Sex and Morals

 Alan Goldman’s “Plain Sex” discusses Goldman’s views of sex essentially is about the desires to be in contact with another person’s body and the pleasure it gives. He thinks that sex doesn’t mean to necessarily mean anything. Goldman views that there is not moral issues when it comes to sex. He says, “ To the question of what morality might be implied by my analysis, the answer is that there are no moral implications whatever.” Even though Goldman thinks that sex doesn’t correlate with morals he does say, “rape is always a sexual act and it is always immoral.” Harm is definitely an important factor of something that is not moral, but it isn’t the only thing that can determine what is moral and what is not. Ethics provides numerous ways of testing morality of any type of action, including sex. For example, you can ask yourself if your behavior in certain sexual activities is contradicting the traditional values and religion you follow and obey to. Or you could ask yourself if you are forming particular bad habits that could hinder with your future.  These are obviously not the only questions you could ask yourself, but the point is that you shouldn’t dismiss these morality principles and only abide to the principle of harm.

Goldman thinks there is no morality to sex itself, but as you can see many factors could determine the morality of the sexual behavior. I don’t think you can just acknowledge harm and not any other moral values. 

Plain Sex

I agree with Alan Goldman in his article, “Plain Sex”, that there are no moral implications when it comes to sex, but “any analysis of sex which imputes a moral character to sex acts in themselves is wrong for that reason.  There is no morality intrinsic to sex, though general moral rules apply to the treatment of others in sex acts as they apply to all human relations.”  Sex is a natural thing and it is not wrong to indulge in it if you want to.  If you want to wait until marriage or just do it whenever you feel like it then go ahead and do that.  You can do whatever you want as long as it does not go against any morals on how to treat people.  You cannot harm others, deceive them, or make them do anything against their will.  Sex has no moral implications unless you do anything that goes against other moral rules.  Many people have differences when it comes to sex and I think it is perfectly fine to go with whatever you believe because there is nothing morally wrong with it.  Everyone should just do what they are comfortable with and what they feel they want to do.  There is no right or wrong when it comes to sex.  No one should be a loud to judge anyone for what they decide to do.  Sex is a perfectly heathy thing that is a part of life and everyone does at some point in their life.         

On Consensual "Plain Sex"

In “Plain Sex,” Alan Goldman develops a very liberal ideal of sexual morality, which claims that “[t]here is no morality intrinsic to sex, although general moral rules apply to the treatment of others in sex acts” (part VI, paragraph 1). His definition of acceptable treatment is, however, troubling. Relating Kant’s demand for reciprocity to sexual morality, Goldman argues that as long as “one recognizes a partner as a subject with demands and desires by yielding to those desires [and] by allowing oneself to be a sexual object as well” (part VI, last paragraph), coitus is morally acceptable. Although Goldman seems to be okay with acts that involve mutually using one another, his logic here is flawed.

    Goldman recognizes the Kantian argument that sex acts with the only intention of satisfying sexual drive lead to “treating another as a means to a private end” (part VI, last paragraph), but he glosses over it with the reciprocity argument. It is not morally permissible to objectify a human being, even if that person objectifies you and you have each consented, because in doing so, one “detaches” the personhood of another human being, in which case one enters an “anything goes” situation in regards to moral permissibility. This is because the personhood is an important attribute to ethical concern. I put “detaches” in quotes because one cannot truly remove the personhood from someone else. Once personhood is associated with a human being (for instance, at conception, the third trimester of gestation, birth, etc.), it remains an attribute of that human until it no longer does. [Personally, this would be at the time of death; however, others may make cases for comatose or vegetative people, or for a variety of other “near death” cases. These are irrelevant to this argument.] Therefore, sexual activity with a person (someone who has personhood) that uses that person for one’s personal gains is immoral. Consent here does not matter, since the personhood is not something that can be willingly given up for the time being.

    If we follow the assumption that objectification does detach the personhood from a human being, we still see problems with Goldman’s argument in the matter of subjectivity and objectivity. We regard a subject as a person with rights that should be respected. An object, therefore, lacks these rights and personhood. Goldman argues that that the sexual partners are consenting for mutual objectification. This is a fallacious, because a subject gives someone the okay to be treated as an object. The partner would then give consent to an object to be treated as an object. The problem with this is that a subject cannot give consent to an object, because an object would be lacking personhood.  Taking Aristotle’s view of a person as a rational, social animal, we see that the object would lack also rational or free thinking. Since consent cannot be given to an object, which lacks free thinking, Goldman’s argument here does not make sense.

Thoughts on Bottling Desires and Sexual Morality

Scruton argues that the reason for a “cult of innocence”, or the practice of educating young people about sex purely through rationality and without any hand-on-experience, is that spoiling this innocence leads to an imbalance of virtue. The term innocence seems vague but it is not used that way; sexual desire will be had regardless, but it can be bottled up or let loose (both extremes of the virtue of sexual morality). When such desires are bottled up it can lead to unhealthy expressions/outlets of those desires, while letting loose with such desires causes an agent to comprehend sex as an entirely physical action with a body, not with the person whom that body belongs to. A balance of sexual morality is achieved, according to Scruton, by teaching sex while encouraging chastity until a more perfect form of desire (which is both overwhelming and intentionally controlled) can be targeted on a “project” or true love for marriage. Though based in Aristotle’s Nichomachean ethics, or virtue ethics, following the middle ground virtue tends to lead to a “greater good” result than the extremes do. Scruton devalues over-indulging in sex because it leads to an under-appreciation for it, and therefore less enjoyment gained from it. Bottling up the desires is devalued because then a personal cannot target their desires onto a “project” in a healthy way and, ultimately, fulfillment of such desires is a two-person job. The question could be raised as to whether Scruton is headed in the right direction with sexual morality. I would argue that he is, though as always I am tempted to do so from a utilitarian basis. Within an individual, desires can build and be released, and both the building and releasing of desire can “feel good”. However, a lack of or excess of anything is bad. For example, not eating healthy vegetables is bad, but eating so many that you don’t eat other food groups or eating so many that you gain weight would be bad. Similarly, Aristotle’s ethics such as pride and temperance all are good in moderation but not in excess or too little. Just so, an excess of building up desire without releasing it could lead to someone releasing desire in an unhealthy (unskillful) way such as rape, and as Scruton says an excess of releasing of desire leads to an under-appreciation for the experience. It seems to me that not all (extreme Catholic viewpoints and such) but a few ideas of the “good” like Aristotle’s “happiness” are all maximized by balancing sexual virtue through sex education but delaying the act itself.

