A question about a debate.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Today I was watching a filmed ethics debate at Princeton, and I came across two arguments, one by Singer and one by Don Marquis on abortion, and I had a question I wonder if any of the philosophers here can help me answer, because I didn't get two major points. They apply to the ethics of killing, abortion, and euthanasia and the intrinsic value of a being.

On one hand, Professor Singer is a preference Utilitarian; accordingly, they mostly claim that it's generally wrong to do X because it tends to violate the preferences/desires of those involved or be moral because it tends to maximize/satisfice them. In terms of rights, rights-protections are attained when an individual hits minimal sapience and can see himself as a being existing over time and able to form a desire/preference for continued life. A right is a protection of a claim/interest. In Euthanasia, for example, he claims it is ok to kill the sapient individual if he wants to die because to do so would violate his preference for continued life as a sapient being. He has a prima facie right to die as he has a right to live if he desires to life. However, Singer also is a proponent of Ideal Preference Utilitarianism insofar as it would be wrong to kill him if he wanted to die if he were not making a rational, informed decision. In a sense, Ideal Preference Utilitarianism means you ignore irrational, unfounded preferences and fullfil those which are made of free and rational desire/will.

Now, I know he also takes into consideration "future life of value" in at least some regard, for when talking about infantacide in cases in where there is no personhood, he states it might be ok to kill a newborn or fetus that's so severly disabled and in pain and cannot be helped because of the future quality of life it has. This is often done anyway, he comments, in the medical establishment in some areas. If one is looking at the intrinsic value of the organism and what gives it a right, why is it ok to say, in abortion, it is intrinsically ok to kill the fetus because it has no self-awareness and thus no protection of a life-right, thus ignore the future life of value to the organism, but in euthanasia, it is perfectly ok to say whether or not it is ok to kill the fetus and even the newborn because of the future life quality. Are they consistant?

Don Marquis seems not to think so. To compare, Professor Don Marquis seems to argue differently in two regards. First, he claims Euthanasia can be moral, just like Singer says, but abortion, though, is immoral, unlike Singer's position implies, but for different reasons. Foremost, he says instrinsically, the fact that it's not "sapient" and cannot see itself as a self-aware being with preferences to continue living are irrelevant in bestowing the rights of personhood to Marquis, because neither can sleeping people or people who are acting irrationally (due to severe, untreated depression) or incorrect information (the brainwashed zealot). Instead, it is rather the future life of value that one has that will be taken away that is protected with the right. He goes on to say this explains why it is immoral to kill a being who doesn't want to die because it steals from them a life of future value potential they have. It thwarts that future.

Now, he attacks the Ideal Preference Utility standard harboured by Singer saying that even if you accept it, it still doesn't permit abortion, because you can find in favour of the fetus having a "future potential worth living" and the "Ideal" preference, if it were rationally free to choose and given correct information would be to live. This seems odd to me because I don't understand how one can correct for a preference that doesn't yet exist because of cognitive inability to make said preference. The person doesn't exist. Technically, one can use his argument to say that an embryo has a "future life of value." Does that mean they have a right to life?


So, my basic questions are, what do you think about it.

I can give the link to the debate if you want. Some points seem just odd to me.

[Lord Zentei]

Ethics has to be based on actuals, not potentials. If the future life of the foetus has sufficient merit to give it rights to protection, then why not sperm cells and egg cells, since they too have future potential if they are allowed to fuse? Yet such a system (actually promoted by the Roman Catholic Church and the reason for their opposition to contraceptives) is unworkable, and thus the future potential argument is similarly unworkable - at least without some damned limiting qualifying factors.

[Cao Cao]

It seems to me to be little more than an attempt at emotional blackmail; "You're stealing the fetus' future! That baby could grow up and cure cancer!".
Well not so direct as that but you know what I mean. It's really about as logical as wanting to kill a child because they might grow up to be a serial killer.

[Turin]

Instead, it is rather the future life of value that one has that will be taken away that is protected with the right. He goes on to say this explains why it is immoral to kill a being who doesn't want to die because it steals from them a life of future value potential they have. It thwarts that future.
...
This seems odd to me because I don't understand how one can correct for a preference that doesn't yet exist because of cognitive inability to make said preference. The person doesn't exist. Technically, one can use his argument to say that an embryo has a "future life of value." Does that mean they have a right to life?

