»ἕως θανάτου ἀγώνισαι περὶ τñς ἀληθείας, καὶ Κύριος ὁ θεὸς πολεμήσει ὑπὲρ σοu.« • »Pro iustitia agonizare pro anima tua, et usque ad mortem certa pro iustitia: et Deus expugnabit pro te inimicos tuos.« (Sir. 4:28/33)
The Catholic bishops of the United States called “literally unconscionable” a decision by the Obama Administration to continue to demand that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans. Today's announcement means that this mandate and its very narrow exemption will not change at all; instead there will only be a delay in enforcement against some employers.
“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The cardinal-designate continued, “To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable. It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty. … The government should not force Americans to act as if pregnancy is a disease to be prevented at all costs….”
“This is nothing less than a direct attack on religion and First Amendment rights,” said Franciscan Sister Jane Marie Klein, chairperson of the board at Franciscan Alliance, Inc., a system of 13 Catholic hospitals. …
Daughter of Charity Sister Carol Keehan, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, voiced disappointment with the decision[:] … “This was a missed opportunity to be clear on appropriate conscience protection….”
Secretary of Health and Human Services and pro-abortion Catholic Kathleen Sebelius [has] announced that the proposed mandate requiring all insurance plans to pay for contraception, sterilization and some abortion drugs is official -- and Catholics cannot escape….
Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan responded…: “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.”
Beginning August 1, 2012…, the insurance premiums we pay, including the insurance premiums paid by Catholics for employees of churches and schools … will be used to cover drugs and procedures that are in direct conflict with the teachings of our Church. … Our government will now force us to pay for insurance coverage for birth control, sterilization and even some abortion drugs. …
Make no mistake, this decision is a direct attack on you, our Church, and the religious liberty of all Americans.
… Pope Benedict XVI addressed the bishops from the United States who were completing their "Ad Limina" visit in Rome. The Holy Father specifically cited the "grave threats" to the freedom of the Church in America, and urged the Catholic community to respond, especially with "an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity." …
[In twelve] months, America will welcome a new president, or usher in four more years of Barack Obama and his assault on our liberties. This irony is not lost on us. … The Catholic vote must rise up like never before.
A worried woman went to her gynecologist and said:
'Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your help! My baby is not even 1 year old and I'm pregnant again. I don't want kids so close together.'
So the doctor said: 'Ok and what do you want me to do?'
She said: 'I want you to end my pregnancy, and I'm counting on your help with this.'
The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said to the lady: 'I think I have a better solution for your problem. It's less dangerous for you too.'
She smiled, thinking that the doctor was going to accept her request.
Then he continued: 'You see, in order for you not to have to take care of 2 babies at the same time, let's kill the one in your arms. This way, you could rest some before the other one is born. If we're going to kill one of them, it doesn't matter which one it is. There would be no risk for your body if you chose the one in your arms.'
The lady was horrified and said: 'No doctor! How terrible! It's a crime to kill a child!'
'I agree', the doctor replied. 'But you seemed to be OK with it, so I thought maybe that was the best solution.'
The doctor smiled, realizing that he had made his point.
He convinced the mom that there is no difference in killing a child that's already been born and one that's still in the womb. The crime is the same!
Love says, 'I sacrifice myself for the good of the other person.' Abortion says, 'I sacrifice the other person for the good of myself.'
Prayers failed. --> God doesn't exist and religion is bunk.
Justice failed. --> Truth doesn't exist and virtue is bunk.
The experiments failed. --> Nature doesn't exist and science is bunk.
Depending on one's biases, none of the negative aspects of the above dimension of human life will seriously undercut the overarching value and reality of their subjects. Every experiment, to paraphrase T. F. Torrance, is like a prayer to nature, in order to seek if our intentions and actions (hypotheses and experiments) accord with the will of nature. Every legal effort is, or should be, in the pursuit of justice, and even when justice is abused, we must fight that much harder to (literally) rectify things. The power of religion lies in its efforts to bring the inner and out worlds, so to speak, into alignment with the highest reality. The myriad failures in such an endeavor are the fuel for an even greater fire, to be caged only by humility and hope. "[T]he historical development of a science is seldom rational" (J. P. Burgess, _Philosophical Logic_, p. 47). Likewise, the historical development of a religion is seldom spiritual.
