Sortal essentialism and the potentiality principle

Review of Metaphysics

Volumn 49, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 491-514

  Burke, Michael B ^a  

^a INDIANA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 0042731126     PISSN: 00346632     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (55)

1. This argument is found in Jim Stone, "Why Potentiality Matters," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17, no. 4 (December 1987): 815-29; "Why Potentiality Still Matters," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 24, no. 2 (June 1994): 281-94; and Philip E. Devine, The Ethics of Homicide (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1990), 50, 95. Essentially the same argument, though not couched in the language of potentiality, is found in Don Marquis's "Why Abortion is Immoral," The Journal of Philosophy 86, no. 4 (April 1989): 183-202.
2. This argument is found in Jim Stone, "Why Potentiality Matters," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17, no. 4 (December 1987): 815-29; "Why Potentiality Still Matters," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 24, no. 2 (June 1994): 281-94; and Philip E. Devine, The Ethics of Homicide (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1990), 50, 95. Essentially the same argument, though not couched in the language of potentiality, is found in Don Marquis's "Why Abortion is Immoral," The Journal of Philosophy 86, no. 4 (April 1989): 183-202.
3. This argument is found in Jim Stone, "Why Potentiality Matters," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17, no. 4 (December 1987): 815-29; "Why Potentiality Still Matters," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 24, no. 2 (June 1994): 281-94; and Philip E. Devine, The Ethics of Homicide (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1990), 50, 95. Essentially the same argument, though not couched in the language of potentiality, is found in Don Marquis's "Why Abortion is Immoral," The Journal of Philosophy 86, no. 4 (April 1989): 183-202.
4. This argument is found in Jim Stone, "Why Potentiality Matters," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17, no. 4 (December 1987): 815-29; "Why Potentiality Still Matters," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 24, no. 2 (June 1994): 281-94; and Philip E. Devine, The Ethics of Homicide (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1990), 50, 95. Essentially the same argument, though not couched in the language of potentiality, is found in Don Marquis's "Why Abortion is Immoral," The Journal of Philosophy 86, no. 4 (April 1989): 183-202.
5. Joel Feinberg and Barbara Baum Levenbook, "Abortion," in Matters of Life and Death, 3rd ed., ed. Tom Regan (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993), 206.
6. Michael Wreen, "The Possibility of Potentiality," in Values and Moral Standing, vol. 8 of Bowling Green Studies in Applied Philosophy, ed. Wayne Sumner, Donald Callen, and Thomas Attig (Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Press, 1986), 137-8, 150.
7. Michael Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide, §5.2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 95-123.
8. The first is found in Abortion and Infanticide in the paragraph straddling pp. 118 and 119, the second on pp. 118-20. For the criterion of psychological identity employed in the second answer, see pp. 123-46.
9. Kenneth Pahel, "Michael Tooley on Abortion and Potentiality," The Southern Journal of Philosophy 25, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 95-6.
10. See Harold Noonan, Personal Identity (London: Routledge, 1991), 12-13.
11. Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide, 178-96.
12. Pahel, "Michael Tooley on Abortion and Potentiality," sections 2 and 3, 96-105.
13. See Stone, "Why Potentiality Matters," 817-18; Stephen Buckle, "Arguing from Potential," in Embryo Experimentation: Ethical, Legal and Social Issues, ed. Peter Singer, Helga Kuhse, Stephen Buckle, Karen Dawson, and Pascal Kasimba (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 93-6.
14. See Stone, "Why Potentiality Matters," 817-18; Stephen Buckle, "Arguing from Potential," in Embryo Experimentation: Ethical, Legal and Social Issues, ed. Peter Singer, Helga Kuhse, Stephen Buckle, Karen Dawson, and Pascal Kasimba (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 93-6.
15. See, for example, David Wiggins, Sameness and Substance (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), 30-5.
16. Stone, "Why Potentiality Matters," 816.
17. Steven Garber, Biology (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1989), 68.
18. Peter Singer and Karen Dawson, "IVF Technology and the Argument from Potential," in Embryo Experimentation, 83, 85; Alastair Norcross, "Killing, Abortion, and Contraception: A Reply to Marquis," The Journal of Philosophy 87, no. 5 (May 1990): 271-2.
19. Peter Singer and Karen Dawson, "IVF Technology and the Argument from Potential," in Embryo Experimentation, 83, 85; Alastair Norcross, "Killing, Abortion, and Contraception: A Reply to Marquis," The Journal of Philosophy 87, no. 5 (May 1990): 271-2.
20. Pahel, "Michael Tooley on Abortion and Potentiality," 98-9.
21. Devine, The Ethics of Homicide, 75; Michael Wreen, "The Power of Potentiality," Theoria 52, pts. 1-2 (1986): 19.
22. Devine, The Ethics of Homicide, 75; Michael Wreen, "The Power of Potentiality," Theoria 52, pts. 1-2 (1986): 19.
23. Norcross, "Killing, Abortion, and Contraception," 271-2.
