This long essay, “A Theory of Human Dignity,” presents and defends a general theory of human dignity, with special attention paid to spelling out its background metaphysics, formulating and justifying a basic set of dignitarian moral principles, and critically addressing hard cases for the theory.
“A Theory of Human Dignity” is being made available here in serial format, but you can also download, read, and/or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay HERE.
This fourteenth installment contains section V.1.2.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
II. Refuting the Dignity-Skeptic and Debunking a Dignity-Debunking Argument
III. The Metaphysics of Human Dignity
III.2 Real Persons and Minded Animals
III.3 A Metaphysical Definition of Real Personhood
IV. Nonideal Dignitarian Moral Theory
IV.0 How Nonideal Can a World Be?
IV.2 How to Solve the Universalizability and Rigorism Problems
IV.3 How to Solve the Problem of Moral Dilemmas
IV.4 Policy of Truth: The Murderer-at-the-Door Revisited
IV.5 One Last Thing, By Way of Concluding This Section
V. Some Hard Cases For Broadly Kantian Nonideal Dignitarian Moral Theory
V.0 How Hard Can Hard Cases Be?
V.1 Abortion and Infanticide: Introduction
V.1.1 The Neo-Person Thesis, Neo-Persons, and Non-Persons
V.1.2 A Five-Step Argument for the Neo-Person Thesis
VI. Enacting Human Dignity and The Mind-Body Politic
VII. Conclusion
V.1.2 A Five-Step Argument for the Neo-Person Thesis
Against the backdrop of my analysis of human real personhood, and the notions of weak potentiality, strong potentiality, and psychological capacity that I’ve just presented or re-presented in section V.1.1, together with the broadly Kantian nonideal dignitarian moral theory I worked out in section III, I’ll now provide an explicit, step-by-step argument for The Neo-Person Thesis. The argument has five steps.
STEP 1
Human persons, as specified according to the four-part metaphysical definition I presented in section III and again in sub-section V.1.1, also possess human dignity.
Now human real persons, or human subjects of dignity, as falling under the Categorical Imperative, are not only targets of respect, and thereby must be considered respectfully, but also, as we saw, in section III. they must always be sufficiently treated with respect for their human dignity, which entails never harming them by violating their human dignity. But here it’s crucial to recognize that not all forms of harm to human real persons are also violations of their human dignity, and therefore that there are some morally permissible harms. For example, consider morally permissibly killing a culpable attacker in self-defense, that is, killing a culpable attacker in self-defense by using minimal lethal force—the smallest amount and degree of violence that’s effective for killing, in a context—when that context is also such that killing is the only way of stopping that attacker in that context. Killing someone in self-defense under these two conditions (minimal lethal force in a context, and killing is the only way of stopping that attacker in that context) obviously harms that attacker, but it does not also violate that attacker’s dignity. Harming someone is doing something bad to them, or doing something that is bad for them. Other things being equal, killing a human real human person obviously harms that human real person. But the case of morally permissibly killing a culpable attacker in self-defense, clearly shows that not every killing morally disrespects the human real person who is killed. By the same token, some harms to human real persons are morally permissible harms; and all and only those harms that are also violations of the dignity of real persons are morally impermissible harms.
STEP 2
A successful human neo-person is strictly and numerically identical to an actualized human real person at the very beginning of their life. This is because, after consciousness—namely, subjective experience—has emerged at the beginning of the third trimester, then a successful human neo-person possesses the strong-potentiality-of-a-constitutively-necessary-psychological-capacity for being the human real erson that they actually become. It’s strictly morally impermissible to harm an actualized human real person by violating their dignity. Therefore, since the successful human neo-person of that actualized human real person is identically the same human real person, although at the front end of her life, it’s strictly morally impermissible to harm that human neo-person by violating their dignity.
