A Thomistic Understanding of Human Death

Post-printI will review higher-brain and whole-brain death from the standpoint of Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysical understanding of human nature. I will critique arguments for higher-brain death being a proper interpretation of Aquinas’s views and make a case for whole-brain death to be compatible with Aquinas’s account of human death given current biological data

Potentiality, Possibility, and the Irreversibility of Death

Post-printIn this paper, I will consider the case of cryopreservation. A central conceptual focus throughout this discussion is the purportedly irreversible nature of death and the criteria by which a human body is considered to be informed by a rational soul

A Thomistic Perspective on the Beginning of Personhood: Redux

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Pomponazzi and Aquinas on the Intellective Soul

Post-printOne of Thomas Aquinas’s primary philosophical concerns is to provide an account of the nature of a human soul. He bases his account on Aristotle’s De anima [DA], wherein Aristotle gives an account of “soul” (psuchē) as divided into three distinct types: vegetative, sensitive, and intellective. Aristotle defines an intellective soul as proper to human beings and the only type of soul that may potentially exist separated from a material body. Aquinas argues that an intellective soul is indeed separable from its body and conceives of it as essentially, or unqualifiedly (simpliciter), immortal and separable from its body, and relatively (secundum quid) mortal and conjoined to its body. Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525), a Renaissance philosopher concerned with ridding neo-Aristotelianism of Platonic or Averroistic influences, criticizes Aquinas’s account as not being properly Aristotelian and having been influenced by Platonism. In this paper, I will present summaries of Aquinas’s arguments concerning an intellective soul’s essential immortality, as well as Pomponazzi’s criticisms of Aquinas’s position. I then propose ways in which Aquinas may respond to these criticisms

Aquinas on the Nature of Human Beings

Post-printIn this paper, I provide a formulation of Thomas Aquinas’s account of the nature of human beings for the purpose of comparing it with other accounts in both the history of philosophy and contemporary analytic philosophy. I discuss how his apparently dualistic understanding of the relationship between soul and body yields the conclusion that a human being exists as a unified substance composed of a rational soul informing, that is, serving as the specific organizing principle of, a physical body. I further address the issue of Aquinas’s contention that a human rational soul can exist without being united to a body and show how this ability of a human soul does not contradict the thesis that a human being exists naturally as embodied. I will also respond to two related questions. First, what accounts for the individuation of human beings as distinct members of the human species?Second, what is the principle of identity by which a human being persists through time and change

The Beginning of Personhood: A Thomistic Biological Analysis

Post-print“When did I, a human person, begin to exist?” In developing an answer to this question, I utilize a Thomistic framework which holds that the human person is a composite of a biological organism and an intellective soul. Eric Olson and Norman Ford both argue that the beginning of an individual human biological organism occurs at the moment when implantation of the zygote in the uterus occurs and the “primitive streak” begins to form. Prior to this point, there does not exist an individual human organism, but a cluster of biological cells which has the potential to split and develop as one or more separate human organisms (identical twinning). Ensoulment (the instantiation of a human intellective soul in biological matter) does not occur until the point of implantation. This conception of the beginning of human personhood has moral implications concerning the status of pre-implantation biological cell clusters. A new understanding of the beginning of human personhood entails a new understanding of the morality of certain medical procedures which have a direct affect on these cell clusters which contain human DNA. Such procedures discussed in this article are embryonic stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, procured abortion, and the use of abortifacient contraceptives

Aquinas's Account of Human Embryogenesis and Recent Interpretations

Post-printIn addressing bioethical issues at the beginning of human life, such as abortion, in vitro fertilization, and embryonic stem cell research, one primary concern regards establishing when a developing human embryo or fetus can be considered a person. Thomas Aquinas argues that an embryo or fetus is not a human person until its body is informed by a rational soul. Aquinas’s explicit account of human embryogenesis has been generally rejected by contemporary scholars due to its dependence upon medieval biological data, which has been far surpassed by current scientific research. A number of scholars, however, have attempted to combine Aquinas’s basic metaphysical account of human nature with current embryological data to develop a contemporary Thomistic account of a human person’s beginning. In this paper, I discuss two recent interpretations in which it is argued that a human person does not begin to exist until a fetus has developed a functioning cerebral cortex