Abstract
In this chapter I pursue the connection between humans as strong
evaluators and humans as strongly valued. The connection is, quite
simply, that strong evaluators are valued because they are strong
evaluators. Yet, this valuing is of two kinds: someone’s achievements as
a strong evaluator can be esteemed, or he can be respected as a person.
Personhood is a specific kind of moral status, but it is based on
personhood in the descriptive sense.
Taylor’s views on persons can be seen as trying to incorporate the
Kantian view of the dignity or worth of persons to the more Aristotelian-
Hegelian ontology. The distinction between moral and descriptive
personhood, and between two senses in which personhood is an “end”
serves as an introduction to this theme (3.1).
In 3.2 I will ask what the nature of persons is in the descriptive sense.
I try to outline and clarify Taylor’s position in relation to some central
positions in the contemporary discussions about personhood. I do not
argue in detail against rival views about descriptive personhood, I merely
hope to map some issues in rough outline. My goal in defending Taylor’s
position is modest, I hope that merely stating the position clearly shows
some of its appeals. The main point is that persons are certain kind of
agents, machines could become persons only through becoming living
beings first. The most fundamental idea in Taylor’s view of personhood is
that of living responsively and dialogically in a world, which is a “moral
space” or a “space of concerns”. Machines do not have a world, and the
world of other animals is not a moral space. Taylor’s persons are strong
evaluators and respondents, being moved by the world and the other
people, and being responsible for their own action. So in this sense one
can agree with Jeff Sugarman’s (2005, 809) way of summing it up: “not
only are persons at the center of moral inquiry, but also, as Taylor’s work
reveals, moral inquiry is at the center of personhood”.
In 3.3 I discuss different ways of seeing the basis of the moral status
of persons, and defend the direct view: moral personhood is directly
grounded in descriptive personhood. (Thus various other options I
discuss are “mute formalism”, arbitrary historicism, status-view, instrumentalism
and desert-view). In sections 3.4 and 3.5 I ask whether such a
suggestion works for those humans, who (at the moment) are not actual
persons in the full sense. I further strengthen Taylor’s view and defend it
against Feinberg’s criticism.