Why Properties Cannot Determine Personhood

Most if not all pro-choice philosophers try to cite certain properties which determine personhood such as consciousness or the capacity to experience pain or pleasure. There are some metaphysical objections to this that have been pointed out by David Oderberg, but there is one that is incredibly fundamental (see here: https://www.classicaltheism.com/unbornhuman/). The reason properties cannot determine personhood is because they depend on the substance and so cannot determine what the substance is. The only way to avoid this is to say that personhood is an accidental property, but this has its own problems, most notably numerous horrific ethical consequences to this view. However, there is, again, a more metaphysical problem with this view.

It is fair to assume that personhood is that which confers rights on a certain entity, otherwise the personhood of the fetus would not be what grounds the fetus' right to life, as both pro-choice and pro-life philosophers grant. Oderberg points out that rights are merely protections to seek a particular goods, namely goods that either fulfill or are conducive towards the fulfillment of one's nature (see here: https://matiane.wordpress.com/2022/04/09/illusion-of-animal-rights-by-david-s-oderberg/). There is, therefore, a tight connection between the possession of rights and one’s nature; indeed, it would seem that rights are intrinsic to one’s nature since they are a protection to fulfill that nature. This is a problem for the accidental property view of personhood since if rights are derivative of personhood and rights are also intrinsic to one’s nature, if they are essential properties, then personhood must also be an essential property and so flows from one’s nature. This position guarantees fetal personhood since it requires that personhood be a part of a thing’s nature and so is conferred on the fetus in virtue of the fact that it is a distinct member of the human species.

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