It seems to me that the whole concept of "future value of life" to a preference utilitarian is the projection of that person's perferences into the future (I could be wrong here, I only had to take a good handful of humanities/philosophy courses in college). It applies just fine in the case of someone who already has personhood (i.e., the adult who wishes to die).

But it does seem to fall apart when applied to non-person humans (a fetus). The non-person doesn't have any preferences yet, so we can only make an educated guess as to what those preferences might be (ex. to not live a short life of terrible agony from a severe birth defect). But I think the way around this, in the case of abortion, is that you're looking at the preferences of an existing person (the mother) and comparing them to the projected potential preferences of the fetus. As an existing person, it seems the mother's preferences should win out.

I agree with the results of that line of reasoning, but I'll admit I'm not sure if it's solid logic on its own.

Marquis argument is crap on two other points:

1. Equating a sleeping person to a non-sapient human is false -- the sleeping person continues to have preferences. The brain is still active and reacts to its environment in a meaningful way (ex. you may wake up at the sound of an alarm but not an equally loud noise of a truck passing by your window, because the alarm has significance to your brain).

2. At least from the Preference Utilitarian standpoint, killing someone who doesn't want to die isn't wrong because of the loss of future value of life, but because it goes against what is generally the highest order preference -- to not die. This point sounds like he's strawmanning Singer here.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Here is the actual link:

Debate Page

The particular video is called: response to Don Marquis 'Abortion and Infanticide: A Critique of Peter Singer's Views. It is the video thumbnail directly following it.


Lord Zentei wrote:

Ethics has to be based on actuals, not potentials. If the future life of the foetus has sufficient merit to give it rights to protection, then why not sperm cells and egg cells, since they too have future potential if they are allowed to fuse? Yet such a system (actually promoted by the Roman Catholic Church and the reason for their opposition to contraceptives) is unworkable, and thus the future potential argument is similarly unworkable - at least without some damned limiting qualifying factors.

I would agre that ethics should be based on the actual characteristics of the organism as well, and so does Singer, but when it comes to preferences, then, how do you get around the Ideal problem, which they claim is almost a necessary revision in order to avoid the consequences of killing people who want to die, but really wouldn't want to if they knew better.

I really don't know what he would say about sperm and eggs. Singer hits on this in the debate, since he thinks that as well as attributing rights to a clump of cells would be silly as well.

I would agree that it would have limiting factors as well, but none of them seem to hit on it. It's not Singer's argument, but he doesn't say when it is ok. He implies it is a wrong way of thinking, though, in some cases. Then he turns around, though, and seems to support the future value of life in Euthanasia cases.

Marqui seems to be saying the case in which Singer looks after the future life quality of the infant in Euthanasia cases and the person who is "incompetent" for the moment due to access to poor information is in the same position when the "ideal" utility maxim is placed, since in both cases, you are taking away someone's future of value. I have a hard time seeing how.


Turin wrote:

But it does seem to fall apart when applied to non-person humans (a fetus). The non-person doesn't have any preferences yet, so we can only make an educated guess as to what those preferences might be (ex. to not live a short life of terrible agony from a severe birth defect). But I think the way around this, in the case of abortion, is that you're looking at the preferences of an existing person (the mother) and comparing them to the projected potential preferences of the fetus. As an existing person, it seems the mother's preferences should win out.

This is where I got confused in the debate when it was compared to Euthanasia in adults from the perspective of Ideal Utility. You see, one problem with standard Preference Utilitarianism is that it judges morality based on the actual preferences, not the ideal preference situation. For example, above in the case in which person A wants to die, but will have a great life ahead of him, yet he doesn't know it due to being brainwashed or tricked into thinking otherwise. Or, more realistically, in the case of the person who is severely depressed. In that case, Singer would say it would be up to the doctors to consult with the individual and give him the real information--if effect, ignoring the preference in favour of a rationally recacluated one untill the individual can again choose freely. I think that's a good idea, but apparently "ideal" utilitarianism has a negative consequence that's undesirable for Singer's postion. I don't know how he gets around this, since the standard argument is based on the intrinsic value factor.

