Related Ideas

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Consider what might be called the barn door problem: You are inside a barn and would like to get some target practice with your rifle. The target is on the inside of the door. Unfortunately you are not sure whether there is a person standing on the other side of the door and there is no way to find out. Most people would agree that it is best not to shoot at the door. Some would claim that you are obliged not to shoot and should be held responsible if you shoot and harm someone.

This hypothetical situation raises the general question "What should we do when we are uncertain about the facts or the moral principles to apply in a particular situation? Should we act according to what is probably true? (Suppose, for example, that there is one chance in three that there is someone on the other side of the door. Is it OK to shoot?) Should we take the safest course of action? (Suppose there is only one chance in 50 million that there is someone on the other side. Should we refrain in order to be perfectly safe?) Should we follow some other rule?

Is this situation analogous to not knowing (or not being able to decide) whether the embryo or fetus is a person? Why or why not? If it is, what does it imply about the moral issues at stake?

The dominant American tradition in political philosophy is characterized as "liberal." In that tradition, the freedom of the individual to act is ordinarily given the benefit of the doubt. In theory the state is not to interfere unless there is good evidence that some right or an important, perhaps compelling, interest is at stake. What should the liberal state do if our experts disagree on such a basic issue as whether embryos have moral rights? Justice Blackmun seemed to feel that in the absence of an expert consensus the state should uphold individual liberty -- in this case, the liberty of the mother.

Yet the state routinely listens to experts who disagree among themselves and chooses one view as a basis for policy. (Economists are an obvious example.) Why should it not do so in the matter of rights and personhood? Is there a difference?