ON THE INTEREST VIEW AND THE MORAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PERSONHOOD

On February 2 and 15 I wrote that “you can’t have a proper discussion on any complex issue such as abortion when most of the population never read at all, and many of those who do, only do so to pass their school exams or graduate in their narrow professional field”. I then proceeded to illustrate some examples of the type of uneducated responses one typically gets when one attempts to discuss such topics with the seriousness and intellectual honesty they deserve. So it was quite a refreshing change to read comments from Joe Seychell in reply to my short Letter to the Editor in The Times of Malta, who, despite some apparent disagreement, showed willingness to discuss without prejudice, an openness to the consideration of different ideas other than his own, and knowledge of the subject through reading. This was made abundantly clear when, for instance, he anticipated a conclusion to my line of reasoning which I did not actually spell out or even mention. Unfortunately, our conversation was cut short by the Times of Malta administrator closing the comments just as I was typing a reply, so I have decided to reproduce the conversation here and follow it up by the replies I was about to give. I also take the opportunity to expound more on the topic without the limitations that the newspaper comments board sets. I shall put quotes from Mr Seychell and any others in italics.

On February 14, Mr Seychell wrote:

“An interesting philosophical argument. If your reasoning is correct, then this would mean that some animals are persons, but I don’t see those who kill these animals ever being found guilty of murder, not even in those countries which are pro-choice, which means that not even those who are pro-abortion believe in your arguments”.

I replied by telling Mr Seychell that “the law does not always reflect what is morally correct. That is why laws change. Slavery was once legal. It isn’t anymore. As for those who are ‘pro-abortion’ not ‘believing’ in my arguments, why would that matter? Truth remains truth no matter the number of people who believe it. I discuss arguments, not the people who make them”.

Following this, Mr Seychell replied:

“Your argument is 'Not all human beings are persons and not all persons are human beings'. Even if you are correct in stating that killing a fetus is not killing a person, that still does not necessarily mean that it's not immoral. Many immoral things are not about killing persons. Lying, stealing, cheating etc. The fetus, clearly has potential and purpose.

You argue that a person doesn't exist if there isn't a mind first and the mind comes after a developed brain. If you're really interested in philosophy then you should know that there can be different and opposing schools of thought that coexisted for centuries, without ever conclusively settling the issue. The free will debate is a clear example. There are philosophers and scientists like Robert P Lanza and Donald Hoffman who argue that it's the mind that comes first and the mind creates the brain and not the other way round. ‘Truth remains truth no matter the number of people who believe it’. It's funny that you make this argument because one of the arguments I hear the most from pro-choicers is that Malta is one of the few pro-life countries in the world and therefore we can't be right. I can't find flaws in your reasoning, just hypocrisy, unless you're ready to extend constitutional rights to all persons, including non-human persons. I think people should take your philosophical argument more seriously in general because one day a robot or computer would become so intelligent that they would claim to be persons and demand rights. It won't matter whether they would really be or not because according to Ray Kurzweil we won't be able to tell the difference”.

 

Unfortunately, the comments section was closed at this point, giving me no opportunity to reply, so I will do so here. For brevity’s sake, I will put Seychell’s comments in points form and follow up with my own reply.

 

Essentially, Mr Seychell says:

1. Even if a foetus is not a person, killing a foetus may still be immoral. Lying, stealing etc, are immoral even though they do not involve killing persons.

2. A foetus has potential and purpose.

3. Some philosophers such as Robert P Lanza and Donald Hoffman argue that the mind comes before the brain.

4. Many pro-choice people argue that Malta is only one of the few “pro-life” countries in the world, so pro-choice people can't be wrong.

5. The interest view is not flawed, but to be consistent one would need to extend constitutional rights to all persons, including non-human persons.

I’ll tackle each issue in the order I have put them above.

Regarding point 1, it is true that lying, stealing etc may be considered immoral (with some exceptions we need not go into) even though they do not involve killing persons. However, these actions would be immoral only because they harm the legitimate interests of persons that do have such interests. A rock, for instance, is neither sentient nor conscious and aware of anything, so if I kick a rock, I do not harm it. A rock cannot be harmed, so logically it cannot have a right to not be harmed. That said, if a sculptor creates a statue from a rock, and someone steals the statue, the sculptor, being a person with interests, is harmed. If the thief destroys the statue, the statue itself is not harmed (non-sentient things cannot be harmed), but the owner of the statue is, by being deprived of their property. This equally applies in the case of foetuses. According to the interest view which I hold, a pre-sentient foetus is not a person with rights. A pregnant woman clearly is. The pregnant woman might intend to keep the foetus and allow it to develop into a person with interests of its own. Or she might not, for whatever reason. In the former case, the woman who has the desire and an interest in having a child, would have her rights violated if she is forced to have an abortion, even if the foetus itself is not (and cannot be) harmed. However, if she herself freely chooses to have an abortion, no one is harmed. Potential persons are not actual persons. Actual rights only apply to actual persons, which brings me to point 2.

