March 10, 2005

The End State of Moral Relativism at Princeton's "Center of Human Values"

PETER SINGER, WHO HOLDS THE MOST IRONIC TITLE IN ACADEME ("Professor of Bioethics, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University",) KEEPS A FAQ that defines the new absolute bottom of "morality" coming in from the academy. If you don't think that the problem of evil in the world is real, listen carefully to this "educated" person:

Q. You have been quoted as saying: "Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all." Is that quote accurate?

A. It is accurate, but can be misleading if read without an understanding of what I mean by the term "person" (which is discussed in Practical Ethics, from which that quotation is taken). I use the term "person" to refer to a being who is capable of anticipating the future, of having wants and desires for the future. As I have said in answer to the previous question, I think that it is generally a greater wrong to kill such a being than it is to kill a being that has no sense of existing over time. Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living.

I bet that you never thought that a newborn baby doesn't "want to go on living," did you? According to the depraved mind of Singer this would seem to be the case.

In this you can see the fundamental argument for freedom of speech. We need to know these thoughts so we can gauge just how deep the depravity of some of our fellow citizens goes.
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Update: This gem from Axel in the comments:

Singer has his criterion both muddled and backwards. An adult, on average, has already bungled his or her future, whereas a baby, even with hypothesized defects, is full of potential. This is why it is always worse to kill a baby than to push a professor into the path of a runaway septic-tank-pumping truck.

Posted by Vanderleun at March 10, 2005 9:50 AM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

I think Professor Singer will be seen by future historians as the absolute nadir of leftwing lunacy. We can take heart that since we can descend no further, we must then start ascending.

Posted by: erp at March 10, 2005 1:25 PM

In a New Yorker article (interview) about 5 years ago, Singer gave the hypothetical example of a young boy with hemophilia (sp?) as being a candidate for euthanasia, since -- Singer was assuming -- this boy must be suffering terribly.

So much for Singer's definition of a "person." What also left me aghast at this notion was knowing that hemophilia will likely be more manageable in the very near future, and possibly curable not long after that. So, the young boy in 2000 would be able to lead an almost normal life as a young adult, and possibly a totally normal one by his middle age. Singer would have had him dead 5 years ago.

Posted by: Roderick Reilly at March 10, 2005 1:32 PM

I guess Singer never held a brand-new baby and watched it turn its head towards his chest looking for sustenance. The baby would have cried and screamed because Singer didn't have the breasts to feed it. What does Singer call instinct? The drive to make it to Princeton or Harvard?

Posted by: Amy at March 10, 2005 1:43 PM

People who think like that always find jobs where they can exercise influence over others e.g. Planned Parenthood councilor, concentration camp guard, university professor....

Posted by: Dwight at March 10, 2005 1:58 PM

Singer has his criterion both muddled and backwards. An adult, on average, has already bungled his or her future, whereas a baby, even with hypothesized defects, is full of potential. This is why it is always worse to kill a baby than to push a professor into the path of a runaway septic-tank-pumping truck.

Posted by: Axel Kassel at March 10, 2005 3:07 PM

I never cease to be completely disgusted by Singer. Does he really believe these things, or are they an act?

I was unaware of his comment against hemophiliacs. That incites me against him even more, because I used to be a regular platelet donor, oftentimes for platelet victims.

For those unfamiliar with donating platelets, it takes a couple of hours, but you get all your red blood cells back. So you're not left feeling weak, and you can do it once every couple of weeks (possibly once every seven days when your body grows new ones, which I did a few times when I was an HLA match).

Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at March 10, 2005 4:33 PM

Axel, that is hilarious. Thanks for the chuckle.

Posted by: Dwight at March 10, 2005 5:20 PM

I guess I'm not a person when I'm sleeping. At least not when I'm not REM sleeping.

Posted by: Terry at March 10, 2005 6:18 PM

Singer doesn't say that it's morally permissible to kill an infant full stop. In fact, he thinks that in most every case it's deplorable. His argument is just that certain things matter morally - e.g., the ability to anticipate and have desires over time - and that when you kill an adult (or child beyond a few months) you lose that in addition to the harm of losing a life. Now, there may be reasons to prevent harm to babies (e.g., people taking it too far, the fretting we all do at the prospect of babies dying), but those are extrinsic to the matter itself.

