Ethics in Research

What is Ethics in Research & Why is It Important?

by David B. Resnik, J.D., Ph.D.

When most people think of ethics (or morals), they think of rules for distinguishing between right and wrong, such as the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"), a code of professional conduct like the Hippocratic Oath ("First of all, do no harm"), a religious creed like the Ten Commandments ("Thou Shalt not kill..."), or a wise aphorisms like the sayings of Confucius. This is the most common way of defining "ethics": ethics are norms for conduct that distinguish between or acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

Most people learn ethical norms at home, at school, in church, or in other social settings. Although most people acquire their sense of right and wrong during childhood, moral development occurs throughout life and human beings pass through different stages of growth as they mature. Ethical norms are so ubiquitous that one might be tempted to regard them as simple commonsense. On the other hand, if morality were nothing more than commonsense, then why are there so many ethical disputes and issues in our society?

One plausible explanation of these disagreements is that all people recognize some common ethical norms but different individuals interpret, apply, and balance these norms in different ways in light of their own values and life experiences.

Most societies also have legal rules that govern behavior, but ethical norms tend to be broader and more informal than laws. Although most societies use laws to enforce widely accepted moral standards and ethical and legal rules use similar concepts, it is important to remember that ethics and law are not the same. An action may be legal but unethical or illegal but ethical. We can also use ethical concepts and principles to criticize, evaluate, propose, or interpret laws. Indeed, in the last century, many social reformers urged citizens to disobey laws in order to protest what they regarded as immoral or unjust laws. Peaceful civil disobedience is an ethical way of expressing political viewpoints.

Another way of defining 'ethics' focuses on the disciplines that study standards of conduct, such as philosophy, theology, law, psychology, or sociology. For example, a "medical ethicist" is someone who studies ethical standards in medicine. Finally, one may also define ethics as a method, procedure, or perspective for deciding how to act and for analyzing complex problems and issues. For instance, in a complex issue like global warming, one may take an economic, ecological, political, or ethical perspective on the problem. While an economist might examine the cost and benefits of various policies related to global warming, an environmental ethicist could examine the ethical values and principles at stake in the issue.

Many different disciplines, institutions, and professions have norms for behavior that suit their particular aims and goals. These norms also help members of the discipline to coordinate their actions or activities and to establish the public's trust of the discipline. For instance, ethical norms govern conduct in medicine, law, engineering, and business. Ethical norms also serve the aims or goals of research and apply to people who conduct scientific research or other scholarly or creative activities, and there is a specialized discipline, research ethics, which studies these norms.

There are several reasons why it is important to adhere to ethical norms in research. First, some of these norms promote the aims of research, such as knowledge, truth, and avoidance of error. For example, prohibitions against fabricating, falsifying, or misrepresenting research data promote the truth and avoid error. Second, since research often involves a great deal of cooperation and coordination among many different people in different disciplines and institutions, many of these ethical standards promote the values that are essential to collaborative work, such as trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness. For example, many ethical norms in research, such as guidelines for authorship, copyright and patenting policies, data sharing policies, and confidentiality rules in peer review, are designed to protect intellectual property interests while encouraging collaboration. Most researchers want to receive credit for their contributions and do not want to have their ideas stolen or disclosed prematurely. Third, many of the ethical norms help to ensure that researchers can be held accountable to the public. For instance, federal policies on research misconduct, on conflicts of interest, on the human subjects protections, and on animal care and use are necessary in order to make sure that researchers who are funded by public money can be held accountable to the public. Fourth, ethical norms in research also help to build public support for research. People more likely to fund research project if they can trust the quality and integrity of research. Finally, many of the norms of research promote a variety of other important moral and social values, such as social responsibility, human rights, animal welfare, compliance with the law, and health and safety. Ethical lapses in research can significantly harm to human and animal subjects, students, and the public. For example, a researcher who fabricates data in a clinical trial may harm or even kill patients, and a researcher who fails to abide by regulations and guidelines relating to radiation or biological safety may jeopardize his health and safety or the health and safety and staff and students.

Codes and Policies for Research Ethics

Given the importance of ethics for the conduct of research, it should come as no surprise that many different professional associations, government agencies, and universities have adopted specific codes, rules, and policies relating to research ethics. East Carolina University (ECU) has a variety of policies pertaining to research, which you will review in this short course. Many government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) also have ethics rules for funded researchers, which we will also mention in this course. Other influential research ethics policies include the Uniform Requirements (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors), the Chemist's Code of Conduct (American Chemical Society), Code of Ethics (American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science) Ethical Principles of Psychologists (American Psychological Association), Statements on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (American Anthropological Association), Statement on Professional Ethics (American Association of University Professors), The Nuremberg Code and The Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association). The following is a rough and general summary of some ethical principals that various codes address*:

Honesty

Strive for honesty in all scientific communications. Honestly report data, results, methods and procedures, and publication status. Do not fabricate, falsify, or misrepresent data. Do not deceive colleagues, granting agencies, or the public.

Objectivity

Strive to avoid bias in experimental design, data analysis, data interpretation, peer review, personnel decisions, grant writing, expert testimony, and other aspects of research where objectivity is expected or required. Avoid or minimize bias or self-deception. Disclose personal or financial interests that may affect research.

Integrity

Keep your promises and agreements; act with sincerity; strive for consistency of thought and action.

Carefulness

Avoid careless errors and negligence; carefully and critically examine your own work and the work of your peers. Keep good records of research activities, such as data collection, research design, and correspondence with agencies or journals.

Openness

Share data, results, ideas, tools, resources. Be open to criticism and new ideas.

Respect for Intellectual Property

Honor patents, copyrights, and other forms of intellectual property. Do not use unpublished data, methods, or results without permission. Give credit where credit is due. Give proper acknowledgement or credit for all contributions to research. Never plagiarize.

Confidentiality

Protect confidential communications, such as papers or grants submitted for publication, personnel records, trade or military secrets, and patient records.

Responsible Publication

Publish in order to advance research and scholarship, not to advance just your own career. Avoid wasteful and duplicative publication.

Responsible Mentoring

Help to educate, mentor, and advise students. Promote their welfare and allow them to make their own decisions.

Respect for colleagues

Respect your colleagues and treat them fairly.

Social Responsibility

Strive to promote social good and prevent or mitigate social harms through research, public education, and advocacy.

Non-Discrimination

Avoid discrimination against colleagues or students on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or other factors that are not related to their scientific competence and integrity.

Competence

Maintain and improve your own professional competence and expertise through lifelong education and learning; take steps to promote competence in science as a whole.

Legality

Know and obey relevant laws and institutional and governmental policies.

Animal Care

Show proper respect and care for animals when using them in research. Do not conduct unnecessary or poorly designed animal experiments.

Human Subjects Protection

When conducting research on human subjects, minimize harms and risks and maximize benefits; respect human dignity, privacy, and autonomy; take special precautions with vulnerable populations; and strive to distribute the benefits and burdens of research fairly.

* Adapted from Shamoo A and Resnik D. 2003. Responsible Conduct of Research (New York: Oxford University Press).

Ethical Decision Making in Research

Although codes, policies, and principals are very important and useful, like any set of rules, they do not cover every situation that arises in research, they often conflict, and they require considerable interpretation. It is therefore important for researchers to learn how to interpret, assess, and apply various research rules and how to make decisions about how to act in various situations. The vast majority of decisions that people must make in the conduct of research involve the straightforward application of ethical rules. For example, consider the following case,

Case 1:

The research protocol for a study of a drug on hypertension requires the administration of the drug at different doses to 50 laboratory mice, with chemical and behavioral tests to determine toxic effects of the drug. Tom has almost finished the experiment for Dr. Q. He has only 5 mice left to do. However, he really wants to finish his work in time to go to Florida on spring break with his friends, who are leaving tonight. He has injected the drug in all 50 mice but has not completed all of the tests. He therefore decides to extrapolate from the 45 completed results to produce the 5 additional results.

