What If the Anesthesia Put Others at Risk?

In “Proof”, written by Renford Bambrough, a scenario is proposed in support of the existence of moral knowledge. Bambrough poses that there is a child in need of surgery that would be painful for him in the absence of anesthesia, and as Bambrough sees it, there is not doubt that this child should receive it (as cited in Shafer-Landau, 2012, p.218). As someone with beliefs more aligned with moral skepticism, I wondered whether or not this really was objective proof of moral truths. As risky as it may be, I thought that I would at least enter the conversation on this matter.

Just today I found an article about the health risks to recovery room hospital staff associated with exposure to waste anesthetic gas exhaled by recovering patients (Cook, 2013). “Beware the Hidden Dangers of Anesthesia” starts off by stating that anesthesia in the operating room isn't the only area where these gases can cause harm, and that even nurses in the recovery room may be at risk of exposure to these gases which have potentially harmful health effects (Cook, 2013). These effects include mild problems such as nausea and headaches, but also more serious complications like sterility, miscarriages, cancer, and liver disease (Cook, 2013). The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health claims that this problem is even more pronounced in facilities that lack proper ventilation, and the organization also suggests that systems be developed that monitor the concentration level of anesthetic gases in breathing zones (Cook, 2013).

Bambrough's Evaluation of Typical Argument Against Moral Knowledge

Shafer-Landau's compilation of ethical readings, The Ethical Life, contains an excerpt from Renford Bambrough's 1979 book Moral Skepticism and Moral Knowledge in which Bambrough presents and tries to debunk five typical arguments moral skeptics use to deny the possibility of moral knowledge. In addition he also offers his own argument for the existence of moral knowledge.

Nihilism, Objectivism, Relativism...Which Way Are You Leaning?

In class today, we left off at the start of a very interesting discussion. After reading the arguments for and against each philosophical view, we were asked where we saw our own views falling into place. There didn't seem to be any one theory that had overwhelming support behind it, nor one theory in which the entire class had completely dismissed.

At the start of this class, I was more of a subjectivist. For me, morality was all relative and no one person's moral principles could be superior to another's. In this belief I was grounded-- that is-- until we studied Shafer-Landau's chapter on "Ethical Relativism". Unable to refute the arguments raised by the author to my views, I turned to outside literature, but still was unable to come up with anything that could hold up against these objections. Now, however, I feel that my personal views may lie closer to those posed within nilhilism's error theory. The fact-value distinction in which Shafer-Landau notes drew me into nihilism (306). Also, since I agree that moral claims are "truth apt" yet all false because of the nonexistence of moral truths, error theory was more appealing than expressivism.