A French couple has been arrested for killing eight of their newborn babies. From the story:
The quiet village of Viller-au-Tertre in north-eastern France was in a state of shock last night after the bodies of eight newborn babies were found buried in the ground. By late yesterday afternoon, this sleepy hamlet in France’s north-east had become infamous after police said it appeared to have played host to the worst infanticide in French history. Two people – a married couple both in their mid-40s, he a roofer and she a nursing auxiliary – have been detained by local police since Tuesday, when they were arrested in connection with the discovery.
I don’t see why this couple–who clearly decided that having more children would not serve the family’s interests–is being put through this terrible inconvenience and embarrassment. Remember what the sage Peter Singer has told us in his book Rethinking Life and Death (p 220):
Since neither a newborn infant nor a fish is a person, the wrongness of killing such beings is not as great as the wrongness of killing a person.
Would we arrest them–and depict them as monsters– for catching trout? I ask you! (Well, yes, I guess some of us would, but that’s a subject for another post.)
July 28th, 2010 | 8:42 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: French Couple Arrested for Killing Eight Newborns: But Why? » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog http://shar.es/mLHkV [...]
July 28th, 2010 | 9:37 pm
A role of a men and a woman is to give life to another. That is not any one’s desicion including the parents, espcially when the child can already recognise they voices, the warmth of the mother, the guard of the father. If anything, if the couple knew that they can not take care of any more children, they should have taken care of themselves when being intimate!!!!! If anything, they should have seeked out a different way of terminating the pregnancies at an early stage!!!!!! NOT once the children are born!! AND there’s also the choice of adoption tooo!!!!
July 28th, 2010 | 10:20 pm
Wesley:
Le Figaro: states that infantcide isn’t that shocking but that this case is the worst in 30 years
On the death of the 8 newborns:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2010/07/28/01016-20100728ARTFIG00549-huit-cadavres-de-nourrissons-retrouves-dans-le-nord.php
On the multiplication in recent years:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2010/07/28/01016-20100728ARTFIG00537-plusieurs-cas-d-infanticides-multiples-ces-dernieres-annees.php
July 28th, 2010 | 10:56 pm
A young woman in my state smothered her newborn baby not long ago. No problem. The umbilical cord was still attached, so it was no crime. On the contrary, it would seem that the woman was exercising a Most Sacred Right.
Who knows? Maybe it will turn out that this French case is just a series of do-it-yourself procedures on little clumps of cells.
July 29th, 2010 | 1:27 am
The arrest of this couple, reflects positively on the state of our moral civilization. Peter Singer’s views are unlikely to be adopted, by the general public. Why? Because they do not coincide with human nature. Most people view babies not as either “potential persons” or “actual persons”. They view them as vulnerable, lovable beings, that require our protection. The personhood, or lack thereof, is purely, or mostly a debate among the philosophically inclined.
That’s certainly not to say that the Peter Singers of the world cannot impact, negatively, the culture. But their ideas are too abtruse, and removed from normal everyday life. In other words, regular people are too sensible to let Singer do too much damage. William F. Buckley, stated, that he would rather be governed by a random listing of those in the telephone directory, than the elites of Harvard. The sensibility of regular people over Singer, and his like, is similar.
Of course, when I say Singer’s views are too “abtruse”, I’m speaking relatively. His views can easily be picked apart, for their lack of philosophical rigor.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 29th, 2010 at 1:30 am
Except, many of his views are triumphing. I agree most people would reject, but many of the power elite accept. A lot of what happens in society comes from the top.
July 29th, 2010 | 4:31 am
Why is infanticide wrong Wesley?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 29th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Because it is murder, Fiona. Personhood theory is tyranny against the weak. It isn’t whether we can value our lives or whether we are self aware over time, it is whether we are human.
July 29th, 2010 | 5:51 am
“William F. Buckley, stated, that he would rather be governed by a random listing of those in the telephone directory, than the elites of Harvard.”
Understandable. Buckley went to Yale.
July 29th, 2010 | 6:01 am
[People] view [babies] as vulnerable, lovable beings, that require our protection. The personhood, or lack thereof, is purely, or mostly a debate among the philosophically inclined.
Exactly right – and I feel it’s this sort of admission that tends to be absent from Singer’s analyses. He conclusions appear to follow logically from his premises but one cannot help but think about the joke with the line “Consider a spherical cow in a vacuum . . . “
July 29th, 2010 | 6:16 am
Please, let Peter Singer out of this mess. He indeed took positions in order not to recognise babies as person (with a lot of ethical riguor, but to understad it you have to read a lot too) but he never state that you could happily kill them. It depends on conditions, we are not in Sparta.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 29th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Au contraire, Tom. It depends on utilitarian calculus. Singer takes is to Sparta.
July 29th, 2010 | 10:39 am
Annet, I can see your plea for adoption, but how does killing human beings at an earlier stage of life during pregnancy by abortion make killing a human being any more moral than killing him or her after birth? This would argue that someone’s age, stage of development and location make it moral to dispose of another human being. They don’t. Nor do those things make anyone more of a human with rights. Human rights and the right to life are inherent so killing innocent human beings is wrong regardless of their location or age/stage of development.
This is shocking. 8 babies have been murdered and disposed of like garbage. But SHS’s comments are not shocking as if he is searching on the fringes for people he can use caricaturize a movement and stain it with some outlaws. Peter Singer is not unique when it comes to infanticide. Nor are his and those views narrowly held. The fact is that he’s just one of many pro choice/pro-abortion philosophers and thinkers who have argued that the case for abortion based on personhood means that infanticide is acceptable because newborns, like the unborn, do not exhibit or have yet to exhibit the characteristics they see as making one a person and a human with rights. There’s nothing new about this and Peter Singer isn’t the only one or the person who brought this is the fore. Francis Beckwith (who commented at SHS on the David Brooks post) has included unapologetic cases for infanticide based on personhood, using the same arguments to justify abortion in his reader on abortion he edited with Louis Pojam, “the Abortion Controversy.” He also notes some of them in his book Politically Correct Death and probably in the updated version, Defending Life.
I don’t know if it was Beckwith who said it, but someone like him noted that all the pro-choice/pro-abortion philosophers supported or argued that abortion justifies infanticide by the 90s… That may be too sweeping, but it is widespread. Abortion arguments based on personhood leads to infanticide and euthanasia.
July 29th, 2010 | 12:58 pm
I heard on the news that the father never knew about them, nor knew the mother was pregnant. I don’t believe that for a moment, unless the mother starved herself to kill the babies, or did it in some other way, and then birthed them dead (which, I haven’t looked into this more yet, but I think they can tell that or not so I don’t think it’s the case).
Really, I don’t know what kind of woman can go through nine months of pregnancy and have a mind to kill the baby.
July 29th, 2010 | 1:16 pm
Don Nelson: No matter how hard you strain to make one, there’s simply no comparison between abortion and infanticide. None. Nil. Nada. A fetus is not a person, and never has been one either in Common Law, American statute law, or any other law except the kind cooked up in their fertile imaginations by religious zealots. It makes great advertising copy for charlatans like National Right to Life and Operation Rescue, but the fact remains that “personhood” is already defined in our Constitution. Those who disagree with the foundation on which our legal system rests might just feel more comfortable living somewhere else — say Uganda or Saudi Arabia?
July 29th, 2010 | 3:29 pm
Bret: [People] view [babies] as vulnerable, lovable beings, that require our protection. The personhood, or lack thereof, is purely, or mostly a debate among the philosophically inclined.
Me: Exactly right – and I feel it’s this sort of admission that tends to be absent from Singer’s analyses.
Not absent actually. Singer covers his bases quite well.
July 29th, 2010 | 4:31 pm
HistoryWriter: You say “there is simply no comparison between abortion and infanticide.” Really? You don’t think there is any comparison to be made between killing a full-term baby in utero and ex utero, or with cord attached or unattached? None? Nil? Nada?
As far as your preposterous claim that the Western legal tradition, emphatically including the English Common Law and American statute ,has never given status to an unborn child, try being a history READER.
At least Peter Singer is not such an ignoramus.
July 29th, 2010 | 5:09 pm
Marilena, why should he read it when he can just make it up?
HW, you can argue that there’s no comparison to abortion and infanticide with the pro-abortion philosophers that make the case that the personhood argument for abortion justifies infanticide. They say that if the unborn is not a person because he or she hasn’t valued or thought about his or her future existence, can’t reason, is absolutely dependent upon others, can’t yet exercise his inherent rational abilities, then those same criteria deprive newborns of any claim to a right to life. Have some guts HW. If you are going to argue for abortion based on personhood, apply it all the way like they do. Don’t stop at infanticide either. Go empty the nursing homes of those people that no longer fit the personhood criteria.
If you want to call anyone charlatans, look in the mirror. Pro-lifers aren’t the ones hiding behind euphemisms like choice, contents of the uterus, a blob of tissue, gently emptying the contents of the uterus, disaggregating or disarticulating the fetus and etc like you people do to hide your barbaric and evil killing of unborn children by dismemberment, burning or killing them by poking a hole in their heads and sucking their brains out inches from birth. We aren’t the ones demanding that no pictures or ultrasound be shown to women or trying to keep them out of debates.
As to your charge that the unborn has never been deemed a person, that’s as persuasive to me as slavery laws and the Dred Scot decision were to abolitionists and Dred Scot and other slaves. Nevertheless, tell me why those abortion laws prior to Roe were written that criminalize killing the unborn by abortion. They were written to protect the unborn from the violence of abortion. Blackmun is wrong to attribute it only to the health of the woman. The more those 19th century legislators found out about the nature of the unborn through scientific advancements, the more strict the laws against abortion, called “child murder” by feminist extraordinaire Susan B. Anthony, became and came to prohibit abortion throughout pregnancy except in rare instances. And Witherspoon notes (in Beckwith Defending Life) those laws called the unborn a child, referenced the unborn as a person, described abortion as manslaughter, categorized abortion alongside crimes of homicide and other offenses against born children, provided for the same range of punishments for killing the unborn in an abortion as for killing the mother in an abortion and etc. If the unborn were not considered a person, or protected human being bearing the right to life, why all that? Abortion kills an innocent human being.
Roe was a radical reversal of all this even what immediately preceded this. Even ardent abortion supporters were surprised. Three years before their nutty decision struck down laws in all 50 states, SCOTUS said in Steinberg v. Brown: “It seems clear, however, that the legal conclusion in Griswold as to the rights of individuals to determine without governmental interference whether or not to enter into the process of procreation cannot be extended to cover those situations wherein, voluntarily or involuntarily, the preliminaries have ended, and a new life has begun. Once human life has commenced, the constitutional protections found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments impose upon the state the duty of safeguarding it.” There’s more to say about this, but there’s at one SCOTUS decision holding that the unborn is a 14th amendment person in addition to other pre-Roe law that protect the unborn from abortion because of his or her nature.
July 29th, 2010 | 10:04 pm
Don Nelson:
For your information Steinberg v. Brown was decided AFTER Roe v. Wade (albeit in the same year, 1970), and Steinberg v. Brown never made it to the Supreme Court. It was decided at the appellate level, and as a result Ohio’s anti-abortion statute was overturned. Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton and Griswold v. Connecticut were all cited in the Steinberg decision.
Want to rethink that “making things up” statement, or shall we simply let your foolishness stand as an example of the anti-choice movement in action?
July 29th, 2010 | 10:09 pm
Marilena: Abortion became criminalized in America during the post-Civil War period, not because doctors suddenly learned more about embryology (they were barely aware of the germ theory of disease in those days), but because a developing medical profession wanted to eliminate competition by midwife/abortionists whom they considered amateurs. The anti-abortion business fit in nicely with Anthony Comstock’s efforts against contraception. You really need to brush up on your American History.
Did you manage to finish high school?
July 30th, 2010 | 1:43 am
I have to respectfully disagree with you, Raven, regarding Singer’s philosophical rigor, at least with respect to his claims, vis a vis personhood, and when a human “reaches” it.
His criteria, for when a human reaches personhood, are: Self-consciousness, rationality, and autonomy. and, he claims that babies, according to his book, Practical Ethics, “reach” the personhood category, at one month, post birth.
this seems to me, to be a completely arbitrary demarcation point, since it does not even meet his own criteria for personhood. There is no empirical data, to support the notion, that one month old babies are rational, or possess autonomy, or are even more than rudimentarily self conscious. So why does he pick one month, as the point where personhood is reached?
Also, Wesley noted, that Singer has claimed that personhood is reached by humans at about one year, post birth. I don’t know if Singer revised his view here, or if Wesley is mistaken, but even if this is true, no one year old is autonomous, or rational. Yes, they could conform to the criterion of self consciousness, but of a very non sophisticated form.
this means that, Singer’s views really lack the rigor, that one sees in great philosophers. That’s not to say that he’s not a highly intelligent, well intentioned person; he is. but he’s no John Stuart Mill, or Jeremy Bentham.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 30th, 2010 at 9:49 am
In other work Singer extended the personhood line for babies to about one year.
July 30th, 2010 | 7:38 am
Don Nelson:
I was curious about where you got that erroneous information about the Steinberg case, and discovered that it was taken from an article by Francis Beckwith in the Liberty University Law Review. That in itself is strange, since Beckwith is not a lawyer. Indeed, his foul-up on the time-line of Roe and Steinberg shows it.
I don’t know that you’re aware of this, but the Editor position in a law schools Law Review is typically awarded to the school’s top student(s) in acknowledgment of their outstanding scholarship — for example, to President Obama when he was a student at Harvard Law. That an article so riddled with nonsense and outright mistakes as Beckwith’s actually made it past the editor and into the pages of the Liberty University Law School’s Law Review speaks volumes. If that’s what passes for legal scholarship at Liberty it’s no wonder that Matt Staver keeps losing Supreme Court cases. But then, what can one expect of an institution that prides itself at having such a luminary as Matt “Bam Bam” Barber on its faculty. Ahhh, Christian education.
BTW, here’s a word to the wise: if you’re going to quote case precedents try reading the decisions first. I, for one, doubt that you’ve read Blackmun’s opinion in Roe v. Wade.
July 30th, 2010 | 8:16 am
HW,
“A fetus is not a person, and never has been one either in Common Law, American statute law, or any other law except the kind cooked up in their fertile imaginations by religious zealots.”
“Abortion became criminalized in America during the post-Civil War period.”
Um, which is it? Or do you count “personhood theory” as such a new thing that all those laws criminalizing abortion cooked up by the postbellum religious zealots don’t count? Speaking of the Civil War, the concept that not all human beings are “persons” sounds eerily familiar…
July 30th, 2010 | 9:53 am
Don Nelson:
(1)[Pro-choice philosophers] say that if the unborn is not a person because [of certain criteria] then those same criteria deprive newborns of any claim to a right to life.
True – but arguments against infanticide are not necessarily based on an infant’s “right to life”. They may, for instance, be based on slippery slope arguments about the effects on the wider society of legalising these killings. It is thus by no means logically inconsistent to support abortion based on arguments against fetal “personhood” while opposing infanticide.
(2) Pro-lifers aren’t the ones hiding behind euphemisms [. . .] like you people do to hide your barbaric and evil killing of unborn children
Maybe not – but pro-lifers play the verbal game from the other end of the field (witness the “barbaric and evil killing of unborn children”). There is the attempt to verbally equate actions which happen to be miles apart morally. Killing a ball of cells with human DNA might technically be killing a human being (a biological member of the species) but ethically it’s very different from taking the life of a two year old, a sleeping adult, or an elderly person with dementia. Anyone who attempts to obscure this difference by harking on about “the taking of innocent human life” (when referring to abortion) is either being disingenuous or has fallen prey to a very rigid rule bound ethic which has lost sight of what precisely makes killing humans evil.
What some pro-lifer do, you see, (I dare not tar you all with the same brush) is extend a very good rule of thumb (i.e “do not kill innocent people”) to situations to which the rule does not apply. There is no “person” to protect in early and mid-pregnancy. There is no one capable of being traumatised or exploited or hurt. All the moral energy expended in this direction is wasted.
(3)We aren’t the ones demanding that no pictures or ultrasound be shown to women or trying to keep them out of debates.
While the basic principle involved is sound (i.e. women ought to have all the relevant information before making a decision this significant) – the implementation is flawed. Obviously no one should restrict access to these images and extra investigations if women desire them but it seems ludicrous to compel women to see them.
Would it assist in making a more rational choice or would it simply sway them emotionally? If all cardiac patients were shown videos of open heart surgeries prior to the procedure would this encourage them to go through with the procedure? What about patients with brain tumours? Would forcing them to have this additional “information” (this extra visual stimulus separate from the usual briefing on risks and complications and possible outcomes) be in the patient’s interests?
(4) Nevertheless, tell me why those abortion laws prior to Roe were written that criminalize killing the unborn by abortion [. . .] If the unborn were not considered a person, or protected human being bearing the right to life, why all that?
The courts have always recognised an interest in the unborn child not necessarily because he or she is deemed a person but because we all acknowledge that he will probably become one by a process of imperceptible changes. (The Endangered Species Act also demonstrates that the state’s interest in protecting a creature from harm might also be unrelated to questions about that creature’s “personhood”).
As far as I’m aware US courts had never (until recently) recognised the fetus as a legal person. There might have been rhetorical gestures which suggest otherwise but, to the best of my knowledge, no full recognition. All the fetal personhood laws on the books appear to be state codes of recent vintage. I may be wrong about this. Please correct me.
As you state, this lack of legal recognition is not philosophically persuasive. It did not deter the abolitionists and suffragettes – why should it deter you? The crucial difference is that slaves had an interest in their own freedom and women had an interest in acquiring the vote. Does a fetus (especially early in gestation) have any such, even rudimentary, interests? Would its survival represent the fulfilment of any desires or merely provide the opportunity for a previously non-existent conscious creature to eventually emerge?
As I’ve stated earlier all this moral energy expended on “protecting the unborn” (in that facile sense of merely insisting that the unconscious fetus be allowed to develop into a conscious child) is wasted because there is quite literally no person who benefits. If your opposition to abortion were based on other factors (its effects on society as a whole, for instance) that would be more understandable.
July 30th, 2010 | 10:13 am
Bret:
My comments about Singer are provisional (given that I am yet to read any of his books and I have come to realise that it is unfair to judge serious thinkers based on articles about them or on short excerpts of their work) – but for what its worth:
The questions “what are the criteria for granting personhood?” and “who precisely meets those criteria?” are distinct. The first is a philosophical one and the second is usually not.
Singer’s criteria for personhood (and I’m going to take your word for this) are self-consciousness, rationality, and autonomy. When do babies achieve this triad? That is, properly a question for a child psychologist, not a moral philosopher. Singer’s “shifting boundaries” represent not a change in his ethical position but a development in his understanding of the available psychological data.
I retracted my earlier comment because (1) he directly addressed the relevant issue in this interview I happened to stumble on and (2) I am yet to find a logical inconsistency in his thinking (i.e. if you grant him his premises, he makes perfect sense). This applies, of course, when you let him speak in his own words rather than imbibe his ideas second-hand via his critics. Since I am, as I mentioned earlier, yet to read any of his books (though I have glanced at this excerpt from Practical Ethics) I think it would be premature to pass judgement (I have, you see, hardened my “give serious thinkers the benefit of the doubt” rule into an Unbreakable Commandment).
