Blog post 9

If you choose to post by Monday night by 11:00 PM, either (a) raise and develop an objection to some moral issue raised in the readings about Hiroshima, OR (b) offer and develop a supporting argument about some moral issue raised in the readings about Hiroshima.

Torture

In reading these articles about torture the one that drew my attention was the article entitled A Case for Torture by Mirko Bagaric. More specifically, I took an interest into his rejoinder to one of the three counter arguments to his point. This counter argument was the one that he labeled as the slippery slope argument and stated, that if you began to allow torture in a limited context then the situations in which it would be used will increase.

While Bagaric labeled this as a slippery slope argument and claimed that it was unsound, I think that it is an argument that has potential truth to it. Although there is no way to know for sure until it actually happens, a point that I would raise to support this counter argument is that if torture became an option that could be used in providing a solution to potentially extreme situations, then there is a possibility that, over time, the decision to approve the use of torture would become less and less difficult to do. One reason is that if it became possible for allowing the use of torture to be considered as a method to aid the process of providing solutions to different situations, then it could also be possible that the potential for it to be approved would grow as it's use is discussed more and more. Another reason is that if it became a legitimate option that could be allowed, then as the people who have the ability to approve its use change over time, their personal interpretations and opinions of what constitutes the use of torture in a situation would likely change as well. While that could very likely make it more difficult to approve torture, it also would allow the equal possibility that it becomes less difficult for its use to be approved. The last reason is that as it becomes more and more permissible in certain situations over time, then the moral perception of torture as something that is "bad", could very likely diminish throughout the world.

That may be a slippery slope argument as well, but it seems a potential possibility that should be in consideration in the discussion of the morality of torture and whether it should or should not be allowed in certain situations.

Torture

Within the United states of America, torture has been used to ascertain information, save lives of troops and get things done in a fast an efficient manner. However it has created a menacing environment for anywhere that is close to a U.S. base of our armed forces and has given a power to people that do not know how to use it in a proper manner, and in turn abuse it. We as the United States are actually so good at torture that even our enemy countries use our same tactics to torture their citizens or captives because at one point they were trained by us. The sheer amount of pain and abuse is relentless and can range from placing electrodes to nerve sensitive areas to attaching an IV bags full of medicine to make detainees undergo psychosis (Doses of Larium). On top of these issues we also have those who do not know how to manage these powers. With the budget of US military interrogators have an unlimited budget when it comes to national security and with it comes a willingness to commit every act to make someone speak. Humanity goes right out the door and instead savagery that was used by the same detainees before has become the use of the power that claims to be righteously liberating. This would actually be even justified if one were to have no care for human rights to insurgents but the CIA and US military cannot even get the people they need to torture properly. There have been too many instances in Guantanamo Bay and outside prisons used for interrogation being captured for no reason and tortured for hours and imprisoned for years because they looked "suspicious," or simply were Muslim and that was enough right for evidence. Imagine being taken from a corner of a street, or your own house in front of your family and imprisoned for 5 years and being consistently tortured, when you haven't done a wrong in your life. Again, the necessity for torture in dire situations can be justified, but the irresponsibility and incompetence of our agencies has led me to be wary that we can use such a tactic without harming too many in the process.

Torture

Despite the possible benefits of torture, such as using information extracted through torture to save lives, it still seems like it will be doing more wrong than good. While many argue that torture is to be used in extreme cases such as with terrorists or murderous criminals, there is not much of a fail safe to prevent torture from being used on anyone accused of a crime in order to get a confession out of them, since it can just be said it's for the public's safety. This problem was mentioned in Fernando's article about torture in Asia where he talks about forced confessions, impunity for lawmakers, and the absence of follow up investigations. He mentions that this would happen in a dysfunctional or lawless legal system, but by allowing officials to use torture whenever they deem it necessary you give them to the potential to abuse their power. While it seems like this wouldn't happen in many cases, the state only seems to benefit from abusing this legal power. As mentioned in the Asia article, confessions were forced from people using torture and the charges were then fabricated from those confessions with very little follow up investigations to actually try to then prove their guilt. However, there is almost an incentive for the state to do this because works out to the state's advantage. The case is "solved", someone was punished, and the legal system seems like it's doing an effective job. However, this is a gross human rights violation and has the problem of lies being said due to torture. If someone is being tortured horribly to their breaking point, they'll probably say anything that they can in order to stop it from happening. This brings up another problem with torture, which is that due to extreme duress that the accused is under they're mostly likely to not tell the truth and just say whatever the prosecutor wants to hear. So while torture is not only inhumane, it's not even that effective for getting the truth in some cases.

Ethics of Torture

In Mirko Bagaric’s piece about ethical torture, he makes a false analogy when he compares torture to a bone marrow or organ donor.  He claims that torture has “the same moral justification as other practices where we sacrifice the interests of one person for the greater good.”  This is not a true statement, because we are not the ones who do the sacrificing in the context of an organ transplant.  In addition, I would argue that most people who donate organs or bone marrow have an interest in keeping the other person alive, so voluntarily accepting pain is not sacrificing their interests at all.

Bagaric counters by saying that the idea of giving consent is irrelevant, since we have no problem killing enemy soldiers without their consent.  However, if the idea is really irrelevant, as he says, then we should be able to just grab a random person off of the street and take their bone marrow to save someone else.

Bagaric would probably say that that this would be different because this person is innocent, in which case he would have to concede that consent applies to one part of his analogy but not the other, making it a false analogy.

Even if Bagaric is a hardcore enough utilitarian to say "yes, consent really is irrelevant in both cases.  We should chop up Sean and take his organs and bone marrow," this is not the case he is using for his analogy.  Switching to this perspective makes his argument much weaker.  Either way, the way he has phrased it to begin with is intentionally misleading.

Blog 8

            Torture is a touchy subject, and has been for a long time.  Regarding the readings on torture, I think the argument that if it is used for saving lives, then it is okay, is a dangerous one to make. Torture shouldn’t be something that is justified so easily.  Justifying torture easily is the same as saying that the “ends justify the means”, but if those means are immoral, unethical or downright cruel, is it still right?

Another problem is that it seems like people that argue for or against torture are extremely disconnected from the act of torturing someone or being tortured. It’s much easier to believe something about a topic if you have no real connection to it.  This can make it easier to say the methods of doing something to create something positive are worth it, which I don’t necessarily agree with.  

Torture

Whenever torture is brought up as a possible intelligence tactics, I just think of the Salem Witch Trials – mainly for the point that Arar brought up in his article. Intelligence tactics through torture seem to result mainly in false information. The torture memos from John Yoo should show that.  I think of torture for intelligence purposes that it’s like panning for gold. Just because you get tiny ounces of gold every once in a while it doesn't mean you should pan for gold every day, at every river.

