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.

Part II: What compatibilism ought to look like

In the previous post, I argued that the truth of determinism threatens certain conceptions of free will, but not others. That is to say, if determinism were found to be true, there would be some sense in which we don’t have free will. In this post, I will motivate a compatibilist conception of free will that is not threatened by determinism, and argue that it is a legitimate position to hold in the free will debate.

‘Free will’ and ‘moral responsibility’ are closely related concepts. It is often thought that moral responsibility requires the presence of a certain kind of agency. For example, it is thought that young children and non-human animals lack the kind of agency required for moral responsibility but that normal adult humans possess it under certain conditions. Thus, ‘free will’ can be understood as a placeholder for the kind of agency that is required for moral responsibility. There have been at least four proposed features to take its place.

1)      the ability to do otherwise (Kant)

2)    a power that makes us the ultimate source of actions and decisions (Kane)

3)     the ability to do what you want (Hume, Hobbes)

4)    the exercise of a set of psychological capacities (e.g. conscious decision making and self-control) without any internal or external constraints (Frankfurt, Dennett, Nahmias)

The first two candidates are considered to be incompatibilist, in that we cannot have those abilities or powers if determinism is true. The latter two candidates are compatibilist, in that the truth of determinism does not entail that we lack them.

Compatibilists have been accused of changing the subject. It is argued that 1 & 2 satisfy the conditions for the everyday notion of ‘free will’ that most people share. 3 & 4 do not satisfy those conditions and are thus, are not suitable for filling the ‘free will’ placeholder. Thus, compatibilists are changing the subject and talking about something else.  

It is often thought that folk intuitions should carry some weight in our philosophical theorizing, but many agree that they don’t settle the free will/moral responsibility debate. If most people think of ‘free will’ and ‘moral responsibility’’ in terms of 1 and 2, and do not think 3 and 4 are relevant to these concepts, then compatibilists would be in trouble. However, the empirical findings do not indicate that we’re in such a situation (Nahmias et al. 2006, Knobe and Nichols 2009, Nahmias et al. 2014).

If we continue in treating ‘free will’ as a neutral placeholder then the question shifts from ‘is X in accord with what everyday people think?’ to ‘is X the kind of agency that makes us morally responsible?’ The answer to the first question may constrain our theorizing about ‘free will’, but it is the answer to the second question that will make or break compatibilism.

Figuring out whether we have the kind of agency required for moral responsibility may seem straightforward, but philosophers also disagree as to how to understand ‘moral responsibility’. Understanding these differences will further clarify why many compatibilists get accused of cheating. Moral responsibility is typically characterized in one of two ways:

1)      Consequentialist MR- An agent deserves blame or praise because of consequentialist or contractualist considerations (e.g. to protect society from future harm).

2)    Basic desert MR- An agent deserves blame or praise just because they had performed the action.

In defending compatibilism, one has to state what, exactly, is compatible with determinism. Is it the kind of free will that gives us (1) or the kind that gives us (2)?

With two conceptions of moral responsibility on the table, there are now two kinds of compatibilism one could defend:

C1. Determinism is compatible with consequentialist MR
C2. Determinism is compatible with Basic desert MR

While most philosophers identify as compatibilists, it isn’t clear how many subscribe to C1 or C2. But as Derk Pereboom (2014) points out, C1 is not a philosophically interesting position to hold, as virtually everyone would be a compatibilist under that characterization. If no one disagrees with the thesis, then there isn’t an interesting philosophical debate to be had. The adoption of C1 in response to claims of incompatibilism is a lot like the following scenario.

Imagine the following conversation between two subjects, S1 and S2:

S1: I think Tom and Sarah are incompatible with one another.

S2: I think Tom and Sarah are compatible with one another.

S1: I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.  

Problem: They’re actually talking about two different individuals named ‘Tom’.

Some philosophers seem to be in the same boat as S1 and S2. Here’s an illustration with philosophical content:

Incompatibilist: I think that determinism is incompatible with being morally responsible.