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.

Response to J.J. Thompson

Judith Jarvis Thomspon's defense of why abortion is not always immoral is the most convincing argument I have read for that position. She does not tackle the seemingly impossible task of determining whether or not a fetus is "human," but rather concedes that it is. Instead, she provides a series of examples, the violinist examples, of how one would not be morally obligated to keep another person alive and compares that to the situation of a pregnant mother. Although I find her arguments appealing for several reasons I have two primary concerns:  1) I think it is arguable that the "hooked up to a violinist"/"people-seeds" examples are dis-analogous to the mother-child relationship.

1) I wonder: would the answer be the same in the examples if she hooked heself up to the violinist, he became dependent, and then she wanted to take him off? Or maybe not even chose (as that would imply the woman chose to get pregnant) but rather willingly admitted herself to the hospital knowing that there was a good chance she would get hooked up to the violinist? Or would it be the same if she "created" the violinst and then wanted to take him off? The case of Henry Fonda's soft hands being needed to save a life, for example, is potentially dis-analogous, in the sense that, yes, Henry Fonda is not obligated to wipe his hand on my brow but that perhaps my mother would be. Furthermore, I believe in the people seeds case the relationship between being stuffy, opening a (protected) window, and people seeds floating in, is different from the relationship between having protected sex and getting pregnant. The latter deed is more directly related to its consequence, if anything, biologicllay speaking, its consequence is the intended purpose rather than a completely random side effect. I do not have a fully formulated argument for how the mother-child relationship (or sex and getting pregnant versus opening a window and seeds floating in example) may be different but if it some how is, which instinctively we often hold that it is, then the examples of what a person is not obliged to do for another person may not hold up.

Ultimately, her people seeds example is the only one that really attempts to argue for abortions that I find potentially questionable. I agree that in cases of rape and to avoid death abortion is permissible and therefor the examples before I am more than willing to concede. Although I think its possible for the people seeds example to be dis-analogous, even if is not, it still only make permissible abortions where the woman took all necessary precautions to prevent pregnancy, and that is extremely hard to prove.

Last blog before fall break

I think that Marquis does an excellent job arguing his view on why abortion is immoral. It’s smart that he precedes his argument by pointing out that the standard prochoice and prolife arguments are both not particularly strong.  The author says, “a sketch of standard antiabortion and prochoice arguments exhibits how those arguments possess certain symmetries that explain why partisans of those positions are so convinced of the correctness of their own positions, why they are not successful in convincing their opponents, and why, to others, this issue seems to be unresolvable”. Marquis believes that antiabortion arguments are too broad and prochoice arguments are too narrow. In order to resolve this conflict he suggests that the reasoning behind the belief that “killing another person is immortal” should be revisited. Marquis suggests that killing another person is immoral and wrong because it “deprives that person of his or her future”.  Therefore, killing of a fetus is wrong because they would have a “future like ours”. I think that this is a smart angle to use because it does not bring up the age old argument of whether or not a fetus is actually a person. I think this will probably be something that people will always disagree on and therefore, the debate on abortion whether abortion is immoral will never be agreed upon.  I think the “value-of-a-future-like-ours” argument is strong because it takes away the central argument that prochoice people use. However, there is one flaw that the author notes is possible with his argument, which involves contraception. The author does successfully counteracts this by saying that at what point that there is “no  nonarbitrary identifiable subject of the loss in the case of contraception”.  I think that contraception is irrelevant because this is strictly about abortion. In addition, just because his argument works for abortion doesn’t mean that it has to work for a related topic. 

Wrongness of Killing

            In “Why Abortion is Immoral”, Don Marquis claims that killing a person is wrong because everyone has a right to a future, and killing a person deprives them of this right. As a result, abortion is immoral because it deprives the fetus its right to a future. He mentions several arguments that an opponent may utilize to explain the wrongness of killing, including one he refers to as the desire account. This view claims that killing is wrong because people have a desire to live, and being killed prevents them from fulfilling that desire, which is also a particularly valuable desire because it is required to fulfill any other desires. Marquis disagrees with this because even though some people do not desire to live, it is still wrong to kill them.

It seems to me that this same idea presents a problem for Marquis’ argument as well, since people are able to refuse rights just as they are able to not possess a certain desire. For instance, while anyone being arrested has the right to remain silent, many people choose to waive this right. If it is indeed wrong to kill someone who chooses to relinquish their right to a future, then it is wrong even in the absence of that right and it would seem that it would not be what determines the wrongness of killing. In both the value-of-a-future account and the desire account, the wrongness of killing is based on the its denying a person something, however this is not compatible with his claim that it is wrong to kill people that have chosen to deny themselves either a future or a desire. 

Marquis on Contraception

In part five of the Marquis piece, he briefly addresses the possible wrongness of contraception. Contraception’s goal is to keep an egg and sperm from coming together during sexual intercourse. Since a fetus cannot be formed if the egg and sperm cannot come together, there is a loss of “potential value” that could have happened if the contraception had not been used. This loss of potential value is the only argument Marquis addresses for the case that contraception is wrong. He concludes that millions of egg and sperm combinations are lost at the point of contraception, and therefore a non-arbitrary line cannot be drawn, thus making contraception not immoral. However, I wish to go even further than where he stops at. Let’s say that only one egg and one sperm are released at the time of conception. Would this change his conclusion? I think it would based on his loss-of-a-future-like –ours argument he uses in his essay. Using contraception would prevent the one and only potential value that occurs during sexual intercourse, as opposed to the many combinations lost under real life conditions. Having one sperm and one egg draws a non-arbitrary line which I believe Marquis would not want to cross. The reason has to do with the intent of an action. I want to reiterate I am not speaking of a formed fetus after conception. I am only speaking of potential life value that would be lost from keeping a sperm from getting to an egg. Marquis seems to indicate that when two human beings engage in an action that is directed at uniting an egg and a sperm (and if a definite line could be drawn, such as one egg and one sperm), then he would say that contraception is wrong. 

Response to Thomson

Thomson discusses the idea of self-defense and a right to life in her piece. She talks about how  the right to life is not an absolute right, which would make abortion, in some cases, morally permissible. With this idea in mind, she also says that people do not a duty to save others and I would like to back that up by saying I agree and that one has more of a duty to save themselves in cases when your life is at stake. However, in cases where you have the chance to help another person and there is no risk to you, I believe you have a moral duty to help that person. I want to look at a common case that is brought up, the pregnant woman finds out that the birth of the child will kill her unless she gets an abortion, in which case she can save her life. I believe that in cases such as this it is acceptable for the woman to have an abortion if she finds value in her life and her future, which is an argument that Marquis brings up in his piece. She is the thinker in this case and has control of the situation, while unfortunately the unborn baby, who also has a lot of potential in its future life, does not have much of a say in the decision made. The mother has a duty to herself. Another case that can be used for this situation would be the case with the unconscious violinist that is hooked up to you for survival. I believe that in a case such as this it would be morally inexcusable for you to not help the violinist. If you have the resources to help someone and it  does not harm you in anyway then you have a moral duty to help that person. You can help the violinist and cause no harm to yourself while saving another valuable life. This relates back to the abortion in the sense that if you choose to have an abortion and kill the potential life for no reason other than it would be an inconvenience to you then I believe it  to be morally inexcusable as well. However, for me, outstanding circumstances that put either the mother or life after birth of the child at risk, then I find the abortion to be excusable in a sense. There is a certain threshold or criteria that I would need to work out in order to set a line as to what are acceptable risks. My main concern is that the person in question has a duty to themselves overall, but that does not mean they do not have a duty to others as well. A scenario I think that will relate well to my overall thoughts is when you are on a plane and the air masks come down you are supposed to help yourself first and then help those around you. You have to put yourself first in order to help those that need help.

Response to Marquis

In his arguments against abortion, Marquis neglects to take into account the way children are produced in the context he describes.  Producing a living person in the way Marquis describes does not happen in a lab, but rather requires the woman to carry a child inside her body.  Marquis does mention that if the mother’s life is at risk during the pregnancy, he finds it acceptable to terminate the pregnancy, but provides no further mention of the mother in the context of pregnancy, an essential step before prescribing what she must do with her body.

In addition, he stumbles when he makes comparisons to abortion. It is not an appropriate analogy to compare abortion being wrong to it being “wrong to kill us.”  In no way is it the same to have an abortion and to murder a living breathing human being.  He attempts to justify this claim by establishing that fetuses have potential to have a “valuable future” (263).  Marquis definitely oversimplifies pregnancy for the reason mentioned in the previous paragraph.  A “valuable future” is not enough of a link between the case of abortion and killing a living person.  They are different in many ways.  Marquis may be correct in arguing that though one might not be able to comprehend value or positively value life, it does not make their existence trivial.  However, he does not establish an acknowledgement that the “valuable future” of a child depends on so many factors. 

Not all of those who approve of abortion misunderstand the importance of life and the potential for life.  I am not making the argument that the potential mothers are more (or less) important than the potential child.  I am saying that Marquis’ argument does not account for the complexity of pregnancy as it pertains to a woman carrying a child in her body, and the way it affects all living people who are affected by the pregnancy.  Though it may be true that “embryos can be victims” (265), it is also true that the “valuable future” of each person affected by the pregnancy-some of which Marquis neglects to address-is influenced by the decision to have a child.  The potential future of the potential child must be considered, but the mother and father’s futures must also be considered.  The families of the potential mother and father are affected as well.  The child’s future is not necessarily ignored or trivialized in the choice to terminate a pregnancy.  Marquis argues that no one has the right to take way the potentially “valuable future,” but does not predict or refute the counterargument that certain situations exist that provide a child very little possibilities to have a “valuable future.”  It is not enough to say that the small amount of potential for a "valuable future" is enough because he does not consider these factors. If Marquis wanted to have a strong argument against abortion, he would have to take a step back, and acknowledge the numerous factors he neglects to account for in his argument.

