Religion & Law

At Public Discourse, reviewing the new book by my friend Chris Kaczor (Philosophy, Loyola-LA), Raymond Hain brings us up to speed on the current state of the national abortion debate.  A bit:

. . . Kaczor defends an endowment account of human personhood over against the performance accounts defended by Singer, Tooley, and others. A performance account of human personhood ?holds that a being is to be accorded respect if and only if the being functions in a given way,? whereas an endowment account ?holds that each human being has inherent moral worth simply by virtue of the kind of being it is.? And by ?endowment? Kaczor means ?an intrinsic, dynamic orientation towards self-expressive activity [like] . . . rationality, autonomy, and respect.? Are you a person because you are something that actually engages in rational and free conscious activity, or are you a person because you are the kind of thing that engages in rational and free conscious activity?

It is only, argues Kaczor, if we look to the kind of thing that you are rather than your actual activity that we will be able to escape many serious moral difficulties. . . .