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.
This is Part II of a three part post (Part I is here) 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 first part of the question: scientifically, what – or who – is a human embryo. The third post will address the philosophical question.
George writes:
“The adult human being that is now you or me is the same human being who, at an earlier stage of his or her life, was an adolescent, and before that a child, an infant, a fetus, and an embryo. Even in the embryonic stage, you and I were undeniably whole, living members of the species Homo sapiens. We were then, as we are now, distinct and complete—though in the beginning we were, of course, developmentally immature—human organisms; we were not mere parts of other organisms.
“A human embryo is not something different in kind from a human being, like a rock, or a potato, or a rhinoceros. A human embryo is a human individual in the earliest stage of his or her natural development. Unless severely damaged or denied or deprived of a suitable environment, an embryonic human being will, by directing his or her own integral organic functioning, develop himself or herself to each more mature developmental stage along the gapless continuum of a human life. The embryonic, fetal, infant, child, and adolescent stages are just that—stages in the development of a determinate and enduring entity—a human being—who comes into existence as a single cell organism (zygote) and develops, if all goes well, into adulthood many years later.
“By contrast, the gametes whose union brings into existence the embryo are not whole or distinct organisms. They are functionally (and genetically) identifiable as parts of the male or female (potential) parents. Each has only half the genetic material needed to guide the development of an immature human being toward full maturity. They are destined either to combine with an oocyte or spermatozoon to generate a new and distinct organism, or simply die. Even when fertilization occurs, they do not survive; rather, their genetic material enters into the composition of a new organism.
“But none of this is true of the human embryo, from the zygote and blastula stages onward. The combining of the chromosomes of the spermatozoon and of the oocyte generates what human embryology identifies as a new, distinct, and enduring organism. Whether produced by fertilization or by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) or some other cloning technique, the human embryo possesses all of the genetic material needed to inform and organize its growth.The direction of its growth is not extrinsically determined, but is in accord with the genetic information within it. Nor does it merely possess organizational information for maturation; rather, it has an active disposition to develop itself using that information. The human embryo is, then, a whole and distinct human organism—an embryonic human being.
“If the embryo were not a complete organism, then what could it be? Unlike the spermatozoa and the oocytes, it is not merely a part of a larger organism, namely, the mother or the father. Nor is it a disordered growth or gamete tumor such as a complete hydatidiform mole or teratoma.
“Perhaps someone will say that the early embryo is an intermediate form, something which regularly emerges into a whole human organism but is not one yet. But what could cause the emergence of the whole human organism, and cause it with regularity? As I have already observed, it is clear that from the zygote stage forward the major development of this organism is controlled and directed from within, that is, by the organism itself. So, after the embryo comes into being, no event or series of events occur which could be construed as the production of a new organism; that is, nothing extrinsic to the developing organism itself acts on it to produce a new character or new direction in development.
In a footnote, George says that “The testimony of leading embryology textbooks is that a human embryo is—already and not merely potentially—a new individual member of the species Homo sapiens. His or her potential, assuming a sufficient measure of good health and a suitable environment, is to develop by an internally directed process of growth through the further stages of maturity on the continuum that is his or her life.”
He also addresses the question of twinning. “Some have claimed that the phenomenon of monozygotic twinning shows that the embryo in the first several days of its gestation is not a human individual. The suggestion is that as long as twinning can occur what exists is not yet a unitary human being, but only a mass of cells—each cell being totipotent and allegedly independent of the others.
“It is true that if a cell or group of cells is detached from the whole at an early stage of embryonic development then what is detached can sometimes become a distinct organism and has the potential to develop to maturity as distinct from the embryo from which it was detached (this is the meaning of “totipotent”). But this does nothing to show that before detachment the cells within the human embryo constituted only an incidental mass.
“Consider the parallel case (discussed by Aristotle) of division of a flatworm. Parts of a flatworm have the potential to become a whole flatworm when isolated from the present whole of which they are part. Yet no one would suggest that prior to the division of a flatworm to produce two whole flatworms the original flatworm was not a unitary individual. Likewise, at the early stages of human embryonic development, before specialization by the cells has progressed very far, the cells or groups of cells can become whole organisms if they are divided and have an appropriate environment after the division. But that fact does not in the least indicate that prior to the twinning event the embryo is other than a unitary, self-integrating, actively developing human organism. It certainly does not show that the embryo is a mere ‘clump of cells.’”
Stay tuned, next installment will address the philosophical question.
