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The Foundations of Bioethics

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H. Tristram Engelhardt, , Jr.
The Foundations of Bioethics

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) p. 107, 108.

This book contains two chapters addressing the issue of personhood,
at the beginning and end of human life.
The author clearly believes that full persons should have higher status
and more rights than pre-persons or former persons.
The ability to make responsible decisions ("moral agency")
is one of the most distinctive marks of personhood.

The following two quotes are from pages 107 & 108 respectively:

"What distinguishes persons is their capacity to be self-conscious,
rational, and concerned with worthiness of blame and praise.
The possibility of such entities
grounds the possibility of the moral community.
It offers us a way of reflecting on the rightness and wrongness
of actions and the worthiness or unworthiness of actors.

On the other hand, not all humans are persons.
Not all humans are self-conscious, rational,
and able to conceive of the possibility of blaming and praising.
Fetuses, infants, the profoundly mentally retarded,
and the hopelessly comatose provide examples of nonpersons.
Such entities are members of the human species.
They do not in and of themselves have standing in the moral community.
They cannot blame or praise or be worthy of blame or praise.
They are not prime participants in the moral endeavor.
Only persons have that status."
....

"For this reason it is nonsensical to speak of respecting
the autonomy of fetuses, infants, or profoundly retarded adults,
who have never been rational.
There is no autonomy to affront.
Treating such entities without regard
for that which they do not possess, and never have possessed,
despoils them of nothing.
They fall outside the inner sanctum of morality."

Engelhardt goes on to discuss further the difference between
human personal life and human biological life.
He acknowledges that zygotes, embryos, & fetuses
are potential persons, but until they become full persons,
they do not possess the rights of persons.
He also acknowledges that animals have some rights
because they have some level of consciousness.

If you would like to see other attempts to define personhood,
search the Internet for this precise phrase:
"Personhood Bibliography".

James Leonard Park, existential philosopher and medical ethicist

Rarely, does anyone get down to the elemental processes of human interactions. This book is one of those rare occasions. It basically negates all known ethical methods and demands respect for human rights (albeit in a un- or under-stated way).

Post-Modern Ethics has no where to go except to the process of mutual respect of individuals.

This is a difficult book to read because it cuts through all internal and external methods thus attacking one's own value system. A section on axiology would have been a plus (but not necessary.)

It's must read for the new mellenium.