- Donation/procurement of organs/tissues
Imagine that Abe robs Betty and shoots her in the head so that she will not testify against him if he is caught. As a result, Betty dies. It is clearly immoral for Abe to shoot Betty. Why?
The most general explanation is that Abe harmed Betty—his act resulted in bad effects for Betty. Other explanations are possible, of course. Some theorists might claim that what makes Abe’s act wrong is Abe’s intention, but the reason why Abe’s intention makes his act wrong is that it was an intention to cause harm to Betty, so the wrongness of the intention is still grounded in the badness of the effect that was intended. Other theorists might instead say that Abe violates Betty’s rights, but her violated right in this case is a right not to be harmed, so again the bottom line is about harm. Still others might propose that Abe shows disrespect for Betty’s autonomy or personhood, but what makes his act disrespectful is that it inflicts a loss of autonomy, and a loss of autonomy is a kind of harm, broadly construed, so what makes killing wrong is still that Abe’s act had some harmful or bad effect on Betty.
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Nonetheless, it is not enough to say that Abe harmed Betty. We still need to know which kinds of effects count as harms. That question is not simple, as we will see. Another reason is that, even if the fact that Abe harmed Betty explains why his act was wrong, it does not explain how wrong it was—its degree of wrongness. After all, some harms are minor. To fully explain what was wrong with Abe’s act, we need an explanation that captures the full extent of what was wrong with his act.
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Which effect explains that? Abe’s act causes at least two effects on Betty. One is death—the loss of life. The other effect, which is less often noticed, is total disability. Shooting Betty makes her unable to do anything, including walking, talking, and even thinking and feeling. Since Betty then lacks all abilities to act or do anything, and we are concerned here only with abilities to act or do things, Betty’s disability is universal. Of course, anaesthesia can also cause universal disability for a short time. In contrast, the universal disability that Abe’s shooting causes is also irreversible. Universal and irreversible disability will be called total disability.
Which of these consequences—death or total disability—makes Abe’s act of shooting immoral? Two answers are possible. In one view, Abe’s act is immoral because this shooting causes death, so it is an act of killing, and killing is immoral unless it is justified, which it is not in this case. In another view, Abe’s act is immoral because it causes total disability, so it is an act of total disabling, and total disabling is immoral unless it is justified, which it is not in this case.i These two views are rarely separated, because to kill normal people like Betty is to disable them totally. Conversely, there was no way to totally disable Betty without killing her prior to the advent of the intensive care units in which the lives of totally disabled people can be sustained by mechanical ventilation and artificial hydration and nutrition along with other techniques. Nonetheless, these views remain distinct, because today Abe can totally disable Betty without killing her. He can shoot her in the head so as to cause irreversible brain damage that makes her unable to walk, talk and even think and feel without also causing her death, because her life can be sustained artificially.
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Category: WHY