Thomson and Self-Defense

            In the reading, two viewpoints are discussed; the viewpoint of Marquis which focuses on the idea that abortion is always wrong, and the viewpoint of Thomson which states that abortion is not necessarily wrong and there are times when it is morally permissible. For the sake of this post, I would like to focus on the section dealing with Thomson’s views on abortion.  Although I feel as if I have some bias towards agreeing with Thomson, due to the fact that I am pro-choice, she does in fact make some good points as to when and why an abortion would be morally permissible.

Thomson claims that “even if a fetus has a right to life, it may still lack a right to use the mother’s body” (267), which then yields the assumption that abortion is permissible when there is a possibility that the mother’s body is in danger. Thomson uses the example of a mother with a heart condition; if the mother carries her fetus to term, she will die, but the mother cannot be expected to “sit passively by and wait for her death” (270) in which case, an abortion would be morally permissible. I agree with Thomson that if one is to get pregnant, but learns that she has a condition that would put herself in danger if she carried the child to term and birthed it, that woman should be allowed to have an abortion that’s considered morally permissible. As Thomson argues, an abortion in this case would be considered to some extent self-defense if the pregnant mother acts in such a way that would preserve her own life (i.e. getting an abortion due to medical conditions). To branch off of this view, I feel that Thomson would also agree that if it is determined that the child were to have a health condition that would not allow it to survive to term, or much past term, that abortion would also be morally permissible. For example, if a woman were to find out that the fetus she was carrying had Tay Sachs, a genetic disease that ultimately leads to the child’s death, an abortion of that child would be a morally permissible act because now it is not the woman defending herself against death, but rather saving her child from a short-lived life of suffering. Since Thomson would agree that an abortion is morally permissible if suffering is imposed, it would seem that aborting a fetus that is positive for the Tay Sachs disease would also be morally permissible. 

Whose Line Is It Anyway?

In Marquis’s argument, he mentions that an antiabortionist’s view is primarily supported by the idea that it is wrong to take the life of an innocent human being away. While I agree that there should be certain cut off points where abortion is no longer permissible, I think that saying that a fetus has life upon conception is a little out of line. While the fetus has potential to become a baby, until it actually happens I think it should not be considered murder to have an abortion.

One example that came to mind is as follows: you know that in a hospital that is on fire, there is an infant, and a petri dish containing an embryo. Which one do you save first? It goes without saying that the actual corporeal baby’s life is a little more worth it because the one in the petri dish, despite its potential to become an actual human being, isn’t quite a baby yet.

Marquis talks a lot about the accounts that give a person the right to live, one of them involving potential or contribution. The idea of saving the embryo because of its potential is unfair because a lot of the time the argument does not consider the potential of the mother in that same sense. Wouldn’t her potential also be compromised? While neither lives’ potential are guaranteed, I think that the mother potential, more often than not can show more promise that a baby who hasn’t had a chance to be born yet. The mother has contributed more in life, and is in a better position to continue doing so. Even if she were a drug addict or someone who was in a bad position, not allowing the mother to have an abortion will more than likely make things worse. Except this time, the baby is committing the crime, since it takes more from the mother when she is already at such a low point in her life. 

In terms of the “right” to take away someone’s life,  I think that until the baby is out of the mother’s womb once at for all, or has reached a point where it could come out (pre-mature, before the 9 months are up) its life is not similar to that of a live baby. Therefore, should the mother decide to have an abortion (for acceptable reasons) it should not be considered taking a life away.

The only scenario where I think that abortion is not morally permissible is when the mother is fully capable (physically) to raise the kid, or has some means to do it, whatever the difficulty. For cases such as rape, or where the mother’s life is at stake, or even if the mother is too young to raise a child (under 18) I think abortion should be an option to the mother. 

Blog post 6

   In "Why Abortion is Immoral," Marquis states that pro-choicers make the claim that "it is only seriously prima facie wrong to take the life of a member of a human community."  I have some objections to that particular statement.  I would pose the question: "Is it okay to take the life of a hermit or an outcast?"  This person is not a member of society but does that mean that their life is not worthwhile?  I would argue that whether or not a person is a member of a human community bears no weight in this discussion.  A person's life should not rely on their role in their community.
   In the same argument, Don Marquis also says that the pro-choicers' claim is generally accepted.  I would argue that that claim is far-reaching and not backed up.  A serial killer is an member of a human community. By claiming that it is widely accepted that taking the life of a member of a human community is prima facie wrong, it is making the claim that even taking the life of a serial killer, for example, is wrong.  The question of whether or not taking a serial killer's life is permissible is not what is in question here, however it should be noted that the fate of this serial killer is not generally accepted.  There is much debate about the morality of the death penalty.   It could be argued that a serial killer is not a member of the human community.  In the Merriam-Webster's dictionary definition of community, it is defined as a group of people who live in the same area.  This would show that a serial killer could definitely be a part of a community, and still have the question of whether or not it is wrong to take his or her life up for debate.

Thompson's View on Abortion

For the most part, I agree with Judith Jarvis Thompson that abortion is not necessarily wrong and is sometimes morally permissible.  Thompson speaks a lot about the slippery slope arguments in which complete anti-abortionists portray about the life of a baby. I liked his analogy about the development of a baby to an acorn and a tree. I believe that a lot of the debate about whether abortion should be permissible or not is based upon the idea when the person considers the fetus a life. I agree that there is a point where abortion should not be permissible; however, I do not think that the moment a baby is conceived it should have as much weight as me.  Thompson also debates the scenarios in which the mother is raped, or would cause strain or even death to the mother.  Extreme anti-abortionists would argue that the fetus has a right to a life and outweighs the needs of the mother. However, I do not believe that is correct.

