Christopher Tollefsen, Cell Lines of Illicit Origins and Vaccines: Metaphysics and Ethics

David Hershenov - July 12, 2022 at 2:38 PM

1. Authority to Donate Cells:

“It follows from this that no scientist can accept the corpse of a child for research purposes because there is no one who the authority to give the corpse to the scientist.” P. 4. But what if the mother aborted against the father’s wishes? could not the father donate? I think CT said he could in response to the same question posed by Steve Gilles. Imagine father is dead and single mother died right after aborting due to complications, could the next of kin make the decision. Or what if the abortion was illegal and the state acquired the corpse and wanted some good to come from the death? What if the abortion was therapeutic (life saving)? Could the women then donate the fetal stem cells to science? What is the abortion was wrongly thought to be therapeutic? If intention is decisive, what if a bad metaphysician, let’s call him Shmephen Shmershnar, believed we consist just of those pars of our brain directly involved in the production of thought. This absurd view means we are the scattered tips of our neurons as other parts of the neurons don’t fire but removed wastes or stabilize the neuron or metabolize etc. So does Shmephen and his metaphysically deluded wife, Shmary Shmoch have a right to donate an aborted early embryo because they thought it was metaphysically akin to contraceptive as they believed their child would not come into existence until neurons have the capacity for thought?

Replies

Stephen Kershnar July 18, 2022 at 9:58 AM

IGNORE AUTHORITY. OWNERSHIP IS AT ISSUE AND IT IS MURKY

David:

You raise a great point here. The authority to give the corpse to the scientist should be understood as asking the following: Who owns a corpse?

(1) Inheritance. If there was a will, then the inheritor would own it. Let’s assume there is no will.

(2) Family Member. A natural assumption is that a parent or spouse owns a corpse. The problem with this is that let’s assume that a person is a body. If correct, he is a corpse. Because one person does not own a second, no one owns the corpse.

(3) State. The state does not own every unowned thing unless this is agreed to by the citizens of the state. I do not see where they do this in the US.

The same is true regardless of whether a person is a body, brain, or functioning brain.

Assuming a person is unowned, this raises the issue of what to do with unowned property. I suspect unowned property can be acquired either via agreement – for example, law – or via the state-of-nature justificatory way – for example, mixing labor into it.

Perhaps one of these ways can be used to create ownership in the scientists who want to use a body or the cell line that came from it.

Best,

Steve K

David H July 25, 2022 at 11:00 AM

one might have a duty to bury those one killed even when one has no authority to decide whether to donate their remains to science. surely, the murderer shouldn't leave the corpse to be eaten by dogs or rot in view of others and cause a public health risk. So the killer, assuming he is the only one situated to bury, has a duty despite no authority to choose to dispose of the body one way or another.

David H July 25, 2022 at 11:15 AM

Steve

Ownership is probably of no relevance here because the embryo doesn’t own herself (no autonomy, no interest) and others do not own the embryo (slavery). As you know, property rights are generally considered a bundle of control rights. But the embryo can’t exercise any control – and never has - so I don’t see why it would have a right to property that it can’t control. (If it has a proxy exercising control, why don’t puppy embryos and trees have proxies?) And if it is not autonomy but interests that ground property rights, then the mindless embryo would have to have an interest in property ownership. I doubt you believe that the mindless embryo has any interests. I happen, as you know, to believe the mindless embryo only has interests in healthy development.

So, I think property is probably not relevant so we are back to Chris Tollefsen’s question of authority to dispose of remains that one doesn’t own.

On the other hand, perhaps the family could take ownership of the corpse – or remains – if terminators are right about there being no composite corpse. There is no ownership of another if there is substantial change at death. Maybe the familial ownership would be on the basis of first acquisition like a flower picked in an unowned field or the labor of acquiring the remains or, better yet, a promise from the abortionist to deliver the product of his grisly labor. He is the family’s agent.

But I don’t think one can own remains of someone one killed. I take that up later

Stephen Kershnar August 8, 2022 at 1:25 PM

PLEASE DON’T STARVE THE DOGS

David:

Great p oint. Here is what you say.

“[O]ne might have a duty to bury those one killed even when one has no authority to decide whether to donate their remains to science. surely, the murderer shouldn't leave the corpse to be eaten by dogs or rot in view of others and cause a public health risk. So the killer, assuming he is the only one situated to bury, has a duty despite no authority to choose to dispose of the body one way or another.”

Consider the Epicurean question: When does the killer have this duty?

Candidate #1: Before Killing. Before he kills his victim. A duty now cannot be justified by a ground in the future. In short, no backtracking duties.

Candidate #2: During or After Killing. When he kills his victim. When he kills his victim is the first moment that his victim no longer exists. [Assumption: Animalism] A non-existent thing does not have an interest and, so, a non-existent interest does not ground a duty. In short, no duty without a ground.

Candidate #3: Atemporal Exemplification. If an object exemplifies a property in, and only in, a time then a person cannot have a duty outside of time. In short, do not put grounding and morality outside of time.

Plus, you don’t need to say this. Instead, you might instead argue that the killer is vicious or fails on aesthetic grounds if he does not bury the unowned body. I think this is implausible as well, but less so than an atemporal or backtracking duty.

Best,

Steve K

Stephen Kershnar August 8, 2022 at 1:25 PM

ZYGOTE TO ADULTS - WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ BADGES (OR GROUNDS)

David:

Another great point. You say the following.

“Ownership is probably of no relevance here because the embryo doesn’t own herself (no autonomy, no interest) and others do not own the embryo (slavery). As you know, property rights are generally considered a bundle of control rights. But the embryo can’t exercise any control – and never has - so I don’t see why it would have a right to property that it can’t control. (If it has a proxy exercising control, why don’t puppy embryos and trees have proxies?) And if it is not autonomy but interests that ground property rights, then the mindless embryo would have to have an interest in property ownership. I doubt you believe that the mindless embryo has any interests.”

Let us assume that a person was once an embryo – ignoring the brain theory of identity – and that property rights include claims against destruction or use of one’s self and a Hohfeldian power over them. Let us now ask the following question: Does an interest in one’s self ground duties over one’s self or body?

(1) Horn #1: Yes. If yes, then an embryo owns himself.

(2) Horn #2: No. If no, then you – and Chris – have no objection to abortion.

I think we can agree that a potential property is not itself a property – it is the possibility of having a property in the future – and so we can then ask what grounds the duty against destroying an embryo? Let us consider the options.

(1) Candidate #1: Current Property. Consider current interest or autonomy. If this is true, then there is interest-based ownership. Hence, you must reject this.

(2) Candidate #2: Capacity. Consider the capacity for interest or autonomy. Consider the capacity for interest or autonomy. Clearly, the zygote and embryo do not have this. By analogy, the zygote does not have the capacity to dance naked during a Ben Shapiro speech on Berkeley’s campus. You and I agree that calling this a radical capacity is the sort of dirty move in philosophy that warrants a 15-yard-penalty and perhaps expulsion for the discussion.

(3) Candidate #3: Potentiality. This is irrelevant because it would involve duties and powers now resting on future properties and thus backtracking grounding. This is more offensive than the aforementioned dancing.

Citing health gets us nowhere because health alone does not ground duties or powers. For example, we do not have a duty not to cut grass in a way that makes it unhealthy.

Best,

Steve K

David Hershenov July 12, 2022 at 2:39 PM

2. Right to Benefit from One’s Crimes:

Can those who abort use resulting vaccine? Imagine the person using the vaccine was the one who wrongly aborted and donated to the pharmaceutical? Can they use it or are they too intimately tied.to the death that produced the pharmaceutical cell line. If they didn’t have authority to kill or donate do they have the authority to acquire the benefits of their killing? We don’t let people who commit crimes keep the investments of their thefts. Of course, they may have stolen to invest while the aborting didn’t abort to benefit science. Perhaps the relevant principle here is not benefiting from one’s crimes rather than they don’t have authority to donate from their killing

Replies

Stephen Kershnar July 18, 2022 at 9:58 AM

PEOPLE MAY BENEFIT FROM THEIR OWN WRONGS.

David:

Interesting question.

I see no reason to think that a person may not benefit from his crime. Imagine that a ne’er do well nephew stands to inherit money from his uncle. The law says that if the will is valid – testator is competent, two witnesses, and will entered into probate – I do not see legally or morally why he should not benefit from it. Riggs v. Palmer (1889) got it wrong.

(1) Law. Legally, if the legislator wants a no-benefit-from-wrongdoing clause, it could write it and it didn’t.

(2) Morality. Morally, whether the nephew should be punished and how much is different from whether he has a right to certain property.

(3) Burden. Testators can put a forfeiture clause in their will if they want one. The burden should be on the testator to say what he wants.

In addition, let’s assume abortion is wrong, the woman is trying to benefit from an aborted line of cells, and a person should not benefit from her own wrong. The following is still true.

(1) Her Own Wrong. A woman should not be able to benefit in terms of receiving the benefit of her wrongdoing.

(2) Another Woman’s Wrong. A woman should not be able to benefit in terms of receiving the benefit of others who performed the same type of wrongdoing.

The relevant case here is (2). So, I do not see how this might relate to the abortion and Covid-Vaccine case.

