These are notes for class discussion in the week of February 22.

1. pmail: Stevenson
I am having a little trouble with [Stevenson’s]
argument about the use of scientific
methods to resolve disagreements in belief.
He seems to explain everything except how
these "scientific methods" may be used to
resolve said ethical disagreements. Is he
suggesting that an objective ethical truth
exists that can be measured and tested?
How does one accurately quantify the value
of a life or for that matter the "rightness or
wrongness" of an action? For me science is
objective and involves testable phenomena;
however, ethics seems to me intangible.

2. pmail: born-again people
...about the reductionist view on criminals,
convicted of crimes that were undertaken
many years ago. I'm wondering how it can
really be determined whether a person is
the same person today as he or she was 20
years ago, without putting that person into
the same situation. Would it not be useful to
investigate whether a person would make
the same decisions and act the same way
today as he or she did 20 years ago? If a
person would make the same decision, then
it seems as though he or she IS still the
same person. Whereas, if the person has
changed his or her point of view over time,
does that not imply a changed person?

3. pmail: SU and “kantianism”
...why does DV Utilitarianism use kantianism?
Or maybe how was kantianism derived from
Kantianism? DV utilitarianism's symbolic utility
seems to just be derived from the meaning
of acts in a cultural environment, but Kant
seems to have a very defined approach with
the categorical imperative. Nothing seems to
suggest that he would accept any lighter
version of his ethical theory. Why is
symbolic utility not merely deontological, but
kantian?

4. pmail: persons & language
In regards to Singer's Ch. 5, I am wondering why language is
deemed as a prerequisite to be granted person-hood in the first
place? Just because humans use language to communicate, does
not mean that animals must do the same in order to prove
themselves conscious beings. Because of the physiological anatomy
and vocal tract of various animals, 'language' production is not
always physically possible. However, bird calling's and songs are
forms of communication between birds that one could argue makes
them communicative beings, they just don't have a specific
'language' defined the same as human's language... what places
human's communication above communication abilities of non-
humans?

5. pmail: self & preference
Student: Reducing morality to preferences,
Singer seems to have a view of people that
seems to define individuals strictly in terms
of the preferences that they have. A
question for my identity as a person arises
in Singer's framework: I may be conscious of
myself as a 'self', but to Singer my
preferences are what make me a 'self' or
'individual'. Let's say my preferences were
transferred to my clone, then my moral
worth would also be transferred to my
clone. If this is true, then it seems to me
that Singer seems to make a big statement

6. pmail: replaceability
"...only a being who is capable of conceiving herself as a distinct
entity existing over time - that is, only a person - could have this
desire. Therefore only a person could have a right to life" (97T4)
(as put by Singer)
Student: I don't see how someone can be denied a right to life at
one point in their life but be granted this right at another point.
For instance, infants may not have the ability to see themselves as
a "distinct entity existing over time" but they most certainly, in
most cases, will develop this ability with time. I don't see it as fair
for an infant to be denied a right to life (according to Tooley's
position) simply because it has not yet had the opportunity to
develop the ability to see itself as existing over time.
DrC: If you could articulate your idea of development, that would
create a big problem for Singer.

7. deontology and universalization
Student: Consider this scenario regarding an off duty paramedic. This paramedic has
promised his wife and family that he would be home in time for a Thanksgiving dinner. On
the way home, while driving down an isolated backroad, the off duty paramedic runs into
the scene of a car crash. A car is flipped over in a ditch by this isolated road and the
driver inside the car is trapped and will die if he does not receive immediate medical
attention. Deontology states that this paramedic has no moral obligation to help the
trapped driver. Instead, the paramedic has a moral obligation to continue driving down the
road so he can get home in time for dinner and uphold the promise he made to his wife
earlier. Breaking this promise would violate his wife's autonomy. On the other hand,
utilitarianism would deem that the paramedic has a moral obligation to save the driver's
life because the consequences of allowing the driver to die are much more serious than
the consequences of breaking a promise. It seems that the universal maxims which define
Deontology may not be universal after all. How would a Deontologist defend their doctrine
in regards to this particular situation?
DrC: One way to deal with this problem is to construe the maxim as highly qualified or
conditional. (It can still be something one would be willing to universalize.) Another way is
to construe duties as “prima facie duties” and to assign more or less “weight” to them vis-
a-vis each other. This latter may be the way to go, if one can give a satisfactory account
of weight. Decision theorists study the weight to be assigned to a preference by
reference to a lottery in which one “buys tickets” to get this or that preference satisfied.
Maybe their work could be extended to prima facie duties, especially if these duties are
understood by reference to symbolic utility. A prima facie duty to do X is a shared
understanding in a culture that X must be performed in circumstances C. Then this duty is
internalized by individuals. They assign more or less weight to their preference that X
should be done.

