Pinker On Dignity

Steven Pinker's assault on the President's Council on Bioethics and its recently-released of batch of essays is just as shoddy and bizarre as Yuval Levin says it is. What's most striking to me about the Pinker piece, though, is something I've observed in a lot in the contributions from his side of the bioethics debate during the Bush years - namely, the tendency to write in a tone so shrill and apocalyptic that if you'd just landed in the United States and had only the Pinkers of the world to guide you, you'd think that the advocates of an anything-goes approach to contentious issues like, say, aborting the unfit or embryo-destructive research were an oppressed and embattled minority, bravely speaking out against a tyrannical legal regime that forbids any sort of research that doesn't pass master with Leon Kass and his Catholic cronies. In reality, of course, Pinker's preferred public-policy landscape - in which short of preventing mad scientists from operating on handcuffed, screaming subjects, the law takes an essentially laissez-faire attitude toward the frontiers of biomedical research, leaving the thornier questions to be resolved, as Pinker puts it, by letting "millions of people weigh the costs and benefits of new developments for themselves" - is more or less the approach that America has been taking ever since the Sixties, with occasional moratoria and/or extremely modest restrictions on federal funding the most that bioconservatives have been able to hope for.

Now, given Pinker's premises - he suggests in his conclusion that any restriction on scientific research amounts to mass murder, because "even if progress were delayed a mere decade by moratoria, red tape, and funding taboos, millions of people with degenerative diseases and failing organs would needlessly suffer and die" - I suppose that constant alarmism about the theocon menace makes a certain sense. But when you're on the other side of the debate, as I tend to be, it's a little odd to watch one of your opponents work himself into paroxysms of hysteria when a (powerless and relatively obscure) Presidential Commission dares to suggest that it might be worth merely having a discussion whose premises don't mesh precisely with the Pinker worldview.

Comments

Let me see if I have this right:

Those who believe in the innate dignity of all human beings are stupid, intolerable and quite possibly malevolent.

Got it.

Posted by Tom | May 15, 2008 5:44 PM

Ross: Any comment on the CA ruling?

Posted by Curious | May 15, 2008 6:29 PM

I generally like Pinker's writing (just not on this stuff), and think he's interesting.

But the "counting Catholics" (and Linker bits) here seemed... sort of creepy, like reading a pre-Buckley-purge anti-communist essay that dwells heavily on the number of Jewish surnames among some group that proposes a leftish economic policy.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | May 15, 2008 6:44 PM

The only reason that Catholics are overrepresented in the fight against human cloning, abortion and similar outrages on common decency are because the Protestant churches, for the most part, have allowed the relationship between faith and reason to become wildly distorted- either in the direction of the latter (my church) or the former (e.g. Pentecostals).

If the Anglican and other churches would do its job then it would not always fall to the Catholics to provide guidance to the people about exactly why human cloning and achieving earthly immortality are monstrously evil (as if a fool could not see it).

Posted by Hector | May 15, 2008 7:18 PM

For the most part, I find paranoia about anti-Catholicism ridiculous. But that essay was "Ian Paisley does bioethics."

Posted by Pithlord | May 15, 2008 7:21 PM

Great post, Ross.

Posted by Marc | May 15, 2008 8:50 PM

I was looking forward to Ross's post on this subject, but here he's written something almost completely without content. The Commission wrote a book, Pinker wrote a response. He may not have taken a very respectful tone but it was responsive. The essay contains many instances of Pinker summarizing his opponents' argument, indicating that he disagrees, summarizing his own position, and marshalling arguments in favor of that position. This is something one can do at the scale of a blog post, and I wish Ross had.

"First, dignity is relative... Second, dignity is fungible... Third, dignity can be harmful..." That doesn't sound like paroxysms of hysteria to me, that sounds like a sequence of good points that deserve to be addressed by someone on the other side.

Marquis: the line "radical political agenda, fed by fervent religious impulses" is surely tendentious. But I don't take Pinker to be counting Catholics, I take him to be counting representatives of Catholic institutions. That seems relevant to me, especially in light of the fact, as he points out, that hardly any of the contributors were representing scientific institutions.

Posted by 1658 | May 15, 2008 10:10 PM

A lot of Ross's arguments aren't so much defenses of conservative views as much as they are complaints about how overzealous liberals are about theirs. I mean all those words and no argument for why the kind of restrictions Pinker finds so abhorrent are in fact necessary. This whole "you don't have to be such a jerk about it" schtick is tiresome, and I do have to be such a jerk about it.