Compatibilist: I think that determinism is compatible with being morally responsible.

Incompatibilist: We have a substantive philosophical disagreement.

Problem: There’s an equivocation over the use of the term ‘moral responsible’. The two speakers mean different things.

Dan Dennett, a prominent compatibilist, seems to defend C1. He argues that holding people responsible can be justified for instrumental reasons. It’s useful to hold people accountable for their actions because it encourages good behavior and discourages bad behavior. Furthermore, Dennett points out that our social practices of blaming and praising others for their actions is one that is good, and possibly necessary for a functional society. But if that’s the only justification for holding someone responsible, then Dennett is clearly not defending C2. Dennett’s case effectively translates to saying that we ought to hold people as if they are responsible in order to achieve good end (AKA, a defense of C1). Following Pereboom, I think the compatibilist needs to defend C2 in order for there to be a substantive philosophical debate. Compatibilists who defend C1 can rightfully be accused of changing the subject, but there are plenty of compatibilists who do defend C2 (e.g. Nahmias). 

If the compatibilist conceptions of free will are enough to give us moral responsibility—in the basic desert sense—then there is no bait and switch, and compatibilism is a legitimate position to hold. In the following post, I will provide a defense of compatibilism against a number of empirically informed objections. It is said that certain findings in neuroscience and social psychology undermine our sense of agency. I will argue that these findings do not convincingly demonstrate that we lack responsibility for all of our actions. 

Works cited

Björnsson, G., & Pereboom, D. (2014). Free will skepticism and bypassing. Moral psychology, 4, 27-35.
       

Murray, D., & Nahmias, E. (2014). Explaining away incompatibilist intuitions. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 88(2), 434-467.

Nahmias, E., Morris, S. G., Nadelhoffer, T., & Turner, J. (2006). Is incompatibilism intuitive?. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 73(1), 28-53.

Nichols, S., & Knobe, J. (2007). Moral responsibility and determinism: The cognitive science of folk intuitions. Nous, 41(4), 663-685.

*This post is part of a series on free will. 

What are the facts?

In today’s world, articles expressing opposing viewpoints are labeled as “fake news” and falsehoods have been rebranded as “alternative facts”. We all have beliefs about the world. In many cases, we disagree with one another about what the facts are. But we can’t all be right. The sub-branch of philosophy known as epistemology, offers some useful concepts in discussing matters of truth, facts, and belief. In this post, I will use some of these concepts to clear up some of the conceptual confusion surrounding recent events involving President Trump and his spokespeople.

Belief

Philosophers define belief as a state of mind where a subject accepts that a given proposition is true. For instance, Joe believes that he has work in the morning translates to Joe accepts that it is true that he has work in the morning. Beliefs can be true or false, and they can be about anything, even things that are obviously true (e.g. the United States is in North America). 

Truth

A belief is true if it corresponds to how the world is. A belief is false if it does not. The world is the way it is independent of our beliefs. This conception of truth goes back as far as Aristotle and is the dominant view among academic philosophers. There are epistemic relativists and coherentists who hold alternative views about truth, but in our everyday conversation, I assume that we all share a common vocabulary and are making claims about the world under that shared framework. A shared conceptual framework is what makes disagreement possible in the first place.

Beliefs can be true or false even if we cannot know what the truth is. For instance, there is a determinate number of grains of sand at the beach. Likewise, there is a fact of the matter whether or not advanced lifeforms exist elsewhere in the cosmos.

Facts and justification

There’s a fact of the matter as to how many people showed up to Trump’s inauguration. We can safely rule out that only five people attended or that five billion attended. Estimates by crowd scientists, whom carefully studied aerial photographs of the event, put the attendance at around 200,000. Trump, relying upon how things looked from where he was standing, thought the number was over a million. We have two competing claims for how many people showed up to the inauguration. Which number is probably closer to the truth?

