From: Reason (reason@exratio.com)
Date: Sat Jul 20 2002 - 02:50:43 MDT
--> Damien Broderick
> At 08:31 PM 7/19/02 -0700, Reason wrote:
>
> >http://www.exratio.com/bioethicssucks.org/
>
> which declares as its key `argument':
Definately in quotes; I wasn't aiming for rigorous, I was aiming for "does
anyone here think it's worth spending a day to do this right?"
> >It's almost as if six thousand people dying each and every day
> matter less
> to a
> >Bioethicist than ruminating in council and coming to a decision based on
> his or her
> >gut feelings.
>
> I agree with your own gut feeling, but this is absurd and unfair. Those
> bioethicists who oppose such interventions do so on principled
> grounds. You
> don't agree with them, and neither do I. Probably we both find some or all
> of those grounds mired in inane superstition and medieval pseudo-science.
> But a view concerning the sanctity and inviolability of an embryo is not
> *gut* based but theory based. If you wish to be an effective opponent of
> such views, dismantle the theory with better arguments and
> empirical evidence.
True, true.
From: http://slate.msn.com/?id=2068293
"Carter also offered a powerful rebuttal to Leon Kass' "wisdom of
repugnance" theory, which posits (somewhat simplistically) that anything
that people find abhorrent at the gut level is morally wrong:"
Wisdom of repugnance: ---> http://www.tnr.com/052101/kass052101.html
I think he pretty much says he's going on gut here.
> Actually it's even harder to do than that, I think. Christopher
> Reeve might
> walk again if stem cells harvested from embryos are the basis of his
> treatment. However, suppose an effective treatment were developed that
> required killing a six year old child, or a sixty year old, and harvesting
> the pineal gland (or whatever).
Bug Jack Barron. Great book.
> Most of us, surely, would agree that such
> treatment is unethical, even if the donor were paid handsomely and agreed
> to die.
> If a principled bioethical argument asserts that the two cases are
> in fact identical, since an embryo is already a person, this is not a gut
> feeling. It's a claim that has to be argued against and defeated, or
> perhaps set aside as ludicrous, in public debate.
Well, yes. This is an establishment of equivelance but not of values and
opinions. Personally I would say that there's no problem with attempting to
persuade people (or me) to choose to die. Going on all the time today. The
problem occurs in my view when force is applied to ensure that other people
comply with your arguments.
I would argue though that bioethics at root has nothing to do with ethics
and everything to do with the age-old ugly fight to control what other
people do with their own lives and own bodies. No particular aim beyond
control itself; the fight just happens to center on the points at which
those who want to force the issue think they can advance their case. I mean,
just look at links from that upenn department page:
http://bioethics.net/beginners.php
http://www.med.upenn.edu/bioethic/wol/
> IMHO.
Of course, as for all.
Reason
http://www.exratio.com/
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