Sentientism discussion

Hi, guys!
I'll be reading this month Jeff McMahan's The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life.
I was told by a friend who's into moral philosophy that McMahan makes compelling arguments for his position. I've decided that I'll be writing down my impressions in this post for my own sake (organisation) and in case anyone wants to tag along.

I might start in a few days (probably next week) since I have a couple of criminal cases that I have to prepare for.

The book is divided in five parts and each part has several items:
i) IDENTITY. (With five topics.)
ii) DEATH. (Seven.)
iii) KILLING. (Three.)
iv) BEGINNINGS. (Ten.)
v) ENDINGS. (Three.)

Each item is from 15-25 pages, therefore one item per day seems just fine.
I believe this book is perfect for this group since it dwells upon reasons where it might be permissible to end a human life. We recognise killing is wrong... but we also recognise that some exceptions make it permissible.
In the preface, McMahan establishes four categories of possible permissibility:
i) Cases where killing one might be for the benefit of a majority (i.e. it would prevent the killing of many).
ii) Cases where the individual as lowered the moral barriers to harming him (e.g. self-defense, capital punishment).
iii) Cases where the metaphysical statu of the being is controversial (e.g. animals, human embryos, etc...).
iv) Cases where death is an actual benefit for the individual (e.g. assisted suicide).

Given that the book will mostly focus on [iii] (and to a lesser degree [iv]) the question of the importance and limits of sentientism ethics necessarily arises.
Sentientism doesn't necessarily deny life has value... it's more of a cumulative case on the fact that even if life has value, there might be other reasons that need to be weighted in.

Anyways... For the ones who want to tag along, I'd be happy to provide the book. Otherwise I'll leave my impressions here and be talking to myself like a lunatic. XD / :'v

Cheers!

Thanks Malola - very interested to hear what you think of the book!

So I finally set to start this book. XD
Better late than never, I guess...

Anyways, it seems like I'll be reading it sloOoOOoOowly because of i) work/lack of time to read outside Law readings, ii) the material is denser than I originally thought. Not academic per se, but he inserted topics of logic and philosophy that I'm not quite familiar with, iii) honestly I enjoy his sobriety, so I know I'll be chewing upon certain philosophical thoughts he brings up.

Now, so far it goes:
IDENTITY
i) Preliminaries
ii) The Soul
ii.1) Hylomorphism
ii.2) The Cartesian Soul
ii.3) Divided Conciousness

As for (i) PRELIMINARIES, PhD. McMahan just points out that X, Y and Z are relevant for the topic of identity. What am I? Because I can only be me; if I were someone else... I literally wouldn't be me.
So, he tacitly makes a case of ontogenesis and postulates that there's a point in time where I didn't exist and a point in time where I exist (or at least "start existing"). So, in order to talk about problems at the margins of life, we need to understand (or at least try to discuss) where is that point.
At this point it's very clear that McMahan is a naturalist.

As for (ii) THE SOUL, McMahan sets to challenge that notion.
ii.1) Hylomorphism: Beings are constituted by matter and form, which oddly is accepted by the Catholic Church (Aquina's version, though).
Since it's basically a type of elegant naturalism, I as an atheist could accept. "Soul" under this position does not equate to a substanceless entity (since it'd go against the first requirement of hylomorphism); but a guiding principle sort of connecting mind and body.

ii.2) The Cartesian Soul: Basically a substanceless homunculus. I believe this bring more problems than what it solves; particularly since our current understanding of neuroscience. When is the soul implantated? Is it undestroyable? (<= Why is death a problem if that's the case?)
If the soul is what allows us to have thoughts (Descartes) or at least to have conscious experiences (Swinburne); shouldn't a time before having thoughts or conscious experiences mean that we didn't have souls? Unless, that is... somehow such capacity exist from conception (how, though, if the brain is not formed?) and we get retrograde amnesia afterwards.
Why can't I remember my time in the womb if my soul already existed and was able to either have consciousness experiences or thoughts??
For the person committed to souls as separated entities of our bodies, there are a lot issues to overcome with this notion.

ii.3) Divided Conciousness: McMahan sets several thought experiments where he tries to establish (or at least "delimit") where "consciousness" might be. Our intuitions lead us to accept the notion that the brain (or a particular part of the brain) is where consciousness is located.
I'm still not sure what to think about the case of divided hemispheres, I remember reading it from PhD. Shelly Kagan's Death (the original postulator being PhD. Derek Parfit)... I'm on the fence here. But maybe McMahan is right and in such cases it'd be a mind divided in two bodies. (It sounds so counterintuitive to me. Oh, well.)

Thanks for the commentary so far Malola - fascinating!

Jamie wrote: "Thanks for the commentary so far Malola - fascinating!" = :)


iii) Are We Human Organisms?
iii.1) When Does a Human Organism Begin to Exist?
iii.2) Organism, Embryos and Corpses
iii.3) Brain Transplantation
iii.4) Dicephalus

As for (iii) ARE WE HUMAN ORGANISMS? McMahan sets to establish what are we.
iii.1) When Does a Human Organism Begin to Exist?: Can we be thought as being only bodies?
He mentions that "if “human organism” applies to us as a substance sortal, indicating the kind of thing we essentially are, then “person,” as I understand the term, must be a phase sortal indicating once again that the soul hypothesis presents lots of challenges.
If I begin to exist when my life begins, how do we understand monozygotic twins who can be formed/created up until the fourteenth day after implantation?

