"The title of this clear, scientifically well informed and philosophically sophisticated study is slightly misleading. What Agar is primarily interested in and what he strives to defend is not so much human enhancement as reproductive freedom. Whereas traditional eugenics is concerned with the improvement of human stock and its proponents consequently advocate a strict regulation of reproduction, Agar does not want to commit himself to a particular view of what would count as such an improvement. People have different conceptions of what makes a good life and what characteristics are desirable. From a liberal perspective, these differences ought to be respected, which rules out any form of authoritarian eugenics. What humans should be like is not for the State to decide. For the same reason, however, people should also be free to use enhancement technologies on their children in order to realize their own personal conception of human excellence, i.e. to make their children, in accordance with their own standards, better than they would otherwise be. Here, likewise, the state has no right to interfere. Just as a liberal outlook precludes any form of authoritarian eugenics, it encourages us to adopt a liberal eugenics which embraces not a monistic but a pluralistic view of human excellence. In this manner, "an evil doctrine" is being transformed into "a morally acceptable one." (135)
Unlike philosophers such as Jonathan Glover or John Harris, Agar does not claim that we have a moral duty to provide and use enhancement technologies. However, he argues that consistency with the moral values prevalent in a contemporary liberal democracy requires us to tolerate their development and use. There is no particular ethical theory on which Agar bases his conclusions. Instead of arguing from a Kantian, a utilitarian or any other ethical theory's perspective, he is looking for practices which we have already accepted as morally justified or, on the contrary, as not justifiable. By comparing a still unfamiliar practice to similar but familiar practices which "elicit moral reactions of which we are confident" (39), we get hold of moral images which indicate how morally to evaluate the unfamiliar. This "method of moral images" helps us to decide, without recourse to ethical theory, whether we ought to ban, tolerate or encourage the use of enhancement technologies. Since Agar wants to convince us that we should tolerate the development and use of enhancement technologies, he needs to demonstrate that those moral images which would support his view are in relevant respects closer to the practice of genetic enhancement than those that would rather support its ban or, on the contrary, an obligation to make use of it." - NDPR.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Guilfoy - Mews' 'Abelard and Heloise'
"Mews claims several very broad goals for his book. His first is to "provide a framework that can help readers explore for themselves the richness of the texts that have come down to us, not just of Abelard and Heloise but of their contemporaries". In this respect the book is brilliant. On topics covering the full range of Abelard's thought in logic, ethics, theology, literature, poetry, music, and liturgy Mews discusses what is known of many of the ancient and early medieval sources used by Abelard and his contemporaries. Even more significantly Mews presents the currently known thoughts and theories of Abelard's eleventh- and twelfth-century contemporaries. There are many places where one would wish that he had gone into much greater depth to explicate how Abelard rejected or elaborated these ideas, but Mews acknowledges that with such a broad goal many interesting topics needed to be treated briefly. The book compensates with extensive and detailed notes.
Mews' other stated goals are to argue "that the evolution of Abelard's thinking about language, theology, and ethics is marked by continuity rather than by rupture and that it cannot be understood apart from the influence of Heloise". In particular, Mews takes exception to John Marenbon's 1997 book The Philosophy of Peter Abelard for presenting Abelard's logical thought as distinct from his ethical and theological thought. To this end Mews has written a sort of intellectual biography of Abelard. He traces the development of Abelard's thought topically and chronologically from his arrival in the Paris schools, through his love affair with Heloise, his political struggles and various condemnations, to his eventual death in 1142. Mews' choice to devote considerable attention to Abelard's lesser studied works -- e.g., the literal glosses and the biblical commentaries -- is another of this book's great strengths. However, Mews is not entirely successful in his attempt to show the continuity of Abelard's logic with his ethics and theology. The book too often reaches to draw facile connections between logic, ethics, and Heloise." - NDPR.
Mews' other stated goals are to argue "that the evolution of Abelard's thinking about language, theology, and ethics is marked by continuity rather than by rupture and that it cannot be understood apart from the influence of Heloise". In particular, Mews takes exception to John Marenbon's 1997 book The Philosophy of Peter Abelard for presenting Abelard's logical thought as distinct from his ethical and theological thought. To this end Mews has written a sort of intellectual biography of Abelard. He traces the development of Abelard's thought topically and chronologically from his arrival in the Paris schools, through his love affair with Heloise, his political struggles and various condemnations, to his eventual death in 1142. Mews' choice to devote considerable attention to Abelard's lesser studied works -- e.g., the literal glosses and the biblical commentaries -- is another of this book's great strengths. However, Mews is not entirely successful in his attempt to show the continuity of Abelard's logic with his ethics and theology. The book too often reaches to draw facile connections between logic, ethics, and Heloise." - NDPR.
