No matter how euphoric their behavior might be, they are outside the pale of human integrity. The problem they pose is not lack of sufficient mind, but of any mind at all. “So what?” Fletcher essentially said, as he coldly dismissed the worth of developmentally disabled people: Idiots are not, never were, and never will be in any degree responsible. A physician who cared for a developmentally disabled boy reported that though his patient had a very low IQ, the lad was clearly happy and, without doubt, a fully human being. In another 1975 essay, “Being Happy, Being Human,” he described participating in a panel discussion of the treatment of seriously disabled babies. Such persons are objects, not subjects”)įletcher was not coy about the consequences that would follow from society’s acceptance of his premises. neocortical function (“In the absence of the synthesizing function of the cerebral cortex, the person is non-existent.communication (“Disconnection from others, if it is irreparable, is dehumanization”).a cultural instead of instinctive being”) memory (“It is this trait alone that makes man.a sense of futurity (“subhuman animals do not look forward in time”).self-awareness (“essential to the role of personality”).minimum intelligence (score too low, and one is deemed “mere biological life”).Fletcher even proposed a loose formula with fifteen “criteria or indicators” by which an individual’s moral worth-or humanhood-could be judged. Published in the Hastings Center Report, an influential bioethics journal, Fletcher argued that people should be divided between “truly human beings” and the “subpersonal”-those among us whom we should deem of little consequence because of their lesser capacities. His 1975 essay “Indicators of Humanhood” was profoundly persuasive in this regard. Starting in the early 1970s, and continuing for the rest of his life, the Episcopalian priest turned atheist mounted a frontal intellectual assault on the Judeo-Christian ideal of universal human equality. But his work in bioethics eroding the sanctity of human life and promoting a utilitarian hedonism was just as society-altering. He gained fame as the prime proponent of “ situational ethics,” popularly known as social relativism. His advocacy blazed the path for many of the radical social transitions we are experiencing today.
Joseph Fletcher (1905–1991) was one the most influential philosophers and bioethicists of the twentieth century.