Exercise 3 due Nov. 22.
Exam 3 Nov. 29.
Are ethical judgments emotional, and should they be?
Cognitivism: Ethical judgments should be based on reasoning about consequences and/or rights and duties.
Emotivism: Ethical judgments are merely expressions of emotional preferences.
Synthesis: Judgment is both cognitive and emotional, and is most effective when they interact.
Abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy prior to fetal viability.
1. All abortion is immoral.
2. Abortion is moral if it is necessary to save the mother's life.
3. Abortion of early pregnancies is moral.
4. Abortion is never immoral.
What follows focuses on the most typical cases: abortion where a mother's life is not directly threatened, occurring in the first 5 months of pregnancy.
Unwanted pregnancies cause great distress.
Requiring tribunals to make decisions causes stress and late abortions.
Illegal abortions cause medical problems.
Unwanted children cause social problems.
The fetus never gets to experience anything.
Women who have abortions feel guilty about it.
Women have a right to choose: autonomy, security, control of body.
The less than 5-month fetus is not a person, because it is not sufficiently developed (Sumner).
The fetus is not a person, because it has no relations to other people except the mother (Sherwin).
The fetus is a person from conception, because that is when the soul enters. Hence the fetus has a right not to be killed.
Euthanasia: Killing the hopelessly sick for reasons of mercy.
Passive: Letting them die.
Active: Causing their death.
Voluntary: Causing their death at their request. = Assisted suicide.
Involuntary: Causing their death against their wishes or interests.
Sue Rodriguez.: severely disabled from Lou Gehrig's disease. Requested the courts to allow a doctor to assist her in committing suicide. This would be voluntary active euthansia, as practiced in the Netherlands and by American Dr. Kevorkian.
Tracy Latimer: girl with severe cerebral palsy. Killed by her father, who was sent to jail for murder.
Gloria Taylor 2011 won B.C. Supreme Court ruling in favor of doctor assisted suicide.
It alleviates the suffering of the person requesting to die.
It reduces distress for others perceiving the suffering.
It reduces health care costs.
It may lead to premature death and lost valuable experiences.
Practicing it may lead to the devaluation of life (slippery slope).
A person has a right to die as well as a right to live, so respecting autonomy requires supporting suicide.
A person's autonomy may be compromised by doctors or family members who want them gone.
A person has a duty to stay alive.
If we allow voluntary euthanasia, then other kinds of killing will be accepted.
Slippery slope arguments are weak unless there is substantial justification tying the THEN to the IF.
They also require arguments that the THEN part is bad.
Rachels: Passive Euthanasia may involve more suffering.
Quill: The foreseen effects of both kinds of euthanasia are the same.
1. Why did the Supreme Court of Canada rule against section 251 of the criminal code that made abortion illegal?
2. What is Sumner's alternative to extreme liberal and conservative views on abortion? What is his developmental view of a person?
3. What is feminist about Sherwin's perspective on the abortion issue?
4. Short essay question: Is abortion moral? Critically discuss considering both consequences and rights. For each option, discuss: consequences pro, con, and overall; rights pro, con, and overall; your overall conclusion concerning the options based on consequences and rights.
5. What is the difference between active and passive euthanasia? Why does Rachels think this is a dubious distinction?
6. What does Doerflinger think are the main arguments about assisted suicide?
7. What is the rule of double effect and what is problematic about applying it to passive euthanasia?
8. Short essay question: Discuss the ethical arguments for and against assisted suicide. For each option, discuss: consequences pro, con, and overall; rights pro, con, and overall; your overall conclusion concerning the options based on consequences and rights.
Computational Epistemology Laboratory.
This page updated Nov. 5, 2012