Comments on: Moral agency

By: Jacques

Jacques — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:00:51 +0000

I don’t mean “we” as individuals, but rather we as humans. Ideally, we would reach collective agreement on the most rational things to regard as good and bad, which to punish, which to reward, etc. That’s what we’re inching our way towards politically and economically, and one day people will hopefully treat morality as a similar problem-solving exercise.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:06:45 +0000

If we each decide for ourselves what morality is… aren’t we giving rise to relativism? The whole, ‘it’s right for you but not for me’ crap…

By: Jacques

Jacques — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:12:19 +0000

We do – or at least, should. If we don’t, someone else will do it for us, and bundle morality with all sorts of garbage about gods, demons and the like.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:59:07 +0000

Just realized I shot myself in the foot. But who decides what’s moral and what’s not anyway?

By: Jacques

Jacques — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:59:52 +0000

Morality and rationality would be related – in many cases – but not synonymous. For example, if you preferred your food cooked, it would be irrational to eat it straight out of the freezer – but doing so would hardly be immoral. And “we” don’t necessarily strive for propagation of the species. Some of us do, when having kids or saving lives, but your statement confuses the evolutionary imperative – on a genetic, non-conscious level – with the choices of agents. So Kevin, I’m afraid that I don’t see a moral claim – or a sound appeal to rationality – in your comment.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:44:51 +0000

Would I be wrong to say rationality and morality are synonymous? Because to me, it would irrational to me to not think offspring have a right to life. I mean, ultimately, all we strive for is propagation of the species, right?

By: Johann

Johann — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:05:57 +0000

Until a foetus is born alive it cannot claim rights. Its life is not its own until it is born and until such time its life is in fact the mother’s life – it may be considered as part of the mother in the same sense as her heart or stomack or liver belongs to the mother.
The concept “right” is the name that we use to affirm the existence of a relationship. Moral concepts are derived from relational concepts. When something it ‘right’ it is simultaneously considered to be good. When something is wrong it is simultaneously considered to be evil. People only establish rights in relation to other people by means of contracts.
[When we say that something is wrong we are in fact stating that 'no relationship is evident'. We do not mean that a relationship exists but that such a relationship is necessarily evil/bad].
To enforce a relationship/ to assurp a relationship is evil because such actions require the initiation or the threat of force.
All individuals are equal {before the law}- an interesting assertion and general assumption that is never applied and has never been discussed. (Some people (the lawmakers) are always more equal aren’t they?

Furthermore: because moral concepts apply only to living entities they properly belong to living organisms as individuals. eg. to decide what is good for it or not properly belongs to an individual whose life is the object of the judgement. People who play the morality card normally wish to enforce their own value system based on their own judgements.

By: Jacques

Jacques — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:51:53 +0000

This debate has been postponed, due to McCauley’s unavailability. Will post again when the rescheduled date is known.

By: Jacques

Jacques — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:56:43 +0000

Yes, it is counter-intuitive, but in this case our intuitions are the problem. We need some way to make clear distinctions, or to draw what Ainslie calls “bright lines” – one such bright line is to say that moral agents need to be involved for morality to be involved, another such bright line is to say protection kicks in at birth (the only other available bright line, conception, makes no sense for reasons I won’t go into now). Without bright lines such as these, we have no way to make consistent decisions on difficult issues. These are psychological arguments, not moral ones.

If the mother of the foetus acts on its behalf, she clearly places value in its continued existence (or non-existence) – we can respect her moral agency by allowing her to do so, but it’s not as if she can establish what the foetus wants. So they can have proxy status, but that’s only useful when the granter of that status (mother, “owner” of pet, etc.) asks us to treat it in a certain way – the proxy status shouldn’t be allowed to slide into full agent status.

On your last point: it could be, if it could be shown that there were serious economic, social, psychological (etc.) consequences to allowing abortion which outweigh the positives. I don’t believe that case can successfully be made, though.

By: Amy

Amy — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:46:39 +0000

So, you’re saying that abortion isn’t a moral issue because no moral agents are involved…the same way that killing a baby isn’t a moral issue because babies aren’t moral agents (?) Isn’t that counter-intuitive? Who says moral agents need to be involved before something becomes a moral issue anyways? Also, what if a moral agent (e.g. the mother of the baby) acts on behalf of the baby or foetus…would that not make the baby/foetus moral agents by proxy?

“when something is not a moral agent, that doesn’t necessarily leave it unprotected.” — isn’t this an argument for the anti-abortion guys?