From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@msx.upmc.edu)
Date: Mon May 27 2002 - 07:49:46 MDT
Reason [mailto:reason@exratio.com] wrote:
The route I suggested was a Turing Test for evaluating what is human vrs
potential human/non-human. I'm arguing that by that definition, infants are
not human. (Members of species homo sapiens, sure, will be human eventually
if given support, sure, but I can't interact with them in the way I can with
a real human).
### Let me first say that I agree with the rest of your post, about the
ultimate lack of a compelling ethics, a set of rules that would impose
itself on all minds like the rules of mathematics, by virtue of being
undeniably true and unavoidable.
This said, I would like to take issue with the application of the Turing
test to children.
The moral value which both you and me defend is the value of sentient life.
As a matter of choice, both of us (togeher with the almost all other humans)
decide to try to avoid terminating such a life.
We demand that due diligence must be used in ascertaining what is protected
life, to avoid accidental destruction of such life. In other words, slightly
overinclusive criteria are needed.
The Turing test has a positive predictive value of 100%. Yet its sensitivity
is less than 100%. It will miss a number of sentient entities. E.g. a
patient with a Wernicke area stroke, with severe expressive aphasia, will
fail the test, despite being otherwise capable of functioning as a sentient,
and despite having a subjective feeling of being sentient (as we know from
the testimony of those who later recovered from aphasia enough to tell us
about their subjective feelings while impaired).
Since our knowledge of an infant's brain functioning is insufficient, we
cannot exclude the possiblity that the infant is indeed sentient enough, but
just is unable to tell us about it yet.
Prudence dictates the use of a test with higher sensitivity, such that
infants with a functional brain are included in the category of protected
life, at least until more data allow a finer distinction.
Rafal
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