PETER SINGER
Singer's idea is that to differentiate between humans and
animals in terms of value is a false distinction and that "the
biological facts upon which the boundary of our species is drawn do not
have moral significance" (3a) . BUT in making this case he categorises
human beings differentially in terms of value, based on rationality and
conscious thought. Abortion and Euthanasia become permissible because
the quality of being of a foetus, a handicapped infant or a terminally
ill old person is too low and not protected by any view that human life
is sacred.
Singer uses Preference Utilitarianism, in which the idea of
happiness is replaced by the idea of individual preference - what is
moral is what satisfies the most interests and preferences, as the basis
of his ethical philosophy. "His utilitarianism convinces him that ethics
can be rationally established and it is possible for modern man to live
a fully ethical life" (3g). Singer rejects a 'Sanctity of Life' ethic
replacing it instead with a 'Quality of Life Ethic' as the basis of his
theory.
He states firstly:
"One could assert that to have rights one must be a member of the human
race... But if we can get away with taking that as a moral axiom, the
racist can with equal logical force make it his axiom that to have
rights you have to be a member of the Caucasian race... Conversely, once
we agree that race is not, in itself, morally significant, how can
species be?" (3b)
THOUGHT - (1) This takes for granted the existence of separate human
'races' with significant differences between them. (2) His 'logical
argument' suggests that there is as much difference between different
'races' as between humans and other species. (3) This could in itself be
the basis for a racist argument.
He then argues:
"Whatever test we propose as a means of separating human from non-human
animals, its plain that if all non-human animals are going to fail it ,
some humans will as well.
"The fact that we don't use [people who are born with irreparable brain
damage or children] as means to our ends indicates that we don't really
see decisive moral significance in rationality, or autonomy, or
language, or a sense of justice, or any other criteria said to
distinguish us from animals... This is speciesism pure and simple" (3c)
THOUGHT - This supposes that we don't use people who have irreparable
brain damage or children to our own ends. We may not eat them, but they
are used in other ways, for instance in furthering some professionals
careers - e.g. Singers!
Singer then begins to differentiate on a value basis between
different human beings:
"The influence of the Judeo-Christian insistence on the Godlike nature
of human beings is nowhere more apparent than in the standard Western
doctrine of the sanctity of human life: a doctrine that puts the life of
the most hopelessly and irreparably brain-damaged human - the kind whose
level of awareness is not under-estimated by the term 'human vegetable'
- above the life of a chimpanzee." (3d)
In Singer's view the capacities of the being involved play a
central role in the wrongness of killing:
"Such a view will not discriminate on the basis of species alone, but it
will still make distinctions between the seriousness of killing beings
with the mental capacities of normal human adults and killing beings who
do not possess, and never have possessed, these mental capacities" (3d)
Singer draws upon Joseph Fletcher's "indicators of humanhood"
and John Locke's definition of a person as "A thinking intelligent being
that has reason and reflection and can consider itself as itself, the
same thinking thing, in different times and places" in order to create
his own definition of a person (as opposed to a biological human being,
member of the species Homo Sapiens) as a rational a self conscious
being. (3e)
As far as how we treat human beings is concerned, he states, we
should treat them in accordance with their ethically relevant
characteristics:
"Some of these are inherent in the nature of their being. They include
consciousness, the capacity for physical, social and mental interaction
with other beings, having conscious preferences for continued life, and
having enjoyable experiences. Other relevant aspects depend on the
relationship of the being to others, having relatives for example who
will grieve over your death, or being so situated in a group that if you
are killed, other will fear for their own lives. All of these things
make a difference to the regard and respect we should have for a being"
(3f)
Singer (along with Helga Kuhse) has also produced an argument
which makes infanticide ethical. he states:
"Killing unwanted infants or allowing then to die has been a normal
practice in most societies throughout human history and prehistory...
The fact that infanticide was - and in many parts of the world, still is
- widely practised does not, of course, mean that it is right... Still,
it is worth knowing that from a cross cultural perspective it is our
tradition ... that is unusual in its official morality about
infanticide.
"We should accept that the development of a human being from embryo...
to older child is a continuous process that does not offer us neat lines
of demarcation between stages. But, we may then add, so too is the
development of the moral status of the human being... Thousands of years
of lip-service to the Christian ethic have not succeeded in suppressing
entirely the earlier ethical attitude that new-born infants, especially
if unwanted, are not yet full members of the moral community" (3l)
Singer and Kuhse state that:
"There are good reasons for rejecting [the proposition that a new born
infant can have an interest in its future existence]. A new born infant
is not a continuing self.
