Simulating the Substance View A Lightweight Case for Human Moral Equality Sivert Thomas Ellingsen Thesis presented for the degree of MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY Supervised by Morten Magelssen (ResearCher, Centre for MediCal Ethics, University of Oslo) and Professor Bjørn Torgrim Ramberg Department of Philosophy, ClassiCs, History of Art and Ideas FaCulty of Humanities UNIVERSITY OF OSLO Spring 2018 Simulating the Substance View A Lightweight Case for Human Moral Equality Sivert Thomas Ellingsen © Sivert Thomas Ellingsen 2018 Simulating the Substance View: A Lightweight Case for Human Moral Equality Sivert Thomas Ellingsen http://www.duo.uio.no Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo Abstract A key premise of one standard argument for the view that abortion is immoral (and for many other “conservative” views in bioethics) is that all human beings are equal in moral status, so that it is morally permissible to kill a given unborn human being under a given set of circumstances only if it would be morally permissible to kill a normal, adult human being under equivalent circumstances. This, many critics charge, seems unmotivated: Why should the mere fact that I am a member of the species homo sapiens carry any moral significance? One relatively recent strand of thought, which has been dubbed “the substance view of human persons” (or simply “the substance view”), seeks to answer this objection by arguing, very roughly, that all human organisms have rational natures, and that this is what endows them with their moral status. However, the substance view comes prepackaged with a controversial, Aristotelian metaphysics, and will therefore not do much to convince the many who do not already accept such a metaphysics. This work outlines a case for human moral equality which is analogous to that given by proponents of the substance view, but premised on more modest, less controversial metaphysical assumptions. Instead of grounding human moral equality in the claim that all human organisms have rational natures, it argues, we may ground it in the less controversial claim that all human organisms have what I call the genetic basis for rationality. First, I explain and defend the claim that all or nearly all human organisms have the genetic basis for rationality. Then, I argue that if, as seems very plausible, rationality itself is a sufficient condition of the sort of moral status had by fully-developed human persons like you or me, then having the genetic basis for rationality is sufficient for that same sort of moral status. Finally, I investigate what does – and doesn't – follow from the conclusion that all human organisms are moral equals. Along the way, I also address questions about dispositions, personal identity, and the nature of rationality. Acknowledgments First and foremost, I want to thank my supervisors, Morten Magelssen and Bjørn Ramberg. Their thorough and insightful feedback has spurred many of the best ideas that are found in the coming pages, and gently steered me away from countless bad ones. Thanks also to Øyvind Johannes Vardenær Evenstad and Patrick Winther-Larsen, who both took the time to read and comment on an earlier draft of this thesis, and to Dag August Schmedling Dramer and Øystein Linnebo for helpful comments on a presentation of what would eventually become its third chapter. And, last but not least, thanks to my family for their constant encouragement and support. Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Surveying the Landscape 12 2.1 Marquis 13 2.2 McMahan 14 2.3 Boonin 19 2.4 The substance view 24 2.5 Liao 27 2.6 Looking ahead 30 3 Rationality and Its Genetic Basis 31 3.1 Rationality 31 3.11 Rationality as reasoning 31 3.12 Actualism 33 3.13 Dispositional rationality 36 3.2 The base and basis of human rationality 46 3.21 The proposal 46 3.22 Objections 47 3.23 Who has the basis? 51 3.3 Looking ahead 54 4 The Genetic Criterion 55 4.1 Why not the Genetic Criterion? 55 4.11 Why not human moral equality? 55 4.12 The Mix-Up 60 4.13 Interests 62 4.2 Why the Genetic Criterion? 64 4.21 How does first-order rationality generate rights? 64 4.211 Rationally specific goods 65 4.212 How rationally specific goods generate rights 67 4.22 (How) does second-order rationality generate rights? 