Many different research ethics policies would hold that Tom has acted unethically by fabricating data. If this study were sponsored by a federal agency, such as the NIH, his actions would constitute a form of research misconduct, which the government defines as "fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism" (or FFP). Actions that nearly all researchers classify as unethical are viewed as misconduct. It is important to remember, however, that misconduct occurs only when researchers intend to deceive: honest errors related to sloppiness, poor record keeping, miscalculations, bias, self-deception, and even negligence do not constitute misconduct. Also, reasonable disagreements about research methods, procedures, and interpretations do not constitute research misconduct. Consider the following case:

Case 2:

Dr. T has just discovered a mathematical error in a paper that has been accepted for publication in a journal. The error does not affect the overall results of his research, but it is potentially misleading. The journal has just gone to press, so it is too late to catch the error before it appears in print. In order to avoid embarrassment, Dr. T decides to ignore the error.

Clearly, Dr. T's error is not a form of misconduct nor is his decision to take no action to correct the error. Most researchers as well as many different policies and codes, including ECU's policies, would say that Dr. T should tell the journal about the error and consider publishing a correction or errata. Failing to publish a correction would be unethical because it would violate norms relating to honesty and objectivity in research.

There are many other activities that the government does not define as "misconduct" but which are still regarded by most researchers as unethical. These are sometimes called "other deviations" from acceptable research practices. Some of these might include:

• Publishing the same paper in two different journals without telling the editors
• Submitting the same paper to different journals without telling the editors
• Not informing a collaborator of your intent to file a patent in order to make sure that you are the sole inventor
• Including a colleague as an author on a paper in return for a favor even though the colleague did not make a serious contribution to the paper
• Discussing with your colleagues data from a paper that you are reviewing for a journal
• Trimming outliers from a data set without discussing your reasons in paper
• Using an inappropriate statistical technique in order to enhance the significance of your research
• Bypassing the peer review process and announcing your results through a press conference without giving peers adequate information to review your work
• Conducting a review of the literature that fails to acknowledge the contributions of other people in the field or relevant prior work
• Stretching the truth on a grant application in order to convince reviewers that your project will make a significant contribution to the field
• Stretching the truth on a job application or curriculum vita
• Giving the same research project to two graduate students in order to see who can do it the fastest
• Overworking, neglecting, or exploiting graduate or post-doctoral students
• Keeping original data at home or taking it with you when you move
• Failing to maintain research data for a reasonable period of time
• Making derogatory comments and personal attacks in your review of author's submission
• Promising a student a better grade for sexual favors
• Using a racist epithet in the laboratory
• Making significant deviations from the research protocol approved by your institution's Animal Care and Use Committee or Institutional Review Board for Human Subjects Research without telling the committee or the board
• Not reporting an adverse event in a human research experiment
• Wasting animals in research
• Exposing students and staff to biological risks in violation of your institution's biosafety rules
• Rejecting a manuscript for publication without even reading it
• Sabotaging someone's work
• Stealing supplies, books, or data
• Rigging an experiment so you know how it will turn out
• Making unauthorized copies of data, papers, or computer programs
• Owning over $10,000 in stock in a company that sponsors your research and not disclosing this financial interest
• Deliberately overestimating the clinical significance of a new drug in order to obtain economic benefits

Many of these actions would be regarded as highly unethical and some might even be illegal. Most of these would also violate different professional ethics codes or institutional policies. However, they do not fall into the narrow category of actions that the government classifies as research misconduct. Indeed, there has been considerable debate about the definition of "research misconduct" and many researchers and policy makers are not satisfied with the government's narrow definition that focuses on FFP. However, given the huge list of potential offenses that might fall into the category "other deviations," and the practical problems with defining and policing these other deviations, it is understandable why government officials have chosen to limit their focus.

Finally, situations frequently arise in research in which different people disagree about the proper course of action and there is no broad consensus about what should be done. In these situations, there may be good arguments on both sides of the issue and different ethical principles may conflict. These situations create difficult decisions for research known as ethical dilemmas. Consider the following case:

Case 3:

Dr. S is a post-doctoral student in computer science working on some programs that eliminate computer viruses. Two other graduate students are working with her on the project, which is directed by a senior researcher. Dr. S has just received an email from a research team that is working on a similar project at another university. The other team would like Dr. S to share some preliminary data and designs related to the project. Dr. S has not applied for a patent on this research, although she has discussed possible patents with her supervisor.

Dr. S faces a difficult choice. On the one hand, the ethical norm of openness obliges her to share data and designs with the other team. If both teams work together, they may both benefit and help each other as well as the profession and society. On the other hand, if she shares data and designs with the other team, then they may not give her (or her team) proper credit and they may win they may win the race to be the first team to be credited with the discovery. By sharing information, Dr. S could jeopardize potential patents and other intellectual property interests. It seems that there are good arguments on both sides of this issue and Dr. S needs to take some time to think about what she should do. What are some steps that researchers, such as Dr. S, can take to "solve" ethical dilemmas in research? The following is a series of questions that can help people resolve ethical dilemmas:

What is the problem or issue?

It is always important to get a clear statement of the problem. In this case, the issue is whether to share information with the other research team.

What is the relevant information?

Many bad decisions are made as a result of poor information. To know what to do, Dr. S needs to have more information concerning such matters as university policies that may apply to this situation, the team's intellectual property interests, the possibility of negotiating some kind of agreement with the other team, whether the other team also has some information it is willing to share, etc.

What are the different options?

It is important to spell out the various options as well. People may fail to see different options due a limited imagination, bias, ignorance, or fear. In this case, there may be another choice besides 'share' or 'don't share,' such as 'negotiation.'

How do ethical codes or policies as well as legal rules apply to these different options?

The university may have its own policies on intellectual property or data management that applies to this case. Broader ethical rules, such as openness and respect for intellectual property, may also apply to this case. Relevant laws that would apply to this case might include laws relating to patents, such as laws on prior disclosure and preliminary patents.

Are there any people who can offer ethical advice?

It may be useful to seek advice from a colleague, a senior researcher, your department chair, or anyone else you can trust. In the case, Dr. S might want to talk to her supervisor before making a decision.

After answering these questions, a person facing an ethical dilemma may decide to ask more questions, gather more information, explore different options, consider other ethical rules, and so on. However, at some point he or she will have to make a decision and then take action. Ideally, a person who makes a decision in an ethical dilemma should be able to justify his or her decision to himself or herself, as well as colleagues, administrators, and other people who might be affected by the decision. He or she should be able to articulate reasons for his or her conduct and should be able to explain how he or she arrived at his or her decision. He or she should therefore examine carefully the different options in light of the information and problems raised. The following are some questions one might consider at arriving at a final decision.

• Which choice could stand up to further publicity and scrutiny?
• Which choice could you not live with or be unable to defend?
• Think of the wisest person you know. What would he or she do in this situation?
• Which choice would be the most just, fair, or responsible?
• Which choice will probably have the best overall consequences?

After considering all of these questions, one still might find it difficult to decide what to do. If this is the case, then it may be appropriate to consider others ways of making the decision, such as going with one's gut feeling, seeking guidance through prayer or meditation, or even flipping a coin. Endorsing these methods in this context need not imply that ethical decisions are irrational or that these other methods should be used only as a last resort. The main point is that human reasoning plays a pivotal role in ethical decision-making but there are limits to its ability to solve all ethical dilemmas in a finite amount of time.

