Volume 5, 2008
Bioethics and Medical Ethics
Dan Ernst
Pages 5-12
Neuroscience and Personhood
The concept ‘personhood’ lies at the center of contemporary disputes concerning whether certain biological interventions are ethical. Thus, if ‘personhood’ could be located or its existence evidenced by observations available to biologists, then each of these controversies could be resolved in biology’s own terms. I argue that this is a fruitless task. The attempt to track down a material object, ‘personhood,’ reveals ignorance of an important metaphysical presupposition underlying contemporary culture’s Cartesian/Kantian concept of ‘personhood’.