The necessary and sufficient conditions of personhood are typically said to include the possession of some subset of the following properties: rationality, self-awareness, concern for others, language ability, sense of the future and past and so on. Add or subtract the properties that you think are relevant here; I'm not so concerned about which properties actually matter to personhood. To put all most of my cards on the table, I've never been given a decent reason to believe that the standard list of properties is anything but pulled from fairly thin air. For the moment, though, let's assume the list is correct and that being a person itself confers on it's possessor some important moral standing. It matters directly what we do to, and what we allow to happen to, those beings that are persons. It matters only indirectly what we do to, or what we allow to happen to, those beings that are non-persons. Here's an argument why it is false that being a person itself confers on its possessor some important moral standing.
1. On any standard list of morally relevant properties, a fetus F is clearly a non-person.
2. On any standard list of morally relevant properties, a normal adult human being H is clearly a person.
3. Given the exclusive options of saving the life of fetus F or saving the life of H, a mother M is morally permitted to save F.
4. If persons had greater moral standing than non-persons, it would not be permissible for M to save F rather than H.
5. :. Being a person does not itself confer greater moral standing than being a non-person.
Let's suppose that all else is equal: it would not take any greater effort or moral sacrifice to save H than it would to save F. Let's suppose that, humanitarian that she is, M does not have any greater psychological attachment to the fetus than she does to H. The argument still seems sound. It does not seem at all like she has some obligation to save H rather than F (completely unlike the case in which F is a dog or hamster or an earthworm, or a work of art that can be kept from destruction). Let's suppose further that the indirect consequences of saving F are morally equal to the indirect consequences of saving H. All that matters in M's decision is the direct moral standing of the non-person F and the the direct moral standing of person H. Again the argument seems sound. So it seems like being a person does not itself confer greater moral standing than being a non-person.
Note that we could run the same argument with newborns, instead of fetuses, since newborns are also paradigmatic non-persons. We could assume further that M is unrelated to the newborn, but chooses to save the newborn rather than H: that is, chooses to save the non-person rather than the person. It again seems perfectly permissible, all else being equal. So once again it seems like being a person does not itself confer greater moral standing than being a non-person.
But maybe I'm missing something important here.
That's a great argument, and one of the best ones I've ever seen on the topic. Let me be a devil's advocate and offer three objections:
1. Let us suppose that the fetus or newborn would be such that we would know that it would never develop into someone who exhibits the paradigmatic features of persons. It's less clear (at least to the devil's advocate) that the mother's action is permissible. This suggests that the paradigmatic features of persons still play a certain role.
2. Suppose that a woman has just engaged in marital relations with her husband, who has now left for a year-long business trip. Suppose that she knows from a genie that she will get pregnant from these marital relations, unless the sperm in her is destroyed. The sperm, let us suppose, is threatened with destruction by a magician. She has a choice between saving the sperm and saving the life of a stranger. It is not completely obvious that she would do wrong to opt to save the sperm in order to have a child with her husband. (We can come up with variant cases where it more plausibly permissible for her to save the sperm, e.g., if this is the last chance in her life for her to have a child with her husband.) If so, then intuitions about what or whom it is permissible to save do not go along with moral status (I assume sperm have none).
3. Here is a pro-choice view that would make sense of your thought experiments. We need to distinguish between goods and rights. Suppose that the fetus or newborn is the same individual as the later adult, but is not yet a person. On this view, personhood is not an essential property. The same individual can come to be and cease to be a person. Now, the woman who saves her fetus does so to ensure that her fetus is not deprived of a great good--the good of a future life as a person. The good that the woman would preserve by saving the stranger would be a good of the same sort--the good of a future life as a person. The woman has the right to choose between these two goods, of which neither seems to outweigh the other, and opt for the good of her child. The future goods of the child and of the stranger are of the same sort, and hence when we stick to goods, we will not see a difference between them.
However, rights do not simply depend on the pattern of goods--or so this objection goes. Thus, even though just as a great a good would be lost by her killing her child as by her killing the stranger, the stranger has a right not to be killed, while the child does not. So when it is a question of rights, the stranger's rights win out. But people do not have an absolute right to be saved from death. They have a right to be saved if saving them is not disproportionately costly. It would be disproportionately costly to the woman for her child to be deprived of a future personal life--even if the child is not yet a person.
I am not convinced by objection 1. In any case, it doesn't show much. Objections 2 and 3 are a bit more serious, but they depend on too great a separation between the good and the right.
Mike
Interesting argument, but I think there is a problem or two with the third premise: "Given the exclusive options of saving the life of fetus F or saving the life of H, a mother M is morally permitted to save F.:
Assuming personhood as determining who we have obligations to, would it not be the case that if the choice is between saving F (a-non-person) or saving H (a person), other H's, regardless of their relationship to F, must save H? It seems that if 3 is true (or warranted) then its truth must be establihed by relying on criteria that are not associated with how we determine who we have moral obligations to if we subscribe to the notion that personhood confers obligations. There must be some overriding way of establishing whom we have obligations too that do not rely on personhood. It would seem that if we switch 4 with 3 and eliminate old 3 and 5, then a new conclusion (the negation of 4) is the correct conclusion of (the reordered) 1-3. Am I missing something?
I have a couple of objections, mostly to due with premise 3:
"3. Given the exclusive options of saving the life of fetus F or saving the life of H, a mother M is morally permitted to save F."
First of all, this seems to sneak some baggage not mentioned in the text above into the proof, that may or may not be the source of my serious objection, which follows.
Presumably, the argumentative weight of premise 3 is that the mother's duty is to protect F due to F's potential to gain "personhood" and "moral standing" in the future. If this is the case, then don't F and H have the same potential?
This seems to me to be a prime example of the difficulty in attempting to quantify or codify the status of "person," which seems to be a status achieved much more relationally in practice.
As a third, minor objection, I'm not a huge fan of the manner in which the morality of M's choice is based on the moral standing of H and F. Seems to allow the possibility that maybe abortion is wrong unless F is going to be the next Hitler. I'd favor any argument which could prevent these types of contingent examples simply because such conflations make ethical systems unworkable.
Here's my worry:
Saving Non-Humans
1. Given the exclusive options of saving the life of a puppy, P, or saving the life of fetus, F, a mother M is morally permitted to save her puppy.
2. If the fetus had greater moral standing than puppies, it would not be permissible for the mother to save the puppy rather than the fetus.
C2. :. Being a fetus does not itself confer greater moral standing than being a puppy.
We agree, I hope, that:
C3. :. Being an adult person does itself confer greater moral standing than being a person.
I'm more convinced of C2 and C3 than I am of your:
C1. :Being a person does not itself confer greater moral standing than being a non-person.
Either 'greater moral standing' is intransitive, it's impermissible for the mother to use limited resources to save a puppy rather than a fetus, puppies matter more than persons, or the saving principle is unsound and intuitions about permissible saving are an unsure guide to moral standing. Convinced as I am that the first premise of Saving Non-Humans is true, I submit that we finally concede the superior standing of puppies!
