A Frustrating Argument about Abortion: Part 2

You can find part 1 of this article here.

This article will continue looking at Kate Greasley’s critique of the book, Embryo, by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen. In Part 2, I will explain certain parts of her books and offer critiques as I go.

Ghosts in the Machine?

Greasley explains that,

“George and Tollefsen believe that their task here is to refute the dualist conception of persons–the view that ‘we’ are ghostly substances inhabiting human machines… This is because of what they take dualism to imply about the conditions for persisting identity. If ‘we’ are basically immaterial substances, it seems that we would come and go from our human bodies, and, consequently, that we are not identical with those bodies.” (1)

This part is actually accurate. As I showed in part 1, they are trying to refute dualism, or the idea that we are something other than our bodies. Moreover, they also claim that if we are some immaterial substance of the person kind, that inhabits our bodies, it would open up the possibility that we could come and go at different times. So far, so good. It’s just too bad that Greasley didn’t start with this view instead of falsely attributing the dualistic Personhood Essentialism view to them and trying to refute that. 

Unfortunately, Greasley slips right back into her misunderstanding from here on out. 

“If this were true, it would not follow from personhood essentialism that all human beings, including zygotes, are persons (or in other words, that humans are persons from the very beginning of their existence), since human beings would never be identical with person substances. Persons and the human bodies they inhabit would be two separate numerical things, not one and the same. Consequently, the ‘ghost in the machine’ might exist in the machine at one time and not another, and there is no reason to think that human organisms are persons at every stage of their existence, even if personhood essentialism is true.” (2) 

At this point, I have to wonder why Greasley did not clue in that perhaps she had misunderstood them by applying the personhood essentialism view to them. She is explaining how personhood essentialism is antithetical to their argument from animalism. 1) It says that we are not our bodies, but rather an immaterial ghost in the machine that inhabits our bodies at some later point such as after birth. 2) That would mean none of us were embryos, zygotes, and fetuses. The persons and the human bodies they inhabit would be two separate numerical things, if personhood essentialism is true. Shouldn’t that have made her think, “Oh maybe this is actually my view?” Greasley is an intelligent person but her approach to their argument was just lazy.

Of course, as I showed in the first part, the view that they argue for is that we are essentially human organisms. That means that we come into existence when the organism begins to exist and we go out of existence when the organism goes out of existence at death. Since the organism comes into existence at  conception as an embryo, we begin to exist as an embryo and continue on through the zygote and fetus stage. That means we were embryos, zygote and fetuses. (3)

Faulty Conclusions?

 What’s frustrating  is that in the very next paragraph she explains this view accurately. However, she goes on to argue that their view, which is called “animalism,” does not “establish the truth of personhood essentialism, the main premise that George and Tollefsen need to be true.” (4) Of course it doesn’t establish the truth of it. And they don’t need it to be true. They are against that view! Their case for the personhood of the unborn rests on entirely different premises!

She writes, 

“The authors conclude their discussion of animalism by stating that it (unlike dualism) is not “in tension” with the view that we are essentially persons. But it does not entail that view either. Animalism is also compatible with the suggestion that human beings acquire the property of personhood at some later stage in their development.” (5)

There are a lot of things wrong with this very brief paragraph.

1. Greasley misquotes George and Tollefsen. They do not say that animalism is not in tension with the view that we are essentially persons. They would in fact say that it is very much in tension with the view that we are essentially persons for all the reasons given. What they actually say is “So animalism– the view that we are essentially human beings, members of the species Homo Sapiens– is not only true, but it is not really in tension with the view that we are also persons.” (6)
   
2. Greasley treats this as if it’s some sort of argument for the personhood of the unborn. It’s not. As I pointed out in part 1, they talk about how they are saving their discussion of personhood for later in the chapter. (7) They then spend a lot of time talking about how we are essentially biological beings.  They then show how those biological beings are also persons. Their point is, with all of the focus on our biological nature, it might seem like there’s no room for a more metaphysical nature like personhood. They are just assuring us that that is not the case. 
   
