How could a human individual not be a human person?

[BoyGenius]

Dismantling something to it’s parts doesn’t neglect there was one whole body, which it inclusively held to the same DNA structure. To take a heart from someone, say who passed away, but could be used for another person, doesn’t deny the fact the heart came from another body within it’s own DNA code.

You are also walking down a steep incline of ethics. DNA is for finding one’s ancestry, and for the benefit of law to seek out and identify criminals, and find missing/exploited children. When you dismember parts from the entire DNA analysis of the whole, you really weigh heavily for license of murder, and other crimes.

So for example, some man kidnaps and rapes a child. Then kills the child.

Prosecution weighs quite much on DNA. But the courts who rule on the process of undermining the human life form in the mother’s womb, will now create ambiguity for prosecution to utilize DNA evidence. For if we say that the man’s DNA wasn’t himself that came upon the victim. Thus, the DNA structure cannot be met out to the entire whole of the individual, therefore he is not guilty. Because his DNA isn’t really his. No person-hood attachment necessarily to DNA (i.e. which they are born with since conception.) Because you can just dismember/dismantle some subsequent part, and say it does not align with a person. Since it can stand alone without him.

That’s an intrepid slope of dangerous argument and reasoning. And from that, I’d have to disagree. You can go down that road if you want. It’s your own free will. But for me, I am not going down that way.

 

[DanielJohn2300]

The fact that the heart can be transplanted from one person to another proves that the heart cannot be the organ that houses the soul. The organ that houses the soul can be none other than the brain, and it houses the soul for as long as its cells are undergoing cellular respiration.

 

[JimG]

The brain does not “house the soul.” The brain is the organ which integrates the human sensory system. But the soul animates the entire body. It cannot be said to be localized to a particular organ.

On a side note, the fact that the heart can remain alive while being transferred to someone else’s body means that the person from whom it was taken was not yet dead.

 

[DanielJohn2300]

Well, all I know is that you could replace every organ of a person’s body except for the brain, and the same soul would still be animating that body. So, if it’s not accurate to say that the brain is the organ that houses the soul, then certainly it seems accurate to say that the brain is the organ that the soul stays with.

 

[Benadam]

So “removing personhood” and “achieving personhood” are not univocal scenarios.

I understand that. Consider a human body once organized to receive a rational soul but lost the organization proper to a rational soul, yet still animated by a rational soul is my point. Suppose a baby was born with only a brain stem. Would the baby have a rational soul according to DH? Since the body didn’t develop the organization necessary for a rational soul? Wouldn’t the baby have only recieved a vegetative or animative soul according to DH?

 

[BlackFriar]

I dont know. It seems to be debated.
Does it matter, the Church doesn’t allow abortion in any case for the usual reasons.

 

[Benadam]

I’'m exploring DH with my question not so much abortion… Frankly I don’t agree that the body doesn’t have the organization necessary until two weeks. For instance, if the zygote wasn’t animated by a rational soul it couldn’t determine it’s own growth from the beginning. A plant soul would only be the principle of life for a plant. imo

 

[Benadam]

I’m thinking DH is correct for souls produced by earthly processes but not for souls created by God.

 

[o_mlly]

Is this heart alive? It certainly is from a biological perspective, and it never “died”, but does it have a soul in the philosophical sense of being alive? If it is alive, what type of soul animates it?

The video does not tell us the state of the donor at the time the organ harvesting team took control.

If the donor’s unaided heart continued to function (which seems to be the point of the clip) then should not arrest warrants be issued? Surely the donor was not dead. If one uses normal senses and determines without the benefit of machinery a beating heart, respiring lungs, and warm skin then that data must trump any brain wave recording machine’s null output.

That important issue aside, does extracting the donor’s heart kill the donor, i.e. does the soul depart the body? Absent the heart, the body loses its vitality as cells are not repaired or replaced. The body can no longer effect the animations of the soul and the death occurs. The soul departs.