8. Singer: non-religious ethics
Singer: In contrast to the common opinion that the moral question
about abortion is a dilemma with no solution, I shall show that, at
least within the bounds of non-religious ethics, there is a clear-cut
answer and those who take a different view are simply mistaken.
DrC: This remark suggests that Singer isn’t seriously engaging the
opponents of abortion, whose opposition is predominantly derived
from religious beliefs.
DrC: Note that DV gives weight to those religious beliefs in
determining the decision value of aborting a fetus, and in evaluating
a law on doing so. One would expect this weight to have significant
influence on the laws of societies in which religious belief is deep
and widespread. And this influence would be morally right, other
things being equal. (Other things might not be equal: the society
might be committed to personal autonomy, which would militate
against laws prohibiting abortion. Or the bad consequences of laws
proscribing abortion might outweigh the symbolic utility of a pro-
life law.

9. Singer: Thomson’s violinist
Singer: The utilitarian would hold that,
however outraged I may be at having been
kidnapped, if the consequences of
disconnecting myself from the violinist are,
on balance, and taking into account the
interests of everyone affected, worse than
the consequences of remaining connected, I
ought to remain connected. (148B14ff)
Note that for Singer one must choose
between his consequentialism or a theory
that justifies independently of an action’s
consequences. (148B17f)

10. Singer’s mountain climber
Singer: Opponents of abortion would
presumably think an abortion in these
circumstances particularly outrageous, for
neither the life nor the health of the mother
is at stake -- only the enjoyment she gets
from climbing mountains. Yet if abortion is
wrong only because it deprives the world of
a future person, this abortion is not wrong:
it does no more than delay the entry of a
person into the world. (154B)
DrC: Note that this case doesn’t address
Marquis’s criterion, which doesn’t allow
replaceability.

11. Singer: babies
Singer: If the fetus does not have the same
claim to life as a person, it appears that the
newborn baby does not either, and the life of
a newborn baby is of less value to it than
the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee is to
the nonhuman animal. (169)
DrC: For Singer, the fetus has moral standing
when it is capable of experiencing pain (14
weeks?). The adult chimpanzee is a person
and so has a higher grade of moral standing.
Note though that Marquis’s criterion gives a
different result.

12. Singer: potential
Singer: Traditional defenders of the right to
life of the embryo have been reluctant to
introduce degrees of potential into the
debate, because once the notion is accepted,
it seems undeniable that the early embryo is
less of a potential person than the later
embryo or the fetus. (160B)
DrC: Let potential be a matter of degree,
the precise degree being determined by the
symbolic disutility of killing it.

13. O’Neill
O’Neill: The maxim of the act is the principle
on which one sees oneself as acting.
One of the ways of defending deontology is
to qualify and conditionalize the principle in
question. The trouble with this strategy, at
least in O’Neill’s account of it, is that we
typically don’t “see ourselves as acting”
according to complicated principles. Briefly,
we have simple minds.

14. Mill: higher pleasures
Mill: Of two pleasures, if there be one to
which all or almost all who have experienced
both give a decided preference, irrespective
of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it,
that is the more desirable pleasure.
DrC: What should be said about the divide to
be expected between Muslim and Christian
readers of the Koran and the Bible?

15. Marquis: a future-like-ours
Marquis: The claim that the primary wrong-
making feature of a killing is the loss to the
victim of the value of its future accounts for
the wrongness of killing young children and
infants directly; it makes the wrongness of
such acts as obvious as we think it is.