Promoting Ethical Conduct in Science

Many of you may be wondering why you are being required to have training in research ethics. You may believe that you are highly ethical and know the difference between right and wrong. You would never fabricate or falsify data or plagiarize. Indeed, you also may believe that most of your colleagues are highly ethical and that there is no ethics problem in research.

If you feel this way, relax. No one is accusing you of acting unethically. Indeed, the best evidence we have shows that misconduct is a very rare occurrence in research. There have been 200 confirmed cases of misconduct in federally funded research in the last 200 years, which works out to a rate of 1in 10,000 (or 0.01%). Of course, this estimate may be extremely low due to various biases related to under-reporting. Several studies have surveyed researchers to ask them whether they have observed misconduct or know about a case of suspected misconduct. There is a great deal of variation in these results, ranging from 3% to 12% who say they have observed misconduct or know about a case of suspected misconduct. These results, though much higher than 0.01%, still do not support the hypothesis that is common in science, especially when you consider these results in relation to the larger body of research. If 5-10% of drivers have witnessed a fatal traffic accident, this does not prove that fatal traffic accidents are common, if you consider this in light of total numbers of hours that people drive.

Clearly, it would be useful to have more data on this topic, but so far there is no evidence that science has become ethically corrupt. However, even if misconduct is rare, it can have a tremendous impact on research. Consider an analogy with crime: it does not take many murders or rapes in a town to erode the community's sense of trust and increase the community's fear and paranoia. The same thing is true with the most serious crimes in science, i.e. fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. However, most of the crimes committed in science probably are not tantamount to murder or rape. Most of the crimes in science, like most of the crimes in society, are probably the less serious but ethically significant misdeeds that are classified by the government as 'deviations.' Moreover, there are many situations in research that are genuine ethical dilemmas.

Will training and education in research ethics help reduce the rate of misconduct in science? It is too early to tell. The answer to this question depends on how one understands the causes of misconduct. There are two main theories about why researchers commit misconduct. According to the "bad apple" theory, most scientists are highly ethical. Only researchers who are morally corrupt, economically desperate, or psychologically disturbed commit misconduct. Moreover, only a fool would commit misconduct because science's peer review system and self-correcting mechanisms will eventually catch those who try to cheat the system. In any case, a course in research ethics will have little impact on "bad apples," one might argue. According to the "stressful" or "imperfect" environment theory, misconduct occurs because various institutional pressures, incentives, and constraints encourage people to commit misconduct. Often cited here pressures to publish or obtain grants or contracts, career ambitions, the pursuit of profit or fame, poor supervision of students and trainees, and poor oversight of researchers. Moreover, defenders of the stressful environment theory point out that science's peer review system is far from perfect and that it is relatively easy to cheat the system. Erroneous or fraudulent research often enters the public record without being detected for years. To the extent that research environment is an important factor in misconduct, a course in research ethics is likely to help people to get a better understanding of these stresses, sensitize people to the various ethical concerns, and improve ethical judgment and decision making.

Misconduct probably results from environmental and individual causes, i.e. when people who are morally weak, ignorant, or insensitive are placed in stressful or imperfect environments. In any case, a course in research ethics could still be useful in helping to prevent deviations from norms even if it does not prevent misconduct. Many of the deviations that occur in research may occur because researchers simple do not know or have never thought seriously about some of the ethical norms of research. For example, some unethical authorship practices probably reflect years of tradition in the research community that have not been questioned seriously until recently. If the director of a lab is named as an author on every paper that comes from his lab, even if he does not make a significant contribution, what could be wrong with that? That's just the way it's done, one might argue. If a drug company uses ghostwriters to write papers "authored" by its physician-employees, what's wrong about this practice? Ghost writers help write all sorts of books these days, so what's wrong with using ghostwriters in research?

Another example where there may be some ignorance or at least some mistaken traditions is the problem of conflicts of interest in research. A researcher may think that a "normal" or "traditional" financial relationship, such as accepting stock or a consulting fee from a drug company that sponsors her research, raises no serious ethical issues. Or perhaps a university administrator sees no ethical problem in taking a large gift with strings attached from a pharmaceutical company. Maybe a physician thinks that it is perfectly appropriate to receive a $300 finders fee for referring patients into a clinical trial.

If "deviations" from ethical conduct occur in research as a result of ignorance or a failure to reflect critically on problematic traditions, then a course in research ethics may help reduce the rate of serious deviations by improving the researcher's understanding of ethics and by sensitizing him or her to the issues.

Finally, training in research ethics should be able to help researchers grapple with ethical dilemmas in that it introduces researchers to some important concepts, tools, principles, and methods that can be useful in resolving these dilemmas. In fact, the issues have become so important that the NIH has decided that all intramural researchers should receive training in research ethics. We will try to make the process as painless and interesting as possible.

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Poker Blog

The Business of Ethics

The Business of Ethics
by Norman Chase Gillespie

(From Profits and Professions: Essays in Business and Professional Ethics. edited by Wade L. Robison, Michael S. Pritchard, and Joseph S. Ellin (Clifton, NJ. Humana Press, 1983), pp. 133- 40.)

It is the business of ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we may know them. -John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism

The public image of business does not always inspire public confidence, since it is often assumed that talk of ethics in business is only talk, not something that makes a difference in practice. Business executives are pragmatic individuals, accustomed to dealing with their environment as they find it and not inclined to question how things ought to be. That frame of mind reinforces the public image of business as impervious to moral imperatives.

That image is often only confirmed in the press, for instance, by such articles as those of Albert Carr,* which embrace the purest kind of moral conventionalism: That which is generally done in business sets the standard of ethical conduct, so that an executive acts ethically as long as he or she conforms to the general practice. Carr goes so far as to maintain that misrepresentation in business is as ethical as bluffing in poker, and that only need- less concern and anxiety will result from applying the ordinary moral standards of society to the conduct of business.(1) On this score, I believe Carr is completely mistaken.

This paper will argue that ordinary moral standards do apply to business decisions and practices and will explain how they apply. This should result in a clearer picture of the relationship between business and ethics-what it is now and what it ought to be. Carr , in setting forth the conventionalist position, argues:

(1) Business, like poker, is a form of competition.
(2) In this competition, the rules are different from what they are in ordinary social dealings.
(3) Anyone who abides by ordinary moral standards instead of the rules of business is placed at a decided disadvantage. Therefore,
(4) It is not unethical or immoral to abide by the current rules of business. (These rules are determined in part by what is generally done in business and in part by legal statutes governing business activities. )

In support of this position, three reasons might be offered:

(1) If a business practice is not illegal, it is thereby ethically acceptable.
(2) If a businessman does not take advantage of a legal opportunity, others will surely do so.
(3) If a practice is so widespread as to constitute the norm, everyone expects conformity.

The claim that it is ethically correct to do something because it is not illegal is, of course, one of the conventionalist's weakest arguments, since it should be obvious that legality does not establish morality - it may not be illegal for a teacher to favor some students over others for nonacademic reasons, yet it is clearly unethical. When one speaks of ethics in business, it is to establish what business practices ought to be. The law, as written, does not settle that issue. The other two reasons, how- ever, may appear to have some merit and require more detailed analysis.

BUSINESS AS A GAME
Suppose that such things as industrial espionage, deception of customers, and shading the truth in published financial statements are common enough to be of broad concern, in effect comprising some de facto state of business affairs. What bearing "would such a state have upon what is moral or ethical in conducting business? Would the existence of such "rules of the game" relieve owners, managers, and employees of otherwise appropriate :ethical obligations? Or , would such behavior merely be a matter of business strategy and not a matter of ethics?