Oops, C3 ought to be:
C3. :. Being an adult person does itself confer greater moral standing than being a puppy.
Mike,
Nice argument.
What if a list of the standard necessary conditions for being a person weren't "rationality, self-awareness, concern for others, language ability, sense of the future and past and so on" But rather being-potentially-rational, being-potentially-self-aware, and so on. We'd have to spell out what this potentially consists in, but maybe we can leave that to the side for now.
If the relevant properties required to be a person were potentialities rather than (call them) actualities, then your 1 is false. It is false because the fetus is a person, since the fetus is potentially rational, potentially self aware, and so on.
Here's a response in the spirit of Bernard Williams:
The mother has projects of her own, projects that define who she is as a person. One of her most important projects may be to reproduce, be a mother, raise a child, etc. Is she supposed to jettison one of her defining projects for the sake of someone else?
It seems, here, that the woman need not choose between the moral value of the fetus and the moral value of the other person. This is about her own rights. Is she obligated to give up her projects for the sake of another?
In other words, your #4 seems patently false. The fetus may, indeed, have less value than the human, but this does not mean there arises an obligation to save the human over the fetus. There are other morally relevant factors involved.
However, rights do not simply depend on the pattern of goods--or so this objection goes. Thus, even though just as a great a good would be lost by her killing her child as by her killing the stranger, the stranger has a right not to be killed, while the child does not. So when it is a question of rights, the stranger's rights win out.
Alex, many interesting points here. Let me try to address this one. It is perhaps my mistaken intuitions, but I don't see that the stranger's rights really do win out. Not in the least. It might be easier to move to the newborn case, which is also a case of a non-person. For the life of me, I cannot see how I would have any greater obligation (rights-based or not) to save the life of a normal adult human being rather than the life of a newborn (make the newborn very premature, if you'd like). I don't deny that bullets can be bitten or that we can manufacture some obligation to the normal adult, but that sillness aside, there is just no obvious basis for that position.
Clayton,
1. Given the exclusive options of saving the life of a puppy, P, or saving the life of fetus, F, a mother M is morally permitted to save her puppy.
I don't see how your argument makes it any less true that personhood does not seem to confer special moral standing on those that possess it. In any case, as far as moral intuitions go, (1) is bizarrely false. Certainly you're not suggesting that the moral reasons one might need to terminate a fetus are roughly the moral reasons one might need to terminate a puppy? I agree that you need moral reasons in both cases; I'd expect that most people would take as a more serious moral decision that option to terminate a fetus. To see this more clearly, consider the case of newborns, who are also non-persons. If you think taking the life of a newborn is abuot as weighty as taking the life of a puppy, we have probably have nothing to discuss.
Incidentally, I'm not taking any political stance here. In any event, I don't mean to do that. I mean to point out that personhood does not seem to carry much moral water.
Tim,
Yes, I agree. But I've also never seen a good argument for the position that the possession of potential properties (property potentials?) are relevant morally.
I don't see how your argument makes it any less true that personhood does not seem to confer special moral standing on those that possess it. In any case, as far as moral intuitions go, (1) is bizarrely false. Certainly you're not suggesting that the moral reasons one might need to terminate a fetus are roughly the moral reasons one might need to terminate a puppy? I agree that you need moral reasons in both cases; I'd expect that most people would take as a more serious moral decision that option to terminate a fetus. To see this more clearly, consider the case of newborns, who are also non-persons. If you think taking the life of a newborn is abuot as weighty as taking the life of a puppy, we have probably have nothing to discuss.
I didn't intend to show that personhood matters in ways you think it doesn't, but to suggest that there might be something odd with the methodology by which you've tried to establish this. When it comes to terminating pregnancies, I tend to think that a pregnant woman needs little by way of reason to do this. Matters differ for freely roaming puppies and infants, however.
Let's assume that we're speaking of the earliest possible fetuses and healthy, adorable puppies. (It won't work with kittens, I'll grant you.) Suppose there's a rare ailment that undermines the structural integrity of that which keeps the fetus and the pregnant woman attached. Suppose the only cure is found in the medication she has for her puppy, a medication without which the puppy will perish. I don't have the intuition that she's obligated to tack the drug at the expense of the puppies life. I don't have the intuition that she's obligated to do anything to keep the pregnancy. If she's not obligated to do what's in her power to keep the pregnancy (an intuition that I don't think I'm alone in having), I can't see why under the circumstances she'd be compelled to let the puppy die as well.
Fwiw, if you switch to destroying as opposed to choosing not to save (I was focused on obligations to save rather than cases of destruction), that might have some effect on intuition. Nevertheless, those who think that women aren't obligated (or bound by some prima facie duty) to do what's in their power to keep a pregnancy I think will share my intuition concerning (1).
Clayton,
We're running together two (maybe three) different points. My point was to show that there is no greater moral reason to save the life of a person than there is to save th life of a non-person. I don't see where that's been shown ot be mistaken.
The second point is about whether there is any better moral reason to save a human non-person than there is to save a non-human non-person. I say there is, and I urge that this is best displayed in the case of newborns. If you have a choice to save the life of a newborn or the life of your puppy, you'd be making a serious moral mistake in saving the dog. (I'd generalize that claim to nearly newborns and puppy's and to nearly nearly newborns and puppy's.) But the first of these is what I really aim to show.
The third point is one of moral methodology. I have a particular position on thought-experiments that I think is right, but is certainly not shared by everyone. To fairly assess any thought experiment (or counterexample) you must be prepared to leave momentarily in abeyance the commitments it calls into question. If you bring to the assessment of the experiment (the one that has you deciding whether you can save F rather than H) the unbracketed belief that it just does not matter what anyone does to any F for any reason at all, then you won't be in a position to have the intuition elicited. You will have insulated yourself from experiencing any such intuition. But that's unfair play. Or so say I.
Hi John, you write,
Assuming personhood as determining who we have obligations to, would it not be the case that if the choice is between saving F (a-non-person) or saving H (a person), other H's, regardless of their relationship to F, must save H?
No, I gather that the intuition elicited in this argument would have us affirm (3). It is certainly my intuition, in any case, and it is hard to see why it would not be (I mean, pre-theoretically or pre-commitment) found intuitive.
Hi Dru, you say,
Presumably, the argumentative weight of premise 3 is that the mother's duty is to protect F due to F's potential to gain "personhood" and "moral standing" in the future. If this is the case, then don't F and H have the same potential?
I make no such assumption. You are offering an explanation for the intuition. I claim only that the intuition is that (3) is true. Indeed, my intuition is that (3) is clearly true. I dount anyone fairly assessing (3) would be inclined to deny it.
Hey Mike,
3. Given the exclusive options of saving the life of fetus F or saving the life of H, a mother M is morally permitted to save F.
You say of (3):
Indeed, my intuition is that (3) is clearly true.
So I actually don't share this intuition. I have, when I fill in the details of such a case in a natural way, the exact opposite intuition. Could you say more on behalf of (3)?
