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 Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Pat Condell on Free Speech

By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 PM



Pat Condell's argument for free speech as his new religion in this video is similar to the simple reductio ad absurdem of Leon Kass's intuitionist appeal to "repugnance" as grounds for banning human cloning. That reductio says the following:

In his case against cloning, Kass relies heavily on his own moral feelings of repugnance, without any serious attempt to justify them by plausible appeal to facts. Of course, Kass does offer some arguments against cloning, but those arguments are quite laughable. They would imply that we should ban in vitro fertilization, identical twins, and step-parents too.

Unfortunately for Kass, I find his appeal to repugnance itself repugnant. I'm an advocate of solid reasoning based on facts, after all. Heck, I find his pathetic attempts at substantive arguments -- rationalization, really -- quite repugnant too.

So if repugnance is as wise as Kass himself claims, then his whole method of arguing against cloning can and ought to be rejected on that very basis. Heads I win, tails he loses!

Obviously, that's not the strongest argument against mystical theocrats of various stripes, not by a long shot. Nonetheless, it highlights the absurdity of ethical and political claims based on a corrupt epistemology. It's a way of hoisting these folks with their own petard.

Will Wilkinson has more on the question-begging appeal to repugnance. Here's the short version:
...just do the following: Make a list of all the very morally worthy and life-enhancing procedures Kass finds repugnant. Now, declare that what we need to do is re-engineer people so that we don't find those things repugnant anymore, because those kinds of unreasoned sentiments prevent us from improving our lot here on Earth. How can a Kassian respond? The only non-fallacious course is to argue for the moral authority of the human moral sense as it is presently constituted, without assuming its authority in the argument. And that's what I want from Kass, and from all those who argue via "the argument from 'yuck.'" And that's what we never get.

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 Comments

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 11:15:34 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: William H Stoddard
E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com
URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/profile

Would the appeal to yuck be properly called the "argumentum ad nauseam" in classical Latin?

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 12:28:16 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: brian0918
E-mail: my handle through gmail
URL: http://reality.ohio.newintellectuals.org

William, "Argumentum ad nauseum" is already taken - it's the implication that a statement becomes true by repeating it over and over again... like, for example, that capitalism has "failed". I don't see a problem with using it in your way, so long as you explain what you mean - it is definitely more etymologically accurate than the usual meaning of "ad nauseum".

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 13:16:22 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: William H Stoddard
E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com
URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/profile

Hmmm. I hate to introduce an ambiguity of usage. Checking an online Latin dictionary suggests that "argumentum ad fastidium" might convey the intended meaning. How does that sound?

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 14:30:37 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: brian0918
E-mail: my handle through gmail
URL: http://reality.ohio.newintellectuals.org

That'll do!

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 18:40:07 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: Wayne

If repugnance were legal grounds for prohibition, say goodbye to proctology!

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