Another Listserve Discussion
The Law Students for Choice (LSFC) listserve is having a heated yet fascinating discussion on contraception and abortion. Actually, I am the cause of the friction. I am trying to make them realize that the root of their (and all) pro-choice arguments rests on a definition of when a human life begins.
Those who admitted that the definition is a crucial part of their argument responded in the following fashion:
"The Christian Right can define the beginning of human life however they want. But they can't impose that definition on me."
I think (argue with me if you think otherwise) that this response (1) is disingenuous; (2) is enormously common; and (3) represents the central problem with liberalism. Why?
Liberalism says to citizens: The state won't provide you with values. Go find them yourself in religion, philosophy, whatever. So, in the context of the LSFC discussion, Christians go to the Bible to find their values. Their interpretation of the Bible tells them that life begins at conception.
But then, when citizens go to religion and find a set of values, the state says: Whoa! Don't bring those into the public sphere! Don't legislate your definition of the beginning of life on other citizens!
"But wait!" say the conservative Christians. "You told me to get my values from elsewhere. Now you're telling me I can't act on the moral implications of those values! That's disingenuous!"
We grow up hearing cliches like "It's a free country." But we don't realize that liberalism is not value-free.
That last statement is not a condemnation of liberalism, but it is a call for a more intellectually honest defense of liberalism. Instead of saying "Liberalism is good because it is value-neutral," we should be saying "Liberalism is good because ________." (What you put in that blank will probably be some sort of defense of autonomy.)
Thoughts?
---------------------------
GC: Update: Thomas Nagel disagrees with me. Not a good thing. On the plus side, Michael Sandel agrees with me.
Those who admitted that the definition is a crucial part of their argument responded in the following fashion:
"The Christian Right can define the beginning of human life however they want. But they can't impose that definition on me."
I think (argue with me if you think otherwise) that this response (1) is disingenuous; (2) is enormously common; and (3) represents the central problem with liberalism. Why?
Liberalism says to citizens: The state won't provide you with values. Go find them yourself in religion, philosophy, whatever. So, in the context of the LSFC discussion, Christians go to the Bible to find their values. Their interpretation of the Bible tells them that life begins at conception.
But then, when citizens go to religion and find a set of values, the state says: Whoa! Don't bring those into the public sphere! Don't legislate your definition of the beginning of life on other citizens!
"But wait!" say the conservative Christians. "You told me to get my values from elsewhere. Now you're telling me I can't act on the moral implications of those values! That's disingenuous!"
We grow up hearing cliches like "It's a free country." But we don't realize that liberalism is not value-free.
That last statement is not a condemnation of liberalism, but it is a call for a more intellectually honest defense of liberalism. Instead of saying "Liberalism is good because it is value-neutral," we should be saying "Liberalism is good because ________." (What you put in that blank will probably be some sort of defense of autonomy.)
Thoughts?
---------------------------
GC: Update: Thomas Nagel disagrees with me. Not a good thing. On the plus side, Michael Sandel agrees with me.
posted by Garrett at 6:53 PM
1 Comments:
While I didn't quite follow your last post titled "Abortion," this post was right on the mark.
For anyone who wants a broader scientific understanding of life I suggest reading /The Selfish Gene/ by Richard Dawkins. After reading it, my entire sense of the word life was obliterated. The world is full of entities, and I realized all the arbitrariness built into bright line rules people have about what is alive and what is not. Consider the following list: humans, algae, self-replicating computer code, adapting AI, RNA viruses, non-encoding DNA, human language, bird calls. What's alive?
I propose basing our social definition on our general social purpose: allowing coexistence without conflict. A new liberalism? Libertarianism even?
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