What are we, really?

What Are We, Really?

By Tamlyn de Beer

In bioethical debates—whether about abortion, assisted dying, IVF, or organ donation—attention often turns quickly to what we should or should not do. But beneath these disagreements lies a more basic question that is often left unspoken:

What kind of thing is a human being?

This question is not yet about moral status or personhood in the strict sense. It is more fundamental. It concerns human nature itself—what we are, not what we are later judged to be.

Human nature as embodied continuity

At the most basic level, a human being is an embodied being that persists through time. I am not a sequence of disconnected moments, nor a collection of interchangeable parts. I am one and the same being who persists from embryo to adulthood, despite enormous change in development, capacity, and appearance.

This continuity matters. It suggests that what makes me me is not reducible to a single function or stage, but is grounded in the existence of one unified organism developing through time.

On this view, a human being is not a temporary arrangement of parts, nor a set of psychological states, but a single embodied subject who remains the same being throughout life.

Human nature and what distinguishes us

When I speak of “human nature,” I mean that which makes a human being the kind of thing it is—distinct from other living beings.

This includes biological features, but it is not limited to them. Human beings are the kinds of creatures who act with intention, who reason, who form moral judgments, and who relate to others in ways that are not merely instinctive but deliberative.

Even when these capacities are not currently expressed—such as in sleep, infancy, or unconsciousness—they belong to the kind of being that a human is.

This matters because it suggests that human identity is not exhausted by present ability.

Moral significance and human nature

Human beings also occupy a unique place in moral reflection. We do not typically treat human life as interchangeable in the way we might treat other living beings or objects. This is not merely a social convention, but reflects a deeper intuition that human beings have a kind of moral significance that is tied to what they are, not only what they can do at a given moment.

Importantly, this does not depend on current capacities like intelligence, autonomy, or awareness. Rather, it follows from the kind of being a human is—an embodied, unified subject of a life.

This is why changes in development (from embryo to infant to adult) do not create new beings, but describe one continuous being through different stages.

Why this question matters in bioethics

Many disagreements in bioethics are not ultimately disagreements about medical facts or outcomes, but about what a human being fundamentally is.

If a human being is understood primarily as a functioning set of capacities, then moral conclusions will follow one direction. If a human being is understood as a unified embodied organism with continuity through time, then moral conclusions will follow another.

In other words, before we ask what is permissible or impermissible, we are already relying on an implicit answer to the question of what kind of thing is being discussed.

What we think a human being is will determine what we think can be done to a human being.

Conclusion

Human nature is not a peripheral topic in bioethics—it is the background assumption that quietly shapes the entire debate.

If a human being is a unified embodied subject that persists through time, then many moral questions take on a different shape than if a human being is understood primarily in terms of current capacities or functions.

So before we ask what we ought to do, we must first ask something more basic:

What are we, really?