-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Peckitt <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, September 03, 1999 11:35 PM
Subject: Re: Peter Singer - A Singer Counterargument
:>In other words, we and all people have the
:>right to be treated as other people (equal protection) and the right to be
:>treated fairly (due process). These rights are well articulated in
:>political theory and elsewhere and are quite powerful.....David
:
:If I may Devil's Advocate the a minute here, I think I can give a kind of
:counterargument Singer would:-
:
:Equal protection seems to imply some Social Contract Theory or some
:variation like that of Rawls or Norman. In SCT members of society are
:aware of its rules the most important rule being to harm others. If any
:breaks the rules the risk revenge be exacted upon them because they have
:broken the rules.
You're right that equal protection makes more sense to an SCT theorist than
to a utilitarian. But on SCT, punishment for breaking the rules is not
'revenge', it's _justice_. SCT is supposed to explain why certain social
rules are _just_ even if in individual cases they do not guarantee happiness
(or preference-maximizing).
:However Singer would argue that since some people with disabilities cannot
:understand the world around them, they could therefore neither understand
:the rules - his famous human/person disctinction. It would therefore be
:unfair on those who did undertsand them and were "rule-abiding" citizens,
:and on the disabled person themselves since they would be punished so
often.
Singer would not argue this, for two reasons. First, being a utilitarian,
the concern about what's fair and unfair is not something he'd be all that
concerned with. Second, it isn't really a criticism of SCT. Under SCT, it
is an open question whether or not the "humans" SInger calls "non-persons"
would or would not be protected. It is possible to be an SCT theorist and
come down on either side of the question.
Under SCT, you are supposed to consider how you would "vote" on the rules of
a society _before_ you know what your own personal characteristics are in
that society. In this hypothetical situation, since you don't know whether
you are male or female, the rules you vote for would not discriminate
against either sex.
For SCT, the Big Question is this: Consider the possibility that you are
severely disabled, as well as all of the other possibilities. Now, wouldn't
you prefer that we kill you as an infant? There is a strong tendency among
a lot of people to say yes (when the question is asked in a certain way),
but most disability activists believe that a "yes" answer is based on
bigotry and ignorance.
The argument you sketch is something that a pro-euthanasia SCT theorist
would use against an anti-euthanasia SCT theorist.
David and I, in our support for equal protection and due process, are both
Social Contact Theorists (at least to the extent that Thomas Jefferson was).
But SC Theory alone is not enough to block the eugenic/euthanisiac impulse.
You have get people to imagine themselves as having non-dispensable lives
even while disabled. And that's almost the same job as getting a
preference-utilitarian like Singer to include severely disabled humans as
"persons" who have preferences.
I'm sorry to admit that philosophical theories of ethics won't solve the
problem of discrimination against PWDs. The same prejudices can take hold
whatever your ethical theory is. It would be harder to argue against Singer
if he were a sophisticated SCT theorist, but the problems would be very
similar.
Ron
--
Ron Amundson
University of Hawaii at Hilo
Hilo, HI 96720
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