Oxford professor defends immateriality of soul, provokes abortion controversy
Richard Swinburne is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is best known for defenses of theism and Christian doctrine. His major works include The Coherence of Theism, The Existence of God, and The Evolution of the Soul.
The Jacques Maritain Center hosted Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford Richard Swinburne on September 22 for a talk titled, “I am My Soul,” in which Swinburne explored various accounts of personal identity. What makes a person the same person over time or after major changes such as brain transplants or memory loss? Swinburne argued that physical theories of identity cannot fully answer these questions, so there must be some non-physical thing—“immaterial substance” or “soul” as he termed it—which accounts for personal identity.
There were two broad categories of competing theories that Swinburne sought to disprove: complex theories and partial-identity theories.
A complex theory posits that personal identity is based on continuity. It can be a physical theory, suggesting that “having some or all of the same body, or some or all of the same brain” is the basis of identity, a mental theory, using the condition of “having many largely true memories of … actions … and similar character,” or a mixture of the two. Swinburne noted that most of the modern accounts of personal identity in the English speaking world have fallen into these categories.
Swinburne rejected all three since they require an arbitrary cutoff. For example, at some point, a line must be drawn at which a person would be the same if “only nine percent of [his brain] has been replaced, but not if 11 percent [has] been replaced.” Since personal identity is all-or-nothing, Swinburne argued such cutoffs are untenable.
Partial identity theories respond that one does not need to draw an absolute line for identity, rather that a person’s identity is a matter of degree. Roughly, “the less and less … [of the same] brain matter and or memories and character a subsequent person … has … the less” the two people are the same person.
Swinburne objected to such theories with a thought experiment. Imagine a person named Alexandra has half of her brain transplanted into one body, named Alex, and the other half transplanted into another named Sandra. Who is Alexandra: Alex or Sandra? Swinburne played with this example extensively, drawing out various contradictions.
Later, Swinburne appealed to near-death experiences, which provide evidence for an immaterial soul. “Sometimes [patients] report to be unable to control their body and also to have experiences of floating above the operating table at some time and seeing what was happening … when surgeons certify that the brains of those persons were totally inactive and … the patients report accurately what was happening at the table when they couldn’t have learned by any ordinary means.”
His consideration of near death experiences was subtle. In these examples, Swinburne claims the soul separates from the body by either not responding to the body or acquiring information apart from the body. While he granted that perhaps the reports are untrue, he noted that one can still consider the possibility of a soul separate from a body without any logical contradiction.
After the lecture, Swinburne took questions from audience members, one of whom asked about the connection of his philosophy to prenatal injury law. Swinburne resisted applying this philosophy to fetuses younger than six months. “My view is that we have no grounds for supposing that there is a soul before we have grounds for supposing the fetus is conscious,” Swinburne explained.
He continued, “Now it may be the case that at conception, what is conceived is not merely a physical unit but a soul connected to it, but the soul doesn’t show itself until it manifests itself, particularly soul-like, until about six months. There is no good reason to suppose that any abortion before six months constitutes murder. Of course, it could be wrong for other reasons, but it couldn’t be wrong for that reason.”
Swinburne then spoke to Catholicism in particular, “I think Aquinas would agree with me in this matter. Of course, Aquinas thought that the fetus began as a vegetable, then became an animal, and then at a later stage, human. … It puzzles me a little why the modern Catholic church is so convinced that souls appear simply at conception.”
This point drew considerable controversy. Junior Peter Mikulski told the Rover, “The talk dealt with who and what can be said to be ensouled so … it was pretty predictable for this campus that the discussion turned towards the abortion question. … [T]he vibe from the audience was that Swinburne was insufficiently pro-life. … [T]he Q&A ended before he could really be pressed on it.”
In a comment to the Rover, audience member Frederico Bonaldo, Professor of Ethics at Faculdade Mar Atlântico in Brazil, critiqued Swinburne’s comments on abortion: “And why is the soul not in the unborn before it is sensorial-capable? Why does something immaterial begin to be only when it starts to move a portion of matter?”
Bonaldo continued, “Affirming this would imply to say the immaterial is at the service of the material—which is absurd, whether metaphysically or logically. It puzzles me a little why an experienced analytical philosopher is able to say something so incongruent. Yes, Aquinas would likely agree with him. And Aquinas also would be mistaken, as he was, for instance, regarding mitigated slavery, which he thought was a natural condition of some human beings.”
For those interested in listening to Swinburne’s lecture, it will be published soon to the Jacques Maritan Center YouTube channel.
Christopher Cope is a junior majoring in economics and philosophy. He can be reached at ccope@nd.edu.
Photo Credit: Flickr
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