VIII. Against Constitutionalism

 

                Let us consider still another objection to the position that human beings, human persons, are animals.  This objection is based on “constitutionalism,” which has also been called the “new dualism.” This view claims that we are animal-organisms, but not in the sense of strict identity.  Rather we are only derivatively animal-organisms, in the sense of being constituted by animal-organisms. 

                In the argument presented against dualism above (sections II-III) the key premises were (as we numbered them):  (1.) Sensation is a bodily act, and (3.) It is the same agent that performs the act of sensing and which performs the act of understanding or conceptual thought.  We argued further that since the agent that performs a bodily act is a bodily entity, the agent that understands also is a bodily entity, an animal organism. Constitutionalists admit that we can say, “I sense,” taking the word “sense” as denoting an organic or bodily action, but precisely because it is an organic action, they would add that “is” in this case has a different meaning than when one says, “I understand” or “I choose.”  The properties or actions that directly belong to the organism or animal, they argue, are directly attributable to the person that the animal or organism constitutes, but those properties or actions do not actually directly characterize him.[1] 

                Their key idea is that persons are not identical with animals, but they are constituted by them.  Constitution is a general relation, one that is weaker than identity but stronger than composition (for example, being composed of certain elements).  Consider Michelangelo’s statue David and the piece of marble David is constituted by.  Let us name the piece of marble “lumpl.”  The two are not identical, for the statue could be melted down and so cease to exist even though the piece of marble (lumpl) would continue to be.  Also, the particles composing lumpl could gradually all be replaced and yet David would survive.  In that case lumpl would cease to be but David would persist.  That is, (the constitutionalists hold) since the persistence conditions of David are distinct from those of lumpl, it follows that David and lumpl are not identical.  On the other hand, all of the particles that compose lumpl also compose David.  And so David and lumpl, while not identical, do occupy the same space; they are spatially coincident objects. 

                Applying the idea of constitutionalism to the question of personal identity, one gets the following results.  On this view I am not identical with my body but I am constituted by my body.  Also, I am not identical with this animal but I am constituted by this animal.  To be a person is to be an entity that, as Locke said, is conscious of itself, or, as Lynne Rudder Baker puts it, has a first-person perspective—is aware of himself as himself.[2]  This position is distinct from Cartesian dualism; indeed Baker has classified it as a type of materialism.[3] For, unlike Cartesian dualism, constitutionalism does hold that the person is necessarily constituted by a body, though it need not be the body one presently has, and indeed may, by way of gradual replacement of parts with artificial ones, be entirely artificial rather than organic.[4]

                In virtue of the constitution relation, the higher entity (for example the statue David or a person) inherits certain of the properties of the lower entity.  And the lower entity (for example the piece of marble or the animal) inherits certain of the properties of the higher entity.  So one can say, for example, that I weigh 185 pounds, and that I worry about getting out of debt.  But the first predication is an indirect one. What it really means is:  “The body that constitutes me, or the animal that constitutes me, weighs 185 pounds.”  The second predication, however, is direct:  the property, worrying about such and such, belongs non-derivatively to the person, the referent of “I.” 

                If this view were correct then we would not be identical with animals, as we argued above.  Also, if this view were correct, then one might hold that this organism that constitutes me came to be at one time, but that I came to be at a later time.  Thus, Lynne Rudder Baker denies that we ever were fetuses.[5] Moreover, on this view one could say that I cease to be long before the time that the organism that now constitutes me ceases to be, for example, if the animal that constitutes me entered into an irreversible coma or (perhaps) a so-called persistent vegetative state. 

                As we saw above, the principal argument for constitutionalism is based on the claim that there obviously are different persistence conditions for the entity that constitutes the higher entity and the higher entity itself.  Isn’t it obvious, so the argument goes, that David is distinct from lumpl since David could survive the gradual ceasing to be of lumpl?  And lumpl could survive the demise of David—for example if vandals melted down the famed statue.  Similarly, Baker argues that I could survive the demise of the animal that now constitutes me—each of my organs could be replaced, one by one, by an artificial device, until at some point I cease to be constituted by a living organism at all, but retain my first-person perspective, and so remain a person.[6] 