Now, I happen to think Singer is mistaken. But his view is not that odd, and is fully compatible with fully justified and very robust moral commitments to infants. It's also not that uncommon. To see why, suppose that your spouse had durable power of attorney and the opportunity to continue with an IV drug that keeps you alive. In one case, you have moment-to-moment sensations, some of which are good, most of which are neutral, some of which are unpleasant. In the second case, you have an alert and interesting ongoing mental life. You can follow television programs, look forward to seeing people visit, and so forth. In neither case can you communicate. Removal of the IV in the second case seems to me worse than removing it in the first - even if it is morally wrong in both cases (which is, I believe, true).

And his view is NOT "moral relativism." He thinks that some things are right and wrong. He is a moral REALIST. It's embarrassing to other conservatives when we can't get that very simple idea straight.

Posted by: jules at March 12, 2005 12:38 PM

I agree totally with Jules regarding professor Singer. Sometimes philosophies which are obviously wrong are still useful because they cause us to look at why we beleive what we do.

Posted by: Lucas Wiman at March 12, 2005 2:29 PM

I also agree with jules. This post is an embarassing misinterpretation of Singer's views.

Posted by: zakm03 at March 12, 2005 6:15 PM

But his view is not that odd, and is fully compatible with fully justified and very robust moral commitments to infants. It's also not that uncommon. To see why, suppose that your spouse had durable power of attorney and the opportunity to continue with an IV drug that keeps you alive. In one case, you have moment-to-moment sensations, some of which are good, most of which are neutral, some of which are unpleasant. In the second case, you have an alert and interesting ongoing mental life. You can follow television programs, look forward to seeing people visit, and so forth. In neither case can you communicate. Removal of the IV in the second case seems to me worse than removing it in the first - even if it is morally wrong in both cases (which is, I believe, true).

Since you didn't elaborate on why you find Singer's view mistaken, I will take a stab at it (ahem). Singer is wrong because his whole theory of what makes murder wrong appears to be tied to some arbitrary attribute, in this case it is the amount of self-knowledge, which can be shown to have definite costs in some cases and lower costs in other cases. The moral status of a murder is then mapped to its cost in terms of this attribute.

Has Singer considered other attributes? For example, babies tend to be loved as much as (if not more than) adults. Does that count? This is probably the better explanation of moral observations. Because in fact, when a baby is killed, people are usually more upset than they are when an adult is killed. Again, as someone mentioned above, babies have more potential, or possible futures. Does that count?

By being selective with his attributes for judging the moral wrongness of murder, Singer is in effect in danger of putting forward a tautology. For example, it seems rather obvious to me that this particular cost scheme rather neatly devalues the killing of animals and fetuses but not mature human beings; with the side effect that killing small children is not as bad somehow as killing an adult. Is this why Singer chose it? Then it is tautology indeed. Either that, or Singer watches too much Star Trek TNG.

I disagree with Singer's rather laconic defenders here. Ordinary people (meaning: those without tenure) have different attributes in mind when measuring the moral cost of a murder, they recoil at the professor's odd views, so where exactly is the misinterpretation? I tend to agree with the critics: this is a symptom of the larger problem of academia that has cut itself off from all discourse with the society that created it for the sake of convenience and politics.

Posted by: pdq332 at March 12, 2005 10:07 PM

pdq,
i'm not sure what you're saying. Singer's theory of what makes murder wrong is not based on an 'arbitrary attribute.' He is a utilitarian, and thinks that right or wrong action is based on the degree of happiness and pain that come from it. He is also not a simplistic utilitarian, as he thinks that quality of that happiness matters as well. The issue about self-knowledge precisely because we think that self-knowledge contributes to the quality of lives (I think it does for mine - in fact it is hard to see how it doesn't).
Moreover, Singer _does_ account for how people think about babies (read the interview - the FAQ link above - that the above quote is excerpted from). Our feelings towards babies, according to Singer, are very powerful reasons contributing to why it is morally wrong to kill them.

