practical ethics

Every human being is different. No two human beings are same. How can you underline equality between them ?It is the principle of “equal consideration of interests of those affected by a moral decision”

“The essence of the principle of equal consideration of interests is that we give equal weight in our moral deliberations to the like interests of all those affected by our actions. … What the principle really amounts to is this: an interest is an interest, whoever’s interest it may be”

The implications of this principle are in the context of genetic diversity and justification of racism and sexism.

CASE#1: KNOWLEDGE DIFFERENCEIN SINGER’S VIEW, “THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY IS NOT BASED ON ANY ACTUAL EQUALITY THAT ALL PEOPLE SHARE. I HAVE ARGUED THAT THE ONLY DEFENSIBLE BASIS FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY IS EQUAL CONSIDERATION OF INTERESTS, AND I HAVE ALSO SUGGESTED THAT THE MOST IMPORTANT HUMAN INTERESTS … ARE NOT AFFECTED BY DIFFERENCES IN INTELLIGENCE”

CASE#2: EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND EQUAL PAY

“TO WORK FOR WIDER RECOGNITION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF PAYMENT ACCORDING TO NEEDS AND EFFORT RATHER THAN INHERITED ABILITY IS BOTH REALISTIC AND, I BELIEVE, RIGHT”

Equality for Animals

Racism, Sexism… and Speciesism?

Just as racism is an irrational prejudice towards someone because of their ethnicity, and sexism is an irrational prejudice towards someone because of their gender, speciesism is an irrational prejudice towards someone because of their species.

Human Infants can’t speak but we take their interest into account.

Animals can’t speak and can’t reason too then why don’t we take their interest into account.

Singer, as a utilitarian told that single relevant factor in determining whether a being has interests is whether or not they can feel pleasure and pain.

Animals behave almost same way humans do in pain and pleasure.

• Hence Anmials can feel pain and pleasure so their interest should also be taken into account.

Most Human Beings are Speciesists

In the 18th century most people were racists and sexists: they placed the interests of their own ethnic group/gender above the interests of others.

Today, most people are speciesists: they place the interests of their own species over the interests of others.

• If racism and sexism are morally wrong, then how can we justify our speciesism?

Speciesism in Practice

For most people, their primary interaction with animals is eating them.

This cannot be defended on nutritional grounds.

In any industrial society it is very easy to meet all nutritional needs from a vegetarian diet.

In fact, eating meat is generally much more harmful to human health than eating vegetarian alternatives.

• Thus, we place our trivial interests (desire for certain foods) over the most profound interests of animals like liberty, pain-free life, avoiding premature death etc.

Modern Factory Farm

• If factory farms were made of glass the whole world would be vegetarians.

The practices of modern factory farms can only be described as unspeakably cruel.

Each year in the U.S. alone between 8 and 10 BILLION animals are raised, kept in confinement, and slaughtered.

No human activity, not war, crime, or even poverty comes even close to causing the amount of suffering that modern factory farms do.

Animal Experimentation

About 10 million animals are used in experiments each year in the US.

I. The vast majority of this research is either trivial, redundant or useless or pointless.

There are frequently alternative methods, such as computer modeling, tissue sampling, or stem-cell research that will do the job.

We do these experiments on animals but never on brain-damaged orphans this is another example of speciesism.

The Problem of ‘Marginal Cases’

Singer said whatever criteria we try to use to distinguish human from non-human animals we will run into trouble.

I. Pick a trait: language, intelligence, self-awareness.

II. There will be some humans that fail this criteria (brain-damaged, infants etc.) and some non-humans (the higher apes, dolphins) that meet it.

Consistency demands one of two things:

I. Either we start treating such ‘marginal humans’ the way we treat animals or we start treating animals the way we treat marginal humans.

II. Singer thinks we should do the later.

The ‘Ben Franklin’ Objection

Franklin was a vegetarian, until one of his friend caught a fish and found inside a smaller fish.

Franklin said if Animals can eat each other then why can’t we eat them !!

Reply : Not all animals eat each other.

Reply : Those who eat have not much choices but humans have many alternatives and resources.

Reply : Humans eat each other too.

What’s Wrong with Killing ?

People often say that life is sacred. But they do not mean, as their words seem to

imply, that all life is sacred. If they did, killing a pig or pulling up a cabbage

would be as equal as the murder of a human being.