I have, when I fill in the details of such a case in a natural way, the exact opposite intuition. Could you say more on behalf of (3)?
I guess it depends on how you fill in the details. I'm claiming that, assuming that other things are equal in terms of consequences and moral sacrifice, the fact that one has the (contingent but) intrinsic property of being a person and the other has the (contingent but) intrinsic property of being a non-person is alone irrelevant to whether M can choose to save F. Personhood does not matter to this question. But, as I say above, it is possible (it happens all the time here at our illustrious forum) to insulate yourself from the intuition I am trying to elicit. That usually leads to long exchanges to nowhere.
Here is, I think, the core of my disagreement with (3). Some person-making properties are goodmaking properties. A fetus F lacks them. A normal human adult H has them. All else equal, allowing H rather than F to die would entail allowing the world to made worse, all else equal. I think we should not do this. When we stipulatively set all other considerations aside, we should make things better. So, I think, all else equal, saving H is both required and better than saving F. I think that's why I disagree with (3).
Some person-making properties are goodmaking properties. A fetus F lacks them. A normal human adult H has them. All else equal, allowing H rather than F to die would entail allowing the world to made worse, all else equal. I think we should not do this. When we stipulatively set all other considerations aside, we should make things better. So, I think, all else equal, saving H is both required and better than saving F. I think that's why I disagree with (3).
This is no more than a way to advance a highly theoretical position against the intuitive conclusion. What it does not do is explain why most of us (I dare say) have an entirely different intuition. Look, again, these discussions have a way of devolving into defending one's favorite political view. I have zero interest in pursuing that sort of discussion. So let me say this: if your initial intuitions about this case are completely different from what I think are the most common intuitions, then there's not much to say. I don't deny that you can latch yourself to a quasi-utilitarian mast in the face of strong intuitions to the contrary. I'm just not interested in scoring points with utilitarians by displaying my willingness to contort my intuitions.
Hi Mike
You write: "No, I gather that the intuition elicited in this argument would have us affirm (3). It is certainly my intuition, in any case, and it is hard to see why it would not be (I mean, pre-theoretically or pre-commitment) found intuitive."
I understand that your 3rd premise: "3. Given the exclusive options of saving the life of fetus F or saving the life of H, a mother M is morally permitted to save F," would, if true, negate the conclusion that 'M is obligation to save H over F.’ But we were asked to accept that personhood was the criteria to be used to establish the normative basis for deciding to whom we have obligations. If 3 is true that would be not the case. You suggest that your intuition is justifiable grounds for accepting 3 as true. But my intuition is that 3 is false. How do we determine who is correct? Each of us needs to 1) establish that intuitions are justifiable criteria and 2) develop an error theory as to why differing intuitions are false. It seems to me that failure to do 2 negates any claim to 1. Following Kant, cannot we eliminate intuition and rely on reason to establish the criteria? But that would seem to rule out the 3rd premise.
Mike,
It seems that your intuition fails to consider the interests of the mother at all. You've only considered the value of the fetus and the value of the adult human without considering the mother's projects or interests in any way.
Why must the mother sacrifice her interest in being a parent for the life of another?
Why is 3 true? Because the value of a person is not greater than the value of a non-person? Not necessarily. 3 could be true simply because a person is not required to set aside her ground projects for the sake of another.
If this is the case, it says NOTHING about the value of non-persons v. the value of persons. Your 4 is simply false. H could have more value than F without placing an obligation on M to save H if it means sacrificing her own projects.
Hi, Mike,
How much of the argument do you think depends on the notion of 'moral standing' in particular (I'm inclined, for other reasons, to think that the notion of 'moral standing' is itself incoherent)? That is, does the argument get its kick from the idea that things have or lack moral standing in such a way that they can be put in a rigid hierarchical order? Or could it be reformulated in different terms?
You suggest that your intuition is justifiable grounds for accepting 3 as true. But my intuition is that 3 is false. How do we determine who is correct?
John,
I guess I'm tempted to conclude you're bluffing. Take the case of the newborn N (the argument is the same for my purposes) non-person. Here a person P can save N or save H (where H is paradigmatically a person). Now suppose N and H are about to be hit by an oncoming vehicle. P saves N, but cannot save H as well. Did P do something wrong? Hypothesis: better than 95% of those assessing the case fairly and closely will deny that P did anything wrong. All we need is an experimental philosopher to run the test. I'm extremely confident about the hypothesis. Truly now, the intuition that P did something permissible is pretty much as intuitive any interesting philosophical proposition gets. There would simply be no finger pointing when the P admits that he could just as easily have saved H, but chose to save N.
It seems that your intuition fails to consider the interests of the mother at all. You've only considered the value of the fetus and the value of the adult human without considering the mother's projects or interests in any way.
Wes, the case is designed to hold all else equal except for the allegedly morally relevant property of personhood. Move to the newborn case, and let M be unrelated to N or H, if you cannot abstract from the interests of the mother in the fetus case.
Hi Brandon,
How much of the argument do you think depends on the notion of 'moral standing' in particular (I'm inclined, for other reasons, to think that the notion of 'moral standing' is itself incoherent)?
I don't think it matters much to what I want to say. Somehow personhood is supposed to make its possessors matter more from a moral point of view. I cashed it out--as it typically is done--in terms of direct moral standing. But my guess is that there are other ways to do it.
Mike, your example assumes that a newborn is a non-person. The thought experiment would only be testing the intuitions of those who shared that view, and I'm not sure that it's a view very widely held, even among people who are pro-choice.
Good morning Mike
Given your example, I may, in fact, be bluffing, but that is not my point. I agree that the majority will conclude as you have, but that only proves that the majority agrees with your intuition. In itself, it is not sufficient (although it may be necessary) to warrant that intuition as having any justificatory role in assessing what we should do unless we can provide an error theory that explains why those who disagree are wrong. Your 3rd premise appears to rest on a position that does not have an error theory. I also take it that the 3rd premise is not consistent with the criteria associated with personhood and what that entails so bringing it in requires a defense if we are using personhood as if it has some normative merit. On a personal, non-bluffing, note, I do find your 3rd premise to be stating something that is reasonable to believe given the context within which it is presented. Using your experimental context (I do like the experimental turn in philosophy a long as it can provide an error theory) I think an experiment would confirm that most accept it, as your recent example suggests.
But, consider this example: A doctor can save the life of a mother or her deformed fetus, both not both He chooses to save the fetus against the wishes of the mother. My intuition is that the doctor has done something wrong and I would rely on the criteria of personhood to back up (justify) having this intuition. My guess (hypothesis) is that if we ran an experiment the majority would agree that the doctor did something wrong and for reasons associated with the different status regarding personhood between the mother and the fetus.
I suspect that what these examples demonstrate is that there are no general arguments that work in each and every case regardless of the similarity between the cases. Something else is at play and what that is, is probably beyond the intended scope of your post although I do think this would make for an interesting post in itself.
