You Shouldn’t Kill People Without Asking Them Their Thoughts on It: Disability Studies, Pragmatism, and Bioethics
Disability studies and people with disabilities have long been left out of philosophical conversations and even now, they are often subjects of discussion rather than participants when it comes to the field of philosophy. Moral philosophy, in particular, has a habit of debating the right-to-life of people with disabilities without consulting the opinion of the very people whose lives are at stake. This is most commonly seen in utilitarian arguments that claim the “right to life” is dependent not on being a member of the human species, but rather on conditions related to self-consciousness. It is one thing to entertain thought experiments about the circumstances under which it would be morally correct to deny someone their right to life, but utilitarian proposals surrounding this debate are often rooted in ableist thinking. Therefore, when it comes to practical ethics that could result in the eradication of people with disabilities, moral philosophy and the study of ethics could greatly benefit from listening to Disability Studies.
Peter Singer, one of the most prominent bioethicists of the twenty-first century and a known utilitarian, has addressed the right to life ethics through an argument based on personhood and replaceability. This argument is covered in Singer’s book Practical Ethics in the chapter “Taking Life: Humans” and the argument asserts two claims. Singer defines “personhood” as being aware of one’s own existence in time, of having a certain degree of autonomy and self-consciousness. The inherent value of being human is irrelevant to the euthanization of infants, rather it is the characteristics of “rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference” (Singer 176). Those who fail to meet this standard for personhood are no longer people in Singer’s eyes, they become more comparable to nonhuman animals and thus, he argues, the same standards we apply to killing nonhuman animals must also apply here. Nonhuman animals who lack ration and self-consciousness are replaceable underneath the argument of replaceability, they are swappable as long as the second one will enjoy an equal or higher quality of life. The replaceability argument goes one step further by asking the question of whether the death of a disabled infant could lead to the birth of a non-disabled infant, one that might lead a better life thereby increasing the total happiness in the world — the end goal of utilitarianism. When the arguments of personhood and replaceability are combined, it results in an argument for allowing parents to euthanize their disabled infants.
Singer’s argument is well-structured, but the reasonable nature of his points cannot allow us to look past the fact the entire nature of his argument is steeped in ableism. Harriet McBryde Johnson, a disability rights activist and a member of the disabled community, tackles this in her New York Times article “Unspeakable Conversations’’ where she recounts the time she debated against Singer in 2002. Her email conversations with Singer reveal that Singer believes disability uniquely makes euthanizing a child morally acceptable because a disabled child is “worse off” than its nondisabled counterparts (Johnson). The idea that people with disabilities are worse off than people without disabilities is a stance refuted by both Johnson and the disabled community at large. People with disabilities are able to enjoy worldly pleasures that other people enjoy and pleasures unique to their state of being, they are by no means “worse off” just because non-disabled people can’t comprehend or experience their lifestyles (Johnson). Gary McPherson and Dick Sobsey also speak against this viewpoint in their essay “Rehabilitation: Disability Ethics Versus Peter Singer’’, stating that there is no empirical basis to support the claim that people with disabilities enjoy their life less than nondisabled people (McPherson, Sobsey 1247). The conclusion that disabled people cannot attain the same happiness in life as nondisabled people is one that stems solely from ableist misconceptions regarding the quality of life of disabled people.
When we have set aside the logic and the eloquence of his arguments, it becomes clear Singer is advocating for a path that could lead to genocide. The disability studies community has remarked on the similarities that the replaceability argument shares with the Third Reich. Michael Burleigh discusses this in his paper “Death and Deliverance: ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany c. 1900–1945” when he points out how the viewpoints taken by the Nazis are strikingly similar to the viewpoints of bioethicists like Singer. The Nazis saw people with disabilities as lesser beings who could never attain the same level of pleasure in life as people without disabilities and came to the conclusion that if disabled people were killed, resources could be freed up to take care of nondisabled people who might be fully restored to health (Burleigh 866). The parallels between this belief and Singer’s theory of replaceability, which offers that if a disabled infant were killed, resources could be freed up for a nondisabled infant who would enjoy a higher quality of life, should not be ignored.
Even though Singer attempts to take the view of the universe in his writings, there lingers the doubt as to whether Singer would have come to the same conclusions he has if ableist mindsets were not so prevalent in our society. His arguments originate from the prejudicial viewpoint that people with disabilities are worse off than people without. If such a belief did not permeate our society, Singer might have never thought to talk about this subject at all. But such prejudices do exist and the voice of people with disabilities needs to be heard here to prevent able-bodied people from moving forward with their misconceptions of what is best for humanity, for people with disabilities. Singer stretches for absolute answers through facts and logic alone, disregards culture and religion and family and the limitations of society. But this kind of philosophy is ultimately impractical when applied to real situations concerning real humans because bioethics is undeniably influenced by societal factors. The ableist pitfall that makes up so much of Singer’s argument might be avoided by bioethics if they engaged more with disability studies.
By thoroughly listening to disabled voices when they enter the conversation, moral philosophy and ethics lessen the risk of losing sight of pragmatic applications of their field. Johnson, in her New York Times article, mentions a philosophy professor that challenged her concerns towards Singer for being tactical, too grounded in worldly issues surrounding social, political, and economic inequality (Johnson). But if moral philosophy and ethics refuse to take into consideration the reality faced by people with disabilities, they risk turning the discrimination disabled people face into abstract ideas to be explored to slake their intellectual curiosity. As society advances more eyes turn to ethics, and the field of bioethics in particular, to offer answers to questions that surround matters of life and death when it comes to complicated matters such as abortion, infanticide, and assisted suicide. To leave disabled people out of these conversations, especially when they are so often used as an example, is to deny them their autonomy, their right to a voice. It is to enforce the ableist mind frame that people without disabilities are better equipped to make decisions than the very people whose fates are being decided.
Works Cited
Burleigh, Michael. “Death and Deliverance: ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany c. 1900–1945.” The American Historical Review, vol. 101, no. 3, June 1996, pp. 865–866., doi:https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/101.3.865.
Johnson, Harriet McBryde. “Unspeakable Conversations.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Feb. 2003, www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/unspeakable-conversations.html.
McPherson, Gary W., and Dick Sobsey. “Rehabilitation: Disability Ethics Versus Peter Singer.” Archives of Physical Medication and Rehabilitation, vol. 84, no. 8, 1 Aug. 2003, pp. 1246–1248., doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0003-9993(03)00107-2.
“Taking Life: Humans.” Practical Ethics, by Peter Singer, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 175–217.
