is there life after sumner-death?

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IS THERE LIFE AFTER SUMNER-DEATH?* William R. Carter North Carolina State University One starts with convictions bearing upon discrepancies concerning persistence, or continued existence. On this basis one proceeds to divide reference. 1 A Divider-of-Reference may insist that the ‘is’ in statements of the form ‘Body B is person P’ is an ‘is’ of (mere) constitution and not an ‘is’of genuine identity. On one standard version of the story it is the (alleged) fact that our bodies generally last longer than we (people) do that guarantees something less than identity and so assures divided reference (that is, assures that references to a person are not references to his or her body). Those who take this tack-David Wiggins for one-need not endorse anything resembling a Cartesian account of the designata of person-designators.* Indeed, on one familiar version of the story references to a person turn out to be references to a certain physical organism. It can truly be said of every person that he or she is (identical with) some organism. And it can truly be said of any such organism that it is (constituted by) some body. What is not true is that any body is (identical with) any person. Certain bodies are (constitute) people; but no person is (identical with) any body. I shall call advocates of this view of things ‘Constitutionists,’ or ‘CI-theorists.’ The subscript reflects the fact that there are conflicting intuitions concerning person persistence or continued existence. One might think that it happens on occasion that a given person perishes before his or her organism perishes. Rejecting the Cartesian gambit, one might go on to make a twofold appeal to the ‘is’ of constitution. Thus one might say both (i) that a certain physical organism is (constitutes) a certain person for as long, but only as long as this organism has certain powers or capacities (rationality on one account, sentience on another), and (ii) that a certain body is (constitutes) this organism for as long, but only for as long, as this body remains alive. Henceforth I shall call those who adopt this position ‘Constitutionists2’ or ‘C2-theorists’. C2- theorists deny something that C1-theorists affirm, namely, that in referring to certain physical organisms we are referring to people. Ifthe ‘is’ in statements of the form ‘Body B is person P is merely an ‘is’ of constitution and not an %‘of genuine identity then we are not referring to bodies when we refer to people. The situation is the same when we turn to statements of the form ‘Organism 0 is person P,’ W. R. Corier is Professor of Philosophy or North Corolino Siore University or Rohigh. His recent work deols mosrly wirh trons-temporol and irons-world identity. I59

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IS THERE LIFE AFTER SUMNER-DEATH?* William R. Carter North Carolina State University

One starts with convictions bearing upon discrepancies concerning persistence, or continued existence. On this basis one proceeds to divide reference. 1 A Divider-of-Reference may insist that the ‘is’ in statements of the form ‘Body B is person P’ is an ‘is’ of (mere) constitution and not an ‘is’ of genuine identity. On one standard version of the story it is the (alleged) fact that our bodies generally last longer than we (people) do that guarantees something less than identity and so assures divided reference (that is, assures that references to a person are not references to his or her body). Those who take this tack-David Wiggins for one-need not endorse anything resembling a Cartesian account of the designata of person-designators.* Indeed, on one familiar version of the story references to a person turn out to be references to a certain physical organism. It can truly be said of every person that he or she is (identical with) some organism. And it can truly be said of any such organism that it is (constituted by) some body. What is not true is that any body is (identical with) any person. Certain bodies are (constitute) people; but no person is (identical with) any body.

I shall call advocates of this view of things ‘Constitutionists,’ or ‘CI-theorists.’ The subscript reflects the fact that there are conflicting intuitions concerning person persistence or continued existence. One might think that it happens on occasion that a given person perishes before his or her organism perishes. Rejecting the Cartesian gambit, one might go on to make a twofold appeal to the ‘is’ of constitution. Thus one might say both (i) that a certain physical organism is (constitutes) a certain person for as long, but only as long as this organism has certain powers or capacities (rationality on one account, sentience on another), and (ii) that a certain body is (constitutes) this organism for as long, but only for as long, as this body remains alive. Henceforth I shall call those who adopt this position ‘Constitutionists2’ or ‘C2-theorists’. C2- theorists deny something that C1-theorists affirm, namely, that in referring to certain physical organisms we are referring to people. Ifthe ‘is’ in statements of the form ‘Body B is person P is merely an ‘is’ of constitution and not an %‘of genuine identity then we are not referring to bodies when we refer to people. The situation is the same when we turn to statements of the form ‘Organism 0 is person P,’

W. R. Corier is Professor of Philosophy or North Corolino Siore University or Rohigh. His recent work deols mosrly wirh trons-temporol and irons-world identity.

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I have unfashionable misgivings concerning the Constitutional Model of things. I shall argue that both versions of the model are beset by serious, if not fatal, difficulties. In the end perhaps it will turn out that the difficulties can be resolved. My point is that there are pressing problems that must be addressed. To ignore the problems while putting weight on the ‘is’ of constitution reflects a lamentable metaphysical smugness.

I

Does one perish, or cease to exist, when one dies? There is apparent dispute about the matter. As some philosophers see it:

. . . it is wrong to say that the individual mon or person ceases to exist at death. Very violent death apart, death is existed through. The individual becomes dead.3

Others view the situation differently. Thus L. W. Sumner:

The death of a person is the end of that person; before death he isand after death he isnor. To die is therefore to cease to exist.‘

It is not clear that these views need be inconsistent. Perhaps the conception of death that is adopted by advocates of the first viewpoint differs from the concept of death that is favored by Sumner. Sumner is not talking about ‘clinical death’-permanent cessation of biological functions-when he speaks of ’death’. Sumner-death, as we might call it, invo1ves“not the termination of biological life, but the termination of mental life.”’ Perhaps advocates of the view expressed in the passage first cited above are talking about clinical or biologicaldeath when they assert that death generally is something that people exist through (after). Still, I doubt that this interpretation enables us to reconcile the views expressed in the two passages above. For it is a reasonable conjecture that Sumner-death, as we might call it, generally occurs at, or shortly before, clinical or biological death. If this reasonable conjecture is true and Sumner is correct in suggesting that people cease to exist at the time of their Sumner-deaths, it must be false that people generally exist ‘through’ their clinical deaths.