Altman - Fitche's 'The Science of Knowing: J. G. Fichte's 1804 Lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre'
"Traditionally, Fichte has been interpreted philosophically as a wayward Kantian and historically as a mere stepping stone in the development of speculative idealism. But Fichte has recently begun to emerge from the long shadows of Kant and Hegel, and he is now considered by many to be a figure worthy of attention in his own right. Over the last thirty years, English-language scholarship on Fichte has significantly increased. Fichte's conception of philosophical thinking as an activity that validates idealism, his insistence on the need for systematicity and an absolutely certain foundation for transcendental philosophy, his understanding of how theoretical and practical reasoning are related, and especially his sophisticated approach to consciousness, which recognizes both rational and irrational elements in the formation of the subject, all provide important contributions to epistemology, philosophy of mind, and ethics, among other areas. Fichte is also thought to have anticipated a number of prominent themes in post-Nietzschean Continental philosophy, especially the idea that the "summons" (Aufforderung) of the other makes possible my existence as a subject.
Although Fichte's philosophy has begun to get the close attention it deserves, most scholars have focused on his early writings, before the so-called "Atheism Controversy" and his dismissal from the University of Jena in 1799. After his subsequent move to Berlin, Fichte taught privately and republished earlier works in order to make a living. But he also continued to reformulate his philosophy in a way that would answer his many critics and more effectively communicate it to an uncomprehending public. Fichte eventually devised what he considered a clearer and more convincing expression of the views that had been so widely misunderstood, and in 1804 he advertised a series of lectures that, for a fee, members of the public could attend. The second of three sets of lectures given during that year is viewed by many Fichte scholars as the first definitive account of the later Wissenschaftslehre." - NDPR.
Although Fichte's philosophy has begun to get the close attention it deserves, most scholars have focused on his early writings, before the so-called "Atheism Controversy" and his dismissal from the University of Jena in 1799. After his subsequent move to Berlin, Fichte taught privately and republished earlier works in order to make a living. But he also continued to reformulate his philosophy in a way that would answer his many critics and more effectively communicate it to an uncomprehending public. Fichte eventually devised what he considered a clearer and more convincing expression of the views that had been so widely misunderstood, and in 1804 he advertised a series of lectures that, for a fee, members of the public could attend. The second of three sets of lectures given during that year is viewed by many Fichte scholars as the first definitive account of the later Wissenschaftslehre." - NDPR.
silva rhetoricae
Rhetoric is one of those branches of philosophy that seems to have lost its place on the tree, yet it also seems to be one with significant history and merits. silva rhetoricae is a considerable resource for the beginner in this particular area.
Existentialism Philosophy
Existentialism Philosophy - A philo-blog dedicated to existentialism; slightly popularist in bent it is possibly the only blog dedicated to this particular movement.
Heretical Soapbox
Heretical Soapbox - A contemporary continental tradition philo-blog, this soapbox is a platform for deconstruction and heterodoxy.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Philosopher's Carnival, No. Twenty-One
The twenty-first Philosopher’s Carnival is presently being hosted by Prior Knowledge. The various post have been divided into six categories, of varying broadness ('religion and naturalism' and 'ethics and society' sits beside 'consciousness'). The introduction of a 'new blogs' category is the sort of development that the Carnival should perpetuate, to encourage new philo-blogs to stand up and be counted.
Notice - 'The Grout Is On The Wall'
'The Grout Is On The Wall - Preliminary Findings Of A Modest Study', written by Dialecitc contributors Rowan Blyth, Samuel Douglas, and Martin Hill, and fellow Philosophy Club member Christopher Baker, has been published in Opus Issue 7, 2005.
Copies of Opus are available from around the Callaghan Campus.
Copies of Opus are available from around the Callaghan Campus.
Windschuttle - 'Foucault as Historian'
"In 1966, Michel Foucault attracted a great deal of academic attention by coining the phrase 'the death of man'. His obvious allusion to Nietzsche's well-known proclamation of the end of religion in the phrase 'the death of God' drew a considerable notoriety to himself and to the then burgeoning school of 'anti-humanism'. By 'the death of man', Foucault wrote in his book The Order of Things, he meant the end of the humanist concepts of man as a creature ruled by reason and of history as a phenomenon governed by the decisions of powerful individuals. Instead, history was a process without a subject. Not only did men not make their own history but the concept of 'man' itself, he argued, was passé.
