Philosophy - Two Parts Short Assignment

PART A

Pick one or more questions below and write a substantive post with >100 words. Please try to provide evidence(s) to support your idea(s). Questions: • What does it mean to say that the special value of human

lives is reflected in how they are ‘not disposable’? Does this reflect a special value?

• Are human lives intrinsically valuable? If so, in virtue of what? (Is it our uniqueness, perhaps, or our autonomy, or something else?)

• If human life is intrinsically valuable, then does that mean that one can never morally kill a human being? If not, why not?

• Do we have a right to life? If so, then what implications might this have?

• Does the special value of human life relate to how we are persons (i.e., with the capacity to live genuinely autonomous lives, to have hopes and dreams, and so on)?

• How might accounts of the special value of human beings relate to the value of animals? For example, if personhood is what’s important, then doesn’t that mean that animals lack a special value (and doesn’t this justify, for example, our using them for food)?

• What does it mean to say that animals are replaceablein a way that human beings are not? Is it true?

• What is euthanasia? How might thinking of personhood as determining the special value of human beings legitimize euthanasia in certain situations?

• What is abortion? How might thinking of personhood as determining the special value of human beings legitimize

abortion? Is the potentiality of the foetus for personhood relevant here?

• What does it mean to say that human life is sacred, and how is this a stronger claim than the thesis that human life has special value?

• What is deontologism, and how is it different from consequentialism?

• Why would a deontological approach to the wrongness of killing entail that it would be better to not kill someone even if killing them would save twenty other lives? What would the consequentialist say about such a case?