Henry Imler February 12th, 2006

What is the backbone of ethics? In one’s basic ethic course one of the first things that is taught are the three approaches one can take to ethics. These approaches describe what moral law is like. The three are: Subjectivism, Relativism, and Objectivism.

Subjectivism maintains that there really is no actual moral law. The only thing that really exists is people thinking there is moral law. Since no one can point to a source of moral law and no two people agree on what is morally permissible and what is not, it seems to follow that there is no actual binding moral law. Moral law is really a method of creating order that is better for human survival. The important thing to know about Subjectivism is that:

Subjectivism holds that there are no moral laws, people just think there are moral laws.

The point of Subjectivism is to study how the particulars of this belief much like a sociologist studies the particulars of societies.

Relativism holds that there is actual moral law, but moral laws are relative to the communities that hold moral agents. It is the communities that create the laws and laws do not apply from one community to the next. Everyone seems to think that it is wrong to murder just because all the communities happen to have the same law about murder. The most important think to know is that:

Relativism holds that there are actual moral laws. They just vary from community to community.

The different flavors of relativism suppose different levels of community that are the definers of moral law. They posit religious, national, community levels that define moral law for their members. The level of society can be as refined to the individual level.

Objectivism on the other hand, says that there is a universal set of moral laws. The different branches of Objectivism have different means of figuring out the laws and posit different sources of the universal set of laws. The variance of moral laws from culture to culture, person to person is a result of erroneous reasoning, or is morally mute, a result of different customs. What is most important to note is that:

Objectivism holds one set of moral laws that do not vary from community to community.

When it comes to which one is more accepted in the world and the field of Ethics, Objectivism has a heavy hand. A formal rebuttal is fodder for another post; but, put briefly, everyone has a sense that murder is actually wrong, so Subjectivism is not left much room. Besides, if there are no moral judgments, that leaves Ethicists with a lot of thumb-twiddling time.

Murder also appears to be wrong regardless of what society I am a member of. This intuition seems to leave Relativism with some explaining to do.

What does seem to be the case is some set of universal moral laws. Murder and stealing seem to always be wrong, given the same circumstances.

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Henry Imler February 12th, 2006

In all the ethics courses I have taken, deontology has reined supreme. Consequentialism is always seen as the easy way out for the morally weak. However, it seems to be practiced by just about everyone.

I must admit a certain appeal that Consequentialism holds over me. It’s most common form is Utilitarianism, which combines hedonism with Consequentialism. At the surface, Utilitarianism is unsatisfactory. It seems absurd that mere maximization of pleasure is the basis for right behavior.

However, at the surface, Deontology is also unsatisfactory. It seems that consequences do matter. The rules for Kant are iron-clad and meant to be made in a vacuum. However, no such moral vacuum exists. All choice happens in a context. It is due to this context that we must allow Consequentialism in the door to help us.

Most attacks on Consequentialism are really attacks on what measure of good the particular flavor of Consequentialism is being combined with. The easiest example is Utilitarianism, which tries to maximize the amount of pleasure in the world. Utilitarianism is criticized by calling to attention that just because something maximizes the pleasure, it is not necessarily a good act. For example, suppose that the murder of 20 people would result in the happiness of 100,000,000 people.

However, Consequentialism does have its merits. A lie told to save a life, for example is often seemed to be noble. If not, expand it further. Imagine for a moment that you are living in a totalitarian state. The police are exterminating all people of a particular decent, let’s call them the Plates. A family of 20 are hiding in you basement. The police come and ask you if you are harboring any Plates. You lie, which under a deontology is a morally impermissible act, but you save the 20 Plates. Clearly you used Consequentialism to evaluate the situation and determine the correct course of behavior. Your duty not lie was usurped by your duty not to allow the deaths of innocent people. It is from this example I want to glean my proposal.

I want to see if we can use deontology as the good we are trying to maximize via Consequentialism.

You can substitute most any rule-based ethic theory for deontology here. I could have easily used Divine Command Theory instead, but I want to avoid all arguments on the dictation.

Under my proposal all universal rules hold. However, we use Consequentialism to break ties and order possible acts. Consider the following:

A-1

1. W and w are wrong acts on their own (deontology).
2. There are only two choices w and W in situation X.
3. W has worse consequences than w.
4. We have a duty to chose w over W in situation X (Consequentialism)
5. Therefore, the choice of w over W is a R_e .

How is this possible? How can a w be an R? It is only R relative to a W. That means that the moral status of an act is tied to its situation. I want to liken this to the relativity of motion in the natural world. In the realm of moving objects, everything is in motion and there is no “privileged observer” from which one can measure an object’s motion from. Similarly, no choice takes place in a vacuumed. All choices have a context. With the simple addition of the duty to always choose the least wrong action we can modify deontology to be flexible enough to be applied in the real world. In order to avoid confusion of a (w-W) action being confused with a plain r or R, I will use the tern R_e.

A-2

1. R and r are right acts on their own (deontology).
2. There are only two choices r and R in situation X.
3. R has better consequences than r.
4. We have a duty to chose R over r in situation X (Consequentialism)
5. Therefore, the choice of r over R is a W.

Does this hold? Does it point to a form of altruism?

As much as I am uncomfortable with the idea, I am afraid it does. It seem to restrict our moral liberty by dictating that the “most right and least wrong” action always be taken. Just as we have a duty; that is, we are morally compelled to always choose the lesser of two evils, the same principle, if applied evenly, dictates that must always choose the most right action. This holds, if, and I believe only if, the phrases “most right” and “least wrong” are equivalent. This can only be correct if we are speaking of the opposites, ~most = least and ~right = wrong.

