PHIL - 1000 - Mary Midgley "Is a Dophin a Person?

This is important for getting the view right

Midgley argues that Bentham was right that the limits of moral concern are established by what is able to suffer -"What makes creatures our fellow-beings, entitled to basic consideration, is not intellectual capacity, but emotional fellowship. ANd if we ask what powers cna give a higher claim, bringning some creatures nearer to the degree of consideration which is due to humans, *what is most relevant seems to be sensibility, social and emotional complexity of the kind which is expressed by the forming of deep, subtle and lasting relationships"*

What are persons continued

Midgley notes that our intuitive equivalence of persons with humans was established by Kant -Kant's definition hinges on rational qualities, not on being human -Given that rationality is a matter of degree, such a definition gives us a slippery slope. Are humans with severe mental disabilities not "persons"? What about intelligent robots or aliens?

What are persons?

Midgley probes the question "what are persons?" -For judge Doi, "person" was equivalent to "human being" -but person could also be a country... -Midgley notes that the original meaning of "person" comes from the drama and refers to characters in a play (not actual human beings) -a person is a subject with legal rights. But this is not the same thing as a "human being," which is a biological category The question "What are persons?" is not merely a factual question, rather it is the complex question of "who is important?" -what constitutes a person is a normative question (a question of value) -Descriptive claims (i.e. facts about the world) may help inform our normative view, but they cannot dictate it.

Clarification

Midgley's aim is not to provide a full moral theory -her aim is to criticize the traditional equivalence of humans and persons -she argues that it is the capacity to suffer, and not rationality, that is the defining characteristic of personhood. Animals with enough capacity to suffer should have some degree of personhood, and the corresponding legal protections that go with it

Animal persons?

On the Kantian view, cruelty to animals is to be avoided because of its potential side-effects -However, we do not really consider animals to be mere things -Historically, humans have been considered to be entirely distinct from beasts, but our increasing knowledge has shown us a number of similarities that were initially ignored

Orangutan with human rights to begin new life in Florida

sandra the orangutan has been found to be "argentina's first 'nonhuman' person, with the right to liberty in court ruling

Is a dolphin a person?

The background is a legal case in the US (dolphins held in captivity were clearly stressed...but were freed illegally by two men... -one of the men, Kenneth le Vasseur, used the "choice of evils" defense -you can use this to argue that you know what you did is normally wrong, but things were better overall now because you did it. -Judge Doi (the presiding judge) ruled that the dolphins were not persons, and thus did not count as "another" (you have to be defending yourself or another) -a second defence was that le Vasseur was actually defending the US itself. The ruling did not object to considering the US as a person but rejected the argument...however, the argument doesn't work because the US did not have the values they thought they had

Capacity to suffer

some people resister her view -Midgley asks if intelligent aliens would be justified in keeping incredibly stupid human beins in torturous conditions to experiment on them -if we answer "no", then it seems like we are agreeing that it is the capcity to suffer that matters. -we may try to respond that we simply know by intuition that humans are persons while other animals are not. That will fail! If what matters is the capacity to suffer, then our laws should change to reflect the change in our attitudes over time -"we need new thinking, new concepts and new words, not (of course) just about animals but about our whole relation to the non-human world. We are not less capable of providing these than people were in the 1850's, so we should get on with it"