Monday, February 16, 2015

Graduality, rights and dualism

  1. If dualism is false, the emergence of a human person is a gradual process.
  2. If the emergence of a human person is a gradual process, the coming into existence of all human rights is a gradual process.
  3. If the coming into existence of a human right is a graduate process, then that right comes in a continuum of degrees from zero to fullness.
  4. All human rights come into existence.
  5. There are human rights that do not come in a continuum of degrees from zero to fullness.
  6. So, dualism is true.
Here, I think of a right as a source (ground?) of moral restrictions on others' activities. The coming into existence of a right is the coming into existence of a source of restrictions. The intuition behind (2) is that as a human person emerges (either as a new entity, or as a human non-person comes to be a person, depending on the particulars of the view), the source of the rights comes into being in lock-step.

The best way to argue for (5) is by way of example. For instance, as the right not to be killed solely for the convenience of others is not something that comes in degrees from zero to fullness.

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4 comments:

  1. Michael GonzalezFebruary 17, 2015 at 6:59 AM

    I hate to be contrary, but I don't think (1) is necessarily true. There could be non-dualist views that ascribe total personhood to all humans (from zygote onward).

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  2. Alexander R PrussFebruary 17, 2015 at 7:23 AM

    Won't the joining of sperm and egg be gradual?

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  3. Michael GonzalezFebruary 17, 2015 at 2:41 PM

    Surely the dualist believes that a soul is assigned at some specific point in that process, right? The non-dualist could ascribe personhood at that same point, no?

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  4. Alexander R PrussFebruary 17, 2015 at 4:03 PM

    The ensoulment point could be fairly arbitrary. It could even be random within some range. It need not correspond to any significant change in the biological stuff.

    ReplyDelete