TABLE OF CONTENTS

1) INTRODUCTION

2) SUMMARY

3)CRITICAL REVIEW

Why ideology?

Utilitarianism as an Ideology

Utilitarianism and Social Darwinism

Sloane, Singer, Infanticide and PreferenceUtilitarianism

4) CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION

Sloane, A. (1977). Singer, Preference

utilitarianism and Infanticide. Studies in Christian

Ethics, 12(2), 48-73.

INTRODUCTION

For a common man, as they perceive ideologies never fills

the plate or are not a breadwinning solution for the

realities of the life. World have witnessed a number of

ideologies which were carved out from the experimental

laboratories i.e. brain. In a glance most of us feels that

they never adds to the realities of life. But the fact is

ideologies have changed the world order as such when we

looks through the history of world order. Rise of socialism,

Communism etc are the ideal examples which would definitely

rise out of common men logic.

Utilitarianism was such an ideology which as such may not

changed the world order but was a piercing exercise of

thought for many. Utilitarianism is simply the idea that

selecting the course of action for a task which ultimately

bring great amount of happiness for great amount of people.

This ideology can be evaluated from different angles.

Acquiring the land from the poor for multinational companies

is perfect example in the present context, Utilitarianism in

this context will only advocate for the poor. On the other

hand, Voluntary euthanasia is another example which may come

in conflict with utilitarianism.

Preference utilitarianism comes when preferences are weighed

as a tool for the course of action. Singer was a

controversial philosopher and ethicist. He was an advocator

of preference utilitarianism. Many of his philosophical

views are concrete and widely accepted. But some of his

views are widely criticised, for example his stand related

to infanticide and voluntary euthanasia. He says that

infants if are prone to serious diseases they have no right

to live if the preferences of parents and society are to

kill the infant. This particular view brought about lot of

criticisms. Especially as he criticised the religious ideals

lots of criticism poured in. It was in this context Andrew

Sloane a traditional thinker who evaluated singer, his

preference utilitarianism, his ethical theory and views

regarding infanticide and ultimately judged the idea of

singer regarding all this aspects as wrong.

Andrew Sloane in SINGER, PREFERENCE UTILITARIANISM AND

INFANTICIDE tries to evaluate the idea of singer’s

preference utilitarianism from the context of his general

ethical theory. And finally he establishes that preference

utilitarianism as a false ideology in the context of

infanticide. This paper will try to review the viewpoints

put forwarded by Andrew Sloane and will try to evaluate his

critical viewpoints in the present context.

SUMMARY

Andrew Sloane in his SINGER, PREFERENCE UTILITARIANISM AND

INFANTICIDE tries to justify that singer is wrong on his

stand on infanticide which is coupled with preference

utilitarianism. The journal finally establishes that

singer’s view on killing disabled infants is wrong as Sloane

proves the philosophical flaws of preference utilitarianism

through the general ethical theory of singer.

The journal is mainly subdivided into three categories

Section A outlines singer’s view on infanticide and his

supporting arguments for infanticide.

Section B outlines preference utilitarianism and shows how

singer’s ethics on infanticide is connected his own general

ethical theory.

Section C outlines the argument singer put forwards to

support preference utilitarianism and its fatal

philosophical flaws.

Section A

Sloane begins this section with the real life example

provided by Singer. John Pearson was a boy born to American

parents in 1980. The child was diagnosed with Down syndrome

characterised by facial abnormalities, high risk of

developing heart diseases and other life threatening

infections. Parents of John decided to let him die as they

‘helped’ him to die by only providing necessary nursing care

and water. John died three days later. Singer justifies the

death and also tells that John should be killed rather than

just helped to die. Singer says that the intuitions created

against doing such actions are nothing but “unjustified

vestiges of crumbling traditions” (Sloane, 1999).

Sloane mainly lists out the two arguments of singer

supporting infanticide,

The First one is, As infants are not ‘persons’, killing them

is not wrong: Sloane says that according to Singer ‘Human

beings’ are ‘persons’ who must be self conscious, rational

and should have the awareness regarding one’s own existence.