Thank you Steve for your continuing and searching inquiry into the moral worth of embryos and fetuses. Steve wonders whether the question can be settled without resort to authority. Professor Robert George answers “yes” and “no” in a forthcoming article, “Embryo Ethics,” which will be published in Daedulas. Yes, the issue can be resolved without resort to theological authority. But, no, it can’t be resolved without resort to some authority, and he rests his case on the authorities of science and philosophy. His response also answers the arguments for affording embryos diminished worth brought forth (but not shared by) Eduardo. I’ll lay out his argument in three posts, the first arguing that we need not rely on theological argument or theological authority to resolve the issue, the second exploring the scientific authority, and the third making the philosophical inquiry.
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.”
He begins his essay by demonstrating the irrelevance of theological arguments. He says: “My view is that we should resolve our national debate over embryo-destructive research on the basis of the best scientific evidence as to when the life of a new human being begins and the most careful philosophical reasoning as to what is owed to nascent human life. Faith can, I believe, motivate us to stand up and speak out in defense of human life and dignity. And religious people should never hesitate to do that. But we need not rely on religious faith to tell us whether a human embryo is a new human life or whether all human beings – irrespective of not only of race, ethnicity and sex, but also irrespective of age, size, stage of development or condition of dependency – possess full moral worth and dignity. The application of fundamental philosophical principles in light of facts established by modern embryological science is more than sufficient for that task.”
In a footnote, he adds: “For what it is worth, I should point out that the Catholic Church does not try to draw scientific inferences about the humanity or distinctness of the human embryo from theological propositions about ensoulment. In fact, it works the other way around. Someone who wanted to talk the Pope into declaring that the human embryo is "ensouled”—which is something that up to this point the Catholic Church has never declared—would have to prove his point by marshaling (among other things) the scientific facts. The theological conclusion would be drawn on the basis of (among other things) the findings of science about the self-integration, distinctness, unity, determinateness, etc. of the developing embryo. So things work exactly the opposite of the way some advocates of embryo-destructive research who think they know what the Catholic Church says about "ensoulment" imagine they work.”
Stay tuned, next installment will address scientific authority.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
In a forthcoming article, "Embryo Ethics," in Daedalus, Professor Robert George writes that "Increasingly it appears likely that we will soon be able to obtain embryonic stem cells or their exact equivalent by means that do not require the destruction of embryos. For a survey of promising approaches, see the White Paper of the President's Council on Bioethics, 'Alternative Sources of Pluripotent Stem Cells' (2005), avialable online at www.bioethics.gov."
Thanks for the continued conversation, here, here, and here. Eduardo is correct in viewing my position as absolutist - every human organism has equal moral worth. But, I don't see this claim as necessarily inconsistent with or prohibitive of making distinctions and favoring some human organisms over others.
Our universal and inviolate dignity as humans is realized within particular communities, and I may favor, may even have a duty to favor, those within my community over those outside my community. I feed, clothe, shelter, and educate my children before I feed, clothe, shelter, and educate someone else's child while recognizing the inherent and equal moral worth of the other child. My children are directly my responsibility, while someone else's child is only indirectly or more remotely my responsibility. I think this partially answers Eduardo and shows that the absolutist (and in my mind nonnegotiable) claim of equal moral worth is not inconsistent with distinguishing between humans and favoring some over others. But, I suspect I haven't fully responded, so I'll press on a little farther.
We distinguish between people all the time, favoring some over others. If our 24 hour news cycle (as it relates to murder and kidnapping) is indicative, we, as a society, favor children and attractive young white women. Sometimes in my constitutional law class, when we are discussing the limits of the law to address prejudice, I'll ask my students to think about how they read stories about crime in the local newspaper. Many, with rigorous honesty, will admit that they pay more attention to crimes committed against people like them whether on racial or, more likely, socio-economic grounds as identified by neighborhood. We favor, I think, those we identify with. Eduardo's hypothetical detached firefighter identifies more with the infants than with the tiny human organism in the petri dish, and will, therefore, save the infants before their younger brothers or sisters. He will also, I hasten to add, probably choose to save the infants over their disabled great-grandparents. He has been culturally conditioned to make these choices. Whether these choices are justified, I leave to others.
If we fail to see the equal moral worth of all human organisms, we will rationalize assigning less worth to some subset (blacks, Jews, fetuses, the disabled, the elderly) of humans in order for us to exert power over them in the name of some other real or imagined good. Even when we recognize the equal moral worth of all human organisms, we (or, at least I) must struggle with the temptation to favor those who are most like me. The lawyer wanted to justify himself so he asked Jesus, "who is my neighbor?"