3. Greasley actually skips over their entire argument for personhood which came before that declaration. She’s spent this whole section trying to refute their argument for the personhood of the embryo, zygote, and fetus and she misses it completely. Now is as good as any to lay it out. George and Tollefsen write,

“dualists typically make the capacity for psychological states the criterion for personhood– an entity is not a person if it does not have the capacity for reason, choice, self-consciousness and so on. And of course, human beings in the embryonic, fetal, and early infant stages lack immediately exercisable capacities for mental functions characteristically carried out (though intermittently) by most human beings at later stages of maturity (not all– consider cases of severely retarded children and adults and the… comatose person.)” (8)

This characterization of the typical dualist view is certainly true of Greasley. As I said in part 1, Greasley considers a person to be someone who has the capacity for intelligence, reasoning, agency, and emotionality. And since she doesn’t really believe those capacities are triggered till after birth, the zygote, embryo and fetus never become persons in her model. (9) 

As an alternative to this account of personhood, George and Tollefsen point out that,

“Still, they possess in radical (that is, root) form these very capacities. Precisely by virtue of the kind of entity they are, they are from the beginning actively developing themselves to the stages at which these capacities will, if all goes well, be immediately exercisable.” (10) 

Animalists believe that all humans have a rational nature. Their evidence for this is the way that humans develop. If given enough time, humans will develop the kind of brain that allows them to function in rational ways, assuming they don’t get sick or suffer a brain injury. This sets humans apart from, say, a cat or a mouse, who do not have the same rational nature. Again the evidence for this claim is the way those animals develop. They will never develop the kind of brain that allows them to function like a human does. (At least not without some outside help.) (11)

George and Tollefsen make an important distinction between their view and a dualist view like Greasley’s. Their views rely on two different types of capacity;

“an immediately exercisable one and a basic natural capacity that develops over time. But if this is so, then there is little mystery in how an embryonic, fetal, or infant human being, incapable at the time of exercising his or her mental capacities, is nevertheless a person: A human being does, by its nature, have the radical capacity for such mental acts and is by a self directed process developing the capacity to the point where it is immediately exercisable.” (12)

The basic capacities would then be the ability to develop a brain to do mental acts. Immediate capacities are the ability to perform those acts. Some people may push back at this point and say they just don’t accept that you can be a person before you’re capable of those acts. However, I would push back in return and say that you actually do accept those basic capacities as necessary and sufficient in most cases, except when it comes to abortion.

Francis Beckwith uses the following example to illustrate. Imagine your Uncle is in a horrible car accident which puts him into a coma from which he may or may not awake. He doesn’t wake up until two years later. He still seems like the Uncle that you knew before the accident, except that he’s thinner, balder, and doesn’t have all his memories. But would you have still considered him an inherently valuable person during the coma? If the physicians had wanted to kill your Uncle – the living organism that you refer to as your uncle – during that time because he was not exhibiting emotionality, rationality, intelligence and agency, would you have allowed to that happen? If you are going to say you only believe a human is a person with a right to life if they have immediately exercisable capacities, it is difficult to see how it would have been wrong to kill your uncle while he was in the coma. Yet we know it is wrong. A rational nature that keeps him the same person through the coma and changes to his body accounts for why we know it. (13)

So what Greasley needs to do is show that the zygotes, embryos, and fetuses lack this rational nature if she wants to refute George and Tollefsen. I could not find anywhere in this section where she did so. (14) 

Finally, her comment that animalism is somehow compatible with dualism is just laughable. Dualism denies that we are essentially human organisms, the very premise of animalism. She tries to make her case using the work of Erik T. Olson. She notes how George and Tollefsen use him to refute dualism (see Part 1) but then says that they “omit to mention that on Olson’ account, the ‘fetus problem’ is not taken to show that all biological human beings are persons from conception – that we are always persons.” (15) My guess is that they didn’t bring it up because it wasn’t relevant to what they were using Olson for, namely to show the absurdity of denying that we are essentially human organisms. 

