Philosophy Questions
It has been claimed that, when it comes to morality, there is no such thing as absolute truth. In other words, it is said by some that morality is relative to culture. I would take the best reason to support my view is through Ruth Benedict’s view who taught at Columbia university explain that morality is relative to one’s culture or vice versa. At certain point society describes what is moral or immoral. Morality can change by the time passes but still it is dependent on culture to make decision either it will acknowledged or not.
Like giving an example that in past it was considered a sin to have sex before marriage or having pre-marital affairs but now it is not considered as a sin and people accepted to have a sexual intimacy before their marriage with whomever they want, even pre-marital affairs are there in our society which is still considered not ethical but now people have accepted it. If someone wants to argue against this that morality is not relative to culture he/she can have a point against the above example that if someone is involved in pre-marital affairs does that be morally right?
The answer would be no because they are not the only one to suffer the consequences but his whole family would specially his wife who is his legal partner and she would go through this destruction of her trust, belief and also be jealous. 2. Four objections to a market in human organs can be given as: a) People might not sale their organ because of religious or moral basis. They have beliefs that their body is a gift from god and we are not supposed to destroy it or we should not be unfair to our body which is given us by god.
b) Another objection would be for those people who try to violate poor people who have no knowledge about what is good and what is harmful for them. They only want to have organs and give poor people money so that they should give them their organs without knowing that what will happens to them in their future life. This type of dealing should be stopped. c) Next objection which can be raised that people who are so influenced by money that they even accept to do suicide to support their family also donate their heart after death.
This would also be non-ethical for a person to act like this. d) This objection should be made on selling the non-vital parts of the body such as kidneys. Poor People are forced to sell this organ of their body. By selling their kidney their self-sufficiency can be decreased and one’s autonomy is the top most priority of moral values in this world. So we should oppose against selling of human organs in markets. The four possible forms market human organs could take would be of: a) selling organs of living like donating kidneys b) selling organs of dead people
c) brain dead marginal donors who have no chance to survive are allowed to donate their organs d) vegetative state patient who are in constant vegetative state i. e. who lack awareness that what is happening in their surroundings, though they are not considered as brain dead because their other body parts functions normally but now these people are considered as brain dead so that their other body organs can be used for donation. Yes some of these possibilities have weaken the objection that if a person is considered to be as brain dead than his/her organs can be donated without any problem.
3. Mary Anne warren distinguish between ‘genetic humanity’ and ‘personhood’ in a way that she said fetus is not a person because having physical characteristics like genes cannot make a fetus a complete person. To be a complete person one is required to have psychological competence like having self-awareness and capability to communicate. The difference between genetic humanity and personhood given by Mary Anne is that if we consider all living things according to genes than every specie would lie under human beings which carry genes.
On other hand personhood is defined as that a person who has the psychological abilities of self-awareness and to communicate. To support this point Mary gave an example that if a space traveller landed on some planet and there he faces alien who also have genetic the aliens, obviously by psychological capabilities. Further she gave another example by which her defense of abortion utilize this distinction in a way that if a person is captured by aliens and they want to utilize his body to make his colon by genetic code, whether they are innocent human being, either they possess the same features but what about that original person?
He has the right to escape or defend his self from being used so that he could enjoy his life same theory applies on a women who also have the right to enjoy her life and if her pregnancy is becoming a hurdle in between her luxuries or even a harm to her health then she has the right to abort the fetus. In my opinion Mary theory is somewhat acceptable because every person has his/her own choice. 4. Is prostitution oppressive to women in today’s society?
To me I don’t think so that in today’s society prostitution is oppressive or cruel to women because there are so many women in our society who are divorced or at some level pushed into this work that they have no other way to make money and survive in this world. At first prostitution was not legal in many countries but now it is legal and women are there to sell them self. In this occupation sometimes it is harsh for a woman to be abused by her pimps and madam but now they are use to it and they call it as doing labor job. According to Primoratz there is nothing wrong to be a prostitute or to be in this profession.