Some people will insist that my reasonable conjecture is false. Thus it may be said that while Winston Churchill (say) underwent biological death many years ago, Churchill’s Sumner-death has not yet taken place. (On one version of the story, Churchill presently exists in a ‘disembodied’ state.) For reasons that I do not try to present here, I doubt that there is much to be said in behalf of this position. I t should be noted that advocates of the view that people generally (very violent death apart) exist through death are not committed to saying that Sumner-death generally occurs after biological or clinical death. For an advocate of the ‘We Exist Through Biological Death’view may say that Churchill (say) existed for precisely as long as Churchill’s body existed.

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One might take this line and still allow that Churchill’s Sumner-death occurred either shortly before, or at, the time of Churchill’s clinical death.

Many people will reject this suggestion. Following (on some accounts) Aristotle, it may be said that nothing can be such that it is a living being at one time and not a living being at still another time.6 If that is so, the corpse that remains on the scene after death is not the person who, before death, was alive. Though undergoing various qualitative changes, Churchill’s body survives, or ‘exists through’, Churchill’s death; what does not survive is the person (Churchill) whose body this once was.

Persumably ‘living’ is here to be interpreted as being in a certain metabolic state or condition. But can’t it truly be said that Churchill’s body was at one time a living being and at another (later) time not a living being? That sounds(to me, anyway) plausible. So it isn’t clear that one thing can’t be at one time living and at still another time be not living (though existent).

This may elicit the following response: strictly speaking, our bodies presently constitute living things (physical organisms). But no body is itself a physical organism, much as no piece of bronze is itself a statue. We (people) are (identical with) physical organisms. The organisms in question cease to be, cease to exist, when and only when they cease to be alive. The body that normally remains on the scene for some time after a person’s biological death is such that it no longer constitutes a person (an organism). The person such a body once constituted has at this time ceased to exist.

I1

That is, very roughly, the sort of thing a C1-theorist may say. But I doubt that any such C1-type position is open to those who accept Professor Sumner’s thesis that people perish at the time of their Sumner-deaths. My reason for doubting this is that Sumner-death can, and on occasion does, occur long before the biological death (that is, cessation of metabolic functions) of our physical organisms.

It is true that Sumner himself says things that strongly suggest that he thinks that people are physical organisms. Consider his very reasonable claim that organisms acquire a right to life only when they acquire the status of sentient beings:

Fastening upon sentience as the criterion for possession of a right to life . . . opens up the possibility of a reasonable and moderate treatment of moral problems other than abortion, problems pertaining to the treatment of nonhuman animals, extraterrestrial life, artificial intelligence, ‘defective’ human beings, and persons at the end of life.’

Sumner’s thesis that neither conception nor birth “marks the transition from a presentient to a sentient being. . .” is very plausible.* His conjecture is that a fetus is “probably sentient by the conventional stage of viability (around the end of the second trimester).” Let us allow that

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this conjecture is correct. Shortly before a certain fetus reaches the stage of viability it is not a sentient being. Later it-this same fetus-comes to be a sentient being. When the situation is so described it appears that we are dealing with a qualitative, and not a ‘substantial’, change.9 One being, a human fetus, is such that at one time it lacks, and at a later time instantiates, the attribute of sentience. At this later time this being has, while at the earlier time it lacks, a right to life.

It isa start, but only a start, to say that a being is sentient if and only if it can be aware of (can size up, as one commentator puts itlo) its surroundings and can react to such awareness. If the model of things sketched in the last paragraph is correct, sentience is not essential to those of us who are sentient beings. Normally, human fetuses are sentient, and so have a right to life, at the time of their birth. Ignoring exceptional circumstances, an organism that was a fetus in the early stages of its development retains this right throughout the remainder of its life. But consider a case in which such an organism undergoes Sumner-death several days before it undergoes clinical death. Since it (permanently) ceases to be sentient at the time of its Sumner-death, it is a corollary of Sumner’s principle (henceforth designated ‘(S)’):

(x) (t) (x has a right to life at t if and only if x is a sentient being at t),

that such an organism ceases to have a right to life at the time of its Sumner-death. Conceivably I might undergo Sumner-death an hour from now while ‘my’ organism-that is, the physical organism that is now located just where I am located-continues to be alive, in a biological sense, following the time of my Sumner-death. Since the physical organism in question presumably would not qualify as a sentient being at this time, (S) tells us that this organism would not have a right to life at this time. The organism in question once was an unborn fetus. Before it acquired the status of a sentient being, sometime before its birth, it lacked a right to life. Upon becoming sentient, this being acquired a right to life-a right it subsequently loses at the time of my Sumner-death. That, at least, is one way of picturing the situation.

Note that when conjoined with the very plausible assumption that ‘my’ present organism once was an unborn fetus Sumner’s claim that unborn fetuses acquire sentience suggests that my organism formerly acquired the status of a sentient being. Thus it seems that this organism is now a sentient being. But it is beyond question that l a m sentient. So unless we are prepared to judge that two sentient beings presently are located where I am located, we must say that in referring to my organism you are referring to me. But if present references to my organism and present references to myself are references to one thing then l d o not perish at the time of my Sumner-death an hour from now. My organism does not (we have stipulated) perish at the time of my Sumner-death. If I am my organism, l d o not perish at this time.”

