Re: Identity

From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Date: Sat Nov 21 1998 - 10:59:13 MST


John Clark wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Michael Lorrey <retroman@together.net>
>
> >lets say you have a set of identical twins or triplets. By your
> >reasoning, since the siblings are all the same, then it should be alright to kill
> >all but one of any set of such natural clones at some point during or after
> >birth. Agree or disagree?
>
> I know from direct experience that at least some identical twins do not have
> identical personalities.

Sure, once they've grown. But right after birth? How can you tell any differences? If you
cannot perform any personality or other cognitive test which establishes the the infant
twins are not the same 'person' then for all intents and purposes they are the same
person. Sure they will grow into different people, just as two clones will grow into
different people, but at some point they are indistinguishable to science as being any
different from each other. Therefore it is ok to kill one, so long as the other lives,
since they are the same person.

Mike Lorrey



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:49 MST