The Spectrum Argument, Round Two
So it seems that blogger Bob Seidensticker has decided to respond to my critique of his Spectrum Argument. You can find his original article here, and my rebuttal to it here, as well as Seidensticker’s most recent response here.
At the end of his article, he asserts that I have mischaracterized and sidestepped the argument (Seidensticker seems to accuse anyone who disagrees with him of sidestepping his arguments; it couldn’t possibly be that Seidensticker is simply mistaken), but I find this claim extremely hard to accept especially considering the fact that I summarized his argument in my article and he took no issue with the argument as I summarized and framed it. However, I find Seidensticker’s response to my critique to be fallacious and to miss the point of my critique entirely, as I will explain below.
In short, the Spectrum says that as there is a spectrum between blue and green, there is a spectrum of human personhood. We don’t know where blue ends and green begins, but we do know that blue is not green. Whereas pro-choice philosophers like Peter Singer and Michael Tooley try to argue that what makes you a person is your ability to perceive of yourself existing through time, Seidensticker seems to think that you’re not a person until you have distinctly human features. To quote his article, “The newborn is a person. And it’s far more than just 1,000,000,000,000 undifferentiated cells. These cells are organized and connected to make a person — it has arms and legs, eyes and ears, a brain and a nervous system, a stomach and digestive system, a heart and circulatory system, skin, liver, and so on.” Now it’s difficult to see the relevance of this. If you need all of these things to be considered a person, then, for example, someone who has lost the use of their eyes is less of a person than someone who can see. Someone who has had their gall bladder removed due to cancer is less of a person than someone who hasn’t. Captain Picard is less of a person than I am because of his artificial heart. All of this is irrelevant to one’s status as a person, and I don’t know a single pro-choice philosopher who argues that human features make one a person, especially since they all agree that there are probably non-human persons.
So right off the bat, Seidensticker’s view of personhood is deeply flawed. And his view of differences between humans is also deeply flawed. He seems to assume that there is not much difference between a newborn and me but this is simply absurd. A newborn will not be publishing articles on this blog. I can drive, vote, exhibit a higher level of thought, express myself, have sex, create new life, etc., and newborns can’t. There is a world of difference between newborns and me, just like there is a world of difference between a human embryo and a newborn. Both are just stages of development of a human being, a human person.
Seidensticker begins by misrepresenting my words already. I wasn’t praising the article for its “substance,” I was thanking Seidensticker for making an argument rather than simply demonizing pro-life people. I don’t think there’s much substance to the argument at all.
Next, Seidensticker throws a red herring our way. He seems to want to tell us that personhood does not begin at fertilization but makes no attempt (again, even after I pointed this out) to tell us when it actually does begin. If he has no interest in deciding for himself when it begins, then he probably shouldn’t be trying to tell us that it doesn’t begin at fertilization, because that’s clearly ad hoc reasoning. And his argument about deciding what penalty is appropriate for the law is just a false analogy; we’re not talking about what punishments fit what crimes, we’re talking about when human personhood begins. Talking about crimes and punishments presupposes that there is a human person at issue, and I don’t think Seidensticker wants to go that route. The science of embryology has shown that the unborn are one of us, and there are medical experts and policy makers who argue that personhood begins at fertilization. If Seidensticker is not prepared to tell us why they’re wrong and at what point human personhood begins, then he can’t tell us that it doesn’t begin at fertilization. And if he points back to this spectrum, that’s clearly a question-begging response because the topic at hand is whether or not this spectrum proves that the unborn are not persons.
Seidensticker still refuses to accept that an acorn is an oak tree. This is a simple fact of biology. An acorn belongs to the oak family. It is a potential oak tree in the sense that if left unperturbed it will develop into an oak tree, remaining the same entity that it was before, just a more mature version of itself. In the same way, once a caterpillar goes through chrysalis and becomes a butterfly, it is still the same entity it was before, just matured. Seidensticker offers no argument against this claim, except for the fact that it will “become” an oak tree in 20 years or so, but I don’t deny this. An acorn will become an oak tree in the same way that a newborn will become an adult. A newborn doesn’t become a human, it becomes an adult. Just like an acorn doesn’t become an oak, but it does become a tree. Newborn is to adult as acorn is to oak tree, stages of development in the same entity. And by ignoring it rather than responding to it, Seidensticker has also conceded my point regarding the silkworm and the dress (see the second article of his I linked to in the introduction).