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Sumner is, it seems, mistaken when he says that people no longer exist after they undergo Sumner-death.

Of course one might turn this around. For one might suppose that Sumner is correct in suggesting that I perish at the time of my (imagined) Sumner-death. Since my organism does not perish at the time of my Sumner-death (it is, we might imagine, lying under an oxygen tent in some hospital), my organism turns out to have a different ‘life history’ than I have. It is false that my organism and I are indiscernible with respect to our respective histories. Given the Indiscernibility of Identicals Principle, it follows that I am not (identical with) my organism.

Regardless of which way we view the matter, I think that it is clear that no Cl-theory can be reconciled with Sumner’s thesis that people perish at the time of their Sumner-deaths. C1-theorists argue that people are identical with ‘their’ organisms, and so claim that people exist for as long, but for only as long, as do their organisms. Since‘our’ organisms occasionally go on existing after the occurrence of Sumner- death, C1-theorists are committed to denying that people invariably perish at the time of their Sumner-deaths.

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Sumner believes that “[all 1 and only sentient beings are capable of having experiences that they like or dislike.”1* He also believes that all plant species, as well as most animal species, are “utterly nonsentient.”13 When conjoined with (S) this last claim has the corollary that members of most animal species do not have a right to life. Though there is much to be said about this, I won’t pursue the issue here.14 For my purposes the important thing is that Sumner is prepared to grant that “. . . sentience emerged during the evolutionary process as a means of permitting more flexible behavior patterns and thus of aiding survival.”~5 This suggests that normal adult members of the ‘human’ species are sentient creatures and so, by ( S ) , creatures having a right to life. ‘My’ organism is the physical organism that presently is located in the chair in which I am sitting. Sumner would say, plausibly enough, that this organism presently has a right to life. But is the organism’s right to life my right to life? Granting the thesis that I perish at the time of my Sumner-death, it is possible that I perish long before this organism perishes, and so seems that I am something other than this organism. But how can it happen that two things have one right to life? A C1 -theorist will deal with the problem by denying that my organism and I are distinct things. But since this commits us to saying that I may exist ‘through’my Sumner-death (since my organism may well exist ‘through’ my Sumer-death), it is not a reply that is open to Sumner. How would Sumner reply? I believe that he would, quite properly, eschew any Cartesian response to the problem.16 And granting this much, the natural way out appears to lie with a C2-type theory. On this approach,

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my organism is (constitutes) me (the person, Carter) at all and only times at which it is sentient; and my body is (constitutes) this organism at all and only times at which it functions metabolically. Since the body in question may continue to function metabolically following my Sumner-death, the organism in question may continue to exist after I have perished. Just as this body no longer will be (constitute) this organism after the body undergoes biological death, this organism no longer is (constitutes) me after it undergoes Sumner-death. A C2- theorist might accept the idea that “x constitutes y at time t if and only if x could be a substratum of yk destruction.”’7 To say of my body that it is a substratum of my organism’s destruction is to say, roughly, that this organism will cease to exist when this body undergoes certain qualitative changes. Just as our bodies can (indeed, probably will) be substrata of the destruction of our organisms, our organisms can (though this is less likely) be substrata of our destruction. Thus it is true borh that my organism constitutes me and that my body constitutes my organism. The physical organism that occupies the chair in which I presently am sitting isn’t distinct from the person in this chair. This organism is (constitutes) Carter. So the organism’s rights just are Carter’s rights.

When we look closely, I think we find something like this model of things behind various accounts of when it is that people perish. Consider this passage:

To state that a n ailing patient, Jones, is still alive, is in fact to make two claims; the second of which is usually taken for granted. One is that the patient is alive. The other is that the patient is (remains) Jones. It is natural to assume that the living patient, who entered the hospital as Jones, must still be Jones (who else could it be?). But we will show that this is mistaken. If we d o establish that the patient. even if alive, is not Jones, and if no one else is Jones, then we will have established that Jones does not exist. And this, of course, establishes that Jones is dead. Jones’death thus occurs eirher at the time that the patient dies, if the patient has remained Jones; or at the time the patient ceased to be Jones, whichever comes first. If. as we contend, the patient ceased to be Jones at the time of brain death, then Jones’ brain death is Jones’ death. Thus, if the loss of capacity for mental activity which occurs at brain death constitutes death, it is not for moral reasons, nor for biological reasons, but for onrological reasons.18

The authors go on to say:

. . . the continued possession of certain psychological properties by means of a causal process is a n essential requirement for any given entity to be identical with the individual who is Jones . . . . Jones, whatever kind of entity he is, is essentially an entity with psychological properties. Thus, when brain death strips the patient’s body of all its psychological traits, Jones ceases to exist.I9

There is a lot going on here. The main thing that interests me is the suggestion that Jones ceases to exist at the time of brain-death. The time of Jones’ brain-death is the time of Jones’ Sumner-death. It is assumed that a certain physical organism-one that entered the hosptial “as Jones”-can in certain circumstances remain on the cosmic scene after Jones has departed. This organism still is a patient (and so still exists)

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after Jones has ceased to exist. It is assumed that this patient has “. . . ceased to be Jones.”

