“Can Personhood Help Make Wise Decisions in Bioethics?” with Dr. Margaret Somerville

Personhood is a useful concept when it helps us to find a common starting point on which we can all agree. That allows us to experience belonging to a common moral universe. It is useless when we cannot agree on who or what is a person or on what respect for persons and their protection requires. It is dangerous when it is used as an exclusionary device that places vulnerable people at risk of serious harm and denies them the respect and protections to which they would be entitled if they were seen as persons. Therefore, who is a person? The “status view” that all human beings are persons opposes the “criterial view” that only humans with certain capacities are persons. Our choice between these views matters. If recognition of the human rights and protection of a human being depends on their being recognised as a person, then exclusionary definitions, such as the criterial view, are dangerous.