1.

Basic moral principles and the concept of a person

2. Human persons and human organisms
3. The concept of person and wrongness of killing
4. What makes something a person?
5. Is personhood a matter of degree?
6. Is potential personhood morally significant?
7. Is species membership morally significant?
8. The moral status of human embryos, fetuses and newborn infants
9. Ethics and the concept of a person

INTRODUCTION

Michael Tooley addresses the importance of understanding the concept of personhood in his essay,
“personhood”. there are two different ways of using the term “person”. One is biological which
means individuals belonging to homo sapiens and the other is in terms of mentality which means
individuals enjoying something comparable to the type of mental life that characterizes normal adult
human beings. The latter concept plays a crucial role in formulating basic moral principles and
resolving ethical dilemmas especially, morality of killing.

BASIC MORAL PRINCIPLES AND THE CONCEPT OF A PERSON

What is exactly meant by destruction of a person? Whose destruction do we consider as morally

wrong?

Answering these questions, Michael Tooley addresses four cases:

1. Destroying the upper brain of a person while the lower brain is unharmed
2. Reprogramming
3. Destroying the lower brain of a person whose upper brain is already destroyed
4. Killing of non-human animals who have comparable or superior mental life as human beings.

Destroying the upper brain destroys higher mental functions like self consciousness,
deliberation, thought and memory which is equivalent to destruction of attitude and
personalities of the person. Similarly, total reprogramming of the person also destroys the
individual once existed and makes a different person with pseudo memories, beliefs, attitudes,
preferences, abilities and personality. Both kind of destructions are morally wrong. In the third
case, destroying the lower brain of a person whose upper brain has been destroyed is not
seriously wrong compared to the first person who destroys the upper brain. In the fourth case,
killing of non-human animals would be wrong if that animal has comparable or superior mental
life. These four cases show the importance of understanding personhood in order to resolve
ethical issues like morality of killing.

HUMAN PERSONS AND HUMAN ORGANISMS

Eric Olson in 1997 states that a human person is identical with the relevant human organisms.
However, Tolley objected this by stating four arguments:

1. If this is the case, then destroying the upper brain of person wouldn’t be morally wrong
unless the body is destroyed. There would be still a living organism.
2. Suppose Bruce’s upper brain is destroyed but the rest of his body is unharmed while Matt’s
upper brain is unharmed but the rest of his body is destroyed. Here, Matt’s brain is
transplanted to Bruce’s body. Here, if human person is identical to human organism, then
 everyone wants to be in Bruce’s position. However, in reality, everyone wants to be in
Matt’s position.
3. Complete reprogramming of a person’s brain would not be on a par with killing a human
organism if human person is identical to relevant human organism.
4. Suppose John is associated with organism A and Mary is associated with organism B. John’s
upper brain is transplanted to B and Mary’s upper brain is transplanted to A. if human
person is identical to human organism, then it would follow that both John and Mary have
undergone an extraordinary change with regard to his mental capacities. But that won’t be
the case. the result is that John is associated with organism B and Mary with organism A.

So, human person is not equivalent to relevant human organism.

WHAT MAKES SOMETHING A PERSON?

Identifying “a person” is vital to resolve ethical issues. Moreover, what other types of entity
might be thought to have the same moral status as that of persons?

Universally 17 properties are recognized which makes an entity “a person”. Michael Tooley gives
an alternative views of 6 properties which is sufficient to make a person.

1. Self consciousness
2. The capacity for rational thought
3. Being a moral agent
4. Being a subject of non-momentary interests
5. Having a mental life that involves an adequate amount of continuity and connectedness via
memory
6. Simple consciousness

Moreover, mere possession of capacities wouldn’t be enough if those capacities are not
exercised. The question of killing rarely arises in situations where a capacity exists but has not
yet been used.

IS PERSONHOOD A MATTER OF DEGREE?

If personhood is a matter of degree, then not all persons would have the same moral status.
However, Michael Tooley objected this notion by giving two arguments:

1. If personhood is a matter of degree, then animal belonging to another species having certain
crucial characteristics only to a much lesser degree than normal human beings will have
some moral status of lesser degree, which is not the case.
2. Also, within our own species, the acquisition of personhood may very well be a gradual
process and similarly for the loss of it, atleast in some cases-such as, for example,
Alzheimer’s disease.

IS POTENTIAL PERSONHOOD MORALLY SIGNIFICANT?

With regard to the question of whether there are non-persons that have the same moral status as
persons, the most important candidates are potential persons.

1. Passive potentialities: Unfertilized human ovum which will ultimately give rise to a person
has passive potentialities since it requires outside intervention to start a process that will
ultimately give rise to a person.
2. Active potentialities: Fertilized human ovum
 A potential person is something that involves an active potentiality for personhood and it is the
destruction of such a potentiality that some have claimed is morally on a par with destroying a
person.

Now, Tooley says that this line of argument has some anomalies. Having active potentiality has
no connection with the claim that potential persons have the same moral status as persons,
since it involves the idea that one really has a person, and not merely a potential person, from
the very beginning of life.

There should not be any difference of moral significance between passive and active
potentialities. Three reasons are given:

1. Neither active potentiality nor passive potentiality have fully-active potentiality.

Unless the fertilized ovum is in an appropriate environment that supplies warmth, nutrients
etc., the development of the fertilized ovum is going to be very brief and very limited
indeed. In both fertilized and unfertilized ovum, very significant outside assistance is
required if a person is ultimately to come into being and so we cannot assign a significant
moral status to active potentiality.
2. Destroying a fully active potentiality
If an artificial womb has been perfected and an unfertilized ovum is preserved with a
spermatozoon and a device is there to ensure fertilization, the result will be a normal human
being if there is no interference. This is a fully active potentiality. If the device is turned off
before fertilization takes place, then this wont be morally wrong.
3. It might be wrong to destroy passive potentiality.
Killing a human person who is in temporary coma is morally wrong. But that person has the
passive potentiality to emerge from coma if operation is being performed.

Thus, Tooley says that in cases where potentialities are relevant to morality of killing, both
active and passive are relevant.

IS SPECIES MEMBERSHIP MORALLY SIGNIFICANT?

No, because of the following reasons:

1. Moral status is intrinsic to an individual. it does not matter how others have relationship to it
and how others treat it. It should not be depend upon what other entities happen to exist.
But this would not be the case if species membership is sufficient to give one the same
moral status as person.
2. When other purely physical properties do not make a difference with respect to one’s moral
status, then physical relation of belonging to the same species should not make a
difference.
3. Moral status is naturally connected with having interests that need to be protected. The
morally significant concept of interest is one that connects up with being a conscious entity
and with being capable of having desires.
4. The proposed principle is exposed to counterexamples. There are cases that fall under the
principle and where it therefore implies that a certain entity would have the same moral
status as a person but this is not intuitively plausible. For example, anencephalic babies.

THE MORAL STATUS OF HUMAN EMBRYOS, FETUSES AND NEWBORN INFANTS.

If the preceding conclusions are correct, then neither the fact that human embryos, fetuses and
newborn infants belong to species not the fact that they are potential persons gives them a
moral status. We have to see whether they are persons or not.

1. Human embryos: they do not possess or has previously possessed, atleast the capacity for
rudimentary consciousness.
2. Human infants and fetuses: if something is not a person until and unless it possess a capacity
to think then human infants and fetuses cannot be a person.
These issues are still controversial.