# Caring about stem cells & not veal calves is a sign of moral depravity **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 5, 2005, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caring-about-stem-cells-not-veal-calves-is-a-sign-of-moral-depravity/315657 "2005-08-05T01:47:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caring-about-stem-cells-not-veal-calves-is-a-sign-of-moral-depravity/315657/141 "2005-08-15T19:36:11Z")
> [@](#): > > Because, you say it is pain and suffering and then agree that pain and suffering is determined by the observer because you can’t really tell what an animal is thinking. I take it as understood that basic, uncontroversial science is accepted as evidence in this debate. Animals have nervous systems very much like ours that are designed to transmit and express feelings of pain. Stem cells and plants do not. There is nothing goofy about “frame of reference” here. No “interpretation.” There are certainly lines of gray between similar creatures, but that doesn’t prevent us from seeing the vast chasm of difference between two beings that are VERY different from each other in their capacities. Animals feel pain. Stem cells don’t have any more demonstrable capability to feel pain than do rocks. Indeed, stem cells cannot feel pain just like individual cells in your body cannot feel pain. Unless you want to start declaring that rocks feel pain when broken, you can’t get away with making up pain and suffering. You have to point to some actual FUNCTIONAL system that plausibly links particular actions to experiences like pain that are felt by something. We may not know how a brain gives rise to experience, but no one in any other situation questions whether one is necessary to experience anything. Only when the sticky trouble of comparing animals to stem cells arises do people like you start trying to claim that it’s all an arbitrary matter of opinion. > [@](#): > > The bigger point is that the decision isn’t just based on pain and suffering. If I choose to make a continuum that places organisms (and stem cells thereof) in a hierarchy be how similar they are to me and then draw a line that includes stem cells as protected and veal (the calf) as nonprotected because the stem cells are capable of becoming a human, complete and entire, that is my line. The problem is that you can’t just arbitrarily lump things into categories with no underlying reasoning other than which creatures you like best. You have to present some underlying account as to WHY a particular being is worthy of moral consideration: what rules things in and out? What about them makes it so? And in doing so, you face the trouble that stem cells, whatever their possible future, are very very different sorts of beings from human adults, which are, in virtually every functional way, much more similar to animals than they are to stem cells. > [@](#): > > That is not my complete point. Stem cells A) contain human DNA and B) have the potential to develop into a seperate human individual. Your hair and blood does not. Actually, that’s not strictly true. The hurdle is technological, not fundamental. Regardless, whether something has potential to do something does not make it so. That you have the potential to earn a million dollars doesn’t mean you can spend it now. The potential of the stem cell is no different from the potential of the separate sperm and eggs to develop into a separate human individual. In short, that argument is simply dirt poor. > [@](#): > > the intrinsic worth of a potential human is more that the intrinsic worth of any animal. You can’t just throw potential out the window because you want to, it is what many people base their feelings towards stem cells on. I can throw it out because a) its a bogus argument on its own merits, as I’ve repeatedly outlined, and b) the very people who make this argument hypocritically never apply it to any other situation in which rights or morality is involved. > [@](#): > > If a person wants to base a decision on feeling or religous teaching, instead of science, they are allowed to. Sure: and I am allowed to point out that their moral system is full of shit and nonsensical and probably misses the whole point of being moral. ---
**Author:** ![xbuckeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9e8a1a/32.png) [@xbuckeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xbuckeye)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caring-about-stem-cells-not-veal-calves-is-a-sign-of-moral-depravity/315657/142 "2005-08-16T18:22:41Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > Sure: and I am allowed to point out that their moral system is full of shit and nonsensical and probably misses the whole point of being moral. In that case, your thread title should have been “anyone who has a moral system different from mine is an ignorant moron” You want to debate religon, debate religon. You want answers to questions, ask the questions you want answered. You asked a question, I answered it from the POV of the majority of Americans, you didn’t like the answer…tough shit. It is the answer whether you want to believe it or not. Again (for the third time at least) it is up to the person wanting to shange the status quo to prove why the status quo is wrong. Prove to me that humans aren’t any different than animals. You can’t…I’m done here. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caring-about-stem-cells-not-veal-calves-is-a-sign-of-moral-depravity/315657/143 "2005-08-17T01:58:10Z")
**xbuckeye** ---- Actually, ‘veal’ is commonly used to refer to calves being raised for veal… Didn’t know that. I retract my point/wisecrack/whatever. ---- Stem cells A) contain human DNA and B) have the potential to develop into a separate human individual. Your hair and blood does not. So you (and others) say that it’s the _combination_ of these two properties that makes 2 month fetuses and stem cells special. Amplifying **Apos** , a beaker of human eggs and sperm, with the 2 human tissues separated with a glass barrier, would also share these 2 characteristics. I (and most people) maintain that there is no moral mandate to remove the barrier. Rewriting: "Stem cells A) contain _complete_ human DNA and B) have the potential to develop into a separate human individual. Your hair, blood and beaker do not. " It’s still an odd argument. Haircuts show there’s nothing special about human DNA. The “Potential for human life” argument lacks rational basis taken on its own. Lacking a third justification, why in the world would the combination of two trivialities form some kind of moral mandate? This smacks of special pleading: it sounds like the characteristics are being selected on the basis of a pre-existing moral conclusion. — You asked a question, I answered it from the POV of the majority of Americans, you didn’t like the answer…tough shit. It is the answer whether you want to believe it or not. **Apos** posed a moral question, not a sociological one. Not that **xbuckeye** has provided any evidence about American opinion. ---- Prove to me that humans aren’t any different than animals. I think it’s fairly obvious that most adult members in the mammal class experience pain and rocks don’t. Whether all mammals _suffer_ in a comparable way that humans do is a matter for research, IMHO. At a minimum, Purdue University’s Center for Animal Well-being has shown that farm animals appear to prioritize elements of their lifestyle differently than humans might. (eg: Juvenile cows aren’t too fond of tail docking, while adult cows don’t seem to mind it. When given the choice Mommy Pig will wander away from the piglets periodically, so putting them all in a small enclosed space may not be such a hot idea – it might be better to keep the piglets in a separate pen. Go figure.) As an aside, **xbuckeye** , where some look at PETA and see a problem, others will see [an opportunity](http://www.certifiedhumane.org/). Niche markets can be highly profitable, though [ethical omnivorism](http://bertrandrussell.blogspot.com/2003/07/thought-for-food-im-trying-to-become.html) really hasn’t taken off outside of the [fast food industry](http://www.agribusinesscenter.org/headlines.cfm?id=119) with [some exceptions](http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/food/134685_mindful13.html). ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caring-about-stem-cells-not-veal-calves-is-a-sign-of-moral-depravity/315657/144 "2005-08-17T02:04:39Z")
Sorry. I need to rewrite my rewrite: "Stem cells A) contain _complete_ human DNA and B) have the potential to develop into a separate human individual. Your beaker does not, and your hair and blood do not _given existing technology_. " [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caring-about-stem-cells-not-veal-calves-is-a-sign-of-moral-depravity/315657.md?page=7)