Posted by lowellfield | May 16, 2008 12:27 AM

Bioethics conservatives have it exactly wrong here. They shouldn't be fighting for dignity, they should be fighting for humility and caution. Our natural human lives are extremely undignified. Dignity is a banner of the right-to-die movement, with good reason. Being forced to accept that the world and our own lives are beyond our control is an affront to our dignity. But it's absolutely necessary for humility. And it's ultimately the path of prudence and caution, as trying to control things beyond your understanding tends to blow up in our face.

Posted by Consumatopia | May 16, 2008 12:38 AM

Pinker's essay was great, and Ross' response was empty and meaningless. Pinker doesn't equate religious obstructionists of medical research in these areas with murder, but merely with sheer, uncaring negligence of the kind that religious people have all too often displayed towards the real sufferings of real people in the world. Ross appears to be one of them, since the only people he thinks are at fault here are guys like Pinker who noisily point out the horrific hypocrisy of those obstructing the attempts to help humanity in the name of "dignity". Pinker makes some serious charges, and rather than defend the guys he's attacking, Ross merely dismisses it as if it were Hagee blaming gays for the Katrina flood. This isn't an imaginary blame game, it's a real issue for millions of people suffering from real ailments.

Posted by conradg | May 16, 2008 4:11 AM

The rhetoric may be over the top, but the fact that Leon Kass is the top Bioethics advisor to this President--or any other--is and should be highly discocerting. As Pinker aptly illustrates with Kass's strange jeremiad against the venal ice cream cone, Kass is an extreme, anti-tntellectual radical who rejects basic ideals of modernity, autonomy, and individual liberty.

If Peter Singer were to head up such a counsel under a Democratic President, the pro-life right would be justifiably outraged. Kass is a delusional militant on the other side of these issues, but we are to treat him as some bland, benign scholar? I think not.

Posted by Madorsky | May 16, 2008 9:01 AM

Even if progress were delayed a mere decade by moratoria, red tape, and funding taboos, millions of people with degenerative diseases and failing organs would needlessly suffer and die.

Precisely what diseases is Pinker talking about here? Millions of people is a pretty big number, so I assume that he has pretty clear documentation for the source of his statistic. Otherwise it's just looney raving of the drunken-guy-on-the-subway type.

Posted by Tim Dees | May 16, 2008 9:40 AM

But when you're on the other side of the debate, as I tend to be, it's a little odd to watch one of your opponents work himself into paroxysms of hysteria when a (powerless and relatively obscure) Presidential Commission dares to suggest that it might be worth merely having a discussion whose premises don't mesh precisely with the Pinker worldview.

It's frustration from having to debate with people who demand that their irrational, unverifiable, unreasoned beliefs be given the same legitimacy as objective fact.

Just look at Pinker's criticism's of the failure of the council to define dignity. Trying to have a serious discussion with a group of non-serious thinkers can quickly become exasperating.

Posted by Jeff | May 16, 2008 10:22 AM

It's frustration from having to debate with people who demand that their irrational, unverifiable, unreasoned beliefs be given the same legitimacy as objective fact.

Er, but that we shouldn't perform involuntary experiments on people is, er, an unverifiable, unreasoned belief, in this sense. You can't get from the "is" Pinker wants to focus on to the "ought" that is involved in ethics, at least not if you make Pinker's assumptions. All you can do is assert, which is all Pinker does -- Pinker's moral assertions and disagreements (other than that they are "fuzzy") with the council don't rest on "science" (in which he is quite expert, of course) any more than their assertions do. Pinker has a political/philosophical position. So do these folks. None of them have a proof or an experiment, of the sort Pinker (or you) mean, sorry. Most political choice rests partly on precisely such choices.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | May 16, 2008 3:02 PM

I'm not a big fan of Pinker -- his writings tend to strike me as two parts brilliance, one part cocky egomania, and one part straw man.

