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OhNoYouDont on 10 October 2017
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Ka-pi96 said:

If it's alive, ie. moving, growing etc and has human DNA then I'd consider it a person. So I'd consider it a person long before birth.

I will assume you mean a complete set of human DNA, rather than a partial set e.g. sperm cells / unfertilized eggs. 

It seems your definition of person (or human person) is quite reductionist as it does not incorporate any function or form beyond growth and movement which is ubiquitous among all forms of life. If I were to take some semen and an unfertilized egg and tossed each into a whale's mouth you would consider the whale a person since it contains a complete set of human DNA and it is moving and growing. I see no reason to consider your definition to be proper as a result of such madness. Specificity is very important in these discussions due to each individual having a different mental picture of what is meant by certain words. The only way each of us can share our mental pictures is through language; unclear language leads to unclear mental pictures.

Let's take a more practical example, one which I think matches your mental picture better. Suppose there is sufficient capability to supplant DNA into a cellular shell. Suppose we take human DNA and marry it to such a shell. Now suppose we tweak the genetic switches a bit such that the development of the entity is completely shut off let's say at the equivalent of a day 3 fetus. Is that a person?

I think we part ways not in regard to what constitutes a human, but in what constitutes a person. Certainly a fetus is a human, but what makes a person is consciousness / personality which is why we can euthenize brain-dead humans - they are no longer a person as they have neither of these things (and neither does a fetus).

JWeinCom said:

Yup.  Got the laws mixed up.   My bad.  But the statement still stands.  

Assuming we take right and wrong to mean demonstrably right or wrong (which I generally assume to be the case because otherwise, I'm not sure why we'd bother) a statement can definitely be neither right or wrong.  

Just to go with the easiest example, take the statement god exists.  We can say it's not true.  As in, it has not been demonstrated to be true.  We can also say it's not false.  As in, it has not been demonstrated to be false.  Even though there is a definitive answer that's really of little interest since it's inaccessible.

That's the problem with claiming everything to be binary.  In a system with perfect definitions and perfect knowledge, that might be the case.  In reality, where we have imperfect knowledge and imperfect communication, the there are definitely statements that cannot be shown to be right or wrong.  

No worries :) 

Well I do not recall making any metaethical propositions as I am not sure I agree with moral realism at all. I've been very sympathetic to a non-cognivist stance recently.

Inability to evaluate the veracity of a proposition does not mean that there are other assignment values than True / False.

On 10/12/2017 it rained in Washington D.C. 

This will either be true or it will be false. I cannot yet establish which it is, but it does not mean there is some additional possibility in regards to classification.