Philosophy 224
Midgley on Dolphins (and
Data)
Sample Reading Quiz

True or False: The Judge in the dolphin
rescue case found that dolphins were
persons, not property.
Here comes the judge.

Midgley reviews elements of the case against
Kenneth Le Vasseur, charged with theft for
participating in the liberation of a pair of
dolphins used for experimentation by
scientists at the Institute of Marine Biology.
 In response to a ‘choice of evils’ defense, the
judge in the case ultimately held that the
dolphins were property, not persons.
Property or Persons?

In order to rule in this matter, the judge had to
specify what makes something a person.
 Reviewing a number of possible personmaking features, the judge ultimately rejects
the possibility that intelligence is the relevant
feature.
 His conclusion is that the feature that counts
is biological humanity.
Humans=People?

Midgley considers and rejects this
account for a number of reasons.
1. We use the term ‘person’ to describe a
number of things that are clearly not
human (God, Corporations).
2. It is employed in a range of contexts
where the aim is to distinguish individuals
from the groups to which they belong.
3. It ignores the original sense of the term.
All the World’s a Stage…
The term ‘person’ has its origin in drama
(dramatis personae) where it refers to the
characters in the play.
 Etymologically, it’s origin is the word for the
masks used in early dramas.
 Midgley uses this analysis of the term as a
starting point for a consideration of the way in
which it has been used as a principle of
evaluation and exclusion, particularly of
slaves and women.

They are among us.

To develop this historical criticism, Midgley
turns to Kant (who we will see more of later).
 Kant’s account of personhood in terms of
rationality has become the generally
accepted account of moral personhood.
 The clear advantage of this account is that it
allows us to extend personhood, and thus
moral consideration, to entities that do not
share our biology, but intuitively deserve
moral consideration.
Where do we draw the line?
The problem with this approach is that
rationality is not an all or nothing thing.
It admits of degrees.
 The consequence is that we are
required to arbitrarily draw a line in the
spectrum of rationality, reserving
personhood for just a subset of the
whole.

Sentience
The traditions answer to this problem is
to redefine the criterion of personhood.
 Rather than rationality, the issue some
insist is sentience: the capacity to feel.
 Bentham, ‘The question is not…Can
they talk? But Can they suffer?’

Another Possibility



Building on an account like Bentham’s Midgley goes
on to argue that, “What makes creatures our fellow
beings, entitled to basic consideration, is surely not
intellectual capacity but emotional fellowship”
(319c2).
This concept of ‘emotional fellowship’ refers to what
Midgley identifies as “social and emotional
complexity” (Ibid.).
The virtue of this approach is its consistency with our
conscience, which is troubled by mistreatment of the
animals we share our lives with, but which an
account like Kant’s has difficulty accounting for.
Does this answer the question?
Does Midgley’s account resolve all of
the issues?
 Is there still a line drawing problem?
 So dolphins are in. What about Data?
