Peter Singer and Redeeming Characteristics

[Rob Schaap]

I agree with you, Kendall, and I think Marta went overboard calling The
(formally euthanasia enhanced) Netherlands 'the new killing fields'
precisely because she made this slip.  I don't say euthanasia and dynamics
in modern instrumentalism don't combine to make for possibilities of the
kind Marta fears, but the denial of release to any hopeless sufferer, who
herself sees that suffering as a decisively negative value, is, to my mind,
an unconscionable way of trying to avoid these dangers.

Cheers,
Rob.


>>>>>> "marta" == Marta Russell <ap888 at lafn.org> writes:
>
>  marta> We had a lengthy discussion of Singer on this list.  It's in
>  marta> the archives.  You'll see a lengthy discussion of Singer's
>  marta> position on disability.  He does attribute a negative value
>  marta> to disabled lives.
>
>No he doesn't. That's simply false.
>
>He attributes negative value to the *pain* that disabled people
>experience (in the cases where they do), that is, negative value *to
>them*. In fact, conflating the claims 'pain has a negative value' and
>'a life of pain has a negative value' does precisely what Singer is
>accused of: it reduces the diversity of experience that disabled
>persons have to *just* their pain, it makes *them* equivalent to their
>pain. That's wrong, of course, but it's not what *Singer* does.
>
>If that's the upshot of the 'lengthy' discussion about Singer on this
>list, it certainly wasn't a *good* discussion.
>
>I'll also note that Singer is far from being alone, either among
>philosophers and ethicists, or among the general public, in finding
>euthanasia permissible in some cases and *required* in other cases; so
>the whole debate focusing on *Singer* is at best a distortion.
>
>Kendall
>--
>The amount that we owe is all that we have.