David,
OK, so there may be other approaches than quality-of-life (qol) and
sanctity-of-life (sol).
But, with equality-of-life, where do civil rights come from? Surely from
some higher order ideas, assumptions and beliefs about the nature and value
of human beings and the nature of the world. What are these for the
equality approach? Civil rights, useful as they can be, are societally
agreed rights and can be changed by agreement (changes in law). (It also
does not seem to be a universal approach as civil rights as conceptualised
in the US may not be the same for many other countries and cultures.) This
is different for sanctity of life as you cannot decide someone is accorded
any less s.o.l. than another person as the sanctity of life argument
pertains equally to all human beings (how one then decides to act on that
'sacredness' of human life and gives it full respect is another question,
as the Dalai Lama highlighted for instance when I think he said that
there may be circumstances under which (sacred) lives may be ended).
With the quality of life argument, and particularly in its preference
utilitarian application human value can be expanded and contracted
depending on agreement who is a person and who is not.
Further how can the equality of protection and due process be a
whole-of-life attitude as sol and qol can? - "One does not live by
protection and due process alone...". And an approach taking into account
the good for a person's ('person' not used in a Singeresque sense here)
whole life seems necessary in arguing for equal value of each
(marginalised) human being's life. This is because a person who has not
been valued by many others over their lifetime is not likely to suddenly
receive the equal protection and due process at some point in their
lives where they need this, even if mandated by law. Ronald Dworkin
apparently said that not only do we live in the shadow of our deaths but
we also die in the shadow of our lives. He may have meant this more in the
sense of how we lead our lives ourselves but for very vulnerable people
with disabilities this may mean that they live and die acccording to how
their whole lives are being lived for them by others.
Kittay (1995 Taking dependency seriously; the family and medical leave act
considered in the light of the social organization of dependency work and
gender equality, Hypatia v10,1) has pointed out how Rawls' excluded some
people with disabilities from equal justice (and children, people with
mental illness, elderly people declining in mental capacity) by idealising
citizens as "fully co-operating members of society over the course of a
complete life".
If you limit equality to protection and due process then protection from
what and who defines due process? Can it guide us in whether to accord
protection for a fetus from abortion or accord protection for the mother
from any physical, psychological or economic suffering she identifies? And
what is due process here? Can it guide us whether a person with
intellectual disability who is unable to consent to euthanasia has a right
to be protected from any suffering said to justify the euthanasia or a
right to protection from the euthanasia itself? Can the equality approach
be extended to all humans, whether in Singer's terms, they are persons or not?
Is the equality approach a viable response to Singer's ethics and the
sanctity of life argument? Your writings may have the answers to these
questions - my apologies for reinventing the questions leading to the
concept of the wheel if it has. I'd be interested in any references on the
equality approach you refer to. I hope I am making sense.
Erik Leipoldt
At 10:25 03/09/1999 -1000, you wrote:
>Erik suggests that we have no alternatives to Singer's argument nor to
>Sanctity of Life ethics. But we have. For many years I have put forth (and
>Ron Amundson recently did in this discussion) that we have a basis for an
>arguement which encompases equal protection and due process. (Ron did not
>use the due process part.) 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
>
and snipped from Ron Amundson's posting:
>Wesley Smith (an activist)
sometimes calls it "equality of life".
The idea is that certain forms of death-making violate the civil rights of
those being made dead. That's morally wrong. But not because those lives
were sacred. It's wrong because those lives were not given equal protection
with other lives. ("Equal protection" is a U.S. constitutional phrase.) The
reason they were not given equal protection is that SOMEONE decided that the
lives were of such low quality that they ought to be ended. Singer
eloquently illustrates how easy it is to decide that a life is of such low
quality that it ought to be ended.
>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>David Pfeiffer, Ph.D.
>Resident Scholar
>Center on Disability Studies
>University of Hawai`i at Manoa
>[log in to unmask]
>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>Center on Disability Studies....maximizing individual
>potential by encouraging independence, self-determination,
>and full participation in the community.
>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>
>
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