Blog for LB355

Blog Post #21: Finishing with Kitcher

The two chapters for this, the final reading for my LB355 class, were ones that I very much ended up enjoying. The latter, Ch. 13 titled The Quality of Lives, dealt with the ways that we measure the quality of a person’s life and the way that Utopian Eugenics is involved with the subject. It was a very interesting chapter, and it made me review my preconceived notions about the way I view the choices of others, which brings me back to the even more important chapter, in my honest opinion.

Chapter 12, entitled Self-Dissection, dealt with the philosophical issues surrounding the idea of the self and the impact that genetic technology had upon it, and it was BRILLIANT. I especially enjoyed the section on causality as it put into words what my own ideas are. It boils down to this-we know now that our personalities are caused by outside stimuli as well as internal potentials and so on, which is exactly the point. They are caused. Which would completely destroy the way we view freedom. However, he brings up one of my favorite philosophers, David Hume, and uses his argument: that freedom is not an uncaused action that we take, but that it is an action that is caused by our own wants and desires. However, Kitcher then responds with the conundrum: if our wants and desires are what defines a free action, and our wants are part of our personalities, and our personalities are caused by molecular interactions, doesn’t that mean that we do not have free will anyway?

This back and forth is one of my favorite parts of philosophy, especially because in the end, it really doesn’t have too great an effect on our daily lives. This section tied in a lot of what has been stressed this semester, with Kitcher coming perilously close to taking a reductionist stance, but managing to elaborate that the environment that we are in shapes us as well, which is a theme that has been repeated over and over again in this class, which I do not mind.

Blog Post #20 More Kitcher and some News

With this chapter (Chapter 11, entitled “Genetalk”), I believe that Kitcher thinks we should be viewing genetic testing with more skepticism, but I feel like just because it is not that certain, it does not mean we should not use and trust the tools we make. I feel that people fear being labelled reductionist when it comes to this subject, but in my-albeit limited-experience, reduction of a complicated subject into less complicated parts is integral to finding an over-arching idea that fits with the data.

As to the other reading, it is this article published by the Boston Globe about a family who were part of a study done that, eventually, helped reach breakthroughs in prenatal testing, but were more upset than pleased about the results. Their child was diagnosed in the womb with Down Syndrome, and it is about their lives taking care of this child, and their worry that people will no longer have children with DS, and miss out on their experiences. I think that the story is a sweet one, but in the end, I would rather have a world where everyone is guaranteed to start out with at least a similar chance at ‘normal’ development-though I realize that defining what is normal is extremely difficult.

Blog Post #19 Returning to Kitcher: Chapters 8 and 9

These two chapters were about eugenics. Now I know the word ‘eugenics’ elicits a knee-jerk “Nazi’s are bad people and so are early 20th century geneticists” reaction, but there is more to it than that. These chapters address the issues that surround prenatal testing, and whether or not is is alright to decide what genes are good or bad in a child, and whether or not eugenics is a viable option. Its conclusion was a bit vague in that it only tried to assert that we should restrict this sort of methodology to genetic diseases, but it was a good chapter in relation to its refusal to make certain assumptions until they were supported. The last chapter cut off before exploring the main mechanism of the ‘Unavoidable Eugenics’ which was the name of the previous chapter, which was aborting fetuses that were genetically undesirable.

Blog Post #18 Back to Garreau, Prevail

So I have been very critical of Garreau’s chapters, specifically his enamor with the so-called Prevail scenario, but after finally getting to the chapter, I am extending an apology to Garreau for jumping to conclusions-the ideas behind this scenario are different than I had originally believed.

The main proponent for this scenario, the Kurzweil/Joy of this chapter, is one Jaron Lanier, and his idea for how the future may go is interesting to say the least. It is his belief that the Heaven and Hell scenarios are both wrong because of their deterministic and reductionist ideas about human cultural progress-it is not, as I had believed, that it was intentional slowing down of progress out of misguided moral quandaries, but that human nature is unpredictable. That we are not headed up an exponential curve because humanity doesn’t work that way. And I must say that I find myself agreeing in many respects. I believe that his ideas about how quickly progress will happen is a bit conservative-there I believe more in the Heaven scenario, but I think that the overall goal that he has in mind-increased inter-connectivity between people-is an ideal to strive toward.

Many of the points that Jaron brings up are interesting as well. He first modifies the aforementioned Curve of exponential progress (Moore’s Law) into a less steady but still overall increasing ramp. He then adds two more ramps beside them-one for moral progress, and one for the connections between people. The latter, he claims, starts with the invention of language, and hits a jump in the modern age with the advent of communication technologies including the telegraph and telephone, up to the internet and mobile communication. It is this third ramp that the technological revolution, in his mind, is building to. As with all things, I think that reality lies somewhere between the extremes, with the three scenarios mentioned so far making a triangle of sorts, with the real end result lying somewhere in the middle (though I think leaning a bit further away from the Hell scenario than many people fear).

