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Jewcy Book Club

This week:
Spanked: Red Cheeked Erotica
and
Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp
Spanked: Red Cheeked EroticaMoose: A Memoir of Fat Camp
Welcome Authors
Rachel Kramer Bussel
 &
Stephanie Klein
who are posting all week.
Coming up:
  • 01/12:
    Bob Morris
  • 01/12:
    Lily Koppel
  • 01/19:
    Peter Manseau
  • 02/09:
    Tania Grossinger

THE CABAL

Our Culture War is Phony Too
Whisper: Why Religion Poisons Everything
Daniel Koffler

by Daniel Koffler, December 18, 2007

27 comments

John Quiggin, reflecting on the fact that John Howard's defeat and its contretemps have left the Australian right effectively without representation in government, observes that the erstwhile parties to culture war debates in Oz have taken to arguing about whether to argue about culture war issues:

The broadly unanimous centre/left position, (examples here and here) is “it’s over, no one cares any more, let’s get on with serious business”.

By contrast, the right is united on the view that it’s vitally important to keep on fighting the culture wars, but deeply divided as to the reason. As with Iraq, some say they’re winning and shouldn’t be tricked out of the victory that is rightly theirs, while others say the situation is so dire that only continued struggle will hold back the flood of leftist oppression.

Quiggin frames these circumstances as a contrast with the American version of the culture war, which he assumes is waged on a first-order battlefield. That's true in the sense that culture war issues --- abortion, gay marriage, etc. --- are debated directly, with candidates and pundits from either side staking a position for or against all of them. On the other hand, while one might occasionally come across fire-and-brimstone speeches from Christian preachers, or strident liberationist rhetoric from lefty academics, mainstream political discussion of culture war issues in the US is almost universally conducted in consequentialist terms, with at least one degree of separation from the ethical and theological premises motivating each sides' views.

In other words, culture war debates over privacy, personal freedom and sexual morality tend to focus on the dire social consequences of not adopting the policies favored by the various parties to the debate. You know the sort of thing: "Look at what will happen if x is allowed/banned..." followed by a speculative proposition about some disaster. On the right, witness Stanley Kurtz's sisyphian efforts to prove that legalizing gay marriage will cause the breakdown of civil society. On the left, witness the widespread concern that outlawing abortion will cause many women to die obtaining back-alley abortions (which is true, but wouldn't affect the right to an abortion if it weren't true).

Debating the utilitarian balance sheet of policies designed to augment or constrain personal and sexual freedom is a sideshow. The real issue is what's right and what’s wrong (or at least neutral), and that's an issue that is impervious to sociological forecasting. Social conservatives who believe premarital sex and gay sex are intrinsically wrong should not abandon their views just in case it’s proven that there are no negative externalities associated with unrestricted personal and sexual choice (there may well not be).

Likewise, if somehow a universal ban on abortion reduced abortions to zero and had no adverse consequences for women's health and well-being, I would still oppose it --- because women have a right to have an abortion for any reason they choose. (My position here is motivated by Judith Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion", if anybody cares to know.)


Take a look at David Gelernter's silly attack on sexual freedom --- briefly: premarital sex impurifies a young man or woman's precious bodily fluids, rendering them incapable of romantic love. Gelernter claims pre-emptively that the moral case against premarital sex is the most important one, and goes on not to make it, instead offering a kind of second-order, consequentialist argument, albeit one without any empirical evidence. Indeed, it would appear rather foreign to our eyes to see a respectable --- understanding respectability as broadly as possible --- commentator state forthrightly, for example, "I believe homosexuality is evil"; the closest anyone will come is to put that assertion into the mouths of others, as in "many Americans believe homosexuality is wrong, which is why Don't Ask Don't Tell is a sound policy."

Similarly, civil libertarians and social liberals spend an inordinate amount of their time fighting against reductio creep (see here) and slippery-slope situations, without much left over for making the case that unrestricted personal choice is a positive good.

Even inflammatory culture war rhetoric tends to evade the core moral issues and refer to them, if at all, in code. Look at the Mike Huckabee quotes David Corn dug up, that much of the blogosphere finds jaw-dropping:

Abortion, environmentalism, AIDS, pornography, drug abuse, and homosexual activism have fragmented and polarized our communities.

