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You profoundly misread Yuval.

Well, geez, relieve us of the suspense already, Hitchcock. What did KTK miss?

Judging from your handle, I’m sure this will be enormously erudite and enlightening…

I’m curious. After trying to wade through all your rambling about what is a “moral” person and what is not, was there something in your post that indicated what your standard for a moral person is, or what “moral” is for that matter. And if so, what do you base that standard on?

ceeslouis,

long-time readers here know KTK well enough to know where he stands on this, so he wasn’t as explicit as one might hope. fortunately, he’s previously written it out very clearly:
http://sufficientscruples.com/blog/?page_id=42

ceeslouis:

The question what “moral” means is a difficult one (more so even than many ethicists realize), but it isn’t really the issue here. As to what I write above, none of it was precisely about “what is a moral person”, and of course I don’t state a criterion for personhood in the post.

My entire comment was intended to demonstrate the truth of the opening sentence: Levin’s discussion of the issue was incompetent for anyone claiming expertise, or even minimal comprehension, in bioethics. Specifically, it was filled with logical confusions and false statements. I demonstrate as much.

Much of his failure centers on his utterly bungled and incoherent treatment of the issue of moral standing, but it does not require articulating a theory of personhood to point out that Levin’s apparent theory is nonsensical.

As to what theory I would espouse, as it happens I have written on that at some length. It appears here.

Quoting myself:

“[T]he term ['human beings'] is often used in a flatly dishonest, or at least logically untenable, way. You frequently hear arguments to the effect that such-and-so individual, or such-and-so type of biologically-human entity (e.g., embryos, fetuses, the brain-dead, etc.) ‘is obviously a human being, because they have human parents, and so deserve the same protections as any other human being.’ This equivocates between the biological categorization implied by ‘human being’ (‘born to human parents’) and the moral categorization often attached to the same words (‘deserves protection’). This would be a laughably obvious logical mistake if it weren’t so common – but this usage is in fact very common, including among educated and influential people who must be assumed to realize the fallacy in their own words. This mistake is made any time the question of biological categorization is introduced into a debate over moral status itself. Common examples include the scientific-sounding discussions of DNA and taxonomic species-membership that sometimes arise in debates over the treatment of pre-implantation embryos.”

Hilariously, or perhaps sadly, that statement describes in almost precise detail, in fact using almost the very same words, the mistakes and fallacies displayed by Levin today. Unfortunately, it was written almost three years ago (during the time, actually, that Levin was serving as staff director of the PCB!). Not, I think, a very impressive showing by Levin.

Incidentally: the article I quote and link above is a descriptive piece – it lays out the framework for various theories of personhood but does not explicitly take a position on them. If it is not obvious from reading between the lines, I’ll make it clear here: my own position is the third mentioned in that piece – that personhood must rest upon mental capacities of some sort, and, further, that the reasonable “bar” for qualification as a person should, I think, be set fairly high. I would say – leaving room for correction on factual grounds – that strict personhood obtains to no non-human animals, to no human fetuses until at least very late in gestation and probably not then, and to no former human persons who have permanently lost all or nearly all conscious, self-aware mental functioning. I also don’t think any computers have yet qualified, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually do. (I leave open the question of intelligent space aliens.)

Note, finally, that I did say there may be reasons other than strict moral interests for offering protection to some categories of non-persons; merely saying what is or is not a person is an important, but not strictly decisive, element in practical policy-making. I do not believe that treating non-persons as if they were persons is generally morally necessary, certainly never in respect of their own (non-existent) rights or interests, but there may be a few cases in which it serves a social purpose; I would suspect they would be few and limited.

There you have it. Please inform Dr. Levin – he needs the help.

UPDATE: Oh, hey, Dan – you beat me to it! Thanks for posting that link.

“long-time readers here know KTK well enough to know where he stands on this, so he wasn’t as explicit as one might hope. fortunately, he’s previously written it out very clearly:”
http://sufficientscruples.com/blog/?page_id=42

O.K. I read the Personhood essay or post or report. Whew, interesting, although I would have to debate on the “very clearly” description. There were lots of good comments about what people think about moral personhood but no real conclusion about what is moral personhood, unless the conclusion was that there is no real conclusion. And I guess that would lead to the same conclusion (I hope I’m not wearing out that word) for my second & third questions about what “moral” is & what the standard for “moral” is. That we can only give it our best guess from what we can learn through science. Am I reading that right?

