Philosophy 2367 – Flashcards

Humans that don't have all of the same abilities that most humans do/the abilities we consider important to humanity (reason, autonomy, etc.); severe cognitive abilities, vegetative state, infants, etc. Central question: Do these humans still have the same moral rights as other humans? If so, why not animals? See animals, abortion

If people are enhanced, their accomplishments won't be valued; i.e. enhancements take away the authenticity of our accomplishments Kaplan rejects this See enhancement

Use of war to prevent an attack that would otherwise occur; read an author that says preemptive is moral but preventive is not

The view that whether an act is racist depends crucially on the person doing the action See humor/racist humor

The view that whether an act is racist depends on whether there is a reasonable expectation to victimize the audience; ALSO, you can't do something you know would victimize your audience See humor/racist humor

Being a helicopter parent; many people argue that enhancement is wrong bc it seems that many parents would pick and choose their child and its interests See enhancement

Preference for the members of one's own species; Singer argues that the way we treat animals in experimentation and consumption is speciesist See animals

An inherently social act that devalues an individual or groups of individuals; a public message that a person or group deserves less respect than others; some pornography is morally wrong bc it's seen to degrade certain populations e.g. women See pornography

You agree to something understanding what the terms are; any sexual act is permissible if all parties give informed consent See sexual morality, assisted suicide

Someone who is helped by the wrongdoing of someone else but did not actually commit the wrong; AA is owed to certain racial groups, but bc current white males are the innocent beneficiaries of their ancestors then they can't be forced See AA, NA, Pogge's GRD of distribution/poverty

Global Resource Dividend; a tax on the use of natural resources, to help the poor; Singer thinks people have a moral obligation to help poor people individually; Pogge thinks that our government needs to address how we can help the poor See poverty

1. Effects of shared institutions (global order actively takes advantage of the poor) 2. Uncompensated exclusion from natural resources (a violation of any plausible acquisition principle to get an abundance of a resource when people don't have it) 3. The current distribution of wealth results from an unjust history from which we currently benefit and currently people are suffering See poverty

Something that can act in ways that are right or wrong See animals

Something that can be wronged. Central question: What rights/how much regard are moral patients due compared to moral agents? See animals

You deserve to be punished in proportion to the severity of your crime but not necessarily with your crime itself See death penalty

'Harder end of reasonable'; At a minimum doesn't hurt people (in contrast to a Good Samaritan who actively goes above and beyond) Abortion: Introduces the term in relation to the law: carrying a child to term is a Good Samaritan action so if one thinks that a pregnant woman must be a Good Samaritan, then they must think that there should be a law requiring EVERYONE to be a Good Samaritan See abortion, poverty, immigration

People have a basic human right to go where they want; this right is necessary to the pursuit of opportunity See immigration

The basic right to associate w whom you want, in contrast to Freedom of Movement Immigration: We can help people over where they are rather than letting them in See immigration

All the best and brightest of other less developed countries immigrate to the 'better' countries, causing a brain drain in their home countries See immigration

Preferences people have that conflict w another preference they have; e.g. you may want to be a nonsmoker even if you're overcome w the desire to smoke See drugs/paternalism

Preferences that are relevant to the circumstance you're in; some people don't know exactly what they're choosing E.g. choosing the glamour of smoking vs bad smell, when a relevant bit of info is the increased risk of many ailments See drugs/paternalism

Time-enduring preferences (not fleeting preferences); if we think it's possible for someone to change their mind, we may want to stop them from their fleeting preference See drugs/paternalism

A preference someone has which is theirs and not influenced by others See drugs/paternalism

What you want to have without choosing; we don't want to have to choose something, we want to have it by default See euthanasia

A right that protects a fundamental interest where a fundamental interest is something you care about regardless of your specific beliefs/commitments See gun ownership

An instance of a broader right E.g. There may be no fundamental right to gun ownership but it's possible that it's derived from a right to do what you want so long as you're not putting any one in harm/threatening anyone See gun ownership

A right something has based on intrinsic characteristics See animals

A right granted based on the choices of others E.g. We confer rights onto animals but they are perhaps weaker than our natural rights See animals

Equality of opportunity necessary for minorities to have equal opportunity Equality in immigration: People should have equal opportunity and therefore be able to pursue that opportunity and so borders should be open Equality in self-defense: guns level the playing field

By posing the question of individual obligations to stop global warming in the context of a Sunday joyride in a gas-guzzler, SA assesses the application of many moral principles. He analyzes Actual Act Principles (such as The Harm Principle), Internal Principles (such as The Means Principle), Collective Principles (such as The Ideal Law Principle), and Counterfactual Principles (such as The General Action Principle). Ultimately SA comes to the conclusion that we don't "know" that it's wrong, only that there's no principle out there which is either valid or adequately explains why it's immoral for a single person to go on a joyride in a gas-guzzler--it is neither sufficient (if A then B) nor necessary (B must happen w A). He also appeals to greater need of governments to handle the problem because they have the power to change it and are the largest cause of Global Warming.

