Differences
This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.
Both sides previous revisionPrevious revisionNext revision | Previous revision | ||
utsfl:classroom:seminars:pba310y [2016/09/21 11:06] – balleyne | utsfl:classroom:seminars:pba310y [2023/06/12 09:04] (current) – mmccann | ||
---|---|---|---|
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
- | ====== PBA310Y: The Good Samaritan Argument ====== | + | ====== PBA310Y: The Good Samaritan Argument |
Prerequisite: | Prerequisite: | ||
+ | |||
+ | FIXME clip from movie Up for Killing Versus Letting Die | ||
+ | FIXME story of gas station, kid getting into wrong car and guy driving away, for Guarding argument thing | ||
===== Judith Jarvis Thompson ===== | ===== Judith Jarvis Thompson ===== | ||
+ | * Cool animation presenting the analogy: https:// | ||
* [[http:// | * [[http:// | ||
* [[wp>A Defense of Abortion]] | * [[wp>A Defense of Abortion]] | ||
- | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch? | + | * http://www.str.org/articles/ |
* "In chapter 7 of Francis Beckwith’s book, Politically Correct Death: Answering Arguments for Abortion Rights (1993), it extensively covers arguments such as this when refuting an analogy similar to the professor’s. The points Beckwith makes are in response to an analogy proposed by abortion advocate Judith Jarvis Thomson, known as " | * "In chapter 7 of Francis Beckwith’s book, Politically Correct Death: Answering Arguments for Abortion Rights (1993), it extensively covers arguments such as this when refuting an analogy similar to the professor’s. The points Beckwith makes are in response to an analogy proposed by abortion advocate Judith Jarvis Thomson, known as " | ||
* http:// | * http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | {{youtube> | ||
+ | |||
==== Analysis ==== | ==== Analysis ==== | ||
=== Themes === | === Themes === | ||
Line 21: | Line 28: | ||
* "while I am arguing for the permissibility of abortion in some cases, I am not arguing for the right to secure the death of the unborn child" | * "while I am arguing for the permissibility of abortion in some cases, I am not arguing for the right to secure the death of the unborn child" | ||
- | Thompson seems to be assuming a consequentialist perspective to be obvious. She doesn' | + | Thomson |
=== Bizarre Language === | === Bizarre Language === | ||
Line 29: | Line 36: | ||
* " | * " | ||
* Indeed, in what pregnancy could it be supposed that the mother has given the unborn person such a right? It is not as if there are unborn persons drifting about the world, to whom a woman who wants a child says I invite you in." | * Indeed, in what pregnancy could it be supposed that the mother has given the unborn person such a right? It is not as if there are unborn persons drifting about the world, to whom a woman who wants a child says I invite you in." | ||
+ | * Counter-example: | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
* "a burglar" | * "a burglar" | ||
* "If a set of parents do not try to prevent pregnancy, do not obtain an abortion, but rather take it home with them, then they have assumed responsibility for it, they have given it rights, and they cannot now withdraw support from it at the cost of its life because they now find it difficult to go on providing for it." | * "If a set of parents do not try to prevent pregnancy, do not obtain an abortion, but rather take it home with them, then they have assumed responsibility for it, they have given it rights, and they cannot now withdraw support from it at the cost of its life because they now find it difficult to go on providing for it." | ||
* " | * " | ||
- | |||
==== Commentary === | ==== Commentary === | ||
Line 76: | Line 85: | ||
* The weirdness is a virtue insofar as it separates abortion for the sociopolitical context and perhaps distances the moral question from other baggage((Boonin, | * The weirdness is a virtue insofar as it separates abortion for the sociopolitical context and perhaps distances the moral question from other baggage((Boonin, | ||
- | ==== Main Objections | + | ==== Objections |
> There is at least one obvious difference between the two cases that seems plainly to be of moral significance. In the case of you and the violinist, the situation in which you find that there is a violinist whose life is dependent on you does not arise from any voluntary action of yours. But when a woman becomes pregnant, except in cases where the pregnancy arises from rape, the situation in which she finds that there is a fetus whose life is dependent on her does arise, at least in part, from a voluntary action of hers. If she had not voluntarily engaged in sexual intercourse, | > There is at least one obvious difference between the two cases that seems plainly to be of moral significance. In the case of you and the violinist, the situation in which you find that there is a violinist whose life is dependent on you does not arise from any voluntary action of yours. But when a woman becomes pregnant, except in cases where the pregnancy arises from rape, the situation in which she finds that there is a fetus whose life is dependent on her does arise, at least in part, from a voluntary action of hers. If she had not voluntarily engaged in sexual intercourse, | ||
