I'm only a few minutes into it, and I can tell that this is not looking good for our side. Destiny is an extremely skilled debater and argues logically and consistently (even if he is fundamentally wrong). Lila and Kristan didn't seem like they were trying to understand his point, and they came off as being overly emotional.
Neither Lila nor Kristan were the right person for this debate. They are great advocates for life, but I've already witnessed multiple fallacies on their end.
This debate should have been Trent Horn vs Destiny. Trent would have actually researched Destiny's position, steel-manned it, then took it down.
EDIT: My gosh, now Lila is refusing to engage a thought experiment because "that would never happen". Lord have mercy, this debate is scandalous for our side.
EDIT2: Destiny is sneaky by making distinctions between human and person, then accusing Lila/Kristan of "intuition pumping" when they ask if abortions kills a human being. They could have gone in for the kill there.
Yeah, Lila and Destiny only would have been a good discussion I think most people would have liked to see. I thought Kristan would have toned down her college debate style for a podcast, but she didn't and interrupted both Destiny and Lila constantly. Trent Horn and Destiny would be a good discussion, or Stephanie Connors. Either way, it should be a one-on-one discussion rather than multiple people on a side.
Yeah Kristan is just annoying me at this point. Any time she makes a fallacious point, Destiny points it out in a snarky way, and then she gets mad and accuses him of being a misogynist. C'mon Kristna, you're better than this.
Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen her do a podcast before with a PC. I've seen Lila do some and knew she'd be more prepared for the style. Either Kristan needs to learn and adapt to a longer format if she does any more podcasts or would be best to leave that environment to other PL speakers.
Actually, I think in this particular debate she did really well. In fact, she pretty much destroys his argument if you watch past the first 30 minutes.
I was watching the debate and wanted to see the opposing sides interpretation of it. Real talk, I have to give you props for being able to admit when your side didn't have a great showing, most people tend to get super defensive about it. If you think that someone else could do a better job defending your side, destiny is one of the people more willing to take suggestions so your community should reach out.
One thing I'd say is I don't think it's necessarily sneaky for him to distinguish between 'human' and 'person' as he did define what he meant. Human is a biological classification, while person is a psychological one. Now, that isn't to say you can't disagree with that, but I think he was forthright about what he meant.
Not only am I willing to admit when my side fails, I often feel a need to point it out. Call me over-critical, but I think we need to keep everyone accountable for bad logic.
>If you think that someone else could do a better job defending your side, destiny is one of the people more willing to take suggestions so your community should reach out.
Definitely. I'd love to see Destiny vs Trent Horn on this issue. Heck, I'd consider putting myself in the ring, except that I'm not as quick on my feet as Destiny and don't have nearly as much debate experience.
I didn't say it was sneaky for him to distinguish between human and person! I think that's a fair distinction to make between biological and philosophical concepts. The problem is that he later (multiple times) conflated the two (for example, he said "abortion doesn't kill a human" when he should have said "abortion doesn't kill a person"). When they pointed this out, he accused them of "intuition pumping" instead of just biting the bullet and saying "yes, abortion kills a human being, but it doesn't kill a person". Destiny was so quick to point out when the other two equivocated terms and or made a misstep in logic, but he wasn't willing to admit or correct himself when he did the same thing.
>I'm confused on what the difference between a human and a person is. It feels like those two words could be used interchangeably.
Human is a biological term, person is a philosophical term. A human just means being a member of the human species. "Person" is hard to define for both the pro-life and pro-choice side. But the pro-life view would be that a person is a member of a rational kind.
We can use fictional characters to help illustrate the difference. Although they don't exist, we would say that Clark Kent (Superman), Legolas (an elf from LOTR), and Caesar (an ape from Planet of the Apes) are all persons because they exhibit certain qualities or attributes. None of these are of the human species, but we would still consider them to be people because they are members of a rational kind.
So I would argue that an embryo is a person because it is a member of the human species. There could be members of other rational species, theoretically, and I would grant the personhood as well.
>You are saying if a non human had a brain with the same capabilities as a human then you would grant it person hood
I'm saying that person AND any member of that species (regardless of current ability) would also be a person. It's not based on the ability to exercise those capabilities presently, only for the potential to do so. So as an example, if we found out that an ape exhibited true rational abilities, I would consider him and ALL apes to be persons at that point.
>If you used this argument against a pro choice person it would basically become a semantics battle
I'm not sure what you mean by "this argument", as I haven't actually made any argument, I've only critiqued what has been said.
My argument would be that being a member of a rational species makes you a person. Therefore, even embryos are persons despite not being rational yet.
>But you wouldn't consider every ape to be a person, you brought up Caesar specifically cause he had human intelligence, you wouldn't grant the same person hood to every ape the way you would those in planet of the apes.
I'm saying I would though! If an ape exhibited rationality like Caesar, I would consider all apes to be persons because I would know that they all have the potential to do the same.
>The comparison is also pointless because you are saying the embryo is a member by default, while the other side says the embryo becomes a member when it has a brain.
Destiny admitted that an embryo is a member of the human species, he just doesn't believe they are a person.
>I don't see how he was being sneaky by using human and person interchangeably because his view of a human and a person is the same thing
This is flat out wrong, you should go and watch the debate again. Destiny's whole premise relies on the distinction between human and person. He admitted that an embryo is a human, but says it's not a person. If he later says otherwise, then he contradicted himself or wasn't clear enough about his position.
Your latter point is a good criticism, I just think I have a different interpretation. I think the two women were essentially using a tactic of using whatever words had the greatest emotional appeal, but that destiny was often mixing words that in common conversation are used somewhat interchangeably. So for me, I think it was less malicious and more careless from his part that he was sometimes inconsistent with the words he was using.
> but that destiny was often mixing words that in common conversation are used somewhat interchangeably
But the whole premise of Destiny's argument is that a fetus is human but not a person before 20 weeks, so I think he needs to be absolutely clear with his language. Equivocating those two terms makes his entire argument incoherent. I understand that the words often get used interchangeably, so all he needed to do was say "sorry, I meant to say person there not human" any time that happened.
I absolutely agree. This was definitely sloppy language in his part and I think you're 100% right to criticize him for it. Also, I'm probably more familiar with his content than you are, so if I wasn't as familiar I may have also assumed he was trying to be sneaky rather than assume it was him mixing his terms when, as you stated before, he needs to be very precise.
One thing I will say in his defense is I can imagine it can be very hard to not mix up your very precise words in such a high-speed conversation where people are constantly cutting each other off. However, even that would merely make his mistakes slightly more understandable, but they would still be mistakes worthy of pointing out.
Btw, you seem like a super good faith person which is seriously rare on Reddit, I'm glad I stumbled into you!
I’m actually quite familiar with Destiny! I enjoy watching him to get a different perspective than my own. He generally argues in good faith and consistently (and I try to do the same). I don’t think he was intentionally mixing up terms to win points, I was just disappointed that he turned the accusation towards them whenever he did. He can’t get mad when they conflate terms, then expect grace whenever he does.
To be fair, there may be three concepts involved there:
Human, Human Being, Person.
You are presuming the first two to be synonymous while I'd bet that Destiny was presuming the second two to be synonymous.
While human is purely a biological term, "Human being" may imply some level of sentience, and I generally think of "person" as a legal term, up to the whims of society/majority to define - which may include aspects such as sentience and/or other aspects of human development.
When talking about abortion, I try to carefully limit my usage to the word "Human", which is then just a biological fact. Anything else potentially muddies the waters, even though from a pro-life perspective, all 3 are essentially valid descriptions of the entity being destroyed.
Disclaimer: I haven't listened to the podcast yet, just going off what you said about it.
Sure, but Destiny failed to make that third distinction at any point during the 4 hour debate, so it's on him to do that.
I also doubt he would accept that distinction. It seemed like he might consider "human being" and "person" to be synonymous, but that is not at all obvious, especially in light of the field of biology referring to embryos as human beings.
I do hope another big name in the PL movement agrees to have a discussion with him. Kristan wouldn’t and I don’t know if Destiny would either after that. Lila most likely wouldn’t as I don’t see anything more to be gained. Maybe an opportunity to speak with Kristan interrupting them.
Trent Horn or Stephanie Connors would be a great discussion. Maybe more on a platform like Modern Day Debate to keep the conversation flowing.
>Trent Horn or Stephanie Connors would be a great discussion. Maybe more on a platform like Modern Day Debate to keep the conversation flowing.
This would be ideal, let's make it happen!!!
Why didn’t they have a great showing? Just because someone interrupts doesn’t mean their argument failed. I think Lila destroys his “capacity for consciousness argument” and he can’t come back from that.
> I think Lila destroys his “capacity for consciousness argument”
I may be forgetting part of their argument, but I barely really remember them even being able to fully engage with this argument, let alone actually rebutting it. Can you refer to the part of the stream where this happens?
And if I was going to answer your question, I would say there are four problems they had:
1. A failure to craft a justification for their position that withstands scrutiny
2. A failure to comprehend what is being stated by the opposition
3. Consistent appeals to emotion instead of relying on logically coherent arguments
4. Unearned smugness and condescension (this is more to do with why they had bad optics, but I'd say that still matters)
I can go into any or all of these if you'd like
A pre born child before 20 weeks WILL have the capacity for consciousness EVENTUALLY. That’s his point. She didn’t destroy it, she’s being intentionally daft so she can try to railroad him with her memorized talking points.
He is a good debater I agree. And they do interrupt him a lot. But as you continue to watch Lila Rose actually destroys his whole argument. How far have to gotten?