Foucault shared this thesis with other anti-humanist thinkers of the time, including the Annales school of French historians, all of whom regarded history as being driven by forces far more powerful than those of any individual. Anti-humanism's main proposition was that the autonomy of the individual subject was an illusion. The humanist tradition had been wrong to assign the central roles of human affairs to the conscious mind and free will. Instead, some strands of anti-humanism claimed that human behaviour and thought were dominated by the unconscious, and hence humanists should abandon their assumption that purposive behaviour was consciously directed. Others, like the Annales school, held that the impersonal forces of geography and demography governed the destiny of mankind." - The Sydney Line (site of the Australian History/Culture Wars ...).
Continetial Philosophy has posted a critique of Windschuttle's interpretation.
Foucault shared this thesis with other anti-humanist thinkers of the time, including the Annales school of French historians, all of whom regarded history as being driven by forces far more powerful than those of any individual. Anti-humanism's main proposition was that the autonomy of the individual subject was an illusion. The humanist tradition had been wrong to assign the central roles of human affairs to the conscious mind and free will. Instead, some strands of anti-humanism claimed that human behaviour and thought were dominated by the unconscious, and hence humanists should abandon their assumption that purposive behaviour was consciously directed. Others, like the Annales school, held that the impersonal forces of geography and demography governed the destiny of mankind." - The Sydney Line (site of the Australian History/Culture Wars ...).
Continetial Philosophy has posted a critique of Windschuttle's interpretation.
Posthegemonic Musings
Posthegemonic Musings - A blog focused on contemporary continental political theory (am not quite sure how seriously it is to be taken ...).
Rauscher - Watkins' 'Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality'
"Eric Watkins has turned the old Patchwork Thesis upside down (or, if you wish, right side-up). The Patchwork Thesis, made famous in Kant circles early in the twentieth century by Hans Vaihinger and Norman Kemp Smith, held that elements of Kant's pre-critical thought found their way into his mature Critique of Pure Reason. Watkins essentially agrees. The Patchwork Thesis further takes as its interpretive lesson that these pre-critical elements ought to be ignored and that the genuine "Kantian" philosophy must be drawn from the passages most recently written. Watkins could not disagree more. Instead he argues that the best way to understand Kant's mature philosophy is to read it in light of his pre-critical thought." - NDPR.
Murphy - Frankish's 'Mind And Supermind'
"The overall picture distinguishes what Frankish calls either the strand 1 mind or the basic mind from the strand 2 mind, or supermind. (The book would be easier to follow if it consistently used just one of these pairs of neologisms.) The basic mind is non-conscious and contains passively formed beliefs that come in degrees, cannot be actively controlled, and do not involve language. As a reasoning system, it is well described by Bayesian decision theory. The supermind, on the other hand, is conscious, and its beliefs can be actively formed and controlled, expressed in a natural language, and are held or not without qualification. As a reasoning system, it is "classical". (This term is not defined, but it seems to mean syllogistic or otherwise subject to logical, rather than probabilistic, appraisal.) The supermind is realized in the basic mind, in the sense that generalizations about states of the supermind are made true by generalizations about underlying basic states. The result is a very strong commitment not just to the idea that folk psychology quantifies over real entities, but that folk psychology, properly understood, is correct in almost every particular about the nature of those entities, and that the nature of belief is a conceptual, rather than an empirical, matter." - NDPR.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Daw - 'Republic Dogs'
"[Thrasymachus is tied up in a chair. Socrates is brandishing a gun in his face]
Thrasymachus: Don't do it, Socrates. Be fair.
Socrates: [Suddenly contemplative] Fair?
Thrasymachus: [Sees an opportunity for survival] Yeah, fair... think about my wife and children --
Socrates: Would you say that to be fair is the same thing as to be just?
Thrasymachus: What?
Socrates: Well, I'm just a dull, wandering street philosopher, so I don't understand quite where you're headed with this particular line of reasoning. Perhaps [motions with gun] you could further elucidate your theory of justice.
Thrasymachus: My theory? Of justice?
Socrates: Yes. You do... have a theory of justice, don't you?
Thrasymachus: Uh...
