Where do "Morals" Come from? Was Re: Coming Out of Women's Desire and Practice of Liberation (was Re:lifesavers vs. fetal symbols)

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

>Eric Beck replied to me:.

>>When is that  magic moment when that bundle of cells becomes
>>human? Who gets to decide that, and how? It seems we are
>>having enough problems holding on to abortion rights--porous
>>logic and bland justifications will not win any converts.

This argument in itself merits no more than the contempturous
reply Yoshie gives, "Yes, indeed, every sperm is sacred," but
the principles which generate such offensive moralism need to
be examined. The materialist position in fact goes back at least
2500 years to Athenian democracy and Protagoras's revolutionary
statement of the democratic principle, "Man is the measure."
(Protagoras lived before the movement for non-sexist language
:--) ) Plato, in my favorite book but also in one of the most
dishonest passages in the history of philosophy, the Thrasymachus
episode in the *Republic*, tried to smash this threat to oligarchy,
and succeeded in that to this day the democratic proposition,
"Justice is the interest of the stronger" is usually condemned,
following Plato, as the slogan of tyranny. In the dialogue Plato
let's Socrates make an apparent fool of Thrasymachus by
cleverly restating the proposition as "Justice *ought* to be the
intererest of the stronger," which is babbling nonsense. (It is
a tremendous advantage in argument if one can write the
opponent's script as well as one's own.)

The democratic opposition having been humiliated, Plato has
no difficulty in elaborating a set of eternal truths which (quite
luckily) turn out to be a justification of any ruling class at any
time. (The *Republic* is still a beautiful book -- and not only
because it formulated once and for all in all their naked beauty
the principles of The Enemy.)

(For those who want Marxist texts on this, see the Third Thesis
on Feuerbach, Engels' Preface to the First German Edition of
*Poverty of Philosophy*, *PP* itself, passim, Marx's
discussion in *Capital* of the historical/moral element in the
establishment of the value of labor power, and above all perhaps
the following closing Q/A in an interview by a New York reporter
with Marx near the end of his life:

                Reporter: What is?
                Marx (after long silence): Struggle.

So to Eric's baiting question, "When is that  magic moment when that
bundle of cells becomes human?" the answer is simply whatever
time (arbitrary) humans in struggle decide it is. Eric's question, in
other words, is meaningful only in a Platonic (and reactionary)
assumption of eternal justice. The provisional Marxist position
(and basis for struggle) has to be "Whenever the woman decides."

In closing, an observation. Most of the "arguments" against the
emancipation of women are articulated in moral terms, usually
involving the "responsibility of the individual" to this or that. I
have brought forth Plato's *Republic* in this post to underline
the fact that the first great attack on democracy is also the first
great exposition of Moral Obligation.

Carrol