So, what are we left with? We must arrange all choices on a scale as follows:

I use the word choice as a term for a possible action. I don’t use action (what deontology is primarily concerned with) nor result (what Consequentialism is primarily concerned with) because the two are irrevocably connected. The one is the outworking of the other and cannot be separated. It is the choice between to action/result pairs that is of primary concern in ethics.

Deontology; or Divine Command Theory, or Virtue Ethics, or intuitionalism; dictates that if a choice is W/R, but Consequentialism orders the choices and demands that we do the most right or the least wrong. Logically, anyone that holds m ^. r must also hold the opposite, ~(m ^. r), which is ~m ^. ~r. As such, they all for a w over a W act to be R, relative to W over w. There is where the ethical relativism lies.

The Ethical Relativism of modern ethics is a misnomer. For in regular ethical relativity, choices are not held in relation to each other, just that multiple groups of ethical evaluations can be held as equal and opposite authorities at the same time. In real Ethical Relativism, each choice is assigned a W/R value by deontology. Because no choice is made in a vacuum, it is then ordered by its effects and is assigned a spot on the scale. We add to deontology the role that we must do the most right action. As such, each choice is also measured in relation to the available choices. This difference is the ultimate W/R of the choice. Deontology is the scale and Consequentialism is the greater than / less than operator.

This means that we must do the most good possible, not just good always.

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Henry Imler November 28th, 2005

Norman L. Geisler, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary, presents a Christian view of how to deal with consequences in conjunction with divine command theory in his article entitled Absolutes? Absolutely!. I thought it was an interesting read in light of my earlier post on Ethical Relativity.

In the first part of the article, Geisler attempts to refute the various branches of ethics. He then goes on to argue for the Divine Command Theory for ethics, with the divine command coming from the Christian God, via the Bible. Critiquing this part of the article, especially his treatment of consequential or teleological ethics, is a topic for another post. What I am interested in for the sake of this post is the latter part of the article, where Geisler attempts to answer the question of what to do when two divine command conflict with each other. Under the “Conflict Situations” portion, he lists the following six ways of approaching conflicting moral absolutes:

1. Antinomianism - Bypasses the problem by maintaining that there are no moral absolutes.
2. Generalism - There are only general moral laws, but not absolute ones.
3. Situationism - Only one absolute law, i.e. Love, is to be followed.
4. Unqualified absolutism - Many absolute laws that never conflict.
5. Conflicting absolutism - Many absolute laws that sometimes conflict and we are to do the less evil (but evil is being done.)
6. Graded absolutism - many absolute laws that sometimes conflict and we are responsible for obeying the higher law.

Of the six approaches, only four of them hold to absolutes, which Geisler has argued for with his argument for Divine Command Theory, so we can throw the first two out. Geisler maintains that only Graded Absolutism holds up to a Christian Divine Command Theory worldview. Because the Christian Ethic demands that there are many absolutes (even though Jesus’s golden rule could indicate otherwise) Situationalism does not hold.

Nor does the idea that none of the laws conflict fly. It seems that lying is sometimes justified. It would seem that lying to save 50 lives is a moral duty. To suggest that the moral weight of not lying overrides the moral weight of 50 lives is hard to justify. Despite this difficulty, there are many Christian Divine Command Theorists that would say that you simply can say nothing when asked to lie to save 50 lives. You have a duty to reveal the information and a duty not to lie, therefore you must remain silent. While this does rid oneself of the problem in some situations, there is always the issue when the storm troopers search your house if you remain silent. In those cases, the same difficulty arises. Sometimes there is no third choice.

So at this point we are left with the last two possible choices, either we have a duty to choose the less evil path and are held responsible for it, or we have the same duty to choose the less evil path and are not held responsible for it. The first approach seems to be unjust because one can only be held responsible for the situations one finds himself in.

Giesler maintains that the only way to deal with the problem of conflicting absolutes is Graded Absolutism. Put briefly:

[Graded Absolutism] insists there are many moral absolutes and they sometimes conflict. However, some laws are higher than others, so when there is an unavoidable conflict it is our duty to follow the higher moral law. God does not blame us for what we could not avoid. Thus He exempts us from responsibility to follow the lower law in view of the overriding obligation to obey the higher law.

Which is the higher law? Giesler paints a picture of a hierarchy of values. First one is to respect the source of the law (God), then moral objects (persons) and then everything else (animals, and other non-persons).

For a more detailed discussion on the topic, see Giesler’s Christian Ethics: Options and Issues, chapter 7.

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Henry Imler November 19th, 2005

I have always wanted to delve into the Environmental Ethics debate at some point. I have not done any official reading on the subject. Right now my best guesses on the subject spring from my personhood theory. The short version of what responsibility humans have toward the environment and why is as follows:

1. At the most basic level humans are animals.
2. The most basic responsibility / duty / instinct of an animal is the survival of it’s species.
   • Note that the survival of the individual animal is not the highest, but the survival of the species. This allows for the noticed seemingly suicidal behavior of certain animals for the greater good of the herd / family / species.
   • This line of reasoning is gleamed from the work of a Charles Darwin. In his theory, the goal is not progress, but a perpetuation of the species, survival.
3. :. The most basic level of responsibility of the human race is to ensure its own survival.

Following from that basic principal, that the most basic level of responsibility of the human race is to ensure its own survival, we can extend to the following:

1. The most basic level of responsibility of the human race is to ensure its own survival.
2. The earth has to be maintained at a minimum level X in order to ensure the survival of the human race.
3. :. Humans have a duty as a race to maintain the Earth at level X.