Still, it’s worth noting that Olson believes that we become persons when we are able to think. But he does not believe that this excludes the idea that we are organisms, identical with ourselves at earlier stages of development. All it takes for an organism to continue on is for its biological life to continue. Developing a brain and becoming able to think does not kill the zygote. Therefore, the same organism can transform into a person just like he or she may become a philosopher or Ballerina. (16)

If this were true, then it would seem to suggest that you can indeed be essentially a human organism but become a person later on. But while he claims to believe we are our bodies, he is actually advocating a different kind of dualism known as Brain-body dualism which says that “the person is identical to his or her brain.” (17) Thus, he has embraced the second horn of the dilemma he himself raised for dualism which says the fetus continues to exist while never becoming a person and just shares matter with the person that is numerically different from it. (18)

That means that George and Tollefsen’s follow up question can be turned back on him: how can the fetus not share all the same properties of the person, and if it does share all the properties, how is it not also a person? (19)

A Point of Agreement

Greasley suggests that “Dualism need not, in fact, be in any tension with the view that ‘we’ are essentially persons, depending on how the ‘we’ is defined.” (20) She is absolutely right here, especially considering the fact that as I’ve shown throughout this essay and Part 1, personhood essentialism is just one type of dualism. 

Consider the Butterflies!

Greasley also informs us that ,

“the truth of animalism does not prove the impossibility of substantial change, another thing George and Tollfesen need to be true. If substantial change is possible, then the fetus can gradually become an essentially different kind of thing – a person, not just a human being –without going out of existence altogether and being replaced by something else, the same way that a caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly, a different sort of creature, whilst still persisting as the same numerical thing.” (21)

This passage is a really convoluted mess. Greasley is saying that proving that we are identical with our bodies does not prove that we cannot lose or gain certain characteristics, in this case personhood.  But this all based on her misunderstanding of George and Tollefsen’s main argument. 

George and Tollefsen were never trying to argue that personhood was an essential property that we can’t lose. Rather, they were trying to argue that since human persons are essentially human organisms, they come into existence at the time the organism does, and go out of existence when it dies, not when certain properties like consciousness, intelligence, emotionality, or agency come and go.

The only way that Greasley could actually refute their argument is by showing that we are those properties. Then it would make sense that we could come and go with them. 

The caterpillar-butterfly analogy does not show it’s possible for the fetus to change into a different kind of thing. As Hendrik Van Der Breggen explains, this kind of analogy “confuses the concepts of kind and development.” (23) It is true that a caterpillar is not a butterfly but what kind of species is the caterpillar? The answer is Lepidoptera, the same as the butterfly. The caterpillar is one of the earliest developmental stages of the Lepidoptera.

Now let’s apply that to the unborn.  What species does he or she belong to? The answer is a human. The embryo is a human that is at their earliest developmental stage. Next comes zygotes. Then fetuses. Eventually they turn into newborns, children, teenagers and adults. But they remain human the whole way through. (24) For Greasley to show that the human has become a different kind of thing, she’d have to give us a reason to think that the human organism has disappeared and been replaced by a person. 

But she doesn’t even agree with such an idea. She even says she suspects that George and Tollefsen are right in “supporting biological continuity as the criterion of persisting personal identity…” (25) She just doesn’t seem to understand the implications of this, which is that she’s already granted their argument, not refuted it. This whole line of argument gets her case against George and Tollefsen nowhere. 

