In a message dated 00-03-06 19:52:29 EST, you write:
<< The brand(s)of utilitarianism espoused by Dr. Singer, as it is popularly understood, can
too easily be used to justify the removal of those deemed too expensive or inconvenient,
under the pretext doing the greatest good for the greatest number. And there is
undeniable historical precedent for the danger of such views.
One, that's a big problem with utilitarianism generally. Worse, it may in fact promote the greatest good of the greatest number to victimize some minority. The utils would say, then do it. I regard that as a fatal objection to util. Nothing original here of course.
Two, the people who did in fact go about massacring the disabled (the Nazis) or consigning them to poverty and misery (classical Lockean liberals, conservatives or libertarians in our jargon) are not utilitarians. Real utilitarians tend to be concerned about the people on the bottom.
As indeed is Singer, since I think his views on who you can kill are far narrower than Marta seems to think. The comment about hemophiliacs, for example: S thinks that if you have a baby that is a hemophiliac and it is under a month, you can kill it--just like you can kill any other baby under a month. Its being hemophiliac is not relevant, except insofar as its having a less happy life and being more of a bother to its parents is relevant to how much happiness there would be if you did. I find this way of talking horrible, but the point is not that it is open season on hemophiliacs, but open season on less-than-one-month old babies. For Singer, anyway.
> Bioethics closes itself off to a lot of considerations -- the power issues disabled
activists are looking at, the culture, the way language constructs things. Singer seems
disinterested in the political economy - I can find no discussion of how class or power
relations factor in to "happiness". >>
Third, read Singer's "Rich and Poor," which after all is part of "Practical Ethics." He advocates radical redistribution of wealth on utilitarian grounds. The approach is individualistic, but he is a utilitarian, so what do you expect. However, he is alert to class or at least to inequality. He wrote a little book about Marx, btw, but doesn't seem to have learned much from the experience.
Anyway, my point has not been that Singer is right about everything, but that if you are going to criticize him, criticize him for his actual views, Personally, I think the disability activists picked the wrong target and behaved towards him in the wrong way.
--jks