July 30th, 2010 | 11:45 am
HW, you said: “Don Nelson: For your information Steinberg v. Brown was decided AFTER Roe v. Wade (albeit in the same year, 1970), and Steinberg v. Brown never made it to the Supreme Court. It was decided at the appellate level, and as a result Ohio’s anti-abortion statute was overturned. Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton and Griswold v. Connecticut were all cited in the Steinberg decision.”
And you said “Don Nelson: I was curious about where you got that erroneous information about the Steinberg case, and discovered that it was taken from an article by Francis Beckwith in the Liberty University Law Review. That in itself is strange, since Beckwith is not a lawyer. Indeed, his foul-up on the time-line of Roe and Steinberg shows it.”
I rechecked my copy of Roe and Doe and again read again on the first page of the SCOTUS decisions Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton that they were handed down on January 22, 1973, which all pro-lifers know, and not in the same year as Steinberg or after Steinberg, but three years after Steinberg, which was handed down in 1970.
On the front page of both Roe and Doe it says “Argued December 13, 1971 Reargued October 11, 1972 Decided January 22, 1973.” Last I looked 1970 comes before 1971, 1972 and 1973. Now, Steinberg may have cited the Roe v. Wade’s and Doe’s appellate decisions in 1970, but they are not the same as the Roe or Doe SCOTUS decisions, which are the real decisions we are talking about and which everyone is arguing about in public. Get your history right before you rail at anyone that they are providing misinformation or before you charge Beckwith with fouling up on the time-line of Roe and Steinberg. Beckwith is right that Roe quoted Steinberg. When I look up Steinberg v. Brown on Google, Roe’s citation of Steinberg was the first hit I got.
Blackmun overlooked the quote that I cited from Steinberg that I got from Beckwith. As I said, the quote from Steinberg, which I got from Beckwith’s book Defending Life, shows that there was at least one decision holding that the unborn is a 14th amendment person in addition to other pre-Roe law that protect the unborn from abortion because of his or her nature.
As to the junk history about why abortion laws were put in force, you have regurgitated Blackmun well. Everyone should note that Blackmun relied heavily on the discredited history of America’s abortion laws from the 19th century from articles by abortion advocate attorney Cyril Means who became general counsel for NARAL. How’s that for conflict of interest? That’s why people have said that Roe v. Wade has no basis in law, history or logic. As legislators learned more about the nature of the unborn, the stricter the laws became. The science changed theological/religious attitudes too. Roe was a radical reversal of America’s abortion laws and his history was wrong. Abortion advocates should get over Blackmun’s nonsense and be glad they have a verdict they want.
Yes I’ve read Roe and know the date it was handed down as I just noted. I also happen to know Jane Roe the historical plaintiff of Roe v Wade, Norma McCorvey. I’ve met her in person, introduced her at a rally and interviewed her a couple times for our old radio show.
July 30th, 2010 | 12:42 pm
The couple should argue that this was simply a fourth trimester abortion.
Seriously, following this case would be of interest because I’ll bet the mother will receive a much more lenient punishment than the father. That has been the pattern in similar such atrocities regardless of the relative culpabilities.
July 30th, 2010 | 12:50 pm
Just Chris: It’s BOTH. Fetal personhood never played a role in anti-abortion laws until the zealots cooked up that concept after they lost in Roe v. Wade. Nineteenth century anti-abortion legislation was more an effort to prevent harm to the woman by inept practitioners, as well as a reflection of Christian sexual prudery (as in Comstock).
July 30th, 2010 | 1:03 pm
My mistake. Stories posted elsewhere on this case say that charges against the father were dropped for lack of evidence and because of the “mother’s” testimony that he had no knowledge of the pregnancies. She reportedly weighs nearly 300 pounds, which is how she was able to conceal the pregnancies until birth. I’m not sure who’s more messed up in the head, her for allegedly killing the newborns and not seeking abortions or (far better) using birth control instead, or him for continuing to feed a whale a Tic-Tac.
July 30th, 2010 | 2:39 pm
HW,
So if we accept your statement (made no doubt with the same dispassionate wisdom that says prolifers are high school-dropout religious zealots with strong desires to move to Saudi Arabia), your argument seems to be that because it was never seriously banned before that discussions about banning it today is some form of mania? That sounds very reactionary to me.
In all seriousness, your position rests on the logic that a child outside of the birth canal is a “person,” but her twin just four inches away inside is not. Do we allow abortion out of true concern for women, or do we perpetuate the notion that fertility is somehow an unnatural disease afflicting women and the only ages-old solution for them to achieve worth is that we who can talk and vote get to determine which human beings have rights and which are mere property? You seem to be saying that we can’t accept mothers as they are and that we need to change society’s incorrect view, but that women should be self-motivated to shoe-horn themselves into society’s view of life, and that allowing abortion is the only way to ensure their equality. This is a world I imagine will be seen in history as a tragic folly.
July 30th, 2010 | 3:56 pm
Raven, I put my thoughts in order to the points you made.
1. Some personhood theorists may oppose infanticide and support abortion, but if the infant is lacking the same criteria for personhood that is used to deny the unborn the right to life, then it seems personhood theorists are hard pressed to find a reason to recognize the infant’s right to life and be consistent.
2. Well, I don’t think you are tarring us. It’s who we are. But I think you’ve made my point about euphemisms. Calling a new human being even in the zygote or embryonic stage a ball of cells is a demeaning, dehumanizing euphemism meant to justify doing whatever it is you want to do with it. It falls way short of describing the nature of this human being who is already an incredibly complex, self organizing, self assembling, unique, whole, absolutely human being who possesses even in the first days of his or her life, a personal nature. He or she has all the inherent capacities of adults and will never change from one thing to another. To deny their right to life confuses functioning as a person with being a person.
But the “ball of cell” line is irrelevant because most abortions dismember a human being that a 5 year old would call a baby when shown a picture of him or her in utero. Almost all abortions kill unborn human beings with two arms and two legs, ten fingers and ten toes, and with a beating heart and brain waves by dismemberment. I think it’s hard to argue that describing what abortion does as barbaric and evil is hardly a euphemism.
3. Hearts and tumors aren’t the same as the unborn. The new law in Oklahoma says an ultrasound must be done, a description given and the woman has to have the right to see the images. People pushing this are also concerned about the woman and her interests. Many women tell us they would never have aborted if they knew. Maybe, maybe not. The number of women who have had abortions and are in the pro-life movement is very high. They feel abortion is so bad that they want to give women all the info they can so they don’t make the same bad and devastating choice.
I think emotions and reason go together. Our emotions tell us something. If we aren’t listening to our emotions, cold reason is pretty ugly. If we have emotions without reason then we are driven along by them. So I think if something is emotional like an ultrasound or a horrifying picture, we should listen to what that is telling us.
In advocacy work images are legitimate and necessary to tell the whole truth. They should be emotional when what is being done is wrong and immoral. As long as it informs people to the truth and supports a case instead of being used in place of a case it’s legit. Activists in many different areas believe the horror of what they are against cannot be fully understood without pictures. Abortion advocates are afraid of pictures and it’s clear why. It undermines their ability to rationalize or use cool reason to justify what they do. I know you don’t see abortion that way, but people in other causes think pictures are important. Inhumane activities should evoke emotions and passions.
4. Well, I cited one instance in Steinberg, but Roe came up with the unborn isn’t a person argument and it changed everything. It had to say that the 14th amendment didn’t apply to the unborn and it had to get around the proliferation of abortion laws on the books that came out with new scientific insight into the nature of the unborn. It was all new and shocking. Blackmun had to rewrite the reasons for those laws which History Writer notes. Blackmun had to say that it was for other reasons than the nature/humanity of the unborn. I’m not aware that the court ever entertained the concept that the unborn was NOT a person. But I think it could be irrelevant that the court never came out and said that the unborn is a person prior to Roe. Roe was a game changer.
I think we may have a connection then if you entertain arguments against abortion for other reasons like societal impact. The arguments for abortion have introduced us to personhood theory or a more intense one. Personhood theory undermines universal human rights. It’s arbitrary, subjective and unfair. But the unborn is a person anyway. They are human beings and being humans have a human nature. Human beings by nature are personal/rational beings. Their personal/rational nature is inherent, so the unborn can’t be said to not be a person. He or she is not functioning as a person, that is, exercising his or her inherent personal capacities. Personhood theory confuses functioning as a person with being a person. It’s discriminatory to grant the right to life or make the right to life vary in degrees based on someone’s functioning. If anyone is expendable, we’re all negotiable.
There are other problems like the impact abortion has on women and men and families and the breakdown of the family, but the most obvious one right now is the impending imploding world population, and especially in developed nations. We won’t have the labor resources to meet the needs of the elderly. It’s going to be ugly.
July 30th, 2010 | 6:26 pm
Don Nelson,
1. My point about infanticide was that one may oppose it without believing the fetus has a “right to life”. One may accept the validity of “personhood theory” and still argue (with logical consistency) that killing infants would be a bad thing.
2. A zygote is a single cell. Stating this fact may seem “demeaning” (to whom?) – but it is true nonetheless. Does a single cell or a ball of cells deserve the same degree of moral consideration as a fully conscious adult? My answer would be “obviously not”.
Does a cell suffer? Does it have experiences? Is it a participant in the human experience? What in heaven’s name gives it a “right to life”? How can an unconscious cell have any “rights” at all? We may consider it important and full of potential but to say it has “rights” almost seems to make a mockery of the concept.
As you point out, most abortions are not about “cells” at all but involve beings which are morphologically recognisable as humans. Virtually all these beings are however completely unconscious and neurologically incapable of pain perception so the dismemberments and physical trauma cause no suffering of any kind to the fetus. This is important – because a lot of pro-life rhetoric casts these terminations as barbaric and evil procedures during which defenceless children are subjected to unimaginable torture. This is simply false.
(3) My point about cardiac surgery and brain tumors was that more information does not necessarily lead to better decision making (especially when that “information” is intended to produce an emotional response). The state has no role in compelling doctors to perform ultrasounds before termination. It has no right to force women to view these scans. If these patients of their own free will decide to have these investigations done then similarly no obstacles should be placed in their path.
I disagree about the role of our emotions in decision making. I think we ought to “listen to our emotions” only in the sense that our present and future emotional states are of paramount importance to us and we ought to give thought to how our decisions might affect these states i.e how our psychological health might be affected by our choices. Apart from that I feel emotions only cloud the decision making process. Men and women swayed by emotions tend to do things which work against their long term interests – would you say that a man who sees pictorial evidence of his wife’s infidelity is in a position to make better decisions about the future of their relationship than one who has only heard a verbal confession?
Images never tell “the whole truth”. An image of a fetus’ torn body doesn’t say “This being felt no pain. This being did not suffer”. It suggests quite the opposite. An ultrasound scan which shows an image of a fetus withdrawing from a surgical probe does not say “this is a reflex reaction”. Images often lie and do so eloquently (as any photojournalist knows). They often mislead their viewers into believing they know what they are looking at when frequently they do not.
(4) As far as I know the fetus had never been regarded as a legal person either in US law or English common law prior to the 1970s. There were laws criminalising abortion but this was always an offence separate from murder. What they did have was a “born alive rule” according to which only infants born alive were considered persons (for statutes relating to assault and murder). This all changed after the Keeler case in California (the California Supreme Court, following long established tradition, dismissed a prosecution for murder on the basis that the fetus was not a human being in the eyes of the law) after which state legislatures began to enact fetal homicide laws. The legal prohibition of abortion prior to the 70s was never based on any claims about fetal personhood.
Once again, I may be wrong about this. I’m open to correction.
Blackmun’s arguments in Roe rest on very shaky legal ground (a fact freely acknowledged by pro-choice advocates). The majority opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey appears to me (untutored as I am in these matters) better argued.
Personhood theory may be many things but it certainly isn’t “arbitrary” – or at least it’s no more arbitrary than extending moral consideration to every single individual which happens to be a biological member of our species regardless of what individual traits they may possess (or fall short of). We intuitively understand that our moral duties to other creatures are somehow based on these creatures’ subjective experiences or on their ability to have these experiences. Personhood theory attempts to structure this intuitive understanding so that we stop expending moral energy on futile projects (attempting for instance to preserve or improve the lives of creatures who in reality have no mental lives capable of preservation or improvement) and own up to ethical responsibilities we might otherwise overlook (to other sentient animals for instance).
What is the intellectual alternative? A declaration by fiat that the unborn child is a person? That zygotes have human natures? Your perspective confuses things which will be with things which are. Saying a fetus is a person “who is not exercising his inherent personal capacities” is like saying an acorn is an oak tree which is not exercising its “treeness”.
The truth is much simpler. An acorn is a nut which may eventually become a tree. A zygote is a cell which may eventually become a person.
July 30th, 2010 | 7:32 pm
For those too thick-headed to understand simple concepts, and who ask dumb questions like: why is the delivered fetus (“a baby”) protected while its twin in the womb, only four inches away, isn’t? — the answer is: for the same reason that having sex with a 17 year-old one minute before midnight on the eve of her 18th birthday is statutory rape, but at 12:01am it becomes recreation.
July 30th, 2010 | 8:44 pm
HW, I don’t know asked it, but that wasn’t a dumb question, you gave a dumb answer. Pro-abortionist Peter Singer says pro-lifers are right that location doesn’t make a moral difference. Abortion philosophers have been arguing that the same personhood theory principles that you would use to deny the unborn the right to life and subject it to the violence of abortion apply to the newborn with infanticide. That’s not somethings pro-lifers made up. You can argue with Singer, Tooely, Warren et al and after you’ve told them they are a bunch of idiots, then come back to us. There’s no moral difference between a twin in utero delivered 5 minutes ago and one on the way getting her brains sucked out by partial birth abortion right now. I like your ethics. Kill her now and it’s called abortion. Kill her in 5 minutes and it’s called murder. Kill her over there and it’s called abortion, kill her 5 feet away and it’s murder.
July 30th, 2010 | 8:57 pm
HW, that wasn’t a dumb question (whoever asked it), it was a dumb answer. Abortion/personhood theorists philosophers like Peter Singer who say that location doesn’t make a moral difference. They would see no moral difference between the born twin and the twin still in utero being aborted 5 minutes later. They’d say the principles used to deny the unborn the right to life and subject them to abortion apply to infants and others who lack the same personhood criteria as others. So you can go argue with and Singer, Tooley et al they they are dumb and too thick headed. Then come back to us.
Your ethics go like this. Kill her right now and it’s called abortion. Kill her in 5 minutes and it’s called murder. Kill her right her and it’s abortion. Kill her a foot away and it’s murder. 5 minutes and a foot to make one a person and one not. Nice.
July 31st, 2010 | 1:17 am
Raven, I hope this works. I tried to include your text and then mine. Nice talking with you.
1. “My point about infanticide was that one may oppose it without believing the fetus has a “right to life”. One may accept the validity of “personhood theory” and still argue (with logical consistency) that killing infants would be a bad thing.”
Raven, I get that you say one can oppose killing infants and support personhood theory, but it’s inconsistent to argue personhood theory to deny the unborn the right to life and then grant a right to life to the new born or any other human being who lacks the same or much of the same criteria of personhood. It doesn’t feel good to have your views lead to infanticide. You know it’s intuitively wrong, but it’s arbitrary and inconsistent to apply it to the unborn and not newborns. I don’t like it, but the abortion philosophers who argue from personhood theory are consistent to support infanticide. It demands it. I think if you can’t live with the application of infanticide, it’s telling you something about the theory. Just an observation.
2.”A zygote is a single cell. Stating this fact may seem “demeaning” (to whom?) – but it is true nonetheless. Does a single cell or a ball of cells deserve the same degree of moral consideration as a fully conscious adult? My answer would be “obviously not”. Does a cell suffer? Does it have experiences? Is it a participant in the human experience? What in heaven’s name gives it a “right to life”? How can an unconscious cell have any “rights” at all? We may consider it important and full of potential but to say it has “rights” almost seems to make a mockery of the concept.”
I don’t think there’s anything “obviously not” here. It would harm a human being. The SCOTUS in Roe is wrong to say the unborn is a potential person. The unborn are persons with great potential. He or she may not have the capacity yet to feel pain or exhibit consciousness, but so what? I was unconscious during my hernia surgery, unconscious for three days when I fell of my roof when I was eleven. I couldn’t suffer. I couldn’t feel. To kill me then would not have made me suffer. I was just a bigger unconscious clump of cells. But my humanity protected me, not my potential ability to immediately return to consciousness. I suffered tremendously by waking up to that splitting headache (I landed on my head-which may explain some of my answers HW has no idea how think my head really is.) I was a human being then just as I was when I was a zygote. It’s part of my personal history. You are arguing there are human non persons, human beings who aren’t persons and human beings without human rights. Human beings are inherently personal and rational. Human rights are inherent. Personhood theory discriminates against unborn humans because they cannot function yet like a “person.” That’s arbitrary. So are the criteria for personhood theory. What are they? Where do they come from? And says who? Who the hell are the people who think they can impose them on other human beings? Who do they think they are? What’s so special about them except they have the power to do so?
“As you point out, most abortions are not about “cells” at all but involve beings which are morphologically recognisable as humans. Virtually all these beings are however completely unconscious and neurologically incapable of pain perception so the dismemberments and physical trauma cause no suffering of any kind to the fetus. This is important – because a lot of pro-life rhetoric casts these terminations as barbaric and evil procedures during which defenceless children are subjected to unimaginable torture. This is simply false.”
Well, you brought up the ball of cells, that’s why addressed it. Does pain have to be involved to be barbaric? Would we say dismemberment of an unconscious human being like I was would not be barbaric? It would still be horrifying just like killing the unborn by abortion. Many of the unborn do feel pain. Research shows that by at least 20 weeks there is considerable pain and at that at that 20 weeks they don’t have the capacity to modulate that pain. A study came out of the UK this month disputes that, but it is desperate and we have excellent testimony that abortion after 4.5 months is extremely painful. So by those criteria the UK is doing the right think trying to stop abortion after 20 weeks. They are doing that in Nebraska here. There are others who say pain comes on much earlier. But as I noted, the inability to feel pain and suffer doesn’t mean dismemberment is not barbaric.
“(3) My point about cardiac surgery and brain tumors was that more information does not necessarily lead to better decision making (especially when that “information” is intended to produce an emotional response). The state has no role in compelling doctors to perform ultrasounds before termination. It has no right to force women to view these scans. If these patients of their own free will decide to have these investigations done then similarly no obstacles should be placed in their path.
Well, we disagree, but I think we agree that women should have the right to information. I can’t tell if you think that abortionists should be required to tell them that such information exists as part of informed consent as I do.
I disagree about the role of our emotions in decision making. I think we ought to “listen to our emotions” only in the sense that our present and future emotional states are of paramount importance to us and we ought to give thought to how our decisions might affect these states i.e how our psychological health might be affected by our choices. Apart from that I feel emotions only cloud the decision making process. Men and women swayed by emotions tend to do things which work against their long term interests – would you say that a man who sees pictorial evidence of his wife’s infidelity is in a position to make better decisions about the future of their relationship than one who has only heard a verbal confession?”