Seidensticker goes on to respond to my rebuttal of his brain analogy. He asserts that a brain must think and permit consciousness or it is not a brain at all, but there is no reason to think this. For example, if a person is dead and the coroner cuts his head open, he/she will be able to recognize the brain, even if it isn’t currently functioning the way that it was meant to. So even if thinking is an emergent property, that doesn’t prove that a brain that doesn’t think isn’t a brain.
I’m not a neuroscientist, so I can’t speak to whether or not thinking is actually an emergent property. So while Seidensticker can argue that thinking is an emergent property of the brain, he has not argued for why this emergent property must be present in order for a brain to be considered a brain. In fact, this still seems like a false analogy regarding human embryos because as embryologists have shown us, all the properties of living things exist in the human zygote: growth through cellular reproduction, metabolism of food for energy, and response to stimuli. And the human features that Seidensticker explained as necessary for personhood earlier are not emergent properties. So unless he tells us exactly why these emergent properties must be present (and which emergent properties are necessary for personhood), while an interesting discussion it has nothing to do with the prospect at hand: whether or not the unborn are persons.
Seidensticker seems to misunderstand the difference between active potential and passive potential. It’s not an argument from potential, strictly speaking. The human embryo is a person now. It has the active potential to mature, but it is a human person now. Having the active potential to mature means that every change it undergoes is identity preserving; in other words, it remains the exact same entity through all of those changes. So arguing that the human embryo will be a baby in the future is not a mark against unborn personhood (even setting aside the fact that “baby” is not a term for a stage of human development; it’s a term that can be ascribed to anything). Seidensticker continually confuses terms in an attempt to obscure the problems with his argument.
Seidensticker is simply being short-sighted in his treatment of the differences between the unborn and newborns, and between newborns and adults. There is a world of difference. Sure, I may have arms, legs, a head, etc., like I did as a newborn, but you know what? A fetus has distinctly human features, albeit not yet fully-formed, after the second month. So does Seidensticker believe that human personhood is established around two months in utero? Or how developed do these limbs have to be before we can declare they are persons? I would imagine he doesn’t want to go that route. He claims that we commonly think of “human features” when we think of personhood, but this would be news to philosophers like Tooley and Singer. We don’t normally think of human features when we think of personhood, we think of things like consciousness, self-awareness, the capacity for higher thought, the ability to express yourself, etc. And while Singer and Tooley would argue you have to be able to do those now to be part of the moral community, I consider this clearly mistaken. What grounds your personhood is your inherent nature, not your ability to do the things I can do.
And Seidensticker’s comment about sentimental poetry is also mistaken. People don’t get teary-eyed when someone dies that they didn’t have an emotional bond with. This tells us nothing of someone’s value. If no one cries when a homeless person dies, that doesn’t mean he/she wasn’t a person. And besides, many poems and songs have, in fact, been written about the unborn and about miscarriages.
Seidensticker claims to be open to considering different terms than the ones I’m using, but I’ve been quite clear about my terms. The unborn are human beings, just as we are, biologically. They have human DNA, are the product of human parents, are clearly alive, are clearly organisms, etc. They are just like us in every relevant way. The unborn are also persons because they share our inherent nature as rational moral agents. See this article for a further explanation of this point. There is no spectrum of personhood; as pro-life philosopher Trent Horn has argued, you are either a person or you’re not, so personhood cannot be tied to something that comes in degrees, like someone’s ability to think.
So Seidensticker wants to assert that I’m sidestepping the issue when in fact I have directly responded to it and shown why human personhood does not exist on a spectrum, and how Seidensticker’s argument fails. He attempts to say that I am pretending this spectrum doesn’t exist, but now I have to wonder if Seidensticker even read my entire article: in the last paragraph you’ll find written “Human development may exist on a spectrum, but human value clearly does not.” I don’t deny there is a spectrum of human development, what I deny is that this spectrum has any bearing on our worth as human beings.
Seidensticker finishes off by responding to a couple of miscellaneous points. He asserts that my response to his PETA analogy is misguided. However, what Seidensticker is calling a “spectrum” of animal life is more along the lines of a hierarchy of animal value. I understand that PETA believes that all animals are the same, and I disagree with this. But I don’t need a “spectrum argument” to show that. This is still a false analogy because now we’re not talking about a spectrum of animal value, but a hierarchy of the instrumental value that animals have to humans: vermin, livestock, and pet (I would not place humans on the same level as animals, because of our inherent nature as rational agents, and I think PETA is wrong to do so). So this has nothing to do with a spectrum, and is still a red herring from his actual argument as it really doesn’t add anything to it.