Note that Huckabee is not saying what he plainly believes --- abortion, environmentalism, [environmentalism?--ed.], etc. are sinful and wrong. Instead, he resorts to a weaselly half-truth (it's half-true because it's self-fulfilling) about the consequences of the phenomena he wouldn't approve of under any circumstances. (This is the key to understanding chicken-little rhetoric from social conservatives, by the way.) At his absolute most egregious, namely, in his declaration that "[m]en who have rejected God and do not walk in faith are more often than not immoral," Huckabee is still pulling his punches: he could have said that rejecting God is itself immoral; instead, he merely correlates rejecting God with immorality.

Earlier, I referred advisedly to the ethical and theological premises the parties to the culture war operate on. One can make an ostensibly secular case that abortion, stem-cell research, and euthanasia are morally impermissible --- say what you will about his book, that's what Ramesh Ponnuru tried to do --- but that case will be vastly more persuasive to people who share a certain set of non-secular beliefs. Counterarguments against Ponnuru et al. will almost certainly be secular arguments, and for that very reason, will not persuade those who are disposed to agree with Ponnuru in the first place. What both Ponnuru and his antagonists will agree to is to refrain from questioning the first-order beliefs that motivate their positions, and that's because of religion.

The reason, in other words, that culture war arguments almost never touch on first principles is that in America, it is considered impolitic to criticize personal religious beliefs, and we have internalized this notion deeply enough that someone who claims that it is wrong to believe that homosexuality (say) is wrong immediately exposes himself as an intolerant dogmatist.

This is all a very prolix way of pointing out that religion poisons, if not everything, then at least a lot. Whereas expressing deep-seated moral convictions usually wins plaudits even from those who disagree ("at least he stands for something"), if such a moral conviction is that a religiously-inspired position is wrong and harmful, to say so, as even the liberal New Republic will tell you, is a token of illiberalism.


Daniel Koffler

Daniel Koffler is a Clarendon Scholar and graduate student in philosophy at the University of Oxford.


More...
27 comments | leave a comment

John Quiggin

12/19/07 2:41 am
Consequentialism

Some interesting points. But I still think there is a difference between the US and Oz. Most Australians really are consequentialists, and as far as public policy is concerned, utilitarian consequentialists. We're not very consistent about it logically, and most people start with policy prejudices that greatly affect their beliefs about consequences, but someone who's obviously using consequentialist arguments as a cover for religious or anti-religious commitments, in the way lots of people do in the US, is generally regarded as acting illegitimately in Australia.



Anonymous

12/19/07 11:14 am
ect.

John Quiggin is a fascist.


kid blast

12/19/07 3:23 pm
Ms Thomson's argument is

Ms Thomson's argument is secondary at best. At worst, it's academic. The debate in the USA is not about abortion per se. It's about federalism. Mr Koffler hedges his bet w/  "...women have a right to have an abortion for any reason they choose". Omitting "constitutional" before "right" is a wise choice. Americans have all kinds of rights which cannot be vindicated under the U.S. Constitution. A shame, then, that his small contribution to the USA's debate over abortion ignores the threshold question- who decides?


kid blast

12/19/07 4:14 pm
Once we're out of federal

Once we're out of federal courts and in state legislatures, the Thomson/Koffler argument can be considered-

 Its abiding analogy- a kidnap victim whose healthy kidney can save a violinist's life- is not ridiculous on the surface. This sentence, however, reveals its weakness: 

 "...it is worth drawing attention to the fact that in no state in this country is any man compelled by law to be even a Minimally Recent Samaritan to any person".

 Flat wrong. Of course no adult must feed another adult, or clothe another adult, or provide shelter for another adult. But an adult must provide for his minor child. Some states criminalize child neglect by subsuming it under "child abuse",  others have straightforward "child neglect" statutes. Either way, a legal duty well beyond "minimally decent" is owed by a particular class of persons to another particular class of persons. As it happens, these two classes are represented in any abortion hypothetical. Ms Thomson's "kidnap victim is to mother as dying violinist is to unborn child" is legal misanalogy.

