The argument from potential: A reappraisal

Bioethics

Volumn 11, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 1-23

  Reichlin, Massimo ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANALYTICAL APPROACH; ANIMAL; ANIMAL RIGHTS; ARISTOTLE; ARTICLE; BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE; CONTRACEPTION; EMBRYO; EMBRYO RESEARCH; FETUS; GENETICS AND REPRODUCTION; GERM CELL; HUMAN; HUMAN RIGHTS; INDIVIDUALITY; INDUCED ABORTION; LIFE; MORALITY; PERSONHOOD; PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH; PHILOSOPHY; PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT; RESEARCH; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIOECONOMICS;

ANALYTICAL APPROACH; ARISTOTLE; GENETICS AND REPRODUCTION; PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH;

ABORTION, INDUCED; ANIMAL RIGHTS; ANIMALS; BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE; CONTRACEPTION; EMBRYO; EMBRYO RESEARCH; EMBRYONIC AND FETAL DEVELOPMENT; FETUS; GERM CELLS; HUMAN RIGHTS; HUMANS; INDIVIDUALITY; LIFE; MORAL OBLIGATIONS; PERSONHOOD; PHILOSOPHY; RESEARCH; SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY; VALUE OF LIFE;

EID: 0030642397     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8519.00041     Document Type: Article

References (66)

