Five Major Ethical Theories Applied to Abortion, Euthanasia, and Capital Punishment: A Snapshot
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
- How do the theories of Virtue Ethics, Social Contract, Utilitarianism, Duty Theory, and the Ethics of Care connect to the issues of abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment?
How do these questions connect to our conception of "the quality of life?"
What do "rights" have to do with it?
Originally Recorded April 7, 2020 for PHI 112: Ethics at Front Range Community College
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I’m not even in your class but I am taking Ethics right now and you just connected all the dots that were missing in the first half of the semester. I can now write my paper. Thank you!
Wonderful! Stoked to see this message! :)
Just wanted to make a slight correction. Kant doesn't say that we can't use people as a means to an end, but that we can't use them simply as a means to an end. I. E you can still use your friend's lawnmower so long as you view that friendship as an end in itself. I enjoyed the video otherwise!
Yes! nailed it! not as a means to an end ONLY ! :) I'm glad you found me a good means to an end here, if you had one :) he he he
Thank you for this. It helps my ethics subject, really appreciated.
thank you!!
glad this helped
Thank you for posting this video. How similar or different are these theories to the medical ethics framework when looking at abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment from a doctor's stance (or medical student)?
that's a tricky question ! Not sure I can answer it very well. :) thanks though!
Thanks for the notes on capital punishment, really helped with my essay. I have one question. do you think that capital punishment should be imposed on police officers who intentionally kill suspects while in their custody.
I think they should be held as accountable as any civilian ...
The Judith Thompson argument is only relevant in cases of rape, because thats the only scenario when the mother didnt freely take actions that led to the creation of a new life.
Even then it would be like kicking a squatter out of a home naked in a vicous, and surely fatal snow storm.
And abortion can't be likened to agreeing to support the unborn violinist. It is more like, "One already agreed to have the violinist attached, and it will die if disconnected.
like the hair fr
word ... hair is life ha ha ha
why is this cute
why thank you ? 🤣
retraining? Bentham opposed the capital punishment, by the by. Also in relation to the capital punishment, there has been a share of cases in which the inmate was later proven to have been - in fact- innocent. So, that alone there should stop you from pushing the agenda of death penalty. While there's life, there's hope. If poven innocent, you can get to live some years outside of prision and have a monetary retribution...
I am personally against the death penalty, especially as it exists in the US at this point in history... not sure if that helps! Thanks for your comment!
The fetus is human-which makes it subject to all the fanciful stuff we made up about how great and special our species is. It’s also incomplete and still gestating so that’s the time to end it if you want.
Fanciful indeed! Mysterious and marvelous for sure 😊
just because a woman is not entitled to carry the child to term does not make her or anyone entitled to take its life
I think I agree -- entitled is a weird word here.
Just wanted to ask how curing someone by laying hands on them or someone needing an organ is the same as a woman making a conscious decision to engage in an act that resulted in a pregnancy? Two of those things are in no way the result of a person making a conscious decision to act in a manner that would result in the forcing another person to do something to continue or save their life. Pregnancy, with the exception of rape and incest, is 100% avoidable if the woman doesn't want to have a child at that moment in her life. My point is, there is a consequence or result of certain behaviors, such as sex leading to pregnancy, every woman is aware of, but choosing to partake anyway, the woman, should bear some responsibility for the resulting pregnancy. The baby or developing human is the only party in the situation that truly is 100% innocent. Actions have consequences
yes, and alongside the exceptions of rape and incest are failures in birth control... and it also seems interesting to me that there is no responsibility, legally, for the male partner to carry, provide and nurture the baby ... not sure that that changes anything (probably doesn't) but interesting anyway when I read this in a new-dad-tired-state
:)
@@WisdomWorkshop But there is a legal duty for the father to provide financial support for the child once born. Whether or not he wanted the child and specifically stated he did not want the child. At least according to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
And the failures in birth control argument is suspect I keep hearing this stated over and over but don’t see any actual evidence..There is only a 20-25% of a female getting pregnant during any given ovulation period without birth control. If both partners take equal responsibility for birth control
