Somebody Called "Punkass" Hates my Starbuck's Coffee Cup
I seem to have stirred up some angry--I don't know how to label them, nihilists? anarchists?--by claiming on my Starbuck's coffee cup ("The Way I See It" campaign, scroll to Cup # 127) that the question of the 21st Century is whether all human life will be considered equal simply and merely because it is human. My apology on behalf of intrinsic human value has some bloggers worrying about theocracy and digging into my other work, as in this blog, which creates other fictional cups based on some of the things I have written, which I take it, he also doesn't like. I am flattered, I guess. But for some reason, these bloggers don't (can't?) grapple with my ideas, so they rant about creationism and theocracy--as if only religious people believe in human equality. Oh, well. As they might say: Whatever.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:16 PM
22 Comments
22 Comments:
The link to punk-asses blog doesn't work.
The link works for me. Perhaps the site was temporarily down.
I almost did't post this entry. But as I looked at these strident and in many cases, bigoted blogs and commentary, I thought that it made for an important contrast.
I know that my ideas are controversial. After all, here at Secondhand Somke we are dealing with the core moral beleifs that underlie society.
But they are based, at least I hope, on a coherent belief system which I strive to back up with empirical evidence and factual analysis. Almost all of the commentators here, whether they agree or disagree with me, discuss things with at least a modicum of RATIONALLY.
But these blogs and most of the comments made by their readers, are just expressions of knee jerk hatred; for the Discovery Institute for daring to have a heterodox view on Darwinism, for me just for being with the DI, for me for writing of human equality when humans are, apparently in their view, merely animals in the forest.
This kind of unreasoning, purely negative emotionalism isn't healthy for those feeling and expressing it, or for the country.
In holding that all human life has the same intrinsic value "simply and merely because it is human", you have, I believe, rejected basing such value on any mental faculty, such as the ability to reason. (Name just about any faculty, mental or physical, and there will be many animals that possess this faculty to a greater degree than many humans do.) What then can be the basis of your "simply and merely" claim, with its attendant notion of human exceptionalism? Surely it is belief in a deity that has conferred such value on humans and only on humans. Many atheists and agnostics are strong defenders of basic human equality, but it is hard to see how they could believe in human exceptionalism. Their defence of equality will rest on an argument like "All humans have intrinsic value because they are sentient beings", a position that necessarily rejects human exceptionalism. Comments appreciated.
Aeolus: Yes indeed: I utterly reject personhood theory as a prescription for oppression. If people have to "earn" their moral status, rather than having them deemed as intrisicially part of the human condition, it opens the door to worst kinds of oppression against the weak and defenseless; killing those who don't "measure up," exploiting them for their body parts as many personhood theorists would cognitively disabled people like Terri Schiavo, etc..
If we are to have universal human rights, and it seems to me that is a near universal value of Western society, it can only be based on objective criteria.
For me, this is the bottom line: If a life, being, organism, whatever you want to call it, is human, he or she should be considered a subject and never an object. For if we decide that some humans can be objects, than those who matter and those who don't becomes merely a matter of who has the power to decide. And we have been down that dark road too many times to think it won't result in the most profound violations of human rights. Thanks for posting on my blog.
Winston Jen: You are so full of illogical nonsense that it is almost hopeless to interact with you. Nothing I say requires vitalism. But you just keep on arguing against points nobody makes. At least in that way you have a bare chance of winning the debate.
Yes, all human life is equal.
But i wouldn't call a collection of cells with no brain, no conciousness, no "humanity" whatsoever about it a human being.
Once a feotus does develop a brain and exhibits traits of conciousness then yes it should be considered an equal human but the idea of equal rights and life being "sacred" since conception is just stupid.
I really can't see how you could believe that a bunch of cells is a human being, you might as well give equal rights to a piece of steak.
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Cancer cells and skin cells don't develope into mature human beings. It seems careless and nihilistic to me to opt for incomprehensible, subjective and movable valuations of mankind instead of settling on the clearest empirically supported divide that modern science has uncovered for us. The seething against protection of human life from expenditure for the sake of other human life seems to me symptomatic of a reversion back to a sacrificial society that needs blood to justify its shadowy mythologies and baptize its self-created fictions instead of dealing in terms of reality, purity and truth.
