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utsfl:classroom:seminars:pba310y [2016/09/21 13:02] – The Tacit Consent Objection balleyneutsfl:classroom:seminars:pba310y [2023/06/12 09:04] (current) – mmccann
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-====== PBA310Y: The Good Samaritan Argument ======+====== PBA310Y: The Good Samaritan Argument (The Violinist) ======
 Prerequisite: [[PBA210H]] Prerequisite: [[PBA210H]]
 +
 +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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br59pD583Io
   * [[http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm|A Defense of Abortion]]   * [[http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm|A Defense of Abortion]]
   * [[wp>A Defense of Abortion]]   * [[wp>A Defense of Abortion]]
-  * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkLzpLjizrc|Do the Unborn Unjustly Use Another's Body?]]+  * http://www.str.org/articles/unstringing-the-violinist
   * "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 "unplugging the violinist" and articulated in her paper, "A Defense of Abortion." http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/training/classroom/use#footnoteref3_bfcjhip   * "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 "unplugging the violinist" and articulated in her paper, "A Defense of Abortion." http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/training/classroom/use#footnoteref3_bfcjhip
   * http://www.equipresources.org/atf/cf/%7B9C4EE03A-F988-4091-84BD-F8E70A3B0215%7D/JAA025.pdf   * http://www.equipresources.org/atf/cf/%7B9C4EE03A-F988-4091-84BD-F8E70A3B0215%7D/JAA025.pdf
 +
 +{{youtube>WkLzpLjizrc}}
 +
 ==== Analysis ==== ==== Analysis ====
 === Themes === === Themes ===
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   * "Perhaps a pregnant woman is vaguely felt to have the status of house, to which we don't allow the right of self-defense."   * "Perhaps a pregnant woman is vaguely felt to have the status of house, to which we don't allow the right of self-defense."
   * 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: aborting a baby who was purposefully conceived via IVF and then implanted. If that doesn't constitute "consent to pregnancy", I'm not sure what would 
 +
 +
   * "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."
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   * The weirdness is a virtue insofar as it separates abortion for the sociopolitical context and perhaps distances the moral question from other baggage((Boonin, 147))   * The weirdness is a virtue insofar as it separates abortion for the sociopolitical context and perhaps distances the moral question from other baggage((Boonin, 147))
  
-==== Main Objections to Thomson ====+==== Objections on the Way in Which the Relationship Begins ====
 > 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, she would not have become pregnant.((Boonin, 148)) > 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, she would not have become pregnant.((Boonin, 148))
  
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 Boonin finds Thomson's replies/sidestepping to these objections entirely unsatisfactory. For example, what about people who fail to use contraception? Or what about the fact that contraceptive methods are known to be imperfect? ((Boonin, 150)) "A hunter, for example, can plausibly be held responsible for taking care of an innocent bystander she accidentally shoots, even if she takes every reasonable precaution to avoid such an accident short of not going hunting in the first place." ((Boonin, 151)) Boonin finds Thomson's replies/sidestepping to these objections entirely unsatisfactory. For example, what about people who fail to use contraception? Or what about the fact that contraceptive methods are known to be imperfect? ((Boonin, 150)) "A hunter, for example, can plausibly be held responsible for taking care of an innocent bystander she accidentally shoots, even if she takes every reasonable precaution to avoid such an accident short of not going hunting in the first place." ((Boonin, 151))
 +
 +Boonin believes that although Thomson's responses fail, that sufficient refutations to these objections can be given.((Boonin, 188))
  
 (Interestingly, Boonin remarks that pro-lifers who support abortion in the case of rape have a problem of being inconsistent, but taking the Good Samaritan Argument but limited to cases of rape only would solve this inconsistency -- and in this way be a greater contribution to rape-exception abortion critics than abortion advocates.((Boonin, 151)) His claim that "a significant portion of those who generally oppose abortion are willing to make an exception in [cases of rape]" seems either too focused on the American political context, or on the mushy middle that pro-life activists are trying to change anyways.) (Interestingly, Boonin remarks that pro-lifers who support abortion in the case of rape have a problem of being inconsistent, but taking the Good Samaritan Argument but limited to cases of rape only would solve this inconsistency -- and in this way be a greater contribution to rape-exception abortion critics than abortion advocates.((Boonin, 151)) His claim that "a significant portion of those who generally oppose abortion are willing to make an exception in [cases of rape]" seems either too focused on the American political context, or on the mushy middle that pro-life activists are trying to change anyways.)
