Defending the publication in the Journal of Medical Ethics (November 2011) of an article arguing the case for infanticide,

editor Julian Savulescu pointed out that the ideas in it were largely not new. This is true: the widely published philosopher and ethicist Peter Singer made the case for infanticide in 1985 in Should the Baby Live? (with Helga Kuhse), and in Rethinking Life and Death in 1994.

Rethinking Peter Singer: A Christian Critique (Ed. Gordon Preece, Melbourne: IVP, 2002) has a chapter, by Sydney theologian and ethicist Andrew Sloane ,Singer, preference utilitarianism and infanticide, which specifically addresses the assumptions and weaknesses of the general ethical theory on which Singers defence of infanticide rests. Sloane concludes that Singers preference utilitarianism suffers from fatal philosophical flaws which justify its rejection; that therefore his views on infanticide should be rejected. I would encourage you to read this chapter (indeed the whole book) for yourself, but here is a much abridged version:

Peter Singers argument that defective newborns do not have a right to life, and so may be killed (painlessly) in certain circumstances, is a serious challenge to the traditional commitment to infants as vulnerable beings entitled to protection and respectful treatment, whether they are defective or not. Singers views on infanticide are a specific application of his ethical theory, preference utilitarianism.

Singers arguments for infanticide Singer believes that parents should have the option of openly and painlessly killing their newborns, say, by lethal injection, if they decide that they do not want them for any reason. He recognises that this idea conflicts with deep-seated moral intuitions. However, he believes that we should reject such intuitions as unjustified vestiges of a crumbling ethical tradition.

He offers two main reasons for his view: 1) that an infant is not a person, and 2) that the consequences of killing that infant may be better than the consequences of not killing her, and so infanticide is a permissible, or even the right, action.

1) Infants are not persons Rejecting traditional notions of the sanctity of (human) life Singer claims that what makes killing wrong is not that the entity that is killed is a human being, but that such an entity is a person, human or otherwise. By person he means an entity that is rational, self-conscious, aware of its own existence over time, able to communicate, and so on.1 Infants, like foetuses, do not have such capacities, and so are not persons. It would be wrong to make them suffer, but not necessarily wrong to kill them, painlessly.

2) Evaluating consequences is all that counts, morally Singer argues that the consequences of killing a newborn may outweigh those of her surviving. Usually the consequences of killing a normal healthy infant do not outweigh those of letting her live: the benefits of her life to herself and her parents, hence killing a normal healthy baby is wrong. But in the case of severely handicapped infants, killing them may not be wrong, because the negative consequences of letting them live (the suffering of the child and parents and possibly others, as well as the frustration of the parents preferences) may outweigh those of killing them . In other words, if the parents do not want the child and her quality of life is likely to be poor (one example he uses is Down Syndrome), she ought to be killed.

The connection between preference utilitarianism and infanticide Peter Singer's ethical theory can be stated quite simply: "Whatever action satisfies more preferences, adjusted according to the strength of the preferences, that is the action I ought to take."2 We should note that the interests of all beings who have demonstrable interests should be considered, regardless of species and that no interests have more weight than any others (the principle of universalisability).

Singer's is a consequentialist theory: the moral value of an action lies only in its historical. There is nothing about an action which has intrinsic moral value. More specifically, it is a utilitarian theory, in
1 2

Singer, Practical Ethics, 83-95; Kuhse and Singer, Should the Baby Live? 131-132. P. Singer, The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981) 101.

that it aims at maximising the non-moral goods, and minimising the non-moral evils of all affected by a decision. For Singer these goods are the interests, or preferences of sentient beings, and the nonmoral evils to be avoided are the corresponding frustration or thwarting of such interests or preferences.3

Only sentient beings have interests Any being that is not sentient, i.e., capable of experiencing pleasure and pain, such as rocks, plants and micro-organisms, has no interests to consider in an ethical decision.

Only persons have a right to life Only those sentient beings that are capable of reason and communication, of some sort, and conscious of themselves as existing over time, and hence are persons, have any valid claim to a right to life. Non persons (whatever their species) can have no interest in their continued existence, for they are not aware of it. It is this claim that has the clearest impact on Singer's views on infanticide. So, for Singer, human infants, while clearly sentient, in that they can experience pleasure and pain, are not persons. Hence, while it is wrong to cause an infant to suffer, it is not wrong to kill him or her.

Outline and critique of preference utilitarianism Singer's views on infanticide are a consistent and coherent application of his ethical theory. But why should we believe his theory? It is derived from RM Hares universal prescriptivism, according to which there is no objective realm of moral facts, no objective moral order. Instead, Singer sees the development of human morality in terms of the altruistic behaviour of many species, which has, he believes, a genetic basis. Given that there is nothing out there to which ethical statements refer, they are no more than expressions of preferences. However, for Singer this does not mean that need not be rational. By their very nature these prescriptions, or "ought" statements are universalisable, because the process
3

Singer, PE, 13; EC, 101.

of reason transcends social and cultural context. So Singer says that "there is something in ethics which is eternal and universal, not dependent on the existence of human beings or other creatures with preferences. The process of reasoning we have been discussing is eternal and universal."4

However, there are a number of flaws with Singer's preference utilitarianism and his arguments for it. First, his account of the sociobiological development of ethics in human communities is highly speculative. Second, his arguments against objectivism do not deal directly with Christian ethics, or any other theistic ethical system, for he first rather casually dismisses theistic belief systems, and then directs his critique against non-theistic objective accounts of morality. Theistic ethical systems are much more robust than Singer claims and survive his attempts to undermine them.