When people say that life is sacred, it is human life they have in mind.

But why should human life have special value? The view that human life has unique value is

deeply rooted in our society. To see how far it can be taken, consider the case

Peggy Stinson, a Pennsylvanian school teacher.

I want to note the striking contrast between such efforts to preserve a human life and the casual way in which we take the lives of stray dogs, monkeys used in experiments, and the cattle, pigs and chickens we eat.

What could justify the difference? At this point, we should pause to ask what we

mean by terms ‘human life’ and ‘human being’. We can say human being is a ‘member of the

species Homo sapiens’. In this sense there is no doubt that from the first

moments of its existence, an embryo is a human being and the same is true of the most irreparably intellectually disabled human being.

There is another use of the term ‘human’, proposed by Joseph Fletcher.

Fletcher compiled a list of what he called ‘Indicators of Humanhood’ that includes the following:

self-awareness, self-control, a sense of the future, a sense of the past, the capacity to relate to others, concern for others.

Killing a Person A self-conscious being is aware of itself as a

distinct entity, with a past and a future. A being aware of itself in this way will be capable

of having desires about its own future. To take the lives of any of these people, without

their consent, is to thwart their desires for the future.

Killing a snail does not thwart any desires of this kind, because snails are incapable of having such desires.

In this respect, human foetuses and even newborn infants are in the same situation as snails.

Respect for Autonomy ‘Autonomy’ refers to the capacity to choose and

to act on one’s own decisions. Rational and self-aware beings presumably have

this capacity. In particular, only a being who can grasp the

difference between dying and continuing to live can autonomously choose to live.

As the choice of living or dying is about the most fundamental choice anyone can make, the choice on which all other choices depend, killing a person who does not choose to die is the gravest possible violation of that person’s autonomy.

The hedonistic utilitarian and preference utilitarian do not consider autonomy as basic moral principle.

The hedonistic utilitarian would consider it right to kill a person who does not choose to die on the grounds that the person will otherwise lead a miserable life.

The preference utilitarian also reach a similar conclusion if a person’s desire to go on living is outweighed by the equally strong desires of others.

Killing a Merely Conscious Being

Many beings are capable of experiencing pleasure and pain, but they are not rational and self-conscious.

These are called ‘merely conscious’ beings. The reason that it is wrong to kill a being capable

of experiencing pleasure or pain is the one that a hedonistic utilitarian would give: because of the pleasure it can experience.

A similar argument about pain points in the opposite direction, and this argument counts against killing only when we believe that the pleasure that beings are likely to experience outweighs the pain they are likely to suffer.

Comparing the Value of Different Lives

The most fundamental issue is whether we can accept the idea of ordering the value of different lives at all.

If we do so, we shall inevitably put ourselves at the top and other beings closer to us in proportion to the resemblance between them and ourselves.

To compare different lives we have to find some neutral ground, some impartial standpoint from which we can make the comparison.

Then only we can make sense of the idea that the life of one kind of animal possesses greater value than the life of another.

In general, more the highly developed mental life of the being, the greater the degree of self-awareness and rationality, the more one would prefer that kind of life.

Taking life : Animals

Throughout Western civilization, nonhuman animals have been seen as beings of no ethical significance

Aristotle thought that animals exist for the sake of more rational humans, to provide them with food and clothing.

 KANT thought only rational beings can be ends in themselves, and animals are mere means.

 Hume thought we owed “gentle usage”, although not justice, to animals. 

Peter singer urged that  despite obvious differences between humans and nonhuman animals, we share with them a capacity to suffer, and this means that they, like us, have interests.

 If we ignore or discount their interests, bcoz they are not members of our species, the logic of our position is similar to that of the most blatant racists or sexists who thinks that those who belong to their race or sex have superior moral status, simply in virtue of their race or sex, and irrespective of other characteristics or qualities.

Although most humans may be superior in reasoning or other intellectual capacities to non-human animals, that is not enough to justify the line we draw between humans and animals.

Replaceability and Utilitarianism

Replaceaility argument for meat eating:

      Meat eaters are responsible for death of an animal and loss of its experienced pleasure

  Also responsible for creation of more animals and the pleasure they experience

 “If we kill one animal we can replace it with another as long as the other will lead a life as pleasant as the one killed would have led if it had been allowed to go on living”.