Of course, even though Greasley sort of agrees with George and Tollefsen about biological continuity being a good criterion for continuing personal identity, she still thinks they consider it an essential property, which is wrong. She then argues that “this would imply that our animal bodies are our only essential properties, and that our moral status as persons, is hence, a non essential one.” (26) In other words, she thinks it’s a choice of either being essentially persons, or essentially our bodies. She then says that the only way we could be essentially persons is if “we are numerically identical not with our human bodies but with a separate person substance, the crux of the dualist view, it would seem to follow that there can be no time in our existence that we are not persons.” (27)

This just made me shake my head. You’ve heard of mansplaining? This is like… pro-choicesplaining where she basically is telling them what dualism means when they’ve talked about it all along. She then says that this would not entail that all human beings are persons throughout their existence. Yep, George and Tollefsen know this. They’ve explained how pro-choicers use “personhood essentialism” to make this exact argument.

She says that once they “swap the criterion of numerical identity for the one we get on the dualist picture, it is perfectly coherent to hold that we, the immaterial substance, always remain the same thing, but that not every living human body is at all times animated by an immaterial substance.” (28) George and Tollefsen disagree with this view of identity, but they have never called into question its internal coherence. However, they reject such a view on the basis that it leads to absurdities as Olson has shown. Of course, they’ve found a different way that we can be both essentially human organisms and persons: those organisms are persons because of the rational nature they each possess. But after six pages, she still has yet to actually engage with their case. I really can’t help but wonder whether her editor slept through this section. 

Conclusion

Greasley’s defense of dualism against animalism also fails. She never quite grasped the point George and Tollefsen were making with it and therefore never critiqued it. In conclusion then, I think George and Tollefsen’s case for the fact that we are essentially human organisms, with a rational nature that makes us persons, remains a viable view.

References

1. Kate Greasley, Arguments About Abortion:  Personhood, Morality and Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 133.
2. Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 133.
3. Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen, Embryo: A Defense of Human Life (Princeton: The Witherspoon Institute, 2011), 939. (kindle ed.)
4. Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 133.
5. Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 133-134.
6. George and Tollefsen, Embryo,1252. (kindle ed.)
7. George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 939. (kindle ed.)
8. George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 1219.. (kindle ed.)
9. Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 164-165, 191-195.
10. George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 1219. (kindle ed.)
11. Stephanie Gray, Love Unleashes Life: Abortion and the Art of Communicating Truth (Toronto: Life Cycle Books, 2015), 48-49.
12. George and Tollefsen, Embryo,1232-1235. (kindle ed).
13. Francis J. Beckwith, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007),135.
14. She might say that she responded to this idea earlier in her book. Earlier in the book,  she responds to the idea that being a person meanings ‘being a member of a species the adults members of which are typified by higher forms of consciousness;… One can post a further question. Why is it that merely belonging to a biological species  the typical adult members of which are capable of higher forms of thinking itself suffices for personhood status.” Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 116. This however would be another misunderstanding. IF George and Tollefsen were basing personhood on the abilities that adults had, they would be basing it on immediate capacities. They made quite clear that they were basing personhood on basic capacities, which precede the immediate capacities. 
15. Greasley, Arguments About Abortion,134.
16. Erik T. Olson, “Was I Ever a Fetus?”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LVII, no. 1, [1997], 106.
17. George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 1013. (kindle ed.)
18. Olson, “Was I Ever a Fetus?” 100. 
19. George and Tollefsen, Embryo, 1156.
20. Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 134.
21. Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 134-135.
22. Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 135.
23. Hendrik Van Der Breggen, Untangling Popular Pro-Choice Arguments: Critical Thinking About Abortion (Amazon, KP: 2020), 10. 
24. Van Der Breggen, Untangling Popular Pro-Choice Arguments, 10.
25. Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 135.
26. Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 135.
27. Greasley, Arguments about abortion, 135.
28. Greasley, Arguments About Abortion, 135.

Cover hoto by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Chris Christiansen

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Born in Vancouver, B.C., Chris has been married to Amy since 2017. He has a BA in Religious Studies (Youth Leadership), and an MA in Theological Studies (Apologetics). He enjoys acting, evangelism, and debates.

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