The ethics of non-viable pregnancy

 Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Experiments  19 Responses »
Jan 182011
 

As noted yesterday, there is a strange asymmetricality in some people’s attitudes towards abortion and miscarriage (spontaneous abortion): they are against abortion in all circumstances, yet do not think miscarriage is a particularly significant medical issue.

There is an argument that aims to justify this asymmetricality which has something like this form:

a) Miscarriages tend to occur when an embryo is not viable;

b) Indeed, some miscarriages involve an embryonic entity that is not only not viable, but also not obviously human (in the sense, that it doesn’t have 2 pairs of 23 chromosomes, etc.);

c) Therefore, even if one thinks that elective abortion is always a tragedy (and also morally wrong), one does not need to think that miscarriage is necessarily a tragedy (except in the sense that it might be deeply distressing to the person who has suffered it).

There are a number of difficulties with this argument.

First, there is the obvious point that in those situations where an embryo is neither human, nor sentient, it is hard to see there can be any moral objection to abortion.

Second, if it is your belief that human life begins at conception, and that all human life has intrinsic and equal moral value (simply by virtue of being human), then the non-viability of an embryo doesn’t alter the situation. The death of a human is just the death of a human; the fact we’re talking about the death of a non-viable human life makes it no less of a tragedy – indeed, the tragedy is precisely that it is non-viable. Consider also that there are medical conditions which make their presence felt during adulthood – for example, Huntington’s – where it is not too much of a stretch to argue that death occurs as a result of factors linked to the intrinsic non-viability of the (human) organism, yet we wouldn’t dream of downplaying the moral significance of such deaths.

Third, while it is true that many of the miscarriages that occur in the early stages of pregnancy have to do with the non-viability of the embryo, this is much less true of late-term miscarriages  (so, for example, cervical incompetence is a cause of recurrent, late-term miscarriage). So even if you think there is little reason to be concerned with early-term miscarriage, it doesn’t follow that the same is true of late-term miscarriage.

 Posted by jerry at 12:14 pm  Tagged with:

But miscarriage is a natural occurrence…

 Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Experiments  4 Responses »
Jan 172011
 

Near the beginning of Whose Body Is It Anyway? (which you should complete before reading this), you’re asked to rank the following medical issues in order of seriousness (focussing only on numbers of deaths): cancer, multiple sclerosis, miscarriage, stroke, heart disease and housemaid’s knee. Then, if it turns out that you’re against abortion, the activity complains if you haven’t ranked miscarriage as being a serious medical problem (since, for example, in the United States alone there are estimated to be more than a million miscarriages each year).

Occasionally, people object to this point on the grounds that miscarriage is a natural occurrence, whereas abortion isn’t. However, this objection is flawed for the following reason.

The assumption seems to be that the point relies on a direct comparison between miscarriage and abortion, but, in fact, it does not. The structure of the argument is as follows:

1. If you’re opposed to abortion, then likely you think a foetus has intrinsic moral value;

2. If a foetus has intrinsic moral value, then presumably you believe that its life if worth saving (all other things being equal);

3. It is estimated that up to 50% of pregnancies end spontaneously (i.e., as a result of miscarriage);

4. This is a serious problem because (a) we’re talking about the “deaths” of millions of foetuses, each one of which has intrinsic moral value; and (b) we’re talking about the “deaths” of millions of foetuses, each one of which has a life worth saving (all other things being equal);

5. Therefore, given the number of deaths that occur, miscarriage should be ranked as a serious medical issue;

The response that miscarriage isn’t a problem because its natural doesn’t work for two reasons. First, the fact it is natural doesn’t alter either of the points made in stage 4 of the argument above. Second, all sorts of medical conditions are “natural” – cancer, for example, or ALS (motor neuron disease) – but this doesn’t for a moment mean that we don’t consider them to be serious medical issues.

It is strange that people get incredibly worked up about abortion, yet pay so little attention to miscarriage. If you really think that a foetus is a tiny baby, especially if you think this is the case from the moment of conception, then why aren’t you out there campaigning for more attention to be paid to what by your own lights you must see as a medical catastrophe: the fact that we have no idea how to ensure that all pregnancies are carried to term?

 Posted by jerry at 9:14 am  Tagged with:

But I told her not to kill me!

 Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Experiments  2 Responses »
Jan 142011
 

The activity In The Face Of Death (which you should complete before reading this) sometimes features a comparison between a shipwreck scenario and a transplant scenario. In the former, three shipwrecked sailors kill a barely conscious cabin boy, who was almost certainly going to die anyway, in order to increase their chances of survival (it allows them to eat his flesh and drink his blood). In the latter, you’re in hospital with an illness that will almost certainly kill you, when a transplant surgeon asks whether she can end your life immediately, and then use your organs to save the lives of three of her patients. You say no, but she kills you anyway, and transplants your organs.