For what we are receiving by torturing these people – mentally scarring them, water boarding them, cultivated prejudice and hatred – the tiny bits of information we receive from torture are not worth their pain and the sacrifice of these people’s lives.

Also, I tend to have a problem with doing anything to prevent terrorism. The terrorism that is rampant in the United States is incredibly over emphasized and we make the decisions of a few dictate how we look at a culture.   

Torture an instrument of power.

I do not agree that torture is morally permissible in any situation. I agree with former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's words: "Torture can never be an instrument to fight terror, for torture is an instrument of terror."

Terror is a scare tactic which is inhumane and sometimes falls upon innocent individuals. When information is given, it is sometimes false, misleading, or made up. It is also dangerous to give any person, or institution the power to torture. In cases such as Abu Grahib, the detainees were not only tortured, but also humiliated. They were stripped down, which in Muslim culture is disrespectful, and the US soldiers had taken pictures with their naked bodies and posted them on social media. I fear of creating a slippery slope argument, however it seems as though situations or torture lead to other humiliating and inhumane act.

Psychological experiments such as the Stanford prison experiment  show the danger in giving individuals such power and authority over others. In the end, we are all humans and there is something dignifying in this simple condition. "Terrorists" use torture to terrorize their victims and their loved ones, it is incomprehensible to me why an organized government or organization would use this instrument of terror when assessing situations. To me, the arguments used against those who oppose terrorism seem ridiculous. If torture could be justified in certain situations, the US would use torture on its shores, instead, we ship our criminals to Guantanamo Bay and other deplorable prisons around the world. We essentially let others do our dirty work, yet are not opposed to it.

Maximizing Net Flourishing and a Reasonable Argument Against Torture

Mirko Bagaric writes “in the end, we must always act in a manner that maximizes net flourishing and inform our moral choices by reason, not reflexive emotion: that is the closest it comes to an absolute moral principle.” I will object to this piece by arguing that a total abolition of torture would in fact maximize net flourishing, and also that arguing against torture in every form and in every circumstance is a perfectly reasonable, not emotional, moral choice.

            Rejecting torture in all cases maximizes net flourishing by minimizing the amount of human suffering. If the United States and other world leaders set the standard that torture is inhuman and is antithetical to our conception of individual freedom, we will set a basic standard that all governments will eventually progress towards. This progress will likely take many years, but the potential to eliminate the form of suffering caused by torture is worth the incredibly rare “ticking time bomb” scenario that is described by Bagaric. This scenario does not occur enough to justify the continued use of torture.

Bagaric argues that the anti-torture position is not rational. This is false. Even in the incredibly rare “ticking time bomb” scenarios, torture does not work. Sources ranging from reports declassified by the U.S. government to neurological studies show that torture does not lead to the truth, and is more likely to provide interrogators with false information. There is no argument more rational than the professionally agreed upon opinion that torture does not provide the truth. In cases where “answers” are given, they are most likely false, and waste the time of investigators who could be using resources in some other productive fashion. 

Torture...

After reading the document “To Torture or Not to Torture” it made me think and question what can really be considered to be “good” and “bad” torture. In our society today in the United States I think that Barrack Obama and the United States Government have tried to persuade people to think that torture can only be looked as being a bad thing. In my own opinion I think that torture can and should be justified for the reason of protecting our country from harm of terrorist our other nations. One of the main arguments that I support in the reading is the one clearly made about the discovery of Osama Bin Laden. If it were not for torture of “Ammar” than it is quite possible that Osama Bin Laden could still be at large today. By the right torture and needed assistance the proper intelligence was finally uncovered about the location. I would argue that it is justifiable to torture one person in order to save the lives of millions of people someplace else. I will also raise the point that although torture is said to be “illegal” and the United States does not torture we as citizens rarely even know what truly goes on inside of the CIA due to how secretive it is. In the event of this happening I think it should be up the military commanders of what should happen and let them have the final say. On the other hand if the torture is voted down then the risk of our country being defeated and millions of lives at risk is surely at jeopardy.

TORTURE

Connor Newlin
While I do not necessarily disagree with torture, I still find some problems with the articles that argued for it. Their primary defense is that innocent lives are saved when we get answers using torture, however this is not always the case. Torture has been unsuccessful before in some cases where a man or woman was subject to extreme pain and anguish only for the torture to finish and the person doesn't know anything. This is hard to justify when one is pro torture which raises a new question: Is it morally permissible to torture someone for a CHANCE of saving innocent lives? "Life-saving torture is not cruel. It is motivated by a compassionate desire to avert moral catastrophes" this wording seems rather romantic for a method of extracting information by pushing the limits of human pain tolerance. In any case torture is not always effective and it makes me wonder if I went through some sort of torture, would I still find it okay as I do now? One article I thought also raised a good point in saying it is not right to fight terrorism with torture because that makes us no better than terrorists. This takes the type of saying we all hear as kids and applies it to the real world and really makes me wonder if torture is for the greater good.

Objection to Torture

I think these four articles adequately presented different sides to the argument of the morality of torture. However, I do take issue to what some of Bagaric says. While he, in both of his article recognizes that there is a potential slippery slope fallacy when dealing with the morality of torture I feel as if he does not attempt to draw a line to fix the problem, but rather just belittles the idea of the concern of the fallacy in general. This becomes especially evident as he says, “This is an intellectually defeatist argument,” and in his other article he responds by advocating that it is widely used already and that legalization would just be a better solution. This makes me uncomfortable because I do think it is a valid concern as to if some torture is permissible and beneficial, where one draw does said line and how does one prevent the torture from getting out of control. I think that he also commits an equivalence fallacy when he compares compassionate torture to organ donation in “Some Torture Needed as a Life-Saving Tool”, because while it might be my ignorance, I cannot honestly see the comparison. Organ donation is usually voluntary or the person deemed brain dead has once signed a consent form or others sign similar forms. There is no consent on behalf of the person being tortured, even if he or she may have acted in a way to deserve the torture. Bagaric clearly thinks in a Utilitarian manner of what would benefit the most people, and I think that I tend to disagree with much of Utilitarianism, so maybe it is a disagreement in our ethical foundation. I think that compassionate, well intended torture can be beneficial at times and perhaps even morally excusable but unlike Bagaric, I do not believe it to be morally permissible. 

Torture objection

My main objection is concerning the secrecy of torture. Many places, like the United States, have employed torture as a means of getting information from terrorists and others that pose threats to national security. While it makes sense that the government would want to keep these cases under wraps, it does not allow for checks and balances that are so important in a democracy. Right now torture is completely illegal in the United States,” In fact, the US and international laws are clear on this point, leaving no ambiguity with respect to the illegality of torture under "any circumstances"” (Arar). Despite this, there is torturing being preformed by U.S. government officials to this day, they are completely unregulated and completely secret. If the government is going to continue using torture then they must acknowledge it in the laws so that those being tortured are in some way protected.

