And if this were true of a single cell, it would have to be true of a collection of cells, including the collection of cells comprising YOU. So it would logically follow that you are not the same being moment-to-moment, but an A at one moment and a not-A the very next. This is the exact opposite of "identity" which is something that is recognized not to change underneath its various changing attributes. Aristotle called it "substance" and believed it was metaphysical. Rand believed it was epistemological (and dispensed with the word "substance" as being unnecessary, and because it would tend to reify the idea of a metaphysical substance into which attributes were embedded). It's the same basic idea, however.

>A is A always until its attributes change, then it changes -- these changes have causes.

Ayn Rand never said that. Peikoff never said that. Look again. Read again. Check your premises again. Rand never said "A is A until its attributes change" (and then what? A becomes non-A? I don't think so). When a maple leaf changes its attribute of color — from green to red — it's not something different. It's the same leaf with a different color, not a different leaf. When a baseball is hit by the batter to the outfield, it's the SAME baseball, with one of its attributes — spatial location — changed. It's not a different baseball, or a different "thing" with a different identity; it's the same baseball with a different attribute.

>You seem to focus on the attributes that don't change,

???

You can name as many changing attributes of an entity as you want. The phrase "of an entity" specifies that there's an element of continuity behind, or under, or above all those changing attributes. That's why "green", "red", "brown", "solid", "liquid", "gas", "heavy", "light", "rough", "smooth", etc., are called attributes and not entities. They are traits, characteristics, properties, etc., OF some unchanging element (physical, metaphysical, or epistemological) that remains the same throughout the changes of its attributes. That's why we can study it. That's why there's an "it" to study in the first place.

In sum:

Quoting Rand and Peikoff has only demonstrated that you misunderstand them as well as misunderstanding the basic issues. The idea that identity itself changes moment to moment and that we connect these different identities conceptually by means of something called "cause and effect" (which, for some odd reason in your argument, does not change its identity moment to moment along with everything else) is philosophical gibberish. You live in a magical world in which attributes and identities constantly morph into other attributes and other identities, but in which the human intellect — which apparently doesn't morph its identity into something else — connects these different identities into a patchwork identity comprising a bit of *this* identity plus a bit of *that* identity, the sewing being done by the human intellect (which, as mentioned earlier, is oddly believed to maintain its own identity throughout), and the thread being "cause and effect" (which are also oddly assumed always to have an unchanging identity).

It isn't what Ayn Rand or Leonard Peikoff wrote. It does, however, agree nicely with the views of Heraclitus.

Regarding rights:

>What is it about our genome that causes us to have rights?

The human genome is what makes humans human. It's obviously necessary for being human. Without it, you're not human.

>Forget the proper definition of man; we'll use yours.

I never defined "man." I never said "the definition of man is that entity with a human genome." I merely pointed out an irrefutable fact of biology regardless of definitions: "the human genome is biologically what makes us the kind of entity we are: human." It's obviously a necessary condition for being human.

The right to life is inherent in a human being by virtue of his having a human genome, not by virtue of his possession or exercise of reason; people who are sleeping or otherwise unconscious are not exercising reason, and it's hard to see in what way they "possess" reason if they're not exercising it; yet they still have an inherent right to life. It is other people's moral obligation to recognize and, under rational social organization, to protect that right to life from the wanton initiation of force. That seems to be a necessary (though perhaps not sufficient) requirement of survival in society.

>Possessing a rational faculty is not the same thing as being rational.

???

> It is the Objectivist's view that rights are a moral principle derived from the fact that we possess a rational faculty -- not that we use our rational faculty.

???

And you can distinguish "possessing a rational faculty" from "using a rational faculty" how?

You know how I tell if a person possesses a rational faculty? I observe him using it. Then I know he possess it. I'm curious to learn how you discover it.

> You misapply the law of identity. A thing is what it is, true, but it doesn't mean it can't change its identity.

