[PEN-L:32388] Re: Re: Birds of a feather

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
Peter Dorman writes,
There was an article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed about a year ago
that was fair-minded, I thought, on Singer and his critics.  The man is
not a monster...

Doyle,
"Writings on an Ethical Life", Peter Singer, Harper Collins books, 2000,

page 163,
We might think that we are just more "civilized" than these "primitive"
peoples.  But it is not easy to feel confident that we are more civilized
than the best Greek and Roman moralists.  It was not just the Spartans who
exposed their infants on hillsides: both Plato and Aristotle recommended the
killing of deformed infants.   Romans like Seneca, whose compassionate moral
sense strikes the modern reader (or me, anyway) as superior to that of the
early and medieval Christian writers, also thought infanticide the natural
and humane solution to the problem posed by sick and deformed babies."

Doyle,
So is that what we ought to do Peter expose babies on the hillside above the
towns to show our moral superiority we've gained from an ethical insight?

page 207
"We will have to give up hope of finding better treatments for stroke
victims, because we will be unable to try out these treatments on patients
who have just suffered a stroke and are unable to give consent to taking
part in a research program."...

page 207 down a sentence,
"For me, those choices are not difficult, and I am not at all persuaded that
the practices Dorner criticizes have any tendency to lead to Nazi-like
attitudes.  But there are some questions that are more difficult.  Among
them are questions concerning the treatment of infants with Down syndrome.
...
"When Down syndrome is detected and abortion available, the overwhelming
majority of women, in most countries in excess of 90 percent, choose
abortion.  The fact that so many women carrying fetuses with Down syndrome
choose not to give birth to the child surely tells us something about their
attitude to life with Down syndrome, and their desire to avoid, if possible,
being the mother of such a child."

page 313
"A sinister aspect of this atmosphere is a kind of self-censorship among
German publishers.  It has proved extraordinarily difficult to find a
publisher to undertake a German edition of "Should the Baby Live?"-The
updated and more comprehensive account of my views (and those of my coauthor
Helga Kuhse) on the treatment of severely disabled newborn infants."

page 315
"Germans, of course, are still struggling to deal with their past, and the
German past is one which comes close to defying rational understanding.
There is, however, a peculiar tone of fanaticism about some sections of the
German debate over euthanasia that goes beyond normal opposition to Nazism,
and instead begins to seem like the very mentality that made Nazism
possible.  To see this attitude at work, let us look not at euthanasia but
at an issue that is, for the Germans, closely related to it and just as
firmly taboo: the issue of eugenics.  Because the Nazis practiced eugenics,
anything in any way related to genetic engineering in Germany is now smeared
with Nazi associations..  This attack embraces the rejection of prenatal
diagnosis, when followed by selective abortion of fetuses with Down
syndrome, spina bifida, and or other defects, and even leads to criticism of
genetic counseling designed to avoid the conception of children with genetic
defects."...

Doyle,
So the Germans are fanatics because they are concerned with bigoted
anti-disabled attitudes.  You say Singer isn't a monster?  He thinks killing
a month old infant who is disabled is perfectly reasonable approach.  Since
the majority of women will abort their baby who has Downs Syndrome, then
have a cop come over to the house and put a bullet in the infant.  Or
perhaps a clinic for lethal injections that is pain free for the child.  As
long as the atmosphere is clinical and antiseptic and we have violins
playing rock music to sooth the parents during their ordeal.

Or organ harvesting, that will make a lot of money won't it?  We've got a
lot of stroke patients out there taking up nursing home space that aren't
producing value, lets do a little surgery.  What they don't know won't hurt
them, besides the damage is irreversible.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor