One of the critical points of disagreement in the abortion divide is notions of personhood. So it seems one interesting thing to examine might be what comprises notions and ideas of personhood and on what basis these ideas are founded.

There are role based notions of personhood. I’m told that in Bali for example, your personality (and in fact your name) is dictated by the order of birth. You are “first son”, or “third daughter” a name which indicates who you are. In Rome the notions of personhood and identification of a person was primarily a legal concept. Your status of citizenship, your membership in guilds and other associations defined your legal notions of personhood. But legal and definitions of personhood based on birthplace or occupation are foreign to members of the modern western world.

One of the common notions of self is based on memory, that is you are the sum of your memories and that your memory is the basis of your continuing notion of self. But this is incomplete and insufficient. If, in some speculative fiction, a persons memories are erased we still think of them as the same person, just that they being the person whom they are is now that person sans memory. That is, the memory did not define self. Similarly if, one person’s “memories” in a scenario such as the Total Recall movie were taken and transplanted into another person … that other person would not thereby “be” identified as the original person. We have a common notion that these to persons are in fact distinct. Memory it seems does not define person. Another example that comes to mind is Latro in the Gene Wolf novels whom awakes each and every morning with no memory of his past. How is “self” or concept of ego considered for someone like him.

Organic identity as well does not define person. Again in speculative fiction not just modern science fiction, there are ideas of a person being transformed into something else. He becomes the ghost in a machine (modern computer or whatnot) or earlier works in which his self is moved to another person, animal, or magical animate object. If the ego, the “I”, can be radically transmuted and that memory of whom I am is not self either … what is the constituent thing which identifies self?

One suggestion, given by the early 4th and 5th century Eastern church, expanded by the 8th century theologian St. Maximus, and put into modern context by  and John Zizioulas is that personhood and self are defined relationally. That your continuity of self and in fact your very notions of self are defined only in relation to “Other”. If we refer to the above identification of self through radical transformations, we recall from those stories that the validation of self past the transforming event is that one recovers and is recognized via re-establishing and restoration of those connections with those others with whom one was formerly connected.

In Genesis, 18:22-33 the Lord and Abraham have a conversation of a political nature:

So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

One of the things which the author of this passage is relating, succinctly, is that political ethics are not exactly the same as personal ethics. The dialogue does not run down to “Suppose there is one there”, the reason for that is that in politics there it is not possible ethics are a muddier thing than in personal interactions. War, for example, can be just, justly executed, and be necessary that is “a fighting of the good fight” and at the same time innocents will as with any other war, die. It is not that the deaths of those innocent is “good”, but that in execution of one thing, which is necessary and good (the war), innocents will die, which in an of itself does not make the war “not good” or necessary.
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Where do we get when we come to a place where we’ve established and believe that the “other side” isn’t stupid or evil. It seems that one of the results holding that as an axiom, is that identification of who agrees with “your view” of things is the sort of person whom you might support, and that this is in fact as (or possibly) more important than competence in a political standpoint. Thus the team urgency and loyalty we see by, for example, GOP vs Democrat actually makes far more logical sense than one might think. It isn’t the same as “team loyalty” to a particular football or baseball team. You support and have political loyalty to a party which “speaks your language”, and in doing so assures you that their train of logic and their conception of the good in government is shared by you. Alsdair MacIntyre in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? writes in some length about how hard it is for those who do not share essential assumptions on the fundamental concerns defining the Good and the rational to communicate. So often those who do not share your assumptions don’t make sense. It is hard to understand why the “other” arrives at the conclusions that they do, and more often than not, we fall back on the (erroneous) assumption that the other is merely deluded, stupid, or intentionally malefic. Read the rest of this entry

About 25 years ago I owned a dog that, as time marched on, began experiencing the effects of aging. The dog, a Sheltie, got to the point where her walking was labored, resulting in muscle spasms. Consequently, we began discussing taking her in to the vet to be put down. My grandmother, bless her heart, objected to that course of action. Her reason?