Humans, at the very least, have a duty to maintain the environment at the minimum level to ensure their survival as a race. However, is that all that is required of us? We are not merely Darwinian animals. We are Darwinian animals to be sure, and as such we have a responsibility to perpetuate our species, but is there more to it? If so, why do we have a greater responsibility? The environmentalists emphatically maintain that we do, to varying degrees, but often what is not stated is why humans do. I suspect that it lies in our personhood. Because humans are not only animals, but persons, and with that comes additonal rights and duties.

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Henry Imler September 10th, 2005

When beginning any discussion in ethics, it is always beneficial to begin on common footing. For, without the same definitions, nothing can be agreed upon. I think Aristotle said that, but I am not sure.

Here are some definitions of some terms that will be popping up here in some posts about biomedical ethics.

Suicide: Self-killing.

• Typically there is not a distinction between levels of beneficence.

Euthanasia: “Good Death”(eu-good; thanasia-death) The killing of another at the request of the person killed.

• Distinguished from Suicide because another agent besides the self is the cause of death.
• the assisting the death of another for reasons of beneficence.
• Also known as “mercy killing or “mercy Letting die”
• There are several different “flavors” of euthanasia.

Assisted Suicide - Distinct from euthanasia in that it is the enabling of suicide by another party.

• Most commonly this takes the form of Physician Assisted Suicide, or PAS.

When considering the moral and ethical implications of these issues, be sure to distinguish between casual evaluations and moral evaluations. Casual refers to simply how something happened. i.e. The knife passing thru Matt’s head was the cause of death. Moral refers to the ethical evaluation of an act. i.e. It is morally impermissible to place a knife thru Matt’s head. A lack of this distinction is often the cause of muddled issues in biomedical ethics.

Casual Distinctions in Euthanasia:

1. Passive or Letting Die: The withdraw of treatment or sustenance that will lead to death.
   • Also known as “Pulling the plug”
   • Can take the form of removing food or water, discontinuing a vital treatment.
2. Active or Killing: actively bringing ab out the death of a person.
   • i.e. lethal injection

Types of Consent involved in Euthanasia:

1. Voluntary - Person requests euthanasia
2. Non-voluntary - Person cannot request nor deny euthanasia due to a lack of decision making ability. This is found in long term comas.
3. In-voluntary- The person does not wish to be killed.

While there can be an argument made whether or not voluntary and nonvoluntary forms of euthanasia are morally permissible; all would agree that nonvoluntary euthanasia is tantamount to murder.

Now that we have casual and consensual distinctions within the term Euthanasia, we can combine them to form the six types of Euthanasia:

1. Voluntary Passive Euthanasia (VPE) - Patient requests to be allowed to die for the easement of their suffering
2. Voluntary Active Euthanasia (VAE) - Patient requests to be killed for the easement of their suffering
3. Nonvoluntary Passive Euthanasia (NPE) - Patient is not able to request death or sustained life and is allowed to die for the easement of their suffering.
4. Nonvoluntary Active Euthanasia (NAE) - Patient is not able to request death or sustained life and is killed for the easement of their suffering
5. Involuntary Passive Euthanasia (IPE) - Patient requests to be left alive/continue treatment and is allowed to die for the easement of their suffering.
6. Involuntary Active Euthanasia (IAE) - Patient requests to be left alive/continue treatment and is killed for the easement of their suffering.

It is hoped that when one starts with this background when examining the euthanasia issue, one be able to sort through the topic clearly.

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Henry Imler August 1st, 2005

How does one start when approaching a classic such as this? One starts with an overview, then proceeding on to the writer, for he is its source, style, content, and finishing up with commentary. At least this is the route that will be taken here. The book, Miracles: a Preliminary Study, in contemporary Christianity is championed as one of the greatest apologies of the miraculous ever penned. However, in reality, most patrons have never read it. There is so great a wind about C.S. Lewis�s memory that anything penned by him is at once slotted into the �one of the greats� category. There may be reason behind the wind, which we will get to in a moment, but it is interesting to note that the mass of Christians who recommend this book have not read a drop of it.

Continue Reading »

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Henry Imler June 1st, 2005

Traditionally, the search for personhood has centered on trying to stake out who holds moral responsibility for her actions. The search for a comprehensive notion of personhood often has a deeper goal: to discover who has a right to life. As Michael Tooley puts it, �What properties must something have to be a person, i.e., to have a right to life?”:”(Tooley, Michael. �Abortion and Infanticide.� P. 43.)”: A common definition of personhood is the moral community requirement. If X is morally responsible for the actions of X, then X is a member of the moral community. If X is a member of the moral community, then X is a person. However, from an intuitional standpoint, the moral community requirement runs into several serious problems. This paper seeks to explore these problems and present an alternate view that more readily accounts for our intuitions on who has a right to life. This alternate view claims that the moral community theory has, at its center, a faulty view of personhood; one that does not properly distinguish between moral subjects and moral objects. Instead, one should view moral objectivity and moral subjectivity each as two different criteria for two distinct types of personhood.

