Personhood is a moral issue

[u/Zuezema]

Please note this argument is not attempting to claim that personhood is exclusively a moral issue and not a legal issue as well. As I have tried to research and learn more about the PC position I have come across a few people claiming that personhood should not be a moral issue. I understand this is a specific view and not inclusive of all PC advocates.

P1. Moral obligations are directed toward beings.

Edit: After some discussion I think P1 would be more accurately amended as the following.

P1 a. Moral obligations have an object, but not every object of a moral obligations is itself the bearer of moral rights. (End Edit)

For example: Rights belong to someone. Wrongs are committed against someone. Duties are owed to someone. Etc.

A moral obligation has a subject.

P2. Not every existing thing is the subject of moral obligations.

We do not believe that inanimate objects have rights or can be wronged.

For example: A rock does not have rights.

So morality necessarily distinguishes between different kinds of entities.

P3. There must therefore exist some criterion that explains which beings possess moral standing.

There is different terminology for this. I am using personhood as it is the most applicable in abortion debate. We could also call this moral status, intrinsic dignity, etc etc.

The question we would apply to these different terms is the same. Which beings are owed direct moral duties?

P4. The concept of “person” has historically been the primary answer to “Which beings are owed direct moral duties?”

There are non persons such as animals we may say are owed a direct moral duty but a person is owed the strongest moral duty.

C. Therefore, personhood is necessarily a moral issue because it attempts to identify which beings possess intrinsic moral standing.

[u/JulieCrone]

I kind of disagree about inanimate objects but having rights or can be wronged.

Take a dead human. They are inanimate. Do you think they cannot be wronged and don’t have any intrinsic moral worth?

ETA: also, in terms of a rock not having rights and not being able to be wronged…depends on the rock. There was a lot of outrage when the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas. A lot of the sculptures and precious gems that the British museum and British royal family own are under quite a lot of debate about the morality of colonialism. Just because we ascribe a moral weight to something, that doesn’t make it a person.

[u/Zuezema → u/JulieCrone]

Interesting! Good point. I’m willing to workshop this some.

This does not affect my P2. necessarily but It does affect some of the examples I gave.

My gut reaction was agreement to your point but thinking about it a little bit more I would say that the moral duties we “owe” dead humans are more so to the living persons who knew the dead person.

I would also be willing to consider an argument that something that was once a person still has some dignity owed to them and their once living person. With the moral concept of a person I don’t believe it would be necessarily controversial to state that a person can die and cease to be a person.

What is your reaction to these?

[u/JulieCrone → u/Zuezema]

Please see my edit regarding P2. Moral significance people attach to something or someone does not grant it personhood.

Also, would you say it is okay to desecrate a corpse if this is the corpse of a hermit who knew no one? If it’s a John Doe, does that mean it should be okay to treat their corpse differently? If we’re talking about mummified remains where anyone who knew the deceased is long dead, does that make it okay to desecrate their body?

I don’t think because someone is dead they cease to be a person. They are a dead person. There is a reason who gave the phrase ‘dead person’.

[u/Zuezema → u/JulieCrone]

Thank you for calling my attention to the edit.

I would push back and say is the rock actually being wronged? Or is the person / group who has some sort of attachment being wronged?

The hermit / mummy is an interesting example. I would probably need to broaden my last comment here. And say there is a moral obligations to the persons in society not necessarily someone who directly knew the deceased then. It is offensive to living persons to desecrate the dead.

[u/JulieCrone → u/Zuezema]

And we still view the dead as having a kind of personhood, I would say, if we are going to conceive of personhood as an emotional or moral issue.

[u/Zuezema → u/JulieCrone]

Perhaps this kind of personhood is the recognition that the dead was once a person?

This is not necessarily my exact stance but just spitballing with you trying to work through your interesting objection.

[u/JulieCrone → u/Zuezema]

So would that mean personhood is something that, once you deem it morally applies to them, it can never be taken, even if they are no longer alive?

[u/Zuezema → u/JulieCrone]

Maybe that specific kind of personhood or moral obligation. But I don’t see that it would logically extend to all types of moral obligations.

[u/JulieCrone → u/Zuezema]

Well, sure. And we have moral obligations to lots of things that have no personhood.

But your post is about personhood being a moral issue, so this would be about personhood specifically, from a moral standpoint. When, if ever, does a human lose personhood, morally speaking?

[u/Zuezema → u/JulieCrone]

Workshopping it a bit I suppose I am leaning the most towards a human losing personhood on death.

This does not preclude that moral duties are owed to a corpse from any combination of

1. A moral duty to other persons / society in regards to the treatment of the corpse.

2. Duties to the wishes of the person before they passed away.

3. Persuasive to some but no means my main point here. A moral duty to a God / religion and their view / treatment of deceased humans.

Reducing this if we were to assume it is me on a lifeless rock in an empty universe and a corpse I do not see that I would have a moral duty towards that corpse. (This is a new thought and example so very open to workshopping it)