But at the same time they spoke about the same thing. If you killed a person, you would be a murderer, and it doesn't matter what definition of a person you use. There are some small differences though, like killing a toddler seems not so bad, if toddler is not a person yet.
I personally believe that toddler is not a person yet. Homo Sapiencs pup becomes a person somewhere between 1 yo and 3 yo. At 1 yo she learns to walk, and gets location independance, she needs some time to learn to be independant, and then at 3 yo she get into psychological crisis, when she learn what the difference between "Me", "Parents", "My desires", "Parents desires", "Rules" and so on. So 3 yo is absolutely the point where she is a person already. While less than 1 yo she is not a person, but external and disconnected physically limb of her parents.
Why draw the line at age 3, and not 9 (Age of Reason) pubescence (Coming of Age), or post-pubescence? People under the age of maybe 30 universally have terrible misconceptions about how the universe works, making them dangerous if they are given full freedom.
Amen to that!
Why draw the line at age 3
I believe because the original poster was positing that self-awareness is the dividing line between person and non-person, and was claiming that this happens at age 3. Of course, the real world isn't that simple. Not only do newborns show some simple self-awareness (See Rochat's 'Five Stages of Self-Awareness'), but some animals also show various levels of self-awareness (Gallop's Mirror Test, and others) and I'm not sure most folks are prepared to give animals personhood.
Yes. Any our theory is a simplification of reality.
> I'm not sure most folks are prepared to give animals personhood.
Yeah. This is a problem I think. Is there is any way to define a person, which can justify human right to eat a chicken. Self-awareness seems the most promising.
https://www.reddit.com/r/likeus/
Why do you not have a human right to kill a person, when push comes to shove comes to bullets?
I do not kill dogs belonging to other people (or any dog, to be clear), why should I kill toddlers belonging to other people? And if I claim that toddler is an external limb of parents, than killing toddler means damaging parents, it is like to cut off their arms or something like. It is a good enough reason to not kill toddlers, isn't it?
> Why draw the line at age 3, and not 9 (Age of Reason) pubescence (Coming of Age), or post-pubescence?
Because the line between a person and not a person is drawn to separate humans from other animals. To make humans special and to give them rights to kill animals, to own animals. We need a way to justify our denial of animal rights on land or on any other kind of property and so on. So we should try to draw a line such a way, that reflects specialty of humans.