Читать книгу Bioethics - Группа авторов - Страница 74

Arguments are rarely offered against the view that only neo‐Lockean persons have a right to life, and when offered, they inevitably misrepresent the concept of a neo‐Lockean person. A typical example is Christopher Kaczor who, in his book The Ethics of Abortion, considers the following possible necessary conditions for existing as a neo‐Lockean person at a time: (1) being self‐aware at that time; (2) having an immediately exercisable capacity for self‐awareness; (3) having functional hardware that is a basis of the capacity for self‐awareness; (4) having an active potentiality for reacquiring a capacity for self‐awareness; (5) having a passive potentiality for reacquiring the capacity for self‐awareness (2014, 31–5).

All of this is a complete failure – or an unwillingness – to recognize what lies at the heart of the concept of a neo‐Lockean person, namely, the existence of a memory that, if accessed, will involve a thought about an earlier state of consciousness to which it was causally linked. All of us have some memories, however, that we are able to access at some times, though not at others, and the inability to access a memory at a given time does not mean that the memory no longer exists. So none of the conditions that Kaczor mentions are necessary for the continued existence of a neo‐Lockean person: as long as the memory exists, the neo‐Lockean person exists, and the memory exists as long as the neural basis for it exists.