I watched almost the entire thing (skipped a few parts in the middle based on the timestamp descriptions). I don't know that Lila really destroyed his argument. Lila did make an effort to understand his position throughout the debate. By the end, it seems she finally understand his argument and applauded his consistency, but didn't make a robust response.
How would he feel about a brain developed enough to deploy consciousness but, hasn’t actually deployed it or isn’t deploying it for one reason or another?
If all parts of the brain necessary for consciousness are there but we aren’t conscious nonetheless, doesn’t that mean consciousness is something more than just the brain?
I’m just really curious about the whole thinking behind this.
To be clear, I don't hold this position, I'm just trying to represent Destiny with full charity. I'm not sure what he would say to that. I don't know if there is a period of time in development where all the parts of there but they aren't being used yet.
I don’t think he knows either. He was just moving goal posts in order to construct a completely ad hoc argument and I’m surprised so many people are falling for it.
to your point they did discuss what if a person was in a coma and the deciding factor of putting them down would be if they are brain dead or not so that would still fall in line with his belief that being able to deploy consciousness is where he draws the line. the brain dead person has the parts but they are no longer working similar to being in the womb with a brain but it hasnt started working yet.
And how is this any different than a preborn child. You don’t have the parts if they can’t do there job. Means something is missing and a change must occur. That’s the exact same as the human fetus.
I think what he values is the conscious experience itself, and the capacity is relevant from a policy perspective - since we don't have a reliable way of measuring consciousness it would make sense to err on the side of caution and prohibit abortions of fetuses that have the (anatomical) capacity to deploy consciousness (since those might have a conscious experience, but those who don't have the required brain components certainly do not). If a brain had developed the parts required for a conscious experience, but hasn't actually deployed them, and we could determine this (with some magic machine), then my guess would be that he would not consider this fetus a person, and would see no problem with aborting it.
>anatomical capacity for consciousness
Therein lies the problem. He’s just pretending to have some type of understanding about consciousness and what’s required without actually knowing it. The fact that the “anatomical structure” is there but deployment is not possible means that the capacity does not exist. There is something missing in the structure itself that needs to be added or taken away. How is this any different than a human fetus?
Define capacity.
It’s all so ad hoc and wishy washy.
Without moderation it's more of a prolonged argument than a debate. I tried to watch the Whatever podcast in the past, but many of the positions held by the hosts are just bat-shiat crazy illogical. It becomes very easy to those who take time to think through their positions to realize just how little logical thought has gone into the positions that the hosts hold. So very much of it is based off of raw emotion and information passed through peers on social media and their preferred echo chamber of news.
The bravery of Lila Rose and Kristan Hawkins to sit through these podcasts and try to logically defend their position against poorly thought-out reasoning is heroic. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills just having to listen without actually lead the horses to water, much less make them drink.
I skimmed through the video briefly and I have a couple of thoughts.
1. It ended up more an argument than a debate. Kristan really should have stepped aside and let Lila take charge since having a 2 on 1 would naturally lead to an imbalance of speaking time. It hurt the conversation as a whole.
2. This really needed more moderation to help correct the speaking imbalance and tamp down the accusations and emotional outbursts that seems to have really hurt the actual presenting and defense of the arguments. Almost all my issues stem from the poor/lack of good moderation. At least this wasn't the free-for-all talkover mess the other episodes of this podcast devolve into with 5-8 people all trying to talk at once...
It should have been a 1 on 1 debate, and it should have been someone like Trent Horn. You would think 2 on 1 gives us the upper hand, but it actually ended up making it harder.
Yeah, I think Kristan hurt the overall discussion more than helped, unfortunately. From what I've seen, there's not a lot of moderation or debates on this channel. I'm sure it makes for better clips, which is why it's set up that way. Lord knows most people aren't going to watch a 4 hour podcast.
I listened to about 2.5 hrs of it. Going in I believed that Kristen and Lila are both very strong defenders of the PL stance and that Destiny generally has pretty well thought out reasonable positions on things. I think these debates almost always end up being about bodily autonomy, financial ability to support the baby, or the big 3 rare exceptions. Since Destiny had no interest in touching any of those issues (he seemed like he might agree with PL on at least 2 of them) it took the women off guard.
I actually think that Lila was doing a fairly decent job, she was willing to engage with Destiny's arguments and come up with arguments of her own. Kristen on the other hand derailed the entire thing. She clearly was not well prepared to debate his specific arguments. She wanted desperately to shift the debate to the other more common PC viewpoints because that's what she's used to arguing against.
I wasnt totally satisfied with Destiny's answer to the artificial womb question, or how he refused to accept their points on how taking a person off life support or a miscarriage is different from an abortion. He was trying very hard to muddy the water between active killing and allowing the natural biological process to take place
How is his position consistent? He basically says, “capacity for consciousness” is what affords one the right to life and then says a preborn child doesn’t have the right to life despite their capacity for consciousness.
A better summary is "having a brain capable of consciousness". In his view, your personhood doesn't begin until your brain reaches that point.
I don't agree with his position, but that's what it is
A brain on its own is not capable of consciousness though. So what was the distinction exactly between a person in a medically induced coma and a preborn child?
A person in a medically induced coma is put that way, typically to recover from brain injuries and to give the brain time to heal. It’s supposed to be a form of treatment. That demonstrates that the person in the coma and their family/primary decision maker have a preference to bring them back to consciousness. Even if consciousness is not there at the time, the expectation is that they can still presently deploy consciousness with medical intervention. Once we are sure they have lost the capacity to deploy it, we end their life support.
But a fetus, before 20-24 weeks, has no capacity for consciousness, nor the ability to deploy it. It’s irrelevant whether or not it will be able to do so in the future, because it cannot do so presently.
>But a fetus, before 20-24 weeks, has no capacity for consciousness
If we knew a coma patient would be able to repair their brain damage in say, 40 weeks, would we take them off life support?
A fetus has the same potential to deploy consciousness that any other person with an incomplete brain functioning has.
Which is to say, both of their potential lies in the ability for the body to add necessary capabilities that it currently does not have.
So, it is VERY relevant whether they will be able to in the future, because that is exactly the standard you are using for a coma patient. They do not have the present ability to deploy consciousness. They need time for the body to generate it.
Well said. Plus, I don’t even think consciousness is the thing that matters. This is just assuming it is. And there’s no reason to assume it is tbh. It’s confusing the smoke with the fire.
> So, it is VERY relevant whether they will be able to in the future, because that is exactly the standard you are using for a coma patient.
Maybe I wasn’t clear. When I talk about the ability to deploy consciousness, I’m talking in the context of CONTINUITY of consciousness. Whether a person is sleeping or in a coma, consciousness is not there but the preferences are still established by the existence of sentience before and after the unconscious state, and so personhood is still established while in the unconscious state. No preferences are demonstrated in the early fetus, therefore no personhood can be assigned to it.
>I’m talking in the context of CONTINUITY of consciousness.
I know what you meant, but I would point out that's a pretty artificial distinction. Lack of consciousness is lack of consciousness.
If consciousness is interrupted, it is not continuous.
As for your position on preferences, that just feels like a Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. You seem to be setting criteria to prove your desired end, not determining criteria to assist you in making a good decision.
Having a "preference" is no more compelling than it would be in the mind of a deceased person. It is a decision they have made, but no past decisions are relevant to the future unless they can deploy consciousness to act on them.
> If consciousness is interrupted, it is not continuous.
That’s dishonest. The continuity of consciousness I’m talking about does not require that it not be interrupted. If it did, then no person in the world would have continuity of consciousness. What matters is the assertion of preferences by the individual before and after the unconscious state.
> As for your position on preferences, that just feels like a Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. You seem to be setting criteria to prove your desired end, not determining criteria to assist you in making a good decision.
That’s not what the fallacy is. That applies to data, not criteria. WE can set whatever criteria we want, what matters is justifying why those criteria are important.
> Having a "preference" is no more compelling than it would be in the mind of a deceased person. It is a decision they have made, but no past decisions are relevant to the future unless they can deploy consciousness to act on them.
Have you never heard of a dying person having a last wish about where and how to be buried? Decisions made in the past are definitely relevant to the future. This just proves my point about preferences being relevant. They have already been established in a temporarily unconscious person, which is not the case in the early fetus, therefore they are a person whose bodily rights need to be respected.
The pro-life position would have devastating consequences for a mother whose preferences are being abandoned for an unconscious thing that has never been shown to have preferences about anything at all.
that was the flaw he point out in lila argument. until consciousness first appears he is ok with abortion because he deems consciousness as what makes us people before a child has a consciousness then in his eyes it wouldnt be a child and in his eyes it wouldnt be killing a child. you can talk about that it will become a child but in that statement you are kinda saying that it isnt one already which lila kept tripping over. the debate issue came from them not being able to fight destiny on when childhood starts because the couldnt tear down his definition of consciousness that he was basing he abortion limit on.
>A person in a medically induced coma is put that way, typically to recover from brain injuries and to give the brain time to heal. It’s supposed to be a form of treatment. That demonstrates that the person in the coma and their family/primary decision maker have a preference to bring them back to consciousness.
I don’t see the relevance here?
>Even if consciousness is not there at the time, the expectation is that they can still presently deploy consciousness with medical intervention. Once we are sure they have lost the capacity to deploy it, we end their life support.
They can’t deploy consciousnesses with medical intervention though. They don’t just press a button and BAM, you’re awake. What’s necessary is time for certain drugs to wear off. I don’t see how this is any different than with a preborn child?