All of the scenarios in which Thompson debates I believe would be scenarios in which abortion would be permissible.  Thompson says that “If they have taken all reasonable precautions against having a child, they do not simply by virtue of their biological relationship to the child who comes into existence have a special responsibility for it. They may wish to assume responsibility for it, or they may not (276).” This goes off of the idea that even though Thompson and I believe that abortion is not impermissible, it is not always permissible. I do not believe that someone should be allowed to get an infinite amount of abortions, especially when they are being selfless and careless. It should be said that not all anti-abortionists are extreme to the case that the fetus’s life outweighs the mother, however I believe each case should be examined individually. I think it is very hard to pose an opinion when there is an infinite amount of cases that could be proposed dealing with abortion. 

Marquis's incorrect application of the FLO argument

            While Marquis’s assessment of the reason for which we consider killing wrong seems accurate, I do not think it makes sense to speak about depriving something of having a future like ours until there exists a being that has had and will have a consciousness.  Of course, Marquis would say that this is not necessary, but I think the case of contraception sufficiently shows that applying the FLO argument without looking first for such a being can lead to some issues.

            While I agree that both looking at the future of the sperm or ovum individually or looking at the two futures of the sperm and ovum as two things have problems, looking at the one future of the ovum and sperm together does not.  Marquis says that doing so does not make sense because there is “no actual combination at all” due to the large number of sperm released at a time, while ignoring the fact that we can simply look at the future of the ovum and the sperm that would have combined with the ovum.  Just because there are many possibilities does not mean that using contraception will not have prevented one of those possibilities.  When performing IVF, often multiple embryos will be implanted even though ideally only one would implant and become a baby.  If someone destroys all the embryos, isn’t a pregnancy prevented?  Just because there were multiple possibilities and it was not clear which embryo would actually have become the baby does not mean that a pregnancy was not prevented.  Similarly, just because there are many sperm does not mean that contraception does not prevent the formation of a zygote that has a future like ours.

            If this is true, it seems to me that Marquis has two options: 1) decide that the sperm and ovum do have a future like ours or 2) decide that the sperm and ovum do not have a future like ours.  If he chooses 1, I feel that I could keep going down the line as ask why then it is not wrong to prevent someone from eating a hamburger because the carbon atoms in the hamburger could have formed the makeup of a fetus that has a future like ours.  It seems that there would have to be a point where he says something like, “This now falls into the biological category where we can consider its (or their) future (like ours)”, a move which he resists in the context of the antiabortion argument.  If he chooses 2, it seems that he is assigning some sort of status to the fetus that the ovum and sperm do not have rather than looking only at their futures.  At this point, he would have to engage in the same discussion about the status of the fetus that he was trying to avoid in the first place.

            Therefore, I do not think the FLO argument can be properly applied without a being that has had and will have a consciousness.  Once there is such a being, it is clear whose future is being cut off.  Otherwise, issues will arise like the ones seen in the contraception objection in which there is either no point or an arbitrary point at which a future suddenly becomes relevant.  Of course, issues like “what is consciousness” will become problems from accepting my position, but I think the issues with the Marquis’s application of the FLO argument are far more serious.

Abortion and Cancer Cells

Don Marquis says “it is always prima facie wrong to take a human life seems to entail that it is wrong to end the existence of a living human cancer cell culture, on the grounds that the culture is both living and human.  Therefore, it seems that the antiabortionist’s favored principle is too broad” (258).  Marquis should not be comparing killing cancer cells to the killing of a fetus.  They are nothing alike.  Cancer is harmful to a human while a fetus is not.  Cancer needs to be killed if it is growing inside a human because if it is not it can kill the human either slowly or very fast.  It just continues to grow and grow until it causes everything in the body to shut down or stop working correctly.  A fetus is a growing baby that eventually comes out naturally.  It is not usually harmful to the human.  A fetus should not be killed unless it is going to kill the women it is inside of.  Cancer should always be killed so it doesn’t kill the human it is in.  Cancer is a very dangerous and horrible thing.  If you have ever seen someone die because of it you would know how painful a death it can cause.  A fetus usually does not cause pain until it is coming out of the human, but this pain usually does not cause death because it is a natural thing and it is the coming of new life into the world.  If you do not want the baby after it is born you can just put it up for adoption instead of killing it before it even has a chance to live.  Cancer cells and a fetus are two completely different things that should not be compared in the aspect of killing them.  One is very harmful to a human while the other is just the creation of new life.         

A Right to Life or a Right to Self?

Thompson asserts that in a situation where two people are involved, one whose life is threatened and one who threatens it, the threatened person has a right to take the life of the other to save their own (aka self-defense). This applies even when both people are innocent such as in the abortion case being argued or the dying violinist/giant growing baby scenarios laid out by Thompson. This is in attempt to counter the “extreme view” that abortion is never okay even to save the mother’s life because indirectly letting the mother die is better than directly murdering the innocent fetus (speaking of which, I am impressed that Thompson entertains the oppositions premise that life starts at contraception and still argues for the right to abortion). Ultimately, I agree with Thompson’s view on the “right to life”. In every case laid out it comes down to the fact that someone may not use another person against their will, even if it will save a life. This applies mostly to the situation wherein the mother does not want the baby for any legitimate reason (it will kill the mother or put a huge tax on her health/life). I find this idea a little jarring at first because I largely agreed  with the Utilitarian point of view and it seems strange to sacrifice a life for the sake of the quality of another, but really this view fits in with the Kantian schema. Thompson thinks that there are constraints against maximizing the good, in this case, it is not okay to keep the mother from aborting the child because she has a right to choose how her body is used even in the case of using it to save someone else’s life (like the violinist case). However, the constraint seems to go quite far and I’m not sure I agree with that. Thompson says that if pregnancy only lasted an hour and had no negative effects on the mother, the mother does not need to go full term because while it would be a kindness to do so she has no obligation to allow another person to use her body. Supposedly this is callous, greedy behavior but not unjust or “wrong” behavior. I disagree that the constraint against using somebody is so large that it applies even to this case. Just as in the problem of drawing a line where a fetus becomes a person, I think that just because it is difficult to draw a line where a person can or cannot be used to help another does not mean that there is no line to be drawn.

