Ryan Anderson writes up what sounds like a fascinating Princeton symposium on the question "Is It Wrong To End Early Human Life?"
« Reality Is a Special Effect | Main | Goldbama » Conversations About Feticide12 May 2008 12:34 pm Comments (39)
Thanks, Ross, for the link. Two quick observations: 1. The piece's author refers repeatedly to "the pro-life argument." But it was never made clear what that argument is. I doubt that Robert George's reason for opposing abortion is much like Don Marquis's. 2. The piece's author assumes that if something is an innocent human and/or person, then killing it is morally impermissible. (Such an assumption seems to underly the author's frequent criticisms of the pro-choice position.) But that assumption is false. There are many cases (e.g. self-defense and just war cases) in which morality permits the killing of innocent humans and/or persons. The pro-choice position is simply that at least some (perhaps not very many, but at least some) abortion cases are like this. At the end of the day, then, the piece's author never so much as addresses the substance of the pro-choice position. (For the record, the pro-lifer Marquis, whose views are described by the author, does not base his anti-abortion argument on any such assumption.) So...a great write-up marred by an irritating failure to understand a crucial point in the abortion debate: that something's being an innocent human or person does not entail, not all by itself, that the something in question can't be killed. 
Interesting stuff. This symposium seems to have been filled with some very fringy versions of the standard pro-choice arguments. I wonder to what extent that focus is a failure of the symposium and to what extent this is reporter bias. As Jim points out, the conclusion that an embryo is human life does not necessarily entail that this right to life outweighs the autonomy of the mother. We could keep most of the sick and neglected children in the world alive by forcibly quartering them in the homes of randomly selected Americans at their own expense. Yet we don't. Why not? I'm not trying to say these situations are parallel-- they obviously aren't. But the answers to that question force the discussion away from the sanctity of life into the real contested turf of the abortion issue in America -- namely, sex... and the question of which rights and responsibilities are inherent to human sexuality.
I'm waiting for religious conservatives to hold any symposia on gender equality. Doesn't seem like something that interests them very much. Geez, Dilan, can't your crowd hold your own symposia? Last I checked, there are no "Fetus Studies" departments or centers at any universities, nor was there much question (in the US at least) of "Is It Wrong to Murder Women?" "Gender equality" to the extent it is a laudable goal of legal and moral justice in no way requires abortion; as an off-shoot of the more aggressive, antinomian, and utilitarian (with no real respects for "rights" as such) side of the sexual revolution, inventing "rights" for men as well as women (infinite orgasms without responsibility or moral considerations) may -- but there are plenty of symposia on that diabolical idea, and expecting religious conservatives to host them is really just laying it on a bit bloody thick.
Also, for the record, this symposia was held by, er, Princeton, in particular the University Center for Human Values and the Madison program. Given that Peter Singer is faculty at the UCHV, I'm not sure "religious conservatives" is a very accurate description of the sponsorship, really -- but I'll ask my colleagues there if the Bishop Wilberforce crowd has secretly taken the joint over.
Geez, Dilan, can't your crowd hold your own symposia? We can, but you concede my point, which is that gender equality is something that your crowd isn't very interested in. And that has everything to do with the outsized concern for the moral status of the fetus over there on the right.
No, it has to do with the undersized concern for the moral status of the fetus on the left.
The piece's author assumes that if something is an innocent human and/or person, then killing it is morally impermissible. (Such an assumption seems to underly the author's frequent criticisms of the pro-choice position.) But that assumption is false. There are many cases (e.g. self-defense and just war cases) You might want to specify what you mean by self-defense. I assume you are refrring to collateral damage (seeing as shooting an aggressor in self-defense would not be an issue of "killing an innocent." Or are you thinking of situations where a person is unintentionally endangering you? in which morality permits the killing of innocent humans and/or persons. The pro-choice position is simply that at least some (perhaps not very many, but at least some) abortion cases are like this. To be pedantic, that is one pro-choice position, not necessarily "the pro-choice" position. Some pro-choicers believe this, and others believe that the unborn are either not persons or that they do not develop personhood until a certain point in fetal development, so thr issue of "innocent life" is not an issue for them.
