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PBA205H: Functionalism

FIXME Beckwith Uncle Jed reversible coma but it'll take 9 months, and then a while for the brain to (re)develop

http://prolifetraining.com/Articles/Five-Bad-Ways.htm

The objection is that pre-born children lack some function, and the response is that functionalism establishes arbitrary criteria to deny some human beings their fundamental human rights – this is an attack on personhood, and an attack on the very notion of human rights. Don't human beings have human rights?

The functionalist argument comes in various forms (i.e. various functions):

  • Abortion advocates like Mary Anne Warren claim that a “person” is a living entity with feelings, self-awareness, consciousness, and the ability to interact with his or her environment. Because a human fetus has none of these capabilities, it’s not a person.
    1. First, why should anyone accept the idea that there can be such a thing as a human being that is not a human person. What’s the difference? I’ve never met a human that wasn’t a person, have you?
    2. Second, even if Warren is correct about the distinction between human being and human person, she fails to tell us why a person must possess self-awareness and consciousness in order to qualify as fully human. In other words, she merely asserts that these traits are necessary for personhood but never says why these alleged value-giving properties are value-giving in the first place.
  • Libertarian philosopher Jan Narveson argues that humans have value (and hence, rights) not in virtue of the kind of thing they are (members of a natural kind or species), but only because of an acquired property, in this case, the immediate capacity to make conscious, deliberate choices.
    • Newborns, like fetuses, lack the immediate capacity to make conscious, deliberate choices, so what principled reason can Narveson give against infanticide?
  • Peter Singer in Practical Ethics bites the bullet and says there is none, that arguments used to justify abortion work equally well to justify infanticide. Abortion-advocates Michael Tooley and Mary Anne Warren agree.
    • if the immediate capacity for self-consciousness makes one valuable as a subject of rights, and newborns like fetuses lack that immediate capacity, it follows that fetuses and newborns are both disqualified. You can’t draw an arbitrary line at birth and spare newborns. Hence, infanticide, like abortion, is morally permissible.
  • Lincoln raised a similar point with slavery, noting that any argument used to disqualify blacks as subjects of rights works equally well to disqualify many whites.
    • You say ‘A’ is white and ‘B’ is black. It is color, then: the lighter having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are a slave to the first man you meet with a fairer skin than your own.
    • You do not mean color exactly—You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again: By this rule you are to be a slave to the first man you meet with an intellect superior to your own.
  • if humans have value only because of some acquired property like skin color or self-consciousness and not in virtue of the kind of thing they are, then it follows that since these acquired properties come in varying degrees, basic human rights come in varying degrees. Do we really want to say that those with more self-consciousness are more human (and valuable) than those with less?
    • Philosophically, it’s far more reasonable to argue that although humans differ immensely with respect to talents, accomplishments, and degrees of development, they are nonetheless equal because they share a common human nature. Humans have value simply because they are human, not because of some acquired property that they may gain or lose during their lifetimes. If you deny this, it’s difficult to say why objective human rights apply to anyone.

Other issues:

  • Natural versus legal rights
    • Natural rights are those rights that you have simply because you are human. The are grounded in your human nature and you have them from the moment you begin to exist.[41] For example, you have a natural right not to be harmed without justification as well as a natural right not to be convicted of a crime without a fair trial. Government does not grant these basic rights. Rather, government’s role is to protect them. In contrast, legal (or positive) rights are those rights you can only acquire through accomplishment or maturity. These rights originate from the government and include the right to vote at your eighteenth birthday and a right to drive on your sixteenth. But your natural right to live was there all along. It comes to be when you come to be.
  • Functionalism versus Essentialism1)
    • one can fail to function as a person and yet still be a person.
      • How many functions can I lose and still be myself? If I lose my sight, am I still me? If my legs and arms are lost, am I still me? If I cannot speak or hear, am I still me? What if I can no longer play chess or think critically? What if my IQ is less than 50? Wouldn't I still be a person with value?
    • People under anesthesia or in a deep sleep cannot feel pain, are not self-aware, and cannot reason. Neither can those in reversible comas. But we do not call into question their humanity because we recognize that although they cannot function as persons, they still have the being of persons, which is the essential thing.
    • Bader: pick any function: growth/time
  • the rights of individuals in our society are not based on their current (actual) capacities, but on their inherent capacities
    • no one doubts that newborn humans have fewer actual capacities than do day-old calves. Baby humans are rather unimpressive in terms of environmental awareness, mobility, etc. Yet this does not lead us to believe that the calf belongs in the nursery while the infant can be left in the barn. To the contrary, we understand that although the infant currently lacks many functional abilities, it nonetheless has the inherent capacity to function as a person.
    • Bader: pick any function: growth/time

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  • functionalism dehumanizes not only the unborn, but also many people outside of the womb.

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1)
http://www.mtio.com/articles/aissar35.htm