Well, if the sight of men and women stacked like firewood, or the site of slaves crammed in like cattle and sardines on slave ships or being chained together and thrown overboard in the ocean doesn’t move one’s emotions and call out to the depths of someone and scream this is wrong, I think they’ve lost their humanity. It’s a natural human response and tells us something. Leon Kass says our sense of repugnance tells us something. Cutting off your emotions is necessary to enable the kind of cool calculated, complex reasoning that goes into depriving another person of his right to life and other inherent rights.
“Images never tell “the whole truth”. An image of a fetus’ torn body doesn’t say “This being felt no pain. This being did not suffer”. It suggests quite the opposite. An ultrasound scan which shows an image of a fetus withdrawing from a surgical probe does not say “this is a reflex reaction”. Images often lie and do so eloquently (as any photojournalist knows). They often mislead their viewers into believing they know what they are looking at when frequently they do not.”
Images don’t tell the whole truth, and they can lie, but images can and do tell the truth and they are legitimate and necessary. You’d have a tough time telling the arts community that written and verbal means are the only means of conveying truth or telling the whole truth. I think the fear of images says more about those that are afraid of them. Why do abortion advocates want to keep us from showing people images? Why do abortionists not want women to see the ultrasound? Abortions advocates are afraid of images-when used properly and counsel their advocates to never ever let us use them in a debate. We are a visual people and it connects. Or maybe they are just afraid that people who are too stupid to understand. My side is not afraid of the technological advances. The other side is. It shows who has the stronger case with the public. I suspect you would apply your argument against emotions and images to other issue advocacy groups like the animal rights advocates and not limit it to pro-life advocates.
“(4) As far as I know the fetus had never been regarded as a legal person either in US law or English common law prior to the 1970s. There were laws criminalising abortion but this was always an offence separate from murder. What they did have was a “born alive rule” according to which only infants born alive were considered persons (for statutes relating to assault and murder). This all changed after the Keeler case in California (the California Supreme Court, following long established tradition, dismissed a prosecution for murder on the basis that the fetus was not a human being in the eyes of the law) after which state legislatures began to enact fetal homicide laws. The legal prohibition of abortion prior to the 70s was never based on any claims about fetal personhood.
Once again, I may be wrong about this. I’m open to correction.
Blackmun’s arguments in Roe rest on very shaky legal ground (a fact freely acknowledged by pro-choice advocates). The majority opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey appears to me (untutored as I am in these matters) better argued.”
We’re in agreement on this. Scholars think the same and people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg would like to do away with Roe’s privacy argument (which is ludicrous-killing is not legitimate because it’s done in private) and put it on what she thinks is firmer ground and use the equal protection argument.
“Personhood theory may be many things but it certainly isn’t “arbitrary” – or at least it’s no more arbitrary than extending moral consideration to every single individual which happens to be a biological member of our species regardless of what individual traits they may possess (or fall short of). We intuitively understand that our moral duties to other creatures are somehow based on these creatures’ subjective experiences or on their ability to have these experiences. Personhood theory attempts to structure this intuitive understanding so that we stop expending moral energy on futile projects (attempting for instance to preserve or improve the lives of creatures who in reality have no mental lives capable of preservation or improvement) and own up to ethical responsibilities we might otherwise overlook (to other sentient animals for instance).
“What is the intellectual alternative? A declaration by fiat that the unborn child is a person? That zygotes have human natures? Your perspective confuses things which will be with things which are. Saying a fetus is a person “who is not exercising his inherent personal capacities” is like saying an acorn is an oak tree which is not exercising its “treeness”.
The truth is much simpler. An acorn is a nut which may eventually become a tree. A zygote is a cell which may eventually become a person.”
“Personhood theory is arbitrary. It says that some humans have a right to life and others don’t based on certain subjective criteria important to and chosen by whoever has the power to do so. It’s also bigoted. It arbitrarily excludes certain human beings who are not functioning as persons or exhibiting certain criteria valued by certain people who have the power to deny or affirm the right to life. The right to life is inherent. It’s a property of being human. It’s woven into the fabric of our being. Even at the one cell stage, the new human being is a human person because he or she has a human nature and humans are by nature personal beings. He or she will not change from one kind of being/entity into another. It’s impossible. They are human beings, just smaller and less developed. Just because they haven’t developed to the point where they can immediately exhibit these criteria or feel pain or suffer, doesn’t mean that they are any less a person or personal being than people in reversible comas who will wake up in 9 months or 18 months. That’s a far more objective ground that a bunch of bioethicists pretending to be lord over us and voting on who does and doesn’t have rights based on criteria important to them. You can’t get much more arbitrary than that. How elitist! My position grants it to every human being. No arbitrariness there on who has the right. Our humanness matters all the time.
As to the analogy of oaks and acorns. Of course acorns, seedlings and saplings have the nature of a tree. Acorns don’t have the potential nature of treeness any more than the unborn have a potential human nature. We may value a mature oak tree more than an acorn, or a seedling-all which are by nature oaks and possess the nature of being an oak, though at different stages of development. We may value the more mature oak because of certain characteristics we value or because it is pleasing to us. They have functional value or carry value for us. We value human beings because they are human beings and possess a human nature, not because they valuable to us.
Well Raven, it was nice talking to you. You said what I expected someone who knows personhood theorty to say. Good job of articulating your side. I don’t know what more we have to say that we have time for. I’ll give you the last word. Have a good day. We’ll see you around SHS.
July 31st, 2010 | 3:08 am
@ Wesley J Smith: Bonjour. Yes, Singer is a utilitarianist, but the utilitarian calculus takes into account the external conditions.
In Sparta, the conditions for raising a children were not the same that in France (ie: food and security are not a problem). So in Sparta it could be justified to let died the weakest born (raising them may have cause more suffering that leting them die), in france no (it may change soon but it is an other debat ;).
July 31st, 2010 | 3:26 am
The problem with Peter Singer’s views, vis a vis personhood, is its lack of internal consistency. He sets the criteria, then he doesn’t live up to the criteria. You don’t have to take my word it, Raven, in fact, you don’t even need to read his books, (although it’s a good idea to do so; I’ve only read his Practical Ethics), just look up his name on Wikapedia, and you’ll see the criteria, that he has, for personhood. True, Singer is not a child psychologist, but he must utilize the findings of child psychology, to have a properly formed moral philosophy. Any philosophical system, that does not take into account the findings of empirical science, is hardly credible. If he mistakenly thinks that rationality, self-consciousness, and autonomy, are reached, at one month, or one year, he has no accuse. He must be able to competently assess, even though he’s not a trained scientist, the scientific literature. It would be admirible if his “changing boundries” are a reflection of new findings in science. We all should do that. the problem is, his criteria (i.e.,rationality, self consciousness, and autonomy), are not, by any imaginative leap, supported by the latest research.
Self-consciousness, perhaps is, at one year, but what does one mean by that? Aware of self and environment, perhaps, but it’s certainly not the same “self-consciousnes”, as an older child, the latter is more sophisticated. Rationality? A one year old?! Autonomy? In what sense?
Even if he eventially makes these criteria internally consitent, there’s the question begging element: why should we accept the criteria? Are they self evident? Clearly not, since philosophers, as intelligent (or more so) reject them. So are they supported be legitimate reasons? If so, what are they?
I certainly want him to speak for himself. It’s immoral, and totally unhelpful, to create a straw Peter Singer. I totally agree with you, that you shouldn’t pass judgment, until you’ve read his work.
July 31st, 2010 | 7:32 am
Don Nelson,
Although (as you point out) JustChris’ question was far from stupid, HW’s answer wasn’t dumb either.
There is no philosophical difference between a girl who has just reached the age of consent and one who is five minutes from that landmark. Most of us however are quite willing to accept that they are in legally distinct categories and we don’t worry too much about logical inconsistency (any arguments which hold that an individual is psychologically incapable of consenting to sexual activity at any given time would apply just as strongly five minutes later).
The distinction between abortion and murder (for these borderline cases, at least) is similarly purely a legal one which rests on a “technicality”. Your point is that this legal distinction is not based on philosophical rigor. I agree. It’s based on a simple pragmatic requirement: We have to draw the line somewhere and birth is an excellent point at which to do it. It is entirely consistent with centuries of tradition and errs on the side of caution (something which cannot be said for later watersheds).
I know I have pointed this out before but I think it bears repeating: arguments against infanticide are not necessarily based on an infant’s right to life (so ones acceptance of personhood theory doesn’t mean we also accept Singer et al.’s views about killing infants – it just means that our objections to this practice are not based on any inherent rights possessed by the infants themselves).
July 31st, 2010 | 1:14 pm
Don Nelson:
(1) It’s inconsistent to argue personhood theory to deny the unborn the right to life and then grant a right to life to the new born or any other human being who lacks the same or much of the same criteria of personhood.
One doesn’t, in this case grant a right to life to the newborn. One simply argues that we have other reasons to protect it.
I don’t like it, but the abortion philosophers who argue from personhood theory are consistent to support infanticide. It demands it.
The “abortion philosophers” (as you call them) who argue from personhood theories generally agree that similar arguments apply to early infants though the social context is different. This is not synonymous with “supporting infanticide” (as I have tried to explain earlier).
(2) I was unconscious during my hernia surgery, unconscious for three days when I fell of my roof when I was eleven. I couldn’t suffer. I couldn’t feel. To kill me then would not have made me suffer.
We do not kill unconscious adults because there are conscious creatures who could find themselves in that situation and would rather we didn’t kill them. No conscious person could ever find himself in the position of being an unconscious fetus (it is a position which lacks a psychological history). There is no one to harm. There are no interests to disregard.
(3) Would we say dismemberment of an unconscious human being like I was would not be barbaric?
If this dismemberment were not a source of pleasure, or an end in itself but rather the inadvertent consequence of a legal procedure to which all involved parties consented and if this dismemberment were not meant to be broadcast to others as part of a misguided campaign of emotional terrorism then I would answer – No, it would not be barbaric.
Research shows that by at least 20 weeks there is considerable pain and at that at that 20 weeks they don’t have the capacity to modulate that pain.
On the contrary. Prior to about 24 weeks, fetuses are incapable of consciously perceiving pain. Studies have borne these findings out for years. They respond reflexly and hormonally to noxious stimuli but there is no conscious perception.
We have excellent testimony that abortion after 4.5 months is extremely painful.
A link or reference would be nice. The medical evidence has been reasonably consistent. Reflex responses, no evidence of conscious suffering.
Well, if the sight of men and women stacked like firewood, or the site of slaves crammed in like cattle and sardines on slave ships or being chained together and thrown overboard in the ocean doesn’t move one’s emotions and call out to the depths of someone and scream this is wrong.
I never said that we shouldn’t respond emotionally (it’s obviously an essential part of our humanity) – but we should resist the urge to privilege our emotional reactions during the decision making process. A rational course of action still remains rational even if the sudden prospect of it moves us to fear or anxiety and a sudden surge of righteous indignation doesn’t convert a bad idea into a good one.
Leon Kass says our sense of repugnance tells us something.
I agree. Someone famous said “woe to those who have lost their capacity to shudder” – but we should remember that this sense of repugnance is not necessarily a rational response. Some children recoil from those with ugly faces. Are the less attractive then to be judged as less virtuous or less deserving of love? Do we ban all medical procedures which we find uncomfortable to watch?
You’d have a tough time telling the arts community that written and verbal means are the only means of conveying truth or telling the whole truth. I think the fear of images says more about those that are afraid of them.
I never said images weren’t useful. I just said they weren’t the absolute gold standard of impartial truth. No one should be prevented from seeing these images – but no one should be forced to see them. I’m sure there are many people who would rather not have pictures of gruesome surgical procedures shoved in their faces (as they attempt to decide whether or not to go through with them). Is there a sinister agenda involved? Hardly.
I suspect you would apply your argument against emotions and images to other issue advocacy groups like the animal rights advocates and not limit it to pro-life advocates.
Yes, I would. If the image doesn’t convey essential information which actually aids the rational process of decision making I would say that no-one has a right to this sort of emotional terrorism.
Personhood theory is arbitrary. It says that some humans have a right to life and others don’t based on certain subjective criteria important to and chosen by whoever has the power to do so
No more arbitrary than your position. The personhood theorist selects a certain criterion or group of criteria and applies them consistently. You select the equally arbitrary criterion of genetic humanity (pray, why should that matter?) and apply that consistently. You exclude sentient cows and our friendly neighbourhood personhood theorist has his own slate of exceptions (depending on his initial criteria).
Good job of articulating your side
I don’t have a “side” at all. We agree about certain things and disagree about others. I don’t even subscribe to any “personhood theories” myself, having no real use for the philosophical (as opposed to the purely legal) concept.
July 31st, 2010 | 4:50 pm
“Fetal personhood never played a role in anti-abortion laws until the zealots cooked up that concept after they lost in Roe v. Wade”
Actually Horatio Storer and his collegues argued for the personhood of pre-born babies in the 1860s.
July 31st, 2010 | 4:51 pm
Bret,
Even if Singer were confused and inconsistent about when a child becomes autonomous, self-conscious or rational, this wouldn’t mean that the philosophical system he’s attempting to apply is itself inconsistent (because, as I’ve said earlier, those are not philosophical questions). As it is, my guess is that you may be using your own definitions of those terms rather than Singer’s. A one year old, for instance, is perfectly self-aware. You might argue that an older child has a more sophisticated self-consciousness but all we are looking for is the presence of the trait (and not its degree of complexity). Similarly with autonomy and rationality.
[By the way do these watersheds represent when a child becomes a "person" or when it ought to be legally impermissible to kill one? If it's the latter we would expect the boundary to err on the side of ethical caution]
Why select these criteria (rather than others)? This process of criteria selection is itself an attempt to define personhood – an attempt to pin down a concept in order that it might better serve a certain function in intellectual discourse, public policy or interpersonal relations. Other philosophers may disagree but this disagreement would be based on the claim that the proposed criteria are incoherent, redundant or simply not useful – and not on the claim that they are wrong.
There is no independent idea of “personhood” apart from our attempts at establishing criteria for it. We agree that “persons” have rights. They should be treated as ends in themselves not as means to other people’s ends. But we can’t, for the life of us, agree on what actually a “person” is. (hence the futile arguments about whether a zygote, fetus or infant could be so described). Empirical science sheds no light on the central problem. Although it may help us establish if our criteria have been met (i.e if the creature is human or conscious or capable of suffering) it is unable to suggest which criteria we ought to choose in the first place.
Is Singer philosophically consistent? I have seen no evidence suggesting he isn’t. His personhood criteria are arbitrary but this arbitrariness is inevitable. His “permissible killing” boundaries have supposedly shifted but the relevant criteria and underlying logic of the argument remain unchanged.
The truth is, I should probably have looked for Singer’s own justification for this “shifting of the goalposts” (he’s proven more than capable of defending his positions with incapable logic). Is there a link to any document in which he actually “redraws the lines”? (I’m afraid my Google-fu has failed me on this occasion).
July 31st, 2010 | 4:55 pm
The phrase in the last paragraph was meant to read “impeccable logic”. Freudian slip?
July 31st, 2010 | 5:18 pm
With respect, Raven, you cannot possibly be serious, can you, when you assert that you “don’t have a side”? One thing I’ve always admired about you, despite my profound disagreements, is your honesty. this statement is uncharacteristically disingenuous.
Your, “side”, is clearly “pro-choice”, which I diagree with, and do not believe is philosophically coherent, but why be ashamed of it?
July 31st, 2010 | 7:40 pm
Raven, thank you, for your response. I don’t, unfortunately, have a link. I think that Wesley might, regarding Singer’s change. He mentioned that Singer has changed his position, from one month, to one year, when personhood is reached, but he (Wesley) has not said, yet, where he obtained this information.
I want to apologize, for saying in my last comments, that you had been “disingenuous”, regarding your position. That was unfair. I disagree, with you, when you say you have no position, on these issues, which is how I should have said it. I’ve always admired your honesty, and intelligence.
I think that you’re correct, that a one year old is self aware. But the problem with Singer’s other criteria (rationality, autonomy), seem to remain. If by rational, one means, one can fully anticipate the consequences of one’s actions, and delay gratification, that does not seem to arise until one is around eighteen, or older. If one means, by rationality, the ability to syollogistically reason, that comes in the early to mid teens.
If one means by “autonomy”, the ability to live on one’s own, away from one’s parents, that’s about age eighteen. if it means, developing one’s own opinions regarding philosophy, religion, politics, etc., that varies, but early teens is about right.
So, Singer must, in my view, specify what precisely he means by these terms, and maybe he has.
If my analysis of his position is correct, then Singer is philosophically inconsistent. I just don’t see how he escapes this, if his criteria, for personhood have no rational basis.
These criteria need to have a direct relevance to the moral claims, that are supposedly derived from it. Ideally, if he could start with self evident premises, then derive either reasons from that, that could then be the premises to support his moral conclusions, or derive his moral conclusions directly from his self evident premises, he would have a legitimate moral theory. But I doubt that he can. But that’s not specifically his fault. Moral theory, may be inherently ambiguous, to some extent. It’s (moral theory) in an analogous position, to some of the “softer” sciences, like sociology, or pshychology, whereas, logic, is in aposition analogous to physics, a “harder” science.
Singer is a utilitarian, therefore, he would not agree that persons have “rights”, anyone is expendible, if it creates greater happiness, or pleasure, overall, and he would disagree with the Kantian, deontological notion that, people should never be treated as mere “means”, but as ends.
Maybe with your possible “Freudian slip”, you’re showing that you’re certainly not “incapable”, of seeing the flaws in Singer?
August 1st, 2010 | 2:41 am
Bret:
My comment about not having a “side” might appear ludicrous on the face of it but I’ll try to (briefly) justify it.
Most of my apparently “pro-choice” contributions are actually arguments against (what I consider to be) the implausibility or inconsistency of specific pro-life arguments (“a single celled human inherently deserves moral consideration”, “early fetuses feel pain”, etc).
Politically, I am only marginally pro-choice (it is, of course, possible to believe in the moral permissibility of abortion while being pro-life i.e to insist that there are pragmatic reasons to consistently oppose it). There are lots of pro-choice arguments I disagree with – I’m just never given the opportunity to express them. If this were a different forum (if it were, for instance, devoted to promoting abortion rights) I might well come across as mildly pro-life or at least as having nascent tendencies in that direction. (I once had a friend who for months assumed I was a Christian fundamentalist because I so consistently opposed his “village atheism”).
Choosing “sides” reduces what ought to be a very nuanced discussion which may be approached from several different perspectives to a Red Team vs Blue Team conflict. It might be useful when counting votes for and against a specific proposition but in general philosophical debate it’s something which should be avoided.
August 1st, 2010 | 4:00 am
Bret:
Finally found a relevant video clip (didn’t take much searching actually.) – The relevant section begins about six and half minutes into it.
Singer has changed his mind. His position is now that it’s not really possible to draw a rigid cut-off point and that even if we did so it would have to be as soon as possible after birth and at a time when the child clearly isn’t self aware. A child might possibly achieve personhood (as defined by Singer’s criteria) towards the end of its first year of life (or later) but it is simply impossible, as a matter of policy, to legally sanction killing at this time.
