Transcript Practical ethics: applying theory

Deontology in practical
ethics
Michael Lacewing
[email protected]
© Michael Lacewing
Deontology
• Morality is a matter of duty.
• Whether something is right or wrong doesn’t
depend on its consequences. Actions are
right or wrong in themselves.
• Different answers to how we can discover
our duties; Kant says ‘pure reason’
• Actions are defined by intentions, e.g. the
difference between murder and killing in
self-defence.
Practical ethics: warnings
• Morality v. legality
– Whether a practice should be legalized is
a separate debate from whether it is
morally acceptable.
• Don’t get into metaethics
– The premise of practical ethics is that we
are searching for the (or a) right thing to
do. So don’t start talking about relativism
or subjectivism.
Euthanasia
• 6 types of euthanasia
– Involuntary, voluntary, non-voluntary
– Passive, active
• A first objection: Slippery slope
– An action that is permitted may incline people to
perform actions that aren’t permitted.
Two more warnings
• Separate empirical (sociology, psychology)
from philosophical
– Don’t spend long discussing whether or not the
slippery slope would actually occur.
• The conclusion is often conditional
– It is not just acceptable, but good, to say ‘if it
turns out like this, then this follows’. E.g. ‘if
allowing voluntary euthanasia in some cases
caused people to seek it wrongly, then it would
be wrong to allow it at all’
Active v. passive
• Killing someone is different from
letting them die. We shouldn’t kill
people, but are not always required to
prevent them from doing.
• Can we kill people in euthanasia?
Sanctity of life says no, and many
doctors are reluctant
Voluntary euthanasia
• Pro: passive euthanasia is not unjust, and is
charitable
• Con: bringing about death unnecessarily is always
wrong
• Kant: people who commit suicide destroy their
rationality to avoid pain - i.e. they treat it as a
means to an end; so euthanasia (to avoid pain) is
wrong
• What if you ask for euthanasia because you will lose
your rationality, e.g. Alzheimer’s? Do we respect
their dignity by giving them euthanasia?
Abortion: the right to life?
• Does a foetus have a right to life?
• If people have souls, when does the soul and
body come together? Traditional Catholic
doctrine: at conception - so the embryo is
sacred, as all human life is, straight away
• But:
– Two-thirds of embryos spontaneously aborted
– Some forms of contraception prevent the embryo
implanting in the uterus wall
– Until 14 days old, the embryo may split into two,
becoming identical twins - one soul or two?
Sanctity and the right to life
• So are embryos/foetuses sacred? Do they
have a right to life? Are these two questions
the same?
• Why do human beings have a right to life? Is
it something that distinguishes us from
animals?
–
–
–
–
–
–
Soul
Reason
Language
Emotional experience
Morality
Just ‘being human’
Dividing people up
• Apart from souls and ‘being human’, all other
criteria are possessed by some human beings
and not others, e.g. severe mental disability,
senile dementia, permanent vegetative state
– Yet we don’t think it is permissible to kill them for
the benefit of others
• Sentience: primitive consciousness of
perception, pleasure, pain
– This begins around 20 weeks, so foetuses before
20 weeks don’t have right to life.
– Many animals are sentient - do they have a right
to life?
Animal rights
• Regan: Animals have a right to life if
they are a ‘subject of a life’
– Psychological states and identity
– Point of view, life matters
• Is an animal’s right to life as strong as
a human being’s?
Two final warnings
• Avoid oversimplification
– Normative theories might not deliver just one
answer, but give reasons both for and against.
Noting this is important for evaluation.
• Don’t say ‘Who knows? Who can say?’
– You are the thinker – this is your attempt to try
to say.
– Why think practical ethics should or could be
easy?
The argument from
potential
• Foetuses are have a right to life because
they will become a person with a right to life
if allowed to develop
• But:
– Sperm and egg prior to conception have this
potential, if allowed to conjoin
– Does potential matter? A student, who has the
potential to become a teacher, is not put in
charge of lessons until trained as a teacher; you
can’t spend money you don’t have yet
The right to choose
• Even if the foetus doesn’t have a right to
life, it might be wrong to kill it.
• But: people have a right to do what they
want with their bodies. Until it can survive
outside her body, the foetus is part of the
woman’s body
• Even if the foetus does have a right to life,
the right to choose may take precedence.