"Radical" inequality between the amount of resources developed nations have vs undeveloped. Radical inequality shows a violation of our negative duties Three "Grounds of Injustice" 1. Shared institutions 2. Uncompensated exclusion from resources "Lockean Proviso" 3. Shared violent history Focuses greater on negative duties bc positive duties are harder to demonstrate being morally obligatory Differs from Singer bc he's not convinced that Singer's argument is persuasive enough We have to send money/improve infrastructure not because they're badly off but because we owe them compensation due to negative duties Govt is entitled to enforce our payment of compensation through the concept of a GRD (Global Resources Dividend)

Duty to benefit someone See Pogge's GRD (Poverty)

Duties to not harm someone See Pogge's GRD (Poverty)

The worse-off are very badly off in absolute terms They are also very badly off in relative terms -- very much worse off than many others The inequality is impervious: it is difficult or impossible for the worse off substantially to improve their lot; and most of the better-off never experience life at the bottom for even a few months and have no vivid idea of what it is like to live in that way. The inequality is pervasive: it concerns not merely some aspects of life, such as the climate or access to natural beauty or high culture, but most aspects or all. The inequality is avoidable: the better-off can improve the circumstances of the worse-off without becoming badly off themselves. See Pogge GRD Poverty

Nozick attempts to delineate a Theory of Entitlement, which includes an Acquisition Principle, a Transfer Principle, and a Redistribution Principle. The aim of the essay is to begin defining in a moral sense when someone's possession of something is moral or immoral. In the scope of the Libertarian philosophy, Nozick thinks that individual entitlements seem to be more important than institutional entitlements and wants many things privatized.

Having the means to kill someone

Withdrawing treatment to kill someone

Euthanasia upon explicit request

Euthanasia of a patient who does not have the means to consent

Euthanasia of someone against their request

The physician aids in giving the patient means to kill himself

Singer claims that in not donating to human aid organizations, those in a financial position to do so are acting immorally. He presents empirical data about poverty and affluence to aid his argument. His basic argument is this: 1. Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad 2. If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, wout sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so 3. By donating to aid agencies, you can prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care, without sacrificing anything nearly as important Conclusion: Therefore, if you do not donate to aid agencies, you are doing something wrong. (Hardin refutes this argument)

In addressing what he calls Singer's greater moral evil rule, which gives equal consideration to the interests of all (a component of our current moral code), Arthur discusses the notion that other elements of our current moral code consider individual entitlements important as well. He believes that our entitlements are able to qualify considerations of equality of interests in certain contexts (such as when the cost is substantial). He wonders if there is reason to move to a new moral code which downplays the role of entitlements but ultimately argues that an ideal moral code is one that is workable and likely includes entitlements as worthy of consideration; i.e. he believes that an ideal moral code looks more like the one we have now than what he considers shifting to with little consideration given to entitlements. His notion of entitlements is framed through 'Rights and Desert'. Rights refer to positive and negative rights/duties we hold, whereas Desert refers to our deservedness of what we have/earned -- this can be good or bad (things we have earned we may deserve to keep but actions we have taken, e.g. Nazis, may mean that we deserve punishment)

Through his example of lifeboats holding rich people and poor people separately, meant to represent developed and developing nations respectively, Hardin argues that the affluent ought not to help people in countries where overpopulation cannot realistically be brought under control. This is because the affluent 'lifeboats' are jeopardizing their safety factor by adding more people to their boat. He also considers the rate of reproduction and concludes that unless birth control is widely implemented in developing countries, affluent countries cannot help impoverished countries bc it would be unsustainable -- see the ratchet effect of adding to the food bank.

Basic case for opening borders: Right to Freedom of Movement. As liberal egalitarians care about human freedoms, and humans should be free to pursue their own projects and make their own life choices which don't infringe upon the claims of others, greater Freedom of Movement should be granted. Just as freedom to move within borders, it should be allowed for people to move across borders. This allows for the pursuit of opportunity, a critical human right; the brain drain is an argument against allowing migration to better opportunity. Carens argues that governments who exclude immigrants based upon race, ethnicity, etc. are likely giving the message to their citizens that those groups of people are less worthy, and in the process are discriminating against their own citizens who belong to those groups. He makes the concession that a country may be justified in excluding groups of people if none of its citizens belong to those groups. Additionally, he concedes that perhaps during times of war and such that governments may be justified in closing their borders temporarily. The libertarian example of having an endless international party at your private residence comes up in this text.

Basic case for closing borders: Right to Freedom of Association. Granting that wealthy countries have obligations of global distributive justice in order to help the world's poor and oppressed, Wellman defends the position that nation-states have a right to close their borders to all potential immigrants via Freedom of Association. He addresses Carens' description of radical equality by saying that the duty to help a country in need is to do so through assistance abroad rather than domestic admittance. He also addresses Carens' claim that private property trumps a government's border restrictions by saying one cannot consistently insist that property rights are totally unlimited wout committing oneself to anarchism.

