Among all who get involved in discussions about moral issues, killing and violence seem to have, in general, a bad name. How many times have you heard the remark, in refutation of some view, “By that logic, it would be okay to kill someone” – ? Killing is the default that we turn to when we need some example of doing wrong.
One would think that in the abortion debate, agreement on the wrong of killing would give us some common ground. But it turns out that although killing is universally disreputable, it’s disreputable in a nebulous way. When we say “Killing is wrong,” we don’t all mean the same thing. We disagree on exactly what is wrong with it.
1. To my moral intuitions, it is clear that what is most wrong with killing is that it deprives an organism of its future conscious life (which in the case of human beings usually includes a chance to improve morally). If I don’t deem it to have much of a future life or don’t deem that its future life will be very conscious, as I don’t in the case of a mosquito, then killing it is less wrong. I think it’s permissible to kill a mosquito for a provocation or even a threat that would not justify my killing a human being.
2. But many people think that what is most wrong about killing relates to the species of the victim without regard to its future conscious life. They say that the lives of all human beings are exactly equal in inherent value and that human lives are special. Thus the worst wrong is to kill any innocent human being. (Well, there are some who say only, “The lives of all born human beings are exactly equal in value;” but the fundamental assumption is the same – those who say that simply don’t apply the assumption to the unborn.) Thus the life of a person in an irreversible coma (even granting the assumption that we really know beyond doubt that the coma is complete and irreversible) is as valuable as your life or mine.
Many Christians think in this way because of a belief that any human being, yet only a human being, is an imago dei.
I disagree with vesting all belief in what is wrong with killing in the simple humanity of the victim, because my moral intuitions tell me that in a triage situation – for instance if that person in a coma were in a hospital where there was not sufficient life-support equipment for two patients, and there was another patient in need of the equipment who was conscious or expected to regain consciousness – I would clearly prioritize the second person, though that person is not more human.
I think I would even preserve the life of a dog who could expect to have years of conscious life ahead of it (I believe dogs to be among the animals with highest consciousness), rather than that of a human who was sure never to come out of a coma.
The life of any human being is very important to me. We should not take anyone off life support if we can help it (unless they wrote an advance directive). But I wonder if some of my concern for even a human being in an irreversible coma, stems from my knowledge that humans in general are highly conscious.
3. Some think that what’s wrong with killing is that it frustrates a desire, on the part of the organism, to live.
I was lucky enough not to have to try to analyze this particular view on my own. An analysis of it co-authored by Kelsey Hazzard of Secular Pro-Life, and me, appears as a post on the SPL blog. Here I will just add a couple of further comments:
In the blog post, we remarked about that view, What is being said here is that an organism’s caring about its future life is important, but the future life itself that the organism cares about is not important. One more way to put “what is being said” would be: “Beings’ future lives don’t matter, but if they cherish a desire to live based on the illusion that their lives really do matter, then that foolish desire matters.”
We have implied in the post an equation between caring about living (wanting to live) and caring about one’s future life; but can there really be much debate about that equation? For myself, I think that people who don’t want to live are invariably people who don’t want to go through the future life that they expect; and people who do want to live have at least a little hope for a little future happiness.
Also, in using expressions such as “the only harm that we can see in the frustration of a desire for one’s future life” in relation to the topic of the wrong of the killing, we have suggested that wrong involves harm. If there is any moral wrong unrelated to harming somebody, it seems to me that it would be a very abstract wrong compared to the wrong of harm.
And, it might be worth identifying a possible difference between the frustrates-a-desire-to-live view that we mainly discuss, and Peter Singer’s view, which we also mention. Singer focuses on the importance of a capacity to care (to hold preferences, as he puts it), but I’m not sure whether he ever singles out the importance of caring about life. Thus his thesis may not undermine itself as much as does the other, which inadvertently implies the importance of future life. Yet he equally ignores the relevance of future life when we consider killing someone.
