Why Don’t Prochoice Authors Argue For Infanticide?

Posted on by metroupe

Here are shocking bits from an article in The Atlantic:

“What are the shades of moral difference between terminating a fetus that could not survive outside the womb vs. one that can, even if, as in this case, it would suffer from significant disabilities? What’s the difference between those decisions and the decision to kill such a child after it has been born, or let it die? That last question, about infanticide, is particularly charged, not least because of the common-sense “disgust” factor. As Jeff McMahan, a former Rutgers professor who’s now at Oxford, wrote in 2007:

‘Although philosophers have conducted a wide-ranging debate about the morality of abortion for more than thirty years, generating in the process an extensive literature on the topic, they have, with very few exceptions, shrunk from extending the debate to include a discussion of infanticide. I know from discussions with prominent writers on ethics that some have been deterred from writing on the subject by fear of possible consequences for their reputations, careers and even physical security … My own experience is much more limited, but tends to confirm that discussing infanticide is not the best way to win friends or secure admiring book reviews.'”

What does this mean? It means that the logic of abortion should lead pro-choice people to accept and advocate infanticide. But hardly any will take that step.  Why? Not from some high moral principal, but because to do so would be bad for one’s work and social life. I suppose this is one time to be thankful for cowardice.

Source: Personal Stories of Abortion Made Public – The Atlantic

Why Oxford Dictionary’s 2016 Word of the Year Matters

Posted on by metroupe

Another great contribution by Ravi Zacharias. What comes through so clearly is the irony of scholars and media personalities who will insist there is no truth and then complain about lies. It shows the emptiness of postmodernism and its self defeating attempt to destroy the truth by denying its existence. I have said it before, but it bears repeating, people who deny the existence of rules only want that privilege for themselves.

Ravi writes:

“We now live in a “post-truth” culture where misremembering is normal. (Not surprisingly, within hours of the American elections, a French television network baptized our culture as “post-logic.”) These two bastions of values, the academy and the media—where relativism flows in their veins—have become the town criers of this new word. Castigating the politicians, they untruthfully predicted the destination of the untruthful. Excoriating an electorate gone amuck, they wondered how people could be duped into a lie. Having themselves swallowed a camel, they strained a gnat. They are the primary carriers of word manipulation, repeating distortions often enough to make them into truths. Caring not for truth but for effect and for the manipulation of all thinking, their victory is pyrrhic.”

Again:

“It used to be said, “If a Cretan tells you all Cretans are liars, can you believe him?” Now we have to ask ourselves if we can believe it when a post-truth culture tells us it is a post-truth culture.”

And this one wins the day:

“And we have so extinguished the light of truth in our halls of learning that it is possible for a Harvard student to say, “I can believe anything I want, so long as I don’t claim it to be true.”

Source: Why Oxford Dictionary’s 2016 Word of the Year Matters

A Happy Atheist Challenges The Angry Atheists With The Difference Between A Fact And A Value

Posted on by metroupe

I have read several articles by John Gray and enjoy his writing and insight.  I know when an author is connecting with something important to me because I talk out loud while I am reading it.  I mumbled pretty much the whole time I was reading this one. I had to stop and reread several paragraphs for effect, and kept interrupting my wife to read several of his more powerful points to her. Yes, I am a nerd. This essay put into words a number of things I have been thinking.

Gray is not a believer, and so he has a very different outlook than I do (as a Christian), yet his awareness of the history of philosophy allows him to see the naked spots in the emperors wardrobe. He is disenchanted by the vocal tribe of evangelistic atheists that seem to be known for their pulpit-pounding-religion-hating self righteousness. (Dawkins, Harris, etc.) And he takes them to task, not because of their unbelief but because of their inconsistencies in applying what they believe.  He is willing to explore the assumptions beneath their beliefs, and finds them to be often unreasonable.