Let us imagine that we have discovered a case of this sort, one in which brain-death occurs at time t. The passages just cited suggest that it can correctly be said of a certain patient before t, but not after t, that he is Jones. Can this ‘is’ be an ‘is’ of identity? Obviously not. For suppose that:

(1) The patient lying in the hospital bed just before t = Jones,

and

(2) The patient lying in the hospital bed just after t = the patient lying in the (same) hospital bed just before t,

were both true. Since identity is transitive, it would then follow that:

(3) The patient lying in the hospital bed just after t = Jones,

is also true. Since (3) implies that the patient who enters the hospital as Jones does not cease to be Jones at the time brain-death occurs, it seems that (3) must be rejected. And that means that either (1) or (2) or both also must be rejected.

I believe that the authors of the passages under consideration must either abandon the idea that Jones (the person) perishes at t or reject (1) in favor of:

( la) The patient lying in the hospital bed just before t (namely, a certain physical organism) is (constitutes) Jones (a certain person).

Note that it does not follow from the conjunction of (la) and (2) either that (3) or:

(3a) The patient lying in the hospital bed just after t is (constitutes) Jones,

is the case. Just as C1-theorists would claim that a certain body may constitute a certain person before, but not after, this person’s biological death, it may be claimed that a certain patient (that is, a certain organism) in a certain hospital constitutes Jones, a certain person, before but not after time t.

IV

So C2-theorists will say. Will the story bear scrutiny? I don’t see how a C1 -theorist is to construct an effective argument against the position just sketched. Once we allow that the‘is’of constitution can do the work C1-theorists want it to do, I doubt that there is a strong case to be made against the C2-theorist’s two-foldappeal to constitution. Still, I suspect that there are legitimate grounds for questioning even the restricted (one application) appeal to the‘is’ofconstitution made by C1-theorists. Since it is obvious that any snags that emerge for C1-theory will

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confront C2-theorists as well, I now shall take a closer look at Cl-type appeals to the ‘is’ of constitution.

Wiggins tells us in one place that:

If we understand what a living person or an animal is, then we may define the body of one as that which realizes or constitutes it while it is alive and will be left over when, succumbing to entropy, it dies.20

Wiggins would deny “that the lifeless corpse is . . . the person.” The corpse, a body, is that which once was a person. Here ‘once was’should be read ‘once constituted’. What (generally) survives biological death is a person’s body-an entity that formerly constituted a person. What is not clear (to me) is that Wiggins would follow Sumner’s lead and judge that a person perishes before his or her organism perishes in cases in which Sumner-death precedes biological death. As I read Wiggins, he would say that in cases where we refer to a person we typically are referring to a certain animal-to a certain physical organism that is (attributively or predictively) a sentient being. Wiggins conjectures that ‘person’ is “a non-biological qualification of animal . . . .” Perhaps x is a person if and only if x is an animal falling under the extension of a kind whose typical members perceive, feel, remember, imagine, desire, make projects, move themselves at will, speak, carry out projects, acquirea character as they age, are happy or miserable, . . . .21

On this account sentience is not essential to any person. Suppose that Churchill’s Sumner-death were to have occurred some time before Churchill’s biological death. Since the organism that remains on the cosmic scene following Churchill’s Sumner-death is such that it is a member of a ‘kind’ (homo sapiens) whose typical members are characterized by the activities on the list cited in the last passage above, this organism remains a person following Sumner-death. Since this person is none other than Churchill (who else?), it seems that Wiggins would reject the suggestion that Churchill perishes at the time of his Sumner-death. What is true is that Churchill ceases to be a sentient being at the time of his Sumner-death; what is not true-at least on the Wiggins model-is that Churchill ceases to be(exist) at the time of his Sumner-death. If we follow Wiggins we will reject both the thesis that people exist through their biological deaths (this on the grounds that it involves the mistaken idea that references to a person are references to his or her body) and Sumner’s claim that people perish at the time of their Sumner-deaths in cases where Sumner-death comes before biological death.

One of the things that troubles me about this is the fact (as I take it to be) that my body presently is alive. This last ‘is’ is not a mere ‘is’ of constitution; rather it isan‘is’of attribution. At present my body has the characteristic or attribute of being alive (metabolically). I do not see any remotely plausible grounds for denying this point. But why does the

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point matter? It matters because it strongly suggests that it is a mistake to say that my body is something other than ‘my’ organism. Present references to this organism are references to a living thing that has arms and legs and so on. Since my body is just such a thing, there is at least a prima facie case for judging that references to ‘my’ organism are references to my body. Accordingly, I believe that there is reason to distrust the idea, mentioned above, that my body is a mere‘substratum’ of my organism. When my body ceases to function metabolically a qualitative change occurs-a certain entity (my body) ceases to have the attribute of being alive while continuing (for some time, anyway) to exist. To suppose that ‘my’organism is somefurther entity that perishes when this qualitative change takes place surely is to multiple living beings without reason. The situation is similar when we turn from organisms to oak trees. A tree that is uprooted in a storm may be‘killed’ leaving us with the task of disposing of a dead tree. Of the object that remains on the scene, the dead tree, it can truly be said that it once was a living thing. This surviving object has undergone a qualitative change- a change in which it first has the characteristic of being alive and later does not. The proposal that this object is a‘substratum’ofsome further entity that perishes during the storm suggests that what is essential to one thing (namely, the characteristic of being alive) is not essential to another thing. This suggestion should be questioned, as should the underlying idea that we begin with two living things, one of which perishes and one of which does not.

