What constitutes a human being?

[Syntax]

What’s unique about the human animal?

What do you mean by the potential for rational thought? Anencephalic babies have no potential for rational thought.

which is how long? how do we ascertain that the soul has departed? does EEG tell us? CT scan? vital signs?

Considering you are a declared Christian, I am just wondering what your goal is here. Too many responses to your questions come up short indeed, but what’s your own view on the matter? So far you’ve merely questioned everyone else’s view without offering any constructive solutions of your own. Any competent 6-year-old can ask the same questions you’re asking.

 

[Doc_Keele]

You mean, “what is the difference between a human animal and a human person”?
None, according to Aquinas. When the soul departs from the body, the body is no longer a human body, but just dead matter

When does the soul depart from the body?

I don’t see how this is logically problematic. There are various possibilities. Two souls can occupy the same numerically identical tissue. Two souls can occupy two different overlapping structural organizations of the physical matter. Or perhaps both twins have a head, but only one of them has the actual body

You’ll see shortly why it’s problematic

Whether or not the soul has left the body might be difficult to determine, but that won’t change the metaphysics of the human person being a hylomorphic composite of body and soul (in Aquinas’ terms).

Try impossible to determine? I don’t know anyone who can determine when the soul has left the body, do you? Apart from God that is?
If someone chops my head off, and a well-meaning person resuscitates my headless body - would a Catholic hospital be obliged to keep my headless body alive?
If someone blew my cerebral hemispheres off with a gun, would a Catholic hospital be obliged to use all measures possible to keep me alive?

 

[Syntax]

Doc Keele,

Considering you are a declared Christian, I am just wondering what your goal is here. Too many responses to your questions come up short indeed, but what’s your own view on the matter? So far you’ve merely questioned everyone else’s view without offering any constructive solutions of your own. Any competent 6-year-old can ask the same questions you’re asking.

And above all, how are these issues any more problematic for a Catholic than anyone else such as yourself?

 

[Abu]

A human being starts with the zygote to the embryo – a living human being, a distinct, self-integrating organism internally directing its own growth and already possessing the active capacity to develop itself to further stages of maturity of its own kind retaining intact its distinctiveness and identity, as its DNA shows — the same DNA sequence that he or she will have in every cell of his or her fully developed body — this is what science has confirmed. This development is from the embryo to the foetus, infant, child and adolescent. You or I are the same being that was once an adolescent, and before that a toddler, an infant, a foetus and an embryo. To have destroyed the being at any of these stages would have destroyed you or me.

We, as conscious and desiring agents, do not “have” organisms that we possess and use; we are rational organisms. The persons we are come into being precisely as and when the organisms we are come into being. We are essentially human, physical organisms — not some mere consciousness living in and using a human body — so all human beings are “persons” whose rights deserve respect and protection: embryonic human beings, retarded human beings, frail, deranged and dying human beings.
[See Princeton Professor Robert P George’s *The Clash of Orthodoxies, ISI Books, 2001].

The mind or intellect produces ideas such as being, goodness, truth, beauty, virtue, honour, ambition, justice, wisdom – these ideas are beyond the grasp of any bodily sense organ. They require a spiritual power to comprehend them. This power is present in a spiritual substance which we call the human soul, present at the moment of conception.

 

[Doc_Keele]

Doc Keele,

Considering you are a declared Christian, I am just wondering what your goal is here. Too many responses to your questions come up short indeed, but what’s your own view on the matter? So far you’ve merely questioned everyone else’s view without offering any constructive solutions of your own. Any competent 6-year-old can ask the same questions you’re asking.

And above all, how are these issues any more problematic for a Catholic than anyone else such as yourself?

I’ll think you’ll find my argumentative technique is rather more sophisticated than a 6 year old’s. I am trying to draw out people’s intuitions on what constitutes a human being.

My own view is that without certain functions such as consciousness (in the more technical sense rather than “being awake”), higher cortical functions etc that a human animal ceases to be a human being as is commonly understood. Hence why it is perfectly legitimate IMO to withdraw feeding and hydration from someone who is in a persistent vegetative state.

 

[o_mlly]

…Do you agree with my distinction above between human tissue and a human being? Even a heart inside of a body is not a human being, but it is (most certainly) human tissue.

Only if the body is alive. The heart inside a living human being is being human – functioning according to its animating principle.

