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Response to Richard Chappell’s "Pro-Life Pro Zombie"

Matt — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:53:00 +0000

Thialias has asked me to respond to “Pro-Life Pro Zombie” written by kiwi ex-pat philosopher Richard Chappell, the author of Philosophy et cetera. In this post Richard, as I understand it, set up a thought experiment where he asked readers to imagine a world where beings exist that are physically identical to us in every respect but are not conscious. These beings are identified as Zombies. Richard says he has reasons for thinking such a scenario is metaphysically possible. I have my doubts, but given modal logic is Richard’s speciality, whereas mine is ethics, I’ll concede this for the sake of argument.

Richard constructs the following argument. First, he puts forward the position he wishes to critique. In his post he states,

[1] “Many pro-lifers hold that an individual has moral status in virtue of its biological kind (being “human”) rather than its particular cognitive qualities (being a self-aware “person”).”
[2] Zombies are “physically identical to us,” and hence, “As far as biologists are concerned, they are “individual human lives” the same as you and me.”

it follows, then, that,

[3] “the bio-focused pro-lifer would seem committed to the view that non-conscious zombies have moral status.”

Richard claims that it is absurd that Zombies would have moral status; hence the pro-life position entails an absurdity and so is false.

What does one say in response to this argument? Well one obvious point I would make is that, as far as I know, no pro-lifer actually holds that human beings have moral status merely in terms of their biological kind, independent of psychological traits.

This position is often attributed to opponents of abortion. It is not uncommon, in articles on both sides of the debate, to refer to this position as “the conservative position” and then critique it to provide a better model. What is more difficult is to find a defender of this “conservative position”, someone who actually advances it. Certainly leading opponents of abortion, such as Frank Beckwith, Philip Devine, Don Marquis and Baruch Brody do not hold this position. Neither do I.
Richard I think realises this to some extent because he himself suggests that the opponent of abortion can avoid the argument by denying the position articulated in [1]. Richard states,

“The upshot is that sophisticated pro-lifers shouldn’t be focused on mere biology. It isn’t really mere “life”, in the third-personal scientific sense, that matters. Rather, it’s a special kind of life — or, rather, the lives of a special kind of being, namely: sentient rational animals. If we understand the kind ‘human’ in this psychologically loaded sense, then zombies don’t qualify as fully human. But embryos – immature members of our kind – do qualify. Sure, they may not yet be sentient or rational themselves. But they are members of a kind with these traits. Intuitively: their acquisition of these traits will occur through natural development (in which they remain the same kind of thing that they already are), rather than radical transformation into a fundamentally different category or kind of thing.

Here Richard points out that “the kind ‘human’” need not refer merely to a biological category. There is a long tradition, going back at least to Aristotle, which defines a human being as a rational animal.

The phrase rational animal is understood in a manner analogous to the way a person might define a mammal as a creature that suckles its young. Male humans are mammals, as are female humans under age nine yet neither strictly speaking suckles their young. Nevertheless, they are each members of a kind that does do this.

Human beings are rational animals in this sense. While it is not true that every individual human being, such as fetuses, infants and the temporarily comatose, posses rationality, nevertheless they are of a kind that does and typically, if they mature properly and are not deformed or malfunctioning members of their kind, they will do these things. Now if the pro-lifer understands human kind in this sense, Richard is quite right, they can avoid his Zombie refutation.

Interestingly this is precisely the position many opponents of abortion take. Notable examples would include, Norman Ford,[1] Frank Beckwith,[2] and Alan Donagan;[3] it is also fairly common amongst Thomists who, unsurprisingly, accept the Aristotelian tradition. Given this, all these writers can and do avoid the kind of rebuttal Richard offers. Richard refers to this position as “the evil twin argument’ named after a post where Richard posted under the name “Richard’s evil twin Ricardo” which endorsed the line of argument.

It seems, then, and I think he would probably agree with me here, that Richard’s Zombie argument is not really a rebuttal of opposition to feticide but rather a rebuttal of one particular way of articulating this opposition, a way that few, if any, of the defenders of this position, actually adopt. What the point is of offering an argument against a position almost no-one adopts remains somewhat unclear to me.

