Good science, bad morals and entrenchment

So now we know what the long drawn-out scientific debate in the media and elsewhere about the biological "facts" concerning the beginning of human life was about. It confirms what I thought. "Good morals," Michael Asciak, chairman of the Bioethics Consultative Committee of the House of Representatives, tells us in his article in The Times (July 30) "are constructed upon 'good science'." The premise on which the committee worked, he continues, "was to build proper science to lay the foundation for proper morals". This is sheer nonsense.

With all due respect to the doctors, biologists, and other "ethicists" who contributed to the debate, the scientific question about the beginning of human life is irrelevant to the moral question about its value. The fallacy committed in passing from a statement of fact to a statement about what should be done even has a name in moral philosophy; the naturalistic fallacy. Technically the fallacy of passing from an is statement, a statement of fact, to an ought judgement, a statement of value.

The fallacy is due to the fact that the two statements are logically different and one does not imply the other. In simpler terms acknowledging a fact about something does not tell us what we should do. In this case, defining the beginning of a human life does not tell how that beginning should be treated for moral purposes. The latter is a question how one values the beginning of life for moral purposes and is, therefore, a non-scientific question.

The naturalistic fallacy was so called precisely because of attempts familiar in the history of moral philosophy to base what is morally permissible on "scientific" observations, usually "psychological", about human nature or human motivation. For example, Social Darwinists believe that the natural law about the survival of the fittest means that only the fittest should survive but I don't think many of us would go with this conclusion.

The early utilitarians passed from the psychological observation that human beings are naturally motivated to maximise their pleasure and avoid pain to the moral principle that seeking pleasure and avoiding pain is what human beings should do in all circumstances and I don't think most of us would want to go along with that conclusion either. Utilitarianism is the most "scientific" of moral doctrines. Bentham believed that pain and pleasure were measurable and the general utilitarian view that the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on its outcomes depends on the assumption that these outcomes can be measured. But neither assumption is credible.

No scientist can tell us, qua scientist, what we should do with our lives or the lives of others; that question is outside his or her competence. The biological facts may be illuminating, but that's it. They are certainly equally well known to both "pro-life" and "pro-choice" factions but these continue to disagree profoundly on how the human embryo should be treated legally and morally nonetheless. The reason is not scientific ignorance on either side but the fact that the modern world is irrevocably pluralistic, people just recognise different moral authorities: the Bible, the Pope, the Koran, other religions, unsupported reason or conscience and so on.

What divides people on moral matters is not their scientific knowledge but their moral and religious beliefs and affiliations and science does not provide any objective way to bridge those divisions.

The Bioethics Consultative Committee chose to base their work on the premise that personhood (a moral not a scientific concept) is determined by individuality and that individuality is determined by the beginning of life - this is not a scientific premise but a value position corresponding with their own moral beliefs. It is right that the committee's recommendations should reflect the moral beliefs of our society, and this is how its chairman should justify its conclusions, but fallacious to refer them to the authority of science. This may not give the recommendations the weight Dr Asciak desires but it puts them in their proper and honest perspective.

This brings me to the recommendation of the other committee referred to in Dr Asciak's article, the Social Affairs Committee of the House, to recommend the entrenchment of our anti-abortion laws in the Constitution. Paul Vincenti (July 25) is wrong, the issue does not "transcend politics", nor is it, as he says, a "matter of conscience". To the contrary it is an eminently political issue and has nothing to do with conscience. Matters of conscience are matters of personal belief of what is good or right.

The question of entrenchment is an open attempt to put a block to the freedom of future generations to decide for themselves on their morality and on their way of life. That is not a moral, it is a political move. It is arrogant and paternalistic because it is based on the premise that future generations cannot be trusted to make the right or the wisest choices for themselves. It is anti-democratic because it openly denies future generations their right to an unencumbered democratic process, which is the right to decide for themselves on the principle of a simple majority. In short, it smacks more of the Taliban than of modern democratic politics.

It should, therefore, be rejected by members on both sides of the House irrespective of their personal moral beliefs. The attempt to represent the issue as one about one's morality is a trap.

What is at issue is not the moral beliefs of the members of the House but the democratic credentials and self-image of our Parliament and, ultimately, of this country. What our parliamentarians must consider is whether entrenchment strengthens the democracy image of the Parliament they serve or weakens it. They should ask themselves how future generations will judge them. How our sons and daughters will think of their action and the motive (the vote of no-confidence in their moral maturity) behind it. An action which is fundamentalist by definition, since no political action is more fundamentalist than entrenching one's moral and religious beliefs in a Constitution.

Finally, they should ask themselves, once they accept the principle that Parliament can entrench the moral beliefs of today's majority, where it will stop? Gay marriages, euthanasia, assisted suicide, divorce? Why not? Am I being unnecessarily alarmist? I think not. The media has reported that the government is contemplating entrenching other things in the Constitution besides the anti-abortion laws, namely amendments to the rent laws. One hopes this is false news but the government hasn't denied it so far.

Prof. Wain is the author of The Value Crisis: an Introduction to Ethics (University of Malta Press, 1995) and teaches ethics and political philosophy at the University of Malta.