Tag Archives: OUP Blog

Abortion: Conflict and Compromise, by Kate Greasley

Posted on by

View of a Foetus in the Womb, c. 1510 – 1512, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci

A few years ago, when I told a colleague that I was working primarily on abortion rights, he looked at me quizzically and replied, “But I thought they had sorted all of that out in the seventies”. Needless to say, he was a scientist. Still, while the idea that the ethical questions implicated in abortion were somehow put to bed in the last century is humorous, I knew what he meant. The end of the ‘sixties and beginning of the ‘seventies marked watershed developments for reproductive freedom in both Britain and the U.S. – developments which have (with some non-negligible push and pull at the boundaries) continued to set the basic terms of abortion regulation ever since.

In Britain, the 1967 Abortion Act widely legalised termination of pregnancy for the first time and codified the grounds upon which abortions could be legally carried out. Shortly after, the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade famously declared that there was a constitutionally protected right to abortion in the United States, albeit with some qualifications. Since those events, there have been no revolutionary changes to the system of abortion regulation on either side of the Atlantic, although there have been many meaningful ones.

Of course, legal resolution by no means signalled the end of moral disagreement about abortion. A significant minority voice has continued to vehemently oppose abortion practice. What was settled back then secured far more of a grudging détente than a happy compromise. (Like so much legislation, the Abortion Act was a product of political expediencies; I once heard one of its drafters describe the pandemonium of last-minute back-room deals in the Houses of Parliament, and the hotchpotch of provisions that emerged from all of the bargaining necessary to get it through.) As such, the political resolutions, whilst enduring, have always been intensely fragile, especially in the US where Christian conservatism and the anti-abortion lobby overlap so much. Of late, that fragility has become increasingly apparent. Recent developments in the United States and elsewhere have revealed just how misplaced any complacency about reproductive rights truly is.

It is, in truth, hardly surprising that abortion compromise is so precarious when one considers the nature of dissent to abortion practice. If one side of that debate really believes—as many claim to—that abortion is murder, akin to infanticide, then it is hard to see how they can ever truly accept legal abortion merely on the strength of its democratic pedigree. Against such a belief, rehearsing the familiar pro-choice mantras about women’s rights and bodily autonomy is a bit like shooting arrows at a Chinook helicopter. For what strength does control over one’s body and reproductive destiny really have when measured against the intentional inflicting of death on another?

Of course, if ideological opponents of abortion rights really believe that abortion amounts to murder, it may be hard to make sense of some of the traditional exceptions they themselves have defended, in circumstances, for example, of rape or incest, or where the pregnancy endangers the very life of the pregnant woman. If killing the fetus is no less than homicide, then how can it be justified even in these dire conditions? We certainly do not permit the out and out killing of born human beings for comparable reasons. This may be an indication that opponents of abortion who make such concessions do not truly, deeply, believe the claim that killing an embryo or fetus is like killing a child. Alternatively, it may just suggest that such concessions are rarely ever authentic, but adopted merely as a matter of political strategizing, to avoid losing moderate support in the wider conflict. If that were true, it would be unsurprising to see those traditional concessions gradually withdrawn as opponents of abortion become emboldened by increasing success.

Either way, defenders of abortion rights have a constant decision to make about how to respond to attacks on reproductive freedom and the denunciation of abortion as a moral horror. The approach most traditionally favoured, at least in public spheres, is to simply ignore all talk about abortion being murder and try to refocus attention on women’s stakes in abortion freedoms. As the Mad Men character Don Draper always quipped, “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation”. This strategy can have its uses, but also its drawbacks. Most importantly, whilst reminding everyone of what women stand to lose through abortion prohibition is likely to strengthen the resolve of those sympathetic to abortion rights, it does nothing to address the consternation of those that are genuinely conflicted about the issue – who are not sure that abortion isn’t murder. As an effort to persuade avowed opponents of abortion rights to think again, it is even more pointless. For those who decry abortion as unjustified homicide do not usually need to be convinced that women can be hugely benefited by it, and harmed by its outlawing. That is not where their main ground of opposition ever lay.

It is for this reason that I think any effective defense of abortion rights must meet that opposition on its own terms, and confront the claims that abortion is homicide and the fetus the moral equivalent of a child. The task can seem daunting; how does one even begin to argue about whether or not unborn human lives have exactly the same right to life as mature human beings? But there are many reflections one can bring to bear on that question, and especially on the question whether, when examining our own or others’ beliefs, we are really committed to the claim that embryos are equal in moral value to human children. For one thing, as some philosophers have pointed out, if we really believed that claim, we may have to ask why infinitely more resources are not devoted to the prevention of natural miscarriage, which, it would follow, is the single biggest cause of child mortality – far greater than famine, disease, or war. At any rate, if defenders of reproductive freedoms do not concern themselves with the fundamental questions of abortion ethics, they are in danger of being left with little effective argument if and when the fragile settlements that have held for some decades threaten true collapse.