What about human neo-persons who do not in fact become actualized human real persons, that is, what about doomed human neo-persons? As I argued above, during the period of their neo-personhood, all doomed human neo-persons are physically, mentally, causally, teleologically, and morally indistinguishable from successful human neo-persons, that is, from those more fortunate human neo-persons who are literally identical with actualized human real persons. Otherwise put, as long as doomed human neo-persons are still alive and still have a strong potentiality for human real personhood, then there’s nothing whatsoever to distinguish them morally from successful human neo-persons. And this is because doomed human neo-persons differ from successful human neo-persons only in the mere metaphysical fact that later they fail to become actualized human real persons. So, as long as the doomed human neo-persons are still alive and possessed of a strong potentiality for human real personhood, then they are morally indiscriminable from the surviving, successful huamn neo-persons. The metaphysical fact that the doomed human neo-persons will not make it to actualized human real personhood is just a forthcoming fact about their future lives, not a settled or current fact about their past or present lives respectively. But since choice and action always actually happen in the present and always arise from the past, and since they never directly involve the future except by goal or intention, then the metaphysical forthcoming fact of a doomed human neo-person’s death or loss of strong potentiality for human real personhood isn’t a moral fact, and is always morally irrelevant. Therefore, it’s morally impermissible to harm any human neo-person, whether successful or doomed, by violating its dignity, whether this dignity flows from its being a human real person (namely, from its being a successful neo-person) or from its merely being a candidate-in-good-standing for being a human real person (namely, from its being a doomed human neo-person).
Now, other things being equal, an abortion performed on the mother of a human neo-person would cause harm to that human neo-person by killing it—or at the very least, by being a mortal threat to it—and also violate its human dignity by treating it either as mere means or as a mere thing, or by mortally threatening it without its explicit or implicit rational consent. So, other things being equal, it’s morally impermissible to abort a human neo-person, whether by means of a detachment abortion or a fatal abortion. Nevertheless, other things being equal, at any time prior to human neo-personhood, then either a detachment abortion or a fatal abortion may permissibly be performed, assuming the explicit or implicit rational consent of the mother.
STEP 3
Other things being equal, whenever a human fetus or human infant is a human non-person—that is, a human animal that’s neither a human neo-person (whether a successful human neo-person or a doomed human neo-person) nor an actualized human real person—then either a detachment abortion or a fatal abortion may morally permissibly be performed, or an infanticide may be carried out, assuming the explicit or implicit rational consent of the mother in the case of a fetus, or of any other relevant primary moral guardian(s) in the case of an infant. This is because, other things being equal, non-persons are neither subjects of dignity nor targets of sufficient respect, and do not belong to the universal intersubjective community of equally considered real persons or rational animals, The Realm of Ends. More specifically, no human non-persons are human neo-persons, and no human neo-persons are human non-persons. For example, both the anencephalic infant Baby Theresa and also Terry Schiavo after her catastrophic heart attack were human non-persons, but not human neo-persons. This is because, in those actual contexts, either (i) an individual human animal lacked even the weak potentiality to be a human real person by lacking a higher brain and the natural neurobiological matrix of consciousness, and thereby also lacked the strong potentiality to be an actualized human real person (for example, the anencephalic infant Baby Theresa), or (ii) an individual human animal had previously been an actualized human real person who, unfortunately, became permanently unconscious, thereby dying, even though a different successor non-sentient, non-conscious animal conventionally bearing the same proper name still lived on (for example, Terry Schiavo after her catastrophic heart attack).
Just as a human non-person fetus may be morally permissibly killed, other things being equal, so too any human infant, toddler, adolescent, or adult that’s a non-person may be permissibly killed, other things being equal.
To be sure, other things are not always equal. Hence there are at least three kinds of special cases in which it’s morally impermissible to saliently harm or even kill infants, toddlers, adolescents, or adult humans who are, currently and strictly speaking, human non-persons.
First, there are cases of what Jeff McMahan calls post-personhood (see sub-section V.2 below) and the moral protection of such human non-persons is grounded on the metaphysical and moral fact that they’ve previously been human real persons, and then permanently lost their human real personhood through disease, injury, or mental illness, but still retain their sentience or minded animality.
Second, there are cases of what I’ll call remediable non-personhood, and the moral protection of such human non-persons is grounded on the metaphysical and moral fact that although a human being has lost his or her human real personhood through disease, injury, or mental illness, nevertheless it remains medically (that is, biologically-technologically) possible for them to recover from their current unfortunate state of non-personhood and become human real persons again.
