On The Non-Alchemist: Is Abortion Wrong? - With Dr. Nathan Nobis

 

Readings for Introduction to Ethics

 Readings for Introduction to Philosophical Ethics 

Cultural Relativism: Do Cultural Norms Make Actions Right and Wrong?

New at 1000-Word Philosophy! Cultural Relativism: Do Cultural Norms Make Actions Right and Wrong?  

Micro-Digressions: A Philosophy Podcast -- SPECIAL EPISODE: Debating abortion

I was on Spencer Case's "Micro-Digressions: A Philosophy Podcast" @ADigressions to discuss abortion and ethics, and even the law too, with Christopher Kaczor.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/956725/9408417-special-episode-debating-abortion

A few recollections about this discussion below the fold:

Peter Singer's Animal Liberation & Tom Regan's The Case for Animal Rights

Short video overviews of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation and Tom Regan's The Case for Animal Rights:

Relativism in Ethics

Here's a quick video on relativism in ethics (and why it's a theory that be shown false by many sound arguments and isn't supported by any sound arguments!):

The Ethics of Belief: It’s not just Trump supporters who believe wrongly—it’s all of us

"The Ethics of Belief: It’s not just Trump supporters who believe wrongly—it’s all of us", at Political Animal Magazine.

Now also posted at the Changing Attitudes in Public Discourse "Open for Debate" blog!

Abortion Ethics Blog Post Archive

Here is an archive of the blog posts written after the publication of Thinking Critically About Abortion. Many of these posts are inspired by observations about how people often engage the issues, other posts discuss further arguments, and other posts recommend other readings and resources. 

Please click on the link for the current version of this document!

Moral Arguments from the Bible

Some people appeal to the Bible in giving reasons to support their views on ethical issues.

So, they might say things like this:

• "The Bible says doing this is wrong, so it's wrong."
• "The Bible says doing this is not wrong, so it's not wrong."
• "The Bible says we must do this, so we are must do this: it's an obligation."

Sometimes there are disagreement about what the Bible says or "really says": e.g., some might say that Bible clearly says this or that about slavery, or homosexuality, or eating meat, or abortion, or euthanasia, or the role of women, or polygamy, or capitalism, or being rich, or being poor, or capital punishment, or war, or violence, or anything else, and you can find other people who deny that, arguing that "the Bible clearly says" the opposite. 

But beyond that, these arguments, however, are all always missing essential premises: some logical "filling in" is necessary to make them logically valid, or make such that the premises lead to the conclusion. These premises are these:

• If the Bible says that doing something - X - is wrong, then doing X is wrong.
• If the Bible says that doing something - Y - is not wrong, then doing Y is not wrong.
• If the Bible says that we must something - Z, then doing Z is an obligation: we must do Z.

The problem, however, is that these premises appear to be false, and that nobody really believes these premises are literally true anyway. This is because it seems that there are counterexamples from the Bible to show that they are false. 

There are many lists of Bible verses that make this point: various wrong actions are called not wrong; various permissible actions are called wrong, and we are said to be obligated to do things that we are not obligated to do. (What are good verses that illustrate this point? See that link or below)

What's the upshot? It's that just because the Bible says an action is wrong, that doesn't mean it is. And just because the Bible says an action is permissible, that doesn't mean it is. And just because the Bible says we must do something, that might not be so. 

Sometimes, however, the Bible does give very good, indeed excellent, moral advice: e.g., to love your neighbor as yourself. 

This is good advice, but the second upshot of the discussion above is that this is good advice not just because the Bible says so. 

Like everything else, there must be good reasons why something is the case. 

Given that, what are the good reasons why we should love our neighbors as ourselves?

And what are other moral guidelines - particular verses and general themes - from the Bible, and anywhere else, that we have good reasons to accept, and which do we have good reasons to reject? Why?

(Note: there is another type of "religious" moral argument that appeals not to the Bible, but to God's commands or God's will. So, the claim is that if God commands doing something, we must do what God commands. This is what's called "the divine command theory" of ethics: what makes, say, wrong actions wrong is that God commands that we don't do them. 