But singer believes that infants are not ‘persons’ as they

no capacity for identifying one’s own existence, as they are

not rational and as they are not self conscious. So killing

infants according to Singer is not a problem. Also Sloane

lists two types of people Singer believes not to be killed,

The first one are the people who are threatened by killing

and the second one are the people whose preferences are

affected due to killing.

The Second one is, consequences of killing a defective baby

will be less when compared to letting him to live: Sloane

lists out singer’s two different viewpoints regarding the

killing of infants. One is from parents and societies angle

and the other from the infant’s angle. Singer says that

parents have no right to kill healthy infant even if they

want to because other ‘persons’ would love and like their

existences, so here majority preferences are supportive for

the infant but if the infant is disabled in one or other way

and the parents and other’s preferences are against the

infant, singer says such infants should be killed. Other

angle is that of the baby, Singer says that since the infant

doesn’t have the capacity to rationalise, to be self

conscious and to have a self awareness regarding ones

existence, infants doesn’t have the right to live. So in

such circumstances if the infant is disabled he should be

killed.

Also Sloane lists out the Prior and Total existence views of

preference utilitarianism in this context. Sloane provides

the example of an infant having haemophilia, that particular

baby has a chance to live and lead a normal life in the

future. So if the happiness of the baby in future is

counted, Prior existence view of preference utilitarianism

rejects the idea of killing the baby. But Total existence

view of preference utilitarianism accepts the killing of the

baby if the parents have the probability of getting a

healthy baby after the death of this baby. Sloane says that

singer doesn’t adopt any of the above views but stickled on

the idea of considering the infants as only sentient beings

rather than ‘persons’.

Section B

Sloane in this part lists out the general observations and

implications of the general ethical theory of Singer and

thereby he tries to connect it with preference

utilitarianism and then to infanticide. The general

observations of the theory are,

The first one is, it’s a consequentiality theory which

doesn’t consider the actions performed in a task. More

specifically this theory never considers the morals in the

actions, the rights involved in the task etc, it only looks

to consequences. This particular observation put forward

Moral goods and Non moral evils. Moral goods are

preferences, while non moral evils are intuitions which

thwart preferences. Consequences are determined by

preferences. Sloane says that Singer clearly adopted this

strategy to support infanticide.

The second one is, General ethical theory put forward the

idea of following moral rules of society as Singer believes

that it will help to maximise the utility. Also according to

general ethical theory this social morals should be

critically edited according to the preferences of the task.

According to Sloane the above point is used by Singer to

justify infanticide.

Sloane then lists out the implications of Singer’s theory

and its connection with infanticide,

The first one is, the interest of the ‘persons’ who are the

affected entities should be ‘weighed’ rather than ‘counted’.

Singer believes that the “interests must be considered, and

weighed purely on the strength of the interest, not the

entity’s membership of a particular group or species”

(Sloane, 1999).

The second one is, according to the theory sentient beings

only have the right to be included in the ethical calculus.

This clearly means that other than human beings no one has

the right to be included in the ethical calculus, Or more

clearly, Animals, trees etc doesn’t have the right to be

included in the ethical calculus. Sloane clearly states that

in case of infants sentient is not the criteria but the

concept of being a ‘person’ is the criteria which means that

infant until achieves the ability to be rational, to be self

aware of one’s own presence, have no right to live.

Section C

Sloane in this section lists out the supportive arguments of

singer regarding preference utilitarianism and finally he

points out the philosophical flaws in the idea of preference

utilitarianism and at the end proves that they are wrong and

thereby rejects infanticide.

In the first section, Sloane put forward the basic argument

of Singer, That is moral statements are nothing but

prescriptions. According to Sloane Singer uses prescription

mainly to bring about the concept of universality. Sloane

believes that Singer uses the idea of universal prescription

to bring out the preferences as a common entity so that

preference utilitarianism can be easily justified. Singer

rejected the idea of objectivity and descriptivism of moral

statements as they won’t provide the common platform of a

universal moral order.

