I’m not totally convinced—there may be other factors that make such qualitative distinctions important. Such as exceeding the threshold to boiling. Or putting enough bricks in a sack to burst the bottom. Or allowing someone to go long enough without air that they cannot be resuscitated. It probably doesn’t do any good to pose /arbitrary/ boundaries, for sure, but not all such qualitative distinctions are arbitrary...
Or allowing someone to go long enough without air that they cannot be resuscitated.
This is less of a single qualitative distinction than you would think, given the various degrees of neurological damage that can make a person more or less the same person that they were before.
Good point… you are right about that. It would be more of a matter of degrees of personhood, especially if you had advanced medical technologies available such as neural implants.
I’m not totally convinced—there may be other factors that make such qualitative distinctions important. Such as exceeding the threshold to boiling. Or putting enough bricks in a sack to burst the bottom. Or allowing someone to go long enough without air that they cannot be resuscitated. It probably doesn’t do any good to pose /arbitrary/ boundaries, for sure, but not all such qualitative distinctions are arbitrary...
This is less of a single qualitative distinction than you would think, given the various degrees of neurological damage that can make a person more or less the same person that they were before.
Good point… you are right about that. It would be more of a matter of degrees of personhood, especially if you had advanced medical technologies available such as neural implants.