tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post1423280549377367392..comments2024-03-28T19:56:42.305-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Teleological personhoodAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-90359483901860432432015-06-21T08:38:03.495-05:002015-06-21T08:38:03.495-05:00Mike Gorman sent me this powerful response and gav...Mike Gorman sent me this powerful response and gave me permission to post it:<br /><br />I've mostly been taking it for granted that persons are worthy of care. Obviously you're trying to dig behind that.<br /><br />What strikes me as odd about your proposal is that it isn't grounds for care simpliciter, or for a special kind of care--it's grounds for caring about humans more than about pandas. Suppose there were a race of Martians who had an even more exalted teleology than we do. Would it then make sense to kill humans to create pharmaceuticals for them? I think not. Humans aren't just more to-be-cared-for than pandas are; they are to-be-cared-for in some special sense that we gesture at with potentially misleading expressions like "of infinite value." E.g., you can't use them as medicine--even for Martians.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-27415463945186329832015-06-04T19:30:10.684-05:002015-06-04T19:30:10.684-05:00Maybe it is not possible to receive rational capac...Maybe it is not possible to receive rational capacities without also receiving the right kind of teleology? After all, rational capacities are to a significant degree teleological in their own right. For instance, a part of what makes a state S be a belief that p is that S has the teleological property of being such that it should only occur if p.<br /><br />Of course, this means that the teleologies need not be essential in the modal sense. I think that's actually correct. The Logos has human teleologies, but had the Incarnation not occurred, he wouldn't have had them. <br /><br />Moreover, this kind of contingent acquiring of teleologies is a good way to make sense of the idea that baptism confers on us a new nature.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-70843662940310646622015-06-04T17:05:25.125-05:002015-06-04T17:05:25.125-05:00As for (1), I suppose you could agree with Warren&...As for (1), I suppose you could agree with Warren's reasons in her account that these capacities are sufficient for having moral status but then insist that they are not necessary, for the reasons you gave for (2) and (3). That would allow the two kinds of cases in my first comment to fall under the same heading, because appealing to teleology, while sufficient for moral status, is not necessary for it. But if you want to have teleology at the root of all moral status, that isn't going to work. My worry is that it would be difficult to account for the Narnian creatures that way, though.Jeremy Piercehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03441308872350317672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-39711243283958535662015-06-04T17:01:27.225-05:002015-06-04T17:01:27.225-05:00It's worth saying something about non-actual b...It's worth saying something about non-actual beings who would fall under (1) but against their natural teleology, e.g. Narnian talking animals. It's certainly clear with the first talking animals that they were just ordinary animals given the gift of speech, and then their descendants continued to have it. I'm not sure if the later generations would best be described as having the teleology for it. Maybe so. Or does being given the gift by the creator automatically count as having the teleology, even if it's not naturally their teleology?<br /><br />In any case, it does seem as if these cases fall under (1), but I wonder if they should be listed as a separate category, with (1) rephrased to exclude them, since the issues seem very different for the two kinds of cases. One kind seems to have fulfilled its natural teleology, and the other seems at least plausibly construed as being given a teleology that isn't natural to its kind.Jeremy Piercehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03441308872350317672noreply@blogger.com