Dan Egonsson

Death and Irreversibility

The concept of irreversibility plays a central role in most discussions of how to understand and determine human death. This seems to relativize death, since the possibilities of reversal will always depend on circumstance. I discuss the conceptual problems created by this fact, arguing that their seriousness depends on whether we take our conception of death to be a definition or criterion. Relativity is probably not fatal in a definition of death; it might even be desirable in a policy criterion. The concept of permanence is no less philosophically problematic in this context than irreversibility.

Some comments on the substituted judgement standard.

On a traditional interpretation of the substituted judgement standard (SJS) a person who makes treatment decisions on behalf of a non-competent patient (e.g. concerning euthanasia) ought to decide as the patient would have decided had she been competent. I propose an alternative interpretation of SJS in which the surrogate is required to infer what the patient actually thought about these end-of-life decisions. In clarifying SJS it is also important to differentiate the patient’s consent and preference. If SJS is part of an autonomy ideal of the sort found in Kantian ethics, consent seems more important than preference. From a utilitarian perspective a preference-based reading of SJS seems natural. I argue that the justification of SJS within a utilitarian framework will boil down to the question whether a non-competent patient can be said to have any surviving preferences. If we give a virtue-ethical justification of SJS the relative importance of consent and preferences depends on which virtue one stresses—respect or care. I argue that SJS might be an independent normative method for extending the patient’s autonomy, both from a Kantian and a virtue ethical perspective.

Behavioral Genetics. The Clash of Culture and Biology

This book is a collection of essays on recent findings in behavioural genetics and on the appropriate ethical, social and legal reactions to these findings. The authors come from various fields. The collection does not attempt to answer systematically all the questions it raises, but I believe that the book might be of some use in attempting to systematise and analyse the ethical problems in this area.Journal of Medical Ethics 2001;27:68–71 Behavioural genetics is not in itself a new field of research. We are painfully aware of the claims made for the existence of genetic factors in behaviour throughout the twentieth century. “Eugenics” is today charged with very negative feelings, and there is a risk that any claim by modern scientists about a genetic basis for behaviour, such as intelligence, will arouse these feelings. …

The Direct Value of Being Human

To claim that some property is of direct moral importance may be ambiguous. It can mean that the property in question is important in itself and not because of the fact that the property is typically found together with some other property; it can also mean that the property is important in itself and not only as an instrument or necessary condition for the actualization of other properties.

Tooley’s Arguments Against SA

Recall how Wertheimer described SA: “most people believe that being human has moral cachet: viz., a human being has human status in virtue of being a human being”. Remember also that we had certain difficulties when we tried to determine what this really means. The quotation can be given stronger or weaker interpretations.

Peter Singer on Killing Persons and Non-Persons

One of the main thoughts in Peter Singer’s book Practical Ethics is that we have to extend the principle of equal consideration of interests—which demands “that we give equal weight in our moral deliberations to the like interests of all those affected by our actions” (1993: 21)—also to the nonhuman animals. This means that their pain and suffering should be regarded as morally on a par with human suffering. However, Singer is not only eager to stress the moral importance of the animals’ interests, but also the moral importance of the distinction between persons and non-persons. These distinctions do not coincide, according to Singer, since some non-human animals are and some humans are not persons. Here I want to consider particularly what relevance Singer wants to assign to the distinction between persons and non-persons.

Critique of Arguments for SA

In the previous two chapters we have considered arguments for and against SA. These have been so-called contrast arguments, a type of argument which shows whether a certain distinction either has or lacks moral importance, by comparing two cases that differ merely with regard to this distinction. Of course, the contrast argument thereby appeals to our intuition. If we feel no moral difference between the cases, then we conclude that the distinction is morally unimportant (at least in this type of case). And the opposite conclusion is reached if we sense a moral difference. This argument would be a non-starter if moral intuitions were not allowed to play some role in our moral thinking.

Examples Supporting SA

In the previous chapter I considered an argument against SA which was constructed in the form of three examples. These examples were meant to show that there is no intrinsic moral difference between humans and nonhumans. I concluded the chapter by saying that only one of the examples seems to support that idea.

Peter Carruthers’ Contractualism

In The Animals Issue Peter Carruthers argues against the philosophical foundation of the so-called animal rights movement from the perspective of contractualism. I will here let Carruthers represent this influential moral theory. The main reason is that he is, to my knowledge, the only contractualist who has devoted more than marginal attention to the topic under discussion, i.e. what kind of importance to attach to the property of being a human and the comparative status of humans and non-humans.

A “Standard Attitude” (SA)

I am strongly inclined to believe that whatever attitude we have towards intuitions, that is, whether we want to take them seriously in our moral reasoning or not, most of us share the intuition which tells us that what we do to a human being compared to a non-human one has a special moral relevance, at least in certain situations. This is an intuition which in one way or another is important to most of us—as a putative source of moral knowledge or as something we believe we have to fight against.