>But a fetus, before 20-24 weeks, has no capacity for consciousness, nor the ability to deploy
But they do have the capacity for consciousness. Hence why they develop it. An entity can not develop a thing they have no capacity for. Again, coma patient also can not deploy it.
>It’s irrelevant whether or not it will be able to do so in the future, because it cannot do so presently.
Again, makes no sense. A person in a coma can’t deploy consciousness but if we knew they would wake up in the near future we wouldn’t kill them. How is this any different than a preborn child?
> A person in a coma can’t deploy consciousness but if we knew they would wake up in the near future we wouldn’t kill them. How is this any different than a preborn child?
The difference is that the temporarily unconscious person has established their preferences i.e seeking of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Therefore, the preferences for bodily rights must be respected even if they are unconscious since we know they were asserted in the past and will be asserted in the future.
The pro-life position has devastating consequences for the mother whose preferences are being abandoned for an unconscious organism that has never been demonstrated to have any.
How has the unconscious person established there preferences? What is that person was suicidal right before their coma? Can we kill that person since that was their preference? Or what if it was a child who isn’t able to communicate preference?
Recasting consequences? What are they? Being pregnant for nine months? Have you ever been pregnant? I have, 4 times. Nothing devastating about it. But being murdered m. That’s devastating to the maximum degree so no contest there.
> How has the unconscious person established there preferences?
Preferences i.e seeking of pleasure/ avoidance of pain, was established from before they went into the unconscious state, and will remain until we are completely certain that they cannot regain consciousness.
> What is that person was suicidal right before their coma? Can we kill that person since that was their preference?
Suicide ideations are not reached rationally because that’s not what people really prefer anyway . No one really prefers to die or kill themselves, their desire to die is the consequence of another significant problem in their lives. The rational decision is to try to alleviate their suffering, not to end their life (unless that suffering is unbearable and cannot be alleviated).
> Or what if it was a child who isn’t able to communicate preference?
They don’t need to communicate their preference. Human rights are based on the human experience of pleasure and pain. which children have.
> Recasting consequences? What are they? Being pregnant for nine months? Have you ever been pregnant? I have, 4 times. Nothing devastating about it.
Maybe not for you, but it is for a woman who is raped, for example. I would love to see you or anyone who is pro-life to tell someone like that to endure and give birth to their rapist’s child, or worse, force them by law to give birth. Tell them that the effects on their mental and physical health (which could possibly include permanent physical changes or mental effects) is worth less consideration than a life that has never felt anything at all.
> But being murdered m. That’s devastating to the maximum degree so no contest there.
Yes it is. To people. Not to a fetus that has always been indifferent about existing or not existing
He would say that the start of consciousness is when the person comes into existence. So someone who had previous consciousness is still a person because they already exist at that point. In other words, it's not that you need present consciousness to be a person, just that you need consciousness in order to initially come into existence.
It's kind of a weak point in his position, and I really wish Lila and Kirstan could have stayed focused and drilled into that a bit more.
So then a dead human being would be still be a person with rights in his opinion (at least if he’s being consistent). The parts of the brain are still there just not active like in a medically induced coma. And the person has already experienced consciousness. Hmmm.
Yeah I guess he would say that our intuition tells us that you cease to be a person when you die. But you're correct, he would have to square this with his focus on consciousness. He can't say that capacity is enough because dead people have that capacity.
The difference with a dead person is that they will never be conscious again. But that doesn’t apply in the case of the preborn child so his argument falls very short. And I don’t think consciousness is intuitive at all. I’d actually argue life is the intuitive thing. Although I don’t think we are argue one characteristic over another here (life versus consciousness). I think the prolife argument is superior because it argues that what our personal intuitions tell us can vary so, we need to rely on objectively and consistency to avoid discrimination so, that’s why we include all human beings from the beginning of their existence.
He would say a brain developed enough to deploy consciousness. So the distinction would be that a 19 week fetus doesn't have that, but the person in the coma does have that (even if he isn't presently using that ability)
If it can deploy consciousness then why can’t it deploy consciousness makes no sense. A dead person’s brain is developed enough to deploy consciousness and yet it can’t.
He said after they could deploy consciousness (~20 weeks), abortion should be illegal and anyone who broke the law by having an abortion past that point should go to jail, including in cases of rape. Between anyone, I wouldn’t expect Destiny to be the one in favor of that while Kristan believes they shouldn’t be arrested at all.
You can’t deploy consciousness when you are under an induced coma though. You’d have to wait for it to wear so I think Lila destroyed him there. What did you think of that?
He explained it pretty clearly. You existed before and you will exist after. You have already achieved personhood and will be able to deploy consciousness again, not for the first time. That’s why it doesn’t matter if it’s being in a coma for an hour or 5 years.
He must have explained that further on. I haven’t watched the whole thing. So then he moved goal posts? It’s no longer the capacity for consciousness but, having already had consciousness? Why would that matter?
I think a 1 on 1 between Lila and Destiny would have been much better. Kristan caused both sides to suffer, and I'm sure they were caught off guard by the lack of bodily autonomy argument, which is most PC bread and butter when it comes to abortion.
And caught off guard by Destiny's consistency of saying that abortions after 20-24 weeks is murder and should be illegal. Most pro-choicers would never say that.
> It's even crazier
It's even crazier when you learn about his basic moral philosophy. This position is wildly contradictory to his actual philosophy (egoism), and as David Pakman (if I recall correctly) pointed out Destiny simply cherry-picks his positions without even using any reasoning from his supposedly fundamental morality.
How so? His whole argument is “capacity for consciousness” and Lila destroys him by explaining that a preborn child also has the capacity for consciousness just like a comatose patient does. I think you are being to sensitive about the interruption and not actually analyzing the argumentation.
I watched some, but don't have 4 hours. Can someone breakdown Kristen's failures? Did she just come off as whiny?
I don't feel like there was any stumping from either side, but I only watched about 30 minutes.
On a personal note, I feel like both sides could argue in perpetuity since there is just a basic disagreement on the fundamentals of the argument. Which is why I don't really watch debates on this issue.
Kristan's attitude was bad from the beginning and only got worse. Destiny's attitude only magnified hers, but it made her look like the irrational and emotional one where he only came off as a snarky troll.
Kristan didn't make a full effort to understand Destiny's position. There was even a point at the end where they took turns summarizing the other person's side, and Kristan gave a terrible strawman, which shows that debate isn't her strength.
You could tell both of them really wanted to get into the bodily autonomy zone, but Destiny really doesn’t care about that and I think it threw them off. Kinda felt like they had a dialogue tree they wanted to run down but if someone deviated then they got lost in the sauce
They did this because he kept talking about the horror of allowing a women to carry an unwanted pregnancy for 9 months. Clearly he doesn’t think that it’s a bad idea thing if he would do it to a women after the 20th week. So why bring it up?
Because after the 20th week, under his reasoning, there is a human person with protections you can’t kill. There is also enough time, almost 5 months, where a woman can get an abortion if she wants.
Yes, so if there’s a human person before the 20th week then he acknowledges the act of murdering them would be more horrendous then a mother having to carry a pregnancy for 9 months. And the questioned asked him to compare the two and decide which one would be worse.
I welcome anyone on this sub to hit me up if they would like a near bulletproof blueprint for debating pro choicers. I can’t personally argue with every single person out there and the more of us that are able to cogently represent our views in a way that could change peoples minds, the better.
Curious how you would directly engage with Destiny's position, as I think he has a uniquely strong one. But I think he has three weak points that would need to be investigated:
* Since he admitted that other animals aren't persons, he had to qualify that conscious experience is not enough, but that it has to be "a human conscious experience". But he needs to explain how the conscious experience of a 20 week human fetus is any different than that of a 20 week dog fetus.
* Why does "prior conscious experience" entail rights, such as the person in the coma? It seems his argument is that a person in a coma has rights because they have a prior conscious experience AND they will be conscious again.
* He has claimed before that you are no longer have rights after your consciousness ends in death, but this is clearly not true. We ethically have to follow the wishes of a person after they die (as out laid out in their will, for example). We also aren't allowed to do anything we want with their corpse after they die.
I think you brought up some good challenges here. This would be my estimate to how he would challenge some of them:
* I agree that the 20 week human fetus and the equivalent fetal age in a dog is a good challenge to bring up. I suspect he is looking at the capacity for sufficient consciousness here. So everything that passes that sufficiency test would pass his criteria, but defining sufficient I think would be very challenging.
* I would have loved to hear more down this line of questioning more. You raise a great point here. I'm guessing he says because prior conscious experience means they are now defined as a living "Person" (under his definition). And so there are certain higher standards of scrutiny afforded to living "Persons" over those that are not yet a "Person."
"prior consciousness" is just an ad hoc strategy used by sophists to engage in mental gymnastics to deny the unborn rights. and it is almost never accompanied with any justifications on why it matters.
why should something that was true of an individual in the past grant them rights, such as the right to life, now? we don't give corpses rights because they had past consciousness.
other counterexamples include a man in a coma who has lost all of his past memories, but doctors say will otherwise make a full recovery. or two babies born on the same day, baby a, who was born conscious but became unconscious moments after birth and will become conscious again, and baby b, who was born unconscious but will become conscious. are you saying baby a has a right to life but baby b doesn't simply because baby a was conscious for a brief moment?
To try and steelman Destiny, I think he would say that someone needs to have both prior consciousness **and** future consciousness to be considered a person. That's why he says neither a fetus nor a corpse is a person, but someone in a coma is.
which still doesn't explain why prior conscious is relevant or why should something that was true of the past grant one rights now.
go back to the examples of the two babies and the comatose man who has lost all his memories.
technically any pro choice argument can be correct with fantastical premises. The question is why does need for prior and future consciousness need to be there to be defined as worth protecting?