Socrates: Or perhaps you'd like to hear my theory.
Thrasymachus: Oh, yes, yes, yes, of course, your theory. You have a theory?
Socrates: Well, yes, I have been thinking a little about justice -- not of course, so deeply as could a wise sage like yourself. But I've had a little idea, an insignificant but troubling little idea, and it's been bothering me a little, and I thought that maybe someone as smart as yourself could help convince me that it was wrong.
Thrasymachus: Of course, I'll do anything I can to help.
Socrates: So you'd like to hear my theory?
Thrasymachus: I'd be honored.
Socrates: My humble little idea goes something like this. [He is suddenly extremely loud and violent. Roars:] Justice is only the will of the stronger. What do you think about that, asshole? [Slaps Thrasymachus across the face with his gun]
Thrasymachus: Uh, uh, uh ...
Socrates: Come on ... come on, you wanna try and disprove my theory, you weak little shit? Yeah? Yeah? Shit, I think I feel a proof coming on. [Shoots him.] Why, thank you Thrasymachus, you've certainly opened my eyes." - Nathaniel Daw, 'Republic Dogs'.
[Hat Tip to Boing Boing.]
Thrasymachus: Don't do it, Socrates. Be fair.
Socrates: [Suddenly contemplative] Fair?
Thrasymachus: [Sees an opportunity for survival] Yeah, fair... think about my wife and children --
Socrates: Would you say that to be fair is the same thing as to be just?
Thrasymachus: What?
Socrates: Well, I'm just a dull, wandering street philosopher, so I don't understand quite where you're headed with this particular line of reasoning. Perhaps [motions with gun] you could further elucidate your theory of justice.
Thrasymachus: My theory? Of justice?
Socrates: Yes. You do... have a theory of justice, don't you?
Thrasymachus: Uh...
Socrates: Or perhaps you'd like to hear my theory.
Thrasymachus: Oh, yes, yes, yes, of course, your theory. You have a theory?
Socrates: Well, yes, I have been thinking a little about justice -- not of course, so deeply as could a wise sage like yourself. But I've had a little idea, an insignificant but troubling little idea, and it's been bothering me a little, and I thought that maybe someone as smart as yourself could help convince me that it was wrong.
Thrasymachus: Of course, I'll do anything I can to help.
Socrates: So you'd like to hear my theory?
Thrasymachus: I'd be honored.
Socrates: My humble little idea goes something like this. [He is suddenly extremely loud and violent. Roars:] Justice is only the will of the stronger. What do you think about that, asshole? [Slaps Thrasymachus across the face with his gun]
Thrasymachus: Uh, uh, uh ...
Socrates: Come on ... come on, you wanna try and disprove my theory, you weak little shit? Yeah? Yeah? Shit, I think I feel a proof coming on. [Shoots him.] Why, thank you Thrasymachus, you've certainly opened my eyes." - Nathaniel Daw, 'Republic Dogs'.
[Hat Tip to Boing Boing.]
Benson - 'This Isn't My Body' - The Ethics of Amputating 'Healthy' Limbs
"In an article for the Journal of Applied Philosophy, Levy and Bayne define this condition, known as Body Identity Integrity Disorder (BIID) or body dysmorphia, as “a mismatch between their body and their body as they experience it – what we might call their phenomenal (or subjective) body.” They suggest that this mismatch may involve a discrepancy between a person's actual body and her body image. They compare unusual cases of people like Corinne with more familiar ones, such as a person who wants breast enlargement: she knows she has small breasts, but her idealised image of herself is of a person with large breasts. “She does not feel comfortable – at home – in her own body.”
Levy and Bayne are not the first to advocate going ahead with requests for amputations in such circumstances. In January 2000, Robert Smith, a surgeon at Falkirk and District Royal Infirmary in Scotland, amputated the healthy legs of two patients at their request, and was planning to do a third amputation when the trust in charge of the Infirmary stopped him. In the Horizon documentary on the subject, “Complete Obsession,” Smith said this about his decision to amputate:
“Certainly when I was first contacted by the patients who wished an amputation of a perfectly healthy limb it struck me as being absolutely utterly weird. I was worried and concerned about whether in fact we should even consider this procedure. ... It's quite a difficult change of view on my point really, to remove a healthy limb is an anathema to a surgeon. ... The major concern with these individuals is that if they do not achieve their amputation by medical means they will try and achieve it by self-injury. We do have a number of individuals who have deliberately injured themselves with train tracks, shot guns and have achieved amputation this way.” ...