Utilitarians do not dispense with the need for rights. They just regard them as something we ascribe to creatures for utilitarian reasons rather than as something these creatures inherently possess. It serves no utilitarian purpose to explicitly regard everyone as “expendable” (it does not create a greater degree of happiness overall).
Singer would agree that people should be treated as ends in themselves precisely because that stance serves a utilitarian purpose (our avowed commitment to treating people this way works out to increase the sum of human happiness).
[btw, I think the "disingenuous" remark was justified under the circumstances. No offence taken]
August 1st, 2010 | 2:06 pm
HistoryWriter: Steinberg was decided in 1970. Roe in 1973. In fact, Roe cites Steinberg, but ignores the portion I cite in my article. So, if what you say is true, Roe is a prophetic document, citing a case that is found in the future.
My article is pretty much chapter 2 of Defending Life, which was anonymously peer reviewed by three outside referees before I was offered a contract by Cambridge University Press. So, yes, law reviews are edited by students. But the article in question was subsequently peer-reviewed by scholars when it became a chapter in my manuscript.
You are correct, I am not a lawyer. But I am a philosopher (Ph.D., Fordham) with a graduate degree in law (M.J.S., Wash. U. in St. Louis), the latter for which I won the best student award for Reproductive Control Seminar. So, I know a bit about arguments and the abortion debate. But having said that, it’s all irrelevant to the quality of my arguments, since the soundness and strengths of arguments is not a matter of authority–as if these things are decided by the fiat of magisterium. So, if you think my arguments weak, critique them. But critiquing me as a person–no matter how fun it is in the unaccountable blogosphere–is just mental masturbation for people who can’t get an intellectual date.
August 1st, 2010 | 6:20 pm
Thanks, Raven, for your clarification. Singer seems to have developed a failure of nerve, on this issue. After all, if he really believes that personhood is reached at one year, then he should fight to convince people to adopt his position, of alowwing “permissible killing” up to one year. He’s certainly no shrinking violet, when it comes to stating moral philosophy, the way he sees it. If he really believes that personhood is not reached until one year, isn’t he being immoral, based on his own standard,by not fighting to have his view implemented into law? Granted, he would have a huge fight, but, his personality seems to be one who hardly shrinks from a fight.
But the point about him being immoral (not in my view, but from his own standpoint), is that, he’s not fighting to get passed laws that reflect his moral views, which would mean forcing people to care for nonpersons up to one year! How could that help with their happiness?!
August 1st, 2010 | 7:52 pm
You’re right, Raven, that Singer believes that “rights” are useful, and that people are not “expendible”, but, as you state, ONLY because he thinks that discounting rights, and believing that people are expendible, will not result in fulfilling the utilitarian criteria, of greater happiness, for the greater number of people. If or when, “rights” interfere with utilitarianism, they clearly must be discarded, and people must be eliminated, IF they interfere with the greatest “good” or “happiness” of the greatest number of people, or more precisely, the greatest good/happiness of the greatest number of conscious beings. He does not believe that rights are “real”, but serve useful functions, toward achieving, what, in his mind, in the greatest ethical, of most reasonable ethical system, utilitarianism. He agrees (although, in my mind, he’s not anywhere near as great a thinker as Bentham) with his intellectual ancester/mentor Jeremy Bentham, that, rights, are “nonsense on stilts”.
August 1st, 2010 | 11:24 pm
Raven,
Thanks for the conversation. It was fun. Everyone’s right to life is undermined by the notion/idea that there are some human beings without human rights and that there is some sort of checklist to be completed to become a human being. That is why the argument that human value is determined by the immediate possession or expression of certain characteristics is dangerous to universal human rights.
In regards to your comments yesterday, you said “On the contrary. Prior to about 24 weeks, fetuses are incapable of consciously perceiving pain. Studies have borne these findings out for years. They respond reflexly and hormonally to noxious stimuli but there is no conscious perception….A link or reference would be nice. The medical evidence has been reasonably consistent. Reflex responses, no evidence of conscious suffering.”
It’s hard to follow every study, but I think the research that says there’s no pain until 24 weeks is as consistent as June or July 2010. I think it’s the only study that has come on my radar in the last 5 or 6 years. Neurologist and expert fetal pain witness Dr. Paul Ranilli says The RCOG said in a previous study that it was 26 weeks. A big news making JAMA study said 29 weeks several years ago when another pain bill was being discussed. And recently ACOG dismisses the possibility. The current UK study says 24 weeks, but it ignores expert testimony like Dr. Anand and others that says it’s at 20 weeks. http://www.physiciansforlife.ca/html/life/abortion/articles/RanalliResponsetoRCOG.html There may be more I’m unaware of, but those have been the big studies I’ve seen make the news. I don’t miss too many of them. I would note also that the unborn’s reflex reaction doesn’t prove the unborn can’t experience or feel pain any more than adult reflexes to painful stimuli mean we can’t experience or feel it. Rinalli says there’s quite a bit of evidence that the unborn does. National Right to Life has preserved the expert testimony of Dr. Anand at http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/fetal_pain/AnandPainReport.pdf. An MD told me we would not do surgery on a premie born around 22 weeks without anesthesia? That would be considered barbaric. We wouldn’t think the unborn in the womb at the same age would feel any less pain.
Second, what are the centuries of tradition that says, at least in America, that birth is an excellent point to draw the line on killing. We do have the Born Alive Infants Protection laws, but those are recent. There must be something you mean that I don’t get. Roe was a radical departure from American law and tradition on abortion. Roe threw out laws in all 50 states. Before Roe, you could lose your medical license, be fined or go to jail for doing an abortion and you would be ostracized. Doctors back in the mid 19th century were worried that they were only prosecuting abortion laws because of harm to the mother and they wanted it clear that the real harm was to the child. Doctors and some laws were calling it murder. And then there’s the unborn fetal homicide protections in the states and at the federal level, viz Scot Peterson in jail in CA for killing his unborn son in addition to his wife Laci. I think that if the mother hadn’t died or been injured, he’d still be in jail for murdering his unborn son Connor. I think the word murder is right. Americans support these unborn victims of violence laws like this by vast majorities. http://www.nrlc.org/Unborn_Victims/UnbornPolls110703.html
It sure seems that in western tradition that we’ve had quite a lengthy history and legal tradition which says that birth is not an excellent place to draw the line.
Have a good day. See you around SHS.
August 2nd, 2010 | 2:26 am
Don Nelson:
The fetal pain claim is based on the neurological fact that fetal thalamocortical tracts (required to bring pain to consciousness) are not developed prior to the 24th week. This is not something which was discovered in the last few years. It means, basically, that whatever you might want to believe, fetuses prior to 24 weeks are neurologically incapable of conscious pain perception though they may react to noxious stimuli in a reflex manner.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2352185/
[and btw, "expert testimony" is more convincing if it's published either by a professional body or in a peer-reviewed journal]
And the claim wasn’t “birth has traditionally been an acceptable point to draw the line of killing” but “birth has traditionally (up until the 70s) been an acceptable point to draw the line on personhood“. The first claim is (obviously) false. The second is true.
August 2nd, 2010 | 11:54 am
Bret,
Singer has never said that we ought to summarily kill all non-persons or that all non-persons ought to be devoid of legal protection. That is not his moral view (and I am prepared to speak more firmly having recently acquired a copy of Practical Ethics and listened to several Singer interviews).
As I’ve pointed out before, while the decision about where to place the dividing line as to who may legally be killed is affected by our conclusions about personhood, that decision is not completely determined by our conclusions. There are other relevant factors to consider. Our boundaries of legal protection will never completely coincide with our personhood boundaries because (1) killing non-persons might be undesirable for other reasons and (2) we should always err on the side of caution.
What are those other reasons for not extending the window of “permissible killing”? It turns out that Singer refers to precisely the factors I earlier accused him of ignoring. Parents bond to infants – our feelings about them, their place in our families and societies is not strictly bound up in their being (or not being) persons. It would not be in a our best interests (it would not be a utilitarian good) to declare “open season” on infant non-persons. Singer is a much more nuanced and thorough thinker than you give him credit for.
The problem with your criticism of the utilitarian perspective is that you think of it through the lens of the primitive utilitarian calculus proposed by Bentham. Most contemporary utilitarian philosophers do not think in terms of whether an act will directly result in “the greatest good/happiness of the greatest number of beings”. What we ought to focus on are the ultimate consequences of the act as far as we are able to determine them. It might serve the short-term interests of the majority to murder the individuals in the minority and parcel out their possessions but the long term consequences of establishing this precedent are detrimental to the interests of the majority.
The power of the utilitarian perspective is that it seeks to make us realise that “good” and “evil” ultimately are or at least ought to be about the well-being of conscious beings. If an action or principle results in greater suffering all things considered then it is meaningless to call that act “good”.
The goal being pursued is not “utilitarianism” (in the sense of the doctrine in itself) but the reduction of conscious suffering and the promotion of happiness (broadly defined). To illustrate how much of a difference this makes, we’ll rephrase one of your earlier sentences:
August 3rd, 2010 | 7:15 pm
Thanks for your thoughts, Raven, they’re helpful to the discussion.
I think, unless you can provide evidence to the contrary, that Singer believes that there’s no RATIONAL reason to be believe that newborns should be protected, in the sense that they possess anything intrinsically worthwhile. you’re certainly right, that he believes that other factors, such as, parental bonding, or other deliterious affects on society, would prevent us from having “open season” on infants. I’ve never claimed that he implied otherwise. I propbably should have been clearer, about his nuances, but i’ve always realized that one cannot simplistically characterize his views.
My point is, that I think he does not believe that infants possess any intrinsic worth. Their moral worth, in his eyes, derives entirely from the love their parents, or other caretakers have for them, or from the ultimate negative affects, the widespread belief that these infants NOT having moral worth would have. In other words, he’s calculated, that, if, at this time, we adopted the notion, that infants could be killed, then there might be unintended consequences, for society, that would be so negative, that it would result in more unhappiness, than happiness, for more people, resulting in immorality (obviously, according to his utilitarian calculus).
However, I think that he believes that such “love” for infants is irrational, and it’s his job to educate people, of the error of their simplistic views here. Iff I’m wrong here, please let me know, I don’t want to mischaracterize his motives and views. He is an intelligent, and, indeed, subtle thinker. But I don’t think he’s anywhere as great a thinker as Jeremy Bentham or John Stuart Mill. I said that Bentham was Singer’s intellectual mentor and ancestor. I did not say that Singer parroted Bentham’s views. Obviously, Singer has his own distinctive utilitarianism. By the way, I think Mill is a much greater thinker than either Bentham or Singer, But Bentham is greater than Singer.
Singer’s belief in “rights” exists only in the sense that they further the utilitarian goal, of the greater good. He will toss human, and animal rights to further this end. An example of the latter, is his willingness to take highly intelligent monkeys, and use, them for medical research purposes. The individual monkeys mean nothing to him, sense no individual monkey’s life has bearing on the utilitarian calculus. Utilitarianism, believes individual lives are irrelevant, and expendible, because it’s the GROUP that has more relevance.
Similarly, if an infant, regardless or whether it’s a “person” or not, that is abandoned, no parent want it, could, in his eyes, be experimented on, for the greater good. Now, it shouldn’t be, if this would cause society to be so horrified, that more harm than good would result, but if the latter wasn’t a factor, then the experimentation, should proceed. And, again if I’m wrong, show me, but I think that he believes that it’s his “duty” (for lack of a better word, sorry, I realize its deontological implications) to educate people of the “irrational” nature of their fears, so we can utilize these infants for our greater good.
There is a profound arrogance, in all of this, I must, frankly, state. We need, I believe, some real humility in morals. Although i’m INCLINED toward a deontological approach to ethics, I’m not inextricably bound, to it. I recognize, in myself, and humans generally, or for the mst part, the STRONG emotional aspect to morality, and i have not, to my own satisfaction, devised a coherent moral system that incorporates reason and morality, properly. So I use both. I’m highly suspicious of utilitarianism, because it views humans, and other as mere ends. But there are elements to dentological accounts, that make me cringe too. Kant’s theory, to be applied consistently, could result in some things that could be horrible too, such as NEVER lying, etc.
August 4th, 2010 | 11:51 am
Bret,
A commitment to “rights” even if these rights are detrimental to our well-being is like a commitment to “life” even if the living are condemned to eternal suffering. It is as mistaken as a commitment to honesty which deludes us into telling a potential murderer where his victim is hiding or into confessing to the officer from the Gestapo that we are in fact hiding a half-dozen Jews under the floor-boards (a perversion of ethics to which you allude in your last sentence).
Even Jesus realised that laws are made for man (and not the other way round). Sometimes it is necessary to flout a regulation to achieve a regulation’s objective. Our deontological “rules of thumb” exist to make our lives better (in the Grand Scheme of Things). Following them blindly does not achieve this objective.
When making ethical decisions we cannot ignore our emotions or discard our moral intuitions – but unless we have a rational basis for privileging those intuitions (for believing that they, rather than resulting from the somewhat less than omniscient process of natural selection, represent something true and enduring about the universe) we are duty-bound to engage in this intellectual process of ethical calculation. It’s messy – but it has to be done.
When faced with questions such as “do the interests of the many trump the interests of the few” the true utilitarian is bound to answer in the affirmative. For utilitarianism’s critics this answer is condemnation enough – though such critics often fail to realise how broadly “the interest of the many” may be interpreted and how rarely, if ever, those interests are served by these imagined tyrannies. Groups are important only because they consist of individuals. Individual lives are never irrelevant.
You speak of Singer approving of scientific experimentation on infants if it would serve the greater good. I would also approve of such experimentation if (and here’s the rub) it would actually, all things considered, improve our well-being. But the simple fact is I cannot even imagine any circumstances under which this sort of grotesquery would be remotely in our interests. If it were in my own interests to gouge out my eyeballs and break off my toes I would gladly do so – but these mutilations are unlikely to ever work towards my long-term well-being.
Love for infants is like almost all love (non-rational in that it is never purely based on an intellectual assessment of the relative merits or demerits of the object of affection). I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Singer feels it is his duty to educate people about the “error” of their simplistic views here (people will go on loving babies regardless) but he does seek to remind us that it is important not to allow our emotions to overly cloud rational decision making (to use an example he cites, to accord babies greater moral status because they are “cute and cuddly” would be akin to privileging baby seals over adult gorillas for similar reasons).
I am struck by the impression that you seem to have taken away from Singer’s work. You seem to think (and correct me if I’m wrong) that his take home message is that we (or a limited subsection of us) have only instrumental value. We may be used with impunity if this serves “the greater good”.
Now this may be technically correct but I come away from Singer with almost the opposite impression. If I were to condense Singer to a single tweet it would be “reduce suffering, avoid speciesism, do not treat persons instrumentally”. He insists that preferences of all persons are important (and in this he explicitly distances himself from the classic utilitarians Bentham and John Stuart Mill) – we may not use any conscious beings instrumentally (even if those conscious beings are animal non-persons) unless there are clear over-riding reasons to do so (if, for instance, we have to torture someone to reveal the location of a city-destroying bomb). With regards to infants I am struck not so much by the fact that he feels that parents and doctors in consultation (and in the period immediately following birth) ought to have the legal option to painlessly kill infants whose lives are expected to result in undue suffering – I am rather struck by his insistence that nonhuman animals with similar levels of cognitive development ought to be accorded similar degrees of moral consideration.
Singer suffers from the fact that discussions about him have been framed by the conservative press. Prior to his arrival at Princeton he was the “philosopher of animal rights”. After the bloggers and journalists were done with him he became the “advocate of infanticide and involuntary euthanasia“. Aristotle and Plato but felt that the state ought to actively encourage the termination of deformed infants (several steps further than Singer’s position) but when one thinks about evaluating Aristotelian or Platonic philosophy we wouldn’t dream of assessing them based on this single issue.
We agree that Singer’s pales into insignificance beside those luminaries but though you clearly disagree with his philosophical conclusions and with his premises, you are yet to demonstrate his inconsistency in deriving the former from the latter. He is, as I have repeatedly insisted logically consistent. He may not be as seminal a thinker as Bentham or Stuart Mill but he has the advantage of having read them – of creating a more satisfying philosophical system simply because he finds himself in a position of greater historical privilege.
August 4th, 2010 | 8:02 pm
Raven,
I guess I could say the same thing. There is testimony and studies and evidence and that says that the unborn can feel pain before 20 weeks without the thalamocortical tract and that this has been known for some time too. This study, http://anes-som.ucsd.edu/VP%20Articles/Topic%20C.%20Anand.pdf which includes Dr. Anand, a fetal pain expert, also indicates to me in the conclusion that the physical-biological-chemical responses that occur with emotional responses to pain in adults are present in the unborn prior to a cortical connection. So we have studies against studies and have to see which one explains the other’s faults best.
But, I don’t think pain sensation before the thalamocortical tract matures would matter at the end of the day to the people in the study you cite because their fallback position is that until you are born, you can’t feel pain or know what it means. “The fact that the cortex can receive and process sensory inputs from 24 weeks is only the beginning of the story and does not necessarily mean that the fetus is aware of pain or know it is in pain. It is only after birth, when the development, organisation and reorganisation of the cortex occurs in relation to the action and reaction of the neonate [newborn] and infant to a world of meaning and symbols, that the cortex can be assumed to have mature features … . Thus, there is good evidence for claiming that the cortex is necessary for pain experience but not sufficient.” In other words, “Even if we are wrong that this mechanism is necessary to feel pain, it wouldn’t mean they can experience it anyway if there were other mechanism of sensing pain.” I suspect this means that the premie born at 25 weeks experiences real pain while his older cousin still in the womb about to be born doesn’t.
Not only that, it also sounds like an unintentional argument for infanticide to me if not understanding, knowing pain is an argument against personhood and as a result for being able to dispose of the unborn with impunity. From the comment above, it sounds to me like the 20 week old is not that much different at the end of the day than the infant who is said to not be aware of pain, or know he or she is in pain due to their lack of familiarity-interaction with the world of meaning and symbols. This same criteria that allows us to kill the unborn can be used to kill newborns.
If the findings in the article linked above and others and other testimony is true, abortion at and after 20 weeks is as horrifying as was testified to in the partial birth abortion trials and hearings in the United States and those who take a paineance view of rights that go with personhood should move that it be banned immediately.
August 5th, 2010 | 1:54 am
Raven, thanks for your, as always, thought provocing comments.
You state that you cannot think of any “good” that would come from experimenting on infants. From a utilitarian perspective, much good could come from it. We could come up with ways of fighting human disease, utilizing human models. We’re reduced, currently, to using animal models, and as good as they are, they’re necessarily deficient, since they’re not the same species. Think of all of the treatments, that could be deviced, from using infants? With all due respect, what on earth do you mean, that you cannot think of any good, that could be derived from infant experimentation?