As to whether he is guilty of tautology, I don't see it. If he chose his criteria (which has a rich tradition dating at least to Jeremy Bentham and J.S. Mill) according to the outcome he wants, he would guilty of arguing ad hoc, not tautology. But he doesn't seem to be. In fact, his moral theories have led him to attribute much greater value to the lives of animals than most people do, and to the belief that we have much greater obligations to our fellow man than most people think.

Regarding potential. I don't follow. Sperm and eggs have more potential than fetuses. THey are not, however, as valuable as fetuses. And pluripotent embryos have more potential than newborns, but they are not as valuable. Most people argue that potential for full lives is a way of attributing as much value to a fetus as to a born human or adult human, not that value _increases_ with potential, for that would make our lives less and less valuable as we go on - which surely is not the case. That's why we lament stillbirths more than first month miscarriages. Both are sad, but one more than the other.

And I'm not sure where your claim about murder came from. The only place where Singer talks about anything close is the following kind of case. A baby born with the sort of severe deformities that will make its life short and painful, and parents choose to not perform the sorts of actions necessary to prolong its life. Where that inaction would itself cause even more pain, Singer thinks that it is merciful to actually hasten the death. That is, where the choices are (a) intervening to keep alive for a short, painful life, (b) passively not interfering to lead to a much shorter, and therefore less painful life overall, and (c) intervening actively to hasten death to lead to an even shorter, less painful overall life, Singer thinks that (c) is a morally permissible option. Seriously, read the faq linked above. That's the view.

It's odd to accuse Singer of cutting himself off from the discourse. He in fact engages way beyond academic circles, and gives something like 20% of his salary, and all of his income from at least one of his books, to famine relief.


Posted by: jules at March 12, 2005 10:52 PM

Jules:

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. But nowhere did I claim that Singer's theory of what makes murder wrong is based upon an arbitrary attribute. I took it on faith based on what was written in the comments: that Singer has other reasons not stated here for believing that murder is "wrong". I will further assume that this is what you are supporting when you refer to his "utilitarian" pedigree.

However, Singer clearly does attach more negative moral value to some murders and less than others, and this value is based on an attribute.

Singer: I use the term "person" to refer to a being who is capable of anticipating the future, of having wants and desires for the future. This defines an entity "Person" and assigns an attribute to it, which I am calling the "self awareness" attribute.

Singer: As I have said in answer to the previous question, I think that it is generally a greater wrong to kill such a being than it is to kill a being that has no sense of existing over time. This maps negative moral value of murder to positive values of the "self awareness" attribute. Quid Erat Demonstratum.

Why is this a tautology? I don't know that it is, and I clearly stated that Singer was in danger of putting forth a tautology, not that he actually did put forth a tautology. In experimental particle physics, there is a statistical effect known as selection bias. If one makes a measurement on an ensemble of imperfect observations, it is a common practice to cut away parts of the ensemble on the basis of certain quality variables in order to boost signal relative to noise. The best analyses are done "blind": the cuts are made without any knowledge of the effect on the actual measurement itself, and the measurement is taken only after all cuts are made. If this is not done, then there is a possibility of the analyst favoring quality cuts that randomly enhance the signal he is looking for. In fact, one can prove that with enough randomly distributed quality variables, an analyst can consciously produce any signal he or she desires through judiciously applied cuts.

Back to the tautology: I suspect, but I cannot prove of course, that Singer chose the "self awareness" attribute to evaluate the negative moral value of a murder precisely because it works out the way he wants it to, vis a vis allowing abortion while excluding murder of adult human beings. It sounds suspiciously like a highfallutin version of the more conventional "unthinking mass of cells" description of a fetus. And selection bias in statistics is the same thing as tautology in philosophy.

Regarding potential. I don't follow. Of course you don't, because you missed the whole point of the argument. I'm suggesting that in his choice of attributes of Person to consider in his moral valuation scheme of murder, Singer is guilty of selection bias. All I have to do to is to (a) show the existence of other attributes of a person which Singer could have considered but didn't, and (b) show that these attributes lead to quite different moral valuations of murder than Singer's. If you are arguing that I didn't explore the potential attribute deeply enough to account for sperm, eggs, and pluripotent embryos, then my response is: I didn't have to.

