Originally posted by: complich8


I'll argue that will is the essence of humanity. Without it, a man is nothing but an animal.
what do you mean by "will"? if you mean the ability to decide for yourself what you want. Many animals have that. defining humans against animals objectively is impossible for us. Personally, I go with "everything that looks sufficiently like X person is a human" (this is completely subjective but it works).

now back to the will thing. if you think that the apparition of will defines the person, well even after birth, then the baby would be in a grey zone. What I mean by that is that whereas the baby can decide and communicate that it wants food or wants quiet or whatever, this is completelely impulse driven. Whereas an adult can decide not to eat something even if he is hungry (like fasting or skipping a meal because you are studying or are thinking of eating something better at a later point in time) a baby can't do that. also, a baby will not joke. it can lie, but it will do so for a reason, to get something, not for a joke.

this is why I think the debate of whether fertilized eggs are human or not is futile in a way.