The obvious fallacy in the "business-as-a-game" idea is that, unlike poker, business is not a game. People's lives, their well-being, their plans, and heir futures often depend upon business and the way it is conducted. Indeed, people usually exchange part of their lives (i.e., the portion spent earning money) for certain goods and services they have the right not to be misled or deceived about the true nature of those goods or services. Similarly, elected officials have a duty to legislate and act for the good of their country (or state). It can hardly be right for business executives to frustrate them in the performance of that duty by providing them with evasive answers or by concealing relevant facts.

THE PRICE OF DUTY
So, the poker analogy, while informative of the way things are, seems to have no bearing at all on he way they ought to be in business. Why, then, do so many people adopt the conventionalist position that "business is business and, when in business do as the others do"? Some take that position for essentially the same reason Yossarian offers to justify his conduct in the novel Catch 22. '{Yossarian has refused to fly any more combat missions and when asked, "But suppose everybody In our side felt that way?" he replies, "Then I'd be a damn fool to feel any other way. Wouldn't !?"2 If everyone were refusing to fly, Yossarian says, he would be a fool to fly. In business, the position would be: If everyone is bluffing, an individual would be a fool not to do the same. On this point, Yossarian and the conventionalist are correct, but not because there are special rules (or special ethics) for airplane gunners and people in business. The reason, instead, is that our ordinary moral reasoning does, indeed, make allowance for just such cases. In other words, the idea that there is something ethically distinctive about a situation in which a person in business may find himself or herself is sound. But it is sound because ordinary moral reasoning allows for such circumstances, not because there are special ethical rules for people in business comparable to the rules of poker . The sort of considerations I have in mind all involve the cost of doing what would normally be one's duty. There are at least three ways in which a normal or ordinary duty may cease to be so because the cost is too high. The first of these is widely recognized: Sometimes the moral cost of obeying a standard moral rule is too great, so one must make an exception to that rule. If the only way to save someone's life is by telling a lie, then one should normally lie. If treating an accident victim involves breaking a promise to meet some- one on time, then one should normally be late. In a variety of circumstances obeying a moral rule might require breaking some other, more urgent, moral duty. In these circumstances, the more urgent duty dictates an exception to the lesser rule. The second way in which an ordinary duty may cease to be a duty is when the cost to the individual of fulfilling that duty is too high. For example, when driving an automobile, one normally has the duty not to run into other cars, and one also has the general duty not to harm or injure other persons. But suppose one is driving down a steep mountain road and the brakes fail. One might have a choice among three options: cross into the oncoming lane of traffic, go off the cliff on one's right, or drive into the car in front. In such a case, a driver would not act wrongly by choosing the third option, even though there is a way in which the duty of not injuring others and not driving into other people's cars can be met, namely, by going off the cliff. In these circumstances, the cost to the individual of meeting the duty is simply too high, and virtually no one would blame the driver or condemn the action as morally wrong if he or she drove into the back of the car ahead rather than going off the cliff. The third way in which a normal duty may turn out not to be a duty is the kind of situation de- scribed by Yossarian. If everyone else is not doing what ought to be done, then one would be a fool to act differently. This third consideration does not obviate all duties, for example, just because every- one else is committing murder does not make it right for you to do so, but it does apply to those cases in which the morally desirable state of affairs can be produced only by everyone, or virtually everyone, doing his or her part. With respect to such a duty, for example, jury duty, one person alone cannot accomplish anything; one can only be placed at a disadvantage vis-à-vis everyone else by doing what everyone ought to do but is not doing. This sort of situation can be described as a "state of nature situation,"(3) and by that I mean a situation in which certain moral rules are generally disobeyed either by everyone or by the members of a well-defined group.

In dealing with such situations, the fact that other people can be expected to act in certain ways is morally relevant in that it creates a special sort of moral dilemma. If one does what everyone ought to do but is not doing, then one will, in all likelihood, be at a disadvantage. The morally question- able behavior of others creates the circumstances in which one finds oneself and in those circumstances- stances it may be necessary to fight fire with fire and resist deception with deception. But replying in kind only prolongs the state of nature situation, so one's primary goal should be to attempt to change the situation. No one ought to take unfair ~ advantage of others, but no one is obligated to let . others take unfair advantage of him or her. :; It is absolutely essential to note, in connection with such situations, that people are not doing what they ought to be doing. The conventionalist recognizes that simple application of ordinary moral rules to such situations is inadequate. But it is a mistake to conclude (1) that ordinary rules do not apply at all to such cases, and (2) that business has its own distinctive set of rules that determines one's duties in such circumstances. Both points are incorrect because (1) the ordinary rules help define the situation as one in which people are not doing what they ought to be doing (we apply the ordinary moral rules to such cases and find that they are not being generally observed), and (2) the considerations that are relevant in determining one's duties in such circumstances do not constitute a special set of factors that are relevant only in business. The mitigating considerations apply generally and are an important part of ordinary moral reasoning.

When virtually everyone is not doing what ought to be done, it affects what we can morally expect of anyone individual. That person does not have a duty to "buck the tide" if doing so will cause the individual substantial harm or not do any good. But, in conjunction with everyone else, the person ought to be acting differently. So the tension one may feel between what one does and what one ought to do is quite real and entirely appropriate.

In the conventionalist argument, these two considerations-the cost to the individual and what everyone else is doing-recur again and again: It is right to lie about one's age and one's magazine preferences when doing otherwise will prevent you from getting a job; right to engage in industrial espionage because everyone else is doing it; right to sell a popular mouthwash with a possibly deleterious form of alcohol in it because cigarettes are sold to the public; and right to sell master auto- mobile keys through the mails (to potential criminals) because guns are sold.(4)

Of these four examples, the last two seem to me to be clearly wrong since neither the high cost to the individual of doing otherwise nor the existence of a general practice has been established. Industrial espionage, however, is a good illustration of a "state of nature situation," and if (1) one does it to others who are doing the same, and (2) it is necessary to. , fight fire with fire' , for the sake of survival, then it would not be morally wrong. For the job applicant, the conditions themselves are morally dubious, so here, too, it may be a case of fighting fire with fire for the sake of personal survival. But notice, in each of these examples, how distasteful the action in question is; most of us would prefer not to engage in such activities. The point is that conditions may be such that the cost of not engaging in them may be so great that an individual caught in such circumstances is blameless. At the same time, however, we do feel that the circumstances should be different.

The second consideration, distinct from the cost to the individual, is that one person doing what everyone ought to do (but is not doing) will accomplish nothing. This can be the case even where the individual cost is insignificant. To take a homely example, suppose there were a well-defined path across the local courthouse lawn as the result of shortcuts taken across it. It would not cost anyone very much to walk around instead of across the lawn, but if one knows his fellow citizens and knows that the path is there to stay, then walking around will accomplish nothing. So one may as well take the path unless, of course, one decides to set an example of how others ought to be acting. Since it costs so little, it might well be a good idea to set such an example. This would be one small way at least of trying to change the situation.

Although one's primary goal ought to be to change the situation, that statement like all claims about what one ought to do, is subject to the moral precept that individuals have a duty to do only what they can do. So, if it is impossible for one individual to change the situation, that person does not have a duty to change it. What is true is that the situation ought to be different, but to make it so may require the combined efforts of many people. All of them collectively have the duty to change it, so this is not a duty that falls solely or directly on the shoulders of anyone person. For the individual executive, then, the question is primarily one of what he or she in conjunction with others can accomplish. Secondarily, it is a question of the likely personal cost to the executive of instituting or proposing needed changes.

A ROLE FOR THE INDIVIDUAL EXECUTIVE

At the very least, executives should not thwart the impetus for change on the ground that business sets its own ethical standards. Everyone has a legitimate interest in the way business is run, and Better Business Bureaus and legislative inquiries should be viewed as important instruments serving that interest. We know on the basis of ordinary moral rules that in certain business environments a new way of acting is a desirable goal. If no one else will join in the promotion of that goal, then the individual executive can, as the poet said, "only stand and wait." But according to that same poet, John Milton, "They also serve who only stand and wait."

