Singer’s arguments are directed against the focus on rights (in relation to the fetus), emphasized by both the conservative and the liberal position + the focus on the rights of the woman/mother
(Thomson). All are examples of deontology – seen here to be too legalistic, and not sufficiently concerned with the consequences of our actions.
Singer’s own concern: values (utilitarianism). The only fact (actual characteristic) about the fetus which is ethically relevant concerns its ability to feel pain (=18 weeks). This is a characteristic shared with other living beings. To consider the human fetus as special, therefore, (“intrinsic value”) is considered “speciesism”.
Form of consequentialism. Bentham and Mill.
Principle of utility: An act is right if it can be reasonably expected to produce the greatest balance of good or the least balance of harm. Concerned with promoting pleasure/happiness/welfare.
The values aimed for by utilitarianism are in themselves non-moral (health, education etc) They become moral when part of a plan to maximize those values.
Forms: (1) Hedonistic: Utility is seen entirely in terms of pleasure. (2) Pluralistic – other values count
(friendship, love, beauty). (3) Preference: concerns goods that are subjectively wanted (preferences).
Principle of utility applied to actions: ACT u. or to rules (justified by PI): RULE u.
Criticisms: Act u : must be applied in each & every situation, cumbersome. Rule u : conflict of rules.
More general criticism: How compare different goods, establish a common unit? How much information is needed in each case? Etc. And what about the problem of personal identity and autonomy (since everyone acc. To Bentham counts for one and nobody for more than one)? Who counts as members of the “utilitarian community”?
Argues that certain sorts of acts are wrong in themselves. A deontological theory is one that “either does not specify the good independently from the right, or does not interpret the right as maximizing the good” (Rawls) The right is prior to the good.

System of rules and prhibittions regulate moral life. “Deontological constraints “ which are negatively formulated, narrowly framed and bounded and narrowly directed. The most important moral distinction is between the permissible and the impermissible: impermissible here means what is impermissible to omit. (Do not lie etc.) The largest part of moral space, though, is taken up with the permissible. “After having avoided wrong and doing one’s duty, an infinity of choices is left to be made.” (Fried)
Deontology therefore more “practical” than consequentialism, but there are thoretical problems:
Different solutions to the question: What makes an action wrong? Appeals to tradition(s) or some fundamental principle of respect (for personhood as such). But: Traditions may be prejudiced and parochial; respect may seem to technical and legalistic (and shouldn’t well-being be included here?).
Also problems with conflicts of duty.
Traditionally conceived as a question of character, being a good person, rather than doing the right thing (the focus of the more act-oriented utilitarianism and deontology). But Hursthouse insists on an essential connection between right action, being a virtuous agent and flourishing, or living well.
Virtuses are character traits (= dispositions to feel, react and act) required for the good life.
Problems with the theory include charges of difficulties with providing clear guidance in relation to which action to take (Hursthouse: requires moral wisdom); that it lacks a normative foundation
(Hursthouse: presupposes theories about what is worthwile, “what really matters in human life”).
To be an ethical relativist means to maintain that there are no universal standards of good and bad, right and wrong. Feldman: Many different interpretations of the relativistic principle.
There is a kind of action such that one person (or one society) believes that such actions are morally right and anotherbelieves they are morally wrong.
These facts are basically of anthropological nature, and not philosophically interesting – they do not conflict with a doctrine of absolutism (=one criterion of morality valid for all people at all times).
You should act in the way in which your society believes you should act (permitted by the conventions of your society). But which society is that?
Intersocietal comparisons very difficult on this definition. This definition of relativism compatible with absolutism: if true, there is a single ultimate standard of morality.

Conceptual relativism
Statements like “That act is morally right” must be completed by “in X” or “in Y”. Right-ness is a relation (between acts and societies), not a property. (No act is just plain right.) Such forms of relativism do conflict with absolutism. “There cannot be a significant criterion stating the necessary and sufficient conditions for an act to have rightness” – any such act must always be seen in relation to a particular society. “Serous consequence” of this: Rules out possibility of intersocietal moral conflicts and also moral comparisons of sicieties. And, a “much deeper problem”: if there is no such property as moral rightness as such, what does it mean to say that “act b is morally right in S”? The relation of rightness (“right in S”) seems here to be defined by reference to an alleged property of rightness! Contradiction?