V

Let us imagine that Richard Nixon presently is sitting in a certain armchair reading a newspaper. If we follow Wiggins we may say that the person who is located in the armchair is ‘one and the same thing’as the organism that is located in the armchair. And we may naturally take this to imply that Nixon is identicalwith Nixon’s organism. Since identicals are indiscernible, it then appears that Nixon’s history must continue for precisely as long as does the history of Nixon’s organism. And since Nixon’s organism may well continue to exist through Sumnerdeath, it appears that Nixon (the person) may continue to exist through his Sumner-deat h.

Interestingly enough, some philosophers would deny that:

(4) Nixon is one and the same thing as Nixon’s organism, implies:

( 5 ) Nixon is identical with Nixon’s organism.

Shoemaker, for one, would deny that (4) entails (5 ) . Shoemaker tells us that:

It would appear . . . that this relationship-being composed of the same matter a s - c a n be expressed both by Wand by’are one and the same thing’. And it is a relationship that is

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especially easy to confuse with identity; for if u and 6 are, at time 1, composed of exactly the same matter, then they will necessarily be indiscernible at t with respect to a large range of properties-their position, shape, weight, and so on at r will necessarily be the same. But this relationship is nevertheless not identity, since it is compatible with u and 6 being composed of the same matter at r that u should have come into existence before or after 6, that u should cease to exist before or after 6 does . . . .*2

Shoemaker appears to endorse the view that while:

(6) Nixon is one and the same thing as Nixon’s body,

is true, it nevertheless is false that:

(7) Nixon is identical with his body.

But why is (7) false? Here Shoemaker might say that (7) is false because Nixon’s body will in all likelihood continue to exist after Nixon has perished. What is nonetheless true is that at present:

(6a) Nixon is composed of the same matter as Nixon’s body.

Shoemaker does not explicitly say when it is that Nixon (the person) perishes or ceases to exist. But suppose that he were to take the Sumner line and to say that Nixon perishes at the time of Nixon’s Sumner- death.23 Since Nixon’s organism may survive Sumner-death, ( 5 ) must then be judged false. But (4) may nevertheless be judged true, this in the sense that:

(4a) Nixon presently is composed of the same matter as Nixon’s organism.

Shoemaker would allow that it is true that:

(8) Nixon’s organism presently is composed of the same matter as Nixon’s body,

and so true that:

(9) Nixon’s organism is one and the same thing as Nixon’s body.

Just as (7) does not follow from (6), it does not follow from (9) that:

(10) Nixon’s organism is identical with Nixon’s body.

Assuming that Nixon’s organism will not and Nixon’s body will continue to exist through Nixon’s biological death, (10) is false. But since (9) does not entail (lo), this fact does not entitle us to conclude that (9) is false. Thus one might adopt the view that (4), (6), and (9) are true, while (9, (7), and (10) are all false. It is a person’s body, and not a person and not a person’s organism, that generally exists through biological death. And it is a person’s organism, as well as his or her body, but not

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the person whose organism (body) it is, that exists through Sumner- death (in cases where Sumner-death precedes biological death). So one may say.

VI

But some potentially awkward questions remain. One question arises when we ask how many entities (objects, things) we are supposed to be dealing with when we fix attention upon Nixon, Nixon’s organism, and Nixon’s body. In light of (4), (6) , and (9), there is some pull toward judging that we are here dealing only with one entity. The trouble is that the rejection of (3, (7), and (10) also suggests that we are here dealing with three things. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot say both that we are dealing with one thing and with three things when we deal with Nixon, Nixon’s organism, and Nixon’s body.

I shall assume that none of the terms ‘Richard Nixon’, ‘Nixon’s organism’, and ‘Nixon’s body’ presently lacks a referent. Given the further assumption that (10) is false, it must be granted that we are not referring to Nixon’s organism when we make reference to Nixon’s body and are not referring to Nixon’s body when we make reference to Nixon’s organism. In short, I do not believe that advocates of the position that was sketched in section V can coherently deny that Nixon’s organism and Nixon’s body are numerically distinct entities.

Nor can we coherently deny either that we are referring to numerically distinct entities when we refer to Nixon on one hand and to Nixon’s body on the other or that we are referring to numerically distinct entities when we refer to Nixon on one hand and to Nixon’s organism on the other, once we allow that (7) and ( 5 ) are false. In short, the picture of things that emerged above commits its advocates to saying that we are dealing with three entities when we deal with Nixon, Nixon’s organism, and Nixon’s body. It is conceivable that some people will resist this on the grounds that (4), (6) , and (9) are all true. These people do well to remind themselves that the words ‘is one and the same thingas’express therelationship that holds between xand yat time tifand only i fxandy share all and only the same material parts at t . It is a crucial feature of the model sketched above that objects that share all and only the same material parts may nevertheless turn out to be numerically distinct. Anyone who rejects (3, (7), and (10) must judge that Nixon, Nixon’s organism, and Nixon’s body are indeed numerically distinct entities, this despite the apparent fact that they share all and only the same matter at present.

The ‘three entity’ corollary of the model under present consideration deserves close examination. Shoemaker regards it as a “great merit’’ of the model that it commits us to saying that “physical properties belong to persons in a nonderivative way. . . .“z4 Contrary to what a Cartesian might suggest, it is not that Nixon somehow has the property of

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weighing 160 Ibs. (say) by virtue of the fact that something other than Nixon (Nixon’s body, on one version of the story) has in a nonderivative way this property. On our present, non-Cartesian, model Nixon nonderivatively has the property of weighing 160 Ibs. Since the same thing is true of Nixon’s organism, and also true of Nixon’s body, it appears that we are dealing with three things each of which weighs 160 Ibs.

