When Does a Person Begin?

1. When Does a Person Begin? Lynn Rudder Baker

2. When Does a Person Begin? • The answer to this question depends on what a person is. • First, persons are material and natural beings. • Second, we can distinguish two aspects of personhood: Biological and Ontological Personhood • Biological personhood refers to our makeup; what we are physically but NOT essentially. • Ontological personhood refers to our essential being; what makes us unique.

3. When does a human organism begin? • Baker understands the question When does a human begin? to be a biological question. • She understands the question When does a person begin? to be a philosophical question. • Baker argues that a biological individual comes into existence about 14 days after fertilization. • Between the time of fertilization and 14 days after, the fertilized egg can split and produce twins, therefore, the fertilized egg can become two individuals. • As long as this possibility exists, Baker argues we do not have one biological human organism.

4. Biological Human Organism • A Biological Human Organism begins to exist about 14 days after fertilization, when the blastocyst attaches itself to the woman’s uterus. • Fertilization and the blastocyst attaching itself to the uterus are both gradual process, and there are no clear lines of demarcation when this happens. • However, Baker argues that once there is a human biological individual, this individual is the same and persists throughout fetal development, birth, childhood, and adulthood.

5. Constitution View of Person • The ontological question concerning personhood refers to something different than just the biological organism. • What is the relationship between the biological being and the person? • Baker argues that the person is constituted by the biological organism, but it is not identical to it.

6. Essential Property • Every being is essentially something and what it is is determined by essential properties. • If x has property F essentially, then there is no possible world or time at which x exists and lacks property F.

7. First-Person Perspective • The essential property of persons is that they have first-person perspective. • Human persons are, therefore, beings that have first-person perspective essentially and are constituted of human organisms (human bodies). • A Martian person is a being that has first-person perspective but is not constituted of a human body, but rather it is constituted of a Martian body.

8. First-Person Perspective and the Human Body • Consider a bronze statue. It is an individual thing and its sculptor has imposed on it a unique form that makes it a unique statue. • However, the statue is made up of or is constituted of the bronze material just as all other bronze statues. • Similarly, a human person has the unique property of first-person perspective but is constituted of the natural and material human body.

9. What is First-Person Perspective? • There are 2 notions of first-order perspective: (1) robust and (2) rudimentary. • To have robust first-person perspective is to be able to think of oneself as different from other external things. • It means to have the ability to think of oneself without the assistance of names and descriptions and demonstratives.

10. Robust First-Person Perspective? • It means more than simply being conscious; it makes consciousness possible. • It allows for reflection, language, rationality, and morality • It allows for one to have a rich inner life, and for second-order reflection on our inner life and desires. • It allows one to evaluate one’s thoughts.

11. Rudimentary First-Order Perspective • A being has a rudimentary first-person perspective if and only if (i) it is conscious (it is a sentient being), (ii) it has a capacity to imitate; and (iii) its behavior is explainable only by attributes of beliefs, desires, and intentions. • Sentient Being • An imitator • Intentional Being

12. Infants and non-humans • Human infants have rudimentary first-person perspective. • Some non-human animals have first-person perspective as well. • However, Baker notes that there is a difference because for these non-human animals, this is their most advanced stage of development, while for humans this is only a transitory stage to a robust first-person perspective. • Baker says, “What distinguishes the human infant from the chimpanzee is that the human infant’s rudimentary first-person perspective is a developmental preliminary to having a robust first-personperspective, but a chimpanzee’s rudimentary first-person perspective is not preliminary to anything.”

13. Human animals are special • According to Baker, human animals are special in that they first develop a rudimentary FPP and later a robust FPP. • She defines human person as “x constitutes a human person at t if and only if x is a human organism at t and x has a rudimentary or robust FPP at t.”

14. Objection • Some might want to argue that just as we developed the concept of Rudimentary FPP, as a potential to Robust FPP, why couldn’t we argue that a fetus has a potential for a Robust FPP? • (HP*) “x constitutes a human person at t if and only if x is a human organism at t and either x has a robust first-person perspective or x has the capacities that, in the normal course, produce a being with a robust first-person perspective.”

15. Baker’s Response • First, Baker points our that there is a difference between an in-handcapacity, that is, a present capacity to actualize a given function, and remote-capacity or second-order capacity, that is a capacity to have a capacity to actualize a given function. • Entities that only have a remote capacity to develop a capacity to function as a person cannot yet be considered a person. • Second, the properties associated with Rudimentary FPP (consciousness, self-awareness, and intentionality) are relevant to personhood, but having a the physical human structure (e.g., heart and lung) are not. They are only physical organs but have nothing to do being a person.

16. Conclusion • According to the constitution view, a new person comes into existence when it acquires a Rudimentary FPP. • This happens roughly around birth. There is no specific moment at which a being acquires a Rudimentary FPP, because it happens gradually. • Before a human being has a rudimentary FPP it is only a human animal, a human organism, but not a person.

17. Consequences for the Abortion Issue • The implications for the abortion issue are evident: If we accept the constitution view, then any premise that claims that a fetus (before it has a Rudimentary FPP) is a person, is false, and therefore, the argument is unsound. • Baker holds the following thesis: • (O) A human fetus is an organism that does not constitute a person.

18. Does it Justify Abortion? • Notice that Baker does not claim that abortion is morally permissible, nor does her view necessarily lead us to this conclusion. • Instead, the only thing that we can conclude is that if someone has an abortion before the fetus develops a Rudimentary FPP, she did not kill a person. • One can still hold (for other reasons) that having an abortion is NOT morally permissible even if the fetus is not a person.

19. Shifts the Perspective of the Debate • By taking the personhood argument off the table, the debate must consider the pregnant woman’s circumstances, and therefore, Baker’s view moves the argument’s perspective from the status of the fetus to the conditions and circumstances of the pregnant woman. • Notice that if killing a fetus is the same as killing a person, then the pregnant woman’s rights and circumstances become irrelevant, because they will hardly ever measure up in severity (unless the woman’s life is in danger) with the severity of killing a person. Hence the woman becomes invisible.

20. Three more Consequences • First, it rids the debate of all “right to life” arguments, since if the fetus is not a person it cannot have a right to life. • Second, shifts the argument from the morality of killing a person to the morality of bringing a person into existence in various circumstance. • Third, by holding thesis (O) the various complexities of the abortion issue are brought into the debate and become relevant in the discussion. If we were to deny (O), then almost all other important issues concerning the pregnant woman and quality of life (of the fetus and of the woman) become irrelevant.

21. Three differences between (O) and Not (O) • There are 3 major differences between holding that the fetus is not a person (O) and denying (O) and holding that the fetus is a person. (1) (O) allows us to pay attention to the particular cases and treat every case as an individual. (2) (O) allows but does not require that we pay attention and weigh as significant the circumstances of the pregnancy (how the woman became pregnant). (3) (O) allows but does not require individual moral judgment and tolerance for others’ moral judgments about the most intimate details of their own lives.

22. Baker • Baker says, “Putting aside the view that the fetus is a person is a necessary condition for discussion of the morality of abortion in various circumstances.”