Abstract

Is there any reason which may serve to justify our belief that it would be wrong to kill and eat the retarded — no matter how severe a food shortage might become? (By ‘reason’ I mean ‘consideration which rationally justifies’ and not ‘factor which causally or psychologically explains’.) Professor Margolis, suspicious of the abstract formalism of moral theory and all its high-sounding talk about rights, prefers to think about such issues in terms of a rather vague “liberal principle” — i.e. the principle that, “all things considered, a liberal society is committed to enlarging and safeguarding the conditions under which the retarded ... may enjoy a measure of well-being” ([1], p. 29). But are we not committed to a similar principle about non-human animals? Do we not feel that, if possible, domestic animals should enjoy a measure of well-being? But do we not also feel that the retarded should enjoy a moral status somewhat higher and more secure than that enjoyed by our pets? If so, then the Margolis principle is in trouble. It can explain our moral concern about the retarded insofar as it overlaps (as it clearly does) our concern about other sentient creatures, but not as it may represent a special and separate concern. It is this special and separate concern which rights talk seeks to capture; and so, given Margolis’ obvious special and separate concern for the retarded, he should perhaps not dismiss the rights tradition so quickly. Perhaps we want to say more than “It is unfortunate that we may have to eat the retarded” (as it might be unfortunate if we have to eat Rover in an emergency). Perhaps we want to say that eating the retarded is not an option, that the non-eating of the retarded is a guarantee. But is this not simply to say that the retarded have a right not to be eaten?1