Henry Imler June 1st, 2005

Traditionally, the search for personhood has centered on trying to stake out who holds moral responsibility for her actions. The search for a comprehensive notion of personhood often has a deeper goal: to discover who has a right to life. As Michael Tooley puts it, �What properties must something have to be a person, i.e., to have a right to life?”:”(Tooley, Michael. �Abortion and Infanticide.� P. 43.)”: A common definition of personhood is the moral community requirement. If X is morally responsible for the actions of X, then X is a member of the moral community. If X is a member of the moral community, then X is a person. However, from an intuitional standpoint, the moral community requirement runs into several serious problems. This paper seeks to explore these problems and present an alternate view that more readily accounts for our intuitions on who has a right to life. This alternate view claims that the moral community theory has, at its center, a faulty view of personhood; one that does not properly distinguish between moral subjects and moral objects. Instead, one should view moral objectivity and moral subjectivity each as two different criteria for two distinct types of personhood.

The Moral Community Requirement

Mary Anne Warren in her work, �The Moral and Legal Status of Abortion� puts forth the moral community requirement for personhood. Her position is that a fetus is not a person and therefore does not have a right to life. In order for her to say what a person is not, she presents the minimum requirements for what a person must be like. Any being that does not meet these necessary requirements is not a person. She, like most careful scholars, is quick to point out that humanity is not what is being discussed. Humanity only signifies the genetic homogeny of the human race; there is no reason to suspect that persons are limited to humans. Conversely, it has yet to be convincingly shown that being human grandfathers one into the class of persons. This opens the hypothetical door for advanced computer programs, alien life and any other being that meets her to be named requirements. Warren is quick to establish the premise that personhood is synonymous with membership in the moral community. She explicitly states that �the moral community consists of all and only people��:”(Warren, Mary Anne. �On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion.� P. 177.)”: (emphasis added.) The moral community is then defined as �the set of beings with full and equal moral rights.�:”(Warren, Mary Anne. �On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion.� P. 176.)”: She finds it useful to imagine an alien culture and try to build the minimum requirements that members of that race would need to be persons. She gives a list of five minimum requirements of personhood. The following is her admittedly �rough� list of possible criteria: consciousness, namely, the ability to feel pain, reasoning, self-motivated behavior, the ability or the capacity to communicate, and the presence of self-concepts and self awareness.:”(Warren, Mary Anne. �On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion.� P. 178.)”: Warren is not giving a hard criterion into which persons fall, she is only saying that any being that does not have any of these characteristics is not a person. Warren is only seeking to justify the claim that a fetus is not a person, not give comprehensive criteria for personhood. What is important to note is the moral community/personhood conjunction that Warren outlines. H. J. McCloskey, in his work, �The Right to Life�, argues a more concrete definition of what a person is. He maintains that only autonomous beings may have rights,:”(McCloskey, H. J.. �The Right to Life.� P. 414.)”: the main right being in question is the right to life.:”(McCloskey, H. J.. �The Right to Life.� P. 416.)”: One that has the ability to freely choose his moral actions is a person under this view. Such a person would also by definition be considered a member of the moral community, a denotation of both the right to life and moral responsibility for his actions. The argument in its positive formulation is as follows:

1. All and only moral subjects are persons
2. X is a moral subject.
C. Therefore, X is a person.

In this view if a person is not a member of this moral community at time₁, then it is not a person at time₁, even though it will be a person at time₂ or was a person at time₀. The being�s rights are tied to its immediate membership in the moral community. A strict formulation of this view is echoed by the above mentioned Tooley in �Abortion and Infanticide�. He argues that, �An organism possesses a serious right to life only if it possesses the concept of a self as a continuing subject of experiences� and believes that it is itself such a continuing entity.� He calls this the self-consciousness requirement. A beings status in the moral community is tied to its ability to make moral judgments. Hence, if a being is temporarily removed from the moral community, i.e. falls asleep, it should then loose its right to life. For at time₁ it would not be able to make moral judgments even though at time₀ and at time₂ it was and will be able to make moral judgments. However such a view strikes one as being absurd, due to the fact that the capacity to make moral judgments is still there even though it is not presently being exercised in the case of the sleeping person. This paper will only consider the less strict version, that moral community members must have merely the capacity to make moral judgments.

Problems with the Moral Community Requirement

Intuitionally, this position runs into problems. As stated above, a person must be able to make moral judgments. Consider the following three beings: a health woman of forty-five years, a twelve year old boy, and a three month old baby. What do one�s intuitions tell us about each being having a right to life? Most would say that each have a clear right to life. Compare the intuitional results with the results dictated by the moral community requirement. Clearly, the woman of forty five years of age would be able to make moral judgments as would the young boy. Under the moral community requirement, they would receive a right to life. Now, consider the three month old child. It is clear that it cannot make moral judgments, and therefore does not have a right to life. Nevertheless, it seems from an intuitional standpoint that for one to kill the three month old child would be barbaric. Some would even claim that the killing of the baby would be worse than the killing of the boy or the woman. This impasse demonstrates the inadequacy of the moral community requirement for defining who has a right to life.