 It is also moral cretinism. Its explicit denial of the physical and emotional bond between mother and child beyond that which is shared by any two other randomly proximate persons denies a (if not the) fundamental human experience. Its cloying description of the violinist as "famous"  increases the value of his life, and by so doing attempts to qualify his life as equal to the value a mother, any mother, might set for her child. This profound denial of the human experience is best described as misanthropy. Altogether appropriate, given what it's advocating.



Daniel Koffler

Daniel Koffler

12/19/07 8:31 pm
Comments: 334
Friends: 10
Well, first of all...
Well, first of all Kid Blast, there's a distinction between the legal question of abortion and the moral question of abortion. Some things that nobody would claim are immoral --- jaywalking, for example --- are illegal. Some things that are clearly immoral --- adultery, for example --- are not illegal. (I'm not taking a position on whether or not it's right that such discrepancies exist in these instances; many people do agree with these discrepancies, and in any case, I'm sure you could come up with your own examples.) I'm speaking here only about the moral case --- though it is worth noting that the moral argument seems to be sufficient in practical terms to settle the legal argument. If everyone agreed with my position on the moral status of abortion, noone would think to enact a ban regardless of what one thinks of the Constitutional issues. Conversely, if everyone agreed that abortion is morally impermissible (at least on right-to-life grounds), given its nature, it would go without saying that abortion would be banned --- and it wouldn't take a Constitutional amendment to do it, since part of the Roe ruling is that a fetus is not a rights-bearing entity.

Secondly, although I'm not an expert on Good Samaritan jurisprudence, I'm fairly sure that a) the laws have changed somewhat since Thomson wrote her essay, b) in many jurisdictions one is not required by law to be a minimally decent Samaritan, and c) the Good Samaritanism example is just one of many strategies Thomson employs to pull on widely-shared intuitions. You're quite right that anti-child abuse statutes are on the books everywhere, but to say a fetus is a child is to beg the question. But even assuming for the sake of argument that a fetus has a right to life, there is an important difference between a parent who consents to raise a child and a woman who becomes pregnant, and that difference, naturally, is consent. No one on either side of the debate claims, for example, that it is impermissible for a mother to put a newborn up for adoption --- and this is so whether or not the mother is indigent (and so we might expect the child to fare better growing up under state/foster care) or wealthy (and so we might expect the child to fare better growing up with the mother). Note that we might decide that a wealthy mother who gives up a child for adoption has done something extremely morally criticizable --- but being morally criticizable is not the same as being morally impermissible.

The point is that even if we agree that a fetus has a right to life, that does not entail that it has a right to life support from the mother; she can elect not to provide it, just as she can elect not to provide life support to a newborn by putting it up for adoption.

Lastly, I find pro-lifers who encounter the Thomson argument fairly consistently object to her analogy without addressing the argument itself. The problem with that response is that any two moral questions will be alike in certain respects and unalike in others. The goal of moral theorizing is a reflective equilibrium which unites as many of our moral intuitions as possible (but not all) under the best --- in terms of simplicity, salience, explanatory power, etc. --- theory. There are many examples one could construct that bear on the same relationship between rights-bearing-entities, one of whom is dependent upon the other for life support, but I suspect that pro-lifers who reject the Thomson argument as disanalogous will reject any example intended to draw out the relevant intuitions and unite them under a general theory. The idea being, I suppose, that the relationship between a mother and child is unique in all the universe and no inferences can be drawn from it that bear on other moral questions, nor can any inferences be drawn from other moral questions, no matter how relevantly similar, that bear on the relationship between a mother and child. This is a grossly ad hoc way of doing ethics, and as it cries out for explanation, it cannot be simply asserted.


Daniel Koffler

Daniel Koffler

12/19/07 10:40 pm
Comments: 334
Friends: 10
Incidentally...
I used to favor restrictions on post-viability abortion. I became convinced of my current position through conversations with David Boonin, who wrote an expanded version of the Thomson argument, which for my money is the best book on the ethics of abortion.