Torture is not self-defence

I do not think that Bagaric makes a defensible argument in the two pieces we read by him. The main problem I have is his reliance on the comparison between torture and self-defense, which I believe to be a false analogy which leads to problematic outcomes. The author states that our right to self-defence is undeniable and that this is the most comparable thing to torturing for some greater good. I see a multitude of problems with this. For one thing, for self-defence to be morally permissible, I believe the harm has to be undeniably apparent and that the threat has to be of an equal magnitude to what is imposed on the perpetrator through self-defence. Since the person being tortured is held captive and presumably does not have access to weapons or means of harming the captors, the analogy of self-defence is faulty. I grant that they may hold information that can prevent harm, but we must critically analyze who is being tortured and on what grounds.More importantly, self-defence is, in my opinion, horrendously misused and the racial biases built into institutions of self-defence and torture alike need to be critically assessed. We all know of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. A story that has received much less media attention is about a man in an Ohio Walmart, John Crawford III, with an unloaded BB rifle, looking at pet supplies, who was shot dead by officers. Apparently the officer had gotten a call that Crawford was pointing the gun at customers, even though video surveillance clearly contradicts this; the cop was not prosecuted on any charges. If all it took to kill a father of two, holding a toy gun, was a phone call claiming they were a threat, most likely due to the color of their skin, then under this same logic, all it would (and I think probably does) take is some person claiming some man from the middle east is connected to terrorism for them to be tortured and basic human rights violated. Perhaps I am straw-manning, but my conclusions remain true even if it is less simple than torturing someone that easily - the argument that torture is permissible because self-defence is permissible is a faulty and highly problematic argument based on the reasons I just provided. The way self-defence stands now, at least in the US law force is morally flawed because it is racist and unjust. Using one flawed, violent system as a justification for the violent system of torture, does not provide the ground necessary to make torture morally permissible. 

 

torture

I have to agree with the point that torture should not be legalized due to the fact that there is no guarantee that you are getting the correct information from the person.  I don’t believe that torture should be allowed because I feel that it is similar to the situation of whether it is moral to kill one to save five.  This would be intentional killing of someone who may or may not have the answers that the intelligence and defense agencies are looking for.  As we have seen, intentional killing is not considered moral, where unintended would be moral.  I do not think that morally we can say that if we need information on something that may or may not happen, we can torture someone to the point that they are willing to talk.  I think that people who don’t talk are usually willing to die for what they believe in, and if we torture them to the point of death, and still have no answers, we are killing someone and not saving the lives of others.  I think that torture is a big debate today because of the terrorist attacks that we have seen, and the fear that there may be more in the future.  I think that we need to work more on having a good defense set up rather than focusing on trying to find information out on possible attacks.  I think that if we spend a lot of time trying to find this information out, we will drive ourselves crazy chasing many empty threats and misleading information.

After reading all four articles, the biggest issue I had was with the article by Bagaric. The reason I find it difficult to agree with him lies in his definition of torture. He writes that “Torture is permissible where the evidence suggests that this is the only means, due to the immediacy of the situation, to save the life of an innocent person.” He continues to argue that self-defense makes torture permissible. The reason I find this so difficult to agree with is because there is a clear difference between self-defense and torture. I believe that torture is inflicting any kind of emotional or physical distress on someone for no apparent reason for a prolonged period of time.  If someone has a gun pointed to your head, I think that a person has the right to do whatever is necessary, be it physical violence or another means, to get the gun away from the shooter. I find the disparity between my understanding of torture and the definition Bagaric provides very difficult to circumnavigate.

Torture is also used to obtain information necessary to save lives. In the article by Arar, he writes of the situation in which a Lebanese-German man was kidnapped and subsequently tortured because he was thought to have knowledge the CIA wanted. It turns out that he was not the person they needed and was tortured for five months for no reason without any sort of retribution from the United States. Situations like these come from suspicion and end causing unnecessary pain to an innocent person. Torture is not an effective method of obtaining information because of the likelihood of false intelligence. A person who is being tortured would say just about anything to make it stop. Even if they don’t know what is being asked of them and they are being pushed to their breaking point, a person would be likely to say anything. Not only is torture inhumane, often times it is not entirely warranted. 

Tortue

While reading over the article To Torture, or not to Torture I found that I did agree with many of the points that the author Maher Arar made in this piece. I found it interesting when he made the statement “The debate with respect to torture should not be about if it is "good" or "bad", but if it is "moral" or "immoral"”. Though I do feel that in some aspect morality plays into thee feelings that people have towards torture, I do not feel that it is the major question we should be asking over selves when we are trying to take a stance on torture. Rather I think that it needs to be pointed out that the idea of torture is a very foreign and unimaginable concept to the majority of people living in highly developed nations, with sound governments. For this reason it allows for people to take a strong stance on an issue they are not fully educated on. Most rational people would say that it is wrong to harm another person, and I would agree with this statement. Yet, the information that we have obtained from the use of alternative integration methods doesn’t typically have any effect on these people. The information typically is more useful for the government for strategically reasons, indirectly though it is keeping the lives of these people safe. I feel that torture should be used in order to extract this information from these suspects. Yes, human error can happen for example arresting the wrong person, yet this margin of error is slim and the only reason it is brought into the spotlight is because of the media’s glorification of these rare cases. To conclude I feel that as a tactic that can help save lives torture should be permitted.   

Blog post 8

If you choose to post by Wednesday night by 11:00 PM, either (a) raise and develop an objection to some moral issue raised in the readings about torture, OR (b) offer and develop a supporting argument about some moral issue raised in the readings about torture.

US coverups in the wake of WWII

While the acts committed by portions of the Japanese government in the name of research leading up to and during the second world war are unquestionably atrocities, considering that they had already been committed and the information gained from them was available in the world, I feel that arguing against using that information for future medical good purely by virtue of its history is somewhat illegitimate. What I do feel is unacceptable in the wake of those medical atrocities is the way the United States withheld those medical findings, apparently in an effort to leapfrog soviet biowar capabilities and technology. The quoted section from the inter-agency task force on page 41 sums the US position well, which is effectively that the value of the data on biowarfare, specifically the value gained by keeping it secret, surpasses that of making the research public to be able to prosecute the doctors for war crimes. I would honestly have issues with that conclusion even if the research was going to be used for advances in medicine rather than biowarfare, but considering that the United States effectively covered up data about an atrocity and research into how to efficiently commit war crimes so that they could learn how to commit those same crimes is absolutely ludicrous, and completely ethically unacceptable.