We quietly chuckled at the absurdity of her concerns.

Now (HT: Doug) enter a British medical ethics “expert” who has recommended that people be

How is it that we’ve gone from the age-old notion of putting animals down, to that of putting humans down? Are we beginning to see a clear juxtaposition between the Judeo-Christian view of The Imago Dei, and that of naturalism, which sees us as nothing more than clothed apes?

The latest advancement in stem cells is that it’s getting safer to convert adult stem cells to “induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells” (basically what embryonic stems cells are).  Adult stem cells are already curing loads of diseases, without the need for destroying embryos.  This is just one less reason to want to rely on the ethically murky embryonic ones.

One of the problems I have with socialized healthcare is that it takes the responsibility for payment out of the hands of the person getting the care and places it in the hands of a massive bureaucracy that has, depending on the system, either a monopoly on being the payer or at least one of the larger ones.  As such, it has an incentive to cut costs, but its incentive isn’t nearly as personal as an individual payer.  The larger the bureaucracy, the less concern for the individual. 

I’ve noted before how this led to the state of Oregon denying cancer medication to a woman, but still gave her coverage for physician-assisted suicide.  It also leads to a British medical ethics expert suggesting that the elderly should take the same route, for the good of society.

Elderly people suffering from dementia should consider ending their lives because they are a burden on the NHS and their families, according to the influential medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock.

The veteran Government adviser said pensioners in mental decline are “wasting people’s lives” because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.

She insisted there was “nothing wrong” with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.

The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be “licensed to put others down” if they are unable to look after themselves.

Her comments in a magazine interview have been condemned as “immoral” and “barbaric”, but also sparked fears that they may find wider support because of her influence on ethical matters.

Lady Warnock, a former headmistress who went on to become Britain’s leading moral philosopher, chaired a landmark Government committee in the 1980s that established the law on fertility treatment and embryo research.

(A tip of the Blogger’s Fedora to Right Wing News.)

The “leading moral philosopher” in Britain is asking people to die for the good of the state.  What an insane world we live in.

I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.

Doug’s post below reminded me that I wanted to recycle a post from a few years ago (apologies to those who have read it already). I think it’s topical.

Jessica is the daughter of our friends. Every day, the school bus comes for Jessica, who happens to be the last child on the route. On this particular bus, the kids have assigned seating, and Jessica sits next to the same young boy–day after day. And, day after day, this young, frightened boy cried the whole trip. He was crying when the bus came to Jessica’s house, and he cried the rest of the way to school.

One day, Jessica decided to help the boy. She reached out her small hand, and gently laid it on his arm. The boy stopped crying. The mere touch of another, gentle soul was enough to comfort him. The next day came, the boy was crying. Jessica sat down, reached out, touched his arm, and he stopped crying. This pattern repeated the next few days. She did not have to say anything, her touch was all he needed.

And then, a few days later, something interesting happened. On this day, the boy stopped crying a few blocks before the bus reached Jessica’s house. He knew she would be getting on the bus soon and that was enough to comfort him. She still put her hand gently on his arm, of course. This pattern repeats to this day. The boy stops crying a few blocks before Jessica’s house.

I suppose he can sense where the bus is because of the curves in the road near her house. You see, the boy is blind. He can neither see Jessica, nor her house. He just senses when the bus is almost there.

Jessica’s actions on the bus do not surprise her parents. She has four siblings at home, including a newborn sister. Whenever one of her sisters, or her brother, is hurt, Jessica is there to comfort the child. Offering her gentle shoulder and heart for another’s comfort. That’s who Jessica is–comforter of the hurting. She is also one of the happiest children I have ever seen. There’s always a smile on her face.