Nevertheless it is hard not to conclude that a weekend spent in a wheelchair pretending to be a legless amputee is an inadequate test for being an actual and irreversible legless amputee. The worries Carl Elliott mentions seem cogent. He put it this way: “Re looping effects: I warned about this in 2001, and while it is hard to come up with reliable data, the numbers of amputee wannabes do seem to be rising. The listservs are growing – there are more of them, and more people on them.”" - The Philosopher's Magazine.
Benson's article is a consideration of the problem of amputating healthy limbs, a topic that has been discussed here previously.
Levy and Bayne are not the first to advocate going ahead with requests for amputations in such circumstances. In January 2000, Robert Smith, a surgeon at Falkirk and District Royal Infirmary in Scotland, amputated the healthy legs of two patients at their request, and was planning to do a third amputation when the trust in charge of the Infirmary stopped him. In the Horizon documentary on the subject, “Complete Obsession,” Smith said this about his decision to amputate:
“Certainly when I was first contacted by the patients who wished an amputation of a perfectly healthy limb it struck me as being absolutely utterly weird. I was worried and concerned about whether in fact we should even consider this procedure. ... It's quite a difficult change of view on my point really, to remove a healthy limb is an anathema to a surgeon. ... The major concern with these individuals is that if they do not achieve their amputation by medical means they will try and achieve it by self-injury. We do have a number of individuals who have deliberately injured themselves with train tracks, shot guns and have achieved amputation this way.” ...
Nevertheless it is hard not to conclude that a weekend spent in a wheelchair pretending to be a legless amputee is an inadequate test for being an actual and irreversible legless amputee. The worries Carl Elliott mentions seem cogent. He put it this way: “Re looping effects: I warned about this in 2001, and while it is hard to come up with reliable data, the numbers of amputee wannabes do seem to be rising. The listservs are growing – there are more of them, and more people on them.”" - The Philosopher's Magazine.
Benson's article is a consideration of the problem of amputating healthy limbs, a topic that has been discussed here previously.
Vernon - 'The Trouble with Friends'
"Not since the Greeks, Nietzsche reflected, has friendship been thought a problem worthy of a solution. Nietzsche, you note, does not say that the Greeks solved the problems associated with friendship. The arguably leading ancient “philia-philosopher”, Aristotle, for example, seems caught on a conundrum. His discussion in the Nicomachean Ethics , though full of illuminating thoughts on the nature and value of friendship, also reads as if friendship was something of a mystery to him: if a happy life requires self-sufficiency, so that you are not reliant on others for your happiness, then how can a happy life also include friends, as it seems uncontroversial to say it must? Alternatively, Plato's main dialogue on friendship, Lysis , explicitly ends inconclusively. We will look ridiculous, Socrates says to his interlocutors Lysis and Menexenus, since although we think we are friends, we have not been able to say what friendship is." - The Philosopher's Magazine.
The Ethics Of Ethics Consultancy I
ABC's New South Wales Stateline ran a piece, 'Iemma's Dilemmas' (14th October), were Dr Simon Longstaff was interviewed in regards to Former Premier Bob Carr's recent employment by Macquarie Bank.
A slight controversy has since developed regarding an undisclosed conflict of interest - Dr Longstaff's St James Ethics Centre is sponsored by Macquarie - that led to a second interview with Dr Longstaff (screened last Friday, the transcript had not been posted at time of writting).
A question regarding the nature of the developing area of 'ethics consulting' is taking shape ... Will elaborate when the relevant transcript is available.
A slight controversy has since developed regarding an undisclosed conflict of interest - Dr Longstaff's St James Ethics Centre is sponsored by Macquarie - that led to a second interview with Dr Longstaff (screened last Friday, the transcript had not been posted at time of writting).
A question regarding the nature of the developing area of 'ethics consulting' is taking shape ... Will elaborate when the relevant transcript is available.
Philosophical Fragments
Philosophical Fragments - infant philo-blog (two posts old presently), looks as though it will be concerned with continential issues, such as modernity.
Aaron Cobb's Philosophy Blogg
Aaron Cobb's Philosophy Blog - analytic tradition philo-blog, concerned with epistemology and philosophy of history (the present top posts are on Locke and Berkeley).
[Hat tip to Philosophical Fragments.]
[Hat tip to Philosophical Fragments.]
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