I think Singer’s view is this. determine whether a being fits the rational criteria, that he has devised, for personhood, and if it meets it, then it can be part of his utilitarian scheme. That is, once it’s a person, then, it can be counted as one, and only one, in the utilitarian calculation. It’s life, in and of itself, is meaningless. So it has NO intrinstic worth, on its own. It has worth, but only in that it counts as one of the MANY, that will determine the utilitarian outcome. Therefore, in his view, it has instramental value. Why is this so hard to accept? He’s not a believer in rights.
An analogy is as follows: One vote, counts for nothing. But the majority of votes, does matter.
I never meant that Singer’s intention was to change human nature. As you point out, who could do that? My point was, he obviously, wants to convince people, using rational arguments, that babies are not persons, and elderly people, suffering from certain stages of dementia are not persons, even though, we will obviously have certain sentiments, bestowed by nature for them.
With respect, I think you’re quite wrong to state that Singer is different from, at least Bentham. Bentham believed that all creatures, capable of experiencing ain/pleasure, should be part of the utilitarian calculus.
I have nowhere, heard or seen, and perhaps you can correct me, Singer renounce his criteria for personhood, being 1) rationality 2) self consciousness 3) autonomy. If he has, please point me to the source. As far as I know, he still believes newborns don’t fit his personhood criteria, therefore, they have no right to life. He may currently be against killing them, in that this would upset most of the population, and therefore be immoral, because it would create greater unhappiness than happiness. That’s why he needs to convince people that society would be better off discarding such notions, based more on the Judeo/christian notions, than rational arguments.
True, some on the conservative side , have been unfair to Singer. But Singer has stated that his goal, is to overturn the Judeo/Christian view of morality. That, understandably, puts people on the defensive. I’m content to let singer speak for himself.
He’s obviously not a bad man. He’s well intentioned (very wrong, in my view, but means well).
But his views seem unlivible. He spent a considerable amount of money on the nursing home care of his mother, who was a victim of Alzheimer’s disease. Acoording to his views on personhood, and utilitarianism, he should have spent the money helping others. when the advocate, or creator, of a moral system, cannot even live by the tenets of his system, there’s a real flaw, I think in his system.
August 5th, 2010 | 2:17 am
Don Nelson,
The article you link to doesn’t state that the fetus can “feel” pain prior to 20 weeks – it rather states that they “respond” to noxious stimuli and that these stimuli may induce adverse long-term neurological changes even if they do not rise to consciousness. This also has been known for a while (though more recent reviews question the significance of these effects) and is the reason for administering fetal anaesthesia prior to some fetal surgery. The fetus responds (hormonally and neurologically) to nociceptive stimuli but if the thalamocortical tracts are undeveloped (virtually all experts agree) these feelings never rise to consciousness.
When we approach scientific research there’s a tendency to select only those findings which support our preconceptions (or our strongly held beliefs). This is a tendency we all have to resist. Single papers prove nothing (apart from the fact that the case they present was coherent and plausible enough to get published in a peer-reviewed journal). It is more important to find out, if we are able, where the scientific consensus lies – what most qualified experts have come to believe after reviewing all the evidence and reading all the papers. The RCOG report was just such a paper, commissioned to provide a confused public with clear unambiguous statements about the present scientific position.
And yes, it is also thought that the fetus is either partially or completely sedated by the intra-uterine environment. Once again this might not be something you want to believe but it faithfully represents the scientific research. It has not been made up out of whole cloth to make abortions more acceptable.
August 5th, 2010 | 2:22 am
With respect, Raven, I disagree. I have shown Singer’s logical inconsitency. He argues that personhood, is what a being must have, in order to not be killed. Personhood is a reflection of self-consciousness, rationality, and autonomy. He then says an infant can, either be killed prior to one month, or prior to one year, depending on one’s source. Rationality, and autonomy are not reached, at either one month, or one year. But Singer does not, advocate killing humans older than this, which if he did, would make him consistent, since rationality, and autonomy, arrive much later. So he’s internally illogical, with repect to his own criteria.
If he’s changed his mind, please give me the source, so I can see, in his own words, why he changed his mind, and what his current views are, if he’s changed.
If he hasn’t, I stand by my original assessment.
With respect to Plato and Aristotle, yes they advocated infanticide, like Singer (did? does?). True, Singer should be assessed on more than just this, as the venerable Plato and Aristotle have been, with regard to their systems.
August 5th, 2010 | 11:19 am
Bret,
He argues that personhood, is what a being must have, in order to not be killed.
Not accurate. Personhood is not the only reason for legal protection.
He then says an infant can, either be killed prior to one month, or prior to one year, depending on one’s source.
He (20 years ago) felt that 28 days would be a suitable boundary. He now feels the “window” should be much narrower – that the decision should be made close to the time of birth. I don’t know where the claim about “one year” comes from. These however, as I have pointed out several times, are not philosophical claims.
Singer does not, advocate killing humans older than this, which if he did, would make him consistent, since rationality, and autonomy, arrive much later. So he’s internally illogical, with repect to his own criteria.
Personhood is only one criterion when making the decision about who ought to be legally protected. There is no inconsistency.
If he’s changed his mind, please give me the source, so I can see, in his own words, why he changed his mind, and what his current views are, if he’s changed.
He expresses his current views on infanticide (and how they’ve changed) in this video I linked to previously. (start from about 5:30).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bi81JcddWc
The underlying philosophical principle remains unchanged. He just has a different perspective on how these principles are to be practically expressed in the real world.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Raven: I wrote about Singer’s more expansive view on when infanticide can take place in Culture of Death. He told an interviewer when coming to Princeton “Babies become persons when they develop some kind of awareness of themselves as existing over time. That is, when they can grasp that they are the same being who existed previously and who may exist in the future. As for saying exactly when that happens, I can’t. I don’t think anyone can. Though I would say it happens sometime during the first year of life but not in the first month of life. That’s why I’ve suggested putting a clear boundary on the time within which it is justifiable to kill a severely disabled infant. At one point I suggested a 28-day boundary. But I no longer think that that will work. It’s too arbitrary. I don’t think you would get people to recognize that there’s a big difference in the wrongfulness of killing a being at 27 or 29 days. So what do you do? I think you need to look at it on a case-by-case basis given the seriousness of the problems and balance that against the age of the child.” and thus the case by case approach could lead to killing a child within that first year parameter. Source: Kathryn Federici Greenwood, “Dangerous Words” Princeton Alumni Weekly, 26, Jan 2000. http://www.princeton.edu/~paw/archive_old/PAW99-00/08-0126/0126feat.html#story1
August 5th, 2010 | 11:49 am
Bret,
I didn’t say I couldn’t think of “any” good that could be derived from experimenting on infants – I said I couldn’t see how it could have good consequences, all things considered. This goes to the heart of your problems with utilitarianism: You have a rather limited conception of the utilitarian calculus (and by “limited” I mean that you narrow the scope of consequences being considered). Some good might result from the experimentation on defenceless infants but a great deal of harm would result as well (its effects on society as a whole). These effects are part of the calculus. Torturing an infant in the interests of science would only be a utilitarian good if the scientific benefits of choosing this test subject as opposed to others less fraught with moral consideration outweighed the societal harms (and I honestly cannot see how this could be possible).
Most of your criticisms of Singer have been directly address by the man himself, repeatedly in interviews and in his books (I think he makes some statements about his mother in the subsequent parts of the interview I linked to). He has never said that we ought to kill everyone with Alzheimer’s or euthanize all non-persons. He simply asserts that if we do choose to keep humans who fail to meet the personhood criteria alive it should not be because we claim they have a right to life. As he states during the interview, it is as illogical to criticise him for keeping not killing his mother as it would be to criticise him for buying a new watch. In both cases he performs an action which he was not morally compelled to simply because it gives him pleasure. There is no ethical compulsion to buy watches (or any other luxury item) but this in itself is no reason to dissuade people from doing so.
My respectful suggestion, Bret, is that you read his books again. Several objections you raise are directly addressed and there won’t be any issue of his ideas being misrepresented (by myself or anyone else). Or failing that a quick re-viewing of the more longer Singer interviews and lectures on youtube should serve to straighten out what appear from my perspective to be the misconceptions you have about his work.
August 5th, 2010 | 2:42 pm
Thanks Wesley for the clarification. It appears that, if anything, you have been kind to Mr Singer. A “case-by-case” analysis actually means that rigid cutoffs are completely discarded. The “average” child might (by Singer’s estimation) meet his personhood criteria towards the end of the first year but there will be many who will not. Singer is basically saying here forget the “watersheds” and see if the child before you meets the criteria (even if it happens to be a two year old or a six year old). This is probably the sort of philosophical consistency Bret is looking for.
In the Crawley interview I linked to earlier (which was filmed in 2007) he reiterates his abandonment of boundaries, stating quite clearly that he believes 28 days is rather late for a legally enforced “cut-off” and that these decisions ought to be made as soon as is feasible after birth.
Is there a contradiction? I don’t think so. A legal boundary should be early (in the first few weeks of life) but there should be provisions to enable more complicated cases to be handled on a case by case basis. In effect the first “window” represents a “no questions asked” period and beyond that the parents and medical professionals have to “make the case” based on the child’s specific circumstances.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Raven: Well, in the end, utilitarianism rejects boundaries and rights on a case by case basis, doesn’t it?
August 5th, 2010 | 3:54 pm
Wesley: Not really. It rejects the idea that these boundaries and rights are anything more than useful fictions (like boundaries which determine when a person is able to vote, drive a car or legally consent to sexual intercourse). They are pragmatic devices of our own creation and hence do not, in any of these cases, represent philosophical watersheds. We keep them because they are useful (and this is as it should be).
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Yes, Raven, but we can discard them when it suits us. After all, why be bound by a fiction?
August 5th, 2010 | 4:03 pm
Wesley: Not “when it suits us”. When it works out to improve well-being “in general”. There’s a difference.
If adhering to a “fiction” causes more human suffering than it alleviates all things considered then we have a moral duty to discard it – but this abandonment its justified only in that unlikely event.
August 6th, 2010 | 2:33 am
One of the problems, Raven, with utilitarianism, is that it really can exist, consistently, only in the creative minds of philosophers. When one attempts to implement it in real life, it breaks down. How, for example, can someone accurately calculate, what the right action is? To be consistent, one would have to begin one’s day, attempting to determine, how to best use one’s time, money, and belongings, to create the greatest happiness, for the greatest number of people, or conscious beings generally. Is this even possible?
Singer advocates giving away a certain percentage of one’s income to the poor. An admirable suggestion, and I think that he has done this. However, he has not consistenltly done it, since he spent money on his mother, that could have gone to the poor, or other needy person. So if he’s unable to do it, consistently, what makes us think that the average, person, with little, if any philosophical training, can do it? Obviously, we all have to make the utilitarian calculus, for the greatest happiness, for the greatest number to be realized.
It also requires us to ascertain exactly what we mean by “good” or ”happiness”. Some thinkers, like Bentham, thought that the greatest good was “pleasure”. Mill, thought “higher” pleasures, counted, conducive to a civilized, cultured person. He, of course, famously stated, that it’s better to be Socrates, unsatisfied, than a pig, satisfied. Is he right? How do know whose conception of “happiness” is right?
so, there’s an ambiguity, regarding what constitutes happiness, or the good. And utilitarianism is unrealistic. No one, I would submit, can consistently follow it. It’s a morality unsuited for humans. How in the world, would we go about “training ” average people to be good utilitarians? Would we “force” them to accept it? True, that would create more fear, in the population, to be forced into something, so it wouldn’t have utilitarian value. but how would we get everyone to do it, unless we forced them? A sort of catch 22.
August 6th, 2010 | 8:38 am
You provide some good suggestions, Raven. I haven’t had the chance to see Singer’s You-Tube interviews yet, but I will. I really need to read his animal Liberation, I’ve only read passages from it. And I do need to re-read his Practical Ethics.
But Wesley’s point is a good one, as you pointed out. It’s rather troubling, that now, he wants to assess infants, on a case by case basis.
Also, it seems a little disingenuous of Singer to advocate only severely “handicapped” infants, to fall into the “permissibly killed” category. His personhood theory, if he even still holds one, would allow for perfectly healthy babies.
It’s my position, that all humans, and at least conscious animals, possess rights, that cannot be infringed on. I have (please see my comments, in the previous section) a lot of criticisms of utilitarianism. It simply is incompatible with human nature.
I do distinguish myself, how consistently, is perhaps, another matter, from Kant, and his ethics. His ethics, is as well, incongruent with human nature. Both utilitarianism, and deontological theories of morality are entirely dependent on reason. Like I’ve said before, I’m inclined toward deontological ethics, but its exclusive reliance on reason, means I cannot except it, in the final analysis, any more than I can accept utilitarianism. But it is consistent with my view of conscious beings, and preconscious beings, possessing rights.
My hope, is to somehow connect reason, and emotion, in a way, that can philosophically justify a moral system, of rights possessing beings. We already, as humans, use reason, and emotion, to form morality. But my hope, which may legitimately seem to many, as hubristic, is to develop, or contribute to developing, a philosophically coherent account, of morality, as an amalgam of emotion and reason. So, reason will justify a moral system that’s a synthesis of emotion and reason.
August 6th, 2010 | 11:44 am
Bret,
I agree that it is impossible to work out the consequences of any given action to the nth degree – but we at least have to try to calculate these effects to the best of our ability. What is the alternative? Our moral intuitions are even less reliable.
Listen to the interviews and read his books again. Some of your criticisms of his views (which are based on rather fundamental differences) will remain but others, I guarantee you, will fall away.
August 7th, 2010 | 3:03 am
Any moral theory, Raven, that cannot be successfully implemented, in practical life, seems worthless to me. After all, morality, is the most practical of subjects.
There’s no consensus, among even utilitarian philosophers, about which version of utilitarianism is true. We, of course, have act, and rule utilitarians, and pleasure of a basic sort, and morw intellectual pleasure distinctions, etc. Who’s correct? It’s not just a matter of not being able to translate, perfectly (what theory could meet perfection?), utilitarian concepts into reality, but we cannot even agree how to calculate it. Is every person, regardless of intellectual, moral, or physical characteristics, to be counted in the greatest good for the greatest number? Or, do we only count those with certain I.Q. scores? This is not frivolous, sense moral reasoning clearly requires intelligence on the part of its executor.
So, we don’t have agreement as to which version of utilitarianism is correct, asuming, for the sake, at least, of argument that it is, and who counts, as part of the calculation.
August 7th, 2010 | 8:29 am
There’s also the issue, Raven, that people are obviously different, have different needs, abilities, etc.How are we to cordinate this information, with the fact that everyone will have to spend a considerable amount of time and money, to do their part, in creating the greated good, for the greatest number.
Since there’s only so much time in the day, and so many injustices, out there, should we do away with capitalism, since it perpetuates injustices?
There’s certainly no time for anyone to be entertained, since clearly, time spent watching “American Idol”, etc., can be better spent helping the sick and poor. We would have to do away with television! On second thought, maybe utilitarianism isn’t such a bad thing after all ( :
August 7th, 2010 | 1:52 pm
Raven, you are right that it doesn’t say before 20 weeks. My error. It says before 24 weeks. I knew that and am not sure why I said 24 weeks. I certainly didn’t mean to misquote it. There are people like fetal pain expert Dr. Vivvet Glover who are suggesting fetal 17 weeks, but not this study. I would have acknowledged this and responded earlier, but I seemed to have developed Tinnitus two days ago and have been visiting a doctor, learning what it is and how people have coped with it. Hopefully it is due to allergies and not something permanent. I hope they figure this out for the 1 in 5 people who have some form in America. It is very annoying.
As I noted before, Dr. Rinalli, a neurologist and expert witness on fetal pain says there’s plenty of other research that says that the unborn can experience pain without the thalmocortical tracks being developed and that this pain is mediated to the cortex through the subplate. So does the study I sent over. As he notes the RCOG study chose to ignore or discount that. That’s a good way to get to the 24 week conclusion. As to the idea that the unborn is not conscious, Rinalli “This belief was not mentioned at all in the 1997 report, has not been a topic on the radar screen of fetal pain discussions in recent years, and appears to come out of left field. It is hard to avoid the impression that the authors view this new proposal as a kind of scientific trump card.”
Hence the logical, scientific and philosophical errors don’t make this anything we should bow down and worship. This study, like the previous one published by JAMA that said no pain before 29 weeks was politically timed as well, right around the time a pain disclosure bill was before the US Congress. I expect it to go down in flames just like the JAMA 29 weeks study and the ACOG claim that denies fetal pain altogether-an opinion I think the RCOG shares as noted earlier.
This is nothing new to pro-life advocates. These so called authoritative studies come out to rescue abortion from time to time. The JAMA study to resource the abortion movement in 2005 is down in flames and we knew it even before this study. We get testimony and studies showing a problem with abortion and then out comes some “big” study that’s supposed to end it all like the Melbeye study in the 90s to say abortion doesn’t increase the risk of breast cancer though we have numerous studies to show it does, and we are supposed to somehow drop everything. Then we find out after the errors of the Melbeye study are screened out, we find a 44 percent increased risk. We also have lots of research showing the negative impact on women (and men) and hear the same nonsense that it doesn’t, even though women and men all over our nation are saying it does and that it did. O well. We’ve been to that show many times.
So we are not going to bite with studies riddled by these kinds of errors that the RCOG study put out. The criticisms of Rinalli keep me from taking this study seriously and anything more than a prop piece to support the abortion industry in the wake of research showing the unborn feel pain at 20 weeks.
Here’s a summary of his criticisms.
A new report by Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (RCOG)–the governing body of Britain’s obstetricians and gynecologists–is seriously flawed. Its main conclusions are reached by misinterpreting existing science and ignoring the latest research in human brain development.
• Fetal pain experts consistently point to 20 weeks’ gestational age, and possibly earlier, as the point by which the unborn are capable of experiencing pain. Several of these experts were ignored or minimized in the RCOG report.
• While the RCOG currently claims that the unborn cannot experience pain until 24 weeks (down from 26 weeks in its prior report), abortion practitioners and their governing bodies are all over the map. A 2005 American abortionist study claimed 29 weeks as the earliest point, while a recent statement from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology denied fetal pain capability altogether.
• The RCOG report further implies the fetus is unlikely to feel pain because it is never enters a state of wakefulness in the womb. In fact, the authors have attempted to interpret the light sleep observed in fetal animals as meaning the human fetus cannot feel the horrific pain of a second-trimester abortion. Unfortunately for the unborn victims of abortion, light sleep is not coma.
• The RCOG report’s authors endorse a long-argued pro-abortion claim that the reflex withdrawal from a painful stimulus does not imply the fetus can “feel” pain, as the reflex occurs at a primitive, subconscious level. Yet, as adults, we all still possess the quick reflexive withdrawal from a painful stimulus, and immediately afterward we feel the pain. Thus the observation of a reflexive pain withdrawal does not deny the pain experience. The question is, when does that pain experience begin in fetal life? By focusing on the reflexive component of pain, abortion advocates try to avoid that question, with good reason. As the science steadily builds a case for fetal pain capability at 20 weeks gestation or even earlier, this type of deception is needed to shield the public from this dreadful reality.