Recursive Prophet

Recursive Prophet

12/19/07 10:30 pm
Comments: 46
Friends: 4
Reading Daniel Koffler always makes me feel smart..

I keep waiting for you to write something I disagree with Daniel, but it has yet to happen. It truly gives me a rush of confidence to share so many viewpoints with one as articulate as yourself.  Your words give my thoughts resonance far beyond what they ever achieve in my own mind.


Anonymous

12/20/07 6:16 am
Daniel,

I used to favor restrictions on post-viability abortion.

I don't want to read a whole book, perhaps you could explain briefly this post-viability thing, why you don't favor it anymore.

Abortion means what - killing the fetus (as opposed to inducing premature delivery), correct?

Now, even if the fetus is viable, I do agree that the woman still should be able to evict it from her body, if she so chooses. But that can be achieved by delivering it prematurely and then keeping it in an incubator - that's what 'viability' means, correct?  So, why abortion, why the needless killing?

Thanks. 



David N. Friedman

12/20/07 10:52 pm
Death by analogy

Perhaps what first emerges from this kind of issue is the truth that when one takes an amoral look at a moral question--the arguments become so obtuse and so elaborate because only a 'sublime' answer can counter the morality of the correct position.  This is why atheists and leftists love to disparage the alleged simple-mindedness of those who take the moral high ground.  But, in fact, when one has enough intelligence to make a moral choice--this eases the burden of explaining the position.  Daniel is not to be applauded because he is willing to twist and turn and tie himself in knots because he is stuck with an ugly pro death stand--I think he should be encouraged to see the benefit of assuming a correct stand so that elaborate arguments are not necessary. 

We are now living in such a topsy-turvy world where the righteous is seen as evil and the evil and the perverted is seen as righteous since the perverse has the virtue of requiring the kind illogic and twisted speech that has become so popular in academia.  When normal people wince at such contortions, the students of this kind of elite culture can quickly write us off as unsophisticated since we are unfamiliar with such language.

Well over 40 million babies have been killed under the banner of a woman's right to choose.  The right to kill a baby is believed to have Constitutional muster since a woman cannot be forced to do something against her will--as if the living baby inside of her appeared out of nowhere. It is too easy to see that the baby is inside the woman since she consented to sexual intercourse with a man she chose, she chose willingly to have him implant his seed into her body, she was informed of the possible consequences of her choice and so was the man, she chose to be in that position and willed the natural consequence to happen.  When the consequence happens, some might regret the action and this is not unusual. 

I might regret that I allowed my vehicle to go over the speed limit but my regret does not absolve me of the speeding ticket.  I might regret that I said something bad to someone, this does not eliminate the need to be responsible for the movement of my own lips. This is common sense--even to those who wish to allow for a right to an abortion--but common sense must take a back seat if the stakes are much higher and a more dramatic moral quandary is at issue.  In such a case, logic, common sense and moral decency are out and odd reasoning is invoked with a supposedly wondrous and sophisticated analogy of a waking up next to a violinist who requires your kidneys.

I have no doubt that the woman who invokes this kind of dopey analogy has a well-trained brain and so might the Yale educated Daniel Koffler. If only they might look at the issue straight on instead finding merit in bizarre, off the wall reasoning that they would never use if only the stakes were far less vital to our culture moorings.

It is some irony that today's America recycles what is without a doubt perhaps the most worthless substance on this planet: newspaper.  By government edict, we are required to care for it, collect it,  put it in special blue boxes and wish it well by sending it off to some place where it will be cared for and then re-made into more newspaper.  On the other hand, we take what is obviously the most wondrous and precious thing on this planet: human life-- and willingly flush it down the sink at a rate of 1 million a year. In the process we have allowed tens of thousands of women's lives to suffer the consequences being haunted by such a horror and we have not raised an eyebrow when a few dozen have been killed by allowing the abortion procedure to be performed on their bodies.  This would be tragic enough without people like Judith Thomson and Daniel Koffler to assault us with the sentiment that the choice of death is morally superior.

But the decent among us are without sublime words and sophisticated, twisted logic.  It seems a real easy call and for that belief, we are branded morally and politically incorrect.  That is fine since we are not getting away with infanticide.