This essay was originally published at OUP Blog: Oxford University Press’s Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Kate Greasley is a Lecturer in Law at University College London. After completing her doctorate in law at New College, Oxford, she was appointed to a Junior Research Fellowship in Law at University College, Oxford, from 2013 to 2016. She is the author of Arguments about Abortion: Personhood, Morality, and Law. (Bio credit: OUPblog)

~ Ordinary Philosophy is a labor of love and ad-free, supported by patrons and readers like you. Any support you can offer will be deeply appreciated!

*All views and opinions expressed by guest writers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Ordinary Philosophy’s editors and publishers

Should We Act on our Beliefs? The Vexing Nature of Responsibility, by Rik Peels

Posted on by
Brain illustration from The Principles and Practice of Medicine...' by W Osler, 1904, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Brain illustration from The Principles and Practice of Medicine…’ by W Osler, 1904, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Some people think that voting for Donald Trump was a detestable thing to do, whereas others are convinced that we had an obligation to vote for him in order to get rid of the political elite. Of course, in explaining why they voted the way they did, people will appeal to their beliefs. Some of those will be factive: beliefs about such things as whether someone paid his taxes or whether someone gave full disclosure of certain emails. Other beliefs will be normative: beliefs about such things as whether America should pursue international political leadership or about whether it is permissible to use water-boarding techniques to extract information from prisoners.

People act on their beliefs. Obviously, that, as such, does not get them off the hook for the ensuing actions. Those who voted for Clinton believe that adherents of Trump should know better and vice versa—when it comes to the facts, when it comes to certain moral norms, or, more likely, both. Or, to give a few examples on which most Westerners agree: we believe that ISIS fighters also act on their beliefs, but that they should know better, and we believe that climate skeptics act on their beliefs, but that they should know better. If people were not responsible for their beliefs, it would seem improper to blame them for the actions they perform on the basis of those beliefs.

However, the idea of responsibility for our beliefs faces two big challenges. First, how can we be responsible for our beliefs at all? I am responsible for whether I treat my neighbor kindly or rudely, because I can choose or decide to treat her kindly or rudely. But I do not choose or decide to hold a belief. Nobody ever wakes up in the morning and thinks: “Today, let me form this or that belief.” Beliefs are things that are not under the control of our will. How, then, are we responsible for them? This is a controversial issue in contemporary analytic philosophy. One way to think of it is this: we are responsible for our beliefs, because they are the consequences of things over which we do have control, such as whether we gather more evidence, whether we are humble and pay attention to our prejudices and biases, and whether we try to become more open-minded.

Second, assuming that the first challenge can be met and that we are indeed responsible for our beliefs, we still face a deep puzzle about responsibility. As I said, people normally act in accordance with their beliefs. And that, it seems, is the right thing to do. One should not act contrary to what one believes to be the facts or contrary to what one believes one ought to do. Philosophers have even come up with a name for situations in which one succumbs and acts against one’s better judgment. Ever since Aristotle, they call it akrasia. One is akratic, for instance, if one believes that eating an entire bag of chips is bad, but one still does it. We don’t want people to be akratic. Rather, they should act in accordance with their beliefs.

Now, here’s the problem. If we are to hold people responsible for their beliefs, then, given that belief is not under the control of the will, it must issue from an earlier culpable act: one neglected evidence, one failed to enter into conversation with certain people, one was not open-minded, or some such thing. But, presumably, at that earlier time, one believed it was alright to neglect that evidence, fail to enter into conversation, or not be open-minded on that occasion. Thus, how can we ever hold people responsible for their beliefs and the actions performed on the basis of those beliefs? We are unwilling to give up holding people accountable for their beliefs. But it seems we are equally unwilling to give up the principle that people should not act contrary to their beliefs.

I am not entirely sure how this challenge can be met. But here are at least a few things we ought to note that can help in solving the problem.

First, it seems that if people act on their beliefs and there was no way they could have changed those beliefs – for instance, because they have been thoroughly indoctrinated or they suffer from a psychosis – we cannot blame them for holding those beliefs and for the actions based on those beliefs. Maybe we should take protective measures and perhaps even incarcerate them, but they are not morally responsible for what they believe or what they do.

Second, intellectual virtues or, as philosopher Linda Zagzebski calls them, ‘virtues of the mind’, steadily grow over long periods of time: open-mindedness, curiosity, thoroughness. And so do intellectual vices, such as dogmatism, conformity, and sloppiness. They gradually arise out of choices we make on particular occasions, such as whether we listen to someone and try to understand what things would look like from their point of view. These intellectual virtues and vices heavily influence our beliefs and, consequently, our actions. Thus, the more evidence we have that someone has had enough opportunity to develop these virtues, the more we can hold them responsible for their beliefs.

Third, the flat-out principle that we should act on our beliefs might be too simplistic: it may need substantial qualification by taking into account serious doubts that one might have, whether or not one’s belief matches one’s emotions and desires, and whether or not there is substantial disagreement with others about the belief in question. This, as such, will not solve the problem, but such qualifications seem needed to do full justice to our intuitions about the plausibility of the akrasia principle.