It also helps that one of the main examples in this chapter is about cuttlefish, one of my favorite animals.

GO CUTTLEFISH, GO!!!

Blog Post #17 More Kass, and a surprise reading from my Professor

Jumping right in, this chapter was not supposed to be as frustrating as the previous ones, because it was about cloning, and he is against human cloning, just like me. However, as soon as I started reading, I realized my mistake. Since he was taking the same view as I was, I thought he might have something to say about the subject that would be logically sound, and I was, obviously through context of this post, wrong on that account. He again resorts largely to religious motivations for his arguments, as well as espousing the merits of “traditional family values” in relation to reproduction, and overall again driving me away from the points he tried to make. At one point, he spends a good chunk of a page taking about the Garden of Eden, and how everyone connects with this story, and proceeds to tie it into his argument. However, I personally can say that I do NOT connect with the story of the Garden of Eden in the way that he is saying, but that is a post for another day. Overall, his arguments continue to be not just weak but often insulting, and I do not see this changing anytime soon.

As to the second reading, this one was much more interesting, and I was surprised to see that it was actually a speech given by my professor, who is even more interesting than I had previously believed him to be. Robert Pennock, Ph.D. is quite the impressive scholar of philosophy of science, and I suggest reading not just the assigned reading, but his book Tower of Babel, which concerns intelligent design arguments.

To get to the point, this reading was a speech given in 2000 by professor Pennock about whether or not scientists had the ability to judge the ethical issues surrounding research and techniques such as human cloning. I found his speech pretty compelling, and I liked the views that he took on the subject, as well as the examples that he used. He compared the purpose of scientific inquiry to an analogous situation. Scientists can run a test to see if something is an invertebrate, he says, but not to determine if invertebrates have rights. I would go more in depth, but I would rather you all read the actual speech, it is interesting.

Blog Post #16: Frustration

We continue into Kass’ drivel of a work this time, on Chapter Four: Age of Genetic Technology Arrives.

Kass is talking about the genetic revolution in this chapter, and has quite a bit to say about it. He at least drops the pretense and is forward about his religious views on the matter, for the most part, though he still at one point wrote in the footnote of page 122 “They speak about children not as gifts that we are duty-bound to humanize through speech and example in the light of the good…” though I think we can all agree that he had probably replaced God in the previous iteration of that sentence with the words in bold. As an atheist and a philosophy major I cannot stand when people use religious values as a guideline for moral thought, not only because I do not share their faith in any higher power at all, but because it is intellectual bankruptcy. In this line of reasoning, the why it is good or bad boils down to, essentially, ‘someone else told me this was wrong, so it is,’ instead of doing what someone in Kass’ line of work should do, which is examine the situation and come to a conclusion based on rational thought.

Luckily for all involved, this is not the only way he approaches this problem. Kass also lists a series of concerns, some even legitimate, in this chapter that I will address now. He believes that giving foreknowledge of genetic information is a concern in that it could very easily lead to genetic profiling, which I agree with. However, it is also true that racial profiling was and is a  problem in our modern society, and that through legal action and hard work, we have improved the situation more than slightly over the few millennia that we have had on this planet, with a great majority of the progress having been made in the past few centuries, if I may be so bold. Another is the effect that it would have on our lives, such as living in fear of a probability, or of an eventual, untreatable disease, to which I say that his conclusions are preposterous. His argument is, then, that people shouldn’t pursue this technology because some people might not like what they hear. However, it doesn’t matter if a majority of people would not like to know about it-which may not be the case-as long as some people do, it should be available to them.

There are many more issues that I could list here and talk about, but I will not address them at this point, feel free to message me with any questions, comments, concerns, etc… Thank you for reading!

Blog Post #15 aka Why I hate it when people are bad at lying

For this reading assignment I was tasked with reading chapter Three of Dr. Leon Kass’ work Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Liberty.

In the third chapter of Kass’ book, he goes over the moral implications of in vitro fertilization and research on human embryos, while also touching upon abortion, cloning, and other issues ‘plaguing’ bioethics today. Let’s start with what I could agree with in this chapter, which will be the shorter segment of this blog post. In the chapter he brings up some good points, mainly that allowing such research to take place does not inherently require the federal government to fund it themselves. There are issues with the idea of straight up banning such research that are logistical as well as practical in nature.