And he lost me here in the first paragraph. Sure, Leon Kass is a ridiculous nutbar who wouldn't be appointed to a pizza-ordering committee by a sane President, let alone a bioethics committee. But it's equally ridiculous to suggest that the wholesome goodness of therapeutic cloning is so self-evident that there shouldn't even be a bioethics panel to discuss the subject. There's a towering arrogance here that thoroughly undercuts the reasonable criticism of conservative scientific obstructionism that he's trying to make.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | May 16, 2008 3:17 PM

It's frustration from having to debate with people who demand that their irrational, unverifiable, unreasoned beliefs be given the same legitimacy as objective fact.

Er, but that we shouldn't perform involuntary experiments on people is, er, an unverifiable, unreasoned belief, in this sense. You can't get from the "is" Pinker wants to focus on to the "ought" that is involved in ethics, at least not if you make Pinker's assumptions. All you can do is assert, which is all Pinker does -- Pinker's moral assertions and disagreements (other than that they are "fuzzy") with the council don't rest on "science" (in which he is quite expert, of course) any more than their assertions do. Pinker has a political/philosophical position. So do these folks. None of them have a proof or an experiment, of the sort Pinker (or you) mean, sorry. Most political choice rests partly on precisely such choices.

Posted by The Marquis of Carabas | May 16, 2008 3:52 PM

I 100% agree with lowellfield's post @ 12:27 AM.

Posted by Korha | May 16, 2008 3:53 PM

The Marquis of Carabas,

"Er, but that we shouldn't perform involuntary experiments on people is, er, an unverifiable, unreasoned belief, in this sense."

No, it isn't. The definition of dignity Pinker offered was "personal autonomy". That definition would preclude involuntary experiments. We can verify that involuntary experiments violate personal autonomy. We can also verify that personal autonomy has a fairly high degree of correspondence with what people generally call dignity. We can argue the details, but the basic definition is both reasonable and culturally verifiable.

Posted by conradg | May 16, 2008 6:03 PM

ConradG,

Yes, but you can't prove that what you call 'personal autonomy' is good, or at least the highest good. That liberty, prosperity, comfort and autonomy are first-order values is an unverified, unreasonable belief (which happens to be wrong).

I think that there is a degree to which personal autonomy is a good, but there are definitely things which are better and more important. If someone wants to use their personal autonomy to live for 200 years (or for that matter, to have an abortion, patronize a prostitute, use cocaine, work for less than the minimum wage, or make money by playing the stock market) then I don't have particular problems with saying that they should not be allowed to do any of these things.

I happen to believe that only the face of suffering, hardship, and, yes, death can the human virtues that we cherish (courage, charity, love, generosity, self-sacrifice) flourish. The natural corollary of John 15:13 is that a world without death would be a world without sacrifice and therefore a world without love.

A hedonistic paradise in which the human lifespan was extended to 200 years would be a dystopia, not an utopia. In the 1930s Berdyaev said that the hedonistic modernist utopia of unlimited pleasure was now a technical possibility, and the great challenge of the future was how, at any cost, to prevent it from becoming a reality. He was right. Fortunately, peak oil and other natural resource shortages are solving that problem for us. My hope and prayer is that our rape of the natural environment succeed in destroying modernity before modernity succeeds in destroying our souls.

Posted by Hector | May 16, 2008 6:30 PM

I happen to believe that only the face of suffering, hardship, and, yes, death can the human virtues that we cherish (courage, charity, love, generosity, self-sacrifice) flourish.

Given the second law of thermodynamics, there will always be some limit to human power. In fact, like a brighter candle expanding the circle of darkness surrounding it, greater human capability might just expand the circle of limitation, and make us more aware of our humble place in the universe.

Posted by Consumatopia | May 16, 2008 7:02 PM

"As Pinker aptly illustrates with Kass's strange jeremiad against the venal ice cream cone, Kass is an extreme, anti-tntellectual radical who rejects basic ideals of modernity, autonomy, and individual liberty."

AND

"Sure, Leon Kass is a ridiculous nutbar who wouldn't be appointed to a pizza-ordering committee by a sane President, let alone a bioethics committee."

For shame! My guess is that Leon Kass, M.D. and Ph.D. (yes, he originally trained as a medical doctor and then got his Ph.D. in frickin' BIOCHEMISTRY) knows a lot more about science (and "modernity", whatever that means) than either of the authors of those two shameful quotes above. Look, I have no issue with disagreeing with Dr. Kass on a particular issue; but be warned that he has come to his position through lots and lots of intellectual thought and to dismiss him as some sort of "ridiculous nutbar" simply goes to show us all how little some people who read blogs know. Work your way through "The Hungry Soul" or better yet "The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis". I consider myself a lukewarm atheist and came away from that second book with an appreciation for the knowledge and yes, wisdom, of the Bible I never had before.