No, it has to do with the undersized concern for the moral status of the fetus on the left. But you see, that's phony. The reason you guys are so concerned about fetuses is because you don't like the reasons (gender equality, female sexual liberation) why abortions are legal. People who do think those reasons are important are able to keep the moral status of the fetus in perspective in the way you guys aren't. Look, the bottom line is, as long as you guys hold conferences calling American women and their doctors a bunch of murderers, and congratulating yourselves on your supposedly greater concern for life than the folks on the left, you'll never understand this issue. Indeed, you will never persuade the people you need to actually get anywhere on your project. Women's rights are at the center of this issue. You guys have spent 35 years trying to ignore them and refocus the conversation onto your theological discussions about life. It hasn't worked, and it won't work. Until you guys start living in the 21st Century and accept the sexual and feminist revolutions, your conversations about abortion will never go beyond preaching to the converted.
Or perhaps Dilan, the problem is that leftists put sexual liberation and "gender equality" at such a premium that they are willing to destroy every other principle in order to achieve them. Just look at how many pro-choicers seem to think that we should be mandating HPV vaccines (no "right to choose" here), even though we haven't had the vaccine long enough to be entirely certain what the long-term ramifications are. Why? Because anything that removes potential negative consequences for sex must be celebrated. If that means coercion, then screw the idea of "right to do what one wants with one's own body." Screw any concern about long-term ramifications of the vaccine. And look at how we've responded to AIDS. Instead of condemning the promiscuous sort of homosexual behavior that is the main spreader of AIDS, we are supposed to view AIDS as another reaosn for more sexual liberation. And it seems to me that the left's goal of "gender equality" more and more means trying to force everyone to give up any notions of gender whatsoever. It's not just the right-wingers who have tunnel vision on sexual issue, Dilan.
we are supposed to view AIDS as another reaosn for more sexual liberation. Lol wut? U think AIDS is teh nu 'secks, drugz, n rickroll?' FAIL.
"that gender equality is something that your crowd isn't very interested in." DE TR: That men and women are equal is so obvious, particularly for the modern age, there's no need to go on about it incessantly. "Your side" feels a greater need to hand-wring on obvious things and "preach to the choir." Abortion has little or nothing to do with gender equality anyway. The Philippines (where even contraception is restricted) has greater "gender empowerment" then Hungary where abortion is totally unrestricted. Germany has greater abortion restrictions than us and do better on gender empowerment. For that matter Sweden has more restrictions on abortion after the 18th week than we do. I think you're living in the 1970s on this issue. In todays world unrestricted and common abortion is generally more a response to poverty and/or widespread alcoholism/drug-addiction. For example several Republics in the former Soviet Union. The majority of the women in this country who get abortions will not start earning the equal of men due to it. The corporate type women you think of generally have access to safer forms of birth control and sterilization. Nor will these poor women earn the equal of men with illegitimate children. In the vast majority of cases they will not go from waitress or shop-clerk to corporate lawyer or doctor, it's just not going to happen. Getting an abortion isn't going to give them an education or a pony, that's nonsense. I've seen relatively few Pro-Choicers who pretend otherwise. (You might be the first, except for a few baby-boomer women) From the people I've talked with who worked in abortion clinics they see it more as keeping these women's lives from getting worse. I don't agree with that either, but I can concede the logic in it. So anyone when discussing abortion there's no need or logic in discussing gender equality as such. Unless you're talking with rather backward individuals. However I think there probably is a need to discuss issues of poverty, drug abuse, daycare, child abuse, and maternity leave.
"The reason you guys are so concerned about fetuses is because you don't like the reasons (gender equality, female sexual liberation) why abortions are legal." DE TR: You think this because you are apparently incapable of listening to other opinions. You came with this perspective and will hold to it regardless of anything. Who here is saying contraception should be banned? Or sterilization? Or that women shouldn't be elected to high office? Or made CEOs of corporations? Or paid equally for all work? I get the sense I would favor more benefits for working mothers than you. I think until you can actually listen to what other people say I'll try harder to avoid you.
