Cafeteria Moralists

Matt Yglesias writes:

I described the liberal as having a two-stage view about end of life issues. First, comes something like the “life as continuum” view Brooks attributes to us. Second, comes a principle of free choice — I think that I should make my own decision on this, but that my view should not control others, though I may try to persuade others that my view is correct (non-relativism). The problem here is that I think a lot of liberals don’t recognize that the second principle really does depend on something akin to the first. If you hold views about the sanctity of life and the doing/allowing distinction that lead you to the conclusion that failing to keep alive someone who could be kept alive is the equivalent to murder, then adopting a principle of free choise at the second level makes no sense. An absolutist view on the first question requires an absolutist view on the second question.

I agree that that the pro-life absolutist view on the first question requires an absolutist view on the second. The only problem is that in practice, the pro-life crowd doesn’t take a pro-life absolutist view on either.

On abortion, which they call murder, they do not believe that the woman who has an abortion should be charged with a crime, which makes no sense. Many of them make an exception in the case of rape of incest, which also makes no sense if abortion is murder.

They do not believe that life support should be kept in place in all circumstances, just certain ones. If it is muder then there really cannot be any situation in which taking a person off life support or denying them a feeding tube (“a natural death”) would be ok.

They believe that stem cell research should be banned because the embryo is a life, but they have nothing to say about the people who fertilize many eggs in the in vitro process which then are either frozen for no use or discarded.

When it comes to the death penalty, many of these same people are arguing for fewer legal rights for the accused, even in the case of evidence of actual innocence, so the idea of “innocent” life doesn’t hold water either.

As Matt makes clear, the liberal position about freedom of choice is not moral relativism. But I would argue that a cafeteria moralism that uses the “life” issue as a cudgel in random situations in which one disagrees with individual decisions is.

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