Does the Pro-Life Position Entail that All Humans Have Equal Moral Worth?

Well, if it does then the pro-life position is untenable. To illustrate why, consider the following pro-life assumptions.

(1) All humans are persons.
(2) All persons have a right to life and have moral worth.

Now, given that the zygote is human (a biological fact), it follows from (1) and (2) that zygotes are persons with a right to life and moral worth. Keeping this in mind, further suppose that

(3) All humans have equal moral worth.

Take two distinct humans, H and H*. H is a zygote and H* is a two year old and has the properties normally had by two year olds: consciousness, ability to feel pain, ability to have thoughts, etc. It follows from (3) that H and H* are equally morally worthy. But now consider this scenario. Suppose you are in a room with H and H*. A fire begins. It is plausible to suppose that you, being an adult, have a duty here. A duty to save them. But suppose you can save one person and only one person. Who will you save? Well, most will save H*. But the more interesting question is who ought you save? Well, if (3) is true it seems that there isn't a moral difference between saving H and allowing H* to die, for they are equally morally worthy. But it seems just obvious that we ought to save H* over H. Why? Well H* will feel a lot of pain if he isn't saved and pain is very bad. So this is a morally relevant fact that counts in favor of H* that doesn't count in favor of H. So, we can conclude that what one ought to do is to save H* such that saving H over H* would be wrong.

Why might one accept (3)? Well, here is one reason, and these thoughts are a result of an interaction I had with a friend of mine. He accepts the following:

(4) For all x, x has moral worth if and only if x is a person.

So on this view, a being's being a person is necessary and sufficient for its having moral worth. Since, given the pro-life position, the H and H* are both persons, and personhood is the only thing that grounds moral worth, it seems to follow that both have equal moral worth. So on this view a person is obligated to save H or H*, but there isn't a specific obligation to save H* over H. A person who saves H doesn't do anything wrong. Here is how my friend put it:

"If moral worth is based on personhood and personhood alone, then it follows that all humans have the same moral worth because [all humans] are persons."

On this view, accidental or contingent properties that persons have, like consciousness, thought, pain, etc., do not contribute at all to a person's moral worth. X is morally valuable only because X is a person. This is why it isn't wrong to save H, the zygote, over H*, the two year old.

Now, I think what has been said is sufficient to refute this view. After all, it is just obvious that we should save H* over H. We can say that you have a moral obligation to save H* and not H and consistently hold that both are persons with a right to life and moral worth. We just have to say that H* is more valuable and has more moral worth than does H. Why? Well, again, one property that H* has that seems to be morally relevant and seems to be part of the moral data is that H* can feel pain. But why do we assume that this ought to be part of the moral data? After all, the ability to feel pain is purely accidental.

If there is good reason to suppose that accidental properties add to a person's moral status then that is sufficient to do away with this view. Consider the following examples.

- I have taken for granted so far that the ability to feel pain does factor into the moral data; that it is morally relevant. If this is right then we have a clear and objective reason to save H* over H. Suppose you come across a person, Sally, that is hooked up to a machine. You soon realize what the machine is doing. The machine causes her to experience excruciating pain. The machine, however, does not cause any physical damage. So Sally is experiencing, what we might call, pure pain. If Sally were to be unhooked from the machine she would be as physically healthy as she was before she was hooked into it. Her agony is evident to you. Do you have a moral obligation to shut off the machine? Well, I hope you'd answer yes. It is clear that we ought to shut off the machine. But what reason is there to do so? The reason is that people experiencing and having an awareness of pain is very bad and ought to be avoided. But then it seems that pain considerations are also moral considerations, if your obligation to save her exists in virtue of the fact that she is in pain. So, it seems, that we ought to also take into consideration H*'s pain in the situation described above. Doing so tips the moral data in his favor.

- We ordinarily think of ourselves as being more valuable than rocks. Moreover, it seems that we are objectively more valuable than rocks. But if this is so then surely there is a reason that this is the case. Now, my friend would say that we are more valuable than rocks because we are persons (animals with a rational nature). I agree, this is sufficient to make it true that we are more valuable. But it also makes sense to isolate some properties that we have. For example, it is true that a sufficient reason I am more valuable than a rock is that I am a conscious being (which is an accidental property of a person), or that I am a thinking being (a being that can and does think). But if I am more valuable than the rock (party) in virtue of the fact that I instantiate some accidental property (e.g. consciousness) then there is something about the instantiation of this property that adds to my value, or worth. So, consciousness does add to the value of a being. Thus it is plausible to suppose that some accidental properties ought to be added into the moral data.

