Appendix F

Introduction	Part 2	Part 3	Appendices
Part 1	Introduction to Part 2	Introduction to Part 3	Appendix A
Introduction to Part 1	Chapter 6	Chapter 9	Appendix B
Chapter 1	Chapter 7	Chapter 10	Appendix C
Chapter 2	Chapter 8	Chapter 11	Appendix D
Chapter 3	Conclusions to Part 2	Thesis Conclusions	Appendix E
Chapter 4			Appendix F
Chapter 5			Bibliography
Conclusions to Part 1			Books and Articles
			Legal Cases

Appendix F: Some modern definitions of personhood

Introduction

This Appendix considers the definitions of personhood proposed by some modern philosophers. As has been mentioned earlier[i] the various definitions focus mainly on the possible denotations of the term ‘person’; its connotation - as a ‘bearer of rights’ - being usually regarded as uncontroversial.[ii] The focus of the discussion is:

* firstly, to state these definitions simply and without elaboration or without any attempt to summarise the arguments offered in their favour,

* secondly, to examine whether these definitions imply:

(T): ‘the ability to communicate to some minimal extent is a necessary condition for the ascription of personhood’.

The definitions to be discussed are those of:

1.	Alan Turing (1950) and Justin Leiber (1991)
2.	R. S. Downie (1969)
3.	John Rawls (1971)
4.	Michael Tooley (1972)
5.	Eike-Henner W. Kluge (1975)
6.	Daniel Dennett (1978)
7.	Joseph Fletcher (1979)
8.	Owen Flanagan (1991)
9.	James F. Drane (1994)
10.	John Harris (1994)

Some conclusions are drawn in the final Section.

1. Turing and Leiber

Justin Leiber[iii] approaches the question of what is meant by the term ‘person’ from quite a different direction than do the other philosophers discussed in this Appendix; his approach is of especial interest because of the prominence it accords to the ability to communicate; Leiber, in fact, takes ‘being able to communicate’ as the criterion for personhood. His argument depends crucially on the work of Alan Turing.[iv]

Turing had been attempting to resolve the problem of whether machines could be said to ‘think’. He had argued that if the problem was to be resolved by examining how the words 'think' and 'machine' are commonly used then this would imply that:

“... the answer to the question, ‘Can machines think?’ is to be sought in a statistical survey such as a Gallup Poll. But this is absurd.” [v]

Furthermore, attempts to resolve the problem by proffering a definition of the term ‘think’ left Turing open to the charge that such a definition either is not what is normally meant by the term or had been tailored to suit his conclusions. However, a remark of Descartes’ offered a way out of the impasse.

Descartes had asserted that it is impossible to make a robot that ‘would reply appropriately to whatever was said in its presence’ [vi] and Turing seized on this as a criterion for determining whether an actual computer can be said to ‘think’.[vii] It is now widely regarded as the fundamental test for this question and is called ‘The Turing Test ’.

Turing argued that instead of attempting to resolve the problem of whether machines can think through a search for definitions, the problem could be resolved by recasting it in the form of a game - the ‘imitation game’. To best explain this idea, Turing described an imaginary experiment involving three people - a man (A), a woman (B) and an interrogator (C) who may be of either sex; the interrogator is placed in a room different to the others (so that he is unable to see their physical appearance) and his task is to determine, by question and answer, which is the man; in this game the woman co-operates but not so the man. Turing argues that if the man succeeds in impersonating the woman then we can conclude that ‘he can think like a woman ’. Turing next suggests that, in the game, a machine take the part of the man; this then gives him the test for deciding whether a machine can think:

“ ... being able to perform indistinguishably from a human thinker is to be able to think, period.” [viii]

Leiber[ix] deduces that:

“The reason that you and I have for thinking that other human beings think is that they pass the Turing test. Of course, we assume that something that looks human and healthy and awake can think because the two often go together, but proof positive, both psychological and legal, requires and requires no more than linguistic performance, some approximation of Descartes ‘reply appropriately to whatever is said in its presence’.” [x]

Leiber considers the concept of ‘personhood’ as being:

“ ... a set of tools for characterising - 'personating' one might call it - fellow humans and our self.” [xi]

The ‘Turing Test’ is such a tool and requiring, as it does, the ability to communicate, it implies (T).

