Today in class, we had a long discussion about whether or
not we truly own our bodies. Our topics ranged from selling organs, prostitution,
and someone giving up their life for the improvement of their child’s life. I think
it is necessary to make the distinction that if we truly own our bodies, then
each of these would be acceptable. Someone could willingly and freely offer to
do any one of the aforementioned situations. If we are not truly in control of our bodies,
then our responses in those situations would be extremely limited.
We never really achieved a consensus on whether or not we do
actually own our bodies. Some people
felt that you couldn’t sell your organs and others disagreed and saw no problem
with the issue. Most of the disagreement
probably stemmed from the fact that we were discussing highly controversial issues.
On the topic of prostitution, I actually believe that it
could be more beneficial to legalize the practice. That way, at least
regulation could be set up to prevent the mass spread of sexually transmitted
diseases. In several others countries, prostitution
is a perfectly legal and regulated business.
Dr. J asked in class if women should be allowed to offer her body for
money, because, perhaps, the women believed that they would make more money by
offering pleasure than filing papers. Does owning your body allow you to give
it up for a price?
Another topic in Sandel’s book was the consensual
cannibalism. A man accepted an ad online seek someone that was willing to be
killed and eaten. When the killer was brought to trial, his lawyer argued that
his client could only be guilty of “killing on request”, since the victim was a
willing participant in his own death. Is it acceptable that this man willingly
allowed someone else to kill him?
If we consider, for a moment, the idea of abortion, does
owning her body make it ok to have an abortion? Since women would be the rulers
of their bodies, is it acceptable for her to decide to deny life to a child in
her womb? By my understanding, it would
seem that some would argue that abortion would be acceptable since women have
the right to control their own bodies.
What do you guys think? Do you think that owning your body
would provide a basis for making abortion acceptable? Or what do you think
about the cannibal situation? Does owning your body allow you to let someone
destroy it?
I think for the most part we do own our bodies, and think though the issues we talked about in class are controversial; it isn’t too hard to decide whether or not we own our bodies. I agree with you that when it comes to prostitution, there are many benefits to legalizing it. As you point out, it will make things much safer, I think it will also remove a lot of the stigma. I think that if a woman wants to sell her body, she should be allowed to. There is certainly more money in prostitution than many other jobs, so if a woman realizes she would get paid more and would rather do that, I think she should be allowed to.
ReplyDeleteAs far as consensual cannibalism, though I would not want to eat a human nor would I want to be eaten by another human, I think that if someone wants to do that, they should be allowed to. If a person is willing to give up their life, I don’t think anyone should tell them that they couldn’t.
I think the abortion case is more complicated. Though I agree with you, that the woman owns her body and should be able to do what she wants, others consider the fetus as a living human, so unlike the consensual cannibalism example, this would be killing and unwilling agent. When it comes to abortion, I think it depends on what your view is.
On the cannibalism issue that we discussed in class, I do believe that the man should have only been charged with "killing on request". Now I am not saying that this practice is morally wrong or right, I am simply arguing that this case could not have been considered full blown murder. It was essentially the same as assisted suicide. The only difference was the act of eating the corpse. But does that act make the killing any more murderous than before? I think not.
ReplyDeleteAnd on the issue of abortion, I agree with Hallie that the fetus must come into consideration when debating this issue. Though I think abortion should be legal, I have a hard time using the argument that "women should have control over their bodies". But once a woman is pregnant, it is not just her body anymore. It is also the new home of an unborn human being. And arguing that an abortion should be legal on the grounds that a woman should be able to do with her body as she pleases does not take in to consideration the life of the fetus.
In answer to your original question of rather or not we own our own bodies, the answer is clear by libertarian philosophy. However, there is one interesting point of view I've been considering, which is along the line of social contract theories wherein people in a state give up some of their inherent liberties for the mutual protection and order that the state provides. Among these liberties that a person gives up is, in some respects, their right to self, since, after all, they are now under the authority of the government. Thus, if the government places restrictions on their freedoms of body, it is perfectly justified as long as the government has cogent reasons for doing so. While these reasons could be mistaken, I would argue that no knowledge is absolute, and thus the government must make do with the limited information available.
ReplyDeleteBy libertarian philosophy, people should be able to governor their own body, whether that means prostitution, abortion, or suicide. The government already allows us to potentially harm ourselves. For instance, we are allowed to use tobacco products even though there are many side effects and life threatening consequences that can come along with its usage. So if prostitution was legalized and developed regulations, then the process would not be too far from the pornography industry. On the bases of owning your own body, I believe abortion should be acceptable. In many ways abortion is just like using a condom or the plan B pill. In all incidents there is knowledge of potential life that is being denied. Finally I believe that if a person rationally requests for certain operations to take place after his or her death and wishes to take his or her own life it should be acceptable. If the final request results in cannibalism then it should be respected the same as any other request from the will.
ReplyDeleteI think that we should have complete and total control over what we do with our bodies, because if we can't freely choose what we do with our bodies then we are not actually free like so many laws state. What will the government not allow us to do next? Prostitution is totally legal in other countries and it is a more safe and sound practice then in the United States because the government is allowed policies that they can set in place to protect the people involved. I think it is a very gruesome idea to legalize that but it may possibly be morally acceptable by the libertarian principle. I think that we should not think the guy that was eaten should be seen as morally unjust but the eater. People ask to get killed a lot and even in 2 states of the U.S. assisted suicide is legall. However, I think the guy that set up the deal should be the one that people get mad at considering he has no training and is just out to kill someone.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a very controversial topic so I am not giving my opinion just what I think a libertarian would say. I think that if a libertarian believed that the child was actually alive in the women then abortion wouldn't be legal. Libertarianism never said anything for killing innocent people. Although, if the fetus was not viewed as a living person then abortion would be legal because its a part of them.
While we can agree that the thought of morally justifying cannibalism on libertarian views makes everyone very uncomfortable, it's important to continue to consider that if the argument behind abortion is to maintain the rights of women to make their own choices with regards to their bodies then it would seem that people should have the right to allow others to destroy it if they are willing participants. In no way am I saying cannibalism is morally acceptable, but the right to control our bodies is obviously an important one to maintain in our society. While I may not understand why someone would willingly choose to be eaten by another human, because it just doesn't seem like a pleasant way to go, on libertarian logic it has to be acceptable. One can't argue that we all have the rights to own our body but only in some instances.
ReplyDelete