Jessica turned five this past February. [She is now eight.] That, in itself, is a miracle. Jessica was born with hydrocephalus. While in her mother, the fluid built up in her tiny brain and damaged it. Jessica also has Down Syndrome. There are many things that Jessica will not be able to do in her life. To some, Jessica should never have been born. Some, having received the news of her condition, as her parents did, by amniocentesis, would have chosen to end the pregnancy, and her life. The reason, I suppose, is that she won’t have much quality of life. She’ll never be a productive member of society. She may not be able to take care of herself. Not much of a life in our modern society.

However, I know one little boy on a bus who knows that Jessica is nothing short of a gift from God.

Maybe the doctor mentioned in Doug’s post below needs to meet Jessica.

Memory fades? In the evening interview (I didn’t catch it) of Mrs Palin was asked about the Bush doctrine.

Gibson’s description—“The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us,” wasn’t a good description of even the preemption element of the Bush doctrine (and his claim that the preemption element was enunciated in September of 02 is also incorrect), though Palin’s answer suggested she didn’t quite agree with Bush on the question of imminence.

My impression was that the Bush doctrine was essentially that if a country chooses to actively support terrorism, it abrogates the moral right to exist, that is that any other nation may in good conscience attack it. The reasoning behind this is that terrorism, when illegal in nation states is little more than a criminal annoyance. If however, a nation decides to harbor and support terror … those numbers and capabilities grow by orders of magnitude and in our modern world become a threat to our lives and liberty.

Am I wrong in my recollection? Mr Gibson certainly is wrong.

As noted in the introduction to this series, I’m blogging on two short works on Poverty, the first is Ched Myers The Biblical View of Sabbath Economics and the second is the 14th oration by St. Gregory of Nazianzus entitled “On Love for the Poor” (note I misquoted the title in the prior essay as well as Mr Myers first name). In this short essay, I’m going to attempt to precis the basic thrust of the two works. The current plan is follow this short summary with some critical assessments of the two works Read the rest of this entry

A frequent commenter and blogger (his blog is here) Dan Trabue graciously sent me a copy of a book (that arrived with me away on vacation) that he finds to be a significant work describing his view on how Poverty and the Christian relate. In a short series of essays I’m going to compare, review, and contrast this pamphlet The Biblical View of Sabbath Economics by Chad Myers with a somewhat older work on basically the same topic. The the latter part of the 4th century St. Gregory of Nazianzus gave a lengthy oration “On the Poor”. It is these two works I’m going to compare.

Chad Myers according to the frontispiece has “worked for three decades in the field of non-violent activism for social justice, church renewal and radical discipleship.” Mr Myers has degrees in philosophy from UC Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union (also in Berkeley).”

St. Gregory of Nazianzus on the other hand was the most accomplished rhetorician of the 4th century Church. The piece “On the Poor” is the 14th oration that has been passed on from his era. His most famous orations, the so called 5 “theological orations” given in just a short interval from just outside of Constantinople was a major turning point forever cementing the Nicene tradition in the Church over the more popular (at the time) Arian heresy. If you today hew to the Nicean statement of faith … in part you owe it to the brilliant rhetoric of St. Gregory. It also should be noted that St. Gregory unlike his friend St. Basil (the Great) took a different approach to asceticism. He personally eschewed the monastic and extreme asceticism practiced by St. Basil and others around him. His asceticism was a more literary (and spiritual) asceticism of contemplation without embracing all or perhaps many of the rigors of the monastic life. It might be noted however, that he did take at an early age a vow of celibacy which he maintained throughout his life.

Both of these pieces have some similar conclusions. Both stress that charity is a primary virtue. However their methods, arguments and ultimately their conclusions are very disimilar.

I will also admit up front that I have a lot of difficulty giving Mr Myers work a fair reading. Stylistically he makes blanket assertions about, for example, the nature of the free market society which at best are a caricature of the market economy as told by a Marxist. In short, a lot of false statements are made about economic truths and conditions in markets and in pre-market, i.e., early Bibilical societies which need disentangling from his main argument. What is left after the dissection … is a question I can’t answer at this point of this study. It is indeed one of the questions that will need to be answered in this short series.