                But we submit that to argue in this fashion is to put the cart before the horse, or in other words, to beg the question. Different persistence conditions cannot be evidence for the real distinction between A and B.  Rather, the real distinction between A and B must be known (or perhaps implicitly assumed) before one knows (or holds) that A has different persistence conditions than B.  In the important case: if a human person and the human animal are really identical, then, though at times a human animal-person may not be able to exercise just then all of his basic natural capacities (for example, before he has actively developed such immediately exercisable capacities in himself, or when he is in a coma) still, the substantial entity that is the person continues to be. Whether this is indeed the case depends, of course, on whether the human person is identical with the human animal.[7] 

                The constitutionalist proposal has further, and more serious difficulties as well.  Setting aside the possibility that A and B are simply two distinct but somehow interacting substances, we need to consider three possibilities for a unified relation between A and B, for example, for the relation between the human person and the human animal.  First, A may be related to B as stuff, or parts, related to a whole.  Second, A may be related to B as the constitutionalists claim, namely, as two distinct substances, though co-located and standing in the constitution relation.  Or, third, A and B may be related as the less determinate concept of a substance to the more determinate concept of that self-same substance.  We maintain that there is good evidence to indicate that the human animal and the human person are related in the third way, and not in either of the first two ways.[8]  That is, there is substantial evidence to indicate that the human person and the human animal are the same substance, not two, co-located substances.

                Consider a substance with three parts, x, y, and z.  x-y-z constitute one substantial entity if there is a single self-integration among them, together they regularly perform characteristic actions and reactions, and this self-integration and regular unity of the parts comes from within rather than being imposed from outside (as in artifacts).  Now, could x-y-z together make up one substance, say, an animal, and also a distinct substance, say, a person?  What would be the evidence for the substantial distinction of the lower entity (in this case the animal) from the higher entity (the person)?  We have already said that different persistence conditions is not an allowable answer, since we must first know the real distinction between the substances before we know that they have different persistence conditions. 

                On the other hand, there is clear evidence for their real identity, in other words, that the distinction (between the human animal and the human person) is only a distinction between more and less general concepts.  If the various parts of the animal are regularly arranged or ordered from within in such a way as to participate in the action that characterizes the person, then this is evidence of substantial unity, as opposed to co-location of distinct substances.  But this is precisely what we find in the case of the human person, that is, the concrete rational animal.[9]  The individual human organism from conception forward is programmed, by his DNA, to develop himself to full physical maturity;[10] but this physical maturity includes the possession of a highly complex brain.[11]  And the human brain is internally oriented to providing the sort of sensory and perceptual experience that can serve as the content in which a human being understands, and performs acts of self-reflection, adopting an objective standpoint and a first-person perspective.  The human organism is internally structured to participate in those actions which distinguish the human animal from other animals.  The organic life of a human being does not develop in a distinct or neutral direction in relation to the rational and voluntary actions of the human person—those actions which move us to call the human animal a person.  Rather, the human animal’s biological structure is internally oriented to developing the organs necessary for actions characteristic of persons. 

                Moreover, viewing the internal coordination from the standpoint of the personal side, one can see that the human being’s mode of being an animal is specifically rational or personal.  Typically, his animal functions are modified or specified by rationality.  Thus, humans seek nourishment, shelter, sexual union, bearing and raising of children—all animal acts—in a specifically rational manner.  Hence being rational, which enables one to have a first-person perspective, and allows one to view oneself from an objective standpoint, [12] is, as Aristotle insisted, the specifically human manner of being an animal, that is, being an animal in a rational and self-conscious way, not the actuation of a distinct, even if co-located, substance.[13]  Where A and B are internally oriented to each other, such that they are naturally incomplete without each other (they can perform no actions in which the other does not also participate), and they cannot perform opposed actions, then A and B cannot be distinct whole substances.[14]  Rather, either they are parts of a single whole substance, or simply distinct aspects (concepts) of a single substance.  The latter obtains in the case of the relation between the human animal and the human person.  Human animal is just the less determinate, or more abstract, concept of the self-same substance apprehended more fully in the concept human person.

