This is an old revision of the document!

PBA205H: Personhood and Human Rights

FIXME formerly “Functionalism” - now modifying to do a personhood 2.0 following from PBA100Y

COVER

  • functionalism - valuing humans as human beings, not human doings
  • Response to the speciesism claim
  • Stories to include to illustrate things?
    • Nick Vujicic - our humanity and value should not be based on our abilities…

Since we know that science has established that the pre-born are human beings. We must now ask is a philosophical one: Do we have human rights and personhood by virtue of our existence as humans or by virtue of our features and abilities?

Functionalism

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 all human beings have human rights? Furthermore, basing personhood on functionality dehumanizes not only the pre-born, but also many born people who fail to meet functionalist “criteria”.

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.

Ageism and Other Forms of Discrimination

  • To define personhood based on functionalist criteria such as sentience, viability, or life experience is to define it based on one’s level of development. And an individual’s development generally corresponds with her age: The older one gets, the more developed she becomes. The younger she is, the less time has passed for her to develop the structures necessary to perform various functions.
  • So the question we must consider is this: Do those of us who are older have a right to kill those who are younger? Clearly, to select age-related criteria for personhood is arbitrary and discriminatory. It pits older humans against younger ones.
  • Now some abortion advocates may argue they aren’t discriminating based on age, pointing out that some older humans never develop as they should (and should be classified as “non-persons”), and some younger humans develop more rapidly than normal (and should be classified as “persons”).
  • The question, they may ask, is not, “How old is she?” but instead, “How well does she function?” Even here, though, one identifies discrimination: ability-based discrimination. Why should the able-bodied be allowed to hurt the less capable? And who determines to which degree one is “able” versus “disabled”?
  • 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 to be 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 slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.”1)
  • Furthermore, aside from conditions and disabilities which impede normal development, how one functions is usually related to how old someone is: The human species follows a general growth trend where at certain age ranges, a function begins (e.g., a heartbeat begins at 3 weeks following fertilization). So to select a criteria for personhood which someone simply cannot attain because of her age (a day-old embryo is too young to have a heartbeat) is unfair.
  • 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.

Human Beings--Not Human Doings

  • Functionalism versus Essentialism2)
    • 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

Once we draw the line anywhere later than fertilization, there is nothing that grounds our views regarding rights. Because if humans only have rights due to some acquired property rather than by virtue of being members of the human family, all we are left with is arbitrary definitions of personhood that always leave some humans out.

As such, it is far more reasonable to argue that, although human beings differ immensely, we are nonetheless equal. Thus, the only personhood definition that leaves all humans safe is one that acknowledges our basic human rights by virtue of our membership in the human family. That doesn’t change when our capacities change but begins the very moment we come into existence. And that, for each of us, is fertilization.

https://www.endthekilling.ca/blog/2015/04/15/bad-ideas-and-bloody-consequences –> re: Maaike's debate with Sumner

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.

FIXME sort through what's left

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

FIXME sort through these remaining notes

Speciesism?

- respond to Singer's claim here re: speciesism - EHP not OHP

“After talking to a Ryerson student about the science of when life begins, she agreed with me that pre-born human beings also deserve human rights. Then she asked, 'What about animal rights?' She shared with me that she’s an animal rights advocate. I replied, 'I agree that that’s also an important issue, but to be honest I’ve never given much thought about it and I eat meat. Maybe dogs deserve some rights. But does giving dogs some rights mean we should give less rights to some human beings? Can’t we agree that all members of the human family deserve fundamental human rights? If we did give dogs some rights, wouldn’t we give all members of the dog family that right?' She said that it made sense and I’ve given her something to think about. Then we thanked each other before she left to eat her lunch.” - Michelle Caluag of Toronto Against Abortion

Lethal Discrimination

- bring it back to HRs, human + x –> philosophers can choose all sorts of shifting goal-posts for who gets human rights, and each definition that doesn't include all humans inevitably results in lethal discrimination, as the history of legal personhood shows. A civil society should protect all humans and not discriminate against the youngest and most vulnerable humans.

1)
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/fragments-on-slavery/
2)
http://www.mtio.com/articles/aissar35.htm