{"id":1666,"date":"2011-11-06T17:32:54","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T22:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/returntorome\/?p=1666"},"modified":"2015-03-13T13:28:30","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T17:28:30","slug":"the-argument-from-creating-brainless-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2011\/11\/the-argument-from-creating-brainless-children\/","title":{"rendered":"The Argument From Creating Brainless Children"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In a chapter I recently published\u2013 \u201cThe Human Being, A Person of Substance: A Reply to Dean Stretton,\u201d in Persons, Moral Worth, and Embryos: A Critical Analysis of Pro-Choice Arguments<\/em>,\u00a0edited by Stephen Napier. (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), 67-83<\/a>\u2013I respond to criticisms of an argument I have used in several venues, including my 2007 book, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice<\/a><\/em> (Cambridge University Press)<\/a>. My 2011 defense of that argument\u2013\u201cthe argument from creating brainless children\u201d\u2013as it is appears in my\u00a0chapter in the Napier book is reproduced as follows (notes omitted):<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In Defending Life <\/em>I argue that given the dominant understandings of personhood in\u00a0the literature, understandings that connect a human being\u2019s moral worth to certain\u00a0presently exercisable mental abilities, it is difficult to account for the wrongness of\u00a0intentionally creating mentally handicapped fetuses. For example, suppose that\u00a0Mr. Jones clones himself. That clone, X, is then implanted into a womb and it\u00a0begins to develop normally. However, at a certain point in his gestation Mr. Jones\u00a0orders that X\u2019s neural tube be stopped from developing so that X may not acquire\u00a0the higher brain functions that are necessary for X to exercise his rational and\u00a0moral powers. That is, a healthy embryo is manipulated so that he develops into\u00a0an anencephalic child.22 Mr. Jones issues that order because he wants to harvest\u00a0X\u2019s body (which has Mr. Jones\u2019s genome) so that if and when any of Mr. Jones\u2019\u00a0organs become diseased or less functional, he can replace those organs with X\u2019s\u00a0healthy ones.<\/p>\n

But, as Dan W. Brock points out, \u201cMost people would likely find this practice\u00a0appalling and immoral, in part because here the cloned later twin\u2019s capacity for\u00a0conscious life is destroyed solely as a means <\/em>for the benefit of another\u201d\u2026.What I suggest is that this intuition is best grounded in the substance view\u00a0of persons. That is, only if the fetus is entitled to his higher brain functions does it\u00a0make sense to say that the cloned twin has been wronged. Remember, the substance\u00a0view is a perfectionist view, which means, as I noted above, it sees the maturation\u00a0of a human being\u2019s intrinsic ends or purposes as perfections of its nature. So, for\u00a0example, the whole human being is harmed if her brain is not allowed to develop\u00a0as a consequence of ailment or assault. Thus, if the embryo\u2019s brain development is\u00a0intentionally obstructed so that she does not achieve higher brain function and thus\u00a0cannot exercise her natural powers for rational thought and moral reflection, the\u00a0human being has been morally harmed because a good to which she is entitled has\u00a0been prevented from coming to fruition. But if that\u2019s the case, then any act intended\u00a0to disrupt or compromise the human being\u2019s proper end, including abortion, is prima\u00a0facie immoral. After all, if it\u2019s wrong to prevent the embryo from acquiring her\u00a0higher brain function by blocking her neural tube, it\u2019s wrong to do so by killing her\u00a0via abortion.<\/p>\n

In response to my argument, Stretton writes:<\/p>\n

[\u201c]To the contrary, this case seems to refute <\/em>the substance view. To render a normal adult <\/em>anencephalic would be tantamount to murder; surely then the same is true of unborn <\/em>human\u00a0beings, on the substance view? Yet our intuition is not <\/em>that the creation of anencephalic\u00a0clones is tantamount to murder. Our sense is rather that the deliberate creation of disabled\u00a0beings is prima facie <\/em>wrong (though well short of murder) even where those beings are not\u00a0harmed by being created. . . <\/em>.This intuition, however, provides no support for the substance\u00a0view\u2026.[\u201c]<\/p>\n

Stretton\u2026 is misconstruing my argument. He reads into it something I do\u00a0not defend. In no place in which I offer this argument do I suggest, imply, or claim\u00a0that creating an anencephalic child is tantamount to murder. That belief plays no role\u00a0in the argument\u2019s logic nor in the reason why I offered it. What then was I trying to\u00a0accomplish with the argument?<\/p>\n

