Aquinas on human ensoulment, abortion and the value of life

Philosophy

Volumn 78, Issue 304, 2003, Pages 255-278

  Haldane, John ^a   Lee, Patrick ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34247540083     PISSN: 00318191     EISSN: 1469817X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0031819103000275     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. See Peter Geach 'Form and Existence', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 55, 1954-5
2. 'Good and Evil', Analysis, 17, 1956
3. Mental Acts (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957)
4. and 'Aquinas' in G. E. M. Anscombe and P. T. Geach, Three Philosophers (Oxford: Blackwell, 1961)
5. Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature (Cambridge: CUP, 2001)
6. Summa Theologiae. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Washbourne & Oates, 1920)
7. Commentary on the Sentences, IV, dist. 6, q. 1, ad 4. In the Summa he adds that if the child is still alive after the mother dies then she should be opened in order to baptize it
8. Readers may consult the following (restricted to writings in English): Benedict Ashley, 'A Critique of the Theory of Delayed Hominisation', in D. G. McCarthy and A. S. Moraczewski (eds) An Ethical Evaluation of Fetal Experimentation (St Louis: Pope John XXIII Center, 1976)
9. B. Ashley, 'Delayed Hominisation: A Catholic Theological Perspective', in R. E. Smith (ed.) The Interaction of Catholic Bioethics and Secular Society (Dallas: Proceedings of the XIth Bishops' Workshop, 1992)
10. B. Ashley and Albert Moraczewski, 'Is the Biological Subject of Human Rights Present from Conception?' in P. Cataldo and A. Moraczewski (eds) The Fetal Tissue Issue: Medical and Ethical Aspects (Braintree, MA.: Pope John Center, 1994)
11. B. Ashley, and Albert Moraczewski, 'Cloning, Aquinas, and the Embryonic Person', National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, 1 (2001), 189-201
12. John Connery, Abortion: The Development of the Catholic Perspective (Chicago: Loyola UP, 1977)
13. Daniel Dombrowski and Robert Delete, A Brief Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000)
14. Joseph Donceel, 'Abortion: Mediate v. Immediate Animation', Continuum, 5, 1967
15. J. Donceel, 'Immediate Animation and Delayed Hominisation', Theological Studies, 31, 1970
16. J. Donceel, 'A Liberal Catholic View', in R. Hall (ed.) Abortion in a Changing World (New York: Columbia UP, 1970)
17. reprinted in P. B. Jung and T. A. Shannon (eds) Abortion and Catholicism: The American Debate (New York: Crossroad, 1988)
18. Henri de Dorlodot, 'A Vindication of the Mediate Animation Theory', in E. C. Messenger (ed.) Theology and Evolution (London: Sands and Co., 1949)
19. John Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political and Legal Theory (Oxford: OUP, 1998)
20. Anthony Fisher, '"When Did I Begin?" Revisited', Linacre Quarterly, 58, 1991
21. Norman Ford, When Did I Begin? (Cambridge: CUP, 1988)
22. Rudolph Gerber, 'When is the Human Soul Infused?', Laval Theologique et Philosophie, 22, 1966
23. Germain Grisez, Abortion: the Myths, the Realities and the Arguments (New York: Corpus, 1966)
24. G. Grisez, 'When do People Begin?', Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 63, 1990
25. Stephen Heaney, 'Aquinas and the Presence of the Human Rational Soul', The Thomist, 56, 1992
26. reprinted in S. Heaney (ed.), Abortion: A New Generation of Catholic Responses (Braintree, MA.: Pope John Center, 1992)
27. Mark Johnson, 'Reflections on Some Recent Catholic Claims for Delayed Hominization', Theological Studies, 56 (1995)
28. E. H. Kluge, 'St Thomas, Abortion and Euthanasia: Another Look', Philosophy Research Archives, 7, 1981
29. Patrick Lee, Abortion the Unborn Human Life (Washington, DC.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996)
30. Richard McCormick, 'Who or What is the Pre-Embryo?' Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 1991
31. William May, 'The Moral Status of the Embryo', Linacre Quarterly, 59, 1992
32. John Noonan, 'An Almost Absolute Value in History', in J. Noonan (ed.) The Morality of Abortion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1970)
