Counting pregnant sheep differently wouldn’t help me tell whether or not all sheep are back in the pen at the end of the day and that’s the whole point of the statement. I’m not making a moral statement about whether or not unborn sheep count. That has got nothing to do with my statement and is very much beside the point.
Whether it's beside the point depends on your perspective :). I spent a few days working on an actual sheep farm in New Zealand, and whether or not your sheep are pregnant is actually a highly relevant fact. Whether or not a sheep that starts out pregnant is still pregnant at the end of the day is also highly relevant. I wasn't trying to say that unborn sheep have anything to do with 'morality', but they are very much not beside the point.
It’s not that surprising, actually. If you change a statement which has proven to make good predictions by redefining one of its concepts, you will likely break the statement. It won’t make good predictions any more.
This is actually one of the salient points of post-modernist thought, with the caveat that post-modernism argues that all statements are always changing, 'definitions' of concepts are always changing. Take our sheep debate for example -- you make statements that are useful to you, and then I respond by interpreting the statements so that they are useful to me, and vice versa.
Whether it's beside the point depends on your perspective :). I spent a few days working on an actual sheep farm in New Zealand, and whether or not your sheep are pregnant is actually a highly relevant fact. Whether or not a sheep that starts out pregnant is still pregnant at the end of the day is also highly relevant. I wasn't trying to say that unborn sheep have anything to do with 'morality', but they are very much not beside the point.
It’s not that surprising, actually. If you change a statement which has proven to make good predictions by redefining one of its concepts, you will likely break the statement. It won’t make good predictions any more.
This is actually one of the salient points of post-modernist thought, with the caveat that post-modernism argues that all statements are always changing, 'definitions' of concepts are always changing. Take our sheep debate for example -- you make statements that are useful to you, and then I respond by interpreting the statements so that they are useful to me, and vice versa.