Kantians & Utilitarians (was Re: Singer's latest)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>If you are a consent theorist, how do you account for the basis of 
>the obligations of those of us who are capable to consent to those 
>that are not? I mean, the rights of children, animals, the severly 
>cognitively disabled--those who can't consent--are better handled by 
>Singer's utilitarianism than by any Kantian theory that makes 
>rationality and free will the basis of their rights and our 
>obligations. A perfectly natural Kantain response is that them as 
>can't consent, got no rights. Singer at least would have to say, 
>well, consent may be important insofar as its lack affects the 
>welfare we are supposed to maximize, but it's not the main thing; 
>welfare is. So we have to consider the welfare of the less sentient.
>
>Btw, my friend and old classmate from days of very much yore, Guyora 
>Binder, a law prof at SUNY Buffalo, has a very interesting piece in 
>the current issue of the Rutgers Law Review, called Framed!, in 
>which he argues that the old chestnut objection that utilitarians 
>are committed to framing the innocent if that maximizes utility, and 
>by extension, discouting the well-being of the individual, is a 
>mistake. He says it is based on a misunderstanding of what the 
>_political_ project of the utilitarianisms was. The piece is too 
>long, in classic law review style, and I don't know if I agree with 
>it, but it is important. Given your interest in the topic, yous 
>hould read it, tell me what you think.
>
>--jks

The problem may be that with regard to lives of children, the very 
sick, the very old, the severely cognitively disabled, etc., neither 
Kantians (with concern for rights) nor utilitarians (with concern for 
welfare) alone can provide a fully satisfactory theoretical framework 
with which they and/or their advocates can work.  Peter Singer often 
gets into trouble in large part because his philosophy is very 
partial & incomplete, drawing only upon one side of the dialectical 
development of the Enlightenment legacy.  While utilitarianism may be 
a cheap & accessible weapon against the God Squad (e.g., Jeremy 
Bentham wrote the earliest coherent defense of same-sex pleasures) 
and it is in many cases preferable to Kantian philosophy, aren't we, 
standing on the shoulders of Hegel & Marx, beyond utilitarians?  Why 
are we still stuck with a Peter Singer?

Yoshie