Let us start with the moral claim \u201cit is a prima facie <\/em>wrong to intentionally create\u00a0an anencephalic human being.\u201d For someone who holds the substance view\u00a0this
\n\"\"<\/a> moral claim makes sense, for the human being whose brain is intentionally\u00a0obstructed from normal development is being denied that which he is by nature\u00a0entitled, since a functioning brain is a perfection of his nature. Stretton, however,\u00a0concedes that intentionally creating an anencephalic human being is a prima facie <\/em>wrong even if the intervention to alter the human being\u2019s brain development occurs\u00a0before he develops what Stretton and others \u2026\u00a0consider the properties that impart personhood to the human\u00a0being. So, what precisely are the grounds by which Stretton issues this judgment?\u00a0He does not say. Is it because the fetus is entitled to his higher brain functions? If so,\u00a0then abortion is unjustified, since it too robs the fetus of his higher brain functions\u00a0(in addition to all of his bodily functions including the use of mature versions of his\u00a0heart, lungs, legs, harms, ears, nose, eyes, etc.)<\/p>\n

So, here\u2019s the problem: almost everyone agrees that it is a prima facie <\/em>wrong to\u00a0intentionally create an anencephalic human being. I, then, ask the question: what\u00a0account of the human person best accounts for this intuition? It seems to me that\u00a0the substance view has the best resources to do so, since views like those held by\u00a0Stretton, McMahan, Boonin, and Dworkin affirm that it is morally permissible to\u00a0destroy the fetus, including his developing brain, prior to his acquisition of certain\u00a0value-making properties. So, if one can destroy the fetus for the apparent good of\u00a0another (the pregnant woman) prior to him becoming a person, why cannot one\u00a0use the fetus\u2019s body parts for the good of another (the cloned twin\u2019s progenitor) by\u00a0making sure he does not become a person?<\/p>\n

Let me offer another twist to this thought experiment. Suppose that the creating of\u00a0anencephalic clones for organ harvesting becomes widespread. In response, millions\u00a0of citizens rise up in protest, calling for the liberation of the clones. These citizens\u00a0call their movement, clone-choice (CC), since they believe that it is morally wrong\u00a0for the clones to have theirmoral and rational powers\u2014i.e., their choice\u2014obstructed\u00a0from maturing by cerebral mutilation. Those that support the practice respond, calling\u00a0their movement, clone-life (CL), since they believe that it is morally wrong to\u00a0interfere with a person\u2019s reproductive powers to create non-person human beings\u00a0(anencephalic clones) for the preservation of the lives of \u201creal\u201d persons. CL, with\u00a0the assistance of the government, sets up thousands of \u201cLife Centers\u201d throughout\u00a0North America in which cloning and harvesting procedures are offered to the public\u00a0at a low cost. In these centers are millions of adult-looking human clones without\u00a0higher brain functions resting in suspended animation. It turns out that some scientists\u00a0working with CC have discovered a surgical procedure that will allow the\u00a0adult clones to develop their higher brain functions. Suppose that some of these scientists\u00a0break into several Life Centers, perform this surgery on about fifty of the\u00a0adult clones, take these clones to safe houses where they are nourished, cared for,\u00a0and sheltered, and over the course of 9 months the clones do in fact develop higher\u00a0brain functions. If you think what the scientists did was not only good but an act\u00a0that justice requires, it seems that you must believe that the clones are beings of a\u00a0rational nature ordered toward certain perfections that when obstructed, results in\u00a0a wrong.<\/p>\n

The strength of my argument does not depend on the claim, nor conclude that,\u00a0the creation of anencephalic human beings is tantamount to murder. Rather, its\u00a0strength depends on the inability of views contrary to the substance view\u2014those\u00a0embraced by Stretton and others\u2014to account for the wrongness of an act for which\u00a0the substance view can easily account.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a chapter I recently published\u2013 \u201cThe Human Being, A Person of Substance: A Reply to Dean Stretton,\u201d in Persons, Moral Worth, and Embryos: A Critical Analysis of Pro-Choice Arguments,\u00a0edited by Stephen Napier. (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), 67-83\u2013I respond to criticisms of an argument I have used in several venues, including my 2007 book, Defending Life: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,20,41,42,104,105],"tags":[22159,22172,22239,22240],"class_list":["post-1666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-bioethics","category-culture-of-death","category-culture-of-life","category-personhood","category-philosophy","tag-abortion","tag-bioethics","tag-personhood","tag-philosophy"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Argument From Creating Brainless Children<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a chapter I recently published-- "The Human Being, A Person of Substance: A Reply to Dean Stretton," in Persons, Moral Worth, and Embryos: A Critical\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2011\/11\/the-argument-from-creating-brainless-children\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Argument From Creating Brainless Children\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a chapter I recently published-- "The Human Being, A Person of Substance: A Reply to Dean Stretton," in Persons, Moral Worth, and Embryos: A Critical\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2011\/11\/the-argument-from-creating-brainless-children\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Return to Rome\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-06T22:32:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-13T17:28:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/returntorome\/files\/2011\/11\/51tDu2AFeUL._BO2204203200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-clickTopRight35-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Francis J. 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