(And lastly, in that article we said, “. . . okay, it’s true, embryos haven’t yet started to care about their future, and probably won’t for some years.” But were we 100% correct in saying that? The fact that they are biologically programmed to do everything possible to live, and that that biological longing is designed to ensure that the later conscious longing will have its day, means something to my personal moral intuitions. But let’s leave that aside for now.)
I think of the above as the three main competing views as to what is wrong with killing. In addition, there are some views as to what may at least add to the wrong of killing:
4. Killing may involve inflicting pain. On the wrong of inflicting avoidable pain, there is almost complete common ground in society. Even hunters who kill for fun do not find as much fun in it if they inflict significantly more pain than usual. Even pro-choicers who do not see anything wrong with killing the unborn in itself would like it to be done as painlessly as possible. Even if there really exist proponents of the “sovereign zone” bodily-rights argument who say that a pregnant woman should have a legal right to torture her unborn (because she is doing what she wants with her body and its contents), they would probably say that it would be morally wrong for her to do so.
5. Killing will often involve emotional distress for people other than the victim. It will particularly cause distress if the victim had in their life developed positive relationships. This has some small relevance in the abortion debate, because a born person, unlike an unborn, may have developed such relationships. Killing the unborn may be less wrong in that particular way.
6. Killing will often involve a loss of a utilitarian kind. And again, it is only born people who may be confirmed to be making a positive utilitarian contribution to society.
If we are to consider people’s utilitarian value in assessing their worthiness to live, we have to note that the utilitarian value of some born people will be greater than that of others, and that the contributions of certain born persons have been confirmed to be negative. Still, if carrying a pregnancy to term might negatively impact a woman’s ability to take care of her born children, that would assign a certain negative utilitarian value to her unborn child, and if there is no one who can help with the born children, that would be a factor to some degree, for the permissibility of abortion in that particular case.
In relation to the “frustrating a desire” belief about the wrong of killing, I wrote, “Ultimately we can’t argue logically with moral intuitions.” Logical arguments can be very important in helping people find better intuitions in themselves, but ultimately we can’t reject, on logical grounds, any of the above intuitions about the wrong of killing. I have written elsewhere regarding how I think differences in moral intuition ultimately resolve.
And I have said a number of things here indicating that I don’t give equal value to all human lives. Philosophically I don’t and probably many people don’t, but it would not be wise for society to try to implement, in practice, some objective calculation of value. Because if it were known that everybody was being rated in terms of their expendability, that would cause tremendous tension in society. We have to maintain the existing social convention “everyone’s life is of equal value,” and continue to codify that convention in terms of equal legal rights. (Except in a triage situation where the rubber meets the road and we have to make some differentiations.) Philosophically I don’t think that everyone has equal inherent value, but I think that society should assign everyone equal inherent value.
I also think that the existing social convention should be upgraded so that “everyone” includes the unborn. I think that mainly because the unborn, also, have a future conscious life.
© 2015
“I disagree with vesting all belief in what is wrong with killing in the simple humanity of the victim, because my moral intuitions tell me that in a triage situation – for instance if that person in a coma were in a hospital where there was not sufficient life-support equipment for two patients, and there was another patient in need of the equipment who was conscious or expected to regain consciousness – I would clearly prioritize the second person, though that person is not more human.”
Your rejection of basing the moral worth of a person in their “simple humanity” (I take it to mean their humanity) doesn’t follow from this. In fact this seems to me the best way to secure human fundamental equality, we’d all belong to the same natural kind.
“I think I would even preserve the life of a dog who could expect to have years of conscious life ahead of it (I believe dogs to be among the animals with highest consciousness), rather than that of a human who was sure never to come out of a coma.”
What if the man was unconscious and would survive for a week, but the dog for ten years?
” Logical arguments can be very important in helping people find better intuitions in themselves, but ultimately we can’t reject, on logical grounds, any of the above intuitions about the wrong of killing.”
