Last night Ben Shapiro did a questions and answers segment after his speech. I agreed with a lot of his points and frankly felt that he was almost repeating a laundry list of established arguments within that sphere. I don't quite feel like focusing on any of that stuff for the particular points I want to make.

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However, there is a major flaw in Ben Shapiro's argument when it comes to how sentience works.

During the Q&A section the topic of early term abortion was brought up. Ben is has apparently taken a hardline stance against even early term abortion. The person who brought up the topic mentioned to him that sentience is what determines the value of life. Ben Shapiro then asked the young man a series of questions to establish the idea that even though we know that humans are sentient creatures we are not always in a sentient state. For example if a person is asleep they are still to be treated as sentient beings.

Ben Shapiro : "If you are asleep or in a coma, is it ok for me to stab you?"

The young man simply replies by saying no. To me this is a pretty obvious response to the question. No, stabbing someone who is in a coma or is asleep would be highly unacceptable and immoral. Ben continues his argument and further asks why is it wrong to stab someone who is in a coma.

"Why is it wrong to stab a person who is in a coma?" Ben Shapiro asks as if going through the motions.

The young man at this point simply states that the reason it is wrong to stab someone who is in a coma is because that person may one day eventually wake up. At this point I think is when things break down and I felt that the young man lost the argument even though he was on the right track.

It was a checkmate situation for this particular argument and everyone in the room responded appropriately.

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"If someone who is in a coma counts for potential life then the same logic should apply to a fetus at the very moment of conception."

There is one major problem with this line of reasoning however. Ben Shapiro does not appear to understand how sentience actually works. Sentience is not something that we can afford to assume is true for all things in the world. Not everything in the world is sentient. The number of sentient things in the world is far less than the number of non sentient things.

Sentience must be established before moral rules can apply. Once established moral rules will apply to that entity until death, or the absence of sentience, is established.

By Ben Shapiro's line of reasoning we may be able to argue that anything that can potentially show a sentient mind can thus be considered sentient long before sentience is genuinely established. The number of logical problems that arise out of this line of reasoning is quite large especially when we begin down the road of artificial intelligence.

Stating that sentience must be established before it can be considered a sentient being greatly simplifies the entire topic. If you refuse to follow this logic then the following arguments become a major problem where otherwise, these problems would not exist.

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By Ben Shapiro's logic : A child that is born without a functional brain or organs must be treated as a sentient being. Not all births are a perfect process. If you follow the logic that sentience must be established before moral rules apply then you can treat everything on a case by case basis. Otherwise everything is potentially sentient until proven otherwise.

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By Ben Shapiro's logic : Any computer that simply has the processing power to potentially run a multi thousand layer deep learning neural network would be a sentient being right off of the assembly line. Even if the computer was never meant to be used for that purpose. (If left running it can potentially reach sentience on its own.)

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By Ben Shapiro's logic : Artificial intelligence of any kind may need to be treated as a sentient being simply on the basis that we are not absolutely sure if it can eventually become sentient on its own if left to its own devices. In other words, since we don't know at what point sentience can be established by Ben's logic we would need to treat it as a sentient being right away.

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By Ben Shapiro's logic : The idea that everything is potentially sentient until proven otherwise. can be extrapolated fairly easily to a lot of situations. If a species of animal or plant is left alone long enough could it potentially create a sentient being? Well, the answer is yes, you might be able to actually start to make all kinds of really weird and out there arguments on what exactly constitutes a gestation period. I think its beyond just silly to make these kinds of arguments, but for Ben this kind of stuff can eventually become an issue.

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But if you go by the logic that sentience must be established before moral rules apply the above arguments go away instantly. It will still be wrong to stab a person who is asleep or in a coma and we wont have to treat a pile of resistors or cells as fully grown sentient beings. If you see a human being who is in a coma it is a very safe assumption that the person in question has had an established sentience a long time ago.