Sally’s foot is human tissue and sally is a human being. What makes it human tissue is that it belongs to (or once belonged to) a human being. What makes someone a human being is that they have all of the right human tissue, that is genetically independent and ordered towards rationality, whether or not that rationality exists or is ever realized.

To be a human being is not necessary to have all the right human tissue; it is only necessary to be living.

Biologists have been maintaining immortal cell lines since the 1950’s (smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Henrietta-Lacks-Immortal-Cells.html). It doesn’t matter if it’s currently biologically possible, anyway. What matters (in philosophical discourse) is whether it’s metaphysically possible. …

Thank you for the reference. I had hoped for a reference on normal human heart beating outside its host and replicating its cells.

It seems the HeLa scientists have already gone metaphysical with the mutated HeLa cell claiming immortality when the evidence is merely durability. However, the HeLa cells can only endure if cultured. (See below.) Once man manipulates tissue to change nature’s outcome, we can no longer call that outcome evidence of natural laws in operation. HeLa cells are not, therefore, living human tissue as the natural animating principle for cell division and replication is no longer present but rather artificially simulated.

Recall what I posted: “All living human tissue is a human, literally being. At death, non-human being occurs for the body; spiritual being continues.” I went metaphysical long ago.

But even our metaphsics must be grounded on the physical, the observable phenomena upon which we abstract. Without concepts from reality, we cannot make meaningful judgements, without meaningful judgements, there can be no understanding.

The key word in my determination of human being has and continues to be “living.” Tissue is tissue whether it is alive or dead. Non-living tissue, a corpse, is not a human being. All non-living tissue is not constitutive of a human being. All living human tissue is by defintion animated by its natural principle – the human soul – and is constitutive of a human being. A living human heart beating inside a living human is being a living human heart.

“HeLa cells are termed “immortal” in that they can divide an unlimited number of times in a laboratory cell culture plate as long as fundamental cell survival conditions are met (i.e. being maintained and sustained in a suitable environment).”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa

 

[o_mlly]

What’s unique about the human animal?

Rational soul.

What do you mean by the potential for rational thought? Anencephalic babies have no potential for rational thought.

An intellect capable of both perceptual and conceptual thought.
Anencephalic babies’ apparent lack of cognitive function is not conclusive that they lack cognitive function.

which is how long? how do we ascertain that the soul has departed? does EEG tell us? CT scan? vital signs?

Good question. No certainty of which I’m aware, to wit: “In the United States it has been clearly stated that the concept of death is the loss of integrative unity of the organism as a whole. … But previous reports have shown that loss of whole brain function is not necessarily followed by loss of integrative unity of the organism.”
goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-7362654/The-neurological-determination-of-death.html

 

[Doc_Keele]

Rational soul

Well the presence or absence of a soul is unknowable, and it’s not just humans who are rational.

An intellect capable of both perceptual and conceptual thought.
Anencephalic babies’ apparent lack of cognitive function is not conclusive that they lack cognitive function

You think an anencephalic baby has cognitive function? Could you tell me why you think this?

Good question. No certainty of which I’m aware, to wit: “In the United States it has been clearly stated that the concept of death is the loss of integrative unity of the organism as a whole. … But previous reports have shown that loss of whole brain function is not necessarily followed by loss of integrative unity of the organism.”
goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-7362654/The-neurological-determination-of-death.html

So do you accept that the soul leaving the body cannot be used as a criterion? Brain stem death is accepted by nearly all major religions, and is certainly accepted by the Catholic church, as death.

 

[CatofAlexandria]

Only if the body is alive. The heart inside a living human being is being human – functioning according to its animating principle.

“Being human” and being a “human being” are not the same thing. In the first way it is used, “the heart is being human,” ‘being’ is a verb, it implies predication. Human is a quality that the heart has. In the second, “Sally is a human being,” ‘being’ is a noun, it implies existence, substance. So, you might agree, that Sally is a human being, and the heart inside Sally is “being human” – it’s human tissue. Human tissue is not the same as a human being, although one is derived from the other.

To be a human being is not necessary to have all the right human tissue; it is only necessary to be living.

Right. Notice I didn’t say what “all the right human tissue” is. I don’t know the answer to that. Then again, I don’t think anyone does! Thank you so much for this and for the description below, o_mlly. It seems that your definition of “alive,” as I intuited, is different from the biological definition (as it should be). In that case, the HeLa cells are alive in the biological sense, but not in the philosophical sense, which means animated by the soul and not through manipulation. I have no problem with that definition, and I would agree that all living human tissue in the aggregate is a human, literally being. I would not agree that any human tissue is a human being, but this is just a matter of categories, not great importance.