Best,

Steve K

David Hershenov July 25, 2022 at 11:12 AM

are you claiming someone can kill another for his inheritance and justly collect – perhaps after spending time in prison or does he get to use the money in prison to buy cigarettes? Surely not. It seems very plausible that the deceased would assume that his inheritance would not go to his killer. He didn't imagine it but if you had asked him, he would say no to allow his killer to inherit. And if he was unlike the rest of us and idiosyncratically wanted to bequeath his wealth to his killer, he would have stipulated so. The default is that he doesn’t want his killer to inherit. So the onus would be on the will maker to put in writing that he would allow his killer to inherit

David Hershenov July 25, 2022 at 11:13 AM

My question was about #1. Should the woman who aborted and donated or sold remains to vaccine maker, be allowed to partake of the vaccine.

Stephen Kershnar August 8, 2022 at 1:26 PM

BAD NEWS FOR KING LEAR - COUNTERFACTUAL DESIRES AREN’T ACTUAL

David:

You say the following.

“[A]re you claiming someone can kill another for his inheritance and justly collect – perhaps after spending time in prison or does he get to use the money in prison to buy cigarettes? Surely not. It seems very plausible that the deceased would assume that his inheritance would not go to his killer. He didn't imagine it but if you had asked him, he would say no to allow his killer to inherit. And if he was unlike the rest of us and idiosyncratically wanted to bequeath his wealth to his killer, he would have stipulated so. The default is that he doesn’t want his killer to inherit. So the onus would be on the will maker to put in writing that he would allow his killer to inherit.”

Yes, and then some.

That is exactly what I am saying. You are either assuming that the law contains principles that the legislature surely considered and decided not to include – the worst sort of judicial legislation – or you think the morality is part of the law to an extent that the legislature is – legally – unable to have an immoral rule, even when it is efficient.

How is the decedent’s counterfactual desire relevant here? Is it part of the law? Is it part of his will? Is it something to which he consented or promised? No and no.

Assume that if you had been thought about it – and you did not – you would want $10,000 of your estate to go to Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership (http://jpfo.org/). What follows from this legally or morally? As far as I can tell nothing. I suspect you agree.

Best,

Steve K

Stephen Kershnar August 8, 2022 at 1:28 PM

WELL, WE’RE NOT GOING TO JUST LET YOU TRAMPLE ON WOMEN’S RIGHTS. WHO’S WE? SMITH, WESSON, AND I

David:

Consider the following argument.

(1) Claim. If Jones owes the zygote a duty, then it has a claim against him regarding its self or body.

(2) Ownership. If the zygote has a claim against Jones regarding its self or body, then it owns its self or its body (or, alternatively, has a significant part of ownership over its self or its body – for now, let’s ignore this possibility).

(3) Hence, if Jones owes the zygote a duty, then the zygote owns its self or its body. [(1), (2)]

But consideration of the three candidates – current property, capacity, or potentiality - tells us that (3) is false.

Let’s assume that a significant part of the claims that are thought to constitute ownership do not do so. This does not defuse the situation. Instead, we simply need to substitute the expression ‘significant portion of bundle of Hohfeldian claims formerly known as ownership’ for ‘ownership.’ By analogy, consider the artist formerly known as ‘Prince.’

Best,

Steve K

David Hershenov July 12, 2022 at 2:42 PM

3. Moral use of wrongly killed:

Imagine I see a contract mafia killer complete his grisly task. I then realize that that the corpse of the assassinated can be thrown in front of a trolley saving lives of the children of the killed or children of strangers. It seems to me that I should toss the body and leave it mangled. Why shouldn’t the contract killer do the same? He could save lives. Does it matter if it is the life of the children of the victim of the hit? (Perhaps if one believes in posthumous interests that one can argue that the deceased has a posthumous interest in his remains being so used. Perhaps one can argue that the deceased has an ante-mortem interest in their remains being so used.) Even if the endangered children are not those of the deceased, why should the contract killer not save them. Imagine that I can't throw the dead fat guy in front of the trolley and so ask the contract killer to help me. Should he really refuse as he has no authority to so make use of the corpse of the person he killed. Surely, he should help me and his not doing is an additional wrong darkening his soul. So if I should throw the wrongly killed in front of the trolley, and the contract killer should do the same, why shouldn’t those who wrongly abort donate the corpse to save lives in the future?

Replies:

Stephen Kershnar July 18, 2022 at 9:59 AM

EXEMPLIFICATION LIKE GUARD RAILS IN BOWLING

David:

More excellent points.

Let’s assume animalism is true and so the dead body is not a person. Ignore concerns about the afterlife, body snatchers, new life processes being not identical to the old, and the other problems that might concern a Christian animalist.

The person no longer exists. So, when is his right – or a duty owed to him – be infringed? If we adopt the following propositions – and we should – there is no time of infringement.

(1) Exemplification in Time. If a concrete particular exemplifies a property, then it exemplifies it at a time.

(2) Existence. If a concrete particular exemplifies a property at a time, then it exists.

Your concern about pushing the fat man’s body in front of the trolley returns us to the issue of body ownership and, so, does not introduce a new issue. Assuming non-consequentialism, you may not use another person’s property even when doing so maximizes the good.

Best,

Steve K

Stephen Kershnar July 18, 2022 at 10:00 AM

NO INTRINSIC INTEREST IN PRE- AND POST-EXISTENCE PROPERTIES AND RELATIONS

David:

A person cannot have an intrinsic ante-mortem interest in something. See above metaphysical principles. I doubt a person can have an extrinsic ante-mortem interest in an event that occurs when he’s dead unless there is backward causation. There isn’t.

Do you think that a person can have an intrinsic interest in something happening before he came into existence? I doubt it. I think pre-existence and post-existence intrinsic interests are identical, specifically, there are none.

Best,
Steve K

David H July 25, 2022 at 11:11 AM

imagine the past exists. It exists timeless with the present and future. So any interests the person had in the past coexist timelessly with the present and future. If they exist, they can be frustrated. But the action that frustrates them is in the present or future and their interests are not present nor exist in the future. So the harm occurred in the past when the fact of the future event frustrated those interests the moment they were formed. Or perhaps the interests are timeless frustrated, frustrated now, though they don’t exist now

Even if the fat man owns himself or he is dead and someone else owns him, the question is then like breaking into a hunter’s cabin to avoid a fatal storm

David Hershenov July 12, 2022 at 2:43 PM

4. Posthumous Interest in Merciful burial:

I don’t think mindless fetuses have an interest in burial – and certainly not an interest in burial over cremation. CT writes “burial of the child’s remains is the one way in which one can benefit the deceased child – using the child’s remains for science is no benefit to her.” I don’t see why the child would have an interest in burial but not in a cure for a disease of her relatives that her cell line could contribute to. I suspect she has neither

Replies

Stephen Kershnar July 18, 2022 at 10:10 AM

DON’T HAVE SEX WITH THE CORPSE. BURY IT INSTEAD.

David:

Interesting point.

However, we accept the following.

(1) Interests. Mindless beings have interests.

(2) Post-Existence Interests. Some of these interests include post-existence states.

(3) Dignity. One of the interests in post-existence states includes an interest in dignity.

Given these three, I don’t see why a fetus would not have an interest in burial.

(A) You have defended (1). See, for example, David Hershenov on anencephaly.

(B) You have defended (2). See, for example, Hershenov’s comments on having sex with corpses.

(C) Your defense of (2) implicitly includes (3).

Given these, I think you are committed to something like what Tollefsen says, even if not exactly what he says.

Best,
Steve K

David Hershenov July 25, 2022 at 11:09 AM

Sex with corpses? Brian Leiter said I can sue you for libel.

I deny we have posthumous interests unless we exist posthumously. Even if we do have posthumous interests, they would be interests we had ante-mortem and I doubt that the fetus had an anti-mortem interest in dignified treatment of its corpse or remains

I have mixed feelings about treating postmortem harms as Boonin, Pitcher and Feinberg do as ante-mortem harms that consist of interests as soon as they come into existence due to future facts. I think if I switch my allegiance from Giants to Saints, then I no longer have an interest in the Giants winning the Superbowl. Or if a neurosurgeon rewired my brain and I become a Falcon fan, then I cease to have interests in the Saints. I think of death as like a brain scramble though it is an unwiring rather than a rewiring. So I think the dead don’t have interests to frustrate. And if their earlier interests are frustrated, it doesn’t matter as they no longer have those interests. We are not bothered if earlier interests are frustrated after someone’s interests change. I see death as a change of mind – so to speak. Likewise, I don’t like Dworkin-like advanced directives for Alzheimer’s patients as I believe they no longer have such critical interests in dignity etc. that they had before their brain deteriorated

Stephen Kershnar August 8, 2022 at 1:29 PM

CORPSES WITH BENEFITS

David:

Great point.

“So I think the dead don’t have interests to frustrate. And if their earlier interests are frustrated, it doesn’t matter as they no longer have those interests. We are not bothered if earlier interests are frustrated after someone’s interests change. I see death as a change of mind – so to speak. Likewise, I don’t like Dworkin-like advanced directives for Alzheimer’s patients as I believe they no longer have such critical interests in dignity etc. that they had before their brain deteriorated.”

Exactly right.

