The Cows Come Home
Shannon, Thomas A.
ment does not apply to the use of embryonic germ cells, that is, to cells obtained from aborted fetuses, because individuation has already happened. Scotus uses the term "common nature" to...
...To my mind, this process is a biological analogy to Scotus's concept of the principle of individuation, the constricting of the common nature into an individual...
...Scotus's principle of individuation constricts, as he says, the form of this common nature into an individual, rendering this being unique, distinct from all others of the same species, and indivisible...
...This is the biological beginning of true (though not full) individuality and, I would argue, marks a critical ethical line...
...First, even though this entity is genetically distinct from its parents and even genetically unique, it is not yet individualized...
...However, prior to that time, these human cells are indifferent to becoming specific cells in this particular body...
...Scotus uses the term "common nature" to describe what is common to both the group and the individual...
...Individualization does not occur until after the process of restriction is completed, some two weeks after the process of fertilization...
...The term is part of his larger theory of knowledge and individualization...
...We can think of the preimplantation embryo as our common human nature for two reasons...
...In short, it has a singular unity...
...For Scotus, then, the common nature needs something else---an individualizing principle to constitute a particular horse...
...They are not, I would argue, morally privileged by virtue of individuality or, a fortiori, by personhood...
...But what horses share in common is indifferent to whether we are referring to a singular horse or to all horses...
...Thomas A. Shannon is professor of religion and social ethics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts...
...Common nature" is essentially the basis for the definition of any entity, what all horses share in common, for example...
...True, they are morally privileged by being human cells, cells that manifest the human genome, and as such are an entity that represents the essence of human nature...
...Commonweal | 0 December4, 1998...
...This is the second reason why the preimplantation embryo can be understood in terms of Scotus's "common nature...
...But ultimately, such research is not research on a human person...
...After the process is completed (normally after two weeks), the cells are committed to being specific cells in specific body parts...
...Essentially such research would be utilizing cells that in fact represent what is common to humans in the most basic sense...
...It is research on our common human nature, and as such is morally justifiable...
...Clearly those from whom such entities come must consent to this research, and the blastomeres must be handled with respect...
...And because these cells are our common human nature and nbt individualized human nature (the minimal definition of personhood), I argue that cells from this entity may be used in research to obtain and develop stem cells for use in transplantation or to develop specific human tissue or perhaps even organs...
...it is incapable of being divided into two wholes...
...our common human nature in the blastomere is preindividual and prepersonal...
Vol. 125 • December 1998 • No. 21