Waldron claims that circumstances can changed and therefore so can our obligations. In the context of Europeans and Native Americans, just because Europeans took all that land and haven't given it back doesn't mean we should give it back now. What reparation depends upon is how central a certain entitlement is to someone's life then vs now. We don't know what they would have now if we had given back the land (did they sell it again, etc.). Also depends on change of circumstances, something you used to be entitled to can become something you are no longer entitled to (if there's enough fruit for everyone, we can exclude people from our food BUT if there's not enough for everybody, you owe fruit to the people who don't have it) → Now that there are tons of people in the US, the Native Americans may be obliged to share the land that was once theirs. Ultimately, Waldron is not sure what the US owes to the Native Americans, but he's not convinced that giving back the land taken is sufficient or relevant to what Native Americans may deserve.

Pojman begins by stating that his argument refers to preferential affirmative action (which he is opposed to) and not procedural AA (which he supports even to the point of allowing the properties in question to function as tie-breakers). He is dubious that procedural AA is able to be implemented without some form of preferential AA. He argues against the level playing field argument, which acknowledges and compensates for the idea that whites start ahead of blacks in 'a running race', by saying that it is better thought of as a class-based argument and that it harms blacks bc they're not prepared for the advantages they're being given (such as lower requirements for admittance into a university); he also says that middle class blacks are the ones who are actually benefiting from this policy, not the truly underserved. He argues against the compensation argument (which says that we should compensate blacks for the wrongs and harms whites have committed) by claiming that it's the group who has been injusticed and that bringing up individuals doesn't make those reparations. He claims that the innocent beneficiaries shouldn't have to pay for something they had no involvement in committing. Finally he explains that giving one group special preferences (such as blacks) inherently discriminates against other groups (such as middle class white males).

"Along for the ride but doesn't affect the outcome" An epiphenomenal something is something which isn't relevant to the action at hand

They defend that AA is often misunderstood and mischaracterized by both opponents and defenders. They address the scope of AA policies by claiming and providing evidence that a variety of races and other groups such as women and working class white men benefit from policies. They challenge the view that AA is giving preferential treatment, is a form of compensation, that it simply promotes diversity and a range of other long-term goals, and the stigma argument by understanding the basis of AA as equalizing opportunities, not bestowing preferences. They defend that candidates who may not have certain qualifications are still qualified bc they have achieved what they have under less auspicious circumstances. Also, people have inherent and often unrecognized biases against minority groups which needs to be addressed through AA.

Philips addresses the morality of telling certain kinds of jokes by assessing three moral scenarios: Act-centered vs Agent-centered vs Belief-centered. He is most sympathetic to the act-centered view, believing the agent-centered view to be false and the belief-centered view to need to be qualified to the point until it becomes the agent-centered view. He is wary of racist-joke telling even in private because it still ridicules and derides the subjects of the joke and seems to believe that racist joke telling generally propagates racist beliefs or at the very least general misconceptions made about individuals of the race.

The view that racist acts are acts which presuppose racist beliefs for their justification; i.e. to say that act A is racist is to say that A is justified if and only if certain racist beliefs are true. See Philips, Stereotypes and Humor

Argument proposed by de Sousa refuted by Smuts which hinges on the following propositions: 1. Understanding a joke requires being aware of what propositions it relies on. 2. Understanding (or "getting") a joke does not mean that you find it funny. 3. If you have negative attitudes toward the propositions that are required by a joke, it will fail—you won't find it funny. 4. You cannot hypothetically endorse propositions in such a way that will revivify a joke that is dead for you. 5. Hence, what makes the difference between merely getting a joke and finding it funny must be some positive attitude that you genuinely hold towards the propositions required to understand it. 6. Therefore, if you find a sexist joke funny, and sexist propositions are required for getting the joke, then by virtue of your attitudinal endorsement of these propositions you are a sexist.

A joke which encourages the morally dubious entertainment of morally suspect attitudes does not merit amusement; assumes that humor is normative and that normative status of humor matters to the ethics of humor Refuted by Smuts

He argues against the Attitudinal Endorsement Argument presented by de Sousa by claiming that one can appreciate a joke and find the joke funny as a consequence even if he doesn't endorse the view, and therefore violates the argument which hinges upon a necessary endorsement (which is logistically difficult to prove anyway). He refutes merited-response theories and emotional responsibility theories by demonstrating that their major formulations implicitly require the attitudinal endorsement argument. He ultimately argues for an effects-mediated responsibility theory. He argues that a joke is culpable insofar as it does harm, and that harm is typically dealt in the form of laughter. He argues against merited-response theories by saying that even if we find something funny that we shouldn't, it doesn't necessarily imply that we've made a moral transgression which requires 'joke police' but more so just a mistake. He argues against emotional responsibility theories bc he views laughter as sometimes uncontrollable and it's an oversimplification to say that everyone is responsible for all forms of laughter (even though we aren't always responsible for what we find amusing and amusement can sometimes grow to uncontrollable laughter. He ultimately argues for effects-mitigated emotional responsibility, which, with many qualifications, attributes culpability to one's sense of humor/the jokes he tells/laughter which is not attempted to be supressed, but not involuntary laughter