Mike, your example assumes that a newborn is a non-person. The thought experiment would only be testing the intuitions of those who shared that view, and I'm not sure that it's a view very widely held, even among people who are pro-choice.
If we think that a person has the properties listed above--rationality, a sense of self, a sense of the future and past, etc.--which is pretty standard in these discussions, then we are forced to this conclusion about newborns. Newborns are not rational, have no sense of the future or past, have no sense of themselves as independently existing beings, have no plans or goals, etc. The conclusion that newborns are in pretty much the same non-person boat as fetuses, given this view of personhood, is not new. So I'm not saying anything new to those who work in this area, or making any new assumptions.
Hi again Mike
I want to make another observation regarding your 3rd premise;” Given the exclusive options of saving the life of fetus F or saving the life of H, a mother M is morally permitted to save F." If others have already made it I apologize. You use the word 'permissible' not 'obligated' and I am wondering if this results in a weaker normative claim being made that could be overridden using the criteria of personhood? It seems that the word 'permissible' has become a favorite among moral philosophers, but it seems to me to be making a much weaker claim regarding the normative status of the action. If I am permitted to do x does this not entail that I do not have to do it and cannot be negatively sanctioned for not doing it, whereas if I am obligated to do x and do not do it I can be negatively sanctioned? It would seem to me that we can accept this weaker claim without negating the stronger claim regarding what we are obligated to do. Example: I am permitted to go to the movies but decide not too. No one is harmed by my not going. However, if I make a promise to go to the movies with my friend, but decide not do keep my promise, have I not harmed my friend? It seems to me that I should not accept the weaker premise in situations like the one you mentioned because I am obligated to save one because (for example using a non-personhood criteria) of the ability that each has to suffer, etc. Because both can suffer it matters not which I save, but saving at least one is not a question of what I am permitted to do, but what is required to do.
My guess (hypothesis) is that if we ran an experiment the majority would agree that the doctor did something wrong and for reasons associated with the different status regarding personhood between the mother and the fetus.
I agree, in part. But, first, the case you describe involves a physician in violation of the mother's consent. Second, it brings in complicated physician-patient obligations. It does not properly isolate the property of personhood to determine its moral role, so the case does not clearly say anything about its relevance or irrelevance.
Wes, the case is designed to hold all else equal except for the allegedly morally relevant property of personhood. Move to the newborn case, and let M be unrelated to N or H, if you cannot abstract from the interests of the mother in the fetus case.
Before moving on to the newborn case, do you agree that there might be morally relevant factors that justify 3 (e.g. one is not obligated to act against her ground projects) in such a way that says makes 4 false?
Your argument appears to wrongly assume the only morally relevant property is personhood. Perhaps, if that were the case, the argument would succeed, but it's clearly not the case. If you are asking us to imagine a world unlike ours in which personhood is the only morally relevant factor, you argument may work, but it would be of little significance in this world.
In this world, perhaps we would amend 4:
4'. If persons had greater moral standing than non-persons, it would not be permissible for M to save F rather than H unless not saving F violated one of M's ground projects.
But from 4', your conclusion would not follow. H might have had more moral value than F, but it would have still been morally permissible to save F (i.e. because it was one of M's ground projects).
I wonder what other disjuncts we could add to 4'. It might be that we could add enough so that it's never the case that your conclusion follows (i.e. based on other morally relevant factors)
The newborn case is probably better, but I'm not sure what ethical theory you have in mind for this case.
The hedonistic utilitarian values maximizing pleasure, so saving F over H would only be morally permissible if it would maximize pleasure overall, otherwise saving H would be the only morally permissible act. It is not obviously wrong to imagine that saving F would result in more overall pleasure than saving H (though, it is not obviously right either).
The consequentialist who seeks to maximize rights-fulfillment can similarly look long-term and act on the basis of what would eventually lead to the least violations of rights.
Perhaps only the deontologist is troubled by the problem. If so, so much the worse for deontology.
It cannot be assumed that her position, which is derived from Joel Feinberg's, falls outside of the "standard list of morally relevant properties" without some further argument.
Before moving on to the newborn case, do you agree that there might be morally relevant factors that justify 3 (e.g. one is not obligated to act against her ground projects) in such a way that says makes 4 false?
You're neglecting the qualifications added to the proof that, effectively, all else is equal. I say above (just as a reminder),
Let's suppose that all else is equal: it would not take any greater effort or moral sacrifice to save H than it would to save F. Let's suppose that, humanitarian that she is, M does not have any greater psychological attachment to the fetus than she does to H. The argument still seems sound. It does not seem at all like she has some obligation to save H rather than F (completely unlike the case in which F is a dog or hamster or an earthworm, or a work of art that can be kept from destruction). Let's suppose further that the indirect consequences of saving F are morally equal to the indirect consequences of saving H. All that matters in M's decision is the direct moral standing of the non-person F and the the direct moral standing of person H.
I have no idea what the following means,
Your argument appears to wrongly assume the only morally relevant property is personhood.
I'm making no such assumption. I am replying to those who take personhood to be a very important moral property.
It cannot be assumed that her position, which is derived from Joel Feinberg's, falls outside of the "standard list of morally relevant properties" without some further argument.
Steinbock's interest-based approach to personhood is generally not listed among the standard properties considered necessary to being a person. In any case, it seems unlikely that having an interest in, say, staying alive would do all the work you suggest. Lots of non-persons have interests. Singer, for instance, concedes that fetuses/newborns have interests. But the interests of persons significantly outweigh the interests of non-persons. We still should be saving the person.
Mike
I agee that I have not set this up completely, but the point is that if this example could be flushed out does it count against your example thereby weakening your 3rd premise? Your 3rd premise may be warranted in some situations, but not in others and that leads to a question of it explanitory value in justifying how we ought to act generally speaking. Do we not need to move beyond intuitions in explaining how we should act? Besides how are we to address the question of an action being permissible as opposed to obligatory and how the mere permissiblity of an action somehow warrants a normative claim? I take it that if M is permitted to save F over H then it is permissible for M to save H over F. That seems rather weak.
Mike, I think we're disagreeing here about the meaning of 'person.' Your point seems to be about the irrelevance of the metaphysical concept to the moral one. Steinbock's approach is about moral persons, and it's not obviously non-standard on that issue.
My point is simply that your thought experiment would better test people's intuitions if it involved something that is valuable but not considered to be a moral person, rather than infants, which generally are.
A possible example might be a dilemma between the elimination of a species of animal and the life of a human being, but that may bring in too many other issues that would obfuscate whether it was testing people's intuitions on the trumping value of personhood
This is no more than a way to advance a highly theoretical position against the intuitive conclusion. What it does not do is explain why most of us (I dare say) have an entirely different intuition. Look, again, these discussions have a way of devolving into defending one's favorite political view. I have zero interest in pursuing that sort of discussion. So let me say this: if your initial intuitions about this case are completely different from what I think are the most common intuitions, then there's not much to say. I don't deny that you can latch yourself to a quasi-utilitarian mast in the face of strong intuitions to the contrary. I'm just not interested in scoring points with utilitarians by displaying my willingness to contort my intuitions.