Line 89: | Line 98: | ||
Boonin finds Thomson' | Boonin finds Thomson' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Boonin believes that although Thomson' | ||
(Interestingly, | (Interestingly, | ||
Line 94: | Line 105: | ||
==== The Tacit Consent Objection ==== | ==== The Tacit Consent Objection ==== | ||
- Because the woman' | - Because the woman' | ||
+ | * Boonin says this confuses (a) voluntarily bringing about a certain state of affairs with (b) voluntarily doing an action foreseeing that this may lead to a certain state of affairs -- and that only (a) is plausible for grounding tacit consent, yet only (b) is applicable to nonrape pregnancy cases((Boonin, | ||
+ | * Boonin asks what would you have to believe about tacit consent for this objection to hold, which Boonin says may well be necessary but are not sufficient: | ||
+ | * voluntary action | ||
+ | * causal relationship between action and resulting state of affairs | ||
+ | * Foreseeable (if unintended) consequence | ||
+ | * Boonin' | ||
+ | * Bill and Ted both leave a restaurant after voluntarily placing some cash on the table | ||
+ | * But Bill placed the money there for the waiter (a) | ||
+ | * Ted simply was uncomfortable with the cash in his pocket, placed it on the table temporarily, | ||
+ | * Boonin says it would be unreasonable to say that Ted tacitly consented to the waiter taking all of his cash -- the voluntariness, | ||
+ | * Boonin says a woman who has sex knowing it might lead to pregnancy is like Ted, not Bill. Just as Ted's returning to the restaurant is evidence that he never tacitly consented to giving away the whole pile of cash, a woman' | ||
+ | * Furthermore, | ||
+ | * Boonin addresses Langer' | ||
+ | * Boonin says "her voluntary action is the act of agreeing to abide by the society' | ||
+ | * Blaise: Is that true? Isn't there a relevant question of whether you //could// agree to have sex with knowledge that having sex is basically entering into a biological pregnancy lottery without agreeing to enter the biological pregnancy lottery? With knowledge, can you eat a piece of cake daily without tacitly consenting to the obesity that might result? With knowledge (and addiction aside), can you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day without tacitly consenting to entering the biological lung cancer lottery? Maybe this isn't a question of tacit consent... but can Boonin really just dismiss the biological pregnancy lottery that is sexual intercourse as irrelevant? How can you have sex, knowing that's where babies come from -- knowing those are the // | ||
+ | * I suppose you could if you don't agree to the biological rules because you'll kill any human being that results, but I guess the separate question is whether or not that's morally acceptable to kill another human being because you don't consent to the rules of biology. Is refusing to follow the reality of sexual reproduction grounds for killing another human being? | ||
+ | * Boonin says, say you knew the Society of Music Lovers kidnappers were lurking in a park and you walked by it anyways taking the risk, without carrying any protection. Surely no one will say you've tacitly consented to remain plugged into the violinist if you're kidnapped | ||
+ | * Blaise: there seems to be a morally relevant difference in whether or not the //reason// why you experience an unintended but foreseen consequence that you knowingly risked through your voluntarily actions, if that reason is other people' | ||
+ | * Blaise: another way to put it: is the causal effect only //your// voluntary actions? Or the way //others// acting on top of your voluntary actions? When the cause of the unintended consequence is your action + biology, that seems radically different than when the cause of the unintended consequence is your action + kidnapping. Is it actually meaningful to say that you did not consent to the state of affairs emerging from the sunburn scenario? That you did not consent to biological realities? | ||
+ | * Boonin tries to address this by removing the culpable agent and putting the second variable as a Y2K computer bug.((Boonin, | ||
