Is one human life worth more than another?

[sean]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Gah. Philosophers. Historians are way more fun

Natural philosophers!

[DanaC]

Pshaw. I say again, pshaw.

[sean]

Have you read "The fates of nations" by Paul Colinveaux?
Or, in a similar vein, Jared Diamond's "Guns, germs and steel"?
or Manuel de Landa's "War in the age of intelligent machines" Brilliant!

Natural historians, I meant to say...
Ah, Natural History, the slightly disreputable, chain smoking dowager aunt of the Sciences!

[ZenGum]

They're ALL branches of philosophy, mate.

I've never actually studied Singer directly or fully so I have no more than incidental knowledge of his positions, but he is somewhat like Radar, in that, having settled on some principles he builds on them exactly as logic dictates, but never then considers a reductio ad absurdum of his own position, because he is already sold on the principles and the numerous apparent successes along the way.

I think Smooth is unfair to him, and I could argue about his philosophy, but I only do that for money. And it isn't really my field, I'm more into metaphysics.

[sean]

I can't pretend to be a student of Singer, or philosophy for that matter. I've read vanishingly small quantities of both.

But I'm interested in what Singer has to say about 'expanding circles' of empathy. As an ethologist, I'm interested in the roots of empathy in our biology, as described by primatologist Frans deWaal. Like Singer, I'm a hard consequentialist, but I think empathy provides a subjectivity within which utilitarianism makes sense. It's not an abstract calculus, it's insight into the causes of harm and the nature of suffering.

I think maybe the three big ideas in philosophical ethics -virtue, duty and the greater good- probably reflect three modes of the operation of empathy -subjective, collective and universal.

smoothmoniker's comments about children younger than 2 and the mentally handicapped made me think of the Stephen Hawking would have been left to die argument against Obama's health reforms. Lol!

And I never really got metaphysics. Is that like angels on pinheads and stuff?

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by sean

smoothmoniker's comments about children younger than 2 and the mentally handicapped made me think of the Stephen Hawking would have been left to die argument against Obama's health reforms. Lol!

No, I'm not fear-mongering here, that's directly from Singer, and it's a position he's restate and defended many, many times in his writing and public interviews. I'm not presenting an extreme distortion of his views, those are his views, and he makes no apology for them.

[smoothmoniker]

By all means, watch this entire interview for context, and read what he's written elsewhere, but here is Singer articulating exactly this point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bi81JcddWc#t=5m35s

[DanaC]

I just watched that interview and I thought he made some good points actually. I don't think it's so shocking. He's not advocating the euthanasia of babies born with a disability. He's advocating choice for families when a child is born severely disabled: it's a tricky one and difficult to draw legislative lines, but the example he gives of a baby born with no brain, but a brain stem is an interesting one.

[classicman]

Why am I not surprised.

[sean]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I just watched that interview and I thought he made some good points actually. I don't think it's so shocking. He's not advocating the euthanasia of babies born with a disability. He's advocating choice for families when a child is born severely disabled: it's a tricky one and difficult to draw legislative lines, but the example he gives of a baby born with no brain, but a brain stem is an interesting one.

Yeah, he seems pretty reasonable to me.

Personally I think religious sloganeering around the 'sanctity of life' is little more than a fetish. Keeping somebody in a persistent vegetative state for decades when children die every minute of the day for want of a handful of rice is simply perverse.

I know a little girl who is quite severely disabled, and to be honest, when she was a baby, I wondered about the point of her life. It was a lesson for me because she is very much loved and altho she requires constant care, she gives a lot back to those around her and is an inspiring person to know. I like her a lot.

But she isn't insentient, she's a thoughtful and clever little girl. Also, she lives in an environment with the resources to care for her. Where people have a more ongoing struggle for survival, I expect the balance shifts because the survival of a family or community can be endangered if one individual becomes a significant burden.

I have some faith in the power of love, and I think an ideology that compels a woman to carry an unwanted child to term, or compels parents to keep alive a child whose future is severely compromised by illness, is actually contemptuous of the power of love and I despise it.

[lookout123]

heh, probably how some feel about self proclaimed pedophiles. contempt makes the world go round, i guess.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by sean

I know a little girl who is quite severely disabled, and to be honest, when she was a baby, I wondered about the point of her life. It was a lesson for me because she is very much loved and altho she requires constant care, she gives a lot back to those around her and is an inspiring person to know. I like her a lot.

But she isn't insentient, she's a thoughtful and clever little girl. Also, she lives in an environment with the resources to care for her. Where people have a more ongoing struggle for survival, I expect the balance shifts because the survival of a family or community can be endangered if one individual becomes a significant burden.

I have some faith in the power of love, and I think an ideology that compels a woman to carry an unwanted child to term, or compels parents to keep alive a child whose future is severely compromised by illness, is actually contemptuous of the power of love and I despise it.

I hate that this post by you has touched me so deeply. thanks

[sean]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Among the many, many problems I have with Singer, he thinks that children younger than 2 and the mentally handicapped and have no inherent value, and can be killed for any reason, including the simple convenience of the caregiver.

When Singer says it is the refusal to accept killing that, in some cases, is horrific (Practical Ethics, 2nd edition, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 175-217), he makes it clear that his views on killing are not the unfeeling triumph of unconstrained self interest, but an argument about how to do the best by people.

What he is saying is that dogmatic adherence to a doctrine on the sanctity of life is not guaranteed to lead to the best moral outcome. Representing this as the nullification of the rights of vulnerable individuals seems misleading at best.

I once allowed some people to search for the victim of an avalanche. He was dead anyway, but even if he had been alive, I made the wrong decision. I should have left him, because I put the lives of the searchers at risk. That's a situation where the 'sanctity of life' fails as an absolute principle. There are plenty more.

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Singer is the living reductio ad absurdum of utilitarianism.

I commented that maybe that was part of his argument because I think thats how utilitarianism plays out sometimes. The world is full of ethical vegetarians who have reluctantly become so through introspection and analysis. If that isn't an absurdity in the species with the most lethal bite of any mammal, then what is?

[sean]

Originally Posted by lookout123

heh, probably how some feel about self proclaimed pedophiles. contempt makes the world go round, i guess.

I'm despising an ideology, you a person. I think that's the difference.

[sean]

Originally Posted by classicman

I hate that this post by you has touched me so deeply. thanks

Thanks classicman! I'm touched that you're touched, seriously.