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Brain Life and the Argument from Potential: Affirming the Ontological Status of Human Embryos and Fetuses

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Persons, Moral Worth, and Embryos

Part of the book series: Philosophy and Medicine ((CSBE,volume 111))

Abstract

The moral status of human embryos and fetuses is one of the most vexed questions in bioethics and various responses often stand or fall on the answer to the question of the ontological status of such entities: whether they count as “persons,” “potential persons,” or merely “human biological material.” The “argument from potential” is intended to support the claim that embryos and fetuses, while not yet persons, are more than mere biological material insofar as there is a high degree of probability that they will develop into persons. A stronger foundation for contending that embryos and fetuses bear the same basic right to life as persons is to establish that such entities are not potential, but actual persons due to their intrinsic potentiality to develop themselves into beings who can engage in those activities definitive of personhood. In addition to critiquing the argument from potential, those who deny that embryos and early-term fetuses count as persons charge that those who understand “whole-brain death” to be necessary and sufficient for a human person to go out of existence inconsistently deny a symmetrical criterion of “brain life” to mark the beginning of a person’s existence. We respond to this charge of inconsistency while further arguing that embryos and fetuses possess the ontological and moral status of persons due to their intrinsic potentiality to develop a brain supportive of self-conscious rational thought.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Michael Burke, Russell DiSilvestro, David Hershenov, Al Howsepian, Christopher Kaczor, Christopher Tollefsen, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. A version of this paper was delivered at the 20th University Faculty for Life Conference at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., June 2010.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Jason T. Eberl

  2. Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Brandon P. Brown

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Correspondence to Jason T. Eberl .

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  1. National Catholic Bioethics Center, 6399 Drexel Rd, Philadelphia, 19151, USA

    Stephen Napier

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Eberl, J.T., Brown, B.P. (2011). Brain Life and the Argument from Potential: Affirming the Ontological Status of Human Embryos and Fetuses. In: Napier, S. (eds) Persons, Moral Worth, and Embryos. Philosophy and Medicine(), vol 111. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1602-5_3

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