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Infanticide Is Universally and Morally Wrong

Essay by   •  May 5, 2012  •  Essay  •  1,057 Words (5 Pages)  •  3,454 Views

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(BBC, 2012)Infanticide is the unlawful killing of very young children. It is found in both indigenous and sophisticated cultures around the world. In asking if infanticide is morally wrong or not, personally this question just sickens me. I cannot comprehend why anyone would want to kill a new born baby for no purpose other than they cannot afford to support it. I will give my personal opinion then determine the facts of why such an act occurs in some cultures. I'll define a few terms before we move on in text so you may possibly understand and make your own philosophical theory.

Theological ethics is ethics based on perhaps a God in which infanticide is morally wrong in every aspect in most religions. I can't bring to mind any that would say its ok. Deontological ethics in philosophy is an ethical theory that place special emphasis on the relationship between duty and the morality of human actions. In some cases I assume they could determine for infanticide to be morally ok to reach a cultures moral value. Moral objectivism is the position that moral truths exist independently from opinion. Ethical relativism is the position that there are no moral absolutes, no moral right and wrongs. Instead, right and wrong are based on social normality. Cultural Relativism is the view that moral or ethical systems, which vary from culture to culture, are all equally valid and no one system is really "better" than any other.

In situations of a mass population I feel that infanticide would still be morally wrong. To them and their cultures (those that do infanticide) I am sure that it is morally right to them cause of there population opposed to goods and in some countries there gender. Some areas and cultures with extreme poverty infanticide may be considered a "good" thing to help promote a greater good for that cultures economy. By controlling the population you may be able to better determine the revenue of your culture.

Infanticide is universally morally wrong:

Majority Americans would consider infanticide to be morally wrong. However, infanticide is widely practiced throughout the world. What criteria do we make the determination (morally wrong), and do those criteria distinguish unambiguously between abortion, which is legal in our society, and infanticide which is not, but which is accepted and practiced in other societies? The killing of an infant after it has come out of their mother whom is a horrific thought. I cannot foresee why certain cultures keep this legal other than fact of population.

Infanticide is morally right within certain contexts:

There is, in fact, little new in Giubilini and Minerva's argument. Philosophers such as Peter Singer have long championed similar kinds of claims. Humans, Singer suggests, have no intrinsic claim to life. The interests of an individual, including their right to life, depend upon their cognitive abilities. 'The fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of the species Homo sapiens, is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings.'

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