Mary Anne Warren, in her argument to define what makes a human being a person in the moral sense, seeks to examine the idea of personhood. She then suggests five traits that she claims are “most central to the concept of personhood” (pg. 433). The writer then suggests that all five are not necessary for complete personhood, but perhaps only numbers 1 and 2, which are consciousness and reasoning, respectively.
Therefore, I disagree with Warren’s criteria for being human in the moral sense because if one were to apply her criteria to all living creatures one would find there are some primates that fulfill at least numbers 1 and 2 of her list. And if some primates are moral beings, then it would be immoral to treat them the way we do, keeping them in captivity and the like. Also, if we apply her reasoning to all humans, there would be some that would not satisfy any of the 5 criteria, yet are not discarded the way an aborted fetus is.
Warren goes on to argue against the potential personhood of a fetus as reasoning for the immorality of abortion. In this portion of her essay she writes that although a fetus may have the potential to become a person in the moral sense, this is nothing more than a prima facie reason for not aborting the pregnancy. Consequently, she argues that a potential person’s…show more content… If one were to ascribe to Warren’s reasoning, this scenario would sound logically justifiable. Although, Warren doesn’t take into account the long-term medical and psychological effects the procedure would have on the woman. Is it justifiable to take on such dangers with one’s physical health in order to take a vacation? Is one’s immediate happiness more important than one’s long-term health? These are serious issues to think about when one considers late-term