Virtue in a State of Vice

Like virtually all ethical theories, Virtue Theory makes me a little uncomfortable. It misses something about my thinking. Hursthouse makes great points when showing that common criticisms of virtue theory apply to utilitarianism and deontology too. My issue is that they all share a fundamental flaw: in utilitarianism it’s that maximizing the good requires a path of great conflict, even revolution, which will include bad things, in deontology respecting the good puts respect for the society that gives me life at odds with the same society that is contemptuous of what’s good, and virtue theory asks that I be virtuous in a society of vice. What’s the use in being virtuous if normalcy is vice?

To answer this I think that virtue theory needs emphasis on a specific virtue. I think that virtue theory requires a little renowned character trait, rebellious, daring, queer, strange, uncompromising, introspective, critical, radical. The core of this thought is demanding of someone to be self-critical in thought and action, and holding this virtue as high as any other. To understand it more the vice sounds useful. To be deficient in self-critical virtue one may be complicit in everything, lacking in any sense of rebellion or even debate. To be excessive in self-critical virtue one may be unable to act as one is wrapped up in ones own ideology or perhaps they’re self-destructive and incapable of stability. This attribute is essential to contextualizing oneself and applying the other virtues. The balance of an identity and questioning oneself is essential to making virtues more than just a path to an easy life.

Hursthouse Virtue Theory and Abortion Response

Hursthouse says that there are often cases of abortion when a woman says, “‘ I am not ready for parenthood yet’” (242). These cases Hurthouse says are sometimes this way simply because the woman cares only about perfection. The woman does not feel financially secure with taking care of the baby in the sense that it would not be the perfect life she dreamed of. When going against this perfect life idea, I agree with Hursthouse that chasing a perfect life is nearly impossible because there are a lot of obstacles that come in the way which from “living the dream”. As an example, if you are looking for the perfect husband and you keep dating and dating other guys, but you keep dumping them because none of them are perfect, you lose out on a happy life. This can cause you to be unhappy all the time.

However in the case of going through with an abortion out of genuine fear and not out of cowardice, I believe that it is still not the right decision to go through with the abortion. This is because if the person cares about the “soon to be child” then she would do all that she ought to do to be able to bear the child and take care for it. I believe that anyone who puts in the effort can succeed in whatever they want. Rather than being worried about the consequences she should be worried about the amount of energy she is willing to spend on baby. Since this is also a case of lacking virtuous character when having the baby, I believe that it is not enough to just have guilt over the decision. It would not be deemed virtuous to abort the child because the virtuous idea would be to work harder in order to take care of the baby.

Fetuses as Innocent Bystanders

Judith Thompson argues that a fetus does not have the right to infringe upon its mother's right to survival. However, what if the infringing was being done not by the fetus directly, but instead by a deadly gene? Consider a hypothetical gene that causes the fetus to indirectly kill the mother at birth, yet allows for the baby to be delivered properly. The fetus did nothing to receive such a gene, it was passed down by its parents. Would this hypothetical gene still be infringing upon the mother's rights? What if the mother herself new that such a gene existed in her own DNA? The point is that the fetus may not have an entitlement to the mother's body, but neither is it responsible for this infringement. In other words, to give the fetus personage would be forcing us to make it an innocent bystander in this scenario. The fetus does not leech resources from the mother because it has the active will to do so, it is merely wired to do this via its genes. It does not make the choice to become a parasite to the mother's body. Since it does not (cannot) bear ill-will towards the mother it is a bystander. Therefore, it is fair to conclude that to undergo an abortion would be the equivalent of killing an innocent bystander. Normally, to prevent this, we would simply avoid the case where the mother endangers herself, but this is not possible because she is pregnant. To avoid this scenario after conception would be to get an abortion. Yet, to get an abortion would be to kill an innocent bystander. I believe to argue for abortion we should abandon that a fetus (or later stages of a fetus) may have personage and argue that it does not, and so in certain situations abortion is perfectly acceptable.

