Does personhood begin at conception?

[BeHereNow]

There are some who believe that personhood begins at conception.
I find this a curious position, based purely on emotion, whereas they feel there is a logical reason to believe this.


NaturalWay suggests that:

1) Secular philosophy alone can be used to establish that the condition of "personhood" brings with it the right of self-ownership.

Now if we can only define personhood.

2) Distinction of a human zygote from its human mother is a demonstrable, repeatable process which requires no faith.

And this is important because. . .?

3) The "personhood" of the zygote can be inferred from logic and this philosophy without appeal to personal beliefs or emotion.

I would be interested in seeing such logic. I have never seen this position successfully defended.

Is there a logical reason to believe that personhood begins at conception?

[MagusYanam]

Perhaps something that needs to be clarified is that even non-persons have moral significance, but not as high a moral priority as persons do. For example, we still give reverence to the dead (as we should), though we do not allow the interests of the dead to infringe on the interests of the living. I would argue that a fertilised egg is not yet a person, but in its capacity to become a person (or two, or three people) should be accorded moral significance.

I actually agree with Dilettante that conception marks the beginning of the process that denotes personhood. I would take exception with the logical step that implies that a fertilised egg should be accorded the same moral significance as a full-grown person capable of thought, emotion and reason, though I would also take exception with the logic that removes all worth from the zygote for personhood. There's a dialectic here that needs to be recognised that tends by and large to go ignored on both sides of the argument which I think Dilettante has hit upon (and which comes close to my own views on the matter).

[BeHereNow]

McCulloch: You and I agree. A temporary interruption (whether coma, sleep, etc) of the qualities defining personhood, would not end or interrupt personhood status.

[Dilettante]

I feel persons in a long term coma, who have no social interaction, would retain their personhood if they had it before the coma.
Do you agree?

Yes, as long as it's a reversible coma. Otherwise I don't exactly know.

Persons in a long term coma may have no active participation in society while unconscious, but they still occupy a place in that society. A fictional Mr Smith, who is in a coma, is still Smith Jr's father, he is still Mrs Smith's husband, he is still a lawyer, a Democrat (or a Republican or whatever)...

His personhood process is at a standstill. But it's not necessarily moving towards less personhood. Most of the time not even doctors can tell for sure. People can come out of a coma (and retain their personhood). But sometimes they don't. In those cases, I'm not sure about their level of personhood. It may diminish as brain cells die. Once cerebral death occurs, Mr Smith has ceased to be a person. Even then, as MagusYanam has pointed out, society expects us to treat his dead body with respect.

I think that what the coma/sleep argument proves is that consciousness or self-awareness is not always a sine qua non requirement for personhood.

[BeHereNow]

Yes, as long as it's a reversible coma. Otherwise I don't exactly know.

Yes, there would need to be the expectation that consciousness would return.

I think that what the coma/sleep argument proves is that consciousness or self-awareness is not always a sine qua non requirement for personhood.

I would rather say that it is a continuum.
Personhood is established, progresses, and ends. It does not cease, then restart.
Could we agree that personhood sometimes goes dormant, and displays few of the qualities we would normally expect. This may not be enough to satisfy your criteria.

[steen]

A couple of things are missed.

"Person" does have legal definitions, of which it has been clarified that "person" does not apply to "The unborn" (Roe vs Wade, Sec. IX).

The sperm and ovum are alive. "Life began" about 4 bill years ago and merely have undergone changes since.

But a unique genetic combination, that might lead to a legal person at birth does indeed begin at conception (Barring the frequent miscarriages, abortions, twinning, or the formation of hydatidiform moles or such). That is not a "person," though, not an individual.

Individuality doesn't begin until birth, neither does "a human (being) as a unique entity. "human" is present all along as a species designator.

And then there are the developmental stages, of which many people seem to want to advance ahead of stage (Calling an embryo a "baby" does not make more sence than calling an adolescent a "senior" or a "corpse.")

And a comment on brain activity. The last connection made in the central nervos system, the connection from the thalamus to the actual brain cortex, that doesn't occur until the end of the 26th week of pregnancy. Until then, the brain is not receiving inputs and signals to process. Until then, there is no feeling, no sensation, not even physical ability of awareness. At exactly what point awareness or meaningful brain activity sets in is not sure, but it certainly is not before that time.

[QED]

I would rather say that it is a continuum.
Personhood is established, progresses, and ends. It does not cease, then restart.
Could we agree that personhood sometimes goes dormant, and displays few of the qualities we would normally expect. This may not be enough to satisfy your criteria.

I raised an issue about dual personalities in this topic about the afterlife Basically, I discovered for myself how personality is conditional on brain structure such that damage to the structure can alter the personality. I did some research on this a while ago and found that it was widely understood to be the case. This made me wonder how the potential for one individual with two distinct personalities (separated in time, before and after an accident) could ever be reconciled in heaven. The significant problem being that the two different personalities are both defined by important aspects of the individual concerned. For example the pre-accident person might only like rock music, while the post accident person might only like classical. Trivial, but revealing I thought. Greater conflicts would of course be possible.