I feel you are missing a vital caveat in relation to the abortion issue. Pregnancy is not a spontaneous act. The fetus does not just pop into existence from nothing or due to no action of the parties (the male or female) who acted in its creation. There are blurring of lines here and skipping the consequence of the sexual act as being the probability of a pregnancy is ignoring a vital componant of the situation. I would simply put it...if the man and woman consented to have sex, which is the vast vast majority of sexual intercourse, and even if they used protection (which is never 100% effective) then they have tacitly consented to the pregnancy. The case of ignorance is not a defence must be enforced here. Plus,in relation to virtue ethics, the virtuous person should act only in accordance with what a responsible person would do and avoid the situation altogether if they were not prepared for a probable outcome they did not desire. A responsible person would acknowledge that procreation is a function, and is the prime function of sex, and if they did not desire to procreate, they would not have sex, even if they used protection. If they decide to have sex, they are agreeing to the outcome, whatever it may be. We as a society have decided to throw away and ignore the fact that the primary function of sex is to procreate. It isnt to enjoy ourselves. It isnt for pleasure. Even though it is pleasurable, that is only an incentive for us to have it to procreate. If sex was painful, or debilitating, then we would not be having it so much. We need to look at the actual root of the problem, which I believe lies in 2 places.
1. We have displaced the idea that sex is for procreation, and reinforced the idea that sex is for pleasure. In fact we have dumbed down the person to the point that they only realise too late that they have a problem...and the female partner is pregnant with their child.
2. We assume that the moral problem begins when the woman is pregnant. We start asking questions such as : what rights does the fetus have? at what stage is the fetus "alive"? Does the fetus have a right to inhabit its mothers womb?? But the consent was already given when the 2 parties had sex. Rape and incest I feel are different cases and a more consequentialist attitude would be appropriate as the female was forced into the action, and did not consent to the act and can not be held responsible for its consequences. But the moral question should be, are we aware that what we are doing could end in a pregnancy??
All our moral problems start because the argument seems to assume these 2 things. That sex is primarily for pleasure. And the fetus sort of just spontaneously started growing in the females womb and does not hold the male and female to account at all for their actions!!! And every conversation which has either of these 2 elements is just tying everyone up in knots and actually denying the source of the problem. We regard sex as an act of recreational pleasure, and we disregard the consequences of the act because it goes against our future prospects for pleasure. Its as simple as that.
We act irresponsibly towards sex....then to our horror find out it does have a purpose other than pleasure, and then we seek to abrogate our responsibility for the consequence of our consensual act because it will not end in a pleasurable outcome for us.
And Im not a religious nut. Im no bible thumping christian. Im a libertarian atheist, but the whole dilemma as far as morality is concerned is very very straight forward. Its kind of insulting that its even a moral dilemma in the vast majority of cases. The reality of the situation doesnt lie and there is no real grey area, unless you use a very crude, the ends justify the means consequentialism, with the ends being the desire of the female, or male involved. The very question of whether the fetus is just a bunch of cells or has any rights is entirely moot...and has zero bearing on the moral issue due to the following. The fetus came into being due to no act of its own. It is where nature intended it to be. It got there by the consensual action of a man and woman. That it resides in a part of the woman is neither here nor there...its where it should be. All of the responsibility lies entirely with the parties who committed the act to place it there, to now ensure that it thrives and survives. It certainly isnt to forcibly remove it. And Im sorry if that sounds crass...but I would counter that any argument to even imply the question of its "rights to the mothers womb" as if it was a parasite, or to euphamistically call it a "bunch of cells" are many orders of magnitude more crass. We need to grow up. We need to look past the smokescreen of all the moral panics created around this and simply acknowledge the truth.
thanks for the thoughtful response -- but it seems to rest on the assumption that the ONLY purpose of sex is to procreate .. and ... I'm not sure that's the case --- and doesn't include situations where the health of the mother is at stake, or rape, or incest... so I'm afraid that I disagree that this is a black-and-white issue -- there's a HUGE swath of grey here, imo.