Attempt to explain the morality of humor by attributing culpability to one's sense of humor Refuted by Smuts

In his piece addressing legislation the US enacted making heroin illegal, Wilson argues that the legislation has empirically stopped the wave of the heroin epidemic, as heroin usage rates have remained stagnant since the law was enacted in the early 70s. He considers this a moral victory and cites that not only is heroin less widely available and significantly more expensive, but that the deterrent of the law prevented would-be users from using (such as in Vietnam vets who used in Vietnam). Additionally, bc there is a drug culture in the US, non-users would be interested in trying it if it weren't illegal. He also worries about other drugs like crack cocaine; he postulates that although only 3% get addicted, that number likely would rise if it was legal and easy/cheap to come by. He doesn't believe we've lost the war on drugs because the situation would be way worse in his mind than if legislation had never been implemented. Finally, he emphasizes the need for treatment and education to reduce the number of drug users.

Someone against the notion that progress is a real concept leading to an improvement of the world

Arthur first introduces anti-meliorates as fearful of biomedical knowledge and its integration into humanity, claiming that it further removes us from human nature. He goes on to claim that human nature came about through highly improbable and consequential events but that doesn't demonstrate that human nature is good or desirable per se. He further says that wout being able to say human nature is the ideal, anti-meliorists have no basis to claim that change, improvement, and betterment represent threats to humanity; i.e. anti-meliorists view human nature as static--but who's to say a core component of human nature is that we strive as humans to better ourselves/our condition. He criticizes the argument that humans would not strive to be good or virtuous if pleasures/achievements/enjoyments are easy by stating that many people now do not strive to be good even wout enhancement. He is also critical of the threat of neurotic parenting.

Virtue Ethics: Sandel argues that genetic enhancement is morally questionable not because of its likely consequences but bc of the attitudes toward human beings that it expresses and promotes, i.e. perfection. He claims that enhancement devalues 'giftedness'. He also claims that we "confuse our role with God's" from the religious perspective, and claims that we damage the virtues of humility, responsibility, and solidarity from a secular perspective. He approaches the subject by describing possible consequences/objections in muscles, memory, height, and sex selection

Goodin discusses the permissibility of paternalism through the lens of a woman who smoked cigs for the glamour and wasn't aware of the health effects and later died as a consequence. He describes that there are three, perhaps four preferences: relevant, settled, preferred, and perhaps your own. He details that many times what someone thinks is a true preference is actually a preference that someone inherently doesn't want/a preference that has been fashioned artificially. He concludes that certain forms of governmental regulation of the smoking industry are paternalistically justified bc the government is justified in forcing people to realize their own true preferences.

The standard view of addiction is that certain drugs are highly addictive largely bc of their pharmacological effects and this view plays a significant role in some arguments in favor of legal bans on certain drugs. Shapiro challenges the standard view, arguing that factors such as an individual's mind-set and social and cultural setting importantly contribute to drug addiction. He cites empirical evidence that many people are able to be 'responsible drug users' and that it's not just the drug which causes addiction e.g. if someone has to go to work everyday, they may choose not to fall into the cycle of addiction simply bc work is more important than being an addict

In this article, Huemer analyzes the three most prominent arguments in the drug legalization debate: that drugs should be outlawed bc of the harm they cause to drug users, that they should be outlawed bc they harm other people, and that they should be legalized bc drug prohibition violates rights. He concludes that the first two arguments appealing to prohibition fail and that the third calling for legalization ultimately succeeds. He addresses the first by bringing up many instances where people knowingly hurt themselves and it's still legal (such as smoking tobacco which kills more people per 1000 than illicit drugs) and also push people away (like being rude, which probably shouldn't be illegal). As for the second, he agrees that people shouldn't be allowed to OVI but that many of the harms to others done by drug users can be just as well done by someone not under the influence and just be considered a complacent individual w undesirable traits. He feels about the third argument that many people are punished for exercising their natural rights and that drug laws cause more crime than the drugs themselves; he asserts that individuals if nothing else have the right to decide what to do w one's own body so long as it doesn't cause harm to others

In this report, issued by Ronald Reagan to investigate, the authors distinguish four types of pornography: violent, nonviolent but degrading, nonviolent and nondegrading, and child pornography. The empirical evidence suggested that violent and nonviolent but degrading pornography were linked to violence against women but could not reach a conclusion about nonviolent and nondegrading pornography and harm. They make note not to assume that making illegal the forms of pornography linked to harm would suddenly end issues of sex discrimination and sexual violence. They emphasize that causal relationships are drawn. They consider the nonviolent/nondegrading category the most controversial which they also consider to be a small proportion of porn available; they consider promiscuity to be a threat brought about by this form of porn, such as the 'sexual revolution' rather than violence or discrimination. They explain that child pornography is essentially sexual exploitation of children and is especially horrific as it always involves sexual abuse of a real child.

