The Mother as Many?

**This is from guest blogger Eric B.**

In all honesty, much of this paper confuses me. Perhaps it is the sometimes slim difference between what we intend to do and what we foresee happening after certain actions (Direct vs. Oblique). Perhaps it is the simple volume of hypothetical situations that Foot presents in this paper. Most of all, I feel that the main issue is that the conclusion regarding abortion seems unresolved. To be specific, I am focusing on the third case provided by Foot, in which an abortion can be performed that would kill the fetus and save the mother, or the mother could be let to die, while the fetus is safely delivered.

Foot uses positive and negative actions to help us determine the moral obligations we have to certain situations. A positive duty is one in which we provide aid to another individual, whereas a negative duty is one in which we agree to avoid injuring them. The abortion of a baby is akin to providing aid to the mother while violating our duty not to injure the baby. It seems, that the violation of the negative duty outweighs the positive duty, namely the benefit gained by providing aid to the mother. Therefore it would follow that aborting the baby is the wrong action to take. This situation becomes even clearer if we treat change the situation to one in which a toddler may result in the death of the mother. In this case we would surely agree that it would be wrong to kill the already born child to aid the mother.

What Foot then proposes is quite strange and rather unintuitive. She suggests that people have a different conception of the scenario if we suggest that a group of individuals is harmed (P.588). In this, she submits that we treat the mother as if she was a group of people and the fetus as only a single person. It follows that we must protect the group by willingly sacrificing the single individual, no matter how difficult this may be. I find this conclusion rather bizarre, in that we must treat a single woman as a group, when in fact we know that she is a single person (and presumably has the same rights as the child). Here I would like to involve you, the reader, to help me understand exactly what is meant by this “mother-as-a-group” analogy that Foot uses. I look forward to hearing the varied responses that you all can provide.

More on Foot and the Doctrine of Double Effect

**This is from guest blogger Chelsea**

Philippa Foot’s “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect,” raises many points about how we synthesize moral rights and wrongs.  Foot discusses the Doctrine of Double effect. It is best to explain this doctrine through example. A doctor is charged with the care of a very ill patient who is in a monstrous amount of pain. This doctor gives the patient an absurd amount of morphine to end her life. This is morally impermissible because the doctor directly intended to bring about her death. However, if the doctor gave the patient the same measure of morphine with the sole intent of easing her pain and merely predicted it might end her life a tad early, then the physician would be acting within the realm of moral permissibility. Basically, the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) is the idea that one’s intentions and the predictableness behind the same action dictate its moral permissibility. Through the discussion of DDE, however, the abortion problem came no closer to being solved.

I believe that the intentions behind an action do not play a part in the morality of the action. Let us explore an example. There are two countries at war- country X and country Z. X decides that the best route towards ending the war in victory is to bomb Z’s military headquarters. These headquarters are sprawling and play a large part in the community; refugees, orphans, and cute fluffy animals live here because the military takes them in and cares for them. Country X knows this, but bombs anyway. It was not their intent to kill, wound, and maim all those civilians, but they still did. I believe they are still morally responsible for any and all pain and suffering they have caused. Regardless of their intentions, the harm that was a direct result of their actions occurred.

For a less intense example, I am a storekeeper. There is a rowdy child who kept spilling all my lima beans onto the floor. He comes to the register to buy a candy. He hands me a 10 dollar bill to pay for his 75 cent gummy worms. I want to shortchange him because I know he can’t count. I do not, however, because I know his mother will yell at me tomorrow and her voice is really annoying. I give him $9.25. Regardless of why I did the right thing, I did.

The only time someone knows all of another person’s intentions is when they are making up wonky examples and situations in a philosophy class. When it comes to morality, I find that actions speak louder than words (or intentions). Thoughts?

Philippa Foot: Hypothetical Imperatives System

**This is from guest blogger, Chelsea, R.**

In “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives,” Philippa Foot’s main argument is that morals are not categorical imperatives. Essentially, Ms. Foot makes the claim that morals are not reason-giving, meaning that an action can be morally right, but we are not required to do it. This also means that a person can make a rational decision to withdraw from the moral community. Her conclusion is that morals are hypothetical imperatives, meaning they are the “practical necessity of a possible action as a means to achieving something else which one desires…” (Ethical Theory: An Anthology 138). She sees this alternative to a rigid realist structure a better means of ensuring moral behavior. “…perhaps we should even have less to fear it [defection from the moral cause] if people thought of themselves as volunteers banded together to fight for liberty and justice and against inhumanity and oppression.” (Ethical Theory: An Anthology 143)

Her reasons that lead to the conclusion are based on the problems with a categorically imperative based system of morals. Since these moral principles can be ignored or violated by rational people, they are not categorical at all! She also mentions that our feelings towards morals are not enough to compel us to follow moral rule. Nor are the normative aspects of moral conclusions. Most people would assume that this point of view negates the idea of morals. Morality being no more than hypothetical imperatives reduces it to the level of etiquette and social behaviors.

At first, I was troubled by this. Morals have always been portrayed as this unyielding measure of good behavior. We’ve always been taught to follow these behaviors and ridicule those who don’t. For example, honesty is the best policy is a moral truth. People, communities, and cultures look at liars, thieves, and other dishonest people with disdain. At a very young age, we were taught in pre-school to not steal or tell lies. Our teaching is this matter was reinforced at home when we got grounded for lying about flushing marbles down the toilet. Is this a moral truth because is truly is a universal moral fact, or merely because were taught that the world is this way? More pertinently, do I behave the way I do because I ought to be honest or because I was taught to be honest?

Let’s say I do not steal or lie and avoid dishonest actions because I was taught to avoid those actions. Does this in anyway diminish my standing as an honest person? Or maybe I don’t steal because I know I’ll get caught by my mom and I desire to stay in good standing with her. This type of behavior still commits the moral action, it just has different intentions underneath it.

When I got my tonsils out as child, my mom bought me a stuffed grey cat with a pink ribbon around its neck. My little sister loved it and wanted it super badly. Suppose she didn’t steal from me while I was in my drug-induced slumber because she knew stealing was wrong and one should strive to be moral. A second scenario: suppose she wanted to steal it, but knew I’d smear mustard all over her Pringles if she did. Since she desired that her Pringles stay mustard-free, she decided against stealing my cat. The outcome in both scenarios is the same, but one was a categorical imperative while the other was a hypothetical one. If she didn’t steal my cat solely because it was the right thing to do, is her action more moral than the second scenario? (She actually did steal it and my mom had to buy me a new stuffed cat. I did mustard her Pringles and we still fight about it.) Philippa Foot’s piece brings rise to an even greater question that requires the input of multiple people in the comments: are morals still considered morals without their categorical nature? Or would morals be reduced to behaviors or actions that are good or bad depending on how they impact other people?