Singer advocates the idea of socio biological context of

morality. He believes that the altruistic behaviour of human

was evolved genetically and is coupled with the cultural

aspects of the community. This particular argument of singer

itself acts a justification tool for universal

prescriptivism. The ethical system so developed “gives rise

to a line of development of ethical systems from animal

reciprocity, to customary morality, and then to critical-

reflective morality” (Sloane, 1999). By the above argument

according to Sloane, Singer clearly states that ethical

statements are a product of so called socio biological

evolution of ethics rather than from an ultimate source of

power. Ultimately through all this arguments Singer tries to

justify preference utilitarianism

In the second phase of this section Sloane points the major

philosophical flaws in the Singer’s concept of preference

utilitarianism. But at first he briefly lists out the

positives of the theory that the theory relatively explains

the philosophy well, points out the flaws in traditional

ethical theory and he points out clearly the importance of

preferences and consequences.

Major criticisms put forwarded by Sloane are,

1) Sloane first takes into account the socio biological

aspects put forwarded by Singer. Sloane believes that

if the moral order should be universal, it should be

objective in account. But singer put forward the idea

of universal prescriptivism which Sloane believes as

practically impossible

2) Sloane takes into consideration the singer’s critic on

Christian objective moral order. Sloane says that

Singer doesn’t try to critically evaluate the theistic

belief system but he casually dismisses the theistic

belief system and directs the critique against the

moral order of non theistic belief system. Sloane also

claims that the objective Christian moral order is more

robust than that of Singer’s.

3) Singer put forward the idea of universal moral

reasoning which transcends across culture, geographical

boundaries etc as only that particular argument helps

him to support preference utilitarianism and thereby

infanticide. The very primary thing which Singer here

concentrates is on Transcendence of reasoning which is

openly criticised by Sloane. Sloane argues that a

universal transcended reasoning is not possible as the

humans practically can’t have such type of reasoning

due to the complexity of pluralism. Sloane believes

that universal moral reasoning cannot be eternal unless

and until there is no tradition specificity. Such

universality and eternality only can be maintained by

the central figure i.e. God. Sloane argues this

particular argument as the central tenet of dysfunction

of Singer’s theory.

4) The fourth problem put forwarded by Sloane is nothing

other than justice. For Singer, Moral intuitions should

be rejected to maintain a universal ethical calculus.

Sloane says the problem of slavery as a sheer injustice

can be supported by the concept of preference

utilitarianism as there is a space for maximum utility.

But infanticide has no such backing as it is always the

problem of minority. Certain things according to Sloane

cannot provide a rational justification, they can only

be articulated as a traditional belief influenced by

faith, belief, culture etc. Sloane believes such

traditional moral intuitions should be left “innocent-

until-proven-guilty, rather than guilty-until-proven

innocent”.

5) Moral intuitions and its relational implications are

the next one. Sloane believes that Singer blindly

rejects moral intuitions. Sloane agrees that they may

not provide a rational explanation but they provide

light to key ethical issues. Thus Sloane believes that

rejecting the moral intuitions in a cavalier fashion is

another flaw of singer’s theory. Also according to

Sloane the biggest intuition in singer’s theory is

nothing but the universality concept of moral

reasoning. They according to Sloane don’t provide any

rationality, the same rationality which singer insisted

against moral intuitions of traditional ethics.

6) The central and final criticism put forwarded by Sloane

is that the theory is a Reductionist and impoverished

theory. Sloane says that singer simply reduces the

vastness of human relationships into just consequences.

How the actions are performed is not a matter of

concern but the consequences of the actions are the

major concern for singer. According to Sloane it’s the

first proof of being the singer’s theory as an

impoverished theory.

Why be moral? This particular question is answered

through the explanation of non religious ethics. Singer

believes that religious ethics are a fledgling exercise

so non religious ethics will bring about uniformity.

But Sloane criticises this particular argument as he

explains that non religious ethical advocacy of singer

is nothing but to satisfy the personal utilities.

Singer believes that an ethical standpoint based on

utility provides a person transcendent meaning for

life. He also stresses the need for a history

transcendent goal rather than succession of imminent

goals. But Sloane criticise this particular argument by

pointing out that a person transcendent meaning can

only be acquired through an objective definition. But

objective meaning destroys the theory. So singer

selected the preferences tool to substantiate this

particular argument, the very thing according to Sloane

makes this theory impoverished.