2. Downie

R. S. Downie[xii] notes that, traditionally, it has been asserted that the ‘distinctive endowment of a human being is his ability to reason’; Downie, however, conceives of ‘rationality’ as encompassing more than simply the ability to reason; to him it also requires the ability to act in a rational manner.[xiii] To Downie, it is ‘rational will’ rather than simply ‘rationality’ that is of importance in delineating the term ‘person’; it is the ability to formulate plans and goals and to carry them into effect that is crucial. In an attempt to determine whether Downie’s definition implies (T), the question to be asked is:

‘Is it possible to adjudge an individual to be acting rationally without being able to communicate with him?’

If one sees a dog who has some bones and who buries some of them so that they might be retrieved in times of scarcity, might one say that he had a purpose which he was effecting and thus conclude that the dog was acting rationally? Certainly one might speak of ‘instinct’ but (as noted earlier[xiv]) this is perhaps nothing other than a device designed to mask a problem rather than help resolve it and does not further the discussion.[xv] Imputing an intention to a system and seeing it executed does not imply the ability to communicate and thus (T) would not be implied in such circumstances.[xvi] This problem is, however, tangential to Downie’s discussion of the term 'person' which is conducted explicitly within the context of human individuals. This suggests that the appropriate question to ask is whether we could judge, of a human, that they were acting rationally if they were unable to communicate. An equivalent, but more easily resolvable, question is ‘Could we judge a human to be irrational if we could not communicate with him?’

Consider an individual who is considered to be acting irrationally. Does the irrationality reside in the act, or in something deeper? A little reflection will show that the irrationality cannot be manifest solely in the act - to suggest such would be to imply that reality itself, which contains that very act, was somehow irrational - but must reside in the disparity between the act and the intention. The madman who believes that he is Napoleon is mad not because he acts like Napoleon acted - he might after all be an actor pretending to be Napoleon - but because his beliefs, and the common consensus of what is ‘real’, are out of kilter. However, an individual’s beliefs are not accessible if he lacks the ability to communicate. We can therefore conclude that an individual cannot be judged to be irrational - nor rational (in Downie’s sense) - unless that individual has the ability to communicate. Thus, Downie’s definition of a person implies (T).

Downie also addresses the connotation of the term ‘person’:

“ ... the concept of a person is already an evaluative concept with something of the force of ‘that which makes a human being valuable’ implied in it ...” [xvii]

He argues that that which is of value is ‘the exercise of rational will’.[xviii] It was suggested earlier[xix] that the precondition for our valuing and respecting other persons lies in the possibility of our achieving empathy with them, this receives some support from Downie’s conclusion that:

“To respect such a person is to make his ends one’s own (show sympathy with him) and to take into account in all one’s dealings with him that he too is self-determining and rule-following.” [xx]

3. Rawls

John Rawls, in his A Theory of Justice, states:

“Here I adapt Royce’s thought that a person may be regarded as a human life lived according to a plan.[xxi] For Royce an individual says who he is by describing his purposes and causes, what he intends to do in his life.” [xxii]

Rawls considers how such a plan relates to a person’s concept of 'good'. He then defines what is meant by calling such a plan a ‘rational plan’ of life and this permits him to examine whether, in any particular case a ‘person’s conception of his good is likewise rational.’ For our purposes it is not necessary to pursue the question of rationality because before such issues can be discussed, Rawls first requires that the individual describe his purposes. This clearly implies an ability to communicate i.e.(T).

4. Tooley

Michael Tooley[xxiii] - in contrast to the other philosophers discussed in this section - sets the link[xxiv] between ‘personhood’ and ‘ownership of rights’ centre stage. Whilst noting that most philosophers treat ‘X is a person’ as synonymous with ‘X has rights’, Tooley disagrees:

“Specifically, in my usage the sentence ‘X is a person’ will be synonymous with the sentence ‘X has a (serious) moral right to life’.” [xxv]

The reason offered by Tooley for dissenting from the consensus, is that he believes a distinction can be drawn between ‘having rights’ and ‘having the right to life’; the former not necessarily implying the latter. He offers for consideration the example that although, for humans, being killed is a greater infringement on their rights than being tortured, this may not be so for animals:

“ ... it seems to me that while it is not seriously wrong to kill a newborn kitten, it is seriously wrong to torture one for an hour. This suggests that newborn kittens may have a right not to be tortured without having a serious right to life.” [xxvi]

I suggest that a better solution lies in the use of the concept of ‘Objects of Intrinsic Moral Worth’; this would permit Tooley’s distinction to be made but would allow the connotation of personhood - i.e. as a ‘bearer of rights’ - to be preserved.[xxvii]

Turning next to consider the denotation of the term ‘person’, Tooley states:

“Let us turn now to the first and most fundamental question: What properties must something have in order to be a person, i.e. to have a serious right to life? The claim I wish to defend is this: An organism possesses a serious right to life only if it possesses the concept of a self as a continuing subject of experiences and other mental states, and believes that it is itself such a continuing entity.” [xxviii]

Tooley calls this the ‘self-consciousness requirement’; he argues that the rights accorded to a person flow out of the existence of ‘desires’ in that person; furthermore:

“ ... the desires a thing can have are limited by the concepts it possesses.” [xxix]

From this Tooley concludes that for something to have a ‘serious right to life’ it is a necessary condition that:

“ ... it possess the concept of a self as a continuing subject of experiences, ... ” [xxx]

In order to derive (T) from Tooley’s definition of a person, reliance must again be placed in Wittgenstein’s ‘Private Language Argument’ with its implication that concept formation cannot take place in the absence of social interaction and in particular the ability to communicate. Once the ‘PLA’ is conceded, (T) readily follows.

5. Kluge

Eike-Henner W. Kluge considers[xxxi] that ‘persons’ are characterised by the fact that they are rational beings and as such, he argues, they have absolute value. Kluge elaborates on the meaning of the term ‘rational being’ and in doing so offers the following definition of a person:

“A person is an entity that is a rational being: that is to say, it is an entity that has the present capabilities of symbolic awareness in the manner characteristic of rational beings ... A person is an entity - any entity, irrespective of the precise nature of its constitution - that is either presently aware in a manner characteristic of rational beings, or can become thus aware without any change in the constitutive nature of its composition.” [xxxii]

Dolores Dooley-Clarke, in analysing this definition, notes that Kluge further characterises the concept of symbolic awareness as follows:

“1) The capability of symbolic awareness of reality is the capacity to respond to external reality by means of symbolic categorization processes that permit whatever it is that has this sort of awareness to apprehend the world as subsumed under certain more or less conventional categories of classification.

2) The capability of symbolic awareness of reality is the ability to form judgements.

3) To count as a rational being something must also have the capability of self-awareness.

4) Overlapping with 2 and 3 above, the entity in question must be capable of internalising and using a language.” [xxxiii]

The ability to use a language is explicitly assumed as a criterion. In attempting to apply Kluge’s criteria it would seem that, in all but the most extreme of circumstances, this would require an ability to communicate. One could, perhaps, imagine such extreme circumstance as where an individual would, for example, ‘dispatch missives’ to others but not reply to or communicate in any reciprocal sense, with them. It is possible to argue that such ‘language production’ would not be a language use, no more than would the activity of a computer printer or a tape machine.[xxxiv] Descartes’ criterion of ‘ability to reply appropriately to what was said in its presence’ would seem an adequate test of language use and this is, in essence, the ability to communicate. A further argument could be constructed from Kluge’s criterion that a person show ‘present awareness’, this condition implies a responsiveness to the present environment which the ‘dispatching of missives’ would not satisfy.

In conclusion an individual without the ability to communicate would fail Kluges test (as it were by default) simply because his test could not be applied; Kluge’s definition would thus imply (T).

6. Dennett

Daniel Dennett sets out the necessary conditions[xxxv] for ascribing personhood as follows:

1) Persons are rational beings.[xxxvi]

2) Persons are beings to whom intentional predicates are ascribed.

3) Ascribing personhood to an individual is dependent on the stance adopted towards that individual. Dennett explains this more fully as:

“ ... it is not the case that once we have established the objective fact that something is a person, we treat him or her or it in a certain way, but that our treating him or her or it in this certain way is somehow and to some extent constitutive of its being a person.” [xxxvii]

4) The object toward which this personal stance is taken must be capable of reciprocating in some way.

5) Persons must be capable of verbal communication.