Some of Richard’s other comments suggest the purpose is more clarificatory, an attempt to find out what others think. Richard explains,

The purpose of this post is simply to work out what the most plausible version of a pro-life view would be. I’m especially interested to hear from any actual pro-lifers, whether they are pro-zombie and if not why not — especially, whether they endorse my evil twin’s conception of the pro-life view.

In response to this comment, as far as I can tell, in the literature no opponent of abortion opposes it merely on the ground that a embryo is biologically human. Many do endorse Richard’s “evil twin argument,” such as the people mentioned above but what is even more noteworthy is that there are many important critiques of abortion which do not rely on either position. Here I will provide two significant examples; there are others in the literature.[4]

The first, and rather obvious example, would be the series of articles by Don Marquis.[5] Marquis contends that “the best explanation for the wrongness of killing is that killing deprives us of our futures of value;”[6] a future of value consists “of all of the goods of life we would have experienced had we not been killed.”[7] He explains further,

On the future of value account the wrongness of killing is based on the harm of killing. A present action cannot affect one’s past. Strictly speaking, a present act of harming does not make another worse off in the present either, for the present is instantaneous and harm, involving, as it does, causation, requires at least a small temporal interval for its effect to occur. A present act of harm affects the victim’s future. It makes someone worse off in the future. To make someone worse off is to reduce that person’s welfare, to reduce the quantity or quality of the goods in his future that she would otherwise have possessed. On the future of value account killing is wrong because it harms a victim.[8]

Marquis argues that his account of the wrongness of killing has the implication that feticide is homicide. “Fetuses have futures like ours, for their futures contain all that ours contain and more. Therefore, (given some defensible assumptions and qualifications) abortion is seriously wrong on almost all occasions.”[9]

Marquis’ argument is extremely interesting. What is important in this context, however, is simply the observation that his critique of abortion does not rely on the assumption that “an individual has moral status in virtue of its biological kind” nor is it based on the Aristotelian notion of a rational kind of creature. It is, rather, an attempt to base the status of the fetus on the kind of future conscious life it will have if it is not killed.

My second example is Philip Devine’s argument which in some respects is a precursor to Marquis’s position. Devine, like Marquis, suggests it is the future psychological abilities the organism will gain that are relevant to whether or not killing it constitutes homicide. Devine’s argument, put succinctly, is as follows,

I assume here that infants are protected by the moral rule against homicide. From this assumption it seems to follow immediately that fetuses, and other instances of human life from conception onward, are also protected, so that, unless justified or mitigated, abortion is murder. For there seem to be only two possible grounds for asserting the humanity of the infant: (1) The infant is a member of the human species … (2) The infant will, in due course, think, talk, love, and have a sense of justice … And both (1) and (2) are true of fetuses, embryos, and zygotes as well as of infants.[10]

Devine’s argument is based on three claims. First the intuition that killing a new-born infant is homicide, something he takes for granted. The second is to observe, as David Boonin has, that “by any plausible measure dogs, and cats, cows and pigs, chickens and ducks or more intellectually developed than a new born infant.”[11]

In other words, in terms of actual current psychological traits infants are on par with cows or pigs the only difference between an infant and cow or pig is in terms of the traits they will acquire if not destroyed. Hence, the only plausible way one can make sense of the prohibition on infanticide is either to appeal to the natural kind argument or to ground the wrongness of killing infants on the psychological traits they will acquire if not killed. But either option entails that feticide is homicide. Again, this argument does not rely on either the claim that fetuses are merely biologically human nor does it rely on the “evil twin argument;” it merely cites it as one disjunctive possibility.

I could multiply examples but I think the point is clear. If one examines the literature on the subject and looks at what the leading critics of abortion have argued, it is clear that their position is immune from the Zombie argument, further, many do not appeal to the “evil twin argument” either. As a final note, I would add that my own argument in Is Historic Christian Opposition to Feticide Defensible in the 21st Century? avoids both approaches as well but spelling out all the details of this would require another post in its own right, so I might save that for a later date.

