Ethics # 9

Personhood, Rights and Justice

 Kant = any being capable of rational thinking

 More difficult than initially appears  There are creatures very close genetically to humans.

 There are individuals who do not have all human physical characteristics / mental capacities.

 What about parents who screen fetus for severe disabilities?

 Often, the “other” is characterized as something less than human (the other tribe, other races, etc.).

 Gender issues (Greeks = male is the ideal human; women are less than ideal).

 Many social thinkers prefer the term “person.”  Avoids “human” as biological term.

 Person = someone capable of psychological and social interaction with others, capable on deciding on action (thus being responsible for that action).

 A person is a MORAL AGENT.

 Most societies have excluded some or all of the following: slaves, women, children, foreigners, criminals, prisoners of war.

 Western world: all humans are persons with inalienable rights.

 This is not recognized throughout the world.  Children, women, caste systems

 Page 322: serial killer who targeted prostitutes, drug users

 Can discrimination, racism, sexism, etc. be outlawed as an attitude?

 What about murderers themselves?

 Children  In many places, fathers have supreme rights over family.

 Extreme abuse, often overlooked

 Must balance what they want and what they need.

 Do not have the legal rights or responsibilities of adults.

 What about children who commit crimes?

 Doctors who must decide who lives and who dies.

 Who goes on transplant lists?

 To what extent should we interfere with genetic code?

 What about medical knowledge that has been gained from unethical practices (Nazi scientists)?

 Do we endeavor to create healthy babies?

 “Customized” children.

 Will natural-born children become a new underclass.

 Hold promise as a way to repair and replace damaged organs.

 What about harvesting and cloning stem cells from embryos?  Must be harvested within first two weeks of fetal

development.

 Even if life of fetus is intrinsically valuable, what about the people who could be saved from these procedures?

 Therapeutic  Duplicating stem cells to insert them into an organ (or

regrow that organ)

 Reproductive  Duplicating entire individual

 Human reproductive cloning  Overpopulation already an issue

 Identity of the clone

 Clones might be considered expendable

 Greater risk of abnormal traits

 Natural rights: right one is born with as a human  Thomas Hobbes: natural right is the right for anyone to

do what it takes to stay alive; we never give up a right to defend ourselves and we never have to consent to action that will harm us.

 John Locke: three inalienable rights  Life

 Liberty

 Property

 Jeremy Bentham: rights are human invention and do not occur in nature; no such thing as “natural rights.” We must recognize all rights as legal rather than natural. Goal=to create as happy a society as possible.

 Fundamental equality: Declaration of Independence. People should be treated as equals by their government and legal system.

 Social equality: People are equal within a social setting (such as the economy or politics). Includes right to vote, run for office, etc. Does not mean social status or income should be equal.

 Equal treatment for equals: treat people of the same social group equally.

 Treat equals equally and unequals unequally.  Some may need special assistance to reach the level of

equals.

 Someone who breaks the law becomes unequal in need of punishment.

 Specifies what shouldn’t be done to you (rights of noninterference).

 Locke:  Nobody’s life should be interfered with for no good

reason.

 Nobody’s liberty should be interfered with.

 Nobody’s property should be interfered with.

 Note that this doesn’t mean that you have the right to be given these things, especially property, but that nobody can take them from you.

 Marx: an individual has the right to have his/her needs met.

 Food, shelter, clothing, meaningful work, education, health care.

 Distributive justice: how to distribute the goods of the society fairly.  Rawls:

 Happiness of the majority?

 As fair as possible to everyone.

 Veil of ignorance: imagine when rules take effect you don’t know your position in life. Will tend to be as fair as possible (birthday cake example).

 Forward-looking justice: sees the purpose as creating a fair system of distribution in the future, regardless of the past.

 Backward-looking justice: how to fix the problems of the past? We must identify causes before we can work on solutions.

 Restorative: justice should attempt to repair the harm done to the victim. People as victims, not the state. Focuses on the future. “Making it right.”

 Retributive justice: crime as a violation of rules. Victim is the state. Punishment rather than “making it right.”

 Deterrence: may make the criminal and/others change their minds about doing this again. Punishment is swift and strict. Singapore is a good example.

 Rehabilitation: making a better person out of the criminal

 Incapacitation: punishment should keep the criminal off the streets and the public safe (jail, chemical castration)

* All of these approaches have to consider social utility.

 Retribution: punishment is just because the person has committed and crime. Punishment should be in proportion to the crime. No concept of social utility.

 Vengeance: also seeks to punish but different from retribution in the following ways:  Retribution based on logic; vengeance based on

emotion.

 Retribution is public; vengeance often private.

 Vengeance often exceeds the damage done by the criminal.