Re: There are many cases (e.g. self-defense and just war cases) in which morality permits the killing of innocent humans and/or persons. In cases of self-defense we are not dealing with "innocent" persons. The killing of civilians via "collateral damage" in wartime may be a necessary evil but it remains evil and is not morally licit. It just may not be avoidable. Re:The reason you guys are so concerned about fetuses is because you don't like the reasons (gender equality, female sexual liberation) why abortions are legal. Dilan, why do you insist on imputing dishonorable moptives to people you disagree with? I could do the same to you: you favor abortion so you'll have an easier time scoring a one-night stand on the weekend and won't need to worry about child-support if the condom leaks. Re: Instead of condemning the promiscuous sort of homosexual behavior that is the main spreader of AIDS Um, promiscuous and irresponsible heterosexual behavior also spreads disease.
Dilan,
I mean this seriously. If abortion is legitimate, regardless of the ontological status of the fetus, then the Cultural Revolution must also be legitimate. Since the goal of creating an utopia of perfect virtue is higher than the goal of "gender equality", and the victims of the cultural revolution were clearly less "innocent" than a fetus who has done nothing wrong at all. I don't think that either of them was legitimate, of course. Dilan, why does gender equality mean that women have to have the freedom to behave as badly as men? Why couldn't we have the converse? A society that demanded that men try and emulate the life of self-abnegation and service that has traditionally been demanded of women?
JonF: I wrote: "There are many cases (e.g. self-defense and just war cases) in which morality permits the killing of innocent humans and/or persons." You responded with: "In cases of self-defense we are not dealing with "innocent" persons. The killing of civilians via "collateral damage" in wartime may be a necessary evil but it remains evil and is not morally licit. It just may not be avoidable." Sorry, but you're wrong about self-defense cases. You're an innocent human person. Suppose, through no fault of your own, that you fall from a great height. I happen to be passing by. Looking up, I see that you're above me and will kill me with your fall. Then I notice a red button off to the side with a label that reads: "Press button to disintegrate falling objects." I press the button, you're disintegrated, and I survive. This was a self-defense killing of an innocent human person. Moreover, morality says that what I've done is permissible. On "collateral damage": You're confused. That a killing is an evil does not entail that it isn't morally permissible. In the case just described, my killing you was no doubt an evil, a tragedy even. But I haven't done anything wrong. In general, when discussing moral matters, it pays to distinguish between right and wrong (or permissibility and impermissibility), which apply to actions, and good and bad, which apply to persons, events, and states of affairs. A right or permissible action might result in a bad state of affairs. At all events, my point still stands. Most defenses of the pro-life position appeal to the principle that fetuses may not be killed because (1) they're innocent human persons and (2) innocent human persons may never be killed. Sadly, the public debate on abortion has focused on whether (1) is true. But as moral philosophers have known for a long, long time now, even if we grant (1) the pro-life argument fails. That's because (2) is false. It isn't true that innocent human persons may never be killed. Note: it doesn't follow that pro-choicers are correct. All that follows is that pro-lifers should stop their moral grandstanding about the sanctity of human life. *Of course* human life is intrinsically valuable. It still doesn't follow that no human lives may ever be taken.
That's because (2) is false. I'm not sure sure 2 is false, actually. Not in the sense of "intentionally killed, where that is a primary aim of an act" -- your (absurd and not very related to abortion except perhaps in the case of certain kinds of threats to the life of the mother) example does not involve someone aiming to eradicate the life of the falling person: had there been another button, marked "put out a net to catch the falling man", it would have clearly been wrong not to push that button instead. The death is in no way desired as an outcome. Abortion both involves (to some extent) the seeking of the death and (in all but very few cases) involves no plausible claim of self defense. If your claim is that intentionally disintegrating people to, say, improve your bank account or education prospects, or to avoid unpleasant mood swing and weight gains for several months, is acceptable -- then I think fewer moral philosophers (often a dangerous sort anyway, inclined to expand the realm of death these days) will agree with you.
