I am about to make an assertion that I cannot back up with any statistics or conclusive studies - not necessarily because they don't exist, but because I don't have them in front of me right now. In any case, here it is: most people fail to extract their core beliefs about morality and justice into a logically consistent (and therefore coherent) position. I say this because American society often embraces moral positions that are simply not compatible with one another in most cases. This can be quickly illustrated with a few examples.
There may be no philosopher more despised in America than Peter Singer. A tenured professor at Princeton University, he is a utilitarian who among other things has posited that parents should retain the right to kill their own baby within the first 28 days of its life. His reasoning is that if in the long term the happiness of the parents and any future children could be better served by ending the infant's life, then such a course of action would be justified.
This sort of proposition probably strikes most of you as morally repugnant. In my experience, when people first are presented with the notion that we should be able to kill our children if we feel it would make our lives easier, they are aghast at the fact that a human being could even think along such lines. Very few Americans, or people anywhere, would accept the position that an infant's life could be callously ended just because doing so would reduce the burden imposed on its parents.
At the same time, if you suggest to these same people that a woman should not be allowed to abort a living, human child because it would impose too much of a burden - emotional or fiscal - the majority will be absolutely shocked. After all, we're in the 21st century now; don't all enlightened people support a categorical right to an abortion?
The other night, an abandoned baby was found in Central Park in New York. The mother, if found, will be subject to child endangerment and probably even manslaughter charges. On the other hand, had she killed the baby just two weeks before with an abortion, she would have committed no illegal act. Is there really much of a difference between the two? And if there is, is that difference really so large that it should mean as much as a decade in jail?
There actually is a point to this column, and it's not to cast judgment on those who disagree with me. While I do believe that abortion should be illegal in most cases, there are many who could more eloquently defend that position than I. The real point is that, were most people to sit down and seriously think about why they believe what they do about right and wrong, there are a lot of things that they might change their minds about. This need not be abortion - it could be any number of moral issues. Most people, myself included, often entertain different philosophical convictions that are simply not compatible with one another. This is not necessarily an intended consequence, but simply the result of a failure to seriously evaluate one's own beliefs.
Should this matter, and is it actually worth bothering the reader with? I believe it should, and that it is. Our morals drive a lot of our actions, whether we realize it or not. Whenever we partake in a political discussion, the tendency is to measure the actions of our elected officials against our own core beliefs. Less frequently the individual may turn down opportunities to advance his or her career for nothing more than the abstract notion that doing "X" is wrong.
If these core values have such an effect on the way most of us live our lives, isn't it worth it to know what they are? Introspection is frequently difficult and painful. All humans are imperfect, and being confronted with one's own hypocrisies is rarely a pleasant experience. But I used Peter Singer's position on infanticide and America's position on abortion as an examples in this column for a very specific reason. Most of you probably wouldn't raise an eyebrow at the suggestion that a woman should be allowed to abort a fetus, while few would likely consider infanticide a viable option for managing one's happiness. We all owe it to ourselves to understand why we believe these apparent dualisms.