It seems that some liberals are having a difficult time understanding what constitutes hypocrisy.

Consider the saga of Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter, and this blog post at ABC News,

To begin with, I’m not aware of any prominent Republicans stating that “everybody else doesn’t have any values.” To be sure, persons with alternative political affiliations hold values of some sort.

Yet I wonder exactly what type of accountability Mr. Wray would hold Sarah Palin to? It seems to me that, in her public statement on the issue, she made it clear that her daughter was choosing life for her unborn baby, that her daughter was going to get married to the child’s father, that her daughter would have the full support of her and her husband, and that their full support was needed now that her daughter would learn about the reality of having made choices that fell outside the realm of “family values”. It further seems to me that, rather than displaying hypocrisy, Palin is being fully consistent with the family values she claims to have. Honesty, love, commitment, and responsibility.

If Sarah Palin wished to be a hypocrite, she would have counseled her daughter to have a secret abortion, in order to preserve the family image, thereby allowing her to attend college (if she so desired) without the punishment of having to take care of a child at the same time.

The Catholic church has had to correct the thinking of some Democrats in the past in reference to the church’s position on abortion.  (Well, they’ve spoken out in the past; there’s no evidence yet that the actual thinking was corrected.)  Most recently, the Speaker of the House herself has come under fire for misrepresenting Church teaching in order to buttress her own views.

Politics can be treacherous. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked on even riskier ground in a recent TV interview when she attempted a theological defense of her support for abortion rights.

Roman Catholic bishops consider her arguments on St. Augustine and free will so far out of line with church teaching that they have issued a steady stream of statements to correct her.

The latest came Wednesday from Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik, who said Pelosi, D-Calif., “stepped out of her political role and completely misrepresented the teaching of the Catholic Church in regard to abortion.”

It has been a harsh week of rebuke for the Democratic congresswoman, a Catholic school graduate who repeatedly has expressed pride in and love for her religious heritage.

Enough “pride” and “love” for her to, y’know, accept her Church’s teaching?  Apparently not.  The “steady stream” of corrections don’t seem to do much.  More below the fold…

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In the wake of the Georgia/Russia/South Ossetian kerfuffle I’d like to consider the implications of expansion as policy for a country. The invasion and counter-invasion (which was mostly missed by me due to my disconnect with the Internet and news sources over the last two weeks), is something I’m not qualified yet to comment. I’m still reading up about, one source here.

However, in the abstract, especially in the wake of recent military adventures and the as well the Kosovo and Ossetian moves toward independence, one might consider when and if national expansion is justifiable. Certain elements of the left as well as the pacifistic supporters are of the opinion that attacking or anything but “defensive” wars are inexcusable in all circumstances. This belies the fact that every nation that exists, owes its very existance to a past non-defensive war. The motions of peoples in the antiquity, clans settling and moving were all accompanied by violence. If only defensive wars are justified, how are those wars justifiable if indeed the place being defended was initially acquired in a way which is a priori unjust, that is if aggressive conflict is assumed unjust.

Now, I’m well aware the “everyone does it” isn’t a moral justification. In ethics, there is rarely a cut and dried simplistic path to the good. There are instead tensions, or a weighting that must be done. One must evaluate the good and other less salutary aspects to find a solution which maximizes the good. Similarly in political conflict there are times when war (even wars of aggression) are viewed by those evaulating the possibilities as the best possibility. For a people the option of expressing their independence can be seen as one which justifies much. Manifest destiny drove expansion of the US states from a small colony on the East coast across the continent to the other sea. Expansion did not always occur peacefully (and it is naive to expect that an expanding industrializing civilization can abide peacefully in contact with a nomadic tribal one).