"A fetus lacks sufficient neural abilities to function, and therefore to 'count', as a human person. More to the point, a fetus is basically unconscious, so it doesn't suffer conscious pains if it is aborted. Therefore, fetal abortion is not immoral or cruel."
Reply:
According to Freudian theory, a human functions in three psychic dimensions: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the dominant, fundamental dimension, comprising the most basic somatic drives. The ego is just the "tip of the iceberg" in human behavior. The real engine is below consciousness. Human nature subsists in its unconscious functions. Delving into a person's subconscious is delving into the person's real character. Conscious behavior is by and large a lattice of pseudo-drives and confabulation constructed to protect one's id or even to protect one's own ego from one's own id.
In so far as a fetus is an unconscious humanoid, it is an archetypal Freudian agent. It displays all the somatic drives that an ego will eventually gild: homeostasis, nutrition, expansion, crude stimulus response, etc. Just because the fetus does not (presumably) consciously feel pain during an abortion does not mean the abortion is not being performed against a human subject. Indeed, just because a psychiatric patient is not consciously aware of his innermost drives does not mean those drives are not human drives.
Therefore, a fetus is a true human person and abortion is cruelty against an unwitting subject.
I believe the citation is to be found in Robert Kane's introduction to free will, which is not with me at the moment: Nietzsche once called free will the greatest self-deception of all time. Nietzsche, as you may or may not know, wrote a lot about "self-deception" and its role in normal human behavior. By normal, of course, Nietzsche meant only dubious convention, the socially triangulated willfulness of some to control and shame others. Free will is a self-deception partly because it sunders, in Nietzsche's eyes, the eternal unity of each of us with everything else. "Die Lehre von der Freiheit des Willens," Nietzsche asserts, "ist eine Erfindung herrschender Stände" (Werke I - Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, "Der Wanderer" 9, 6. Aufl. Frankfurt/M u. a.: Ullstein, 1969, S. 877 (II, II)). ["The doctrine of the freedom of the will is an invention of the ruling classes."]
Recent experiences had me pondering the dubious motives behind that other great self-deception––if we're going to play the "philosophy by suspicion" game, I mean––, namely, determinism. For, if we can treat all viewpoints as but fragile shells of rhetoric placed over deeper, self-serving motives, how can we not see determinism––the denial that one has freedom to form one's own character in certain instances––as the peak of self-serving rhetoric? How convenient it is to be able to say, "It was not I, but my genes, not I, but my upbringing, not I, but my environment"! I know a retired lawyer who now believes the entire legal-penal system is just a social sham, a power game, and should be radically reformed, if not totally scrapped, in light of the truth that humans lack free will. Awfully convenient: the legal-penal system is a scandal only after one has completed one's very lucrative career in it. Fortunately, of course, not even that bit of self-deception is blameworthy, since our man had no choice but to be a hypocrite.
My critique is not, I believe, a very novel insight, but it is something worth keeping in mind. The usual slant in these debates is that hard determinists are actually more compassionate, more reasonable, more cutting-edge, and the like, since they seek to dissolve musty old conventions like "morality," "guilt," "responsibility," "law," "punishment," etc. with more humane ideas like "reform," "acceptance," "quarantine," and so on. It's always hip to be Buddhist, and, allegedly, the Buddhist thing to do is simply to accept everyone's so-called failings, without adding punishment and social rage to their already pitiful fate (cf. this Wiki link and this essay [PDF!] for some corrective data). The problem, though, is that even this tack resolves back into the schema of praise and blame, since compassionate determinism is proposed as the morally praiseworthy course of action. The self-deception does not stop there, however, for another major benefit of compassionate determinism is that one is granted a pardon for all one's failings. Adultery? No problem! We know you didn't mean it: we know you could not have done otherwise. Fraud? Same pass. Murder? Pass. Holocaust? Er, well, uh….
