Dissenting Futilitarian no. 2
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Transcript of Dissenting Futilitarian no. 2
D EAR HONOURABLE
MEMBERS. I pray that
my last effort proved a small comfort.
How few understand the difficulty
you face in having all our hardest
questions pushed upon you. That
you might be vindicated, and
sleep the sleep of the just, let me
continue to relate how I came to
see your wisdom in pushing away
t h at f o u l i s s u e .
Last week I ended with my visit to Prof .
GROAN, a political philosopher friend, a visit,
I said, that left me decidedly uneasy. “It is
wonderful,” said GROAN, “that Mr. vALeuR-
de -bO I s has directed the government
(in his proposed deliberations on the question
of our humanity) to be guided by ‘the relevant
experts’. but he has evidently decided, to boot,
whom these experts are.”
“I mean, he has not decided this just for
himself,” said my friend, “he has decided it
the same way for everyone else: he has
named the ‘relevant experts’ as ‘medical science’.
The law, he says, is out of step with ‘the
medical evidence about when a child actually does become
a human being.’ do you not find it odd, my dear
man, that he has called for open enquiry and
in the very same breath closed the mode
of enquiry, predefined the make-up of the
panel of experts? His Motion asks about
‘the preponderance of medical evidence’: well, are the
‘relevant experts’ really just doctors?”
“but whom else should we consider?” I asked.
“He is a religious man, you have said;
presumably, for a believer, the word of God
has some claim to expertise: why not hear
the views of pastors and priests? And could
you really stop there in a country such as
ours? Why not rabbis and imams? Why not
shamans, the spiritual leaders in traditional
First Nations communities who have special
knowledge of the spirit world? but are such
figures experts for those of us who believe
in no supernatural realm? What experts, I
ask, do the rest of us recognize in this
regard? There are those like myself who
guide their lives not by a religion but by
a philosophy.”
The complexion of the issue was changing
second by second, at about the rate of my
rapidly drooping face. but my astonishment
seemed only to egg the Professor on.
“In fact, I believe we must go farther
down this line,” he added. “Is there
really such a thing as ‘ex p e rt i s e ’ per se :
experts for you and I, no matter who we
are, with respect to any given thing? Is not
‘ex p e rt i s e ’ in fact a philosophical notion?
I mean,” he continued, “God is an expert for
some; he is the very s u p r e m e aut h o r ity
for those who inhabit religious views of
the world. but he is not an expert in my
world - how could he be, when he is not in
my world?”
“My expert is William James, John dewey - the
pragmatist philosophers. Or, rather: you could
even say that my expert is myself , as the
idea of whom I would call expert originates
inside of me! Perhaps you find that strange
but strange, indeed, is life. Life, my dear man,
is messy. - And here is my point,” he continued.
He did continue. I was rather wishing he
would not, as I wanted nothing better than
to run off and cradle my head in a sling
or wrap it in a damp towel, or drown it. -
“Good heavens,” I raged in the inwardness
of my thoughts (where, mentally, I was
shrieking at the top of my lungs), “we are
talking about stating what a human being
i s ! About saying what thaT wretched
THING , in your wife’s bulging belly, that
is about to be born ... stating what thaT
THING is! Is there really any need for
all this folderol about philosophies and
wor l d s ?! What ‘worlds ’? do you really
doubt that my arms can reach right into
your world and twist your scrawny neck?!”
I knew this reaction to be bad. Yes, probably
not the inner response of a man who loved the
Truth and sought the balm of her company,
abiding at rest in her peaceful sanctum.
Indeed, the present doubt that I was such
a man, a man at all fit for the task I had
taken upon myself (to follow the promptings
of my soul to the Truth in this matter of
Our Humanity), was a convulsing component
of my ill-feeling. O Truth, do I love you,
and take joy in you - or am I enraged by
you? AND Then what am I?! Far from
abiding quietly in her sanctum, I was run-
ning amuck, swiping clean her mantelpiece
and dashing her vases to the floor.
Meanwhile the Professor had continued:
“The idea of what thing s really are :
in philosophy we call this concern Meta-
physics (what things really are is a
Metaphysical question). And don’t you
see? What things really are depends upon
your prior Metaphysical commitments (there
is a God, there is nothing but matter, etc.).
so who counts as an ‘expert’, as an
‘aut h o r ity ’ - well, it all depends.”
He concluded his speech thus: “A
doctor is not a metaphysician; he
is a physician. His concern is not
What things are; it is What
is wrong with you. I trust him
to tell me if this mole on my nose
is dubious: I trust him with the
defining features of a dubious
mole , not with the defining features of a
human being .”
Mentally exhausted, I left the Professor
with the most rudimentary of gracious
goodbyes and stumbled into the street, my
brains throbbing. I wished to mother my
aching head (or put it out of its misery),
but I also knew that the reason I wished to
do so was that I could not free it of what
the Professor had placed within it. Was it
the truth? I did not know - but I could not
eject it!
