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Abdulazeez

Is this an argument of the beard fallacy?

Here's a video of a guy criticizing pro-abortion arguments: {youtube title=} youtu.be/_ZnAneMJg5E{/you. . .
At the timestamps from 5:27 until 7:30, he engages in a thought experiment that seems like an argument of the beard fallacy. It's preferable to watch it but I will provide a brief of it anyway. Here it is in short:
"Imagine yourself in your current form. Now go back in time to yesterday. Was that still you? Did you have value then? Now go back a year...Go back ten years....Go back to your first birthday...Now go back in time to the moment you emerged out of the womb. Now go back one second. Did you have value at that time? If not, fast-forward one second and tell me what happened in that second that gave you value? The truth is that you had value from the moment of your physical existence, and if you didn't have value then, you don't have value now."

I can reasonably assume that what he means by the moment of physical existence is the moment of conception, and thus it seems like he's committing an argument of the beard fallacy because he's arguing that since there's no distinction between a baby when it emerges out of a womb and the baby a second before, then there's no distinction between the baby and its state when it was first conceived and it should have value in both cases. That's like me plucking a few hairs off the beard of the guy in the video and telling him that it is impossible for him to be beardless because each time I pluck one hair off his beard he still has beard. What do you think?
asked on Monday, Jun 03, 2019 07:54:27 PM by Abdulazeez

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Keith Seddon
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I would agree that this is an example of the Argument of the Beard Fallacy. I tried to write a brief analysis, as I might for making a comment on a student’s paper, but I have given up. Everything is summed up by remarking that this presentation (yes, I was foolish enough to watch all of it) begs too many questions. On my Philosophy 101 course, I would have failed this paper with a mark just short of the pass mark for the reasons that he does attempt to make an analysis and is honestly striving to find an argument.

His argument (perhaps only partially) appears to be:

If it's human, then it has value.
An embryo and a foetus are human.
Thus an embryo and a foetus have value.
All things that have this sort of value by that fact have human rights.
Whatever has human rights must not be treated in certain ways (including being aborted).
Therefore abortion is always disallowed.

His presentation is confused by being unclear as to what is necessary or sufficient for what, which terms scope over which domains, and what is coextensive with what.
answered on Tuesday, Jun 04, 2019 07:11:29 AM by Keith Seddon

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Bo Bennett, PhD
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The theistic notion or even metaphysical notion of "value" is used that cannot be quantified rather than using the social aspect of value. The answer to this riddle is that as the organism becomes more cognitively developed (to an extent) it is valued more to us. This is why an embryo is less valuable than a fetus, which is less valuable than a baby. At some point, cognitive development takes a backseat to the social aspects of value stemming from attachment and empathy. Embryos aren't valueless; they just have less value to us then biologically independent human beings.

As for the fallacy of the beard , I don't this this qualifies and here is why: the fallacy of the beard is "when one argues that no useful distinction can be made between two extremes, just because there is no definable moment or point on the spectrum where the two extremes meet." I cannot speak for this person on the video, but in my experience, those who hold this position claim that value is something one has or doesn't have—there are no extremes because it is not a concept that exists on a spectrum.
answered on Tuesday, Jun 04, 2019 08:08:28 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD

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