I wouldn't be surprised if most people share your intuition about (3). Though in the comments thread here, quite the opposite is true. But most people also find it intuitive that some conjunctions have a higher probability than either of their conjuncts, that it is wrong to kick corpses, that homosexual sex is wrong, that it is merely permissible to send cash to Oxfam, but required to save a child drowning in a pond, that there is a moral difference between doing and allowing, and, with a case like yours, that a mother would be permitted to save her fetus against the lives of two human adults.
I say so much the worse for those intuitions and I don't see what's wrong about advancing a theoretical position. In fact, so much the better. The theoretical position has a virtue the intuition supporting (3) lacks, it is informed by considering a host of cases.
And I'm not a Utilitarian, ewww!!!
I wouldn't be surprised if most people share your intuition about (3). Though in the comments thread here, quite the opposite is true.
Comment threads select for opposition.
But most people also find it intuitive that some conjunctions have a higher probability than either of their conjuncts, that (2) it is wrong to kick corpses, that (3) homosexual sex is wrong, that (4) it is merely permissible to send cash to Oxfam, but required to save a child drowning in a pond, that (5) there is a moral difference between doing and allowing, and, with a case like yours, (6) that a mother would be permitted to save her fetus against the lives of two human adults.
What's your point? (2),(3),(4), (5) and (6) are interesting and genuinely debatable questions, whatever you happen to think about them. And that people are bad at probability therefore they are not trustworthy with respect ot morality is unworthy of much discussion.
I don't see what's wrong about advancing a theoretical position. In fact, so much the better.
I can only guess you don't understand how thought-experiments and counterexamples are supposed to work.
I can only guess you don't understand how thought-experiments and counterexamples are supposed to work.
I very well might not. But, then again, maybe I'm missing your point. I said I don't share your intuition about (3) and then explained why. My explanation involved human adults having good-making properties that fetus' lack. You said my explanation was theoretical and, as far as I could tell, you were dismissing it solely on that basis.
I then raised a number of intuitions people share. I'm suggesting that it is debatable whether they are correct. You seem to agree with this. And I'm saying there is no problem bringing a theoretical explanation to bear on them. For example, there is no problem arguing that the conjunction fallacy is a fallacy since it is inconsistent with a very plausible set of "theoretical" axioms. It's perfectly appropriate to bring some theoretical claim, or set of claims up, when considering the probability intuition. The same goes for your (3).
At any rate, I interpreted you as dismissing my explanation for my intuition that (3) is false. I read you as dismissing it because it is theoretical. And I read you as suggesting your argument was strong, and partly because the intuition favoring (3) was widespread. But widespread intuitions are often false, and I think theoretical intuitions are important, and so I really don't see that your response amounts to any defense of (3) at all.
Christian, here's what you say against (3),
Here is, I think, the core of my disagreement with (3). Some person-making properties are goodmaking properties. A fetus F lacks them. A normal human adult H has them. All else equal, allowing H rather than F to die would entail allowing the world to made worse, all else equal. I think we should not do this. When we stipulatively set all other considerations aside, we should make things better. So, I think, all else equal, saving H is both required and better than saving F. I think that's why I disagree with (3).
I offered a pre-theoretical case--one in which we can choose to save a non-person or to save a person--in which it is pretty obvious that it is permissible to save the non-person. In moral theory, these sorts of examples serve to test the adequacy theoretical assumptions or (even) full blown moral theories. What you do in the quoted section above is bring to bear a set of moral-theoretical assumptions that entail the opposite moral conclusion to the one elicited in the example. Tell me why I'm supposed to care? Obviously, I already know that there are moral views that lead to the opposing moral conclusion, otherwise I'd be saying something fairly trivial. These opposing views are the ones called into question by examples such as the one I offered. You've got to give me some reason to believe that your theoretical assumptions are more likely to be true than is the strong pre-theoretical intuition that it is permissible to save F. You've got to give me some reason to believe that the theoretical assumptions you make do not accommodate the case I offer at too great a cost: it might accommodate the example but make my overall moral views less likely to be true than they are without those theoretical assumptions added on. That's why it's really not so easy to respond to decent counterexamples/thought-experiments.
What you do in the quoted section above is bring to bear a set of moral-theoretical assumptions that entail the opposite moral conclusion to the one elicited in the example. Tell me why I'm supposed to care?
Because the theory that includes these moral-theoretical assumptions is true. I don't aim to defend the theory. But it is itself interesting to note that the moral-theoretical assumptions are held by many, many people working in ethics.
These opposing views are the ones called into question by examples such as the one I offered. You've got to give me some reason to believe that your theoretical assumptions are more likely to be true than is the strong pre-theoretical intuition that it is permissible to save F.
There is no strong pretheoretical intuition, on my part, that it is permissible to save F. But, supposing I'm just wrong, then I think most people would have an equally strong pretheoretical intuition that it is permissible to save F rather than two H's. But I think that is a strong objection to the reliability of both intuitions.
I think the same is true in person/person tradeoff's where a parent's choice is involved. Many people, I suspect, have the intuition that it is permissible for a parent to save the life of their own, let us suppose, very bad teenager instead of a very kind teenage stranger. And many people, I suspect, have the intuition that it is permissible to save their own teenage child's life instead of the lives of five strangers. But I take these to be strong objections to the reliability of the intuitions.
As soon we consider cases where a mother is making a choice that deeply effects herself, or her offspring, I think the intuitions involving such cases are deeply susceptible to bias. So I place little, to no credence in your premise (3). Of course people will share that intuition, and widely. But these intuitions derive from a prereflective commitment to partiality. And there is very good reason to think that morality is impartial.
To confirm this run a choice situation as follows: The mother can now save her fetus or save the life of her five year old. These are her only two options. Hold all else fixed. Now we have excluded a source of bias. I suspect that many people will believe she is not permitted to save the fetus. If that is right, then we need an explanation. I suggest it is precisely because we think the five year-old has some good-making feature that the fetus lacks.
Because the theory that includes these moral-theoretical assumptions is true.
Right.
I am obligated to save one because (for example using a non-personhood criteria) of the ability that each has to suffer, etc. Because both can suffer it matters not which I save, but saving at least one is not a question of what I am permitted to do, but what is required to do.
John,
I agree that there is an obligation to save one or the other. But if personhood were all it's cracked up to be, we should expect the further obligation to save H. Intuitively, there is no obligation at all to save H. Morally speaking, H is not even weakly favored over F. Just to be clear, this is not say that there aren't moral theories (theories, now) that plainly give us the wrong result in this case.
I think we're disagreeing here about the meaning of 'person.' Your point seems to be about the irrelevance of the metaphysical concept to the moral one. Steinbock's approach is about moral persons, and it's not obviously non-standard on that issue.
