Philosophical Bioethics: Section 3 PDF

Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Beings, human beings and persons LEARNING OUTCOMES at the end of this section you will: have an understanding of the concepts of ‘moral status’, ‘moral agent’, ‘sanctity of human life’, ‘personhood’ and ‘autonomy’ and their relation to the value of...

Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Beings, human beings and persons LEARNING OUTCOMES at the end of this section you will: have an understanding of the concepts of ‘moral status’, ‘moral agent’, ‘sanctity of human life’, ‘personhood’ and ‘autonomy’ and their relation to the value of lives have developed an understanding of how and why the value we attribute to different lives impacts on how we should treat those lives.  Philosophical Bioethics SECTION 3 Beings, human beings and persons Before we start 71 The Value of Life 71 Healthcare and the Value of Life 71 What sorts of lives have value? 73 What is it that makes a life valuable? 74 What do we mean by value? What is moral status? 75 Equality, humanity and a right to life? 76 Personhood 77 Personhood and the Value of Life 77 How do we recognise persons? 78 The Value of Life and the Evil of Death 81 Autonomy and Respect for Persons 82 Conceptions of Personhood and their implications 83 Summary 86  Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Before we start Go to Blackboard to watch the video.of Professor Rebecca Bennett introducing Sections 3 and 4. The Value of Life Essential Reading Before completing this section you should read the following texts J. Harris, The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics, (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985, 1991) Chapter 1 [ebook available via University library] A. Newson, ‘Personhood and Moral Status’ in R. Ashcroft, A. Dawson, H. Draper, J. McMillan (eds.), Principles of Health Care Ethics (John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2007), pp. 277-284 [ebook available via University library] Healthcare and the Value of most important dimensions of the way in Life which we, as individuals and members of society, demonstrate the value that we place Healthcare is one of the clearest and most on one another’s lives and display the respect visible expressions of a society’s attitude to that we believe we owe to each other. the value of life. It is, moreover, one of the This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved. 71 Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Activity 1 What sorts of lives have value at all? Are some lives more valuable than others? What makes lives valuable? Imagine the University Hospital is on fire, and you can only save one of the following at a time. What order would you save the following human beings in? Which ones do you think are the most valuable and which ones are the least valuable? A frozen embryo An 85-year-old woman with Senile Dementia A 30-year-old man in a Persistent Vegetative State A one-week-old infant with Down Syndrome A 19-year-old woman with no apparent health problems A 19-year-old paraplegic man A 37-year-old morbidly obese woman Where might the hospital cat rank amongst these human lives? Imagine there is a laboratory containing an adult chimpanzee. Where would this life rank amongst the other lives? Make a note of your thoughts about this task below. 72 This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved.  Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 What sorts of lives have Even if we are vegetarians, our daily food value? will involve the premature death of some living things, and vegetarians usually You may have found answering the question accept priorities of importance between in Activity 1 easy or hard. What is true is that different animals and, indeed, between different people will answer the question human individuals at different stages in Activity 1 in very different ways and for of development. Should we prioritise very different reasons. For instance, those some people over others? If the school is who believe that all human lives, regardless on fire should we attempt to rescue the of whether they be an embryo, an infant, children before the teachers? Should the an adult, or an individual in a Persistent headmaster’s 90-year-old granny, who Vegetative State (P.V.S.), are of equal and high happens to be visiting, be rescued before value may struggle to rank these human lives. or after the youngest kindergarten child? Those who believe that non-human animals What priority should be given to the (or members of a particular species of non- school cat and the mice in the biology human animal) are of equal value to humans lab? While this example may seem would probably want them to be treated with fanciful, daily decisions in every society the respect and concern given to others with involve these or related questions. a similar value (i.e., human beings) and may How, for example, should we prioritise prioritise these non-human animals over resources for health care, or, in the case some human beings. of our present concerns, how should we Our daily lives necessarily involve us making think of the ethics of treating embryos?1 choices between lives based on the value we Our views about which lives have high value suppose them to have. Rebecca Bennett and impact both our everyday life and our wider John Harris illustrate this point in the context beliefs regarding what should and should not of a discussion on the status of the embryo: be permissible. A clear and reasoned view Human conduct in all societies as to which lives have high value and why presupposes that different individuals is extremely useful when analysing medical have different moral status or, to put dilemmas. the same point in different terminology, human conduct presupposes that different sorts of lives have different value. 