If this is so, then – assuming a person ceases to exist at death – what is wrong in having sex with a corpse?

Let’s construct an argument here.

(1) A claim is grounded by, and only by, an interest.

(2) The dead do not have interests.

(3) If (1) and (2), then the dead do not have claims.

(4) If the dead do not have claims, then a person who has sex with a corpse does not wrong them.

Are you agreeing with this? I might add that a Saints’ fan might argue that the argument is invalid, but they’re obviously spiritually wrecked by the gambling and prostitution houses referred to in the House of the Rising Sun.

David Hershenov July 12, 2022 at 2:45 PM

5. Parts of Dead Bodies:

Although the cell goes out of existence when it dies, perhaps some of its organelles show up in the descendent cells. Aren’t there body parts at even lower levels (molecules) that could be shared with one of the descendants. So, it seems possible that some parts of original cells are shared over and over with descendants in the cell line and thus the vaccine is made with or tested upon parts of the deceased even years after the abortion

David Hershenov July 12, 2022 at 2:51 PM

6. Virtual parts or masked dispositions:

CT might claim the cells parts referred to in my previous post are not the same entities that were in the body of the living fetus because the fetal parts are virtual parts – just as oxygen is a virtual atom when in a water molecule as it is not flammable in water and so is thought by some (usually hylomorphic) philosophers to be just a virtual object and not identical to the oxygen before the water molecule was formed or the oxygen that exists after the water molecule union was disrupted.

I doubt that “the identity of an organisms’ parts is determined by the identity of the whole of which they are parts.” Consider an isolated oxygen atom, not ever part of water. Did it really go out of existence when it became part of the organism. If you do think so, then I will make it persona. Imagine you became swallowed whole in a sci fi scenario by some alien leviathan and become a functional part of the alien leviathan like stomach bacteria? Imagine your exhaling or waste production plays a vital role in the Leviathan’s physiology. Or imagine you become connected to the the leviathan just as other organs are connected through stalks? Surely you persist through the process despite contributing to the goals of the leviathan. When the Rock or Sigourney Weaver leads an expedition to free you from the Leviathan, you don’t pop back into existence when the alien is disemboweled and you are released from your gastronomical prison. You may have been working on a math equation or poem right before your liberation and finished it afterwards

David Hershenov July 12, 2022 at 2:56 PM

7. Immortality and functional change:

p. 8 “The immortal cell lines are artifacts – biological products that have been modified and reproduced many times over, and they do not retain the natural function of the tissue from which they were derived.” Is this true? Could the cell not be put in the body and due what its descendent did? If so, it seems to be the same kind of cell.

The cell is not immortal, just the cell line. Each cell is mortal and its change has been in its ability to make its descendants fissionable (fertile, so to speak). It is a mistake to speak of HEK as functionally immortal and human cells not. Neither are immortal. One is just fecund. An analogue is a genetic change that you pass on to your daughters that enables them and their granddaughters and great granddaughters etc. never to enter menopause but to be able to reproduce right until they die in their eighties or nineties. there is no substantial change when women undergo a never ending power to reproduce that they bestow on their female offspring. So why think it is substantial change when cells acquire the ability to make their descendants forever capable of reproducing through division?

David Hershenov July 12, 2022 at 2:57 PM

8. Substantial change of cell line without substantial change of cell:

That need not be substantial change of the cell even if it is of the cell line. “Rather, what matters is whether the art or technique that brought into being the HEK cell line effected a substantial change on the cells that were once parts of the aborted child, and if so, what the nature of the new entity might be.” Why think giving cells the ability to have fertile descendants is a substantial change especially if cell apoptosis is not a selected for function of cells?

Replies

David Hershenov July 12, 2022 at 3:58 PM

Cell lines might not be objects in a correct ontology:

There are cells, but maybe they don’t compose anything such as a line any more than there is an object that consists of all the oxygen that was ever inside me. Is there such a thing as half of the cell line? Is there such a thing as a Z shape part of my chest? f not, why think there is such a thing as a cell line that was once part of the deceased embryo? Cell lines might not be objects in a correct ontology: First, they would be a scattered object and that is an initial reason for doubting their ontological status just as there is nothing that is you, meat and my car. There are cells, but maybe they don’t compose anything such as a line any more than there is an object that consists of all the oxygen that was ever inside me. Is there such a thing as half of the cell line? Can't cell lines divide when a new experimenter is shipped some cells? Typically, division is fatal. it appears to be for cells but not cell lines. Is there such a thing as a Z shape part of my chest? If not, why then think there are cell lines? Even if the cell lines are budding, the buds are new cell lines, assuming there are such things. I doubt there are. If we try to answer the special composition question of the Xs compose a Y iff ... it seems unlikely that having offspring who have offspring or something like that will be a plausible answer to why there are such things as cell lines.

David Hershenov July 12, 2022 at 3:16 PM

9. The Moral insignificance of cell lines:

Even if there are cell lines and they were in the original embryo, why is it any more morally unacceptable to use them than to use use exhaled carbon dioxide or sweat or skin cells or saliva or baby teeth or hair that you voluntarily or involuntarily discarded decades ago, assuming in neither case was one killed for such body parts? Assume the carbon dioxide was from the last breath you took after being killed. would it be wrong for a research scientist to "capture it" and study it. Is it OK because he doesn't know its origins? Imagine, incredibly , that he knew it came from someone wrongly killed because he had an air collection device right above where someone happened to be killed on tape. surely that doesn't make it wrong. Is there a moral difference between gases and solid parts?

Isn't it permissible to do an autopsy and take someone's body parts against their wishes and those of their family when there is a threat of an epidemic? If autopsies are permissible against the known earlier complaints of the deceased, why not take fetal cells when the fetus wont' even have an ante-mortem opposition to such use of their cells. Why can autopsies be done to obtain knowledge to prevent spread of contagions but stem cells can't be taken to help fight an epidemic

Replies

Phil Reed July 27, 2022 at 5:37 PM

Intuitively, it seems there might be a difference between using integral parts (vital organs) of a person who was unjustly killed compared to using non-integral parts (teeth, hair, skin cells) or things that are not parts of the person at all (exhaled carbon dioxide).

One would need to define "integral parts" and explain where cell lines would fit into this mereology.

Stephen Kershnar July 18, 2022 at 10:45 AM

OCCAM’S CONVERSATIONAL RAZOR

As with all of his work, Chris’ essay is excellent. New, interesting, and important.

Still, I wonder whether the evaluation of the issue would be clearer – and more likely to get us to the truth – if it were focused on identity, rights, and override rather than authority, common good, cooperation, dignity, and substantial change.

This would allow us to argue directly on the following.

(1) Rights. Who owns a dead body?

(2) Identity. Is the dead body – or parts of it – found in the vaccine?

(3) Override. If there is a right infringement, does the gain in saving millions of lives override it?

The relation between authority and ownership, the common good and the good, cooperation and joint right infringement, etc. is unclear and – I claim – would be much clearer if we focused on the latter term.

Best.

Stephen Kershnar July 18, 2022 at 10:56 AM

A ROMANELL CENTER DIALOGUE ON RELIGION

These are fictional characters. Any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.

Thrasymachus,

I asked four of the smartest and classiest philosophers I know how their Christianity relates to their metaphysical views.

Phil

I’ve been struggling lately. It seems that Christianity requires Libertarianism, and yet this is wildly implausible. I just can’t escape the sense that the luck argument is sound. Not just sound, but like powerful. Not just powerful, but for lack of a better way to put it, it stays on the scene like a sex machine.

David

Look, why not be a soft determinist and a Christian. Sure, it’s cruel and incredibly unfair for someone to spend billions of years in sulfurous hell when he was determined – before he was even born – to go to hell, but sometimes we have to show some intellectual flexibility to keep our views together. After all, I believed I was six feet tall and a center despite the clear tension between them. Again, flexibility.

Phil

David, don’t you also think that animalism is true, but that bodies rot away upon Earthly death? Surely, if the body rots away and animalism is true, the organism ceases to exist and there’s no afterlife. What kind of a Christian – or closet Jew – rejects the afterlife?

David

That used to keep me up at night, but lately I’ve been thinking that right before death, the angel of death – last seen slaughtering newborn boys in the heartwarming story of Passover – grabs up the old body and replaces it with a duplicate. This has to be done really fast in the cases of explosions and public deaths, but a lot of times I think the angel of death uses misdirection. Like a really good magician. Like David Copperfield.

Phil

This is blasphemous and, also, really bad science fiction. The angel of death is not a body snatcher. Plus, wouldn’t our scientific instruments register two bodies. Millions of death-observations and no one noticed the angel of death’s sneaky substitutions. I mean AOD likely makes mistakes given the billions of people who die. Surely, he must have accidentally replaced a fat person’s body with a thin body or vice versa. Plus, does he do the same thing with beetles and orangutans?

David

Well, perhaps instead, then the old stuff that composes our body is stored in the ground and reassembled at the end of time. Kind of like how 3D printers can make ghost guns, which on a side note Biden is courageously giving top priority.