The problem with the moral community position is that it entangles the concepts of moral objectivity and moral subjectivity. For one to be a moral subject is for one to make moral judgments. A moral object, on the other hand is the object of moral considerations, such as the right to life. Moral objects that have a right to life are considered persons in the objective sense, or persons_O. It might be the case that not all moral objects have the right to life. All moral subjects, on the other hand, are persons in the subjective sense, or personsS. There is a very important distinction between these two concepts, personsS and persons_O, one that is not often presented in the personhood debate. So far the personhood debate has centered on demonstrating that all persons_S have a right to life. Anyone that maintains the moral community requirement for persons_O must maintain that the only beings that have to respect rights were the only ones that have rights that to be protected. Speculation on how to discern whether or not a being is a person_O centered on how to tell if the being was capable of making moral judgments since there was not a distinction between persons_S and persons_O. If it was the case that the being could make moral judgments, then obviously it is a person_O. Since it was a person_O, it must therefore, also has a right to life. The argument, in its negative structure, can be formalized in its basic form as follows:

1. All moral subjects are person_O.
2. X is not a moral subject.
C. Therefore, X is not a person_O.

There is not been a sufficient justification for the assumption that all persons_O are persons_S. The distinction between being a moral object and being a moral subject is quite a substantial one from an ontological standpoint. To illustrate this point, consider and analogy of the visual subject/object relationship and the moral subject/object relationship. Imagine for a moment, a well developed cow. Like all cows, it is able to move, hear, see, and eat. While exercising these traits, the cow happens upon a stalk of corn. The cow sees the corn, but the corn is unable to see the cow. The cow is an example of a visual subject and visual object. As such, it is able to see and be seen. The corn, on the other hand is merely a visual object. It is only able to be seen, it cannot see. This example demonstrates that visual subjectivity and visual objectivity are not one and the same. Likewise is true for moral objectivity and moral subjectivity. The ability to be seen is held in the visual object, not the visual subject. Switching to the other side of the analogy, the right to life is a property of the moral object, not the moral subject. All visual subjects are visual objects, while not all visual objects are visual subjects. This also is applicable to the two types of persons, persons_O and persons_S.

At this point is important to make a few observations. The terms person_S and person_O merely coincide accidentally in the sharing of the root �person.� They do not relate directly; they differ ontologically. As such, there are different requirements for each denotation. Each points to entirely different qualities of a being. Since moral subjectivity and moral objectivity differ ontologically, then it follows that the rights and duties associated with each also differ, as well as there being different methods for their discovery. The moral community membership requirement provides sufficient justification for distinguishing beings of the class persons_S. However, criteria for persons_O have not been sufficiently explored. Following from the intuitional exploration above for the refutation of the moral community requirement as a comprehensive personhood criteria, intuitions of what beings have the right to life will be explored to attempt to uncover possible person_O criteria.

Intuitions, Reasons and Moral Principles

One needs to be careful with intuitions, as they can easily play tricks on reason. One may appeal to them, but then one must be able to test them with reason to ascertain their validity. For example, in the �Owl and the Pussycat�, the reader is calls up intuitions about owls, orangutans, and cats. Then the author demonstrates that the intuitions about the personhood of these creatures are really just simple phenomenological and psychological effects tied to the resemblance of eyes similar to our own.:”(Larvor, Brendan. �The Owl and the Pussycat.� P. 263.)”: A seemingly basic intuition can be demonstrated to be false. Similarly, when analyzing related personhood topics, one may allow his intuitions to be his guide, but the intuitions must able to be double checked for validity.

Moral Objectivity

With the above principles in mind: 1) that there is a significant difference between being a moral object and a moral subject, and 2) that intuitions can point the way, but must be backed up by reason; one can make progress in determining criteria for persons_O. What can intuitions about objective personhood reveal? From an intuitional standpoint, the qualifications for person_O are not nearly as clear as those for persons_S. On the topic of moral subjectivity our intuitions are quite clear. When one pictures a visual subject, or an audible subject, one pictures something that can see or hear. Likewise, when one pictures a moral subject, one sees in their minds eye a being that has the capability to make moral judgments. The next step is to ask what is required to make moral judgments. Here, the classical argument for discovering the requirements of personhood, such as McCloskey�s become extremely valuable.