1. In Jonathan Glover's words: 'if it is the cake you are interested in, it is equally a pity if the ingredients were thrown away before being mixed or afterwards' (Causing death and saving lives, Harmondsworth: Penguin 1977, p. 122).
2. Mary Warnock, 'Do Human Cells Have Rights?', Bioethics 1:1, 1987, pp. 1-14, p. 12.
3. Richard M. Hare, 'When Does Potentiality Count? A Comment on Lockwood', Bioethics 2:3, 1988, pp.214-226, p.215.
4. And indeed, for those refusing any qualitative cut-off point before the grown person, infanticide will be on the same list with contraception, embryo experimentation, early and late abortion (See Hare, op. cit.).
5. Warnock op. cit., p.12.
6. See Rosalind Hursthouse, Beginning Lives, London: Blackwell, 1987. Somehow connected with this interpretation of potentiality is also the question of our duties to future possible people, in replying to Derek Parfit (Reasons and Persons, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, pp.. 381-390), Hare has tried to show that a 'total utilitarianism' approach to this question does not imply the acceptance of the counterintuitive conclusion that we should increase population as far as possible (see 'Possible people', Bioethics 2:4, 1988, pp. 279-293).
7. See Rosalind Hursthouse, Beginning Lives, London: Blackwell, 1987. Somehow connected with this interpretation of potentiality is also the question of our duties to future possible people, in replying to Derek Parfit (Reasons and Persons, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, pp.. 381-390), Hare has tried to show that a 'total utilitarianism' approach to this question does not imply the acceptance of the counterintuitive conclusion that we should increase population as far as possible (see 'Possible people', Bioethics 2:4, 1988, pp. 279-293).
8. See Rosalind Hursthouse, Beginning Lives, London: Blackwell, 1987. Somehow connected with this interpretation of potentiality is also the question of our duties to future possible people, in replying to Derek Parfit (Reasons and Persons, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, pp.. 381-390), Hare has tried to show that a 'total utilitarianism' approach to this question does not imply the acceptance of the counterintuitive conclusion that we should increase population as far as possible (see 'Possible people', Bioethics 2:4, 1988, pp. 279-293).
9. a.
10. Michael Lockwood, 'Warnock versus Powell (and Harradine): when does potentiality count?', Bioethics 2:3, 1988, pp. 187-213, p. 197.
11. Roland Puccetti 'The Life of A Person', in W.B. Bondeson et al (eds.), Abortion and the Status of the Fetus, Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1983, pp. 169-182, p. 171.
12. Robert Larmer, 'Abortion, personhood and the potential for consciousness', Journal of Applied Philosophy 12, 1995, pp. 241-251, p. 243.
13. Peter Singer and Deane Wells, The Reproduction Revolution. New Ways of Making Babies, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1984, p. 91. See also Glover's quoted analogy between fertilization and the making of a cake (op. cit., p. 122).
14. Peter Singer and Deane Wells, The Reproduction Revolution. New Ways of Making Babies, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1984, p. 91. See also Glover's quoted analogy between fertilization and the making of a cake (op. cit., p. 122).
15. Norman Ford, When Did I Begin? Conception of the Human Individual in History, Philosophy and Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 97.
16. Joel Feinberg, 'Potentiality, Development, and Rights', in J. Feinberg (ed.), The Problem of Abortion, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1984, pp. 145-150, p. 145.
17. Stanley I. Benn, 'Abortion, Infanticide, and Respect for Persons', in J. Feinberg (ed.), op. cit., pp. 135-144, p. 143.
18. Feinberg, 'Potentiality, Development, and Rights , pp. 147-8.
19. The analogy is set up in Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979, who notes that Prince Charles is a potential King of England, but he has not the rights of a King.
20. The clinical situation in which this could be said to happen is the case of persistent vegetative state: however, the loss of personal dignity caused by the disease that some authors claim to take place in these cases is admittedly different from the cessation of an office, which involves no ontological change.
21. The objection, put forward by an anonymous reviewer, that 'naturally' we are all potential corpses, but would not like to be treated now as having actualised this potential, does not appear to me as decisive against the AFP. On one side the analogy fails, since the potentialities are different in kind: an embryo's potentiality refers to the future development of an actual entity that will preserve its identity through this development; the person's potentiality to become a corpse is the posssibility of an entity to cease to exist altogether. On the other hand, however, the implication can be regarded as true: we should be treated as beings who will be corpses, that is, we should be treated as mortals, since death is our extreme possibility, and indeed our destiny. Similarly, human embryos must be treated as persons, since personhood is their destiny.
22. Michael Tooley, 'Abortion and Infanticide', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 2, 1972, pp. 37-65.
23. A criticism of this construction is of course besides the scope of this article.
24. I cannot discuss such a principle in detail. However, I do believe that a morally relevant difference exists between acts and omissions, one grounded on the consideration of the symbolic meaning of human action, a meaning which places human actions on a different level from the causality of natural events. I tried to argue this contention in an article on prof. Rachels' thesis of equivalence in the context of the moral dilemmas of euthanasia (see my 'L'eutanasia nella bioetica di impostazione utilitaristica' [Euthanasia in utilitarian bioethics], Medicina e Morale 43, 1993, pp. 331-361.
25. Hugo T. Engelhardt Jr., The Foundations of Bioethics, New York: Oxford University Press 1986, p. 111.
26. Ibid.
27. Edward A. Langerak, 'Abortion: Listening to the Middle', Hastings Center Report 9, no. 5, 1979, pp. 24-28, p. 25.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. John T, Noonan, 'An Almost Absolute Value in History', in J. Feinberg (ed.), op. cit., p. 12 and p. 13.
31. Carol A. Tauer, 'Personhood and Human Embryos and Fetuses', Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 10, 1985, pp. 253-266, p. 264; see also Peter Singer and Karen Dawson, 'IVF Technology and the Argument from Potential', Philosophy and Public Affairs 17, 1988, pp. 87-104.
32. Carol A. Tauer, 'Personhood and Human Embryos and Fetuses', Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 10, 1985, pp. 253-266, p. 264; see also Peter Singer and Karen Dawson, 'IVF Technology and the Argument from Potential', Philosophy and Public Affairs 17, 1988, pp. 87-104.
33. See Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy and Tradition, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press 1990.
