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

[Justin Schwartz]

>
>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.  . . . aren't we,
>standing on the shoulders of Hegel & Marx, beyond utilitarians?  Why
>are we still stuck with a Peter Singer?
>
>Yoshie

Well, I am no utilitarian, and I guess I am not a Kantian either, but if you 
have a moral _theory_, one that builds on Hegel and Marx, where is it? Maybe 
it's not so important to have such a theory. That is sthe sort of thing some 
of my pragmatist cothinkers say, such as Judge Posner. But I disagree. I 
mean, I am not going to start advocating killing babies because I don't have 
a theory that tells me that's wrong (or indeed, if I had a theory like 
Singer's that told me it's right), but I surely would like to see the 
successor theory.

For the moment, though I certainly agree that utilitarianism and Kantianism 
are onesided each in their own way.

--jks

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