The Concept and Conceptions of Personhood: The Fallacy of Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby’s Argument

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This article refers to:

The End of Personhood

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

For the distinction drawn in the penultimate paragraph of this Commentary, I am indebted to T. M. Scanlon. The errors remaining in that paragraph are mine alone.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The reason why we cannot rely on utilitarianism for settling disputes involving competing claims from human beings, on the one hand, and nonhuman animals, on the other hand, is discussed in Li 2002, 600–605.

2 First, Warren’s conception entails that newborn infants are not persons and hence do not have any rights. Second, Warren holds that all and only actual persons have rights. Third, her view of rights is impoverished insofar as she only recognizes rights that require agency for its exercise (e.g., freedom of speech). Yet, there exist rights of another kind (e.g., the right to life), which do not require agency. Further, Warren falsely claims that any right of a being (e.g., a woman) would override any right of a lesser being (i.e., a fetus) (Li 1997, 11–13; LI 2002, 595–599).

3 John Rawls has famously made the distinction between “concepts” and “conceptions” (Rawls 1971; 1999, 5). (Rawls rejects the utilitarian and libertarian conceptions of justice, but not the concept of justice itself. He defends a liberal conception of justice.) Note that the term “conception” does not appear in Blumenthal-Barby’s article. And this is evidence that she has overlooked the distinction.

4 Blumenthal-Barby might reply that a woman has ambitions and life projects, whereas her fetus does not. But this would prove too much: does someone who is ambitious and has life projects have greater, or more, rights than someone else who is less ambitious or has no life projects? It is absurd to say yes. Moreover, I wish to point out that Thomson’s defense of abortion when a mother’s life is endangered (Thomson 1971, 1991) does not work in all relevant cases because if the source of endangerment during pregnancy is her cervical cancer, the fetus cannot possibly be an “innocent threat” (Davis 1984).

5 Such exceptional circumstances include scenarios (1) where a woman’s life is endangered during pregnancy, (2) where a pregnancy is due to rape, or (3) where a fetus is (grossly?) deformed.

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