Children Bible Quotes Biography
Source(google.com.pk)n 1993, ethicist Peter Singer shocked many Americans by suggesting that no newborn should be considered a person until 30 days after birth and that the attending physician should kill some disabled babies on the spot. Five years later, his appointment as Decamp Professor of Bio-Ethics at Princeton University ignited a firestorm of controversy, though his ideas about abortion and infanticide were hardly new. In 1979 he wrote, “Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons”; therefore, “the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee.”1
Peter Singer is not alone in these beliefs. As early as 1972, philosopher Michael Tooley bluntly declared that a human being “possess[es] a serious right to life only if it possesses the concept of a self as a continuing subject of experiences and other mental states, and believes that it is itself such a continuing entity.”2 Infants do not qualify.
More recently, American University philosophy professor Jeffrey Reiman has asserted that unlike mature human beings, infants do not “possess in their own right a property that makes it wrong to kill them.” He explicitly holds that infants are not persons with a right to life and that “there will be permissible exceptions to the rule against killing infants that will not apply to the rule against killing adults and children.”3
Singer doesn’t tell us why self-awareness belongs to the concept of personhood; he merely asserts that it does. In so doing, he espouses a doctrine known as functionalism, the belief that what defines human persons is what they can and cannot do. Though laudable for its candor, Singer’s case for infanticide is seriously flawed and fails to make a number of critical distinctions. Meanwhile, his Darwinian worldview leaves us philosophically and morally bankrupt, with no reason to act ethically in any context.
PETER SINGER- NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ABORTION AND INFANTICIDE
To the dismay of popular abortion advocates, Singer rejects birth as a relevant dividing line between person and nonperson, agreeing with pro-life advocates that there is no ontologically significant difference between the fetus and a newborn. True, there are differences of size, location, dependency, and development, but these are morally irrelevant. “The liberal search for a morally crucial dividing line between the newborn baby and the fetus has failed to yield any event or stage of development that can bear the weight of separating those with a right to life from those who lack such a right.”4
Instead of upgrading the fetus to the status of a person, however, Peter Singer downgrades the newborn to the status of nonperson because newborns, like fetuses, are incapable “of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time.”5 They are not rational, self-conscious beings with a desire to live.6 Since, in Singer’s criteria, personhood hinges on these factors, killing a newborn (or fetus) is not the same as killing a person. In fact, some acts of infanticide are less problematic than killing a happy cat. If, for example, parents kill one disabled infant to make way for another baby that will be happier than the first, the total amount of happiness increases for all interested parties.7 Singer’s logic can be summed up this way: Until a baby is capable of self-awareness, there is no controlling reason not to kill it to serve the preferences of the parents.
Singer contends that a variety of nonhuman animals are rational, self-conscious beings that qualify as persons in the relevant sense of the term.8 Consequently, it is morally indefensible for humans to value their own species above other sentient animals. As for the doctrine of the “sanctity of human life,” it is nothing but “speciesism,” an irrational prejudice rooted in outdated religious traditions (e.g., Christianity). Insofar as some human beings are incapable of reasoning, remembering, and self-awareness, they cannot be considered persons. Put simply, dogs, cats, and dolphins are persons, while fetuses, newborns, and some victims of Alzheimer’s disease are not.9
PETER SINGER- DEATH WITH A HAPPY FACE
For Singer, infanticide may be wrong in some cases, but only for its impact on other interested parties. “We should certainly put very strict conditions on permissible infanticide, but these conditions might owe more to the effects of infanticide on others than to the intrinsic wrongness of killing an infant.”10 If the parents want the newborn, it is wrong to kill the baby because the act deprives them of happiness. On the other hand, killing a defective newborn is not morally equivalent to killing a person.11 Very often, it is not wrong at all: “When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of the happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second. Therefore, if killing the hemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him.”12 Parents, of course, need time to calculate pleasures and pains. Singer’s solution is a postbirth assessment period of a week or perhaps a month (he isn’t sure which), during which parents, in consultation with their physician, may legally kill their disabled offspring if doing so would increase the total happiness of all interested parties.13
PETER SINGER- PROBLEMS WITH SINGER’S CONSEQUENTIALISM
In the end, Singer rejects transcendent human rights as a fiction. Nonetheless, while his case for infanticide entices many academic liberals, it is seriously flawed for at least six reasons.
1. Consequences Alone Cannot Determine Right and Wrong
Singer’s ethics are thoroughly utilitarian; that is to say, only the consequences of a given act determine right and wrong. Actions are morally right if they increase happiness and decrease pain for the greatest number of people. Some crimes, however, such as rape and murder, are wrong in themselves and cannot be justified with an appeal to overall happiness. Common sense dictates that we weigh both the rational intent of an act (deontological ethics) with its foreseen consequences (utilitarian ethics). If morals are strictly consequential, as Singer argues, how do we condemn ancient Romans who tortured Christians for the public’s enjoyment? Say, for example, that killing a Christian in the Roman Coliseum enabled 50,000 people to experience pleasure at the expense of only one person experiencing pain; clearly the happiness of the thousands would exceed the pain of one Christian, but would that make the act just? If Singer replies that the pain of the Christian outweighs the pleasure of the crowd, how does he know this? What if the tortured victim were not a Christian but a suicidal masochist who actually enjoyed the perverse treatment? Given that everyone is happy, it’s difficult to imagine how Singer could condemn such an act.
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Children Bible Quotes Children Quotes Tumblr And Sayings From The Bible For Parents Love For Tattoos Funny And Sayings For Parents Islam About Learning
Children Bible Quotes Children Quotes Tumblr And Sayings From The Bible For Parents Love For Tattoos Funny And Sayings For Parents Islam About Learning
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Children Bible Quotes Children Quotes Tumblr And Sayings From The Bible For Parents Love For Tattoos Funny And Sayings For Parents Islam About Learning
Children Bible Quotes Children Quotes Tumblr And Sayings From The Bible For Parents Love For Tattoos Funny And Sayings For Parents Islam About Learning
Children Bible Quotes Children Quotes Tumblr And Sayings From The Bible For Parents Love For Tattoos Funny And Sayings For Parents Islam About Learning
Children Bible Quotes Children Quotes Tumblr And Sayings From The Bible For Parents Love For Tattoos Funny And Sayings For Parents Islam About Learning
Children Bible Quotes Children Quotes Tumblr And Sayings From The Bible For Parents Love For Tattoos Funny And Sayings For Parents Islam About Learning
Children Bible Quotes Children Quotes Tumblr And Sayings From The Bible For Parents Love For Tattoos Funny And Sayings For Parents Islam About Learning
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