I have recently finished reading a fascinating and thought-provoking book by political theorist David Benatar, entitled Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. In this book, Benatar makes a rather unconventional argument–that to bring someone into existence is to harm that person, and that it is consequently generally wrong to have children, because to have children is to harm them. While I found Benatar’s argument most interesting, I ultimately found it unpersuasive. Here’s why.
Tag: Morality
Disability or Inability?
Today I’d like to consider an argument briefly referenced by David Benatar in a book of his I have been reading on a different, tangentially-related subject. It is an argument made by some disability rights advocates. They maintain that efforts to eliminate genetic handicaps and birth defects are discriminatory and unethical on the grounds that disability is a social construct. I’d like to investigate this argument and see if it holds water.
Good Guys Shouldn’t Finish Last
Today I’d like to raise an objection to a broad spectrum of moral theories of whom we ought to deem morally significant. I call this objection “good guys shouldn’t finish last”. There is a tendency in our moral theory to argue that doing the right thing often entails indiscriminate niceness. Moral theories frequently demand that we be universally benevolent to all beings with certain biological characteristics such as being human, feeling pain, having complex thought, or some such thing. The trouble with all moral theories of this kind is that they result in the moral practitioner, the being trying to do good, being harmed. I argue not only that this harm occurs, but that it is a knockdown objection to any moral theory if the beings it deems morally good have worse lives than the beings it deems morally bad–i.e., if the good guys finish last. I will illustrate each point in sequence.
Macklemore and Philosophy
I’ve been hearing the song “Same Love” by Macklemore for a while now. I agree with the song’s central message–that gay people should be afforded equal treatment by the state and in society. I also quite like the song, in no small part because unlike most songs, it’s very direct with the point it intends to make. The lyrics make clear arguments without hiding their messages in metaphors and other methods of obscurantism. There are entire websites devoted to helping music fans come to understand the veiled messages in their favorite artists’ songs, and it’s nice to not have to have inside knowledge to get the point being made. That said, it also illustrates one of this blog’s running themes–lay people lack expertise. While Macklemore makes a point I firmly agree with, the argument he uses to reach our shared conclusion is not very good.
Killing People for their Organs
Many people believe they have a knockdown objection to utilitarian moral theory. They argue that utilitarianism implies that it is morally permissible to kill people for their organs in order to save other people. They argue this conclusion is repugnant and obviously wrong, and that therefore utilitarianism must also be a repugnant, obviously wrong moral theory. Sophisticated critics attempt to explain why killing people for their organs is obviously wrong–they claim it uses people as a means to someone else’s ends. In this case, the people killed for their organs are said to be used as a means to the ends of those in need of transplants. As someone with strongly utilitarian leanings, it is important that I have a response to this case, so here goes.
Benjamin Studebaker 