Third and finally, there are cases of what I call associate membership in The Realm of Ends (see STEP 5 in this sub-section, and also sub-section V.3),[i] and the moral protection of such human non-persons is grounded on the fact that some actual human real persons have individually or collectively resolved to treat those human non-persons as if they were real persons.
So some human animals, even despite their currently and strictly speaking being non-persons, nevertheless have high moral status because they are either (i) retrospective and still sentient subjects of dignity (post-personhood cases), or (ii) prospective subjects of dignity (remediable non-personhood cases), or (iii) conventional subjects of dignity (associate membership in The Realm of Ends cases).
STEP 4
There are two special exceptions to the moral impermissibility of aborting human neo-persons. The first special exception is that, other things being equal, it’s morally permissible to perform detachment abortions in cases of forcible involuntary pregnancy, for example, pregnancy due to rape. This is because the pregnancy has occurred by means of coercion (by which, in this context, I mean: using people as a mere means, specifically by employing violence or the threat of violence[ii]) and without the explicit or implicit rational consent of the mother. In other words, the pregnancy has been forced or imposed on the mother by someone else. And by having this pregnancy forced or imposed on her, she has been treated without sufficient respect and also without her rational consent, hence she has been harmed by means of a violation of her dignity. So it’s not morally required that she herself provide what the innocent human neo-person needs in order to survive, other things being equal.
It’s also crucial to recognize, however, that this would remain equally true if she had been coerced instead to provide what another innocent actualized human real person needs in order to survive, for example, her bone marrow, one of her kidneys, or the shared use of her internal organs for nine months—as per Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous thought-experiment of the Violinist who has been life-savingly attached to your internal organs without your permission while you are asleep.
By sharp contrast, however, if, other things being equal, the mother of the fetus—corresponding, in Thomson’s thought-experiment, to the “attachee” or “host” of the attached Violinist—had been morally required merely to wade into a shallow pond and get her nice clothes dirty in order to save a drowning child, then the specific moral character of the case would correspondingly be sharply different. Indeed and more generally, as per Peter Singer’s famous famine relief argument,[iii] such life-saving acts as wading into a shallow pond in order to save a drowning child are arguably not only morally permissible, but also morally obligatory, for any human real person moral agent in certain actual contexts, other things being equal, provided that (i) the agent is the closest one to the mortally threatened innocent human real person, (ii) the agent is the only one who can save the mortally threatened other innocent actualized real person in that context, (iii) the act of saving the child costs the agent nothing of moral significance, even though the agent does indeed sacrifice something of non-negligible moral value, and also (iv) the agent isn’t required to iterate that small sacrifice to the point at which it undermines her obligatory life-project, other things being equal, of developing her abilities and perfecting herself.
At the same time, however, other things being equal, it’s also not morally permissible for the mother to insist on a fatal abortion in cases of forced involuntary pregnancy. This insistence on fatality would be killing the human neo-person without also being able to assume the human neo-person’s implicit rational consent, much less that neo-person’s explicit rational consent, since, obviously, the human neo-person is incapable of consenting or even reasoning during that period of their life. Hence it would constitute treating that human neo-person without sufficient respect for their dignity, and would thereby harm that human neo-person by violating their dignity. For the mother to insist on the fatal abortion of a human neo-person in the case of forced involuntary pregnancy, would be morally equivalent to the following sort of case: The same mother permissibly refuses to provide a kidney for some unfortunate, innocent, actualized human real person who needs a healthy kidney in order to live, and shows up at her front door one day in order to ask for it specifically from her, and then, after the refusal, that same mother proceeds to strangle the unfortunate, innocent, healthy-kidney-needer, in order to ensure that they die right then-and-there.