David

[Continuing on, not wanting to break this chain of thought] No, on second thought, the life process would have stopped, and a different process would be restarted. So, we’d have a new life and thus a new person. Scratch the 3D printer theory. I just think the Templeton Foundation should pay chemists, biologists, and high speech photographers to try to catch the angel of death at work. Perhaps Jim and I will apply for a grant to oversee this research. Although Jim might not be available if it’s golf season or if golf is on TV. Now that I think of it, I better ask Bob instead.

Reply

Stephen Kershnar July 18, 2022 at 10:57 AM

ACT II

Thrasymachus

Guys, c’mon. Phil, you’re right. The luck argument is sound. More colloquially, it stays on the scene like a sex machine. And David, you’re right. The Christian afterlife requires body snatching, at least if one is going to be an animalist or, even, like that weirdo Kelly, a brain theorist. Perhaps this is why we should be Christians who reject the afterlife. After all, God’s already given us so much. Why does he have to give us everlasting life? What’s more, who says everlasting life is so great? After all, how many times will I have to sit through Johnny Castle saying, “No one puts baby in a corner.” It was stupid the first time. By the 500th time, it will be pure torture.

Bob

Castle’s line was stupid. But seriously, perhaps we could stipulate that the luck argument is unsound. After all, one must have some axioms on the basis of which he evaluates his other beliefs. Why not make the following propositions into axioms? (1) People are morally responsible, but not to any degree, rather like an on-off switch. (2) The luck argument is unsound. (3) A person is a cause of himself – that is, a person is causa sui – and this is what makes him morally responsible. With these assumptions Phil’s problem goes away. Perhaps similarly clear axioms can solve David’s problems.

David

Those are not axioms. They’re not even close to axioms. If they even claimed to be an axiom, an axiom would throw punches. Why did I sign off on your dissertation? Instead of axiom inflation, perhaps the angel of death explains responsibility.

Phil

No, no, no, no, no. The angel of death does not explain responsibility and we should not apply to the Templeton to study him. Nor can we prop up blatantly indefensible claims by making them axioms. And philosophical arguments are not like sex machines. This conversation is completely out of control.

Jim

Instead, we need to go back to the beginning and re-read Aquinas, Levinas, and Rousseau. Surely, they will get us out of this pickle.

Thrasymachus

We’ll reconvene next week to discover what Aquinas, Levinas, and Rousseau have to tell us about making sure our beliefs are coherent.

Reply

Jim Delaney July 18, 2022 at 3:11 PM

A very interesting paper, and I generally agree with the thesis. I wrote up a few comments, which I'll post as separate entries in case anyone wants to reply. In scanning through the existing discussion, I see that some of what I have to say has been brought up previously (David raises a similar point that I had about fetal interests in burial).

Jim Delaney July 18, 2022 at 3:11 PM

In the opening of the paper, it is noted that the cell lines have been replicated many times over and “are the result of generation upon generation of cell division and replication” (1). Later, in the response to Pakaluk’s argument regarding “connectedness,” the paper claims that it is the real nature of the cells (material constitution, etc.) that determine their status as parts or remains of the original substance. So while we can trace a biological history connecting the cell line, they are nevertheless not parts or remains. I’m wondering what role (if any) “distance” is playing in the argument. Is the fact that replication has happened many times over in itself ontologically relevant to the status of the cell? Or is does it merely provide empirical evidence that the real nature has changed? I’m also wondering about the status of cells that come into existence after the death of the organism that have no “distance” and whose real nature is plausibly unchanged. On a standard hylomorphic account, death marks the loss of the substantial form and the matter remains. Consider that some cells continue to replicate after death. Are these cells parts or remains of the organism? Intuitively it would seem like they are. But it is a bit strange to think that something could be a part or a remain of X if it came into existence after X went out of existence.

Jim Delaney July 18, 2022 at 3:12 PM

This is perhaps outside the scope of the paper, but I am curious to hear people’s thoughts. One of the major aims of the paper is to distinguish between two types of “biological material:” 1) Fetal remains/corpses and 2) Replicated cell lines. The paper argues that the reasoning in Dignitas Personae which states that biological materials must be treated with the same respect as the remains of other human beings, and thus cannot be subject to mutilation or to autopsy is restricted to 1. The paper claims that the valid consent of the parents would be required to perform autopsy or research on 1, but this is impossible in cases of abortion. Parents who abort forfeit their authority to decide what to do with the remains. There is no morally upright action they can perform. Therefore scientists have “no authority with regard to the use or disposal of the child’s remains” (5). However, the paper argues, it may be permissible to bury the remains as an act of mercy rather than as an action proceeding from rightful authority. Such an act is a benefit to the child, whereas performing research does not constitute such a benefit.

At the risk of challenging DP, I wonder a bit about this line of argument. I do believe that human remains must be treated with proper respect. I would suggest that there are two ways that proper respect could be violated:

1. One straightforward way that respect could be violated would be when we treat someone’s body/remains in a way in which she did not want them treated.

2. There could be certain ways of treating remains that would be disrespectful and thus wrong even if this is precisely what the deceased wanted. It may be crude to give specific examples of what this might be, but we could probably imagine some possibilities. Such cases would be intrinsically disrespectful.

Now consider autopsies and research. Whatever sorts of things fall under 2, it’s clear that autopsies and research would not qualify. If they did, then we should be opposed to these practices in all cases. Consider an adult human being who dies and had very clearly articulated her wishes that her body be used for research. The best way to respect her remains would be to use her body for this purpose. Similarly, if the person wanted her body to be buried intact, then the best way to respect her remains would be to fulfill these wishes. And in cases in which we don’t know what the person’s wishes are about what should be done with her remains, we leave the decision to remaining family members or do our best to treat her remains in the way in which we think it is most likely that she wanted them treated. I borrow much of this from Michael Gill’s arguments for presumed consent in organ procurement.

Intuitively, it seems that burial works the same way. If we knew that someone had a strong desire to have her remains cremated (my understanding is that the Church does not prohibit this practice), and we instead bury the remains, we fail to treat the remains with proper respect. The case of an aborted child is of course unique. Unlike the adult human being whose wishes are unknown, the aborted child has not yet formed a set of desires about this at all. Should we appeal to desires that we think the child would have had if they had not been aborted and instead reached adulthood? Like many others, I’m skeptical about appealing to these sorts of idealized desires. At any rate, if these practices aren’t intrinsically disrespectful, I’m not sure why they would necessarily be wrong when wishes are unknown or desires are not yet formed (assuming they do not contribute to more wrongful practices in the future). Why is burial preferable? It’s true that there is a benefit to others in the research case, but why should we assume that the only way to show respect for remains is to appeal exclusively to benefits to the deceased?

Reply

David Hershenov July 25, 2022 at 11:06 AM

I think regardless of someone’s wishes what is to be done with their remains, we can act otherwise to save lives. Imagine that the Shining Path wrongly shot down the plane in the Andes that led to survivors cannibalizing the dead that was the subject of the book and movie “Alive”. I think they can eat the corpses of those wrongly killed to stay alive. Let’s assume the deceased and their survivors were opposed to this. I think those interests can be disregarded. Whether that counts as disrespect – I assume it does – doesn’t matter. I doubt that the deceased have posthumous interests (assuming they don’t exist in Purgatory or Heaven or as ghosts roaming the earth etc).

Likewise, for throwing the corpse of the fat man in front of the trolley. Imagine he was an obese philosophy graduate student and right before he died, his last words were “respect by big fat, beautiful dead body and don’t throw it in front of a runaway trolley to save the lives of others”. Again, I think we can disregard his wishes

I think the living have rational interests in their dead bodies (remains) being treated certain ways – not spit upon by their enemies. But that distaste doesn’t track well-being. If the dead have zero well-being as Neil Feit and Ben Bradley believe, such a distaste for disrespectful treatment of one’s corpse can’t be accommodated as that would involve a fluctuation and not zero well-being. So I conclude that attitudes to our dead bodies should just be treated as rational preferences we had when alive that don’t persist posthumously and so can’t be frustrated posthumously

It seems that mandatory autopsies in the case of possible epidemics are contrary to DP. Imagine the family and the deceased are on record as objecting to autopsies. But if the deceased died due to an infectious disease, the state needs to know so it can save lives. If mandatory autopsies are legitimate, then why not taking tissue from the dead whether or not they were in favor or opposed or too young to have a view? I think one has to ban mandatory autopsies or allow for organ and tissue conscription. I don’t see a morally relevant difference between them

Jim Delaney July 18, 2022 at 3:12 PM

This is more of a question about/criticism of the opponents that the paper responds to. I wonder if they are equally opposed to the HeLa cell line. I assume that most are familiar with the details of the origin of these cells. In short, Henrietta Lacks was treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins in the early 1950s. Her cells were harvested and used without her consent. It seems clear that her autonomy was violated, and a case can be made that this bordered on a form of deception, which is standardly wrong on the natural law theory that informs Catholic moral teaching. These cells, like the HEW line, are still in use and have contributed to research on AIDS, various forms of cancer, and vaccines (I think including the COVID vaccine). It seems that some of the opponents the paper responds to, especially those who are said to equate cooperation with appropriation, would have to oppose all treatments derived from HeLa cells. I don’t know exactly how far reaching this would be, but I assume it would exclude a great deal of modern medicine. I bring up this particular example, because I am concerned that opponents of using the HEW line would set a very high bar. I imagine that a great deal of our technological advances in medicine and elsewhere have at some point been tied to various sorts of illicit practices. So if opponents of using the HEW line are to be consistent, they may be required to refuse a great deal of modern medicine and technologies in general.