Japanese Medical Experimentation

I am in no way condoning the actions of the Japanese government when I relate my following argument. I merely wish to point out that there is a silver lining in the cloud of what was an otherwise horrific series of events, the reason the American government agreed to cover up so much of the atrocities that took place. There was a great deal of information learned from these experiments. Granted, the ends in this case do not in any way justify the means. But if any positive thing can be taken away, it is that new understandings of frostbite and other areas of research were brought to light. It reminds me of the Stanley Milgram Psychology study in which participants were asked to shock other participants if they answered the questions wrong. What they didn't know was that the people they were shocking were actors, but they thought at times they might be killing them. The participants in the study were left feeling extremely distraught, even after being debriefed. In the Psychology community we recognize this as a huge violation of our current standards of research protocol, and have put guidelines in place to make sure this never happens again. However, we also regard it as an amazing study that revealed fascinating new insights into human behavior. It’s considered one of the most influential studies in the history of Psychology. Maybe if we were able to connect the information we know  today, such as the effects of frostbite, and relate it directly to the inhumane experiments which produced said information, it could result in a more healthy way to confront the brutal history. If you get frostbite and it is successfully treated, you can be saddened by the ways in which the knowledge to treat you was gathered, but thankful now that we at least have it. The same would go for any other ability to perform a certain surgery or treat a disease. This could hopefully be a way to reach the reconciliation the author wished for at the end of the article. 

Blog 8

Many things contributed to the acceptance of human experimentation in the Japanese medical field however it seems as though a main culprit is the cultural mentality of those involved.  Since the doctors and professors hired by the army to do the experimentation were culturally bound to follow in their mentors' footsteps as they wish to be their successor.  This made it fairly easy for the army to recruit combined with top of the line facilities and the guarantee that no one would find out what they were doing.  Human experimentation was the "secret of secrets" and was almost never talked about publicly for fear of becoming a social outcast.  It also gave researchers the resources and equipment they needed as it was all funded by the government.  Even though many of the conditions the experimentation was held under could be classified as cruel and inhumane, even the United States could not deny the importance of the research's findings (they decided to not consider these researchers as war criminals when the information of experimentation became public).  These candidates were given the opportunity to research in a fully funded and equipped facility that was completely away from the eye of the public's judgement, finding out intensely useful information that was then distributed throughout the nations.  Although these experiments could have been done in a kinder way, there is no doubt that the social pressures felt from the government and from superiors guided these researchers down a fairly inhumane path.

Blog Post 8

If you choose to post by Monday night by 11:00 PM, either (a) raise and develop an objection to some moral issue raised in the Tsuchiya reading, OR (b) offer and develop a supporting argument about some moral issue raised in the Tsuchiya reading.

Blog 7

In reading the passages from English and Li, I found that I strongly agreed with English in the fact that when it comes to grown children and their parents, it is the strength of the relationship between the two that is the determining factor of whether the child should take care of the parent.

A very obvious argument that I can think of that I do not believe was mentioned by Li or English is how the parent treated the child while he/she was growing up. Let's say that the parent fulfilled their basic parental duties in clothing, sheltering, and feeding the child; as well as sent them off to school and financially supported them in the most basic way. Let's add that the parent is also extremely abusive to the child physically and mentally throughout their childhood; when that child is grown up and the parent is claims that they are owed help as repayment for all that they sacrificed to birth and raise them, the child is very likely to disagree (assuming that the relationship between the parent and the child has not been mended). I would ask in this situation why the grown up child should feel any moral obligation to help their parent when that same parent so easily and often threw morality out the window to be abusive to the child. No one would deny that the parent made sacrifices in raising the child, but in today's society that is the law, and if it was such a burden, then the parent should have put the child up for adoption.

Li also rebuts English's argument that the child can claim that they were never asked to be born. While I do think that it is a poor argument for the child to use, Li goes on to talk about the fact that a living person likely prefers to have been born than not. The problem here is that she is using an argument that is almost completely impossible to argue against because the opposition would have to come from an unborn child that does not want to be born.

The last thing that I side more with English than Li is the issue of favors and the obligation to repay them. English believes that the favors that are requested are the ones that have the obligation to be repaid, where as Li thinks that all favors have an obligation to be repaid at a similar level to the favor. She uses one example of Al seeing Barbara's three year-old fall into a pond and jumps in to save her. While it is socially expected that Barbara thank Al, she really does not owe Al anything at all. Al saving the child's life was simply a function of goodwill, which any rational moral human being with the capability to do so should have also done. In fact, it could be argued that it would not be moral for Al to expect anything in return at all. That would give the impression that Al saved the child solely for the purpose of getting a reward, which would be a selfish and greedy gesture and not moral. In this case, I think Li confuses moral obligations with social norms in that Barbara would be going against social norms for not offering to reward Al, but she is in no way morally obligated to do so.

Friendship and Family

In the article of Jane Child, I do not agree with the way she argues her point nor the point itself. The idea of familial obligation cannot be the same as friendship simply because they reside in two categories. Biologically you have a duty to support your line of genetics and the only way that can be done if you take and you give back. If your parents have sacrificed so much for you and provided you with so much, then it isn't something like a friend doing a friend a favor, its goes beyond that. The act of giving birth and bring life onto this world is a gift and for every gift you must treat the giver with respect and graciousness and reciprocate, for without that, you are rude. The rudeness is not even the worse part, it is just cold to not reciprocate after a favor to a friend or family. I know if I did my friend a favor and he didn't acknowledge it in the slightest I would not do it again, that is being used.  Any relationship is built of transaction, and on occasion there will be a free giving or a favor performed, but unless you are giving to the needy, the respect is shown by reciprocation. Without the reciprocation, and in this case without committing familial duties, it is hard to see any sort of respect coming from the other party, and even if one does not agree with familial responsibility, one always has to have respect.

Friendship or favors?

While reading through Jane English's piece, I was struck by her clarification of a relationship of favors versus friendship. While it is in some ways a simple distinction, I still felt like it provided me with a new way to reflect on some parts of my past relationships. To expand on her point about the difference between a relationship of voluntary sacrifice, or friendship, and one that is based on favors, I'll use an example from my own life.

Several years ago, I met and subsequently became friends with a kid who was, in some ways, not dissimilar to me. I say friends, but something in the relationship never felt fully comfortable, and I believe Jane English's piece helped me to understand at least one of the reasons behind that: favors were never freely given in the time that we spent together, at least without the expectation of restoration of parity sometime in the future. What this meant for our interactions was that there was a permanent distance between us, and deals over a card game with monetary value that we both played often became strained or tense. Over time, the relationship got still less warm, and eventually dissolved entirely, with a period of months passing by between the last time we had talked and our final piece of communication, where a debt that I supposedly still owed was brought up before the end of the final message I received from him.