Abortion and a Short Reaction to Metions About Fetuses

About Abortion in General

It is mentioned many times that virtue theory cannot accurately explain what is the correct choice with abortion based on women's rights and stages of the fetus. It was hard to follow, but the gist of the argument was that abortion is fine under the right conditions that do not make apparent of deficiencies or excesses. Which is tough to do because it is said that a woman who becomes pregnant always faces the fact that they cannot deal with a child because they lack "strength, independence, resoluteness, decisiveness, self-confidence, responsibility, serious-mindedness, and self-determination" (243) and think they lack one of the aforementioned character traits which leads to them convincing themselves that a virtue of theirs is deficient and thus cannot be a parent. This situation was called to be a moral failing, in that the woman was to blame for being deficient in one of the virtues and being problematic. It is tough to disagree based on virtue theory because if you DO lack one of those virtues, and you are convinced you lack one of those virtues, you ultimately decide you need an abortion and it'd be the right choice, but you would fail on a moral standing because you were deficient in a sense that prevented you from being able to have a child. Its a win lose situation where the woman is in fact doing the right thing, but morally is on bad footing due to her inability to be a parent. I would have to agree, but hesitantly because in such a case if you feel you are not up for being a parent because you current person is not prepared to manage a child, then you shouldn't really have an abortion. However, virtue theory doesn't sympathize and says you are morally wrong for doing so. When are you morally right?? Tough to say because virtue theory doesn't particularly make strong cases for what is right and wrong about abortion based off of Hursthouse's arguments. I believe that the mother should have a indisputable right to have an abortion if for the right reasons. It was mentioned that "one cannot have the right or correct attitude to something if the attitude is based on or involves false belief" (235) meaning if you say you are doing this because you cannot bare a child, but your intentions are selfish and want to do what you want without being ball and chained by a child, that's where I start to disagree with abortion and I would then agree with Hursthouse when he says, "some others who say "I am not ready for parenthood yet" are making some sort of mistake about the extent to which one can manipulate the circumstances of one's life so as to make it fulfill some dream that one has" (242). There are various situations that call for deeper analysis, and simple conclusions cannot be made with virtue theory, excluding rape which seems to be an easy decision by Hursthouse to give full decision to the mother. It is said various times that abortion is a very sticky situation due to the misconceptions by many people nowadays and due to dangerous arguments pertaining to women's rights and the stage of the fetus. I am not sold on one side for abortion, but the many arguments and the few I stated from Hursthouse I agree with based mainly on the level of selfishness or selflessness of the mother. Its a situation varying opinion I have on abortion and so does Hursthouse, but in the end it seems that the mother has tough luck with virtue theory because she seems to be morally wrong most of the time due to a deficient virtue, and I can't help by sympathize with her if she is in a tough situation and doesn't intend to be selfish. That is an area where I am upset at Hursthouse, but more so at the virtue theory, and I can't help but agree because I myself agree that you need to have good intentions when contemplating abortion.

About Fetuses

 "This is really difficult to analyze with virtue theory", Hursthouse said but not verbatim and I am one to agree that the fetus should be aborted because itself is a being only at a certain point and on. If it gets 6 months into the pregnancy or late to a point where the fetus is basically a conscious being in the making, then abortion cannot be validated. The mother had 6 months to make a decision, failed to do so, and should accept it. Anytime less than that, then the mother has the decision. They are innocent, they will lose out on life, but ultimately the woman is always making the decision on whether to have the child or not. Its a very controversial area, but the fetus should be aborted based on choice as long as the mother has the right attitude with true intentions that are not centered around selfishness.

Is This the Only Way to Flourish?

          While there is much to agree with in Hurtshouse’s article about the virtue theory, I argue that the idea of using virtue as a mean is nothing more than a subjective guideline of ways to “flourish”. This is primarily because of Hursthouse’s excerpt:

“Third, it does answer the question "What should I do?" as well as the question "What sort of person should I be?" (That is, it is not, as one of the catchphrases has it, concerned only with Being and not with Doing.) Fourth, the theory does, to a certain extent, answer this question by coming up with rules or principles (contrary to the common claim that it does not come up with any rules or principles). Every virtue generates a positive instruction (act justly, kindly, courageously, honestly, etc.) and every vice a prohibition (do not act unjustly, cruelly, like a coward, dis-honestly, etc.).”

-Hursthouse

      In this passage, he explains that the virtue theory answers the question “What should I do?” and “what sort of person should I be?”. He explains how the virtues generate positive instruction to answer those questions along with vices of prohibition. By asserting that the virtues give positive instruction is assuming that the virtue theory’s rule and principles are good and positive for everyone. This also assumes that everyone is in a circumstance where these virtues are relevant, but there are so many different classes of people. If someone were in a situation where acting justly is a death sentence, automatic loss or prohibited, than how could one exercise that virtue enough to understand how to act on that virtue and flourish? Does this mean that she/he will never flourish?     

          In other words, this theory assumes that to flourish you need to act on these virtues with the appropriate balance depending on your circumstances. I think that if you never have the opportunity to learn that balance or if you are deprived of acting on that virtue at that mean/ balance, you will flourish. This is because there are plenty of occasions where circumstances of people were inhibiting the act of these virtues at the appropriate mean and yet these people still flourished. I take for instance present day African Americans and Caucasians, where African Americans are a minority that undergoes many hardships, and that constantly live in the shadow of slavery and as a result are deprived from fully acting on these virtues at a mean/balance similar to that of Caucasians who are a majority and are more privileged to a certain extent. An example would be having one black guy go for a job and one white guy go for that same job, and while both being interviewed a question is asked by the manager of whether they have ever been arrested. The virtue theory instructs you to act justly, honestly, kindly, and courageously so let’s assume their resumes are identical and they both say yes and the reasons in both cases are never asked. In the end, the white guy gets the position. So how can this virtue of honesty, in this circumstance and at this mean, be deemed as flourishing for both candidates?  I think that if the black guy had not of said he was arrested he might have gotten hired over the white guy and then eventually fired after the job found out, but for the moment he would have been hired and/or flourishing. This second part, where the African American lies in anticipation to the possible outcome to get ahead, is what I consider not using the virtue as a mean in comparison to the mean meant by the virtue theory because it is subjective. It was written by someone who was treated equal for those in the world that are treated equally which for this case was the Caucasian male.  In all, I argue that the idea of using virtue as a mean is nothing more than a subjective (only for certain group of people) guideline of ways to “flourish”.

