I won’t argue that newborns are people, because I have the same problem defining person that you seem to have. But until I can come up with a cogent reduction distilling person to some quality or combination of qualities that actually exist—some state of a region of the universe—then it seems prudent to err on the side of caution.
Cool. Would I still be a person while in a coma that I will naturally come out of in five years but not before? (I recognize that no observer could know that this was the case, I’m just asking whether in fact I would be, if it were. Put another way: after I woke up, would we conclude that I’d been a person all along?)
I won’t argue that newborns are people, because I have the same problem defining person that you seem to have. But until I can come up with a cogent reduction distilling person to some quality or combination of qualities that actually exist—some state of a region of the universe—then it seems prudent to err on the side of caution.
Well, one relatively simple question that might help clarify some things: do I remain a person when I’m asleep?
Cool. Would I still be a person while in a coma that I will naturally come out of in five years but not before? (I recognize that no observer could know that this was the case, I’m just asking whether in fact I would be, if it were. Put another way: after I woke up, would we conclude that I’d been a person all along?)
OK, cool… that clarifies matters. Thanks.