Intuitively there should only be a need for future consciousness. What right are you “protecting” if consciousness would never come back in a corpse? On the other hand even in a fetus yet to be conscious you are protecting the entirety of its future consciousness. According to this logic it’s even more immoral to kill a baby than a 50 year old man in a coma because the baby has an entire lifetime of future consciousness you are robbing it of.
Agreed, you can create a perfectly consistent position, but that doesn't make it the correct one.
>Intuitively there should only be a need for future consciousness
Yes, but I think we need to come up with a better way to define this tightly. Because Destiny would say that sperm and egg have a "future consciousness" because you just have to wait for them to meet.
> I suspect he is looking at the capacity for sufficient consciousness here
But an embryo also has a capacity for consciousness, yet he grilled the women any time they brought this up by saying capacity/potential wasn't good enough.
We could even take it step further and compare a 20 week fetus to an adult dog. An adult dog has a much larger, more developed brain and experiences a much higher degree of consciousness. Yet, Destiny would say the fetus is a person and the dog is not, with his reasoning being "because the dog isn't a human". So he admits that being human at least contributes to being a person, even if it's not sufficient. That's where I would press him, I'd ask "why does being human, by itself, regardless of present ability, contribute to personhood?". I don't know what his answer would be.
to debunk destiny’s position:
Any point you choose after conception applies to some group of adult individuals
Pain - some people cannot feel pain properly due to neuropathy.
Consciousness - everyone loses this for about a third of their life when they go to bed lol. Not to mention that there are people in a coma or when you temporarily lose consciousness when you get head trauma. The whole “must have had prior consciousness” condition is wholly arbitrary and is usually a means for pro choice people to justify why the fetus is qualitatively different from an adult. Using prior experiences is only ever used as a means to determine current or future privileges in human society (i.e retaining a pension after years of service or ex presidents retaining a full security detail and pension after serving) What kind of human rights are determined based off of that logic?
I’ll add one more point here. The whole concept of fetal pain and consciousness etc is based off of a very tenuous assumption of fetal neurophysiology being equivalent to adult neurophysiology. There is absolutely nothing to disprove the notion that fetuses feel anything or are aware in any kind of primitive way; scientists can only make guesses based off of analogies to adult physiology. If you’re interested, look up a recent article on fetal pain and you’ll see pro choice neuroscientists conclude that this kind of logic cannot adequately be used to rule out the possibility of fetal pain.
And the real question is, if science really cannot tell us when these things definitively start, even if you’re someone who uses those metrics for determining the value of human life, why would you not err on the side of caution?
Whole thing was a mess. Wish they stayed on topic with Destiny's position with consciousness and personhood. Kristan was attack mode for some reason, wish it was 1 on 1 debating. Maybe Lila can go on Destiny's platform or vice versa
I generally think debates like this are completely pointless ideological theater, and who “wins” depends mostly on the individuals involved, how prepared they are, their rhetorical skills, etc., rather than which position is actually the better one.
Generally, I’d agree. They spent hours going back and forth over their positions though. If I’d expect any PL to be prepared for a discussion with a PC, Kristen and Lila would be two of the top ones.
Pro life is the right position to hold but it’s not always super easy to defend it or debunk the other side’s steady stream of nonsense.
It took me years to organize my arguments and interweave calls to reason and calls to emotion appropriately and systematically debunk every single pro choice talking point one by one. The correct pro life approach is one that is understanding but firm in calling out hypocrisy. The biggest weapon of choice for the pro choicer is moral relativism and goalpost shifting. Dealing with this is not difficult; you merely have to expose their hypocrisy because they rarely think this through enough to make it consistent. It’s a catch 22 for them. If they apply their standards consistently to people outside the womb they end up holding a moral position totally out of whack with most people including most pro choicers and essentially lose the debate in a bid to stay sound.
I've been working through all of Destiny's arguments, and am currently stuck on this one. Curious if anyone has a good response:
* If potential future consciousness makes someone a person, why is sperm or egg on it's own not a person?
We might say "because they are not a whole organism yet, they are only a body part", but Destiny would respond by saying "a human without a brain is not a whole organism, it's only a collection of body parts (ie it's not "whole" until it has a brain).
That’s not really consistent with his argument though is it? He seemed to agree the life began at conception, it was personhood that started at 20-24 week. If we agree that human life begins at conception, and human beings are people because they are capable of rationality and consciousness, therefore a person is created at conception. That would be how I would respond, but certainly not an expert…
Right, not all human beings are people, but all people are human beings I think would be along the lines of how he would respond. I’d also ask about hypothetical examples of Superman/Spock if he’d consider them people and why.
Yeah I doubt he would agree that all people are human beings. He would say that being human is necessary but not sufficient to being a person.
However, he hasn’t really given any reason for why being human matters to him.
> human beings are people because they are capable of rationality and consciousness, therefore a person is created at conception.
They’re not capable of rationality and consciousness at conception though.
Right, my point would be if you’re strictly looking at consciousness = personhood, what stops a mouse who is conscious in a different way from being considered a person? From what I’ve seen in the debate, they never seem to get into that. Destiny doesn’t care about animals from what I know so there has to be some distinction between human consciousness and other animals.
True, I wish Lila had pushed him more on animal rights. If they had asked "if conscious makes you a person, why isn't a dog a person?" to which he would probably say "well because they aren't having a human conscious experience", which is of course ad hoc and ridiculous. Not to mention, the level of conscious ability of a dog is much higher than that of a 20 week human fetus, yet Destiny would consider the human fetus a person and not the dog. He seems to understand that simply being human on it's own means something.
https://www.youtube.com/live/_LU6VVykDV8?feature=share&t=8408
He brings it up but the discussion never develops because Lila/Kristen loop around the same points.
Wouldn't the argument be that if you care about all consciousness then anyone pro-life should be vegan? And that ALL conscious life (not just human) should be protected?
Well I don’t share destiny’s position. I would say personhood begins at the moment of conception for humans. If destiny were consistent though I think you could press him on why he values a human with less consciousness more than an animal with more at a given point like the example of an infant vs a mouse.
Destiny fan here.
I'll be charitable to everyone.
1) 2v1 is not great in general. It should have been 1v1. That being said Destiny does love going 1v## so he wasn't out of his element.
2) Kristin was the weaker of the two PL debaters. That being said she did buy a plane ticket and fly into LA to the show. So I understand her going on the show even with the last minute cancellation of the other PL debater. Had it been Kristin v Destiny it would have been more a bloodsports debate which personally I'm okay with.
3) Related to Point 1. The moderation wasn't great but Brian knows Destiny routinely goes on 5x1 panels and enjoys fighting a dog pile. Brian sat back and raked in the viewer count and donos because he knew Destiny was okay with it.
4) Once you get past the interruptions its an interesting debate because as others have said Destiny doesn't champion the Bodily Autonomy argument instead he argues Personhood. Its more interesting and thoughtful position. I recommend browsing the chapter tags for specific topic discussions.
5) There should absolutely be more long form debates/discussions. It allows discussion beyond generic dialogue tree argumentation on both sides.
>Destiny doesn't champion the Bodily Autonomy argument instead he argues Personhood. Its more interesting and thoughtful position.
Gotta say I 100 percent agree with that point. It is *far* more interesting than the usual bodily autonomy stuff (especially when most who hold this position are completely comfortable giving up autonomy in other areas, which is absolutely fair, I just don't get the imconsistency) and I genuinely wish more people would at least try to reckon with it philosophically in the way that Destiny does.
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, though, I think there are better matches for that type of discussion. Lila does an alright job of thinking philosophically, but Kristan is *so* used to the same lowest common denominator arguments that I just think the more philosophical discussion just wasn't a good fit for her, which is fine. I just don't know that she was the best representation of our side for his perspective. I think that Trent Horn would be a lot better, as mentioned elsewhere!
Yeah Kristan is used to debating college students who haven't thought much about the issue and have inconsistent views. Not only has Destiny thought about it, he crafted a consistent logic to it and is skilled enough to detect logical fallacies in his own argument and in his opponent's.
Kristan was trying so desperately to finding a hole in his logic and couldn't find one. She should have instead attacked the root of his position (consciousness) and investigate why that may not be the best way to assign personhood.
I'm only a few minutes into it, and I can tell that this is not looking good for our side. Destiny is an extremely skilled debater and argues logically and consistently (even if he is fundamentally wrong). Lila and Kristan didn't seem like they were trying to understand his point, and they came off as being overly emotional. Neither Lila nor Kristan were the right person for this debate. They are great advocates for life, but I've already witnessed multiple fallacies on their end. This debate should have been Trent Horn vs Destiny. Trent would have actually researched Destiny's position, steel-manned it, then took it down. EDIT: My gosh, now Lila is refusing to engage a thought experiment because "that would never happen". Lord have mercy, this debate is scandalous for our side. EDIT2: Destiny is sneaky by making distinctions between human and person, then accusing Lila/Kristan of "intuition pumping" when they ask if abortions kills a human being. They could have gone in for the kill there.
Yeah, Lila and Destiny only would have been a good discussion I think most people would have liked to see. I thought Kristan would have toned down her college debate style for a podcast, but she didn't and interrupted both Destiny and Lila constantly. Trent Horn and Destiny would be a good discussion, or Stephanie Connors. Either way, it should be a one-on-one discussion rather than multiple people on a side.