The essential difference between the conventionalist position and ordinary moral reasoning comes out most clearly in the following example, provided by Carr in defense of his position. A businessman, Tom, is asked by an important customer in the middle of a sales talk to contribute to the election campaign of a candidate Tom does not support. He does so, and the talk continues with enthusiasm. Later, Tom mentions his action to his wife, Mary, and she is furious. They discuss the situation and the conversation concludes with her saying, "Tom, something is wrong with business when a man is forced to choose between his family's security and his moral obligation. ...It's easy for me to say you should have stood up to him-but if you had, you might have felt you were betraying me and the kids. I'm sorry you did it, Tom, but I can't blame you. Something is wrong with business."

Carr comments that, "This wife saw the problem in terms of moral obligation as conceived in private life; her husband saw it as a matter of game strategy." Those who would refuse to make the contribution "merit our respect-but as private individuals, not businessmen."(5)

What Tom did was not morally wrong in those circumstances, but not for the reasons cited in Carr's paper. There is something wrong with the situation in which Tom found himself. It ought not be the case that one has to choose between one's family and being honest about one's political preferences. Carr fails to recognize this and either misses or ignores entirely the fact that Mary makes precisely this point: She does not blame her husband or say that he did the wrong thing in those circumstances; what she says, instead, is that some- thing is wrong with business when a person has to act as her husband did. It is business and the way it is conducted that ought to be changed. The conventionalist position simply blocks out such an issue: It nowhere considers how business ought to be. It merely says that "the way it is" is all that need be taken into account in deciding what would be ethical.

An analogous situation exists in connection with the financing of political campaigns. No one blames candidates for taking contributions from lobbyists and other individuals since they need the money to run for office. But many people do think that the system ought to be changed. In other words, the current practices are not as honest or ethical as they ought to be. Now, how can the conventionalist handle such a claim? It seems obvious that he cannot, since he systematically rules out applying ordinary moral standards to business practices. But the correct position is that these standards do apply, and sometimes we find they are not being put into practice. In precisely those cases, the general practice ought to change.

THE NEED FOR CHANGE

There is a most important difference, then, between asking "What are the individual duties of a person doing business?" and "What are the ways in which business ought to be conducted?" Both are an essential part of the ethics of business but the conventionalist simply ignores the second question in attempting to answer the first. The answers to the second question can be found, for the most part, by consulting our ordinary moral standards of how people ought to act vis-à-vis one another . When we find that business is not as moral as we would like it to be, that does have some bearing upon the answer to the first question. But, as I have argued in this paper, ordinary moral reasoning is prepared to take those facts into account. It is not at all necessary to postulate a special ethical outlook or a distinctive set of ethical rules for business in order to explain the ethical relevance of such phenomena to the individual businessman.

Ordinary moral reasoning, then, is far richer than mere conventionalism and the factors it takes into account are relevant in many managerial and executive decisions. Ethics can be subtle, as well as realistic, and conventionalism is unrealistic when it obscures the moral imperative for change.

NOTES
1. Albert Carr advocates conventionalism in Business as a Game (New York, 1968); "Is Business Bluffing Ethical?" Harvard Business Review (January-February, 1968) pp. 143-53; and reiterates it in "Can an Executive Afford a Conscience?" Harvard Business Review ( July-Au gust, 1970), pp. 58-64. In defending himself against the criticism that he is condoning unethical behavior , Carr insists that an executive who acts according to prevailing business practices "is guilty of nothing more than conformity; he is merely playing the game according to the rules." "Showdown on Business Bluffing," Harvard Business Review. (May-June, 1968), p. 169.

2. Joseph Heller, Catch 22. (New York, Dell, 1961), chapter 9.

3. Marcus a. Singer uses this term in Generalization in Ethics (New York: Knopf, 1961), pp. 153, 156-57.

4. Examples from Carr's "Is Business Bluffing Ethical?" pp. 144, 146, 148.

5. Ibid., pp. 152-53.

THE PROBLEM OF ABORTION

THE PROBLEM OF ABORTION

PRELIMINARIES AND BASIC CONCEPTS

A fetus: In ethical and philosophical context, any human offspring at any stage of its prenatal development, from conception to birth.
A narrower medical sense of the word ‘fetus': a fetus is the unborn entity from roughly the eight week of pregnancy (when brain waves can first be monitored) until birth. A fetus, in this sense, should be distinguished from a zygote (an entity from conception to implantation a week later) and an embryo (from implantation until the eight week).
Abortion: The deliberate causing of the death of a fetus, either by directly killing it or (more commonly) by causing its expulsion from the womb before it is "viable," that is before it is capable of surviving outside its mother's body.

THREE STAGES (OR STEPS) IN THE ABORTION DEBATE

STEP 1: What is the moral status of a human fetus?

• Is a human fetus a mere thing?
• Does a fetus have any experiences that, morally speaking, must be taken into consideration?
• Is a fetus the proper subject of moral considerations?
• Does a fetus have moral right?

THE MAIN ARGUMENT AGAINST ABORTION (AAA)

STEP I (an argument for a right to life, RL)

P1 From the moment of conception, a fetus is a person.
P2 Every person has a right to life (hereafter, RL).
C1 Therefore, from the moment of conception, a fetus has a RL. [from (P1) and (P2)]

STEP II (an argument about a possible conflict of "claims")

P3 Abortion kills a fetus.
P4 There are no considerations overriding a fetus' RL.
P5 Killing someone whose RL has not been overridden is morally wrong (it is murder).
C2 Therefore, abortion is morally wrong (it is murder). [from (C1) - (P5)]

STEP III (What is (or should be) the legal status of human fetus? Should fetus be granted any legal rights?)

P6 All morally wrong acts should be prohibited by law, unless there are extremely good reason for waving such prohibitions.
P7 There are no good reasons to wave such prohibitions in the case of abortion.
C3 Therefore, abortion should be prohibited by law. [from (C2), (P6), and (P7)]

THREE WAYS TO UNDERSTAND THE ABORTION DEBATE

"SIMPLE" INTERPRETATION

	Does a fetus have a RL	Are there any other morally relevant considerations	Does a woman have a right to chose RC
PRO LIFE (1)	yes	no / (???)	no
PRO-CHOICE (1)	no	yes	yes

This way of understandin the issue is popular in political debates. It ignores (STEP 2)m the possible conflict of claims and other moral considerations. In adition, it fails to distinguish ethical from legal issues (STEP 3).

"COMPLEX/SOPHISTICATED" INTERPRETATION

	Does a fetus have a RL	Are there any other morally relevant considerations	Do those e considerations override RL?	Does a woman have a right to chose RC
PRO LIFE (1)	yes	no	xxx	no
PRO-LIFE (2)	yes	yes	no (with few exceptions)	no (with few exceptions)
PRO-CHOICE (1)	no	yes	xxx	yes
PRO-CHOICE (2)	yes	yes	yes	yes

"COMPLETE" INTERPRETATION

	Morally, does a woman have a RC (that overrides a RL)?	Must law coincide with morality?	Legally, does/should a woman have a RC?
PRO LIFE (3)	no	yes	no
PRO-LIFE (4)	no	no	yes (maybe)
PRO-CHOICE (3)	yes	xxx	yes

THE AMBIGUITY OF THE CONCEPT OF A PERSON

The English Oxford Dictionary, ‘person' may mean the following:

• Biological sense: ‘An individual human being; a man woman, or child.'
• general Philosophical Sense: ‘A self-conscious or rational being.'
• Legal Sense. ‘A human being (natural person) or body corporate or corporation (artificial person) having rights and duties recognized by law.'

