Raymond Tallis reveals the philosophical
connection between medical ethics and hair loss.
Photographic evidence shows that in 1980 I had a
full head of hair, while in 1990 I was bald. It
follows from this that some time in the 1980s I
became bald. However, it seems impossible or
daft to state when it was I crossed the
boundary to say, for example, that I became
bald at 8:30 p.m. on 27th August 1987. And yet
there must have been a moment between the two
dates when I became bald, otherwise I would not
have arrived at the state of being bald by the
time 1990 came. The fundamental problem is that
of mapping a dichotomous distinction not-bald
versus bald on to what is essentially a
continuous process of hair loss. (It's not quite
continuous, of course, because my loss was
hair-by-hair; but it would be continuous to the
naked eye looking at my increasingly naked skull.
No jokes about 'fuzzy logic' at this point,
please.) We are required to find a non-arbitrary way to divide a continuum.
This is also what makes the other dilemmas I have
discussed impossible to resolve entirely
satisfactorily. The relevant divides in the
examples I have given are: between non-negligent
and grossly negligent medical practice; between
perfectly acceptable speech and totally
unacceptable speech; between respecting an
individual's autonomy and being concerned for
their welfare in a way they might not accept;
between a handful of cells that clearly does not
have personal interests and a new-born infant who
clearly does; and between a person who is fully
responsible for the crimes they have committed
and one who cannot be held responsible for them.
The Sorites problem that pops up in all these
superficially unconnected cases exposes the
seeming arbitrariness of decisions that allocate
behaviour, speech, a foetus, or whatever, to one category or the other.
<http://www.philosophynow.org/issue79/79tallis.htm>Link