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   * 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, 166-167))   * 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, 166-167))
     * Blaise: What does this say of Boonin's concept of parenthood, or his grasp on the reality that human beings are mammals, that he would consider the use of your mother's body in pregnancy analogous to the use of someone's body in slavery, as violating an inalienable right?     * Blaise: What does this say of Boonin's concept of parenthood, or his grasp on the reality that human beings are mammals, that he would consider the use of your mother's body in pregnancy analogous to the use of someone's body in slavery, as violating an inalienable right?
 +
 +==== 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, 167))
 +  * "Tooley argues that the good samaritan argument is undermined by considering a case in which you engage in a pleasurable activity knowing that it may have the unfortunate side effect of destroying someone's food supply. [...] Surely most of us will agree that you do owe it to the bystander or victim to save his life even at some considerable cost to yourself, even though you need not be understood as having tacitly consented to do so in virtue of your having undertaken the risky action voluntarily.""((Boonin, 167))
 +  * Boonin bizarrely accuses proponents of this objection of begging the question, whether Tooley's example or Beckwith's drunk driving example. "In is uncontroversial that you have a right not to be deliberately shot by a hunter's bullet, or to have your food supply intentionally destroyed, and from this we derive a right that people not negligently act in ways that risk unintentionally causing these things to occur. In the case of an unintended pregnancy, on the other hand, the question of whether the fetus has a right not to be deliberately deprived of the needed support the pregnant woman is providing for it is precisely the question at issue."((Boonin, 168))
 +    * Blaise: Huh? //How// exactly is the fetus deliberately deprived of the needed support? Boonin's framing of this is so abstract and distance from the reality of abortion and the uncontroversial rights it violates:
 +      * Is there not an uncontroverisal right to not be decapitated, dismember, or dismebowelled?
 +      * 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."((Boonin, 169))
 +  - //existence//: If you had not done the act, then he would not now exist (and so would not now need your assistance in order to survive): you are responsible for the fact that the other person now exists
 +  - //neediness//: If you had not done the act, then he would now exist, and would not need your assistance in order to survive: you are responsible for the fact that, given that the other person now exists, he stands in need of your assistance
 +  * (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's example. But in another important respect, the objection is mistaken. Cases of voluntary intercourse are also relevantly different from cases such as those cited by Beckwith, Carrier, and Tooley. In those cases, when you are responsible for the fact that another stands in need of your assistance, you are responsible in sense (2) and not in sense (1). You are responsible for their neediness given that they exists, that is, but you are not responsible for the fact that they exist in the first place. [...] If she had not voluntarily had intercourse, the fetus would not now exist. BUt it is not the case that she did some voluntary action such that had she not done it the fetus would now exist and would not need her assistance in order to survive. There was no option available to her on which the fetus would now exist and not be in need of her assistance. [...] A woman whose pregnancy arises from voluntary intercourse is responsible for the fetus's existence, but she is not responsible for its neediness, given that it exists.((Boonin, 171))
 +  * Blaise: //Huh?// You're responsible that that existence, but since there's no possible way for a fetus to exist without being in need... you're not responsible for the neediness?? Wouldn't it follow rather that you're responsible for their existence //and// neediness, because existence and neediness are inseparable at that age for members of our species given our current medical technology? How does the inseparability between existence and neediness here imply that the responsible does //not// extend to neediness, rather than implying the very opposite -- that whoever is responsible for the existence of a fetus is by extension necessarily also responsible for his or her neediness? What kind of insanely backwards hair-splitting is this... If you are responsible for the existence of an inherently needy person -- especially where that neediness is natural and foreseeable -- are you not also responsible for their need?