+ | * Blaise: A random computer glitch that brings about a procedure radically different from the one in which you entered the hospital to receive still hardly seems analogous to experiencing the natural and commonplace and hardly surprising outcome of having sexual intercourse. Getting pregnant from sex is not like getting hooked up to the violinist because of a random computer glitch. The random computer glitch seriously calls into question the foreseeability requirement -- sure you know it's the eve of Y2K, but it wouldn' | ||
+ | * Blaise: Even when Boonin tries to rescue this by making the probabilities of randomness exactly equal to the changes of conception in a single sexual act, or maybe adding serious infertility problems to the woman who does actually get pregnant((Boonin, | ||
+ | * Blaise: I'm still not sure that it's soley a question of tacit consent here. But I don't think Boonin successfully dismisses consent entirely, even if it's a tacit consent to assume the risk of pregnancy as a possible outcome of sex rather than consent specifically to the use of your body -- perhaps it's some form of consent // | ||
- What she should be understood as having tacitly consented to with respect to this state of affairs is, in particular, the fetus' | - What she should be understood as having tacitly consented to with respect to this state of affairs is, in particular, the fetus' | ||
+ | * " | ||
+ | * What if you had to undergo nine painful bone marrow extractions over the next nine months, and you freely volunteer at first without fully understanding what's involved, would you be morally obligated to complete the rest of the extractions if you changed your mind after two? | ||
+ | * Blaise: What if you could only unplug yourself by decapitating the violinist? | ||
+ | * Blaise: What about ordinary versus extraordinary care? A bone marrow extraction is not analogous to providing food and shelter for a child. What if you agreed to travel with a newborn baby from one location to another, but found it seriously burdensome to continue to carry, feed and shelter the child in the middle of a difficult journey? Since you consenting to the journey, does the child not have a right to your basic support until the journey is over? Or can you leave the child to starve? Or dismember the child to remove yourself from the demands you initially consented to? | ||
+ | * Boonin also raises the question of whether or not the right to control your body is one that you can even waive, e.g. a case of consenting to the use of your body in any way for cash -- most of us would consider such an agreement invalid.((Boonin, | ||
+ | * Blaise: What does this say of Boonin' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==== The Responsibility Objection ==== | ||
+ | "The woman is like someone whose voluntary actions foreseeably lead to an accident that causes an innocent bystander to be in need of assistance." | ||
+ | * " | ||
+ | * Boonin bizarrely accuses proponents of this objection of begging the question, whether Tooley' | ||
+ | * Blaise: Huh? //How// exactly is the fetus deliberately deprived of the needed support? Boonin' | ||
+ | * Is there not an uncontroverisal right to not be decapitated, | ||
+ | * Is there for an uncontroversial right that a baby has to basic care, that there is a duty to provide the necessities of life? | ||
+ | * Is there not an uncontroversial basic right for a child to not be abandoned and left for certain death? | ||
+ | |||
+ | "If you had not done the voluntary action, then he would not now need your assistance in order to survive." | ||
+ | - // | ||
+ | - // | ||
+ | * (in the violinist scenario you are not responsible in either sense) | ||
+ | |||
+ | Boonin wants to accept responsibility #2, but reject responsibility #1. And... well, just read him: | ||
+ | > In one important respect, the responsibility objection is correct. Cases of voluntary intercourse are relevantly different from Thomson' | ||
+ | * Blaise: //Huh?// You're responsible that that existence, but since there' | ||
+ | * Blaise: Which raises a question of disability... say you have a child with a disability, with //special// needs. You are responsible for their existence but not their neediness (it wasn't your specific actions that brought about the disability really). Does that mean you're not responsible in caring for their special needs? "I know we're responsible for your existence, son, when we decided to have a child, but we didn't go and decide to give you autism, we're not responsible for your special needs, so we have no responsibility to provide for your special needs. We're only responsible for your existence." | ||
+ | |||
+ | Boonin finds it hard to come up with another suitable analogy for // | ||
+ | > Imperfect Drug((There' | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Boonin wants to say that here you are responsible for the violinists [continued] existence, but not responsible for his needniess. And that this case //is// analogous to pregnancy: " | ||