Hill advances an essentially Kantian argument against 'victim pornography', asserting that degradation is a public phenomenon in which some individual group is overtly represented as not being worthy of a certain level of respect that they are due. Victim pornography, by its very nature, degrades women by representing them as members of a class of beings not entitled to an appropriate level of respect. Thus, since failing to treat others as deserving of respect is morally objectionable, victim pornography is morally objectionable. As far as the legal implications of her views, Hill asserts that victim pornography should not be protected as free speech on the grounds that it libels women as a class and is highly defamatory. Ultimately she concludes that although pornography producers claim that their work is complete fiction, it nonetheless propagates a negative image of women as a class in society.

Corvino first addresses the argument which generally states that homosexual sex is wrong bc it's unnatural, but concludes that It's false to say that each organ only has one purpose and it's implausible to think that the only function of reproductive organs is for reproduction (it's not wrong to use an organ for a function it doesn't inherently have such as propping up eyeglasses) so he doesn't believe this argument stands up to scrutiny. He also addresses the commonly stated argument that homosexual sex is harmful (due to alarming rates of sexual promiscuity, depression, suicide, and AIDS w/in the homosexual subculture) but asserts that correlation does not imply causation and believes many of these to be caused by external factors such as being told something along the lines of 'your romantic feelings are sick, unnatural, and disgusting' by society. He is dubious of the argument that homosexual households aren't good for raising a child bc not many people seem to think that a dysfunctional heterosexual couple doesn't have the right to have kids/get divorced/not be 'ideal'. He asserts that homosexual sex, when performed with care, is no more damaging than heterosexual sex under the same conditions and that both forms are susceptible to similar harms. He addresses the issue of child abuse performed by a homosexual adult should not be conflated as a generalization of all homosexuals, just as child abuse performed by a heterosexual does not reflect upon all heterosexuals. He refutes the argument that 'if homosexuality is propagated in society, it will lead to a decline in society members (commonly held by religious folk) by stating that choosing to be a celibate priest doesn't seem to be frowned upon in that same sphere.

Mappes ultimately asserts through many examples of varying moral standing that sexual involvement is moral so long as all participants have given voluntary and informed consent. He identifies coercion as a violation of the voluntary component of consent and deception as a violation of the informed component. He further asserts than offers are not morally reprehensible bc they do not remove anything from the individual (opportunity, etc.) if an individual's answer is no to a sexual encounter. He does not express that using someone else sexually is inherently immoral but rather that sexually using someone is immoral when it is not an offer and is instead used with coercion or deception.

Gallagher asserts that there are two views of marriage: that it is a public bond and sexual institution bt two members of the opposite sex which serves for reproduction and the continuation of society, and that it is an essentially private relationship whose fundamental aim is to enhance the personal well-being of the married partners. She is dubious that a society can make men good fathers if it affirms that children do not need both a mother and a father (choice not biology makes family), and that a society could survive if the ideas and ideals drive the ideal of a postmodern family. She ultimately asserts that marriage is in crisis and that it's losing its value through the universal human institution view bc it doesn't uphold a certain amount of commitment (she cites that 1/2 of marriages end in divorce and that 1/3 kids are born out of wedlock)

Approaching the issue of infidelity through virtue ethics, Halwani asserts that virtuous people can still have affairs and therefore it is not always wrong (given certain circumstances) to have an affair, although it may be a kind of moral failure (for not having the courage to bring up marital issues bf the affair happened). His claim is that love, trust, and affection are central to committed relationships and that when a relationship doesn't have that, such as in a marriage where say a man is abusing his wife and divorce isn't a logistically appealing option; he argues in this case that the woman still has a right to happiness and that having an affair gives her a certain validation that fulfills her need for happiness.

Opposing arguments which claim that personhood is determined by having human genetic code and therefore a fetus is a person deserving all the rights granted to an adult person, Warren argues that there are five traits that are central to determining personhood: 1. Consciousness (of objects and events external and/or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain 2. Reasoning (the DEVeloped capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems) 3. Self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control) 4. The capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types, that is, not just with an indefinite number of possible contents, but on indefinitely many possible topics 5. The presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness, either individual or racial, or both She argues that a fetus does not demonstrate these requisites for personhood and therefore it is not immoral (but perhaps indecent) to abort a fetus. She addresses the argument appealing to the fact that a fetus is a potential person by stating that a mother may have more rights than the fetus and those rights override the potential person's rights. She addresses objections that state her argument also allows for the killing of non-paradigm humans and infants by stating that her argument may not address that aspect but that it is wrong bc the infant isn't infringing on another's body and bc others see value in the infant (NOT bc the infant is a person)

Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible in certain circumstances. She begins by depicting her famous violinist example; you wake up to find that a famous violinist has involuntarily been hooked up to your kidneys and must stay there for nine months to live (Thomson argues that this example clearly demonstrates that abortion in the case of pregnancy via rape is not immoral). Then she depicts a burglar burgling a house which has been protected against but nonetheless is still susceptible to invasion, a case which she claims is still quite clearly immoral. She extends this analogy to 'people seeds' and then further to unwanted pregnancy despite birth control use to justify abortion in that case. She thinks that a Good Samaritan would keep the pregnancy but that if laws are in effect which restrict abortion, that those lawmakers and proponents of the law must equally enact Good Samaritan laws across the board, a notion which seems like too much to require out of citizens. She brings up the concept of a minimally decent Samaritan and thinks that people should at least be that. Her argument does not hinge upon the personhood of the fetus but rather the permission of it being implanted in the first place.