Do things work the same way when we turn from the attribute of having a certain weight to the psychological attribute of havinga certain thought or feeling? Let us suppose that Nixon (the person) presently is thinking about Watergate. Let us also suppose, as C2-theorists recommend we do, that we are not referring to Nixon’s organism when we refer to Nixon. The question is: is Nixon’s organism presently thinking about Watergate? Sumner would allow, if I read him correctly, that Nixon’s organism is a sentient being having various experiences. Once we get this far, I doubt that we can plausibly deny that Nixon’s organism has thoughts and feelings,just as Nixon does. In short, C2-theorists such as Sumner seem committed to saying that there presently are two thinking things (at least) located in the armchair in which Nixon is seated. Presumably both of these things presently are thinking about Watergate. And presumably neither thinking is a derivative thinking.

I don’t think that two things can smile one smile, or feel one headache. Similarly, I am skeptical of the idea that two beings can engage in one act of thinking. Consequently, I believe that C2-theorists are committed to the view that two acts of thinking are taking place in the armchair in which Nixon is presently sitting. It is because I distrust the suggestion that there are two acts of thinking taking place in this armchair that I have doubts about the C2-theorist’s position.

There is a potential reply to this. Let us say that xand y r-overlap if and only if x and y are composed of all and only the same matter at time r . Then it may also be said that while numerically distinct non- overlappers cannot smile one smile or feel one pain or engage in one thinking, it can (indeed, does) happen that distinct t-overlappers smile one r-smile and feel one t-pain and perform one 1-act of thinking.25 It is true (one might say) that Nixon and Nixon’s organism are present- overlappers. But it is false that Nixon’s present smile is a different smile from the smile that presently is smiled by Nixon’s organism, and false that Nixon’s present thinking is a different thinking than the thinking that presently is done by Nixon’s organism.

Does this pan out? Well, imagine that Nixon (and so Nixon’s organism) utters the words ‘I made serious mistakes in handling the Watergate matter.’ Assuming that Nixon and his organism are distinct entities, Nixon is here thinking one thought (namely, that he, Nixon, made mistakes) while Nixon’s organism is thinking still another thought (namely, that he, the organism, made mistakes). Since we

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cannot be dealing with one act of thinking in circumstances in which we are dealing with thoughts having different propositional content (that is, different thoughts), it is false that Nixon and his organism are here engaged in one act of thinking. More accurately, this is false, ifNixon and his organism really are distinct entities. I submit that in fact there is only one act of thinking in the (relevant) works. Accordingly, I believe that we should reject the C2-theorist’s thesis that Nixon and his organism are distinct entities.

VII

A Sumnerian might take the line that Nixon the person has psychological properties only in some ‘derivative’way. Thus it might be said that it is only because Nixon’s organism-an entity that allegedly is numerically distinct from Nixon-has a headache that it can be said of Nixon that he (the person) has a headache. This represents a curious, and justly neglected, reversal of the Cartesian theme that people have physicalattributes only in some detivative manner. On our present view of things, people have psychological attributes only in some derivative manner-only by virtue of the fact that ‘their’ organisms have (nonderivatively) psychological attributes. I doubt that there is much to recommend this way of looking at things. More to the point perhaps, I doubt that a case can be made for saying that people perish at the time of their Sumner-deaths while their organisms do not, unless it turns out that people have (nonderivatively) certain psychological attributes their organisms lack.

There is another way out that may look more promising. The proposal is that it is Nixon’s organism, and not Nixon, that is only derivatively a sentient being. Some philosophers would argue that the ‘is’ in:

(1 1) This piece of gold is a coin,

is not an ‘is’ of attribution but is rather an ‘is’ of constitution.26 At no time does the piece of gold have the attribute or property of being a coin. When the piece of gold first was shaped in a certain way a certain coin began to exist. It is this coin, and not the piece of gold, that has the attribute of being a coin. The piece of gold once acquired that status of being a constituter-of-a-coin; but it never acquired the status of being (predicatively or attributively) a coin. The situation is much the same, one might go on to say, when we consider Nixon’s organism. In the early stages of its fetal career this organism did not constitute a sentient being-did not constitute a person. As this organism developed physiologically it came to constitute a sentient being. At no time does this organism have the characteristic of being sentient. It is Nixon (the person), and not Nixon’s organism, that is sentient. Accordingly the ‘is’ in:

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(12) Nixon’s organism is sentient,

should be parsed as follows:

(13) Nixon’s organism is a constituter of a sentient being,

and should not be interpreted as saying that:

(14) Nixon’s organism is (attributively) a sentient being.

The sentient being (Richard Nixon) that presently is constituted by Nixon’s organism perishes at the time of his Sumner-death. Should Nixon’s organism go on existing after Sumner-death it no longer will qualify as an entity that constitutes a sentient being, just as it did not qualify as a constituter of a sentient being in the very early stages of its fetal career. So saying, a Sumnerian might reject the (implausible) idea that there presently are two sentient beings located on the scale. Strictly speaking, it is only Nixon (the person) who is a sentient being. Nixon’s organism is merely an entity that constitutes a sentient being, and is not itself actually sentient.27

One might take this tack, but it is a maneuver that is conceived in desperation. To deny that Nixon’s organism is (attributively) itselfa sentient being is to deny that this organism can perceive and react to its surroundings, can experience hunger, pain, sexual desire and fear.2* I agree entirely with Shoemaker when he tells us that the doctrine that “physical properties belong to persons in a nonderivative way” is “highly plausible”. But the doctrine that psychological properties (e.g., the property of feeling hungry or having a toothache) belong to ‘our’ organisms in a nonderivative way is no less plausible. Wiggins is, I think, on the side of the angels when he conjectures that ‘person’ is “. . . a non-biological qualification of animal.” If advocates of the view that our organisms do, though we (people) do not, survive Sumner- death (in cases where Sumner-death precedes biological death) are forced to deny that our organisms are (attributively) sentient beings, then rhat surely is reason to reject this view.

