Abstract
I argue here that the impairment principle requires clarification. It needs to explain what makes one impairment greater than another, otherwise we will be unable to make the comparisons it requires, the ones that enable us to determine whether b really is a greater impairment than a, and as a result, whether causing b is immoral because causing a is. I then develop two of what I think are the most natural accounts of what might make one impairment greater than another. The quantitative understanding of greater impairment is problematic because it leaves the impairment principle vulnerable to counterexamples; just because impairment b impairs a larger number of abilities or the same number of abilities but for a longer period or to a higher degree does not mean that b is a greater impairment than a. The qualitative understanding of greater impairment is problematic because it does not explain examples of greater impairment used in the literature, means that an abortion is always a qualitatively more severe impairment than causing fetal alcohol syndrome regardless of how the organism is affected, and/or entails that lethal impairment is always greater than nonlethal impairment.
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Notes
In my construction of counterexamples throughout the paper, I am presupposing that all things are otherwise equal. Sure, impairing my partner’s ability to tip toe and walk backwards might be a greater impairment if my partner is a ballerina and values these abilities greatly. This raises an important issue with the impairment argument that has gone underexplored in the literature: it is difficult to determine just how great an impairment is for an organism without taking into account how the impairment affects the well-being of the organism in question given its values. To wit, causing fetal alcohol syndrome for an organism might not be a so great an impairment that it is immoral if the abilities affected by the impairment turn out to be unimportant to the organism in question. I will not press this issue here, but since it bears on the viability of my counterexamples, I wanted to signal that I am at least aware of it.
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Gillham, A.R. The impairment argument, ethics of abortion, and nature of impairing to the n + 1 degree. Med Health Care and Philos 26, 215–224 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-023-10137-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-023-10137-z