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Permalink Reply by Ockraz on March 9, 2009 at 5:48am

Hmmm. "Personhood" bothers me. I've never been clear about what it is- ethical concept (potential right recipient) or metaphysical (part of philosophy of mind) or linguistic/social convention.

You sound like you've done a lot of work on this. It isn't my area, but it sounds interesting.

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Permalink Reply by Simon JM on March 9, 2009 at 11:24pm

IMO this is the main thing to overcome in the abortion debate. It is a matter of identity/ontology. My account overcomes it & works whether you wish to frame us as persons or organisms.

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Permalink Reply by Ockraz on March 10, 2009 at 7:57pm

I get the feeling that many pro-choice arguments use a form of category mistake to justify their conclusion. The philosophy of mind version of 'personhood' is not something which embyos and probably at least early fetuses possess. That I'll agree to- but to then say that it has no rights requires that one believe that the set of 'persons' in the philosophy of mind use of the word and the set of 'persons' in the ethical use of the word are coextensive.

It's a question begging argument. Why is there no right to life for a fetus? "Because a fetus doesn't meet the criteria for having rights." That's basically what it boils down to.

If pro-choice advocates had to defend their upholding notion that the two personhood senses denote all and only the same members, then (those who'd thought about) would probably fall back on some sort of utilitarianism. Doing that would even the playing field (if not tilt it in our favor) considering all the objections that there are to utilitarianism.

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Permalink Reply by Simon JM on March 11, 2009 at 3:18am

Connected with the classification as a person is the reason why some Pro-Choice philosophers only see moral value in being a person. Singer and Tooley-+ others- try to link in cognitive sophistication but I don't buy it and see it as a bad attempt to disguise circular reasoning.

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