Roman expansion in part was driven by economic goals and gains as well as a notion that Roman civilizing influences were in the best interest of the conquered nation. Glen Cook, in a fantasy novel which I read in my (mispent?) youth, had a character remark to another that “no villain sees himself as evil”. That is the villain of the piece is acting for and on the behalf of what he perceives as good. And that fact is something which is wise to recall.

Mr Putin as well as almost all or leaders are honestly doing what they feel is “right” and in the best interests of their people. While is easier to assume your personal take on the world is “righteous” and those with whom you disagree are in the wrong, most of the time the “other” guy, even those with a wildly different idea of what is right to do, has performed the same sort of reasoning, but with a different set of starting assumptions and “weighting” of values and also things he’s right and doing good. That makes the world a little more complicated, but at the same time is a more realistic view of the way things are.

A long long time ago, when I had more free time in my life, I read copious quantities of science fiction (and other pulp fiction). Donald Kingsbury in The Moon Goddess and the Son had a crucial insight on democracy, which I suggest that many of us have forgotten. One of the primary threads in the book was a peaceful means to bring about (and bringing about) the fall of the iron curtain and the possible rise of a democratic in the place of the former Soviet empire (in part this was helped by a viral board/video/war game in the book). It should be noted that this book was written in 1986 some years before the actual fall of that regime.

One insight which might as well be drawn in part from our own revolutionary process is that, to embark on democracy is to fundamentally lose control.  Centralization of power is satisfying and tempting in the larger part because of the control. The (wise) leaders of a revolution (or democratic government) must, in order to remain a democracy, yield control to the (unwise) individuals. I’ll give a few examples:

• First, in one of Ms McArdle’s essays today she writes on health care and choices. She suggests that we assume that people would prefer to spend “new money” from government grants to the poor on health care. But that is, in turn, paternalistic and somewhat dictatorial in making up their mind for them and treating them as children. If a poor man would prefer to die in 5 years with an untreated condition and instead spend the money on a fast fancy car. By what right do we insist that he spend that money on health care? [aside: Btw, I favor throwing #2 “overboard” and think the only fair method of rationing health care (demanded by #3) is ability to pay, with the caveat that certain minimum levels of health care should be available to all.]
•  In Iraq, we say we want them to be democratic then at the same time, we complain that the choices they make are not what we would recommend. However, giving them democratic freedom means … we lose any control or ability/right to make recommendations.
• The progressive movement often would put in place large scale structural elements to “guide us” in righteous thinking on racial and gender issues. Their centralization of doctrine and practice is their fear of the loss of control that comes with democracy. People will “misbehave” if they don’t force their hand pre-emptively. This urge is the very essence of the anti-democratic impulse. Leninism and the worst horrors of the 20th century were put upon their people, “for their own good.”

The question then, is how can we protect our individual freedoms and rights and at the same time prevent abuses that in a large measure give rise to the paternalism impulse that drives centralization?

Sharia law in the Middle East from a rights perspective is seen by the west as, well plainly said, horrible. The uneven freedoms granted differentially to men and woman (and infidel) within their society is shocking to the Westerner. It is my view of government that a state is acting within its bounds if it only takes the authority granted to it by its people. If they grant that women should be treated unevenly, then it is right for the state to reflect that. A Muslim community anywhere (including the US) might very well be within its bounds of authority, in my view is righteous.

How does one put this in practice however? What does it even then mean for such communities to overstep their bounds? Well, one might suggest that if I put you in jail unjustly it is one thing. It is another if you complain about being placed unjustly in jail but that the door is open and you can leave at any time. And that might be the key. If we allow great freedoms in the ordering of individual small communities and at the same time insist that information about the “outside” and other communities makeup and practices be available and that that “door be left open and unlocked”, that might be enough to insure your civil liberties be protected.

It might also, go a lot further to establish the sorts of civil progressive changes that the left wishes would occur. I would suggest that asking many more of us to get involved in the crafting of just law would go a lot further to internalize civil behavior than anything that might be attempted from “on high” within the beltway or the vaunted halls of the ivory tower.