One day in the future, if we somehow survive the existential threats that await us and a Still More Glorious Dawn does, in fact, dawn, one day we might have machines akin to 3D printers that allow us to construct, atom-by-atom, anything we desire so long has we know its composition and structure.
Suppose I take one of these machines and program it to build me a human, then leave when it’s half done. Does the construction chamber have blicket-potential?
Sure. Unborn babies have blicket-potential. Heck, the only reason I don’t say that unconceived babies have blicket potential is that I’m not sure that the statement is coherent.
Blicket and blicket-potential are markers that special moral considerations apply. They don’t control the moral decision without any reference to context.
One day in the future, if we somehow survive the existential threats that await us and a Still More Glorious Dawn does, in fact, dawn, one day we might have machines akin to 3D printers that allow us to construct, atom-by-atom, anything we desire so long has we know its composition and structure.
Suppose I take one of these machines and program it to build me a human, then leave when it’s half done. Does the construction chamber have blicket-potential?
Sure. Unborn babies have blicket-potential. Heck, the only reason I don’t say that unconceived babies have blicket potential is that I’m not sure that the statement is coherent.
Blicket and blicket-potential are markers that special moral considerations apply. They don’t control the moral decision without any reference to context.