Week 4 post 1

 Lecture 10

1. Argument over the role of markets in the realm of human reproduction and procreation

1. Advertising in the realm of human reproduction and procreation

2. Egg donors, offers financial incentives for specific characteristics

3. For-profit sperm banks based around IVY leagues

2.  Should eggs and sperm be bought and sold for money

3. Also consider commercial surrogate motherhood 

1. Can you make surrogate motherhood contractual 

2. THe case where the surrogate mother gives birth and wants to keep the baby… this goes to court… what does this mean about this issue on a moral question

3. Do you enforce or not enforce the contract

4. Its a binding contract where all parties involved knew the terms of the contract. It was a voluntary contract and the right thing to do is honor the deal.

5. Objection to the contract was that in this situation the mother possibly did not know what she was getting into because she did not necessarily know how much she would love or desire the child. 

1. The idea that the child has the unalienable right to its mother

6. ^is this a circumstantial oddity 

7. Bond created by nature is stronger than a bond made my contract

4. Adoption and surrogacy are both viable trade offs and unalienable rights/coercion cannot be applied to this argument

1. The emotional content/how her feelings play into this are not relevant in the case of law and contracts

2. You don't get to go back on your words

5. Does the mother have a right to her child? There are some areas where the market forces shouldnt necessarily penetrate, the surrogacy concept could be dehumanizing 

1. It is dehumanizing because it is buying and selling a child for money. You cant just buy someones biological right

2. Okay but under contract we aren't taking their rights merely we are changing who raises them 

3. Should there be an emotional contract? Should the contract be an end all be all or should it be able to be backed out of as long as each side receives accurate financial compensation

4. Should not be enforceable in a court

5. Because the conception of the child is inherently unnatural, you cannot say all emotional bonds are natural and if you are to get into surrogacy you must promise your emotions will not take over

6. Bond between mother and child vs. father and child is emotionally different

7. Time investment given by the mother (nine months) versus a man going into a sperm bank and watching pornography is not equal

Objections to Surrogacy  

6. Tainted or flawed consent

1. Coercion

2. Lack of information

7. Dehumanizing (this part is more elusive)

Lower court decided that the contract was enforceable but the supreme court of NJ said it was not so they granted the father custody but then they restored the rights of the surrogate mother and left it to the lower courts to decide exactly what the visitation rights should be. First they said there was not sufficiently informed consent. The court also said it was the sale of the mother's rights to the child. So regardless to this there are some things in a civilized society that money cannot buy. 

Is utility the only proper way of treating goods? If not how do we decide how to value those goods?

“Fatherhood should be something you do, not donate” Ellen Goodman

 In the Matter of Baby "M" (1988)

Superior Court of New Jersey

February 3, 1988 

1. Under the contract, the natural mother is irrevocably committed before she knows the strength of her bond with her child. She never makes a totally voluntary, informed decision, for quite clearly any decision prior to the baby’s birth is, in the most important sense, uninformed, and any decision after that, compelled by a pre-existing contractual commitment, the threat of a lawsuit, and the inducement of a $10,000 payment, is less than totally voluntary. Her interests are of little concern to those who controlled this transaction.

2. Although the interest of the natural father and adoptive mother is certainly the predominant interest, realistically the only interest served, even they are left with less than what public policy requires. They know little about the natural mother, her genetic makeup, and her psychological and medical history. Moreover, not even a superficial attempt is made to determine their awareness of their responsibilities as parents.

3. Worst of all, however, is the contract’s total disregard of the best interests of the child. There is not the slightest suggestion that any inquiry will be made at any time to determine the fitness of the Sterns as custodial parents, of Mrs. Stern as an adoptive parent, their superiority to Mrs. Whitehead, or the effect on the child of not living with her natural mother.

4. Second, the use of money in adoptions does not produce the problem—conception occurs, and usually the birth itself, before illicit funds are offered. With surrogacy, the “problem,” if one views it as such, consisting of the purchase of a woman’s procreative capacity, at the risk of her life, is caused by and originates with the offer of money.

5. Third, with the law prohibiting the use of money in connection with adoptions, the built-in financial pressure of the unwanted pregnancy and the consequent support obligation do not lead the mother to the highest paying, ill-suited, adoptive parents. She is just as well-off surrendering the child to an approved agency. In surrogacy the highest bidders will presumably become the adoptive parents regardless of suitability, so long as payment of money is permitted

6. the harmful consequences of this surrogacy arrangement appear to us all too palpable. In New Jersey the surrogate mother’s agreement to sell her child is void. Its irrevocability infects the entire contract, as does the money that purports to buy it.

Lecture 11

1. Immanual Kant, The critique of pure reason 

2. One of the most important modern philosopher

3. He rejects utilitarianism

4. He believes we all have a certain dignity that commands our respect because we are all rational beings which simply means we are all beings capable of reason

5. He believes we are autonomous beings, we are capable of acting and choosing freely

6. He admits the utilitarians were half right, of course we seek to avoid pain and we like pleasure

1. He denies bentham's claim that pain and pleasure are our sovereign masters

7. We are more than physical creatures with appetites 

8. Kant's idea of freedom is stringent and demanding but he believes that when we seek after pleasure we aren't really acting freely because we are acting as the slaves to those appetites and impulses. I didn't choose this hunger or appetite so when I choose to satisfy it I am just acting according to natural necessity. 

