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These standards are most conspicuously demonstrated in the empirical sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and biology. When the results of scientific inquiries contradict or undermine the political objectives of an administration like as that of Bush and Cheney, they simply ignore them or they suppress them. When we lose our grasp of the truth in relation to crucial issues like global warming, stem-cell research, or launching wars in violation of international law, the UN Charter, and even our own Constitution, we run the risk of acting on information that is false or even contrived. In cases of that kind, our beliefs provide inappropriate guidance for actions, which may defeat our objectives.
If we divide religious beliefs broadly into the categories of theological beliefs and of social-moral beliefs, it turns out that virtually all theological beliefs—most obviously, including those about an omniscience, omnipotent divine being—lie beyond the scope of logical justification and are therefore immoral beliefs. The only moral stance about God, by this standard, therefore, is agnosticism, since we are no more logically justified in concluding that God does not exist than we are in concluding that he does. Indeed, it also follows that moral beliefs are morally justifiable only if they are logically justified.
This suggests that we ought to spend time understanding the nature of morality itself. Evaluating different theories of morality—including traditional theories such as simple subjectivism, family values, religious-based ethics, and cultural relativism, as well as philosophical theories such as ethical egoism, limited utilitarianism, classic utilitarianism, and deontological moral theory—however, presupposes a point of view in the form of criteria of adequacy, where theories of morality qualify as logically justifiable only if they satisfy those criteria. Indeed, there appear to be three, the first of which is that an acceptable theory of morality must not degenerate to the corrupt principle that “might makes right”. Part of the problem is that those who have power so frequently abuse it.
The second is that an adequate theory of morality should properly qualify the, let us say, pre-analytically clear cases of morality—such as keeping our promises and telling the truth—as post-analytically clear cases of morality and pre-analytically clear cases of immorality—such as murder, kidnapping, robbery, and rape—as post-analytically clear cases of immorality. An acceptable theory, in other words, should preserve virtually universal human experience in qualifying certain kinds of conduct as “moral” and as “immoral”, respectively. This requirement thus functions as a condition that grounds theories of morality in the fabric and context of human experience.
The third is that an adequate theory of morality should clarify and illuminate those cases that are not pre-analytically clear, such as abortion, stem-cell research, and cloning. It is relatively straightforward to demonstrate that most of these theories cannot satisfy these criteria and are therefore inadequate. Simple subjectivism, for example, makes right or wrong a matter of attitude, so if you approve of robbing or raping or killing someone else, that’s just fine as long as your attitude is sincere. Abortion is OK if you approve of it and otherwise is not. Clearly, there is no way an approach of this kind could possibly satisfy the three criteria I have specified.
Indeed, after spending a considerable chunk of my 35 years teaching courses in logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning, I have discovered only one theory that can satisfy these conditions, which is deontological theory in the form of the principle that we should always treat other persons with respect and never merely as means. It does not imply that we never treat one another as means, which occurs all the time, but that in doing so, we must take account of their interests. Thus, the employer who pays a living wage, provides safe working conditions and reasonable hours of employment is acting morally toward his employees, and employees who perform competent work and do not steal or cheat are doing the same toward them.
Technically, this moral principle corresponds to what Immanuel Kant advanced as the second formulation of his “Categorical Imperative”. What is important about it is that this is the only theory that appears to be capable of satisfying the three criteria specified. It does not reduce to the corrupt principle that “might makes right”, since it imposes boundaries that require treating others with respect. It also qualifies the pre-analytically clear cases of moral behavior as “moral” and of immoral behavior as “immoral”. Indeed, it explains why robbing, raping, and killing are immoral activities because they involve treating other persons merely as means. The crucial test case thus becomes whether or not it clarifies and illuminates the problematical cases, such as abortion.
IS ABORTION MURDER?
Christian fundamentalists tend to endorse the slogan, “Abortion is murder!” But whether or not that is true depends upon the meaning of the language involved here. That words matter, presumably, is not something that those who believe in the Virgin Birth are going to deny. Let us assume that abortion involves the deliberate termination of a pregnancy, where pregnancies of the relevant kind are those involving the development of a human being. Murder involves the deliberate killing of a person that is illegal. Since abortion is legal under Roe v. Wade, let us qualify this condition to say that it is wrongful, given that we know the example of slavery shows that sometimes immoral conduct is legal.
Since abortion involves the deliberate termination of a pregnancy, which is understood here to involve the development of a human being, it is easy to assume that it has to be an instance of murder. But there are less ambiguous examples of deliberate killing—such as by soldiers in combat, by police in the performance of their duty, or by civilians in self-defense—that are not considered to be “murder”. In particular, special conditions may make deliberate killing of a person a moral act, especially when there are rules of warfare, for example, to which both sides conform or persons are violating constraints of the law to promote their own interests by treating other persons merely as means.
From the perspective of deontological moral theory, the crucial question is not whether the deliberate termination of a pregnancy is the deliberate termination of an entity that is at some stage in the development of a human being but whether that stage is such that the developing entity is entitled to the rights that attend acquiring the status of a person. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled, in effect, that that status was acquired at the stage of viability, when the fetus could survive independently of its mother’s womb, a state that occurs at the end of the second trimester. Abortions during the third could only be conducted to save the life or to preserve the health of the woman.
This appears to be appropriate from the point of view of a graduated theory of rights, where a person’s rights increase with their age and maturation. In most states, a person can obtain a driver’s license at age fifteen, can marry without their parent’s consent at age eighteen, and can vote in political elections at age twenty-one. None of us would be inclined to argue that, since an infant or a toddler will eventually be entitled to drive, to marry, or to vote when they are older, they should enjoy those rights at earlier stages. Analogously, the court found that the earliest stage to differentiate the rights of a fetus from those of its mother arises when it can have an existence apart from its mother and that, prior to that stage, it does not enjoy the standing of a person.
This appears to be a completely appropriate standard for the court to adopt, one which deontological theory clarifies and illuminates. Indeed, those who adopt such extreme positions as that the rights of personhood attach to conception as a function of ensoulment, for example, would obligate a government to protect the rights of those entities by adopting such measures as mandatory monthly pregnancy testing, tracking the production and distribution of sperm, and monitoring the occurrence of sexual intercourse. It would incur the duty to protect the “interests” of unwanted zygotes and embryos, such as by putting them up for adoption ("The Vatican's Immoral Declaration", OpEdNews, December 15, 2008). The situation would be absurd.
ONLY IN SPECIAL CASES
What this means is that the slogan, “Abortion is murder!”, given adequate understanding of the nature of personhood, cannot be sustained. Until a fetus reaches a state of development appropriate to attaining the status of a person—which the court has properly ruled occurs at the stage of viability—the deliberate termination of a pregnancy is not murder. The termination of a pregnancy during the third trimester for reasons other than to save the life or the health of the mother, however, continues to qualify as “murder”, because it violates the right to live of the developing fetus as the first in a set of rights that accrue to human beings during the course of their development, typically including the right to drive, the right to marry, and the right to vote.
Even when motivated by religious concerns, the belief that abortion is murder cannot be logically justified and therefore qualifies as an immoral belief. This may come as some surprise to those who fail to differentiate between “popular morality” and the real thing, because most of us do not spend time reflecting on the difference between right and wrong. Disapproval of flag burning, pot smoking, and prostitution are other examples where rational analysis based upon deontological theory yields outcomes at variance with popular beliefs. But just because a belief is popular does not make it true. We have all been exposed to examples of war hysteria and of diatribes against ministers who are doing their best to expose falsehoods and reveal truths.