Significantly, the issue of central relevance here is not the morality of killing per se, since killing can happen in the morally permissible case of detachment abortions and in the morally impermissible case of fatal abortions, alike. It is instead the modality of killing that’s of central relevance. A detachment abortion is only ever a contingent killing—for if the fetus happens to survive as an infant, then that would be perfectly consistent with the intentional aim of a detachment abortion—whereas a fatal abortion is a necessary killing, in the sense that killing the fetus is an intrinsic part of its intentional aim. To insist on a fatal abortion when only a detachment abortion is permissible is therefore to kill the fetus “with extreme prejudice,” to borrow a vivid phrase from Francis Ford Coppola’s stark and uncompromising 1979 film Apocalypse Now, or as Thomson puts it more soberly, “unjustly,”[iv] other things being equal. Similarly, other things being equal, refusing to provide a kidney for an unfortunate innocent healthy-kidney-needer is morally permissible. But ensuring the death of that unfortunate innocent healthy-kidney-needer right then and there, by (say) strangling them, is strictly morally impermissible, precisely because it kills the innocent healthy-kidney-needer “with extreme prejudice” and “unjustly.” That is, it treats the other human real person either as a mere means or as a mere thing, without their actual or possible rational consent, and with cruelty, hence without sufficient respect for their human dignity, and thereby impermissibly harms that real person by violating their human dignity.
One deeply important consequence of this point is the following point. Assuming that the medical technology for preserving a detached fetus’s life exists, then according to the broadly Kantian nonideal dignitarian moral theory I’m defending here, it’s strictly morally obligatory to try to preserve a human neo-person’s life during a morally permissible detachment abortion. To do otherwise would be to treat the human neo-person either as a mere means or as a mere thing—as something entirely disposable like a piece of garbage or offal—or without their explicit or implicit rational consent, and with cruelty, and thereby impermissibly to harm that human neo-person by violating their dignity.
The second special exception to the moral impermissibility of abortion is that it is morally permissible, other things being equal, to perform fatal abortions if (i) the continued existence of the human neo-person threatens the life of the mother, and (ii) a detachment abortion cannot be performed either for purely medical-technological reasons or because it would seriously threaten the life of the mother. The reason why fatal abortions are permissible, other things being equal, when the mother’s life is threatened and a detachment abortion cannot be performed, is the same reason why, other things being equal, it is morally permissible to kill another human real person—whether a human neo-person or an actualized human real person—in self-defense, even if that human neo-person or actualized human real person is entirely innocent of any wicked intention or act, provided that (i) killing is the only way one can protect oneself from being mortally threatened in that context, and (ii) only minimal lethal force is used.
Following Thomson’s terminology in another important essay, I’ll call any mortally threatening innocent person of this kind an innocent attacker.[v] So what I’m asserting, by implication, is that it’s morally permissible to abort a human neo-person who is an innocent attacker, other things being equal. This is because (i) at least the implicit rational consent of the innocent attacker can be assumed in such cases, (ii) the innocent attacker is not being treated either as a mere means or as a mere thing, and (iii) the innocent attacker is also being treated with kindness—insofar as, when the attacked person fends off the innocent attacker, she intends no cruelty whatsoever towards him. So in these ways the innocent attacker is being sufficiently treated with respect for their human dignity, and not being harmed by a violation of their dignity, other things being equal.
What’s the criterion of implicit rational consent? The core idea, as I am construing it, is that if any higher-level or Kantian human real person—i.e., a moral agent—were placed behind a Rawlsian “veil of ignorance,”[vi] which procedurally screens out uniquely self-referring personal identity details from that moral agent’s own cognitive and practical point of view, and thereby ensures a suitable reflective disinterestedness and distance from their actual “human, all too human” condition, then they would agree to that treatment. The notion of implicit rational consent is important in cases for which the real-world moral context is so “messy” that the moral agent has little or no opportunity to reflect and make a well-considered judgment; for which the moral agent has, at that time, insufficient knowledge of the relevant factors in that particular context; for which there is good reason to believe that the moral agent is not psychologically competent in that particular context; for which there is good reason to believe that the moral agent is being coerced in that particular context; or for which there is good reason to believe that the moral agent is under some or another serious cognitive illusion in that particular context (for example, in the German cannibals case I mentioned in section III). Since a great many real-world moral contexts are such that explicit rational consent or its refusal is simply out of the question, then the notion of implicit rational consent or its refusal plays a crucial role in broadly Kantian nonideal dignitarian moral theory.