Marquis of Carabas: I think you've missed the point. Most pro-life arguments take the following form: (1) Fetuses are innocent human persons. That this really is the form most pro-life arguments take is clear from the importance so many pro-lifers attach to arguing that fetuses are human persons and that all human persons are intrinsically valuable and in possession of a strong right to life. (Just think, for example, of the Pope's typical remarks on abortion.) Sadly, as I wrote in my earlier post, most pro-choicers concede (2) and focus their energies on refuting (1). But even if (1) is true, (2) is obviously--obviously!--false. There are innumerable types of cases in which morality plainly condones--sometimes even requires--the killing of innocent human persons. The case I gave in my earlier post, the one involving an innocent falling from a great height, is one such case. (Why you call the case "absurd" I can't tell. The case is obviously possible. That it is, as you say, "not very related to abortion" is precisely the point: it's designed to refute (2), the linchpin in the pro-life argument under consideration.) So if (2) is false the pro-life argument stated above fails. What then is the pro-life argument? Perhaps it takes this form: 1) Fetuses are innocent human persons. Provided the pro-lifer can supply us with a story as to what the relevant circumstances C are, we've got a good argument. But this will be very, very hard to do. Why? Well, for one thing, the question which innocent human persons can and which can't be intentionally killed is a vexing question in moral philosophy. And for another, it may well turn out that the relevant circumstances C that make (2) come out true permit lots and lots of types of abortions. I think it's clear where this is going: the hard questions about abortion all have to do with whether or not there are any types of abortions that pass moral muster. Chest thumping about the sanctity of human life cuts no ice. Please, please, please, please, please pro-lifers, read Judith Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion."
Abortion both involves (to some extent) the seeking of the death and (in all but very few cases) involves no plausible claim of self defense. Allow me to play Devil's Advocate for a moment. Few self-defense killings involve situations where the people who act in self-defense are certain that they will die if they do not act in self-defense. A person menacing you with a gun may or may not kill you -- he may want to take your money, or rape you, or simply make you feel frightened and powerless. Carrying a child to term is rarely life-threatening. It will, however, take your money and take control of your body. When the pregnancy is unwanted it could certainly make you feel frightened and powerless. There isn't a true moral equivalence between the two situations, but there are some distinct similarities, particularly when one compares giving birth against one's will to being raped. To draw a clear moral distinction, one must assign responsibility to the mother and conclude that she is not, so to speak, innocent. That she, in fact, had sex knowing full well that this could happen to her and she needs to accept responsibility for her actions. That, right there, is where the battle lines on this issue are drawn. It goes without saying that the moral claims of the embryo are entirely different from that of a gun-toting would-be rapist. The embryo is inarguably innocent. But it is only alive to some extent. And its moral claim to occupy someone else's body without her consent is debatable, to say the least.
Yes, I've read Thomson. She's "interesting" in somewhat the way that many of Hitler's political philosophers have interesting points, and the defenders of race slavery in the US, as a political practice, are interesting. That is, she's wrong, and there's something that smells bad about her whole enterprise.
Those who simply find it absurd that the fetus is a "person" or the like are wrong, perhaps, and may be willfully wrong (ignoring what some aspect of their reason believes to be true because it is inconvenient) in many cases, but they are wrong. Those who accept the human personhood but then construct arguments so as to expand the realm in which it is permissible to intentionally kill innocents (I realized Thomson tries to dodge this, somewhat unconvincingly to my mind) strike me as essentially brutal.
"It still doesn't follow that no human lives may ever be taken." Jim TR: For me I can't relate because this wouldn't remotely be my position. I'm not a total pacifist or working from that perspective. I believe in just wars and a restricted use of the death penalty. I'd prefer we limit capital punishment to those rare cases when the person's life is a continuing threat to others, but I don't believe in ending. It is even theoretically possible an "innocent" person could be a continuing danger. Like "Lennie" in "Of Mice and Men" or victims of some theoretical bio-engineered plague. However the vast majority of abortions do not occur because the woman's life is at risk. There's very few nations that would ban abortion in such cases anyway. Nor can we do a DNA test to determine if the baby will someday endanger other people. At best it's more like "You see a person fall from an eight-foot tall ladder. If they land on you it'll really hurt and leave a scar. You have the option of vaporizing them, do you take it?"
"A person menacing you with a gun may or may not kill you -- he may want to take your money, or rape you, or simply make you feel frightened and powerless." LFP TR: The goal in this situation should be to stop the person, not kill them. In some cases killing them is the only or best way to stop them. Granted an argument could be made that abortion's goal is to stop the pregnancy, not to end the fetal life. Considering how the majority of abortions are performed I think this is difficult to maintain. If you shoot a robber you should, I feel, call authorities so they can get him any needed medical help and assess the situation. My guess is abortion almost never works that way. You do not end the pregnancy and then give all possible medical treatment to the fetus. Not even in the cases of abortions performed after the 22nd week of conception.