 +    * 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 //creating// life, but instead turns to analogies for //extending// life to test the existence claim
 +> Imperfect Drug((There's also a second, but I don't think the second is necessary to understand the point; and a third, but Boonin just has this bizarre begging the question line of argument where we conveniently drops the presumption that a pre-born child is a person with a right to life in order to suggest that it's begging the question to say it's worse to have been created and then aborted than not to have been created at all)): You are the violinist's doctor. Seven years ago, you discovered that the violinist ahd contracted a rare disease that was on the verge of killing him. The only way to save his life that was available to you was to give him a drug that cures the disease but has one unfortunate side effect: Five to ten years after ingestion, it often causes the kidney ailment described in Thomson's story. Knowing that you alone would have the appropriate blood type to save the violinist were his kidneys to fail, you prescribed the drug and cured the disease. The violinist has now been struck by the kidney ailment. If you do not allow him the use of your kidneys for nine months, he will die.((Boonin, 172-173))
 +
 +  * 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: "Pregnancies that arise from voluntary intercourse are relevantly similar to [the] Imperfect Drug... A woman whose pregnancy is the result of voluntary intercourse, that is, is responsible for the existence of the fetus, but is not responsible for the neediness of the fetus, given that it exists."((Boonin, 174-175))
 +  * Blaise: It just seems so obviously untrue that it's analogous. What's the cause of the violinist's neediness in the imperfect drug scenario? His illness. What's the cause of a fetus's needinesss? Her existence, her age. In the imperfect drug case, you are not the cause of the violinist's neediness -- rather it's an evil side-effect of a life-extending treatment. In the case of mammalian reproduction though, of consensual human sex, a child's is needy //because// they exist, because every human being is needy in that way when they first come into existence. The imperfect drug analogy is almost as far off from pregnancy as Thomson's scenario -- Boonin's progress is so minimal, I'm actually really disappointed...
 +
 +
 +Boonin fumbles on Langer's objection about having a responsibility to care for his one-year-born son when he's only responsible for his existence (voluntary sex) but not necessarily for his neediness (there was no option to procreate and have a non-needy one-year-born child). Boonin says, okay, so maybe //sometimes// being responsible for someone's existence //can// make us responsible for their neediness, but that doesn't mean it's always true! Just because it's true for the father of a one-year-born kid doesn't mean it's true for the mother of a kid who's a few months old in the womb. ((Boonin, 180-182))
 +  * 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, 183))
 +    * Blaise: Well, then there's no moral responsibility for a deadbeat dad, is there? If that consent is never given even tacitly? But wouldn't we assume there should still be a responsibility there, if you're responsible for the child's existence -- and by extension, neediness -- even though you've never even tacitly consented to providing care?
 +    * 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, 186)). So the whole imperfect drug thing was an exercise in how not to modify the scenario.
 +
 +Instead, he suggests this...
 +> //Hedonist:// You are a hedonist who wishes to engage in a very pleasurable activity. The activity is such that if you engage in it, there is a chance that it will cause some gas to be released that will result in adding a few extra months of unconscious existence to the life of some already-comatose violinist in the world. As things now stand, this violinist has no more conscious life ahead of him. But if the gas is released, and if she does have a few extra months of unconscious life added as a result, it will then become possible for you to bring him out of his coma by giving him the use of your kidneys for nine months. There are certain devices that you can use during the pleasurable activity which reduce the chances of gas emission but do not eliminate them entirely, but you do not like the way the use of such devices "makes you feel" when you engage in the pleasurable activity. So you engage in the pleasurable activity, and without such devices. As a (foreseeable but not intended) result, some gas escapes, causing some extra unconscious time to be added to the life of an already comatose violinist, and making it possible for him to then be brought out of his coma if you remain plugged into him for nine months.
 +  * Blaise: Now I understand why Boonin begins the chapter addressing "The Weirdness Objection." Seriously. He thinks this is more analogous to pregnancy than Thomson's kidnapping life support machine setup? //That the positive externalities of a hedonist's gas emission is like procreation? That the causal relationship between a hedonist's excess gas emission's prolonging the life of someone in a coma are analogous to the causal relationship between sexual intercourse and reproduction?// o.O
 +
 +Based on this scenario (//this// scenario?!), he concludes that if the good samaritan argument succeeds for rape cases that it also succeeds for nonrape cases. The rest of the chapter is devoted to arguing that it succeeds for rape cases.
 +
 +FIXME Boonin vs. Trent Horn debate -- watch later https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3Grc1d2gew
 +
 +
 +===== 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's original paper cite this as the single greatest problem with the good samaritan argument.((Boonin, 189))
 +
 +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, 157))
 +  * "Thomson's response to the killing versus letting die objection leaves her position vulnerable to those who think that there are sound independent reasons to place great moral weight on the distinction between killing and letting die."((Boonin, 190))
 +    * 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."((Boonin, 192))
 +  * __Hysterotomy/Hysterectomy:__ You could just remove the fetus and allow it to die. At most, abortion critics can establish that some methods of abortion are morally impermissible.((Boonin, 193-194))
 +    * 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, not some disease or illness.
 +    * 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..."((Boonin, 197))
 +      * 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't care FIXME p. 198
 +      * 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 "Up" analogy, woman in the cabin analogy, etc.)
 +*http://doc.jfaweb.org/Training/DeFactoGuardian-v03.pdf