I think this example shows that treating friendship as a series of favors rather than a free exchange of resources to the capacity of each party's ability to give can breed jealousy between parties or destroy the friend relationship entirely. That could, of course, happen for a variety of reasons, but keeping  track of favors and things owed over the course of a relationship can bring the focus of both parties away from the interpersonal aspect of their interactions and more toward the favors themselves or debts owed, often damaging what could have been a friendship beyond repair.

Blog 7

I don’t necessarily agree with Li’s opinion on Filial Duty. I do agree that one should provide some sort of care for their parents if it is feasible personally, especially if said parents have provided their child, now adult with a happy life and have done everything they could to provide their child with.  

One scenario I can think of in the case of is if the parents are extremely abusive and unloving parents that don’t provide the child with any sort of adequate care or if they are too absorbed in their own personal affairs to help their child.  Does that person then owe their parents anything? I would say no, if they did not provide their child with care, then they should that child provide their parents who treated them so poorly receive care?

Weakening English's argument

While recognizing my Americanized perspective, I would still favor Jane English’s opinion over Chenyang Li’s in respect to familial piety. I think that adding a sense of owing or obligation to the child/parent relationship seems perverse in a way. I much prefer English’s sense of friendship or mutual love in response to the relationship. She advocates that a parent does what they do for their child based off of an unconditional love and the child does the same, which seems the ideal relationship. However, I do recognize that this obviously isn’t the case in many situations. I disagree and find issue with English’s opinion that one sibling would have a greater sense of obligation if they were financially stable. I do not believe resources should determine a sense of greater or lesser responsibility. I think this point of her piece contradicts the entire central message of the article, in which the relationship between the parents and children should be unconditional and not obligation centered. This would imply that siblings feel the same relationship responsibility depending on if they were given the same amount of love and attention and not due to obligation regarding resources or not. The contradiction lowers the impact of her opinion and argument.

Relationship-Based Action

In “Grown Children’s Final Obligation,” Chenyang Li commits the straw person fallacy when characterizing Jane English’s argument.  Li says of English: “She argues that parents’ sacrifices for having children are not ‘favors’ that are to be ‘repaid’ by their children later, because the children never asked to be born or to be looked after when they were little.”  Li then argues that this is in fact a favor because a request is not necessary for a favor to take place.

English, however is not really making this argument.  In fact, she says that “misunderstandings about the proper relationship between parents and their grown children have resulted from reliance on the ‘owing’ terminology.”  She is arguing that this is not a favor, not because the child did not request it, but because the term ‘favor’ is not applicable.  She says that these sorts of good deeds done for another person tend to promote compassion and loving relationships, which render the quantity of “favors” irrelevant, so long as both sides give according to their ability and the needs of the other. 

I agree with English, and I would take her argument a step further.  She believes that good done for another person because of the relationship between the two people is not affected by “favor” transactions, which are different, but I think that in fact all good deeds are done based on the relationship between the parties.  Relationships are enormously diverse, and that favor-transaction-based deeds are only one example of a kind of relationship. 

The question of how to deal with relationships with strangers depends on the culture, and ours naturally defaults to a transaction-type relationship, but this is not necessarily the case everywhere.  There could very well be a culture in which the normal expectation is that all will do good for each other and there is no understood obligation for recompensation.

Blog Post about Filial Responsibility

One very important topic that Chenyang Li did not mention in his argument for filial responsibility in China is the effect it has had on the gender ratio. A large part of the filial culture is that it is usually the male in the family that takes care of his parents, this has huge implications for parents deciding if their only child should be a male or a female since they are only permitted to have one child. According to a Chinese Think Tank reporter cited in an article on NBC there are huge disparities in population between the two genders,  “…From a relatively normal ratio of 108.5 boys to 100 girls in the early 80s, the male surplus progressively rose to 111 in 1990, 116 in 2000, and is now is close to 120 boys for each 100 girls at the present time…” (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5953508/ns/world_news/t/china-grapples-legacy-its-missing-girls/#.VEhnDyLF-N0) . The filial responsibility is a huge part of Chinese culture, and it is only natural that parents want to be taken care of in old age, but it is creating overwhelming consequences for everyone. This disparity is already beginning to be felt in China as males search for wives with no avail. Some are so desperate to find a family that they use illegal sources to find a wife, “China's police have freed more than 42,000 kidnapped women and children from 2001 to 2003” (Baculinao). While I do not disagree with the act of filial responsibility, I think the emphasis that the care-taker must be male is putting China in a bad situation. There is too much pressure for parents to keep up with their culture in that respect, and it must be relaxed before the crisis can’t be reversed. 

Blog Post 7

I find that the one comparison that Chenyang Li uses compares two different situations. He compares not having enough money to support their children is equivalent to not having enough money to support their elderly parents. What Chenyang Li proposes is that there is this special bond between parent and child. In the case of being unable to provide for both your child or your parent – who do you choose to support? In a sense, it would be more of an obligation to care for your child. A parent wants to see their child raise their own children– to have the same feelings and sacrifice as much or more to their own children, repaying the knowledge they dispersed on them, repaying the sacrifice they themselves spent on the new parent. 

Also, in Chenyang Li’s piece, he mentions that parents do not send their children away because they cannot afford them. Consider this case of an adoption. A child is given up for the sole point that the parents, themselves, cannot take care of the child. How do Chenyang Li’s arguments fair when placed up against circumstances like adoption or orphanage? To which parent does the child owe loyalties too? I feel that Chenyang Li’s arguments do not specify which is more important to filial loyalty. Does it rely more upon rearing of the child? Or their birth?

Also, Chenyang Li seems too quick to dismiss ideas of friendship and love being as important to filial obligation. What if an older sibling rises to the challenge of raising the child? Does that child find filial obligation with that sibling? Or say a mentor in case of the sibling?  

blog 7

In Jane English’s reading about What do-grown children owe their parents her main argument is that when children get older they in fact do not owe anything to their parents whatsoever. Instead her main argument is that the duties of grown children to their parents result from the love, affection and friendship that are made between them. Where these feelings are missing so too can be said about the duties for their parents. Going off of what English stated in the reading I would agree with most of her points. I think that it is more important for a child to develop a sense of love and affection towards their parents rather than eventually having to pay back or “owe” them something later on in life. The point that I found to be particularly interesting was in the opening part of the story of how a child did not ask to be born into this world. I think people want to be rewarded for what they have provided for their child. But I do not think that this is necessary at all for the reason that the parents created the child. The parent’s job is to provide the basic necessities for living a healthy life. Similar to what Jane English said I think that it is the parents who “owe” love and affection to their children when raising them.