The authors argue that a fetus is already a complete (though immature) human being w a right to life. They assert that the fetus deserves this moral standing bc the direction of its growth is not extrinsically determined but rather it is internally directing its growth toward full humanity. They address no-person (dualist) arguments that a fetus is a human being but not a person by stating that we are not consciousnesses that possess or inhabit bodies but rather we ARE living bodily entities from the start. They address the no-person (evaluative) arguments that are similar to dualist but instead say that we are accidentally at some point in our lives bestowed personhood, but not at conception or as a fetus, by claiming that the fetus has the capacity to develop personhood just as the rest of it develops and that just bc it's not developed yet doesn't mean it doesn't deserve moral standing. They argue that abortion is not justified as non-intentional killing bc you need solid grounds to kill someone and pregnancy just isn't burdensome enough; they claim that fetuses and mothers also have a special connection which gives the mother special obligations to make sacrifices for the fetus and that quite frankly the abortion is too gruesome not to be considered non-intentional.

Marquis approaches the morality of abortion by concluding that killing a normal adult human is wrong in that it deprives the individual of all future experiences and activities of value. He believes that this extends to a fetus which he believes to also have a future of value. He responds to objections which state that, under that view, contraception and even natural family planning are immoral as well by defining four pre-fetal categories and addressing each one. 1. Some sperm or other, which is completely arbitrary bc it would exclude ovum 2. Some ovum or other, which is completely arbitrary bc it would exclude sperm 3. A sperm and an ovum separately 4. A sperm and an ovum together He addresses these points by stating that there is only one future not two at stake (as would imply both an ovum's future and the sperm's future) and that there is no non-arbitrary means of determining which futures are at stake bc millions of possible combinations are possible and therefore there is no actual combination

In likening euthanasia and PAS to suicide, Callahan asserts that people's negative responses to suicide is generally a good predictor of a moral problem and extends that to the subject at hand. He describes euthanasia as a social, not private, act and claims this by saying that a physician is involved (rather than suicide where it's just the person committing suicide) and that their relationship is private, likening it to dueling which is illegal. He worries about the doctor-patient relationship losing integrity bc doctors have both the means to kill people and a sort of apathy towards death. He also claims that a law permitting such a controversial action is difficult to enforce wout breaching doctor-patient confidentiality, that it sends a public message that there are more instances of permissible killing, and that the law would be subject to abuse. He supports the last claim by citing 'the Dutch experience' which found that out of 3300 euthanasia deaths, 50% weren't reported as euthanasia, 900 deaths were nonvoluntary and 100 deaths were involuntary (competent patients not asked for their consent). He believes that a law supporting euthanasia would be catering to a small minority.

Gill defends the autonomy-based justification of the Oregon law not bc he agrees w a libertarian but bc the people choosing PAS in their last six months don't have any major autonomous decisions left in life so dying is really the only decision they have left to make anyway through the candle example. He rejects the 'role of the physician' argument presented by citing that physicians are able to refuse to consent to participating in PAS requests and also by claiming that another role of the doctor, especially in terminal patients, is to reduce suffering and that PAS is justified on that ground. He finds problematic the principle of double effect (which says that it is morally licit to embrace a course of action that intends and serves a worthy goal (like relieving suffering) while employing means that may have, as an unintended and undesired consequence, some harm or evil to the patient) and rejects it on the grounds that the doctrine doesn't distinguish b/t withdrawal of treatment and PAS/euthanasia (which we seem to distinguish) and bc just bc it's been accepted in the medical profession as justification for doctors not to commit PAS doesn't mean it should be accepted.

Velleman begins by criticizing inconsistent terminology employed by Kantians when referring to Kant's notions of dignity and autonomy but that a moral justification of euthanasia is still plausible when considering Kant's proper terminology (but that many cases are paradoxical and therefore the option cannot be properly implemented). However, he concerns himself more so with the legal justification of euthanasia and promotes a consequentialist argument which says that having a legal option to die via euthanasia would cause an unacceptable number of people to select that option bc they cannot justify their existence. He considers social pressures as a salient factor in the decision to die if presented to the patient, and that many patients never question their existence until presented w the question and that question is particularly burdensome.

Singer argues that all animals are equal in terms of deserving moral consideration, but not all those rights are the same. Specifically, all animals are equally entitled to have the interests that they have (like feeling pain) taken into account but that not all animals have the same interests. He believes that ideologies promoting that only humans are worthy of moral consideration are inherently speciest bc there are animals who perhaps deserve more consideration than non-paradigm humans; he asserts that those ideologies are flawed bc we seem to think that even non-paradigm humans are worthy of moral consideration, so why shouldn't those animals?

