Philosophy 224 Midgley on Dolphins (and Data)

Sample Reading Quiz True or False: The Judge in the dolphin rescue case found that dolphins were persons, not property.

Here comes the judge. Midgley reviews elements of the case against Kenneth Le Vasseur, charged with theft for participating in the liberation of a pair of dolphins used for experimentation by scientists at the Institute of Marine Biology. In response to a ‘choice of evils’ defense, the judge in the case ultimately held that the dolphins were property, not persons.

Property or Persons? In order to rule in this matter, the judge had to specify what makes something a person. Reviewing a number of possible person- making features, the judge ultimately rejects the possibility that intelligence is the relevant feature. His conclusion is that the feature that counts is biological humanity.

Humans=People? Midgley considers and rejects this account for a number of reasons. 1.We use the term ‘person’ to describe a number of things that are clearly not human (God, Corporations). 2.It is employed in a range of contexts where the aim is to distinguish individuals from the groups to which they belong. 3.It ignores the original sense of the term.

All the World’s a Stage… The term ‘person’ has its origin in drama (dramatis personae) where it refers to the characters in the play. Etymologically, it’s origin is the word for the masks used in early dramas. Midgley uses this analysis of the term as a starting point for a consideration of the way in which it has been used as a principle of evaluation and exclusion, particularly of slaves and women.

They are among us. To develop this historical criticism, Midgley turns to Kant (who we will see more of later). Kant’s account of personhood in terms of rationality has become the generally accepted account of moral personhood. The clear advantage of this account is that it allows us to extend personhood, and thus moral consideration, to entities that do not share our biology, but intuitively deserve moral consideration.

Where do we draw the line? The problem with this approach is that rationality is not an all or nothing thing. It admits of degrees. The consequence is that we are required to arbitrarily draw a line in the spectrum of rationality, reserving personhood for just a subset of the whole.

Sentience The traditions answer to this problem is to redefine the criterion of personhood. Rather than rationality, the issue some insist is sentience: the capacity to feel. Bentham, ‘The question is not…Can they talk? But Can they suffer?’

Another Possibility Building on an account like Bentham’s Midgley goes on to argue that, “What makes creatures our fellow beings, entitled to basic consideration, is surely not intellectual capacity but emotional fellowship” (319c2). This concept of ‘emotional fellowship’ refers to what Midgley identifies as “social and emotional complexity” (Ibid.). The virtue of this approach is its consistency with our conscience, which is troubled by mistreatment of the animals we share our lives with, but which an account like Kant’s has difficulty accounting for.

Does this answer the question? Does Midgley’s account resolve all of the issues? Is there still a line drawing problem? So dolphins are in. What about Data?