Persennhood

Here are some links related to our ongoing discussion of the the moral status of persons:

• Just a reminder that our term paper is on this topic.
• Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on person.
• Here is a nice essay that examines various proposed criteria for personhood, such as intelligence and the ability to communicate.
• Are dogs persons? One of my favorite radio shows recently devoted 3 episodes to the science of what dogs can and cannot understand.  Listen below:
  
  Part One
  Part Two
  Part Three
• How about dolphins: are they sea-persons?

Abortion

Here are some links related to our class discussions on the ethics of abortion:

• Recent scientific research suggests that the earliest fetuses can feel pain is about 24 weeks into a pregnancy.  
• One philosopher argues that even if you think abortion is morally acceptable, it's controversial and morally risky enough for you to lower your confidence in your own moral judgment.  
• Here are two articles debunking the myth of the Mozart Effect that we discussed in one of our classes. 

Extra Credit: Buchanan's Article

Here is the extra credit assignment on the Allen Buchanan article (pgs. 525-529) that I mentioned at the end of class this week.  Answer each of these three questions:

1. How does Buchanan define a “moral right” to a decent minimum of health care? (pg. 526)  Explain his definition in your own words.
2. In your own words, explain the reasons Buchanan gives for thinking that:
-many current U.S. citizens deserve access to basic health care (3 reasons on pg. 527); and
-the U.S. government should require all citizens to contribute to our health system. (pgs. 528-29)
3. In one sentence, summarize the main point (conclusion) of Buchanan’s article.

This is due at the beginning of class on Wednesday, April 20th. 

Selling Organs?

The authors of Freakonomics wrote an interesting article that touches on a few things we discussed in class last week.  In the article, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner argue that one of the big reasons that it's illegal to sell human organs for transplants in the U.S. is that it simply strikes most of us as repugnant.  Shades of Leon Kass!

They argue, however, that repugnance isn't a good enough reason to object to a practice.  Further, they suggest that opening up an organ market would create an incentive for many to give up their healthy organs.  This, in turn, would lead to a larger supply of organs.
 
Levitt and Dubner wrote a sequel to their book with the cool title SuperFreakonomics.

Test Reminder

Just a reminder that we're having a test at the beginning of class on April 13th.  It's worth 15% of your overall grade, and will cover everything we've studied since I took over class on March 9th:

• Utilitarianism (John Stuart Mill)
  
• Kant's Ethics (Immanuel Kant)
• Race and Gender (Susan Sherwin and Annette Dula readings)
• Stem-Cell Research (President's Council on Bioethics, Pontifical Academy, and Michael Sandel readings)
• Genetic Screening for Disabilities (Jeff McMahan and Dena Davis readings)
• Homosexual Parenting (Gillian Hanscombe reading)
• Cloning (Leon Kass and Carson Strong readings)
• Scarce Medical Resources (George Annas reading)

You will have about 50 minutes to take the test.  The format of the test will be mostly a mix of multiple choice questions and short answer questions. There will also be one 2-paragraph essay question, and one or two extra credit questions.

Lesbian Parenting

Since donor insemination first became popular in the U.S. in the 1980's, there was a bit of a baby boom among lesbian parents at that time. As a result, there are some long-term studies that have been wrapping up lately on the effects of being raised by parents who are lesbians. For instance, it seems that child abuse is much less likely to occur in a lesbian household. Other studies can be found here and here.

Also, one of my favorite movies of last year, The Kids Are All Right, is a comedy about a lesbian couple with two children who seek out their sperm-donating biological father. Here's the trailer:

The Wisdom of Kass

The Leon Kass reading on cloning that we studied in class was part of a longer article that is available in its entirety here.

Many critics take issue with Kass's claim that there is a wisdom to repugnance.  Here is a typical objection to Kass's view:

"Anyone who as ever taken an introductory anthropology course, or read Herodotus -- or gone to a different part of town -- will have learned that different groups feel disgust at different things. The affect seems to be hard-wired into us, but the occasions provoking it are varied.
...
"In short, disgust is not quite so unambiguous and inarguable an expression of timeless values as [Kass] has advertised. Given a choice between 'deep wisdom' and 'reason’s power fully to articulate,' we might do best to leave the ineffable to Oprah."

Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that one big difference between politically conservative and liberal people is the willingness to consider disgust as a morally relevant factor.  Here's his TED talk on this:

What do you think?  Feel free to let us know in the comments of this post.

Clone Wars

Here are some links on cloning:

• The Ethics of Cloning (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
  
• Overview of Cloning Debate
• Science of Cloning (Human Genome Project)
• Email Debate on Cloning (Slate)
• Human Clones: Why Not? (Slate)
• UN Urges Ban on Cloning (Weekly Review)
• Confusion over Cloning (New York Review of Books)

Health Care Readings

In case you weren't there, here are links to the two articles I handed out in class tonight as assigned reading for next week's discussion about the economics of health care:

1. U.S. Health Care Reform
2. G.O.P. Blueprint Would Remake Health Policy

The Ethics of Killing

If you're interested in some thoughtful analysis of abortion, euthanasia, stem cells, impaired infants, cloning, killing, and personhood, among other things, you should check out Jeff McMahan's The Ethics of Killing. Here's a short description of the book:

"This magisterial work is the first comprehensive study of the ethics of killing, where the moral status of the individual killed is uncertain. Drawing on philosophical notions of personal identity and the immorality of killing, McMahan looks carefully at a host of practical issues, including abortion, infanticide, the killing of animals, assisted suicide, and euthanasia."

McMahan teaches philosophy at Rutgers. He also just wrote a follow-up book called Killing in War (here's an audio interview with him on that book). This is exactly the kind of careful, thought-out approach that I think difficult, important issues deserve.

Owning Our Ignorance

I advise the Owning Our Ignorance club here at CCC.  We have a lot of nerdy discussions, host movie nights, and do other stuff in pursuit of getting better at learning.  If you join our Facebook group, you'll be automatically invited to all our events. 

Our big project this semester is creating a radio show.  Well, the first episode of the Owning Our Ignorance Show airs this Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. on WDBK, the college radio station.  Tune in to 91.5 FM to hear Calvin, Destiny, Jordan, and Rachel discuss the role that humility plays in effective reasoning.

If you like the show, you can subscribe to the podcast here (or via iTunes).  Upcoming show topics include the following:

• the most important questions
• good vs. bad skepticism
• persuasion
• happiness
• art
• prejudice
• Ayn Rand
• our top 5 to learn lists 
• cognitive biases

Sandel's Justice

Michael Sandel wrote one of the articles we're reading on stem-cell research. He's also a political philosophy professor at Harvard. You can watch videos of his course on Justice here. The last episode is related to some of the stuff we're studying in class (abortion and same-sex marriage), so I've put up the video of it below:

Delusions of Gender

Psychologist Cordelia Fine has a great new book out called Delusions of Gender. In it, she debunks a lot of the myths about so-called 'hard-wired' gender differences between boys and girls. Our brains are much more malleable than these myths suggest, and such perceived gender differences are likely either non-existent or the result of social pressures.

Fine wrote a nice summary of her book here, and there are two good reviews of her book here and here.  Below is an excerpt from a talk Fine recently gave.



Cordelia Fine: Discovering Sexism in Neuroscience 

And speaking of social pressures to conform to your gender role, here's a comparison of the different words used in ads for boys’ toys and ads for girls’ toys.

(hat tip: Feminist Philosophers blog)