Belief in souls should not be imposed

I write in response to Charles Pace’s letter of February 22. Due to obvious constraints, I am unable to provide a detailed reply but invite Pace once again to read a full response at https://prochoicethoughtsandarguments.blogspot.com/.

A personal identity necessarily requires a mental life which cannot be possible without a developed brain. Biological humanity should not be conflated with personal identity. Pace fails to argue for the non-arbitrary moral relevance of DNA or species membership. He takes it as a given.

A personal identity with interests develops incrementally and gradually with the emergence of a sufficiently developed brain. Someone who is temporarily unconscious would still have a mental history of interests, preferences and desires – a personality. Irrespective of whether one can or does explicitly express it or not, we are justified in assuming that a person who is temporarily unconscious would have a preference for continued existence. A pre-sentient foetus does not.

My claim that it is only beings with personal interests and desires who may have the right to have those interests respected is logical. Pace’s claim that species membership or DNA is sufficient is just an arbitrary speciesist assertion.

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Pace is incorrect when he says that embryos already have the capability of rational consciousness. Embryos and pre-sentient foetuses do not have the capability of rational consciousness but perhaps only the potential of developing into persons with that capability. This makes all the difference.

Neurological science points to consciousness being an emergent property of the brain, resulting from the communication of information across all its regions. No evidence at all, as far as I know, supports the hypothesis of an immaterial soul preceding or surviving a brain. All that the near-death experience studies Pace alludes to can tell us is that a surge of electrical activity in the brain could be responsible for the vivid experiences described by near-death survivors. There is no reliable evidence at all that people undergoing a near-death experience may see hidden objects like Pace asserts.

Pace shifts the burden of proof when he asks how one may make a claim that there is no spiritual component. Pace provides no evidence for his assertion. And even if he succeeds where all others have failed, he would still be hard-pressed to explain evidentially how it could even matter to an “immaterial soul” what happens to the body it inhabits or even whether it is preferable for it to leave that body, as a belief in heaven would suggest.

In any case, unless falsifiable evidence is brought forward that makes it morally relevant, belief in souls is something that should not be imposed.

Pace asks whether children who do not understand death before age four may be killed because they do not understand death. The answer is clearly no because death is the complete frustration of all pursuance of any and all interests and desires. The right to pursue interests only applies to persons who can have them. Children and foetuses beyond 24 weeks evidently do.

Kenneth Cassar – Marsaxlokk