I Am Not the Zygote I Came from because a Different Singleton Could Have Come from It
AHCI
SCOPUS
- Title
- I Am Not the Zygote I Came from because a Different Singleton Could Have Come from It
- Authors
- Lee, Chunghyoung
- Date Issued
- 2022-07
- Publisher
- Cornell University Press
- Abstract
- Many people believe that human beings begin to exist with the emergence of the 1-cell zygote at fertilization. I present a novel argument against this belief, one based on recently discovered facts about human embryo development. I first argue that a human zygote is developmentally plastic: A zygote that naturally develops into a singleton (i.e., develops into exactly one infant/adult without twinning) might have naturally developed into a numerically different singleton. From this, I derive the conclusion that a human infant or adult is numerically distinct from the zygote she came from and so did not begin to exist at fertilization. This implies that a zygote does not have a “future like ours” and strongly suggests that it is not a human being.
- URI
- https://oasis.postech.ac.kr/handle/2014.oak/115322
- DOI
- 10.1215/00318108-9743822
- ISSN
- 0031-8108
- Article Type
- Article
- Citation
- The Philosophical Review, vol. 131, no. 3, page. 295 - 325, 2022-07
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- There are no files associated with this item.
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