Marquis tries to compare the fetus with no preferences to the woman who wants to die, but isn't competent enough to know what she wants. In the latter case, Ideal Utilty says to ignore actual preferences and go for Ideal preferences in the situation.

I agree with the results of that line of reasoning, but I'll admit I'm not sure if it's solid logic on its own.

Marquis argument is crap on two other points:

1. Equating a sleeping person to a non-sapient human is false -- the sleeping person continues to have preferences. The brain is still active and reacts to its environment in a meaningful way (ex. you may wake up at the sound of an alarm but not an equally loud noise of a truck passing by your window, because the alarm has significance to your brain).

That's correct. I do believe Singer adequately deals with this point by appealing to the research and arguments of a fellow Utilitarian who argues just so: desires are not thought of continously. They exist when formed even after you aren't thinking about them every minute of every day. The continue as general preferences--passive preferences. I didn't think this was a strong argument against Preference Utilitarianism either.

2. At least from the Preference Utilitarian standpoint, killing someone who doesn't want to die isn't wrong because of the loss of future value of life, but because it goes against what is generally the highest order preference -- to not die. This point sounds like he's strawmanning Singer here.

I can link you to the video if you want. Essentially, Utility is about maximising or satisficing some "thing." The mos current form of Utilty is Preference Utility, which entails maximisng preferences and minimizing frustration of preferences. There are two major types, actual and ideal. Actual has some weird weaknesses, apparently, but so does ideal. It's certainly worth watching and informative. It's about 1 hour and thirty minutes. It could be that I am misunderstanding this part, but what I got is that Marquis is arguing the right to live essentially comes from a future of value to the organism while Singer says it comes from a desire to continue living, which only comes from beings that are sapient, which is why a fetus has no right to life, but a 12 year old does.



I also agree with your assessment. Singer, as a Utilitarian, says the fetus has no future life preferences, since it's not sapient, but the mother does, so the mother outweighs the fetus' non-preferences for continued life, but Marquis tries to reduce this to an absurdity by saying actual preferences don't matter, ideal ones do, and to an extent, Singer agrees and that postion is correct: ideal preferences matter, which is how we avoid the whole "it's moral to kill someone who is depressed" counterargument to standard Preference Utility.

The silly thing comes is when Marquis, in my view, tries to apply Ideal Utility to the fetus, by claiming it would have a preference for continued life if it had a prognosis that was good--that is, good life prospects and could choose competently. He seems to imply that the actual preference correction called for by Ideal Utilty in Euthanasia of incompetents is arbitrarily unapplied. Meh.

It is true, though, that Singer and other Utilitarian Philosophers do pay attention to future life value of an organism, which is what confuses me, but they only do it in Euthanasia. When thinking whether or not to kill an infant who is very sick, they appeal to the quality of life in the future (the same with a fetus). However, why here and not in the other case? He was saying the reasoning behind it was "sophistry."



Cao Cao wrote:

t seems to me to be little more than an attempt at emotional blackmail; "You're stealing the fetus' future! That baby could grow up and cure cancer!".
Well not so direct as that but you know what I mean. It's really about as logical as wanting to kill a child because they might grow up to be a serial killer.

Yes, in a way, the first part of your statement hits on what Marqui is arguing, but ironically, even Singer does to an extent. What is wrong with killing is that you are taking away the desires of the future or the future in general that one has. He says it is wrong to kill someone who wants to die, but doesn't know rationally the options, because you are stealing their thrwarting their access to their would-be valued life.

In Singer's case though, you are violating the preference to continue living. You thwart their desire to continue living or to die. However, I would think they would prefer to continue living because of the future projected value of their life, which is what one analyses in Euthanasia cases. It seems to me the same or semantic wrangling. What do you think?

[Turin]

Here is the actual link:
Debate Page
The particular video is called: response to Don Marquis 'Abortion and Infanticide: A Critique of Peter Singer's Views. It is the video thumbnail directly following it.

