Culture (Speed + Direction) = Cultural Velocity
Barbara Boxer, re: the new health care bill’s abortion-restrictive amendment, made a pretty good pro-choice argument for being pro-life. She all but admits that abortion is a sexual accessory.
I don’t know whether to thank her or tsk her. I’m feeling charitable in a sarcastic-sort-of-way, so I’ll go with thank.
“Thanks Barbara!”
So much for good intentions. I haven’t exactly made good of my hope to post more frequently. I don’t like purely personal updates, but most of my personal life is academic now anyway.
What I’ve Been Reading (and Writing)
I’ve been reading mostly metaphysics and epistemology for the past three months, and I love it. Currently writing (more accurately, shirking at the moment) a precis (a short summary of an article, chapter or book) on “The Incoherence of Empiricism”–which is an insightful series of arguments by George Bealer (Yale) that seriously undermine empiricism. Empiricism is just the view that our only evidence for beliefs (and therefore, theories) are experience and observation. This leaves out intuition, and notably, those particular beliefs that “we just know” on the basis of intuition.
There are apparently various forms of arguments against empiricism that it begs the question (assumes what its trying to prove), but Bealer hopes to show that it’s also self-defeating–it undermines itself by its own principles. So even if it didn’t beg the question, it’d be incoherent. Here’s a bit from my essay that I rather like (it’s summarizing one of Bealer’s points):
Empiricists have prima facie evidence for doubting that theories deviating from the epistemic norm are justified.
Empiricism deviates from the epistemic norm.
Therefore, empiricists have reason to doubt that empiricism is justified.
Fun, huh?
On other fronts, I’m reading Substance and Modern Science, by Richard Connell for my metaphysics term paper (due to our illustrious professor, J.P. Moreland). This an interesting little book on, well, substances, and the contention of modern science that they do not exist.
Also reading for a term paper on Hebrew wisdom and poetry for my Old Testament class. I’m synthesizing Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiasties and Song of Songs over 20 pages. It’s a topic better suited for a series of books, but I’m hoping to narrow my discussion with an examination of theodicy (a response to the problem of evil) in these books. I’ve had a long-time personal interest in Old Testament wisdom literature, so this is fun.
Finally, another epistemology paper – one that I’m sorely behind on reading for: religious epistemology. I haven’t narrowed my topic from there, so maybe another post sometime soon will help with that.
(Lani’s doing the metaphysics and OT paper [her's is on the Pentateuch], too; and she’s working on a really awesome paper on “An Aristotelian Formulation of the Role of Community in Moral Formation”–which sounds scrumtrilescient. I can’t wait to read it. I’ll have to post some of it to share with you, dear reader.)
Our Child
I couldn’t possibly represent what’s been going on inside of Lani’s body here. A child is there; moving around (kicking her in the bladder), feeding off something like 24 vitamins a day (not an exaggeration), forming neural connections at an exponential rate.
Name frontrunners:
If XX: Nan
If XY: Benjamin
Middle names are up in the air, but we’d like to use family names.
I’ve had more thoughts and feelings about all this, which I’ll have to collect and prepare, then slowly publish here. I don’t know how else to properly put them to, er… paper? html? Aye.
But for now, dats da haps.
6 weeks
11 weeks
20 weeks
So we’ve just wrapped up a 14-week class I was teaching on Philosophy & Worldview. Great great fun! Challenging for all, I think, but exactly what we (or, I, at the least) need to stay engaged and enjoying life.
So much so, in fact, that I’ve got another class starting up soon, on the lovely life and work of a man most of us (religious and ir-) look up to his unmatched combination of clarity, wit, smarts, creativity, and kind-heartedly brutal honesty (in some of his most powerful moments).
Feel free to track with the course via this new blog:
CLIVE STAPLES: The Life and Work of C.S. Lewis
I’ve been eager to see what actually came of Obama’s executive order and memo. I’d like to round off my previous three posts about this stuff with some more general comments.
(BTW – this guy’s actually talking about nature of the embryo, which is way cool! He also gets into IVF issues – which is too much to chew for now.)
I shall start thusly: I do not like false dichotomies. I believe they are dangerous to humanity. (E.g. faith vs. reason, public vs. private, sacred vs. secular, etc.)
“It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher.” – Albert Einstein, “Physics and Reality” (1936) [Okay, it's slightly out of context... look it up.]