A common response, ever since Socrates, is the "Euthyphro Dilemma" (named that because the reasoning was developed by Socrates in conversation with someone named Euthyphro):

1. Either there are reasons why God would command us to do something, or there are not reasons why God commands us to do something. (E.g., God would have reasons to command us to not, e.g., kick babies for fun). 

2. If there are not reasons, then the command is arbitrary and random. (And so that's not correct: a command to not kick babies would not be arbitrary and random).

3. But if there are reasons, then those reasons are what make the action wrong, not God's commands. (So, e.g., there are Kantian or consequentialist or Rawlian reasons to oppose kicking babies.)

And so it appears that Divine Command Theory is not a correct moral theory. For more discussion, see “Because God says so: on Divine Command Theory.”)

Review of PRINCIPLES OF ANIMAL RESEARCH ETHICS

PRINCIPLES OF ANIMAL RESEARCH ETHICS

Tom L. Beauchamp and David DeGrazia.

Oxford University Press. New York. 2020. 176 pp. ISBN 9780190939120. US$34.95 (Hardback).

(This review is out in the journal Bioethics.) [final version]

Is Your Opinion on Abortion Wrong? Critical Thinking and Abortion

Kristina Grob, Philosophy, University of South Carolina Sumter, and Nathan Nobis, Philosophy, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA.

Also posted at Science and Philosophy, Medium’s centre for scientifically-informed content. 

People with "thought bubbles" over their heads, suggestive of opinions.

For the past few years in the United States, almost daily there’s a headline about new proposed abortions restrictions. Conservatives cheer, liberals despair.

But who is right here? Should abortion be generally legal or should it be banned? Is it usually immoral or is it usually not wrong at all? These same questions, of course, are asked in other countries.

To many people, answers to these questions seem obvious, and people with different or contrary answers are, well, just wrong.

But how can we know? In particular, could anyone know that abortion is not wrong and should be legal? If so, how? And how would anyone effectively, persuasively, communicate that knowledge?

One important set of answers depends on this idea: critical thinking. Critical thinking can help people know, not merely believe or feel, that their perspectives on issues are true or correct, and it can help them persuade others to understand and accept that knowledge.

We are philosophy professors who teach courses in critical thinking and its applications to ethical, political, scientific, and legal issues. In our 2019 open-access book, Thinking Critically About Abortion: Why Most Abortions Aren’t Wrong & Why All Abortions Should be Legal, we apply well-confirmed methods of critical thinking to the most discussed arguments about abortion.

"Thinking Critically About Abortion" book cover.

Critical thinking can be operationalized as skills. Three key critical thinking skills involve defining words, identifying the structures of arguments, and evaluating explanations. Understanding these and other critical thinking skills can only help improve conversations and advocacy about abortion. Let’s see them in action.

When are Actions Morally or Ethically Wrong, and Why?

Click on this link to access this Google Doc:

When are Actions Morally or Ethically Wrong, and Why?

When are Actions Morally or Ethically Wrong, and Why?

Ethics or morality (these are the same thing) concern when actions are wrong, permissible (or not wrong) or obligatory (wrong to not do). These might seem like hard to define concepts, but we can remember these observations below to begin better understanding what we mean by them:

 

• Just because an action is illegal doesn’t mean it’s wrong, and just because an action is legal doesn’t mean it’s permissible. Ethics and the law are different.
• Just because a community approves of an action doesn’t mean it’s permissible, and just because a group of people disapproves of an action doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
• Just because an individual approves of an action or likes doing it (or it benefits themselves) doesn’t mean it’s permissible, and just because an individual disapproves of an action doesn’t mean it’s wrong. 
• Although perhaps more controversially, even if there is a God, God’s saying an action is wrong doesn’t make that action wrong, it’s the reasons why God would say it’s wrong (e.g., if God says that kicking babies is wrong and that we shouldn’t kick babies, that’s because kicking babies is wrong: it hurts them and is disrespectful of them, and more). (Related: see "Moral Arguments and the Bible").

Often when people think of ethics, it’s controversial, much-disputed issues that come to mind. There are hard ethical issues, but there are also relatively easy issues, and we can use these issues to develop some general ideas about when actions are wrong, and when they are not wrong, that can help us better think about with harder issues. These general ideas or explanations are ethical theories. 

