counterpoint letters abortion as a mixed good
TRANSCRIPT
Counterpoint
Abortion as a Mixed Good
Marvin Kohl There are good reasons for supporting a
liberal abortion policy. Many anti-abortion
arguments we hear today are inadequate. If
born human progeny have greater moral
standing, if fundamental respect for women
demands the recognition of their right to
choose responsibly, and if an anti-abortion
public policy is deeply harmful, then we have
a plausible case for abortion as a mixed
good. It is a mixed good because it typically
harms by killing another closely akin being
—even when an abortion is performed to
prevent injury to the life or health of the
mother. Moreover, to take away a life leaves
many of us with a sense of moral uneasiness,
often anguish—even if it be less sentient or
only a potential human being, even if it be
the best we can morally do in a particular
situation. This sentiment is not the result of a
Ghandi-like sense of purity. Rather it is due
to the understanding that, in many cases, sex
education or birth-control might have been
workable and, if so, clearly seems to be
preferable. A large part of this anguish is
that, as with many human problems, we
have allowed the situation to develop to the
point where the best moral alternative
(though not the only one) is to kill another
being.
In light of this, I wish to suggest that
Richard Taylor and Jeanne Caputo's
"Abortion and Morality" (FI, Fall 1982, p. 32) is an unfair portrayal of the problem.
First of all, suppose it is true (which I think it
is not) that "the question of when a fertilized
ovum becomes a `human being' is clearly
unanswerable." Surely it is then at least
plausible to maintain that, since a line
cannot be successfully drawn, we should
assume that we indeed do have a human
being from the moment of conception.
Taylor and Caputo attempt to parry this
criticism by suggesting that, since most
fertilized ova are never implanted in the
womb, God is the supreme abortionist. Now
this slapdash move may be amusing to some,
Marvin Kohl is professor of philosophy at
the State University of New York College at
Fredonia and author of The Morality of
Killing.
but it is clearly fallacious: for the issue in
abortion is not the death of the fetus (as in an
honest miscarriage or its like), but deliberate
killing.
Taylor and Caputo rightfully marshal
evidence about the human suffering and the
capacity for evil that lies in the proposals to
curtail the legal right to abortion. Again,
am sympathetic with their conclusion. But
to arrive at it by suggesting that all, or even
most, anti-abortionists are blind to morality
because they are indifferent to suffering is, at
best, simplistic.
First of all, it is one thing to disagree
with a moral position and another to deny
that it is a moral position. Second, not all
harm is suffering; killing someone whose life
has, or could have, genuine meaning is
plausibly conceived of as an act of harm.
Third, dogmatic fundamentalists are not the
only ones who oppose abortion. Many
reflective people oppose abortion, as
utilitarians, because they believe killing is
contagious. They believe that a slide is
inevitable and therefore that a liberal or
moderate abortion policy has net negative
utility. Many other opponents of abortion
seem to be act intuitionists. They maintain
that one can "see" the rightness or wrong-
ness of an act. They maintain that all
abortion is wrong because, if one would
witness an abortion, one would "see" or
intuit the wrongness of that act.
Now both of these positions may be
mistaken. Nonetheless they are moral points
of view. And the humanist can dismiss them
our of hand only if he is willing to embrace
the same kind of simple-minded dogmatism
he hopes to conquer. Perhaps in the great
battle with the Moral Majority it is under-
standable that some should become almost
like their enemies. But an open society, a
political democracy, if it is to work well,
requires that we have full relevant informa-
tion as to choices. To the extent either side
falsifies or oversimplifies the issues, the
process of democracy is made more difficult.
To the extent that we humanists lose our
reverence for certain ideals or choose
immediate political gain at the price of
sacrificing truth and fairness, we violate our
birthright. •
Letters (continuecl from page 3)
as we utilize our common framework in the
"shared quest for the expression of ethical
values in human life."
Individual humanists should certainly
participate in political parties and organiza-
tions that further their own values. In fact, it
is difficult for me to imagine a humanist not
recognizing the enormous significance of the
political process. I suggest, however, that in
our relatively small organizations and
institutions, the humanist community
consider the recent advice of Paul Beattie,
President of the Fellowship of Religious
Humanists: "We can do more to change the
world by encouraging sound thinking and
healthy living than we can ever achieve as an
organized political force. It is time for liberal
groups to abandon the practice of passing
resolutions on every topic under the sun and
concentrate instead upon developing, per-
fecting, and sharing the humanist way of life.
Make the practice of humanism so appeal-
ing, our dialogue so informed, that others
will want to join us."
Mark Kaufman
St. Louis, Missouri
Skinner Responds to Dora Russell
1 am sorry that Dora Russell identifies me
with a long-outmoded brand of behaviorism
(FI, Letters, Spring 1982). 1 view human
behavior as a product of three kinds of
selection: (I) natural selection, responsible
for the genetic endowment of the species, (2)
operant conditioning, which shapes and
maintains the behavior of the individual,
and (3) the evolution of the social environ-
ments through which individuals gain from
the transmitted experience of others.
Selection by consequences as a causal
mode has been recognized for only little
more than a century and is still not fully
understood at any of the three levels, but one
feature is clear: It is found only in living
things! Nothing could be less mechanical
than a modern behavioristic view of human
behavior.
Circus animals are "trained" with
operant conditioning, as Dora Russell says,
and much to their advantage as positive
reinforcement replaces punishment, but the
contingencies of reinforcement analyzed in
modern laboratories and applied to an in-
creasing range of problems are much too
complex to be described with the horticul-
tural metaphor of training.
B. F. Skinner
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
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