filial duty

                 After reading both articles I tend to favor the view of Jane English, but I still think that there are several problems with her view. At one point in the article she mentions that if a child feels no love or friendship toward the parent then they have no obligation to help them and while there are some cases of abuse or neglect where I would agree with this, it seems like most children would have some obligation to at least try to help their parents. Li brings up this point and later addresses Jane's example of neighbor mowing the lawn while you're away to somewhat refute this point. I agree with Li when she says that a favor shouldn't necessarily have to be requested as repayment for something and can instead just be implied. If a parent tried to raise the child to the best of their abilities and gave them what they reasonably could, I think that the child would have some moral duty to try to help them out when they're older. However, I do think that Li takes this a bit too far in insisting that you have to not only try to take care of your parents,but that you have to do it well and sacrifice everything that you have if necessary. I would argue for a more moderate approach that more relies on the parents performance. If a parent did sacrifice everything for you and deprived themselves to get you what you wanted then you would be more obligated to help them than the parent who occasionally helped you out and put themselves first. This argument is mostly for the children that don't feel any love or affection toward their parent since otherwise they would probably happily help them as much as they could on their own without having to rely on a sense of duty. This goes more towards English's friendship argument and ideally this would be the case, but if there is no friendship or love there should be some sense of moral duty to the parent so that they aren't completely abandoned when they are old and possibly helpless.  So overall I would argue a combination of the two ideas where you do have some degree of obligation towards your parents, but not to the point of having to sacrifice everything for them.

Chenyang Li and Jane English

Connor Newlin

Li has some interesting points but I tend to disagree with him in some respects. Perhaps this is my western perspective overtaking my judgment but Li states that even when there is no friendship or love in the parent child relationship, the child is still obligated to take care of its parents. This seems off to me because someone can be a terrible parent in an intentional way and then expect their child to fund their retired life at an advanced age. If my parent was a drunk who beat me and gave me only what I needed to get by in life I still owe them because they bared the burden of raising me? It seems like I bared the burden in this case because I was raised by such a bad parent. Beside this fact, I don't think most parents see raising a child as a burden (although it can be at times) I think a lot of parents out there would say that having and raising children is a great experience  and that they do not think of as a favor that needs to be repaid, but as a delight that they are blessed to have.  This is not always the case but parents often want their child to go out into the world and have their own adventure rather than be tied down at home taking care of an elderly person. I am also curious about what Li would say to a situation where there are many kids. The parent can only live with one child and when everyone wants to take care of their parent who receives the honor of having them live with their family and is that child more virtuous than the others? Because I see a lot of holes in Li's argument I lean towards English in this argument. Everyone loves their parents but they made the decision to have children and know what they are getting into so we should not feel an obligation to wait on them hand and foot.

I think the argument that Jane English presented was very respectable. The situation she presented was of two sisters, Cecile and Dana. Cecile was a child who had an easy upbringing and is now a successful lawyer while Dana was often sick and required much attention and now is a struggling artist. English states that because Cecile is well off and nearby, she has an obligation to help her parents. While I do believe this is true, I don’t think Dana has no obligation to her parents. She may not be able to afford to help them financially, she should still be able to support them emotionally. Because she lives far away, it can often be hard to do this. Often times, physical separation leads to emotional separation. Dana’s parents invested much time and money taking care of her and that should be reciprocated in any way possible. Obligation to parents is often misconstrued as a chore. I am partial to the idea that is based on friendship and a strong relationship. This is contrary to Li’s idea of parental obligation.

                Li states that even if our upbringing was not filled with love and friendship, we are still bound to our parents by familial obligation. I find this hard to agree with mainly because if a child were to give money to his parents just because of this obligation, the child would resent his parents for asking him this favor. Furthermore, if someone had a terrible childhood because their parents were emotionally and physically abusive, I don’t think they should be obligated to repay their parents just because they have a family tie. I think English’s idea is better adaptable to situations as such. I think if there is a mutual friendship in a parent/child relationship, the child should want to repay his or her parents. 

Li's Flawed Drowning Example

In “Grown Children’s Filial Obligation” Chenyang Li argues that even if a grown child does not have a friendship with or love for his parents, he still bound by filial obligation. Li argues that if an adult does not feel grateful for receiving life and an upbringing from his parents, then that adult has a weak moral conscience. Differing from Jane English, who argues the parent-child obligation should be based on love and friendship and not “owing” a favor because the child did not ask to be born, Li argues favors can be done without asking for help, and those favors create obligations. He provides the example of Barbara, whose child has fallen into a pond. If Al jumps in to save the child, without Barbara explicitly asking for help, Al has still done her a favor, and she should owe Al. I will argue that this example is flawed, and in fact supports English’s view that parent-child duty is better off coming from a sense of love.

Li’s version of the drowning child example presents a view of humanity that I find disturbing. Al does not jump in the pond so that Barbara will “owe” him, and if he does I believe Al is acting immorally. If, following the accident Al expected favors from Barbara until she paid off the “debt” of his action, I believe most individuals would find Al’s behavior as unethical. One does not behave morally in order to be owed a favor; Al jumped in the pond because of the value he places on human life and his love of the common humanity shared between all the parties involved. Barbara may owe Al a thank you, but she should do this, and any other favor out of friendship, not a sense of debt. It is wrong for Al to feel like he is owed for behaving in a way that any moral human would behave, just as it is wrong for a parent to expect that they are owed simply for caring and raising a child, behavior that is expected of all moral humans. 

Obligation

While reading the piece titled What Do Grown Children Owe Their Parents the author Jane English brought up several good points about the dynamics of this relationship. One point that she made that I found very interesting was when she made the statement “regardless of the quantity of childhood sacrifices, an able, wealthy child has an obligation to help his needy parents more than does a needy child”. I found this statement interesting for several reasons, following this statement the author provides a good example of two sisters, one who was a great child but is now struggling as an artist (Dana), and the other who was not the best child but now a successful lawyer (Cecile). According to the view of the author the child who is now successful has more of an obligation to help her parents, because she has the ability to do so not because of the sacrifice her parents had made for her prior. From the example that the author provided I would agree with her statement. I do agree that if you have the means to do so and it would have no significant impact on your own wellbeing that you should help your parents in any way possible. Yet going off of the idea that you are obligated to help your parents not based on the sacrifices they made for you but because you have the ability to do so, the scenario of a neglectful or simply non supportive parent parent plays out in my mind. Looking at the same example the author gave suppose those same parents always supported Dana with her art, on the other hand they looked down upon Cecile, and subjected her to verbal abuse. Yet in the end Cecile still becomes successful and Dana is not, I personally feel that just because Cecile is now successful and has the means to help her parents so has no obligation to help them. They did not support the dreams that she had, that have now manifested into her success. She has no obligation simply because she has the means to do so, she could help out of kindness of sympathy but should not help out of obligation.      