Interesting. So in your universe, "A is only sometimes A"; at other times, "A" changes its identity and becomes "not-A". Got it.

>Causality is the link between changes in identity.

Actually, no. You have it backward. "Identity" is the link between "cause" and "effect."

>Development causes a fetus to change its identity from an unconscious group of cells into a conscious group of cells possessing a rational faculty.

And what causes "development"?

The zygote develops — "unfolds" is a better term — according to a genetic algorithm that starts computing the morphological changes from the get-go. The identity, however, never changes: it's a developing human being at every step of the way. It started out human; it remained human. It merely changes form according to a pre-written biochemical algorithm.

Consciousness? What does that have to do with anything?

>It's obvious, however, that on one end of the development you have a non-conscious cluster of cells

Sorry, two questions: 1) why should consciousness have anything to do with rights? and 2) how do you know that cluster of cells is non-conscious?

You wanna know the truth? The truth is: no one knows whether or not that cluster of cells is conscious. You don't know. Leonard Peikoff doesn't know. Harry Binswanger doesn't know. David Kelley doesn't know. Ayn Rand didn't know.

>Your confusion in the law of identity is attuned to calling an acorn a tree,

Sorry, but an acorn and an oak tree are just two different forms of the same plant. The first is a "cause" of the second, which is an "effect" of the first. The acorn-cause and its oak-tree-effect are linked by identity. They're obviously the same entity because the first always develops into the second, and the second always completes the cycle by producing more of the first (become a cause, with the acorn as the effect).

You had it backward. Changes in identity are not linked by cause and effect. There are no changes in identity (unless you're a savage living in a magical world). Changes in form — which are observable instances of "effects", and possibly their prior "causes" — are linked conceptually by identity: i.e., the fact that the thing that is changing is always **the same thing** merely undergoing changes in form.

Objectivism is wrong on this issue. Murder is an immoral act.

A dog is considered property, yet you can't do whatever you like with a dog; a car is considered property, but you can't do whatever you like with a car.

>You're a fucking scrub get off the Internet.

I see you've gone back to "square one." Stay there.

>The burden is upon you, the author, to make yourself understood.

But you didn't claim not to understand my argument. You claimed that you only read the surface. I'm under no obligation to put everything "on the surface" for the sake of lazy readers who will not read more deeply.

http://www.atlassociety.org/abortion

>As she [Ayn Rand] put it: "A piece of protoplasm has no rights-

Argument from arbitrary definition. A fetus is not simply a "piece of protoplasm." In fact, even a single cell is not just a "piece of protoplasm," but a highly ordered, hierarchical biochemical factory, run according to a genetic algorithm whose coded instructions for specific biochemical tasks are carried out by nano-sized molecular machines. The view that the cell, the embryo, or the fetus, is simply a "piece of protoplasm" is 160 years out of date with scientific knowledge. And in any case, if the zygote, embryo, or fetus is simple "a piece of protoplasm," then so is the infant after it is born. The only difference between the smaller piece of protoplasm and the larger piece of protoplasm — as far as the author at the Atlas Society is concerned — is the fact that the former is physically connected to the mother's body while the latter is physically separated from it. The author's theory of rights has little to do with his bloviations on rationality and everything to do with a kind of naive, purely materialist interpretation of property rights: mommy owns her own body, she invited a helpless guest into her body to room with her for 36 weeks, and — according to the author — has the right (based on property rights) to evict the helpless guest before the 36-week lease expires by killing it. After it is born, the lease inside mom's body has expired, and being spatially separated from mom, the parents and society are expected to recognize and protect the new entity's right-to-life.

In other words, while renting a room inside mom for 36 weeks, and needing to share mom's blood supply to survive, it supposedly has no property rights of its own regarding its own body. Property rights, regarding one's own body, only appear in entities that are fully physically distinguishable and separable from one another.

>and no life in the human sense of the term.

What is the "human sense of the term"? Blank out.

>One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months.

