tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post5894250773673392077..comments2023-10-26T22:06:11.166+11:00Comments on Metamagician3000: Fenton to Habermas and biocons: Human nature is not fixedRussell Blackfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-69670426470617508862007-01-29T04:07:00.000+11:002007-01-29T04:07:00.000+11:00I'm a little undecided about the last bullet point...I'm a little undecided about the last bullet point:<br /><br /><i>There is a contradiction in the claims by Habermas and other bioconservatives that liberal eugenics is intrinsically morally wrong, while at the same time they want its regulation or acceptance to be determined by a democratic process. The latter claim appears to undermine the former.</i><br /><br />I believe, for example, that the restrictions which various religious groups in the U.S. wish to place on contraception are intrinsically immoral. (My conclusion isn't an <i>axiom</i> of my moral geometry, but it's not a hard theorem to prove. They're not on my built-in list of moral No-Nos, if I even have such a list — it's more a set of heuristics, I suspect, of which my conscious mind is not fully aware. However, the rhetoric from the Religious Right sets off these heuristics without much deliberation on my part.) However, this doesn't mean I'm going to borrow semi-automatic weapons from my Texan friends and wage a one-man war upon the righteous.<br /><br />Violating the democratic process, assuming the democratic institutions are actually established and functioning, seems to entail a greater evil.<br /><br />I am, after all, imperfect. Even if I am confident in my own moral heuristics, I can't be sure I'm acting on complete information. In a situation as complicated as a bioethical dilemma, I have to rely upon organizations and institutions — universities, news media — to make sure the truth gets out. I can't judge <i>harmfulness</i> without data! If I'm willing to rely upon universities and hospitals to study the safety of the medical procedures involved, why in principle should I refuse to let other people vote on how much to fund the research?<br /><br />To me, the individual, a proposition like liberal eugenics is either unethical enough to require prohibition or not. (Barring the possibility that I'm caught between alternatives and can't arrive at a choice, due to incomplete information, my intrinsic lily-liveredness or whatever.) This belief, however, is not the cornerstone of my identity, and it doesn't mean I'm willing to compromise the democratic process, which I believe is in some way <i>more central</i> to civilization than the decision we reach on any one issue. And since I subscribe to moral skepticism, weak moral objectivism, non-naive moral relativism or some other meta-ethics which is not moral realism (I'm still figuring out the terminology!), then I can't say my personal estimation correlates with a quintessential, writ-in-the-stars judgment of liberal eugenics.<br /><br />All that said, I think Fenton talks a lot of sense. Like you said, she <i>gets</i> it.Blake Staceyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13977394981287067289noreply@blogger.com