Your attempt in particular to render the "potential" attribute moot by showing that it leads to the same valuations as the "self awareness" attribute is just embarrassing. Do you mean to render every such attribute moot by showing that it has the same valuation curve versus "age"? Don't try because you obviously can't. On the side, such a program is decidely NOT utilitarian. Furthermore, in the particular particular, you cannot just dismiss the "potential" attribute by redefining it away on me. "Most people argue that ..." Ahem, nice try. I hereby define "potential" as a quantity proportional to the length of a time ordered list of all spacetime events associated with a biological entity defined by it's DNA signature. (Does this make me guilty of selection bias? It doesn;t matter: I'm not the professional philosopher postulating a moral valuation curve of murder based on a supposedly unbiases collection of attributes. Your credits have run out, please deposit 50 cents to keep playing. )

" The only place where Singer talks about anything close is the following kind of case. A baby born with the sort of severe deformities that will make its life short and painful, and parents choose to not perform the sorts of actions necessary to prolong its life. Where that inaction would itself cause even more pain, Singer thinks that it is merciful to actually hasten the death." I'm only going by what was posted originally. And now you're introducing yet another attribute: pain.

I have sympathy for Singer. If the utilitarian program is to end up at a final valuation curve for actions based on the cumulative valuation of individual attributes, then it is a daunting task to assemble, evaluate, and weight the effects of each attribute on the outcome without introducing seelction bias. In fact, for non trivial cases, it is probably impossible.

Posted by: pdq332 at March 13, 2005 4:56 PM

pdq wrote in post 1: "Singer is wrong because his whole theory of what makes murder wrong appears to be tied to some arbitrary attribute"

pdq wrote in post 2: "nowhere did I claim that Singer's theory of what makes murder wrong is based upon an arbitrary attribute."

But, giving you the benefit of the doubt, I read on.
Back to the tautology: a tautology is a proposition that is logically necessary - true by definition. Thus, what you are accusing Singer of is not making a tautology. It is reasoning ad hoc, or choosing a theory based on desired outcome. But there is no way anyone can ever get out from under this. I could accuse you of the same thing: you are rejecting Singer's theory because you conveniently want to give full moral weight to fetuses. But that's not the way moral reasoning works, we have to make a good faith effort to offer plausible reasons, and revise those reasons when they look implausible. Singer over the years has modified many of views, which gives us some reason to think he's arguing in good faith, and his view - despite your accusations - is entirely compatible with protection of fetuses, so claiming that it is his aim to exclude them is unconvincing.

FWIW, these 'bias' arguments are unconvincing. Yes, perhaps Singer has some preconceived notions about how things ought to be. So do I, so do you, and so does everyone. But the mere fact that people have biases does render their conclusions false. Singer has given plausible arguments(which, again, I believe are false) which the petty digs in this post fail to acknowledge.

Now, you wrote "(Does this make me guilty of selection bias? It doesn;t matter: I'm not the professional philosopher postulating a moral valuation curve of murder based on a supposedly unbiases collection of attributes. Your credits have run out, please deposit 50 cents to keep playing. )"

and "Of course you don't, because you missed the whole point of the argument."

I'm trying to have a good-faith discussion, but I'm happy to quit. And this kind of petty taunting, coupled with laziness (i.e., "I'm only going by what was posted originally. And now you're introducing yet another attribute: pain.") makes me think you're interested in nothing but ranting.

Posted by: jules at March 14, 2005 8:12 AM


pdq wrote in post 1: "Singer is wrong because his whole theory of what makes murder wrong appears to be tied to some arbitrary attribute"
pdq wrote in post 2: "nowhere did I claim that Singer's theory of what makes murder wrong is based upon an arbitrary attribute."

My bad. In the first post I left out of that sentence the sense that Singer is talking about the relative moral costs of different kinds of murders, Ie- wrong in the relative sense. He can simultaneously claim that two murders are both "wrong" and that one murder is more wrong than another. But I thought I made that clear in the very next sentence, and certainly I made it clear in the second post because I realized that it was causing confusion.


FWIW, these 'bias' arguments are unconvincing. Yes, perhaps Singer has some preconceived notions about how things ought to be. So do I, so do you, and so does everyone. But the mere fact that people have biases does render their conclusions false. Singer has given plausible arguments(which, again, I believe are false) which the petty digs in this post fail to acknowledge.