Since pluripotent cells are divided, this necessarily means the loss of the mother cells. Are they to be thought as human organism lost? For McMahan, before differenciated cells appear, one cannot be thought of an organism at all... since there's a possibility of twinning and that can't be thought as one person divided, but two differentiated (possible) persons.

iii.2) Organism, Embryos and Corpses: He further presses on the problem of twins and plays with several ideas related to ontogenesis and the end of "me".
If the soul is the necessary substance that makes me "me", it follows that brain death cannot mean "real" death, for the body is still alive.
Can we be corpses? Or is it a philosophical mistake to attribute personal identity to a lifeless body, no more subjected to quale than a... shoe or a rock? Can it be said that a being such as a corpse "begins" to exist after I die? The ontology behind such notion seems not realistic.
McMahan is committed to "a human organism is a phase in the history of an ontologically more fundamental entity (for example, a physical body) that, at the moment of death, ceases to be an organism and becomes a corpse... Therefore the corpse doesn't begin to exist at one point, but it's just a late part of a process of a cluster of cells linked in a particular way (i.e. an organism).

iii.3) Brain Transplantation: McMahan plays along with Tesseus' ship; if I transplant bit by bit of body parts me into an ape. Do I become an ape? Who or what is the organism?
Though his position relies on intuitionism and I can't agree with him with severity due to the fact that he appeals to... our intuitions which send me epistemological red flags. However, I cannot not find good ways to refute it. (But if I must remain intellectualy honest, I must give space to some level of skepticism even though I agree with him and I can't nor want to refute him.)

iii.4) Dicephalus: McMahan plays with a extreme case of cojointed twins, the Hensel sisters, to further test the beginning of oneself. Can such entity be thought as ONE organism even though each head has different thoughts, wants and needs? There seems to be two little girls who happen to have overlapping bodies and funcions. TWO different people nonetheless.

NOTE: Check Mark Twain's referenced work: Those Extraordinary Twins.

OYG! This book is getting so thick/dense. ToT
Though some of the concepts and gedankenexperiments I’ve already read about, PhD. McMahan postulates them in this part and gives them his own interpretation (he’s extremely thorough). But, Geezus… It’s so thick. I’m not quite sure I understood all despite the fact I’ve reread some parts.
(The great thing is that he’s making me think very deeply about these issues.)

iv. The Psychological Account
iv.1) Identity and Egoistic Concern
iv.2) Beginning to Exist and Ceasing to Exist
iv.3) “Pre-persons” and “Post-persons”
iv.4) Revisions and a Note on Method
iv.5) Replication and Egoistic Concern
iv.6) Psychological Connectedness and Continuity


As for (iv), PhD. McMahan makes that case that in order for me to be me, there needs to exist some psychological connexions and psychological continuity in order to talk about consciousness and the existence of “me”.

iv.1) Identity and Egoistic Concern: There can only be me if the ingredients that allow the existence of a person are present. Without the materialisation (ontogenesis) of the brain parts that allow such happening, there cannot be said that I existed. Whatever (whoever?) was there was not me, but something else.

The following relations are instances of direct psychological connections: the relation between an experience and a memory of it, the relation between the formation of a desire and the experience of the satisfaction or frustration of that desire, and the relation between an earlier and a later manifestation of a belief, value, intention, or character trait. When there are direct psychological connections between a person P1 at time t1 and a person P2 at t 2, P1 and P2 are psychologically connected with one another. Because the number of such connections may be many or few, psychological connectedness over time is a matter of degree. It may be strong or weak.

iv.2) Beginning to Exist and Ceasing to Exist: In the cases of Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia, it is hard to establish if there is enough continuity (albeit weak) and psychological connections in order to determiner if such individuals are the “same” person than the one who doesn’t have Alzheimer’s.
Hence, IF there is needed some minimum of psychological connections for me to be me AND Alzheimer’s destroys such connections, would the person continue to exist despite the fact that the body is not dead?
PhD. McMahan makes a case that the degrees of continuity may be weak, say, since I was a baby to when I became fifty and got Alzheimer’s, BUT from one day to the next are strong enough.

iv.3) “Pre-persons” and “Post-persons”: Here he criticises some possible objections.
He also makes a case that if an alive embryo (who cannot be me in the way McMahan means it, since it lacks consciousness) and an advanced patient of Alzheimer’s (same as before) lack consciousness and, more importantly, Egotistical Concern, for someone committed to the Psychological Account it would imply the recognition of pre and post persons.

iv.4) Revisions and a Note on Method: But maybe, weak or even day to day connections are all that’s necessary. That is, even when the Alzheimer’s patient is so different from current me, I still have good reasons to be concerned about “her” (mine) wellbeing.

iv.5) Replication and Egoistic Concern: In a series of gedankenexperiments he sets to discuss if replicas would imply X being the same person. My intuition is that they’re not; but at the same time PhD. McMahan did catch me off guard at one point by postulating a scenario where I seem to be egotistically concerned about one of the replicas. I’m on the fence in thinking that maybe it’s not an egotistical concern per se, but a concern of a similar fashion that I’d have towards a sibling or anyone dear to me who are not me.

iv.6) Psychological Connectedness and Continuity: Also, it did not occur to me up until this point that in the AI version of Theseus’ Ship the entity wouldn’t be the same… but another person.

A person is said to have a quasi-memory of some past experience if (1) the person seems to remember having the experience, (2) someone did have the experience, and (3) the person’s apparent memory is causally dependent, in the right sort of way, on that past experience’s necessary.

Whatever this entity is, it might be the case that it wouldn’t be me.
The idea that MY consciousness is materialised in one particular brain… well, I don’t think I can escape that notion.