And mad props to Consumatopia, who makes two interesting points, although I'd have to disagree about our natural lives being inherently undignified. But that is a debate for another day...

Posted by Jeff Singer | May 16, 2008 8:00 PM

HectorG,

Yes, there are greater values than personal autonomy, but that isn't the question at hand. The question is to find a working definition of dignity. There is no claim on the table that dignity is the highest of virtues, nor do I beleive it is, so I don't think a definition of dignity should put as the highest of values either. Personal autonomy seems like a pretty good working definition, particularly in the absence of anything but a vaguely stated and subjectively practiced "I know it when I see it" alternative.

I found this statement curious:

"I happen to believe that only the face of suffering, hardship, and, yes, death can the human virtues that we cherish (courage, charity, love, generosity, self-sacrifice) flourish. The natural corollary of John 15:13 is that a world without death would be a world without sacrifice and therefore a world without love."

The implication is that heaven, in which there is no death, would be a world without love, which seems to utterly contradict Christian doctrine. Are you saying that once we get into heaven, because there is no death, we will indulge ourselves in all the vices we abstained from in order to get there?

Likewise, are you saying that in acheiving the successes we sacrificed for, we will undoubtedly become unvirtuous? This suggests that all wealthy people, or people of any significant attainment, will lack virtue. That does not seem to be the case, not universally at least. I'm very puzzled by your point of view.

Posted by conradg | May 16, 2008 8:36 PM

ConradG,

Heaven isn't like other places. Heaven is different.

Posted by Hector | May 17, 2008 9:39 AM

Hunh, not a single word that even tries to address Pinkers actual argument about how functionally useless a term dignity is to the bioethics debate.

Ross, you really, really need to correct this problem with your blogging. Virtually every post has become a bunch of content-free potshots at people that side-step their arguments to merely accuse hyperbolically them of being nasty buggers.

You obviously have opinions and arguments and critiques of your own, and many of them are interesting, insightful, and important, which is why we keep holding out hope that we'll hear some of them once and awhile. Make a damn argument every so often! You're GOOD at it... when you do it.

Posted by Bad | May 17, 2008 12:55 PM

Reading Pinker's essay, I understand his spleen. A bioethics council stuffed with people arguing from religious points and no expertise in biology or the sciences has been slanted from the beginning.

Plus, given the Catholic (and other churches) having used similar arguments about dignity and similar arguing against what are now standard practices in modern medicine (such as anesthesia during childbirth), I'd think a certain amount of humility and caution would be in order. Perhaps we don't want to rush into things. But neither do we want to use our feelings of discomfort about some medical procedure to halt the very real possibilities of advances in medicine. It's very easy to argue about the "morality" of a particular procedure when it's not you (or your child) whose life is being saved.

Posted by grumpy realist | May 17, 2008 2:37 PM

Kass is an extreme, anti-tntellectual radical who rejects basic ideals of modernity, autonomy, and individual liberty.

I'm guessing that you regard this as a bad thing. I don't. And you don't have the foggiest notion of what radicals believe. Hint - they believe in nonsense such as ""modernity","autonomy", and "individual liberty".

Posted by James | May 17, 2008 8:33 PM

A bioethics council stuffed with people arguing from religious points

Yeah, why on earth should a bio-ethics council not be stuffed solely with atheistic scientists? We all know that they are natural experts on ethics. This Pinker clown, for instance.

Posted by James | May 17, 2008 8:38 PM

Macklin argued that bioethics has done just fine with the principle of personal autonomy--the idea that, because all humans have the same minimum capacity to suffer, prosper, reason, and choose, no human has the right to impinge on the life, body, or freedom of another.

Repeating your own flawed ideology as if it's incontrovertible truth does not actually help you win an argument, in the grown-up world. But perhaps Pinker is not familiar with the grown-up world.

The only "personal autonomy" Pinker is interested in is his own. And he clearly does NOT think that everyone has the minimum capacity to reason. For instance, it's pretty clear he regards Kass as lacking in that respect.