That is the majority of what I could agree with him on. Now to the reasons why I dislike this man intensely. To start off the chapter, he claimed that the discussion that would follow was not founded upon religious grounds, and yet throughout the entire chapter, it was evident that the flow of his ideas predicated a religious conviction that he was unable to hide, the most obvious points being when he stressed the importance of traditional family structures, bemoaned the trivialization of family and marriage, and at one point had the gall to remind the reader of the importance of heterosexuality. These ideas were obviously fueled by a theistic mindset, the only word missing being God itself.

On top of this, his reasoning is often flawed, not only outright embracing the slippery slope fallacy, but establishing points without actual evidence to support it, such as his assertion that life ‘begins at fertilization,’ and that at that point the blastocyst deserves respect and, using a term which implies religious thought, reverence. Overall, I find this chapter to be exactly what I feared it would be. And though I entered with as impartial a mind as I could muster, I left with a sour taste in my mouth.

Blog Post #14: Back to Garreau, and a descent into Hell

This chapter was more difficult to get through than the previous chapters, mainly because of all the disagreements that I had regarding the subject. To reiterate previous posts, this book describes a series of scenarios that humanity may be headed toward as a result of technological progress. This was the aforementioned Hell scenario, and a s evidenced by the author’s writing style, he considers this outcome to be much more likely than the previous one, Heaven. In this chapter he describes the ideas and worries of a large group of people, Billy Joy being a leading advocate of this theory as well as others, including one Francis Fukuyama, who I personally think may need to pick up a few more historical texts before making some of his assumptions. However, this chapter did bring up a few legitimate concerns that people have concerning the progress of technology.

One of these concerns, and the one that I personally fear the most out of all of them, is the idea that the Heaven scenario is actually impossible to achieve. However, the ideas behind it that were introduced were flimsy enough that I was dissuaded of these fears. Another series of concerns included the apocalyptic events often portrayed in Hollywood and the like, and to these I usually am of the opinion that advocates of these fears have watched one too many movies, but I also found myself with difficulty in refuting their points. However, I would like to state that though I cannot as of this moment put these fears to rest, I am of the belief that humanity has the capability to meet these problems head on and overcome them. I have enough belief in this ability to persevere and triumph that I still would support the Heaven scenario and the work needed to accomplish it.

Blog Post #13: A Brave New World Chapters 12-End

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Now I can move on.

I’ve decided that this book is officially insane. Huxley draws a great deal from Shakespeare and famous philosophers/theologians in his very long philosophical debate between John the Savage and the World Controller. And though I know that the purpose of the book is to condemn the dystopia that he has created, on many points I find Mr. Mond, the aforementioned controller, to be on the winning side. Yes, there are any things that I despise about this scenario, but in the end I find that there are way too many things are not cut and dry as Huxley wished to convey. I hate John as a person after a certain point in the book, because of his complete and total abandonment of all sense. His self-flagellation ended up not only costing him the solace he so desperately wanted, but in the end brought him to his suicide at the end of the book.

But there is more to it than that. John seems to believe in a very Hodge-podge composite of various religious traditions, and goes so far as to judge their society as a consequence. And yes, since this is a book about a dystopian future, the society is incredibly, undeniably flawed, but John’s reaction is so perverse in its own way that it has driven me away from the point that Huxley was trying to make. Overall, I think that it is a good book, and I would suggest people read it, if only so that you know what the references people make about it are in context. However, keep in mind that though Huxley is critiquing the consumerist, eugenic, and ‘social degradation’ of that period of time, in the end, I find that it becomes a scathing reprimand upon both sides of the issue.

Blog Post #12: A Brave New World Chapters 7-11

This book has become something that I cannot put down. His portrayal of the Savage reservation as a backwards, disgusting and horrifying place, while incredibly racist, is also creepy, and forced me to reevaluate the way that I viewed the culture of the book, as well as the way I view the world, in some ways. The culture of the Savages is reminiscent of the stereotypes that were perpetuated in those days about the Native Americans. There is also a chilling realization that appears a little into the seventh chapter, where they *SPOILER ALERT* find a woman who was from the ‘civilized’ world, who became trapped there after an accidental fall, and without modern contraceptives, she gave birth to a child. Which in this society is completely abhorrent.

More and more I find that this type of world has become quite abhorrent. The forced caste system, as well as the banning of all historical records and artistry and the mass production of similar human beings is disturbing to say the least, and it is quite evident why this book forms the arguments against quite a few genetic technologies. The concept of not being with only one person is something that is not unknown in our modern world, but has been forced upon the populace, eradicating any strong ties to people, which while I do not think is truly possible in the real world, is something that I must say I would object to morally. However, this is a work of fiction, and obviously so, and I am as of yet unconvinced that we should abandon our rate of development. for fear of this story.