1 R. Bennett and J. Harris, ‘Ethics of human embryostudies’, in T. Strachan, S. Lindsay and D. I. Wilson (eds.), Molecular Genetics of Early Human Development (BIOS Scientific Publishers, 1997), p.51 [see entry in library catalogue] This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved. 73 Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Optional Video Resource Go to Blackboard to watch a video of Professor John Harris introducing the issue of the value of life and how we decide what lives have value. Please note that this is a video of an actual lecture and thus the quality is variable. What is it that makes a life Harris suggests that: valuable? When we ask what makes human life So, what is it that makes a life valuable? Do valuable we are trying to identify those embryos and fetuses have the same value features, whatever they are, which as adult human beings? While an individual both incline us and entitle us to value in a persistent vegetative state is still a ourselves and one another, and which human being can this human being be said license our belief that we are more to have equal moral status as someone who valuable (and not just to ourselves) is capable of consciousness and decision- than animals, or fish or plants. We are making? looking for the basis of the belief that it is morally right to choose to save the We will come to some of these wider life of a person rather than of a dog questions about the moral status of embryos where both cannot be saved, and our and fetuses later. But for now, I will focus belief that this is not merely a form on the question of whether there are of prejudice in the favour of our own good reasons to suppose that human lives species but is capable of justification. So are more valuable than the lives of other the features we are looking for, although creatures, and if so, in virtue of what? What they will be possessed by normal adult qualities would a non-human creature have human beings, will not simply catalogue to possess to have equivalent moral status as the differences between such beings and you or I? Or, as Harris puts it, by what criteria other creatures. Rather they will point would we decide, on meeting a creature from to features which have moral relevance, another planet, whether to ‘have them for which justify our preference for ourselves dinner in one sense or the other’?2 and our belief that it is right to treat people as equals of one another and as the superiors of other creatures.3 2 J. Harris, The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985,1991), p.10 [ebook available] 3 ibid., p.9 74 This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved.  Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 We intuitively calculate the relative value of moral agents have, or can have, moral lives every day, but we need to identify what obligations. If an entity has moral status, features a creature must have in order to then we may not treat it in just any way have a high moral value to ensure that our we please; we are morally obliged to give value calculations are accurate (not based on weight in our deliberations to its needs, mere prejudice, for instance). interests, or well-being. Furthermore, we are morally obliged to do this not What do we mean by value? merely because protecting it may benefit What is moral status? ourselves or other persons, but because its needs have moral importance in their Lives can, of course, be valuable in a variety of own right.4 different ways. Individuals may, for instance, be valued because of what they can offer to Consequently, Warren continues, most others. However, the value we are discussing people would not say that it is morally wrong here is not an extrinsic value measured in to take a stone and grind it into powder terms of the benefits others may gain from merely for one’s own amusement as the the individual’s existence, but a value intrinsic stone does not have any (intrinsic) moral to that being, independent of others’ need for status. The stone may have value to others or view of that individual. It is this value that – it may be a personal memento or contain indicates the existence of moral status. Mary certain fossils – but the stone does not seem Anne Warren gives a useful description of to be the kind of thing to which we can have what is meant here by moral status: moral obligations. As Warren argues, a stone has ‘no needs, interests, well-being, or good To have moral status is to be morally of its own, which we could or should take into considerable, or to have moral standing. account in our moral deliberations’.5 It is to be an entity towards which 4 M. A. Warren, Moral Status: Obligations to persons and other living things (Oxford University Press, 1997), p.4. 