If alleviating suffering is the goal that has intrinsic value, and not the person itself, why could we not experiment on it so we can increase our scientific knowledge in a way that might alleviate further suffering?
It used to be that the medical profession sought not only to cure but also to care. Caring for people had an intrinsic value all its own, whether people could be cured or not. That was when there was an idea that people themselves, people as people, had intrinsic worth.
But the emphasis has changed dramatically from the position that people have worth to the belief that only states of being have intrinsic worth, ergo the quality of life argument.
If only states of being have intrinsic worth, then are those who do not have a worthwhile state of being without value? If a person’s life, an infant’s for example, can be forfeit because it has Down’s syndrome—and therefore we would be inclined to let the congenitally defective newborn die (and this happens all the time)—could we then just keep it alive for the purpose of doing experiments on it?
If a defective child has forfeit its right to live because it does not possess some state of being that gives it intrinsic value, if it is so value-less that it can simply be starved to death, by what rational do we forbid using for him or her—maybe I should say “it”—for anything that does have intrinsic worth?
If alleviating suffering is the goal that has intrinsic value, and not the person itself, why could we not experiment on it so we can increase our scientific knowledge in a way that might alleviate further suffering? Or if pleasure or a pleasurable life is the state of being that has intrinsic value, why can’t we keep this retarded or handicapped child alive and raise it to improve the quality of life for others? Maybe use it like a droid for simple labor or a surrogate for sexual pleasure? If human beings don’t have intrinsic worth, then it seems legitimate to use them for any utility what so ever as long as the utility itself has some intrinsic value or worth to us.
This is a very critical and dramatic shift, my friends, and deeply influences how we view humanity and human problems. I’ll have to admit that the temptation is very strong even in myself to buy this “quality of life” argument—although I suspect the quality of life in view is more often not the injured person’s quality of life but the quality of life of those who are put out by the obligation to give care to the injured person.
The thought has often occurred to me how nice and neat it would be to take all the damaged people—physically damaged, emotionally damaged, psychologically damaged—and sweep them, like unwanted litter, under the rug. They’re just so much trouble, and sometimes they’re so expensive. This is a frightening testimony to how much this new utilitarian morality has influenced even me.
You must come to some conclusion about what it is about human beings, if anything at all, that is valuable.