Does the departing soul remain in this donor’s beating heart? I think not. If all the plugs were pulled on the beating heart would it continue to beat? Or would it, like the rest of the donor’s body, die. I think the latter is true. If not a soul then what animates a heart that continues to beat outside a body? I think that heart is similar to a running automobile which requires extrinsic sources to maintain its motion.

I understand a dead heart or any other dead organ is of no use to the harvesting team. The brain-dead protocol was developed by a team of Harvard physicians to enable the extraction of living organs for transplant. Given this report, I think this protocol in dire need of review.

 

[BlackFriar]

Does the departing soul remain in this donor’s beating heart?

I find it disturbing that our theology of ensoulment is such that we would even contemplate this question. The heart is clearly still living tissue. It is human, it is alive, but it isn’t fully human (just as a skin cell, a soul or a gamete or an ear sown onto a rat isn’t fully human).

If it were kept alive and beating in a lab with a blood supply (as opposed to in another human for the next 20 years) the issue is still the same.

Fairly clearly we are speaking of a human, material “vegetative” level of "soul ".

Does this contradict traditional soul theology? I don’t see why.
The view that the human body is a hierarchy of many subordinated souls at different levels was not widely accepted in medieval times, though a minor tradition exists (Duns Scotus I believe).
Aquinas held there can logically be only one single form (soul) for a body which takes over from any preceding lesser “souls” and supplies a single unity in the composite.

However when that immortal form disappears there is no reason why the underlying matter cannot self organise into disparate independent sub forms of a material nature ensuring that some abiding sub-systems remain animated. This afterall is pretty much just the reverse of the principle of delayed hominization and increasing complexity of animation that Aquinas holds to.

Or perhaps this reveals that the ancient science of “soul talk”, which used to well service Christian theology, is no longer helpful given modern scientific discoveries re “life”. Just as the old science of hell literally being beneath the earth and the Gods in outer space has been discarded since the 1300s.

In many ways “soul talk” is just a parallel universe re medical issues that doesn’t actually contribute objectively to anything. It is simply one vehicle (of a number) for attempting to objectively harmonise ethical concerns with new medical practises. It doesn’t work well these days.

In the end it doesn’t matter. The Church has an ethics here that is in fact not reliant on alleged objective science of either soul or of medicine. Abortion of conceived human life at any stage has always been considered a grave evil. The only impact that soul talk has ever had in this regard is over determining degrees of civil penalty for abortion, and the treatment of spontaneous abortions re the practise of baptism.

The emphasis of the US Catholic pro Life movement on trying to objectively and “scientifically” prove that a human person actually exists from the moment of conception and that this is the basis for its legal rights … in then misguided … for it demonstrates an ethical approach based on alleged scientific fact - which the Church has never wedded itself to throughout history.

 

[o_mlly]

If it were kept alive and beating in a lab with a blood supply (as opposed to in another human for the next 20 years) the issue is still the same.

Fairly clearly we are speaking of a human, material “vegetative” level of "soul "

I think rather we are more likely speaking of prolonging the death event of a rational soul. It is unclear whether this heart is “living” in any meaningful way. It appears that the “box” does more than merely contain the organ. The article below (unlike the snippet) credits the beating to the box, not the heart. A dead person on life support mechanisms exhibits similar living properties.

'Beating Heart in a Box' Promises Major Revolution in Medical Care

The Organ Care System — the so-called “beating heart in a box” — works by pumping a donor organ with warm, oxygenated, and nutrient-enriched blood.

It is simply one vehicle (of a number) for attempting to objectively harmonise ethical concerns with new medical practises. It doesn’t work well these days.

In the end it doesn’t matter.

It matters to the unconscious donor.

 

[BlackFriar]

I think rather we are more likely speaking of prolonging the death event of a rational soul

Yes, birth does the same .