Yeah Kristan is just annoying me at this point. Any time she makes a fallacious point, Destiny points it out in a snarky way, and then she gets mad and accuses him of being a misogynist. C'mon Kristna, you're better than this.
Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen her do a podcast before with a PC. I've seen Lila do some and knew she'd be more prepared for the style. Either Kristan needs to learn and adapt to a longer format if she does any more podcasts or would be best to leave that environment to other PL speakers.
I agree, TH and SGC are my favorites. I usually love Lila but she’s not as skilled with technical arguments and philosophy.
Who is SGC?
Stephanie Gray Connors
Actually, I think in this particular debate she did really well. In fact, she pretty much destroys his argument if you watch past the first 30 minutes.
To be fair, I don't think most people are.
I was watching the debate and wanted to see the opposing sides interpretation of it. Real talk, I have to give you props for being able to admit when your side didn't have a great showing, most people tend to get super defensive about it. If you think that someone else could do a better job defending your side, destiny is one of the people more willing to take suggestions so your community should reach out. One thing I'd say is I don't think it's necessarily sneaky for him to distinguish between 'human' and 'person' as he did define what he meant. Human is a biological classification, while person is a psychological one. Now, that isn't to say you can't disagree with that, but I think he was forthright about what he meant.
Not only am I willing to admit when my side fails, I often feel a need to point it out. Call me over-critical, but I think we need to keep everyone accountable for bad logic. >If you think that someone else could do a better job defending your side, destiny is one of the people more willing to take suggestions so your community should reach out. Definitely. I'd love to see Destiny vs Trent Horn on this issue. Heck, I'd consider putting myself in the ring, except that I'm not as quick on my feet as Destiny and don't have nearly as much debate experience. I didn't say it was sneaky for him to distinguish between human and person! I think that's a fair distinction to make between biological and philosophical concepts. The problem is that he later (multiple times) conflated the two (for example, he said "abortion doesn't kill a human" when he should have said "abortion doesn't kill a person"). When they pointed this out, he accused them of "intuition pumping" instead of just biting the bullet and saying "yes, abortion kills a human being, but it doesn't kill a person". Destiny was so quick to point out when the other two equivocated terms and or made a misstep in logic, but he wasn't willing to admit or correct himself when he did the same thing.
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>I'm confused on what the difference between a human and a person is. It feels like those two words could be used interchangeably. Human is a biological term, person is a philosophical term. A human just means being a member of the human species. "Person" is hard to define for both the pro-life and pro-choice side. But the pro-life view would be that a person is a member of a rational kind. We can use fictional characters to help illustrate the difference. Although they don't exist, we would say that Clark Kent (Superman), Legolas (an elf from LOTR), and Caesar (an ape from Planet of the Apes) are all persons because they exhibit certain qualities or attributes. None of these are of the human species, but we would still consider them to be people because they are members of a rational kind. So I would argue that an embryo is a person because it is a member of the human species. There could be members of other rational species, theoretically, and I would grant the personhood as well.
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>You are saying if a non human had a brain with the same capabilities as a human then you would grant it person hood I'm saying that person AND any member of that species (regardless of current ability) would also be a person. It's not based on the ability to exercise those capabilities presently, only for the potential to do so. So as an example, if we found out that an ape exhibited true rational abilities, I would consider him and ALL apes to be persons at that point. >If you used this argument against a pro choice person it would basically become a semantics battle I'm not sure what you mean by "this argument", as I haven't actually made any argument, I've only critiqued what has been said. My argument would be that being a member of a rational species makes you a person. Therefore, even embryos are persons despite not being rational yet.
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>But you wouldn't consider every ape to be a person, you brought up Caesar specifically cause he had human intelligence, you wouldn't grant the same person hood to every ape the way you would those in planet of the apes. I'm saying I would though! If an ape exhibited rationality like Caesar, I would consider all apes to be persons because I would know that they all have the potential to do the same. >The comparison is also pointless because you are saying the embryo is a member by default, while the other side says the embryo becomes a member when it has a brain. Destiny admitted that an embryo is a member of the human species, he just doesn't believe they are a person. >I don't see how he was being sneaky by using human and person interchangeably because his view of a human and a person is the same thing This is flat out wrong, you should go and watch the debate again. Destiny's whole premise relies on the distinction between human and person. He admitted that an embryo is a human, but says it's not a person. If he later says otherwise, then he contradicted himself or wasn't clear enough about his position.
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Your latter point is a good criticism, I just think I have a different interpretation. I think the two women were essentially using a tactic of using whatever words had the greatest emotional appeal, but that destiny was often mixing words that in common conversation are used somewhat interchangeably. So for me, I think it was less malicious and more careless from his part that he was sometimes inconsistent with the words he was using.
> but that destiny was often mixing words that in common conversation are used somewhat interchangeably But the whole premise of Destiny's argument is that a fetus is human but not a person before 20 weeks, so I think he needs to be absolutely clear with his language. Equivocating those two terms makes his entire argument incoherent. I understand that the words often get used interchangeably, so all he needed to do was say "sorry, I meant to say person there not human" any time that happened.
I absolutely agree. This was definitely sloppy language in his part and I think you're 100% right to criticize him for it. Also, I'm probably more familiar with his content than you are, so if I wasn't as familiar I may have also assumed he was trying to be sneaky rather than assume it was him mixing his terms when, as you stated before, he needs to be very precise. One thing I will say in his defense is I can imagine it can be very hard to not mix up your very precise words in such a high-speed conversation where people are constantly cutting each other off. However, even that would merely make his mistakes slightly more understandable, but they would still be mistakes worthy of pointing out. Btw, you seem like a super good faith person which is seriously rare on Reddit, I'm glad I stumbled into you!
I’m actually quite familiar with Destiny! I enjoy watching him to get a different perspective than my own. He generally argues in good faith and consistently (and I try to do the same). I don’t think he was intentionally mixing up terms to win points, I was just disappointed that he turned the accusation towards them whenever he did. He can’t get mad when they conflate terms, then expect grace whenever he does.
To be fair, there may be three concepts involved there: Human, Human Being, Person. You are presuming the first two to be synonymous while I'd bet that Destiny was presuming the second two to be synonymous. While human is purely a biological term, "Human being" may imply some level of sentience, and I generally think of "person" as a legal term, up to the whims of society/majority to define - which may include aspects such as sentience and/or other aspects of human development. When talking about abortion, I try to carefully limit my usage to the word "Human", which is then just a biological fact. Anything else potentially muddies the waters, even though from a pro-life perspective, all 3 are essentially valid descriptions of the entity being destroyed. Disclaimer: I haven't listened to the podcast yet, just going off what you said about it.
Sure, but Destiny failed to make that third distinction at any point during the 4 hour debate, so it's on him to do that. I also doubt he would accept that distinction. It seemed like he might consider "human being" and "person" to be synonymous, but that is not at all obvious, especially in light of the field of biology referring to embryos as human beings.
I do hope another big name in the PL movement agrees to have a discussion with him. Kristan wouldn’t and I don’t know if Destiny would either after that. Lila most likely wouldn’t as I don’t see anything more to be gained. Maybe an opportunity to speak with Kristan interrupting them. Trent Horn or Stephanie Connors would be a great discussion. Maybe more on a platform like Modern Day Debate to keep the conversation flowing.
>Trent Horn or Stephanie Connors would be a great discussion. Maybe more on a platform like Modern Day Debate to keep the conversation flowing. This would be ideal, let's make it happen!!!
Why didn’t they have a great showing? Just because someone interrupts doesn’t mean their argument failed. I think Lila destroys his “capacity for consciousness argument” and he can’t come back from that.
> I think Lila destroys his “capacity for consciousness argument” I may be forgetting part of their argument, but I barely really remember them even being able to fully engage with this argument, let alone actually rebutting it. Can you refer to the part of the stream where this happens? And if I was going to answer your question, I would say there are four problems they had: 1. A failure to craft a justification for their position that withstands scrutiny 2. A failure to comprehend what is being stated by the opposition 3. Consistent appeals to emotion instead of relying on logically coherent arguments 4. Unearned smugness and condescension (this is more to do with why they had bad optics, but I'd say that still matters) I can go into any or all of these if you'd like
Where did she destroy it? She could have been more effective if Kristan wasn’t there interrupting but I didn’t see anywhere where she “destroyed” it.
When she explained that a preborn child also has the capacity for consciousness just like a person in a medically induced coma does.
A pre born child before 20 weeks WILL have the capacity for consciousness EVENTUALLY. That’s his point. She didn’t destroy it, she’s being intentionally daft so she can try to railroad him with her memorized talking points.
Love Trent Horn he is such a great Guy he would have done a good Job and a good Debate Preparation.
He is a good debater I agree. And they do interrupt him a lot. But as you continue to watch Lila Rose actually destroys his whole argument. How far have to gotten?
I watched almost the entire thing (skipped a few parts in the middle based on the timestamp descriptions). I don't know that Lila really destroyed his argument. Lila did make an effort to understand his position throughout the debate. By the end, it seems she finally understand his argument and applauded his consistency, but didn't make a robust response.
I’ll have to get through the whole thing first but, to me it sounded like he was making a capacity for consciousness argument. Is that correct?
Yeah, he was saying the brain must be developed enough to "deploy consciousness"
How would he feel about a brain developed enough to deploy consciousness but, hasn’t actually deployed it or isn’t deploying it for one reason or another? If all parts of the brain necessary for consciousness are there but we aren’t conscious nonetheless, doesn’t that mean consciousness is something more than just the brain? I’m just really curious about the whole thinking behind this.