Third, while he uses a notion of reason that is clearly community transcendent, Singer asserts that reason is a human product, developed in, by and for communities. How, then, can it transcend space and time in the way he describes? One way it could do so would be if it were derived from a being who transcends space and time. But Singer cannot use this line of reasoning for he specifically rejects all theistic ethical theories. He needs, then, to provide another account of how human reasoning can be universal and eternal without reference to a transcendent entity such as God. These flaws in his notion of moral rationality undermine preference utilitarianism.

The fourth problem is the question of justice. Some forms of injustice may lead to maximal fulfilment of preferences/interests. Yet we generally believe that injustice is wrong, regardless of its positive results, and this belief arises from key moral intuitions. Unless there are grounds for the rejection of such intuitions, we are justified in rejecting utilitarian theories just because they conflict with those moral intuitions. Intuitions often capture something we should not ignore in moral thinking- but Singer rejects them (although emotions, such as indignation and sympathy, and related intuitions, feature heavily in his discussion of animal liberation).

Singer, EC, 105-106.

And ironically, Singers own theory depends on an intuition: that universalisability is the defining quality of ethical statements, and hence is inherent to the logic of ethical discourse. discourse. Yet universalisability is itself a principle situated within one particular tradition of moral rationality, and hence is not necessarily universal. It could be so if it had objective status, but Singer rejects this possibility. In fact if it is such an objectively based principle, Singers whole ethical system falls. Either there is an objective moral order, in which case universalisability may be a valid substantive ethical principle. Or there is no such moral order, in which case the principle does not hold. But either way, Singer's theory falls.

Finally, Singer's is an impoverished, reductionistic theory. He claims that ethics can be reduced to consequentialist analysis: there is nothing about an action (or disposition) that is inherently right or wrong, even when our moral intuitions say there is. Singers theory is also impoverished in the area of the metaphysics of morality. He denies is any ultimate meaning to the universe and human life.5 What reasons does he then provide for his ethical commitment? Such reasons cannot lie in its inherent rightness, for that would rely upon some kind of objective meaning or inherent moral order, and the existence of such an objective order would destroy his ethical theory. He must find a reason to be ethical in the only place left to look: the interests of persons. Hence, he has smuggled a commitment to furthering preferences, which is what he is seeking to prove, into the premises of the argument. His ethical theory, like all others, is an articulation of a particular world view, and like all others, including those he rejects as viciously circular, finds whatever justification it has in that context alone.

So we are left with more fundamental questions, "Why be concerned with preferences? If there is no ultimate meaning to our lives, or the universe itself, why does it matter if we are less-thanperfectly fulfilled? Why does it matter whether animals suffer, or the planet is destroyed? How can Singer claim that it is better to live this way rather than that?

Singer, PE, 331.

Singers clear rejection of any ultimate meaning to our lives leaves us with an impoverished, and ultimately inconsistent, commitment to particular ungrounded values, which are supposed to give meaning to our lives. Rather than dealing with questions of why it all matters anyway, he tries to answer the question, "How can we make it seem to ourselves that it all matters?" Meaning is reduced to a psychological state of feeling meaningful.6 Singer is left with nothing else once he has rejected all objective meaning in the universe. But how does he escape relativism? Only in the context of a personal commitment to Singers particular ethical point of view can his line of justification be valid. This raises crucial problems for the objectivity of his ethical theory.

Again: Singer and Infanticide Each of Singers arguments for infanticide depends upon his preference utilitarian position. Since the latter is unsound, then so are the former. Thus, we are entitled to reject Singer's preference utilitarianism and his support for the practice of infanticide as both unjustified and morally bankrupt, and continue to accept traditional moral theories and their rejection of this practice.

The fact that a newborn is unwanted does not justify her death. The traditional view is that as a human being she is of such value that both killing her and allowing her to die are inherently evil acts. The counter-intuitive nature of Singer's views on infanticide, and their consistency with his overall theory show, not that the traditional ethic and its intuitions should be abandoned, but that preference utilitarianism should be rejected.

Originally published as: Andrew Sloane, Singer, Preference Utilitarianism and Infanticide, Studies in Christian Ethics, 12.2 (1999) 4773. Reprinted as: Andrew Sloane, Singer, Preference Utilitarianism and Infanticide, Rethinking Peter Singer: A Christian Critique, Downers Grove: IVP, 2002, 6894.

For this, see Singer, PE, 33-335; How?, 194-196, 221-222, 230-232, 235.