How to insure against utilitarian overconfidence.
This paper addresses two examples of overconfident presentations of utilitarian moral conclusions. First, there is Peter Singer's widely discussed claim that if the consequences of a medical experiment are sufficiently good to justify the use of animals, then we should be prepared to perform the experiment on human beings with equivalent mental capacities. Second, I consider defences of infanticide or after-birth abortion. I do not challenge the soundness of these arguments. Rather, I accuse those who seek to translate these conclusions into moral advice of a dangerous overconfidence. This paper offers an insurance policy that protects against some of the costs of mistaken moral reasoning. An interest in moral insurance is motivated by the recognition that, in the event that overconfident ethicists have reasoned incorrectly, some actions recommended by their conclusions are not just bad, but very bad. We should reject suggestions that we conduct medical experiments on humans or kill newborns.
Philosophy Programme, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, 6140, New Zealand, nicholas.agar@vuw.ac.nz.
Nicholas
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Agar
D032761:Animal Experimentation / Q000941:ethics*; D000818:Animals; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000941:ethics*; D003657:Decision Making; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D028663:Ethical Theory; D026822:Ethicists / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007237:Infanticide / Q000941:ethics; D008607:Intellectual Disability; D028681:Moral Obligations; D026712:Value of Life