6) Persons are conscious in a special way often described as ‘self-consciousness’. In attempting to describe this special consciousness Dennett considers the concept of ‘second-order intentional systems’ - i.e. those systems which not only have simple beliefs, intentions and desires but also beliefs about these other beliefs, intentions and desires. On examination, however, second-order intentional systems can be found in certain animal behaviour - such as when animals feign to be dead, or injured, in order to mislead predators. Dennett is forced to use ‘third-order intentions’ to adequately characterise persons.

Dennett’s condition (5) is more than sufficient to imply (T).

Dennett argues that there are two distinct notions intertwined in the concept of ‘person’, a ‘metaphysical notion’ and a ‘moral notion’. He asks:

“Does the metaphysical notion - roughly, the notion of an intelligent, conscious, feeling agent - coincide with the moral notion - roughly, the notion of an agent who is accountable, who has both rights and responsibilities?” [xxxviii]

He concludes that metaphysical personhood is a necessary condition[xxxix] for moral personhood.

7. Fletcher

Joseph Fletcher sets out[xl] the following criteria as ‘attributes of personhood’:

1) Minimum Intelligence

2) Self-awareness

3) Self-control

4) A sense of time

5) A sense of futurity

6) A sense of the past

7) The capability to relate to others

8) Concern for others

9) Communication, of which he says:

“Utter alienation or disconnection from others, if it is irreparable, is de-humanization.” [xli]

10) Control of Existence, of which he says:

“It is of the nature of man that he is not helplessly subject to the blind workings of physical or physiological nature.” [xlii]

11) Curiosity, of which he says:

“To be without affect, sunk in anomie, is to be not a person.” [xliii]

12) Change and changeability

13) Balance of rationality and feeling

14) Idiosyncrasy

15) Neocortical function, of which he says:

“In a way, this is the cardinal indicator, the one all others are hinged upon.” [xliv]

Criterion (9), which requires an ability to communicate with others, obviously implies (T).

8. Flanagan

Owen Flanagan’s concept of personhood has been discussed earlier [xlv] where it was noted that he considered personhood to reside in the possession of a reasonably viable ‘story of the self’ which permits the individual and the world to interrelate. The earlier discussion drew on Flanagan’s Consciousness Reconsidered; however, Flanagan elaborates on these ideas in his later Varieties of Moral Personality[xlvi] where he attempts to incorporate the research findings of modern psychology into what is, normally, a purely philosophical discussion. His hope is that the resulting concept of ‘person’ will be less dependent on purely Western ideas[xlvii] and will be enriched by the insights of other disciplines.

Flanagan first considers whether the possession of ‘life plans’ - in Rawls’ sense - can be taken as a criterion of personhood; he asks whether we must:

“... accept the idea that all persons will have life plans in Rawls’s sense? Possibly not. ... Children do not have life plans. ... Do most adults have life plans? I am not sure. ... men tend to have them and women do not.” [xlviii]

In recognising that perception of personhood common in the West is not shared by many other cultures,[xlix] Flanagan is led to consider the concept of a ‘minimal person’. Elaborating on this concept, Flanagan states that minimal persons:

“... consciously bear the information about themselves that they are continuous subjects of experience. They possess some sort of self-representation. But this self-representation can be extremely dim and inchoate. ... Minimal persons care how their lives go, and this involves caring about the satisfaction of their desires over time, ... ” [l]

Flanagan concludes that the possession of a unitary ‘life plan’ is too onerous to be a criterion of personhood and that:

“The picture of persons whose lives consist of a nexus of plans, perhaps none of which plays a foundational role, is therefore the best way to capture the usual nature of persons and their plans.” [li]

Does Flanagan’s concept of a person imply (T)?

‘Life plans’ are of a considerably higher order of complexity than purposeful actions and whilst an examination of behaviour is in some cases sufficient to permit conclusions to be drawn with regard to the existence of intentions or purposes, it would be wholly inappropriate in the case of ‘life plans’. This is especially so if the life plans were not of the unitary type but consisted of a ‘nexus of plans’; the existence of such a nexus of plans could only be determined through communication, thus implying (T).