The Moral Community Requirement

Mary Anne Warren in her work, �The Moral and Legal Status of Abortion� puts forth the moral community requirement for personhood. Her position is that a fetus is not a person and therefore does not have a right to life. In order for her to say what a person is not, she presents the minimum requirements for what a person must be like. Any being that does not meet these necessary requirements is not a person. She, like most careful scholars, is quick to point out that humanity is not what is being discussed. Humanity only signifies the genetic homogeny of the human race; there is no reason to suspect that persons are limited to humans. Conversely, it has yet to be convincingly shown that being human grandfathers one into the class of persons. This opens the hypothetical door for advanced computer programs, alien life and any other being that meets her to be named requirements. Warren is quick to establish the premise that personhood is synonymous with membership in the moral community. She explicitly states that �the moral community consists of all and only people��:”(Warren, Mary Anne. �On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion.� P. 177.)”: (emphasis added.) The moral community is then defined as �the set of beings with full and equal moral rights.�:”(Warren, Mary Anne. �On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion.� P. 176.)”: She finds it useful to imagine an alien culture and try to build the minimum requirements that members of that race would need to be persons. She gives a list of five minimum requirements of personhood. The following is her admittedly �rough� list of possible criteria: consciousness, namely, the ability to feel pain, reasoning, self-motivated behavior, the ability or the capacity to communicate, and the presence of self-concepts and self awareness.:”(Warren, Mary Anne. �On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion.� P. 178.)”: Warren is not giving a hard criterion into which persons fall, she is only saying that any being that does not have any of these characteristics is not a person. Warren is only seeking to justify the claim that a fetus is not a person, not give comprehensive criteria for personhood. What is important to note is the moral community/personhood conjunction that Warren outlines. H. J. McCloskey, in his work, �The Right to Life�, argues a more concrete definition of what a person is. He maintains that only autonomous beings may have rights,:”(McCloskey, H. J.. �The Right to Life.� P. 414.)”: the main right being in question is the right to life.:”(McCloskey, H. J.. �The Right to Life.� P. 416.)”: One that has the ability to freely choose his moral actions is a person under this view. Such a person would also by definition be considered a member of the moral community, a denotation of both the right to life and moral responsibility for his actions. The argument in its positive formulation is as follows:

1. All and only moral subjects are persons
2. X is a moral subject.
C. Therefore, X is a person.

In this view if a person is not a member of this moral community at time₁, then it is not a person at time₁, even though it will be a person at time₂ or was a person at time₀. The being�s rights are tied to its immediate membership in the moral community. A strict formulation of this view is echoed by the above mentioned Tooley in �Abortion and Infanticide�. He argues that, �An organism possesses a serious right to life only if it possesses the concept of a self as a continuing subject of experiences� and believes that it is itself such a continuing entity.� He calls this the self-consciousness requirement. A beings status in the moral community is tied to its ability to make moral judgments. Hence, if a being is temporarily removed from the moral community, i.e. falls asleep, it should then loose its right to life. For at time₁ it would not be able to make moral judgments even though at time₀ and at time₂ it was and will be able to make moral judgments. However such a view strikes one as being absurd, due to the fact that the capacity to make moral judgments is still there even though it is not presently being exercised in the case of the sleeping person. This paper will only consider the less strict version, that moral community members must have merely the capacity to make moral judgments.

Problems with the Moral Community Requirement

Intuitionally, this position runs into problems. As stated above, a person must be able to make moral judgments. Consider the following three beings: a health woman of forty-five years, a twelve year old boy, and a three month old baby. What do one�s intuitions tell us about each being having a right to life? Most would say that each have a clear right to life. Compare the intuitional results with the results dictated by the moral community requirement. Clearly, the woman of forty five years of age would be able to make moral judgments as would the young boy. Under the moral community requirement, they would receive a right to life. Now, consider the three month old child. It is clear that it cannot make moral judgments, and therefore does not have a right to life. Nevertheless, it seems from an intuitional standpoint that for one to kill the three month old child would be barbaric. Some would even claim that the killing of the baby would be worse than the killing of the boy or the woman. This impasse demonstrates the inadequacy of the moral community requirement for defining who has a right to life.

The problem with the moral community position is that it entangles the concepts of moral objectivity and moral subjectivity. For one to be a moral subject is for one to make moral judgments. A moral object, on the other hand is the object of moral considerations, such as the right to life. Moral objects that have a right to life are considered persons in the objective sense, or persons_O. It might be the case that not all moral objects have the right to life. All moral subjects, on the other hand, are persons in the subjective sense, or personsS. There is a very important distinction between these two concepts, personsS and persons_O, one that is not often presented in the personhood debate. So far the personhood debate has centered on demonstrating that all persons_S have a right to life. Anyone that maintains the moral community requirement for persons_O must maintain that the only beings that have to respect rights were the only ones that have rights that to be protected. Speculation on how to discern whether or not a being is a person_O centered on how to tell if the being was capable of making moral judgments since there was not a distinction between persons_S and persons_O. If it was the case that the being could make moral judgments, then obviously it is a person_O. Since it was a person_O, it must therefore, also has a right to life. The argument, in its negative structure, can be formalized in its basic form as follows:

1. All moral subjects are person_O.
2. X is not a moral subject.
C. Therefore, X is not a person_O.

There is not been a sufficient justification for the assumption that all persons_O are persons_S. The distinction between being a moral object and being a moral subject is quite a substantial one from an ontological standpoint. To illustrate this point, consider and analogy of the visual subject/object relationship and the moral subject/object relationship. Imagine for a moment, a well developed cow. Like all cows, it is able to move, hear, see, and eat. While exercising these traits, the cow happens upon a stalk of corn. The cow sees the corn, but the corn is unable to see the cow. The cow is an example of a visual subject and visual object. As such, it is able to see and be seen. The corn, on the other hand is merely a visual object. It is only able to be seen, it cannot see. This example demonstrates that visual subjectivity and visual objectivity are not one and the same. Likewise is true for moral objectivity and moral subjectivity. The ability to be seen is held in the visual object, not the visual subject. Switching to the other side of the analogy, the right to life is a property of the moral object, not the moral subject. All visual subjects are visual objects, while not all visual objects are visual subjects. This also is applicable to the two types of persons, persons_O and persons_S.