5 ibid., p.4 This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved. 75 Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Thus at one end of the spectrum we have inanimate, non-sentient things such as stones and at the other end, we have adult human beings like you or I who can be said to have full, or high, moral status. While there would seem to be a widespread acceptance that stones have no moral status and that adult humans capable of decision-making have full moral status, there is still a problem of working out where everything else sits between these two poles. If those with high moral status This is sometimes expressed as the should be afforded concern, respect and view that there are basic human rights protection then it is important that we can possessed by all people in virtue of their recognise which creatures have this moral humanity, or as a belief in equal rights, status in order to treat them accordingly. or as the view that all people should be treated as equals. It is the assumption Equality, humanity and a behind a belief in equality before the right to life? law, and it underlies the view that all A belief in the fundamental principle of the are equally entitled to the care and sanctity of human life is a central value in protection of the state, including its the Western tradition and it has become medical care and protection.6 an integral part of the moral framework of While this view that humans, in virtue of Western societies. This tradition holds that their humanity, have special higher status moral status is primarily, if not exclusively, than other beings is one held by many and held by human beings. Even in the may reflect a traditional and in some cases predominantly secular societies of today, the religiously based approach to questions notion that all human lives are of equal and about moral status, this position has been high value remains a widely held principle. questioned by bioethicists such as Peter Although in a secular society, human life is Singer and Harris. Singer, for example, not necessarily held as sacred, the principle argues that basing moral status on anything is perpetuated by the notion of equality as arbitrary as membership of a particular which is enshrined in the constitutions of species cannot be justified and argues that to Western societies as one of the basic rights of do so is ‘speciesism’ and is as indefensible as human existence and is used to protect the other ‘isms’ such as sexism and racism.7 individual’s right to life. 6 J. Harris, The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985,1991), pp. 8-9. [ebook available] 7 P. Singer, ‘Speciesism and Moral Status’ Metaphilosophy (2009) 40 [3/4] pp.567-581 76 This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved.  Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Personhood as persons and thus have comparable moral status to human persons. Personhood and the Value of Harris claims8 that his conception of Life ‘personhood’ is useful in many areas of medical ethics as it performs a range of very If what makes life valuable is not belonging important functions: to the human race, then what does confer To give us some grasp of why persons moral status on an entity? It has been are valuable and make intelligible the suggested that it may be the possession of moral difference between persons and what is termed ‘personhood’ that makes a other beings. life valuable. Thus, if a creature cannot also To enable us, in principle, to tell be said to be a ‘person’, then they cannot persons from non-persons. be said to have the same right to life and so the taking of that life may be more morally To have an account of the point at justifiable. Again, species doesn’t necessarily which and the reasons why the embryo make the difference here: some humans or any live human tissue becomes might not be persons, and it can be argued valuable. that some nonhuman creatures could qualify To recognise when and why human beings cease to be valuable or become less valuable than others. Optional Video Resource Go to Blackboard to watch a video of Professor John Harris introducing the notion of personhood as a way of identifying a being with moral status. He asks us to imagine there is life on other planets and goes on to explain how a notion of personhood would help these beings to decide whether they should have us for dinner in one sense or another - that is whether we are the sorts of beings to communicate with or to eat. Please note that this is a video of an actual lecture and thus the quality is variable. 8 J. Harris, The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985,1991) p.18 & 27 [ebook available] This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved. 77 Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 to answer or even to entertain the question will show that they have the requisite capacity. We could say, then, that language is the hallmark of self- consciousness. Any creature with even the most rudimentary form of language will be able to let us know that it values its life and wants to go on living.9 He goes on to claim that: the presence of language is definitive How do we recognise evidence that the beings who possess it persons? are persons. And where self-awareness is On Harris’ conception a person is someone exhibited by beings of the kind we know who is a ‘being capable of valuing its own to be capable of valuing their own lives existence’. Recognising persons, he claims, is we should, for safety’s sake, take this as usually simplicity itself: evidence that they are, or are starting to be, self-conscious and able to value their If we want to know whether or not own existence.10 someone values their own existence we can ask them; and their ability Optional Video Resource Go to Blackboard to watch a video of Professor John Harris expanding on his theory of personhood as an indicator of moral status. He reiterates that for him it is self-consciousness that demarcates those with personhood and goes on to answer the question - when do human beings begin to demonstrate self-consciousness and thus begin to matter morally? Please note that this is a video of an actual lecture and thus the quality is variable. 