Summaries of Today’s Executive Action
Order: “Yay stem cell research; we need more of it; remove limits [i.e. restrictions of federal funds and limited number of researchable embryonic stem cell lines] on “scientific inquiry” for the “benefit of humankind; human embryonic stem cell research (hESCR) is AOK within the law; guidance left to National Institutes of Health (NIH) to figure out – due in 120 days; Bush’s restrictions/limits officially revoked.”
Memo: “America relies on science and its progress to help form policy; the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy has 120 days to figure out how to “guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch” and share that with the Prez.”
Thoughts About the Order
I’ve said my piece before, but I want to reiterate the need for understanding what an embryo is. Greg Koukl wittingly points out that the answer to the question “Can I kill it?” depends on another bit of information… “WHAT is it?”
This order will change some things. Granted, it’s not entirely clear what the NIH will come out with in four months, but it seems safe to predict that:
Now, for the cloning comment today.
Obama brought up cloning (proving that stem cell issues at least beg the cloning question), admitting his belief that in it’s reproductive form, it is dangerous and wrong. But please note that cloning already exists. It’s called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). If “new lines of embryos are created” it will be by this process, which takes a bodily cell from an adult human, and injects it into the nucleus of a human egg, tricking the egg to think the somatic cell is sperm. At that point the egg is fertilized – you’ve got a clone. It’s an embryonic clone, but it’s still a clone.
Now, it’s good to know the Prez doesn’t like reproductive cloning, but he didn’t mention therapeutic cloning (SCNT for the purposes of making more embryos to study and break to pieces for their pluripotent cells). And he doesn’t seem to have a problem with that.
But what would the difference be? It brings us back to THE NATURE OF THE EMBRYO… again. If human life starts at fertilization (nod to the National Academy of Sciences), you’ve got a human clone whether it’s for therapeutic research (the clone is born to die) or for reproduction (the clone is born to live). Now, I am entirely against cloning, but certainly a live clone is better than a dead clone, right? And either way – whether therapeutic or reproductive, there is an issue with commodifying human life. The reproductive clone is a commodity: it is a synthesized, purchased human life. The therapeutic clone is also a commodity as well: it is also a synthesized, purchased human life. The difference lay only in the use. One’s purpose for living is satisfying an infertile couple with a child, the other’s fate is disassembly and then injection into the spine or heart or brain of an afflicted consumer.
So, Prez, do you hate therapeutic cloning just as much. Please say yes.
All in all, this is just the beginning of a four-month to four-year to God-knows-how-long drama over the lives and fate of the youngest and most vulnerable of our human community: the embryo.
Thoughts About the Memo
Now this is quite possibly more far-reaching than the Order today, simply because it’s about a reformulation of “scientific integrity” in politics. I’m a little iffy about this, and will obviously need to know more, and of course it depends on what shape the executive recommendations end up taking. Suffice it for now to say, there was NO MENTION of ethics in the Memo (though plllenty of musings in the press and the Prez’s comments about today’s actions).
I’m all for restoring integrity to science. But matters of integrity are ethical matters. I hope some of the guidelines help to foster more open dialogue and better communication and connecting and integrating of ethics with science. But the Barack himself railed against a “false choice” between science and morality… as his REASON for lifting the restrictions. No, it’s not one or the other, but the Bush restrictions came much closer to “neutral” than Obama’s “emancipation” – he’s already chosen a side: science.
I’m reeeeeeally hoping that the President’s Council on Bioethics remains in tact. They should be working intimately with the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the NIH. Lord have mercy.
Issues I’m Still Researching and Still Thinking About
There are are few unknowns for me still (I am, after all – GASP! – cognitively limited, which I am joyfully struggling to accept). Some you, my dear reader, might be able to correct, which I invite, and some I think require closer philosophical consideration:
Ultimately, my position on how to conduct stem cell public policy will depend on (in a sort of supplementary way) the answers to these questions, as well as my grounding belief on the matter: that “caring for each other and easing human suffering” (Obama’s words) demands that no human should ever be abused as a means to such care or ease of suffering. If embryos count as human life, then we need to care for them and ease their suffering.
The Wonderful Paradox of It All
And paradoxically, I’ve dedicated my life to One who did just such a thing. He certainly was abused as a means to great ends. And was so voluntarily, by His own design.
Shameful Emancipation
“Hallelujah, this marks the end of a long and repressive chapter in scientific history,” said stem cell researcher Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass. “It’s the stem-cell Emancipation Proclamation.”
It’s here.
So much for “restoring scientific integrity.” That’s right, the scientists – the masters – are finally free. Emancipated to more effectively and rampantly confine, shackle, and strip for parts the weakest and most vulnerable of the human community – human organisms at the earliest stage of life – the slaves.
