2a: Having Desires

The ability¹ to form conscious desires is offered by some philosophers as a criterion for personhood. This can be defined in various ways, but it is hard to ascribe conscious desires to newborn infants. Insofar as this is the case, the position fails by excluding born babies and young children from personhood. If possessing desires is defined broadly enough to include newborns, then there is no reason to exclude older fetuses, whose cognitive abilities are commensurate with newborns. Indeed, the most that can be said for newborns is that they possess clear interests and are internally motivated to achieve them, and, by this standard, even zygotes have desires.

In short, there is no clear threshold when the developing human first begins to exhibit desires, broadly defined. If one restricts the term to those that involve self-awareness, then the threshold would still be difficult to pinpoint exactly. No matter when one claims that this ability develops, however, newborns infants would certainly be excluded.