I'm going to see if I can dig up a transcript. I'd much rather read this sort of material than watch it... I'm occassionally a bit archaic like that. I can take the time to study and consider written material in much greater detail (the lack of this is one of the flaws of our increasingly post-literate [i.e. illiterate] society).

Singer, as a Utilitarian, says the fetus has no future life preferences, since it's not sapient, but the mother does, so the mother outweighs the fetus' non-preferences for continued life, but Marquis tries to reduce this to an absurdity by saying actual preferences don't matter, ideal ones do, and to an extent, Singer agrees and that postion is correct: ideal preferences matter, which is how we avoid the whole "it's moral to kill someone who is depressed" counterargument to standard Preference Utility.
...
It is true, though, that Singer and other Utilitarian Philosophers do pay attention to future life value of an organism, which is what confuses me, but they only do it in Euthanasia. When thinking whether or not to kill an infant who is very sick, they appeal to the quality of life in the future (the same with a fetus). However, why here and not in the other case? He was saying the reasoning behind it was "sophistry."

Let me try to cut through the layers a bit here so we can get to the meat of the topic:

1. I think we're in agreement here with Singer on the general concept of Preference Utilitarianism (although I'll admit there may be situations I'm not imagining where it runs into problems).

2. We both seem to agree that Ideal Preference Utilitarianism doesn't seem to have any contradictions when applied to sapient humans (ex. the depressed person may be in a wrong state of mind but is otherwise sapient), although I'll admit there's the practical consideration of determining "wrong/right state of mind" in certain situations.

3. And we both seem to agree that Ideal Preference Utilitarianism has some contradictions when applied to non-sapient humans (ex. the fetus vs the severely disabled newborn).

I think the way of getting around this issue is to simply say that the concept of preference can't apply to non-sapient humans in terms of their own preferences. Instead, one can make the argument that the ideal preference invoked is the aggregate preference of the individuals that make up the society as a whole -- which is to say, it isn't in society's interest (preference) to have a severely disabled newborn live a short life of agony, or to have an unwanted fetus come to term.

This works for me, but I think I might be bending the concept of Preference Utilitarianism here. I'm not immediately seeing any negative consequences of this logic. Thoughts?

[Darth Wong]

Many people misinterpret the euthanasia argument to suggest that incorporating an improved future outlook into a euthanasia decision means that you are basing decisions upon "future values". However, that is but one way of interpreting it. Another way is to point out that the capability (or incapability) of achieving an improved future outlook is already present.

In other words, the person with a horrible terminal disease who is in agony every day is not choosing to die because his future value is poor, but because his present value is already poor and he does not have the capability to improve it. The fact that he does not have the ability to improve his situation is true right now; it is not an assumption based on future potentials.

To take another approach, it should be noted that when Jeffrey Skilling (former Enron executive) treated future potentials as real balance-sheet assets, he was considered a conman, a charlatan, a criminal. But I suppose one might consider that to be a "Guilt By Association" fallacy, so let me expand upon it. In Accounting, you can have something called a "Present Value" calculation, which is based upon future incomes and assumed interest rates. This calculation is often used to describe assets, in a manner similar to the way "future potential" anti-abortion arguments are often structured. However, it is based upon the promise of future income. If the other party never made any promise to pay this money in future, then one might interpret this as the present-value collapsing to zero, but in reality, the present-value never existed in the first place. To treat it otherwise is so obviously fraudulent that it would be illegal. In other words, future potentials in this situation are really nothing more than promises. The fetus has a future potential only in the sense that the mother promises to carry it to term. If the mother does not make this promise, then she is not destroying future potential because that future potential never existed in the first place.

[drachefly]

If Ideal Preference Utilitarianism is rephrased, it may eliminate the ambiguity:

If someone's desires appear to differ from their usual desires, and it appears that this condition is transient, we should on long-term subjects consider their usual desires more strongly.


In the case of a mental-suicidal person, this yields desire to live.

In the case of a chronic-pain-suffering euthanasia-desirer, this may or may not yield the desire to live, depending on the assessment of transience and of their usual desires (i.e. they may fall into the former category)

In the case of a fetus, this yields no desires whatsoever.