@@WisdomWorkshop Hi Sean. Thanks for your reply. I will go a bit further into my concerns and a macro ethical issue I am concerned about in modern society. I would be interested in your respinse.
I do acknowledge that rape and incest are a grey area, most definitely, as the female in the situation has become pregnant through no fault or action of her own, in fact through a grossly offensive and invasive act of a man to which she had no consent and in fact would under no circumstances have given her consent. In this situation, if you look at if from my point of view she has no culpability in the act of getting pregnant and therefore bares no responsibility to proceed with the pregnancy. There is no moral dilemma here for me. If she makes the choice to abort then I can see a very valid reason for her doing so. From a psychological and emotional standpoint, to force her to give birth to the child of a rapist or incestual relationship would be beyond the pale so to speak. Then there is also the abortion which occurs to save the life of the mother. Again it is shame this has to happen but a value judgement has to be made and the life of the mother and her necessity to live in order to continue her life and relationships and value to society is seen as trumping the value of the unborn child here.
However, pregnancy through rape or incest, although it does happen, are a very very small proportion of all pregnancies, and even a very very small proportion of all pregnancies which women seek to abort. The majority of abortions are sought by women who had consensual sex and got pregnant and now no longer want the responsibility to carry the pregnancy to term and care for their child after birth. You have to agree that this is the vast majority of cases under which abortions are sought.
And I would say that the only biological purpose of sex is procreation. Of course it has psychological and emotional aspects also, and yes it is pleasurable, but I would argue these are secondary aspects to provide for (a) the act taking place in the first place, as if the act sexual intercourse was not pleasurable then what would be the incentive to do it? The very fact it is pleasurable is natures way of ensuring we have sex, and procreate and keep the generations coming...and (b) the sexual act has emotional and psychological aspects, but these would primarily have been to bond the pair having sex so as to provide the best opportunity for the child to be cared for by its parents, as they would ideally have a bond with each other and want to care for and provide for the child. In all things we are bound deeply into an evolutionary cycle which nature founded inside our very physiology to create life, and nurture it so it could be passed on. All other considerations are aspects we are mapping onto the basic evolutionary biological function because we want to see sex as a recreational, fun or pleasurable act divorced from the actually evolutionary biological basis which is to me the primary inbuilt biological reason for sex. What do you see as the reason for sex?? Im interested as it clearly diverges from mine. Am I missing something???
To me what we are seeing in modern society is a tipping of the scales or a pendulum swinging between 2 moral philosophies. A kind of virtue ethics and a consequentialist framework. To me the Virtue Ethics which would focus on the person, developing their personal ethical standards centred around the virtues of courage, honesty, wisdom, temperance, justice, fortitude etc and their actions are decided based upon an application of these virtues which leads to a person ultimately bearing responsibility for their actions and wanting that to be the case. Consequentialism which through the utilitarian frameworks of Bentham and his successors focuses on a more hedonistic device to push pleasure and pursuit of happiness as the greatest moral good. But to me consequentialism can be pushed as a championing of the persons right to seek pleasure and happiness as they define it above all other considerations. Only the end goal matters, and this can lead to an "any means to justify the ends" point of view. And in my estimation society has allowed the pendulum or scales to swing or tip too far into the consequentialist zone, so much that we actively disengage from virtues when they dont suit the ends we desire. And I feel we do this at our peril, for ultimately if we focus so much on the consequentialist framework to create societal norms and the pursuit of personal pleasure over all other ethical considerations then when we actually require people to behave according to classical virtues they will find it harder and harder to do so, as we have pushed the highest moral value as being the pursuit of pleasure and happiness. To me the utilitarian framework has its place, but it should not be dominating the moral landscape. There must also be room for the classic vitues and focus on the person as being the moral actor, the focus of the moral dilemma and not the situation and its outcome. Both have a part to play and we need both, but no morally salient situation ever occurs without first being instantiated by a person or persons and their actions. For me, the primary focus should always be on the person, first and foremost and their responsibilities to themselves and to others. What is morality other than the governing concept of how we interact and behave towards one another. There is no morality for a man on a dessert island devoid of any other life. He resides in a moral black hole, beyond the event horizon of normative ethics.