71 4.221 The consequentialist account again 71 4.222 General morals 80 5 Coda 84 Bibliography 87 1 Introduction Here is one formulation of what is often called the standard argument against abortion1 (henceforth, the Standard Argument): (1) A fetus is a human being (2) It is morally wrong to kill a human being (3) Abortion constitutes the killing of a fetus (4) So, abortion is morally wrong A couple of clarifications are already in order. The term “human being” is sometimes used synonymously with the term “human organism” – i.e., to denote all members of the species homo sapiens – and sometimes only to denote those members of the human species that are persons – i.e., roughly, self-conscious and rational. Here, I will use it in the first, wider sense. The adjective “human” will be used in the same way. The term “human person,” however, will denote the second, smaller group. The term “fetus,” meanwhile, is sometimes used to refer to an unborn baby at any stage of development, and sometimes only to unborn babies after the end of the embryonic stage of development (i.e., roughly, after the eight week of pregnancy). Again, I will use this term it in the first, wider sense. The pivotal premise of the Standard Argument – the one around which reasonable disagreement about its soundness ought to center – is very arguably the second one. Premise (3) will presumably be granted by most everyone, though perhaps there could be quibbles about edge cases. Perhaps, e.g., performing a lifesaving hysterectomy on a pregnant woman in the knowledge that the death of the fetus will result counts as an abortion, but also as merely letting die rather than as killing. Even if such quibbles are granted, however, their cash value is limited, since one can perfectly well accept them while also remaining staunch in one’s opposition to those abortions that do uncontroversially count as killing, which make up the vast majority of abortions. For example, it could be held that we are sometimes permitted to bring about the death of a fetus as a foreseen consequence of our actions (such as in that hysterectomy I 1 See e.g. Oderberg 2000, p. 3 1 mentioned a moment ago) even if we may never bring it about as an intended consequence. And again, it is not clear whether such “indirect abortions” actually count as abortions at all. It is not even out of the question simply to stipulatively define abortion as the intentional killing of a fetus and dispense altogether with the now-tautological third premise. In popular debates, premise (1) is often taken by both sides to be the bone of contention. In such debates, slogans like “Life begins at conception” and “A fetus isn’t human; it’s just a clump of cells” are often presented as standalone arguments, suggesting that if only we settled whether the fetus is a living human organism, we would also settle whether (or when) we are permitted to kill it. But this is very arguably wrong, simply because it already is settled, as a matter of empirical fact, that the fetus is a living human organism from the moment of conception. Crack open an introductory textbook in embryology, and you will usually find a claim to this effect near the start.2 So, (2) is the pivotal premise. Its prima facie plausibility should not be underestimated. Most ordinary people, including many or most of those who consider themselves pro-choice, would probably assent to it (in many cases, one assumes, without realizing its full consequences). As S. Matthew Liao notes, the idea that membership in the human species confers moral status also seems to be the motivation for much of our current preoccupation and concern with human rights.3 Now, against both of these points, it could be objected that the terms “human” and “human being” are ambiguous, as already mentioned. When the man in the street talks about the rights of human beings, perhaps he really means the rights of human persons, on the tacit understanding that these rights are a result of their personhood rather than their humanity. Well, perhaps. But in that case, why include the qualifier “human” at all? If we really believed in our heart of hearts that it is only the personhood of human persons that has any moral relevance, focusing so much energy on the rights of human persons instead of the rights of persons plain and simple would be as strange as focusing a similar amount of energy on the rights of some other subset of persons who also happen to share some other attribute which we all understand to be morally irrelevant. A declaration of the rights of human persons would be as bizarre as a declaration of the rights of green-eyed persons or persons who live on the 33rd parallel north. Now, while the man in the street (including, in many cases, the pro-choicer in the street) may accept (2) but think that (1) is up for debate, pro-choice philosophers standardly accept (1) but dispute (2). These disputations take many forms, but one argument one often hears is that 2 See https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html for a selection of examples. 3 Liao 2010, p.