It is true that a foetus has both potential and purpose. However, like I said, potential persons are not actual persons, and treating them as actual persons leads to several problems and absurd conclusions some of which I have dealt with in my article titled “Potential Adam and Potential Eve”, so I won’t repeat myself here but invite the reader to read that article. As for the purpose, a non-sentient, conscious or aware being such as a foetus, even if it has the potential of becoming a being with interests, only has the purpose that the persons who conceive or make it assign to it. The purpose in this case may be summarized to “we wish to have a child, and so we will conceive an embryo/foetus with the clear intention that we let it develop in time to become our child”. Only rational persons can define and set their own purposes. The alternative to this would be the idea or belief that there is a God that gives each one of us our purpose. However, this is a faith-based belief that lacks any evidence. Entirely faith-based beliefs should not be imposed through legislation.

This brings us to point 3. It is true that some philosophers hold that mind comes before the brain, which implies the existence of a “soul” no matter what terminology one wishes to use. This belief takes nothing away from the arguments I have made thus far. For one thing, there is not yet any evidence of the existence of an immaterial soul that is independent of a brain. But even if a philosophical case can be made for the existence of some kind of soul preceding and independent of a physical brain – perhaps something like the ‘will’ that Schopenhauer proposes, it still remains to be explained how an immaterial entity such as a soul can be harmed by the material actions of others. Even the Christian belief in exorcism rests on the belief that only an immaterial entity (such as a God or Demon) can have any effect on another immaterial entity such as a “soul” or “evil spirit”. Moreover, the interpolation, in the abortion question, of an immaterial soul independent of a brain, even if it were to exist – and I stress that there is no evidence for it – still raises more questions than it answers. Does an immaterial soul independent of a body care whether it ceases to occupy a human body? Would it occupy another body after that body dies? Does it go to a better place such as a heaven? And if the latter is the case, wouldn’t that make abortion beneficial to that soul? As I said in The Ghost in the Machine, abortion, if souls exist as understood in the Catholic sense, might even benefit the foetus, given that current Catholic doctrine states that the death of a foetus or baby guarantees its soul’s entry into heaven – which Catholics believe is a place of extreme bliss that no time spent on Earth could make up for. The foetus’ soul gets the ultimate prize without incurring any risks.

Mr Seychell mentions (point 4) that many pro-choice people argue that worldwide the majority is pro-choice and so they can’t be wrong. While admittedly some pro-choice people do say this, I would agree that this is no argument at all. There was a time when the whole world believed the Earth was flat, and all the evidence available at the time pointed to a flat Earth. They were wrong. The soundness of an argument rests on its own merits, independently of the number of people who hold it to be convincing or true.

Finally we come to point 5, which says that although the interest view is not flawed and is reasonable, to be consistent, one who holds this view would be logically and morally required to extend rights to all persons, including non-human ones. Mr Seychell is correct, and that is exactly the reason why I am a vegetarian. And although the interest view is not the only philosophical view that concludes that abortion is morally permissible (or even for that matter that vegetarianism is morally required - see for instance, Peter Singer's utilitarian position in "Animal Liberation"), I do find it to be the most convincing and sound. It is true that the interest view, if taken to its logical conclusions, is actually counter-intuitively more demanding, not less. But personal convenience is no argument against moral requirement. So should non-human persons have constitutional rights as Mr Seychell asks? They would if a significant majority held the interest view and took it to its logical conclusion. Currently, they don't, but like I said in reply to point 4, the soundness of an argument rests on its own merits, independently of the number of people who hold it to be convincing or true. I have already written a bit about how animal rights relates to the abortion question (see for instance, “How can you be pro-choice and for animal rights? How can you condone the killing of ‘human babies’ but not the killing of animals?"). I’ll only add to this a few quotes from Bonnie Steinbock (Professor Emerita on Philosophy specializing in Bioethics)’s book “Life Before Birth: The moral and legal status of embryos and fetuses”, which I highly recommend.

Steinbock writes:

“As many readers will no doubt realize, the interest view is based on Joel Feinberg’s “interest principle” (The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations), which Feinberg proposed as an answer to the question ‘what kind of beings can have rights?’”.

“Feinberg’s central insight – that interests are essential to rights – can be applied to moral standing as well. Interests are the content of rights; without interests there would be nothing for rights to protect. Equally, if a being has no interests, it can have no claims against others, nothing that they are required to consider from a moral perspective. The possession of interests is therefore a minimal condition for both rights and moral standing”.

“There is also considerable, though not unanimous, consensus that mere things – pencils, rocks and refrigerators – lack moral standing. In between people and rocks, there are lots of what have come to be known as ‘marginal cases’, including animals, embryos, fetuses, and permanently unconscious individuals. How these marginal cases are handled depends on the justification for assigning moral standing to entities”.

“In recent years a number of philosophers (have maintained that) it is unjustified to base moral standing on anything as arbitrary as membership in a particular species…Whatever its cause, ‘speciesism’ is alleged to be as unjustified as racism or sexism”.