9. Drane

James F. Drane, in his Clinical Bioethics, aims to ‘objectify’ the quality of life concept [lii] by:

“... deciding on a basic human anthropology and then identifying the experiences which are associated with each essential component of human life.” [liii]

To this end he analyses that which he considers to be, the most valuable aspects of our humanness. The results of this analysis are set out in a number of ‘levels’ and are shown in Table F-1:

Levels of Life		Quality of life
A philosophical anthropology: (a third person perspective)		Subjective life experiences: (a first person perspective)
Biological	1. Somatic / Sensory	Pleasure and pain, and recognisable human form.
	2. Physiological / Behavioural	Physical functioning and associated feelings.
Psychological	3. Cognitive / Rational	Consciousness, self-awareness, curiosity, insight, and associated feelings.
	4. Conative / Ethical	Autonomy, independence, moral agency, self, choice, conscience, and associated feeling states.
Socio-economic	5. Social	Relationship (personal, family, religious), love, care, support.
	6. Economic	A sense of financial adequacy for maintaining life.

Table F-1: Drane’s Levels of Life.[liv]

Of these levels, Drane states:

“Although the levels are listed in such a way as to suggest layers of being, this would be a faulty analogy. The levels are not separate strata but conceptually different dimensions of a complex human totality. Each dimension of the human person is critical to personhood, and the total and definitive loss of any one feature or capacity destroys the unity that we call a human person.” [lv]

Speaking of level 5, Drane says:

“Social function refers to ability to engage in meaningful interaction with other people. ... Experience of relatedness is critical to humanness.” [lvi]

This obviously implies that ability to communicate is a necessary condition for personhood thus establishing (T).

________

Before leaving Drane’s account of personhood, it is necessary to note that his use of language and argument is loose and imprecise[lvii] and is so to such an extent that - in view of its possible implications - it amounts to irresponsibility. His criteria - the loss of any one of which he claims destroys personhood - have quite startling implications; the personhood of the disabled would be questioned under levels 2 and 4, that of autistic children at level 5, the poor at level 6. Drane’s apologia - the term ‘argument’ is inappropriate - is an attempt to hijack the term ‘person’ and thus claim a specious universality for what is little other that a description of American economic individualism. This must be abhorred particularly in what purports to be a textbook on medical ethics.

10. Harris

John Harris’s discussion of personhood[lviii] is the very antithesis of Drane’s; Harris is lucid and insightful, his analysis draws distinctions which are of considerable assistance in delineating the scope of the term person. Harris uses the term ‘person’:

“... to stand for any being who has what it takes to be valuable in the sense described, whatever they are otherwise like.” [lix]

By ‘valuable’, he means:

“ ... features which have moral relevance, which justify our preference for ourselves and our belief that it is right to treat people as the equal of one another and as the superiors of other creatures.” [lx]

What do these terms denote? Harris has two strategies that can be used to discover ‘just what it is that entitles an individual to be considered a person’; [lxi] firstly, to ask ‘What is a person?’ and secondly, ‘What is valuable?’. His analysis of the term ‘person’ is based on Locke’s definition and Harris concludes that the term is best understood as meaning ‘a combination of rationality and self-consciousness.’ [lxii]

He finds any analysis of the term ‘valuable’ to be:

“... so difficult and so profound as to be almost absurd.” [lxiii]

This leads him to a type of ‘second order analysis’ and he concludes that individuals have value if, and only if, they ‘value their own lives’.

The conclusion he draws is that:

“... it is the capacity to value one’s own life that is crucial ... ” [lxiv]

The necessary condition for this capacity is awareness and self-consciousness; his two approaches thus coincide. However, given a specific individual, how do we determine whether it possesses this awareness or self-consciousness? Harris sees the ability to use language as crucial:

“... language is the hallmark of self-consciousness. ... Moreover, language is the only vehicle we know of for self-consciousness.” [lxv]

However, strictly speaking, the problem is not whether the individual has self consciousness but whether he can value his own life. Could an individual value his own life without language? Harris considers some experiments which sought to determine whether monkeys and chimpanzees had self-awareness[lxvi] or could use language.[lxvii] Harris believes that the latter experiment was successful and concludes that the chimpanzee in question was therefore ‘clearly a person’. [lxviii] Harris’s conclusion is that:

“... the presence of language is definitive evidence that the beings who possess it are persons.” [lxix]

However, Harris also believes that we should ‘err on the safe side’ and that if a being normally capable of being a person can exhibit rudimentary self-awareness, this should be taken as the ‘first signs of personhood’.