34. b. It is noticeable that also the Catholic Magisterium, speaking of the uncertainty with reference to the moment of rational animation, seems to recognize the possibility of such a development by affirming that even 'supposing a later animation, there is still nothing less than a human life, preparing for and calling for a soul in which the nature received from parents is completed' (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion, Vatican Polyglott Press, 1974, endnote 19, emphasis added).
35. b. It is noticeable that also the Catholic Magisterium, speaking of the uncertainty with reference to the moment of rational animation, seems to recognize the possibility of such a development by affirming that even 'supposing a later animation, there is still nothing less than a human life, preparing for and calling for a soul in which the nature received from parents is completed' (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion, Vatican Polyglott Press, 1974, endnote 19, emphasis added).
36. It is important to make explicit reference to Aristotle's masterpiece, since also those who largely refer to Aristotle in today's bioethical discussion normally quote almost exclusively from the biological work The Generation of Animals (see also the important and well-documented book by Norman Ford, op. cit., pp. 19-64). This is not to deny the obvious importance of The Generation of Animals in order to understand Aristotle's view on the matter, but to stress the philosophical relevance of the question of potentiality.
37. a.
38. Francis C. Wade, 'Potentiality in the Abortion Discussion', Review of Methaphysics 29, 1975, pp. 239-255, p. 243.
39. Ibid.
40. As distinguished from the active specifiable potentialities already referred to.
41. Wade, op. cit., p. 244.
42. b.
43. Enrico Berti, 'Quando esiste l'uomo in potenza. La tesi di Aristotele' [On when a potential man exists: Aristotle's thesis], in S. Biolo (ed.), Nascita e morte dell'uomo, Genoa, Italy: Marietti, 1992, pp. 115-123.
44. John F. Crosby, 'The Personhood of the Human Embryo', Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 18, 1991, pp. 399-417, p. 406.
45. a).
46. a).
47. The natural selection of embryos before implantation is probably better interpreted as the absence of the potentiality for full personhood, since this selection is in most part due to severe chromosomal defects. This is most clear in the case of embryos developing into hydatiform moles: these embryos are predetermined to develop only into accessory tissues and lack the potential for rational acts: in this sense, as noted by Germain Grisez, they are not new human beings, for this entails having in oneself 'the epigenetic primordia of a human body normal enough to be the organic basis of at least some intellectual act' ('When Do People Begin?', Proceeding of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 63, 1990, pp. 27-47, p. 39).
48. Wade, op. cit., p. 255.
49. See for example Tooley, op. cit.; Engelhardt, 'The Ontology of Abortion', Ethics 84, 1974, pp. 217-234; Puccetti, op. cit.; Feinberg, op.cit. For a criticism of this idea, which sets up a form of non spiritualistic dualism, see Crosby, op.cit..
50. See for example Tooley, op. cit.; Engelhardt, 'The Ontology of Abortion', Ethics 84, 1974, pp. 217-234; Puccetti, op. cit.; Feinberg, op.cit. For a criticism of this idea, which sets up a form of non spiritualistic dualism, see Crosby, op.cit..
51. See for example Tooley, op. cit.; Engelhardt, 'The Ontology of Abortion', Ethics 84, 1974, pp. 217-234; Puccetti, op. cit.; Feinberg, op.cit. For a criticism of this idea, which sets up a form of non spiritualistic dualism, see Crosby, op.cit..
52. See for example Tooley, op. cit.; Engelhardt, 'The Ontology of Abortion', Ethics 84, 1974, pp. 217-234; Puccetti, op. cit.; Feinberg, op.cit. For a criticism of this idea, which sets up a form of non spiritualistic dualism, see Crosby, op.cit..
53. See for example Tooley, op. cit.; Engelhardt, 'The Ontology of Abortion', Ethics 84, 1974, pp. 217-234; Puccetti, op. cit.; Feinberg, op.cit. For a criticism of this idea, which sets up a form of non spiritualistic dualism, see Crosby, op.cit..
54. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. by Colin Smith London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962.
55. An Italian philosopher has noted that the classical definition that is more appropriate in order to convey the contemporary phenomenological understanding of the person is not the one offered by Boethius but that by Richard from S. Victor: rationalis naturae individua existentia (see Virgilio Melchiorre, Corpo e persona [The body and the person], Genoa, Italy: Marietti, 1987).
56. Emmanuel Mounier, Personalism, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1952.
57. Paul Ricoeur, Soi-même comme un autre, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1990.
58. It is also worth nothing that contemporary cognitive science has subjected to serious criticism most of the dogmas of behaviouristic psychology, including the rejection of the concept of human nature. Recent work on newborn babies has provided new empirical support to the idea of a specific set of innate, unlearned capacities which are constitutive of the human nature (see for example Jacques Melher and Emmanuel Dupoux, Naître humain, Odile Jacob, Paris 1990).
59. Philip E. Devine has correctly distinguished the species principle both from the present enjoyment principle (what I called actualism) and the potentiality principle (see 'The Scope of the Prohibition Against Killing', in J. Feinberg (ed.), op. cit.., pp. 21-42).
60. See Paolo Cattorini and Massimo Reichlin, Bioetica della generazione [Bioethics and generation], forthcoming.
61. This conclusion is supported by the interpretation of the biological data offered by G.D. Jones and B. Tefler, 'Before I was an embryo, I was a pre-embryo: or was I?, Bioethics 9:1, 1995, pp. 32-49.
62. This still leaves the problem of a correct interpretation of phenomena such as embryo twinning and the formation of chimeras: on this issue, which we leave here unaddressed, see the considerations of Grisez, op. cit., pp. 35-49.
63. To say, for example, that a human embryo has a right to life may simply imply that we have a duty to refrain from deliberately destroying it; it does not necessarily imply that we should do everything theoretically possible in order to protect its life (e.g., promoting scientific research in order to avoid the waste of embryos in the natural processes of human reproduction).
64. Nicola Poplawski and Grant Gillett, 'Ethics and Embryos' Journal of Medical Ethics 17, 1991, pp. 62-69, p. 63.
65. Kirkland Young, 'The Zygote, the Embryo, and Personhood: an Attempt at Conceptual Clarification', Ethics and Medicine 10, no. 1, 1994, pp. 2-7, p. 5.
66. It should be reminded that the concept of person emerged from Christian theology and had its first developments in the context of the trinitarian discussions. In this sense, it is used analogically, the analogatum princeps to which every predication of the term refers being the person of Jesus Christ, in which the coincidence of the maximum of singularity and the maximum of universality was realized.