Re: That a killing is an evil does not entail that it isn't morally permissible Here I disagree with you. Evil acts are never morally licit. They may be necessary, but they are still sins on our souls and must be sincerely repented of. In my church's tradition soldiers who have seen combat are not permitted to receive communion before they have confessed themselves (except in extremis cases).
Marquis of Carabas-- You wrote: "Yes, I've read Thomson. She's 'interesting' in somewhat the way that many of Hitler's political philosophers have interesting points, and the defenders of race slavery in the US, as a political practice, are interesting. That is, she's wrong, and there's something that smells bad about her whole enterprise." This is ludicrous--and you know it. Thomson defends an extremely conservative pro-choice position in "A Defense of Abortion." Some, but only some, abortions pass moral muster, according to her. Moreover, the specific claims she makes are all of them quite plausible. Nothing she says is beyond the pale. So either you haven't really read Thomson or you haven't really understood her (Peter Singer she ain't!) or your views on these matters are extreme that even moderate positions like Thomson's strike you as comparable to Nazism. Be honest with yourself, Marquis. Do you really think that in the case I described it is morally impermissible for you to vaporize me to save yourself? Of course you don't--no one thinks such a thing. And if you do, then what are you doing reading this? You should get yourself to the first hospital that will kill you and harvest your organs for those who will die by tonight unless they have transplants. Just to be clear: I'm not accusing you of doing anything wrong by not rushing to the hospital. The point is that morality--good old, common sense morality--does not require you to do any such thing--even though, of course, innocent human persons will die because of your (and my) inaction. Morality is extremely complicated, Marquis. At any rate, you then wrote: "Those who simply find it absurd that the fetus is a 'person' or the like are wrong, perhaps, and may be willfully wrong (ignoring what some aspect of their reason believes to be true because it is inconvenient) in many cases, but they are wrong. Those who accept the human personhood but then construct arguments so as to expand the realm in which it is permissible to intentionally kill innocents (I realized Thomson tries to dodge this, somewhat unconvincingly to my mind) strike me as essentially brutal." You still don't get it, Marquis. No one is "constructing arguments so as to expand the realm in which it is permissible to intentionally kill innocents"! Repeat after me: you are not morally required to die rather than vaporize me in the case I described. This isn't point isn't some Peter Singer-style outrage--it's what everyone, including you, believes. Since the vaporization case gives you such a bad case of the vapors, consider just war cases. Suppose that I am an innocent citizen of Evil Nation. Evil Nation's brutal dictator forces me to fight in his evil war against the US. (Perhaps he promises to kill my family unless I fight.) You are a soldier in the US Army. You kill me in intense combat. Question: is my death a bad thing, indeed a tragedy? Of course. But have you in killing me done anything morally impermissible? Of course not--even though you've killed an innocent human person. Look, Marquis, if you're right, then every soldier fighting for the good side in a just war who kills an innocent enemy conscript performs a morally impermissible action. But that is obviously--obviously!--false. And no one, not even you, believes it. These are all common sense points, Marquis; there is nothing "essentially brutal" about them. To sum up: of course fetuses are innocent human persons with a full complement of rights, including a right to life. Even so, this alone is not enough to show that no fetuses may ever be killed. The pro-choice position does not follow. There may be conclusive reasons for the pro-life position. The point is that the mere fact that fetuses are innocent human persons isn't among them.
JonF-- You wrote: "Re: That a killing is an evil does not entail that it isn't morally permissible Here I disagree with you. Evil acts are never morally licit. They may be necessary, but they are still sins on our souls and must be sincerely repented of. In my church's tradition soldiers who have seen combat are not permitted to receive communion before they have confessed themselves (except in extremis cases)." Since I don't really know what "morally licit" means, let's stick with the traditional terms "good" and "bad" (for persons, characters, and states of affairs) and "right" and "wrong" and "permissible" and "impermissible" (for actions). Now for a case. Evil Nation's brutal dictator conscripts me, an innocent, to fight for his evil army. (He promises to kill my family unless I fight.) You are a soldier of Good Nation's army. The war between Good Nation and Evil Nation is a just war. In intense combat, you kill me (but not in a way that violates any of the rules of just war). In this case, my death is a bad thing, no doubt, even a tragedy. But you have not performed a morally impermissible action. Indeed, if Evil Nation is evil enough, morality might even require that you serve in Good Nation's army and kill soldiers fighting for Evil Nation's army. So here we have a case in which morality permits you to kill an innocent human person. That morality really does permit such things is a piece of common sense morality that no one denies--not when they think clearly anyway. Would your church regard you as having sinned in the case I just described? I hope not. Because if it did, that would mean it treats those who've done nothing morally wrong (you, in the case described) as having sinned. That's an extremely counterintuitive position. But perhaps your church has a clever theory explaining how a morally permissible action could nevertheless count as a sin. It'd better be very clever.