"Although it may develop into a person, it cannot strictly be said to
have an interest in surviving to become a person, because it lacks
psychological continuity with the person it may become" (3m)
They argue that this is not an argument which should upset
people who have disabilities for existence because:
"To allow infanticide before the onset of self-awareness ... cannot
threaten anyone who is in a position to worry about it.
"Anyone able to understand what it is to live or die must already be a
person and has the same right too life as the rest of us.
"Infanticide threatens none of us, for once we are aware of it we are
not infants" (3n)
THOUGHT - Singer is here using 'threat' only in terms of an action or
promise of action by one person against another, rather than as an
emotion felt, denying that arguments such as his should cause exactly
such emotions.
Singer argues that it is right to distinguish between the lives
and worth of different human beings whilst claiming that "To believe
this involves no disrespect at all for those who are lacking limbs; it
simply recognises the reality of the difficulties they face". (3h) He
states:
"It may still be objected that to replace either a foetus or a new-born
infant is wrong because it suggests to disabled people living today that
their lives are less worth living than the lives of people who are not
disabled. Yet it is surely flying in the face of reality to deny that,
on average, this is so... Recall thalidomide... Once the cause of the
abnormal births was discovered, the drug was taken off the market... If
we really believed that there is no reason to think of the life of a
disabled person as likely to be any worse than that of a normal person,
we would not have regarded this as a tragedy. No compensation would have
been sought, or awarded to the courts, The children would merely have
been 'different'" (3h)
He has also claimed that:
"If the suggestion... is that whenever we seek to avoid having severely
disabled children, we are improperly judging one kind of life to be
worse than another, we can reply that such judgements are both necessary
and proper. To argue otherwise would seem to suggest that if we break a
leg, we should not get it mended, because in doing so we judge the lives
of those with crippled legs to be less worth living than our own" (3i)
In a critique of Singer's logic in this analogy Sundstrom (3j)
points out that: (1) it is possible for a person to consider their life
better or worse than another's without bringing in the question of
whether this or that life is worth living. (2) Whether or not to take a
human life is a question which concerns the individual's very existence
in the world... such a question is not logically necessary in mending a
broken leg. (3) from this viewpoint the person's perception of their own
life is not taken into account. In questioning the person's humanity
their chance to express their own subjectivity is denied.
In reply Singer accuses Sundstrom of creating a 'straw man' out
of his argument. He states that his analogy:
"is intended to do just one task: to show that we must be able to make
comparative judgements about the worth of various lives. Whether we
should or not use those judgements as the basis for deciding whether a
prospective child is born, or whether an existing child continues to
live or not, is entirely another matter" (3k)
THOUGHT - But if we do not intend to use those judgements why must we be
able to and why do we?
Singer and Kuhse conclude that:
"Decisions about severely handicapped infants should not be based on the
idea that al life is of equal value..."
"There is therefore no obligation to do everything possible to keep
severely handicapped infants alive in all possible circumstances.
Instead, decisions to keep them alive or not to do so - should take
account of the interests of the infant, the family, the 'next child',
and the community as a whole" (3o)
FOOTNOTES
3a. Singer, P. (1993) Practical Ethics, (2nd Ed.), Cambridge. p 88
3b. Singer, P. (1983) "A Covenant for the Ark?" in Hanfling, O.
(1987) Life and Meaning: A Reader, Blackwell. p 143
3c. Singer (1983) p 145
3d. Singer (1983) p 146
3f. Singer, P. (1995) Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse
of our Traditional Ethics, Oxford. p 191
3e. Singer (1993) pp 86-87
3g. Appleyard, B. "Thinkers of the Nineties: Peter Singer", The
Independent, 13/11/95.
3h. Singer (1983) pp 188-189
3i. Singer, P. (1991) "On being Silenced in Germany", The New York
Review of Books, Vol. 38, No 14, pp 34-40.
3j. Sundstrom, P. (1995) "Peter Singer and 'Lives Not Worth Living'
- Comments on a Flawed Argument from Analogy", Journal of Medical
Ethics, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp 35-38
3k. Singer, P. (1995b) "Straw Men with Broken Legs: A Response to
Per Sundstrom", Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol 21, pp 89-90
3l. Singer (1995) pp 129-131
3m. Kuhse, H & Singer, P. (1985), Should the Baby Live? The Problem
of Handicapped Infants, Oxford University Press. p 140 and also pp
132-134
3n. Kuhse & Singer (1985) p 138
3o. Should the Baby Live, p 172
--
Graham Palmer
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