tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1899606766246433608.post3167515948524820200..comments2023-11-08T12:09:20.020-05:00Comments on Prove Me Wrong: The Secular Case for Life-PreliminariesJonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10530680372103907969noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1899606766246433608.post-60449426461726777002013-11-30T01:18:22.809-05:002013-11-30T01:18:22.809-05:00Hi! It's probably rude to drop in with a comme...Hi! It's probably rude to drop in with a comment so long after a piece was posted, but I just stumbled across your blog (a serendipitous chain of googling lead me to your piece on Bogdanor, and I was intrigued, so kept reading).<br /><br />This post piqued my interest for two, connected, reasons. Firstly, you expressed your admiration for the logical clairty of bd-from-kg's argument. This surprised me somewhat, given that it seemed to me that, after some clever slicing and dicing of the term "personhood", bd revealed his hand when he fell back on a slippery-slope argument in his concluding paragraph. Basically, logic or no logic, he's just worried that things are going to hell in a handbasket, and that Roe v Wade is unravelling some kind of social compact that previously existed. But this is not a logical point at all. This is a historical / sociological point - does the evidence about US policy, attitudes or behaviour support bd's fear that things are getting worse after Roe v Wade? I would suggest that a logician is not well suited to answering that question. (I would also suggest that the evidence doesn't show any such consequences - bd mistakenly conflates the idea of logical and sociological consequence, and there is no evidence for any <i>sociological</i> consequences of Roe v Wade - but that's another discussion!)<br /><br />The second reason for my interest follows from the first - bd's post seems to illustrate a little bugbear I have about the role of logic in philosophy. I would argue that formal logic is rarely an adequate tool for reasoning about things that actually matter - and that it is often actually an inappropriate tool. Formal logic as we now know it emerged from the foundational crisis in mathematics in the 19th century, and requires the ability to pin down the terms it works with with absolute precision - something that, as even Aristotle recognized, is unlikely to be possible when you move from the abstract realm of mathematics to the concrete realm of human activities (or even the concrete world of physics, for that matter). This means that the question of how we interpret arguments, and the emotional values that underpin those interpretations, are usually far more important than the precise definitions we propose, or the chain of reasoning we follow. I think that bd's argument illustrates this quite well, as illustrated by his need to fall back on a slippery slope based on his fear of moral chaos.<br /><br />The reason that I think that formal logic can be a positively inappropriate tool is that the rigor and precision of logic can provide a false sense of the strength of an argument. It's hard to argue with someone who has studied formal logic - the jargon alone is almost impossible for the outsider to penetrate - but it all <i>seems</i> so impressive. We often have the feeling that when something is presented in such a rigorous form it must be true. But this is not the case. An argument can be entirely consistent internally, and yet have absolutely no connection to anything outside itself at all. Or, even worse, it can have the <i>appearance</i> of a connection to something outside of itself, but no substantive salience on closer examination. But who can subject the work of a professional logician to closer examination? It's pretty daunting!<br /><br />So what we end up with is often a situation just like we do in many religious settings - the guy with the bigger words wins.<br /><br />If you're interested, this is a line of thinking that was pursued by the British philosopher Stephen Toulmin, who argued that we should take a more "legal" approach to argument, recognising the inability to formalise most of what matters to us. It has also been developed in the field of political science by a number of scholars who have picked up on Aristotle's argument in his Rhetoric that political arguments cannot be the same as logical ones.<br /><br />Anyway, sorry if I've missed a lot of important discussion on this issue in subsequent posts!<br /><br />MikeMikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18343359542264202632noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1899606766246433608.post-1708260766457151122008-03-01T02:59:00.000-05:002008-03-01T02:59:00.000-05:00Actually, I do think that some animals (for exampl...Actually, I do think that some animals (for example gorillas and chimps) do deserve some basic rights, such as the right to life. The level of rights should correlate to the level of consciousness.<BR/><BR/>Also, I'm not confidant that infanticide can be assumed <I>a priori</I> to be wrong.Joshuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18166542310875643992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1899606766246433608.post-49426585336316780102008-02-27T22:15:00.000-05:002008-02-27T22:15:00.000-05:00I'm not sure consciousness is the issue. Whether ...I'm not sure consciousness is the issue. Whether they are conscious or not is irrelevant, because animals are conscious and this doesn't mean they deserve the protections of law. This is why I think cognition is the real issue.