Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1993

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Philosophy

Major Professor

Rem B. Edwards

Committee Members

Roy Cebik, Betsy Postow, Charles Reynolds

Abstract

In this dissertation I hope to point the way beyond man-centered morality. This man-centeredness is the species-centeredness or anthropocentrism and the male-centeredness or androcentrism of traditional Western morality, with roots in Judeo-Christian religious tradition and Greek philosophy. My thesis is that man-centeredness is not a mere orientation but a prejudice distorting, at level one, perceptions of who qualifies as a moral patient (scope issue) and, at level two, moral decision theory and theory of good, indeed, the very conception of the task or raison d'etre of morality. At level one there is an obvious anthropocentric and a less obvious androcentrism. At level two there is a fairly well hidden androcentrism, only recently recognized. This dissertation will focus on level one, with level two issues briefly discussed insofar as they relate to the proper resoluton of the scope issue. The scope question is generally assumed to have an obvious solution: all human but no nonhuman animals are proper moral patients. My choice of focal topics, however, is intended to challenge this "species line" which divides research animals (especially those "highly evolved") from even the earliest and least developed of the human species, the fetus. Against an anthropocentric morality, I argue that most if not all animals ought to be intrinsically and therefore morally valued. Further, at the earliest stages of gestation the fetus is not a proper moral patient, although such a status emerges and strengthens with gestational development. Against an androcentric morality, my position is that pregnant women are intrinsically valuable individuals first and primarily, not merely "mothers”, receptacles in which a fetus grows until ready for birth. To bring a child into the world is a gift to the eventual child, not a duty to or a required sacrifice for the sake of a possible child and not the defining function (telos) of a woman. I will come to accept and defend the assertion that the scope issue ought to be a central rather than a side or derivative issue, that traditional moral theory is misfocused and based on some falsifiable, or at least questionable, metaphysical assumptions. Failure to recognize this is in part due to traditional moral theory's failure to understand that the proper task of morality is the just promotion of respect for the intrinsic value of individual sentient beings. The justification for and ramifications of this articulation of the proper moral task leads to a theory of moral individualism, which avoids obvious speciesism, latent sexism and other stereotyping that blinds moral agents to individuals qua individuals. My development of the notion of moral individualism will include an explanation of the inadequacy of social atomism for describing the nature of both moral agents and patients, with ramifications for the nature of moral epistemology, for the guidance and even the conception of morally right action, and for the theory of good. Other issues must be addressed along the way: (1) certain other metaphysical assumptions about human nature and animal nature, about sentience and reason, about the knower and the known as assumed by the epistemological ideal and utilized in moral decision making, (2a) some specific Judeo-Christian religious beliefs assumed in our dominant culture by many "ordinary" people and carried into traditional moral theorizing, (2b) especially those religious beliefs that cloak themselves in the guise of factual truth through (2c) the use of supposedly value-neutral language, which also may hide non-religious metaphysical beliefs in need of scrutiny, (3) the need to separate prudential judgments that disguise themselves as moral judgments from genuine judgments about the morally right thing to do in a given situation. With respect to the latter, consider that many prudential judgments disguised as moral(fy correct) judgments are actually manifestations of power struggles, efforts to dominate or disempower. They exemplify intolerance, species or male self-centeredness, even arrogance, all of which is the antithesis of what I describe as the task of morality-structured and organized care for the well-being of other sentient beings. Such "moral" judgments may be based on or "justified" by faulty metaphysics and inappropriate appropriation of religious beliefs to play the role of facts. With the species and male biases in place current judgments about treatment of fetuses and research animals may not seem inconsistent or morally deficient. However, upon reexamination of the scope issue such judgments are often revealed to be inconsistent with each other and improperly justified." Finally, I suggest that assignment of some moral status to animals and fetuses is not the end but just the beginning of the moral dilemmas involving animals and fetuses. Even if we agree to extend moral patienthood to animals with certain characteristics and fetuses beyond a certain gestational age, there remains conflicting claims among moral patients.

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