What about moral objects? The principle quality of a person in the objective sense is its right to life. Therefore, one�s intuitions on the topic are activated by asking, �Who has the right to life?� When the answer to the question is yes, the being in question is a moral object. It is hoped that the exploration of these intuitions will aid in smoking out the underlying cause that gives rise to a being having a right to life. Recall the three subjects from earlier, the healthy woman of forty-five years, the twelve year old boy, and the three month old baby. Begin by asking of each subject, �Is it morally permissible to arbitrarily kill it?� As before, with the woman and the young boy one is clearly able to answer, �No.� So far the previous possible moral objects have been undisputed moral subjects, who, are by their virtue of being able to make moral determinations, are objects of moral considerations. Consider the being that is not a moral subject. Is it morally wrong to arbitrarily kill a baby of three months? Once again, most will exclaim, �No,� with considerable fervor. Curiously, a healthy number of people will consider the killing of the three month old baby a worse offense than the killing of the forty-five year old woman. Now, reduce the age of the subject even more. Is the killing of a two week old fetus morally wrong? Here the symmetry of intuitions breaks down. Some will give their �yays� and others their �nays.� After almost universal agreement on the previous examples, what could cause such a break down? There seems, from a personS standpoint, no ontological difference between the newborn and the fetus. Larvor, in �The Owl and the Pussycat,� suggests that this breakdown in intuition has psychological roots. Persons whose intuitions say the fetus is not a personO more than likely have a psychological reaction to the dissimilarity between fetuses and adults. Conversely, persons whose intuitions claim the opposite are having a psychological reaction to the similarity of fetuses to adults. Having identified this breakdown of intuition, which intuition is the correct one? Which one stands up to reason? The answer lies in our intuitions about the baby of three months.

Marquis, in �Why Abortion is Immoral,� asks that instead of debating what is and is not a person; one should consider why killing is wrong. That is, in a subjective sense. His conclusion is that killing is wrong because it robs the being of all future choices. He also notes that taking away all possible future choices takes away all possible rights, since the exercise of rights depends of the choice to enable or disable the right. Therefore, to kill a creature and thus rob him of all future choice and exercise of rights is the worst possible harm one can inflict on the creature. In Marquis�s analysis, the fact that a being has a future like ours entitles it to a right to life. In the case of the newborn, it is morally wrong to kill it because she will have future choices that significantly like ours that will be robed from her. Just as the moral community argument laid out a method of determining who is a person_S, Marquis has laid out a method of determining the moral objectivity of a person. This principle explains why the life of a newborn is morally significant even though it is not a person in the subjective sense.

Marquis does not say what it is about a future like ours that makes it morally significant. viii The moral considerability of having a future like ours is merely a consequent of what lies behind Marquis� curtain. What might lie behind this curtain? If one borrows a page from the moral subjectivity argument and say that the ability to make moral choices is what makes a future like ours valuable, then the pieces fall into place. The argument can be given as follows:

1. A future has value if the subject will have the ability to make moral determinations.
2. X, in its future will have the ability to make moral determinations.
C1. Therefore, X�s future has value.
1. Subjects with valuable futures are persons_O.
2. X�s future is valuable.
C2. Therefore, X is person_O.
1. PersonsO have a right to life.
2. X is a person_O.
C3. Therefore, X has a right to life.

In this view, the status of the person from a temporal standpoint is largely ignored. It is not clear whether or not this applies backward in time as it does forward in time. For instance, this argument does not cover being that were at time1 moral subjects, and are at time2, not moral subjects. While it is clear that if they still have the potential to revert back to moral subjects, such as a rehabilitating stroke victim, they would fall into the potential category. What is not clear is if past persons, such as beings in an invariable vegetative state retain their right to life. A good consequence of the view is that if X is a moral agent, or will have the ability to become moral agent, then X’s life is worth moral consideration. This view is helpful because it explains why the life of a young child should be protected. This argument is a type of potentiality argument for personhood. However, it does not fall prey to the criticisms that its cousins do. Just as Marquis� argument sidestepped the standard potential personhood criticism by applying the same principle to current persons and to potential persons alike, so does this formulation.

Conclusion

When one makes the proper distinction between personhood in its subjective sense and personhood in its objective sense the prior inhibitions to the personhood debate fall away. The distinction clears up the intuitional problem of why a baby has a right to life even though it is not a member of the moral community. Using the above criteria for determining persons_O clearly confirms intuitions about the right to life of babies and even gives clear criterion for the right to life of a fetus. Interestingly enough, this argument renders the concept of personhood in the subjective sense irrelevant in the right to life debate. While the concept of personhood in the subjective sense is applicable in other areas of ethics, such as agency, it is not needed at all in the right to life debate for all persons_S are also persons_O in the above view. All that is necessary is to determine if the being is a person in the objective sense.

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