In this essay, Gray very briefly chronicles the racist behavior of 19th and 20th century evolutionary atheists.  Then he freely acknowledges that while modern atheists disavow these beliefs, they have repeated some of the same intellectual mistakes as their forbears. They have failed to acknowledge the difference between facts and values.  And this is a dialogue-ender if you happen to disagree with them because you will be talking about your values while they dismiss you as unscientific. They believe that their values are scientific, and therefore as unassailable as discussing gravity.  And sadly, too often this leads them to view their opponents with patronizing contempt.

By the way, this was the same problem with the communism of Russian and China. Marx’s writings insisted that his view of economics was “scientific.”

I paused to read several parts of this essay more than once, not only to understand his observations, but also to enjoy them.   I disagree with his view of the world, but enjoy his intellectual honesty and clear view of the logical problems in the foundation of the new atheism.

“It has often been observed that Christianity follows changing moral fashions, all the while believing that it stands apart from the world. The same might be said, with more justice, of the prevalent version of atheism. If an earlier generation of unbelievers shared the racial prejudices of their time and elevated them to the status of scientific truths, evangelical atheists do the same with the liberal values to which western societies subscribe today – while looking with contempt upon “backward” cultures that have not abandoned religion. The racial theories promoted by atheists in the past have been consigned to the memory hole – and today’s most influential atheists would no more endorse racist biology than they would be seen following the guidance of an astrologer. But they have not renounced the conviction that human values must be based in science; now it is liberal values which receive that accolade. There are disputes, sometimes bitter, over how to define and interpret those values, but their supremacy is hardly ever questioned. For 21st century atheist missionaries, being liberal and scientific in outlook are one and the same.”

“For 21st Century atheist missionaries, being liberal and scientific in outlook are one and the same.”

Some other big ideas from this essay:

  • Atheism is not monolithic, and most of the values (and fact claims) advocated by modern skeptics are not self evident, and are not agreed on by everyone in their camp. This alone should challenge their confusion of facts and values.  I have some atheist friends that like to point out how hard it is to find Christians to agree on any matter of doctrine. Well, evidently they live in the same world.
  • Many of the new atheists are ignorant of the nature of their own beliefs. They take their own view of the world for granted and are unwilling to subject it to the same intellectual scrutiny that they demand from others.
  • New Atheists have largely ignored the writings of Nietzsche. Why? Gray writes, “The reason Nietzsche has been excluded from the mainstream of contemporary atheist thinking is that he exposed the problem atheism has with morality. It’s not that atheists can’t be moral – the subject of so many mawkish debates. The question is which morality an atheist should serve.”  Which is to say that Scientific atheism does NOT lead to a self evident view of the moral world. It cannot answer the most basic questions about how we should live without departing from its limiting scientific commitments. Further, many of the tenets of humanism advocated by atheists actually derive from Judeo-Christian religious tradition.
  • The hostility to religion that has been on display from the evangelistic atheists doesn’t make any rational sense.  After mentioning several influential atheists from the past that were NOT hostile to religion, Gray writes, “Above all, these unevangelical atheists accepted that religion is definitively human. Though not all human beings may attach great importance to them, every society contains practices that are recognisably religious. Why should religion be universal in this way? For atheist missionaries this is a decidedly awkward question. Invariably they claim to be followers of Darwin. Yet they never ask what evolutionary function this species-wide phenomenon serves. There is an irresolvable contradiction between viewing religion naturalistically – as a human adaptation to living in the world – and condemning it as a tissue of error and illusion. What if the upshot of scientific inquiry is that a need for illusion is built into in the human mind? If religions are natural for humans and give value to their lives, why spend your life trying to persuade others to give them up?”

I disagree with Gray on much of this, but his point is a good one. If atheism and evolution is true, then it follows that religion is a survival adaptation.  If that is true, why so much angst over gene expression?

Source: What scares the new atheists | John Gray | World news | The Guardian

If We Are Unaware of Human Suffering, Does It Exist? Thoughts on Chronic Pain

Posted on by metroupe

My sister posted this article on Facebook recently. She suffers from chronic pain and has had trouble getting a diagnosis. This article by psychologist/ neuroendocrinologist Chandler Marrs discusses pain in terms of a philosophical principle. We don’t need to be in the forest to believe that trees fall when we are not there, and that they make noise even when no one is around to hear them.  She says that we tend to think that “awareness predicates existence,” when that is clearly not true. If we close our eyes, the world doesn’t cease to exist.