Mary Anne Warren ("The abortion Issue", in Shaw, Social and Personal Ethics, 1996):

The concept of person has both a moral and an empirical dimension. A person, in... the moral sense of the term, is any entity to which [full, most basic, equal] moral rights... may be ascribed (128). The empirical aspect of the concept of a person is not essentially biological. [A person in this sense is any entity who] has certain sorts of mental and behavioral capacities (129).

EVALUATIVE (NORMATIVE) CONCEPTS OF PERSON
involve some strong normative (legal or moral or both) components

• Moral Personhood: X is a personM =def. X is a full member of moral community and as such has the most fundamental, equal moral rights.
• Legal Personhood: X is a personL =df X has some legal rights (possibly some legal obligations).

DESCRIPTIVE CONCEPTS OF PERSON (define persons from the biological, philosophical, commonsense, etc. points of view.)

• Biological Personhood: X is a personB =def. X is a human being (a being who has a specifically human genetical makeup (DNA); x is a member of a biological species--Homo Sapiens.
• Philosophical (Commonsense) Personhood: X is a personC =def. X is a rational and self-aware being.

CAPABILITIES OF PERSONS

1. Consciousness and sentience
2. Rationality, ability to solve general problems
3. Self-awareness or self-concept
4. Self-motivated behavior
5. Linguistic capacity

THE FIRST STEP IN THE DEBATE REVISITED

The first interpretation

AAA (first step)	Analogous argument
P1a From the moment of conception, fetus is a personB. P2a Every personC has a RL. C1 Therefore, a fetus has a RL. [from (P1a)&(P2a)]	1. Every river flows between two banks. 2. Every bank is a financial institution. C' Thus, every river flows between two financial institutions.

Neither argument is valid, the conclusions do not follow from the premises.

The second interpretation
P1b A fetus is a personC from the moment of conception.
P2b Every personC has a right to life.
C1 Thus, a fetus has a RL. [from (P1b)&(P2b)]

P2b is arguably true, but P1b is clearly false. Argument is unsound.

The third interpretation
P1c A fetus is a personM from the moment of conception.
P2c Every personM has a right to life.
C1 Therefore, a fetus has a RL. [from (P1c)&(P2c)]

P2c is true. But P1c is simply assumed, without any justification. But why should we assume that a fetus is a personM from the moment of conception? This assumption is exactly what is at stake (or what the argument/debate is all about). On what grounds should we assume that, from the moment of conception, a fetus has the same moral protection as all normal adult human beings? The argument begs the question. It assumes what it is supposed to show.

THE CRITERIA FOR MORAL PERSONHOOD

THE SPECIES CRITERION (SC) :X has a right to life (is entitled to full and equal protection by the moral rule against homicide) if and only if X is a member of the biological species Homo Sapiens.

Some Implications of SC (see Warren, 128):

• Human beings of all races, religions, and nationalities count as persons (moral).
• Rocks, trees, and non-human animals do not count as persons (do not have moral rights).
• "No non-human being could ever count as a person [protected by the moral principles] regardless of how sensitive, intelligent, kindly, or cooperative he, she, or it might. Language using dolphins or chimpanzees, sapient extraterrestrials, self-aware robots or androids, and even our own descendants, should they evolve into a biologically distinct species, are all ruled out."

THE POTENTIALITY CRITERION (PC): X has a right to life if and only if X is a commonsense person either actually or potentially.
THE POTENTIALITY PRINCIPLE (PP): If all Ys have some rights, then all potential Ys also have these rights.

Three potentiality arguments

A moral status of fetus argument	Analogous argument	Another analogous argument
P1a From the moment of conception, a fetus is potentially a personC. P2a All personsC have a right to life. PP C1 Therefore, a fetus has a RL. [from (P1a)&(P2a), and PP]	1a After the election but before the inauguration Bill Clinton was potentially the President of U.S. 2a All Presidents of U.S. have presidential rights. PP Ca Therefore, after the election but before the inauguration Bill Clinton had presidential rights. [from (1a), (2a) & (PP)]	1b A newborn infant, Mary, is potentially (but not actually) an adult (i.e. 21 years old). 2b All adults have a right to drink. PP Cb Therefore, Mary has a right to drink. [from (1a), (2a) & (PP)]

All three arguments are valid. But, Ca and Cb are clearly false. So, one of the premises of these arguments is false. (We cannot have a valid argument with all true premises and a false conclusion. So, ((PP) is false.

THE ACTUAL POSSESSION CRITERION (APC): X has a right to life if and only if X is actually a commonsense person.
Some Implications:

• It is not the case that a fetus has a right to life.
• It is not the case that small infants have a right to life.
• It is not the case that severely retarded people have a right to life

THE "COMPELLING REASONS" CRITERION (CRC): X has a right to life if and only if (A) X is actually a commonsense person; or (B) there are some compelling reasons for extending a RL to X.
Some Implications:

• Normal adults have a right to life.
• To address Warren's worries: non-human beings are protected by the moral principles provided they sensitive, self-conscious and intelligent enough. This may include language using dolphins and chimpanzees, sapient extraterrestrials, self-aware robots or androids, and our own descendants (even if they evolve into a biologically distinct species).
• Small small infants severely retarded people have a right to life, if there are compelling reasons to extend a RL to them.
• The same is true about human fetuses

Reasons for extending the full moral protection to small children and retarded humans (see Warren) :

1. Most people feel affection for helpless newborn babies.
2. Maltreated infants may become antisocial children or adults.
3. There are more parents wishing to adopt infants (and give them decent care) than there are infants available for adoption.
4. Our society can afford to provide reasonable good care to all adoptable children.
5. Most people are willing to provide such care (even if it involves higher taxes and some sacrifices)
6. Respect for the wishes and personal feelings of those who have established personal relationships with retarded people.
7. Self-protection and the protection of others we care about.
8. Compassion for any sentient human being.
9. Slippery slope considerations -- a danger that we may abuse someone who is in fact a commonsense person.

Reasons against extending the full moral protection to small children: None whatsoever.

Are any of these reasons applicable to a human fetus?
1*. Some people feel affection for fetuses, especially at the late stages of pregnancy. (But this affection is less strong and not as prevalent as it is in the case of small babies or retarded people)
3. There are more parents wishing to adopt infants (and give them decent care) than there are infants available for adoption.
4. Our society can afford to provide reasonable good care to all adoptable children.
8. Compassion for any sentient human being.

Reasons against extending the full moral protection to fetuses
Extending full moral protection to fetuses would lead to serious and frequent conflicts of moral rights (fetuses rights might be in conflict with the rights of potential mother).

DON MARQUIS' CASE AGAINST ABORTION

MARQUIS' VIEW: "...abortion is, except possibly in rare cases, seriously immoral... it is in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being" (p. 138). This is the case because "fetus is the sort of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end" (p. 138).

A General Form of Marquis' Argument

1. It is prima facie seriously wrong to kill anyone (any being) who has certain morally relevant features, F.
2. A human fetus is F.
3. Therefore, it is prima facie seriously wrong to kill a human fetus; that is, prima facie abortion is seriously wrong.

Notice, M makes a case for prima facie wrongness of killing. This does allow for some exceptions. (141)

A THEORETICAL ACCOUNT OF THE WRONGNESS OF KILLING

• Why exactly is it wrong to kill a normal human being?
• What are the relevant features that make such killing seriously wrong?

TWO "OBVIOUSLY" MISTAKEN VIEWS (INDIRECT ACCOUNTS OF THE WRONGNESS OF KILLING)
1) Such killing brutalizes the one who kills.
2) Others will suffer a great loss due to our absence.