24. See Tyler Burge, "A Theory of Aggregates," Nous 11, no. 2 (May 1977): 97-117. Burge's aggregates are like mereological sums in being physical objects rather than abstracta, but they differ from mereological sums in their persistence conditions. Still, the argument I will now give concerning the mereological sum of S and E can be adapted to apply, just as effectively, to their aggregate.
25. See my "Preserving the Principle of One Object to a Place: A Novel Account of the Relations Among Objects, Sorts, Sortals, and Persistence Conditions," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54, no. 3 (September 1994): 617-18, where I explain the application of the theory to aggregates.
26. There is as yet little to suggest that persons might be generated from differentiated body cells. Even in frogs, which have been among the most promising subjects of cloning experiments, differentiated cells have succeeded in directing development only so far as the stage of gastrulation, or just beyond. (It is true, but not relevant to present purposes, that serial transplantation has resulted in development up to the tadpole stage.) On the other hand, it is not at all unrealistic to think that persons might be generated from the undifferentiated cells of early human embryos. As we will see in section V, this is enough to pose a threat to PP. The biological information in this paragraph is from Scott Gilbert, Developmental Biology, 4th ed. (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 1994), 39-46, 184.
27. Stone, "Why Potentiality Matters," 819, including n. 9.
28. Ellen Chernoff, a developmental biologist, writes me that "intercellular junctions called 'gap junctions' . . . electrically couple the cells. This allows the cells to divide synchronously in the early cleavage divisions."
29. Some philosophers, but neither Stone nor I, would distinguish the single-cell organism from the cell which "constitutes" it. Those philosophers would agree with Stone that the cell ceases to exist, but would agree with me that the single-cell organism need not. More on this later.
30. A relevant fact: "Up through the 8-cell stage [in the development of a mammalian embryo], there are no obvious differences in the biochemistry, morphology, or potency of any of the blastomeres [cells]"; Gilbert, Developmental Biology, 181-2.
31. Wreen, "The Power of Potentiality," 16-23; David Annis, "Abortion and the Potentiality Principle," The Southern Journal of Philosophy 22, no. 2 (Summer 1984): 155-8. Annis's term is "direct potentiality."
32. Wreen, "The Power of Potentiality," 16-23; David Annis, "Abortion and the Potentiality Principle," The Southern Journal of Philosophy 22, no. 2 (Summer 1984): 155-8. Annis's term is "direct potentiality."
33. "Sortals" are best characterized as terms that answer the question, "What is it?" "Substance" sortals are standardly characterized as sortals that can be satisfied only essentially. (A thing satisfies a sortal "essentially" if and only if necessarily, the thing satisfies the sortal at every time at which the thing exists.) For discussion of these and related concepts, see Burke, "Preserving the Principle of One Object to a Place: A Novel Account of the Relations Among Objects, Sorts, Sortals, and Persistence Conditions," especially 598-609.
34. Willard V. Quine, "Three Grades of Modal Involvement," Proceedings of the XIth International Congress of Philosophy, vol. 14 (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1953), 65-81; reprinted in The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, revised and enlarged ed., Willard V. Quine (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), 158-84.
35. Willard V. Quine, "Three Grades of Modal Involvement," Proceedings of the XIth International Congress of Philosophy, vol. 14 (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1953), 65-81; reprinted in The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, revised and enlarged ed., Willard V. Quine (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), 158-84.
36. Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity, revised and enlarged ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980); Hilary Putnam, "The Meaning of Meaning," in Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 215-71. Wiggins, Sameness and Substance.
37. Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity, revised and enlarged ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980); Hilary Putnam, "The Meaning of Meaning," in Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 215-71. Wiggins, Sameness and Substance.
38. Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity, revised and enlarged ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980); Hilary Putnam, "The Meaning of Meaning," in Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 215-71. Wiggins, Sameness and Substance.
39. For a succinct defense, see John Hooker, "Why Essentialism is True," Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 9, no. 3 (Fall 1978): 7-14.
40. Lynn Margulis and Karlene Schwartz, Five Kingdoms, 2nd ed. (New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1988), Introduction, 169. It may be helpful to know that most contemporary systematists limit membership in the kingdom of animals to organisms that are multicellular. (For three who do not, see note 31.) Commonly, all unicells (other than unicellular bacteria), including the tens of thousands of species of the ill-defined phylum of "protozoa" (proto-animals), are assigned to a kingdom of "protists" or "protoctists" (proto-organisms). See Margulis and Schwartz, Five Kingdoms, 2-21.