 

[Annie]

I am wondering if part of the problem might not be that earlier in the thread the phrase “human life” was used interchangeably with “a human life”? So. A skin cell from a human being may (possibly) be called human life as long as it survives, but a human life would be an entire human individual.

In fact, I wonder if we may not be running into a problem of thingness and categorization? Part of Aquinas’s consideration would have the function of the thing he was considering, and its type, by which I mean he would have said, what type of thing is this?

So, what type of thing is this newly conceived group of cells? What is its function? Is it to be a part of something, like skin cells? Or is it to become a thing-in-itself? And what type of thing is it? Unhatched sea turtles are well-known as sea turtles, members of an endangered species and therefore subject to protection, unlike the baby humans. What shall we say about the zygote? Is it human? Does it exist to become something in itself, or is it just a part of something else? Is it alive? Is it doing what other like things do?

Due to scientific advances unhearded of in Aquinas’s time, we can see the issue much more clearly (no pun intended). We know the newly-conceived human being is separate from its mother. In fact, even at this point, we know it has a sex which may differ from that of its mother.

As to disagreeing with Aquinas based on more recent scientific understandings, that certainly seems reasonable. Even from a philosophical or theological standpoint, Aquinas did not believe in the Immaculate Conception, which at the time was theory, not dogma. It would have been very difficult for Aquinas to take into account certain physical realities which were unknown at the time.

 

[Ghosty1981]

The video does not tell us the state of the donor at the time the organ harvesting team took control.

The video doesn’t state the status of this particular donor, but they would have been dead either by “brain” death or “circulatory” death. Until the development of this technology hearts were transplanted from “brain” dead donors, meaning people that had no discernable activity from the brain stem “up”. These people require ventilators in order to respire, but their organs (including the heart) continue to function so long as nutrients are supplied. Up to now “brain” death is irreversible. “Circulatory” death is the cessation of the heart beat, and this can be reversed through the use of medications and electrical shocks.

Historically heart donation occurs while it is still functioning after “brain” death. The body is cooled so that the metabolic activity of the heart almost ceases, and then the heart is cut out and quickly transplanted to another body where it is warmed up and stiched in. For this to work the heart itself can never die, though it may cease moving when cooled down.

The Church doesn’t officially endorse either method for determining death, but doesn’t condemn the removal of organs from “brain dead” donors.

If all the plugs were pulled on the beating heart would it continue to beat?

The heart would continue to beat so long as it was supplied with nutrients and oxygenated blood. It would first use up its own oxygen stores, then operate for a time without oxygen, and finally stop functioning when it used up its nutrients. The heart beat is self-regulated to a large extent, as is the metabolic activity of the cells in the rest of the body. The nervous and endocrine systems regulate the organs to some degree, but the tissues themselves largely do their own thing, metabolizing and respiring the nutrients supplied to them and performing their specific activities.

What this means is that when someone dies they don’t die as a single unit, or rather their tissues don’t die as a single unit. We die piece by piece, with some parts continuing to carry out their life functions long after other parts have literally begun to rot away. The “brain” dead cadaver can have a healthy heart and lungs with literally no brain tissue inside the skull.

As for the heart in the video, it is beating on its own power. There is a small pump that ensures perfusion of oxygenated blood into arteries that feed the heart itself, but there is no mechanical nor electrical stimulation of the heart to keep it active. They want to be able to observe the health of the heart on its own to ensure suitability for transplant. The heart actually has to be sedated when it is put into the recipient.

 

[BlackFriar]

It matters to the unconscious donor.

???
Try and understand what I am actually saying.
Yes it may take a little reading effort .

I was saying the Church does not need to use philosophy of soul to justify its very strong opposition to abortion at all stages of pregnancy…or euthanasia etc.

 

[BlackFriar]

I am wondering if part of the problem might not be that earlier in the thread the phrase “human life” was used interchangeably with “a human life”? So a skin cell from a human being may (possibly) be called human life as long as it survives, but a human life would be an entire human individual.