In general: "To think of the wrongness of killing somebody in terms of whether or not it will upset somebody else is to miss completely the somewhat obscure point. The Common Moral Consciousness is quite clear that the reason why it is wrong to kill somebody has something to do with him, not with his mother or maiden aunt" (R.E. Ewing, "What is Wrong with Killing People?", Phil. Quarterly, 22 (1972), p. 126).

MARQUIS ON WHY KILLING IS WRONG
Killing is wrong because it deprives one his or her valuable future.
That is, the relevant characteristic, F, that explain why it is wrong to kill someone is that this someone has a valuable future).

"The loss of one's life is one of the greatest loses one can suffer. The loss of one's life deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one's future. Therefore, killing someone is wrong, primarily because the killing inflicts (one of) the greatest possible losses on the victim" (p. 138).

VIRTUES OF MARQUIS' ACCOUNT (MA)
It accounts for many intuitions about killing.
Gives an account in "naturalistic", i.e., "scientifically accessible" terms.
E.g., compare MA with a divine command theory (=> killing is wrong because a deity does not want us to kill). We still need to know why (on what grounds) the deity issues this prohibition. For, surely, God is not a whimsical being who issues his command in completely arbitrary way. So, if God is not whimsical what are his reasons for issuing some prohibitions. (See, p. 139)

TWO IMMEDIATE REASONS SUPPORTING MARQUIS' ACCOUNT
A. MA explains why we regard killing as one of the greatest crimes. "It is especially wrong because it deprives the victim of more than perhaps any other crime" (p. 139)
B. It explains why a premature death (e.g., a death which is a result of illness or accident) is especially bad (perhaps more bad that the death of a person who has a long and productive life).

ADDITIONAL REASONS SUPPORTING MA
1. Unlike various species criteria, MA explains well why it may be wrong to kill non-humans (e.g. ETs) who may have valuable future similar to ours.
2. Furthermore, it explains why it may be wrong to kill some animals (those who may have valuable future similar to ours) (See, p. 139; also see M on Kant, p. 141)
3. Unlike the sanctity of human life views, MA explains well why active euthanasia is sometimes morally permissible.
4. It explains why it is wrong to kill children and infants; namely, they have valuable future just like we do. (140)

MARQUIS' ACCOUNT IS ALLEGEDLY BETTER THAN ALTERNATIVES
Desire Account: People desire to live. Killing them frustrates this desire. So, it is wrong. (142)
Discontinuation Account: People value the experience of living and wish this experience to continue. Problem. What about someone who does not value this experience (e.g., is in pain). We then refer to future experiences. So, we adopt something like MA. (142-3)

IMPLICATIONS FOR ABORTION

• A fetus has a valuable future like ours.
• So, prima facie, it is seriously wrong to kill a fetus.
• So, prima facie, abortion is seriously wrong.

THIS IS NOT THE STANDARD POTENTIALITY ARGUMENT

STANDARD POTENTIALITY ARGUMENT	MARQUIS ARGUMENT
1. It is wrong to kill a normal personC. 2. Fetus is potentially (but not actually) a normal personC 3. Potentiality principle: If it is wrong to kill As (e.g., normal persons), then it is wrong to kill potential As (e.g., a potential person). ____ C. So, it is wrong to kill a fetus	1. It is wrong to kill any being who has a valuable future. 2. A fetus is a being who has a valuable future. ____ So, it is wrong to kill a fetus.

SOME PROBLEMS WITH MARQUIS' ACCOUNT
Contraception: The combination of sperm and ovum also seems to have valuable future. (144)

THOMSON'S DEFENSE OF ABORTION

THOMSON ON THE SECOND STAGE OF THE ABORTION DEBATE: "Opponents of abortion commonly spend most of their time establishing that the fetus is a person, and hardly any time explaining the step from there to the impermissibility of abortion... I propose, then, that we grant that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. How does the argument go from there?" (P. 147)

C1 From the moment of conception, a fetus has a RL.
4 No considerations override a fetus' RL. ["...a person's RL is stronger and more stringent that the mother's right to decide what happens in and to her body, and so outweighs it" (147)]
5 Killing someone whose RL has not been overridden is morally wrong.
C2 Therefore, a fetus may not be killed, abortion is morally wrong.

Thomson clearly rejects (C1), see p. 156B.
She is credited with bringing the second part of the abortion debate to the forefront.
Her main point is that even if we suppose (contrary to fact) that ( C1) is true, it still does not follow that abortion is wrong. For we have good grounds for rejecting (4).

CASE 1: "THE VIOLINIST": You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. The Society for Music Lovers (SML) has kidnaped you and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital tells you, "Look, we're sorry the SML did this to you - we never would have allowed it had we known. Still, they have done it, to unplug him now would be to kill him. But never mind, its only for nine months. Is it morally incumbent upon you to accede to this situation? If you were to conclude that you did not have this obligation - to keep the violinist alive - then you must concede something is wrong with the above [argument about abortion].

A REPLY: One could be unplug from the violinist because one did not consent to being plugged up in the first place. Thus, if one were pregnant as a result of rape abortion would be permissible.
A PROBLEM: whether you have a RL or not is not dependent on whether or not you were a product of rape. (In addition, people like Noonan do not make exceptions for rape victims or even for health problems.)

CASE 2: "TINY HOUSE & RAPIDLY GROWING CHILD" (and the Extreme Anti-Abortion view implies that abortion is wrong even to save the mother's life.
You find yourself trapped in a very tiny house with a rapidly growing child. You are already up the wall of the house and in a few minutes you'll be crashed to death. The child on the other hand won't be crushed to death; if nothing is done to stop him from growing he'll be hurt, but in the end he will simply burst open the house and walk out free. However innocent the child may be you do not have to wait passively while it crushes you to death. A woman surely can defend her life against the threat to it posed by the unborn child, even if doing so involves its death.
Distinguish moral innocence and causal innocence.
The rapidly growing child is morally innocent, but not causally innocent.

THE RIGHT TO LIFE & CASE 3: "HENRY FONDA'S COOL HAND": If I am sick unto death, and the only thing that will save my life is the touch of Henry Fonda's cool hand on my fevered brow, then all the same, I have no right to be given the touch... It would be frightfully nice of him to fly in from the West Coast to provide it. But I have no right at all against anybody that he should do this for me. Similarly, "nobody has any right to use your kidneys unless you give him such a right" (150B).
The "Pro Life" advocates treat the RL as completely unproblematic. Some may think it includes the bare minimum a man needs for continued life. The above case shows that even this bare minimum may be, however, something he has no right at all to be given.

THE RIGHT TO USE THE MOTHER'S BODY :
In unplugging yourself, you are killing a violinist. The amendment may be made at this point (151):
The RL consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly.

If a woman voluntarily indulges in intercourse, knowing of the chance it will issue in pregnancy, and then she becomes pregnant; is she not in part responsible for the very existence of the unborn person inside her? She did not invite it in. But doesn't her partial responsibility give a fetus a right to the use of her body?

CASE 4: BURGLARS AND PEOPLE SEEDS: If the room is stuffy, and I therefore open a window to air it, and a burglar climbs in, it would be absurd to say "Ah, now he can stay, she's given him a right to the use of her house-for she is partially responsible for his presence there, having voluntarily done what enabled him to get in, in full knowledge that there are such things as burglars and that burglars burgle." (152A)
Suppose it were like this: people-seeds drift about in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets or upholstery. You don't want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective; and a seed drifts in and takes root. Does the person-plant who now develops have a right to the use of your house? Surely not- despite the fact that you voluntarily opened your windows, you knowingly kept carpets and upholstered furniture, and you knew that screens were sometimes defective. (152B)

The burglar case is analogous to the case of pregnancy due to carelessness (?), but see addition about bars and also the people-seeds case ( analogous to the case of pregnancy due to defective contraception).