The responsibility we bear for our beliefs is crucial for individual well-being and the flourishing of our societies. And yet, like so many things that are crucial in our lives, it is vexing and raises deep philosophical questions. We will need joint work by ethicists, epistemologists, psychologists, and sociologists to find satisfactory answers.

~ Originally published at OUP Blog: Oxford University Press’s Academic Insights for the Thinking World, on November 19th, 2016

~ Rik Peels is Assistant Professor in Ethics and Epistemology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is the author of Responsible Belief: A Theory in Ethics and Epistemology (OUP, 2016), editor of Perspectives on Ignorance from Moral and Social Philosophy (Routledge, 2016), and co-editor of The Epistemic Dimensions of Ignorance (CUP, 2016). You can read more on his personal website www.rikpeels.nl. (Bio credit: OUP Blog)

Ordinary Philosophy and its Traveling Philosophy / History of Ideas series is a labor of love and ad-free, supported by patrons and readers like you. Please offer your support today!

Does Death Rob Our Lives of Meaning? by Richard Pettigrew

Posted on by

Headstones in Gettysburg National Cemetery 2 (cropped), photo 2016 Amy CoolsIn the previous post, we met the argument with which Epicurus hoped to cure our fear of death and, with that, our fear of everything else. But we found it wanting. Epicurus assumed that only that which can harm you may be feared; and only that which causes pain can harm you. But we saw that both of these assumptions are false. Along the way, we met one specific reason to fear our death, namely, its effect on those we love. But I suggested that, while this might justify certain responses to the fact of our own mortality, it does not seem to support the sort of response that people often report – the halting existential terror felt in the pit of the stomach. This sort of response, it seems, comes from somewhere else. In this post, we consider a conjecture as to its source: I fear death, you might think, because the fact that I will die robs the things I do in my life of their meaning or their value or their worth. This, if it were true, would justify the feeling of vertigo and emptiness that comes when we reflect that we will die. To remind ourselves that all we have done is meaningless is to have the basis for all we do pulled out from under us.

As so often, Bill Watterson’s six-year old philosopher, Calvin, has been here before us. In the first pane of one comic strip, Calvin is at his school-desk: “Miss Wormwood, I have a question about this math class”; “Yes?”; “Given that sooner or later, we’re all just going to die, what’s the point of learning about integers?” Calvin’s thought seems to be based on an assumption that many of us make about what makes it worthwhile to do the things that we do in our lives. We assume that an activity can only get meaning or value by contributing to some larger goal that we pursue. Death, then, robs our lives of meaning or value by interrupting our ultimate over-arching goals before they can be fully achieved.

But this is based on a mistaken view of how things get their meaning or their value or their worth. Of course, some things get their meaning from how they contribute to some larger project (the philosopher Kieran Setiya calls these ‘telic activities’). I sharpen my pencil in order to draft this blog; and if I don’t finish the blog, the pencil sharpening becomes devoid of worth – doing it will have added no value to my life. I make a birthday card for a friend in order to make her laugh; if I drop it down a drain on my way to her party, there was no value in the making of it. But other things I undertake not because they contribute to a larger project – or not only for that reason – but because I value them as they are; they are, for me, sources of value in themselves (Setiya calls these ‘atelic activities’). For example, this blog might be part of a larger project I have to think through the effect on our lives of knowing of our own mortality. But I don’t value writing it only for its contribution to that goal. The process of thinking through these questions is itself something of value for me; something that gives my life meaning in and of itself. I might listen to my friend’s woes as part of a larger project of supporting her and living my life as connected to some extent to hers; but I value each particular part of that project, each evening talking to her, and not just because of their contribution to the whole; they are ends in themselves. What’s more, as philosopher Frances Kamm points out, much of what gives value to our lives is not any activity, such as thinking through a philosophical issue or connecting my life to that of my friend, but a way of being, such as being wise or being virtuous; and these ways of being are complete in themselves whenever you have them. The value that being wise or being virtuous add to your life does not increase the longer you live, though of course the longer you live, the more chance you have of achieving them.

In another comic strip, Calvin is sitting with his friend Hobbes, the tiger, under a tree. He turns to Hobbes: “I don’t understand this business about death. If we’re all going to die, what’s the point of living?” After a moment, Hobbes replies: “Well, there’s seafood.” And he’s right. Much of what we do in life – spending time with friends or family, taking in the beauty of the natural world, writing, reading, campaigning, or eating seafood – we value for its own sake. We don’t value it because of its contribution to some larger project that is curtailed by our death, thereby robbing our actions and lives that contain them of meaning. So, this aspect of death – that it truncates some of our projects, and frustrates some of our goals – gives us cause for sadness, perhaps, or disappointment or regret; but not fear, and not halting existential terror in the pit of our stomach. After all, there’s seafood.

~ Richard Pettigrew is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bristol. He completed his PhD in mathematical logic in 2008. Since then, he has worked in logic, philosophy of mathematics, the epistemology of uncertainty, and the theory of rational choice. (Bio credit: OUPblog)

~ This piece was originally published at OUPblog

Ordinary Philosophy and its Traveling Philosophy / History of Ideas series is a labor of love and ad-free, supported by patrons and readers like you. Please offer your support today!