Anonymous

12/21/07 4:31 am
If the violinist analogy is imperfect, this one

"I might regret that I allowed my vehicle to go over the speed limit but my regret does not absolve me of the speeding ticket."

 

is even worse. Suppose for your exceeding the speed limit they write you a ticket and stick it into your ass for a couple months. Would you still find it a reasonable consequence of you being a little naughty behind the wheel?



kid blast

12/21/07 11:11 am
An ethics admitting the

An ethics admitting the observation that the mother/child relationship is qualitatively different than any other human relationship may be ad hoc (we must start somewhere, musn't we?), but is it "grossly" so? That is, is it irresponsible to respect as persusaive, if not entirely proven, the word and deed testimony of human history's mothers?

Or is it better to begin the inquiry with the wilful denial of such evidence?  Would we, for instance, exonerate the automobile of its responsibility for poor air quality by emphasizing its similarity to a bicycle (both have wheels, both get us places)?

No. We'd dismiss that argument, just as we should an argument that abortion ethics begins with the notion that the relationshi0p between a mother and its child is neither more nor less profound than any relationship between any other two people.



Anonymous

12/21/07 12:16 pm
There's no doubt that for

many (most, I'm sure) women the mother/child relationship is unique, qualitatively different and all that. But they are not the subject of the violinist analogy, they are not seeking to have an abortion.

But other women are, and to them, obviously, the mother/child relationship is no different than the kidnapped guy/violinist relationship.



kid blast

12/21/07 12:44 pm
The fundamental human

The fundamental human relationship is mother/child. Word and deed testimony by humanity's mothers gives compelling (if not dispositive) evidence for the profound and unilaterally dutiful relationship between mother and child. The duty, it may then be argued, is natural, and no less so because it may conflict with her right to do as she pleases. The person in the kidnapped guy/violinist relationship has no natural duty in that situation: her own behavior in no way contributed to the situation; any other healthy human could likewise save the violinist. A mother voluntarily terminating her pregnancy acts against her natural duty, as understood and evidenced by the ages. A preganant woman may aver that her feelings are no different than those of the kidnapped guy hooked up to the violinist. Human history stands against her.



Anonymous

12/21/07 3:30 pm
Define

"natural duty". Who decides what  kind of behavior is a "natural duty" and what isn't?

Is it, for example, your natural duty to impregnate as many women as possible? Why not? It seems to be the same sorta natural and special thing as the "mother/child relationship".



kid blast

12/21/07 3:53 pm
Don't mistake biological

Don't mistake biological imperative for natural duty. One has no choice in the first instance. Abortion-ers, deadbeat dads, and other shirkers confirm that a choice exists in the second. Where an individual, and eventually a society, goes wrong is in rationalizing dereliction as affirmation of sublime right.



Daniel Koffler

Daniel Koffler

12/21/07 3:56 pm
Comments: 334
Friends: 10
Natural duty....
"Natural duty," anonymous, is defined as whatever KB wants it to be to make his point, subject to instant revision the moment a morally relevant case is introduced that puts pressure on the definition.

kid blast

12/21/07 4:32 pm
I think it has more going

I think it has more going for it than that. The rights regime informing the  pro-choice argument ignores gnarly old concepts like "duty".

I wonder, though, exactly which "morally relevant" case has been presented? The human male must screw everything in sight, therefore the human female must have at-will abortions? This type of thinking lurks behind much discussion of abortion in America. It pays no compliments to women, of course, institutionalizing as it does their status as helpless victims.

The other candidate is the kidnap victim hooked up to the dying violinist. I've been clear that I think an essential element is missing in comparing him to an expectant mother. DK is dogged in his insistence that bad analogies can serve some good. I happen to agree, though I suspect for different reasons.



Anonymous

12/21/07 4:57 pm
Daniel,

since you're reading this, could you respond to my question above, please? Do you define 'abortion' as simply 'ending pregnancy' or 'ending pregnancy by killing the fetus, even if it's viable and can survive in an incubator'? That's where my instinct of "natural duty" kicks in, I'm afraid (all the anon comments in this thread are mine).