David Hershenov July 25, 2022 at 9:47 AM

Dialogue:

Gollum (Lord of the Rings)

John Locke

SUNY Fredonia Professor of Philosophy Suspendus

Objective Blog Moderator

Treebeard – Talking Tree AKA Ents from Lord of the Rings

Gollum: “Oh, my Precious, My Precious, My precious ring. All mine. Mine! My property. My precious property.” Gollum glares at Treebeard.

Treebeard: “Gollum, I don’t care about your precious ring but I do want to thank you for screeching and salivating so much. The carbon dioxide from your ranting and raving is crucial to my growth and metabolism and your saliva wets my roots enabling me to live and grow.

Gollum: “My precious spit, Mine, not yours. Give me back my CO2. Mine, My precious gas. All mine, Not yours. Give me my precious saliva. Give to it to me. Now. Give it to me or I will dig up your roots and break them and your branches and suck out my saliva. Give me my precious spit and gas.” Gollum tries to bite Treebeard but is pushed back.

John Locke: Gollum! Even if the gases and saliva were yours, sucking and chewing on Treebeard is not proportionate force.

Professor Suspendus: there is no coherent formula or account of proportionality so is not part of moral reality.

John Locke: Surely you jest. If I slap you for such foolishness, my violence is not disproportionate to your actions? Is it not an unjust crime against you?

Professor Suspendus: It would not be disproportionate but that doesn’t mean it would be just

John Locke: I find you a frustrating interlocuter

Objective Blog Moderator: Professor Suspendus elicits that response in many of us

Treebeard: The spit and carbon dioxide are no longer yours, Gollum. They left your body. They are not your parts and not your property, if they ever were.

Objective Blog Moderator: No one owns his own body. Property must be alienable and one can’t alienate oneself from oneself.

Treebeard: “You poor deranged Gollum, if you owned all your saliva and carbon dioxide that was ever in your body over your 589 years, you would consist of billions of particles spread over the world.

Gollum: My precious saliva, my precious gas. Mine. Mine! Mine!! Give it back or I cut off your roots and suck out my precious spit that you stole

SUNY Professor Suspendus: Gollum is right that he owns himself and his parts. he never relinquished his claim right on his carbon dioxide gas and saliva. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t use the exhaled gas and drool - or sweat and urine for that matter. Consider Neil’s hammer that he no longer uses or cares about. Someone can’t just claim it as their own on the grounds that Neil is has no interest anymore in his hammer. Ownership rights don’t disappear when one’s interests change.

John Locke: Gollum doesn’t need his expectoration and gaseous exhalation. It will just evaporate which violates my spoils proviso. "at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others…As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils; so much he may by his labour fix a Property in. Whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for Man to spoil or destroy.”

John Locke: Why are you called Professor Supsendus? I know of professors and professors emeritus.

Professor Suspendus: My college faculty, students, and colleagues are intolerant

John Locke: I see. Are you a Puritan oppressed by the state’s religious authorities?

Objective Blog Moderator: Puritanism is not his problem. (Objective Blog Moderator whispers in ear of John Locke. Locke’s eyes widen and then angry scowl forms on his face)

John Locke: That is an abomination! Why is Professor Suspendus not in the blocks or pillories?

Replies

Stephen Kershnar August 8, 2022 at 2:04 PM

HEY, SUSPENDUS, I GOT YOUR CONSISTENCY RIGHT HERE

Consider this exchange.

Professor Suspendus: there is no coherent formula or account of proportionality so is not part of moral reality.

John Locke: Surely you jest. If I slap you for such foolishness, my violence is not disproportionate to your actions? Is it not an unjust crime against you?

Here is Locke's position made more explicit.

(1) If defensive violence is just, then it is proportionate.

(2) If violence is proportionate, then an equation represents it.

(3) No equation represent represents proportionality.

John Locke citing Emerson, "“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

John Locke's real argument here.

(4) Argumentum ad baculum is a legitimate argument form.

(5) If (4) is true, then if you mess with the bull, you get the horns.

The sad feature of all this is that Locke is twice as good as Hume and four times as good as Aquinas .

Best.

David Hershenov July 25, 2022 at 11:37 AM

Dialogue Part II

Gollum: All my gas and spit is mine! Always my precious spit and gas. Never belongs to ugly tree person. Give me my precious gas and spit!

Professor Suspendus: Gollum is right. He never relinquished his Holfeldian claim to his gas and saliva.

John Locke: That means he owns part of everyone who has any of his gasses or expectoration that he has drooled or exhaled in his wretched 589 years of life. So, one Englishman owns another? That is slavery and violates the rights of man!

Professor Suspendus: I believe it is more a a matter of co-ownership rather than slavery

John Locke: That is still absurd

SUNY Professor Suspendus. It is like the Hensel twins - which by the way, dooms animalism. Conjoined twins both own their shared parts.

Objective Blog Moderator: “Dicephalic twins are no problem for animalism” (said in a wise voice that instills confidence in the hearers)

John Locke: So, Gollum is a scattered object sharing parts with countless individuals who have acquired his used up parts across the years. Perhaps he and a dozen others in the Shire own parts of me. Absurd!

SUNY Professor Suspendus: I didn’t claim the scattered material was Gollum’s parts, just his property. Everyone owns themselves and thus owns their parts and while one’s property may cease to be one’s parts, it doesn’t cease to be his property.

John Locke: I do not like the Gollum/Suspendus thesis

Objective Blog Moderator: It is not the Duhem/Quine Thesis

John Locke: When hands and feet are removed, they cease to be hands and feet

SUNY Professor Suspendus: While that may be true, the microscopic parts composing whatever macro object there now is that resembles hands and feet (or the original cells) remain the same and they are the property of the man whose body once contained them

John Locke: The dead cannot own themselves or their one-time parts.

Professor Suspendus: The descendants of the deceased own the parts of the dead unless it was specified otherwise in the last testament who the proprietor of the saliva and carbon dioxide.

John Locke: So, if the heirs of someone whose parts and property have entered my body through normal metabolism have debts, those debts can be paid by selling my parts that are co-owned. That is absurd and unchristian

SUNY Professor Suspendus: I believe this shows property rights ultimately make no sense as it is impossible for them to be exclusive and property must ultimately be exclusive. If one can’t exclude others from one’s property, then one really has no control over one’s property and property rights are control rights. And if we don’t own ourselves exclusively then we have no rights over our labor or bodies than others must respect. Ergo, Morality is impossible. Everything must go. There is no property, there are no rights, no one deserves anything, proportionality is inoherent.. Everything must go.

John Locke: Giving Professor Suspendus incredulous look, he addresses the assembled “Has your society no stocks or pillories?”

Replies

Stephen Kershnar August 8, 2022 at 2:01 PM

THE MODERATOR’S ARGUMENT FROM AUTHORITY – SPECIFICALLY DRS. IGNATOWSKI AND GERVIN

Consider this exchange.

(1) SUNY Professor Suspendus. It is like the Hensel twins - which by the way, dooms animalism. Conjoined twins both own their shared parts.

(2) Objective Blog Moderator: “Dicephalic twins are no problem for animalism” (said in a wise voice that instills confidence in the hearers)

The author of this exchange is so uncharitable toward the Objective Blog Moderator, one wonders what the Moderator ever did to the author.

Suspendus: So, the Hensel Twins – with one set of internal organs – is one person? If we shoot that body, we kill one person? If we exchange Phil’s and Jim’s brains, they stay in their body? If we cut off Suspendus’ head and put it in ectoplasm and he thinks about the Ontological Argument for six hours, he didn’t exist for the six hours? In th afterlife God uses entirely new material but constitutes the same life because the particular life – despite being a property of an object – can exist entirely independent of it. C’mon, man, you’re not even trying.

Moderator: Look, clearly, I’m reasoning backward. Given the wrongness of all abortion, the afterlife, and my sparse ontology – much more sparse than my weekends at Berkeley, if you know what I’m sayin’ - I have to reject the above coherent, crystal clear, and scientific intuitions, such as those mentioned above.

Beside in support of my view - and this really is at the heart of my argument - is the seminal work of Harvard philosopher and Reverend Jim "Iggy" Ignatowski and legendary Eastern Michigan philosophy George “Iceman” Gervin.

Phil Reed July 27, 2022 at 6:06 PM

Like Jim, I have general sympathies with Tollefsen's paper. I will just raise two objections.

Comment 1 Interpretation of Dignitas Personae

I'm not sure that Tollefsen gets the interpretation of DP right. His claim is that DP restricts the use of corpses of embryos and fetuses, but not other kinds of biological material. There are three potential problems with this interpretation.

1. Tollefsen seems to have an unusual interpretation of how the phrase "general principle" is working. After introducing the phrase "biological material," DP quotes Donum vitae, which uses the phrase "corpses of human embryos and fetuses", and says that the latter teaching "formulated the general principle which must be observed in these cases". Tollefsen comments that DP "limits the initial scope of what follows to a 'general principle'" and so it must be talking about only corpses (7). I think reference to a "general principle" does not mean to limit scope. It means to expand scope.