How I wished to lay hold of some simple
argument and club the Professor’s words to
dust and powder, to be swept out the door
of my mind: yet I had none with which
to do it. His words sat there like crates
of stones, enraging me precisely because I
could not move them. The only thing clear
to me was that this simple matter was not
as simple as I had wished it to be .
There on the sidewalk, before I left the
Professor, a last shred of wit allowed me
to ask a single question: “but according to
your philosophy, Prof . GROAN, tell me:
what is it? by your metaphysics, what is
that thing in a woman, a woman you call
human, and who is, as we say, ‘reproducing’
- ... what is it then that is about to be
born?!”
He looked at me as if I had reached for his
wallet - but then his expression softened:
“We need time for that, my boy. In my
philosophy we would need to consider the
consequences of any manner of answer we
might give ... and circumstances alter cases,
as you know. so another time, another time,”
and his door clicked shut.
I n the days that followed I tried to
extract from the professor’s words the
relevant conclusions. but what were they?!
“There are no experts .” That cannot be
correct, for manifestly there are. Why are
there experts about cells and not about men,
I wondered.
Was the proper conclusion that “there is no
answer to this question about the
resident of the womb except all the
answers : his answer , her answer , every
answer under the sun according to every
possible metaphysics”? but if that were
the relevant conclusion, my goodness: how
then could we agree upon anything?
It occurred to me then that I had yet to look
into the h i sto ry o f t h i s p r o b l e m . did
we once have consensus, in the establishing
of what is human and, if so, whatever could
have happened? That, it seemed, the history
books would answer and I rushed to the library.
No.
2 28 MAY
2012}}
The DIssen TIng Fu TIlITarIan {{
L ET T E R S TO M EMB E R S O F PA R L I A M E N T F R OM A C I T I Z E N O N T H E S U B J E CT O F T H E P R O P O S E D I N V E ST I G AT I O N I N TO O U R H U M A N I T Y
P r e - f a b d e b a t e , c h e a p c h u n k s o f t h o u g h t , d u m p e d o n y o u r p l a t e , r e a d y o r n o t !
B
The Honourable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , M.P.House of CommonsOttawa
“Hmm,” he said, “ye-e-s-s, that would be
true. What actually are the ‘facts’ that do
not support my call for discussion?’
“Metaphysics,” I said; “the fact of competing
philosophies.”
“Well, let us see. Consider: when the question
we are asking is, What is it?, how in ordinary
circumstances do we go about obtaining
an answer? do we just shrug and say, ‘The
fact of competing philosophies! Who can
know?!’ I think we are more advanced than
that, don’t you?” (To that, I was agreed.)
“We answer such a question,” he went on,
“by determining what k i n d o f t h i n g
it is and turning to the experts on t h at
k i n d o f t h i n g . For example, this thing
here (he plucked a plant from a vase on his
desk): What is it? do you know?”
“It is a flower,” I said.
“Yes, but what flower? We
are agreed that it is a
flower: excellent! Who then
knows more? Is it not
the Botanist? should we
not consult the one who
has knowledge, who has
science (a word that comes
from the Latin scientia,
meaning ‘knowledge’)? Isn’t
a question about when
someone ‘becomes a h u ma n
being’ a question about
h u ma n development? so,
quite simply, who studies
human development?”
“Well” (suddenly recalling texts I had
consulted that very afternoon, e.g., The
developing Human) , “it is , I believe,
biologists , Embryologists .”
“Yes, embryologists. should we not, then,
consult the Embryologist , to know
what that thing we call an ‘embryo’ is?
Is it a human being? ‘uterine material’? A
‘gestational sac’? I think you will find our
knowledge sufficiently developed to
establish what this or that natural, physical
thing is . As for what is more than physical,
Meta-physical, you say” (he looked this up
in a dictionary) - “it says ‘beyond physical
reality’ - well, I am not asking about that.
It is the physical thing in the womb that
I am asking about. Have we no ex p e rts
about that k i n d of thing?”
(Aggghh!! Yet again I did not know which
way to turn! I speak to that man and he
convinces me! I speak to this man and he
seems right! Yet they disagree with one
another! Am I a complete idiot? I stood up
and glanced longingly at the window: might
I dive out of it? but I could not remember
which floor I was on and was forced to
reconsider, then bid the Member a hasty
goodbye and ran moaning down the echoing
stairwell.
And this seems a good point at which to
pause until next time - as, for better or
worse, there is more !)
I am, etc.
1 1 D i s s e nt i n g f ut i l ita r i a n . b lo g s p ot.ca
In my reading, as you may guess,
I was quickly led to that loud and
neighbouring land to the south, where this
f o u l i s s u e had first given trouble.
I scanned the words of the decision in the
famous case of Roe v . wade (a ruling so
pivotal in this history) and was instantly
startled by the following. What the Justices
on the bench of the supreme Court of the
united states of America had said, in
1973, was this: that on “t h e d i f f i c u lt
q u e st i o n o f w h e n l i f e b eg i n s ...