He compares marriage to prostitution in a way that in both the forms sex is involved. In prostitution one has to pay for his pleasure and in other one brings a legal partner to satisfy his needs. In his theory he also talked about paternalism which is very important factor for a person so that he/she should have his/her liberty of action and no one can force her to abide by her welfare, good, happiness, needs, and interests or values. According to Satz there are certain things which are not to be sold or to be bought like friendship and love. Just like this she also agrees that women’s sexual labor should also be not sold or bought.
Debra Satz also argue that prostitution brings inequality between men and women and also because of economic conditions disparity arises between men and women and this leads a women to the way of prostitution. So in her thesis she argued that men and women should be equally treated and prostitution should be finished. 5. Singer uses his pond analogy to show that on moral grounds we ought to give substantially more too starving persons around the world. The reasoning of his pond analogy is to create feelings for poor people in those people who belong to a class where they have not to suffer for basic things.
In his pond analogy he explains it by giving an example of a child who is drowning in water and several people came to rescue him. At a distance for instance at that time he said I were there wearing an expensive shoes or clothes will be then I will come forward to rescue that child and my answer to me was yes and I feel guilty that I’ve spend so much money on my shoes if instead of wasting this money I should have charity this to some other children who lost their lives because of insufficient food, I can rescue ten children at a time.
This pond analogy of singer inspired so many people that now they have started giving charity for children who are facing problems of insufficient food. To me I think it’s a good analogy to explain one’s instability in a way that people remember it for their life time and nobody will be hurt. 6. Contractarianism informs Narveson’s view of the morality of our relationship with animals in way that whether people accept it or not it is approved. It is no doubt that being involved in a contract or agreement with animal is an awkward feeling.
But it is morally taken in a broad way that making a relationship with your pet is good as both have to survive in this world. He said that it is ok it they use animal for hunting or for experiment as far as they have been treating them in good way. Singer objects to Narvesons view of this relationship on this basis that we must use animals for experiment if we are getting good results. Singer said that pleasure is more important than pain and if pleasure overcomes pain then it would be of worth it.
They should not consider bad to use animals in experiments but if possible we should bring in human beings as well for experiment so that we can get good results. 7. Narveson’s central objections to Pacifism are that he argues that pacifism has no sense and it is logically confused that we have duty to avoid the violence. Narveson further argued that if pacifism is the right thing to do then everyone should follow it. It’s the responsibility of everyone to avoid the violence; it is now everyone’s duty to protect each other’s right.
In other word Narveson said that if I have the right not to create violence but if somebody imposes the violence on I can defend myself in whatever way it is necessary. Can Sterba’s conception of `just war pacifism` overcome these objections? Why or why not? 8. Don Marquis argues that abortion is morally wrong because it robs the fetus of “a future like ours”. He argues that it is morally wrong if someone kills us. Killing someone will neither affect the murderer nor will the people around him it only affects the victim who was victimized because his future will be ruined instead of ruining his future be totally finished.
One will suffer a loss of his experiences, enjoyments of life, projects by which he has once gained or try to gain a better and prosperous future. In his argument don marquis said that that may be killing one is considered as an immoral act but that would not be considered as much immoral then that of a person’s future was finished. Same would be the case of fetus should be considered. It is not justified to abort a child and to risk his future, he also have same rights that an adult have. To enjoy his life, experience different things and built a better future.
In my opinion I totally agree with don marquis that every living being has a right to live and we are not who make decision to whether kill someone and destroy his whole life. Narveson’s critique to abortion is given in way that he said if there is threat to women of her health she can use the option to abort the child but it is morally wrong to choose the option of infanticide instead of abortion. 9. Compare and contrast Narveson’s views on pornography with those of Dworkin. What do you think are the basic points of disagreement between the two?
With compare and contrast to Naverson’s views on pornography with those of Dworkin; Dworkin defined pornography as pictures of women or words which are graphically and openly giving the message of sex. Pornography should be banned because it is exploiting women’s integrity and making her week mentally. Because of pornography women’s body and soul can be badly damaged. By showing this explicit components one start believing that women is only here to this which left a very bad impression on women. REFERENCES
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