• The panel included an author who has long promoted the view that there can be no meaningful pain experience without the ability to interpret the pain in the context of higher cognitive awareness and prior experience. The RCOG appears to indulge this view. If taken to its logical conclusion, this would imply we should not care about pain in newborn babies, a viewpoint that has been discredited for over 30 years, and is now considered barbaric.
• The RCOG report’s authors are unable to avoid creating the appearance of partisan pro-abortion bias throughout the report, best revealed in the concluding reassurance they attempt to give to abortion clinic workers, who work every day in what is euphemistically termed a “difficult” area.
August 8th, 2010 | 6:24 am
Bret,
Accepting a consequentialist ethical perspective doesn’t mean one commits to any specific “flavour” of utilitarianism. Most of the differences between them are of significance only to philosophers and hardly affect the broad architecture of public policy prescriptions created from a consequentialist perspective (I happen to be a partial rule-utilitarian myself – but that’s neither here nor there).
When you assert that utilitarianism cannot be implemented in the real world all you mean is that it cannot be perfectly implemented in much the same way that we can never have perfectly just legal systems or perfectly healthy populations. Some objectives are, in an academic sense, unattainable – but we must strive towards them nonetheless.
When it comes to ethical systems the question isn’t whether a system is “correct” but whether it is “useful”. Does approaching moral problems from a utilitarian perspective produce, in the final analysis, outcomes which are better than the deontological perspective that some things are “just right”? (This question, of course, assumes that we share the idea that “consequences” are important. It appears that if one is unwilling to concede this – if one feels that there need be no connection between morality and the long-term well-being of creatures required to behave morally – then there is little common ground for discussion).
Once again the examples you describe reveal that your problem lies not with utilitarianism itself but which your “limited” (if you will forgive my use of that word) conception of the utilitarian calculus.
Capitalism has its good sides and bad sides. A utilitarian would only think of discarding it if the consequences of this reorganisation were on the whole positive – if the economic system which resulted from this process served our interests better than the one it replaced. The fact that a system or activity has some negative aspects is insufficient reason to get rid of it. One looks at its effect on the whole – making the calculation to the best of ones ability.
It is by no means certain that the world would be improved by the absence of “American Idol”. It gives many people joy and is, in that sense a “good” which is to be weighed against other goods. Would the world be better off if people spent more time helping out the less privileged and less time watching television? Maybe – some joy would lost and a great deal more would probably be gained (there is, of course, no guarantee that all these well-intentioned attempts by former couch potatoes to alleviate suffering would be particularly effective). But would the world be better off if people were compelled by law to give up their frivolous pleasures and engage in these enforced acts of “charity”? Obviously not.
I suppose this, in a sense, makes your point. If an intelligent, thoughtful person such as yourself is able to apply the utilitarian calculus so badly what hope is there for the man on the street faced with difficult ethical decisions? My solution is simple: stick to your moral intuitions and “follow the rules”until they have been shown to be in error. Any attempt to subject every single action to the full ethical calculus is doomed to failure but one should be willing to set aside our moral intuitions when there are compelling reasons to believe that they have unacceptable consequences.
August 8th, 2010 | 6:56 am
Don Nelson,
We approach this issue from fundamentally different perspectives – and I have to admit that my attitude towards this is shaped by the fact that I have a medical degree. Many years ago (in a previous life) I went through the arduous process of trying to understand the rudiments of neurology and embryology. A creature with no afferent pain connections to the cortex will not consciously experience pain even though it might respond reflexly and hormonally to noxious stimuli. This is a scientific fact which may be deployed for political purposes – but it is a scientific fact nonetheless (and one which Ranalli and co. do not properly address).
It is also important to note that EEG studies (which measure the electrical activity from the brain) “suggest the capacity for functional pain perception in preterm neonates probably does not exist before 29 or 30 weeks.”
It is always possible to find a handful of qualified people who support your position even if that position is not held by the wider scientific community. Science is not like religion. We do not say “Prof X has spoken – and let that be an end to it.” We look at the evidence, try to understand the arguments and see where most of the experts stand on the issue in question. For every Dr Paul Ranalli there are a hundred other qualified researchers who disagree with him. It’s tempting to listen only to those scientists who support our positions. Resist the temptation.
August 8th, 2010 | 2:14 pm
Raven,
Thanks for your comments. It’s been good to think about it. If Rinalli’s criticisms are correct, then I guess it stands up. I agree with you about the temptations and I will say that I THINK I try hard to resist because I feel holding on to something not true could hurt the pro-life cause. That’s why I resisted the idea of abortion and breast cancer for so long. I thought it made us look kooky at first.
There’s something interesting about the Nebraska pain law that I can’t remember seeing before. Abortion advocates don’t sue over things like the two victims laws. At least I don’t think they do. But they sue over everything that affects access including partial birth abortion, clinic standards, parental notice, what goes in informed consent etc. I thought what they did in SD a few years ago was very smart when they put a state law to a referredum instead of take it to court.
Other than that, it’s hard to think of where they haven’t sued over a law like what we see in Nebraska and the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Abortion advocates haven’t yet as far as I know and there are rumors from the abortion side that they may not sue. There’s a ton at stake here legally if they lost. I hope they do sue over it. I’d like to see the experts come into court like they did on partial birth abortion.
August 8th, 2010 | 2:22 pm
Raven,
Thanks for your comments. It’s been good to think about it. I appreciate it. If Rinalli’s criticisms are correct, then they stand up. If they don’t, they don’t. I agree with you about the temptations and I THINK I try hard to resist because I feel holding on to something not true could hurt the pro-life cause. Maybe not hard enough, but I try. It’s no use to hold on to something that doesn’t help or pursue tactics that do not. That’s why I resisted the idea of abortion and breast cancer for so long. I thought it made us look kooky at first. But after the studies and court cases, I’m a believer.
There’s something interesting about the Nebraska Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act that passed earlier this year that I can’t remember seeing before. It’s an observation on how seriously abortion advocates take the RCOG study. Abortion advocates don’t sue over things like the two victims laws or the Born Alive Infants Protection Act that I’m aware of. But they sue over everything that affects having any kind of abortion at any time or regulations that get in the way of the industry including partial birth abortion, clinic standards, parental notice, what goes in informed consent etc. What they did in SD a few years ago was different and very smart when they put a state law to a referendum instead of take it to court.
Other than that, it’s hard to think of where they haven’t sued over a law like what we see in Nebraska and the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. It’s a BAN on abortions at 20 weeks. Abortion advocates haven’t yet as far as I know (I’ve been out of the loop for a couple weeks) and there were rumors from the abortion side that they may not sue and leave it alone. They have this new RCOG study come out since the Nebraska law was passed and they have the suggestion in the study that even the connections to the cortex may not matter to the experience of pain and feeling/knowing pain may not happen until sometime in the new born stage. But as of yet they are not willing to go to court over an abortion ban. As an advocate that says something to me. There’s a ton at stake here legally if they lost. There’s also a lot at stake if they don’t proceed and laws like this start popping up all over the nation. The point is, abortion advocates go to court over everything, even conscience rights. This is more than that. It’s an abortion ban. If abortion advocates’ attorneys have confidence in the RCOG study, I’d expect them to take this to court, kill that law and smash us pro-lifers as propagandists trying to scare women out of abortions and deny them the right to abortions after 20 week. That could happen tomorrow and kill my observation. It’s going to be interesting to watch.
August 8th, 2010 | 10:35 pm
Thanks for your comments, Raven. Of course, as you know, for an ethical system to work, it must be coherent. One of the problems with utilitarianism, is that there’s no real consensus, regarding what “the greatest good” is. Does it consist in mere bodily pleasure? Or does it mean the happiness derived from intellectual or artistic pursuits? Does it refer to the pleasure of helping others? Which is it? No one can agree. On cursory examination, the idea of “happiness”, or “good”, seems easy to define. But on more detailed analysis, these terms become problematic.
Also, for utilitarianism to work, everybody has to do their “fair share”, as it were. How’s this suppoes to work? You (rightly) disavow compelling people to do their duty, if you will, but how can we get everyone to make the proper contribution to the utilitarian project?
Certainly, we all, or most of us agree, that the right to be free of harm, or poverty, takes priority, over the right to good entertainment (I’m using the word “right”, not in a philosophical sense, but in common everyday, usage). And sense there’s only so much time in the day, there will be NO time, or money, after we’ve taken care of the suffering that results from disease, crime, accidents, poverty, to watch “American Idol”, or spend time with your kids. So we WOULD have to do away with entertainment, even though it contributes to pleasure, because it interferes with the “better” pleasures derived from safe neighborhoods, healthy bodies, and enough food.
Of course, I’m presupposing that the latter “pleasures” are the best, which seems reasonable, but as i stated at the beginning, we cannot even form a consensus, on what “pleasures”, or “good” or “happiness” we’re talking about.
It could be argued, that, the need for Singer and others to give away a third of their incomes, is an artifact of our Capitalist economic system. In other words, doing away with the latter, would result in economic equality, the elimination of poverty, and its resultant suffering.
True, “average” people usually, don’t think, if they reflect at all on it, about the distinction between “rule” and “act” utilitarianism, and behave in a sort of quasi-common sense fashion, regarding morality. But isn’t that so much the worse for them? In other words, don’t they need philosophical instruction, at least regarding morals, so they can effectively execute the proper form of utilitarianism, so that the greatest happiness for the greatest good can be achieved? And how can this possibly work?
Also, it conflicts, with another ethical theory, the aristotilean, or virtue ethics, given great consideration, by philosophers, currently, like Phillipia Foot. To become virtuous, one must spend considerable time, and effort, developing one’s talents, and abilities, but, obviously, due to only so much time in the day, one would necessarily have to reduce, or give up one’s utilitarian efforts. But to not give up the latter, means we have people not living up to their full potential.
In a nutshell, we cannot agree on which form of utilitarianism is correct (if it is correct), how we can teach others which system is correct. I’ts not a matter of not being able to do utilitarianism perfectly. It’s that, at least right now, we cannot really do it, consistently, at all.
August 9th, 2010 | 1:14 pm
Bret,
Utilitarianism isn’t like communism. We don’t need to have everyone singing from the same hymn sheet. We don’t have to all agree what the specific “good” to be maximised is. As long as we admit that the aim of our laws and ethical systems – that the ultimate reason for being “moral” in the first place – is the promotion of our ultimate well-being then we should be able to cobble together regulations and laws which are acceptable steps in that direction (because even if we disagree about specifics, we tend to know “well-being” when we see it. Our differences in that regard are not deep enough make compromise impossible).
Ethical systems do not have to be “coherent” to “work”, especially if by “coherent” you mean that their logical consistency has to be apparent to the man on the street. To “work” an ethical system merely has to provide a framework within which unambiguous regulations may be drafted. As I have stated before we are not after perfection (that unattainable goal)nor are we chasing after a world in which people are perfectly happy. What we ought to be doing instead, what people who are actually involved in the utilitarian project are trying to do, is to create, by degrees, a world which is better than this one (a world in which people are happier, all things considered). Any perspective which recognises that we ought to judge laws and ethical prescriptions by their consequences rather than merely accept them as given regardless of their effects achieves this to some degree – even if we all have different ideas about which specific consequences are ultimately desirable.
It is also important to note that the utilitarian perspective is important principally at the level of public policy. Individual actors making daily moral decision still rely on their moral intuitions (modified by education and reason) but are unable to subject each action to anything which might even approach a full ethical calculus. Even in a society completely populated by utilitarians most moral decisions would be made intuitively but there would be a general willingness to change one’s moral perspective if rational analysis were to reveal its error.
You are mistaken about entertainment. Many people would argue that a life without “frivolous” pleasures is not worth living even if that life were to be lived in perfect health and safety. One of the many problems with your view of utilitarianism is that you appear to imagine a limited coterie of individuals making decisions about what is “best” for other people. Think about a democracy where people make decisions about what is in their own interests and what will maximise their pleasures while balancing this against the preferences and desires of everyone else. When Singer et al urge that one ought to give up on luxuries to make other people happy it is understood that one stops well short of making oneself miserable. Utilitarianism is not tyranny. Read Singer’s books and the many other analyses out there. These things are covered at length. It’s pointless to keep going over them here.
There is also the question I raised before. What, pray, is the alternative? If you claim that utilitarianism (or, more broadly, consequentialism) is so fatally flawed that even its partial application is undesirable, are we to adopt the perspective that the rightness or wrongness of an act is independent of that act’s consequences in the real world and that a “good” action should be carried out even if we know it will have bad consequences? How is that preferable?
August 9th, 2010 | 1:55 pm
Don Nelson,
You’ve just provided the perfect demonstration of our different perspectives.
We’re discussing a scientific question: Is the unborn child capable of conscious pain perception prior to the third trimester? The medical evidence (as expressed by the relevant professional bodies on both sides of the Atlantic) indicates that the fetus is neurologically incapable of this feat – yet you apparently feel that these findings are called into question by the fact that some abortion advocates haven’t yet challenged a law passed in Nebraska.
[and after reading through the act in question I get the impression that eventual opposition may well focus not so much on the specific issue of fetal pain perception but on some broader legal principle expected to provide a bulwark against the endlessly inventive "enemies of Roe".]
August 10th, 2010 | 10:25 am
Raven,
I think you are reading too much into my comments. I said it was an obsdervation. I said I think it’s interesting that they are not proceeding though they have the DIVINE RCOG study and the stakes are so high.
My observation is just an observation grounded in the politics I’m involved in on this side of the Atlantic. We deal with these people every day and when we go to testify on bills we know what they are going to say before they say it. I know what they are going to say and do when we both go meet the press. I know them better than they know us. But this time, they are acting like they are afraid to challenge this law. That’s something new. Maybe it’s a feint. I think they have to act. This is too big a shot at Doe and Roe. I don’t think it will overturn them, but it would ban some abortons and keep saying loudly to Americans that abortions can be banned. We’ve already started that with the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. So this makes me wonder if they don’t think these experts can stand up to scrutiny. We’ve had plenty of testimony in the states on fetal pain and they’ve been reading it too. I’m not staking my assessment of fetal pain on their reaction. I’m saying it is interesting and makes me wonder if they don’t think it is that credible. I don’t know how they do things in the UK, but over here they usually file lawsuits and appeals immediately. They have everything ready to go the minute a law is passed. Their actions say a lot.
I did call into question the findings and I noted repeatedly that there is evidence that the unborn feels pain before 24 weeks and that it is expressed by real fetal pain experts. It’s based on real science.
I don’t care for attorneys, except when I need one and Wesley Smith, but it is very interesting how they are able to find the baloney dressed up as science when there is some.
Yes, they need to find some greater bulwark to help Roe. It’s gutted and is only held together by political force of appointing judges that approve the result. They all know it’s a joke and even Bader Ginsberg wants abortion defended on other grounds like they are arguing for gay marriage over here. Count me as an enemy of Roe, a decision which has led to the killing of over 50 million unborn children.
August 10th, 2010 | 2:53 pm
Don Nelson,
The RCOG “study” contained no new research. It was merely a review of existing evidence specifically commissioned by the House of Commons as a guide to lawmakers and the UK public. It is consistent with similar reviews conducted elsewhere (including an earlier RCOG report published in 1997) and expresses the (wait for it) current scientific consensus.
It is likely that any US advocates will look towards ACOG who have as yet not issued any authoritative reviews on this issue (though they reportedly released a statement that they “know of no legitimate scientific information that supports the statement that a fetus experiences pain at 20 weeks’ gestation”). The political climate however is such that any studies which support the idea that the fetus is incapable of feeling pain prior to circa-20 weeks will probably be dismissed as “biased” and “political” by the pro-life crowd.
There lies the fundamental asymmetry. If, tomorrow, ACOG and the RCOG were to announce that a fresh review of all the evidence leads us to believe that the 16-week fetus is able to feel pain
I would accept that finding as the current state of our scientific knowledge. I wouldn’t go ferreting around for fringe voices raised in dissent (which I could easily find) or insist on denying the basic facts of neuroscience. These days it seems that people are far too willing to dismiss scientific evidence, labelling as “political” anything which fails to conform to their pre-existing prejudices.
Now this does not necessarily refer directly to you. I imagine that you are genuinely willing to consider the evidence and would be open to abandoning the idea of the “tormented fetus” if you honestly felt this were indeed warranted by the data. My conclusion is that you do not, in fact, see that the data forces us precisely to this position.
The Nebraska law hasn’t been challenged yet but it will be – and if such challenges fail it would not mean that the scientific findings are in error (witness the Scopes Trial). Scientific truth is never established by courts of law, the opinions of judges or juries, or the action or inaction of advocates. Thankfully, they stand and fall based on entirely different criteria.
August 10th, 2010 | 11:27 pm
Raven, since when is K.J. Anand a fringe voice when it comes to fetal pain, or the others I mentioned, or those testifying to legislatures and congress in our nation? Anand is very significant. Has been for over 20 years. To reduce these people to the level of fringe characters is pathetic. RCOG’s study ignored the work of significant people who say pain begins at 20 weeks. That’s pathetic too. So is the allusion to the Scopes Trials. These people are serious credentialed people with serious testimony. They don’t lose their seriousness and expertise when they come to conclusions that pro-lifers like and can use, or if they happen to be religious.
As to anything contrary to what pro-lifers hope for being dubbed political, the same can be said about abortion advocates.
August 11th, 2010 | 2:27 am
Science is not about single individuals and is not about “testimony” given in courtrooms or editorials written in newspapers. Any single individual who, in the absence of evidence, opposes a scientific consensus expressed by the overwhelming majority of his or her peers is by definition on the fringe.
This is not meant to disparage the views of people such as Sunny Anand. He is an eminent scientist with years of solid research behind him. But, on this issue, he is distinctly in the minority. Most researchers of comparative eminence disagree with his views on this and you listen to him only because you like his conclusions. I don’t know what pro-choice activists in the US would do, but personally, I always go with the scientific consensus (unless I have a degree of expertise in the field myself).
If things were reversed – if the professional bodies said “the fetus feels pain” and there were a few specialists flying from one pro-choice speaking engagement to the next to “refute” these findings – you would probably see things very differently.
August 11th, 2010 | 10:46 am
With respect, Raven, you didn’t really address my point. Which is: we cannot even agree as to which VERSION of utilitarianism, is correct. There are so many versions out there, how do we reconcile them? Is it your position, that it doesn’t really matter, that we have so many types, asd long aas they’re at least of the utilitarian variety? But the cannot all be right, which means we’re not causing the greatest happiness, for the greatest number of people.
that’s why coherence matters. If you have different versions, most are wrong, meaning utilitarianism cannot do what it needs to do. But there doesn’t seem to be a way of reconciling them.
You ask what the alternative is. One is to adopt a deontological approach. Another is to apply the virtue ethical approach. Another, is to adopt a quasi- david humean/Adam Smith moral sentiment approach. another is to take a egoistic approach. there are lot’s of options, and there’s the ability to combine them.
Perhaps you misunderstood my point regarding capitalism. Communism, of course, is not the only alternative to capitalism. (there are plenty of socialist alternatives out there). Capitalism, has a tendency to exacerbate inequalities, and therefore suffering. Of course, communism, could be worse (and I believe it is), but it’s possible that socialism, or some version of it, could result in greater happiness for the greater good. But, since there’s little chance (at least in the US anyway) of capitalism being overthrown, the ability of utilitarianism to be fully realized, will be thwarted. Therefore, another moral system seems more plausible.