Peter J: It's called biology. Check any embryology text book. Human life begins at the completion of fertilization. That's science. That's fact.
Now, that doesn't necessarily settle the issue. But you can't have a proper ethical analysis predicated upon junk science.
My position is that if an organism is human, it is a subject, not an object. That is the least we owe each other, regardless of our state of development, health, ability, or age.
This subjective definition of consciousness that is proposed as the basis for valuing people also seems to me in the same category as sacrificial systems. If consciousness is supposed to be comprised by something more than just a mass of cells like a stake, what is it, and where can we really lay our finger on its beginning and are we sure? And if not, is the consequent spillage of blood on our heads? There seems to be a mystical assumption that consciousness transcends being merely a matter of cells. I quite agree with that but am wandering how it consciousness is accounted.
It seems we differ on the definition of what a human is.
To me a human is a lot more than the physical mass that may or may not eventually develop into a human.
To me until that phsyical mass of cells actually has a brain and exhibits conciousness that is when it becomes a Human and not before. While the growth of those cells into a human may begin at fertilization that does not mean it is a human at fertilization.
And there are ways to test for conciousness, i am not Doctor but i would guess kicking in the womb, the baby making some sort of exploration of its environment, showing signs of learning and brain waves.
"If you don't need a conscious mind to be a person, then cancer cells are people, as are skin cels, as well as anything with human DNA."
Jen: get thee to a biology book, and pronto.
"While the growth of those cells into a human may begin at fertilization that does not mean it is a human at fertilization."
PeterJ: don't confuse "being a human being" with "living life to its fullest." It's true that an embryo can't appreciate great music or write a song, but those aren't requirements for personhood. People in favor of ESCR keep accusing us of injecting "religion" into the debate. But when we demonstrate that scientific fact is actually on our side, then suddenly they argue that the scientific definition of what constitutes a human being doesn't suffice, and they begin using a mushy, romantic, completely unscientific definition instead.
Exhibiting signs of consciousness does as a criteria for worth makes the worth of the one in question dependent on the perception of the other. it seems to me better that we recognize the limitedness of our perceptions. We can be wrong about the perception of for instance, consciousness. People go into commas and come out. Besides this people deciding the fate of other people may chose to ignore fainter indications of consciousness if they find in a given situation that it is advantageous to do so for their own convenience. In order to avoid this sacrifice of others we should set clear lines in our society. Can you really define consciousness anyway? Your attempts at definition so far seem to me unclear. If you were a judge could you in good conscience be able to say that a baby that had not been felt kicking in the womb (as far as the mother remembered)was not conscious depite its heartbeat? And what if consciousness is not empirically detectable? If it is something more than a mass of cells should we expect to detect it, especially in the confines of a womb where expression is limited. Do the ultrasounds of babies grimaces and silent screams during an abortion indicate consciousness?
How are we to say that kicking in the womb is a good sign of consciousness? Isn't it comparable to a heart beat in the womb?
Well, Peter J.: Whatever something is to you, that isn't a scientific approach. And possessing brain waves isn't consciousness. Moreover, I believe that an embryo has brain waves within a month of conception. Does this mean you believe it is fully human with full human rights?
Personhood theory measures worth as being self aware, or able to value one's own life. It is more than having gray matter. And this opens the door to truly pernicious things. Just read Peter Singer and his ilk.
If we accept personhood theory, it means that we can engage in the most grotesque and unethical behaviors. For example, if one is only human when one is truly conscious, we can create embryos, implant them, gestate them for 6 or 7 months, and then abort them for body parts or drug testing. If only the truly conscious are "human," or "persons, many bioethicists, such as Singer and Jonathan Glover contend it leaves out infants. This could mean that the woman who has a baby and drowns it in the toilet isn't really guilty of murder because the baby wasn't human after all. Indeed, Glover says that killing an infant is no worse than leaving it to cry for too long, and that is very close to an exact quote.