To wit, not even somehow "chancy" voluntary actions that result in pregnancy give the unborn person a right to the use of its mother's body.

RIGHTS AND SACRIFICES: Suppose that the violinist needs only one hour. Suppose that letting him use your kidneys would not affect your health. [Even if you were kidnaped, even if you were raped] "it seems to me plain you ought to allow him to use your kidneys for that hour -- it would be indecent to refuse" (153A)

"Now some people are inclined to use the term ‘right' in such a way that it follows from the fact that you ought to allow a person to use your body for the hour he needs, that he has a right to use your body for the hour he needs, even thought he has not been given that right by anybody" (153A). But Thomson finds such symmetry unfortunate. She things that your behavior would not be unjust but might go against some other virtues (compassion, benevolence) and might display some vices (callousness , selfishness, greediness) (153B, 154A)

Kitty Genovese case (154B): We may be morally required to be "Minimally Decent" Samaritans.

It is not clear, there is a general moral obligation to be "(Very) Good" Samaritans. (155A)

PARENTAL OBLIGATIONS
Parents acquire their obligations as a result of their several STRONGLY VOLUNTARY and not chancy at all actions.

EUTHANASIA AND ASSISTED SUICIDE

EUTHANASIA AND ASSISTED SUICIDE

THE CONCEPT OF EUTHANASIA (GOOD DEATH):

In typical (or most paradigm) cases, euthanasia involves the following elements:
(1) Some person is killed or allowed to die;
(2) this person is terminally and irreversibly ill and would die soon anyway;
(3) this person suffers a terrible (physical or mental) pain (his or her conditions are for him/her intolerable);
(4) this person requests to be killed (or to be allowed to die);
(5) euthanasia is an act (or omission) of mercy; that is, the reason for killing (letting die) is to spare someone further excruciating suffering, and to provide this person with as "good death" as it is possible under the circumstances.

If an act (omission) is sufficiently similar to the case so defined than it still can be classified as an act of euthanasia (even if it is not a standard, or central, case of euthanasia).

SOME CONCEPTUAL DISTINCTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS:
Active euthanasia involves deliberate (intentional) killing. Passive euthanasia involves allowing someone to die.

Voluntary euthanasia -- a person requests (or did explicitly request) to be killed (or to be allowed to die).
Non-voluntary euthanasia -- occurs when a person has not requested to be killed (or to be allowed to die) and did not request to be kept alive either.
Involuntary euthanasia occurs when a person has requested to be kept alive. It is plausible to assume that all cases of involuntary euthanasia are morally unjustified, they are cases of unjustified murder.

Euthanasia: one person kills another (=active euthanasia) or allows this person to die (passive euthanasia).
Assisted suicide: One person provides another person with the means that allows this person to die; the person who dies kills himself/herself using this means.

MORAL STATUS OF EUTHANASIA
Most people and legal, medical, and religious organizations allow various forms of passive euthanasia.
There is a serious ethical debate about moral permissibility of voluntary and non-voluntary active euthanasia.
Most people and organizations assume that involuntary euthanasia is always (or almost always) morally wrong . There are several reasons that can be used to show that involuntary euthanasia is (almost always) morally wrong.

Arguments against involuntary euthanasia

• Consequentialist considerations: This form of euthanasia would cause lots of suffering, anguish, disutility, and so on.
• Respect for autonomy considerations: It violates the autonomy of individual (Autonomy -- self-directed freedom, the governing of one's self according to one's own system of value convictions (in particular, moral convictions) and factual beliefs. Autonomy is respected when one gives an informed consent, i.e., consent given after full disclosure of risks, benefits, and alternative treatments to any proposed procedure, both in therapy and in medical experimentation. Law entitles patients to such disclosure, except for the cases of emergencies or when the patient is incompetent; in such cases proxy's consent is required.)
• Respect for rights: It violates human right; especially, the right to life.

Arguments for voluntary euthanasia

• It promotes the best interest of everyone concerned
• It respects autonomy of everyone who is involved; and
• It violates no one's rights. (This issue is open to a serious philosophical debate. Defenders of euthanasia argue that the right to life can be waved and so voluntary euthanasia does not violate this right. Opponents of euthanasia argue that the right to life cannot be waived.)

Rachels Argument from Consistency

1. There is no moral difference between killing someone (per se), and letting someone die (per se). [That is, other things being equal, killing is just as good (or just as bad) as letting someone die.]
2. In typical cases, the only difference between active euthanasia (AE) and passive euthanasia (PE) is that AE involves killing while PE involves letting someone die.
3. If (1) and (2), then in typical cases there is no moral difference between AE and PA.
______________
4. Therefore, in typical cases, there is no moral difference between AE and PA.
5. In typical cases, passive euthanasia is morally permissible. [This premise is granted by AMA and various religious organizations.]
______________
6. Therefore, in typical cases, active euthanasia is morally permissible. [from (4) and (5)]

TWO CASES IN SUPPORT OF (1): James Rachels, in his "Active and Passive Euthanasia" (The New England Journal of Medicine 282 [1975], pp. 78-80): offered two cases that seem to support premise 1

CASE I (Killing): Smith stand to gain a large inheritance if anything should happen to his six-year-old cousin. One evening while the child is taking his bath, Smith sneaks into the bathroom and drowns the child, and then arranges things so that it will look like an accident.

CASE II (Letting die): Jones also stands to gain if anything should happen to his six-year-old cousin. Like Smith, Jones sneaks in planning to drown the child in his bath. However, just as he enters the bathroom Jones sees the child slip and hit his head, and fall face down in the water. Jones is delighted; he stands by, ready to push the child's head back under if it is necessary, but it is not necessary. With only a little thrashing about the child drowns all by himself, "accidentally", as Jones watches and does nothing.

Rachels argues that Smith and Jones did equally bad things. So, other things being equal there is no moral difference between killing someone (per se) and letting someone die (per se). (Rachels would agree that in many cases killing may be worse than letting die. But he would argue that, in those cases, there are other factors that make killing worse.)

THE CONCEPT OF EXTRAORDINARY MEANS OF TREATMENT

Ordinary means of preserving life are all medicines, treatments, and operations, which offer a reasonable hope of benefit for the patient and which can be obtained and used without excessive expense, pain, and other inconveniences. Extraordinary means of preserving life are all those medicines, treatments, and operations which cannot be obtained without excessive expense, pain, and other inconveniences, or which, if used, would not offer a reasonable hope of benefit" (Paul Ramsey:, Patient as a Person...)

Ordinary means for preserving life include "all medicines, treatments, and operations which offer a reasonable hope of benefit for the patient and which can be obtained and used without excessive expense, pain, or other inconvenience." (The Catholic Bishops of Florida, "The Pastoral Letter on Death ..." (see also, http://www.culturalcatholic.com/CatholicLivingWill.htm)

By this definition, insulin and antibiotics are ordinary means of preserving life only if they offer a reasonable hope of benefit. If the situation is hopeless, the insulin and the antibiotics are extraordinary.

Extraordinary means for preserving life are "all medicines, treatments, and operations which cannot be obtained or used without excessive expense, pain, or other inconvenience for the patient or for others or which, if used, would not offer reasonable hope or benefit for the patient." (The Catholic Bishops, the same letter)

Notice: This distinction is based on the concept of "reasonable hope of benefit?" It seems that to use this concept we must assume that, sometimes, it is overall not good (or beneficial) for a person to merely stay alive. In other words, it seems that this concept assumes that sometimes death is beneficial for a person.