Does this conclusion imply (T)? Strictly speaking it does not; there is a slight gap between Harris’s conclusion and (T); this gap is occasioned by those individuals who have rudimentary self awareness but not the (present) ability to communicate. This gap can, I believe, be closed by using the idea of ‘precociousness’. [lxx] Once ‘personhood’ is considered to be a precocious attribute then rudimentary signs of self awareness (in Harris’s sense) can raise the possibility that language use may be possible in the further and thus allow the present ascription of personhood.

Harris raises a further problem[lxxi] when he asks “Once a person always a person?” [lxxii] Harris considers that if the capacities for personhood are permanently[lxxiii] lost then personhood ceases. If there is:

“... zero probability of my ever regaining consciousness, it seems fair to say that I have ceased to be a person, for there can be no self-consciousness and so no ability to value my existence if I am permanently unaware of my existence.” [lxxiv]

What, however, of the conscious patient[lxxv] unable to communicate and with zero probability of ever being able to do so? To Harris, such a patient could indeed continue to value their lives and so must be considered a ‘person’.

In conclusion: Harris’s analysis supports (T) as a test for the ascription of personhood but not for its removal.

Conclusions

All the definitions given imply (T) though - in the case of Tooley’s and Harris’s definitions -reliance must be placed on Wittgenstein ‘Private Language Argument’.

The distinction between those definitions which require the application of the ‘PLA’ and those that do not, is of importance when the conditions required for the ascription of personhood are distinguished from those required for the removal of personhood. These sets of conditions differ because if personhood was once ascribed to an individual then that individual had, at one time, language capacities and the ability to think conceptually. If this individual, at a later time, loses the ability to communicate then Wittgenstein ‘Private Language Argument’ is of no relevance as the ability to think conceptually may still persist.

In conclusion, both Tooley and Harris accept (T) for the ascription of personhood but not for its removal; all of the others accept (T) as a test both for the ascription of personhood and, presumably, for its removal. This question is discussed further in Chapters 10 and 11.

Conclusion _{F
- 1} : Definitions of personhood given by 11 modern philosophers are considered in Appendix F. All of these definitions imply (T); however, in two cases - Tooley and Harris - it is necessary to rely on Wittgenstein’s ‘Private Language Argument’. A corollary is that Harris and Tooley accept (T) for the ascription of personhood but not for its removal; all others accept (T) as a criterion both for the ascription, and removal, of personhood. All of the definitions, with the exception of Harris’s, assume (U).

[i] Chapter 10, Introduction.

[ii] See, however, the discussion of Harris’s definition below.

[iii] Justin Leiber, An Invitation to Cognitive Science.

[iv] Though Leiber also argues that whereas Aristotle had used ‘race’ (in the sense of distinguishing between Greek and non-Greek) as the criterion for being a ‘person’ (in the sense of one deemed worthy of respect) [“Aristotle ... claimed that Persians and other non-Greeks were incapable of rationality and, therefore, were natural slaves.” (Leiber op.cit. p.13)] Plato had, in contrast, used ‘ability to communicate’ (in the sense of being able to speak Greek) [in Meno, Plato - in describing the efforts of Socrates to explain the theorem of Pythagoras to a young boy - has Socrates ask not whether the boy is Persian or Greek but only “... whether the slave can speak Greek”. (Leiber op.cit. p.14)].

[v] Quoted by Leiber op.cit. p.109.

[vi] This was discussed earlier. (Chapter 1 Section 4 under the heading ‘Animal Consciousness from a Cartesian standpoint’) see also Descartes, Chavez-Arvizo (trans.), Discourse on Method, p.107.

[vii] Leiber op.cit. p.23, p.46.

[viii] Leiber op.cit. p.110. Leiber compares modern objections to this test to the attitude of the Victorian male who - convinced that women could not reason - were enraged to find that the novelist George Eliot was a woman who had, to them, successfully impersonated the intellectual qualities of a man.

