Читать книгу This Is Bioethics - Udo Schüklenk, Ruth F. Chadwick - Страница 34

3.24 Some arguments are treated as if they were ‘knock‐down’ arguments. So what is a ‘knock‐down’ argument? In simple terms, it is an argument that is regarded as decisive. Nathan Ballantyne has examined definitions of knock‐down arguments and suggests that they are arguments that ought to bring about agreement, were everyone to understand them, while lacking ‘defeaters’ for thinking they understand (Ballantyne 2013⁴⁴). In other words, they are not aware of good reasons for rejecting the argument. There is a view, however, that there are no knockdown arguments in philosophy – everything is open to question ‐ and thus in bioethics in so far as it is a sub‐branch of philosophy, but certain arguments are used as if they were knockdown arguments.

3.25 Sometimes this amounts simply to giving a proposed intervention or policy a description, such as ‘that would count as eugenics’, the implication being that eugenics is something to which no right‐thinking person would subscribe (see the section on slippery slopes, below). Alternatively, someone might say ‘That would be unlawful’. But in ethics, what is unlawful is not the end of the story as we saw in Chapter 1. What the law should be is the important question.