We can ask about the kinds of justification used by Trump and the crowd scientists. Which used the more reliable method for counting large crowds?

Crowd scientists look at objective measures, like aerial photographs and the number of metro tickets purchased. Aerial views enables one to see the crowd in its entirety.  Looking out from the ground level at front of the crowd leaves out of sight all of those standing (or not standing) in the back. Furthermore, the front of the crowd is exactly where you would expect to see a higher density of people, thus, providing a (potentially) misleading impression of how many people were there in total. We can see that these two methods of establishing crowd size are not equally reliable, and that Trump’s method is especially prone to error.

In response to crowd estimates conducted by experts, Trump’s counselor, Kelly-Ann Conway, referred to Trump’s belief as an “alternative fact”. Here, she is either misusing the word “fact” for political means, or she is confused about the concept. Sean Spicer, Trump’s main spokesman, has also made similar claims: “Sometimes we can disagree with the facts.”

There aren’t the facts and alternative facts. Facts are facts. What we have in the current situation is a disagreement between two parties about what the facts are. I take it that Conway is not just saying that Trump disagrees with the crowd experts. She is also trying to say that Trump’s belief about the crowd size is a legitimate view to hold.

Given the unreliability of the methods Trump used to form his belief, there are strong reasons to discount his testimony and to side with the experts. Hence, if Conway is insisting that Trump’s view is a legitimate alternative, then she is simply wrong. Having an alternative view does not mean that you deserve to be listened to or respected. There are plenty of possible views one might hold, but many are nonsensical or can be rejected after carefully looking at all the evidence. Holocaust denial is an alternative view. Would Kelly-Ann Conway be prepared to say that Holocaust deniers are presenting “alternative facts”? I highly doubt it. Conway and Spicer are probably just using this rhetoric to try and stay on the President’s good side.

In cases like these, why would some people side with the president over experts? There are several explanations one could offer.

1)    Authoritarianism: Shut up and agree with what our president says!

2)   Conspiracy theorizing: The crowd scientists have doctored the photos. Trump is telling the truth.

3)   Anti-elitism: The academic elites and scientists act like know-it-alls, call those who disagree with them ignorant, but they are often wrong. Therefore, we shouldn’t trust experts.

I take all three of these explanations to be plausible when it comes to Trump’s most ardent supporters. It is hard to see how a rational discussion could take place with such individuals. However, there are plenty of reasonable people who voted for Trump—for instrumental reasons (e.g. Republican control of government) or because they believe his policies will lead to better consequences (e.g. making us safe)—that are amenable to reason and evidence.

Conclusion

We should all care about the truth, even if it is ugly or in conflict with our political views. Instead of demonizing those who disagree with you, hear out their arguments, first, to understand what their position actually is, and second, to see if their position has any merit. Before we begin to have a rational discussion about our disagreements, we need to share some common ground. One source of common ground is a shared understanding of the nature of truth. 

Take-home messages:

1)      There are alternative views, but not alternative facts.

2)    Truth is independent of our beliefs.

3)     Not all beliefs are equally justified.

Series on free will

In the coming weeks, I will be writing a six-part series on the topic of free will. I plan to sandwich posts about other topics in between this series. Here is a (tentative) list of post titles:

Intro to free will debate* (earlier post)

I.                  Free will and Determinism

II.               What compatibilism ought to look like

III.            Threats to free will from neuroscience

IV.             Threats to free will from social psychology

V.                Threats to free will from abnormal psychology
VI        A defense of compatibilism

VII.           Punishment and morality without free will

Part I: Free will and determinism

Could advanced robots ever make decisions of their own free will? I suspect there will be many skeptical that robots ever could attain such powers. Robots are programmed. Human beings are not. Nonetheless, certain philosophers argue that the actions of human beings, just like robots, are determined or fixed by the laws of nature and distant past events.

