This is Part III of a three part post (Part I and Part II) using Professor George’s “Embryo Ethics,” an essay forthcoming in Daedulas, to explore whether embryos share equal moral worth with other human organisms (beings).
George frames the issue: “At the heart of the debate over embryo-destructive research, then, are two fundamentals questions: what – or who – is a human embryo, and what is owed to a human embryo as a matter of justice.”
This post will address the second part of the question: what is owed to a human embryo as a matter of justice.”
George writes:
“A supporter of embryo-destructive research might concede that a human embryo is a human being, in a biological sense, yet deny that human beings in the early stages of their development are due full moral respect such that they may not be killed to benefit more fully developed human beings who are suffering from afflictions.
“But to deny that embryonic human beings deserve full respect, one must suppose that not every human being deserves full respect. And to do that, one must hold that those human beings who deserve full respect deserve it not in virtue of the kind of entity they are, but, rather, in virtue of some acquired characteristic that some human beings (or human beings at some stages) have and others do not have, and which some human beings have in greater degree than others.
“In my judgment, this position is untenable. It is clear that one need not be actually or immediately conscious, reasoning, deliberating, making choices, etc., in order to be a human being who deserves full moral respect, for plainly people who are asleep or in reversible comas deserve such respect. So, if one denied that human beings are intrinsically valuable in virtue of what they are, but required an additional attribute, the additional attribute would have to be a capacity of some sort, and, obviously a capacity for certain mental functions.
“Of course, human beings in the embryonic, fetal, and early infant stages lack immediately exercisable capacities for mental functions characteristically carried out by most human beings at later stages of maturity. Still, they possess in radical (= root) form these very capacities. Precisely by virtue of the kind of entity they are, they are from the beginning actively developing themselves to the stages at which these capacities will (if all goes well) be immediately exercisable. Although, like infants, they have not yet developed themselves to the stage at which they can perform intellectual operations, it is clear that they are rational animal organisms. That is the kind of entity they are.
“It is important then to distinguish two senses of the “capacity” (or what is sometimes referred to as the “potentiality”) for mental functions: an immediately exercisable capacity, and a basic natural capacity, which develops over time. And there are good reasons for believing that it is the second sort of capacity, and not the first, that provides the justificatory basis for regarding human beings as end-in-themselves, and not as means only—as bearers of inherent dignity and subjects of justice and human rights, and not as mere objects.
“First, the developing human being does not reach a level of maturity at which he or she performs a type of mental act that other animals do not perform—even animals such as dogs and cats—until at least several months after birth. A six-week old baby lacks the immediately exercisable capacity to perform characteristically human mental functions. So, if full moral respect were due only to those who possess immediately exercisable capacities for characteristically human mental functions, it would follow that six-week old infants do not deserve full moral respect. Thus, if human embryos may legitimately be destroyed to advance biomedical science, then it follows logically that, subject to parental approval, the body parts of human infants should be fair game for scientific experimentation.
“Second, the difference between these two types of capacity is merely a difference between stages along a continuum. The immediately exercisable capacity for mental functions is only the development of an underlying potentiality that the human being possesses simply by virtue of the kind of entity it is. The capacities for reasoning, deliberating, and making choices are gradually developed, or brought towards maturation, through gestation, childhood, adolescence, and so on. But the difference between a being that deserves full moral respect and a being that does not (and can therefore legitimately be killed to benefit others) cannot consist only in the fact that, while both have some feature, one has more of it than the other. A mere quantitative difference (having more or less of the same feature, such as the development of a basic natural capacity) cannot by itself be a justificatory basis for treating different entities in radically different ways.
“Third, the acquired qualities that could be proposed as criteria for personhood come in varying and continuous degrees: there are an infinite number of degrees of the relevant developed abilities or dispositions, such as for self-consciousness or rationality. So, if human beings were worthy of full moral respect only because of such qualities, then, since such qualities come in varying degrees, no account could be given of why basic rights are not possessed by human beings in varying degrees. The proposition that all human beings are created equal would be relegated to the status of a myth; since some people are more rational than others (that is, have developed that capacity to a greater extent than others), some people would be greater in dignity than others, and the rights of the superiors would trump those of the inferiors.
“So, it cannot be the case that some human beings and not others are intrinsically valuable, by virtue of a certain degree of development. Rather, human beings are intrinsically valuable (in the way that enables us to ascribe to them equality and basic rights) in virtue of what (i.e., the kind of being) they are; and all human beings are intrinsically valuable.
“Since human beings are intrinsically valuable and deserve full moral respect in virtue of what they are, it follows that they are intrinsically and equally valuable from the point at which they come into being. Even in the embryonic stage of our lives, each of us was a human being and, as such, worthy of concern and protection. Embryonic human beings whether brought into existence by union of gametes, SCNT, or other cloning technologies should be accorded the respect given to human beings in other developmental stages.”
Thank you Professor George for allowing me to quote your insightful essay in these posts. I look forward to hearing from Steve and others as to whether they think Robert George has adequately demonstrated the embryo’s equal moral worth on the basis of scientific and philosophical authority.