That’s classy: hail Obama’s move tomorrow as a virtuous and courageous exclamation of freedom. Lanza, your parallel is folly. And worse, I fear your analogy is purposefully backwards: the slavemaster is declared free. Free from that dastardly, cursed concept of ethics; free from that burdensome and annoying responsibility for the weakest of our human family.
Finally right and wrong, the metaphysics of the person and the nature of humanity are no longer burdens to the scientist. Observe carefully:
“Public policy must be guided by sound scientific advice,” said Nobel Prize winner Harold Varmus, co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, discussing the order and memorandum Sunday.
Melody Barnes of Obama’s Domestic Policy Council added that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will set standards for federal science advisers, insulating them from political interference.
Noble Harold, and what shall guide your scientific advice? Will your Council also be insulated from ethical interference?
Needed: A Different Conversation
As long as the conversation continues to be about “science” – the usefulness of these “clumps of cells” – such critiques of embryonic stem cell research will continue to be ridiculed as anti-science, misinformed, and even evil. “How could you stand in the way of CURES!?! Precious CURES! Health! Wellness! Better-than-wellness! Limitlessness! Nay – immortality!”
To which, I wonder, “How could you stand aside at the pillaging of the weak and defenseless?”
I’ve railed for the last three posts on this: The conversation needs to be about the moral status and nature of humanity. Interestingly enough, the National Academy of Sciences has something to contribute.
“In medical terms, embryo usually refers to the developing human from fertilization (the zygote stage) until the end of the eighth week of gestation when the beginnings of the major organ systems have been established.”
Fertilization is conception, the only sensible point (scientifically, medically, philosophically, theologically, sociologically, ethically and politically) at which full-fledged membership to the human community should be granted. (That membership should grant the appropriate rights to humans 80 years after birth, 18 years after birth, 18 days prior to birth and 18 seconds after conception.)
I’m looking forward to this conversation. In the face of widespread disagreement, will we prudently give the benefit of the doubt (what little there is) to the entity in question: the embryo?
If you guys ever come to question my personhood, I hope you’d give that benefit to me, and not use a destructive percentage of my cells to inject into someone else. At least give me the choice my humanity secures, a choice that we currently do not respect among 21 (and soon to be hundreds more) lines of microscopic humanity.
Apparently, on Monday, Obama will undo a legitimate good deed done by Bush. Read all about it.
Bush made some big mistakes. The stem cell funding/research restriction was not one of them. Note: The restrictions weren’t even a ban (as pointed out by Jennifer Lahl at this link); federal and private funds were still doled out; it essentially amounted to a moratorium on created further lines – more human lives, who would be alive for the sole purpose of serving other ends. Sounds a lot like the abolition of man to me.
The word is “Embryonic stem cells offer promising results.” But so far, even with years of research, that’s it: a promise. I am tired of promises. Science sure is investing a lot of faith in these small humans. They’re even better politicians and PR people than they are scientists.
I wonder if the cure for Parkinson’s was known to be available simply by dismembering infants for their magical cells, if that would garner as much support as embryonic stem cell research. Of course, we’ve never gotten to clinical trials for that, so that’d be ridiculous to assume. Pardon me.
Again, the issue is not consequences. Whatever spinal injury, Parkinsons, diabetes, etc. patients who might benefit from embryonic stem cells will live, but not without blood on their hands.
The issue is the nature of the embryo – that thing you’re dicing up in a Petri dish.
Oh, and, please excuse me, I simply forgot that we’ve got federal dollars to spare.
Lord help us.
This article is a pretty concise intro to the stem cell issue we face. But it mostly leaves out an important factor in this debate: the status of the embryo.
Utilitarian Reasons
It so happens that adult stem cell therapy is already in human trials (and has been for YEARS), is safe for the patient, has produced amazing results, and doesn’t involve the creation or destruction of an embryo. It so happens. These are good consequences. From a utilitarian perspective, we say “yay, adult stem cell research!”
And it just might so happen that embryonic stem cell therapy is completely unsafe for patients. The very trait for which they are sought after (pluripotency) is the trait that is so destructive to patients (dangerously fast, varied and unpredictable growth). All this with ZERO data from human clinical trials (no, not a reason to start, either). The great hope of the embryonic stem cell is not based on scientific data – but scientific belief (it’s not even knowledge, since it’s hardly proven as true, let alone justified). Hence, these would be bad consequences. From a utilitarian perspective, we say “boo, embryonic stem cell research!”