Blog Post 7

If you choose to post by Wednesday night by 11:00 PM, either (a) raise and develop an objection to something in the family morality readings, OR (b) offer and develop a supporting argument for something in the family morality readings.

Sexual Morality

I think the strongest argument for sexual morality comes from Goldman when he describes sex as the desire for physical contact with another person’s body. I think as a college aged student with certain priorities on the mind I come into this with a fair amount of bias, and it’s no surprise I find the most “liberal” of the views on sexual morality the most appealing. That being said I will defend Goldman’s argument by elaborating on the historical context he touched on when he mentioned contraception. One has only to travel back in time a few hundred years to find a period when raising a family was extremely difficult. Resources were scarce, and in places with harsh winters surviving was even more difficult and precarious. The birthing process itself was extremely painful without the advancements in pain regulation we have today. The chance of the mother dying in child birth was also greater, as well as the chance of the child dying in infancy. Sex had to be restricted to the notion of being simply for procreation, because the risks associated with treating it as an activity for pleasure were simply too great. Sex in the not too distant past could really only be implemented when one was financially secure with the resources at hand to deal with the almost inevitable consequences of what would result. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in conditions like these, treating sex as a means-to-an-end was morally responsible. To treat it otherwise would pose a grave threat to both mother and child. But as Goldman mentions, the advent of contraception and its widespread acceptance today has rendered this idea of sex as a means-to-an-end reproductively speaking as outdated. There is nothing wrong with the views of the past in my opinion; they were prudent for the time. But life is the process of change, and I believe our views could fall more in line with Goldman’s in an attempt to ease the tensions that can arise from the confusion surrounding sexual conduct, as well as to acknowledge the significant differences from the past we now have. 

I am going to agree with Goldman and defend his argument that "sexual desire is desire for contact with another person's body and for the pleasure which such contact produces; sexual activity is activity which tends to fulfill such desire of the agent.” I think that today sex has a very different meaning than it did years ago.  Years ago it was something sacred that was long-anticipated and waited for, while today it seems to be becoming more and more prevalent in society, and does not seem to hold the same meaning.  I think that sex can be an expression of romantic love because when you get to know someone more personally and their personality you can be attracted to them even more.  I think that Goldman is right when he says that sex is not a means to an end. I agree that sex can be to fulfill pleasure and desire or it can be an act of romantic love.  I do not agree with the idea of polygamy or polyandry and I think that although sex does not have to be an ends to a mean, it does not mean that we should disrespect ourselves and not hold it as a high standard. I think that sex can either be just for the pleasure and not for the romantic act of love, but that it can also have a greater meaning if it is with someone who we are attracted to their personality as well as their body.  I think Goldman does a good job of defending that sex can be interpreted in different ways, and that it is not just something that justifies and fulfills a desire or want.  I guess you can say that my argument to further expand Goldmans theory is that sex can have many different meanings, but can only be an expression of romantic love when there is more of a relationship between the two people, and that personality and body are not the only two things that go into romantic love.  It is all about developing a relationship with another person on a deeper level, and getting to know them over time.

Sexual Morality

I found each view on sexual morality ultimately unsatisfactory. The analysis that I most align with is Goldman’s view. I appreciate this analysis because I believe that many forms of intercourse are acceptable, unless sex violates some other categorical imperative, i.e. rape is wrong because it because it is “an extreme violation of a person’s body. However, I am confused about the logic of the argument in that he denies the “means-end-analysis” as being extraneous and not relevant to plain sex, which he asserts has no morality in and of itself. For humans, in a Kantian analysis, could this ever actually be true? I do not really see how just viewing sex as a pleasurable act, and carrying out sex for no other reason, would not also be a means to an end. Wouldn’t Kant say that this violates the categorical imperative to not use any person as a mere means to an end? Further, I think his argument is fairly week in stating that sex is morally neutral. He addresses the negative feelings many people get from having sex without extra means to an end such as love and relationships, and says that this “psychological toll often attached may be a function of the restrictive sexual ethic itself, rather than a legitimate apology of it.” I am really on the fence about this point and do not think he adequately defends it. I think it is just as easy to say that the psychological toll may be a result of not viewing sex as something with moral weight when it actually does. I think here I go back to the paradox this analysis faces that sex for just sex does seem to ultimately violate a categorical imperative. Further, if ethics asks how I should be living my life, from my experiences I do feel a degree of right or wrongness when I have engaged in meaningful versus meaningless sex. I don’t necessarily believe that anyone else should care, but if I am asking these questions and going with my gut, accepting that sex is morally neutral and that using people for pleasure with the lack of care and emotion, does not hold for me personally. 

Blog 7

I found the stark contrast between Sctuton's Aristotelian view and Goldman's Kantian view quite interesting; however I found Chung Tse's take on the definition of procreation, sexual morality and desire the most intriguing.  He claims procreation does not start and end with intercourse but rather begins with intercourse and ends when the child is born nine months later; this is why sexual activity holds the 'highest place' in Confucian life.  Tse's definition goes well with Scruton's view of sexual desire where love is the most powerful self fulfillment while erotic love and lust are habits of desire.  Even here though Scruton claims that our base desire is for physical contact and pleasure (both in a sexual and non sexual way).   If love is the most powerful form of self fulfillment and sex (physical contact & pleasure) is the outcome of this fulfillment then it would only be logical that with Tse's view, procreation is the product of love.  This is very interesting to me because this would mean that biologically and culturally we have evolved to where our life purpose is primarily to procreate.  But even then, all love has to have some sort of sexual desire in its roots; if Scruton truly took the Aristotelian stance, wouldn't doing things only out of often misplaced desire be a fundamental flaw?

Blog Post 7

If you choose to post by Monday night by 11:00 PM, either (a) raise and develop an objection to something in the sexual morality readings, OR (b) offer and develop a supporting argument for something in the sexual morality readings.

Comparison between abortion and the wanton infliction of pain on animals.

Throughout the arguments laid out by Don Marquis in this passage, it becomes clearer and clearer that he is not afraid to go to an extreme level when comparing abortion to things that are bad or morally wrong. In the case of one of his arguments in which he attempts to make a comparison between abortion and "wanton" infliction of pain on animals, he seems to consciously make an effort to associate the word "abortion" to "wanton infliction of pain" in the reader's mind, which I believe is a dysphemism and also a fallacy.

Beyond that, his argument that it is morally wrong for me to inflict pain upon him because pain causes suffering and suffering is a misfortune is very much correct in my mind. The issue that arises with his argument then is that he does not seem to take into account the gray area that is present when the discussion of a fetus becomes involved. My question for him would be in this case, at what point can he tell me for sure that the fetus is capable of registering the feeling of pain? Since fetuses are severely undeveloped at the time that an abortion is able to be done, can it be said for sure that the fetus has even developed the ability to feel? If it has not, then his argument comparing abortion to the infliction of pain on animals seems to be potentially irrelevant in that case. Since the fetus cannot feel pain, no suffering is caused, and therefore there is no misfortune.