[Dilettante]

steen wrote:

"Person" does have legal definitions, of which it has been clarified that "person" does not apply to "The unborn" (Roe vs Wade, Sec. IX).

I thought we were talking of philosophical definitions rather than legal ones.

[BeHereNow]

QED: I raised an issue about dual personalities in this topic about the afterlife Basically, I discovered for myself how personality is conditional on brain structure such that damage to the structure can alter the personality. I did some research on this a while ago and found that it was widely understood to be the case. This made me wonder how the potential for one individual with two distinct personalities (separated in time, before and after an accident) could ever be reconciled in heaven. The significant problem being that the two different personalities are both defined by important aspects of the individual concerned. For example the pre-accident person might only like rock music, while the post accident person might only like classical. Trivial, but revealing I thought. Greater conflicts would of course be possible.

I will accept that personhood equates with personal identity. I don’t accept the same for personality. You would have to convince me, even though I may be alone in this belief.
Personality, to my way of thinking, has more to do with interactions with others. This is what I believe Dilettante was going after, so the two of you may agree.
I see personhood or personal identity as more pure, not commingled with other personal identities.
I would say we have a private persona, and a public persona.
I believe we have a personal identity that is not visible to others. Those who know us well, see deep inside us, each in their own way, but none of them sees all the way down inside us. If I am right, we might have a name for it. If you want to call this personality, than what shall we call the greater thing which others know well, what I might call our “public persona”. Or do you think we do not need to distuinguish between "private persona" and “private persona”?

So personalities might not be the same as personhoods.

Even so, you want to say that a change of personalities, or altered personalities (regardless of which way we take personality to mean), creates one individual with two distinct personalities (separated in time, before and after an accident), and that this would create a problem in heaven.
Certainly our personality, and our person identity changes over time, sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly. Isn’t there as much difference in the personality of a 6 month old compared to the same person as an 80 year old, as there is in your accident victim, before and after? So the accident victim is no special case.

I believe the Bible has something to say about a persistence of personal identity after earthly life. In Matthew we read what Jesus said: Saying, ‘Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.’ Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.’
Now I’m sure this might mean many things.
I do not take it to be about sexuality, being married or not.
I take it to mean that in heaven we have a different personal identity than we have on earth. We become like the angels of God. Old Testament angels at that, since within this context Jesus is discussing OT. Angels are described as “children of God”, so we might expect them to be a little divine, concerned of Godly things, and not bothered by personal wants such as mere mortals. A woman who in earthly life had seven husbands, in heaven will have no husband, and not miss any of the seven. Surely this signals a massive shift of personality and personal identity. Not just a shift, but a cessation of the earthly identity. The woman/angel may or may not be aware she even had seven husbands.

So when you say “when I die completely, my memories will too and thus I know that there will be no life after death for me." , I take you to mean that there is no persistence of your personality or personal identity beyond mortal life. As I have shown above, this can be expressd Biblically. The Christian can expect rewards in heaven, but not a continuation of personal identity. Some might say what good is the former without the latter, but that would be another issue.
As a rational personal I would think you would agree that possibly there is a persistence of life-force, however distant from your present being. I’m not saying there is any evidence to say this is true, just that there is no evidence to say it is not true.

The belief system which holds that personhood continues after death, faces may obstacles.

[Dilettante]

steen wrote:

"Person" does have legal definitions, of which it has been clarified that "person" does not apply to "The unborn" (Roe vs Wade, Sec. IX).

Yes, but I thought that here we were discussing philosophical definitions of personhood, not legal ones. The legal definition of person depends on other, external circumstances. For example, the cultural and historical framework. Women, blacks, slaves, and others were once not persons in the legal sense, but now are.

[QED]

As a rational personal I would think you would agree that possibly there is a persistence of life-force, however distant from your present being. I’m not saying there is any evidence to say this is true, just that there is no evidence to say it is not true.

The belief system which holds that personhood continues after death, faces may obstacles.

I don't actually think it's rational to suggest the possibility of a persistent life-force. Other than any material legacy or memory held by other living people, it is quite obvious to me that all there is of us can be totally anihilated -- decomposed into free atoms. In the case of a direct-hit from an H-Bomb even the electrons could be stripped from our protons and neutrons. So much for the material.

If you are asking me to accept the possibility of something entirely different, some undetected signal or spirit unknown to science that expresses each living being, then again I think this is irrational. Yes we may be missing potentially important information about the physics of the universe, but looking back at the vast procession of life before us, and the scientific interpretation of its development, it makes no sense to think in terms of any extra dimension. Especially so when he have zero evidence of any potential mechanism or even a motive for such a thing and when all of this would seem to stem from a great deal of wishful thinking in the first place.

The sheer vanity of thinking that life might be special in this respect is remarkable to me. But it's far worse in most religious quarters where the concept of soul only seems to apply to humans -- the standard position for those proud people who think that man is something special. Just how messy does this get in the light of 20 other types of Hominids and the blurring of lines once we start to examine the cognitive capabilities of other, very different, species.