If the intuition clashes with other intuitions are beliefs that have more warrant, or result in absurdities we can reject it for that reason. The utilitarian reason falls because on utilitarianism you have the problem of deciding who should count, actual beings or possible and actual beings, which can’t really be decided non-arbitrarily; in either event, we can’t actually know ripples our actions will cause in the word, and this is a grave threat to utilitarianism. and then the problem that the goods that are supposed to enter into a utilitarian calculus are incommensurable and thus no measurement is possible, so you can reject that theory.
“We have to maintain the existing social convention “everyone’s life is of equal value,” and continue to codify that convention in terms of equal legal rights. (Except in a triage situation where the rubber meets the road and we have to make some differentiations.)”
But that some people won’t be saved in triage isn’t an argument against the fundamental equality of all human persons. And frankly, if we are not all equal, I don’t want to be treated as if I was less than what I am, that’s not just. Yet most people will find your reject of the fundamental equality of persons wrong, and nothing stated here gives us reason to reject the more warranted belief that we are in fact equal.
Thanks.
First let me mention that I have just made an important tweak in the above blog post, though one that I think does not bear on the issues you have raised. I have changed . . . what is most wrong with killing is that it deprives an organism of its future conscious life to . . . what is most wrong with killing is that it deprives an organism of its future conscious life (which in the case of human beings usually includes a chance to improve morally).
I am under a lot of time pressure right now and will be this whole month. Eventually I hope to reply to all points of your thoughtful comment. For now, just this much:
I had blogged —
I disagree with vesting all belief in what is wrong with killing in the simple humanity of the victim, because my moral intuitions tell me that in a triage situation – for instance if that person in a coma were in a hospital where there was not sufficient life-support equipment for two patients, and there was another patient in need of the equipment who was conscious or expected to regain consciousness – I would clearly prioritize the second person, though that person is not more human
— and you have replied —
“Your rejection of basing the moral worth of a person in their ‘simple humanity’ (I take it to mean their humanity) doesn’t follow from this. In fact this seems to me the best way to secure human fundamental equality, we’d all belong to the same natural kind”
— and —
“But that some people won’t be saved in triage isn’t an argument against the fundamental equality of all human persons. And frankly, if we are not all equal, I don’t want to be treated as if I was less than what I am, that’s not just. Yet most people will find your reject of the fundamental equality of persons wrong, and nothing stated here gives us reason to reject the more warranted belief that we are in fact equal.”
“Your rejection of basing the moral worth of a person in their ‘simple humanity’ . . . doesn’t follow from this.”
“This” is if that person in [an irreversible] coma were in a hospital where there was not sufficient life-support equipment for two patients, and there was another patient in need of the equipment who was conscious or expected to regain consciousness – I would clearly prioritize the second person, though that person is not more human.
If the moral worth of a person were based on their humanity per se, then in that situation, since both are equally human, we would flip a coin. If we don’t flip a coin (which we don’t), we don’t consider them to have the same moral worth.
“In fact this seems to me the best way to secure human fundamental equality, we’d all belong to the same natural kind.”
“This” again seems to mean if that person in [an irreversible] coma were in a hospital where there was not sufficient life-support equipment for two patients, and there was another patient in need of the equipment who was conscious or expected to regain consciousness – I would clearly prioritize the second person . . . And your “we’d” is a conditional verb form. So you seem to be saying “If we would prioritize one person over another based on consciousness, that would show that we all belong to the same natural kind.”
We do all belong to the same species, but I don’t see how the fact that we would prioritize one person over another based on consciousness shows that. It doesn’t deny the fact that we all belong to the same species, but what it shows is that we discriminate among members of same species based on a certain criterion.
“if we are not all equal, I don’t want to be treated as if I was less than what I am”
If we are not all equal, that means that some people are less than others. Some people are less than what other people are. But no one is less, or treated less, than what he himself is — I don’t think I ever suggested that.