 

[Betterave]

So do you accept that the soul leaving the body cannot be used as a criterion? Brain stem death is accepted by nearly all major religions, and is certainly accepted by the Catholic church, as death.

Perhaps (do you have a reference?) - but this acceptance seems to have been based on scientific misinformation… unless you were the type who wanted to claim that PVS = ‘death.’ We could safely say the ‘cold, blue, and stiff’ rule is the real criterion for ‘dead’ - ‘death’ occurs some time before that point, but when ‘death’ has occurred, this means that the dead person has begun the process of turning ‘cold, blue, and stiff.’

content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/359/7/674?query=TOC:

Since its inception, organ transplantation has been guided by the overarching ethical requirement known as the dead donor rule, which simply states that patients must be declared dead before the removal of any vital organs for transplantation. Before the development of modern critical care, the diagnosis of death was relatively straightforward: patients were dead when they were cold, blue, and stiff…

The arguments about why these patients should be considered dead have never been fully convincing. The definition of brain death requires the complete absence of all functions of the entire brain, yet many of these patients retain essential neurologic function, such as the regulated secretion of hypothalamic hormones.2 Some have argued that these patients are dead because they are permanently unconscious (which is true), but if this is the justification, then patients in a permanent vegetative state, who breathe spontaneously, should also be diagnosed as dead, a characterization that most regard as implausible. Others have claimed that “brain-dead” patients are dead because their brain damage has led to the "permanent cessation of functioning of the organism as a whole."3 Yet evidence shows that if these patients are supported beyond the acute phase of their illness (which is rarely done), they can survive for many years.4 The uncomfortable conclusion to be drawn from this literature is that although it may be perfectly ethical to remove vital organs for transplantation from patients who satisfy the diagnostic criteria of brain death, the reason it is ethical cannot be that we are convinced they are really dead.

My own view is that without certain functions such as consciousness (**in the more technical sense **rather than “being awake”), higher cortical functions etc that a human animal ceases to be a human being as is commonly understood. Hence why it is perfectly legitimate IMO to withdraw feeding and hydration from someone who is in a persistent vegetative state.

…as commonly understood by whom?!? (Who commonly says things like, “I think we have here a human animal, and no longer a human being.”) In what “more technical” sense?

 

[Doc_Keele]

So Betterave, if someone blew my cerebral hemispheres out with a gun, you would think it the only morally acceptable course of action to resuscitate me and keep my body alive by all measures necessary?

 

[o_mlly]

Well the presence or absence of a soul is unknowable, and it’s not just humans who are rational.

I disagree. We can know the soul is present. Yes, the angels and our Maker are also rational beings.

You think an anencephalic baby has cognitive function? Could you tell me why you think this?

Can you tell me why you are certain they don’t? If doubt exists, do we not err in favor of “primum non nocere”?

So do you accept that the soul leaving the body cannot be used as a criterion? Brain stem death is accepted by nearly all major religions, and is certainly accepted by the Catholic church, as death.

Complete “brain death” is accepted; not just “brain stem death.”

“Brain death” refers to the medical judgment that a person is dead by using “neurological criteria”. Properly diagnosed, “brain death” refers to the complete cessation of all organized neurological activity throughout the entire brain, including the cerebrum, cerebellum, and brain stem. At this point, the body irrevocably ceases to function as a unified whole. The appropriate Phraseology here is “the determination of death using neurological criteria.”
ncbcenter.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=436#5

 

[Doc_Keele]

I disagree. We can know the soul is present. Yes, the angels and our Maker are also rational beings

Please tell me how we know this. I’m all ears.

Can you tell me why you are certain they don’t? If doubt exists, do we not err in favor of “primum non nocere”?

Where do you think higher cognitive functions arise from?

Complete “brain death” is accepted; not just “brain stem death.”

“Brain death” refers to the medical judgment that a person is dead by using “neurological criteria”. Properly diagnosed, “brain death” refers to the complete cessation of all organized neurological activity throughout the entire brain, including the cerebrum, cerebellum, and brain stem. At this point, the body irrevocably ceases to function as a unified whole. The appropriate Phraseology here is “the determination of death using neurological criteria.”
ncbcenter.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=436#5

That definition makes no sense whatsoever.
The Catholic Church accepts the concept of brain stem death.

