According to Christopher Hitchens (here), the recently-much-remarked recording of Pres. Nixon discussing Roe and abortion are instructive with respect to the Republican Party. Perhaps. It seems to me (and maybe this is Hitchens's point) Nixon's (loathesome) statement, "There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white", ought to make uncomfortable not just those in the Democratic Party who support both racial equality and expansive abortion rights but also those who insist that the recipe for Republican electoral success is to return to the "moderation" of Whitman, Rockefeller, . . . and Nixon. The message of the tape is not, it seems to me, that today's pro-life Republicans are secret racists, or hypocrites who talk a good game on abortion but don't really mean it. It is, instead, that the old, "moderate", establishment, Planned Parenthood, pro-choice position -- i.e., Nixon's position, and the GOP's position before Reagan -- is not easily separable from Sanger-esque (loathesome) eugenicist and racist views.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The latest issue of the Cornell Law Review has some very interesting-looking papers on Property, obligation, and virtue by, inter alia, my friend and natural-rights expert Eric Claeys, and our own Eduardo Penalver. Check it out.
Here. He concludes:
The rule of experts might be fine if they were philosopher-kings who had united in themselves not only technological power but perfect wisdom. But of course, it's much more clear that the human power over nature and human nature is growing faster than is our wisdom to use it well for authentically human purposes. The experts, we have to remember, very often hide their own personal opinions and ideological agendas behind their impersonal claims to merely be following what the studies say. We can learn from them, but as long as they fall short of perfect objectivity based on perfect wisdom, we shouldn't trust them. These days, the people, above all, should distrust meddlesome, schoolmarmish judges and bureaucrats (and presidents who enable them) who want to deprive them of the capacity of thinking for themselves.
Micah Watson has some thoughts, here, at Public Discourse:
The lines of disagreement in the philosophical debate over abortion have never been clearer. While the politics of abortion remain as tumultuous and contested as they have ever been, the underlying philosophical, ethical, and scientific issues have been clarified to the extent that any careful person can examine the arguments of both sides and come to a principled and informed position.
This has not always been the case. . . .
. . . the philosophical debate about the normative dimensions of the abortion issue still comes down to the aforementioned watershed difference: either human beings as such have a right to life, or some human beings have a right to life and are thus persons, and some are not and are thus expendable.
While pro-life philosophers must continue their work by applying principles to emerging bioethical questions, the argumentative clarity achieved by their work in the abortion debate has implications for pro-lifers who seek to continue to influence both the law and the culture. Perhaps the most important implication is also the most obvious. If the philosophical debate about abortion is over, the political debate remains.
Thoughts?
I am reading Alasdair MacIntyre's new book, "God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition." Check it out. It's conversational and accessible, but also provocative and profound.