The big idea in this article involves depending on our ability to “measure” pain objectively as prerequisite to its existence. Does pain only truly exist only when the clinician can objectively perceive it? Is it possible that there are some disease states for which we do not yet have adequate tools to be able to measure it? The fact that millions of people complain of pain where clinicians cannot identify the causes should make us consider the limits of our knowledge and tools. 

Why is this important? In my experience as a healthcare provider, if someone higher in the chain of command ran all the available tests and couldn’t identify a known cause for the pain, then often the conclusion was not favorable. We thought that the patient was seeking drugs, or that they had some kind of mental imbalance. The polite term may have been “somatoform disorder.”  They were often lumped into that big diagnostic basket of “fibromyalgia,” which basically meant “you have pain and we can’t find a reason for it.”  This label could easily function as a flag to dismiss the reality of the patient’s claims.

Marrs also discusses how our perception is affected by our humility and our humanity.  Our compassion is based on our ability to believe that another person is truly suffering.  A lack of empathy can result in an inability to perceive someone else’s problems.

If we put these two factors together we may find that our insensitivity prevents us from believing someone’s  complaint, and concluding that it is not real.  And since there are real “malingerers” and drug seekers out there, we can easily put people into that category when they don’t fit. The result is tragic.

She writes:

“In the case of modern medicine, if the suffering is invisible to current diagnostic tests and intractable to medical therapeutics, it is not real. Indeed, whether cognitively or reflexively, every time a physician dismisses a patient’s complaint or prescribes an anti-depressant for pain, he denies the existence and veracity of their suffering. He denies the tree in the forest, because he does not see or hear it himself in the context necessary to recognize it – e.g. by currently available diagnostic technologies and taxonomies. Here, medical technology, and the physicians who wield the technology, assume an infallibility that precludes the existence of realities beyond their sight lines, beyond their control.”

Source: If We Are Unaware of Human Suffering, Does It Exist? – Hormones Matter

Vox: Where Philosophy Goes To Die

Posted on by metroupe

 

Crimes Against Philosophy

Trigger Warning: LOGIC

In this article (which you should read) philosophy professor Shaun Rieley takes Vox (a typically liberal publication) to task for its decision NOT publish an article by a prominent philosopher Torbjorn Tannsjo from Stockholm University.  Evidently the editors of Vox asked Tannsjo to contribute a piece for their magazine, but later decided not to publish it. What concerns Rieley, is not that Vox decided not to publish because they disagreed with the article, because they didn’t, but that they killed the piece because of the uncomfortable implications that might arrive from it.  That troublesome need for coherence…

Tannsjo argued that humans in general have a moral duty to reproduce offspring.  He arrives at this conclusion using some tight logical conclusions from utilitarian ethics.  The average person might think it is silly, but evidently his position is respected by professional philosophers and hard to evade.

All fine and good.   What is remarkable to me is that the editors at Vox don’t seem to disagree with Tannsjo, at least in general terms.  What bothers them is the idea that some conservative people might read the article and arrive at conclusions that are at odds with the editorial mission at Vox. They might use the ideas in the article to support a pro-life agenda.  It might become clear that Vox’s prochoice position is in conflict with their other values.

Rieley writes,

“In other words, it’s not so much that Tannsjo’s argument was wrong, so much as it could potentially be interpreted as giving aid to those who hold “wrong” (read: “conservative”) opinions on abortion and birth control.”

Now Vox has the right to publish whatever they like.  But what should concern everyone is that these kinds of ideological parlor tricks are happening more often.  The pattern of squashing dissent, or turning a blind eye seems to be happening more frequently in places where liberal thinkers run the show.  In my opinion, this is not intellectually honest. I have more respect anyone that acknowledges and attempts to wrestle through difficult questions  rather than toss them into the closet.