9 J. Harris, The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985,1991), p. 19.[ebook available] 10 ibid., p. 21 78 This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved.  Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Harris is not the only one to argue for this idea of personhood as the basis for moral status. There are many other conceptions of ‘personhood’ suggesting various characteristics creatures must have in order to be classified as ‘persons’ or entities with high moral status. Some of these conceptions of personhood are presented below: ….we must consider what person stands for; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself, the same thinking thing, in different times Beings that have moral status must be and places; which it does only by that capable of caring about what is done consciousness which is inseparable to them. They must be capable of being from thinking and seems to me essential made, if only in a rudimentary sense, to it; it being impossible for anyone to happy or miserable, comfortable or perceive without perceiving that he does distressed. Whatever reasons we may perceive.11 have for preserving or protecting non- John Locke sentient beings, these reasons do not refer to their own interests. For without [T]here are a number of necessary conscious awareness, beings cannot conditions that something must satisfy if have interests. Without interests they it is to be a person, including possession, cannot have a welfare of their own. either now or at some time in the past, Without a welfare of their own, nothing of a sense of time, of a concept of a can be done for their sake. Hence, they continuing subject of mental states, and lack moral standing or status.13 of a capacity for thought episodes.12 Bonnie Steinbock Michael Tooley 11 J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, book II, ch.27 (Oxford University Press, 1969), para 111 12 M. Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide (Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 419-420 13 B. Steinbock, Life Before Birth - The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses (Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 5. [ebook available via University library] This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved. 79 Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Activity 2 Although there are a great many differing conceptions as to what characteristics an individual must have to be a person, these conceptions do seem to be in general agreement as to the type of characteristics that denote moral value. From the quotations above, make a list of various characteristics which are viewed by the authors as indicative of moral status. Now check your answers against the sample answers at the end of this section. Remember, these sample answers are only a guide; your answers do not have to be exactly the same. 80 This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved.  Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 The Value of Life and the Evil of Death It seems that a crude definition of what is meant by a person on this particular personhood conception of moral status could then be a creature who has certain important characteristics such as rationality and self-awareness. It is these important characteristics that indicate that this creature is a moral agent and has high moral status there is a deep difference between and as such is entitled to the same concern, having a life and merely being alive. The respect and protection that is accorded to point of the moral rule against killing other moral agents/entities of high moral is not to keep ‘innocent humans’ alive. status. Being alive, in the biological sense, Those with high moral status may have is relatively unimportant. One’s life, interests that mean that they may be entitled by contrast, is immensely important; to protection against being killed for, as self- it is the sum of one’s aspirations, aware and rational creatures, they are able to decisions, activities, projects, and value their own lives, and this ability is taken human relationships. The point of the by many philosophers to indicate that their rule against killing is the protection of life is importantly valuable. Thus, as Harris lives and the interests that some beings, explains: including ourselves, have in virtue of the fact that we are all subjects of lives. The wrongness of killing another person Only by paying careful attention to the is, on this view, chiefly the wrongness of concept of a life can we understand the permanently depriving her of whatever it value of life and the evil of death. is that makes it possible for her to value her own life.14 The details of this account are strikingly different from the traditional approach. James Rachels gives a very