Finally, he responds to my statement about the irrelevance of pointing to Christian evangelicals by asserting that it is not irrelevant to those who use Christian arguments. I do use Christian arguments when I’m trying to convince a Christian to become pro-life. When I’m talking to a non-Christian, I use secular arguments (many of which you can find on this blog by searching). This is an irrelevant argument no matter who you’re talking to. The Catholic church has been pro-life all along, so pointing to certain Protestant sects that have been pro-choice adds nothing to your argument. What’s important is that Protestants are pro-life now, and the arguments that they use now must be responded to (to say nothing of the fact that ignoring the ones that were pro-life is disingenuous).
There’s one last point to mention. Calvin Freiburger wrote a great rebuttal to Seidensticker’s argument and one point in particular bears mentioning. Seidensticker asserts that pro-life advocates are vague with their terms (a claim which I responded to), but if you ask Seidensticker to define what he means by “personhood,” he can’t tell you. Feel free to peruse the comments on Freiburger’s article, and you’ll see that. In fact, Freiburger pointed out that Seidensticker actually expects you (not him) to pick a property that a newborn possesses that a human zygote doesn’t, and that can suffice for a morally relevant difference. But as Freiburger said in his article, “You know we’re in the shallow end of the intellectual pool when somebody challenges you to support his own argument. It’s completely illogical and incoherent to demand that pro-lifers ‘tell me what a newborn is that a single cell isn’t’ because we’re not the ones arguing that a single-celled human being and a newborn are two different things! He is! We’re the ones against the idea that any of the differences between the two matter to their shared personhood” (emphasis in original).
It still remains clear that Seidensticker’s Spectrum Argument is fallacious. Human development many exist as a spectrum, but this is irrelevant to one’s value as a human being. If Seidensticker wishes to respond, rather than accuse me of sidestepping his argument, perhaps he’d care to engage with mine.
As I read I am struck by how arbitrary the basis for many of the arguments are, due to the fact that humans are the ones doing the naming. WE differentiate acorn from oak tree by having a special name and story for acorn. We also have established the categories that are used so often in these arguments: membership in this group is open to…restricted to…Even, it must be said, in scientific taxonomies.
Which is not to say that science and its system of classifications is useless…but in some respect, at the boundaries of inclusion/exclusion there is a level of arbitrariness and/or choice.
Which is all leading me to my point that I think most pro-choice arguments at this level are just trying to find some way, any way, to shore up the *real* desired argument: that the personhood of a dependent being can be defined by the person who is being depended on. That relieves us of a whole host of human responsibilities.
Clinton, great job. i hope Seidensticker sticks it to you with another response so i can hope for yet another Clintonesc rebuttal. 🙂
Thanks, Drew. 🙂 I don't mind if Seidensticker responds, I just hope he's more honest with his response and actually responds to my points rather than just accusing me of sidestepping and misrepresenting them.
All of this is irrelevant to one's status as a person, and I don't know a
single pro-choice philosopher who argues that human features make one a
person, especially since they all agree that there are probably
non-human persons.
Is this a reference to alien life?
I find this to be a very odd exchange (see below). I guess this is what happens when there is a lack of "good will" (for lack of a better term):
Clintron wrote on 1/22:
First, I'd just like to take a moment to say that it's refreshing to find a pro-choice blogger who actually attempts to make a logical argument for his position, rather than the rhetoric, demonizing of
pro-life people, and just all around fallacious and otherwise bad arguments which are the normal fare on Patheos, as well as other pro-choice sites like RH Reality Check and Jezebel. So kudos for that.
Seems like an attempt at a compliment. (A slightly backhanded one, though, insofar as Clinton contrasts what Bob wrote with the "normal fare" of fallacious and bad arguments at Patheos. But whatever–it seems like an honest attempt to say Bob wrote something worth responding to.)
Bob wrote in response on 1/24:
Wilcox begins by praising the argument as having substance rather than simply demonizing pro-life advocates, so we’re off to a good start.
This seems like an accurate summary of what he wrote. Am I missing something? Would a more accurate summary have (had to have) been "Wilcox begins by praising the argument as an attempt at substance rather than simply demonizing pro-life advocates, so we're off to a good start."
Finally, Clinton writes above:
Seidensticker begins by misrepresenting my words already. I wasn't praising the article for its "substance," I was thanking Seidensticker
for making an argument rather than simply demonizing pro-life people. I don't think there's much substance to the argument at all.