David,
I'm not sure I follow you. Personhood in the moral sense supervenes on personhood in the metaphysical sense. Anything that instantiates the relevant natural properties--rationality, sense of past and future, etc.--is a person in the morally important sense. Are you saying that something can be metaphysically a person and not morally one?
Mike, I don't agree about the moral sense supervening on the metaphysical sense, or at least not without some important caveats. Some of those who are mentally disabled, who would not be considered persons metaphysically according to the criteria given in your post, are still regarded a persons in a moral sense. There can also be moral personhood in cases where there is no longer any metaphysical personhood, as in the cases of those with certain kinds of brain damage or the wills of the deceased.
I do not think that there is any instance of a metaphysical persons which is not a moral person. My point was only that there can be moral personhood even when there is no metaphysical personhood, and that your thought experiment would only seem to show the moral irrelevance of the latter.
Hi Mike
When you say that there are theories that give us the wrong results, is the 'wrongness' of the result determined by how they square with our intuitions, or that they do not square up with a proper understanding of the criteria to be used to determine what is permissible or obligatory? Is there a characteristic that F and H share such that there is no preference for saving one over the other. To put my cards on the table, I do think that your third premise has merit, but only if F and H share something in common that gives each of them equal moral status regarding what we owe them. I have been trying to move the discussion away from simply relying on intuitions to trying to determine the shared criterion, if there is one. For example, we could argue that the ability to suffer is the common criterion and that F's and H's ability to suffer grants them equal status in our deliberations. But then the question is at what point does an F have the ability to suffer such that we need to take it’s suffering into account. Clearly newborns (N) can suffer, but is it not the case that at all points in it’s development that an F can suffer, so at some point prior to it’s ability to suffer it is permissible, maybe even obligatory, to kill it. I think that the underlying problem with the 3rd premise is that it is not possible to understand it outside of a context where we know something about the particular F’s, N’s, and H’s and that at best it can only function as a prima facia reason in determining what is permissible when we lack contextual knowledge. Does this make any sense to you?
What I would ask is can you give a detailed example of what you take 3 to refer to? In what context is it permissible to save a F over a H? I am finding it difficult to come up with one where I think it is permissilbe to save F over H.
Mike,
There is some ambiguity in the original story. M is said to be "the mother". Is she the mother of both F and H? When I first read the story, I took her to be the mother of F but not H (and you didn't correct this when I criticized your argument, so maybe this is a good reading). In that case, the argument is flawed, because (4) would be unjustified. For it could be that saving F rather than H would be justified not by F's moral status, but by F's relation to M.
Given an exclusive choice to save one of my kidneys or to save a stranger, it seems permissible (though only barely so) to save one of my kidneys. It does not follow from this that the kidney has equal moral status to the stranger. For what justifies my saving the kidney is not just the intrinsic qualities of the kidney, but the kidney's relationship to me.
What if we modify the case, and assume that M is also the mother of H? Well, because H was specified as an adult, I think our intuitions are still skewed a little, because we do not generally think we have the same duties towards adult children as we do towards younger children. The responsibilities we have in regard to younger children are greater, and the relationship is different. Thus, there would still be a relationship difference.
To get rid of the relationship difference skewing our intuitions, I think we need to carefully state the cases in a way that makes the relationships equal, so that the only possible differences are of intrinsic moral status:
A. Is it permissible for M to save a fetus that she is a stranger to (and that includes being a stranger to the fetus's mother) instead of an adult that she is a stranger to?
B. Is it permissible for M to save her own fetus instead of her own ten-year-old child of normal intelligence?
I suspect that people who think fetuses have lower moral status than adults will mostly answer in the negative to (A) and maybe also to (B), at least if we are talking of cases where the saving carries no cost.
The newborn case, though, is different. If we replace "fetus" with "newborn" in (A) and (B), I think most people's answers to (A) and (B) will be positive. Likewise, the answers will be positive if we replace "fetus" with "severely mentally retarded ten-year-old" (severely enough not to satisfy Warren-style criteria of personhood). So you can still run the more complex version of your argument. From the above, a newborn has the same intrinsic moral status as an adult. And an almost newborn fetus has the same intrinsic moral status as a newborn.
What I would ask is can you give a detailed example of what you take 3 to refer to? In what context is it permissible to save a F over a H? I am finding it difficult to come up with one where I think it is permissilbe to save F over H.
John,
In the case described the intuition is that we can save F at the expense of H. What I take to show is that personhood is not all that important morally. What you seem to be after is why F and H are more or less moral equals in the case described. This is a very difficult question, since it involves providing the theoretical assumptions that explains the strong intuition. My goal was not so constructive.
Some of those who are mentally disabled, who would not be considered persons metaphysically according to the criteria given in your post, are still regarded a persons in a moral sense.
If this turns out true, it does not show that moral personhood doesn't supervene on metaphysical personhood. It shows that the criteria of metaphysical personhood that I cite in the post are incorrect.
There is some ambiguity in the original story. M is said to be "the mother". Is she the mother of both F and H?
Right, this is why I added the newborn case and the disinterested agent. Still, I think the mother is permitted to save the fetus in both A and B. It is a terrible choice in either case, but I don't see that she must save H.
The kidney case raises raises issues of personal sacrifice that I exclude from the argument. It involves no greater sacrific to save F than to save H.
Mike:
But to save H at the expense of F requires a personal sacrifice--it requires the loss of one's child. A miscarriage would probably still be a significant loss to the typical mother even if the fetus had a lower moral status than an adult.
I don't think psychological attachment is the issue here. A mother's special duties to her children depend very little on what psychological attachment she has to the child. So I don't think the supposition that she has no attachment affects the case or my criticism of it.
I agree with you that the answers to A and B are affirmative. But I think many pro-choice folks are going to disagree, at least in case A. Here is an example. Pregnant woman (i.e., H with F in utero) is brought for emergency surgery to M, who is a surgeon. It becomes clear to M that she can either save the woman (H) or the fetus (F), but not both. M is unable to ascertain what H's wishes would have been, because H is now unconscious and has no friends or relatives. (The father of the child just died, too.) M is unable to ascertain what F's wishes would have been, because F has never had enough mental sophistication. I think just about all pro-choice folks are going to say that the surgeon is not permitted to save the fetus's life at the expense of the mother's.
I don't think psychological attachment is the issue here. A mother's special duties to her children depend very little on what psychological attachment she has to the child. So I don't think the supposition that she has no attachment affects the case or my criticism of it.
I think that's right. It's just clearer and more powerful to stick with the newborn case.
I think just about all pro-choice folks are going to say that the surgeon is not permitted to save the fetus's life at the expense of the mother's
Certainly, that's the expected response. But interestingly, if the fetus surviving by chance outside the womb, and there is a decision on who to offer the lifesaving medicine to, it seems permissible to save F. I don't have an explanation for that intuition.
On the topic of the newborn case, have you ever met a pro-choice non-philosopher who thought newborns lacked moral status? I am thinking that there is a major disconnect between popular supporters of the pro-choice position, who are quite sure that newborns have full moral status and then draw a rather ad hoc line, and philosophical supporters who are more consistent.
have you ever met a pro-choice non-philosopher who thought newborns lacked moral status?
