Being a Person::Why Personhood is Not Enough

Joe Carter writes

For the sake of argument, let us concede that certain humans are not persons, just as certain persons are not humans. This means that a human being can be a non-person but that a person (at least a human person) must also be a human being. No one argues that there are a classes of human persons that are not also human beings. Being a human being is, therefore, essential to being a human person. This leads to a peculiar insight.

We can kill non-person human beings (e.g., the embryo). We can also kill human persons that are also human beings. But we cannot kill the human person without killing the human being. In fact, you cannot kill any type of person unless it is already a living biological being. The Spanish may be able to kill Great Apes but lawyers cannot kill a corporation. What is being killed is not the person but the being.

This distinction is important because those who argue that it is acceptable to kill non-person humans base their rationale on the claim that what matters is not the being (the living biological organism) but the personhood (a set of functional criteria such as consciousness or rationality). This view has become the dominant view in bioethics.

Most reasonable people, though, would be horrified by following it to is logically consistent outcomes. Joseph Fletcher, for example, believed that humans with an IQ below 40 might not be persons and that below 20 they are definitely not persons. Bioethicist H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. says that “fetuses, infants, the profoundly mentally retarded, and the hopelessly comatose” all fall into the category of “nonpersons.” Peter Singer believes that since patients with Alzheimer’s and infants up to the age of 24 months are not persons, it is not wrong to kill them. Not surprisingly, when you allow intellectuals to define personhood, they will attempt to establish a criterion based on intellect, reason, and consciousness.

Although they intend to include themselves within the lines of demarcation, they are not wholly successful. For instance, if these philosophers were to fall into a deep sleep they would cease to meet the very criteria that they have established for personhood. Using their own arguments, we should be able to kill them before they wake up.

They may protest that they were persons before they fell asleep. But so were the “hopelessly comatose.” Yes, but the difference, they’ll contend, is that they’ll meet the criteria again once they wake up. True, but if they are killed in their sleep they won’t ever wake up, so it makes that a moot point. What does it matter that a human being was a person or will once again be a person? If it is morally acceptable to kill non-human persons then what matters is what they are right now.

(You might find my justification absurd. Indeed, I hope you do because this type of thinking is utterly idiotic. The blatant attempts at rationalizing clearly immoral behavior is why Frank Beckwith and other scholars have been able to demolish the “functionalism” argument, that defends the killing of "non-person" humans.)

The reason why it is wrong to kill philosophy professors in their sleep is the same reason it is wrong to destroy embryos: moral people do not kill innocent human beings. Not all persons are human beings. And it may even be the case that not all human beings are persons. But all human beings—whether persons or non-persons--are human beings. This is a scientifically and ontologically verifiable fact.

Advocates for embryo and fetal destruction should stop playing semantic games and admit that what they believe is that it is acceptable to kill some human being because human beings do not have intrinsic worth.

They should also stop making the ridiculous claim that their opinions on personhood are based on “science” (when did metaphysics become an empirical science?) and should instead employ historical arguments to defend their position. History, after all, is filled with examples of people justifying the slaughter of other human beings. If you want to kill certain groups of human beings, you can find a sufficient rationalization. There's no need to make it personal.