[ix] Leiber concludes his book An Invitation to Cognitive Science with a discussion (p.116) on consciousness in which he draws on the work on Roger Sperry and his successors (notably Michael Gazzaniga) on split brain patients; this research led to the discovery of the phenomenon of ‘blindsight’ (Discussed earlier in Chapter 2, Section 2). Leiber quotes Gazzaniga as stating that:

“The mind is not a psychological entity but a sociological entity ... The uniqueness of man is his ability to verbalise and, in so doing, create a personal sense of conscious reality out of the multiple mental systems present.” (op.cit. p.148).

And also that:

“... our verbal module supports, indeed is, our consciousness and personhood.” [op.cit. p.150]

These observations embed not only personhood, but consciousness itself, within a social context. Others have also argued for the thesis that consciousness cannot be a property of an isolated brain - vide a recent discussion in the Journal of Consciousness Studies [JCS Vol 5-3 p.375].

[x] ibid. p.116. [emphasis in the original].

[xi] ibid. p.108.

[xii] R. S Downie and Elizabeth Telfer, Respect for Persons, p.20 et seq.

[xiii] In terms of the dichotomy ‘being / doing’ as sources for value, Downie sides unambiguously with ‘doing’.

The distinction between ‘being’ and ‘doing’ as sources for value was discussed earlier (Chapter 9 Section 2 Subsection 2) where it was argued that death denial is one consequence of the positing of value solely in ‘doing’.

[xiv] In a footnote to the discussion of Strawson’s solution in Chapter 10, Section 3.

[xv] Though Dennett, for example, distinguishes such instinctual responses from other behaviour in that: (speaking of birds feigning a broken wing)

“... all birds of a species do it; they do it even when circumstances aren’t entirely appropriate.” (Brainstorms p.276)

[xvi] The problem is reminiscent of Dennett’s analysis of ‘intention’ discussed in Chapter 2, Section 4, and Chapter 10, Section 3.

[xvii] Downie op.cit. p.19 [emphasis in the original].

[xviii] ibid. p.23:

“... that what is of value in persons can be characterised roughly as the exercise of rational will ... ”

[xix] When discussing Strawson and Wittgenstein in Section 3 Chapter 10.

[xx] Downie op.cit. p.37.

[xxi] The definition of a ‘person’ in terms of possession of a life plan is also found amongst some existentialist writers; for example, Jose Ortega y Gasset:

“If the reader reflects a little upon the meaning of the entity he calls his life, he will find that it is the attempt to carry out a definite program or project of existence. And his self - each man’s self - is nothing but this devised program. All we do we do in the service of this program. Thus man begins by being something that has no reality, neither corporeal nor spiritual; he is a project as such, something which is not yet but aspires to be.” (Walter Kaufmann (ed.) Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. p 154).

y Gasset contrast the possession of a life plan (i.e. being a ‘person’) with being a ‘thing’:

“The stone is given its existence; it need not fight for being what it is - a stone in the field. ... An entity whose mode of being consists in what it is already, whose potentiality coincides at once with his reality, we call a ‘thing’. Things are given their being ready-made. ” (ibid. p.153-4).

y Gasset’s argument suggests a conclusion (similar to that in Dennett’s theory of stances discussed below) that the determination of personhood is essentially a choice of attitude resting on a decision, rather than being a conclusion implied by the results of some internal examination. See also, Wittgenstein:

“My attitude to him is an attitude to a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul.”

[Wittgenstein, PI-II (iv) p. 178e] and the comment by Guy Robinson on this passage:

“My attitude is a matter of my whole demeanour toward him involving the rights and duties and customs of my culture. Not something that is simply true or false like an opinion, a matter for argument and proof. Paradigms, attitudes, and ways of looking are not matters of proof and disproof.”

[Guy Robinson, Philosophy and Mystification p.198]

[xxii] John Rawls, A Theory Of Justice p.408; adding in a footnote:

”Royce uses the notion of a plan to characterise the coherent, systematic purposes of the individual, what makes him a conscious, unified moral person.”

[xxiii] Michael Tooley ‘Abortion and Infanticide’ Philosophy &Public Affairs 2, (1972), included in Peter Singer (ed.) Applied Ethics, (1986), 57-85.

[xxiv] What has been termed the connotation of the term ‘person’ (see Chapter 10).

[xxv] Singer (1986) p.60.

[xxvi] ibid. p.60. [emphasis in the original].