Here is an analogy. "Do all dogs go to heaven? The general principle which must be observed in these cases comes from Matthew 55:3: 'basset hounds go to heaven.'" Here, the natural reading is that the more specific category is being used as a clue to apply more broadly to all dogs.

2. DP does not mention corpses again, but does go on to discuss biological material, i.e. the more general category.

3. Tollefsen later comments on another passage in DP which uses the phrase "such 'biological material'". Tollefsen comments that the scope of this phrase "is determined by the previous paragraph which limits discussion to the treatment of fetal corpses, not all biological materials" (8). The paragraph in question is the one that I criticized above. (In fact, this is not the previous paragraph, but two paragraphs prior.) This might seem reasonable, since "biological material" is preceded by the word "such", which might imply a limited scope (to corpses). However, in the paragraph immediately preceding this one, DP also uses the phrase "biological material" and this use is not preceded by the word "such". DP says: "...the use of “biological material” of illicit origin would be ethically permissible provided..." It seems an awkward interpretation to say that this use of "biological material" is limiting scope only to fetal corpses.

Phil Reed July 27, 2022 at 6:18 PM

Comment 2 Criticism of Car Analogy

I'm concerned that the analogy to a car might break down (pun intended) given the purposes of each act.

Tollefsen says (18) that if we purchase and use HEK cell lines, we do not cooperate with van der Eb, just like if we purchase and use a car from an intermediate owner, we do not cooperate with Henry Ford or the Ford company.

I think Tollefsen is right that there is reason to think that in selling a car, the action is completed at the sale. But what if van der Eb's purpose in creating the cell line is to contribute generally to the advancement of scientific knowledge, including the treating of infectious diseases? This kind of general purpose is not reasonable for selling a car (we wouldn't say that Ford was trying to promote driving generally and far down the line with the sale of each car to each owner) but is perhaps more reasonable for selling biological material. If this is right, then maybe there is more to Pakaluk's case here than Tollefsen allows that would make cooperation more likely in the cell line case.

(I have not had a chance yet to look at Pakaluk's article to examine the case for what purposes van der Eb had in mind in making the cell line.)

Reply

Stephen Kershnar September 1, 2022 at 10:38 AM

ARETHA FRANKLIN, JEFF SPICOLI, AND UNNECESSARY ROUGHNESS

Guys:

I really enjoyed Chris' outstanding comments and excellent humor.

Nevertheless, I come to bury the dead rather than praise them.

Best,

Steve K

1. No Existence, No Dice

If a being - ET - does not exist, then I cannot benefit, harm, wrong, or respect him. There's one there to whom I can do these things. This is true if the person ceased to exist or does not yet exist, and I am deciding what moral or aesthetic duties I have now. Any objection to this leads to a backtracking account.

2. Backtracking Is Sleazy

"But your friend no longer exists! Well, perhaps it is enough for one’s friend to live on in one’s memory and one’s own actions for one’s friend to meet Steve’s Exemplification in Time and Existence Conditions for benefit. Perhaps David’s interest in Interests is irrelevant: the friend benefits posthumously not only without interests, but without existing in anything more than my memory and in the various other ways he left his stamp on the world: children, artifacts, philosophy articles, possessions, and so on."

Unless one believes in backtracking interests - one today makes a person who no longer exists benefit when he was still alive or the afterlife – burying a body does not benefit the person. One should not believe in backtracking interests. Hence, the dead cannot have an interest-based right to be buried (or be owed a duty to it). Ditto for an autonomy-based right or duty.

3. R-E-S-P-E-C-T

"Suppose your friend dies. Do you stop loving your friend? I don’t think that you do. But love is to will your friend’s good, and it seems there are plausible ways to will your friend’s continued good: by insisting that false things not be said about him, by honoring his memory – marking the anniversary of his death, for example – or by continuing projects that you had begun with him. There is a good that is realized by doing these things, namely, the good of friendship. That good obviously does not exist in its paradigmatic sense in this instance; but it seems real, and could be violated – by dishonoring your friend’s memory, by forgetting he ever existed, by saying false things about him."

If a person does not exist, then one can no longer respect him. Remember, backtracking is sleazy.

One can respect his memory or one's feelings toward him, but these are not things - unless they are duties to one's self - that have a ground. Applicable Principle: No Ground, No Duty.

Reply

Stephen Kershnar September 1, 2022 at 10:38 AM

4. Spicoli on Ownership

"And suppose a killer learned that the corpse of his victim could be uniquely valuable in generating a cure for a highly infectious and deadly pandemic. I don’t think it would make any sense to talk of the killer’s “donating” the corpse to science, but I do think he would have a duty to make sure the corpse got into the hands of the relevant scientific authorities, especially if it did not look like the state was going to make that happen."

Ownership of an object is the liberty (Hohfeldian two-way) to do what one wants with something and the claim that others not do what they want with it. This is full-blooded ownership. If one doesn’t like the word ‘ownership,’ let us call these features ‘body-focused liberties and claims.’

If this is correct and if the body is an object - leave aside the brain theory of a person - then a killer who forfeits his right to own the body does not have a duty to do certain things with the body.

To quote Yale’s Dr. Jeff Spicoli, "No shoes, no shirt, no dice." To paraphrase, "No permission, no duty."

5. The Common Good Is Neither Common Nor Good

"Indeed, framing that authority as a property right reminds us of a foundational moral fact of property, which is that it is to be private in ownership but common in use, that is, that its use is to serve the common good."

If the common good is the aggregate good or the good of the community, this is false.

If a passenger has an excellent kidney system, other people do not have permission - moral or legal - to use, borrow, or take it to benefit a world-famous violinist. Nor do they have a duty to do so. This is true even if it would be far better for the aggregate or the community were the passenger to share use of with the violinist or were other people to make him do so.

If the common good is filled out in terms of what is fair, reasonable, or respectful of a basic human good, then the above claim becomes the following, "Property is to be private in ownership but fair in use." This earns the proponent a 15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness regarding language. This is also true when this usage occurs in the context of double effect.

Let us set aside the penalty and notice that (a) fairness is something that derives its normative force from something else (for example, desert, dignity, equality, or rights). At best, this indirectly refers to the wrong-maker.

The problem is that (b) this is false. It is unfair (for example, unequal) for the passenger to have two great kidneys and the violinist none. Yet the passenger has a right to his kidneys.

Chris, thanks again for the great comments.

Once again, I am pleased to thank the members of the Romanell Center for offering to blog about a paper of mine.  In this case, there was also an invitation from David Hershenov to present the paper in the first place, so I’m doubly grateful. And then the comments themselves are extremely provocative and interesting, so the gratitude is threefold.  Add in some dialogues involving Gollum, John Locke, and Thrasymachus, the traditional Kershnar-Hershenov score settling, and a mercifully brief discussion of necrophilia (who raised that topic? Oh, right…), and you have the rich heady brew for which the Romanell blog is famous, a bourbon-barrel-aged high ABV philosophical stout, perfect for a late night quaff, but not to be combined with the operation of heavy machinery.

My paper was broadly concerned with the ethics and metaphysics of the HEK293 cell line: was it permissible for scientists to establish that line given that the cells used came from an unjustly aborted child? What is the nature of that cell line and what is the relationship between that cell line and the child’s cells that were used to establish it? Can that cell line be ethically used by scientists, and can vaccines derived in some way or other from that cell line be permissibly used? The Romanell blog comments mostly concern the ethics of disposing an unjustly killed child’s remains and the metaphysics of the HEK line and I will primarily focus on those issues.

I must apologize for the lack of both drama and comedy in my comments. Deficient in both respects, my remarks cannot hope to compete with the Kershnar-Hershenov Late Night at the Improv.

I.  CRAWFISH ANDOUILLE CHEESECAKE

I made the following two claims in my paper: first, that because of the unjust abortion, mother and doctors both had forfeited any rights to disposing of the child’s remains, and thus they had no authority to donate the remains to scientists, nor was it permissible for scientists to receive the remains from those with no authority to donate them. Second, I held that nevertheless, there is a strong moral intuition that burying a dead body is a corporal work of mercy, and thus should be undertaken by either the mother or the physician. Both claims received attention and I’ll address them in turn.

1.  Authority to Dispose of a Child’s Remains

Would the mother, or both parents, ordinarily have authority to dispose of their children’s remains, and if so, why? And what is the relationship between that authority and some form of property right? Do parents own the remains of their deceased children? Steve Kershnar says “IGNORE AUTHORITY. OWNERSHIP IS AT ISSUE” (because he enjoys caps); David Hershenov more mildly denies that ownership is at issue. My own view is ecumenical.

I think that parents have authority to dispose of their children’s remains because someone must – it is important, for various reasons, for human remains to be adequately disposed of, which means someone needs to be responsible for the disposal, which means that someone must have the authority for so disposing. Parents are ordinarily the reasonable locus of that authority because they are ordinarily uniquely responsible for the existence of the child whose remains are in question.  When the child is alive, this means great responsibility and authority  to nourish and educate; when the child is deceased it means responsibility and authority to dispose of the remains. Since there are various ways the child’s remains could be reasonably disposed of, parental authority is generally determinative of which of those ways will be utilized.

