So, you resolved my slippery slope by biting its bullet and saying there is a sharp discontinuity even if you didn’t know where.
Could't the Contrarian just as easily have accepted that different entities have different "levels" of personhood? The odds of a skin cell becoming sentient is quite low, after all. Of course, this would render abortion more palatable based on miscarriage rates, but at least they could have avoided claiming that GAIs aren't people :\
On the other hand, the Apologist seems a little too quick to bite the infanticide bullet. How much is a toddler worth? A teenager? Are some adults worth less than others? These all seem like implications that could have been explored, although I guess that might take the focus away from abortion.
Could't the Contrarian just as easily have accepted that different entities have different "levels" of personhood? The odds of a skin cell becoming sentient is quite low, after all. Of course, this would render abortion more palatable based on miscarriage rates, but at least they could have avoided claiming that GAIs aren't people
I based the C character on the thoughts that 'a materialistic sophisticated Christian' evoked in my head; he didn't go with a multi-category scheme, just the ordinary binary. I don't think I've seen any such scheme se...
A few years ago, I wrote a little dialogue I imagined between 2 materialists, one of whom was for and one against abortion, centering on the personal identity question. I recently cleaned it up and added a number of references for the biological claims.
You can read it at An Abortion Dialogue.
Early feedback from #lesswrong is that it's a 'nicely enjoyable read' and 'quite good'. I hope everyone likes it, even if it doesn't exactly break new philosophical ground.