Moral Personhood: An Essay in the Philosophy of Moral Psychology.G. E. Scott

Ethics ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 866-867
Author(s):  
Owen Flanagan
Keyword(s):  
2021 ◽  
pp. medethics-2021-107318
Author(s):  
Nicholas Colgrove

Recently, I argued that subjects inside of artificial wombs—termed ‘gestatelings’ by Romanis—share the same legal and moral status as newborns (neonates). Gestatelings, on my view, are persons in both a legal and moral sense. Kingma challenges these claims. Specifically, Kingma argues that my previous argument is invalid, as it equivocates on the term ‘newborn’. Kingma concludes that questions about the legal and moral status of gestatelings remain ‘unanswered’. I am grateful to Kingma for raising potential concerns with the view I have presented. In this essay, however, I argue that (most) of Kingma’s objections are unpersuasive. First, my original argument does not equivocate on terms like ‘newborn’ or ‘neonate’. The terms denote human beings that have been born recently; that is what matters to the argument. Charges of equivocation, I suspect, rest on a confusion between the denotation and connotations of ‘newborn’ (or ‘neonate’). Next, I show that, contra Kingma, it is clear that—under current law in the USA and UK—gestatelings would count as legal persons. Moral personhood is more difficult. On that subject, Kingma’s criticisms have merit. In response, however, I show that my original claim—that gestatelings should count as moral persons—remains true on several (common) philosophical accounts of personhood. Regarding those accounts that imply gestatelings are not moral persons, I argue that advocates face a troubling dilemma. I conclude that regardless of which view of moral personhood one adopts, questions about the moral status of gestatelings are not ‘unanswered’.


Author(s):  
Ruth Boeker

This chapter focuses on Shaftesbury’s and Hume’s responses to Locke’s account of persons and personal identity. Both philosophers generally share Locke’s metaphysically agnostic views, but disagree with Locke on moral and religious grounds. By contrasting their moral and religious views we can see how their different moral and religious views shape their thinking about persons and personal identity and understand why Shaftesbury and Hume develop views that differ from Locke’s. The chapter pays particular attention to how Shaftesbury and Hume each criticize psychological accounts of personal identity and what role their underlying moral and religious views play. Moreover, both philosophers reject moral theories grounded in divine law like Locke’s. Since Locke’s account of moral personhood can be separated from his psychological account of personal identity, it is interesting to ask how philosophers who do not share Locke’s moral views approach or can approach moral personhood.


1991 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 504
Author(s):  
Charles Altieri ◽  
Richard Eldridge
Keyword(s):  

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