The basic form of my question is: If Singer advocates giving up all non-essential possessions and money to famine relief, how can he justify not having done so himself?
My guess would be that he cannot. While I do not know this for certain, as I have never met him, I do not think that it is too much of a stretch to assume that he is capable of hypocrisy. However, regardless of whether or not he is a hypocrite, his argument has some large holes in it. The most significant of these is, I think, the fact that the concept of famine relief creates a self-perpetuating problem - the more resources are available to a population, the larger that population will grow, until they are once again lacking resources.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Q&A 3, First Answer
The basic form of my question is: Does the fact that people surrender some control over their bodies when they agree to abide by society's rules undermine Thompson's argument that, because women own their own bodies, they can have an abortion whenever they so choose?
To a point, I think it does. Thompson's example regarding the violinist, which she seemed to think constituted a great analogy which no one could dispute, is in fact a good analogy, but I drew a rather different conclusion from her presentation of the scenario than she appears to. I think that one does, in fact, have a moral obligation to remain plugged to the violinist unless it causes one some serious harm (which most pregnancies do not). People do have control over their own bodies, but not to the point where that control involves their harming others without provocation. At that point, morality intervenes.
This is not to say that many abortions are not perfectly morally acceptable - abortions in the early stages of pregnancy, abortions when there is a serious risk to the mother's health or other sort of well-being, abortions when the child has some sort of disorder or other reason to have very bad prospects... The reasoning is simply different.
To a point, I think it does. Thompson's example regarding the violinist, which she seemed to think constituted a great analogy which no one could dispute, is in fact a good analogy, but I drew a rather different conclusion from her presentation of the scenario than she appears to. I think that one does, in fact, have a moral obligation to remain plugged to the violinist unless it causes one some serious harm (which most pregnancies do not). People do have control over their own bodies, but not to the point where that control involves their harming others without provocation. At that point, morality intervenes.
This is not to say that many abortions are not perfectly morally acceptable - abortions in the early stages of pregnancy, abortions when there is a serious risk to the mother's health or other sort of well-being, abortions when the child has some sort of disorder or other reason to have very bad prospects... The reasoning is simply different.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Extent of Self-Preservation Rights
According to Tom Regan, every subject of a life has the same inherent value. Even if we revise his theory to include different degrees of value (based off of sentience, life expectancy, and other factors), it appears that every sentient creature's life has a considerable value. This supports the idea that one should not eat meat when it is possible to avoid doing so. However, it seems that every organism similarly has a right to attempt to preserve its own life, so if meat is the only possible food source then it is acceptable to consume. How far, though, does this principle extend? If in order to preserve one's life one has to sacrifice many other lives, does one still have a right to do this?
A particular example I have in mind is that of someone who, due to a medical condition (such as certain varieties of anemia), must consume meat consistently in order to survive. In order to preserve their own life, this person must therefore cause (directly or indirectly) the deaths of many non-human animals. Are they justified in so doing?
I think that they are, because self-preservation rights do extend extremely far. The question is more complicated than that, though; while the individual may have a right to preserve their own life at almost any cost if it is necessary, do we have a moral duty to interfere in the interest of preserving the greater quantity of lives, the combined value of which exceeds that of the one human life? If we change the example to one human killing and devouring many other humans because (due to an admittedly fictional medical condition) they must consume human flesh in order to survive, I think that most would agree that we do indeed have such an obligation.
I do not think this extends to the human/non-animal example, however. I think that the obligation present latter example (a human eating humans) is evolutionary in nature rather than moral. If we create a third example, in which a dog must consume multiple other dogs in order to survive, I do not think that we have a moral obligation to interfere, because the dog is merely exercising its right to preserve its own life. As we are not dogs, we do not have a duty to interfere unless the dog is killing more dogs than are necessary to continue living. Similarly, we do not interfere in a wolf's killing deer and elk.
This subject gave me quite a lot of trouble, and I am still not certain that the line of reasoning I have followed is entirely valid. If anyone has any ideas on this subject, I would very much appreciate reading them!
A particular example I have in mind is that of someone who, due to a medical condition (such as certain varieties of anemia), must consume meat consistently in order to survive. In order to preserve their own life, this person must therefore cause (directly or indirectly) the deaths of many non-human animals. Are they justified in so doing?
I think that they are, because self-preservation rights do extend extremely far. The question is more complicated than that, though; while the individual may have a right to preserve their own life at almost any cost if it is necessary, do we have a moral duty to interfere in the interest of preserving the greater quantity of lives, the combined value of which exceeds that of the one human life? If we change the example to one human killing and devouring many other humans because (due to an admittedly fictional medical condition) they must consume human flesh in order to survive, I think that most would agree that we do indeed have such an obligation.
I do not think this extends to the human/non-animal example, however. I think that the obligation present latter example (a human eating humans) is evolutionary in nature rather than moral. If we create a third example, in which a dog must consume multiple other dogs in order to survive, I do not think that we have a moral obligation to interfere, because the dog is merely exercising its right to preserve its own life. As we are not dogs, we do not have a duty to interfere unless the dog is killing more dogs than are necessary to continue living. Similarly, we do not interfere in a wolf's killing deer and elk.
This subject gave me quite a lot of trouble, and I am still not certain that the line of reasoning I have followed is entirely valid. If anyone has any ideas on this subject, I would very much appreciate reading them!
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Response: Language Barriers
In response to Brian's post "Frey Oddly Stipulative" (February 11, 2012):
I very much like the last point in this post, about Frey's opinion that the structure of language is more important than the thought behind the language. If this is really the case, then different groups of humans think in radically different ways from one another. This is so because many different (human) languages are arranged along extremely variable lines. For someone who is only familiar with English and perhaps a bit of Spanish or French, this may not stand out as much; those three languages, while different in structure, are similar enough that if one were to replace words in Spanish or French with their English equivalents without altering the grammar, the result would sound merely like a heavy accent, but would still be understandable. However, languages from other areas are much, much less similar to the Western languages that most of the readers of this blog are likely to be familiar with. Eastern, African, and Native American languages are typically so different from English that if one were to replace their words with English equivalents the result would be virtually indecipherable. How can we say with certainty that non-human methods of communication are anything more than languages which have even less in common with human languages than human languages do with one another?
I very much like the last point in this post, about Frey's opinion that the structure of language is more important than the thought behind the language. If this is really the case, then different groups of humans think in radically different ways from one another. This is so because many different (human) languages are arranged along extremely variable lines. For someone who is only familiar with English and perhaps a bit of Spanish or French, this may not stand out as much; those three languages, while different in structure, are similar enough that if one were to replace words in Spanish or French with their English equivalents without altering the grammar, the result would sound merely like a heavy accent, but would still be understandable. However, languages from other areas are much, much less similar to the Western languages that most of the readers of this blog are likely to be familiar with. Eastern, African, and Native American languages are typically so different from English that if one were to replace their words with English equivalents the result would be virtually indecipherable. How can we say with certainty that non-human methods of communication are anything more than languages which have even less in common with human languages than human languages do with one another?
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