Frankfurt on personhood and moral responsibility

For full article, see Beginning of human personhood. The beginning of human personhood is a concept long debated by religion and philosophy. The term was used by Justice Blackmun in Roe v.

Frankfurt presents an account of personhood that focuses on reflection and the tussle between levels of desires. He intends his account to explain personhood, moral responsibility, and free will. For example, non-ethical humans can be persons and persons can be non-ethical.

Your general task is to accurately recreate, critically analyze, and apply philosophical theory. To provide a rich discussion you will be drawing on information from our units on moral responsibility personhood and moral dilemmas e. The details are unpacked below. What is sufficient for being a good person, and why?

Your argument should have these necessary features. These features should not merely be listed in the essay. Rather, they should be synthesized into a seamless discussion that supports a strong thesis. Again, your purpose is to use these necessary features to argue your point, rather than merely state your point.

Imagine that your reader has not read these philosophical texts. For example, if you mention the death of Gregor Samsa in relation to personhood give us a bit of information about the conditions leading up to the death so that the reader has a better grasp on the example.

I would encourage at least a slight modification to account for the three criticisms we discussed in class.

Modification or no modification, you will have to argue why the conditions that you are drawing on for personhood provide an answer to the prompt.

To make sure you unpack personhood properly see 3 and 4. It is very important that your words are original and not merely a regurgitation of your notes. These analyzed examples should, of course, be relevant to the main thesis you are trying to present. In other words, it should not just be a separate and unrelated part of your discussion, but rather it should fit in to the overall picture.

You will have to draw on at least two ethical principles that we discussed in our unit on moral dilemmas in order to support your main thesis about what makes a good person. These ethical principles can be anything that we generated from our series of thought experiments that revealed important ethical concepts.

You can draw on principles we learned by looking at our analyses of: They should be as thorough as possible. Then, illustrate those conditions. A philosophical theory works the same way as any theory.

It should be adequate in explaining, understanding, predicting the world around us. What can they help us to explain, understand, and predict? Make sure to cite all relevant sources. You have to remain consistent. See the external document that I have posted about style on Canvas. For a really compact version of style, see https: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

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Is this question part of your Assignment?He intends his account to explain personhood, moral responsibility, and free will. But as we saw, Frankfurt’s account has philosophical limitations (ethical and empirical) and unusual consequences.

For example, non-ethical humans can be persons and persons can be non-ethical. Personhood is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty.

Harry G. Frankfurt writes that. Changing Functions, Moral Responsibility, and Mental Illness Craig Edwards Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, Volume 16, Number 1, March Oct 27,  · Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person in theory, go on infinitely.

If this is the case, then your personhood is also destroyed because your freedom of will is lost. and desire that our pre-existing 1st-order desires be otherwise or be ordered otherwise is what gives rise to moral responsibility." Frankfurt wrote.

Frankfurt on Personhood and Moral Responsibility In Harry Frankfurt’s philosophy journal on “Personhood and Moral Responsibility” he formulates many ideas of how people should act.

He believes a person is morally responsible for what he has done, only if he could have done otherwise. Frankfurt focuses on the first order and second order desires.

Identifying with a desire and externalizing them and taking a stance as an agent, as well as, the importance of morality and self interest.