This disagreement seems to turn on whether "having substance" means you are commenting on the quality of the response. It seems like Bob's use of "having substance" meant "just not a simple demonizing–and not a reflection on the quality of the response." Clinton took it to mean "having a quality response."
Eh, those are just some initial thoughts. And I've grown bored with this–as it strikes me as silly (and I have better things to do right now anyway). Maybe I'll come back to it.
Its interesting to me how much it matters for these "justifications" for (or against) abortion rights depend on whether you see abortion as a conflict of rights ("balancing") or whether you think (on either side) that there is only one (proper) interest at stake ("either/or"). What is interesting, at least to me, is how these arguments (e.g., the personal autonomy and spectrum arguments) seem to cut toward increased restrictions on abortion access much earlier in pregnancy if you think of abortion as a question of balancing rather than a question of either/or. That is, of course, if the arguments are actually sound.
Take the personal autonomy argument. PLs argue that women don't really have an legitimate autonomy interest here (either because of prior consent or hierarchy of interests/rights arguments). PCs argue that they do and, therefore, that settles the matter (either implicitly or explicitly stating that fetuses don't have rights or interests, or because of a hierarchy of interests/rights arguments).
But if you look at abortion through the balancing lens (instead of either either/or lens) it seems that the autonomy argument actually cuts both ways.
For chemical abortions, the woman takes a pill that affects her body which results in the fetus not being able to stay attached to her uterus. It seems here that the pro-choice slogan– her body, her choice at least ostensibly applies.
Now take a D/X procedure. Here it seems to me that the personal autonomy argument is, at best, a non-sequitor for the pro-choice position. Actually, it seems to me that the personal autonomy argument cuts for the pro-life position in that case because, quite clearly, we are talking about actions done to the fetus, not to the woman's uterine lining.
The spectrum argument appears to follow the same viewpoint dependent path. If its either/or, then, at least for most abortions currently performed, it appears that the spectrum argument (if true, of course) helps the pro-choice side, and, since its an either/or position, that ends the matter. Or at least it ends the matter until the fetus has all the necessary characteristics associated with personhood. But that seems counter-intuitive to me in at least one salient way.
Starting from the balancing perspective, it seems that at some point (and MUCH earlier than PCs using the argument think) it actually cuts the opposite way in that the woman, by consenting (i.e., voluntary and active choice) to let the pregnancy continue and DEVELOP, are responsible for those developments, using the PC definition of consent, with regards to the consent underpins responsibility argument.
So the argument that consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy is again a non-sequitor. Rather, every day she lets the pregnancy continue, she is responsible for the fetus's development, each change is a change that, in a very real way, she is responsible for. The question then becomes at what point does the fetus's development, which the mother is responsible for, result in a duty to continue.
Notice, here, that the rape/consent problem no longer exists– because the duty is not grounded in consent to sex, but in the development of the fetus and the woman's active participation thereof.
Which leads me to wonder, what is the value in taking the either/or starting point? What is the goal? And what is the best way to achieve it? Why?
Well, possibly alien life, but in the realm of what we know for sure, most, if not all, pro-choice philosophers believe that certain higher functioning animals, like apes and dolphins, qualify as persons. According to Seidensticker's criteria, then dolphins certainly wouldn't qualify, and apes would only qualify depending on how broadly Seidensticker would define "human qualities."
It's just as well. No one is forcing you to read if you have better things to do. I certainly wouldn't want to keep you from anything that deserves your time off-line. It's possible that I misconstrued Seidensticker's words, and if that's true, then I would amend those words. But you've actually focused on one of the least important parts of the article and extrapolated from that that the entire article is not worth reading. That's not really a fair assessment of the article.
But you've actually focused on one of the least important parts of the
article and extrapolated from that that the entire article is not worth
reading. That's not really a fair assessment of the article.
No, you're right. I was just focused on the least important part, and trying to understand it (It seemed manageable).
I recognized that, which is what I was referring to when I said "this whole thing strikes me as silly."–I can see now how that comment wasn't clear. The comment wasn't talking about the article as a whole, the comment was directed at this (small) back and forth.
Ok. Thanks.
Great response. And thanks for the shout-out! As for whatever reply Bob may make, I await with high hopes but low expectations.
Thanks, Calvin! I figured one good turn deserves another. Besides, you did bring up a point that I didn't originally that I thought was important to add. 🙂