The other issue that I had with this argument was his use of the word "wanton". By definition, wanton means: (of a cruel or violent action) deliberate and unprovoked. While I do not believe that all women who get abortions do it for a good or well thought out reason, I do believe that many abortion cases are not unprovoked by something. We could even say that Don Marquis was using "wanton" in a more literal sense that would suggest that he means unprovoked by the fetus, but even in that case it may not hold. If the pregnancy of the woman is directly going to put her life in danger, then an abortion would not be unprovoked. In fact, in that case, even though the fetus is unable to know it, its presence in the mother's body and the resulting threat to her life that it is imposing on would cause the resulting abortion to have been provoked by the fetus itself. There are also other outside influences such as the woman becoming pregnant as the result of a rape, or a situation similar to that, which would provoke the mother to get an abortion.

Due to these holes that can be found in this argument, I can only believe that this particular argument that Marquis poses is irrelevant and unsound.

Blog 6

In Marquis's piece he asserts that the killing of the embryo and the child is wrong because you take away the greatest thing in life, the ability to live through it. The fact that one is taking the opportunity for experiencing life, in Marquis's opinion, is immoral. Fetus in his eyes are victims because in his eyes they are actual beings that have the opportunity to live life and if an abortion occurs that is taken away. I have an issue with this observation. With this idea, it seems that Marquis believes that every child will have an opportunity to live life to the fullest when born, in his phrasing and wording. In a  circumstance such as a family who is impoverished, or a teenage girl who has been raped, that is not likely the case. A child is more valuable to the society as a whole if it is raised in a environment that is prepared for it and that can nurture it properly. There are very few instances that people such as Celine Dian and Tim Tebow will be created out unplanned children and more often than not the parents will not be able to provide properly in poor circumstances and the child will almost become a hindrance to society rather than a productive member. So in circumstances where the child is not going to be well provided for, the mother is inseminated without her consent, or a child will be mistreated and malnourished, then it is feasible to allow an abortion.

Testing the "future like ours" Claim

My objection begins, appropriately enough, with sperm and egg.  Marquis's central argument is that what differentiates a fertilized egg from an individual gamete is the "future like ours" that the fertilized egg could have.  He asserts that this is the fundamental principle that can make killing immoral even if no other reason is present.  He admits, however, that his argument "stands or falls on the moral status of the fetus."  It does not necessarily need to be a full human, but needs to have a future like ours.

Some people would assert that a sperm or an egg also have a possible future, to which the response would probably be that the odds of this happening for an individual gamete are so ridiculously slim they should not be considered.  Marquis, for example, says that contraception is no problem because there is simply "no obligation to maximize," implying that before the two are combined, it is not worth considering that they have rights.

I would like to propose a scenario which could challenge this assumption, in the the style of the “kill one to save 5 – organ harvest vs. oncoming train” dilemma.  We first ask 2 questions:

Should we protect sperm and eggs (or feel bad about the loss of sperm or eggs)?  Most people say no.  Should we protect a fertilized egg?  Significantly more people will say yes (understandably).

The third scenario, which makes the distinction more difficult, is this:

There is a stage during fertilization, before implantation, where the sperm has merely become attached to the egg, and the egg has sealed off its outer layer to other sperm.  No genetic material has yet been combined.  They are still two separate cells which are merely stuck together.  In Marquis's argument, however, we must protect them both because they now have the possibility of a "future like ours," but are not even really a single being yet. To me, this level of moral status of a fetus is not enough to grant the critical support his argument "stands or falls" on, and the argument, though generally very well thought out, falls. 

Blog 6

Abortion has always been a very sensitive topic.  A lot of content in this writing is directed at what is defined as killing, which is a parallel of what we define as life as well or in a more specific sense to abortion, where life starts. My first question is about killing though. This course is of ethics and morality.  A main argument has been whether or not there is a universal set or a baseline of morals that we must follow: do not lie, do not steal, do not kill, etc. If we as humans elect to believe in this universal set of morals, then why do we object to the perspective of “pro-life”? And if we do, are we that immoral if people can accept their immoral flaws.

On another note regarding the reading, I think that he is rather general when he refers to abortion simply as a killing of a life. I think that abortion is a much more complicated issue and the black and white view that it is just a killing is unrealistic. I don’t think that having an abortion is an action that is thought of without serious regard. There are even arguments that would say if the child was to have a hard life, then an abortion would be a good thing. He argues that it’s impossible to say what the child will value their life as, but in a case that a child could be born into poverty or to violence, I don’t think it’s fair to call someone who considers that immoral.

Abortion

The biggest controversy that I found in this article, is that concerning women’s rights. The specific quote that I found most interesting was, “How complete an account of the wrongness of killing does the value-of-a-future-like-ours account have to be in order that the wrongness of abortion is a consequence.” I found this the most fascinating because I believe that this is a very important decision to contemplate when making the decision to be pro-choice. Who is to say that the next person born into this world isn’t the next Steve Jobs or the next Einstein, or could be the next person to save someone from a burning building? That is just it, you don’t know, nobody does. The fact that the validity of a human life rests in the hands of a woman standing at the door debating on whether she is pro-life or pro-choice is a situation that no one should have ever had to even think about, but the reality of it is, is that it happens hundreds of times a day. I disagree with the statement that the “desire account” is in opposition to this statement. I think that there is no way to know the desire of an unborn fetus and compare it to the desire of someone who is living, but who is also suicidal. You cannot compare these two because the outcomes of the fetus are unknown. Overall, I think that the topic of abortion is a very sensitive issue to discuss, especially as a woman. I will never understand how just because you are a woman who is pregnant, that the world gets to judge you for the decisions you make regarding the unborn fetus inside of you. This article brings up many valid points and has given me a new aspect to think about when discussing or defending this controversial issue as a woman in society.

BLOG

One of the main points in Don Marquis’s argument is that by allowing for someone to have an abortion, you are morally killing the future of a human life. Me personally I disagree with Marquis’s argument. I think that everyone should have the choice of what they want to do, it should be up to them to have an abortion or not. I would say that moral decision for abortion is that it is ultimately up to the individual. I honestly do not think all cases of abortion can and should be considered, as is an injustice. A lot of things can happen to girls that are out of their control. There was a major study done where kids who are not wanted and kids who are wanted by their parents the study showed that the kids who are not wanted are more likely to commit crimes and other bad things. The study also saw that crime rates and other things dropped when an individual chose to have an abortion.  A child should have every opportunity to a positive future and supporting family with this option they can have this possibility.