[1] Norman M. Ford The Prenatal Person. Ethics from Conception to Birth (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002).
[2]Francis J. Beckwith Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Books, 1993).
[3] Alan Donagan The Theory of Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977).
[4] Harry Gensler, “The Abortion and the Golden Rule,” in The Abortion Controversy 25 Years after Roe v Wade: A Reader ed. Francis Beckwith & Louis Pojman (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998) would be another obvious example.
[5] Don Marquis “Why Abortion is Immoral” in The Abortion Controversy: 25 Years after Roe v Wade, A Reader ed. Francis Beckwith & Louis Pojman, 339-355 (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1998); “Why Most Abortions are Immoral” in Advances in Bioethics: Bioethics for Medical Education Vol. 5, ed. Rem B. Edwards & E. Edwards Bittar, 215-44. (Stamford, CT: JAI Press, 1999); “Abortion Revisited,” Oxford Handbook of Bioethics, ed. Bonnie Steinbock, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); “Fetuses, Futures, and Values: A Reply to Shirley” Southwest Philosophy Review 6:2 (1995) 263-265; “Life before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses. Review of Life Before Birth, by Bonnie Steinbock” Criminal Justice Ethics 13:1 (1994) 67-81.
[6]Don Marquis, “Abortion Revisited,” Oxford Handbook of Bioethics, ed. Bonnie Steinbock, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007) 399.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Marquis, “Abortion Revisited,” 413.
[9]Ibid. 399
[10] Philip Devine “The Scope of the Moral Rule Against Killing” in The Abortion Controversy: 25 Years after Roe v Wade ed. Francis Beckwith & Louis Pojman (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1998) 241.
[11] Ibid, 121.

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Some Thoughts on Human Embryonic Stem-cell Research

Matt — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:37:00 +0000

Given Barack Obama’s reversal of the ban on federal funding for research on new lines of human embryonic stem-cells, I thought I might add my own thoughts on the issues around stem-cell research. My thoughts are somewhat tentative; largely because, unlike many in the media, I don’t see the issues as clear cut or as obvious as either side makes out.

I want to address one really bad argument in favour of human embryonic stem-cell research which gets repeated ad nauseum in the media. This is the repeated claim that human embryonic stem-cell research holds “great promise;” this promise offers the hope of discovery of cures for numerous debilitating diseases. In the media this is often accompanied by stories about Hollywood stars such as Michael J. Fox and Christopher Reeves who suffer(ed) from Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord injuries respectively. We are informed that stem-cell research might hold the key to curing these kinds of conditions, the implicit assumption (not actually stated) is that: any action that promises to find a cure for horrible medical conditions is justified.

Barack Obama apparently agrees with this argument as he stated,

Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident … They result from painstaking and costly research from years of lonely trial and error, much of which never bears fruit and from a government willing to support that work.

The problem with this line of argument is that this implicit assumption is false. Two examples will help illustrate the point; the first is from a leading proponent of abortion the second comes from a defender of human embryonic stem-cell research.

Judith Jarvis Thomson points out that if a doctor painlessly kills a group of healthy patients and harvests their organs, an even greater number of people can be saved from potentially fatal conditions via organ donation.[1] It is, in fact, conceivable that forcing people to under go various medical procedures such as kidney or bone marrow transplants would result in numerous people being saved from fatal illnesses.

Despite the ends, neither killing people nor enforcing compulsory transplants are permissible practices. Although such procedures may save people from or promote the happiness of others and in some cases might be life saving, they do so by unjust means; namely, killing and assaulting innocent human beings.

Don Marquis suggests a second case regarding experimenting on human beings and refers to the Tuskagee study where participants were not informed of their syphilis status and without consent were denied treatment for the purposes of medical research, the infamous Willowbrook experiments which involved experimenting upon mentally retarded children in order to ascertain information for fighting diseases such as Hepatitis and the Nazi experiments upon concentration camp inmates to learn how to combat hypothermia. Regarding these experiments Don Marquis notes

The Tuskegee, Willowbrook and Nazi studies were wrong, not because they were bad and useless science, but because the human subjects in them were treated inhumanely … There is now a consensus, both in society and in academic bioethics that this is wrong even when the research will clearly benefit the common good. In short conformity with a respect for human subjects principle is a necessary condition of morally permissible research whatever its benefits.[2]

I contend that Marquis is correct in these sentiments. What made such experiments wrong was not that they failed to bring about the significant results they aimed at but rather that the means they used to do so were unjust and involved disrespecting and degrading human beings. Hence, even if important advancements in understanding what syphilis does to the human body, how to combat hypothermia or hepatitis have been achieved the experiments should still be condemned.