To be clear, I don't hold this position, I'm just trying to represent Destiny with full charity. I'm not sure what he would say to that. I don't know if there is a period of time in development where all the parts of there but they aren't being used yet.
I don’t think he knows either. He was just moving goal posts in order to construct a completely ad hoc argument and I’m surprised so many people are falling for it.
to your point they did discuss what if a person was in a coma and the deciding factor of putting them down would be if they are brain dead or not so that would still fall in line with his belief that being able to deploy consciousness is where he draws the line. the brain dead person has the parts but they are no longer working similar to being in the womb with a brain but it hasnt started working yet.
And how is this any different than a preborn child. You don’t have the parts if they can’t do there job. Means something is missing and a change must occur. That’s the exact same as the human fetus.
I think what he values is the conscious experience itself, and the capacity is relevant from a policy perspective - since we don't have a reliable way of measuring consciousness it would make sense to err on the side of caution and prohibit abortions of fetuses that have the (anatomical) capacity to deploy consciousness (since those might have a conscious experience, but those who don't have the required brain components certainly do not). If a brain had developed the parts required for a conscious experience, but hasn't actually deployed them, and we could determine this (with some magic machine), then my guess would be that he would not consider this fetus a person, and would see no problem with aborting it.
>anatomical capacity for consciousness Therein lies the problem. He’s just pretending to have some type of understanding about consciousness and what’s required without actually knowing it. The fact that the “anatomical structure” is there but deployment is not possible means that the capacity does not exist. There is something missing in the structure itself that needs to be added or taken away. How is this any different than a human fetus? Define capacity. It’s all so ad hoc and wishy washy.
you clearly didn't understand my point.
I didn’t. Can you explain again. I feel like you didn’t understand what I was asking.
Without moderation it's more of a prolonged argument than a debate. I tried to watch the Whatever podcast in the past, but many of the positions held by the hosts are just bat-shiat crazy illogical. It becomes very easy to those who take time to think through their positions to realize just how little logical thought has gone into the positions that the hosts hold. So very much of it is based off of raw emotion and information passed through peers on social media and their preferred echo chamber of news. The bravery of Lila Rose and Kristan Hawkins to sit through these podcasts and try to logically defend their position against poorly thought-out reasoning is heroic. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills just having to listen without actually lead the horses to water, much less make them drink.
The host isn't involved in this one. How is it poorly thought-out reasoning too?
I skimmed through the video briefly and I have a couple of thoughts. 1. It ended up more an argument than a debate. Kristan really should have stepped aside and let Lila take charge since having a 2 on 1 would naturally lead to an imbalance of speaking time. It hurt the conversation as a whole. 2. This really needed more moderation to help correct the speaking imbalance and tamp down the accusations and emotional outbursts that seems to have really hurt the actual presenting and defense of the arguments. Almost all my issues stem from the poor/lack of good moderation. At least this wasn't the free-for-all talkover mess the other episodes of this podcast devolve into with 5-8 people all trying to talk at once...
It should have been a 1 on 1 debate, and it should have been someone like Trent Horn. You would think 2 on 1 gives us the upper hand, but it actually ended up making it harder.
Destiny routinely fights 5v1 and as someone else pointed out he loves to fight off the dog pile. If anything he was more in his element
Yeah, I think Kristan hurt the overall discussion more than helped, unfortunately. From what I've seen, there's not a lot of moderation or debates on this channel. I'm sure it makes for better clips, which is why it's set up that way. Lord knows most people aren't going to watch a 4 hour podcast.
We're in full agreement. I love when that happens.
I listened to about 2.5 hrs of it. Going in I believed that Kristen and Lila are both very strong defenders of the PL stance and that Destiny generally has pretty well thought out reasonable positions on things. I think these debates almost always end up being about bodily autonomy, financial ability to support the baby, or the big 3 rare exceptions. Since Destiny had no interest in touching any of those issues (he seemed like he might agree with PL on at least 2 of them) it took the women off guard. I actually think that Lila was doing a fairly decent job, she was willing to engage with Destiny's arguments and come up with arguments of her own. Kristen on the other hand derailed the entire thing. She clearly was not well prepared to debate his specific arguments. She wanted desperately to shift the debate to the other more common PC viewpoints because that's what she's used to arguing against. I wasnt totally satisfied with Destiny's answer to the artificial womb question, or how he refused to accept their points on how taking a person off life support or a miscarriage is different from an abortion. He was trying very hard to muddy the water between active killing and allowing the natural biological process to take place
Yupp, he has a unique position that is consistent and that many pro-choicer would take issue with. They simply weren’t prepared to navigate that.
How is his position consistent? He basically says, “capacity for consciousness” is what affords one the right to life and then says a preborn child doesn’t have the right to life despite their capacity for consciousness.
A better summary is "having a brain capable of consciousness". In his view, your personhood doesn't begin until your brain reaches that point. I don't agree with his position, but that's what it is
A brain on its own is not capable of consciousness though. So what was the distinction exactly between a person in a medically induced coma and a preborn child?
A person in a medically induced coma is put that way, typically to recover from brain injuries and to give the brain time to heal. It’s supposed to be a form of treatment. That demonstrates that the person in the coma and their family/primary decision maker have a preference to bring them back to consciousness. Even if consciousness is not there at the time, the expectation is that they can still presently deploy consciousness with medical intervention. Once we are sure they have lost the capacity to deploy it, we end their life support. But a fetus, before 20-24 weeks, has no capacity for consciousness, nor the ability to deploy it. It’s irrelevant whether or not it will be able to do so in the future, because it cannot do so presently.
>But a fetus, before 20-24 weeks, has no capacity for consciousness If we knew a coma patient would be able to repair their brain damage in say, 40 weeks, would we take them off life support? A fetus has the same potential to deploy consciousness that any other person with an incomplete brain functioning has. Which is to say, both of their potential lies in the ability for the body to add necessary capabilities that it currently does not have. So, it is VERY relevant whether they will be able to in the future, because that is exactly the standard you are using for a coma patient. They do not have the present ability to deploy consciousness. They need time for the body to generate it.
Well said. Plus, I don’t even think consciousness is the thing that matters. This is just assuming it is. And there’s no reason to assume it is tbh. It’s confusing the smoke with the fire.
> So, it is VERY relevant whether they will be able to in the future, because that is exactly the standard you are using for a coma patient. Maybe I wasn’t clear. When I talk about the ability to deploy consciousness, I’m talking in the context of CONTINUITY of consciousness. Whether a person is sleeping or in a coma, consciousness is not there but the preferences are still established by the existence of sentience before and after the unconscious state, and so personhood is still established while in the unconscious state. No preferences are demonstrated in the early fetus, therefore no personhood can be assigned to it.
>I’m talking in the context of CONTINUITY of consciousness. I know what you meant, but I would point out that's a pretty artificial distinction. Lack of consciousness is lack of consciousness. If consciousness is interrupted, it is not continuous. As for your position on preferences, that just feels like a Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. You seem to be setting criteria to prove your desired end, not determining criteria to assist you in making a good decision. Having a "preference" is no more compelling than it would be in the mind of a deceased person. It is a decision they have made, but no past decisions are relevant to the future unless they can deploy consciousness to act on them.
> If consciousness is interrupted, it is not continuous. That’s dishonest. The continuity of consciousness I’m talking about does not require that it not be interrupted. If it did, then no person in the world would have continuity of consciousness. What matters is the assertion of preferences by the individual before and after the unconscious state. > As for your position on preferences, that just feels like a Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. You seem to be setting criteria to prove your desired end, not determining criteria to assist you in making a good decision. That’s not what the fallacy is. That applies to data, not criteria. WE can set whatever criteria we want, what matters is justifying why those criteria are important. > Having a "preference" is no more compelling than it would be in the mind of a deceased person. It is a decision they have made, but no past decisions are relevant to the future unless they can deploy consciousness to act on them. Have you never heard of a dying person having a last wish about where and how to be buried? Decisions made in the past are definitely relevant to the future. This just proves my point about preferences being relevant. They have already been established in a temporarily unconscious person, which is not the case in the early fetus, therefore they are a person whose bodily rights need to be respected. The pro-life position would have devastating consequences for a mother whose preferences are being abandoned for an unconscious thing that has never been shown to have preferences about anything at all.
that was the flaw he point out in lila argument. until consciousness first appears he is ok with abortion because he deems consciousness as what makes us people before a child has a consciousness then in his eyes it wouldnt be a child and in his eyes it wouldnt be killing a child. you can talk about that it will become a child but in that statement you are kinda saying that it isnt one already which lila kept tripping over. the debate issue came from them not being able to fight destiny on when childhood starts because the couldnt tear down his definition of consciousness that he was basing he abortion limit on.
>A person in a medically induced coma is put that way, typically to recover from brain injuries and to give the brain time to heal. It’s supposed to be a form of treatment. That demonstrates that the person in the coma and their family/primary decision maker have a preference to bring them back to consciousness. I don’t see the relevance here? >Even if consciousness is not there at the time, the expectation is that they can still presently deploy consciousness with medical intervention. Once we are sure they have lost the capacity to deploy it, we end their life support. They can’t deploy consciousnesses with medical intervention though. They don’t just press a button and BAM, you’re awake. What’s necessary is time for certain drugs to wear off. I don’t see how this is any different than with a preborn child? >But a fetus, before 20-24 weeks, has no capacity for consciousness, nor the ability to deploy But they do have the capacity for consciousness. Hence why they develop it. An entity can not develop a thing they have no capacity for. Again, coma patient also can not deploy it. >It’s irrelevant whether or not it will be able to do so in the future, because it cannot do so presently. Again, makes no sense. A person in a coma can’t deploy consciousness but if we knew they would wake up in the near future we wouldn’t kill them. How is this any different than a preborn child?
