PP217 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Sentience, Fetus, Liberty Media
Document Summary
How would you respond if you were sagan and singer: they would argue that it is still a potentiality argument, just worded differently, nobody would say that embryos are rational. Singer thinks infanticide is sometimes acceptable: views on animals, killing animals is just as bad as killing humans. Infanticide: they are sentient so we cannot do what we want with them, acceptable if doctors agree the infant would not live a good life. If they have severe disability, it is okay to kill: believes in a form of mercy-killing . Problem with a direct consequentialist argument: killing an embryo might produce bad effects, nevertheless, the medical benefits might be so great as to outweigh the destruction of the embryo. Consistency: we quite often engage in action that leads to the destruction of embryos, even just trying to conceive may lead (statistically) to 3-5 embryos that do not implant or spontaneously abort.