Determinism is a metaphysical thesis about how events unfold over time. To put it crudely, things happen because of how things were in the distant past guided by the laws of nature. Imagine a mile long chain of dominoes. Once the first domino collides with and knocks over the second, the chain will continue to move until it knocks over the very last one. The reason why the last domino fell was because of the chain of falling dominos that led up to it. The falling of the dominos was neither random nor inexplicable. Once there was a sufficient amount of motion imparted to the first domino, the remaining were knocked over because of the laws of physics (i.e. gravity). If determinism holds true in our universe, it is thought that the actions of human beings are just like the dominoes; a necessary result of past chains of events and the laws of nature. And if our actions happened necessarily, then we couldn’t have done other that what we in fact did.

A thought experiment, devised by the 19^th century astronomer Pierre Simon-Laplace, further illustrates why determinism raises doubts about our sense of free will. Imagine a demon that knows everything about the initial state of the universe. It knows the location and all of the properties of every particle in the universe. Additionally, the demon knows exactly how all of the laws of nature operate. If determinism were true, the demon would be able to know the outcome of any future event, as every future event would be the eventual unfolding of the initial conditions evolving in accord with the laws of nature.

If our minds are made up of physical stuff (e.g. neurons, biochemical processes in the brain), as most scientists and philosophers now believe, then even our mental states are determined by the laws of nature and past events. If our mental states are determined, then the demon’s knowledge would include every decision that you and I will ever make, and every action that you and I will ever take. The demon could have predicted, say, your choice of career, a billion years ago, and you had no power to change the outcome.

It may still be unclear why the truth of determinism would be such a big deal. Philosophers, such as Peter van Inwagen, forcefully argue that there is a deep incompatibility between determinism and our having free will/moral responsibility. 

“If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequence of laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it's not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore, the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us.” (Van Inwagen 1983)

We think that we ought to hold people responsible for the actions that they were directly in control of. If none of our actions are not up to us, then how can we be held responsible for any of them? Assuming that determinism is true, one might be tempted to think we are in the same situation as the advanced robot. Instead of being determined by the programming and design of an intentional agent, human action would be determined by brain processes, the environment and situations we find ourselves in, and to some extent, our genes.

Why believe determinism is true? Many go to physicists to seek the answer, but even expert opinions vary. The answer is thought largely to depend on which interpretation of quantum mechanics turns out to be correct. One of the most plausible interpretations, in my view, results in a deterministic universe. With that said, the universe probably is deterministic but, as others have observed, I don’t think living in an indeterministic (or random) universe would suffice for having free will.

Determinism would seem to entail that we don’t have the ability to do otherwise. Our sense of choosing some other path for ourselves would be illusory. Some take the ability to do otherwise to be required for having free will. But many others, myself included, do not. Alternative conceptions of free will (e.g. compatibilist) make it possible to be morally responsible, whether or not determinism turns out to be true. The upshot is that determinism might not be a deal breaker after all. But it ultimately hinges on 1) whether alternative conceptions of free will are legitimate, 2) whether they give us moral responsibility, and 3) the extent to which they are supported by reason and evidence. 

In the next installment, I will give a rough sketch as to what a compatibilist view of free will ought to look like. I will contrast the view I propose with the compatibilist view that Dan Dennett defends, and argue that Dennett’s account amounts to a kind of pseudocompatibilism. 

References

Laplace, P. S. (2012). Pierre-Simon Laplace Philosophical Essay on Probabilities: Translated from the fifth French edition of 1825 With Notes by the Translator (Vol. 13). Springer Science & Business Media.

Van Inwagen, P. (1983). An essay on free will.

Zombies

We’re all familiar with the kinds of zombies featured on AMC’s show “The Walking Dead”. Philosophers talk a lot about zombies, but not the kind that come after us to eat our brains. Philosophical zombies are hypothetical creatures that are indistinguishable from human beings (behaviorally and physically), but that have no inner thoughts, sense of awareness, or mental life whatsoever. Philosophical zombies talk like us, walk like us, and are even as intelligent as us. They also have brains and bodies just like ours. The only difference is that they lack a mind—there is nothing it is like to be a zombie. One of the big areas of dispute amongst philosophers of mind is whether or not such beings are conceivable.