Applying this criterion of implicit rational consent to innocent attacker cases, it follows that the moral permissibility of self-defense would still hold, no matter who actually turns out to be the self-defender and no matter who actually turns out to be the innocent attacker. For example, consider a scenario in which I am a bicyclist and involved in a two-bicycle accident with another bicyclist, previously unknown to me (so: they are specifically not a loved one, a close friend, or someone else I have explicitly or implicitly promised to aid or protect), that’s no one’s fault—for example, a sudden heavy gust of wind blows me and the other cyclist into one another. But unfortunately the accident happens on a busy street, and now the other cylist is lying unconscious on top of me, while suddenly a large Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV), being driven by a reckless (or drugged-up, or drunk, or texting) college student, is barrelling directly towards both of us at high speed and is just a few yards away, unable either to stop in time or swerve so as to miss both of us. As it so happens, then, absolutely the only way I can save myself from being run over by the SUV is to push the unconscious other cyclist towards the speeding SUV, and roll sideways. The unconscious other cyclist is an innocent attacker in this case, and broadly Kantian dignitarian nonideal moral theory says that it would be morally permissible for me to kill that other cyclist in the way I’ve described, other things being equal.
The rationale is this. I’m morally required, other things being equal, to provide benefits for human real persons, and also to prevent harm to them, including myself. Moreover, other things being equal, my untimely death is a bad and harmful thing for me. Also I’m morally required, other things being equal, to pursue my own self-perfecting projects, which obviously will not be possible if I’m dead. So self-defense is at the very least morally permissible, other things being equal, and is a first-order substantive ceteris paribus objective duty to myself. In this case, I’m not treating the innocent attacker either as a mere means or as a mere thing, or with cruelty, and harming them by violating their dignity as a human real person—there’s nothing “personal” in my pushing them off me in that way, thereby killing them. Indeed, if there were any other possible way I could push them off me, save myself, and also save their life, then I would do so. Nor am I being unkind specifically to them: I intend no cruelty whatsoever towards them. Moreover, I would also give my implicit rational consent to a scenario in which I’m killed in exactly the same way, in a slightly different possible act-world in which our personal identities were switched, and unluckily I was the unconscious cyclist, and they were the conscious cyclist accidentally pinned underneath me. Therefore, in the actual world, the unconscious cyclist’s implicit rational consent can be assumed, and I’m also sufficiently treating them with respect and not violating their human dignity—even though, obviously, I’m seriously harming them by killing them.
On the other hand, however, it must also be emphasized that I’m certainly not obligated to kill an innocent attacker, and therefore its being morally permissible on the grounds of self-defense, other things being equal, doesn’t morally rule out my choosing self-sacrifice. This can be shown by considering a minor variant on the original case I imagined, in which it’s still possible for me to push the unconscious other cyclist out of the way of the speeding SUV, but, unfortunately, only in such a way as to guarantee that I will be run over by the speeding SUV instead. Otherwise, they’ll be run over and undoubtedly killed if I save myself by wriggling out from under them and rolling out of the way. In such a possible act-world, I might choose to save the unconscious other cyclist. If so, then in that act-world I would be a moral hero at the cost of my own death. But this moral heroism would be supererogatory—that is, over and above what is obligatory. For according to broadly Kantian nonideal dignitarian moral theory, I’m not morally required to be a moral hero and sacrifice myself, other things being equal; rather I’m only morally permitted to be a moral hero and sacrifice myself, other things being equal. Moral heroism for “human, all-too-human” moral agents like us, insofar as we reach all the way up to sinner-sainthood, is a maximal normative ideal, that we’re obligated to pursue in order to have fully principled and authentic lives, but not a minimal normative requirement that we are obligated to choose and do in order to treat everyone, including ourselves, with sufficient respect for their human dignity.