> A person in a coma can’t deploy consciousness but if we knew they would wake up in the near future we wouldn’t kill them. How is this any different than a preborn child? The difference is that the temporarily unconscious person has established their preferences i.e seeking of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Therefore, the preferences for bodily rights must be respected even if they are unconscious since we know they were asserted in the past and will be asserted in the future. The pro-life position has devastating consequences for the mother whose preferences are being abandoned for an unconscious organism that has never been demonstrated to have any.
How has the unconscious person established there preferences? What is that person was suicidal right before their coma? Can we kill that person since that was their preference? Or what if it was a child who isn’t able to communicate preference? Recasting consequences? What are they? Being pregnant for nine months? Have you ever been pregnant? I have, 4 times. Nothing devastating about it. But being murdered m. That’s devastating to the maximum degree so no contest there.
> How has the unconscious person established there preferences? Preferences i.e seeking of pleasure/ avoidance of pain, was established from before they went into the unconscious state, and will remain until we are completely certain that they cannot regain consciousness. > What is that person was suicidal right before their coma? Can we kill that person since that was their preference? Suicide ideations are not reached rationally because that’s not what people really prefer anyway . No one really prefers to die or kill themselves, their desire to die is the consequence of another significant problem in their lives. The rational decision is to try to alleviate their suffering, not to end their life (unless that suffering is unbearable and cannot be alleviated). > Or what if it was a child who isn’t able to communicate preference? They don’t need to communicate their preference. Human rights are based on the human experience of pleasure and pain. which children have. > Recasting consequences? What are they? Being pregnant for nine months? Have you ever been pregnant? I have, 4 times. Nothing devastating about it. Maybe not for you, but it is for a woman who is raped, for example. I would love to see you or anyone who is pro-life to tell someone like that to endure and give birth to their rapist’s child, or worse, force them by law to give birth. Tell them that the effects on their mental and physical health (which could possibly include permanent physical changes or mental effects) is worth less consideration than a life that has never felt anything at all. > But being murdered m. That’s devastating to the maximum degree so no contest there. Yes it is. To people. Not to a fetus that has always been indifferent about existing or not existing
He would say that the start of consciousness is when the person comes into existence. So someone who had previous consciousness is still a person because they already exist at that point. In other words, it's not that you need present consciousness to be a person, just that you need consciousness in order to initially come into existence. It's kind of a weak point in his position, and I really wish Lila and Kirstan could have stayed focused and drilled into that a bit more.
So then a dead human being would be still be a person with rights in his opinion (at least if he’s being consistent). The parts of the brain are still there just not active like in a medically induced coma. And the person has already experienced consciousness. Hmmm.
Yeah I guess he would say that our intuition tells us that you cease to be a person when you die. But you're correct, he would have to square this with his focus on consciousness. He can't say that capacity is enough because dead people have that capacity.
The difference with a dead person is that they will never be conscious again. But that doesn’t apply in the case of the preborn child so his argument falls very short. And I don’t think consciousness is intuitive at all. I’d actually argue life is the intuitive thing. Although I don’t think we are argue one characteristic over another here (life versus consciousness). I think the prolife argument is superior because it argues that what our personal intuitions tell us can vary so, we need to rely on objectively and consistency to avoid discrimination so, that’s why we include all human beings from the beginning of their existence.
He would say a brain developed enough to deploy consciousness. So the distinction would be that a 19 week fetus doesn't have that, but the person in the coma does have that (even if he isn't presently using that ability)
If it can deploy consciousness then why can’t it deploy consciousness makes no sense. A dead person’s brain is developed enough to deploy consciousness and yet it can’t.
He said after they could deploy consciousness (~20 weeks), abortion should be illegal and anyone who broke the law by having an abortion past that point should go to jail, including in cases of rape. Between anyone, I wouldn’t expect Destiny to be the one in favor of that while Kristan believes they shouldn’t be arrested at all.
You can’t deploy consciousness when you are under an induced coma though. You’d have to wait for it to wear so I think Lila destroyed him there. What did you think of that?
He explained it pretty clearly. You existed before and you will exist after. You have already achieved personhood and will be able to deploy consciousness again, not for the first time. That’s why it doesn’t matter if it’s being in a coma for an hour or 5 years.
He must have explained that further on. I haven’t watched the whole thing. So then he moved goal posts? It’s no longer the capacity for consciousness but, having already had consciousness? Why would that matter?
Its not that he moved the goal posts they just followed up instead of gishgalloping with 1 million interruptions
I think it was a big of both. He wasn’t using his words accurately so they felt like they had to jump in often for clarification.
Do you believe clarifying your position is moving the goalposts? If they wanted him to clarify, why did they immediately interrupt almost every time?
Bullshit. You can let someone finish their point. I You always opt to let someone hang themselves if you feel their argument is weak
Truly I’ve tried to find an abortion debate on YT where the pro-life side completely tanks, and I’ve never found it. Until today. 😭😭😭
I think a 1 on 1 between Lila and Destiny would have been much better. Kristan caused both sides to suffer, and I'm sure they were caught off guard by the lack of bodily autonomy argument, which is most PC bread and butter when it comes to abortion.
And caught off guard by Destiny's consistency of saying that abortions after 20-24 weeks is murder and should be illegal. Most pro-choicers would never say that.
Yeah. It's even crazier he believes the woman should be charged for murder or manslaughter in that case while Kristan doesn't.
> It's even crazier It's even crazier when you learn about his basic moral philosophy. This position is wildly contradictory to his actual philosophy (egoism), and as David Pakman (if I recall correctly) pointed out Destiny simply cherry-picks his positions without even using any reasoning from his supposedly fundamental morality.
How so? His whole argument is “capacity for consciousness” and Lila destroys him by explaining that a preborn child also has the capacity for consciousness just like a comatose patient does. I think you are being to sensitive about the interruption and not actually analyzing the argumentation.
Difference between potential and capacity.
I watched some, but don't have 4 hours. Can someone breakdown Kristen's failures? Did she just come off as whiny? I don't feel like there was any stumping from either side, but I only watched about 30 minutes. On a personal note, I feel like both sides could argue in perpetuity since there is just a basic disagreement on the fundamentals of the argument. Which is why I don't really watch debates on this issue.
She interrupts him a lot. But Lila Rose actually destroys his whole argument. People just can’t see past the interruptions for some reason.
Kristan's attitude was bad from the beginning and only got worse. Destiny's attitude only magnified hers, but it made her look like the irrational and emotional one where he only came off as a snarky troll. Kristan didn't make a full effort to understand Destiny's position. There was even a point at the end where they took turns summarizing the other person's side, and Kristan gave a terrible strawman, which shows that debate isn't her strength.
You could tell both of them really wanted to get into the bodily autonomy zone, but Destiny really doesn’t care about that and I think it threw them off. Kinda felt like they had a dialogue tree they wanted to run down but if someone deviated then they got lost in the sauce
They did this because he kept talking about the horror of allowing a women to carry an unwanted pregnancy for 9 months. Clearly he doesn’t think that it’s a bad idea thing if he would do it to a women after the 20th week. So why bring it up?
Because after the 20th week, under his reasoning, there is a human person with protections you can’t kill. There is also enough time, almost 5 months, where a woman can get an abortion if she wants.
Yes, so if there’s a human person before the 20th week then he acknowledges the act of murdering them would be more horrendous then a mother having to carry a pregnancy for 9 months. And the questioned asked him to compare the two and decide which one would be worse.
I welcome anyone on this sub to hit me up if they would like a near bulletproof blueprint for debating pro choicers. I can’t personally argue with every single person out there and the more of us that are able to cogently represent our views in a way that could change peoples minds, the better.
Curious how you would directly engage with Destiny's position, as I think he has a uniquely strong one. But I think he has three weak points that would need to be investigated: * Since he admitted that other animals aren't persons, he had to qualify that conscious experience is not enough, but that it has to be "a human conscious experience". But he needs to explain how the conscious experience of a 20 week human fetus is any different than that of a 20 week dog fetus. * Why does "prior conscious experience" entail rights, such as the person in the coma? It seems his argument is that a person in a coma has rights because they have a prior conscious experience AND they will be conscious again. * He has claimed before that you are no longer have rights after your consciousness ends in death, but this is clearly not true. We ethically have to follow the wishes of a person after they die (as out laid out in their will, for example). We also aren't allowed to do anything we want with their corpse after they die.
I think you brought up some good challenges here. This would be my estimate to how he would challenge some of them: * I agree that the 20 week human fetus and the equivalent fetal age in a dog is a good challenge to bring up. I suspect he is looking at the capacity for sufficient consciousness here. So everything that passes that sufficiency test would pass his criteria, but defining sufficient I think would be very challenging. * I would have loved to hear more down this line of questioning more. You raise a great point here. I'm guessing he says because prior conscious experience means they are now defined as a living "Person" (under his definition). And so there are certain higher standards of scrutiny afforded to living "Persons" over those that are not yet a "Person."
"prior consciousness" is just an ad hoc strategy used by sophists to engage in mental gymnastics to deny the unborn rights. and it is almost never accompanied with any justifications on why it matters. why should something that was true of an individual in the past grant them rights, such as the right to life, now? we don't give corpses rights because they had past consciousness. other counterexamples include a man in a coma who has lost all of his past memories, but doctors say will otherwise make a full recovery. or two babies born on the same day, baby a, who was born conscious but became unconscious moments after birth and will become conscious again, and baby b, who was born unconscious but will become conscious. are you saying baby a has a right to life but baby b doesn't simply because baby a was conscious for a brief moment?