Huh? Why can we argue about the "later stages" of a pregnancy? Obviously, the "later stages" developed from the "earlier stages" — from those first 3 months; and the first 3 months developed from the moment the zygote formed at conception. The point is that at no time is the zygote and its development during the first 3 months simply a "piece of protoplasm." Simple pieces of protoplasm don't develop from a zygote to an infant; only actual human beings do so.

>To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable." ("A Last Survey," The Ayn Rand Letter, IV, 2, 3) These conclusions rest on the distinctively Objectivist approach to the relationship between human nature and rights, so to understand Rand's position we must begin with her distinctive view of rights.

We'll see. In any case, a zygote is already a human being at an early stage in its development — in its "entelechy", to use a classical Aristotelian term.

>Rights: Intrinsic or Objective? One way to argue against abortion rights is to hold that a fertilized ovum is just as much a person as an adult human being is, and as such has rights of its own. This amounts to an intrinsicist view that human life, whatever its stage of development, possesses rights. Such a view is common among Christians, for example, who hold that the soul - supposedly created at conception- is the source of one's moral and legal claims. Against this Objectivism recognizes that, although rights derive from the nature of man, they do not inhere in anything.

Huh? If the nature of something inheres in that something (A is A), and if rights are derived from the nature of something, then rights surely inhere in that something.

>Rights are principles.

To RECOGNIZE rights is a principle. The rights themselves are inherent in a human being.

>As such they apply to beings with certain characteristics.

They are recognized, respected, and protected in beings with certain characteristics. In the case of human beings, the "certain characteristics" are a human genome.

>Rights are based on the fact that the use of force against others is not a reliable means of gaining values,

I think the author is out of his league here, and simply has no idea what he's talking about. Force is often a "reliable" means of gaining values; that's why people continue to rob banks. The reason we abjure the use of force against others is not because of considerations of reliability, but because it is WRONG to do so.

>Right To Life. Because they are unable to support themselves by reason, we cannot extend this right [i.e., the right to life] to infants or the unborn in a clear and straightforward manner. An infant, for example, may possess a developing rational faculty, but he cannot use it to support his life; indeed, he requires so much care that to offer him the full right to life and liberty is to consign him to death.

Then, by the same argument, we cannot extend this right to John Galt while he's asleep, and we cannot extend this right to Hank Rearden when he's under general anesthesia to have his gall bladder removed. Indeed, during the sleeping state and the anesthetized state, to "offer" Galt and Rearden the full right to life and liberty would be to consign both of them to death.

>The Claims of a Potential - But an infant, after all, is an independent living organism in the process of developing into a rational being. An embryo or early-term fetus, or an unfertilized ovum for that matter, also has the potential to develop into a rational being, but is not yet an independent organism.

First the author claims that the potential to develop into a rational being is the crux of the issue regarding the right-to-life; now he claims that it is really the potential of something that is physically attached to become physically separated that is the crux. Which is it? Both? Are they of equal value in determining the "rights status" of a being? Apparently not. Consider:

In the author's view, the zygote, embryo, and fetus, lack the right-to-life because they are only potentially rational and potentially physically separable from the uterus.

After birth, however, the infant, which has now physically separated from the uterus but is still only potentially rational, now has the right-to-life: in the author's view, to kill it would be an act of murder.

So the issue of "potential rationality" is a bit of a red-herring by the author. It's really the issue of physical separateness that determines, according to him, whether the simple "piece of protoplasm" should have his right-to-life recognized and protected by those who are stronger than him.

The infant is still just a "piece of protoplasm" in the first 12 weeks after birth as it was in the first 12 weeks after conception. There's obviously MORE protoplasm in the infant than in the zygote but why should quantity of protoplasm be the criterion on which the argument depends?

The difference — and the only real difference as far as this Atlas Society author is concerned — is that in the first twelve weeks after conception, it is physically attached to the mother, while after birth, it is physically separated from the mother. And THAT is all there is to this author's argument.

Dork.