“nothing stated here gives us reason to reject the more warranted belief that we are in fact equal.”
My triage example, as mentioned, “shows . . . that we discriminate among members of same species based on a certain criterion.” That is a reason.
On another website, you wrote: “we are valuable because of the kind of entities that we are, those that are oriented toward rationality and free action, apart from what we are presently doing . . .”
I replied: “To me that shows that the rationality and free action are primary and that the importance of being a member of that rationality-and-free-action kind of entity (species), though that importance is considerable, is derivative and secondary.”
You have now replied there: “At best it would show that the inherent capacity for such actions are important. . . .
“Patrick Lee was right, I think, when he said that the difference between an inherent capacity and an immediately exercisable capacity don’t really matter; they are just degrees of the same capacity.
“Saying that consciousness and rationality the things that are actually valuable seems to make us merely insturmentally valuable for possessing those things, and that seems wrong.”
Most of your post there aimed to show that Patrick Lee was right, but I don’t disagree with him as you have represented him.
It seems to me in the first place that the whole concept of worth is secondary in a way. What matters is whether it’s permissible to kill a person or not. If a moral intuition of mine tells me it’s not, then the main thing has been accomplished. I think my moral intuitions come out of my unconscious in some way I can’t understand (though you don’t think the same about your intuitions, as you said here one time — http://blog.secularprolife.org/2016/05/four-terrible-yet-common-pro-life.html#comment-2728664940 ). I may conjecture that the unconscious computations that resulted in my moral intuition about not killing included an assessment of worth, but I don’t really know that. It may be that the whole existence, for me, of a concept of worth may be just an inference — an inference from the fact that my intuition tells me I should or shouldn’t treat someone in a particular way. It seems to me that such intuitions are primary.
You may say, “No, it’s the opposite. We KNOW what a person’s worth is, and THEREFORE we conclude that we ought not to kill.” But when I introspect, I find that psychologically I’m not so much in touch with worth, whereas I am in touch with what I ought to do or ought not to do.
If I destroy a person who is exercising rationality and what at first glance seems to be free action, then I also destroy those exercises of rationality and “free” action. So what is it that my moral intuition tells me not to destroy? Introspecting just now, it’s hard to tell that way, but —
“merely insturmentally valuable for possessing those things, and that seems wrong”
— isn’t it the instrumental aspect of us that makes us valuable? Some people lacking that aspect are still human, but would have to come second in a triage situation. And as I said in the blog post:
But I wonder if some of my concern for even a human being in an irreversible coma, stems from my knowledge that humans in general are highly conscious.
[Edit:
“If the intuition clashes with other intuitions [or] beliefs that have more warrant, or result in absurdities we can reject it for that reason.”
The very issue you are debating here is whether intuitions or beliefs can be rejected on logical/rational grounds (which I had just contended they cannot), so if by “warrant” here you mean “logical/rational warrant,” then you are just using your preferred conclusion as an argument to support your preferred conclusion.
An intuition may be overridden by a stronger intuition, but that doesn’t involve conscious logic.
“result in absurdities”
If my intuition says, “Abortion ought not to be permitted,” that could possibly result in an absurdity, but if my intuition says “This specific abortion ought not to be permitted,” then what I say has no further ramifications, no further results. And in fact when I introspect, I find that when my intuition says, “Abortion ought not to be permitted,” I am really picturing a specific abortion that I suppose to be typical; supposing it to be typical, my intuition says, “Abortion ought not to be permitted” as a general principle.
So really I think my intuition operates only on specific cases. If I take that “typical” abortion and then begin to imagine a series of other specific abortions in which the suffering to be expected for the woman increases or decreases compared to the typical one, then my intuition changes appropriately for each specific case.
So I think that all my moral intuitions are ultimately specific to a particular case, and cannot have any ramified results, absurd or otherwise. ]