Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Thomson on the Perils of Exaggeration

I've been covering the abortion debate in my summer ethics class the last couple days, and happened upon an article by Judith Jarvis Thomson from the Boston Review (1995). The following two paragraphs caught my attention, given some of my recent thinking:
In the first place, those who accept the doctrine [that a fetus has a right to life from the moment of conception and thus that abortion is murder] ought not say that reason requires us to accept it, for that assertion is false. The public forum is as open to the false as to the true, but participants in it ought to take seriously whether what they say is true. There is already far too much falsehood in the anti-abortion movement. A recent newspaper photograph showed an anti-abortion protester holding a placard that said "Abortion kills;" that much is true. But under those words was a photograph of a baby. The baby looked to me about a year and a half old—counting in the ordinary way, from birth, not conception. The message communicated by that placard was that abortion kills fully developed babies, and that is false, indeed, fraudulent. Exaggeration for a political purpose is one thing, fraud quite another.

But falsehood is by no means the worst that comes of pronouncements that abortion is murder. Say that often and loudly enough, and some weak-minded soul is sure to start shooting to put a stop to it—as of course has happened, most recently in Brookline [where a shooting occurred; see the start of the article]. That is the second point to stress about the public forum: what is said there has consequences. Exaggeration for a political purpose is one thing, incitement to do harm quite another. (my emphasis)

A friend of mine also drew my attention to this op-ed from today's New York Times.

In the stuff I'm working on, which in part involves what we can justify once we've decided for ourselves that some thing is intolerable, I've argued that hateful rhetoric falls beyond the pale, precisely because it attempts to blur the line between non-violence (an exercise of free speech) and violence (via provocation). There seems to be a lot of hate in the air these days...anyone know what the remedy is?

5 comments:

  1. Quote:
    "In the first place, those who accept the doctrine [that a fetus has a right to life from the moment of conception and thus that abortion is murder] ought not say that reason
    requires us to accept it, for that assertion is false. The public forum is as open to the false as to the true, but participants in it ought to take seriously whether what they say is true."

    I for one, being a sane man, would never play Russian Roulette based solely on the testimony of he said, she said of the gun having a live round in it or not. I would require a direct visual experience of looking into all of its chambers and even then I would still feel very strange and queasy in playing with life at such a shallow and casual level.

    I would say that it is always prudent to err on the side of caution when it comes to acting on a belief that can not absolutely be proven to be true or In other words one should always act on the presupposition that human life comes into existence at the moment of conception unless it can be proven not to be true. I think that it can safely be stated that human life is the highest value of all that is known to exist in the in the universe.


    Quote:
    "In the stuff I'm working on, which in part involves what we can justify once we've decided for ourselves that some thing is intolerable, I've argued that hateful rhetoric falls beyond the pale, precisely because it attempts to blur the line between non-violence (an exercise of free speech) and violence (via provocation). There seems to be a lot of hate in the air these days...anyone know what the remedy is?"

    Two wrongs does not make a right.

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  2. Jack: who's playing with life? The would-be agressor against people like Dr. Tiller, or were you referring to Tiller himself (and women who seek out abortions)? Or both?

    I'm not sure I get the Russian Roulette analogy: it's not Russian Roulette unless there's a round in one of the chambers.

    On more ecological issues: why is human life of the highest value rather than, say, the universe that makes human life possible? (Sorry I couldn't resist. I've been covering some environmental ethics, too...)

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  3. Hi Matthew,


    Matthew quote:

    " who's playing with life? The would-be aggressor against people like Dr. Tiller, or were you referring to Tiller himself (and women who seek out abortions)? Or both?"

    Matthew,
    My view is that all three are playing with life and not just some type or sort of generic life but human life and I cannot rationally see how it can be viewed from any other angle. By the way, this does not mean that I can or will remain faithful to this belief in all the circumstances of my life yet to be lived but if I don't, it will be a failure of courage and not of conviction.


    Matthew quote:

    "I'm not sure I get the Russian Roulette analogy: it's not Russian Roulette unless there's a round in one of the chambers"

    Subjectively, to anyone playing the game, there is the possibility that there is a live round in one of the chambers irregardless of the actual fact of there being a live round or not,and absent the option of an absolute verification by ones own personal visual inspection, I think it would be the height of irresponsibility to play the game. Even so, if all of these hurdles were to be overcome, I think that it could only be a very shallow and dull minded man that could or would relate to life so casually.


    Matthew quote:

    "On more ecological issues: why is human life of the highest value rather than, say, the universe that makes human life possible? (Sorry I couldn't resist. I've been covering some environmental ethics, too...)"

    Secondarily,

    Consciousness is higher then unconsciousness.


    Primarily,

    Self Consciousness is higher then unselfconsciousness.

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  4. Jack,

    I appreciate what you say about the thought that not living up to a particular view would be the result of not having the courage of one's convictions. Surely this is often what happens. If you can find it, I highly recommend looking up Peter Winch's essay "Moral Integrity" (which has been published separately as a book but is also included in his (1972) book Ethics and Action) in which he discusses a case where a man does something that violates a core conviction of his. He clearly judges that he has done something wrong, but Winch seems not convinced that even this means that this man has necessarily compromised his integrity, because the situation was, in a very obvious way, an "emergency."

    It's true that it would seem to be a case of double-think to espouse a conviction and yet hold out that there are exceptions (if the conviction is really one about a moral absolute), but it's maybe not as clear that since we live in a less than perfect world, any divergence from that conviction means a loss of integrity.

    (For example, Gandhi, seemingly paradoxically, said that while he believes in non-violence, that there may be cases where the practice can't be upheld without permitting the total destruction of one's self or community...)

    No one wants to be in a situation of having to "choose who lives," but it's not clear that "we must refuse to choose" is the only, or the right, answer in all cases where such tragic situations arise...

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  5. Matthew,

    I said above:

    "By the way, this does not mean that I can or will remain faithful to this belief in all the circumstances of my life yet to be lived but if I don't, it will be a failure of courage and not of conviction."

    I should have said that it would be a failure of love.

    ReplyDelete