Again I don't have to show that Singer's choice of attribute is due to his personal bias, which I nonetheless suspect is true. I just have to show that he does not consider other attributes in his moral weighting scheme. Singer is the one who has to prove that he is not guilty of selection bias. He can't just present a moral weighting scheme for murders based on the effects of a single attribute, "self awareness" (of the victim), and claim on that basis alone that this makes the murder of an infant child less wrong than the murder of an adult, without treating the effects of other attributes. This is in fact what he did in the original post.

"I'm trying to have a good-faith discussion,.."

Well, I'm sorry you feel that you are not. From my point of view, you responded to an argument I was making about Singer being guilty of selection bias by focusing on particular attributes. It is as if Singer were standing in a pile of marbles, had picked out one marble, observed that it is red, and declared "All marbles are red." My response was essentially to ask if he has looked at any other marbles. And I had also pointed out "by the way" other marbles that are green and purple. And you had responded essentially that "Gee, your purple marble looks red to me". And then you held up an orange marble (pain), and declared that "This one may be red enough to be counted as red." I'm sorry if I got snarky, but intentionally or not, you were obfuscating. In fact, I thought you were trying to trap me into a pointless argument on particular attributes.

If you are defending Singer, the point is not to consider individual marbles, unless you are prepared to do a systematic study of all the marbles, or perhaps on some reasonable unbiased subset of the marbles. If you are attacking Singer (as I am) then you really do only have to find one marble that is clealy not red. (I did that: I claim that moral valuation based on "love for the victim" blows Singer's particular moral valuation curve for killing out of the water.) I do not claim, nor do I have to, that my marble is the best and most characteristic one.

In terms of the original problem:
(a) Does love matter? Consider two infant children of the same self awareness. One is loved by a family and the other is abandoned in the park. Clearly, the murder of the one loved by a family is worse than the murder of the abandoned one.
(b) How does love measure up to self awareness? If there in an infant child of low self-awareness who is loved greatly by a mother and father, and there is an anonymous hobo in the park who is self aware but not loved by anyone. Clearly murdering the infant does more harm than murdering the hobo. (if you don't see it, consider that it is the loved baby that grows up into the lonely hobo.)

Does Singer treat love in his moral valuation scheme? No? Then I am done. (If you want to get technical, selection bias is in the sample. Ignoring the selection bias is bias in the investigator. But that's another post.) Is "love" sufficient by itself to serve as a moral valuator? No. But I don't have to show that it is. I know that it is not, and neither is self awareness sufficient.

In summary, to address my argument, you have to show that Singer does in fact somewhere treat a reasonable (I'll grant maybe not exhaustive, but it has to be systematic) study of other attributes that could be contributing weight to the moral valuation curve of what makes one murder more wrong than another. If you know about that, I'd certainly like to hear it. Am I lazy for not doing a PhD-style literature review of Singer's work to find out for myself? (Are you going to give me a PhD if I do? What can I do with a philosophy PhD? ;-)

Thus, what you are accusing Singer of is not making a tautology. It is reasoning ad hoc, or choosing a theory based on desired outcome.

OK.


But there is no way anyone can ever get out from under this. I could accuse you of the same thing: you are rejecting Singer's theory because you conveniently want to give full moral weight to fetuses.

Actually, no. I am rejecting the theory on the grounds that he appears to base it upon the effect of a single attribute and doesn't appear to be considering other attributes.


But that's not the way moral reasoning works, we have to make a good faith effort to offer plausible reasons, and revise those reasons when they look implausible. Singer over the years has modified many of views, which gives us some reason to think he's arguing in good faith, and his view - despite your accusations - is entirely compatible with protection of fetuses, so claiming that it is his aim to exclude them is unconvincing.

I would think that you also have to make a good faith effort to be systematic: Look at all the reasons and look at their sum. I would have more faith in Singer's "good faith" if you could show me where Singer has actually considered other attributes and at least made some argument as to why self awareness outweighs them all.

Posted by: pdq332 at March 16, 2005 8:19 AM

singer isn't saying that it isn't morally wrong to kill a newborn baby, just that it is less wrong than killing a fully developed person who has a sense of identity and can look forward to the future and can look back to past events.

Posted by: dan at September 11, 2005 3:35 PM