At this point is important to make a few observations. The terms person_S and person_O merely coincide accidentally in the sharing of the root �person.� They do not relate directly; they differ ontologically. As such, there are different requirements for each denotation. Each points to entirely different qualities of a being. Since moral subjectivity and moral objectivity differ ontologically, then it follows that the rights and duties associated with each also differ, as well as there being different methods for their discovery. The moral community membership requirement provides sufficient justification for distinguishing beings of the class persons_S. However, criteria for persons_O have not been sufficiently explored. Following from the intuitional exploration above for the refutation of the moral community requirement as a comprehensive personhood criteria, intuitions of what beings have the right to life will be explored to attempt to uncover possible person_O criteria.

Intuitions, Reasons and Moral Principles

One needs to be careful with intuitions, as they can easily play tricks on reason. One may appeal to them, but then one must be able to test them with reason to ascertain their validity. For example, in the �Owl and the Pussycat�, the reader is calls up intuitions about owls, orangutans, and cats. Then the author demonstrates that the intuitions about the personhood of these creatures are really just simple phenomenological and psychological effects tied to the resemblance of eyes similar to our own.:”(Larvor, Brendan. �The Owl and the Pussycat.� P. 263.)”: A seemingly basic intuition can be demonstrated to be false. Similarly, when analyzing related personhood topics, one may allow his intuitions to be his guide, but the intuitions must able to be double checked for validity.

Moral Objectivity

With the above principles in mind: 1) that there is a significant difference between being a moral object and a moral subject, and 2) that intuitions can point the way, but must be backed up by reason; one can make progress in determining criteria for persons_O. What can intuitions about objective personhood reveal? From an intuitional standpoint, the qualifications for person_O are not nearly as clear as those for persons_S. On the topic of moral subjectivity our intuitions are quite clear. When one pictures a visual subject, or an audible subject, one pictures something that can see or hear. Likewise, when one pictures a moral subject, one sees in their minds eye a being that has the capability to make moral judgments. The next step is to ask what is required to make moral judgments. Here, the classical argument for discovering the requirements of personhood, such as McCloskey�s become extremely valuable.

What about moral objects? The principle quality of a person in the objective sense is its right to life. Therefore, one�s intuitions on the topic are activated by asking, �Who has the right to life?� When the answer to the question is yes, the being in question is a moral object. It is hoped that the exploration of these intuitions will aid in smoking out the underlying cause that gives rise to a being having a right to life. Recall the three subjects from earlier, the healthy woman of forty-five years, the twelve year old boy, and the three month old baby. Begin by asking of each subject, �Is it morally permissible to arbitrarily kill it?� As before, with the woman and the young boy one is clearly able to answer, �No.� So far the previous possible moral objects have been undisputed moral subjects, who, are by their virtue of being able to make moral determinations, are objects of moral considerations. Consider the being that is not a moral subject. Is it morally wrong to arbitrarily kill a baby of three months? Once again, most will exclaim, �No,� with considerable fervor. Curiously, a healthy number of people will consider the killing of the three month old baby a worse offense than the killing of the forty-five year old woman. Now, reduce the age of the subject even more. Is the killing of a two week old fetus morally wrong? Here the symmetry of intuitions breaks down. Some will give their �yays� and others their �nays.� After almost universal agreement on the previous examples, what could cause such a break down? There seems, from a personS standpoint, no ontological difference between the newborn and the fetus. Larvor, in �The Owl and the Pussycat,� suggests that this breakdown in intuition has psychological roots. Persons whose intuitions say the fetus is not a personO more than likely have a psychological reaction to the dissimilarity between fetuses and adults. Conversely, persons whose intuitions claim the opposite are having a psychological reaction to the similarity of fetuses to adults. Having identified this breakdown of intuition, which intuition is the correct one? Which one stands up to reason? The answer lies in our intuitions about the baby of three months.

Marquis, in �Why Abortion is Immoral,� asks that instead of debating what is and is not a person; one should consider why killing is wrong. That is, in a subjective sense. His conclusion is that killing is wrong because it robs the being of all future choices. He also notes that taking away all possible future choices takes away all possible rights, since the exercise of rights depends of the choice to enable or disable the right. Therefore, to kill a creature and thus rob him of all future choice and exercise of rights is the worst possible harm one can inflict on the creature. In Marquis�s analysis, the fact that a being has a future like ours entitles it to a right to life. In the case of the newborn, it is morally wrong to kill it because she will have future choices that significantly like ours that will be robed from her. Just as the moral community argument laid out a method of determining who is a person_S, Marquis has laid out a method of determining the moral objectivity of a person. This principle explains why the life of a newborn is morally significant even though it is not a person in the subjective sense.

Marquis does not say what it is about a future like ours that makes it morally significant. viii The moral considerability of having a future like ours is merely a consequent of what lies behind Marquis� curtain. What might lie behind this curtain? If one borrows a page from the moral subjectivity argument and say that the ability to make moral choices is what makes a future like ours valuable, then the pieces fall into place. The argument can be given as follows:

1. A future has value if the subject will have the ability to make moral determinations.
2. X, in its future will have the ability to make moral determinations.
C1. Therefore, X�s future has value.
1. Subjects with valuable futures are persons_O.
2. X�s future is valuable.
C2. Therefore, X is person_O.
1. PersonsO have a right to life.
2. X is a person_O.
C3. Therefore, X has a right to life.

In this view, the status of the person from a temporal standpoint is largely ignored. It is not clear whether or not this applies backward in time as it does forward in time. For instance, this argument does not cover being that were at time1 moral subjects, and are at time2, not moral subjects. While it is clear that if they still have the potential to revert back to moral subjects, such as a rehabilitating stroke victim, they would fall into the potential category. What is not clear is if past persons, such as beings in an invariable vegetative state retain their right to life. A good consequence of the view is that if X is a moral agent, or will have the ability to become moral agent, then X’s life is worth moral consideration. This view is helpful because it explains why the life of a young child should be protected. This argument is a type of potentiality argument for personhood. However, it does not fall prey to the criticisms that its cousins do. Just as Marquis� argument sidestepped the standard potential personhood criticism by applying the same principle to current persons and to potential persons alike, so does this formulation.