No, I haven't. The only person I know who is clearly consistent on this point is Tooley, and he reaches the truly insane conclusion that, since abortion is permissible, infanticide is permissible.
Hello Mike,
What if we change the example a bit. It is Joe, the third party observer that must make the choice of who to save. It is pretty obvious to me that in this case, all things being equal, it would be wrong to save the fetus instead of the mother. (interesting, my "intuition" is that this situation changes if the Mom says "save my baby!"
Do you share these intuitions, or am I just weird here.
Hi Gordon,
I'm trying to focus on the role of personhood alone in such decisions. It would be better to ask whether Joe can choose to save F instead of some independent person H. As opposed to asking whether Joe can save F rather than save the mother M. Even better ask whether Joe can save a newborn N rather than H.
yes, my mistake! but one can think that being a person is a relevant moral consideration without holding that it is the only moral consideration. So if Joe prefers to save the adult person, he may reason that he does so b/c of personhood considerations. On the other hand, if Joe chooses to save the life of the fetus, it may be permissible for some other morally relevant reason (being productive of future goods, for example). It may be hard for us, given our epistemic situation, know which is the right thing to do. But it is not simply flipping a coin, and its not clear to me that personhood considerations do not play some role.
. . . but one can think that being a person is a relevant moral consideration without holding that it is the only moral consideration.
Undeniably, Gordon. But the case is designed to isolate the moral relevance (if any) of personhood.
David,
If moral personhood does not supervene on the properties of metaphysical personhood I specified, then since moral persons are nonetheless persons, moral personhood must supervene on some other set of properties. The only other option is to say that moral persons are not persons or that someone who is a person is not metaphysically a person. But that's not coherent, as far as I can see.
Mike, it's not incoherent to say that metaphysical personhood is not essential to moral personhood. Furthermore, it doesn't provide any additional information to say that moral persons are nonetheless persons, without specifying what kind of persons they are "nonetheless."
David, look,
1. Anything that is a person is metaphysically a person.
I can't see how you could deny it. But then,
2. Anything that is morally a person is a person.
Again, hard to deny. But by (1) and (2),
3. Anything that is morally a person is metaphysically a person. What I said I could not see was the coherent denial of either (1) or (2).
Mike, I'm clearly denying 1, but your use of 'person' simpliciter in 1 and 2 seems to be an equivocation, unless you mean them to be read as tautologies. In that case, however, they would have to read as follows in order not to beg the question:
1. Anything that is metaphysically a person is metaphysically a person
2. Anything that is morally a person is morally a person
It would clearly be incoherent to deny either of these, but I think that the incoherence you have in mind is conceptual rather than analytic.
There is nothing (obviously) incoherent in denying 1 as you have stated it, even though you may find it implausible to do so. It would not pose any trouble for one who subscribes to an expressivist account of ethics, and I think it also would not be a problem for those who have a communitarian conception of identity or who opposed abortion for reasons like those given by Don Marquis.
I have no idea what it means to say that (1) P is a person (i.e. P has the property of being a person) and (2) I've got the metaphysics wrong in attributing personhood to P. How could I have the metaphysics wrong? That's exactly what he is. It doesn't matter what you take the nature of his properties to be, so long a I'm correctly ascribing the property.
Mike, it seems that you wish to deny that there is any real distinction between moral and metaphysical personhood. If that is the case, then clearly you would not consider it possible for an entity which was not metaphysically a person to be morally a person.
I think premise 3 is easily disposed of by substitution (in italics) that shows it to be self-evidently highly dubious:
3*. Given the exclusive options of saving the life of her developing fetus F or that of her 16 year-old daughter H, a mother M is morally permitted to save F.
Moreover, and relatedly, the fact that A and B have equal moral value does not mean it is morally impermissible for me to favor one over the other. For instance, it is certainly morally permissible for me to act to prevent a merely very serious injury to my daughter even if doing so means I would be unable to save another person from certain death.
I think premise 3 is easily disposed of by substitution (in italics) that shows it to be self-evidently highly dubious:
3*. Given the exclusive options of saving the life of her developing fetus F or that of her 16 year-old daughter H, a mother M is morally permitted to save F.
Three points. First, I don't find it obvious that the mother is not permitted to save the fetus in the case you describe. That aside, it is not important to the argument whether it is true. To make my point all we need is some normal adult human person who is such that M may save F rather than H. And even that is strictly beside the main point. All we need is some normal adult human person H who is such that a disinterested person P may save a normal newborn N rather than H.
Moreover, and relatedly, the fact that A and B have equal moral value does not mean it is morally impermissible for me to favor one over the other.
Who said it did? I didn't say that (as far as I recall) and, in any case I certainly don't need any such claim to make the point of the argument.
My premise 3* wasn't intended to show that it was obvious that the mother is not permitted to save F; it was intended only to show that it's not obvious that she is so permitted.
That being said, I would tend to be highly critical of a couple who, for example, opted to save their developing blastocyst from a fire, leaving their 16-year old to die; and I'd be surprised did others' mileage vary all that much.
That intuition should tell you that if the argument is modified as you've suggested* to consider the action of a disinterested third-person, the conclusion that a preference for F is permissible strikes me as even less secure. Frankly, if there's a blastocyst in a bottle and a 16-year old and only one can be saved, I think it would be something approaching pathological to opt to save the blastocyst and leave the 16-year old.
_____________
* That modification moots my comments regarding personal moral attachment.
That being said, I would tend to be highly critical of a couple who, for example, opted to save their developing blastocyst from a fire, leaving their 16-year old to die
I'm not sure what I'd tend to be in that case, but it's in any case not relevant to the argument.
"it's in any case not relevant to the argument"
?
Arguendo, one ought to prefer rescuing the 16-year old and leaving the blastocyst to die.
The salient distinction between the hypothetical rescuees is personhood.
How is that not relevant to your conclusion that "[b]eing a person does not itself confer greater moral standing than being a non-person"?
The salient distinction between the hypothetical rescuees is personhood. How is that not relevant to your conclusion that "[b]eing a person does not itself confer greater moral standing than being a non-person"?
You might as well use a blade of grass and a person, since blades of grass are non-persons as well. I'm not defending the view that for any non-person n and for all persons p, you are permitted to save n rather than p. This would have the absurd consequence that I can save my bicycle tire rather than p. I'm claiming that when all else is equal, you can save a newborn non-person rather than a normal adult human being. This is the claim that has been (in my view mistakenly) denied.
"I'm claiming that when all else is equal, you can save a newborn non-person rather than a normal adult human being."
SNP was about fetuses, not newborns. The subsidiary claim that newborns are "paradigmatic non-persons" is highly dubious: A sentient human being who has tasted of the multi-modal sensory world, been cradled in its mother's arms, etc., is perhaps not a person in the fullest sense of the word, but it's a lot more of a person than a blastocyst is. Falling short of paradigmatic personhood is not equivalent to being a paradigmatic nonperson.