Now consider our original case. On this view, according to which accidental properties instantiated by persons add to their value, who ought we save, H or H*? Well, in order to answer this question we need to take into account all of the moral data and which datum count in favor of which person. The morally relevant facts that count in favor of H are the facts that H is a person with a right to life. The morally relevant facts that count in favor of H* are that H* is a person with a right to life and has the ability to feel pain. So, in this situation, because pain is bad, and H* exemplifies a property that adds to its value we ought to save H* over H.

- Let's move to another case. There are two persons, P and P*, in a hospital and both are plugged into a life support machine such that if they were not plugged into the machine they'd die shortly thereafter. P is as conscious as you are. P* is in a persistent vegetative state. Now, for whatever reason, the hospital cannot continue to have both plugged in (lack of resources, say). So one person must be unplugged, whereupon the person will die shortly thereafter. Which person, P or P*, ought the hospital unplug? Well, it seems obvious that the hospital should unplug P* and save P. Why? Because P is conscious. But consciousness is accidental to persons. So it follows that accidental properties can count in favor of moral worth, for it would be wrong to save P* over P and the reason would be that P instantiates a morally relevant property not had by P*.

Most people would agree with this example. Those who do not are those who are already committed to a highly implausible view viz. people who are committed to (4).

- We ordinarily think of ourselves as more valuable than rabbits, or even chimpanzees. Why? Well, we are persons and they aren't. But, supposing (4) is true, then chimpanzees have no moral worth whatever (this alone is probably sufficient to lead most people to reject 4). Now, it is just obvious that if x has no moral worth then to kill x is not immoral. Here I take it that "moral worth" implies that there are facts about the thing in question that are morally relevant with respect to it. So, on this view, it isn't wrong to kill chimpanzees. In fact, throwing a chimpanzee off of a cliff is no different (morally speaking) than throwing a rock off a cliff. But clearly there is a moral difference between the two. So this view must be false.

But it gets worse. Recall, given (4), personhood is what is necessary and sufficient for moral worth. But what is a person? According to my friend,

(5) For all x, x is a person if and only if x has a rational nature.

Now, given that chimpanzees are not persons, it follows that they don't have a rational nature. What is meant here by "nature?" I take it that a thing's nature is the same as a thing's essence, which is the set of all essential properties that it instantiates. Thus, if chimpanzees are not persons then they are essentially not persons. This means that there is no possible world in which a chimpanzee exists and it is a person.

Granting the above, consider the following obvious counterexample. It is possible that there be a genetic mutation in a chimpanzee C that causes it to be as conscious as me or you. Or, if this seems too implausible, it is possible that scientists should cause C to be as conscious as me or you. Suppose this happens. C is as conscious as me and you. But, C's being conscious is accidental. So it still lacks a rational nature. But, if it lacks a rational nature, then by (5), it lacks the property of being a person. But, by (4), this means that C has no moral worth whatever. So C has no moral worth and any other chimpanzee has no moral worth. Thus, there is not a moral difference between killing C and killing a normal chimpanzee. But clearly there is a moral difference. In fact, it would be very clearly wrong to kill C for reasons that don't hold for the normal chimpanzee. So, what makes it the case that there is actually a moral difference? Well, C is conscious! C can think, feel, love, etc. But then it just seems obvious that these facts play into the moral worth of a thing. So the view above is false.

So much for that pro-life view. What about the question I initially asked: Does the pro-life position entail that all humans have equal moral worth? My answer is no. It seems that the following are consistent:

(1) All humans are persons.
(2) All humans have a right to life and have moral worth.
(3) Some humans are more morally worthy than others.

I don't see how a contradiction might follow from (1) to (3). But what is my position with respect to the original case? Here I am partial to W. D. Ross' deontology. Very briefly, Ross thinks there are prima facie duties, or morally significant considerations that always bear on the rightness and wrongness of actions. Some of these duties include: reparation, gratitude, fidelity, justice, beneficence, not harming, and self-improvement. But what about cases in which our duties are in conflict? Ross furthers:

"When I am in a situation...in which more than one prima facie duties is incumbent on me, what I have to do is to study the situations as fully as I can until I form the considered opinion...that in the circumstances one of them is more incumbent than any other..."[1]

So, what you ought to do in a situation is your duty proper, or what you ought to do in a situation after all things have been considered. So now we have a good way to answer the above cases:

We have a prima facie duty to save H and a prima facie duty to save H*. These are in conflict. Whom do we save? Well, we save H* because it is more incumbent upon us to do so: there are morally relevant facts that count in its favor that do not count in H's favor, and everything that counts in H's favor also counts in favor of H*. The same will hold for all of the other examples I listed above.

[1] George Sher. Moral Philosophy (2nd Edition). (Harcourt, 1996). Pg. 377.