Conclusion

When one makes the proper distinction between personhood in its subjective sense and personhood in its objective sense the prior inhibitions to the personhood debate fall away. The distinction clears up the intuitional problem of why a baby has a right to life even though it is not a member of the moral community. Using the above criteria for determining persons_O clearly confirms intuitions about the right to life of babies and even gives clear criterion for the right to life of a fetus. Interestingly enough, this argument renders the concept of personhood in the subjective sense irrelevant in the right to life debate. While the concept of personhood in the subjective sense is applicable in other areas of ethics, such as agency, it is not needed at all in the right to life debate for all persons_S are also persons_O in the above view. All that is necessary is to determine if the being is a person in the objective sense.

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Henry Imler June 1st, 2005

Link to PDF

Don Marquis, in Why Abortion is Immoral, attempts to give an alternate approach to the abortion debate. Prior arguments about the morality of abortion have centered on whether or not the fetus is a person. This approach assumes that only persons have rights. The protection of one�s life is a right. Thus it would seem to follow that the only beings who have a right to life are persons. Consequently, if a fetus is a person they would have a right to life and conversely, if a fetus is not a person, it does not have a right to life.

Marquis takes a look at the flaws in this approach, noting the problems that each side has. The standard anti-abortionist principle is that it is always prima facie wrong to take a human life. A fetus is a human; therefore it is wrong to kill a fetus. This stance, however, also demands that a cancer culture has a right to life:”(Marquis, Don. Why Abortion is Immoral. The Right Thing to Do. P.109)”:. Such a stance is absurd. The standard pro-abortionist principle is that it is prima facie wrong to take the life of persons, i.e. rational agents:”(Marquis, abid)”:. A fetus is not a rational agent, thus it is not wrong to kill it. This view, however, must allow for the killing of all non-rational agents, such as babies and severely retarded. This natural application of the standard pro-abortionist view, like its opposition, leads to moral absurdities.
Instead of attempting to discern the personhood of the fetus, Marquis notes that we are not ultimately asking if the fetus is a person, but rather, if it is morally permissible to kill the fetus. He then says that he knows for sure that it is wrong to kill him. He seeks to find out why and then apply that principle to the case of the fetus. His argument is as follows:

1.I value my future
2.To rob me of what I value is wrong
C.It is wrong to rob me of my future
1.Killing me robs me of my future
2.It is wrong to rob me of my future
C.It is wrong to kill me.
1.I value my futures
2.X will value its future
C. X has a future similar to mine.
1.X has a futures similar to mine.
2.It is wrong to kill me.
3.My intuitions say that it is wrong to kill X
C. It is wrong to kill beings with futures similar to mine.
1.It is wrong to kill beings with a future similar to mine.
2.A fetus has a future similar to mine
C.It is wrong to kill a fetus

The problem for Marquis is his transition from the specific to the general. He is attempting to take a reason of why it is wrong to kill him specifically, create a general rule, and then apply that rule to beings that are different than him. In the third section of the argument, he states that it is wrong to kill beings with a future similar to his. His reasons for this are that it is wrong to kill him and that his intuitions say that it is also wrong to kill X, Y and Z. Restated, this argument can be presented as follows:

1.X and Y share trait H
2.It is wrong to do action A both X and Y
C. Therefore, it is wrong to do A to beings with trait H

However, this does not follow. It may be that having trait H is a purely accidental correlation to the moral impermeability of action A. Consider the following: person A’s hair is stripped. person A’s cat is striped. It is wrong to burn both person A’s hair and person A’s cat. Therefore, one should not burn things that are striped. It does not follow that just because two things share two similar traits, that similar morality of actions done to the two things are a result of that trait. Continuing from the case above, imagine I owned a sheet of striped paper. It would then follow that it was morally impermissible to burn my sheet of striped paper because it was striped. That is, of course, absurd. The moral impermissibility of burning the first two items is their belonging within the set of items that belongs to person A, not their stripedness. The same holds for Marquis’ transfer of the moral impermeability of killing myself, X, and the fetus. The moral impermissibility of the killing of those items does not lie within the future valuing of their futures, but within their belonging to a certain set of beings, namely that set of beings with a right to life. Marquis is on the right path, but his argument went astray in his over generalization of an accidental trait into a general principle. The outcome of futures is merely an accidental quality of the type of beings the generator of the future is. While the futures of two beings may be similar, there is no reason to suspect that the similarity is what determines the worth of a being’s life.

The only way for Marquis to make his argument work is to fully argue for the distinction between moral objects and moral subjects. Moral subjects are the classical products of personhood theory, i.e. the rational agents that have the ability to make moral judgments. Moral objects, on the other hand, are the beings that have rights to be protected, in other words, they are the objects that moral subject must respect. Marquis needs to take this subject/object distinction and inject it into the personhood debate. He wants to steer clear of this, but without a full commitment, his view does not work. In discussing the implications of his theory, he brushes against what might save his theory. In talking about animals that might have futures similar to adult humans, he says the following, �Whether some animals do have the same right to life as human beings depends on adding to the account of the wrongness of killing some additional account of just what it is about my future or the futureness of other adult human beings which makes it wrong to kill us:”(Marquis, abid. p. 111)”:.� This �additional account� is the creation of a the moral object subsection of personhood. When he is able to create this criteria he will be able to correct his argument.