Sloane points out many questions which singer’s theory

couldn’t explain, like why worry about preference

utilitarianism? What if they are partially fulfilled?

Etc are some of those. Based on all this arguments,

Sloane tries to establish singer’s ethical theory as a

reductionist and impoverished theory.

Finally Sloane concludes that since singer’s arguments

on preference utilitarianism are wrong, his views on

infanticide also go wrong as those two are

interdependent. Hence Sloane rejects singer’s view on

infanticide.

CRITICAL REVIEW

Thali meal is the famous meal available in south India.

Thali meals have perfect ratio of nutrients. They are

designed in such a way that each of the dishes in that

Thali meal equally adds to the total nutritional

quality of thali meals. An ideal world is like this

thali meals. Ideologies are the sub dishes within it.

For a thali dish, sub dishes changes in different areas

according to tradition, culture etc. It is the same for

ideologies. They change according to geography,

culture; traditions etc or they get adapted or updated

by time. So the ideal world is developed on the basis

of different ideologies.

Why Ideology?

Ideologies are always perceived as a boring, dry and

intellectual stuff which frustrates the public.

Vivekananda, the well known philosopher and activist of

India, advocated that, Vedanta philosophies should be

set aside until poverty is eradicated. He mainly

criticised the religious philosophies, as he believed

it only discusses the problems rather than practically

tries to solve it. View of Vivekananda is one side of

the coin. Communism explains the other side of the

coin. First communist government came to being in 1956

in Kerala. Communism paved the path of development for

the most downtrodden sections of the society. Ideology

of communism and Marxism developed far before, but when

it was materialised in an official form like first

communist government in Kerala, that particular

ideology gained practical implications. Ideologies may

be dry but they are the driving force for many changes.

Indian constitution is another area where you could

find flooding of ideologies. Actually Indian

constitution was crafted out from different

constitutions. The main ideologies put forwarded by

Indian constitution are Sovereign, Socialist, Secular,

Democratic and republic. These are the foundation

stones of Indian constitution. They might be just

wordings at a glance, but its implications are

enormous. It provides strong privileges for the common

people of the country.

So, ideologies in many ways have helped the most common

people in the world. They may be not that sweet but

sure they are not sour.

Utilitarianism as an ideology

Utilitarianism is such an ideology which was a

controversial ideology for long time. It was introduced

by Jeremy Bentham. Utilitarianism is simply, selecting

the course of action for a task which brings great

amount of happiness for great amount of people. In a

glance it may be good but on a detail understanding on

the ideology we will come to understand that it has got

dangerous implications. Humans generally are

utilitarian in nature, but some factors make us humans.

Rationality is one important factor which distinguishes

humans from animals. Morality based rationality is the

biggest complexity faced by utilitarian’s. For example,

there are three persons, namely A, B and C. They live

together. Suddenly C was affected with a serious

communicable disease. So only option for A and B is to

kill C so that they could save their life.

Utilitarian’s would simply advocate for A and B, i.e.

to kill C. Here there is no question of morality,

intuitions or rationality. Utilitarian’s never looks to

the moral side of rationality. In a mass level,

utilitarianism may be a supporting ideology. For

example, Jasmine revolution was a phenomenon seen

across Arab countries where people came to streets to

bring down autocratic governments. When utilitarianism

is applied in this context, autocratic government will

have to come down as such an action will bring

happiness to great amount of people.

Utilitarianism and Social Darwinism

There is an ideological similarity between social

Darwinism and utilitarianism. There is a similarity in

the power structure put forwarded by both the theories.