You seem to assume that there’s more agreement , regarding what constitutes “well-being” or happiness, than there is. First, do we mean the Bentham view, that pure pleasure is what matters? Or, Mill’s view that intellectual pleasures are the criterion? There’s simply no agreement. This means, that if we adopt the wrong pleasure or happiness standard, then the greatest happiness, fot the greatest number, will not be realized. There’s also the problem of “equivocation”, or ambiguity of terms. Is it the greatest well being, or happiness, or pleasure, or what? We have to make sure we all agree on what these terms mean, and, as stated above, formulate a rational basis, not unlike the consensus we have in mathematics, concerning what the greatest good, pleasure, well being, happiness, or whatever is.
August 11th, 2010 | 3:55 pm
Bret,
No version of utilitarianism is “correct”. It is, for consequentialists, not a meaningful assertion. Utilitarians are, in general, not moral realists so while Singer might argue that his version of “preference utilitarianism” is more useful than one of the more classical variants, he is unlikely to every describe it as being more “correct”.
You think that these differences (these failures to decide on which specific goals we tend towards) are significant. I do not. Imagine a legislative body with three equal factions: one faction consists entirely of Benthamites, another consists of preference utilitarians and the third believe in maximising pleasures but rank the “pleasures of the intellect” highest of all. This philosophically divided body will nonetheless be able to find common ground on many issues, working together to craft legislation which would be closer to achieving utilitarian goals (of any description) than would the output of any comparable body of deontologists.
Now obviously the preference utilitarian believes that the other approaches are flawed and do not represent the most efficient allocation of moral resources. The classical utilitarian might have similar reservations about other approaches. Sitting on the sidelines, we might ask ourselves the question “Who is right?” That question is meaningless because (as I have already pointed out) utilitarians do not believe that there are independent moral truths. Arguments for or against an ethical perspective are usually made by appealing to moral intuitions. We attempt to say: this is what your deepest, most important ethical intuitions actually tend towards (even if you do not realise it yet) and this is the rational path to that goal. It is not an attempt to demonstrate an objective truth – it is rather an attempt to induce some cognitive resonance (you suddenly find yourself saying: “Yes, that is a very useful way of looking at this. That’s what we’ve been trying to do all along!”
The question about an alternative to consequentialism remains unanswered. Your argument against utilitarianism was its lack of coherence. Are your candidates any better in this regard? Would you consider acceptable a system which advocated the carrying out of “good” actions whose ultimate consequences were demonstrably and incontrovertibly bad? If the answer to that question is “Yes” then there is little more to be said on this topic (the ethical gulf between us would be too wide for a thin raft of words to bridge). If the answer to that question is “No” then you are a consequentialist who is yet to find a flavour of his own. It’s that simple.
My point about communism was simply this: There will be no Utilitarian State in which everyone must be card carrying utilitarians (my comment was completely unrelated to your earlier speculations about discarding capitalism). We do not need everyone to “sign on to the project” or appreciate its coherence for things to work. Maybe this world (with incomplete participation) will be less happy than it would have been otherwise but why should we let the perfect be the enemy of the good? We strive towards perfect health, the abolition of poverty and corruption-free politics. Should the unattainability of those goals deter us from pursuing them?
Public health policies attempt to maximise the health of the individuals concerned. But perfect health is, as we all know, unattainable. Do we then discard the very idea of trying to make ourselves healthier? Of course not. We trudge on, one flawed step at a time. Similarly with “global well-being” or “happiness” or “intellectual pleasure”. I strive towards my goals and attempt to convince you of their usefulness, coherence and rationality, you strive towards yours and Singer strives towards his. The idea is that the process of intellectual exploration and investigation will reveal to us that we in fact all have a shared project – that fundamentally we all tend towards similar ethical goals though we have, in our untutored ignorance, set up obstacles on this common path. Who is correct? The question has no meaning.
August 12th, 2010 | 2:56 am
I think that, in truth, Raven, we all feel, to some extent, ambivalent, regarding moral views. I certainly don’t want to give the impression that Utilitarianism has nothing in its favor; it’s a respectable theory, advocated by intelligent, respectable people.
I do want to address the point that you made in your post, prior to your latest one, that entertainment is part of the utilitarian scheme. My point is, that we have to set priorities, since there’s only so much time in the day, and only so many resources, to allocate, to creating the greatest pleasure, for the greatest good, that, if we allow entertainment, we will necessarily have to stop alliviating suffering.
Think of an analogy. A city, could spend its limited resources on created a beautiful park, with lots of fun rides, etc. Or, it could use the funds to feed the homeless. Since we obviously can’t have it all, if we got rid of entertainment, we could use the LIMITED resources, to help with higher priorities.
But wouldn’t we be able to devert even MORE resources, to helping the sick, the poor, in short, those whose priorities, based on any rational assessment, supercede the pleasures derived from entertainment, by simply getting rid of the entertainment?
Part of the theme of my disagreement, with utilitarianism, is its lack of practical usefulness, on an everyday level, ironically enough, considering utilitarians pride themselves on their pragmatism. When I wake up, how can I reasonably calculate my utilitarianism? How much time in the day, do I devote to determining what’s a good utilitarian action? Suppose I want to see a TV show, or surf the web, shouldn’t I go feed the poor, or visit the sick? And if I choose to go out with friends, or dance, or watch TV, seemingly harmless activities, the utilitarian could rightly (based on his premises) scould me for behaving immorally. So how shoud one devote one’s time? Or use one’s money? Should I give most of my money away to the poor, and only have enough to pay the house bill, utilities, and food? But those poor people don’t have utilities, so, I could certainly go without, and use that money for the poor. I might be uncomfortable, in the dark, but I’d still be better off than theose poor and/or homeless?
In other words, even if utilitarianism is “correct “(sorry, force of habit) it’s wholly unlivibable! You may reply that doing something is better than nothing, which is true, but we still would live with the haunting notion that we’re always, or mstly always, being a little immoral, by going to that play, or buying that cable coverage, when we could have used it for the poor, or starving.
You state that you’re not a moral realist. (for those confused readers, “moral realism”, means that one believes in the ontological reality of moral claims. They’re analogous to mathematical concepts, “2+2=4 being real, for example). I am, because I think that it coherently explains WHY we should follow them. Otherwise, one cannot really say that Ted Bundy’s behavior was really wrong, and if it happened to enhance his evolutionary survival, then it was “good” for him, although immensely unpleasant for the rest of us. Not to get off on a tangent, but some psychologists, such as Harvard professor Steven Pinker, have argued, that, pychopaths, those without a conscience, got that way, because it provided an evolutionary “advantage” for those possessing it. This seems ludicrous, but if morality isn’t real, it’s just relative, and arose in evolution, due to its advantageous properties, BUT if “morality”, as displayed by the pychopath, was advantageous, we could not say he was “incorrect”, only that we don’t like him, and his behavior.
It also tends to coincide with not holding people accountable for their immoral behavior. After all, if there’s no moral truth to conform to, how can we legitimately praise or blame people for their behavior?
August 12th, 2010 | 5:42 am
If I could, Raven, I’d like to state why I think that rights are important. clearly, according to utilitarianism, rights, are mere fictions; perhaps useful ones, but fictions nonetheless. My view is, that we have rights, which include the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to be free of suffering, etc. you have pointed out, that, what’s the use of having rights, if it results in so much suffering, that our existence is indistingushible from hell. This is a good point. Certainly no one wants or deserves that. But, it’s precisely because we have rights, that cannot be infringed on, that “hell on earth”, would be unjustifiable.
We have rights, as individuals, that cannot be taken away, regardless of the “happiness”, that a majority of people might derive from this taking of individual rights. but there’s no reason to fear, that we’ll be in some suffering hell, because its precisely our individual rights, that entail us to be free of needless suffering. Obviously, one cannot eliminate all suffering in life. But we can acknowledge that, everyone, has the right, to be free of suffering imposed by others. Why? Because our lives belong to us, our right to life and liberty, and happiness, just to name a few, are rational deductions (moral realism), that no one, no dictator, not anybody, can take away.
In utilitarianism, any life, in principle, is expendible, if it’s determined by, whoever is in charge, to result in the greatest good for all. For some lives, to be expendible, is repugnant to our moral intuitions, and we must remember, that in a system where individual rights are denied, usually it’s the powerless, that get screwed over. Utilitarianism, strictly views all as “equal” in the calculas, but in practice, we all know, people behave, frequently, less noblely.
some things we just know are wrong. It’s wrong, always, to torture small children, even if the “greater good”, is at stake.
I know, that you might respond that, if such practices were in place, people would be in terrible fear for their children, and it would result in greater unhappiness, than happiness, and therefore would not be implemented. True enough. but consider this possibility, in the post 9-11 world. Let’s say that a bomb was going to explode, killing thousands of innocent people. And the only way we think we might “persuade” the terrorist, to give up the location of the bomb, and save all of those lives, is to torture his children. Maybe, due to his devotion to Allah, he cannot be persuaded, unless hours of unspeakable torture is inflicted on his children.
I say, as much as i want to save the lives of those innocents, who face being blown up, we have to find another way to save them. Torturing these children, is intrinsically wrong, and therefore always wrong, and should never happen. With respect to the utilitarian, he, in principle, will not, can not, rule out this torture, if it results in saving more lives.
I say, these children, like all humans,have rights, including the right to be free of suffering, secondary to torture.
August 14th, 2010 | 5:13 am
Bret:
On setting priorities: As I pointed out before, it is by no means certain that a well-fed world without entertainment would be happier or more fulfilling than one with television and only partially-fed citizens. We need to set priorities but you seem to take it for granted that the trading luxuries for essentials results in greater well-being “all the way down”. It’s a very doubtful conclusion. Entertainment, in a very real sense, alleviates suffering and a life from which it were entirely absent would be very bleak indeed. The utilitarian objective, is not that we merely survive – but that we have pleasurable experiences while we live and I doubt very much that the abolition of entertainment would be a step in this direction.
Even if our application of the utilitarian calculus were to reveal that all things considered we would be better off diverting all resources currently devoted to “frivolous pleasure” into more “profitable” channels you would still have the problem of mechanism. A recognition that certain actions are good doesn’t necessarily mean that we would be justified to compel individuals to take them (there would probably be very strong utilitarian arguments against this compulsion). Here I refer once again to my earlier remarks about communism. We do not want a centrally planned moral economy with diktats handed down from on high. Democratic actors balance their needs and desires against everyone else’s always bearing in mind that the objective is to make individuals happy or fulfilled (not to have a world full of miserable people in what would appear, on paper, to be a “better world”).
It would be nice if people spent more time “visiting the sick and feeding the poor” but there is no moral duty to do so (if one’s own life is not filled with wasteful expenditure of time or resources). When you go out with friends you give pleasure to yourself (and presumably to your companions). Relaxing in front of the television might prepare you for the next day’s work, recharging your batteries to such an extent that you become a more productive cog in the big economic machine. A world in which people spontaneously decided to spend all their free time assisting the less fortunate would certainly be a remarkable one – but a society in which people were compelled to do the same thing would be miserable and unproductive (a great deal of economic activity is driven by the desire to acquire luxuries and experience frivolous pleasures. Take those incentives away and everyone would be worse off).
On moral realism: Even if we accepted that there were universal moral truths (independent of human societies) it still wouldn’t answer the question “Why should we bother with them?” We would say “Ted Bundy was wrong” but how would you answer the question “What’s wrong with doing wrong things?”. If there is no appeal to eventual consequences moral realism is even weaker than a system which says “this action ultimately results in a state of affairs we would rather avoid. Don’t do it.”.
Pinker himself has repeatedly pointed out that when we say that a certain behavioural trait conferred evolutionary advantages, we are not justifying expression of that trait. The expression of jealous rage might have been evolutionarily advantageous but it certainly ought to be discouraged in modern society because its consequences are undesirable. When faced with an individual who for whatever reason has his own private system of ethics we are concerned not so much with its “correctness” or otherwise but with the effects of the advocated actions on the rest of society. Some actions are to encouraged others are not – but this is all based on our pre-established goals as a broader ethical community. Sometimes “blame” is a useful tool in the social engineering arsenal. At other times it is not.
August 14th, 2010 | 6:02 am
Let’s alter your terrorist story a little.
(1) Are the authorities permitted to torture the unconvicted terrorist himself (rather than his children)? Or are only the “cute and innocent” granted inalienable rights?
(2) Let’s say another industrious terrorist has trapped four hundred thousand innocent children in an underground dungeon and intends to butcher them all within the hour using a small army of mechanical devices designed specially for this purpose. An innocent man has information which would definitely lead to the children’s discovery and rescue but is unwilling to share this with the police because he believes they are lying to him. There are no other leads to investigate. Are they permitted to torture him?
What if the torture of one child prevents three hundred other (equally innocent) children from being similarly treated. Would it be “moral” then to proceed? Or if, as in the famous Trolley Problem, one had to flip a switch to move the blades from five innocents to one equally innocent individual would action or inaction be more “moral”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
These are obviously extreme cases – situations no one wants to be faced with but it is by no means certain that our deep (and generally commendable) aversion to killing or torturing innocents ought to apply even in the most extreme situations. You chose to express the utilitarian perspective as “all lives are expendable”. I view it as “human lives are important. So important, in fact, that sometimes extreme measures are required for their protection.”
There is no logical foundation for the idea that rights are “inherent” or “real”. All one can do is make the assertion repeatedly and with great force but there is no logical argument capable of establishing this. We do know that the concept of rights is a very useful one which expresses deep moral intuitions but as for the idea that they represent “truths” which exist apart from human society . . . how does one even begin to prove this?
August 14th, 2010 | 11:25 pm
Thanks, a lot Raven, for your response. You still did not address my concern with the practical application of utilitarianism. If I’m going to maximize my own pleasure, and that of everyone who I interact with, so that the greatest pleasure for the greatest number,is achieved, how do I go about doing so? It seems like there’s really no PRACTICAL way, for me to divide my time in such a way that I give equal consideration to others and myself. Do I just consider myself, and all the people I interact with, in the Utilitarian calculus, or others, far and wide, as well. And, spoeaking of others, is it really congruent with human nature, to give everyone else, the same consideration, as I give myself? Is it congruent with human nature for me to give strangers, and nonrelatives, the same moral consideration as I give my family members?
My point is not that entertainment does not provide important pleasures, obviously it does. But living in this flawed world, means making hard choices, and NOT making others. If I feed someone who’s hungry, I may not money, or time, to give them a DVD or take them to a ball game. Certainly, Raven, you would agree, that being feed, housed, and clothed takes priority over going to movies, or playing cards?
Maybe I’m giving away the store here, but I think that finding the truth is more imporant than “winning” the debates (although, I will say, I think you’re kicking my butt Raven). Consequences are important. they may even be the most important aspect of morality. But to not treat people as individuals, but as mere parts of a group, is degrading, and undignified.
Pinker shows, I think the poverty of applying evolutionary views to all of human life. Do we realy have empirical evidence, that all human traits, including the most reprehensible, are a result of natural selective pressures? I clearly think not.
To take this logic, a level further, if “psychopathy” really, at one point, was advantageous to its possessors, maybe, even though it’s not helpful now, it will be in the future? Since evolutionary traits, generally don’t just affect the individual, one could argue, that thousands of years ago, psychopathic individuals, perhaps, helped the group they were in (maybe by helping the group kill other group members, who competed with them). So who’s to say that these traits might one day become advantageous, again?
With respect to the terror thought experiments, you make a good rebutle. But I would point out that, since the CIA, among others, in my country, are possibly, at least, torturing individual suspects, so the practicality of my example is greater than yours. It’s highly conceivable, that, a terrorist could want to blow up a lot of people. Your examples, although theoretically possible, is unlikely to materialize.
One might begin to determine where rights come from, by accepting, as self evident, that conscious beings exist. Then one could deduce that they are entitled to rights, as a natural conclusion from the premise that it’s proper that conscious beings should exist, and therefore, one could derive right sfrom that. Obviously, this is not anywhere near a complete argument for moral realism! But it’s a very slight, start.
But let me ask you: where do you get the idea, that people, and their happiness should matter? Is this self evident, or do you derive it from something else that’s self evident?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Bret: As you know, I have also posted bad and so-so reviews here. And since I believe you’ve read the book, you know that’s not all I write about the differences. Thanks. I needed that time of peace and reflection.
August 14th, 2010 | 11:51 pm
Yes, you’re right. It’s a good book, in many ways, even though I disagree with it. You point out many of the sameful practices, that those on the animal rights side have engaged in. Welcome back, and thanks for your post!
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
You’re a class act, Bret. I have enjoyed the exchanges between you and Raven.
August 15th, 2010 | 12:45 am
Thanks, Wesley, you are too.
August 15th, 2010 | 7:01 am
Bret,
Bret, I’ve tried to answer your question about the practical application of utilitarianism by first of all pointing out that the individual is not compelled to work out for each action exactly how that action could affect the well-being of everyone else on the planet. Such a calculation is not possible and is liable to massive error (we have a great deal of information about ourselves – our desires and abilities – but comparatively smaller amounts of information about other people). If people constantly, at every turn gave as much consideration to other people as to themselves this would probably lead to the inefficient allocation of resources. We have general ideas about what other people want (about what would make them happy) but this information is not detailed enough to make their desires (rather than ours) the major determinants of our actions.
The utilitarian perspective is not that you necessarily run this rather complex analysis before undertaking each action (if it were we would all be paralysed by the intricacy of it, as incapable of action as the proverbial millipede unable to decide which leg to put forward first). What we are supposed to do is appreciate what the ultimate aim of our ethical actions is (general well-being) and adjust our behaviour if it is has been demonstrated that this behaviour actually runs counter to those goals. It is quite obvious that the utilitarian objective would not be achieved by subjecting each action to the utilitarian calculus (it would also have the unfortunate side-effect of leading people to ignore or suppress valid moral intuitions on the basis of flawed calculations.)
Utilitarianism as you have portrayed it, as that constant unremitting process of “trying to make everyone happy” with ones every action is indeed impracticable. Anyone who every tried that would probably collapse from exhaustion and despair after a few days – but this is not the perspective most utilitarians urge us to adopt. As a rule utilitarian, for instance, I feel that it is practical to apply the calculus only to the general rules themselves (and not individual actions). Moral agents are to follow these rules or their ethical intuitions unless there is a clear utilitarian argument against doing so. The moral duty isn’t really that one ought to work out what’s in our general interest – but rather that one should be prepared to alter ones behaviour if we are shown that it is not.
It is also useful to point out (again) that while the utilitarian formula is usually expressed as “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” (with “happiness” variously defined) it isn’t an all or none proposition and probably would be better described as the slow, flawed process of trying to achieve “greater happiness for greater numbers”. It’s impossible to achieve perfect happiness. All that is required is that we take steps in that direction.