To begin developing ethical theories, we can begin with this activity:

• Make a list of actions that you think are obviously and obviously and uncontroversially wrong, and that almost everyone would agree. 
• Make a list of actions that you think are obviously and obviously and uncontroversially at least permissible, or just good actions, and that almost everyone would agree. 

 Take some time to develop these lists. 

After you develop your lists, think about what explains the patterns of these lists. For simplicity, we can focus on the “wrong” list (although this is a bit depressing!). 

The questions are these: why are the wrong actions on the “wrong” list? What is it about them that makes them belong on that list? And what makes the not wrong actions belong on the not wrong list? 

Answers here are the basis of moral or ethical theories, which try to state, in general, why actions are wrong, or what makes wrong actions wrong, and the same about right actions. 

Here are the basics of some influential theories:

 

• Consequentialism: wrong actions are actions that do not cause the best possible consequences for everyone affected by the action. What’s a bad consequence for someone? At least, pain, suffering and other types of harms and bad things for them, that makes the person worse off in some important way. So, consequentialists are apt to judge actions as wrong when the person doing the action could have done something else that produces better overall consequences.

 

• Rights theories: wrong actions are actions where someone’s rights have been violated, such as their right to life, the right to their body, their rights to make informed decisions about important matters about their lives and, in general, a right to be treated with respect, as a valuable person. To violate someone’s rights is often to “use them,” without regard to their input or preferences. Those who appeal to rights are apt to think that when anyone’s rights are violated, the action is likely wrong. 

 

• “Golden rules”: wrong actions are ones where the person doing the action wouldn’t agree to that type of action being done to them. Advocates of the golden rule expect people to act in ways they want or are willing for others to act: that’s only fair.

 

• Judging actions behind the “Veil of Ignorance”: this idea is that if you wouldn’t agree to something being done if you didn’t know who you were, then that action is wrong. The imaginary perspective where you don’t know who you are is called being “behind the veil of ignorance.” So, for example, nobody would agree to racist laws if they didn’t know their own race, because they might wind up being victims of those racist laws. So this perspective sees wrong actions as ones that would be rejected if we eliminated any source of potentially self-serving bias. We can also interpret this idea as actions are wrong when they violate rules that we would all choose if we were setting up a society or creating a “social contract.” 

 

• Justice: while “justice” sometimes seems like a nebulous, “who can judge?” sort of concern, it can be made concrete in a number of ways. First, something tends to be unjust when one group or individual benefits (without their agreement) at the expense of another, or when one group or individual is treated differently from others for no relevant, justifying reason: in other words, like groups and individuals must be treated like anyone else, unless there is a good reason to treat them differently, or else there is an injustice.  

These are some of the most important general ideas about ethics, stated in very brief, underdeveloped ways (more developed, but still brief, versions of many of these are available here at 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology: in particular, you should read the essays on Consequentialism, Deontology: Kantian Ethics, Ubuntu: African ethics and John Rawls’ Theory of Justice: for each theory, how might it explain why the actions on your list of wrong actions are wrong?). Of course, they can and should be developed in greater detail and the various strengths and weaknesses of each, and combinations of views, identified. 

• Deontology: Kantian Ethics by Andrew Chapman
• Consequentialism by Shane Gronholz
• The African Ethic of Ubuntu by Thaddeus Metz
• John Rawls’ ‘A Theory of Justice’ by Ben Davies
• Social Contract Theory by David Antonini

But how do these ideas - these basic versions of common moral theories - seem to you? And how do they relate to your lists? How can they be related to, or applied to, any other ethical questions to try to figure out what’s wrong and what’s not wrong? 

"Responding to Morally Flawed Historical Philosophers"

This is the third of a series of short philosophy talks organized by the Public Philosophy Network. Victor Abundez-Guerra discusses how we can respond to past philosophers whose views or behavior we find repugnant.

This presentation is based on is "Responding to Morally Flawed Historical Philosophers and Philosophies" by Victor Fabian Abundez-Guerra and Nathan Nobis in 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology.