Thus for me all relationships, and thus all moral situations hinges on 1 concept. Good faith. Do you accept your ultimate responsibility for all your actions first and foremost and will you act according to virtues in relation to the outcomes of these actions? I dont believe consequentialist frameworks have this good faith built in, as there is always a taste of the ends justifying the means baked in, and the further you swing away from virtues as being a guide the further you will go to justifying the ends, by any means necessary.
This is the moral dilemma of our age. Not should abortion be seen as a moral act or not. While we argue over the details, and push for a fairer society, are we not loading the scales, pushing the pendulum to the point where they break and we lose a very very important part of the ethical map we need to guide us to a place where we see interaction as cooperative rather than competitive or even adversarial? Its what I fear most in this world. The death of good faith. We see it on both sides of the political aisle now. We see everyone out to do whatever it takes, lie, cheat, manipulate, corrupt, coerce, whatever it takes and ultimately when you stomp good faith into the dirt you end up with nobody being able to trust anything or anyone...and there is the simple breakdown of the fabric of society. If you cant trust your neighbour, why be civil with them? Why interact in good faith?
And we kill that concept at our peril. And I see the concept being choked out of existence primarily because consequentialist frameworks pushed beyond a controlling influence of virtues have no concept of good faith...trust...courage...wisdom...temperance...fortitude or any of the virtues which are there to limit or hedonistic selfish tendencies and personal responsibility becomes a thing of the past.
Ultimately if you are a consequentialist, you need to morally assess the consequences of the actions, and they are not good. And unfortunately the arguments, the frameworks and the ideologies pushing the normalisation of abortion are contributing to this. In all things I see the balance has been tipped beyond a point where it is useful, because pleasure and happiness are the ultimate good today...when they were always meant to be tempered by the constraining factors of personal virtues.
Ask yourself a simple question. If virtues were the societal focus in relation to moral action, would we have Trump? Would we have misinformation and partisan politics to the point of lunacy from both sides? The political arms race, and all its rhetoric and all its devices to contort and corrupt the very fabric of society stem from one place...to win...by any means necessary, because the means will justify the ends. It is all part of the same problem, because its all because we have forsaken the actual virtues we should be living by. Only then can we actually achieve anything...in good faith.
I would be really interested in your thoughts on all the above...as to me they are the canary in the coal mine which is warning of the gas leak but we are still merrily digging away...sparks flying off pick axes. I dont get to speak to many people about these sorts of things as ethics and morality are aspects of life many dont know much if anything about. I would be interested in chatting to you...in good faith...in complete honesty and in an effort to see is there something there...or am I being kept awake at night by a boogey man!!
@@kevintyrrell9559 So much here! I do think we're more than biological beings OR that we don't understand biology enough in the conventional sense to limit our understanding of sex to be ONLY for procreation ...
And I don't think there's a boogey man ... but as a pragmatist, I would ask, does your belief in this moral boogey man help you get to more desirable states of being? In this way, the existence of the boogey man is secondary to how your belief in it is altering the way you navigate your experience with other people.
And yes, in good faith, I'd prefer giving them the benefit of the doubt, even if I don't agree with their decisions. Who am I to judge? Tough issue though, and you raise some powerful points.
Cheers,
Sean
if you abort from the reasoning that the childs life will not be quality “enough”, you are limiting the possibilities the future might provide for you or that child. this is hypothetical of course. you might abort today, but tomorrow legislation passes for universal basic income and universal housing. but because the baby is aborted, they were never given the possibility to survive, be ‘rescued’ by society, and thrive, even if it were given up for adoption. you have no way of knowing the future for the unborn
this is a really good point. why I don't like utilitarianism for issues like this .