There are some reasons to be suspicious of framing this as an issue of ownership.  If we are bodies and thus continue to exist after death, then as Steve Kershnar points out, we would want to deny ownership, because then there would be ownership of persons. But we are not bodies. Similarly, if ownership of a corpse implied in some way prior ownership of ourselves or even our bodies tout court, that also would be philosophically problematic for most Catholics who have a long tradition of denying that we own ourselves.

But it does not seem to me to matter much if we frame the authority to dispose of a child’s remains in terms of ownership, which just is the authority to procure and dispose of something. Indeed, framing that authority as a property right reminds us of a foundational moral fact of property, which is that it is to be private in ownership but common in use, that is, that its use is to serve the common good. This is important in addressing some points of David’s, e.g. concerning eating corpses in situations of necessity.

In any event: just as parental rights can be forfeited, so can the authority to dispose of a child’s remains, and I hold that killing your child results in a forfeiture of any such authority. This point could, I think, be put in terms of the forfeiture of property rights in the fetal remains.

Suppose a father kills his four-year old; does the child’s mother, who was not responsible, retain authority? Yes; and so does an unwilling father when the mother kills it.  So the father of an aborted child, who did not will and perhaps attempted to stop, the abortion, retains authority and could in fact donate the child’s remains, as David suggests. And if a child dies who then turns out to possess cells whose use could stop a pandemic, then I think the state could appropriate the cells for the common good even against the wishes of the parent. The property is private in ownership but common in use and can be appropriated in case of urgent need.

But in abortion, at least one parent, the relevant doctors, and the state, where the abortion was legal, are all complicit and so lack authority. So there is, in at least some circumstances, no one with authority to dispose of the remains by donating them to science. Put another way, no one has a rightful claim to ownership of the corpse.

That raises a problem.  If no one has authority to dispose of it, what can be done?

2.  Duty to Bury

Suppose a killer learns the corpse of his victim has an infectious and very deadly disease and that the corpse poses a significant health risk. By hypothesis, no one else is available to dispose of the body, and it needs to be buried. Then the killer has an obligation to do so; he does not have authority to choose how to dispose of the body – if he had any authority (e.g. as a parent) he has forfeited that – but he now has a duty, grounded in considerations of public health, to bury it, and that duty gives him, if not authority, then at least a right to bury.

And suppose a killer learned that the corpse of his victim could be uniquely valuable in generating a cure for a highly infectious and deadly pandemic.  I don’t think it would make any sense to talk of the killer’s “donating” the corpse to science, but I do think he would have a duty to make sure the corpse got into the hands of the relevant scientific authorities, especially if it did not look like the state was going to make that happen.

But the case I’m concerned with is one in which there is no urgent need that could be met with the fetal remains, and in which, as is typically the case, the fetal remains will most likely simply be thrown out. I deny that any responsible parties have authority to decide between otherwise permissible options such as burial or donation to science. But I assert in the paper that burial might be an act of corporal mercy, and the best course for the responsible parties to take.

This raises lots of problems, and the Romanell blog participants went right to work on them. The big problem is that calling F-ing a work of mercy seems to require, conceptually, that F-ing be of some benefit to the person towards whom it is a work of mercy.  Burying a corpse for public health reasons is not a work of mercy towards the decedent, nor is donating someone’s corpse to science a work of mercy towards the decedent. But it seems implicit in the idea that burying the dead is a work of mercy that it is a work of mercy towards the dead, and that seems to require an account of how the dead can be benefited.

Steve points to the familiar problem (although in the context of discussing rights infringements) that the idea of benefiting the dead seems incompatible with the following:

(1)   Exemplification in Time. If a concrete particular exemplifies a property, then it exemplifies it at a time.

(2) Existence. If a concrete particular exemplifies a property at a time, then it exists.

David mounts a series of objections based on the fetus’s lack of interest in the post-mortem treatment of its corpse:

I don’t think mindless fetuses have an interest in burial – and certainly not an interest in burial over cremation. CT writes “burial of the child’s remains is the one way in which one can benefit the deceased child – using the child’s remains for science is no benefit to her.” I don’t see why the child would have an interest in burial but not in a cure for a disease of her relatives that her cell line could contribute to. I suspect she has neither…

And generalizes to all the dead:

So I think the dead don’t have interests to frustrate. And if their earlier interests are frustrated, it doesn’t matter as they no longer have those interests. We are not bothered if earlier interests are frustrated after someone’s interests change. I see death as a change of mind – so to speak. Likewise, I don’t like Dworkin-like advanced directives for Alzheimer’s patients as I believe they no longer have such critical interests in dignity etc. that they had before their brain deteriorated

So this is the ultimate question for me – and for the Church! – how does burying the child’s remains benefit the child? If it does not, it is not an act of mercy.

Here is a very provisional way of addressing this.

Suppose your friend dies. Do you stop loving your friend? I don’t think that you do. But love is to will your friend’s good, and it seems there are plausible ways to will your friend’s continued good: by insisting that false things not be said about him, by honoring his memory – marking the anniversary of his death, for example – or by continuing projects that you had begun with him. There is a good that is realized by doing these things, namely, the good of friendship.  That good obviously does not exist in its paradigmatic sense in this instance; but it seems real, and could be violated – by dishonoring your friend’s memory, by forgetting he ever existed, by saying false things about him.

But your friend no longer exists! Well, perhaps it is enough for one’s friend to live on in one’s memory and one’s own actions for one’s friend to meet Steve’s Exemplification in Time and Existence Conditions for benefit. Perhaps David’s interest in Interests is irrelevant: the friend benefits posthumously not only without interests, but without existing in anything more than my memory and in the various other ways he left his stamp on the world: children, artifacts, philosophy articles, possessions, and so on.

That might be a somewhat unsatisfying account, but the idea that we can maintain a relationship with our dead loved ones for better or worse seems deeply entrenched and perhaps should not be dislodged by merely philosophical worries.

But it is also the case that few if any of those who ever thought that burying the dead was a work of mercy have accepted this account. Most people who believe that burying the dead is a work of mercy also believe at least that the soul of the dead person continues to exist and that the dead person him or herself will eventually exist again; and others believe that the dead person continues to exist as a soul prior to the resurrection of the body. Either way, it seems intelligible that one would want to maintain one’s solidarity with one’s loved ones in anticipation of a heavenly reunion.

One way to do so is to show honor or respect for the things that once belonged to the dead.  I own some paintings done by my deceased father; I would burn them in a minute to save my freezing children’s life, but I would not burn them to relieve a slight chill, nor would I repurpose the canvass, nor toss them in a heap – they were his work, and his life and person is realized in them as artifacts of his creation, and I maintain my relationship with my father my treating them appropriately.

Whatever the connection between a person and his or her remains, it is a pretty intimate connection, and if there are ways of treating my father’s paintings appropriately or inappropriately, then there are also ways of treating his corpse so. The content of those ways might be a matter of convention – burial, burning, mummification, perhaps even eating – but in our culture it is burial or burning, with, for Christians, some preference for the former, and so burying the dead maintains friendship and solidarity with that person.  

For those who have expressed preferences, of course, the default in maintaining solidarity will be treatment of the remains in accordance with that person’s expressed wishes.  Jim Delaney writes “if the person wanted her body to be buried intact, then the best way to respect her remains would be to fulfill these wishes.” But I think it is the other way around: the best way to fulfill her wishes, and hence maintain solidarity, is to treat her remains in such and such a way. That is, I think it is a mistake to frame this in terms of “respect for the remains”.

That barely scratches the surface of the issues of the discussion, which includes an interesting tangent on benefiting from your own wrongdoing. It also contains a link to Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership (http://jpfo.org/) which one does not often see referenced in discussions of the corporal works of mercy.

II.  CRISPY CRAB CAKE PO-BOY

I’ll move on to some of the issues raised about the ontological claims I made about HEK293 cells. My bottom line is the cell line does not contain anything that was a part of the deceased child, and that the cell line itself is of a different substantial kind than were the cells of the child.

1.  Remaining Parts?

David raises an objection:

perhaps some of its organelles show up in the descendent cells. Aren’t there body parts at even lower levels (molecules) that could be shared with one of the descendants[?] So, it seems possible that some parts of original cells are shared over and over with descendants in the cell line and thus the vaccine is made with or tested upon parts of the deceased even years after the abortion

David acknowledges the standard hylomorphist answer: these “parts” are not the same entities when found in different substances. I’m happy enough with that answer. But then he asks me to imagine being swallowed by Leviathan and being functionally integrated into its life like a bacteria or parasite or something before being saved by the Rock and Sigourney Weaver. I don’t “pop back into existence” when they rescue me (but I better get a cut of box office on this project!). However, I don’t think I really was a part of Leviathan in this story; I was more like a pacemaker or prosthetic, functionally important, but not genuinely integrated into the life of Leviathan. But this set of moves presupposes that that there has been a substantial change in the artificing that produced the HEK line, and David has some concerns there too.

3. Identity of HEK cells

My claim that there has been substantial change rests upon the properties of the HEK line: it is an “immortal cell line” that is functionally different from any of the cells that it might have been derived from – kidney cells, let’s say. But, asks David, couldn’t they be put back in a person and do the same things their ancestor cells did? If so, that might be reason to think that they have not undergone a substantial change.