Hedonistic utilitarianism 

 (right acts maximize utility=pleasure)

May or may not accept replaceability argument, depend on whose good/pleasure counts.  Two version of (hedonistic?)

utilitarianism

 a.) Total view: should maximize utility even if best way is to bring into existence sentient beings who otherwise would not have existed.     

 b.)  Prior existence view: Should maximize utility of just those beings whose existence is already a given (prior to the decision under consideration).                  

Conclusion

 His central message in the book on animal liberation is an expansion of the utilitarian idea that action is right if it promotes happiness of everyone affected by it.

He does not believe it is wrong in principle to kill animals for food. Since most animals likely have no concept of death, they cannot have a desire to go on living.

 He opposes meat-eating, since although the animals have no preference to not die, they do have a preference to not feel pain - and the processes of farming and slaughtering will inevitably cause them pain, thus violating their preferences.

EuthanasiaFROM THE GREEK MEANS “GOOD DEATH”

Active Euthanasia

Something is done to the patient to hasten Death.

Not legal in the India.Legal in Netherlands and

Australia.Examples: drugs are

administered at lethal levels.

Passive EuthanasiaPatient is allowed to die. Only

medication help ease patient’s pain is administered.

Passive euthanasia is legal in India.

Examples:Turning off respirator, refusing chemotherapy.

Voluntary Euthanasia

Patient request treatment to be stopped.

Examples: chemotherapy or dialysis.

Non- Voluntary

Patient cannot decide from themselves.

Someone makes the decision for them.•Examples: children, comatose patients, or individuals not mentally competent

Involuntary Patient is refused a

life sustaining treatment.

Examples: Drugs are too costly, limited supply of organs.

About 13,000 patients are on waiting list in the US.

Life and Death Decisions for Disabled Infants Parents love their child irrespective of their physical or

mental disabilities.

Killing an infant might be justified in cases of acute diseases which lead to severe pain, e.g. spina bifida.

Killing a disabled newborn is not equal to killing a person.

JUSTIFYING VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA It is carried out by a physician.

The patient has explicitly requested euthanasia.

The patient's decision is well-informed, free, and durable.

The patient has an irreversible condition.

Conclusion

 We can simply say that euthanasia is only justifiable if those killed either

I.  lack the ability to consent to death, or

II. have the capacity to choose between their own continued life or death and to make an informed, voluntary, and settled decision to die.

Rich and Poor

Relative and Absolute Poverty

• Relative Poverty: In industrialized countries, people are poor by comparison to others in their society. Their poverty is relative – they have enough to meet their basic needs and usually access to free health care as well.

• Absolute Poverty: People living in extreme poverty in developing countries are poor by an absolute standard: they have difficulty in meeting their basic needs, i.e, food, shelter, clothing, sanitation, health services and education. Absolute poverty kills.

Moral Equivalent of Murder

• Is extreme poverty is a moral equivalent of murder?• Difference between Killing and allowing to die.1. Different Motivation2. Difference in Duty to avoid killing to duty to save.3. Difference in outcomes.4. Who are these identifiable individual?5. Not responsible of plight of the poor.

Singer’s Obligation to Assist

On his way to give a lecture, he passed a shallow ornamental pond and noticethat a small child has fallen in and is in danger of drowning. He looked around

to see where the parents, or babysitter, are, but to his surprise, he saw thatthere was no one else around. It seems that it is up to him to make sure

that the child doesn’t drown. Would anyone deny that he ought to wade inand pull the child out? This will mean getting his clothes muddy, ruininghis shoes and either cancelling his lecture or delaying it until he can findsomething dry to change into; but compared with the avoidable death of

a child none of these things were significant.

Argument for the Obligation to Assist

First Premise: If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it.Second Premise: Absolute poverty is bad.Third Premise: There is some absolute poverty we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance.Conclusion: We ought to prevent some absolute poverty.

Objections to the Arguments

• Singer has come up with three main objections of his own:

1. Taking care of Our Own.2. Property Rights.3. Population and the Ethics of Triage.4. Leaving it to the Government.5. Too High Standard.

Conclusion

• Impossible to decide what is morally comparable.• Many people have different opinions.• Third Premise must be specific to those who are

sacrificing.