Cat people

Virtually everyone agrees that is seriously wrong to kill an innocent person. But is it seriously wrong to kill an innocent potential person (e.g. a newborn baby)? In this post, I will outline an interesting argument developed by Michael Tooley (1984) that bears directly upon this question. The argument’s conclusion is that killing potential persons is morally equivalent to not having kids. If one accepts the argument’s chain of reasoning, then either one must accept 1) that it is not seriously wrong to kill a potential person, or 2) that it is seriously wrong not to have kids.

Before fleshing out the argument, I must first discuss a moral principle that Tooley invokes.

Tooley appeals to, what is called, the moral symmetry principle (MSP). The principle is stated very generally to apply to all actions and omissions, but a particular application of the principle entails that there is no morally relevant difference between killing someone and letting them die, provided that one holds fixed all of the morally relevant factors (e.g. the agents’ intentions) and subsequent consequences (see also the equivalence thesis). 

One might at first think the principle is implausible because of obvious counterexamples. For instance, shooting someone with a gun is not morally equivalent to letting someone get shot by someone else. Tooley argues that the principle seems counterintuitive only when one considers cases that involve significantly morally different factors. In the provided example, there are several sources of possible differences between the two cases. One might think that the intentions of the two agents are different. In the first case, the subject shoots someone with a gun, presumably because they intend to kill the person. In the second case, it is possible that the person does not want the person to die, but refrains from acting out of fear. 

Tooley presents several cases where all of the morally relevant factors are the same, allowing one to see the intuitive appeal of MSP. Consider the following two scenarios:

“(1) Jones is about to shoot Smith, when he sees that Smith will be killed by a bomb unless he warns him. Jones’s reaction is: ‘How fortunate—that will save me the trouble of killing him myself.’ So Jones allows Smith to be killed by the bomb, even though he could easily have warned him. (2) Jones wants Smith dead, and shoots him.” (Tooley 1984, pg. 191).

Did the Jones in (1) commit an action that is morally worse than the Jones in (2)? MSP states that the events described in (1) and (2) are morally equivalent. I will let the reader decide whether or not their intuitions align with this principle. (I myself find it fairly intuitive.) With a basic understanding of the principle now on the table, it’s time to turn to Tooley’s argument.

The kitten argument

Imagine that scientists invent a special chemical that turns kittens into potential persons. After some time, the kittens injected with the chemical will come to develop all of the psychological capacities found in humans that we take to be morally relevant (e.g. Self-awareness, rationality, future oriented desires, a biographical sense of one’s self existing over time, etc.). In this world, scientists conduct an experiment in secret using four subjects: three kittens (A-C) and a human infant that is an orphan (D).

Step 1:
Kitten A is intentionally not injected with the special serum.

Kitten B is injected with the special serum but is then injected with a chemical that neutralizes its effect.

Tooley, appealing to the moral symmetry principle, argues that the action involving kitten B is morally equivalent to withholding the chemical from kitten A. That is to say, neutralizing the chemical is morally equivalent to withholding it. Tooley is careful not to say whether these actions are wrong or not. He just points out that they are morally equivalent actions according to MSP.

Step 2:

Suppose that after the experiment is completed, the scientists decide to kill A and B. Given the properties and potentialities they now possess, there does not seem to be a morally relevant difference between acts of killing A or B. It then follows (from Step 2) that there is no moral difference between the combined actions of withholding the chemical from A and then killing it and neutralizing an active chemical in B and then killing it.

Step 3:

Kitten C is injected with the special serum. This time, no neutralizing chemical is added, but it will take a couple of years before it will develop personhood.

Scientists later decide that they do not want Kitten C to reach full personhood but have run out of the neutralizing chemical. Instead, they decide to neutralize the effect of the chemical by killing Kitten C in such a way that it does not undergo any pain or suffering.

If neutralizing the chemical in Kitten A, and then killing it, was not seriously wrong, then neutralizing the chemical by directly killing Kitten C is not seriously wrong. The only difference between the two cases is the number of steps it takes to kill the kittens. Number of steps in an action doesn’t seem to be a morally relevant difference. 

But, via the law of transitivity (LT), if there is no moral difference between killing B or C, then there is no moral difference between killing C (a potential person) or A (a normal cat that was never injected with anything).

Step 4:

A number of behavioral experiments are conducted with the human infant. After the experiments are over, the scientists have no more need for the test subject and do not want it to develop into a person. They decide to kill the baby in such a way that it does not undergo any pain or suffering.

If there is no moral difference between killing C or B, then there is no moral difference between killing B or killing the human baby (D). Moreover, if there is no moral difference between killing B or A, then there is no moral difference between killing D and withholding the chemical from A and then killing it.

“it is prima facie no more seriously wrong to kill a human organism that is a potential person, but not a person, than it is intentionally to refrain from injecting a kitten with the special chemical, and to kill it instead.” (Tooley 192)

A more condensed and formalized version of the argument is as follows:

P1. Withholding the special serum from a kitten is morally equivalent to neutralizing an active serum in a kitten (via MSP).
P2. There is no moral difference between withholding the chemical from A and then killing it and neutralizing an active chemical in B and then killing it.
P3. Neutralizing the effects of the serum by killing the kitten is morally equivalent to neutralizing the chemical by injecting it with a neutralizing chemical and then killing it.
Lemma: Killing a potential person is morally equivalent to intentionally withholding the serum from a kitten and then killing it (via 2, 3 and LT).
P4. There is no intrinsic moral difference between the act of killing a potential cat person and a potential human person
C. There is no moral difference between withholding a personhood chemical from a kitten and killing a potential human person (via lemma, 4 and LT).

While Tooley frames the discussion within a science fiction context, one could understand the act of injecting a kitten with the personhood chemical as analogous to bringing children into the world; withholding the personhood chemical from a kitten as analogous to not having children.

I take it that most would deny that is seriously wrong not to have kids. But if we are to accept that, it would follow that it isn’t seriously wrong to kill a potential person (via abortion or active euthanasia). But the belief that killing potential persons is seriously wrong is another moral claim that widely accepted. Tooley’s thought experiment gives rise to a dilemma with two seemingly unappealing horns to choose from. Either one must accept that it is not seriously wrong to kill human infants, or it is seriously wrong not to have kids.

If the argument is sound, one of these common sense intuitions is wrong. For those who cannot accept either horn of the dilemma, I think the most promising way to defuse the argument would be to try and show that the moral symmetry principle (that is used to derive P1) is implausible. I think the argument is valid, and that its premises are all plausible. Hence, I think I am faced with having to reject one of the common sense intuitions. To make that choice, I would have to carefully assess the two moral claims to see what rational support they may or may not have. In a future post, I may just have to carry out that analysis.

References

Tooley, M. (1984). Abortion and Infanticide. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.