The activity calls foul if you claim that the shipwrecked sailors were morally justified in killing the cabin boy, but the transplant surgeon was not morally justified in ending your life.

The main objection to the comparison as it is set up seems to be that in the latter scenario you explicitly state you don’t want to be killed, whereas in the shipwreck scenario the cabin boy is just killed (he’s simply not asked whether or not he consents to being killed).

It is true that the scenarios differ in this way, but it is highly implausible that it is a morally relevant difference. Two thoughts in particular are pertinent here.

1. When we’re talking about ending somebody’s life, the assumption must surely be that in the absence of their explicit consent, they are not consenting to their life being ended. Certainly, in normal circumstances, we wouldn’t think there was a moral difference between two near identical murders if it so happened that in one case the victim shouted “No, don’t do it” before he was killed, and in the other case, the victim didn’t.

2. If the problem in the transplant scenario is that you explicitly refused consent, it would seem to follow that had the transplant surgeon just killed you without asking first, then she would have been justified in her actions. However, this would make the act of not asking the difference between a killing being justified and not justified, which seems nonsensical.

In sum, then, although it is true that there is this difference of explicit refusal of consent between the two scenarios, it is very difficult to think it makes a moral difference when it comes to weighing up the actions of the people involved.

 Posted by jerry at 8:55 am  Tagged with:

Acts and omissions

 Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Experiments  16 Responses »
Jan 132011
 

Near the beginning of Should You Kill The Fat Man? you are asked whether you agree with this statement:

It is always, and everywhere, wrong to cause another person’s death – assuming they wish to stay alive – if this outcome is avoidable.

If you respond “Yes”, and then when it comes to the first Trolley Problem scenario, opt to divert the train in order to save the lives of five people with the effect of causing the death of one person, you are told that your responses are out of line with each other.

People complain about this on the grounds that the Trolley Problem is set up so that either way you are in effect causing the deaths of some number of people: the only choice is whether it is five people or one person.

There is something to this criticism. Should You Kill The Fat Man? plays rather fast and loose with the distinction between acting and omitting to act. This holds that it makes an ethical difference whether somebody actively intervenes to bring about some result, or whether they omit to act in a situation where it is reasonable to suppose that as a consequence the same – or similar – result will occur. So, for example, if you think there’s a moral difference between acting and omitting to act, then likely you’re going to think there’s a moral difference between blowing up somebody’s house while they are inside it, and failing to warn somebody  that someone else is going to blow up their house while they are inside it.

Should You Kill The Fat Man? plays fast and loose with this distinction in two ways.

1. It sneaks in the assumption that the driver of the train is omitting to act rather than acting if he doesn’t divert the train. Put simply, if the choice is between two acts (rather than between one act – i.e., diverting the train – and one omission – i.e., allowing the train to continue), both of which cause the death of some number of people, then there is no contradiction in saying that it is always wrong to cause another person’s death if the outcome is avoidable, and then choosing the action that kills the smallest number of people.

2. It assumes that there is an ethical distinction between acting and omitting to act (since if there isn’t in this particular case, then there can be no moral problem in choosing to kill the smallest number of people).

The assumption that there is an ethical distinction between acting and omitting to act is not such a big problem for the integrity of the activity because of the phrasing of the original moral claim: it is always, and everywhere, wrong to cause another person’s death. Put simply, even if it were true that there is no moral difference between acting and omitting to act, it seems like a stretch to claim that omitting to act is the same as causing some result to occur (even if the effect of omitting to act is to allow the same result to occur). Moreover, it just is the case that many people think there is a moral distinction between acting and omitting to act.

However, the assumption that the driver of the train is omitting to act rather than acting if he doesn’t divert the train is more problematic. It does seem reasonable to think that the driver is not uninvolved in what transpires if he allows his train to continue on with the effect that it causes the death of five people. In other words, it does seem reasonable to think that while he is the train driver he is acting.

If that’s right, then it is probably true that Should You Kill The Fat Man? is just a little too eager to pronounce a contradiction in this particular instance.

 Posted by jerry at 11:07 am  Tagged with:

Torture scenario not realistic

 Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Experiments  17 Responses »
Jan 122011
 

A frequent criticism of the torture scenario in Should You Kill The Fat Man? is that it is not realistic.The criticism tends to be that torture isn’t effective in the real world, therefore, (a) the scenario is flawed, since it states there’s a 75% chance that torturing the fat man will be effective; and (b) there is no contradiction in claiming that torture is always wrong, and yet thinking the fat man should be tortured, since there could be no real world equivalent of the fat man torture scenario.