Deontology, Virtue, Divine Command Reasons
So far, the discussion has been about consequences – or, the net utility that we can predict as the outcome of a given action (or a given kind of stem cell therapy).
I’m suggesting a closer consideration of not just consequences of actions, but the subjects and objects – the MORAL AGENTS – of such actions. The agents: scientists, unique fertilized embryos, non-embryonic stem cells, and patients (and of course, bloggers, politicians and celebrities… ascending order of credibility right? Guffaw.)
Of the agents, there are personal and impersonal kinds. Scientists and patients are unquestionably persons. Non-embryonic stem cells are unquestionably impersonal. The debate revolves around the personal status of the embryo (though I also call into question that of bloggers, politicians and celebrities…).
To be a person, I’d argue, grounds for the inviolable right to life and choice (IMPORTANT: “choice” only insofar as it doesn’t inhibit another’s right).
This is a moral rule (deontology) – one practiced by virtuous people (virtue theory), and commanded by God (divine command): do not abuse or kill persons.
The Point
The utility of consequences (a utilitarian value) should only count when all other things are equal. This, I think is the best way to take other important ethical theories into consideration. And in this situation, things are most certainly not equal: adult stem cell research has great consequences, and uses non-persons – embryonic stem cell research data is up in the air, but let’s say it is the greatest thing since sliced bread… it very well could be abusing and killing persons.
I’m arguing a weak point here (weak in the sense that I’m not even full-out arguing that embryos ARE persons). I do this to get all the scientists, patients, bloggers, politicians and celebrities to simply agree with this premise: fertilized eggs (embryos) COULD be persons.
THIS IS THE ISSUE THAT SHOULD BE AT THE VERY CENTER OF THE EMBRYONIC STEM CELL DEBATE. I’m confused why it’s not.
Consider, if you’ve read this far, dear reader: You’re in the woods on opening day of deer hunting season. You hear a rustle 20 feet ahead, peer through dense thicket at what you think is a deer. But, you’re only 50% sure. You see, you know there are other hunters in the woods, dear reader; you saw them all get out of their pick-up trucks in the woods’ parking lot. Do you shoot the “deer”? Unless you’re Dick Cheney, certainly not! After all, it could be a human that you’re peering at. Now what if you were 90% sure? There’s still a chance that it’s a human. Are you willing to risk it? I don’t think a properly functioning, virtuous person could conscionably do so.
Now, I don’t have much doubt about the status of the embryo. Picking a stage of development as a passage of an organism from non-personhood into personhood is way too arbitrary (and there are many different theories about what stage is enough for the organism to be considered a human person). The safest place is conception. Fertilization of sperm and egg. A unique, genetically distinct organism. Pre-embryo.
But! If there is any doubt about whether the embryo is a person – and there most certainly is – why do we favor discussion about consequences? The PRIORITY should be the question of personhood. If a person, then the answer should be simple: if a person is being abused or killed or both, the action is wrong. If not a person, then, and only then, let us weigh the consequences.
Grammie 1924-2009
These were the words I spoke, at the service, to Grammie, to my family, to myself, to God.
I’ll remember Grammie well – with very fond memories of bunk beds, of $5 and an old photo every month or so, the many Grammie-isms, and lots and lots of ben-gay… I can still smell that ben-gay.
Now, we grew up geographically apart. And yet, we were together. Not just on visits. Speicifically, she always used to tell me, at the end of every phone call, “I’ve got you on my shoulder: one of you [me and my brother] on each side.” Back in December, she reminded me for the last time. And since then, and especially in the past few weeks, I’ve come to understand this in a new way. All of us stand on shoulders – of those that go before us.
This family, with the faith we share in the triune God, it was passed on. Given. We received it from our parents. And in so receiving, we stood on their shoulders. And so in this way, she’s got us all on her shoulders. Just as she also is on another’s shoulder; as all of us are on the shoulder of Christ.
And this is our great and only hope that she passed on to us:
We are dust, enlivened and sustained by God.
But His coming to us proves our worth.
And one day we shall all be changed. We shall be raised in Christ as we were buried in Christ. Death is swallowed up in His victory, no more to sting.
He makes all things new; He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.T.S. Elliot encourages us:
We must be still and still moving into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters of the petrel and the porpoise
In my end is my beginning
As a point of interest, the same priest that married my parents, baptized me almost exactly 26 years ago, and my brother 23 years ago, officiated my grandmother’s funeral. He left pretty much right away. I’d have liked to say hi, or thank you.