[xxvii] The use of the concept of ‘Objects of Intrinsic Moral Worth’ (i.e. entities, effects on which are to be considered relevant in assessing the morality of any proposed action) and distinguishing it from that of ‘Persons’ (i.e. entities to whom rights are ascribed) would assist the discussion. It would then be possible to say that kittens are not ‘persons’ hence no rights are to be ascribed to them; they are, however, ‘OMW’s’ and so are part of the moral discourse. It would then possible to argue, without any inconsistency, that - although kittens have no rights - it is morally wrong to torture them but not to (painlessly) kill them.

[xxviii] ibid. p.64.

[xxix] ibid. p.66.

[xxx] ibid. p.67.

[xxxi] Kluge’s criteria are taken from:

Dolores Dooley-Clarke, ‘A review of The Practice of Death by Eike-Henner W Kluge [1975]’ in Philosophical Studies 25, 1977, 300-308.

[xxxii] Dooley-Clarke op.cit. p.301.

[xxxiii] ibid. p.301.

[xxxiv] Furthermore the knowledge of a language - in conjunction with Wittgenstein’s ‘Private Language Argument’ - implies an ability to communicate, albeit at some earlier time.

[xxxv] Dennett Brainstorms, Chapter 14 ‘Conditions of Personhood’. Dennett believes that it is not possible to give sufficient conditions. (op.cit. p.285)

[xxxvi] Dennett considers that conditions 1, 2 and 3 are mutually interdependent.

[xxxvii] ibid. p.270.

[xxxviii] ibid. p.268.

[xxxix] In Chapter 10 I have described Dennett’s ‘metaphysical notion’ as the ‘denotation’ of the term person and his ‘moral notion’ as its ‘connotation’. This description has as a consequence, that they are necessary and sufficient conditions for each other. Dennett’s analysis is more subtle in that it does not necessarily imply such identity.

Dennett does not argue for metaphysical personhood being a sufficient condition of moral personhood - though he does accept it as a necessary condition - because, for example, in considering an insane man, he is treated as a person even though deprived as his rights:

“ ... when we declare a man insane we cease treating him as accountable, and we deny him most rights, but still our actions with him are virtually indistinguishable from normal personal interactions unless he is very far gone in madness indeed.” [Brainstorms p.269]

Perhaps, if Dennett distinguished between the concepts of ‘Objects of Intrinsic Moral Worth’ and ‘Personhood’ (as outlined in Chapter 10, Introduction) then the case of the insane man could be understood as being one to whom moral obligations are due even though his rights - and consequently his personhood - have been lost. Arguing in this fashion would allow the conclusion to be drawn that ’metaphysical personhood’ was a necessary and sufficient condition for ‘moral personhood’.

The concept of ‘stickiness’ [discussed in Section 5, Chapter 10] would permit a similar conclusion; this concept would imply that whilst an insane patient may lose rights he does not lose all his rights; this is because the (even remote) possibility that he may recover is sufficient to make some rights persist - in particular the right to life; as such, the insane person would have an attenuated personhood.

[xl] Joseph Fletcher, ‘‘Humanness’ in Humanhood: Essays in Biomedical Ethics’ (1979) pp 12-16; reproduced in

Furrow, Johnson, Jost and Schwartz Bioethics: Health Care Law and Ethics. p.38 et seq.

[xli] ibid. p.39.

[xlii] ibid. p.40.

[xliii] ibid. p.40.

[xliv] ibid. p.40.

[xlv] In chapter 10 when discussing Locke’s concept of ‘personal identity’.

[xlvi] Owen Flanagan, Varieties of Moral Personality p.56 et seq.

[xlvii] ibid. p.62:

“I mean what I say here to be fully compatible with anthropological work on cross-cultural differences in the conception and constitution of persons.”

[xlviii] ibid. p.65-6.

[xlix] Flanagan mentions (ibid. p.62 ) that ‘Western, Javanese, Balinese and Moroccan’ conceptions of personhood differ.

[l] ibid. p. 63-4.

[li] ibid. p.68.

[lii] James F. Drane Clinical Bioethics. p.177 et seq.

[liii] op.cit. p.176.

[liv] Adapted from Drane op.cit. p.177.

[lv] op.cit. p.177 [emphasis added].

[lvi] op.cit. p.178.