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Notes on Peter Singer, Rich and Poor, Practical Ethics, 3rd ed., chapters 1-4
Preference Utilitarianism
Suppose I then begin to think ethically, to the extent of putting myself in the position of others affected by my decision. To know what it is like to be in their position, I must take on their preferences I must imagine how hungry they are, how much they will enjoy the fruit and so on. Once I have done that, I must recognize that as I am thinking ethically, I cannot give my own preferences greater weight, simply because they are my own, than I give to the preferences of others. Hence, in place of my own preferences, I now have to take account of the preferences of all those affected by my decision. Unless there are some other ethically relevant considerations, this will lead me to weigh all these preferences and adopt the course of action most likely to maximize the preferences of those affected. Thus, at least at some level in my moral reasoning, ethics points towards the course of action that has the best consequences, on balance, for all affected (p. 12).
minded and far-sighted aliens who judge it necessary to remove us. He then says that no matter how fair-minded and well-informed that decision was (we can imagine, perhaps, that our incorrigible aggression was likely, sooner or later, to destroy the planet), we would be right to side with our own species against these aliens. The ultimate question, Williams says, is Which side are you on? (pp. 69-70).
A Case Study
The view that human life has unique value is deeply rooted in our society and is enshrined in our law. To see how far it can be taken, consider what happened to Peggy Stinson, a Pennsylvania schoolteacher, who was twenty-four weeks pregnant when she went into premature labor. The baby, whom Peggy and her husband named Andrew, was marginally viable. Despite a firm statement from both parents that they wanted no heroics, the doctors in charge of their child used all the technology of modern medicine to keep him alive for nearly six months. Andrew had periodic fits. Towards the end of that period, it was clear that if he survived at all, he would be seriously and permanently impaired. Andrew was also suffering considerably: at one point his doctor told the Stinsons that it must hurt like hell every time Andrew drew a breath. Andrews treatment cost $104,000, and these events took place in 1977 today the cost of keeping an infant in intensive care for six months could easily exceed a million dollars. Andrew Stinson was kept alive, against the wishes of his parents, at a substantial financial cost, notwithstanding evident suffering and despite the fact that after a certain point it was clear that he would never be able to live an independent life or to think and talk in the way that most humans do (p. 72).
What is a Person?
In order to avoid begging any questions, I shall for the moment put aside the tricky term human and substitute two different terms, corresponding to the two different senses of human. For the first sense, the biological sense, I shall simply use the cumbersome but precise expression member of the species Homo sapiens, and for the second sense, I shall use the term personI propose to use person, in the sense of a rational and self-aware being, to capture those elements of the popular sense of human being that are not covered by member of the species Homo sapiens. (I take selfconscious and self-aware to mean the same thing (p. 74).