<BR/><BR/>So getting back to Sophie21's point, maybe a fuller answer would emphasize that if the criterion were about having been cognitive in the past, then it seems pretty obvious to me that an infant would not qualify. There's no good reason to think that an infant reasons, so there's no good reason to think that it deserves the protections of the law under this criterion. I hope you would agree that a criterion that excludes infants would have to be inadequate.Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10530680372103907969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1899606766246433608.post-52523714990345344422008-02-27T19:03:00.000-05:002008-02-27T19:03:00.000-05:00Whether infants qualify or not does depend on the ...Whether infants qualify or not does depend on the definition of cognition or consciousness. Currently neuroscientists are having problems understanding what parts of the brain need to be going to give rise to consciousness. <BR/><BR/>So I don't really know whether infants are conscious or not, but am certain that a fetus/embryo without a functioning brain cannot be.Joshuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18166542310875643992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1899606766246433608.post-42494767355581537552008-02-24T12:46:00.000-05:002008-02-24T12:46:00.000-05:00Would infants qualify?Would infants qualify?Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10530680372103907969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1899606766246433608.post-43986669232710721072008-02-23T04:30:00.000-05:002008-02-23T04:30:00.000-05:00Sorry for the delay between comments.Yes, I'd say ...Sorry for the delay between comments.<BR/><BR/>Yes, I'd say that is a fair summary of my view on this issue.Joshuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18166542310875643992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1899606766246433608.post-10302936309679489572008-02-13T19:14:00.000-05:002008-02-13T19:14:00.000-05:00So Joshua is it fair to say that your view is that...So Joshua is it fair to say that your view is that a living thing should be given protections of the law if it has been capable of cognition in the past and can be reasonably expected to be capable of cognition in the future?Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10530680372103907969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1899606766246433608.post-73016302430208361882008-02-12T23:06:00.000-05:002008-02-12T23:06:00.000-05:00Yes, I don't think that accurately addresses the i...Yes, I don't think that accurately addresses the issue.<BR/><BR/>I think it looks at each characteristic in isolation. I think that one has to look at the interruption of a personality - a consciousness - without consent. Essentially the preservation of conscious life.<BR/><BR/>Therefore, I feel that one must look at both the past and the future. Preservation implies there was something there of importance in the first place and that it can in fact continue into the future.Joshuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18166542310875643992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1899606766246433608.post-54312594999661106512008-02-12T10:11:00.000-05:002008-02-12T10:11:00.000-05:00Joshua, it looks like that was addressed. Here is...Joshua, it looks like that was addressed. Here is what is said in response to that. If you think that isn't satisfactory you can tell me why, but if you'd rather not discuss that's fine.<BR/><BR/>"But, you say, his brain has in the past been capable of cognition. So what? So has a dead man’s. At any rate the “capable of cognition” criterion is inherently forward-looking: it looks at functionality. The point of choosing functionality as a criterion is that it is related to what an individual can do in the future. Looking at the past is completely contrary to the spirit of the “capable of cognition” criterion."Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10530680372103907969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1899606766246433608.post-6635994587071599992008-02-12T02:52:00.000-05:002008-02-12T02:52:00.000-05:00I don't feel you addressed the comments of Sophie2...I don't feel you addressed the comments of Sophie21 in your blog entry. I will repeat them here:<BR/><BR/><I>The fetus has never thought nor felt, so isn't a person</I><BR/><BR/>Mr Smith, even being totally drunk with only a chance of recovery, <B>has</B> thought and felt. He has formed memories, has hopes and dreams etc<BR/><BR/>Murder, in my opinion, is wrong because you are interrupting the ongoing consciousness of a person. Therefore, when the person has never been conscious (as is the case with the foetus), OR never will again be conscious (as is the case with brain-damaged individuals such as Terri Schiavo), then the death is not wrong.<BR/><BR/>I don't mean to enter in to an argument with you, just to point out an area in which you may want to elaborate your point of view.Joshuahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18166542310875643992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1899606766246433608.post-60612824829145399862007-11-18T01:49:00.000-05:002007-11-18T01:49:00.000-05:00Great post! Thanks for posting it Jon.Great post! Thanks for posting it Jon.HispanicPundithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10220166238164432290noreply@blogger.com