Different degrees of the right to life
In one of the questions on the site regarding abortion, you answered that if you had to choose between saving a truck full of fertilized eggs and saving a baby, it would be right to save the baby. The reasoning was that while fetuses have a right to life, this right is weaker or more tenuous than the right of a born person.
In light of this reasoning, I have 2 questions:
- How do we know that a fetus has a more tenuous right to life?
- Is there a line where all humans are considered to have the same “degree” of the right to life? For example, would you say the same thing about saving 5 newborn babies versus saving one person who is 20 years old? Or alternatively, would you say the same thing about saving 5 elderly people versus one person who is 20 years old? (Both of these questions assume that the right to life is greatest in a person who is 20 or around that age, but this assumption is not necessary, it is only to demonstrate the question regarding the degree of the right to life – what distinctions exist in terms of the degree of the right to life at different ages).
There is no simple way to quantify such relationships. Moral intuition can teach us about particular cases, but it does not give us a general formula.
I see. I think the more accurate question is, are there other types of human populations that have a weaker right to life (without precisely quantifying it), besides fetuses?
One could think of populations of humans that are plants, pre-conscious infants, and more
In principle, no, but there is room to talk about predation, for example, or someone who is brain dead (see my article on organ harvesting for transplantation).
I'll read, thank you! (And I'll blackmail your memory for all the columns you've written).
There's a matter here that's not entirely clear to me yet, and it's possible that there's no answer at all, but I'll still try to see if you have any insights into the matter.
The claim that fetuses have a tenuous right to life can be justified in two ways. We can say that we simply don't know when the right to life "enters" matter (the epistemic justification for preferring the life of a baby over the life of a fetus), and we can say that the right to life exists but is tenuous (the ontological justification for this preference). I think the second option is the correct one, and it seems to me that this is also what you're aiming for. However, if this is so, the question immediately arises - what is the criterion that allows us to say that there is a weakening of the right to life from an ontological perspective? (Assuming that there is one, and we're not content with unconceptualized intuition).
It seems that the essential thing that distinguishes a baby or any other person from a fetus is the existence of consciousness. Not the level of its development, but its very existence. A two-week-old fetus cannot experience things (probably), but a fetus between 3-6 months (depending on who you ask) can.
So, the thesis here is that the fetus has a right to life, but until it develops consciousness, this right is weaker. And from the moment it develops consciousness, the right is already “complete”. This also fits with what you wrote earlier, that there are no other populations that have such a weak right.
However, another question immediately arises - if this is so, then why not say that consciousness is the criterion for the right itself (and not for upgrading it to ”complete”)? It can be argued that before the development of consciousness, there is no weaker right, but simply no right. We probably do not want to get there, and therefore it seems reasonable to stick with the thesis that says that before the development of consciousness, the right to life is weak, and after it, it becomes a full right.
Assuming you agree with the ontological justification, is consciousness the appropriate criterion in your opinion, such that from the moment it is created the right to life is complete? And if not, what is it in our actual reality (whether material or spiritual like consciousness) that grants or “upgrades” the right to life?
Of course, there is always the possibility of not accepting ontological justification and going in the pessimistic direction, but I think you are not there.
I would appreciate your insights, thanks again! 🙂
I am definitely talking about the ontological, not the epistemic, level. And I still don't see why it should be a sharp boundary. Even the concept of consciousness is not binary (there is or there is not). As mentioned, I have no criterion for such a boundary and I think there is no such sharp boundary.
That is, the same solution to the stacking paradox? Is there some moment from which, and onwards, we simply understand that the fetus is a person with full rights just like a 20-year-old person or an 80-year-old plant. When does this moment arrive? There is no real criterion that distinguishes between the situations, and only time plays a role here - the more it passes from the moment of zygote, the more the right to life becomes stronger. Epistemically, we will know when this moment arrives intuitively.
Do you agree with this explanation and the analogy to the stacking paradox?
Absolutely. At the moment of birth, he becomes a complete person.
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