Ahem. “Very clearly” for KTK. *grin*

I think the short of it is that legal status as a moral person is not a moral question, but an ethical one, informed by science. Like all ethics, it’s an exercise in sociology, politics, and rhetoric.

All three of those should be informed by science. Are facts sufficient or dispositive? No, but KTK’s point is that what is called “the right wing” is especially fond of ignoring facts when talking about any of these things.

It would seem as though there is a pretty fine line between ethical & moral (I checked Websters just for fun, each is given as a synonym for the other). If sociology, politics & rhetoric decide our ethical/moral questions & are all informed by science & the facts of science are not sufficient to answer that question wouldn’t we have to conclude either:
1.there is no ethical question, it’s all O.K.
2.we have to look somewhere other than science for the rest of our answer
or
3.whoever has the biggest stick wins (which might be the case even if one of the other answers is true.

Well, at the very least i can clarify what i mean by the distinction between ethics and morals.

For me, morals are the ideas and methods by which a person chooses what ought to be done. In this sense, i see no reality to moral objectivity; each person may decide differently than another, no matter how wrong each seems to the other.

On the other hand, ethics are the rules and customs by which a whole people, a body of persons, comes to decide whether what is done is given opprobrium, praise, or punishment. Ethics is an artifact, a creation of masses of humans; it is insubstantial, as temporal as the law of man and as myoptic as our tax codes. Ethics has no authority of conscience and no reality outside the physical enforcement by some humans upon other humans. In this sense, ethics is the biggest stick, or at least the most-weilded one.

Now, what is interesting is that ethics is the consesus of the morals of many separate persons. If there is some regularity to those morals, then there is an objective basis for ethics. What all of us agree ought to be, we as a society can praise; what all of us agree is wrong, we can punish. And so, ethics is empirical; science can tell us what minds arise from brains of human beings, and thus what decisions are common. There is no need for a Lawgiver for there to be true law, only a coherency to reality, and a regularity to understanding.

Something like the distinction Dan makes above is a common one. (Remember Matthew Broderick, in Election? “Now, is this an ethical problem, or a moral problem? . . . Anyone?”) Ethics is a systematic approach to reasoning about moral issues; morality itself is either your personal beliefs, or a society’s beliefs and customs, regarding correct behavior (“mores”).

Others prefer to treat them as synonyms. That is my preference. I think the “personal or social mores” stuff is best subsumed under psychology or sociology. Trying to figure out what those rules should be is a different matter, but I don’t care too much what you call it.

Professional philosophers seem to divide on this question. It doesn’t matter much, as long as you’re clear in how you’re using the terms.

As to the relationship between science and ethics, it’s a commonplace that material facts alone do not determine moral issues (there’s even a slogan for it: “you cannot go from is to ought”) – but of course the facts of a case are always relevant, even if not decisive. Cases have to be considered in light of moral values and principles. How you ratify and inculcate moral values, what the correct moral principles are, and how they apply to the facts of cases, is largely the subject of philosophical ethics.

That’s too much to discuss here. Briefly: some will say you cannot validate or argue about values – people just have whatever values they have. But most would agree that some values (generosity) are more conducive to moral behavior than others (cannibalism). Since the definition of “value” is simply “something people care about”, it’s hard to know how to prove that certain values are morally right or wrong, let alone how to convince people to adopt them. It’s a lively topic of discussion (and has been at least since Plato). Moral principles are easier to grasp – supposedly, at least. They are expected to arise logically from the most general moral values, or from one’s basic conception of how morality “works”. Given a basic perspective on what the principles of ethics are supposed to achieve in the first place (maximizing security?, maximizing individual liberty?, ensuring the best possible outcome for all parties? . . .), one should be able to reason out a correct system of rules for living up to its demands. In practice, that goal remains elusive.

“Professional philosophers,” there is something funny about that term (no offense, if that is what you are) I guess in societies eye, it’s not that different than a professional preacher. Anyway, I appreciate you guys indulging me in all this. Circling back to my original question, I think I realize now that you weren’t arguing Yuval Levin’s concept of morality so much as, in your perception anyhow, his poor job of defending his concept of morality. Is that correct? And if I may ask, unless it was mixed in your other comments about societies morals & I missed it, what about you personally? Surely there is some moral standard that you live by? And if so what is it based on?

Now, what is interesting is that ethics is the consesus of the morals of many separate persons. If there is some regularity to those morals, then there is an objective basis for ethics.

I’m basically with you, Dan, as usual. But, this presupposes two things.