This also marks yet another important way in which broadly Kantian nonideal dignitarian moral theory is sharply different from act consequentialism, which would strictly obligate me to sacrifice my life, if the unconscious other cyclist were someone who could bring significant benefits to other people: for example, if s/he were a rich philanthropist, a great surgeon, or a great concert violinist. Indeed, act consequentialism would even obligate me to sacrifice my life if the unconscious other cyclist were merely a moderately well-off philanthropist, a fairly good surgeon, or a pretty good concert violinist. Presumably and realistically, whatever modest happiness benefits I could bring to other people as a philosopher would still, on balance, be greatly less than those the moderately well-off philanthropist, the fairly good surgeon, and the pretty good concert violinist would each bring to people by surviving. In fact, even making the very optimistic and no doubt unrealistic assumption that whatever modest happiness benefits I could bring to other people as a philosopher are, on balance, only a little less than those a moderately well-off philanthropist, a fairly good surgeon, or a pretty good concert violinist would bring to people by surviving, nevertheless act consequentialism would still obligate me to sacifice myself. But none of this excessively self-sacrificing activity is required by broadly Kantian nonideal dignitarian moral theory. This is an especially telling point, because it is often falsely assumed that all Kantian approaches to morality are highly morally strenuous and even morally over-demanding. Perhaps it’s true that some Kantian approaches to morality are morally over-demanding. But broadly Kantian nonideal dignitarian moral theory isn’t. On the contrary, its level of moral demandingness, while indeed appropriately high, and thereby adequately expressive of the most important ideals flowing from our nature as human real persons with dignity, is neither under-demanding nor over-demanding, but instead just demanding enough.
On the other hand, then, and ironically, by the same token, act consequentialism is under-demanding. This is because, in cases in which the unconscious cyclist is just an ordinary person, whose abilities to bring about shallow happiness benefits are even less prodigious than my already, realistically, very meagre shallow-happiness-producing abilities as an independent philosopher, and s/he is most certainly not a philanthropist, surgeon, concert violinist, etc., then act consequentialism would make it morally impermissible for me to sacrifice myself for their sake. But if broadly Kantian nonideal dignitarian moral theory is correct, then moral heroism, aka sinner-sainthood, is not only morally permissible but even morally a great thing, no matter what the consequences. Thus moral heroism or sinner-sainhood is not only fully morally permissible but highly morally laudable, even if supererogatory. In this respect, as in others,[7] act consequentialism seriously disenchants the moral world. What would be the point of my merely living on and on and on, wallowing in my mere happiness, like Mill’s satisfied fool or satisfied pig, if the very possibility of my acting on those highest or supreme values that essentially make human real personal life worth living, is morally ruled out of court? In a sufficiently enchanted moral world, it has to be morally possible for me to choose to be Mill’s “Socrates dissatisfied.” Or at any rate, in a sufficiently enchanted moral world, it has to be morally possible for me, like Plato’s Socrates, to choose my not fleeing Athens, my acceptance of the death sentence imposed on me by the Tyrants, and my drinking the hemlock.
Now back to abortion. For all the same basic reasons and with all the same basic provisos governing the unconscious other cylist case, therefore, on the strength of that reasoning, whenever a human neo-person is an innocent attacker, then a fatal abortion is morally permissible, other things being equal, provided that (i) killing is the only way the life of the mother can be saved in that context, and (ii) only minimal lethal force is used. Otherwise, only a detachment abortion is morally permissible, other things being equal. Moreover, just as in the case of morally permissible detachment abortions when the pregnancy is forced and involuntary, provided that the medical technology for preserving a detached fetus’s life exists, it’s also strictly morally obligatory to try to preserve a human neo-person’s life during such an abortion.
STEP 5
Finally, there’s a special exception to the other-things-being-equal moral permissibility of aborting or carrying out infanticide on human non-persons, as I indirectly indicated above. Under certain conditions—broadly speaking, the necessary and sufficient conditions governing the existence and specific character of a normative convention[viii]—human or non-human non-persons can be temporarily or permanently treated as if they were real human persons falling under under the protection of the Categorical Imperative. They thereby gain an associate membership in The Realm of Ends, whereby they are secondary subjects of dignity and secondary targets of respect, and thus extrinsically receive a temporary or permanent right-to-life.
