Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

302 NICANOR AUSTRIACOorgan. Instead, as I will describe in the last section of this paper,a holistic systems understanding of the body is a more accurateview of the human being that is able to better account for theunity and integrity of all forms of organic life. This systems perspectivealso points to an alternative to brain-based criteria fordeath.Second, I propose that Furton’s mistaken presupposition isbased upon a flawed interpretation of a bona fide metaphysicalprinciple that is presupposed by the anthropology embraced bythe Catholic tradition. This metaphysical principle holds thatmatter has to be disposed to receive a particular kind of form. 68In other words, according to many commentators, for a body tobe informed by a rational soul, it must possesses a level of complexityand organization appropriate to that form of life. This isprobably the principle Furton wishes to affirm when he says thatan organ proportionate to the soul is needed for the soul toinform the body. But his is a mistaken interpretation. To see this,I ask a question: How do we know when a body has attained alevel of organization appropriate to a particular type of soul?Simply, when it is organized in such a way that it possesses thefunctional capacity associated with a particular type of soul.This follows from the classical metaphysical axiom that the onlyway one can know what a thing is, is from how it acts, i.e, fromhow it functions. Thus, Furton is wrong in interpreting this principleto mean that a body must have the proportionate structuralcapacity, i.e., an organ, in order for it to be disposed to a particulartype of soul. If he wants to invoke this metaphysical principlein his argument, he properly should say that the body of ahuman being is disposed to a rational soul when it has the functionalcapacity for rational life. Again, however, Furton faces thesame problem pointed out earlier because science has shownthat properly speaking, the whole brain is the seat of cognitiveone cell or by a single group of cells. For details, see Scott F. GILBERT,Developmental Biology 6 th edn (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 2000),pp. 56-66.68For instance, see St. Thomas AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae Ia, 76, 5, ad1, 3.