"America's Unjust Drug War" by Michael Huemer: An 8 Minute Overview

"America's Unjust Drug War" by Michael Huemer is here: http://www.owl232.net/papers/drugs.htm

PPT slides:

Climate Change Ethics course description:

Climate Change Ethics course description:  

This course addresses the moral or ethical issues that result from climate change: what should we do, what must we do, to respond to climate change? What should we do individually, and what should we do collectively, as local communities, states, nations and as a global effort? Why must we do this, and how? 

Ethical discussions of real-world issues depend on an understanding of the facts. To know what we should do about climate change, we need to know the facts. These facts are determined by science, so how do we develop scientific literacy so that more people, especially people of influence, better understand these facts? Understanding the relevant science and trusting scientists is a moral issue: what must we do to increase the knowledge, understanding, and trust that’s needed to confront climate change? 

Unfortunately, there are powerful cultural and political forces that work to distort, deny and undermine a scientific understanding of climate change. How do we identify those sources and address them? How can we effectively communicate the messages needed for individuals and societies to make ethical choices?  

Climate change is an ethical issue, to put it very simply, because many bad things are happening, and are predicted to happen, because of it. What are these bad things, and who are they bad for? While this often seems obvious, why are they bad, and what are the most effective, fair and just ways to address this badness? Simple questions here lead to complex and challenging ethical questions about our individual and collective ethical obligations, the nature of fairness and justice, and more.  

Some activities, done in connection with local organizations that address climate change:

• students will strategize about how to best "move" climate change messages, both at the individual and collective / policy levels and test these strategies, 
• students will engage in various types of educational outreach, such as those supported by the RCE Atlanta: https://serve-learn-sustain.gatech.edu/rce-greater-atlanta  
• students will contribute to the efforts of the Georgia Climate Project, such as working with their “Georgia Climate Stories” project to document the impact on climate change on people in Georgia and how they are responding: https://stories.georgiaclimateproject.org/  

SpcTop: Climate Change Ethics - 48822 - HPHI 475 - 02
Associated Term: Fall 2020 Registration Dates: No dates available Levels: Undergraduate Morehouse College Campus Lecture Schedule Type 3.000 Credits View Catalog Entry Bookstore(change me) Scheduled Meeting Times Type Time Days Where Date Range Schedule Type Instructors Class 1:00 pm - 1:50 pm MWF Sale Hall 110 Aug 19, 2020 - Dec 11, 2020 Lecture Nathan M. Nobis (P)

Extra Credit, even now

I've seen a lot of posts about giving extra credit opportunities to address grade challenges brought on by the circumstances, and I want to quickly argue this is a bad, unfair, and counter-productive idea.

The current main motivation for extra credit is that students have been set-back and thrown off track because of the current situation, and so extra credit is an attempt to address that, to prevent them from being harmed by circumstances beyond their control.

However, *all* (or nearly all) students have been harmed by this pandemic, and so if *any* students should be compensated or boosted for this, they *all* should be boosted for it. To have to jump through a hoop or do more work to get this benefit, that everyone deserves, to try to make things more fair is, well, unfair.

Furthermore, this just creates more work for everyone, including students, at a time when nobody needs more work.

To address the motivating concern in a fair way, one could just simply raise *everyone's* grades by X % (10% 20%?). Then *everyone* gets the grade "stimulus" package, not just those who are lucky enough to know to apply and have the time to apply. Students who are currently so burdened that they don't have time to do extra credit (much less the new regular work) shouldn't lose out on a benefit that their more fortunate peers have time to access: that's not fair.

Sure, some will get a grade stimulus who don't need it, but that's less bad than forcing those who need it to do more work when they are already loaded down.

These arguments are motivated by this article - Christopher Pynes. “Seven Arguments Against Extra Credit.” Teaching Philosophy 37, no. 2 (2014): 191-214 -- and are summarized here:

https://1000wordphilosophy.com/…/25/ethics-and-extra-credit/

I hope this is interesting and helpful and contributes to making things simpler and more fair for all!

#extracredit #grading #grades

Videos on Ethics and Animal Research