Zombies were (re)introduced into the philosophical debate by the philosopher David Chalmers in his 1996 book “The Conscious Mind”. In his book, Chalmers argues that zombies are conceivable beings, and that our ability to conceive of zombies entails that that they are logically possible beings (i.e. their possibility involves no contradictions, unlike e.g. a married bachelor). Chalmers then argues that the possibility of zombies entails that physicalism—the view which states that everything in the world is physical in nature—is false, and that we should be dualists (i.e. there exists physical stuff + mind stuff). If there could be a physical duplicate of a conscious being without consciousness, then consciousness would be a kind of property that is not physical in nature. The conscious mind would then be something over and above the brain. Additionally, we would need some explanation for why we have consciousness in the first place. What’s the point of having consciousness if there could be creatures like us without it?

The major assumption running through the zombie argument is that consciousness is irrelevant to the guidance and execution of complex behaviors. One may interpret this to mean that mental states (e.g. beliefs, desires, feelings) do not serve a function and are thus epiphenomena. That is to say, our conscious mental states are just like the humming sound of a computer. They do not serve a purpose and do not add anything to the functioning of the systems. They are instead, mere byproducts.

One may very well want to challenge this assumption. Consciousness probably does have a function (Seth 2009). It seems to be a trait that would have been advantageous for our evolutionary ancestors, allowing them engage in certain complex behaviors, and to solve certain problems. At the same time, it also seems like we can conceive of a being that solved problems and behaved just like us without consciousness. Which of these intuitions should be rejected?

 I think the right move is to challenge the idea that zombies are actually conceivable. The philosopher Robert Kirk argues that the zombie argument commits, what he calls, the “jacket fallacy” (Kirk 2007). Imagine watching an infomercial about an extra lightweight winter jacket. The jacket is described as paper thin, contains one layer of material, and weights only a couple of ounces. Given that most winter jackets tend to be thick, well-insulated, and heavy, one may be rightfully skeptical that the extra lightweight winter jacket will work as advertised. In fact, it seems like the typical features of a winter jacket (thickness, heaviness etc.) are what enable the user to keep warm. A winter jacket without any of the thermal properties would not be able to carry out the function of keeping someone warm. Likewise, having a human without its conscious mental properties may not be able to behave and act like a human with consciousness. The assumption that there could be a zombie actually begs the question against the physicalist. The physicalist would insist that consciousness is like the thermal properties of a winter jacket, in that, it is not something that can be eliminated without some other properties being stripped away as well.

What are we to say to the dualist who insists that we can conceive of zombies? I would say that it’s possible to be wrong about what one is conceiving. There are a number of instances—well known to philosophers of language—where our imaginative faculties are led astray. Not knowing that Superman and Clark Kent are one and the same individual, one may falsely believe that it is conceivable that Superman could be dead while Clark Kent is still alive. Given that they are the same person, the death of Superman would necessarily entail the death of Clark Kent. Because we may be ignorant of certain facts, it is possible for us to believe that something is conceivable when it is in fact not. If certain physicalist theories are correct (e.g. mind-brain identity theory) it would not be possible for us to conceive of a mind existing without a brain or body.

Given that we have grounds for thinking that the zombie argument might be fallacious, I do not find it to be a compelling objection to physicalism or monist theories of mind. Nonetheless, I think there are better arguments against physicalism that deserve serious attention (e.g. the knowledge argument). In a future post, I will discuss some of these arguments and offer some of the physicalist responses that I find most plausible.

Works cited:

Chalmers, D. J. (1996). The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. Oxford University Press.
Kirk, R. (2007). Zombies and consciousness. Oxford University Press.