What might this �additional account� be? One needs to be able to speak of the beings on an ontological basis, not an accidental one. The only ontological property that the being would need in order to have a future value of it’s future is to, at some point in its natural development, have the ability to hold valuations of things. That is, to be a person in the subject sense. Such a view would be able to steer clear Marquis’ current problems. If this approach was taken, his argument would be as follows:

1.Moral objects are beings who, at sometime in their natural temporal existence have the ability to make moral choices.
2.X has the ability at some point in its natural temporal existence to make moral choices
C.Therefore X is a moral object.
1.All moral objects have a right to life
2.X is a moral object.
C.X has a right to life.

This approach yields the same results as his argument, such as the explanation of why infants have a right to life even though they are not persons in the subjective sense. However, it does not fall prey to his current objections.

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Henry Imler May 3rd, 2005

Article: A Defense of Abortion
Author: Judith Jarvis Thomson

Summary

Thomson argues that even if one grants the fetus a serious right to life it does not follow that aboriton is morally impermissable.

The main thrust of oposition to the immorality of abortion is the charge to draw a line on when a fetus becomes a person. It would seem that just before the line the fetus is not a person and just after the line it is a person. If the fetus is a person, then it has a right to life. If it has a right to life, then abortioin is immoral.

Thomsom challenges this conclusion, saying that even if one grants the fetus a right to life, then it does not follow that abortion is morally impermissable. She does this via thought experiments.

Situation

Imagine that you wake up next morning and discover that you are hooked up to a famous violinist. You have been kidnapped and while you were out, hooked up to the violinist by a society of music lovers. The violinist is sick and needs to be hooked up to your kidneys for nine months. To unplug him would be to kill him.

Question Do you have a duty to remain hooked up to the famous violinist?

Discussion
You may not unplug yourself from the violinist. His rights as a person override your right to do as you please.
This strikes many as absurd. The violinist can make no claim on you without your concent.

This case is analogous with rape. Persons have a right to life only if they did not come into being because of rape.
This view seems not only ad hoc, but it seems terrible arbiritraty to deney a person a right to life because of the mere circumstances that surrounded his birth. What if the baby is carried full term? Would it still not have a right to life? What about at 35?

What if the saving the violinist’s life meant your death? Would you still be required to keep him on life support?
Most would answer of course not. Keeping from above, the violinist cannot make a claim on you.

The counter-argument to Judith Jarvis Thomson maintains the following:

Situation:

Mother must have an abortion or she will die.

In order for the abortion to be immoral in this case, i.e. it be morally allowable for the mother to have an abortion to save the life of her child; the following reasoning must apply.

The mother has a right to life.
The fetus has a right to life.
Every right to life is equal.
Violating one’s right to life is killing.
Killing is always morally impermisble.

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Henry Imler April 18th, 2005

Article: Why Abortion is Immoral
Author: Don Marquis

Summary:

Marquis maintains that the current theories on both sides of the abortion argument are seriously flawed. To him, our lives are valuable. Our lives are valuable because of the value of our future. Thus, beings that have a right to life are being that have a “future like ours”.

Notes:
Marquis thinks that the standard arguments for and against abortion are inadequate, for they arrive at a standstill when pitted against one another.

Standard Anti-abortionist principle: It is always prima facie wrong to take a human life.

Problem: What about human cancer cells? Under this principle, it would be wrong to end that life.

Conclusion: The standard anti-abortionist argument is too broad.

Standard Pro-abortionist principle: It is prima facie wrong to take the life of persons [i.e. rational agents].

Problem The argument does not explain why it seems so very wrong to kill a new born or severely mentally ill.

Conclusion: The standard pro-abortion argument is too narrow.

In light of this, that each position does not have the right scope for the question at hand, one needs to find another avenue of reasoning.

Marquis suggests that we look at why it would be wrong for someone to kill me, the reader. If we can find why it is wrong to kill the reader, then perhaps he can build a principle of why killing is wrong and see if it applies to the abortion debate.

He gives several possible reasons:

Killing brutalizes the one who kills. This only explains the dammage done to the doer of an immoral action and does not explain the immorality of the action. Therefore, this does not help in the problem.

Killing of someone is the loss that others experiance This does not explain why it is wrong to kill hermits who have absolutely no impact on anyone, nor does it explain the harm to the being that is killed.

So far the answers have only looked at the effect on others that a killing has. One needs to look at how the killing effects the one that is killed.

The loss of one’s life is one of the greatest losses one can suffer.

1. The loss of experiances, activities, projects, and enjoyments is a harm to the person who endures the loss.
2. For one to harm another is morally wrong.
3. The loss of one’s life deprives one of all the experiances, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would have otherwise constituted one’s future.
4. Killing someone inflicts #3 on someone.
5. C) Therefore, killing is morally wrong.

Moving forward from this analysis, it is not the change in the biological state of the individual [i.e. physical death], but the loss of what the individual values [or will come to value] in the future. When a person is killed, all that they value currently and will value in the future is robbed of them.

When I die, I am deprived both of what I value now [which will be part of my future values] and what I will value in the future. Therefore, when I am killed, I am deprived of all of the value of my future. The inflicting of this loss is what makes killing me wrong.

Thus, the killing of an adult is wrong becuase of the loss of the person’s future.

This argument will hold if:

1. The explanation fits with our intuitions on the matter
2. There is no other natural property that provies the basis for a better explanation of the wrongness of killing.

Is this the case?

1. Explains why the killing is one of the worst crimes - it deprives the person of more than any other harm.
2. Explains why people who are dying of illnesses, such as AIDS, belive that dying is a very bad thing. They value their future very much and recognize that their future is being cut short.

An alternate theory would have to better explain the two above.