Furthermore, to the extent newborns are not persons (i.e., they have had no contact with anyone, they have not felt the outside world, they have not heard the sounds of language in their mothers' voices, swallowed a breath of air, encountered smiling faces, etc.), the premise that one can permissibly save it and leave a fully-fledged person to die becomes less convincing. Why should it be permissible to rescue this socially inert, phenomenally hyper-underdeveloped human being and leave another one who is far more embedded in the human Lebenswelt to die?* (Because it's cute?)
And if in using a blastocyst in my example I "might as well [have used] blade of grass," so much the worse for SNP.
______________
* This question suggests another: Is it even coherent to speak of "all else being equal" between, say, a blastocyst and a father of four? Somehow I doubt it.
The subsidiary claim that newborns are "paradigmatic non-persons" is highly dubious:
The question has been asked and answered above. See DeRose.
Furthermore, to the extent newborns are not persons (i.e., they have had no contact with anyone, they have not felt the outside world, they have not heard the sounds of language in their mothers' voices, swallowed a breath of air, encountered smiling faces, etc.),
These properties have nothing to do with personhood according to all of those I'm addressing. The properties are in the post.
And if in using a blastocyst in my example I "might as well [have used] blade of grass," so much the worse for SNP.
Again, this just misunderstands the argument.
Maybe I'm being too elliptical.
Start from the intuition that it is morally permissible to prefer the life of the newborn baby over that of a more mature person. And grant that the baby is a nonperson.
Now, to conclude from those two stipulations that personhood does not itself confer greater moral value, all else equal, is a non sequitur unless the intuition appealed to truly is regulated by the "all else equal" condition. Right?
The problem, then, is this: If you ask people whether they think it's morally permissible to save a newborn baby instead of an adult "all else equal," there is every reason to think they will be psychologically unable to hold all else equal -- that their intuitions will (illicitly) be moved, say, by the fact that they find babies "cute," "sweet," "innocent," "precious," and so on.
If we really seek to get a valid set of intuitions that could ground conclusions about personhood, then, we need to abstract the confounding variables away, maybe like so:
A and B are human beings.
A is rational, self-aware, has concern for others, has language ability, and has a sense of the future and past.
B is not rational, has no self-awareness, has no concern for others, has no language ability, and has no sense of the future or past.
A and B are alike in all other respects.
Observer O can save A or B but not both.
O saves B.
And here it's at the very least far from clear that B's choice to save the nonperson would be morally permissible.
The problem, then, is this: If you ask people whether they think it's morally permissible to save a newborn baby instead of an adult "all else equal," there is every reason to think they will be psychologically unable to hold all else equal
How on earth do you know what that "they will be psychologically unable" to do? Frankly, the response is high-handed and blatantly question begging. I'm supposed to trust that you can keep all relevant facts in order, but the vast majority of those considering the case cannot? What explains the fact that most people would agree that it is permissible to save the newborn is an open question. We don't know that a priori. What we do know is that personhood does not trump non-personhood. This is not to say that there is no property of the newborn that does not explain the moral weight in his favor. Maybe potentiality of some sort is doing the work. I don't know. But your desciption of the case does nothing to further investigation into what explains the intuition. It simply highhandedly assumes the intuition is wrong.
Here's a better way to focus the question. We are told that personhood confers a special moral status on those that possess it. It is clear that in some cases, we should save persons over non-persons (compare saving a tree to saving a normal adult human), in other cases it is clear that we may save a non-person rather than a person (compare the case of a newborn over an normal adult human being). You suggest that this shows nothing but the salience of cuteness in our moral decisions. This seems ot me awfully simplistic. But set that aside. It is also permissible to save a newborn rather than a 4 year old. Four year olds (make it five, if you'd like) are sufficiently rational to be persons and they are at least as cute as newborns. If we really have to go down this road, assume we have a terribly ugly newborn. There are lots of them, so no trouble there. It does not change our intuitions at all.
The important and interesting question is why we are permitted ot save the newborn. I'm not sure why, but this us worthy of exploration.
"I'm supposed to trust that you can keep all relevant facts in order, but the vast majority of those considering the case cannot?"*
Whoa! Where did I say that? "People" includes me. To wit, my sense is that it's pretty much psychologically impossible -- for me, you or anyone else -- to keep "all else equal" as between a newborn and a four-year old (or a five-year old, or...).
Anyway, the central point is just a straightforward one about methodology: We ought to prefer a protocol that controls for all plausible third variables (of which "cuteness" was obviously an example and not an exhaustive list). Your protocol doesn't.
I hope it's clear I am not arguing that the "special moral status"* personhood confers on a subject is indefeasible. If that theory were the target of SNP, there wouldn't be much to discuss. (For one, it'd be awfully hard to defend given, say, the price in persons we're willing to pay for mere convenience.) What I am arguing, and the theory I took SNP's conclusion to be arguing against, is that personhood confers some quantum of moral status at the margin, such that all else being equal, a person ought to be preferred over a nonperson. And that theory is obviously consistent with the contention that newborns have other characteristics such that on the whole it would morally permissible to save a newborn instead of a four-year old.
Anyway, the central point is just a straightforward one about methodology: We ought to prefer a protocol that controls for all plausible third variables (of which "cuteness" was obviously an example and not an exhaustive list). Your protocol doesn't.
Right, I'm denying that this is methodologically preferable. In the newborn case, we just don't know what explains our intuitions about the case. It's a bit cliched and simplistic (wouldn't you say?) to urge that our intuitions are just swamped by the cuteness variable. If you're overwhelmed by cuteness of newborns and feel like you need to control for it, add cuteness to the person H. In general, I'm unmoved by it. If it were such a psychologically important feature, I'd have some reservations about whether we can save H over a cuddly puppy. But I have no trouble not saving the cuddly puppy.
I'll try one last time to describe what the argument is supposed to show, and what it is not supposed to show. My argument is aimed against those (Tooley, Singer, et. al.)
who claim that personhood is important enough that we must save H (who instantiates the property) over F (who does not). Their claim is about the concrete case of fetuses and normal adult human beings. They generalize the case to newborns, who also fail to instantiate personhood. I argue (modus tollens) that since we may save the newborn, we may save the near-newborn as well, F.
What does this show? It might show that there is some other property of newborns that is morally relevant and trumps the personhood of H. It might show that the concept of personhood use by Singer and Co. is mistaken: i.e. maybe the newborn is properly in the class of persons, once we have the right concept. It might show that potential personhood is as weighty a property to instantiate as actual personhood. I honestly don't know. And since that's so, we cannot antecedently describe what's relevant (and what isn't) in abstraction, as you're attempting to do.
"It might show that there is some other property of newborns that is morally relevant and trumps the personhood of H. It might show that the concept of personhood use by Singer and Co. is mistaken."
Yes, just so. And how would we go about showing which (if either) is the case?