VIII

In concluding, I should note that it is a corollary of the Thesis of Psychological Supervenience that it cannot be true both that (a) our organisms constitute us (in the sense of sharing all and only the same material parts), and (b) our organisms are not, though we (people) are, sentient beings. As Jaegwon Kim observes “. . . the strong intuition prevails that some form of psychological supervenience must hold.”29 If this intuition is correct, we can accept (a) only if we are prepared to reject (b). In short, CZtheorists who hold that organisms constitute people must allow that our organisms are sentient beings (viz., beings

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having psychological properties) if and only if we (people) are sentient beings.

Following Kim, let us say that “a set F of properties is supervenient upon a set G of properties with respect to a domain Djust in case any two things in D which are indiscernible with respect to Care necessarily indiscernible with respect to F . . . .”30 The Thesis of Psychological Supervenience says that psychological properties are supervenient upon physical properties. It follows from this thesis that:

(15) Necessarily (x) (y) (t) (x and y are indiscernible at time t with respect to their physical properties - x and yare indiscernible at time t with respect to their psychological properties).

Kim asks us to imagine that we can:

. . . create an exact physical replica of a living human being-exactly like him cell for cell, molecule for molecule, atom for atom. Such a replica would be indistinguishable, at least physically, from the original. For we are supposing that the replica is a perfect physical copy in every detail. The idea of such a replica . . . is a perfectly coherent one; in fact, it is consistent with all known laws of nature. The idea of course is a commonplace in science fiction.

Suppose that in 1990 technicians at MIT create a perfect replica of Richard Nixon. It is a corollary of (15) that this being-‘Noxin’, we might call it-is psychologically indiscernible from Nixon (whom we suppose still exists in 1990). But is that so? Nixon remembers, let us further suppose, resigning as President. Since Noxin didn’t exisr when Nixon resigned as President, Noxin cannot remember resigning as President on the occasion when Nixon resigned as President. Thus it seems that Nixon and Noxin are not (in 1990) psychologically indiscernible. Since Nixon and Noxin are (in 1990) indiscernible with respect to their physical properties, it appears that ( 1 5 ) is false.3’

Kim anticipates the problem. His response is to say that:

The Supervenience Thesis . . . concerns only internal psychological states, namely those psychological states whose occurrence does not imply anything about the past or future, or anything existing other than the organism or structure to which the states occur.32

The property of remembering things (remembering doing things) is not ‘internal’, since it is“rooted outside times at which it is had.” But Kim’s version of the Supervenience Thesis does not imply that Noxin remembers resigning as President if and only if Nixon does, since it restricts supervenience to internal psychological states. In this form, I believe that the Supervenience Thesis is overwhelmingly plausible. And this form of the thesis is all that is required to establish that ‘our’ organisms are sentient beings. For let us assume, as some C-theorists would have us do, that Nixon’s present organism is not identical with Nixon but that this organism constitutes Nixon. Since this organism presently shares all and only the same material (cellular or molecular)

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parts with Nixon (the person), it is a perfect physical replica of Nixon. If Nixon presently is thinking about the Republican party, Kim’s version of the Supervenience Thesis implies that Nixon’s organism presently is thinking about the Republican party. But nothing that fails to qualify as a sentient being can think about the Republican party. So Nixon’s organism must qualify as a sentient being. Thus those who would deny that we presently are referring to one thing when we refer to Nixon on one hand and to Nixon’s organism on the other are committed to the view that two (at least) sentient beings presently are located where Richard Nixon is located. I submit that this leaves us with one sentient being too many. As is implied by the Supervenience Thesis, Nixon’s organism is thinking about the Republican party, since Nixon is thinking about the Republican party. But there just aren’t two thinkings, or two thoughts, in the works. So we would reject the idea that Nixon’s organism merely constitutes, and is not identical with, Richard Nixon.

IX

Wiggins would, I believe, agree with this. But he would go on to deny that Nixon’s body is a sentient being. (In one place, Wiggins suggests that it is false that “. . . people’s bodies play chess, talk sense, know arithmetic, or even run orjump or sit down.”33) Nixon’s body presently constitutes a sentient being but is not itself (attributively) a sentient being. This C1-position seems to me unacceptable for much the same reason that C2-theories are unacceptable. Unless one is prepared to adopt some Cartesian assessment of Richard Nixon, I don’t see how it can be denied that Nixon’s body presently is a perfect physical replica of Nixon. Given Kim’s version of the Supervenience Thesis, this means that Nixon’s body presently is thinking about politics (is hungry, is angry, is pensive, etc.) if and only if Nixon presently is thinking about politics (is hungry, etc.). Once we get this far I doubt that it can reasonably be denied that references to Nixon (the person) ore references to Nixon’s body. Contrary to what C1-theorists tell us, the Supervenience Thesis suggests that Nixon’s body-let us call it ‘Bruce’-is (attributively) a sentient being. Given principle (S), it follows that Bruce has a right to life. If we say that Bruce and Nixon are distinct entities it thus seems that we also should say that both of these entities have a right to life. Should an assassin take the lives of Nixon-Bruce he thereby would violate two rights to life. This is surely an unwarranted and unreasonable assessment of the situation. In fact, the (imagined) assassin violates only one right to life. And this suggests, I submit, that Nixon and Bruce are not distinct entities.