It also leaves out my late Uncle who lost most of these capacities when he died of Alzheimer's. Since he is no longer human, can we test drugs on him? Many bioethicists also argue that people like Terri Schiavo should have their organs harvested since they are no longer persons.
These are the kinds of behaviors that are possible if we come to believe as a society that human life doesn't matter simply and merely because it is human. It transforms them into objects, opening the door wide to very bad things happening to those who can least defend themselves.
In any event, thanks for hanging out here at Secondhand Smoke.
I allegdely believe "once they're born, they are on their own," which is why I have been a hospice volunteer.
Pathetic.
Winston Jen: Snore.
Peter J., you said:
"To me a human is a lot more than the physical mass that may or may not eventually develop into a human."
Think about that sentence for a second. Seriously.
I have deleted the last entry by Winston Jen because it was completely inappropriate to this blog. I have given him much leeway here in the belief that all should be able to have their say. But there is a minimal level of decency and respect that I insist upon, and W.J. has repeatedly violated this line despite many warnings. He is now blackballed from this blog. Any entries he makes will be deleted forthwith.
I remember watching a TV show about an attempt to increase the numbers of some kind of endangered stripy antelope. An antelope embryo was implanted into a domestic cow, which then went through a normal pregnancy and delivered a stripy antelope baby. She licked and nursed it as though it were her own, of course, and that looked mighty strange. It brought home to me what I already knew - an embryo is already the person, or animal, it will become. A cat embryo can't develop into anything but a kitten. A human embryo can't develop into anything but a human.
Wesley, I appreciate your continuing to care about Terri Schiavo. I remember emailing to my sister on Good Friday last year that I wondered if anybody else was thinking of her when they heard "I thirst" at church.
Congratulations on deciding to rid yourself of your Johnny One-note.
Thanks for yor input, Laura.
In holding that all human life has the same intrinsic value "simply and merely because it is human", you have, I believe, rejected basing such value on any mental faculty, such as the ability to reason. (Name just about any faculty, mental or physical, and there will be many animals that possess this faculty to a greater degree than many humans do.) What then can be the basis of your "simply and merely" claim, with its attendant notion of human exceptionalism? Surely it is belief in a deity that has conferred such value on humans and only on humans.
Yes, and if man is not endowed by his Creator with anything that is unalienable as per the ignorant cast of mind typical to Darwinists, then the supposed "emergence" of civilization, intelligence and language becomes the only way to make a distinction between human and animal. If you turn civilization into a way of keeping man and animal distinct because you deny the real basis for that distinction then civilization becomes alienating, uncivilized people become less than human and so on.
E.g., the blurring of human and animal based on a form of pseudo-science typical to the West:
"There was an exhibition at the Zoological Park in the Bronx yesterday which had for many of the visitors something more than a provocation to laughter. There were laughs enough in it, too, but there was something about it which made the serious minded grave. Even those who laughed the most turned away with an expression on their faces such as one sees after a play with a sad ending...
“Something about it that I don’t like,” was the way one man put it.
The exhibition was that of a human being in a monkey cage. The human being happened to be a Bushman, one of a race that scientists do not rate high in the human scale, but to the average non-scientific person in the crowd of sightseers there was somethlng about the display that was unpleasant.
The human being caged was the little black man, Ota Benga, whom Prof. S. P. Verner, the explorer, recently brought to this country from the jungles of Central Africa."(BUSHMAN SHARES A CAGE WITH BRONX PARK APES
The New York Times, Sept. 9, 1906; pg. 17)
Those with the Darwinian urge to merge treat embryos the same way, blurring the distinct information by which they develope in with fishes and the like, as if the embryo is about to swim away or some such nonsense. Thus many Darwinists (e.g. PZ Myers, a blogger) are actually still ignorant and stupid enough to try to prop up the old "gill-slit" canard, which is the language by which they argue that an embryo is revisiting a "fish-like" state. That variation of the urge to merge goes back to Haeckel and his frauds, which were used by abortionists and Nazis.
This isn't the first time humans have been exhibited in zoos. It happened in London last year, which I discussed here at Secondhand Smoke. Thanks for your input, Mynym.
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