but whether it’s useful or consistent to refer to it as any kind of killing at all.
I was raised with fantasy and sci-fi. For me “death” has always meant “death-of-personality”. Short of that, who cares? And if that’s gone, who cares if the body is still there?
If I adopt an understanding of “killing” congruent with your comment above I ought to stop and ask myself things like “Is killing a bad thing?
Yeah, you should. And you should say “generally, yes”. For exactly the same reasons that your current understanding of killing is that it’s generally bad—it’s the destruction of a person.
But that just swaps one label out for another, rather than answering the question.
That is, Sam asks “Why is killing a bad thing?” and Pat answers “Because it’s the destruction of a person” and Sam replies “Well, OK, but why is destroying a person a bad thing?” and they haven’t actually gotten anywhere.
Just to be clear, my issue here has nothing to do with bodies vs. personalities. I agree with you about that.
It has to do with what’s worth preserving within a personality.
I grant you that this hinges on the presumption that Bella’s personality change was the result of trauma, as described, rather than an intentional modification. If Bella’s current state is instead something she made an informed choice to enter, then I’d agree that coercing her to revert to her former state is ethically problematic. (And calling it “healing” doesn’t automatically make it OK.)
I was raised with fantasy and sci-fi. For me “death” has always meant “death-of-personality”. Short of that, who cares? And if that’s gone, who cares if the body is still there?
Yeah, you should. And you should say “generally, yes”. For exactly the same reasons that your current understanding of killing is that it’s generally bad—it’s the destruction of a person.
But that just swaps one label out for another, rather than answering the question.
That is, Sam asks “Why is killing a bad thing?” and Pat answers “Because it’s the destruction of a person” and Sam replies “Well, OK, but why is destroying a person a bad thing?” and they haven’t actually gotten anywhere.
Just to be clear, my issue here has nothing to do with bodies vs. personalities. I agree with you about that.
It has to do with what’s worth preserving within a personality.
I grant you that this hinges on the presumption that Bella’s personality change was the result of trauma, as described, rather than an intentional modification. If Bella’s current state is instead something she made an informed choice to enter, then I’d agree that coercing her to revert to her former state is ethically problematic. (And calling it “healing” doesn’t automatically make it OK.)