It seems clear the inherent assumption that, any action that promises to find a cure for horrible medical conditions is justified, is false. In assessing a method of medical research one needs to focus not just on the potential benefits of the research but also the means by which these benefits are brought about. In particular, one needs to ask whether the research involves activities such as killing human beings or subjecting them to degrading treatment without their consent.

The problem of course is that in the human embryonic stem-cell debate this is precisely what is at issue. Human embryonic stem-cell research involves destroying human embryos. Hence, the central question must be,

Is an embryo a human being at the point such destruction occurs?
(Embryonic destruction occurs prior to segmentation, segmentation occurs around 14-21 days post conception).

If it is then the fact that Christopher Reeves could have regained the ability to walk or Micheal J. Fox might find a cure for Parkinson’s disease are irrelevant. The fact that you are a Hollywood actor or the President of the United States does not mean that other people can be destroyed and killed for yours or others medical welfare.

So, is an embryo a human being prior to segmentation?

Let me state categorically that I know of no argument for the conclusion that an embryo is a human being at this stage. I believe there are good reasons for thinking a fetus is a human being, which I spelt out in my PhD thesis and I have defended in my academic publications and on this blog. I think that the arguments against attributing humanity to a fetus, such things as the claim that a fetus is not viable, is not sentient, lacks brain function, lacks self-awareness, etc all fail. But the fact that there are good reasons for thinking a fetus is a human being does not entail that there are good reasons for thinking that an embryo is prior to 14 days post conception.

However, this is not as significant as one might think, because while their may not be any argument for accepting that an embryo is a human being at conception, there may be no good argument against this either. Further, a plausible argument can be made that in the absence of any reasons one way or the other, the morally correct thing to do is to refrain from destroying embryos.

Take this analogy, which I have adapted from James Humber,[3] suppose I am in the bush hunting deer. I am informed by radio that at some point on Friday morning a party of school children is going to be hiking along the deer trail where I am hunting. After 9:00am on Friday morning I hear rustling and see movement in the bushes. Despite careful examination I am unable to ascertain whether the movement I see is a deer, another animal, the wind or a human being. Am I justified in shooting at the target?

The answer is clearly no; in fact, even if the deer I am hunting has unusual shaped antlers which I could sell for millions of dollars on Trade Me, the proceeds of which I plan to donate to a local children’s hospital which will help many children be cured of diseases, it would still be wrong to shoot. This is because

(i) I know that at some point in the morning, in that place a human being will be present;
(ii) It is morning and I am perceiving a living object in that place; and
(iii) I am unable to identify whether what I perceive is human or not.

It would be an act of gross recklessness or negligence to destroy the target because these three facts are in play. Something similar seems to occur in the case of human embryo destruction.

I know that at some point that, between conception and the fetal stage, a human being comes into existence. I know that an embryo is in existence at this period of time. Hence, unless I have reasons for thinking it is not human it is seriously immoral to destroy it.

So the real question is whether there are any reasons for thinking that an embryo prior to segmentation is not a human being. The arguments, however, are quite tricky and deal with some interesting metaphysical questions about identity. Perhaps one of them is successful, but even if it is, the continual pontification about Christopher Reeves, Michael J. Fox or the constant reminder about the diseases that human embryonic stem-cell research may lead to cures for does not provide any reasons, at all, for thinking an embryo is not human or that research of this type is ethical. In fact Barack Obama has stated that he does not know at what point in development an embryo becomes human; when asked this questions he answered:

Whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is, you know, above my pay grade.

The fact that so many people, including the President of the United States, support destroying a human embryo without even bothering to address this central question is deeply disturbing.

[1] Judith Jarvis Thomson “Killing Letting Die and the Trolley Problem” The Monist Vol. 59, p 205.
[2] Don Marquis “Stem Cell Research: The Failure of the New Bioethics” Free Inquiry, Winter 2002 Vol. 23 # v1.
[3] James Humber, “Abortion the Unavoidable Dilemma” Journal of Value Inquiry 9:2 (1975): 286.

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Marquis, Pruss and the Twinning Argument
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 1
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 2
Sentience Part 1
Sentience Part 2
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Abortion and Brain Death: A Response to Farrar
Abortion and Capital Punishment: No Contradiction
Imposing You Beliefs Onto Others: A Defence
Published: Boonin’s Defense of the Sentience Criteria – A Critique
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