Cohen asserts that animals do not have rights bc humans belong to a certain moral sphere in which rights talks happen and only humans belong to it so it extends to all members of the group. Bc animals do not have the capacity to discuss issues pertaining to morality, then they do not belong to the sphere which deserves moral consideration, or at least the same amount of moral consideration which humans deserve. He makes the distinction that inherent value can mean two things: inherent value which humans have just by being human, and inherent value bc something is irreplaceable (such as an animal life). He asserts that the first notion of inherent value is one which gives humans moral consideration rather than animals whereas the second notion simply makes immoral the senseless killing of irreplaceable life.

Warren distinguishes bt the content of a right (the sphere of activity the right protects) and its strength (the strength of reasons required for it to be legitimately overridden). She asserts that the content of the rights of members of a species depends on what its members require to pursue the needs and satisfactrions of a life that is natural to its species. Thus, sentient nonhuman animals have some rights to life, liberty (including freedom of movement), and happiness. However she further argues that bc humans desire liberty and life more strongly than nonhuman animals and bc humans possess moral autonomy whereas nonhuman animals do not, the rights of animals are weaker than the corresponding rights of humans. She addresses nonparadigm humans by saying that the potential for complete autonomy of infants/kids is enough to give them full consideration and that bc typical humans assign great value to nonparadigm humans we should see it fit to give them full consideration.

Rachels presents the analogy of a process which makes a very tasty w pleasant texture food which many people eat frequently, but the machine which makes such a food only uses 1 lb out of every 8-21 lbs of unprocessed food, thus being highly inefficient. He presents that this analogy is a reflection of the meat industry in the US and that it is highly objectionable not only bc it is so wasteful but bc there are so many people wout food in the world already. He does not include fish in his argument bc we don't feed them food which could be used for humans. He believes animals to be worthy of moral consideration on the grounds that many of them suffer but he does not believe that this alone means that humans are never permitted to consume meat. He is critical of the meat industry which often causes the suffering of animals in the process. He does not think all consumption of animals is morally objectionable, only that an animal meat industry is logistically unfeasible in the way that we in the US want meat.

Curnett rejects utilitarian and rights-based arguments against vegetarian by claiming that utilitarian ideology isn't necessarily incompatible w meat eating and that rights-based arguments, which assert that meat-eating is treating a rights-deserving animal as a means to our own end, are complicated bc it is not definitively true whether or not animals have inherent value in the first place. He explains his NEW argument: 1. Causing harm is prima facie morally wrong (he concedes that certain scenarios such as small-scale subsistence hunting and animals which have already died of non-human causes override this premise) 2. Killing animals causes them harm 3. Therefore, killing animals is prima facie morally wrong 4. Extensive animal-eating requires the killing of animals 5. Therefore, animal-eating is prima facie morally wrong 6. The wrongness of animal-eating is not overridden 7. Therefore, animal-eating is ultima facie morally wrong He also describes four grounds which are often presented against vegetarianism but he sees as flawed in pertaining to his argument: 1. Traditional-cultural reasons 2. Esthetic reasons 3. Convenience 4. Nutrition

LaFollete begins by describing two measurements of how people stand in the gun debate: to what extent should guns be available and to what extent should people be able to have them. He then says there are factors w/in both scales which determine a more specific stance. He goes on to claim that at most gun ownership may be a derived right. He assesses current empirical data on gun ownership and crime/defense and concludes that it is unreasonable to believe that an increase in guns will mark a decrease in crime. He ultimately favors increased gun control but thinks that perhaps it should be more criminal/there should be more oversight of the gun industry/gun ownership

Arguments which hypothesize the consequences of an action NOTE it is hard to use armchair arguments to generalize the consequences of an action but it is hard not to have empirical evidence that didn't start out as an armchair argument, so they can't be arbitrarily dismissed See LaFollette (Gun Control)

Hughes and Hunt argue that autonomy and equality are two ends of a spectrum and that specifically handgun ownership is in the middle of that spectrum. They argue that societies which emphasize autonomy, such as libertarian societies, favor personal autonomy, whereas societies which emphasize equality permit the government to make restrictions on one's autonomy in order to make a society more equal. They argue that gun ownership is an autonomous right but believe that liberal societies which seem to minimize the value of personal autonomy restrict gun ownership bc it is linked to crime when in fact, they assert, gun ownership actually equalizes people's ability to defend themselves. They address the risk of gun ownership to increase crime by asserting that it is perhaps more appropriate for restrictions to be put in place than for guns to be outright banned.