1. Allows for the worth of life of any being with a future similar to ours, i.e. aliens or advanced computer programs.
2. Opposed to the claim that only biological life is worth preserving.
3. The claim that the loss of one’s future is the wrong making feature of one’s being killed open the possibility that some non-human animals with futures sufficiently like ours have lifes worth protecting. This needs an additional account of what it is about my future or the futures of other adult beings which makes it wrong to kill us.
4. does not mean that active euthanasia is wrong. The value of the human’s future is what makes the killing wrong. Hence, if the future is not valued, the the deprivation of the future is ok.
5. This easily gives an account of to why the killing of infants and severely mantally retarded is prima facie wrong. The personhood theories do not account for this, the must add special ad hoc accounts to mend their position.

Application to abortion:
Since the reason that is sufficent to explain why it is wrong to kill human being after the time of birth also applies to fetuses, it follows that abortion is prima facie morally wrong.
This does not rely on the invalid potential personhood arguement.

1. The category of having a valueable future like ours is not the category of personhood.
2. It is independant of the conclusion that abortion is morally wrong proceeded indpendantly of the notion of peronhood.
3. The category of personhood is being used to state the conclusion of the analysis rather than to generate the argument of the analysis.

This arguement only applies prima facie to abortion, there may be other factors that change the outcome.

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Henry Imler April 15th, 2005

Article: Physician Assisted Suicide: When Self Determination Runs Amok
Author: Dan Callahan

Assertion:
Physician Assisted Suicide is without sufficient justification.

Argument:

If any of premises 2 thru 5 are true, then Physician Assisted Suicide [PAS] is justified.

PAS is the logical extension of of the respect of individual automy, well being, and mercy

There is a moral irrevalence between killing and letting die.

If letting a person die is ok, then the killing of another under the same circumstances is also ok.

There is a lack of evidence showing possible negative consequences of PAS

The Role of the physician demands that PAS be practiced.

Premises 2 thru 5 are not correct

C) PAS is not yet justified

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Henry Imler April 13th, 2005

Article: Is there a Duty to Die?
Author: Hardwig, John

It is not absurd to think that sometimes we have a duty to die.

It is not absurd to think that sometimes our loved ones do not have a duty to continue to support the dying.

Basic Argument:

1. People’s needs and wants and goods are interconnected [rejection of the indivualistic fantasy]
2. It is immoral to impose serious burdens on others to further one’s needs and wants
3. One is not relieved of their moral duties when they are sick and dying.
4. Sometimes continuing to live will place serious burdens on loved ones.
5. ∴ Sometimes one has a duty to die

Hardwig gives the principles on when someone has a duty to die, but repeatedly abstains from giving anyone a duty to die.

Conditions that might lead to a duty to die:

• Fundamental reason: The duty to die [d2d] increases when continuing to live [c2l] will impose significant burdens on those that are interconnected with you [loved ones, family]
  • These burdens can include: emotional, extensive caregiving, destruction of life plans, finacial hardship
• Greater as one grows older
• Have lived a rich life
• Loved one’s life has been difficult or impovrished
• When loved ones have already made significant contributions to your life
• The extent to which you can adjust to your illness, the more one can, the less the duty - note on increased social medicine and hospice
• Less likely of a duty if one can still make contributions to the lives of others
• More likely if your personality dies by a dementing disease
• Greater Duty to die if you have played the part of the grasshopper instead of the ant.

Do the incompetent have a Duty to Die?
They do not if they have never been competent, for nonpersons do not have duties. Hardwig dances around the issue of whether or not the formerly competent can have such a duty.

Social Polices and the Duty to Die:
In light of #6 above, the increase in availibility of social services to the dying decreases the duty for them to die. This is due to postulate #4 in the argument for a duty to die: It is immoral to impose serious burdens on others to further one’s needs and wants.
Accordingly, if society [or anything else] has set up a means of support, and you do not impose a serious burden on loved ones, then you do not have a duty to die.

Conversely, if the loved ones are willing to accept the burden created by keeping you alive, then they may, but they are never forced to carry the burden created by keeping you live, on a prima facie basis.

Misc Points:
Irony that the advances in medicine have created conditions for people to live for a unnaturally long time
The duty to die affirms my moral agency, my personhood.

• To treat one as if they are releaved of their duties when they are sick and dying is to treat them as a child.
• It implies that they are morally incompetent.

Meaning in death requires an affirmation of connections

• Life without connection is meaningless
• These connections can be to other things, like land, nature, ect…

I really think he is worming his way out of the connections/meaning of life issue.

• Does not reflect the actions of Jesus or his followers
• Not clear that the belief that “all life is sacred and therefore we should postpode death as long as possible in all cases” is univerally true
• The bible sends a mixed message on the topic of suicide
  • [I have no idea about this, Saul and Judas were seen in a negative light, but I know of no absolute stipulation against it.]
• Physical Death is not the ultimate evil in the Bible

2. The duty to die is concompatible with human dignity
It actually affirms thier himan dignity to restore to them moral agency.

3. The dying are already shouldering most of the burdens and to give them an additional burden would be wrong.
Is this really true?
Example:

87 year old woman is dying, she wants to live and in the fulfillment of that, her 55 year old daughter takes care of her. The lady lives two years longer instead of the forcasted 6 months. In the span of that time, the duaghter has lost her life plan, her career, her savings, her house, all of which results in a greatly lowered quality of life for a period of 30 years.

Which is the greater burden?

To lose a 50% chance of 6 months of life at age 87.
–or–
To lose one’s life plan, her career, her savings, her house, all of which results in a greatly lowered quality of life for a period of 30 years?

Clearly, the second option is worse

4. The Duty to Die impacts the poor more than the rich.

• This objection is a red herring. That fact is more a critique of the social setup than the duty to die.

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