abortion

            I agree to Hursthouse’s statement on page 243, where he says that “even in the cases where the decision to have an abortion is the right one, it can still be the reflection of a moral failing-not because the decision itself is weak or cowardly or irresolute or irresponsible or light-minded, but because lack of the requisite opposite of these failings landed one in the circumstances in the first place.” There are many irresponsible actions taken by young people, especially in American society, which causes unexpected pregnancy. For example, drugs and alcohol may cause their judgment to be skewed, leading to unexpected pregnancy. If the girl is still in school with little money, it might be the best to have an abortion for herself and for the baby. This is because she might not be able to get enough education while becoming a mom and the baby might not have a best life due to lack of attention from his or her mom. Moreover, if the partner of that girl was just a one night stand, the boy is being irresponsible and more pressure will be on the girl. However, even though the mom may think it is the best for the baby and for herself to have an abortion, how can she decide that? No one knows about the future and cannot decide someone else’s happiness. Therefore, when the circumstances to have an abortion are cause by irresponsible actions, the decision made seems to also become irresponsible and not right.  

Abortion and "Mitigating Factors"

I guess I'm still somewhat stuck in the mindset of deontology, because I found it much harder than Hursthouse to shrug off the claims of rights and duties regarding abortion. Still, I find her articulation of virtue ethics very appealing. Considering my rejection of previous theories in part due to their being paternalistic, it bothers me a little bit how easy I find this admittedly paternalistic position to accept. Is it just easy for me to accept because I agree with the universal goods it sets forth? Is my rejection of other theories really due to their paternalism, or was it just because I didn't agree with the objective goods they forwarded?

Regardless, the assignment was to respond to a claim. And I find Hursthouse's arguments here compellling. She doesn't seem to argue for the moral propriety of either aborting or not aborting in various across the board, rather she forwards that there is more than one decision one could make without acting immorally. Hursthouse emphasized that the gravity of such a decision should not be treated lightly. I agree with her. It seems immoral to me to treat an abortion with the same weight you would accord a haircut or an appendectomy. I appreciate Hursthouse's position of treating the growth of the fetus as a matter of gradation along a scale rather than being "morally right" prior to a seemingly arbitrary amount of days and "morally wrong" after that point. Things are never that simple. Hurthouse's allowance for mitigating factors also seems valid to me. The conditions the child can expect to grow up in and the difficulties a mother may face carrying a child to term, are just two of a host of factors that should influence our perception of the morality of a decision. These factors are especially relevant when striving for multiple goods, as followers of virtue theory do.

Virtue Ethics and Cultural Relativism

On page 228, Hursthouse defends virtue theory against the criticism that we cannot know what character traits are virtues because of cultural relativism. This criticism maintains that some character traits can be reasonably rejected as virtues and that some cultures exist where these traits are rejected. Hursthouse argues that this type of criticism based upon cultural relativism is not necessarily a criticism of virtue theory as it is also applicable to rule deontology. Furthermore, Hursthouse says that both theories simply have to stick out their neck and say that the cultures "are in error" sometimes. I want to argue that virtue theory only has to do this with sufficiently extreme cultural character traits and that this is fairly easy provided the virtue theorist lean on universal applicability. I would also like to offer a possible way for virtue theory to maintain that the Aristotelian character traits (or the modern day versions of them) are universal virtues despite cultural differences.

It seems to me that the purpose of character traits in virtue theory is that they are universally applicable or, in other words, that they are necessary for any rational, social being to flourish. If this is true, this statement does not seem to discount that other cultures could have separate beliefs as virtues. As long as the culture holds the character traits in the virtue theory list as virtues, it is not contradictory to also hold some other ones as additional virtues (though the additional virtues do not really add to the flourishing of life as the cultural thinks). On the other hand, it also seems possible (as Hursthouse points out) that the culture is promoting a character trait that is not virtuous and should not be. One example I stumbled upon was that of the Spartans who killed their malformed babies as they would not make fit Spartan soldiers. This trait seems sufficiently out of line for all rational social beings to require in order to flourish and subsequently it is very easy for a virtue theorist to simply "stick out its neck," as Hursthouse would say, and say that this is cultural error. If a culture specifically rejects a specific character trait/virtue on the virtue theory list, the easiest defense of virtue theory is that either this culture is not flourishing to the full extent it could be or that it merely appears to be flourishing.

An additional rejoinder I would like to offer is that cultural relativists who state that certain character traits are not virtues in certain cultures could simply be looking at the expression of these traits in the wrong way. My argument here is drawn from the second reading in our class, that is, the "Ethical Relativism" piece in the Part I: Metaethical Issues reading. On page 14 (8 in the PDF) of that reading, the author uses a sports analogy to support his claim that, "Despite the very real diversity of moral codes found in different cultures, there may nonetheless be a common underlying basis for all of these different specific codes...". The point he is making is that there are underlying commonalities between cultures that correspond to specific moral agreements. I want to apply this to virtue theory to cause further trouble to the cultural relativist criticism of virtue theory. Following this sports analogy model, all virtues in virtue theory are common to all rational social beings such that some specific cultural character traits held up to be virtues are actually more in line with the virtues upheld by virtue theorists than as presented by cultural relativists.

While I have tried to argue that virtue theorists have a rejoinder for cultural relativists, I have not found any empirical evidence in the form of articles where cultural relativists discuss virtue theory and thus it is hard to prove that cultural relativists often look too much at the individuality of cultural virtues and not the commonalities. Ultimately, I believe that Hursthouse's argument and my argument in the second paragraph are the strongest responses to cultural relativism, but my latter argument could be a stronger rejoinder given more evidence.