But instead we see the easy path of intellectual conformity.  We see a move to ignore or suppress facts and discussion that might disagree with the reigning wisdom.  It seems that Vox doesn’t trust people to think for themselves. They have to protect their dogma from any threats, even when those threats come from truth and reason.

Rieley continues,

“Philosophy proceeds by engaging with those various points of view, sometimes to defend what is being attacked, and sometimes to attack what is being defended. Indeed, this is how philosophy has proceeded since the time of Socrates. Without this back-and-forth, philosophy becomes all but impossible.

“Leiter laments that so few are interested in reasoning. This is true. It is much easier to retreat into the comfort of one’s own unexamined assumptions than it is to challenge them by thinking through difficult arguments that one finds disagreeable, and either assent to them, or learn to refute them.

“Nevertheless, free citizens of a republic are obligated to do the hard work of philosophical engagement. Liberty is hard work in this sense, but if liberty is to be sustained, this work is necessary. Unfortunately, by rejecting the piece, Vox has missed an opportunity to participate in the important task of facilitating this engagement.”

Source: Vox: Where Philosophy Goes To Die

Bertrand Russell on "Why Study Philosophy"

Posted on by metroupe

In his article on “The Value of Philosophy,” Bertrand Russell attempts to make a case that the enterprise of philosophy is worthwhile for several reasons. It is interesting that this essay comes at the conclusion of a rather lengthy discussion of the problems of philosophy. Specifically, that there are a significant number of questions in the realm of philosophy that have not been adequately settled. Indeed, Russell is careful to tell us that certainty in philosophy is not really possible. So one of his major arguments is that philosophy is not important because of the answers, but because of the questions. It is not the destination but the journey. As far as he is concerned there is no real destination. “…it cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any very great measure of success in its attempts to provide definite answers to its questions. (p. 23)” He is careful to admit that in the areas where we have attained to certainty, we are no longer in the realm of the philosopher but of the scientist. This of course gives us some clue as to his definite conclusions with regard to numerous philosophical questions such as the nature of the material world, the reliability of the empirical method for obtaining knowledge, and the uniformity of nature.

He goes on at some length to discuss how the philosophical enterprise is a way to make life worth living; that is frees the mind from tradition and prejudice; and that it unites us with the world around us. Incredibly he makes these assertions dogmatically while decrying dogmatism. He speaks of “liberating uncertainty”, and that it is “unwise to pronounce dogmatically.” Furthermore, he seems to deprecate those practical sort of people who just live in the world, content with their assumptions unwilling to question the status quo. Whether or not philosophy has given us certainty on this issue, we know for certain Russell’s conviction on this matter. He definitely seems to look down on these simpletons. Concerning the unhappy life of people with convictions, uninterested in philosophy, he insists that if we are to be “great and free, we must escape this prison and this strife. (p. 25)”

While I agree that there is some utility in a continual quest for knowledge, and definite value in seeking the answer to philosophical questions, I disagree with the notion that certainty is unattainable. And if it is beyond reach, the philosophical enterprise might be satisfying to him, and to others but it is by no means obligatory or superior just because he seems to enjoy it. To insist otherwise would be a return to certainty. This whole perspective reminds me of my big german shepherd. He is very large, very loud, and can be frightening. But it is positively ridiculous to watch him chase his tail.

I disagree with Russell because he seems to contradict himself at so many points. I find it difficult to believe that he really believes what he is saying. He wants his readers to revel in questions with no answer, in a journey with no end, and in arguments without conclusion. All the while he makes numerous definite propositions about asserting the self, and “uniting the self with non-self”, “a wrong conception of the end [goal] of life,” that speculative interest is “killed by confining ourselves to definitely ascertainable knowledge.” (p. 26) He says, “philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the question s themselves. (p. 26)” Yet in the previous paragraph he speaks of an “unalloyed desire for truth.” Which is it? Truth or liberating uncertainty?

Thankfully I have my own motivations for studying philosophy, for if I was left with Bertrand Russell I would definitely not choose this perpetual frustration as my life’s pursuit. I would rather shovel cow clap, though if we follow Russell’s path there is not much difference in outcome or expectation of success.