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Persons of Lesser Value Moral Argument and the ‘Final Solution’
Author(s) -
STEINER HILLEL
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5930.1995.tb00128.x
Subject(s) - argument (complex analysis) , slippery slope , eugenics , value (mathematics) , epistemology , sociology , position (finance) , the holocaust , environmental ethics , law and economics , philosophy , law , political science , computer science , medicine , economics , finance , machine learning
For many persons, ‘Holocaust‐abomination’is a fixed point on their moral compass: if anything can be evil, it was. Yet at least one of the justifications deployed by its perpetrators (the eugenics argument) invokes widely‐held values concerning human health and procreation. Hence persons endorsing many current activities based on those values (e.g. genetic counselling) have been charged with being on a morally deplorable slippery slope. This paper sketches the necessary structure of a moral position capable of consistently embracing those values without placing its occupants on that slippery slope.