In utilitarianism greater amount of people forms a

power structure which exerts an influence in the

decision making process to decide the course of action

for the task. In the same way social Darwinism also

forms a power structure. Social Darwinists believe that

powerful one only has the right to live and poor people

will gradually get eliminated. Social Darwinists

advocates that to ensure such an effective flow,

government should stop supporting the poor. The other

main similarity which is clearly visible is regarding

the stand of social Darwinism and utilitarianism on

slavery. The interesting fact is that, while the

checking the history of both these ideologies we could

find that each of the ideology flourished at its

maximum under the shade of slavery. Both of the

ideology more or less blindly supported slavery during

that particular. But later on utilitarianism rejected

the idea of slavery when ‘greater amount of people’

were considered. Social Darwinists believed in the

existence of a superior society. In this context

White’s were believed to be powerful and superior and

Blacks as powerless and inferior. So, naturally social

Darwinists supported slavery through this particular

justification. As the White’s were the dominant

section, they wholeheartedly supported the arguments of

social Darwinists.

There were lot of justifications carried out to support

slavery under the light of utilitarianism. Many of the

utilitarian’s believed that black people as inferior

and will be best suited as physical labourers. Also,

utilitarian’s believed the White people as inferior to

all other people, so naturally in order to bring

prosperity and development for the land, employing the

Blacks were believed to be a virtue. Utilitarianism

here supports the course of action by weighing the

‘Preferences’ of the white rather than counting it.

Because if counted the number will be more with Blacks.

It is here the importance of preference utilitarianism

becomes important.

Sloane, Singer, Infanticide and preference

utilitarianism

Preference utilitarianism comes when preferences are

weighed as a tool for determining the course of action

which brings a greater amount of happiness for greater

amount of people. The best example for Preferences is

the incident happened in Ireland on October 12, 2012.

Savitha halappanovar, Indian women in Ireland was

having serious complications during pregnancy. During

the last stages of pregnancy she was in deep trouble.

The only option to help her was to abort the child. But

since Ireland is a deep seated catholic nation,

authorities denied the option of abortion. The very

same reason became the reason for the death of savitha.

We can equate it with preferences of utilitarianism. In

the above case, family and large section of irish

people were supporting savitha for abortion. So here

the preferences whether counted or weighed were with

savitha. Catholic ideology doesn’t support abortion. So

we can see an ideological conflict here but morality,

rationality etc supports utilitarianism.

Let’s take the same incident of infanticide in

different angle. Suppose a pregnant lady is diagnosed

of a baby who will have Down’s syndrome after birth. It

is confirmed that the baby will have Down’s syndrome by

birth. The decision of the parents is to abort the

child so that they could reduce the sufferings in the

later life. Also the entire family supports the

decision of the parents. Based on moral intuition how

this decision could be evaluated? Is there a right for

the infant to live?

In this context, we could evaluate singer’s preference

utilitarianism and his stand on infanticide. Singer, a

controversial philosopher and atheist argues for

infanticide because he believes that the preferences of

the concerned people are to kill the baby. Here

preferences should be weighed rather than counted

according to singer. So singer strongly advocated that

in such situations parents should kill the infants.

Singer was criticised heavily for this particular

argument. In this context Andrew Sloane, traditional

thinker and philosopher criticised and tried to

establish that singer was wrong on his view on

infanticide through SINGER, PREFERENCE UTILITARIANISM

AND INFANTICIDE. Sloane in a detailed account explains

and evaluate preference utilitarianism and general

ethical theory of singer. Sloane articulates his

arguments well throughout the journal. He tries to

establish his viewpoints; in many places they are valid

except in some places. Singers argument regarding the

infants as irrational beings and self less is well

criticised by Sloane. More than considering them as

irrational it is important to treat as human beings.

They have all the right as that of human being.

Sloane criticises the universal prescriptivism concept

o singer. Rationally thinking, singer’s argument might

be true. Because objectivity and descriptivism widely

varies across different discipline but prescriptivism

does not. But the universality as Sloane suggests is

practically impossible. Singularity in pluralism is

practically impossible. Sloane is absolutely right on

rejecting it.

Universal transcendence of ethical statements is

another area of criticisms. They cannot be universal

and it cannot be justified. Universal transcendence

rejects the space for a pluralistic ethical statements

which maintains an ethical balance considering

religion, culture, geography, ethnicity etc

Sloane’s criticism on moral intuitions adds sense.

Singer’s argument that moral intuitions should be

rejected as “unjustified vestiges of crumbling

traditions” cannot be acceptable as Sloane suggests. It

might be easy for an infant, but if it is mother how

would it be? Will we kill our mother if she has a

critical disease? It will be a big ‘no’ as the answer.