One, that individuals understand the difference enough to not conflate one for the other, i.e. they can differentiate their personal views and opinions – morals about what it rights- from what should be codified into the more highly exalted category of ethics (what is just). Two possible examples here. A) a strong work ethic is intrinsically moral need not imply an ethical (or even moral) component to a welfare system. B) one’s desire, or even moral conception, of drug use/abuse vs. the ethical considerations of allowing the state to determine the legality thereof.

And, “B” leads me to my second point, The Chronicles of Narnia up there suggests the all important question of whether ethics are determined by “the biggest stick.” In many cases, that is the case. The “consensus” of the moral of many separate people, in regard to how ethics remain as an artifact of a culture, is often more like the “consensus of fewer highly powerful people as represented by their policy decisions which may or may not actually represent their personal views and behavior.”

I suspect that, understanding the difference between the terms, a minority of people see homosexuality as an ethical issue (while more probably do see it as a moral issue). But, as an artifact of our society, our prevailing ethics certainly at least associate, if not equate, homosexuality with all sorts of ethical issues.

you weren’t arguing Yuval Levin’s concept of morality so much as, in your perception anyhow, his poor job of defending his concept of morality. Is that correct?

Essentially, but it goes beyond that. He didn’t just do “a poor job of defending” his position, by being inarticulate, or confusing his audience, or some such thing. The things he said were simply false or mistaken – he confuses a category of things defined one way with a category of things defined a different way to draw unjustifiable implications, and he makes factual statements (about a written document, no less – the sort of thing you can get right just by looking it up) that are simply incorrect both as to the content referred to and its plain meaning.

This is not an insignificant matter. He served for 3-4 years as staff director of an bioethics advisory council appointed by the President directly, handpicked for that position by the Council Chair (prominent right-wing ethics crank Leon Kass), and personally managed and contributed to their many official publications; he gets paid by a bunch of the usual right-wing think tanks as a policy expert, and publishes in a lot of prominent venues. He’s supposed to know this shit. Making remedial-level undergraduate errors in logic, and confusing terminology like some hack preacher, raises very serious questions for someone with his background and claims to expertise. Either he is so unbelievably incompetent, compared to expectations for someone in his position, that he instantly confirms every stereotype I have of right-wing cranks like himself (and yes, it’s time once more to give generously to the Foundation for the Cure of Conservative Reading Comprehension Disorder – make checks payable to “Kevin T. Keith”, since I’m the one doing the work), or, alternatively, he’s being deliberately dishonest and misleading. But either way, this is not just a failure to express himself clearly – it’s simply being wrong on the facts and the logic. It’s very, very shoddy work – but all too characteristic of the crowd he runs with.

As for me, I like to keep things to their essence. I follow derelicts off the subway, steal their meager possessions, then drag the reasonably-freshly-washed ones under the FDR roadway and roast them over a trashcan fire.

Sounds good, KTK. I subscribe to the moral credo of Jesse the Body Ventura, “Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat.”

Ironically, there are few career fields one could head to from professional wrestling where such a credo could ring even more appropriate, American politics being one.

All human life and “personhood/ensoulment” begins at conception. How ironic that jewish leaders would on one hand support the embryonic stem cell harvesting industry, yet expect the rest of us all to look with horror at the holocaust. Typical liberal hypocrisy.

KTK,

I do strongly prefer to use ‘ethics’ to mean agreed-upon community standards, rather than personal decisions, primarily because of such uses as ‘medical ethics’, and lawyers’ ‘canons of ethics’. Regardless of anyone’s personal moral values, it is decidable whether a particular act meets the legal and professional requirements of those well-circumscribed communities. Generalizing the term ‘ethics’ to larger and less regulated communities seems to be of utility, as does then counterposing ‘morals’.

Digg,

I’d have to research this to be sure, but I suspect the usages of ‘ethic’ and ‘ethics’ are quite different. I think ‘a X ethic’ is a mostly-fixed phrase that is used to refer to what nowadays would be called a single moral value.

However, I agree with you that many people don’t make a clear distinction between their own morals and their community’s ethics, and what they want their community’s ethics to be. I think that’s just a matter of most people not really thinking clearly most of the time.

And I think your last point is a good one. I attempted to hand-wave it with my comment about the “most-weilded stick”. I was feeling lazy.

These same people weeping for the hundreds of thousands of discarded and frozen embryos show none of the compassion for adults, especially if those people are “foreigners” or “terrorists.” Conservatives live in the world of four year olds, where everything is mind-boggingly simple: if there are cells, it’s a human; if it’s a Muslim, it’s a terrorist.”

