Are our bodies us, or are they something that we own? Should everyone have the right to do what they want with their own bodies?
The morality of the past (last couple of centuries)has held that our bodies are on loan from God and that we're forbidden from tampering with His property. Pagans,too, felt that there were limitations to what a person was free to do with their body. Pagans saw their body as being themselves.
To some extent this notion is challenged by the discovery that the brain is where the mind is. Does this knowledge make people see the rest of their body differently?
Nowadays, people tend to think the idea that there are some things you should not do with your body is outdated. However, euthanasia and suicide generally are illegal in most western countries. This is the law imposing itself on what we can do with our bodies.
Descartes thought of the Self as an inner homunculus, which was seperate from, and in control of, the body. This is the idea that you are a subject, but your body is an object that you make do things for you - but the fact that it is yours, you own it as property, is critical to how you perceive it.
What do you think of a scenario where one could go a step further and be made to feel that your body is the property of the government or of a corporation? Can you imagine how this might hypothetically happen? Is a slave's body his own or the property of his master?
Prostitutes argue (assuming they have understood the issue to some extent) that "this body is mine, so I should be allowed to hire it out for sex". But if they have a pimp, he probably sees their body as his property.
If your body is a thing you own, you may feel free to give it away, or parts of it: a finger, ear, etc. Someone may feel free to give their body over to a cannibal, such as the recent case in Germany. Is this acceptable?
The British philosopher Roger Scruton proposes that there "is another and better way of seeing things, however, and it is one that explains much of that old morality that people find so puzzling. On this view my body is not my property but - to use the theological term - my incarnation. My body is not an object, but a subject, just as I am. I don't own it any more than I own myself. I am inextricably mingled with it, and what is done to my body is done to me. And there are ways of treating it that cause me to think and feel as I would not otherwise think or feel, to lose my moral sense, to become hardened or indifferent to others, to cease to make judgements or to be guided by principles and ideals. When this happens it is not just I who am harmed: all those who love me, need me or relate to me are harmed as well. For I have damaged the part on which relationships are built."
The morality of the past (last couple of centuries)has held that our bodies are on loan from God and that we're forbidden from tampering with His property. Pagans,too, felt that there were limitations to what a person was free to do with their body. Pagans saw their body as being themselves.
To some extent this notion is challenged by the discovery that the brain is where the mind is. Does this knowledge make people see the rest of their body differently?
Nowadays, people tend to think the idea that there are some things you should not do with your body is outdated. However, euthanasia and suicide generally are illegal in most western countries. This is the law imposing itself on what we can do with our bodies.
Descartes thought of the Self as an inner homunculus, which was seperate from, and in control of, the body. This is the idea that you are a subject, but your body is an object that you make do things for you - but the fact that it is yours, you own it as property, is critical to how you perceive it.
What do you think of a scenario where one could go a step further and be made to feel that your body is the property of the government or of a corporation? Can you imagine how this might hypothetically happen? Is a slave's body his own or the property of his master?
Prostitutes argue (assuming they have understood the issue to some extent) that "this body is mine, so I should be allowed to hire it out for sex". But if they have a pimp, he probably sees their body as his property.
If your body is a thing you own, you may feel free to give it away, or parts of it: a finger, ear, etc. Someone may feel free to give their body over to a cannibal, such as the recent case in Germany. Is this acceptable?
The British philosopher Roger Scruton proposes that there "is another and better way of seeing things, however, and it is one that explains much of that old morality that people find so puzzling. On this view my body is not my property but - to use the theological term - my incarnation. My body is not an object, but a subject, just as I am. I don't own it any more than I own myself. I am inextricably mingled with it, and what is done to my body is done to me. And there are ways of treating it that cause me to think and feel as I would not otherwise think or feel, to lose my moral sense, to become hardened or indifferent to others, to cease to make judgements or to be guided by principles and ideals. When this happens it is not just I who am harmed: all those who love me, need me or relate to me are harmed as well. For I have damaged the part on which relationships are built."