I don’t think this is what one could expect; HEK293 cells are considered highly tumorigenic. Suppose they would form tumors if reinserted in a person; those tumors would not be part of the person – I don’t think any cancer ever is part of the person the cancer inhabits.

David raises an objection to the claim that the immortality of the cell line means that there has been a substantial change:

The cell is not immortal, just the cell line. Each cell is mortal and its change has been in its ability to make its descendants fissionable (fertile, so to speak). It is a mistake to speak of HEK as functionally immortal and human cells not. Neither are immortal. One is just fecund. An analogue is a genetic change that you pass on to your daughters that enables them and their granddaughters and great granddaughters etc. never to enter menopause but to be able to reproduce right until they die in their eighties or nineties. there is no substantial change when women undergo a never ending power to reproduce that they bestow on their female offspring. So why think it is substantial change when cells acquire the ability to make their descendants forever capable of reproducing through division?

What is immortality predicated of? The line, not the cells. But then aren’t the cells of HEK just more fecund? And that does not seem a substantial change.

I think this is also not quite right.  Primary cells have a limit to the number of times their descendants can reproduce. With each successive generation, the cells’ telomeres shorten and when they get short enough, this leads to cell senescence (different from apoptosis, which is programmed cell death that is necessary in certain populations of cells). Cells lines become immortal in one of two ways: either the cells mutate and resist senescence, which is to say, they become cancer cells, which as noted I think is a substantial change in the cell and cell line; or a viral gene can be introduced that overcomes senescence often by suppressing tumor suppressing genes (see How to Become Immortal: Generation of Immortal Cell Lines).  This is indeed a change in fecundity but one that rather profoundly changes the nature of the cells and makes them fit for various scientific purposes that primary cells are unfit for, and unfit for contributing to the life of a human organism in a way that primary cells lines are fit for.

Jim Delaney asks in this context what role does distance and multiple replications play? I guess not much – it is the substance change that matters. Distance helps see it more clearly though, and at the distance that immortal cell lines like HEK exist from the original primary cells, there is an immense amount of genetic change that has taken place over the many replications, making clearer the fairly radical differences between these cells and those from which they were derived.

Jim also, somewhat incidentally but interestingly, wonders about HeLa cells and whether opponents of HEK are also opposed to those. Jim says that Ms. Lacks’s autonomy was violated, the now standard story about this case. I confess that I am not so certain about this.  Ms. Lacks was being treated for cancer, and the cells that gave rise to the HeLa line came from her cancer; those cells, as I’ve noted, don’t seem to me to have been parts of her, and I don’t see any reason to think she owned them or had authority for their disposal.  She can’t be treated without consent, but the idea that she owns the cancer much less what is derived from it is not obviously true. So, I’m not sure how much bite the dilemma Jim puts forth has.

4. Ontology of a cell line

David writes:

Cell lines might not be objects in a correct ontology: First, they would be a scattered object and that is an initial reason for doubting their ontological status just as there is nothing that is you, meat and my car. There are cells, but maybe they don’t compose anything such as a line any more than there is an object that consists of all the oxygen that was ever inside me. Is there such a thing as half of the cell line? Can't cell lines divide when a new experimenter is shipped some cells?

This is a fair point. I don’t think HEK is a count substance, like a cat, but a mass substance like water, but with this major difference, that it is alive.  So HEK293 is a living mass substance.  As such, that it exists in different places, with various accidents, seems unproblematic.  There is good drinking water here, dirty water there; and the HEK line has somewhat different properties in this lab and that.

So: when the HEK cell line is created, scientists effect a substantial change through artifice, just as, on Aquinas’s view, bakers effect a substantial change when baking bread. But bread is not alive, so it also like when sorcerers, through their craft, make snakes or frogs.  But snakes and frogs are individual substances.  So it is as if, through craft, scientists made water that was alive.

III.  BLACKENED DELTA CATFISH & LOUISIANA CRAWFISH DYNAMITE

Phil raises an objection to my interpretation of Dignitas Personae.

DP begins section 35 by speaking of  “’biological material’ of illicit origin”, produced outside the research center, and saying that Donum vitae has formulated a “general principle” that must be applied:

The corpses of human embryos and fetuses, whether they have

been deliberately aborted or not, must be respected just as the remains of other human beings. In particular, they cannot be subjected to mutilation or to autopsies if their death has not yet been verified and without the consent of the parents or of the mother. Furthermore, the moral requirements must be safeguarded that there be no complicity in deliberate abortion and that the risk of scandal be avoided.

My view is that while the phrase “biological material of illicit origin” encompasses both fetal remains and cell lines derived from those remains, the next two paragraphs are only concerned with the use in research centers of fetal remains under conditions in which the general principle is violated. Those remains have been given and obtained without proper consent and hence in an insufficiently respectful way. This criticism is not obviated by effecting some kind of “distance” between the abortion and the reception of the fetal remains in the lab.

But then, in the fourth paragraph of 35, DP says “Of course, within this general picture there exist differing degrees of responsibility” and goes on to say that “Grave reasons may be morally proportionate to justify the use of such “biological material,” giving as an example to use of a vaccine derived from such materials. Here the unrestricted sense of “biological material” is back on the table, and the strict general principle is no longer the only or dominant consideration.

Phil says it seems an awkward interpretation to say that this use of "biological material" is limited in scope only to fetal corpses and thinks instead that fetal corpses are a particular example of a “general” point being made.

But the second paragraph of 35 seems clearly and exclusively about fetal remains.  It mentions a criterion of independence and then says:

According to this criterion, the use of “biological material” of illicit origin would be ethically permissible provided there is a clear separation between those who, on the one hand, produce, freeze and cause the death of embryos and, on the other, the researchers involved in scientific experimentation. The criterion of independence is not sufficient to avoid a contradiction in the attitude of the person who says that he does not approve of the injustice perpetrated by others, but at the same time accepts for his own work the “biological material” which the others have obtained by means of that injustice.

The points I have italicized seem to me to indicate that this discussion remains entirely within the realm of concern for fetal remains after an unjust abortion. My reading here is contrary to Phil’s, who writes that the absence of “such” before “biological materials removes the limitation of scope to fetal remains. But here, the limiting work is indicated by the immediately following reference to “the death of embryos.”

All this is why in the next paragraph, I think the otherwise very strong seeming claim of a duty to refuse to make use of “such biological materials” is actually limited to the kinds of biological materials that have just been discussed, viz., the remains of an aborted child. I think it is reasonable to read the document in this restricted way both for these textual reasons and because otherwise the document would be making an incredibly strong claim, a claim that would make it difficult to sustain its relative permissiveness when it comes to the use of vaccines “derived from” – i.e., by way of cell lines that originated in – biological material of illicit origin.

IV.  BEIGNETS

Phil also raises an objection to an argument I made against Michael Pakaluk.  Pakaluk argues that the creator of the HEK line, Lex van der Eb, initiated an action in creating the cell line (an unjust act, we both agree) that is brought to completion when scientists purchase or otherwise obtain cells of that line and do research on them.  So while there is no cooperation with the original abortion, which lies untouchably in the past, there is cooperation now with van der Eb in an action he initiated years ago but which remains to be completed. Phil says:

I think Tollefsen is right that there is reason to think that in selling a car, the action is completed at the sale. But what if van der Eb's purpose in creating the cell line is to contribute generally to the advancement of scientific knowledge, including the treating of infectious diseases? This kind of general purpose is not reasonable for selling a car (we wouldn't say that Ford was trying to promote driving generally and far down the line with the sale of each car to each owner) but is perhaps more reasonable for selling biological material.

This came up in discussion in Buffalo after the paper as well, and I think it is an interesting problem, and one I only have some rough thoughts about, but here they are:

First, I think there are joint or collective actions, in which there is a shared intention among the participants to act together.  When that is the case, some part of what is done might, because of a division of labor, remain for one agent of the collective to “finish” but in such a way that it is nevertheless true that it is a group action. So it might remain for me to put “the finishing touches” on some project we have worked on together, and thus I complete “our” work.

But I think that that should be distinguished from the very many actions we engage in hoping that the fruits of our action will be profitably used by others. I write a book and hope others will read it and thereby benefit. I engage in basic scientific research hoping that others will use what I discover to cure this or that disease. And so on.

Here the parties are not working together and do not share a joint project. My agency ends with the completion of my work, and another’s begins when she makes use of the product of that work, whether it be a book, a bit of scientific knowledge, a gun, a car, or a cell line. It makes sense to speak of my hopes being realized that thousands of people would read my book, but in the absence of our undertaking a project together, I don’t think it makes sense to say that they have completed my action, and since, when they get around to reading it, my action of writing the book is complete, I don’t think it makes sense to say they are cooperating with me either.

No doubt it is true that van der Eb had high hopes for the cell line he created. But once it is created, other agents fulfilling those hopes is not the completion of something unfinished in van der Eb’s agency in the way that my putting the toppings on the pizza dough my wife has made is the completion of the pizza we are making together.

Speaking of pizza: I’m hungry! So, despite only scratching the surface of a lot of interesting and hard topics raised by the Romanell folks, I’m off.  Looking forward to many more rewarding discussions with all them.