Is this other-centredness contrary to evolved human nature? Probably. Are ethical decisions of this sort hard? Quite frequently. But, as you well know, this allegation of difficulty is not a very convincing argument against an ethical position. If we are convinced for intellectual or intuitive reasons that a certain course of action is moral we should hardly be deterred by the fact that it would be difficult to implement. There will always be some tension between personal desires and morality. The fact that one is unable to fully implement ones ethical philosophy due to selfishness, laziness or general human frailty doesn’t invalidate that ethical system.
About entertainment, although I admit that in general being fed, housed or clothed takes precedence over going to the movies etc, there is, I feel, no efficient non-coercive process by which all the energy and resources devoted to the latter might be transferred to the former. If we reduced it to actual decisions – Should we have laws compelling people to give up their frivolous pleasures for what we presume would be the benefit of others? Obviously not. Should we encourage people to undertake such actions of their own free will? Yes, while understanding that these attempts at altruism do not always, in the long or medium-term achieve their intended effects. Is there an individual ethical responsibility in this regard? This depends very much on our individual circumstances. Most people could certainly do more but when one factors in transaction costs and the fact that we are far better at fulfilling our own desires than at fulfilling other people’s our bias towards our own selves is not entirely without utilitarian justification.
If psychopathy were to society’s advantage, we would encourage it. But it isn’t, so we don’t. The concept of something being evolutionarily advantageous is very different from its being in either the individual’s or the society’s interests. A man who is genetically driven to irresponsibility and multiple sexual partners (to a greater extent than the average male) has a trait which is evolutionarily advantageous (his genes would be over-represented in succeeding generations) but its expression is neither in his interests nor in the interests of the wider society.
When it comes to torture there is first of all the general philosophical question “is torture ever justifiable?” and then secondly the specific question “is its use justified in this instance?”. The answer to the first is, I think, quite clearly “yes”. The second question is always much trickier (because there are often alternative means of obtaining the required information and there are often doubts raised about the reliability of information obtained through torture). Harming innocents is highly undesirable but there is always the theoretical possibility that this may be required to prevent other innocents from being harmed. For a utilitarian, no action may be pre-emptively ruled out but we may take comfort from the fact that horrible actions are condoned only if they prevent even worse things from happening.
I’m glad we both agree that consequences are important. My guess is that you feel that, in the long-term, following our moral intuitions leads to
“better” outcomes (why else would one advocate such a course of action?). But how do we know this? A theist would argue that God in his omniscient wisdom has worked out these consequences for us and etched the resulting precepts in our conscience – but this argument is unacceptable to the secular thinker. Our moral intuitions, all those gut feelings that certain things are “just right” or “just wrong”, are artifacts of our evolutionary history and do not represent objective moral truths. If rational thought reveals these intuitions to be in error, we are obliged to discard them.
Utilitarianism does treat people as individuals. The interests of the many outweigh the interests of the few precisely because the larger group has more individuals. A perspective which claims that one human life is just as important as a million doesn’t place great importance on individual lives – it is morbidly fixated on the abstract philosophical concept of “life”.
Where do we get the idea that people and their happiness should matter? As I wrote in a previous thread, there are two approaches to this. The first assumes that this is, in effect, the core intuition at the heart of all our ethics. This is what “we have been trying to do” without realising it. In the Gospels, Jesus commends a man who describes that heart of the Law as “you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself“. There is however no logical argument with which to convert anyone who is unwilling to accept this primary objective. The assumption is that it’s a goal we’ll all find worth pursuing, on reflection. Singer himself apparently regards it as “the one moral absolute”, the deontological duty which props up the utilitarian project.
Another approach (for those who would completely discard deontology) would be to say that this broad utilitarian goal is the only one which all individuals would give assent to from behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance.
August 15th, 2010 | 9:27 pm
Thanks, Raven, for your, as always, highly intelligent, and nuanced response. you have probably provided the best defense, I’ve seen, for the utilitarian stanpoint, and that’s no small acomplishment.
I’ll take your last, first. Rawl was a deontologist, not a utilitarian, but you make a good point that his “veil of ignorance” thought experiment, could be aptly applied to utilitarianism.
You state that no person should be “compelled” to be a good utilitarian, but why not? If compelling produces good utilitarian results, it seems that you cannot, on an a priori basis, dismiss it. You might state that compelling other would create greater unhappiness, so it wouldn’t happen. But we compel people to be on juries, to pay their taxes, and many other things we would rather not do, for the greater good of society. We could do so in the context of respecting their liberties, perhaps.
It seems to me that utilitarianism requires us to treat everyone equally. But, as you point out, we cannot know others desires, needs, etc., precisely because we’re not them! So, we will necessarily give our own consideration more focus, not only for selfish reasons, but because our concerns will be at the forefront of our consciousness, and we tend to act on what’s in our minds.
You state, rightly, that it would be inefficient if we were always trying to weigh our own needs against others. But utilitarianism, regards everyone as equal. So in a sense, there’s a catch 22 situation here. It’s essential that I not give others more consideration, or less consideration than myself, to be consistent, but yet, it cannot work, in practice. Oh the poor plight of the consistent utilitarian!
You did not address my point about relatives. Clearly, this is one of the biggest hurdles to the widespread acceptance of utilitarianism. We simply cannot, however rational we pretend to be, overcome our propensities to view our mothers, fathers, children, as “deserving” of more moral consideration than strangers, and frankly, I’m not sure we should. But this is precisely what one must do to be a good utilitarian, is view everyone as equal.
In a previous thread, you mentioned that utilitarians don’t have to be consistent, or be on the same page, to work. I respectfully disagree. If we have 90% of utilitarians, being of the rule type, for example, and the act type is the one that works, then we clearly are not creating the greater happiness, for the greatest number. Getting it right matters.
My point about pychopathy, was that, if it was advantageous in the past, to some (obviously not to everyone), so the argument goes, it can potentially, in the future, be advantageous to CERTAIN GROUPS. Should we stop them? If we do, doesn’t that presuppose a moral realism that we’re using, to justify stopping their actions? But how can we interfere, since they’re only doing what’s advantageous, evolutionarily, for them? And to NOT interfere, also presupposes an objective moral view, that it’s wrong to interfere with the evolutionary process.
On the one hand, we have philosophers, like bentham and Singer, arguing that utilitarianism is a complex process, that requires intricate rational thought. On the other, we have the concession, that no one, or at least no average person, can make the proper calculations, and must just, well, do the best they can, in a fuzzy, way, to give people equal consideration, but if they can’t, no big deal. So why even have the philosphical version?
August 16th, 2010 | 7:42 am
Bret,
When it comes to morality only academic philosophers (and religious fundamentalists) may lay claim to absolute consistency. The rest of us (nickel and dime ethical agents) make most of our moral decisions without much reflection, instinctively deciding if something is “right” and “wrong” and only pausing to reflect if our conclusions are questioned, if the decision in question happens to be particularly significant, or if we are faced with a genuine “moral dilemma”. It is with regard to these “boundary cases” that our ethical philosophies become important. It is a rare (and unfortunate) utilitarian who is actually consumed by a desire to improve the world with his every action. Utilitarianism, is more likely, something he pulls out of his pocket when his moral intuitions “fail him” or when he needs to explain his position on a controversial issue to a third party. It is effectively a tool used to deal with the “difficult” questions (or to justify or reject a new ethical prescriptions). This means that act utilitarians and rule utilitarians will in practice only be distinguishable if they happen to be having a philosophical argument. Their day to day moral decisions and policy recommendations will be more affected by other factors (aesthetic differences, education, cultural background) than by what appears on paper to be a significant philosophical difference. [As a little experiment, try to think of a single legislative issue on which such persons would differ].
If we’re doomed to this sort of fuzzy imperfection, why bother with the philosophical ideal? For the same reason we bother with perfect circles in geometry even if these are unattainable in practice. We need to have a clear idea of what we’re theoretically “shooting for”. People will probably never be perfect utilitarians (will never, for instance, regard their relatives as no more important than other people). This doesn’t mean that utilitarianism “doesn’t work” – that would be like saying “it’s impossible to draw circles” just because perfect circularity (in the mathematical sense) is beyond our grasp. The fact of the matter is that we can draw shapes which are “round enough” to be called circles and we can adopt perspectives which are “utilitarian enough” to qualify.
That said, I’m not convinced that urging people to completely disregard their feelings towards relatives would be a utilitarian good. These commitments appear to be biologically mediated (at least in part) and lead in practice to our knowing more about our relatives’ interests and desires than those of other people. We would be more efficient at making them happy and the attempt would give us more joy than if these acts were directed at total strangers – and frequently our prior interactions with them enmesh us in a web of obligations and responsibilities which we are morally compelled to heed.
Should we compel others to be good utilitarians? Only if that compulsion actually leads to improved well-being. And, my position is, in most cases it won’t. Paying taxes and serving on juries is one thing but forcing people to give up all luxuries until world hunger is ended is another thing entirely. Think about how one would actually try to achieve this in practice. What laws would be required? How would they be enforced? Without the possibility of acquiring luxuries would people work less? Would the resulting society be better off (i.e would its members be happier or more fulfilled, all things considered?) I remain unconvinced.
This illustrates, I think, that when it comes to achieving utilitarian goals, the real debate will not be about what constitutes “happiness” or which specific flavour of utilitarianism “works” (or, more appropriately, works best). The real debate will be about the actual consequences of each specific recommendation. What would be the real world effects of permitting infanticide, legalising marijuana, or allowing gay marriage? We may all agree about adopting “utilitarianism” but still disagree profoundly about the answers to those specific questions.
Psychopathy might have been advantageous to some people’s genes (increased their probability of transmission) but that doesn’t mean it was advantageous to the persons themselves. Furthermore, it is of no moral significance that a trait happens to confer evolutionary fitness on its possessor. All we care about is its effect on our society. If it’s of benefit to us, we encourage it – if it isn’t, we try to suppress it. This doesn’t represent an “objective moral view” because it’s completely dependent on the trait’s consequences (and on the consequences of our intervention). A man’s skill at lying and breaking into locked buildings might be of benefit to his criminal gang (and might have served his ancestors well) but since his activities are inimical to society’s interests we condemn them. If it so happened that his actions in fact contributed to the well being of society in general we would have no need to be so severe and might even encourage or commend him (but only if we expect that this encouragement would also have consequences beneficial to society.)
Is it possible to be a perfect “textbook utilitarian”. Probably not. But utilitarianism isn’t a religion. You don’t get brownie points or a place by the right hand of God for being a “good utilitarian”. For everyone apart from the philosophers it will just be like a little reminder at the back in our minds, a little post-it note we pull off the fridge when the abortion, embryonic stem cell and animal rights debates heat up: “Laws and ethical regulations are important because of the effects they have on our well-being. This is the proper perspective to take.”
[To clarify: while I still maintain that Util. is useful mainly to clarify "difficult" questions there is the pragmatic assumption that most of our basic moral intuitions are consistent with utilitarian goals. A moral intuition is to be discarded only if it has incontrovertibly been shown to be inimical to these objectives - something which is not always that easy to demonstrate.]
August 16th, 2010 | 8:40 pm
Raven, I think that your comments, clarify the reason that utilitarianism is unworkable. People are simply not going to utilize it, because it simply goes too much against human nature. If utilitarians were really serious, I think that they would try to come up with a way, for at least most of the world’s population to adopt it, whether through education, persuasion, or be compelling others. After all, if most of the population, does not consist of utilitarians, then utilitarianism, is hardly going to bear the fruit, that it intends.
It’s my position, that utilitarianism, is unwise. It cannot be put into practice, as you concede.
One might conclude from this, that an alternative, is to adopt a pragmatic approach to ethics. This certainly does not have the intellectual allure or philosophical doctrines, such as deontology, or utilitarian approaches, but it might have an even better advantage: it works, in the real world.
Perhaps the biggest of problems with utilitarianism 1)humans must consider all people, or beings, capable of suffering, as equal. No one, and I repeat, no one, can consistently apply this. their own needs, the needs of their family and friends, will override this “equal consideration”. 2) it must be accepted by, at least most people, for it to work, and it cannot work(see number 1). So do we force people to be utilitarians, only if the forcing doesn’t create greater unhappiness than happiness. 3) even if one was completely commited to utilitarianism, he would have a difficult time implementing it. Does he give half his money to the poor? Maybe his family needs it, though? Should he work only 4 hours a day, so he can spend the rest of his finite hours helping the poor? Or feeding the hungry?
Bentham thought that one could device “calculi” each of which would correspond to the worth of an action, and then you “add them up”, to come up with the right action. An almost charmingly niave solution. Clearly, this man had no family life, or any other type of life, aside from what was between his own ears.
Which reminds me of what Cicero, and Descartes (good philosophers both, especially Descartes), that there’s nothing so strange that some philosopher, has not, at one point or another endorsed it.
August 17th, 2010 | 11:17 am
Bret,
“Implementing utilitarianism” doesn’t mean having a perfect utilitarian society in which every single decision is made according to the utilitarian calculus – just as “drawing a circle” doesn’t mean producing a mathematically perfect one.
All we require is a certain “attitude” towards laws and ethics. That’s all. No ethical system is capable of perfect application. No one is perfectly moral. No one can be. This will hold regardless of which ethical framework you build.
[Also, the version of utilitarianism you put forward is a straw man. Not all conscious beings capable of suffering are equal. Modern utilitarians do not treat infant humans, adult dolphins and professors of bioethics as if their preferences and pleasures were equivalent. There is no duty to treat everyone "equally". We have pre-existing obligations and social contracts. A parent has duties towards his children which he doesn't have towards a stranger's . . .
As I suggested earlier, you really should read Singer's books again.]
August 17th, 2010 | 5:00 pm
Raven, in principle, every conscious being is equal, according to utilitarianism. Obviously, people will differ, in their capacity to suffer or feel pain, or experience happiness. But because we cannot know, who these people will be, the prudant approach, is to assume all are equal, and proceed from there.
You seem to have misunderstood my point. I’ve never claimed that a moral theory must be perfect, to work. My problem, is that the theory cannot, in a coherent way, be translated, into practice. you seem to admit as much.
One thing you’ve said is interesting. In a previous thread, you’ve mentioned that utilitarianism, is not like a religion. Actually, I think that it is. Utililitarianism, requires one to take away all of the emotion, and personal perspective, and view things in a universal way, with reason, like angels. Humans are neither angels or demons.
Like I’ve said before, any universal theory, like utilitarianism, and I’ll add deontology, that contradicts our moral intuitions, and our REAL LIFE concerns, is unwise.
August 17th, 2010 | 6:30 pm
Bret,
Your version of utilitarianism is very different from the utilitarianism advocated by contemporary philosophers. It’s almost as if we’re talking about different things.
I never said utilitarianism could never be implemented. I just admitted that it could not be implemented in the way you describe.
Your idea that “every conscious being is equal” is based on your interpretation of classical utilitarianism. It has absolutely nothing to do with Singer’s views. I mentioned earlier that your misconceptions about Singer’s ideas are partial due to the fact that you refract things through that narrow Benthamite lens. This is further evidence of that.
Read Practical Ethics again. The ideas you criticise are not Singer’s.
August 17th, 2010 | 6:49 pm
You do make some good points, Raven, I probably have not distinguished Singer’s version of utilitarianism, form others, as properly as I should have.
But Singer has argued that one’s own interests, should not take priority, over others. From this, is it not reasonable, to conclude, that everyone is equal, in principle?
And, again, I simply cannot really know others interests, unless they tell me, which makes implementation unlikely.
August 18th, 2010 | 1:17 am
Bret,
Singer has never argued that ones interest should not take priority over others. (we should give more consideration to other’s interests but not as much as to our own). In the Big Think interview I posted earlier he actually talks about a lot of morality being justifiable by enlightened self-interest.
It appears that, when it comes to utilitarianism, you have created a straw man. These are simply not Singer’s ideas. It is essential that you re-discover them (let him speak in his own words) before you attempt to criticise.
August 18th, 2010 | 5:58 pm
I’ll take your word for it, Raven, but I think that any version of utilitarianism, is of a universal sort. That is, all beings, say, conscious beings, or what ever group a utilitarian has concluded belongs in the moral consideration, category, are considered equal, in terms of moral consideration. This is is just one of the essential features of any version of utilitarianism, regardless of the disagreements they may have on other aspects. And, indeed, one of the admirable features of utilitarianism, is its refusal to consider some as “better”, or more “worthy” of moral treatment. Anyway, how could one create the greater good for the greater number, if one stacks the deck, in one’s own favor?
August 19th, 2010 | 2:25 am
Bret, “considered equal” merely in that hypothetical sense that we are “equal before the law”. All conscious beings, in that sense, are to have their interests equally considered in the calculus (all other things being equal). In reality, pre-existing relationships and obligations and our varying levels of knowledge about others interests means that we pay more attention to those around us than those who happen to be more distant. (It is also important to note that we have different preferences and these all interact – so though an infant’s preference to avoid suffering is equally considered alongside my own suffering avoidance, I have other preferences the infant is incapable of. Our individual preferences are given equal weight but because we have different preference and these, furthermore, affect the preferences of others in different ways, we are not, in reality, given equal consideration)
August 19th, 2010 | 8:44 am
Partial retraction: Singer’s view (at least in Practical Ethics) is, as you state, that ones own interests should carry no more weight than the interests of others when making ethical decisions – but equal consideration of interests doesn’t necessarily lead to equal treatment of the individuals involved.
His views about the importance of enlightened self-interest are more recent (and he cites this as an example of something he’s changed his mind about).
August 20th, 2010 | 2:40 am
Thanks, Raven, your last post is an example of your honesty, that I admire.
August 20th, 2010 | 8:53 am
Eating humble pie:
Me: Your idea that “every conscious being is equal” is based on your interpretation of classical utilitarianism. It has absolutely nothing to do with Singer’s views. I mentioned earlier that your misconceptions about Singer’s ideas are partial due to the fact that you refract things through that narrow Benthamite lens. This is further evidence of that. Read Practical Ethics again. The ideas you criticise are not Singer’s.
Decided to take my own advice. Turns out that I’m just as guilty of “distorting” (and I use that word in the kindest way possible) Singer’s ideas as you are. Equality is, of course, important to him (as it is to all utilitarians) but the implications of this are not necessarily what you would imagine (this is all covered at length in the first three chapters of PE).
It also occurred to me that I had fallen into the habit of describing the “Benthamite calculus” as “narrow” and of dismissing classical utilitarianism as primitive and passé. This was, I admit, largely due to rhetorical overreach and ignorance on my part. It turns out that J. S. Mill’s “Utilitarianism” (which you have probably read already) contains many passages directly relevant to some of your concerns:
http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/mill/utilitarianism.pdf
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 20th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Raven: I am proud that you come to my blog.
August 20th, 2010 | 3:05 pm
(flourish and bow)
Wesley: and we* are grateful that we have such a gracious host.
[*the royal "we"]
August 21st, 2010 | 3:39 am
Thanks, so much Raven. It’s a great pleasure interacting with you. Your commitment to honesty, makes debating, and discussing these issues a real learning experience. I have learned a great deal, from you.
I, too, am grateful, for Wesley, being a gracious host.
August 21st, 2010 | 8:16 am
Raven, John Stuart Mill is, without question, one of the greatest thinkers whoever lived. It would be difficult, to find a task, more formidible, than the one of attempting to refute this genius!
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