 

Thanks. 

 

 

 



Daniel Koffler

Daniel Koffler

12/21/07 5:01 pm
Comments: 334
Friends: 10
Sorry
Yeah, anon, that's what I was getting it. In post-viability cases, you can have an abortion without ending the life of the fetus, which can then be put under state/foster care.

Recursive Prophet

Recursive Prophet

12/21/07 5:09 pm
Comments: 46
Friends: 4
Humans are first species endangered by evolutionary success.

"But the decent among us are without sublime words and sophisticated,
twisted logic. It seems a real easy call and for that belief, we are
branded morally and politically incorrect. That is fine since we are
not getting away with infanticide." (Aren't you?)

David: Speaking of twisted logic: those who rail against not bringing more unwanted children into the world seem unaware that the major threat confronting mankind is our unchecked procreation. Industrialized counties consume and pollute at a much higher level, so any increase in their populations is an even greater problem than in the less developed nations. Without the extreme-by our standards-measures taken by the world's most populous country-China-the overall growth rate would be even more alarming. How can you fail to see how myopic your concerns are regarding abortion considered within the context of our future?

Just say no to unplanned/unwanted pregnancy? Betting on celibacy and restraint to win, place, and show? We already can see the effects of our numbers on our global host. And every single day, 24000 people die of starvation; 6000 children are killed by diarrhea. The numbers increase with each child born, especially in the first world. How can your concept of morality exclude this reality? Better to live a few brief years and die a painful, protracted death than to be terminated quickly in the womb? Can you 'untwist' your reasoning for me?



Recursive Prophet

Recursive Prophet

12/21/07 5:11 pm
Comments: 46
Friends: 4
Humans are first species endangered by evolutionary success.

"But the decent among us are without sublime words and sophisticated,
twisted logic. It seems a real easy call and for that belief, we are
branded morally and politically incorrect. That is fine since we are
not getting away with infanticide." (Aren't you?)

David: Speaking of twisted logic: those who rail against not bringing more unwanted children into the world seem unaware that the major threat confronting mankind is our unchecked procreation. Industrialized counties consume and pollute at a much higher level, so any increase in their populations is an even greater problem than in the less developed nations. Without the extreme-by our standards-measures taken by the world's most populous country-China-the overall growth rate would be even more alarming. How can you fail to see how myopic your concerns are regarding abortion considered within the context of our future?

Just say no to unplanned/unwanted pregnancy? Betting on celibacy and restraint to win, place, and show? We already can see the effects of our numbers on our global host. And every single day, 24000 people die of starvation; 6000 children are killed by diarrhea. The numbers increase with each child born, especially in the first world. How can your concept of morality exclude this reality? Better to live a few brief years and die a painful, protracted death than to be terminated quickly in the womb? Can you 'untwist' your reasoning for me?



David N. Friedman

12/25/07 9:47 am
More poor logic

OK, Recursive Prophet, children die of malnutrition, children die of diarhea--therefore....?  what?  Logic and morality dictate that we might send more medicine so that there is less diarrhea and more food so that there is less starvation.  Please help me with this kind of logic.  Do you believe that as long as one child is starving-another child has no to right to life?  I wish there was at least one good, logical argument out there that condemns one child so another might live or finds the "unwanted" life somehow suspect.

Regarding the goal of planned and wanted as the desired standard, I recall believing in that bad belief when I was very young.  I learned my best friend was neither planned no ever wanted at the time of pregnancy.  His parents were older, they had enough kids and his birth was accidental.  He was loved nonetheless as he was born, he is a great guy with a big family making a big difference to his community. An outsider would easily consider this guy the best of his family in terms of accomplishment, etc. When one looks around at families, eliminating some in retrospect would not at all have the social utility of eliminating the "worst"  and this kind of ancient Greek thinking has no place in a modern world infused with the Jewish ethics that won out over time--but are now being threatened.

Regarding the belief that the world is suffereing because of unchecked procreation--this is not in evidence and the West is suffering from a marked decline in fertility.  Sorry, Industrialized countries are much cleaner economies--this is not even an argument, it is simple ignorance.