Yes, I think that’s an astute observation…and a matter of philosophy not science nor of mere “symantics”.

My own view high above was that any living substance that is generated by a human being must be called “human life”. For if we don’t then what are we to call sperm or ova? Sperm aren’t frog tadpoles, nor are ova frog eggs. They are definitely human. And they are definitely alive.

The issue then must be that there are many different types of “human life”.
And if they aren’t irreversible, individual human “persons” … then they are all in some way incomplete.

And they are incomplete forms of “human life” in different ways. Gametes are only haploid re DNA. Skin cells are full DNA but without any intrinsic “baby potentiality” like a zygote clearly has.
A zygote is so unformed as to strongly suggest an immortal human soul was not present according to mainstream Church assumptions for 1700 years. A brain dead elderly person or a car accident victim are incomplete in another way. A disembodied soul in heaven is incomplete human life in yet another way, as is a heart in a box or an ear sown onto a rat.

“Human life” is surely present in all the above.
But not all examples are “human persons” nor “human individuals”.

That seems obvious to me, but apparently not to others here.
Part of the problem is that many are uncritically wedded to the concept of “DNA” (full DNA) as some sort of science based silver bullet answer this philosophic problem.

In short they see this as a “solved” problem of modern science rather than a problem of philosophy which few are willing to discuss.

You at least seem to have tweaked to the philosophical issue.

The issue always resolves around what we mean by “potentiality” and “actuality”.
And there are clearly different types of potentiality.
Aquinas’s understanding of these terms is very deep and complicated.
As anybody who has even briefly attempted to study “hylomorphism”, “substantial versus accidental change”, “act versus potency” and “essence versus existence” will appreciate.

CONTINUED…

 

[BlackFriar]

FROM ABOVE…

Unhatched sea turtles are well-known as sea turtles, members of an endangered species and therefore subject to protection, unlike the baby humans. What shall we say about the zygote? Is it human?

Well the Magisterium is clear on this point. It doesn’t philosophically care if the zygote is a “human person” (or “human life” for that matter) or not. It must be treated with full human rights from the moment of conception. Uterine tumours, skin cells, sperm, ova, ears on rats or heart in the box not so much.

As to disagreeing with Aquinas based on more recent scientific understandings, that certainly seems reasonable… It would have been very difficult for Aquinas to take into account certain physical realities which were unknown at the time.

This approach to discounting Aquinas (eg Finnis) in the 1970s has been commonplace. It is regarded by actual Thomists as a grossly simplistic approach.

It would probably be just as easy to overthrow our Catholic obsession with Greek soul philosophy.
The Church is not really wedded to that either. Afterall we have already dropped the same ancient science/philosophy which gave us hell beneath the earth, gods in outer space and geo-centrism.

 

[BoyGenius]

When the DNA structure, which is encoded, begins at the point of Conception, it takes on another process, that no other process does. And that is creating a whole new life. Now, we know further, that, that child. Born the offspring of both parents, is a human child. Not any other form of creature/animal/species. And certainly not a sub-part of a woman/her body. For the new generation of DNA, and the whole body/structure of cell’s is for a living human child to exist. As it does, and is. That’s the Pro-Creative view of the human child; life which begins from Conception through all it’s stages. When we stop this, by interrupting this human being/this human child from existence. We then must kill the life of the child. As this is the child’s root case of existence. So the child’s life is not some part of a greater cluster of skin cells on the whole; not a subpart. But a whole new human addition, pro-created into life. And that we reason, because going through it as many women know (hence their planning and greeting the life that is incumbent and growing inside their uterus, is waited an infant, a child.) That is why baby showers are thrown. So the child is not some part of a cluster of cells. It is a whole new human life, of another person.