+ | * Blaise: It just seems so obviously untrue that it's analogous. What's the cause of the violinist' | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Boonin fumbles on Langer' | ||
+ | * Blaise: Isn't he just conceding that it seems plausible though in the case of procreation a year after birth? Why not a year earlier then? | ||
+ | * Boonin: tacit consent, bringing the child home is consent to the responsibility((Boonin, | ||
+ | * Blaise: Well, then there' | ||
+ | * Blaise: Also, this is not addressing head on the claim that the neediness is //because of// existence, that the two are inseparable and one causes the other rather than being accidental to it or something | ||
+ | |||
+ | Then... he jumps the shark: He finds objections to the Imperfect Drug scenario successful, because they don't make the distinction he emphasized against the Tacit Consent Argument, that is the distinct between voluntarily bringing about the state of affairs versus taking voluntary actions through which a state of affairs may arise as a foreseeable unintended consequence((Boonin, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Instead, he suggests this... | ||
+ | > // | ||
+ | * Blaise: Now I understand why Boonin begins the chapter addressing "The Weirdness Objection." | ||
+ | |||
+ | Based on this scenario (//this// scenario? | ||
+ | |||
+ | FIXME Boonin vs. Trent Horn debate -- watch later https:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Objections on the Way in Which the Relationship Ends ==== | ||
+ | The Tacit Consent and Responsibility Objection are based around the differences between the relationship between you and the violinist and a pregnant woman and her child. Afterwards, he addresses two other objections, that focus on the difference in the //way// the relationship ends. | ||
+ | - Killing Versus Letting DIe | ||
+ | - The Intending Versions Foreseeing Objection | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==== The Killing Versus Letting Die Objection ==== | ||
+ | > Do you really think that you are permitted to unplug yourself from the violinist if in order to do so you must first dismember or burn him to death? Two of the most influential rebuttals to THomson' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Thomson tries to dismiss the distinction: | ||
+ | > Now it had not actually escaped my notice that the mother who aborts herself kills the child, whereas a man who refuses to be a Good Samaritan -- on the traditional understanding of Good Samaritan -- merely does not save. My suggestion was that from a moral point of view these cases should be assimilated. The woman who allows the pregnancy to continue, at great cost to herself, is entitled to praise in the same amount, and, more important, of the same kind as is the man who sets forth, at great cost to himself, to give aid. That is why I proposed we attend to the case of you and the violinist.((Thomson, | ||
+ | * " | ||
+ | * Boonin sets up two rescue track scenarios to paint the distinction in a favourable light. "You can fail to save one innocent person in order to save five others, they will say, but you cannot kill one innocent person in order to save five others." | ||
+ | * __Hysterotomy/ | ||
+ | * Blaise: Yes, but the point of the distinction is whether or not your actions //or omissions// are what //causes// the death directly and intentionally -- not whether you kill someone by your direct action or by your direct omission. The cause of death is a medically unnecessary hysterotomy, | ||
+ | * Boonin tries to respond to the claim that a hysterotomy is initiating a fatal sequence of events whereas unplugging yourself from the violinist is merely allowing a fatal sequences of events to proceed by saying... "we should similarly say that removing the fetus allows to continue a fatal sequence of events that began when the fetus was conceived with the genetic disposition to have insufficient lung development for independent survive at an early stage in its development. Granted, this is a agenetic disposition that all human beings have..." | ||
+ | * Blaise: Uh, it's not a fatal sequence of events. It's called growth. The fatal part is taking a human being out of her natural and safe environment for her age and leaving her for dead. | ||
+ | * Boonin does realize he's basically saying that "all of life is a process of dying" but doesn' | ||
+ | * Blaise: Plus, that would be grounds for the morally permissibility of letting an infant die because a fatal sequence of events has already initiated at conception whereby the infant is not sufficiently developed to feed herself... | ||
+ | ==== The Intending Versus Foreseeing Objection ==== | ||
+ | FIXME rest of the chapter | ||
+ | ==== De Facto Guardian ==== | ||
+ | FIXME | ||
+ | Paper from Justice for all that dives extensively into the De Facto Guardian argument (includes the " | ||
+ | *http:// |