{"id":2428,"date":"2015-07-19T18:04:52","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T00:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2428"},"modified":"2016-01-22T08:11:52","modified_gmt":"2016-01-22T14:11:52","slug":"from-the-library-practical-ethics-by-peter-singer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/07\/from-the-library-practical-ethics-by-peter-singer.html","title":{"rendered":"From the “library”: Practical Ethics, by Peter Singer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

according to which, the words and deeds of Planned Parenthood and its defenders are rational, ethical, and entirely appropriate.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer #1: \u00a0I haven\u2019t read the whole book, just skimmed through for the provocative pieces.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer #2: \u00a0This isn\u2019t actually a book checked out from the library, but rather a book that was on the \u201citems on this cart are free\u201d cart that the library places in the parking garage entrance, comprised of books and magazines they judge to be unsellable at the quarterly used book sales. \u00a0The cart typically contains old National Geographics and magazines of interest only to specialists\/hobbyists; occasionally there are severely outdated guidebooks. \u00a0In any event, I don\u2019t recommend purchasing this book or taking any action which would put more royalties in the author\u2019s pockets.<\/p>\n

Anyway:<\/p>\n

it occurs to me that I haven\u2019t weighted in on the Planned Parenthood controversy, in which a PP executive spoke nonchalantly about, among other things, taking special care to preserve hearts, livers, and heads during the course of abortions, to sell (\u201cdonate with costs reimbursed\u201d) to medical researchers and other buyers. \u00a0(If you\u2019re behind in you\u2019re news, here are the most recent pieces written by writers\/sites I follow: \u00a0\u201cThe Butchers of Planned Parenthood<\/a>\u201d by Kevin D. Williamson, and \u201cPlanned Parenthood Suddenly Claims It Pays Women For Organ Harvesting<\/a>\u201d by Mollie Hemingway.)<\/p>\n

But fundamentally the mindset of these people is that unborn children \u2014 or even newborns, or the severely disabled \u2014 are not \u201cpersons\u201d in their definition of the term. \u00a0And bearing that in mind, there is nothing shocking about the fact that they\u2019d consider\u00a0the organs of these \u201chuman non-persons\u201d fair game for any use.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to Peter Singer, a name that Wesley J. Smith, through his writing at the National Review <\/a>and elsewhere previously, has made me aware of. \u00a0The book is an updated 1993 edition, 2006 printing, originally published in 1979.<\/p>\n

His fundamental approach is this: \u00a0to be a member of the species Homo sapiens is not enough to have a \u201cright to life\u201d; one must also be a \u201cperson.\u201d \u00a0He cites Joseph Fletcher\u2019s list of \u201cindicators of humanhood\u201d:<\/p>\n

self-awareness, self-control, a sense of the future, a sense of the past, the capacity to relate to others, concern for others, communication, and curiosity. (p. 86)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and says that any human being who is not a \u201cperson\u201d according to this definition does not have a \u201cright to life\u201d, or, rather, that with respect to such beings, there\u2019s nothing wrong with killing, and it may even be the ethically right thing to do.<\/p>\n

(Note that it\u2019s not as easy as you\u2019d think to find quotes, as he tends to quote other philosophers, where it becomes clear that he agrees with them, and says things like \u201cit could be viewed like this. . . \u201d rather than \u201cI believe that. . . \u201c)<\/p>\n

Hence, with respect to abortion, there\u2019s not really any question of its acceptability, except that perhaps at that point when a fetus is capable of feeling pain, this should be avoided, in the same way as you shouldn\u2019t cause an animal pain unnecessarily. \u00a0What\u2019s more, there isn\u2019t any cut-off prior to birth, and even at birth, Singer says:<\/p>\n

It would, of course, be difficult to say at what age children begin to see themselves as distinct entities existing over time. \u00a0Even when we talk with two and three year old children it is usually very difficult to elicit any coherent conception of death, or of the possibility that someone \u2014 let alone the child herself \u2014 might cease to exist. \u00a0no doubt children vary greatly in the age at which they begin to understand these matters, as they do in most things. \u00a0But a difficulty in drawing the line is not a reason for drawing it in a place that is obviously wrong. . . . [Singer then discusses the option of setting this line at birth, but then suggests that] there should be at least some circumstances in which a full legal right to life comes into force not at birth, but only a short time after birth \u2014 perhaps a month [as a ] safety margin. (p. 172)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And even here, it\u2019s clear that his definition \u2014 \u201cmust have a sufficient understanding of the world in order for one\u2019s killing to be unethical\u201d \u2014 encompasses a great deal more than just newborns, but, of course, he can\u2019t quite pursue the consequence that a two-year-old is of insufficient moral worth.<\/p>\n

He later says this:<\/p>\n

In Chapter 4 we saw that the fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of the species Homo sapiens, is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. \u00a0Infants lack these characteristics. \u00a0Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings. \u00a0This conclusion is not limited to infants who, because of irreversible intellectual disabilities, will never be rational, self-conscious beings. \u00a0(p. 182)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In later chapters he discusses the ethical rightness of euthanasia as it pertains to disabled infants, and, ultimately, the severely disabled due to disease or accident, in their prime or aging-related, and rejects \u201cslippery slope\u201d arguments, saying that the fundamental problem with Nazism was that they killed because of their pursuit of racial purity, rather than elimination of \u201cpointless suffering,\u201d so that as long as we\u2019re properly motivated, all will be well. \u00a0He further cites the ancient Greeks, of whom he says,<\/p>\n

Ancient Greeks \u00a0regularly killed or exposed infants, but appear to have been at least as scrupulous about taking the lives of their fellow-citizens as medieval Christians or modern Americans. . . . I mention these practices . . . to indicate that lines can be drawn at places different from where we now draw them. (p. 217).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bottom-line: \u00a0from a Singerian ethos, Planned Parenthood is doing nothing wrong.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the difficulty is this: \u00a0how does one argue with Singer? \u00a0He\u2019s not even in the same universe, when it comes to his perception of the world. \u00a0And Planned Parenthood\u2019s defenders live in his universe, or at least much closer to it, or, if they read his writings, would probably find themselves in agreement, if perhaps squeamish about saying that infanticide\u2019s fine, so long as mom and dad agree.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

according to which, the words and deeds of Planned Parenthood and its defenders are rational, ethical, and entirely appropriate. Disclaimer #1: \u00a0I haven\u2019t read the whole book, just skimmed through for the provocative pieces. Disclaimer #2: \u00a0This isn\u2019t actually a book checked out from the library, but rather a book that was on the \u201citems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[198,268,267,266],"class_list":["post-2428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abortion","tag-infanticide","tag-personhood","tag-peter-singer"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom the "library": Practical Ethics, by Peter Singer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"according to which, the words and deeds of Planned Parenthood and its defenders are rational, ethical, and entirely appropriate. 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