By a “right,”[ix] I mean a subject’s moral demand on others to let her choose something, do something, or continue being something (aka “liberty rights”), or to provide her with some good or with access to some good (aka “claim rights”). This moral demand can be either (i) unalienable, which is to say that it cannot be removed under any conditions, or else (ii) forfeitable, which is to say that it can be removed under certain conditions. Correspondingly, by “the right-to-life” I mean a subject’s unalienable moral demand on others to let her continue being alive, that is, a subject’s unalienable moral demand not to be impermissibly actively or passively killed by others. As unalienable, obviously, the right-to-life is not a forfeitable right of any sort. Nor, however, is it a strict right-not-to-be-killed. For if it were a strict right-not-to-be-killed, then it would implausibly prevent morally permissible killing of any sort, for example, during wartime, in self-defense, and other special cases, especially including Trolley Problem-type cases (see sub-section V.4 below), in which a few people are permissibly killed in order to save many other people. The crucial point here is that temporary or permanent possession of a right-to-life by secondary subjects of dignity and secondary targets of respect is in sharp contrast to the possession of dignity by primary subjects of dignity and primary targets of respect—namely, all real persons, including all actualized human real persons, and all human neo-persons. The moral status of associate membership in The Realm of Ends is inherently contingent and extrinsic, precisely because it is conventional, although it also remains normatively and morally binding, precisely to the extent that some primary subjects of dignity and primary targets of respect are prepared to offer some good reasons for this moral convention, to stand behind it, and to provide moral censure of those who violate it.
Now a necessary condition for something’s being a secondary subject of dignity and a secondary target of respect is that it have a morally valuable life of its own, which in turn implies that it must at least be an individual living organism, since this is a constitutively necessary condition of being a subject of dignity and a target of sufficient respect. Insofar as associate membership in The Realm of Ends has actually been extended to some human non-persons, even if they are neither minimally sentient nor conscious, but rather only merely alive, then, other things being equal, abortion and infanticide are both conventionally morally impermissible with respect to those human non-persons. Nevertheless, to carry out an abortion or infanticide in such cases would not be a violation of the dignity of the human non-person itself, since a human non-person doesn’t intrinsically have dignity. Instead, abortion or infanticide in such cases would have a negative impact only on (i) the sentient animal life of the non-person, and (ii) the moral lives of those members-in-good-standing of The Realm of Ends who rationally support and stand behind the moral convention that constitutes this class of associate members of The Realm, and jointly confer the status of being a secondary subject of dignity and a secondary target of respect upon the erstwhile non-person.
Obviously, the human non-person’s sentient animal life would be “negatively impacted” by its termination, other things being equal. But there could still be cases in which, even though the abortion or infanticide is conventionally impermissible, nevertheless terminating the non-person’s life might still constitute morally permissible euthanasia in a non-conventional sense. Moreover, the negative impact on the moral lives of those who conventionally confer secondary moral status on the erstwhile human non-person, other things being equal, would not constitute a violation of their dignity. I particularly stress the ceteris paribus qualifier, “other things being equal,” in this connection, however. This is because it’s really possible, in some act-contexts, for the abortion or infanticide, actual or threatened, to be an instrument of coercion directed at those who conventionally confer secondary status on the erstwhile human non-person. For example, if a SWAT team of pro-choicers threatened to abort the first-trimester fetuses of some pro-lifers, in order to force those pro-lifers to vote pro-choice, then that would clearly count as a violation of the pro-lifers’ human dignity.
It’s also important to note that associate membership in The Realm of Ends applies every bit as much to merely living, minimally sentient, or conscious non-human non-persons as it does to merely living, minimally sentient, or conscious human non-persons. This in turn makes room, for example, not only for the possibility of an Albert Schweizer-like moral concern for all living organisms, and also for any slightly-less-than-Schweizer-like, but still exceptionally broad and inclusive, moral concern over merely living non-sentient human non-person animal organisms like human embryos, or (at best) minimally sentient non-human non-person animal organisms like insects. The moral convention, according to which secondary dignity and secondary respect is ascribed to human or non-human non-persons, derives ultimately from our respect-based moral feelings towards all merely living, minimally sentient, or conscious non-human creatures in our world, who share with us at least one constitutively necessary feature of real personhood (organismic life), but who are also non-persons because they lack the strong potentiality to become actualized real persons. Indeed, physical nature itself has what I call proto-dignity, due to its being a constitutive metaphysically necessary condition for the existence of human real persons.[10] But human neo-personhood, as we have seen, requires the strong-potentiality-of-a-constitutively-necessary-psychological-capacity. A strong potentiality on its own—for example, as possessed by first trimester fetuses after the stage of totipotency—is not enough, and a constitutive psychological capacity on its own—for example, as possessed by sentient non-human non-persons—is also insufficient for neo-personhood.