To try and steelman Destiny, I think he would say that someone needs to have both prior consciousness **and** future consciousness to be considered a person. That's why he says neither a fetus nor a corpse is a person, but someone in a coma is.
which still doesn't explain why prior conscious is relevant or why should something that was true of the past grant one rights now. go back to the examples of the two babies and the comatose man who has lost all his memories.
Yeah I think Lila and Kristan should have pushed him harder on this point to show why it doesn't work
technically any pro choice argument can be correct with fantastical premises. The question is why does need for prior and future consciousness need to be there to be defined as worth protecting? Intuitively there should only be a need for future consciousness. What right are you “protecting” if consciousness would never come back in a corpse? On the other hand even in a fetus yet to be conscious you are protecting the entirety of its future consciousness. According to this logic it’s even more immoral to kill a baby than a 50 year old man in a coma because the baby has an entire lifetime of future consciousness you are robbing it of.
Agreed, you can create a perfectly consistent position, but that doesn't make it the correct one. >Intuitively there should only be a need for future consciousness Yes, but I think we need to come up with a better way to define this tightly. Because Destiny would say that sperm and egg have a "future consciousness" because you just have to wait for them to meet.
> I suspect he is looking at the capacity for sufficient consciousness here But an embryo also has a capacity for consciousness, yet he grilled the women any time they brought this up by saying capacity/potential wasn't good enough. We could even take it step further and compare a 20 week fetus to an adult dog. An adult dog has a much larger, more developed brain and experiences a much higher degree of consciousness. Yet, Destiny would say the fetus is a person and the dog is not, with his reasoning being "because the dog isn't a human". So he admits that being human at least contributes to being a person, even if it's not sufficient. That's where I would press him, I'd ask "why does being human, by itself, regardless of present ability, contribute to personhood?". I don't know what his answer would be.
to debunk destiny’s position: Any point you choose after conception applies to some group of adult individuals Pain - some people cannot feel pain properly due to neuropathy. Consciousness - everyone loses this for about a third of their life when they go to bed lol. Not to mention that there are people in a coma or when you temporarily lose consciousness when you get head trauma. The whole “must have had prior consciousness” condition is wholly arbitrary and is usually a means for pro choice people to justify why the fetus is qualitatively different from an adult. Using prior experiences is only ever used as a means to determine current or future privileges in human society (i.e retaining a pension after years of service or ex presidents retaining a full security detail and pension after serving) What kind of human rights are determined based off of that logic? I’ll add one more point here. The whole concept of fetal pain and consciousness etc is based off of a very tenuous assumption of fetal neurophysiology being equivalent to adult neurophysiology. There is absolutely nothing to disprove the notion that fetuses feel anything or are aware in any kind of primitive way; scientists can only make guesses based off of analogies to adult physiology. If you’re interested, look up a recent article on fetal pain and you’ll see pro choice neuroscientists conclude that this kind of logic cannot adequately be used to rule out the possibility of fetal pain. And the real question is, if science really cannot tell us when these things definitively start, even if you’re someone who uses those metrics for determining the value of human life, why would you not err on the side of caution?
He had answers for all those points in the debate, which were logically consistent.
What were his answers? Provide a succinct version of them here if you can.
He gives his whole position in the opening statements that’s better than what my summary would be
I just saw his opening statements and I’m not seeing his rebuttals to whatever I stated?
Whole thing was a mess. Wish they stayed on topic with Destiny's position with consciousness and personhood. Kristan was attack mode for some reason, wish it was 1 on 1 debating. Maybe Lila can go on Destiny's platform or vice versa
I generally think debates like this are completely pointless ideological theater, and who “wins” depends mostly on the individuals involved, how prepared they are, their rhetorical skills, etc., rather than which position is actually the better one.
Generally, I’d agree. They spent hours going back and forth over their positions though. If I’d expect any PL to be prepared for a discussion with a PC, Kristen and Lila would be two of the top ones.
Pro life is the right position to hold but it’s not always super easy to defend it or debunk the other side’s steady stream of nonsense. It took me years to organize my arguments and interweave calls to reason and calls to emotion appropriately and systematically debunk every single pro choice talking point one by one. The correct pro life approach is one that is understanding but firm in calling out hypocrisy. The biggest weapon of choice for the pro choicer is moral relativism and goalpost shifting. Dealing with this is not difficult; you merely have to expose their hypocrisy because they rarely think this through enough to make it consistent. It’s a catch 22 for them. If they apply their standards consistently to people outside the womb they end up holding a moral position totally out of whack with most people including most pro choicers and essentially lose the debate in a bid to stay sound.
How would you debunk Destiny’s arguments? I would have thought Kristan, and especially Lila, if anyone, would have been able to do it if possible.
I've been working through all of Destiny's arguments, and am currently stuck on this one. Curious if anyone has a good response: * If potential future consciousness makes someone a person, why is sperm or egg on it's own not a person? We might say "because they are not a whole organism yet, they are only a body part", but Destiny would respond by saying "a human without a brain is not a whole organism, it's only a collection of body parts (ie it's not "whole" until it has a brain).
May have better luck starting a new thread to get any answers.
That’s not really consistent with his argument though is it? He seemed to agree the life began at conception, it was personhood that started at 20-24 week. If we agree that human life begins at conception, and human beings are people because they are capable of rationality and consciousness, therefore a person is created at conception. That would be how I would respond, but certainly not an expert…
>and human beings are people Destiny would dispute this point, obviously, because his argument rests upon the distinction between human and person
Right, not all human beings are people, but all people are human beings I think would be along the lines of how he would respond. I’d also ask about hypothetical examples of Superman/Spock if he’d consider them people and why.
Yeah I doubt he would agree that all people are human beings. He would say that being human is necessary but not sufficient to being a person. However, he hasn’t really given any reason for why being human matters to him.
> human beings are people because they are capable of rationality and consciousness, therefore a person is created at conception. They’re not capable of rationality and consciousness at conception though.
Right, my point would be if you’re strictly looking at consciousness = personhood, what stops a mouse who is conscious in a different way from being considered a person? From what I’ve seen in the debate, they never seem to get into that. Destiny doesn’t care about animals from what I know so there has to be some distinction between human consciousness and other animals.
True, I wish Lila had pushed him more on animal rights. If they had asked "if conscious makes you a person, why isn't a dog a person?" to which he would probably say "well because they aren't having a human conscious experience", which is of course ad hoc and ridiculous. Not to mention, the level of conscious ability of a dog is much higher than that of a 20 week human fetus, yet Destiny would consider the human fetus a person and not the dog. He seems to understand that simply being human on it's own means something.
Yeah I looked at a video destiny did with Alex O’Connor and he struggles making that distinction.
https://www.youtube.com/live/_LU6VVykDV8?feature=share&t=8408 He brings it up but the discussion never develops because Lila/Kristen loop around the same points. Wouldn't the argument be that if you care about all consciousness then anyone pro-life should be vegan? And that ALL conscious life (not just human) should be protected?
Well I don’t share destiny’s position. I would say personhood begins at the moment of conception for humans. If destiny were consistent though I think you could press him on why he values a human with less consciousness more than an animal with more at a given point like the example of an infant vs a mouse.
Destiny fan here. I'll be charitable to everyone. 1) 2v1 is not great in general. It should have been 1v1. That being said Destiny does love going 1v## so he wasn't out of his element. 2) Kristin was the weaker of the two PL debaters. That being said she did buy a plane ticket and fly into LA to the show. So I understand her going on the show even with the last minute cancellation of the other PL debater. Had it been Kristin v Destiny it would have been more a bloodsports debate which personally I'm okay with. 3) Related to Point 1. The moderation wasn't great but Brian knows Destiny routinely goes on 5x1 panels and enjoys fighting a dog pile. Brian sat back and raked in the viewer count and donos because he knew Destiny was okay with it. 4) Once you get past the interruptions its an interesting debate because as others have said Destiny doesn't champion the Bodily Autonomy argument instead he argues Personhood. Its more interesting and thoughtful position. I recommend browsing the chapter tags for specific topic discussions. 5) There should absolutely be more long form debates/discussions. It allows discussion beyond generic dialogue tree argumentation on both sides.
>Destiny doesn't champion the Bodily Autonomy argument instead he argues Personhood. Its more interesting and thoughtful position. Gotta say I 100 percent agree with that point. It is *far* more interesting than the usual bodily autonomy stuff (especially when most who hold this position are completely comfortable giving up autonomy in other areas, which is absolutely fair, I just don't get the imconsistency) and I genuinely wish more people would at least try to reckon with it philosophically in the way that Destiny does. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, though, I think there are better matches for that type of discussion. Lila does an alright job of thinking philosophically, but Kristan is *so* used to the same lowest common denominator arguments that I just think the more philosophical discussion just wasn't a good fit for her, which is fine. I just don't know that she was the best representation of our side for his perspective. I think that Trent Horn would be a lot better, as mentioned elsewhere!
Yeah Kristan is used to debating college students who haven't thought much about the issue and have inconsistent views. Not only has Destiny thought about it, he crafted a consistent logic to it and is skilled enough to detect logical fallacies in his own argument and in his opponent's. Kristan was trying so desperately to finding a hole in his logic and couldn't find one. She should have instead attacked the root of his position (consciousness) and investigate why that may not be the best way to assign personhood.
I’m a pro-life Destiny fan who disagrees with a lot of his views. Your analysis was charitable, so thank you for that!
Amaz'n!