A Comment on Jean Porter's Essay

No word yet from Jean Porter, but here is a comment on Jean Porter’s essay from an anonymous reader of MOJ:

“If we take everything Jean claims about Thomas on ensoulment - which of course could be questioned, but even if we take everything she says as correct, this is how her argument works. Reasonable people can disagree, she tells us, because Thomas, being reasonable, came up with a different conclusion about the full humanity of the human conceptus, arguing it was pre-ensouled and thus its destruction not equivalent to murder. So, if we defer to tradition, she claims, then we should be hesitant simply to assert on the basis of biological data that we have in the early fetus a full human being.

“She then tells us that she approves of embryo-destroying research. As you state, there is no reason given for her position. Indeed, again taking everything she says as correct, the same tradition to which we ought defer describes, in her own terms, the destruction of pre-ensouled human beings as "a grave sin." Why, then, does Porter not follow them in this? Is there anything reasonable about her conclusion in favor of embryonic research if the tradition to which she appeals still sees such destruction as a grave sin, DESPITE the absence of a rational soul? Is there anything reasonable about her expectation that if only the magisterium would follow this traditional discussion about ensoulment, it might allow for embryo destruction? This makes no sense. The tradition she points to prohibits precisely what she argues we should permit! It strikes me as awfully unreasonable to appeal to a traditional argument in order to permit what that argument prohibits.

“Part of the difficulty, in your discussion with MP, seems to be an ambiguity in the term "reasonable." If one provides no reasons, or justifications, for the conclusion one reaches, that strikes me as patently unreasonable. Arguments can exhibit intelligence, then, and be unreasonable. Porter's argument clearly exhibits intelligence, and she is certainly correct that we should not pass quickly over critical questions about the nature of the human being; nonetheless, she fails to establish (in this short piece) that it's reasonable to depart from magisterial teaching prohibiting the destruction of embryos. If anything, she's done a nice job establishing that the issue of ensoulment is largely irrelevant to the prohibition.”