Associate membership in The Realm of Ends, and its corresponding conventional moral principles, thus both result from coordinated acts of special moral concern and kindness carried out by actualized higher-level or Kantian human real persons, aka personsk, aka human moral agents, and directed towards any living creatures, especially including minimally sentient animals or non-person conscious animals of any species. And in this way, we can confer associate membership status, secondary dignity, and secondary respect upon, for example, some embryos, fetuses, or infants who are non-persons. This conventional act of conferring a new moral specific character or moral status, in turn, is ultimately justified by reasons that first and foremost determine the morality of our treatment of non-human minded animals.
To summarize what I’ve been arguing in this sub-section: According to The Neo-Person Thesis and its broadly Kantian nonideal dignitarian moral rationale, human neo-personhood is the property of a fetus or infant that determines the difference between the moral permissibility and the moral impermissibility of abortion and/or infanticide. Other things being equal, the possession of human neo-personhood or actualized human real personhood by a fetus or infant entails the moral impermissibility of abortion or infanticide, and the non-possession of human neo-personhood or actualized human real personhood by a fetus or infant entails the moral permissibility of abortion or infanticide. And when other things aren’t equal, there are some special exceptions to this permissibility/impermissibility that derive from the morality of saving and harming others, and the morality of our treatment of non-human animals. So, holding fixed the special exceptions, The Neo-Person Thesis solves the problem of abortion and infanticide.
NOTES
[i] When I was a graduate student at Yale in the 1980s, John Smith reported to some of us that J.N. Findlay had used the phrase “associate membership in The Kingdom of Ends” in lectures at Yale. I don’t know precisely what Findlay himself meant by this phrase, or whether he meant it seriously or was joking: but it’s so appropriate that I can’t resist stealing it and adapting it for my own philosophical purposes.
[ii] Strictly speaking, there’s also a morally and politically important distinction between (i) primary coercion and (ii) secondary coercion, such that in primary coercion, the coercer uses violence or threats of violence, whereas in secondary coercion, the coercer uses only salient harm or threats of salient harm that fall short of violence—e.g., unofficially slandering you, name-shaming you over the internet, “doxxing” you, officially reprimanding you, officially fining you, firing you from your job, blacklisting you, etc. See, e.g., R. Hanna, Kant, Agnosticism, and Anarchism: A Theological-Political Treatise (THE RATIONAL HUMAN CONDITION, Vol. 4) (New York: Nova Science, 2018), , part 2; and also sub-section V.5 below. But introducing that distinction here would needlessly complicate my exposition in this particular argument-context.
[iii] See P. Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” in S. Cahn and P. Markie (eds.), Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues (3rd edn., New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006), pp. 789-796; P. Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993), ch. 8; and P. Singer, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” in J. Rachels and S. Rachels, (eds.), The Right Thing to Do: Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy (4th edn., New York: McGraw Hill, 2007), pp. 138-144.; and R. Hanna, Kantian Ethics and Human Existence: A Study in Moral Philosophy (THE RATIONAL HUMAN CONDITION, Vol. 3) (New York: Nova Science, 2018), section 5.3.
[iv] J.J. Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion,” in M. Cohen, T. Nagel, and T. Scanlon (eds.), The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1974), pp. 3-22, at p. 15.
[v] J.J. Thomson, “Self-Defense,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 20 (1991): 283-310; Thomson’s own term is “innocent threat.”
[vi] See J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1971).
[vii] See, e.g., B. Williams, “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” in J.J.C. Smart and B. Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1973), pp. 77-50.
[viii] See, e.g., D. Lewis, Convention (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1969); and M. Rescorla, “Convention,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition), E.N. Zalta (ed.), available online at URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/convention/>.
[ix] See, e.g., L. Wenar, “Rights,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition), E.N. Zalta (ed.), available online at URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/rights/>; and J.J. Thomson, The Realm of Rights (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1990).
[x] See Hanna, Kant, Agnosticism, and Anarchism: A Theological-Political Treatise (THE RATIONAL HUMAN CONDITION, Vol. 4), section 3.14.
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