Pojman offers two sorts of arguments in defense of the death penalty: a backward-focused retributive argument and a forward-focused deterrence argument. The retributive argument deals with desert rather than revenge in that criminals who commit a capital crime deserve a capital punishment. The deterrence argument promotes a commonsense argument that dying for your crime is a worse punishment than jail time and that by seeing people dying for capital crimes in a consistent manner, it will deter would be criminals from committing those kinds of crimes. He brings up the 'Best Bet' argument which says that to bet against capital punishment is to bet against the innocent and for the murderer, while to bet for it is to bet against the murderer and for the innocent. He responds to objections by saying that we often permit things which we know will kill innocent people and that discriminatory policies should be reformed but that doesn't make capital punishment itself unjust.

Nathanson opposes views that support the death penalty on retributivist grounds, particularly 'equal' interpretations of retributive arguments. He generally supports proportional retributivism but thinks it could serve to be clearer in how it interprets the morality of the death penalty. He believes that abolishing the death penalty would better enforce the sanctity of human life and demonstrate more regard of human dignity.

Reiman rejects the common sense argument supporting the death penalty on four grounds: 1. Even if one penalty is feared greater than another, it is not safe to conclude that the more feared will deter more than the less feared unless it is known that the less feared is not fearful enough to deter everyone who can be deterred (which seems to be supported by empirical data on the subject) 2. One is likely to end up dead just in the process of committing a crime, as there are many people who own guns and cops kill suspected felons in the line of duty at a considerable rate, and thus this should already serve as a deterrent 3. Arguments which say that the death penalty sends a clear message about the wrongness of murder fail to take into account that NOT killing murderers may also send a message about the wrongness of murder 4. A reductio ad absurdum argument against the common sense argument is that common sense either has to permit death by torture, which is worse than a simple execution, or no death penalty should no evidence be found which makes the death penalty appear as a valid deterrent

Wasserstrom is critical of moral nihilism, the view that there's no morality in war so there's no point in talking about it. His main objection is with the prescriptive argument that the one thing you're supposed to do in war is win for your side, which he doesn't accept bc he believes that in general if you have specific obligations to people that doesn't override your moral obligations. An example of such which he presents is the lawyer who tries to win for the guilty person but not to the extent that they're killing witnesses. He ultimately asserts that we shouldn't completely ignore lives on the other side of a war even if it's in our best interest to save our lives.

Sterba formulates his own theory called 'just war pacifism' as an intersection of just war theory and pacifism. Just war theory has two components: just cause and just means. He believes that the combination of just war theory and pacifism renders the most morally defensible interpretation of just war theory in that it: 1. Allows the use of belligerent means against unjust aggressors only when such means minimize the loss and injury to innocent lives overall 2. Allows the use of belligerent means against unjust aggressors to indirectly threaten innocent lives only to prevent the loss of innocent lives, not simply to prevent injury to innocents 3. Allows the use of belligerent means to directly or indirectly threaten, or even take the lives of, unjust aggressors when it is the only way to prevent serious injury to innocents He identifies nonviolent pacifism as maintaining that any use of violence against other human beings is morally prohibited, even in cases of self-defense. Sterba argues that only very rarely is participation in a massive use of lethal force in warfare morally justified. His response to 9/11 is that the US should: 1. Let Israel know that continued support is dependent upon the establishment of a Palestinian state and the passing of relevant UN resolutions 2. Expand the oil-for-food program as one measure of increasing humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people 3. Three to six months of serious diplomatic negotiations to bring Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders before US or international court, offering substantial incentives for those who aid in this happening. Also, end the military campaign and return to nonbelligerent correctives such as good detective and police work

Shue explains the wrongness of torture by appeal to a general prohibition to protect the defenseless in the context of war. He examines terrorist torture, objecting to it on the grounds that it is a clear violation of the Kantian principle not to treat people as a means to an end. He also examines interrogational torture and concludes that it may be justified in the case of someone who definitely is withholding critical information and the torture is performed in a highly humane manner with much oversight. However, he admits that this scenario is very nearly implausible in real life and ultimately concludes that effectively, all kinds of torture are immoral.

Dershowitz begins by presenting the ticking bomb case and argues from an act utilitarian perspective that it is permissible. He then argues that a democratic society governed by the rule of law should never declare some action to be absolutely wrong, yet knowingly do it off the books. Because he believes torture to be morally permissible in extreme cases where it is deemed necessary, he proposes a system of judicial 'torture warrants' to be instituted as part of a legal system regulating the practice. He argues that a torture warrant system would allow for those cases but provide the necessary oversight and regulation to make sure that torture isn't performed when it's not supposed to be and that it is practiced as humanely as possible.

Lackey begins by claiming there is no moral distinction between preventive force and preemptive force given that a certain series of steps, of varying commitment to the action, are followed in order to take a certain action and that morality doesn't seem to make a distinction between varying degrees of 'commitment' on a continuum. He then goes to demonstrate that the steps to take an action are really only known from a God's eye view and that not only is it difficult to draw conclusions from actions wout the God's eye view but that the government often cannot even accurately predict the actions of other nations. He worries about the innocent people killed when taking preventive/preemptive force. He seems to believe that one's true intentions can't be known until that person has acted on those intentions.