Seth, A. K. (2009). Functions of consciousness. Encyclopedia of consciousness, 1, 279-293.

Abortion and potentiality

According to a view on abortion I recently defended, it isn’t any more intrinsically wrong to end the life of a human fetus over that of a non-human animal fetus (e.g. a pig). Some will take this to be an outrageous thing to believe, and hence, a good reason to reject the view I defend. It can be argued—on solid grounds—that the likely futures of the two organisms are relevantly different. The fetal pig will grow up into an adult pig, capable of experiencing pleasure and establishing social bonds with other pigs. But the fetal human will grow up into a person, capable of self-awareness, rationality, and a conception of one’s self existing over time. While these differences do exist, I will argue that they are morally irrelevant with respect to the vast majority of abortions, and that for the most part, human and non-human fetuses possess equal moral standing. 

At a first pass, in order for some action to be morally objectionable, it must involve unjustifiable harm or a violation of rights. It may be argued that the fetal human has a potential right to life. But a potential right does not entail the possession of actual rights prior to eligibility. On one theory of rights, rights require there to be a conscious subject with certain interests and desires (rocks can’t have rights). The fetus is not eligible for the possession of any rights since fetuses do not have any conscious interests or desires. Hence, there are no rights violated in the case of killing the fetus. If there is no harm or violation of rights in the case of killing a human fetus, what is morally objectionable about the action?

One response is to say that, much like in the case of adults, the act of killing deprives the potential person of a good life that it would have otherwise had (Marquis 1988). I think this analysis might be plausible for later stage fetuses (for most species). But I take it that you aren’t depriving a zygote or a 12 week old fetus of a good life, as such organisms are incapable of possessing consciousness or self-awareness. In order for the early fetus and adult human to be considered different stages of the same ‘self’ existing at separate times, there would need to be a series of mental states linking the two (c.f. Tooley 1983). The fetus—at least in its earliest stages—does not have the capacity for mental states or experiences, providing no way of connecting it to the mental states of the future person. Therefore, there is no continued existence between the fetus and the future person in the relevant psychological sense. Hence, the fetus—at least in its early stages—is in fact not a potential person. There are those who would want to maintain that there is a psychological continuity between the fetus and the adult human, made possible by the existence of a God given soul. The soul of the fetus and future person is one and the same, therefore, the fetus and future person are psychologically linked together. If humans have souls, then my argument would not work. However, we have good reasons—both philosophical and scientific—to reject the existence of an immaterial mental substance.

But what about later stage fetuses (where on top of the capacities for consciousness, pain and pleasure, an 8-month old human fetus is also a potential person)? Would it then be morally worse to end the life of the 8-month old human fetus over a non-human fetus? First, it is not true that all human fetuses are potential people. Fetuses with severe brain abnormalities (e.g. anencephaly) will never have a mental life. Second, there may be non-human animals that are persons (e.g. chimpanzees, extraterrestrials), and thus, the fetal forms of such creatures would be potential persons as well. If we are to make a comparison of a late-stage fetal pig and a human fetus, I think it’s plausible to say that the human fetus has a higher degree of moral value. But the property of potential personhood does not give the fetus the same moral standing as an adult, or even a young child. Just as there is a clear difference between chopping down a tree and smashing an acorn, there is a clear moral difference between aborting a potential person and killing an actual person (Singer 2011).

Since most abortions occur before week 13, the vast majority of aborted fetuses are equal in moral worth to their non-human fetal equivalents. There are of course exceptions to the rule, but the claim that it isn't any more intrinsically wrong to end the life of a human fetus over that of a non-human animal fetus, is true much more often than not. 

References

Marquis, D. (1989). Why abortion is immoral. The Journal of Philosophy, 86(4), 183-202.

Singer, P. (2011). Practical ethics. Cambridge university press.

Tooley, M. (1983). Abortion and infanticide. Oxford University Press, USA.