 

[o_mlly]

So Betterave, if someone blew my cerebral hemispheres out with a gun, you would think it the only morally acceptable course of action to resuscitate me and keep my body alive by all measures necessary?

Dubois has
us consider a decapitated patient who arrives
in the emergency department. Miraculously,
the medical team succeeds in restoring cardio-
pulmonary functioning with intensive
life support. Is the decapitated patient a
human being? Intuitively, we should say no.
To say yes would reduce what it means to be
a human
being to a pitter-patter of disintegrated
biological sub-systems.

ncbcenter.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,1,9;journal,5,36;linkingpublicationresults,1:119988,1

 

[Syntax]

My own view is that without certain functions such as consciousness (in the more technical sense rather than “being awake”), higher cortical functions etc that a human animal ceases to be a human being as is commonly understood. Hence why it is perfectly legitimate IMO to withdraw feeding and hydration from someone who is in a persistent vegetative state.

Good. Now everyone knows where your are coming from. The philosophical enterprise of successfully drumming up necessary and sufficient conditions for **personal identity **everyone can agree upon is an incredibly complicated task as can be seen by the wealth of philosophical literature written on it–not to mention the fact that no matter what defintion you give (such as your own) you are going to be faced with counter arguments. So I am only pointing out you are facing the same set of problems no less than anyone else who proposes a defnition.

 

[Doc_Keele]

Good. Now everyone knows where your are coming from. The philosophical enterprise of successfully drumming up necessary and sufficient conditions for **personal identity **everyone can agree upon is an incredibly complicated task as can be seen by the wealth of philosophical literature written on it–not to mention the fact that no matter what defintion you give (such as your own) you are going to be faced with counter arguments. So I am only pointing out you are facing the same set of problems no less than anyone else who proposes a defnition.

Of course. Which is precisely why we’re having this discussion.
The initial difficulty is getting everyone or at least most people to accept that there is something to a human being over and above a body with vital signs.

 

[Doc_Keele]

Dubois has
us consider a decapitated patient who arrives
in the emergency department. Miraculously,
the medical team succeeds in restoring cardio-
pulmonary functioning with intensive
life support. Is the decapitated patient a
human being? Intuitively, we should say no.
To say yes would reduce what it means to be
a human
being to a pitter-patter of disintegrated
biological sub-systems.

ncbcenter.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,1,9;journal,5,36;linkingpublicationresults,1:119988,1

So a body without a brain is not a human being. Good, we’ve agreed that the simple presence of a circulation and functioning internal organs doesn’t constitute a human being.

 

[Syntax]

Of course. Which is precisely why we’re having this discussion.
The initial difficulty is getting everyone or at least most people to accept that there is something to a human being over and above a body with vital signs.

Then why didn’t you propose your own definition of personal identity from the start of this thread? It would have given people better direction so that they wouldn’t have to run all over the place trying to answer your borderline cases. Seems a little unfair to me that you get to take the back seat while targeting everyone’s responses one by one with counterexamples without offering your own definition of personal identity for consideration.

 

[Doc_Keele]

Then why didn’t you propose your own definition of personal identity from the start of this thread? It would have given people better direction so that they wouldn’t have to run all over the place trying to answer your borderline cases. Seems a little unfair to me that you get to take the back seat while targeting everyone’s responses one by one with counterexamples without offering your own definition of personal identity for consideration.

You’re missing the point.
I was trying to draw out intuition, as I said before.
Is there a problem with getting people to think?
“unfair” - didn’t realise it was a competiton? with rules?

 

[Syntax]

You’re missing the point.
I was trying to draw out intuition, as I said before.
Is there a problem with getting people to think?
“unfair” - didn’t realise it was a competiton? with rules?

Well what **is **the point of drawing out people’s intutions? Is the purpose to come to an eventual consensus, or is it to take pot-shots? You might be courteous in telling people what the goal is here. For instance, I still don’t know what your goal is myself, which is precisely why I will not engage with you.

Maybe you could offer your own views up for consideration so that people can see where you’re coming from and perhaps dispute your own position?

This strategy might actually draw out people’s intuitions quicker if that is truly your goal.

I might start with something like,

“A person A at time t1 is identical to a person B at time t2 if and only if…”

And then provide concrete cases why you think this definition is true.

I guarantee you will get more clearly articulated responses and counterarguments.

Just a suggestion.