I am searching for a productive argument and there is nothing.  As for Kid Blast, he is trying well to defend life but I must say that a special mother/child bond is not the argument--it is the right of the child to life and the crime of eliminating a fetus as if it was a waste product is a clear scar on our cultural morality which infects our general morality.  It is a big problem and has also brought misery to say many young people having joyless sex (as Tamar has so wrongly celebrated) so that the "mistakes" can be flushed away without regard to the life of the child and the character and soul of the people involved.  A societal stamp of NO on abortions will prevent the grave loss of so many children and will force young people to guard their sexuality for greater benefit to their lives.

What about the upside of one million dead a year?  Please state what this could possibly be and as I treid to find some defense in what Daniel brought forward, it is all so silly it is apparent there is nothing to be said.

In America, before abortion "rights"--that is a right to kill one's baby based upon a misconception, a whim, a lack of money, or a change of heart--there was far, far greater sexual propriety and far less pain.  Almost all children born in a marital context were loved and honored by their parents.  Women were given far greater respect and had greater standing so that our grandparents today, for the most part, are horrified by the spectacle of so many out of wedlock births and so many young women posing as whores for the pleasure of men. If there is any upside for this societal upheaval--it seems to me it must be huge if it has any chance to cover up the downside--from a utililitarian perspective.

But morality is not utilitarian, it is principled and a Jew who is not pro-life is no Jew.

A child born in America will not bring problems and the way to prevent more out of wedlock births is to make abortion a far more troublesome oprion so that young women will think a little more clearly before that act on a a choice of "free" sex which actually has a price tag associated with it.  Men and women alike understood this only a few decades ago.  Now, we close our eyes to the social costs and the moral costs and we evoke silly arguments to defend the indefensible.  I am still listening.



Recursive Prophet

Recursive Prophet

12/27/07 1:31 pm
Comments: 46
Friends: 4
The Earth's resources are finite. What happens after they peak?

Fishes and loaves, is it, David? Only problem is we've just about fished out the oceans, and need the grains to run our SUVs. 

“Logic and morality dictate that we might send more medicine
so that there is less diarrhea and more food so that there is less
starvation. Please help me with this kind of logic. Do you believe
that as long as one child is starving-another child has no to right to
life?”

David: Do YOU believe that one unwanted child has the right to
live at the expense of 4 others dying elsewhere? Just hypothetically, if you
accepted there are children hanging on to the bow of lifeboat Earth. If all
those aboard it had their small carbon/energy footprint, we could get by with one
Earth. If all consumed as we do, it would take 6 planets to support the current
population. There are countless sites that post these numbers, plus many enable
you to determine what your own lifestyle costs. Simple ignorance?

“But morality is not utilitarian, it is principled and a Jew
who is not pro-life is no Jew.”

Very definitely not utilitarian, especially if you base your morality
on the Torah. “Go forth and multiply?” Eternal life the prize for whoever goes
forth? Think I’ll go ‘fifth’ and settle for the toaster.

Not a 'true Jew,' eh? And here I was thinking there was much disagreement about
what makes one Jewish. Tradition would have us solely follow the Mitochondrial
DNA, though this often is disputed
in a purely scientific terms. Now I learn that certain proscribed viewpoints
can somehow render the genetic structure moot? Are there any others besides
pro-choice that somehow alter the ethnic identity of Jews?? Who makes the
determination? It appears many wish to. How do you ascertain which ones are interpreting the 'laws' correctly?

“Regarding the belief that the world is suffering because of
unchecked procreation--this is not in evidence and the West is suffering from a
marked decline in fertility. Sorry, Industrialized countries are much
cleaner economies--this is not even an argument, it is simple ignorance.”

The ‘west’ isn’t ‘suffering’ a decline in fertility;
only the descendants of the ‘native’ westerners are in decline. Immigrants from
the south and east are more than compensating for this, and the populations of
nearly all western nations are still increasing without even counting the
continuing flow of new immigrants. A Mexican in the U.S. or a Pakistani in
England soon consume and pollute at four times the rate of those left behind. But
they also provide cheap labor, and enable obscene profits for corporations so
they can keep the plutocrats happy; the real trickle-down. And you don’t need
to be a prophet to foresee that these are the 'profits' that will prevail.