41. Lynn Margulis and Karlene Schwartz, Five Kingdoms, 2nd ed. (New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1988), Introduction, 169. It may be helpful to know that most contemporary systematists limit membership in the kingdom of animals to organisms that are multicellular. (For three who do not, see note 31.) Commonly, all unicells (other than unicellular bacteria), including the tens of thousands of species of the ill-defined phylum of "protozoa" (proto-animals), are assigned to a kingdom of "protists" or "protoctists" (proto-organisms). See Margulis and Schwartz, Five Kingdoms, 2-21.
42. 11 M. W. Slack, P. W. H. Holland, and C. F. Graham, "The Zootype and the Phylotypic Stage," Nature 361, no. 6412 (February 11, 1993): 490, 492. What is especially pleasing is the prospect of an objective, genealogical basis for dealing with borderline cases. But notice, again, that the aim is to make more precise the border between animals and other kingdoms of living things, not the border between animals and precursors of animals. The new definition does nothing to clarify the status of zygotes - or of ordinary body cells that will be induced to develop in the same manner.
43. Or so some biologists believe. See Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, new ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 258.
44. For the features common to chordates, see Margulis and Schwartz, Five Kingdoms, 246-9. Several of those features, such as possession of an alimentary tract, are lacked by unicells.
45. For information on the activation and expression of genes, and on the differentiation (specialization) of cells, see Gilbert, Developmental Biology, pt. 3, especially chap. 10.
46. See Jacques Cohen and Giles Tomkin, "The Science, Fiction, and Reality of Embryo Cloning," Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 4, no. 3 (September 1994): 193-204. This article is part of a special issue titled "Ethics and the Cloning of Human Embryos," which focuses on whether fertility clinics should be allowed to split embryos developing in vitro, so as to multiply the number of embryos available for transfer to their clients.
47. Michael Burke, "Dion and Theon: An Essentialist Solution to an Ancient Puzzle," The Journal of Philosophy 91, no. 3 (March 1994): 129-39, especially 136-9.
48. Elliot Sober, Philosophy of Biology (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993), 151.
49. See Carlos Bedate, "The Zygote: To Be or Not Be a Person," The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 14, no. 6 (December 1989): 641-5; and, especially, Stephen Buckle, "Arguing from Potential," in Embryo Experimentation, 99-101. In humans, the embryo proper first appears on the fourteenth day. Buckle's argument is that the new animal is identifiable with the embryo proper, that the embryo proper is only a small part of the 14th-day embryo, and that the single-cell zygote cannot be identified across time with just that part. If Buckle is right, if the details of embryogenesis force us to say that the new individual appears later than the formation of the single-cell zygote, is there still a need for my way of dealing with putative counterexamples to PP? Yes, there is, unless embryogenetic details would force us to say the same with respect to every intelligent species, in every possible world. (Furthermore, Jim Stone has a strong argument, not yet in print, for the conclusion that Buckle is not right.)
50. See Carlos Bedate, "The Zygote: To Be or Not Be a Person," The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 14, no. 6 (December 1989): 641-5; and, especially, Stephen Buckle, "Arguing from Potential," in Embryo Experimentation, 99-101. In humans, the embryo proper first appears on the fourteenth day. Buckle's argument is that the new animal is identifiable with the embryo proper, that the embryo proper is only a small part of the 14th-day embryo, and that the single-cell zygote cannot be identified across time with just that part. If Buckle is right, if the details of embryogenesis force us to say that the new individual appears later than the formation of the single-cell zygote, is there still a need for my way of dealing with putative counterexamples to PP? Yes, there is, unless embryogenetic details would force us to say the same with respect to every intelligent species, in every possible world. (Furthermore, Jim Stone has a strong argument, not yet in print, for the conclusion that Buckle is not right.)
51. If the careers of animals lack determinate temporal boundaries, that will not distinguish animals from other sorts of things to which the thesis of sortal essentialism is applied.
52. The fullest statement of Wiggins's theory is found in his Sameness and Substance (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980).
53. See Gilbert, Developmental Biology, 148-9.
54. Haploid eggs are organized to fuse with sperm. And just as the reorganization of skin cell SC is naturally viewed, not as embryological development, but rather as a preparation for such development, so too is the parthenogenetic transformation of an egg from haploid to diploid. That this is, indeed, the more natural view of the case is attested by its harmony with the standard account of sexual reproduction: fertilization is completed, and development begins, not when a sperm penetrates an egg, not when the sperm head dissolves and the "male pronucleus" forms within the egg, but only at the time of "syngamy," that is, only when the male and female pronuclei come together and their genetic materials fuse. (This from a widely used textbook of developmental biology: "The life of a new individual is initiated by the fusion of genetic material from the two gametes - the sperm and the egg. This fusion, called fertilization, stimulates the egg to begin development"; Gilbert, Developmental Biology, 4.)
55. At least they are not chordates. Recall our discussion of this point with regard to body cells.