This ambivalence about "forgiving oneself" and yet making just condemnations of "truly evil people" (like Hitler) ran through Einstein's life. Consider these quotations from Einstein:
"An Freiheit des Menschen im philosophischen Sinne glaube ich keineswegs. Jeder handelt nicht nur unter äußerem Zwang sondern auch gemäß innerer Notwendigkeit. … Schopenhauers Spruch: 'Ein Mensch kann zwar tun, was er will, aber nicht wollen, was er will', hat mich seit meiner Jugend lebendig erfüllt und ist mir beim Anblick und beim Erleiden der Härten des Lebens immer ein Trost gewesen und eine unerschöpfliche Quelle der Toleranz" (Albert Einstein, Mein Weltbild. Zürich: Ullstein, 2005, S. 9).
["By no means do I believe in human freedom in the philosophical sense. Everyone acts not only from external compulsion but also from internal necessity. … Schopenhauer's dictum: 'A man can certainly do what he wants, but cannot will what he wants', has (ful)filled my life since youth and has always been a comfort in the face of suffering the hard things in life, as well as being an inexhaustible source of tolerance."]
Never mind that Einstein also vocally condemned the Nazis during and after the War for their moral wrongdoing. Somehow, "our" lack of free will is a pitiful fact, while "their" misuse of freedom is an onerous truth. Either way the polarity is a useful fiction for those who wish to be among the morally ruling class ("ist eine nützliche Erfindung der, die dem sittlich herrschenden Stände gehören möchten").
"Unser Handeln sei getragen von dem stets lebendigen Bewußtsein, daß die Menschen in ihrem Denken, Fühlen und Tun nicht frei sind, sondern ebenso kausal gebunden wie die Gestirne in ihren Bewegungen."
["Our behavior is borne by the always living consciousness that humans are not free in their thinking, feeling and doing, but rather are as causally bound as the stars in their motions."]
–– aus Einstein sagt. Alice Calaprice (Hrsg.), München/Zürich: Piper, 1997, S. 177.
Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson made the remarks when ruling on the case of a Christian couple who were told that they could not be foster carers because of their view that homosexuality is wrong.
The judges underlined that, in the case of fostering arrangements at least, the right of homosexuals to equality “should take precedence” over the right of Christians to manifest their beliefs and moral values.
In a ruling with potentially wide-ranging implications, the judges said Britain was a “largely secular”, multi-cultural country in which the laws of the realm “do not include Christianity”.
Campaigners for homosexual rights welcomed the judgment for placing “21st-century decency above 19th-century prejudice”. Christian campaigners claimed that it undermined the position of the Church of England.
Dennett starts from cognitivism and thereby disproves introspective rationalism (á la the beer taster scenario, or my own recent "how heavy is this dumbbell now versus last time" scenario). This is like a man starting from a store-bought roadmap and 'thereby' disproving that you can reach San Francisco in seven inches.
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"I have heard when my gay friends first had consciousness of their gay attractions, and it was pretty young, as young as my consciousness of heterosexual attractions, therefore it is morally acceptable."
"I have heard when my audited friends first had consciousness of their attractions to laundering, and it was pretty young, as young as my consciousness of the obligation not to steal, therefore it is morally acceptable."
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We all know drunk guys fight the best and have the most power on tap, therefore, train drunk and you will be immune to the pains that prevent you from breaking through into the powers of Drunkdom.
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I am a philosopher by trade. You are a not-philosopher by trade. I make X dollars per year. You invariably make X+ dollars per year. Yet, I surpass you existentially since my occupation is to dwell on what you dwell upon during your drive home and those moments when you wife and children and boss are not commmandeeeeering your cognitive capacities. I lose, yet I I win. That's philosophical alchemy for you.