When those trained in the respective disciplines of
medicine, philosophy, and theology are u na b l e to
a r r iv e at a ny c o n s e n s u s , the judiciary,
at this point in the d ev e lo p m e nt o f ma n ’s
k n ow l e d g e , is not in a position to speculate as
to the answer.” (Roe et al. v. Wade, 1973, 410 u.s. 113)
Amazing. experts ... who disagree! Were
Prof . GROAN’s ideas confirmed?! (Think
it through carefully, I told myself,
this is not too hard for you.) First, the
judges were saying that by 1973 we had
no “consensus” on “the difficult question of when
life begins.” (Clear! And a date of disarray
had now been established!) but why
was this consensus absent in 1973? *Were the u.s. judges saying that our prior
agreement about when a human being is
formed had dissolved - o r - were they
saying that in history we had nEVER yet
reached any such agreement , owing to
the rudimentary “development of man’s knowledge”?
They seemed to allude to a point of common
“knowledge” that we might one day reach
(a knowledge that would either restore
a lost consensus or create a new
consensus). Or did they believe in no such
consensus? (I wiped my brow; the labour
of forming these thoughts had broken me
into a sweat. but at least now the fog was
ordered into different patches of gloom!
Was victory coming? - Ha!)
I wondered, what would you have
thought, dear Members, had I, on that
busy day, sat down beside you on a park
bench as you ate your sandwich and related
to you these very things. What? Would you
have said, “This is knowledge we once had
and can have again” - o r - “This knowledge
lies in our future, yet to be reached (and,
because it matters, we should try very
hard to reach it)” - o r , in agreement with
Prof. GROAN (and surely this was his
meaning exactly), “This knowledge is
perfectly unreachable, an utter fantasy that
we could never hope to achieve”?
Would you have said, “With these three
possibilities, plainly this question must be
looked into further”? How I wish I could
have shared your muffin and heard your reply!
but ah, I know you and I can guess your
mind! You would have said (would you not?),
“I see deeper into all this than you, and there
is nothing there to see - have my banana.” It
is only now (after all my pains, which I
assure you continued beyond that day) that
I have come round to your insight and am
able to wink and say, with you, “Aha, it is
t h at f o u l i s s u e - No Thank You!”
but let me proceed to a most pivotal part of
my story: my meeting with Mr. vALeuR -
de -bO I s himself! Have I mentioned that
I had arranged to speak with him? I had
earlier resolved to drop GROAN’s challenge
right in his lap!
But first something was troubling me.
GROAN had said that the Member
had fastened onto science because science
was in agreement on this issue - but hadn’t
the supreme Court said the opposite: there
was no agreement to speak of? While still
in the library I resolved to settle one more
question: Is science agreed as to the
point at which we exist?ÉÉÉ
I t i s no t o f c ou r s e
physicians who study the
early development of human
beings but embryologists,
the authors of textbooks
titled Human embryology
and The developing Human.
I pulled from the shelves
books published before
and during the time of
trouble. How surprised I
was to find that, even
after Roe, these books
continued to say what
they had said for a
century! (believe me: if I
had found one embryology
text that did not I would
gladly quote it here.) Note the following
excerpts:
“The term conception refers to the union of the male
and female pronuclear elements of procreation from which
a new liv ing being develops.... The zygote
thus formed represents the beginning of a new life.” (J.P. Greenhill & e.A. Friedman, biological Principles and
Modern Practice of Obstetrics, 1974, 17, 23)
“Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite a new being
is created which is alive and will continue to live
unless its death is brought about.” (e.L. Potter & J.M. Craig,
Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant, 3rd ed., 1975, vii)
“It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoon and
resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to
the union that ... marks the initiation of the
lif e of a new indiv idual .”
(Clark edward Corliss, Patten’s Human embryology, 1976, 30)
“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization ... is
a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances,
a new genetically distinct human
organism is formed when the chromosomes of
the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte.”
(Ronan O’Rahilly & Fabiola Mueller, Human embryology
and Teratology, 3rd ed., 2001, 8)
“A zygote is the beginning of a new human being
(i.e., an embryo).” (Keith L. Moore, The developing
Human: Clinically Oriented embryology, 7th ed., 2003, 2)
Not sure (yet again) what to make of my
findings - before my question was answered
it seemed still more thinking was demanded,
as I had yet to come round, dear Members,
to your sharpened state of perception (“do
you smell a f o u l i s s u e ?”) - I saw it was
now time to set off for the Member’s office!
The moment of reckoning was
upon us. Face to face with the
smiling man himself, I opened boldly (since
everybody else was doing it): “It is not true,
I have been told, that you are concerned
with facts . Rather, you favour the facts
that support your conclusion!” * Note: I mark thus questions to which I felt bound
and committed to obtain an answer!
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