                 What of the analogy so often used of a statue to the marble (or copper) which constitutes it?  Might one argue that the human animal seems to be related to the person as the piece of marble is related to the statue, and since marble and the statue are distinct so must be the human animal and the human person?  The difficulty here is that a statue is an artifact, not a natural substance.  So, strictly speaking, the statue is an aggregate of substances viewed as having a unity because of the use to which we will or may put them.  There is a spatio-temporal continuity in aggregates (some particles falling away and being replaced by others, but not all of the particles being replaced at once), and so this aggregate, which has its unity from its relation to our use, persists but only in a loose sense.  The aggregate persists, in some sense, even if the particles that constitute it are rearranged so that it (the aggregate) is no longer subject to the use we had been making of it (its shape is changed so that it can no longer be called a statue).  So, the argument by analogy does not get off the ground.  It is not the case that there are two substances, the piece of marble and the statue, having different persistence conditions.  Rather, there is an aggregate of substances (elements making up the marble) arranged to form a statue (an artifact) and then later perhaps not so arranged.[15]  There is nothing here to suggest that it is a common occurrence for two really distinct substances to be co-located. 

                Baker’s argument that the human person is not identical with an organism because he or she could cease to be (derivatively) an organism but continue to exist, through gradual replacement of all his or her organic parts by artificial parts is mistaken.  First, the argument falsely supposes that memories, intentions and thought transferred to an artificial cerebrum would be numerically and not just qualitatively the same.  Memories, intentions, and thoughts are individuated by the subject in which they inhere, and so if such experiences could be “transferred” to another material agent, they would not be numerically identical.  Second, it seems more reasonable to believe that at some point in the process the organization necessary for the numerically same being to continue to exist would break down and so that individual would perish, even though (supposing the “transfer” is really possible) qualitatively similar memories and other experiences could be induced in another mechanism.[16]    

 

IX. Conjoined Twins and Organic Unity and Distinctness

 

Finally, another argument against the position that we are animal organisms has been presented by Jeff McMahan and is based on a consideration of dicephalic conjoined twins. Conjoined twins are monozygotic twins[17] that share organs and so are joined in their body (either at their chest or at their back) or sometimes at the tops of their heads.  In dicephalic twins the union includes the abdomen, pelvis and thorax.  Thus dicephalic twins have one trunk and two heads, though they do not share all of their organs.  The famous Hensel Twins (Abigail and Brittany) each has a heart and a stomach but they share three lungs and all of the organs in the lower part of their body.  McMahan argues that with dicephalic twins there are two persons but only one organism. 

Decephalic twins such as the Hensel girls constitute a single integrally functioning set of organs wrapped in a single skin, sustained by a single coordinated system of metabolism, served by a single blood-stream, protected by a single immune system . . . . These systems and the processes they sustain together constitute a single biological life, despite the fact that various aspects of this life are somehow jointly governed by two brains.[18]

On the other hand, McMahan continues, each is a distinct person since each has her own private thoughts, emotions, and expressions, and is a separate center of consciousness.[19]  Since dicephalic twins are not different types of beings from you or me, McMahan concludes that the human person is not identical with the human organism. 

Thus, according to McMahan, human persons are not organisms, though they are related to organisms.  Moreover, eschewing substance dualism and constitutionalism, McMahan argues that a human person—every human person—is an embodied mind, that is, a functioning brain, related to the organism as a part to the whole.[20] 

The first point to notice is that some conjoined twins (though not dicephalic ones) can be separated.  when this occurs there are no grounds for saying a new organism comes to be (as there are for example with cuttings in plants or monozygotic twins in mammals); so it is clear that there were two organisms all along, growing and functioning in distinct directions, at least with respect to most functions.  It is possible for two distinct organisms to share organs.  And, since that is so, there is no principled reason why two organisms could not have intertwined circulatory and immune systems and share very many (though not all) organs.

Second, McMahan assumes that being one organism and being two organisms are exclusive in all respects.  That is, he assumes that conjoined twins must be either one organism or two but that they cannot be both one and two though in different respects.  His argument is that since they are one organism they cannot be, at the same time two organisms.  But this is a mistake.  Conjoined twins are distinct organisms (as we show in a moment), but they also have a real organic unity. The conjoined twins are one organism in many respects (with respect to many organic functions) but two organisms with respect to other functions (such as sensations and many movements, since one twin typically has direct control over only one side, and so on).