I realize that compared to the version pursued by our brutal-indeed politicians and NARAL, Thomson is a "conservative." But I think we see her essay differently. I see it as Thomson working hard to use analogy and thought experiment (mostly, in my opinion, not valid) to expand those regimes in which killing the innocent is permissible. She is like those who take basic just war ideas and the idea that a soldier may shoot another to endorse the annhilation of Dresden. They may be relying in part on common sense -- but they have worked to find justifications for what they desire to be true, it seems to me, not the other way around. Moreover, she is sloppy -- her analogies (the violinist, etc.) rely on an asburd and far-from-common-sense calculus, denying the essential responsibility and relationship between a pregnant woman and the child. I suspect you're incapable of seeing why her entire view of human beings is alien and inimical to how I see us, but in part it is because she uses terms like a "sanctity" of human life but in fact means a calculus without love and responsibility, an empty theoretical game, adjusted to fit conclusions foregone (a "responsible" and "moderate" taste for death, rather than the wholehearted Moloch-worship of Barack Obama).
The point is that the mere fact that fetuses are innocent human persons isn't among them. But it is presumptive in the absence of extremely compelling arguments otherwise. If not, then perhaps I shall meet you (an innocent human person, I imagine) on the street someday, and (for good reasons of my own, which you may not agree with) knife you in the guts. See, I did a thought experiment and things were better that way. Your dying cry of "but I was an innocent human being" will cut no ice with me, because you yourself have granted that isn't a very good argument at all.
Marquis, I oppose abortion but I don't agree with you about just war. The alternative to the incineration of Dresden was a Nazi Thousand-YEar Reich. That alternative would be too horrible to contemplate. The atrocities that the Allies committed at Dresden and Hiroshima were terrible but also unavoidable. The blame should rest on the shoulders of the Germans who sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind. You're right that that's a brutal way of looking at the world but in those circumstances I think it's also a necessary one. There's a difference between a Nazi and an embryo, and one is much more innocent than the other.
JonF, I believe that was also the position of the Latin Church right into the early Middle Ages, wasn't it? That soldiers are not permitted to take communion until they go through a period of penance?
Really? I can see the military argument more for Hiroshima, but Dresden I don't think I've ever quite seen the "military need" argument as plausible -- it was mostly about revenge, not crippling the military economy or the like. That is, is there a good historian who will argue "without Dresden being firebombed, the Allies were much more likely to lose?"
Marquis of Carabas-- You wrote: "But it is presumptive in the absence of extremely compelling arguments otherwise. If not, then perhaps I shall meet you (an innocent human person, I imagine) on the street someday, and (for good reasons of my own, which you may not agree with) knife you in the guts. See, I did a thought experiment and things were better that way. Your dying cry of "but I was an innocent human being" will cut no ice with me, because you yourself have granted that isn't a very good argument at all." You're being willfully obtuse. My claim wasn't that something's being an innocent human person is morally irrelevant. It was that something's being an innocent human person isn't by itself sufficient for its being morally impermissible to kill it. That a fetus or anything else is an innocent human person means that we owe it very special moral consideration and that it may be killed only under extraordinary circumstances. It doesn't mean that there are no circumstances under which we may not kill it. Once more, Marquis, this fact--first clearly observed by Thomson but now a staple of the philosophical literature on the ethics of killing--is NOT some bizarre opinion cooked up to justify "the annhilation of Dresden." It's an article of common sense. Present anyone--your mother, your co-workers, George W. Bush, Hilary Clinton, anyone--with the vaporization case from my original comment and they'll all say the same thing: that it's morally permissible for you to vaporize me to save your own life. But enough. As your remarks about Dresden and "the wholehearted Moloch-worship of Barack Obama" suggest, I fear I've been suckered into arguing with a crank. Life's too short to continue this.