9. We all just obey our desires that we ourselves have not chosen or created

Kant's conception of freedom

10. To act freely = to act autonomously = to the laws I give myself

11. Heteronomy, acting according to desires I have not chosen myself

12. Nature is governed by laws such as cause and effect

13. To act freely is not to choose the best means to a given end it is to choose the end itself for its own sake, that is something human beings can do and inanimate objects cannot

14. We cease to me instruments to purposes outside us

15. It is wrong to use people for the sake of other people's well being or happiness

What gives an act its moral right in the first place

16. What makes an action morally worthy consists not in the consequences or the results that flow from them but what makes an act morally worthy has to do with the motives, with the quality of the will, with the intention

17. People do the right thing for the right reason 

18. Any action should not just conform to the moral law bit it must be done for the SAKE of the moral law

19. The movitive of duty

20. Morality is Duty vs. Inclination 

1. For example, a shopkeeper and an inexperienced customer comes in. The shopkeeper knows he could short change this customer and the customer would not know but the shopkeeper nonetheless says if I shortchange this customer the word may get out and my reputation would be damaged and I would lose business so I wont short change this customer

2. ^does that action have any moral worth? Kant says no because the shopkeeper did the right thing for the wrong reason which was out of self interest.

3. Another example, The case of suicide. He says we have a duty to preserve ourselves. For people who love life we have multiple reasons for not taking our own lives, so the only way we can really isolate the operative motive for someone who doesn't take his or her life is to think to imagine someone who is miserable and who despire having an absolutely miserable life recognizes the duty to preserve oneself and so does not commit suicide. 

4. Honesty is the best policy but it is also the most profitable, kant would say that if this is the reason companies deal honestly with its customer the reason lacks moral worth 

5. Even resisting altruism and empathy is part of truly acting freely

21. Is there an aspect of this that is self-defeating? 

22. Doesn't there have to be some incentive to obey the moral law?

1. Reverence for the moral law?

23. What stops morality from becoming completely subjective?

1. How can you apply this?

24. Kant thinks there is only one moral law

25. The reason that leads us to the law we give ourselves as autonomous beings is a reason that we share as humans is that we need to respect other humans because we are all rational beings and it's the exercise of that capacity for reason which exists undifferentiated in all of us that makes us worthy of dignity. Pure Practical Reason regardless of particular contingent or empirical ends. 

 Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

1. Good Will

1. The good will is the moral will. It is how people ordinarily conceive of a moral person. According to Kant, the good will is inherently good. It is not good, in other words, because of what it achieves; it is not good because of its consequences. Instead, the will is good simply because it has done the right thing for the right reason. Another way to put it is to say that to will the good is to do one's duty.

2. good will is nontechnical—it does not assume a specialized or philosophically technical knowledge. Instead, it reflects colloquial usage. It is common, for example, to talk about someone having a good will. What is typically meant is that the good-willed person does the right thing for the right reason—they had the right intention

2. Hypothetical versus Categorical Imperatives

1. Kant's analysis of duty reveals its lawlike features: morality is binding on everyone equally. It does not consider one's desires, feelings, emotions, attitudes, and the like. Instead it is a command, an imperative that holds unconditionally for all rational beings.

2. Kant formulates four versions of the categorical imperative: one has two parts that focus on the universality of the moral command; one focuses on human dignity; one focuses on autonomy; and the last focuses on the moral community. Each of the formulations applies equally to all rational beings and, as such, is blind to the peculiarities and vicissitudes of particular inclinations, goals, or other forces. In addition, each of the formulations reveals reason as the source and value of morality.

3. Kant's second, third, and fourth formulations are typically easier to understand, perhaps because of their resonance. The formulas of the dignity of persons, autonomy, and the kingdom of ends all share the idea that people have inherent dignity: They should be treated accordingly and should act accordingly. This dignity derives from their status as moral lawgivers because they have reason. Reason generates the moral law. Consequently, each person is effectively a lawgiver. When each person acts to fulfill the moral law, they act as members of a moral community.

3. If our wants and desires can’t serve as the basis of morality, what’s left? One possibility is God. But that is not Kant’s answer. Although he was a Chris tian, Kant did not base morality on divine authority. He argues instead that we can arrive at the supreme principle of morality through the exercise of what he calls “pure practical reason.” To see how, according to Kant, we can reason our way to the moral law, let’s now explore the close connection, as Kant sees it, between our capacity for reason and our capacity for freedom.

Lecture 12

1. Motive - duty vs. inclination

1. Isn't everything somewhat self-motivated?

2. What is the marginal vs. predominant reason… don’t people have multiple motives 

3. It's fine to have sentiments and feelings that support doing the right thing provided they don't provide the reason for acting. 

2. Determination of Will - autonomous vs. heteronomous

1. How can reason determine will.

3. Reason Imperatives - hypothetical imperative or categorical

1. Instrumental reason, if you want x then do y

2. Categorical reason, without reference to or dependence on any other purpose

4. All of these things connect

What is the categorical imperative?

3 formulations of the categorical reasons

The formula of the universal law

“Act only on that the maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”

By Maxim he means a rule that explains the reason for what you are doing, for example promise keeping. False promising 

The maxim universalized would undermine itself. We shouldn't lie because then nobody could rely on anyone's words but that isn't what Kant is saying. Kant is saying this is the test of if the maxim corresponds with the categorical imperative. Are you privileging your particular needs and desires? 

The formula of Humanity as an end

“Suppose there was something whose existence has in itself an absolute value.. An end in itself, then in it, and in it alone, would there be the ground of a possible categorical imperative”

“Man And in general every rational being,  exists as an end in himself,  not merely as a means for arbitrary use by this or that will”

Distinguishing between things and persons. Rational beings have dignity. 

“Act in such a way that you always treat Humanity,  whether in your own person or in the person of any other,  never simply as a means,  always at the same time,  as an end”