To this one might object that similar disunity occurs in human beings who have undergone callosotomy (or commissurotomy)—a severing of the corpus callosum so that there appear to be two “centers of consciousness”.  In such cases literally the left side is sometimes not aware of what the right side is doing.[21]  Plainly, however, there is only one organism in the callosotomy case, and so (it may be objected) functions in some respects independent of one another do not prove that there are distinct organisms. 

In reply, the decisive point showing that the conjoined twins are two organisms (while at the same time having some degree of organic unity) is that each has her own brain, including brainstem—the organ responsible for much of the central organization of the animal.  This fact indicates that from the beginning, whether twinning occurs by incomplete fission or by a partial fusion of twins initially completely separate,[22] each is internally oriented to being organically complete and independent but that some anomalous occurrence (anomalous, since conjoined twins are extremely rare) prevents that.  By contrast, with the individual who has undergone a split-brain procedure (callosotomy), it is clear that there is an internal organic orientation toward full integration but a partial breakdown in that integration occurs.[23]   

                McMahan considers the argument that since the dicephalic twins have two brains they must be distinct organisms.  To this he replies, “It is rather (though not exactly) like the claim that a plane with duplicate control mechanisms for a pilot and a copilot is really two distinct but overlapping planes.”[24]  But these cases are very dissimilar.  First, though there is a high degree of integration between the twins, this integration is not complete (being established only by the organs which they do share in common).  Second, the plane’s duplicate control mechanism is designed to do the same thing the first control mechanism does.  In the twins’ case, however, there are not just different brains, there are other different organs (eyes, ears, etc.), and there are different and sometimes (in varying degrees) opposite functions or actions.  This is evidence of distinct organisms, albeit with some overlapping organs. 

The third difficulty in McMahan’s argument concerning dicephalic twins is that if his interpretation of their situation were correct, then none of the organs in the twins could be assigned to one individual rather than the other.  Each set of eyes, each set of ears, and so on, would not belong biologically more to one girl than to the other.  Each of these organs would have to be a part of a single larger organism, subservient to the survival and functioning of this one organism.  But this plainly is not the case.  It is indisputable that each one biologically has not only her own brain, but also her own skull, eyes, ears, and many organs, while sharing many other organs.

McMahan’s proposal that we are embodied minds or functioning brains, parts of whole human organisms, also is not tenable.  He rejects identifying the self with consciousness and he rejects the psychological continuity theory of diachronic personal identity.  He also rejects constitutionalism, though, like the constitutionalists, he wishes to distinguish one’s self from one’s organism.  He proposes, then, that what I am is a part of a human organism, namely, the brain when it is capable of being conscious. 

There are several difficulties with this proposal.  First, the brain is itself a complex whole, and gradually emerges in the self-development of the embryo.  The brain as a whole organ is clearly present in rudimentary form, with much differentiation, as early as ten weeks.  Before that, the epigenetic precursor of the brain is visibly present from thirteen days with the appearance of the primitive streak, and even before that its epigenetic primordium is present in the embryo in that from day one it has the information and inherent active disposition to develop a brain.[25]  The human child’s brain does not develop sufficiently to support conceptual thought until between six months and a year after birth.  McMahan, however, locates the beginning of the self with the beginning of bare consciousness, which he locates between the twentieth and twenty-eighth week of gestation.[26]  But the selection of this point along a continuum of self-integrated development of the human embryo as the point at which the self comes to be seems arbitrary.   McMahan sees some of the real difficulties in requiring psychological continuity for personal identity (some of which we discussed above).  But, once one rightly rejects the requirement of psychological continuity, it is hard to see how the beginning of the immediately exercisable capacity for sensation and perception should be necessary for the coming to be of you or me. 

Second, and most serious, the difficulties we mentioned above about substance dualism are also problems for this view.  I cannot be simply a brain any more than I can be simply a soul.  For, as we argued above, it is clear that it is the same substantial entity referred to by the word “I,” that senses (an action performed with the eyes, the skin, the ears, etc., as well as with the brain), and which imagines (an action performed with the brain).  But the agent which senses is clearly the whole animal organism, not just the brain. And so “I” must refer to the whole animal organism.  Also, it must be the same whole animal organism which walks, runs, talks, makes love, and which thinks and is self-conscious.  Hence in each of these actions it is the whole animal organism that performs the action, though he or she performs these various actions with different organs.  The I, or self, cannot be identified with a part or an organ, but only with the whole to which each of these actions is ultimately attributable.