We reason, that at each stage of Trimester, the signs of eyes and ears, nose, and other parts/organs that grow, coinciding with their DNA structure, on the whole. It’s a whole new human being. And from there, we know it exists. And a human being will grow. We know a human because of a classification of characteristics we share, that no another creature shares with us: speech/reason/words/language/art/love/romance, etc. Assuredly people have tried to demonstrate this with the animal kingdom. Where we believe certain mating rituals we inherit and apart of the animal kingdom. But, we would have to concur copulation as apart of those rituals. And no longer extend that something as rape is wrong. We’d also have to engender that sexual infidelity is not wrong. But it is. So there’s another characteristic we have,a conscience, a soul. When then deduce from that, the capability of a human life form, to grow and develop under certain knowledge, must be infused with this: conscience/intelligence & everything under the sun that is human apart from the animals. We then posit with all those things a human baby will develop and grow into a mature child, with reason. And hence why a human child is a human person.

Free-will and choice comes to that child to grow, understand, and to reason. And those characteristics and traits are understood from a brain that works quite differently than any other animal’s. The hands, a child when older, writes love letters. Animal’s do not. A boy see’s a girl, and says, “Beautiful.” Animal’s do not. So the eyes and hands, and brain all are signs of the DNA structure working there, from the time of conception, indicating all these attributes/qualities the person has in order to do all things human, as a person/soul/individual. And hence with right reason, you can assuredly see/tell it’s a human person there meant to grow, understand in love and knowledge, wherefore other creatures do not.

 

[o_mlly]

The video doesn’t state the status of this particular donor, but they would have been dead either by “brain” death or “circulatory” death. Until the development of this technology hearts were transplanted from “brain” dead donors, meaning people that had no discernable activity from the brain stem “up”. These people require ventilators in order to respire, but their organs (including the heart) continue to function so long as nutrients are supplied. Up to now “brain” death is irreversible. “Circulatory” death is the cessation of the heart beat, and this can be reversed through the use of medications and electrical shocks.

Historically heart donation occurs while it is still functioning after “brain” death. The body is cooled so that the metabolic activity of the heart almost ceases, and then the heart is cut out and quickly transplanted to another body where it is warmed up and stiched in. For this to work the heart itself can never die, though it may cease moving when cooled down.

The Church doesn’t officially endorse either method for determining death, but doesn’t condemn the removal of organs from “brain dead” donors.

The Church teaches that death occurs when the soul separates from the body. “When” is a temporal event and, as with ensoulment, the Church does not teach the science of exacting that moment. However, she does teach that until that moment as determined by science, the ordinary care of a human person is a moral obligation.

The reliability of the evidence that the use of the “brain dead” protocol to infer death is under question by the scientific community. Evidence that brain death, the irreversible loss of function of the brain and brain stem, renders a person incapable of bodily integrity has been proven wrong in the case of TK.

TK’s autopsy revealed he maintained bodily integrity. He had a healthy, efficient immune. Even though TK was brain dead, he was able to carefully regulate the magnitude of his immune system’s response to infection and disease. In the course of his 20 years on a ventilator, he had the normal number of infections which his body managed to fend off.

A philosophical assessment of TK's autopsy report: Implications for the debate over the brain death criteria - PubMed

Opponents of brain death prefer circulatory death, the irreversible loss of function of the heart and lungs, as the protocol to determine that the soul has left the body. As you mention, electric and chemical shock can restart a patient’s circulatory system. Therefore, the time required to observe that a patient is no longer capable of a spontaneous restart renders the harvesting of their organs problematic.

Nevertheless, just as we must prudently infer the dignity of a human person from conception, we must also not prematurely infer their death in order to harvest their organs. A body harvested of its organs is dead, as I believe, are all the organs harvested, including a heart beating in a box. If the person is alive when the harvesting team takes control then the harvesting procedure itself becomes the cause of death.

 

[SugarMagnolia]

How could a human individual not be a human person?

“Human” is a biological concept and “person” is a philosophical concept.
The question that is so often debated is: Is a human always a person?
And the question most often is directed at humans at the very beginning and very ending of their lives.