33. Gabriel Pastrana, 'Personhood and the Beginning of Human Life', Thomist 41 (1977)
34. Jean Porter, 'Individuality, Personal Identity, and the Moral Status of the Preembryo: A Response to Mark Johnson', Theological Studies 56 (1995)
35. Thomas Shannon and Alan Wolter, 'Reflections on the Status of the Pre-Embryo' Theological Studies, 51, 1990
36. C. Tauer, 'The Tradition of Probabilism and the Moral Status of the Early Embryo', Theological Studies, 45, 1984
37. Francis Wade, 'Potentiality in the Abortion Discussions', Review of Metaphysics, 29, 1975
38. William Wallace, 'Nature and Human Nature as the Norm in Medical Ethics', in E. Pellegrino (ed.) Catholic Perspectives on Medical Morals (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1989)
39. William Wallace, 'Aquinas's Legacy on Individuation, Cogitation and Hominisation', in D. Gallagher (ed.) Thomas Aquinas and His Legacy (Washington, DC.: Catholic University of America Press, 1994)
40. Thomas Wassmer, 'Questions about Questions', Commonweal, 86, 1967
41. Beverly Whelton, 'Human Nature, Substantial Change, and Modern Science: Rethinking When a New Human Life Begins', in M. Baur (ed.) Texts and Their Interpretation, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 72, 1998
42. and Gordon Wilson, 'Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent on the Succession of Substantial Forms and the Origin of Human Life', in L. Schrenk (ed.) The Ethics of Having Children, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 63, 1990. Anyone interested in how widely Aquinas's position on ensoulment is referred to in semi-popular presentations by parties on both sides of the abortion debate may conduct an internet search using some such expression as 'Aquinas on Abortion'
43. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion (Vatican: Holy See, 1974), 7 (emphasis added)
44. For accounts of these and related views see Grisez, Abortion: the Myths, the Realities and the Arguments
45. Connery, Abortion: The Development of the Catholic Perspective
46. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae (Vatican: Holy See, 1987) 1
47. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (Vatican: Holy See, 1995) III, 60
48. Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 118, a. 1, ad 4
49. Descartes Meditations, III, 14
50. CE Summa Contra Gentiles transl. James F. Anderson (London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), Bk. II, Ch. 89, 9
51. Disputed Questions on the Power of God, transl. English Dominican Fathers (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1952), q. 3, a. 11, ad 8
52. Aristotle also held that the rational soul had to come 'from outside'. See On the Generation of Animals, Bk. II, Ch. 3, 736b25-30
53. For a contemporary argument see J. Haldane, 'Old Teleology' and 'The Prime Thinker' in J. J. C. Smart and J. J. Haldane, Atheism and Theism, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003) 88-109, and 227-32
54. The ultimate disposition is provided by the soul itself, but the matter it acts on must be disposed for this ultimate disposing act
55. Commentary on the Book of Sentences, Bk. III, dist. 3, q. 5, a. 2, Resp
56. On the Power of God, q. 3, a. 9, ad 9
57. Cf. Summa Contra Gentiles, II, Ch. 89, 11
58. Citing recent works on the development of the neurosystem of the foetus and newborn, Pasnau admits that there is evidence that the brain is in fact not sufficiently developed to support conceptual thought until at least three to six months after birth (p. 119). Pasnau cites Colwyn Trevarthen, 'Brain Development', in R. Gregory, (ed.) Oxford Companion to the Mind (Oxford: OUP, 1987), 101-110
59. and Stuart Derbyshire, 'Locating the Beginnings of Pain', Bioethics 13 (1999), 1-31
60. See B. Ashley, 'A Critique of the Theory of Delayed Hominization', op. cit., 121-5
61. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (Vatican: Holy See, 1995) Introduction, 2
62. John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor (Vatican: Holy See, 1993) Ch. Two, IV, 73, 79, 80