Of course it might be replied that ‘overlapping’entities can‘share’one right to life. Perhaps Nixon and Bruce are two things having one right to life. But (again) I doubt it. Those who talk about Nixon’s anger (say) are

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talking about the state or condition of one thing, while (on our present assumptions) those who talk about Bruce's anger are talking about the state or condition of still another thing. We cannot be speaking of one state or condition when we speak of the states or conditions in which distinct things find themselves. Much as Nixon's anger is Nixon's and not Bruce's-assuming that Nixon and Bruce are distinct entities- Nixon's rights are Nixon's and not Bruce's. Of course such 'double entry' bookkeeping concerning the rights of people-bodies is wildly implausible. The proper conclusion is, not that distinct things can somehow share one right, but that we are not dealing with distinct things when we deal with a person on one hand and with a person's body on the other.

X

Of course C1-theorists might simply reject (S), indeed might reject all talk of rights. But at best this would be a stop-gap measure. For while C1-theorists are not then committed to duplication of rights, the Supervenience Thesis suggests that they still are committed to a duplication of desires, thoughts, pains, ambitions, and memories. Short of rejecting Supervenience, I see no way out. It is because I believe the Supervenience Thesis to be no pushover that I think that Cf-theorists have some explaining to do. As things presently stand, it is by no means evident that we (people) perish either at the time of our Sumner-deaths or at the time of clinical (metabolic) deaths. For it is not evident that we are something other than our bodies.

NOTES

I am indebted to Professor Sumner and to my colleague Tom Regan for helpful comments conceminganearlier version of this paper. Comments made by referees for this journal also helped to eliminate several mistakes. The mistakes that remain are my responsibility.

I For more concerning talk of'division of subjects'see Michael R. Ayers's'Yndividuals Without Sortals," Cunudion Jounol of Philosophy IV (September 1974).

2 By a'cartesian account'l mean roughly this: terms designating people are terms that designate immaterial entities that somehow are associated with human bodies.

3 Michael R. Ayers, "Lockc versus Aristotle on Natural Kinds," The Journul of Philosophy, Vol. LXXVIII, No. 5 (May 1981), p. 129. See also Bernard Williams, Problems of rhe Self(Cambridge, 1973). p. 74.

4 L. W. Sumner,"A Matter ofLifeand Death,"NousVol. X No. 2(May 1976). p. 153. Many people seem to see it Sumner's way. Thus C. J. F. Williams in "On Dying", Phitosophy (1969) says: "This then is the difficulty about describing death as change. There turns out to be nothing which can be said to change. That which was a living pheasant is not the same thing as what is now a pitiable corpse."(p. 220)

5 "A Matter of Life and Death", p. 155. Something like this view is, 1 think, suggested by Joseph Owens in his "Matter and

Predication in Aristotle,"in Arisrorle, ed. by J. M. E. Moravcsik (Doubleday, 1967). p. 207.

Abortion und Morol Theory(Princeton, 1981), p. 146. 8 Abortion und Morul Theory, p. 150.

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9 1 discuss this at greater length in “Do Zygotes Become People?”, Mind 1982, Vol.

10 Wallace I. Matson, Sentience(University of California Press, 1976). p. 158. 1 1 I say more about the underlying assumption in an unpublished paper entitled ‘The

12 Abortion and Moral Theory, p. 198. 13 Abortion and Morol Theory, p. 143. 14 Sumner says on page 144 that nonsentient beings have no moral standing; since

I ) Abortion and Moral Theory, p. 143. 16 A Cartesian might say something like this: my right to life is a right to continued

association with a certain physical organism. 17 Frederick C. Doepke, “Spatially Coinciding Objects,” Ratio CClV (1982). pp. 54-55.

Doepke sides with those who believe that people perish when they die. See p. 45. I * Michael B. Green and Daniel Wikler, “Brain Death and Personal Identity”,

Philosophy and Public Affairs 1980 (I), pp. 117-1 18. 19 “Brain Death and Personal Identity”, p. 121. 20 Sameness and Substance (Harvard, 1980). p. 164. 21 Sameness and Substance, p. I7 I . 22 Sydney Shoemaker, “Wiggins on Identity”, in fdentity 4nd Individuation, ed. by

Milton K. Munitz(New York University Press, 1971), p. 105. 23 I suspect that Shoemaker may hold thisview. For1 suspect that hetakes seriously the

ideas (1 ) that individuals who are people are such that they are essentially people, and (2) that it is necessary that people are beings having thoughts and so having ‘mental’ experiences. See Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity (Cornell, 1963), pp. 14-15.

XCI.

Life-History Principle.’

sentience is a matter of degree, he takes moral standing to be a matter of degree.

24 “Wiggins on Identity,” p. 105. 25 I am grateful to an unnamed referee for suggesting this reply. 26This line is taken by Eli Hirsch in The Concept ofIdentity(Oxford, 1982), pp. 57-64. 2’ I think that Doepke adopts this view. 28 More is said about this in my“0nce and Future Persons”, American Philosophical

29 Jaegwon Kim, “Psychological Supervenience”, PhilosophiculStudies 1982 (Vol. 41).

30 “Psychophysical Supervenience”, pp. 51-52. 31 “Psychological Supervenience”, pp. 57-63. For more concerning supervenience, see

32 “Psychological Supervenience,” p. 60. 33 Sameness and Substance, p. 164.

Quurterly, January 1980 (Vol. 17).

p. 53.

Matson’s discussion of the so-called Frankenstein Axiom, Sentience, p. 81.

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