Marquis-- Oops! I wrote: "It doesn't mean that there are no circumstances under which we may not kill it." I should've written: "It doesn't mean that there are no circumstances under which we may kill it."
Jim, I'm prone to rhetorical flourishes (I think Obama is presumably simply in the "at heart something of a mild materialist, thinks the fetus has no moral status, because 'science' says so" camp, not a Moloch-worshipper). I'm not sure what makes Dresden so out-of-the-blue -- as far as I know, a number of moral philosophers (certainly among the Christians, unless you count them out) who are not pacifists have problems with Dresden. I don't think it's something Kurt Vonnegut made up. And yes, the vaporization case is common sense -- and something similar (required, as you would note, for any 'just war' theory) has been around a long time. It's hardly an invention of clever modern moral/ethical philosophers (who tend to work from viewpoints I find absurd or inhumane, in any case). My point is simply that it, unless you twist and twist, says less about abortion than you seem to think it does. That is, it doesn't obviously apply that much more to abortion (in most cases) than it does to me walking down the street and knifing you. Thomas' example, where you vaporize someone falling off a step ladder who will leave you in hospital for a while, is closer to the point, really.
It doesn't mean that there are no circumstances under which we may not kill it. This is, actually, true. I guess I should note that. For instance, we might indeed be morally obliged to perform actions in a just war which we can foresee will kill a fetus. Just as we might its mother. And some "we have to divert the asteroid to the city with only 1,000 grownups AND A FETUS rather than the city with 2,000,000 people" scenarios. I'm just not sure what, since almost nobody dispute these, they have to do with abortion. Nobody disputes them about you, either, yet we don't view this as being very important when considering our legal policy on whether it is ok to hire a hit man to gun you down, however inconvenient you may be to us. I think it's useful for the life-of-the-mother case, perhaps, but that's a rare cirumstance.
I simply find that for a "thinking" man and ostensibly a "religious" one (though this may at heart be all about politics and identity and fatherhood, not Christian faith), Obama seems remarkably unreflective and knee-jerk in his absolute devotion to abortion license. I am willing to let him get away with less on this than politicians who seem to be more purely creatures of ambition and habit, rather than thought.
Marquis of Carabas-- Fair points all in your last two posts. (Sorry for the intemperate line about your being a crank.) What originally motivated me to post comments in this thread was frustration with Ryan T. Anderson's piece in First Things. Anderson, like many pro-lifers (especially those coming from a certain sort of Catholic background), huffs and puffs about "human dignity" and the "intrinsic worth" of every human. The idea, I suppose, is to con unsophisticates into thinking that pro-choicers reject human dignity and the idea of intrinsic human worth. (It's much easier to convince the unconvinced if you can paint your opponents in argument as monsters.) But as Thomson's work shows, pro-choicers can accept most--maybe even all--of the pro-lifers claims about dignity and intrinsic worth. What I want, I suppose, is a more intelligent public debate over abortion. For once, when a Catholic bishop criticizes the "pro-life consensus" as failing to recognize that fetuses are innocent human persons with dignity and intrinsic worth, I'd like someone--a reporter, a politician, someone--to reply with this: "I don't understand. Even if fetuses are innocent human persons with dignity and intrinsic worth it follows that abortion is morally impermissible only if all killings of beings with those features are impermissible--but they aren't. So what, exactly, is wrong with the pro-choice position? Its having overlooked dignity and intrinsic worth can't be it." Note: I'm not arguing for the pro-choice position! I'd just like to see the intellectual level of the debate raised a notch or two. The question of what things--what human things--can be killed is extraordinarily complicated. Almost nothing one reads in the newspapers or online reflects the richness and complexity of the topic.
Marquis-- Oops again! I should've complained about the Catholic bishop criticizing the "pro-choice consensus." It's been fun.
As likely mentioned NARAL has indeed endorsed Obama. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jvzT8keHzVS3YjP8BJDDrf64A_AwD90LL7JO1
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I'm waiting for religious conservatives to hold any symposia on gender equality. Doesn't seem like something that interests them very much.
Posted by Dilan Esper | May 12, 2008 2:26 PM