Posted by James | May 17, 2008 8:46 PM

Look, I think Pinker was right. If we are going to have a bioethics panel, it should be comprised of scientists who have numerous peer-revied publications, not anyone motivated by religious belief. We have to make sure that no judgment about these matters is ever tainted by religious superstition.

More importantly, though, I think Pinker hits at the main point. If you want science to save your life, extend it, and give it more value and variety, as most people do, then the Leon Kasses of the world have to be stopped, because they don't believe in that at all. (Nor do many of the people on this thread.) It's like when abstinence advocates stop talking about religion and start talking about how sex really is "better" when you wait. No thanks, I'll take my sex advice from people who have actually had it.

Posted by Dilan Espe | May 17, 2008 10:14 PM

HectorG,

"Heaven isn't like other places. Heaven is different"

I could ask how, but I gather the answer is a variant upon "magic".

But let's just look at life on earth then. Again, your words were:

"I happen to believe that only the face of suffering, hardship, and, yes, death can the human virtues that we cherish (courage, charity, love, generosity, self-sacrifice) flourish."

So, you are in favor of preventing life-saving technologies from being developed, in the name of virtue? Is this really what Christian virtue comes to? Should we outlaw heart surgery, vitamins, and seat belts also? Should we ensure that life is as difficult as possible, in order to promote virtue? How about a 14 hour workday, and perhaps the re-institution of slavery? Imagine the virtues that would promote? Why not just outlaw all technology, and live as the Amish do? Or is that not enough suffering for your tastes?

Okay, try a different tack. Are you saying that the rich are lacking in virtue, because they have it too easy? How about reinstituting a 90% tax, with no deductions allowed? That should restore virtue to those degenerates. I think this is a wonderful political platform to promote. Why don't you lead a movement? You could take the first step by making your life considerably more miserable than it is right now, and become all the more virtuous as a consequence.

I guess you are saying that only the poor and struggling are virtuous. Why not require that only poor people can hold public office in this country? Isn't that what Jesus would have wanted? The reform possibilities are endless.

Now, if only you were sincere. That would be a good start.

Posted by conradg | May 17, 2008 10:46 PM

ConradG,

You may be talking to the wrong person. My economics are socialistic so in my ideal society no, there would be no rich people. 90% tax rates? Sure, why not? I'll go you one better, let's have 100% tax rates on high incomes. Of course I don't think anyone should be _making_ those kind of incomes anyway, and certainly not from property income, so the question shouldn't arise.

I am for a kind of society that allows the human virtues to flourish best. That isn't a society of privation and general poverty, but nor is it is a society of affluence. It is, in a word, a society of _sufficiency_. A pity that we seem to have forgotten what this simple word means.

Really, it's the Dilans of the world who need to be stopped since they want to create the hedonic dystopia that would make virtue impossible. The Falangist general Millan Astray whose war cry was "Long Live Death" perhaps uttered a deeper truth than they knew.

Posted by Hector | May 17, 2008 11:02 PM

HectorG,

You're not answering my question, other than the one about tax rates. You are arguing against doing medical research that would save lives, because to do so would limit virtue. So what other technology would you outlaw or roll back? Why not allow open heart surgery, or vitamins, as I suggested? You argue for a culture of "sufficiency", but you don't define sufficiency. The world got by without modern medicine and nutrition for ages. Sure, lifespans were much shorter, but virtue must have been much higher, by your logic. So why not return to a non-technological past?

Now, I can certainly understand someone like yourself choosing to live in a primitive manner. What I can't understand is wanting to impose by law such things on others, which is what is going on with the outlawing of new stem cell research lines, certainly not by the rationale of "virtue" you propose.

And btw, socialism has been rejected by virtually the entire world. Do you think it should be imposed on us by force, to promote virtue? Why is it that socialism in practice doesn't seem to make societies more virtuous, but in fact more evil?

Posted by conradg | May 18, 2008 1:36 PM

Jeff Singer: Kass "has come to his position through lots and lots of intellectual thought and to dismiss him as some sort of 'ridiculous nutbar' simply goes to show us all how little some people who read blogs know."

If someone through "lots and lots of intelectual thought" comes to absurd conclusions--as Kass famously does on the menace of public licking of ice cream cones--why not ridicule him for his absurdities?

If someone doesn't want to be ridiculed he shouldn't say things that are ridiculous.

Posted by Dave T | May 26, 2008 3:39 AM