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What does "emotional attachment" have to do with whether or not something is what it objectively is?
Case in point:
I recognize that his rant is a tad hard to follow due to poor sentence structure, but the gist of it is that since a human embryo/fetus doesn't make a person "feel" all warm and fuzzy inside, it isn't a human being.
Since when do "feelings" have anything at all to do with rational, logical, reasoning?
In fact--there is a specific fallacy in reasoning that is called "Appeal to Emotion"
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-emotion.html
Description of Appeal to Emotion
An Appeal to Emotion is a fallacy with the following structure:
Favorable emotions are associated with X.
Therefore, X is true.
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion
Appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy which uses the manipulation of the recipient's emotions, rather than valid logic, to win an argument. This kind of appeal to emotion is a type of red herring and encompasses several logical fallacies, including:
Appeal to consequences
Appeal to fear
Appeal to flattery
Appeal to pity
Appeal to ridicule
Appeal to spite
Wishful thinking
FALLACY means "erroneous" "false" "invalid."
And yet....the oft repeated point when discussing the human quality--the human organism--the human BEING--that is an embryo/fetus, ultimately ALWAYS comes back to this "feelings" based excuse.
What's up with that? Will someone please explain how the fallacy is somehow not fallacious in this particular case?



Case in point:
jfuh said:I've asked on this site many times whether those in opposition to my position have any objection to the death of a cell - answer is no, how about a mouse or fish or any other animal for that matter - the typical answer is as long as there's no emotional attachment no.
This is exactly the case here. The embryo to baby goes from single cell to multi-cellular human being (that even after born is still developing) a billion year evolutionary process in the course of 9 months to which one would argue that
No one would feel any real emotional attachment or even recognition until that 14th week fetus in terms of being able to identify it as something human. But at 5 weeks, webbed appendages a long tail? Given time it would continue to become one, but at that specific stage it's not yet one at all.
I recognize that his rant is a tad hard to follow due to poor sentence structure, but the gist of it is that since a human embryo/fetus doesn't make a person "feel" all warm and fuzzy inside, it isn't a human being.
Since when do "feelings" have anything at all to do with rational, logical, reasoning?
In fact--there is a specific fallacy in reasoning that is called "Appeal to Emotion"
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-emotion.html
Description of Appeal to Emotion
An Appeal to Emotion is a fallacy with the following structure:
Favorable emotions are associated with X.
Therefore, X is true.
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion
Appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy which uses the manipulation of the recipient's emotions, rather than valid logic, to win an argument. This kind of appeal to emotion is a type of red herring and encompasses several logical fallacies, including:
Appeal to consequences
Appeal to fear
Appeal to flattery
Appeal to pity
Appeal to ridicule
Appeal to spite
Wishful thinking
FALLACY means "erroneous" "false" "invalid."
And yet....the oft repeated point when discussing the human quality--the human organism--the human BEING--that is an embryo/fetus, ultimately ALWAYS comes back to this "feelings" based excuse.
What's up with that? Will someone please explain how the fallacy is somehow not fallacious in this particular case?