David N. Friedman

12/27/07 9:16 pm
Ok, Recursive Prophet, yo

Ok, Recursive Prophet, yo surely have some tall tales.  It believe in science and not myth and junk science.  30 years of constant projections of "limited resources" and an alleged population explosion that will go beyond the carrying capacity of the Earth, now with really crazed notions about carbon offsets and the need to have a tiny energy footprint--all of this has nothing to do with reality.  It is all simple and total ignorance and ignores how discoveries constantly upgrade our energy profile so by the shear weight of human ingenuity, brought forward by a gracious God, man is able to grow more food with fewer space, find more and more energy sources and provide for a world population that is not even close to crowded.  The trouble here is political since over time, Arabs and Mexicans are reproducing themselves and no one else is keeping up.

The belief that one Western child, born into our affluence instead of flushed down a sink, is going to kill four others in the third world is so bizarre, so reckless, no response is necessary. There is no evidence that "consumption" is bad for the earth.  Pollution is bad, overfishing is bad (humans do not require pollution or overfishing) but the act of burning fossil fuels is neutral regarding the effect on the planet.

Your points regarding Judaism are not clear to me so I can't respond.  If you want to know how we know that God considers human life precious, this is not difficult. Perhaps you could re-phrase what you are saying even though your contempt for Torah comes shining through.



Recursive Prophet

Recursive Prophet

12/27/07 10:40 pm
Comments: 46
Friends: 4
The Torah: an 'Old' Testament by any name is the same..

David: I took time to respond to your reply as you seemed to be making an effort to communicate. But a certain dialectical reciprocity is necessary for this to happen.

The main point you missed was my hypothetical question regarding what happens when we have say 2 times our present number? At 13 Billion, and remember world population more than doubled in the last 50 years, you don't think the freeways might become a tad crowded? The air a little polluted? The oil all gone with the fishes and lakes? How about 20 or 30 Billion? Can we agree that at some point population demands on finite resources has to abate? Waiting for Godot comes to mind.



David N. Friedman

12/28/07 12:45 am
Problems, solutions

The topic was abortion and it does not at all stand to reason that if our nation once again disallowed abortions , there would be 1 million more "unwanted" babies per year to populate the earth.  Even if there were 100,000 more--America should welcome the addition since we are at close to only replacement of our population.  Illegal immigration is pushing up our numbers.

The problem of population is not at all a serious problem, nor is there a serious problem with the use of natural resources.  The famous population bomb will not materialize and the myth of natural resources reaching exhaustion has also not come about--nor will it come about since mankind fixes problems with solutions. 

As the world becomes more advanced, it will become cleaner, like the West.  China, India, etc. are much more polluted since they are economically backward.  That will improve.  Our air will be cleaner as we switch from diesel and oil to hydrogen, electric, etc.  There are natural checks to population growth and the world faces no prospect of a population crisis.  As highways become more crowded, people move to enjoy a better quality of life.

Our world is not static.  The planet CANNOT ever run out of oil--it is impossible--when we abandon our reliance on oil, we will leave under the surface of this planet the greatest amount of oil reserve ever encountered.  In only a few decades--no one will want it and we will have so much of it, no one will know what to do with all of it.  Why is this important--it is simply one commodity?  Who cares about coal--or horse buggies?  The energy of the future will not be any of those things.

We need to care about people, we need to be careful stewards of our environment and we need to stop paying attention to the liars which suggest that our planet is in crisis in one way or another when it is not. 



Recursive Prophet

Recursive Prophet

12/28/07 2:29 pm
Comments: 46
Friends: 4
I feel SO much better now...live and learn?

You've convinced me Dr. Pangloss!! To think I listened to all those evil scientists instead of YOU. Sunrise in America time! I have been transfused with your optimism. Job well done. No need to reply. I get it, and envy your faith in our future; I truly do!

"The future is fair. The future is FUN! We may already be there.
They already have won! Men, women, children, all; are up against the wall,

of SCIENCE! "