The fact which should be remembered is even vestigial

organs now are considered as needed for the body,

according to the latest research. Sometimes some

questions will never have answers which don’t mean that

question is illogic. ‘Lack of answer is the answer for

such questions’.

Socio biological account of singer is another of

Sloane’s critique. Singer’s argument that altruism

behaviour is inherited doesn’t make any sense,

according to Sloane. Sloane’s critique here makes

sense. Altruistic behaviour is never inherited. They

are being conceived by each through knowledge,

experience and some other socio cultural factors.

Through traditions, altruism behaviour is not inherited

but they are being continued as a practice. It’s still

a question to be battled, whether altruism and

traditions are linked?

Sloane starts the critique as a traditional thinker.

Also he provides a Christian answer in many places of

the journal. The study was published under the banner

of Christian ethics. The journal could not maintain

secular explanations for many of the arguments but it

was tried to Christianise. It could be justified by

considering the journal as a study under Christian

ethics; in that case at least author should be clear on

that aspect. It means that there is no secular face for

the journal at the same time there is any clear

justification from the Christian aspect too. This

particular point leaves the journal a little bit

impoverished.

Sloane tries to establish infanticide as wrong in

fullest form. But they are always not. Sloane didn’t

explain the situation when mother’s life becomes in

dangerous due to the infant during pregnancy. As he

doesn’t explains that particular aspect we should

consider his argument as a generalised one. In such

situations saving the infant may cost the death of

mother. Here probability cannot be calculated as the

cost of probability is nothing but life. Whose life

should be saved, mother or child? Answer will

necessarily be mother. The best example is the issue of

savitha halappanovar. From singers point of view

savitha’s life may be valuable but when it comes to

Sloane, it might be the baby, which cannot be

justified.

CONCLUSIONS

Issues like infanticide are always an area for battle.

It was a more of a robust and irrational arguments

supporting infanticide earlier. But now it is much more

rational and flexible, which doesn’t mean that

infanticide should be authorised. The fact is we can’t

find objective explanations for infanticide. They may

be subjective sometimes, sometimes they may be

prescriptive as singer suggests or very rarely they may

be objective too.

Singer was robust in his arguments. Many times singer

tries to establish his view point so confidently. His

arguments might be rational in nature, may be strict in

rationality. But the fact is rationality never could

explain the complexities of human relationships. Most

of the time we could find this irrationality in the

concepts of rationality. Singer’s so singer’s ideology

remains reductionist and is impoverished in nature to a

great extent.

Sloane articulated the concepts well. It was a good

explanation with a detailed account of information.

Sloane’s classification of the problem was better.

Criticisms were well told and tried to be established.

But Sloane was not able to put a clarification for

infanticide. It points the very practical flaws of

singer’s theory but could not have supporting stand

against infanticide. Also many of the ideals are

through Christian morals, which leave the ideology from

the circle of secularism. The journal comes under the

banner of Christian ethics studies. But the journal

doesn’t put forward arguments on the basis of Christian

ethics or journal fails to put forward the arguments.

Also journal could not have a ’secular’ stand on this

particular area. In fact journal doesn’t uphold

secularism or Christian ethics. This particular aspect

brings about a vacuum space in the journal.

Sloane finally conclude the Singer’s theory as

Reductionist and impoverished. Even though singer tries

his level best to provide a strong robust basis for his

philosophical claims, Sloane easily untied those with

more of sufficient explanations, even though there is

no perfection in its fullest form. Sloane has succeeded

more than partially in proving singer’s theory as

reductionist and impoverished.

In a nutshell, on reviewing SINGER, PREFERENCE

UTILITARIANISM AND INFANTICIDE, Sloane as a traditional

thinker articulated his arguments well and finally

proves Infanticide practice as wrong in the light of

philosophical flaws in general ethical theory of

singer. So Sloane’s theory can be listed under the

category of ‘Expanded’ and ‘Philosophically rich’.

Bibliography

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Philosophy and Public Affairs, 8(2), 103-121.

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