useful illustration The distinction between human and non- of the importance of personhood and the human turns out to be less important harm done by ending the life of a person. than has been assumed. From a moral Rachels makes an important distinction point of view it is the possession of between having a life and being alive. He argues that: 14 J. Harris, The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985,1991), p. 17 [ebook available] This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved. 81 Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 lives that is important, and so, because Singer suggests that: most humans have lives, killing them is...respect for autonomy is a basic moral objectionable.15 principle. By ‘autonomy’ is meant the Thus, the possession of a biographical life or capacity to choose, to make and act what others would term ‘personhood’ is what on one’s own decisions. Rational and makes lives morally valuable. Mere biological self-conscious beings presumably existence or being alive does not necessarily have this ability, whereas beings who denote a life of intrinsic value. As Nagel cannot consider the alternatives open explains: to them are not capable of choosing in the required sense and hence cannot If death is an evil at all, it cannot be autonomous. In particular, only a be because of positive features but being who can grasp the difference only of what it deprives us of ……[T] between dying and continuing to live he value of life and its contents does can autonomously choose to live. Hence not attach to mere organic survival: killing a person who does not choose almost everyone would be indifferent to die fails to respect that person’s (other things equal) between immediate autonomy; and as the choice of living death and immediate coma followed or dying is about the most fundamental by death twenty years later without choice anyone can make, the choice on reawakening.16 which all choices depend, killing a person who does not choose to die is the gravest Autonomy and Respect for violation of that person’s autonomy.17 Persons Harris describes autonomy thus: We have discussed that, on this personhood view, it is usually wrong to kill a person as this Autonomy is, strictly speaking ‘self- will thwart their ability to enjoy the life that government’, and people are said to be they value: a life made up of beliefs, desires, autonomous to the extent to which they plans and relationships. But, as Singer points are able to control their own lives, and out, there is another implication of being to some extent their own destiny, by a person that may also be relevant to the the exercise of their own faculties. Full wrongness of killing. autonomy and even fully autonomous individual choices, are in a sense ideal notions, which we can at best only hope to approach more or less closely. This 15 J. Rachels, The End of Life: Euthanasia and Morality (Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 5 [see library catalogue] 16 T. Nagel, Mortal Questions (Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 1. [available as an ebook] 17 P. Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 83 [available as an ebook] 82 This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved.  Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 is because all sorts of things tend to undermine the individual’s capacity for autonomous choice.18 There is no general consensus in the literature on the precise meaning that autonomy conveys. But while there may be no consensus on what autonomy is, there seems to be in the literature general agreement that autonomy is important. So, let’s take as read the idea that autonomy, moral agents; and there are those who would or at least the capacity for autonomy, is a or argue that many animals possess the sort the factor that makes beings valuable and, of personhood characteristics that mean we on this personhood view of moral status, should treat them with the same respect as identifies entities with high moral status. We we would adult human beings. will return to autonomy and its importance in applied ethics in Sections 5 and 6 of this Thus, while the personhood criterion Course Unit. for moral status may be a helpful tool in medical ethics, it requires more than a list Conceptions of Personhood of characteristics of personhood in order to be useful. While most adult human beings and their implications possess the characteristics of personhood, it Conceptions of personhood do not usually seems likely that an early fetus will not. Thus, vary dramatically over the characteristics that taking a personhood view of moral status are important in a person: most rate self- may lead to conclusions about when a human awareness and rationality highly, for instance. being starts to have significant moral status However, when determining which creatures that has difficult connotations. can be characterised as in possession of In this Section, we explored what is meant these personhood characteristics there is a by the value or life and in particular what is great deal of disagreement. meant by moral status and how this might be For instance, there are those who hold that useful when tackling ethical questions. In the human infants do not appear to be self- next Section, examine the question ‘At what aware and rational and thus do not warrant point do lives begin to matter morally?’ the same protection and respect as “full” 18 J. Harris, The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics, op cit., p. 195 This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved. 83 Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Suggested further reading To gain a greater understanding of the issues raised in this section it is recommended that you read at least one of the following. D. Dennett, ‘Conditions of Personhood’ in Goodman, M (ed.), What Is a Person (Humana Press, 1988), pp. 145-167 [ebook available via University library] B. Gordjin, ‘The Troublesome Concept of a Person’, Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics (1999) 20, pp. 347-59 [available online via University library] S. Holland, Arguing about Bioethics (Routledge, 2012) Part One: Is it wrong to do research on human embryos? [ebook available via University library] R. Hursthouse, Beginning Lives (Blackwell, 1987), Chapters 2 and 3 [chapter 2 is available online via University library] A. Jaworska and J. Tannenbaum, ‘The Grounds of Moral Status’ E. N. Zalta and U. Nodelman (eds.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 edition) D. S. Oderberg, Moral Theory: A non-consequentialist approach (Blackwell, 2000), Chapter 4 [chapter 4 is available online via University library] J. Rachels, The End of Life: Euthanasia and Morality (Oxford University Press, 1986), Chapters 1, 2 & 3 [see entry in library catalogue] P. Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 1979), Chapter 4 [ebook available via University library] M. A. Warren, Moral Status: Obligations to persons and other living things (Oxford University Press, 1997) [ebook available] M. J. Zimmerman, ‘Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Value’, E. N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2010 edition) 84 This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved.  Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Video Resource As well as the video resources mentioned in these materials and made available on Blackboard you might also find this other video resources useful: Peter Singer, ‘Personhood beyond the Human’ (Keynote address) Activity 2: Sample answer Remember, these sample answers are only a guide; your answers do not have to be exactly the same. Although there are a great many differing conceptions as to what characteristics an individual must have for it to be a ‘person’ these conceptions do seem to be in general agreement as to the type of characteristics that denote moral value. From the quotations above (B) make a list of various characteristics which are viewed by the authors as indicative of moral status: capable of valuing their own life; reason/rationality; self-consciousness/awareness of itself as a continuing entity/conscious awareness; caring about what is done to them/interests This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved. 85 Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Summary The Value of Life The level of moral value we attach to different creatures’ lives affects how we believe they should be treated. Many people believe in the sanctity of human life, especially in the Western tradition. Some believe that animals too have morally valuable lives, while others disagree. Most people, however, agree that some lives are more valuable than others. In our everyday lives it is often necessary to make choices between lives based on the value we suppose them to have, for instance, when we need to prioritise healthcare resources. What we are concerned with in bioethical discussions when we talk about the value of a life is the intrinsic (rather than extrinsic) value of lives, i.e. the value of a life intrinsic to the being itself, independent of others’ need for or view of that individual. This is the ‘moral status’ of a being. Personhood It has been argued that it is ‘personhood’ that makes a life valuable. Rather than species membership, this asks us to consider the capacities of a creature. Harris, for instance, suggests that a person is simply ‘a being capable of valuing its own existence.’ This is but one view of personhood; there are many others. A crude definition of what is meant by a person could be a creature that has certain important characteristics, where these characteristics are typically one or more of the following: capacity to value one’s life, ability to reason, self-consciousness and self- awareness of oneself as a continuing entity, and caring about what is done to oneself and having interests. Whilst helpful as a tool in medical ethics, the personhood criterion requires more than a list of characteristics of personhood in order to be useful. 86 This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved.  Philosophical Bioethics: SECTION 3 Summary, continued Personhood, continued In essence, personhood means that a being is a moral agent and as such is entitled to protection against being killed, because this would deprive the being of an intrinsically valued life. Another reason why killing a person is wrong, is because it fails to respect that person’s autonomy, i.e. the capacity to choose, to make and act on one’s own decisions, or simply ‘self-government.’ [Autonomy is generally considered important, although there is no consensus as to its precise meaning.] Go to Section 4 This material should be treated as private and confidential. © The University of Manchester, 2024 all rights reserved. 87