80-136 HW 4
Email me your assignment by 1:30 Monday, 7/30.
updated on 7/27/01 4:17p
- Consider the following case:
Kathy, a single woman in her late thirties, feels that having her own child is one of the most important ingredients in a happy, meaningful life. She would like to share parenting with a spouse, but she has not found the right person to marry. During the last year she has begun exploring other options, like adoption or the use of donor sperm. Yet the idea of having a child with no genetic link to herself or of having an unknown person's sperm in her body is abhorrent to her. She would be open to the idea of donor sperm from a close friend but would want that friend to have an ongoing relationship with the child. So far, no one is interested.
- Give an argument in outline form that concludes women such as Kathy ought to be able to clone themselves for reproductive purposes.
- Consider objections each of your major premises and give replies.
- By "major" premises, I mean premises that are principles, emprical observations, etc., that aren't simply inferences from earlier premises in the argument.
- If some of your premises are so uncontroversial as to warrent no objections, than give a reason why that is the case.
- For the purpose of this assignment, you need not take into account medical risk. You may assume that the technology is as safe as in vitro fertilization.
- Hint: you will need to consider rights vs. obligations and harms vs. benefits, both social and individual, in your argument as well as your objections.
- If you can think of an objection but don't mention it, that's cheating!
The following example from the previous unit should give you an idea of the form I'd like you to use.
- If we eat meat†, more animals will be farmed.
- Farming animals for food is (in general) highly wasteful.
- Animal farming requires significantly more grain per animal than per
human. (source: Singer...)
- It takes 16-21 pounds of vegetable protein (fed to a cow) to produce
one pound of meat protein.
- 6-8:1 for pork.
- 4:1 for turkey.
- 3:1 for chicken.
- Animal farming requires more energy resources than farming plant foods
(AL, 167).
- Feedlot beef requires 50 times more fossil fuel calories than
plant foods.
- 20:1 for chickens.
- 5:1 for range-land beef.
- Animal farming requires more water than farming crops.
- A pound of meat requires 50 times more water than an equivalent
amount of wheat.
- Therefore, eating animals is (in general) a wasteful practice (1, 2).
- In a world where starvation and malnutrition are rampant, and energy
and water resources are in short supply, it is morally wrong to engage
in feeding practices that are wasteful and mere luxuries.
- We live in a world where starvation and malnutrition are rampant, and
energy and water resources are in short supply.
- Eating animals is a luxury. [Equivalently, eating animals isn't necessary
to maintain a healthy diet.]
- Vegetarianism is a sufficiently healthy diet.
- The death rate for heart attacks among vegetarianism is 29% less than
that of the general population.
- Vegeterians generally have lower cholesterol.
- Many vegeterian foods contain the necessary amino acids.
- Therefore, we should not eat animals. (4,5,6)
Objections & Replies