This criticism is misplaced for a number of reasons.

The first thing to say is it just isn’t true that thought experiments, such as the torture scenario here, have to be straightforwardly realistic (if this were true, then many of philosophy’s most important thought experiments – for example, Judith Jarvis Thompson’s “famous violinist” thought experiment – just wouldn’t get off the ground). Although thought experiments are designed to tell us something about the nature of things (including, as in this case, our intuitions about moral choices), it isn’t necessary for them to replicate the details of empirical reality. Put simply, thought experiments have to be logically coherent, but they don’t have to describe events and situations that are actually possible.

This means that even if it were the case that the torture scenario in Should You Kill The Fat Man? is unrealistic, this wouldn’t be a problem in principle: it’s entirely possible for us to learn something about the way we see moral choices by seeing how we would react to a hypothetical situation.

The second thing to say, though, is that it isn’t clear that the torture situation is unrealistic in the sense that we can be confident it could never occur. Yes, it’s true that there is plenty of testimony – if not evidence – that torture is ineffective. But it’s also true that there is no consensus on this issue; and also that while it might be true that torture isn’t generally effective, it’s a much harder case to make that it is never effective, or that there will never be circumstances where one might come to the conclusion that torture would be the most effective technique to elicit particular information. There is enough individual variation in the way that people respond to situations to make this kind of blanket claim highly suspect.

The final point to make here is that even if it were true that torture is never the most effective interrogation technique, it doesn’t follow there is no contradiction in claiming that torture is always wrong, and yet thinking the fat man should be tortured (where the argument is that there is no contradiction because de facto one would never come across a situation in the real world that is equivalent to the fat man torture scenario). The reason it doesn’t follow is because the question about torture at the beginning of Should You Kill The Fat Man? doesn’t just ask whether torture is always morally wrong, it asks whether it is always morally wrong in principle. This makes all the difference: if torture is always morally wrong as a matter of principle, then it means that regardless of the consequences it is never morally justified. To put it simply, principles are not contingent upon outcomes. Therefore, anybody who claims that torture is morally wrong as a matter of principle should not think the fat man should be tortured even in a ticking bomb situation.

 Posted by jerry at 1:43 pm  Tagged with: ,

Morally wrong, but obligatory?

 Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Experiments  8 Responses »
Jan 112011
 

Part of the purpose of this blog is to respond to some of the common criticisms that are levelled at the interactive activities at Philosophy Experiments. (I don’t have time to respond to people individually, so it makes sense to do it here.)

Here’s one that I hear quite often, particularly with respect to Should You Kill the Fat Man?:

It is wrong to do some action x (e.g., torture the Fat Man), but we ought to do it anyway.

At first thought, this seems reasonable enough, but actually it’s very hard to make sense of. There are a couple of points to make here:

1. The claim that we ought to do something – when this is a moral ought – seems to contain the idea that it would be morally wrong not to do so. But if that’s true, then the proposition that we ought to do some action x, which is morally wrong, amounts to the claim that it would be wrong not to do so (since we ought to do it) and also wrong to do so (since it is morally wrong). This is… well, problematic.

2. One reason it is problematic has to do with thoughts about culpability or blameworthiness. It’s a fairly common idea that part of what we mean when we say that we have behaved immorally is that we are culpable or blameworthy. However, if it is both (morally) wrong not to do some x and (morally) wrong to do some x, it means, through no fault of our own, we are culpable whatever we do (or don’t do) next. This is highly counterintuitive.

So if you want to claim that it is morally wrong to torture, but we ought to torture anyway in the sort of ticking-bomb scenario featured in the Fat Man activity, you need to be able to explain how it is that somebody can be morally obliged to do something that is immoral, with the consequence that through no fault of their own they’re going to end up blameworthy.

That’s not going to be easy.

 Posted by jerry at 10:54 am  Tagged with:

Philosophy Experiments in 2010

 Philosophy Experiments  3 Responses »
Jan 102011
 


I started working in earnest on the Philosophy Experiments web site at the beginning of 2010. At that point, the site featured three interactive activities, and during the entire duration of its existence it had attracted about 4,300 visitors. Since then:

  • 8 more interactive activities have been added
  • the site has pulled in some 154,000 visitors
  • and served up 1,462,008 pages

The most popular activity on the web site is Should You Kill The Fat Man?, which has been completed about 45,000 times. It was linked to by Wired, which helped a lot; and was also the subject of a fair bit of criticism and debate, which also drove up the visitor numbers.

The aim for 2011 is to add another 8 activities to the site; and to double the visitor count for the year. The idea is that by making this public, I’ll be shamed into doing the work necessary to make it happen. So we’ll see.

 Posted by jerry at 10:54 pm
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