You are right to abuse them

Jesse Ventura not withstanding, in my mind-bogglingly simple reasoning I assume by your (hopefully) facetious answers that you don’t think my question dignifies an answer and leads me to believe your answer to the first question is “no,” and so eliminates the need for an answer to the second question. Which actually makes your “keep things to their essence” answer make sense.

“Ironically, there are few career fields one could head to from professional wrestling where such a credo could ring even more appropriate, American politics being one.”

Appropriate or not, any more it seems there are few career fields where that is not the credo.

ceeslouis:

I answered your substantive question about Levin. Your personal question about me just didn’t seem relevant, or very easy to answer briefly.

If you insist, I can tell you that I am a “consequentialist” ethicist – I think that what determines the morality of an act is its impact on those who are affected by it, and that our moral obligations consist in trying to produce the best outcomes possible from every decision or act we undertake. (It becomes complicated how you figure out what that is in practical terms, still less how you achieve it, but, then, that’s why these issues are contentious.) Consequentialism contrasts with so-called “deontological” theories of ethics which posit hard-and-fast rules which define moral behavior, and in terms of which morality consists only in following the rules, even (to some extent at least) if it produces obviously worse outcomes than some other decision might do.

Not surprisingly, I’ve written on this, too.

You did answer the question about Levin, thank you.

The relevency of the other question, to me anyhow, just helps establish the legitimacy that should given to hearing the merits of your point of view on moral personhood. Your last answer was more acceptable, thank you (not that you need to be accepted by me).

After reading you definition of a “consequential” ethicist I can see why it took so long to answer. Your comment about the complications in figuring out & achieving what is best is understandable but does not necessarily make “consequential” contrast “deontilogical” (I love these words) theories if those theories (truths?) actually produce what is best. Would you not agree one of the main reasons it becomes complicated is that sometimes what seems best on the surface is not always best underneath? If you have a child with a bad cavity in her tooth that happens not to be hurting at the time, you take her to the dentist for what may be a painfull experience because you understand she needs to save the tooth, when all she understands is you made her mouth hurt. The same if you get her vaccinated when she’s not even sick. To her it was an “obviously worse outcome” to save her from something she didn’t even know existed (or didn’t want to know existed because she was having a much better time being left alone). I agree getting to the “best possible outcome” is not always easy to find, but could it be that sometimes it is because we don’t like where we will have to go to get there?

Sorry, I should have included “religious moral” in there with “deontological,” (did I spell it right that time?) when I was talking about those theories. I’m still learning. Please forgive me (if you think its the moral thing to do).

KTK
I didn’t notice your little note at the bottom about what else you had written until after my last comment. Now I’ve glanced at it, but it’s getting late. I’ll have to read it tomorrow. I hope I didn’t rehash something you’ve already written.

Ceeslouis,

My comment was made only as a joke, playing off KTK’s. I’m not particularly interested in getting into philosophical discussion about the finer points of my personal ethics with a total stranger. I’m not opposed to it because of that in the abstract, but on practical grounds. You know so little about me that what is often a grueling, challenging discussion to have among those who know your thoughts/spirit/views as well as anybody else could, would be near impossible to have with a total stranger. We could go back and forth for days over the nuance of a single sentence – that’s the nature of these subjects.

I’m also not absolutist in just about any field, so it makes describing my personal morals/ethics very difficult. The idea of the whole discussion just seems like a Herculean task with little overall payoff in terms of serving as insight to the current discussion.

I can understand your reluctance. As for myself, although it may be harder to find someone willing, I find it easier to discuss this sort of thing with someone that I know little about or that knows little about me because we are not prejudiced with emotional ties & personal history (“a prophet is not without honor except in his own house”) that might hinder a rational discussion, especially if it is with someone who may not agree with me. When you are close to someone, you may not want to give opinions that might damage the relationship. I agree a discussion with an unknown may be gruelling and challenging but the payoff of an honest look (without all the name-calling that you find on most blogs, although I kind of liked the “Chronicles of Narnia” thing) at why we believe what we believe could be valuable. That is what is at the core of just about any other subject we could debate & if all I do is talk to people who agree with me it does a lot for my ego, but not much for my intellect or spirit except get them lazy & bored. Thanks for being reasonably civil guys, you are, on this particular post anyhow, the exception, not the rule.

KTK
Ok, I read your “Consequentialis Ethics” essay. It was informative. I’ll stick with my March 12th comments. I probably need new glasses though.